Age of the Muzzle

Welcome to the age of the muzzle.

In Russia you cannot say that Putin is a dangerous scoundrel. The same, of course, applies to the rulers of many other non-countries.

In Canada, I am told, you cannot say that homosexuality is unnatural.

In Austria you cannot say that there was no Holocaust. Ditto in Germany.

In America, you cannot say that certain countries are s——-s.

In many American schools and universities, you cannot wear a cross pendant for fear someone will be offended.

In the Netherlands any reference to Zwarte Piet (Black Peter, a legendary comic character who has accompanied Santa Claus for ages) is bound to get you in trouble.

In almost all Western countries, you cannot say that many refugees and migrants are uncouth louts.
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Ditto, that Islam is a religion that puts great emphasis on violence and the sword (which, incidentally, is its symbol).

Ditto, that trans-gender people are poor confused creatures who do not know what sex they belong, or want to belong, to.

Ditto, that there are some things men can do and women cannot. Or that people of different races have different qualities.

So why get excited when, in Poland, you are no longer allowed to say that quite some Polish people cooperated with the Germans in hunting and killing Jews?

And here is what Supreme Court member Louis Brandeis, back in 1927, in Whitney v. California, concerning a decision to convict a woman who had been sued for setting up a communist cell, had to say about the matter:

“Those who won our independence believed that the final end of the State was to make men free to develop their faculties, and that, in its government, the deliberative forces should prevail over the arbitrary. They valued liberty both as an end, and as a means. They believed liberty to be the secret of happiness, and courage to be the secret of liberty. They believed that freedom to think as you will and to speak as you think are means indispensable to the discovery and spread of political truth; that, without free speech and assembly, discussion would be futile; that, with them, discussion affords ordinarily adequate protection against the dissemination of noxious doctrine; that the greatest menace to freedom is an inert people; that public discussion is a political duty, and that this should be a fundamental principle of the American government. They recognized the risks to which all human institutions are subject. But they knew that order cannot be secured merely through fear of punishment for its infraction; that it is hazardous to discourage thought, hope and imagination; that fear breeds repression; that repression breeds hate; that hate menaces stable government; that the path of safety lies in the opportunity to discuss freely supposed grievances and proposed remedies, and that the fitting remedy for evil counsels is good ones. Believing in the power of reason as applied through public discussion, they eschewed silence coerced by law — the argument of force in its worst form. Recognizing the occasional tyrannies of governing majorities, they amended the Constitution so that free speech and assembly should be guaranteed.”

Did he make himself clear enough?

O Captain! My Captain!

Eleven years have passed since the earthly wanderings of Ariel Sharon were terminated by the April 2006 stroke that put him hors de combat. For eight long years after that he lingered. Tied to life support apparatus, occasionally moving an eyelid, but never once regaining consciousness. As time goes on, fewer and fewer people even remember his name. Where did he come from, what role did he play in Israeli history, and how is he likely to be remembered?

*

Ariel Sharon was born in 1928, the son of a farmer who worked the land to the northeast of Tel Aviv. During the first weeks of Israel’s 1948 War of Independence the young Sharon found himself defending his very home against Iraqi troops who had come all the way from Baghdad. So well did he do that he was given a platoon to command even though he had never attended officer school.

In May 1948, during an attack on a fortified police station near Jerusalem, Sharon commanded the lead platoon. Wounded in the groin and unable to walk, he was carried back to friendly lines on the shoulders of a comrade who had gone blind. Many years later, visiting the battlefield to explain the episode to me and about a hundred of my students, he added, with a wink, that he had not always been as big as he later became.

Soon after the war he left the army to study law. However, in 1953 he was brought back by the then deputy chief of staff, General Moshe Dayan who charged him with organizing and command a newly-established commando unit. The task of 101, as it was known, was to strike into the neighboring countries, principally Jordan and Egypt but occasionally Syria as well, from which terrorists crossed into Israel, robbing and murdering civilians living close to the borders. Later it was merged with a paratrooper battalion that carried on in a similar way. Sharon quickly proved an effective, if headstrong and brutal, commander. Repeatedly exceeding his orders and killing far more few Arabs than his superiors had expected (or so they claimed), his raids caused an international furor that reached all the way to the United Nations.

In the 1956 Israeli-Egyptian War he commanded an elite paratroop brigade. First he drove into the Sinai Peninsula to link up with one of his battalions that had been dropped near the strategic Mitlah Pass. Next, violating explicit orders, he sent another battalion to enter the Pass itself. Later, to justify himself, he argued that the move had been necessitated by reports about an armored Egyptian brigade which was coming at his paratroopers from the north. Perhaps so; the ensuing battle led to his brigade suffering one quarter of all Israeli casualties in that campaign.

Following this episode Sharon’s progress up the military hierarchy was brought to a halt Only in 1963 did he return to favor; the man who promoted him was then chief of staff Yitzhak Rabin. In the June 1967 Arab-Israeli War Sharon commanded a division. Leading it in a model operation he captured Abu Agheila, the most important Egyptian fortified perimeter in the Sinai. Later, while serving as Commander, Southern Command, from 1969 to the summer of 1973, he waged the so-called War of Attrition against the Egyptians on the Suez. He also brutally put down a Palestinian Uprising in Gaza, killing hundreds and tearing down thousands of homes in the process.

By the time the October 1973 War broke out Sharon was no longer in uniform. However, he was called back to command a reserve division against the Egyptians. With it he crossed the Suez Canal, all but encircling the Egyptian Third Army making a decisive contribution to the outcome of the war. The men who fought with him gratefully remember the steadying effect of his voice as it came through on the radio amidst the chaos of burning tanks, exploding shells, and the screams of the wounded. Perhaps it was to reassure them that, during the war, he always had a vase with flowers standing on his desk.

By 1974 Sharon was out of the army for good. When Likud came to power in 1977 he became minister of agriculture under Menachem Begin. With Begin’s backing, used his position to increase the number of Jewish settlers in the West Bank from 15,000 to 100,000 within just four years.

In June 1981 he became minister of defense. In June 1982 he launched the enormous war machine now under his command into Lebanon, Israel’s weak neighbor to the north. The declared objective was to end terrorism which had been coming from that country for over a decade past. The undeclared and much larger one, to help the Lebanese Christians set up a government that would turn it into an Israeli protectorate. But victory proved elusive; the outcome was a terrorist campaign fought first by members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) in Lebanon, then by a militia known as Amal, and finally by Hezbollah.

In March 1983, held responsible for failing to prevent his Christian Lebanese allies from massacring as many as 3,000 men, women and children in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, he lost his post. By that time so unpopular had he and the war become that the troops, adapting a well-known children’s ditty, were chanting the following rhymes:

Aircraft come down from the clouds

Take us far to Lebanon 

We shall fight for Mr. Sharon

And come back, wrapped in shrouds.

He did, however, remain in parliament. As Likud’s political fortunes rose, fell, and rose again, now he carried a ministerial portfolio, now was left out in the cold. As before, he strongly opposed all concessions to the Arabs. Including the 1993 Oslo Agreements with the Palestinians which were signed by his former commander and then prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin. In September 2000, following the failure of Prime Minister Ehud Barak and PLO chief Yasser Arafat to reach agreement at Camp David, Sharon, by demonstratively visiting the Temple Mount, helped trigger off the Second Palestinian Uprising. Early in 2001 he took over as prime minister. In 2002 he consolidated his power by winning the elections. Meanwhile his efforts to suppress the uprising involved quite a bit of brutality, culminating in the attack on the West Bank City of Jenin in April-May 2002.
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Whether Sharon was already thinking of giving up at least some of the occupied territories will never be known. At the time, he repeatedly said he was no de Gaulle. However this may have been, his hand was forced. To put an end to terrorism, the Israeli public demanded that a fence be built between themselves and the Palestinians. A fence did in fact go up around the Gaza Strip, and over the years has proved very effective in stopping the suicide-bombers who, at the time, formed the most serious threat of all.

From that point on there was no turning back. Israel evacuated the Strip, and Sharon made no secret of his intention to evacuate parts of the West Bank as well. When this led to a revolt among the members of his own Likud Party he left it, founded a new one of his own, and prepared for new elections. The rest, as they say, is history.  

*

Looking back on Sharon eleven years after his political demise, what can one say? Like most Israelis, he spent his entire life in a country that seldom knew anything like peace. Between the ages of twenty and forty-five he was almost always in uniform. Rising from the ranks, he was a highly aggressive and original commander who was constantly in the thick of battle. At least one of his operations, the attack on Abu Agheila, is widely regarded as a classic. None of this could prevent him from being disliked by his superiors, colleagues, and immediate subordinates some of whom accused him of dishonesty and undependability. He was, however, liked by his men and well-known for the way he took care of them.

Sharon’s role in 1973 War and the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, including the Sabra and Shatila massacre, will forever remain the subject of debate in Israel. It is, however, overshadowed by his record as prime minister which is even more controversial. At the time when he first proposed, then carried out, the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip Israel’s hawkish right, including many of his fellow Likud members, launched vicious attacks on him. So vicious that they may well have helped bring about the stroke that finally killed him. Later the wind shifted. By now, even some of his greatest opponents see the withdrawal for what it was. To wit, a smashing success—even though the occasional rocket is still coming in.

No other man could have done it. Had he lived, almost certainly he would have withdrawn form parts of the West Bank as well, or at least tried to do so. Not because he liked Palestinians. But because he believed, quite rightly in this author’s view, that stationing Israeli troops and civilian amidst a hostile population could only lead to an endless waste of lives and treasure. He would also have completed the security fence around the West Bank—something his successors Olmert and Netanyahu, for various reasons, never did.

To Sharon, the following lines apply:

O Captain! My Captain! Our fearful trip is done;

The ship has weather’d every rack, the prize we sought is won;

The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,

While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring;

                   But O heart! Heart! Heart!

                   O the bleeding drops of red

                   Where on the deck my Captain lies,

                   Fallen Cold and dead.

You Could Be Next

The man in the photograph, Boaz Arad, used to be an Israeli artist. A good one, as I think you can see for yourself. He was also a charismatic teacher in his field. The fact that he was single did nothing to diminish his popularity. But last week, following an article in which a nameless female student was quoted as saying that he had harassed her, he killed himself.

He left behind a letter (in Hebrew) I want you to read:

“This female journalist calls me and says she has heard complaints about my romantic involvement with students at Telma Yallin [an Israeli art school, MvC]. She does not provide names. She does not provide facts I can respond to. She does not explicitly mention sex, just drops hints about it. The complaints mention romance, not sex. But the journalist interprets this as sex between a man and a woman.

Under any legal system in the world, there is such a thing as a statute of limitation [the alleged sexual encounter took place two decades ago]. Under any legal system in the world, a man is presumed innocent until proven guilty. But there are cases in which the law must be circumvented. Suddenly [the man] is weak. I have to stand up against unspecific accusations and defend myself. But given how powerful the media are, who will believe me? How can I look anyone in the eyes? How can I fight back?

At Telma Yallin I met wonderful young people. With some of them I am still in touch. In some cases the ties became stronger [but only, as Arad made clear in an interview, after the girls were over sixteen, which is the legal age of consent in Israel; and only after they were no longer his students]. Who can stop a liaison that is growing stronger? There was nothing there that had to be concealed.

For years on end there was gossip about me. And I, instead of denying it, became paralyzed.

And then there is xxxxx, who has never been known for truthfulness. She accused the school of allowing me to participate in a show even though some female students had complained that I had harassed them. I never had an affair with a student. Investigations both at Telma Yallin and Bezalel [another art school, MvC] showed that there never has been a complaint. But xxxxx is convinced I am guilty. She will get her pound of flesh. And to hell with the truth. For years she has been active behind my back, trying to shame me. The great warrior for justice. Goodbye, Ms. xxxxx. I have no doubt that you are behind all this. You have left plenty of evidence in your wake.
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I’ve had a wonderful life filled with teaching and art. Now it has all been turned into muck.

How can I look anyone in the eye? Who will allow me to teach? Who will put my work on show?

All I ever was is gone.

Goodbye to my wonderful family. Goodbye to my wonderful students.

My apologies to anyone I may have hurt in this letter.

I love you.

Boaz.”

The Good Life

Tomb of Qabus in Gonbad-e Qabus

Half a century has passed since I studied Plato under the guidance of my revered teacher, Prof. Alexander Fuks. I’ll never forget how, early in the course, he told the class—just five or six of us—that all philosophy is an attempt to answer just two questions. First, what the nature of things is; and second, what the good life is and how to lead it. I won’t go so far as to say that the first without the second is worthless. Study is, and for me has always been, its own reward. But there is no doubt that one of its main purposes is to serve the second and more important one.

At that time I was twenty-one years old and a graduate student in Jerusalem. I lived in a rented room on less than $ 100 a month, walked to the university each day, and had a girlfriend. For recreation I played tennis and went long-distance running. Once a fortnight I would take the bus to visit my parents in Ramat Gan, near Tel Aviv. Life was as good as it has ever been before or since.

Prof. Fuks is long dead. Now that my seventy-second birthday is only a few weeks away, though, I thought I would write down a few of the things I think I have learnt about what the good life means. Trying to do so, I quickly realized that the task is beyond my powers. Partly because there are so many of them. Partly because many of them contradict each other, and partly, because it seemed impossible to put them into any kind of logical order. So I decided to submit, by way of a somewhat belated New Year greeting to my readers, the thoughts of another man. I came across him by accident while reading, of all things, William Murray’s History of Chess (1913).

Qabus bin Washmgir (976-1012) was ruler (Emir) of Gurgan and Tabaristan, southeast of the Caspian in what is now Iran. He was not exactly a nice guy—very few rulers are. He spent most of his life fighting for the throne, gaining a reputation for cruelty on the way. Not that his contemporaries were less cruel; as is shown by the fact that his men, after having deposed him, ended up by freezing him to death. Still his poem struck an echo with me. I hope it will do the same with you.

Here goes.

The things of this world from end to end
are the goal of desire and greed.

And I set before this heart of mine the
Things which I most do need.

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But a score of things I have chosen out of
the world’s unnumbered throng.

That in quest of them I my soul may
Please and speed my life along.

Verse and song, and minstrelsy, and
Wine full flavored and sweet,

Backgammon, and chess, and the hunting-
Ground, and the falcon and cheeta fleet;

Field, and ball, and audience hall, and
battle, and banquet rare.

Horse, and arms, and a generous hand,
And praise of my Lord and prayer.