Suicide Bombed into Reality

Suicide Bombed into Reality

By Gil Troy
The New York Post
Books
March 21, 2004

Still Life With Bombers: Israel in the Age of Terrorism by David Horovitz, Knopf, 266 pages, $25

JUST as in the 1970s it became fashionable to describe conservatives as liberals who had been mugged by reality, today many new conservatives are liberals who have been bombed.

Liberals who have been bombed acknowledge ugly realities rather than relying on progressive pieties. They recognize the moral and mortal challenge of Islam's addiction to terror. They understand that the polluted political cultures spawning terrorism abhor the West and disdain compromise. Rather than asking "what did we do to deserve this," liberals who have been bombed wonder "what must we do to stop it?"

David Horovitz is one such distressed progressive. In his compelling new book, Horovitz vividly captures the terror-induced fear overshadowing the most mundane tasks in Israel today, as well as the despair of those who mistook Yasser Arafat for Nelson Mandela.

The editor of The Jerusalem Report, Horovitz championed the Oslo peace process and still remains "as ready as I ever was to support the most dramatic territorial compromise in the cause of true peace." He denies that he has "moved to the right" and reaffirms his liberal credentials by deeming Israel's settlement policy "catastrophic." He warmly recalls the innocent days of the 1990s, when he visited Bethlehem and other Palestinian cities freely, safely, optimistically.

Yet Horovitz's dreams of peace do not blind him to the causes of what should be called Arafat's war.

Deftly mixing reportage with analysis, Horovitz proves that the turn from the generous Ehud Barak-Bill Clinton offer at Camp David in July 2000 to the terror wave launched two months later reflected Arafat's deliberate attempt to destroy Israel.

This claim does not pretend that Israel is perfect - Horovitz "know[s] from personal experience that Barak can be frustrating to work with" and regularly criticizes Barak's successor, Ariel Sharon. Nor does this claim negate Palestinian suffering.

But, considering how close the Palestinians came to getting a state, Horovitz proclaims that "only the willfully self-delusional - on the far left in Israel, in too much of Europe, in parts of the United States (including some well-meaning souls within the Jewish community)" can blame Israel for Oslo's collapse. King Solomon himself could not have diverted Arafat from his murderous mission.

This conclusion has plunged Horovitz into "the Second Battlefield," the fight for Israel in the media and on campuses. This book helps, testifying to the evils of terrorism, blaming the Palestinians for their war, while still noting the peace-seekers on both sides who might shape a positive future.

In his meditation on the spiritual resistance modern Israelis have exhibited, Horovitz states that while the wave of terror has only strengthened his resolve to build the Jewish state, he also needs to hope for a better day for himself and his children.

One morning, Horovitz's wife Lisa passed the burning hulk of a bus while commuting. She had the presence of mind to tell their children to avert their eyes.

In the Middle East today, parents on one side try to protect their children from even seeing suffering, while too many on the other side deploy their children to impose such suffering; one side kills reluctantly, unhappily, defensively, while too many on the other side target pizza-eaters and bus passengers deliberately, gleefully, sadistically.

Alas, too much of the world reduces this tale to a "cycle of violence" all-things-are-equal narrative - then indicts Israel for the crimes of self-defense. Amid such hypocrisy, we need more clear-eyed observers such as David Horovitz to defy the conventional wisdom, lead the intellectual charge against the terrorists and their fellow-travelers, while still hoping for - and working toward - peace.

Gil Troy teaches history at McGill University and is the author of "Why I Am a Zionist."

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