U.S. should re-examine support of Israel

By Arturo Munoz     1/22/09 6:00pm

It always makes me chuckle to see how different Americans are from the rest of the world. Take the current situation in Gaza. Newspapers in Europe are calling for investigations into war crimes Israeli armed forces are committing against the citizens of Gaza. Europeans love the underdog, though it was not always that way. They say that the two World Wars sharpened their sensibilities and made them see with clarity the guiding light of cosmopolitanism built on entirely new principles. The American academy, being ever fascinated with the deep and rich historical heritage of our sophisticated ancestors, fell over itself to follow suit.The U.S. empathizes with a very different type of underdog: the one that will win eventually. European sensibilities are guilt-induced: the redrawing of borders, the oppressive colonial regimes, the economic and political meddling - the liberal media in Europe cannot help but shed a rainstorm of tears for the failed pet projects of its states. The United States came into being under very different circumstances: It was once an underdog itself, so its empathy is not guilt-induced; it is a form of vanity.

In its own way, Israel is an underdog. It is surrounded by mostly hostile states (or neutral in the best of cases). It is constantly pestered by rocket fire and the threat of wider war. Why does the United States empathize with the state of Israel and not with Hamas? Both are democratically elected. Both are underdogs in their own way. Why does the United States not project its image onto Hamas as does Europe?

The geopolitics are complicated, but the answer is simple: Hamas doesn't have what it takes to win. It is the underdog who will lose, the black horse that ends up breaking its ankle as it turns the last corner. The United States tolerates many things that Europe does not, but the U.S. sensibility finds it impossible to accept someone who is guaranteed to fail because of a lack of mettle and discipline.

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The United States likes Rocky. It's great to see someone be underestimated only to end up with a surprising win. But in our eyes, they must have the mettle. They must have the muscle. Hollywood makes its bread and butter out of these fantasies. Hamas is not Rocky. Hamas is Rocky's alcoholic brother-in-law. And so the United States, as a socio-cultural block, will never support it. To gain acceptance, Hamas has to prove that the alcoholic brother-in-law can train and beat Rocky to the final match and then end up with an even more surprising win. It cannot do that by launching rockets into Israel any more than Paulie can beat Rocky by throwing bottles of whiskey at him. It has to be disciplined, it has to hone its abilities and, it has to demonstrate that it has something to go on other than being an underdog.

I do not want to say that I condone Israel suspending accepted rules of engagement, nor do I want to say that they are, since I am not there. The evidence so far demonstrates only the depravity of war; war is always that way. Every country in the world that has been at war has been just as, if not more, depraved. We are in a somewhat liberal university by Texas standards, so it is easy to sympathize with lost causes and call all who are not sympathetic ignorant or biased. They are neither.

Arturo Munoz is a Hanszen College junior.

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