214. Our Helplessness in Egypt and Israel, and How to Live with It.

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The Times confirms it more firmly every day.  Our man  Abdul Fattah al-Sisi is doing to Egyptians nearly every vile thing Bashar al-Assad did to Syrians and Saddam Hussein did to Iraqis.  He's done far worse things than Putin has done to Russians.

But is he our man?  Well, if somebody who does your work for you is your man, he's our man.  He's helping to secure the safety of Israel.  That's a job we took on long ago and are never going to give up.

We don't like having him as our man.  We take every opportunity to show that he's not our man.  And that even if he were, we have little influence with him.  If we cut off aid to him and his army others would step in with help and he'd keep doing the same things.  {If you aren't convinced that we're helpless read Steven Simon on Tuesday's (8-13) Op-Ed page.}

But, the good old Times.  One day it gives you a piece that convinces you and the next day it gives you a piece that makes you doubt.  (That's the West, man, that's what makes us different from Middle Eastern countries, and different from Russia.)  So on Wednesday there's Eric Schmitt with a story that will convince you (convinced me, though I was already convinced) that we damn well can control al-Sisi and his army.  All we have to do is cut off his access to parts — parts for airplanes and tanks, all American — and he is out of business.

So we can do what we have been able to do all these years, all the time we've been hand-wringing and deploring and calling for moderation.  We are behaving exactly as we behaved with the settlements.  There our presidents, our secretaries of state, our editorialists, our Congressmen would have had to have been idiots not to see what the unchecked move into the West Bank showed them: that Israel intended to take over the whole thing, all the land comprised by ancient Judea and Samaria, the land that was Israel.  We must have seen it but we did nothing but crab about it.  And Israel did nothing but sing away our crabbiness.

Why?  Why did we never do more than deplore and crab and claim helplessness?  Because the Israelis were members of our tribe.  We're with them in their desire to occupy the West Bank and be safe.  I'm with them, emotionally anyway, as soon as I step across the border.  I remember that experience, coming up from Egypt.  I looked around and my heart said, "Yeah, these are my people." Bonded.

And the more they are threatened the tighter the bond becomes.  It's like what happened to my heart when England was threatened in World War II.  "How can I bear to see that green and pleasant land, that jewel in the sea, that England, overrun by Nazis?"  No, President Roosevelt, do what you can to help her.

You don't need a genius to explain this.  My heart loved the literature it was introduced to in school and Sunday school, Shakespeare, the Bible, the story of the Jews, the story of England.  I was made a solid member of the Judeo-Christian tribe, Anglophone branch.

Fine if I hadn't gone to college.  There I was made a member of the worldwide human tribe, which was not a tribe.  It was above tribes, all tribes.  Its claims took precedence over tribal claims.  "Think your brother has claims on you because he's a tribe member?  No, he has claims on you because he's a human being.  His rights are human rights.  They come first."  So I became an heir of the enlightened revolutions of the eighteenth century, and, in the immediate case, can stand as an example of what the West is selling, or trying to sell, in the Middle East.

See what the child's heart is now doing to this educated adult?  It's making him into the biggest hypocrite in the world.  "Come on all you benighted Middle Easterners, come on undeveloped countries, come on Vladimir Putin, join the tribe of the West, adopt constitutional government, follow the rule of law, transfer power through elections, give freedom to the press, and most of all, respect human rights, as my country does.  Except when it conflicts with Israel's needs."

My advice to that educated adult?  Learn to live with it.  This is one place where tribalism has to trump universalism — no, where tribalism is sure to trump universalism.  Whether you like it or not.  When the chips are down you and your fellows are not going to be able to bear seeing Israel go down the tube.  And, as you've learned from Hitler's rise, you've got to resist any motion toward the tube. 

As for your shame on the world stage, bear it.  But bear it gracefully, as gracefully as you can.  Go easy on talk of vile regimes and evil axes.  Evidence-based observers can too easily give you the knife.  "You're no better than they are."

When it comes to guilt, the internal part of shame, don't be too hard on yourself.  A little more education will show you (if you haven't learned already) how necessary occasional hypocrisy is to good outcomes.   And to good people.  Certain kinds of good (like much of the good churches do) would never get done if they weren't done hypocritically.

Furthermore, one or two lapses into tribalism don't ruin you as an advocate for universalism.  You can still be an example.  Just draw the line.  "In this case we simply have to go tribal.  Fair warning.  We can't help it.  But don't think we're giving up on the rule of law, and democracy and human rights and all the rest of the Enlightenment.  It's where humanity needs to go, and will go."

The hard part is going to be avoiding trampling on that inheritance not for needs but for benefit and privilege.  No defense of tribal self-interest is easier than to say, "That humane and enlightened action is the first step to our tribal ruin."  Any Israeli statement to that effect will require close examination.  Especially if it's a step toward reconciliation and compromise.