Does Israel Expose the Hypocrisy at the Root of Most Liberalism?

Jewish people have long been the bedrock of American liberalism.  With their long history of persecution and their intellectual heft, Jews were the perfect vanguard of social and political efforts to create a more equitable world.  They formed a strong bond with the poor, the downtrodden and the oppressed.  They were at the forefront of communist and socialist theory, the development of worker unions, the fight for civil rights, gay rights, abortion rights and other liberal crusades.

But when it came to finally achieving their own homeland in Palestine after the horrors of the holocaust, the Jewish diaspora found it impossible to reconcile the obvious injustice of their seizure of land from the resident population with their own fervent desire for a Jewish state.  So they did what human beings always do when confronted by their own hypocrisy – they rationalized.  On the subject of Israel, many Jews simply abandon their liberalism.

 

The Jews are not alone.  Most of us liberals are hypocritical to some extent.  We argue and fight for social justice until a housing project is planned for our neighborhood.  We celebrate public education but send our children to private academies.  We call for equal opportunity but do not hesitate to pull strings to get or give jobs.  We criticize income and wealth inequality but feverishly protect our bloated salaries and tax loopholes.  We lament the homeless problem but move our offices and homes as far away from them as possible to minimize our discomfort.

 

Lest I appear to be hypercritical of liberalism and supportive of conservative accusations of hypocrisy, let me say that at least liberals have recognized the injustices in this world, even if they often do not have the courage of their convictions.  Conservatives, on the other hand, perform logical and analytical gymnastics to avoid even confronting those injustices.  They lash out in deep-seated guilt with accusations of class warfare and naivete.  

 

Human beings are understandably selfish creatures.  Evolution will surely have bred into us both a tribal or communal need as well as the primal urge to look out for number one.  When blessed with good fortune, very few among us will willingly sacrifice to even the playing field.  We are passionate in our battles over abstract concepts and goals, but far less resolute when the practical realities of our ideals begin to threaten our own comfort or position.

 

The tribal instinct that nature has imbued us with is typically quite narrow, limited to our family or group of friends.  By the time warriors confront death and sacrifice on the battlefield, it is their comrades they will fight for, not the nation or the ideal.

 

There are of course Jews who wish to have the Palestinians share all of Palestine with them (the true meaning of ‘from the river to the sea’) and commit themselves to that cause, just as there are many liberals who are ready to make substantial sacrifices of their time and treasure for the ideals they have embraced intellectually.  But most of us are only willing to move incrementally and cautiously toward a more just world, rarely jeopardizing our own good fortune and status.  

 

Does that make most of us liberals hypocrites?  Perhaps, but we are only human and we live in a complex and broken world that does not lend itself to simple solutions.  We must all recognize the lurking hypocrisy and strive to do better.