Richard Spencer

January 15, 2009

Ilana Mercer is trying to convince me that since I like Bach, I should back Israel’s incursion into Gaza?they’re both indispensable parts of ?the West,? you see.

Hellene and Hebrew: A systematic, philosophical defense of the distinctly Western character of America and Europe must incorporate both. Heck, one can?t appreciate the greatest composer of all times?Bach?without acknowledging the contribution of his muse?Christianity?to the glory of his music.

Sure, there are some who go overboard and attack Israel purely out of anti-Semitism, or else romanticize the Palestinians as innocent and wonderful. For Americans, I find it far saner to recognize that even if the Palestinians have acted stupidly in many instances, and even if most of their leaders are utterly noxious, there are some pretty obvious reasons why your average Gazan resident has a burning desire to seek revenge against Israel. If I were an Israeli living on the Gaza border, who experienced rocket attacks first hand, I might very well support the invasion. Then again, if I were a Palestinian living in Gaza, who had memories of my family’s land and home being stolen and one of my relatives being killed in an Israeli military action, I might very well support Hamas.

It also seems pretty clear to me that Israel has no rational war aims in invading Gaza and that it?ll end up losing by winning, much as with the Lebanon campaign. As I asked in my last article, after the dust settles in Gaza, ?Are more elections to be held, knowing that the surviving Palestinians won?t be particularly inclined to vote for a peace candidate? Is Israel to install Mahmoud Abbas as its Man in Gaza? Will a re-occupation ensue? What??

We?re not going to get any closer to answering these questions by imaging a bunch of paleos, VDARE readers, and IDF officers getting together to perform a Schubert Quartet, do a staged reading of King Lear, or debate the meaning of the Book of Job. ?The West,? rightly or wrongly, serves as a placeholder for the neocon and neo-liberal ?democratization? intervention efforts, support of ?human rights,? and various ?tolerance? coercions.Judeo-Christian Western Civilization simply ain?t what it used to be, and we should stop pretending otherwise.