Farewell Fair Play
Editorial
by Paul Kurtz
The following article is from Free Inquiry magazine, Volume
22,
Number 2.
 Something
awful seems to be happening to the traditional American sense of fair play and
goodwill. The public response in support of the victims of September 11
notwithstanding, in general there seems to be a decline of empathy and altruism.
Perhaps I am overreacting, but this deficiency seems to assume many forms.
What immediately comes to mind is our treatment of
prisoners. I refer first to the great flap that emerged worldwide over the Bush
administration's refusal to place the prisoners of war captured in Afghanistan
under the rules of the Geneva Convention. They are "unlawful
combatants," we were told; or they are "dangerous and our guards need
to be protected"; or, in still another statement, "They do not deserve
any better." I've always thought that the Geneva Convention provided
commendable rules governing the treatment of prisoners of war, rules that all
civilized nations should follow. The prisoners are being treated
"humanely," we were told. Surely, we would want our own soldiers, if
captured anywhere in the world, to be treated in accord with the Geneva
Convention. How can we demand this in the future if we violate these rules
today? President Bush relented after much criticism at home and abroad and
grudgingly declared that Taliban prisoners would come under the Geneva
Convention, but not members of the Al Qaeda. Many critics believe that this
concession does not go far enough.
"The Quality of American Mercy Is Not Strained"
This cavalier dismissal of the Geneva Convention has
disturbed civil libertarians in the United States and our allies throughout the
world. So has the treatment of thousands of Arabs and Muslims in the United
States, recently apprehended by the Justice Department and held incommunicado
and without bail. They are "terrorists," says the administration; but
how do we know unless they are indicted and put on trial and processed through
the American system of justice? Will the infamous deed of September 11—which
we all abhor—and the fear of future terrorist acts so erode our sense of
justice that we will abandon our traditional adherence to democratic due
process?
Perhaps there is something deeply amiss, for a similar
vindictiveness is often displayed as well in our treatment of American
prisoners, incarcerated for a wide range of infractions. The War on Drugs in
particular has taken a vast toll on the American sense of balance, and its
result seems close to the development of a police-state mentality. Bursting into
homes at all hours to jail alleged drug offenders—even for possession or use
of marijuana, for example—seems like an extraordinary overreaction. Drug
offenders are considered "wicked." Not that I wish to encourage drug
use, but shall we abandon our free society to rout out drug use while we permit
cigarette smoking and the abuse of alcohol, the two most noxious drugs
available? From all reports, brutality in American prisons seems to be
intensifying. Has vindictive justice gotten the best of us? I was interested to
see William Bennett, the paragon of Christian virtue, railing against sin
recently at a convention of American conservatives, defending the harsh tactics
of the drug police. Whatever happened to the quality of mercy among those who
express the Christian faith?
Another painful sign of the retributive mentality is seen
in the fact that we still exact the death penalty; indeed, the United States is
the only democracy that does. Our European allies are offended by capital
punishment, and many countries now are refusing to honor extradition to the
United States if the accused would risk suffering the death penalty. It is
highly questionable that capital punishment serves as a deterrent. Surely we
need to deal with those who commit heinous crimes. I would myself recommend life
imprisonment for such offenders without the right of parole. But should not one
of the aims of incarceration be rehabilitation, and should not a
civilized society exert efforts to educate and reform offenders so that they may
be returned to society? Instead we seem to have an exaggerated sense that
punishment is good for its own sake and that those who commit crimes deserve
retribution.
It seems to me that what is happening in the United States
is that we have been overtaken by a religious sense of retributive justice and
that this has taken on exaggerated proportions. Surely one of the purposes of
punishment and incarceration is to protect society from criminals. Granted, but
beyond that do we need to provide cruel and unusual punishment? Whatever
happened to compassion?
The Bloated Defense Budget
I am also dismayed that the end of the Cold War has not
reduced our military budget. We seem so frightened by enemies, domestic or
foreign, that we are willing to spend vast sums on armaments and reduce our
expenditure on domestic programs, such as medical insurance for those who lack
it. The United States has also reduced foreign-aid assistance throughout the
world. The ministers of the wealthy Group of Seven nations have recommended that
these nations donate 0.7 percent of gross national product for international-aid
programs for the poorest nations of the world. The United States currently
provides the lowest percentage, only 0.1 percent. Secretary of the Treasury Paul
H. O'Neill is a strong opponent of this aid, one reason why the United States is
now known as "Uncle Scrooge."
President Bush's proposed military build-up would exceed
that of the Reagan years. The administration proposes to increase defense
spending by $120 billion over the next five years—at a time, incidentally,
when it proposes that taxes be reduced and the deficit increased. It is
interesting that the United States now spends an estimated 50 percent of all
arms expenditures in the world. The Religious Right seems to need demons, real
or imaginary, to guard against—formerly they were Bolsheviks, socialists,
left-wingers, liberals, secular humanists, child abusers, drug fiends; there are
now terrorists in place of the anarchists of earlier epochs. H. L. Mencken wryly
observed: "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace
alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless
series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." How true this is of the
American political scene today.
The America that we love has in the past defended democracy
and human rights and offered aid to those suffering disasters worldwide. Has
this America become a swashbuckling military power, pursuing a unilateral
foreign policy insensitive to the views of the world—such as the abrogation of
international treaties? Are we no longer the hope of the world, but a
nationalistic state pursuing our own self-interests? Today Afghanistan is
defeated. Will we follow the president tomorrow by putting out of commission
Iran, Iraq, and North Korea? I fear that America will lose its cherished friends
and allies throughout the world, and her self-respect, and pursue imperialist
policies that may be turned against us in the future by new coalitions of
adversaries.
Why Not a Palestinian/Jordanian State?
A New Holocaust?
Six million Jews were lost in the Nazi holocaust of World
War II. Will the nearly six million Jews now living in Israel suffer a similar
fate? This stark reality may very well confront the world one day unless this
festering conflict is resolved. Israel has borders that are barely definable and
hardly defensible. Apparently the only thing that stands between it and
destruction is Israel's strong defense forces, including nuclear weapons and the
United States.
In my view a creative solution of the impasse between
Israel and Palestine that should be explored is to have Palestine merge with
Jordan and create a greater Palestinian/Jordanian federation, which could
provide a viable homeland for the Palestinian people and enable them to achieve
the statehood that they so passionately desire. This state would include the 94
percent of the West Bank and the one-third of Jerusalem already offered by
former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and rejected by President Yasser Arafat. Since
the Gaza Strip is not viable and is filled with a great number of refugees,
there could be an exchange of populations and territories. (The Israelis might
vacate the settlements on the West Bank, ceding them to the new
Palestinian/Jordanian state, and the Arabs would in turn cede the Gaza Strip to
Israel.) The condition would be that Israel's right to exist be recognized by
Palestine and other Islamic states.
I should say right off that I am here speaking personally
and not on behalf of this magazine, which represents a wide range of differing
political viewpoints. May I wax autobiographical: I was in Germany as a GI with
the American Army of Liberation during and immediately after World War II and
witnessed the freeing of the survivors of Dachau, Buchenwald, and other
concentration camps. When many of these displaced persons told me that they
intended to go to Israel to establish a Jewish state, I said that I thought that
this was a mistake. I was particularly skeptical of the Old Testament story that
God had promised Israel to the Jews. How could fewer than one million Jews, I
asked, stand against hundreds of millions of Arabs? Thus, I had serious
misgivings about Zionism, and I recommended that survivors stay in Europe or
immigrate to other countries of the world. These hapless individuals told me
that they had nowhere to go and that most countries would not welcome them.
A Jewish state was established by the United Nations in
1948. Arab armies immediately tried to crush it, but without success. Hundreds
of thousands of Palestinians who lived in Israel at that time fled, or in some
cases were driven out. Hundreds of thousands of other Jews (estimated at up to
850,000) were forced to leave other countries in North Africa and the Middle
East, from Morocco to Egypt and Syria, where they had lived in many cases for
two millennia or more. Israel managed to survive in spite of repeated invasions
by Arab armies. And it was able to reach accords with both Egypt and Jordan,
returning large sections of the occupied land. Any effort to sign a peace treaty
with Syria or with Arafat and the Palestinians, as we are well aware, has been
to no avail.
To my mind the Oslo Peace Process and the Mitchell Plan
seem most promising, and the proposals of Prime Minister Barak a reasonable
compromise. Israel would return most of the West Bank and part of Jerusalem,
which could be the capital of both the State of Israel and a new
Palestinian/Jordanian state. But this plan failed because of the Palestinian
demand for the right of return to Israel proper. Given the emergence of suicide
bombers, this would have made Israel untenable and its destruction inevitable.
This is apparently what Hamas and Hezbollah fervently wish. The carved-up and
emasculated state that Arafat insisted upon would make Israel unsustainable,
always open to attack; nor would it be sufficient for a viable Palestinian
state, divided from the Gaza Strip.
The key point is that Israel now exists de facto. To
give America and Canada back to the Indians or Australia back to the Aborigines
would be impracticable. Likewise to insist that Israel allow the right of return
of all Palestinians would not be feasible. Israel fears that the Muslims might
eventually overwhelm the Israelis and convert the state into an Islamic
theocracy.
No doubt there is some basis for justice on all sides of
this tragic situation. An end must be put to the bloodshed of senseless attack
and retaliation. The Palestinians want statehood. Israelis want a state with
defensible borders.
In my view the Palestinians deserve a state, but there are
underdeveloped lands to the east. Therefore I would suggest that a new
Palestinian/Jordanian federation could provide the Palestinians with a viable
nation and that forging such an agreement would enable Israel to live peacefully
behind secure borders. As part of this solution I would recommend that the
United Nations guarantee peace by monitoring the borders during a period of,
say, fifty years.
But this would require an end to religious terror and
intolerance. Religions, when taken literally, degenerate into fanaticism. When
ancient texts—either the Koran or the Bible—are used to justify present
political realities, the result is bloodshed and conflict. A necessary condition
of peace is almost certainly that both the Palestinian/Jordanian state and
Israel be secular and democratic. I would suggest that the world community work
with the Israelis, Palestinians, and Jordanians to come up with a new creative
proposal—to create a new Palestinian/Jordanian state and an Israeli state that
can live in peace with its neighbors.
A brief historical note is perhaps useful: In ancient days
"Palestine" referred to the present state of Israel, the West Bank,
and large sections of Jordan. The entire region was occupied by the Turks for
centuries. After their defeat in the First World War in 1920, Britain was
awarded a mandate over the entire region of Palestine and Jordan (then known as
Transjordan). In the Balfour Declaration of 1917, Britain declared its intention
to establish a Jewish National Home, and it designated the Arab State as Jordan
in 1927. Jordan annexed the West Bank in 1950, but this was occupied by Israel
after being invaded by Arab armies in the 1967 Six-Day War. Subsequently there
were bloody conflicts between the Palestinian refugees and Jordanians. The
Palestine Liberation Organization and Arafat were expelled from Jordan, though
60 percent of present Jordanian citizens were originally Palestinian refugees.
There have been intermit-tent efforts to incorporate the West Bank and Jordan. I
suggest that this option be explored anew. If this is to be achieved it is
important that Chairman Arafat work out a modus viendi with King Abdullah
of Jordan. To integrate Jordan and the West Bank could make for a genuinely
sustainable and durable society co-existing peacefully with Israel.
Paul Kurtz
is editor-in-chief of Free Inquiry and founder
of the Council for Secular Humanism.
| 
Subscribe to Free Inquiry 
Order Free Inquiry Back Issues 
Free Inquiry Home Page 
Council for Secular Humanism Web Site