How the Left Sees the World: Power, Race, and Class
How do those on the Left determine right from wrong? Since Marx, they’ve relied on a formula based on status, skin color, and wealth. But is that the way to reach a moral conclusion? Dennis Prager uses Israel and the United States to provide an illuminating perspective on this question.
Israel extends full rights to __________________.
womengaysmany Arab citizensall of the aboveInstead of being guided by a moral compass, the Left is guided by what?
a power compassa race compassa class compassall of the aboveWhen you are guided by a moral compass, you don’t ask, “Who’s strong and who’s weak?” You ask, “Who’s morally right and who’s morally wrong?”
TrueFalseThe Left doesn’t judge people by their actions, but by their ______________.
perceived intellectraceactionscharacterAs more and more people substitute a power, race, or class compass for a moral compass, what will the world inevitably end up with?
a utopia of equalitya unified society that values good over evilmore evil and hatred of the gooda perpetuating cycle of moral certitude
- Israel has proven to be one of the world’s most formidable nations.
Israel has been forced to undertake military action to protect itself numerous times, and has repeatedly succeeded. As a nation still in infancy in 1948, Israel was attacked by surrounding Arab nations. No other international power aided Israel; despite this, Israel was victorious.
View sourceOn April 16, 1948, Palestinian leader Jamal Husseini told the U.N. that “the representative of the Jewish Agency told us yesterday that they were not the attackers, that the Arabs had begun the fighting. We did not deny this. We told the whole world that we were going to fight.”
View sourceThe world’s perception of Israel’s military strength began to shift significantly after the 1967 Six Day War, in which Israel achieved a stunning military victory against aggressor states.
View sourceIsrael survived another all-out attack in 1973, the Yom Kippur War.
View sourceIsrael has waged multiple successful military campaigns since, all in response to attacks and imminent threats.
View source- Israel has been a frequent target of attacks by its neighbors, yet it has sought to make peace with them.
The first of two waves of terror, so-called intifadas, occurred in the late 1980s.
View sourceIn the early 2000s, Palestinian terrorist organization Hamas refused to accept the Oslo agreement and started a second intifada against Israel.
View sourceIsrael has faced repeated incursions from terror groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon.
View sourceHamas has launched thousands of rocket attacks on Israel from the Gaza Strip — even after Israel completely withdrew from that territory in 2005.
View sourceDespite the wars and terrorism, Israel has sought peace with its neighbors. And it did achieve a peace treaty with Egypt on March 26, 1979.
View sourceIsrael signed a peace treaty with Jordan on October 26, 1994.
View source- Terror attacks against Israel have included plane hijackings, bombings, stabbings and execution-style murders.
Israel and Israeli citizens have been targeted repeatedly by Palestinian terrorists. As Haaretz reports, one of the tactics used against Israelis a number of times over the decades has been plane hijacking: “The 1960s and 1970s saw a large number of hijackings carried out by Palestinian terrorist groups. El Al Israel Airlines quickly developed a reputation for its stringent airline safety.”
View sourcePalestinian terrorist group Black September infamously murdered eleven Israeli athletes and coaches at the 1972 Munich Olympics.
View sourceIn 2001, Palestinian Hamas terrorists murdered innocent Israelis in a horrific pizza parlor bombing. The Guardian reported at the time that the bombing was “eclipsed in more than 10 months of a Palestinian uprising only by the bombing of a Tel Aviv disco in June that killed 22 people.”
View sourceIn Hadera, Israel in 2002, a Palestinian terrorist targeted an Israeli wedding, one of several terrorist attacks in the area. PBS reported at the time: “Army radio reports a Palestinian suicide bomber attempted to detonate explosive devices strapped to his body, but security guards stopped him before they went off. The attacker then threw hand grenades into the crowded wedding hall. He is included among the five dead.”
View sourceThe Left ignores or downplays Palestinian terror, focusing instead on Israel's responses to terror.
View source- Israel’s Declaration of Independence pledges to protect the rights of all citizens regardless of race or religion—and Israel does just that.
Israel is a liberal democracy that extends full rights to all, including women, the LGBT community and Arab citizens. In its Declaration of Independence Israel pledges to protect the rights of all citizens regardless of race or religion.
View sourceArabs, even leaders of Hamas, go to Israel for medical treatment and are not discriminated against.
View sourceA 2013 study by a U.S.-based freedom watchdog found that Israel was the only country in the Middle East that didn’t segregate and oppress its minority population.
View sourceRelated reading: “No, Israel isn’t a country of privileged and powerful white Europeans” – Hen Mazzig, Los Angeles Times
View source- A fifth of Israel’s citizens are Arab Muslims. In fact, they have their own political party.
Nearly one-fifth of Israel’s citizens are Muslim.
View sourceMuslims enjoy the same rights as Jewish citizens in Israel and occupy key positions in the nation’s courts, press and government.
View sourceMuslims have their own parties representing them in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.
View sourceIsrael is the only country in the region devoted to democracy.
View sourcePrisoners in Israel, be they Jewish or Arab, are well-treated. Israel has one of the lowest recidivism rates in the world.
View source- Israel is the most tolerant, democratic country in the Middle East, yet leftist politicians and activists are devoted to destroying it.
BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) advocates anti-Israel policies on college campuses, calling Israel an “apartheid” state.
View sourceBDS promotes boycotting Israeli products and companies.
View sourceIsrael has been boycotted by academics such as scientist Stephen Hawking.
View sourceIt has become commonplace for celebrities to denounce Israel.
View sourceRelated reading: “Reclaiming Israel's History” – David Brog
View source- Israel has repeatedly offered the Palestinians their own state—and the Palestinians have repeatedly rejected those offers.
Israel has repeatedly offered the Palestinians their own state, and every time, those efforts were rejected for one simple reason: the Palestinians have never accepted Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. Palestinian leaders have rejected offers of statehood contingent upon promises of peace numerous times, including in 1938, 1948, 1993, 2001, and 2007.
View sourceIn the peace talks of 2001 and 2007, Israel offered to give back to the Palestinians almost all of the territory Israel currently occupies in the West Bank. Both times, the Palestinians rejected their offers.
View source- Israel has not only managed to survive coordinated efforts to take it down, it has produced a thriving, innovative economy.
According to a report from The Heritage Foundation, Israel’s “overall regulatory framework promotes efficiency and entrepreneurial activity.”
View sourceDespite lacking the rich oil reserves that other Middle Eastern countries have, Israel has the most advanced economy in the region.
View sourceIsrael’s thriving technology sector was built on the foundation of its defense industry’s advancements.
View sourceIsrael is known as “start-up nation,” ranking just behind Silicon Valley.
View sourceMany key tech components were designed in Israel as well as many life-saving drugs and medical devices.
View source
Why does the left hate Israel? On the surface, it doesn't make sense. Israel is a liberal democracy. It extends full rights to women, to gays, and to its many Arab citizens. Like all countries, which are made up of flawed human beings, Israel is flawed. But compared to most countries, not to mention its neighbors, it is a civil rights paradise.
So, why does the left hate Israel? The reason is that the left — and as I always emphasize, I am talking about the left, not about liberals — is not guided by a moral compass. It is guided by three other compasses:
A power compass, a race compass, and a class compass.
Let's begin with the power compass.
Instead of evaluating people and nations on the basis of right and wrong or good and evil, the left evaluates them on the basis of weak and strong. If you're weak, you're good. If you're strong, you're bad. Israel is strong. Therefore, it is bad. America is strong. Therefore it is bad. The Palestinians are regarded as weak. Therefore, they are good.
When you are guided by a moral compass, you don't ask, "who's strong and who's weak?" You ask, "who's morally right and who's morally wrong?"
Fifty years ago, Israel was not a big issue for the left. Why? Because it was perceived as weak. But after the 1967 Six Day War in which Israel achieved a stunning military victory, it all changed. Israel became strong, so Israel became bad. And the Palestinians were weak, so they became good.
So, no matter how much terror Palestinians engaged in — hijacking airplanes, murdering eleven Israeli athletes and coaches at the 1972 Munich Olympics, blowing up Israelis in pizza parlors and at weddings — the left's position never changed:
Palestinians good. Israel bad. Because the Palestinians were weak. And Israel was strong.
That's one of the three ways the left judges the world. You can test this theory in other ways. Why is the United States bad? Because it's strong. And Third World countries that oppose the United States are good.
Cuba, for example, has been adored by the left for decades. Never mind that Cuba's communist party has ruined Cuba, that Cubans have no civil rights, and Cuba is one of the poorest countries in the world. Since Cuba is weak, to the left, Cuba is good.
The same was true with North Vietnam in the 1960s. It was considered weak, so it was good. The US was strong, so it was bad. It didn't matter that America was trying to preserve the freedom of the South Vietnamese, exactly as it had preserved the freedom of the South Koreans. The US was strong. So it was bad.
Which brings us back to Israel. The stronger Israel gets — as it effectively defends itself, as its economy grows, and as its diplomatic position improves — the more the left hates it.
The second of the left's compasses — the race compass — is another reason the left hates Israel.
Just as it substitutes weak and strong for good and evil, the left substitutes non-white and white for good and evil. The left doesn't judge people by their actions, but by their race. That's why, for example, the left asserts that a black person cannot be a racist, only a white person can be a racist.
And that provides the second reason Israel is labeled evil: Israelis are considered white and Palestinians are not white. Never mind that more than half of Israel's population is not white.
The result: the left essentially ignores Palestinian terror and loudly condemns Israel's responses to terror.
Now to the left's third compass, the class compass.
This is the third way in which the left replaces traditional Western and Judeo-Christian categories of good and evil. Instead of judging people's actions by the same moral yardstick — that of good and evil — the left judges people's actions based on their economic class. Rich people and rich nations are bad; poor people and poor nations are good.
This began with Karl Marx, who divided the world by economic class, not moral behavior. To Marx and to Marxism, good and evil is entirely class-based. Good is defined as workers; evil as owners. And that is the third reason for the left's hatred of Israel and of America — they are both wealthy.
As fewer and fewer people perceive the world in terms of good and evil — substituting a power, race, or class compass for a moral compass — you will inevitably get more evil, and more hatred of the good — beginning with Israel and America, and ending with Western Civilization.
I'm Dennis Prager.
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