Israel is justly slapping itself on the back in congratulation for leading the world in its condemnation of Austria's new political kingmaker, Joerg Haider. When the results of the Austrian elections last October gave Haider's party the balance of power, Israel's reaction was quick and firm: Participation by Haider in any form in the Austrian government would mean the cessation of diplomatic relations between Israel and Austria. And when Haider signed the coalition agreement last week, Israel's Ambassador was home within 3 hours.
All this, just because Haider uttered a few words in admiration of Hitler more than ten years ago, and because his party is anti-immigrant, and therefore, racist.
Israeli Foreign Minister David Levy and, to a certain extent, Prime Minister Ehud Barak, can take immense pride in this position and in its swift and decisive execution. After all, as we have seen repeatedly throughout history, racist attitudes and words can lead to racist actions, and Israel must be the country that leads in anti-racist policies given the history of the Jewish nation. This is especially true in Austria, which produced Hitler, which gave birth to the Nazi movement, and which has had former Nazi Kurt Waldheim serve as its President.
Indeed, Israel's lead has been followed by the rest of the world, with both the United States and the European Union re-examining their ties to Austria with an eye toward downgrading those ties to the extent that Haider takes part in the government. For though his party is a coalition partner, he himself remains outside the cabinet due to the Israeli-initiated pressure.
What puzzles me though, and what I credit Mr. Halperin for pointing out, is that rather than leadership and resolve, Israel's actions lay bare the fundamental hypocrisy of the attitudes upon which this government is based.
Notice which politicians took the lead in demanding Israel's response to Haider: David Levy, and Meretz Cabinet Minister Ran Cohen. Neither is exactly the ideological guardian of Jewish national pride or tenacity in the face of adversity. The sources one would expect to demand such a feisty response from Israel -- the political right and the Zionist grass roots -- have taken a back seat in this issue, and it is little wonder.
Haider is not the problem. A few words uttered a decade ago, for which he has apologized, and which he has recently recanted in a written pledge, are not going to do damage to Jews, and certainly not the Jewish population in Israel.
Anti-Semitism is not what drives Joerg Haider. Haider's problem is immigration, regardless who the immigrants are. Jews in the Diaspora are perpetual immigrants, and they feel threatened by an anti-immigration party in the State that produced Nazism. This is legitimate.
But Israel, which was supposed to spell the end of the Wandering Jew, should not be reacting so forcefully to what is actually the internal decision of a democratic electorate. Indeed, Austria does not attract that many Jewish immigrants. Far more numerous are the Arab immigrants attracted to Austria by a healthy and vibrant economy and proximity to the Arab world. Indeed, Arabs are more threatened by Haider's racism than are Jews.
What we see, though, is the Israeli left, where the mindset of the Wandering Jew has never really been ejected, reacting from the gut when the Wandering Jew is threatened. Zionists, for whom Israel is home, and for whom the Wandering Jew is no more than an important history lesson, should not react at all.
Rather than react so forcefully to a threat that is perceived through words uttered long ago, and which may or may not materialize into actual racist policy which may or may not lead to actual ethnic cleansing in Austria, Israel should be more concerned with showing its national pride and steadfastness against the real anti-Semites of the world. Rather than pay so much attention to Haider the Nazi sympathizer, Israel should be leading the world in isolating and eliminating the real murderers of Jewish children next to whom Haider is a relative angel of mercy.
But instead, the very same David Levy, Ehud Barak, and Ran Cohen rush with glee to bestow gifts of righteousness at the feet of Yasser Arafat, the man with more Jewish blood on his hands than anyone since Hitler. And they rush even faster to bestow gifts of honor at the feet of Syrian dictator Hafez Assad, who is capable of killing 20,000 of his own people while drinking his morning coffee, and who for 30 years has employed a defense minister who works on the side translating The Protocols of the Elders of Zion into Arabic. The Syrian media is daily rife with anti-Semitic diatribe and vitriol, and Arafat's henchmen have now taken the audacious attitude that if Israel doesn't abandon exactly the land tracts they want, they will return to killing Jewish children and blowing up commuter busses.
Israel's response to Austria is not as righteous as it seems. The Israeli media is shouting from the rooftops that Israel has issued the correct response to anti-Semitism. But where are the real anti-Semites, and how is Israel responding to them?
Copyright 2000. Yehuda Poch is a writer living in Israel. Reproduction in electronic or print format by permission only.
