When It’s Not Funny ….

We may jeer at Mitt Romney’s comments on the “cultural” causes of the difference in economic development between Israel and Palestine. They might actually be funny if they weren’t communicating in their bizarre way the very serious prejudices that run through many pro-Israeli circles when it comes to the so-called “cultural backwardness” of Arabs, a self-fulfilling prophecy of a certain political and economic inferiority. The life of citizens in these “backward” societies is, therefore, implicitly considered less important than those of Israeli and American citizens — countries often seen in these circles as exemplary nations as much in matters of democracy as in matters of prosperity (this with a straight face!). And yet .…

Without denying the dynamism of the Israeli economy, one must still recognize that it is the country most supported by the United States and, to a lesser degree, by many other Western governments. Israel is, in large part, a state held up by foreign subsidies. A multitude of advantageous trade agreements tie it to all of these states. We may, therefore, ask ourselves what Israeli economic and trade performance would look like if this support vanished, or even if it simply decreased.

When it comes to democracy … is it necessary to recall that the State of Israel has built itself through repeated recourse to violence atop the ruins of the old Arab Palestine and the forced exile of the original population? A great democratic beginning!

All in all, we are perhaps in the presence of an insidious form of neocolonialism: Our political classes are prepared to respect the Palestinians … on the condition condition that they consent to imitate us, which is to say, to try to resemble us. In short, they should convert to the dominant forms of our economic system. If not, let them stay in that hole!