Dear Editors,
The op-ed by Robert Kagan, “Israel and the decline of the liberal order” (September 15th) disparaged Israel as “illiberal” without basis in fact.
Mr. Kagan claimed that in recent years Israel committed “a remarkable turnabout” by “turning away” from the “liberal world order.” His oft-repeated word “liberal” implicitly referred to human rights.
In support of this sweeping accusation, Kagan alleged that Israel had “forged alliances” with “illiberal” nations like China, Russia, Egypt, Hungary, India, and Brazil. Actually, Israel has improved relations with sovereigns of all political stripes, not just the ones Kagan listed. And the warming ties did nothing to realign Israel with some imagined illiberal block. Liberal states commonly bargain with illiberal ones for political and economic gain.
Kagan continued to paint Israel as illiberal by citing the Jewish nation-state law of 2018. The author accurately said the law had endorsed the Jewish right to self-determination in Israel. However, he failed to admit that the same principle had already been formalized in the 1922 British Mandate for Palestine, which had been approved unanimously by the member states of the League of Nations. Many liberal democracies have adopted constitutions and other laws tying a state’s history and/or destiny to its dominant ethnic group. Those declarations have caused no harm to liberalism because they have not curtailed the rights of any minority group. Israel’s non-Jews enjoy all the same rights as those other minorities.
Finally, Kagan called Israel illiberal by saying the nation “oppresses” Palestinians and “deprives” them of their “right to self-determination.” Here the critic gave no examples. Perhaps he knows that Israel has done more than any other nation in history to protect the human rights of an enemy population. He must know that thanks to Israel, over 90 percent of Palestinians living in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict zone already practice self-determination in the form of self-rule.
The Palestinians could even attain statehood, if only they would join Israel in solving the conflict through the liberal concept of two states for two peoples. But tragically, the Arabs keep working to destroy Israel through a barrage of illiberal policies: genocidal war, government sponsored terrorism, human shields for terrorism, radicalization of children, recruitment of child soldiers, religious bigotry, ethnic delegitimization, economic warfare, legal warfare, and hate speech.
No wonder true champions of liberal values are big admirers of Israel.
Joel M. Margolis