The Living “Lost Cause”

I just finished reading Michael Harriot’s generally painful, but brutally honest, Black AF History · The Un-Whitewashed Story of America and I’ve been struggling my way through Myth America: Historians Take On the Biggest Legends and Lies About Our Past for the past several weeks. Princeton’s History Department website summarizes Myth America with “Replacing myths with research and reality, Myth America is essential reading amid today's heated debates about our nation's past.” There weren’t a lot of surprises in Myth America, at least for me, but there were 20 chapters of constant disappointment. Black AF History was a different collection of stories, filled with many names and incidents that had not been part of my history education. Harriot is as tough on white people as white people have been on people of color and that is a tough pill to take, as a white person. The chapter I am currently wading through in Myth America is “Confederate Monuments” by Karen Cox. And my point in this essay/rant came from that chapter, plus the combined background from Black AF History.

The fascination and perverse pleasure some Americans get from Israel’s racism and apartheid and, not many years earlier, South Africa’s similar internal terrorism is almost identical to the things white southerners were saying to themselves after the brief period of Reconstruction. For example, at the unveiling of an Augusta Confederate monument in 1878, Charles Colcock Jones Jr, ex Confederate lieutenant colonel, reassured white southerners that they  “have no apologies to offer, no excuses to render, no regrets to utter, save that we failed in our high endeavor. . . We were overborne by superior numbers and weightier munitions . . . [and] nothing has been absolutely determined except the question of comparative strength.” He continued by ranting about the need to program white children to “be taught to emulate the example of their Confederate ancestors.” The point here is that that damned “Lost Cause” is being emulated in Israel in exactly the way white southerners and other racists would behave if they weren’t “overborne by superior numbers” today.

Israel is one more historic example of Lord Acton’s 1887 rule, “Power tends to corrupt and absolute power corrupts absolutely” (1887) and the more depressing corollary attributed to so many authors I have long given up looking for its origin, “Choose your enemies wisely, for you will become them.” For the past 76 years, any mirror an Israeli might chose to look into would reflect back an image that even someone as brutal and amoral as Benjamin Netanyahu would try to reject. Try as they might, the image will stick for as long as human history is recorded. Just like the American South and its history of slavery and repression and violence, once you’ve put that flag into the ground, that property is marked for all of human history.

The current crop of MAGA Republicans and the historic supporters of Israel from both parties are either proudly seeing their racist dreams come true in Israel or becoming increasingly uncomfortable with the reflection of their position in the world. When lifetime supporters like Democratic Representative Sara Jacobs of California are being whipped at both ends, it’s obvious that no middle-ground position is safe, “In San Diego, I’ve been protested by people who think that I’m not sufficiently calling for a ceasefire and those who think I’m not doing enough for Israel — some of whom I’ve known my entire life. It’s really turned into two separate camps. The more you try and carve out a middle, the more neither camp really feels like home.” As usual, the people who know the least about the situation are convinced their insights are “fresh” and valuable. Anyone who is convinced they have the answer to this war is deluded, at best, and arrogantly foolish most likely.

Progressive Democrats are under attack for their realistic positions on Israel and that is being used to Republican advantage in the coming election. Liberal Democrat Jamie Raskin was stuck between a rock and hard place having to defend Democratic Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s words condemning Israel, “If I can’t stand up for somebody’s right to just express themselves in Congress without being censured, then I have lost my way constitutionally.” Republicans had no such qualms and even less respect for the Constitution and gleefully voted overwhelming to censor Tliab. Everything about Israel and Gaza and most of the Mideast is a lose-lose proposition for anyone in the US; politicians, businesses, and individuals. Normally, when that is the case the best option is to step away and see what develops.