Israel and its supporters are frequently required to turn logic on its head in order to defend this or that policy against criticisms ranging from diplomatic obtuseness to outright illegality. The exercise is so common that its practitioners have become expert in the art of obfuscation. Of greater concern is the fact that the consumers of this propaganda, especially in the West, have become dangerously inured to the avalanche of fallacies and fatuousness. Ever so often, however, the Israelis produce an argument so ineffably inane, so heartily hypocritical, that it very nearly defies description.
Monday was one of those days, as the Israeli Embassy in Rome tried to explain the Jewish state’s reasons for accepting a visit later this month by one Gianfranco Fini, deputy prime minister of Italy and leader of a party whose bloodlines go back to Benito Mussolini’s 1922-1943 Fascist dictatorship. Only last year did Fini get around to retracting his 1994 judgment that the man who led Italy to ruin presiding over the murder of thousands of Jews along the way was “the greatest statesman of the century.” Given the Israeli government’s penchant for crying “anti-Semitism,” the poignancy of the matter is hard to miss.
The embassy made a valiant effort to do just that, though, and its attempt to play down the irony of the visit succeeded only in underlining the absurdity of the Israeli government’s position on the subject that matters most to the country’s future: the peace process. “The fact that (Fini) is head of a party is secondary to us,” the mission’s spokesman said. “His party has been elected by the Italian people and it is a legitimate party.”
To anyone familiar with Israel’s indefatigable attempts to demonize Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, those words could only induce wonderment and/or outrage. For all his faults and the endemic corruption he has allowed to tarnish his administration, Arafat was also elected by his people and his Fatah faction enjoys far greater domestic support than Fini’s National Alliance can claim....
The tangled web weaved by Israeli double standards creates far more vexing problems for the Jewish state than a scolding from an Arab newspaper. Consistency is a prerequisite to rebuilding trust and renewing efforts to reach a fair and lasting peace, and for too long Israel’s pronouncements have been out of touch with reality and its own interests. The future of Israel and Israelis lies in arranging a mutually acceptable modus vivendi with the Arab world. That goal is hindered, not helped, when linguistic acrobatics are required to explain why an ideological heir to Fascism is welcomed as a guest while the essential actor in the peace process remains under de facto house arrest.
http://aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20editorials/2003%20Opinion%20Editorials/November/12%20o/Israel's%20double%20standards%20damage%20its%20own%20interests%20The%20Daily%20Star.htm
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