The New Republic

What is it about the would-be interlopers into the Israeli-Arab disputes that gets me so riled up? And by interlopers I mean international organizations without either moral credibility or anything but abstract power. And also those countries like Holland (see my Spine about this) or Italy which have nothing persuasive they can say, and that is
because history has passed them by and also because they have enormously burdensome internal problems they seem not to dare to confront. Spain is
in the same League.

At least for the moment, Holland rankles me most. The Dutch have been coasting off the story of Anne Frank that had an innocent hue to it but which ended well, with Anne and her family being betrayed by a Dutchman. And the proportion of Dutch Jewry which didn't survive the war ranks with Polish Jewry. There weren't many righteous Gentiles around to help.

So what it amounts to is that Israel has become a site for "moral
tourism." This is a phrase from Saul Bellow who had a knack for putting into words the most preposterous pretensions, a knack that outlasted his life, i.e.: the rage for boycotts in the UK; the unabated scrutiny of Israel and only Israel by the U.N. Human Rights Council; the pomposity of the churches which cannot keep themselves together; and on and on. And on.

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