Bias
There is a smooth and tested formula for approaching the tragedy in the Middle East. We start with the premise that violence is a very bad thing, «wherever it comes from.» We use this motto to castigate the «extremists on both sides.» Comfortable as we are with our unbiased, pacifist conscience, we express the hope that moderates in both camps will prevail and then, having had too much of blood and carnage, we switch channels in order to relax before falling peacefully to sleep… This approach has many advantages: It can be readily applied to the Middle East, to Northern Ireland, the Turkish Kurds, Chechnya or Kashmir. Furthermore, it does not tire the brain with historical knowledge, geostrategic analyses or moral dilemmas. Finally, it is an attitude which is cool-headed, detached and politically correct, for it gives equal treatment to the two enemy parties. Except… Except that, as Goethe says, there is no solution between two extremes: There is only the problem itself. Except that in giving equal treatment to the assailant and the victim alike you totally betray the right of the weak and applaud the barbarity of the strong. What would we think in Greece if the EU and the UN kept equal distance from the two sides on the Cyprus dispute? Probably the same way the Czechs felt when the civilized West, through the Munich treaty, gave them and Hitler equal treatment…
