Friday, July 16, 2004

ARE ALL LEFTISTS UNPRINCIPLED?

Leftist intellectuals certainly are. "There is no such thing as right and wrong" seems to be one of their central doctrines. But normal decent working people who vote for Leftist political parties at election time are most unlikely to be so amoral. In between, however, there do seem to be some Leftists who take an intelligent interest in politics and who also also reject the amorality of the Leftist intellectuals. This writer would appear to be one of them:

"Several kids of my friends are amazed that: A) I could support the war in Iraq and, B) have a sympathetic view of Israel and blame the Palestinian leadership and Arab leadership for the plight of the Palestinians. In other words, their teachers have not even attempted to point out that their might be another side to the argument. In fact, the bias against Israel in schools, in Universities, in human rights organisations such as Amnesty International, and in the supposedly quality media (including or especially the BBC) has reached poisonous levels. This is more serious than bias on talkback radio etc which is not taken as seriously. Israel, it seems, is in the wrong when it takes action after suicide bombers have destroyed the lives of its citizens and after numerous others attempting similar destruction have been stopped. The fact that since the second war the Palestinian leadership and Arab countries have on several occasions rejected the offer of a continuous Palestinian state and have sought to destroy the Jews instead is blithely ignored. In fact, they are ignored to such an extent that I am no longer, in many cases, prepared to put it down to ignorance but rather down to anti-Semitism. From a left perspective, the anti-Semitism of many academics, intellectuals and social activists combined with their past ideological allegiances (to Marxism, etc) has made it far too easy for the right to claim the moral and intellectual high ground."

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