Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sunk to a new low
in shamelessness when he said that a Palestinian leader gave Hitler the idea
for the final solution which, it is always instructive to recount, involved
gassing and incinerating millions of people because they were Jewish.
This
egregious rewriting of history, which came in a speech Netanyahu gave
to Jewish leaders, was immediately lambasted as false by a wide range of
Holocaust scholars and survivors. Many pointed out that believing that a
Palestinian developed the idea for the final solution played into the hands of
Holocaust deniers, because it absolves Hitler and the Germans of some
responsibility.
Netanyahu was trying to demonstrate that Palestinian
hostility towards Israel predates the 48-year Israeli occupation. Instead he
hurt his own credibility, while insulting the memory of millions of victims and
their families.
And what did Netanyahu hope to gain by telling a scurrilous
lie? Even if Palestinian hatred of Jews extended back decades, it would not
justify the brutal and unfair way in which Israel treats Palestinians in the
occupied territories today. A large majority of Palestinians living in West
Bank and the Gaza strip have only known Israeli rule. It’s the bloody incursions
and retaliations, the illegal settlements and the discrimination that shape contemporary
Palestinian attitudes towards the Israeli government and Israelis, not some decades
or centuries old antipathy to Jews.
The similarity between Netanyahu’s faux pas and the
stupidities routinely uttered by American conservatives is obvious. The
question is, will Netanyahu’s reputation and political viability suffer as has
so many of the Republicans running for office who have uttered inanities?
Over the past few years, we have seen a wide range of
Republican elected officials suffer after saying stupid things, some lies, some
distortions and some even the true but embarrassing statements. For example, the
campaigns of Michele Bachmann and Todd Akins fizzled immediately after telling
absurd lies about medical issues, e.g. vaccinations and rape. Mitt Romney shot
himself in the foot when he presented a distorted statistic—the 47% of takers
who would never vote for him; those 47% of takers referred to the percent of
citizens getting some kind of check from the federal government and included
veterans who had put their lives in danger fighting our endless succession of
ill-wrought wars, retirees who paid for their cash benefits with payroll taxes
and the disabled. The most absurd example of a Republican elected official
suffering from stupidly telling the truth is Representative Kevin McCarthy, who
lost a chance to be Speaker of the House when he admitted that the purpose of
the House Benghazi committee was to embarrass Hillary Clinton.
I keep writing about elected Republicans losing because they
said something stupid because it doesn’t matter how many stupid things the
never-elected Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina say. It doesn’t seem
to affect their popularity among likely Republican voters. Bachmann was drummed
in the Iowa race after lying about vaccinations, but Trump told the same lie in
the first debate and saw his popularity increase. Fiorina’s lies about Planned
Parenthood didn’t sink her, nor has Carson’s obnoxious statement that the Jews
could have fought Hitler if they had guns or his denial of basic science
outside his area of expertise.
Our decisions about the economy and society suffer when they
are based on lies, distortions and character assassinations. It should go
without saying (but I’ll say it anyway!) that when an elected official or
candidate tells a lie or says something stupid not related to his or her personal
background, it invariably supports a policy that is harmful to the economy or
imposes a religious restriction on what is supposed to be a secular society.
Romney wanted to fund further tax cuts for the wealthy by curtailing spending
on social service programs. Bachmann and Trump used false science and a lie to
pander to vaccine deniers. Carson wanted to justify looser gun controls, while
Netanyahu wanted to justify an increasingly immoral policy of oppression and de
facto apartheid.
It remains to be seen whether Netanyahu will get the free
pass so far given to Trump, Carson and Fiorina. Let’s hope that he suffers the
fate of Romney, Bachmann, McCarthy and others. Perhaps then Israel will elect a
government willing to end the bloodbath and make the compromises
needed to establish a Palestinian state.
