Nidra Poller (Member of the SPME Board of Directors 2003-2006) – THE SPIRIT OF SPINOZA HAD A BODY , Paris 31 July 2006

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“The spirit of Spinoza” by Cornell West. The Boston Globe July 28, 2006

Cornell West invokes the spirit of Spinoza to sustain his argument for a global humanitarian ceasefire in the Middle East. Enlightened by the great philosopher’s Socratic spirit, all parties to the conflict would choose “self-examination” over “parochial prejudice,” abandon their harmful attitudes and actions, settle their differences, and achieve security and justice for all.

Unfortunately diplomatic efforts to impose a ceasefire in Lebanon apply only to the IDF, and Professor West’s philosophical ceasefire applies only to Israel. On the philosophical level as in military matters, no one in the jihad camp– Hizbullah combatants, their Iranian masters, Syrian go-betweens, and Lebanese hosts–derives the slightest value, idea, or action from any philosophical tradition that could be connected to Baruch Spinoza.

In a spirit of tolerance we must at least grant them the right to espouse the jihad values they are currently applying in the field. An authentic ideological conflict fuels the persistent violence aimed at the State of Israel during six decades of existence. Every peace plan based on the assumption of shared values and pragmatic solutions has failed miserably.

Let us not forget that the spirit of Spinoza lived in a body, a Jewish body. If Spinoza lived today, he might be a professor at Haifa University… in danger of being excommunicated from among the living by a killer rocket fired from neighboring Lebanon. In order to survive and elaborate brilliant philosophical thoughts he would have to seek shelter in the midsection of his tiny homeland-but Nasrallah has promised to seek him out and strike him dead right there-or take refuge in a bomb shelter that might or might not resist the next attack.

Cornell West solemnly promises this “resurrected” Spinoza: “the world must never ever permit another Holocaust against Jews.” The rigorous philosopher might reply: it is not the world, it is Israel that will never permit another mass slaughter of Jews. Jews are not asking the world to make a promise that it cannot keep. And the very wording of West’s appeal shows why.

He condemns “the ugly … subjugation of Palestinians, the plight of their prisoners in Israeli jails … the anti-Arab bigotry… the vicious Israeli occupation…” and decries “innocent Lebanese victims of Israeli bombs.” He asks why we refuse to enforce UN Resolutions that “condemn occupation like 242 and 338” and not “those that call for disarming people who resist occupation like 1559.”

The irony would not be lost on a brilliant philosophical mind. A well-intentioned professor draws up the indictment that would justify the next extermination project and packages it as an appeal for a reasonable approach to ending the conflict. The “barbaric suicide bombers” are simply expressing the above grievances; Hizbullah chief Nasrallah, echoing his mentor Ahmadinehad, plans to “resist occupation” by exterminating the Jews, the “vicious Israeli occupation” is its very existence and the “plight” of Palestinian prisoners is a consequence of courageous Israeli resistance to that evil extermination project.

Count on us. We will never allow it to happen.

Nidra Poller (Member of the SPME Board of Directors 2003-2006) – THE SPIRIT OF SPINOZA HAD A BODY , Paris 31 July 2006

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AUTHOR

Nidra Poller

Author, Paris, France

Topics:

 

  • The Middle East conflict as seen from Europe and particularly France:
  • French policy
  • media coverage
  • public opinion
  • Jewish community reaction

 

 

 

 

 


Read all stories by Nidra Poller