Britannia Radio

*Multiculturalism and Citizenship*



*Paul Eidelberg*





Machiavelli attributes the greatness of the Roman Republic not only to the
excellence of its government, but also to its liberal admission of
foreigners to citizenship.



But this policy can endanger a state.  Many eastern or oriental people, who
never knew republican life and did not care for it, became Roman citizens,
and this contribu ted to Rome 's decline.



This sort of thing is happening in the Uni ted States .  Liberal immigration
laws have enabled millions of Mexicans and Muslims to become American
citizens.  Many if not most of these citizens, especially Muslims, do not
readily assimilate.  This promp ted the eminent political scientist Samuel
Huntington to write a book entitled *Who are We?-The Challenges to American
National Identity.*



The fault is not only liberal immigration laws, such as those that have
spawned Eurabia.  The decline of American national identity should also be
attribu ted to the multiculturalism or cultural relativism that dominates
American universities.  This multiculturalism influences the media, the
courts and of course politicians.  It erodes the moral and intellectual
substance of American citizenship, the people's love of country, their
patriotism.



Israel 's ruling elites-politicians and judges, academics and
journalists-have been tain ted by multiculturalism.  Their weak sense of
Jewish national identity underlies the government's policy of "land for
peace."  This policy encourages Arab terrorism and the Arabs' persistent
goal of wiping Israel off the map.



Lacking in Israel is not the power but the will to put an end to Arab
terrorism.  This lack of will is a consequence of the corrosive influence of
the cultural relativism that permeates Israel 's liberal, secular
universities.



Of course, Israel 's system of multiparty cabinet government is also at
fault.  An executive branch consisting of five or more rival parties can
hardly exercise political decisiveness and stamina, compared to a unitary
executive or presidential form of government.  However, apart from the dire
need of constitutional reform, Israel needs to reform its educational
institutions, including the curriculum of its Command and Staff College .
These educational institutions produce spiritually vacuous and
intellectually inferior politicians and generals.



Lack of political will or determination has been conspicuous in Israel at
least since December 1987, that is, since the first intifada broke out, when
Likud leader Yitzhak Shamir headed a (rotational) government of national
unity with Labor leader Shimon Peres waiting in the wings.



Israel has thus had more than twenty years of feeble government.  Three
prime ministers-Rabin, Sharon, and Barak-were generals who initia ted or
implemen ted the policy of "territory for peace," a policy that has resul
ted in 10,000 Jewish casualties since 1993!



Did it require a college education to know that the idea of peace with the
PLO, the world's leading terrorist organization, is symptomatic of either
idiocy or insanity?  Nevertheless, academics either participa ted in or
suppor ted the Israel-PLO Agreement.  Most prominent was the late Hebrew
University Professor Yehoshafat Harkabi.  Harkabi, a self-professed cultural
relativist, served as head of the Command and Staff College .  Known as the
mentor of Shimon Peres, he advoca ted a Palestinian state.  (So did Hebrew
University Professor Shlomo Avineri, who once served as Director-General of
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.)



Let me ask an embarrassing question: Can a cultural relativist-can a
multiculturalist or cosmopolitan-have a passionate love of the Jewish people
and of the heritage that distinguishes them as Jews?   Harkabi dedica ted
his first book to Jewish and Arabs alike!  Shimon Peres, who advocates
withdrawal from the Golan Heights , sees nothing wrong with the Jews there
living under Syrian rule!



Do these political and intellectual elites have any idea of what preserves a
nation and what destroys a nation?  Have they never studied history, or
Machiavelli *Discourses* concerning Rome -better yet, Aristotle's *Politics*,
or the fate of Athens .



I would sooner leave foreign policy in the hands of a person randomly chosen
from a telephone directory.  In fact, prior to the June 1992 election that
brought Rabin to power and which thus led to the disastrous Israel-PLO
Agreement, an opinion poll indica ted that most Jews opposed negotiation
with the PLO, let alone a Palestinian state.



By the way, Rabin was Israel 's first native-born prime minister.  Every
Israeli should have felt ashamed when Rabin shook the bloodstained hands of
Yasser Arafat.  Jewish national honor died on that fateful day.  But
Benjamin Netanyahu also shook Arafat's hands and is now anxious to hobnob
with Arafat's successor, Mahmoud Abbas.



How can Jewish politicians love the Jewish people when they consort with
Jew-haters and Jew-killers?  Hoe many Jewish politicians exhibit, in word
and deed, Jewish pride and a passionate love of the Jewish people?



But can this be expec ted of Israeli citizens if they are not Jews?