The Barbarian in a Suit

By  Lawrence Davidson

The French philosopher Simone Weil once observed that barbarism should be "considered as a permanent and universal human characteristic which becomes more or less pronounced according to the play of circumstances." Historically, there is no doubt of the accuracy of this statement. As the 20th century so aptly demonstrated, civilization is a very fragile state. And with weaponry getting ever more destructive the fragility of our civilization and the potent potential of barbarism increases proportionately. So, in the 20th century we had two world wars, a large number of smaller ones, the Holocaust, ethnic cleansing on a grand scale, and a "cold war" kept from getting hot by the fear of nuclear cataclysm. One can only say that humanity is very lucky there is anything like civilization left and, obviously, we have continued to push our luck, so to speak, in the first decade of the 21st century.

One other way of measuring the precarious nature of our civilization is by observing how many "barbarians in suits" lead our nation states. You can point all the fingers on both hands at those so called "rogue state" leaders, but any objective observer would have to conclude they have nothing on men like George W. Bush, Dick Chaney and Donald Rumsfeld. For sheer body counts these American "leaders" are right up with the worst of them. It is most unfortunate that Barack Obama and a majority of the Democrat party seem determined to slip and slide down a similar bloody road.
 
I mention these American notables so as not to be accused of ignoring my own national breed of "barbarians in suits" as I turn my attention to another particularly ugly example, Avigdor Lieberman of Israel. I suspect that the idea of a Jewish barbarian was unthinkable before the rise of Zionism. But since that ideology has managed to tie Judaism (or what is left of it) to an obsessively ethnocentric nation state all the requirements for modern Jewish barbarians are in place and, sure enough, up they pop. There was Begin, Ben Gurion, Sharon and many more who have indulged in terrorism, ethnic cleansing and assorted massacre. Now we have Avigdor Lieberman.
 
Lieberman is Israel's Foreign Minister, as well as deputy Prime Minister, so he usually is seen wearing a suit. But he is a barbarian nonetheless. His particular style of barbarism is racism. For instance, on June 22, 2010 Lieberman put forth a "blueprint for the resolution of the [Israeli-Palestinian] conflict" that demands the ethnic cleansing of Israeli Arabs.

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