Most people familiar with Jewish traditions are familiar with the “Four Questions” to be asked at the Passover Seder, a role usually reserved for the youngest child.
Less immediately familiar is the tradition regarding the allegory of the “Four Sons” recited at the Seder, which usually correspond to four distinct stereotypes: the “Wise” child, simultaneously familiar with but still intellectually curious; the “Wicked” child, who more or less demonstrates a mind that will stay made up in the face of inconvenient facts; the “Simple” child, whose query[s] haven’t yet progressed beyond “What Is This”?, and the “One Who Does Know How To Ask”, who, the complier of the Seder Haggadah, needs to be prodded in the right direction.
It occurred to me over the course of the past Passover that, in light of the ongoing crisis in the Middle East, I might be able to draw a parallel between these four traditional children and four players from the more contemporary scene [after all, what was the Exodus other than the first Middle East crisis involving the Jews?]
The first two players—“Wise” and “Wicked”—came almost right away: General David Petraeus and Vice-President Biden, respectively. After the brouaha surrounding the Biden visit to Jerusalem; he had apparently told Netanyahu that “what you’re doing here undermines the security of our troops who are fighting in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan”. Knowing the current administration’s policy inclinations, there was some surprise at the tone of the admonition, but less so at the fact that it was delivered. There was, however, some worry when some reported that this concern was shared—and directly addressed—by General Petraeus, hinting that U.S. support for Israel directly hinders America’s national security interests. Petraeus himself put the lie to this: “There is no mention of lives anywhere in there. I actually reread the statement. It doesn’t say that at all.” He said the only point was that moderate Arab leaders are worried about a lack of progress in the peace process.
There are your first two players: the “Wicked” child who insists upon a version of events that are not in consonance with the facts—or even his closest military advisers. With the series of clarifications that had to be issued by the General, it became increasingly clear that Biden was merely a stand-in for the rest of the Administration and its appeasement bent, and was willing to sacrifice the crediblity of those who actually are defending the country.
One caveat: With all respect due General Petraeus, he doesn’t go far enough. While I certainly would argue as a matter of opinion that American and Israeli interests coalesce, I would not be so bold as insist that that statement be raised to the level of a doctrine; to a degree, I would almost hope that that was not automatically the case. However, as long as he demonstrates a belief that there are “moderate” Arab leaders, and that he must account for their illegitimate pretensions to involvement in anything having to do with Israeli politics, he still hasn’t used the power of his office to do what should be done for American interests, NOT Israeli. Then again, the Haggadah does state quite clearly that even the Wise child hasn’t learned everything yet.
But—if we have our wise and wicked children, what about the other two? It turned only one actor was needed for both roles: Maureen Dowd.
Over the course of approximately the past six weeks, Maureen Dowd wrote a series of four or five columns devoted to two subjects. The first involved a series of treatments of the ostensible [inevitable?] Westernization of Saudi Arabia; the second was the ongoing scnadal of pastoral pedophilia that persists in the Roman church.
The apparent motivation behind Dowd's willingness to print the claim of Prince Saud al-Faisal that “we are breaking away from the shackles of the past…we are moving in the direction of a liberal society” seemed to be juts so she could ascribe equal credibility to his claim that “what is happening in Israel is the opposite”. There was your “One Who Does Know How To Ask”: willing to take a patently absurd assertion at face value, even as she simultaneously attempted to qualify it: “[P]rogress is measured by a sundial in this stunted desert kingdom”.
That said, from a typical “liberal” perspective, however, I have to at least grudgingly congratulate her on mainitaining a modicum of consistency on another front: having proven that, like most “secular progressives”, she is more inclined to favor a cultural system of non-Western origin [i.e., Saudi Wahhabiism] over one tagged as “Western” [Israel], Dowd might be even more critical of the leadership of the Catholic faith in which she was raised for their ongoing refusal to see their pedophilia crisis for what it is, or in the parlance of the Simple Child, “What Is It [?]”.
Ironically, Dowd has spent so much time holding herself up as an expert in Islam, Islamists and Middle East crises, when she can actually focus on an area where her credibility might do some good. However, at the very least, one must say that she at least is as [if not more] critical of another “Western” religion as she is of Judaism/Zionism; and, one that happens to be her own, at that.
[Dowd also made a point of criticizing the Vatican spokespersons who compared the pressure being applied on the Church to Holocaust-level anti-Semitism. While the insanity of such an analog should be obvious to those who don’t consider the entire crisis engulfing Rome to be a Jewish plot, I wonder if Dowd is subtly trying to deflect the inevitable questions of anti-Zionist—if not anti-Semitic—bias that would attach to her fawning treatment of Wahhabi Saudiism. AS far as this writer is concerned—should one have questions about my biases and an ostensible willingness to bury the “sins” of my co-religionists—a perusal of my early entry Dirty Laundry? should lay that notion to rest.]
The Dowdian dilemma, then, might illustrate what happens when those not equipped to reach certain levels of wisdom think too hard: they confuse themselves. To conjure up a holiday that Dowd might find more familiar: forgive them, for they know not what they ask...or how to.
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