Michael Walzer Responds

Jerry Slater's polemic is notable most of all for its exaggerations. I am indeed a supporter of Israel, and only wish that I was as eminent, authoritative, prominent, well known, and influential as he says I am—for then I would be a far more useful supporter than I have been. I would also be a more useful critic. Israel needs its supporters, because it is the only state in the world whose legitimacy is widely denied and whose destruction is publicly advocated and threatened. And it needs its critics so that its response to those denials and threats is held within the necessary moral limits. But the critics, if they are to be useful, must get the denials and threats right. Slater minimizes them throughout his piece, as when he says that Hezbollah is committed to Israel's destruction "at least on the ideological level"—by which he means, it's really just talk; the commitment doesn't affect political practice. But I am afraid that Islamic militants give every sign of believing in the old left maxim about the unity of theory and practice.