JoshuaPundit's second-place Council post from a few weeks ago - tied with the one that I had about Britain's surrender to political Islam - highlighted the domestic and international dynamics that prevented Israel from finishing the job in Gaza. That's depressing enough: political pressure was brought to bear on a robust democracy rather than on the genocidal enemies they were fighting. But at least political problems can be fixed by voting out politicians.

The winning Council and non-Council posts, though, suggest that the problem runs much deeper. It's cultural and it's ethical. The non-Council winner was friend-of-the-blog Robert Avrech, who described how apologizing for terrorism became synonymous with liberal sophistication via Hollywood propaganda:

We continue exploring Alistair Horne's, Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962. All the time, bearing in mind that the movie, The Battle of Algiers, conveniently eliminates vital facts regarding the sickening methods codified by the Algerian terrorists. For the truth would negate the film's foundational purpose: to spread Jihadist propaganda under the guise of the always safe and fashionable anti-colonialism.

The Colossus of Rhodey's post describes the inevitable result:

The line between good and evil is now blurred ... blurred to such a degree that many more, aside from the most extreme of the extreme, soon will be asking things like what did the Jews do to deserve the treatment befallen upon them by the Nazis? We are seeing such language now in our "free" societies, in the streets full of anti-Israel protests. We're seeing "new histories" which question the judgment of those who fought against the most horrific tyrannies ever witnessed -- those against which we fought in World War II. In a conflict where the defeat of the Allies would have meant the extermination of the Jewish people, the slaughter of myriad other "unpure" races, and the enslavement of the entire globe, our moral ambiguity tells us that our leaders from that time who ordered, for instance, the bombing of Dresden and the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki are "no worse than Hitler, Tojo and Mussolini" and are "war criminals." The good cannot be distinguished from the bad.

No amount of anti-Israel stupidity or anti-Israel viciousness is off-limits any more. The political absurdities and the unblinking lies - the State Department's "let's try the same thing again" security assistance and the shameless denials of Hamas's Western propagandists - those are just outward manifestations. The cultural rot is, as non-Council runner up Armed and Dangerous pointed out, strictly ideological.

References:
* Battlestar Israel [Watcher Of Weasels]
* Mere Rhetoric: I'm Going To Miss Westminster Abbey - Britain Hands Itself Over To Radical Islam, Blames Israel [MR]
* Israel Capitulates [Joshua Pundit]
* The Real Battle of Algiers, Part II [Avrech / Big Hollywood]
* The entertainment of moral ambiguity [Colossus Of Rhodey]
* US To Bring Abject Failure Of Security Assistance To West Bank, Renew Pressure On Israel. What Could Go Wrong? [MR]
* Iranian Mullahs Wringing Their Hands As IDF Dismantles Hamas's Army (Plus: NPR Wonders About "Real Connection" Between Iran And Hamas) [MR]

Previously:
* Watchers Council Results - Could It Possibly Be That Operation Cast Lead Is Justified?
* Watcher's Council Results - What You Say Out Loud Matters
* Watchers Council Results - It Could Be That Capitulation Doesn't Appease Fanatics