When I first visited Israel in 1972, I asked my host, a Harvard graduate, to tell me about the political science curriculum at Tel Aviv University. He told me it doesn’t include political theory, which is taught in the philosophy department. I was shocked, because this meant that Aristotle, the father of political science, who wrote treatises on 100 Greek polities, was not taught in Israel’s largest university.Imagine this: Aristotle wrote the first and most comprehensive work on Statesmanship. He also wrote two treatises on Ethics and the first systematic treatise on Rhetoric.  He is the very man who taught Alexander the Great, who was a statesman as well as a conqueror.   Nevertheless, this man, an unsurpassed architectonic genius, in comparison with whom Machiavelli’s knowledge of politics could be put on a postage stamp – this Aristotle, to date the world’s greatest political scientist, had no significant place in the curriculum of Israel’s political science departments, hence in the studies of those who became, or were to become, Israel’s policy makers and decision makers! Heaven help us! Let me offer only a few simple words about Aristotle on whom I have written an entire treatise contrasting him with the leading thinkers of modernity.As is well known, Aristotle set forth a six-fold classification of regimes: three just and three unjust, depending on whether or not the rulers ruled in the interest of the common good. Kingship, aristocracy, and “polity” were included in the good. Their degenerate forms, tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy, were included in the bad.Although kingship, for Aristotle, is the best regime in theory, one almost never finds a people with enough wisdom and virtue to construct such a regime. Aristotle therefore devotes a good deal of space in his treatise to what he deems the best regime in practice, a “mixed regime,” which he calls a “polity.”  A polity, which I liken to a “Republic,” combines democracy, the rule of the poor (meaning, for Aristotle, those who have to work for a living), and oligarchy, the rule of the rich. However, our wise Aristotle weights his mixed regime somewhat toward democracy to ensure greater political stability and security. He thus prescribes a middle class regime that respects the rule of law to resolve disputes among its citizens and thus maximize justice.That Aristotle distinguishes between good and bad regimes is the basic reason why he is a virtual stranger to contemporary political science in the democratic world, including Israel and the United States, where the doctrine of moral relativism reigns supreme. This doctrine induces Israel, a democracy, to engage in the morally neutral policy of “conflict resolution” when dealing with the Palestinian Authority, a tyranny. Aristotle would say that this policy is morally perverse as well as politically futile, if not self-destructive.

But I know of no political scientist in Israel that would utter such a statement, and none should be expected given the moral relativism that underlies the teaching of political science in this country, as I have noted in books and many articles since 1976, both in English and in Hebrew translations, but which Israel newspapers have ignored, with one ephemeral and forgotten exception.

The exception was once reported, but never used to causally as well as logically explain the disastrous territorial policies of Israeli prime ministers, by the gifted editor and political analyst of The Jerusalem Post, Caroline B. Glick.  Come with me back to the year 2003 and see how the subversive doctrine of moral relativism was manifested by Israel students at Israeli universities.

Ms. Glick addressed some 150 political science students at Tel Aviv University, where she spoke of her experience as an embedded reporter with the U.S. Army’s Third Infantry Division during the Iraq war. Any person not corrupted by moral relativism would favor, as she did, the U.S. over the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein.  Yet the general attitude of her academic audience was expressed by a student who asked, “Who are you to make moral judgments?” Now ponder this exchange between Glick and a student who spoke with a heavy Russian accent:

Student: “How can you say that democracy is better than dictatorial rule?”

Glick: “Because it is better to be free than to be a slave.”

Student: “How can you support America when the U.S. is a totalitarian state?”

Glick:  “Did you learn that in Russia?”

Student: “No, here.”

Glick:  “Here at Tel Aviv University?”

Student:  “Yes, that is what my professors say.”

Ms. Glick spoke at five liberal Israeli universities. She learned that all are dominated by moral relativists who indoctrinate their students and ban “politically incorrect” publications.

Ms. Glick did not have to elaborate by saying that moral relativism is undermining Israel’s struggle or conflict with morally confident – nay arrogant – Muslims that rule the Palestinian Authority.  She could hardly be expected to anticipate the “two state solution” to this conflict, which Benjamin Netanyahu advocated on June 14, 2009, is a logical consequence of moral relativism.

Mr. Netanyahu is not a moral relativist, judging from a brief encounter I had with him some years ago. Nevertheless, he succumbed to the “two-state solution” advocated by the American State Department, whose officials, according to former US Ambassador to the UN John Bolton, are steeped in “moral equivalency,” the corollary of moral relativism. But this university-bred doctrine is one if not the basic reason why Jews can’t win against their Arab foes!