Gideon Levy replies to the open letter from A.B. Yehoshua. It is a dignified response. He doesn't mention the most shocking detail of Yehoshua's letter–the conceit that "proportionality" should take into account the sea of millions of Arabs in back of the dead in Gaza, whereas there are no Jews behind the Jews of Israel. (Yehoshua: "On the face of it, one could answer you cynically by
saying that when there will be two hundred million Jews in the Middle
East it will be permissible to think in moral terms about comparing the
number of victims on each side. But that is, of course, a debased
argument.")
And here is Uri Avnery, pursuing the idea that it is possible for whole communities and public bodies to be seized with fits of insanity–and that this is what has happened to Israel. He speaks frankly, as no American commentator has, about the astonishing, open, reiterated explanation of the war by Israelis as a necessary proof of their Spartan manliness and tonic infusion of self-confidence after the humiliation of the fight with Hezbollah in 2006. Bad luck for the people of Gaza that Gaza 2009 was really about Lebanon 2006.
Avnery says he believes the Gaza assault did not factor in the coming of Obama; that the date of his inauguration was an unforeseen obstacle to the war makers– rather than that the war aimed to discipline him and to push his administration into a corner as early as possible. Maybe Avnery believes this wishfully; as we all should try to.
[This post plagiarized from a well-read friend]
