The Opinionator blog at the NY Times has defended the newspaper's hasbara tagteam of Goldberg and Friedman (when you want even more diversity, you get to read Bill Kristol) by singling out a post here that attacked the pair and calling me the winner of "the vitriol award." We love the attention, but I didn't write it. Adam Horowitz did. (A, Get your facts straight.)
Adam is one of the most fairminded people I've ever met, and mildmannered. His passion on this issue reflects the fact that this is a great crisis for the Jewish spirit and for the fate of Israel and Palestine, and the Times has run mostly pap on its opinion page, including Goldberg's warmed-over ooga booga stuff about Hamas, thereby giving Americans very little sense of the true crisis. The reality is that many reliable voices, from Mearsheimer to Chomsky to Robert Simon to Yitzhak Laor to Tariq Ali, are telling us that the 2-state solution is dead. If so, it means that the hope many people had of bringing an end to the violence is further away. The Palestinians are likely to suffer far more in days to come than the Israelis. This has happened thru American indifference to Israeli expansion and brutality. If "vitriol" is a way of sniggering at criticism of massacres, vitriol your guts out, we will not go away.
Also, I'd note that we've repeatedly criticized the Times here in the last few days. Lately for suppressing stringer Taghreed El-Khodary's views and for the fact, which I have made too little of, that the two reporters in the Times Jerusalem bureau, Ethan Bronner and Isabel Kershner, are both married to Israelis. And I think they're both Jewish. Is that an appropriate degree of distance, for the most important newspaper in the world, from a foreign society that is up to its ankles in blood? Of course not. (See, Herbert L. Matthews.)
I would also note that the Times has announced a readers' dialogue with El-Khodary on Monday. This is great news. I applaud the Times for setting this up, and look forward to El-Khodary sharing her unique perspective with Americans. This is a crisis. We need all the help we can get!
If "vitriol" is a way of blackballing criticism of massacres, vitriol your guts out, we will not go away.
Superb.
BTW, watching "We Are One" on HBO, and the thought occurred to me: "How's that hate working out for you, Israel?"
If Ethan Bronner and Isabel Kershner, are both married to Israelis. doesn't that give them the rights of Israeli citizenship?
Your Abe Foxman letter is in the post.
I'd like to know exactly what TheOpinionator found so "leftist" in the Horowitz piece.
(More divide and conquer.)
I didn't see a reference to Mondoweiss in anything that I've read in the Times.
A link perhaps?
What are you talking about?
I found it.
The URL is:
http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch?query=vitriol+award&srchst=cse
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1056208.html
Sarkozy at Gaza summit: Sole solution to peace is no rockets, IDF out of Gaza
By News Agencies
Tags: Israel News, Hamas, IDF, Gaza
European and Arab leaders racing to consolidate a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas pressed Sunday for an end to weapons smuggling into Gaza and for the opening of the territory to desperately needed humanitarian aid.
The summit at the Egyptian resort of Sharm el-Sheik was jointly chaired by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and his Egyptian counterpart Hosni Mubarak. It was held amid separate truce declarations by both Israel and Hamas.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1056633.html
Sarkozy: EU would never harm Israel's security
By Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondent
Tags: israel, hamas, gaza
Visiting French President Nicolas Sarkozy vowed Sunday that the European Union would never harm the security of Israel.
Speaking in Jerusalem alongside other European leaders, Sarkozy praised the cease-fire in Gaza and called on Israel to withdraw all of its troops from the Gaza Strip as soon as possible.
At the start of the Jerusalem meeting, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said that Israel has no intention of staying in the Gaza Strip or reconquering it, despite its three-week offensive on the Hamas-ruled coastal territory.
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Sarkozy and the leaders of Germany, Britain, Spain, Italy and the Czech Republic met with Israeli officials on Sunday evening, after a day of talks on the Gaza truce, at the Egyptian resort town of Sharm el-Sheikh.
In Jerusalem, Sarkozy also said that France would be willing to provide monitors to prevent arms smuggling into Gaza and supply technology to help locate smuggling tunnels.
Unless you honestly believe that the EU will change that position, or that there will be mass social revolution overthrowing the EU and the component states, then the logic of Hamas will be rejected.
Only a prospect of MUTUAL acceptance will change the status of Gazan Palestinians.
Violent militancy will make their status worse. Assertiveness will improve it, but NOT at the point of a gun.
I won't get too excited by El-Khodary's reader dialogue until I see the results. I suspect she feels some pressure to be "balanced"–that is, to pull her punches regarding what Israel has done. Hopefully I'm wrong.
"…mass social revolution overthrowing the EU and the component states …"
Why is this necessary? Weak as they are, the EU is comprised of democracies. A 'mass social revolution' need only highlight genuine and obvious dual-loyalty and toss a few political parties out on their collective asses ONCE. This assessment also includes the United States. It may take 50 years for it to happen. So what? Israel is not a viable state without our support, despite kneejerk protestations to the contrary by the willfully, or truly, ignorant. How long do Zionists plan on it being around?
The ball is in the Zionist side of the court. You (plural) decide to fight a bitter rearguard action for 50 years and you'll end up with nothing. And after all that time, with its inevitable litany of atrocities, betrayals, subversion, etc, etc, etc, how much sympathy will be left?
You are tossing the dice trying to get anything but snake-eyes. If you are successful, get ready to roll next year, and the next, and the next … Sooner or later you are going to see the dreaded double-dots. I, and many other Americans, would rather see Israel survive and prosper, but not at the expense of our country. How lucky do you feel?
"Sarkozy at Gaza summit: Sole solution to peace is no rockets, IDF out of Gaza"
Sarkozy is a fool, and he is not the only one. There will be no peaceful solution that does include resolution of colonization and occupation. I used to think that nobody was truly stupid enough to think otherwise, but I was wrong. Sarkozy is a fool.
err, "… does include …" should be "… does not include …"
The NYT opinionator publicity is positive–for whatever reason, they feel that they can't just ignore it. But it's also interesting how they don't link. I think the reasons are obvious–loss of control over the narrative if access to the original.
Colin,
Odd equation, "not at the expense of "our country"".
The term "colonization and occupation" are horrible criteria for their imprecision and radically different usage by different people (and sometimes by the same people at different times).
I don't see ANY path by which Israel will relax its "colonization" of Gaza absent complete cessation of shelling from Gaza.
Palestinians have a horrible lot. Other Arab communities refuse to absorb them, alternately out of "solidarity" and contempt. Similarly for Islamic states like Iran, that care about Palestine only to preserve the unbroken Islamic waqf, but don't give a shit about Palestinians' actual welfare.
Israel regards them as in the way, post-Zionists accepting them as part of the way.
Even dissenters don't really care about Palestine. They care about where it fits into their ideology or psychology. "I told you so".
One distinction that I see among dissenters is the extent that they describe their experience as "it pains me to see" (rationally indicating a motivation of compassion), compared to "this proves that Israelis/Jews are demons".
Israel Advocacy Organizations Change Tactics mentions Samuel Freedman, who is apparently a Zionist gatekeeper and facilitator at the NY Times.
The AJC Attacks! refers to an amazing NY Times Islamophobic article by Edward Rothstein.
Concerns raised about potentially fraudulent "Citizens Group" in Boston follows up the first item and chronicles the new class of non-Jewish Zionist gatekeeper and facilitators among Christians.
Here is an example of thought control at the times: Reading List: The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict.
That's amazing, Joachim. Of eight authors, six are Jewish, including four Israelis and a professional lobbyist.
The whole gamut of Middle East perspectives from alpha to beta.
Someone in the comments section suggested Joan Peters's fraud, 'From Time Immemorial'.
That's the state we're living in. This is disgusting. How can people be so profoundly stupid and ignorant?
Odd equation, "not at the expense of "our country" –> I, and many other Americans, would rather see Israel survive and prosper, but not at the expense of our country.
I am not sure what you are thinking I meant. It occurs to me that you may have thought that I was excluding Jews from the initial 'our'. I was not. American Jews, by which I mean citizens, who see themselves as American are American. I cannot know what is truly in anyone else's head, and I am certain there are those that do not (OPT colonists), but I have never gotten the slightest impression from any American Jew that I have personally met that they did not see themselves as Americans. Do the circles I run in predispose my experience to bias? Am I being naive? Perhaps, but many Americans have dual identities. They are not the same thing as dual loyalties.
*************************************************
I meant the sentence to be taken literally. My choice of words may have been poor. I am trying to be clinical, not condescending, in what follows. I make this explicit because I know it is often hard to tell without the context of tone of voice and facial expressions.
'At the expense of our country' is an idiom meaning 'to the detriment of our country'. "Our" refers to me, and the many other Americans who would rather see Israel survive and prosper, but not if it causes harm or damage to America. I do not address either implicitly or explicitly the other two groups who make up the set of 'Americans', those who would rather not see Israel survive and prosper, and those who would like to see Israel survive and prosper, and are willing for the United States to suffer harm or damage for it do to so.
I guess what is implicit, and therefore unclear, is how I define 'harm or damage'. I mean for them in this context to refer to that which is involuntarily suffered and which endurance of is not necessary to ensure America's security. Endurance of suffering either to defend ourselves or to voluntarily defend others is completely different. Perhaps I use the idiom imprecisely and attach to it an unwarranted connotation of involuntariness.
Where does Chomsky say that the two-state solution is dead? To my knowledge his position is the contrary: that a two-state settlement represents the only realistic possibility for ending the conflict in the foreseeable future.
Colin, thanks for the clarification. We knew what you meant–it's only pretend Americans like Witty who pretend they didn't, or still don't, the ones who wake up every day giving thanks to being apart
from the rest of the human race, who wear invisible Gott Mit Uns belt buckles–and no pants. We are not supposed to notice; it's rude to point it out.
"…Violent militancy will make their status worse."
You sound a bit preachy (and imperious) today, Richard.
Why don't you accept the fact that Hamas is entitled to arm itself as best it can to try and protect itself from Israel's predations.
What would you do in their precarious position?
No matter what Hamas do, Israel will always have overwhelming military superiority.
It will always be a case of shooting fish in a barrel.
All that guff from Sarkozy about international monitors in Egypt to prevent "smuggling" is just a lot of hot air.
The Egyptians said they reject any such suggestions.
They wouldn't need the tunnels if Israel lifted its illegal blockade of Gaza.
Gaza is nothing less than a concentration camp (ref. Cardinal Martino).
Pride comes before a fall.
Its still an odd equation, a brainwashed equation frankly.
There are other ways to approach the conflicts that derive a more humane conclusion than opposition to Jewish self-governance.
No matter what Hamas do, Israel will always have overwhelming military superiority.
It will always be a case of shooting fish in a barrel.
That's like saying in 1940 that Nazi Germany would always have military superiority, no matter what the Warsaw Ghetto people did. In a sense true but also way too simplistic from a historical perspective.
And in many senses tiny Israel, extremely dependent on foreign complacency and funding, is much weaker than Nazi Germany.
History is not something static or lineal. There was already a western "Kingdom of Jerusalem" some 1000 years ago that behaved much as Israel does today and it was short-lived anyhow. Israel is just too dependent on the West but: (1) Western global hegemony is about to end, probably, and (2) Western support for Israel is seriously under question.
It's good to see that the comments section at the Opionator blog seem to recognize the narrowness of the Goldberg/Friedman/NYT perspective. They're getting beaten up pretty badly.
Is it really fair to criticise Bronner and Kershner for being married to Israelis and possibly being Jewish themselves? I'd have thought it sufficient to criticise their work. There are plenty of Jews who report much more dispassionately, even among those who live in Israel and are indeed themselves Israeli Jews.
Ernie, no one is criticizing anyone for being married to Israelis or for being Jewish. The criticism is of the NYT, our newspaper of record, for giving Americans only a single, highly particular perspective on a subject that has many sides.
We wouln't stand for coverage from Islamist reporters only, so why Jewists only?
And no matter who Sulzberger choses (and no one is denying it's his choice), the paper has the journalistic responsibility to at least inform its readers what personal relationships the reporters may have to the topics under examination.
Sorry about the delay getting back to you, Phil. And sorry if I misinterpreted what you said.
Anyway, as I understand it, you are criticising the NYT effectively for not disclosing the vested interests of their Jerusalem correspondents. I don’t know what a ‘Jewist’ is, but I think I have a pretty fair idea of what a Zionist is. What’s objectionable about their reporting is not their ethnic background or their choice of mates, but their Zionist perspective. I don’t suspect you, much less myself, of harbouring a Zionist agenda or an uncritical approach to Israel just because we’re Jews. Nor would I suspect anyone of denying the Armenian genocide just because they’re married to a Turk.
I suppose the Times ought in good conscience to disclose their correspondents’ prejudices, but for one thing, such a perspective is so ubiquitous in the mainstream media that it’s really below the radar and I think it’s unrealistic to expect the Times even to notice. And for another, it’s so in your face in every report that it hardly requires separate disclosure.
For the record, both Bronner and Kershner are Jewish, both are married to Israelis and Kershner is an Israeli citizen.