Sunday's New York Times Book Review featured two reviews of Israeli authors, both commenting on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In one, Jeffery Goldberg reviewed Benny Morris's latest book on the one state and two state solutions, and the other was a celebration of Amos Oz by Liesl Schillinger. Although separate reviews, they complimented each other is presenting a biased narrative of the conflict.
First the Morris review. Perhaps it should come as no surprise that a review of a Benny Morris book is yet another chance for The Times to repeat his racist views towards Palestinians with barely a critique. That they would choose Jeffrey Goldberg of all people to review the book pretty much assured it would be a softball. Goldberg makes it clear that Morris views the conflict as "primarily
cultural, not political" and proceeds to not challenge his racist views of Palestinians culture. Goldberg shares Morris's shameful and laughable argument that Palestinian driving habits prove that they don't value human life, which in turn renders them unable to share a state with Jews. Instead of criticizing this racist point, Goldberg simply asks, "might the differences [between Jewish and Arab drivers] also be explained by higher rates of poverty among Arab Israelis?" Huh? In addition, Goldberg uses the review to regurgitate the "generous offer" canard yet again, and includes Morris's infamous claim that Israel should have gone farther in forcing Palestinians off the land during the Nakba. About this call for ethnic cleansing, Goldberg simply says Morris sometimes comes to "inflammatory conclusions."
When he's not letting Morris off the hook Goldberg even piles on a bit himself, referring to "the great dysfunction among the Palestinians" and refers to Hamas as "a cult that sanctifies murder-suicide." But all of this was to be expected, Goldberg is Netanyahu's stenographer after all. Actually, he didn't seem to devote much energy to the review and it really just falls flat, especially given the importance and urgency of the issues it discusses. I would have much preferred if Ali Abunimah or Anees of Jerusalem had been given a chance to review Morris's book. It would have no doubt been much more interesting and relevant.
Schillinger's review of Amos Oz provided an interesting, if unintentional, companion to Goldberg's review. Oz is routinely celebrated in the liberal American press as the great Israeli humanist, the conscious of a nation. Schillinger's review focused on Oz's insistence on "imagining the other" which Oz feels is the "antidote to fanaticism and hatred." He is presented both as a cosmopolitan author, and a kibbutznik pioneer. You can imagine he may feel out of sorts in Lieberman's Israel; he harkens back to the Israel liberals in the US used to love. It feels like the seemingly annual celebration of Oz in either the Times or New Yorker is perhaps meant to help liberals remember why they supported Israel in the first place.
It was hard to read the Oz review without thinking back to Morris and his belief that it is culture that separates Palestinians and Israelis. While Goldberg joins Morris in blaming the "Palestinian death cult" for their own predicament, Schillinger provides the illustration of the glorious, moral Israeli celebrating "the other." Schillinger makes Morris's point for him. It is the Israelis who are culturally superior and it is the Israelis who deserve our support. It seems to be a point that the Times has been trying to make to its US readership for a long time.
Adam, How was this post new in any way? What do you add up to conclude that Morris is racist? Racism has so many facets and criteria. By some criteria, Morris is anything but racist. By others he might be. By some criteria, I am racist. By other criteria, that is an absurd description. By some criteria, you harbor racist attitudes and behaviors. By other criteria, you are open-minded, loving, universally compassionate, a friend to all.
I assume the second criteria was noted by Ernst Zundel.
What "second criteria"? Why "Ernst Zundel"? What are you on about now, Berel? As for Amos Oz, I liked him up to "Black Box". I think after that he just ran out of things to say. It happens a lot to novelists.
RE: "Goldberg shares Morris's shameful and laughable argument that Palestinian driving habits prove that they don't value human life" MY COMMENT: Their driving can't possibly be any worse than the French and/or the Italians! And what about all the Americans who drive while 'text messaging'?
RE: "Goldberg simply asks, "might the differences [between Jewish and Arab drivers] also be explained by higher rates of poverty among Arab Israelis?" MY COMMENT: Duh!
RE: "Goldberg shares Morris's shameful and laughable argument that Palestinian driving habits prove that they don't value human life" NETANYAHU’S ÜBER RACIST FATHER: “The Bible finds no worse image than this of the man from the desert. And why? Because he has no respect for any law. Because in the desert he can do as he pleases.” – Benzion Netanyahu, 2009 interview SOURCE OF NETANYAHU'S FATHER'S WORDS – http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2009...
I guess one definition of 'racism' is judging individuals by what group they belong to. Phil and Adam do that all the time, regarding Jews, Israelis, settlers, the Orthodox and the wealthy. So do many other people, maybe most people. So I guess that makes us all racists to one extent or another. Do you see Phil going and visiting a "West Bank" settlement to learn what their views are?
Richard, Black is white by some criteria and black is black by other criteria. By some criteria, you are represent western, american values, by other criteria, regretably, you represent anything but.
The fundamental premise of the 'culture' argument is complete bunk. The conflict would be happening irrespective of the culture of the indigenous population. Extremist Zionists, i.e., those who buy into the ridiculous notion that they own the land because some folks from whom they claim ancestry lived there two thousand years ago, as opposed to the extremely reasonable notion of wanting somewhere safe to escape genocide, want the land that Palestinians are living on. They are taking it at gunpoint. Ten percent of Palestinians are Christian. They are getting ethnically cleansed, too. It's about land and water, not culture. The difference in culture merely makes it easier for extremist Zionists to dehumanize Palestinians to avoid having to face their consciences and to sell their narrative of 'Israeli = good, Arab = bad'.
I agree with Jacobwolfen. We uphold USA Americans values.
Yes. Hitler understood this approach very well. We have learned from our practical mentor. But we one-upped the Germans, who never were able to bilk the USA for their own purposes because the German diaspora were too Americanized- they had fought in the Revolutionary War, they comprised half of the Union Divisions at Gettysburg, and 1/3 of all USA troops who fought Hitler–even while thousands of German Americans were put in camps for nothing but being of ethnic German origin–a little known fact of USA history of the period, when a German American, General Ike, led the USA troops. Maybe Jewish Americans can learn something here?
Berel is just a straight racist/ethnic chauvinist; his mentor is A Hitler, with the out-group reversed. Hence he is an Israel Firster all the way–and so, of course, are all his sock puppets here, whom regular readers always recognize very quickly. He alternates between sexual fantasies about shiksas, including Phil's wife, direct personal attacks on commenters he knows nothing about, and selected hasbara points so obvious he is, in sum, a total joke, he and all his commenter handles. For you readers of this blog, here's a few of his handles: Jacobwolfen Chris Berel Sword of Gideon (SOG) bar_kochba132 See other recent comments on this blog under different threads referring to more of his handles.
A better question, Witty, is how is your comment here new in any way? Your theory of relativity here is really weak. Could David Duke get a book published by Yale U Press, even if it only contained the same amount of passages as Morris's book, those passages that read as if they came right of a NAZI textbook regarding the natural inferiority of Jews and their Kulture?
Observer, some of us consider ziocaine abuse and addiction to be a medical problem, and feel it's sufferers should be treated with compassion. After all, can you imagine the amount of vicarious suffering it takes to produce such obviously passive-aggressive character syndromes, and how screwed-up (in layman's terms) you gotta be to be proud of trying to pass this off as brutality? If life is better for Berel's wife or children or co-workers because he can relieve some of that pressure here, I begrudge him not his few column-inches. Besides, the world is always looking for a non-invasive emetic, and his comments sure prove effecacious.
lets go back and ask the people in the concentration camps how they viewed the genocide and what they think of the germans, funny that even the palestinians where building their own concentration camps now after so long,,,would the jews in camps be doing the same by now after sixty years of shell shock and genocide? Never mind the propaganda that the zionist controlled media used with cheering crowds to show that they where for the 911 attacks, when in Reality it was a much earlier event (which I have on tape) used to try and wedge more of the palestinians from the few westerners that see for themselves what is really happening and who is behind it. take away the media for the zionist and three branches of usa government, they have nothing, but then hollywood and all the technilogical advances hmmm. Makes you wonder why osama did not take credit for the 911 and the wanted posters do not even mention 911 for his dirty deeds
Witty, are you reducing to parodying yourself… "By some criteria" indeed… by some criteria i am the queen of sheba and the moon is made of cheese! Do you not think a person who advocates in favor of ethnic cleansing and bemoans that it wasn't carried out is ipso facto racist?
The colonial Zionist's cultural arrogance will be the primary cause behind their eventual disappearance from the pages of time…
The simple answer is that Morris' statement is not in any way racist. Perhaps it shows social or cultural prejudice, but it certainly is not racist. Racism carries with it the idea of inborn traits that are beyond the power of those who possess them to change. Morris, from the portion of his book that Phil and Adam quoted here, didn't say that. He explicitly talked about values, which are decidedly cultural.
I don't believe that "natural inferiority" of Arabs figured anywhere in the single statement by Benny Morris cited by Phil and Adam (or anywhere else in the book for that matter). Further, I don't know how you came to the conclusion that Morris' book reads like a Nazi textbook. Have you read it?
Funny how your great-great grandchildren will all be dust well before then.