I need to say more about the fact that the New York Times Op-Ed page yesterday ran Robert Bernstein’s attack on Human Rights Watch, the org he once chaired, and his attempted nullification of the Goldstone report too, saying that you can’t trust witnesses to atrocities to report them honestly.
Do you remember the Haditha massacre in Iraq? In 2005, 24 Iraqi civilians were killed in Haditha by American soldiers. Several American soldiers were charged. The episode was investigated by the U.S. military. I guess many of the charges have been dropped, too, and there are allegations of coverup.
But imagine for one second that the Times Op-Ed page ran a piece justifying the killings. A piece about the killings being a just response to roadside bombings.
It would never happen. It just would never happen. But in Gaza there were many many massacres, and the Times runs a piece defending them.
And this is my central point about the U.S. and Israel: We American liberals hold ourselves to a higher standard in countless ways when you compare our conduct to Israels, and then we throw our own experience out the window! We–and I mean the NYT and its community–got rid of Jim Crow here; we support it there. We work for gay marriage here; we support a country that won’t let Palestinians and Israelis marry one another. We helped build a government in Iraq composed in part of former "terrorists" and funders of suicide terrorism because we recognized that suicide terrorism was an element of a sectarian dispute over territory and power. And we have condemned attacks on civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan/Pakistan too.
And then we set aside all these lessons when it comes to Israel/Palestine.
Imagine for one moment that the U.S. in attacks on Pakistani "targets" killed 300 children. Would the Times be running Op-Eds supporting that? Never. This is the strength of the Israel lobby in American culture.
P.S. The Times still tells most Jews how to think. Yesterday a family member of mine said to me on the phone, Did you see the Times Op-Ed page today? As if what I saw in Gaza meant nothing, and this man’s claims hold water because they’re in the Times.
Your point about American liberals holding themselves to a higher standard than they hold the Israelis to is an interesting one. It reminds me of a conversation near the end of Lars von Trier’s film Dogville, in which a man accuses his daughter of thinking that she’s better than other people. She denies it. He replies “Here’s the proof: You refuse to judge others by the same standards you apply to yourself.” It’s an interesting point. If I really believe that other people are as good as I am, why wouldn’t I expect them to live up to the same moral standards that I live by? On the other hand, if, deep down, I really think they’re a bunch of barbarians or animals, then it would be unfair to judge them by my own standards, wouldn’t it. So maybe this indulgent attitude towards Israel has an element of anti-Semitism in it.
Let me propose another scenario, one that runs deeper and explains why this would be essentially communicated –
“…you can’t trust witnesses to atrocities to report them honestly.”
Quite frankly it is that you are supposed to agree with the assumption (“you can’t trust [THESE] witnesses”), because “we know how those “others act.” I mean, who are you going to believe? Are you going to believe people who are “like you and me,” or are you going to believe these liars and savages? He does not come out on the carpet saying this blatantly, but he implies this deep current.
What is the deep current? That you cannot trust these people because of who they are, they are not trustworthy – even if their testimony reflects the evidence. I mean, we do not even trust them in regard to their own intellectuals, and certainly not their own version of history – they have no voice (of course, we cannot admit we give them no access to our media and literally silence them), we have to speak for them, we have to give you the “real scoop” on who they are, where they come from and what they have done. In the USA and elsewhere this is brought to the form of a skewed science, especially about those people we subvert, exploit, and invade.
We are all supposed to “know” (because of what we have been repeatedly fed, in regard to this population and others of this region and elsewhere) – they are totally other. They do not love their children like we do, do not have the same aspirations or goals, they are religious fanatics and Muslim antisemitic’s, they are a backwards people, and are not capable of communicating what “really happened.”
We have “ME experts” that tell us what is really going on, indeed, we have entire tomes which explain to us the “otherness” of these backward savages. I mean, you have to keep that Euro/American history together and central, we cannot trust them to tell their story. That is what – “…you can’t trust witnesses to atrocities to report them honestly,” really means – it plays upon an entire tradition about “those Palestinians – those Arabs (or anyone else that is not a freeze dried Euro-American).”
Here is Susan Rice, the US Ambassador to the UN: “It is outrageous that a respected institution like the United Nations provides a platform to spread lies and stories about Israel.”
The phone number of the US mission to the UN is 212-415-4062
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I think you are being cynically misrepresentative of Bernstein’s remarks in describing them as “But imagine for one second that the Times Op-Ed page ran a piece justifying the killings. A piece about the killings being a just response to roadside bombings.
It would never happen. It just would never happen. But in Gaza there were many many massacres, and the Times runs a piece defending them. ”
I didn’t read a single damn word of Bernstein stating that he supported massacre.
If anything, you describe your failure Phil.
After visiting Gaza, you still haven’t yet publicly and fully described your experiences there. You’ve only condemned those that don’t conclude what you derived from your experiences.
Put together a coherent book, a film, an article, something that lays out your experience, what you concluded from what you saw (including the limits of what you saw). This “you are my opponent” invocation, is getting thin and very insulting.
Why did you go to Gaza if not to gather and then share your OWN experiences. You should expect criticism of the limits of your basis of conclusions. You can address that anticipatorily by evaluating them beforehand and disclosing that there are limits to what you saw.
But, there is no denial THAT you saw.
And, use the word “I”, if that is what you mean. Don’t play silhouette.
Let others benefit from a trustable presentation, rather than just the partisan and incomplete and potentially manipulated.
The you-tube presentation that you made was convincing. Your honesty and your proportion and reasoning were conveyed. The attack on Bernstein was different than that.
The context of war IS of violence. To witness violence is to witness war. It does not yet indicate a conclusion. There is still, always, subsequent discussion required to get to what occurred, what it meant, and what is the appropriate response.
“Slop” PROHIBITS that discussion that enables individuals to internalize, to adopt, your experience.
This blog is not enough.
I didn’t read a single damn word of Bernstein stating that he supported massacre.
That’s because you’re a bloviating buffoon who only reads between the lines when your precious little nationalist identity is being affronted.
But here’s some the vile Zionist “slop” that dishonest Jewish supremacist Bernstein dumped on our heads:
“…Iran, which has openly declared its intention not just to destroy Israel but to murder Jews everywhere.”
“In Gaza… it is extremely difficult to make definitive judgments about war crimes.”
“…[the IDF] ‘did more to safeguard the rights of civilians in a combat zone than any other army in the history of warfare.’”
Only a moral degenerate would approvingly quote a British commander’s ridiculous assertion that bombing schools, businesses, and civilian infrastructure constitutes safeguarding the rights of civilians.
And only a complete Zionist tool would take issue with Phil’s characterization of Bernstein’s apologia for what it was.
I’m sure Phil feels sufficiently redeemed by your last comment.
And I’m sure you’ll be back tomorrow, chastizing Phil for something or other, while you turn a blind eye to the genocide happening right in front of your face. “Never again” extends how far outside the ancestral bloodline, exactly?
“I’m sure Phil feels sufficiently redeemed by your last comment.”
You earn comments like that, Witty, because you never respond to substantive points with substance. You’ve spent a couple of days defending a rather typical attack on a human rights organization for reporting some unpleasant truths about an American ally. Nothing surprising about this–it’s human nature to deny the atrocities committed by people we identify with. Orwell wrote a lot of essays about this. It’s a little stunning to see this coming from someone who specializes in sounding like some New Age guru, bloviating about peace and reconciliation on the one hand while attacking human rights groups and defending some of Israel’s atrocities on the other, but basically you’re just another ideologue shooting the messenger or circling the wagons, to use your own metaphors. You’re not fundamentally different from the Bush/Cheney supporters who were so upset that the US was being criticized for its torture policies.
Perhaps the mistake most of us have made is in taking you seriously. Your writing style is a virtual self-parody most of the time. It’s a shame there isn’t a serious liberal Zionist here to criticize Phil–it would probably do the blog some good to have someone challenging the general viewpoint around here. You don’t do that, not in any way that is intellectually challenging. As a troll, though, you’ve been immensely successful.
The horrible thing is that the NY Times ran a piece from the former head of a major human rights organization, someone claiming to be a human rights defender justifying the massacres as “self-defense” – and justifying a massacre is of course supporting it.
Leaving out the many lies (I can’t believe he’s just that ignorant) Bernstein told from start to finish, if self defense justifies attacks on civilians of course the rockets from Gaza are perfectly justified.
Witty obviously threatens something profound in the heart of the Philippinas. He makes a moderate statement and the response is “shut up Jew!!!!”
And yet again, the Israeli concept of being moderate shines through — that being that bombing urban neighborhoods — you know, where the civilians live! — indiscriminately, in Gaza and in Beirut, burning children with white phosphorous, leveling police stations and factories and farms, using people as human shields… that’s all the action of Israeli moderates after all.
I have some time constraints so I can only quickly add this.
I too was shocked by the Bernstein Op Ed when I read it yesterday. I am surprised it hasn’t been picked apart more here since it’s an easy target. I don’t know much about the man but it did call immediately into question, in my view, both his intellectual and moral integrity. No time to do to a point by point refutation on all the invidiously misleading claims and outright mistruths, but let this one example serve as an easy illustration.
Bernstein writes (or someone wrote for him):
“Human Rights Watch has lost critical perspective on a conflict in which Israel has been repeatedly attacked by Hamas and Hezbollah….These groups are supported by the government of Iran, which has openly declared its intention not just to destroy Israel but to murder Jews everywhere. This incitement to genocide is a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.” (Emphasis mine.)
“Murder Jews everywhere?” “Genocide? Can’t get much more inflammatory than that. But could this be true?
If it is the Iranian government’s intention to “murder Jews everywhere,” then why, one might ask, would they not start with some low laying fruit, such as the approximately 25,000 Jews who currently live in Iran? Just last February, here’s what Roger Cohen has to say about Iran’s Jewish population on these same NYT editorial pages:
“Perhaps I have a bias toward facts over words, but I say the reality of Iranian civility toward Jews tells us more about Iran — its sophistication and culture — than all the inflammatory rhetoric. That may be because I’m a Jew and have seldom been treated with such consistent warmth as in Iran. Or perhaps I was impressed that the fury over Gaza, trumpeted on posters and Iranian TV, never spilled over into insults or violence toward Jews. Or perhaps it’s because I’m convinced the “Mad Mullah” caricature of Iran and likening of any compromise with it to Munich 1938 — a position popular in some American Jewish circles — is misleading and dangerous.
As is usually typical, with such divergent points of view, the truth may most likely may rest somewhere in the middle. Iran is most certainly not without a degree of anti-Semitism, but so are many other countries. But wide spread, systematic murderous anti-Semitism? Sorry. There is nothing in the record to back that up.
But that probably does not matter to Bernstein, who appears to ascribe a greater allegiance to the cause of Zionism than to truth and human rights.
Bernstein reminds me of Horowitz, who was once a strong voice for truth until the koolaid rose to his brain cells.
One more quick thing: There were five letters in respone to Nernstein in today’s NYT. See link to nytimes.com
The most notable and praiseworthy, one by the current and past chairs of HRW who write:
“As recently as April, the full board of directors heard — and rejected — Mr. Bernstein’s proposal that Human Rights Watch should focus our research and reporting resources on closed societies. After careful consideration, we and other members of our board stressed that democracies, too, commit serious abuses, with the United States’ “war on terrorism” and Israel’s conduct in Gaza just the latest examples. We reaffirmed our conviction that it is essential to hold Israel to the same international human rights standards as other countries. To do otherwise would be a violation of our core principle that human rights are universal.”
And then ther’s one signed by Elie Wiesel and Alan Dershowitz that says….oh, I don’t even have to tell you. You already must know.
“Sorry Jew haters; you lose”?
Wait no, that was Harvard law professor and best-selling Holocaust author Haim Saban.
It would have been more honest if the NY Times had called Elie Wiesel and Alan Dershowitz, respectively, “noted anti-Palestinian agitator and well-known plagerizer”
A more relevant question to ask of Bernstein (if you bothered) would be “are you a supporter of J Street?”
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