We posted an anonymous report of Tzipi Livni’s speech at Harvard the other day. Our (Jewish) correspondent dilates:
Tablet did what amounts to a fawning interview with Livni the day after the speech (she presumably was informed that Ha’aretz went ahead & covered it). This is the key:
David Samuels of Tablet: But we have no connection to military life. When we see pictures from the war in Lebanon or Operation Cast Lead, we say, “This is wrong. Why should we support this? It’s terrible. This is not what Judaism in my synagogue was about. This is an army that’s killing people.”
Livni: I made a speech at Harvard, and someone asked me the same question. [Here, Livni’s handler states that the person who asked the question was also a Jew. Livni nods.] He said, “How can you speak about Jewish values when the Israeli army killed a thousand people in Gaza?” I said to him the following: “I don’t ask the world to turn a blind eye when Israel is attacking Gaza or Lebanon, and I’m willing to be judged by the entire world, as long as the world is judging us according to its own values…. When a terrorist is looking for a child to kill, on the lines at a discotheque, at a pizza parlor, on buses… etc. When an Israeli soldier in Gaza is trying to kill terrorists sometimes, by mistake, civilians are also killed.”
I expect the Jews to understand because they know that in Israel, these soldiers are our children. An Israeli soldier is raised on values of respecting human life…
My friend–the “person who asked the question above”–is IN NO WAY A JEW. That nodding… That assumption again…. And on the part of the handler no less. It speaks volumes.
