Today is Israel’s memorial day, and the New York Times has published a long piece glorifying Israeli military service, focused on a soldier killed on the first day of the October 1973 war or Yom Kippur war, after whom many other Israelis have named their children, 23 in all.
The piece has to be read to be believed. It is written by Jodi Rudoren in an elegaic style. The lead:
She had but one son, and he died childless at 21. Yet that boy spawned a generation.
There is this poetic bit about the small, young country Gil’ad died for:
The mourning is intimate: In a small and young country, everyone seems to have a connection to one or more of the 23,320 fighters whom Israel counts as fallen since 1860 in the conflicts that have framed its modern existence.
The writing is drenched in sympathetic identification with its subjects:
Gil’ad’s mother, a retired teacher of children with learning disabilities and soldiers with head wounds, is 88 now. Her legs are frozen by neuropathy, so she uses a motorized scooter. Her fingers fumble with the buttons of her blouse, or to pull the black-and-white photos of her boy from a plastic sleeve.
There he is at 4, in New York, adorable in a hat, cradling a baseball; at 13, with tanned arms, playing a piano on the ship bound for Israel; not long before the war, all tousled hair and dimpled smile.
Shouldn’t the 23,320 fighters number be scrutinized? Shouldn’t the nature of service in the Israeli army be problematized– Palestinians overwhelmingly do not serve. What about the brave shministim, who refuse to serve, and all the kids who become mental cases so they don’t have to serve and the others who decompensate for serving the occupation by going to India for six months and smoking dope.
No; the article is straight out of Hasbara Central– though never forget that Jim Clancy lost his job at CNN for using the word hasbara— and it is a triple sop, to NYT readers who love Israel, to NYT editors who are determined to please the lobby, and to Israeli authorities (some of whom turned Rudoren down for an interview with the Prime Minister last month; “Mr. Netanyahu’s office did not respond to interview requests from The New York Times in the days leading up to Tuesday’s election or on Wednesday or Thursday. In addition to appearing on MSNBC and NPR, he was on Fox News on Thursday…” Maybe they will change their minds.)
Sure enough, Israeli army spox Lt Colonel Peter Lerner tweeted the piece:
What’s in a name? One #IDF Soldier, 23 Namesakes and a Day of Remembrance
And Gil’ad died defending occupied territory. The piece never tells you this. Scott Roth says:
When Egypt crossed the Suez and attacked, they didn’t attack Israel. They attacked occupied territory.
Ali Abunimah raises the obvious double standard here:
Hard to imagine @rudoren writing such a panegyric to a Palestinian or Lebanese resistance fighter.
Or honoring a Palestinian holiday, say Land Day.
I encourage anyone who has any doubt at all about how Rudoren feels about Israel to read this piece. As Phil and James say, it has to be read to be believed.
Israel is getting desperate.Movie moguls planning propaganda movies.Israel firsters (congress critters ) trying to wreck a deal put together by all the worlds anti semites in Europe/China/Russia etc.Israel giving scholarship money to hasbara recruits.Canada,s leader pushing penalties for those daring to avail of their right to free speech.
Never have so few worked so hard to convince so many that war crimes and land theft are the sole right of Jews to carry out.
“Jim Clancy lost his job at CNN for using the word hasbara–”
Indiana Bakery and then rest of Indiana faced boycott for refusing to make cake for the Homosexual couple.
Its Bizarro world!
It all flows from how you identify your community, to which you owe sacrifice.
On a happy note, no Palestinians died. Ever.