Commenter Profile

Total number of comments: 2 (since 2010-05-04 23:14:33)

Michael Lame

Showing comments 2 - 1
Page:

  • Big brave Charney Bromberg says... it's apartheid
    • Michael Lame May 5, 2010 at 9:06 pm with 3 replies

      Philip, even the very best ideas in history – democracy, civil liberties, justice, or whatever you prefer – can be and have been abused. Robespierre was committed to justice. I can imagine someone looking at the headless bodies at the foot of a guillotine and proclaiming, much as you did: “Frankly, I don’t know how anyone can believe in Justice when you see that.” And chopping off a head in the name of justice is not a “one-off” (forgive the pun). Excess seems to go with the territory of belief in a vision, whether that vision is Justice or Zionism or Palestinian Nationalism.

      Zionism is not like the soviet system. It is not monolithic. The rampaging settlers do not present The Face of Zionism. They present a face – one of many, though admittedly an ugly face. Every noble ideal, every decent philosophy has an ugly face. That we see the ugliness, even that the ugliness is repeated over and over, does not, of itself, mean that the ugliness is the only face.

      I am not a Zionist, so let me end by quoting a self-proclaimed Zionist who clearly opposes settler excesses. After participating in a Palestinian-Israeli demonstration at Sheikh Jarrah last month, Yossi Sarid wrote:

      Even "Zionism" is starting to be considered an ideological deviance because many not so good people take its name in vain, and despicable acts are committed in its name. We are not part of them. . .
      And I also do not plan to forgo Zionism. I define myself by myself and not by my enemies. . . The Israeli left is by and large Zionist, and those who have abandoned it are a mere handful. Anyone who is still struggling for an end to the occupation of the areas of Palestine and the Golan Heights, for a withdrawal to the borders of 1967 and for the division of Jerusalem into two capitals is my ally.

      link to haaretz.co.il

    • Michael Lame May 5, 2010 at 1:51 pm with 4 replies

      You wrote that "In Hebron, he saw the young settler girls attacking Palestinian women -- I saw videos of the same there-- and now he's bearing witness. Frankly, I don't know how anyone can believe in Zionism as a living ideology when you see that."

      Let me get this straight: one instance of supposed Zionists ("young settler girls") mistreating Palestinians invalidates Zionism as an ideology. Really? If a socialist mistreats someone, does that invalidate socialism? Of course not.

      There have always been many streams of Zionism, often in conflict with one another. The misdeeds of a revisionist Zionist do not invalidate labor Zionism. They don't even necessarily invalidate revisionist Zionism! One should distinguish between an ideology and the actions of some misguided, dimwitted, or malicious followers of that ideology.

      Your inductive reasoning is fallacious. Your gratuitous slam of Zionism is unwarranted.

Showing comments 2 - 1
Page:

Comments are closed.