What can you expect of an article in the Jewish Week titled, "Times’ Cohen Getting Under Our Skin." The enlightened Times columnist gave editor and publisher Gary Rosenblatt an interview at his office at the New York Times, and said that Gaza had transformed his view of the Middle East (Iraq did it for us here).
Irritated, Rosenblatt wanted to make sure Cohen is Jewish. So before the drubbing at the end of the article (too late!), there is a lot of Jewish identity stuff. Who is getting bar mitzvah'd in Cohen's family, etc.
The best part is Cohen on Israel–"what he describes as a willful ignorance among Israelis of their reality and responsibility." The new mantra is dignity and "humiliation" (Obama used that word in Cairo). Jewish Week:
"The
great operative word" among Palestinians now is "humiliation," Cohen
said. "Whether or not it’s desired, that’s the effect. And it’s not
good for the Palestinians, the Israelis or the Jewish soul."…
"Israel is a strange place," he said, "a miracle" in creating a successful, wealthy society in six decades, but also "a paradox" because "the unhappy fact about Israel is you can be lulled by it, you can think you’re living on the coast of California but of course you’re not."Israel has fallen short," he says, seeing itself as the underdog and victim in the Middle East when, in his eyes, it is the dominant power with an obligation toward those living under its rule.
"No degree of suffering gives you an eternal passport to ride roughshod over another people," he said.
"Israel has won. Who’s the loser? What scrap of dignity is the Palestinian people going to salvage from all this? They’re not going away, and Israel needs to deal with that reality."
This is important. Israel has no idea what is going on in the territories. Roane Carey, the Nation magazine editor who lived in Israel for the last three months, explained this to me in Gaza; and I observed it for myself when I visited Israel, three years back. Willful ignorance. Makes Jews here all the more responsible.
