After it ran the op-ed article by Steven Levitsky and Glen Weyl calling for a boycott of Israel, the Washington Post published a piece titled, “If you love Israel, don’t boycott it,” by Elliott Abrams, which blamed the Palestinians for the conflict: “The fundamental problem is the widespread Palestinian rejection not of Israeli settlements but of the existence of the state of Israel.” Mr. Maher Massis, PhD, director of advocacy at the Coalition of Palestinian American Organizations, then submitted the following letter to the Post on October 28. The newspaper has not published the letter, though it has published six letters on the original article in its print editions. “It is not hard to miss that not one Palestinian voice was published, either in print or online,” says Dorgham Abusalim, who passed along Massis’s letter. “Palestine is part and parcel of this conversation, and I remain baffled at how many mainstream outlets dismiss Palestinian views.” –Editor.
A foolish pseudo-intellectual cherry-picks history?
We read with interest “We are lifelong Zionists. Here’s why we’ve chosen to boycott Israel,” published on October 23 by Steven Levitsky and Glen Weyl, and the ensuing reaction by Elliot Abrams.
It is typical of Abrams to quickly dismiss the argument of Levitsky and Weyl, or any argument that proposes a reasonable and fair conversation about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for that matter. The problem at hand is not about what the “lifelong Zionists” expressed — they are indeed entitled to their own opinion. Rather, it is Abrams’ failure to bring forward a moral case against the conscientious decisions of well-informed Jews, and numerous others, around the globe. It is then unsurprising that Abrams’ placated such turpitude with a deliberate effort to shift the blame, and place it squarely on Palestine, using a diatribe of recycled talking points that bear no credibility or a sophisticated understanding of Palestinian history.
Abrams conveniently neglects basic facts. For instance, the role of Jewish militias Lehi and Irgun who wrecked havoc and terror against Palestinians and carried out the Deir Yassin Massacre in 1948. Incidentally, records reveal that these terrorist groups committed hundreds of attacks throughout Mandatory Palestine against Palestinians in an effort to forcefully displace them. Many members later became part of modern Israel’s military and political elite. Another fact: Palestine’s fair share of difficult compromises such as the historic recognition of Israel in 1988. And, last but not least, the continued Israeli occupation across the land, including Gaza, the West Bank, and East Jerusalem.
It is foolishly ironic that Abrams demands candid conversation while he is involved in biased congressional hearings that incite against Palestine, without the slightest hint of willingness to accommodate the Palestinian perspective. Needless to say, he too must candidly come to terms with himself and to know whether he stands on the right side of history. After all, his track record does not exactly lend authoritative credibility to his views.
“In 1935, anti-semitic laws in Nazi Germany were introduced known as the Nuremberg Laws, the laws forbid non-Aryans and political opponents of the Nazis from the civil-service and any sexual relations and marriage between people classified as “Aryan” and “non-Aryan” (Jews, Gypsies, blacks) was prohibited as Rassenschande or “race defilement”.[22] The Nuremberg Laws were based on notions of racial purity and sought to preserve the Aryan race, who were at the top of the Nazi racial hierarchy and were said to be the ubermenschen “herrenvolk” (master race),[23] and to teach the German nation to view the Jews as subhumans.[24]”.
All the zionist propagandists are coming out of the woodwork and shilling for the Apartheid regime in the so called Greater Israel.It is hard not to recognise that much of what they are doing , mirrors the behaviour and reasoning of the Nazi propagandists.
IE, “The Nuremberg Laws were based on notions of racial purity and sought to preserve the Aryan race”.
Sound familiar.
Abrams is on a roll, has been since 1967. It is foolish to expect him to change course. Just as it is foolish to expect the winners of Israel’s recent elections to change their course. they’re all on a roll! Such fun! Winners all!
Their project is working just fine, no problems: They’ve got akll of Palestine, One-State, Greater Israel, Now and Forever, Undivided (like Jerusalem!), ruled by apartheid, and — gott sei dank — most of the world calls apartheid by some anodyne name (“apartheid” is such an unpleasant word, don’t you think, my dear?).
Abrams has been saying stuff like this for years. No surprise there. One wonders why WaPo published the pro-BDS essay. That is indeed a wonder. But Abrams is part of the USA’s Zionist wall-paper.
those eyebrows! yikes!
Didn’t Abrams try to cover up the Mozote massacre?
“One Abrams specialty was massacre denial. During a Nightline appearance in 1985, he was asked about reports that the US-funded Salvadoran military had slaughtered civilians at two sites the previous summer. Abrams maintained that no such events had occurred. And had the US Embassy and the State Department conducted an investigation? “My memory,” he said, “is that we did, but I don’t want to swear to it, because I’d have to go back and look at the cables.” But there had been no State Department inquiry; Abrams, in his lawyerly fashion, was being disingenuous. Three years earlier, when two American journalists reported that an elite, US-trained military unit had massacred hundreds of villagers in El Mozote, Abrams told Congress that the story was commie propaganda, as he fought for more US aid to El Salvador’s military. The massacre, as has since been confirmed, was real. And in 1993 after a UN truth commission, which examined 22,000 atrocities that occurred during the twelve-year civil war in El Salvador, attributed 85 percent of the abuses to the Reagan-assisted right-wing military and its death-squad allies, Abrams declared, “The Administration’s record on El Salvador is one of fabulous achievement.” Tell that to the survivors of El Mozote.” (David Corn in Mother Jones Dec 6. 2012)
He and the Israeli government deserve one another.
Such eye brows, such,crooked mouth.