This kind: Helena Cobban is on the Board of Directors of Human Rights Watch’s Middle East and North Africa Division. In a recent blog post, she took exception to the Weekly Standard’s Michael Goldfarb criticizing her because “she likes to compare Israel to Hamas.” (H/T: Richard Landes)
Cobban was offended not because Goldfarb was wrong, but because in her opinion any rational person knows that Israel is comparable to (or perhaps, judging by her tone, worse than) Hamas:
So here’s the thing that Michael Goldfarb and people of his ilk really don’t seem to understand: For the vast majority of the people on God’s earth today, Palestinians are just as fully human as Jewish people, and just as deserving as Jewish people of our compassion and our understanding.
(She later suggests that Gaza’s Hamasistan dictatorship is just as “democratic” as Israel.)
And who are Michael Goldfarb’s “ilk”? Jews who support Israel and/or criticize Human Rights Watch (you tell me if the following individuals have anything else in common)!
But the Michael Goldfarbs, the Norman Podhoretz’s, the Alan Dershowitz’s, and Robert Bernsteins of this world truly don’t get this. They truly think there is something so “special” about Jewish people and their experience in the world that somehow the [sic] (and especially the allegedly “Jewish” state, Israel) deserve to be given a free pass on the application of any neutral standards of behavior, such as would be applied to anyone else.
So there you have it. Among other Jews, Robert Bernstein, the founder, longtime president, and now critic of Human Rights Watch is not merely mistaken when he accuses HRW of anti-Israel bias, he is mistaken because he thinks Jews should be held to different, lower standards than everyone else because he thinks Jews are “so ‘special.’” Damn Jews just think they are better than everyone else, and should be exempt from the moral standards that the civilized Christian (Cobban is a Quaker) world adheres to. We’ve heard such sentiments before, but not generally from “human rights activists.” [And as for her bizarre reference to the “allegedly ‘Jewish’ state, Israel,” Noah Pollak notes that “her writing is so sloppy that it’s impossible to discern what specific slander she has in mind.”]
And, in case there was any doubt, Cobban of course fails to link to any statement by any of the individuals she names suggesting that Israel should “be given a free pass on the application of any neutral standards of behavior, such as would be applied to anyone else.” (She does link to R. Bernstein’s op-ed on HRW, but that op-ed doesn’t say anything remotely resembling Cobban’s “interpretation.”) The reason, of course, is that none of these people have said such things, nor is there any reason, beyond the ugly sentiments implicit in Cobban’s post, that they believe that.
If Human Rights Watch was a decent organization, it would ask for Cobban’s immediate resignation from its board. But it isn’t, and it won’t.
UPDATE: Not surprisingly, Cobban’s post attracted much more blatant and overt anti-Semitic comments, such as “There is some sort of weird Jewish psychological issue ... The Inner (Screeching) Jew Incarnated may help elucidate the behavior of Goldfarb and his ilk.” When some other commenters objected, Cobban responded, “Yes we do have some anti-Israeli statements here that are stronger than usual.”
Engineer says:
If HRW was a decent organization, it would ask for Cobban’s immediate resignation from its board. But it isn’t, and it won’t.
Not only that, but there will be no voices on the left that express discomfort with Cobban’s statement. Remember that Yglesias also took a cheap shot at Bernstein, implying that the Jewish Lobby had somehow got to him.
Ironically, Cobban is apparently the one responsible for the suspension of Marc Garlasco for his Reichware-collecting enthusiasms.
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November 2, 2009, 8:56 amYankev says:
The link to Noah Pollak does not take one to Noah Pollak; it leads to Helena Cobban’s piece. But the comments to that piece are priceless in themselves. The commenters point out that Israel has no right to exist, that Zionism is the greatest evil in the world, and that the US for its own protection must find a way to keep people like Mr. Goldfarb from participating in politics. There are also several posts from the inimitable and execrable Mr. Martillo of the “Ethnic Asheknazim Against Zionism” web site, spewing his usual crackpot theories, including mass psychosis among Jews caused by persecution in Europe, which in turn was the European reaction to “European Ashkenazim” engaging in wide spread criminality and white slavery in the 1830’s, supposedly (in Martillo’s view) because they could not deal with industrialization and emancipation. Caution — wear thick gloves and high boots before tackling the comments at Cobban’s site.
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November 2, 2009, 9:05 amQuantum Mechanic says:
Ought to be interesting to see how disgusting, war-criminal defending, HRC toadies like KJ Heller over at Opinio Juris try to excuse this.
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November 2, 2009, 9:19 amDaniel says:
What’s to excuse? David Bernstein’s string of ad hominem and non sequiter arguments doesn’t prove a damn thing. Her comments are somehow anti-semetic because she’s making them as a Christian? That’s patent nonsense.
DB: You are a lawyer. Argue the merits, not the man. And when you argue the merits, actually argue them. Don’t just pepper your screed with quotes that actually seem to stand on their own, and then assume that you’ve exposed her radical anti-semetic and anti-Israel agenda. (And, for that matter, either prove to me how they’re the same or don’t treat them as the same; but don’t for the Love of G-d assume that they’re the same and proceed forward without even revealing your important assumption.)
That being said, I haven’t read a polemic as bad as Cobban’s since I read Bernstein’s criticism of it.
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November 2, 2009, 9:36 amDavid Bernstein says:
Daniel, since you claim, despite your obnoxious post, to want to get to the “meat” of the matter, would you care to explain
(a) how comparing Israel (if anything, unfavorably) to Hamas, isn’t pretty good evidence that Cobban is anti-Israel?
(b) why accusing Jewish critics of HRW of thinking that Jews are “so special” that they should be held to different standards than everyone else isn’t an anti-Semitic sentiment? (Note that people can express anti-Semitic sentiments without being “anti-Semites,” they may just be prejudiced against Jews, or may just hate Israel so much that they will use any weapon in their arsenal to attack its defenders).
And I certainly never said that her statements were anti-Semitic because she was expressing them as a Christian. I suggested that her statements were reminiscent of classic anti-Jewish sentiments that were once prevalent in the Western/Christian world, especially among some rather unsavory elements.
And I wish commenters would understand what “ad hominem” means.
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November 2, 2009, 9:45 amTamerlane says:
Interestingly, and perhaps apropos in this case, the anti-semitism of George Fox.
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November 2, 2009, 10:03 amKevin Jon Heller (not really) says:
Ought to be interesting to see how disgusting, war-criminal defending, HRC toadies like KJ Heller over at Opinio Juris try to excuse this.
Sigh, every trip over here is like stepping into a cesspool.
I’m just here to say that I agree w/ Helena Cobban that international laws must be applied equally to all nations and that I think that stance should be and is uncontroversial. Bernstein’s postings are often dishonest, but I’m quite surprised to see that this view of Helena’s is controversial among his commenters.
And if you disagree with Helena’s contention that Alan Dershowitz etc. are partial to the Israeli side that’s your prerogative also, but that doesn’t make her anti-semitic.
Just to let you know, if anyone bothers to respond to this posting, the most you will get out of me is a “Shorter so-and-so: (straw man)”- type drive-by.
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November 2, 2009, 10:06 amDangerMouse says:
For the vast majority of the people on God’s earth today, Palestinians are just as fully human as Jewish people, and just as deserving as Jewish people of our compassion and our understanding.
Frankly, it’s amazing that anyone thinks that the Palestinians are deserving of our understanding, let alone compassion. I won’t forget their cheering of the 9/11 attacks. The Palestinians are the scum of the earth.
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November 2, 2009, 10:14 amyankee says:
Talk about straw men! Who here has said any such thing? Not David B. and not any of the commenters.
I disagree with David B.‘s pro-Israeli hyper-partisanship and am no fan of his Israel posts for that reason. This time, however, he has a point. The passage where Cobban accuses Jewish critics of her position of thinking Jews are “so special” is straight-up anti-Semitism.
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November 2, 2009, 10:17 amKevin Jon Heller (not really) says:
Whoa...
I’m not KJH
I’m a parody
Though that was clear.
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November 2, 2009, 10:18 amThe Unbeliever says:
I’d like to know why DB himself was not included in Cobban’s ilk list.
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November 2, 2009, 10:20 amyankee says:
Nothing like a dose of racist collectivism to start the week!
Accordingly, I retract my statement that none of the commenters argued against a neutral application of human rights.
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November 2, 2009, 10:22 amDavid Bernstein says:
DangerMouse, Yankee is right, tone it down or I’ll have to delete your comments.
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November 2, 2009, 10:29 amJames T. Carrington says:
I feel like the whole left vs right wing debate becomes more interesting when you connect the extremes together in regards to the anti-Semitic froth that is created. A circle of sorts is created, where Cobban’s commenters and Freepers can almost cut and paste into each thread.
Whereas I see many starting-from-the-center discussions eventually invoke Godwin’s law, but then when I see a discussion on a far-left or right site begin to evolve, some sort of Jewish-driven conspiracy or plot is inevitably invoked as a result, no matter what the subject may be.
There is a worthy pathology case study to be found in the data somewhere!
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November 2, 2009, 10:34 amRichard Riley says:
David, as someone who is on your side in the Israel/HRW controversy, I don’t see what you gain by the passing sneer in your post at the “Christian” world that you claim Cobban is associating herself with. Actually, Cobban’s post says not a word about her own faith tradition. So where did that shot come from?
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November 2, 2009, 10:39 amrarango says:
I love the smell of a good DB attack on HRW in the morning!
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November 2, 2009, 10:42 amThe Watcher says:
I really don’t care much about either side over there. I think a lot of America’s troubles in the middle east and with terror here at home are because we support Israel.
I also think the reason we support Israel is because there are so many Jews in powerful government, academic, and media positions here that demand that support for Israel even at the cost of America getting harmed.
As far as being mean to each other, Israel uses arty, air strikes, and killdozers, Palestinians use cheap rockets and human bombs. That’s a tie for me.
As far as harming America directly, Palestinians cheered when 9/11 happened and encourage Muslim terror strikes on us, Israel spies on America and then sells our information to our enemies for advantage. Again, a wash.
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November 2, 2009, 10:51 amDavid Bernstein says:
Richard,
There is a lot of vituperative anti-Israel hatred coming from the “Christian Left” in the U.S., and it, like Cobban’s post, it occasionally suggests a descent from some quite traditional anti-Jewish notions common to many Christian sects, focusing on Jews’ stubborness in maintaining their claim to a covenant with God (which they inaccurately think makes Jews think they are the “so special” Chosen People) after Jesus’s appearance on earth should have taught them better. Richard Landes explains the phenomenon in detail. It manifests itself on the Christian Left as “we believe in universalism and bringing God’s love to all people, and the Jews criticize us for attacking Israel only because they are so parochial, e.g., don’t realize unlike us good liberal Christians that “the Palestinians are just as fully human as Jewish people, and just as deserving as Jewish people of our compassion and our understanding.” (Not that Cobban shows any compassion or understanding to Jewish people in her post.)
I suppose Cobban’s post is just as offensive either way, though.
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November 2, 2009, 10:54 amDangerMouse says:
Yankee, I didn’t say anything about the racial makeup of the Palestinians, although admittedly it could be construed that way. I’ll clarify. Palestinian culture is seriously evil. It glorifies murder of innocent people, and adores death. Many, many Palestinians are enslaved to this from their early youth, corrupting them into extremists. Children there play with guns as a Western kid would play with trucks. Additionally, Palestinian culture is seeped in victimology. It’s better to be a victim there than to actually accomplish something, anything, of real value (and in that culture, real value means murdering innocent Jews) I’m really having trouble finding anything of value in their society: culural, scientific, intellectual, or spiritual. Perhaps you can inform me of the worthy world-shaking endeavors they have undertaken in any of those areas.
Obviously, the Palestinians should abandon their wreched culture and adopt a Western-influenced one. It’s worked wonders for other cultures, like the Japanese.
And more obviously, if there are Palestinians who have rejected that culture, they should be viewed as role-models (although unfortunately, they probably wouldn’t survive very long).
It’s a little easy to throw around the “racism” word. I just think their culture is abyssmal and that their self-enslavement to it is particularly pathetic.
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November 2, 2009, 10:57 amRowerinVA says:
Could you please explain where Mr. Bernstein has been dishonest; in other words, where he has written something that is demonstrably untrue as a matter of fact, and that he knew or had good reason to know was untrue as of the date he wrote it.
If, instead, you mean merely that you think his opinions are “dishonest,” can you please admit that’s what you mean, and explain what it would mean for an opinion to be “dishonest.”
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November 2, 2009, 10:59 amAnderson says:
For the vast majority of the people on God’s earth today, Palestinians are just as fully human as Jewish people, and just as deserving as Jewish people of our compassion and our understanding.
I’m sorry; I don’t understand which part of this statement the post disagrees with.
Could DB or someone else please point out the error in this statement?
[EDITOR: You’re only quoting part of the paragraph. Your missing the part that suggests that Goldfarb and “his ilk” think that Palestinians are not fully human, etc., which Cobban later explain is a result of them thinking that Jews are “so special”]
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November 2, 2009, 11:02 amFake Kevin Jon Heller says:
RowerinVA, that post is a parody. Hence the “(not really)” afterward.
“Anderson” on the other hand is not a parody and is actually responding as if someone disagreed with Cobban’s anodyne statement that he quotes.
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November 2, 2009, 11:03 amnotnow says:
David–I am a little confused. You quote Cobban’s statement that “Palestinians are just as fully human as Jewish people, and just as deserving as Jewish people of our compassion and our understanding” as though it is something one should be outraged by. To me it seems true to the point of banality. Do you really find it objectionable?
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November 2, 2009, 11:03 amDaniel says:
David,
I think the onus is on you here to explain how it is such evidence: I see no prima facie reason to suggest that making a supposedly factual comparison, which can be proved and disproved through reasoned debate and experiment, is grounds for the charge of anti-semtisim. Facts are neither anti-semetic nor philo-semetic. Whether it’s a fact, of course, is up for discussion. So discuss it, David. Don’t say that the author is engaging in anti-semetic behavior for saying it. That is pure ‘argument against the man.’
I don’t give a damn whether it’s anti-semetic, and neither should you. We should care about whether it’s true, and our first response should be to argue against it or for it on the merits. What does it say about you that your first response is to accuse the writer of anti-semtisim, rather than to conjure up evidence to the contrary? And, for that matter, is it indicative of any sort of bias against a given party to a debate to say that both parties should be treated with equal consideration?
I believe your exact characterization of her words was: “Damn Jews just think they are better than everyone else, and should be exempt from the moral standards that the civilized Christian (Cobban is a Quaker) world adheres to.” My Ctrl+C might be broken, but it looks to me like you are pretty directly assigning her purported anti-semitism to a sense of moral superiority that she gets from being a Christian.
It means ‘argument against the man.’ Since your argument was against her anti-semitism, and not against her actual claims, it is a textbook case.
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November 2, 2009, 11:04 amDavid Bernstein says:
(1) You what ad hominem literally means, but you don’t know what is meant by “ad hominem” argument.
(2) I didn’t say supporting Hamas over Israel is anti-Semitic, I said it was anti-Israel.
(3) If you care whether Cobban’s “so special” statement is true, you should care whether she presented any evidence for it, which she didn’t. Instead, you’re asking me to prove a negative.
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November 2, 2009, 11:07 amAultimer says:
Fox’s religion/views are less similar to modern Quakerism than pre-1960 Universalism and Unitarianism are to modern UUism.
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November 2, 2009, 11:08 amDavid Bernstein says:
What’s objectionable is that she seems to think that the reason that certain Jews objection to HRW, Goldstone, etc., is that unlike just about everyone else in the world, these Jews’ [“Goldfarb and his ilk”] don’t think that “Palestinians are just as fully human as Jewish people,” because they instead think that Jews are “so special.”
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November 2, 2009, 11:10 amBored Lawyer says:
neutral standards of behavior, such as would be applied to anyone else
This is the most audacious and absurd part of her rant.
Everyone knows that the “standards” being applied to Israel are applied to no one else in the world, and certainly not to Israel’s neighbors.
I’d like to see any country tolerate 8000 rockets being shot into its territory and then, when the govt. in charge of the source territory refuses to do anything about it, not respond with massive force.
In the 1980s, the Syrian government leveled an entire town (Hama) and wiped out 10,000 people in something like a weekend. That’s 10 times the number killed in the entire Israeli operation in Gaza. I somehow missed the Human Rights reports (let alone UN debates) about that.
(Yes, I know that some excuse that as a mere “domestic” matter. That excuse just proves that there is no concern for HUMAN rights — one can do whatever one wants to human rights within one’s borders.)
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November 2, 2009, 11:22 amAbdul Abulbul Amir says:
Are you forgetting the vast improvements made to the construction and effectiveness of the suicide bomb vest? Or perhaps the inovative training of toddlers on up to seek to wear and use such vests? Don’t forget the launching of explosive missles toward school yards.
Then there is the commitment to marriage.
Then there are the early training for youth programs in ways to seek peace.
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November 2, 2009, 11:31 amKevin says:
Bored Lawyer:
Perhaps that’s because Israel (a stable and advanced state), with it’s massively more advanced military, inflicts roughly 10 times as many casualties on the Palestinians than Hamas/Hezbollah (it’s a stretch to call Palestine an organized State) inflict on Israel. Source #1 — - — Source #2
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November 2, 2009, 11:35 amneurodoc says:
And Cobban is not alone. There are “progressives,” including Jews like Richard Silverstein, who blogs as “Tikun Olam,” to defend Cobban against her critics. When, for example, Michael Goldfarb of The Weekly Standard pointed out that Cobban maintained there was no difference between Israel targeting Hamas terrorists for assassination before they could kill Israeli civilians and Hamas killing Israeli civilians, Silverstein called Goldfarb a “liar” and wrote the following:
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2009/10/22/goldfarb-liar-liar-pants-on-fire/#comments
Goldfarb’s analogy is “blatantly false” in Silverstein’s eyes, dead on in mine.
And in addition to what Professor Bernstein has said and explained about the “Christian” angle, I would call attention to the Quaker one. Some of her supporters, like Silverstein, suggest that because Cobban is a Quaker, and thus from a pacificist tradition, she is somehow more virtuous or credible. Also, Quakers (American Friends Service) are one of the “peace churches” and have leaned pro-Palestinian over the years.
Yes, Cobban is wonderfully (and repugnantly) illustrative of many of Israel’s “progressive” critics. If you think Israel trying to kill Hamas terrorist is no different from Hamas trying to kill any Israelis, men, women or children, they can manage; and you see no difference between those who flew those suicide missions on 9/11 and those Americans who are trying to kill Islamic terrorists; then Cobban and her fellow-travelers are your kind.
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November 2, 2009, 11:38 amKevin says:
Abdul Abulbul Amir says:
Nice try. According to Sky News:
Source and Source#2
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November 2, 2009, 11:41 amneurodoc says:
Professor Bernstein, your first point was made in a previous thread a number of times over and quite well in response to just the same sort of nonsense that Daniel is serving up again here. By responding to Daniel, you are encouraging him to return time and again with his silly attempts to knock down the “professor’s” logic. I’m sure you wouldn’t waste much time with such a fool in the classroom, and you ought not do so here.
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November 2, 2009, 11:52 amAnderson says:
You’re only quoting part of the paragraph. Your missing the part that suggests that Goldfarb and “his ilk” think that Palestinians are not fully human, etc., which Cobban later explain is a result of them thinking that Jews are “so special”
Ah, so that was the offensive part.
The question, then, is whether or not the people she identifies hold the belief which she attributes to them. Do they?
(Of course, “ilk” is a confrontational word which serves her poorly.)
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November 2, 2009, 11:52 amBored Lawyer says:
Kevin, I was actually referring to the other organized states, not the Palestinians.
You cite the ratio as though it somehow proves something sinister about Israel or the IDF. The fact is that the missles were launched from Gaza, and were often stationed in or near civilian areas. The blame for casualties is on those who set up that situation in the first place, not those who put a stop to it. Otherwise, you are providing immunity to terrorists who set up shop in civilian neighborhoods.
And, BTW, have you considered running the same ratio as to the U.S. invasion of Iraq? UN operations in Bosnia in the later 1990s? Try it, you will be unpleasantly surprised.
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November 2, 2009, 11:58 amDavid Bernstein says:
Given that she has made the charge, I’d say the burden of proof is on her to produce the evidence, especially given that the charge itself is reminiscent of age-old prejudices.
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November 2, 2009, 12:00 pmJMA says:
“Israel [...] inflicts roughly 10 times as many casualties on the Palestinians [as they] inflict on Israel.”
Kevin: so you’re saying that, in order to be a good guy, you have to be a loser?
Thanks for clarifying.
Also, Bored: Kevin said nothing of civilian casualties (which I do appreciate, actually, Kevin).
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November 2, 2009, 12:02 pmBored Lawyer says:
Also, Bored: Kevin said nothing of civilian casualties (which I do appreciate, actually, Kevin).
If that is the case, I owe Kevin both an apology and a criticism.
Apology because I thought he was including civilian casualties.
Criticism because, if you are only focusing on combatants (they are not uniformed solders, after all) what provision in the law of warfare requires a warring state to kill only a certain number of combatants relative to its own dead soldiers? Has anyone ever done such a ratio analysis in any other war? What’s the equiavalent ratio in, say, the U.S. invasion of Iraq?
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November 2, 2009, 12:11 pmneurodoc says:
Anderson, which do you prefer, “guilty until proven innocent” or “innocent until proven guilty”? If the former, then please tell us how you think those individuals should go about proving themselves innocent of Cobban’s ugly, and arguably antisemitic charge that they think Jews are “special,” so what is not permissible to others is permissible to them? If the latter, did you see Cobband adduce any proof that would point to their guilt, that is that they hold the sorts of beliefs Cobban and her “ilk” impute to them? Or do you yourself have any such proof to bring forward?
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November 2, 2009, 12:12 pmEngineer says:
Given that she has made the charge, I’d say the burden of proof is on her to produce the evidence, especially given that the charge itself is reminiscent of age-old prejudices
Don’t you get it ... when the topic was Marc Garlasco, the burden of proof (for Anderson and most of the left, though not for Cobban) was on the critics to uncontrovertibly demonstrate that his Naziware and Opa-the-gunner affectations influenced his analytical judgement.
But when the topic is Robert Bernstein, the burden of proof is on him to show that his calls for fairnesss aren’t actually a manifestation of a deep-seated pathological Jewishness.
That’s the way the left works. Obama, HRW, J-street ... always have the assumption of virtue if not perfection.
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November 2, 2009, 12:16 pmAnderson says:
ugly, and arguably antisemitic charge that they think Jews are “special”
I’m sorry — are you reading a different Tanakh than mine?
Modern Jews are under no compulsion to endorse everything said in the Tanakh, but I fail to see how ascribing a self-estimation as “special” to the Jews can remotely be described as “anti-Semitic.”
As for Cobban’s burden of proof, I agree that she needs to adduce support; she may deal so frequently with these issues that she considers her statement self-evident, but the rest of us could use some illustrations.
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November 2, 2009, 12:19 pmEngineer says:
I’m sorry — are you reading a different Tanakh than mine?
So Anderson thinks that Tanakh and also normative contemporary Jews endorse the doctrine that ....
“Jewish people and their experience in the world that somehow the [sic] (and especially the allegedly “Jewish” state, Israel) deserve to be given a free pass on the application of any neutral standards of behavior, such as would be applied to anyone else.”
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November 2, 2009, 12:26 pmEngineer says:
As for Cobban’s burden of proof, I agree that she needs to adduce support; she may deal so frequently with these issues that she considers her statement self-evident, but the rest of us could use some illustrations.
So you think that it would be nice for her try to prove that HRW founder Bernstein is a cruel racist ... but not really important since you give her the benefit of the doubt enough to assume that she just forgot to mention how she knows this.
See my comments above about the left and their self-assigned halos.
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November 2, 2009, 12:31 pmAnderson says:
Engineer, that’s not what I wrote; try reading my comment again.
For that matter, it’s not even what Cobban wrote. As the syntactic garble of your quotation indicates, you have omitted the key words: the particular people she names, and persons like them (which obviously in this context cannot be stretched to “Jews in general” — Matt Yglesias, anyone?), are the ones who supposedly believe that Jews and Israel are exempt from common standards of justice.
... I’m not sure what to make of “their allegedly ‘Jewish’ state, Israel,” though it seems to mean that she thinks Israel actually fails to live up to what she would consider more truly Jewish standards of justice and ethics. I’m not sure in what other sense she could mean to imply that Israel is not, of all things, “Jewish.”
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November 2, 2009, 12:33 pmBored Lawyer says:
Echo Engineer. The “specialness” being alluded to here is not that stated in the Tanakh (that the Jewish nation are selected by the Almighty to be a holy nation and bring all the nations of the world to a recognition of the one true God) but rather “specialness” in terms of exemption from the normal laws of war and humanity, with licesnse to treat the enemy as sub-human.
The notion that Jews (or even some Jews) consider non-Jews sub-human IS anti-semitic. That is more or less what Cobban said.
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November 2, 2009, 12:34 pmAnderson says:
So you think that it would be nice for her try to prove that HRW founder Bernstein is a cruel racist ... but not really important since you give her the benefit of the doubt enough to assume that she just forgot to mention how she knows this.
Is it that difficult to criticize people for what they say, instead of what you pretend they say? Perhaps this “discussion” activity isn’t really your forte?
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November 2, 2009, 12:36 pmAnderson says:
but rather “specialness” in terms of exemption from the normal laws of war and humanity, with licesnse to treat the enemy as sub-human
... And you *really* think there is no evidence of such behavior in the Tanakh? Come now, sir. Have you read the book?
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November 2, 2009, 12:38 pmEngineer says:
... And you *really* think there is no evidence of such behavior in the Tanakh? Come now, sir. Have you read the book?
So there you have it. For Anderson (like Cobban) Joshua exterminated the Canaanites, therefore it’s not unreasonable to think that HRW founder Robert Bernstein might believe that Israel has license to do that to the Palestinians. In other words the question is whether Bernstein is a “good jew” like Yglesias or a bad jew like many others.
Welcome to the contemporary left.
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November 2, 2009, 12:43 pmMark Buehner says:
In about the same sense that Britains troubles on the continent came from supporting Poland I suppose. The rest of the muslim world is more than upfront telling the world that their problem with what is happening to the Palestinians is symbolic, not physical. The way fellow Arabs have treated Palestinians refugees is proof enough of that. If Israel wasn’t available as a sufficient symbol of Muslim angst at their diminished role in the world, another symbol would be easily forthcoming. Perhaps Spain, as Bin Ladin suggested.
Ah, the waft of antisemitism that inevitably seeps through. Were someone to suggest we supply aid to an African nation because our president is black, they wouldn’t be welcome in polite company. But the age old slur against the Jewish Cabal is always welcome.
Israel targets people that are shooting at them. Palestinians go out of their way to target women and children. If you don’t see that difference I don’t know what to tell you. Hamas would level Tel Aviv if they had the capacity. Israel could level the Gaza strip (a lot more easily than bothering with all the targetted strikes), but they have chosen not to. Again, I’m sure that flies right over your head.
Might as well round it out with another blood libel I suppose. The only thing you forgot was baking childrens blood.
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November 2, 2009, 12:47 pmBored Lawyer says:
Probably more than you.
The short answer to your question is: NO. What is set forth in Tanakh treats one’s enemy mercilessly because he is an enemy, not sub-human. It has nothing to do with the Jewish people’s status as the Holy nation. If you want to say that war in ancient times was harsher than today, that’s one thing. There are plenty of sources for that besides Tanakh — the Romans were hardly models of humane treatment in war.
Cobban is claiming something else: that Jews (or some Jews) feel they are special and can therefore their enemies as sub-human. That you will be hard pressed to prove a source for in traditional Jewish texts.
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November 2, 2009, 12:50 pmneurodoc says:
I think it can be understood to mean that Cobban wishes for a so-called “binational” state, something about as fanciful as unicorns, rather than two separate nations; and/or she is protesting Netanyahu’s insistence that the Palestinians acknowledge that Israel exists as a Jewish state.
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November 2, 2009, 12:55 pmMark Buehner says:
Funny that every state in the region (including Iraq) are avowed Islamic states, but that’s not a problem.
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November 2, 2009, 1:06 pmYankev says:
It’s also nothing remotely like DB’s argument. But why are people who spout or — in Daniel’s case — defend anti-semitic drivel almost uniformly incapable of spelling anti-semitic? Fear that someone will accuse them of being a right wing ultra-orthograph fanatic?
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November 2, 2009, 1:41 pmYankev says:
What’s amazing to me is that the so-called human rights community refuses to see that Israel has displayed a good deal more concern for the life, health, safety and well being of the Palestinians than the Palestinian leadership does, to say nothing of the numerous Arab and Muslim countries who use them as a pawn in their power politics and a stick with which to beat Israel. It wasn’t Israel that kept them in camps for 19 years, or who uses them as human shields and human bombs. It was Israel who saw to it that hospitals and schools were built in the captured territories, and who insisted on free universal public education, and who greatly increased the educational level, health care, literacy rates and standard of living among the Arab population it suddenly inherited in 1967. These gains steadily increased until the beginning of the first intifada. Being a Palestinian in Israel is certainly no picnic, but much of that is due to being a hostile enemy population that refuses to make peace.
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November 2, 2009, 1:48 pmYankev says:
I am reminded of a line or two from Mask of Zorro.
Soldier at guardpost “But we thought your hands were tied.”
One of the Murietta brothers (I forget which) “That is because you are an idiot.”
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November 2, 2009, 1:52 pmneurodoc says:
Are you suggesting that Daniel, the orthographically challenged “logician,” is incapable of correctly stating someone else’s argument before trying to rebut it? Careful, Yankev, that may be seen as ad hominem by him.
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November 2, 2009, 1:59 pmYankev says:
The part where she says that Israel’s defenders disagree with the vast majority of people on earth on these points, and consider Palestinians less than fully human and less worthy of compassion than Jews.
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November 2, 2009, 2:10 pmYankev says:
Anderson, if you are reading your Tanakh accurately, you know that it imposes special obligations on Jews as a result of the covenant between them and G-d; it does not say that Jews are exempt from moral standards. To claim that it does is to buy into an anti-semitic canard popularized over two millennia by the church, and beloved today of such fair-minded and accurate theologians as James Earl Carter.
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November 2, 2009, 2:18 pmAbdul Abulbul Amir says:
Kev,
Here is a link to the AP photo and caption. If there is deception, I was deceived.
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November 2, 2009, 2:20 pmYankev says:
Well, he denied being antisemetic but did not say a thing about whether he is anti-semitic.
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November 2, 2009, 2:21 pmYankev says:
By the way, Cobban also quotes her own earlier post:
Here I will give her credit where it is due; Hamas’ charter suggests that its main goal is not the violent expulsion of all Jewish people from Israel/Palestine, but rather the extermination of Jewish people everywhere. Or is this not what Ms. Cobban was referring to?
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November 2, 2009, 2:27 pmCynic says:
They truly think there is something so “special” about Jewish people and their experience in the world ...
Of course Jews must feel that there is something special about themselves when they and Israel are held to double standards as their experience in the world at the hands of the other earthlings shows.
When levels of behaviour not attainable normally by the other are demanded of the Jew then the Jew must be special.
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November 2, 2009, 2:35 pmsoccer dad says:
I have been following Cobban for quite some time. This past January she enthusiastically shook hands with and (favorably) interviewed Khaled Meshal in Syria. (In contrast when she learned that Thomas Friedman — a Peace Now type — had lectured Israeli generals, she was offended, declaring that Friedman was no longer fit to write op-eds for the New York Times.)
She also took the word of a Syrian official who claimed that Jews were well treated in Syria. She has been promoting Donald Bostrom’s blood libel.
For these reasons an more she was recently appointed Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest (CNI). Here’s a nice backgrounder on CNI. If before Cobban was a freelance antisemite; now she’s an institutional one, fronting an organization that is rabidly anti-Israel (and, thus, antisemitic). These are people who deride supporters of Israel as supporting Israal, “right or wrong” when they themselves, believe, “Israel always wrong.”
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November 2, 2009, 2:46 pmAnderson says:
I think it can be understood to mean that Cobban wishes for a so-called “binational” state, something about as fanciful as unicorns, rather than two separate nations; and/or she is protesting Netanyahu’s insistence that the Palestinians acknowledge that Israel exists as a Jewish state.
Ah, that does make sense as well, probably more sense. Thanks!
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November 2, 2009, 5:17 pmThe Watcher says:
What? Pointing out that Israel has spied on America and sells our secrets for gain is blood libel? When they are currently pushing as hard as they can to have an American government employee spy released so that he can live a life of reward for his treason, over in the country that awarded him citizenship? Am I warming up the ovens or pointing out a fact? Must be both.
Dude, I am German-American, and I love beer and brats, but I also admit when they do stuff wrong –and I admit that the east, where my family came from, is all kinds of screwed up. I freely admit they loved kissing commie butt and they built building and infrastructure that was worse than bad.
By the same token, when someone points out a fact about your family’s ‘old country’, and the fact is true, yelling “racist” isn’t really helping your argument.
Like I said, I am not in love with either side over there. I do like truth, though.
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November 2, 2009, 5:21 pmMark Buehner says:
I don’t doubt Israel has spied on America (and vice-versa). That they have sold our secrets to our enemy for profit– there-in lies the blood libel. Care to prove it?
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November 2, 2009, 5:39 pmAnderson says:
People make unfounded accusations about other countries all the time.
That doesn’t make an unfounded accusation about Israel a “blood libel,” and saying otherwise indicates that the speaker hopes to win on rhetorical tricks, not on the merits.
This refusal to consider the merits — and to dismiss anything like the Goldstone Report on ad hominem grounds, rather than refute it on its merits — does not inspire confidence in those wondering which side’s in the right. Frankly, it’s the kind of tactic I would expect more from the supporters of Hamas et al. than from supporters of a Western-style democracy under the rule of law.
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November 2, 2009, 6:00 pmMark Buehner says:
Well– obviously there is an element of hyperbole here, but in the context of the ‘Jewish Cabal’ in Washington, and the selling of our secrets to enemies in wartimes, i’d say it isn’t overspeaking much.
Of course the overt enemies including Hamas literally proclaim a blood libel all the time. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion are a hot ticket in the middle east to this day, so lets not pretend Israel isn’t the subject of outrageous lies the world over.
What merits? All I saw were accusations.
Oh, the same report that Goldstone himself initially rejected because it was intended to search out solely Israeli warcrimes? Gee, who could think that kind of infrastructure might be geared against Israel from the get-go? Hey Israel– when did you stop beating your wife?
And considering what you seem to expect from Hamas, considering they are the elected leaders of Gaza, why are you holding them to a different standard at all?
A better question is why should anyone take the UNs treatment of Israel seriously to begin with? How many resolutions have been passed condemning Israel, compared to say, ANYONE ELSE IN THE WORLD? Rwanda, the Balkans, Grozni, Tibet, Sudan, Somalia... name me an embattled region that has received the scrutiny Israel has and then we can talk about fair and balanced.
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November 2, 2009, 6:16 pmYankev says:
Correct. It makes it an ordinary libel, or at best an unsubstantiated and irresponsible accusation.
What planet are you on? The Goldstone report has been refuted on its merits (or lack thereof) by numerous people at numerous web sites and publications. Among the documented defects in the report are the commission’s refusal to consider testimony from those affected by the Hamas rocket attacks, its refusal to consider Israel’s operation in the context of a continuing campaign of terror attacks, the uncritical acceptance of absurd claims from witnesses known to have a history of making false and absured charges, its distortion of international law and standards, its having been stacked with members hostile to Israel’s very existence, and the participation of “judges” who announced the verdict shortly after the commission was named and before any evidence had been received.
You might have noticed there are a few lawyers around here, and any of them will tell you that defects of this type will invalidate the findings of any tribunal. Anyone who claims that the Goldstone report was rejected on ad hominem grounds and not refuted on its merits casts severe doubt on his grasp of those terms.
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November 2, 2009, 8:41 pmYankev says:
Anderson can tell you the answer to that one — it was obviously just after Israel stopped selling US state secrets.
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November 2, 2009, 8:43 pmTGGP says:
Robert Bernstein did not claim Israel was unique, he said it was a liberal democracy and should be given credit for that. His position would apply just as much to the U.S, Canada or Europe (except for Belarus, I guess).
HAMAS claims that the legal age of marriage is 15 and in the picture linked the little girls are actually relatives rather than brides.
http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.printable&pageId=106002
HAMAS opposed raising the legal age of marriage from 15:
http://www.advocacynet.org/resource/783
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November 2, 2009, 11:17 pmRicardo says:
Not really. Lebanon, Syria, Turkey and the North African countries (especially Tunisia) are not “avowed Islamic states.”
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November 3, 2009, 4:42 amCynic says:
Maybe not avowed in your terms, but surely de facto in terms of the Arab League?
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November 3, 2009, 8:02 amneurodoc says:
Of course, you are right. Technically, Iran is the only state in that region to declare itself as the “Islamic Republic of Iran,” though Saudi Arabia amounts to a de facto Islamic state save perhaps for the rule of a hereditary monarchy, but does that really detract much if any from the place of Islam there? If Mark Buehner had made a less categoric assertion about the place of Islam in that region how far off the mark would he have been?
Lebanon, a multi-confessional (without Jews) state, might be the biggest exception, but Christians have been leaving it with the result that it is becoming an ever more Muslim state, one in which a very Islamic party (Hezbollah) rivals the central government in power and can take the country to war, as it has done. Turkey is an “avowedly” secular state, but the fear is that it won’t remain so as the current government empowers Islam against the wishes of many. In Syria, the Assads have never allowed any rivals to their power, but I don’t think that can be seen as a denigration of Islam’s place in that country. As for the other Arab (Turkey, of course, non-Arab, like Iran) countries in the region, I don’t know the “official” role of Islam in each, but is there any in which Islam doesn’t effectively eclipse whatever other religions might exist there? Is there any in which non-Muslim communities flourish, or at least don’t experience serious threats from their Muslim neighbors? Not much fun to be a Copt in Egypt, and the Christian population in the Middle East is dwindling. (Most of those countries were made effectively judenrein more than 50 years ago, Turkey and Morocco notable exceptions. Yemen will be soon.) Not much religious pluralism in those parts outside of Israel.
So, if Mark Buehner was reacting to Helena Cobban’s sneering “allegedly ‘Jewish’ state, Israel,” then I think what he is saying is understandable, though perhaps overly broad. Why should the notion of a “Jewish” state with religious minorities within it be unacceptable in the eyes of Cobban and her ilk, when they seem to have no problem with the special status Islam enjoys in the neighboring states.
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November 3, 2009, 8:06 amneurodoc says:
Professor Bernstein asked at the outset, “What Kind of People Affiliate with Human Rights Watch’s Middle East Division?,” and answered Helena Cobban. He might have also asked, “What Kind of People are attracted to J Street”?, and answered Helena Cobban. As Mark Landes notes, Ms. Cobban was one of the decidedly not “pro-Israel” blogger panel at the recent J Street conference. Granted, her status as an advisory board member links her more closely to HRW then her appearance at the inaugral J Street event links her to J Street, and J Street sought to deny any connectedness to the bloggers,* but still I think it telling about J Street that Ms. Cobban and those bloggers, e.g., Richard Silverstein (Tikun Olam) and Phil Weiss (Mondoweiss), felt right at home at the conference.
*Jeremy Ben-Ami denied to Jeffrey Goldberg that J Street had anything to do with the bloggers, saying J Street was only allowing them to use a hotel meeting room at lunch time, when the space would otherwise have gone unused. It is true that the bloggers weren’t part of the “official” program, but J Street did not permit anyone not registered for the meeting to attend the bloggers session and Ben-Ami himself made an appearance during the session, with the bloggers sitting under a J Street banner with the organization’s “Pro-Peace, Pro-Israel” slogan. And even if the session could be seen as “independent” of the organization, as Ben-Ami insisted it was, there was no sense that the bloggers were out of place there ideologically.
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November 3, 2009, 8:21 amneurodoc says:
Turkey is neither a member of the Arab League, nor an observer; it is, however, one of the 56 member “states” (“Palestine” is listed as a “state”) of the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
(I never would have guessed that one of the OIC member states is here in the Western Hemisphere.)
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November 3, 2009, 10:03 amYankev says:
Michigan, or Minnesota?
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November 3, 2009, 10:52 amMark Buehner says:
Syria– “While there is no official state religion, the Constitution requires that the president be Muslim and stipulates that Islamic jurisprudence is a principal source of legislation.” link
Lebanon is constitutionally frozen into divisions of power directly based on Muslim/Christian split of power.
Turkey, I didn’t include admittedly, because it is not an Arab state. Recent events have me worried for the future.
The exceptions aside– Egypt’s state religion is Islam, Jordan’s state religion is Islam, Saudi Arabia’s state religion is Islam, Iraq’s state religion is Islam, Iran’s state religion is Islam, etc.
My point being– anyone pointing to Israel’s state religion had better have an answer for the other major states in the region.
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November 3, 2009, 11:03 amneurodoc says:
Good tries, but wrong. The answer to today’s Geo quiz is a small country well south of the United States. (You can look it up, as I did when I went to see which 56 countries comprised the Organization of the Islamic Conference learned: 1) in truth, there are only 55 member countries; and, 2) one of the 55 is in our half of the world.)
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November 3, 2009, 5:12 pmYankev says:
Interesting that their official web site at the UN does not list Suriname, but then what can you expect from the UN.
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November 3, 2009, 6:03 pm