1. My op-ed about HRW’s problematic Middle East staff appeared in the Examiner newspaper websites.
2. HRW added new members to its Middle East and North Africa advisory board. Surprise, surprise, they include several individuals with a history of anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian political activism, and none with the opposite history.
3. HRW’s Iain Levine, talking to the Guardian, blames its troubles on a conspiracy “organized campaign” and “coordinated attacks,” by “right-wing blogs,” NGO Monitor, and the Israeli government. Self-reflection and self-criticism are not HRW’s strong suit, as is apparent by Levine’s continued defense of HRW’s Israel-bashing fundraising trip to Saudi Arabia, not to mention its apparent recent strategic choice of putting an employee with a Jewish last name out front on Israel-related matters, as if that makes any difference.
neurodoc says:
Richard Goldstone was of course until recently an HRW board member, and HRW is a big proponent of his eponymous report on Israel’s Operation Cast Lead. An editorial in today’s Washington Post about Goldstone’s report for the UN is worth reading:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/11/14/AR2009111402279.html
While the WaPo refers to Goldstone as “the respected South African jurist,” which is arguable, and says his panel “altered the one-sided mandate it received, so as to examine abuses by both Israel and Hamas during the three-week conflict,” the editorial goes on to say the panel “pretend(ed) it did not know whether Hamas employed such tactics and claim(ed) that Israel’s actions were driven by a motivation to kill civilians on purpose, rather than to defeat Hamas.”
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November 15, 2009, 11:44 pmBenP says:
I’m not really sure of the reason for the snark.
Even though HRW is absurdly biased, isn’t this kind of objectively true? There has been something of a campaign, regardless of the fact that it seems to be more viral in nature than pre-organized.
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November 15, 2009, 11:52 pmneurodoc says:
“...something of a campaign, regardless of the fact that it seems to be more viral in nature than pre-organized”?!
Would a “campaign” like you imagine be roughly akin to “something of a conspiracy” in which none of the alleged co-conspirators ever communicated with one another directly or indirectly by any means, but independently they went about more or less the same thing? Yeah, maybe that would be “kind of objectively true,” where the “absurdly biased” HRW and its critics are concerned, or at least sort of, I suppose, loosely speaking that is.
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November 16, 2009, 12:10 amDavid Bernstein says:
I’ll make a deal with Mr. Levine: I’ll turn over all my correspondence with the Israeli government, if he’ll turn over all his correspondence with Richard Goldstone. Then we’ll see who has been part of an “organized campaign” of “coordinated attacks.”
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November 16, 2009, 12:17 amleonblackbone says:
Is there any reason why an American should care about any of this petty bickering?
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November 16, 2009, 1:05 amLeo Marvin says:
Whether or not they should, this is a subject many Americans do care about. What is it you care about enough that you bothered to ask the question?
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November 16, 2009, 1:40 amadamj says:
An American should care because if we are not careful, this could be in our own backyard:
http://www.hardrite.com/2009/11/iranian-public-execution-negotiating-with-mullahs-of-iran/
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November 16, 2009, 2:41 amDilan Esper says:
Professor, I know you deny that the attacks were coordinated, but they certainly APPEAR coordinated to me. Indeed, these attacks (as well as the attacks on the Goldstone Report) look to me to be VERY suspicious, in that they occurred right after negative reports were issued about Israel’s human rights violations and war crimes in its Gaza operations.
I want to be very careful about this– history is filled with false, anti-semitic accusations of Jewish conspiracies. I don’t think this is anything of the kind. But it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if the Israeli government and some of its friends are drumming up and encouraging the discrediting of anyone who accuses Israel of war crimes in the Gaza operations.
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November 16, 2009, 2:45 amZywotkowitz says:
Indeed, these attacks (as well as the attacks on the Goldstone Report) look to me to be VERY suspicious, in that they occurred right after negative reports were issued about Israel’s human rights violations and war crimes in its Gaza operations
Huh? It’s suspicious that the “Goldstone report” and a related organization were “attacked” right after the Goldstone report was issued?!?!? You think that they should have waited til months later when noone was interested in the Goldstone report?
And you suspect that blogger David Bernstein, HRW founder Robert Bernstein, and Holocaust survivor/writer Elie Wiesel are coordinating their “attacks” with the Israeli gov’t. Why do you suspect that? Because Jews are so naturally clique-y and sneaky?
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November 16, 2009, 4:07 amGuy says:
Dilan,
I don’t know about coordinated, but it’s not surprising that HRW is facing intense scrutiny from people who tend not to like it, and who are inclined to view it negatively. It’s just like any other polarizing organization or person: One embarrassing story surfaces, so a lot of other sources look for similar things to criticize/report. It’s pretty similar to the ACORN issue, the Catholic Church’s molestation scandal, or even “Joe Biden can’t keep his mouth shut”/“Sarah Palin is stupid”.
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November 16, 2009, 4:08 amGuy says:
In other words, I read Levine’s comment as “this is just a bunch of trumped up accusations from people who don’t like us” and he just chose to use histrionic language to make himself look like a victim. Another example: the white house gets into a fight with Fox News, so everyone else on the left who hates Fox jumps on the bandwagon, is this a “coordinated” attack? Not exactly, but I’m sure it makes Fox and its supporters feel better to think of it that way, and it’s essentially the same effect as if it were “coordinated”. Maybe I’m giving Levine too much credit, but I assumed he was talking about this very loose kind of coordination.
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November 16, 2009, 4:20 amzywotkowtiz says:
I read Levine’s comment as “this is just a bunch of trumped up accusations from people who don’t like us” and he just chose to use histrionic language to make himself look like a victim.
No that’s not it at all.
Levine is saying that Robert Bernstein and Elie Wiesel are covertly in cahoots with the Israeli gov’t.
The message is that if you are Jewish and liberal, you had better shut up or else you will be denounced as a Likudnik.
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November 16, 2009, 4:26 amDavid Bernstein says:
When someone says “I really hesitate to use words like conspiracy,” (as Levine did), he means, “| think there is a conspiracy, but I know it sounds to nutty to come right out and say it.”
FWIW, I can give you the real origin. I’m on NGO Monitor’s email list. I otherwise had exactly zero contact with NGO Monitor or its employees previously. I noticed a small piece about the trip to Saudi Arabia. I blogged about it here. Someone at the Wall Street Journal noticed it, and asked if they could reprint it online. I said yes. Weeks went by, nothing appeared. I emailed. It had fallen through the cracks. It was revisited, and then reprinted.
Some organized conspiracy!
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November 16, 2009, 8:37 amAriel says:
This is just absurd.
(1) As previously pointed out, attacks on a report are likely to come out pretty quickly in an era when our media has an attention span that a child exceeds.
(2) People who accuse Israel of war crimes in Gaza deserve to be discredited. Their actions are self-discrediting.
(3) Part of the role of a government is to try to protect its interests. When people attack it, a government will often try to push forward its agenda. This is not unique to Israel. The SEIU thugs punched back twice as hard after Barack Obama said they should, including their attack on Gladney. That’s a domestic example, but there are plenty of international examples as well.
(4) You’re right, there is a history of accusing Jewish groups of conspiracies. Like HRW, you’re trying to hint at it, without directly saying it. Man up and say what you mean. And hold other groups to the same standard. Did blacks and other groups organize a campaign after Rosa Parks? Was that a conspiracy? Invidious? Have several distinct groups tried to organize on Darfur or Tibet? Conspiracy? Invidious?
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November 16, 2009, 10:13 amneurodoc says:
Is that your defense, that it wasn’t an organized conspiracy, it was a disorganized one? Or, do you offer “disorganized” in mitigation, an apology in effect for speaking up in protest against HRW’s biased attacks on Israel, even prompting others to do the same? (How about BenP’s suggestion above of “more viral in nature than pre-organized”?”)
Well, it’s HRW that requires a defense to the charge of bias and “plotting,” and the one it is offering amounts to self-indictment, not refutation.
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November 16, 2009, 10:55 amDilan Esper says:
When someone says “I really hesitate to use words like conspiracy,” (as Levine did), he means, “| think there is a conspiracy, but I know it sounds to nutty to come right out and say it.”
I don’t think it’s a conspiracy. I put that language in precisely because I think there are a lot of anti-semites who would love to make this one more example of alleged Jewish conspiracies.
What I do think happened is that in this modern world of electronic communications, with e-mail lists and listservs and all the rest, it’s a lot easier to coordinate a message without centralization. And this has all the appearances of a coordinated hit against critics of the Gaza operations.
(1) As previously pointed out, attacks on a report are likely to come out pretty quickly in an era when our media has an attention span that a child exceeds. (2) People who accuse Israel of war crimes in Gaza deserve to be discredited. Their actions are self-discrediting. (3) Part of the role of a government is to try to protect its interests. When people attack it, a government will often try to push forward its agenda. This is not unique to Israel. The SEIU thugs punched back twice as hard after Barack Obama said they should, including their attack on Gladney. That’s a domestic example, but there are plenty of international examples as well.
This is self-contradictory. “There is no coordination, and in any event, they deserved a coordinated hit!”
(4) You’re right, there is a history of accusing Jewish groups of conspiracies. Like HRW, you’re trying to hint at it, without directly saying it. Man up and say what you mean. And hold other groups to the same standard. Did blacks and other groups organize a campaign after Rosa Parks? Was that a conspiracy? Invidious? Have several distinct groups tried to organize on Darfur or Tibet? Conspiracy? Invidious?
This is really risible. If there were, say, some series of attacks from liberals against Sarah Palin and her new book, which all repeated similar talking points, and all came at roughly the same time, it wouldn’t be anything other than a normal political argument to say “hey, this looks coordinated”. But somehow, because the attacks are from conservative-sympathizing supporters of Israel and are made in defense of the Israel government, anyone who suspects any coordination is peddling anti-semitic conspiracy theories?
This is a despicable accusation of anti-semitism and only discredits the person who made it. Apologize and retract it.
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November 16, 2009, 1:55 pmStrict says:
“not to mention its apparent recent strategic choice of putting an employee with a Jewish last name out front on Israel-related matters, as if that makes any difference.”
1. “Not to mention,” but then you mention it.
2. Are you alleging that Iain Levine is not Jewish? If so, is that because he is actually not Jewish (I have no idea), or because he criticizes Israel and is thus not to be considered Jewish? Dovish Jews? Excommunicate Them.
3. How do you know that HRW made a strategic choice to have Levine do this report because he has a Jewish last name, and not because he has extensive experience in human rights reporting? When Levine reported on human rights in Arab and Muslim countries, was that also a strategic choice by HRW to have that report issued by a person with a Jewish last name?
4. How is HRW’s choice to employee Jewish people (or people with Jewish last names) on Israel-related matters recent? HRW was founded by Jewish people and has always employed many Jewish people. The earliest report on Israel I can find on HRW’s website, from 1991, here, was by a Jewish person.
You make several unfounded allegations about HRW’s history, methodology, and motives.
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November 16, 2009, 3:11 pmStrict says:
“(2) People who accuse Israel of war crimes in Gaza deserve to be discredited. Their actions are self-discrediting.”
I don’t see how accusing a country at war for war crimes is self-discrediting. My personal opinion is that we should start with the presumption that any and every war includes war crimes. I think this is a reasonable presumption.
However, what exactly the war crimes were in Gaza is up for debate, and HRW’s accounts of particular war crimes are fair targets for criticism.
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November 16, 2009, 3:22 pmStrict says:
Professor Bernstein,
Do you think that HRW’s employment of Washington College of Law Professor Herman Schwartz, here, was a “strategic choice” to have its reports on Israel written by a “person with a Jewish last name” in order to insulate HRW from accusations that it is antisemitic?
Do you see how far-fetched and paranoid your accusations are?
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November 16, 2009, 3:26 pmDavid Bernstein says:
I have no idea whether Mr. Levine is Jewish. I know that Levine is a last name of Jewish origins, and that his name suddenly started popping up in stories related to HRW and Israel recently, after HRW came under fire for its anti-Israel bias.
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November 16, 2009, 4:11 pmStrict says:
“I have no idea whether Mr. Levine is Jewish. I know that Levine is a last name of Jewish origins, and that his name suddenly started popping up in stories related to HRW and Israel recently, after HRW came under fire for its anti-Israel bias.”
But you do know that he is not new in the field? He didn’t just “suddenly pop up.”
Are you suggesting that HRW hired him not for his abilities, but because he has a Jewish last name (and because that would somehow afford them extra protection against the claims of anti-semitism)?
As far as NGO Monitor goes, do you think that it does not have any biases of its own? Care to expose them?
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November 16, 2009, 4:22 pmDavid Bernstein says:
yes
no
Yes. They don’t have to be exposed, it’s in NGOM’s mission statement. NGOM doesn’t claim to be neutral between the Palestinian side and Israel. If HRW acknowledged that it was pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel, we wouldn’t be having this discussion, the only news in HRW’s bias is that it has the halo of an objective human rights organization.
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November 16, 2009, 6:00 pmAriel says:
No, it’s not self-contradictory. (1) It was not coordinated. (2) They deserved to be hit. Saying that Israel should coordinate it does not mean that it did. Saying they should have been hit by those with an interest in doing so does not mean that there was coordination.
I don’t think you read what I wrote. I actually precisely didn’t accuse you of Jew-hatred. Instead, I asked you to consider whether other examples where people might have been thought to have coordinated things (1) actually were coordinated; and (2) whether such coordination was invidious. I then asked you to apply the same standard you would apply to those other situations to this one.
Maybe you’ve been accused of being Jew-hating before, so you’re happy to try to put folks on the defensive by demanding apologies for non-accusations. What I’m saying is not that you are a Jew-hater, but rather that you leave yourself open to such accusations when (1) you hint at nefarious conspiracies but won’t directly say them, and say you won’t because of a history of that being held against Jews; and (2) don’t consider the same standards in other situations.
If I read your Palin comment correctly, you would view that as coordination. I’m still not clear if that would be invidious. Nor am I clear on whether you think there was an invidious conspiracy here. I’m asking you to take a position, and take it directly. Don’t hint at it. Like I said, man up. If there was an invidious conspiracy here, in your view, say so.
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November 16, 2009, 6:36 pmLeo Marvin says:
It’s a mistake to judge NGO Monitor and HRW on equal terms. NGO Monitor’s bias is obvious and all but admitted. Its narrow mission is based on its bias. That’s why its reports should be judged on their merits, not presumed accurate or not. It’s also why no one would draw conclusions about what NGO Monitor doesn’t investigate, e.g., reports on Central American death squads.
HRW’s legitimacy depends on its claimed neutrality. We ought to be able to give its conclusions a presumption of accuracy and draw meaningful inferences from the attention it pays to various parties in a given conflict. If its resources are allocated or its conclusions drawn on ideological grounds, we should know that so we can adjust our assumptions and scrutiny.
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November 16, 2009, 6:46 pmLeo Marvin says:
Hmmm. Forgot to refresh and missed that DB already answered that question. Sorry for duplicating.
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November 16, 2009, 6:56 pmAriel says:
Strict, you’re right that I didn’t fully explain my reasoning. Perhaps there is a proper presumption; I won’t argue that point now. My reasoning would be that the folks accusing Israel of war crimes here do not apply the same standards to other countries. That’s why their actions are self-discrediting. Not because Israel is a saint, i.e., perfect, but, as a British army colonel put it, because Israel’s defense forces are the most moral in the world.
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November 16, 2009, 7:04 pmStrict says:
“because Israel’s defense forces are the most moral in the world.”
I have heard this claim many times.
For example, Natan Sharansky, in The Case for Democracy (p. 220), quotes Alan Dershowitz as saying “no country in history ever complied with a higher standard of human rights.”
While I respect Scharansky and Dershowitz and even Prof. Bernstein a great deal, I think these claims are very hard to prove, and are very subjective. They seem propagandistic. And they don’t mean much in this context, because war crimes can be committed by bad individuals, despite a very overall “morally good” military.
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November 16, 2009, 8:04 pmBenP says:
Please....
Are you really denying that “blog A publishes an opinion,” “Blogs B, C and D” echo that opinion” then Media Outlet Z publishes “there have been those asserting that” sort of story amounts to some sort of a media campaign? It’s not saying it’s organized, but it certainly exists.
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November 16, 2009, 8:18 pmYankev says:
Are you suggesting the Zionist lobby just spontaneously came into being? (oops, I forgot Rule #8, never admit the existence of the Nefarious Secret Zionist Lobby Listserve! Now I’m really in trouble.)
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November 16, 2009, 8:48 pmYankev says:
Of course not. Given the omniscience of Mossad, Dilan expects the reports to be attacked BEFORE they are issued.
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November 16, 2009, 8:50 pmBenP says:
I’m not even sure why you’re talking about the Zionist lobby. That’s like saying there’s a keyboard cat lobby.
It’s not a perfect descriptor, but there’s a reason I used the word viral. I think the carry over from videos is a reasonably good approximation for the way news stories bubble up from the web these days.
There’s no need for it to have been explicitly organized by someone, and I’m not saying that occurred. It works the same way “viral videos” become popular. One person posts an idea or claim or argument, another thinks it’s interesting and posts it or links to it or copies it, it drives more interest and others post on related topics. The fact that many of the people posting have shared interests may be relevant as to how it arose, but it’s not relevant to how it happens.
Like I said, it’s not a perfect descriptor, but I think it’s pretty on point to describe this sort of thing as a “viral campaign.” We have a group of people who are publishing the same sort of opinions online with the goal of generating a controversy and bringing attention to an issue. Their only connection may be their shared interest in the issue, but the end result is similar.
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November 16, 2009, 9:12 pmcubanbob says:
You are missing the point. Hamas considers every Israeli to be a military target, not just Israeli military personnel. Virtually every attack by Hamas is against Israeli civilians who are the intended targets. The Israeli military targets specific Hamas operatives. Often times in the process there are collateral casualties but that is entirely the result of Hamas operatives hiding behind civilian shields, another war crime in itself. There is no comparison between the actions of the Israeli Army and that of Hamas. If and when the Israeli’s start an indiscriminate artillery and rocket barrage of Gaza the HRW will have a point. Until then, HRW is indeed pro-Palestinian.
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November 17, 2009, 12:16 amYankev says:
It’s called parody.
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November 17, 2009, 9:52 amStrict says:
“There is no comparison between the actions of the Israeli Army and that of Hamas.”
I have no idea what you are talking about. I never said they were comparable. This isn’t about relativity.
“HRW is indeed pro-Palestinian”
I’m not sure this means much. I am pro-Palestinian (albeit anti-Hamas and anti-violence). I am pro-human. I am pro-Israel.
It appears that you are alleging that HRW ignores the war crimes committed by Hamas. I don’t think this is true. As I said, HRW’s accounts of the war crimes in Gaza are fair targets for criticism, but I don’t think “HRW ignored Hamas’ attacks on civilians” is correct.
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November 17, 2009, 11:09 amJT says:
you read it, it’s all part of your organized consipiracy to discredit “strict”!!!!
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November 17, 2009, 11:26 amDilan Esper says:
Maybe you’ve been accused of being Jew-hating before, so you’re happy to try to put folks on the defensive by demanding apologies for non-accusations. What I’m saying is not that you are a Jew-hater, but rather that you leave yourself open to such accusations when (1) you hint at nefarious conspiracies but won’t directly say them, and say you won’t because of a history of that being held against Jews; and (2) don’t consider the same standards in other situations.
I’ve read this paragraph 10 times, and there’s no argument here. Just the insinuation that anyone who claims that any defense of Israel might be coordinated can be perfectly assumed, at least by some people, to have bad motives.
To be clear, I think this is a very, very nasty paragraph, as is your earlier post. Because you are basically saying “I don’t think you are an anti-semite, but I have no problem if someone concludes that you are”. That’s basically a form of McCarthyism.
In any event, on the merits of your point, such as it is, I think all sorts of political attacks are coordinated. Including many attacks I agree with. It wasn’t an accident when everyone on the left went after Joe Lieberman at the same time. Nor do I think a coordinated attack is the same thing as a shadowy conspiracy. Indeed, that’s my whole point– for some reason, any time you identify this sort of thing as a coordinated attack, someone assumes you are peddling conspiracy theories. And really, what I am afraid of is not that some conservatives will think I am doing it, but that some anti-semite who is looking for additional “evidence” for his beliefs will think that this is such evidence.
It isn’t. But yes, I very much believe that the internet makes it easy for people who support Likud-style policies in Israel to communicate with each other, and that these sorts of attacks on the various credible opponents of the Gaza policy have all the marks of an informally coordinated attack. Nor do I think there is anything wrong with coordinated attacks. I just don’t get the denials, which seem to me to be really dishonest, actually.
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November 17, 2009, 1:31 pmDilan Esper says:
Of course not. Given the omniscience of Mossad, Dilan expects the reports to be attacked BEFORE they are issued.
That’s silly. My point isn’t that it is at all surprising that people who think the Gaza operations were morally correct would decide to launch coordinated attacks on independent groups that identify Israeli war crimes that occurred in the operations– it’s that they are denying it when it is pretty obvious that this is what happened.
By the way, there’s a broader problem I have with all this. What Human Rights Watch, and the UN, do is extremely valuable, even if there are biases. There’s never going to be a truly neutral arbiter of these things, so if people succeed in discrediting these organizations, you aren’t going to be left with better human rights monitoring, you are going to be left with less of it.
And the reality is that the Gaza operation, specifically, is exactly the sort of thing where we need a human rights monitor. Israel is open to moral suasion, there are significant portions of the Israeli public and self-identified friends of Israel who basically openly call for collective punishment of the Palestinians, and there are ways of conducting anti-terrorist operations in Gaza (which, by the way, I fully support) which will result in more or fewer lives lost.
In other words, we need someone putting the heat on Israel to reduce the probability of Israel collectively punishing the Palestinians. Discrediting organizations that may do that is not only bad for the Palestinians in the long run, it’s bad for Israel because it reduces the likelihood of an agreement.
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November 17, 2009, 1:39 pmneurodoc says:
Are you really denying the plain meaning of “organized campaign” and “coordinated attacks?” (emphasis added) Or, is it just unintentional sloppiness of expression/thinking when you overlook “organized” modifying “campaign,” inserting “media” in place of “organized,” changing the original meaning and implications? “Organized” with its implications is very much at issue, and part of Levine’s defense, if it can be called a defense, of HRW.
Now, I am not fluent in Valley Girl, either speaking or understanding it. So please try to render whatever you think you are saying in plain English. And if you can, you should go for more precision than “amounts to some sort of a media campaign,” which isn’t much better than conversation peppered with “you know.”
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November 17, 2009, 9:52 pmneurodoc says:
What “sorts of attacks,” by whom in particular, on which credible opponents of the Gaza policy?
Many regard HRW as other than a credible opponent of that policy and Israel’s conduct generally, having adduced considerable evidence of HRW’s bias. I would call upon you to rebut that evidence, but it seems you admit the bias (“even if there are biases”), you just don’t want attention paid it lest the organization’s effectiveness suffer (as it should).
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November 17, 2009, 10:12 pmneurodoc says:
Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but the internet has made it easy for people of every sort to communicate with others holding similar beliefs, not just those who support Israel, but those who oppose it too.
And while speaking somewhat vaguely of “these sorts of attacks” on those you deem “credible” (HRW and the UN), without rebutting those who hold them to be not “credible,” you adduce no prove that the counter-attacks are in fact “coordinated.” (What of any consequence here do you imagine distinguishes “informally” coordinated from “formally” coordinated?)
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November 17, 2009, 10:23 pmDavid Bernstein says:
The Gaza operation was undertaken by a Kadima/Labor coalition, and supported across the (Jewish) Israeli political spectrum.
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November 17, 2009, 10:45 pmneurodoc says:
Professor Bernstein, Dilan Esper didn’t say “Likud,” he said “Likud-style.” Surely you appreciate that for those who regularly attack Israel and its suporters, “Likud” is a label fraught with negative implications that have nothing to do with the political realities within Israel. They use “Likud” as shorthand for its perjorative effect, no matter that “(t)he Gaza operation was undertaken by a Kadima/Labor coalition, and supported across the (Jewish) Israeli political spectrum.”
And those who regularly attack Israel and its supporters like to characterize us all as “neocons,” no matter where we stand on other issues. And according to them, when we speak up in defense of Israel against the likes of HRW, we are engaging in “organized campaigns” and “coordinated attacks” to discredit and silence Israel’s critics, promiscuously charging “antisemitism,” doing so in “McCarthyite” fashion.
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November 17, 2009, 11:25 pmDilan Esper says:
I think it is perfectly fair to characterize those people, outside Israel, who care about Israel but whose concern for it is usually manifested in the form of supporting maximal force and minimal diplomacy in dealing with the Palestinians as “Likud-style”, because that’s the segment of Israeli politics that such positions corresponds to.
The fact that such policies, IN THIS PARTICULAR INSTANCE BUT NOT IN OTHERS, overlaps with the position of the Kadima and Labor parties does not make the terminology less useful.
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November 18, 2009, 2:25 amneurodoc says:
I was skeptical when I first read your response to Ariel yesterday (1:31PM on 11/17), but willing to reserve judgment. Your last couple of posts with the “Likud-style” stuff remove any doubt, however. Ariel had it quite right at 6:36PM on 11/17. And if the term “McCarthyite” has any application in this thread, then it is to you, not Ariel. (Is “neocon” another label you find “useful” to describe those “who support Likud-style policies in Israel, even when those policies may reflect a general consensus there rather than notably partisan ones? Clearly, you find uses for the insinuations that calculated imprecision serve.)
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November 18, 2009, 8:46 amYankev says:
Or in this case, a group who loudly announced Israeli war crimes before its investigation even began, and then undertook a highly flawed investigation to justify their conclusion, even though doing so involved, among other things, accepting questionable “evidence” from sources known to be unreliable, discounting evidence favorable to Israel, discounting the context and background of the operation, and re-writing the laws of war crimes. And who then attacked those who documented and publicized of these flaws as conspirators engaged in a nefarious plot.
You are discounting the possibility that exposing the bias and moral inversion of these groups will not inspire them to reform. Sadly, I think you are right. But I don’t see that as reason to enable evil people (in this case UNHRC and HRW) in their efforts, whether witting or unwitting, to abet genocide and terror.
Retaliating against acts of war is not collective punishment. Neither is refusal to trade with a self-declared enemey, or to give that self-declared enemy free passage into and through your country.
So far I can’t recall your having given the details of any of them.
No, enabling terror and encouraging unrealistic hopes on the part of the Palestinians reduces the likeliehood of an agreement. Israel’s supposed unwillingness to compromise is a myth that has been disproven again and again to anyone who is willing to look at facts. It is not Israel’s supposed intransigence that has blocked peace for 61+ years, it is the unwillingness of the Arabs to accept a Jewish state in their midst, and to allow Jews to live as anything more than tolerated dhimmis.
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November 18, 2009, 10:07 amYankev says:
True, but then the charge of being “Likud-style”, “Likudnik”, etc. has nothing to do with the Likud part or its policies, any more than “neocon” has anything to do with the views or policies of the neoconservative school of thought. Both are shorthand for “actions or thoughts of which I do not approve, taken by Israel or its supporters or Jews, or people whom I perceived to be any of the foregoing.”
How long until someone starts calling Ben Gurion a Likudnik?
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November 18, 2009, 10:13 amYankev says:
And yet, as pointed out, Cast Lead was not fought by a Likud government. For that matter, neither were the War of Independence, the Suez Campaign, the 1967 War, the 1973 War, nor the campaign the other year in Lebanon. “Likud” is not the same as non-pacifist, it is simply used as an all-purpose perjorative by the intellectually lazy, the morally obtuse,the Israel-is-never-right crowd, and anti-semites. You are not in either of the two latter groups, as far as I know, and you do yourself a disservice by employing the linguistic foibles of those who are.
It’s a bit like someone saying “But the settlers are farmers, so they do get dirt on themselves, and they are Jewish, so why shouldn’t I refer to them as ‘dirty Jewish settlers’?” and then wondering why people look at him askance.
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November 18, 2009, 10:20 amYankev says:
If you mean useful as an accurate descriptor or as an aid to analysis, I disagree. If you mean useful as a smear to mischaracterize and dismiss views that you do not like, yes, some people have found it convenient for that purpose, but they are not people that any respectable person would want to be associated with, for the reasons mentioned in my 10:20 a.m. today.
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November 18, 2009, 10:23 amneurodoc says:
You could have just said you agreed fully with what I said at 8:46AM about Dilan Esper’s crapola. :)
But that’s fine, since it bears repetition. (And now let’s ignore his ploy of coming right up to the line, putting his foot on the line, then pulling back and challenging others to call him “out,” accusing those who would of being “McCarthyites.”)
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November 18, 2009, 10:35 amneurodoc says:
And now Yankev, I will say that I agree fully with your comments at 10:07, 10:13, 10:20, and 10:23.
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November 18, 2009, 10:40 amDilan Esper says:
neuro:
Your position is weird. Among supporters of Israel outside of the country, there is a clear left wing and a clear right wing. Think Matthew Yglesias and Martin Peretz. But somehow identifying that is what? Anti-semitic?
I am going to say something very clearly here. I think just as there are a lot of people on the religious right who would love to define any criticism of their political positions as anti-Christian bigotry (or anti-Catholic bigotry), there are certainly right-wing supporters of Israel who would love to define any criticism of their positions as anti-semitic. But it’s not. If you don’t like “Likud”, fine, but we need to have a term for the right-wing supporters of Israel who generally support violence against the Palestinians to distinguish them from the left-wing supporters of Israel who generally support diplomacy with the Palestinians.
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November 18, 2009, 1:29 pmLeo Marvin says:
I’d suggest you just say “right-wing supporters of Israel who generally support violence against the Palestinians.” Not only is “Likud-style” inflammatory, it’s so ambiguous, or less charitably, misleading, you end up saying things I doubt you really mean. Remember how you used “Likud-style” in the first place:
The participants in that “informally coordinated attack” presumably include HRW’s most prominent recent critics, i.e., NGO Monitor, David Bernstein and Robert Bernstein. Putting aside the first two (I suspect you may misread at least where David Bernstein stands on these issues), do you really think Robert Bernstein is one of the “right-wing supporters of Israel who generally support violence against the Palestinians?” I doubt it, but that’s what you imply.
Back to the OP, you say the attacks “have all the marks of an informally coordinated attack.” David Bernstein has specifically denied any coordination beyond being on NGO Monitor’s e-mail list. Do you doubt his denial?
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November 18, 2009, 6:42 pmDilan Esper says:
Back to the OP, you say the attacks “have all the marks of an informally coordinated attack.” David Bernstein has specifically denied any coordination beyond being on NGO Monitor’s e-mail list. Do you doubt his denial?
Either I doubt his denial or I think that the exception swallowed the rule (i.e., the coordination occurred in part through NGO Monitor’s e-mail list).
As for Likud = inflammatory, you know, I wasn’t aware that one of the three major political parties in Israel was considered so extremist and beyond the pale that the mere association of a person with that party is the deepest type of libel, which seems to be the position you and others are arguing.
The last I checked, the Likud represents the Israeli right, the opponents of the peace process who believe that the correct solution to the Palestinian problem is maximum force. I don’t see any reason why opponents to the peace process outside Israel shouldn’t be associated with the brand.
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November 18, 2009, 6:57 pmLeo Marvin says:
Well I identify with the Israeli left. I support the peace process, and subject to Israel’s right to defend itself I believe the correct solution to the Palestinian problem is Palestinian statehood. Associating me with the Likud is ridiculous, yet that’s what routinely happens when I defend anything Israeli, even just its right to exist, on some liberal sites.
Partisan pejoratives are situational. You and I call ourselves liberal, so to us the term obviously has no pejorative connotation. But I don’t have to tell you a lot of people around here use “liberal” like a dog whistle to discredit arguments as anti-American nonsense. Same for our side with “conservative” and more so “neocon.” So no, to a Likud supporter there’s nothing libelous about “Likud.” But that doesn’t stop it from being used pejoratively by a lot of people who oppose not just the Israeli Right, but Israel generally.
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November 18, 2009, 9:23 pmYankev says:
No, using it for things that are a willfull distortion of their platform and a willfull distortion of where it stands vis-a-vis other parties is a libel. If this is too hard to understand, consider that Zionism means the movement for a national homeland for the Jewish people, to be located in a particular part of the former Ottoman Empire. There is nothing defamatory about that term. But when Zionist is used in ways that have nothing to do with that movement, e.g. as a synonymn for racist, or in accusations of controlling the international monetary system or manipulating world history to cause wars for the benefit of Jewish financiers, then it becomes defamatory.
One more example: there is nothing wrong with being Jewish, but when Jew is used as a perjorative for being cheap or greedy or deicidal, then it becomes defamatory. Are you starting to get it now?
Then your checking has been so superficial that you are being willfully ignorant. The inaccuracies in your “checking” have been pointed out in numerous posts on this thread. You choose to discount them for reasons that I do not care to speculate.
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November 19, 2009, 9:11 amYankev says:
If by “represents” you mean electorily and that this is the Likud’s position, you are grossly misrepresenting that party’s position, voters and actions. If by “represents” you mean “represents in the minds of a certain spectrum of the American left, certain Paleocons, organized anti-semites and the ignoranti, who use the name Likud as a caricature for a certain type of Jewish bogey-man that they have conjured up”, then I suppose you are correct, but if that’s what you mean, then as Leo, Neurodoc and I have pointed out, and you have discounted, you are using the name of a political party to indicate something very different that what that party is.
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November 19, 2009, 9:27 amneurodoc says:
And since we are talking here about use of certain fraught words (“Zionist,” “neocon,” “Likud”) that are sometimes used as entirely legitimate labels and at other times by some as truly ugly and untruthful slanders, let us note how this thread started off. It was about HRW’s claim that it has been a victim of “organized campaign” and “coordinated attacks.” That fits very well with classic anti-semitic memes about Jews as always conspiring against others (e.g., see Protocols of the Elders of Zion).
Professor Bernstein has explained how it is that he has been blogging about HRW, and it has not been as part of any “organized campaign” or “coordinated attacks.” Dilan, however, won’t take him at his word, allowing the possibility that the professor is simply a liar. (Dilan isn’t that forthright, preferring instead the circumlocutious, “Either I doubt his denial.”) But Dilan, who keeps causing others to wonder what he really means beneath it all, angrily accuses others of “McCarthyism” when they confront him.
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November 19, 2009, 9:40 amDilan Esper says:
Well I identify with the Israeli left. I support the peace process, and subject to Israel’s right to defend itself I believe the correct solution to the Palestinian problem is Palestinian statehood. Associating me with the Likud is ridiculous, yet that’s what routinely happens when I defend anything Israeli, even just its right to exist, on some liberal sites.
And for the record, I think that’s unfair.
So no, to a Likud supporter there’s nothing libelous about “Likud.” But that doesn’t stop it from being used pejoratively by a lot of people who oppose not just the Israeli Right, but Israel generally.
I agree with that. But usually, in my experience, the words often chosen by anti-semites are words such as “Zionist” (once a perfectly good term to describe people who favored a Jewish homeland that has now been completely misappropriated by anti-semites). “Likud” is much more of a general descriptor of the Israel right wing. I don’t see how it’s particularly inflammatory unless it is misused.
If this is too hard to understand, consider that Zionism means the movement for a national homeland for the Jewish people, to be located in a particular part of the former Ottoman Empire. There is nothing defamatory about that term. But when Zionist is used in ways that have nothing to do with that movement, e.g. as a synonymn for racist, or in accusations of controlling the international monetary system or manipulating world history to cause wars for the benefit of Jewish financiers, then it becomes defamatory.
I agree with this. But it doesn’t answer my point, which is that there really are people who take the position that the solution of to the Palestinian problem is the use of severe force. Anyone who uses “Likud” to describe people who favor negotiations with the Palestinians but are simply sticking up for Israel’s right to defend itself are misusing the term.
If by “represents” you mean electorily and that this is the Likud’s position, you are grossly misrepresenting that party’s position, voters and actions.
Not at all. Whatever symbolic statements Likud politicians may make in favor of peace, when it comes down to brass tacks, the position is always the Palestinians can’t be trusted anyway so we have to just go back to continued settlement expansion and bombing them.
I don’t think we have to credit the lies of politicians about their positions. Likud has a meaning, and it’s based on what that party DOES, not what they say.
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November 19, 2009, 1:36 pmDilan Esper says:
neuro:
You obviously just want to accuse me of anti-semitism. That’s disgusting.
Apparently, in your mind, the fact that anti-semites despicably libeled Jews by claiming all sorts of false conspiracy theories means that one can never identify any sort of even the most informal kind of coordination by any right-wing supporters of Israel (which, by the way, are not exclusively Jewish) without the person being accused of being the moral equivalent of the authors of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.
Anti-semitism is a serious problem, and it contributes to the violent attitudes of many of Israel’s neighbors that threatens Israel’s security. It also, not that long ago, caused the deaths of millions of Jews, kept many Jews out of college and the workplace and polite society, led to violence against Jews, etc. But when people scream anti-semitism whenever someone makes a political argument that they don’t like, it weakens the entire concept.
It is horrible that you would feel so casual about slinging such disgusting allegations around. I think Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state, I think Israel has a right to defend itself, and I think Israel has a right to go into Gaza and root out the people responsible for the rocket attacks. I also think it should try to do so in a way that minimizes human rights violations and civilian casualties. Accordingly, I generally think that the process of reporting on Israeli human rights violations in Gaza is a good thing, and also something that in no way morally compromises the case for Israel’s decision to strike against the organizations and people who were firing rockets at Israel’s civilians.
It takes a twisted mind to think that someone who believes that is an anti-semitic conspiracy monger who is trafficking in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. You can’t fling this sort of thing around like it’s nothing more than another stupid talking point in a debate. Anti-semitism, and it’s horrible consequences, is too important and too grave for you to do that.
And real supporters of Israel– as opposed to the type who can sit safely at their keyboard while Israeli citizens are in the firing line– would understand this.
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November 19, 2009, 1:46 pmYankev says:
Sorry, Dilan, but that is a gross caricature with little basis in reality. And given your apt observation that
you will find very little trust for the Palestinians these days anywhere along the Israeli political spectrum, including the erstwhile peace camp.
But everyone knows, I guess, that Likud and the other Israelis are lying when they say they want peace, and Hamas and Fatah are lying when they say they want an end to the Jewish state. It says something when large masses of people are willing to engage in perpetual contra-factual fantasy portraying Jews in the best light and portrays those who by their own admission would exterminate Jews in the best light.
I think Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state,
And yet you discount all evidence that this is precisely what Israel did, and that despite the inevitable civilian casualties that occur in war, Israel took unprecedented steps not only to avoid them, but to ease civilian suffering by supplying food, electricity and medical supplies during active hostilities. And you give credit to absurd allegations, tortured redefinition of the term “war crimes” and deeply flawed investigations performed by a biased tribunal comprising biased judges who announced the result of their investigation in advance. And you faithfully repeat the oft-refuted lie of Israel as a practitioner of apartheid, discounting all of the distinctions between that disgusting system and legitimate security measures forced upon Israel to safeguard itself from an enemy population. And you repeat the anti-semite’s favorite pre-emptory charge that real anti-semitism is a thing of the past (or exists only on the fringes today) but is used as a false charge to intimidate people against uttering legitimate criticism of Israel. For crying out loud, Dilan, if you don’t want to be mistaken for an anti-semite, don’t adopt their language and memes.
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November 19, 2009, 2:47 pmneurodoc says:
You obviously just want to imagine you have been accused of anti-semitism so you can yet again draw yourself up in high dudgeon, bloviate, and congratulate yourself on your superior intellect and indisputable fairmindedness. Well, go ahead and tell yourself whatever you will. I would just encourage others to read for themselves what has in fact been written by me, Ariel, and others you say have accused you of bigotry rather than engaging with what you have maintained.
Patent nonsense. “The most informal kind of coordination” is as worthy of note as the air we breath, which rarely is remarked upon, and only then when there is some reason to do so. HRW defends itself against serious charges of anti-Israel bias by calling those who would say so liars and alleging that HRW is being targeted by an “organized campaign” and “coordinated attacks;” you claim, utterly unconvincingly, “one can never identify any sort of even the most informal kind of coordination by any right-wing supporters of Israel.” Tell us, if you will, the last time you remarked upon “any sort of even the most informal kind of coordination by any critics of Israel,” when Israel was under attack, as it is ceaselessly. And if it were the case, what significance would you attach to what BenP has identified as “...something of a campaign, regardless of the fact that it seems to be more viral in nature than pre-organized”?
Yes, for crying out loud, Dilan, if you don’t want to be mistaken for an anti-semite, don’t adopt their language and memes.
And finally, how about a little candor from you, Dilan? Do you believe Professor Bernstein to be lying about “coordination” or don’t you?
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November 19, 2009, 4:11 pmLeo Marvin says:
Yes, “Zionist” is the most frequently abused, followed by “neocon.” “Likud” is probably a distant third, but that’s still often enough to group it with the others.
In the context we’re discussing, to borrow your expression, the exception swallows the rule.
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November 19, 2009, 5:13 pmYankev says:
One might as easily charge that in pointing out the flaws in Dilan’s assumptions and logic, you, Ariel, Leo Marvin and I (and probably others)have been engaged in an organized campaign and coordinated attacks on him.
And the charge would be every bit as idiotic as the charge made by HRW. Unlike HRW, however, Dilan does not have millions of dollars in donations, access to international bodies and a presumed entitlement to serious consideration riding on the outcome of the discussion.
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November 20, 2009, 9:14 amYankev says:
True, but then you go right ahead and misuse it. And then persist in that misuse despite all of the inconvenient facts that people call to your attention, because, after all, that’s what Likud means to you and therefore, it must ipso facto be the descriptive meaning of the word Likud.
In short, you are illustrating, not refuting, the misuse that Neurodoc, Leo Marvin, DB, Ariel and I have
pointed out in our organized campaign of coordinated attacks against you. Bwaah-haa-haa-haa! (Or if you prefer, Fee, faw, fum! bubble and squeak! Groan all together now, whee-hee-hee!)
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November 20, 2009, 9:26 amDilan Esper says:
And yet you discount all evidence that this is precisely what Israel did
Where did I ever do this?
I think there is evidence of human rights violations in the Gaza operation. But that doesn’t mean that Israel wasn’t trying to minimize civilian casualties– just that they didn’t always succeed in doing so.
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November 20, 2009, 12:59 pmDilan Esper says:
And yet you discount all evidence that this is precisely what Israel did
Where did I ever do this?
I think there is evidence of human rights violations in the Gaza operation. But that doesn’t mean that Israel wasn’t trying to minimize civilian casualties– just that they didn’t always succeed in doing so.
And you give credit to absurd allegations, tortured redefinition of the term “war crimes” and deeply flawed investigations performed by a biased tribunal comprising biased judges who announced the result of their investigation in advance.
You know, whining about the refs doesn’t change the fact that the call had some factual merit. The fact is that the atrocities in Gaza were documented. They were war crimes. They didn’t, however, happen because the folks who ran the Gaza operation were bad people– they happened because war crimes almost always happen in war.
And you faithfully repeat the oft-refuted lie of Israel as a practitioner of apartheid
I believe I actually disavowed this– what I did say is that generalized support by right-wing supporters of Israel for unlimited settlement while also opposing Palestinian state is almost assured to draw comparison to apartheid. I don’t like the comparison because apartheid was a racist policy, and the Israelis aren’t racists– they are doing what they are doing based in part on legitimate security concerns. But policies that involve allowing Jews to settle in the West Bank and get full citizenship rights while their Palestinian neighbors get the shaft are inevitably going to be compared to Bantustans, whether or not I think the comparison apt.
If I can say something, both you and neurodoc seem to have ideas fixes about how any supporters of Palestinian rights must view Israel and its actions. So you are assuming things about my position that do not have any basis in reality. You should stop doing that and actually answer my arguments.
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November 20, 2009, 1:05 pmDilan Esper says:
And finally, how about a little candor from you, Dilan? Do you believe Professor Bernstein to be lying about “coordination” or don’t you?
I think he is being artful about the issue, by carving out an exception (NGO monitor) that swallows the rule.
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November 20, 2009, 1:07 pmYankev says:
In other threads, for one thing. And by giving credence to the thoroughly discredited Goldstone Report. You accuse Israel of war crimes. The mere occurrence of civilian casualties is not a war crime.
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November 20, 2009, 2:28 pmneurodoc says:
Well, I suppose I got what I asked for, literally. I called for “a little candor from you,” and you gave us exactly that, a little candor, substituting as you did “I think he is being artful about the issue” for your previous “I doubt his denial.” (When you say, “I think he is being artful,” are we to understand you to be saying the equivalent of, “I think he is playing fast and loose with the truth”?)
Sure, say anything you want, but: i) I presume by “ideas fixes” you meant idees fixes; ii) idees fixes has psychiatric meaning, and I’m quite sure you know next to nothing about such things; and, iii) just as you read Ariel’s post 10 times and didn’t get what he was saying plainly enough, perhaps because you didn’t want to get it, you imagine that we haven’t answered several times now what you imagine to be well founded “arguments” by you.
Adios.
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November 20, 2009, 2:38 pmYankev says:
Dilan Esper
Which “atrocites?” Documented by whom? When? The UN school that wasn’t bombed? The unprovoked attack that turned out to be an attack on an active missile site? The “non-combatants” who were killed while holding rocket launchers? The civilians who died because Hamas used them as human shields? The use of WP as an illuminating agent, as permitted by the laws of war, when Hamas was not condemned for using it as an anti-personnel weapon against civilians? These details are not “whining” and they quibbles, they go to the heart of the accusations. Were mistakes made? Almost certainly. Did individual soldiers commit war crimes, not sanctioned by the chain of command? I can’t rule that out, though so far all of the allegations have been investigated and found to be hearsay and in many cases fabricated. In any event, the IDF is investigating and despite its direct involvement, has shown much greater impartiality than UNHRC or HRW.
And you faithfully repeat the oft-refuted lie of Israel as a practitioner of apartheid
I must have mised that but I am happy to hear that you recognize the distinction.
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November 20, 2009, 3:02 pmYankev says:
Was actually a quote from Dilan quoting me, and should have appeared as such.
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November 20, 2009, 3:03 pmYankev says:
Adios? But what about our organized campaign? Our coordinated attacks?
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November 20, 2009, 3:05 pmneurodoc says:
Because you are an attorney and for other reasons, I had thought you could be counted on to keep a secret. I see I was mistaken. Continue with your campaign and your attacks, but don’t expect to be included in ours, and you can forget any aspirations you may have had to ever be invited into the inner circle.
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November 20, 2009, 3:12 pmYankev says:
Okay, I will mail back my Zionist Conspirator’s badge later today.
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November 20, 2009, 3:30 pmDilan Esper says:
In other threads, for one thing. And by giving credence to the thoroughly discredited Goldstone Report. You accuse Israel of war crimes. The mere occurrence of civilian casualties is not a war crime.
Yankev, at this point you are just being dishonest. I have never said that Israel hasn’t tried to minimize civilian casualties.
But further, your statement about the Goldstone report being “discredited” depends on whether you define “discredited” as “conservative supporters of Israel don’t accept it, but the rest of the world thinks the events that are described therein happened”. Because that’s the status of the Goldstone report.
The attacks on the Goldstone Report, and on HRW, are attacks on the messenger without any disproving of the message. At most, you have identified a biased referee who nonetheless made correct calls. It’s not my fault that in this instance, the facts have an anti-Israel bias.
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November 20, 2009, 5:20 pmDilan Esper says:
Well, I suppose I got what I asked for, literally. I called for “a little candor from you,” and you gave us exactly that, a little candor, substituting as you did “I think he is being artful about the issue” for your previous “I doubt his denial.”
I doubt his denial in the same way I doubt Clinton’s denial that he had sexual relations with that woman. It could be technically true, but the phrasing obscures more than it reveals.
In any event, at this point you have nothing except insinuating my bad faith. You need to stop the personal attacks and focus on substance. Unfortunately, I don’t think you are capable of it.
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November 20, 2009, 5:22 pmDilan Esper says:
These details are not “whining” and they quibbles, they go to the heart of the accusations. Were mistakes made? Almost certainly. Did individual soldiers commit war crimes, not sanctioned by the chain of command? I can’t rule that out, though so far all of the allegations have been investigated and found to be hearsay and in many cases fabricated.
You know, Yankev, this isn’t a courtroom. NGO’s and international investigators rely on hearsay all the time, partly because the people with direct knowledge of something often lie about it or have poor recollections.
It takes a lot of talent to do what the Goldstone Report and HRW did in documenting the atrocities in Gaza. It takes a lot less talent to repeat talking points spread by people who don’t like its conclusions. You are doing the latter.
In any event, I do view this as a matter of mistakes being made, not a matter of morally compromising the whole operation. The reality is that you are correct that there were bound to be some civilians killed as a result of operations to root out terrorists in heavily populated areas. But that’s part of the reason I object to all these coordinated attacks on the messenger. What Israel did is defensible– and the atrocities that occurred should be spurs for Israel to work harder to minimize impact on civilians in the future. Indeed, there are many people in the Israeli government who have treated this matter in exactly that way. But unfortunately, there are a lot of people who are invested in the narrative that Israel can do no wrong.
As I said, the most irresponsible aspect of this is that if you folks were to succeed, we wouldn’t have better human rights monitoring, just less of it. You guys are doing every dictator, every torturer, every mass murderer, and every terrorist in the world a huge favor by mounting this campaign, because you are trying to shut down a voice that shines a light on the darkest corners of the world.
All for what? So that a few people can continue to erroneously think that Israel can do no wrong? What’s that worth, especially since the Palestinian problem is going to bite Israel in the ass eventually anyway if a solution is not found.
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November 20, 2009, 5:28 pmneurodoc says:
Here’s what the Washington Post said in that editorial this past Sunday (11/15/09):
I dunno, but it sounds like the Washington Post judged the “referee” wholly unreliable.
Now, Professor Bernstein vs Dilan on HRW and its “defense” claim of “organized campaign” and “coordinated attacks”:
OK, the evidence has been presented and argued, now it’s time for the jury to say whether they believe Professor Bernstein or Dilan.
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November 20, 2009, 6:50 pmneurodoc says:
Oh yeah, I failed to note Dilan’s summarizing pensee:
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November 20, 2009, 7:04 pmDilan Esper says:
Neuro:
Any 2 year old can insinuate. Only intelligent people argue. So stop acting like a 2 year old.
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November 21, 2009, 12:06 amYankev says:
Okay, if that’s your criteria. Not long ago the entire rest of the world accepted the charge that Jews killed Christ. That did not make the charges true.
You have been confronted with substantive, principled and detailed criticism of the report. Your response has been to point out that no one disputes the report except conservative supporters of Israel (not true, by the way, e.g. the Washington Post for one, and a number of liberal Congressmen for another) and therefore cannot be relied upon in the face of universal acceptance among everyone else.
Mistakes are neither war crimes nor atrocities.
Perhaps as you see it. As I see it, if we succeed, we will have better monitoring, honest and reliable monitoring, rather than monitoring that is so prejudged and irresponsible as to be useless.
Most intelligent people try to base their arguments on fact, use known terms (e.g. atrocity, war crime, Likud) according to the accepted meaning of those terms, and to keep their arguments consistent (“I’m not saying there was a conspiracy, I am saying there is a coordinated campaign because several people are expressing the same criticism based on the same information) and based on more than speculation (see prior parenthetical).
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November 22, 2009, 12:43 pmneurodoc says:
Yankev, have a look at Dilan’s narrative of the historical background to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and you will see how impressively uninformed and misinformed Dilan is about that which he presumes to speak.
http://dilan.blogspot.com/search?q=israel
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November 22, 2009, 2:28 pm