Eric Fingerhut examines a “bizarre, almost unhinged” rant by Joe Klein in response to rather bland criticism from Commentary’s Jonathan Tobin. This has become something of a Klein specialty, at least when it comes to discussion of Israel’s American supporters.
TCO says:
I guess you must have time for moderation, now.
February 19, 2010, 5:37 pmlgm says:
Read the actual pieces. Klein is right and Fingerhut is wrong. Klein misrepresents Klein. Klein is rightly annoyed at Tobin, and uses emotionally charged language to express this. But Klein is well hinged to the facts, while Tobin and Fingerhut, in possibly calmer prose, are disconnected from reality.
As for critics of Likud policy being called anti-semitic, I challenge you to deny that this happens frequently.
February 19, 2010, 5:46 pmSteveMG says:
Mr. Klein has become increasingly irascible once he started blogging.
Tobin’s criticism was – correct or not (and I think it was mostly correct; Hamas in its current incarnation (a proxy for Iran) cannot be talked out of its goals) – mild and substantive.
Klein’s rejoinder was largely not.
February 19, 2010, 5:59 pmNick says:
What Klein calls “bile and bullying” is what Klein himself does do. He invents an accusation and responds to that instead. He can’t do anything else. The point is to keep his critics cowed. Too scared to speak up at all. Calling your critics racists is how this used to work. Now you pretend your critics called you a racist.
February 19, 2010, 6:08 pmDavid Bernstein says:
From “fake but accurate” to “unhinged but rightly annoyed.”
February 19, 2010, 6:18 pm1040 says:
i love this deniability game. as db’s post from a few days ago, the new game plan seems to be to call your opponent an anti-semite using veiled language (and no, i don’t mean “nutter” – that’s just dumb ad hominem nonsense), and then yell in feigned outrage when the opponent calls you out on it.
February 19, 2010, 6:35 pmNick says:
What Tobin said is so far from what Klein said he said, Klein’s making these things up. Even in Time magazine, reporters shouldn’t just make things up.
What they should do is to start with at least an actual quote and then insert their own deliberately misspelled words, like in The New York Times. That way you can deny you’re inventing things. You can unveil the “veiled language” that is too veiled for untutored minds. And then, using this creative spelling, you have a story worth writing about, and not a complete non-story with nothing to prove what you claim is true.
February 19, 2010, 7:01 pmlgm says:
Learn to read. I did not say Klein is unhinged. I said the opposite. There’s a difference between angry and unhinged.
You might also try the Goldstone report. You could move on to international human rights organizations’ descriptions of Israeli violations of international standards in their actions against Palestinians.
(Note: I don’t normally put explicit insults in posts like this. But here I’m following a pattern I didn’t start.)
February 19, 2010, 7:22 pmChris Travers says:
My views are somewhat closer to Klein than Tobin’s. I think that as long as we accept that Likud insists there will be no Palestinian state west of the Jordan, and as long as we accept that Hamas insists that there will be no Jewish state in the Middle East of the Jordan than we are stuck. After all, Likud and Hamas both seem to have publicly identical positions (from the perspective of an outsider) and that is the eradication of the other side.
Yet Likud has generally done a better job of negotiating than Labor (exception being the Rabin administration). It would be interesting to see if Hamas demonstrates the same relationship between rhetoric and pragmatism that Likud has. If so, some progress could be made pretty quickly. We should assume until proven wrong that the Palestinians initially elected Hamas not because they endorsed all of Hamas’s political platform but because they were fed up with the corruption in Fatah. We already lost a major opportunity to bring them into the talks when they were first elected, and that is regrettable.
All of this being said, the more I think about it the more I think that the whole issue has turned into whether Israel is right or not. Everyone is either for Israel or against Israel. Consequently most people tend to disproportionately criticize one side or the other without looking to the broader picture. I am not a Christian but I acknowledge the value of removing timbers from one’s own eyes before addressing specks in the eyes of others.
The fact is that Israel is not right and anyone with much sense can see that.
The problem though is that the serious faults of the PA are more hidden from view and are worse.
Worse, the US isn’t willing to stand up to either side and even say what needs to be said, much less factor it into foreign policy.
So, while I agree with Klein as far as he goes, I think it needs to go further. One real reason why American policy is inadequate where the concept of a two-state solution is discussed is that the whole dialog is about Jews and Arabs when it should be about Israelis and Palestinians. This is a mistake which foments antisemitism because Jews who may not even approve of Israeli governmental actions become blamed for what some people think are unjust or overly harsh responses. It is also wrong because framing it as such a conflict endorses the idea that Jews should not be allowed to live in areas controlled by the PA. It thus seems to approve of the expulsions of Jews from Gaza in the last decade and by extension to the expulsion of Jews from other Arab nations in the 1940′s. It’s a small step indeed to suggest that Israel should expel her Arab citizens.
Our government has played into this trap and the end result means that the problems simply cannot be solved. The first order of business needs to be an agreement on settlements along the following lines: that Israeli settlers must be granted permission to remain in their homes by the PA if they so desire, and MUST be granted citizenship in the PA, just as Israeli Arabs have Israeli citizenship.
Our governmental response is weak because it condones ethnic cleansing on the part of the PA by endorsing their idea of a Jew-free state. I seriously doubt that any Jew would prefer to live under the PA’s corrupt government instead of returning inside the Green Line, but if they want to stay, they should be allowed to do so, and the PA should provide the security for their Jewish citizens.
This should be the balance: The US should demand that Israel agree long-run to trying to implement borders based on the original armistice lines (Green Line) and in balance should demand that the PA recognize Jews living in the settlements as “Jewish Palestinians.”
Things are not headed towards a pleasant outcome, and we deserve too much of the blame.
February 19, 2010, 7:30 pmorca says:
…partial international blockade on the terrorist state in Gaza?
I thought the U.N. labeled the blockade “collective punishment.”
February 19, 2010, 8:34 pmDavid Bernstein says:
Angry is not the opposite of unhinged. And it’s not exactly hinged for Klein to respond to a calm rebuttal of his post, that did not accuse him of anti-Israel extremism, being anti-Israel, or anti-Semitic, nor engage in any “calumny” against the president with this diatribe:
This is entirely apart from whether you agree with Klein that the U.S. should try to engage diplomatically with Hamas or not. It would be refreshing to have a commenter say something like, “yes, even though I agree with Klein’s position, his diatribe is a way over the top and non-responsive.”
February 19, 2010, 8:53 pmAnonsters says:
Really? Better by whose standards, and better for whom?
An idea towards which one frequently sees Israeli conservatives gesturing. FWIW, Arab Israelis are (almost by definition) second-class citizens, so it’s probably not a great idea to hold them up as an example of how both sides should live together.
There’s a reason for that, and that reason is history. Yes, I know that facts on the ground have changed (rather dramatically, with one or two exceptions), so that you can plausibly argue that the issue desperately needs reframing. But it won’t happen. Palestinians gain in strength when they have the rest of “the Arab world” (whatever that means) with them. Palestinians v. Israel = a one-sided affair. The larger Arab-Israeli conflicts that still exist complicate the picture, and make resolution of the Palestinian question particularly difficult, it’s true. But the Palestinians clearly perceive some benefit in solidarity with other Arabs.
Perhaps more importantly, the history of the conflict ties together Palestinians with the rest of the Arab world. The Palestinians were not even acknowledged as a separate party with whom to negotiate until the late-80s/early-90s. Through the 70s and most of the 80s, the Israelis refused to negotiate directly with Palestinians, insisting that any Palestinian contingent at diplomatic talks be part of some other nation’s negotiating team (usually Jordan or Egypt). Jordan didn’t formally renounce its role as speaking for the Palestinians (a role it never particularly enjoyed, anyway) until the late 80s.
When you have a 24 year old Palestinian girl tell you in nostalgic tones about her family’s orange groves in Jaffa before the Nakba, when she’s never been there herself, and has only heard stories from her family,
This is, frankly, a really terrible idea. First, it wouldn’t work. Neither side is going to agree on it. Second, they shouldn’t agree on such an idea. The Palestinians will have to give a little bit on the settlements, even though justice is entirely (and I do mean entirely) on their side on the settlement issue. They’ll have to give, because in order to have a workable state, they’re going to need a corridor linking Gaza and the West Bank, and they’re probably going to need some additional land around the Gaza strip (given the demographics). So land swaps are in the cards. But they won’t, and they shouldn’t, accept the settlements as a fait accompli. That has been Israel’s strategy (i.e., certain portions of Israeli society; not all Israelis are in love with the settlers) all along. Delay, stall, settle, demand on “natural growth” for the settlements, etc. The only rationale for settlements is the belief in “Eretz Yisrael.” They are contrary to international law, contrary to basic justice, and contrary to any serious desire for durable peace.
I’m becoming more and more convinced that the U.S. political system simply doesn’t allow for us to take a serious, stable and substantive stance on the conflict. Shifts in how the U.S. approaches and handles the conflict are too closely indexed to the election-cycle to be mere coincidence. I’m not endorsing some “vast American Jewish conspiracy,” although I do think that the U.S. trends too mindlessly pro-Israel to be helpful as a mediator or aid to diplomacy. Rather, simple election-cycle imperatives mean that attention and focus changes. There are narrow windows of opportunity for presidential administrations to tackle the issues and engage in public diplomacy, before presidents have to run for office again, or before they have to focus on congressional political imperatives. It’s a recurring theme throughout the history of U.S. diplomatic involvement in the Israel-Pal conflict. And Israeli politicians know how to game the system. They understand the political imperatives presidents face with regularity. And we know the political imperatives that Israeli politicians face. So you find us gaming the Israeli political cycle in negotiations, just the same.
I’m not terribly optimistic about the whole thing.
Anyway, here’s an interesting perspective from Haaretz’s Bradley Burston on the “pro-Israel”/”pro-Palestine” thing:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1150311.html
February 19, 2010, 9:01 pmAnonsters says:
So I guess resorting to insinuation is acceptable cover.
“Supposedly moderate Palestinians of Fatah.” So it’s not just the terrorist proxies of Tehran (who ZOMG want to kill Americans and destroy Israel and and and), it’s all Palestinians, no matter how “moderate” they appear to be or claim to be, who want to destroy Israel. Therefore, all (political) Palestinians want to destroy Israel. Klein thinks America should engage, not just with Fatah, but also with Hamas. But “engagement” with either would be engagement with those who want to destroy Israel.
But that’s really, really not accusing anyone of “anti-Israel extremism.”
Right-o, Bernstein.
February 19, 2010, 9:08 pmWhat Else is New? | Liberal Whoppers says:
[...] is the original post: What Else is New? [...]
February 19, 2010, 9:16 pmAnonsters says:
They’ve endorsed the Roadmap.
You’re welcome.
February 19, 2010, 9:53 pmneurodoc says:
Even the Supreme Court feels obliged to discuss the facts and law of the case under consideration before rendering their decision. But lgm just pronounces the answer, which the rest of us are supposed to accept on the strength of his authority?!
I would accept that challenge and deny that what you say happens frequently does, but why should I, or Professor Bernstein, or anyone? Where is “Likud policy” implicated in what Clinton said before that group? Are you so incapable of addressing yourself to the specifics here that all you can do is go to “Likud policy” (nothing about “neo-cons,” “AIPAC,” the “Israel Lobby” or other shibboleths)?
February 19, 2010, 11:07 pmneurodoc says:
Chris Travers, you are now aware of Irish collaboration with the Nazis, something you apparently were not previously, right? (Before we address nonsense like the “symmetry” you imagine between Hamas and the Israeli government, I’d like to know that you are willing to acknowledge background facts that challenge your opinions when those facts are brought to your attention).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Republican_Army_%E2%80%93_Abwehr_collaboration_in_World_War_II
February 19, 2010, 11:22 pmneurodoc says:
You are as likely to hear that from the commenters in question as Fingerhut is to hear Klein say he has reconsidered and admits he was wrong in his response to Tobin’s criticism. I’d offer you 10 to 1 or longer odds against either happening. Look at the sorts of “arguments”(?) lgm makes, if you can find any among his declarations and denunciations of “Likud policy.”
February 19, 2010, 11:29 pmneurodoc says:
Presumably you wish to make a point, but what is it?
There are Volokh Conspirators (e.g., Jim Lindgren and Randy Barnett) who post, but never open comments; Professor Bernstein is not one of them. Other VC post and open comments, but few I think return to participate as actively in the comment threads as Professor Bernstein does. And clearly he doesn’t shy away from the controversial and contentious, even when some commenters make copious, and at times rather ugly, use of ad hominem.
Professor Bernstein didn’t open his post on this same subject the other day, saying then that he wasn’t doing so because he didn’t have time to stay around and moderate. Since he has opened this one to comments, it seems reasonable to infer that he now has or is making time for this purpose. Is that your point, or did you intend snark for whatever reason?
February 19, 2010, 11:51 pmDavid Nieporent says:
By “entirely,” do you mean “obviously“? Because I’m at a loss to see how justice is “entirely” on the side of people who want to engage in ethnic cleansing. I can see a prudential argument against settlements, but “justice”? How is it “unjust” for Jews to live in Hebron, just as they did before Arab rioters drove them out in the 1920s and 1930s?
February 20, 2010, 12:05 amChris Travers says:
Well, let’s put it this way. Ehud Barak was the least sincere negotiator Israel has seen in years, and his insincerity was almost matched by Ehud Olmert’s incompetence. Likud has had issues. However, under Netanyahu last time, serious peace talks with Syria started and under Sharon, a substantial number of settlements were dismantled. These policies were reversed under Barak and Olmert.
Not just the conservatives. Ehud Barak tried to give up some of the excess Beduin population in exchange for settlements at Camp David. Interestingly Labor has been right of Likud on this issue.
Also Israel has a long way to go in affording Arab Israelis equal protection under the law in Israel. There are a number of reasons for this, of course, and Arab Israelis have legitimate grievances. However, when Kadima party members say “if you don’t like it, go live under the PA” this has a number of somewhat bad effects. Sort of like telling blacks in the 40′s, “If you don’t like it, move to Liberia….”
I personally think we should condition any foreign aid we give any other country on the commitment to equal protection under the law for all citizens. That might cause a pretty major change in international politics overnight not only wrt Israel, but in many other countries as well.
But that’s a major part of the reason that Arab Israelis are second class citizens. In the US, when it was us against the Japanese, we took Japanese Americans and put them all in internment camps. The same mentality is not too far off from the mentality that invokes transfer of Arab Israelis (Effi Eitam, Ehud Barak, and the like).
There are two very different issues in settlements which bear considering.
The first is that some of the settlements appear to have been legally purchased between WWI and WWII. In this case, I don’t see why properly purchased property rights shouldn’t be honored. However, this might need to be off-set with some land that was confiscated from fleeing refugees inside the Green Line. That is sort of a separate issue though.
The second though is that there arguing that the settlements are the key issue makes the argument about land for Arabs vs Jews instead of arguments about governance and providing for security of the PEOPLE who reside in the area. Endorsing a Palestinian State that is free of Jews will result in envy on the part of the Israelis and will push things further towards transfer.
However it would solve the problems for a couple of reasons:
1) Nobody in their right mind would choose to live under the PA instead of the Israeli government. It’s better to be a second-class Arab citizen in Israel than a first-class citizen in the PA. Such an agreement would probably lead to the immediate and voluntary evacuation of the settlements.
2) It might help reduce the rhetoric regarding ethnic cleansing on both sides.
Your critique assumes that most settlers would stay. I suggest to you that the vast majority would leave rather than be subject to Palestinian governance.
One of the weird things about American politics here is that both Bush 41 and Bush 43 were reported in Ha’aretz to be withholding and interfering with US foreign aid to Israel. Clinton didn’t. I don’t recall Reagan one way or another, and it is too soon to tell with Obama but thus far there hasn’t been any indication that he is willing to take concrete steps to interfere.
It may be that the Republican party has a freer hand here than the Democratic party, though I am not entirely sure why. I don’t know if it is because the Jewish vote more Democrat than Republican because I have heard a lot more nuance in questions of support for Israel from American Jews than I have from American politicians. It may be more of an issue of trying to be seen as being politically correct, esp. when it comes to foreign policy.
I looked and all connections I could find involved Provos.
This was brought up originally in response to my discussions of looking back at the old IRA (which helped Ireland win independence in the 1920′s) and hence being willing to condone terrorism. The PIRA (in Northern Ireland) is a different beast. The old saying goes that the enemy of my enemy is my friend. This is no different for the PIRA than it was for LEHI. One top leader of LEHI though, despite unsuccessful attempts to open cooperation with the Nazis, eventually served as PM of Israel, so I suppose it’s all ok.
February 20, 2010, 12:10 amDavid Nieporent says:
Right. It really really isn’t. Remember, Sarcasm is not an argument.
As he said, why exactly are people like Klein so desperate to be accused of anti-semitism? Is it because they know their positions are really stupid (really, “engage” Hamas?) and so to avoid having to defend their positions on the merits, they want to change the subject to whether they’re anti-semites?
February 20, 2010, 12:14 am1040 says:
I think it is the Nixon-in-China or the (theoretical) Sharon bringing peace argument. Republican credentials as friends of the Jews are impeccable, whereas the Dems are seen as always one turn short of selling America and the Jews down the road. The same reason why it is more logical to be afraid of Obama’s response to terror, and 9/11, which happened under Bush’s watch, doesn’t count.
February 20, 2010, 12:17 amChris Travers says:
Note that I am not condoning the terrorism or actual or attempted Nazi collaboration of either the PIRA or LEHI. It is worth noting that LEHI was banned by the Israeli government because they continued their terrorist attacks AFTER Israeli independence was won.
It is also worth noting that I think that Shamir was a pretty good Prime Minister and that his work may have helped to set the stage for Rabin’s later success.
I am really arguing that anyone who was fighting the British in WWII was going to try to build alliances with the Nazis. Ignoring this dynamic renders the statement meaningless unless one is willing to apply it to all parties and condemn LEHI with the same vigor.
February 20, 2010, 12:18 amChris Travers says:
Is that why Jews vote Democrat?
February 20, 2010, 12:20 am1040 says:
I have said this before, but I LOVE the iron-proof logic and genius of this argument. It completely shields the “non-nutters” from any anti-semitism freeing them to engage in it without any fear of being called out on it. The only people that see phantoms are always the ones who say they’ve been accused of one of the vilest things in this discourse.
February 20, 2010, 12:22 am1040 says:
American Jews that vote Democrat do so on social issues, not on Israel.
February 20, 2010, 12:28 amlgm says:
You said he was unhinged because he was angry as Michelle Malkin is wont to do. I said no, he’s angry, and with good reason. Then you give the above, more MM quality reasoning.
Looking at results, Democratic Presidents have been better for Israel than Republicans. Carter and Camp David, Reagan and the debacle in Lebanon, Bill Clinton makes more progress, and Bush let’s the situation slide into another round of violence. You might not like American Presidents who pressure Israel to do the right thing, but empirically, it does seem to be good for peace, and Israel.
February 20, 2010, 12:51 amorca says:
Hamas did win the Palestinian elections and the Palestinian civil war. Who else should America talk to?
February 20, 2010, 12:56 am1040 says:
This is exactly the kind of argument an anti-semite would make. Note though that I am not calling *you* an anti-semite, a charge you will rush to embrace because people of your ilk think that it is cool.
February 20, 2010, 1:07 amneurodoc says:
Which I did.
Was Sean Russell a Provo? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Se%C3%A1n_Russell
LEHI, small in numbers, were rejected by most Jews, and never enjoyed anything remotely like the place that Hamas occupies among the Palestinians, though one of them, Shamir, did become a PM of Israel years later. And just as you now know that there were Irish-Nazi connections, I learned in the course of this that when Shamir was with LEHI, he adopted as a nom de guerre “Michael” after Michael Collins, the Irish Republican. (And I think that along with many other things, you are wrong to “suppose it’s all ok.”)
****
Now, forgive me the digression, and let’s return to the matter of Joel Klein and his response to criticism by Tobin…
February 20, 2010, 1:10 amneurodoc says:
It was Sadat and Begin, though Carter in his arrogance did think it was all about him.
Why didn’t anyone ever tell the Israelis that Reagan was bad for them?
Clinton accomplished exactly what with all the courting of Arafat – the failure of the last ditch attempt at Camp David in September of 2000 and start of the Second Intifada?
If Bush had only done X, we would have seen much happier results. “X” being what?
Which President “pressure(d) Israel to do the right thing,” which it wasn’t otherwise inclined to do, with the result being “peace” or unequivocal progress toward it?
February 20, 2010, 1:29 ameyesay says:
Klein’s piece has a laudable sentiment that it would be great if more supplies get into Gaza to reduce the suffering of the people there. But the Achilles’ heel of his piece is
This shows that Klein does not understand what Shalit means to Hamas. I may be wrong, but I believe that what Shalit means to Hamas is the hope of exchanging Shalit for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli hands. If I’m right, Hamas would never give up that hope in exchange for Israel lifting the siege. The siege is painful economically, but that’s fine for Hamas, because Gazans suffering economically is, for them, all Israel’s fault and justifies their rejectionist stance.
Klein gets a C- for writing a piece that pins all his hopes on getting Hamas to trade Shalit for Israel lifting the seige, which Hamas will never agree to.
Jonathan Tobin gets an F for failing to note this Achilles’ heel in Klein’s piece, and for misreading it. Tobin said that Klein “places the blame on Israel for Obama’s acknowledged failure in the Middle East,” — not true; he blames Hamas for not making a deal on Shalit — “while ignoring the fact that neither the supposedly moderate Palestinians of Fatah nor the extremists of Hamas have any interest in learning to live with a Jewish state, no matter where its borders are drawn” — also not true; plenty of ordinary Palestinians are ready to live side-by-side with Israel.
Klein’s reply to Tobin includes my first objection: “Fifth, I didn’t blame it on Israel–but on Hamas, for not releasing the Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, which might open the door to a more reasonable Israeli policy on the blockade.” I won’t go into the rest of his reply; I really couldn’t get past Tobin’s lie about Klein blaming Israel so I don’t know what else was wrong with Tobin’s piece, so I can’t relate to Klein’s critique of a piece I can’t be bothered to read.
I can’t say much for Fingerman either. He also failed to detect the Achilles’ heel of Klein’s first piece — Fingerman’s piece does not include the word “Shalit.” Fingerman’s asessment of the dispute over who Klein first blamed is
Well, OK, so even if Klein intended to place most of the blame on Hamas for not making a deal over Shalit, I suppose one could construe the piece to imply a significant share of Klein’s blame going to Israel on this point, even if Klein didn’t intend it.
But you know what? Klein is right. Under Oslo, Israel isn’t supposed to be building more and more, larger and larger settlements. Many of these settlements and expansions are illegal under Israeli law, but they get retroactive approval, because it’s just easier for Israel to give into the settler fanatics than to force them to obey the law. And you know what else? These settlements are costing Israeli taxpayers a huge amount of money that Israel should be spending on the well-being of the well over 90% of Israelis who aren’t settlers. And you know what else? These settlements are making a two state solution harder and harder to achieve, and American policy ought to be to coax Israel to freeze settlement expansion, that is to say, to abide by agreements that Israel has already made.
February 20, 2010, 3:20 amEli Rabett says:
Eli might give a tinkers damn if he regularly read condemnations of Rush and Ann and friends here for being over the top. Till them, you asked for it, you got it
February 20, 2010, 9:29 amneurodoc says:
This shows that Klein does not understand what Shalit means to Hamas. I may be wrong, but I believe that what Shalit means to Hamas is the hope of exchanging Shalit for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli hands. If I’m right, Hamas would never give up that hope in exchange for Israel lifting the siege. The siege is painful economically, but that’s fine for Hamas, because Gazans suffering economically is, for them, all Israel’s fault and justifies their rejectionist stance.
Yup, you were right to realize you could be wrong, since you are indeed wrong. “(T)he hope of exchanging Shalit for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli hands” would not be a “hope” but for the fact that Hamas has shown no great desire to proceed with an “exchang(e) of Shalit for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli hands.” Multiple times such an exchange was imminent, only for Hamas to balk at the last minute. And many Palestinians, especially the families of those hundreds who would be swapped for Shalit, have not been pleased with Hamas for failing to go ahead with such a swap of hundreds of Palestinians prisoners for one Israeli soldier. So the “Achilles heel” you ascribe to Klein is your own, that is a failure or unwillingness to comprehend. Hamas would undoubtedly give up Shalit in return for a lifting of the seige and the “exchang(e) of Shalit for hundreds of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli hands,” since that would be the whole enchilada for them, but the former isn’t going to happen, at least not in conjunction with the latter.
You do say correctly, “The siege is painful economically, but that’s fine for Hamas, because Gazans suffering economically is, for them, all Israel’s fault and justifies their rejectionist stance.” (italics mine) Hamas does not put the well-being of the populace first, instead subordinating it to Hamas’ implacable war aims.
Those who would instruct others, especially those who imagine themselves teachers assigning grades, should know of what they presume to speak and not be self-evidently wrong. You don’t and you are. The “supposedly moderate Palestinians of Fatah” and “the extremists of Hamas” needn’t, and in fact don’t, add up to 100% of the Palestinian people any more than those who identify themselves as Democrats taken together with those who identify themselves as Republicans add up to anything approaching 100% of the American people. (Can you grasp this rather obvious fact, or do we have to further simplify it for you?) So it does not follow, as you imagine it does, that Tobin was saying anything about whether or not “plenty of ordinary Palestinians are ready to live side-by-side with Israel” (let alone on what terms they would be willing to peacefully coexist with a Jewish state).
Believe me, you have no idea how hard it is to wade all the way through your crap to the end.
You might start by getting his name right, but then you are in a great hurry to get to your anti-Israel tendention, aren’t you. And since the problem with Klein’s piece is not the one you imagine, and Fingerhut’s wasn’t writing about Shalit, but about Klein’s bogus claim to have been labeled an antisemite by Tobin, it’s all lost on you anyway.
You demand that Israel adhere strictly to the terms of an agreement reached 17 years ago, though so much has superseded since then (e.g., Second Intifada, emergence of Hamas in the territory from which Israel withdrew completely in 2005) and the Palestinians have done so much less than was supposed to be required of them, including a cessation to the Nazi-like villification of those they purportedly want to co-exist with. No doubt you think yourself very clear-sighted and fair-minded, though.
February 20, 2010, 10:42 amChris Travers says:
A couple points. The “I suppose it’s all ok” was uttered in sarcasm. The simple fact is that LEHI is held to a different standard because of their relationship to the Israeli independence movement and there are many people who are willing to overlook (or even deny) their pro-Nazi sympathies simply because they were on the right side of history. Avraham Stern said some rather strange things about Hitler (for example that Hitler just hated Jews, but the really dangerous figure to the Jews was Churchill, or that the forcing the Jews into the ghettos was a good thing because it was a prototype for a Jewish state), but history is willing to pardon him where they might not pardon others.
In my following post, I stated I wasn’t condoning LEHI or the PIRA in any way. The fact is that LEHI was not only a fringe group in the Israeli War of Independence, but they didn’t even know when to quit, and continued terrorist activity after the war was won. Shamir’s leadership in LEHI made him somewhat of a controversial leader. And I certainly didn’t compare LEHI to Hamas (one might be able to compare Irgun to Hamas, but LEHI would be really stretching it). Indeed the only group I compared to Hamas politically was the Likud Party and there only in the limited area of the campaign platform which denied the right of the other to self-determination. The reason for that comparison was not to draw a moral equivalence but rather to ask if negotiations were possible, given the fact that Likud had tended to negotiate secretly but in good faith. I don’t think one can know without trying.
February 20, 2010, 12:03 pmeyesay says:
neurodoc wrote, “You might start by getting his name right, but then you are in a great hurry to get to your anti-Israel tendention, aren’t you.” I acknowledge my mistake in calling Mr. Fingerhut “Fingerman.”
As long as we’re pointing out each other’s word errors, according to both Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary, the noun form of tendentious is tendentiousness. Google finds about 101,000 for tendentiousness and about 14,300 for tendention; moreover, the first hits for tendention show the word being used in some way other than a noun form of tendentious, “marked by a tendency in favor of a particular point of view: BIASED” (Webster’s); “written or said to promote some cause; not impartial; biased” (American Heritage).
My comments may have tended to favor a particular point of view, but if so, that point of view is that Klein is wrong in thinking that Hamas will give up Shalit for for less than some number of prisoners that is more than has been offered so far, and so on for the other writers for missing this point. If I’m wrong, and Hamas has failed to trade Shalit for some reason other than the hope of getting more prisoners, that doesn’t make my alleged tendentiousness anti-Israel. It just means I’m wrong about why Hamas failed to trade Shalit.
I do not accept your argument that Israel is not required to abide by Oslo because of the “Second Intifada [and] emergence of Hamas in the territory from which Israel withdrew completely in 2005.” Those unfortunate events, detrimental to the Palestinian cause, were a predictable reaction to Israel’s failure to abide by Oslo. This is not a justification for Palestinian violence and failure to negotiate. It’s simply an observation that these events are unsurprising reactions to Israel’s failure to abide by Oslo.
Your accusing my alleged tendentiousness of being anti-Israel, which is not supported by anything I wrote, shows that your comments are “marked by a tendency in favor of a particular point of view: BIASED” and “written or said to promote some cause; not impartial; biased.” It’s really appalling that I can’t state my opinions (Hamas won’t trade Shalit for Israel lifting the seige) and my facts (Israel spends a lot of taxpayer shekels maintaining and expanding the settlements, benefiting a tiny minority at the expense of the great majority) without being accused of being anti-Israel.
February 20, 2010, 1:05 pmDavid Nieporent says:
Who said we should talk to anybody? Talking to people is a tactic, not a goal. What’s the goal, and how does talking to Hamas get us to that goal?
February 20, 2010, 1:27 pmDavid Nieporent says:
Calling LEHI “pro-Nazi” is rather misleading; it’s like calling FDR “pro-Soviet.” They were virulently anti-British, and thought that perhaps the Nazis would think their objectives aligned.
February 20, 2010, 2:53 pmChris Travers says:
I personally think it was more than that. Some of the things Yair said and wrote seemed like they went across that line by any reasonable reading. I personally think that trying to downplay the totalitarian, pro-fascist, pro-Nazi elements of LEHI is revisionism, pure and simple. The proper place for LEHI in the history books is that of an extremist group which was rightly rejected by just about everyone except some latter-day supporters.
In particular, LEHI’s emphasis on pushing for a totalitarian government in Israel is well documented, as are Yair’s complimentary praises of Nazi policy concerning the Jews.
IMO, LEHI deserves to be nothing more than a footnote to the Israeli War of Independence, and that they deserve to be little more than a footnote to the Shamir administration. Indeed, aside from their involvement in the Dair Yassin massacre and the assassination of Bernadotte, they just weren’t that important.
Now, if FDR had praised Stalin’s form of government, called him a champion for social justice, or anything like that, I would agree with the comparisons. As it was, the FDR/Stalin pact had virtually no ideological elements to it and so was fundamentally different.
February 20, 2010, 3:35 pmorca says:
The goal for America is to reduce the burden the Levant has been on us. Hamas has stopped firing their rockets, making them the most rational actors in the region and the group most likely to help us achieve our goal.
February 20, 2010, 3:40 pmDavid Nieporent says:
If you want to say that they had fascist elements, I won’t object. But there’s a big difference between being fascist and being “pro-Nazi,” a term with very different and much more specific connotations.
February 20, 2010, 4:00 pmeyesay says:
P.S. I hope that I am wrong about Hamas, and that Hamas does agree to trade Shalit for an end to the siege, as Klein suggests, or Hamas does accept an offer to trade Shalit for prisoners in Israeli custody. I do not expect Hamas to agree to trade Shalit for an end to the siege, but if this happens, I will be pleased to have been wrong.
David Nieporent wrote, “Who said we should talk to anybody? Talking to people is a tactic, not a goal. What’s the goal, and how does talking to Hamas get us to that goal?” I’ve never understood how conservatives divide the world into those we talk to and those we don’t. We talk to China, which harvests organs of prisoners, many of whom are “guilty” of nothing more than supporting basic human freedoms; oppresses the Tibetan people; and continually threatens the sovereignty of Taiwan. We don’t talk to Cuba, and by and large forbid our citizens to travel there, basically because a bunch of Cuban refugees in Florida say that it should be so. We talk Saudi Arabia, where women are not permitted to drive motor vehicles or travel without a male escort. Oh, but we need oil, and Saudi Arabia has a lot of that.
Here’s conservative logic:
(a) Hamas says it wants to destroy Israel.
(b) Let’s not negotiate with them.
(c) ???
(d) Two-state solution.
I admit that substituting
February 20, 2010, 6:42 pm(b’) Let’s negotiate with them
is not a whole lot more compelling, but it strikes me having no downside, a possible upside, and negligible cost.
1040 says:
(c) ???
(d) Two-state solution.
You got the order wrong.
c. two state solution
February 20, 2010, 8:47 pmd. PROFIT!
David Nieporent says:
I thought what I said was “Talking to people is a tactic, not a goal. What’s the goal, and how does talking to Hamas get us to that goal?” China does many bad things, but talking to China gets us somewhere. And yes, Saudi Arabia has oil.
February 20, 2010, 8:49 pmArthur Kirkland says:
Can any realistic hope that conservatives will adopt a sensible approach to the Middle East survive an examination of their treatment of Cuba?
In any event, I find it difficult to expect much substantive change in the situation unless or until someone writes a check Americans are unwilling to cash. I doubt anyone can predict whether or when that might occur.
February 20, 2010, 9:28 pmeyesay says:
David Nieporent wrote, “[H]ow does talking to Hamas get us to that goal? China does many bad things, but talking to China gets us somewhere. And yes, Saudi Arabia has oil.” The hidden assumption is that talking to Hamas will not get us somewhere. Could be, but not talking to Hamas definitly will not get us somewhere. You know what, David? We’re a lot bigger than they are. We don’t have to be afraid of Hamas, and we certainly don’t have to be afraid of talking with Hamas.
February 20, 2010, 11:09 pmneurodoc says:
Still playing teacher, assigning grades, even failing marks to some, and offering corrections, when you know less than those you presume to teach. What, pray tell, do you imagine it proves that you came up with 7 times as many Google hits for “tendentiousness” as for “tendention,” those being different, albeit not unrelated, words? That somehow shows that I chose the wrong one when I observed, “…you are in a great hurry to get to your anti-Israel tendention, aren’t you?” The former refers to the quality of being “tendentious,” the latter to the particular bias involved, in your case an anti-Israel one. (see below)
“May have…but if so…”? You’re not entirely sure of your own thinking, but you are confident you know and understand the thinking of others, and that you can say they are wrong, allowing though that it may be you who is wrong?
You call your assertion that Klein is wrong in his assessment of Hamas’ thinking a “point of view”? What sort of “point of view” is a mere opinion buttressed by no particular facts “that Klein is wrong in thinking that Hamas will give up Shalit for for (sic) less (fewer) than some number of prisoners that is more than has been offered so far,” followed by, “If I’m wrong, that doesn’t make my alleged tendentiousness anti-Israel. It just means I’m wrong about why Hamas failed to trade Shalit.”? It’s one thing to argue that it matters not whether one is right or wrong on a particular question because nothing depends on the answer, but there is no such logic, indeed any logic, to your rambling. [Can you explicate, "Klein is wrong in thinking that Hamas will give up Shalit for for less than some number of prisoners that is more than has been offered so far," or are you too at a loss to understand it?]
What I said, and will stand by, was:
Yes, in your view the Palestinians led by the so ingenuous and estimable Arafat did all that the Oslo Accords required of them, the problem was that Israel failed “to abide by Oslo.”
If you intended it, yours could be seen as a witty, self-mocking imitation of Joe Klein, drawing yourself up as you have in high dudgeon at being called anti-Israel (which I did call you for the reasons given, not antisemitic, which I didn’t call you) for showing so much sympathy for and understanding of Fatah and Hamas and so little sympathy for and understanding of Israel, but I very much doubt you intended it.
["Your (sic) accusing my alleged tendentiousness of being anti-Israel..." It is not your "tendentiousness," it is you and the arguments you attempt that I see as anti-Israel.
"...which is not supported by anything I wrote" - I have pointed to what you have written which I see as supportive of "anti-Israel," whether you accept it as such or not.
"...shows that your comments are 'marked by a tendency in favor of a particular point of view: BIASED' and 'written or said to promote some cause; not impartial; biased.'" Ah,tu quoque?]
February 21, 2010, 2:53 amneurodoc says:
There’s no “hidden assumption” in what David Nieporent wrote. He made clear that while some of those countries you named may not moral exemplars, our self economic and geopolitical self interests are served by talking to them. He called upon you to say, “What’s the goal, and how does talking to Hamas get us to that goal?” You can’t, so you counter with something “what would be the harm?,” implying there is no downside to engaging directly with them. And you advise, “We’re a lot bigger than they are.” Bigger? Going on in this silly vein, “We don’t have to be afraid of Hamas, and we certainly don’t have to be afraid of talking with Hamas.” That’s what you have to offer by way of analysis and argument?!
February 21, 2010, 3:07 ameyesay says:
Neurodoc:
What’s the (sic) for in “Your (sic) accusing my alleged tendentiousness of being anti-Israel…” Your is apropos, since you were the one who made the accusation; the use of the possessive pronoun is apropos, because I used accusing as a gerund. So why (sic)?
As far as I can tell, no online dictionary lists tendention as a main or subsidiary entry. Notably, the multiple dictionary search site Onelook reports
Sorry, no dictionaries indexed in the selected category contain the word tendention. Onelook lists 27 online dictionaries that have the word tendentious and 13 online dictionaries that have the word tendentiousness.
In addition to checking Onelook, I checked a couple of online dictionaries. Again no tendention.
dictionary.com: tendentious
—Related forms ten·den·tious·ly, adverb
ten·den·tious·ness, noun
Merriam-Webster online: tendentious
— ten·den·tious·ly adverb
— ten·den·tious·ness noun
Your claims for tendention are tendentious, as are your criticisms of my postings on this thread, which I will not dignify with any further response.
February 21, 2010, 7:57 pmneurodoc says:
So it may be seen that you know what a gerund is. Now, why don’t you consult Wikipedia again to see that “(s)ic is a Latin word meaning ‘thus’, ‘so’, ‘as such’, or ‘in such a manner’. In writing, it is placed within the quoted material, in square brackets – or outside it, in regular parentheses – and usually italicized – [sic] – to indicate that…()…and/or other preceding quoted material has been reproduced verbatim from the quoted original and is not a transcription error.” (italics added) Then stop hyperventilating about irrelevancies and try to make a convincing case of some sort. You can go on pronouncing whoever you wish “wrong,” assigning them low or failing grades, or otherwise declaring answers, but don’t imagine you are persuading anyone except yourself of anything, including that you have been unfairly characterized by me as anti-Israel. Speaking sympathetically, as you do, of a terrorist organization committed to the elimination of the Jewish state, with only time outs (hudna) while it restocks its arms caches and prepares to start firing missiles, is decidedly anti-Israel whether you recognize it or not.
Didn’t you say that you came up with 14,300 Google hits for “tendention”? Those were all for a word you see is unknown in the English language? (My 2-volume OED, which requires a magnifying glass to read, is packed away and inaccessible to me. When I have a chance, I’ll try to consult that reference in a library. In any event, you do understand my intended meaning, don’t you, and you don’t have any substantive rebuttal to offer.)
IMO, you are self-deluded to imagine that all your harrumphing amounts to rebuttal of those criticisms. But I’ll leave it to others to judge which of us has been the more persuasive here.
Shalom.
February 22, 2010, 6:14 pmYankev says:
So let me get this tratight. In 1948 the Arab armies invaded and slaughtered the Jews who lived in the the Eztion Bloc, which was built on land that Jews had purchased from the lawful owners some 20 years earlier, and had developed and farmed. But the children of those Jews, having been evacuated before the war, were wrong to rebuild their parents’ community after 1967. Okay, got it.
February 22, 2010, 7:37 pmYankev says:
First, Abbas and other supposed moderates of Fatah HAVE planned and carried out terrorist attacks on Israel, and have stated in Arabic that they will not rest until Israel is destroyed. Abbas has said publicly — while prime minister — that the armed struggle has been set aside for now because of circumstances but will be resumed when circumstances permit. His government names parks, festivals and public buildings after terrorist mass murderers. The Fatah charter and the Palestine National Covenant both still call for the end of Israel. So it is not a smear to say that Fatah are not the moderates they are portrayed as being.
Second, I am having a hard time finding insinuations of anti-Semtiism (which I thought was the topic of this thread, not whether Israel is right or wrong) in your example of:
If it is simply his use of the term “Jewish state”, that term is accurate, and it is equally accurate that supposedly moderate Mr. Abbas cannot bring himself to say publicly that he accepts the idea of a Jewish state.
I have read only a handful of the comments on this thread but I have read enough to see that it is a swamp that I regret having waded into.
February 22, 2010, 7:48 pmYankev says:
No, the PA endorsed the road map. And both Fatah and the PLO have refused to amend their charters to remove the part that calls for an end to Israel.
February 22, 2010, 7:59 pmYankev says:
You have yet to dignify even the ones you thought you responded to.
February 22, 2010, 8:03 pm