Letter to the Editor of the Annapolis Kapital (Sunday, 1-25-09):
I must take issue with Saul Friedman's taking issue with his rabbi's letter in defense of Israel's right to self-defense, a right Mr. Friedman would deny Israel and her brave people. Why? Because "there's no excuse for killing children." Except, of course, if you are a Palestinian. Now Mr. Friedman's position is hardly new nor is the use of children and other innocents to attack Israel and defend Hamas. But I have been looking for an excuse to write about this subject and this letter seemed to fill the bill.
I read his letter while dipping what my Lebanese grandmother called Syrian bread and butter into a cup of coffee (if Mr. Friedman can invoke his heritage, so can I). I find it inconceivable that anyone who has "covered" the Arab-Israeli conflict since the Yom Kippor War would remain under the illusion that Israel is somehow to blame. I have never been to Israel but I somehow understand the concept of self-defense. I don't know whether Mr. Friedman would allow someone to store missiles, rockets, guns and ammunition in his house, and use his house to attack his neighbor. Apparently he believes it is OK for the Palestinians to do this.
At the same time, we should thank Mr. Friedman for revealing to the hundreds of Kapital readers what his "journalism" really means. With this letter he formally joins the ranks of the "fake-but-accurate" gang in the main stream media. Teachers will no longer be able to pass his stuff off as objective reporting, not with a straight face anyway.
More Journalists of his era should follow his lead and simply declare themselves raving advocates of the liberal agenda. Maybe Mr. Friedman will be honored by the repressive and radical Hamas regime, like Herbert L. Matthews of the New York Times by Castro, with a small monument on a hill overlooking what used to be Israel: "For his vital role in convincing Western opinion that the Holy Land was infested by the Jew, making it easier for the forces of Islam to cleanse the land of this infestation and return it to the people of Mohammed."
For the liberals in the West the destruction of the state of Israel is the only alternative. Only then will Hamas and Hezbolla have no targets for their missiles and suicide bombers, save themselves. And who will really care if Palestinians and Lebanese shoot, burn and hack each other to death? Mr. Friedman? No. Suddenly then, the children won't really matter much.
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2 comments:
I didn't read the original piece, so I can't comment about that. You make good points, don't get me wrong, but my issue is with this disregard of the Left. Again, I didn't read Friedman's piece, but from what you write I get the idea. I don't doubt that many on the Left use this conflict to mask their Antisemitism, or in this case, a one-sided view that's easy to digest. Really, whenever children are brought into an argument, the conversation ends. It's like comparing someone to Hitler--it's the end of any discussion.
But I believe that if you read more opinions from the Left, including those of Obama and even Olbermann, you'll find a much more thoughtful argument.
Eight years of Bush, the President many consider "Israel's Best Friend," didn't help Israel achieve peace or security. He turned a blind eye to illegal settlements that only made the Hamas more popular, and he actively championed the Palestinian elections, quickly moving away when Hamas won.
Half of the people in Israel (more or less--the center shifts all the time) don't see Bush or the American Right as helpful, and they actually see the Left not as Israel's enemy but as Israel's only hope of achieving peace.
OM,
The opinions on the left are, if anything, devoid of thought. You ned to accept this, I don't know for sure whether the left are motivated by anti-Semitism. How can Jews such as Saul freidman be so motivated.
But I can say for sure that what motivates the left's commentary on this topic is politics, pure and simple. Domestic, American politics. American Jewery by and large is a liberal force and in the case of the Arab-Israeli conflict are guided by the Jihadist "enemy of my enemy" approach to alliances and friendship.
And so the liberal Jew is allied with Islamist in pursuit of a short-term domestic political agenda, for in the longterm, the victory of the Islamist necessarily means the extermination of the Jew.
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