Muammar’s second act

The NYT persisting in its misguided principle that debate is always good, today offers an op-ed written by Libyan dictator, Muammar Quaddafi, “The One State Solution.” I had not realized it, but apparently Qaddafi is making a second career out of writing op-eds, the Boston Globe, also owned (for now) by the New York Times recently published an op-ed of his too. (He’s been in the news too!) Apparently the Times confused him with Bono.

Qaddafi writes:

Jews and Muslims are cousins descended from Abraham. Throughout the centuries both faced cruel persecution and often found refuge with one another. Arabs sheltered Jews and protected them after maltreatment at the hands of the Romans and their expulsion from Spain in the Middle Ages.

I bring this up not because he sugarcoats the experience of Jews in Islamic lands. I bring it up because this implicitly undermines what he writes later.

It is an injustice that Jews who were not originally inhabitants of Palestine, nor were their ancestors, can move in from abroad while Palestinians who were displaced only a relatively short time ago should not be so permitted.

“[N]ot originally inhabitants of Palestine?” The Jews of Judea were persecuted by the Romans. It’s odd that Qaddafi acknowledges Roman persecution but disconnects it from its historical context.

Surprisingly, Qaddafi gets some things right.

It is a fact that Palestinians inhabited the land and owned farms and homes there until recently, fleeing in fear of violence at the hands of Jews after 1948 — violence that did not occur, but rumors of which led to a mass exodus. It is important to note that the Jews did not forcibly expel Palestinians. They were never “un-welcomed.” Yet only the full territories of Isratine can accommodate all the refugees and bring about the justice that is key to peace.

Here he’s saying that the Palestinian flight in 1948 was largely voluntary. He won’t get any argument from me. But if the flight was voluntary, why is justice dependent on settling those who left? Did he get Efraim Karsh to write that paragraph?

Still, in the end Qaddafi’s argument is that Israel must be dissolved. So the Times considers this a debatable proposition. Worse, the Times gives a platform to a tyrant who denies the right of free speech to his own citizens. Does the Times have any standards?

Slobodan Milosevic didn’t merit an op-ed in the Times. Neither did Joerg Haider.

European tyrants and extremists apparently do not have anything to say that’s worth debating, but Arab ones do. That’s the only conclusion I can draw.

Something’s rotten on 8th Avenue.

UPDATE: Please see Elder of Ziyon’s assessment (and yes, he emphasizeed the same paragraph I did):

It is certainly ghostwritten by someone who understands the Western mindset – it pushes all the right buttons for well-meaning but uninformed people to warm to the idea of a painless way to destroy Israel. It appears, in fact, to be written with a liberal Jewish audience in mind.

via memeorandum.

I also should add that the name Palestine derives from “Palestina” the name given Judea by the Romans after they brutally suppressed revolts by the Jews in the land. Again by acknowledging the Roman persecution of the Jews, Qaddafi is implicitly acknowledging the Jewish presence in the land 700 years before the Islamic occupation of the Middle East and northern Africa.

UPDATE II: Backspin gives six convincing reasons why a one-state solution won’t work. James Taranto points out the hollowness of Qaddafi’s concern for refugees, as he (and his country) was/were responsible for creating thousands of Jewish refugees. (He also references a source explaining all the different spellings of the Libyan dictator’s name.) Fausta notes that Qaddafi’s current entourage is missing 42.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.