Comments on: The problem with pundits

By: Elisson

Elisson — Sun, 22 Nov 2009 03:21:52 +0000

Another of Golda Meir’s remarks: “We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than they hate us.”

Alas, it does not seem that such a change in the Arab mindset will be forthcoming in our lifetime.

By: Alex Bensky

Alex Bensky — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 16:14:34 +0000

By the way, I especially like that line about the Israelis wanting to be separate from the Palestinians even though it may seem racist.

I mean, golly, those stiff-necked and intransigent Israelis, wanting to be apart from a people who, when they are brought close, blow up as many Israelis as they can get to. Somehow I see that woman whose name I forget as symbolic…she had received treatment at a hospital in Beer Sheva which was by all accounts kind and effective, and repaid that by returning with a bomb under her coat.

Yet again I recall Golda Meir’s remark, which I paraphrase, that what the world wants is a progressive, humane, liberal, dead Jewish people.

By: Karmafish

Karmafish — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 21:00:55 +0000

One would think that if the Palestinians were so desperate for peace and autonomy than they would negotiate. One would think that they might have accepted one of the many previous offers for state-hood.

Yet, somehow we are supposed to believe that construction in settlement blocs near the green line, or in Jewish neighbors in E Jerusalem, areas that will become part of Israel under a negotiated settlement, represents an impediment to negotiations.

Why is it that on so many domestic issues liberals are fairly on the money, yet when it comes to I-P they have their heads entirely up their asses?

And to think that I voted for Obama.

Not next time.

By: Sabba Hillel

Sabba Hillel — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 18:16:50 +0000

Actually, Grossman might be correct if he ended his sentence “because we do not want to use our weapons against anyone.” It is similar to the explanation of Yaakov’s reaction before meeting Esav in Parshat Vayishlach, “He was afraid and distressed”. He was afraid that Esav would attempt to kill him and he was distressed that he might be forced to kill Esav. That is the fact that the “Cohens” of the world refuse to see. They have internalized the statements of their enemies so that they are upset that they are not allowed to melt into the background and disappear. They resent the fact that there are those who refuse to surrender. It is the guilt that they refuse to admit.

By: Tatterdemalian

Tatterdemalian — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 16:18:59 +0000

“I agree with the Israeli author David Grossman when he writes: ‘We have dozens of atomic bombs, tanks and planes. We confront people possessing none of these arms. And yet, in our minds, we remain victims…’”

This is the kind of thing people can only believe when they have blinkered themselves so thouroughly to see everything in terms of black vs. white, “oppressor” vs. “victim,” that they literally cannot comprehend that anybody else can see themselves or the world around them in any other way.

Israelis see themselves as victims? Why, because they refuse to see themselves as oppressors? Maybe Israelis see themselves as something that cannot exist in such a simple two-color world view: resolute defenders of their own right to exist.

By: Alex Bensky

Alex Bensky — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 14:24:10 +0000

Not that this surprises you or me, Meryl. A lot of people out there, including ones named “Cohen,” seem to be able to deal equitably with the sacrifice of Jewish lives towards some end. It’s not just the willful refusal of reality, but also the refusal to engage with evidence. Notice neither he nor many other pundits deal with what happened when Israel did withdraw from an area and gave the Palestinians a chance to show what they could do–and they showed what they could do.

I still see this blamed on the supposed Israeli blockade and few, if any, people who do this mention the fact that Gaza shares a border with Egypt and Israel has little influence on what could come across that border.