It certainly pays off to sit for a while on the fence (I wonder why that activity is called this way in English – after all, normally fence is the last place you would choose to plop your backside upon). The media is raging for the last three days with a new PaperGate, this time with a scandal called “Palestinian papers”, carefully brewed by Al Jazeera and The Guardian.
Both Al Jazeera and The Guardian are under full steam, feeding the histrionics caused by the initial publication, publishing more new “material” daily. It is not for nothing that I put that word between quotation marks. The eggs are already in the air and no matter whether PaperGate is a deliberate hoax or just a self-delusion, the eggs are going to cover quite a few faces. Read the article SCOOP: Explaining How The “Palestine Papers” Story Is A Fabrication That Teaches Us The Truth. So far it’s the best guide for the perplexed. Only one quote:
Abbas suggests that the documents or the translation reverses the Israeli and Palestinian positions. In other words, it is Israel offering compromise and the Palestinians rejecting it. In general, it is Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, not the PA that is proposing to divide east Jerusalem and so on.
This single possible explanation of the whole affair will be hardly accepted by the main publishers, at least not immediately. It will mean too much egg too soon. Better to let the story fizzle slowly and then, in some distant future, fess up using a corner of the mouth only…
But this is not why this post. Folks like prof. Barry Rubin will get eventually to the roots of this sham. What was of a special interest to me is rather on the sidelines of the whole story.
To start with, two (purportedly) different authors submit two articles. One is Jonathan Freedland, a Jewish lefty, with his Palestine papers: Now we know. Israel had a peace partner and the other Karma Nabulsi, an Oxford academic (I already had a dubious honor to reflect on her peculiar academic achievements) and a former PLO representative (in fact, today she is more of a Hamas mouthpiece than anything else). Karma Nabulsi calls her opus This seemingly endless and ugly game of the peace process is now finally over. Read both, there hardly is a need to quote anything. Of course, Ms Nabulsi is more incendiary of the two. Of course, her call for cessation of any negotiations and return to killing is not restrained much. But if you try to filter out the chaff, the gist is striking: both anti-Israeli extreme and “pro-Israeli” lefty are fully ready to accept the version fed to them by the Al Jazeera / The Guardian pair. Both don’t question for a moment the truth of the matter (well, Freedland left himself just a bit of wiggling out room, but far from being enough) – obviously the story told fits their point of view too well.
Now the more important issue: the role of The Guardian in this PaperGate. While general anti-Israeli trend of Al Jazeera is open for all to see, The Guardian is, on the face of it (OK, I know), interested in peace and tranquility in the Middle East. May the lions lie down with the lambs and all that jazz…
So, wouldn’t it be kind of natural to ask a simple question: even assuming that the story touted by Al Jazeera and The Guardian is correct in all its details (which assumption is bullshit), why would The Guardian participate in an act that blows away the current PA leadership, only to install a new regime that will be much less inclined to talk and much more inclined to shoot? Why would The Guardian give a willing hand, in fact, to a new intifada? Why is The Guardian so bloodthirsty?
You tell me…
Cross-posted on SimplyJews
In England the “fence” was a stile between two fields and was wide enough to sit on comfortabley.
Perhaps the metaphor is meant to show someone teetering on a narrow line, constantly risking falling over.
More and more this reminds me of a logic puzzle.
You are at a crossroads. One path leads to Paradise, the other to Hell. An angel stands at each road. In order to get to Paradise you have to choose the correct road. The limitation is that you are only allowed to ask a single question of a single angel to determine the correct road. Also give: the guardian of the road to Paradise always tells the truth and the guardian of the road to Hell always lies. How can you determine the correct road by asking a single “yes or no” question?
Sabba Hillel, many thanks! I knew you will settle this question if anyone will.
SD, this is a good one. Only these two roads are stuffed with angels these days, and each one is of a different opinion.
That brings back my childhood! The question is: “If I were to ask you if this [indicating one road] is the road to Paradise, would you say yes?”
Both angles will be forced to say yes if it’s the good road, and no if it’s the bad road.
Now the hard puzzle is where there are *three* angles, one of whom always tells the truth, one always lies, and the third is free to do either. In that puzzle, IIRC, you get *two* questions in order to find the good road%.
angels not angles!