In a recent essay describing her alienation from NPR, Bookworm identified the first point of departure:
There was only one problem with this neatly enclosed little universe: Israel. You see, unlike stories about domestic politics, where my only understanding of the facts came from NPR itself, when it came to Israel, I actually knew one important thing: Israel wanted to live peacefully on the small plot of land given her by both the League of Nations and the UN, and won by her in subsequent wars; and the Palestinians wanted every Jew in the world dead. This meant that all the spin NPR put out about Israeli brutalities against innocent Palestinians, and the poor, suffering, peace-loving Palestinians, didn’t touch me. I knew NPR was spinning or, worse, lying.
The problem is that, once you realize that a narrator is comfortable abandoning the truth, you start to wonder, “Where does that end? I know NPR is lying when it tries to make a moral relativism argument re Israel or, worse, when it presents the Israeli military as an out-of-control killing machine, so I have to wonder if it’s lying about other things too.â€
What’s remarkable is how many lies propagated by the media – not just NPR – and anti-Israel activists (but I repeat myself) persist.
For example during Cast Lead the Hamas policeman Israel killed were really civilians. Or that during Cast Lead Israel caused an unprecedented amount of collateral damage.
Or that Gaza is so impoverished the population couldn’t afford a second luxury shopping mall or 5 star hotel.
Or that the current moderate Palestinian leadership is committed to living peacefully with israel.
Or that Israel is somehow comparable to South Africa.
Generally, though, outgoing Israeli director of the foreign press office Danny Seaman said (via Barry Rubin):
“There were certain `truths’ that we were told: That if we adopt UN resolutions, there’ll be peace. If we recognize the Palestinian right to self-determination, there’ll be peace. If we remove settlements, there’ll be peace. And over the past 25 years, there’s been a progression in the Israeli position: Israel recognized the PLO as the only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people; relinquished territory; removed settlements.Regarding Lebanon, Israel fulfilled all the UN resolutions.
“Yet the end result was not the peace that we were promised. In no way am I criticizing the efforts for peace. Peace is a strategic necessity for the State of Israel. But here, in this case, these `truths’ that we were promised never came about. On the contrary, it only increased violence, increased extremism. Yet there was a failure by a lot of the media to be intellectually honest, to say `maybe we need to reevaluate….'”
Put a different way, if, in 1993, someone had told you about the terror, diplomatic isolation and perfidy Israel would suffer AFTER engaging in the peace process; you probably would have said, “Why bother?” Israel persisted in pursuing peace with faithless partner’s sponsored by often disloyal friends. One would think that after 17 years, Israel would have earned some benefit of the doubt, if not goodwill. That it hasn’t reflects poorly on those who urge Israel to make peace for its own good.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
My journey from moderate Democrat to moderate Republican has a similar starting point. If the neo-dems could be so wrong and flagrantly hateful about Israel, a subject I consider myself knowledgeable about, then what other so called “truths†that they believe in also need to be questioned? To me attitude towards Israel is THE litmus test, and I will not support any person, media, or, organization that espouses a hypocritical one sided, anti-Israel bias. The good news is that slowly, more and more Jews are starting to feel this same way about the neo-dems!
Unfortunately painfully slowly. And what about those leftwing, postzionist nuts in Israel?
I’m a former Democrat, Herschel, but not likely a nascent Republican. However, I the residual Democrat in me is painfully aware that a more Republican congress is almost ipso facto a more pro-Israel congress.
I was never much of a leftist,not that I’ve called myself one at all for years, and this stems in part from the fact that by the time I got out of high school in 1966 I had already figured out that the Viet Cong were not an Asian version of the ACLU. And in 1967 it struck me that the left should be celebrating Israel’s victory but wasn’t.
For that matter, by every standard assertion of leftist values, the left should be wildly pro-Israel and instead is wildly anti-Israel, and it’s fair to ask why.
And Herschel, I’d be pro-Israel even if the Israelis were Vietnamese.