I don’t mind being criticized for intemperate language. Many members here took me to task. But being called:
“a bit too close to the gates of (Marxian) Hell”, “racist”, and accused of “bald anti-semitism”?
Jeff Goldstein apparently cannot distinguish between very distinct things. Anti-Semitism is a term for someone who dislikes, hates, or otherwise has a prejudice against Jewish people. The word should actually apply to all Semitic people, but it is not used that way. The official religion of Sweden is Lutheran Protestantism. If Sweden begins bombing Poland and I think it is a stupid and immoral strategy, am I therefore anti-Lutheran? Am I pro-Catholic? No. So tossing out a charge of racism and anti-Semitism for criticizing Isreal is unsupportable unless you can provide some evidence that I am being critical because I have some underlying hatred or dislike of Norwegians/Israelis and/or some love or special affection for Poles/Lebanese.
Goldstein makes no effort to find any substantiation, and he would not find any if he tried.
The brief, angry posting that Goldstein links to is not specifically about Israel at all. It’s about Alan Dershowitz’s claim that the Israeli civilians are somewhat more innocent than Lebanese civilians. Contrary to Dershowitz’s assertions, Israel has not reserved their aeriel bombardment to areas in the Shi’a south, nor have they warned all their victims to flee before killing them, nor have they limited their targetting to Hizbollah emplacements and property. And even if they had taken those precautions, which they have not, there is still the question of whether their strategy has any hope of success. It is immoral to knowingly engage in military actions that you know will result in the loss of innocent life and the destruction of property, if you have no chance of solving the problem that led you to resort to violence.
I have a problem with what Israel is doing for a whole host of reasons. I’ve laid them out in a number of posts. Pat Lang, Larry Johnson, and StevenD have also made similar arguments. Their strategy is not going to work. I don’t think any of us has suggested that Israel should accept rocket attacks on their territory. What we have criticized is how destroying the infrastructure of Lebanon, ethnically cleansing the south (even if only temporarily), and relying on air power, are going to stop the rocket attacks, or lead to better security for Israel.
Obviously it is public relations disaster. It is doing a lot of damage to America’s reputation around the world.
But to get back to my post on Dershowitz, the point is to lay out in the starkest terms what Dershowitz’s argument sounds like to the other side. Alan blithely justifies the bombing of civilians in Lebanon on the theory that anyone that hasn’t fled the region is guilty and deserves to be killed. That’s a very offensive argument. And it’s hard to get these jerk-offs to understand just how offensive it is without throwing the argument back in their face.
How would Alan feel if his house was hit by an American made Israeli munition? What if it was his children that needed to be buried? Would he still see it all as justified somehow? I kind of doubt it. Why? Because Alan never supported Hizballah. Actually, quite the opposite. And that is true for many of the people Israel is killing today.
Mark my words, Goldstein, Israel is going to regret what they have done. They are going to regret it because it is not going to work.
There are things they could have done, including the use of force. I am not objecting to their desire for security for their citizens. That’s their obligation and responsibility. I am objecting to a stupid self-defeating strategy and the horrid ideas being used to minimize the humanitarian costs of their decisions.
Alan Dershowitz is scum. Saying so doesn’t make me a racist or an anti-Semite, and I’m a little mystified about how it makes me a Marxist.
As for the rest of Goldstein’s post, it barely makes any sense to me. Whatever it is supposed to mean, it certainly doesn’t apply to me.