Monday, August 10, 2009
Go figure. Seven years after Moshe Yaalon DIDN'T say what everybody said he said, the record is being set straight - but it's too late isn't it.
Even Rashid Khalidi, noted academic, said he said it.
Well he didn't.
AAAAARRRRGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
Anybody who's tried to argue Israel's case knows how frustrating this is - it's like saying wait a second we really don't eat Christian blood in our matzohs. Nobody really wants to hear it because they've already made up their minds.
Well people can think what they like and say what they like but the media and certainly, academics have a greater responsibility. It's high time they started checking the facts before they bleat falsehoods to the world and not so incidentally, contribute directly to conflict, chaos and death.
I'm angry about this. But it's only one of countless examples of inaccurate, biased "reporting" about Israel in particular and Jews in general.
At least in this case, something is being done about it. Much too late, but maybe better late than never.
Thanks to Daniel Pipes for pointing this out in his newsletter.
Hmm.
As the unkosher among us might say, that's an awful lot of stew from one tiny oyster. (Israelis hear every day that their country should never have been created in the first place, and that it should be destroyed as soon as possible. Compared with that, calling the Palestinians "a vanquished people" seems tame indeed.)
And now it turns out that he didn't say it. I have to wonder: should we now look for statements about Mohammed al-Dura that Moshe Ya'alon didn't say?
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
Daniel, et.al.,
There is so much to write about concerning Israel but this particular article grabbed me because I have spent so many years on political blogs and have confronted the problem of (deliberate?) inaccuracy so many times.
It is unbelievably frustrating to have to go through the process over and over again of debunking a myth or a misconception or even an outright lie.
It takes about 30 seconds to post something false, but hours of research and a carefully worded argument to debunk it.
Then, people might not necessarily read it or even if they do they attack you and/or your sources (even if they're impeccable). They say well we don't believe THAT because (so and so) is a Right Wing Fish Wrapper, and YOU are a Zionist and therefore untrustworthy, and besides who cares about facts.
I repeat: arrrrggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.
By the way, all it takes to attain the status of Right Wing Fish Wrapper is to appear somewhat proIsrael. For example, the Jerusalem Post is by definition a Right Wing Fish Wrapper.
I apologize to my Conservative colleagues, I want you to understand that I don't understand why the term "right wing" is a pejorative per se any more than the Left should be blindly stereotyped.
Obviously on the extremes we can all become a bit nutty:) but there's nothing wrong with disagreeing on certain issues, agreeing on others, and condemning something as "Zionist" or (right/left wing) rather than arguing the facts or confronting the issues has become a real problem not only on low level political boards but even in the UN.
Polemics blind us, increasingly it seems as though people make up their minds in advance, and that has been a huge part of the problem in achieving peace in the Middle East.
How can you solve a problem if you're dealing with a fog of lies? How can we communicate if people don't want to listen?