Wednesday, May 5, 2010
[The following, by Matt, is crossposted from The Brothers of Judea.]
On MJ Rosenberg's most recent blog post, a series of personal attacks on Jeffrey Goldberg, one user comes out of nowhere to call him out. You can read the conversation at this address, but I'm going to repost it here in case a post gets removed.
I read Goldberg on a regular basis and this article has no connection to reality. While he is definitely pro-Israel, and to the right of me on most issues, he is fair and he is also often critical of Israel.
And Rosenberg's portrayal of John Mearsheimer, as just "a college professor for writing an academic study of an interest group" is also disingenuous given the highly controversial nature of the academic study."
You are right. Thousands of American Jews have not done military service in Israel. Tens of thousands of American Jews have. They moved to Israel and did the compulsory military service that is required by law. I don't know how many became prison guards, but I don't see how its relevant and the experience of being a prison guard doesn't disqualify anyone from anything. If anything it might help someone gain sympathy for those help in prison as it didn't in Goldberg's case.
And who is claiming he is an objective observer of the Middle East. Even a quick glance at his writing clearly demonstrates he is offering his opinions, not objective facts.
But it still stands, that your claim that all we need to know about him is that he served in the military is an insult to the tens of thousands of people who have served in Israel's military and gone on to work for peace."
As for being a prison guard, I admire Goldberg for admitting it. If I had dedicated 10 minutes of my life to punishing innocent detainees, I sure as hell would never admit it.
I read his book. And it told me everything I need to know about who he is."
Tens of thousands of Americans in the past 60 years have moved to Israel, served in the military , and the overwhelming majority did not become settlers.
And you really think being a prison guard is the same as "punishing innocent detainees?" I guess it's impossible to be a humane prison guard and I guess, according to you, every one in prison is innocent.
And Goldberg frequently criticizes the settlers. I find it hard to believe you have actually read his book."
No response from MJ. Key takeaway: in the world of MJ Rosenberg, being a prison guard means punishing innocent detainees, Goldberg claims to be an "objective observer" and most of the Americans who serve in the IDF are "settlers". Why is the HP letting this guy publish material on their website? He's making it up as he goes along.
Who the heck is MJ Rosenberg? A five year old?
Yes, amen to "Why is HuffPo publishing this s***?"
I paraphrase of course.
But seriously.
I have called MJ Rosenberg out repeatedly, inlcuding his obsession with Jeffrey Goldberg, who has written to me and told me that he pays no attention to MJ Rosenberg because of his dishonesty and close-mindedness.
I don't believe MJ Rosenberg read Jeffrey Goldberg's book, and I don't believe he read it because I have read it. It is a candid and human account, a personal journey of a very young man, and includes him witnessing abuse and also how he befriends one of the prisoners.
Rosenberg is a joke and a fraud.
I would guess that Rosenberg has never visited Israel either... or that, if he has, he didn't pay any attention to the issues he now claims to know so much about.
Being a prison guard is a hard, depressing, and utterly thankless task. (If you disagree, take the time to talk to one.) This is certainly true, if not more so, in Israel. My own service in Israeli military prisons was very brief (for which I'm grateful); nonetheless, I think I can speak authoritatively about the humanity and compassion of Israelis stuck with that job.
Do things happen in Israeli prisons that shouldn't? Of course they do; Israelis are human, after all. Do Israeli prison guards sometimes do things that look nasty to American eyes? You'd better believe it. But I challenge any nation on Earth to have to deal with what Israel does, in its prisons and elsewhere, and respond with as much humanity and as much compassion as Israel does.
Rosenberg ought not to criticize Israeli prison guards before getting to know something about them and the circumstances of their work. Judging by the comments quoted above, I'd wager he's never even set foot in an American prison.
respectfully,
Daniel in Brookline
Has anyone noticed that most of the pictures MJ uses are several years old? A bit of the narcissistic, no? This, of course, is a personality trait which leads one to assume that you are always right and cannot be called out in error.
Of course, for MJ "Most Americans who serve in the Israeli army are settlers" is true as he probably considers all new Jewish neighborhoods in post-67 Jerusalem to be settlements.