Thursday, November 23, 2006
There will be a sentence or two some here may take exception to, but overall Aaronovitch, as usual, makes excellent points:
There I was last Thursday night, addressing the Cambridge Union, going at it like a locomotive with a mouth, and telling them that, no, you couldn’t blame terrorism on US foreign policy. I mean, take the Istanbul bombings, two of which were exploded at Turkish synagogues, killing Turkish Jews, how could those . . . “Point of information!†came from my left, in the tones — I rather thought — of Berkshire. “Was it not the case, Mr Aaronovitch, that the successful murdering of Istanbul Jews was motivated by a revulsion to Israeli policy, a policy supported by the Americans?†And there was applause.
Applause, readers, not just a nodding of heads at a true, if sad, analysis — but a clapping as of a rhetorical victory gained. I should have replied that this logic would permit BNP members to assault any Muslim near, say, the Green Lanes mosque, and have it argued on their behalf that their action was really the product of Islamist outrages on 9/11. But I didn’t think of it in time.
Maybe the applauders thought of themselves as friends of Palestine...
Aaronovitch goes on to refer to anti-semitic British writer Richard Ingrams, who some may recall was the guy who wrote in The Guardian:
Aaronovitch:
I am not a “staunch defender of Israel†any more than I am a staunch defender of Poland, and rather less than I am a staunch defender of Spain. Nor, Mr Ingrams, for all your Boratian insinuation, do I write what I do because my secular father was born Jewish and chose to keep the name and therefore I feel I have a mystical blood bond with my racial family. My problem is that I am discovering that those who are pretending to be “friends†of the Palestinians are busily constructing the notion that Israel is the sole cause of the problems of the Middle East. And I now realise the extent to which they have poisoned the debate in Britain, especially among the young...
Odd statement that..."Fifth Column"...generally a fifth column is operated by an enemy. Are Israel and Britain enemies? Are Britain and its Jews?
"Are Israel and Britain enemies? Are Britain and its Jews?"
I suppose one can assume that Britain was never a friend of Israel:
"Cruel Britannia" by Robert s. Wistrich
http://www.think-israel.org/wistrich.britannia.html
Going by Melanie Phillips' latest post:
http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?p=1401
".....
He notes the vicious trap in which Britain has now placed its Jewish community: ..."
British Jews have, unlike their American cousins, never had the Chutzpah to protest aloud their treatment and have quietly suffered the indignities inflicted on them over the centuries.
Interestingly enough it seems as if South African Jews
"'We Are Not Here on Sufferance' "
http://supernatural.blogs.com/weblog/2006/11/we_are_not_here.html
find themselves in a similar political situation to:
" British Jews, themselves overwhelmingly middle-class and educated, are thus faced with a nightmarish choice: to repudiate Israel or to lose their liberal credentials—if not, indeed, their British credentials."
By the way South African Intelligence Minister Ronnie Kasrils, Jew by birth, has been riding the Jewish community since the ANC came to power.
Aaronovitch is no great friend of Israel. I guess he couldn't be if he hoped to retain any stature in the British media world. It does annoy me when he asserts his "I'm not really Jewish" credentials, and when he scrupulously avoids saying too many good things about the Israelis at the expense of the Palestinians. This particular column is so painstaking in its perfect balance that it's almost a strain to read. But Aaronovitch is insightful, and he is concerned about injecting intelligence and honesty into the debate on the Middle East. That alone makes him stand heads and shoulders above most left-wing commentators in Britain.
Aaronovitch's depiction of Cambridge students is depressing. I once had an American professor who'd studied at Oxford. He told our class about the term "silly-clever," which he had learned while a student there. It means something that is clever in some ways but extremely fatuous overall. Or something that sounds sophisticated and even includes some knowledge, but is shot through with ingnorance and/or stupidity. I think that the statement by the student in the bar falls into that category.
I guess that there are a lot of silly-clever comments and beliefs among the Brits (and other West Europeans), especially among those who have intellectual pretensions.