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Friday, October 16, 2009

Roger Cohen states that Israel should be less exceptional and more normal because President Obama doesn't like double standards, Iran makes rational decisions, and even though Israel was created because of the Shoah it's time to stop worrying about it:

An Ordinary Israel

There's a lot wrong with this column, one of which is the falsehood that Israel is a child of the Holocaust; another is the assertion that the Shoah itself was exceptional.

In fact it was only one of many horrendous assaults on the Jewish people, one of the most effective, true, but far from the only one.

President Obama repeated the canard that Israel was created because of the Holocaust and not because Israel is our homeland. This canard also ignores the hard work and creativity and dedication of the people who built Israel as well as millenia of connection between the land and people of Israel, despite national destruction and diaspora.

Meanwhile the repetitive pattern of antisemitism hasn't just vanished like magic. The need for the Jewish people to have a safe and secure homeland hasn't changed, nor has the fact that Jews are a people just as Greeks or Irish or Native Americans are peoples - all requiring and all deserving respect and security.

Yet no other national group is accusing of being de facto racism. Native Americans aren't accused of being racist merely for asserting their identity nor are Greeks, nor are Arabs - just Jews and particularly Jewish Israelis.

By the same token, endless incitement of the Palestinians has resulted only in disaster for them as well as for Israel. Many remain in "refugee camps" even within Gaza and the West Bank - ie within the boundaries of what had been the western part of the Palestine Mandate prior to the creation of Israel.

This is true also in Lebanon and other nearby Arab states. That in itself is shameful.

But it speaks less of Israel than of the enduring rejection of her very existence and the way little people are used as pawns.

Religious and nationalistic bigotry play a huge and underestimated role in this. But so do big power and industrial politics. Israel and the Palestinians have both been used as Cold War proxies and both continue to be victims of other national and economic interests who gain by their misery.

Meanwhile the Jewish refugees from the Arab and other Islamic nations are rarely even acknowledged let alone supported by the UN. The UN itself is appallingly biased against Israel; yet Mr. Cohen urges us to accept the Goldstone report. Sadly, the UN's bias makes it nearly impossible for real human rights abuses on the part of Israel to be assessed honestly.

This is tragic because neither Jews here or elsewhere around the world, let alone Israeli Jews, want to commit human rights violations but they are an almost inevitable aspect of war. And the more the Israelis are accused of human rights violations including blood libels involving organ theft, the most likely war becomes. It's a vicious circle.

The charade that constitutes the UN's human rights "investigations" of Israel are so completely undermined by their bigotry against Israel that it's hard to take any of them seriously. By the same token the de facto acceptance of a Palestinian right to terrorize Israel's civilian population in the name of "resistance" perpetuates the war and makes human rights violations inevitable.

So, the UN itself deserves a great deal of blame here and so do so-called proPalestinian groups which distort the truth and reinforce myths, some of them slanderous and bizarre.

Meanwhile Mr. Cohen repeatedly asserts than Iran makes rational decisions. For awhile, after the election and the ensuing violence in Iran and his own exit from Iran, his columns in the NYT were quite brilliant. He deplored the brutality of the regime and it seemed the scales had fallen from his eyes concerning its true nature.

Now, regardless of the military parades, the sermons and speeches chanting Death to Israel, the obvious pursuit of military grade nuclear material and the abuse of Iranian dissidents, Mr. Cohen is back to reassuring us Jews, who suffer from "extermination psychosis", that it's ok to trust Iran.

This I gather goes for other players who have yet to even recognize Israel's right to exist and which continue the pursuit to delegitimize the state itself. If military action can't destroy it then it will be boycotted or demographically swamped.

What about this is normal?

On the subject of exceptionalism, I'd like to mention UNRWA, which recently celebrated its 60th birthday.

This in itself is rather shocking. No other group of people displaced by war has its own UN agency which actually competes with the PA for funds and authority. No other group of people remain "refugees" decades after displacement by war.

This in itself, considering the hundreds of millions of people who've suffered this way and who are expected to cope as best they can, and who are considered resettled after one generation, is exceptionalism.

Beyond that UNRWA depends for its very existence (and funding) on the idea that even internally displaced Arabs are refugees 60 years after 1948. When Israel acquired the West Bank and Gaza in 1967, attempts were made to build homes and otherwise improve conditions for the Palestinians living in the camps. This was forbidden and the camps remain.

I believe more than 10,000 Palestinians work directly for UNRWA and countless others derive funding from it.

This obviously perpetrates a conflict whose settlement would cost UNRWA and its employees and beneficiaries their funding and their jobs. It also perpetuates both the misery of the Palestinian people and the war against Israel.

So. I respectfully submit: Israel would love to be normal. Jews would love to be people among people and Israel a nation among nations.

But as far as I can tell we're not.

One further point: "Israeli exceptionalism" has gotten tied up with "American exceptionalism". The latter is roundly despised and resented especially by Europeans whom we've repeatedly rescued from their own barbarous wars.

Regardless, Israel and the US aren't in the same boat. And it's just wrong to link Israel's exceptional situation with American exceptionalism - period.

16 Comments

There can be no more serious investigation than the Goldstone report. As a Jew, and a Herzl Zionist, I have the right to know what the government of Israel has done in my name.

If Israeli soldiers killed three hundred children, I want to know exactly why, for there is no obvious reason to kill children except in genuine self-defense.

I do not want to be fobbed-off with vague mutterings of 'human shields' and 'threats to our forces'.

If Israel has a professional army, then I want to know precisely why they killed hundreds of civilians in three bloody weeks.

I want to know if those troops are masochistic automatons, or if they are genuine forces for the defense of Israel.

I and others want to know and want to know soon. Otherwise, Israel will become a pariah state that will only be rehabilitated by the voluntary production of those responsible to be judged innocent or guilty before an international court.

Nobody did anything in your name, Canary in the coal mine.

If Israel has a professional army, then I want to know precisely why they killed hundreds of civilians in three bloody weeks.

I'll offer some assistance. Hamas intentionally does not dress its fighters in a uniform. It is calculated and intentional because should they die they look like civilians that were killed.


Furthermore canary, as a Jew and a Zionist I always talk about the need for Israel to do all that it can to ensure the safety of civilians.'

But those need to be reasonable steps. At the same time I support the right of a sovreign nation to protect itself.The rockets that rained down upon Sderot are inexcusable.

And frankly anyone who does not include the rockets and their role in the situation in Gaza is ignorant, morally bankrupt or worse.

Nothing happens in a vacuum. Israel makes mistakes as does every country. But the inaccuracies and intentional distortion of the truth are a big part of the problem.

Talk about being conceited. You think Israeli government acts in your name? Do you live in Sderot? Are you an Israeli citizen? Have you even considered the great lengths Israel went to in order to avoid civilian casualties?

As a Jew and a Zionist, I ask you not to presume to speak in my name -- especially when what you say is so morally bankrupt and such palpable, antisemitic nonsense.

Well here's a question for Mr. or Ms. Canary, because I also am upset about the toll in Gaza, as I'm sure we all are:

At what point is the risk of death to soldiers considered acceptable? Would that even the score somehow and make people feel better?

I believe in the past Israeli soldiers have been killed because they made an attempt not to harm civilians, to the point that their own lives were taken.

Who determines the calculus of right or wrong in war? Is the dead Israeli soldier not worth something also? Does anybody have an acceptable ratio? At what point do you decide to risk the lives of your troops?

One of the things that's troubling about Gaza, besides the whole situation that's resulted in so much grief, is the way it's being judged vis a vis other conflicts involving major countries as well as other more or less tribal conflicts.

I think it's good that we are getting more and more upset about war in general and the taking of life in general. Hopefully someday it will stop completely and we will never raise a hand to each other again.

Meanwhile, war by definition is violent. Who decides how violent?

During WWII the British carpet bombed at night and their primary target was the civilian population of Germany. Not only did they deliberately bomb civilians, they carried incendiaries as well as ordinary explosives. The creation of firestorms which in some cases claimed tens of thousands of lives in a night was a deliberate tactic.

Notably, this wasn't out of cruelty but rather in response to an enemy which had attacked their cities and which was building ever more sophisticated weapons - including rockets - and whose goals and objectives were clearly stated.

The US attempted precision bombing during the day but the death toll was so horrendous and the damage inflicted was so small that it wasn't long before we were area bombing too.

Finally people were so fed up with the war that we dropped 2 atomic bombs on Japanese civilians and utterly destroyed two cities. This was horrible but it did end the war on the spot.

Russian responses to terror and dissidence have been extremely violent. This is also true in China and elsewhere in Asia, it's true in Africa where millions have died in the past few years alone. Much of the violence seems utterly pointless. Millions of people are killed for no good reason at all.

In view of that the 60 year long Arab/Israeli war has been practically polite.

I think it's good that people are concerned about war crimes and the death of innocents. Otherwise we're all just barbarians.

But - when the prime target of human rights groups and the UN is a small country that's been under attack for decades whilst terror attacks against her civilian population are considered a right - a RIGHT - of the Palestinians - and even considered religiously holy in some quarters - something is amiss.

It's also notable to recall the fact that Jacques Chirac threatened anybody who terrorized France with a nuclear response.

Maybe we need to focus on the human rights violations implicit in terror attacks and stop trying to excuse them let alone venerate them as some kind of right let alone a holy and honorable duty.

The war in Gaza was provoked by thousands of rocket and other terror attacks. It didn't happen in a vacuum.

It almost seems as if the Israelis are being punished for having waged an effective campaign to slow down the attacks or stop them, even if temporarily.

Could this have been accomplished otherwise?

Was that goal itself unworthy?

As a physician living and raising a family in Israel for the past 50 odd years, I am deeply saddned by the fact that intelligent people in powerful positions completely lose any awareness of reality. Most of the comments to the absurd article by mister Cohen (I do not know him personally, so I cannot bring myself to call him Roger) have already been entered, together with the usual hatred responses.
Most of us "regular folks" living in Israel try to live a normal life, juggling between army duty (I served as a "reservist in the medical corps - around a month a year, for 30 years), our careers, raising our children while shielding them from the outside threats, and all the while waiting for some miracle that will turn around the deepening chiasm of hate surrounding us all the time.
To read the article by mister Cohen can be likened to a slap in the face. There of course is no black and white argument to be held, but the vast disproportion which is so obvious, makes one wonder what makes opinion leaders - or at least opinion speakers, so utterly blind?

B L Canary, you are full of guano.

Just a smal fibble;

"Israel has no established borders, no constitution, no peace."

There is no peace because the borders are still under dispute. And even where there is an established, internationally-recognized border (with Lebanon), there is no peace.

Israel has no constitution, but it does have foundational laws and the Declaration of independence, which outline its adherence to democratic principles. Whatever Roger means to imply by this

The UK also has no constitution, and I never hear that held against them in any context whatsoever.

Roger lists these factors as if they are some sort of testimonials, AGAINST Israel's bona fides. As usual, his view is so limp, incomplete, and so full of foundational errors of both perception and understanding, that one wonders how he got to be writing for the NYT.

Thank you, Noga, for the clarifications.

Now - I want to play devil's advocate for a minute. I hope you guys will excuse the length of this post but I have a lot of thoughts here:)

I think Mr. Cohen cares very much about Israel, which might be hard to understand from his columns which hurt a lot, they hurt personally and this was also true of the puff pieces about Iran.

He himself was shocked by the violence after the elections. I honestly don't think he saw that coming.

I believe Mr. Cohen sees the good in people. He's spent a lot of time in Middle Eastern countries and met a lot of ordinary people there. He sees that Iranians, Arabs, Turks, aren't monolithic. He is trying to convey that to us.

I think, given the war footing we've been on since 9/11 - in the case of Israel since forever - it's easy to forget that the people of Iran, Turkey, the Arab world, are individuals too and that they are not universally evil nor universally unlettered even when it comes to Jews and Eretz Israel.

Suicide bombers don't define the peoples of the Middle East or Central Asia. They plague them. Extremists have destroyed much that is beautiful just in the past few years. Peoples' lives are destroyed because they visited a pet market or a mosque or because they want to become a policeman.

But that doesn't get extremist regimes off the hook.

So - to the extent that some Jews and some Israelis and some pro-Israelis and a lot of Westerners in general lack knowledge about the cultures and peoples of the Middle East, it's important for us to recognize this and to try and see that we're not surrounded by monolithic enemies.

So many Jews, even though we're of the East, are completely ignorant even of the art and music of our own Oriental people - of our own past: Central Asian Jews, the Ethiopians, the Mizrachim, the Yemenites - how many of us are even familiar with the Moroccan music of Emil Zrihan, who is the cantor at Askelon? How many of us know Sephardic history, Sephardic poetry, music and dance? We should!

We are intimately linked to the people and history of the East, regardless of our homes and connections to the values of the West. In fact - Jews are traditionally a bridge. They say, East is East and West is West - but in us - truly they do meet.

And, we ourselves are not perfect - and maybe we need not be so defensive about this obvious fact.

Even as we struggle against threats, even in war - we have to continuously examine our own motives and try to work against the darkness of ignorance and fear.

That said - the situation with Israel and with Jews in general is so sensitive and so dangerous I feel betrayed when the issues are oversimplified but also when Israel isn't explained, isn't described, in human terms. I feel betrayed when history is incorrectly described, when present threats and fears are dismissed.

I think it's great to get columns about Iran. I want to learn as much as possible about the people there. I want to learn as much as possible about the Arabs, about the Palestinians.

But, it would be nice if people also wrote about Israel in terms of its humanity.

This is so lacking. Israel is seen as a monolith of evil, an aggressor, an occupier. History itself is lost in "narratives", in propaganda. Nobody sees the seven million people who live there.

At best, they're described as some sort of Mediterranean Californians!

That is so unfair and it's so oversimplified, especially when it comes to the history of the people there, their individual stories.

It doesn't talk about the incredible diversity of the population, the amazing way they've been blended into a modern state with ancient roots. It doesn't indicate the effort, courage and creativity that keeps it running despite constant threats.

As for the Palestinian people, this is doing them no favors either. It puts Israelis on the defensive, it creates a climate for endless hostilities. Even Vanessa Redgrave (!) reacted against the recent boycott of Israeli filmmakers at Toronto.

Yet, she felt compelled to tell another lie - that Tel Aviv was founded on the remains of Arab villages.

And - even if that were true - so what? Excavations all over the world reveal layer upon layer of civilization - city built upon city - nation upon nation - mosque upon church upon temple - city upon tomb - shall progress stop in Israel and Israel alone? Shall change and progress sweep forward except in the Middle East?

When people talk about racism - isn't it racist to assume that the peoples of the Middle East don't also deserve progress, that they should somehow be embalmed in amber so tourists can see Arabs riding donkeys as in a Biblical movie?

I hope Mr. Cohen is reading this. Maybe he'll talk about progress, change, women in burkas, women in shorts, people trying to build, people bent upon destruction, people trapped in amber, people in camps after 60 years, even in Gaza, even on the West Bank, trapped in amber - all of us trapped.

Roger Cohen is a great journalist. Maybe he'll go to Israel and write about the people of Sderot, about the diverse peoples of Israel, about the efforts to make progress with the Palestinians, about the destructive forces that doom all chances for progress and for peace.

So. Maybe Israel should have a formal constitution. That's an argument that can be made.

But it's an argument that doesn't begin to answer the problems of Israel's very real enemies, it doesn't speak to the fact that the idea of creating a contiguous Palestinian state means cutting Israel apart and making it even more vulnerable to attack. It doesn't answer the problem of people who believe The Protocols are real history.

Criticisms of Israel don't address the problems of extremists who haven't changed their attitudes about destroying the state, it doesn't answer the calamity of institutionalizing Palestinian Arab refugee status nor does it answer the extremely serious and ongoing issue of religious bigotry and bigotry against Jews as a people let alone the threats to the Israeli state.

So, again. To the degree that we can learn more about the other peoples of the Middle East and lose some of our fear of them - we should.

We should actively seek knowledge.

We should try to see that we're not the enemies of all and that we aren't universally hated and despised even in extremist regimes.

We should try and not react to every threat as though Hitler were afoot.

We shouldn't be too defensive about conduct in war, we shouldn't fear honest self-evaluation (this goes for Iran and Afghanistan too for that matter).

But. I think the least we can expect is some greater sensitivity not only to the issues confronting democracies threatened by extremism, but also honest appraisals of those threats.

We shouldn't be expected to swallow whole UN condemnations of Israel from a Human Rights Commission that ignores the plight of tens of millions of people around the world and enshrines the right of violence on the part of the Palestinians.

We should do our part. Probably we haven't done enough. We haven't been self-critical enough and some of us are outright bigoted against other Middle Eastern people. We can and we should continue trying to improve.

But those who write in our most respected and learned journals shouldn't hesitate to describe the threat of the Shabab as well as the beauties of the Persian world.

How can we think of Iran as rational when even modern history is officially denied and our agony mocked by its president, when Iranian dissidents are tortured and threatened to death?

Roger Cohen - you were THERE. You wrote about the cries in the night, the echoes from the rooftops, the agony of the women, trapped. You wrote brilliantly about this. Now please don't reduce Israel to an echo of the Shoah nor accuse our rational, present day fears as a psychosis!

We shouldn't hear about Israel as though it were a piece of cardboard, an evil monolith - if we were from outer space we'd think Israel was a huge nation, deliberately abusive, bent upon world domination - not the New Jersey sized survivor of many wars!

Nor should we have to feel ashamed for trying to defend our lives, our culture and our people. It's a tragedy when everything we've built can be shattered in an instant by a rocket or a bomb. It's a tragedy when an innocent child in Gaza is slaughtered by a random shell.

It's doubly tragic that all this is so pointless - we could be building together, making irrigation channels together, planting trees and making music together - and instead we're firing rockets at children in Sderot and children in Lebanon and Gaza are killed in defensive wars.

So. Calling Israel to account for not being "normal" enough is actually quite outrageous.

Roger Cohen: write about the blood, the music, the tears, the beauty of what's been created, the danger that it will all be lost, the dreams already lost in the ruins of Oslo.

Go to Israel. Stay there for awhile. Tell us where to go from here.

Tell us how to go forward in a world where an Egyptian journalist is punished just for talking to an Israeli.

Noga, you wonder how Cohen "got to be writing for the NYT"? Consider how the NYT engages in censorship of online opinions:

http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2009/06/open-letter-no-1-to-clark-hoyt-public.html

Consider how the NYT has tolerated rabid anti-Semitism in its online comments:

http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2009/06/open-letter-no-2-to-clark-hoyt-public.html

Consider whether or not the NYT attaches importance to journalistic ethics as they pertain to Roger Cohen:

http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2009/06/was-roger-cohens-what-irans-jews-say-in_17.html

Consider the attitude of the NYT's Public Editor:

http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2009/06/clark-hoyt-responds-has-new-york-times.html

Consider the politics of the NYT:

http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2009/10/obsequious-new-york-times-lauds-nobel.html

Finally, consider how the NYT now refuses to accept online comments from me:

http://jgcaesarea.blogspot.com/2009/10/blacklisted-and-unable-to-respond-to.html

Do you still "wonder" how Cohen got to be writing for the NYT?

Go to Israel. Stay there for awhile. Tell us where to go from here.

Yes. Like all his NYT ilk he'll go to Jerusalem and stay at the HolyLand Hotel and his informants will be the taxi driver and the concierge.
Of course he will have a very objective approach after that even with his inability to see the reality from afar.

Not the Holyland hotel. I think you mean The American Colony, which is in the Arab part of Jerusalem and many journalists who usually write against Israel sojourn there.

There can be no match for Arab hospitality, btw, and journalists, activists and others coming from the western cultures, and who experience it are usually charmed and won over with their first humus in an Arab restaurant.


Current trends seem to suggest that the future of Israel will be that of a binational state. While this is not something most Israelis want, even many conservative Israelis have concluded it may be inevitable.

http://watching-history.blogspot.com/2009/10/israel.html

CanaDUH, binational?

Any examples of a successful binational state - especially one with a large muslim population?

If demographic trends continue, europe will cease being europe within 50 years. France is already supposedly 10% muslim. The UK has already passed the tipping point - Pan Am 103 blood for oil contracts.

As long as Saudi Arabia prohibits the construction of churches in SA, there should be an equal prohibition of the construction of mosques in the West.

It's an interesting piece, thank you for linking it.

I guess in the best of all possible worlds there's no reason why a binational state wouldn't work or even be totally desireable.

In fact, before the intifadas Friedman in "From Beirut to Jerusalem" noted that a de facto binational state already existed on many practical levels. People travelled all over the area, worked together, there were no checkpoints, there were friendships.

Had it not been for the violence of the intifadas but also, perhaps, for the well-intentioned (?) meddling that created the Oslo Accords, Israel and the Palestinians might well have continued in this direction.

Obviously there were and remain many arguments against this potential growth of one tree from two roots, not least of them being the de facto power differential but also the refusal of so many regional and outside players to recognize peaceful resolutions to the issues.

One of the wierder examples of the latter is the fact that Israel was forbidden to build homes for people trapped in refugee camps on the West Bank, or even to improve them. The other was assuming Arafat would make a peaceful, well-intentioned statesman.

The Oslo "road map", in hindsight, seemed guaranteed to result in catastrophe but then so do the reactions of organizations including the UN which seem to want to enshrine both Palestinian suffering and the violent resistance. Indeed many on the far left as well as Islamists and other Middle Eastern players oppose assimilation of Palestinians even into nearby Lebanon on the grounds that they'd lose their identity - so better to continue living in misery, dedicated to the violent destruction of Israel, than to assimilate a few miles north (not that the Lebanese want to assimilate their Palestinian residents but that's another story).

All of this is guaranteed to result in further tragedy.

Today, far from getting the idea that even conservative Israelis believe a binational state is "inevitable", I think there's energy even on the part of Likudnikim to recognize the desireability of creating two states. However the obstacles to that solution are daunting as well. On the Hamas end of the spectrum, two states is totally unacceptable because it would mean accepting Israel and even Fatah leaders won't recognize Israel as a Jewish state, nor is there a rational plan concerning "refugees".

Also, I think the settlement issue is more complicated and nuanced than it might appear.

Some settlers and some Israeli political entities probably do wish they could assert dominion over the West Bank.

However, how many simply want to live there?

A huge problem to me, philosophically, is the idea that the 2 state solution would create a de facto apartheid state on the West Bank; one already exists in Gaza and also in Jordan.

Indeed where Jews are concerned most of the Middle East is already apartheid territory. It's true that maybe 25,000 Jews remain in Iran but they are hardly equal citizens. I think there's only one Jew left in Kabul, and so forth.

Unless the issue of Jewish residency beyond the Israeli border wherever that's determined to be is addressed, this is a huge stumbling block to my mind. I don't think the proposed Palestinian state has plans to accept (and protect) Jewish citizens.

As it is most of European Jewry was wiped out only a few decades ago. Even in France and Britain Jews are not totally secure.

And in light of that particularly in view of conditions in the Middle East I don't see how in honesty Israel can be accused of being the apartheid state.

Apart from all that - where does the binational solution leave Israeli Jews, the nature of Israel as a modern, Western, democratic state, and where does it leave the diaspora?

Where does it leave the women of Israel, the gay people, the artists? Would Israel, binational or otherwise, be forced to absorb millions of Arabs who claim refugee status?

In that case what would happen to Israel as a modern state where cutting edge art, science and fashion are important and which definitely is part of the West although rooted in the East? What if, instead of the university, the madrassa prevailed?

And - what would happen to Israel as a refuge for the Jewish people?

So you see - in light of the fact that we live in a far from perfect world, and one in which cultural differences remain extreme even within the tiny area west of the Jordan River, how can a binational state not wind up victimizing the Jews who remain a tiny, tiny minority in global terms - and a minority which continues to suffer slander and abuse?

mr. eddie

i have a good idea for you. why dont you go to the white house and hold a demonstration and banners, "we whant the catholic anti-semitc church to rule"

no mosques in america and the return of church rule.....that why you will get what you want + hangging of spencer and wielder and their likes from their mouths.

as for saudia arabia it has a god.......and your country has humen rights of"capitalism" a its god.

so the golden rule is, there was a king that had his feet hurt of walking on the rocky roads, so he decided to cover the roads with leather...and adviser came to him and told him to cover his leg with leather instead!.... got it. change america and europe and saudia is not your business.

and remember you are a melting pot!


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