Posted on 05/27/2004 10:07:44 AM PDT by knighthawk
Nicholas Kristof wins the black belt as the leading Palestinian apologist and Israel hater in the history of The New York Times. This is no small accomplishment. Who else could make guys like me yearn for the return of Anthony Lewis and turn Thomas Friedman into an even-handed observer? Yesterday's column did the trick. Kristof put the blame on Israel for most of the troubles we have around the world, particularly in Iraq. The direct blame.
Indirectly, he rapped President Bush for his "unbalanced" support of Ariel Sharon and called on John Kerry to stop blindly supporting Israel's "bloodstained" prime minister.
If this were just Kristof speaking, I'd ignore it. My alma mater, The Times, has been scapegoating Israel to one degree or another for 30 years. But in recent months the temperature has risen, particularly in the wake of the so-called Gaza incursion.
So I wondered whether this attack on Israel - not just from The Times - was sticking.
There are no polls to inform me. Gallup and the rest tell us everything from breast cancer rates to mercury levels in tuna. But nothing on whether Americans blame Israel on Iraq.
Given my name and notoriety, I'm the last man to get the story straight. But some of my best friends are gentiles, so I called around, coast to coast, asking whether Kristof was on the nose or just another guy beating up on Israel.
"Are we off the record?"
"Let's just say it's not for attribution."
"I mean, you won't quote me."
"Exactly. I only want to know what your friends are saying."
"I won't tell you their names, okay?"
"Just what they're saying."
"They've got a bee in their bonnets about Israel."
"Meaning?"
"They think that Israel is hurting us, is making us unpopular in the world. And they don't like it. Just don't quote me."
I got this "no names" stuff everywhere until I remembered to call my Yale Law School roommate, Henry Pascarella.
Henry is one of the finest lawyers in Greenwich, Conn. All his life, he talks straight. I asked him if he read Kristof's column.
"Yeah, so what?"
"Do the people you know agree with him, that Israel is the root problem of our trouble in Iraq and around the world?"
"No question about it. They blame it all on Israel, they think 9/11 would never have happened but for Israel. I told you that a long time ago; why do you sound surprised?"
I got nervous about my friend. "Ah, you don't buy that?" I said.
"Are you crazy? Of course not. But you asked me what I'm hearing, and I'm surprised that you don't know it. Listen to me, my friend - Israel has few friends around here."
Henry Pascarella is one of those friends, without question, which is why what he tells me disturbs me. "Is it because of the media?" I ask him.
"Of course," he says. "Who knows that better than you?"
What we all ought to know is that Israel has nothing to do with America's troubles around the world. Here we are trying to create in Iraq the first Arab democracy in world history, and the only democracy in the Middle East - Israel - is to blame?
If you believe that, you can believe anything or anybody - even Nicholas Kristof.
Ping
Only a matter of time before the Left invents a new word for "Judenrein".
They've literally fallen off the face of the earth.
Zionfrei
True enough. The interesting part will be how all the Jewish lefties respond. Many I know personally are in crisis stage about it, grudgingly admitting that the overwhelming majority of (non-Islamic) antisemitism is coming from their side of the political spectrum.
Right after 9/11 these factions started the "root cause" innuendo about Israel. Osama's speeches about Timor, the UN, worldwide caliphate, etc. seemed to shut them up, embarassed by their own ignorance.
But it's coming back. Our, hindsighted "failure" to march on Baghdad in 1991 is now "about Israel." The "neocon" discourse is rising. It's coming back... the lefties have too much of their identity wrapped up in Cold War obsessions and definitions. Naturally the Russians dumped the BS in a minute flat - they never believed it, their useful idiots in the West did.
Try making Saudi Arabia, Iran, India, China, Pakistan, etc. feel guilty for anything. Their reply will be that nothing is their fault, blame the West, and you are prejudiced for even asking. The deck is stacked against the West, and worse yet, the Western media has a distinct bias against the only culture in the world that would allow its' freedoms.
Can you imagine Dan Rather or 'perky' Katie Couric trying to do interviews for Aljezeera? Well, Dan would have to behead a Jewish male, and Katie would be wearing a burqa but that wouldn't bother them.
I'll listen to "lefty" or whatever descriptions of the Middle East.
Problem is, the "lefties," despite their pretenses of foreign policy awareness, are almost wholly unable to talk about the "middle east", let alone Islamist theories, other than to contextualize it as something to do with the predicament and troubles of the Palestinians.
Their limit of understanding Saudi Arabia, for example, has something to do with Bush and the Bin Laden family. That's the limit of what they want to know. I've encountered this myself.
Senator spoke for many on Hill when he blamed Israel for war
1 The burden of the word of the LORD for Israel, saith the LORD, which stretcheth forth the heavens, and layeth the foundation of the earth, and formeth the spirit of man within him.2 Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of trembling unto all the people round about, when they shall be in the siege both against Judah and against Jerusalem.
3 And in that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people: all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it.
4 In that day, saith the LORD, I will smite every horse with astonishment, and his rider with madness: and I will open mine eyes upon the house of Judah, and will smite every horse of the people with blindness.
5 And the governors of Judah shall say in their heart, The inhabitants of Jerusalem shall be my strength in the LORD of hosts their God.
6 In that day will I make the governors of Judah like an hearth of fire among the wood, and like a torch of fire in a sheaf; and they shall devour all the people round about, on the right hand and on the left: and Jerusalem shall be inhabited again in her own place, even in Jerusalem.
7 The LORD also shall save the tents of Judah first, that the glory of the house of David and the glory of the inhabitants of Jerusalem do not magnify themselves against Judah.
8 In that day shall the LORD defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; and he that is feeble among them at that day shall be as David; and the house of David shall be as God, as the angel of the LORD before them.
9 ¶ And it shall come to pass in that day, that I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.
And now a word of prophecy about Ishmael, the progenitor of the Arab nations, from Genesis chapter 16, verses 11 and 12.
11 And the angel of the LORD said unto her, Behold, thou art with child, and shalt bear a son, and shalt call his name Ishmael; because the LORD hath heard thy affliction.12 And he will be a wild man; his hand will be against every man, and every man’s hand against him; and he shall dwell in the presence of all his brethren.
The world will continue more and more to blame the Jews, the descendents of Jacob, for the problems they are having with the descendents of Ishmael, until the time that the gentile nations decide that it might be better for everybody if there were NO Israel.
The results are prophesied in the last book of the Bible, The Revelation of Jesus Christ. A little tough to understand all the symbology, but you can get an idea of what's coming.
It is called "Islam".
Israel has a friend in me.
pong
Typical example of idiocy gone wild.
The standard is completely one-sided, and reported slavishly by the Western media on any abuses by the American or Israeli sides. Muslim abuses are never reported.
Certainly dooesn't help the dems with this compaign :
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1143154/posts
I think the photos are newsworthy, and Bush failed to define them as one or two incidents that occurred certain nights only - which appears to be true. Another PR failure.
I've seen criticisms of that mutilation, and I don't think it's "Islamic", but ethnic custom in a few places.
But given the amount of gender oppression in Saudi the almost total lack of criticism is astounding, as to that one country.
I do not ascribe to any particular religion.
Sometimes I am tempted to convert to Judaim just to p*ss people like this moron off.....
Yep--and Safire still collects his nice paycheck...
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