Category Archives: Israel

New Historians' Hissie Fit

History, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Propaganda, Pseudo-history

In Harvard Hucksters, I spoke about the modus operandi of the New Historians: This is a group of popular far-left fabricators (one of whom facetiously boasted: ‘We perform at weddings and bar mitzvas’), who’ve cocked a snook at the liberal country in which they’ve thrived, so as to gain admittance into the fashionable Palestinian pantheon… they misrepresent documents, resort to partial quotes, withhold evidence, make false assertions, and rewrites original documents. Such is the incompetence of these Arabists that they even neglect Arab archival material, “relying almost exclusively on Western often only secondary sources.” As Ha’aretz’s Avraham Tal puts it, they are preoccupied with the systematic invalidation of the Zionist narrative in the Israeli-Arab conflict. Avi Shlaim, one of the performers in the New-Historian’s much sought-after vaudeville, juggles the facts to come up with an analysis of Israel’s failed war in Lebanon. The shtick is familiar: no mention of the eight dead and a murderous diversionary shelling of border communities by Hezbollah, but plenty of assertions about the vampiric lusts of the Jewish State’s leaders. The anatomy of hating Israel is worth reading.

New Historians’ Hissie Fit

History, Israel, Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Propaganda, Pseudo-history

In Harvard Hucksters, I spoke about the modus operandi of the New Historians: This is a group of popular far-left fabricators (one of whom facetiously boasted: ‘We perform at weddings and bar mitzvas’), who’ve cocked a snook at the liberal country in which they’ve thrived, so as to gain admittance into the fashionable Palestinian pantheon… they misrepresent documents, resort to partial quotes, withhold evidence, make false assertions, and rewrites original documents. Such is the incompetence of these Arabists that they even neglect Arab archival material, “relying almost exclusively on Western often only secondary sources.” As Ha’aretz’s Avraham Tal puts it, they are preoccupied with the systematic invalidation of the Zionist narrative in the Israeli-Arab conflict. Avi Shlaim, one of the performers in the New-Historian’s much sought-after vaudeville, juggles the facts to come up with an analysis of Israel’s failed war in Lebanon. The shtick is familiar: no mention of the eight dead and a murderous diversionary shelling of border communities by Hezbollah, but plenty of assertions about the vampiric lusts of the Jewish State’s leaders. The anatomy of hating Israel is worth reading.

The Hebraic Bond

America, Israel, The West

“If lily-livered Europeans want to understand the ties between the US and Israel, they’d be better off reading Russell Kirk than the Economist. In The Roots of American Order, Kirk traced the profound influence the Hebraic faith and traditions had on the New England Puritans, who drew for sustenance and guidance on Exodus, just as they did on Kings and Romans…”
“In the prophets, in particular—from Amos to the second Isaiah—John Adams saw exemplars for American order, political and private. ‘The great prophets restrained the kings’ ambitions and constantly rebuked the king and the people for their transgressions (at great personal risk)…”

Read the complete column, “The Hebraic Bond,” here.

Lebanon & The Partisan Punditocracy

Islam, Israel, Lebanon, Terrorism, War

Once again, American pundits have fallen into camps on the matter of Israel’s leveling of Lebanon. With few exceptions (mostly in the silenced libertarian camp), the issues remain unexamined; everyone is a hack, rooting for a party to the conflict, and ignoring the principles being sacrificed in the process.

The “argument” I most detest—a holdover from that theater of triumphs, Iraq—is the false dichotomy set-up: “What would you have done in Israel’s position?” the custodians of intellectual debate ask plaintively (and deceptively).

How about not destroy an entire (rather modern and open) society, for starters?

Facetiousness aside, whereas in the US it has taken a couple of years for media malpractitioners to catch up with libertarian prescients vis-Ã -vis Iraq, Israelis are already saying exactly what I said in “Call Off the Israeli Air Force!“: precise, limited and delimited, ongoing strikes.

Writes Yoel Marcus in Ha’aretz, “Israel was right to launch Operation Change of Direction. The big mistake was in not limiting it to a reprisal raid with a time frame and specific dimensions.” A far cry from the crazed recommendations the “sofa samurais” in the US have been issuing.

As I’ve said, develop a different kind of warfare. Big, bloated armies of conscripts are no match for lean mean voluntary militia. Also fascinating about the robustness of debate in Israel is this: I wishfully wrote that the Israeli Air Force ought to have refused when it “was told to carry out air raids on Lebanese roads and residential real estate.” And sure enough, some magnificent men have shown such independent-minded judgment. Read about it in this Observer article, “Israeli Pilots Deliberately Miss Targets.”

Commentators often evince an astute ideological understanding of the conflict—one I may even share. But the notion, for instance, that Hezbollah is a Jihadist organization that would like to see Israel destroyed does nothing to address whether there is utility or justification in destroying Lebanon. (And by that I imply the need to use western precepts such as Just-War ethics and reason. We are fighting for the West, aren’t we? Or is that just a hollow slogan!?)

From believing Hezbollah is spearheading jihad, it does not follow that one ought to pummel Lebanon and kill many more innocents than guilty. Hezbollah, moreover, represents a small segment of the Lebanese population and government, contrary to the Palestinian Authority, where the jihad agenda is widely shared on the street and by the state apparatus.

The gains from the Israeli assault have been minute and probably temporary, as is evident from the steady stream of Hezbollah-powered rockets (140 just today) launched into Northern Israel. To claim Israel is effectively dealing with the guilty in Lebanon is pie-in-the-sky.

Again, it’s interesting that quite a few military men in Israel as opposed the armchair ideologues abroad, agree with the above propositions. In Israel’s defense, and in deference to that country’s people, the debate over this war there is already in full swing.

Here in the US, it’s still safer to shut up about the “miracle” in Mesopotamia and the Leader who led us there, Peace Be Upon Him.