This post has triggered a back and forth between myself and the blogger called Richard Silverstein. I am now posting my reply to his latest comment, since I think it important that you see the kinds of empty arguments raised by people like Silverstein, and my response.
Dave: If conditional support for Israel is legitimate as you seem to say, pls. point me to an instance in which you’re either criticized Israeli policy toward the Palestinians or supported someone who has.
It seems to me that you predicate the notion of “conditional” support of Israel with accusing the government of oppressing the neo palestinians. This is something I do not agree with, and hence I consider your question to be flawed. I frequently voice my disagreements with Israeli government policy, whether it be my view that the government is jeopardizing our security by relaxing some security measures, or my opposition to the recent disengagement from Gaza.
I have lived amongst them and spoken with them.Well, that’s a start. But what does it mean that you’ve lived amongst them [Palestinians]? In their homes? In their villages? Or (as I suspect) in settlements adjacent to Palestinian villages. If the latter, that does not constitute living amongst them. It constitutes living apart fr. them.As for having spoken with them: what does that mean? That you spoke with a food vendor while ordering zatar in the Old City? Or that you actually know a Palestinian well enough to converse on a substantive topic or issue?
I am not on trial here. I needn’t prove anything to you. People can read my blog, do their own research (which I always encourage) and come to their own conclusions. But just so your readers know, my knowledge of this conflict arises from extensive reading on the subject (and not just traditionally “Zionist” books), living here, and talking with people. And yes, that includes what you call palestinians. And no, I have never lived in one of their villages. Some I have spoken to would prefer to live under Israeli administration (yes, really), but not all.
If you have read my blog…you would have seen that I distinguish between the terrorists and the ordinary civilians.If you truly do distinguish between them, then tell me whether or not you’re opposed to targeted Israeli assassinations that kill innocent civilians such as the killing of Shehadeh, in which 15 civilians and an entire Gaza apartment building were levelled by a huge bomb in order to kill a single militant. If you were in favor of this action then you do not distinguish between civilians and militants. If you are opposed to it, them I’m delighted and grant that the statement quoted above is correct. But I’m fairly certain of your answer if I’m right then you in fact do not distinguish between the groups.
While I am always opposed to the deliberate killing of innocent people, and saddened by any loss of innocent life, this does not mean that I oppose all targeted killings where innocent people are inadvertently killed. It depends on the situation. Factors such as the elusiveness of the terrorist, his capability to kill innocent people, his role, and the opportunity to capture or kill him at another point without harming innocents, must be weighed against the possible number of innocent people that may be killed by attempting the targeted killing. I defer to the opinions of Israel security officials in these matters. This goes for the killing of Shehadeh. If it came out that we could have killed him without risk to the lives of civilians, then I would have opposed this action.
But what strikes me is why you did not ask why he deliberately chose to shield himself among civilians in a densely populated area. That to me is the real issue. He was the one who showed disregard for the lives of the civilians, and he is the one primarily responsible for their deaths.
Furthermore, answer me this: if the allies had Hitler in their scopes and knew they could take him out, but perhaps some German civilians would be killed, would you support such an attempt on his life?
No thanks. I don’t see why I should be punished for rebutting your original post.I spent several hours reviewing the Pajamas Media sites which I reference in this post in order to understand their perspective on the Middle East conflict. But when I ask you to spend 30 minutes reading my blog posts about the conflict so that you’d get a taste of an alternative view to your own–that is poison to you. There in a nutshell you have the problem with neocon type thinking regarding the IP conflict. Each of the PJM bloggers has a closed view of things in the Mideast. I’ve read none of them who are open to ideas other than the ‘pre-approved’ ones represented by LGF. And that’s fine for all of you if you like this way of approaching reality. But you can’t make a pretense of understanding your enemy if you won’t even engage him or her. I note that you are silent in terms of telling me what Palestinian references or resources you use in your blog in order to understand what they believe. So I assume you don’t use any. This (if true) is further proof of your close-mindedness.
I like how you accuse me of close-mindedness, yet you have illustrated nothing but contempt for views opposing your own. You cannot acknowledge that someone who is well-read and reasonable can support Israel over the neo palestinians. That to me is more than mere arrogance; it is “turnspeak”. You are accusing me of the exact thing that you are guilty of. When you say things like “Each of the PJM bloggers has a closed view of things in the Mideast” – without being at all familar with anyone’s views – you are really showing just how close-minded you really are.
I am fully aware of opinions that differ from my own. Ask your pal Schamess, who made all kinds of accusations and ill-informed comments against me. I debated him on the facts, and he never responded to my last post in which I methodically took apart his arguments.
But just because you come out and attack my blog and others, does not mean I am obligated to read yours. You have demonstrated enough in our little exchange to forwarn me about your lack of ability in intellectual reasoning, not to mention civility. Perhaps if you had shown more openness to the opinions of others, I may have been more inclined to show openness to yours.
The point is that if someone rebuts a post of yours, correcting the original post directly means that there is no record of the one rebutted. Then there is no scope for discourse. You merely cover up your errors and that’s it. Perhaps you are not so familar with the blogosphere, but this is not how things are done. At least not amongst bloggers unafraid to admit when they have erred.You are entirely wrong in saying “there is no scope for discourse.” We’re having discourse of a sort right now (though I’m not sure either of us in doing much in the way of persuading the other). If what you mean that there is no record of my typos, and you have a need of seeing them in black & white so you can point to them in such a way as to denigrate my argument–well, then you’re right about that.But I’d like you to answer me this…do you, every time you correct a typo lv. a record of the original mistake? That seems ludicrous to me. But if that’s what you do–hey, hakol l’fi ha-taam (“each according to their taste” as they say in Hebrew).I have been blogging far longer than you & so don’t need any lessons in the ways of the blog world, thank you. And I’d hardly say that correcting spelling errors in the titles of 2 blogs constitutes “covering up error.” You’re really grasping at straws here.As for being “unafraid to admit they’ve erred” I corrected typos and said so here. So much for unafraid to admit I’ve erred. And you’ve also not answered my question about whether you’ve ever erred in your own blog. So just who’s the one whose not admitting errors?Finally, I have neither made, nor had to correct any substantive errors regarding the content of the PJM blogs featured here. Neither have you nor your fellow pajamas partygoers noted any. I’d welcome you or anyone pointing any out.
I fail to believe you are so dense that you honestly think my issue is with you covering up typos. You contend that you did not make, nor corrected any, substantive errors regarding the content of the PJM blogs. This is a boldfaced lie. For instance, you gave an example of a post from Atlas Shrugs, introduced with the words “This is typical of the obsessive compulsive disorder you’ll find regarding Pamela’s need to find anti-Semitism everywhere:” I pointed out that the post did no such thing. Instead of maintaining your original post and then posting an update stating that you had erred, or that you had made a correction based on my point, you merely changed the original post by substituting the words “This is typical of the obsessive compulsive disorder you’ll find regarding Pamela’s need to find anti-Semitism everywhere:” with “This is typical of the obsessive compulsive disorder you’ll find regarding Pamela’s need to find Jews as always aggrieved and always victims:” As such, there is now no record of your original wording (besides on my blog), which demonstrates one of your fallacious arguments. This is dishonest. I fail to believe that you have been around in the blogosphere for a long time, and don’t realize this.
