Israel Matzav

The lucrative business of Israel bashing

Now here's something you might not have considered. You can make a lot of money for bashing Israel. The MacArthur genius grants were handed out on Tuesday - $500,000 to use however you please over the course of the next five years (Hat Tip: Jeff Jacoby via Twitter). That would even pay off my debts :-)

And while I went through counting the Jews this morning (as best as one can tell from the last names), Jeffrey Goldberg identified one guy - documentary maker James Longley - who has attained his MacArthur grant by way of Gaza (Hat Tip: Instapundit via Soccer Dad via Twitter).

Here's a statement from his website about his understanding of Gaza:

To my great relief, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip turned out to be people like everyone else. It's the situation they find themselves in that is extraordinary: The Gaza Strip is essentially an open-air prison for Palestinian refugees, guarded on all sides by the Israeli military. Barely 28 miles long and 4 miles wide, it contains more than 1,200,000 Palestinians - over one third of them living in squalid refugee camps built in 1948 to hold the people forced out of their homes by the creation of modern-day Israel. It is one of the most densely populated places on the planet. Nobody can pass through its borders without the permission of the Israeli soldiers. Like the West Bank, the Gaza Strip has been under Israeli military occupation since 1967. Most people living in the Gaza Strip have never known a single day of real freedom.

Okay, one by one: "Palestinians in the Gaza Strip turned out to be people like everyone else." Essentially true -- I make much the same argument in my book on the subject. Except that some residents of Gaza are, in fact, members of a suicide terrorist organization who seek out their enemy's children to kill. This is fairly unusual. Only the Tamils in Sri Lanka have constructed a similar cult. So this would be worth mentioning.

"The Gaza Strip is essentially an open-air prison for Palestinian refugees, guarded on all sides by the Israeli military." No, not true. The Strip shares a border with Egypt, an Arab state.

"[I]t contains more than 1,200,000 Palestinians - over one third of them living in squalid refugee camps built in 1948 to hold the people forced out of their homes by the creation of modern-day Israel." There are very few refugees left in Gaza. The children and grandchildren of these refugees are not, according to international law, refugees. They are only considered "refugees" because the Arab states have refused to resettle them or build them permanent housing. Also, not all Palestinians who fled Israel in 1948 were "driven out." Some fled areas of fighting, some were expelled by Jewish forces, and some left of their own accord.

"It is one of the most densely populated places on the planet." Not true. Most cities in the world are more densely populated than Gaza. Manhattan, for instance, is more densely populated than Gaza. Also, Cairo. And many suburbs of major cities, as well.

Read the whole thing.

You never thought that there could be monetary rewards for backing the 'Palestinians,' did you? But the 'Palestinians' did. Ask Yasser Arafat's widow and his Swiss banker. If you can find them.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:39 AM