Israel Matzav

Another Israel critic seeks to be branded an anti-Semite

Last Thursday, I wrote about a new phenomenon in which columnists who are critical of Israel seek to create the impression that those who oppose them are calling them anti-Semites, which they can then wear as a badge of honor and as a shield against any substantive criticism of their claims. After all, if one can make the argument that defenders of Israel treat all criticism of the country as anti-Semitism, obviously none of it is anti-Semitic. That post was directed at the Atlantic's Andrew Sullivan. Here's another instance of the same phenomenon: Time Magazine's Joe Klein.

My suggestions--or their distorted burlesque of my suggestions--are, apparently, what passes for anti-Israel extremism over at Commentary. But anything that doesn't conform to their half-crazed macho crusaderism is seen as either anti-Israel or anti-Semitic. Their constant fury, their slightly-veiled calumnies against the President--and against the very notion of diplomacy--would be laughable if they weren't so dangerous and disgraceful.

By the way, the barely concealed anti-Arab bigotry so frequently found on the Commentary blog, reveals itself in this sentence:

That answer pleased neither the Arabs nor Klein.

In fact, it was a U.S.-Islamic Forum: Arabs comprised maybe half the Islamic delegates, who came from as far away as Indonesia and the Philippines, including a sizeable contingent, as usual, from South Asia (Afghans, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis). And, to reiterate: the level of anger over the Gaza situation among all of these people was striking. (Several of us listened to a particularly impassioned statement from a demure woman from Indonesia, to our amazement.)

Jonathan Tobin retorts:

According to Klein, my post was merely “bile and bullying” and amounted to me accusing him of being “anti-Semitic.” but as Eric Fingerhut wrote of his crazed response:

Whoa! Anti-Israel? Anti-Semitic? Where’d you get that, Joe? Tobin’s piece said your proposal to engage with Hamas was a bad one because it wasn’t in America’s interest to help out terrorists. Tobin may be right, he may be wrong, but he never said anything about you being “anti-Israel” or “anti-Semitic” anywhere in the piece. He didn’t even imply it. He just didn’t like your ideas, and didn’t like your statement that Israel was at fault for the failure of George Mitchell’s efforts. But in your attempt to make yourself out to be some courageous truth-teller, you claim you’ve been smeared — when you’re the one doing the smearing.

But if you think that canard from Klein was bad, the worst was yet to come. Klein then writes:

The barely concealed anti-Arab bigotry so frequently found on the COMMENTARY blog, reveals itself in this sentence: “That answer pleased neither the Arabs nor Klein.” In fact, it was a U.S.-Islamic Forum: Arabs comprised maybe half the Islamic delegates.

What? Does Klein really think it is bigoted to refer to Arabs as “Arabs?” It may well be that there were non-Arabs at the conference but it was Klein who wrote in his column that “Clinton’s tough talk on Iran got most of the U.S. headlines, but her position on Gaza was far more important to the Islamic participants at Doha, especially the Arabs.” Not only was my reference entirely neutral as opposed to prejudicial, but it was based on Klein’s own comment.

Unlike Klein’s response, my original post never attacked him personally; I just took aim at his wrongheaded advice to Obama. And far from throwing “calumnies” at the president, I defended Obama’s current stand on Hamas. In return, he falsely accuses COMMENTARY of errors and makes bizarre charges of bigotry. This is something he has done before with others who have criticized him, especially for his attacks on Israeli policy and American supporters of Israel. One would expect that any sensible writer would, after some consideration, back down and apologize for his slurs against me and this magazine, even while defending his ideas. But given the unhinged and hate-filled nature of his writing on this subject, I have no such expectation.

You can't just argue the issues anymore. The Left has turned everything into mud-slinging. I can date it too: It goes back to the Bush - Gore election of 2000. US politics is sounding more and more like Israel's divisive politics. The funny thing is that since our last election, the discourse seems to have become more civil here.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 9:21 AM