Sorry, but that's just more moral equivalence
Much as I wish I could appreciate Marv Wolfman's being the text writer on this project called “Homeland: The Illustrated History of the State of Israel,” after reading this article from the Jewish Bulletin of Northern California about some of the content, all I can say is that the powers on the upper floors have dealt yet another knockdown blow, by resorting once again to something they didn't have to: moral equivalency. Specifically:
This Lassner fellow sure does have a lot to check in terms of historical accuracy, I must say, but the really nagging question is: will he actually do it?
And there's still more questions surrounding this item:
Wolfman, in all due fairness, is not to blame here, since he's obviously just being hired to write the script for this, like everyone else. But that said, I think it's a real shame that once again, we have here yet another tired act of moral equation on hand.
Jacob Lassner, a Jewish studies professor at Northwestern University, has been engaged as a consultant to check the book’s historical accuracy. The authors have also included a poem on the first page that, Rubin says, acknowledges that the Palestinians have their own narrative about the region’s history.Oh, but sure they do. There's just one little thing: as Golda Meir said in her time, there never was, and isn't, a "palestinian people"! That was just a name given to the country by the Roman Empire for political purposes in the post-Bar Kochva era, later used by the British propagandist Christopher Mayhew (who's spoken about on this website here) for propaganda purposes, to delegitimize the state of Israel in the early 20th century.
This Lassner fellow sure does have a lot to check in terms of historical accuracy, I must say, but the really nagging question is: will he actually do it?
And there's still more questions surrounding this item:
Aware that Israel’s history is controversial and hoping to take the rug out from under those who might challenge the book on a factual basis, the creators are making a point of depicting Israel in its entirety — warts and all.There's just one thing: those Christian militiamen were acting in revenge for the PLO's having radicalized those "refugee camps" against them as far back as 1976. Some background from Free-Lebanon:
It will include, for example, episodes dealing with Jonathan Pollard, the Jewish U.S. Navy analyst imprisoned for spying for Israel, and the massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps by Christian militiamen in Lebanon, for which many blamed Israel.
...Arafat and the PLO plunged Lebanon into "massacres, rape, mutilation, rampages of looting and killings. Out of a population of 3.2 million, some 40,000 or more people had been killed, 100,000 wounded, 5,000 permanently maimedIt was bad enough that the MSM blamed Israel for that incident, but at the same time, I cannot accept if they just simply lay the blame upon the Christian community of Lebanon without understanding the facts first. And I do wonder, how are they going to deal with the issue surrounding Pollard? Will they by any chance mention that Shimon Peres was responsible for getting him into that mess in the first place?
In January of 1976, the destruction of Damour, a town of some 25,000 was completed by the PLO within two weeks. "The priest of Damour, Father Mansour Labaky desperately trying to save people of the town telephoned Kamal Jumblat [one of the Lebanese leaders], in whose parliamentary constituency Damour lay. 'Father, Jumblat said, 'I can do nothing for you, because it depends on Yasser Arafat'". All efforts were useless. In the morning following the first night of invasion, when more than fifty people were massacred, Father Labaky "despite the shelling managed to get to the one house, to bring out some corpses. An entire family had been killed, the Canan family, four children all dead, and the mother, the father, and the grandfather. The mother was still hugging one of the children. And she was pregnant
[...]
Arafat was ruthless not only with the Lebanese citizens but with the Palestinian Arabs too. In January, 1976 during the Christians' attack on Tall al Za'tar refugee camp the PLO tried to prevent the people in the camp from leaving. "Conditions within the camp became critical, with acute shortages of food and water, as bombardment continued day after day. The ideal of self sacrifice, imposed on the civilians by a leadership which itself took no risks, was never known to be the choice of the unhappy people themselves. And not all of the fighters who fell with their guns in their hands were cut down by the fire of the Christians. Some who tried to surrender or escape from the camp were shot in the back by their own comrades" (133). The high command in the PLO headquarters in West Beirut "not only refused to let the Palestinians leave the camp, or let the fighters surrender in order to save them all from hell, but insisted that the entire population, including the children, were to be sacrificed"
[...]
The Lebanese crimes are only a short page in Arafat's criminal biography. Torture, murder and the kidnaping of innocent people was Arafat's and the PLO's signature wherever they were present. Thousands of people perished in Jordan in September of 1970 when Arafat tried to wrest power from King Hussein. More than a thousand Palestinian Arabs accused of "collaboration" with Israel were brutally killed by Arafat's cronies during the "intifada." During the thirty five years of the PLO's existence thousands of People have been maimed and murdered in bombings, drive by shootings, stabbings, etc.
“This is a look at Israel with its blemishes, because it has to have academic integrity,” Rubin says.Okay, but the thing is, will it be positive or negative in any of these dealings?
Wolfman, in all due fairness, is not to blame here, since he's obviously just being hired to write the script for this, like everyone else. But that said, I think it's a real shame that once again, we have here yet another tired act of moral equation on hand.
Labels: politics
