Mr. Schocken Erred.

Ari Shavit attacked the Left today, writing

Israel's radical left committed suicide, and now the right will kill us all

Some noticed that the original Hebrew headline simply read

Israel's radical left committed suicide

And they tweeted it with Eylon Aslan-Levy ‏noting

8 hours ago

Hebrew editors wrote "the left is committing suicide". English editors added some flavour.

I forwarded that to Amos Schocken who wrote:

@ymedad @EylonALevy Nonsense. The English headline is an exact quote from Shavit. Don't be losers: read full texts as well.

So, I did.  

The last sentence in Shavit's piece reads:

The radical left, having committed suicide, is now helping the right to kill us all.

Sorry, Mr. Schocken but that is not quite what the headline was conveying when it appears so:

Israel's radical left committed suicide, and now the right will kill us all

The word "helping" is gone.

Is that signifcant?

Well, yes.

Shavit is not only blaming the Left for stupidity but more.  He writes that the Left:

is disconnected from reality. 

it refused to admit the failure of the Oslo Accords, et. al.

it refused to recognize the withdrawal from the Gaza Strip led to rockets on Ashkelon, Ashdod and Tel Aviv

the left is therefore viewed in Israel as delusional, as daydreamers.

the left is disconnected from reality 

the left is disconnected from Israeli pride. 

the radical left committed suicide when it abnegated itself before the Palestinians. 

And, then, his last charge of a guilt is assisting the Right, a double blunder, in his opinion. 

So, the headline does not reflect the full text and is not quite an exact quotation.

Mr. Schocken, I would maintain, erred.

__________

P.S.

Mr. Schocken has now tweeted:

Good, at least you follow my advice.

But not one to yield or admit to fallibility, he now tweets:

 Another headlines genius: now Y Medad as well.

_____________

P.P.S.

Check this out.

^

Correcting an Ari Shavit Error

I leafed through Ari Shavit's new book, My Promised Land, and my eye caught something on page 398:

The red marks an assertion that there is a "high fence" at Shiloh.  Am I correct?

If so, know that there is no high fence at Shiloh.

In fact, except for the actual entrance gate, which looks like every other entrance to a kibbutz or moshav in Israel, there has never been a fence surrounding Shiloh for over the almost 33 years that I and my family have been lviing here.

There is no fence around Adei-Ad, or Ahiyah, or Esh Kodesh or Shvut Rachel or Keidah.

I am fairly sure there is none at Givat Harel and Givat HaRoeh.  Nor at Eli, at least for the most part that I have seen.

I think there is a fence at Maaleh Levona along the approach road.

So, don't trust all that Shavit writes as fact.

Oh, and as for that "sword living" bit.  Trust me, Ari, if Arabs weren't trying to kill us, maim us, injure us all by shooting at us, stabbing us, throwing firebombs or stones at us - just as they did when your great-grandfather first came, you know, before the 'occupation' and all the 'settlements', we wouldn't need a sword, or an Uzi or whatever.

^

Livni In A Not Very Flattering Light

Ari Shavit, one of the most honest journalist/publicists in Israel, not a rightwinger, in today's Haaretz, after collecting notes on Tzipi Livni:-

Kadima's chairwoman..is short-tempered. Her more serious critics believe she has an attention deficit. She is incapable of delving into the details of a document or of sustaining an extended discussion. She does not stay with a topic until it has been completely clarified. Her thinking is not clear and she cannot distinguish the wheat from the chaff. Unlike Netanyahu and Barak, who can get to the bottom of an issue and discuss it in all its complexity, Livni tends to oversimplify, to go for the schematic. One of the most respected figures in the country says she is opinionated and superficial.

...She finds it very hard to make decisions. Even with noncritical decisions she deliberates, wavers, delays and changes her opinion over and over. Some people believe the combination of inexperience and lack of confidence paralyzes Livni...Her third flaw is her total lack of emotional intelligence. Livni neither understands people nor likes them. That is why she has no inner circle of confidants...Her ability to lead after the election is in doubt.

Livni has several other faults. She does not take the long view, is inconsistent, and her deep fear of failure prevents her from being daring and original...Tzipi Livni is hollow. They argued that Livni lacks the cultural baggage, historic vision, emotional tools and personal abilities of a leader. She has never shown civil courage, has no achievements to her name and has never gone against the tide...

...One of the people I spoke to was especially agitated despite being a mature, restrained and conservative person. He told me he felt like a member of some cult with a terrible secret: Tzipi Livni is not fit to be prime minister. There is a black flag waving above her journey to the Prime Minister's Office.

The witness said it was inconceivable to him that the media are not revealing this secret; intolerable that the public does not know. That is why he spoke, that is why I recorded his words. That is why this piece was published. So the public will know - and decide.

Israeli Criticizes Israel-Hating Israelis

Ari Shavit:

...Israel-hating Israelis call Operation Cast Lead a war crime...At the end of the day, their position is a pathetic one. Their self-righteousness is not at all righteous, and their moralizing has no morality. Their inability to show compassion for the Israelis of Be'er Sheva, Ashdod, Ashkelon and Sderot shows that they possess a degree of callousness. Their inability to view the Arabs firing the Grad rockets as being responsible for their actions shows that they are not free of paternalism.

The real motivation of Israel-hating Israelis is not genuine concern for the Palestinians, but rather a form of reverse racism. By showing forgiveness toward Palestinian fascism they turn their backs not only on Israelis but also on moderate, freedom-loving Palestinians. Those who blame Israel for everything and exonerate the Palestinians of everything are neither serving the cause of peace nor helping to end the violence and occupation. All they are doing is proving the extent to which they are blinded by their burning self-hatred.

Shavit Sputters

Ari Shavit is your typical rational middle-of-the-road Israeli intellectual. He's knowledgeable, is unabashedly nationalistic but feels the need to compromise.

So, he writes this:-

An Israeli [peace] initiative in this spirit will not bring an end to the conflict. It will not unravel the Israeli-Palestinian entanglement with one magical thrust. But it will create a gradual change in the situation that will indicate a direction that Israelis and Palestinians should follow.

It will prove that Israel is giving up the ethos of settlement while the Palestinians are beginning to move beyond the ethos of the return.

- - -

The Israeli initiative must have four aspects: Israeli willingness to carry out a limited withdrawal in Judea and Samaria even without a peace agreement

He also writes this:-

The demand for the right of return attests to the fact that in the era of Hamas the Palestinian people are not trying to establish a Palestine that will live alongside Israel, but rather strive to establish a Palestine that will replace Israel. Weaken Israel, put Israel to death and inherit it.

This extremely complex situation has a number of implications. On the one hand, it is clear that at the present historical stage there is no chance of getting the Palestinians to ideologically relinquish the demand for the right of return.

On the other hand, it is clear that without such a concession, any far-reaching Israeli withdrawal is extremely dangerous.

But what bothers me is that the two issues he treats, the right of a Jew to live in his historic homeland, a right recognized and guaranteed by international law, and the supposed 'right' of a 'return' of 'refugees' are unequal.

Arabs are residing in places where they didn't live 60 years ago because they refused to act in line with international law and used violence in expressing their opposition.

Arabs are residing in places where they didn't live 60 years ago because they would not agree for over three decades before the state of Israel was created to compromise.

Arabs are residing in places where they didn't live 60 years ago because they continued to harass and attack and kill Jewish citizens of Israel from 1948 onwards.

Arabs are residing in places where they didn't live 60 years ago because they would accept an autonomy plan or any other foolish proposal by an Israeli government or a its prime ministers based on solutions that don't respond to the problems.

But, again, I wish to emphasize that Shavit and those like him are in error in attempting to equalize and parallelize the two situations, the two national and historical rights and the two resulting realities. Jews living in areas the Arabs and Shavit want them to call Palestine and leave Israel and Zionism alone by having Israel retreat from them do not in any sense cause the same damage that Arabs living in Israel, whether the indigenous population or the expected 'returning refugees'.

One population, the Jewish, doesn't kill and contributes to economic well-being. The other, the Arab, practices terror wherever they are. Refugees returning are negative and Jewish communities are positive. Simple.

I hope Shavit learns sooner than later that he is wrong in his thinking.

Isn't it obvious to you as it is to me?

Olmert's Irrelevance

Therefore, if the prime minister is unable to govern - he has to go. Right or wrong, he has to go. If the country's systems, for which he is responsible, are in a state of disarray, the prime minister needs to go.

This is precisely the point the Olmert government reached this week. On the face of it, this government, which does not rule, had a good week. The bane of the government's existence, Micha Lindenstrauss, made some tactical errors, which gave the prime minister a few points in his favor. For a little while, the horrifying truth behind the way Olmert was running the affairs of the state was silenced.

However, last week was proof that Olmert-led Israel is in utter disarray. There is no policy, no responsibility and no decision-making. There are no morals, no norms, and there is no respect for the law. The home front is not prepared for another war. The Israel Defense Forces is not prepared for another war. No official authority has been established to deal with another war. There is no diplomatic initiative that could prevent the next war.

Against the increasingly growing threats, Olmert's Israel is behaving like an ostrich: It does not see, it does not hear and it does not do. The bug of government negligence is running amok in Jerusalem: an absence of leadership bug, an absence of governance - of anarchy.

This anarchy is what brought us the second Lebanon war. It is what caused the war to be managed the way it was. But much worse is the fact that even after the war, the anarchy continues. It has grown even while the writing is on the wall. Every day of anarchy brings us closer to the next disaster. A catastrophe for which every one who remains silent now is responsible.

Now that the Olmert era has become a nightmare era, the question of whether Olmert is right or wrong is irrelevant.

Ari Shavit in Haaretz