Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Cohen to Israel: You're a mistake; act like one!
As of this writing, Richad Cohen’s column - Hunker Down With History - in today’s Washington Post has already generated 87 blog linkings according to the Technorati sidebar. A quick sampling of them indicates the trend is definitely anti-Cohen…and deservedly so because his column today is mind-numbingly inane.
“The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake.”
Putting aside the obvious that you can’t forget what you never knew; Mr. Cohen seems to be invoking a classic “blame the victim” in ascribing much of the Mideast’s problems to Israel’s very existence.
“…the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now.”
He then goes on to warn Israel against doing something that I have yet to hear Israel has any intentions of doing:
“Whatever happens, Israel must not use its military might to win back what it has already chosen to lose: the buffer zone in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip itself.”
He follows this up with a point-on summary of how the “hard line” critics of the original plan to give up Gaza and the southern Lebanon buffer zone were proved right. He references the “moderate” PLO and a comatose Ariel Sharon and then concludes that:
“All that the critics warned has come true. But worse than what is happening now would be a retaking of those territories. … The smart choice is to pull back to defensible -- but hardly impervious -- borders. “
In other words, go back to where they were a month ago…before Hamas and Hezbollah stepped up their terrorist actions. Because obviously that was working great back then.
UPDATE: Soccer Dad has an excellent roundup of other blog reactions.
“The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake.”
Putting aside the obvious that you can’t forget what you never knew; Mr. Cohen seems to be invoking a classic “blame the victim” in ascribing much of the Mideast’s problems to Israel’s very existence.
“…the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now.”
He then goes on to warn Israel against doing something that I have yet to hear Israel has any intentions of doing:
“Whatever happens, Israel must not use its military might to win back what it has already chosen to lose: the buffer zone in southern Lebanon and the Gaza Strip itself.”
He follows this up with a point-on summary of how the “hard line” critics of the original plan to give up Gaza and the southern Lebanon buffer zone were proved right. He references the “moderate” PLO and a comatose Ariel Sharon and then concludes that:
“All that the critics warned has come true. But worse than what is happening now would be a retaking of those territories. … The smart choice is to pull back to defensible -- but hardly impervious -- borders. “
In other words, go back to where they were a month ago…before Hamas and Hezbollah stepped up their terrorist actions. Because obviously that was working great back then.
UPDATE: Soccer Dad has an excellent roundup of other blog reactions.
