Barry Rubin: How Do We Know Definitively That Israel’s Critics Are Wrong? Because of What They Say

How Do We Know Definitively That Israel’s Critics Are Wrong? Because of What They Say

Read this article in conjunction with “It Isn’t Israel in Danger of Disappearing, It’s The People Who Think That Way.” 

By Barry Rubin

People frequently ask me to respond to the latest article of You Know Who, Complete Ignoramus, or even the World’s Most Pompous Columnist, and various others of that ilk. I almost always respond that I’ve done that kind of thing already, or at this point one should only ignore such people, or it is better to spend one’s time writing constructively to explain reality than to waste time combatting endlessly recycled lies and nonsense.

But then I realized that there was a totally different and far more revealing way of approaching this issue, a way of using this kind of criticism to show precisely how wrong it is.

The basic line of criticism being used is that Israel doesn’t know what’s good for itself. Here it has this wonderful opportunity to have an independent Palestinian state next door, thus the conflict would be over, Arabs and Muslims would all accept Israel, and there would be no more war, no more bloodshed. The West would also love Israel.

All of the country’s problems would be over! Why are Israelis so blind to elect such a government when they should elect one that is willing to go back to the 1967 borders, accept a Palestinian state with minimal conditions, and stop making any demands of its own? Don’t worry, be happy!

Or to put it into song, specifically Ed McCurdy’s “Last Night I had the Strangest Dream”:

“I dreamed I saw a mighty room…
And the paper they were signing said
They’d never fight again….

“And the people in the streets below
Were dancing ’round and ’round
While swords and guns and uniforms
Were scattered on the ground.”
Well, it is a wonderful dream, may it come true speedily in our times.
But the Middle East version might go like this:
And while people in the streets below
Were dancing ’round and ’round,
The other side took up swords and guns and
Put the well-intentioned fools in the ground.

Or, to put it another way, where you have governments like those in Iran, Syria, the Gaza Strip (Hamas), Lebanon (dominated by Hizballah), and movements like the Muslim Brotherhood and the Salafists who daily preach death to Israel and kill the Jews, the McCurdy vision should curdle your blood.

But you know that already. Here’s what’s new:
What should You Know Who, the Complete Ignoramus, the World’s Most Pompous Columnist, and various others of that ilk be writing? In other words, if you want to challenge Israel’s stance how should you do it?

The answer is by taking the exact opposite position. Here it is:

Continue reading How Do We Know Definitively That Israel’s Critics Are Wrong? Because of What They Say

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley), and The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan). His latest book is Israel: An Introduction, to be published by Yale University Press in January 2012. You can read more of Barry Rubin's posts at Rubin Reports, and now on his new blog, Rubin Reports, on Pajamas Media

Technorati Tag: Israel and Middle East and Media Bias.