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ONE_FOOT_IN_ZION

                                           July     15, 2012
                                           November 10, 2013

   It might be amusing (if not terribly
   instructive) to make a collection of
   remarks displaying an unwillingness         A case in point: I found
   to go all the way in recognizing            it difficult to type the
   Israel's crimes.                            word "crimes", there:

                                                  "Is that precisely accurate?
                                                  Does it sound like an
   "The New York Review of Books"                 exaggeration?  Maybe I
   is particularly good for things                can find a more moderate
   like this...                                   way to express that..."

   For example, there was someone very learnedly        But then, it's possible
   commenting on on the Israel-Palestine conflict,      that if I toned down
   (reviewing the Peter Beinart book "Crisis of         the wording I could
   Zionism") who tossed in an odd remark about the      make a similar point
   "symmetrical" problems of Israel and Palestine       and reach more people
                                                        with it: many people
        It would be interesting to see someone          no doubt tune out
        attempt to justify the adjective                when they hear a
        "symmetrical" there... I have my                phrase like "Israel's
        doubts the author of the piece                  crimes", and something
        seriously believes it.                          else might do a better
                                                        job of slipping through
        It's far more common for people to              the Okrent window.
        recognize that the situation is
        assymetric in many ways, in fact it's
        almost a cliche to call "terrorism" a
        product of "assymetric warfare", i.e.       As Chomsky would no
        it's a resort of the weak against the       doubt point out, the
        strong.                                     real asymmetry here is
                                                    that terror is only
                                                    called terror when
                                                    it's used by the weak.
  The Peter Beinart book,
  "Crisis of Zionism" is
  itself an exceptional job       But then, it's good that
  of commenting on Israel's       this book is out there,
  shall-we-say "public            and getting reviewed in     We are unlikely
  relations problem", without     places such as "the New     to hear much of
  quite going all the way.        York Review of Books",      Norman
                                  which does a fair job of    Finkelstein's
  My personal favorite thus       ignoring Noam Chomsky,      latest from the
  far is his assertion that       for example.                Very Serious east
  Israel's conception of                                      coast press.
  itself as a "jewish             That's a point that
  state" and as a liberal         was brought home to
  democracy are not so much       me recently by some
  *contradictory* as in           comments by George
  tension with each other.        Scialabba:

  How you can pull off one without       EXTRAORDINARY_COLLECTIVE_PUSILLANIMITY
  dropping the other remains a
  complete mystery to me.  I get
  the notion of making tradeoffs                              SCIALABBA
  between multiple goals, but how
  do you both allow religious
  freedom and religious privilege
  at the same?






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