Monday, January 5, 2009

Michael Goldfarb Responds

Even more so than usual, there was some serious unhinging on the left this weekend on Israel-Gaza, in this case as it relates to Michael Goldfarb of the Weekly Standard. Goldfarb applauded Israel's targeted assassination of Nizar Rayan last week, which generated an exceptionally despicable (and effusively effluvial) rant from Glenn Greenwald (and RawMuscleGlutes joined in here).

Here's Goldfarb's
response:

Glenn Greenwald, as hysterical and long-winded as ever, accuses me of possessing "the very same logic that leads Hamas to send suicide bombers to slaughter Israeli teenagers in pizza parlors and on buses and to shoot rockets into their homes. It's the logic that leads Al Qaeda to fly civilian-filled airplanes into civilian-filled office buildings." Another blogger accuses me of endorsing terrorist ethics, and the Atlantic's in-house gynecologist calls me a thug.

In fact, I was explicitly questioning whether such violence can be effective against a group like Hamas. The target of this strike had already sent one of his own sons into Israel as a suicide bomber. Greenwald presumes that I see Palestinians "as something less than civilized human beings" because I question whether they can be deterred "like us." But I wasn't talking about Palestinians in general, I was talking about the Hamas leadership in particular. If Greenwald believes that Hamas, a terrorist group, is itself the avatar of the Palestinian people, then he is the one who sees the Palestinians as less civilized than the rest of us. If not, then I wonder whether he is illiterate or simply disingenuous. But the Hamas leadership is not like us: Americans may send their sons to war, but they do not send them to certain death for the sake of slaughtering civilians.

It's also striking that Greenwald and his fellow travelers would use words like terrorist and thug to describe me while defending the rights of Hamas, an organization comprised of genuine terrorists and thugs. It's become common for the left to describe its ideological opponents as thugs, and the result, apparently, is the inability to recognize real thuggery when it's staring them in the face.

There is no doubt that Israel has the right to strike Nizar Rayan, even at the cost of killing so many women and children -- these civilians were not intentionally targeted. The question is whether or not this strike, in addition to eliminating a leader of Hamas (and
the weapons depot in which he chose to house his family), will also deter Hamas from so brazenly ending the next cease fire. The fact that Greenwald & Co. would react so bizarrely to the mere posing of that question is precisely why their voices are being ignored in this debate. Just the other day Greenwald wrote of how he was perplexed by a poll showing that a majority of Democrats shared his views on Israel's assault, but still the Democratic party was almost uniform in its support for the action. Well, its possible for large numbers of people to hold views that simply aren't serious -- though of course a plurality of Americans still supports Israel's actions in Gaza -- and on this issue, like on telecom immunity and warrantless wiretapping, a large portion of the left simply isn't serious.

7 comments:

JoMala "Truth 101" Kelly said...

Today, nobody argues the wisdom of dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In the long run, hundreds of thousands of lives were spared by ending WWII as soon as possible. Hamas despicably hides among the innocent. Their blood is on the hands of Hamas for the actions Israel has no choice but to take for it's survival.

AmPowerBlog said...

" ... nobody argues the wisdom of dropping the atomic bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki ..."

Not true at all, Truth101. I teach the dropping of the atomic bomb as one of my international relations case studies. There's a continuing historical controversy on it, and historians have shown that the bomb saved countless lives on both sides.

Tapline said...

DD, I didn't know there were still logical people out there. The left is so out of it there is no way to open their eyes. They will still be saying the terrorist aren't murderer when they are watching peoples heads being cut off. And really, I am not joking.....They are blind to reality.....DD you better watch what you are teaching, someone will be censoring you for teaching the unbiased truth......stay well.....

JoMala "Truth 101" Kelly said...

I should have said "nobody of good sense." Thanks for the opportunity to clarify Professor.

Norm said...

Every anniversary of Hiroshima the local chapter of SANE (National Committee For A Sane Nuclear Policy}
get about 60 people to protest the dropping of the bomb in one of our local parks. They are mostly 1930's commies, and our local papers always gives them a big picture and article.
Next year I'll steal their canes.

Trish said...

Donald, have you seen the new sign our resident protesters brought to our courthouse this past weekend? "Free Gaza" someone wrote. Sad really. They pretend to be intellects, but fail to do their homework. It's the kneejerk reaction of some (okay- of most where I come from) on the left, to blame Israel and blame Bush, when in fact, Hamas has been at fault through this conflict. If the media were even halfway balanced, less people would be so easily deluded into believing this bull...but I see no even handed stories on the ongoing dispute, anywhere in the mainstream media. Skye has a few very good related pieces on her Midnight Blue blogspot...
Happy new year!

Tom the Redhunter said...

My hat is off to you, Truth101. You are a liberal who sees clearly on the Israel-Hamas war. You are also seeing clearly on WWII.

Re the post - I saw the post by Goldfarb and included it in my post today. Civilians should never be targeted, but neither are they always totally innocent. The Gazans voted for Hamas, so they bear some responsibility for what's happening.