I had to do a double-take on this story, which hasn’t gotten much press stateside:
The time has come to admit that Israel is a sick society, with an illness that demands treatment, [Israeli] President Reuven Rivlin said at the opening session on Sunday of a conference on From Hatred of the Stranger to Acceptance of the Other … Rivlin wondered aloud whether Jews and Arabs had abandoned the secret of dialogue. With regard to Jews he said: “I’m not asking if they’ve forgotten how to be Jews, but if they’ve forgotten how to be decent human beings. Have they forgotten how to converse?”
The remarks were given at a conference called “From Hatred of the Stranger to Acceptance of the Other.” There was criticism of Palestinians too – and defenses of Israelis. But to hear this kind of talk from the president of the country is quite striking. If a Jewish American had used that language, the obloquy would be as intense as it would be overwhelming. If a non-Jewish American had said that, she’d be immediately denounced as a rabid anti-Semite. Which just goes to show that Israel has a far more robust culture of open debate than the US – and that the deeply troubling descent of Israel into the worst forms of tribalism and bigotry is not a fantasy made up by Max Blumenthal.
Today on the Dish, readers smacked Reza Aslan’s views on religion around a bit – though I recommend Damon Linker’s latest for a classic takedown; I launched the discussion of our Book Club on Sam Harris’ Waking Up – with a debate about whether the self actually exists or who exactly is writing this sentence; readers provided plenty of new clips for our peenage search of movies and TV (Christopher Meloni’s is here). And if you want a moment of zen, a reader from Guyana sent us this window view. Too beautiful. My musings on the liberalism of American Catholics here. My defense of Idaho bigots here.
One other recommendation: gamer Dish readers take apart all you’ve heard about Gamergate. It’s a truly amazing study on what the collective Dish mind can do on a subject that the media seems to have fumbled badly. One thing that makes the Dish unique is this kind of reader input and nuance. It takes work and real art to curate and edit the in-tray the way Bodenner does. Help pay him and all our staff by, you know, subscribing, if you haven’t already. It takes a couple of minutes and only $1.99 a month.
Many of today’s posts were updated with your emails – read them all here. You can always leave your unfiltered comments at our Facebook page and @sullydish. 22 more readers became subscribers today. You can join them here – and get access to all the readons and Deep Dish – for a little as $1.99 month. Gift subscriptions are available here. Dish t-shirts are for sale here, including the new “Know Dope” shirts, which are detailed here and modeled by the reader seen above. Another writes:
OK, you guys are now 3 for 3. Several years ago you ran a view from a building I worked in 30 years ago (in Fairbanks, AK, of all places, and a minor campus building at that). Later you ran a view from a hotel I had stayed in recently. But on Sunday, you ran a view of a building that I lived in for a year, 40+ years ago (center left, on the corner just across the street).
And in none of those cases did I recognize the view before looking at the caption. How embarrassing.
As a bonus, here’s a view OF the window of my daughter’s college dorm room. (We have no idea who sent it in, but apparently the VFYW phenomenon is affecting a second generation, too.) And you also once ran a view from my office window, but I sent that in. Thanks from a long-time reader, two-year subscriber.
See you in the morning.
The Dish 