Month: March 2010

A reader writes:

As a long time reader and fan of your blog (since 2001), I'm becoming increasingly annoyed at what appears to be an obsessive focus on showcasing Israel's warts.  I think Goldblog made the argument that Israel has become for you the Sarah Palin of countries.  Indeed.  For instance, what was the point in posting that al Jazeera piece on the Mossad?  Is it really  newsworthy or surprising that the Arab press publishes a story painting Israel in a militaristic and overly nationalistic light?  And, on the substance of the piece, is it really news that 18 year old boys get excited by covert/spy/assassination intrigue?  Or that some Israeli entrepreneur decided to capitalize on it for a short term gain?  As if none of this occurs in this country or every other?

I offer the following from the perspective of someone appalled by the Wieseltier hit piece on you:  when you post items like this, day after day, and nearly all of which focus on everything negative about Israel regardless of context, you give people the impression that you are an Israel-hater, notwithstanding your protestations of love when someone challenges you on it.  And while I cannot, and will not, excuse the accusers, it is inescapable that responsibility for these accusations, to some extent, lies with you. 

Personally, I don't think you have an Israel problem, so much as an obsession problem.  But I know this because I've been reading you a long time.  I get your obsession, and, quite frankly, is one of the reasons you are fun to read.  But obsession has its downside, especially when it sweeps nuance and complexity under the rug, and obscures your true thoughts about an issue. 

The bottom line is that your blog, as it relates to Israel, has become almost indistinguishable from the true Israel-haters.  And that, unsurprisingly, invites the attacks, including the unfair and disgusting ones.  And then you react by digging in deeper in the obsession.  And this brings us further and further away from discussing the issue honestly and in a real way.

Public celebrations of assassinations by intelligence agencies is not exactly irrelevant in the week when the US is trying to restore some basis for the peace-process, which Tzivi Lipni says is a matter of great urgency. Highlighting what I believe to be a disturbing and accelerating trend toward religious fundamentalism, xenophobia, contempt for Arab life, militarism and illiberalism in Israel is something the Dish will continue to do, especially since this is a country which every American tax-payer subsidizes and which could, if such attitudes keep intensifying, hurtle the world into a world war. And the idea that this is the only coverage of Israel is belied by the record. May I suggest this post from yesterday which, at great length, offers what I hope is a very nuanced view of the US-Israel relationship and the current moment.

To argue that this blog this week has moved us away from an honest debate is, in my view, unfounded. Yes, this blog has passions – torture, gay rights, Iraq, the Green Revolution, the Pet Shop Boys, beards, etc. But somehow a post-Gaza concentration on what on earth has happened to Israel is the only one deemed illegitimate.

Today on the Dish we saw Obama turn up the heat on healthcare reform (and his approach seemed to be working). More on HCR here. We also featured the first legal gay wedding in DC. In foreign policy, Israel flipped Biden the bird, Livni talked sense, and Bernard Avishai pitched for economic peace with Palestine.

Andrew went after Rahm Democrats and reminded the right of his fiscal-conservative cred. Thiessen slithered into the DOJ controversy, an ultra-Republican condemned the McCarthyism, and Greenwald called for congressional condemnation. More here. US waterboarding appeared much worse and McCain sunk lower.

The pope's brother got wrapped up in a sex scandal, an anti-gay state senator came out of the closet, and a US congressman tickled his male interns. Chait, Yglesias, and Nyhan critiqued Beltway journalism. And WaPo could be going broke. Readers debated Mo'Nique's smug level and another dubbed Obama "the closer." Clay Risen received a Von Hoffman nod and South Park geared up for something good.

— C.B.

A reader writes:

I was watching the “Fired Up” clip you posted this morning and something occurred to me regarding the President; what people seem to fail to grasp, and what Obama does, is that the President is not a legislator.  He is, to borrow a baseball term, “The Closer.”  I think people are having trouble figuring this out because, for the first time in decades, we have a career legislator as the executive. 

Since Nixon, it’s been governors or vice presidents, people ingrained with the authoritative executive.  Obama is bringing back the separation of powers, letting legislators legislate, and for most people, they’ve never been alive to see a President act with this sort of deference and constitutional understanding (it probably doesn't hurt that he was a Constitutional Law professor either).  What he’s doing now is what a President should do.  He let the legislative process largely play out, now’s the time for the President to advocate and make sure it gets done.  It’s the bottom of the 9th, and the Closer is coming in.

Oh, this is getting good.

What's that I hear in the background? Meep, meep.

Matt and Trey up the ante on reality:

People seem to think I have been imagining a contemptuous attitude toward the US by the Israeli government, or that my concerns about its "Go Cheney Yourself" policy on the peace process are somehow a function of obsessiveness or something that isn't anti-Semitism but is somehow even "darker". But I am not imagining these things. They are real and they are dangerous:

Hours after Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. vowed unyielding American support for Israel’s security here on Tuesday, Israel’s Interior Ministry announced 1,600 new housing units for Jews in East Jerusalem. Mr. Biden condemned the move as “precisely the kind of step that undermines the trust we need right now.” …

[Biden] began the day on a note of support, asserting the Obama administration’s “absolute, total, unvarnished commitment to Israel’s security.” But by the end of the day, Mr. Biden’s tone had a very different quality. He issued a statement condemning “the substance and timing of the announcement” of the housing, and added, “Unilateral action taken by either party cannot prejudge the outcome of negotiations on permanent status issues.”

It appears Netanyahu was blindsided by this as well. As I have pointed out, Netanyahu is now the Israeli center, but Netanyahu still openly backs new settlements in East Jerusalem for Israeli Jews and Israeli Jews alone. And he would not be prime minister without the support of his religious right. And they believe that the West Bank is God's land – for them alone. And in that, they have the full backing of the Christianist right in the US:

PALIN: I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don’t think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand.

WALTERS: Even if it’s [in] Palestinian areas?

PALIN: I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expand.

Eric Massa implodes on Glenn Beck:

“Not only did I grope him, I tickled him until he couldn’t breathe,” he said. “I should have never allowed myself to be as familiar with my staff as I was… I own this misbehavior.”

Glenn Beck says they’re both “standing with hoses.” But one gets the feeling that the fire has broken out in both of their houses – and not the White House.

Yglesias shares some wisdom:

I’ve never found speaking to important political figures either on or off the record to be incredibly valuable in terms of actual information. People are generally more willing to make jokes when it’s off the record, so it’s more entertaining to participate in those kind of briefings. On the other hand, it’s much easier to build an item around a direct quote so it’s more professionally valuable to be on the record. But it seems to me that the people who do the real value-adding reporting are mostly talking to lower-level people—nobody ever gets the real scoop from anyone remotely senior.