Israel’s military and technology are world class but its official efforts to defend itself rhetorically against its enemies range from nonexistent to maddeningly inept. This interview of Melanie Phillips by an establishment journalist provides a good overview of the problem. That the case has to be made at all shows how deep the rot is. (Caroline Glick is also generally good on this topic.)
(Thanks to AA for sending the link to the interview.)
She’s a sharp cookie. I enjoy listening to her dissect an argument whether I agree or not. In this case, she’s got a point: ideas matter and continually explaining, promoting, and talking ideas matters too.
– Madhu
BTW, isn’t the phrase sharp cookie odd? Good cookies shouldn’t be sharp, right?
– Madhu
I was struck by the reaction of the host. I would think most Israelis understand what she is saying. He seemed shocked.
The host is a member of the media establishment which AFAIK is quite far to the left of most Israelis on security matters.
I was watching an Israeli talking-heads show and one of the discussants actually said that Hezbollah control of Lebanon will bring stability and is therefore a relatively good outcome.
She’s wonderful, a voice of reason in a world where the deluded, still yoked to a failed and dead ideology, have turned so far left that they have become fascist, bigoted morons.
The interviewer of Melanie Phillips responded to her criticism of Haartz as if it were censorship, forcing her to show her alligence to free speech. Why did the interviewer subconsciously assert that criticism was censorship, and why did Phillips tacitly agree? She could have responded, “Grow up. Criticism isn’t censorship. Haartz’s ideas can survive when only its own ideas are presented.”
Amazingly, Phillips then called for the Israeli government to propagandize in favor of Israel’s existence. If the Israelis need their government to answer the criticisms of of an Israeli newspaper, then Israel is doomed. No one should have to be paid by the government to defend a society: the society should have plenty of defenders who work without subsidy. Nor could the government campaign for long, as the believers in Haartz’s ideology are Israelis, too, who would oppose the government funding their opposition.
Her call also asserts that Haartz is opposed not only to the government but to the state and people of Isreal. That is they are traitors. And if so, censorship isn’t the answer. There is an appropriate penalty for treason.
“a voice of reason in a world”
I wish. She’s a defender of Wakefield’s corrupt autism/vaccine study: “Wakefield’s discovery of autistic enterocolitis as a completely new syndrome has now been replicated in studies around the world as a new and so far unexplained disease in patients with autism.”
Alas, this is the same Brit lady who earlier had said Obama not a friend to Israel, on YouTube…but the nuke virus information coming out now shows us how wrong she is.
Trying to change the subject and factually wrong, as usual. At least you are effective in your imagination.