Vorige week is Larry Derfner, een Israel critische columnist bij de Jerusalem Post, ontslagen. Barry Rubin verdedigde zijn recht op vrije meningsuiting, ook wanneer dit kwetsend kan zijn voor anderen, mensen die een dierbare hebben verloren in een zelfmoordaanslag bijvoorbeeld. Elder of Ziyon bekritiseerde zijn column voor het ontslag en laat vervolgens zien dat zijn ‘excuus’ in de Jerusalem Post niet erg overtuigend is, en hij zichzelf tegenspreekt. Derfner schreef in zijn column:
... Whoever the Palestinians were who killed the eight Israelis near Eilat last week, however vile their ideology was, they were justified to attack. They had the same right to fight for their freedom as any other unfree nation in history ever had. And just like every harsh, unjust government in history bears the blame for the deaths of its own people at the hands of rebels, so Israel, which rules the Palestinians harshly and unjustly, is to blame for those eight Israeli deaths – as well as for every other Israeli death that occurred when this country was offering the Palestinians no other way to freedom.
Hij vindt dus niet alleen dat Palestijnen Israeli’s in de strijd mogen doden, maar keurt ook alle zelfmoordaanslagen en zoiets als de moordpartij op een gezin in Itamar goed. Hij schrijft ook:
I also think Palestinian terrorism backfires, it turns people away from them and generates sympathy for Israel and the occupation, so I’m against terrorism on a practical level, too, but that’s besides the point.
Elder wijst er terecht op dat dat precies is wat Abbas en anderen van de Palestijnse Autoriteit ook altijd zeggen. Ze keuren Palestijns geweld tegen Israelische burgers niet moreel af, het is alleen niet handig, niet practisch en niet verstandig. Wanneer het wel in het Palestijnse belang zou zijn is er geen enkel bezwaar meer tegen. Zo denken sommige antizionisten in Nederland er ook over. Soms zeggen ze wel dat ze in principe tegen alle geweld zijn en iedere dode betreuren, maar daarna wordt erop gewezen dat de Palestijnen nou eenmaal geen tanks en bommenwerpers hebben dus moeten ze zichzelf wel opblazen in bussen en restaurants. Elder wijst op het racistische idee dat daaraan ten grondslag ligt:
(I'm not even going to bother to expand on the racist assumption that Palestinian Arabs have no free will to decide whether to attack Jewish civilians or not, that somehow Israeli actions "force" them to murder. Well, a small percentage of them. For some unexplained reason 100% of PalArabs aren't attacking Jews every day, as racists like Derfner expect them to.)
Er leven veel volken onder bezetting en er worden velen onderdrukt. Velen hebben het daarbij zwaarder dan de Palestijnen, vooral op de Westoever waar bijna alle checkpoints zijn opgeheven en de economie groeit. Waarom blazen Tibetanen of Berbers of Oeigoeren of Arabieren in Iran of Koerden geen burgers op? Wat betreft geen enkel ander land wordt terrorisme zo dikwijls goedgepraat als Israel.
RP
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Israeli leftist says killing Israeli Jews is a "right"
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/08/israeli-leftist-says-killing-israeli.html
The Left has come to this: justifying terrorism against Israelis in the name of human rights.
From the Jerusalem Post columnist Larry Derfner, in a blog called Israel Reconsidered:
I think a lot of people who realize that the occupation is wrong also realize that the Palestinians have the right to resist it – to use violence against Israelis, even to kill Israelis, especially when Israel is showing zero willingness to end the occupation, which has been the case since the Netanyahu government took over (among other times in the past).
But people don’t want to say this, especially right after a terror attack like this last one that killed eight Israelis near Eilat. And there are lots of good reasons for this reticence, such as: You don’t want to further upset your own countrymen when they are grieving, you don’t want to say or write anything that could be picked up by Israel’s enemies and used as justification for killing more of us. (These are good reasons; fear of being called a traitor, for instance, is a bad reason.)
But I think it’s time to overcome this reticence, even at the cost of enflaming the already enflamed sensitivities of the Israeli public, because this unwillingness to say outright that Palestinians have the right to fight the occupation, especially now, inadvertently helps keep the occupation going.
... Whoever the Palestinians were who killed the eight Israelis near Eilat last week, however vile their ideology was, they were justified to attack. They had the same right to fight for their freedom as any other unfree nation in history ever had. And just like every harsh, unjust government in history bears the blame for the deaths of its own people at the hands of rebels, so Israel, which rules the Palestinians harshly and unjustly, is to blame for those eight Israeli deaths – as well as for every other Israeli death that occurred when this country was offering the Palestinians no other way to freedom.
Writing this is not treason. It is an attempt at patriotism.
Derfner, who no doubt would describe himself as liberal, cannot find a single ethical problem with Palestinian Arab terror. Like Mahmoud Abbas and every other Palestinian Arab leader, he merely says:
I also think Palestinian terrorism backfires, it turns people away from them and generates sympathy for Israel and the occupation, so I’m against terrorism on a practical level, too, but that’s besides the point.
As to his "logic" - this is it:
If those who oppose the occupation acknowledged publicly that it justifies Palestinian terrorism, then those who support the occupation would have to explain why it doesn’t. And that’s not easy for a nation that sanctifies the right to self-defense; a nation that elected Irgun leader Menachem Begin and Lehi leader Yitzhak Shamir as prime minister.
It isn't easy to distinguish between targeting civilians for death and regretting when civilians die while trying to defend your people? It isn't easy to find that all deliberate killing of peaceful civilians is morally bankrupt - including those done by The Stern Gang in the 1940s?
Moreover - does Derfner, in his wildest dreams, believe that attacking two couples on vacation in Eilat can be construed as self-defense?
This is a breathtakingly sick article, one that is incitement to terrorism. It shows that it is now fashionable among some leftists to twist the language of "rights" into justifying horrors.
And you can be sure that the more "mainstream" Leftists, those who claim to be against all attacks on civilians, will not unequivocally condemn this example of how the murder of Israeli Jews is now considered necessary and just among some of their own.
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Derfner apologizes - but what does he really think?
http://elderofziyon.blogspot.com/2011/08/derfner-apologizes-but-what-does-he.html
Larry Derfner, columnist for the Jerusalem Post, has come under a lot of criticism for the vile article he wrote on his blog recently justifying Palestinian Arab terror and saying it was a "right."
He has now apologized in what is clearly an attempt for him to keep his job:
I have an apology to make for “The awful, necessary truth about Palestinian terror,” which I posted here and on Facebook on Sunday. I didn’t mean to say anything “good” about Palestinian terror against Israelis – I see nothing good in it whatsoever, and I thought I made that clear, but I see now that I didn’t.
I wrote that because of the occupation, Palestinians are “justified” in attacking, even killing Israelis, that they have the “right” to do so. Later on I stressed that I didn’t want them to kill my countrymen, and that I would do anything necessary to stop it. I meant those two points to show that I wasn’t “for” terrorism, that while I thought the occupation justified it, that didn’t mean I supported it. But I see now that the distance from “justified” to “support” is way, way too short – and I am as far away as anybody can be from supporting attacks on Israel and Israelis.
Writing that the killing of Israelis was justified and a matter of right took a vile image and attached words of seeming approval to it. This, I’m afraid, produced an “obscene” effect, as one critic wrote. I don’t want to write obscenity about Israel. I didn’t mean to, and I deeply regret it.
These three paragraphs are emphasizing that he does not approve of terrorism. But he did make that clear in his original disgusting article. The offensive part was that he said very clearly that terrorism was a "right" and it was "justified" - even if he personally disapproves.
Then he backtracks completely:
My intention was to shock people into recognition, but I ended up shocking many of them into revulsion, and twisting what I wanted to say into something I didn’t and don’t mean at all.
What I mean is this: The occupation does not justify Palestinian terror. It does, however, provoke it. Palestinians do not have the right to attack or kill Israelis. They, do, however, have the incentive to, and part, though not all, of that incentive is provided them by the occupation.
This is the exact opposite of what he wrote before:
If those who oppose the occupation acknowledged publicly that it justifies Palestinian terrorism, then those who support the occupation would have to explain why it doesn’t.
Palestinians have the right to resist [the occupation] – to use violence against Israelis, even to kill Israelis....But while I think the Palestinians have the right to use terrorism against us, I don’t want them to use it....Whoever the Palestinians were who killed the eight Israelis near Eilat last week, however vile their ideology was, they were justified to attack.
His attempt to reconcile the two makes it clear that his apology might be sincere in that he didn't mean to upset people so much, but he has not really changed his opinion. He's just suppressing it.
And one day in a couple of years he'll write an article complaining about how the horrible Israeli system forces people to self-censor their true feelings.
One can be sure that his compatriots in the anti-Zionist Left will not look at this apology critically at all. In fact, they are breathing a sigh of relief at being off the hook from having to publicly say whether they agreed with his original article or not.
(I'm not even going to bother to expand on the racist assumption that Palestinian Arabs have no free will to decide whether to attack Jewish civilians or not, that somehow Israeli actions "force" them to murder. Well, a small percentage of them. For some unexplained reason 100% of PalArabs aren't attacking Jews every day, as racists like Derfner expect them to.)
(h/t Noah Pollak)
Elder of Z
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