Hey, Judith? Seems You Don't Care About Peace. What's Wrong With You?
I walked past the news agent at the airport in San Francisco last night and nearly dropped my coffee on the ground when I saw the cover of Time. Blue background, Star of David fashioned out of daisies on the cover, and the headline, in the center: "Why Israel Doesn't Care About Peace." No sub-headline.
The article itself is by Karl Vick, whom I know vaguely--he was in my introductory Turkish class about five years ago--and it's actually well-written and well-observed. He makes some good points. Judith would agree with some of them, I think. But I dare say few people are going to buy the magazine and read the article or think through the points he's making or, particularly, read through to the last paragraphs, which reveal that his slant is ironic and that of course Israelis are desperate for peace--every last one of them has a kid who is either in the army or going to be soon!--but despairing of the prospect and doing the best they can to get on with things anyway, because that's the only way they can get through their days without going mad. Most people will just see that cover and derive exactly the conclusion the editors of Time seem to wish them to derive.
This follows directly on Time's Is America Islamophobic? cover.
I'm beginning to wonder about Time. It would be interesting to do a study of their biggest advertisers, wouldn't it? Say, are any members of Ricochet sitting around the house feeling bored this holiday weekend? Why don't we all have a look and see what we come up with? I'm not saying we'll necessarily find anything, but the question is legitimately worth asking at this point, because this surely does look like a trend.
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Aug '10
Re: Hey, Judith? Seems You Don't Care About Peace. What's Wrong With You?
Claire Berlinski:
I'm beginning to wonder about Time.
This reminds me of this news report on Time magazine, courtesy of ONN.
Jul '10
Re: Hey, Judith? Seems You Don't Care About Peace. What's Wrong With You?
I dunno, Claire...
Seems to me that intimating that Time's editors need to be nudged to publish anti-Israeli stories by their rent-seeking advertisers is sort of like suggesting that American teenagers need to be encouraged by automobile manufacturers to have sex in the back seats of cars.
It's what they want to do in the first place. No one needs to encourage them, much less pay them to do it.
They'll do it gratis.
Gladly.
Jun '10
Re: Hey, Judith? Seems You Don't Care About Peace. What's Wrong With You?
The trouble with any "two-state solution" that's a genuine two-state solution (and not just Palestine for Muslims now, and Israel for "returning" Muslims later,) is that it always triggers some kind of intifada designed to sabotage it. It'll either be worthless to Israel, or Hamas will want to sabotage it with increased violence. One or the other.
Jun '10
Re: Hey, Judith? Seems You Don't Care About Peace. What's Wrong With You?
Sigh, why do I think that anything to do with peace in the Middle-east is a total waste of time. Peace is held out as a promise only to get Israeli concessions, and invariably works against the interests and safety of Israel. For past successes we can point to Egypt and Jordan, but all these proves is after much fighting two bloodied enemies of Israel finally saw the light. There will be no lasting peace in the Middle-east until one party to the process is tossing the others rubble, to paraphrase Winston Churchill. Unfortunately, Israel is too civilized to raze Gaza and the Westbank, so there will be no peace as much as we'd like to see it.
Jun '10
Re: Hey, Judith? Seems You Don't Care About Peace. What's Wrong With You?
There is only one way to peace and Cas knows what it is. The Israelis must drive all Muslims out of the West Bank and Gaza and, most likely, out of Israel as well. If they don't, it will be the Jews that get driven into the sea. The Muslims will then continue to fight each other. World opinion be damned. The Israelis and all Jews are damned by that world anyway.
Re: Hey, Judith? Seems You Don't Care About Peace. What's Wrong With You?
That cover line is seriously offensive. Yes, we're all sitting here waiting for our kids to be drafted to fight round 9,785,674 of a never-ending battle and the last thing any of us want is for peace to finally arrive. And it turns out, judging from your description of the piece, that it's all a bait-and-switch anyway. That's odd: they'll disappoint those readers who'll pick up the magazine out of agreement with the cover line and they won't reach those readers who won't pick it up because the cover line turns them off. It's as though they've got a frustrated Israel-basher over there with enough power to dictate the cover but not enough power to dictate the contents of the article.
Whatever. Another dehumanizing little smack in the face for us. This is exactly the kind of thing that rolls right off most Israelis' backs, and exactly the kind of thing that makes me crazy.
Edited on Sep 5, 2010 at 12:17amJul '10
Re: Hey, Judith? Seems You Don't Care About Peace. What's Wrong With You?
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
Claire Berlinski:
I'm beginning to wonder about Time.
This reminds me of this news report on Time magazine, courtesy of ONN. · Sep 4 at 11:38am
Onion News Network is the best journalism in America!
Re: Hey, Judith? Seems You Don't Care About Peace. What's Wrong With You?
For the record, I don't think this even remotely sounds like the path to peace. I'm not sure anyone knows what that path is, but we can rule this idea out, for sure.
Re: Hey, Judith? Seems You Don't Care About Peace. What's Wrong With You?
Claire Berlinski
For the record, I don't think this even remotely sounds like the path to peace. I'm not sure anyone knows what that path is, but we can rule this idea out, for sure. · Sep 4 at 11:28pm
The border with Lebanon alone seems pretty powerful evidence of that.
Aug '10
Re: Hey, Judith? Seems You Don't Care About Peace. What's Wrong With You?
Claire,
you can't dismiss the suggestion with a "sounds like", you need a compelling argument, or any argument actually.
If you look at "two state" solutions in their current format, they typically involve pushing all the Jews out of Gaza (tick that) & then the West Bank i.e. the action proposed by cdor just in reverse.
If Jordan is still a viable 2nd state, as originally proposed, then a little relocation doesn't seem a bad idea ... except for Palestinians having fewer rights than "real" people in Jordan & Lebanon.
Judith,
What makes you think Abbas will be different this time around or different from Arafat. Because somene sponsored some ads to sucker the Jews?
MEMRI makes a living translating taqqiya into English.
James,
the Lebanon Border is "powerful evidence" of two things: 1) good fences make good neighbours ie making the Palestinians a Lebanese problem behind a border is MUCH easier on casualties 2) Palestinians in countries outside of Israel get a (VERY) raw deal without Israel getting bad press.
Ergo, handing Gaza to Egypt is a fabulous way to make sure Hamas is reigned in without Goldstone sticking his self-righteous hypocritical nose in the mix.