Israel's Capote
I posted after the events of Itamar that the massacre reminded me of the slaughter of the Clutter family in Kansas in 1959, the crime that inspired Truman Capote's extraordinary work of journalism, In Cold Blood. I lamented, and continue to lament, the lack of comparable journalistic interest in the deaths of the Fogels, along with all the implications of that lack of interest: that the Fogels, right down to the decapitated infant, were less human than other victims and therefore less deserving of our outrage on their behalf; that because they were Jewish settlers they brought the crime upon themselves; that the crime can be at least partially excused and its savagery discounted because the anger of the perpetrators is justified in international eyes -- you get the picture.
I learned this morning, when I checked out National Review Online, that we have our Capote after all. He is an Italian journalist named Giulio Meotti, the author of a staggering work: A New Shoah: The Untold Story of Israel’s Victims of Terrorism. Meotti spent six years tracking down and talking to witnesses to terrorist attacks in Israel, including survivors and relatives of the murdered, in order to give names and faces to the many, many victims. In his interview in NRO, he says he
heard about scores of young people and children, women and elderly, incinerated on buses; cafés, pizzerias, and shopping centers turned into slaughterhouses; mothers and daughters killed in front of ice-cream shops; entire families exterminated in their own beds; infants executed with a blow to the base of the skull; teens tortured and their blood smeared on the walls of a cave; fruit markets blown to pieces; nightclubs annihilated along with dozens of students; seminarians murdered during their Biblical studies; husbands and wives killed in front of their children; brothers and sisters, grandparents and grandchildren murdered together; children murdered in their mothers’ arms.
About the Itamar attack, he says:
Those who profess to deplore violence on both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian equation have remained relatively silent on the slaughtering of this Israeli family. No words of condemnation about the killing of these innocents have been heard from the human-rights groups, the same faction that is so quick to vilify Israel for defending itself from terrorist attacks, especially when Palestinian citizens lose their lives during a retaliatory foray by Israel. There is no other conclusion to draw: When the deaths of Jewish innocents go unmourned and unacknowledged, it is because Jewish lives do not count.
When asked why so many believe that Israel is not the wronged party, he cites the "river of oily, bloody money that feeds those who incite anti-Israeli riots, organize anti-Israeli boycotts, spread anti-Israeli lies in the guise of 'objective journalism' and 'academic research.' There are careers to be made on the betrayal of intellectual standards." He takes Israel to task for its infuriatingly passive response to the theft and distortion of the historical narrative by the Palestinians. About Israel's persistent desire to accommodate her enemies, he is particularly acute:
The psychological need for normalization is so great that it overwhelms the clear failures in the peace process, the continuing terrorism, and unabated Arab hatred. Sixty-three years after its creation, Israel is still fighting for its very survival. Punished with missiles raining from north and south, threatened with destruction by an Iran aiming to acquire nuclear weapons, and pressed upon by friend and foe, Israel, it seems, is never to have a moment’s peace.
I'm ordering the book, although quite honestly I'm afraid to read it. I mentioned to Mollie Hemingway when she was here last week that to this day I'm haunted by one detail of the Maxim bombing in Haifa in 2003 -- on that day a woman, an ordinary secular Israeli like me, woke up, got dressed, said goodbye to her husband and children as they went out the door to go to Maxim for breakfast, and never saw any of them again; they were all murdered. I remember many such specifics of attacks that have happened since I came here; the names and the particulars stay in my head. I am not, therefore, this book's target audience. I wonder if its intended audience will pay it the slightest attention.
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Mar '11
Re: Israel's Capote
Strangely, the most thorough article in the Australian press I found was on the ABC Drum website.
The ABC (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) is the Australian equivalent of NPR - or more precisely the BBC. It is endowed with $A1 Billion of tax payers money per year (it does not need voluntary donations). The Drum is the opinion website it runs, which, shall we say, regularly falls somewhat short of its statutory duty for political balance.
Nevertheless, the piece by Navit Shchigel is excellent and I commend the ABC for publishing it: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/45312.html. Mysteriously, the article has now dropped off their website, despite being published only yesterday. I had to google it to find it.
A great summary and article - just don't read some of the comments.
Thanks Judith and Claire for continuing to cover this story.
Mar '11
Re: Israel's Capote
Link to another story not reported by MSM.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4043536,00.html
IDF, settlers save Arab baby
Saving life after massacre: IDF troops, paramedics save life of Palestinian woman giving birth in settlement where Fogel relatives sitting Shiva. Soldier: It felt amazing to hold girl in my arms, know we did something good.
Aug '10
Re: Israel's Capote
Judith, who is the intended audience?
Jun '10
Re: Israel's Capote
I used to laugh at people who said that Satan is working hard in this world, to destroy it. I'm not laughing anymore. That's not to say that evil can't be defeated by good. It can be. But not if most people are just sleepwalking through life. People have to wake up first.
Jun '10
Re: Israel's Capote
Raizy: Link to another story not reported by MSM.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4043536,00.html
IDF, settlers save Arab baby
Saving life after massacre: IDF troops, paramedics save life of Palestinian woman giving birth in settlement where Fogel relatives sitting Shiva. Soldier: It felt amazing to hold girl in my arms, know we did something good. · Mar 22 at 4:10am
Just wanted to say that your avatar has not gone unnoticed.
Jun '10
Re: Israel's Capote
What to do? If your neighbours are going to hate you and try to destroy you by any and all means at their disposal, the rules of war would instruct that Israel respond with brutal force. Yet, that would mean that Israel becomes that which she hates. Still, if the world is going to hate you it might as well fear you, too.
Dec '10
Re: Israel's Capote
Good has an obligation to use all necessary means to defeat evil, if only to ensure that good survives along with, if not instead of, evil. If good declares that its principles require it to die at the hands of evil, then only evil will survive to rule the world, write the new rules of earthly morality, and subject the innocent to its depravity.
If your enemy forces you to use his methods to defeat him, you still have not become what he is: he fights for power, hatred, domination, and oppression, while you fight for freedom and justice and a peaceful future. That, and not the methods that you take up temporarily, define who and what you are.
Mar '11
Re: Israel's Capote
Just wanted to say that your avatar has not gone unnoticed.
Thank you, Cas. (I don't know how to
Cas Balicki
Raizy: Link to another story not reported by MSM.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4043536,00.html
IDF, settlers save Arab baby
Saving life after massacre: IDF troops, paramedics save life of Palestinian woman giving birth in settlement where Fogel relatives sitting Shiva. Soldier: It felt amazing to hold girl in my arms, know we did something good. · Mar 22 at 4:10am
Just wanted to say that your avatar has not gone unnoticed. · Mar 22 at 10:05am
Thank you, Cas. My mother is an alumnus of Camp Auschwitz.
Jun '10
Re: Israel's Capote
Raizy: Just wanted to say that your avatar has not gone unnoticed.
Thank you, Cas. (I don't know how to
Cas Balicki
Raizy: Link to another story not reported by MSM.
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4043536,00.html
IDF, settlers save Arab baby
Saving life after massacre: IDF troops, paramedics save life of Palestinian woman giving birth in settlement where Fogel relatives sitting Shiva. Soldier: It felt amazing to hold girl in my arms, know we did something good. · Mar 22 at 4:10am
Just wanted to say that your avatar has not gone unnoticed. · Mar 22 at 10:05am
Thank you, Cas. My mother is an alumnus of Camp Auschwitz. · Mar 22 at 12:14pm
Mine is an alumna of German forced labour.
Jun '10
Re: Israel's Capote
Stuart Creque
Good has an obligation to use all necessary means to defeat evil, if only to ensure that good survives along with, if not instead of, evil. If good declares that its principles require it to die at the hands of evil, then only evil will survive to rule the world, write the new rules of earthly morality, and subject the innocent to its depravity.
If your enemy forces you to use his methods to defeat him, you still have not become what he is: he fights for power, hatred, domination, and oppression, while you fight for freedom and justice and a peaceful future. That, and not the methods that you take up temporarily, define who and what you are. · Mar 22 at 11:50am
Point taken!
Re: Israel's Capote
Oderint dum metuant.
May '10
Re: Israel's Capote
Stuart Creque
Good has an obligation to use all necessary means to defeat evil, if only to ensure that good survives along with, if not instead of, evil. If good declares that its principles require it to die at the hands of evil, then only evil will survive to rule the world, write the new rules of earthly morality, and subject the innocent to its depravity.
If your enemy forces you to use his methods to defeat him, you still have not become what he is: he fights for power, hatred, domination, and oppression, while you fight for freedom and justice and a peaceful future. That, and not the methods that you take up temporarily, define who and what you are.
Stuart, I always love what you write.