"ALL CAPS IN DEFENSE OF LIBERTY IS NO VICE."

Friday, July 27, 2012

COMMENTARY'S SETH MANDEL IS A DISGRACE

On the other hand, if you're looking for an alleged reporter who's apparently anti-Israel, there is Commentary's Seth Mandel, who attacked Danny Dayan's op-ed and says:
First and foremost, a majority of Israelis (usually around the 60 percent mark, sometimes higher) consistently support the two-state solution, even at a time when that proposal is clearly at a post-Oslo low point. So Dayan need not appeal to readers of the New York Times; he is far from convincing his own countrymen to join him. It is much easier to understand why the Times chose to publish the op-ed: the American left would like to frame the debate as consisting of two points of view–Dayan’s and J Street’s. Both are outside the mainstream consensus on this issue, and it is only up against Dayan’s arguments that the hard-left can appear reasonable. With regard to Dayan, there are three questions he should be asked after writing this op-ed.

First, the obvious: What about the Palestinians? Dayan doesn’t say Israel should give the Palestinians in Judea and Samaria voting rights. If he would, is he not concerned about the demographics at play? If he would not, is he suggesting that the Palestinians should be a permanently stateless people and that Israel would be permanently without clear national borders? He writes that Israeli security should be paramount, but the Judea and Samaria he envisions would be a long-term security nightmare for Israel.
Has Mandel parchance ever read this Angus-Reid polling research that shows many Israelis actually oppose a 2-state "solution"? This is the same magazine that 7 years ago would not even oppose the damage Ariel Sharon led to, and has rarely even spoken about anything Pamela Geller's had to say. Mandel also perpetuates the lie of a "palestinian people", and might I add that so long as they continue to embrace Islam, that's a reason why they're not deserving of voting rights if they intend to exploit that for purposes that could help undermine Israel's safety in their favor. Mandel then caps his junk with the following:
...it would be more constructive if Dayan made these critiques of Mideast policy as part of an effort to reform the current structure of the two-state solution in ways that might make it more workable, not less.
One of the people in the comments said:
Very disappointing to see Commentary become an advocate for the two-state final solution, which not only will lead to placing a dagger pointed at the Tel Aviv - Jerusalem heartland, but more importantly legitimizes redentist fantasies that the biblical lands of Judea and Samaria are really Arab lands over which Jews have no claim to whatsoever. The resulting delegitimation that has flowed from accepting the Arab myth that Judea and Samaria is theirs is most manifest in the massive erosion of support Israel has suffered in the western media ever since it signed the Oslo Accords. Now I am starting to understand why Newt Gingrich's most accurate statement about the Palestinians being an invented people provoked such hostility among Contention commentators. However I have yet to comprehend why those who hold high the neoconservative banner embrace policies that objectively undermine Israel and only further Islamic jihadism.
Whenever Commentary publishes degrading opinions like Mandel's, that's exactly what makes me wonder if they're even a truly reliable source to begin with, if they cannot bring themselves to shun an otherwise damaging belief and policy. This is just why a magazine like them requires considerable caution and much of what they say has to be taken with big bags of salt.

1 comment:

Pastorius said...

He writes: First and foremost, a majority of Israelis (usually around the 60 percent mark, sometimes higher) consistently support the two-state solution, even at a time when that proposal is clearly at a post-Oslo low point.


I respond: Post-Oslo? It's almost as if he just woke up from being asleep for the last eleven years.

My objection fo a two-state solution at this point is animated by what happened when Israel decided to pull out of Gaza in a orderly and charitable manner.

Give sovereignty to Palestnians over Gaza and they elect Hamas.