Being Informed: not Neccessary

Being Informed: not Neccessary

Thanks to all the readers who ran the interesting discussions while I was gone. We'll practice this another few times in the coming weeks or months, after which I'll be able to retire from blogging and y'all can carry on without me. I look forward to it.

Also while I was away, Jeffrey Goldberg ruminated a few times on the Wieseltier-Sullivan spat. If you read carefully I think you may pick up hints that Jeffrey has less patience for Andrew than he used to, but I may be over-reacting.

Jeffrey's single most interesting comment, to my mind, is this one:

6) One other thing: Andrew Sullivan doesn't know that much about the Middle East. I know that sounds odd, given that he is a former editor of The New Republic, but there you have it. One of the many reasons I don't engage his blog more frequently on matters relating to the Middle East is that he's not very knowledgeable about the intricacies of the American-led peace process, or of internal Israeli politics, or internal Palestinian politics. This might be because these issues don't interest him. The politics, contradictions and motivations of Netanyahu's approach to Obama do not interest Andrew. Netanyahu's apparently self-evident evilness is what interests Andrew. Extremists on both sides of the issue want the Middle East to be simple, but it's not. The Middle East is a tragedy precisely because the Israelis have an excellent case, and the Arabs also have an excellent case. This essential fact has often escaped Andrew's attention.

The point ought to be broadened, of course: Most people don't know very much about the Middle East, foremost among them most of the folks who talk about it incessantly.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations