Love of the Land: Mearsheimer gets FresnoZionism Reality Inversion Award

Mearsheimer gets FresnoZionism Reality Inversion Award

Fresnozionism.org
03 May '10

Once in a while the Reality Inversion phenomenon is so wrenching that I’m (almost) at a loss for words. So I’ll just quote from the speech Dr. John Mearsheimer gave at the Palestine Center in Washington DC, and wonder if anyone can possibly think of another bit of rhetoric quite as twisted:

American Jews who care deeply about Israel can be divided into three broad categories. The first two are what I call “righteous Jews” and the “new Afrikaners,” which are clearly definable groups that think about Israel and where it is headed in fundamentally different ways. The third and largest group is comprised of those Jews who care a lot about Israel, but do not have clear-cut views on how to think about Greater Israel and apartheid. Let us call this group the “great ambivalent middle…”

To give you a better sense of what I mean when I use the term righteous Jews, let me give you some names of people and organizations that I would put in this category. The list would include Noam Chomsky, Roger Cohen, Richard Falk, Norman Finkelstein, Tony Judt, Tony Karon, Naomi Klein, MJ Rosenberg, Sara Roy, and Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss fame, just to name a few. I would also include many of the individuals associated with J Street and everyone associated with Jewish Voice for Peace, as well as distinguished international figures such as Judge Richard Goldstone. Furthermore, I would apply the label to the many American Jews who work for different human rights organizations, such as Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch.

This is insulting on several levels. First, his use of the term ‘righteous Jews’. Of course he is familiar with the Righteous Gentiles, honored for protecting Jews threatened by the Nazi Holocaust; his use of the term is intended to suggest that Israel is guilty of a Nazi-like Holocaust against the Palestinians. Not only is this obscenely false, it is close to the precise opposite of the truth, which is that the Palestinian Arabs have been waging war against the Jews in the land of Israel with the intent of wiping them out since before the state was declared (they haven’t succeeded, but not through lack of trying).

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Love of the Land: Mearsheimer gets FresnoZionism Reality Inversion Award