Within the mainstream media punditocracy, discussion of the Israeli invasion of Gaza is not only one-sided in Israel's favor but also deeply contemptuous of anyone who deviates from that side. ("It takes real stupidity to blame it on Israel," writes Richard Cohen.) On the nonliberal left--including, alas, most of what has been published on this magazine's website--Israel is not merely guilty of a foolish misadventure but is sufficiently evil to have earned itself a South Africa-style boycott. The middle, meanwhile, is a muddle because it's not so easy to figure out how a small, powerful but beleaguered nation ought to address a threat from an implacable ideological foe who lives on your doorstep, is sworn to your destruction, lobs missiles into your cities and hides behind its civilian population. And given the ferocity of the likely response, coupled with the unlikelihood that anyone will actually listen in good faith, the benefits of intervening in this debate from anything but an extremist perspective are decidedly murky. For my own trouble, for instance, Andrew Sullivan has compared me to the authors of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, while Boston Globe columnist Cathy Young has accused me of blaming Hitler's victims for Palestinian misery.
Continued>>>
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090202/alterman?rel=hp_columns
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