Look left in anger

[shira]

About 500 million Spanish speakers are exposed almost daily to biased and one-sided reports about the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, and to harsh, venomous, targeted and tendentious criticism of Israel's activities in Gaza and the West Bank. Only very few public figures and journalists paint the picture in a somewhat more balanced manner. As opposed to many of them, Rahola does not do so for religious reasons: She is not Jewish, and defines herself as a loyal member of the left and as a lapsed Catholic. Therefore she is also free of the right-wing, messianic fervor of which many of Israel's Christian supporters in the world are immediately suspected - even in the eyes of Israelis themselves.

<snip>

"I believe in the right of the Palestinians to an independent state, but I believe that the best way to defend this right is to condemn terror, the worship of death and destruction, and the pathological hatred of Israel as a state and as an entity. In the Spanish and South American media one can find only victims - the Palestinians, of course - and hangmen, the Israelis, who else? I, as a journalist and a member of the left, must fight against this lie."


<snip>

"The left betrays its principles. It is not fighting against the major dictatorships, it is not fighting for the rights of the genuinely oppressed. It is obsessive in its criticism of the U.S. and Israel, and while it is preoccupied with them, it has neglected hundreds of thousands of dead in Darfur, for example. That is the major and genuine disgrace of the left, not the situation in Israel.

<snip>

"Independent thinking is lonely and hostile territory. When someone goes his own way and is not swept up in the mainstream, he is more exposed to dangers. I receive threats to my life, I'm slandered and I'm always under suspicion. I've lost close friends because of my opinions - but only those opinions about Israel. In the past I sharply criticized Spanish society for its discriminatory attitude toward women, for the terrible bullfights, an almost sacred issue in Spain, and for various economic and social issues, and no friend ever turned his back on me for that reason. But when it came to the Israeli issue, I paid a price for it."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1030117.html

[Vegasaurus]

1. I agree with this commentary completely

particularly this:

"The left betrays its principles. It is not fighting against the major dictatorships, it is not fighting for the rights of the genuinely oppressed. It is obsessive in its criticism of the U.S. and Israel, and while it is preoccupied with them, it has neglected hundreds of thousands of dead in Darfur, for example. That is the major and genuine disgrace of the left, not the situation in Israel. "

Why the left doesn't fight against the oppression of dictatorships is mind boggling.