Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 21 Editor's Choice: 6
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Thank You Cintra
[Read the article: Christmas with the Wilsons]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]You made me laugh when I needed it. You are brilliant and funny, funny, funny.
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Distortions and propaganda start with the title
[Read the article: The catastrophe that never ends]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Catastrophe describes an accelerating condition or unexpected event, normally a natural event or one subject to "normal" political, social, or economic forces, that results in sudden injury, loss of life, systems failure, and irreparable harm. In what sense does the violent reaction of regional Arabs to returning Jews in 1948, meet this definition? It wasn't unexpected, it was voluntary, and it can be undone if regional Arabs finally decide that Jews get to live, too.
In the subhead, a mythical group with no clear historic definition -- Palestinians -- are said to have "lost everything". Since most followed the ardent Nazi Grand Mufti and left their homes in '48, believing they would fill the Mediterranean Sea with Jewish blood and return in triumph, how can they be said to have "lost" anything?
The passive voice and sad-sack language permeates this piece, and shame on Salon -- otherwise my favorite web site -- for printing it. Palestinian families are "besieged", "trapped", "ignored", "starving" and, absurdly, "infinitely less valuable" (is there an editor in the house?).
Picking up the story of 1948 with the arrival of Israeli halftracks in Lydda, enumerating their weaponry, specifying 800 rounds per minute -- for goodness sake. Leaving out the complex realities of the Balfour Agreement, Arab-Nazi collaboration before and during the war, the tens of thousands of Arabs who tried to and did stay in Israel, Tolan paints a picture of Israeli Berserkers coming out of the north hell-bent for conquest or Valhalla. It's as if a history of Vietnam conflicts would begin with marines cocking triggers at My Lai, listing M-16 performance statistics as if they were important historical or political details that explain that day's brutality.
Equating Nakba with the Holocaust?
Describing the trail of tears that too many Arabs from Palestine chose to follow, Tolan wrings the heart. Too bad the author doesn't give more pertinent information about the irresponsible Arab leadership that put them on that road. And where were their fellow Arabs? No country lifted a finger. No meaningful humanitarian aid then, or now. The "Palestinians" were a convenient foil for Arab leaders then, and are useful "cause" today.
Every paragraph of this is crass distortion, and below Salon's standards.
The cruelest phrase is "Never Ends". Israel pulls out of Gaza, alienating and dislocating Jewish settlers, a sacrifice worthy of respect and co-equal response, results in political anarchy by terrorist leaders and unprovoked attacks against Israeli civilian targets. Israel has responded to this violence with suppression of the leadership and militia that sponsored it. An end was possible; but Hamas et al continued the attack, and hide, as usual, behind skirts and small children. Tell the whole story, Sandy.
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The worst article ever p[ublished by Salon
[Read the article: The "hiding among civilians" myth]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It's hard to tell why Salon would publish this inept piece. It hopes to show that Hezbollah is NOT embedded among the civilians of southern Lebanon, but spends most of its text on documenting just such a pervasive presence. It fails on every count. It can only be explained by Salon's need to publish ANY far-left, anti-Israel piece, regardless of merit, in order to achieve some pro forma "balance". But unlike Anthony Bourdain's stunning piece "Watching Beirut Die", a stark but subtle evocation of the Lebanese experience, Prothero's writing, from the start, betrays not only a simple-minded affection for Hezbollah, but a lack of effective editing that falls far below Salon's standards.
The broken logic of the piece is evident in almost every paragraph. Prothero describes the how Hezbollah has woven itself throughout southern Lebanon, seeking apartments and locations that offer strategic advantages for attacks against Israel, and how they seize any space refused to them. He describes a Red Crescent Medical facility that flies the flag of Iran, and readily provides that the Hospital "has an association with Hezbollah." Uh, just a quick reality check: Hezbollah has begun, and is fully engaged in, a war against Israeli civilian targets, so Israel is counter-attacking, get this right: Hezbollah.
He says, baldly, "In the south, where Shiites dominate, just about everyone supports Hezbollah", then asks "Does mere support for Hezbollah, or even participation in Hezbollah activities, mean your house and family are fair game?" Yes. If you don't become refugees from the war zone, and you either allow or cannot prevent Hezbollah from commandeering your property and position, you are, unfortunately, a legitimate target by the Israelis.
He makes much of the distinction that Hezbollah "fighters" are hard to see, and hangs his entire argument on this incomprehensible, poorly-supported "fact". Let me get this right: because he doesn't see the rocket-launching teams, and they are less likely to shake Uzis in the air for the cameras (except at big parades), this means their low-key emergence, here and there, to send rockets, daily, into Arab and Jewish villages, from locations throughout southern Lebanon, is proof that they are NOT among civilians? Huh?
The entire piece describes a Lear or Carroll invert world, where Islamists' unfettered control over the countryside, and the efficiency of their rocket teams, somehow transcends the mere fact of pervasive presence of and control by Hezbollah, and thus the support they get from Lebanese Shiites, and their overall stealth, should disallow the Israelis from disabling them. Huh?
All is revealed when the author puts "terrorist" in quotation marks when describing Hezbollah, and deep shame on Salon for letting that happen. Any progressive audience that must be appeased with such evil pretense is not worth pandering to. Once and for all, Salon, pick your reality: the fact-based, sober acceptance that any organization that initiates stealth attacks on purely civilian targets with rockets, is morally bankrupt terrorism; or the blinkered idea that Jew-hating rocketeers require apologetics and distortion because they are "underdogs".