Having seen footage of settlers attacks on Palestinians in Hebron and spoken to those who have personally witnessed them, then there is only one context that matters. It’s the same context that led to pogroms in places Kishinev against Jews. That Steinberg tries to rationalise it with his sophistry shows what a moral cesspit he inhabits.

I always find it interesting that those who would be the first to praise ‘righteous Christians’ for having risked their lives to save Jews during the period of the Nazi holocaust are unable to apply the same lessons themselves. Instead they find any and every excuse for justifying house demolitions, pogroms, torture etc.

It is fortunate that not all those who lived in Poland during the war were like Steinberg.

Further, the issue of the ethnic descent of the Palestinians tends to be overlooked as well.

The problem here is the conflation of the individual with the collective. Palestinians have the right to return because on an individual basis they can establish as individuals that they come from what we now call Israel or the occupied territories. On that basis, the descendants of the victims of the Hebron massacre should have the right to return or to compensation, just like Jews from Arab countries and Arabs from what we now call Israel.

Where the Right is confused is in its racist conflation of individual and collective rights. And in its racist belief that rights are the preserve of Jews and only Jews. But the Right is only extending a principle established by the Labour zionists back in the day. Further, as a more recent article by Gershon demonstrates, the Right isn’t so different from the zionist Left in its aims. It’s the “justifications” that differ or possibly, but only possibly, the size and shape of the territory they want their racist doctrine applied to.

Gershom, can you prove that you are decended from Jews who lived in South Jerusalem? Otherwise, why would you have moved there?

Hevron, Jerusalem and all of Eretz Israel belong to ALL the Jewish people, not just those who happen to own land there at any given time.

What you apparently consider to be bias on Gershom’s part, is, in fact, honest, clear-eyed analysis which allows him (and his readers) to better understand some of the complex problems facing Israel. Such analysis (in stark contrast to yours, for example), also implies empathy for both sides of the conflict.

Ironically, your above response reveals your own deep-seated bias, as this single excerpt underscores:

“…when you journalists blindly repeat the claims of political NGOs (generously funded by European governments and anti-Israel church groups claiming to promote peace and Palestinian development) that use the façade of human rights.”

You chastise Gershom for “claiming to know the ‘real complaints’ lurking behind [your publicly expressed views]“, then immediately launch into a vitriolic attack based on precisely that approach.

For future reference, the next time you hope to find sympathy for your views amongst those who are actually paying attention to all sides of the issues, you might want to try to avoid transparent hypocrisy.

Tony Cobitz

Gershom Gorenberg’s criticism of NGO Monitor [www.ngo-monitor.org] would have been interesting if he had avoided the errors (beginning with the mistaken reference to “NGO Watch”) and lowered the ideological volume. Instead of contributing to the important and substantive debate on the moral issues related to the exploitation of human rights, he simply makes this situation worse.

Gorenberg’s vehicle is the debate taking place in response to Nicholas Kristof’s recent column in the New York Times extolling the role of Israeli NGOs like B’tselem [http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/b_tselem] and Machsom Watch. Quoting selectively, Gorenberg asserts: “Ostensibly, Steinberg’s complaint is that Kristof extols B’Tselem and Machsom Watch. But his real complaint appears to be that Kristof failed to give the proper context in describing Hebron…”

Gorenberg is entitled to his political agenda, but not to distort my clearly formulated views by claiming to know the “real complaints” lurking behind them. As I wrote in my analysis,[http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article.php?id=1969] (and as quoted in the New York Jewish Week and elsewhere), Kristof’s oped was a blatant example of the “halo effect”, in which journalists blindly repeat the claims of political NGOs (generously funded by European governments and anti-Israel church groups claiming to promote peace and Palestinian development) that use the façade of human rights. The narrow Palestinian version of history that he quotes, based on the “tours” provided by B’Tselem, is based on a particular approach to politics and ideology – and has nothing to do with universal moral principles.

Instead of dealing with the destruction of human rights resulting from the NGO Durban strategy, Gorenberg goes on to present his own private views on Hebron, Zionism, and the history of the conflict, while condescendingly claiming to know “the context Steinberg wants”, or that “Steinberg et al [who is el al?] … can’t imagine the comparison.”

In contrast, the main issue is the damage done to the credibility of universal human rights when this language is exploited for political gain, and wrapped in the “halo effect”.

Gerald Steinberg
Executive Director, http://www.ngo-monitor.org

Today I spoke with my nephew, just returned from a trip to Israel with Birth Right, a group that pays for young Americans who are Jewish to go to Isreal with the intent of strengthening the tie to the country (at least this is my understanding of it).

I asked how the trip went and what he did while there. Then I sounded him out about the occupied territories. He told me that he didn’t visit them, it wasn’t part of the itinerary. Part of the trip did include time in the company of young Israeli soldiers for the purpose of building friendships. As I sounded out his thoughts on the settlements and the occupation, he agreed they were a problem, it wasn’t a good situation and the conditions for the Palestinians were bad, but he immediately referred back to Jewish history, the Holocaust, Europe and that there were Israelis who are Arab.

I approached the subject from a couple of different angles: is the occupation worth the trouble? Wouldn’t the security fence work to protect Israel if not on occupied territory? Isn’t it difficult to imagine peace when the Palestinians have been evicted from land that was theirs, where they cannot even use roads that run across it? But present issues always were answered with accounts of historical wrongs. It was questioned if the Palestinians are even a people. I was reminded that there are Arab Israelis.

I’ve always considered Aaron a thoughtful fellow, concerned with issues and unwilling to jump to conclusions. I wanted to see how his trip affected him. But I heard well worn responses that did not sound like they came from him, less an indication of who he is than what others would like him to be.

Next time he visits Israel, may I suggest he go visit certain bloggers in south Jerusalem?