. . . some of [Fatah] express opposition to the bombings, but in vague terms qualified with buts, in interviews in esoteric journals or distant newspapers. In other cases, they speak out against the attacks from behind closed doors or in meetings with foreign diplomats. But they don't dare come out in the open in a planned campaign against what the conventional wisdom says is the popular view - that is, the attacks inside Israel are an appropriate response to the killing and destruction perpetrated by the IDF.But what's really impressive is that she nails the hypocritical little butts of the NGO do-gooder groupies.
Those international activists emphasize that they support nonviolent civil disobedience. Their connection with Palestinian activists is based on belief in universal, trans-nationalist values, the solidarity of the oppressed. But those same Palestinian social and civil activists, including academics and others identified with the Palestinian intellectual elite, don't dare go to their publics and start an educational campaign against the rite of death and killing. Many of them say in private conversations that not only must the attacks be condemned on pragmatic grounds, since because of the attacks the shocked international community forgets the Israeli occupation and its horrors, but on moral grounds, the universal grounds of humanity. [Emphasis mine]Gee, I'm glad that's clear. I only wish the international community were as shocked as you think it is. There would be many fewer dead Israelis and Palestinians. But if you guys are starting to come around to the idea that Jews are humans - hey, any bit of progress is welcome.
Quite a few of them can be heard saying "we must not deteriorate to the moral level of the Israeli occupiers," . . .Honey, you haven't yet risen to the moral level of the Israeli "occupiers." When they start massacring Olympic athletes, pushing disabled old people off decks of ships, blowing themselves up in crowded Palestinian town squares, shooting babies in their cradles, brainwashing impressionable teenagers into killing machines, and randomly lynching and beating their own people, then you can start to worry.
. . . but they don't dare to do so openly and systematically, except for the rare signature on this or that petition. Maybe some of them are afraid they will be accused of being alienated intellectuals, for whom it's easy to preach "between overseas trips," because they don't suffer like the ordinary people.Oh, the humanity!
Perhaps they are afraid that in an ever more Muslim society that is becoming more and more orthodox - according to the most vulgar and ignorant interpretations of Muslim orthodoxy - they will be depicted as blasphemers.And that is frightening why? C'mon, Amira, you can say it.
Maybe they are afraid of being delegitimized or of physical harm.Physical harm. Gee, you think? Just like the "morally deteriorated" Jewish "occupiers" who kill blasphemers against Judaism? Right. All those secular Israelis are quaking in their boots. (And don't you just love the way "delegitimization" and "physical harm" are equivalent in these folks' universe? I think Amira just sort of slipped "physical harm" in there at the end hoping no one would notice that particular reason. I mean, it's certainly not a major motivating factor like, oh, being "accused of being alienated intellectuals," for example.)
I have to give you credit, Amira, for a concise tour of the more common Western do-gooder social pathologies. (Except for fear of physical harm, which is just common sense. No wonder you de-emphasized it.) Something tells me you are in the process of getting mugged by reality. It will be interesting to see if your NGO buddies rise to your challenge or, um, delegitimize you.
(via Haggai, who fought the good fight with me on one lgf thread against wholesale transfer of the Palestinians - a tempting but immoral and unworkable idea.)
PS Lynn B has a great example of the kind of idealistic dolt Amira is sort of maybe gently admonishing.
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