A Good Comment
"The first historian, the Ionian Greek Herodotus, known as the "father of history," has also been called the "father of lies" because of his reluctance to spoil a good story with the truth. Today the neoconservatives twist history to fit their political agenda.....
But compared to the Israelis, the American neocons are neophytes when it comes to reshaping the past. Israel has long funded major archaeological projects intended to emphasize the Jewish presence in Palestine while minimizing or even denying the presence of others in the region, an attempt to demonstrate that Jews have a historical legitimacy that Arab inhabitants lack. For years, Israel has had an official historical creation myth that it has promoted that alternately saw Palestine as largely depopulated in 1948 or voluntarily vacated by its Arab inhabitants. Golda Meir famously stated that there was no such thing as the Palestinians. It is only recently that Israeli historians have begun to describe how the Arabs were, in fact, subjected to a deliberate policy of terrorism by Israel's founders that drove them from their homes.
One of the first Israeli historians to admit that Israel forced the Arabs off their land was Benny Morris, a professor of Middle Eastern history at Ben-Gurion University. Morris does not, however, think that it was a bad thing to kill other people and take their property. He only regrets that all of the Arabs were not driven out in 1948 and in 2004 recommended that those who remain be dealt with like animals, saying "Something like a cage has to be built for them…There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another."......
Morris's July 18th op-ed, with the catchy and oxymoronic title "Using Bombs to Stave Off War," should tip its hat to Herodotus because it is a good story that is virtually devoid of facts, an attribute also ignored by the Times editors. Morris, who is exceptionally truculent for a bookworm, may or may not be a good example of what passes for scholarship in Israel, but he is certainly not interested in cutting the Iranians any slack. He argues that Iran must be attacked, that Israel will almost certainly do so in the next four to seven months, and that it will not be Israel's fault because the rest of the world has refused to do what is right. Per Morris, attacking Iran's nuclear program might bring peace and not doing so will inevitably lead to Israel's eventually staging a preemptive nuclear strike to solve the Iranian problem once and for all, which would be a worse outcome. As Morris is well connected to the Israeli government, his doomsday scenario must be taken seriously, even if it is bluff or deliberate disinformation. Having given warning of what might happen, the purpose in writing the piece is clearly to frighten the rest of the world into doing the dirty work so that Israel will not have to act. Obviously, the only country that can carry out the mission in a thorough fashion using non-nuclear weapons is the United States. That makes Morris's op-ed a strident call to arms from a leading Israeli for the United States to start yet another war on Israel's behalf because Israel feels threatened. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?...."
"The first historian, the Ionian Greek Herodotus, known as the "father of history," has also been called the "father of lies" because of his reluctance to spoil a good story with the truth. Today the neoconservatives twist history to fit their political agenda.....
But compared to the Israelis, the American neocons are neophytes when it comes to reshaping the past. Israel has long funded major archaeological projects intended to emphasize the Jewish presence in Palestine while minimizing or even denying the presence of others in the region, an attempt to demonstrate that Jews have a historical legitimacy that Arab inhabitants lack. For years, Israel has had an official historical creation myth that it has promoted that alternately saw Palestine as largely depopulated in 1948 or voluntarily vacated by its Arab inhabitants. Golda Meir famously stated that there was no such thing as the Palestinians. It is only recently that Israeli historians have begun to describe how the Arabs were, in fact, subjected to a deliberate policy of terrorism by Israel's founders that drove them from their homes.
One of the first Israeli historians to admit that Israel forced the Arabs off their land was Benny Morris, a professor of Middle Eastern history at Ben-Gurion University. Morris does not, however, think that it was a bad thing to kill other people and take their property. He only regrets that all of the Arabs were not driven out in 1948 and in 2004 recommended that those who remain be dealt with like animals, saying "Something like a cage has to be built for them…There is a wild animal there that has to be locked up in one way or another."......
Morris's July 18th op-ed, with the catchy and oxymoronic title "Using Bombs to Stave Off War," should tip its hat to Herodotus because it is a good story that is virtually devoid of facts, an attribute also ignored by the Times editors. Morris, who is exceptionally truculent for a bookworm, may or may not be a good example of what passes for scholarship in Israel, but he is certainly not interested in cutting the Iranians any slack. He argues that Iran must be attacked, that Israel will almost certainly do so in the next four to seven months, and that it will not be Israel's fault because the rest of the world has refused to do what is right. Per Morris, attacking Iran's nuclear program might bring peace and not doing so will inevitably lead to Israel's eventually staging a preemptive nuclear strike to solve the Iranian problem once and for all, which would be a worse outcome. As Morris is well connected to the Israeli government, his doomsday scenario must be taken seriously, even if it is bluff or deliberate disinformation. Having given warning of what might happen, the purpose in writing the piece is clearly to frighten the rest of the world into doing the dirty work so that Israel will not have to act. Obviously, the only country that can carry out the mission in a thorough fashion using non-nuclear weapons is the United States. That makes Morris's op-ed a strident call to arms from a leading Israeli for the United States to start yet another war on Israel's behalf because Israel feels threatened. Sounds familiar, doesn't it?...."
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