LTE: Richard Cohen is an Idiot
Mr Cohen:
Ignoring the fact that you have been wrong on just
about everything since 2000, from Bush, to Iraq, to
Katrina, your most recent column is offensive, stupid,
ill-thought out, and a reflection of your personal
shallowness and inability to think coherently. I do
not know why the Washington Post keeps a buffoon like
yourself on its staff.
Throughout your piece, “A Moment Mel Would Appreciate”
you essentially claim that any criticism of Israel is
anti-semitism. On the one hand, you yourself admit
that “[t]he war in Lebanon has thus far proved to be
a debacle for both Israel and the United States,” yet
making comments about this war, “a debacle”, is also
unacceptable. UN observers are shelled in an 8-hour
barrage (you never mention that in your piece) and
Kofi Annan is “having a mini-Mel moment” for issuing a
condemnation of the attack: he MUST hate Israel. Why else
would he say anything?
You write “Hezbollah’s kidnapping of two Israeli
soldiers and its cross-border missile attacks are a
distant memory”: this is not true. Everyone knows why
Israel attacked Hezbollah. What the world objects to
is indiscriminate slaughter of civilians that have
nothing to do with Hezbollah, and a military strategy
that on the one hand calls for the lebanese army to
disarm Hezbollah and on the other bombs the Lebanese
army and the country’s infrastructure, making such a
disarmament physically as well as politically
impossible. You pretend this is not the case, that the
world, collectively excepting Israel, George Bush, and
yourself, is nothing more than anti-semites.
Israel’s strategy is losing the war: this is consensus
from left to right. Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post are
for once on the same page. Even someone as far-right
as David Horowitz admits this: is HE an anti-semite
too? My father, who is Jewish, is critical of Israel:
I suppose he’s an anti-semite as well. William
Kristol says the strategy isn’t working: is he an
anti-semite?
You claim that “in the addled formulations of some,
the war in Iraq as well” is to be blamed on Israel:
who says this? You never say. I think you made it up:
prove me wrong, and please with someone who actually
has a visible presence on the world stage, not a
crank.
You compare the fate of two still-living but kidnapped
soldiers, both of who were armed to the teeth and in
a combat situation, to the fate of 40-60 unarmed dead
civilian children who were bombed in the dead of
night. Have you no shame or morals? This is the kind
of attitude endorsed by Osama bin Laden: “As for what
you asked regarding the American people, they are not
exonerated from responsibility, because they chose
this government and voted for it despite their
knowledge of its crimes in Palestine, Lebanon, Iraq
and in other places.”
Your central thesis, that disagreement with Israel
constitutes anti-semitism, is flawed, absurd on its
face, wrong, and stupid. Funny how the thoughts
reflect the man, Mr. Cohen.
Brendan Skwire
