My reading of Juan Cole is that he's either an antisemite, or he writes a lot of things that are antisemitic. (Follow my "Juan Cole" tag to see the story). Still, as anyone who has ever given the topic of antisemitism any thought will readily recognize, there are gradations of the malaise. Cole's is a comparatively benign version, and he himself recoils from some of the worse stuff. A fine example of this is his post of September 19th, in which he forcefully expressed his revulsion at a speech of Ahmedinejad. You may wish to note, however, that he then posted some comments from readers who were less squeamish than he - and keep in mind that he actively censors the comments on his blog, thus taking responsibility for each and every one of them.
Being repulsed by Ahmedinejad, of course, is no proof of innocence. That would be like saying, say, that Father Coughlin wasn't an antisemite, since his contemporary Goebbels was worse - clearly not a reasonable position.
The folks at CIFWatch have noticed the Guardian is less squeamish than Juan Cole. They apparently can't bring themselves to say that Ahmedinejad is a Jew hater. Particularly useful is an article by Mark Gardner, who compared how the various British news outlets reported on Ahmedinejad's UN speech. The Guardian was the only outlet that didn't manage to see the plain reality.
Someday I should write about this in greater depth, but this afternoon - a few short hours before Yom Kippur - isn't gong to be that day.
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4 comments:
Yaccov,
It's been a pleasure following your blog this past year. Wishing you and your family and sweet and healthy year, and an easy fast.
My thoughts on Yom Kippur, which I think you will appreciate, are here:
http://altmanaliyah.blogspot.com/2009/09/atonement.html
גמר חתימה טובה
Morey
Yes Glenn Greenwald, Dr. Cole's thought leader at Salon.com is the same. The liberals love him yet he claims to be a libertarian. He's worked with and for Pat Buchanan, has legally defended Matt Hale of the neo nazi church of the creator. Most of his columns are about evil Israel. The 'letters' are mostly a raving stew of hatred and antisemitic foaming. Yet Glenn moderates each and every letter and deletes anything that smells of dissent from his views under the theory of 'free speech'. He also comments in his own letters to his column section scolding readers and telling them not to read certain letters which will be deleted anyway.
He seems to be in the pay of either Iran or Hamas or both and has never seen a Jew who wasn't a war criminal/global controller of all banks/media, causer of all wars, etc etc etc.
And this is a pretty well known liberal blog with contributors who are on MSNBC and CSPAN.
So is John "Juan" Cole an antisemite? Yes I would say so. Is Greenwald? No more than your average Nazi. Is the liberal blogosphere? Yes, or at least it's heading that way.
love the blog. I don't follow Juan Cole as doggedly as you do (though i also read it now and then when i feel like being angry, and i've read most of ur posts on his naivete-cum-dishonesty), but my impression of him is not that he is anti-semitic. I think he, like much of the far left, associates Zionism with "other" forms of nationalism, which in a simplistic view of the world is the source of all modern evils. He's suggested as much explicitly...
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Isn't it strange how the left rejects nationalism in general, but only one with nationalism with particular zeal?
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