Tuesday, January 18, 2011

ACRI is the Messiah

Haggai El-Ad, the CEO of the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), seems to have sent out a call to potential donors under the title: "Israeli Democracy can't Defend Itself. Support ACRI".

Not "We do important things to make our country and society a bit better"

Not "There's always room for improvement, and we strive to improve civil rights in Israel"

Not "Things aren't good enough in Israel; we need your help to make them better"

Not even the specific "Human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories aren't at the level Israel as a democracy needs to have them; ACRI makes them better with your help".

Nope. None of that. Rather, Israeli democracy is on its way out, but ACRI will save it (with your dollars).

The fictitious recounting of the facts is breath-taking, even if you really really don't like Israel's current government; the hubris is mind-boggling. And this gets sent to lots of worried supporters of Israel who aren't here, don't know Hebrew, have no real way to measure the veracity of the inflammatory language, and are despairing of the experiment in Jewish national expression which is going down the drain: look, this important and honorable Israeli fellow even says so!

Bah.

7 comments:

Silke said...

Israel's supposedly staunch supporter Jeffrey Goldberg predicted the same for the near future not so recently. Yesterday however he said the opposite because the head of the Katsav jury had been an Arab Israeli which is supposed to prove something or maybe the opposite.

Did you know that flying cows are a danger to ships on the ocean? They are if circumstances are right, so beware, prevent, prevent, prevent ...

“In July 2003, in the Pacific, a Japanese fishing boat was sunk by a flying cow,”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/magazine/16Drilling-t.html?pagewanted=5

Silke said...

Israel's supposedly staunch supporter Jeffrey Goldberg predicted the same for the near future not so recently. Yesterday however he said the opposite because the head of the Katsav jury had been an Arab Israeli which is supposed to prove something or maybe the opposite.

Did you know that flying cows are a danger to ships on the ocean? They are if circumstances are right, so beware, prevent, prevent, prevent ...

“In July 2003, in the Pacific, a Japanese fishing boat was sunk by a flying cow,”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/magazine/16Drilling-t.html?pagewanted=5

Barry Meislin said...

Related...for your enjoyment.

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/alana-goodman/386916

Barry Meislin said...

As for Jeffrey Goldberg, he is, alas, an intellectual nebbish.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2011/01/hezbollahs-goldstone-report/69751/

Silke said...

thanks Barry

the way I understand the post, Goldberg is supporting a view that the tribunals findings will be as phony and as flawed as Goldstone's. I think wishing that on the Lebanese is pretty mean and inconsiderate.

I remember Goldberg once ululating on some public performance of that Ibish guy, I had a short look at the video and yawned. Recently I think it was Elder of Ziyon who posted approvingly a piece by Ibish which I read.

I forgot my reasons but I remember that I judged weighed and considered too light (gewogen und zu leicht befunden)

Barry Meislin said...

The point is that any self-respecting taxi driver should have / would have skewered that absurdly stupid analogy. (It takes an intellectual, etc.....)

Ibish? Please. As far as I'm concerned, he's an intellectual Ibish.

And he's as good as it gets.

Silke said...

And he's as good as it gets

and that's the sad part of it - I pod-caught the much praised Sari Nusseibeh on book tour some years ago and was very underwhelmed

saintlier than thou - or maybe that is just the "culture" and I am prejudiced - but I believe I try really hard to open my mind whenever another one is promoted - sigh!