MAKING COLE'S POINT FOR HIM

For some reason that I simply cannot fathom, Andrew Sullivan seems to think his little "awards" schtick is very clever. To me it seems a transparently lazy way of sneering at the opinions of his political opponents without having to actually go through the trouble of demonstrating why he thinks those opinions are wrong.*

Case in point:

SONTAG AWARD NOMINEE I: "The Iraqi killer of Reserve Navy Lt. Kylan Jones-Huffman has been brought to justice in an Iraqi court. Although he has since changed his story, he at one point admitted to killing Jones-Huffman with a bullet through the back of the neck while the latter was stuck in traffic in downtown Hilla. The assassin said that he felt that Jones-Huffman "looked Jewish." The fruits of hatred sowed in the Middle East by aggressive and expansionist Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza against the Palestinians and in south Lebanon against Shiites continue to be harvested by Americans." - Juan Cole, in a new low, on his blog.

Andrew doesn't bother explaining what is so "low" about Cole's comments, probably because they are uncontestable: Expansionist Israel policies in the West Bank and Gaza have, as a matter of fact, increased hatred among Arabs toward both Israel and her sugar daddy, the U.S.A. The worst one could possibly say about Cole's comments is that they lack context, but I would challenge even that. While it's true that many Arab governments have for years stoked hatred towards Israel as a means of diverting attention from their own failure and corruption, that in no way diminishes Israel's guilt for over thirty years of displacement, colonization, and oppression of Palestinians in the occupied territories, and in no way diminishes the truth of Cole's statement.

Cole has written about the tendency of pro-Israeli types to challenge any interpretation of history which places any blame on Israel, and Sullivan seems to have ably made this point for him. I find it extremely troubling that a writer like Sullivan, who I consider generally fair minded on most issues, should make himself a foot soldier in the Likudnik campaign of intimidation. Props to Cole for staying strong.

*Yeah, okay, I understand we're talking about a BLOG here, and assumption of audience agreement is pretty much par for the course, but I expect more from Sullivan, especially since he just created the Malkin Award, one of the qualifications for which is the assumption of reader agreement.