Når diskussionen drejer sig om Israel

Hvis man vil danne sig et hurtigt overblik over positionerne i den lettere betændte debat om USA, Israel og det palæstinensiske  spørgsmål, kan man bare følge den on going kontrovers mellem The Atlantics to bloggere Andrew Sullivan og Jeffrey Goldberg.

Sullivan er den moderate stemme, der, sine naturlige israelske sympatier til trods, ikke er bleg for at kommentere og gå voldsomt i rette med den israelske regering, når dens politik er åbenlyst kontraproduktiv. Goldberg er mere old school pro-Israel-amerikaner, der lader til at tage enhver kritik af Israel som et udtryk for, om ikke direkte antisemitisme, så ihvertfald for dumheder, der indirekte går antisemiternes ærinde.

Begge d’herrer kommer ofte med gode og valide pointer i deres blogposts. Men det er sigende, at selv så nærliggende kommentatorer som de to bloggere ofte ryger i totterne på hinanden, når talen falder på Israel-Palæstina konflikten.

Andrew Sullivan om Israels grundlæggelse og udvikling:

Like America’s founding, it was not immaculate, and its survival has been a brutal struggle in which Israel has not been as innocent as some want to believe, but whose enemies’ anti-Semitism and hatred is tangible and omnipresent and despicable … Israel, for its part, remains, in its own proper borders, a model state for that part of the world; its openness and democracy vastly exceed any neighboring regime’s; it has made more of a tiny strip of land than most of its neighbors have of their vastly greater territory and resources put together. If I were Jewish, I’d be proud. But I’m not, and I can still admire a great deal.

My decision after the Gaza horror to challenge and debate some of the ideas I once held with respect to Israel in a post-9/11, post-Cold War world does not mean I wish Israel ill. It means I think Israel has not acted as a real and constructive ally this past year, and is increasingly at odds with US interests in the Middle East and in the world in general, and is committing assisted suicide if it does not get out of the West Bank sooner rather than later.

Det forekommer mig at være en sund, skeptisk tilgang til emnet. Goldberg selv har på det sidste også trukket lidt i land fra sine polemiske angreb og istedet søgt en ny måde at behandle Israelstoffet på. Men han undlader ikke at gøre sin politiske, non-kritik af Israel klar. Som han skriver:

As Goldblog readers know, I’m deeply distressed by many currents in Israeli society and politics, the continuing, disproportionate power of the settlement movement being chief among my concerns. But I find myself hesitant to criticize Israel these days because my words are inevitably used by people who don’t have Israel’s best interests, or the best interests of American Jews, at heart.  So I want to find a new way to write about these issues. The new way, obviously, is the old way. The best use of my time, I think, would be to return to what I originally was meant to do when I joined The Atlantic a couple of years ago, which is to write reported, carefully considered, fact-checked and closely-edited articles about the issues that interest me. In other words, don’t expect to see too much on Goldblog about this set of issues, generally. I appreciate all of your letters (except those that begin “Dear Zionist Douchebag,” or, “Dear Self-Hating Jewboy Douchebag”), and I’ll figure out, as I go forward, what to do with this blog, but I don’t think that writing in anger is good for anyone. So here’s hoping that the Goldblog Unilateral Disengagement Plan goes better than the Gaza Disengagement Plan.

Kritik, velbegrundet og saglig kritik, kan aldrig være skadelig. Selv ikke når kritikken gælder Israel. Men det er Goldberg øjensynlig ikke enig i. Her skurrer Goldberg’s ellers sikkert velmenende løfter om saglighed allerede en smule, synes jeg.