Yes, and good is evil and evil is good. That is the morally inverted state of the "civilized" world. Tablet magazine, a little-read and even less well-known website, fashions itself as a "daily online magazine of Jewish news, ideas, and culture." Yes, the "online magazine of Jewish news, ideas, and culture" is calling my fiercely pro-Israel ads ...anti-Israel.
The Jewicidals are in a mad rush to disavow my pro-Israel ad. They aren't that pro-Israel. And first and foremost, do not offend the savages.
Pamela Geller’s New Ad Is Actually Anti-Israel by Adam Chandler, Tablet, August 15
(Atlas Shrugs)
First comes the self-indulgent personal narrative:
I went to college in Washington, D.C. during the height of the Second Intifada, which meant that the campus had a constant swirl of litter from both pro-Israel and anti-Israel groups. The Second Intifada was everywhere–on campus radio, in student newspapers, pasted on the walls, and chalked on the streets. Following a particularly bad series of events (and those years had plenty of them), graphic photographs of rubble, bombed out cafes, and innocent dead would greet students on their way out of classrooms.I was, quite proudly, on the pro-Israel side of this circuit, which in hindsight probably killed more trees than changed minds. When another campus installed fake Israeli checkpoints to mock-harass students, the pro-Israel brigade rallied together and went there to sprawl out around like dead bodies, victims of those who’d been killed by suicide bombers. If you were engaged, you walked around campus constantly alert, looking for signs that had been graffitied or to graffiti them yourself, even sometimes tear them down.
I can’t begin to imagine what the majority of the student body–many of whom seemed politically agnostic on the topic of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict–made of all this. From conversations I had (which were far more effective than all the sloganeering we did), I generally sensed that most people weren’t going to be swayed by all the histrionic stuff playing out on the campus square. Since it probably didn’t relate to them, it just annoyed them.
An example: I never saw a fraternity brother of mine more crestfallen than when a group of activists who were opposed to the building of Israel’s security fence (“Apartheid Wall” as they called it), formed a chain that split the student union in half, encumbering the path to Taco Bell. He was a carefree, Irish Catholic kid from New England and I’ll never forget what he said and he squeezed past a kid trying to hand him a flyer.
“I just want nachos, dude.”
Still awake? Finally we get to the point:
What brings this whole indulgent reverie back to mind is the news of an all-caps pro-Israel ad that debuted this week on buses in San Francisco. It reads:In any war between the civilized man and the savage, support the civilized man.
Support Israel. Defeat Jihad.Behind the ad is the American Freedom Defense Initiative, an organization led by the infamous Pamela Geller. Off the bat, it’s important to note that the ad is obviously flawed–it’s racist, clumsy, Orientalist, and stupid.
Really? What race are jihadist murders of innocent civilians? Why is it not only racist, but "clumsy, Orientalist, and stupid" to resist them? Isn't it clumsier and stupider, if not more "Orientalist," not to resist them, and to let them murder more innocents?
I can’t imagine anyone (especially anyone whose mind is not already made up) reading this ad and concluding anything other than “some parts of the pro-Israel lobby seem like a bunch of dicks.” I’m sure it’s doing a lot of good work in San Francisco.
The rush to assure the "Palestinian" jihadists that they are not savages amazes me. The targeting of civilians is savage. The relentless 60-year campaign of terror against the Jewish people is savage. The torture of hostage Gilad Shalit was savage. The bloody hacking to death of the Fogel family was savage. The Munich Olympic massacre was savage. The unspeakable torture of Ehud Goldwasser was savage. The tens of thousands of rockets fired from Gaza into southern Israel (into schools, homes, etc.) are savage. The vicious Jew-hatred behind this genocide is savage. The endless demonization of the Jewish people in the Palestinian and Arab media is savage. The refusal to recognize the state of Israel as a Jewish state is savage. The list is endless.
But philosophically, the ad is also so primitive, it actually contains an anti-Israel message. Support Israel = Defeat Jihad. This formula suggests that the battle against violent Islamic fundamentalism can be won solely by supporting Israel. I know well from my college years spent crafting hasbara that the very last thing a pro-Israel message should do is reduce terrorism to a battle fought solely between Israel and Islamic fundamentalists.
Chandler here commits a basic error: "This formula suggests that the battle against violent Islamic fundamentalism can be won solely by supporting Israel." Actually, no. This formula doesn't suggest that at all. It never says anything like "violent Islamic fundamentalism can be won solely by supporting Israel." It says that the defense of Israel is part of the defense against the global jihad. It suggests that Israel is on the front line of that jihad. But it does not suggest that "violent Islamic fundamentalism can be won solely by supporting Israel." Much more must be done as well. "Violent Islamic fundamentalism" must be opposed not only in Israel, but in Indonesia, the Philippines, Thailand, India, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Chechnya, Nigeria, etc.
Isolating Israel here leaves out a coalition of the aggrieved that includes America, Great Britain, Spain, India, and countless Arab and Muslim countries. Rhetorically, it would be easy to flip this ad and say that Israel is the reason for terrorism–a trope often uttered during the Second Intifada. It’s better that as many people as possible feel that Israel’s struggle against terrorism is also their struggle. Otherwise, you’re just keeping people from their nachos.
Chandler starts from a false premise and so it's no surprise that he comes to a false conclusion. No one is isolating Israel but him. My ad says that supporting Israel is supporting the counter-jihad. It never says that that is all the counter-jihad must do. Chandler's criticism is as out of focus as those who say that the ad targets Islam itself or all Muslims, although it mentions neither. Leftist dhimmi journalists are seeing in my ad what they want to see to support their own narrative, not what is really there.
