How can you be so right about Gordimer and so wrong about Obama?

btw, the fact that so many writers are on the wrong side of so many issues today, that they fail to defend liberal ideal make excuses for terror mongers and some even support their causes tells me that haven't progressed much since the dreadful 1930's when most writers supported either the murderous Fascists  or the murderous Bolsheviks.

The Orwells of our day are still in a minority.

In Gordimer’s case I truly believe that age is a factor. A person in her eighties is unlikely to be able to come to rethink her previous positions and see if they apply to contemporary situations.

Her comment inadvertently tells us why Gordimer is unable to come to terms with the reality of Israel’s struggle:

“She reminded those urging her to boycott the festival of her endorsements of Ronnie Kasrils' 'Not in our name'" statement. The December 2001 letter by the Jewish cabinet minister and former ANC rebel was signed by "South Africans of Jewish descent." It said "the root cause" of the second intifada was Israel's occupation of the territories…”

Gordimer is still trying to reassure her South African compatriots that she is not “like the other Jews.” In other words her views are deeply cynical and read aright show how alienated she and many other notable Jews in South Africa are from their country. Like Jews in most antisemitic environments they need to keep proving their loyalties to people who people who don’t trust Jews.

For those who dogmatically insist that Israel's presence in the disputed territories is the root of all evil, especially when it comes to the Israel-Arab conflict, I have some suggested reading.

Journalist Jeffery Goldberg (who cannot be suspected of right-wing sympathies) gathered several interesting articles that were published in the Atlantic Monthly over the years that related to Israel and the Israel-Arab conflict.  These can be found here: www.theatlantic.com/.../israel-palestine

The most facinating piece (in my opinion at any rate) is a lengthy article from October 1961 by Martha Gellhorn in which she describes her visits to Palestinian refugee camps and to Israeli Arab villages to ask the residents about their current (in 1961) situations, how they viewed the Israeli-Arab conflict, and what they saw as possible solutions.  The URL for the Gellhorn piece is:

                     www.theatlantic.com/.../gellhorn

When reading the article, keep in mind that it was written before the "occupation", before "settlements", before the 6 Day War, and well before Palestinians learned how to speak fluent progressobabbelian.  Perhaps more critically, it was written when most journalists, still had primary memories of the 1948 conflict and hence were far more immune to becoming the Palestinians' useful idiots that many are today (see, BBC, NPR, NY Times (but that is improving), Boston Globe, The Guardian, The Independent and scores of other brain dead and / or intellectually dishonest news outlets).  As such, Gellhorn was not as easily fooled and listened to what was said far more critically than is permitted by current "progressive" dogma.

There are many fascinating aspects to the piece.  In many respects it could be written today (in particular compare the official lines & indoctrinations used in 1961 with what is reported nowadays on the PMW and MEMRI web sites).  Gellhorn's view can be best summarized as, the Arabs gambled and lost in 1948 and they are now (in 1961) trying to undo the consequences of that gamble.  She reports on a conversation with an Israeli Arab who (as was part of the standard line) wants to settle the conflict by pushing Israel back to the 1947 partition lines (no concerns there about the "viability" of such a state) and returning the "refugees.  Gellhorn asks him if the situation had been reversed, i.e., if the Arab side had won the '48 war, and the Jews were in refugee camps, would he then advocate that the Arabs pull back to the 1947 lines and allow the Jews to return?  The response is instantaneous (and I quote):

"Certainly not," he said, without an instant's hesitation. "But there would have been no Jewish refugees. They had no place to go. They would all be dead or in the sea."

The article is long but very well worth reading.

Maybe, just maybe Nadine Gordimer could read this article.  And maybe, despite her being 84 years old she could re-think her views.... nah...

Hershel Ginsburg (as always, with horns & pointed tail)

Efrata / Jerusalem

The Wikipedia entry on Martha Gellhorn states:

-- A self-described “hater”, she attacked fascism, anti-communism, racism, Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and the Palestinian and German peoples with equal vigor. Gellhorn never forgave the German people for Hitler, and reveled in their suffering after WW II. Her hatred of the Palestinians was extreme and friends learned never to mention them in her presence.

Even a cursory reading of her Atlantic Monthly article confirms her hatred of Palestinians. Indeed, I read only the first and last pages and was then unsurprised to find the above on Wikipedia. Her hatred is transparent.

Here is another view of Gellhorn from Wikipedia who seems to hate everything mackenzie loves including fascism, communism racism, etc.

en.wikipedia.org/.../Martha_Gellhorn

Here is a summary of her early career:

"Early life

Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Gellhorn graduated in 1926 from John Burroughs School there and enrolled in Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia. In 1927, she left before graduating to pursue a career as a journalist. Her first articles appeared in The New Republic. In 1930, determined to become a foreign correspondent, she went to France for two years where she worked at the United Press bureau in Paris. While in Europe, she became active in the pacifist movement and wrote about her experiences in the book, What Mad Pursuit (1934).

Upon returning to the US, Gellhorn was hired by Harry Hopkins as an investigator for the Federal Emergency Relief Administration, which sent her to report about the impact of the Depression on the United States. Her reports for that agency caught the attention of Eleanor Roosevelt, and the two women became lifelong friends. Her findings were the basis of a novella, The Trouble I've Seen (1936).

War in Europe

Gellhorn first met Hemingway during a 1936 Christmas family trip to Key West. They agreed to travel in Spain together to cover the Spanish Civil War, where Gellhorn was hired to report for Collier's Weekly. The pair celebrated Christmas of 1937 together in Barcelona. Later, from Germany, she reported on the rise of Adolf Hitler and in 1938 was in Czechoslovakia. After the outbreak of World War II, she described these events in the novel, A Stricken Field (1940). She later reported the war from Finland, Hong Kong, Burma, Singapore and Britain. Lacking official press credentials to witness the D-Day landings, she impersonated a stretcher bearer and later recalled, "I followed the war wherever I could reach it." She was among the first journalists to report from Dachau concentration camp after it was liberated.

After living with Hemingway for four years, they married in 1940. Increasingly resentful of Gellhorn's long absences during her reporting assignments, Hemingway wrote her when she left their home in Havana in 1943 to cover the Italian Front: "Are you a war correspondent, or wife in my bed?" After four contentious years of marriage, they divorced in 1945."

And here is Gellhorn's later career:

Later career

After the war, Gellhorn worked for the Atlantic Monthly, covering the Vietnam War, the Six-Day War in the Middle East and the civil wars in Central America. Aged 81, she travelled impromptu to Panama, where she wrote on the U.S. invasion. Only when the Bosnian war broke out in the 1990s did she concede she was too old to go, saying "You need to be nimble."

Gellhorn published a large number of books, including a collection of articles on war, The Face of War (1959), a novel about McCarthyism, The Lowest Trees Have Tops (1967), an account of her travels (including one trip with Ernest Hemingway), Travels With Myself and Another (1978) and a collection of her peacetime journalism, The View From the Ground (1988).

Peripatetic by nature, Gellhorn reckoned that in a 40-year span of her life, she had created 19 homes in different locales. During a long working life, Gellhorn reported widely from many international trouble-spots.

Gellhorn died in London in 1998, aged 89, taking her own life after a long battle with cancer and near total blindness. Since her death, The Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism has been established in her honour.

Gellhorn published books of fiction, travel writing and reportage. Her selected letters were published posthumously in 2006.

On October 5, 2007, the United States Postal Service announced that it would honor five journalists of the 20th century times with first-class rate postage stamps, to be issued on Tuesday, April 22, 2008: Martha Gellhorn; John Hersey; George Polk; Ruben Salazar; and Eric Sevareid. Postmaster General Jack Potter announced the stamp series at the Associated Press Managing Editors Meeting in Washington. Martha covered the Spanish Civil War, World War II and the Vietnam War. [2]

Political and Religious Views

Gellhorn remained a committed leftist throughout her life and was contemptuous of those, like Rebecca West, who became more conservative. She considered the so-called objectivity of journalists “nonsense”, and used journalism to reflect her politics. Politically, Gellhorn had two major favorites, Israel and the Spanish Republic. For Gellhorn, Dachau had “changed everything” and she became a life-long champion of Israel. She was a frequent visitor to Israel after 1949, and considered moving to Israel in the 1960s. An uncompromising opponent of Fascism, Gellhorn's attitude toward communism was more complex. While she did not praise communism and Stalinism, she equally refused to criticize it, and remained a believer in Alger Hiss until her death. A self-described “hater”, she attacked fascism, anti-communism, racism, Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and the Palestinian and German peoples with equal vigor. Gellhorn never forgave the German people for Hitler, and reveled in their suffering after WW II. Her hatred of the Palestinians was extreme and friends learned never to mention them in her presence.

Gellhorn was an atheist and did not believe in an afterlife. Although both parents were Jewish, Gellhorn was raised as a secular humanist. Her only religious instruction consisted of Sunday visits to the Society for Ethical Culture. She was sickened when her husband T.S. Matthews insisted their marriage be blessed by an Anglican priest. She called it “horrible, cannibalistic voodoo of the ugliest sort”."

This is worth restating:

"Politically, Gellhorn had two major favorites, Israel and the Spanish Republic. For Gellhorn, Dachau had “changed everything” and she became a life-long champion of Israel. She was a frequent visitor to Israel after 1949, and considered moving to Israel in the 1960s. An uncompromising opponent of Fascism, Gellhorn's attitude toward communism was more complex. While she did not praise communism and Stalinism, she equally refused to criticize it, and remained a believer in Alger Hiss until her death. A self-described “hater”, she attacked fascism, anti-communism, racism, Joe McCarthy, Richard Nixon, Ronald Reagan and the Palestinian and German peoples with equal vigor. Gellhorn never forgave the German people for Hitler, and reveled in their suffering after WW II. Her hatred of the Palestinians was extreme and friends learned never to mention them in her presence."

No wonder mackenzie hates her. He hates anyone who  loves the Jewish people and takes their side.

Gellhorn "was among the first journalists to report from Dachau concentration camp after it was liberated." And if she had an unreasonable hatred of the Palestinian Arabs  it may have something to do with their inability to compromise and to accept the Jewish State.

Here again mackenzie's views about Jews are pre-WW2 and are shot through with the same kind of antisemitism which brought the National Socialists to power.

Ginzy, thanks for reminding us of Gellhorn's important work!

And thank you Jackson Dyer for providing the full context on Martha Gellhorn so artfully omitted by ND Mackenzie.  He/She has the making of journalist in the finest tradition of the BBC, Guardian and the Independent.  It's interesting, and quite revealing, that he/she admits to having read only the first and last pages of a rather long article but via his superior omniscience is able to infer everything in between.

Actually I think MadMac's problem is a severe case of political orthodoxy of the progressive variety (as an admitted Orthodox Jew -- I suspect the only O.J. in the herd here (may Avigayil forgive me)  -- I recognize the phenomenon instantly) and can't deal with the heresy that maybe, just maybe the Arab / Muslim culture of the middle east just doesn't tolerate uppity Jews.

I do hope you and the others take the time to read the Gellhorn piece.  The very fact that it was written nearly 50 years ago makes it's insights all the more impressive and worth remembering...

דור הולך, ודור בא, ואין חדש תחת השמש

Hershel Ginsburg

Jerusalem / Efrata

“And thank you Jackson Dyer for providing the full context on Martha Gellhorn so artfully omitted by ND Mackenzie.  He/She has the making of journalist in the finest tradition of the BBC, Guardian and the Independent.  It's interesting, and quite revealing, that he/she admits to having read only the first and last pages of a rather long article but via his superior omniscience is able to infer everything in between.”

Mackenzie doesn’t rise to that level. His lies are just too transparent for that. He doesn’t seem to care that he makes a fool of himself every time he posts.

For example anyone who reads Gellhorn's article will notice two things: first that she offered a first hand account of the “plight of the Palestinian refugees” (each word should be in quotes); second that anyone who says what Gellhorn says:

“The best way to consider this case is close up, by looking at the Palestinian refugees themselves, not as a "problem," not as statistics, but as people. The Palestinian refugees, battered by thirteen years in the arena of international politics, have lost their shape; they appear as a lump and are spoken of as one object. They are individuals, like everyone else….”

is not “anti-Palestinian” certainly not against the unfortunate individuals whom she writes about.

Mackenzie’s aim is not the truth his aim is to stop people from reading the material posted by your others and to think for themselves.  

Finally, I heartily endorse your ecclesiastics quote: “one generation comes, another generation goes; there is nothing new under the sun.” Especially true when it comes to antisemitism of the mackenzie variety.  Mackenzies have probably been antisemitic since the Klan first made its appearance in their swamp.

[Martha Gellhorn's] hatred of the Palestinians was extreme => Zionut BFF

[Martha Gellhorn's] hatred of the Jews was extreme => anti-semite

ndmackenzie needs to take his medications.

ginzy, you're wrong about ND. he's simply crazed by Jew hatred, and there's no progressive or other politics involved there. In any case, he's smarter than all you uberhohem Jews, and successfully manages to generate reactions from you all and become the center of the composition. One stupid deranged asshole manages without fail, WITHOUT FAIL, to pull all of you by your noses into his slimy puddle.

I'm impressed. By him, of course.

And back to us.

I have never maintained that the green line will bring about peace or even a less violent state of affairs. I have my set of perfectly logical and coherent reasons for withdrawing to the green line (more or less) if and when conditions will allow. There was no peace here before 67 and there will be no peace here after we withdraw.

Anything any deity is said to have "wanted" or "ordered" or "directly commanded" is not regarded by me as logical or rational. However, if I should be forced by terror and criminal behavior to fight for and defend what a bunch of lunatics claim to be the word of their god, i would see this as a perfectly logical reason to do the exact opposite to what they're trying to force me to do. So you can safely add the despicable behavior of the settlers to my list of reasons for withdrawal. Not the main one, but a valid reason still.

Much as I despise the established religions, i know that we all have our beliefs  (I do too), and I respect this. As long as no one includes me in his set of beliefs against my will in ANY way, I have no problem with it at all.  

Martha Gellhorn's story, as most evidence, will convince the convinced, and leave no impression upon the others.

Interestingly, it does show UNRWA's contribution to the conflict even back then! Besides having a weak spot for UNRWA, I find the idea that the UN generates and then maintains and even inflames conflicts in the world, mainly our conflict, completely ridiculous. It could even be funny if it hadn't cost so much blood.

Actually, Babs, what you said up until the last sentence was pretty funny.  I know what you mean about the nuts in the territories--it would be worth getting them out of there just to watch them throw a massive, 100,000 person tantrum.  Nothing my kids can do would top that.  Grown men on the floor, kicking and screaming.  Though I believe that in the past  you've said no way can we go back to the 67 lines.  If that's still you're thinking, I agree.  You can't go back all the way, for security reasons alone.  

P.S. Marty, my mother met her on several occasions in South Africa.  She also used to hang out with her niece in when they were both living in London, and to top that, knows Suzman's daughter, who lives in the Boston area.  So how's that for a little name-dropping of my own.  

molly, in theory i wouldn't mind giving up more land and withdrawing more than what was taken in 67. But almost always reality gets in the way and disrupts all my dreams.  We know with whom we're dealing here, and they're no swedes, so all the calculations have to take into account security measures and worst-case scenarios.

So no, we can't go back to the green line exactly, and right now, as long as Iran is a major factor here and covets this area, i can't see how we give up anything at all.

Mollysimon,

I just love your simplistic stereotypes of the "settlers" and your ability to understand (even is you disagree) with their views.

The next time you visit Israel (as I am sure you regularly do), why don't you take the time to meet and talk to a few, particularly those that are not those featured in the media.  There is a far wider variety of people, views and beliefs here than the caricatures presented in the media.

Personally, if there were a real possibility of peace (not a Beilinesque delusion) I would sadly, not willingly but resignedly leave here, even though the vast majority of Israelis intend to keep Efrat and the Gush Etzion region, because of its pre-1948 status and the Jordanian massacre of the defenders after they laid down their arms.  I would not resist and most of those that I know would not resist.

BTW, the Israeli population in the disputed territories is about 300,000 not 100,000, not including the post-67 neighborhoods in Jerusalem.  And in Gush Etzion, much if not most of the land was purchased from its Arab owners starting in the late 1920s.

hg

Ginzy, just like all those Gazan Israelis kissed their Palestinian neighbors good-bye.  Please.  

I'm not suggesting all settlers are are unreasonable crybabies.  I'm simply saying that the ones who are really out there (both figuratively and factually) do not inhabit the same moral universe that I--and probably you--do, Mr. Horns-and-Tail.  

I didn't remember this from the Republican primaries in 2000, and I don't know from where it's

I am in Israel and I'm sorry that I haven't posted during the last few days. But my old Toshiba