Comments on: Segev’s Troubling Segue: Why “Progressives” can’t cope with the al Durah affair

By: Augean Stables » Enderlin Defends Himself: What Planet is he on?

Augean Stables » Enderlin Defends Himself: What Planet is he on? — Sat, 28 Jun 2008 22:37:31 +0000

[...] the father’s bullet-ridden body? Visits from Segev and Peri are hardly decisive if we go by Segev’s take in which it doesn’t matter if it’s real, it’s “true.” You hint that [...]

By: Augean Stables » Jews is News: What Percentage of those killed in conflicts since 1950 died in the Arab-Israeli conflict?

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 21:17:05 +0000

[...] also highlights the importance of specifically what Segev and Levy dismiss as irrelevant, and what Poller underlines: the story must be a libel. Alone, the [...]

By: Augean Stables » Nidra Poller: Sue Me Too, Charlie Mon Vieux

Augean Stables » Nidra Poller: Sue Me Too, Charlie Mon Vieux — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 05:01:02 +0000

[...] analysis illustrated well by the attachment that “progressive” journalists like Tom Segev and Gideon Levy show for the tale even if it’s staged. SUE ME TOO CHARLIE MON VIEUX Nidra [...]

By: Augean Stables » Charles Enderlin Blogs

Augean Stables » Charles Enderlin Blogs — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 12:32:49 +0000

[...] say anything, but he quotes Tom Segev’s short piece in Ha-Aretz whose multiple flaws I fisked earlier. & [...]

By: Eliyahu

Eliyahu — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 13:25:47 +0000

RL, I am glad that Anat made the comparison between Tom S and an anti-copernican. The anti-Copernicans were religiously devoted to RC church doctrine and its hallowed geocentric concept. Segev too is religious in his way. To be sure, his religion is not Judaism. Rather, it may be described as worship of Progress, Leftism, anti-Judaism, that anti-imperialism of fools calling itself anti-Zionism, etc. He also is eager to be part of the universal Leftist Progressive movement and share its beliefs whatever they may be at any given time. I say at-any-given-time, since Leftist beliefs are subject to shifting and change, even to 180 degree reversals, as in the case of Israel, once considered Progressive even by the USSR. Scribblers like Segev, who seem incapable of independent thinking, seem to have a psychological need to be part of the universal historical movement. Empirical, factual science is irrelevant. Take the case of Segev’s colleague at HaArets, Danny Rubinstein. He recently called Israel “an apartheid state.” He later explained this statement by saying that he decided to call Israel an apartheid state after hearing —-Jimmy Carter No Less call it that. Imagine, Carter of all people was his model. However, it’s hard for me to imagine an American intellectual do that, even a lower-middle brow American journalist, since carter is so widely considered stupid by Americans. Yet, much of the Israeli Left, although considering themselves intelligent, Progressive, scientific, anti-imperialist, etc., has this silly respect for a moron like carter, who does happen to be an important person after all.

Getting back to the point, both Anat’s anti-copernican and a character like Segev would seem to be religious devotees. And that makes for a strong resemblance.

By: RL

RL — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 12:01:14 +0000

anat, i agree with your analogy. for me the viewing of the france2 rushes was an anomaly that destroyed my overall view of how our newsmedia works. segev won’t go there because he likes the result, no matter how badly it’s done.

By: Anat

Anat — Sun, 30 Sep 2007 10:45:29 +0000

fp,
Quite.
Segev is like that 17th-century anti-copernican who would say: so what if the phases of this or that planet contradict geocentricity. Everybody known that all celestrial spheres orbit the earth, so don’t bother us with little details like that.

By: fp

fp — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 23:47:43 +0000

anat,

but once the position of segev is recognized — israel bad, palestiniana victims — everything is viewed in that light. so if he cannot defend france2 he makes the whole thing irrelevant: whethere IDF killed the kid or not it does not matter, israel is guilty anyway.

iow, the notion that if this was staged, then many other cases were also does not enter his mind. he won’t allow it, because he is already set in his mind, and any alternative perspective is impossible, regardless of the facts.

By: Anat

Anat — Sat, 29 Sep 2007 09:57:38 +0000

Prof Landes,

I think you miss the point concerning the following quotation from Segev:
“There is something pathetic about the effort to prove that France 2 fabricated the story, as though this could demonstrate the justness of the Israeli occupation. Not a few Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli army gunfire without their deaths being filmed.”

What Segev ignores is that the heart of the affair is the original claim that the Israelis targeted the father and son deliberately. Until then, only the Palestinians where known to target children, Israeli children, as they have done since then in numerous terror attacks on buses and public venues. The al-Durah affair for the first time provided false symmetry, which in the propaganda of the Palestinians and their Western supporters quickly turned into a reversal of the truth, as if it is rather the Israelis who target children.

By: Eliyahu

Eliyahu — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 12:07:27 +0000

Dave, as you probably well understand, there was no “palestinian people” 100 years ago. Not even the Arabs, nor the palestinian Arabs believed in the existence of such a people. If you have any info to the effect that the Soviets or communists or their ilk invented the “palestinian people” notion, then please send it to me as a comment on my blog.