My One Contention With Jacobson

First off, I didn't manage to paste the link to Howard Jacobson's piece yesterday. Here it is.

Next, I want to quote the one passage that probably highlights the moral "dilemma" an otherwise reasonable progressive like Jacobson has placed himself in, and a way out.

Jacobson:

I watched demonstrators approach members of the public with their petitions. “Do you want an end to the slaughter in Gaza?” What were those approached expected to reply? – “No, I want it to continue unabated.” If “Massacre” presumes indiscriminate, “Slaughter” presumes innocence. There is no dodging the second of those. In Gaza the innocent have suffered unbearably. But it is in the nature of modern war, where soldiers no longer toss grenades at one another from their trenches, that the innocent pay.

First: he has already presumed, likely because of the discrepancy in the number fatalities, that the Israel perpetrated a "massacre", even if indirectly, even if justified. That is the first presumption that has to be contended with. If any massacre has been committed, the responsibility belongs solely to the Hamas minions who cynically use civilians as shields and bombs. To his credit, he quotes salient vocies and evidence debunking that notion that responsibility is on Israel's hsoulders, but he betrays too much discomfort with the idea; he gives too much credence to the very people he's calling out. He's accepting that the Israelis may have evn been the least bit "indiscriminate", when he knows (and WRITES!!!) the opposite to be true. Its Hamas that is being deliberately, and discriminately, indiscriminate.

Second: "Slaughter presumes innocence." Again, the proximate cause of said slaughter is Hamas, for the reasons enumerated above. Though, one may claim that as the Hamas government was duly elected by the Gazan populace, their "innocence" is an open question, which is my position. But one need not even go that far to contend that if there is a "slaughter", or a "massacre", again, the blood of both the Palestinians and Israelis is on the hands of Hamas'--and their useful idiots.

So--if "'you want an end to the slaughter in Gaza?' What were those approached expected to reply?"

This is my reply to these progressives:

YOU are as responsible as Hamas for the deaths of the "innocents" you proclaim to speak for.

YOUR bias and anti-semitism is tantamount to accessory to murder. Of Palestinians as well as Israelis. Especially since you KNOW (and, probably, secretly hope that) more PALESTINIANS will die.

YOU want and end to the "slaughter" in Gaza?

SHUT UP.

Now, to be sure, I would not place a progressive like Jacobson in this camp. (I would say that a "leading light" like Naomi Klein, with her recent call for a boycott of Israel that she proclaims outright should be carried out with the intent and effect analogous to the divestment from apartheid-era South Africa is perilously close to crossing this line into accessory, if she has not yet already.   She becomes the most recent addition to a list of prominent progressives--particularly Jewish progressives--who should be labeled as such accessories. I will provide such a short (or maybe not so short) list in an upcoming post.)

However, Jacobson's progressive take on the conflict, even if misguided in part, is important to consider. Which is: that it is might be possible for someone who is for whatever reasons uncomfortable (even if unnecessarily so) with Israel's actions vis-a-vis their sworn enemies in Gaza and elsewhere to STILL make distinctions between criticism and bigotry.

They should be held to it.