Friends of mine have been quoting this piece by Michael Doran. It’s entitled “A Letter to My Liberal Jewish Friends.” The subtitle is “The president’s address last week to Congregation Adas Israel as ‘an honorary member of the tribe’ was something other than it seemed.” I’d like to do a little quoting from the piece, or letter, myself.
Although, as you may have noticed, the president never mentioned Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by name, the heart of his speech was devoted to justifying his own role in their by now famous conflict. At the heart of that conflict, he suggested, was Netanyahu’s presumed hostility to recognizing the rights of the Palestinians. Making references to Ramallah in one breath and Selma in the next, and sketching an ethical map that made the civil-rights movement and Palestinian nationalism interchangeable, the president implied that support for Netanyahu’s policies was tantamount to rejecting the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr.
When I was a teenager, I knew nothing, of course — certainly nothing about the Middle East — and I thought the Arab-Israeli conflict was like the old American South. The Palestinians were the longsuffering, put-upon blacks; the Israelis were the oppressive whites. Menachem Begin, the prime minister, was George Wallace; Ariel Sharon, his defense minister, was Bull Connor.
Then I turned 19 or 20 and knew better.
Flash forward many years, when I discovered something that Jimmy Carter said to one of his biographers, Douglas Brinkley. The former president said, “The intifada exposed the injustice Palestinians suffered, just like Bull Connor’s mad dogs in Birmingham.”
Blow me down. Carter thought as I once had. But I was just a stupid teenager. Carter was an ex-president with vast experience. What excuse did he have?
One more word, please. I’d like to excerpt a piece I wrote long ago — in 2002, about John Ashcroft, who was then attorney general, and his unhinged, defamatory critics:
At a major Washington, D.C., synagogue, Ashcroft figured in a “Purim spiel”: He was equated with Haman, a figure of extreme danger — of mass murder — to Jews. Traditionally, Hitler, say, would be equated with Haman.
Here’s my own “letter to my liberal Jewish friends”: John Ashcroft is not your enemy; neither is Netanyahu. You may not like them, but they’re the type to defend civilization, so that you can safely bitch, defame, and generally get your freak on. Have a nice day.