Julie Burchill is a person about whom I oscillate between revulsion and admiration but she is in good form at the moment. In an article called Bleeding-heart ignoramuses, she ridicules the British media establishments anti-Jewish diatribes and the plain stupidity of some people’s analysis of the region. In the later category she points at an article by Matthew Parris that could well be the most poorly thought out “what Israel must do” article by someone who presumably does not want the extermination of all Jews in that country. The money quote being where he suggests that in order to be ‘loved’ by international opinion, Israel must return to its pre-1967 borders… and this at a time when the existing borders scant enough protection from long range attack. Parris writes:
That settlement has to be a return to her pre-1967 boundaries. Precisely because Israel is by no means forced to make so generous a move, the international support (even love) this would generate would secure her future permanently. It would bring her back within the pale.
So presumably if only Israel would place itself at the mercy of its sworn enemies, that magnificent body of strength and moral rectitude ‘the international community’ would make everything alright… after all, what is the value of mere survival if Kofi Anan, Jacques Chirac and several thousand Guardian readers in Islington think poorly of you? To which Burchill aptly replies:
Personally, I’d far prefer the Jews to be angry, aggressive and alive than meek, mild and dead – and that’s what makes me and a minority like me feel so much like strangers in our own country, now more than ever. I’ve always loved being a hack, but now even that feels weird, as though I’m living among a bunch of snatched-body zombies who look like journalists but believe and say the most inhuman, evil things.
Indeed. When Burchill is right, damn is she right.
I read that article yesyerday in Haaretz; yes she made some good points, but most of it simply confirmed my view of her as ‘barking’. I read most of the comments on the Haaretz website to her article; it’s pretty fair to say that they veered between the blind love and visceral loathing ends of the spectrum. The woman certainly is not bland, whatever else she is, but I don’t plan to adapt my belief system to hers yet awhile; I’m nowhere near that desperate 😉
I think its a good piece and the right tone about the nastiness eminating from some over Israel’s attempt to defend itself against attempts to wipe it off the face of the earth. I, too, find myself in an odd position agreeing with Ms Burchill.
Oh honey I hear you. I would not let the woman into my house but I do like to read her and I love “Sugar Rush”. As usual she is either wrong on a massive scale or oh so right. And this time she is oh so right.
I wondered where she’d gone to. She was a Times coloumnist a while back then dissapeared.
I, like Perry, love and loathe her in equal measure.
What she does best is to write witty polemics , deliberately taking the opposite view to the current norm.
On two things though, she has been consistent. Her loathing of Islam and her sentimental love of the old Soviet Union, because her dear old dad was a commie trade unionist organiser.
Her forte is to take a well known phrase or saying (cliche if you like) and cleverly re-work it for comic and stylistic effect.
She is indeed a very readable writer, and I agree wholeheartedly with this piece. Many others over the years though, have had me banging my head against the wall !
Honestly, you people! Are none of you aware of the o word – objectivity. The fact that Julie B is more frequently than not a narcissistic blowhard ignoramus like 99% of her journo colleagues, does not mean that like the stopped clock she can’t be right at least twice a day.
As for poor Matty P. – shouldn’t someone get him to a support group ASAP. His all Israel needs now is love, love, love is truly embarassing even for a super wussy.
It’s been 2 hours now guys, with this smite control nonsense (do explain the reason please)
It holds up the action.
Editor’s note: the Samizdata editors actually have off-line lives too. When someone is available, they clear the moderated comments, when they are not, it takes a while some times. We don’t get paid for this, you know. Cheers.
Explanation accepted 😉
But is Burchill’s admiration for Israel equally founded on a prejudice in favour of people who are angry and aggressive… as she is herself?
“and this at a time when the existing borders scant enough protection from long range attack,” is a bit of a non-sequitur, unless you imagine an Israel with a hundred or so kilometers of scorched earth all the way round, then it scarcely matters where the borders are, and a 1948-size Israel is not significantly more in danger of long range attack than the one imagined by some of the stranger Zionist loonies who think God promised everything between the Nile and the Euphrates. The size and shape of the country are militarily important only in the availability of interior lines, which Maj-Gen Sharon brilliantly demonstrated the availability of in the 1967 country.
What is daft about Parris’s thesis is his political claim and assumption – old Foreign Office man that he is, that conformance to the appropriate UN resolution will satisfy Israel’s enemies. It plainly wouldn’t – not because of all that guff about driving Israel into the sea – but because UN resolutions are all fictions of grievance: what’s needed is a real negotiation in which both sides believe the other will keep its word. The UN is what states resort to when they can’t get a deal, in order to to try to justify whatever they do next.
A lot of this stuff reminds me of the advice given by that old fraud Ghandi during WWII. When asked what an acceptable non-violent reaction to Hitler’s policy of vernichtung might be, he recommended the Jews all commit suicide. Stupid cunt.
Then I seriously question you grasp of the history of the area and the military realities of having no ability to defend in depth. Take a look at how narrow Israel’s pre-1967 borders are and then tell me that you think Israel is defensible against an enemy initiating an attack from the West Bank if it returned to the 1966 borders. Also remamber that Israel and Jordan were technically at war between 1948 and 1994.
And speaking of non-sequiturs, please point out where I call for “an Israel with a hundred or so kilometers of scorched earth all the way round”
Hey, I’ve got a good idea as Guy Herburt says the best way to stop terrorism from this tiny minority is to ignore them and increase freedom of movement, lets see Israel open its borders to mass immigration of millions of Muslims afterall it works for the UK.
No doubt when they become accustomed to Israeli lifestyle and freedoms they will have an almost miraculous transformation and turn into model Western liberals.
Dave,
I didn’t read what Guy said that way at all. The way I read it was “Don’t show them they are having any effect at all rather than open borders. In much the same way that you ignore a child having a tantrum.
Well yeah Dude! They’re children, and children love to play with matches.
No harm in it is there?
Sheesh!
I never said I agreed with it, just pointed out how I interpreted it using a simile.
Well done at constructing a strawman though.
Lousy simile Dude.
A good Jew once said…there will be wars and rumors of wars…people will be crying peace, peace! and there is no peace. I come not to bring peace but a sword.
I don’t have access to reading this Burchill lady at all, but I agree with her sentiment here. I wish Israel were escalating this war and BRINGIN IT!!! rather than lapsing to a fake and temporary peace, as fragile as a wisp of smoke in a windstorm.
Dear God, can you all please help me? I am battling with an idiot that keeps commenting on my blog about Israel being the true enemy in the Mid-East. I’ve had it. If anyone is so inclined, I would appreciate a reading of his missives below and then a click back to his site to provide him some sense of reality.
http://www.purplethink.com/epinion/Hezbollah.asp
Yes see your problem, Purplethink.
I’m afraid the poor godless homo would appear to have shit for brains, or is hedging his bets, in the hope that our fundamentalist friends will overlook his personal peccadillos and life choices when the BIG ONE comes. There goes another squadron of pigs past my window, probably on their way to bomb the Middle East!
In a running joke of my own,
Why are these wankers always called Thomas??
Or are they all the SAME one?
Julie Burchill has always been pro-Israel, and has articulated good reasons for being so.
She is an amusing writer, but this is one thing she has been strong and consistent about for 3 decades.
Matthew Parris was also hilarious by suggesting that until 40 odd years ago everything was sweetness and light for the Jews and Israel. Well yes, if you discount little things like the Holocaust, the pogroms, the pervasive antisemitism. Yes there was a brief period after the Six Day War when many people were pro-Israel, but in world history terms, that was the exception, not the rule.
Perry,
I didn’t suggest you had called for anything like that. You were referring to long-range attacks, however. Defense in depth is irrelevant to long-range attacks – missiles are in all our minds. It is also not of much use if you are defending a civilian population occupying your country up to its own borders. This is neither history nor tactics but geometry.
A thick boundary of scorched earth does however seem to be the current policy of the IDF in Lebanon, what with its instructions to the general population to leave the border zone. That does make tactical sense. If no one can approach you close enough for artillery bombardment, you are thereby defended. However, it is not calculated to win friends, which, whatever size your country is, is normally considered preferable to permanent war.
ktel,
Do you have a source for that?
It’s worth pointing out, to Matthew Parris and others, that the pre-’67 border with Lebanon is also the 2006 border with Lebanon. Even if you define the ’82 front line as a de-facto border at the time, Israel pulled back to the ’67 line in 2002
The results in this experiment don’t appear to accord with what he’s predicting would happen in the wider case.
Just saying.
Guy Herbert:
No, but the next best thing.
Geddit?
The fact that Haifa is being attacked but Ashkelon, Jerusalem and Beersheba are not is, as you say, a simple matter of geometry because they are out of range of Hezbollah rockets. But as Ashkelon, Jerusalem and Beersheba are out of range, clearly the distance from the borders do matter.
However you have read my remarks too narrowly. I said the current borders are “scant protection from long range attacks” because Israel is currently under long-range attack. However to return to the pre-1967 borders would make Israel untenable against any attack and hense to do that would be suicidal. I really cannot see how my remarks could be read any other way.
As democratically elected Hezbollah can attack Israel from its constituencies in Southern Lebanon, and as long as the Lebanese state cannot or will not prevent or greatly mitigate such attacks, having ‘friends’ in Lebanon does not make a blind bit of difference.
Yup, good ole geometry. Israel without the occupied territories is not defensible – 9 miles wide at its narrowest ins’t it? Similarly the occupied territories – the potential Palestinian state – are not feasible as an actual nation state. In short we have a complete bugger’s muddle.
Well, Israel is defensible, since the Israelis have shown time and again they can defend it. It helps to be massively more powerful militarily than your neighbours. But even when relatively much weaker, Israel was formidable.
The problem of borders is finding ones that enough people are content with that the rest can be easily seen off.
lets see now…
the 1956 war – pre-emptive attack by Israel.
the 1967 war – pre-emptive attack by Israel resulting in a modicum of defensive depth (the current borders).
Frankly the notion that with enemy start positions 9 miles from the Mediterranean, Israel could survive an enemy initiated attack is highly questionable. The only thing that makes the border with Egypt defensible is that Sinai is largely demilitarised and Israel would have plenty of warning if a future Egyptian government moved significant forces towards Israel’s frontier.