Daniel's (Finkelstein) piece was well put, but it was still wrong in logic and implications.
If Israel is to be a nation like any other, it must be bound be the same principles and behaviors that other nations are.
You cannot advocate, as Daniel implicitly does in that piece, for Israel's having a special status, somewhere up in the clouds, above all the rest of toiling humanity, able to make god-like decisions over the fates of millions of others.
And although I cannot help being emotionally affected by appeals to hideous events of three-quarters of a century ago - a subject, by the way, I am well-read on - still the truth is that almost no one alive on the planet was even alive then. And certainly the poor Palestinians did nothing to hurt the Jewish people.
We have an ugly reality today that must be rationally dealt with. Endless appeals to the past are actually not helpful in eliciting reason and fairness. And Israel's actions were best characterized by Rabbi Lerner.
Please see, in a while, Daniel's blog on the principle of reciprocity in violence to which I have written an extensive comment. If he doesn't post it, I'll submit it here later.
Unfortunately, Daniel in his column yesterday, did follow the practice that is too common at The Times with regular columns and news stories - that is, he published only favorable or unchallenging comments, at the point I looked.
This practice I must say has not applied to your blog, Mr. Kamm, nor, in the past, to Daniel's. We get some meaningful exchanges, all too rare a thing in the mainline press.
IS THIS TO BE ISRAEL'S STATUS AMONGST NATIONS?
AND THIS IS TO BE THE REGULAR RESULT?
