SULLIVAN v. WIESELTIER

What follows is not strictly literary, but might be of interest to my audience.

For all his flaws - an occasional propensity for obsession, hysterics, and self-regard - I'm generally an admirer of Andrew Sullivan's.  I also think that Leon Wieseltier is, for all his obvious brilliance, a monumental tool.  So I've watched the unfolding of their current spat with not a little interest.  What is most striking about the saga is how thoroughly both parties - but the normally acute Sullivan, in particular - appear to have missed what really girds Wieseltier's animus.

When I first read Wieseltier's overlong broadside, I emailed my agent and said, "But what I actually think is REALLY up Leon's nose - what the piece is REALLY about - is not at all about Israel, Jews or Sullivan.  It's about sloppy thinking by bloggers; it's really an indictment of the medium and the casual, shallow analysis it provokes - and I don't really think he is entirely wrong."

Wieseltier's response to Sullivan's response (are you keeping track?) really seems to validate this:

There will be times in which the emotion of the moment will overwhelm me, too--and those are the times in which I will choose not to write. I do not see that Sullivan’s hotheadedness absolves him of anything. He is not right because he is intemperate and he is not wrong because he is intemperate: he is merely explaining belief in terms of temperament, and mood, and identity, all of which have no bearing upon the substance of any discussion. Compose yourself, man, and think. For a deeply felt opinion may be false, and even pernicious. In intellectual life, volatility has no authority, and spontaneity is not a virtue, and neither is sincerity.

This is so clearly an indictment - richly deserved, I am inclined to agree despite being both a blogger and someone more disposed toward Sullivan than Wieseltier - on the medium and its practitioners.  It is, of course, patently absurd to accuse Sullivan of anti-semitism, even as obliquely as Wieseltier tries to do. I think what he takes to be Sullivan's blog's intellectual unseriousness is, in fact, the gravamen of his essay.  It feels like the desperate rage of a man incredulous at the authority and influence wielded by someone who represents everything that is opposed to his own life's work.  It is only incidentally about Israel and the Jews - it could just as easily have been about Sarah Palin, Iran, Prop 8 or any other topic Sullivan regularly writes about.

As someone who has fired off no shortage of Sullivan-esque emotional sidewinders in his day (something I have sought to moderate in the last few years for just these reasons), I do believe that Wieseltier is right - to an extent.  Where I think he fails, as many observers and critics of the so-called new media have also failed, is in expecting the rules to be the same across the board.  With the likes of Wieseltier, there's never an acknowledgement that different media serve different roles; instead, blogs merely lose for not behaving as print outlets behave.  Which is why Sullivan, with all his defects, is clearly the future, and Wieseltier, for all his virtues, represents the soon to be marginalized past. 

But that's a true loss.  Because for all of his own intemperate hysteria - go back and re-read his absurd review of Nicholson Baker's Checkpoint if you want to be reminded - Wieseltier does, on his best days, represent a tradition of inquiry, of contemplation and of intellectual rigor that is disappearing at a rapid clip these days. And that is something truly lamentable.  It's a shame that such important questions have been handed off to two such ill-suited representatives.  And that they truly seem to have missed the forest for the trees.  The problem deserves better.

UPDATE:  Cheers to TEV regular Niall for alerting us to this smart take at Gawker.  (Yes, you read that right.)  

Comments

[Matt]

I find little here to disagree with - and am interested to see how those who do disagree approach the subject.

[Anon.]

I respect your point of view, Mark, but I think you are seeing this in terms of warring modes of communication rather than the ideological debate it truly is. Take a look at a recent issue of The New Republic and at Peretz's blog, and you'll understand what this is all about. The magazine has become exceedingly thin, physically speaking, and while it has some great writers and good pieces, it has been a victim of its own preoccupations. (I say all this as a liberal Jew, one who perhaps would not fit in with the close-minded neoliberalism of TNR.) It's filled with dreadful, speciously reasoned, and frequently racist pieces from Marty Peretz, who is an awful writer and an equally bad thinker. The inside of the back cover of the Feb. 18 issue is devoted to a full-page advertorial from an organization called Facts and Logic in the Middle East, whose founder states that he's never met an Arab Muslim who's not a fanatic. Read more on them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Facts_and_Logic_About_the_Middle_East

Even in his response to Sullivan, Wieseltier called all polytheism "crude." About a billion adherents of Hinduism and other great religions would, of course, have reason to decry that as the racist that it clearly is.

Certain members of TNR -- like Wieseltier and certainly Marty Peretz -- simply can't handle how far their influence has fallen. Consider that Sullivan's blog has more readers than ALL of TNR -- print and web combined. They no longer control a large chunk of the political discourse in DC, as they once did. And the new political discourse that people like Sullivan, or J-Street, are driving for is one in which the U.S. is a close but not an unquestioning ally of Israel. In the eyes of TNR and Peretz, there is no such thing as valid criticism of Israel -- see for example, how cavalierly Peretz dismisses the settlement issue in any of his pieces.

As a Jew and someone who thinks TNR has a lot of talent behind it (Jonathan Chait, Cohn, Chotiner, Judis, even Wieseltier at times), I'm saddened to to see this once-great magazine abandon the liberal intellectual tradition from which it sprung. But in their politics, they have become truly illiberal, unable to examine themselves critically -- something Sullivan, for all his faults, does every day on his blog. So while there may be a blogging v. slow-thinking debate to be had here, what this fracas truly represents is the pitiful last gasp of a dying king, one who has become even more imperious and unhinged (though cloaked in Wieseltier's inimically orotund prose) as his influence quickly evaporates.

[Niall]

Sorry, but Wieseltier lost me when he started defending Krauthammer's pro-torture positions. And his comments about polytheism are just pure prejudice. Since he's arguing with Andrew Sullivan, he's in good company.

[Michael O'D]

I've been enjoying the back-and-forth between Sullivan and Wieseltier, just as I enjoyed Hitchens's spat with Alexander Cockburn and the editors of the Nation back when Hitchens left the magazine. I work in an office full of lawyers who love literature, and we all enjoy seeing literary writers marshal facts and construct an argument.

The strong consensus around here is that Sullivan has the better argument on the merits--i.e., the anti-Semitism issue. On the other hand, while opinion on Wieseltier's writing style is mixed, all agree that he has the best sentence by far with, "Sullivan is an athlete of regret."

[Niall]

Also, it's kind of shocking to hear Wieseltier right that sincerity doesn't matter. If we understand sincerity as accepting the obligation to be right, it's hard to see how sincerity could be dispensable in moral and political debate. Wieseltier is just flailing, though he doesn't seem to realize it.

[Niall]

And another corner heard from:

http://gawker.com/5472388/a-call-for-a-moratorium-on-cranky-old-writers-complaining-about-the-internet

[Uzi Silber]

Sullivan most certainly belongs to the Huffingtonian wing of Christianity and has apparently been nattered with a nabob of acute Buchananism. Though I may differ on details, Wieseltier's essential thrust on Sullivan is absolutely right.
Uzi Silber
americanames.blogspot.com

[Kit Stolz]

Sincerity is not a virtue in intellectual life? Is that really what he means to say?

Probably not. He probably means to say that sincerity must be tempered with other virtues, but the very fact that he is spontaneous and unguarded on this point shows that Leon, too, is human...and that the Internet snares us all, one way or another, in the web of human contact that is the 21st century.

It's not a question of either blogging or intellectual discourse, it's a question of how we learn to think out loud in public. Surely intellects have been known to manage that.

[Niall]

"Huffingtonian wing of Christianity"? Ha ha ha. That's just bizarre. As anyone who has read Sullivan can attest, he's a hysterical Catholic of a rather traditional sort.

[Niall]

Kit - Yeah, my point too. Wieseltier at this point is just like your old dad, blustering and yelling back at CNN, not making any sense, but convinced that he is. Sad. Though it is amusing (at least to me) to imagine him as a guest love interest on a lost episode of The Golden Girls.

[davmul]

Leon's remarks about sincerity were on target. How could Sullivan argue that he is vindicated by his sincerity? Sincerity is not a quality (unlike, say, irony) that anti-Semites tend to lack. Of course, Sullivan doesn't concede to Leon on this point (that is, the allegation of anti-Semitism), nor should he. One sympathizes with Andrew's flailing defense - how could it be otherwise when the charges are so vague? At first I thought that Leon was simply (as is his habit) unhinged again, but the more I think about it the more I sympathize with Leon.

Precisely because Andrew's blog is now so influential, because his voice reaches more than the TNR website and print edition combined, Andrew has an obligation to not be profligate and shallow in his thinking about topics like Gaza and settlements and war crimes. To offer 40 or 50 opinions a day isn't difficult. Standing behind them is difficult. It takes balls that this athlete of regret clearly does not have. And excusing sloppiness by retreating behind sincerity is, frankly, bunk.

I've read Sullivan regularly for about two years now, purely for entertainment, but his comments about the Middle East have often made me wince - not because I identify with Leon and Marty or disavow legitimately goodwilled organizations like J Street, but because this issue is deeper and more painful and less filled with positive solutions than Sullivan's thinking and dismissively unrigorous arguments admit.

Optimism about these issues has faded generally since Oslo collapsed, even among former optimists (read Benny Morris's latest, for example). The narrative that portrays Israeli Jews as racist landgrabbers and Palestinians as subjugated innocents is a savage simplification of the problems. Rhetoric that veers thither needs to be heavily examined before publication - maybe more heavily than blogging allows.

Sullivan clearly doesn't harbor any conscious hostility toward Jews, but there's some form of institutional bigotry his comments are guilty of - since he's now an institution. He's not just a guy in a bar mouthing off over a pint. Leon's correct to point this out, though unhinged, beautifully, as usual.

[Niall]

" How could Sullivan argue that he is vindicated by his sincerity? Sincerity is not a quality (unlike, say, irony) that anti-Semites tend to lack."

Sullivan doesn't make this argument. It's a figment of your imagination. Sullivan provides an in-depth, objective response to Wieseltier's attack, which apparently you haven't read.

"Precisely because Andrew's blog is now so influential, because his voice reaches more than the TNR website and print edition combined, Andrew has an obligation to not be profligate and shallow in his thinking about topics like Gaza and settlements and war crimes."

In other words, he needs to be sincere about wanting to be objective and right? Just asking.

"but because this issue is deeper and more painful and less filled with positive solutions than Sullivan's thinking and dismissively unrigorous arguments admit. "

Positive solutions for whom? You can only be referring to the Palestinians, since the Israelis are sitting in the catbird seat these days. They have effectively divided the Palestinians, politically and geographically, and now enjoy a level of tranquility and prosperity unprecedented in the last 20 years.

Why is it wrong to discuss the Palestinian issue in terms of sincerity, but perspicacious to discuss it in terms of optimism vs. pessimism? I don't see a difference. Optimism is not a quality that anti-semites tend to lack. So you must be wrong. Right?

"Sullivan clearly doesn't harbor any conscious hostility toward Jews, but there's some form of institutional bigotry his comments are guilty of - since he's now an institution. "

Hmm. Kind of like distinguishing between Jews who are consciously anti-Palestinian from those that are not? And doesn't this difference between "conscious" opposition and "unconscious opposition" itself have a sordid history, from Robespierre to Pol Pot?

When you stop arguing like Andrew Sullivan, perhaps I might start agreeing with you.

[davmul]

I don't think I ever said that it's "wrong to discuss the Palestinian issue in terms of sincerity." I argued that it's stupid to defend an opinion by referring to the sincerity with which it is held. Opinions are defended by arguments. If I'm unswayed by your reasons, why would I be persuaded by your sincerity?

Andrew said, "I have Irish blood and a Catholic conscience. Seeing this happen in real time was as vivid for me as it was watching the people of Iran last June. There will be times in which the emotion of the moment overwhelms me."

So it's not a figment of my imagination. Now that that's out of the way...

Sorry, Niall, the rest of your post is just opaque to me. (Yes, opaque is a bland euphemism, but there's not much point to being sincere here at least.)

I suppose it's just one short step from faulting Sullivan for empty, thoughtless rhetoric to posting his head on a pike at the city gates . . . Is that your point about Pol Pot and Robbespierre?

Well, golly, it looks like you have a problem with dichotomies: conscious/unconscious, right/left, optimistic/pessimistic. And you've found it's not hard to drive a little wedge through each one of them. Congratulations, but it doesn't make you Mirabeau.

Israel's unprecedented prosperity comes after two wars in the last four years, following the horrors of Hezbollah and Hamas rockets and an epidemic of suicide bombings, followed by the shadow of a nuclear Iran. If this is the catbird seat, you can keep it.

Of course this must imply that I hate Palestinians, deny their suffering, absolve Israelis of their culpability therein, etc., right?

That's simply Peretz and Wieseltier in reverse, isn't it?

[Niall]

Davmul -

Since I responded only to verbatim quotes from your post, it's a failure strategy to distort what I was responding to. You said that Sullivand claimed he was "vindicated by his sincerity". Your words, not mine. I replied that he hadn't done that. You have yet to offer any proof that he has, relative to himself, the Palestinians, or Lady Gaga's fashion sense. It may well be true that defending your opinion solely on the basis of its sincerity is silly, but Sullivan hasn't done this. End of story. Andrew said many, many more things before he made his comment about "Irish blood". You have to take the entirety of his response into account, not just one sentence. You are simply cutting and pasting to suit the mannequin of your error.

I don't know why the rest of my post is "opaque" to you. You criticized Sullivan for supposedly appealing to a psychological predisposition to justify his position (sincerity). Then in the next breath you base your own condemnation of Sullivan on an equally subjective, psychological set of predispostions (optisim vs. pessimism.) So by the standards of your own critique of Sullivan, you must be wrong. Right?

"I suppose it's just one short step from faulting Sullivan for empty, thoughtless rhetoric to posting his head on a pike at the city gates . . . Is that your point about Pol Pot and Robbespierre?"

Well, this is Wieseltier's critique of the distinction between "good Jews and bad Jews" made by Sullivan, a critique you are defending. I'm merely applying that same logic to your position. Deal with it.

I don't have a problem with dichotomies. I'm merely constructing mine in response to yours. You don't seem to have any problem with your own.

As for Israel: You do know that Hamas was founded with the financial, political and logistical support of Israel? A fact that is well documented. Israel's strategy was to create a fundamentalist Islamic counterpole to Fatah's secular ideology. Something at which they succeeded brilliantly. They have succeeded in dividing and conquering the Palestinian movement. Mazel tov.

And when I say Israel is enjoying more security and prosperity than it has in 20 years, I can only be referring to the terrorist horrors of the last 20 years. Like, duh.

As I said, when you stop arguing like Andrew Sullivan, I might start listening to you.

[davmul]

Well, Niall, I didn't say that he defended it SOLELY on the basis of his sincerity, did I? (Where's the verbatim quote on that, Lady Gaga?)

Surely, you know, Niall, that at the time Hamas was "created" by Israel, the Palestinians were already a totally conquered people. The West Bank, Golan Heights, and Gaza had been occupied for two decades, while Israel had evicted the PLO from Lebanon, and was occupying southern Lebanon. Are you saying that the Israelis "created" (scare quotes, for surely you don't even mean to suggest that they helped write Hamas's vile charter) Hamas at this point to weaken the Palestinians? Really? They are more divided and conquered now than they were in '87 or '88? What kind of infinitesimal measuring stick are you using? Does the difference matter to anyone?

And forgive me for misinterpreting your "catbird" comment. With wars in '06 and '08 and a third on the horizon, I should have known your comments referred to a very small window of time. As Andrew would say, the emotion of the moment must have overwhelmed me.

[Niall]

"I didn't say that he defended it SOLELY on the basis of his sincerity, did I?"

Er, yes. Because vindication is like perfection, it admits of no halfway houses unless expicitly defined. Had you said, "How can Sullivan think he is partially vindicated by sincerity?", we'd have no quarrel. But that's not what you said. You made it seem as though he staked the entirety of his vindication on his sincerity. A position you obviously now see as wrong, otherwise you wouldn't be trying to qualify the originally unqualified.

As for Hamas and Israel's support for it: Obviously Israel saw the need, even if you don't. And you can't both maintain that the Palestinians were an entirely subjugated people who posed no threat to Israel, and in the next breath rail against the terrorist atrocities perpetrated by the Palestinians against Israel during exactly the same period. That's called "obvious contradiction".

Give it up, mary.

[davmul]

From Merriam Webster:
(http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/vindicate)

"Vindicate: ...

(3) to provide justification or defense for"

Niall, I imagine you run around with all kinds of definitions of words and little private rules of language (though, of course, Wittgenstein denies such exist), and I support your right to do so, AS LONG AS you don't enforce your little whims (such as fiats against mythical halfway houses) on others.

And so, Niall, I'd like to let this go, but I think you should explain your conspiracy in greater detail. (It's a winner.) Israel needed to create an ultraviolent paramilitary organization, endure two decades of unimaginable violence, only to bring us to this boundless period of growth and tranquility, is that it?

And what were all those assassinations - Yassin and Mishal (attempted anyway) and etc. -just encouragement? Go get 'em boys!?

[davmul]

Niall wrote: (since you prefer direct quotation)

"Because vindication is like perfection, it admits of no halfway houses unless expicitly defined. Had you said, "How can Sullivan think he is partially vindicated by sincerity?", we'd have no quarrel."

If vindication, like perfection, admits of no halfway houses, why would it be all right if I had said "How can Sullivan think he is PARTIALLY vindicated?" Wouldn't that be like saying he is partially perfect . . . ? Heresy.

[Erika D.]

My go-to source on Sullivan v. Wieseltier is Jeffrey Goldberg:

http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2010/02/andrew_sullivans_response.php

http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2010/02/weighing_in_on_leon_wieseltier.php

[Niall]

Davmul -

Wieseltier is clearly condemning Sullivan on the pretext that Sullivan thinks his sincerity is all he needs to be right. A condemnation you repeated without qualificaition. I merely pointed out that Sullivan said nothing of the kind, something you've been unable to disprove. To say that Sullivan isn't solely relying on his sincerity is simply to drop the original claim. Because if he's also really on other things - like facts and logic - then Wieseltier's criticism becomes trivial and meaningless. As does your repetition of it.

Israel's early support for Hamas is very well documented and not at all controversial, even within Israel. For an in depth exploration of this involvement, start with "Kill Khalid: The Failed Mossad Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise of Hamas" by Paul McGeough.

By supporting Hamas, Israel has fatally crippled Palestinian unity, as we see now. Which is something Israel only benefits from. As I said, mazel tov.

[davmul]

So - the sincerity thing again. Still at it, or only partially at it? (You did say we'd have no problem if I said "partially vindicated," didn't you? Were you - gasp! - wrong?)

Anyway, I have a feeling your heart's not in it anymore (your burden of proof is godawfully high), so I'll just drop it. (I don't think I ever said that I endorse Leon's "facts and logic." Usually words like "unhinged" don't constitute an endorsement - I doubt they'll be printed on his next book jacket. I just said that Sullivan's sincerity was quite beside the point.)

But really, what utter foolishness, Niall. Israel has "supported" Hamas by killing it's leaders, starving its constituency, and bombing its infrastructure? All to achieve the goal of fracturing Palestinian unity? When have the Palestinians ever been united?

What you're getting at, but clearly lack the courage to say, is obviously some chickens-coming-home-to-roost libel - or worse, that Israel strategically inflicted Hamas's violence campaign on its own citizenry in order to obtain the goal of a divided adversary.

It's worse than mere foolishness - it's sick and demented.

Yes, Israel had a role in the creation of civic groups that came to be known as Hamas. But the theocratic, violent, millenarian junta that came to rule Gaza owes its existence far more to the violent regime that's currently slaughtering its own people on the streets of Teheran and in show-trial executions.

That Hamas received early support from Israel for charitable, civic purposes is, as you say, uncontroversial. That it derived its inspiration (read their charter), tactics (suicide bombing), and money (read McGeough's book) from Iran - or from Iran via Hezbollah - is equally uncontroversial.

[Niall]

I'm not saying the "chickens have come homt to roost". I'm saying that Israel has successfully pursued a long-term strategic objective of terminally crippling the political unity of the Palestinians, a goal they have obviously achieved. And Israel did much more than fund "civic groups" that "eventually" became Hamas. It was an explicit goal of Israeli intelligence to create a religious Islamic Palestinian movement to undermine Fatah. Again, this is well documented. Israel is now enjoying the fruits of that long-term strategic planning. Good for them.

Nice to see you now reject Wieseltier's criticism of Sullivan. That's progress at least.

[davmul]

It's progress in your reading comprehension skills. It's not nothing, but it won't make my day.

The goal wasn't to "cripple the unity of the Palestinians." From the time of the Ottomans there has been no unity among Palestinians. There was never a sovereign Palestinian state between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. (For one little thing, a united populace just might have 'figgered out a way to not become completely dispossessed of title to their land.) But, having evicted Arafat and the PLO from Beirut to Tunis, the Israeli government recognized the need to create civic institutions with the eventual goal of creating a peace partner.

The Palestinian populace was never less united than when you say Israel came up with their arch plan.

No Israeli I know - in the absence of such a partner - currently views himself as "sitting in the catbird seat." To suggest otherwise - and you do more than suggest - is vile.

[Niall]

Prior to Hamas, Fatah was the only game in town, and reigned in both Gaza and the West Bank. Now Palestinians are in the midst of a civil war, with Fatah barely clinging to any real influence.

That this was Israel's goal is easy to see. If it were not, they would never have stood by and let Hamas drive Fatah out of the Gaza Strip. They would never have allowed Hamas to take control. Yet they didn't lift a finger to stop Hamas. Even though, supposedly, Hamas is their mortal enemy. Why do you suppose that happened? Because (a) it accomplished the division of Palestinian politics, and (b) bottled Hamas up in Gaza where they could be dealt with at Israel's leisure.

We are witnessing the end game of the Israel-Palestine conflict. Israel will continue to cantonize the West Bank and drive Palestinians out of East Jerusalem. THere will be no Palestinian state, only scattered Palestinian settlements surrounded by Israeli settlers and security zones. Gaza will continue to languish, and the Israelis have no reason to see that they cease to. Israel will soon strike a deal with Syria over the Golan Heights, the price of which will be ceasing to help the Palestinians.

That's it. The end.

[davmul]

Not satisfied to make up your own private language, you've now constructed your own private middle east history. None of what you've written corresponds to facts that any historian would endorse. It's talking out of your ass, nothing more.

"Fatah was the only game in town" - except that there leadership had been expelled, not just from the country, but the entire continent. "Now the Palestinians are in the midst of a civil war, with Fatah barely clinging to any real existence" - except the civil war began two years BEFORE Israel's most recent war to evict Hamas from Gaza (which shows that Israel wasn't happy about Hamas's hegemony over Gaza, I think).

For God's sake, make some sense.

Israel occupied both Gaza and the West Bank from 1967 until their withdrawal in 2005. From 1994 to their withdrawal, administrative control in Gaza was vested in the Palestinian Authority under the Oslo Acccords. Until 2006, there was a joint Hamas-Fatah government in Gaza; following the elections in 2006 and the factional fighting that ensued thereafter, Fatah was evicted from Gaza and Hamas reigned.

"Yet they didn't lift a finger to stop Hamas." DId Operation Cast Lead just not happen in your universe? Were you in a coma? Read the Goldstone report if you don't believe me. Should they have invaded before your precious Fatah was evicted? Under what pretense - upturning the results of a democratic election the whole world was calling for and the legitimacy of which hasn't been called into question?

And of course, since the founding of Hamas by Israel, in the secret scheme as you allege, the government of Israel has made legitimate land-for-peace offers in Oslo in the early 90's, Camp David in 2000, among others. To believe in your conspiracy theory, one must disavow Rabin's and Barak's offers as bald fictions.

And if Syria could get a jar of marbles for disavowing the Palestinians, they would take it and give you change. They will hold out, as they always have, for full restoration of the Golan, and they won't be getting it soon.

[Niall]

""Fatah was the only game in town" - except that there leadership had been expelled, not just from the country, but the entire continent."

Er...when was this? As I recall, in 2005 there were elections for a Palestinian parliament in...Ramallah. A parliament controlled by Fatah. How could this happend if they weren't even on the continent?

""Now the Palestinians are in the midst of a civil war, with Fatah barely clinging to any real existence" - except the civil war began two years BEFORE Israel's most recent war to evict Hamas from Gaza (which shows that Israel wasn't happy about Hamas's hegemony over Gaza, I think)."

Yes..and? There's nothing in my analysis that requires Hamas to only have opposed Fatah after the Israeli invasion of the Gaza Strip. This is very tortured logic. Particularly since my point is that from the beginning Hamas was tolerated because it opposed and undermined Fatah.

""Yet they didn't lift a finger to stop Hamas." DId Operation Cast Lead just not happen in your universe? Were you in a coma? "

Operation Cast Lead happened quite a while after Hamas evicted Fatah. And the operation itself could have been avoided if Israel had refused to allow Fatah to be expelled from Gaza. The fact remains that Israel did nothing to prevent this.

"And of course, since the founding of Hamas by Israel, in the secret scheme as you allege, the government of Israel has made legitimate land-for-peace offers in Oslo in the early 90's, Camp David in 2000, among others."

How does this refute any of my points? Why wouldn't Israel pursue peace in public and undermine their enemies in private? Anyway, as I've mentioned, the evidence for Israel's support for the founding and success of Hamas is overwhelming, and publicly accepted.

[Neil]

The Sullivan-Wieseltier cage match has infiltrated our salon. Say it ain't so.

[davmul]

"How could this happend if they weren't even on the continent?"

Because Arafat and his cohort were allowed back as part of the Oslo process in 1993, many years AFTER Hamas was created (at which time you say Fatah was the only game in town). How could you comment as you have and not know this?

"Operation Cast Lead happened quite a while after Hamas evicted Fatah." 18 months. That's what you're hanging your argument on?

"And the operation itself could have been avoided if Israel had refused to allow Fatah to be expelled from Gaza." According to you, it was in Israel's interest to avoid it (i.e. to sustain the divide between Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza). So if they could have avoided it, why didn't they just leave Hamas in place in Gaza? (Obviously according to you the government could care less about the loss of a few civilians to mortar and rocket fire.)

"The evidence for Israel's support for the founding and success of Hamas is overwhelming, and publicly accepted." This is a lie. Presumably by "success" you mean growth of influence in the region, and that was achieved through the success of their suicide bombing campaign and a pervasive, reductionist, anti-Semitic message combined with state backing from Iran and others, nothing else. There's no evidence - not a shred - of Israel's support for this or any other of Hamas's "military" endeavors. It's a vile smear, pure garbage.

[davmul]

Well, Neil (not Niall), the funny thing is this little debate (soon to conclude, because I'm wasting too much time on it) has given me a new appreciation of both both positions, that is, Leon's and Andrew's. I can sympathize with Leon's rage (without endorsing his "facts and reasons") over the insouciant smears hurled via broadband (and often the smearers don't think deeply enough - or bother to inform themselves enough - to recognize their smears as smears); and on the other hand (though it appears less frequently in my posts above) I sympathize with Andrew's exasperation at Israel, her leaders, and her constituent crazies - for not making it easier always to assert Israel's moral high ground and dismiss the obvious libels. (Andrew himself would I'm sure agree that the moral high ground comes at a ghastly price. Who could always pay it?)

[(The Other) Niall]

A lengthy review of Kill Khalid, including a discussion of the extent to which Israel supported Hamas as a wedge against Fatah and the nature of that support:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n09/adam-shatz/mishals-luck

[Niall]

Other Niall -

But isn't the LRB anti-semitic? Just kidding.

[davmul]

Interesting article.

1. Does this illustrate how "the evidence for Israel's support for the founding and success of Hamas is overwhelming, and publicly accepted", as Niall the FIrst alleges? (For that to be true, the assassination of Mishal would have to have been PURPOSELY botched by Israel, which neither the article nor McGeough's book alleges.) Indeed, the opposite was the case. The Israeli view at the time (1997): "He [Mishal] was too credible as a leader of Hamas, persuasive even. He had to be taken out." Killing their most persuasive leader wouldn't seem like an ideal Israeli strategy to "support" Hamas's "success", would it?

How else did Israel "support" Hamas's success? The article kindly elaborates: "prisons of the IDF and Palestinian Authority, a pitiless blockade, international isolation, the 'targeted' assassination of many of its leaders."

2. As for the "Palestinian Unity" that had to be destroyed, and the formidability of Fatah: "In 1983 Mishal and his Kuwaiti allies presented their 'project' to a meeting of the Muslim Brotherhood in Amman. Arafat and his soldiers had recently been expelled from Lebanon, and the PLO, exiled to Tunis, had never been so far from achieving independence, or so directionless."

3. On Israel's support for the founding of Hamas: "Hamas was established on . . . 9 December 1987. Mishal's first assignment, as head of the Palestinian Apparatus, was to raise money in the Gulf so that Yassin's followers could undergo weapons training in Jordan. Tipped off by an informer, Israel jailed Yassin." Sounds like a real helping hand!

In fairness, the article does say that Israel supported Yassin, who "promoted social works and religious instruction." But the article also makes clear this was PRIOR to the founding of Hamas - and once he was implicated with weapons he was jailed.

And they were allowed to receive "substantial funds" during the first two years of the intifada - from "Hamas-affiliated charities in Europe, the US, and the Gulf". For what purpose? To build "a vast network of schools, daycare centres, hospitals, and athletic clubs." Gee, the doesn't sound to me like the Israelis were supporting the paramilitary/terrorist activities that became and are what Hamas is all about. The article quotes from their charter - which I won't do - but perhaps someone should read it, and try to defend it.

But that's it. No further support (if the above could be called support) is alleged or implied by the article. It is, in fact, only a slightly more elaborate refutation of Niall #1's garbage than what I've essayed in my posts above.

I'm sure to be accused of cherry-picking quotes. But if there's a counterargument to me made from other quotes in the article I just can't see it. Please do go ahead and try.

"But isn't the LRB anti-semitic?" I have no quibble with it.

[Niall]

Davmul is either illiterate or chronically mendacious. Here are the money quotes from the review which Davmul conveniently failed to cite:

"Yassin’s involvement in weapons training came as a shock to many Israelis; even today there are figures in Israeli intelligence who insist that his guns were pointed at Fatah. Ever since they occupied Gaza, the Israelis had been cultivating Yassin – a Muslim Brother who’d been jailed by Egypt – in their struggle against Palestinian nationalism, much as the Americans had supported the Afghan mujahedin."

"While secular nationalists mobilised against the occupation, in strikes and guerrilla attacks, Yassin promoted social works and religious instruction. Overlooking his belief that ‘re-education’ was only preparation for the impending jihad, the Israelis regarded him as a tactical ally against the PLO. In the early 1970s, while Israel repressed any stirrings of nationalist resistance, Yassin was permitted to open up the Islamic Centre, an umbrella organisation that included a mosque, a clinic, a kindergarten, a festival hall and a headquarters for an alms committee; with the occupier’s approval he was soon receiving considerable funds from the Gulf.

In the mid-1980s, the military governor of Gaza gave a succinct summary of Israel’s relationship to Yassin: ‘The Israeli government gives me a budget and the military government gives it to the mosques.’ After a trip to Gaza in 1985, Daniel Kurtzer, an official at the US embassy in Tel Aviv, barged into a meeting of Shimon Peres’s advisers and asked them: ‘Have you guys lost your minds? Do you ever learn from history? Do you know what you’re doing in Gaza as we speak? . . . You really think you can tame these guys?’ When Gazan Islamists wanted to cross over to the West Bank in support of their comrades in clashes with Fatah, the Israelis let them through. As one official explained to McGeough, ‘they’ll only be beating each other up.’

In fact, Yassin and other Islamists inside the Occupied Territories were drawing the same lessons from the revolutionary Islamic struggles in Iran, Afghanistan and Lebanon as Mishal and his comrades were in the diaspora: that the gradualist philosophy of the Brothers should give way to the rifle. In its 1988 charter, Hamas proclaimed its desire to ‘raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine’ and depicted the Zionist project as the latest chapter of a Jewish conspiracy for world domination that had begun with the French Revolution, and continued with the Russian Revolution and two world wars. Yet the Israelis continued to indulge Hamas during the first few years of the intifada, focusing their repression on the secular National Unified Leadership of the Uprising, and allowing the Islamists to receive substantial funds from abroad."

Quite a different picture from innocently funding children's tea parties and soccer games, unaware of Hamas' real intentions.

[davmul]

Niall, please. As our 43rd president demonstrated, glib and thick is an awful combination.

The article clearly speaks of Hamas as an organization that was founded on a certain date. It even specifies the date, 9 December 1987. Prior to that Hamas didn't exist. Almost every event in the quotes you cited, culminating in the confrontation between Kurtzer and Peres's advisors in '85, happened well before that date.

Leaving that crucial fact aside, the article makes clear that Israel's role was entirely passive: they provided no funds, arms, training, tactical or strategic assistance to Hamas. There was financial assistance to Yassin, well before 1987. But as the article makes clear, there was a time when Yassin's organization turned from Dawa activities to paramilitary activities. The article makes no claim that Israel supported the latter, or provided any assistance after the founding of Hamas, beyond passively allowing funds to flow in "during the first few years of the Intifada."

That Israeli intelligence is often incompetent - that's the point of McGeough's book, after all - is indeed well established. That they strategically funded Hamas with the long term goal of putting themselves "in the catbird seat" is absurd. If anything, this passive allowance of outside funds to reach Hamas in its infancy represents a colossal failure of strategic thinking, not evidence of Israeli strategists conniving to divide and conquer the Palestinians.

Hamas didn't learn how to strap bombs to brainwashed teenagers from the Israelis. They learned it from their Iranian sponsors.

In other words, no matter how you pretend otherwise, the article - even in the quotes you cherry pickn ignoring all the ones I cited above - does not establish your claim that "the evidence for Israel's support for the founding and success of Hamas is overwhelming, and publicly accepted."

[Niall]

davmul -

Now you are just lying. Sorry. But to allow Hamas into Gaza to fight Fatah isn't "passivity". It's an active strategy. When Israel allows Hamas to arm itself, that's not "passivity". That's also an active strategy.

Anyway, the quotations I provide decisively refute your own dishonest digest. Game over, man.

[davmul]

Again, Niall, the event you're referring to happened prior to the creation of Hamas. That's why they're referred to as "Gazan militants" rather than Hamas militants or fighters. But for the sake of argument let's ignore that fact and allow that Israel stood idly by and allowed rival Palestinian groups to fight each other, even to kill each other on the assumption that "they'll only be beating each other up." (It's true that during the Intifada as many Palestinians were killed by other Paletinians - in reprisal for "collaborating" - as were killed by Israeli soldiers.) I'll even stipulate the point that Israelis knew the money they failed to seize during the first few years of the Intifada were used to purchase arms (though it is nowhere stated in the article.)

Now I believe I've just listed the entirety (with my stipulations) of the evidence you use to support your claim that (1) "Hamas was founded with financial, political, and logistical support of Israel"; (2) "Israel is now enjoying the fruits of longterm strategic planning"; (3) "Israel has successfully pursued a longterm strategic objective of terminally crippling the political unity of the Palestinians, a goal they have obviously achieved."

Again, you've grounded those three premises on the fact that, prior to the Intifada Israel failed to sequester Palestinian militants and allowed foreign cash to reach Hamas coffers in the first 3 or 4 years of it's existence.

Many other of your factual claims have been refuted above without rebuttal from you.

Now I think I'm being charitable in my assumptions, and I think the defects in your reasoning are obvious. So I'll leave it at that. You may rest happily in the catbird seat.

On another topic, I must say I feel vindicated (not just partially) in my armchair character profiling of you - for with certainty I declared that when truly vanquished you would vacate the battlefield and declare victory. How did I know? Maybe it was the way you seem to be playing to the crowd. I wonder if you would have argued any differently had you assmued (as is no doubt truly the case) that there is no one reading this but you and me. Perhaps Mark checks in once in a while to make sure we haven't exchanged death threats (but the father of an infant surely has more important things in his mind than Middle East peace) but I'd venture that's the extent of your audience, Niall.

OK, game over.

[Niall]

I have demonstreated that (a) Israel supporte Hamas from its beginnings, (b) that it expected to us Hamas as a military force against Fatah, (c) that it indeed allowed Hamas to operate in that fashion, and that (d) the fruit of this is what we see now in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Prove me wrong.

[davmul]

OK, I'll take that as a challenge. I'll be as Euclidean as I can.

I take the following to be your thesis: Israel supported Hamas from its conception - financially, logistically, and politically - to the present. The goal was to divide the Palestinians between Fatah and Hamas, thus weakening them and allowing Israelis to establish and expand settlements in the West Bank. The present state of affairs represents a realization of that goal (in the sense that the Palestinians are now "fatally crippled.")

I hope this is a fair summary of your views. You'll let me know where you differ.

I won't even take seriously your ridiculous assertion that Israel "used" Hamas as a military force. i'll let you rest or fall on the weaker (i.e., harder to disprove) notion that Israel merely provided support.

For your thesis to be true all of the following propositions must also be true:

1. The arrests of Yassin, the attempted assassination of Mishal, the assassination of Yassin, Operation Cast Lead, various other assassinations and thousands of arrests - all of these were charades. For why would Israel consciously deal blows to Hamas when they were yet to assume parity with Fatah? If their goal was to build Hamas to a force equal to Fatah, they should have been backing them throughout the '90s and early '00s. And in early 2009 their goal should have been to preserve at all costs Hamas's hegemony in Gaza, rather than trying to evict them. So all of the above must have been just for show.

2. Israeli participation in peace conferences over the period were insincere. For Israel to make peace with the Palestinians they would need the Palestinian populace to be as unified as possible behind their peace partner - i.e., Arafat and Fatah. To the extent that Israel undermined Fatah - from Madrid through Wye River through Oslo through Annapolis - and built up Hamas (sworn in their charter to deny Israel's right to exist and to subvert the peace process) they were torpedoing the chance of coming to an agreement.

3. All of Israel's leaders over the time period were complicit in the plan to support Hamas. All of this, of course, implies a Nixonian (Shylockian?) level of evil cunning from 7 different prime ministers and 8 different governments - Labor, Likud, and Kadima.

4. U.S. support for Palestinians - $2 Billion since 2007, ALL OF IT given to the PA, not Hamas - was in direct contravention of Israel's true interest. (I guess Walt and Mearsheimer are wrong - how strong could the Israel lobby be if we're subsidizing their enemies?) See (http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RS22967.pdf).

5. Israelis believed that the goal of a Fatah/Hamas split was so valuable that they were willing to sustain their covert support for Hamas even after a sustained suicide bombing campaign that terrorized their citizenry.

If any of those 5 statements is true, your thesis is false. I think it's self-evident that each is false. I could add more, but if none of those is sufficient your bar is elevated above the empirical to the metaphysical, i.e., a level at which nothing is provable.

Therefore, enough.

Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

[Niall]

Prove me wrong. I'm still waiting.

[davmul]

Ah, glib and thick: you really should run for governor of Texas.

Where did I fail?

[TEV]

OK, gentlemen, and with that I respectfully ask that we close the book on this and agree to disagree. We've wandered a bit off the script here, and I encourage all manner of disagreement but I think this one is a hopeless case - it has eluded many others besides you two and, as highly as I think of my readership, I doubt the seeds of Middle East peace will be found here. So let's call it a day - but you both do receive an honorary endurance citation.