The Red Cross Ambulance Incident

This is one of three posts today from Michael Pugliese, who has become a one-man source of web sites in support of Israel.

I'm sending this to another socialist list in addition to SocialistsUnmoderated, and to the Middle East list. Those eager to find refutations of any criticism of Israel, have only to write to Michael for a host of web sites.

But this one, of his three, does deserve a response. I know that I'm opinionated, grouchy, arrogant, and cursed with what happens to us all once we pass forty - the feeling we know it all, have been there, done that, and have little patience, and do not suffer fools gladly. For this, my apologies. For I am often in error, always have much to learn, and wish humility were more often my companion.

I printed out seven pages listing the Advisory Editors of Engage, and found among them Ralph Seliger, of Meretz USA, with whom I've corresponded at length; Alan Johnson, a socialist who pubishes an on-line journal; and Arieh Lebowitz, with whom I'm in frequent contact and who is a Vice-President of Meretz USA. These, and others, are good people.

A quick glance at the biographies shows that most of the Advisory Editors are involved in some way in the Jewish community, dealing with anti-Semitism, the Holocaust, etc. Many of the Advisory Editors would, I think, accept the term as being "left-Zionists".

However I would hope all of the Advisory Editors would want to distance themselves from the remarkable and long article which alleges that Israel did not attack a Red Cross vehicle in Lebanon.

I say this because, without getting into the pros and cons of that particular air strike, the Israelis so clearly had deliberately targeted civilian targets (including a UN post) that for a group of intellectuals to devote so much time to a dispute on whether or not a Red Cross vehicle was deliberately hit is a bit like people who argue that Hitler didn't really kill six million Jews but only 600,000. (And I make no apology at all for the Holocaust reference, because the State of Israel virtually turned the Holocaust into a "political commodity", and has used it, not as an object lesson in the horrors of the 20th century, but as an automatic defense of whatever Israel might be doing at any particular moment).

At this time, when about 1000 civilians were killed in Lebanon as a result of the Israeli air strikes, it is in very poor taste, and in my view intellectually indefensible, for a group to spend time taking on one case - whether or not the Israeli's struck a Red Cross vehicle (another web site that Michael sent does the same kind of "Israeli propaganda" on the Qana tragedy).

The reality is that Israel launched a major war on Lebanon, that in military terms it lost (in terms of the world's perception it lost very very badly - nothing has harmed the Israeli image as deeply since the events at Jenin), and that the material Michael Pugliese forwarded is particularly odious because while Hezbollah's rockets were clearly "random", could hit military targets only by accident, and can be excused (if at all) only on the grounds they were fired AFTER the Israeli air strikes began, the Israeli military possesses smart bombs, guided missiles, etc. etc. ad naseum, so that, given such "precision ability" the striking of the UN base, the hit on the Red Cross vehicle, the destructions of bridges, of apartment buildings, etc., is utterly indefensible. Indeed, the Israeli actions have been condemned as war crimes and violations of the laws of war by experts in the international community.

Lebanon is in the midst of dealing with the illegal cluster bombs used by the Israelis. The whole world has seen the massive destruction inflicted by "the bully in the neighborhood". I would hope that "Engage"would look more deeply at the reality, that its editors and advisors would take a careful look at what is being put out by the editors of this British publication.

The material Michael Pugliese has sent - in all three posts today, but I am responding only to this one - is the kind of expert Israeli propaganda some of us are familar with, being put out with academic credentials. Unhappily, the bodies in Lebanon are still clear in our minds. The damage is still visible.

One may hope that the people of Israel survive and prosper - as I do - in a state of peace with their neighbors. But the chances of that happening with the present Israeli government - or, alas, with any alternative Israeli government that is likely to come along - are dim, and to a great extent will depend on the peoples of Israel realizing what they truly lost in Lebanon, and that their hopes for the future do not rest in the military machinery, headed in this most recent war by a general who sold his stocks the day the fighting began (thus saving 10% of their value), but in a serious re-evaluation.

That kind of "new thinking" is not helped by "Engage", which, by having put itself at the service of the State of Israel, has betrayed its academic standing and, equally painful, has helped delay the day of Israel's coming to terms with reality.

I'm not going to respond to Michael again unless, as has happened once or twice in the past, he makes statements which are so at odds with what I've actually said that I would feel obliged to respond. But to the readers of SocialistsUnmoderated - or others who run across Michael - what is remarkable is that the web sites he sends all tend toward only one side, that of the Zionist wing of the Jewish community. Michael Pugliese is not a member of the Socialist Party. He is not, so far as I know, a member of any democratic socialist organization.

Peace,
David McReynolds

----- Original Message -----
From: Michael Pugliese
A HREF="http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=6123">The Red Cross Ambulance Incident