SF Chron: 1948 Was “Ethnic Cleansing”, 1967 War Was Israel’s Fault

By
Omri Ceren
– July 3, 2007Posted in: Anti-Israel Journalism, Israel, Media Bias

This book reviewer – handpicked by heaven knows who to provide an unbiased review of a book by the equally unbiased senior editor of Le Monde – isn’t actually saying that it was an ethnic cleansing. She’s just favorably quoting the book:

Veteran French-Israeli journalist Sylvain Cypel, now a senior editor at Le Monde, has channeled his intimate familiarity with Israel into a penetrating critique of Israeli political culture, with particular emphasis on the manifest immorality of occupation. Erudite yet accessible, “Walled” is an impassioned plea for Israelis to liberate themselves from the self-serving view that Palestinians are somehow uniquely undeserving of independence… Cypel begins by observing that “for the Palestinians, 1948 was what we would now, after the recent war in the Balkans, call a vast ethnic cleansing,” and that “nearly half of this expulsion was carried out even before the Arab states attacked Israel.” The author describes the Six-Day War of 1967, when Israel attacked its neighbors and seized control of East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, as “the first of the modern preventive wars,” except that it was far from certain that Egypt ever intended to attack Israel.

This is dishonest to the point where it strains charity. Egypt didn’t need to attack – they had already committed an act of war by closing off the Straits between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean to Israeli shipping. This is exactly like Hezbollah kidnapping Israeli soldiers and then saying “well OK, but we’re done for now” – and then complaining when Israel retaliates. Except it’s worse than that, because it was clear that Egypt was going to attack – that’s why Nasser expelled the UN peacekeepers who were providing a buffer zone in Sinai. Honestly, are these people are just allowed to make stuff up now?

Then, after the point where everyone stops reading, there’s some stuff about how the Palestinians might be bad too – before returning to blaming Israel for everything. When we say “everything”, we mean it quite literally – including the “failure of the peace process, which [the author] attributes to an Israeli tendency to view politics exclusively through the prism of security.” That’s funny – no one who was actually at Camp David remembers it that way – they all say it was Arafat’s fault.

Then again, if your goal is to demonize and delegitimize the Jewish State, you probably see things a little differently. Even things that you didn’t technically “see”. Or read anything “true” about. Still – Beirut writer Rayyan al-Shawaf thinks that you should read this book. Shocking, no?

References:
* Fervent plea for fresh start in Israel’s Palestinian policy [SF Chron]
* Oh Look – Another American Intelligence Chief Blames Arafat For the Collapse Of the Peace Process [MR]

Previously:
* The Saudi Peace Initiative: A Discrete Way to Destroy Israel, Based on an Ethical Lie
* Arab Children Talk About the Right Of Return: Palestine Will "Regain Its Land From the Enemy, Israel" [Video]
* Decades Of Internationally Sanctioned Vicious Resentment Have Turned Inward

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