(see 10 for introduction)
local to 5
express to 4.5
In his Capital Times column Thursday, John Nichols offered Democrats advice, good advice, but not Advance U.S. — Not Israel’s — Interests, so the streak continues. He has yet to use “Israel” or “Palestine” this year in my “local progressive newspaper.”
Rules are rules, it doesn’t count, but he did use “Palestinian” on October 12, a fleeting reference to Abu Nidal. Last year, when he finally used “Israel” on December 30, he had used “Palestinian” on September 29 in an eulogy for Edward Said. The bad, the good, that leaves the ugly, look for Yassir Arafat on October 5, 2005.
John recycled the eulogy, Said Spoke Truth To Power, from The Nation, for which Edward occasionally wrote:
In A New Current in Palestine (02/04/2002), he asks “So where are Israeli and American liberals, so quick to condemn violence while saying little about the disgraceful and criminal occupation itself?”
In Bombs and Bulldozers (09/08/97), he insists that “Western liberals must remember that Oslo was not a tabula rosa; it came after twenty-six years of Israeli military occupation and, before that, nineteen years of Palestinian dispossession.”
And Oslo I to Oslo II: The Mirage of Peace finds him “particularly disheartened by the role played in all this by liberal Americans, Jewish and non-Jewish alike. Silence is not a response, and neither is some fairly tepid endorsement of a Palestinian state, with Israeli settlements and the army more or less still there, still in charge. The peace process must be demystified and spoken about plainly.”
“Mirage” appeared on about the same day as the Capital Times editorial “To heal and transform,” presumably written by John Nichols (9/26/95). Oslo II represents “a monumental stride in the direction of producing regional tranquility and global justice.” While “militants condemn the agreement as too much or too little,” it “certainly meets the definition of tikkun.” That is, it “can and must” lead to “mending, repairing and ultimately transforming the world.” Tikkun, “a lovely Hebrew word.”
John could have written “Said Spoke Truth To Power And Me.” He could have added an acknowledgment that it was, in particular, he and other “progressives” who “frustrated” Edward and a promise to try to mend his ways, but he didn’t. Since then, he has only reaffirmed his silence, 104 Capital Times columns down, six to go.
note:
The question Edward Said asks in “A New Current,” can liberals be roused into supporting nonviolent Palestinian resistance, couldn’t be more germane, Ran HaCohen indicates today in The Third Intifada.