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Posted January 26, 2002
Unmasked
It was amusing to see David Horowitz unmasked by Ran HaCohen, but even more amusing to see his response. Here is one of the more telling paragraphs ... :
"Five paragraphs into his 'argument' HaCohen finally gets to a point. I didn't mention the settlements, he charges. True. There was a reason. First because the Jewish settlements in the Sinai were disbanded after Egypt signed a peace settlement with Israel. So there is no particular reason to think they would be an obstacle to a serious Palestinian interest in peace. Second because even if the settlements are not disbanded, there is no reason to suppose that they would remain part of Israel after a peace was signed. In fact, the only reason the settlements are an issue is that the Arabs will not contemplate a Jewish presence in Arab lands. Whereas a million Arabs are settled in Israel. This alone should make honest third parties consider whether there are really two sides to these issues."
To say the settlements are no obstacle to peace is absurd. They are, in actuality, the sole reason, along with the West Bank's water, for Israel's failure to negotiate a real and lasting peace. Yes, there's a reason Mr. Horowitz failed to mention the settlements and it's not the bogus retrospective reason Horowitz provides in his response to Mr. HaCohen. The reason is, as HaCohen makes clear, Horowitz's racism and his genocidal fantasies. It's as simple as that.
Print Space
Please never ever give any print space to David Horowitz ever again. If you want inciteful, poorly-written, badly-researched cr*p, I can handle that for you.
Pipeline
It would seem that their is a virtual information blackout with regards to the oil pipeline currently under construction in the Balkans. This pipeline starts in Bulgaria, passes through Macedonia and terminates in Albania. Halliburton's subsidiary Brown & Root performed the feasibility study for the pipeline as well as the construction of the new US Army base, Camp Bondsteel. Bondsteel is the largest US overseas base built since Vietnam and is located so as to protect this new pipeline. Exclusive rights to the pipeline corridor were granted to the AMBO Corp. of Pound Ridge, NY. A former Halliburton executive was appointed to to run the AMBO Corp. and oversee the construction. Several oil majors are also financially involved. There would seem to be an untold story here. US military adventures, Caspian oil, politics, billions of dollars and our spelunking vice-president. Oil also is a major ingredient and perhaps the reason for the current cleansing of Afghanistan.
Publicity
No
more of sick little Davey Horowitz, please! 
I appreciated Scott
McConnell's letter to him and the piece on his raging
anti-Arab racism by Ran HaCohen ... but Horowitz totally evades all
the points made by both writers as he did when I posted 22 points of objection
to his essay on the Palestine Question at his execrable website. The last
scholarly work David did was The
Free World Colossus, 1965, Hill & Wang, a work of Cold War
revisionism in the tradition of D.F.
Fleming. Since then it's all been downhill for him. He was not a major
player in the Left, made some bad judgments getting involved with the
Black Panthers here in Oakland and his work for the Right since 1980 has
been intellectually a total vacuum. I'd swear he's lost 50 I.Q. points.
Like Joe McCarthy he's in it for the money and the publicity.
95%
David Horowitz claims that Ran HaCohen distorts his positions, but on at least one critical point the only person distorting his position is Mr. Horowitz himself. Horowitz claims that "As for the 95% figure, I never claimed that this is what the Palestinians have now. As is clearly stated in my article, it is what Barak offered and the Palestinians refused." Well, what Horowitz clearly stated in his article was
By contrast, during the same period 1993-1999 Israelis were so desperate for peace that they reciprocated these acts of murder by giving the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza a self-governing authority, a 40,000 man armed 'police force,' and 95 percent of the territory their negotiators demanded.
Maybe that's not what Horowitz meant, but its obviously what he said. A man of honor would have acknowledged that he misspoke, then clarified his position. Instead, like the Israeli politicians he admires, Mr. Horowitz's apparently decided that the best response to being caught in a brazen lie is to lie more brazenly still.
One Word Blazes
One
word blazes between every
line that Horowitz writes:
Hypocrite. His case would have been stronger had he just kept silent.
Neo-Conservative Mind
David Horowitz's piece "Ran HaCohen Distorts My Position on Israel" is a fascinating glimpse into the mind of a "neo-conservative." His arguments are a mix of facile sophistry and apparent total indifference to the sufferings of others.
Horowitz's statement that mass-murderer Baruch Goldstein's house wasn't demolished because most Israelis condemned the crime makes no logical sense at all. Neither does his argument that Palestinian houses are demolished because Arafat rewards suicide bombers. It doesn't explain why houses – not to mention olive groves, fields, orchards, etc. – that have nothing to do with suicide bombers are bulldozed, or why are Palestinian victims of these outrages are given no due process and only 15 minutes' warning in the dead of night. And how is this justified by the fact that large numbers of Palestinians celebrate suicide attacks – especially after the treatment they have received at the hands of the IDF? Horowitz apparently believes in summary collective punishment, which is simply barbaric.
I'd also point out that for Horowitz to argue that it does nullifies his other arguments. Also, we could do without the tiresome ad-hominem arguments about "self-hating" Jews, etc. Mr. Horowitz's basic argument seems to be "well, they did this, so that means we can do that, and it doesn't matter who gets hurt. And besides, if you don't agree with me, you're a jerk." Well, sorry, but I'm not convinced.