Solomonia
[The following, by Charles Jacobs, appears in this week's Jewish Advocate.]
So it comes out that Richard Goldstone author of the UN report that condemned Israel for purposely killing Palestinian civilians during the Gaza conflict, has his own closet full of skeletons: He consigned 29 blacks to the gallows when he was a judge in apartheid South Africa. He also sentenced black men to be tortured - "flogging," they called it.
In response to the world (the Jews anyway) taking notice, Goldstone explains - in phrases awfully close to "I was only following orders" - that he was only acting "within the existing judicial system," namely apartheid.
Surely the Israelis must have known this last fall when he issued his holier-than-thou condemnation of the Gaza incursion. Yet the Jews pulled their punches, as they always seem to do. And that's why we're always getting decked in the public arena.
We can spend hours debating about the "context" - whether Goldstone had been a willing tool of the apartheid regime or, as his apologists explain, he actually tried to be a monkey wrench. Doesn't matter. What counts is that he sentenced to death 29 blacks in a court system that was anything but color blind. What counts is that he didn't put the Israeli actions "in context."
The scandal here is not that the UN - after giving us Kurt (former Nazi officer) Waldheim - gave us Richard (the apartheid hanging judge and flogger) Goldstone.
No, the real scandal is Jewish rhetorical ineptitude. Any defense lawyer would know all that was needed to thwart one of the most potentially harmful libels against the Jewish people in recent time was to ask: "Who is this racist murderer that the UN sets up to judge Israel?"
Of course, the Israelis tried not to kill civilians. How in heavens did those charged with defending world Jewry from libel not use this public fact about Goldstone? Are Jews, non compos mentis when it comes to self defense? Do we need a court-appointed non-Jewish defense team? How have Jews failed to win the only debate that matters in public discussion: Who are the good and the bad guys in the Jewish-Arab/Muslim conflict?
Deny guilt. Myths & Facts, the best-known approach, taught us to explain that the attacks against Israel were factually incorrect.
But every time a myth (lie) was refuted, another one took its place, and the conversation continued to be about Jewish conduct. All defense, all the time.
Ignore attacks, praise Israeli achievements. This is called rebranding, created by people who market products. But Israel is not shampoo. Its brand is already tainted from decades of being smeared. Telling people you win Nobel science prizes and invent life-saving gizmos won't work. Israel re-branded will be, as Andrea Levin elegantly put it, "the apartheid state with nano-technology."
Counterpunch. ARM (Address, Re-frame Message) is a technique adopted and taught by the David Project. It responds to an attack with a counterpunch. It is much better than M&F because it creates a contextual discussion about the conflict including an examination of our adversaries.
"Apartheid? Glad you're interested in that. No, Israel does not commit apartheid, because of x, y, z. But if you're really interested in apartheid, let me tell you about how Christians, Jews, women, gays, all non Muslims, etc., are treated under Islamic regime. That's as close as you get to apartheid. Let's see you condemn it." ARM is a big improvement, but still no cigar, because we wait for an attack to respond.
A key reason for our failure is the rhetorical strategy Turnspeak - accusing us of what our enemies are guilty of. Jews are charged with the same crimes that Arab/Muslim civilization has committed - and continues to commit. Genocide, acting like Nazis, apartheid? Who is threatening to eliminate whom? Islamic civilization classifies entire peoples as infidels to be converted, killed, enslaved or subjugated as Dhimmis. Land theft? Who is stealing whose land? Islamic imperialism stole much of Africa, Asia and Europe.
When someone criticizes Jewish behavior, even a hostile party, the Jewish instinct is to ponder whether the criticism is potentially merited, not to see it as a kind of kryptonite, especially designed to neutralize Jews, whose DNA is constructed only to respond defensively, ineffectively. And if the Arabs have been really immoral, well, that's not our problem - it's theirs. Or as our leftists friends would say, who are we to impose Western values on them?
The Jews just don't get defamation, because they're used to defaming themselves for the sake of self improvement; meanwhile, our enemies do it to destroy us. We can "stop the clop" and learn to win the language wars, if we would distinguish utopian moralist dreams from harsh political realities.
Charles Jacobs is president of Americans for Peace and Tolerance.
Posted by Solomon at 8:20 PM on Wednesday, May 19, 2010
