Support your local Bund!

[thedarkages]

Expecting The New York Review of Books to give an impartial account of the Middle East situation is like expecting 1933's Pravda to do so for the Holodomor (Great Famine). In the latest issue, there is gloating -- gloating, I tell you -- that Nasrallah has won out over America and its running dog Israel.

It's despicable logic to say that "if you're not with us, you're with the terrorists." But what if someone is actually making common cause with the terrorists?

Comments

[mrbalihai.livejournal.com]

Since I haven't read the NYRB article you're referring to, I can't comment specifically to its contents, but I have a hard time understanding how (probably) otherwise rational people seem to feel that opposing the policies of the US and Israel means that they are obligated to support genocidal scumbags like Nasrallah. Do they actually think the region would miraculously transform into some sort of peaceful wonderland if Iranian proxies take control of Lebanon as they seemed poised to do?

[thedarkages]

I think it's nothing more sophisticated than "my enemies' enemy is my friend." It's like US schadenfreude towards the defeat of the Soviets in Afghanistan. Many in this country, including the then-current administration and members of Congress, believed that fundamentalist "freedom fighters" were the good guys, just because they were successfully repelling the Soviets. Later on, of course, when they proved not to be American puppets, they would be termed "warlords" and American troops would be sent against them.

[mrbalihai.livejournal.com]

If the writer in the NYRB is indeed making common cause with Hizbollah, as your initial post suggests, then I think it goes a bit beyond taking a simple pleasure in the misfortune of others.

I agree that choosing sides with the Afghan resistance seems unbelievably stupid in hindsight. Unfortunately, we seem to be doing it again with Pakistan.