Saturday, July 21, 2007

I wrote a post on Nicholas Noe's op-ed piece in the NYT. He wrote me this (I quote with his permission):
"As a first glance I would agree with your criticism - but it really needs to be drawn out more beyond a sentence or two retort, as if the point is settled with just that..... because it is an especially crucial issue (and a complex one) for folks working here who are perhaps unsure as between roles of advocacy, activism, analysis or "objective reporting" etc. (all the more so for us foreigners) In any case - either way, the headline they gave made me cringe!: "behave." The point, i would say in my defense, is to get across an alternative point of view to a US audience fairly well immunized to any sort of an alternative when it comes to Islam, the Middle East and especially Hezbollah. To your point - There are several areas in the piece where the justification for longstanding Lebanese concerns, anger and indeed redress are provided.... which extends to hezbollah as well - So I am not sure that it is completely within the Israeli dialectic, as your criticism suggests. Also - Nasrallah and a lot of other folks here both in the opposition and with March 14 make this argument - leave, end the bleeding wounds..... then maybe we can figure out a way to build a credible deterrant strategy against Israel, not to mention Syria.... the US, Iran, France etc..... not to mention the political and economic redress (which is the conclusion of the piece). So i think this starting point has been out there for a while from within the Party - hence Nasrallah's repeated charge of "you idiots" to the Israelis. Hopefully, or at least my hope in putting this simple argument out there to an immunized NYT readership, is that people know there are peaceful alternatives available..... And maybe the easier, of very hard alternatives, represents a good starting point for all those concerned. Would like to hear more. thanks for chance to respond - feel free to post this one if you like."