The American Left and the Middle East: the lousy Example of the Nation magazine

Here, the Nation magazine continues in its Zionist apologia and provides praise for Grossman merely because he does not question Israeli decisions to engage in crimes, massacres, occupation, and wars of aggression. His son (a member of a terrorist army who probably killed--like other Israeli terrorist soldiers kill--a countless number of Palestinian and Arab civilians--is that not a specialty of that Israeli army?) received more attention and mention in the American press than all the hundreds of Palestinian children who were killed by Israeli army terrorists in the war on Gaza. "The high cost of concealing what is unpleasant has long preoccupied Grossman, and his willingness to pose questions that discomfit Israel's Jewish majority has led some people to label him a "post-" or "non-Zionist" Israeli (the critic Jacqueline Rose once described him as a "non-Zionist Zionist" in the London Review of Books). Such labels are misplaced. "The basic inspiration for Zionism was a noble idea," Grossman told The Paris Review in 2007. Despite his belief that a writer should hold nothing sacred, Grossman is a patriot who will go only so far in criticizing Israel, as was apparent during the recent war in Gaza. In an editorial in Ha'aretz published a few days after the conflict began, Grossman called for a cease-fire but did not question the decision to launch the attack. Such views inevitably disappoint Israel's more unqualified critics, some of whom treat Grossman as one more apologist for the Jewish state's crimes. He would likely take their disappointment as a compliment. The radical element in Grossman's work lies not in his politics but in his determination to see past the limits of politics: to peel away the labels--"Arab," "Jew," "victim," "terrorist"--that color and distort how Israelis and Palestinians regard each other." The sentence in red bold is the reason why this review appealed to the Nation magazine. (thanks James)