Opinion
Defeating the demagogues
Martin Sherman
Published: 24.11.07, 10:55
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37 Talkbacks for this article
1. A clear mind
mendy lewin ,   hong kong   (11.24.07)
havent read such a clear mind in a while.....if there is one article on this website which each and everyone must read again and again it is this one...... sums up everything..............
2. Oz is wrong, was wrong- he makes a living out of it!
Jerome ,   France   (11.24.07)
Oz likes to smear israel during book-fair-visits; he makes a living out of it. Look what he gets. Do you think that people would like to read his (simple) stuff as often if he would tell the truth about fatah, Abbas etc. Abbas was a holocaust denier! A sad story ! It is even more ugly to read the left wing stuff day after day when you get the news from the arab street. The left in israel unfortunatly has a quasi stalinist monopol or should we say an intelectual advantage?
3. A fine rebuttal. I hope Amos Oz reads this.
Aaron ,   Ra'anana   (11.24.07)
4. The Wizard Oz
Jacob ,   Jerusalem   (11.24.07)
It's about time that someone holds Amos Oz and similar dreamers accountable. They used to be called false prophets.
5. it's of course beyond understanding
RobertK ,   Jerusalem   (11.24.07)
I've given up trying to understand two things. 1. The bewildering lack of principles, backbone, character, or concern for their country and their citizens' fate in "leaders" like Rabin, Barak, Sharon, and Olmert. (Peres at least has a certain consistency in his evil.) 2. The bewildering inability of leftists like Oz to stop speaking the same inane mantras for fifteen years. I do not understand what--at Oz's age, and degree of thoughtfulness--is so totally impossible about saying "I am human, and I erred; the Palestinians don't really want peace; their media and education are rife with anti-Jewish hatred; all our generosity has just brought increased terrorism; the time isn't ripe for peace." SO impossible? Before Oslo if you said "But the PLO are terrorists," they said, "You make peace with your enemies, not with your friends." They would fire this at you as if it was a piece of scintillating brilliance rather than rank idiocy. Now they say, "But Abu Mazen wants peace and all we have to do is build him up with releases of hundreds of terrorists, plus rifles, bullets, and armored personnel carriers with mounted machineguns."
6. Send Oz to Sichem....
Jan ,   Holland   (11.24.07)
and let the man say in the middle of town: Listen people, I am a jew, i want peace, i am youre frind! If he made it, his next book will be titled: I hade a dream! (and Abbas was never a frind)
7. Oz blinded by rhetoric, meaningless words.
Terry ,   Eilat, Israel   (11.24.07)
Many on the left are guilty of this kind of intellectual dishonesty. They are spell-bound by empty rhetoric, words unconnected to reality. By uttering these "magic formula" like superstitious incantations, they expect reality to conform. Those on the left are actually more religious than the Haredim, their ideas totally based on faith rather than evidence. Somehow, they receive some kind of psychological reward, believing that they are morally superior to "unbelievers", that their spirtually uplifting utopian message is a higher morality than mere facts on the ground. The intellectual process is the reverse of the scientific method - normally, one goes where the evidence takes you. But those in the "peace-camp" start the process with the desired result & reason backwards, supplying any argument, no matter how unsupported, to shore up their pre-conceived notions. They are basically fanatics, in their own way, no different than Hamas.
8. those adicted to the idea of Peace
arthur ,   jersey City usa   (11.24.07)
Lets not forget that other messenger of peace Thomas Friedman. Who in the NY Times told Israel to that the high road and pull out of Lebanon, the world would love Israel there would be peace,basically the same vision as OZ.He is also the messenger boy who brought back the Saudi Plan, the basisi of the RoadMap. These people are too isolated from reality and their egos are too grand. They end up very generous with other peoples lives and rights.
9. "Naive people"
Gerry ,   New York   (11.24.07)
Is Beilin, Oz naive? The Oslo scheme resulted in deaths of 2,000 Jews. Are Beilin and Peres also naive? Sharon's disengagement brought Hamas, death and destruction and Lebanon war. Was he, Weissglass and company, also naive? I don't believe for a second that they didd not know somthing that most people knew. They could had read ha'aretz newspaper were the left predicted everything but thought that people of Sderot and settlers deserve it. Is Olmert naive? Of course, NOT. All these people have their plans and they worry ONLY about themselves.
10. One leftist you should listen
Alex ,   LA, USA   (11.24.07)
This leftist, rabbi Lerner from California, said clearly for all leftists in Israel: "Israel must try to make a deal with Arafat but if it will turn out bad for Jews than all Jews will have to leave Israel". He repeated this several times more recently. I am sure that Beilin, Olmert, and Oz think the same way and have a nice place outside Israel, as their leader Burg has. The people that right books are often not very bright. Look at Stalin (29 volumes), Marx (27 volumes), Lenin (38 volumes). These guys have more books than Ofra, Rosie, Hillary, and Oz all together (and the last four are doing very, very well financially).
11. Translate this to the Hebrew site please
Israeli ,   Northern territory   (11.24.07)
12. Amos Oz
Zvi ,   Jerusalem , Israel   (11.24.07)
Apparently , the only important issue is if Oz gets the nobel prize , all other consideration is irrelevant
13. while I agree with the premise
Vitaliy ,   Brooklyn, NY   (11.24.07)
this article is so full of bile, it borders on despicable.
14. Oz sells us out to sell books Germany
Ilan ,   Ariel   (11.24.07)
He has a dream of getting recognition as a "good Israel" by all of those good Germans.
15. peace is two sided way
sawsan ,   jerusalem   (11.24.07)
diffecult to make it one way for israil only ... evry now and then palastinians will get out to interupt israil .. so negotiation must be for both .security for both peace for both ... if israil is the same partner with arafat and then with abbas and befor with any palastanian ,weak or dangerouse .blind or fool .. still it is twosided way .. may the fault is in israil not the other side
16. #13 - despicable is...
dan kaplan ,   usa   (11.24.07)
oz constantly and consistently selling his demented delusions in spite of the abysmal failures they have proved to be.
17. Amos Oz and the Palestinians
Ray ,   USA   (11.24.07)
YES. The Palestinians clearly want a two state solution; a Fatah State and a Hamas State in place of Israel .They are quite clear about that. Amos Oz suffers from the common Liberal problem so well described by an American Talk Show host ;"Liberalism is a Mental Disorder."
18. Spot On !
eddie ,   london Uk   (11.24.07)
I did a talkback on the original article by Oz, saying the same stuff .. Remember also, Oz used to say that In the future peace, it would be easier for Israel to break the back of a young palestinain army than that of a young palestinian stone thrower. Now, ther is a palestinian state in Gaza, with a hamas army, and they are throwing kassams now instead of stones. It is not easy breaking their back, and Israel hasn't even tried. I think Oz is a disaster - and any prognosis he gives is unreliable, as was his oriignal idea of land for peace.
19. Even if the author is right...
Inyaki Bilbao ,   Bilbao Basque   (11.24.07)
Even if the author of this piece is right his manners and the language he uses to criticize Oz are deplorable.
20. Bangkok
Ines Ehrlich ,   Bangkok, Thailand   (11.25.07)
A fine piece of writing Martin, keep them coming! It was a pleasure to read, regardless of any political leanings.
21. just click your heels 3 times & the problem will go away
Helga   (11.25.07)
22. The Palestinians don't want peace.
Steven Wilson ,   Anchorage, Alaska   (11.25.07)
They want a sand box full of muslims. Anything else is just a khaffer, meant to thrown into the Mediterranean Sea. Is this so hard to figure out? You can't negotiate a peace with these fanatical religious zealots. They want the Jews dead, as well as all the other non muslims, who won't convert by the sword. Negotiating against fanatics requires a lot of dead fanatics. Look at the history of WWII with Japan and Germany. Lots of people had to die to stop the wave of hatred towards those who wouldn't accept their empire's philosophy and religions xenophobia. Anyone believing they are going to negotiate themselves out of the problem, like Chamberlain in WWII.....is just delaying the inevitable war, to keep their freedom from these religious oppressors of freedom. The muslims want to create a new dynasty with all of us converting into it. Keep fooling yourselves hoping for different. Dreams never get the occupier out of your lives....action can only do that. Whomever told you that you get some time off from the struggle.....well he was lying to you. The ones who think they shouldn't have to fight because they might perish....they end up in the dust heap of history as victims. A virus just doesn't give up when it is killed by an antibiotic as previous wars have shown. It mutates and stays dormant for awhile....then gains strength....changes tactics, and attacks again. This peace, is just a piece of paper, not worth the ink that it is printed with. It might buy you some time, until they attack you again.
23. Oz, The Voice of The Israeli People
Dan Friedman ,   NYC, NY   (11.25.07)
Oz may be insane and his positions obviously show him to be an idiot, but that hasn't stopped the Israeli people from tolerating and/or endorsing outright governments that follow Oz' political line - including Olmert's. Until the people go into the streets and pull the left's house of cards down, the nuts will continue to run the asylum until they burn it down.
24. Peace = Biyuv
ussishkin ,   Tel Aviv Israel   (11.25.07)
And so they tell us - all those who want to ensure that we go down the road to self-destruction -many sitting far away but always full of negative advice and always ready to criticise the so-called Left, as if the Right has done so very well here. I smell the biyuv of their ignorance and I am deeply saddened by their words - "saying the same thing over and over again" surely qualifies as insanity too, when the expectation of no future no hope no new horizon is the outcome of such words.
25. Congratulations Martin Sherman
Mladen Andrijasevic ,   Be'er Sheva , Israel   (11.25.07)
Congratulations Martin Sherman . About time someone stood up to our national icons who have completely lost touch with reality. Annapolis will fail because all the participants are ignoring the 8 ton elephant in the room . How about if they start their meeting with the screening of the documentary ISLAM What the West Needs to Know and then the 40 participating countries discuss it?
26. Mr. Sherman, three cheers!
M. Hartley ,   Atlanta, US   (11.25.07)
I love your style and sentiments and that you've managed to express your displeasure without resorting to any obscenities, except, of course, for quoting Mr. Oz :-) I wouldn't have made it through he first paragraph without at least one "asshat" or "d---head." How any Israeli can have any illusions left as to the true intent of their neighbors and of those who finance and keep feeding that madness is beyond me. All discussions notwithstanding and regardless of how politely it's couched in diplomatic babble and philosophical semantics. when all is said and done, they don't want a viable State, and they don't want peace. "Stolen land" and "occupation" are only catch phrases to justify their psychotic delusions of adequacy and/or greed. THEY SIMPLY WANT EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU DEAD; the uneducated masses, because they've been told that's what they want, and those who know better, because they want to eradicate the glaring differences between your accomplishments and their own stupidity, inadequacies and avariciousness. After all, success takes work and thinking. Why bother with that, when they're getting paid so well to stay or act stupid, spout slogans, lob qassams and send a few suicidal maniacs to their deaths? As I said before, "Where is a Joshua, when you need him?" You can waste your time as long as you want to, but ....Einst wird kommen der Tag, loosely translated: The day will come.....I only wish I'd live long enough to see it. How many more holocausts, progroms, Oslo's, Road Maps and peace talks will it take for Jews to stop giving a damn' what anyone thinks and do what needs to be done??? Yeah, I know: I'm neither Jew nor Christian, fundamental or otherwise, but damn', people, get it over with already! The world needs you.
27. Oz
Michael ,   Miami,usa   (11.25.07)
Oz is a self-hater of the worst kind. He vilifies Israel and all those who do not want to lay down and die at the hands of Arab anti-Semites whose Jew hatred is on par w/ the Nazis. Oz is the mouthpiece of the true criminals, Olmert, Peres, Beilin, Barak...criminal leftists one and all.
28. Send Oz to Sderot For a Long Stay
Dave Levy ,   Burbank. CAUSA   (11.25.07)
To Alex: I appreciate your very eloquent and articulate statement. Prior to Oslo, I read numerous articles by the good Rabbi Lerner (San Francisco fame), in his book. He boasted of having relatives in Israel (Ithat gave him truth I suppose). Okay, he had relatives in Israel, so what? Since then, we saw the results of Camp David, and Clinton's meddlint (all that work for nuttin, as we say here in California). The right of return killed any agreement from the get go. But, I believe the Divine's meddling actually saved Israel from Itself. Barak is a jerk..as are Livni and Olmert. They seem never to learn anything from experience. They are missing the big picture. The Palis (and Arab world) want a Muslim state to replace Israel. They have done nothing to contradict that thinking, nothing.,not one thing, It's about deeds, not words. Oz is dillustional, a dreamer, like his leftist pals. Dream on, dream on, dream on..while we Jews are being killed daily. He should be incarcerated for his treachory and imprisoned in Sderot. The leader of Pakistan knew how to deal with his radicals and insurgents. In the end, he won. He got them off the streets. No country would tolerate someone like Oz for long., except naive Israel.
29. We Rob Them Because We Must!
Morons For Zion ,   zionazistan   (11.25.07)
We have no CHOICE, we jail them in concentration camps and deprive their children of future because THEY give us NO CHOICE. Its their fault we colonized them. Its their fault we bombed them. Its their fault we uprooted their centuries old olive trees. Its their fault we broke the bones of their children. Its their fault we built facts on the ground. Targeted assassinations are clearly their fault . Its them who turned us into Nazis Its ALL THEIR FAULT. GET IT!!
30. #24 To the troll using someone' s name
Ilan ,   Ariel   (11.26.07)
"Menahem Ussishkin, engineer and leader of the Russian-based Zionist movement Hibbat Zion, was a spokesman for a practical Zionism favoring land settlement, diaspora activities to aid distressed communities, and cultural autonomy, even after the World Zionist Organization insisted on suspending such actions until a political charter recognizing Jewish national rights in Palestine was secured." http://www.answers.com/ussishkin In short not much unlike the settlers you dismiss.
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