Thursday, August 30, 2007

NOT RESPONDING TO MEARSHEIMER AND WALT. The Jerusalem Post reports that Israel and AIPAC will not be responding to the new book: Israel doesn't want to help promote sales of the book; AIPAC doesn't want to get into the distraction of a mud-slinging contest.

So what should be done?
The position advocated in the book, [former Israeli ambassador to the US, Danny] Ayalon said, remains on the fringes of American society. He said rather than reacting to books such as this or Jimmy Carter's Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, Israel and Jewish groups in the US should undertake a comprehensive proactive campaign on university campuses to introduce Israel and to counter the Middle East Studies departments funded by the Saudis and Gulf states on many campuses.
All well and good, but Ayalon's suggestion is something that should be going on in any case, considering the challenges facing Jews on university campuses.

Abraham Foxman of the ADL has written a book in response to M&W's book: The Deadliest Lies: The Israel Lobby and the Myth of Jewish Control--it remains to be seen how it does.

After writing a paper and a book, hopefully M&W won't follow Jimmy Carter's lead and make a movie:
Jonathan Demme's Jimmy Carter: Man From Plains has been picked up by Sony Pictures Classic for distribution in North America. According to Variety, the documentary will premier at the upcoming Venice Film Festival.

The film follows ex-president Jimmy Carter on his recent book tour touting the controversial tome Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid. Demme and his camera crew filmed Carter as he delt [sic] with the negativity that met his book while he visited different parts of the country.
Considering the age of self-indulgent 'scholarship' we live in, anything is possible.
After all, Oliver Stone will be making a move about Ahmadinejad, after all.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sure a number of bloggers may have got an email, as I did the day the New York Times article came out promoting the two books, which highlighted the article as a topic of anti-semitism. I passed, firstly because I knew others were much better at this than myself (present company included) & 2nd because I didn't want to highlight W&M side of the story or promote their foolishness if I didn't have a good point to make or report - I can empathize easily with the position taken by AIPAC and others.

Daled Amos said...

How many times have we been told that responding will only give added publicity--but we respond anyway. Jews singlehandedly provided Mel Gibson tons of free publicity for The Passion.

But we can't help ourselves--we automatically respond when being attacked, when being lied about.

And our enemies know this, and use it against us.

Successfully.