"Leave it to the State Department to soft-pedal religious extremism in the Middle East. Oh not in, say, Iran or Saudi Arabia. In the most recent edition of the department’s annual Report on International Religious Freedom, both are designated “Countries of Particular Concern,” members of a select group chastised for their extreme intolerance. Which is as it should be.
But where is State’s acknowledgement of the happenings – from the absurd to the inhumane – in another, nearby country, where religious chauvinism has reached depths equaling those among any of its neighbors? I’m talking, of course, about the State of Israel – a place unfit, it seems, for any “particular concern” from Hillary & Co.
Certainly, the Report reports on Israel. But to avoid grouping the Jewish State with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and similarly intolerant countries, its authors resort to language one can only describe as Carrollian, leading readers through a looking glass in which words, as Humpty Dumpty would have it, mean anything they choose them to mean, nothing more and nothing less.
So while a reality-based Israeli reporter, writing in Ha’aretz, can say that “Israel dismally fails the requirements of a tolerant pluralistic society,” the State Department authors mean for us to believe something else entirely. Forget “dismal.” According to them, the behavior of Israeli Jews towards the Palestinians – Christian and Muslim – has merely “strained” the relationship between the two.
It’s an interesting locution, given that, just three years ago, then-Prime Minister Olmert told a beaming Congress that his “people” had an “eternal and historic right” to all of Palestine."
So begins a more than "interesting" piece "Through the State Department Looking Glass" by Kevin Mink on CounterPunch. Mink makes good his criticism with some remarkable [no, perhaps not!] examples of Israel "in action".
But where is State’s acknowledgement of the happenings – from the absurd to the inhumane – in another, nearby country, where religious chauvinism has reached depths equaling those among any of its neighbors? I’m talking, of course, about the State of Israel – a place unfit, it seems, for any “particular concern” from Hillary & Co.
Certainly, the Report reports on Israel. But to avoid grouping the Jewish State with Iran, Saudi Arabia, and similarly intolerant countries, its authors resort to language one can only describe as Carrollian, leading readers through a looking glass in which words, as Humpty Dumpty would have it, mean anything they choose them to mean, nothing more and nothing less.
So while a reality-based Israeli reporter, writing in Ha’aretz, can say that “Israel dismally fails the requirements of a tolerant pluralistic society,” the State Department authors mean for us to believe something else entirely. Forget “dismal.” According to them, the behavior of Israeli Jews towards the Palestinians – Christian and Muslim – has merely “strained” the relationship between the two.
It’s an interesting locution, given that, just three years ago, then-Prime Minister Olmert told a beaming Congress that his “people” had an “eternal and historic right” to all of Palestine."
So begins a more than "interesting" piece "Through the State Department Looking Glass" by Kevin Mink on CounterPunch. Mink makes good his criticism with some remarkable [no, perhaps not!] examples of Israel "in action".
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