Over the weekend, a Jewish publication sent me an email. They wanted to pay me to write an essay! They thought it could be called "Why I Hate Israel, "because it would be a piece "which develops the ideas you are already publishing," which is how the editor put it to me. I had to, as the poet famously said, wonder: Did I accidentally publish my Israel-hating dream journal? After ascertaining that the editor wasn't actually kidding, I checked The Awl's page for Israel: hmm, mild critique of Israel's handling of the Gaza flotilla, a summary of Lawrence Wright's New Yorker piece on Gaza, a rather de facto pro-Israel take on the Times Jerusalem bureau, and uh oh, we quoted Turkish newspapers and published a piece very critical of a dumb Israeli PR outfit that strives to make untoward connections in Americans' minds between Israel and the MENACE of MUSLIM 9/11 TERROR. Weirdly, nothing in there about how I hate Israel! But I guess I could see how the mistake could be made.
Well? I think this is just a sign of how, if you assume you are speaking to intelligent people, and don't issue a thousand disclaimers, then guess what: it can be assumed that you hate Israel, because you're maybe mildly critical or because you'll mention unflattering facts when they are facts! Hi, every country has unflattering facts, HAVE YOU MET ENGLAND, and do I EVEN have to explain that repeatedly, when I live in a country that was (and kind of still is!) built on slave labor? And you know what? If you hate Israel, that pretty much means you hate Jews. And so: Why do you HATE JEWS so much? Please explain yourself.
But, but-you're thinking-Jews are awesome, you horrid Jew-hater!
The most irritating and troubling part, I think, is that we all do have to acknowledge (over and over again, for real) that, in the real world, people actually hate Jews so much. Oh my God, everyone still hates the Jews. Believe it! And if the hard Christian wing of the Tea Party crowd weren't mostly convinced that, yay, the End Times are here, because blah blah the Jews are back in the promised land or whatever, and therefore are sort of uncomfortably pro-Israel, then this would be the worst time ever for the Jews, because don't think that gang wouldn't be lunging at every "Jew Banker Friend To MUSLIM PRESIDENT" or whatever that they could. (Allies, take 'em where you can!)
So, nobody can say BOO about Israel without a 2000-word disclaimer that includes, among others, the words "Ramallah" and "but of course" and "to be fair" and "history of persecution" and the like.
This is just a long wind-up to our announcement that the latest website in The Awl Network (not to be called The Awl Network) will be for, by and about Jews!
We call it: Jews Today!
Nah, I'm totally just kidding. There's really no money in a site like that.
No one is a greater friend to Israel than you, except maybe Cat.
And I just pissed myself.
Nazi!
Would you please write an essay for us on "Why I Have Devoted My Life to Coprophagia"? You know, just developing the themes on which you're already working?
They make special pants for that.
@brent: for pissing yourself or coprophagia? not that i need pants for either, just curious.
Is this the essay about you hating Israel for which you were so handsomely paid? Because it makes it perfectly clear that YOU HATE ISRAEL.
AND America, probably.
Does Balk know about this policy? I thought he hated Jews? (No? Just Italians? Sometimes I get the details of his self-loathing mixed up....)
I make it appoint to NEVER talk about Israel in public, private, or inside my own mind. Don't have room/time/breath for all those caveats.
Exactly. We should never talk about this country (except to swear undying fealty to it, pass unanimous resolutions in Congress supporting it no matter what its government/military has done, and continue to shovel more military and financial aid to the country than we do to any other). Because to discuss those things in anything but a fatuous, banal manner would obviously be HATEFUL HATEFUL HATE SPEECH. Alan Dershowitz has explained this very eloquently, and he is a LEGAL GENIUS.
If I were the kind of person who spoke about Israel in public, I might engage you in this in a way that may or may not be agreeable.
Sadly, I live in D.C., where one careless statement about Israel can get you on the ADL's burning-bag-of-shit list.
You are a wiser man than I.
You write one anti-ukulele article and your put in the same box as David Duke. The interhoopty is a cruel, cruel mistress.
If you're critical of the ukulele, you really hate music, and love the Holocaust.
On the other hand, if you're critical of the vuvuzela, you love music but also love P.W. Botha. So it's kind of a mixed bag.
Do you have any sex tapes, at least?
As someone who is averse to contemporary Israeli architecture, does that make me a self-loathing Jewish aesthete?
http://media.photobucket.com/image/Israel%20contemporary%20architecture/have2ask/172724622_ecaa7b22d1_b.jpg
Hah! That is the dumbest-looking thing in the world.
(NOT THAT JEWS DON'T HAVE THE SAME RIGHTS AS ANYONE ELSE TO BUILD INCREDIBLY STUPID-LOOKING BUILDINGS, CAVEAT CAVEAT CAVEAT)
CAVEAT: I humbly submit for your consideration, contemporary Egyptian architecture: http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_nwvtIHqOyMY/STHw4BkXOeI/AAAAAAAABB0/mPG3KLhNCyQ/s400/29+Nov+08+Future+University+Egypt+004.jpg
MY EYS!!! MY EYES!!!
Not another conflict between Israel and her Arab neighbors.
(NOT THAT THEY DON'T HAVE THE RIGHT TO DEFEND THEMSELVES FROM AGGRESSIVE ACTS OF STUPID-LOOKING ARCHITECTURE, CAVEAT CAVEAT)
Speaking of Israeli architecture....just spent the weekend watching a "House Hunters" marathon. They went to Israel!
Very interesting as the choice boiled down to which apartment had the better bomb shelter. One doubled as a special shoe closet, the other could be used as a guest room. The third apartment had no bomb shelter, so we knew that one was out. The buyer ultimately chose the shoe closet bomb shelter, opting to give up space to be closer to her mother.
At the end of the episode, the mom came over and baked a special chocolate cake and everything was great (except for the part where people need to live in houses with bomb shelters because other people want to bomb them so much).
Criticize little Israel all you want, but that mud? It will cure anything. People go in looking like Abe Vigoda and come out looking like a baby's butt.
God, I miss Abe Vigoda.
I miss him too. We need an AV revival ahorita!
(I spent the day working mostly in silence yesterday so today I am all about the music linkage:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYvt4I52wgQ )
Inasmuch as a baby's butt is often covered in shit, I agree.
For the record, Abe Vigoda is still very much alive. If you're ever in doubt, check first: http://www.abevigoda.com/
It is a special thing betwixt me and say, Shang. You want a three-way? *grrrr, buttinski!*
@RRR: The baby Jesus' shit, sugar pop.
I know he's alive. Nobody's hiring him though! (except for Snickers) That's a waste of a Vigoda! He needs a talk show or something.
@say: He needs a show where he starts every sentence with "On the Barney Miller set..." Or: "On the set of Godfather..." Where are HIS MEMOIRS?! And why am I not editing them and going out for Chianti with him and his wife of like fifty years?!
I once saw Abe Vigoda doing 80 in a '76 Chevrolet Caprice the wrong way on the PCH. Betty White was in the passenger seat smoking a joint.
I did think that saying that Jews should go back to "wherever the hell they came from" was a bit over the line. Oh, that was a quote?
They came from Jewtopia, where bagels grow on trees and the streets are paved with solid gold stereotypes.
Isreal in Alaska would have been interesting. And, would Palin still have come out of there? We need a novel focusing on Palin in Jewish Alaska. Bestseller
You wrote "England," and I got confused. Isn't it Knifecrime Island??
I think there's a show on Spike called that. Or at least, there should be.
The "Israel=Jews" thing really needs to die. I can say with conviction that Israel's government (like that of the Palestinians, CAVEAT CAVEAT CAVEAT) is run by corrupt, warmongering incompetents, but that doesn't mean I think of Jewish people any differently than I think of anybody else. Three years ago my government was run by corrupt, warmongering incompetents. Corrupt, warmongering incompetents love to run governments, and will use any chance they get to seize the reins.
In short: I want Israelis to make better decisions at the polls. If you want to interpret that as anti-semitism, you're a moron.
The game of false equivalences is the problem.
"run by corrupt, warmongering incompetents."
I mean really, you could just throw a dart at a map.
That's very hateful to morons. More caveats, please.
@Goons: Yeah, chances are two in three you'll hit an ocean, and those are run by oil companies fer chrissake.
I have some thoughts about all of this, but I have been cowed into silence.
Just COMMENTING on this post is going to alert the JDL, isn't it?
They'll come ziplining in from helicopters and bust through the windows!
How is your mouth?
Yeah! How's the pie hole, Clarence?
I think 5 hours of sucking down Old Rip Van Winkle at the Big Apple BBQ yesterday might just have done the trick!
@Clarence: I looked up Medical Science on that one and found what I'm sure you did, that there's like one study and that one was looking for anecdotal evidence. What I'm saying is, you might want to write Medical Science and tell them about your miracle cure.
Dear Choire,
How many times have you had sex with Osama Bin Laden REALLY?
Sincerely,
Abe Foxman
Sell some ad space to AIPAC -- that'll shut 'em up, HARD.
So how much did they buy you for Choire?
And is the offer still open? I could knock something out by tomorrow morning, for instance.
I bet it was a gift certificate to 'This Little Piggy Had Roast Beef'
If Vigoda did a memoir, the books jacket would have to have the same deathly pallor of the undead as does Abe.
You need one of those "Don't Ask Me About My Israel Feelings" T-shirts.
Isn't "resident smart guy" David Cho Jewish? No?
David Cho-en
Chowitz
Hey Choire so what was the "publication" (and isn't that sort of a coy noun, "publication")?
I think he answers in the tags. See above.
Oh it was in the tags. Now I see. [Changes commenter name.]
I LOVE Jews. But Jews' mom doesn't approve.
Ugh, so annoying and transparent. I’m sure those editors send the same damn message to every writer who ever writes anything criticizing Israel.