“What Often Happens to Israel’s Critics”?

Andrew Sullivan, in a series of recent posts his blog The Daily Dish, purports to describe “What often happens to Israel’s critics.”

What happens, we’re meant to believe, is that these critics are met by little more than “smears and character assassinations.”

Of course we’ve heard this all before from the likes of former president Jimmy Carter, Gaza investigator Richard Goldstone, and Independent columnist Johann Hari. And of course, in each of these cases, the cry of “character assassination” was intended to denigrate and distract from the many serious, substantive critiques of their work. Put another way, the smears were not targeted at Israel’s critics, but rather employed by them and directed at the critics’ critics (including CAMERA).

But what about the latest charge by Sullivan?

Well, his exhibit one is nothing other than a repeat of a May 2008 column by Johann Hari. Apparently Sullivan hadn’t seen the Hari column until now. And apparently he didn’t realize, or didn’t care to reveal to his readers, that Hari’s accusation has long been debunked.

Discussing the reaction to a column he wrote blaming Jewish settlements for poisoning Palestinian land and water with untreated sewage, Hari claimed, and Sullivan echoed nearly a year later,

There was little attempt to dispute the facts I offered. Instead, some of the most high profile “pro-Israel” writers and media monitoring groups – including Honest Reporting and Camera – said I an anti-Jewish bigot akin to Joseph Goebbels and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad …

Which might be very convincing, were it not yet another distortion by Hari. CAMERA has, in fact, never compared Hari to Goebbels or Ahmadinejad, and very much did dispute the substance of his piece (including inter alia by pointing out the key fact that Hari concealed: that Palestinians are by far the major source of untreated sewage in the West Bank. See rebuttals of Hari’s column, e.g., here and here.)

So, understood with all the relevant facts, here is “what often happens to Israel’s critics”: They sometimes falsify or otherwise distort the facts in relentless attacks on Israel. When that’s the case (and also when people disagree with their logic for other reasons) they are often criticized by others, who fact-check, add context and debate ideas. When that happens, Israel’s critics often pretend that the criticism amounts to little more than ad hominem smears, and fail to reply to the substance of the challenges.

Plus ca change.

Disclaimer: This blog post is in no way charging Andrew Sullivan with being an antisemite. That’s left for others to debate.