Yesterday, I blogged about Sol Stern’s definitive critique of Bernard Avishai’s cover story in The New York Times Magazine. Now, Avishai has responded with what he thinks is an effective answer.
He writes:
Anyway, it is the package that seemed to me worth doing: juxtaposing the retrospective responses of both leaders, today, and exploring whether the gaps between them suggest a bridgeable deal America could yet propose, irrespective of who did what to whom, when. It is doubly sad to think that Sol, standing in for tens of thousands of American Jewish reflexes, is so anxious that Israel’s 40+ year occupation will not be seen empathetically that he refuses to judge the fairness of the deal itself; that he rushes to the conclusion that Palestinians will never accept anything less than Israel’s destruction; that, therefore, any talk of a deal in which Israel relents on settlements can only come from people seeking to show Israel in a bad light.
By saying the above, Avishai reveals he has NO answer for what Stern proved: that his article was not new, and was terribly wrong. Stern was not commenting about the deal, but only about how once again, the PLA leader turned it down—not Olmert! So this is a typical non-answer answer. How sad.
Join the conversation as a VIP Member