Roger Cohen, "Why Israel Still Refuses to Choose": Liar!

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In his latest New York Times op-ed entitled "Why Israel Still Refuses to Choose," Roger Cohen writes (my emphasis in red):

"From Tel Aviv to Ramallah in the West Bank, from the largely Arab city of Nazareth to Jerusalem, I found virtually nobody on either side prepared to offer anything but a negative assessment of the two-state idea. Diagnoses ranged from moribund to clinically dead. Next year it will be a half-century since the Israeli occupation of the West Bank began. More than 370,000 settlers now live there, excluding in East Jerusalem, up from about 249,000 in 2005. The incorporation of all the biblical Land of Israel has advanced too far, for too long, to be reversed now."

Bullshit, Roger! The built-up areas of the settlements constitute only 1.7% of the West Bank, i.e. less than 40 square miles.

Cohen continues:

"Palestinians — whether in Israel proper, where the 1.5 million Arab citizens make up about 17 percent of a population of 8.5 million, or in the West Bank, where they number about 2.6 million — are tired of the humiliations, big and small, that Israel dishes out."

Humiliations handed out to Israeli Arabs? Like when Israeli Supreme Court Justice Salim Joubran, an Arab Christian, read out former Israeli Prime Minister Olmert's jail sentence? Unlike Cohen, I interact with Israeli Arabs on a daily basis, and if I were to witness any such "humiliation," I would not tolerate it for an instant.

A pity Cohen is not more concerned with the phenomenon of "honor killings" perpetrated against Palestinian women by their fathers, brothers and husbands.

And then there was the recent attempt by the Palestinian Authority and UNESCO to deny the connection of the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to the Jewish people, which also goes ignored in this opinion piece by Cohen. This was not an attempt to humiliate and demean Jews in Israel and throughout the world?

In short, more road apples from someone who in 2009 waged a campaign to convince us that Iran is "not totalitarian." Sickening.

A Would-Be Book-Burner's Candidacy for Director General of Unesco

In Roger Cohen's September 7 op-ed, "An Egyptian for Unesco", Cohen writes from Paris:

"France is aflutter with rumors that its beautiful first lady, Carla Bruni, will star in Woody Allen’s next movie. . . . I’d love to see her in an Allen film. All that European refinement is a Brooklyn Jewish kid’s fantasy."

Although born in Brooklyn, I despise Allen's depictions of Jews as self-effacing bunglers, and I don't fantasize over "European refinement", whatever that might be. My face is wrinkled by the desert sun, my knees hurt from standing watch countless hours, and I wouldn't have it otherwise.

Cohen proceeds to inform us of the debate raging in France over the possible appointment of Farouk Hosny, Egyptian minister of culture, as director general of Unesco. Questioned about Israeli books in the Alexandria Library, Hosny recently replied:

"Let’s burn these books. If there are any, I will burn them myself before you.”

Cohen does not oppose Hosny's appointment to the top spot at Unesco. My response to Cohen's op-ed:

Ever myopic, Roger Cohen has a propensity for distortion, but to his credit appears to communicate, as does Hosny, "without intention or premeditation".

Over the better part of a year, Cohen sought to indoctrinate us with the belief that Iran is "not totalitarian" and regaled us with tales of Persian "civility", all of which went up in the cigarette smoke that he blew into the eyes of a tear-gassed demonstrator on the blood soaked streets of Tehran. Now, Cohen would have us believe that given a second chance, Hosny could change: "He brooks debate, at least."

Cohen argues that "with the big U.S. contribution to the Unesco budget as leverage, let’s press [Hosny] relentlessly to fight the anti-Semitic bigotry poisoning young Arab psyches". Cohen cheerleading the fight against anti-Semitism? This is the same Roger Cohen, who, in his op-ed "Baker's Ghost in Cairo", commended the former secretary of state's denunciation of "Greater Israel" (Israel is only 9 miles wide at its waist), but forgot to mention Baker's other infamous remark, "F#%@ the Jews". Perhaps we need to pardon Baker, Hosny and Cohen.

But imagine if a candidate for U.S. secretary of education had one year ago recommended burning books written by homosexuals. Would his/her candidacy be considered for even a nanosecond? Or would Cohen have us forgive and forget in the hope that this newly repentant official could bridge differences between the straight and gay communities? He/she "brooks debate, at least."

Humor Mubarak? By all means. Let him propose another candidate.

The leopard cannot change his spots. Neither can Hosny or Cohen.