You took that as an insult? I'm not surprised. That's not what Barak said, anyway. He said Truth is an irrelevant category, there is only that which upholds your side, and that which lets your side down. They're not "lying" as we would consider it, because they don't think in those terms.
I suspect we are counting the angels on the head of a pin here, Nadine, but here is the full quote which struck me as something Barak should not say, publicly. Having said it publicly it undermines, in my view, to some degree, other things he says publicly.
That quote does include your line about "truth as an irrelevant category" but it's very clear the meaning is as I thought. Barak is saying Arab culture (whatever that is) condones the telling of lies in a way the culture of Israel does not.
Here's the quote from Barak:
They are products of a culture in which to tell a lie...creates no dissonance. They don't suffer from the problem of telling lies that exists in Judeo-Christian culture. Truth is seen as an irrelevant category. There is only that which serves your purpose and that which doesn't. They see themselves as emissaries of a national movement for whom everything is permissible. There is no such thing as "the truth."
Next, you asked:
Where did they say that? They never contested the actual offer, just argued all around the edges of it.
Here's the last sentence of the Agha-Malley reply in this week's NYRB. It's that sentence that I took. It's not about the offer but about Barak's claims about the offer. And that's my point. It's no longer possible to know, at least from these sources, what actually happened. Too much reasonably contested ground. As I said before, I now think the claim that the best evidence Arafat wishes to rid the ME of the Israeli state is his rejection of the Camp David-Taba process, that claim rests on very shaky grounds.
Here's the last sentence of the A-M reply to the reply to the reply.
But can Barak, who likes to tell the left that he went further than everyone else and the right that he gave less than anyone else, let us know what are his specific proposals for a final peace agreement with the Palestinians?
As for this last quote from your note I'm including, I see you are an admirer of LBJ's more than pithy remarks. It's hard to beat them.
Good thing Arik knows how to keep Shimon in the tent, pissing out. |
