Actually, I thought his argument was more balanced than your rendition of it. It certainly balances your tendency to defend every Sharon action and condemn anything Palestinian. It's helpful to read both your posts.
John, what is "balance"? Balance is comparing one honest viewpoint, based on evidence, against another honest viewpoint, based on evidence. Balance is NOT comparing one honest viewpoint against lies and propaganda. It is not "balanced" to set the speeches of Goebbels against the speeches of FDR!
Therefore, any search for balance must also involve a search for the facts. A lot of people seem to have forgotten this bit. Gelernter has a nice quote, "many people," he said (I'm quoting from memory), "have become so concerned with right and wrong that they have forgotten to search for true and false".
It is one thing to weigh arguments about, say, the settlements, differently, and argue whether & how much of obstacle to peace they were. It is quite another to claim as SFD does, that there were "good effects" on the Lebanese border from Israel's returning its "stolen" land -- while ignoring the existence of Hizbullah, Hizbullah's occupation of Southern Lebanon, their treatment of the Lebanese (the Christians have fled for their lives, but unlike the Palestinians of the West Bank, get no sympathy stories from the NY Times because they have the wrong oppressors), and the immanent war between Israel and Hizbullah. That is not balance. It is either ignorance or propaganda or both.
Your reaction to the Fisk post of yesterday is pretty clearly in that vein.
John, Fisk has told a number of proven lies about Israel, then whined how he's being smeared by his enemies for criticizing Sharon when he is criticized for his lies. He never took back a word of the "massacre in Jenin" stuff he published (unlike his colleage Reeves, whose retraction I published on this thread). Am I under an obligation to be as accepting of the words of liars as of honest men? |
