In psychoanalysis, “transference” is the process by which emotions and desires originally associated with one person or subject are shifted to another person or subject.
In the Middle East, transference is a frequent technique of media commentators. For example, some commentators will “transfer” their antipathy toward Israel to more politically correct anti-Sharon sentiments. HonestReporting showcases two such commentators:
===== MSNBC’S MICHAEL MORAN =====
Moran wrote a column on May 10, “From Madness to a state of peace.” He charged:
“It should also be conceded that the two men who purport to lead Israel and the Palestinians at the moment are completely incapable of anything but war. For Yasser Arafat and Ariel Sharon, power flows from bloodshed. Beyond violence lie only hard choices, compromises and the political wilderness… These two men do not respond to incentives or international pressure. They only understand one language: power.”
Moran forgets the occasions when Sharon did not respond to Arafat’s incitement or suicide bombs during the course of the Palestinian war, for example following the Tel Aviv disco bombing. And this week, Sharon aimed the Israeli Defense Forces at the massive terrorist infrastructure in Gaza and chose not to pull the trigger, despite daily terrorist attacks along the Gazan-Israeli border.
Moran even takes a crack at democratically elected American officials. He describes the U.S. House of Representatives’ resolution in support for Israel as “the one-sided and politically safe pro-Israel resolution passed by the pandering politicians…”
Read Moran’s column at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3340207/ns/world_news-brave_new_world/t/madness-state-peace/
You can respond to Moran’s column at the bottom of the article, or at:
[email protected]
===== BOSTON GLOBE’S JAMES CARROLL =====
Carroll repeated many accusations against Sharon in his May 7 column, “Israel’s biggest danger: a disappearing border.”
“Sharon has done more to shame the Jewish state than any other leader, and his current term in office is an unparalleled disaster – obviously so for Palestinians, but even more so for Israelis… Sharon was a leading force behind the ‘creation of facts,’ the salting of the West Bank and Gaza with Jewish settlements. That unchecked movement is the ground of the present conflict.”
Carroll idolizes the “borders of 1967,” citing the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia’s “principle of absolutely defined political boundaries was enshrined as the main structure of peace.”
Carroll may know medieval history, but he’s missing some important facts from the modern era:
– Many of the 1970s settlements were approved and built by then-Prime Minister Rabin and Defense Minister Shimon Peres.
– The PLO and Arafat’s perpetual war against Israel predate “settlements.”
– The 1967 “borders” Carroll idolizes were merely armistice lines drawn in 1949, not sacrosanct defined borders. The British Ambassador to the UN, Lord Caradon, who drafted UN Resolution 242 told the Beirut Daily Star on June 12, 1974: “It would have been wrong to demand that Israel return to its positions of June 4, 1967 because these positions were undesirable and artificial. After all, they were just the places where the soldiers on each side happened to be on the day the fighting stopped in 1948. They were just armistice lines. That’s why we didn’t demand that the Israelis return to them, and I think we were right not to.”
Read Carroll’s full column at:
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1P2-7716156.html
To respond to Carroll’s column after reading it, send letters to the editor to: [email protected]
Letters to the Editor – The Boston Globe
POB 2378, Boston, MA 02107-2378
HonestReporting.com always recommends writing your own letters to the editor, using the above material for reference.
===== URBAN LEGEND ALERT =====
A widely circulated email on the truth behind the Middle East conflict is attributed to popular comedian Dennis Miller. Actually, the article is excerpted from a Daily Standard column, “Whoever Blesses Them – The intifada and its defenders,” by Larry Miller. Read the article at:
http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/161yaihr.asp
