Steve Clemons, gentleman blogger

I hope one day if something I say gets ripped out of context I have a friend/defender good enough to listen to English audio below simultaneous translation.

J Street’s original sin, misleading about George Soros’ role in funding the group, has engendered a lot of follow up kick-’em-when-they’re-down "research."

An example has been the claim that Daniel Levy, who helped found the group, said that Israel’s establishment was "wrong."

Mere Rhetoric’s Omri Ceren excerpted Levy’s remarks from an Al Jazeera forum. In order to avoid the accusation that he was removing the statement from its context, the blogger published a hefty chunk of the statement:

One can be a utilitarian two-stater, in other words think that the practical pragmatic way forward is two states. This is my understanding of the current Hamas position.  One can be an ideological two-stater, someone who believes in exclusively the Palestinian self-determination and in Zionism; I don’t believe that it’s impossible to have a progressive Zionism. Or one can be a one-stater. But in either of those outcomes we’re going to live next door to each other or in a one state disposition. And that means wrapping one’s head around the humanity of both sides. I believe the way Jewish history was in 1948 excused – for me, it was good enough for me – an act that was wrong.  I don’t expect Palestinians to think that. I have no reason – there’s no reason a Palestinian should think there was justice in the creation of Israel.

Oddly, for all his emphasis on context, Ceren did not provide the full transcript.

Steve Clemons, Levy’s New America Foundation colleague, was at the forum, and when he read Ceren’s blog was puzzled. He had the opposite impression — that Levy had delivered a stirring defense of Israel.

So he went back to the tape — and it was overdubbed, but still he managed to extract the full context (and, misken, he later uncovered undubbed video).

Steve came up with the incredibly hostile question, and Levy’s full answer, and blogged the results at TPM Cafe.

The full excerpt doesn’t quite exonerate Levy of casting Israel’s creation as "wrong," but it paints a remarkably different picture of what he was trying to refute:

Here’s the question, and Levy’s full answer, with exicsed parts restored:

Q: Hi- Mr. Daniel Levy, you spoke about "progressive Zionists"–and my God, that’s an astonishing phrase. It’s a contradiction in terms and seems to reconcile the irreconcilable, puts opposites together. It’s just like putting cat with mouse and wolf with lamb. It’s just like saying there are progressive Nazis or progressive fascists. The truth is that Zionism is a racist ideology founded on the theft of another people’s land. There can’t be progressive Zionists. Zionism can only be racist, regressive and antidemocratic. And by the way the project you endorsed has already failed. It is the project espoused by Mahmoud Abbas and even by Yasser Arafat and the reason is that when it comes to Palestinian issue, the difference between the Israeli right and the Israeli left is one of a few degrees, not one of different nature.

DL: I think you have to get your head around the idea that the Jewish community in Israel is not going back to Poland or Germany or Morocco or Iraq. One can be a utilitarian two-stater. In other words think that the practical, pragmatic way forward is two states. This is my understanding of the current Hamas position. One can be an ideological two-stater as someone who believes in exclusively Palestinian self-determination or in Zionism. I don’t believe that it’s impossible to have a progressive Zionism. Or one can be a one-stater. But in either of those outcomes, we’re going to live next-door to each other or in a one state disposition.

And that means wrapping ones head around the humanity of both sides. I believe that where Jewish history was in 1948 excused, for me – it was good enough for me – an act that was wrong. I don’t expect Palestinians to think that. I have no reason – there is no reason – that Palestinians should think there was justice in the creation of Israel. But if we’re going to live as neighbors or in one state, one has to begin to develop an understanding and a respect for who the other is. And to compare a Zionist to a Nazi doesn’t really get you very far down that road.

I think Steve is right: Levy is assuming the posture of his questioner to show that how, even from the perspective of the narrative that frames the question, its assumptions are essentially inhumane.

As I said, I don’t think this "exonerates" Daniel — what does he mean  by "wrong": Objectively wrong, wrong from the point of view of the Palestinians, of the particular questioner, wrong at other times and in other places, wrong in the sense that the forced removal and destruction of native Americans was wrong, but that the United States of America as it now exists is "right"?

Daniel has also lived longer in Israel than any other country (I think — he can correct me if I’m wrong). In Israel, this is not a remarkable view; the current Israeli defense minister has said that if he were a Palestinian he would be a terrorist. The attempt in 1999 to use this against Ehud Barak in an election campaign evinced from the electorate a bored shrug.

But it raises questions about why the context is removed. Steve raises the question, but he does not presume malice, and his tone is respectful.

The transcript is correct in offering a horizontal picture of what Levy said. But like most things of this sort, there’s some critical topography missing. I don’t fault Ceren at all for reacting to a transcript if that is what he had in hand (he doesn’t offer a full transcript or link to one) — but given Levy’s stature on this issue and long standing profile in Israel, I’m surprised he didn’t go beyond this.

It’s the kind of attitude occasionally intemperate bloggers (and I count myself among these) could emulate a little more often.