Language Matters ...

Some people just never understand that.

Elie Weisel is a Nobel Prize Laureate, and a Holocaust Survivor.

His misleading (and racist) article was published in the NYtimes and the Herald Tribune, among others. I have been irked (to say the least) by reporters (such as Thomas Friedman, and now, Mr. Weisel) who use their writings only to stir emotions, removing their tale from the basis of reality. They fail their responsibilities as journalists. They misuse language.

I have just put a few segments below.

In 1991, when Saddam Hussein's Scud missiles fell in a deafening din on TelAviv, some Palestinians danced in the streets and on the roofs of their houses. I saw them. I was in Jerusalem, and I could see what was happeningin the Arab quarter of the Old City.It happened again later, each time a suicide terrorist set off a bomb on abus or in a restaurant. I evoke these scenes with sadness, and for areason: We have just seen them repeated in Gaza.

The images of the evacuation itself are heart-rending. Some of them are unbearable. Angry men, crying women. Children, led away on foot or in thearms of soldiers who are sobbing themselves.

Let's not forget: These men and women lived in Gaza for 38 years.

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And here they are, obliged to uproot themselves, to take their holy and precious belongings, their memories and their prayers, their dreams and their dead, to go off in search of a bed to sleep in, a table to eat on, a new home, a future among strangers.

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And here I am obliged to take a step back. In the tradition I claim, the Jew is ordered by King Solomon "not to rejoice when the enemy falls." I don't know whether the Koran suggests the same.

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Yes, imagine that President Mahmoud Abbas and his colleagues, in advising their followers, extolled moderation, restraint, respect and a little understanding for the Jews who felt themselves struck by an unhappy fate.They would have won general admiration. I will perhaps be told that when the Palestinians cried at the loss of their homes, few Israelis were moved.That's possible. But how many Israelis rejoiced?

posted by Lazarus, 9:33 PM