A couple of days ago, as I was sitting at my desk in my office, one of my co-workers looked up from his desk and asked, "When did Israel become the enemy?" It wasn't an ideological irritable prelude to a rant, it was a genuine question. A moment later, he admitted, "I don't really follow the news." He was at a loss as to why Israel was suddenly being pilloried in the media, because he had only the vaguest sense of what had happened. He knew that Israel was embargoing Hamas to prevent the flow of weapons, and he knew that some civillians had died in a fight with some police officers.
Sensing that the room wasn't fully agreeing with his bafflement, he asked me (as the token Israeli on hand) what my "take" on all this was, I described to him the missing facts: the nature of the embargo (in terms of what precisely is being banned), and the outrage aimed at the decision to board the boat, rather than use another strategy to stop the boat. I don't know whether he changed his mind, but he clearly had his question answered as to why Israel was in the position that it is today.
It reminded me what the biggest barrier in terms of public opinion about Israel: the inertia of not keeping up with the news. For those people who are not reading Andrew Sullivan's torrent of updates or listening to NPR daily, suddenly there's splashy news, and people around them are talking about the need to "take action" about Israel -- talking about Israel the way that we've been talking about Iran. What happened? Without the facts, this is just irrational, baffling. It would be as though all the chatter was suddenly about sanctions against Canada, or trying to erase the word French from the language (okay, bad example...).
And this is the inertia in the political process that leaves politicians vulnerable to AIPAC. American voters don't seem to be interested in a debate as to the nuances of the Israel-Palestine-America-Lebanon-Syria-Turkey-Iran-Iraq-Saudi Arabia-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India web (IPALSTIISAAP? Ipalestisap?). They just don't want us to be "on the side of terrorists." That's what bias looks like: it's our default position, in the absence of other facts.
By the way, the same co-worker asked me why Egypt is enemies with Hamas. I explained to him about Egypt being a secular dictatorship, and he said, "Oh, so an enemy of an enemy is my friend?" That sentence is the big stumbling block here. Why? I'll let Jon explain:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Headlines - Enemy Plus Enemy Equals One Ally | ||||
| ||||
Which is not to say that Egypt is our enemy. But neither are they our friends. Actually, maybe this one is more appropriate:
| The Daily Show With Jon Stewart | Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c | |||
| Billions and Billions | ||||
| ||||
