BLOOD FEUD

The following letter appears in the 18 August 2006 Australian Jewish News:

INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY

I was under no illusions that Antony Loewenstein’s book would turn out to be fair, or indeed accurate, after hosting him in Israel when he did his “research”.

I place the word in inverted commas, since it was all too apparent that Loewenstein was interested in hearing only what motivated his personal agenda.

A typical example was when he returned after a day out and announced that the people he spoke to had told him that Israelis made life very difficult. When I asked him who gave him this information, he told me that the people were “Arabs in East Jerusalem”.

On another occasion, when I asked him if he had seen a certain newspaper article, he told me that he “didn’t read the Jerusalem Post because it was too right-wing”!

I would have expected a “journalist” to at least look at differing opinions.

It was not just intellectual dishonesty that struck me, but an abysmal lack of knowledge about the history of the area. I was astounded that someone with so little knowledge about his subject would have the temerity to write a book, and even more so that a publisher would agree to lend its name to the finished work.

If the world needs another anti-Israel/anti-American diatribe replete with Jewish conspiracy theories, they have it in Loewenstein’s book. This particular book is even less accurate than the others.

It is not, of course, surprising that Robert Fisk endorsed Loewenstein’s book, but it does tell us what to expect of an author who hitches his star to the likes of Fisk and John Pilger. Perhaps that is the greatest service the book does: it thoroughly discredits the author from the word go.

Ronald Green
Ramat Hasharon, Israel

Ronald Green's letter is really quite mild considering the savaging the Green family – Loewenstein's cousins – gets from Loewenstein in My Israel Question. Here's Loewenstein's take on the Greens:

Ronnie and Lilly Green, both in their sixties, welcomed me into their home. Ronnie is a warm, gregarious man with a strong English accent. I told myself it would be best to avoid mentioning the conflict, but he knew I was researching a book. I offered the briefest of explanations of its likely content. 'Your book will have the wrong views', he told me. Over the coming two days, I experienced a barrage of Ronnie's vitriol. Some 'highlights' [edited for brevity]:

Germany is the devil. I've never been there and never will. And my children, luckily, share the same view.

You can't be pro-Palestinian without being anti-Israel. But you can be be Pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian.

I've never read in the Israeli press any incitement or hatred of Arabs. Never.

We should be harder on the Palestinians... Only force will make them understand.

The world hates Jews and hates Israel.

I don't care if the Palestinians are suffering. We must come first.

The checkpoints, the wall and bypass roads are all necessary...

I don't know of any Arab or Palestinian academic or protester or individual, except for a few, that don't hate Israel and Jews.

His passion was violent and astounding.

Loewenstein obviously found the Green family threatening:

Other members of the family were invited over for a Sabbath meal. Ronnie and Lilly's daughter, Danielle, was equally confrontational...

I was mildly reassured when Ronnie told me that, despite our disagreements, 'Blood is thicker than water. We're family'.

What does Loewenstein want his readers to think? Perhaps that he feared his cousins might roll a grenade under his bed as he slept?

In researching his book Loewestein spent over a month in Israel. During that time he met with a number of leftists whose views he features prominently. The Greens on the other hand are the only Zionists whose views get more than passing mention. He is exploiting his own family – who welcomed him into their home – in a shameless effort to score political points.

I'd also like to know if he took notes or recorded the conversations and if the Greens were made aware their comments were "on the record". Or, did he reconstruct the conversations after the fact?

Finally, what is it with Loewenstein and his dislike of the elderly? Could this have anything to do with the tendency of people to become more conservative as they get older?

Update: When posts get as long as this one Blogger gets pretty sluggish and even sometimes makes spotaneous formatting changes. I've therefore removed the update on Loewenstein's faulty take on the Big Ideas Forum that was here and posted it separately here.

Update II: Loewenstein's very nasty response to Ronald Green's letter is discussed here.