NUCLEAR BLOWBACK

Serially unsilenced whiner Antony Loewenstein takes up the cause of unfortunate Aussie Jew David Langsam, who's suffering blowback following ill-considered comments:

I wrote: "If an Arab country did to Israel what Israel is doing to Lebanon - let alone Palestine - it would have been nuked weeks ago." I thought it was witty. Others thought it half-witted.

Bear in mind this guy's a professional writer. So, you'd reckon the mighty Israel lobby went after Langsam baying for blood, right? Wrong:

Two of the most important people in my family misinterpreted my letter and instead of seeing it as a simple condemnation of misdirected Israeli brutality using overwhelming force, turned the meaning around.

Somehow my closest family members turned that into a call for nuking Israel. Given that I oppose uranium mining let alone nuclear weapons, one might have paused to consider the likelihood of that conclusion, but they did not, which demonstrates that people don't necessarily hear the message a writer attempts to input.

So, how does Langsam respond to this family problem? He goes on ABC radio and has a big cry. I'll bet that smoothed the ruffled feathers. Loewenstein is, by the way, something of a family alienation expert.