Friday, December 31, 2010

Al-Akhbar in the news again: or how to argue with ignorance (B.S. Cohen)

So this Ben S (or B.S.) Cohen has a piece on Al-Akhbar.  The dude, it seems, did not like the article by Worth on Al-Akhbar: perhaps because Zionist hoodlums don't like anti-Zionist success stories.   But before I respond to this guy, I have to say this: how do I argue with a guy over a paper written in a language that he does not understand?  Notice that when he tries to be smart (quoting Marx was for him a sign of intelligence but he forgot that Marx was quoting Hegel  (Marx quotes Hegel (although nobody has ever been able to find the quotation in any of Hegel's writings--and I even looked one time and the closest you will find is this in his Philosophy of History: "A coup d'état is sanctioned as it were in the opinion of the people if it is repeated. Thus, Napoleon was defeated twice and twice the Bourbons were driven out. Through repetition, what at the beginning seemed to be merely accidental and possible, becomes real and established.") in his book the 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleonthat "Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.").  It is cute that this Cohen is offering advice to Al-Akhbar about the follies of Leftist alliances with Islamic fundamentalists: which raises a fundamental question.  Are we to believe that this guy really is concerned over the plight of Al-Akhbar and the cause of the Left in general and merely wishes to offer advice?  But forget all that: at the end of the article, he seems to find himself smart by offering advice on what the paper should cover.  This part is laughable because the guy (who is arguing with an Arabic newspaper--and he does not read Arabic mind you) urges the paper to cover stories that he thinks is not covered by the paper when every one of them has been covered by Al-Akhbar: tons of criticisms of Hamas; attention to South Sudan; and articles against Saddam regime and his crimes.  So do you understand my frustration when people in the US want to argue with me about Aljazeera or now about Al-Akhbar when they only know what MEMRI tells them?  Lastly, the misquotation by Ibrahim Amin on Jews immigrating to Europe and US will soon become an accusation that Ibrahim Amin threatened "to throw the Jews into the sea."  We know now without the shadow of a doubt that Zionist propaganda machine invented a lie and attributed to Nasser AND Ahmad Shuqayri when none of them ever uttered those words.  Yet, an official Israeli Air Force commander ORDERED this soldiers on June 6th 1967 to push Arabs into the desert and yet no one talks about the factories of hate in Israel.  Oh, one more thing: he suggests that support by the paper for gay rights and women's rights is due for gaining popularity.  How dumb is that?  You gain popularity by challenging the fundamental traditional beliefs?  (thanks Sultan)