Soccer Dad

Failure to Appreciate Subtlety

I am apparently incapable of recognizing subtlety. Nicholas Goldberg, op-ed editor of the LA Times and former Middle Eastern correspondent for Newsday, tries to correct my lack of sophistication:

But Israel's inability — or perhaps its unwillingness — to make distinctions among terrorists, to see nuances in Palestinian politics or to take into account the mood of the Palestinian street is worrisome. Yassin's death may or may not be morally defensible — Kofi Annan and many Western leaders called it an unjustifiable, extra-judicial killing in violation of international law — but either way, it is hard to see how it will have any result other than to inflame the population at a moment when Palestinians see little hope for peace.

I don't feel sympathy for Yassin. He was a soldier in a war of his own choosing, and it killed him. But the cause of peace is not served by provocative, macho and arguably illegal moves, and it's hard to see how Yassin's assassination qualifies as anything else. Peace may seem distant, but it is still the goal, isn't it?

It is hard not to admire the fine shadings that Goldberg recognizes here. Yassin died as he lived, by the sword. But that doesn't mean that it was good thing that he was deprived of his sword. No. That is not an enlightened view.
There are others who, like me, are are incapable of understanding such subtlety.
For one there is Larry Miller who writes about the odd nature of spiritual leaders:

AND DR. RANTISI, setting the tone for his first hundred days (and, no doubt, every hundred after that), has used his new bully pulpit to say that "God has declared war on the United States."

Well. Okay, maybe he's right. No, really, it's possible, isn't it? Maybe those folks are right, and all Jews and Americans are the mortal enemies of God, and should be killed anytime, anyplace, the more the merrier.

Anyone want to switch places with Sheikh Yassin right now and find out?

(It's nice that Larry Miller is finally starting to get credit for "Whoever Blesses Them" See Israpundit for an example.) I must have received the article no less than 4 times during the past two years and responded to the sender the real source. Apparently this mistake was quite common as it gained the attention of Snopes.)
Miller is funny, yes, but not exactly subtle.
Then there is Barry Rubin. He is another one who is so lacking in sophistication he can't discern that killing a killer may not be a good thing.

By killing the leader of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin early yesterday, Israel eliminated the most important terrorist leader waging war against it.

Yassin always made it clear that he was dedicated to destroying the state of Israel and killing its citizens wherever they could be found. He reaped the whirlwind he had created.

The killing leaves Hamas without a central figure to follow. And, it sends a message from Israel that its planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip is not a retreat.

Another analyst who could benefit from the wise council of Nicholas Goldberg is Fouad Ajami.

The Gaza sheik was made of different stuff. It is easy to see that he had no mercy for Israelis. But a harder truth can be read into his life: He had no mercy for his own either. Those children, reading their wills and testaments on their way to homicidal missions, are proof of the cruelty and the indifference and the waste of it all.

Dr. Ajami too seems incapable of distinguishing between the different kinds of evil a sophisticate like Mr. Goldberg can. He even suggests here, that the killing of Yassin might help the Palestinians. What a rube!
I truly regret the handicap that I suffer in that I can't appreciate Nicholas Goldberg's sophistication in being able to distinguish between different levels of evil. If I possessed such clarity of thought, I wouldn't think that those last two paragraphs of Goldberg's essay were self contradictory nonsense.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Posted by SoccerDad at March 30, 2004 12:21 AM | TrackBack