An Open Letter to Rabbi Michael Lerner
Eric Lee writes to Michael Lerner
Dear Michael,
I’ve just finished reading your article “It breaks my heart to see Israel’s stupidity” and felt I had to reply.
I don’t think we’ve ever talked, but I remember well your appearance some years ago before the central committee of the United Workers Party (Mapam) in Israel. You were asked to say a few words, and, to be honest, your Hebrew just wasn’t up to it, and the audience quickly lost interest. As an American immigrant to Israel, I felt empathy for you. You were clearly a fish out of water. To that audience, you were not a guru whose every word was full of meaning. You were just one more tourist, stumbling into a situation you didn’t seem to understand.
I felt the same thing today reading your article.
Let’s start with your opening. You talk about “Israel’s attempt to wipe out Hamas” in your very first sentence. Maybe you are privy to some information that I haven’t heard. Maybe the Israel Defense Forces have let you in on the top-secret next stage of the plan. Or maybe you just haven’t been paying attention.
Israel is not trying to “wipe out Hamas”. They are trying to compell Hamas to stop firing rockets at Israel. There is a difference and I realize it may be subtle, but please pay attention. Most informed people – including practically all Israelis – would have stopped reading your article right there. You’d have seemed to be an ignorant tourist.
Then you go on to casually refer to Israel’s “crime against humanity.” I’m not sure if you realize this, but the notion of “crimes against humanity” is not a literary phrase you just made up. It actually means something.
If you genuinely believe that Israel is pretty much behaving like, say, the Nazis, you really are living in a bubble. Maybe what you meant to say was that the killing of civilians – which happens in every war – is a terrible thing and should be avoided. Unless of course you believe that no war is morally defensible, and everyone who fights is necessarily commiting crimes against humanity.
You then go on to repeat the official Hamas line about the cease-fire – how the Islamist terrorists actually respected it, and wanted to keep the peace, but those damn Zionists kept making it hard for them.
You actually went beyond the Hamas line a little bit there, Michael, when you said that the organization had accepted the Saudi peace plan and really was happy to live in peace, side by side with the Jewish state. You actually wrote that Hamas “would live peacefully in a two-state arrangement.”
So you mean that all this talk in their charter about “obliterating Israel” is just so much clap-trap? Really, they are reasonable men and Israel is blind not to see this.
You say they’re offering to trade kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,000 prisoners. As Israel holds more than ten times that number, that sounds positively cheap. Incredible that Israel didn’t jump at the chance to make a deal. But you know those Jewish businessman, always trying to get a better price.
The Hamas you describe sounds practically loveable. And eminently reasonable. What could have possessed those horrible Israelis to reject such an appealing offer of peaceful coexistence, with Gilad Shalit thrown in at a bargain-basement price? Instead they decided to “wipe out Hamas” and commit “crimes against humanity” in the process.
You have some really helpful and original suggestions to make for the future as well. Israel should accept 30,000 Palestinian refugees every year for the next 30 years, you say. And apologize for its role in the 1948 “expulsions”. (Odd – you didn’t seem to ask Hamas to apologize for anything.)
I read in your online biography that you have something of a background in psychology. That certainly explains one passage in your article which stands out like a sore thumb.
I’m referring to the bit about a “basic condition for creating peace is to help each side feel ’safe’.” The use of quotation marks around “safe” and even the verb – to feel safe, not to be safe – indicates to me that you don’t really believe that Israelis (or Palestinians) have genuine reasons to feel for their safety.
So what is the problem? Are the Israelis simply paranoid? Are the 6,000 rockets Hamas fired into Israel (this is all before Operation Cast Lead) – are those figments of the twisted imagination of an entire nation suffering from a mental disorder? Is the problem really about “feelings” — or about actually being safe? Safe from rocket and mortar attacks, safe from suicide bombers, safe from the Iranian nuclear bomb.
The more I read your article, the more I felt that in the years since I saw your embarrassing performance in broken Hebrew – and the arrogance in thinking that you had something to teach – you had learned nothing.
I don’t know if you or your editor came up with the headline, with its arrogant use of the word “stupidity” to describe those with whom you do not agree.
I would never describe you as “stupid”. You are what you were when I last heard you speak – ignorant and arrogant. It’s really the worst combination.
Yours,
Eric Lee
Comments
| 6 January 2009, 6:00 pm |
Here is what Helen Susman would have replied to him:
“Kirchick’s Personal Tribute to Helen Suzman”
Lerner, btw, is a vile opportunist just like most “tikunists.”
These hypocrites don’t get it.
Hitler and Stalin too wanted to “repair the world,” and so do the Jew hating Jihadists.
| 6 January 2009, 6:02 pm |
” read in your online biography that you have something of a background in psychology. That certainly explains one passage in your article which stands out like a sore thumb.”
Please read David Horowits’ Radical Son he presents Lerner as a demented “revolutionary” who wanted to start a civil war in the US in the 60’s.
| 6 January 2009, 6:07 pm |
While you whine over stupid shit on who said what to whom
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7814054.stm
UN schools/shelters are being bombed by Israel.
| 6 January 2009, 6:09 pm |
Michael Lerner is a radical revolutionary relic of the 1960s generation who had created the Seattle Revolutionary Front! This is the same Michael Lerner who famously denounced a senator and a state governor who were guests at his own sisters wedding of being “murderers” with “blood on your hands” for the mere fact that they had not managed to stop the Vietnam War. When he got married himself, he exchanged rings in “the fuselage of a downed American aircraft.” Given his own wedding cake was complete with the words “Smash Monogamy,” a slogan of the terrorist cell the Weather Underground iced upon it, it is no surprise that his own marriage lasted less than one year. He was convinced that Berkeley was “the center of the world-historical spirit.” He famously commented to a colleague, “You have to take LSD. Until you’ve dropped acid, you don’t know what socialism is.” Convinced that fascism was coming to America, he urged his revolutionary comrades to purchase guns for a revolutionary “armed struggle” that could be used “in assassinations.”
All of the above can be seen at the following reference:
David Horowitz, Radical Son: A Generational Odyssey,(New York: Touchstone, 1997) pp. 195-198, p. 209
The book contains much more hilarity about Lerner and his revolutionary colleagues.
Paul Bogdanor and Edward Alexander also has some stuff in his book about Lerner - for example, they comment:
In the fall of 1969 Lerner commenced his open battle with what he called “the Jewish establishment” of “fat cats and conformists” in an article entitled “Jewish New Leftism at Berkeley” in Judaism magazine. It followed the ancient pattern of blaming Jews for the violence unleashed against them. “Black anti-Semitism,” wrote Lerner, “is a tremendous disgrace to Jews; for this is not an anti-Semitism rooted in… hatred of the Christ-killers but rather one rooted in the concrete fact of oppression by Jews of blacks in the ghetto… in part an earned anti-Semitism.” Lest antisemites (Jewish as well as gentile) be confused about the location of their rightful targets, he added that “The synagogue as currently established will have to be smashed.”
Quoted by Edward Alexander and Paul Bogndanor eds., The Jewish Divide Over Israel, (New Brunswick: Transaction Publishers, 2006) p. xiii
Lerner’s magazine Tikkun publishes 9/11 Conspiracy theories, argues that psychedelic drug use is an expression of Judaism and the list goes on.
One wonders why The Times published his work.
| 6 January 2009, 6:12 pm |
Flanker are you a sincere and committed socialist?
| 6 January 2009, 6:14 pm |
For a right wing attack on Lerner, one can read Steven Plaut who referred to Lerner as Rabbi Moonbeam.
| 6 January 2009, 6:15 pm |
The IDF issued a statement saying that UN school grounds were used by terrorists to fire mortar shells at the troops.
The infantrymen returned mortar shell fire into the school grounds, the army said. Defense officials told The Associated Press that booby-trapped bombs in the school triggered the secondary explosions which killed scores of Palestinians on the site.
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1231167272256&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull
| 6 January 2009, 6:16 pm |
“For a right wing attack on Lerner,”
Funny, you assume nobody read this thread and op.
| 6 January 2009, 6:20 pm |
“The infantrymen returned mortar shell fire into the school grounds, the army said. Defense officials told The Associated Press that booby-trapped bombs in the school triggered the secondary explosions which killed scores of Palestinians on the site.”
What a bunch of pre-canned horseshit, now UN facilities are booby-trapped by Hamas? Who in their right mind would fall for such nonsense? why not state Élysée is also under Hamas control and kill Sarkozy as well?
The true goal: Terrorize the Palestinian people into believing nowhere is safe, not even UN shelters.
| 6 January 2009, 6:25 pm |
Hamas “would live peacefully in a two-state arrangement.”
The man is stupid, not only arrogant and ignorant. He is, quite simply, a twat. He would get on famously with Fwanker and the other losers who come here to vent their hatred of Jews actually doing something to defend themselves.
| 6 January 2009, 6:32 pm |
What a bunch of pre-canned horseshit, now UN facilities are booby-trapped by Hamas?
Only those used for weapon stashes and where Hamas fires mortar shells at IDF troops. Apparently, it is common operating procedure for Hamas, as is your lying for them. However, no one finds you credible.
| 6 January 2009, 6:36 pm |
“Let’s start with your opening. You talk about “Israel’s attempt to wipe out Hamas” in your very first sentence. Maybe you are privy to some information that I haven’t heard. Maybe the Israel Defense Forces have let you in on the top-secret next stage of the plan. Or maybe you just haven’t been paying attention.
Israel is not trying to “wipe out Hamas”. They are trying to compell Hamas to stop firing rockets at Israel. There is a difference and I realize it may be subtle, but please pay attention….
Most informed people – including practically all Israelis – would have stopped reading your article right there. You’d have seemed to be an ignorant tourist.”
Israeli Vice Premier Haim Ramon said the other day
“We need to reach a situation in which we do not allow Hamas to govern. That is the most important thing. If the war ends in a draw, as expected, and Israel refrains from reoccupying Gaza, Hamas will gain diplomatic recognition”
Should everyone have stopped reading your article at that point?
I made the mistake of going on and reading your justification of war crimes on civilians by parsnig words, weasel words - your take of which is worng in international law. You show yourself to be free of any ethical dimension that would make your writing at minimum interesting or informing.
| 6 January 2009, 6:37 pm |
Let’s ignore Flanker.
| 6 January 2009, 6:41 pm |
“You have to take LSD. Until you’ve dropped acid, you don’t know what socialism is.”
Now there’s a slogan for you SPGBers!
| 6 January 2009, 6:43 pm |
Interesting that he is proposing a truce with a time limit of 20 years, but does not elaborate on the reasons why. Doesn’t mention that the notion of establishing a permanent peace with the Israelis would never be acceptable to Hamas. Only a temporary agreement, with the promise of future conflict is acceptable to them.
Why would any Israeli want to espouse peace and security for his own lifetime, while sacrificing the peace and security of his children and grandchildren?
It seems to me this man has gone out of his way to get a dishonest and duplicitous pice published in the Times, and the editors should have picked up on these aspects.
| 6 January 2009, 6:48 pm |
Now there’s a slogan for you SPGBers!
Graham, after checking out U and non-U English, would a true socialist sing about riding his bicycle or cycle?
| 6 January 2009, 6:55 pm |
“Only those used for weapon stashes and where Hamas fires mortar shells at IDF troops. Apparently, it is common operating procedure for Hamas, as is your lying for them. However, no one finds you credible.”
My side is the UN, and clearly they are calling BS on Israel’s pre-canned claptrap. For Hamas to have boobytrapped an instalation the UN would have to have been complicit which they know is BS, only apologists like you defend like parrots what the IDF feeds you.
| 6 January 2009, 7:02 pm |
Flanker:”What a bunch of pre-canned horseshit, now UN facilities are booby-trapped by Hamas? Who in their right mind would fall for such nonsense?”
They had no compunction in wiring up an ESN lad as a potential bomb-murderer (he was saved by the IDF) - so why would they worry about booby-trapping a school, a church, a hospital - or even a mosque? The school is administered by UNRWA - an organisation run almost 100% by local Arabs - and whose sympathies lie with the Palestinian cause. Are you saying, that if pushed or even gently asked they wouldn’t allow the building to be used by Hamas? There were no children there - just apparently several young men between the ages of 18-25… Perhaps they were attending a seminar on the Hamas Charter: A Basis for Interfaith Dialogue
“why not state Élysée is also under Hamas control and kill Sarkozy as well?”
Ya daft gobshite.
| 6 January 2009, 7:06 pm |
Paul, I’m having a slow brain day… E.S.N?
| 6 January 2009, 7:06 pm |
“defend like parrots”
Heh, he said “parrots”.
| 6 January 2009, 7:09 pm |
John Ging is arab now?
The conspiracy theory deepens.
| 6 January 2009, 7:25 pm |
My side is the UN, and clearly they are calling BS on Israel’s pre-canned claptrap
Where is the UN denouncing claims that the school was booby-trapped? Evidence please. Thanks
| 6 January 2009, 7:33 pm |
Graham, after checking out U and non-U English, would a true socialist sing about riding his bicycle or cycle?
That U and non U stuff is interesting - never heard of that before.
A true (working-class) socialist would sing about riding his bike of course. An SPGBer would probably sing the old psychedelic hit “my white bicycle”.
But now I have realised I am on Israel/Palestine thread - so goodbye.
| 6 January 2009, 7:34 pm |
My goodness - so Rabbi Lerner is telepathic???!
Has he always had this amazing ability or has it manifested just in time for his comments on Hamas?
For while Hamas publicly keep repeating that they will never recognise Israel’s right to exist, Rabbi L apparently knows better! He’d better hope that Hamas leaders don’t discover his ability to read their innermost and secret intentions; me thinks they wouldn’t like it one little bit….!
The Incredible Telepathic Rabbi.
Will he be appearing on Oprah anytime soon?
| 6 January 2009, 8:14 pm |
Let’s stop all this whining about about a few hundred women and children being exploded,ok.Why all this concern about a bit of murderous mayhem when the residents of Sderot have been unable to watch Will & Grace on the tube without being disturbed by the noise of fireworks? Some of you have your priorities back to front.
| 6 January 2009, 8:27 pm |
“Let’s stop all this whining about about a few hundred women and children being exploded,ok.Why all this concern about a bit of murderous mayhem when the residents of Sderot have been unable to watch Will & Grace on the tube without being disturbed by the noise of fireworks? Some of you have your priorities back to front.”
Your scornfulness serves only to diminish you.
| 6 January 2009, 8:33 pm |
Are you Richard Seymour?
| 6 January 2009, 8:38 pm |
Yes, why are we paying attention to Michael Lerner after all these years? I heard him speak in 1988 in Jerusalem (after the first intifada had started), and he was there to give advice to the Israeli left on how to conduct themselves. It was laughable - he’d been in the country for a week, and now he was prepared to bestow the fruits of his wisdom upon people who were actually trying to do something (like get the Israeli government to negotiate with the PLO instead of fighting them). He was both ignorant and arrogant then. After that, I stopped bothering to read Tikkun.
| 6 January 2009, 8:44 pm |
I’d never read anything by Eric Lee before but I’d heard about him. Isn’t he someone who claims to be something to do with Labour? What an unpleasent hate-filled propagandist he is.
| 6 January 2009, 8:51 pm |
I’d never read anything by Eric Lee before but I’d heard about him.
Absolutely incredible. An aspiring academic says this, and then offers an unflinching judgement.
| 6 January 2009, 8:58 pm |
What an unpleasent(sic) hate-filled propagandist he is.
Should be right up your street then.
| 6 January 2009, 9:10 pm |
Still here, Graham? As it happens, I likely use more of the U terms than non-U.
What am I to do?
| 6 January 2009, 9:15 pm |
Religion is the source of morality and has the solution to this problem
http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=1165#comic
| 6 January 2009, 9:26 pm |
What am I to do?
Well at least you are not “aspiring middle-class.”
Us cockneys have always loved the Old Queen Mum like.
| 6 January 2009, 9:27 pm |
From your wiki page:
The debate did not concern itself with the speech of the working classes, which in many instances used the same words as the upper class.
I say! What ho!
| 6 January 2009, 9:51 pm |
I saw “Rabbi” Lerner at an anti war rally in the US in the wind up to the American invasion of Iraq in 2003. The usual far left wing fools were there: ANSWER, CAIR, Campus groups and the usual gaggle people who want Muslim Lenin to come back with an atomic bomb to kill all the white people and such. Also the American Nazi Party and the Klan were there as well, because, as the left in the America knows, Jews are the root of all evil, start all wars, did 911, own the banks etc etc. Which is perfect breeding ground the Nazis, skinheads and Klan types. At any rate “Rabbi” Lerner was there and when he tried to speak, mind you he was on their side, they took the mike from him pushed him off the stage and started shouting antisemitic rants at him. The look on his dumb mug was priceless. I believe he genuinely did not understand what was happening.
| 6 January 2009, 10:05 pm |
Hotdog:
Lerner is so stupid and full of himself, I’m sure he didn’t understand then and hasn’t gained any awareness since.
| 6 January 2009, 10:10 pm |
Lerner has written an answer to my open letter, here:
http://www.ericlee.info/2009/01/rabbi_michael_lerner_responds.html
| 6 January 2009, 10:25 pm |
Lerner has written an answer to my open letter, here:
I think it’s funny that the ad they propose to run in the NYT (where else, heh) is address to “President Obama”.
It’s as if they are promising the Palestinians they will be on speed dial very soon, but for the next two weeks at least, they are on hold and just have to suck it up.
| 6 January 2009, 10:35 pm |
Hotdog, makes me think of Maven’s judgement on Nick Griffin - he can be my useful idiot any day.
No he can’t. Tigers, tails.
| 7 January 2009, 2:06 am |
Israel is not trying to “wipe out Hamas”. They are trying to compell Hamas to stop firing rockets at Israel. There is a difference and I realize it may be subtle, but please pay attention.
Our aim is to force Hamas to stop its hostile activities against Israel and Israelis from Gaza, and to bring about a significant change in the situation in Southern part of Israel. Ehud Barak, 3/1/08
Spot on!
| 7 January 2009, 2:18 am |
Michael Lerner, whose publication i received for one year and used to enjoy, is a leftie brownnoser par excellence. In late 2001 or early 2002 (can’t remember exactly when this occurred) he was supposed to speak at a hard Leftie gathering about Israel’s mistreatment of Palestinians. However, when the organizers found out he still supported the existence of the State of Israel (ie. wasn’t advocating Palestine will be free from the river to the sea), they booted him off the speaker’s list.
Anybody else might have gleaned something important from that incident, but it looks like he continues to suck up to the loony left. He’s pathetic and has no credibility.
| 7 January 2009, 2:33 am |
Just read Lerner’s response. I have to admit it’s reasonable. I don’t agree with it, but he makes the case well and without hyperbole. That being said, he still identifies with “progressives,” most of whom now support the “river to the sea” solution.
| 7 January 2009, 2:43 am |
Flanker “What a bunch of pre-canned horseshit, now UN facilities are booby-trapped by Hamas?”
UN facilites and ambulances have been used by Hamas to mount attacks before.
Why would any sane person doubt that Hamas which has used schools and mosques from which to mount attacks would not use a UN building for the same person.
Flanker is a Hamas Flankey.
“Who in their right mind would fall for such nonsense?”
Indeed no one would fall for your horseshit, Flankey.
| 7 January 2009, 2:53 am |
So you mean that all this talk in their charter about “obliterating Israel” is just so much clap-trap? Really, they are reasonable men and Israel is blind not to see this.
OK.
One thing is an organization’s charter or platform.
Quite another thing is what that organization does, frequently in contradiction with its stated principles.
The Likud party’s platform, for instance, expressly rejects the idea of a Palestinian state, and is adamant that the settlers must stay put. And its charter claims sovereignty over the whole Land of Israel, which includes Judea and Samaria (see here). MK Uzi Landau confirmed this when he said: “I am against the establishment of a Palestinian state and everything must be done to prevent it.”
So that means that if Likud wins the upcoming election, the Palestinians should walk away from the negotiations?
In that case, will you write a post saying that Abbas has no partner for peace, pointing to the Likud charter, platform and statements?
So let’s stop being disingenuous re the Hamas charter. You know perfectly well that as a party gains increasing power it becomes ever more moderate. The Irgun claimed Israel plus Jordan; Likud only claims from the Mediterranean to the Jordan; if and when Netanyahu takes office, he will be very careful to shed his party’s maximalist stance even if it’s not removed from its charter.
And the same logic applies to Hamas.
| 7 January 2009, 7:45 am |
The description Eric Lee gave of Michael Lerner is very charitable. Looks like Michael Lerner is not accessible to reason, he remains the ignorant, arrogant tourist, who wants to change the world, but cannot change his own behaviour.
Michael Lerner reminds me of the old Austro-Hungarian anecdote how they choose officers for the general staff.
1. The best ones were the intelligent and hard working, but such were not always available so they liked also to take
2. Intelligent and lazy ones; because after all, the fellow would be lazy, but not cause too much damage.
So what did they do, if there were not enough intelligent officers to take? They would take
3, a stupid and lazy officer; considering that the chap would cause harm, but being lazy the harm would not be great; but they never took
4. stupid and hard working officers.
In which category would you place Michael Lerner, who behaves like a bull in a china shop?
Lerner published last summer an article of the Swedish-Russian antisemite Israel Shamir.
I wrote to “Rabbi” Lerner about it and received a nasty reply because of a minor mistake in my English (which is not my native tongue). More on this:
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2008/09/24/a-lot-to-lern-about-shamir/
| 7 January 2009, 10:39 am |
Slightly OT, but as nobody appears to have come back to Alec on his question, ESN stands for ‘educationally subnormal”
Write a comment