After reading Joe Goldberg’s commentaries of past weeks, I am thoroughly insulted, both as a Jew and as an avid supporter of Israel. His irresponsible journalistic style, as exemplified by last week’s “fictional conversation” between him and one of his critics, is nothing more than libel. Goldberg’s use of “fictional conversation” medium is without purpose, and his personal attack on a fellow student paints him as a Jewish self-loather, presumptuous and arrogant, and intolerant of the views of Traditional Judaism.
The context of last week’s journalistic farce was a mock conversation between two reform Jews. In essence, he put words into another person’s mouth that contradict the tenets of the reform movement. Moreover, what right does he have to distort another’s character? Furthermore, what right does he have to wrongly represent the ideals of reform Judaism? The editors of The News should not allow such stories to print, nor allow writers who use slander as a means to sell a story to be on staff.
Since Goldberg’s shtick seems to be representing what he calls “reform” Judaism, it is only of necessity that I refute. Goldberg calls himself “pro-Israel and anti-occupation,” a naive argument that aligns him more with anti-Semites than with reform Jews. Occupation, occupation, occupation; the words of terrorist laureate Hannan Ashrawi, and now fed into the minds of feeble Jews. Goldberg is occupied by innocence, of the notion that you can be pro-Israel and anti-occupation.
There are no occupied territories, only liberated, and if Goldberg had the chutzpah to go to Hebron and to Nablus, he would understand. He would see that the reason Israel holds the hilltops is because of the probability Ketusha and Quassam rocket attacks that would take out Tel Aviv or Haifa. When Goldberg states that Tel Aviv has “strong defenses” he does not take into account the strategic importance of geography. If the hilltop communities in the territories were uprooted, how long would it take some human bomb to fire a rocket downward at Tel Aviv? There is historical precedent in the case of the Golan Heights, and such naive thinking is counter intuitive.
It is of the same innocence that the Holocaust was waged. Is of this mindset that allowed Oslo to progress and give money and weapons to the PLO that murdered hundreds, albeit thousands more to come. On the other hand, there is some truth to what Mr. Goldberg says. My “anti-occupation” is multi-fold. I am against the occupation of innocence and against the occupation of Arabs, and having just lived in Hebron Nablus over winter break, I am against the occupation of dishonest and deceitful journalism. And in regards to Goldberg’s line about segregating the Jewish people because “uniting means [sticking] to a single party,” line it is this ideology that will see the eventual fall of the state of Israel. Anyone who supports segregation in times of unity is off his rocker. Trent Lott?
Thus, I strongly feel that opinions such as Goldberg’s are far worse than any terrorist. At least when a terrorist says Allah Abu Akbar, he does it publicly. Goldberg, the best thing you can ever do to “[affect] the behavior of other Jews” is to resign.
— Josh Parker is a sophomore political science and international relations major.
