The Moebius Man

I was hesitating for a while about the title for this post. How do you call a person who sees only one side of a multi-dimensional problem? One-trick pony? One-sided coin? Obsessed? Then I recalled what was shown to me many years ago in the classroom: the Moebius Ring (look for "Escher's ants" on the page). Like the ants in that animation, some people are revolving endlessly on the same circular road of habitual love/hate, coming to a degree of mental laziness where they are unable to discern anything that exists beyond their single track. Their highly developed selective vision will filter out all that clashes with their simple world view.

Now, of course, Moebius people are not endemic to one specific political wing (and I shall never tire to repeat it). But for this post I have chosen a specimen of the anti-Israeli side.

It's a dirty job, but somebody has to do it!

This is the way one of the Jonathan Cook's supporters characterized his latest outburst of hate on CiF (yep, the Guardian again, how did you guess?). And the supporter is absolutely right - this is an exceedingly dirty job Cook is doing, no buts about it.

The gist of the article The propaganda machine is that poor Mr Cook and his colleagues in the good fight against Zionism are being relentlessly and viciously attacked by the Hasbara cohorts. And the one-sided vision is displayed in the article in all its glory. Take this:

Volcanic outbursts of hatred on Cif greet anyone who objects to Israel's policies...

It would have been funny if it were not so pitiful: anyone who have invested half an hour of his/her time in browsing Middle East (or anything else, for that matter) - related articles will immediately know that volcanic outbursts of hatred greet anyone who supports Israel as well - and to a much higher intensity. But remember - we are talking about the Moebius Man here.

I am not sure if any other country or cause encourages this kind of mainly voluntary propaganda work, but I am sure that no other country or cause has the human resources that Israel can rely on to carry it out. There are thousands of people sitting at their computers ready to pounce.

You see how scary the picture is? Thousands - literally thousands of Hasbara grunts, coordinated by octopus-like tentacles of the Elders (right, let's not forget the Elders) and ready to pounce. Indeed, one gets heebie-jeebies imagining this. Of course one should not mind the myriads of happy fellow travelers infesting The Guardian, the Daily Kos, the Huffington Post, the Counterpunch, MPAC, Electronic Intifada... the list is endless, and I am not even mentioning the Muslim countries press (get your inkling here) dubbing in pure antisemitism and the neo-Nazi sites and... ad infinitum. But remember - we are talking about the Moebius Man here. And one who is not above profiting from many of the media outfits mentioned explicitly or implicitly above - just take a look at his visiting card. Truly a man whose freedom of speech is being curtailed...

And of course, the poor injured freedom fighter does not forget to push that straw man of "I am being called an anti-Semite". Really, my heart goes out to him. How about "dork", Jonathan? And a pitiful one to boot, not above some hypocrisy? Take this complaint, for instance:

Other posters simply lied, in the great tradition of hasbara. Several suggested I had written that Rafik Hariri was killed by Israel. I hadn't, and you can check my website to be sure.

Indeed, legally speaking, our man is correct. But in an article titled Syria: Convenient but Unlikely Fall Guy for Gemayel's Death that mixes Gemayel's and Hariri's murders, Middle East politics and whatnot (thanks to the peculiar Cook's habit to make a hash of every topic), he says:

Unlike my colleagues, I do not claim to know who killed Gemayel. Maybe Syria was behind the shooting. Maybe, in Lebanon's notoriously intrigue-ridden and fractious political system, someone with a grudge against Gemayel – even from within his own party – pulled the trigger. Or maybe, Israel once again flexed the muscles of its long arm in Lebanon.

No surprise, then, that some people may have mixed one semi-libelous statement with another, quite similar.

Speaking about libels - take a look at this quote from here:

Several Israeli armaments factories and storage depots have been built close by Arab communities in the north of Israel, possibly in the hope that by locating them there Arab regimes will be deterred from attacking Israel's enormous armory. In other words, the inhabitants of several of Israel's Arab towns and villages have been turned into collective human shields – protection for Israel's war machine.

That Israel is one of the most populated corners in the world and that existence of military installations of all kinds everywhere is a sad background of our existence - these facts do not enter the one-dimensional brain of the author. The shteitl where I happen to be living, is quite far from the centers of Arab population in Israel, but is surrounded on all sides by this or that military installation. Should I check my DNA for presence of Arab blood? But remember - we are talking about the Moebius Man here, one who will not be deterred by mere facts.

And since facts are mentioned (really out of tune with the fact-less article in question), one must not overlook the hilarious introduction to that article:

Time For a Champion of Truth to Speak Up

More than a little uncomfortably, I find myself with a bone to pick with one of our finest champions of humanitarian values and opponents of war.

You may not believe this, but it is true - the words above are dedicated to Fisk! One of the most ridiculous bloody liars of partisan journalism serves as a shining beacon to our hero, who in his Moebius state does not even realize where this act of worship puts him...

So intense is Cook's love/hate affair with Palestine/Israel that he is ready to clash with HRW, an outfit that has definitely no love lost for Israel. He is going out all the way to prove that, while the Zionists intentionally and blood-thirstily killed civilians in Lebanon, Hezbollah targeted only military installations. And get told off by HRW for his trouble.

Well, that is enough, although there are more wonderful, albeit laughable, passages in the article.

Just as a funny detail - the last paragraph, where Cook is frothing about the Camera:

Camera has a section dedicated to "naming and shaming" some of the most influential journalists writing about the Middle East.

Of course, being a humble person, Cook forgot to mention his own puny self. But the fact is that he is also named and shamed here, quite deservedly too, having his ignorance displayed for all to see.

Accidentally, that supporter I mentioned in the beginning, titled his post "Jonathon Cook staves off the zionist hordes". What can I say: the Zionist hordes can definitely do with more jkcooks - so pathetic and ridiculous that they do the Zionist's work for them.

So, I have finished my Hasbara pounce for now. Time for a rest...

Cross-posted on Yourish.com.

***