Roger Cohen reclassified: mostly inoffensive

This is as good day as any* to confess to wrongdoing and to ask for forgiveness. Besides, it is good for the soul and for the old digestion. So here I am, confessing. Soon as I get some oomph. Because it is not easy, this confessing business.

You see, it is for many years that I was negative and even somewhat cynical about Roger Cohen, he of New York Times, currently submerged up to the top of his Wellies somewhere in the flooded streets of Albion (such is the tough lot of NYT best and finest). Being negative and cynical, I have produced quite a few negative and cynical posts on the subject and even dubbed him "a man who rarely misses an opportunity to miss a point". Mea culpa (although I have done most of it with pleasure and now I'm  really not in the mood to give all that pleasure back, if you see what I mean).

And here comes that day...

(I hope you realize how difficult it is for me to write this and yes, I hope you feel just a little bit for me in my hour of despondency and heartbreak).

... that day, when I open an e-mail, click on a link and see this:

I do not trust the B.D.S. movement. Its stated aim is to end the occupation, secure “full equality” for Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel, and fight for the right of return of all Palestinian refugees. The first objective is essential to Israel’s future. The second is laudable. The third, combined with the second, equals the end of Israel as a Jewish state. This is the hidden agenda of B.D.S., its unacceptable subterfuge: beguile, disguise and suffocate.

So, what, in your opinion should I do now with all my accumulated years of acerbic and poisonous criticism of the man, after he found it in himself to face up to the truth? Should I nitpick this quote and mention that the "hidden agenda" is not, in fact, all that well hidden - one might even say that it is not hidden at all anymore.

Or, maybe, I should take an exception to another passage from the same article:

When the largest Dutch pension fund and the largest Danish bank withdraw investments from, or cease business with, Israeli banks because of their operations in the settlements, they send a powerful signal to Israel to get out of the West Bank.

Should I dwell on that fact that the bank in question has a history (which is far from being over) of dealing with finances of North Korea and Iran?

According to Wikileaks cables, Danske Bank helped finance Tanchon, a North Korean trading company that sold ballistic missiles to Iran.

Nah, it will be real small minded of me, I think, in this meaningful moment of reconciliation and acceptance.

So, in the spirit of reconciliation and acceptance as mentioned above, I solemnly declare that the previously accepted designation of Roger Cohen as a man who rarely misses an opportunity to miss a point is null and void. It is replaced now by the following:

mostly inoffensive**

So be it.

(*) Aside of Days of Awe (from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur), but I bet I'll find a lot to apologize for till then.

(**) Just because "mostly harmless" is already used by a much better man than I will ever be.

Hat Tip: Soccer Dad, a writer at Legal Insurrection and other sites and a mensch.

More on the subject by Soccer Dad aka David Gerstman: Cutting through the BDS BS.