This Nation letter by Zinn, Chomsky, Roy, Vidal, and so forth decrying Israel's attempts to "liquidate" Palestine is pretty weak stuff. For having three (!!!!) Nobel Prize winners and a host of writers a signatories, the letter offers a mere four paragraphs, none of which effectively explain what the writers are upset about. The missive, which should thrum with outrage, is written academically, in obtuse language and without gruesome specifics. It is, in short, about as halfhearted a dispatch as one could imagine.
The undersigned do suggest that all the arguments about causality in the Israeli/Palestinian fight are "a distraction in order to divert world attention from a long-term military, economic and geographic practice whose political aim is nothing less than the liquidation of the Palestinian nation," and they do declare that "[t]his has to be said loud and clear, for the practice, only half declared and often covert, is advancing fast these days, and, in our opinion, it must be unceasingly and eternally recognized for what it is and resisted," but it's just not clear what they're actually talking about. What does it even mean to liquidate a nation? And wouldn't doing so require more bombs and fewer respites? And why does the letter end with a call for a "Guernica" of Lebanon -- is that really a preeminent concern here?
I hate to say it, but I think this crew is losing their touch. I mean, if you can't pen a good anti-israel letter at this moment in time, when can you?
