Writing a blog is often compared to writing a diary. You just write down whatever is on your mind and if people read it, so be it.
I don’t buy that for a second though. If you write a blog and have a readership, people expect you to be an expert on the material you write about (I, for one, am an expert on all things no one cares about). For example, I’m a big sports blog reader. As long as the person writing sounds coherent, and says things like “Lebron James is the best athlete in the league,” I assume he knows what he is talking about.
Yesterday, I was reading a post on Jewlicious, a friendly site to Mixed Multitudes. The post, titled “Abbas’ Demands” criticized the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas for a speech he gave this week in Baghdad.
I’m not here to criticize people’s opinions on the Israeli-Arab conflict. I know plenty of smart people who are more to the left than me and even more smart people who are more to the right than me. While I somewhat disagree with the arguments in the post, that is neither here nor there.
My issue is with the post is with the use of the word Palestinian, or as author would call them, “Palestinians.” I hate it, hate it, hate it, hate it, HATE IT, when people put the word Palestine or Palestinians in quotation marks. It is incredibly offensive and does nothing to solve the conflict.
Even if you don’t think that the Palestinians have a right to their own state, by denying that they even exist as a people or that they don’t have a right to self identity is wrong.
Here is the most ironic line of the post:
“This statement, at first glance, appears more than reasonable. After all, why should he try to engage with people who don’t recognize his “people’s†right to statehood, and are attempting to undermine that statehood.”
Here, the author is sympathizing with Abbas while at the same time questioning whether or not he is part of a “people.” Irony at its best.
I think about it like this. Imagine if the tables were turned. What if you had read a blog that referred to “Zionists” or “Israelis?” Would that not be offensive?
Once again, this is not a debate on a solution to the Middle East conflict. This is simply about recognizing that there is a conflict.
