Sunday, January 31, 2010

Bias

I want all writers in the New York Times, and most writers on the Middle East to be as upfront about their political biases as Aaron David Miller was in his book The Much Too Promised Land: America's Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace. (First, I can easily make jokes about the title: don't you like the term "search for peace", like peace is an object left under a tree only to be found by a US representative in the region. As if the ingredients for peace are a mystery when we all know that once we demolish Zionism in the land of Palestine, peace shall prevail--and peace shall prevail, sooner or later). Anyway, Miller said this in his book: "As an American who happens to be Jewish, I had collected my own fair share of biases over a long period of time. Concern for Israel's well-being had ecome part of me, like some sort of ethnic DNA." (p.8) I mean, all should be upfront like that. But when I read that I laughed. Remembering all the various notions of "honest broker" with people like Miller being put in charge of Arab-Israeli peace issues.