OK. I just received one of those emails. You know, the ones that are embedded six layers deep and along the way you get to view the entire address book of each of the last five idiots people who passed the thing along. I usually delete them on sight (I'm told this is an AOL thing). But this one quoted, twice, in full (but didn't link -- I had to go and find it myself -- tsk, tsk), this message at Free Republic. It claims to be a translation of an interview with a Spanish leftist intellectual (is there any other kind?) named Pilar Rahola who enthusiastically supports Israel. And she has friends.
This thing arrived in my inbox with a rather hyperbolic introduction about "chinks in the rock" and "the coming of the apocalypse" but, hey, someone got excited. Some good news, for a change. See for yourself. Pilar Rahola: Since the start of the second intifada, the Spanish press, on the right as well as the left, has taken a particularly aggressive approach toward Israel, an approach that leaves out the reasons for Israel’s actions and tends to ignore the Israeli victims in this conflict. In this situation, a small minority of intellectuals, public personalities—sensitive to the Jewish question in general and to Israel in particular—felt deeply touched by this problem. Outraged by the return of Judeophobia in Spain, we, each in our own way, began to write some articles, to use the media to condemn this situation. And then Oracia Vasquez Real, an important writer in Spain, suggested that we coordinate our activity, that we collect in one work the vision of the Middle East conflict held by fifteen well-known intellectuals. Marc Tobiass: For whom did you write this book, and with what objective? Pilar Rahola: Fundamentally, this book is addressed to the anti-Jewish school of thought in Spain. The goal of our book is to launch a debate about Judeophobia in Spain. We are convinced that the current view of the conflict, so Manichaean—with the good, always the Palestinians, and the evil, always the Israelis—has deep roots. It comes from an ancient anti-Jewish feeling that exists in Spain and that also explains the history of Spain. This feeling softened slightly after the Franco era [translator’s note: post-1975], but today there is a virulent resurgence of this savage feeling to the point where one can find genuinely anti-Semitic expressions in the Spanish press. In essence, this is a provocative book in the face of totally pro-Arab thinking in Spain, that is completely uncritical of the mistakes of the Arab world in general and of the Palestinians in particular. We want to counter this flagrant imbalance.Marc Tobiass: Why did you feel the need to write “In Favor of Israel,†to participate in the publication of this book?
The same interview, in full, is also posted here.
