Goliath is the literary equivalent of those bloody photos of children that both sides in a war brandish for propaganda purposes. They’re awful, but they don’t actually tell you anything except that someone is playing on your emotions instead of giving you the whole story. Despite Blumenthal’s pretense of telling a new story while “loosening thought blockades,” Goliath is full of the same Israel-bashing stories that appear on a regular basis in the mainstream media. When the BBC and Time can publish stories based on a completely false report that an Israeli Rabbinical court had sentenced a dog to be stoned, it’s obvious that no malignant story about Israel can fail to find a place in the media. What Max Blumenthal brings to the table in Goliath is not journalism, but uncompromising hatred for Israel. In a media environment where every fake “Jew Stones Dog” story goes to the top of the heap, the fake journalists like Max can only distinguish themselves by setting aside the pretenses of journalism. And that’s what Max Blumenthal does. Blumenthal knows his audience well. It’s those bitter old men with coat pockets full of stolen rotting fruit who want the raw product. And it’s the Eric Altermans, the liberals who are hostile to Israel, who are eager to shine a light on him so that they seem more reasonable by comparison. Max Blumenthal isn’t reasonable. He’s a coiled-up ball of hate in the way that only a malignant narcissist can be. Max hates Israel for the same reason that he hates any number of things that aren’t him. Israel’s real crime is that it exists and stands in the way of his career objectives. Goliath is the cynical work of a cynical man. Blumenthal is selling hate while accusing Israelis of the same thing. He has blatantly promoted genocide in a public appearance while accusing Israelis of lusting for blood. His book plays on the worst emotions of the worst people. And that makes Goliath into a book that has almost as much contempt for its readers as it does for Israel.
Posted on: Thu, 07 Nov 2013 14:13:48 +0000
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