Once, because he was apparently so sick of how many times I showed him to be a lying piece of garbage, he even (falsely) accused me of inspiring a mass murderer.
Cole lies as easily as he breathes. And he never corrects his lies, a sure sign of someone for whom ideology trumps facts.
Now he is justifying terrorist acts and blaming the victims, all the while pretending that he isn't doing exactly that:
The kidnapping and killing of three Israeli squatter youth whose parents usurped Palestinian land has produced a paroxysm of hatred and calls for reprisals in Israel. Whoever is responsible for it, the killing of the youth was a horrid and inexcusable crime, and the heart of any parent goes out to the bereaved families.Can there be a more backhanded "condemnation" of terror than this?
Besides the utterly disgusting implication that Jews who live in Judea and Samaria do not have the same human rights that everyone else on the planet does, and the utterly loathsome implication that most Zionists are responding to the news of the murders with vengeance rather than deep sadness, Cole appears not to know that two of the murdered boys lived in central Israel!
But why should Cole bother himself with mere facts? He has other fish to fry, and mere facts just get in the way. Cole lives in a post-factual world. He is more interested in what he calls "context."
But assuming that Palestinians were the culprits, the social and political structures fostered by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party form an essential context here. Social scientists always contextualize, an anathema to propagandists and the more glib of the journalists, who confuse it with excusing things. To put things in context is not to justify anything, it is to seek and understanding of human actions beyond the simple demonization of the Other.
Hate to break it to you, Juan, but when all of your "context" is in the same direction, against Jewish Israelis, it is just a slightly more sophisticated kind of propaganda. Don't kid yourself - there is no "social science" involved here at all. It is all propaganda. And here's proof.
The Likud has a policy of keeping the Palestinians stateless.....Since the stateless lack a state, they also lack law and order. What most struck me from my last visit to a Palestinian refugee camp was how much of a frontier situation it was. There are no police. Everyone has to fend for themselves. And it is easy for predatory gangs to form.What a great social-science theory!
That is, statelessness produces small violent groups such as Islamic Jihad and perhaps the Palestinian branch of the so-called “Islamic State” of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. It produces them because in the absence of formal state structures, such groups thrive in the interstices of society. And it produces them because statelessness and the consequent deprivation of basic human rights produces potent grievances.
Except that Al Qaeda members, and ISIS members, and the members of Egyptian Salafist groups, and most of those of the PLO and Fatah before 1967, and pretty much every other terror group in history have been made up of full, card-carrying citizens of states!
Now, who else has been against the establishment of a Palestinian state? Well, the entire Arab world before 1967, for starters. Yet the Palestinian terror groups that emerged then were aimed at Israel, not at Egypt and Jordan.
Imagine that - Cole's entire thesis completely destroyed by a little "context."
Who else is forcing Palestinian Arabs to be stateless? The leaders of every Arab nation that refuses to allow Palestinians who want to become citizens from doing so. No, they prefer that they remain stateless in order to justify and foment hate against Israel.
Exactly what Juan Cole is doing in this very article.
After all, if he is so upset over Palestinian Arabs being stateless, why won't he demand that Lebanon or Syria allow people who have lived there for generations become citizens if they want to? Why doesn't he encourage the Palestinian Arabs to accept one of Israel's many peace plans put forward - which would have resulted in a Palestinian state?
No, Cole doesn't give a damn about statelessness - he only cares about slamming Israel, and all his other "facts" are being twisted and used for only that purpose.
Which is the definition of propaganda.
What kind of "social science" is it when you cherry-pick your facts to come to a predetermined conclusion? Ah, the fraudulent kind!
Why Cole is still employed and occasionally quoted as if he adds any value to the world is beyond me.
(h/t Ezra)