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Stupid Column of the Week

Protocols features the Jewish Press Stupid Letter of the Week, but alas, that paper's opinion columns have too often been overlooked.

Until now.

Starting this week, I will endeavor to feature the stupidest column from Orthodox Jewry's newspaper of choice. While I can't promise to do so every week (or that the JP will publish a stupid column every week), I'll do my best.

This week's inaugural honor goes to Ben Shapiro, whose column is entitled 'Debunking The Myth Of Yitzhak Rabin.' While Rabin must not be immune from criticism, Shapiro's piece contains numerous inaccuracies that, unfortunately, will be accepted as factual by naive readers of the Jewish Press.

Shapiro, a 19 year old UCLA senior, relies heavily on Uri Milstein's anti-Rabin biography. Shapiro sloppily refers to events in 1947 as having occurred "during the War of Independence," which, of course, did not commence until Ben Gurion declared independence on May 14, 1948. For that he can be excused, but his claim that "Rabin's military record extends beyond incompetence" is absurd. Contrary to Shapiro's claims, in 1948 the Harel Brigade of the Palmach, which at age 26 Rabin commanded, successfully re-opened and expanded the access roads to and from Jerusalem, which had been completely cut off. Shapiro's statement that "under [Rabin's] watch, Israeli forces [in Jerusalem] met with disaster after disaster" is both false and a deep insult to the many heroic soldiers who gave their lives to end the siege on Jerusalem.

Regarding the June 1948 Altalena tragedy, in which 16 Irgun members were killed by the IDF under Ben Gurion's orders, Shapiro claims that "Rabin bragged how he had 'bumped them off on the deck of the burning ship and while they were trying to swim to safety,'" but Shapiro offers no cite to back up this quote. While many have stated that Rabin was involved in the attack on the Altalena - and such participation is nothing to brag about - Rabin's biography contains only a passing reference (my recollection is that he states that he thought the Irgun was plotting a military takeover) and I am therefore skeptical of Shapiro's quote.

Shapiro conveniently ignores the rest of Rabin's military career, even completely ignoring the Six Day War, when Rabin was serving as Chief of Staff of the IDF. Any honest person would have to admit that Rabin, who assumed the role of Chief of Staff in 1964, had prepared Israel's military extremely well in advance of the 1967 war. (Incidentally, Rabin's very moving speech a few weeks after the Six Day War, at Hebrew University's just liberated main campus at Mount Scopus, can be read here.)

Shapiro, however, skipping 44 years, goes straight from 1948 to 1992, when Rabin was elected Prime Minister for the second time. (Shouldn't an article about Rabin at least mention something - positive or negative - about his term as PM from 1974-1977?) Shapiro writes that "before Rabin's murder, his peace program had been overwhelmingly rejected by the Israeli public" and that "before his assassination, Rabin was trailing anti-Oslo Likud candidate Benjamin Netanyahu by a wide margin." That's an exaggeration. Israelis were deeply divided on Oslo prior to Rabin's murder, with a slight majority of Jews opposed, and though it is correct that a January 1995 poll and an April 1995 poll showed big leads for Netanyahu, by July 1995 the gap had narrowed. After the assassination, Netanyahu accepted Oslo and negotiation with Arafat, and his move toward the political center resulted in his narrow victory over Shimon Peres.
posted on 11/12/2003