Martin Peretz

Martin Peretz's reflexive and unthinking defense of Israel takes another pointless turn as he chastises the Episcopalian church for disinvesting in Israel because of their treatment of Palestinians. By doing this, Peretz claims the following:

1. This is why the Episcopalian church has become irrelevant in America.
2. Episcopalian bishops are "useful idiots" for Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist organizations.
3. The bishops "are either ignorant or mendacious."
4. That Israel holds no responsibility for the precarious situation that Palestinian Christians find themselves in. (After all, no doubt that if Israel had never been created at all or if they treated the Palestinians like humans, Islamic extremism would still be just as strong there)
5. That the Episcopalians are "fellow-travelers" for Palestinian terrorists.
6. That these bishops are worse than Christians who allied themselves with fascism or communism because at least those movements were "rooted in one or another version of the Christian ethic."
7. That Palestinians have "unproductive economic habits"
8. That the Anglican church as a whole is opposed to the nation-state, especially the US nation-state.
9. That there are many peoples in the world, maybe "dozens and dozens" who have a more legitimate claim to their own nation than the Palestinians.
10. That the fixation of the Anglican/Episcopalian church on Palestine is really anti-Semitism. Peretz's actual words: "The clerics and the lay leaders on this indefensible crusade are so fixated on Palestine because their obsession, which can be buttressed by various Christian sources and traditions, is really with the Jews. A close look at this morbid passion makes one realize that its roots include an ancient hostility for the House of Israel, an ugly survival of a hoary intolerance into some of the allegedly enlightened precincts of modern Christendom."

Wow! What can I say about this that makes Peretz sound any stupider than he makes himself sound?