How fitting that the owner and publisher of the Australian Jewish News, Robert Magid, was responsible for the spiteful and obnoxious summary of the late Harold Pinter’s life (“The tragedy of Harold Pinter”, January 23, 2009) After reading it, it struck me that who better to pour out this predictable onslaught of ignorant and small minded mainstream paranoid Jewish garbage than the owner and publisher of the printed voice of mainstream mediocre narrow Australian Jewry.
How twisted and unfortunate though that someone so literarily challenged gets to print whatever he pleases about a true literary giant, and a dead one at that. One well buried who cannot even provide a retort. Although my guess is that Pinter would not have bothered authoring a retaliation to Magid if he was around. Pinter had much bigger fish to fry – like world leaders whom he felt were betraying all of us with their lies and unjustified wars.
Magid launches into one of the main staples of mainstream ignorant Jewish thinking. That all Jewish critics of Israel and America and other Western powers are totally biased, often with a suspiciously anti-Jewish agenda. Why? Because these critics do not denounce the violence, tyranny, and oppressive nature of these other nations. Magid writes: There was no mention of the Soviet Union’s enslavement of its population, or the genocides in Africa and Asia, or the medieval punishments meted out in Arab countries. Instead, all his (Pinter’s) vitriol was directed at the US. He described the country as “a bloodthirsty wild animal” and its administration as “a bunch of criminal lunatics”.
What Magid and the rest of the mainstream ignorant Jews (lets call them MIJs for short) love to set up is a manipulative unfounded argument that the attackers of Israel for example - are actually supporters of Israel’s enemies. The MIJs are constantly in uproar that when a suicide bombing or mortar attack on Jewish civilians occurs, there isn’t widespread condemnation and horror. They claim there is more condemnation when Israel is guilty of something unsavoury. Well here’s a newsflash as to why (if that is the case) that claim actually makes sense.
Israel should know better! Israel is a democracy! Israel was built from the ashes of the death camps in Europe! Israel’s military might outweighs the Palestinian’s arsenal by about a million to one! Israel is a so-called “civilised society”! (and this of course also holds true for the good old U S of A).
There’s less condemnation when a suicide bomber strikes because it is implicit in its very action that this is an abhorrent act of insane violence. Extremists commit extreme acts. We in the civilised world know and accept and understand that these acts are unacceptable and barbaric. These people are insanely committed to their cause and they have decades of humiliation and rage fuelling them.
Criticism and condemnation of Israel, when they do commit uncivilised acts, is something that might hopefully one day have a positive outcome because they should bloody well know better. A dog that has been well trained and has been given love and support can be expected to behave well. A dog that has been kicked and abused and humiliated from the day it was born can be expected to be nothing but damaged, angry and probably untrainable.
So when someone like Harold Pinter was constantly on the attack of Israel or America or Britain, it is precisely because these are the powers that supposedly uphold the ideals of democratic thought and action. Pinter just couldn’t bear the hypocrisy of these powers claiming one thing yet perpetrating another. There’s nothing enlightening or groundbreaking about criticizing a fascist regime for executing or torturing it’s people. Not that they shouldn’t be condemned. But it’s a whole other league when the terrorism is stemming from the halls of democratic parliaments.
Probably Magid’s lowest point is his cheap shot at Pinter’s difficult relationship with his son who refused to talk to his father after Pinter left his first wife (the boy’s mother) for another woman. After re-telling Pinter’s disgust at the thuggish behaviour of some young Israeli soldiers at Palestinian check points, he follows with: “Pinter’s readiness to describe these kids as “thugs” perhaps tells more about his total estrangement from his own son – with whom he had not spoken for 12 years.” I rest my case, an absolute low point. Yet nothing too surprising when we remind ourselves that the author of the article is no literary giant.
Magid attacks Pinter for suppressing his Jewish roots and only outing himself in latter years to critique Israel along with other Jewish thinkers when he joined Independent Jewish Voices in Britain.
Quite frankly as a Jewish person in various creative fields who grew up in Caulfield and went to a Jewish day school, I can totally relate to someone like Pinter who wanted to expand his horizons as much as possible beyond an introverted insular Jewish existence in post WW2 Hackney. Not to mention that his Jewish identity transformed into a completely secular one forged in part by the attacks he suffered (as did so many of his Jewish friends) from Hackney fascist gangs of that era.
What better cause than the Israel Palestine conflict for Pinter to re-enter the Jewish dialogue? Would Magid prefer that he stayed silent? Oh. Right. I get it. Yes, he would.
After reading an interrogation scene from his much misunderstood play The Birthday Party, Pinter recently provided a rare "explanation" of his work. He "wanted to say that Goldberg and McCann represented the forces in society who wanted to snuff out dissent, to stifle Stanley's voice, to silence him."
The AJN could easily stage their own version with Robert Magid as Goldberg – the sinister bullying Jew trying to snuff out the dead and buried dissenter Harold Pinter.
Oh wait. They’ve already done it. Or printed it at least.
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