In advance of this weekend’s BDS conference at the University of Pennsylvania, we are highlighting five of the most anti-Israel individuals scheduled to speak at the conference.
Number 4: Helena Cobban
Today we profile Helena Cobban, an anti-Israel writer, publisher and the former executive director of the Council for the National Interest, an organization that regularly sends delegations of its supporters to meet with Hamas and Hezbollah representatives in the Middle East.
Cobban consistently tries to portray Israel as the only guilty party in the conflict and has alleged that Israel’s military engages in “voluntary ethnic cleansing” of the Palestinians. In January 2009, shortly after the Gaza War ended, Cobban spoke at an event at Georgetown University where she harshly criticized Israel and Israelis, saying she can’t believe “how stupid Israelis are” and claimed that Israelis are “incapable of empathy and compassion for other people.”
5 comments:
“incapable of empathy and compassion for other people.”
Is there any evidence, that she said that? Or did you just made it up to defame her? I wouldn't be surprised.
Cobban is a sad, bitter woman who for years has railed against Israel
and all Jewish people who disagree with her on the subject of Israel.
She identifies herself as a Quaker and appears to be respected in some Quaker circles as a knowledgeable and fair-minded advocate of peace in the Middle Eat, but her voluminous writing over the years is full of fawning and even worshipful references to the leaders of the PLO, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran. A key to understanding her animus against Israel and Jews can be found in the numerous references in her writings to Middle East analysts such as Dennis Ross and Martin Indyk whom she characterizes as unfairly receiving the respect and attention that she deserves. She is worth reading from time to time, if only to be reminded how intractable and single-minded many "progressive" liberals have become on the subject of Israel.
As just one small example of this,
consider the fact that Cobban is today appearing at a conference urging, among other nonsensical things, a boycott of hummus made
in Israel; this, at a time, when
blood is running in the streets of
Syria at the instigation of the
dictator Assad, a man whom she has admired in print for years.
If a fanatic on the subject of Israel can be defined as a person who gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night hating the idea of Israel as a Jewish State and spends all of her time in-between looking for new ways to find fault with it -- even as she goes on yearning for its earliest possible demise --then Cobban is one.
Don't take Cobban too seriously.
She's a crank, nothing more, albeit
a heavy duty one, and her few followers lack jobs and girl friends.
"Her followers lack jobs and girl friends." What are you, like, fourteen years old?
Oh to be 14 again! I'm 76 actually, in which time I've had the opportunity to observe many political naifs like the sad and troubled Cobban devotees -- of which I hope you are not one -- who, almost invariably, do lack jobs, girl friends and common sense. But don't take my word for it. Just visit her website and read what passes for comments up there. You'll soon see what I mean.
By the way, you quoted me incorrectly. I said she has FEW followers. You can check that out on her website also.
Post a Comment