When I think of leftists, college professors protected from reality by the ivory tower come to my mind. But we are all limited by our own experience if we are not careful. Facebook is a wonderful means to take journeys through parts unfamiliar. That’s if you have the time, of course. I spend a good deal of last week taking a trip into the land of the special kind of American leftists who are obsessed with Zionism, Israel and its misdeeds, real or imagined. It was a worthwhile experience.

I could reproduce the whole exchange but then, I would be fairly obligated to comment and it would take me more time than I am probably willing to devote to this ethnographic study. So, here are the points of this week-long exchange that are the most salient for me.

The multilog took place on the Facebook of a Tennessee sometimes-politician and sometimes-radio show host. His name is John Wolfe. You can easily find  him on Facebook. Mr Wolfe obviously subscribes, in general, to commonly accepted standards of rationality; he is generally courteous, and he does not make direct anti-Semitic statements although some of his Facebook followers do.

His narrative of Israeli-Palestinian relationships is not frankly at an angle from what I know or think I know. Rather, his narrative is well off to one side. Yet, it falls within the parameters of how one might interpret known facts if one were strongly motivated. Here is an example: Continue reading →