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How Leon de Winter removes all doubt that he’s an idiothttp://yelamdenu.blogsome.com/
How Leon de Winter removes all doubt that he’s an idiot
I’d prefer not to discuss Leon de Winter much — but it’s inescapable these days. He wrote a new book. Ads all over the place, in the train station, at bus stops, in the newspaper, radio interviews, paper interviews, magazine interviews - the De Winter marketing machine is investing in his book. In The right of return, Israel is reduced to tiny dimensions (Tel Aviv with a bit of “sandbox” around it), which most people try to flee. And the main character is often confronted with the theme “we haven’t destroyed our enemies, so we are destroyed by our enemies.”
De Winter had a conversation on the book with Petra Possel, on the Dutch public radio (Radio 1) in the program Kunststof. In the below fragment we have De Winter professing his ethics.
(6:46 in the conversation)
PP: … I would, for a minute, like to draw some attention to an article which was in the paper today, which was really, quite remarkable, because its authors are remarkable: former prime minister Dries van Agt wrote it, together with Frans Andriessen, former finance minister, and Hans van den Broek, former minister of home, er, foreign affairs; it was on the opinion page of the Volkskrant, as a letter to the editor, it was addressed to foreign minister Maxime Verhagen, and the headline was: “Do not reward Israel’s unjustified behavior”; it’s about the fact that Israel still has very close business ties with the Netherlands, or the Netherlands with Israel I should say, and that these three gentlemen are of the opinion that human rights are still violated on a large scale, that there’s no progress, and that this should just stop after all this time;
LdW: yes..
PP: what do you think of that, Leon de Winter?
LdW: Well, look, see, I.. I can’t see this disconnected from other problems in the world.. er.. well, (sighing impatiently) yes, they’re exaggerating it.. it is not entirely untrue, it’s just that, the problem is, if you’re dealing with this, why not deal with other problems?
PP: Yes but let’s just stick to Israel for a minute,
LdW: Yes.
PP: you say, it’s not entirely untrue, human rights are violated in Israel.
LdW: If you’re talking about the occupied territories, yes, there are very many people who, who have a very bad life. That’s true.
PP: The Netherlands has business interests with Israel..
LdW: (sighing) Yes..
PP: These are mutual interests, there’s a heavy debate going on,
LdW: yes.. yes, look,
PP: (talking faster, having noticed De Winter’s impatience) the EU has made a progress report, and drew the conclusion that the dialogue with Israel has brought very few concrete results,
LdW: yes,
PP: when it comes to human rights, don’t you think that they’re actually simply completely right,
LdW: er, yes, OK,
PP: when they,
LdW: OK but if they’re right, then I think this should be valid for the entire region, in that case.. everybody, lump them all together, all of them on the same lump, and that means also, no more doing business with Saudi Arabia, no more with Egypt, not with Jordan, not with Syria, not with Lebanon,
PP: not with any country where human rights..
LdW: not with any country where human rights [are violated], because if you do it for, it pertains to that little country, then it also pertains to the neighboring countries,
PP: but then we won’t do any Olympic Games in China either..
LdW and then we won’t do any Olympic Games in China either. Look, then I understand, then I say, OK, then you’re being consistent, I can imagine that. But not, isolate this little problem, out of this great context of the Middle East - because it didn’t just appear out of the blue, it’s not this little problem that just happened to be there, quite isolated, without having anything to do with, with the surrounding environment, it is, it’s a very.. serious, a very profound, and even, by now, an old, regional conflict.
PP: Mm..
LdW: And then to concentrate on that, that is to purposefully simplify things, and draw all attention to that one little country, whereas.. there are neighboring countries where the situation is much worse when it comes to human rights.
PP: I was struck by the fact that former ministers have all become so vigilant, and that they raise their voices for all sorts of, by the way in my view very reliable matters, much more than perhaps, when they were themselves, uh, in office.
LdW: Yes, well of course, because look, when you’re out there and you’re in office, and you have responsibilities as a minister, then you’re dealing with complexities, you can, look, it’s, looking back, in retrospect when you’re not on that seat, it’s easy talking, about China [sic]. But..
PP: But do you think it’s easy talking, a piece like that?
LdW: yes, that’s easy talking.
PP: Because, they’re heavyweights,
LdW: Yes, together they are,
PP: these three men together,
LdW: yes, it’s, it’s interesting, you see, they’re three, they’re ex-KVP men [Katholieke Volkspartij, a former Dutch conservative, Catholic political party].
PP: Yes?
LdW: With a strongly Jesuist, Jesuitic strain,
PP: yes, go on,
LdW: And suddenly they go, they’re being holy, and the biggest problem, if you read this piece [which he didn’t], in the world must be, this is the conclusion that forces itself upon you, that’s the conflict between the Israelis and, and the Palestinians, if, that’s of course a disgrace, which has no parallel in the world - that’s what you think, when you, if you are confronted with some piece like that [which he didn’t read, see below].
And as bad as it may be; it’s not true! It’s *not* the worst thing that’s taking place in the world! .. look if these men would write pieces like this about Darfur, or about Congo, right, then we’re dealing with, mil-li-ons, of victims, or about Tibet, that’s also interesting to write about, or about the Druze! Or about the Kurds, very close! The Kurds, not that far, flying from here, just as far.
PP: But you’re actually creating some kind of ranking order of suffering.
LdW: But that’s what one does!
PP: What’s worse?
LdW: Worse is, what’s near. And less bad, is what’s far off. It’s bad when there’s, victims we can identify ourselves with, *or*, it’s also bad (now speaking solemnly) when they are the victims of people that we dislike.
Because.. Palestinians, .. I don’t really get the feeling that they *care* that much about the Palestinians, what’s so intriguing is, they’re uncomfortable with *Israel’s* behavior! Because if they would be worried about the fate of the Palestinians, Arabs, they would be caring about *other* Arabs! So that’s not the point! Apparently, it’s about something else. It’s interesting [to them], that’s the creepy feeling I’ve got with these people, (solemnly) because they can identify those, Jews, as perpetrators. That’s very interesting, and very exciting, and very creepy.
PP: Look, and this is,
LdW: a very fascinating ..
PP: Now here you have a typical, Leon de Winterish ..
LdW: (half jesting) Look, *that’s* what I became famous for!
PP: Yes. This is what you’ve become famous for.
LdW: (grinning)
PP: This is, this is your market share, that you can twist it in such a fashion, that you make that up, I couldn’t have made it up, really.
But do you sincerely mean that? For this is a, a theory, a thought, which is also, you can find back in your book, in this book, the Right of Return, but actually in many of your books,
LdW: I have not heard them when the Palestinians were expelled from Kuwait!
PP: M-m..
LdW: Terrible, there have been, many Palestinians were murdered, then, after the First Gulf War, the way the Palestinians are treated in Lebanon, terrible, being kept in the camps there, they can, they’re being excluded from most of the professions. Er, so you can in some way, because you happen to know a couple of Palestinians, you can love Palestinians dearly [sic].
PP: Now it’s a fact that for a long time you haven’t written any columns, you quit Elsevier last year, and you then said, because it turned you into an enormous grump.
LdW: Yes.
PP: You just became an angry man.
LdW: I did.
PP: Who was merely grumbling, a kind of, very angry old grumbler, endlessly harping on the same string, Leon de Winter.
[This is one of De Winter’s favorite poses. Some more talking about De Winter’s “suffering” from his own political writings follows]
(…)
LdW: (half joking) So because of that [fact that he pretends he has to try not to think about politics for his mental sanity], I mean, I’ve been pretending I have read this piece, which I haven’t, I saw the headline,
PP: (laughing) That’s how it always goes with those columnists,
LdW: next I saw it was written by three Jesuits, and then I thought, I’ve had enough again for the moment.
PP: Yes, that’s how, that’s how you wrote your pieces,
LdW: That’s how I avoid it these days.
No, not last year,
PP: Well, I think you,
LdW: then, I would have perused it! Terrible, …
(…)
[Change of subject.]
Dutch speakers can check the accuracy of my transcription here (Dutch, streamed audio). There is some European championship football in the program, apologies for that.
There was another revelation: De Winter and family are going to the United States. He’s very happy about it. The newspaper De Pers portrayed him on Saturday 21 June (pp 28-29). “It’s so lovely there [in the United States]. The cliché things. That the shops are always open there. That the personnel is always friendly. And the feeling of being in a land of unlimited opportunity.”
Having admitted that there are some limits to the unlimitedness of opportunity in the US, he remarks about the day he received his visa in the mail: “It was really emotional to me. Tears in my eyes when I realized that we can now stay for five years in that country. That we don’t have to queue up with the “tourists”, but with the “residents”. Man, what a great feeling of freedom!”
Now one comes to think of it, De Winter having written so much (quantitatively) on Israel and the Arabs, and De Winter and his wife and kids being Jewish, why doesn’t he become a real Zionist and make Aliyah? He’s a writer! He could write anywhere. He even wrote a book with Israel as its scenery. Instead, he goes to the United States.
In Dutch we have a word “salon” (it means: salon) that can serve as a modifier to any ideology. For instance a salonsocialist is a socialist who cares more about his villa in Bordeaux than about class struggle or minimum wages. De Winter: “I’m not a Zionist pretender (salonzionist). But I’m afraid that if I were to live [in Israel] I would have extreme thoughts too.”
De Winter wasn’t in Israel when he called upon G.W. Bush in the Spiegel to slaughter a hundred thousand men, women and children in Saddam’s place of birth to gain the “respect” of the Arabs. He wasn’t in Israel when he proposed the total destruction of the Gaza Strip in revenge of the kidnapping of one Israeli soldier. He wasn’t in Israel when he wrote his dozens of columns on the utter Otherness of Arabs and Muslims and the Middle East, and when he made the phrase “we haven’t destroyed our enemies, so we are being destroyed by our enemies” the theme of his book.
Leon de Winter is an “adjunct fellow” at the RAND Corporation’s Hudson Institute, where his “moderation”, which he saves for mankind by not moving to Israel, is much appreciated. The warmongering fruits of his keyboard on the Hudson website are just as hysterical as his friend Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s warmongering reflections at the AEI. Perhaps it is, indeed, better for mankind that Leon de Winter not live in the State of Israel. Let us thank him for it.
How to best close this letter on De Winter? I’ll give the profound thinker the last word. On suicide attacks: “Suicide attacks belong to the ultimate problematic issues of adolescence. It’s a form of rock ‘n’ roll. Just look at those show-off video messages.”
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