Is there any way we can actually get to the primary source? I see links to other blogs who comment on it but nothing from the horse's mouth so to speak and that is one of the parts of the blogosphere that worries me. It's kind of like the Murtha story a few weeks back. The Republican blogs were all aghast at the idea that Murtha said the US was the biggest threat to world peace. Only problem was the story was wrong. Before I get up in arms, I would not mind seeing what he actually said as opposed to blogs from the other side of the aisle bashing him for what he, as Allahpundit admits, allegedly said. Do we have a link to his column or whatever it was?

Here's the piece (registration required).

Here is what Cohen said:

"The greatest mistake Israel could make at the moment is to forget that Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now. Israel fights Hezbollah in the north and Hamas in the south, but its most formidable enemy is history itself".

However, that paragraph has been removed from the WaPo's web site. Cohen's racism was too much for the paper to take.

see http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/007531.php

I don't think it's racism so much as habitual stupidity and self-loathing.

In other words, nothing new.

It's a wonder his brilliant endorsement of Chuck Robb's flagging Senate re-election campaign didn't do the trick.

What a putz.

This is why the Israeli-Arab war, now transformed into the Israeli-Muslim war (Iran is not an Arab state.

Thanks for that astute observation, Rich.

You know why Iran is at war with Israel?

The U.S.S. Jimmy Carter

Thanks for the assists.

Is there any way we can actually get to the primary source? I see links to other blogs who comment on it but nothing from the horse's mouth so to speak and that is one of the parts of the blogosphere that worries me. It's kind of like the Murtha story a few weeks back. The Republican blogs were all aghast at the idea that Murtha said the US was the biggest threat to world peace. Only problem was the story was wrong.

In the Murtha story, the SOURCE document was wrong.

Is there an actual transcript of that speech?

All I've seen are allegations from the left that his comments were intentionally distorted or misinterpreted-and that he was simply referring to a critical survey commissioned by the Pew Global Attitudes Project-but I haven't seen any concrete evidence to buttress those accusations.

To me it sounds like an ex post facto ass-covering, a la Dick Turban.

I fisked it thoroughly.

Jake, it's all still up. And that CQ entry doesn't say it's been changed.

Didn't one of the last pre-Islamic kings of Yemen convert to Judaism as well?

Methinks someone needs to give Cohen an Idiot's Guide To Ancient Middle Eastern History.

Yes it was Karol. Which is why primary sources are better accounts than secondary narrations. I was glad to see Bill O'Reilly, who reported on the story and went after Murtha, apologize for his error.

Yehudit:

I can't find that paragraph is the column.

It's the very first paragraph in the column.

The passage from that op-ed is still there, from what I can see.

I don't see why they would throw it down the memory hole.

This is the paper, after all, which employed the perennially inept E.R. Schipp as its ombudsman, and had Nathan McCall-a virulently anti-white racist and former convict-in its newsroom for years.

Not to mention notorious plagiarists Janet Cooke and Ben Domenach.

As pathetic as Cohen is he doesn't even begin to scrape the bottom of the barrel as far as WaPo's lack of journalistic integrity is concerned.

Do they still run R. Emmet Tyrell's column?

Ok. Have pity for a blind man.

Pity whore.

:0))

"...getting out of most of the West Bank -- and waiting (and hoping) that
history will get distracted and move on to something else."

This is seriously the best he can do? Can Cohen imagine if Bush said that
he is hoping history will get Al Qaeda distracted was our foreign policy?

History hasn't distracted Muslims from hating Jews for hundreds of years.
His suggestion is both foolish and unrealistic.

But since his last name is "Cohen", it's obviously ok.

I know you were being sarcastic, but this makes it so much worse. For this special kind of self-hating pathology ole' R.C. should get the Noam Chomsky Award for Journalistic Excellence.

I'm Irish Catholic, and still Cohen's column makes me absolutely sick.

Emperor Misha over at The Anti Idiotarian Rottweiler -- http://nicedoggie.net/2006 did an excellent fisking of Cohen's commentary the other day. He blockquoted the original offending quotes on his blog, so if you're looking to the original, you'll find it there.