Irritating facts: With the Mideast, it’s annoying to be confronted by them
No one has been more famously obstinate about disregarding the truth when it interfered with a preferred narrative than the otherwise obscure Republican congressman from Indiana, Earl Landgrebe, who made it plain in 1974 that he didn't care a whit about President Richard Nixon's guilt. “Don't confuse me with the facts,” Landgrebe said when asked about impeachment. “I've got a closed mind.”
As America has grown bitterly polarized, the civic problems generated by an unwillingness to accept facts that contradict pre-baked positions have metastasized and deepened. It's gotten so bad that unimpeachable witnesses to history often find themselves under siege by those too wedded to fashionable narratives to accept firsthand testimony to the contrary.
There's perhaps no subject likelier to spawn blinders than the Mideast conflict. One central witness to history who often found himself under attack by historical refuseniks is Dennis Ross, a widely respected career diplomat who served five presidents, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama, in significant foreign policy roles. As Clinton's Mideast envoy, he negotiated a series of important agreements. He played a central role in Clinton's unsuccessful attempt to persuade Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat to accept Israel's offer of an independent Palestinian state comprising virtually all the West Bank, all of Gaza and sovereignty over parts of Jerusalem — in return for peace. In his book, “The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace,” Ross details the Palestinians' rejection of the deal, and with it the very independent Palestinian state that Palestinians claim is the root of the conflict.
Never mind that former President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and even Saudi Arabia's Ambassador to the United States all confirmed that this is precisely what occurred. That the nonexistence of a Palestinian state is the result of Palestinian choices does not go down easily for some — and that's putting it mildly.
Now Brett McGurk, former President Joe Biden's point person for negotiating the release of hostages kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7, 2023, faces some long knives. McGurk's new book, “Brink: Inside the Race to Free the October 7th Hostages,” has displeased those whose locked-in narrative is that, allowing for the gracious concession that Hamas probably should not have invaded Israel (“I am not condoning that, of course”), what followed after, say, 6 p.m. Israel time on Oct. 7 was Israel's fault (they should not have entered Gaza, they should have accepted Hamas' demands) or that of the supposedly feckless Biden administration for not “stopping” Israel.
Thus, for example, McGurk likens Hamas' demand that if Israel wanted its 250 hostages back it had to agree that Hamas was free to continue to launch further attacks “to a neighbor entering your home, killing two of your children, kidnapping your spouse and surviving child, locking both in a basement next door and, for their freedom, demanding that you never call the police. On top of that, you had to accept that the neighbor would remain next door while promising to do the same thing in the future. Hamas' leaders had already pledged to repeat Oct. 7 'time and again.'”
Even though McGurk may have more knowledge than anyone about who did what when — Hamas, Qatar, Egypt and Israel — the publication of his account has triggered attacks from some whose ideology, agenda or political ambitions do not admit of being confused with facts.
On the subject of the Mideast conflict, of course, disregarding facts is an affliction unconfined to one side. Every day comes with another example of outrageous, blatantly terroristic attacks by extremist West Bank settlers on Palestinian villages — and, last week, on a Washington Post photographer. The whitewashing of this — and of the Netanyahu government's pathetic whitewashing of its own refusal to stop it — has put a terrible stain on the current Israeli government, too terrible to erase.
Claims that these are mere “hooligans” or that what has occurred is not as it seems convince no one — including much of Israel itself. Good for Israeli President Isaac Herzog for condemning this, but those in Israel who are determined to remain confused by the facts are every bit as dangerous as those who refuse to accept the truth when it is Israel's friend.
Meanwhile, facts are too often taking a beating. Hard to know how this gets cured, or when.
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