Deborah Orr has now issued an apology of sorts for her anti-Jewish slur of a week ago, concerning the immensely greater value attributed by Zionists to 'the lives of the chosen'. I say it's an apology of sorts because, though Orr does use the word 'sorry', this is one of those expressions of regret in the diversionary mode - drawing attention away from the thing supposedly being apologized for and towards other matters.
This is how it works. First, her words were badly chosen, Orr now says - but 'accusations of antisemitism have also been intemperate'. As if, so directed, at the very worth of different people's lives, the chosenness trope might have been other than anti-Semitic. Is this merely the now familiar plea that, whereas other forms of racial and ethnic prejudice may inhere in modes of address, discursive stereotypes, institutional practices and such, anti-Semitism is never present unless there is active hatred in the mind of the speaker; and who could ever suspect this particular speaker of anything so vulgar as active hatred? In any event, Orr says sorry without even facing squarely what she ought to be sorry for. None of that anti-Semitism stuff in this quarter, no.
That's step one (three lines). Step two (thirteen lines): talk about everything else under the Jewish-related sun. One can accept Israel's right to exist while believing there were unforunate features of its creation. Jews are neither more nor less capable of making political mistakes than anyone else. Humans typically do make mistakes and they are often reluctant to accept criticism. And the relevance of all this to the would-be apology? Hey, Debs, why not throw in that Jewish acrobats have no reason to think themselves better than non-Jewish acrobats? Or that there are other kinds of fish you prefer to gefilte fish?
