Translate


Saturday, May 6, 2017

Mossberg and LeVine: Two Objective Observers?

In November 2014, I attended an event at UC Irvine featuring Professor Mark LeVine and former Swedish ambassador Matthias Mossberg, in which they introduced their new book, Parellel States, which suggested that the Israel-Palestinian conflict be resolved by a one state solution in which Israelis and Palestinians lived in the same state with their own forms of government. As I previously reported, I hit Mossberg with a critical question centered around an article I erroneously assumed he had written for a Swedish blog. In reality, he was not the writer though the blog in question's page appeared to list Mossberg as the author. I subsequently apologized.

In his presentation, Mossberg came across as an impartial party, though I incurred the wrath of LeVine by calling him (LeVine) "anti-Israel". (I still firmly believe he is.)

In doing some further checking, I have come up with some articles written by Mossberg, either alone or in concert with LeVine on the Israel-Palestinian question.

http://tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/181181/mossberg-parallel-states

http://america.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/12/oslo-accord-israelpalestinepeaceprocessoccupation.html

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/05/2011528132114104574.html

http://mondoweiss.net/2015/11/parallel-excerpt-palestine/

Mondoweiss is a virulently anti-Israel site. In addition, we note that Mossberg won an award for the above book from something called  Palestine Book Awards.

https://www.palestinebookawards.com/authors/item/mathias-mossberg

If the reader may detect a Palestinian slant from above links you are not alone. I sense it as well.

The point is this: Israel would have every right to be suspicious of any proposed solution coming out of Sweden, a country that is not friendly to the Jewish state. I know of no other European country that has as many NGOs dedicated to discrediting Israel as Sweden. I do not believe Mossberg is neutral. Add to that Mark LeVine, and I would reject out-of-hand any proposals coming from this pair were I Israel.



No comments: