In +972, Sean O’Neill argues that BDS is on the verge of achieving widespread support. His evidence? Norman Finkelstein’s declaration of civil war on the boycotters. Demonstrating that the BDS movement remains habitually unable to deal with honest criticism, O’Neill declares the interview “a sign that the ground is shifting on Israel/Palestine issues”, without producing much evidence to back up this claim. The following is all he could come up with: “I recently witnessed BDS’s growing clout at a meeting I attended with a woman working with an Israeli artist helping set up a series of salons in New York to explore and question the Birthright Israel programs, and the idea of a “birthright” in general. The project sounds very interesting, and the woman was visibly frustrated at their inability to find people willing to work with them in the city. They are partially funded by the Israeli Consulate, and as a result have had the proverbial door shut on them by activists, artists, and professors, Arab and Jew alike. This would have been incomprehensible five years ago, when I first heard of the BDS movement at the annual Bil’in conference and it was, at that point, divisive even among conference attendees.”

An Israeli artist who davka questioned Birthright Israel and was shut out by BDS in NYC. And this wouldn’t have been possible five years ago! The equivalent of a middling football team winning  one match in ten away from home, perhaps, but certainly not evidence of a paradigm shift. O’Neill follows this clincher with a few more assertions, but once again doesn’t back them up: “Here is where things stand now. There is a paradigm shift in the works in how the Israel/Palestine conlict is understood and approached. There is an increasing consensus among Israel’s critics to see the issue as one of civil rights, rather than a conflict between two nations.”

He concludes that “Finkelstein’s sudden hostility is a symptom of this paradigm shift” because the guaranteed existence of a Jewish nation-state has “eroded a bit”. Without any evidence, he suggests that this is because Norman Finkelstein, the man who proudly saluted the courage of Hizbollah, is scared of the end of Israel and the glorious utopian future that will follow it.

The truth is that O’Neill, like most other BDS ideologues, is unable to confront the strategic implications of Finkelstein’s argument. Arguing in favour of replacing Israel with a Palestinian-Arab state does not have, and will not have, mass appeal, no matter how much you would like to pretend that it does. This is because most people realise that Israel, for all its faults, is not the equivalent of Apartheid South Africa. It is true that BDS has had some success, but this is mainly a result of diplomatic inertia on the ground, and does not justify the hysteria that follows every announcement of a cancellation by some band that nobody has ever heard of, or getting together 300 activists for a conference at the University of Pennsylvania. It is not a paradigm shift, and until the BDS leadership develops some basic self-awareness and self-criticism, fist pumping exercises by the likes of O’Neill are no different to Andre Villas-Boas pretending that drawing one all with Birmingham City in the FA Cup represents the dawn of a great breakthrough.

Why did Suarez refuse to shake Evra’s hand? He apparently believes that Patrice Evra lied about what was said during the Liverpool vs Manchester United game on October 15^th 2011. He acknowledged soon the game that he used the word “negro”; what is under dispute is exactly how he used that word. Either way, it would have been unacceptable, but, strangely, the FA concluded that he had used racist language while stressing that they did not believe Suarez was a racist. Evra said the same thing. This apparent contradiction might have made sense had they accepted Suarez’s explanation (that he used the term in a solely descriptive sense), but not once you consider that they accepted Evra’s testimony, which describes Suarez as saying that he kicked Evra “because you are black” as well as saying “I don’t speak to blacks.”

One of the problems is that the FA Inquiry had a far lower burden of proof than, say, the criminal investigation into allegations that John Terry racially abused Anton Ferdinand, despite the fact that both Suarez and Terry faced similar charges. The reasons for this are mostly procedural, but, whatever one may think of the way the FA went about their business, it’s clear that the charges against Suarez would not stand up in a criminal court. Given that Suarez has faced such a serious allegation – and I don’t accept that somebody who isn’t racist would use racist language so casually – the charge should have been proven.

None of this matters now, though. The commission drew its conclusions, found Suarez guilty, and banned him for eight games. Given the bigger issues at stake, that should have been that. Everyone should have moved on. One of the reasons this hasn’t happened is Liverpool’s handling of the affair, unfortunately exemplified by ‘King’ Kenny Dalglish himself, although he can’t be blamed for Suarez’s snub, which nobody saw coming.

Suarez has now apologised, presumably for political reasons. He still hasn’t apologised to Evra. His refusal to shake the United left-back’s hand demonstrates that he continues to feel that Evra lied about what was said. Given this, one wonders why he hasn’t tried suing him for defamation, although I suppose that isn’t possible now the matter has been dealt with by the FA. However, what’s most interesting about his actions is his refusal to accept that it’s over and done with and that everyone should move on.

I suspect that, for Suarez, this is an issue of honour, a notion that doesn’t sit easily with the adversarial justice system that he faced. Whatever was said, Evra was undoubtedly the victim, but that doesn’t alter the fact that the FA failed to place reconciliation between the two parties at the heart of the process. At the very least, for example, Suarez should have apologised directly to Evra. It’s clear that this lack of closure was no less upsetting for Evra than it was for Suarez. Despite being the victim, he wanted to be able to shake Suarez’s hand in order to prove that everyone had moved on. His solitary over-celebrations at the end of the match, rightly condemned by his manager, demonstrated his regret at being denied some catharsis from what must have been a traumatic episode, irrespective of the over-hyped Liverpool/United rivalry and the importance of the result.

One thing you can’t say about Suarez, though, is that he didn’t take the handshake seriously. It’s a minor pre-match ritual that is taken for granted, but it only has meaning if it is sometimes refused. Personally I’d have fined Suarez two weeks wages and demanded that he apologise to Evra at the end of the game, but I cannot find fault in the courage it must have taken to refuse Evra’s hand. If he does believe Evra has lied about what he has said – and there is no possibility to prove this one way or the other – then he was right to stand up for this belief, especially given the universal opprobrium he now justifiably faces. We live in a world where dishonesty is routine, and we are forced to move on even when we don’t want to. The epigraph for Bret Easton-Ellis’s American Psycho, taken from the columns of ‘Miss Manners’ (Judith Martin), reads: “One of the major mistakes people make is that they think manners are only the expression of happy ideas. There’s a whole range of behaviour that can be expressed in a mannerly way. That’s what civilisation is all about – doing it in a mannerly and not an antagonistic way. One of the places we went wrong was the naturalistic Rousseauean movement of the Sixties in which people said, ‘Why can’t you just say what’s on your mind?’ In civilization there have to be some restraints. If we followed every impulse, we’d be killing one another.” I’ve always had a grudging admiration for people who can’t follow these principles, even if that means attracting hatred. And so, as much as I think Suarez’s actions yesterday were reprehensible, I can’t fault his integrity.

Incidentally United won the game 2-1. Gutted.

This can be extrapolated from the film without even looking at the sex scenes. The extraordinary opening sequence, with its sparse dialogue and the unbearable pathos of its symphonic backdrop, mostly takes place in Brandon’s New York bachelor pad, a place as horrifying as any dungeon, showing us from the outset that we have sat down to a horror film. There is a fridge and a tiny kitchenette, a sofa and a flat screen television. The bedroom is functional and unadorned. Only a record player and a few LPs (one of which, Chic’s ‘I Want Your Love’, will be deployed to tremendous effect in a later scene) point to the kindness of the main protagonist, a kindness that Michael Fassbender manages to maintain despite the (largely masochistic) horror of the acts he participates in.

Next there is the ride to work. Sullivan travels alone through the New York subway, searching out a married woman who might be vulnerable to his unquestionable physical charm. She is dressed elaborately, perhaps too elaborately, as if they have made too much effort. A randy bachelor pursuing a married woman is a bit of a cliché, something a group of men might joke about at a stag night, and yet McQueen manages to extract so much out of these scenes. There is a loneliness in the woman’s eyes and in her apparent eagerness to meet Sullivan’s gaze, at least until they go too far and she takes flight.

Sullivan arrives at work, a banal office building. There are no shots of the exterior, no attempts to establish its presence at the heart of the metropolis. New York has rarely looked so banal on the big screen. McQueen is not seduced by the Big Apple; its glorious history is of no interest to him. Even Sullivan’s precise job is unclear, although we learn that he is good at it (at least when he’s not watching porn on the office computers). The secretary fancies him, his boss is fascinated by him, and he remains indifferent. He is not motivated by his work, but nor is he alienated by it. Sullivan is not a subversive in the making. There is no sign whatsoever that he has any desire to break out of the straitjacket of his atomised existence.

Except, perhaps, when he goes on a date with the secretary, Marianne, a buxom and pretty Brooklynite. This is one of the most disconcerting scenes in the film (and there are plenty of those), certainly much more disconcerting than the sex scenes, and here I felt that McQueen could have dwelt a little longer, much like he did (to record effect) with Bobby Sands and the priest in Hunger. As in the rest of the film, the dialogue is impressively, embarrassingly banal. I squirmed as Sullivan argued against the importance of relationships, while Marianne patiently rebuts him with clichés of her own, albeit clichés that might have been useful, had Sullivan been willing to listen. “You have to commit,” she says, even though the irony seems to be that he’d like to be capable of a serious relationship with her, while she – as we see the next morning – is perfectly happy to fuck his brains out. The banality of this dialogue is reflected elsewhere, most notably during an office night out after the team have “nailed” a big deal. Sullivan’s boss leads the way with excruciating chat-up lines, while Sullivan hovers in the background, kind, patient, friendly, and then proceeds to fuck his boss’s target for the night, a beautiful and dynamic blonde, under a grimy bridge.

In some respects, Sullivan is like something out of a Bret Easton-Ellis or a Michel Houellebecq novel, but perhaps more frightening, because he’s more immediately recognisable. His dilemmas are not those of a mere sex addict. His torments are mostly hidden, to be visualised only in his tragic sister’s outbursts, but they are surely torments that have touched most of us who have grown up in the modern world, with its emphasis on our rights and choices, but without any effective guidance as to how to make it through. Sullivan is not just a sex addict, he’s an everyman.

Earlier today, in a report that someone with Silverstein’s prose might describe as ‘breathless’, he declared: “An exclusive report from a confidential highly-placed Israeli source says that a booby-tapped drone crashed and exploded at the top-secret Israeli airbase Sdot Micha.” According to this ‘confidential highly-placed source’, the drone was probably sent by Hizbollah/Iran, and the mainstream media reports (that it was an Israeli drone which malfunctioned) were a cover-up.

Over at +972, Dimi Reider convincingly demolishes Silverstein’s claims. His analysis seems reasonable. But he doesn’t stop there. The obvious conclusion is that Silverstein can’t be trusted (those who want to point out that he sometimes gets it right should be reminded that even a broken clock is correct twice a day), but Reider says he has unwittingly played into the IDF’s hands. “But the real question is: who would have us believe this highly improbably hypothesis is true? Iran is mostly trying to avoid escalation [by reassuring Israel that it is perfectly comfortable with its existence - Alex]. Why it would give Israel a perfect casus belli by launching such a blatant military attack, which causes no significant damage, is beyond me; but I can well imagine plenty of people within the IDF who would dearly like a casus belli to bolster their case for an attack on Iran. If I were Richard, I would be extremely suspicious of any information – especially uncorroborated information – that helps the pro-war camp in Israel. Not to mention that the source might be acting in good faith, but is being hoodwinked by his own sources within the system.”

Now, Dimi is far more intelligent than most of the folk out there who oppose Jewish statehood, and he’s certainly far more intelligent than the man with no sense of irony who calls his blog Tikun Olam. He must know that Silverstein’s a bit of a dupe. But here his world-view has forced him into some ludicrous contortions, especially now that Israeli footage of the drone proves that it was indeed Israeli. If the IDF wanted us to believe that Iran/Hizbollah had crashed a drone in Israel, why wouldn’t it just say so? Why would it bother coming up with a plausible – and verifiable – story about an Israeli drone malfunctioning? Why would it choose to use a consistently inaccurate and possibly unhinged blogger to try to convince the world that Iran was attacking Israel? Has he heard of Occam’s Razor?

The only conclusion to be drawn from this episode is that Richard Silverstein shouldn’t be taken seriously. But then most of us knew that a long time ago.

No  more evidence required. You can count on less than one hand the number of times I’ve called out anti-Zionists for anti-Semitism on this site, but if the allegation insinuated by Phil Weiss isn’t anti-Semitic, then nothing is. Unless, of course, he has more evidence that he’d like to share.

PS I am Love came out before the appearance in Vogue, and she wasn’t nominated for that either.

PPS Steven Spielberg wasn’t nominated for War Horse. Any keffiyehs in his closet?

Next, rather tangentially, Goldman writes: “I am also pretty sure that the Egyptians don’t care whether Larry or any other non-Egyptian supported their revolution. They particularly don’t care whether or not Israeli liberals supported or opposed their revolution. We Israelis can be quite vain, but really – this revolution is not about us. At all.” Again, notice a commentator supposedly committed to universalism drawing attention to Israeli vanity, and all because they do what anyone would do in their place – worry about what’s going on in their neighbourhood. Would Goldman have taken the Egyptians to task for worrying about the results of the last Israeli elections? Of course not. That she herself is Israeli (albeit one who publicly states that she has left the country for political reasons) should not mean a free pass from critical scrutiny.

Goldman goes on to say that, because of its support for Mubarak, “Israel is not part of the discourse about the Arab world”, before arguing – reasonably, I think – that the primary reason for the weakness of liberalism in Egypt is the repression of liberal parties during the Mubarak years. In any case, she rightly notes that the liberal parties still won 30 per cent of the vote. I agree with her when she suggests that the “situation will probably get worse before it gets better”, but that we should not yearn for Mubarak. Once democracy is out of the bottle, it is very hard to put it back in. However, this does not mean that Israelis are acting unreasonably by expressing their concerns, even if Derfner did it in a rather insensitive, zero-sum way.

Goldman seems to be in awe of the judgements of her Arab friends and colleagues, and it is with these that she portentously completes her piece. “He [important Arab journalist with “an impressive knowledge of Israeli society and politics”] said that there was not a single Israeli journalist who evidenced any true insight or deep knowledge of the Arab world. And he said that the Arab rising was unstoppable.” One can only wonder whether Goldman was the exception to this seemingly absolute rule, but, as someone who neither claims nor particularly desires to have a deep knowledge of the Arab world – at least not any more than a concerned neighbour would want – I remain mystified by the mystification of it. For an Israeli to express concern at the Egyptian election results is reasonable, irrespective of Israel’s past relationship with Egypt or the current make-up of the Israeli government, just as Egyptian concern at the right-wing make-up of the Israeli government is reasonable. Goldman is correct to criticise Derfner for yearning for Mubarak, but then takes things too far in declaring that Israelis have no right to comment. She may be very confident about the ultimate outcome of the “unstoppable” (and presumably glorious) Egyptian revolution, but her criticisms of Derfner’s worries are at best banal, and would be of no interest if the citizens being reprimanded for their concern were not Israelis.

The final paragraph is key: “That’s why there is nothing “left” about the “Zionist left.” And there’s a clear connection between voting for Tzipi Livni or Shelly Yachimovich, and supporting a Price Tag crime. The difference is encapsulated by your stance on the Altalena Affair: it is an internal discussion within the colonial forces. Whether colonization should be carried out with by more or less force, and whether it should consider international law or not. There is nothing in all of that to help you produce your social democratic identity in a shared space.”

In short, even the left-wing of Israeli society is racist and despicable. We can assume that Jabali feels the same about the right-wing. And yet at the same time we are told that Jabali and other anti-Zionists are pursuing a one-state solution in which everyone will be accorded the same rights. Given that you consider a vast majority of Israeli society to be beyond the pale, why on earth would you want them to be part of your new state? If I were surrounded by people who held such awful views, I would demand immediate separation and perhaps even international protection from them. But we are told that Jalabi & Co want to join together with the despised in creating a new polity without precedent in world history.

But wait. If the inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza get a vote, as well as the descendants of Palestinian refugees, then sharing no longer becomes necessary. Because democracy would then mean a Palestinian-Arab state with Jews as second-class citizens, a mirror image of the state we’re told currently exists between the river and the sea, the state Jabali and the other anti-Zionists despise.

In short, the one-state solution is a vision for Palestinian victory. The high-minded rhetoric about peace and justice and democracy is a ruse; it cannot sit alongside the widely held view – honestly expressed by Jalabi – that Israel is a country where even the left-wing are irredeemably racist. That is, without us going through some kind of de-Nazification programme. But even the Germans were able to keep living in Germany. If you sincerely believe that there is a “connection” between voting for Tzipi Livni and setting fire to mosques (perhaps it’s akin to the “connection” between a BDS activist and a suicide bomber), then you are very optimistic if you think that a single democratic state will bring peace. That is, unless it is not peace you seek, but victory.

The raison d’être of the State of Israel is the defense and advancement of the Jewish people. For a Zionist, when universal liberal values conflict with this raison d’être, the latter must prevail. Though these conflicts do exist, they are not terribly widespread. Even Lee acknowledges that “Many of the inequalities…are not unique to Israel. If we look at education rates of young Arabs in France or Hispanics and Blacks in the US, we’ll find similar inequalities in situation and even opportunity [sic]. Likewise, for infrastructure.” He goes on to claim that what singles Israel out are its inequalities of citizenship, but doesn’t really go into specifics, aside from the poorly chosen example of military service. In choosing that example, he ignores the ongoing efforts to encourage more Israeli-Palestinians to do national service (efforts which have been predictably opposed by anti-Zionists).” Read the rest at +972 blog.

Dear Aron,
I take comfort from reading your kind and heartfelt words about your experiences patrolling the Egyptian border, and your feelings on the importance of offering dignified refuge to those who have suffered as we suffered.

Like you I am an oleh, although from the UK, l and have been living in Israel for 6 years now. Many of my friends do the same reserve duty on the border, and show the same kindness and compassion to those they find stumbling out from the night, often injured, from the nightmare of their past life and their journey to Israel.

My involvement in this story begins when they arrive in Tel Aviv. For the past 3 years I have been involved in running shelters for pregnant women, single mothers, and children, first as Shelter Manager and then as Humanitarian Coordinator for the African Refugee Development Center. I do this partly in honor of the people who assisted my grandparents and great grandparents when they arrived in the UK, just before the Holocaust swallowed up those who stayed behind.

I know that the work that ARDC does, staffed full of volunteers from across the Jewish and non-Jewish world, does justice to the stories we grew up hearing. It is clearly the only right thing to do to survivors of modern day genocides and state sponsored oppression.

I do not feel, however, that we can say with the same clear heart that we are proud of the response of our nation, our country. The Israeli neighbors near our shelter are prone to shout abuses at the residents and the volunteers for bringing black people into their neighborhoods; local rabbis print posters demanding that real estate agents refuse to rent properties to Africans; schools and nurseries refuse African children from entering their classrooms; and hundreds of men sleep every night in the parks and abandoned buildings of South Tel Aviv whilst receiving no humanitarian support at all from the state or the municipality.Between you receiving them on the border with hot drinks, blankets and lifesaving medical treatment and them arriving to our shelter, there are a number of worrying issues that cannot help but keep people like us awake at night.

After leaving you, they are taken to Saharonim detention facility in the Negev for processing. There are people who have been detained in Saharonim for years, with no access to claim asylum and no independent oversight of this closed military site. Women who arrived pregnant from the horrors in the Sinai are held there until their pregnancies become so advanced they cannot have an abortion, adding to our list of challenges having to counsel and support women having to bring these children into the world. There is no gynecologist on staff at Saharonim despite our regular reports and advice.

A recent article in Haaretz partially described the process at the Saharonim prison: “Attorney Omer Shatz of the human rights group Anu Plitim (We are Refugees), says the tribunal at Saharonim “cannot be considered a court, certainly not one that rules on the freedom of asylum-seekers. The best evidence of this is the fact that these tribunals are located inside a prison, far from the public eye.” Its judges, he says, are not subservient to the Judicial Ombudsman, “and as opposed to criminals, who are allowed a public defender, these victims come before the tribunal without representation.” Until this article, the media had never been allowed inside this prison for refugees.

Once released from detention our refugees are released onto the streets of Tel Aviv with a visa that specifically prohibits their right to work. All Eritrean and Sudanese refugees (86% of the refugees in Israel) are refused the right to enter the Refugee Status Determination procedure despite the well documented slaughters in Darfur and South Sudan and brutal human rights abuses committed by the Eritrean government. This prevents them from getting access to the basic rights that refugees receive in the US or the UK. Our refugees are now forced to survive on the charity of others or take illegal black market work with no guarantee of payment. With no insurance for the all too regular injuries that occur to construction and agricultural workers who are not trained in the equipment they use, our refugees are dumped in hospitals and left to pay enormous hospital bills, all the while employees know they can just go the next day to find more willing and uninformed workers.

As a law student you are only too aware of the behavior mandated on our government as signatories of the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees. Indeed Israel was one of the very first countries to sign the document, which was written in the most part to provide a legal framework for the world to deal with over 1 million of our fellow Jews held in camps across Europe after the Holocaust. We continue to encourage the government to adopt the convention as national legislation, a role one day as a lawyer you will be able to assist us with. Without this the 45,000 refugees in Israel will remain without rights and without a future.Most worrying of all, is the legislation currently going through the Knesset. Our Parliament has discussed imprisoning anyone who enters the country illegally; including refugees of genocide; a penalty of up to 5 years imprisonment for Israeli citizens who assist refugees (that is you and me); building a closed detention camp for up to 10 000 refugees in the desert; and building a wall along the border that will prevent those asking for asylum to ever get through the door.

To think that my own government would discuss a bill that would criminalize me for my work and send me to prison for assisting vulnerable victims of genocide and oppression. My family was in shock when they read the proposal. How do I explain to them that this is the response of the country of the Jews, the victims of countless expulsions and attempted genocides?We must be proud of the work of our soldiers on the border whose gut reaction is to offer the hand of support and aid to the tortured faces we meet, we must be proud of the families and teachers who have embraced the stranger in their land and welcomed them into their homes and classrooms. We must also face up to our Interior Minister who says “infiltrators” pose “an existential threat to Israel”, and falsely claims they arrive carrying diseases. We must face up to politicians who score cheap points in poor neighborhoods by ratcheting up xenophobic sentiment, and to a government that does not invest a single shekel in humanitarian or medical support to these poor souls.

I am writing to you because the letter you wrote last week has travelled the globe, arriving in the inboxes of Jewish community leaders and congregants alike and I am sure you would like to paint as honest picture as you can.

I kindly invite you to visit our center and shelters to learn more about the situation so you are able to develop your beautifully written words to continue telling this complicated story.

Our story is a heavy burden to carry and more than a life’s work to do. We must face it honestly and know, in the words of Hillel, that we did not do to others that which we would not have done to ourselves.

Nic Schlagman Program Manager                                                                                                ARDC Golomb Street 52 | Tel Aviv | 66171                                                                                Office: 03 537 4617 | Mobile: 0544 427647

The second objection is to Grossman’s depiction of the Israeli-Palestinian (Weiss petulantly describes him as plain Palestinian) driver character, Sami. “Ora’s privilege within the novel extends to her freedom to repeat ranting soliloquies about Arabs…It is unimaginable that Grossman would dare to allow the Palestinian character the same freedom in his thoughts about Jews, but in this and other passages…he reveals the pervasive intensity of the societal hostility to Arabs.” Of course, there is no evidence for her claim that it is unimaginable that Grossman would give the Palestinian character the same freedom in his thoughts about Jews, and one is immediately reminded of A.B. Yehoshua’s brilliant The Lover, published in 1978, in which an Israeli-Palestinian character gets the very freedom Storace seems so sure an Israeli-Jewish author would not dare bestow upon him. As for her second claim, that of “the pervasive intensity of the societal hostility to Arabs,” one can presume that she wouldn’t be as triumphant were the character an anti-Semitic Arab.

Finally, Storace notes that Grossman does not give sufficient background regarding Holocaust education in Israel: “The novel gives no description of this rite of passage,” before referring to an essay by the chairman of the Early Childhood Department of Efrata Teacher’s College about Holocaust education, in order to show that Israeli society is insanely paranoid. To be fair, she doesn’t criticise Grossman for not mentioning this stuff, and it may just be a case of Weiss projecting, but it seems another irrelevant criticism. The anti-Zionist project is totalitarian, which means absolutely everything that comes out of Israel (other than its critics) must be despised; hence the attempt to use Israeli fiction as a stick with which to beat Israeli society.

I am reminded of Borges’s seminal essay, The Argentine Writer and Tradition: “A few days ago, I discovered a curious confirmation of the way in which what is truly native can and often does dispense with local colour; I found this confirmation in Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Gibbon observes that in the Arab book par excellence, the Koran, there are no camels; I believe that if there were ever any doubt as to the authenticity of the Koran, this lack of camels, or even camel medium for that matter, would suffice to prove that it is Arab. It was written by Mohammed, and Mohammed, as an Arab, had no reason to know that camels were particularly Arab; they were, for him, a part of reality, and he had no reason to single them out, while the first thing a forger, a tourist or an Arab nationalist would do is bring on the camels, whole caravans of camels on every page; but Mohammed, as a smoke and an Arab, was unconcerned; he knew he could be Arab without camels. I believe that we Argentines can be like Mohammed; we can believe in the possibility of being Argentine without abounding in local colour.” Storace and Weiss are demanding camels in the Koran, and camels with four humps at that. Their attempt does not stand up to scrutiny.