Emily Fox Kaplan, a Jewish writer who had shared the essay before it was retracted, wrote that she saw the criticism of Chen’s essay as part of a much wider dynamic.
“The problem, when it really comes down to it, is that it presents an Israeli as human,” she tweeted. “The people who are losing their minds about this want to believe that there are no civilians in Israel. They want a simple good guys/bad guys binary, and this creates cognitive dissonance.”
Some non-Jewish writers also lamented the piece’s retraction.
“Anyone who wants to seriously grapple with war had better be prepared for far more shocking opinions than are found in this thoughtful essay by a translator and writer living in Israel,” tweeted Phil Klay, a US military veteran whose writing draws on his war experiences. “Shame on @GuernicaMag for pulling it down.”
Secular liberal Jews still think that condemning Israel (which is what Chen did in the article) but insisting it's not 100% evil will be acceptable to our enemies. And our enemies will accept nothing less than Israel being portrayed as100% evil.
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