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Love Letters to a "Provocative" Prostitute (updated)

June 26, 2015

In Blog Letters To Finkelstein News

Dear Mr. de Maio,
I just came across your correspondence with Norman Finkelstein, regarding your partaking at an Israeli event of which a quote of you was used for propaganda purposes, justifying and excusing mass murder. It’s quite shocking the least that a leading person at the Red Cross acts in the manner described, without any critical lenses or backbone, not expressening any serious concern regarding the dire humanitarian situation in Gaza and the West Bank. It is to a large extent because of corrupted individuals of your type that injustice still prevails in Palestine.
Good luck with your future humanitarian endeavors.
Best regards,
CG

 

*****

Re: Ignorance I can bear. Ignorance + bad faith, I can’t.
Dear Mr. De Maio
You have answered a scholar with what appears in the title of this email and i’d like to know why you’ve decided to resort to such insult rather than debate and explain your praise for Israel ?
Judging from your response to Dr Finkelstein, you seem to know things that the rest of us don’t. Can you elaborate on the “ignorance” we may have towards what Israel is doing to the Palestinians?
Questioning someone’s statement in a given report which you yourself labelled “provocative statement” is hardly an act of bad faith.
If you happen to have more insight in what you’ve stated, i would like to know about it.
regards
kr

****

Dear Mr de Maio,

Apropos http://normanfinkelstein.com/2015/06/21/why-prostitutes-have-a-bad-reputation-you-can-reach-jacques-de-maio-here-jdemaioicrc-org/, you still have not answered Finkelstein’s question. How much honorarium did you receive in exchange for defending the indefensible?
S M

 

****

Mr. de Maio,
I was interested to read the online correspondence posted today between yourself and Norman Finkelstein.
It seems to me Finkelstein brought up some points of fact (totally uncontested, as far as I know) that you decided not only to ignore but to petulantly dismiss with an ad hominem.
To quote the Guardian in 2009 reporting on the sixth Israeli rampage in Gaza (that is, the sixth out of eight to have taken place in the last ten years), the ICRC reserved “unusually strong condemnation” for Israel due to its blocking of access to over 5,000 injured civilians in the besieged territory.
As you are aware, there exist prominent critics of the Red Cross and the human rights community in general, none more vulgar perhaps than Alan Dershowitz, who make malicious accusations of anti-Semitism whenever you make honest and courageous stands of principle on the conflict in Israel-Palestine.
Dershowitz argues that Israel owes only a voluntary allegiance to international law, and has advocated the destruction of Palestinian villages (Nazi style), in response to Hamas terrorism. Unlike the Red Cross, he professes little concern for human rights. Indeed, during a keynote address at Bar-Ilan University, he “admitted that Israel’s human rights record [is] hardly stellar”, according to Haaretz.
Ironically, your comments – following major atrocities committed by Israel last summer, fall well below the moral level of Dershowitz, who at least had the grace to admit the truth to his Israeli audience, unlike your performance, which as Prof. Finkelstein pointed out, gives prostitutes a bad name.
JC
****
Hello Mr. de Maio,

 
I have read in the Israeli Report on Operation Protective Edge what you said about the ICRC humanitarian access in Israel and the West Bank & Gaza Strip. You said it was outstandingly good !!!
 
Did anybody tell you how many children were killed in Gaza during this operation??  –  550 !!!
 
Did anybody tell you that the Israelis were targeting hospitals and ambulances?
 
I am not an ICRC employee and I know of these facts; you are its high official and you don’t? Otherwise how could you be praising Israel? Or, are you making fun of me and other people in this world? What’s wrong with you?
 
AB

****

de Maio,

You’re indeed a prostitute. I work for one of the largest NGO’s in the world and am ashamed that you would be working for a charity and in this sector. People like you are morally bankrupt and really only work in the sector because of a nice pay cheque and Israeli honorariums.
The only ones blocking access to aid in Gaza were the IDF – that includes the blockages of Rafah, Eretz and other entrances into Gaza. Considering they shot ambulances, aid workers, and journalists, your claim of their amazing accommodations for aid accessibility are vomit worthy.
Disgusting.
****
​to jdemaio
Dear Mr de Maio,
I recently read the 2014 Gaza Conflict Report where Israel acts as judge and jury on its own egregious crimes in Gaza. Needless to say that the outcome of that report was predictable. I did note that Israel used a quote from you  to support their humanitarian credentials. As most humanitarian organisations were severely critical of Israel’s conduct in that conflict, I thought that maybe your quote was taken out of context, so I went to the source of that quote. I was amazed to find that you did indeed make such a comment without putting it into context.
It is extraordinary that you find it praiseworthy that Israel allowed humanitarian aid into the concentration camp of Gaza, after carrying out a massacre of its inhabitants and distroying its infastructure. Maybe you felt that the agenda and location prohibited you from using that opportunity to contextualize your comment and describe the appalling vista that is Gaza. Having failed to do so you have allowed Israel to use your comment to support their war crimes.
Yours
Tom Partridge.