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Comment and Opinion

Howard Jacobson – 27/06/2011

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“It should not need arguing, this late in the ethical history of mankind, that good people can do great harm. One of the finest and funniest novels ever written – Don Quixote – charts the damage left in the wake of a man who would make the world a better place.

Human beings are seldom more dangerous than when they are sentimentally overcome by the goodness of their own intentions. That Alice Walker believes it is right to join the Freedom Flotilla II to Gaza I do not have the slightest doubt. But beyond associating her decision with Gandhi, Martin Luther King and very nearly, when she talks about the preciousness of children, Jesus Christ, she fails to give a single convincing reason for it.”

 

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