Why the Mass Media’s Best Effort to Understand Obama’s Failure to Make Israel-Palestinian Peace Fails
– Or the concept that they can only be victims?
– A parallel idea that Israel must always be responsible because it is held to a higher standard?
– Ignorance about Israeli politics and society?
– The seemingly rational view that they must be eager to get a state and end the largely nonexistent these days “occupation” and thus cannot be intransigent?
– The refusal to comprehend that the main theme of Palestinian politics is still wiping Israel off the map and not a two-state solution, though this, of course, is not the universal view among them?
– A Washington-centric view which is obsessed with Obama’s domestic political and electoral considerations far more than the actual situation in the Middle East?
– In some cases, though more rarely in America than Europe and certainly not in regard to this article, a deep-seated antagonism toward Jews?
– In some cases, though more rarely in America than Europe and often coming from left-wing Jews in the United States — certainly not the case with this article by Wilson — a deep-seated antagonism toward the existence of a Jewish state?
Wilson here provides us with the case of a reporter who is willing to work hard and genuinely wants to understand what happened. Yet he is only able to offer a series of scenes with no conceptual overview, along with the missing Palestinian factor. Or, to put it bluntly, Obama could stand on his head, Netanyahu could stop all construction on settlement for five years, and Palestinian ideology, goals, politics, and internal rivalries would still prevent any breakthrough to a comprehensive peace.
The bottom line is that there are only two permitted mainstream media positions: Either it is all Israel’s fault or it is simply an issue that is too tough and complex to resolve. The latter stance, as in Wilson’s article, is the best we can expect.
I prefer just to use my first name. This allows me the luxury of making irrationalities and correlatively not being held responsible for my errancies. I do use my professorial status (perhaps influenced by such a socially overvalued use of it here in Germany) with the hope that the reader of my comments will take them a bit more seriously, coming as they are from a “professor”. I have learned the cognitive prestige of my profession means “much” and, yet, “less” than it appears. Certainly, years of study (in my case some 17 years in four countries) have atuned my capacity to conceptualize in a rational manner, hopefully to a degree that those not so trained might lack. That is the “much” of my status. The “less” is quite simple. Just because I am an “expert” in THIS area, there is no necessary carry over to THAT area, though my title might accrue an undeserved credibility. The “much” and the “less” of my exalted (sic) professorial status underlies this comment. In other words, I am directing my comment effectively to PROF. Barry Rubin, a man with professional knowledge in “that” area of current foregin policy strategy that is fully lacking in my humanistic fields of speciality, thereby rendering me an “amateur” (though at times I flatter myself with the illusion of being a “professional” amateur). I need help in order to understand, viz., to conceptualize what is going on in my home country of America. I will seek to focus upon just that area of ignorance on my part relative to Prof. Rubin’s article.
Prof. Rubin wrote on July 13, 2012 an article, whose first words were “Good News? …” In said article the conceptual capacity of the NYT was questioned in foreign policy matters and, indeed, the said analysis was designated as bespeaking “incompetency”. I really jumbed into the commentary frenzy, here as “Professor” and there as “Leonard”. Slowly, but surely, the problematic disturbing me revealed itself to me. In my many mianderings there was a good question just waiting to be formulated. In the end I came to the conclusion that Prof. Rubin was not fully correct with the evaluation of “incompetency”. I read the article referred to and found it coherently, viz., rationally written. I conclude that prejudices of value (I am playing with Edmund Burke) underly the clearly “objective” errancy of the analysis (given as a reason for the judgment of “incompetency”), but do not in any way reduce the intellectual accuity of the writer. I came to suspect that the “value prejudices” (not even consciously present) dictated the delineation of the universe of discourse or, simply put, the analytical vocabulary to be used in order to produce an analysis upon which policy strategies will be predicated. Such a dominance of one type of vocabulary exludes alternate explainations, even from acceptable consideration.
The very article to which I am now seeking to render a comment embodies a great deal of theoretical exploration of the reasons behind Wilson’s excellent, though in the end truncated examination of the situation. For instance, the postion of the PA, indeed, of the “Palestians”, remains the elimination of Israel. This can be read in their programs of 1964, 1968 and everytime I look up “The Palistinian Times”. From the beginning until now, there has been a refusal to recognize the Jews “occupying” (sic) Palastine as a nation with any claims thereto. Why the theoretical blindness relative to this enduring stance? I can go on and on, only to bore Prof. Rubin with my all too limited knowledge. In short, I do see Prof. Rubin’s artcle, consciously or not, as a partial response to my request in the commentaries of the last article that experts at PJM, such a Prof. Barry Rubin, do occupy themselves with the “value prejudices” informing and controlling the the conceptualization of analyses from the Left. Although the above article in no way can fulfill profoundly my request (nor should it), it does throw light on the matter by carefully weighing reasons for errancy. However, the most important of the errant bearers of “value prejudices” that lead to “incompetent” evaluations of the Palistians or, for that matter, of the Brotherhood movement in Egypt and elsewhere is, alas, no more and no less that Barack HUSSEIN Obama. I have a tentative thesis, but do not claim any apodictic certainty. I would like to know if I am on the right track.
Once again I place the middle name of our president in caps in order to catch the reflective eye. I will not repeat my “Final Question” to the July 13 article, rather focus upon the heart of the matter. Obama has apparently had positive experience with Islam, was a member of a Black Liberation Church and has absorbed much Marxism in the process of his formation. All such tendencies evince a coherency, namely: anti-capitalism, anti-Western constituionalism and weakness towards Islamic core tenets (ones over and over brought out by Robert Spencer and Raymond Ibrahim), even a possible hostility towards Jews, viz., Israel. Would I be, methodologically concerned, correct, just as a working hypothesis, that the confluence of such tendencies constitutes the “value prejudices” of Pres. B Hussein O, so much so that he will encapsulate his analytical intelligence in a vocabulary that simply makes it impossible to judge (even to want to judge) the situation in a different manner, one which would necessitate a fundamental revision of his policies. Or, am I just barking up the wrong analytical tree?
Professor Wessell,
Although I have not received as much education as you have and I do not have any of your experience, I so enjoy reading your comments to Prof. Rubin’s articles. My background is actually in English literature, but I am fascinated by Islam and the Middle East and hope one day soon to live there. Please know that your continued responses to Professor Rubin have a far-reaching effect as I continue to be educated one article at a time.
Dear Professor Wessell,
I am myself a professor, that’s why I write this response under unusual name. I don’t wont this title to stick to my name in this forum. I don’t give much importance to it. We are only good in our specialty, and also there we are very different, having variable professional level. In other areas our idiocy is probably the same as of the whole population.
I would like to thank both A and Lynn K for the responses. With A I fully admit that the world of being a professor is not what it seems. I used to regard half my colleagues at one US university as incompetent and at a Spanish university I discovered a sort of “civil war” was still going on, replete with dirty tricks. I demur, however, relative to knowledge outside one’s speciality, i.e., it not idiocy, rather ignorance. I compliment my professors in that I was disciplined and taught to approach a subject matter with scholarship and rationality. This part of being a professor lets me dream that I maybe a “professional” amateur. Dreams??? I carry a title in a land where there are still enough believers in our “divine” status. So I may be tempted too much to drop the title about. I beg forgiveness if it sounds pompous. Also, the title has its uses, even in the pages of the Commentaries to PJM articles. I directed myself “professorial” to Prof. Rubin out of personal reasons. I find myself from the Christian side offened in conscience by Obama relative to the HHS Mandate. That perks up an interest to understand the man. My mother, educated as one of the first women at UC Berkley, carried, so to speak, two documents in her hands, the Bible and the US Constiution. Both these symbolic memories of mine (which hold true for me, specially my honoring of the Constitution) are disappearing from America with our current president setting the tone. Add to that the vocabluaries of blindness I know historically from Germany (and see plenty of clips in documentaries every day) and from the time of the Communist menace, it is for me a freightening thing to see it again relative to the Islamic threat. In particular Israel will be directly affected. The point?
My opposition to Obama, the Left and in many ways postmodernity provokes in me strong emotionality. This emotionality could bring forth in me the development of a protective vocabulary of interpretation that does not allow me to “rationally” evaluate B HUSSEIN O or the Left in general. I have offerred in my comment above a “working hypothesis” that ties various aspects of Obama together in a coherent manner such that, among other things, the capitalization of his middle name is not just underhanded trick of propaganda. I think that my hypothesis opens a valid field of interpreation. Or, that is what I hope. Expressed popularly, I do not want to undertake a “witch hunt” against Obama and Leftism or, should I say, “progessivism”. I respect greatly experts such as Prof. Rubin (whose wisely does not drag in his title) and am looking for conformation of the direction of my investigation and am hoping that my remarks might contribute to inspiring the one or the other writer at PJM to examine in some “professorial”, viz. orderly fashion (beyond my resources or training) to the “value prejudices” of Obama and the Left. I personally can be catorized as an opponent to much of moderntiy in the style of Nicolás Gómez Dávila. As a retired “professor”, proud of my training and of those who trained me, I do not wish to become a victim of my “value prejucies”. For this reason I am seeking confirmation of my idea.
Leonard,
I realize that I am not the person you were addressing,but speaking as a layman,it would seem to me that you are making several “rookie” mistakes.
The first is that while your stated goal is to reach an objective analysis of the situation, you repeat over and over that you are looking for confirmation. These two things are in direct conflict with one another. You cannot seek an objective understanding while also looking to have previous beliefs validated. One must overturn every stone. If it were a philosophical exercise, the statement “The sky is blue.” would not even be taken to be absolutely true. One would have to go to lengths to PROVE that the sky is blue,even if you can see that it is not another color plainly.
You write: “For this reason I am seeking confirmation of my idea.”
To me,an outsider and non-professional who happens to be a fan of analytical thought, this appears as if you are saying “I am looking for confirmation bias.”
If objective analysis is your goal, you should ask rather for “evaluation of my idea”.
Another mistake you are making is one Orwell spoke about as symptomatic of the European experience many years ago in his lesser-known works on the correct use of English, that is that you say in a great many words,and those laden with colorful adjectives and qualifiers,what could easily be said in a few,invoking words derived from foreign sources when there are already English words to describe what you would like to say.
Here is an example of such verbiage:”On the contrary, Obama represses or forbids consideration of Islamism as a motivational factor in evaluating the current augmentation of hostile entities against Israel and against the USA. “Core” Islam is aggressive! Blindness to this fact along with a medial vocabulary that covers up awareness of this fact is dangerous and could be lethal for someone. It certainly does not permit an optimal counterstrategy. A “nice try” is not enough. A “maximally effective try” is needed. Or?”
Orwell wrote about this a long time ago, and this manner of speech has been exported from Europe to the United States educational system for as long as we have had idiots in America wanting to put us back under the thumb of European rulers, which is quite a long time indeed. I know my own speech is not free of these errors completely,and for that I beg forgiveness for my hypocrisy in pointing them out where your speech is concerned. However,it speaks to a point that I wish to make. I believe it is possible the man you are addressing has been unable to work out the exact nature of your request of him,due to an inability to follow your point through the tangled underbrush of your impressive, yet ultimately counterproductive,verbal flourish.
It pains me to make such a response, as you seem to be a very amicable and humble sort. Your manner of speech bespeaks a degree of humility which even I do not possess.
To bluntly and directly answer your question to the best of my own ability, it would seem to me that the conclusions you have drawn on the subject of Obama are the stuff of opinion, and therefore no objective conclusion could be offered by either scholar or layman,as no one that we know of is able to read Obama’s mind or claims that power. While I share your opinion on this subject,I am unable to confirm it, as you have requested of the author of the article. Based on the actions of President Obama, I would say he is probably more loyal to the dogmas of American Socialism than he is to any of the tenets of Islam,the only one he seems to hold is one that is held by both groups alike, a hatred of America and a belief that she chiefly oppresses others rather than chiefly helps them. I hope this helps,but I am aware that it probably doesn’t.
Thank you Mr. Sanderson for your most thoughtful critique. Your being a fan of analytical philosophy is evident in your failure to understand me, a Roycean idealist. As an aside I agree with the late great idealist, Brand Blanshard, that analytical philosophy is a confusion of thought that has contributed to the expansion of irrationalism in philosophy in America, not intended of course. Cf. “Reason and Analysis” of 1964 and you will have your “faith” in analytical philosophy shattered and be happy that you can cover the error of your philosophical ways with your self-designation as a “layman”. You quote Orwell and I hold that I am in imitation of Orwell’s comrade (at least for awhile) James Burnham and his morphological research methods. Let me untangle matters just a bit, as no more can be expected here. Return to me in a year and I will give you the bibliography of a long article I have written (not yet published) on “The Being of Truth: Reflections on Richard Rorty’s Denial of Truth”. Things like “objectivity” will become clearer to you and an idealistic foundation for objectivity (you see I am an idealist similar to Josiah Royce and I argue similar to him) will shine forth. Enough with showing off! Let this “rookie” outline the intended message to a “layman”. Then let me know if you understand me and agree or not.
If I attempt to describe and formulate ideas about a certain field of “objects”, be they rocks, atoms, feeling, etc., etc., I am impelled and obligated to see to it that my theses correspond to or conform with the objects chosen for analysis. Certainly the sky is not blue beyond all doubt (nor can you prove that thesis beyond all doubt or even have the slightest idea how to do it–whereas I do). Maybe the blue of the sky is just like the eyes of Paul Newman, attractive though deceptive. Most knowledge that I have is not based upon an absolute certainty, the denial of which entails a contradiction. Nothing new and no idealist such as Blanshard or Royce or myself have ever claimed that the bulk of human knowledge is beyond doubt. Indeed, almost all of it is not absolute, rather tentative and searching and mostly wrong. What is beyond doubt are our theoretical groundings of our knowledge per se because our opponents cannot contradict us without using our principles. But that is another matter. So, do I know beyond all doubt that Adolf Hitler hated Jews and wanted to exterminate them? NO!!! But, all the evidence I have coheres forming a congruity of indications such that any attempt to deny said thinking by Hitler becomes practically rediculous in its improbablity (and probablity is another weakness in analytic philosophy, cf. I. Severino critique of analytic philosophy). I have noted in a comment to a previous article by Rubin, that many individuals, yes from the NYT too, saw in Hitler a person with whom one can make a deal and who will keep his promise. This was the false judgment of Chaimberlain, i.e., his judgment did not correspond to the thinking of Hitler and was, therefore, not OBJECTIVELY adequate, viz, not true to the object. I canNOT know this thesis beyond all imaginable doubt, though 6 million dead Jews might agree with me. Chaimberlain accepted a rendering harmless of the proclamations of Hitler. If any Jew or anyone in Germany had wanted to predict in advance the policy decision that Chaimberlain was going to take, based upon his previous public life, then that said “anyone” would have been a fool to accept evaluations of Hitler as harmless, which was in effect the foundation of Chaimberlain belief in the “object” Hitler. Ah, it was imperative to understand Chaimberlain, but inmpossible to have absolute certainty about said understanding. In such a situation, had I been there, I would have sought confirmation (theory of knowledge as consensual) of my hypothesis from knowledgeable experts about the nature of Chaimberlains appeasement views. Indeed, I would have done so even if I had been nothing but a, say, Jewish “rookie” philosopher such as you designate my philosophical acuity.
Relative to Obama’s failure to consider the aggressive nature of Brotherhood Islam I have constructed an interpretive hypothesis, one not very favorable to Obama. I think his past indicates that he has a postive trust in Brotherhood Islam, maybe even an inclination towards it. I do not possess the knowledge of a Rubin or an Ed Klein or a Stanley Kurtz or a Robert Spencer or a Raymond Ibrahim, just to mention a few experts. I also have my values and I disdain Obama’s policies mightly. I have no desire to let myself into a sort of reverse rendering harmless, i.e., a rendering dangerous, and in this case I mean Obama! So, I have sought in a congruency of factors that present a coherent view of Obama’s motivations which explains his Chaimberlain-like appeasement towards Brotherhood Islam. Since I am not an expert here, I do seek confirmation from those who know more than I. I do not wish to waste my time. In the last anylysis it will be I who formulates my thesis for myself. I want not to undertake a witch hunt, rather to construct an intepretation that corresponds to the object Obama and is, therefore, “objective” (however much that might pain an analytical layman’s ears). I do hope that my short explanation satisfies your “layman” opinion of my “rookie” theses. That you failed to grasp the simplicity of my position leaves you, alas, just another victim of analytical philosophy and its vocabulary of contorting the object to which it refers, e.g., in general the world about.
I end my reply. If it appears to be rather sharp and pointed, I do not mean to be impolite. I really appreciate that you took time to reflect upon my methodology and state an objection. That corresponds to the best in thought. That the objection stems from a failure of understanding on your part, one influenced by the devious concepts of analytical philosophy, does not mean you are not to be prasied for taking me on. It does mean, nevertheless, that such uprightness does not protect you from a serious misunderstanding. I hope I have met your objections with my short presentation above. Do you agree with my tentative interpretation of Obama, being not absolute as it is? If so, I will take such an agreement as a “confirmation” of my hypothesis.
I tried 3 times and could not get through your comment.
Get to the point, professor.
Your writing comes across as self-important and I get bored before I find anything of value, that probably is hidden somewhere.
There is so much good stuff to read, and so little time, that I just can’t be bothered with long-winded nonsense.
If you do not like the merchandise, do not buy it. If you cannot understand me, do not read me. But be careful, based upon your ADMITTED failure to understand me, to catagorize me as “long-winded” or with whatever other putdown you desire. You may be saying more about your limitations than about my faults. Professors (or any intellectual who writes books) must have enough intellectual wind to get along with the task and it can be long and complicated. If you think that “long-winded-ness” is boring, you may be right. But it can be dangerous for those who do not read it. Lethally dangerous. “Das Kapital” and other works of Marx were quite long-winded. Only a few worked their way through, e.g. Lenin. Lenin (who himself wrote long-winded books) sucked in the winds of Marx, worked them over, and blew out a hell on earth. For that matter, Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” was quite long-winded and the winds from his thought ignited the flames of WW II and, incidently, also the Holocaust. Long-winded-ness can produce long winds for flames. It also can lead to understanding for some.
I find your disposal of me to be sad. I may appear to you as being “self-important”. Perhaps you are right and perhaps not. I do admit that what I am seeking to understand is quite IMPORTANT TO MY SELF. Within that context I must write the way I think. I sorrow that I am a hinderance to the pleasure of your reading. If I cannot stimulate any other reaction among reader than yours (and whatever the next fellow might have meant with his reply), I will cease commenting and you can get back unhindered to whatever level of intellectuality that pleases you so long as it is not long-winded. In the mean time, you now know the label of my merchandise. So, just skip over it. Satisfied? Or is that too long of a question?
Actually, the problem is really very simple.
You think too much of yourself, and you don’t write well.
You have stated a problem. This problem is based upon a pyschological analysis and a literary judgment. I presume that you have the necessary training in the fields of psychology and literary criticism to render judgment. Well, you stated a problem. What is your suggested solution? At least the offending party “thinks” and “writes” about the theme of Rubin’s article and discusses reasons for the sad situation described. An old saying: Put your money where is your mouth is! Well, what to you think about the thematized problem by Rubin, however well you might write or not? If no reply is forth coming you have naught but participated in the joy of putting someone down and, alas, nothing more. Without doubt something good for one’s own ego, makes one think more of one’s self and of one’s superiority over the offender. It does not, however, express opinions about the real problem at hand!!! It just an exercise in futility. So, step up to the plate and strike a homerun for enlightenment. I await in humble anticipation.
What is the purpose of PJM’s section “Comments”? Is its function to enable readers to spew out putdowns, often boardering of vulgarity, directed at the left and, particularly, against the MSM exemplified by the NYT or even against Obama himself? Yes, yes, yes! And that is fine as it helps many a frustrated conservative (and that includes myself) to find some climatic release to emotions boiling within. Is such a therapeutic release the SOLE function of “Comments”? If so, they have no real value. I have the impression that Mark v and others like him hold me for egotisical, long-winded, possessing a lousy literary style, and difficult to understand. So what??? What do these “evident” character flaws of mine have to do with the content of my ideas, the nature of my analysis and the questions I am seeking to pose to experts at PJM such as PROF. Barry Rubin? Nothing!!! If you must insult someone, do so intelligently or forever remain silent. I am on YOUR side!!! Direct your climatic lust to utter putdowns towards the enemy, not at a friend or you will find the friend falls silent. And that is stupid! If you do not like perusing my comments, do not do so! Is that too complicated to understand? That is free market thinking, no? Is not that minimally intelligent? The effects of such orgies of putdown tend to eliminate my desire to pursue the truth of the situation of our current world and to enter into conversation with people of knowledge. In the intellectual world I inhabit such joyrides of denigration are absent. I have problems dealing with intellectual vulgarity. Such attacks demotivate me. Maybe that is their intended goal? Whatever, just what underlies my comments for this article by Barry Rubin and for the last one he wrote?
I observe Barack HUSSEIN Obama pursuing an appeasement policy towards Brotherhood Islam much in analogy to Chaimberlain’s appeasement policy towards “volk”-community Nazism. But there is an enormous difference. In no way can one suspect that Chaimberlain was a sympathizer with Nazism, let alone that he gave appearances of postively affirming it. Such rejectionism by Chaimberlain does not seem to hold for Obama. Obama has advisers with a communist background, he attended a Black Liberation Church, he entered in his organizer days into a Marxism adapted to a new strategy and seems to have Islam types advising him now. I know why Chaimberlain was inclined to overlook the raucous nature of Hitler. That Britain was traumatized by WW I and wanted “peace in out time”, whatever it might cost. Chaimberlain erred mightly, but his motivation evinces an understandable idealism. What is the “idealism” motivating the operational decisions of Obama or directing the analytic interpretations of the NYT, not to speak of the populous blabbings of CNN or MSNBC? My comments have all been directed towards Prof. Barry Rubin, a man of most admirable erudition, and towards any other intellectual at PJM. I did not and do not expect that Rubin answers directly. I do hope that he and his colleagues take up the suggestion to examine the motivational “Glaube”, viz. “Faith” informing Obama’s decision making. From good old Germany I do not have access to the materials necessary in order to formulate adequately an insight into the ideological structure of Obama’s thinking, the structure of which motivates his thinking, his policies and his freightening APPEASEMENT towards Islam. Oh woe, there are distinctly murderously anti-semetic features in the Prophet’s religion of “surrender” (= Islam) to the archaic Allah. An appeasement out of place could produce a perilous danger for Israel, even, if the fanatics heard in Memri TV are indicative of latent possiblities in Prophet Islam, another Holocaust. Intellectual discussion by friends of America, of Israel, of a world not endangered by the Prophet and his Jihadism should be encouraged. NO??? If you cannot understand such discussions, do not read them. What you are now doing is to discourage any participation by myself. If that is your goal, you may have success. A world of insultory vulgarity is not my world and I will retreat from it. It is exceedingly distasteful to me and will have results. What results? Silence will reign ffor my part! And that makes the harping by you and others like you to be stupid! Who knows, maybe my long-winded reflections might awaken some theoretical possiblities in someone who can carry the torch better than I. Or, Mark v and brethern, have I been to egotistical and wordy once again? Think about it, if you can.
Marx, Professor? Marx is interesting. What you’ve written here is not.
So Marx was interesting! Do you mean his boringly long-winded “Das Kapital” or his youthful poems. (By the way I attended the same university that he did and have read the works of some of his professors and visit occasionaly the grave of one of them.) Since you find Marx interesting and not me, I am sure you have read the two books I published on Marx. How many books on the “interesting” Marx have you read? At one point I had read some 200 studies, some interesting and some not, but all informative in one way or another. Being informative is the value of the studies. If you have occupied yourself with that “interesting” Marx without doing extensive research, your interest is at best amateurish and, at worse, a convenient tool of comparison with which to put me down — a tool you thought beyond the realm of my knowledge. Worse of all, the very “interest” grounding your invidious comment is totally and absolutely IRRELEVANT to the theoretical content of what I might be saying (or what anybody else is saying with some length of expression). If you are bored, read another comment or something else. Is not that a simple solution? I am on your side! Why attack me? Why not just ingnore my comments? Let those who find interest, decide for themselves. Your utterance is not germane to the subject matter of Rubin’s incisive article. Rubin’s analysis, and that alone, is the object of comment, reflection, amplications and questions. Whether a comment “interests” you is foreign to understanding said object. The accumulative effect of you, Smoking Frog (and I ask just what have you have been smoking?), and other like-minded frogs is to stifle attempts, in this case mine, to enter into intellectual discussion on the matter. I have had the fortune of being trained by professors in four different languages in four different countries and never, not once, have I experienced denigrations hurled at thinkers whom one or the other professor thinks to be uninteresting. There is too much respect for the honest intellectuality of others and the value of a culture of discussion. I am aghast, surprised and demotivated by the type of PERSONAL sniping directed at me. Your reading interests are totally uninteresting to me. Your reasoned opinions, analyses, conjectures, theoretical objections, proferred information, etc., that and that alone belongs to genuine intellectual discourse. All else is purile and counterproductive. If you do not want me to intervene anymore, just tell me and maybe I will comply. Be honest about it. Purile vulgarity, on the other hand, is more than I can stomach.
P.S.: If your readings of an “interesting” Marx are to be more that supericial adventures into entertaining literature and, hence, to bare intellectual fruit, you must learn somethng about him and attempt some sort of critique. A simple theme (botched I hold by most scholars) is to explain the relationship between romantic irony (seen in Marx’s poetry) and Marx’s selection of the proletariat as the vehicle of revolutionary salvation. If you do not grasp the connection, you will never understand adequately just how Marx came to build up the interpretative instumentarium he used to analyse capitalism. Any interest here on your part?
tl;dr
Suggest Professor Wessell review the concept of Occam’s Razor
Ockham (1285-1349), a nominalist philosopher and theologian, developed his “razor” in his “Summa Totius Logicae”. The principle is often called “lex parsimoniae”. Alas this “lex” is often one-sidedly and superficially viewed as a call for succinctness. Make it short! Come to the point! Do not waste time and space! I presume that this was the thrust of Gilgamesh’s reminder to me. There are, however, various formulations from which I chose “Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate”. This principle has nothing to do with expositional brevity, rather with the rule that, among competing hypotheses, one should chose the one that explains the most with the least amount of assumptions. Sound advice, particularly if one already has the “hypothesis” fully developed and is able to compare it with competing “hypotheses”. But, pray tell, what happens when the “hypothesis” to be used is still quite inchoate or, let us say, still quite hypothetical, i.e., is in the first stages of formulation, in the process of genesis? Perhaps there are alternatives possibilities? Perhaps one does not have access to all the information necessary? Perhaps there are experts who have thought through the problem and could grant succor? Perhaps the specific thinker needs aid, advice, evaluation and, if he is on to something, needs concurrence from others. This concurrence I have called “confirmation”. Before one gets to anything close to a final hypothetical form, one often has to spend time wandering about with theoretical trial and error. And such a thought process cannot function if some superficial ideal of succinctness is imposed, just because some medieval theologian has concocted a “catchy phrase” that has a history of its own way beyond the first utterance. I have a hypothesis relative to Obama, one laboriously emerging in my comments. This demands ruminations, reflections, backtracking, changing of directions, etc. The one or other reader has made objections to my methodology here or there, welcome objections that aid the process of theoretical creation. I have a hypothesis, one relavant to the rendering harmless of Brotherhood Islam by Obama and MSM outlets such as the NYT. My conceptualization is just passing through the phase of genesis. I am still waiting for the light of secure insight! I am sure that anyone who has spent time trying to penetrate into the complexity of a significant problem will recognize my plight and my necessity not to use a theoretical “razor” that is flatly blunt. Such a razor stunts creative growth. For those not used to such matters, a catchy phrase from some place or another constitutes a sharp (sic) instrument of critique. This was, I take it, the instrument of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh? If I remember correctly, the epic poem of “Gilgamesh” was not an aesthetic “Occam’s razor” (and there is an aesthetic dimension to Occam’s idea), rather a rambling, long and entangled tale of woe, i.e., before insight sets in. “Gilgamesh the Critic” has chosen the false “Gilgamest” as his “razor” banner to be used against me. A poetic and theoretical amateur! More than slogans are needed. Rational evaluation is appropiate.
I would like to nominate Professor Wessell for the 2012 Superbia Cognesendi a award.
Thank you for doing me the (ironic) honor. I have never been named for such a recognition and with a bit of Latin thrown in (I will not mention my qualms with the grammar). Your generosity is overwhelming and, in its way, snidely genuine. I would like to accept your nomination as a symbolic retraction of the derogatory implications of your “Occam’s razor” suggestion. Obviously I did consider Occam AND at YOUR behest, lest you conveniently forget. No, not exactly true. I considered Occam some 45 years ago at UCLA under the guidance of a well known specialist in medieval philosophy, a Prof. Moody. Such a lengthy response from me to your suggestion was not expected, right? You had caught me with my intellectual pants down, no? Instead, oh woe of woes, I demasked your adventure into catchy phrase dropping using a psuedonym that utterly fails to illustrate your thrust. “Gilgamesh” is not an example for succint discourse, or? No, the irony of your nomination shines through the “superberia” that you adscribe to me. I address you with the same question directed to Marx v, Smoking Frog or anyone else, including a mythological figure such as yourself. How does your sniping at me advance intellectual discussion? Does your repartee satiate your need to disarm my lengthy reply? You asked for it, or? What does your demeanment of me contribute to a discussion of Rubin’s article? If you cannot come up with an adequate response, play it respectful this time and cease your coy remarks. If you wish me to be silent, tell me so and I will obey. Scrapping me away will be your use of “Occam razor”. I find myself totally shocked at the culture of anti-intellectualism that is coming to the fore, and with me as its focal point. If you do not appreciate my ideas, style, answers, if you find them boresome, then ignore them! But do not destroy the excellent opportunities created by PJ Media to discuss problems confronting us all today by shutting me down with degradation. So, quit blaming me if your braggadocio ignorance reveals itself for anyone to read or, in some cases, to join. I hope that I am not again necessitated to fend off another putdown. My limits are being reached. The current atmosphere offends the marvelous world of intellectuality that has been my professional home. I am too old for the purility of it all.
I read this article yesterday. He’s definitely ignorant about Israeli society and politics. I even considered emailing him some factual corrections and clarifications of his misunderstanding of Israeli arguments, but I don’t have much time on my hands and don’t believe it’ll help much, if he’ll read it at all.
Why do people get it so wrong? I think all the reason you’ve mentioned are true, but when it comes to the very rare well-intentioned journo – I mean those very few who are not mere propagandists lying and twisting and spinning for ideological purpose, but actually want to know the truth – we should consider another factor: this situation is unique, it has no precedence, it has no equivalent, there are no other examples to learn from. There is no other example of a purported national liberation movement of a people living under occupation who want not only to be independent in the disputed territory, but to take the land of the other, stronger, party as well, and that use a sham “peace process” for that purpose. This is an Arab original, and you must admit, a brilliant one. The entire situation is incomprehensible because it’s just beyond belief. If you look at the facts, the Israeli proposals, the Arab demnads and what they say in Arabic and teach their children then this is the only conclusion you can come to, but it’s so unique and incredible that people simply refuse to believe it.
There’s also the different mentality. The Arabs play chess, Westerners play Shoot the Clown. The Arabs are long term players, they have long term strategies and they use tricks and deception. Westerners are far more direct and to the point, they want immediate results and are relatively naive. I know it’s been said many times before, but it’s true. Contemporary Westerners are incapable of coming up with something like Arafat’s Phased Plan – this is a long term startegy where you don’t get everything you want at once, but first you complete phase 1 and get part of what you want and then you use it to complete the next phases and finally end up with everything you want. In 1993 Arafat told radio Monte Carlo that the Oslo accords are part of the Phased Plan, but even so Westerners will never believe it because Westerners are incapable of doing something like that. For Americans if you don’t have the military might to conquer another country then that settles it. They can’t bring themselves to grasp that there might be other, more sophisticated and long term strategies. Of course, some Americans do. Allen West used the term ‘Machiavellian’ to describe the Arab deception. And some Americans realized, for instance, that the Soviets were subverting their society and culture, but not most Americans, particularly not the leftists. To them, if the Soviets weren’t invading with tanks and airplanes then nothing was happening at all.
Finally, only one correction to your article: Wilson did mention the refusal of the Arab states to accept Obama’s requests for good will gestures. I have to say, though, this would not have helped anyway. The ultimate stumbling block is the so-called “right of return”, the demand to settle the Arab refugees and their descendants inside Israel. You might as well demand to swamp the Jewish state with millions of storm troopers. It makes as much sense. As long as the Arabs refuse to give up that idea no good will gestures of any kind will change anything. It’s like demanding from Americans to settle 250 millions Muslim Arabs in their country. Considering the differences in birth rate within two generations the USA will become another Arab-Muslim state. What kind of peace is that?
You’re right. The “right of return” IS the primary issue for the Palestinians. And, of course, their continued belief that the land Israel inhabits actually belongs to them. (I’m not taking sides on that one.)
Actually this reply is as much to Pnina’s fine comments as to your acceptance that the “right to return” is the “issue for the Palestinians”. Just what Palestinians? The common people are no doubt full of hopes for many things, even a return to an areas which most of them, being too young, have never known. What counts, if you understand Rubin as I do, is not so much the amorphous “Palestinians”, rather their leaders and their proclaimed intentions, proclamations in writing. (Think back to the published proclamations of that dangerous person in the 1930s and the process of self-deception by Chaimberlain and others who ignored these proclamations for “peace in our time”.) Follow me a bit into the history of the “Palestinians”. If you do, we will have to examine their leaders, the policy directors.
Turn to the PLO Charter of 1964 (which I take to be the birth date of the Palestian prople as a political entity), the result of which was the UN recognition of the PLO as the sole representative of the Palestianian people (minus both Israel and the US for a long time). The 1964 charter, written in the heady days of Nasser’s Arab nationalism (with KGB help), proclaims that “the Palestinian Arab people” have a “legitimate right to its homeland” and will follow the “path of holy war” to obtain that right, all being but a part of the “Arab Nation”. The PLO was seeking “Arab unity” within a “large Arab homeland”. The PLO proclaimed that all displaced (not their word choice) Palestian Arabs had a RIGHT OF RETURN with ALL their prodigy–which means multiple millions today. When we get to the charter of 1968 we find that Nasser along with the “Arab Nation” has been sunk and Palastinian identity is now more in focus. In other words, there is sinking into the background of the “Arab Nation” correlative to the rise of the “Palestinians”. It is now a Palastian Nation! What is the position of Jews in this Palastinian Nation, panArab or not?
In the 1964 charter one can find the following words: “Judaism because it is a divine religion is not a nationality”. On this basis the Palestinian AUTHRORITIES are willing to allow residency to Jews already there (= before the supposed Zionist colonialization), but not to the rest of the Zionist invaders in effect. In the 1968 charter one finds the same words just quoted and then immediately the following sentence: “Nor do Jews constitute a single nation with an identity of their own; they are citizens of the state to which they belong”.
The opposition could not be more clearly stated. The Palestinian Arabs constiture a NATION with rights for a homeland, indeed, for a state. The Jews in Palistine constitute NO nation whatsoever with the correlative absence of any claim for a “national” homeland (minus of course the few Jews already there before 1948). What does the “right of return” with all prodigy mean for Israel? It means, even on a fully democratic basis, that the Jews in Israel would be a political minority. What would happen with an Arab Palestinian majority? One can only surmise. Perhaps the Jews that arrived as “citizens of the state to which they belong” would be sent back (and please do think of the immigration problem in the USA), and with full democratic legality!!! This is a REAL possiblity, not a mere theoretical speculation. This possiblity is totally in accord with the PROCLAIMED words of the PLO as the representative of the amorphous “Palestinians”.
What does this mean for the USA and its approach to the Arab Spring (and its Brotherhood morphing) with particular interest for Israel? Or just alone for the US itself? It is impossible to get the Obama administration to admit that even Osama’s terrorist organization was and is an “Islmamic” terrorist organization. If Muslims in Africa murder richly Christians in the name of Allah, we hear that it is a social problem. Islam is shoved aside as a motivational factor? Please consult Raymond Ibrahim (writes occasionally for PJM) writing for “Pundicity” or Robert Spencer and his “Jihad Watch”. In my opinion, Rubin from the point of view of Israeli concerns and Ibrahim from the point of view of Christian concerns are two of the most solid analysts fo the situation and both take “core” Islam seriously. (I cannot attempt here to explain my use of “core”, only hope that it is somewhat intuitive understandable.)
Now, let us return to the “blindness” or “incompetency” about which Rubin has been writing. First of all, I fully understand why Netanyahu proclaimed before the American Congress that all problems are resolveable if (and only if) the Palestianian authorities recognize Israel as the homeland and state of the Jewish Nation. If this is not done, all negotiations, all NYT analyses, all MSM one-sided reporting are totally and dangerously irrelevant for an objective analysis, but not irrelevant if another round of rendering harmless is to be had. Well, the authorities (what the Palestian masses want is irrelevant so long as they can be manipulated by their own press outlets) have NOT taken the step demanded by Netanyahu. The conflict in all is profundity is HERE and NOW still operative. Now, as I judge the situation the fact is that the MSM, including the NYT, plus, alas, the Obama administration has adopted a Chaimberlain evaluation of a dangerous reality, of course, in name of a contemporary version of “peace in our time”. Of more importance, is Obama himself!!! I must understand him! (A Jew in Germany would have done well to have understood Chaimberlain–so well that it might have saved his life.) I have suggested a hypothesis as an instrument to understand Obama. I do hope I find confirmation by the experts of PJM or, better, an examinations of the “value prejudices” of Obama. The situation is, analogously, as dangerous today as it was in 1939.
I disagree that the leaders are more relevant than the people. Generally speaking the Arab people are more radical than their rulers, and the Iranians less radical than their rulers for all we know (it’s difficult to know in the Middle East since a lot of people are afraid to speak, even to pollsters. How can one know that a pollster isn’t a spy of the regime?). We are told Hamas was elected to parliament because the PLO is thoroughly corrupt. Of course the PLO is corrupt, but Hamas wasn’t the only alternative – there were other parties running in the election. Hamas was the only strong alternative because Islamism is a popular ideology and other, more liberal ideologies, have very few followers. The same is true for Egypt. In some cases the ruler is more moderate or more pragmatic, but even if he is a dictator he knows he will face increased levels of opposition and threat to his rule and his life if he does certain very unpopular things. Abbas certainly understands that the “Right of Return” means the end of Israel. He also understands that giving it up means the Arabs will give up their claim to the territory of Israel for a REAL two-state solution (the two-state formula meant an Arab state next to a Jewish state and not two more Arab states), so it means the Jewish state will continue to exist, which will be extremely unpoular with most Muslims – he’ll be considered a traitor, a Zionist plant, a CIA agent (he’s already accused of that). The threat of assassination will increase dramatically. Of course, after he’s assassinated or overthrown or voted out (if applicable) or just replaced with someone else after he dies of natural causes such an agreement can be proclaimed illegitimate and be annulled as it didn’t represent the will of the people.
Here in Israel we’re constantly told that Israel’s Arab population is more moderate than their leaders. I used to believe it, but it requires tolerating a cognitive dissonance. In Israel the Arabs are free to vote for any party they like and form any kind of party they like, and the vote is confidential – nobody can see who you’re voting for, so you don’t have to personally fear the reaction of the radicals (supposedly a minority) if you vote for a moderate party. If the majority of the Arab population is moderate why are the parties they form and vote for radical? The moderate Arabs seem to vote for general, rather than Arab, parties (that includes not only the left, but also Likud and Israel Beytenu, both of which have Arab party members), but in far smaller numbers than those voting for Arab parties. If the moderates were the majority there should have been at least one moderate Arab party to represent such a supposedly large part of the Arab population. The Arab parties don’t even seriously struggle for the interests of Israel’s Arabs as Israeli citizens – they are either Arab nationalist, Islamist or communist, which suggests Arab nationalism and Islamism are the most popular ideologies and the top priorities for their respective voters. You can also find the Arabic translation of Mein Kampf in Israel.
Why, then, does the Israeli leadership believe that Israel’s Arabs are more moderate than their leaders? It’s not just PC. When you talk to an individual Arab in a private conversation they behave friendly and express only moderate ideas. Even their complaints seem reasonable and moderate in scope. You’d think that if only this or that grievance was resolved there will be no more problems. Usually they won’t say to your face what they say behind your back. And for some reason Westerners tend to rely more on their impression from private conversations than on public pronouncements and evidence of trends. Much like how Chamberlain described his personal impression of Hitler, assessing he was a man of his word, and all other evidence be damned. Maybe because politicians tend to lie to the public to gain popular support, so they generally assume that what’s said in private has more credibility. For instance, in Arabic Arafat was calling for a jihad to take Jerusalem, but when talking to Shimon Peres about Jerusalem he told him, “we can always dream”, as if he didn’t really mean it. Peres chose to believe what Arafat told him rather than what he said publically to the people. Probably because everyone knows politicians say to the people a lot of things they don’t really mean.
There’s the claim that the Arab dictators use anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda to divert the attention and anger of the people to a scapegoat. The Protocols of the Elders of Zion was forged by the Russian czarist secret police to prevent a revolution (by attributing all revolutions and all revolutionary ideas of the time – capitalism, socialism, equality, human rights – to a grand conspiracy of the Jews to rule the world). Indeed, after spreading to Europe, it was a major cause for the Holocaust, but the significant numbers of Europeans who bought it wouldn’t have believed it so readilly if there weren’t already existing widespread antisemitism for it to take root in. Which is probably wny the czarist secret police thought in the first place that blaming the Jews just might be powerful enough to prevent the revolution. After all, there were and are many other conspiracy theories claiming this or that group is trying to take over the world, but no other was as successful as the one targetting the Jews. So the propaganda is feeding existing sentiments and ideologies that in turn feed the propaganda. Most of the rulers themselves grew up in the same cultural and ideological environment and believe it themselves. I mean, there’s the assumption they do it cynically – that they don’t really believe it and just use it for their own interests, which may be true for some, but I don’t think it’s true for all. I think Hitler believed it and I have no doubt Ahmedinejad believes it even though I’m not a mind reader. I’ve never heard he even denies it in private conversations like smart Arabs do, so what reason do I have to doubt these are his real opinions? Just because we know Harry Potter isn’t a Zionist conspiracy and even Western neo-Nazis would laugh at this idea doesn’t mean the Iranian regime doesn’t really believe it when they broadcast such a “documentary” on the state-controlled Iranian TV. If Europeans could believe both capitalism and communism were part of a Jewish conspiracy to rule the world, why not Harry Potter and Tom & Jerry? If Europeans could believe the Jews were behind the Black Plague, why not the Swine Flu, as claimed in the Middle East?
In such an environment, where “the Zionists” are seen as the source of all evil, from Middle Eastern dictators (even Ghadafi was accused of being a Zionst and for presumably having one Jewish ancestor, which wouldn’t be so unusual considering the entire population of the Middle East was pagan, Christian or Jewish before the Muslim conquest) to shark attacks, diseases and occasionally even earth quakes, how can a leader, or ruler, that will accpet the existnece of Israel, the “head of the snake” in the local mythology (i.e. the headquarter and spearhaed of the global Zionist conspiracy to rule the world*), be seen as anything but an evil traitor and an enemy of the Muslims, of god and of humanity?
(*) In this context it’s interesting to note that some translations of The Protocols (IIRC, the French version or one of them) claimed these were the secret protocols of the first Zionist congress, thereby linking the alleged conspiracy to rule the world with the Jewish national liberation movement, the Zionist movement. The identifictaion of Zionism with The Protocols of the Elders of Zion, i.e. with a conspiracy to rule the world, is widespread in the Middle East and you can find it expressed in both Hamas charter (that even explicitly cites The Protocols as an authentic historical document) and in the last article of the second PLO charter (from 1968). The Iranian event “A World Without Zionism” doesn’t therefore refer only to a tiny desert once conquered by Mulsims, where a few million Jews dare to be sovereign – that limited problem, though in need of elimination, wouldn’t require such a pompouse title referring to Zionism as a global problem. The title and the event itself referred to the alleged “Zionist” control of the world. Ahmedinejad sees himself as a hero and a liberator taking on a dark and powerful global force that the West doesn’t dare to tackle and only the Nazis did. He did not invent it. This is the environment he grew up in.
I will respond to some other points in your comments later.
I really thank you for your reply. I think you might have taken me too one-sidedly or I have expressed myself so. The opinions of the masses are, indeed, important. Returning to Nazi Germany, the influential Nazis sought to propagandize the general population and there is evidence that to one degree or another a majority of the then German population agreed. The Nazi did build their anti-semitism on prejudices long existent in the masses. But the masses all the way up to the very end followed the Nazi lead, even when defeat was as clear as the bombed out house next door. There is a dialectic going on between the messenger, the message and the messaged masses. There are conflicts amongst the Palestianians, but there also were stress and strain amongst the Nazis (Hitler had to have a rival murdered). An Arafat seems to have been a focal point for rallying the masses. In that sense, he and his intentions are more important then the massaged masses. Reading the charters of the PLO, a manifestation of the leadership, throws, I think, more light on the then future undertakings of the “Palestinian People” than the fears, hates, habits of the everyday Palestian. But, I am not in Israel, so I must be careful with my generalizations. In a negative sense, Hitler was the focal point of the dynamics of the masses of Germany at that time. In a positive sense, Martin Luther King was a focal point for the masses of blacks and sympathizers during the civil rights movement. Leader(s) and the led cannot do without each other. An examination of the beliefs of Hitler or King would permit more predictibility of the direction of the movement than the not fully defined masses. Or have I really gotten off the track here? I suspect that there is less difference between us than meets the eye. Thanks again for the acute remarks and corrections of my ideas. You have given me things to consider and rethink.
Pnina, you make a good argument. The disagreement we are having is not new in the history of thought. I suggest a test case, one derived from the 4th time I have seen a document on Armenius and his treachery to the Romans when he, a supposedly Romanized member of a Germanic tribe, convinced his friend Varus to march through a part of Germania not controlled by Rome and that forced an open-field army to march two or three abreast. Thereby two Roman legions stretched out for some 20 kilometers. Armenius had convinced disconted masses of the various Germanic tribes to follow him. Without his LEADERSHIP and ability to unite the discontent of the masses around his vision, the battle would never have happend. Armenius turned a hopelessly inferior fightening force into guerrilla forces that destroyed two ligions of Romans. Varus had not understood the intents of his subordiante Armenius and was slaughtered. (Footnote, the Germanic tribes did not fully understand Armenius who thereafter tried to make himself into a Germanic king–and was killed for it). The Armenius/discontented Germanic masses offers a text case to decide our argument. At a minimum it shows the dialectic between an inspirational leader and the non-focused discontent of the masses. Both groups must be understood. But Varus knew about discontent–he was there to crush it. Varus did not judge correctly the intents of Armenius and lost massively. This event in 9 A.D changed the course of history because the Romans thereafter ceased with an attempt to Romanize Germania. I think this story illustrates the focusing function of leaders, be they Armenius, Hitler, Stalin, Chaimberlain, Churchchill, FDR or, even, Obama. Do look up a detailed history of this dialectic between Armenius and the tribes. Also note, Armenius became in the German nationalism of the 19th Century “Hermann”, a symbol for Germanic unity and self-assertion. And even Edward von Kleist wrote a play of that name. I think all that bespeaks the imporantce of the leader class. Peace be between us.
….Pnina:
Thank you, really, for posting this:
….”And some Americans realized, for instance, that the Soviets were subverting their society and culture, but not most Americans, particularly not the leftists. To them, if the Soviets weren’t invading with tanks and airplanes then nothing was happening at all.”
I remember those times. This I (an octogenarian) see as the exact parallel to our infiltrating/subverting Muslims inside our America today.
I call them “sleepers”, that Cold War term, in that they’ll (the Muslims) slowly insinuate themselves with evermore of their mosques and madrassas, gradually get us accustomed to their smiling faux “blending” benevolence….an inch here, an inch there over the years.
But, shockingly, we Americans were indeed hit with commandeered civilian airliners used as guided missiles that horrible September morning in 2001….but that horror seems to have dissipated over the past decade with our lethally shortened electronically-guided attention spans….and our lulling mass media.
It seems as if we Americans are being outwitted by our short-sightedness and lethal political correctness.
Where is our unified national fury of 08 December, 1941? Today’s “Democrats” should be ashamed, but they obviously aren’t….and…they’re numerically greater than thinking Conservatives.
“Perspective” can yield alarmed thoughts.
I am not sure Obama considers it a bug.
Wilson’s article operates on two basic principles. The first is that the problem between the United States and the Arab world is not primarily U.S. support for Israel, but the fact that Israel exists at all. If it would just “go away”, he believes, all would be well.
The second principle is a replay of what I have come to refer to as the Kerry Syndrome. That being the idea that Obama in the MidEast and elsewhere, like John Kerry in the 2004 Presidential campaign, is operating at such a high level of intelligence that we peons’ simply cannot comprehend his brilliance. It can be more simply rendered as, “We’re RIGHT! You peasants are simply too stupid to understand our subtle and nuanced positions!”
The combination of the two is, I suspect, designed to give both Obama, and the rest of the progressive manques’, yet another excuse to dig in their heels, continue to hammer everyone else with their dogmas, and refuse to even consider the possibility that they might be wrong, about anything. Which is their standard response on any subject when things don’t work out as they wish, anyway.
There are times when fealty to a philosophy is difficult to distinguish from “cranio-rectal inversion”, otherwise known as Head-Up-Ass-Itis. Or indeed fanaticism with a heavy dose of self-delusion.
All that’s missing is The One channeling Henry II of England, and shouting in the Oval Office, “Will no one rid me of these turbulent Jews?”
The question is, who’s going to be appointed to fill the role’ of Reginald Fitzurse in the MidEast. Because for this part of The Dogma to triumph, a scapegoat is needed so the President, and indeed like-minded progressives here and in Europe, can show clean hands after the fact. “Oh, what a shame about Israel. But we didn’t do it.”
My money is on Iran.
clear ether
eon
Why would the Palestinians ever agree a deal? We’ve taught them that not taking Deal A begets a better Deal B which, when rejected, begets an even better Deal C. We’ve told the Palestinians that we’re desperate for a deal, any deal!, if they’d just say “yes”. Please? Pretty Please? And the Palestinians now know that we’ll eventually offer to nuke Israel and also destroy ourselves so why not wait for the best offer?
You never negotiate from a position of weakness when you’re in the stronger position. It makes no difference to us if there’s a deal, and it’s only of minor interest to Israel to secure a deal, but it’s vitally important to the future of the Palestinians. Yet we don’t say “Fine, live in poverty and die a miserable death you pathetic morons. The deal is off the table. And, by the way, and more attacks will be met with overwhelming force. Piss off you useless wastes of human flesh.” No, instead we give the Palestinians control and dance to their tune. Further proof that “best and brightest” does not refer to Government.
Obama failed to attain a comprehensive peace in the Middle East for the same reason every other President since at least the Nixon administration has failed: it’s simply not attainable under present circumstances. Large numbers of people in the region, Muslims in particular, aren’t ready to stop fighting for their goal of destroying Israel. As I recall, the second President Bush recognized this before 9/11 and tried to deemphasize Middle East peacemaking in his foreign policy. It was a nice try anyway.
Sometimes people have to fight until they’ve had enough and come to their senses. Even if Obama had enacted better policy, I don’t think it would have made much difference.
Bush also insisted on the 2006 Palestinian elections that brought us Hamas, against the wishes of Israel. That bit of foolishness may be the most damaging thing ever done to any hopes for Israeli Palestinian peace.
Your point is excellent, but comes up short. Why? You note that there are people in the Middle East who have the “goal of destroying Israel”. You have neglected to mention that, with the ascendency of the Brotherhood types along with the Iranian types, the number of people with such a goal are increasing, i.e., compared with the old and now gone Arab or Iranian dictatorships. It should be imperative for American policy CONSCIOUSLY to recognize said situation and take steps to counter it, whether they can be fully successful or not. The Obama administration, Obama himself quite consciously and the MSM simply do not recognize this existential fact! On the contrary, Obama represses or forbids consideration of Islamism as a motivational factor in evaluating the current augmentation of hostile entities against Israel and against the USA. “Core” Islam is aggressive! Blindness to this fact along with a medial vocabulary that covers up awareness of this fact is dangerous and could be lethal for someone. It certainly does not permit an optimal counterstrategy. A “nice try” is not enough. A “maximally effective try” is needed. Or?
I do not like returning to the evaluation of Hitler that rendered him harmless, but I will do so briefly. Given Hitler’s book and his speeches (and those of other Nazies) and given Hitler’s incorporation of Austria into his his “Reich” and given his goals re the Sudeten German area in Checklosovakia (?), it should have been no surprise that Hitler, after European powers gave in to his demands to integrate the Sudenten Germans into the “Reich”, took in 6 months later all of the country by force of arms. Still no counterwar against Hitler. It was no surprise with a dense German population in Western Poland that Hitler conquered that area. Indeed, Hitler was disappointed with the Studeten German surrender because he wanted war then!!! After taking Poland, Hitler Germany and France with a British expeditionary force had a so-called sitting-war for months (at a time when an Allied attack of Germany with a superior military force was possible). During that time Herman Rauschning (a Conservative that had cooperated awhile with Hitler) revealed in France to the French and to the world that Hitler had planned the war as early as 1933. (Rauschning later wrote an excellent book on the nihilism of Hitlerism.) What is the point of my telling the tale of Hitler’s early aggressive expansionism–and I have totally left aside any reference to the coming “Jewish Solution”. The point is: Politicians in countries such as England simply refused to take seriously the publically communicated proclamations of Hitlers “goal” of subduing Europe. Probably, an active resistance to Hitler, even with a built-in triggering of war, would not have stopped Hitler’s drive to achieve the “goal” of dominance over Europe. Hitler had the GOAL of dominating Europe and he wanted war (or in today’s terms “jihad”). Nevertheless, a conscious awareness and acceptance of the proclaimed aggressitivity of the Nazis would have allowed a better counterstrategy, even one that could have caught Hitler with a still inadequately armed army. Better a war against a weak opponent than against a much stronger one.
I update my tale of a war passed as a warning of what can happen if the motiavation structure, the belief system, the “value prejudices” of an aggressive group are ignored. This Obama does!!! I want to know why. I have suggested a “hypothesis”. Am I correct?
The false premise assumed in the article is that the current occupant of 1600 WANTS a peace that doesn’t equate with the stated islamic terrorist palestinian’s goal of driving the Jews into the sea.
From the threats against Isreal defending herself to the increased funding of terrorists in the various islamic organizations to the insults to Jewish leaders, BHO has been true to his muslim schooling and upbringing.
At every instance since the “palestinian” people were created in the 1960s that they have had the opportunity to peacefully coexist with their neighbors, the islamics have chosen instead the path of murder and terror. At best, the ‘current’ organization stays ‘peaceful’ and providing cover and funds for the new organizations that they spin off to continue the war.
Obama and the left have already decided what kind of “peace” they want in the Middle East. It’s all about the disappearance of all Jews, Christians, and other non-Muslims from the Middle East.
Muslims would still hate Jews even if there were no Jews in the Middle East. It’s all in the Qur’an.
Extermination of all Jews is mainstream Muslim doctrine
I appreciate and read with amusement the scholarly takes. No amount of analysis is going to settle what is a clash of cultures. Unless or until the arabs, ie the muslims, make a grand cultural leap evidenced by free markets, democratic elections and acceptance of women, and minorities, as equals, the jews will never know peace and the arabs will continue to be mired in its failed 14th century tribalism.
A good remark, but with some inadequacies. In the 7th Century the Arabs consisted of tribes and clans. But after 7 centuries of expansion, first of the Arabs and then of the Turks, the 14th Century was one of Empire. That is a different matter. Your remedy consists of a series of “unless …”. I do not believe that you take the “unless” seriously. There is little probablity of such a fundamental alteration of Islamic motivation. The point is, following an analysis of Raymond Ibrahim, there is a REFORMING return, e.g., seen in the Brotherhood types, to “core” Islam, to the totaltarian ummah as a model for the reformation of countries under Islamic belief. If this is correct, your 14th Century “Empire” ideal will return. This leaves me with the questions posed above. What is the correct counterstrategy? Does not said strategy entail recognizing the aggressive expansionsim of an Islam remodelled on 7th or 14th Century empire building? I am left again puzzled with the inability of Obama, his administration and the MSM press to be able to confronte intellectually this threat instead of developing vocabularies that render danger harmless. Why?
The Israelis will have peace only when the Muslims have been defeated so thoroughly that they have lost all further capacity to make war or to influence anyone else to make war on their behalf.
That might happen if we stopped buying their oil. That’s why Obama and his lefty/eco-freak/pro-Muslim backers do everything they can to stop us from developing any domestic energy resources.
An excellent restatement of Golda Meir’s famous dictum ” we will have peace when the Arabs love their children more than they hate the Jews”.
The MSM and western observers in general still do not understand this. Netanyahu, who will go down in history as a great leader for Israel and one of the most capable leaders in modern history translated Golda’s dictum into a strategic framework; recognition of Israel as the Jewish state. Once that has happened the rest is possible.
There will be no return to any 14th century arab empire. The western cultures may be a forgiving lot, but we’re not about to cede to sharia. Assuming there can be no voluntary cultural leap, then i see little alternative to allowing war settle the matter. It may shake our 60′s sensibilities, but as Victor Davis Hanson says, wars settle things, at least for a time. That might be the best we can hope for.
There was no Arab empire in the 14th century. The Seljuks took over the greatest part of what used the be the Abbasid caliphate in the 11th century (though the caliph in Baghdad remained the nominal leader) and the Ottomans took the reins after the disruptive Mongol occupation in the 13th century. Even before the Seljuks the Abbasid caliphate was no more a true empire than contemporary Christendom was. Spain, Persia, Egypt, modern Afghanistan, the various statelets on the Arabian peninsula, all were controlled by different factions.
The reason that folks don’t understand what is happening in the world is because we are experiencing the death of ” power politics “. Power politics is based upon the inequality of nations to wield equal power so that the stronger can impose its will on the weaker. Once every nation gets nuclear weapons there are no longer stronger or weaker nations, only those willing to use the bomb and those that are not. The age or rational warfare has ended and the new age of irrational warfare has begun.
Now there are some who see this happening and rationalize it and think they understand. They lay all responsibility at the feet of politicians. They don’t realize that politicians are nothing but pawns.
” Fear of G-d is the beginning of wisdom. ” Some will dismiss that statement but I do not care. Something that is true is not less true because a hundred or a million claim it so.
We are witnessing the culmination of a process that began 4000 years ago and just like ants on an anthill we are unaware of the larger world around us.
Does it make sense that Clinton meets Morsi when he demands that Abdul-Rahman be freed? Or that Clinton shows up in Israel claiming that Pollard will remain in jail? Yes. Because The Almighty gives every human being, every country, the opportunity to show repentance before He passes judgement.
Put down the New York Times and pick up The Torah. That is where you will find the explanation for what you see today. And then everything will become clear.
Hamas has just executed three Palestinians.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/hamas-executes-three-gaza-men-for-murder-1.451691
This news will get little publicity. People who oppose capital punishment won’t care that Hamas has done something common in all Arab states. We do hear about the horrifying death tolls in Syria, to be sure, but the world has a way of not noticing how repressive Islamic societies can be. How many people know about female genital mutialtion in Egypt, after all? Hardly anyone knows that Mubarak banned it. Perhaps that contributed to his downfall.
“For example, Wilson’s article shows Obama explicitly saying — we know he did it but not that he said it in so many words — that America must distance itself more from Israel as a way to persuade the Arabs to make peace.”
This is one thing I never quite understood about the Palestinians. They always whine and moan about America’s support for Israel, as if Israel should not be supported by America because it gives Israel an unfair advantage. Yet, at the same time, the Palestinians never reject all the help they get (both financial and in terms of weapons) from countries like Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Egypt. These countries give literally billions of dollars in aid to the Palestinians and the Iranians ship tons of weapons to Hamas as well as Hezbollah in Lebanon. Yet do we say that the Palestinians should not be allowed to negotiate with Israel because of the support they get from Saudi Arabia or Iran? Hardly.
The Palestinians are the biggest bunch of whiners and crybabies on the face of this planet. If there was peace between Israel and the Palestinians tomorrow, all of the militants in Hamas would be out of a job and have no way of supporting themselves. The biggest export the Palestinians have is terrorism and they’ve built an industry on it. If they gave that up, there would be very little incentive for the other arab countries to help them. But as long as they keep killing Jews, the Palestinians keep getting the financial aid.
As for us, I wouldn’t give the Palestinians another dime. Let them work out their problems with the Israelis on their own. If they really want peace, they’ll negotiate one. If not, if all they want to do is continue fighting so as to get more financial aid from people like the Saudis, then no amount of negotiating on our part will bring peace to that troubled part of the world.
The MSM understands. What it fails to do is to spin the failure as a success convincingly for Obama
The lack of peace in the Middle East is not difficult to understand. It can be explained in one word, Islam.
Great discussion, I have come to one conclusion in this mess. The Arabs Leaders of palestine or for that matter the whole Arab world, will never come to peace with Israel. It doesn’t serve their best interest (secret bank account).
It also does not serve their best interest in running a society, and culture, which still operates at roughly medieval levels on everything but military power. Because those leaders, and the religious leaders who they carry water for, have done a thorough job of stamping out any other change for about thirteen centuries.
Which is why when any change happens in Islam, at all, it tends to look like Libya, or Egypt, or now Syria; revolution followed by an even more oppressive regime’, based on Sharia law.
For an interesting comparison, examine the history of China. A classic example of a “hydraulic state”, i.e., one with a gigantic bureaucracy originally created to control and administer irrigation. (Egypt and Mesopotamia were similar.) China also stifled innovation in every way except military power; that power was needed to control its populace. This is why gunpowder was first used effectively for military purposes in China in the mid-12th century AD, a century or so before it spread to Europe via – surprise!- the Muslim world.
Like China, the Islamic culture sought to retain power in the hands of a small select group. In China, it was the Emperor and the Imperial bureaucracy originally; after the Revolution, it was the Communist elite’ and their bureaucracy. (Same philosophy, just with a different excuse and, if anything, even more abominable “fashion sense”.)
In Islam, it is the religious elite’, and the temporal despots who support them. Neither of whom have changed appreciably since the Hegira.
The result is the same either way. Which is why even today, the backwater areas of both China and the Islamic Crescent are not materially different than they were a thousand years ago.
However, thanks to advances in communication, the people of both have at least some idea that the rest of the world isn’t as much of a dog’s breakfast as their neck of the woods is. And some of them want to know why.
The despots have an answer. In Communist China today, it’s the fact that the rest of the world either isn’t Communist, or just isn’t Communist enough.
The Islamic elite’ have roughly the same answer. To them, it’s because the rest of the world is not being forced into obedience to Allah. At the point of a sword.
And if somebody doesn’t buy the “official story”, well, in Islam, the sword lops off their head. (In the PRC, their next of kin pay for the bullet they receive in the back of the head.)
In each case, the objective is to hold on to power, and hopefully grab more. By redirecting their own peoples’ justifiable rage at being treated like slaves at somebody other than those doing the enslaving.
The fact that our Western “enlightened elite’” tend to swoon over the “perfection” they see in China and Islam should be an important lesson for the rest of us. Namely, in recognizing would-be “Absolute Rulers” in our midst when they start telling us how wonderful everything will be under their benign autocracy.
Autocracy is never benign. No matter what the excuse for it is.
clear ether
eon
Looks to me, after considering all your points, the MSM just can’t behaviorally profile worth a crap, either themselves or the main players in the middle east. But hey, what can you expect from a media that describes the proliferating new urban race riots as “flash mobs?”
And even that term isn’t original. They stole it from the title of an SF short story by Larry Niven.
cheers
eon
The biggest problem has been the inability for Israel to mount a PR campaign that can take on all the “bad” information and ideas thrown its way. Considering the size of the world compared to tiny Israel, it was not capable of mounting such a campaign, and would take years to develop one. For one, it has a small diplomatic corps. But, there resides in this a “good” result. Because the Israelis did such a bad job of this, then many in the world just created their own, independently run, private campaign to fill the void. Credit the likes of Gloria, the Shalem Center, HonestReporting, Camera, and the thousands of individuals that have taken it upon themselves to learn how to counteract the Palestinian advantages.
Sorry, but this is a far more convincing analysis of why the peace talks have gone nowhere It has been more than 20 years since the Madrid talks and the peace process between Palestinians and Israelis started.
Thus far, their abject failure has surprised even the most pessimistic of observers.
In June 1992, about one year after the Madrid talks, then Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir told daily newspaper Maariv: “I would have conducted negotiations on autonomy for 10 years and in the meantime we would have reached half a million people in the West Bank.”…
http://www.eurasiareview.com/30062012-the-never-ending-negotiations-oped/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+eurasiareview%2FVsnE+%28Eurasia+Review%29
Mr Rubin- your article presumes Obama’s goal was to make “peace” just as the media and more presume that is the desire of the Fakestinians.
I am sorry to say Obama has been totally successful in making the destruction of Israel that much closer to realty- which I believe was his intention all along, or perhaps just a by product of his stinkin’ thinkin’ (having been versed in this subject by the likes of Rashid Khalidi, who he claims helped him see the light on this topic, and his 20 year mentor, J wright, former Muslim,and a man who consistently preached jewhate)
We see this admin has enabled and encouraged Egypt, Libya and Iran to pursue their Islamist dream. Think about it- here is a man raised on hostility to Israel yet a man who cannot openly declare such to his USA Jewish voters, or to those Dems who still are pro-Israel. How can he accomplish the goals of his advisers like Samantha Powers and not upset Americans at the same time?
A perfect plan if you ask me- not a failure at all, if the goal was never “peace” but an Israel surrounded by hostiles. Why would Obama need to seek peace anyway he already bagged the prize.(like Arafat)He can destroy Israel by letting others do the dirty work for him.
This nation’s great problem right this hour with the Obama administration is that low, and very local, domestic politics trumps all. Rahm Emmanuel and Hillary are typical icons. What a rank mob. “Must-get-more-votes-for-life-tenure” in government is literally all that matters.
These shallow, crass, newbie Obama-ites have no interest in, and no experience with American International Policy and or History.
These interesting posts here are of the type which go right over the heads of all of those naive arrivistes who are enjoying pulling some strings in Washington,……maybe a rope-net of sufficient breadth can be woven by anonymous black-clad Wagnerian Norns to fall upon and entangle this Obama-claque in a tightening grip this coming November.
Cue offstage that low-rumbling, hand cranked sound machine…..and some moderately flashing lights.
Scene ends.
Look at the lack of peace and expect another season of business as usual.
Peace between Islam and Israel equals seven years to Armeggedon
Syrian opposition prepares provocative act against Russian warships group – Central Navy Portal source
http://rusnavy.com/news/newsofday/index.php?ELEMENT_ID=15494
Mass Media like simple things and Victimhood is the one they picked up.
For them, the equation is simple: Israel is the Goliath and Palestinians, i.e.Arabs living in the so-called Palestine is little David. We must help the helpless one.
Second, I think that Western Liberals are really convinced, at least on one part of their mind, that asking Israel to come back to the boundaries of 1967 will suffice to bring peace, the eternal peace. Then,the violent Arab Umma will not have any reason to show its muscles and eternal peace will finally reach planet Earth.
But they don’t understand the Arab mentality. They think Arabs are thinking like they, Western Libs, think. And that is the biggest part of the problem.
Libs do not think in terms of Religion, only Politics, for 2 reasons. One is that they do not understand what is Religion and second is that they are so fanatic against Religion that they do not want to recognize such a thing on Earth and it effects on Politics.
The problem of the Israeli-Arab conflic is obviously RELIGIOUS in essence. A strong Israel is a slam in the face of Moslem theology, the same way it used to be in the face of the Christian faith before Vatican II. It is rather difficult to be the heird when the one you are supposed to replace is no only living but strong and thriving !
Another point is that the Arabs succeed to switch the conflict from being Israeli-Arab where Israel is David and Arabs are Goliath toward Israeli-Palestinian where Israel is Goliath and poor Pals are David.Remember the cartoon, the Israeli tank against the little Arab kid with a small stone.
Unless, the religion aspect is recognized by the Mass Media and the politicians no solution will happen. Because what Arabs want is Al-Quds aka Temple Mount and this would mean for the Jews loosing their heart after having lost 1/3 of their flesh by the Nazis.No chance to accept it. Only the secular lefties are ready for that and are hoping for that as the best way to get rid of the religion in Israel, because they hate it.
Halas, the only solution is war with the hope this time that the Arabs living in Israel and in so called Palestine will be so afraid by their lies that the Jews are crual that they will run away on the other side of the Jordan river.
In the mean time, influencal idiots like all the NYT editors (Friedman and Cohen secular Jews first) will secrete their venom of insanities, by refusing to address points that they do not want to see at because they dismiss it :Religion is the issue.
I had the opportinuty to discuss with various Arabs living in J’lem. They are all convinced, damn convinced that the Jewish Temples never existed ! This is the way they have been taught for years and generations now. Why should they recognize any legitimity to the Jewish people?
Time to speak out and say if you Arabs do not recognize the Jewish history of this piece of Land, there is no possible discussion.
There is no other example of a purported national liberation movement of a people living under occupation who want not only to be independent in the disputed territory, but to take the land of the other, stronger, party as well, and that use a sham “peace process” for that purpose.
However, what is happening on the ground is not the weaker taking from the stronger, under the sham ‘peace process’. Under Netanyahu, the reverse has become true.
Nothing much changed under Netanyahu. All the Arabs have to do is to accpet the existence of Israel, as the homeland of the Jews – that was the basic premise of the peace process – two states, an Arab state next to a Jewish state, not two more Arab states and no state for the Jews. As soon as the Arabs accept this plan there could be peace. If they don’t accept this plan and insist Israel must be destroyed then there’s always a price to pay when you wage a war of destruction and lose. If there can’t be peace Israel’s interest should be to defend itself to the best of its ability. We have no reason to dismantle settlements or give them other lands so they’ll be better positioned to attack us and we’ll have even less territorial depth. It’s not Netanyahu who refuses to negotiate. It’s the Arabs who have all sorts of preconditions for even negotiating. It’s the Arabs who educate their children that Tel Aviv will be theirs and that they should become jihadis, and in the case of Hamas that they should exterminate the Jews, not just Israeli Jews. Children shows on both Hamas and PA TV tell the kids that Muslims once ruled the world and will rule it again.
The Arabs should stop educating their children to commit war and genocide – that was part of the agreement and it should make sense if what you, the West, want is really peace and not just to help them destroy Israel and kill the Jews. They should drop the demand to settle the descendants of the Arab refugees inside Israel – that is not a reasonable demand and not one that you can realistically expect Israel to accpet. The Arab refugee problem was a result of Arab aggression and that should be the end of it. But in addition there was also a larger number of Jewish refugees from Arab countries, most of which were resettled in Israel. Resettling the Jewish refugees was far more difficult since they pretty much doubled the population and had to leave all their property behind. Israel was a poor country then that had to resort to extreme austerity measures, including food rations, to sustain the large waves of refugees that arrived here with only their shirts on their backs. Many of them lived in tent cities for years. The Arab refugess also left their property behind, but their number was but a fraction of the Arab population of the Middle East, they had the same culture, the same language and belong to the same nation, the Arab nation, that dominates the Middle East, and could be easily absorbed with the UN aid continued for decades (nevermind the oil revenues). But the Arabs chose not to absorb them and instead to keep them and their descendants in permanent refugee status to be used as a weapon against Israel.
There’s no peace agreement that I know of where one of the parties agreed to be swamped with the descendants of the enemy refugees, let alone if the enemy was the aggressor, let alone if there were refugess on both sides. The descendants of the Sudetten Germans have no right of return to the Czech Republic. The refugees from India and Pakistan, far larger numbers than the Jewish and Arab refugees, were resettled in Pakistan and India respectively and that was the end of the story. Israel is singularly demanded to absorb the descendants of the Arab refugees in addition to the Jewish refugees already absorbed. The West would have been wiser to make it clear from the start that this demand is unacceptable rather than let the Arabs develop high expectations that this means of destroying Israel is realistically within their reach. Instead they have left this issue to be part of the negotiations, thereby giving the Arabs the impression they may get it, while at the same time Obama demanded Israel give up all its bargaining chips in advance by declaring we will go back to 1967 armistice lines before even starting the negotiations. All Israeli proposals fell on this point. The peace process failed because practiaclly the Arabs demand to fundamentally transform Israel into another Arab-Muslim state. It’s obvious that with their high birth rate Israel will immediately become a binational state, and within a couple of generation the Jews will become an ever smaller minority. Israelis will not accept our erdication even if you call it “peace”. Peace should mean peace. War and extinction are not peace.
They should be grateful we don’t demand a right of return to Mecca, Medina, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan (there were no Jews in the state of Jordan, but Jews owned land there before Jordan was extablished on 78% of the Palestine mandate), Iraq, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Lybia, Yemen and all other places in the Middle East where in most cases the Jewish presence predates the Arab-Muslim conquest, and where the Jewish communities, like other non-Arab non-Muslim communities, were driven to near or complete extinction be the Muslim-Arab imperialists. Even the Ashkenazi Jewish community in Europe was founded by Jews who emmigrated from the Middle East 1000-1300 years ago. We don’t know why they left, but it just happnes to coincide with the rise, spread and consolidation of Islamic rule, and knowing how Jews were often treated under Islamic rule and how much war they brought to the land, it will hardly be a surprise that some Jews just had to leave. So let’s bring this 1400 years old saga to an end. The size of Israel is 0.2% (that’s 0.002) of the size of the lands the Arab control. If they make peace with it it will remain this size. If they insist to continue to try to eliminate Israel they should be prepared to lose territories if they lose the war. It’s quite simple. And the West should start encouraging them to make peace, rather than embolden them and make them believe they have a good chance to succeed in eliminating us this time. Maybe they will succeed this time, but if they fail again don’t ever expect us to offer land for peace again. If it’s going to be eternal war then we need all the territorial depth we can have.
The MSM today is advocacy journalism. One of the leading causes of the MSM is the abolition of the nation state. It is the only way to take down the US. In order to take down the nation state, the MSM goes after the most controversial of nation states, Israel. Once Israel is taken down, precedence exists for open borders and UN derived government. One may argue that replacement of Israel with a Palestinian state does not eliminate a nation-however, Palestinian identity requires conflict with Israel. If Israel is gone, there is not much difference between Palestine and Jordan, as they are not distinct ethnicities-kind of like the difference between Romania and Moldova. Palestinians without Israel are just Arabs
I do not believe obama moved away from Israel to persuade the muslims to seek peace, he just hates Jews in general and Israel in particular. He is not just a stupid but an evil man.
Much of this arcane debate would clear up if ONLY Israel agreed to change the nation’s name to Czechoslovakia
Then, the Great Powers could give away its democracy to fascists.
And history books already cover the outcome.
Probably, Mr. Obama would have to also change his name to Neville Chamberlain.
“Peace in our time” (while waving iPad).