Thursday, June 3, 2010

A Discussion We Need to Have

The comments section of this blog have been all a-buzz the past few days with a serious discussion of what strategic steps Israel needs to be taking in relation to the Palestinians. Lee Ratner has kept the discussion going by not backing down from his Meretz-like positions, while Barry Meislin has headed a charge of folks who sharply disagree.

I'd like to express my appreciation to all participants, who have stuck to real arguments without deteriorating into mud-slinging as often happens in such forums. At some point in the near future I'll try to visit the issues, but not this morning: it's time to go to work, and forget all this blogging stuff. Before signing off, however, I'd like to point out that the most important thing I blogged about today (this is the 6th blog post of the day!) was also the first. So make sure you read this one.

45 comments:

Anonymous said...

May everything smile on you today and big thank yous for this blog.
Silke

Anonymous said...

I don't know who is responsible for the video, iv'e seen on two other blogs but, it's not available anymore because of youtube ID issues...

Anonymous said...

Anon
I get all my video footage from the IDF press page
feed://idfspokesperson.com/feed/
as to You Tube one comment somewhere claimed YouTube was banning stuff because of its graphic nature - if they demand to blank actual killing I am for it - the dying should be blanked showing it does more harm than good
Silke

Anonymous said...

ooops anon sorry I misunderstood I never heed the ads
- you are right youtube doesn't have it anymore - it says the URL contains a faulty ID

- if YouTube/Google block it they should at least say why

Silke

Barry Meislin said...

"...because of its graphic nature..."

More likely because it has too pungent a whiff of truth.

Anonymous said...

or to be really mean about it:

Google can't afford to lose another market?

or maybe it's cleaning up because of what I heard yesterday that they are close to having YouTube ready to be watched on TV because they think that will attract more ads - doesn't US-TV has something about not wanting four letter words? - time to store valuable stuff at home?

Silke

Gavin said...

Silke, Barry.... people can have a video marked as adult content by voting for it to be marked as such. That was the other side deliberately trying to stop the video being seen, not that many people bother setting up an account with Youtube which is required to view adult content. They wanted their propaganda to spread before other views gained any traction. Cunning....

Cheers, Gavin

Barry Meislin said...

Ah, so you mean they're not playing fair.

Shocking. Utterly.

Gavin said...

Heh. How does the saying go Barry... all is fair in love & war?

I was musing on some of what you said in previous thread. Now this is just musing, not a suggestion. My own opinion is the negative press against Israel is mostly driven by journalists who are shit-scared of Muslims. Can give a lot of other reasons, like they're rancid jew-hating bigots, but they have the freedom to vent their bile because there are no recriminations from the Jews when the media attack them. They try that on Muslims & they'll get a knife in the back... or worse. If these characters were more scared of Jews than they were of Muslims... would they still be so keen on slagging off Israel at every opportunity? Interesting isn't it, if the likes of Falk & the staff at Guardian were to end up on the street where they belong, with begging bowl in hand, would the media & others still be keen to bash Israel?

Cheers, Gavin

Barry Meislin said...

Ah, must be love, then.... (Can't you feel it?...)

As far as why "the media" do what they do, there must be many motives.

Perhaps fear is the most important. But it's more than that. Or not even that, at all. Possible reasons are (not mutually exclusive nor in any particular order):
1. ideology
2. perversity
3. laziness
4. personal morality and sense of values(see, perhaps, #2, above)
5. personal courage
6. culture
7. personal animosity (that spills over)
8. high intelligence (see, perhaps, #2, above)
9. sense of justice
10. religion (or lack of it)
11. susceptibilty / suggestibility
12. curiosity
13. sense of priorities (e.g., for competing "justices" or "injustices"
14. personal politics---see #1, above
15. sense of truth---see #4
16. level of honesty (i.e., can they be bought? are they being blackmailed or intimated?) see above.
17. ability to question assumptions, biases and prejudices
18. ability to go against the grain
19. whom one identifies with
20. self-image
21. level of desperation
22. what one might be trying to prove (to oneself or others)
23. psychological state at any particular time

Obviously, there are overlaps here.

It's complex. Fear may, indeed be part of the equation---a large part, in fact; but not necessarily. I think ideology is paramount, along with personal sense of truth (of course, fear can inform ideology, but how might that be that measured?).

On the other hand, you may be onto something. For example, journalists who show a definite "anti-Zionist" slant feel they must stress how brave they are to confront and withstand the (predictable) "rabid" Zionist onslaught against them. In this view, being labeled anti-Semitic when one is actually (purportedly) only criticizing Israel, is a dastardly attempt by Zionists to intimidate, to assassinate their character, to prevent the truth from emerging, etc.,; comparable to death threats from (and murders by) Islamicists.... E.g., "Your labeling me anti-Semitic means you're trying to shut down the debate," ; or "Jews also attack Israel, so how can you accuse them of being anti-Semitic,"; or (the classic) "But Moslems are also semites," etc.

Most of the media people today, it seems to me, come from a left-of-center background (or even further left) with a deep desire to improve the world (not only, certainly), and a clear view (to them) of what's right and wrong.

Many likely consider themselves decent people, good people, helpful people(as I imagine most of us feel about ourselves), rooting usually for the underdog (and willing to slant one's views, accordingly), aspiring to use one's position to right wrongs.

So it's particular curious why they start hating the State of Israel with such virulence... (their answer: precisely because they are such good people; precisely because they want to improve the world; precisely because they feel the obligation to report unflinchingly, etc., etc.)...but here, in my view, we get into the realm of perversity, and the concept of "Perversity Quotient" (PQ) kicks in.

And what happens when you get bombarded by propaganda? How much of it gets internalized, especially if it corresponds to one's inclinations, especially if one is surrounded by people who believe the same thing. Going against the grain must be awfully tough.

I would imagine a kind of Stockholm syndrome might also kick in (though that might be considered a kind of fear, perhaps), when one is under fire from a particular side in a conflict.

One must be able to admit mistakes. Try for balance, realizing that one has one's built-in biases---but always testing those biases.

I think if truly honest journalists felt that fear hampered their abilities to report, then they would either try to be really cautious---or stop being journalists.

On the other hand, meet their fear head on and test themselves to confront it.

Well, I've been rambling.

Lee Ratner said...

Thank you for the compliment, Yaacov.

4infidels said...

Barry,

I agree with all the points you make. Journalists come to the Middle East with an ideological bias (left-leaning, pro-Third World, anti-capitalist--except when it comes to their own careers and income, blame America and its allies first, see conflict from the other side's perspective, think all religions are basically the same and all people view life through a materialist prism and have the same wants and needs, and that it is their job to comfort and promote the underdog who they believe must be suffering from a lack of understanding, compassion and justice)and believe that a Western society (Israel) should be held to a different standard than a developing (or hardly developing...lol) one.

4infidels said...

Yet there is also a more benign, if still quite infuriating, reason for the bias in Middle East reporting:

Most journalists are in over their head. In many cases, they are sent to a hot spot to cover a conflict or region with little or no knowledge beyond the latest events. They are not experts in the history of the parties and not aware the traditions, cultures and beliefs of the parties that often have a profound, if sometimes not always obvious influence on the way people act.

So how do they prepare for their new subject on which they must report? They open up the New York Times, Washington Post, perhaps Haaretz and the BBC website and consume the conventional wisdom on the issues of the day. There is no time to read books, study languages or religions, learn history, explore legal issues and evaluate the claims made by the rest of the pack of journalists.

So with a good two weeks worth of New York Times articles in their back pocket, away they go to cover a particularly complicated conflict of which the surface events of the day hardly reflect the depth of issues involved. But how else does a person who is busy with their job, family and social life--and trying to advance in their career--have time to prepare in short notice to cover a new set of newsmakers? And of course the views of the rest of the pack of journalists, also picked up in the same superficial fashion, reinforce that which the novice reporter has already ingested from their brief encounter with the conventional wisdom. So I don't know that this all happens intentionally so much as due to the nature of the business (busy schedules, a lot to produce with stories for TV, interviews on talk radio, writing for the Website, having a Blog, posting the latest rumor on Twitter) and perhaps some laziness and self-interest as well on the part of the journalists. I mean, if your story has the samne basic outline as the ones in the NY Times, the Washington Post and CNN, who can say that you failed at your job? Most likely the editors and producers understanding of the Middle East is shaped by reading the same publications and watching the same news as everyone else in the "pack."

4infidels said...

The American reporter who gets treated to the initial warmth of Arab hospitality, invited in to an Arab home for food, can't imagine that the same host could possibly be lying about his religion, his political aims or his support for terrorism when he sweetly tells his guest the "inside scoop" on the ways of the region.

Even as he is continually decieved by Palestinian spokesliars and told fantastical claims by everyone from professors to shopkeepers to rock throwers, the American journalist can't possibly let himself suspect that the next Muslim he talks to could also be lying as well...for to even go there would be the type of racism he was taught to be so careful never to indulge. He learned in college that we all have biases and that the bias of the Westerner toward the non-Westerner that he doesn't completely understand is certainly among the worst moral failings we can have.

In addition, having been raised on mulitcultural mumbo jumbo, in which all cultures and religions are of equal worth--and non-Western ones have an inherent wisdom and deep-seated goodness, despite some strange behaviors on the surface, not necessarily found in the capitalist, white, Western cultures and faiths, one can than only think that the reason Israelis have a more prosperous society than the Palestinians is because they must be exploiting their neighbors and denying them the resources that any people, given the chance, would use in its most productive capacity. And given that all people are motivated by the same assumptions as liberal Americans, the Palestinians must be faced with a uniquely unjust and humiliating treatment by the Israelis in order to want to blow themselves up on a bus or in a shopping center.

And with a dose of white guilt thrown in for good measure, the Western European reporter, guilty about colonialism, slavery and the Holocaust, has the opporunity to redeem himself and right past wrongs by siding with the mainly light-skinned semites of Hamas and Hezbollah against the imperialist, colonialist, racist, mainly light-skinned semites of Israel (even if those Israelis are descended from people who suffered form the worst act of European racism in history or lived as second-class subjects under semites of another religion).

Lee Ratner said...

4infidels, I really think that you are over emphasizing the leftist slant of most journalists. Journalists who work for most major media outlets are not radical anti-capitalists with Fanonesque views of the Third World. At worst or best, depending on your personal politics, they are slightly cosmopolitan squishy liberals. I've never read any journalist in mainstream publication advocating government ownership of the means of production and mass murder of the capitalist class.

I'd also like to point out that a genuine Leftist cosmpolitan would find both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict disgusting and argue that the elites of both side are using nationalism and religion to keep the working classes of both sides separate. These people are very much a rarity these days.

Finally, I am finding your black and white view, us vs. them view of the world disturbing. Most of the popularity of Political Islam in Muslim-majority countries has to do with the failures of governments to establish economic prosperity and because most of them are dictatorships. In Muslim-majority countries that are either prosperous and/our relatively democratic like Malaysia and Indonesia, the calls for theocracy are limited to a handful of people. I believe that the Islamic parties had their asses in handed to them in the most recent Indonesian elections. You might argue Turkey as a counter-example but I'd point out that the armies attempts to interfere with elections they do not like challenges the democratic part of the equation. The key to defusing radicalism in the Muslim world is democracy and economic prosperity even if this seems like rewarding people for evil at times.

Anonymous said...

fascinating read - thank y'all very much

first one more for 4infidels

when I said yesterday that the vast majority of "our" Turks want a good life I wasn't singing the "moderate" tune, I don't believe in that moderate fairy tale one moment. I was talking about decent people who actively want to live together i.e. they smile back, are open for a relaxed casual chat etc. and are as law abiding and as sly as the rest of us.
This largely silent majority though is now beginning to organise because they've had enough of what the forever demanding complaining others try to impose on them.

so when I say decent I mean decent for me it is no synonym for moderates.

---------

btw tomorrow they meet for Friday prayer in Duisburg where there is the by Ditib Turkey's religious office financed mosque and community center is. A press release said they want no excitement just quiet prayers but there are posters inviting to a demo out there - both messages don't sync at least not for an old "us". As Erdogan sounded a bit subdued to me today in Haaretz it will be interesting to see tomorrow how the demo will behave. I trust they'll do whatever Erdogan tells them to.

I cherish the vague hope that it is dawning on Erdogan that he spoke enthusiastically about a Jihadist commando that originated in his country. No Saudi King has done that after 9/11. So let's hope that someone gives him the message that he a prime minister of a democracy and a Nato member has lauded a Jihad commando against a UN-memberstate and maybe he even facilitated and backed it. I just wish somebody would come up with a video or audio where he hyperboled because I feel sure once it suits him he will declare any newspaper quote as misquoted, mistranslated whatever it takes.
Silke

Anonymous said...

Lee
you keep objecting to in your view black vs wide of 4infidels

I though with the same justification you call 4infidels whose bouts of kind of thinking aloud I find very stimulating black vs white I call yours just a wee bit pre-fabricated because I seem to know it all already so well
and so it reminds me again and again of what Churchill (very politely and respectfully nowhere near as rude as Keynes) wrote (5 book version) about Wilsons' first weeks/months in Versailles (Wilson to his credit learned after a while to see things afresh)

There is a very experienced and very esteemed NYT writer named Dexter Filkins - as journalists seem to have to operate today with a lot less back up time like editing since before - flaws are becoming more apparent or maybe I am only more experienced. Anyway he wrote a piece about the Tribal areas or somewhere near there and all of a sudden I realized that all the local voices he quoted were of the kind which you meet first if you enter somewhere foreign. On "my" Greek Island those who were eager to become friends with foreigners were without exception not the most respected members, not bad people no way but maybe with views and habits which the more settled not quite appreciated.

Only after I knew a bit of language I had the incredible luck to hit on a family which didn't mind foreigners and then got to meet the whole street and they were different people all I had learned from the befrienders proved to be not quite right at best to outright wrong at worst

Jounalists must be aware of how little they penetrate in societies where they only believe you are trustworthy if you have proved it over a length of time while being there and by that my Greek islanders meant months if not years and no they were not unknowing about the world. The men had spent time in all the big harbours of the world or the younger ones had worked on cruise ships.

So it is not only the language it is also keeping at it by their ideas of what is long enough. Greece is not Afghanistan but that piece sure read like there were lots of similarities. So what we get from most of these pieces about foreign lands are views of the surface presented by men who have a good idea what the Xeni (stranger) likes to hear best.

Silke

Lee Ratner said...

Silke, the reason why I find 4infidels opinion to be black and white because it paints 1.3 billion people as part of a conspiracy to dominate the world in the name of Islam. To me that makes as much sense as the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, it makes no sense at all. If 4infidels is right and all Muslims really want to subject the world to Islamic theocracy than what is the solution? Kill them all and be done with them forever? 4infidels seems to think that not only are all Muslims staunch theocrats but that they will never be anything but staunch theocrats. Its a bleak and useless world view.

I'm also disappointed with his constant criticism of leftists while not really defining leftists that well. Most of the founders and early leaders of Israel were particularly adamant socialists and proved more adept at what was needed to establish the Jewish State than their capitalist or religious counterparts.

4infidels said...

Lee,

"...the reason why I find 4infidels opinion to be black and white because it paints 1.3 billion people as part of a conspiracy to dominate the world in the name of Islam."

I never said anything that covers all 1.3 billion Muslims. You keep repeating the same things rather than actually addressing the content of what I wrote.

Here are my previous comments so that you no longer have to misrepresent them:

On June 1, 2010 at 9:13 PM, I wrote the following:

"I don't have any interest in debating what the vast majority of Muslims believe or don't believe. I am aware of what is printed in Arab media, taught in Arab schools and preached in Arab mosques as well as the ideology of the 12ver Shia running Iran. And it is downright frightening.

"What truly matters is that there are more than enough jihadists within the West Bank, Gaza and surrounding countries who would gladly make war against Israel, regardless of the size or policies. In that effort, they can count on hundreds of millions of Muslims to support that jihad with money and propaganda campaigns aimed at delegimizing Israel. Can you imagine just for a minute how it might be hard to maintain any type of peace-treaty or post withdrawl stability when you have a population that believes that dying for Allah sends them to paradise and that Islam must rule everywhere, with those places where it once ruled before at the top of the priority list?"

On June 2, 2010 at 10:58 PM:

"The majority of Palestinians, Arabs or Muslims may prefer to live and let life with the infidels if they can have an easy life, but among them are many true believers who know that killing and being killed in jihad is the path to paradise and supporting that jihad militarily, financially or propagandistically is looked at favorably by Allah."

On June 2, 2010 at 10:58 pm:

"Even if the majority of Muslims were neither pro-jihad nor anti-Israel, they are not the ones who are making history; that is why, for example, there have been no significant Muslim rallies against terrorism in the United States. With the Muslim world-view divided between believer and infidel, there is a strong pull to side with other believers or to keep quiet so as not be killed as an infidel."

On June 2, 2010 at 6:10 PM:

"How do you suppose that the Palestinians who (after statehood) wouldn't support the continued war against Israel would assert that influence over the others, when the ones with the guns and the fighting spirit are currently in control and have won out since the beginning of the post-WWI mandate?"

On June 2, 2010 at 6:10 PM. N.B.: I didn't mean all Palestinians think this way, but I do believe that more do think this way than you are willing to consider:

"Why is it that you have trouble accepting that Palestinians might actually believe in the principles of their religion and mean what they say about their goals to destroy Israel, their belief that redemption will only come when the Muslims fight and kill the Jews and that Palestine is an Islamic "waqf" that can never be surrendered to infidels."

4infidels said...

Lee,

"Most of the popularity of Political Islam in Muslim-majority countries has to do with the failures of governments to establish economic prosperity and because most of them are dictatorships."

What came first the chicken or the egg?

Could you even possibly consider that the Arab countries have failed to establish economic prosperity and have dictatorships is because of Islam?

How do you expect them to reform their political and economic situation when Islam discourages innovation? Most opposition to the current system in Arab countries inevitably calls for a return to true Islam, a return to the ways of the Prophet, living by the laws of the Koran (which is believed to be a roadmap to everything one needs in life) and anyone with a different philosophy is condemned as an infidel.

Turkey only became more democratic and Westernized due to the ruthlessness with which Kemal Ataturk limited the role Islam could play in Turkish politics, education and social life and the willingness of the military to interfere in politics to save that secular legacy. Sadly that legacy is now slipping away and so is the Turkey that produced a secular, urban middle class who will soon likely start emigrating.

Gavin said...

Yep, all that too Barry but I was looking more at the balance in reporting. The Islamists have run a campaign of intimidation for quite some time. Hizbollah are a prime example, when the international media visit them Hizbollah quietly let them know they're being watched and that Hizbollah have an international reach. Fatah and Hamas have got them all so scared now that they have to use stringers.

When a person gets bullied by someone stronger it's not uncommon for that person to then pick on someone they perceive as weaker. It's a status thing; pride. Regain your dignity by taking someone else's. When you get journalists who look over their shoulders every time they write something about the Arab states they'll slowly stop writing about Arab atrocities and write about something else. Or quit. Fear can make people self-justify many things.

The Arabs have run a very effective campaign of turning the western media, the beheadings in Iraq etc did scare the crap out of many of them.

Cheers, Gavin

4infidels said...

Lee,

Now let's turn to Malaysia, which was led a few years back by the rabid anti-Semite Mahathir Mohamad, who said of Jews in 2003,

"They invented socialism, communism, human rights and democracy so that persecuting them would appear to be wrong so they may enjoy equal rights with others."

To the extent that Malaysia is prosperous, it is the exception that proves the rule. That wealth is largely created by its numerous non-Muslim minority populations (Chinese and Indian Hindu) while the ethnic Malays, who are Muslim, lag far behind. Thus, the majority group, Muslim Malays, receives affirmative action in order to help the improve their economic situation.

So we are left with Indonesia, where Osama bin Laden is popular, Christians have been massacred and you might not want to wear a yarmulke when you visit. Otherwise, to the degree that Indonesia is a more pleasant place than other Muslim countries has to do with the influence of the pre-Islamic culture that waters down the Islamic identity somewhat and the large number of non-Muslims in the country. However, thanks to Saudi oil money, mosques and Imams, Indonesians are getting a fuller does of the hardcore Islam these days.

4infidels said...

Lee,

"If 4infidels is right and all Muslims really want to subject the world to Islamic theocracy than what is the solution? Kill them all and be done with them forever? 4infidels seems to think that not only are all Muslims staunch theocrats but that they will never be anything but staunch theocrats. Its a bleak and useless world view."

This is an especially unfair mischaracterization of my views. There is a difference between what Islam teaches and what all 1.3 billion Muslims believe. Like members of any faith, there is a spectrum of belief, observance and actions.

Unlike you, after significant study and reflection, i am convinced that Islam is the primary inspiration for those Arabs, Iranians and Turks who are committed to delegitimizing and destroying Israel. That may not be politically correct, but it would be intellectually dishonest for me to censor myself on a blog where I am already writing under a pseudonym.

I also think that the migration of millions of Muslims into Western Europe and North America poses a threat to our physical safety and our values, including freedom of speech, equality of women, the ability of gays to live free of persecution. I am honest about the religion and what effect it has on many of its adherents and the societies that arise where those adherents are in the majority. Yes, tribal customs, geography, political culture, ethnic identity, etc. play a role that can't be easily dismissed. However, i would argue that those aspects are reinforced by Islam rather than discouraged

So the answer isn't to "kill them all." It is to enact smarter policies that make the problems more manageable, such as...

*Don't let Iran acquire nuclear weapons, by force if necessary.

*Don't give up more land to those who have no history of honoring agreements and continue to talk of phased plans and Palestine from the river to the sea.

*Western European and North American countries need to reconsider their immigration policies and be more selective about which domestic Muslim organizations they consider "moderate."

Lee Ratner said...

4infidels: Where does it all end for you? What do you imagine the end point to be? Do you think that one day Israel will vanquish the Palestinians and enjoy the entirety of Eretz Israel? Are we headed towards armageddon between the forces of the West and Islam?

There are about a little over four million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza and they are increasing in numbers. They will eventually out number Israeli Jews and the Occupation would become increasingly more unacceptable in the worlds eyes. Just cut them loose and there won't be peace but a lot of Israel's problems would be solved. Relationships with non-Muslim countries would repair eventually and the world would grow weary of Palestinian extremism after the have their state. I'd rather Israel be part of the solution rather than have a solution forced upon Israel and I think this is more likely than your battle of armageddon scenario.

Also, homosexuals in America at least have faced more problems from Christians than they have from Muslims. I do not recall Muslims being behind the battle against gays in the military or marriage equality. I'm sure the same is in Europe.

Nor do I care if an Islamic Organization is moderate or extremist. As long as they do not break any law than they have the right to believe whatever they want. If they break the law prosecute them or sue them.

Barry Meislin said...

Getting a bit smarmy, aren't we?

"Where does it all end?", you ask.

You have three choices.

Obviously, no one can know for sure, but know that our Palestinians friends are giving us two choices:

1. Agree to give up, leave the neighborhood and go back (to wherever you came from)
2. Agree to let us destroy you.

So from that point of view, it's pretty simple.

Oh, there is a third choice, but it's not the one that people like, oh, say, Peter Beinart feel at all comfortable with....

4infidels said...

Lee,

"..homosexuals in America at least have faced more problems from Christians than they have from Muslims. I do not recall Muslims being behind the battle against gays in the military or marriage equality. I'm sure the same is in Europe."

This is the kind of statement that makes me wonder if you are serious. If you can't tell the difference between hanging homosexuals from a crane, state-endorsed executions, honor killings by fathers shamed by their gay sons and people not wanting to extend the definition of marriage to include gays, then I can't really see any point in having a discussion with you.

Have you read Bruce Bawer's "While Europe Slept?" Bower is a gay man who moved to Europe so that he would live somewhere that his marriage would be recognized. He then wrote about how gays are physically attacked, called names and exist in fear in Muslim sections in what we used to consider some the world's most tolerant cities. All your ideological soul-mates couldn't get enough of Bawer when he wrote about Christian fundamentalism in America. But when he wrote about the far more disturbing development of the Islamization of Europe, the same folks wanted nothing to do with him.

Sam Harris, author of "The End of Faith," is an atheist who is a harsh critic of both Christianity and Judaism. From a 2006 article in the Los Angeles Times:

"Perhaps I should establish my liberal bone fides at the outset. I’d like to see taxes raised on the wealthy, drugs decriminalized and homosexuals free to marry. I also think that the Bush administration deserves most of the criticism it has received in the last six years — especially with respect to its waging of the war in Iraq, its scuttling of science and its fiscal irresponsibility.

"But my correspondence with liberals has convinced me that liberalism has grown dangerously out of touch with the realities of our world — specifically with what devout Muslims actually believe about the West, about paradise and about the ultimate ascendance of their faith.

[...]

"A cult of death is forming in the Muslim world — for reasons that are perfectly explicable in terms of the Islamic doctrines of martyrdom and jihad. The truth is that we are not fighting a “war on terror.” We are fighting a pestilential theology and a longing for paradise.

"This is not to say that we are at war with all Muslims. But we are absolutely at war with those who believe that death in defense of the faith is the highest possible good, that cartoonists should be killed for caricaturing the prophet and that any Muslim who loses his faith should be butchered for apostasy.

"Unfortunately, such religious extremism is not as fringe a phenomenon as we might hope. Numerous studies have found that the most radicalized Muslims tend to have better-than-average educations and economic opportunities."

4infidels said...

Lee,

4infidels: Where does it all end for you? What do you imagine the end point to be? Do you think that one day Israel will vanquish the Palestinians and enjoy the entirety of Eretz Israel? Are we headed towards armageddon between the forces of the West and Islam?

You can keep asking me that over and over again and my answer won't change. I don't see a solution, only a situation to be managed as best as possible. I see a continued jihad against Israel as long as Israel exists, regardless of Israel's policies or borders. In fact, the evidence from the past 20 years, as well as from Islamic history and human nature, leads me to believe that the war against Israel will increase in intensity as Israel gets smaller and becomes more vulnerable. I see an international community motivated more by interests (oil, financial and fear of terrorism) than principles. I wish I could find a rosy scenario for you, but there is none. That doesn't mean Israel can't thrive and have relative quiet on its borders and within its borders, if it retain overwhelming military superiority.

Things will improve for Israel in the international arena, regardless of its size or policies, when the West no longer needs Arab oil; when Muslim minorities increasingly threaten Western nations' security and freedoms, engendering more sympathy for Israel; and when Europe elects leaders who understand the Islamic ideology and see Israel an ally fighting the same enemy.

Barry Meislin said...

Not to worry, though.

None of this means that we have to stop blaming Israel for the situation....

Gavin,
Yes, how to deal with the "eyes wide shut" syndrome...
Which is why I find Tom Gross so refreshing. He describes his own conversion from eager, clueless, pro-'narrative' journo to truth-seeking, pro-Israel commentator.

(Which of course means that many would find him absolutely distasteful.... and worse.)

www.tomgrossmedia.com

Barry Meislin said...

And there is, of course, Khaled Abu Toahmeh's courageous honesty...

And others. There are some very decent people out there who understand the situation (or at least mostly).

Barry Meislin said...

Indeed, the love is palpable.

Anonymous said...

Lee
strange ... if I should hypothize about 4infidels than I'd guess he is in that range of people who are best characterized by Orwell who said roughly that who doesn't want socialism with all his heart is a bad person but who thinks that it may be implemented is deluded.

Decades of living and observing in the real world have taught me that Orwell once again as is so often the case got it perfectly right. And he hides not one instance that he considers that to be one of the really sad facts of life while at the same time churning out pages on pages of really well-reasoned and compassionate stuff trying to get at least the little bit that's possible becoming real.

If you doubt Orwell's genuine compassion read "The Road to Wigan Pier" and don't leave out his notes to it. Both are on the net, one of the most devoted Orwell sites incidentally claims to be from Russia. Seems like they found something in him to help them preserve what might be worth preserving from the big idea of equality for all. I am German which means I have been exposed all my life to socialist hopes of implementation (remember Lenin thought us to be the most promising country to become next!). Very little passed the feasibility test.

Silke

(Orwell's idea of socialism evolved roughly into what we today would probably shorthand as left.)

Anonymous said...

4infidels and Lee
here is an I think telling anecdote re economic prosperity.

there was once probably 19th century an English lady in Turkey who had access to harems. There she came across a piece of what we call terry cloth which she liked very much (it was a hand-made luxury item). She took it back with her to England where they immediately built a special weaving machine so it could be mass-produced. (seems like egalitarian ideas thrive when money may be made from them;)

Long long ago I took lessons in art history and the teacher insisted that it was at Olympia that FREE COMPETITION was first introduced to the world i.e. in roughly 600 BCE. The simple fact that the fastest would win independent of status remained alien for the oriental world in part maybe to this day. You don't contradict the patriarch!!! I don't know what in their basic make-up gives "Asians" a right to compete but it seems that Islam's short bouts of permissiveness not withstanding seems to favour status over excellence to this day.

i.e. if I look at the history it seems to be to go back for millenia on social choices which were made in the area but today it certainly looks like Islamic preaching is conducive to keep that age-old tradition alive and that is bad news for us as well as for all those in the muslim world who want it to evolve into something which is less in the tradition of Darius' Persia and more in that of Alexander. (please note Lee that I chose as counterpart to hapless Darius Alexander whose reach-outs were short lived in the end, except for Gandhara of course;)

Silke

Anonymous said...

"Indonesians are getting a fuller does of the hardcore Islam these days."

Elders of Ziyon has a very good post up which supports that there is something in the making.

As I am "little" people myself it makes me furious and tearful at the same time, it is our kind that always suffers the most when big idea capture the Zeitgeist.

(yes Lee believe it or not at heart I am a knee-jerk socialist who has in her professional life wherever possible always tilted rules and regulations so they'd favour the disadvantaged - so don't you lecture me on implementing social behaviour in real life)

Silke

Anonymous said...

Lee
"Are we headed towards armageddon between the forces of the West and Islam?"
if we are "lucky" then it will end in Turkey and Russia struggling over Turkmenistan

Lee
"Also, homosexuals in America at least have faced more problems from Christians than they have from Muslims. I do not recall Muslims being behind the battle against gays in the military or marriage equality. I'm sure the same is in Europe"
really Lee that kind of reasoning is beneath you - that brings to my nose just a wee bit of "Ibrahim" - I hope I am wrong there.

4infidels
"A cult of death is forming in the Muslim world"
Yes and when a cult of death was forming in Germany the world argued exactly like it does today "but not all Germans are bad" forgetting that once a society has lost the mojo to keep its fringes in check the separation becomes horrifyingly meaningless.

Maybe Lee should explain to us how successful the reaching-out attempt that was made via participating in the Olympics of 1936 was
- Reach-outers had hoped for more. I don't want to criticize their decision of way back then but I want to stress that we should learn from it and try this time around the shame-them-tactic (which is why I try to leave religion out of it, it hurts too many feelings of good "little" people who can't read it the way it is meant).
as to 1936 again: Imagine how desperate and left alone the anti-Hitlerites must have felt when they saw the world sucking up to him. Imagine on the other hand what they might, might in capital letters, have come up with would they have realised that their beloved country had become an outcast? Lots more might have clustered around the "Führer" (it means guider as well as leader) but maybe the internationally connected aristocratic generals would have gotten their act together a lot earlier.

PS for 4infidels:
I never thought I would appreciate Sam Harris for something - thank you 4infidels for a valid lesson I need over and over that nuttiness in one quarter doesn't mean total nuttiness.

Silke

Anonymous said...

please help spreading this

- the melody is suitable for becoming an anthem and no court in my country can possibly come up with that the singing of a popular tune (without words) disturbs public order like they tried with the showing of the Israeli flag at demos.

Just found this at Michael Totten - Israelis are just great
- please help all of you to make this video and the melody go viral so that it may serve as a hymn for the pro-Israel ones daring to disturb anti-Isreal demos.
and while at it can somebody please tell me the name of the original - my iPod doesn't take video so I need help in finding the soundtrack on iTunes.
enjoy! - Silke

http://www.michaeltotten.com/2010/06/a-bit-of-humor.php

Anonymous said...

just as a reminder how long lasting the effects are if a society has let its fringes take over and how it will be always the innocent who suffer most.

Yesterday it was in the news that 3 men died, trying to defuse an Allied (American) bomb from WW2 in Göttingen - 3 dead plus 2 severely wounded all of who may at least by virtue of late birth sure claim to be innocents - and to be clear those are the Nazis that keep killing and maiming

http://www.bild.de/BILD/news/2010/06/01/goettingen-bombe-explosion-tote.html

Once again:
That's why its imperative to find a way to help them reigning in their thugs - and that definitely isn't achieved by "reaching out" to the thugs.

Silke

Lee Ratner said...

4infidels, if you are right and that the jihad against Israel will continue as long as Israel exists, I really think that holding on to the West Bank and Gaza are less than optimal ways of managing the situation. Having millions of people living as subjects is not a way manage a hostile force unless you want to turn Gaza and the West Bank into the worlds largest prison and even that is not the best solution. Silly as it may seem the best way to deal with a constant war against Israel by Muslims is to make it a state issue by giving the Palestinians a state. If the Palestinians had a state than there would be less tolerance for acts of violence against Israel because they would be seen as having what they want and their rights of a state to engage in violence are limited.

Finally, I believe that you are wrong about your opinion of Muslims. If Iran is any demonstration, the best cure for the desire for Muslim theocracy is Muslim theocracy. They seem to get tired of continual jihad by the millions once its implemented in actuality. Another example is still Indonesia where the Islamists were voted out of office and secular parties voted in during the most recent elections. Many Muslims claim to want theocracy but are less thrilled with it in actual practice.

Anonymous said...

Lee
you must be reading very selectively as all your examples from the wider world limp as much as your perception of how we treated our muslim minority did. Superficial and shallow devoid of any knowledge of the problems people are facing in real life that's how that one came across to me.
Do you know the story of the Gordion knot? that problem solving stunt didn't produce anything long lasting at all (excepting Gandhara of course).

Your just let the "them" loose is very much a Gordion knot style solution which only one living on a geographically blessed continent can consider to have any merits at all. Keep in mind - the US has always as last resort the option to become isolationist again - none of our old world states has such good luck.

I repeat myself you are arguing "let them eat cake" stuff.

Silke

4infidels said...

Lee,

if you are right and that the jihad against Israel will continue as long as Israel exists, I really think that holding on to the West Bank and Gaza are less than optimal ways of managing the situation. Having millions of people living as subjects is not a way manage a hostile force unless you want to turn Gaza and the West Bank into the worlds largest prison and even that is not the best solution

A valid and well-reasoned argument that I very much respect, even though I disagree for reasons explained in several previous comments.

"If the Palestinians had a state than there would be less tolerance for acts of violence against Israel because they would be seen as having what they want and their rights of a state to engage in violence are limited. "

As others have correctly noted, this was also argued prior to the Gaza withdrawal. I actually think the opposite is true. Israel would have a far tougher time preventing impending terrorist attacks, stopping rocket fire on its cities and swiftly reacting to threats to its citizens. The Palestinian government would claim that the rockets were fired by extremists that it can't control and the world would urge Israeli restraint (while Israelis are being killed and their lives disrupted) so as not to ruin the wonderful new peace and two-state non-solution that has just been achieved. The rest of the Muslim world (except the Kurds, the Israeli Druze and a few other exceptions) will side with the Palestinians, and the Europeans will continue to take the same stance as today as long as they need oil, Arab money and markets, fear terrorism and want to placate their own growing Muslim minorities.

4infidels said...

Lee,

I believe that you are wrong about your opinion of Muslims. If Iran is any demonstration, the best cure for the desire for Muslim theocracy is Muslim theocracy. They seem to get tired of continual jihad by the millions once its implemented in actuality. Another example is still Indonesia where the Islamists were voted out of office and secular parties voted in during the most recent elections. Many Muslims claim to want theocracy but are less thrilled with it in actual practice.

Israel is surrounded by Arabs not Indonesians, so how Islam has developed in a place, far from the Middle East, with animist, Hindu and Buddhist traditions and identities that combine with Islam to make a more relaxed approach to the religion is hardly worth considering when Israel makes life-and-death decisions. Even so, Indonesia is becoming more intensely Islamic, not less so, as Arab money, literature and imams continue pouring in to the country.

As for Iran, the 12vers remain in power and they are frightening. There is a secular, modern, Muslim-In-Name-Only middle and upper middle class in the major cities that would like to throw off the shackles of Islam and get on with their lives. There are also tens of millions of simple folks in the countryside for whom more Islam is always better than less Islam, so you shouldn't take the guy protesting in the street, twittering and wearing jeans as representative of the entire population.

So we are back to the Arabs who surround Israel and from whom Israel will have to defend itself, even if Iran and Indonesia become paradises of modernity and moderation. The Arab identity is so strongly tied up with Islam that there is little chance of change taking place. Islam is quite simply their national religion and their tribal culture and Islam mutually reinforce one another. I would be happy to be wrong, but unless the Arabs go through a major reformation, Israel has to deal with the enemy it has, not the one you wish for.

Anonymous said...

for Lee
in the second part of this piece we are given a short and broad summary of available military strategies but since they are by Krauthammer it doesn't count or does it?

it will be interesting to see whether you will let us know your opinions on the choices outlined there.

Silke

Anonymous said...

ooops forgot the link - sorry Lee - here it is
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/06/03/AR2010060304287_pf.html
Silke

Anonymous said...

"As for Iran, the 12vers remain in power and they are frightening"

how frightening is available for those who want to know, at gutenberg.org where both Churchill's Malakand field force and River War (about Sudan) are available.

Both describe erupting Mahdi phenomena in vivid and excellent prose.
Neglect concentrating on British behaviour for once and concentrate on learning about Mahdi strategies

how about that Lee for a start to test your convictions? and notice how bad both instances were for their own folks.

Silke

Anonymous said...

Lee
just stumbled upon this lecture

- I've listened to about 30 minutes and it seems to me that John Bowen has an acute sense for the difficulties that the synchronizing of different legal systems presents

- so Lee if you want to brush up on your to me rather facile judgment that Europe is mistreating its muslims he might be a good start. BTW LSE is said to be overly sympathetic to those with a left to far left world-view ... I wouldn't know as I am an ideology agnostic forever judging on feasibility grounds alone.
Silke

Islam, Secularisms and Law across Europe
http://www2.lse.ac.uk/publicEvents/events/2010/20100504t1830vHKT.aspx

Anonymous said...

Lee
as to the lecture linked to above Bowen got so interesting that I listened on, now I am in Q&A and the first time in the years that I have listened to innumerable lectures the public was explicitly offered that it could stay anonymous and the first questioner said "he'd rather ..." Whether you believe it or not, such little incidents shock me more than any screaming headline ever could.

... and incidentally they confirm me in my opinion that we are a society with a face-showing tradition and that that is worth to uphold.

Silke