the USA, Israel, and national interest

but it doesn't "work" in the sense of moving toward an actual resolution. it just pushes the cycle around for another spin.

the withdrawal from gaza was handled horribly. oslo was killed through bad faith on both sides -- on the palestinian side moreso, but israel could have elected to keep pressing forward. instead sharon came to power and what happened happened. meantime, israel's international standing is at its lowest point in a generation, and if you don't think that matters -- if you think that all that counts is whether people in the west bank and gaza are just scared of israel or scared shitless -- then you're not really thinking about the future of the country.

and if palestinians aren't children, israel should stop treating them that way. as it is, israel is acting like an abusive parent who thinks the problem with the surly rebellious teen is that he just hasn't been beaten hard enough. they are not equal powers, and therefore not equally responsible. israel has greater responsibility, and greater capacity to resolve the situation, and has basically refused to. the united states also has significant power and capacity, and has also and likewise refused. the problem is not going to go away, and it is not going to be bombed into submission. and the suggestion from people in the israeli cabinet that this is a way to get their mojo back after the similarly stupid excursion into lebanon just makes the whole thing that much more idiotic. what do they think, the palestinians forgot they have bombs?

and here i am arguing about this again, with people who think short-term revenge is a solid basis for foreign policy and future stability.

It's not parent vs. child, it's child vs. child. Why is the scared, angry Israeli populace expected to act more logically and reasonably than the scared, angry Palestinian populace? Cause they're slightly whiter?

here's the problem, tipsy. you apparently think that the Palestinians are a bunch of children and Israel is the only adult. there are two people involved in this conflict. why is all the censure aimed at one?

― Mordy, Sunday, December 28, 2008 9:33 PM (29 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

it has nothing to do w/ adult vs. child mordy, and everything to do w/ stable powerful democratic govt vs. unstable decentered power structures

like, you keep saying "the palestinians could stop killing israelis" but... which ones? according to the orders of whom?

Why is the scared, angry Israeli populace expected to act more logically and reasonably than the scared, angry Palestinian populace?

because they have more guns, more money, more power and more control over the ultimate outcome.

also, xpost, what max said.

which ones? according to the orders of whom?

uh, hamas, and hamas?

So tipsy, countries with more guns, money and power are expected to be filled with people who make political decisions with their brains instead of their guts?

It's not parent vs. child, it's child vs. child. Why is the scared, angry Israeli populace expected to act more logically and reasonably than the scared, angry Palestinian populace? Cause they're slightly whiter?

― iatee, Monday, December 29, 2008 2:56 AM (10 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

this is the dumbest shit ever

stable powerful democratic govt vs. unstable decentered power structures

These aren't accidents of history. Any progress the Palestinians make to go from unstable decentered power structure to stable powerful democratic govt is going to come from them, not from the Israelis. Why is it that other peoples are able to self-determine, but the Palestinians are totally dependent on Israel to do so? I think it's more demeaning to Palestinians to censure Israel for the conflict than to say that they are equal partners. And if Palestinians have more to lose from the conflict than Israelis, than maybe they should act like it.

dude it's not like palestine is an autonomous country like israel... it's occupied... that kind of makes a huge difference in terms of self-determination.

(It's not unlike college administrators saying that if a woman goes to a frat party, gets drunk, undresses, and has consensual sex, that she was raped because the man shouldn't have taken advantage of her inebriated state. There are unexamined, implicit sexist arguments being made there, even though it has the guise of a very enlightened modern argument.)

Many occupied countries, including English-occupied Jewish Israel, were able to self-determine. Are the Palestinians too stupid to figure out what numerous modern states have figured out?

also i agree that israel is a country, not a moral force or a relative of mine, and should be judged by any other country's standards. at the same time, as a jew, that also means to me that it's important to judge its actions the way i would judge any other country's--and not as the only legitimate embodiment of my heritage and the faith of my fathers.

(just saying)

Many occupied countries, including English-occupied Jewish Israel, were able to self-determine. Are the Palestinians too stupid to figure out what numerous modern states have figured out?

― Mordy, Monday, December 29, 2008 3:15 AM (33 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

english-occupied jewish israel did this with no small amount of what you might call "terrorism."

yes and how do you judge the palestinians? as helpless occupied victims just like any other helpless occupied victims?

Yes, it did. I'm not saying that the Palestinians are evil and the Israelis are good. I'm saying that in historical conflicts, sometimes making moral arguments is stupid. If the Palestinians think terrorism will work, they should try it. But we should stop crying when Israel responds.

yes and how do you judge the palestinians? as helpless occupied victims just like any other helpless occupied victims?

― iatee, Monday, December 29, 2008 3:18 AM (39 seconds ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

who said that? i mean, besides you? saying that it's racist not to attribute palestinians magical powers of agency is a dumbass strawman argument.

so pretend I kept that at one sentence. how do you judge the palestinians?

which ones?

the ones who voted for hamas, howbout

a lot of votes for hamas were votes against fatah. and there were plenty of reasons to vote against fatah.

but anyway the question isn't how do you judge the palestinians, it's how you live with them. and likewise the question for the palestinians is how to live with israel. and there is really a limited menu of options. you either have two autonomous states, one combined state, or the current situation of one state plus one quasi-state plus one outlaw territory. israel seems locked into the current situation. gaza is clearly locked into the current situation (i.e. hamas by itself cannot force either a two-state or one-state resolution). fatah and the west bank is a point of leverage, but israel isn't even using that wisely. and the u.s. has essentially been an absentee caretaker of the whole thing for the past eight years.

the current bombing isn't aimed at trying to force any kind of resolution. it's apparently mostly aimed at demonstrating israeli "toughness." but its toughness is not the thing in doubt.

and what's the hamas rocketing aimed at?

getting israel to do this kind of stupid shit that endangers its future.

mission accomplished.

Hey I agree! I just don't feel a lot of sympathy for those doing that, or those who put them in power.

Israel should just do a full invasion and finally eliminate 100% whatever is opposing it. Boo hoo palestinian children with no food! Who cares, life is hard and war is reality when a people wants to wipe you and your entire culture out on a global scale. What's Israel going to do, back up its bags and move to Europe? I'm sure they'd love that over there.

Liberals make me so embarrassed sometimes.

19 years old. embarrassed.

Burt, just fuck off and at least read some books like 80% of us have.

me like book

Tipsy my point is it's not clear there's anything Israel could do right now that would effectively "move toward an actual resolution." The prospects for a two-state solution are pretty terrible. Eliminating the rocket attacks on southern Israel may be the best they can hope for, and trying to do that through military action isn't necessarily a stupid, idiotic, and incompetent policy choice.

however terrible the prospects for two states are, the prospects for everything else are even worse -- especially for israel. there are no alternatives for preserving a jewish state.

Personally, it seems to me that this violent conflict is historically nothing new. Groups of people have been having violent conflicts forever, the only novelty is that we're a bunch of educated US citizens who have the time and luxury to make ethical and moral (and even pragmatic) arguments about what the two sides should do. Sometimes there isn't something that the two sides should do except what they are continuing to do. Maybe historically the Israelis and Palestinians need to exhaust each other on war for fifty more years before something emerges. I'm not saying it doesn't suck, or that there isn't fault to spread around - but that we need to assume that nation states are going to act in their self-interest. Isn't there like an entire field of study based on the assumption that groups of people act in predictable manners and with predictable results? If I ever make Aliyah, which I'd like to do eventually, I'll participate politically and voice my opinions. But it seems stupid to sit in my NYC apartment and rail against either side. Neither of them give a shit what I think - and they really shouldn't.

i'm sure israelis give a pretty humongous shit what american jews think.

It depends which Israelis and which American Jews. Some politicians obviously care. But no one I know living in Israel gives a shit.

I don't agree with most of what Rosner thinks, but I think he's right in this interview about how American Jews don't know shit about Israel on either side of the conflict. http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/12/shmuel_rosner.php

tl;dr

Isn't there like an entire field of study based on the assumption that groups of people act in predictable manners and with predictable results?

there's an entire field of study based on how those manners and results become unpredictable when you change their assumptions. this is a little bit like arguing "simple economics predicts the environment's fucked, no matter what" ... except that there's an entire field of economics emerging that shows how stewardship of a forest or a fishery can be more profitable in the long-run than just taking as much as you can as fast as you can. or how you can be more profitable selling "green" or "organic" products to savvy consumers than selling the cheapest shit possible.

i also really don't like that line of argument: that violent conflicts are as old as history itself, so we should all throw our hands up and be blase about it when it comes up. "oh well, nations will be nations". outrage over violence is as old as violence itself, should that have stopped goya from painting "the horrors of war"? i think there's some value in a sense of moral outrage; given the choice i'd sooner have bitching on the internet about war than no bitching on the internet about war. it's easy to bitch about the situation in the middle east, or choose "sides" when we're so far away from it; but isn't it *easier* if anything to pick cynical armchair realpolitik?

just because a person or institution doesnt give a shit what you think doesnt mean that you shouldnt have an opinion, or that having a considered opinion isnt valuable

Groups of people have been having violent conflicts forever, the only novelty is that we're a bunch of educated US citizens who have the time and luxury to make ethical and moral (and even pragmatic) arguments about what the two sides should do.

totally disingenuous. the u.s. is deeply involved in the situation. it is the 3rd major player, after israel and the palestinians. there are other players too -- syria, iran, the e.u., etc. -- but none of them come close to the power the u.s. wields (or declines to wield). when we're this enmeshed in something, we absolutely should make ethical, moral and pragmatic arguments about it.

xpost: yeah i never buy the "those people have been fighting for thousands of years" bit, no matter who it's said about (irish and english, sunnis and shia, hindus and muslims, whatever). it's generally not true, for one thing. history is always more specific and complicated than that. and it also is sort of a moral handwashing that frees anyone from any obligation or expectation to stop the fighting.

that's not what i'm saying. or at least not what i'm trying to say. i'm trying to say that there was a cease fire. for whatever reason, Hamas decided to break it explicitly and with violence. for whatever reason, israel decided to respond to that with violence and retribution. to now sit down and say, "omgz, y do Israel do these things? it doesn't help them??" as though Israel didn't pick the completely obvious and understandable response, is disingenuous. you want a complex, and large group to act in a specific manner that you have decided is the ideal, rational manner to act (i'm not actually sure what it is you want them to do, actually). but they are acting in a manner that a country would act when a cease fire was broken and rockets were shot into their territory. i don't understand why they deserve censure for that.

or to put differently, you seem to be saying, "Israel has responded to violence with violence before, but it didn't work. Why don't they give peace a chance?" But Israel has also responded to violence with NON-violence before and not taken action. And there was more terrorism. What is the magic response Israel should have that will make everything better?

oh come on. israel has only sporadically been seriously engaged in seeking a real final deal. more often they've set unrealistic conditions (like the cessation of all violence as a precondition for negotiations) that in effect guarantee that nothing will happen. the israeli right wing doesn't want a deal, they're locked into a permanent defensive posture, no matter how damaging it is to the country in the long run. which is why the u.s. will have to force it to happen, if anything's going to.

cessation of all violence is unrealistic? so all negotiations should end with "... but we are still allowed to kill you, right?"

as a precondition for talks, it's unrealistic, yes. it effectively gives the power to anyone with a gun or a rocket to call the whole thing off. it lets the terrorists set the terms. it's not the position of a country serious about solving its problems. the violence is not going to end before a settlement is reached. any settlement will have to happen despite the violence. (and it's not going to end immediately afterward either. but the only chance of it ending at all is to resolve the very large problem of an impoverished and stateless population.)

people who think that what needs to happen is the "violence just has to stop" are being no more honest about the situation and its possible outcomes than people who think what needs to happen with illegal immigration is that it "just has to stop." there are some things you simply cannot dictate, no matter how loud you say them or how many bombs you drop.

the cessation of all violence as a precondition for negotiation is only unrealistic when you think you're negotiating with animals. if you believe the Palestinians are humans, they should be able to deal with that very basic condition.

they're not animals ffs, they're just not monolithic. palestinians have factions, and factions within factions. there are some of them who do not want a settlement (just as there some israelis), and they will do what they can to stop it. the point is to make it harder for a few guys with guns or bombs to decide the fate of the region, not easier. israel has been handing the reins to the terrorists for years.

(and I think they are able to deal with that condition to talks, and if Hamas engages in violence, it is an indication they don't want to negotiate. when they want to negotiate, they will be able to respect a cease fire. this isn't like a random person is performing an act of violence and then negotiations are called off. the other party is committing an act of violence.)

yes, it won't be easy! obviously. actually getting hamas to talk seriously will be very, very hard. dealing with the whole situation will be even harder now than it was 8 years ago. but israel has a certain amount of responsibility for that.

and anyway the fact that it will be very difficult is no excuse for not doing it. it's not going to get easier. there's still only one way out.

i don't even argue about this shit anymore.
― tipsy mothra, Monday, December 29, 2008 2:20 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark

^^
evidently not true, btw. but the argument is dishearteningly repetitive and familiar.

Israel should be erased from the pages of the book of time if they're going to move against an entire people for a renegade move maybe made by ''Hamas'' or whoever gets a handful of rockets. 200 dead is a joke meant to provoke Hamas to act in a way that will push the Israeli government way right in the elections in February.

There is no way the Palestinians can act like a state because of the dehumanizing embargo imposed against them. The Jews who run Israel are terrible in their media face and I bet that reflects across the board of their government. Self-righteous idiots. Ahmadinejad gave a Christmas address on BBC 4 that's more decent than anything I've heard from a Western leader besides Obama. And fuck Israel for ruining Iceland, pouring poison in their ear and flushing their money. Neocon Israel is Nazi, and they're playing their cards so the Greens, Ashkenazis et al won't sweep into power. Death to Reaganite governments everywhere, by any means necessary.