Category Archives: Current Affairs

Israel in the West Bank

Americana, Current Affairs, Politics, Uncategorized

Listening to Bibi Netanyahu’s speech – OK, not really listening to it, just listening to stuff about it like Congress fawning over him – just puts me in a rage. I grew up in a family that thought Israel was the greatest. Bringing democracy to the heathens, making the desert bloom, blah, blah, blah. I am not sure when I started to think that Israel was doing evil – maybe it started when I realized that Making the desert bloom. was another way of saying that We are using everybody’s water, including the Palestinians, it was almost certainly by the time I learned that Palestinians children were being killed at a rate of over seven times that of Israeli children1 – but I do now. And I don’t use that term lightly.

For sure, I don’t use that term lightly. Using it opens me up to too many charges. Charges of being a self hating Jew; charges of being an anti-Semite. Because anybody who disagrees with Israel must be an anti-Semite. It puts me in the company of alot of haters that I find abhorrent. But – the bottom line is – what Israel is doing and what they have been doing is evil.

I don’t think that Americans have any idea what is going on with the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and I don’t think we want to know.

It’s not just that the Israelis are building settlements in the west bank, it is – to protect those settlements – that they have to control Palestinian movement and access in the West Bank. Like all occupiers, to stay safe, the Israelis have to completely dominate and control the Palestinians. They have to maintain a full press occupation of the West Bank. Of course that leads to harassment both institutional and ad-hoc.  Alain Salomon and Katia Solomon have a Op Ed in the New York Times that gives a chilling description of going through an Israeli checkpoint near Ramallah. They say As we entered this narrow space I looked at the barbed wire further on. We are Jewish, and began to weep. How was it possible that our own people, who have gone through such suffering, can inflict this ordeal, intended to humiliate and intimidate another people?

Towns like Hebron have been turned into virtual jails.

And – very importantly – what Israel is doing will lead to failure for Israel. Thoughtful Jews like Emily Hauser and Rabbi Brant Rosen know that as do a huge number of Israelis in Israel. It is sad that our Congress doesn’t seem to.

1. According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Interestingly – but depressingly – the American Press reports those killings at a ratio of about seven times – for the New York Times – to twelve times – for ABC Television -more for the Israeli children so we dobn’t know more Palestinians are being killed. 

Today – One Hundred and Fifty Years Ago – the Civil War started

Americana, Current Affairs, Politics, War

After the last shot was fired, the United States was changed forever.  Up to now – 150 years ago – the United States had always been referred to in the plural as in The United States are not Europe; after the Civil War, the United States will be refereed to in the singular as in The United States is not Europe . In his first inaugural address, Lincoln used the word Union twenty times, he did not use the word Nation once. The Civil War made the Union a Nation.

 

The arrogance of power….Libya edition

Current Affairs

I am ambivalent on our going after Gaddafi – spelled Moammar Kadafi in the L. A. Times, Muammar el-Qaddafi in the N.Y. Times, Muammar Qaddafi in the Christian Science Monitor, and Gaddafi in Al Jazeera: I’ll go with Gaddafi – and that is really what we are doing. I am bouncing around like a ping-pong ball in a garbage disposal. He is a madman killing innocent people; we should intervene.  This is really a war between two Libyan tribes; we shouldn’t be involved. By doing very little, we can make a big difference; we should help. We are already fighting two wars, we really don’t need to get in another one; we shouldn’t go to war. The Arab League wants us to stop the carnage: we should get involved. Now the Arab league says we are doing too much; we shouldn’t get involved. And back and forth I go.

I am not so sure that Gaddafi is a madman but he sure seems to be brutal and sure seems to be killing who ever he can who doesn’t worship him. But, in Syria, where protesters set fire to the ruling Baath Party headquarters and other government buildings, police are killing people; and in Bahrain – where our Fifth Fleets calls home port – King bin Isa Al Khalifa, who said  a foreign plot against his kingdom had been foiled, got help from the Saudis in killing protesters . Should we go there also?

Aside from being able to find Libya on a map and knowing that they are on the UN Human Rights Commission – incredible in itself – I didn’t know much about Libya until a couple of weeks ago. From what I read now, Libya has a very strong tribal structure and to a great extent, this war is a Civil War between Libyan tribes. As bad as Gaddafi is, should we really be picking sides in a Civil War?  We have done that in Iraq and the outcome is not looking like Jeffersonian democracy.

The theory is we can do alot of good by doing very little. Except that it never ends up being doing very little. Wars – interventions – always grow.

We are already fighting two wars and we really don’t need to get in another one. True, but this does seem to be one case where the heavy lifting is being done by somebody else. Although this will not be done on the cheap: on the first day alone, the Navy launched 110 cruise missiles and they cost about  $500,000 each.

Before we did get involved – a delicate way of saying before we started killing people – the Arab League wanted us to get involved. The problem here is that the Arab League should more accurately be called the Asshole and Badguy League. Its members include Bahrain’s King bin Isa Al Khalifa, Bashar al-Assad of Syria, the Saud family, Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh, Muammar Qaddafi – now suspended – and, until a few weeks ago, Tunisia’s Ben Ali and Egypt’s Mubarak. It should be no surprise to anyone that they are not flying planes or sending troops. They have not even offered to hold our coat while the west does the dirty work.

Where the arrogance of power comes in is Obama  – who was so critical of the abuse of Executive power under Bush – making this very difficult decision on the fly without taking it to Congress. Even Bush went to Congress over Iraq. In the end, I realize that I get to be loftily ambivalent and Obama does not have that luxury; but I am troubled by his taking us to war by fiat. Power does corrupt.

By the way, the incredible picture at the top was shot by Goran Tomasevic.

Egypt and Afghanistan

Americana, Current Affairs, Obama, War

Egypt-protests2

It seems to me that what we are trying to do for the Afghans – free them from a repressive and backward regime – the Egyptians did for themselves. Or, at least, are trying to do for themselves. And because they fought for freedom themselves with some of them dying and a lot of them making sacrifices, they have a much better chance of getting it. Because Americans are the ones dying for freedom in Afghanistan, the Afghans have almost no investment. Why should they.

If, in 1776,  an 100,000 man French army had come to the Colonies and got rid of the English for us, I think our commitment to democracy would be different. If all we did was wait for the French to win and then they said Here is your country, I doubt we could have made democracy stick.

In Egypt, I read, people are cleaning the streets, Tahrir Square is clean. The Egyptians are taking pride in their country.  We had to take control of our country and, I am afraid, the Afghans will have to do the same.  We can't do it for them.

A couple of days ago, Michele and I watched the HBO movie, The Battle for Marjeh. We were both taken by the fact that the Americans were doing most of the heavy lifting, the Afghan Army seemed expert at always being where the action wasn't.

People say that Afghanistan is the graveyard of Empires. I don't think that is true. To quote somebody -Tom Ricks, I think – We'll eventually leave Afghanistan to its fate, but it will be because we've finally figured out that the stakes there aren't worth the effort, especially given the low odds of meaningful success.  It's just taking us longer to figure that out than it should.

I think the real question is If everything were the same in Afghanistan except we weren't there, would Obama commit 100,000 troops? I doubt it.