The Cycle Continues

As of this moment, the Gaza Strip remains relatively quiet, as a cease fire holds between the Israeli military and Hamas.

I have nothing funny to say about this situation. (Yeah, yeah: “Why should today be different?” Ha ha.) As a middle-aged American Jew, one who attended elementary school at a yeshiva no less, I have a certain quasi-genetic connection to Israel—to the idea of Israel at any rate. I’ve never been there, and never really had any strong desire to visit, but I admit to taking some comfort in the thought of a strong Jewish nation. Historical examples of the persecution of Jews are not hard to find—and, frankly, not that historical, Animals attacking the US Capitol, wearing shirts that read “6MWE”—six-million wasn’t enough—come to mind. So you’ll have to forgive me if I take some comfort in the thought of a nuclear-armed nation ready to stand up for the rights of Jews everywhere.

At the same time, I am thoroughly disgusted by the right-wing government that has run Israel more or less uninterrupted for the last twenty-plus years. I hate the idea that Israel is becoming—has become—an apartheid state, where Arab citizens are legally discriminated against because of their ethnicity. I think the settler movement, creating “facts on the ground” in occupied territories, is self-defeating at best and rank colonialism at worst. And as a secular Jew, I find the governmental kowtowing to extreme right-wing Orthodox factions just as appalling in Israel as its parallel in US politicians’ pandering to Evangelical zealots. 

I’m also troubled by the images of destruction and the loss of life—particularly the deaths of children—in the Gaza Strip. But I find more than a little hypocritical the worldwide condemnation of Israel that pours forth whenever Israel responds to Hamas rocket attacks with military force. People condemn Israel’s response as disproportionate, presumably because the rockets launched at Israel are largely ineffectual. But I’m not sure exactly what these critics feel that Israel should do. Ignore the rockets? What other country in the world would be expected to show such restraint?

Now, I know, critics of Israel will argue that Hamas is just representing people who have legitimate grievances against an occupying presence. I don’t entirely disagree with the idea that legitimate grievances exist (see above). And I would agree that the political stance of Netanyahu and his supporters have made things worse. But the problem is that Hamas has never even (to my knowledge) paid lip service to the idea of living in peace with Israel. They’ve made no secret of their desire to see Israel destroyed. So what would even a more liberal, less confrontational Israeli government do?

I have no solution, here. I would love to see Israel pull out of its settlements, if for no other reason than to provide critics with less ammunition to condemn the country’s efforts at legitimate self-defense. Beyond that, though, I despair that we will ever see an end to constant cycles of calm followed by bloodshed followed by calm. . . .but calm that never advances to the level of peace.

In Which We Discuss the Mideast, the VFW, Literary Protests, Refugees, and the Fear of Dying Unnoticed

I have an MPA, a masters in public administration.  When people ask what that means, I (half) joke that an MPA is like an MBA for people who don't like money.  It's not like there's an actual job title, "public administrator."

Or so I thought.  Turns out, "public administrator" is a thing--at least in New York City, where the euphemistic title goes to someone whose job it is to manage the final affairs and distribute the estates of those who die alone, unknown, unnoticed.  Makes me think they need to change the title of the degree.

At any rate, a front-page novella-length story about the final disposition of a virtually anonymous New Yorker did accomplish its no-doubt-intended goal of inspiring your old pal The Solipsist (oh, heck, we've known each other so long--just call me "The") to pick up the laptop again and start tapping away.

My problem of late has been twofold: lack of time combined with lack of inspiration.  Not much I can do about the former.  As an economics professor once explained, time is the scarcest resource, the one thing you cannot get more of no matter how much you try.  Of course, this economics professor seemed to hold the opinion that a functioning economy could be built around guns and butter, so we must take her pronouncements with a grain of salt--unless of course we are talking about rural Iowa where, if the local populace is any indication, guns and butter may, indeed, be the primary commodities.  What was my point?  Ah, yes.

The second deficiency, though, the lack of inspiration, is, I think, more manageable.  After all, if I do nothing more than riff on the day's events as outlined on the front page of the paper of record, I should be able to find enough to talk about, right?  I've been thinking about this for the past couple of weeks.  Each day, as I read through the news of the day, my conscience would prod me to get to it, open a new tab, type in The Solipsist URL, and start writing.  But such prodding was no match for my will power, which held firm in resisting those urgings.  Today, though, reading about the lonely death of George Bell, so detached himself from the world that his passing went unnoticed and largely unmourned, I couldn't help but think, "This is what the Times considers front-page material?!?"  But then I also thought, I can wait 'til I die alone like George Bell to have a trivial impact on the world, or I can get back to solipsizing and have my trivial impact here and now.

Easy choice, really.

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What a surprise: The Middle-East remains violently dysfunctional.  Today's update features aggrieved Palestinians in East Jerusalem, lamenting the crackdowns put in place by Israeli security forces after a series of stabbing attacks by Palestinians on Jews.  Can't blame the innocent for feeling aggrieved; but you can't blame Israel for attempts to suppress the attacks, either.  A no-win situation.... Intractable.... Yadda yadda yadda. 

But that's the thing, really--the thing that's so frustrating: The situation really isn't intractable.  I mean, the solution is simple, right?  Some land for Palestinians, some basic security for Israel.  You would think that the greatest minds in diplomacy would be able to make that happen.  And yet. . .

I don't really have anything funny to say about this, ore even anything particularly interesting to add to the discussion.  All rather depressing, really.

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Not your father's VFW hall.  When I think of VFW halls, I don't.  But if pressed, I would probably describe a dimly lit, wood-paneled rec room-type space.  Folding tables and chairs.  Some flags.  Old men in funny hats drinking beer.  Now, however, in an effort to attract younger members, the Veterans of Foreign Wars has introduced new programs at some lodges.  Yoga, photography classes, child care.  Come to think of it, it all kind of sounds like the Jewish Community Center of San Francisco, only the JCC doesn't mandate yarmulkes, so the funny hats are optional.

Why is the English transliteration of the traditional Jewish skullcap, 'yarmulke'?  I've never heard anyone pronounce it that way.  It's "yahmika."  Like in the joke:

Guy goes up to his friend, "Hey, why the long face?"

"I've had the weirdest day.  This morning, I'm walking down the street, and I see this hat lying on the ground.  I pick it up, and inside I find a ten-dollar bill.  So, y'know, I think this is a sign.  I go to the track, and in the first race, there's this horse--Fedora--hundred-to-one odds.  I figure, what the heck.  I put the ten-dollars down, and sure enough the horse wins!  Well, in the next race, there's ANOTHER horse--Brown Derby--also going off at a hundred-to-one odds.  I bet--and I win!"

"Wow, that's incredible!"

"Yeah, but I should have quit while I was ahead. . . . In the next race, I bet another hundred-to-one shot with a 'hat' name, and he came in dead last!"

"Oh, man.  What was the name?"

"Chateau."

"Idiot!  'Chateau' is a house, not a hat.  You're thinking of 'chapeau.'"

"Damn!  Wish you'd have been there to talk me out of that bet.  I'd have a hundred thousand dollars right now."

"Yeah, too bad.  Say, what horse won the race, anyway?"

"Oh, some Japanese horse named Yahmika."

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In India, to protest the government's responses (or lack thereof) to recent attacks on writers and other citizens by Hindu nationalist groups, several prominent authors have returned literary awards they received from the Indian National Academy.  This, to me, is unimaginable: A country where literature is valued enough to make the returning of literary awards a meaningful protest.

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I'd make a terrible refugee.  Here you have these poor people, displaced by ceaseless violence in Syria, gathering their families and what few belongings they can carry, and undertaking arduous and sometimes life-threatening journeys by rickety boat or treacherous land routes.  They trek through Turkey, through Croatia, hoping to get to Hungary and eventually to Austria and parts West.  They face all manner of obstacles, not least of which is hostility from the authorities in the countries through which they travel.  If they're lucky, they find themselves in a relatively safe country, where they can hope to start rebuilding their shattered lives.

Meantime, I get invited to a birthday party in the city?  I'm spending all afternoon mentally debating whether or not it's worth the drive.  For what it's worth, I'd probably also be all kinds of useless in a zombie apocalypse.

The Solipsist Reads the Paper! (So You Don't Have To)

A couple of interesting nuggest from today's paper.

As President Obama winds up his trip to Israel, he can boast at least one significant accomplishment: brokering a rapprochement between the governments of Israel and Turkey.  The two American allies had maintained a frosty relationship since an incident in 2010 when Israeli troops enforcing a naval blockade on the Gaza Strip boarded a Turkish vessel that was on a humanitarian mission.  Violence broke out, several people were killed, and the Turkish government broke off diplomatic relations with Israel.  At the urging of President Obama, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered a formal apology to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayip Erdogan, who accepted the apology.  The two countries will once again exchange ambassadors.

What was interesting about the apology is that it occurred in a phone call that was made from. . .  a trailer.  One doesn't normally see such high-level diplomacy conducted from such a location--at least, diplomacy that doesn't involve Mexican drug cartels.  The trailer itself was at Ben Gurion airport.  Were the phones in Air Force One not working?

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Another article profiled Brian Brown, the president of the National Organization for Marriage, which is the primary organizational force behind the battle to forbid governmental recognition of same-sex marriage.  Brown is a Catholic who has already fathered eight--count 'em, eight!--children.  So, if we assume that one of the arguments against same-sex marriage is that the purpose of marriage is to produce children, I say that as long as we have dedicated procreators like Brian Brown, we have little to fear from a few gay marriages: He alone has already made up for the presumed barrenness of four to eight gay couples!

Also, has anyone considered the irony of the fact that the primary organization battling against the right to same-sex couples to wed is the National Organization for Marriage.  Orwell would be proud. 

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Finally, another front-page piece describes the dearth of female students in a number of New York City's most selective high schools.  How bad is the situation?  Well, at Stuyvesant High School, "Kathryn Rafailov, 16, a junior, said boys so dominated her square-dancing class that they had to pair off with one another."

Try to put aside for the moment the fact that Stuyvesant High School has a square-dancing class.  More troubling is the fact that a public high school is apparently OK with boys dosey-do-ing other boys!  Alert Brian Brown!

No Bullying Pulpit

This seventh-grader, Benny, is a really nice kid who lives in a rough neighborhood--has lived there all his life.  The other neighborhood kids have never liked Benny--most of them kind of hate him.  They always call him names, pick fights with him, what have you.  And over the years, Benny's gotten pretty tough: He's had to!  When the other kids start hassling him, he gives as good as he gets.  And Benny has one big advantage over the other neighborhood kids: His best friend, Barry, is the star linebacker on the local high school football team.  Barry has always looked out for Benny (he's an old friend of Benny's family), and he always will.

Lately, though, Benny has started to annoy Barry.  See, Benny's been going around threatening the local bullies, warning them that if he even thinks they're going to start trouble, he's fully prepared to make life extremely miserable for them.  It's not a completely unreasonable position to take--this is a very rough neighborhood.  But now Benny's also demanding that Barry make some serious threats towards these kids as well.

Barry doesn't think this is such a great idea.  Sure, Barry could make the threats--and even back them up: He's a senior linebacker, and these are essentially just little kids.  But Barry has other things on his mind: his classes, an after-school job, college applications, to say nothing of the big game coming up against Mitford Prep. . .  OK, you get the point.

I am Jewish, and a strong supporter of Israel--or at any rate of the ideal of Israel: a secular democracy in an otherwise benighted land, a haven for a historically persecuted people--my people.  But when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu starts issuing demands that President Obama declare "red lines" to Iran--lines which the Islamic Republic dare not cross in its pursuit of nuclear weapons lest it find itself on the receiving end of an American attack--I just feel like telling him: Shut. Up.

I don't want to see Iran get the bomb (though I still have a philosophical problem with the idea that a nuclear-armed country has some sort of right to forbid another country from acquiring same).  I understand Netanyahu's concern.  However, he has no right to demand that another country--a country that has done more for his land than any other nation in the world--essentially commit itself to go to war on his behalf if some arbitrary "red line" is crossed.  Netanyahu, of course, says such lines would make war less likely, as Iran wouldn't want to provoke a US onslaught.  But I can't help thinking that Bibi--who seems all too eager to unleash hell on Iran--would see American red lines as green lights: How much time do you suppose would pass between an American ultimatum and Israel presenting Washington with evidence of Iranian violations?  I put the over-under at a week.  And then what?

Mitt Romney--Surprise!--thinks President Obama is showing contempt to our staunchest ally.  But it's easy to play backseat president before the election.  And even Romney hasn't said what his red lines would be. 

If Netanyahu is so gung-ho to attack Iran, let him do so.  The United States will, as President Obama affirmed at a recent gathering of Jewish leaders, "have Israel's back."  But Bibi must understand that the American people are quite weary of Middle East wars and have little appetite for another one.  We remember George W. Bush, who was all too willing to issue threats and ultimatums, and we are none too thrilled with how all that turned out.  I, at least, appreciate a President who is not willing to make bombastic threats for no reason other than that a friend asked him to.  President Obama has certainly failed to live up to his Nobel Peace Prize in many ways, but in this instance, at least, he is showing the right spirit.

Strategic Error

A few year's back, a survey revealed that cabbies held the most potentially fatal job.  It should tell you something, then, that a number of Iranian nuclear scientists have recently applied for jobs driving cabs.

Well, maybe not, but I wouldn't be surprised.

On Wednesday, an Iranian scientist was killed when a bomb was attached magnetically to his car during rush hour.  The killers, who were riding a motorcycle, got away.  This was just the latest such assassination of people involved in Iran's nuclear program.  Most international observers suspect that the United States and Israel have played a role in the attacks, and the slick, high-tech nature of the assaults certainly sounds like the kind of thing the CIA or, more likely, the Mossad would pull off.  The Mossad don't play.

While the thought of a nuclear-armed Iran is slightly less appealing to an Israeli (or to most Americans) than the thought of eating a Madagascar cockroach, I find myself troubled by this particular strategy--if, indeed, Israel is behind it (more on that later).  To disrupt Iran's progress toward nuclear weapons, certain tactics are legal and acceptable--economic sanctions, for example.  Other strategies of questionable legality still fall under the heading of morally acceptable.  Whoever launched the Stuxnet computer virus against Iranian systems (again, most people suspect Israel and/or the United States), violated international law; however, by avoiding violence and "collateral damage," this action meets certain ethical standards.  Once you start assasinating people, however--especially when these people are ostensibly involved in peaceful activities (Iran claims to want nuclear power only for civilian purposes)--you have crossed a line.

I understand that Israel considers a nuclear-armed Iran to be an existential threat, and that the Israeli government will take any steps they can to prevent such an eventuality.  I could even see a case being made for assassinations--even though these obviously violate norms of international law.  But there are "more or less" acceptable targets for such actions.  Military targets, of course: Soldiers and officers have chosen to pursue a career that, by definition, entails a risk of death.  Even politicians may be considered fair game, especially when they engage in apocalyptic rhetoric about wiping other countries off the map, for example; I certainly wouldn't shed any tears if Mahmoud Ahmadinejad had an "unfortunate accident."  Scientists, however, are not legitimate targets.  They are civilians.

Beyond being unethical, targeting scientists would seem to be counterproductive.  After all, if Iran feels that its nuclear scientists are being targeted by foreign agents, the government will simply take steps to make sure that these people are under protective custody at all times.  Whereas political figures must make public appearances--and therefore put themselves at risk--scientists are under no such obligations.  Indeed, the fact that scientists continue to die has caused some to speculate that the Iranian government itself is behind the recent assassinations, killing relatively minor figures in the nuclear industry in order to cast blame on its foreign enemies.  That sounds a little far-fetched--Israel has certainly never been shy about violently eradicating perceived threats--but who knows?

Israel has a rough enough time in the court of international opinion.  In many respects, this is a result of fanatical anti-Zionism or, indeed, anti-Semitism.  But Israel does itself no favors by targeting civilians in other countries for assassination.  If the Israelis are doing this, they need to stop.

Time for Movement

We have skewed priorities. This realization struck us when, today, we realized we were more perplexed by the question of whether cheerleading qualifies as a sport than by the question of what should be done in the Middle East peace process.

Tensions flared after President Obama explicitly stated that any comprehensive peace treaty between Israel and the Palestinians must use Israel's 1967 borders as a starting point. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and others took exception. What has gotten lost in the uproar over the President's remarks, however, are the facts that (a) Obama proposed this as a starting point for negotiations, not a goal; (b) he emphasized that the 1967 borders will need to be adjusted with mutually-agreed upon land swaps to account for modern reality; and, most importantly, (c) President Obama merely made explicit what everybody, American and Israeli (and Arab and European and Russian and so on), has implicitly understood for the last 40 years. Only those fundamentally opposed to a peace deal see things otherwise.

For what it's worth, we think Israel must make some grand gesture along the lines Obama and others have outlined. We understand and sympathize with Israeli fears that a large portion of the Arab world is hostile to the very idea of Israel's existence, and we worry, too, that these parties are less than reliable peace partners. But what choice is there? Ultimately, Israel is surrounded by enemies. Her only hope for long-term survival is to build and maintain as much international support as possible. By showing willingness to embrace serious peace proposals, Israel maintains the moral high ground she has as the only truly functioning democracy in the Middle East. If and when Israel is still met only with terrorism and other hostilities, she can legitimately claim she has tried everything and been met with nothing but recalcitrant violence.

Some will say this is too risky a strategy, but they should remember that Israel still has the most sophisticated military in the region and, yes, the explicit backing of the most powerful country in the world. Israel needs to take some risks, and now is the time to do so.

OK, we'll get to the cheerleading thing tomorrow.

The Power of Symbols

Food for thought:

Scott Atran, an anthropologist, and Jeremy Ginges, a psychology professor, co-authored an article in today's Times about their research on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  They surveyed some 4,000 residents of this volatile area between 2004 and 2008, and they made some interesting discoveries about what drives the continuing conflict--or, to be more precise, about what each side sees as possible ways forward in resolving the conflict.

Basically, they found that it all comes down to symbolism.  That is, what the international community sees as common-sense proposals (e.g., Israel pulls back to its pre-1967 borders and Palestinians give up their "right of return" to Israel) are often met with skepticism by the parties involved.  When these proposals are "sweetened" with hypothetical inducements (e.g, international financial support for a nascent Palestinian state), the parties feel insulted.  But when what would seem to be purely symbolic gestures were proposed, the parties were often intrigued.  For example, a prominent Hamas member rejected the "common-sense" suggestion and the financial rewards, but he admitted a possible starting point of negotiations if Israel would simply make a formal apology to those displaced by the country's creation in 1948.  Similarly, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, no one's idea of a big softie, said that a major first step toward negotiations and agreements would be Hamas simply acknowledging Israel's "right to exist."

Now, that last one sounds a bit more than purely symbolic: A fair question would be how a country could negotiate with another country that refuses to acknowledge such an existential right.  Still, one assumes that Israel is, on the whole, secure enough in its reality that it puts little stock in Hamas's failure to recognize this right.  So while such an acknowledgment might be difficult for hardline militants to make, Israel knows it really, in and of itself, means nothing.  And yet THAT was what got Netanyahu thinking about peace.

So here we have two no-cost first steps that both sides could take that would anger no one but the most fringe elements on either side.  Sounds good.  Let's do it.

But it can't be that simple.  For one thing, just as a chain is only as strong as its weakest link, a political party is only as stable as its least stable members.  Remember, it wasn't an Arab terrorist who killed Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin; it was a fanatical right-wing Israeli angered at Rabin's moves towards peace.  And it was Islamic terrorists who killed Anwar Sadat for making peace with the Zionist enemy.

The reason these symbolic gestures are so hard to make--and so valued by the warring parties--is that they suggest that the fanatical elements can be brought under control.  The "common sense" solutions are unattractive because neither side believes the other HAS any common sense.  And while that's not true, the problem is that the ones who DO lack common sense--Hamas terrorists, ultra-religious Zionists--who would probably not agree to take even symbolic steps--are the ones who can hijack the process.

So, is this realization of the essentially easy "appeasement" of the hardliners cause for optimism?  Or is it a sign of the basic futility of the situation?