Comments on Unsettling Israel by CK MacLeod

George Jochnowitz wrote:

Israel does not have a Nasser leading it.

Never suggested it did - though it depends upon how you define "a Nasser": You might say Israel couldn't afford one - or couldn't afford to elevate its would-be Nassers to positions of responsibility. I meant mainly to suggest that, though Sadat was assassinated, his protege took over, and the peace with Egypt has lasted for more than a generation, and was followed by the peace with Jordan, whose monarch died in bed, and passed his throne to his son.

On 8 February the flag-draped coffin carrying the body of the King left his home which he called the "Door of Peace" Palace after the peace he forged with Israel. All five of his sons were in close attendance and an honor guard of Bedouin troops accompanied the casket of the monarch on a 90-minute procession through the streets of the capital city of Amman. An estimated 800,000 Jordanians (an estimated 20% of the country's population at the time), many of them weeping, braved icy winds to say farewell to their leader.[15] The funeral was attended by many dignitaries and statesmen from around the world.[16] That same day the UN General Assembly held an Emergency Special Session in "Tribute to the Memory of His Majesty the King of Jordan".[17]

Multiple asymmetries are built into the Arab-Israeli conflict, and are reflected in the different tactics, outlooks, goals of both sides. That may be the major reason why you find it so difficult to establish one set of rules of legitimacy and morality that applies equally to Jew and Muslim, Israeli and Palestinian, Westerner and Arab.

As for Rabin and his legacy, that's a matter for discussion. It's hard for me to put any of his successors in the same league, and we'll of course never know what might have happened if he had survived longer.

@ George Jochnowitz:
Would you rather there was a Sadat Square, but a Nasser policy?

@ George Jochnowitz:
Legitimizing the illegitimate de-legitimizes the legitimate.

To the extent your argument - all settlements are equal - becomes Israel's argument, it becomes an argument against Israel, or, to be precise, a nullification of all arguments in favor of Israel. All that's left over is brute force, which happens to support Israel's existence currently, but provides no long term security, and no moral basis for anyone else to support Israel over its enemies.

@ George Jochnowitz:
What about what about us? We hardly even register compared to JRub in terms of volume. As for content, that's a matter for criticism.

@ Rex Caruthers:
Maybe we should put up a "JRub monitor" - though I'd like to see it broken down into number of words as well as posts. With a little more effort, you could sort out it according to topic areas or key words.

She reminds me of the LA Lakers great motormouth basketball announcer Chick Hearn, who died a few years ago. He gave the impression that he never stopped announcing at high speed: It was just a question of someone happening to turn on a microphone in his vicinity, and picking up the stream of consciousness.

It seems that she's gone automatic - and out of her mind with ideology, like many of her comrades, though in her case the condition may have already crossed over into fanaticism.

George Jochnowitz wrote:

Where is his analog in the Arab world? I haven’t read any op-eds by Arabs who are willing to settle for less.
And could one have imagined an American analog during World War II? Once the war started, the Henry Fords and Prescott Bushes all shut up, and the country was unanimously for the unconditional surrender of its enemies..

Doing a lot of reading in the Arab language press these days? Do you have any idea, really, what you might run across in a Jordanian, Moroccan, Iraqi, or Lebanese newspaper, not to mention in the Arab language papers printed outside the ME? And what do you mean by "settle for less"? Aside from the countries with peace treaties with Israel,the official position of the Arab League is still the "Arab Piece Initiative of 2002" (aka the Saudi Plan).

It seems to me that you have a very idealized notion of the world and its history in which Israel and/or the Jews always end up the subjects of irrational and all-encompassing and uncompromising hatred and rejection. Obviously, there's too much historical justification to call this view purely paranoid, but "not purely paranoid" is not the same as a "wise" or "reasonable."

George Jochnowitz wrote:

But we were apparently afraid that millions of Jews would suddenly descend upon the US and change our way of life.

There may be a kind of underlying or moral truth to this statement, but, as phrased, it's a scandalous charge based on thin speculation. "We" were not consulted on that issue. I've never in a lifetime of reading about WW2 seen anyone mention the prospect of millions of Jews emigrating to the U.S. mentioned by anyone as a concern or even a notion.
"Why didn't they interdict the Holocaust?" is an old argument. Gaps in general intelligence, understanding, and willingness to believe in what was going on may all have played a role, but, as I understand it, for most of the war, the main death camps and transportation networks would have been at or beyond the extreme limits of the operational range of allied air forces, and well beyond their effective range, since successful disruption of rail lines was not an easy feat. I believe we even discussed this matter at Contentions. I may also be able to find some relevant discussion in Max Hastings' book on the final years of the European war.

@ Rex Caruthers:
Not sure you have that diagnosis right, not that I or anyone else does.

As I've suggested before, and may post on soon, perhaps in response to the Black article - but it's a complex subject - one view of the current era is the exhaustion of the paradoxical American national concept.

@ Rex Caruthers:
Not to damn him with faint praise, but why do you put BHO on the list? He seems to be odd man out for his lack of fierce commitment to any particular utopianism.