The Only Post I Will Ever Make on this Subject
This is one of those posts that I know deep in my bones that I'm going to regret, but what the hell: reverend_kate recently brought up one of everyone's favorite topics -- the Arab-Israeli conflict -- and I can't resist tonguing a sore tooth. There are at least three Damned Facts about this situation that I think are undeniable:
1. Hamas stockpiles weapons in civilian homes while the IDF spends millions of dollars and man-hours to avoid killing civilians. No matter how much anyone gesticulates at the uglier side of Israeli culture, there's no escaping the reality that the central tendency of Israeli behavior is much closer in keeping with what we regard as elementary human decency than that of the Palestinians. This fact is tacitly acknowledged every time someone from a Western nation gets outraged over an instance of Israeli brutality (real or imagined) yet makes excuses for Palestinian behavior that's even more depraved -- because after all, the standards are lower.
2. The "peace process" has been the best thing that ever happened to Palestinian militias, and, indirectly, the Israeli hard right wing. Wars happen because the judgments of the parties involved about who'll win in a struggle are mutually incompatible, and the only way to prevent or end war is to convince one side that there is no hope of winning. Transforming this regional political issue into an international one has had one and only one clear effect: to muddy the waters and fuel the collective fantasies of Palestinians that there was any hope of actually driving the Israelis out.
3. US foreign policy is enormously warped by its entrenched commitments to Israel, which made sense in the Cold War but haven't for a good couple of decades now. They've proven they're big boys and can stand on their own. Unfortunately the Cold War provided more than enough time for the foreign policy circuit (I almost wrote "circus") to fall under the influence of people who are, for practical purposes, the international marketing wing of the Israeli government. I'm not a big fan of Mearsheimer & Walt, and I don't think there's anything especially insidious about this particular lobby, but the basic facts they bring up are undeniable. US troops would not be in Iraq right now if it weren't so.
There. That ought to offend just about everyone. Ultimately the best Western answer to the Arab-Israeli conflict is to do what we should have done 20 years ago: absolutely nothing.
1. Hamas stockpiles weapons in civilian homes while the IDF spends millions of dollars and man-hours to avoid killing civilians. No matter how much anyone gesticulates at the uglier side of Israeli culture, there's no escaping the reality that the central tendency of Israeli behavior is much closer in keeping with what we regard as elementary human decency than that of the Palestinians. This fact is tacitly acknowledged every time someone from a Western nation gets outraged over an instance of Israeli brutality (real or imagined) yet makes excuses for Palestinian behavior that's even more depraved -- because after all, the standards are lower.
2. The "peace process" has been the best thing that ever happened to Palestinian militias, and, indirectly, the Israeli hard right wing. Wars happen because the judgments of the parties involved about who'll win in a struggle are mutually incompatible, and the only way to prevent or end war is to convince one side that there is no hope of winning. Transforming this regional political issue into an international one has had one and only one clear effect: to muddy the waters and fuel the collective fantasies of Palestinians that there was any hope of actually driving the Israelis out.
3. US foreign policy is enormously warped by its entrenched commitments to Israel, which made sense in the Cold War but haven't for a good couple of decades now. They've proven they're big boys and can stand on their own. Unfortunately the Cold War provided more than enough time for the foreign policy circuit (I almost wrote "circus") to fall under the influence of people who are, for practical purposes, the international marketing wing of the Israeli government. I'm not a big fan of Mearsheimer & Walt, and I don't think there's anything especially insidious about this particular lobby, but the basic facts they bring up are undeniable. US troops would not be in Iraq right now if it weren't so.
There. That ought to offend just about everyone. Ultimately the best Western answer to the Arab-Israeli conflict is to do what we should have done 20 years ago: absolutely nothing.