As Mark Landler notes here -- -- the Israeli government has work to do. Right now Netanyahu is taking the same kind of ideology-first position on negotiating with Palestinians that Bush took on all items he deemed terrorism-related. Netanyahu, apparently supported by his diplomatic corps, chooses to ignore the facts of the situation:
* Israel no longer holds the moral high ground, and has lost the diplomatic and public relations battle, even with Hamas, over the last few years. Despite the pandering from otherwise rational people like Senator Chuck Schumer (who must always agree with the Israeli lobby because his base is in New York City), world opinion has come to sympathize with the Palestinian plight.
* Israel's security depends on the cooperation of other nations, like the US and Egypt. By doing weird stuff like trying to seal Gaza, the Israelis undermine that cooperation.
*Israel can not protect itself through settlement of the West Bank. The whole "facts on the ground" approach has been a dismal failure, and even in the short run can't work. Palestinians will not go away.
Netanyahu may have hoped that Obama would have disappeared by now, having lost the health care debate. His anlalysts, like the Republican Party, got that guess wrong, and have to move on from it. Obama will not disappear.
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Friday, April 23, 2010
Holder at Vassar
Four students and I saw Attorney General Holder speak at Vassar College yesterday.
In a fifteen-minute session before his formal speech, Holder took questions from about 75 high school students in a small lecture room. I was impressed with his answers. Most of the time, when public people address young kids, they condescend. Holder's answers were complex, nuanced and forthright. He assumed that the students understood their own questions -- many of which were knowledgable and sophisticated -- and gave his actual opinion.
Nothing, he said, however, was all that surprising or new.
Still, I appreciate the pro-intellectual bent of this administration. When asked about security threats, Holder did not bash the previous adminsitration, and he acknowledged the difficulty of facing real dangers while thinking about civil liberties. When asked about extraordinary renditions, he condemned torture in principle and practice, and made clear -- on intellectual, not personal terms -- that the rejected the view of people like Dick Cheney that torture is necessary.
Holder's speech to a larger crowd in the chapel was unremarkable at best. He spoke on public service, but read the message as if it were written by an aid. It probably was. The whole thing was 15 minutes long and said nothing interesting at all.
On a side note, I found Vassar's approach to him surprisingly obsequious. I'm sure it's no small thing to get the sitting AG to come, but Bates did it all the time and did not fawn and thank and thank and thank the way Vassar did. Even Millbrook does not act so grateful for visits from important personages. It made certain aspects of his visit seem like the arrival of a rock star rather than the speech of a public servant.
In a fifteen-minute session before his formal speech, Holder took questions from about 75 high school students in a small lecture room. I was impressed with his answers. Most of the time, when public people address young kids, they condescend. Holder's answers were complex, nuanced and forthright. He assumed that the students understood their own questions -- many of which were knowledgable and sophisticated -- and gave his actual opinion.
Nothing, he said, however, was all that surprising or new.
Still, I appreciate the pro-intellectual bent of this administration. When asked about security threats, Holder did not bash the previous adminsitration, and he acknowledged the difficulty of facing real dangers while thinking about civil liberties. When asked about extraordinary renditions, he condemned torture in principle and practice, and made clear -- on intellectual, not personal terms -- that the rejected the view of people like Dick Cheney that torture is necessary.
Holder's speech to a larger crowd in the chapel was unremarkable at best. He spoke on public service, but read the message as if it were written by an aid. It probably was. The whole thing was 15 minutes long and said nothing interesting at all.
On a side note, I found Vassar's approach to him surprisingly obsequious. I'm sure it's no small thing to get the sitting AG to come, but Bates did it all the time and did not fawn and thank and thank and thank the way Vassar did. Even Millbrook does not act so grateful for visits from important personages. It made certain aspects of his visit seem like the arrival of a rock star rather than the speech of a public servant.
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Islam and Americans
Two or three weeks ago, I had a long conversation with my parents about the nature of Islam. They had recently finsished reading a book which argued that Islam, in its entirety, was fundamentally immoral and that the rest of us ought to confront it as we would confront fascism or racism.
My response was to say that it might be the case that my morality and theirs did oppose Isalmic moraility in its essence. There might be things about that religion that we found repugnant, and if so we had an obligation to oppose it. On the other hand, such did not seem to be the case. Too many Muslims, including those protesting in Iran, did stand for inclusion and democracy and the like. Too many Muslims, including those fighting for reform in Yemen, want to protect the rights of women and girls. To say that all Muslims, so long as they really are Muslims, are wrong is a factual error as much as a moral one.
Andrew McCarthy, of The New Republic, agrees with my parents. He writes:
As head of Central Command, General Petraeus’s area of responsibility includes Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Middle East. That is, CENTCOM is the U.S. military’s bridge to the Muslim umma, much of which despises America. The vast majority of Americans couldn’t care less about that. It is Islam’s problem, not ours — we’re not dying to be loved by a dysfunctional civilization that produces most of the planet’s terrorists. But for the Wilsonians who deem it worth our time, money, and lives to try to remake the Islamic world, Muslim animus is something that must be addressed — otherwise, they’d have to concede that there is nothing we can do about it, that Muslims resent more than appreciate our help, and that their grand project is thus a fool’s errand.
To say that the entire umma hates America represents a destructive and, more important, factually inaccurate approach to the state of the world. If we base our actions on this view, we will do more damage than good to ourselves.
My response was to say that it might be the case that my morality and theirs did oppose Isalmic moraility in its essence. There might be things about that religion that we found repugnant, and if so we had an obligation to oppose it. On the other hand, such did not seem to be the case. Too many Muslims, including those protesting in Iran, did stand for inclusion and democracy and the like. Too many Muslims, including those fighting for reform in Yemen, want to protect the rights of women and girls. To say that all Muslims, so long as they really are Muslims, are wrong is a factual error as much as a moral one.
Andrew McCarthy, of The New Republic, agrees with my parents. He writes:
As head of Central Command, General Petraeus’s area of responsibility includes Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Middle East. That is, CENTCOM is the U.S. military’s bridge to the Muslim umma, much of which despises America. The vast majority of Americans couldn’t care less about that. It is Islam’s problem, not ours — we’re not dying to be loved by a dysfunctional civilization that produces most of the planet’s terrorists. But for the Wilsonians who deem it worth our time, money, and lives to try to remake the Islamic world, Muslim animus is something that must be addressed — otherwise, they’d have to concede that there is nothing we can do about it, that Muslims resent more than appreciate our help, and that their grand project is thus a fool’s errand.
To say that the entire umma hates America represents a destructive and, more important, factually inaccurate approach to the state of the world. If we base our actions on this view, we will do more damage than good to ourselves.
What the Constitution is Not
One reader of the Chillicothe Gazette may reveal exactly why so many "conservatives" think the health care bill is unconstitutional.
The argument is that health care does not appear anywhere in the constitution. That fact is correct. But neither do airplanes, railroads or oil.
Article I section 8 does strictly limit what Congress and the rest of the federal government can do. I appreciate efforts to hold the government to its job. It's a gross misunderstanding of the document, however, to say that if the thing does not mention a particular issue, that issue can not be addressed.
The argument is that health care does not appear anywhere in the constitution. That fact is correct. But neither do airplanes, railroads or oil.
Article I section 8 does strictly limit what Congress and the rest of the federal government can do. I appreciate efforts to hold the government to its job. It's a gross misunderstanding of the document, however, to say that if the thing does not mention a particular issue, that issue can not be addressed.
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