Barack Hearts Bibi
Posted: 02 Sep 2010 11:26 AM
By Barry Rubin
We have entered into a new period of U.S. policy toward Israel for the Obama Administration. Basically, President Barack Obama needs Israel, requires its cooperation, and is eager to get along with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. How long this will last is unclear but it should characterize, barring unforeseen events, at least for the next year.
What is the basis of this new era? When it came to office, the Obama Administration was in radical mode, determined to distance itself from Israel as a key to winning over Arabs and Muslims, assuming that peace could be achieved with sufficient pressure on Israel as the only requirement, and hostile to Israel’s current government.
A measure of reality eventually set in, involving a large number of factors ranging from the lack of Arab cooperation, to Iran’s intransigence, the lack of progress in engaging Syria, and the tasks of dealing with Iraq and Afghanistan. The administration’s head-on charge over demanding a freeze of construction on settlements only produced a one-year-plus delay on Israel-Palestinian negotiations. The Palestinian Authority (PA) was uncooperative. American public opinion was unhappy with the policy toward Israel.
This is not to say that the situation is simple but by September 2010 things are very different. The Obama Administration is desperate for diplomatic successes, or at least the appearance of having them. What’s happening regarding Iran’s nuclear weapons’ drive cannot be concealed or ignored.
The U.S. government is also is aware of falling public support--including a sharp decline in Jewish backing though pro-Israel forces extend far more widely throughout American society—on the eve of American elections. In addition, it’s clear that Netanyahu’s government isn’t going away and there is no “dovish” alternative that will give Obama everything he wants for little or nothing in exchange.
So now Obama needs Netanyahu. He needs to keep the new peace talks going and looking good. The president also requires that Netanyahu keep things quiet on the Israel-Palestinian front so as—so he thinks—to make it easier to get Arab and Muslim support or other U.S. policies. And since Obama’s orientation is mainly domestic and his world view is horrified by power politics, he wants to avoid international crises generally. Anti-Israel officials in the administration are being ignored.
The truth is—and this is analysis, not a political statement—Netanyahu and his government, including Defense Minister Ehud Barak, have performed brilliantly to facing this challenge. It has met U.S. requests without sacrificing Israeli interests, if nothing else secure in the knowledge that the PA isn’t going to make a deal any way and wanting to focus American attention on the Iranian threat. Whatever the U.S. government says in public it has to realize that the PA, not Israel, is the roadblock to peace.
This kind of charm diplomacy may be what Netanyahu is best at doing. His speech in Washington was a masterpiece, praising Obama and making clear that his goal is a true and stable peace, not merely:
“A brief interlude between two wars…a temporary respite between outbursts of terror. We seek a peace that will end the conflict between us once and for all. We seek a peace that will last for generations.” He called Abbas, “my partner in peace….We recognize that another people share this land with us. And I came here today to find an historic compromise that will enable both peoples to live in peace, security and dignity.”
Netanyahu concluded: “I did not come here to win an argument. I came here to forge a peace. I did not come here to play a blame game where even the winners lose. I came here to achieve a peace that will bring benefits to all. I did not come here to find excuses. I came here to find solutions.”
He made this approach without illusions: “We left Lebanon, we got terror. We left Gaza, we got terror. We want to ensure that territory we concede will not be turned into a third Iranian sponsored terror enclave aimed at the heart of Israel. That is why a defensible peace requires security arrangements that can withstand the test of time and the many challenges that are sure to confront us.”
Is the PA going to meet even a single one of Israel’s requirements? End of conflict; real security guarantees, demilitarization of a Palestinian state, recognition of Israel as a Jewish state, resettlement of all Palestinian refugees in the state of Palestine? Of course not. Possibly there might be agreement on some minor border changes but even that is unlikely, much less giving even the Jewish Quarter of Jerusalem to Israel or some other parts of eastern or northern Jerusalem areas.
What Israel has to do, though, is to continue to put forward reasonable demands, show itself cooperative and flexible, while letting the months of futile talks roll ever onward. He isn’t threatened by right-wing walk-outs from the coalition, which at any rate will be discouraged by the fact that he isn’t actually giving anything away. At any rate, he controls the Likud; the Labor Party has no alternative; the opposition Kadima has no leadership or program. At some point next year, Netanyahu will call elections and win a resounding mandate.
Abbas will go along with the charades up to a point but increasingly, as he gives nothing himself, will blame Israel for the lack of progress. Even Marwan Barghouti, the jailed in Israel leader of Fatah’s West Bank grassroots’ organization, opposes talks publicly and much of the Fatah establishment opposes them privately. Abbas will be itching to walk out and insist that only a unilateral declaration of independence can “solve” the issue. But during this period, at least, that’s the very last thing the Obama Administration wants: a huge crisis, a difficult decision, potential mass violence stirring up the region, a likely diplomatic catastrophe.
All of this doesn’t mean the administration gets it over the extent to which Iran’s nuclear weapons pose a big and negative strategic shift in the area, the extent of the threat from revolutionary Islamists, how Iraq is at the brink of political anarchy, the futility of the U.S. effort in Afghanistan, the at least temporary loss of Turkey, the capture of Lebanon by the Iran-Syria bloc, and all the other ills of the Middle East.
But the current U.S. government understands enough about what’s going on to comprehend that it doesn’t want a crisis with Israel as well and that it isn’t going to achieve some dramatic breakthrough to Arab-Israeli peace. As for Obama, no politician desires anything more passionately—other than election—than having someone else making him look good, perhaps especially when he doesn’t deserve it. Consequently, now is the time for a somewhat belated Obama-Netanyahu honeymoon.
Friday, September 3, 2010
Best Piece Ever on the Mosque Contretemps
Mosque Notes
Washington Diarist
Leon Wieseltier September 2, 2010 | 12:00 am // TNR
Collective responsibility. One of the most accomplished Jewish terrorists of our time, Baruch Goldstein, came from the Jewish universe in which I was raised. When he committed his crime, there were a few former and present citizens of that universe, a revered rabbi of mine among them, who demanded a stringent communal introspection; but the critics were denounced as slanderers who tarred all of religious Zionism, or all of “Modern Orthodox” Judaism, or all of Judaism, with the same treasonous brush. The killer, we were angrily instructed, was an aberration, and any generalization from his action was an unwarranted imputation of collective responsibility. I disagreed. Baruch Goldstein murdered in the name of Judaism, with an interpretation of Judaism, from a social and intellectual position within Judaism. The same was later true of Yigal Amir. They did not represent the entirety of Judaism, or of the Jewish institutions that formed them—but the massacre in Hebron and the assassination in Tel Aviv were among their effects. If the standpoint of broadly collective responsibility was the wrong way to explain the atrocities, so too was the standpoint of purely individual responsibility. There were currents of culture behind the killers. Their ideas were not only their own. I am reminded of those complications when I hear that Islam is a religion of peace. I have no quarrel with the construction of Cordoba House, but not because Islam is a religion of peace. It is not. Like Christianity and like Judaism, Islam is a religion of peace and a religion of war. All the religions have all the tendencies within them, and in varying historical circumstances varying beliefs and practices have come to the fore. It is absurd to describe the perpetrators of September 11 as “murderers calling themselves Muslims,” as Karen Hughes recently did. They did not call themselves Muslims. They were Muslims. America was not attacked by Islam, but it was also not attacked by Jainism. Mohammed Atta and his band (as well as the growing number of “homegrown” Islamist killers and plotters) represent a real and burgeoning development within Islam, an actualization of one of Islam’s possibilities, an indigenous transnational movement of apocalyptic violence that has brought misery to Muslim societies, and to us. It is not Islamophobic to say so. Quite the contrary: it is to side with Muslims who are struggling against the same poison as we are. Apologetic definitions of Islam will not avail anybody in this struggle.
Sacred space. Nationalism has always arrogated to itself a hallowing power, and the sanctification of Ground Zero is the natural expression of the memory of a nation. But this is a secular sanctity. I see no justification for establishing a mosque, a church, or a synagogue at Ground Zero, even though Muslims, Christians, and Jews died there. (Irreligious people also died there.) Yet nobody is proposing to establish a mosque at Ground Zero. Sacralization is an act of demarcation: its force is owed to its precision. Outside the line is outside the line. Park Place is outside the line, in the “profane” realm. Or has the right finally found a penumbra in which it can believe? On September 13, 2001, a construction worker at Ground Zero discovered two large steel beams in the shape of a cross. Given the design of the towers, the likelihood of such perpendicularity was high—when I visited the unimaginable place a short while later there were smoldering right angles everywhere—but the discovery of this cross was deemed a miracle, and it was raised on a concrete base, and there was talk of incorporating it into the memorial at the site. (It now stands a block away, at a church on Barclay Street.) I was always discomfited by the sight of it. Christianity was not attacked on September 11. America was attacked. They are not the same thing. The image of the Ground Zero cross now appears in TV ads excoriating the “Ground Zero mosque.” The people behind those ads do not deplore a religious war, they welcome one.
Insensitivities. There are families of the victims who oppose Cordoba House and there are families of the victims who support it. Every side in this debate can invoke the authority of the pain. But how much authority should it have? I do not see that sentiment about the families should abrogate considerations of principle. It is odd to see conservatives suddenly espouse the moral superiority of victimhood, as it is odd to see them suddenly find an exception to their expansive view of religious freedom. Everybody has their preferred insensitivities. In matters of principle, moreover, polling is beside the point, or an alibi for the tyranny of the majority, or an invitation to demagogues to make divisiveness into a strategy, so that their targets come to seem like they are the ones standing in the way of social peace, and the “decent” thing is for them to fold. Why doesn’t Rauf just move the mosque? That would bring the ugliness to an end. But why don’t Palin and Gingrich just shut up? That, too, would bring the ugliness to an end. Certainly the diabolization of Rauf, an imam who has publicly recited the Shema as an act of solidarity and argued that the Declaration of Independence “embodies and restates the core values of the Abrahamic, and thus also the Islamic, ethic,” must cease. In a time when an alarming number of Muslims wish to imitate Osama bin Laden, here is a Muslim who wishes to imitate Mordecai Kaplan. Turn away, from him? But he may be replaced at his center by less moderate clerics, it is said. To which I would reply with a list of synagogues whose establishment should be regretted because of the fanatical views of their current leaders. I also hear that there should be no mosque on Park Place until there are churches and synagogues in Saudi Arabia. I get it. Until they are like us, we will be like them.
A night at the J. At the JCC on Q Street a few weeks ago, there was a family night for “kibbutz camp.” As the children sang “Zum Gali Gali,” an old anthem of the Zionist pioneers, I noticed among the jolly parents a Muslim woman swaddled in black. Her child was among those children! Her presence had no bearing on the question of our security, but it was the image of what we are protecting. No American heart could be unmoved by it. So: Cordoba House in New York and a Predator war in Pakistan—graciousness here and viciousness there—this should be our position. For those who come in peace, peace; for those who come in war, war.
Washington Diarist
Leon Wieseltier September 2, 2010 | 12:00 am // TNR
Collective responsibility. One of the most accomplished Jewish terrorists of our time, Baruch Goldstein, came from the Jewish universe in which I was raised. When he committed his crime, there were a few former and present citizens of that universe, a revered rabbi of mine among them, who demanded a stringent communal introspection; but the critics were denounced as slanderers who tarred all of religious Zionism, or all of “Modern Orthodox” Judaism, or all of Judaism, with the same treasonous brush. The killer, we were angrily instructed, was an aberration, and any generalization from his action was an unwarranted imputation of collective responsibility. I disagreed. Baruch Goldstein murdered in the name of Judaism, with an interpretation of Judaism, from a social and intellectual position within Judaism. The same was later true of Yigal Amir. They did not represent the entirety of Judaism, or of the Jewish institutions that formed them—but the massacre in Hebron and the assassination in Tel Aviv were among their effects. If the standpoint of broadly collective responsibility was the wrong way to explain the atrocities, so too was the standpoint of purely individual responsibility. There were currents of culture behind the killers. Their ideas were not only their own. I am reminded of those complications when I hear that Islam is a religion of peace. I have no quarrel with the construction of Cordoba House, but not because Islam is a religion of peace. It is not. Like Christianity and like Judaism, Islam is a religion of peace and a religion of war. All the religions have all the tendencies within them, and in varying historical circumstances varying beliefs and practices have come to the fore. It is absurd to describe the perpetrators of September 11 as “murderers calling themselves Muslims,” as Karen Hughes recently did. They did not call themselves Muslims. They were Muslims. America was not attacked by Islam, but it was also not attacked by Jainism. Mohammed Atta and his band (as well as the growing number of “homegrown” Islamist killers and plotters) represent a real and burgeoning development within Islam, an actualization of one of Islam’s possibilities, an indigenous transnational movement of apocalyptic violence that has brought misery to Muslim societies, and to us. It is not Islamophobic to say so. Quite the contrary: it is to side with Muslims who are struggling against the same poison as we are. Apologetic definitions of Islam will not avail anybody in this struggle.
Sacred space. Nationalism has always arrogated to itself a hallowing power, and the sanctification of Ground Zero is the natural expression of the memory of a nation. But this is a secular sanctity. I see no justification for establishing a mosque, a church, or a synagogue at Ground Zero, even though Muslims, Christians, and Jews died there. (Irreligious people also died there.) Yet nobody is proposing to establish a mosque at Ground Zero. Sacralization is an act of demarcation: its force is owed to its precision. Outside the line is outside the line. Park Place is outside the line, in the “profane” realm. Or has the right finally found a penumbra in which it can believe? On September 13, 2001, a construction worker at Ground Zero discovered two large steel beams in the shape of a cross. Given the design of the towers, the likelihood of such perpendicularity was high—when I visited the unimaginable place a short while later there were smoldering right angles everywhere—but the discovery of this cross was deemed a miracle, and it was raised on a concrete base, and there was talk of incorporating it into the memorial at the site. (It now stands a block away, at a church on Barclay Street.) I was always discomfited by the sight of it. Christianity was not attacked on September 11. America was attacked. They are not the same thing. The image of the Ground Zero cross now appears in TV ads excoriating the “Ground Zero mosque.” The people behind those ads do not deplore a religious war, they welcome one.
Insensitivities. There are families of the victims who oppose Cordoba House and there are families of the victims who support it. Every side in this debate can invoke the authority of the pain. But how much authority should it have? I do not see that sentiment about the families should abrogate considerations of principle. It is odd to see conservatives suddenly espouse the moral superiority of victimhood, as it is odd to see them suddenly find an exception to their expansive view of religious freedom. Everybody has their preferred insensitivities. In matters of principle, moreover, polling is beside the point, or an alibi for the tyranny of the majority, or an invitation to demagogues to make divisiveness into a strategy, so that their targets come to seem like they are the ones standing in the way of social peace, and the “decent” thing is for them to fold. Why doesn’t Rauf just move the mosque? That would bring the ugliness to an end. But why don’t Palin and Gingrich just shut up? That, too, would bring the ugliness to an end. Certainly the diabolization of Rauf, an imam who has publicly recited the Shema as an act of solidarity and argued that the Declaration of Independence “embodies and restates the core values of the Abrahamic, and thus also the Islamic, ethic,” must cease. In a time when an alarming number of Muslims wish to imitate Osama bin Laden, here is a Muslim who wishes to imitate Mordecai Kaplan. Turn away, from him? But he may be replaced at his center by less moderate clerics, it is said. To which I would reply with a list of synagogues whose establishment should be regretted because of the fanatical views of their current leaders. I also hear that there should be no mosque on Park Place until there are churches and synagogues in Saudi Arabia. I get it. Until they are like us, we will be like them.
A night at the J. At the JCC on Q Street a few weeks ago, there was a family night for “kibbutz camp.” As the children sang “Zum Gali Gali,” an old anthem of the Zionist pioneers, I noticed among the jolly parents a Muslim woman swaddled in black. Her child was among those children! Her presence had no bearing on the question of our security, but it was the image of what we are protecting. No American heart could be unmoved by it. So: Cordoba House in New York and a Predator war in Pakistan—graciousness here and viciousness there—this should be our position. For those who come in peace, peace; for those who come in war, war.
Kinda' Newsy About the Ultimate Question
Scientist Stephen Hawking asserts that God not needed to create the universe
02/09/2010 12:27:00 PM
Jennifer Quinn, The Associated Press
LONDON - Did creation need a creator?
British physicist and mathematician Stephen Hawking says no, arguing in his new book that there need not be a God behind the creation of the universe.
The concept is explored in "The Grand Design," excerpts of which were printed in the British newspaper The Times on Thursday. The book, written with fellow physicist Leonard Mlodinow, is scheduled to be published by Bantam Press on Sept. 9.
"The Grand Design," which the publishers call Hawking's first major work in nearly a decade, challenges Isaac Newton's theory God must have been involved in creation because our solar system couldn't have come out of chaos simply through nature.
But Hawking says it isn't that simple. To understand the universe, it's necessary to know both how and why it behaves the way it does, calling the pursuit "the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything."
"We shall attempt to answer it in this book," he wrote. "Unlike the answer given in 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,' ours won't be simply '42.'"
The number 42 is the deliberately absurd answer to the "Ultimate Question" chosen by sci-fi author Douglas Adams.
Hawking, who is renowned for his work on black holes, said the 1992 discovery of another planet orbiting a star other than the sun makes "the coincidences of our planetary conditions ... far less remarkable and far less compelling as evidence that the Earth was carefully designed just to please us human beings."
In his bestselling 1988 book "A Brief History of Time," Hawking appeared to accept the possibility of a creator, saying the discovery of a complete theory would "be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we should know the mind of God."
But "The Grand Design" seems to step away from that, saying physics can explain things without the need for a "benevolent creator who made the Universe for our benefit."
"Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing," the excerpt says. "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to ... set the Universe going."
Hawking retired last year as the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge University after 30 years in the position. The position was once held by Newton.
02/09/2010 12:27:00 PM
Jennifer Quinn, The Associated Press
LONDON - Did creation need a creator?
British physicist and mathematician Stephen Hawking says no, arguing in his new book that there need not be a God behind the creation of the universe.
The concept is explored in "The Grand Design," excerpts of which were printed in the British newspaper The Times on Thursday. The book, written with fellow physicist Leonard Mlodinow, is scheduled to be published by Bantam Press on Sept. 9.
"The Grand Design," which the publishers call Hawking's first major work in nearly a decade, challenges Isaac Newton's theory God must have been involved in creation because our solar system couldn't have come out of chaos simply through nature.
But Hawking says it isn't that simple. To understand the universe, it's necessary to know both how and why it behaves the way it does, calling the pursuit "the Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything."
"We shall attempt to answer it in this book," he wrote. "Unlike the answer given in 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy,' ours won't be simply '42.'"
The number 42 is the deliberately absurd answer to the "Ultimate Question" chosen by sci-fi author Douglas Adams.
Hawking, who is renowned for his work on black holes, said the 1992 discovery of another planet orbiting a star other than the sun makes "the coincidences of our planetary conditions ... far less remarkable and far less compelling as evidence that the Earth was carefully designed just to please us human beings."
In his bestselling 1988 book "A Brief History of Time," Hawking appeared to accept the possibility of a creator, saying the discovery of a complete theory would "be the ultimate triumph of human reason - for then we should know the mind of God."
But "The Grand Design" seems to step away from that, saying physics can explain things without the need for a "benevolent creator who made the Universe for our benefit."
"Because there is a law such as gravity, the Universe can and will create itself from nothing," the excerpt says. "Spontaneous creation is the reason there is something rather than nothing, why the Universe exists, why we exist. It is not necessary to invoke God to ... set the Universe going."
Hawking retired last year as the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics at Cambridge University after 30 years in the position. The position was once held by Newton.
Thursday, September 2, 2010
Liberalism’s Existential Crisis
Peter Wehner - 09.02.2010 - 11:39 AM//Commentary
As the Obama presidency and the Democratic Party continue their journey into the Slough of Despond, it’s interesting to watch Obama’ supporters try to process the unfolding events.
Some blame it on a failure to communicate. E.J. Dionne, Jr., for example, ascribes the Democrats’ problems to the fact that Obama “has chosen not to engage the nation in an extended dialogue about what holds all his achievements together.” Joe Klein offers this explanation: “If Obama is not reelected, it will be because he comes across as disdaining what he does for a living.” And John Judis points to the Obama administration’s “aversion to populism.”
Others are aiming their sound and fury at the American people. According to Maureen Dowd, “Obama is the head of the dysfunctional family of America — a rational man running a most irrational nation, a high-minded man in a low-minded age. The country is having some weird mass nervous breakdown.” Jonathan Alter argues that the American people “aren’t rationally aligning belief and action; they’re tempted to lose their spleens in the polling place without fully grasping the consequences.” And Slate’s Jacob Weisberg has written that “the biggest culprit in our current predicament” is the “childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large.”
For still others, Obama’s failures can be traced to James Madison. George Packer complains that Obama’s failures are in part institutional. He lists a slew of items on the liberal agenda items “the world’s greatest deliberative body is incapable of addressing.” Paul Krugman warns that the Senate is “ominously dysfunctional” and insists that the way it works is “no longer consistent with a functioning government.” For Vanity Fair’s Todd Purdum, “The evidence that Washington cannot function — that it’s ‘broken,’ as Vice President Joe Biden has said — is all around.” The modern presidency “has become a job of such gargantuan size, speed, and complexity as to be all but unrecognizable to most of the previous chief executives.”
Commentators such as the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein place responsibility on “powerful structural forces in American politics that seem to drag down first-term presidents” (though Klein does acknowledge other factors). The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait pins the blame on “structural factors” and “external factors” that have nothing to do with Obama’s policies.
Then there are those who see the pernicious vast right-wing conspiracy at work. Frank Rich alerts us to the fact that the problem lies with “the brothers David and Charles Koch,” the “sugar daddies” who are bankrolling the “white Tea Party America.” Newsweek’s Michael Cohen has written that, “Perhaps the greatest hindrance to good governance today is the Republican Party, which has adopted an agenda of pure nihilism for naked political gain.” And Mr. Krugman offers this analysis: “What we learned from the Clinton years is that a significant number of Americans just don’t consider government by liberals — even very moderate liberals — legitimate. Mr. Obama’s election would have enraged those people even if he were white. Of course, the fact that he isn’t, and has an alien-sounding name, adds to the rage.” Krugman goes on to warn that “powerful forces are promoting and exploiting this rage” — including the “right-wing media.” And if they come to gain power, “It will be an ugly scene, and it will be dangerous, too.”
What most of these commentators are missing, I think, are two essential points. First, the public is turning against Obama and the Democratic Party because the economy is sick and, despite his assurances and projections, the president hasn’t been able to make it well. And in some important respects, especially on fiscal matters, the president and the 111th Congress have made things considerably worse. Second, an increasing number of Americans believe Obama’s policies are unwise, ineffective, and much too liberal. They connect the bad results we are seeing in America to what Obama is doing to America.
But there’s something else, and something deeper, going on here. All of us who embrace a particular religious or philosophical worldview should be prepared to judge them in light of empirical facts and reality. What if our theories seem to be failing in the real world?
The truth is that it’s rather rare to find people willing to reexamine or reinterpret their most deeply held beliefs when the mounting evidence calls those beliefs into question. That is something most of us (myself included) battle with: How to be a person of principled convictions while being intellectually honest enough to acknowledge when certain propositions (and, in some instances, foundational policies) seem to be failing or falling short.
It’s quite possible, of course, that one’s basic convictions can remain true even when events go badly. Self-government is still the best form of government even if it might fail in one nation or another. And sometimes it is simply a matter of weathering storms until certain first principles are reaffirmed. At the same time, sometimes we hold to theories that are simply wrong, that are contrary to human nature and the way the world works, but we simply can’t let go of them. We have too much invested in a particular philosophy.
President Obama’s liberal supporters understand that he is in serious trouble right now; what they are doing is scrambling to find some way to explain his problems without calling into question their underlying political philosophy (modern liberalism). If what is happening cannot be a fundamental failure of liberalism, then it must be something else — from a “communications problem” to “structural factors” to a political conspiracy. And you can bet that if things continue on their present course, ideologues on the left will increasingly argue that Obama’s failures stem from his being (a) not liberal enough or (b) incompetent.
If the Obama presidency is seen as damaging the larger liberal project, they will abandon Obama in order to try to protect liberalism. They would rather do that than face an existential crisis.
Me:
For me what's missing in the above is taking on which concrete ideas attributable to Liberalism are failing us as manifest in specific policies, what alternative policies should have been pursued attributable to Conservate ideas, and how does failure get measured given the argument things woould have been worse had not Obama done what he had done. I'd like Wehner to reference liberal and competent economists like Brad DeLong who in fact argues that it would have been worse and tell us why DeLong is wrong. Short of dealing concretely with these issues, this op ed is just so much high falutin and empty whining, barely rising above ho hum talking points.
As the Obama presidency and the Democratic Party continue their journey into the Slough of Despond, it’s interesting to watch Obama’ supporters try to process the unfolding events.
Some blame it on a failure to communicate. E.J. Dionne, Jr., for example, ascribes the Democrats’ problems to the fact that Obama “has chosen not to engage the nation in an extended dialogue about what holds all his achievements together.” Joe Klein offers this explanation: “If Obama is not reelected, it will be because he comes across as disdaining what he does for a living.” And John Judis points to the Obama administration’s “aversion to populism.”
Others are aiming their sound and fury at the American people. According to Maureen Dowd, “Obama is the head of the dysfunctional family of America — a rational man running a most irrational nation, a high-minded man in a low-minded age. The country is having some weird mass nervous breakdown.” Jonathan Alter argues that the American people “aren’t rationally aligning belief and action; they’re tempted to lose their spleens in the polling place without fully grasping the consequences.” And Slate’s Jacob Weisberg has written that “the biggest culprit in our current predicament” is the “childishness, ignorance, and growing incoherence of the public at large.”
For still others, Obama’s failures can be traced to James Madison. George Packer complains that Obama’s failures are in part institutional. He lists a slew of items on the liberal agenda items “the world’s greatest deliberative body is incapable of addressing.” Paul Krugman warns that the Senate is “ominously dysfunctional” and insists that the way it works is “no longer consistent with a functioning government.” For Vanity Fair’s Todd Purdum, “The evidence that Washington cannot function — that it’s ‘broken,’ as Vice President Joe Biden has said — is all around.” The modern presidency “has become a job of such gargantuan size, speed, and complexity as to be all but unrecognizable to most of the previous chief executives.”
Commentators such as the Washington Post’s Ezra Klein place responsibility on “powerful structural forces in American politics that seem to drag down first-term presidents” (though Klein does acknowledge other factors). The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait pins the blame on “structural factors” and “external factors” that have nothing to do with Obama’s policies.
Then there are those who see the pernicious vast right-wing conspiracy at work. Frank Rich alerts us to the fact that the problem lies with “the brothers David and Charles Koch,” the “sugar daddies” who are bankrolling the “white Tea Party America.” Newsweek’s Michael Cohen has written that, “Perhaps the greatest hindrance to good governance today is the Republican Party, which has adopted an agenda of pure nihilism for naked political gain.” And Mr. Krugman offers this analysis: “What we learned from the Clinton years is that a significant number of Americans just don’t consider government by liberals — even very moderate liberals — legitimate. Mr. Obama’s election would have enraged those people even if he were white. Of course, the fact that he isn’t, and has an alien-sounding name, adds to the rage.” Krugman goes on to warn that “powerful forces are promoting and exploiting this rage” — including the “right-wing media.” And if they come to gain power, “It will be an ugly scene, and it will be dangerous, too.”
What most of these commentators are missing, I think, are two essential points. First, the public is turning against Obama and the Democratic Party because the economy is sick and, despite his assurances and projections, the president hasn’t been able to make it well. And in some important respects, especially on fiscal matters, the president and the 111th Congress have made things considerably worse. Second, an increasing number of Americans believe Obama’s policies are unwise, ineffective, and much too liberal. They connect the bad results we are seeing in America to what Obama is doing to America.
But there’s something else, and something deeper, going on here. All of us who embrace a particular religious or philosophical worldview should be prepared to judge them in light of empirical facts and reality. What if our theories seem to be failing in the real world?
The truth is that it’s rather rare to find people willing to reexamine or reinterpret their most deeply held beliefs when the mounting evidence calls those beliefs into question. That is something most of us (myself included) battle with: How to be a person of principled convictions while being intellectually honest enough to acknowledge when certain propositions (and, in some instances, foundational policies) seem to be failing or falling short.
It’s quite possible, of course, that one’s basic convictions can remain true even when events go badly. Self-government is still the best form of government even if it might fail in one nation or another. And sometimes it is simply a matter of weathering storms until certain first principles are reaffirmed. At the same time, sometimes we hold to theories that are simply wrong, that are contrary to human nature and the way the world works, but we simply can’t let go of them. We have too much invested in a particular philosophy.
President Obama’s liberal supporters understand that he is in serious trouble right now; what they are doing is scrambling to find some way to explain his problems without calling into question their underlying political philosophy (modern liberalism). If what is happening cannot be a fundamental failure of liberalism, then it must be something else — from a “communications problem” to “structural factors” to a political conspiracy. And you can bet that if things continue on their present course, ideologues on the left will increasingly argue that Obama’s failures stem from his being (a) not liberal enough or (b) incompetent.
If the Obama presidency is seen as damaging the larger liberal project, they will abandon Obama in order to try to protect liberalism. They would rather do that than face an existential crisis.
Me:
For me what's missing in the above is taking on which concrete ideas attributable to Liberalism are failing us as manifest in specific policies, what alternative policies should have been pursued attributable to Conservate ideas, and how does failure get measured given the argument things woould have been worse had not Obama done what he had done. I'd like Wehner to reference liberal and competent economists like Brad DeLong who in fact argues that it would have been worse and tell us why DeLong is wrong. Short of dealing concretely with these issues, this op ed is just so much high falutin and empty whining, barely rising above ho hum talking points.
Wednesday, September 1, 2010
Beilin Says the Talks, As Now Constituted, Will Do More Harm Than Good
Obama Peace Talks for Israel, Palestine Will Fail: Yossi Beilin
By Yossi Beilin - Aug 31, 2010 6:01 PM ET
Bloomberg Opinion
Peace talks between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, which are due to begin tomorrow in Washington, won’t succeed in finding a permanent solution to the conflict.
Such talks, sponsored by U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, aren’t just another attempt whose failure would have no consequences. If the negotiations fail, it will lead to more frustration and deeper skepticism that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be resolved. The security arrangement between the two sides, which is guaranteeing the current state of calm, will be dealt a blow and there will be a danger of violent outbursts.
If there were even the slightest chance of the talks succeeding, I would say it was worth making one more attempt. However, in this situation, there is almost no such chance, whereas the grave implications of failure are both clear and painful. I call upon the U.S. administration to hurry up and change the goal of the talks. They should deal with what the parties are prepared to implement, and not with what they are forced to do as a result of American pressure: open negotiations on a partial and temporary agreement.
I say this with no small amount of pain. For decades, I have been calling for a permanent-status agreement, and I was opposed to interim solutions...
(SOME PARTS OMITTED)...
Netanyahu’s Constraints
This is no simple matter. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would find it difficult to persuade his voters to uproot settlements and withdraw from most of the West Bank without any mention of the finality of the dispute, or of other advantages that would arise from a permanent peace agreement.
The Palestinians would be afraid that any temporary agreement would become a permanent one because the world would delude itself into believing that this regional conflict had been resolved, even though issues such as refugees and the status of Jerusalem wouldn’t be included in such an agreement.
The way to overcome the opposition is to guarantee that upon the signing of the interim agreement, a presidential declaration would be made, defining the detailed principles for a permanent-status agreement, as a clear American position, while the Arab countries would be asked to partially implement the 2002 Arab peace initiative toward Israel, and to send commercial representatives to Israel, or to show other indications of normal relations, even if they aren’t full diplomatic ones.
Minimum Claims
Netanyahu wasn’t voted in by the right wing to divide East Jerusalem or to resolve, even symbolically, the problem of Palestinian refugees. The distance between his positions and the minimum claims of the pragmatic Palestinian camp can’t be bridged. Even when he talks about a willingness to accept the two-state solution, and even when he makes promises to surprise, he reverts to a long list of positions that don’t allow him to reach a historic compromise.
Abbas can’t implement a peace agreement with Israel because as long as Hamas retains control of Gaza, Gaza won’t be part of the solution, and there can’t be any “safe passage” between the West Bank and Gaza. In addition, it won’t be possible to work out land swaps between Israel and the West Bank because the area designated for them is the region surrounding the Gaza Strip, and no Israeli government would agree to hand over land adjacent to Gaza while it is still under Hamas control.
This situation means we need to pursue a different line of thought, which will lead us, at this stage, to a solution that isn’t ideal, but which is far better than the continuation of the current situation: a partial agreement.
(Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli justice minister,
By Yossi Beilin - Aug 31, 2010 6:01 PM ET
Bloomberg Opinion
Peace talks between Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, which are due to begin tomorrow in Washington, won’t succeed in finding a permanent solution to the conflict.
Such talks, sponsored by U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, aren’t just another attempt whose failure would have no consequences. If the negotiations fail, it will lead to more frustration and deeper skepticism that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict can be resolved. The security arrangement between the two sides, which is guaranteeing the current state of calm, will be dealt a blow and there will be a danger of violent outbursts.
If there were even the slightest chance of the talks succeeding, I would say it was worth making one more attempt. However, in this situation, there is almost no such chance, whereas the grave implications of failure are both clear and painful. I call upon the U.S. administration to hurry up and change the goal of the talks. They should deal with what the parties are prepared to implement, and not with what they are forced to do as a result of American pressure: open negotiations on a partial and temporary agreement.
I say this with no small amount of pain. For decades, I have been calling for a permanent-status agreement, and I was opposed to interim solutions...
(SOME PARTS OMITTED)...
Netanyahu’s Constraints
This is no simple matter. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would find it difficult to persuade his voters to uproot settlements and withdraw from most of the West Bank without any mention of the finality of the dispute, or of other advantages that would arise from a permanent peace agreement.
The Palestinians would be afraid that any temporary agreement would become a permanent one because the world would delude itself into believing that this regional conflict had been resolved, even though issues such as refugees and the status of Jerusalem wouldn’t be included in such an agreement.
The way to overcome the opposition is to guarantee that upon the signing of the interim agreement, a presidential declaration would be made, defining the detailed principles for a permanent-status agreement, as a clear American position, while the Arab countries would be asked to partially implement the 2002 Arab peace initiative toward Israel, and to send commercial representatives to Israel, or to show other indications of normal relations, even if they aren’t full diplomatic ones.
Minimum Claims
Netanyahu wasn’t voted in by the right wing to divide East Jerusalem or to resolve, even symbolically, the problem of Palestinian refugees. The distance between his positions and the minimum claims of the pragmatic Palestinian camp can’t be bridged. Even when he talks about a willingness to accept the two-state solution, and even when he makes promises to surprise, he reverts to a long list of positions that don’t allow him to reach a historic compromise.
Abbas can’t implement a peace agreement with Israel because as long as Hamas retains control of Gaza, Gaza won’t be part of the solution, and there can’t be any “safe passage” between the West Bank and Gaza. In addition, it won’t be possible to work out land swaps between Israel and the West Bank because the area designated for them is the region surrounding the Gaza Strip, and no Israeli government would agree to hand over land adjacent to Gaza while it is still under Hamas control.
This situation means we need to pursue a different line of thought, which will lead us, at this stage, to a solution that isn’t ideal, but which is far better than the continuation of the current situation: a partial agreement.
(Yossi Beilin, a former Israeli justice minister,
As the Talks Begin
SEPTEMBER 1, 2010
Hamas Hits Israel in Threat to Talks
By CHARLES LEVINSON//WSJ
RAMALLAH, West Bank—Hamas militants claimed responsibility for the killing of four Jewish settlers in the West Bank Tuesday, an attack that seemed aimed at torpedoing a new round of peace talks in Washington this week between Israel and the Palestinians.
Unidentified gunmen shot and killed four Israelis in what appeared to be a drive-by shooting outside a Jewish settlement near the West Bank town of Hebron. Charles Levinson has the latest from Jerusalem.
In the deadliest Palestinian attack against Israelis in nearly two-and-a-half years, gunmen killed the settlers in their car as they stopped at an intersection Tuesday evening outside a Jewish settlement near the West Bank town of Hebron.
Both sides said the talks, which begin Wednesday evening, would go on, but seized on the incident to press their own demands: the Israelis for firm guarantees that a Palestinian-controlled West Bank wouldn't become a base for attacks on Israel, and the Palestinians for the removal of Jewish settlements from the area and greater security responsibilities.
The attack also set the stage for a showdown that could derail negotiations. The largest organization representing Jewish settlers said it would cease respecting the Israeli government's freeze on building in settlements as of 6 p.m. Wednesday, and resume construction on "hundreds" of new units just hours before the talks are due to begin.
Palestinian leaders have said they will pull out of talks if the building freeze ends.
The Israeli government has pledged to continue enforcing the 10-month freeze at least until it expires on Sept. 26. A senior Israeli official traveling with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington said that the government decision regarding the freeze hadn't changed, but offered no further comment on the settlers' plans.
An Israeli Embassy spokesman in Washington said the incident didn't change the Israeli government's intentions to restart talks—the first direct negotiations in nearly two years. But he said that if such attacks continued, it would make it difficult for Israel to make compromises for peace.
"It impacts but shouldn't derail the talks that are coming to fruition this week," the spokesman, Jonathan Peled, said. "This terror act is a clear sign that until Israeli security needs are addressed, it's going to be very, very difficult for the Israeli government to make concessions in the West Bank."
View Slideshow
[SB10001424052748703467004575464151918373136]
Reuters
Israeli police investigate along a highway near the site of a shooting attack which killed four Israelis near the West Bank Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba, near Hebron Tuesday.
A senior adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas denounced the attack, which occurred just as Mr. Abbas concluded a meeting in Washington with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
"We are against the killing of any kind of civilians from both sides, and we consider this attack a violation that can not be permitted," said the adviser, Nabil Abu Rudeina.
Mr. Abu Rudeina noted that the attack had occurred in an area of the West Bank where the Israeli army has full control and where Palestinian security forces are forbidden from operating—implying the need for greater Palestinian security control in the West Bank.
The militant Islamist organization Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, and retains a significant underground presence in the West Bank, where Mr. Abbas's Fatah party rules.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said the attacks were a "reaction to all the Israeli escalations, violations, and crimes they are committing."
Hamas opposes the peace talks, but has largely refrained from waging attacks against Israel since Israel's December 2008 to January 2009 assault on Gaza, which was sparked by rocket attacks from the Hamas-controlled territory.
Top Israeli military commanders had said they feared the resumption of peace talks could prompt efforts by extremists, both Jewish and Palestinian, to try to mount attacks in an effort to undermine peace efforts.
View Full Image
ISRAELjp
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Israeli settlers gather in the West Bank near where Palestinian gunmen killed four Jewish settlers on Tuesday. Hamas claimed responsibility.
ISRAELjp
ISRAELjp
The White House, in a statement, condemned the attack, saying it "underscores how far the enemies of peace will go to try to block progress. It is crucial that the parties persevere, keep moving forward even through difficult times."
The attack took place near Hebron, the West Bank's largest city and a historic flash point, where Jewish settlers live in heavily guarded compounds in the heart of the Palestinian city and in settlements ringing the city on land occupied by Israel in the 1967 War.
The shooting appeared to have been carried out by multiple gunmen, who opened fire on the vehicle when it stopped at a road junction in the southern West Bank. The victims were all residents of nearby Jewish settlements in the West Bank and included two men, ages 25 and 40, and two women, also ages 25 and 40, one of whom was pregnant, according to Israeli officials.
The attackers fled the scene. Israeli police and military vehicles cordoned off the area and were searching for the gunmen well into the night, but had yet to name any official suspects.
Shortly after the incident, angry settlers congregated at the scene, shouting "Jewish blood should not be abandoned," and calling on Mr. Netanyahu to return from Washington.
More
* WSJ.com/Mideast: News, video, graphics
* Follow @WSJMIDEAST on Twitter
Naftali Bennet, a spokesman for the Yesha Council, the largest organization that represents Jewish settlers, said: "Tomorrow at 6 p.m., all communities in Judea and Samaria will immediately resume building…We're going to start building everywhere…They murder; we build. From our perspective, the immoral freeze order has expired." Judea and Samaria are the biblical names for the West Bank.
Hebron has been the site of prominent attacks in the past. In 1994, at the height of the Oslo Peace process, an American-born Jewish Israeli settler massacred 29 Palestinians praying in Hebron.
Tuesday's attack was the most deadly incident targeting Israelis since March 2008, when a lone Palestinian gunman opened fire in a crowded library in a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem, killing eight people.
Isolated shootings and other small attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank have occurred periodically throughout the past year. The most recent deadly attack was a June 14 shooting that left an Israeli police officer dead and four people injured.
The last time an Israeli civilian was killed in the West Bank was Dec. 24, when a Palestinian gunman shot a rabbi living on a settlement near the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
Despite occasional attacks, Israeli security officials say the past year has been one of the most peaceful in Israel's history. Officials credit the improved functioning of Palestinian security forces, the Israeli military's efforts against militants, and the deterrent effect they say was created by Israel's wars against the Palestinian uprising in 2001, Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006 and Hamas in Gaza in 2009.
Hamas Hits Israel in Threat to Talks
By CHARLES LEVINSON//WSJ
RAMALLAH, West Bank—Hamas militants claimed responsibility for the killing of four Jewish settlers in the West Bank Tuesday, an attack that seemed aimed at torpedoing a new round of peace talks in Washington this week between Israel and the Palestinians.
Unidentified gunmen shot and killed four Israelis in what appeared to be a drive-by shooting outside a Jewish settlement near the West Bank town of Hebron. Charles Levinson has the latest from Jerusalem.
In the deadliest Palestinian attack against Israelis in nearly two-and-a-half years, gunmen killed the settlers in their car as they stopped at an intersection Tuesday evening outside a Jewish settlement near the West Bank town of Hebron.
Both sides said the talks, which begin Wednesday evening, would go on, but seized on the incident to press their own demands: the Israelis for firm guarantees that a Palestinian-controlled West Bank wouldn't become a base for attacks on Israel, and the Palestinians for the removal of Jewish settlements from the area and greater security responsibilities.
The attack also set the stage for a showdown that could derail negotiations. The largest organization representing Jewish settlers said it would cease respecting the Israeli government's freeze on building in settlements as of 6 p.m. Wednesday, and resume construction on "hundreds" of new units just hours before the talks are due to begin.
Palestinian leaders have said they will pull out of talks if the building freeze ends.
The Israeli government has pledged to continue enforcing the 10-month freeze at least until it expires on Sept. 26. A senior Israeli official traveling with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington said that the government decision regarding the freeze hadn't changed, but offered no further comment on the settlers' plans.
An Israeli Embassy spokesman in Washington said the incident didn't change the Israeli government's intentions to restart talks—the first direct negotiations in nearly two years. But he said that if such attacks continued, it would make it difficult for Israel to make compromises for peace.
"It impacts but shouldn't derail the talks that are coming to fruition this week," the spokesman, Jonathan Peled, said. "This terror act is a clear sign that until Israeli security needs are addressed, it's going to be very, very difficult for the Israeli government to make concessions in the West Bank."
View Slideshow
[SB10001424052748703467004575464151918373136]
Reuters
Israeli police investigate along a highway near the site of a shooting attack which killed four Israelis near the West Bank Jewish settlement of Kiryat Arba, near Hebron Tuesday.
A senior adviser to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas denounced the attack, which occurred just as Mr. Abbas concluded a meeting in Washington with Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
"We are against the killing of any kind of civilians from both sides, and we consider this attack a violation that can not be permitted," said the adviser, Nabil Abu Rudeina.
Mr. Abu Rudeina noted that the attack had occurred in an area of the West Bank where the Israeli army has full control and where Palestinian security forces are forbidden from operating—implying the need for greater Palestinian security control in the West Bank.
The militant Islamist organization Hamas controls the Gaza Strip, and retains a significant underground presence in the West Bank, where Mr. Abbas's Fatah party rules.
Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said the attacks were a "reaction to all the Israeli escalations, violations, and crimes they are committing."
Hamas opposes the peace talks, but has largely refrained from waging attacks against Israel since Israel's December 2008 to January 2009 assault on Gaza, which was sparked by rocket attacks from the Hamas-controlled territory.
Top Israeli military commanders had said they feared the resumption of peace talks could prompt efforts by extremists, both Jewish and Palestinian, to try to mount attacks in an effort to undermine peace efforts.
View Full Image
ISRAELjp
Agence France-Presse/Getty Images
Israeli settlers gather in the West Bank near where Palestinian gunmen killed four Jewish settlers on Tuesday. Hamas claimed responsibility.
ISRAELjp
ISRAELjp
The White House, in a statement, condemned the attack, saying it "underscores how far the enemies of peace will go to try to block progress. It is crucial that the parties persevere, keep moving forward even through difficult times."
The attack took place near Hebron, the West Bank's largest city and a historic flash point, where Jewish settlers live in heavily guarded compounds in the heart of the Palestinian city and in settlements ringing the city on land occupied by Israel in the 1967 War.
The shooting appeared to have been carried out by multiple gunmen, who opened fire on the vehicle when it stopped at a road junction in the southern West Bank. The victims were all residents of nearby Jewish settlements in the West Bank and included two men, ages 25 and 40, and two women, also ages 25 and 40, one of whom was pregnant, according to Israeli officials.
The attackers fled the scene. Israeli police and military vehicles cordoned off the area and were searching for the gunmen well into the night, but had yet to name any official suspects.
Shortly after the incident, angry settlers congregated at the scene, shouting "Jewish blood should not be abandoned," and calling on Mr. Netanyahu to return from Washington.
More
* WSJ.com/Mideast: News, video, graphics
* Follow @WSJMIDEAST on Twitter
Naftali Bennet, a spokesman for the Yesha Council, the largest organization that represents Jewish settlers, said: "Tomorrow at 6 p.m., all communities in Judea and Samaria will immediately resume building…We're going to start building everywhere…They murder; we build. From our perspective, the immoral freeze order has expired." Judea and Samaria are the biblical names for the West Bank.
Hebron has been the site of prominent attacks in the past. In 1994, at the height of the Oslo Peace process, an American-born Jewish Israeli settler massacred 29 Palestinians praying in Hebron.
Tuesday's attack was the most deadly incident targeting Israelis since March 2008, when a lone Palestinian gunman opened fire in a crowded library in a Jewish seminary in Jerusalem, killing eight people.
Isolated shootings and other small attacks on Israeli soldiers and settlers in the West Bank have occurred periodically throughout the past year. The most recent deadly attack was a June 14 shooting that left an Israeli police officer dead and four people injured.
The last time an Israeli civilian was killed in the West Bank was Dec. 24, when a Palestinian gunman shot a rabbi living on a settlement near the northern West Bank city of Nablus.
Despite occasional attacks, Israeli security officials say the past year has been one of the most peaceful in Israel's history. Officials credit the improved functioning of Palestinian security forces, the Israeli military's efforts against militants, and the deterrent effect they say was created by Israel's wars against the Palestinian uprising in 2001, Hezbollah in Lebanon in 2006 and Hamas in Gaza in 2009.
MMA vs. Boxing
I wouldn't call MMA a new type of "brawling". I'd call it skilled combat that is very complex and draws together a wide variety of martial disciplines. An issue has been: who would win a fight between a good MMA fighter and a good boxer. I guess the unanswered part of the issue is: under what set of rules? A good boxer will outbox a good MMA fighter. A good MMA fighter will beat a good boxer in an MMA contest. So now that I think about it, I'm thinking the issue contains its own non sequitur. I think what Toney and Couture settled is that MMA is a real disciplined mode of fighting and that others, schooled in their own arts, but unschooled in its arts, can't just step into the octagon and gainsay MMA through victory. The others will never win, except aberrantly.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)