Sunday, March 3, 2013

This is why we can't have nice things

Empress Trudy

Dr. Lumish pointed out that a comment I made almost in passing garnered the ire of The Progressive Zionist, particularly of writer "volleyboy1."

I don't normally respond to this kind of hate speech. Mostly it's pointless, they have little or nothing to say in the first place, they're generally intentionally dense and absurdly literal-minded or they simply project their own hatreds. I also don't fisk such comments because, frankly, there's not much there to tease out. And once you cull the epithets, threats, curses and noise, there's little more than my own words left in that post. And if he wanted a discussion, he could have one, here. That writer has in fact posted here at IT before. But instead "volleyboy1" decided to hide in the thick of his mob and hurl bombs to his (or her – I use his, deal with it) crowd of like minded adoring fans.

But I will use it as a teachable moment to highlight the dismal failure of "Progressive Zionism," if there even is such a thing. I have to admit I never heard of the site until Dr. Lumish pointed it out. On the whole it seems pretty mainstream leftist pro Obama and repeats the standard cant as truth that emanates from the White House vis a vis Israel. It reminds me of the kind of Reform Synagogue Bumpersticker Judaism we've come to expect: “It's nice to be nice, antisemitism is bad.......but......” and then we're treated to long diatribes about the poor, poor Palestinians and the 3 trillion years of suffering they've suffered at the hands, claws and teeth of Jewish avarice. The fact that they don't call for an outright extermination of all the Jews in Israel appears to be what sets them apart from 972mag. Importantly they seem to have swallowed the whole “Jews out, Peace In” mantra. Their solution is, and let's not sugar coat it, ethnic cleansing of all Jews from Yesha and half of Jerusalem. So they're starting from a position that "they," the Arabs' lives, are in fact more precious than ours.

But let's be clear. Here is my statement:

Just fling 1 or 2 $1,000 plain artillery shells into the most densely packed areas in Gaza. In practice the odds of any one person or family being killed or injured are astonishingly low. But that's not the point. The point is FEAR. And fear is what the need to live with. They need to worry. They need to be afraid.

Here is the salient part of the response. The rest of post is mostly just name calling, noise and borderline death threats. But so be it, we ARE dealing with progressives here.

Lets be just like the murdering pieces of Human Crap in Hamas and Hizbollah and let's lob some artillery into Gaza, what's the worst thing that can happen? The IDF kills a couple of women and children or a few innocent civilians? I mean what are their lives worth anyway? They're only Arabs anyway... Right? (/snark).

Now we have to look at that in its entirety. The writer is assuming this is a call for strategic bombing like the RAF over Dresden. It clearly is not. The writer moreover assumes or patently accepts that Hamas rockets are either harmless or deservedly violent. Oh, I see phrases like "murdering pieces of Human Crap"....but I don't see a critique of what or how they do what they do. And importantly I don't see a progressive refutation of Hamas' own use of their OWN people as human shields. After all, were the IAF to bomb a rocket launching site on the top of a hospital, it's fairly likely that the people in the hospital would get killed. Which is the point of using human shields. The response I suppose, to the progressive ethos is to what – have no response at all?

At any rate the point I'm making is one of deterrence not violence. Of the 17,000 rockets Hamas flung at Israel, essentially 100% of them were terror weapons meant to demoralize the populace. What I'm suggesting is a balance of terror, a balance of fear. Just as the people who live in Sderot pressured the Israeli government to build them bomb shelters, just as the army deployed Iron Dome, I am suggesting a likewise application of fear to induce the Gazans to change their tack. Hamas is an organization like a corporation or the Mob or the Rotary Club. They function because they have low mid and high level people who operate over a span of control. They operate because the populace is cowed into permitting it. The point, putting it bluntly, is to put the fear of God into them. Progressive Zionists who oppose even the use of fear as a weapon as somehow being unfair and racist I think can be safely ignored as fools and children.

Bloodcurdling screams of butchery and such have been lobbed against strategic realists for the last 50 years. The nuclear war strategist, Herman Kahn was called every name in the book for suggesting that if a nuclear war is unavoidable, it's better to look at it as survivable, even winnable. Critics of Kahn lamented that if you dare talk about it at all, then you're making the world more dangerous because once you assert that that such a thing is survivable then someone will try. Which is a bit like taking seat belts out of cars to induce people to drive slower. The point here, is that if rockets can only be shot down, wouldn't it be better to get them to stop supporting their own fanatics in doing that?

You can't uninvent something. You can't uninvent the H-Bomb, you can't uninvent maniacal terrorism. You can plan for it. You can attempt to understand where the waterlevel of your tolerance to violence lies. Ignoring the rockets that fly into Ashkelon and hoping they go away is foolish. But so is relying on pure defense as a strategy. Iron Dome etc. works very well but what it does not do is induce the enemy to change. It merely creates a stalemate. A stalemate seemingly that progressives are happy with. Somewhere in their brains they perhaps believe that if you ignore it long enough it really will go away.

Perhaps that's what they believe. I don't know precisely. Perhaps they've embraced the low expectations of the far left as it applies to Arabs. The patent bigotry that allows them to behave like wild animals because...well....you know how THOSE people are... I don't believe that any but a small fringe actively endorse Hamas and company. But unlike them, I won't speak for them or others.

What I do recognize though is that more of the continuation of the last 90 years of western liberalism, leftism and so called progressivism – the ilk that Lenin called his "useful idiots" - is counterproductive.  Progressives inherently believe that Israel is always wrong and terrorists are always right. But it's more of a blind romantic affinity. A terrorist wouldn't be a terrorist unless he had a damn good reason. Or so the story goes. For a great read on the delusions of the left in relation to Stalin, read Martin Amis' “Koba the Dread”. And this sort of blockheaded groupthink still applies. We've replaced the CCCP with Hamas and Hezbollah and the Iranian Bomb. We've post-moderned and morally equivalenced ourselves to the point where murderers get a cookie and the cop gets demoted. A sick inversion of the very same Manichean view of the world the progressives claim to strive for. But such are the luxuries of dilettantes attend rallies and who's personal view of privation is not getting an LTE signal in order to blog about the evils of money and capitalism on the $600 iPhone mom and dad paid for.

Basically it comes down to, if you can't mechanically stop them from killing Israelis then at the very least they have to live in mortal terror of trying it. Are they afraid of 'it' as volleyboy1 exhorts us about his noble righteous terrorists? No, not yet they aren't. It hasn't been tried. What's been tried is shelling empty fields and spending a million dollars to lob a rocket through the passenger side window of a car, and, if it happens to blow up and kill the shwarma stand guy standing next to it....well that's a war crime to the progressives anyway.

As an aside, writer 'volleyboy1' starts his infantile yelling by demanding to know whether I blog at Dkos. Volleyboy1 was a frequent contributor there but was banned. He had all the Obama DNC OWS checkboxes checked, but he was thrown out for being insufficiently antisemitic and that's what burns progressive Jews most of all. Not that their fellow travellers despise them for being Jews, but for reminding them they are. After all in “The Jewish Question” Marx stated baldly that the problem of antisemitism is that the world has permitted Jews to still exist. The solution is to get rid of them all. But progressives and the far left, like ANSWER never forget you're Jews. That must be a huge disappointment to them since they've worked so hard to fit in every other way.

So I decided to respond here, not there where they can take me out of context, project and selectively censor. If volleyboy1 wants to come here to respond, I welcome it. Otherwise he can stay home and mutter and comment with his fellow PZ'rs.

30 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. I am watching the 1971 film Duel on the teevee machine right now, and it just struck me. He reminds me of the truck driver in this film.

      Just when you think it's okay to get back on with whatever you're doing, back out from behind the mountain comes the unhinged truck driver, flying around the corner, cursing and repeatedly ramming his vehicle into phone booths and rattlesnake cages and etc...

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    2. A great film. One of Spielberg's first wasn't it?

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    3. I do believe it was his very first feature-length film, yes...

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  2. Frankly, although I agree with most of what is said with regard to progressive mentality, I don't get how you instill this fear, and if it is legal.

    What are you suggesting that Israel do, other than what it does, which is to respond and adhere to international law, even as its adversaries do not?

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    1. I think you underestimate human nature. 17,000 rockets into Israel and they killed what? 2 dozen souls and injured a hundred more? That's clearly not the calculus of trying to kill people. But what it's accomplished is that half the population of Sderot has PTSD. That's the goal. That slow eroding fear and stress. All I'm suggesting is that we wear them down in precisely the same way in precisely the same number. I'd would even invite the EU and he UN to watch. A rocket comes in and one or two rounds more or less not aimed is sent back. The perfect moral equal of 'proportionality' that the EU and the UN demands. Is that legal? Of course it's legal.

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    2. Can't believe my comment was eaten. Will try to reconstruct it.

      I fully understand human nature. But we are talking about states and entities. Yes, Hamas uses terror. It is Islamic doctrine. Of course, Israel could do the same, but it never will in my opinion. It believes in the principles that protect civilians. To violate them would make it like Hamas.

      This does not mean that Israel cannot act to defend itself, and it does, rather effectively. Perhaps the time will come when those that commit international crimes will be in the dock, which should have befallen the Mufti at Nuremberg and would have repudiated what is now an epidemic.

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    3. oldschooltwentysix,

      "Of course, Israel could do the same, but it never will in my opinion. It believes in the principles that protect civilians."

      What strategy do you suggest against an enemy that has a deliberate policy of mixing the civilians with the combatants, so that we either hold our fire letting them terrorize us freely, or we inevitably hurt the civilians in the course of our self-defense and said enemy gets to show gruesome pictures to a complicit anti-Zionist worldwide media?

      Empress Trudy,

      "They operate because the populace is cowed into permitting it."

      I'm not sure about that. I have reason to believe the Arab colonist populace in Gaza is in agreement with, and therefore does willingly and not out of coercion, the terrorist agenda of Hamas, which, let us not forget, is in power as a result of democratic elections.

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    4. The strategy that is being used already. It protects civilians unless they engage in hostilities and it targets leaders and military objectives.

      I understand that it is not as effective as carpet bombing, but it is the right way.

      Enough in the world are starting to see through and tire of the Palestinian ways, especially as Israel and supporters improve in ability to educate the uninformed about the reality, not to mention the events themselves.

      In that regard, people will also see the moral emptiness of those that enable the law breakers and hatemongers, though this cannot happen fast enough.

      Using the tactics of Hamas is not the way on so many levels, even though we sometimes have the desire to seek immediate vengeance against those who flaunt the law.

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    5. "The strategy that is being used already. It protects civilians unless they engage in hostilities and it targets leaders and military objectives."

      The people of Sderot and the rest of the Gaza environs wouldn't agree this strategy has been of much efficacy in improving their lives. They've been under incessant rocket attacks for nearly a decade, with the exception of the few weeks after a major operation like Cast Lead or Pillar of Cloud.

      "Enough in the world are starting to see through and tire of the Palestinian ways,..."

      I don't see it. If it's happening, then too slowly to reach a critical mass any time soon. The U.N. still obsesses with Israel as it does no other country, and any retaliation by Israel outside the usual will be followed by swift and red-hot condemnation by the hypocritical world. In the meantime, the inhabitants of Sderot keep living in a way no other country would find acceptable.

      "Using the tactics of Hamas is not the way on so many levels,..."

      I don't call for it as a long-term strategy. It would be a more applicable course of action, I think, for Israel in a war against Hezbollah, which is acting out of another country. Anyhow, it is obvious the meager provisions of international law were not written with asymmetric warfare in mind. Right after World War II, when the Allied powers occupying Germany quashed the Werwolf guerrillas (Nazi remnants), they were able to do so only because those near-sighted laws of warfare had not yet been written; from then onward, the best armies of the world have been at a loss to deal with guerrillas, whether in Vietnam, Iraq or the Arab-Colonized Jewish Territories.

      And that's without going into my contention that we Jews, as the indigenous of Palestine, should never at all have gotten into a situation of having to contend with guerrilla warfare on our own soil in the first place.

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    6. the best armies of the world have been at a loss to deal with guerrillas, whether in Vietnam, Iraq or the Arab-Colonized Jewish Territories.

      I couldn't agree more.

      We have got to entirely change the terms of discussion, not only because it is in our interest to do so, but because doing so is also more reflective of justice and of the historical record.

      We have history on our side if we would champion it, but we don't. This is a terrific mistake.

      From any fair reading of Jewish history Judea and Samaria are Arab-Colonized Jewish Territories. This is not propaganda, it is an undeniable historical fact.

      What I say is that we must reconsider the very terms of the debate because for far too long they take place on the territory of people who obviously do not wish us well.

      This is what I call The Palestinian Colonization of the Jewish Mind.

      Basic terms: West Bank (Judea and Samaria), East Jerusalem, (Jerusalem or the eastern section thereof), Occupation, (self-defense),Intifada (terror war).

      And on and on and on.

      Despite the fact that Islamic Jihad refers to murder of Jews as "Jihad" they are even now trying to get us to believe that Jihad is my work-out regime. I understand that the word "Jihad" can refer to a spiritual struggle, but so long as Palestinian-Arabs are shooting rockets at my brothers and sisters in Israel, I frankly do not give a shit.

      If we will not speak up honestly for our own well-being then who will?

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    7. I hear you, but emulating Hamas is not the way in my opinion.

      I think the response has to be sustained, and the laws of war adhered to. Israel seems pretty good at killing the bad guys and protecting the innocents, and it should continue.

      I know of no other alternative.

      I think there has been a huge lag, but that opinions are changing and it will accelerate as other states are subjected to resistance within their borders, and people come to fully appreciate that Islam is not the peaceful and tolerant religion they were led to believe.

      There should also be more pushback to bring the Palestinian leaders before the ICC.

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    8. School,

      what I would ask you is why you think that opinions are changing.

      What I see is the reverse.

      It seems to me that not only is the western left trending toward the Palestinian-Arabs, but so are the European Governments.

      {Long live the Czech Republic.}

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    9. Mike,

      I coined that term, ACJTs (Arab-Colonized Jewish Territories), a while back, as a subversive analogy to OPTs (Occupied Palestinian Territories), for use in my own writings. Even when I'm not trying to challenge the terminology, I still can't employ the terms I see in the worldwide news. On one Progressive Jewish blog (not PZ), the owner admonished one of the commenters for using the term "Judea and Samaria." He called it "settler terminology." The commenter was shocked. He responded by asking if the next demand would be to abandon "Jerusalem" for "Al Quds." The blog owner evaded with "internationally recognized names" yada yada.

      oldschooltwentysix,

      Let's say (leaving out my skepticism about it) there are innocents on both sides; that makes innocents on one side who suffer because their leaders (Hamas) put them in harm's way, and innocents on the other side who suffer for their mere existence (Jews on land coveted by the Hamas imperialists). Why should one group of innocents be more worthy of suffering than the other? If there are innocents in Gaza who are tired of Israel's air raids, they can rise against their Hamas masters (you know, Arab Spring and all that... if the Egyptians can rebel against Mubarak and then Morsi, so can the Gazans). On the other side of the equation, what are the innocents of Sderot supposed to do? They're not pawns in the war like the people of Gaza are (or may be); there's nothing they can do to stop receiving rocket attacks but evacuate, which I'm sure you think is unacceptable.

      I know where you're coming from, but my overriding concern is to restore the Jews of the pre-1967 Israel environs of Gaza to normal living, and methods that are kind to the other side but ineffective for ours do not find my favor. A method that neither inflicts heavy losses on the other side nor fails to stop the rocket attacks completely would be the best, of course, but has so far not been forthcoming.

      "There should also be more pushback to bring the Palestinian leaders before the ICC."

      No argument there. Sauce for the goose, dose of their own medicine...

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    10. I think they are changing for several reasons.

      The more aggressive behavior forces people to take notice of the larger threat, as more states become Islamic and more states have to deal with the growing problems from multiculturalism.

      There is more exposure of the hate coming from Israel's adversaries and it will have a cumulative effect in educating the uneducated until more start to engage.

      The corruption of the Palestinians that shows it is really not about peace, not matter what Israel does.

      The internal conflicts, such as between Sunni and Shia.

      We are just tuned in more than most, so it looks pretty bad now. But when the threat becomes more than can be ignored, the tide will change, and there will be a clash of civilizations that rejects cultural relativism and those that try to use freedom to destroy it.

      I have to be an optimist, in the end, and that is why I try to open eyes and minds. I just wish that some of the best advocates would better understand the audience they attempt to persuade, rather than the adversary they attempt to fight.

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    11. ziontruth,

      You make a good point that some civilians in Gaza may indirectly engage in hostilities in such a way that they lose protected status.

      Clearly, Hamas could care about any civilians, and Islamic doctrine seems to care little about life on earth. This information must be spread, so people have a better understanding that this is not a battle for self-determination for Palestinians.

      Israel seems to have the ability to target leaders and participants, and it should increase this to send the message that no one is safe, while others should start to demand that the indoctrination stop. I think many Arabs would actually desire the benefits that Israel could offer as a neighbor in peace, if only the right environment could be created to repudiate the leaders that endanger them and hurt their prospects for a better quality of life.

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    12. The murderous bomb attacks on Jewish people in Israel by, and the slashings of throats of Jewish people by, and the rocket attacks on Jewish people in Israel by, the members of, and Arab supporters of, Fatah-PLO and Hamas, are a symptom of the problem. Israelis and Jewish people in general are stuck in the minutia. Look at the overall picture. Look and see what is the actual problem. Look and see what is causing all of this -- what is allowing all of this -- what is enabling all of this. Dispel what is causing all of this -- what is allowing all of this -- what is enabling all of this. Dispel the belief, among Western people, and, most importantly, dispel the belief among American people, in the false narrative constituted of lies -- lies propagated by Western governments, Western mass-media, Western academia, etc. (and particularly, and most influentially, propagated by the U.S. government -- namely the members of the U.S. governmental "ruling elite" -- the State Department, the upper echelons of the CIA, U.S. executive administrations) -- which is what is causing all of this -- what is allowing all of this -- what is enabling all of this. Tell the facts of the history and current reality of the situation. The leaders of the government of Israel -- particularly, and most importantly, the Prime minister of Israel -- need to do this. To the Western mass-media, in press conferences, on television. In the United Nations. In speeches in the U.S. congress. Tell the truth -- inform -- therein sway public opinion -- which is what what the policies of the governments of Western states hinge on -- are constricted by, and are driven by. And Jewish leaders of the government of Israel need to do this -- tell these facts -- directly, in person, to the leaders of Western governments (and, therein, call out the anti-Jewish bigotry of, and the anti-Jewish anti-Israeli agenda of, the leaders of Western governments, and inform them, and, therein, particularly, and importantly, inform those of them who are merely ignorant.) The Jewish leaders of the government of Israel need to start having a backbone. Jewish leaders of the government of Israel need to start being decent and sane -- and wise. Jewish leaders of the government of Israel need to start protecting their own nation like normal leaders of nations.

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  3. Seems to me such a strategy wouldn't work since Hamas doesn't give one crap about their own people in the first place, and the only way to dislodge them at this point would probably be civil war. But to argue that simple thinking-out-loud in this way is somehow similar to what our enemies, who kill people in real life and would absolutely commit genocide if only they were strong enough, is ludicrous. Demonization is the only tactic some have, unfortunately.

    I was dragged into that post over there, myself, because I don't wet myself every time someone on the internet says something I disagree with. And also for personal reasons, as I have a 'fan' or two over there, who can't get over feeling spurned that I continued posting here even after it was demanded of me that I stop. It's a silly, juvenile game of "Gotcha!" from Daily Kos that some continue to insist on playing even after they've been kicked out of that place, and it's sad. Similar to high school chatter at the lockers ("Omgdiduhearwhatthisonesaid?Noway!Way!"), or at least how such a thing is portrayed in teen movies. I never had a locker, or at least I don't remember using one much. But I digress hopelessly, so I'll sign off for now...

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    1. I honestly don't know what the downstream effect, politically, would look like. I'm not convinced that's relevant. We can't control what they do to one another. But that's not the goal. The goal of rockets flying in has never been to move Israel politically in one direction or another. The purpose it serves to the government, to the political system, is shear overhead. Another problem to manages like crop failures and the price of oil. But I do believe on the deeper level it's trap for Israel to think they can simply Iron Dome their way out of this. Pure defense doesn't work in the long run if you have no way to stop people attacking you. Eventually they'll find another way around your defenses. And then what?

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    2. I agree that you can never ultimately win by always playing defense, and I also picked up on your (perhaps slightly waggish?) point about 'proportionality,' which of course is a bunch of BS when called for by Israel's 'critics,' who would have been just as apoplectic over Israel's response if they were to have done something like this last year, instead.

      I don't know what to do, myself, and that's okay. I can admit that I don't know everything.

      The response to your comment over at that other place doesn't care to see these things, however, as they are first and foremost interested in demonization of those they see as their 'enemy.'

      Again, it's a silly game of "Gotcha!" that they carried over from Daily Kos (though it surely happens elsewhere on the internet, left and right, but that site is particularly infamous for it in my experience), and that site is just yet another in the long line of blogs which are doing to civil discourse what Gallagher did to watermelons.

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  4. And I'd also like to note that one of my favorite things about this place is even when there is disagreement, it is civil, and does not spark days-long cage fighting sessions.

    There aren't too many places like that on the internet these days, let alone those focused on the issues we discuss.

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  5. I want to thank Trudy for this contribution.

    There are a considerable number of potential ideas to untangle and discuss in this post. I agree with some of it and much of it I do not, but I am happy that we finally have a true foreign affairs conservative in these pages.

    I want diversity of opinion on IT and I want intelligent left-leaning individuals talking in reasonably fair ways with intelligent right-leaning individuals.

    I come from the left but, sadly, it seems to be the right that has the most realistic and freshest ideas on the conflict. I also know that I can trust them the most to honestly have Israel's back.

    I love my progressive-left friends and they are welcome to write here, but when it comes to this issue... an issue that could not be more vital and imperative... the progressive movement, including much of the Jewish left, has pushed me toward people that I understand to be strong supporters of Israel.

    As you guys know, my argument has been that in accepting anti-Semitic anti-Zionism as part of the larger progressive movement they have betrayed their Jewish constituents and friends. I see very little way to avoid this conclusion.

    Thus, Trudy gets her name on the masthead.

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  6. Trudy,

    this is where I disagree with you.

    The fact that they don't call for an outright extermination of all the Jews in Israel appears to be what sets them apart from 972mag. Importantly they seem to have swallowed the whole “Jews out, Peace In” mantra.

    I understand how you might get that immediate impression if you were not more familiar with those people.

    But to imply that they are just one step away from calling for the extermination of the Jewish people is terribly wrong and my conscience will not allow that statement to pass without saying so.

    You are absolutely right about this, however:

    Their solution is, and let's not sugar coat it, ethnic cleansing of all Jews from Yesha and half of Jerusalem.

    That is absolutely a fact. It's not just those guys on that little blog, but it has been, as you well know, a central part of the Oslo Delusion since at least 1992.

    I think that it's racist as hell, to be frank. Furthermore, it justifies Arab racism against Jews. It bolsters the notion that Jews should not be allowed to live among Arabs outside of the Green Line.

    I was a progressive-left Jew on Arab-Israel issues for many years, but I remained so as long as I had some faith... some hope... that what the Palestinians-Arabs actually want is a state of their own in peace next to Israel.

    Once it became clear to me that this is not remotely the case the Oslo Delusion became a ghost.



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    1. And I would have little issue with them if they simply stood up and openly and unapologetically cheered for the ethnic cleansing we have to pull out of them to admit albeit obliquely. I have met my share of KKK and ANP members who tell me to my face what they think of me. I have a grudging respect for them I don't share with the 'progressives' who believe more or less the same thing but pretend I don't see it.

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    2. Left-leaning Jews simply do not think of it in those terms, Trudy.

      You know this as well as I do. For many left-leaning Jews the idea after '67 was that we could swap out land for peace and therefore "settlements" were an impediment.

      This is 101.

      During the Clinton years a lot of us thought that maybe there could be a negotiated conclusion of hostilities and therefore the WB was a small price to pay for peace.

      The difference is that some of us learn from the past and some absolutely refuse to do so.

      What I see among progressive-left pro-Israel Jewish ideologues is an unwillingness to acknowledge that times have changed.

      Their intentions are generally of the highest order.

      It's their results that suck.

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    3. Their intentions are childish. Waving the white flag even harder isn't going to change that. The only difference between the Nazis and the Arabs is one of capability not intent.

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    4. Their intentions are not childish, but perhaps unrealistic given the realities of an adversary that will not take yes for an answer.

      With regard to the Arabs, I think there is a much greater difference than what is stated here. Nazi intent was eradication of Jews, and not all Arab leaders seek this result, but would be perfectly willing to have Jews live among them as dhimmis.

      Also, some Arabs actually see positive in living alongside their Jewish cousins, despite the genocidal nature of much of their leadership.

      Progressives that blame Israel and the West for Arab misery, however, including Jews among them, have a serious problem in comprehending that they are seen as weak and subject to exploitation by the worst elements.

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    5. Yes, much of this ignorance is because most are grossly uniformed or underinformed.

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    6. "Their intentions are not childish, but perhaps unrealistic given the realities of an adversary that will not take yes for an answer."

      It seems rather clear to me that the Palestinian strategy is to simply hold out forever. Sooner or later they believe they'll ultimately get what they want. Which is the end of Israel, if even only in stages.

      I truly do not know what to make of those who would insist upon 'waiting at the table' (forever, if necessary?) for good-faith negotiations which will never happen. In such a case they are quite literally demonstrating that they are paralyzed by a set of ideas which they can apparently never admit may be wrong. Lest they be seen as acknowledging that perhaps those they disparage as 'idiots' and 'right-wingers' and whatever other pejoratives they prefer, may have been correct all along. Maybe it's a defense mechanism against a stunning shock to their worldview from which they'll never be able to recover.

      Whatever it is, though, it sure isn't a positive thing.

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    7. I truly do not know what to make of those who would insist upon 'waiting at the table' (forever, if necessary?) for good-faith negotiations which will never happen.

      There are a number of factors in play, here, but the two most prominent are probably social pressure to think in certain ways (which is a driving force of ideology, itself) and a lack of political imagination.

      Social pressure inclines people not only to do certain things, but to think in certain accepted categories. That's why Daily Kos, for example, exists. The purpose is to patrol the boundaries of acceptable thought and discussion.

      This is also why WhatsHisFace is so vehement and nasty. It's because he's essentially an authoritarian endeavoring to keep people in line. In other words, the guy's a thug who seeks to ruin the reputations of those who fail to toe his narrow political line.

      What we need, it seems to me, is creative imagination moving forward grounded in an honest appraisal of the past. What the past tells me is pretty much what it has told you.

      It seems rather clear to me that the Palestinian strategy is to simply hold out forever.

      That is precisely their strategy and the reason that it works is because we refuse to reference the facts of Jewish history in the Middle East under Muslim rule.

      It's about international public perception and so long as the victims of Islamic imperialism are made to seem to be the oppressors then the argument is lost before it even begins.

      And this is why I insist that the language that we use to discuss the war against the Jews in that part of the world is so crucial.

      It predetermines conclusions.

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