Reality Check

In a time where the political winds have shifted enough that the Israel can seriously question whether the Unites States still considers it a bonafide ally, the following piece should serve as a reality check.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1243346480786&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

The simple truth can help bring peace
By MAX SINGER

An often-overlooked piece of Palestinian behavior is key to the pursuit of peace. The Palestinians teach their people that no Jewish kingdom ever existed in the land they call Palestine, and that there was never a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.

Presumably some Palestinians know these teachings are false, but for most they are "facts" learned in school and taken for granted. These falsehoods are deliberately spread by the Palestinian leadership. To publicly deny them is to be viewed as disloyal, and anyone who tries to assert the truth risks retribution.

This is not just a matter of ancient history - it's not merely an "alternative narrative" which needn't be contested because it's just talk. This false story helps explain the Palestinian refusal to make peace, because so long as Palestinians think the Jews were never here before, they will see Jews as a foreign colonial implant with no moral claim or right to the land. Modern Israel's claim to land in Palestine depends on the Jews' historic connection to the territory. Without this history, the nation of Israel would be merely foreign invaders, not a people who can be seen as returning home.

When a powerful foreigner comes and takes your territory just because he wants it, you have no honorable way to yield your rights. Accepting such a foreign invasion would be a cowardly sacrifice of honor. By insisting that this is what happened, the Palestinians' leaders are in effect burning their bridges behind them, so that their people will be forced by their honor to fight on, and prevented from making an honorable peace.

The Palestinian leadership's willingness to look foolish by denying well-known historic facts - including basic Christian history - demonstrates the importance to them of denying their people the moral and psychological basis for an honorable peace.

THE UNITED STATES CAN make an important step toward peace by publicly assuring the Palestinians that there were indeed ancient Jewish kingdoms in the land, and a Jewish temple on the Temple Mount before the birth of Muhammad. There are plenty of Muslim sources that the US can use to teach these facts.

Denial of the Jews' ancient connection to the land is much more important than Holocaust denial. Israel's claim to the land has nothing to do with the Holocaust. The international decision that Palestine should be a Jewish homeland was made by the League of Nations a generation before the Holocaust. Jews claim the land based on their continuous emotional and religious attachment to it since ancient times - not as compensation for six million dead.

Since Palestinians and other Arabs care about honor, we should make it possible for them to recognize that there can be an honorable peace with the Jews. (Although there would still be Muslim objections to Jewish rule in Israel.)

Israeli diplomats should call on the US to end the Palestinians' denial of history, even though the State Department apparently regards the truth as something offensive to Arabs.

What better public disagreement can Israel and the US have than a disagreement about whether to allow the Palestinians to continue denying Jewish history? What better diagnostic tool can there be to determine when Palestinians are truly ready to live with Israel than looking at whether they are willing to acknowledge the Jews' connection to the land?

The writer, a founder of the Hudson Institute, is a senior fellow there and at the BESA Center of Bar-Ilan University.

Equivalences

Congruence, as opposed to equivalence or approximation, is a relation which implies a kind of equivalence, though not complete equivalence. from Wikipedia


ITEM: Waterboarding, and CIA Torture Photos

The Obama Administration is discovering that it is impossible to be pacifistic when in power. Not that they haven’t tried, particularly through their craven appeasement of the Muslim World and their allies [Chavez, et al.]. Yet to a certain degree they realize we are at war; witness the “flip-flop” regarding the torture pics, which in a sense is comforting, because beyond the “hearts and minds” issue, someone realizes that the PR war is part of the war effort as a whole (something that the last Administration ignored).
Also, it interesting to see the Republicans grill Nancy Pelosi regarding when she knew about waterboarding, and her almost offhanded “I was for it before I was against it”; she knows that the Republicans tried this gambit with the Iraq War, and while it worked in 2004, it can only further highlight their complete lack of credibility on—well, just about anything.


ITEM: Non-Proliferation

In its attempt to TL the Government of Iran, the Obama Administration is trying to make equivalences between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Iran’s drive toward arming themselves. Additionally, Obama has blindly pursued non-proliferation with a vigor unseen since JFK made it a personal crusade, and there is unspoken pressure on Israel because now rogue states can point to Israel’s “intransigence” on the issue.
I would hope that Obama is smart enough to realize that Israel’s policy of nuclear opacity provides enough of an indication that if they have it, it’s purely for defensive purposes. [OK, they have it, but that’s exactly the point.]
In contrast, when rogue states whose political philosophies are guided by a theology that MANDATES war to conquer and subdue the planet, and these rogue states actually “tout” the theological prestige that comes with the acquisition of nukes and other WMD, and then they threaten their use unfettered by any consideration other than eschatology…oh wait, I have to be careful here. Someone might think I’m talking about the Jews.


ITEM: Carrie Prejean, Obama, and Gay Marriage

Many conservatives are up in arms about the pressure brought to bear on the Miss Universe contestant for having the temerity to stand up for her beliefs. Plus, you hear, didn’t Obama say the same thing?
Not really. Context is everything. Prejean was definitely making a statement about what she thought was the moral incorrectness of gay marriage, and she probably would be equally against civil unions; Obama was more likely making a policy statement than a moral judgement. Political incorrectness combined with self-righteousness doesn’t make anyone popular.
Yet, while we deal with this topic, I would like to shatter one more “equivalence”: the notion that the reluctance to the powers-that-be to legalize gay marriage is as immoral as the now-discredited miscegenation laws that were on the books for so long. Actually, no; mixed couples risked imprisonment, and even sometimes exile from the state where said union was illegal. That won’t happen again. The legal disabilities imposed on gay couples may or may not be civil rights issues, but they certainly not as clear cut as that.



Item: Village Voice and NY Post Agree

http://www.villagevoice.com/2009-05-13/news/bloomberg-and-the-teachers-union/

Some might consider this the sign of the apocalypse, particularly if they work for any teachers’ unions. In a lead article in the Village Voice that looked more like a typical Post editorial excoriating UFT leader Randi Weingarten, Wayne Barrett unequivocally took sides against the unions: “the Mayor's campaigning is easy. So easy, he can roll over the union this time—and should.” For good measure, he even took a swipe at ACORN and linked them to failing schools. This in what most consider THE flagship organ of progressivism.

There may be hope for the children after all.

Empathy

You have to give President Obama credit.

He explicitly defined "quality of empathy" as "an essential ingredient for arriving at just decisions and outcomes…we need somebody who's got . . . the empathy to recognize what it's like to be a young, teenage mom; the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African American or gay or disabled or old." It might be the first time the word has been used specifically in this context, but the notion that one needs to “arriv[e] at just decisions and outcomes” is not; this was how then-President Johnson referred to “the next stage of civil rights” in 1965: “not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.”

“Empathy” is a catch-all; in this case it doesn’t even have to be a code.

Obama may be correct in applying the term “empathy” as far as noting than no judge can be completely impartial, Justice Roberts’ when he comparison of judges to baseball umpires calling balls and strikes notwithstanding (especially since every baseball fan knows that every umpire employs a different strike zone). In fact, they are being equally disingenuous.

In fact, Obama’s 2007 statement that "the issues that come before the court are not sport” completely misses the point. In the current American political zeitgeist, that’s exactly what they have become. I’ve described this notion in various ways, from calling it “Acquisitionism” to comparing it to an NFL with only two teams. However, the notion of Empathy vs Impartiality—or, to put it in the political terms bandied about most regarding judges, Activism vs Constructionism—forced me to come to temrs with a new concept.

Justice may be blind; in the U.S., judges never are, and this can be attributed to our adversarial system. All judges are lawyers and act as such, even if they’re not supposed to. They have now also become politicians. Furthermore, they have been activist since Marbury v. Madison, and “legislated from the bench” since at least Brown v. Borad, but probably before. It has also been shown that “constructionism” regarding the Constitution is oxymoronic at best, when one sees how the same document can be used to uphold Plessy v Ferguson and its diametric opposite, Brown v Board, over a period of less than 60 years.

When one gets beyond all the partisan rancor, a look at the scorecard indicates that “partisan” judges get confirmed, usually by sizeable majorities. The most contentious appointment to have been confirmed was Clarence Thomas’ in 1991, and that had more to do with his alleged misbehavior than his propensities toward “natural” law and disavowal of the affirmative action process than got him into to law school in the first place. One could even make a case that Robert Bork was rejected not because he was an insufferable far-right moralist (which he was) but because he showed himself to be absolutely politically tone deaf. No one was going to give him points for being consistent. For what its worth, one should also remember is that the most “activist” Court since World War II (if not ever) was led by a former Republican Governor—Earl Warren—who had been appointed by a Republican President—Dwight Eisenhower.

The only empathy we need to have is for people who actually believe that the judicial process is supposed to be above all this. And we shouldn’t have much.

For New Chair(person) Of RNC: Bristol Palin

I realized that after my last post I spent so much time attempting to justify putting W.’s administration in the dock that I didn’t flesh out my reasoning behind why conservatives have no credibility, beyond the standard laundry list of Republican disasters of the past six years.

Then I heard on the news this morning that Bristol Palin, daughter of Gov. Sarah, is having another change of heart about abstinence education and is stumping across the country for the Candie’s Foundation as a spokesperson for reducing teenage pregnancies.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hCJJnoKaw1If6gMyZri_7KaI_MQD980UO4O0

I realized that no better example exists of Republican/conservative inconsistency, hypocrisy, and incompetence. Forget her mother; Bristol is now the new face of the Republican future, and the (literal?) embodiment of the effectiveness and salience of its principles, at least in term of its social policy outlook. Even Octomom claims she hasn’t has sex for nine years but doesn’t preach about it.

Enhanced Interrogations III—The Big Payback: Republi-Karma’s Logical Conclusion

Since I continue to be confounded by the current Administration’s insistence that enhanced interrogative techniques qualify as torture, and I agree with conservatives’ insistence that their employment remains legitimate, if not compulsory, in dealing with terrorists, I’m sure I will at least equally confound my readers when I insist that the architects of said policies—I include Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Rice, and I exclude those at Justice who crafted the policies/justifications—should sit the dock and face a trial that will rival the spectacle and the obvious blatant partisan rancor that attended the Clinton impeachment.

It seems as if Obama’s Justice Department will actually spare the country this ordeal, probably because it would be perceived—rather accurately—to be grossly overreaching, aside form the fact that the spectre of national security will hang over every aspect of the proceedings. Additionally, it’s unlikely that any truly Constitutional violations occurred, at least to the point that can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt.

However, I would like to see the aforementioned “Fab Four” in the dock for various, if inherently contradictory, reasons.

First: lying about the nature of the war. Not specifically about WMD in Iraq, thought that’s a whole other can of worms. By declaring that “you are either with us or against us”, and then enlisting countries such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan as erstwhile allies, the conducting of the entire “War On Terror” became a treasonable exercise in effect, if not intent.

Second: attempting to fight the war on the cheap. If we were truly fighting a “War”—which even the Pentagon realized was limited before the change in Administrations—a draft would have been instituted. The fact that one wasn’t indicated one of two things: either a) the “War”—wherever it was being conducted—was not as compulsory as the Bush Administration was declaring it to be, or b) they put their political fortunes ahead of the nation’s. You don’t “go to war with the Army you have”; you find a way to get a better one, even if it means you have institute a draft, rationing, or higher taxes.

Third: placing the Administration’s political fortunes ahead of the nation’s. One can trace this all the way back to a September 20, 2001 editorial in the Wall Street Journal exhorting the Bush Administration to use the 9/11 attacks as an opportunity to link the conservative agenda to the war effort and force the country to accept it.

Fourth: Abu Ghraib. Again: I have no sympathy for the “victims” of “torture”; I’ve been clear about where I stand on that. However, what occurred there, more than any other incident in Iraq, was indicative of the war effort complete lack of professionalism and competence, especially in terms of the criminal level of political tone-deafness. What Abu Ghraib did was further highlight all of the clandestine activity needed to give us an advantage, which of necessity made it harder to keep clandestine. The Administration couldn’t keep its mouth shut even before then.

One could plausibly claim that I am advocating the criminalization of political failures, and I strengthen the hands of our enemies by publicly placing the former Administration on trial for protecting our country. No; I am advocating that whichever Administration fighting a war can be held accountable for confusing the prosecution of said war with their political entrenchment. The Bush White House’ own spokesman, Ari Fleischer, said “people have to watch what they say and watch what they do”, but that rule didn’t seem to apply to the Bushies.

Republicans and conservatives would no doubt publicly decry the shame of their erstwhile standard bearers being treated like common criminals; even Clinton didn’t face imprisonment. However, conservatives have to realize two things. One, as I’ve detailed in my numerous “Republi-Karma” posts, they created this political climate of hyper-partisanship in the mid-1990’s and it would simply have reached its logical if absurd, conclusion with a criminal trial. Two, the series of political disasters starting with the failure to plan for the Iraq occupation thru Abu Ghraib, Katrina, the 2006 elections and the economic meltdown have robbed them of any credibility. That, in the end, may be the biggest betrayal of all: there are conservative principles that are sound—and, because their champions are without credibility, will be impossible to implement.