Kim’s reply now seems much less like an attempt to walk both sides of the street then when I first read it. My letter to him, on the other hand, now seems too terse to convey what I was trying to say properly.
This is what I might have said if I had been writing a blog post, rather than dashing off a quick email:
There is currently much debate about the policy of mandatory detention of asylum seekers. This policy was instituted by the Hawke-Keating government, and has historically had broad bipartisan support. This policy may be justified in several ways:
1) These entities called countries have a right to control who enters certain geographical areas. Otherwise, what is the point of having them? I do not agree with this argument on theological grounds (e.g., ‘The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens’, Baha’ullah) and it has been critiqued extensively from both left and right, but there is broad support for it in the electorate. Thus, detaining unauthorized arrivals will tend to deter other unauthorized arrivals and keep the process of migration under control. Kim does not explicitly refer to this primary deterrent function of mandatory detention in his reply.
2) People entering Australia illegally may injure us by taking our jobs, bringing plagues into the country, stealing our women and running riot in the streets. These reasons are all highly dubious, but are the main rationale offered by Kim, viz.: ‘…the damage that the unmonitored release of large numbers of refugee claimants could inflict on our community in terms of illegal employment and health risks’; ‘…we continue to support a regime of compulsory detention of unauthorised arrivals in order to carry out thorough health and character checks’. I trust the ‘bot’ calculated that most letters on this topic would be from sentimental folks who would not be moved by the Realpolitik justifications.
3) We should discourage people from doing something that is very dangerous- making a long ocean crossing in unseaworthy craft operated by criminals. There is a moral rationale for deterring people from doing this by making their experience unpleasant once they land, even if like me you believe that nations have no intrinsic right to control ‘their’ borders. I am in complete agreement with this justification. Unsurprisingly, as I am the only one I am aware of who has made it, Kim does not mention it.
4) Given that 1) is a fact of life, our natural admiration for the initiative and daring of these asylum seekers, and our dispassionate assessment that they form a very small group of people posing no threat to our way of life, is tempered by the realization that it is unjust to let in illegal immigrants while others are waiting patiently to proceed through legal channels of immigration. This sense of injustice was milked to great success by the Coalition government. But, I think it is only valid if the ‘queue’ which is being ‘jumped’ is a real queue, and not a shabby con. If a refugee who follows legal procedures for immigration to Australia is likely to die of old age before making it the head of the queue, then it is nonsense to talk about ‘queue jumpers’. It is ridiculous to demonise people for not going through proper channels if proper channels are woefully inadequate. Kim’s bot does not mention ‘queue jumping’ because, I think, explicitly saying it was okay would scare swing voters, while explicitly saying it was bad would cause the rank and file to complain that he was exactly the same as Johnnie.
Thus, I should have said:
Kim, this popular justification that the Coalition is going on about- number 4- is fraudulent. You know it, and I know it. But we both know that it could be made a decent argument, and should you win government you will need more decent arguments than number 2 to continue the Hawke-Keating mandatory detention policy. I figure that with a refugee intake of 200-250k per annum, targeted to the places where the refugees actually are, most people who have a valid case and want to come to Australia will have a fair chance of making it here within a decade, and will be content to go through legal channels instead of risking their lives. Then, you will be on firm ground to throw the book at those asylum seekers arriving here unannounced. ‘Why didn’t you fill out the forms we were distributing in Peshawar?’ you can ask. ‘Why isn’t your name on the list?’
I suddenly non sequitured to mention Israel in my letter because of what I had been reading just before, which had brought home to me very strongly two things.
a) The consequences of justification 1) in the 1930s and 40s, when it condemned millions of people who had the desire to emigrate, the wherewithal to support themselves, and the qualities to be exemplary citizens of their new countries, to appalling suffering and death.
b) The amazing capacity of a small struggling country to absorb large numbers of immigrants in a short time, leading me to believe that if we could easily cope with many more refugees than we were taking.
Marco and I were recently discussing the best way to exert pressure on the candidates in the upcoming federal election in order to increase Australia’s unskilled migrant intake, because there aren’t enough unskilled workers to go around. Refugees would be the best source of unskilled migrants, because they need it more and because they will earn us international good nation points. Can anyone recommend any good lobby groups?
Showing posts with label Israel/Palestine. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israel/Palestine. Show all posts
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Saturday, July 21, 2007
An Outline of History, Part One
Quoth Marco: I guess my attitude with a very uncertain world is to look back in complete retrospective optimism in the decisions that were made. For instance one can pick a critical decision made (eg. invading Iraq in the way that it happened) and imagine an alternative history where that decision was the difference between our relatively stable world, and triggering a freak sequence of (unpredicted) events of such calamity that the whole of civilization would have broken down (exercise for the novel writer - write a brief outline of events to describe in an alternate history novel) Of course one can do it evenly on both sides of the debate (if 9/11 didn't happen, if the UN approved war, if Al Gore had been given the election etc.)
The man in the chair leaned back, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples. It was 9:07 on a Friday night, and in a sane world he would have been home long ago with his family, not sitting here with two more appointments on his schedule.
My G_d, thought the President, I am so very very tired.
The desk was spread with foreign policy briefing papers. All today’s. All bad. The war- always the war- was always good for bad news, and today it had delivered in spades. In the worst single incident for the U.S. forces this year, at least twelve South Carolina national guardsmen had been killed by a roadside bomb in a region that had been designated ‘pacified’ two weeks ago. Moment by moment the news feed brought more sneers at his quixotic nation-building project from the right, more gibes from the left mocking the ‘so-called War for Justice’. ‘An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,’ they said, denigrating his motivation and his religion in the one glib catchphrase. It’s about justice, he told himself, as he always did. Not revenge. And Americans would not sleep soundly at home until justice was established everywhere in the world. It was not possible to just pull back the troops and pull up the drawbridge.
He knew he would not see it out to the end. That would be for others, who came after. The part he had taken upon himself was to impose the rule of law on Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan. All the dark forces of Islamo-Jacobinism had boiled out to oppose him, drawn from the ends of the earth to the wound he had made on the body of Dar al-Islam.
A verse of Kipling ran willy-nilly through his head.
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains
And the women come down to cut up what remains
Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
And go to your G_d like a soldier
It had not been his war to begin with, though now his name was inextricably linked with it in the public mind. After the September 11 attacks, President Gore had been ceaseless in his efforts to build a multilateral framework to ensure its perpetrators were brought to justice. He had built a consensus, and a U.N.-mandated coalition, and after exhausting all diplomatic avenues with the Taliban regime, had launched a full invasion of Afghanistan in March 2003. Gore presided over the first, triumphant phase of the war, but by November he was gone, the first U.S. President to resign because of ill-health. Doctors said his debilitating respiratory illness was a consequence of too many morale-building visits to Ground Zero in the first terrible days after the attacks. It had been left to Lieberman, like it had been left to Johnson after Kennedy, to prosecute the inevitable escalation of the war. He had pressured Musharraf to provide full co-operation in hunting down Al-Qaida forces in the border region, and today over a hundred thousand U.S. servicemen were operating on the Pakistani side of the border, in Baluchistan and the Northwest Frontier Province. Spain had pulled out of the coalition after Madrid bombings. Italy after the Palermo incident. As year succeeded year with no sign of a successful conclusion, as Pakistan became more radicalised and the flow of foreign fighters into the region intensified, so too grew disapproval of the war. There was a consensus in the media that Lieberman’s second term would go down in history as a litany of wasted opportunities. He took no notice of this. Whatever the rest of the world said, he knew that defeat was unthinkable.
Westward of the war zone, there were equally intractable problems. When he thought of all the diplomat years that had been wasted on the Kurdish problem- all those special envoys, all those flying visits to Suleimanayah and Ankara- and now the Constanta Accord for Kurdish Autonomy had collapsed in a bloody shambles. What a waste. As the net of U.N. sanctions restricting Iraq had been gradually dismantled, the Kurds in the northern no-fly zone had grown increasingly apprehensive about the future of their de facto independence, and had pressed for U.N. guarantees for continued autonomy. There had been a plebiscite, against the protests of Turkey and Iraq. The results of the plebiscite had been shelved by a U.N. committee. The Islamist regime in Turkey and the Baathists in Iraq had been increasingly open in their efforts to subvert Kurdistan. The Constanta Accord had offered a face-saving solution for everyone. There had been a timetable. There had been foot-dragging, provocations. And then these past few weeks- the stupid unilateral declaration of independence, and now the Turks and Iraqis were rolling in from north and south, ignoring the long-moribund no-fly zone. A NATO member and the ‘Butcher of Baghdad’ conniving at the dismemberment of one of the few democratic enclaves in the Middle East. Lieberman’s ambassador to the U.N. was pushing a raft of measures to rein in the aggressors: but the U.N. was so slow, so terribly slow. The reaction from the Western media had been muted: There were no comfortable hotels with broadband internet and Kentucky bourbon in convenient proximity to the warzone, and no scheduled international flights into the Kurdish enclave. And it wasn’t like there were Americans dying or killing.
In Israel even more diplomat years had been wasted. Yasser Arafat was dead, and Sharon, but whatever opportunities for hope these might have afforded were swept away by the continuing campaign of suicide bombings. Netanyahu had come back to power in a landslide and rejected any suggestion that the Jewish state hunker down between a defensive line, pushing an aggressive line in the Territories that had made it difficult for Lieberman to offer the unqualified support he would have liked to give. $10,000 a head: that was the going price for a dead Jew, offered by the Iraqi dictator through a chain of intermediaries offering plausible deniability. He had the evidence, but it was not enough to convince the international community to act: the memory of the last disasterous attempt to influence Iraq’s behaviour through sanctions was still fresh. In other countries, perhaps. For other victims, there might yet be sanctions. Not for the Jews. One of the papers on the President’s desk reported on a suicide bombing in Modi’in, the first for a few weeks. Only one person had been killed besides the bomber when he detonated himself in an IKEA checkout line, a seventeen year-old girl. Lieberman didn’t suppose her name would even be mentioned in the New York Times tomorrow morning. Poor Eretz Israel.
‘Mr President?’
He must have dozed off, just for a second. He opened his eyes, and there was Gleishner. The man looked as white as a sheet. I hope I don’t look as bad as he does, thought Lieberman.
‘Yes?’
Gleishner’s adam’s apple bobbed up and down, and it was a few seconds before he could reply.
‘Mr. President, we have a problem.’
Suha had taken the baby up onto the rooftop because she wouldn’t stop crying, and was rocking her on her shoulder. Already the swarming city of Gaza was beginning to stir, its residents making the most of this interlude between curfews. You never knew how long they would last, and in the first few days especially there was always a mad scramble to obtain basic supplies. Suha looked off to the east, where a pink glow through the diesel fumes promised the sun would soon be rising.
The sun rose in an instant, too far to the left. Suha was not looking at it, so was not blinded permanently, but by the time she could see again the false sun had been replaced by a tower of black cloud, higher than any thundercloud she had ever seen. The baby screamed. The sounds of traffic fell silent.
The man in the chair leaned back, closed his eyes, and rubbed his temples. It was 9:07 on a Friday night, and in a sane world he would have been home long ago with his family, not sitting here with two more appointments on his schedule.
My G_d, thought the President, I am so very very tired.
The desk was spread with foreign policy briefing papers. All today’s. All bad. The war- always the war- was always good for bad news, and today it had delivered in spades. In the worst single incident for the U.S. forces this year, at least twelve South Carolina national guardsmen had been killed by a roadside bomb in a region that had been designated ‘pacified’ two weeks ago. Moment by moment the news feed brought more sneers at his quixotic nation-building project from the right, more gibes from the left mocking the ‘so-called War for Justice’. ‘An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind,’ they said, denigrating his motivation and his religion in the one glib catchphrase. It’s about justice, he told himself, as he always did. Not revenge. And Americans would not sleep soundly at home until justice was established everywhere in the world. It was not possible to just pull back the troops and pull up the drawbridge.
He knew he would not see it out to the end. That would be for others, who came after. The part he had taken upon himself was to impose the rule of law on Afghanistan and the tribal areas of Pakistan. All the dark forces of Islamo-Jacobinism had boiled out to oppose him, drawn from the ends of the earth to the wound he had made on the body of Dar al-Islam.
A verse of Kipling ran willy-nilly through his head.
When you’re wounded and left on Afghanistan’s plains
And the women come down to cut up what remains
Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
And go to your G_d like a soldier
It had not been his war to begin with, though now his name was inextricably linked with it in the public mind. After the September 11 attacks, President Gore had been ceaseless in his efforts to build a multilateral framework to ensure its perpetrators were brought to justice. He had built a consensus, and a U.N.-mandated coalition, and after exhausting all diplomatic avenues with the Taliban regime, had launched a full invasion of Afghanistan in March 2003. Gore presided over the first, triumphant phase of the war, but by November he was gone, the first U.S. President to resign because of ill-health. Doctors said his debilitating respiratory illness was a consequence of too many morale-building visits to Ground Zero in the first terrible days after the attacks. It had been left to Lieberman, like it had been left to Johnson after Kennedy, to prosecute the inevitable escalation of the war. He had pressured Musharraf to provide full co-operation in hunting down Al-Qaida forces in the border region, and today over a hundred thousand U.S. servicemen were operating on the Pakistani side of the border, in Baluchistan and the Northwest Frontier Province. Spain had pulled out of the coalition after Madrid bombings. Italy after the Palermo incident. As year succeeded year with no sign of a successful conclusion, as Pakistan became more radicalised and the flow of foreign fighters into the region intensified, so too grew disapproval of the war. There was a consensus in the media that Lieberman’s second term would go down in history as a litany of wasted opportunities. He took no notice of this. Whatever the rest of the world said, he knew that defeat was unthinkable.
Westward of the war zone, there were equally intractable problems. When he thought of all the diplomat years that had been wasted on the Kurdish problem- all those special envoys, all those flying visits to Suleimanayah and Ankara- and now the Constanta Accord for Kurdish Autonomy had collapsed in a bloody shambles. What a waste. As the net of U.N. sanctions restricting Iraq had been gradually dismantled, the Kurds in the northern no-fly zone had grown increasingly apprehensive about the future of their de facto independence, and had pressed for U.N. guarantees for continued autonomy. There had been a plebiscite, against the protests of Turkey and Iraq. The results of the plebiscite had been shelved by a U.N. committee. The Islamist regime in Turkey and the Baathists in Iraq had been increasingly open in their efforts to subvert Kurdistan. The Constanta Accord had offered a face-saving solution for everyone. There had been a timetable. There had been foot-dragging, provocations. And then these past few weeks- the stupid unilateral declaration of independence, and now the Turks and Iraqis were rolling in from north and south, ignoring the long-moribund no-fly zone. A NATO member and the ‘Butcher of Baghdad’ conniving at the dismemberment of one of the few democratic enclaves in the Middle East. Lieberman’s ambassador to the U.N. was pushing a raft of measures to rein in the aggressors: but the U.N. was so slow, so terribly slow. The reaction from the Western media had been muted: There were no comfortable hotels with broadband internet and Kentucky bourbon in convenient proximity to the warzone, and no scheduled international flights into the Kurdish enclave. And it wasn’t like there were Americans dying or killing.
In Israel even more diplomat years had been wasted. Yasser Arafat was dead, and Sharon, but whatever opportunities for hope these might have afforded were swept away by the continuing campaign of suicide bombings. Netanyahu had come back to power in a landslide and rejected any suggestion that the Jewish state hunker down between a defensive line, pushing an aggressive line in the Territories that had made it difficult for Lieberman to offer the unqualified support he would have liked to give. $10,000 a head: that was the going price for a dead Jew, offered by the Iraqi dictator through a chain of intermediaries offering plausible deniability. He had the evidence, but it was not enough to convince the international community to act: the memory of the last disasterous attempt to influence Iraq’s behaviour through sanctions was still fresh. In other countries, perhaps. For other victims, there might yet be sanctions. Not for the Jews. One of the papers on the President’s desk reported on a suicide bombing in Modi’in, the first for a few weeks. Only one person had been killed besides the bomber when he detonated himself in an IKEA checkout line, a seventeen year-old girl. Lieberman didn’t suppose her name would even be mentioned in the New York Times tomorrow morning. Poor Eretz Israel.
‘Mr President?’
He must have dozed off, just for a second. He opened his eyes, and there was Gleishner. The man looked as white as a sheet. I hope I don’t look as bad as he does, thought Lieberman.
‘Yes?’
Gleishner’s adam’s apple bobbed up and down, and it was a few seconds before he could reply.
‘Mr. President, we have a problem.’
***
Suha had taken the baby up onto the rooftop because she wouldn’t stop crying, and was rocking her on her shoulder. Already the swarming city of Gaza was beginning to stir, its residents making the most of this interlude between curfews. You never knew how long they would last, and in the first few days especially there was always a mad scramble to obtain basic supplies. Suha looked off to the east, where a pink glow through the diesel fumes promised the sun would soon be rising.
The sun rose in an instant, too far to the left. Suha was not looking at it, so was not blinded permanently, but by the time she could see again the false sun had been replaced by a tower of black cloud, higher than any thundercloud she had ever seen. The baby screamed. The sounds of traffic fell silent.
Saturday, July 07, 2007
7.7.7
‘From far across the ocean you can hear the sound of thunder.
I listen closely but I hear no evil.
Just the sound of cities crashing as they fall into the ocean…’
- 'Hear No Evil', Hunters and Collectors
Happy 37th birthday to Sandor! And happy 100th birthday, wherever you are, to Robert Heinlein!
I like the way Heinlein was game enough to build The Green Hills of Earth around a bit of Kiplingesque poetry.
I tried making a Gysin/Burroughs-style cut-up of Friday once. And I have managed to successfully forget the twist at the end of The Puppet Masters at least twice. But I admit that overall my grasp of Heinlein’s oeuvre is not what it could be. As his books get longer and longer and the characters spend more and more time talking about what they are going to do instead of doing it (Number of the Beast, what is that book all about? It is like a faculty meeting that just goes on and on and on) I grow less and less likely to finish them.
I listen closely but I hear no evil.
Just the sound of cities crashing as they fall into the ocean…’
- 'Hear No Evil', Hunters and Collectors
Happy 37th birthday to Sandor! And happy 100th birthday, wherever you are, to Robert Heinlein!
I like the way Heinlein was game enough to build The Green Hills of Earth around a bit of Kiplingesque poetry.
We've tried each spinning space mote
And reckoned its true worth:
Take us back again to the homes of men
On the cool, green hills of Earth.
The arching sky is calling
Spacemen back to their trade.
ALL HANDS! STAND BY! FREE FALLING!
And the lights below us fade.
Out ride the sons of Terra,
Far drives the thundering jet,
Up leaps a race of Earthmen,
Out, far, and onward yet ---
We pray for one last landing
On the globe that gave us birth;
Let us rest our eyes on fleecy skies
And the cool, green hills of Earth.
I have just made, as far as I know, the first ever translation of this verse into Australian, which goes like this:
Earth! Earth! Earth! Oi! Oi! Oi!
I tried making a Gysin/Burroughs-style cut-up of Friday once. And I have managed to successfully forget the twist at the end of The Puppet Masters at least twice. But I admit that overall my grasp of Heinlein’s oeuvre is not what it could be. As his books get longer and longer and the characters spend more and more time talking about what they are going to do instead of doing it (Number of the Beast, what is that book all about? It is like a faculty meeting that just goes on and on and on) I grow less and less likely to finish them.
And I am ashamed to say that I have never read Starship Troopers. I have seen the movie, which I understand is something like saying to a fan of the original Thirtysomething Mutant Ninja Turtles comics that I’ve eaten the TMNT breakfast cereal. I did like the movie. I think I have written somewhere on this blog that it is the first great movie of the 21st century. In the director’s commentary on my DVD the director- a Dutch guy who has not been decapitated- is quite adamant that he didn’t set out to glorify miltarism. I think he is being a bit disingenuous. It doesn’t matter what he set out to do. His movie offers a very sympathetic and attractive portrait of a militaristic society. Salman Rushdie says The Satanic Verses was never intended to blaspheme Islam. Eugene Terreblanche says the logo of the AWB wasn’t intended to be reminiscent of the Nazi flag. My 2003 NaNoWriMo novel wasn’t supposed to be pro-euthanasia. But once you create something, you are not just responsible for the reading you intended it to have, but for any other obvious readings it might have. What you intended is neither here nor there. Works of art are like wandering livstock.
Unfortunately, Mr Verhoeven does not seem to be one of us ‘Earth! Earth! Earth! Oi! Oi! Oi!’ types. He is that sad thing, a self-loathing human. On my DVD he argues, apparently sincerely, for moral equivalence between Mormons and the murderous insect hordes:
The screen shows ‘before’ pictures of a shiny Mormon settlement with a golden
angel on top, then ‘after’ shots with lots of dismembered corpses scattered
about.
Federal Announcer: Mormon extremists disregarded Federal warnings
and established Fort Joe Smith, deep inside the Arachnid quarantine zone. Too
late they realised that Dantana had already been settled by other colonists-
Arachnids.
Paul Verhoeven: The rest of the scene is very interesting …
What it says, of course, in this scene, was that the war was not started by the
bugs. Like that is a very interesting political situation because in politics in
general, especially in American politics, there is a tendency to take a part of
history but not acknowledge what happened before.
See, we humans started it by constructing settlements. Boo, hiss. Bad humans.
Silly Mr Verhoeven! The bugs don’t hate us for what we do, they hate us for what we are. A race without a hivemind is like a body without a head, a shambling zombie horror lurching about erratically. Humans are the antithesis to bugdom. Our very virtues are abominable vices to them. Our decadent individualism revulses them. Our pasty mucilaginous flesh, daubed pathetically over our flimsy endoskeletons, makes them want to vomit up gouts of insectoid phlegm. They get queasy just thinking about us. Eugh, so do I. Must… destroy… humans.
No! That way lies madness.
Earth! Earth! Earth! Oi! Oi! Oi!
Saturday, April 21, 2007
What was I thinking?
I spend a lot of time trying to figure out what other people think about things and understand why they think the way they do. The first bit, trying to put myself in someone else’s shoes and see the world the world the way they do, is really hard. The second bit, understanding why, is also pretty tricky. I haven’t completely discounted the ‘Insect Men from Minraud putting drugs in the water’ theory to explain some of the opinions I read in the papers, but I suspect a more prosaic explanation.
The last week or so I’ve been trying to do something which ought to be easy, but it is also proving to be really hard. I am trying to put myself in my own shoes. These are the shoes I had when I was a supporter of the armed struggle for Palestinian self determination. I can remember considering myself a supporter of the PLO. I can remember sitting myopically waiting for my glasses in the optometrists at Punchbowl at the beginning of the second intifada when a young man came in selling casettes to support the struggle in Palestine, and feeling guilty for not buying one. I can remember striding along feeling the same righteous indignation I still feel about lots of other stuff. But I cannot reconstruct the thoughts of my younger self that should accompany these memories. What was I thinking?
The answer came to me the other day, mediated like so many profound insights through country music:
I was thinking of the newspaper images of Sabra and Chatila refugee camps from the invasion of Lebanon; I was thinking of the Time magazine article mentioning how Abu Wossname’s gardener was killed by Mossad in Tunisia; I was thinking of the description in the Tablet of the 14- year old boy shot in his own living room with a remote control in his hand at the time of the first intifada.; I was thinking of the pictures of Mohammed Ali Dura’s father trying to shield his son. I know what I was feeling. But what was I thinking? What was I thinking?
I'm pretty sure I cannot put myself in my old shoes because I had no shoes. I was not thinking, I was just riding along on a wave of emotion that I had caught back in 1982. When I finally stopped to think, it was obvious that the Palestinian leaders were not interested in finding a peaceful solution to the problems of their people, and that they had done their darnedest to brainwash them into being willing accomplices in their own degradation. It was obvious that Israel, despite having done some bad things, was really trying for a reasonable solution and had already made big sacrifices for it. It was obvious that the vast majority of the Palestinian civilian casualties I read about were more or less by accident, while the vast majority of the Israeli civilian casualties I read about were more or less on purpose. I cannot remember exactly how long this process of changing my opinion took, but I think it was only a couple of weeks. Looking back at it, I am pretty sure it was not exchanging one informed opinion for another, but forming an informed opinion for the first time.
The last week or so I’ve been trying to do something which ought to be easy, but it is also proving to be really hard. I am trying to put myself in my own shoes. These are the shoes I had when I was a supporter of the armed struggle for Palestinian self determination. I can remember considering myself a supporter of the PLO. I can remember sitting myopically waiting for my glasses in the optometrists at Punchbowl at the beginning of the second intifada when a young man came in selling casettes to support the struggle in Palestine, and feeling guilty for not buying one. I can remember striding along feeling the same righteous indignation I still feel about lots of other stuff. But I cannot reconstruct the thoughts of my younger self that should accompany these memories. What was I thinking?
The answer came to me the other day, mediated like so many profound insights through country music:
Oh, I knew there'd be hell to pay. But that crossed my mind a little too late.
'Cause I was thinkin' 'bout a little white tank top, Sittin' right there in the middle by me.
An' I was thinkin' 'bout a long kiss, Man, just gotta get goin', where the night might lead.
I know what I was feelin'
But what was I thinkin'?
What was I thinkin'?
I was thinking of the newspaper images of Sabra and Chatila refugee camps from the invasion of Lebanon; I was thinking of the Time magazine article mentioning how Abu Wossname’s gardener was killed by Mossad in Tunisia; I was thinking of the description in the Tablet of the 14- year old boy shot in his own living room with a remote control in his hand at the time of the first intifada.; I was thinking of the pictures of Mohammed Ali Dura’s father trying to shield his son. I know what I was feeling. But what was I thinking? What was I thinking?
I'm pretty sure I cannot put myself in my old shoes because I had no shoes. I was not thinking, I was just riding along on a wave of emotion that I had caught back in 1982. When I finally stopped to think, it was obvious that the Palestinian leaders were not interested in finding a peaceful solution to the problems of their people, and that they had done their darnedest to brainwash them into being willing accomplices in their own degradation. It was obvious that Israel, despite having done some bad things, was really trying for a reasonable solution and had already made big sacrifices for it. It was obvious that the vast majority of the Palestinian civilian casualties I read about were more or less by accident, while the vast majority of the Israeli civilian casualties I read about were more or less on purpose. I cannot remember exactly how long this process of changing my opinion took, but I think it was only a couple of weeks. Looking back at it, I am pretty sure it was not exchanging one informed opinion for another, but forming an informed opinion for the first time.
Wednesday, December 06, 2006
Two Short Plays, or One Short One and One Infinitely Long One
#1:
The doorbell rings.
Salesman: Hi, I’m selling house insurance.
Householder: That’s great! How much?
Salesman: Well, its kind of a sliding scale. The more you pay, the more protection you get.
Householder: Okay, so what would it cost to ensure I could replace my house and contents?
Salesman: It’s hard to tell. You probably can’t protect your *whole* house, however much you pay. But the more you pay, the more likely you’ll be able to replace at least part of it.
Householder: Well, that doesn’t sound like a *very* good deal. But I don’t want to leave my house uninsured. What sort of protection can I get for $20 a week?
Salesman: Well, it's kind of hard to tell. I could make some kind of estimate.
Householder: Please do.
Salesman: Well, I have to be frank, probably we couldn’t pay anything at all on a cockamamie policy like that, but its possible we might be able to replace your garage if it fell down. Possibly.
Householder: What about, say, $40 a week?
Salesman: Er. Might still be nothing. But there’s almost certainly a better chance we could replace your garage.
Householder: $60?
Salesman: I’d have to say, same again. Maybe nothing, possibly your garage.
Householder: Okay, so let’s say I want to make certain that at least my garage is covered. Hoe much will that cost me a week?
Salesman: You want to be *absolutely* sure your garage is covered?
Household: Yep.
Salesman: Absolutely?
Householder: Yep.
Salesman: (fiddles with calculator) I make that $1836.41.
#2:
A: This is my cake.
B: No, it’s my cake.
(they fight)
A: I’ve got an idea, let’s split it 50:50
B: No, it’s mine.
(they fight)
C: What’s going on here?
B: We’re fighting over this cake. It’s mine, but A said we should split it 50:50.
A: That’s right.
C: Well, there’s no need to be unreasonable. Why don’t you compromise? B, you take three-quarters of the cake, and A, you take one-quarter.
A: No, that’s a dumb idea.
B: No, it’s my cake.
C: Suit yourselves. (leaves)
(they fight)
A: Okay, you can have three-quarters of the cake.
B: No, it’s mine.
(they fight)
D: What’s going on here?
B: We’re fighting over this cake. It’s mine, but A said we should split it 75:25.
A: That’s right.
D: Well, there’s no need to be unreasonable. Why don’t you compromise? B, you take seven-eights of the cake, and A, you take one-eighth.
A: No, that’s a dumb idea.
B: No, it’s my cake.
D: Suit yourselves. (leaves)
A: Okay, you can have seven-eighths of the cake.
B: No, it’s mine.
(they fight)
E: What’s going on here?
B: We’re fighting over this cake. It’s mine, but A says he should have an eighth.
A: That’s right.
E: Well, there’s no need to be unreasonable. Why don’t you compromise?
etc.
The doorbell rings.
Salesman: Hi, I’m selling house insurance.
Householder: That’s great! How much?
Salesman: Well, its kind of a sliding scale. The more you pay, the more protection you get.
Householder: Okay, so what would it cost to ensure I could replace my house and contents?
Salesman: It’s hard to tell. You probably can’t protect your *whole* house, however much you pay. But the more you pay, the more likely you’ll be able to replace at least part of it.
Householder: Well, that doesn’t sound like a *very* good deal. But I don’t want to leave my house uninsured. What sort of protection can I get for $20 a week?
Salesman: Well, it's kind of hard to tell. I could make some kind of estimate.
Householder: Please do.
Salesman: Well, I have to be frank, probably we couldn’t pay anything at all on a cockamamie policy like that, but its possible we might be able to replace your garage if it fell down. Possibly.
Householder: What about, say, $40 a week?
Salesman: Er. Might still be nothing. But there’s almost certainly a better chance we could replace your garage.
Householder: $60?
Salesman: I’d have to say, same again. Maybe nothing, possibly your garage.
Householder: Okay, so let’s say I want to make certain that at least my garage is covered. Hoe much will that cost me a week?
Salesman: You want to be *absolutely* sure your garage is covered?
Household: Yep.
Salesman: Absolutely?
Householder: Yep.
Salesman: (fiddles with calculator) I make that $1836.41.
#2:
A: This is my cake.
B: No, it’s my cake.
(they fight)
A: I’ve got an idea, let’s split it 50:50
B: No, it’s mine.
(they fight)
C: What’s going on here?
B: We’re fighting over this cake. It’s mine, but A said we should split it 50:50.
A: That’s right.
C: Well, there’s no need to be unreasonable. Why don’t you compromise? B, you take three-quarters of the cake, and A, you take one-quarter.
A: No, that’s a dumb idea.
B: No, it’s my cake.
C: Suit yourselves. (leaves)
(they fight)
A: Okay, you can have three-quarters of the cake.
B: No, it’s mine.
(they fight)
D: What’s going on here?
B: We’re fighting over this cake. It’s mine, but A said we should split it 75:25.
A: That’s right.
D: Well, there’s no need to be unreasonable. Why don’t you compromise? B, you take seven-eights of the cake, and A, you take one-eighth.
A: No, that’s a dumb idea.
B: No, it’s my cake.
D: Suit yourselves. (leaves)
A: Okay, you can have seven-eighths of the cake.
B: No, it’s mine.
(they fight)
E: What’s going on here?
B: We’re fighting over this cake. It’s mine, but A says he should have an eighth.
A: That’s right.
E: Well, there’s no need to be unreasonable. Why don’t you compromise?
etc.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Further Occasions for Pedantry
Long ago, before Lexifab was Lexifab, the Student Union used to show interesting movies on occasional weeknights in the refectory, and before these movies they would sometimes show dull but worthy documentaries about one thing or another. I remember one of these dull but worthy documentaries was about the oppression of homosexuals, and that it featured at some dull but worthy woman in sensible shoes explaining her worldview.
The future Lexifabricographer turned to me and said, ‘Did she just say that heterosexuality isn’t normal?’
I agreed that yes, that was what she had said.
‘Good,’ said Lexifab. ‘That means I can ignore everything she says.’
This guiding principle has stayed with me ever since.
There are lots of people out there with opinions, and it is too much trouble to try to refute them all. To simplify our task, we can keep an eye out for these occasional giveaway statements that reveal they are completely unhinged. Then we can confidently ignore everything they say. Conversely, as a favour to those who disagree with me, I try to salt my own otherwise irrefutable arguments with ludicrous statements so they can take the option of ignoring everything I say.
Actually, there are two kinds of statements that allow us to ignore everything else the other person says on that topic. The first sort is the more fatal, and indicates that the person making the statement has no idea how to think. An example of this sort of statement might be, “Evolution is a heinous plot of the Godless liberal conspiracy.” If someone says that, there is no point arguing with them about anything. You cannot refute them with evidence- unless they are very young or illiterate and merely parroting their elders. They already have evidence and to spare. They are just no more able to think than a bar of soap can think.
The second sort is what I really want to talk about, because it is curable. Every so often- painfully, painfully often- someone will make a statement on a topic of current interest that they would not make if they had the slightest clue, unless they are deliberately trying to spin the argument by concealing facts. This causes a Pavlovian response in me to jump up and correct them. Of course I can’t actually do this, because they are usually making this statement on the radio, or in the newspaper, but the ‘fight or flight’ response is there and keeps me giddy with adrenaline all day. I guess the things that are bothering me are all kind of trivial, but they are half-truths which people keep quoting again and again and again nowadays without including the other half of the truth which ought to be compulsory.
Irritating Statement #1: ‘Israel is some kind of European settlement in the Middle East,’ Ahmadinejad et al. If you take away the 1990s immigrants from the former Soviet Union, half the Jewish population of Israel have no ties to Europe. They or their ancestors were thrown out of bona fide Middle Eastern countries like Yemen, Iraq, and Egypt. The native language of the President of Israel is Farsi.
Irritating Statement #2: ‘The Crucifixion was the beginning of anti-semitism,’ anyone commenting on Mel Gibson’s self-immolation. Anti-semitism is part of the heritage of Mediterranean Civilisation that has come down to us from the Greeks and Romans. There were pogroms in Alexandria hundreds of years before Christ. The books of Esther and Maccabees attest to anti-semitic persecutions by Hellenic civilisation long before it was Christian. My impression is that the rise of Christianity actually took the pressure off the Jews for a while, because the Christians were even more peculiar than the Jews. The Empire was anti-semitic before it became Christian and its successor states are still anti-semitic since they have ceased to be Christian.
Irritating Statement #3: “blah blah disputed Shabaa farms blah blah blah,” every radio report about ceasefire conditions etc. Did Lebanon complain about this nigh-uninhabited strip on the border before 1967, when it was administered by Syria? Did Lebanon complain about it at any time between 1967 and 1982, when it was occupied by Israel as conquered Syrian territory? Did Lebanon complain when the United Nations drew up the maps to accompany resolution 1559? No, no, and no. Nobody had ever heard of the Shabaa Farms before Hezbollah seized on them in 2000 as a convenient excuse to continue an armed struggle with Israel. Can a territory be considered disputed if a fringe group suddenly pipes up and claims it for one country rather than another? Only if the rest of the world takes them seriously. So they shouldn’t. The rest of the world, that is.
The future Lexifabricographer turned to me and said, ‘Did she just say that heterosexuality isn’t normal?’
I agreed that yes, that was what she had said.
‘Good,’ said Lexifab. ‘That means I can ignore everything she says.’
This guiding principle has stayed with me ever since.
There are lots of people out there with opinions, and it is too much trouble to try to refute them all. To simplify our task, we can keep an eye out for these occasional giveaway statements that reveal they are completely unhinged. Then we can confidently ignore everything they say. Conversely, as a favour to those who disagree with me, I try to salt my own otherwise irrefutable arguments with ludicrous statements so they can take the option of ignoring everything I say.
Actually, there are two kinds of statements that allow us to ignore everything else the other person says on that topic. The first sort is the more fatal, and indicates that the person making the statement has no idea how to think. An example of this sort of statement might be, “Evolution is a heinous plot of the Godless liberal conspiracy.” If someone says that, there is no point arguing with them about anything. You cannot refute them with evidence- unless they are very young or illiterate and merely parroting their elders. They already have evidence and to spare. They are just no more able to think than a bar of soap can think.
The second sort is what I really want to talk about, because it is curable. Every so often- painfully, painfully often- someone will make a statement on a topic of current interest that they would not make if they had the slightest clue, unless they are deliberately trying to spin the argument by concealing facts. This causes a Pavlovian response in me to jump up and correct them. Of course I can’t actually do this, because they are usually making this statement on the radio, or in the newspaper, but the ‘fight or flight’ response is there and keeps me giddy with adrenaline all day. I guess the things that are bothering me are all kind of trivial, but they are half-truths which people keep quoting again and again and again nowadays without including the other half of the truth which ought to be compulsory.
Irritating Statement #1: ‘Israel is some kind of European settlement in the Middle East,’ Ahmadinejad et al. If you take away the 1990s immigrants from the former Soviet Union, half the Jewish population of Israel have no ties to Europe. They or their ancestors were thrown out of bona fide Middle Eastern countries like Yemen, Iraq, and Egypt. The native language of the President of Israel is Farsi.
Irritating Statement #2: ‘The Crucifixion was the beginning of anti-semitism,’ anyone commenting on Mel Gibson’s self-immolation. Anti-semitism is part of the heritage of Mediterranean Civilisation that has come down to us from the Greeks and Romans. There were pogroms in Alexandria hundreds of years before Christ. The books of Esther and Maccabees attest to anti-semitic persecutions by Hellenic civilisation long before it was Christian. My impression is that the rise of Christianity actually took the pressure off the Jews for a while, because the Christians were even more peculiar than the Jews. The Empire was anti-semitic before it became Christian and its successor states are still anti-semitic since they have ceased to be Christian.
Irritating Statement #3: “blah blah disputed Shabaa farms blah blah blah,” every radio report about ceasefire conditions etc. Did Lebanon complain about this nigh-uninhabited strip on the border before 1967, when it was administered by Syria? Did Lebanon complain about it at any time between 1967 and 1982, when it was occupied by Israel as conquered Syrian territory? Did Lebanon complain when the United Nations drew up the maps to accompany resolution 1559? No, no, and no. Nobody had ever heard of the Shabaa Farms before Hezbollah seized on them in 2000 as a convenient excuse to continue an armed struggle with Israel. Can a territory be considered disputed if a fringe group suddenly pipes up and claims it for one country rather than another? Only if the rest of the world takes them seriously. So they shouldn’t. The rest of the world, that is.
Tuesday, August 01, 2006
Friday, July 21, 2006
Three Good Things
1: The Veto
I am very pleased that Bush has used his first veto in such a splendid way. There is no decent rationale for embryonic stem cell research, and the proponents of this research frequently stoop to the worst kind of emotional blackmail in their arguments. I have been repeatedly disappointed that bodies such as the Australian Academy of Science have made statements equating disapproval of this research with disapproval of science.
Q: In terms of therapeutic results obtained, have adult stem cells been more successful than embryonic stem cells?
A: Yes, certainly.
Q: In terms of our current understanding of biology, are there strong reasons to believe that adult stem cells will in almost all cases be more therapeutically useful than embryonic stem cells?
A: Yes, certainly.
Q: On the other hand, are embryonic stem cells more fundamentally interesting for developmental biologists?
A: Yes, certainly.
Q: And aren't all scientists primed by their training to argue with every fibre of their being that their research is incredibly important and should be funded?
A: Yes, certainly.
Q: And aren't people who are dying of horrible diseases and their relatives proverbially susceptible to shysters promising miracles?
A: Yes, certainly. Though I'm not sure I see your point.
Q: Now, would funding for embryonic stem cell research be extra funding in addition to what is already spent on medical research?
A: Yes, cer.. er, who are you kiddng? This is the Bush Administration you are talking about. Look at their appalling record of funding science!
Q: So, is funding embryonic stem cell research likely to take funds away from equally good (or better) research projects with equally good (or better) prospects for valuable therapeutic outcomes?
A: Yes, cer.. You mean, it might threaten my project? For the love of God, we must act now!
2: The Silence
I a very pleased that Bush has not come out with an even-handed condemnation of both parties in the most recent Arab-Israeli fracas. This is a significant advance on the attitude of U.S. Administrations in 2000, 1987, 1982, 1973, 1967, 1956 and 1948. I think since 2003 the U.S. has a much better intuitive understanding of Israel's position and the challenges it is facing. The process of bringing stability, democracy, and Happy Fun WorldTM-nature of the Middle East can only begin when the Great Satan is willing to stand side by side with the Little Satan and say 'pish tosh' to the forces of Islamofascism. I suggest the following:
"Yes, our Litte Satanic pals are not perfect, but there is no moral equivalence between them and you mealy-mouthed murderers. For they are basically right, and good, and you are basically wrong, and bad. We will certainly press our pals to behave more ethically, and we will not fail to chastise them for their failings, but you we shall smite with a great smiting, yea and verily, until the echo of the rumour of the shadow of your presence on this earth is a forgotten memory and all your works have perished utterly, as if they had never been."
Or words to that effect.
3: The End.
On a much more local level, my University has seen the light and has agreed to knock the disgraceful degree programme in Homeopathic Medicine on the head. It will no longer be offered after this semester! Huzzah! [Prolonged cheering]
I am very pleased that Bush has used his first veto in such a splendid way. There is no decent rationale for embryonic stem cell research, and the proponents of this research frequently stoop to the worst kind of emotional blackmail in their arguments. I have been repeatedly disappointed that bodies such as the Australian Academy of Science have made statements equating disapproval of this research with disapproval of science.
Q: In terms of therapeutic results obtained, have adult stem cells been more successful than embryonic stem cells?
A: Yes, certainly.
Q: In terms of our current understanding of biology, are there strong reasons to believe that adult stem cells will in almost all cases be more therapeutically useful than embryonic stem cells?
A: Yes, certainly.
Q: On the other hand, are embryonic stem cells more fundamentally interesting for developmental biologists?
A: Yes, certainly.
Q: And aren't all scientists primed by their training to argue with every fibre of their being that their research is incredibly important and should be funded?
A: Yes, certainly.
Q: And aren't people who are dying of horrible diseases and their relatives proverbially susceptible to shysters promising miracles?
A: Yes, certainly. Though I'm not sure I see your point.
Q: Now, would funding for embryonic stem cell research be extra funding in addition to what is already spent on medical research?
A: Yes, cer.. er, who are you kiddng? This is the Bush Administration you are talking about. Look at their appalling record of funding science!
Q: So, is funding embryonic stem cell research likely to take funds away from equally good (or better) research projects with equally good (or better) prospects for valuable therapeutic outcomes?
A: Yes, cer.. You mean, it might threaten my project? For the love of God, we must act now!
2: The Silence
I a very pleased that Bush has not come out with an even-handed condemnation of both parties in the most recent Arab-Israeli fracas. This is a significant advance on the attitude of U.S. Administrations in 2000, 1987, 1982, 1973, 1967, 1956 and 1948. I think since 2003 the U.S. has a much better intuitive understanding of Israel's position and the challenges it is facing. The process of bringing stability, democracy, and Happy Fun WorldTM-nature of the Middle East can only begin when the Great Satan is willing to stand side by side with the Little Satan and say 'pish tosh' to the forces of Islamofascism. I suggest the following:
"Yes, our Litte Satanic pals are not perfect, but there is no moral equivalence between them and you mealy-mouthed murderers. For they are basically right, and good, and you are basically wrong, and bad. We will certainly press our pals to behave more ethically, and we will not fail to chastise them for their failings, but you we shall smite with a great smiting, yea and verily, until the echo of the rumour of the shadow of your presence on this earth is a forgotten memory and all your works have perished utterly, as if they had never been."
Or words to that effect.
3: The End.
On a much more local level, my University has seen the light and has agreed to knock the disgraceful degree programme in Homeopathic Medicine on the head. It will no longer be offered after this semester! Huzzah! [Prolonged cheering]
Sunday, October 31, 2004
Arik and Me
Oceans of ink have been spilt over the Arab-Israeli thing (and more recently, uncounted numbers of electrons have been fired through cathode-ray tubes in vain), so it is sort of irresponsible for me to add more, but I will anyway. You all know what my oldest and most strongly held political position is. For a very long time (1982-2000) my second oldest and most strongly held political position was support for the Palestinian struggle and a one-state solution to the whole Arab-Israeli thing. It seems strange now, but that’s the way it was. I was just struck very heavily at an impressionable age by the massacres in the Lebanese refugee camps, and my position was reinforced by reading the liberal Catholic press throughout the First Intifada.
When the Al-Aqsa Intifada erupted, I rapidly became confused, because the stories I was reading in the Devil Bunny City Morning Herald just didn’t make sense. Why would all of this stuff be happening now, when a final deal seemed so close? The meaningless ‘cycle of violence’ seemed, well, meaningless… I started wandering around the web looking for a more coherent narrative. The Palestinian web-sites were short on facts and long on whinging, and didn’t make any more sense than the Australian newspapers. But the narrative I found in the Jerusalem Post did make sense. Within a few weeks I found that I had been transformed from a rather vague supporter of the PLO to an enthusiastic supporter of the Zionist state. This was a little bit scary. What else did I believe in that was wrong? Would I wake up one morning and discover that Margaret Sanger was right after all? God, I hope not.
But enough personal human-interest stuff. What are my cosmically arrogant ex cathedra pronouncements for today?
Pronouncement One: The Palestinian refugee problem is first and foremost the creation of the Arab states. The leaders of the Arab nations have kept millions of people in miserable limbo for generations to score political points against the Jews. Imagine we are back at the beginning of last century, and you live in one village, and a few miles away your brother lives in another village. Both villages have had the same culture and religion for more than a thousand years, and have been part of the same Ottoman administrative unit since fifteen-hundred and something. Far away in France, somebody draws a line on a map, and your village is now in the British Mandate of Palestine, and your brother’s village is in the French Mandate of Lebanon.
Twenty-eight years later, you run away from your village because you don’t want to end up as collateral damage. And fifty-six years after that, your great-grandchildren are still denied the rights of citizens in Lebanon.
Millions of Greeks were kicked out of Asia Minor in the 1920s, and were absorbed into Greece. Millions of Germans were kicked out of Eastern Europe in the 1940s, and were absorbed into Germany. About the same number of Ukrainians were expelled from Poland in the 1940s as Arabs left Palestine. Who has heard of them? Nobody, since they were absorbed without incident into the Ukraine. The Japanese kicked out of Sakhalin were absorbed without incident into Japan. The South Asians kicked out of Uganda have been absorbed without incident into the United Kingdom. The Arab world is vastly larger than Greece or Germany, has not been devastated by a general war, and has vast resources. Its leaders did not allow the absorption of a relatively small population of people of the same religion, culture, and heritage, using them instead as a political football.
Pronouncement Two: It seems to me that the government of any democratic country faced with the situation Israel is in would react in the same way. You can allow your subjects to be blown up, but not your constituents. And again it seems to me that almost any democratic country faced with a proportional rate of civilian casualties (say, about 400 a year if it was us) would react with much more ‘bombing them back to the stone age’ than Israel has.
Pronouncement Three: The Middle East would be in far better shape today if Israel had simply annexed the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967 and given their inhabitants the same rights as other Arab citizens of Israel. Despite my conversion, a two-state solution is still rubbish. A Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza strip would be an unworkable Bantustan. In 1948 the leaders of the Yishuv accepted a U.N. partition plan that gave them a state with a 60:40 Jewish:Arab population. Why is a single state between the river and the sea with a 60:40 Jewish:Arab population so unthinkable today? Yet even the most liberal Meretz-voting commentators I read in the Israeli press are terrified of the ‘demographic time bomb’ that would lead to Jews becoming a minority in Israel/Palestine. This is doubtless due to the fact that a high proportion of the Palestinian population really do want to drive the Jews into the sea. Yet far, far larger numbers, relative to the Jewish civilian population, were murdered by Arab extremists in the years 1929-1948 than in the latest uprising. And the leaders of Israel then accepted a state with a 40% Arab population. The national myth is that during the War of Independence, that 40% was reduced to 10% because the Arabs left of their own free will. If that is true, and they were not expelled as a matter of policy, why is it so unthinkable that they ever return?
When the Al-Aqsa Intifada erupted, I rapidly became confused, because the stories I was reading in the Devil Bunny City Morning Herald just didn’t make sense. Why would all of this stuff be happening now, when a final deal seemed so close? The meaningless ‘cycle of violence’ seemed, well, meaningless… I started wandering around the web looking for a more coherent narrative. The Palestinian web-sites were short on facts and long on whinging, and didn’t make any more sense than the Australian newspapers. But the narrative I found in the Jerusalem Post did make sense. Within a few weeks I found that I had been transformed from a rather vague supporter of the PLO to an enthusiastic supporter of the Zionist state. This was a little bit scary. What else did I believe in that was wrong? Would I wake up one morning and discover that Margaret Sanger was right after all? God, I hope not.
But enough personal human-interest stuff. What are my cosmically arrogant ex cathedra pronouncements for today?
Pronouncement One: The Palestinian refugee problem is first and foremost the creation of the Arab states. The leaders of the Arab nations have kept millions of people in miserable limbo for generations to score political points against the Jews. Imagine we are back at the beginning of last century, and you live in one village, and a few miles away your brother lives in another village. Both villages have had the same culture and religion for more than a thousand years, and have been part of the same Ottoman administrative unit since fifteen-hundred and something. Far away in France, somebody draws a line on a map, and your village is now in the British Mandate of Palestine, and your brother’s village is in the French Mandate of Lebanon.
Twenty-eight years later, you run away from your village because you don’t want to end up as collateral damage. And fifty-six years after that, your great-grandchildren are still denied the rights of citizens in Lebanon.
Millions of Greeks were kicked out of Asia Minor in the 1920s, and were absorbed into Greece. Millions of Germans were kicked out of Eastern Europe in the 1940s, and were absorbed into Germany. About the same number of Ukrainians were expelled from Poland in the 1940s as Arabs left Palestine. Who has heard of them? Nobody, since they were absorbed without incident into the Ukraine. The Japanese kicked out of Sakhalin were absorbed without incident into Japan. The South Asians kicked out of Uganda have been absorbed without incident into the United Kingdom. The Arab world is vastly larger than Greece or Germany, has not been devastated by a general war, and has vast resources. Its leaders did not allow the absorption of a relatively small population of people of the same religion, culture, and heritage, using them instead as a political football.
Pronouncement Two: It seems to me that the government of any democratic country faced with the situation Israel is in would react in the same way. You can allow your subjects to be blown up, but not your constituents. And again it seems to me that almost any democratic country faced with a proportional rate of civilian casualties (say, about 400 a year if it was us) would react with much more ‘bombing them back to the stone age’ than Israel has.
Pronouncement Three: The Middle East would be in far better shape today if Israel had simply annexed the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967 and given their inhabitants the same rights as other Arab citizens of Israel. Despite my conversion, a two-state solution is still rubbish. A Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza strip would be an unworkable Bantustan. In 1948 the leaders of the Yishuv accepted a U.N. partition plan that gave them a state with a 60:40 Jewish:Arab population. Why is a single state between the river and the sea with a 60:40 Jewish:Arab population so unthinkable today? Yet even the most liberal Meretz-voting commentators I read in the Israeli press are terrified of the ‘demographic time bomb’ that would lead to Jews becoming a minority in Israel/Palestine. This is doubtless due to the fact that a high proportion of the Palestinian population really do want to drive the Jews into the sea. Yet far, far larger numbers, relative to the Jewish civilian population, were murdered by Arab extremists in the years 1929-1948 than in the latest uprising. And the leaders of Israel then accepted a state with a 40% Arab population. The national myth is that during the War of Independence, that 40% was reduced to 10% because the Arabs left of their own free will. If that is true, and they were not expelled as a matter of policy, why is it so unthinkable that they ever return?
Thursday, August 19, 2004
Mindnumbingly-Dull Minutiae, Part One
...I have decided to postpone the first installment of the mindnumbingly-dull minutiae of my life, having not realised that Justice Breyer, who delivered the majority opinion in Wossname vs. Cathcart, is actually Jewish. So I feel obligated to dig into my archives and present my (unpublished) letters to the Devil Bunny City Morning Herald in defense of the Jewish state.
And a short uninteresting one:
6/8/2001, 'Moir Cartoon August 6th'
[This showed a guy throwing rocks, labelled 'terrorist', facing a helicopter gunship, labelled 'hero'].
What Alan Moir's cartoon doesn't show is that the helicopter gunship is firing over the head of the stone thrower, over the head of the Molotov cocktail thrower behind the stone thrower, over the head of the sniper behind the Molotov cocktail thrower, at the men organising the bombing of public places to randomly kill civilians. I wish you accepted attachments so I could show the faces of some of the teenage girls killed in the bombing these men called "a legitimate act" and "a successful blow against the Zionist enemy".
3/4/2002, 'Freedom for Silesia'
In the late 1940s, twelve million Germans were driven off their ancestral lands by the brutal regime of Stalin. Today, their descendants continue to live in squalid refugee camps, while the Slav occupiers refuse to recognise the U.N. resolutions calling for immediate withdrawal from the occupied territories of Prussia, Silesia, East Pomerania, and the Sudetenland, and respond disproportionately with collective punishment when German freedom-fighters nobly blow up Slav buses and restaurants. Our family has not given up the dream of returning to my great-grandfather's house in Breslau, and our leaders assure us that apparent compromise with the Slavs is only a stepping stone to the liberation of all Greater Germany...
Oops, I think I may have us confused with the other lot who launched a genocidal war against the Jews. The ones who didn't quite pull it off. Sorry...
And a short uninteresting one:
3/10/2002, 'Please Bump Him Upstairs'Could you please give Doug Anderson a regular column for his anti-US and anti-ISrael diatribes and hand the TV guide over to someone less overtly political?
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