When I joined the senior common room of Winthrop House at Harvard in 1959, one of the most interesting people I met was William Polk, an assistant professor of political science and an extremely knowledgeable person about Middle Eastern affairs. Bill went on to be an advisor to McGeorge Bundy and to play an important role in the diplomatic developments in the Middle East. In my "My Stuff" collection of essays, books, and other materials you can find a two-part account by Bill going back more than 100 years of the development of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I posted it on my blog more than 10 years ago. I have just reread it to acquaint myself once more with the details, which I had almost completely forgotten. If anyone is interested in the background of the current terrible events taking place there, I recommended it strongly. I trust Bill's knowledge, his objectivity, and his moral perspective.
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Well, one document is named Polk Part Two.docx and is dated August 31,2014. There is no Polk Part One.docs in that list. However, when I sorted by (date) modified rather than by name, I was easily able to find one that had been modified about 3 weeks earlier on August 8, 2014, called Gaza long view.docx.
I imagine that that is Polk Part One.docx. Is that correct?
Also, in the first document, he states very near the top, that it is the first of 3 documents. My guess is that the 3rd is THE STRUGGLE FOR PALESTINE.docx, dated October 22, 2014. Again, please confirm.
Marcel Proust:
part 1: "Gaza Long View"
part 2: "Polk Part 2"
part 3: "The Struggle for Palestine 3"
William Polk's website is still online with these articles (as *.pdf) and lots more:
https://www.williampolk.com/articles/
Thank you, Eric. These are not an easy read but I find them well worth the effort
Well, I'm sorry to say that I consider this guy you admire as a classic antisemite. Here's an example of why, from the following article on his website:
"Jordan is the most convenient and most likely destination for the inhabitants of the West
Bank. The Jordanian population is already largely composed of former Palestinians
and Israel has always regarded it as the terminal Palestinian state. To preserve it for
this purpose, Israel will continue to rule it indirectly through the existing, originally
British-imposed, regime with which it has maintained covert relations for many years;"
https://www.williampolk.com/ws/media-library/1fbc5e8e31c24910ae6264a882347dc1/israel--yesterday-today-and-tomorrow.pdf
In other words, Jews secretly control (much of) the world. That's as classic an antisemitic trope as there is. That Israel & Jordan have engaged in non-public communication well before the current official status is well known. But to claim that Israel in any sense "rules" Jordan assumes facts not in evidence.
He may be (or have been) a personally pleasant fellow. But fair & balanced? Feh.
@ B. Wolff
To say that Israel has "indirectly ruled" Jordan is at best a gross overstatement (or just a weird assertion) but is not anti-Semitic. As Jeffrey Isaac has recently written (I'll post the link later today), it's important, esp in the current context, to be careful in not sweeping controversial statements under the category anti-Semitism when they don't belong there. My guess -- purely a guess -- is that Polk, like some other Mideast specialists, was not v sympathetic to Israel, but you need more than that, and more than the Jordan statement, to charge him plausibly w anti-Semitism.
Not too far off-topic: I was looking to see if there were any recent statements by or interviews with Chomsky on Gaza. It looks like his last round was about 5 months ago, and I was surprised to see a mostly quite respectful- and reasonable-sounding one with the English 'journalist' Piers Morgan from that time. Morgan's most recent one, by great contrast, is with Jeremy Corbyn and Len McClusky. Putting it mildly, I think that it's a lesson inter alia in problems with a 'morals-first' approach to politics, and an antidote to the Habermasian thought that consensus is an inherent telos of discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gma98QwZdZo&ab_channel=PiersMorganUncensored
There's quite a distance between the classic anti-semitic claim (Protocols of the Elders of Zion) that the Jews as a whole form a secret society which controls the world economy and the claim that Israel controls a small weak pro-Western monarchy on its borders, Jordan,
much as we might say that Russia controls Belarus or the U.S. controls certain Caribbean island states.
I'll take LFC's word for it that Israel does not control Jordan because he's more versed in these matters than I am and tends to be a balanced observer of international politics.
However, Polk's claim is far from anti-semitic. Israel does not represent the Jews as a whole; it's a sovereign state which can be criticized like any other state.
I find this conversation by several Holocaust and genocide scholars, "Hijacking Memory:
the Holocaust and the Siege of Gaza" to be especially thoughtful and rational, given how
unthoughtful and irrational most of the conversation about these topics is these days.
Before the usual suspects scream that I'm an "anti-semite self-hating Jew", the conversation is sponsored by Jewish Currents, which, as far as I know, is not a neo-Nazi group.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZ3-k2l6JIA
Why do so many people want to kill the Jewish people? I don't get it. Because the Jews killed Christ? The majority of these supposed Christians who think like this about the Jews don't even go to Church. Does anyone think Christ is in the highest heaven plotting how to wipe out the Jews? As a believer that Jesus is the Messiah, I believe Christ has better things to do. Like hoping more people throughout the Cosmos would give aid to the suffering. That less people would commit physical adultery. That less people would worship idols and that more people would worship God. That more people would not torture or murder anyone. To sum up that less people would do evil.
All I can think of is that the Jewish people are used as a scapegoat for evil men.
Of course, I also realize that before the "land wars" in the Middle East that Jews & Muslims got together fine. And that before such times Christians living outside of Europe during the Middle Ages & afterwards were the scapegoats themselves. Just flip through the pages of Marco Polo's The Travels to find this out.
Although the Jewish people have been scapegoated more often than Christians and Muslims since they've been here on Earth the longest.
Off-topic, but just a quick question for John Rapko (and/or others) -
"...the Habermasian thought that consensus is an inherent telos of discussion": This little phrase at the end of your comment piqued my curiosity.
I take it (the italicized portion) to mean that the point of conversation, or a point, is to reach agreement about things. On this view, it almost seems to follow that the urge to converse is a sort of "itch" or agitation we feel compelled to squelch, one arising from disagreement (or relatedly, from our own uncertainty); and that we ultimately can't be satisfied unless there is no disagreement and therefore no need to converse. (Of course we'll never actually achieve satisfaction in practice; but in theory, the final point of talking would be not-having-to-talk, or a sort of peaceful silence. I think Peirce* says something similar about the function of belief - it's to silence the unpleasant pangs of doubt which originally stimulate us to inquiry.)
Not sure if any of that made sense, but my question is simply: Which philosophers/thinkers have explored the nature and purpose of conversation, and where? It's just a topic that's mostly eluded me so far - I'd like to know what's been said and debated by people who've paused to ask, "What are we doing when we talk, and why?" Where's a good place to start?
*Here's a quote from his "Fixation of Belief" (1877):
"Doubt is an uneasy and dissatisfied state from which we struggle to free ourselves and pass into the state of belief; while the latter is a calm and satisfactory state which we do not wish to avoid, or to change to a belief in anything else. On the contrary, we cling tenaciously, not merely to believing, but to believing just what we do believe.
"Thus, both doubt and belief have positive effects upon us, though very different ones. Belief does not make us act at once, but puts us into such a condition that we shall behave in some certain way, when the occasion arises. Doubt has not the least effect of this sort, but stimulates us to action until it is destroyed."
@ Michael Llenos
In 1965 the Catholic Church officially repudiated the notion that the Jews are collectively guilty of Christ's death, and in 2011 Pope Benedict XVI published a book supporting the same conclusion via an analysis of the Gospels. So I hope that you are not suggesting, in 2023, that "the Jews killed Christ".
LFC
I wrote:
"Why do so many people want to kill the Jewish people? I don't get it. Because the Jews killed Christ? The majority of these supposed Christians who think like this about the Jews don't even go to Church."
I meant in the context that those Christians who believe such nonsense are really hypocrites to their religion & are hiding behind their faith to persecute Jews which is a nefarious action itself.
Michael.
I take Habermas to be saying that in the ideal speech situation the telos is consensus, i.e., reaching a mutual understanding that is not influenced by coercion, or any other techniques of manipulation of speech and understanding. Habermas is concerned with grounding thought in certain universal human interests: the need to control nature (science), the need to communicate (hermeneutics) and an emancipatory interest, i.e., an interest in liberating the individual from domination by the unconscious and society from the unconscious and repressive social/economic/political structure.
Clearly not all speech has as its end consensus, and Habermas didn't claim that to be the case.
@ M. Llenos
Thank you for clarifying -- the way you put it originally left it somewhat unclear.
LFC
You're welcome. It did seem unclear to me as well after rereading the text.
Thanks, Christopher.
I'm not at all surprised that I missed the mark on Habermas (I've spent next to zero time with him, or with anyone seemingly in his vicinity, but I'll try to fix that - he sounds interesting). John's use of the phrase "consensus as the telos of discussion," which I hadn't previously encountered, happened to put me in mind of some half-formed questions or general puzzlement/curiosity I have about, well, talking...or communication in general, I guess, but mainly conversation.
This is well off-topic, but I happen to have always been pretty bad at small talk, or with conversation as a pastime (or even a characteristically human practice). As an obtuse, pig-headed teenager, I found the phenomenon mystifying and sometimes wondered "what was wrong" with people who appeared to enjoy chatting about the weather and such; it finally came to me as almost a revelation when Desmond Morris (in The Naked Ape) drew a comparison between this and the social grooming practices of chimpanzees. I was and still am pretty uneducated about social/political theory in general...
Anyway, although it's tangential, I was wondering where I could turn in the philosophical world, as a novice, to get some additional insight and perspective on things along these lines. (Habermas sounds like he would be helpful mainly for other, larger things, but I'll also look into him.)
@ Michael (not Llenos, the other one)
As Christopher M.'s comment suggests, Habermas -- or such is my impression -- was not really interested in the question that you ask, or rather he approaches it from the angle of social theory which, I've sort of gathered from your comments here in the past, you're not particularly interested in.
On your question -- which philosophers/thinkers have explored the nature and purpose of conversation? -- I'm not well placed to answer, but a couple of the off-the-cuff thoughts. One is that the Platonic dialogues may be an implicit answer (w.r.t. at least one sort of conversation). Another is that J.L. Austin on speech acts might possibly have some bearing (but then again, maybe not what you're looking for). Also, just guessing, I wouldn't be surprised if there were at least asides about the matter scattered in the American pragmatists (James, Dewey, Pierce etc.). And perhaps you can find stuff on it outside the Western tradition. But I really have no idea.
p.s. I had to read some of Habermas's The Theory of Communicative Action in grad school (a somewhat weird first-yr seminar -- don't ask!). I had both paperback vols. in the T. McCarthy translation. Eventually gave both of them away. Earlier I'd read (and still have) R. Bernstein's The Restructuring of Social and Political Theory, which has a fair amount about Habermas in it. I remember rather little about The Theory of Communicative Action except the phrase "the colonization of the life-world" (which I just remembered now) plus I remember the presence -- though not really the substance -- of H's long discussions of Weber, Marx, and Talcott Parsons. My v. strong suspicion, Michael, is that you wd not be much interested in any of this. But you cd always try it and find out.
Last note: Several international-relations scholars have been influenced by or cite Habermas, and at least one (Nicholas Onuf) was/is really into J.L. Austin (see notably Onuf's World of Our Making). I met him once, nice guy, but his approach in that bk is not really my thing.
p.p.s. Just saw your comment @4:22 p.m. I suspect you'd be more interested in Erving Goffman's The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life. (Not that I've read it but based on what I know about it.)
p.p.p.s. If you don't feel like plowing through heavy-duty social theory (and, really, who does?), a nice alternative that doesn't feel like work is Dennis Wrong's The Problem of Order (1994). Well written and a real pleasure to read, even if it doesn't in the end say anything esp. startling. (He wasn't a Marxist, so it's not that perspective, it's just a nice entry point into "what are these theorists yammering about?") Another one that doesn't feel like work is C. Wright Mills's The Sociological Imagination (1959), not that I remember it especially well.
Michael not-Llenos:
On Habermas: In 1998 at UC Berkeley I taught a semester-long class on Habermas’s Theory of Communicative Action. That was it for me on Habermas, except shortly after for doing an invited review of a volume on his Philosophical Discourse of Modernity. Teaching the class drove home to me among other things the cogency of Raymond Geuss’s remark that Habermas’s theory of communication seems to turn on an unacknowledged conflation in the German verb ‘sich verständigen’ of ‘understanding’ and ‘agreement’. It’s all quite distant to me, as I haven’t really thought seriously about Habermas for over 20 years, and have long since sold most of my books by and about him, but here goes: 1. CM's characterization is especially apt with regard to the first of Habermas’s major statements, Knowledge and Human Interests. In KHI he also explicates the concept of truth in a Peircian manner as the end result of the communal, non-finite, unconstrained inquiry. 2a. In Theory and Practice Habermas introduced the idea of ‘discourse’ as a technical term for a kind of communicative-linguistic inquiry that was partially constituted by the presupposition of ‘pragmatic idealizations’ which can also be modeled as an ‘ideal speech situation’ and explicated in a Peircian fashion. ‘Discourse’ is an ever-available possibility ‘within’ ordinary communication. 3. In Theory of Communicative Action Habermas states that there is a ‘rationality proper to’ ordinary communication. The pursuit of this kind of rationality is the ‘reflective form’ of communication. In this reflective communication arguments are posed and claims are assessed; again the end result of this is mutual understanding, but again Habermas with ‘sich verständen’ does not really distinguish this from consensus. 4. In Between Facts and Norms (the last of his books that I’ve read) he explicitly states that the outcome of rational discourse is a rational consensus to which all participants could assent. Claims 1-4 are what I meant in referring to Habermas’s conception of an ‘inherent telos’ for communication.
On Communication: I just returned from the library and a few head-scratching hours reading Augustine’s treatise on music. It’s in the form of a ‘dialogue’ between a Master and a Disciple, which reminds me to start from some basic distinctions: Much communication is non-linguistic, and much language-use is not dialogue. The most beautiful dialogue known to me is Plato's Phaedrus. I think that, characteristically for Plato, the topics are as it were exemplifying and self-exemplifying, that is, the dialogue and its course exemplifies its topics, including what a dialogue is. G. R. F. Ferrari's book on the Phaedrus, Listening to the Cicadas, is exquisite and a great place to start thinking about distinctive aspects of dialogue. On all matters relating to communication I have greatly benefited especially from the writings of Michael Tomasello, such as Origins of Human Communication.--(WARNING of imminent self-promotion!) Recently I touched on some of the issues in a review of the terrific recent book by Ronald Planer and Kim Sterelny, From Signal to Symbol: The Evolution of Language at https://www.academia.edu/100068636/Book_Review_Ronald_J_Planer_and_Kim_Sterelny_From_Signal_to_Symbol_The_Evolution_of_Language_2021_
Thanks for the book recommendations. Lots to chew on... You folks are amazingly well-read.
For starters, I went ahead and ordered a short-ish Habermas collection called Communication and the Evolution of Society (maybe Knowledge and Human Interests would've been a better entry point, but I didn't see John's comment in time).
I also happen to own the Goffman book LFC mentioned - picked it up at a used bookstore a long time ago, but never got around to it. Plus I've read and enjoyed a bit of Bernstein (The Pragmatic Turn); I'll order his Praxis & Action on my next payday - it happens to look a little more up my alley than Restructuring, but I'll add the latter to my wish-list.
Thanks again!
To get back on topic, here is a statement by Habermas on the current situation
"Principles of solidarity. A statement
The current situation created by Hamas‘ extreme atrocity and Israel’s response to it has led to a cascade of moral and political statements and protests. We believe that amidst all the conflicting views being expressed, there are some principles that should not be disputed. They are the basis of a rightly understood solidarity with Israel and Jews in Germany.
The Hamas massacre with the declared intention of eliminating Jewish life in general has prompted Israel to strike back. How this retaliation, which is justified in principle, is carried out is the subject of controversial debate; principles of proportionality, the prevention of civilian casualties and the waging of a war with the prospect of future peace must be the guiding principles. Despite all the concern for the fate of the Palestinian population, however, the standards of judgement slip completely when genocidal intentions are attributed to Israel’s actions.
In particular, Israel’s actions in no way justify anti-Semitic reactions, especially not in Germany. It is intolerable that Jews in Germany are once again exposed to threats to life and limb and have to fear physical violence on the streets. The democratic ethos of the Federal Republic of Germany, which is orientated towards the obligation to respect human dignity, is linked to a political culture for which Jewish life and Israel’s right to exist are central elements worthy of special protection in light of the mass crimes of the Nazi era. The commitment to this is fundamental to our political life. The elementary rights to freedom and physical integrity as well as to protection from racist defamation are indivisible and apply equally to all. All those in our country who have cultivated anti-Semitic sentiments and convictions behind all kinds of pretexts and now see a welcome opportunity to express them uninhibitedly must also abide by this.
Nicole Deitelhoff, Rainer Forst, Klaus Günther und Jürgen Habermas"
https://www.normativeorders.net/2023/grundsatze-der-solidaritat/
"How this retaliation, which is justified in principle, is carried out is the subject of controversial debate"
Somehow it always becomes nebulous when we should actually be talking about exploding houses, dead or seriously injured people and the impossibility of allowing the bare facts to really become the subject of a "controversial debate".
A.K.,
I would gather that for Germans of Habermas's generation, the Holocaust carried out by their country is a subject of so much guilt and soul-searching that they will not use the same standards to judge Israeli war crimes as they would those of Putin or of the U.S. in Iraq.
You find a similar phenomenon among U.S. progressives, who out of guilt about slavery, Jim Crow and structural racism in the U.S., will use more lenient standards to judge rioting and looting by African-Americans than they would rioting by white supremacists.
A beacon of brilliance! Your post is both insightful and eloquently presented. Appreciate you sharing your valuable perspective.
I've now finished reading Polk's history of the Palestinian conflict. It's eye-opening, shortish as these things go, and a fascinating perspective. It's also telling that an earlier commenter used the old Fox News catch-phrase "fair and balanced" in their criticism of the piece. To paraphrase a more lefty media commentator, "reality has a Palestinian bias."
The problem with *consensus gentium* is, of course, the *gens*. As anyone who has ever had the … uh … pleasure (?) of dealing with a condo association can tell you, a consensus achieved between morons is necessarily moronic.
So, depending on the time and place, you may (if you’re lucky) learn something valuable by working towards a consensus. You probably WON’T … but you MIGHT. Present company excepted, needless to say!
I’ll leave unaddressed my thoughts about epistemic quality of the consensus in certain quarters regarding Hamas/Palestine/Israel/“Settler Colonialism”, etc., etc.
So why even bother with this kind of effort? It helps—a lot—if you’re the kind of person who likes listening to himself talk (and yes, it’s always us guys who know how to really enjoy this particular pleasure …).
That was a contemptible statement by Habermas (dated Nov 13). He should have just kept his mouth shut. Or even issued a statement expressing his solidarity with German Jews in the face of rising antisemitism in that country.
Omri Boehm: "The German Silence on Israel and Its Cost"
https://archive.nytimes.com/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/03/09/should-germans-stay-silent-on-israel/
In a 2012(?) interview with Jimmy Carter and Desmond Tutu, David Frost asked Tutu about what he had seen visiting Palestine.
@8:40
Frost: "[Y]ou said that what you saw in Israel is something that was quite akin to the situation in South Africa before freedom came to the black people of South Africa."
Tutu: "Well, in many instances worse. It's actually quite distressing. For one thing, we didn't have a wall, a wall that encroached so very seriously on the territory of other people. Many of them told us that, 'I used to get to my farm in 10, 20 minutes; now it's 2, 3 hours.' And having homes demolished. Israeli politicians are aware that they can get away with almost anything because the West is guilty—it feels guilty, it feels guilty about what they didn't do when the Holocaust happened. And they've given a kind of carte blanche. Now, if they are penitent, they ought to be the ones who pay the price of that penitence. But the price is being paid by the Palestinians. Part of my own concern for what is happening there is in fact not [just] what is happening to the Palestinians, but it is what the Israelis are doing to themselves."
Forming The Elders: Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Jimmy Carter
"Part of my own concern for what is happening there is in fact not [just] what is happening to the Palestinians, but it is what the Israelis are doing to themselves."
Good point, although it's not the Israelis (some of whom are protesting what the IDF is doing in Gaza), but Zionist Jews in general.
I read an anecdote in someone's substack, sometime in the last week or 2, which if not true, should be (All I recall about the substack is that the author's name was Dror something or other. I believe the topic was Israel/Hamas/Gaza but I am not certain about that).
A Chasidic rabbi from Romania managed to survive several concentration camps during WW2. He lost his wife and 10 children in the camps. Some of his followers were asking him about his reflections on his experience. He responded, "It could have been worse. We could have been doing the killing."
Marcel Proust,
A similar story.
A Uruguayan writer was imprisoned during the military dictatorship in the 1970's. When he was finally released after being brutally tortured, his family and friends gathered to celebrate his freedom.
His first words: "we won!".
What do you mean "we won"? They're still in power, still torturing and killing us.
We didn't become like them.
@ Barney
Unlike the classical European antisemites up to and including the Shoah, today's "educated" antisemites clothe their animus in professions of "social justice"- so of course they're antiZionist and if Marxists or Social Scientists dress it up in objective facts and jargon- but you're right they're antisemites though too dumb or clever to fess up to the ugly truth about themselves
Eric @1:39 p.m.
The Habermas et al. statement should have included stronger and more judgmental language about the IDF's actions in Gaza, but the rest of it does not seem to me esp. objectionable.
Jerry Fresia linked to an article by Peter Bohmer a couple of weeks ago.
Bohmer and Steve Shalom offer some very relevant observations in this discussion from a few days ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDrt20VeR1k
From today's NYT:
"A day after the Israeli military took control of Gaza’s largest hospital, soldiers on Thursday afternoon were still combing the site that Israel has said concealed a secret Hamas base, but had yet to present much evidence supporting that claim to the public.
"An Israeli military spokesman said that the search of the hospital grounds would take time because 'Hamas knew we were coming' and had made off with or hidden traces of their presence there."
Another propaganda triumph for the IDF.
From today's Washington Post:
JERUSALEM — The search of Israeli forces of Gaza’s largest hospital stretched into its second day Thursday amid the wait for more concrete evidence of extensive Hamas infrastructure at the facility that precipitated the raid.
Israel also said no further evidence of Hamas activities in the hospital was scheduled to be made public for now, following the release Wednesday of photographs and video showing small caches of rifles and laptops that the Israel Defense Forces identified as Hamas material. The military did not show evidence of tunnels or a command center it has said exists under the hospital.
“I can confirm now that the operation is still ongoing,” an Israel Defense Forces spokesman said Thursday. “All the publishable evidence was released.”
The "evidence" presented a couple of days ago seemed hinky. Given the costs (material and non-material) to Israel as well as 10/07 there seems to be a real problem with Israeli intelligence.
Given the cruelty and mendacity of Israel, the incompetence and corruption of the PLO, and the corruption and viciousness of HAMAS is there any way the average Palestinian doesn't wind up screwed regardless of the outcome?
The Polk papers were useful.
This is a post from earlier this month by Eric Schliesser. I haven't read it carefully yet, so not sure to what extent I agree, but Schliesser, who usually writes about philosophical and related topics, is generally thoughtful.
https://digressionsimpressions.substack.com/p/no-nation-is-liberated-without-sacrifices
LFC, I read a couple of Schlisser's posts and they are thoughtful. I find it hard to get past Corey Robin's observation that the creation of a viable Palestinian state would likely involve Israelis shooting Israelis.
I believe Corey R's preferred solution is one democratic, completely secular, non-Jewish (and presumably non-Islamic) state, right? Or has he given up on solutions entirely? I know that he's a supporter of BDS etc.
As for Schliesser, I don't know where he stands on a 2 state solution but guessing that he's in favor.
It won't nec involve Israelis killing Israelis. The govt cd make the West Bank settlers a generous financial offer to move. I.e., an enormous bribe. But first have to get Netanyahu and Likud out of power.
LFC, you might want to read this:
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-extreme-ambitions-of-west-bank-settlers
"The best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity," sort of describes matters. Folks who sincerely believe in a creator deity who gives fee title to chunks of the planet aren't likely to be bought off.
Then there's the water.
aaall,
Who knows who can be bought off and at what price?
Here's a story.
Coca Cola wants to change the Lord's Prayer from "Give us our daily bread" to "Give us our daily Coca Cola", so they send their director of advertising to talk to an influential bishop.
He says, "Bishop, Coca Cola is willing to donate 10 million dollars to the Church if you change the prayer."
Bishops reacts, "The Holy Church will never change the words of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. You are cursed to eternal damnation for your sacrilege."
Coca Cola then sends their executive Vice President to talk to a Cardenal in Rome. He says "Coca Cola is willing to give you guys 100 million dollars in unmarked bills if you change the prayer".
The Cardenal replies, "thank you for taking the Holy Church into consideration, but
we cannot change the prayer at the moment. God bless you my child".
So Coca Cola sends their CEO to talk to the Pope in Rome. He says, "Pope, if you change the prayer, we'll immediately pay one billion dollars into one of your offshore banking accounts".
The Pope smiles, picks up a telephone, dials a number and asks, "What was the bakers' last offer?"
aaall
I'm not denying there are very very big hurdles now to a 2 state solution. In addition to the West Bank issues, the reconstruction of Gaza is going to require very large sums. What this current conflict has done though, as others have noted, is put the need for a solution back on the agenda of the U.S. and prob some European countries as well. Netanyahu and Abbas need to leave the stage and then the groundwork has to start being put in place for a process that shd have as its goal a 2 state agreement. After the current war is over, however it ends, Gazan reconstruction and the return to Gaza of Palestinians who may have been displaced to Egypt (as is seeming increasingly possible) shd be accompanied by a diplomatic initiative in which the U.S. and Europe and others, incl African and Asian countries and Australia, say to the two sides: "Enough is enough. Either you come to an agreement on the outstanding issues or we impose one on you. We've had it. An agreement was reached in N Ireland. Ditto in the Balkans. And you're going to reach one here. And if you don't, Israel and the PA will both lose their status at the UN and trade embargos will be imposed and embassies will be closed and you will become as isolated as N Korea is now. And military aid to Israel will be made conditional.on its entering and concluding negotiations. No one is going to be entirely satisfied w the result, but there is going to be a result. Period."
@ aaall
ok I've read the interview w that person -- it was my last free New Yorker article (I guess for the month, maybe for the year). You're right, money won't move her. After a 2-state agreement is reached, assuming one is reached, the IDF will likely have to remove her to Israel. And if for some reason she and those who think as she does can't be moved and put up an armed resistance, the IDF will have to engage and shoot them. A group of intransigent fanatics who think that they are "sovereign" over the area stretching from the Euphrates to the Nile cannot be allowed to dictate the future of the region.
Waco-on the-West Bank would be an interesting spectacle.
One of the things that occurred to me on reading Polk's account is that no one seems to have seen buying land from absentee owners that resulted in the folks who actually lived and depended on that land being displaced as setting up future problems. Anyway, the West Bank is ~half the size of my county with ~20X the population and is land-locked. No way this works out.
Merely sacking Bibi isn't going to cure the structural heel turn Israeli politics took with the influx of folks from the former Soviet Union.
s.w., while we are all cynical, deracinated cosmopolitans, quite a few folks actually believe to their detriment the just-so stories.
I think a pessimist is really closer to reality when it comes to the 2-state solution.
@aaall...
your theses are unrealistic on the following points:
1. how many times in the last 40 years has a US administration said: now we finally need a solution.
2. the Europeans have not even managed to call for a ceasefire together. The lazy compromise was "pauses in fighting". France and Germany are sitting at two different ends of the table on these issues. Internationally, things look even worse. What makes you so optimistic that you think international pressure on both sides will change anything significant?
3. And that seems to me to be the essential point. What are the political personnel on both sides who, legitimized by a majority on each side, can develop enough symbolic power to set in motion a stable process that does not collapse again after an incident?
This article from Salon on the folly of the US double standard in its policy of unquestioning support for Israel is right on the mark. The point is developed in the context of the troubles that plague Joe Biden's campaign for a second term.
https://www.salon.com/2023/11/18/joe-biden-at-historys-crossroads-is-backing-bibis-gaza-a-fatal-mistake/
DZ, soon after 10/07 the U.S. sent a Marine three star to confer with the Israelis. He soon left. I assume Biden and Blinken are approaching this with the same caution as they did with Ukraine - avoiding an escalation that might possibly include nukes. Hence the two carrier groups (and more I'm sure) and warnings to Iran/Hezbollah.
They were over-cautious with Ukraine (no good reason U shouldn't have had Abrams, F-16/18s, ATACMS, DPICMs, etc. long ago) but they may be more on-point with Israel. Although disputed, there are claims that Israel has used the nuclear option as leverage to obtain conventional weapons from the U.S. so once again the agency claim has serious limits. We have nuclear weapons controlled by an obviously corrupt and incompetent government composed in part of far-right racists and religious fanatics. There may be some value in keeping close.
A sledge hammer won't work but a ratchet might:
https://twitter.com/Noahpinion/status/1725999345282208189
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