PH Balance
I was paying partial attention to the recent Israeli election. I had the feeling some of this material may be on the quiz later. As I followed it, it appeared as though Tzipi Livni won that election. I read a biographical piece on her the New York Times magazine ran about a year and half ago
Her Jewish State. Per the intention of the piece I finished that article mostly convinced she was the leadership Israel ought to have. The person I'd pick, If I had my druthers. The story appeared to take a turn then when the newspapers indicated, within days that Netanyahu was picked to form the government
Netanyahu to Form New Israel Government - NYTimes.com. Parliamentary politics; where it's all about the voting block you can bring to the table
Netanyahu, Once Hawkish, Now Touts Pragmatism - NYTimes.com. It surprised me anyway. Despite appeals over the weekend and into the week that followed neither Livni (nor Olmert) were inclined to join a Likud coalition government Netanyahu Rebuffed Again in Efforts to Form Coalition - NYTimes.com. From their perspective this was wise because to do so would put her on the same footing as Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party (about whom I know little except that he seems prone to a certain parochialism). Her presence in such a coalition would only serve to to lend weight to anything he choose to say or do. Formed recently as it was out of the centrist elements of other political parties to be a nucleus to a governing coalition, it is an open question whether Kadima can adjust to being an opposition party. At the moment it must appear best to them to stand aside and let the nation see how far to the right Likud wants to take them
The Globe and Mail: With Israel's Livni holding out, Netanyahu forced to look right.
The recent war in Gaza undertaken by Olmert and Livni's government offers a taste of such a move to the right. A sense of: War, now what hangs in the air
How badly did Gaza poison the well? | Marc Lynch. It was an ambivalent war Who won the Gaza war? - By Linda Gradstein - Slate Magazine. Hamas's idea of victory is avoiding annihilation. Presently they are still in civil control of Gaza and the war probably left them the stronger partner against Fatah in palestinian governance issues
News Analysis - War on Hamas Saps Palestinian Leaders - NYTimes.com. Israel for their part reinstated military dominance over Gaza, and demonstrated Hamas is well short of defeating the Israeli Army. On the other hand Israel failed to demonstrate they can act in urban areas without causing excessive civilian casualties, though they showed they can keep their own casualties low. For all that 1200 people died. War is ambivalent. Ambivalent in conception, in practice, in result. Always. War presents itself as the direct approach, the best solution, the only real way. It gives little at end and takes more. War is a drug, it is absinthe, it intoxifies gives sharp amphetamine highs, muffled tranquilized lows. It is a stew of lies. Even if Hamas believes fighting Israel furthers their cause, Israel ought not believe fighting Palestinians is the answer to their situation. The myth of war's necessity is a large part the of theme of Christopher Hedges book
War is a force that gives us meaning [WorldCat.org]. Recently a "first year book" and the University of Maryland.
The prospect of war is exiting Many young men schooled in the notion that war is the ultimate definition of manhood, that only in war will they be tested and proven, that they can discover their worth as human beings in battle, willingly join the great enterprise. The admiration of the crowd, the high blown rhetoric, the chance to achieve the glory of the previous generation, the idea of nobility beckon us forward. And people, ironically, enjoy righteous indignation and an object upon which to unleash their anger. War usually starts as collective euphoria [p. 84]
Additionally Hedge kicks off the entire book with a preface quote from David Hume (I should work Hume into all my posts from now on).
When our own nation is at war with any other, we detest them under the character of cruel, perfidious, unjust and violent: But always esteem ourselves and allies equitable, moderate, and merciful. If the general of our enemies be successful, it is with difficulty we allow him the figure and character of a man. He is a sorcerer: He has a communication with daemons...But if the success be on our side, our commander has all the opposite good qualities, and is a pattern of virtue, as well as of courage and conduct. His treachery we call policy: His cruelty is an evil inseparable from war. [ Treatise on Human Nature: Vol. II Book II Part II Sect. III ]
Hume for the purpose of further argument casts his notion as human nature. Unlike simpler animals (a cat is cat and reliably so), men have perhaps variable natures into which we are cast by environment, argument and unrepentant propaganda. In the end war - war fever - isn't a drink or a pill, it is a process. Hedge's point is that it takes considerable effort by low leadership to shift people to war. It is not perfectly natural but a creation of unreason.
Future of Israel amongst its neighbors is caught up in many threads and assessments it is impossible to have a useful opinion about it across an ocean and further sea. There is a struggle for land, and there is only so much land between the Jordan river and the sea. Diplomats talk of arbitrary state solutions while acknowledging that demographics; varying birth rates: Israel - 19.7/k , Palestinian terr. - 35.9/k crude birth rate. And fertility rates: Israel - 2.91 (2000) 2.75 (2008) , Palestinian terr - 5.63(2000) 5.09(2008) FtR [2nd table UN data] command. Population pressures will weigh heavily on who will physical possess the land a few generations into the future with citizenship. rights of return and settlements only affecting things on the margin.
This is the reason that while accordance is given it only in the breach the two state solution keeps centering itself in the debate. For each a place of sovereignty growth and prosperity. Not the open air Attica that is the Gaza Strip. There are those in Israel that hold to the notion that the palestinian people, as such and uncapitalized, mostly represent opportunists who drifted to the land a handfull of generations ago, in the years of Ottoman vacuum. For whom half a state at best would suffice. There are Palestinians who have convinced themselves they can keep peace at bay until a day when the tides of history change and the arab world at parity with the west will be at their back. They are encouraged and abused in this by states who simply wish to place a thorn in Israel's side. Things are changing though, time resists a steady state. There is the bomb, the arab bomb. Syria is willing to spend money on North Korean wares, this at the least indicates their attitude. Iran's bomb is more central. I believe they desire one strongly and will not be talked out of it. The downside has not been effectively communicated to them. Their intention is to finesse it to semi-completion. Leaving the program short of a nuclear weapon constructed, and with the militarization end ready for its part. From this point only some months of industrial effort, initially clandestine, would be necessary to produce a bomb. The lesson of earlier bombs, nuclear bombs ours theirs, these are all Tom Leher's bombs 1 , is that what they meant once the other side had them was far different from what they meant when you alone had them, and it's too late to change your address. You would not want to build a foreign policy on the bombs possession. Other bombs reduce yours to water. This is what Israel minds warily in an Iranian bomb.
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