I'm not sure the French-Egyptian plan will hold unless a full lifting of the economic blockade (while excluding arms shipments) is also implemented. I think the conflict (this and the larger conflict) can be settled without a single drop of blood being shed if these steps were followed:
Step 1:
Israel announces a unilateral, partial, temporary week-long truce and an end to the blockade, but will reserve the right to bomb Qassam teams that are on the road or in the act. No buildings will be bombed. Full humanitarian supplies go in.
Step 2:
Next, through Syrian and or Egyptian intermediaries, Israel negotiates an 18-month truce with Hamas and Fatah to allow time to negotiate a final deal. Hamas takes full responsibility of stopping rocket attacks from Gaza and returning the IDF soldier. Israel ends overflights, drone flights, and control of borders and sea access - handing it all over to Abbas' PA. Any rocket that is launched from Gaza would result in a "fine" that is deducted from the PA's treasury. Israel withdraws its troops.
Step 3:
Fatah negotiates with Hamas' political wing to figure out how to unify - with some gesture that will be an acknowledgment that Hamas won elections in 2006. Failing agreement, there would be elections within 6 months. This would come after the Israeli elections, so there would be pressure to not elect hardliners which is likely to result in hardliners winning on the other side. This would proceed simultaneously with PA negotiations with Israel (and including Arab states as needed) that work on some amalgam of the Taba Plan, the Arab Peace Initiative and Geneva Accord. Both sides would determine the composition of a bipartisan committee of academics and psychologists that will, after a final deal is signed, determine how history textbooks should describe the conflict for the children of both nations. Standards on what is "acceptable dialogue" on TV and in newspapers may also be suggested, but with some deference to free speech. The Syrian track on Golan will continue in parallel, and a US-Iran-Lebanon-Hezbollah dialogue that will result in absorption of Hezbollah into the Lebanese army if Golan and Palestine are resolved.
Step 4:
Israel and the PA announce they will accept land formulas based on the Geneva Accord or some variation of it, based on the negotiations in Step 3. The refugee return level to Israel hasn't been specified. It should offer approximately the 10% (who still wish to live in a Jewish-majority Israeli state) of the 4 million refugees the right to do so, with priority given to first and second generation refugees. Unless the "return" to Israel proper is significant enough, about 400,000, it will not be a stable equilibrium and may allow Hamas and other extremist groups to continue underground on the emotional "right of return" angle. The rest of the 90% of refugees would be resettled in Palestine, and receive some compensation from US, EU and Israel for helping Israel remain mostly Jewish. The same level of compensation will be paid by Arab countries to the descendants of Jewish refugees from Arab lands who left their homes in the 1940s (or later, under duress). If property compensation formulas can be worked out as well, great. Refugees from both sides should be allowed to visit their old homes if they wish, for some nostalgia/closure. Israel would be free to financially incentivize Israeli Arabs to move to Palestine, but they'd be under no obligation to go. Both sides would need to ratify the agreements with a referendum in each territory within six months of signing. The refugee diaspora should also be part of the Pal referendum, to declaw the rejectionists.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Accord (overview)
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=349832 (Haaretz's special section and links)
http://www.geneva-accord.org/mainmenu/geneva-initiativeisrael-palestine-permanent-borders (final status maps after land swaps)
I believe something like this will be the eventual deal, even if it isn't signed next year. It may take another 10 - but it has to be generous enough to be stable. Otherwise we'll be left with a one state problem that Olmert, despite his many faults, well anticipated: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/929439.html
The first two steps can be easily finished in a week and the other two within six months of intense activity. The power lies with Obama to push this kind of a solution by out-smarting those in our establishment that may resist such a plan. Will he? No idea. But he could make a final deal happen by 2010 if he's smart about it. He'd win a Nobel by 2011 and get re-elected by 2012. Unless the economy's still in a recession!
I'd be interested in everyone's feedback and comments.
Mark
Even Jon Stewart had to make fun last night of how lockstep our politicians are on Israel, with never a criticism:
http://www.thedailyshow.com/video/index.jhtml?videoId=213380&title=strip-maul
(the part I mention is from 3:40 till the end)
How is the killing of nearly 15 members of Nizar Rayyan's family different than what a suicide bomber does in Tel Aviv? Assassinate him extrajudicially - that's not something I'd prefer, but that can be justifiable. The others? I see no difference between the pain a victim feels from a suicide bomb and that an innocent "collateral damage" person feels from one of our "surgical strike" bombs controlled from afar. It's still shrapnel ripping into human flesh, of innocents. A suicide bomb that kills 10 innocents is as morally heinous as a smart bomb that kills 10 innocents as collateral damage. Why is it not? To argue otherwise is pure spin. Results matter. Actions matter more than words. What your actions result in matter more than what you claim you intended.
I'd be laughed out of court if I argued that "your Honor, I wanted to shoot this one guy who may have been behind the deaths of people from my town, but there were these 10 people around him - so I lobbed a grenade among them - please absolve me of their deaths, and blame him." And don't say "it's war, not law." Saying something is war doesn't absolve you of your actions. Morality doesn't pause when you utter the word "war."
The trigger-puller (and any chain of command above him) is responsible for any deaths. Whether that's a Qassam rocketer or Hamas suicide bomber, or an IDF pilot. Nobody else. Let's not redirect responsibility by saying "Hamas by using human shields" or "Israel's occupation" killed the people - you are soldiers/fighters fighting for your cause - take responsibility for what you do, and be prepared for the consequences. To act otherwise is cowardly. The pro-Israeli PR machine is in full swing, as it was in the 2006 war. Let's look at the reality: 550+ dead vs 9. Maybe 50 of the 550 helped build or launch Qassam rockets. The rest of the deaths are unjustifiable, most of them police and civilians. If a nation X killed 500 Israelis unjustifiably, not only would Israel engage in bombing that nation if it could pull it off, but we Americans would back their act of self-defense. For some strange reason, the people of Gaza don't have the same right. Why? Because their opponent made some very powerful friends.
And people are not asking "why" Hamas is lobbing inaccurate rockets at civilians - as if that comes from innate evil. There has been an economic blockade for months. If you were a prisoner, you would also try to lob stuff at your captors until they lift the siege. An occasionally fed prisoner is still a prisoner. Both sides have been violating the "truce" - the way out is simple - stop economic blockades, and negotiate a final deal with all parties - including Hamas. The big mistake was not letting Hamas be forced to govern when they won elections - that would have moderated them. The IRA became Sinn Fein. Irgun became the Likud. And when a people is under occupation or its airspace is not its own, New Hampshire's motto "Live Free or Die" applies.
As a memorial to those who have died and been injured in this conflict, we American Jews should be more like Gideon Levy of Haaretz and make more noise to make sure Israel lobbies in DC like the pro-peace J Street gain power vs the hawkish AIPAC.
Objectively looking at geopolitics, Israel should be as important to us as Taiwan - a small entrepreneurial, scrappy nation which has many Americans from that culture.. No more. Repeating "only Western democracy in the Mideast" mindlessly doesn't translate to greater strategic importance - if anything, it is paradoxically an ally, embracing whom actually weakens and endangers our people. And a true Western democracy should be secular, with no preference for any religion in its immigration laws. The billions in military gifts/yr we give Egypt and Israel would be better spent on people in far more risk of genocide, disease and malnutrition than Israelis or Egyptians are - Africans in Darfur, Congo, etc. But AIPAC has been impressively effective in forcing conformity in Congress on their take on Israel (members of Congress strangely agree on no other issue, and have taken a stand at odds with world opinion).
We need to see Israel through clear lenses, not the rose-colored ones of Jewish journalists, pundits and experts in think tanks that dominate our Mideast discourse. They cannot be blamed for an emotional preference for one side, probably having grown up in a Holocaust-sensitive household. It's in outsize proportion to our less than 2% of the US population. If most of the US analysis and commentary on this issue were coming from Arab Americans, we would expect a similar lean, and also couldn't expect full objectivity. And there would be howls of bias, unless their influence is so pervasive, it even squelches talk of bias due to ethnicity.
http://www.ifamericansknew.org/media/
And when considering Obama's Mideast Envoy the debate is between which Jewish diplomat should fill the role, not a Christian, and forget Arab. This has direct impact on our ability to (1) gain trust of the Arab side, and (2) have the cultural insight to pick up on potential negotiation pitfalls and surprises.
Our media and govt take on Israel stands absolutely isolated in the world and the UN, as was our decision to invade Iraq. Maybe some deference to world opinion is time, and will lead us out of a dangerous information bubble, the kind that made us ask after Sept 11 - why do they hate us? If our media had been doing their job, and telling us why Muslims and Arabs are mad at us (our Israel policy, military footprint, and support of Arab autocrats - not our "way of life") then it wouldn't have been a surprise. Surprises are never good.
I also want to address the religious stereotyping and labeling we do. I think lumping people is a strategy we use when we look down on them either culturally or racially. So calling all the policemen who were killed in Gaza "Hamas" is just another way to demean those we oppose and want to feel better about killing. Once we categorize someone as a "terrorist" it becomes so much easier to stomach it. "Terrorist" just a verbal club we use to describe the violence by groups we politically oppose. However, if you take the perspective of a victim - the innocent person dying or injured from shrapnel - whether that came from a suicide bomb, a Qassam or a IDF bomb - they feel the same. Terrorized. That is terrorism.
Let's look at individuals within Hamas, and not tar everyone with the same apocalyptic brush, just because our State Dept calls them a terrorist group.President Carter went to meet with them, and what Khaled Meshal believes is different from Haniyeh, and different from their militant wing. Not individualizing people dehumanizes them. Here's Meshal's BBC interview: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4693382.stm
The West has conducted and triggered far more violence that resulted in innocent civilian deaths (I call that terrorism) than any Arab or Muslim group. Just add up the numbers from the last 5, 10, or 100 years to see that it's true. Yet for some reason we see Islam as more violent, not Christianity or Judaism. The numbers don't agree. Since 2000, there has been a 10:1 ratio of innocents killed by Judaeo-Christian-affiliated groups and nations vs Islam-affiliated groups and nations. Is Christianity the most violent religion? The data would support it, but the oddness of how that sounds shows how our self-image doesn't gel with the data.
And some say that Israel and the US don't "intend" for any civilian casualties, and "regret" them, whereas the terrorists and their ilk target them. Whether you are trying to reduce or increase civilian death tolls, I would posit you are completely responsible for anyone you kill. Make a negligent manslaughter defence if you want, but it's still a life, and you're still guilty. A dead innocent's lot in life is not improved by her death being unintentional. Sarcasm intended!
The flexibility, ability and luxury to interrupt the natural tit-for-tat cycles of violence, even disproportionate force, lies more with parties that have more power. So we the US govt has more power than the Israelis who in turn have more power than the Pals. The more dire one's situation, the less long-term and dispassionate a view one can take - so primary responsibility to make concessions eventually lie with the US (and Israel, though less so, since they are also in the conflict). We know that a single clear US statement condemning further use of force by either party will make the Israeli guns fall silent. And a US call to end the blockade will make Israel do so - which in turn will force Hamas through Syrian and other Arab intermediaries to make the rockets stop.
I've noticed in most US coverage of the Mideast issue, we never actually talk to Arabs or Israelis on the street - instead we get the correspondent, spokesperson, spinmeister or analyst's version of reality. BBC actually tends to show us brief interviews of people on the ground. However just talking to combatants and victims while giving us a more factual look of the facts on the ground, and bringing home an unsanitized view of war, does not automatically give us a dispassionate view of the conflict. A conflict laden with emotion needs more analysis and less emotion (while being caring) and probably more involvement of people who have no cultural affinity with either side or a history of antisemitism or pro-Zionism - Chinese, Indians, Hispanics, etc.
The global geopolitical dynamic, the US protection, and the mainstream media embrace of the US position gives Israel an edge right now. But it won't last, as unfair power imbalances tend not to. So Israel would be best served to make a final status deal sooner rather than later. I would caution them to not drive too hard a bargain, because if there is unfairness embedded in the deal, it will not be a stable equilibrium. So it better be a healthy right of return, in the hundreds of thousands, not in the tens of thousands. In any case, I predict there will be a reunification of the two states that form within the next few years - about 70-100 years from now. This squabbling will seem quite stupid then. And the long winter of persecution of Jews will also be seen as over. We will not be so super-sensitive to loss of each Jewish life (which is honestly speaking, racist) vs the loss of other people. The ascendancy of other nations and cultures will also dilute the sway we've had over entertainment, media and govt. I will feel partly sad for that, but it will be for the greater good.
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For numbers in Gaza since 2000:
25 Israelis killed by Pals/yr
375 Pals killed by Israelis/yr
(from the respected Israeli human rights NGO B'Tselem)
Actually it's higher than 375 now because the B'Tselem numbers don't include the latest conflict. It's probably about 25 vs 500 or 1:20 over the last 8 years now.
http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Casualties.asp
If one includes all the numbers, including suicide bombing, the data is still embarrassing from the last 8 years - we have about a 1000 Israelis dead and about 5000 Pals:
Israelis killed by Pals: 133/year
Pals killed by Israelis: 612/year
However this year the numbers are far more lopsided, probably 15 vs 600.
Including the 9 and 550 deaths from recent days to the B'Tselem numbers, we have for the last 8 years:
Israelis killed by Pals: 134/year
Pals killed by Israelis: 682/year
So since 2000, Israelis have killed about 5x more. The % of civilians killed is similar in both cases, about 31-35% according to B'Tselem (wikipedia).
**************
I think the Mideast conflict can be settled without a single drop of blood being shed, within a week:
Israel announces a unilateral truce and an end to the blockade, but will reserve the right to bomb Qassam teams that are on the road or in the act. No buildings will be bombed.
Next, through Syrian intermediaries, Israel negotiates a truce with Hamas - Hamas takes full responsibility of stopping rocket attacks from Gaza and returning the IDF soldier. Israel ends overflights, drone flights, and control of borders and sea access - handing it all over to Abbas' PA.
The PA negotiates with Hamas to give back control of government to it since it was undemocratically usurped, or forming a unity govt. This would proceed simultaneously with PA negotiations with Israel on a hybrid plan of the Arab Peace Initiative and Geneva Accord.
Israel announces it will accept the Geneva Accord (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geneva_Accord) and will offer approximately the 10% (who wish to live in Israel) of 4 million refugees the right to do so, with priority given to first and second generation refugees. The rest of the 90% would be resettled in Palestine, and receive some compensation from US, EU and Israel for helping Israel remain mostly Jewish. A similar amount of compensation will be paid to the descendants of Jewish refugees from Arab lands who were forced out in the 1940s by Arab countries.
Ok, this last step might take more than a week, I admit! The first two steps can be easily finished in a week and the other two within a couple of months of intense activity. The power lies with Obama to push this kind of a solution by overruling all those in the establishment that will resist pressuring Israel.
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Interesting how the Bush administration quoted "17 UN Security Council Resolutions" that Iraq flouted that made it deserve invasion and the death of over a million people (Wikipedia figures that look at multiple studies), whereas our ally Israel has flouted many, many more than that:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_Nations_resolutions_concerning_Israel#United_Nations_Security_Council_resolutions
(full list of UNSC resolutions regarding Israel)
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1. Religion-affiliated absolutist independence movements do not always stay that way if independence happens. The "terrorist" groups IRA and Irgun are examples of groups like Hamas, that either moderated or transformed under a different name. To presume that will not happen is shortsighted.
Obama yesterday:
"Through its nuclear program, missile capability, meddling in Iraq, support for terrorism, and threats against Israel, Iran now poses the greatest strategic challenge to the United States in the region in a generation."
Huh?! Obama is going off the deep end on Iran in his campaign Nascarization and quixotic quest for the Florida Jewish vote. He has essentially reversed his position on talking to Iran - no one will want to talk to you if you keep spitting in their face. "Greatest strategic challenge..in a generation"? He's giving hyperbole a bad name! We face much greater strategic challenges in repairing our global brand, keeping our middle class standard of living where it has been in this flattening world, dealing with an energy-intensive lifestyle, and finding the political will to mitigate climate change.
Did Jesse Jackson's emasculating jibe make Barack think he needed to show he still had a pair?
I'm not sure what gives us the moral right to make the demands from Iran we have been making. Some questions on basic fairness on the four problems he has with Iran:
Nuclear program
I don't like any country getting nukes, but where do we get off our hypocritical pontificating? If we could live with a nuclear Soviet Union - guess what - we and Israel - can live with a nuclear Iran. Despite what Obama and our politicians have to say.
- We have thousands of nukes and have actually used them in combat on civilian populations. Why does another nation have less rights than us to have nukes?
- We have no problem with a country having nukes in the Mideast, as long as it's not a Muslim country. Does that make us racist? Israel has 150-200; would they give theirs up if all Middle Eastern countries and Iran agreed to no nukes?
- North Korea flouted the NPT and was never threatened with what we/Israel are threatening Iran with
- Didn't our NIE discover they had stopped their program in 2003?
- Why don't we allow them to enrich uranium as much as they want under UN monitoring, as long as they stick to their existing pledge not to weaponize? Some countries want to know that they can actually pull off some technological feat - like Pakistan and India - and South Africa deweaponized after actually developing nukes
- Shouldn't we pay more attention to a country that (1) has nukes and (2) is home to the al Qaeda leadership, instead of a country that is using the nuclear issue to show off their independence, new status, technological prowess and machismo - and has no nukes? Did the Iraq imbroglio happen that long ago? Saddam kept things ambiguous to save face. We underestimate how much appearances mean.
Missile capability
- Did Iran sign some pact to not enhance its military prowess?
- How would we react if a politician of a country on the other side of the planet objected to our testing our missiles on our soil?
- Would we ever ask Israel to not test their missiles or step back from signalling with refuelling wargames in the Mediterranean?
Support for Terrorism
- He's on more solid ground here, but just because we call Hezbollah a terrorist group officially, it doesn't mean they've brought more terror on civilians than we have in that region. Our initiative led to the death of a million civilians in Iraq. See my blog for the bodycounts.
http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/blog/marklevin
- We've been arming militias in Iraq and so has Iran - there's a symmetry here
- Iran-Hamas links are tenuous; a Shiite-Sunni divide exists and the support is necessarily more moral than logistical given Gaza's isolation
Threats against Israel
- We clearly don't derive any strategic benefit from our embrace of Israel, so Israel should be as important as any ally to us - like UK or Japan - but not more than that - but yes, politically it does matter in this election because enough people believe protecting Israel from all potential adversaries is right after our national security
- Ahmadinejad, the source of our fear, is closer to the power of our freshmen Senators when it comes to military affairs. He is not their commander-in-chief - that is the role of the Supreme Leader. From Wikipedia: "commandment of the armed forces and declaration of war and peace, remain in the hands of the Supreme Leader."
- We have popularized his statements in the most sinister way to paint him like a new Hitler; I think he's 1% as evil as Saddam ever was - at most. "Wiping Israel off the map" is not a call for genocide. Wikipedia: According to Juan Cole (most experts agree with him), "Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to 'wipe Israel off the map' because no such idiom exists in Persian". Instead, "He did say he hoped its regime, i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem, would collapse."
Hmm...wanting regime change! Have we ever expressed such views about other countries? Should we be bombed for that or have to stop enhancing our weaponry? We condemn Iran for wanting the area to be secular and not Jewish, but would we ever condemn the PM of the UK with this vehemence and accuse him of signalling genocide if he criticized Muslim countries for not being secular states? That said, I think Ahmadinejad is just not very well read, if he still thinks that what happened in the gassing of Jews, Gypsies and undesirables by Hitler is an open question.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel
An ignorant leader who is not their commander-in-chief is not enough of a reason for us to participate in or tacitly condone Israeli airstrikes. That we're even talking about it or how Obama is saber-rattling shows how dumb as a country we've become. Stupid leaders exist everywhere. Should we be bombed for having Dubya? Should South Africa be bombed for Mbeki who doesn't believe that HIV causes AIDS?
I'm playing Devil's advocate here to some degree.
I hope that in this general stretch, the Obama campaign latches on to some concrete facts about our reaction to 9/11, and shows how non-conservative that reaction has been. He can make an appeal to conservatives on spending, for which many of them are already mad at Bush. He has to be on the offense on national security, and one way to do this is to focus on the cost of the Iraq war and efficiency of our spending on national security. I'll try to demonstrate why there is a case to be made. Another message could be "Jobs vs. Iraq" to paint McCain into a corner on economy vs Iraq priorities.
Here's the context for my frustration. In recent decades we have always over-reacted to events, especially when we have had a simplistic and often erroneous understanding of grievances and political issues overseas. Our reaction to 9/11 has been reflexive, and dictated by fear-machismo rather than agility and intelligence. This over-reaction is made possible by our relative ignorance of realities, attitudes and opinions overseas, and our media's laziness in rectifying it.The financial inefficiency of our efforts is horrendous. And I'm not just talking about Homeland Security money for Wyoming. Tally up our expenditure in the so-called "war on terror" (the British govt, our closest ally, doesn't agree with this terror war nomenclature) and homeland security expenses that wouldn't have been approved if 9/11 never happened. My guess is that it's at least already $1 trillion given that direct war costs already exceed $700 billion:http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdfThen let's assess how much safety/security we have bought with that. That should be what we're getting, right? I think the most accurate way we can assess that is seeing by how much we have improved our reputation and reduced tacit support for terrorism, as well as a drop in how many of our citizens have died violently from foreign actors.Pew Global Survey (May 2008):http://www.nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=17502
It's a mixed bag - attitudes towards the US have significantly deteriorated over the last 5 years among Muslim populations, but bin Laden's popularity has fallen too (probably due to internecine killings in Iraq).
More Americans have died and been injured from the "war on terror" efforts than were by 9/11. We have lost around 4,500 American lives (and over a million lives of non-Americans) in response to the murder of 3,000 Americans, when a handful of Americans (and non-American civilians) were at risk of death if we reacted with covert ops and law enforcement instead of military resources to hunt down the perpetrators.
It's not good enough to argue that since 9/11 we haven't been attacked at home, and hence better off - we were also not attacked at home for a much longer period before 9/11 - for no extra "war on terror" expenses. (This is a counter-point we need to make for every recitation of "we haven't been attacked since 9/11 thanks to Bush") The last time we were attacked at home was the 1993 WTC bombings. Eight years before 9/11. It hasn't even been seven years since 9/11.
Given these results (our reputation among the relevant populations + bodycounts of our people), how can we argue that we are safer now for our $1 trillion? Maybe $10-20 million of intelligence effort spending would have acquired the same degree of extra counterterrorism capability we have now. That's about 1/50,000th of the $1 trillion. Even if that saves 1,000 lives (it hasn't) that's 100x too much money, at $1 billion/life. Insurance data indicates, as an economy, we value US lives at less than $10 million each.
There has been no proportionality assessed - of actual risk to us. We have spent out of fear, not to appear weak, and lobbied for our share out of greed for taxpayer loot. The only cities at real risk are NYC, DC, LA and Vegas. Cities Islamist radicals will be able to brag about because they can find something in it to despise about US power and culture. But we've spent very well in many other cities and on peripheral projects.I wouldn't call it merely an over-reaction. I'd call it a criminally negligent waste of taxpayer money and blood of our citizenry. No business would be allowed to lose MORE than X resources to fix a loss of X resources, and spend $1 trillion to accomplish that amazing feat!
But we have. And we think we're smart? The rest of the world is leaving us behind economically, and here we are, mired in a crusade from another time because of fear, ignorance and ego, while debating evolution, the science of global warming and abortion. The rest of the world has moved on. We lead no more.
We have some neocon blogs like "Little Green Footballs" pointing out some of the more intolerant blog posts on MyBO - Michael Pugliese pointed this out recently. I think they are doing us a service (for no pay!) and should be thanked.
Given that the Obama campaign doesn't want to be responsible for what is posted, but like Youtube will take down offensive content when it is flagged, I think this is a good way to operate.
The lack of campaign moderation means that any "nutjob", which I semi-objectively called myself in Jonathan Tilove's article about MyBO, gets to start a group or publish there. That includes right-wing nutjobs too. I believe those from every point on the political spectrum should feel welcome to blog here, even if they are at odds with Obama's views. It is in a way an extension of his philosophy - to listen to others, even though he will make his own decision. We are never poorer for a greater diversity of views that puncture the torpor of groupthink. It's a soapbox, and all are welcome.
http://www.newhouse.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=48772
These intolerant bloggers could have chosen other free services like Blogger/Blogspot to publicize their views - but here they find a politics-savvy audience where they can air their views, and engage.
The genius of this setup is that it allows everyone (including an LGF blogger, George Bush, an Israpundit blogger or a Jemaah Islamiya (JI) radical like Fatima, or even Osama bin Laden himself) to post!
How long their posts stay up there is a function of how many eyes are searching for stuff, how measured or intolerant it is, whether it claims any illegal associations, etc. And how long it takes to get to the attention of the handful of Obama campaign staffers assigned to MyBO violations.
I call it genius because it allows everyone to feel like they are "being heard" by the campaign, even if a campaign staffer will never see the posts or comments (which is probably true for 99.99% of the posts and comments). And people love being "heard" - they feel empowered, and part of the "movement" - even if they agree with only 10% of his agenda. It also emphasizes his message of openness, and resonates with the social network generation.
Also - the sheer diversity of views makes it clear that (1) the campaign does not exercise active editorial control over content, and (2) it's a big tent movement, with varying degrees of agreement with his positions. Exercising more control over it can be counterproductive - then you can be held responsible for everything that is said!
Someone in JI like Fatima, who although she claims an association with a terrorist group has actually found something about a potential US President that she likes. This should be seen as a good thing, not a terrible thing. We need to make a credible pitch to those in radical groups to separate from the dead-enders in those groups - this should not be pilloried as a negative. Read Tom Friedman's NYT op-ed today, where he makes a similar point:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/11/opinion/11friedman.html
Then again, Fatima might be a fat white guy from Texas, who wants to help in the effort to paint Obama as less American every day.....
Given the sheer anonymity such a forum affords, we have no way to credibly ascertain the identity and associations of the posters. We are better off focusing on the logic and rationale of what the person is saying (instead of trying to figure out who said it, and blackballing them on that basis). If we have logic on our side, we should surely prevail.
Obama has been a bit of a blank slate on which many people (with whom he wouldn't find much in common with) have projected their politics. That is more an indicator of how much people hunger for hope and leadership today than how much they have in common with his positions.
Once again, thanks to LGF bloggers for volunteering for the Obama campaign!
For some perspective on how representative our "representatives" are - here's an analysis I did to show imbalances in political power along 3 demographic dimensions. Congress is far from a true "image" of America.
One could argue that if we have a 74% white population, we don't necessarily have to have 74% of our senators white, as long as the interests of that group can be adequately represented (which would happen even if it's over 50%). One can make the argument that certain minorities that are still trying to achieve socioeconomic parity deserve somewhat more representation than what their numbers in the US population indicate. However, the opposite is the case as you will see - we don't see those minorities even close to "par". Catholics are the only group at par. Women, ethnic minorities and religiously unaffiliateds (incl atheists and agnostics) are the most severely under-represented groups. Men, whites and Jewish lawmakers are the most over-represented groups.
Demographic affiliations in Congress with a focus on the Senate (since it has more concentrated power than the House and is, conveniently, 100 senators!)
Took me hours to dig all this up - hope y'all find it interesting!
Often, I come across the assumption that Islam is a more violent religion. It’s an assumption that colors our international relations, late night comedy and national discourse. It has percolated into our worldview, and embedded itself there. This is a very dangerous misconception we are laboring under.
The suggestion that Obama being pegged as a former, current or hidden Muslim is a kiss of death for his electability (it is) is rarely taken to the next step – as to why “Muslim” is a dirty word to us. What does that say about us as Americans? Are we really the best country in the world if we cannot imagine an actual Muslim American winning a nomination or the Presidency? Aren’t we supposed to be tolerant and not racist? Why don’t we raise our hackles the same way when we see digs at Arabs, Mormons and Muslims as we do when blacks, Hispanics or Jewish people are targeted?
Militant Islam is seen by us as a bigger threat to human life than Western military power. Islam is seen as the violent religion. The quantitative hard evidence is completely in the other direction.
The killing/infliction of pain by the West and Islamist militants is different in style and expense, except at the final moments – explosives ripping through human flesh of innocent men, women and children. The first stages are radically different; one is a very expensive high-tech process which often involves pressing a button and never having to see who you are killing far away, the other is a low-tech, often suicidal effort with close proximity to the victim. Both achieve the same result, of terror, and of targeted and collateral death. Our collateral (innocent) bodycounts on them, far exceed the bodycount they exact on us. But somehow, all the technology and wizardry that precedes that last moment of shrapnel through flesh, somehow gives us a thicker veneer of being civilized than some suicide attacker or beheader. Why? Aren’t we achieving the same grisly result?
Our analyses, pundits and media usually ignore this uncomfortable fact because it doesn’t make us look moral, or civilized.
Our media (like that of every nation) reports empathetically on the suffering of Western victims, while largely ignoring the video coverage (if it exists) of what happens on the other side or letting us hear their side. Sometimes that video footage is never available – the poor don’t have camcorders.
We have no reason to feel morally superior just because women have fewer rights in some Muslim countries – we do a better job in actually killing them.
Yes, we have much more blood on our hands than “they” do. I claimed this in an earlier post, but afterwards I researched the numbers to back it up. I did most of this research when I commented on Israpundit a month ago, so the numbers are 1 month old. Jonathan Tilove mentioned (correctly) in his article in Cleveland Plain Dealer:
http://www.cleveland.com/election/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/isele/1208608219122730.xml&coll=2:
“Mark Levin suggested that Americans have a blinkered view of the world, that in recent decades the Judeo-Christian West has more blood on its hands than Islam, and that the Israeli-Palestine conflict ought to be seen as "a clash of two equally valid worldviews, a clash of two rights, instead of as a clash between right vs. wrong."
Here’s the data.
20th Century
Judaeo-Christians win the kill totals big in the 20th century, beating Islam hands-down. Think of Stalin (~20 million), WWI (20 million), WWII (72 million) which were mostly intra-Judaeo-Christian kills - this ‘group’ killed well over 50% of “its own” among the roughly 200 million deaths from war in the 20th century. Once again, the question arises - are the adherents of Islam really more violent than Judaeo-Christian adherents? The empirical evidence doesn’t support it. Quite the opposite.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_deaths_and_atrocities_of_the_twentieth_century#Matthew_White.27s_estimates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_deaths_and_atrocities_of_the_twentieth_century#Milton_Leitenberg.27s_estimate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocides_in_history http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties
In 1950, the global population was 2.5 billion, North America and Europe had a combined 720 million people, or close to 25% of the world population then.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_population
We have had a disproportionate share of the kills in that century, over 50%. It would follow that Muslims have killed fewer people as a % of their population compared to the “Western group.”
Islam vs the West Since 2000:
We have killed more Muslim civilians from collateral damage of our bombs in Iraq, Afghanistan and Israel combined than all the Israelis and Americans (including combatants) who have been killed since 2000 by Muslims attacking Western targets. The math follows.
Casualties on the “Muslim side”:
Direct collateral damage in Afghanistan from US bombs ~5,000 by end of 2002 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/1740538.stm This is a 2002 number - the likely number exceeds 10,000: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Afghanistan_%282001-present%29
Iraq invasion: 1,033,000 dead, with about 93,000 from aerial bombardment. “48% died from a gunshot wound, 20% from the impact of a car bomb, 9% from aerial bombardment, 6% as a result of an accident and 6% from another blast/ordnance.” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_War http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ORB_survey_of_Iraq_War_casualties (9% of the 1,033,000 is about 93,000 dying from just aerial bombardment)
Palestinians killed by Israelis minus Pals who were subjects of a targeted killing: 4,719 - 230 = 4,489. (the furthest this number can go down to is 2168, if we eliminate those taking part in “hostilities” which I guess can include rock-throwing. I think the number should be kept at 4,719 since on the Israeli side we are including soldiers.) http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Casualties.asp
Casualties on the “Judaeo-Christian side”:
Israeli soldiers and civilians killed by Pals: 1,044 (soldiers are included because it was hard to discern the number for the Pals) http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Casualties.asp
Sept 11 kills by AQ: 2,998 dead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_11%2C_2001_attacks
2003 attacks on Istanbul synagogues: 57 dead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2003_Istanbul_bombings
2004 Madrid bombings: 191 dead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11_March_2004_Madrid_train_bombings
2005 London bombings: 52 dead http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_July_2005_London_bombings
Let’s say we also include the Western soldiers killed according to Wikipedia:
Coalition deaths in Afghanistan: 723 Coalition deaths in Iraq: 4,350
I’m sure I’ve left out a few - feel free to add them in and adjust. I’m sure you can quibble with some of the classifications, but -
TOTALS
Number of Muslims killed by direct Western action (mostly aerial bombardment) since 2000: Over 100,000 dead.
Number of Christians and Jews killed by action of Muslims since 2000: Between 9,000 and 10,000. (includes all Western combatants as well)
That’s 10 X. Who has caused more terror? Is Islam really more violent a religion than ours?
Killing of innocent civilians is terrifying, and should count as “terrorism” whether or not initiated by a state. It is sudden, and kills noncombatants. I believe this same analysis, taken back 25 or 50 years will show the same thing.
How much can we blame religion?
Does this mean Christianity or Judaism is more violent, and has less regard for human life? I’m not sure.
I think she may overtake his popular vote tally if we include FL or MI (and definitely if we include both). I think we cannot ignore FL and MI.
Assuming 34-point blowouts in WV and KY, at 67-33 (a 2-1 ratio), and a 8-point win for Obama in OR, which is quite possible given polls:http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_upcoming_states.htmlUsing Slate's delegate calculator, this results in a 10-delegate pickup for her in WV, and a 17-delegate pickup in KY! 27 delegates. After his likely 4-delegate pickup in OR, we'll probably see a net gain of 23 delegates for Hillary by May 20. Not a deadly blow for our delegate lead.
The popular vote is another matter.
Using Jay Cost's numbers on expected turnout and my assumptions on margins above http://www.realclearpolitics.com/horseraceblog/chooseyourown.html:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2008/president/democratic_vote_count.html
WV: 307,000 (Clinton gains 104,000)KY: 560,000 (Clinton gains 190,000)OR: 740,000 (Obama gains 59,000)Net gain of 235,000 for her.His current pop vote total is 737,000. So that will cut it down to 502,000. If we include MI and FL, she will lead by 122,000.Take a look at Jay Cost's spreadsheet above. Some variations show she will lead the popular vote significantly. But they ignore the unfairness of MI and FL, don't give him any votes for MI - and IA, NV, WA and ME have not released popular vote totals. I think the fairest tally might be this one, on row 48 of his spreadsheet "Include MI, FL, Caucus Estimates. Use WA Primary. Unaffiliated MI Votes To Obama." But she still leads by 86,000 votes in that estimate. I hope he overperforms going forward.It looks like she will win the popular vote tally after PR, even though he's clearly ahead right now. This won't change the outcome, just makes it messier for him, and puts more pressure on superdelegates.Prediction markets still give him a 90% chance of winning the nomination, and a 56% chance of being our President (vs 38% for McCain). Obama was at 42% a week ago in likelihood to win the presidency.Mark
I think the humanitarian situation unfolding there is another case of mass murder by neglect we see around the world in too many places. One day, the junta will need to stand for crimes against humanity.
I understand national pride, and wanting to do it yourself. In fact in the aftermath of the Asian tsunami, I believe some countries had the infrastructure and personnel to mount aid operations themselves. But when you are clearly falling short, and posing for photo ops with aid that came from others, that's despicable.
Our reputation on respecting sovereignty of other countries is quite shot. Iraq, Pakistan, etc. So I'd say let's start flying over and dropping aid in the Irrawaddy delta, without even UN approval. Time is of essence. Every day we delay means hundreds or thousands of lives are being lost. It will even earn us some grudging goodwill. We could even do it in a covert fashion! Take no credit, and issue "no comment" on questions about it...
Well, he is to the right. But poor puns aside, the New York Times today does a profile on his new life as a pundit. http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/12/us/politics/12rove.html?ref=politics
Any move by Mr. Obama to declare victory before the last of the Democratic primaries in June, Mr. Rove said, would alienate Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton’s wing of the party. “That’s a mistake,” he said. “That just is rubbing the loser’s nose in it. And a lot of those supporters will remember it by November.”
The Obama campaign shouldn't ignore this advice as it sounds like it wants to in the article. Truth can come from the lips of the devil! And Rove is a smart guy who prides himself on his intellect and advice even to the point of giving good advice to the enemy.
Hillary supporters, especially older women, are livid that their girl is likely to lose. Nothing less than absolute deference by the Obama campaign and its surrogates will mollify them. In fact he should strongly go against the tide of what the pundits are saying, to say that she shouldn't listen to the pundits, so his comments become newsworthy. And it still won't be enough for many. Declaring victory before she declares she has lost is a key issue. I'd say that he should declare victory before she does only if she goes clearly negative, in a way her supporters become aware of it.
One of the "mollifiers" that the Obama campaign can trot out is getting Bill Clinton to become the main US Middle East envoy. After his inauguration Obama should add in Carter (Carter is too radioactive in the Jewish community right now), and before the general election he should convert some Republicans and Independents by naming James Baker to Bill's team to show how he wants to reach across party lines. Bill Clinton is liked by Israelis, a bit less so by Palestinians. And he still doesn't have his Nobel Peace Prize. Carter already has his, so is no threat. Baker will never win one. Carter and Baker who are not seen as pro-Israeli, will provide enough balance to the pro-Israeli stance we have to show the Arabs and Palestinians that we have changed course and want to be fair. All three of them (Clinton a bit less so) have long-standing ties to leaders in the Arab world.
Legacy matters to the Clintons, and the hope of a Nobel that will be boosted (than him relying on the Clinton Global Initiative to get the prize when he's near-dead) might be a key factor in him persuading his wife that getting Obama elected is in their best interests.
Of course, Hillary will also need to be given something she would want to do, but her interests are more domestic than foreign, so I will not address that here.
Not as eloquent as "Guns, Germs and Steel," I know.
The primary is a done deal (90%, based on most prediction markets), despite these media-hyped "pivotal" contests ahead. I've been pivoting for months!
But his damage control (and seeming more professorial than caring) needs to improve. I am starting to get worried about Barack's November electability. I think his rejoinder to the whole "cling to guns and God" charge could have been better explained by saying something like this -
"I used a poor choice of words - I should have said angry or frustrated (which is a reality) instead of bitter, which was silly to say. Respect for character, morals, deep faith and the right to bear arms are deeply embedded in our national psyche. Hard-working Americans are feeling helpless, that no President can help them with their economic problems, so it is natural to focus on other issues they care about or direct their frustration in other ways. I want to tell them - 'Do not lose hope on the economic front. We need your hand and determination. You are my brothers and sisters. I care about what happens to you.' And some of us may feel less friendly towards immigrants and view them as being competition - all this is natural under these circumstances. We have to right the ship of our nation so that we the descendants of immigrants can together forge a stronger America, America the proud." And then he should have gone medieval on the metaphorical ass of his two tormentors...on the elitism charge, which he was suitably combative about.
There were some rumors last year - that tired with the right-wing politics of the pro-Israel group AIPAC, American Jews were joining hands to form an alternative lobby to it, to give our politicians some more palatable choices. Obama is also extensively referenced here:http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070423/weiss
Then it was just announced this week that the new lobby, "J Street Project" is being launched:http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/975291.html
This may be timely (or too late) if Newsmax, that paragon of objectivity is right:
"Source: US Strike on Iran Nearing" http://www.newsmax.com/headlines/iran_nuclear_strike/2008/04/14/87887.html
"The Coming War with Iran: 6 Days in Hell!"http://w3.newsmax.com/a/apr07/
Dear Bill,
Leave birdalone alone! Focus your rants on me please, since I was the one who set you off.
This is my detailed counter-response to your Israpundit article about my post:http://my.barackobama.com/page/community/post/marklevin/gGBJJ9
It doesn't help to pigeon-hole people. Like birdalone, I'm in that 10% of Barack supporters who thought the surge was necessary to prevent a civil war, even though I never supported the war. But since that imminent threat of all-out civil war receded, our continued presence has become more of a liability because we continue to serve as a target, and an excuse. A steady drawdown will provide enough of a signal (of departure) and stability (given how long it will take) to strengthen Iraqi institutions and local governance (which seems to be working relatively well). Coupled with a genuine and non-arrogant approach to Iran and Syria, that should align the undercurrents with Iraqi stability as well. We need to give up a dream of an Iraqi government that is more pro-US than pro-Iran (something Bush is incapable of stomaching). If things seem to slide back beyond the point of no control, well then we'll have to go in again. It ain't pretty.
You may be surprised, but of all the cable news networks I enjoy Fox News the most - it generates more heat than light - but I guess that makes it entertaining. I also like exposure to views I don't agree with and it helps me calibrate my views and arguments. And occasionally learn something. You would benefit from exposure to a variety of views as well, as your worldview appears anachronistic and a tad strange, with a fetish for horsemen: http://www.omdurman.org/
Regards,
This is in response to your post http://www.israpundit.com/2008/?p=735 which was about my post: "Racism, Barack, how we are seen and our Mideast Policy"
I also wrote a follow-up to it (where you might find more things to dispute): "Ripples that Cripple our Reputation"
They are like a part 1 and 2 of what I was thinking that day. You highlighted snippets of my post so I would urge your readers to read the post in its entirety - you might find yourself agreeing with parts of it.
The Obama campaign has no control over content posted on these blogs, I think, unless they are abusive in nature. Group moderators also have a very narrow mandate - they are not really exercising editorial control. So a wide spectrum of views are represented here, and in any big-tent campaign, you will get party-line people and then "nutjobs" like me, whom Obama would run away from. Even someone who wants to stay in Iraq till kingdom come can post as easily as I did on the Obama site. Does that mean Barack "sympathizes" with that view? On the flipside, I'm not an uncritical supporter of him, and have serious issues with some of his views, willingness to take risks and his strategy.
I appreciate the time you took to respond to mine, so I thought I'd accord you the same respect. I'll put your words in quotes, and mine after them:
Dear fellow Obamaphiles,I know these issues are controversial, but they have political relevance to Obama's candidacy and hopefully, eventual presidency. So we should not run away from them.If we were all in lockstep with Obama, there would be no reason to debate and ponder anything in the IR forum. Some of what I will say may seem a little too crude for a high-minded IR debate, but I think we should deal with the ground realities of how we are percieved abroad. Not understanding them will lead to more failures - whether that is Bush at the helm or Obama.A quick aside on Wright - 527s are going to pummel him in the Fall on patriotism with swiftboat style ads - and they will get a huge boost in the media through repeat plays. We better come up with the worst possibilities now by styling those ads ourselves, and coming up with parodies and mock what they might try to do. And for God's sake, he has to stop saying "this country" and say "my country" or "our country." He looks too tepidly passionate about America right now to get the white guys we need! He can't disrespect the white guys with flags on their porches - and needs a way to recover from the flag lapel pin perception. Otherwise this stuff will fester under the radar. Unfortunately, he needs to give a patriotism speech much more than he needed to give a racism speech. In an era of digital globalization when the rise of wages in the Asian middle class is coming at the expense of wages of the US middle class, the white male in that socioeconomic stratum has few things to cling on other than God and country - and maybe a war hero, even if electing that man is not in his economic self-interest. Even though Obama has backpedaled furiously and largely successfully from his "Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people" and Ed Said days, he himself has said that embracing a pro-Likud position (which he kind of has) is not equivalent to being a friend of Israel. That aligns him with the majority of left-leaning Jewish voters in the US (as opposed to Jewish leadership) and Jewish voters in Israel (people in Israel are far more attuned to the reality, and more willing to make land sacrifices than the US diaspora is). There are racial, moral and foreign policy implications for our language and actions. The epithet "antisemitic" is so easily thrown around, especially at critics of a non-Likudnik stance, you'd think it was candy at Halloween. And somehow, in our culture, it has come to be seen as a worse sin than racism. I hold our media responsible - not just Congress, AIPAC or ADL. How did that happen? Both racism and antisemitism are equally abhorrent, and we should stop elevating antisemitism to a higher sin. We would do that if we called racism against Jews "racist", instead of using a special moniker. Our tolerance for comedians to insinuate that Muslims/Arabs have a propensity towards violence is higher than what it should be, and hence, I'd argue racist. Since we play along, we are not different than those comics. You don't see non-Jewish comedians making fun of Jews, or too many white comedians making fun of blacks. But let's look at the premise. If one was to go by objective data - groups, states and individuals from Judaeochristian majority-nations have taken actions employing violent force resulting in more deaths worldwide than those coming from Islam-linked groups, states and individuals. Just tally them up and look at the last 5, 10, or 50 years. Yet, we never consider Christianity to be a "violent religion" even though our cultural moorings and policy orientations spring from our religious heritage. That characterization somehow doesn't sit well with us. But Islam has almost a pop-cultural linkage to terrorism & violence - thanks to its portrayals in the US entertainment industry which has a global footprint. Islam and radicalism/violence - well that just makes more sense to us somehow than calling Christianity or Judaism violent, right?
Now to more points on the media, collateral damage, and one-state vs two-state:
