Woty Freeman Archives: December 2003

Saturday, December 20, 2003

For at least the past decade, Israeli diplomatic strategy has assumed that there is a set of concessions that, if made, could cause the Palestinians to stop trying to destroy the Jewish state. The extreme left values the attempt to make such a set of concessions above security; the extreme right values refraining from concessions above security.

Ariel Sharon is not tibia test server ot an adherent of either approach. He cares about the security of Israel, and about justice. He is shifting policy away from trying to appease the Palestinians, but at the same time he is willing to do things that are unfavorable to the Israelis. He is threatening to unilaterally annex significant parts of the West Bank, and also to complete the wall, unless the Palestinians end the violence and start negotiating in good faith.

Sharon is telling the Palestianins that there is a place for them among the civilized nations if they want it, and that he's willing to help them become civilized and modern. He's willing to ease restrictions and dismantle settlements in order to make it more possible for them to make the choice to be civilized. But he is not willing to pretend that they are civilized when they are not, and he is not willing to participate in sham negotiations in an attempt to tempt them into reasonableness.

Sharon would prefer a negotiated solution, but he is not going to wait for Palestinian consent before he defends Israel. If genuine peaceful intent is not forthcoming from the Palestinians, he will act without it, and the Palestinians will get less than they would have otherwise. This policy might act as an effective threat and get the Palestinians to cooperate. That would be ideal. But if it does not, it will at least make the defense of Israel easier and encourage the Americans to take the correct side more consistently.

This strategy is only workable if the American president understands the basic morality of Israel's position. We have never had such a president before; that we have one now is an important moral developement which Sharon is handling brilliantly.

Posted by Woty @ 03:55 AM EST [Link]

Friday, December 12, 2003

The following is a list of questions that seem to me to be dishonorable to treat as open:

* Was the holocaust a reasonable reaction to Jewish presence in Germany?

* Is the intifada a reasonable reaction to the existence of Israel/Jewish
presence in the Middle East?

* Were the attacks on 9/11 carried out directly or indirectly by the
American and/or Israeli governments?

* Does the American government go to war primarily in order to steal oil
and/or increase its oppressive power?

* Does the external threat to the security of the United States exist only
in the imagination of Bush (or the right wing, or the corporations, or the
deluded masses, or similar)?

* Is it incorrect, unsophisticated, simplistic, or otherwise wrong to call
the attacks of 9/11 evil?

Posted by Woty @ 06:05 AM EST [Link]