State of the Discussion

Chris Dierkes:
There's simply no way to understand this conflict without understanding history. It's funny that you say you don't want to discuss history and then you continue by discussing history. Do you mean that you don't want me to discuss history, but that you can? I don't get it at all.

I'd like to say that we agree on the fact that the "[peace] process was ultimately flawed from the get go." But this was hardly Clinton's fault. He's a politician and politicians will want to broker deals and so forth. Everyone else does it. If the president announced that the process is flawed, he'd come in for opprobrium from all sides. So we're stuck with it, even if we know it's flawed and will never come to anything.

What I don't understand is the "coup" you say Clinton engineered to bring Arafat into the negotiations. When did this happen? From what I can remember, after Arafat renounced terrorism and recognized Israel's right to exist, he was in, no matter what Clinton could have done. That was the idea all along, anyway, so it would have looked bad for Arafat to do this and then still be locked out. But you seem to know more about it than I do, so what's the deal?

In the 90s, Arafat signed the Oslo Accords and got the Nobel Prize, remember? If Clinton, or anyone else, had said what you're saying here, they would have been laughed out of town.

I must differ with your idea (well…it's not really your idea. It's a meme) of appealing the the "cycle of violence," shown when you say, "a nearly infinite number of errors on all sides." I know that you're not interested in hearing me discuss history, but if anyone else reads this, they should know that this is not supported by any evidence at all. In every case (or almost, anyway) Israeli violence has been in retaliation to Arab or Palestinian attacks against them. Palestinian/Arab/Hamas ideology is such that the mere presence of a Jewish state in Palestine is in itself an attack, to which they respond. You can take their position if you want to. It's very popular, so I don't think you'll get into a lot of arguments about it. It helps people maintain the facade of moral righteousness by blaming both sides, but it has the effect of blaming Israel because, as Freddie himself has said over and over, we expect more out of Israel.We don't expect anything like this of the Arabs. Tell me why this isn't racist.

Of course it's true that Ross and Clinton want to cover their butts. Who doesn't? But what's your explanation for the failure of the 2000 Camp David talks, other than generalizations about "a flawed process from the get go?" I thought they had a good deal and, if Arafat had signed it, today there'd be a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza.

I'm going to address all of this point by point some time tomorrow, but I want to disclaim right away: I am not, in fact, Israeli. I'm an American living and working in Israel, and I'll be returning to the States later this year. Just so nobody makes the mistaking of thinking I'm operating with any moral authority or cultural credibility here - I am definitely not.

Interesting. As I started to get to your take down of the Dark Knight, I was all ready to defend it, but the problem is you make more than valid points. I really liked the movie, but if I were being honest with myself, it really was little more than a summer fun movie with the marked exception of a brilliant performance on Ledger's part (having not seen Brokeback, I won't argue which role was better acted, but I do disagree with you on the level of the Joker performance and its significance and artistic value and quality).

But even before this, there were parts that niggled at me about this movie. One was the disagreement between the "agent of chaos" and the Swiss watch intricate machinations of said agent of chaos. Also, while Ledger's performance was astounding (at least in my mind), he was surrounded by a cast that was lackluster, at times even laughable.

It's a sad thing to say, but the main character of the movie was ultimately a joke. I like Christian Bale's Bruce Wayne, but his Batman is god awful and has provoked my favorite afternoon radio show into constantly insulting the BatVoice.

But I really didn't want to talk much about the Dark Knight. What I did want to mention was that as I neared the end of your piece, another movie popped into my mind; Silence of the Lambs.

Now that was a MOVIE, and one that really did respect in many ways its viewers. Part of its success was the nature of the story. It was a dark psychological thriller, but as opposed to the modern day definition of the sub-genre, what we mean by psychological thriller is that actual (or perhaps fantasy, I'm no psychological expert so I admit to not knowing), psychology. Motivation is, thusly, a centerpoint of the movie. You know EXACTLY why Wild Bill does what he does because the lynchpin relationship of the film between Lecter and Clarise is centered firmly on understanding Wild Bill's motivations in such a manner that those motivations could be used to actually catch the man.

There's of course some of the hyperbolic fantasy involved. Lecter, much like the Joker, seems a bit too pressient, too capable of predicting human nature to the point where he can plot out strategies that would hinge on seemingly random events and decisions. But the movie doesn't go nearly as far as modern fare does in this regard.

The other thing that really makes SotL is that the movie making was phenomenal. Direction and cinematography were brilliant, and instead of just having ONE actor turn in a star performance, the entire cast brought the house down.

I'm an avid fan of Monk, and even though I've got five seasons on DVD, and watch each new episode religiously the moment it's available on the internet, I STILL get this weird feeling every time Ted Levine(sp?) comes on screen.

So I dunno, I just figured I would interject that what you are looking for, it would seem, is that the summer blockbuster machine would look more towards Silence of the Lambs for inspiration than for perhaps the latest greatest comic book movie to come down the woodwork (though, to defend the comic book movie genre, there have been a couple few that have been excellent as well. The first Spiderman, I thought, was very well done. I liked Iron Man because that really was the kind of movie you could write off as a summer fun movie without also trying to defend its artistic qualities. And, to be fair, I think the motivations for the characters in Iron Man might have actually been more believable than those in Dark Knight. And I will urinate on anyone who speaks ill of Sin City. ANYONE!).

The last point I wanted to make was that I think one of the things that has degraded the quality of the major blockbusters has been technology. I don't mean just CGI special effects, though that is a big part of it. But you know, the big movies have always had a certain feel to them. There's a certain polish on the production in a big movie, and once you cross that threshold of polish, it's like you are automatically leaped into a-movie status.

What with technology being what it is today, with digital pictures, and computer special effects, and even music composition taking a 2.0 flavor, you can take the biggest heaping turd and spruce it up to cross that imaginary threshold.

I dunno, it just seems like the turds are a lot shinier and that is really making a difference.

Freddie,

I agree with you that Israel has a huge nuclear arsenal and has mass deterrence against any country (including I would say a hypothetically nuclear armed Iran in the future). Country to country warfare is precisely where Israel is the strongest--which is why since '73 there really hasn't been one. Only these low-intensity conflicts that make use of their military vulnerabilities. Certainly, as I was pointing out with West Bank occupation and Gaza bombing, the Palestinians are also imperiled in many ways. Ways that are not often covered enough in US media. But when I talk on the Israeli side, when I say existential threat I mean the long term loss of political legitimacy of the state. (What I called losing the war, which is maybe the wrong metaphor). Jimmy Carter called it apartheid, which I'm not sure is the right word for it, but does get at the reality of the decreasing legitimacy of the state. Look at the israeli political scene. It is increasingly deadlocked and logjammed. Israel had more emigration out than immigration in this year. It has got itself (again rightly or wrongly) into increasingly militarized society, which is undercuts the moral of a liberal constitutional order.

I guess what I should have made clearer is that some state may continue to exist but my fear is that it slides further and further into the loss of its democratic nature. It was founded to be a Jewish liberal democracy. If it ceases to be the latter, whatever husk remains (even if it retains the name of Israel and still is based on Jewish citizenship), then in my mind it will have gone out of existence. Does that make sense?

Let's not get into a meta-debate here, please. Day one of the site, let's try to keep comments on the subject at hand and not on the commenters or writers. Thanks.

ED Kain:

Dennis Ross:

In the Clinton ideas, which are also presented in the book, the Palestinians were offered the following: 100 percent of Gaza, roughly 97 percent of the West Bank. The principles that guided the way the borders should be drawn and determined by the two sides, based on the percentages were: Contiguity of territory for the Palestinians, non-absorption of Palestinians into Israel.

The following is scanned from his book, The Missing Peace: [URL=http://s388.photobucket.com/albums/oo323/roquenuevo/?action=view&current=05c156b6.gif][IMG]http://i388.photobucket.com/albums/oo323/roquenuevo/th_05c156b6.gif[/IMG][/URL]
Why is this a vague offer? Seems like a good deal to me, especially when you consider the offers of compensation that were extended to the refugees. Since then, they have defended themselves against suicide mass-murderers.

In 2000, I was sure that Clinton would be able to get a deal. I thought that that was going to be the beginning of the end of the conflict. I really had no position as to how much land Israel should cede, or on anything else. When the Israeli proposals were announced, they seemed like a good deal to me, but what do I know? When Arafat refused categorically, my position changed. I saw it as definitive proof that the Palestinians were not negotiating in good faith. If they had been, then why not make a counter-offer? Why just refuse and start a violent suicide-murder campaign?

Back in the '80s I was almost completely on the Palestinian side. Who wouldn't be after the invasion of Lebanon and the Intifadah? But those days are over. Israel is not the same state today as it was back then. Critics have not considered this development of actual events in their critiques. They act like its' still the '80s with some religious zealot in charge of Israel talking about Judea and Samaria instead of leaders committed to the two-state solution by law. That changed my own political calculus.

I mean, look-- people love to cast this conflict as a case of Israel facing an existential threat, with Israel being deeply imperiled and in danger of being wiped off the map. Israel certainly faces grave threats to its future, largely because of geographical proximity to regimes that don't like it very much. I actually don't think these are as grave as some people make them out to be, because Israel boasts a nuclear arsenal, a competent and powerful military, and the backing of the United States. But, yes, Syria, Iran, etc. are legitimate threats to the Israeli way of life.

Hamas and the Palestinian population, meanwhile, most certainly are not genuine threats to Israel's way of life or existence. They just aren't. They have nothing resembling the military capability to destroy Israel, or even to cause it meaningful short term harm. Part of the point of talking about the comparatively tiny number of Israelis killed in reference to the number of Palestinians killed isn't just to talk about proportionality, but to demonstrate that Hamas simply isn't a meaningful threat to the Israeli way of life. They just don't have that capacity. The point isn't, and has never been, simply that there's some sort of superior morality in killing less people than more; the killing is immoral, point blank. The question is, are people right when they say that Hamas represents a significant threat to Israeli security? To Israel's border integrity? I say no.

So if we're going to talk about threat level, let's be honest and point out that the Palestinian people are more imperiled than the Israeli people. It seems a matter of little controversy to me to say that a people with neither citizenship rights nor sovereignty, no conventional military, no control over their own borders or airspace, destroyed or decaying infrastructure and no capacity to provide for their own people are far more endangered than the Israelis.

That is, again, not to in any way justify rocketing or bombing. We have to avoid believing in the superior morality of the most oppressed. But the situation here is totally untenable for the Palestinians, and actually quite survivable for the Israelis. It is the Israelis who have the ability to effect meaningful change by honoring international law and their treaty obligations and curtailing the settlements. The Palestinians have to stop rocketing, absolutely must stop it. But in reality whether they do or don't they have an incredibly small amount of control on the situation.

You know roque I came over here because I was a longtime reader of Freddie's old blog. I don't agree with Freddie on a lot of things, but I was always blown away, more than anything, by his ability and desire to actually listen to other people's opinions. I can't tell you how many times he would get a comment, then update the relevant post with a quote of the comment and some thoughtful discussion. He admitted when he was wrong all the time. I can't remember a commenter who he refused to engage with.

Then you showed up, and frankly ruined his comments section. I notice you didn't actually respond to Freddie's point here: why are you the only person who Freddie basically gave up on? I also totally deny that you can find Freddie "calling you a dirty name". And it's absolutely comical that you say that Freddie unfairly accused you of calling him a racist when time and again you wrote stuff making it clear that you thought that Israelis were worth less than Palestinians. To be simple about it, you ruined your credibility in Freddie's comments, anyone was a regular reader at Freddies old blog would tell you it, and it's only a matter of time before you have no credibility around here too.

That's a rather vague "offer" though, Roque. Israel offered to do something...what? What did they actually do? What have they done since? Probably the greatest half-measure in their history: leaving Gaza. What a foolish thing to do while remaining in the West Bank. It brought them no closer to achieving two states.

Now I am not one to accuse Israel of war crimes as I sincerely believe that will do nothing to further the debate. But I am one to accuse them of consistent stupidity in their policy decisions. I have a great deal of hope for the vision of Israel, and I am well aware that there many feet at which to lay the blame, both Israelis and Arabs are at fault here.

But the Israeli's cannot offer to "do something" about the settlements. They just have to do it.

It's funny that I was subject to Freddie's yelling over at C11 before I even looked at his blog. He's confusing sarcasm with yelling and name-calling. He's been the one calling me names. I've responded with sarcasm. My policy is to respond to people's insults in this way, not to plug up my ears and call them names. Does he have the self-critical mechanism necessary to ask himself the question, "what if it's me?" Because that's who it is. When he says, "I do know that if you’ve arrived at a place where you have abdicated your responsibility for moral action, you are in bad faith, and in the wrong," how am I to interpret this other than being yelled at, insulted and sworn at? I've told him over and over again that there's a difference between law and morality. If I defend Israel against spurious charges of war crimes, based on spurious interpretations of the doctrine of proportionality, how does that imply any position whatsoever on the morality of the conflict? I have never even mentioned as a side issue my position on morality.

A case in point: Now he "doesn't know if proportionality is the best philosophical prism... etc." but that's only after C. Auguste Dierkes's offhand comment. On his blog, I was saying this over and over again and being called dirty names by him and others. That was when you said that I (and anyone else who shared my position) placed a lower value on Palestinian life than on Israelis. In other words, that was back when you called me a racist. I respond with sarcasm. You plug up your ears and hide. Fine with me.

aboulian, I'm guessing that at one time folks did talk like Hamlet, at least some folks did. Few talk like a Valley Girl today but a movie depicting that time and place had better get the lingo correct. Right? So if the lingo was, say Ebonics, a fair criticism would be that it is not internally constant. (However, a Valley Girl speaking Ebonics might be pretty funny.) But the point was that an internal constancy is desirable. If I see an inconsistency I have a big problem. After all we are talking about a low brow art form, Hollywood blockbusters.

Oddly enough, I actually enjoyed 'Eagle Eye,' despite knowing that it made no sense; but maybe this just means that I've grown to know standard plots so well that I can make do with half-assed allusions/indications toward coherence.

But maybe, as well, you're missing the point that 'truth in film,' as it were (and I'm not original in this; see Bazin, Deleuze), isn't simply propositional or plot-driven. There are all sorts of different aesthetic phenomenological manifolds going on ... often I don't really care about plot at all, and many great films don't care so much about it either.

OK. Sorry. But as to the substance … what?

C. Auguste Dierkes

Your point on propotionality to me, in its correctness, shows why the whole concept itself is now meaningless in an era of low-intensity conflict.

Finally! It's amusing that this is exactly what I've been saying at Freddie's blog and at C11 for months, while being subject to real "ad hominem, name-calling, etc." not just sarcasm, like I do to Freddie.

Now then, C. Auguste Dierkes, how does the correctness of my point on proportionality relate to my larger point in the debate with Freddie?

Roque,

Your point on propotionality to me, in its correctness, shows why the whole concept itself is now meaningless in an era of low-intensity conflict. That notion of proportional or disproportional assumes nation state to nation-state warfare. I have a long post as to why I think that Here if you are interested.

The proportionality doctrine comes out of Clausewitz's theory of warfare. And I think Martin van Creveld has demonstrably argued that the Clausewitzian paradigm of war is basically over.

As to the question of what replaces something like proportionality as a kind of rules of war for this new Low-Intensity Conflict Era I have no idea. I think they are basically brutal, with all sides committing all kinds of horrible acts.

Sharing our values, after all, involves respecting the right to self-governance of the (presently, and for 40 years) dispossessed people of the Palestinian territories, and the preference for just war theory which renders the kind of disproportionate response to Hamas’s terrorism untenable.

With the phrase, "dispossessed people of the Palestinian territories," you're merging a hundred years of conflict into one, politically-correct phrase. The fact that this kind of dishonesty supports the Palestinians against Israel belies the even-handed morality you're trying to promote. Why don't you read something about the conflict, instead of simply being up-to-date on what other bloggers are saying.

A case in point of your partisanship, in spite of everything you say, is your insistence on the "disproportionate response" meme. Again and again I've explained this to you but you don't want to hear. I'll give it another try, but you're making me suspect that your writing is not just ignorant partisanship (where people repeat the meme because other people repeat it), like I've assumed, but that you're fully conscious of what you're doing.

Claim: NGOs such as Oxfam, Gisha, and B'Tselem, claim Israel has used "disproportionate force" highlighting the number of Palestinians killed especially children with emotive "testimonies" and anecdotes from Gazans in their reports. These claims frequently compare Palestinian casualties with Israeli casualties.

Analysis: While every civilian death is regrettable, casualty ratios are not relevant to the standard for evaluating proportionality. Pursuant to article 2(b)(iv) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, an attack is "disproportionate" if it causes damage or loss of civilian life "which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated" and as Israel's former UN Ambassador, Dore Gold notes, Israel "is not required to calibrate its use of force precisely according to the size and range of the weaponry used against it." "Just war" theorist Michael Walzer has also remarked that the concept of proportionality cannot be applied "speculatively." He points out that the test of proportionality is in relation to the future expected military advantage, not in relation to past events or civilian deaths from previous attacks. In his view, those leveling the charge of "disproportionate" do so only when it is "simply violence they don't like, or it is violence committed by people they don't like." Therefore, "Israel's Gaza war was called 'disproportionate' on day one, before anyone knew very much about how many people had been killed or who they were."

So, in conclusion, your sanctimonious even-handedness and constant reminders of your enlightened liberal morality are only playing into the hands of the enemies of this very enlightened liberal morality. In other words, you're acting like a Hamas partisan and providing an echo chamber for Hamas propaganda. Is this what you want to do? If so, at least be honest about it.

What I’d like to add to Scott’s theme of “Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should”...

Let me fix that for you, cher.
What I’d like to add to Scott’s theme of “Just because you can do something, doesn’t mean you should” BUT somebody will.
So as a pragmatist/realist, the implication is that we must adapt to actions we would never have taken ourselves.