4th of July on the West Bank
I spent this past Friday night, otherwise known as the 4th of July, at a pleasant backyard barbecue, but this was not in a leafy U.S. suburb; rather it was in Beit Hanina, a Palestinian town that is incorporated as part of greater Jerusalem, and sits outside of Jerusalem proper on the sandy hills of the West Bank. Across the newish highway from Beit Hanina is a large Jewish neighborhood, Pisgat Ze'ev, also within the Jerusalem lines, but actually an expanding Jewish settlement that backs up to the settlement block that extends to Ramallah and its outlying villages, all of this within a few square miles.
My host was a Palestinian businessman; the other guests were an eclectic mix of Palestinian businesspeople and politicians and international diplomats and aid workers.
As I lifted my drink I jokingly asked if the barbecue was in honor of July 4th, and people remarked that they didn't realize that it was the 4th.
Americans are America-centric whenever we travel, and there is no place where America should matter more than in this part of the world because whether it acts or doesn't act has grave implications for the region. But the fact is that even with all the new flurry of diplomatic activity and the ongoing -- and patently ridiculous-- Bush pronouncements that there will be a Palestinian state in 2008, or 2009, or ....there is a sad feeling of status quo here. Status quo is never good in this part of the world; it leads to violence and frustration.
Alas, too, my visit is not a typical visit in the region. U.S. politicians don't go to these far outskirts of "Jerusalem" for photo ops when they talk about a "United Jerusalem" nor do the tourists who flock to the region.
Comments (34)
July 6, 2008 9:53 AM | Reply | Permalink
offensive,
your offering is one if the most vacuous and childish posts I've ever read on here.
July 6, 2008 10:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
@ JohnW
First - again - with an ad hominem.
July 6, 2008 10:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
@JohnW1141
I found Joanne Mort's piece to be totally without substance;
Palestine is a sad place, of great importance to Americans who are not aware enough or sympathetic enough to its plight, and don't do enough to resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. That's it.
So?
I already know the solution recommended by the Left. Rosenberg trumpets it regularly and I see it published in every paper of the Left, particularly the Guardian. Adopt the Arab position. Force the Israeli to withdraw - entirely - behind the 1967, or 1948, lines and everything will be lovey-dovey. Or, only a little more extreme, force the Israelis to give up Zionism and become a bi-national state.
I don't like it. In fact, I think it stinks and is pretty much equivalent to the worst kind of anti-semitism; one which is willing to look the other way when a new Holocaust occurs.
Worse, from your viewpoint, is that you can't get elected. No Western government anywhere, and in particular no United States Administration, will adopt your position. So, in typical leftist fashion, you conclude there must be something wrong with the electoral system.
July 6, 2008 11:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
offensivetoyou,
Of course not. But hardly "everyone else" is President of the United States, Commander-in-Chief, Leader of the Free World.
July 7, 2008 11:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
@ barkafka
That was a reference to previous administrations.
July 7, 2008 2:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'd love to address the logic found in "Offensive to you"'s comments, if only I had found some. Sadly, there is not. Just more of his simplistic nonsense, where he takes one or two (usually serendipitous) factual nuggets and inflates them into something that resembles an argument until a close examination.
And OTY, just so we're clear - with this aside as an exception, I'm talking about you here, not to you. So keep it zipped. The last thing this thread needs is more of your screechy, hypersensitive, crybabyish caterwauling.
Sooner or later, the US is going to have to either become a real messenger of calm and quiet in the Middle east or stand down and let someone else have a go. At some point, effectiveness is going to matter more than ideology on all sides, and by continuing to act as "bigger brother" to one of the antagonists, we reinforce the antagonism, where a "smarter brother" would be telling everyone to calm down and lower their voices for a bit, just to see if anything changed, if nothing else.
July 6, 2008 11:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
@ TheOldGrouch
You have the definitive and last word, do you? "The Final Solution"?
July 6, 2008 11:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
TheOldGrouch, do you have any idea who he's referring to here? Who's position, and what position is he talking about?
offensivetoyyou says:
"Worse, from your viewpoint, is that you can't get elected. No Western government anywhere, and in particular no United States Administration, will adopt your position. So, in typical leftist fashion, you conclude there must be something wrong with the electoral system."
Oh, I do admire his ability to mind read.
July 6, 2008 11:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
@ JohnW1141
Does the term "Left" have any meaning to you? Is Rosenberg's position not typical of "the Left? Is not the Guardian's (as expressed in their choice of reporters and commentators and in their opinion articles)? OK. Enlighten us. Because - in two posts - you've haven't offered anything substantial.
July 6, 2008 12:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
offensivetoyou says:
"OK. Enlighten us. Because - in two posts - you've haven't offered anything substantial."
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here is offensivetoyou mind reading:
"So, in typical leftist fashion, you conclude there must be something wrong with the electoral system."
I rest my case, NEXT!
July 6, 2008 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ JohnW1141
Fair enough. I was using "you" in two senses and was not clear enough about it. It should have been clear from Since you are obviously not running for office and didn't in the past (that I know of). What I meant was that those who share the Left's view, Rosenberg's view, the Guardian's view, and presumably Jo-Ann Mort's view, cannot get elected and so they resort to the position best expressed by Rosenberg; AIPAC and Israel manipulate America's foreign policy to such an extent that it has no independent foreign policy, its policy is just an extension of Israel's. Mersheimer and Walt had something to say about this as well.Clear?
Now, how about something substantive on Mort's piece and my response?
July 6, 2008 12:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
@JohnW1141
In other words, I was referring to "you" as the author of the comment I was responding to
and
"you" as a typical representative of the Left on this issue.
July 6, 2008 12:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
offensivetoyou,
offering you anyhting of substance is futile, unless of course I agree with your views. How can any rational human being debate or simply engage in repartee with a mind that comes up with this;
offensivetoyou says:
"No Western government anywhere, and in particular no United States Administration, will adopt your position."
You have absolutely NO idea what my position is
as I haven't offered it.
And for you to say to flavius:
"You misstate my position on the Holocaust completely."
when you yourself are the champion of misstating other's postings.
Go away, shoo!
July 6, 2008 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ flavius
Ok. It's a pity we all not like that Admiral, or the one a century earlier who defeated the Barbary pirates. I can agree with that.
But the differences between the combatants and their ideologies remain important to me. I could not find it in my heart to be as sympathetic towards all those German women who were raped by Russians as they invaded Germany as I was towards all those Russians who were raped by Germans as they invaded Russia two years prior.
My position on the Arab/Israeli conflict is that it is a tragedy, that both parties have some justice on their side, that it cannot be resolved peacefully, that one side will lose very, very badly.
For various reasons I side with the Jews and I believe the only way they can survive is to attack, attack, attack, conquer, expand, expel.
@JohnW1141
4 posts. All ad hominem attacks directed at me. Nothing else. Clearly, that's all you've got. Clearly, that all you are; an angry, vindictive, small-minded empty head.
July 6, 2008 3:56 PM | Reply | Permalink
offensivetoyou says;
"@JohnW1141
4 posts. All ad hominem attacks directed at me. Nothing else. Clearly, that's all you've got. Clearly, that all you are; an angry, vindictive, small-minded empty head."
heh, heh. heh.
July 6, 2008 4:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
offensivetoyou says;
"Now, how about something substantive on Mort's piece and my response?"
Mort wrote on one aspect of her trip, her visit to a Palestinain town and her analysis. I saw nothing to criticize.
For some ungodly reason, you read her column with a jaundiced eye, this is proven by the asinine, antagonistic and irrelevant questions you asked.
"As opposed to other groups who completely forget their heritage whenever they travel?"
"No one else has been ridiculous? Everyone else has been effective?"
You aren't a stupid man, but you are so ideologically fu**ed up that it causes you to post stupid and irrelevant comments.
July 6, 2008 6:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ JohnW1141
This is a political site, not a travel guide or a private, family diary. So I find it quite reasonable to put a political interpretation on anything published here.
July 6, 2008 7:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
offensivetoyou says:
"@ JohnW1141
This is a political site, not a travel guide or a private, family diary. So I find it quite reasonable to put a political interpretation on anything published here."
Nice escape.
July 6, 2008 8:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ JohnW1141
Remove
and for
substitute
"That's a shame because it should be as well-known to all Americans as the Israeli part of the region"
and I would have been in complete agreement.
July 6, 2008 8:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ TheOldGrouch
Try and make me.July 6, 2008 11:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Entertaining those this exchange let me butt in.
It seems to me that it was useful for Jo-ann -or for anyone including OTY to socialize with Palestinians. We are exposed to supporters of Israel on a daily basis and we can attach an attractive human face to their position (which often is the same as Jo-Ann's BTW).
But Palestinians are "the other". Inevitably we associate them with suicide bombers or with the repeated photos of Muslim women cheering on 9/11-which tho sad, seemed to me as understandable as the cheering I witnessed at the time Hiroshima.Most of us,certainly me anyway , aren't very good about putting a human face on the individuals who make up the enemy population.
OTY's condemnation of those who don't fully agree with the official Israeli position is far too extensive. Certainly there are anti semites who mouth some of the statements which he abhores
along with professional non-semites like Pat Buchanan. But there have been plenty of issues on which MG disagrees with them. And the Guardian BTW regularly carries spokesmen for the hard Israeli right.
As I do regularly I recommend that anyone interested in the issue read Bitterlemons-the weekly dialog between two Isrealis and two Palestinians including often representatives of Hamas.
A final comment on the Holocaust as discussion settler. The Holocaust no more justifies an incorrect Israeli policy (not that all Israeli policies are incorrect, for from it) than the
harsh Versailles Treaty of 1919 justified
Nazi policies.
July 6, 2008 12:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ flavius
Certainly, the Palestinians can present a sympathetic face and have legitimate complaints. That's what makes the dispute so difficult, so intractable.
I would have been happier with Ms. Mort had she offered something concrete, something beyond a limp, dishonest criticism of America.
Your equation of Muslim women cheering 911 with cheering at Hiroshima is beyond the pale - unless you want to equate America and Israel with the Nazis and the Japanese of WWII...as is far too common on the Left.
You misstate my position on the Holocaust completely. I said that adopting what I said was the Left's solution would lead to ANOTHER Holocaust and that those who advocated it would not care.
I was condemning those of the Left who agree with Rosenberg - numerous, even a majority - but certainly not all. What is your position?
July 6, 2008 12:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
Some Muslim women cheered when 3000 innocent
people were killed in the WTC. An entire nation cheered when 100,000 Japanese, of whom surely more than 3000 were innocent, were killed at
Hiroshima.OBTW I still approve of Truman's decision. What I don't approve of was our, or those Muslim women , taking pleasure in the death of innocent people who happened to be citizens of the country with whom they are at war. Far better the US Admiral who had sunk a Spanish Cruiser in the 1899: " Don't cheer lads, those poor boys are dying".
But most people most of the time are like me in 1945 or those women in 2001.
One can approve or disapprove of the actions of
individuals irrespective of what that person's country is doing.
I approved of the Zionists attempting to secure a homeland for the Jews in 1947 and disapproved of bombing the King David Hotel. I approved of the
American Jews who supported the Zionists but disapproved of Ben Hecht when he said
"My heart leaps up every time a british soldier
is killer".Remember?
One of the many bad things which happens during a war is that to varying extent we cease being able to see those on the other side as people like us:
who go out to get the paper in the morning , worry over the bed side of a sick child, cheer the home side in a soccer game.
In answer to your question I mostly agree with MG. To an even greater extent I agree with Jossi
Alpher in Bitterlemons. What's your position?
July 6, 2008 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry ,in the Ben Hecht quote it's
....every time a british soldier is killed
July 6, 2008 3:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ flavius
You'll find my reply upwind in a reply to JohnW1141. I've finally realized that this format generates too much confusion if one tries to respond to two people with one post. It won't happen again.
July 6, 2008 4:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ flavius
I've started reading Yossi Alpher, who I didn't know about.
Iraq: the case for autocracy
He's very good! Don't know enough about his views yet to comment on them but he's an original and courageous thinker...and I always like that.
July 6, 2008 7:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ flavius
Who are you referring to when you say MG? Do you mean MJ as in MJRosenberg?
July 6, 2008 4:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Yes ,MJ Rosenberg whom I respect.
July 8, 2008 12:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ flavius
Why?
July 8, 2008 2:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
flavius said;
"An entire nation cheered when 100,000 Japanese, of whom surely more than 3000 were innocent, were killed at Hiroshima."
As did our Army, Navy, Army Air Corps and Marines.
(cheered)
"OBTW I still approve of Truman's decision."
So do I.
July 6, 2008 6:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
OTY,
you just suck. That's all you do.
July 7, 2008 12:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
You don't seem a bit America-centric to me. You seem to be in the middle east and obsessed with its problems as usual even on the 4th of July.
July 8, 2008 4:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ bluebell
I'm obsessed with water quality. This forum is just stress relief or distraction.
July 8, 2008 5:54 PM | Reply | Permalink