Some scattered links this week:
Uri Avnery: Netanyahu's Pipe Dream: In their neverending search to make peace terms as unpalatable as possible, Israel's right-wing has put a lot of emphasis in demanding that others, especially Palestinians, recognize Israel not only as a de facto governing authority but as a, or more pointedly, the Jewish state. Avnery points out:
A state is a reality. Ideologies belong to the abstract realm.
When the United States recognized the Soviet Union in 1933, it recognized the state. It did not recognize its communist nature. [ . . . ]
Some Israelis (including myself) would like to change the self-definition of Israel as a "Jewish and democratic state," omitting the word "Jewish." Some other Israelis would like to omit or demote the word "democratic." Neither of us believe that we need the confirmation of the Palestinians for this.
It's just none of their business.
I don't know what the real intention of Netanyahu is when he presents this demand as an ultimatum.
The most flattering explanation for his ego is that it is just another trick to sabotage the "peace process" before it reaches the demand to evacuate the Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories. The less flattering explanation is that he really believes in it, that he is driven by some deeply rooted national inferiority complex that needs outside assurance of "legitimacy." Recognizing the "National State of the Jewish People" means accepting the entire Zionist narrative, lock, stock and barrel, starting from the divine promise to Abraham to this very day.
Part of the problem is that "Jewish state" means different things to different people at different times, so asking someone else to acknowledge Israel in just those terms winds up being dangerously open-ended. Herzl's founding Zionist document was called The Jewish State, but the idea was described there is utopian terms. The actual Israel is far from the conflictless dream Herzl imagined: a state which divides its citizens up into Jews and others and treats them more or less inequally depending on other factors like where they live. One worries especially that the real reason the right-wing pushes the "Jewish state" declaration so ardently is that it provides cover for even more inequal treatment, aimed ultimately at pushing non-Jews into exile, extending the "ethnic cleansing" of 1948. This would, of course, be less of an issue if Israel returned to its 1967 borders, where the demographic balance is overwhelmingly Jewish. Conversely, as the right-wing seeks to consolidate political integration with the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the privileging of Jews looms even more important. Many of their recent initiatives have been directed at non-Jewish citizens of Israel -- loyalty oaths, attacks on free speech, etc. (Max Blumenthal's book Goliath covers this well). As such, the "Jewish state" is increasingly part of the anti-democratic efforts of the far right.
The polite thing to do at this point is to change the subject any time the phrase pops up. Obama made a serious mistake in using the phrase -- one of many reasons Netanyahu has making him think he's got the president eating out of his hand.
Tithi Bhattacharya/Bill V Mullen: Why is the American elite scared of BDS? As Max Blumenthal reports in Goliath, the reaction of Israel's dominant right-wing majority to BDS is to attempt to criminalize the speech of anyone who advocates boycott, divestment, and/or sanctions against Israel. As this piece shows, Israel's American cronies are, once again, following in lock step, even though the US traditionally has a much stronger tradition of free speech than Israel (e.g., it's in the constitution, whereas "democratic" Israel doesn't have a constitution). Much of this effort to muzzle academics comes from nominal liberals -- the two states considering bills to punish pro-BDS profressors are New York and Maryland -- but it's especially concentrated among university administrators. I would suspect that university administrators are a particulary soft touch for well-heeled pro-Israeli donors, but the authors suggest a deeper orientation:
This history sets a clear pattern in which U.S. University administrators are keen to become first responders to ideological objectives of the government. Yet in many ways, events since 9/11 in the U.S. most clearly index the militarized U.S. University, and best explain the blowback in higher education against the ASA Boycott vote. [ . . . ]
Universities were also retooled after 9/11 in specific ways to provide clear ideological direction to a new generation of students. More than 400 colleges and Universities established Homeland Security Programs, many receiving direct funding from the government. Duke University, whose President has condemned the ASA Boycott of Israeli Universities, offers a Counterterrorism and Public Policy Fellowship Program; the Fellowship, according to its website, "fulfills the Senior Service Education (SSE) requirements for military officers and other U.S. national security professionals."
It is politically of a piece, then, that militarization of the US university has accompanied a tightening of relations between Israel's settler-colonial state and a U.S. state which provides it roughly two billion dollars a year in military assistance.
For more on BDS, see:
- Omar Barghouti: Why Israel Fears the Boycott
- Corey Robin: Peter Beinart Speaks Truth About BDS: "But there's one more factor that makes BDS so tactically shrewd: It exploits the mendacity of the 'pro-Israel' establishment."
Also see Blumenthal's Goliath. And you could also take a look at Thomas Friedman's confused piece, The Third Intifada. Given his proven knack for trivializing things, Friedman has decided that non-violent protests and international pleas for recognizing the human rights of Palestinians and the enforcement of international law constitute another uprising, perhaps because Israel's response is the same as it was during the Intifadas: heavy-handed and violent.
Russell Brand: Philip Seymour Hoffman Is Another Victim of Extremely Stupid Drug Laws: Of course:
People are going to use drugs; no self-respecting drug addict is even remotely deterred by prohibition. What prohibition achieves is an unregulated, criminal-controlled, sprawling, global mob-economy, where drug users, their families and society at large are all exposed to the worst conceivable version of this regrettably unavoidable problem.
Countries like Portugal and Switzerland that have introduced progressive and tolerant drug laws have seen crime plummet and drug-related deaths significantly reduced. We know this. We know this system doesn't work -- and yet we prop it up with ignorance and indifference. Why? Wisdom is acting on knowledge. Now we are aware that our drug laws aren't working and that alternatives are yielding positive results, why are we not acting? Tradition? Prejudice? Extreme stupidity? The answer is all three. Change is hard, apathy is easy, tradition is the narcotic of our rulers. The people who are most severely affected by drug prohibition are dispensable, politically irrelevant people. Poor people. Addiction affects all of us but the poorest pay the biggest price.
John Cassidy: The CBO's Real Message: Six Million Jobs Are Already Missing: Republicans have seized upon something commonsensical in the CBO's employment report: that the ACA, by making it possible for people to buy health insurance without having a job (and by making health insurance much less costly for people who make very little money) will (most likely) result in two million workers leaving their jobs. This they're trying to frame as a burden to the economy, but it's basically a relief to workers, most of whom have been saddled with crappy, unsatisfying jobs they really didn't need or want except for the threat of illness-induced bankruptcy. (This is especially true of people who have some savings they can lean on. I know because I am one such person.) All this upsets Republicans because everything about ACA upsets them, but also because they really like forcing people to take crappy low-paying jobs -- something which makes me think conservatism hasn't really progressed much since its diehard defense of slavery. Cassidy:
But, first, something the C.B.O. said that you probably missed, which is based on actual facts rather than on informed speculation: in the past five years or so -- and this has nothing to do with Obamacare -- some six million jobs (and workers) have already gone missing from the U.S. economy.
That figure was in a separate report that the C.B.O. released on Tuesday, titled, "The Slow Recovery of the Labor Market." As someone who has written several times about the "missing millions" of workers in this recovery, I was, naturally, drawn to the new report, particularly to the estimate that the missing number is six million, which is about the population of Missouri.
Based on history, all these people should be earning a living and paying taxes. Instead, they've dropped out of the work force, and . . . well, the truth is, we don't know exactly what they've done. Some of them have probably taken early retirement. Others may be working part time in the black economy. Many of them are almost certainly sitting at home, doing nothing. A few may be glad they're no longer working, but, from studies of how being jobless affects people, we know that many of them are feeling depressed and worthless. Their inactivity represents a tragic human and economic waste, but, for some reason, it's not one that the G.O.P. seems particularly indignant about.
What makes the loss of those six million jobs bad news isn't that fewer people are enjoying the fruits of a healthy work ethic nor that more people are depending on others for their sustenance (and you can be damn sure that the taxpayers are picking up very little of the tab) nor that the overall effect depresses an already depressed economy. It's that so few of those people had any real choice in the matter: maybe some could have settled for lower-paying, less-productive jobs and simply refused -- count me in that group -- but most didn't even have that option, and as time has passed they've become less and less attractive to potential employers while many companies have continued to downgrade and degrade their job openings.
By contrast, the ACA's liberation of "insurance slaves" is pretty good news all around. It gives many people a chance to choose time over money -- to retire early, to spend more time with children, to pursue non-lucrative projects like art or volunteer work, or even to take a risk and start a business. It also leaves real jobs unfilled, so many companies will have to recruit replacements, and maybe even pay and/or treat them better.
Further relevant links:
There's one main rule at the conservative donor conclaves held twice a year by Charles and David Koch at luxury resorts: What happens there stays there.
The billionaire industrialists and their political operatives strive to ensure the anonymity of the wealthy conservatives who fund their sprawling political operation -- which funneled more than $400 million into the 2012 elections -- and to keep their plans private. Attendees of these summits are warned that the seminars, where the Kochs and their allies hatch strategies for electing Republicans and advancing conservative initiatives on the state and national levels, are strictly confidential; they are cautioned to keep a close eye on their meeting notes and materials. But last week, following the Kochs' first donor gathering of 2014, one attendee left behind a sensitive document at the Renaissance Esmeralda resort outside of Palm Springs, California, where the Kochs and their comrades had spent three days focused on winning the 2014 midterm elections and more. [ . . . ] The one-page document, provided to Mother Jones by a hotel guest who discovered it, offers a fascinating glimpse into the Kochs' political machine and shows how closely intertwined it is with Koch Industries, their $115 billion conglomerate.
Many names follow, both of donors and "players." Any time the Kochs' political fronts are mentioned I feel obligation to point out that their aim isn't to influence elections -- it is to subvert democracy.
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Stephen M Walt: The Top 10 Mistakes Made in the Afghan War: Not
my list, which starts in 1979 -- actually in 1975, but 1979 was the
point when US policy turned from malign neglect to subterfuge, sabotage,
and terrorism in a campaign to destroy the most progressive government
in Afghan history and arm the most reactionary Afghans imaginable. That
said, the 2004 constitution and the 2009 "surge" were huge mistakes,
and he's right that the first problem with the COIN strategy was that
the US Army could never implement it (which is why Petraeus, whose
star rose in the US by promoting it, abandoned it as soon as he took
command in Kabul).
Also on Afghanistan:
Also, a few links for further study:
Chase Madar: The Folly of Arming Israel: The largest recipient of US foreign aid, mostly in the form of military gear.
Overall, the United States covers nearly one quarter of Israel's defense budget -- from tear gas canisters to F-16 fighter jets. In their 2008-2009 assault on Gaza, the Israeli Defense Forces made use of M-92 and M-84"dumb bombs," Paveway II and JDAM guided "smart bombs," AH-64 Apache attack helicopters equipped with AGM-114 Hellfire guided missiles, M141 "bunker defeat" munitions, and special weapons like M825A1 155mm white phosphorous munitions -- all supplied as American foreign aid. (Uniquely among Washington's aid recipients, Israel is also permitted to spend 25% of the military funding from Washington on weapons made by its own weapons industry.)
Dani Rodrik: When Ideas Trump Interests: Preferences, Worldviews, and Policy Innovations: PDF of an academic journal article. Reminds me of Keynes' warning about how the world is ruled by little but ideas, especially ones of defunct economists.