JOLLY DAYS, an artist's journal

Palestinians voted out corrupt criminals and voted in sociopathic terrorists. Their society was poisoned by years of Arafat’s incoherent grandiosity and criminality, confining Palestinian options long ago, leaving them with a choice that is no choice, in an election that was no election; a mix of Palestinian despair, the degradations of their warmly embraced death cult mentality, the clown alley of the UN, and the confused detritus of a once admirable progressive Left, has enabled this bizarre outcome — an election from hell. I wonder if Jimmy Carter when he next bares his teeth, in what appears an attempt to provide a smile, will catch on, after his jabbering that it was “good” that Hamas was involved in the election process; what needs to be done, of course, is to pressure the Palestinians — a novel idea — towards, not an election, not democracy, but common decency.

The heartbreaking scene of Israeli settlers being removed by, what amounts to their brothers and sisters in the army, provides a living example of the nobility of a democratic society doing what is so difficult, with restraint and intelligence.

Sharon understands the demographic imperative of removing the settlers — he is doing the only thing he can do. The settlers, in angry despair, see their homes and their ancient heritage taken from them, given to people who harassed and killed them. Palestinian society is often sentimentalized by media outlets, even though murder is the option of choice in that society; despite the rage of the settlers, the whole process of removal is being done with deep feeling, and decent human consideration; the one act of terror by an Israeli was immediately labeled as such by the leader of a free society, and condemned — a model that should be emulated and celebrated, and whose absence in Palestinian society should be universally deplored. Take a look at the press given this signal event, initiated and implemented by a society of institutions and laws — is this Israeli act being presented with the affirmation it deserves?

The violence visited upon England is being used by some to justify their ideology — a cynical distortion of the circumstance.

This logic posits that if we did what the sociopaths wanted then they would like us — that the overt logic of terrorists is to be taken seriously — rather than being seen as an excuse used by the disturbed individuals in a community to express their pathology.

This is a variant of “what did we do to deserve this?” This is the logic of the recent appeasement offered by the Spanish government to murderers — the proximate cause of the current attack on Britain. That ill wrought logic is ineluctable for the confused — you can hear it coming — the doleful clanking of challenged reason: If we didn’t support the democratic state of Israel, if we didn’t proactively attempt to change things for the better by engaging dangerous and despicable regimes, then things would be okay — we would be safe — all we have to do is reason with them — we just need to be understanding.

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Today’s (7/11/05) NYT has an article by the always interesting Edward Rothstein about War of the Worlds — the book and the movie. Rothstein sees references to 9/11 and the Arab/Israeli conflict. Rothstein’s comment about one character in Wells’ book is relevant to my above comments:

…The novel’s greatest scorn is for the curate who keeps seeking root causes: “What do these things mean?” The attacks, he concludes, may be deserved. “What sins have we done?” At the same time, he is so consumed by self-scorn and fear, he is unable to fight or plan.

Arthur Hertzberg makes a cogent point in this NYT op-ed about the Vatican’s unwillingness to issue a statement about the silence of the church while Europe’s Jews were murdered. The bishops of France had made such a statement, on their own, in 1997:

…”In the face of so great and utter a tragedy, too many of the church’s pastors committed an offense, by their silence, against the church itself and its mission… This failing of the church of France and of her responsibility toward the Jewish people are part of our history. We confess this sin. We beg God’s pardon, and we call upon the Jewish people to hear our words of repentance.”

Hertzberg says, “…in 1930′s and 1940′s Europe, the Roman Catholic Church was the only institution that possessed the moral stature and strength to denounce and forbid the murder of the Jews. It did not do so…”

Not that long ago, in March 2003, these words were spoken by a teacher at Columbia:

“U.S. flags are the emblem of the invading war machine in Iraq today. They are the emblem of the occupying power. The only true heroes are those who find ways that help defeat the U.S. military.”

On this site a commentator wrote at that time:

Those words were spoken last week by Nicholas De Genova, a professor of anthropology and Latin American studies at Columbia University. De Genova went on, in words that will long shame his university, to call on U.S. soldiers to “frag” (i.e., murder) their officers and to wish “for a million Mogadishus,” referring to the 1993 ambush in Somalia that left 18 U.S. soldiers dead and 84 wounded.

I wrote to the president of Columbia and he wrote back (to myself and many others):

…I am appalled by [De Genova's] outrageous comments. I want to assure you that his comments in no way represent my views nor anyone with whom I have spoken at the University…

Now Jewish students at Columbia are charging that the school of Middle East studies at Columbia is heavily pro-Palestinian — this is verifiable — and that Jewish students feel, and have been, intimidated and scorned; the examples cited by the students appear legitimate. One professor at Columbia said: “These students didn’t look like disturbed people who would invent these things.”

One particularly dubious professor, if you believe the reports (and I do), named Dabashi, writes such rancid effluvia that the same Columbia president — his name is Bollinger — says:

The other day, Mr. Bollinger said he found viewpoints of Professor Dabashi “deeply personally offensive.”

Free speech issue? The corruption of a great university by incompetent bullies and bigoted fools? That is what Bollinger is trying to parse — it doesn’t seem that hard…

Ron Rosenbaum had some interesting things to say about the theological parsing of the tragedy of the tsunami. He was weary of the justifications and “excuses” of the devout, tired of the criticisms of the devout — both sides should shut up. The question, “How could He be responsible for all that is in the Heavens and Earth and not for this ?” is a tough one for believers. Rosenbaum offers Leibniz’s theodicy as a jumping off point:

…God created the best of all possible worlds consistent with free will — the freedom to choose evil without which choosing good means nothing special. The best of all possible worlds consistent with the nature of human nature, in other words — and its predilection for choosing evil.

You could extend Leibniz’s argument as it pertains to this tsunami: If human beings have free will, then the planet and its natural systems would have some variant of that free will if physical growth and change were to be possible — the preconditions for evolution itself; the price for that free will of the natural order: tsunamis.

[Update: As if on cue, the NYT today (Tuesday) had an article explaining the regenerative impact of the tsunami on planet Earth. This outcome is in a very long time frame — theologically long, you might say — providing a habitable, lush planet; it's not solace, nor truly explanation, but it does offer perspective.]

I am not sure that this, or any effort at explaining the inexplicable can really ever work.

William Safire today had a deeper approach. He looked at the most devout book of the Hebrew Bible, The Book of Job.

The point of Job’s gutsy defiance of God’s injustice – right there in the Bible – is that it is not blasphemous to challenge the highest authority when it inflicts a moral wrong… Indeed, Job’s demand that his unseen adversary show up at a trial with a written indictment gets an unexpected reaction: in a thunderous theophany, God appears before the startled man with the longest and most beautifully poetic speech attributed directly to him in Scripture.

The poet-priest’s point… is that God is occupied bringing light to darkness, imposing physical order on chaos, and leaves his human creations free to work out moral justice on their own.

Job’s moral outrage caused God to appear, thereby demonstrating that the sufferer who believes is never alone. Job abruptly stops complaining…

Safire refutes the absurdity of blaming the victims, and affirms the generosity being expressed towards the victims as refutation of a cynical view voiced by Voltaire. Safire also concludes:

…Questioning God’s inscrutable ways has its exemplar in the Bible and need not undermine faith.

David Brooks is right on target in his facetious op-ed about the naysayers, who have attempted to undermine Israel — their clueless ideology poisoning any powers of reason — or even a simple acknowledgment of reality. The oddest thing: many of them are do-gooders.

Thanks to Bush’s steadfastness and Sharon’s understanding of circumstances, it does appear — I’ve noted myself what Brooks is pointing out — that there might be a faint hope here. Sharon is dragging the Palestinians, kicking and screaming, into a confrontation with the meanings and responsibilities of making peace. As in Iraq, the forces of evil are still in place in the Palestinian territories, and they will not give up that power easily. But in Iraq about 80% of the population wants elections, and it has always been apparent to me that a majority of Palestinians would prefer peace — they have just been afraid of the sociopaths who have taken over their society.

All those enablers on the left, in Europe, of these sociopaths in the Palestinian community, have blood on their hands — both Palestinian blood and Israeli blood. It seems faintly possible that decent Palestinians, who want a future, who aren’t in love with death and violence, will have a chance to speak out and find a life for their children and themselves. Or at least, that possibility is percolating — it is way too early to really know.

Bush concluded that peace would never come as long as Palestine was an undemocratic tyranny, and that the Palestinians needed to see their intifada would never bring triumph.

Dennis Ross, a major player in the attempt to achieve a mideast peace under Clinton, has written a book that recounts what really happened.

President Clinton suggested a set of guidelines to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Israeli cabinet accepted the framework with several reservations that were within the guidelines laid out by the president. Arafat did not. Ross recounts watching Clinton tell Arafat that by not responding to the American ideas, ”he was killing Barak and the peace camp in Israel.” Arafat did not budge. As Ross puts it: ”A comprehensive deal was not possible with Arafat. . . . He could live with a process, but not with a conclusion.”…As for the American role, Ross puts it this way: ”Our great failing was not in misreading Arafat. Our great failing was in not creating the earlier tests that would have either exposed Arafat’s inability to ultimately make peace or forced him to prepare his people for compromise.”

Ross also, in a tortured effort to seem fair, feels that the Israelis didn’t understand the needs of the Palestinians — a dubious demand of a state that is negotiating its survival. Any fair-minded person would have seen, long ago, that Israel wanted peace, the Arab world did not.

Doesn’t this article say it all?

An Arab who was against the Israeli wall sees the light after he becomes a victim:

Among those wounded was Sammi Masrawa, an Israeli Arab who leads an Arab-Jewish friendship group in the Tel Aviv area. Mr. Masrawa told Israel radio that he had opposed the barrier, and took part in recent protests against it. But the bombing on Sunday changed his mind…”I will now be for it and from an organization in favor of it,” said Mr. Masrawa, 29, who was wounded in the leg…

The prejudice against the defensive wall in Israel reeks of a larger prejudice.

The comedy troupe at the Hague, the World-Court-Jesters — a marginal act in the main tent circus of the mean-spirited European left — has determined that Israel shouldn’t build a barrier to protect its citizens from celebratory slaughter at the hands of those who would “throw the Jews into the sea”. Fences are worthy of grandiose public condemnation in the estimation of this august body, the designed death of Jews not worthy of comment.

Without a serious consideration of terrorism, of the targeted murder of innocents, the self-discrediting Hague reverts to a dream-time, when cause and effect had no connection.

The outnumbered American representative said:

…the impact of “repeated deadly terror attacks” was something “never really seriously examined by the court.”

If the Hague court was truly interested in the suffering of Palestinians, they would be condemning the cynical manipulations in the Arab world, which uses the Palestinians to deflect from their own illegitimacy.

With all the bloviating about “values” in this presidential election, we need to hear from John Kerry and George Bush about a real values issue — how about starting with the Hague, George and John? It will give the public a chance to see exactly who you both are.

The only comment reported was from the Bush team:

“We do not believe that that’s the appropriate forum to resolve what is a political issue…”

At the very end of an article about events in Israel, James Bennet, NYT Jerusalem Bureau Chief, writes:

In a highly unusual incident, at least three Palestinian men attempted to kidnap this reporter here Wednesday night. The reporter, who had identified himself at Al Najar hospital as an American, was speaking on a cellular telephone in the street in front of the hospital when a stranger approached offering a handshake, a smile and the word, “Welcome.”

When the reporter took his hand, the stranger and another man grabbed him and attempted to shove him into an aging Mercedes sedan that pulled up, its rear door open. A struggle and cries for help brought Palestinian police officers at the hospital running, and after a further struggle, the men jumped in the car and disappeared.

Anger at Americans has been building here for three years over the Bush administration’s perceived tilt toward Israel, the occupation of Iraq and, most recently, images of prisoner abuse in Iraq. An American might also be considered valuable for use in bargaining with Israel.

How much more clearly could a journalist wear their tendentiousness on their sleeve than to describe an attempted kidnapping as an “unusual incident”? Is Bennet telling us that he felt safe because he was an American? Is Bennet saying that this is not the current crime of choice in the Palestinian territories? Has Bennet noticed that Americans are amongst the victims of suicide bombings?

With his shirttail scarcely tucked back in his pants, and his blood roiling with fear and confusion, Bennet immediately rationalizes this attempted crime, like a propaganda wind up doll, pulling out slogans about U.S. policy and “tilts towards Israel”. He puts words and political thoughts into the mouths of criminals, even when he is the target.

Did Bennet actually look into the face of his own jeopardy — into the crude stares of his wannabe abductors? Is Israel supposed to negotiate with them? In a Palestinian democracy these criminals would be marginalized in their own society. Could Bennet have negotiated his way out of his near abduction? He didn’t seem to think so, he was screaming for help. How does Bennet know what his abductor’s motives were? They might have seen him as a tasty payday.

Bennet ascribes nuanced political motives to the thugs but he doesn’t offer explanations or understanding for Israel’s actions — rather he looks for Israeli spokesman, who have their assertions appended with “they say”, modifying the Israeli statement as simple advocacy, while Bennet’s journalistic voice authorizes propaganda.