Category Archives: Essays

I was just reading Michael Gerson’s article “Tackling a Fallacy in Gaza” which positively likens Israel’s actions in Gaza to the success of the surge in Iraq and summarily dismisses the civilian tragedy in Gaza as the fault of Hamas’ use of human shields. Gerson writes,

This augury of futility was wrong. Israeli forces, responding to an intolerable provocation, inflicted lopsided casualties on Hamas, which displayed a discrediting combination of cowardice and brutality. Hamas fighters used civilians as shields instead of shielding civilians — and some Palestinians seemed to resent it. Hamas leaders hid in the basements of hospitals while ordering public executions for Palestinian rivals, acting more like members of a criminal gang than a nationalist movement. Allies such as Iran, Syria and Hezbollah provided little practical help to Hamas, probably calculating that its rocket campaign against Israel was suicidal or at least foolishly premature. The international boycott against Hamas is holding. And the scale of missile attacks on Israeli citizens has been dramatically reduced.

But since when has destroying the human shield to reach the enemy been justified? Furthermore, there is an undertone to Gerson’s argument, which has also been expressed in other rationalizations for the Gazan death toll, that a dramatically high number of civilian casualties serves to undermine Hamas’ leadership and deter Iran, Syria and Hezbollah by reinforcing Israel’s superior might and resolve. While the latter argument is an admission of having committed war crimes and crimes against humanity (targeting civilians for strategic military gains), the notion that human shields are acceptable collateral damage highlights a grave duality underlying how we fight our battles: political cowardice and high tech warfare. Continue reading →

Israel has always gotten a free pass from the American press, but it seems like that day may be coming to an end. In the past two weeks, there has been a sudden and unprecedented burst of “objectivity” from the American press. Early in January, there were two very critical pieces in the New York Times and an op-ed by Jimmy Carter in the Washington Post. Bill Moyers followed shortly thereafter, and then Bob Simon appeared on the Charlie Rose Show discussing the bleak future of the peace process.

On Sunday, 60 Minutes did its Bob Simon expose on whether peace was out of reach and discussing the de facto Apartheid in Israel. Later in the week, President Carter appeared again, this time on the NewsHour, echoing Bob Simon’s assessment of the situation. According to Simon, 60 Minutes and Carter, as a two state solution becomes less likely – mainly due to the Israeli settlements on the West Bank – Israel is left with three options:

1. Ethnic Cleansing. Further exile the Palestinians from any lands that Israelis wish to occupy.
2. Democracy. Allow the Palestinians to become full-fledged citizens of Israel with voting rights and civil liberties. This threatens Israel because the Arab and Christian Palestinians would be in the majority.
3. Apartheid. One state but with complete segregation. Continue reading →

I particularly enjoyed watching the round table discussion on this Sunday’s This Week with George Stephanopoulos between the host, Cokie Roberts, George Will, Sam Donaldson, Carly Fiorina and Paul Krugman. It was truly great to witness how each of the other panelists would confidently spew out their pre-fab political talking points and punditry on the economic crisis and then Krugman, the recent Nobel Prize winning economist, without any pretension would feel obliged to correct them as if they were school children. By the end of the show, you could see how they were all almost too afraid to comment for fear of discrediting themselves. It just goes to show that political ideology is trumped by objectivity every time. Continue reading →

Yesterday I watched this video of Charlie Rose’s January 7, 2009 interview with Bob Simon. Bob Simon presented a devastatingly bleak outlook for the future of the Middle East peace process. Nevertheless, his honestly on how the U.S. and Israel in fact present the major obstacles to reaching peace in the region was both refreshing and unique amongst the American press corps. He also described Gaza, a territory roughly twice the size of Washington, DC where the local population is prohibited from leaving its borders (that’s right, there was nowhere to flee or hide during the recent bombings), as the world’s largest prison.

While Israel is the United States’ most important ally in the region, for both cultural and ideological bonds, the U.S. has to demand that the friendship goes both ways. And if we are capable of denouncing Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, and torture as beyond the limits of what is morally (and legally) acceptable in fighting to defend our way of life, then surely we can tell Israel that bombing heavily populated civilian areas indescriminately is also reprehensible. Otherwise, it is hard to imagine that there are any limits whatsoever, including the recourse of terrorism, in a nation’s alleged self defense.

For the pure sake of argument (and to play devil’s advocate), which is a greater threat to the world, the war against terror or the terrorism itself? If you take George W. Bush’s word for it, the battle can be divided into two opposing sides: the terrorists who wish to destroy “our” way of life, and Coalition of the Willing who hope to spread democracy and liberty by fighting tyranny and ideological fanaticism.

Both sides also, in theory, have the same goal: they want their respective ideologies to prevail. The terrorists’ ideologies include the preservation and/or imposition of local and regional religious order as well as the “decolonization” of their lands. While both sides are paternalistic – believing that they know what’s best for the people – the ideology of the Willing, reminiscent of the Bolshevik revolution and the Spanish Conquest, has an imperial and universal scope: the global spread of democracy.

From a purely quantitative standpoint, though, there is an argument that the Willing poses a greater threat to the world than the Evil. For example, in Iraq, as a direct result of the “democratic” invasion, there have been one million Iraqi civilian deaths. Whether or not you consider the terrorists to be state actors, it is an undisputed fact that hundreds of thousands of civilians have died at the hands of the democratically elected Willing with the consent of their citizens and without any opposition from their free press.

Personally, I am a democrat (with a small “d”), believe strongly in the separation of powers, the complete separation of church and state, mostly prefer limited government intervention, and would rather live in the U.S., Europe, or Israel than Iran, Iraq or Afghanistan. Nevertheless, were I in fact living in a territory being bombarded by Democracy with its total disregard for my life and its lack of remorse for any human collateral damage, I would probably see the Willing as tormentors and not liberators. The spread of Global Democracy would be pretty scary.

Of course, were Democracy not threatening me or hoarding my resources, it would be a totally different story.

Here’s the Bill Moyers Journal on the recent violence in Gaza.

For too much of the world at large the names of the dead and wounded in Gaza might as well be John Doe too. They are the casualties and victims of Israel’s decision to silence the rockets from Hamas terrorists by waging war on an entire population. Yes, every nation has the right to defend its people. Israel is no exception, all the more so because Hamas would like to see every Jew in Israel dead.

But brute force can turn self-defense into state terrorism. It’s what the U.S. did in Vietnam, with B-52s and napalm, and again in Iraq, with shock and awe. By killing indiscriminately – the elderly, kids, entire families by destroying schools and hospitals — Israel did exactly what terrorists do and exactly what Hamas wanted. It spilled the blood that turns the wheel of retribution.

Could you imagine a ground offensive and missile attacks of the densely populated Lower East Side of New York in order to weed out criminals amongst the civilian population? Or as Moyers quotes a Norwegian doctor working in Gaza, “It’s like Dante’s Inferno. They are bombing one and a half million people in a cage.” It’s no surprise then that the death count in Gaza has reached 900 with some 4,000 injured.

I recently commented on Puer Robustus Sed Malitiosus with regards to Gaza on

the total lack of compassion by the American media and public. We never cared much when innocent Iraqis died during our invasion nor do we seem to care about the civilian victims in Gaza . . . maybe the deaths of UN staff will make people care.

As a matter of fact, the coverage couldn’t be more different in the U.S. than it is in the rest of the world. Continue reading →