Thursday, August 21, 2003

Oops. Hey, it's somebody else's mistake, instead of mine!  Sweet!  Check out this email I just got from Evite: Dear Evite Newsletter Subscriber, Yesterday we mailed a newsletter to our subscribers with incorrect dates for three important Holidays. Please accept our sincerest apologies for these errors and note the following corrections: Labor Day, September 1st Rosh Hashanah, September 27th Yom Kippur, October 6th In addition, we also wish to apologize for having listed Yom Kippur as one of our "Reasons To Party". We understand and respect that Yom Kippur is a Day of Atonement, a day to be taken seriously to reflect and fast, and as such, one of the most important Jewish Holidays in the year. Again we deeply apologize for the error and thank you for allowing us to make this correction. Very Best, The Evite Team Yeah baby -- it's REMEMBRANCE DAY -- let's P - A - R - T - Y!!! Bet they're gonna have an official "check the f'ing calendar three times" position over there now... 10:52:10 PM    comment []

Better Left Unsaid. I dropped this on Crooked Timber's comments on this Chris Bertram post: I wonder which side, Palestinian or Israeli, has killed more children. I think the fundamental question being addressed is, if there are no means of expression or resistance other than suicide bombing, is suicide bombing justifiable? I don’t think that bombing is the only option open to the Palestinians at this point. It is possible that some form of passive resistance to Israeli occupation is possible. Unfortunately the IDF seems to shoot first and ask questions later, which means only the very bravest might ever attempt such passive resistance. I note that an innocent 16 year old Palestinian boy was shot by IDF accidentally, as they were chasing down Hamas members, in response to the bombing two days ago. Four others in the area were also shot. Should the mother of that boy swallow her grief? Does anyone in Israel care? The international community has made its preferences known on settlements and the green line. Israel ignores this, and has for decades. The Palestinian community has plead for international involvement, and Israel has fought the idea. Implicit in Chris’ article (and Brumlik’s outrage) is this assumption: That the murder of Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces is justified. The occupation and situation are so clearly driven by forces within Israeli culture that run counter to notions of civility. Commentator after commentator in Haaretz, for example, note that the main barriers to peace are the settlements and the occupation. But those two things cannot be abandoned without denying the Right its promised land. The solution to peace lies in healing the divide within Israel’s body politic. It does not lie waiting in the barrels of guns pointed at the heads of 15 year old boys. I haven’t read Honderich’s book, so my ability to comment is limited. I will however, say that a reasonable person can believe that Israel is in the wrong, and Palestine in the right. A reasonable person can also believe the opposite. To take the violence represented by terrorism and place it in a separate category does not make much sense to me. I see little difference between an IDF officer ordering a soldier to shoot anyone who gets in his way, and a Hamas operative directing a suicide bomber. They are both sides of the same coin. Each believes they are doing the “right” thing, and each believes they have no choice. If a bomber blows up a bus that has nothing but military personnel on it, is that terrorism? If the bus has mostly military personnel on it, but a couple of civilians, is that terrorism? And then, obviously, if the bus is all civilians, we do recognize that it is terrorism. The collateral damage in the second case is how most innocent Palestinians have ended up dead, shot while IDF were trying to accomplish a different death. This has all rambled a bit — I don’t really know what the right answers are. But I do know that the questions should at least be open to debate. And I also know that I live in another country, with only certain information made available to me, and that my opinion means little or nothing in this context. Chris Responds: Since this site began I’ve successfully resisted the temptation to delete comments on grounds of offensiveness. I’ve been sorely tempted today. Ross writes: Implicit in Chris’ article (and Brumlik’s outrage) is this assumption: That the murder of Palestinian civilians by Israeli forces is justified. How, exactly, is that implicit in anything I’ve written? It isn’t. It is just an outrageous calumny which you ought to withdraw. The thing is, one of my hot buttons is this notion that something can't even be discussed.  I do think I went too far in implying that he felt IDF actions were justified.  The connection isn't really there directly; I just find it to be present in much of what I read on that area.  In an A/B argument, by not even acknowledging one side, do you take the other? I probably just picked the wrong day to do this.  Hopefully my followup comments are a little less...argumentative: It is only fair that I answer…by asserting, as Brumlik does (and you, in a tentative, uncertain way), that even the discussion or exploration of a Palestinian viewpoint is anti-semitic and “odious”, you are implicitly agreeing with the tenet that there is no possible reasoned Palestinian response. When you declare the cessation of dialogue, you collapse the possibility of compromise and assume an extreme. You effectively pick a side. I really don’t know much about your personal feelings on the matter. I suspect that you do not, in your heart, feel that the death of Palestinian civilians is justified. I don’t think it is either. We are probably in substantial agreement that we wish for no innocent Israeli deaths either. My point is that when you write in opposition to discourse, to dialogue, it carries a heavy burden; that the underlying points of contention are in fact not contentious, and that their logical basis need not be reviewed or criticized, and that those truths are self-evident. I find nothing about the situation in Palestine self-evident. My apologies if my prior post was harsher than intended. It was an imperfect exploration of a theme. So remember, kids -- think before you post.  Or at least edit out some of your harshness.  1:48:32 PM    comment []

The Arms Race. You can see it on many levels.  I read this log of an IM session on Right Wing News, and thought about this little excerpt: Lagwolf: What do have against people defending themselves? You seem to ally yourself with abusive bully? I am not talking wedgies I am talking actual physical abuse. Beating the sh*t out of someone. John Hawkins: You seem to be advocating Columbine massacres in every high school in America... Lagwolf: No I am not. I am advocating that anyone who is facing overwhelming odds in abuse can counter with a weapon. John Hawkins: There are bullies in ALMOST EVERY American high school who systematically pummel kids. You're saying it's fine for those victims to walk in one day and waste their bullies with a gun. Hence, you're advocating thousands and thousands of murders. Here's the thing -- aren't there parallels here between gun rights in general and what happened at Columbine?  The Right feels that you have a right to self-defense, and that to achieve that you have a right to a gun.  If someone walks into your home and tries to rob it, or beat you up, you have a right to shoot that guy.  So exactly why do we think it is different somehow for a kid in high school to react the same way?  If bad guy X walks up to you on the street and either beats you up or makes it known to you that he's going to put a world of hurt on you, I am pretty sure that most pro-gun people would say, fire away.  The reason is that we don't consider bullying to be a "serious" problem.  It isn't from the perspective of anyone but the kid who's having the crap beaten out of him, and maybe his parents.  So -- if it's OK to shoot the bad guy on the street, is it OK for a kid to shoot the bully beating him up?  If it's not OK for the kid to shoot the bully, is it also verboten to shoot the guy on the street?  I think the sense of the problem is that hey, there's nothing really bad that can happen to that kid, so he's just going to have to sit there and take it.  The thing is, that's not true.  We know that there are some pretty bad things that happen to these kids, and it lasts for a lifetime.  Kind of like a rape, or something like that.  It doesn't go away. I don't know what the answer is. 1:17:22 PM    comment []