Month: June 2010

Larison is confused by Jim Henley:

Up to a point, Israel can keep acting with impunity regardless of what the rest of the world says as long as the U.S. continues to back it. However, at some point Israel will alienate enough other U.S. allies in sufficiently provocative ways that the U.S. will have to start choosing between keeping on good terms with those other allies or continuing to back Israel uncritically and automatically.

To lose Turkey is extremely serious in the global war on Jihadism. Henley clarifies:

For all practical purposes, Israel has its

original goal, formal control of all of Mandate Palestine west of the Jordan, within its grasp. Because it’s not completely insensible to global political reality, it can’t just annex the West Bank and be done with it, but it can plainly add any given piece of the West Bank to itself at any time. Roughly ten percent of Israel’s Jewish population lives in the West Bank or East Jerusalem. They’re not moving back.

Israel does have to finesse the public-relations of the process, but the public relations are subordinate to the process. And Israel has to deal with the demographic issue: there are all these darn Palestinians. Everyone thinks that eventually Israel has to make nice with them somehow. Israeli actions suggest that Israel thinks it just needs them cowed and poor. And while a visible expulsion would look bad for the cameras, there’s always “encouraging” Palestinians to emigrate over time. (A commenter downblog claimed today that it’s illegal for Palestinians to emigrate, but this does not appear to be the case.) Israeli nationalists simply do not believe in an inevitable demographic doom.

That’s what I mean by “This is Israel winning.”

Bruce Bartlett looks at a new poll. This should have been obvious to anyone paying attention:

What I think this poll shows is that taxes and spending are not by any means the only issues that define [Tea Party Movement (TPM)] members; they are largely united in being unsympathetic to African Americans, militant in their hostility toward illegal immigrants, and very conservative socially. At a minimum, these data throw cold water on the view that the TPM is essentially libertarian. Based on these data, I would say that TPM members have much more in common with social conservatives that welcome government intervention as long as it’s in support of their agenda.

Of course, one longs for a small government movement that isn't fueled by these forces and can actually be honest about how deep the cuts in entitlement spending and defense will have to be if we are not to raise taxes. But that is a fantasy. And the gut instincts of many of these people repel me.

An art project:

In the pictorial book "Cleavage," ample bosoms fill tank tops, are adorned with necklaces, and press against a guitar. However, the cleavages photographed are actually the butt cracks of men and women. (Check out the hirsute bust in a cocktail dress.)

Bethany Fancher, a New York-based artist, invited family, friends and willing participants to model their posteriors in their homes, workplaces and staged sets. The illusions Fancher creates—with torsos and limbs in place—are hilariously clever, but also frankly address female objectification and sexuality.

Not to mention the possible evolutionary connection between breasts and posteriors. More images here. Video here. South Park got there first, of course.

A reader writes:

You misrepresent what the protesters did as "self-defense".  Self-defense occurs where there is imminent danger to life or bodily safety.  When the Israeli Navy approached, it informed the boat that their destination was blockaded (as they already knew, obviously), and that they would be permitted to dock at Ashdod and that their aid supplies could then be transferred to Gaza.  The ship refused.  What followed was pretty standard protocol in a blockade – a ship that tries to run the blockade and refuses to be redirected voluntarily is then stopped (boarded, or disabled and towed, or threatened with a shot across the bow until it complies).  The obvious intent of the commandos was to redirect ship to the port, not to inflict bodily harm.  The fact that they descended one by one reinforces this fact, as well the fact that there was no violence on any of the five other vessels.  So the premise of self-defense is specious, whatever one thinks of the blockade.

I do not believe, and have not written, that Israel intended this slaughter. I do think that disabling the vessel would have been far smarter, and the decision to assault it was reckless. I also think that if you believe that the blockade is illegal (and that's a perfectly legitimate position), and that you are attempting to break it, and you are then assaulted in international waters by shock-troops, self-defense is an option. Especially when your ship contains building materials, toys and wheelchairs and has on board a host of activists from many countries. There was a clear element in the raid of making a show of force – pour decourager les autres. This was a "Don't Fuck With The Jews!" moment. It was unnecessary, and a sign of Israel's increasingly erratic behavior. Another writes:

While not excusing Israel's actions, I did want to question some of your logic. You wrote:

"…a country with 150 nuclear warheads, the most lethal military in its region, the ability to occupy neighboring countries at will, and the protection of the global super-power was actually threatened by … a small crew of boats."

Well, yes. Welcome to terrorism in the 21st century. 

New York has one of the world's greatest police forces, with an intelligence unit bigger than that of many small countries, yet a major tourist attraction and population center was almost taken out by … one guy in a used SUV.  We have the planet's most powerful air force, yet 9/11 was orchestrated by … a small crew of terrorists with box cutters.  The USS Cole was a member of the world's greatest naval fleet in the world, a destroyer equipped with the most sophisticated radar equipment known to man, yet it was actually attacked by … a small rubber dinghy manned by two Al Qaeda members.

Israel's response to what has been labeled a peace flotilla manned by "activists" will be debated and there's no doubt that there are at least a dozen other actions the IDF could have taken to turn the ship around, but to imply that a great military power can not or should not be threatened by small actors is to ignore the disturbing recent history of terrorism.

Another:

I briefly skimmed the "dissent of the day."  I question whether you should even respond to emails of that sort; the "Jew hater" comment is offensive independent of any evidence for it.  I think the proper response is to stop reading.

Another:

I have never considered your criticism of Israel to be anti-semitic, but your stance on this incident is really starting to be "anti-reason". Maybe it's the real time nature of blogging, so your thought process is put out there for all of us to see, and the "interim" conclusions you are reaching now would be thrown away later when you are writing a more considered piece on the matter.

It is valid to argue over the necessity and the scope of the blockade. But once you acknowledge that a blockade is justified to keep weapons out of Gaza (as you have done), then you must also accept that ships attempting to run the blockade will be subject to intercept and search. Otherwise the blockade is pointless. And you must also accept that given the nature and purpose of the blockade (to interdict weapons and "strategic" materials going into Gaza), the folks doing the boarding will be armed. And if they are set upon by passengers wielding knifes and lead pipes … well, what the hell do you think is going to happen? I've been pulled over for traffic violations before, and I can guarantee you that if I set upon an officer with a lead pipe and tried to wrestle away his/her gun, that officer's partner would draw down on me, and all hell would break loose. At least I expect that's what would happen, because I am an adult who lives in the real world.

And you really need to stop making such a huge deal about the ship being in international waters. It's been a while since I studied international maritime law, but my recollection is that if the ship has declared its intent to run the blockade, is nearing the blockade zone, and refuses to alter its course after being warned, the fact that the ship is in international waters is irrelevant. The Israeli's didn't sink the ship, after all; they intercepted it.

Another:

Your assertion of disproportionate violence is abhorrent for two reasons. The activists clearly were acting with violence as to threaten the soldiers' lives (yes, multiple people surrounding a single individual and hitting him with metal poles is a lethal threat). Using lethal force to prevent this is is no way disproportionate. Additionally, the entire idea of using "disproportionate" as an argument against Israel's actions is inherently biased, as it is based on the idea that one cannot use superior skills and weapons at their disposal to protect themselves because the fight would be otherwise unfair. The fact that the activists were bad at fighting does not in any way mean they didn't have the ability to kill.

But if war is politics by other means, and the result of the blatant exercize of brute force is the strengthening of your enemy, why go that route? And why, in all these emails, is there no actual regret for the dead civilians on board?

Phillip Smith flags a new poll:

According to a Los Angeles Times/USC poll released Tuesday, the California Tax and Regulate Cannabis initiative has the support of 49% of voters, while 41% are opposed, and 10% are undecided. The figures are in line with other recent polls. Two weeks ago, an internal campaign poll had support at 51% and another public opinion poll had it at 49%.

The bad news for initiative supporters in the latest poll is that it needs 50% plus one vote to win, and it isn't there yet. The good news, however, is that the initiative only needs to pick up one out of five of those undecided voters to go over the top.

 

The genius who painted the Sistine chapel – and they ask me how I can be gay and Catholic?! – may have been up to even more mischief than we imagined. From his teenage years, he had been a secret corpse dissecter and sketcher, fascinated by the human body. And a new study suggests he put this knowledge to innovative use:

Ian Suk and Rafael Tamargo are experts in neuroanatomy at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Maryland. In 1990, physician Frank Meshberger published a paper in the Journal of the American Medical Association deciphering Michelangelo’s imagery with the stunning recognition that the depiction in God Creating Adam in the central panel on the ceiling was a perfect anatomical illustration of the human brain in cross section. Meshberger speculates that Michelangelo surrounded God with a shroud representing the human brain to suggest that God was endowing Adam not only with life, but also with supreme human intelligence. Now in another panel The Separation of Light from Darkness, Suk and Tamargo have found more. Leading up the center of God’s chest and forming his throat, the researchers have found a precise depiction of the human spinal cord and brain stem.

What was Michelangelo implying? That we are made in the image of God or that God is made in the image of us? Or that there is some deep connection between our highest levels of consciousness and the divine?

(Hat tip: 3QD.)

Ken Layne finds more photographic proof.

Lake Anna, Virginia, 12 pm

It would be really hard to beat the subtlety and cogency of this post by Noah Millman on Israel's now-accelerating assisted suicide. What Noah understands is that the pulverizing of Gaza, the embargo and the blockade are all enormously popular with the Israeli Jewish public, even as they immiserate and further embitter well over a million Palestinians. Even the relatively secular left is on board:

I get notes all the time from family and friends in Israel. These are generally liberal, secular people. None of them are settlers. None of them vote for Likud, to say nothing of parties further to the right. Overwhelmingly, the sentiment among people I know in Israel was in favor of the Gaza war, in favor of the embargo and blockade, in favor of a policy of collective punishment against the people of Gaza.

And let's not delude ourselves: the reason so many of us find the policy toward Gaza repellent is that it is quite obviously an attempt to collectively punish the people of Gaza for voting for Hamas, and then for  lobbing missiles after Israel's withdrawal. That was the element of the 2009 war that was so horrifying to those of us on the outside, and that is why this blockade, designed to maintain total control over 1.5 million people (and to benefit various Israeli economic sectors), is so disconcerting.

And it is, of course, self-reinforcing. Has the war and the blockade hurt the idea of Hamas? Au contraire. It has legitimized it. When you end up killing civilians to prevent access to toys and wheelchairs, you have lost any desire to win the war of ideas and have retreated instead to the logic of force. The Bush-Cheney administration is, in other words, alive and well … and in Jerusalem, and backed by the opposition, because it is backed by the people. This is one of the problems with democracy, as Millman notes:

Israel’s policy-making no longer seems to me to be particularly related to concrete policy objectives at all. Neither the Lebanon war nor the Gaza war had actual military goals. Both were essentially wars for domestic consumption. Hezbollah and Hamas were firing rockets at Israel, and Israelis were understandably furious. “Something” had to be done about that, to let the Israeli public know that their leadership felt their fury. So the government did “something.”

That reminds me of the Iraq war. I supported it for exactly the same emotional reasons that many Israelis do their forever war in Gaza and the West Bank. It's understandable emotionally, and Noah helps explain how. But it is crazy as a rational policy to achieve actual concrete ends. In the end, occupying Muslim Arab countries is a mug's game.

The question we have to face is whether Israel is now too far gone to be rescued. The enormous opportunity offered by the election of Obama has been thrown in the face of the US and the world. The alienation of Europe and Turkey seems driven by willful obstinacy and near clinical paranoia. And the knee-jerk response of the AJE has only made matters worse. I'm not sure, as Millman notes, that the US could do much good anyway. Pressure backfires; diplomacy doesn't work; and the truth is: Israelis cannot really absorb the fact that they have to give up the dream of Greater Israel or become a pariah state. 

That's why, in my view, the settlement question was the right one to start with. A temporary freeze on construction was the minimum necessary to see if the Israelis are serious about some kind of resolution. The Israeli public simply isn't. And no Israeli government can over-ride such a massive consensus, even if it wanted to (which it doesn't). At some point, the US will have to decide how to deal with this. We should, of course, do all we can to be reasonable and argue for a comprehensive deal. But we should not delude ourselves into believing Israel will ever accept it.

ITN has a report on a lone gunman shooting twelve people dead in 30 separate crime scenes in Cumbria:

A live-blog with more gruesome details here.