Dear America,
President Biden's enjoinders to others about intervening in the hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel seem gratuitous to me. In fact, they seem more like dares to intervene than exhortations to keep away. We're finally out of Afghanistan, and barely present in Iraq, and here is our president mixing in the affairs of another ally that to many are of dubious rectitude to begin with. I have no problem with The President ordering an aircraft carrier to the Mediterranean out of apprehension of potential necessity, but he could have done it and said nothing to anyone but Israel and accomplished the desired security goal. It would be different if the moral lines being drawn relative to the conflict were crystal clear, but they are not, and the domestic news coverage as well as the public reaction around the world definitely indicate that the world is of two minds on that point. I would have preferred that Biden predicate his public reaction to the conflict taking that ambivalence into account in the privacy of his own thoughts rather than potentially inviting adventurism among Israel's and our adversaries by exhorting them not to intervene. But that die is cast, and the question now is how to proceed with ensuring the perdurability of the Jewish state without inviting a threat to it, but doing even that with the dubiety of Israel's continuing local imperialism in mind.
I think we should acknowledge that the international community and the laws of international conduct do not comport with Israel's conduct in what used to be called the Levant. Its continuing suzerainty over the West Bank of the Jordan River and the Gaza Strip with settlement of the West Bank and control of the area's utilities, tax revenues and such, along with the isolation and effective dominion over the Gaza Strip render Israel ripe for adamant criticism universally. The current reactionary political control of Israeli politics by Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party, wrapped in the putative biblical sanctimony inspired by Menachem Begin's wishful claim that "Samaria and Judea" belonged to Israel by dint of historical events millennia ago, stamp the effective imprimatur of Israeli expansionism on the forehead of every citizen of Israel, or at least the Jews among them. Likud's perspective is the equivalent of a claim that Manhattan belongs by right to the Lenape Tribe because they occupied the area before the Dutch East India Company bought it from them. Both areas have changed hands by dint of history, the Levant several times, and the practical reality is that both claims are nothing but casuistry in light of the realities, and President Biden should make that reality the predicate for everything he discusses with Netanyahu when he sees him over the next day or two. Warning the world not to intervene is folly.
Were I in a position to do so, I would propose to Netanyahu what President emeritus Obama did: that Israel and the world recognize a Palestinian state comprising "The West Bank" and Gaza with a corridor through the Sinai desert linking the two areas. That corridor could be territory of Palestine or if that is disagreeable, an internationally monitored strip of neutral territory sufficient to accommodate transportation of people and goods by rail, car and truck. But I would warn the Palestinian authorities in advance. With sovereignty comes responsibility. So if organizations like Hamas and Hezbolah commit acts of war, Palestinian should expect just deserts. And to encourage Israel to accept these terms of creation of a Palestinian state, it should be advised likewise.
The purpose of such a two state solution would be to give everyone notice of what the future of the area entails: peace with consequences for disturbing such. There would be no exogenous imperatives involved, leaving both sides to their own devices unless a neutral body...the UN in a peace keeping capacity perhaps...were empowered by its member nations to do otherwise.
The advantages to such an arrangement may not be obvious, but they exist, just as does the law we all follow and the prior constraint it imposes. Contrary to some popular opinion, the law is ordered and rational. It's implications in general are clear, and thus provide a prediction of the future for any who fail to abide by it. That orders society, and it would order the Middle East as well. In the event of such a resolution of the chaos in Israel and the rest of the Levant I would say, this is what you wished for. Now be careful because you've to it.
Your friend,
Mike
President Biden's enjoinders to others about intervening in the hostilities in the Gaza Strip and Israel seem gratuitous to me. In fact, they seem more like dares to intervene than exhortations to keep away. We're finally out of Afghanistan, and barely present in Iraq, and here is our president mixing in the affairs of another ally that to many are of dubious rectitude to begin with. I have no problem with The President ordering an aircraft carrier to the Mediterranean out of apprehension of potential necessity, but he could have done it and said nothing to anyone but Israel and accomplished the desired security goal. It would be different if the moral lines being drawn relative to the conflict were crystal clear, but they are not, and the domestic news coverage as well as the public reaction around the world definitely indicate that the world is of two minds on that point. I would have preferred that Biden predicate his public reaction to the conflict taking that ambivalence into account in the privacy of his own thoughts rather than potentially inviting adventurism among Israel's and our adversaries by exhorting them not to intervene. But that die is cast, and the question now is how to proceed with ensuring the perdurability of the Jewish state without inviting a threat to it, but doing even that with the dubiety of Israel's continuing local imperialism in mind.
I think we should acknowledge that the international community and the laws of international conduct do not comport with Israel's conduct in what used to be called the Levant. Its continuing suzerainty over the West Bank of the Jordan River and the Gaza Strip with settlement of the West Bank and control of the area's utilities, tax revenues and such, along with the isolation and effective dominion over the Gaza Strip render Israel ripe for adamant criticism universally. The current reactionary political control of Israeli politics by Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud Party, wrapped in the putative biblical sanctimony inspired by Menachem Begin's wishful claim that "Samaria and Judea" belonged to Israel by dint of historical events millennia ago, stamp the effective imprimatur of Israeli expansionism on the forehead of every citizen of Israel, or at least the Jews among them. Likud's perspective is the equivalent of a claim that Manhattan belongs by right to the Lenape Tribe because they occupied the area before the Dutch East India Company bought it from them. Both areas have changed hands by dint of history, the Levant several times, and the practical reality is that both claims are nothing but casuistry in light of the realities, and President Biden should make that reality the predicate for everything he discusses with Netanyahu when he sees him over the next day or two. Warning the world not to intervene is folly.
Were I in a position to do so, I would propose to Netanyahu what President emeritus Obama did: that Israel and the world recognize a Palestinian state comprising "The West Bank" and Gaza with a corridor through the Sinai desert linking the two areas. That corridor could be territory of Palestine or if that is disagreeable, an internationally monitored strip of neutral territory sufficient to accommodate transportation of people and goods by rail, car and truck. But I would warn the Palestinian authorities in advance. With sovereignty comes responsibility. So if organizations like Hamas and Hezbolah commit acts of war, Palestinian should expect just deserts. And to encourage Israel to accept these terms of creation of a Palestinian state, it should be advised likewise.
The purpose of such a two state solution would be to give everyone notice of what the future of the area entails: peace with consequences for disturbing such. There would be no exogenous imperatives involved, leaving both sides to their own devices unless a neutral body...the UN in a peace keeping capacity perhaps...were empowered by its member nations to do otherwise.
The advantages to such an arrangement may not be obvious, but they exist, just as does the law we all follow and the prior constraint it imposes. Contrary to some popular opinion, the law is ordered and rational. It's implications in general are clear, and thus provide a prediction of the future for any who fail to abide by it. That orders society, and it would order the Middle East as well. In the event of such a resolution of the chaos in Israel and the rest of the Levant I would say, this is what you wished for. Now be careful because you've to it.
Your friend,
Mike
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