From now on I will claim to be interested in ending the US War in Iraq. To make a show of this I will assert that it is imperative that Americans and Iraqis listen to a lot of soothing music. In fact I will go further and claim that only by listening to a lot of soothing music is the end of war possible. However I will concede that I do not really know how to make many of them listen to soothing music.
This will be useful in different ways. It will enable me to seem interested in ending the war as soon as I think it possible without having to actually speak out against the occupation. It will serve to say that no more effective means to achieve peace than promoting soothing music exist. It will serve to condition peace on listening to a lot of soothing music. It will serve to put off ending the war into a vague future in which soothing music will be listened to.
Markets can make a contribution, sure. But that is not the same argument as the argument that only through markets can there be a solution. The latter argument means that there is no solution other than the free markets. But there is - an end to occupation.
It serves to eliminate a clear and desirable way of ending the war from being considered. It serves to signal hopelessnes, and tries to have people not bother doing something that is much more effective - building up the pressure to settle the thing in the present.
Obviously if I managed to convince opponents of the war in Iraq to instead of calling for an end of occupation to call for all involved to listen to a lot of soothing music I would be making the Pentagon very happy. Or if I convinced them to talk a lot about free markets.
Let me ask for an Israeli opinion than: would you agree with giving every community in the right of referendum on whether they want to be part of or not?
How much do the Israelis spend maintaining their sophisticated military year after year to defend themselves against some of the poorest people in the world? Surely it would be cheaper to bribe their “enemies” into submission?
The massive Israeli military is not for defense purposes – nukes are for that – but because you just can scale back such a huge military establishment anymore.
“From now on I will claim to be interested in ending the US War in Iraq. To make a show of this I will assert that it is imperative that Americans and Iraqis listen to a lot of soothing music. In fact I will go further and claim that only by listening to a lot of soothing music is the end of war possible. However I will concede that I do not really know how to make many of them listen to soothing music.”
That’s dumb…Once again your analogies arent exactly fitting.
And listen even if the Israeli’s decide to end occupation, let people in, stop choke on gaza, that can only be a peaceful process if it happens through volentary exchange. Otherwise you have the Israeli government forcing its own people to do what they otherwise wouldn’t. I’m not sure why you think you are in some huge debate or that you are proving a demonstrative point.
All you are saying is that we have to sit and wait for the occupation to end, but when, someday if it ends we know what to do to make it the simplest…which is symmetrically undo what has been done…No shit.
But what do we do in the meantime? Not educate? I’m sure you know the history of the area. People in Gaza and the West Bank would still fight with Israel even if the Israeli’s left the occupied zones. There is a long history of demands being met and violence occuring anyways (both sides guilty). There is never really definitive list of demands. But that just gets to the bigger beef the rest of the region has, which is the fact that Israel is even a state. We talk about the occupation like its only the areas from after 1967, but they talk about the occupation as Israel itsself.
There is nothing “broad” about giving people back their property. It is only practically unrealistic in Palestine because of people who are dragging their feet and do not want to make it possible.
You missed my point. Of course there should be the establishment of a property rights regime in Palestine. Creating a Palestinian state, though, is not a guarantee of the establishment of a property rights regime. Respect of property rights, in the individualistic sense, depends as much on the local Palestinian authority as it does on Israel. My comment argued that I didn’t know what specific plan could lead towards a state of being in Palestine that incorporated a respect for private property. But, a free market infers private property rights, and so that was never in question.
And, my “concern” for the Palestinian people isn’t disingenious, because I have no concern whatsoever. What is disingenious is an attempt to compare the situation between Israeli Jews and Palestinians to Soviet Russia or the present sitation between the United States and Iraq. We’re talking about two opposing governments (not people living under the same oppressive government) and a full Israeli “withdrawal” from the Middle East is not a realistic expectation (neither would an Israeli withdrawal to 1967 borders create peace).
I don’t know who obamo thinks he is, king of the world perhaps ?
Who is he to judge other nations, he speaks about the other nations as if his nation is a beacon of a free society. But yet a significant percentage of his population thinks that the media is non sense, that the police are totalitarian and the ever growing government is getting less and less democratic and more and more fascist.
What has the USA got to do with Israel and what has Israel got to do with the USA or any other nation. If Israel want to engage in geo-political warfare, then that is their own risk and undertaking.
“If Israel want to engage in geo-political warfare”
That would be a treat. Isreal would wipe the floor with all the other countries. No one has any idea how much of a threat these muslim armies actually are, because they are some of the most poorly managed and probably the worst in the world(which makes the threat very little).
It’s always nice to promote peaceful solutions though, forcing on the other hand can start wars.
Are you in favour of the right to return? Should the Palestianians who fled their homes in the 1940s be allowed to come back and have their property titles recognised by the Israeli state?
The main problem I see in this mess is how the palestinians have alineated themselves from the market. I mean, Israel has a lot of top notch companies and a big know-how of commerce and such.
So, I fear that when the palestinians finally have their state, they will isolate themselves from israeli companies while the other arab countries will consider the mission acomplished and stop giving free money to them. Palestine would quickly sink in poverty and internal wars for political power and many of the folks would emigrate to Israel and the cycle restarts…
lol yeah I’m from the USA. But I’m not proud of him being king of the world, that just seems to be the case. Every nation has been bowing to their might. Even when countries like Russia or China oppose certain UN resolutions, they don’t dare veto them.
I doubt palestine if created into a state would suddenly be an economic powerhouse by any means- but at the same time theres no way it couldn’t be better than being in the situation they are in now. There is no life to live. If people would start to emigrate to israel or wherever else to earn money, surely they’d send the money back to their family in Palestine.
What a surprise Obama wrote a check that he couldn’t cash.
Obama: “67 borders”
Ben: “no.”
Obama: “…”
Back to square one.
Meanwhile Fox News is all 'he’s the new neville chamberlain." Both seem to think anything actually just happened. Which it didn’t.
There is no continuity between what “the US considers the borders.” That is stupid. Bush had his own ideas (what exactly, I don’t know). If Sarah Palin becomes president, Jesusland will have totally different ‘appropriate’ borders than what Obama said. It’s probably possible that Palestine will become a state under one president. And then another president will say “nope” and then just go back to Israel. Just like presidents decide on budgets past their own term limit.
