Click here (ChristianScienceMonitor) for just one of many takes on the Republican Presidential candidate's comments about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict...
Beyond the partisan-election hype, what (if any) aspects of these comments do you find persuasive? What (if any) do you find misguided? How much power can/does/should the USA exercise regarding this conflict?
6 comments:
Metaphysics, the queen of the sciences is pretty much beside the point these days, consigned to the dustbin of philosopher poets and moon-gazers. But unfortunately it underlies everything. If you think facts trump religion in current events, then you’ve missed the boat. Particularly in the Middle East:
Let me start with three statements on the status of metaphysics from Aristotle, Dostoevski, Solzhenitsyn and Ludwig Wittgenstein respectively (forgive me–I’m too lazy to do citations):
Let’s begin with Aristotle, originator of the term (anybody know the derivation of the word ‘metaphysics’?), who said that metaphysics is the most useless of all intellectual endeavors but also the most necessary and important since it inquiries about the very foundations of reality.
Now Dostoevski, who said that reality is far more bizarre than fiction and that if God is indeed dead, then ten millions Russian would die too.
Which brings us to Solzhenitsyn, who in his Gulag Archipelago vindicated Dostoevski’s predictions by documenting the horrors of Marxism and atheism. Russians take literature seriously.
Let’s conclude with Wittgenstein’s cryptic remark in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, p74, the last two lines of a work which is famous for it’s impenetrable obscurity: “He must transcend these propositions, and then he will see the world aright. What we cannot speak of we must pass over in silence.”
Which is an odd statement coming from Wittgenstein because he was a devout Catholic.
In Caplan’s Israel/Palestine Conflict we are given all the discernable facts (as opposed to the indiscernible facts which “we must pass over in silence”) as well as the narratives (religious as well as secular) which motivate and justify the various participants in the conflict. They irony here is that it’s the indiscernible facts (metaphysics) which for the last two decades have supplied
the motivation and justification for the actors in the conflict. Islam and Christendom have been at it for fourteen centuries; this animosity between the two “great” religions have been festering away for a long, long time; all it takes is a mere spark to reignite the conflagration, as the recent events testify. Obama’s policy of appeasement has not worked but has only made the avoidable more inevitable.
Experience has taught us that when Israel feels secure Israel makes concessions. Israel does not feel secure now with Obama “watching its back”. Who would? The only way to avoid war is an unmistakable demonstration of the US resolve to guarantee Israel’s security, convincing the Islamist factions that any attack on Israel would be devastating to them.
Remember, the smart money in the nineteenth century said that religion was supposed die out in the twentieth on account of neglect. The funny thing about all the secularism and practical atheist stuff, the exclusion of the G–d narrative from the public sphere and its exclusion from the Middle Eastern debate because metaphysics is all-pie-the-sky and should be passed over in silence, at least in polite circles, is that at the end of the day it might be the only narrative in town.
Another joke is in order:
Picture a men’s public restroom with urinals and all that stuff. On the wall for all to see is graffiti. The first reads: G-d is dead, dated and signed Nietzsche, 1900. The second, right below the first, says: Nietzsche is dead. God, 1901.
Mitt Romney is certainly right in his describing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a 'thorny' issue, particularly considering what would happen if a theoretical state of Palestine shared its borders and air traffic with nations who harbor people with violent intentions towards Israel -- how would Israel monitor and police other nations' borders and customs? Obviously, it could not if it made any claims of respecting the sovereignty of a Palestinian state, which I assume any such potential state would demand. So he's thoughtful there, at least. A thorny issue for sure.
That said, Mr. Romney makes an outrageous generalization in his assertion that "no Palestinians want two states." I daresay this isn't true. Even if it's true that a majority don't want a two state solution, it's disgraceful of Mitt Romney to ascribe this opinion to the whole of the Palestinian people; to ignore the vey existence of all those who desire and struggle for a peaceful settlement with Israel seems to me a fine way of ensuring that no such peaceful agreement ever has a chance of happening. Irresponsible and unacceptable.
I think the best use of the United State's influence/power right now is to firmly encourage Israel to stop it's settlers from encroaching into Palestine. Reading the article, it seems to me that at this moment the ball is firmly in Israel's court when it comes to the peace process. For the state of Israel to order Israeli settlement to cease and to exercise a strict hand in removing the current settlers and reestablishing them elsewhere would be a positive step, I think. U.S. influence may help sway Israel to do this; it seems to me to be the only logical course of action right now.
-Nate
(Edit) I misquoted Romney in implying he said that "no Palestinians want two states." What I should have said is that he stated: "the Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in establishing peace." Still a dismissive generality, anyway.
-Nate
A powder-keg of an issue, no doubt. Nate, you nicely capture the conundrum (faced by Mitt, and many others over the years) of being able to recognize and acknowledge the thorny complexity of the conflict, yet not being able to say too much more of substance without effectively 'taking sides' (or being accused of it).
Ben, a question your reflections bring up for me is whether 'the past is prologue' regarding Israeli policies and actions toward the Occupied Territories. Calmer times have indeed led to more peaceful relations in the past... but has the political (and, perhaps, religious) calculus since shifted? I'm thinking about (for instance) the Israeli ultra-religious right and Palestinian Islamist radicals. Are concessions by the other side now viewed as signs of weakness, and as inevitable victory for one's own side? Has Israel/Palestine indeed become a zero-sum 'game'??
pdk
Response to PDQ: I’m inclined towards the Haredim on this one! I wouldn’t presume to know the solution; everyone elses’ solution has gone down like a lead balloon. Let Hashem work it out! Impossible situations are His department.
The Bible is chockfull of references to references to a great in-gathering of the Jews and the messianic age when all Israel will return to eretz yisrael and live in peace. For the last two millennia the consensus among Christian sects has been that Israel rejected the Messiah in the person of Jesus, thereby voiding the covenantal relationship, and Christians became the inheritors of the covenantal promise, i.e. the People of God and children of Abraham. But if one reads the Nevi’im one gets the sense that the covenantal promises are fulfilled on to levels; on one level directed to the universalized children of Abraham, the Church; on another level to the children of Abraham according to the flesh, that is, the Jews.
Here we have the religious narrative. Metaphysics and final ends, despite our best efforts to confine the conversation to the facts which we all agree upon, have a way of intruding themselves into the conversation.
We live in amazing times in which reality outstrips the wildest imagination. What one reads in the Bible before one goes to sleep one reads the following day in the morning news. Metaphysical narratives intrude despite our best efforts to keep them out.
There are six million Jews living in Israel, most of them speaking Hebrew. After being dispersed for two thousand years to the four corners of the earth an ancient people is gathered in and re-established again in their ancient homeland. A language which has been moribund for two thousand years, existing only as a liturgical and holy language, is raised from the dead and becomes the spoken language of a new nation. It is true that this can all be attributed to human effort; nevertheless, it is still miraculous (if you accept the premise that grace builds upon nature).
As Tolstoy demonstrated in his historical essay at the tail-end of War and Peace, God’s will is worked out in history despite man’s attempt to thwart it. Now who would have the arrogance to place a hundred and fifty page treatise at the end of a fourteen hundred page novel and expect anyone to read it? That is positively Obamaesque in its presumption.
לָמָּה, רָגְשׁוּ גוֹיִם; וּלְאֻמִּים, יֶהְגּוּ-רִיק.
יוֹשֵׁב בַּשָּׁמַיִם יִשְׂחָק: אֲדֹנָי, יִלְעַג-לָמוֹ.
Being a hardcore, powerful ally of Israel, it's hard for the US to acknowledge the existance of Other countries or peoples with which we have no affiliation. It would be political suicide if a politicion in the US tried to help out an enemy of Israel (Palestinians) or any other of our allys enemies, so everyone is afraid to help make progress of peace/reconciliation in the region.
-Shaun
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