There seems to be some confusion over why the Israelis should be so hostile to President Obama's suggestion that the two-state solution be achieved by returning the Jewish state to its 1967 borders. The President's supporters argue that since these borders were previously acceptable to Israel, they should be acceptable now. After all, pre-1967 Israel fought to defend those borders and they were on the table in the 2000 peace talks. Can 45 years make that much of a difference?
It is true that 45 years is not so very long in terms of the territorial integrity of the United States. We might even prefer to return to the 1967 context in which our borders were much less challenging than they are today. But what Mr. Obama seems to fail to understand is that 45 years is a very long time for Israel. While the history of the Israeli people stretches back millennia, lsrael itself has only existed for 63 years. What the President is asking is that more than 70% of that history be erased, beginning with the reasons it was deemed necessary to annex the territories in 1967, and continuing on through the failed diplomatic initiatives, UN humiliations and relentless, deadly terrorist attacks of the past decades (including the last one, as Jeff Emanuel discussed yesterday). While some have considered Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's terse response to this proposal disrespectful of the President, Mr. Netanyahu might have some very real concerns that once three-quarters of Israel's past has been eradicated, would it be all that outlandish to go all the way to pre-1948? Especially under the leadership of an American president who is asking the Israelis to make this concession on the dubious grounds that "hope" will overcome "hate"?
Mr. Obama justified his pre-1967 proposal yesterday by declaring "[t]he dream of a Jewish and democratic state cannot be fulfilled with permanent occupation." While rhetorically it sounded nice and cleverly recalled Martin Luther King's iconic speech, the choice of the word "dream" to describe a sovereign state was a curious one. Perhaps for our President Israel is still an abstract phantasm that might or might not exist, but for others it has been a reality for the last 63 years. Israel has the right to all of its history, and all of its territory.
Friday, May 20, 2011
Monday, May 16, 2011
The Silver Lining to L'Affair DSK
The abrupt arrest of IMF acting head Dominique Strauss-Kahn on charges of sexual assault against an employee at the New York hotel where he was staying are being treated as shocking in France. This is a "coup de tonnerre," a bolt from the blue, not to mention a body blow to the socialist party he was to represent in the upcoming elections. Everyone in Paris claims to be amazed, shaken--and doing some soul searching this Monday morning.
Very few, however, are protesting "DSK"'s innocence. But if the news really came as such a jarring surprise, shouldn't there be a clamour of disbelief? The shameful fact is that this news was not so much a shock as a long time coming.
In 2006, French journalists Christophe Deloire and Christophe Dubois wrote a book called Sexus Politicus about the colorful sexual lives of French politicians. While the American press tended to focus on the revelations about politicians of whom they had heard (Chirac, Mitterand, Sarkozy), the book also contained a chapter on risky, aggressive sexual behavior--titled "L'Affair DSK." As Mr. Deloire wrote in today's Le Monde, the media's strange code of silence about sexual abuse at the high levels of government may well have permitted, if not enabled, DSK's most recent offense. Egregiously, this book was published the year before Strauss-Kahn became head of the IMF--the year he was accused of rape by French journalist Tristane Banon who just happened to be Strauss-Kahn's wife's goddaughter, not to mention 30 years his junior (the French police declined to press charges in 2007, but may reconsider now). Less than 12 months later, DSK was back in the news, this time for having an affair with IMF subordinate Paula Nagy, in the course of which he abused his official position, as he later admitted.
2006-07 also happened to be the period that saw the moralizing witch hunt of Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank over claimed favoritism that advanced the career of his companion, Shaha Ali Riza (claims that the World Bank itself found without merit, but no matter, Mr. Wolfowitz still had to resign). The discrepancies between the treatment of Mr. Wolfowitz and DSK were noted at the time, but DSK kept his job and continued his activities unimpeded by the moral and legal issues constraining the behavior of lesser mortals--and why shouldn't he? Clearly he was well above the law.
Until Saturday night, that is, when DSK found himself not up against the complaint authorities of more sophisticated nations that turn a blind eye to such escapades, and instead at the mercy of the NYPD. Even though DSK's most recent victim was yet another young woman many years his junior in a comparatively weak position, she found solace in the law. For his part, DSK is entitled under that same law to the presumption of innocence as the case unfolds but at the very least it is time to stop calling Strauss-Kahn by the Casanova-like title of "le grand séducteur" and instead understand him, as Ms. Banon declared, as "a rutting chimpanze."
If there is a silver lining to this sordid episode, it is that l'affair DSK provides an opportunity to shine a harsh light on the tacit condonement of sexual abuse in the world's theoretically-charitable institutions ranging from the U.N. to the Peace Corps. While the vast majority of the victims have suffered in anonymous silence, DSK can provide a very famous face and ample publicity to this dirty little secret that has been kept for far too long--and if this case can force some much-needed reform and accounability then Strauss-Kahn may finally do some good, however unwillingly.
Very few, however, are protesting "DSK"'s innocence. But if the news really came as such a jarring surprise, shouldn't there be a clamour of disbelief? The shameful fact is that this news was not so much a shock as a long time coming.
In 2006, French journalists Christophe Deloire and Christophe Dubois wrote a book called Sexus Politicus about the colorful sexual lives of French politicians. While the American press tended to focus on the revelations about politicians of whom they had heard (Chirac, Mitterand, Sarkozy), the book also contained a chapter on risky, aggressive sexual behavior--titled "L'Affair DSK." As Mr. Deloire wrote in today's Le Monde, the media's strange code of silence about sexual abuse at the high levels of government may well have permitted, if not enabled, DSK's most recent offense. Egregiously, this book was published the year before Strauss-Kahn became head of the IMF--the year he was accused of rape by French journalist Tristane Banon who just happened to be Strauss-Kahn's wife's goddaughter, not to mention 30 years his junior (the French police declined to press charges in 2007, but may reconsider now). Less than 12 months later, DSK was back in the news, this time for having an affair with IMF subordinate Paula Nagy, in the course of which he abused his official position, as he later admitted.
2006-07 also happened to be the period that saw the moralizing witch hunt of Paul Wolfowitz at the World Bank over claimed favoritism that advanced the career of his companion, Shaha Ali Riza (claims that the World Bank itself found without merit, but no matter, Mr. Wolfowitz still had to resign). The discrepancies between the treatment of Mr. Wolfowitz and DSK were noted at the time, but DSK kept his job and continued his activities unimpeded by the moral and legal issues constraining the behavior of lesser mortals--and why shouldn't he? Clearly he was well above the law.
Until Saturday night, that is, when DSK found himself not up against the complaint authorities of more sophisticated nations that turn a blind eye to such escapades, and instead at the mercy of the NYPD. Even though DSK's most recent victim was yet another young woman many years his junior in a comparatively weak position, she found solace in the law. For his part, DSK is entitled under that same law to the presumption of innocence as the case unfolds but at the very least it is time to stop calling Strauss-Kahn by the Casanova-like title of "le grand séducteur" and instead understand him, as Ms. Banon declared, as "a rutting chimpanze."
If there is a silver lining to this sordid episode, it is that l'affair DSK provides an opportunity to shine a harsh light on the tacit condonement of sexual abuse in the world's theoretically-charitable institutions ranging from the U.N. to the Peace Corps. While the vast majority of the victims have suffered in anonymous silence, DSK can provide a very famous face and ample publicity to this dirty little secret that has been kept for far too long--and if this case can force some much-needed reform and accounability then Strauss-Kahn may finally do some good, however unwillingly.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Congratulations, Israel, on 63 years
63 years ago, Israel was established, giving the Jewish people their own state. Over the ensuing decades the tiny country has been attacked with everything from sticks and stones in its own sovereign territory to words in the hallowed halls of the United Nations. Through a combination of ceaseless vigilance and sheer faith the people of Israel have persevered in the face of relentless bombardment of hard and soft bigotry--not to mention rockets--and not only persevered but prospered.
Israel has achieved amazing things given its small size and precarious location. Its hulking neighbors, notably oil-rich Iran, seem poised to swallow it up--yet Iran is the one facing unemployment and popular discontent. Israel on the other hand is open for business, boasting an advanced and prosperous industrial economy that welcomes international investment despite security concerns. Furthermore, Israel is notably helpful in the region, doing good deeds such as striking Iraq and Syria's nascent nuclear programs. Some see our friendship with Israel as a one-way street and advocate cutting aid, but we might find ourselves feeling surprisingly lonely if we pursued that short-sighted policy.
While we contemplate the so-called "Arab spring" with all its exciting promises of spreading democracy, we would do well to remember the free state that has been our good friend for these many years. While the President may take this opportunity to chide the Israelis about achieving a "two-state solution" and sharing their "peace, prosperity and dignity" with "all the people of the region," I prefer Senator Marco Rubio's suggestion that we mark the occasion by remembering that "we must always support [Israel's] right to secure and defend its territory and people."
I join Senator Rubio in wishing joyful and blessed Yom Ha’atzmaut to all our friends in Israel.
Israel has achieved amazing things given its small size and precarious location. Its hulking neighbors, notably oil-rich Iran, seem poised to swallow it up--yet Iran is the one facing unemployment and popular discontent. Israel on the other hand is open for business, boasting an advanced and prosperous industrial economy that welcomes international investment despite security concerns. Furthermore, Israel is notably helpful in the region, doing good deeds such as striking Iraq and Syria's nascent nuclear programs. Some see our friendship with Israel as a one-way street and advocate cutting aid, but we might find ourselves feeling surprisingly lonely if we pursued that short-sighted policy.
While we contemplate the so-called "Arab spring" with all its exciting promises of spreading democracy, we would do well to remember the free state that has been our good friend for these many years. While the President may take this opportunity to chide the Israelis about achieving a "two-state solution" and sharing their "peace, prosperity and dignity" with "all the people of the region," I prefer Senator Marco Rubio's suggestion that we mark the occasion by remembering that "we must always support [Israel's] right to secure and defend its territory and people."
I join Senator Rubio in wishing joyful and blessed Yom Ha’atzmaut to all our friends in Israel.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Some thoughts on inheritance
"Inheritance" is a neutral word--it can be bad and good depending on the circumstance. You dont get to pick what you get any more than you can pick your parents. On the one hand, you have things like photo albumns and trusts funds. On the other you have the lasting repercussions of bad behavior, the sins of the father if you will, that can reach down across generations. Most of us inherit a combination of the two from our predecessors, hopefully with more of the former than the
This construct applies to presidents as well. You begin the job basically beholden to your predecessor, who has created the circumstances under which you have to try to do your job. Indeed, your first year is in many ways the political equivalent of adolescence, as you try to break away from the existing model and establish your own identity. This process can be particularly dramatic when you have successive presidents of opposing political parties.
So we have seen President Obama rebel against the Bush administration legacy throughout both his campaign and his first twenty-seven months in office. Calling attention to his inherited burdens, particularly at home but also abroad, has been a constant refrain in Obama's rhetoric, an inevitable codicil to any policy announcement. To date, these references have been exclusively negative and pejorative, and to be honest many Americans suffering from an extended economic downturn and weary of the lengthy foreign wars have tended to accept these statements at face value.
The events of the last five days strongly suggest that there was something else in that heritage, something of great and lasting value even if it was shrouded and reviled like some ugly and unwanted family object foisted on a new generation with no taste for such things. In this case, rather than a breakfront or silver service we are talking about detention operations in the global war on terror, that impossibly difficult but unavoidable challenge President Bush and his administration confronted in the years after 9/11.
Those who grappled with this issue have been the most reviled of the previous administration. While Treasury Secretaries and budget directors go largely unreviled, anyone who had to deal with detainees, their capture, incarceration and interrogation, have been roundly attacked as at best ignorant and parochial, and at worst eager to torment innocents in a dark campaign to subvert our most precious values, our true jewels of civil liberties. Compared to the worst monsters in history--i.e. Pol Pot, the Nazis--they have had few defenders as it has seemed a losing battle to try to argue for what has been widely accepted as "torture", a corrupt and defunct practice. It has been so easy to disavow these activites, perhaps with the caveat that such things might have seemed necessary in the early days after 9/11 when we feared another attack, but that attack didn't come and even if we dont utterly condemn, we know better.
Now that our most deadly enemy rests with the fishes thanks to the intelligence gathered from those detainees, a welcome development removing both a real and present security threat and a painful shared psychological burden, these policies emerge in a different light. Rather than a shameful inheritance, they have been a gift, painstakingly crafted behind layers of classification and legal necessity. As time and events peel those layers away like so many layers of tarnish, we might want to be prepared for more unexpected revelations that make the easy poses of moral superiority that have been so fashionable over the past seven years increasingly uncomfortable and difficult to defend.
While it is naive to expect President Obama will overtly acknowledge this heritage either today at Ground Zero or at anytime in the coming election season, we can hope that his actions will speak more loudly than his words. As he has recognized the necessity of the DoD dentention facility at Guantanamo he may now understand the necessity of those CIA interrogators who are still under investigation for the very practices that ultimately got Osama bin Laden. Perhaps today when he stands where his predecessor stood in those terrible days after the 9/11 attacks he will understand what he has truly inherited.
This construct applies to presidents as well. You begin the job basically beholden to your predecessor, who has created the circumstances under which you have to try to do your job. Indeed, your first year is in many ways the political equivalent of adolescence, as you try to break away from the existing model and establish your own identity. This process can be particularly dramatic when you have successive presidents of opposing political parties.
So we have seen President Obama rebel against the Bush administration legacy throughout both his campaign and his first twenty-seven months in office. Calling attention to his inherited burdens, particularly at home but also abroad, has been a constant refrain in Obama's rhetoric, an inevitable codicil to any policy announcement. To date, these references have been exclusively negative and pejorative, and to be honest many Americans suffering from an extended economic downturn and weary of the lengthy foreign wars have tended to accept these statements at face value.
The events of the last five days strongly suggest that there was something else in that heritage, something of great and lasting value even if it was shrouded and reviled like some ugly and unwanted family object foisted on a new generation with no taste for such things. In this case, rather than a breakfront or silver service we are talking about detention operations in the global war on terror, that impossibly difficult but unavoidable challenge President Bush and his administration confronted in the years after 9/11.
Those who grappled with this issue have been the most reviled of the previous administration. While Treasury Secretaries and budget directors go largely unreviled, anyone who had to deal with detainees, their capture, incarceration and interrogation, have been roundly attacked as at best ignorant and parochial, and at worst eager to torment innocents in a dark campaign to subvert our most precious values, our true jewels of civil liberties. Compared to the worst monsters in history--i.e. Pol Pot, the Nazis--they have had few defenders as it has seemed a losing battle to try to argue for what has been widely accepted as "torture", a corrupt and defunct practice. It has been so easy to disavow these activites, perhaps with the caveat that such things might have seemed necessary in the early days after 9/11 when we feared another attack, but that attack didn't come and even if we dont utterly condemn, we know better.
Now that our most deadly enemy rests with the fishes thanks to the intelligence gathered from those detainees, a welcome development removing both a real and present security threat and a painful shared psychological burden, these policies emerge in a different light. Rather than a shameful inheritance, they have been a gift, painstakingly crafted behind layers of classification and legal necessity. As time and events peel those layers away like so many layers of tarnish, we might want to be prepared for more unexpected revelations that make the easy poses of moral superiority that have been so fashionable over the past seven years increasingly uncomfortable and difficult to defend.
While it is naive to expect President Obama will overtly acknowledge this heritage either today at Ground Zero or at anytime in the coming election season, we can hope that his actions will speak more loudly than his words. As he has recognized the necessity of the DoD dentention facility at Guantanamo he may now understand the necessity of those CIA interrogators who are still under investigation for the very practices that ultimately got Osama bin Laden. Perhaps today when he stands where his predecessor stood in those terrible days after the 9/11 attacks he will understand what he has truly inherited.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Osama's Image
via John Koblin (@koblin), we have a new Time cover, to be published on a special Osama bin Laden issue due out Thursday. It is a remarkable contrast to the Time cover from almost a decade ago.
Notice how the now-deceased Osama has been transformed from the intent, active terrorist-in-motion of 2001 into a smooth impassive icon. Except for the glaring, dripping red X he could almost be a work of art. In fact, it seems Time's editors had a work of art in mind.
Head of an Akkadian ruler, from Nineveh, 2300-2200 BC. Bronze, 12ins high. National Museum, Baghdad.
While the Head and the second Time cover are readily recognizable as individuals, they also are idealized using the same devices such as preternaturally smooth skin, crown-like turbans and stylized beards. They have both also been ritually defaced in a manner that would be immediately recognized by their contemporary audiences. Time opted for the simple but effective red X, while the denizens of the Ancient Near East took the process a step farther. The Head was ripped from its body, had its eyes gauged out with a blunt instrument, and was buried in a garbage pit--what you might call the full SEAL treatment for the time.
Four millenia have removed any memory of the Akkadian ruler's personality. We don't know his name, let alone if he were a murdering monster like Osama or a fallen hero unjustly deposed and despoiled. Yet this haunting image of endures to inform Time's visualization of the dead Osama, making me wonder what viewers--if any--4,000 years hence will make of that magazine cover.
Notice how the now-deceased Osama has been transformed from the intent, active terrorist-in-motion of 2001 into a smooth impassive icon. Except for the glaring, dripping red X he could almost be a work of art. In fact, it seems Time's editors had a work of art in mind.
Head of an Akkadian ruler, from Nineveh, 2300-2200 BC. Bronze, 12ins high. National Museum, Baghdad.
While the Head and the second Time cover are readily recognizable as individuals, they also are idealized using the same devices such as preternaturally smooth skin, crown-like turbans and stylized beards. They have both also been ritually defaced in a manner that would be immediately recognized by their contemporary audiences. Time opted for the simple but effective red X, while the denizens of the Ancient Near East took the process a step farther. The Head was ripped from its body, had its eyes gauged out with a blunt instrument, and was buried in a garbage pit--what you might call the full SEAL treatment for the time.
Four millenia have removed any memory of the Akkadian ruler's personality. We don't know his name, let alone if he were a murdering monster like Osama or a fallen hero unjustly deposed and despoiled. Yet this haunting image of endures to inform Time's visualization of the dead Osama, making me wonder what viewers--if any--4,000 years hence will make of that magazine cover.
Today, They Should Hear All Of Us
The news of Osama bin Laden's demise has been a long time coming--so long in fact that it has taken some hours to sink in and become real. A decade can be a long time when you are grieving and angry and needful of closure. The scenes of jubilation that spread from ballpark to subway to the White House seemed like a movie in the wee hours of this morning, and while others will opine on the details of today's momentous event, I find myself reflecting on the road that brought us here.
The seemingly endless--and hopeless--search for OBL had threatened to become our nation's Moby Dick, an obsessive quest that destroys not only the prey but also the predator. Our collective unresolved need to "get" the man who ordered those planes to fly into our buildings quickly became a cancer that turned citizen against citizen, and provoked some of the harshest partisanship I have witnessed.
But now we have OBL, and it is an opportunity for us to prove ourselves as Americans. For those of us on the right, we should simply thank God for a CIA Director who took the time to develop the appropriate plan, a Secretary of Defense who lent him sufficient man and firepower, and a President who was decisive enough to pull the trigger at the right moment. This sort of leadership should not be parsed or resented. For their part, our fellow citizens on the left might consider giving up the relentless drumbeat of "war crimes" for those who did so much of the long and lonely work to make this possible. Even with the so-called "harsh" interrogation techniques used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, it took years to put together the pieces. How many regret those techniques this morning, or that we had Guantanamo to house KSM and his colleagues for further reference?
If we on both sides can make these respective leaps we will truly have killed our white whale, and not annihilated ourselves in the process. This is not to say that we will be singing kumbaya together over the debt ceiling tomorrow, nor should we. But we will have met a great challenge, as so many generations of Americans have done, together. While the war may not be over, that would be a tremendous victory, and Osama bin Laden's ultimate defeat.
The seemingly endless--and hopeless--search for OBL had threatened to become our nation's Moby Dick, an obsessive quest that destroys not only the prey but also the predator. Our collective unresolved need to "get" the man who ordered those planes to fly into our buildings quickly became a cancer that turned citizen against citizen, and provoked some of the harshest partisanship I have witnessed.
But now we have OBL, and it is an opportunity for us to prove ourselves as Americans. For those of us on the right, we should simply thank God for a CIA Director who took the time to develop the appropriate plan, a Secretary of Defense who lent him sufficient man and firepower, and a President who was decisive enough to pull the trigger at the right moment. This sort of leadership should not be parsed or resented. For their part, our fellow citizens on the left might consider giving up the relentless drumbeat of "war crimes" for those who did so much of the long and lonely work to make this possible. Even with the so-called "harsh" interrogation techniques used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, it took years to put together the pieces. How many regret those techniques this morning, or that we had Guantanamo to house KSM and his colleagues for further reference?
If we on both sides can make these respective leaps we will truly have killed our white whale, and not annihilated ourselves in the process. This is not to say that we will be singing kumbaya together over the debt ceiling tomorrow, nor should we. But we will have met a great challenge, as so many generations of Americans have done, together. While the war may not be over, that would be a tremendous victory, and Osama bin Laden's ultimate defeat.
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