A Brief Scent of Reason

Pack journalism is a real problem in the western world. Too often our newspapers' take on stories sounds and is almost identical. We are fortunate that the internet allows us to go to other sources, online editions of papers from other countries. That gives us a chance to see what they're actually thinking, not just what our reporters tell us they're thinking.

I found a terrific piece by Evan Goldstein in the latest edition of Haaretz.com, an Israeli paper, on the on the importance of free speech and tolerance of dissent to Israel's survival:

"Writing in the influential New York Review of Books, [celebrated historian, Tony] Judt argued that we have moved beyond the parochial notion that the nation-state is the locus of political life. Harder words followed. He proceeded to declare the very idea of a Jewish state as hopelessly "rooted in another time and place." As Judt describes it, the transnational ethos of our age demands that Jews, once again, invest their trust in the collective humanity of civilization (and, more specifically, in the political competence and decency of Palestinians).

"In a world where nations and peoples increasingly intermingle and intermarry at will; where cultural and national impediments to communication have all but collapsed; where more and more of us have multiple elective identities and would feel falsely constrained if we had to answer to just one of them; in such a world Israel is truly an anachronism. And not just an anachronism but a dysfunctional one."

"The Jews, it seems, were late to the party. But not just late, irremediably late. Judt warned his readers that, "the time has come to think the unthinkable." He sermonized that the troubles between Israelis and Palestinians had but one prudent remedy: binationalism. In a surprise to no one, least of all Judt himself, this exercise in unthinkable thinking touched off a maelstrom of controversy. He was rapidly excised from his perch on the masthead of The New Republic. The conservative pundit David Frum charged Judt with "genocidal liberalism." A "pro-Israel" media watchdog group accused him of "pandering to genocide." But everything was not critical. Writing in The Nation, the leftist critic Daniel Lazare breathlessly rejoiced that "a long-standing taboo has finally begun to fall."

"All of which brings me to page three of the October 9 edition of The Washington Post, which carried an article with the following, cringe-inducing, opening paragraph: "Two major American Jewish organizations helped block a prominent New York University historian from speaking at the Polish consulate [in New York] last week, saying the academic was too critical of Israel and American Jewry."

"The organizations in question are the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Congress. The academic: Tony Judt. The event, titled "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," was organized by an independent nonprofit group that routinely rents space from the Polish consulate in Manhattan. This is a critical distinction. The gathering was not organized nor sanctioned by the government of Poland.

"The ADL denies exerting pressure or issuing threats. Other accounts vary. (The Polish consul general diplomatically claims that the calls were "very elegant but may be interpreted as exercising a delicate pressure.") However delicate the pressure, Abraham Foxman, national director of the ADL, was evidently satisfied enough by the cancellation to remark: "I think they [the Polish consulate] made the right decision. He [Judt] has taken the position that Israel shouldn't exist. That puts him on our radar."

"I am not sure what it means to be on Abe Foxman's radar (nor would I like to find out), but the idea that Tony Judt being denied an audience and a microphone is a positive outcome to this dispute is outrageously stupid and counterproductive. Not only has our public discourse been cheapened, but those that seek to shut Judt up will succeed only in turning him into a free-speech martyr. He should not be silenced, he should be engaged, he should be challenged.

"Somewhere in his writings Leo Strauss remarks that the moment "man abandons the task of raising the question regarding what is right - he abandons his humanity." Questioning, free debate, and diversity of thought are the cornerstones of a decent society. And at least since Spinoza, Jews have benefited from consistent and uncompromising criticism. We - Jews, Israelis, Americans, liberals - must be guarded in defense of these principles."

Wouldn't it be great if only that sentiment, that wisdom took hold and grew.

Meanwhile Al Jazeera had a really informative account by Soumaya Ghannoushi about the decline of the nation state in the Arab world which explains a lot of the turmoil we're confronting today and some realities we may have to accommodate if we're going to stop it:

"The modern state, we should recall, derives its legitimacy from the right to monopolise and use the instruments of organised violence for the purpose of maintaining internal stability and civil peace on the one hand; and securing its borders, or what is conventionally referred to as national sovereignty, on the other.

"Some Arab states have failed on either or both counts. Of these, the worst and most striking has been its impotence to confront external dangers, be it in Syria, Iraq or Lebanon.

"Official failure to provide adequate defence systems and maintain homeland security has generated a vacuum, which is being gradually filled by non-governmental socio-political movements with armed wings. Lebanon and Palestine are two cases in point.

"Increasingly, the Arab public feels that the political system is unfit to respond to the question of destiny and provide the basics for preserving sovereignty. There is a striking dichotomy at the heart of the Arab state.

"While enormously powerful at home, it is pitifully weak in responding to foreign challenges. A number of inter-related factors have converged to produce this odd state of affairs, geopolitical and structural.

"These are largely to do with perpetual interference in the affairs of the Middle East from the Western powers that continue to hold the reins of its fate, with the superiority of Israeli military capabilities propped up and backed by the US and its allies, as well as with the circumstances surrounding the birth of the Arab state itself.

"For Britain and France - just as it is for the United States today - control of the Middle East was important not only because of their interest in the region itself, but because it corroborated their position in the world.

"Not only was the region rich in raw materials, with cotton from Egypt, oil from Iran and Iraq, minerals from the Arab Maghrib (North Africa), it was a vast field of investment, and a route to other continents.

"For Britain, the sea route to India and the Far East ran through the Suez Canal. For France, routes by land, sea and air to French possessions in West and Central Africa passed through the Maghrib.

"Presence in the region strengthened the two countries' position as Mediterranean powers and world powers. These vital interests were protected by a series of military bases like the port of Alexandria, military bases in Egypt and Palestine, and airfields in those countries and in Iraq and the Gulf.

"The Arab state replaced the complex network of local elites, tribal chieftains and religious groupings through which the imperial authorities had maintained their grip over the territories they dominated.

"Its mission was the regulation of the indigenous population's movement, a gigantic disciplinary, punitive and coercive apparatus designed for the purpose of imposing control over the local populations.

"Disillusionment with the official political order and growing cynicism about its ability to preserve a semblance of sovereignty, liberate occupied land, or safeguard national interests has brought new actors onto the stage of Arab politics.



"These non-state players, which include Hizbollah in Lebanon and several armed groups in Palestine, are increasingly occupying the centre of the public sphere in the Middle East, profiting from the declining legitimacy of the political elite tied to the stakes of foreign dominance in the region and lacking popular support to speak of.

"While already fulfilling many of the state's conventional functions such as the provision of social services like health and education, in countries subjected to military occupation (such as Iraq, Lebanon, and Palestine) they are increasingly taking on the state's defence responsibilities.

"This has earned these movements the admiration of the Arab public, which frequently contrasts their political and military performances in the face of the gigantic Israeli military machine with the redundancy of Arab armies permanently frozen in military stations and barracks.

"In light of the turbulent situation in the region and receding allegiance to the political establishment, it is possible to predict that the coming years could see an extension of this popular model to neighbouring countries acutely sensitive to threats to their security.

"Since the invasion of Iraq, the Bush administration has been evangelising about the "New Middle East". This rhetoric, which had retreated under the stench of burnt cities and piles of dead Iraqi bodies, has lately resurfaced once more.

"Though certain to leave long-lasting marks on the region's map, the current frenzy of interventions is unlikely to engender the Middle East Washington and London desire.

"The likelihood is that this new Middle East born in the womb of pre-emptive strikes and proxy wars will neither be American nor Israeli but will gravitate between "deconstructive chaos", and the rise of popular resistance movements.

"The lesson we would do well to learn from Iraq's unfolding tragedy is that the Middle East is far too complex, far too unruly for the grand fantasies of conquest and subjugation.