Latest Parries
April 2012
From Nokia N95 to iPhone 4S
Annoyances and upsets with the iPhone 4S have been more than offset by its screen, the silkiness of its surfaces, the camera, and the third-party market for both software and hardware.
February 2012
2001: A Space Odyssey: Dry, Juicy, Linear, Luminous
After they finished watching the Bond movies, I figured the next series John Gruber and Dan Benjamin would discuss on The Talk Show would be Stanley Kubrick’s oeuvre. But Gruber refused — too personal for podcasting, he said. Disappointed, I rewatched 2001.
January 2012
A Scheme of a Number of Friends
Instead of acknowledging the wisdom of leading from behind, the Right jumped on the Obama administration’s handling of Libya as yet another example of at best incompetence. They lost me there.
October 2011
The Mouse and the Cantilever
Steve Jobs we lost at the age of 56; when Frank Lloyd Wright reached that age it was still only 1923, the time of merely his second comeback with Tokyo’s Imperial Hotel.
March 2010
Friendship is for Weenies
It’s amazing, given the adulation he enjoyed elsewhere, that the Israeli public knew from the start not to trust this US President.
Before the Setup
Nobody from usesthis.com has asked me what my setup us, nor is likely to anytime soon. So I’m just going to mouth off here about it. But first, some background.
February 2010
Walter Russell Mead steps gingerly into the Wieseltier/Sullivan imbroglio
On the Leon Wieseltier/Andrew Sullivan spat, Walter Russell Mead seems to want to have his strudel and eat it too.
October 2009
My Hope: Obama’s Change
Defeat in the Olympics bid may focus the mind in the Oval Office where it should be: Afghanistan.
July 2009
At Modi’in Mall
There’s nothing else around here except empty desolate pretty hills. The Israel Trail passes by a bit to the west. It’s a hot July Wednesday morning. Things are reasonably busy. The shops are mostly franchises, almost all homegrown — Super-Pharm, Aroma, Tzomet Sfarim, Cup O’ Joe’s, LaMetayel, Mega, Fox, Castro, H&O.
Israel, the Bad So Far
I’m surprised at the general appearance of Tel Aviv folks. Yes, it’s hot, but people appear dressed as if they’re in, I don’t know, Be’er Sheva. And the people in Be’er Sheva, last time I was there, looked to me like they’re dressed for Gaza.
J ews don’t proseletyze, one factor in why we engender such resentment in others; we don’t undertake the politeness of pretending to care what they think about most things, and, to add deep insult to this injury, we instead subtly express fear that they might perpetrate some thuggery upon us. Americans too have little interest in what others think, even in areas where they could learn a lot about things that actually do matter, such as good cheese, and this is the thread between anti-Semitic and anti-American resentment. Being ignored is the worst sort of affront to man.
Americans are accused of being imperialist, Israel of being expansionist. The truth behind this accusation is of course its opposite: no nations in the world are so content to be insular. Both respect the otherness of other nations but just want to be left alone to get on with their fascination with themselves. So irritating!
And yet, paradoxically, both nations seek to engage the world deeply. America has successfully done so for decades, and Israel has always sought friendly relations with other countries. Both only get into trouble when their isolationist instinct — together with their naive idealism — leads them to underplay their power.
Whereas it’s obvious that overplaying your power leads to your downfall — Hitler’s two-front war, Saddam’s continuation of his beef with the US after a lucky break in 1991 — it’s less obvious that underplaying your power also leads to trouble. America did this in the 1970s under Carter. Israel has done it almost consistently.
Stupidly, Israel accepts the propaganda war against it at face value and acts as if the whole Arab world is against it. Which is of course true, but there are more relevant truths, such as the fact that Israel, like it or not, is an integral part of and a vital player in the Middle East. Israel should recognize this reality, behave accordingly, and stop pursuing pieces of paper proclaiming peace in our time.
To be sure, Israel has sometimes played its part and intervened in the region. It saved Jordan from a Syrian invasion after destabilization from the PLO, acted similarly in Lebanon a few years later, and took out Iraq’s nuclear reactor. But all these have been extreme measures, hostilities, whereas involvement at all levels should be an ongoing activity, peace treaties or the lack whereof notwithstanding. Mutual interests don’t require peace treaties.
Arguably there is some merit in not getting involved, that the Arab rejectionism has been a blessing in disguise, keeping Israel away from the mostly despicable morass that passes for Middle Eastern relations. But Israel is no longer quite so young and impressionable, and that willful ignorance can no longer hold. Israel is part of the Middle East, and if it doesn’t step into the Arab world, the Arab world, in case we haven’t noticed, will step into it.
More than that. With power comes responsibility, as one Jewish mythmaker wrote, but Israel refuses to acknowledge its own mighty power and heavy responsibilities in the region. This irresponsibility causes real danger. When the mightiest force in the region behaves mostly like a timid victim, it throws everybody else off kilter, distracting them from their own business, suggesting spoils when there aren’t any.
Israel does nobody any favors by trying to do people favors. Its concern that its neighbors don’t like it is ridiculous, if not outlandish. Its neighbors hate each other a whole lot more; Israel is simply something they can all agree on. If Israel started playing a part, issuing statements in Arabic, endorsing this Jordanian politician, condemning that piece of Egyptian legislation, it would no longer be such a pariah. But to do so it has to take enough of an interest in its neighbors to speak about things that don’t concern it directly but which it believes are important. It has to start punching at its weight, which is not entirely insignificant.
Perhaps Israel is following a subconscious national strategy of the strong, in which it behaves too meekly for a decade or so, emboldens its vicious but feeble enemies until they go too far, then lashes out in a now-obviously-justifiable response and gains untold assets in the process. This is clearly what has happened with the US. Clinton under-projected American power, leading to September 11th, which led to the US taking possession of Iraq.
While Israel inhales, its own citizens must — scandalously — beware. But when it exhales, Allah help the jackals. This seems pretty irresponsible behavior, but in the two-party system that forms the heart of the modern liberal democracy, a bait-and-switch foreign policy may be inevitable until a foe learns to stay dead.
Previously
The Prejudice that Dare Not Speak its (Short) Name