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From Ryan: On the other hand, I'm concerned if the ethics of the sermon on the mount becomes entirely private. I am from that stream of American Christian tradition that says we ought to be public about our witness as Christian peacemakers, even if it is seemingly irrelevant in the geo-political sphere, if only to divest US policy from an false appearance of being Christian.
Welcome back from your retreat.
Ryan, what aspect of U.S. policy re. the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah do you find offensive or un-Christian? Without U.S. support for Israel, they would have been buried by their hostile neighbors decades ago. The U.S. is also a strong supporter of the Palestinians, having contributed billions of dollars through the years -- much of which never provided the intended relief because of corrupt leaders like Arafat. The U.S. has also tried several times to help broker peace between Israel and the Palestinians, including a conference in 2000 that Arafat walked away from, and Bush's "roadmap to peace," which Israel has unilaterally endorsed and begun to implement. Your post implies that the U.S. role has been "un-Christian," but can you see that we have indeed made strong efforts at peace-making?
What do you think the U.S. and Israel ought to do about Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, Syria, Islamic Jihad, the PLO and other groups who do not recognize Israel's existence, and who vow to work for Israel's elimination? It doesn't seem that you can reason with them.
[ July 29, 2006, 10:48 PM: Message edited by: Phil ]
-------------------- "The Light shines on in darkness . . ." - John 1: 3 - Posts: 7539 | From: Wichita, KS | Registered: Aug 2001
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"If you loved your children, you would have no war." -Krishnamurti (Freedom from the Known)
This, which I ran across by accident, (there are no accidents), indicates some genuine concerns which people have today. While the government is protecting us from terror, who is protecting us from them?
That may belong to another thread, as it can easily veer off into concerns less related to the Middle East crisis than to Spiral Dynamics or exploring a liberal approach to world affairs. So maybe there's a thread already started where this can be taken up.
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Ok, I'll keep the kitchen sink in the kitchen.
The only active duty military person that I know looked me keenly in the eye and told me that " we need to get out of Iraq." I believe that she and the three quarters of our personnel who are there who agree with her are right. You can fool the fans, but you can't fool the players. Support the troops. What could be worse than remaining there?
As far as Lebanon, Israel has to choose and lie in the bed it makes. I'm a long way from events and do not know what being an Israeli is like. God bless them...
BTW, The Project for the New American Century is shutting down. The website has no new additions since December, and will soon be relegated to the dustbin of history.
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Well Phil, I guess your question is a bit too pointed. All you're likely to get are sarcasms, such as MM's above, regarding Israel. Libs love to snuggle down with their own fire-side consciences, and not only deplore the ugliness of global conflict, which sickens everybody, but attack the real world with notions of virtue that hardly ever apply. I'm sure Jimmy Carter is proud, though. Oops! I'm being sarcastic, aren't I? But I'd gladly trade sarcasms in for real exchanges on the issues.
Here's an article updating leftist church tirades against Israel, where little concern is shown for Islamic terrorist organizations, as they tend to be viewed as victims misunderstood by those who just won't give "peace a chance" :
"It is wonderful, only now that Israel is attacking Hezbollah targets, that these U.S. church prelates are suddenly so very concerned about Lebanon. But they never expressed any interest in Syria’s nearly 30 years of brutal occupation of and manipulation of Lebanon. Nor have they commented on Hezbollah’s vicious, Iranian-backed disruption of Lebanon’s struggling democracy.
The Religious Left will reluctantly acknowledge the crimes of Hezbollah and Hamas, but only to rhetorically facilitate its more heartfelt condemnation of Israel. These prelates may decry "the violence," but it is chiefly only the violence of one side that concerns them."
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Mohamed Eljahmi of NRO answers the questions I've been posing and comes out saying pretty much the same as w.c.:
quote: Refusal to accept Israel’s right to exist is the root of conflict in the Middle East. Arab governments view Israel as a threat, because it is a democratic and modern state. Under genuine peace, secular authocratic regimes like that of Syria will not survive, because citizens will shift their attention inward and demand viable services like education, healthcare, and a social safety net. Such governments, whose budgets are allocated for security and the foreign bank accounts of the elite, cannot perform these basic functions.
The theocrats oppose the existence of Israel because they fear that the spread of secular rule would end their control. In a televised address on July 16, Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nassrallah said, “A Hamas and Hezbollah defeat means greater influence for the Zionists and their American masters, the theft of our resources and defacement of our culture and civilization.”
By "defacement of our culture and civilization," I hear Sheikh Hassan Nassrallah saying pretty much the same thing that the Iranian President said, that "Israel is a disgraceful stain on the Islamic world."
This seems to be the root cause of violence between Israel and its neighbors. They do not recognize Israel's right to exist and seek its destruction -- not so much because of refugee situations, which are lamentable, but because Israel is a threat to the current religious and political Islamic power base. And so . . .
quote: A permanent solution can be either political or military. A political solution requires a genuine desire to solve problems between the two sides. On the Arab side there are no legitimate and visionary leaders who are willing to take the risk. The Israelis, conversely, have the legitimate leaders — because they were elected by the people and are now expected to serve their people.
The military solution is costly, but it may create the foundation for an eventual political solution. Massive military defeats for militant organizations like Hezbollah would remove significant tools from the hands of Arab rulers. Combine the military solution with genuine pressure on Arab governments to reform, and we can begin to build the basis for peaceful societies. The Arab street will then look inward rather than outward. And local political issues will trump regional ones.
But of course that will not happen, as their media will only further reinforce the notion that all their troubles are caused by the West. Still, one can hope for miracles.
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Phil:
With Iran on the verge of obtaining nuclear weaponry, the West has little time to gain the leverage the analyst is describing in your post. Bush's military failure in Iraq has given Islamic radicals further impetus to militarize themselves and generate regional control. Iraq's ruling Shiite party links its with Iran in ways that bode poorly for any easing of tensions between Israel and Arab nations. In fact, Israel is, in one sense, merely a symptom of the ongoing vacillation between failed theocracies and failed secular despotisms.
So as deterrants go, the west must show it is capable of demilitarizing this region, at least by being successful in one or two countries. Iraq and Lebanon are now lost opportunities to this end, with simply too much caving in to political half-measures, and too much divisiveness between Western powers to generate enough ground troops(the latter the population-curve aim of Islamists via Eurabia for decades). Once we look back on this in a nuclear-armed Iran world, we'll likely regret our delay. We've been living in ignorance, thinking it's peace, among ourselves while a war has been fought against us now for the past 25 years.
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"The only active duty military person that I know looked me keenly in the eye and told me that " we need to get out of Iraq." I believe that she and the three quarters of our personnel who are there who agree with her are right. You can fool the fans, but you can't fool the players. Support the troops. What could be worse than remaining there?"
MM: Once again America demonstrates it's inability not only plan for the future, militarily and politically when it invades another country, but to fight an insurgency as well. My father fought in Vietnam. He said the same thing: caught in a war without battle lines, not knowing who your enemy is..we never should have gone in there in the first place.
Unfortunately, I do believe that now we have a moral obligation to stay and rebuild that country.Cutting out and heading for the hills would be not just unAmerican, it just wouldn't have any style. So George, it seems that your poor planning has united the Shia from Lebanon to to Iran. So much for smart geopolitics and keeping the world safe.
As far as the liberal media's coverage of our MiddleEast approach, I'll vote for the News Hour's coverage (though I call their coverage "moderately prgressive"). The News Hour has civil discussions with informed people w/o it all devolving into a shouting match a'la Hannity and Colmes. It is balanced news reporting w/o the bluster and demagoguery of a Limbaugh, Savage, and Hannity. At least Jim Lehrer is able to make a distinction, in my view, between supporting the troops and critiquing the inept and misguided policies of politicians who put those same troops in harms way. If I feel my government is acting in an immoral and stupid way and in so doing sends a brother or sister of mine into harms way, it is both my obligation as a citizen and as a thinking person to criticize that same government.
quote:Originally posted by Phil: Your post implies that the U.S. role has been "un-Christian," but can you see that we have indeed made strong efforts at peace-making?
Hi Phil,
Thanks for your comments. The retreat was wonderful.
Yes, the US has tried to work toward the end of peaceful coexistence between Israel and its neighbors. But I think of US interests in Israel as "geo-political" in the might-makes-right sense that wc talks about such realities. I would point to the military aid that the US gives to Israel. http://alawda.rso.wisc.edu/aidtoisrael.htm
Israel, for the US, is a military stronghold in the middle east. US, when it works for "peace" works from a standpoint of a particular kind of "strength:" military strength.
That brings a kind of "peace." I know that US presidents have tried to reconcile that sort of peacemaking with their personal Christian beliefs. I think of Carter in particular. But such global police work -- even if it is done well -- is different from the good news Jesus brought. His mission was from the standpoint of vulnerability to the extreme... going out two by two, knocking on doors and saying, "Peace to this house."
Over time, we went from Jesus' "Peace to this house," to peace through military strength, and conflated the two. That conflation has made it difficult to really understand the gospel as Jesus and the first evangelists meant it.
I think believers like Carter, when they become national leaders, have to draw on a mix of Old Testament theology and the wisdom of the Roman empire over and above the sermon on the mount. It could be worse, but it is not the radical vulnerability of Jesus. Jimmy Carter was no St. Francis of Assisi. But then neither am I.
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Phil, God is in the business of miracles, and the US is still in a better position than others to be available for bringing one about. We are still the best hope in the present world situation. There, I've said it.
Support for the Vietnam war, according to Ann Coulter, never dropped below 80%. That was with pictures of coffins and dead bodies, which we seldom if ever, get to see. I have to watch BBC or CBC or ABC to find out what is really going on. Also, there are damning photos of US atrocities which may not be seen here for a long time.
The best thing we had going for us was the moral high ground. How can we get it back? We have spent the better part of a trillion dollars and the better part of a million Iraqi lives during the past fifteen years. What have we gained? What if we had spent that amount of energy on raising good will and education among this same population?
What if good will dominated our policy? Wouldn't many respond in time to a demonstration of good will?
With positive regard for you and everyone who reads this.
You speak of "good will" as though it were completely absent from U.S. attempts at foreign diplomacy, or as though it were the primary force for bringing about change in geo-political relations. Jimmy Carter tried that, and it failed miserably. The alternative doesn't bring about change in pleasant ways, however. Our failure in Iraq can be viewed as having been too political, or leading with too much "good will," leaving the country militarized due to premature efforts at concession with radical groups that now have Iraq on the brink of civil war.
You're also implying that the U.S. backed economic blockade on Iraq was the main reason Iraqis lacked basic goods and services, which is simply not the case; it is fairly clear that Saddam's narcissism accounts for the failure of the Oil For Food Program.
Again, WWI and WWII were full of atrocities, and had the media been able to communicate in minutes to hours, rather than days or weeks later, those events, we might have lost our nerve and pulled up short like we're doing now. That's not to justify Abu Ghraib - like abuses, but only to say that half measures, such as in Vietnam or Korea, tend to lead to the worst case scenarios in the long run. And so the high moral ground comes in identifying an enemy for what that enemy intends to do, and then facing the crued reality of stopping him when you know that diplomacy is only buying him time for further empowerment of the threat.
There is little doubt that Iran's design includes Eurabia, and therefore global domination, given that western globalization threatens the very core of Islamic radical society. Its mullahs won't pull up short in their attempts to tip power in their own direction, and we are so far floundering in our response to that threat.
So we've given more than a billion dollars to the Palestinians, and tried to broker peace for them inspite of Arafat's duplicity. No amount of good will has turned the tide of Arab sentiment re: Israel's right to exist, with the Palestinians voting Hamas to power; this is what we have to show for good will!! And you want more of same??
Ryan:
Why not start a thread on pacificism, or on something related to "Just War" theory? I know you'd probably feel vulnerable to scrutiny on those subjects, but I'd support it if you want to go in that direction.
And, let me say that your notion of the U.S. funding Israel as a proxy in the region must also account for what has been needed to sustain Israel given its neighbors intent on destroying it. Israel could have decimated its enemies by now, but has shown significant restraint, even though that more brutal path may be inevitaible now that Iran has gained such a direct presence, with Hezbollah and Hamas now able to obtain more significant weaponry as political entities.
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This piece summarizes the way liberal and leftist politics have taken mercy too far in relation to foes that only intend the demise of such liberties:
Jaws of Defeat By David Horowitz FrontPageMagazine.com | July 31, 2006
"The United States and Israel and every sentient being in the path of the Islamist crusade are teetering on the brink of a massive defeat in Lebanon and thus in the war on terror. Lest it be forgotten, this is a war that began with the Ayatollahs’ revolution in Iran in 1979 which established the first radical Islamic state whose masters’ war cry was “Death to America” and the establishment of a global Islamic empire. Nearly thirty years later, Iran is on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons and its imperial war is now being waged on Iran’s Lebanese frontier by its Hezbollah proxy. One month into the fighting which began with the attacks by Hamas and Hezbollah on the state of Israel, the scenario for the West’s defeat in this phase of the war is quite obvious and quite simple."
"The appeasers of Islamofascism, who have been calling for a ceasefire and bewailing “civilian casualties” in Lebanon and Gaza, will succeed. Hezbollah will agree to turn over its arms to the pro-Hezbollah Lebanese army. The pro-Hezbollah UN will establish a security zone on Lebanon’s southern border to keep the area clear of non-government militias, of which the Hezbollah “militia” is the only one. The credulous in the Western camp will greet this as a victory for the peacemakers. But exactly the opposite will be the case."
"According to a recent poll in Lebanon eighty percent of the Lebanese Arabs support Hezbollah. In other words, just as Hamas, which was created by the same Muslim Brotherhood that spawned al-Qaeda, is now the Palestinian government, so Hezbollah will emerge as the government of Lebanon. The Lebanese army will become the new Hezbollah “militia.” Only it won’t be a militia. It will be the terrorist army of a sovereign power, with the right to openly negotiate its arms deals with Syria and Iran. The next battle with Iran, in other words, will be World War III."
"In fact, the next battleground in the spread of Shi’ia fascism is already in progress and aflame. It is Iraq, where Iran’s Shi’ia armies are already in the field under the command of the sheik of Sadr City, the America-hating cleric Moqtadar al-Sadr. Al-Sadr, it should be noted, is alive and in the field because the appeasers in this country, beginning with the Democratic Party but extending into the Bush State Department, stymied the first battle of Fallujah and the Bush offensive generally when al-Sadr was trapped in Najaf and could have been killed and his militia destroyed. The Bush administration had to delay the Fallujah attack until after Kerry’s defeat in the November 2004 elections in order to avoid the political complications that would have attended the battle in the midst of an election campaign. By then Sistani had staged a "peace march" and going after Sadr was off the table."
"But the first battle of Fallujah is only one of many defeats inflicted by the appeasers and abettors of Islamic imperialism in the West. The aid to the enemy within the Western camp has taken many forms, beginning with the hysterical and reckless attacks on the commander-in-chief of America’s forces as a liar and murderer, and the source of the terror that the Islamists create. Are there terrorists in Iraq? There were none there before George Bush created them. Is Hezbollah a Nazi army? It’s because the Jews “occupied” Palestinian lands. Of course, this is two lies in one. All Israeli “occupation” is the product of four aggressive Arab wars against Israel. When Israel withdraws – as in Lebanon – it is attacked. The source of the terror in Lebanon, as in Iraq, is to be found in the Koran and in the despotisms of the Arab Middle East. But the appeasement camp cannot face the reality that its enemy is implacable and its hatred uncaused by anything its targets – Jews, Christians, “infidels” – have done."
"The division of America is the greatest threat to our ability to prevail in the War on Terror – and the Left knows this and is incited by it. America is not divided enough for the American Left, which is now in full purge mode in Connecticut, where it is attempting to bring down the one statesman in the Democratic Party who might re-unite this country in the face of its enemies."
"Those who in the midst of these wars clamor for ceasefires with an implacable foe, those who call for withdrawals that would leave sovereign states in the hands of the terrorist forces, those who decry civilian casualties caused by the only forces in this war who do not target civilians, those Blame-America-Firsters who exploit the Abu Ghraibs on our side and not their atrocities, those whose hysterical fear of the conflict we face takes the form of pathological denial and projects the rabid hatred of the enemy for us onto our own commander in the war, are destined to have a lot to answer for before this conflict is over."
quote:Originally posted by w.c.: Why not start a thread on pacificism, or on something related to "Just War" theory?
WC
Among Mennonites, there is a significant minority who are activists in the political sphere advocating and practicing non-violent resistance in unjust, oppressive situations. They are teaching in such institutions as the Eastern Mennonite University conflict resolution program and at a related program at Notre Dame in South Bend. They are often involved in such work as done by Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), which work for "violence reduction" in Hebron by living in the occupied zone. http://www.cpt.org/csd/campaign.php
I'm not one of them now, although may be open to being called. My honest opinion is that such violence reduction efforts are fairly insignificant in the geo-political sphere (which doesn't mean it isn't worth doing). One problem I have with such efforts is that they tend to valorize the "enemy" against the facts and exaggerate their own effectiveness, or at least their potential effectiveness given that the "enemy" is not so bad as we might think. Their perspective is similar to yours in that they are willing to engage in the political struggle including the war of words.
I don't know about my initiating such a tread because, by contrast to either your approach or that of the Christian pacifists, I feel called to disengage from politics... embrace the irrelevance of Christian spirituality in the geo political sphere.
That is why I was shocked when I got back from retreat, the thread on the taste of honey was not active and you were over here not only taking about war, but advocating US military policies. Until now I had not read much of the political threads, and so I didn't know to expect what I found. I miss the WC from the nectar thread and I would not have read this thread at all except that "wc" was writing it and I felt so connected to "you" from the other.
I'll tell you what makes me feel vulnerable is trying to make sense of the interrelation of your (past?) sweet heart and your vigor in this military discussion. I'm told Teresa of Avila advocated military attack against the moors. Are the two in harmony -- experiential mysticism with felt consolations and military defense and even aggression? I don't think so. I've had many consolations and I'm not cheering the US military. I suppose that is a function of my background in Mennonite theological ethics more-so than my mysticism. There might be a thread possibility in that. We'll see.
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"What do you think the U.S. and Israel ought to do about Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran, Syria, Islamic Jihad, the PLO and other groups who do not recognize Israel's existence, and who vow to work for Israel's elimination? It doesn't seem that you can reason with them."
Phil,
Perhaps the answer to your question lies in this story by Paul Coehlo.
"A reader, Alvaro Conegundes, describes how, during the Ice Ages, many animals died of the cold. The porcupines grasped the situation and decided to band together so they could offer each other mutual warmth and protection. However their spines stuck into each other, and so they again went their separate ways. And they continued to die from the cold. Eventually they had to make a choice between becoming extinct or putting up with each other's spines. Very wisely, they decided to band together. They learned to live with the small wounds that such a very close relationship could inflict, since what mattered most was the other porcupines' warmth. And they survived."
Perhaps this story holds a key: will the parties involved find enough courage to quit killing, to take the time to find the common ground, so as to see that it is in everyone's self-interest to do so.
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"Are the two in harmony -- experiential mysticism with felt consolations and military defense and even aggression? I don't think so."
Ryan:
In principle I agree with you. But if the deer is eating the corn in the garden, we still need to kick him out,no matter how much compassion we feel for the deer.
Religious enthusiasm or evenfelt mystical consolations are no guarantor in and of themselves that we will act compassionately toward our neighbor much less our enemies. Perhaps the very least we could expect is that we would take no pleasure in our enemies suffering or pain, and in fact see his own suffering as our own even as we deny him life itself. Perhaps that is how we reconcile being the compassion of Christ to the world while at the same time be "realistic"..I have no answer here..I struggle with this issue myself.
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I'm just in from driving 700 miles from Madison, WI to Wichita, KS. Good to see a bit of spirited debate, even if most of you are ducking the pointed questions I asked above about Israel's right to exist, and what to do about those who vow to eliminate them.
Lest we get too side-tracked, some of you might want to read over and participate in the discussion (still open) on Is non-violence a Christian absolute? Lots of good exchanges, and even a poll!
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Ryan, you wrote: Israel, for the US, is a military stronghold in the middle east. US, when it works for "peace" works from a standpoint of a particular kind of "strength:" military strength.
That's a little cynical, don't you think? I mean, minimally, it's a subjective judgment that would be difficult to substantiate, insofar as Christians and Jews in the U.S. feel an affinity with Israel and an obligation to help them survive regardless of their military advantage to us. These lobbying groups are very strong indeed -- not that past congresses or presidents have required much arm-twisting.
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And Devinath, you ask: will the parties involved find enough courage to quit killing, to take the time to find the common ground, so as to see that it is in everyone's self-interest to do so.
That would be nice, wouldn't it, not to mention rational. But can you go the next step and say what that would entail for Iran, Hezbollah, the PLO, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Syria? . . . that they would have to acknowledge Israel's right to exist and forego their resolve to eliminate them from the region. How do you think that could haappen, D? It's been almost 60 years since the U.N. recognized Israel, but these groups have not done so and they are the ones constantly instigating the violence. The onus is much moreso on them to change than Israel, who would undoubtedly welcome friendly neighbors. It would take the kind of miracle MM alluded to, I believe.
[ July 31, 2006, 09:51 PM: Message edited by: Phil ]
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Ryan:
My vacillations from threads like "Nectar" to these war-related ones don't leave me feeling entirely at peace with myself. But it isn't the same kind of peace, either. Nevertheless, I can relate to your desire to disengage from this sort of discussion. I did so myself beginning in Lent, and didn't start back up until Phil opened this particular thread. And I have to say I didn't miss it one bit, at least during that time period.
So I'm not a split personality, or bipolar in my moods, in case you were wondering. There's just a sense that we have grown lazy regarding the conflicts that shape our world and, per our excessive leisure in the west, expect those conflicts to be resolved the same way we might mitigate marital discord, and that seems a dangerous misperception when Islamists have an intention no less fascist than Nazi Germany, except much further reaching.
And I'd also like to amend my descriptions of power-brokering at the geo-political level. The picture painted there was pretty pragmatic or utilitarian sounding, and so while I don't believe that any nation's honor is pure to the bone in fighting a war, there is a moral sensibility involved, which we can see in WWII, where democracies knew they were on the brink of real degeneration as Nazi Germany gained an initial advantage.
You referred to the model I was trying to explain as "might makes right." If that were actually the case, then Nazism or Islamo-fascism would be just as morally preferable as democracy. We know this isn't the case, as most Moslems in the west prefer their new freedoms after only one or two generations living apart from their native cultures, although this no doubt breeds much conflict in the transitional periods. Moreover, Amnesty International and such watch-dog groups wouldn't be able to point the finger at instances of global inhumanity expecting people of all stripes to recognize the problem. It really boils down to what C.S. Lewis was describing as a common moral law.
That moral law is probably best, though not perfectly, enshrined in democracies, and those truly aspiring to democratic rule within a compatible cultural system where there is a recognition of the verity of sovereignty of reason and sovereignty of the individual. In ethnic family systems, and especially where entire cultures are built around them such as in the Middle East, these principles of social justice are actually threatening to what makes such families and societies cohesive. Israel is an imperfect society that nevertheless mostly functions according to these culturally transformative precepts, and in this way is a serious threat to the region.
These notions of sovereignty, and the morality they imply, have virtually no place in communist or Islamo-fascist regimes. The degradation of those precepts can be seen in democracies as well, but there tends to be a self-righting, at least internally, and less so externally depending upon how much the external threat might weaken the staple securities sustaining that internal cohesion. IOW, sometimes these democracies have to behave very fiercely when recognizing a threat to their existence by political and cultural systems that for whatever reason cannot or will not remain insular. The western character of globalizing modernity has brought this crisis to a head, but it wasn't as if we had a choice to globalize or not to globalize. The choice is in which paradigm the world is to be globalized with.
And so the wars against Germany were not "might makes right" wars, anymore than the attempt to overcome the Communist North Vietnamese or the Communist Party of Korea were purely driven by economic agendas, or for power for power's sake. There was a moral impetus in recognizing that Communism and Nazism and Democracy are not compatible bed-fellows, and cannot lay down together as lamb and lion, anymore than we can do so today with Islamo-facism.
Also implied in this moral law is the sense in which one cannot perfectly share power with others, except in rare cases, say in a marriage, and even then there are inequalities per the needs and struggles of the relationship. How much more so at the geo-political level where a claim to the moral sensibility finds one at extreme odds with another paradigm equally entrenched in its own cultural presuppositions.
Well, I do think we need a statesman who is intelligent enough, wise enough, and persuasive enough to bring all the major players together into one large round table conference where differences can be aired and where legitimate and grevious can be addressed. Furthermore, this conference would not take place in the U.N. but be a regional conference held in Jerusalem or in Cairo. It would need to be led by one who is perceived as neutral politically, but respected for his integrity and wisdom. This person would have acute knowledge of the history of the middle east and of the the age old differences, so that distinctions can be made between the old history over which nothing can be done except grieved, and now the present about which something can be done. Arguments would need to be made that strongly point out what all the player share in common: historically, theologically, and sociologically in order to lay the groundwork for a peace based upon common self-interest. To this end, the Bush adminstration would need to back down from its policy of no dialogue with both Iran and Syria. We would need to stop the rhetoric and seriously engage these people.
I also believe that because much of the anger which underlies political positions is by nature non-rational, at some point meaningful rituals would need to be held in common by both sides in order to ritually grieve past losses in order that a new present and future may be envisioned and created.
These are some thoughts as to how to approach this issue. One of things I regret is that soon after 9/11, I recall hearing a great deal of drum beating, but I heard no one strong voice raised suggesting that maybe, while we went after ben ladin, simultaneously we should have been working on plans for such a conference, while we had the sympathy of the the world and moderate Arab states, speaking softly yet all the while holding the big stick. When you are having an argument with someone, instead of first blaming the other and defending yourself, which is natural to do, it is often wiser to first look at yourself,to see if there is anyting in your behavior that might be contributing to the other's reaction to you.
So, the first step toward creating a lasting peace in the middle east is to persuade Iran and Syria and Israel and the moderate Arab states, along with some major world players, to have this MiddleEast conference on peace. But for that we need a statesman who has the patience, the determination, and the wisdom to bring it off. And I don't think we have that person right now. The last little miracle like this happened with Jimmy Carter, Anwar Sadat, and Menachem Began (sp). This is where I would start.
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That all sounds good, Devinath, but it's not like the key players/groups aren't already aware of where their agreements and disagreements lie. They've been talking and talking at the U.N. for years, and also at gatherings of Arab state leaders. I think you're under-estimating the power of religious ideology to undermine rational behavior, but what you suggest wouldn't hurt, for sure.
Carter succeeded with Sadat and Begin because Israel agreed to turn over land captured from Egypt in earlier wars, and Egypt had their own hands full dealing with Islamic terrorism in their own country.
Clinton tried to pull a similar miracle with Arafat and Barak, but Arafat showed no willingness to find a negotiated settlement and walked away from extraordinary concessions by Barak.
When you are having an argument with someone, instead of first blaming the other and defending yourself, which is natural to do, it is often wiser to first look at yourself,to see if there is anyting in your behavior that might be contributing to the other's reaction to you.
That makes sense, too, when you are dealing with rational people. From everything I've learned about this issue during the past 30 years (which is how long I've been paying attention to it), it seems that the primary factor contributing to the reaction of Hezbollah, etc. is the fact of Israel's existence. I know that sounds simplistic, but that's been the bottom-line issue for every war fought by Arab nations/groups against them since 1948. They just don't want them there, period. So what is Israel supposed to do about that? What's the "middle ground" between Israel's right to exist and Arab groups' determination that they do not exist?
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I forgot to mention in my post above that Anwar Sadat was assassinated shortly after reaching the aggreement with Carter and Begin . . . by Egyptian Islamic Jihad. No doubt, other Arab leaders took notice.
-------------------- "The Light shines on in darkness . . ." - John 1: 3 - Posts: 7539 | From: Wichita, KS | Registered: Aug 2001
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It's hard to pin Jesus down on the war issue. He did say that Moses allowing divorce was only because of "hardness of heart."
Madeleine Albright's response when asked about the death of half a million Iraqi children during the Clinton administration's sanctions was, "We think it was worth it." Half a million dead children. Guess that's just a drop in the bucket for a nation which does in a million or more each year of it's own, and watches seven hours of violence on television. We even blow people away for sport on video games.
John Paul II shook his finger at the President and every Christian denomination in the world, saving the Southern Baptists opposed the Iraq war from the git-go. Why are we so trigger happy and unaffected by death?
quote:Originally posted by w.c.: Moreover, Amnesty International and such watch-dog groups wouldn't be able to point the finger at instances of global inhumanity expecting people of all stripes to recognize the problem. It really boils down to what C.S. Lewis was describing as a common moral law.
Hi WC,
OK, I accept that your aren't bipolar or something.
As for "might makes right," I know I was being provocative there and I know you don't see yourself advocating such a view. The problem is that you happen to be arguing for the most mighty military power and not, it seems to me, viewing the use of that power form the perspective of those less powerful who don't happen to be allies. So, after reading this Noam Chomsky article on "terror, justice and self-defense,"
. Shalom Place
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Good to see a bit of spirited debate, even if most of you are ducking the pointed questions I asked above about Israel's right to exist, and what to do about those who vow to eliminate them. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Guess that's just a drop in the bucket for a nation which does in a million or more each year of it's own, and watches seven hours of violence on television. We even blow people away for sport on video games.
