Five years ago, I gave this talk on the 40th anniversary of the 1967 war. On the 45th, it pays rereading. I argued that the danger lies in young Arabs forgetting a defeat they didn’t experience. “Without the memory of that defeat, the ranks of the Islamists could swell with people who imagine victory. Without the fear of war, peoples could turn away from those rulers who have made peace.” It’s happened. 1967 and memory by Martin Kramer | Sandbox
FP: My comment: On several occasions I referred to the gap between supremacist Islam preaching domination over the infidels and the reality of Arab failure--that alone must generate a huge amount of envy and frustration. If you pile indoctrination with hatred of Jews and scapegoating Israel for that failure, what you get is guaranteed continued failure and genocidal violence. What is the first thing--that Islamists that are now taking over will do, given dire circumstances? Particularly with all the gas and oil that Israel has found? Reality never had a real place in the Arab world anyway.
So sustaining several generations of Arabs in the refugee camps and indoctrinating them with hatred as weaponization against Israel has worked pretty well.
'Arab representatives refusing to cooperate,' says Plesner
Chairman for the Committee to Advance Equality in Sharing the Burden MK Yohanan Plesner (Kadima) says "they insist on continuing a policy of boycotts that hasn't led them anywhere."
FP: Those who claim that “the policy of boycotts hasn’t led them anywhere” refuse to accept that from their strategic perspective the Arabs, it’s negotiations that will not lead them where they want to go—the phased destruction of Israel.
Given Western decline and the rise of Islamism, it is to their advantage to let the West (and particularly Obama, if reelected) eep pressure on Israel to concede on the settlements without them reciprocating. Hence the recent Abbas gall telling Israel from Turkey “not to turn back on peace”.
Abbas to The Times of Israel: Netanyahu’s unity government could make peace if it wanted to
Speaking in Istanbul, Palestinian president says his side is ready for a deal.
He knows that Netanyahu wants to use the unity government for more concessios and that the West will also use this to pressure him. And, bingo:
US: West Bank settlement activity undermines peace efforts
United States "doesn't accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlement activity," says State Dep't spokesman; housing and construction minister says 551 new homes to be built in addition to 300 in Beit El.
Abbas did not have to wait long.
Lee Smith: Leaking Cyberwar Secrets
The Times story is part of a larger narrative being driven by the Obama team, meant to enhance the president’s image in the middle of an election campaign where, according to some polls, the Republican candidate has pulled even with the incumbent. Forget the fact that Syria is burning, that the Russians have been emboldened by American impotence in the Middle East, or that the Iranians are tip-toeing across the finish line to get a nuclear weapon while American diplomats sit helplessly at a negotiating table. Focus rather on the image of a cool superhero commander in chief ordering clandestine attacks.
“Obama’s problem,” says the former Israeli intelligence official, “is that on one hand the administration has to show that they are doing something about Iran. But on the other hand, they can’t abandon their left-wing base. So, it’s better to shift blame to Israel. No Israeli government is going to be criticized for releasing a virus. We know we are at war, and America does not know it’s at war.”
FP: The Obama administration has a very weird concept of cooperation, but that is hardly a surprise, given its rewarding enemies and punishing friends.
As to not realizing that one is at war, reality has a way of taking care of that. It did in the 30’s, when Europe was also in a crisis of decline. Then it wanted peace, but did not prepare for war and while at least it managed to resuscitate itself and win and defeat the enemy, the cost was enormous. I am not convinced the West can do the same now and the cost may be prohibitive relative to its resources.
See Latest viruses could mean ‘end of world as we know it,’ says man who discovered Flame
Eugene Kaspersky: We’re at the mercy of cyberterrorists, armed with weapons more serious than any previous IT security threat
Exactly my concern.
William Jacobson: Elizabeth Warren’s “weird choices”
It’s a pattern laid out by Meghan McArdle in July 2010, Considering Elizabeth Warren, the Scholar.
Read the whole thing, but here’s an excerpt:
But while I found the thesis compelling, there were some problems with the book. The first is that Warren simply fails to grapple with what her thesis suggests about the net benefits of the two-earner family. Admittedly, I don’t quite know what to say either, but at least I can acknowledge that it’s a pretty powerful problem for the current family model; Warren kind of waves her hands and mumbles about social programs and more supportive work environments. There is no possible solution outside of a more left-wing government.
But the deeper problem is that some of her evidence doesn’t really support her thesis, and can be made to appear to support her thesis only by making some very weird choices about what metrics to use….
That’s a pattern I see over and over in her work. In her (in)famous paper on medical bankruptcies in 2001, Warren and her co-authors defined anyone with $1000 worth of medical bills as having a medical bankruptcy, and used that figure to imply that rising medical bills were pushing people over the financial edge. Now maybe they are, but you sure couldn’t prove it with that metric….
Does it matter? I think yes.
Warren has reached scholarly conclusions which she then parlays into a political platform. The interaction between the two is fair game in an election, as much as a candidate’s business or political experience.
More to come.
FP: Go back to my recent comments on the correlation between politically/ideologically motivated academics and their poor to inexistent skills in the scientific research methodology, an area in which I specialized. Check out comments to McArdle’s article—that’s what they express.
The academia today is full of Warrens.
RECOMMENDED READS
Megan McArdle: Considering Elizabeth Warren, the Scholar
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