The analysis of the current moment, looking forward, comes from Jeffrey Goldberg. But about those Israeli doubts: For the typical Israeli (and again, I’m not talking about settlers, but about people who have, in the past, agreed in principle that the Palestinians should have an independent state) two events in particular have soured them on […]
The Liberal Conscience
There is much else I would like to be writing about besides Israel, other kinds of writing I would like to be posting – and I’ll continue to try – but now is an urgent moment. One point I will make repeatedly is the necessity for liberal supporters of Israel to stand up against the […]
Politics as a Continuation of War by Other Means (Update)
Apropos of my post of earlier today, Normblog, offers one of his periodically superb guest posts from Eve Garrard: Israel, human decency, common humanity. Garrard scores writers Fintan O’Toole and Iain Banks for their own indecent attacks on Israel by running through the litany of human and national indecencies that enemies of Israel purposefully ignore. […]
Politics as a Continuation of War by Other Means
Clausewitz has been upended. In On War, he famously wrote, War is not a mere act of policy but a true political instrument, a continuation of political activity by other means. However, he also said, The aim of war should be the defeat of the enemy. But what constitutes defeat? The conquest of his whole […]
Obsessive-Compulsive Israel Disorder (OCID) and Mass Hysteria
These are real phenomena, and we are seeing them acted out in growing frenzy before our eyes. Richard Landes at the Augean Stables had a crucial post last year demonstrating the astounding dissonance between world trouble spots and their attendant casualty figures and media and political-class attention to Israel. His post was based on numbers […]