Israel and the WBGS – Next Steps

October 9, 2023

The first step and priority of any nation being attacked (e.g., Ukraine by Russian or Israel by Hamas) is to defend itself as best it can. The next step, how ever,  can easily succumb to the urge to seek revenge, as called for by Netanyahu, who is “ implementing a ‘full siege’ of the densely populated Gaza Strip — ‘no electricity, no food, no fuel,’ said Defense Minister Yoav Gallant — as part of a campaign that is aimed at destroying Hamas’s military capabilities” Wash Post “Israel-Gaza war Hamas” But such retaliation would be another escalation up the ladder toward total destruction—or, if you prefer, deeper into the hole.

“Even a decisive Israeli military victory is unlikely to end the country’s increasingly perilous security challenges. It’s not even clear what “winning” means…. “If the war stopped today, or even after Gaza looks like another war zone, Hamas has effectively won,” said Dan Kurtzer, a former U.S. Ambassador to Israel. “New Yorker: Israel may decimate Hamas, but can it win this war”

The more emotionally and politically difficult second step would aim to lower hostilities in the more distant future. It would seek to understand and deal with the issues that led to Hama’s brutal attack. “Wash Post: The Israeli-Hamas war has two paths forward”

“Palestinian demands are both clear and precise: Freeing all prisoners; respecting the sanctity of Palestinian holy sites in Jerusalem, ending the siege on Gaza and more.” “The Gaza war is lost, but will Netanyahu concede?” Should Israel negotiate these demands or retaliate?

The goals of the Oslo Accord that I worked hard to help implement –the two state solution—have not been realized. Both Israel and the Palestine Authority created according to the Oslo Accord have failed to measure up to their required roles and the U.S. has failed to hold each to account.

To quote from my blog on Oct 7 “Hamas’s objectives in the operation are no secret: First, retaliate and punish Israel for its occupation, oppression, illegal settlement, and desecration of Palestinian religious symbols, especially Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem; second, take aim at Arab normalisation with Israel that embraces its apartheid regime in the region; and lastly, secure another prisoner exchange in order to get as many Palestinian political prisoners released from Israeli jails as possible.”  https://wcoats.blog/2023/10/07/palestine-israel-and-wbgs/

In 2006, when Hamas won the most seats in the new Palestinian legislature “then Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice mused, ‘Certainly, I’ve asked why nobody saw it coming, and I hope that we will take a hard look, because it does say something about perhaps not having had a good enough pulse on the Palestinian population.’ The words are haunting, once again, today.” “New Yorker: Israel may decimate Hamas, but can it win this war”

The U.S. winked when the election losing Fatah, headed by Mahmoud Abbas, ignored the election results and took over the Palestinian Authority. The U.S. closed its eyes all together when Israelis murdered Palestinian men, women and children and bulldozed their homes to make way for more Israeli settlements. What were we expecting?

Palestine – Israel and WBGS

Written October 7 at 3:30pm

“Netanyahu says Israel ‘at war’ after Hamas attack; Israeli civilians and military personnel held captive in Gaza Strip Israeli air force strikes killed about 200 people and injured 1,600, the Palestinian Health Ministry said. Hamas said it has taken “senior officers” hostage.” Washington Post: Israel Gaza rocket attack”

“Israeli forces are responding to an unprecedented early morning attack by Islamist Hamas militants by launching land and airstrikes on the Gaza Strip following weeks of rising tensions along the region’s volatile border. Saturday’s surprise attack from Hamas, which came during a major Jewish holiday and followed the 50th anniversary of the start of the 1973 Yom Kippur war, has led to Israel’s deadliest day in at least 75 years.” Washington Post 11/7/20223

“Hamas said it rained 150 rockets on Tel Aviv
BEIRUT — In response to the Israeli bombardment of Palestine Tower in Gaza, Hamas said it had fired 150 rockets toward Tel Aviv on Saturday evening.” Washington Post 11/7/20223

“Hamas’s objectives in the operation are no secret: First, retaliate and punish Israel for its occupation, oppression, illegal settlement, and desecration of Palestinian religious symbols, especially Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem; second, take aim at Arab normalisation with Israel that embraces its apartheid regime in the region; and lastly, secure another prisoner exchange in order to get as many Palestinian political prisoners released from Israeli jails as possible.” “From hubris to humiliation-the 10 hours that shocked Israel”

*******************. 

Wars are almost always wrong and disastrous and this one is no exception.  The causalities on both sides are still unfolding. Until this mornings attacks, the aggressor during the earlier part of this year was almost always Israel. This year alone until yesterday Israelis had killed 227 Palestinians and wounded 8,488, many of them children, often in the process of bulldozing Palestinian homes to make room for illegal Israeli settlements. This was almost 8 times the number of Israelis killed by Palestinians – 29 almost all of whom (25) were killed in the West Bank.

The history of the region and my work there is reported in “My Travels to Jerusalem”  But since writing that book an extreme right wing apartheid government has taken over Israel and dropped all pretense of treating the Palestinians fairly. And in the meantime, the Palestinian Authority established as part of the Oslo Accords continues to suffer from its own problems. I weep for my Israeli and Palestinian friends.

Saving Liberalism

A society occupied by virtuous people, whose behavior is self-governed by the moral principles taught by the major religions, needs few laws from their governments.

If we are free—if we live in a free society—we can and will discriminate in our choices as we see fit. We will choose what is best for us and what we like most. We will choose our friends and clubs. In our economic dealings, if our choices are not based on the objective merits of a product or an employee (if we are an employer), we will suffer the consequences (pay more for an inferior good or service or less productive employee). Thus, our self-interest will drive us toward the right kind of discrimination/choices in the market. “Are Venture Capitalists Racists?”

Morally, making choices that treat others unfairly, dishonestly, or rudely, diminishes the harmony and quality of social life. The lack of such moral standards will diminish us in the eyes of others and ultimately in our own eyes. If every member of our society adopted and lived by such moral standards, we would be the freest, happiest, and most flourishing society possible.

In such a society, the government would only need to protect us from the few criminals (foreign and domestic) who attempted to violate our persons and our property, set the standards that allow markets to function efficiently, enforce our property and other rights, and adjudicate contract disputes. With regard to government employment and activities, the law should forbid discrimination on basis not relevant to the government’s purposes, e.g., when hiring workers, the government should not be allowed to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation, or national origin.    

In the laudable objective of overcoming a history of slavery and morally inappropriate discrimination our laws have gone further. The 1964 Civil Rights Act extended the antidiscrimination provisions appropriate for the government to private sector businesses serving the public. Businesses renting rooms (hotels) or selling goods (grocery stores or restaurants) were forbidden to discriminate on the basis of race, religion, sexual orientation or national origin. See the wonderful movie “Green Book” if you haven’t already.

Rather quickly the courts were asked to sort out the law’s application when it violated other individual rights such as adhering to one’s religious beliefs. Should a Satan worshiper cook, who does not believe in marriage, have to bake a wedding cake for someone’s wedding? I don’t mean to suggest that such questions can be or will be easily resolved, though in a free society in which the vast majority of residents adhered to good moral values, no one would need to be forced to provide any service they didn’t want to, and no one would be deprived of their wedding cake either.

A further step was taken toward allowing a greater exercise of individual judgement about race when the Supreme Court effectively overruled Regents of the University of California v. Bakke (1978), and validated some “affirmative action in college admissions provided that race had a limited role in decisions.” Otherwise giving “race-based affirmative action programs in college admissions processes violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment” of the US Constitution. Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard – Wikipedia

In my view, a college that bends admission criteria in order to increase the diversity of its student body is acting wisely and in the interest of the learning experience of its students. My view of a college having to satisfy a government given racial or some other quota is the opposite. “Affirmative action, based on the logic that disparities equal discrimination, entrenched the idea of equal results over equal treatment…. Later, in the mid-1980s, harassment law enshrined the idea that free speech must be suppressed to eliminate subjectively defined ‘hostile environments’ for protected groups….

“The steady devolution of lawmaking authority from Congress to administrators produces a paradoxical situation whereby organizations must violate the text of the law (non-discrimination) to satisfy activist interpretations of law. Colorblindness is now illegal.” “Two Roads to Woke”  “Affirmative Action”

Thus, two centuries of debate over how best to trade off and balance conflicting individual rights in order to maximize our overall freedom that helped produce the greatest human flourishing the world has ever experienced, is at risk of being shouted down and silenced. “Human Progress”  Shutting down that debate and related questions in order to spare one group or another the discomfort of hearing something they don’t want to hear would mean the end of the liberal/neoliberal world we have built.

To take but one example, I strongly disagree with much of the underlying premises of Critical Race Theory. But books explaining its views belong in the library and high school history class discussions. I will only convince my friends of its errors with my arguments, not by burning its books. We only conduct our lives on the basis of what we really believe. “Virginia Samuels library LGBTQ books”

So, what is to be done to preserve our classically liberal principles and personal freedom? The innovation and dynamism our freedom has enabled, which has so dramatically lifted our standards of living, has also forced adjustments on some that have not always been easy. Trade theory has always talked about the need to compensate the (few) losers. But the safety nets we have built have generally been inadequate and rarely received the attention they need. “Replacing Social Security with a Universal Basic Income” The other thing we must do is to use our freedom to speak to explain the powerful benefits of our neoliberal principles. Teach, teach, teach.  “Deirdre McCloskey – Why Liberalism Works–How True Liberal Values Produce a Freer More Equal Prosperous World for All”

Sabastian Edwards has written a wonderful book about the rise and potential fall of neoliberalism in Chile, which makes these points. Much misinformation surrounds the activities of the Chilean economists trained at the University of Chicago—the Chicago Boys–who transformed Chiles economy from the repressive import substitution, state dominated model prevalent in South America at the time to a neoliberal free market model of Milton Friedman and the Chicago school, during and following the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet following his 1973 overthrow of democratically elected President Salvador Allende. Edwards’ account is extraordinarily detailed and balanced. His advice at the end for saving neoliberalism, classical liberalism, freedom or whatever you want to call it deserves our most serious attention. “Chile-Project Chicago-The Downfall of Neoliberalism”

The World on Fire

We just watched the first season of Masterpiece Theater’s production of “The World on Fire”. Masterpiece Theater remains the best of the best. The list of outstanding shows is long but at the top of my list is “The Jewel in the Crown.” I have watched its 18 hours of the very best of drama three times, once in an all day party. My love of Masterpiece Theater started in 1981 with “Brideshead Revisited.”  The only American show that tops them is “The Wire.”

Part of what I like about “The World on Fire” is that the horror and tragedy of war is shown as it impacts individual people and families. While I know that the little old ladies on the street thanking solders for their service have their hearts in the right place, their good wishes to the young men and women to go off and die for our country sickens me. Aside from Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 and al-Qaeda’s attack on New York and the Pentagon on 9/11, we have fought our many more recent wars (of choice) in far off places most of you have never been to.

I was never in the military nor fought in any war, but I have worked in many post conflict countries (Bosnia, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Kosovo) and lost colleagues to assassinations while there. We need to understand what war is really like, and the thousands upon thousands of individuals and their families who suffer losses of limbs or lives and property and ways of life for what very often could have and should have been avoided. Why do we encourage Ukraine to fight to the last Ukrainian rather than agree to terms with Russia that could have prevented the invasion in the first place? There are those who profit from these far off wars but many more who suffer greatly. Unfortunately, the former buy more influence than the latter. Movies like “The World on Fire,” can help us better understand the ugly horror of generally unnecessary wars.  https://wcoats.blog/2014/06/19/war-bosnia-kosovo-afghanistan-iraq-libya/    https://wcoats.blog/2021/07/05/the-iraq-war/  https://wcoats.blog/2009/09/03/iraq-kidnapping-update/ 

Monopolies

A company that produces a really attractive product or service and does so efficiently and thus at lower cost than can potential competitors, will grow and potentially dominate and even monopolize that market. It is tempting for such very successful companies to seek laws and regulations that protect their dominance by making it harder for potential competitors to enter those markets with lower costs. But as a company enjoys its increasingly protected monopoly, it tends to lose the edge that put it on top in the first place. Its drive to innovate is reduced. It tends to become lazy and even corrupt in the defense of its monopoly position. While economist differ on what policies are best when dealing with a monopolist, there is generally consensus that monopolies are bad in the long run.

The same is true of countries that grow to international dominance. With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting unipolar dominance of the United States, the U.S. increasingly behaves like a bully and disregards the rules of international commerce and diplomacy that it helped establish and demands that others follow.

The United States was founded on an extremely well-conceived set of principles designed to protect its individual citizens to lead their own lives and pursue their own flourishing as they each saw fit. The American constitution limited what the government may do to enumerated powers and provided checks and balances on the actions of each branch of government. For the most part these restrictions have held, and our government has provided the defense, protection, and framework needed for our individual flourishing.

But as we gained strength and dominance and especial during our brief period of unipolarity, we increasingly violated the rules we demanded that others follow. For example, we joined others to sponsor the World Trade Organization to establish the rules of fair trade in order to maximize the benefits of higher incomes for everyone made possible by trade.  We properly challenged China for dumping its excess steel on the market as a violation of WTO rules. But President Trump’s tariffs on Canadian, European, as well as Chinese steel in the name of national defense violated WTO rules as well as common sense. And how do President Biden’s multibillion dollar subsidies for domestic semiconductor chip production differ from “China’s state-led, non-market approach to the economy and trade” we object to?

Though the U.S. won most of the cases it brought to the WTO Appellate Body, the WTO’s dispute resolution body, that Body has not been able to function since December 2019 because the US has blocked the appoint of new judges.

But it gets worse. We have rightly condemned Russia for violating the sovereignty of Ukraine by invading it, while overlooking our equally illegal violations or attempted violations of the sovereignty of Cuba, Iraq, and Libya among others.  

But it gets worse still. In reaction to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s accusation that the government of India was responsible for the assassination of Canadian Sikh activist Hardeep Singh Nijjar on Canadian soil, Adrienne Watson, the White House National Security Council spokesperson, said “targeting dissidents in other countries is absolutely unacceptable and we will keep taking steps to push back on this practice.” Had she forgotten the dozens of such assassinations carried out by the U.S. on foreign soil? Of the more recent was the drone attack in Yemen that killed Anwar al-Awlaki and his young grandson on September 30, 2011. Al-Awlaki was an Islamic scholar and lecturing living here in Arlington Va.  Our assassination of Qasem Soleimani in Baghdad on January 3, 2020, again with a drone attack, raised considerable international criticism. Soleimani was the Commander of the Quds Force of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. We were not at war with either Iran or (at that time) Iraq.

With our near monopoly of political power in the world, the ability of our defense industry to protect and promote its profitable supply of weapons is strong. We can be thankful of their capacity to produce the weapons that defend us. But our military industrial complex that President Eisenhower warned us of profits however and by whom ever its products are used. Its profits are strengthened and sustained by our forever wars and those we supply. Ike knew of what he spoke.

Of the 2023 FY budget (ending next week) of $1.7 trillion in discretionary spending (yes trillions if you can swallow that), $860 billion (or 50.6%) was for defense. Half of that was paid to the defense industry. Most of that is for weapons. But they provide other services as well. When I was living in Baghdad as part of the Coalition Provisional Authority in 2004, Halliburton (the company Dick Chaney had been Chairman and CEO of) provided our meals in the Embassy mess hall (Saddam Hussein’s Presidential Palace). Lockheed alone gets more of its annual revenue from the federal government than the annual GDP of all but the top 81 countries (about half) in the world.

While our constitution’s checks and balances go a long way to protect our government from capture by the defense and other industries, the honestly of our elected representatives (devotion to the interests of their constituents and our country rather than to the size of their corporate contributions) still matters. It is hard to understand otherwise why we send our sons and daughters off to fight and die in foreign lands or encourage Ukraine to fight to the last Ukrainian.

Our government and foreign policy have been corrupted by our unipolar dominance. But our very arrogance—abide by our rules while we do what we want—has and will increasingly weaken our global influence. There are faint signs that we are being to recognize this new reality and tempering our behavior. The demise of our monopoly behavior and our return to fair and proper competition should be encouraged.

It makes sense to restrict trade of important military products. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan was right to claim that we should aim for a “small yard with a high fence” to protect military supplies while otherwise maximizing beneficial trade. But the profit motive of our defense industries to expand the size of that yard as much as possible is strong and has been and will be hard to resist.

Free to Speak

I disagree with many of the claims and proposals made by Critical Race Theorists. But the best way to challenge it are with public debt. Hiding it away violates our constitutional protection of free speech and will not be successful in exposing its errors. I remember being surprised and enlightened by reading “Black Like Me” years ago. It recounts the experiences of a white man who had turned his skin black traveling in the South as a black man (or as a negro as polite people said in those days). Did the shock harm me? Hardly. The lack of challenges to our ideas turns us to mush. https://wapo.st/3sYWltz

Happily, some, like FIRE, are fighting back. One excellent presentation of the value and importance of free speech and of civilly speaking up to defend what we believe and to listening to what others believe by the producers of earlier “Free to Choose” series, can be seen on PBS starting Oct 1.   “Free to Speak”  I urge you to watch it.

The Iran Deal

I have yet to understand how the US withdrawal from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran (the Iran Deal) was supposed to prevent Iran’s development of atomic weapons better than would the Iran Deal itself. But hopefully today’s deal with Iran is a step toward reentering the JCPOA.

Quoting the Crisis Group:

“The Biden administration has just completed implementing… agreement that secures the freedom of five American hostages in Iran in return for the release of an equivalent number of Iranian prisoners in the United States.

“In parallel, the Biden administration has also agreed to unfreeze nearly $6 billion worth of Iranian oil revenue stuck for years in South Korean banks that Tehran can use to purchase food and medicine. “

To Kill a Mockingbird

Earlier this week, Ito and I attended a performance at the Kennedy Center of the play version of this moving and powerful novel by Harper Lee. It was a well-staged production, faithful to the movie as best I can remember it from 50 years ago. Beyond its laudable, powerful attack on racism, it champions a moral position I have trouble with.

The play centers on the story’s hero attorney, Atticus Finch, who defends a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman. The alleged rape victim, Mayella Ewell, was actually beaten by her father, Bob Ewell, because she had kissed the accused black man, Tom Robinson. Despite the valent efforts of Atticus to defend Tom, who could not have beaten the white girl on both sides of her head because of his unusable left arm from an earlier accident, the all while jury convicts him anyway.

The play opens with Atticus’s daughter, Scout, addressing the audience about the local newspaper’s report of the death of Bob Ewell by falling on his knife. No one can fall on their own knife, says Scout. What is going on here?

Near the end of the play the mysterious, reclusive neighbor, Boo Radley, who Scout and her older brother Jen have never actually seen before, carries an unconscious Jen to his home for treatment. Jen and Scout had been attacked in the night by their white trash neighbor Bob Ewell. When the sheriff finds the dead body of Bob Ewell, Atticus fears that his daughter has killed him during his attack on her and Jen. But the sheriff concludes it was Boo Radley who plunged the knife into Bob Ewell to protect the children.

In a private conversation between Atticus and the sheriff, it is decided that the Sheriff will claim that Bob Ewell fell on his knife rather than risk the verdict of a bigoted jury. Atticus does not want his children to hear the discussion of the lie. Bob Ewell was a bad guy and no one is very sorry that he is dead. The plan ends with Scout facing the audience and saying, “I guess he fell on his sword.”

The play has many instances in which Scout and Jen defy inappropriate customs and views. I applaud those attacks on bigotry and outmoded customs. We recently watched the British series “Cranford”, which masterfully depicts the power of customs (which fork to use and how to dress), the disruption of progress (the building of the railroad into this quant English town) and the ultimate adjustment to positive changes. I highly recommend it.

The moral dilemma for me is the following. Atticus correctly and bravely defended Tom against the clearly false charges. Both the Judge and the Sheriff were strongly on the side of the truth and the law, but bigotry won out. Thus, the judge and Sheriff set aside the law and lied to protect a good man and his good deed against a bad man. Good wins out but only because in this instance the Sheriff and Judge are on the side of ultimate justice.

Many Filipinos also accepted former President Rodrigo Duterte’s green light to kill drug dealers on the streets of Manila without trail. It may well have been that most of those killed were indeed drug dealers. But if we rely on ignoring the truth and the law to achieve good ends, we open a dangerous door. We can’t always rely on the Sheriff and the Judge to be good people. We need strong and trusted institutions as well.

Corruption and the American Empire

I truly believe that the vast majority of American’s who worked in Afghanistan after the U.S. toppled the Taliban government in December 2001 where genuinely motivated by the desire to help Afghanistan (and thus the U.S.)—myself included. “Warren’s Travels”  But as Ms. Chayes makes clear, we are just bad at it. “Afghanistan’s corruption was made in America”

Pursuing Empire is not what we are about. It is not “The beacon on the hill” that has rightly attracted the best and brightest to our shores. Of late even that beacon is threatening to go out. We should stay home and rebuild the capacity to cooperate where needed to enable us each to flourish in our own ways.

More on constructive competition

In contrasting our treatment of others as competitors or enemies in my blog on “What to do About China”  I am reminded of the 120 days I spent in Baghdad as an advisor to the Central Bank of Iraq paid for by the USAID and supervised by the US Treasury. Our occupation of Iraq included staff from the US Treasury, USAID, Commerce Dept, State Department, and, of course, the Dept. of Defense. Competition by each of them to do a better job than the others would clearly be win-win making our overall occupation more successful. But too often one agency treated the others as enemies diminishing and undermining their efforts rather than supporting them. My biggest fear with my dual association with USAID and Treasury was that each would see me as on the other side, which would have undermined my effectiveness. Luckily the each saw me as on their own side.  “Iraq-An American Tragedy-My Travels to Baghdad”