dagblog - Comments for "Boycotts in the News"

Is a Settlement Boycott Best

artappraiser — Tue, 04 Mar 2014 19:25:43 +0000

Is a Settlement Boycott Best for Israel?
Room for Debate @ nytimes.com, March 3, 2014

Debaters:

Daniel Gordis

Daniel Gordis, is the Koret distinguished fellow and chair of the core curriculum at Shalem College in Jerusalem.

Lara Friedman

Lara Friedman, a former U.S. foreign service officer, is the director of policy and government relations for Americans for Peace Now.

Anyone who really believes

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 20:53:58 +0000

In reply to And the selfish part of me

Anyone who really believes that a solution to the IP troubles would do much to solve any other problems in that neighborhood, I got a bridge to sell 'em. Might just as well make things worse elsewhere (er Egypt, for example.)

Yeah, well, who woulda thunk that America invading Iraq would keep the country in a simmering hell for 10 years rather than an improvement. Guess Marshall plans only come once in a century.

But no, I think you're being unduly pessimistic to think that solving the IP situation would be at best a draw, at worse a disintegration. And 1 big difference is that the IP situation is technically not an internal problem, which many of the other Mideast situations are - and once upon a time we kinda professed we'd leave internal problems alone. These days we insist that regime change is our God-given right, though we seem to have lost some of the moral compass that made say or backing of the Orange Revolution or Solidarnosc admirable.

As for the people of Syria, I think we just discovered them the same as discovering there were women in Afghanistan, about the time we wanted to swap governments. That fickle interest will fade quickly. Only issue with Syria is we realized a bit late, but not too late, that our regime changers were worse than the changees, something we got lucky on in Libya while the jury's a bit out on Egypt.

Ukraine's a backwater - means

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 20:37:16 +0000

In reply to Interesting, I didn't really

Ukraine's a backwater - means little for anything.

Well, sometimes the

PeraclesPlease — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 20:32:33 +0000

In reply to I certainly cannot speak for

Well, sometimes the "official" position is staking out 50% or 100% more than what you'll settle for or think you'll get. Perhaps that's why Israelis insist on "not 1 Palestinian return", figuring in the end they'll settle for a few thousand and that will be it. Frankly I'm so sick of the posturing on both sides.

Yeah, I thought I covered

A Guy Called LULU — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 18:46:16 +0000

In reply to It could easily be argued

Yeah, I thought I covered that point even without getting specific so as to also include the many other unconscionable things we [and other countries] have done, often in the name of spreading democracy. I'm all for hearing any ideas you may have as to dealing with Iraq fairly and productively going forward. If any such idea is non-lethal and looks like it has a fair chance to work I'll almost certainly be for trying it, and if it does work I'll recommend you to the Nobel committee. In the event of success, a small kickback would be appreciated.

It could easily be argued

artappraiser — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 18:31:59 +0000

In reply to So suppose we rate ten bad

It could easily be argued that the U.S. has a hell of a lot more responsibility for the situation that Iraqis are in today.

So suppose we rate ten bad

A Guy Called LULU — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 18:17:00 +0000

In reply to And the selfish part of me

So suppose we rate ten bad situations from one to ten as to their severity. We, as a nation, along with many other powers, have various levels of responsibility in creating those ten problems but history is yesterday and we can only move forward from today.
Now suppose we decide to help change the situation in number ten for the better. That would probably mean sanctions that would starve people, or bombing which would kill people, or even an invasion followed by an occupation which would get many of our soldiers killed and cost money we do not have. All these solutions amount to curing by killing while creating more enemies with no reasonable expectation that we can pull off a cure. Then, as soon as we have some success with number ten it devolves to the number nine problem place and we are now obligated, by your logic, to drop it and go deal with the old number nine, now the new number ten, since we cannot solve every problem everywhere.
Speaking from the point of view of someone sympathetic to the Palestinians plight, I agree that their situation is not the worst of any group of people in the world, but to the extent that it is bad, we, the American people, have an ongoing part in making it bad and so we have a more direct responsibility to do something about it. The BDS movement has the chance to have a good affect using peaceful, non-lethal actions.

Worth a try, I say.

I should add that I do not

artappraiser — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 18:16:58 +0000

In reply to Interesting, I didn't really

I should add that I do not begrudge any person of Jewish heritage thinking that Israel's problems are of utmost interest, because of the unique reason for its founding. I do see that as quite different from me being interested in the country of my grandparents, or of Arabs being interested in Palestinians because they are "brothers." Again, there is a unique reason for its existence as a nation. But ironically, that is also why the situation has some equivalence to the Pakistan/India story....

I also get the impression

artappraiser — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 18:07:45 +0000

In reply to AA, it's an excellent

I also get the impression that Jeff Goldberg is taken more seriously by all parties concerned (even the people that dislike him!) And then I thought of David Ignatius, he clearly has more access to V.I.P. sources, and that's more like Safire.

AA, it's an excellent

Bruce Levine — Wed, 19 Feb 2014 17:59:57 +0000

In reply to Just on the topic of

AA, it's an excellent question and candidly I do not know the answer. I do know that he does not like Bibi one iota and I would suspect that he doesn't have the kind of access that Safire had back in the day. If I were to guess, I would look to the access that a guy like Jeffrey Goldberg now has as being more analogous to the role played by Safire. That said, I have no doubt that the Israeli government (up and down and in and out) play very close attention to Tom Friedman, and I'm sure there's quite a few journalists who would love to have his Middle East rolodex (you remember them?).