PEACE AND ASYMMETRICAL CONFLICT

The problem is, it seems to me, a lack of imagination and with that state a lack of humanity.

Peace is thought to be impossible. So we are to do nothing about peace, and in fact as realists can do nothing about it. Might we not examine this proposition, in not doing so live “an unexamined life”. Then very quickly that proposition is quickly followed by the assumption that justice is impossible. So the first resort is violence and war, and reaction and revenge and so on, and on. Let the fire burn, since we are all geared to go, but where?

If we in the West – I think we qualify in Australia and New Zealand, if mostly by culture and history, more than geography – wish as is reasonable to protect ourselves against the horror of terrorism, then we have to address the source of the problem. Terrorism is the use of remotely directed violence – bombs, sniper fire, drones, phosphorous bombs – against defenceless, unknown, and if not blameless human beings, in the strict sense innocent ones. Murder should have no place as public policy, whatever the circumstances. We can defend ourselves perfectly well without it – although we might have to die in the process. Since we die in any case, we have to live as we wish to die.

Someone, I imagine, has to be thinking what might be the best for the people of Afghanistan trapped in their history of continuing civil war, ill conceived foreign invasion and in the reaction of nationalist and cultural resistance. Tribal societies have been very inconvenient to the modern state project, as we know from our own history. A decision has been made by I suspect foreigners that the religious Taliban and the tribal systems are not going to be represented in the Afghan polity, not less be the government. Calling things by their correct names, in simple terms this is Imperialism.

The “war of necessity” is a nonsense, as it is an obscenity, regardless of those who call for it. Warfare, and particularly that now waged in Afghanistan and extended to Pakistan tribal areas, and in Iraq provides the best training for terrorism. Those circumstances drive the motivation of terrorism, which I assume to be existential sense of anger, humiliation, and outrage.

As with all calculated murder, as the military trainers know, some measure of dehumanization is required. Barbarity does not come naturally to human beings; it has to be thoroughly cultivated and developed often sadly over a life time, or else they must be placed in carefully constructed places remote from the consequences of their actions, such as aircraft flying over villages or corporate offices high in the sky. We are sometimes given to mistaking barbarism for power upon we can construct human solutions.

Where is that the most leverage can be had, and the most progress had?

The answer is simple: Jerusalem. The name of that city speaks to us in our earlier incarnation as Western Europeans, the massacre of 1096 and the framing of an Christendom in contradistinction to Islam, and the disengagement of that construct into the modern project through the enlightenment and industrialization, including the industrialization of war and its further refinement. I may be hopeless wrong about where we are now at, but I see as a period of transition, of fundamental historical change. We are likely to be polarized between those who want to go forward, and those who want to hang onto the past. Pragmatic on the ground reconciliation, which is never easy, can do us all an enormous amount of good. Islam is after all a world system, and possibly with the exception of Latin America in a significant way touches most of us by direct contact.

So I think the politics of Palestine are critically important. I do not know how Israel gets away with it, or why the US policy is so committed to Israel. How does that work for American interests, or for the interests that have captured American policy, if that is the case? Why the European support? Why does our political establishment never raise a question about Apartheid Israel, whose cruelty is now legendary, as it is blindly ignored?

Matti Friedman, for Associated Press, reports:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will approve hundreds of new housing units in West Bank settlements before slowing settlement construction, two of his aides said Friday, in an apparent snub of Washington’s public demand for a total settlement freeze.

The aides also said Netanyahu would be willing to consider a temporary freeze in settlement construction, but their definition of a freeze would include building the new units and finishing some 2,500 others currently under construction.

The settlement suspension also would not include east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians hope to make their future capital.
The U.S. has a set a high public bar for a freeze, saying repeatedly that all settlement activity on lands the Palestinians claim for a future state must stop, without exception. However, Israel appeared to gain some wiggle room in recent weeks as the sides discussed the details of a would-be settlement freeze.

The two Netanuyahu aides spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the government has made no official announcement. The information also appeared in major Israeli media Friday morning and was clearly intended for public consumption.
It was unclear if Washington had prior knowledge of the Israeli announcement, which had the potential to undermine the Obama administration’s credibility in the Arab world.

“I think the only thing that will be suspended by this announcement is the peace process,” said senior Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat.

In the next few days, the aides said, the prime minister will approve the construction of hundreds of new apartments in the West Bank.

At War in Context, Paul Woodward comments:

When did Netanyahu make his definitive assessment of Obama?  Was it when the presidential candidate was putting on his most obsequious performance in front of AIPAC, spouting drivel about an indivisible Jerusalem? Or was it when as president-elect he became a mute witness to the Gaza massacre?

Whenever it happened, it is clear that Netanyahu took a clear measure of the strength of his adversary and concluded that whatever the power of his office, this particular president was pliable as willow.

The White House now says:

We regret the reports of Israel’s plans to approve additional settlement construction. Continued settlement activity is inconsistent with Israel’s commitment under the Roadmap.

As the President has said before, the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement expansion and we urge that it stop.

When this president urges this prime minister to stop, I’m reminded of Bush urging Sharon to pull his troops out of Jenin “without delay” in 2002 – a meek demand that was predictably ignored – and of Olmert telling Bush how Rice should vote at the UN – a presumptuous call that was not rebuffed.

Crude as this way of expressing it might be, again and again we witness a suposedly powerful American president acting like he’s the Israeli prime minister’s bitch.

Have I given up on Obama? Not yet, but I see little evidence that he has the capacity to be bold. The skeptic at this blog is teetering on the brink of becoming a cynic.

It is fair to say that Israeli leaders, perhaps following the example of Bismarck, which may have been a founding influence, have been pratitiioners of realpolitik. In that sense Benjamin Netanyahou is following in that tradition.

Then again, if the proposition, as it suggested, that our futures might depend on the outcome, can we with responsibility leave it to others apparently lacking in capacity and commitment? And what can we do?

ELSEWHERE:

At ABC Unleashed, Bob Ellis asks, Why are we in Afghanistan? He writes better that I do – no surprise there. The mute question though is: Who are “we”? Implicit in such a proposition is another question: Who are they? Are we not all human beings, equal and the same in our essential humanity?

Chris Floyd reminds of something that I should have paid more attention to at the time. Obama turned on his pastor, Reverend Wright, for what others imagined him to say and not what he said. It is no wonder that he would not see Cindy Sheehan who was protesting outside his holiday location on Cape Cod.

At The Globalist, via War In Context, Michael Vlahos observes the passing of the nation state:

Modernity is still rooted in a framework of state religious nationalism. Yes, modernity made the state the arbiter of identity. For two centuries and more, collective belonging and meaning has been a state enterprise. In the great religious wars of the 20th century, millions willingly sacrificed themselves for the sacred vision of the nation-state.

So here is Part II and Part III.

Tom Hayden at Speigle Online has an interesting comment on the Obama Administration:

Obama is caught between the social movements that made his presidency possible, including the anti-Iraq-war movement, and the Machiavellians, who are accustomed to running everything with little or no interference from the voters.

I still fine it maladroit and unbelievable for any kind of politician to disdain his or her core supporters. What kind of politician is President Obama?

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