These are somewhat lazy days for me and I'm trying to read some blogs when I can. This morning, I read a post from Wretchard on the Israel-Hamas conflagration and a follow-on comment by Wretchard grabbed me:
Imagine a scene in a novel — let’s call it The Last Band Aid” —
where a man is found dead in his home in an unnamed European country.
The post-mortem shows he died from acute metastatic cancer: lesions in
the brain, tumors in the pelvis, kidney failure. The whole nine yards.
An Inspector General comes to the home of the deceased to solve the
mystery of why the dead man never sought treatment, never asked the
system for help, presumably to identify deficiencies in the bureaucracy
that prevented it. When he searches the man’s little apartment, he
finds drawers full of over the counter painkillers: boxes and boxes of
them, plus enough cough syrup and cheap whiskey to stun a herd of oxen.
“Why didn’t he come in for help? Why did he rely on palliatives?” the Inspector General asks. “It’s a mystery.”
Then we follow the Inspector General back to his office, a huge,
gleaming skyscraper filled with thousands of bureaucrats. Then we see
what they are all doing: the armies of officials are filling out
reports on people who have been found dead in their homes. And then the
scene shifts outside to trucks which are leaving in a continuous convoy
from the vast warehouses of the National Health Service, and we see
that they laden with tens of thousands of boxes of painkillers, cough
syrup and cheap whiskey.
How different is this from the diplomatic dance that has been going on for decades in the Middle East?
That paints a blunt and accurate picture of the real deal. But Wretchard later elaborated on the comment:
I think the diplomats are playing a dangerous game. The only thing
that keeps the situation in the Middle East stable is Israeli
restraint. But that’s the stability of a spinning plate in a juggler’s
hands; not that of a concrete block sitting foursquare on the floor.
The danger is the diplomats may come to regard Israeli restraint as a
foundation on which to build their diplomatic fantasies. They will keep
handing the juggler one more plate, one more ball, one more champagne
glass to spin at the end of a stick. Give back the Golan Heights; let
the Arabs have part of Jerusalem; ignore the rocket attacks from Gaza.
Today there are no more enemies. Only Partners for Peace.
But they build at the risk that someday the juggler will miss a
catch. Restraint may collapse or maybe simply lapse for an instant. But
that instant will be fatal. The Arabs, conditioned to expecting Israeli
restraint, may explode in outrage. The Israelis may be driven over the
edge. All the plates will come crashing down. And on that day the
diplomats will be the persons most astonished at the collapse of their
house of cards. There won’t be any stability in the Middle East until
there is real restraint on both sides; not fake restraint on one side
and real restraint on the other.
Real restraint on both sides. Of course, the discussion continued with some inevitable trolls joining into the mix.
Maybe the root of this conflict isn’t “land” or “statehood” or even
religion. Maybe its about preserving fighting and terrorism as a way of
life; as a business. Palestine is an alibi for anything, but mostly it
is the justification for a mode of employment, a whole series of
professions, a whole raft of contractors, a self-sustaining funding
network that could not exist without continuous and never-ending war.
This monster has already consumed the Palestinians; stolen their
future, made a mockery of their hopes.
But sometimes I wonder if the West is any better off. How much
“aid”, how many diplomatic jobs, how many tenured positions in
universities, how many activist’s careers, how much research and
development, weapons manufacturing, military training programs — how
many jobs depend on keeping this abomination going.
This is too much of a good thing for everyone except the ordinary
Israeli and Arab for the music to stop. Sometimes I wonder whether it
is any more feasible to finish this war than it is to stop illegal
immigration. Maybe nobody really wants either a fence or victory to
happen. That would be too simple. One thing seems certain: whatever the
UN or the diplomats propose isn’t going to make a dime’s worth of
difference. One can’t read the drivel coming from the UN without
wondering whether they are joking, mad or moronic. And no, Obama’s not
going to fix it. We are in the real world equivalent of Groundhog Day.
What worries me is the suspicion that some people want us to stay there.
There is something worse than war. It is war without end masquerading as a “peace process”.
There it is. I've said to friends (and maybe on this blog; these days, I can't seem to remember much at all) that the domestic stuff will not be the area where the Obama administration earns a passing or failing score that colors the entire four years -- it will be internationally where that happens.
And his hand is going to be forced just as Dubya's was completely forced by 9/11. Barack the politician will then be put to a severe test and I will be worried beyond belief. Further, that test is likely to be in the Middle East and it will force Obama to side with Israel or not side with Israel. There will be no middle ground.
No.Middle.Ground.
No.Shuffling.Along.
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