Thursday, December 12, 2024

Postmortems

You must expand in breadth,
If the world is to take shape for you;
You must descend into the depths,
If the essence is to be revealed to you.
Only perseverance leads to the goal,
Only abundance leads to clarity,
And in the abyss dwells the truth.
   -- Friedrich Schiller

Here is a small survey of reactions to the recent US Election and the deaths of Jordan Neely and Brian Thompson, found on the authors' blogs and in the New York Times Opinion section. Selected paragraphs were copied verbatim.

The 2024 US General Election

James Howard Kunstler

"At last, it appears that the Party of Chaos got its fondest wish: it aborted itself in the 2024 election. “Joe Biden” was the coat-hanger it used: this miserable, grifting, now-senile hack politician who will be remembered only for driving his country to the verge of ruin. And for what? All in an effort to cover-up a long train of crimes and abuses against the American people perpetrated by a permanent bureaucracy gone rogue that was the party’s partner-in-crime. And now it’s over.

Though the statement omitted to say so directly, it’s very likely that a number of public officials will find themselves before grand juries in the years ahead. If you haven’t figured it out already, you’ll learn that the term “misinformation” was just the gas in the gaslight used to confound the country about what has really been at stake — which is your personal liberty in what is supposed to be a free country. The Democratic Party and the Deep State blob really did try to steal that from you."

Bret Stephens

"Why did Harris lose? There were many tactical missteps: her choice of a progressive running mate who would not help deliver a must-win state like Pennsylvania or Michigan; her inability to separate herself from President Biden; her foolish designation of Trump as a fascist, which, by implication, suggested his supporters were themselves quasi-fascist; her overreliance on celebrity surrogates as she struggled to articulate a compelling rationale for her candidacy; her failure to forthrightly repudiate some of the more radical positions she took as a candidate in 2019, other than by relying on stock expressions like “My values haven’t changed.”
...
But these mistakes of calculation lived within three larger mistakes of worldview. First, the conviction among many liberals that things were pretty much fine, if not downright great, in Biden’s America — and that anyone who didn’t think that way was either a right-wing misinformer or a dupe. Second, the refusal to see how profoundly distasteful so much of modern liberalism has become to so much of America. Third, the insistence that the only appropriate form of politics when it comes to Trump is the politics of Resistance — capital R."

Donald Jeffries

"There have been a few reluctant admissions from some on the Left that perhaps pushing the “Woke” envelope so hard wasn’t such a brilliant political strategy. No matter how many vapid celebrities endorse it, you’re never going to get millions of Americans to accept the LGBTQ+ agenda. They know men can’t have babies, and that biological women should have babies. Propaganda otherwise is contrary to human nature. So the millions of unhappy “Woke” fanatics, stricken with severe TDS, are bound to become even unhappier. More committed to “reproductive rights,” which essentially means the right to abortion as birth control. This is the most important issue to unknown numbers of women who are too old to have another chance at abortion. This issue may finish off sexual relations between young male and female cisgenders, if the response from Tik Tok is any indication. At least for Whites."

Kareem Abdul-Jabber

"I don’t want this to turn into a bitter diatribe about my disappointment in the American people who selected a rapist, racist, and cognitively challenged buffoon as their leader. Who put all marginalized people’s lives and rights at risk. Who put the security of the country at risk. Who put our children’s futures at risk.

The next four years will be challenging as we are led by a man in serious mental decline who has surrounded himself with political dimwits and moralless thugs. Most of the prominent people he hired last time turned against him during this election to warn us of his ineptitude, pettiness, and greed. His closest advisors said he was incompetent. But his supporters thought they knew him better. So, here we are."

Scott Galloway

"My disbelief and despair are shapeshifting to anger. A narcissist (President Biden) crowned an untested candidate and asked her, in 107 days, to overcome the crises of immigration and inflation and the burden of an unpopular incumbency. When two-thirds of the country says we’re on the wrong track, there’s no way someone from the current administration can credibly claim to be a change agent, much less the disruptor people are looking for in an age of rage."

James Howard Kunstler

"I doubt he will be present at Mr. Trump’s inauguration, so the US marshals will have to root him out of Delaware (or wherever) and haul him into the federal lockup in DC at exactly the moment Mr. Trump pardons the J-6 prisoners. Will they get to see “Joe Biden” coming into the joint on their way out? There would be a certain poetic symmetry in that, and hard to not admire the workings of Providence after all its foot-dragging. You might well ask: how many days, or months, will “Joe Biden” have to endure in solitary detention before the paperwork is in order for a proper arraignment?."

Heather Cox Richardson

"These results were a surprise to everyone. Trump is a 78-year-old convicted felon who has been found liable for sexual assault and is currently under indictment in a number of jurisdictions. He refused to leave office peacefully when voters elected President Joe Biden in 2020, instead launching an unprecedented attack on the U.S. Capitol to stop the counting of electoral votes, and said during his campaign that he would be a “dictator” on his first day in office.

Pollsters thought the race would be very close but showed increasing momentum for Harris, and Harris’s team expressed confidence during the day. By posting on social media—with no evidence—that the voting in Pennsylvania was rigged, Trump himself suggested he expected he would lose the popular vote, at least, as he did in 2016 and 2020."

Techno from The Reactionary

"What do you get when you combine an unpopular Democratic candidate and a poor economy? A bloodbath. A clean sweep of all swing states. A win of the popular vote.

We were optimistic on Monday - if you looked at the crosstabs closely, Trump was making gains with independents, Black men, and Hispanics. He was making gains with 2020 Biden voters. There was widespread disapproval of Biden’s economic policies and Trump was trusted on the most two important issues this election: the economy and immigration. Momentum favored the Republicans. Nobody was enthusiastic for Kamala."

mccobb

I'm relieved the election is over. Weeks before I sensed that Trump was going to win. While I didn't want Trump to win particularly, I'm glad he won with over 50% of the vote. A majority voted for and therefore deserves whatever happens, good or bad, the next four years.

Here is all Trump should do to keep the people who aren't his core supporters happy. According to the polls and pundits, the main issues for most people were grocery, gas, and house prices and illegal immigration. Keeping the inflation rate low and the southern border effectively closed should be good enough for most people, as long as they are employed and wages rise. Trump can continue to blame Biden if prices don't fall, and he doesn't need a mass deportation of illegal immigrants. It was the spectacle of a torrent of people crossing the border, and the murders, that sparked outrage.

He must avoid humiliating spectacles at home and on the international stage. A brokered deal that ends the war in Ukraine, and lets what's left of Ukraine remain intact and free, would, of course, be a big win. Putin can wait, regroup, and eat the rest of Ukraine after the Democrats regain the white house.

His administration doesn't need to go on a vendetta against the previous administration, the members of the congress committee who investigated him, the FBI, or the media. Making the majority of people who voted for him in 2024 happy should be Trump's main goal. He shouldn't worry about his base, who love him, or his many cheerleaders, who both love him and hate the Democratic party unconditionally.

The US has produced more oil in recent years than any other time in history, Oil prices should be lower and we should be energy independent but we're not. The reason is US refineries can't refine the grade of oil produced by frakking. Oil produced by frakking must be shipped overseas to be refined. This would explain why the oil business wants more drilling on public land. This oil could refined in the US.

Jordan Neely

James Howard Kunstler

"Were you thinking of Daniel Penny this weekend? A year and a half ago, the US marine veteran, age 26, subdued one Jordan Neely, 30, a homeless schizophrenic with a record of 42 arrests who was menacing riders on a New York City subway car. Neely was, at the time, a fugitive on an arrest warrant for felony assault on a sixty-seven-year-old woman. Penny applied a choke hold after Neely declared he was of a mind to kill somebody on the train. Neely was still alive when the cops came, but they declined to give him CPR because he was filthy and an apparent drug-user, and they feared getting AIDS or hepatitis from giving him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. . . so Neely died there in the subway.

Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg indicted Penny for manslaughter in the second degree and secondarily for criminally negligent homicide. His trial has been going on all month. On Friday, the jury reported its inability to reach a verdict on the manslaughter charge. Instead of declaring a mistrial, Judge Maxwell T. Wiley dismissed the primary charge and directed the jury to continue deliberations this week on the secondary negligent homicide charge, a procedurally dubious action.

Everybody knows that the trial is an absurd injustice, but that has been the temper of our society for many years now in the age of the Woke Jacobins. Unlike the original Jacobins of 1794 in Paris, who were ultra-extreme idealists, our Woke Jacobins are extreme cynics, imagining only the worst about the project of civilization. Hence, their alt-project to de-civilize the rest of us."

John McWhorter

"Penny was the man who stepped up when Neely caused a commotion on the F train, shouting at passengers, “I’m fed up. I don’t mind going to jail and getting life in prison. I’m ready to die.” Penny put him in a chokehold and held him for about six minutes. Neely died from compression to his neck, according to the medical examiner.

It should have been a story about the horror of a mentally ill person abandoned by the city and left to fend for himself in subway tunnels or on street corners, or about how scary it can be for those around him to navigate the wreckage, or about how one 24-year-old Marine veteran tried to protect a group of strangers, taking action that ended in unintended tragedy.

But Penny is white and Neely, 30, was Black. So instead it became a story of race — and all the more so after the jury’s verdict — a variation of Daniel Pantaleo going free after choking Eric Garner in 2014. But that’s not what happened here, and I wish those describing Penny or his acquittal as racist might consider things from another vantage point."

mccobb

When the boyfriend choked to death Jordan Neely's mom and put her body in a suitcase, he also murdered Jordan. He developed schizophrenia, a disease that prevents becoming a person. The city knew he was ill and couldn't take care of himself, but they let him wander homeless on the streets and in subway trains. The city failed him, like other cities around the country that can't help the homeless and mentally ill.

Neely shouted, "I'm ready to die" and Daniel Penny stepped up, afraid Neely was about to attack another passenger. He put Neely in a choke hold for five or six minutes, and later in the hospital Neely was declared dead. Penny had him pinned but was afraid he'd be attacked if he let go. A photo of Penny holding Neely on the floor of the train plainly showed Neely was unconscious, so Penny's fear of being attacked may have been his imagination.

Either Penny wasn't trained how to properly apply a choke hold or his Army training was crummy or intended only for combat. A correctly applied choke hold is a technique, known in Judo as Shimewaza, that can subdue a larger and stronger person for an extended time, and the subdued person doesn't die. There are people who can control their adrenaline and be calm, but Penny wasn't calm, assuming he didn't notice that Neely was motionless.

I haven't described a negligent homicide. Penny didn't have a black belt in Judo, as far as I know, and Neely didn't immediately get the first aid he needed when he was finally let go. Penny was a brave, but not very brave, human being. The acquittal by his peers was fair. The trial was necessary if only because it gave national attention to homelessness and mental illness. But I don't see Penny as a hero. His case may have set a precedent for a cheap, quick, and permanent way to get rid of the sick and homeless. The US would be a crueler place but free of potentially dangerous insane people.

Brian Thompson

Donald Jeffries

"Luigi Nicholas Mangione has struck a blow for the frustrated, the beaten down, and those driven into financial ruin by the cost of healthcare. Now, I am certainly not approving his actions. I don’t want to see anyone killed. Remember, I’m against capital punishment. I try not to step on insects. But there are a whole lot of people who do approve of Mangione’s act. Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro may declare “he’s no hero,” but many disagree. #FreeLuigi is trending online. Social media has been flooded with supportive messages for Mangione. The obscure alleged killer has seen his Instagram account swell to over 21,000 followers. One bright young female tweeted, “he’s only guilty of being hot.” Another castigated the “class traitor” who snitched on him."

Robert A. Pape

"What I have seen is lining up quite squarely with what we have found about the growing normalization of political violence in America. Year after year, political violence is becoming more common, and we’re seeing that support for political violence is growing across a range of issues.

Think about the political violence we’ve experienced just in the last few years. In 2022 we saw the attack against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi that missed her but almost killed her husband. In 2023 there was an assailant who had weapons in his vehicle, and he was surveilling President Barack Obama’s home in Washington, D.C. This year we saw two assassination attempts against Donald Trump."

mccobb

Luigi Mangioni reminded me of Raskolnikov in Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment. If he's lucky. Mangioni is a Raskolnikov.

Politicians pushing for privatizing the VA should perhaps think about it. When prisons are privatized the business model is the more prisoners the better. With health care, it's the fewest paid claims and the least money paid out to claims.

Capitalism in the US should not have to be cruel. Here is what I've been thinking. Flatten the company hierarchy, so that employees are equally responsible for outcomes. End centralization: distribute employees to work in communities so they can listen to and serve customers directly. Put company money including profits into local banks, investing in the communities they serve.

I plan to try to find a few economists willing to discuss what is possible. I'd like to think localization could at least ameliorate bad outcomes due to our current capitalist corporate system.

Notes

  • Friedrich Schiller, Sprüche des Konfuzius
    https://www.deutschelyrik.de/, translated into English by Google Translate


    Mußt ins Breite dich entfalten,
    Soll sich dir die Welt gestalten;
    In die Tiefe mußt du steigen,
    Soll sich dir das Wesen zeigen.
    Nur Beharrung führt zum Ziel,
    Nur die Fülle führt zur Klarheit,
    Und im Abgrund wohnt die Wahrheit.

    In a book I read about Quantum Mechanics, Heisenberg's quote of Schiller was translated, "The mind is alone the clear. The truth dwells in the deep."

  • Trump voters second term focus group These 14 Voters Think Trump Has One Mandate Above All, and It’s Not About the Economy
    The New York Times December 10, 2024
    "This discussion was moderated by a focus group veteran, Margie Omero, and the New York Times deputy Opinion editor, Patrick Healy."
  • Natalie Duddridge, Ali Bauman Jordan Neely's death prompts calls for justice, change; "How can we start saving those that are literally crying for help?"
    CBS News New York, Updated on: May 4, 2023
    "Neely was a subway busker and Michael Jackson impersonator. In a GoFundMe page, his family says his mother, Christie Neely, was murdered in 2007. Her body was found stuffed in a suitcase in the Bronx after she was allegedly choked to death.

    Police say Jordan Neely had more than 40 prior arrests, including felony assault for punching someone in the head on the subway. He also had more than a dozen mental health encounters with police, where he reported he suffered from schizophrenia and complained of "hearing voices.""
  • Choking - unconscious adult or child over 1 year
    Mount Sinai, Health Library
    "Without oxygen, brain damage can occur in as little as 4 minutes. Rapid first aid for choking can save a person's life."
  • Daniel Bergner America’s Hidden Racial Divide: A Mysterious Gap in Psychosis Rates
    New York Times, updated Dec. 4, 2024
    "Black Americans experience schizophrenia and related disorders at twice the rate of white Americans. It’s a disparity that has parallels in other cultures."
  • Elie A. Morrell, Shichidan The Challenges of Shimewaza: Judo Chokes
    Judo Info, Online Dojo
    "Shimewaza is probably the most difficult branch of judo to master. Few judo practitioners will ever attain total mastery of shimewaza.

    One shimewaza stands out from all the rest because of its unique method of application It is sankaku jime and is worthy of mention here. This technique relies on the power of the legs surrounding the neck area to attain the desired effect. When properly applied, escape is extremely difficult, if not nearly impossible. Because of the power of this technique, submission by the uke is often the outcome. The writer has never witnessed a case where this technique was applied wherein the uke was rendered unconscious. The result was always submission!"
  • E. K. Koiwai, M.D. How Safe is Choking in Judo?
    Judo Info, Online Dojo.
    "Shime-waza or the “choke hold,” when properly applied, should not cause death; therefore, its primary purpose should be to subdue violent suspects. When properly applied, the choke hold causes unconsciousness in 10-20 seconds. No fatalities as a result of shime-waza have been reported in the sport of judo since its inception in 1882. Among the methods of “control holds” taught to law enforcement officers is the choke hold similar or identical to shime-waza used in judo. Using the choke hold, officers may afford themselves maximum safety while subjecting the suspect to a minimum possibility of injury. "
  • Eric Levenson Daniel Penny explains in his own words why he restrained Jordan Neely on the subway for so long
    CNN, updated December 11, 2024
    "During the trial, several witnesses testified they heard Neely say he was willing to go to jail for life but did not testify they heard him say he would kill."
  • Errol Morris, Director The Fog of War
    Documentary film transcript, 2003
    "Lesson #1: Empathize with your enemy."

Thursday, October 31, 2024

Political Freefall

"This world is the will to power –– and nothing besides! And you yourselves are also this will to power –– and nothing besides!" -- Nietzsche

When I was in my late twenties I imagined government as two opposing forces, liberal Democrat and conservative Republican, working together to forge compromises that became new laws. A balance would be struck, like yin and yang, between opposing principles, e.g., between personal liberty and the tragedy of the commons. The result would not be ideological. It would be something that would work as much as possible for everyone. How else should the state govern from the top down?

This idealistic philosophy put me politically somewhere in the middle, and for most issues this is where I stayed. I never registered as a Democrat or Republican, and voted for both Republicans and Democrats. And I didn't vote to put one party or the other in control of the House of Representatives or the Senate. This strategy worked well, or at least I thought it did, but over time it became obviously unrealistic.

I had forgotten about the will to power. As Nietzsche conceived it, the will to power is a basic animating force in all of us, that each of us will direct in a different direction. "The philosopher and the scientist direct their will to power into a will to truth. Artists channel it into a will to create. Businessmen satisfy it by becoming rich." The politician satisfies it by achieving political power.

Both businessman and politician, Trump is animated by his followers as much as his base of followers are animated by him. That is to say, there is a movement with Trump as its nominal head. As a comment found in a right wing web site explained, if we didn't have Trump, we would find someone else.

During the Republican primary I wanted either Chris Christie or Nikki Haley to win the 2024 nomination. Either one I believed was capable of uniting the country, where unity in this country is over 50% approval. Leading up to the general election, I would listen to Republicans talk on TV and agree with them. If the Republicans took control of both houses and the White House, the country would be nudged in a more conservative direction, but the Democrats could regain some control as early as the mid-term elections. Good ideas from either party would hopefully remain in place.

But Trump is the nominee, and he and his surrogates are saying that Harris is far left. She was far left and will always be far left. It's too bad that Trump is far right. Trump may not be a fascist authoritarian, but he is a divisive politician who desires power.

Trump has proposed a broad tariff of 10% to 20% tariff on all goods imported into the US, a 30% tariff on all goods imported from China, and end to Obama's Deferred Action on Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, rounding up and deporting up to 20 million illegal immigrants, ending liability if the police shoot an unarmed civilian, reinstating stop and frisk, and possibly imprisoning anyone who stood up to him after the 2020 election.

These are some of the proposals linked from Trump's web site known as Agenda 47. He has publically disavowed the Heritage Foundation's infamous Project 2025 plan, but he may not ignore all of its proposals. Less well-known is the America First Policy Institute (AFPI) which, according to the New York Times, is advising the Trump campaign. AFPI's proposals are as draconian as Project 25's plan. They have prepared almost 300 executive orders waiting for Trump to sign.

Regarding the issue of gender identity, wouldn't it be more consistent to let it be handled by the states, similar to the issue of abortion? One of Trump's promises is to either sign a law or an executive order that would ban access to certain medical interventions. I'm not for medicating kids who should first get help understanding who and what they are. But if Trump plans to leave abortion bans to the states, so should a law regarding transgender people. In some states parents, doctors and their patients should be allowed to work through the nuances and special cases.

Because Trump's proposals will be predominantly enacted by fiat, he will be a leader from the top down. He will be, therefore, no better than the left he hates. Of course, no matter who wins the election on November 5, 2024, the next four years promises more division, law suits, and hyperbolic rhetoric. But of course I could be wrong.

These days I can't listen to either Republican or Democrat surrogates talk on TV. Apparently their minds are wired differently, and I'm not sure what this says about me. This may be crux of the problem. With the way people are wired, on TV, blogs, substack, and social media, there is anger about being walled out and a desire to be walled in. They can't handle discouraging words, e.g., for Democrats, regarding vaccines, for Republicans, climate change.

Notes

Friday, August 16, 2024

July 2024

My reaction to Biden's fumbling performance, early on in the debate between him and Trump the end of June, was "wow, he really is old." I remember also Trump's hyperbole, talking about infanticide and Maduro releasing patients and criminals from mental asylums in Venezuela and shipping them to the southern US border.

Less than two weeks later I got sick, after my wife returned from a cruise with friends to Norway and Iceland. I was coughing non-stop. At the walk-in clinic, I was diagnosed having an "unknown viral infection of the lower lungs." I was given pills for my cough and an antibiotic. I took the pills expecting to get better but I got worse. Whatever the virus was, it was winning.

Around this time, some stupid, foolish, stupid kid decided to insert himself into the political discourse by attempting to assassinate the former President. I was already vomiting after forcing myself to eat, and contemplating the abyss, always coughing, weak, unable to sleep or eat.

The shooter should have been apprehended when he launched his drone. An officer or agent should have noticed. There is no way anyone should be allowed to fly a drone before or during a political rally without prior permission. If he had been stopped near his car with his drone they would have found his gun and be would have been arrested. No one who was at that rally would today be dead.

Finally, my wife brought me to see my doctor. After measuring the oxygen levels in my lungs, she ordered an ambulance to take me to a hospital. We canceled the ambulance and my wife drove me to the emergency center of a hospital closer to where we live. At the emergency center, I was brought downstairs to a small room with an uncomfortable bed that had a broken controller. Nothing happened when I pressed the button requesting a nurse or tried to raise or lower the bed. This was a problem when I needed to go to the bathroom.

Occasionally a nurse would come in to check vital signs, give me a bottle of water, or set up an IV drip, and the doctor came in after looking at my bloodwork results. Outside I could hear a male nurse talking with the other nurses. I heard him say something like, "first they tried to put him in jail, then they tried to kill him." Later, he explained that he would be a "Trumper" if Trump would release the list of pedophiles, whom I assume would be celebrities, Democrat politicians, and deep state workers. I don't know if he was serious or not, but the female nurses he was talking with are undoubtably concerned about children.

That evening, after many agonizingly boring hours, I was admitted to the hospital. A nurse took me up in a wheelchair several floors above to my new room. The controller worked and the nurses and doctor were great. I stayed there two more days. When I was discharged, the diagnosis listed was "pneumonia with sepsis." The nurse said I had a urinary tract infection.

On July 21st, Biden dropped out of the race for President.

Today I'm recovering at home. The codeine cough medication is working. But I still can't sleep. I worry too much about the future, where I can go from here. And I worry about things that may not be as relevant to one's well-being, like how I can help build a better world.

Monday, April 15, 2024

The Puzzle of History

The Moving Finger writes and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.[1]

On the Sunday before the 6-day war in 1967, I walked with my middle school Political Science class in the Salute to Israel Parade along Riverside Drive in New York City. It was a sunny day and there were a lot of people walking beside us. About 250,000 people participated that day in sympathy and solidarity with Israel. It looked like Israel was about to lose a war.

The next time we were in class, we split up into small groups to work on solutions to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians. The consensus was around a two-state solution, but I don’t remember the details. We had a right to be naive. We were, after all, kids in Middle School.

After the events since last October, it may be naive to believe that a difficult political problem is not intractable and may be solved by non-violent means, especially when in many countries, civil disobedience and non-violent protesting is throwing one’s life away. But no one should be raped, tortured, murdered, or indiscriminately bombed, starved out of existence, targeted by missiles, or ambushed while attempting to do one’s job. We are witnessing the latest chapter of a violent struggle that may never end, between two peoples with their own religious beliefs, language, and culture.

There should be a cease fire in Gaza so that the hostages may be returned to their families and food and supplies are delivered to innocent civilians. Then, ignoring the cease fire, focus on slowly and methodically rooting Hamas out of their network of tunnels. It would be an expensive, difficult, time consuming, and dangerous task, but blowing up tunnels would create less collateral damaage. I'm imagining remote-controlled robots wearing grenades excavating the tunnels.

I listened to "Israel is carpet-bombing children," and read about mass graves found near the Nasser Hospital in Khan Yunis, Gaza. If the bodies were buried by Palestinians months ago, or buried, dug up and reburied by the IDF, they were human beings who died in this war.

Images from Gaza of the Palestinian Civil Defense recovering bodies in Khan Yunis may serve as a bookend to the video footage on October seventh of a young German-Israeli woman who, after taken hostage by Hamas and brought to Gaza, was lying face-down in the back of a pickup truck. She was probably already dead. The crowd spat on her as the truck drove through the streets. The rage in Israel must have been overwhelming.

At the end of the first World War, after the fall of the Ottoman empire, both the Zionists and the Arab Palestinians desired a nation governing what is today Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza strip. The same vision exists today on both sides. Netanyahu's 1977 Likud party platform, which stated “between the Sea and the Jordan there will be only Israeli sovereignty," was the Zionist vision in 1917. The Hamas slogan, "from the river to the sea," was basically why the Arab leaders rejected the Peel partition plan in 1937 and the UN partition plan ten years later. Over the years extremists on both sides have continued to believe in one state for themselves and violently opposed every peace plan.

It is also true that, at least at one time, the Arab vision of a Palestine state would allow Jews to live peacefully within its borders, while reserving the right to restrict Jewish immigration.[2] And Israel allowed Arabs who remained within its 1948 borders to stay, and gave them Israeli citizenship. Today, the number of Arab-Israelis is over 21% of Israel's total population.

Disclaimer

I should not be writing about a foreign war as I'm on the outside looking in. But the protests are here, many here in the US are deeply affected amd troubled by the war, and the US is supplying Israel with the bombs. I could have put more time and energy into research, but I did more than watch YouTube videos and read Wikipedia articles. If I had the time and money, I'd travel to where the UN and British archives are kept and read the original documents. At least I read the online summaries.

Two States

The plan that has been proposed, debated, rejected, and proposed and rejected again, is the partition of land into two separate countries, Palestine and Israel. Our Middle School plan may have worked, but boundaries and demographics changed dramatically after 1967. When the 2024 war in Gaza ends, it's been proposed that a coalition of Arab countries come in to help the Palestinians rebuild Gaza. I'd like to see this happen, but it's a two state solution only if Gaza and Israel are the two states. The West Bank today is a patchwork of Israeli settlements and Palestinian villages. The apartheid state run by Israel in the West Bank must end. How can it end?

A Palestinian state in the West Bank would have to be created out of the land that's been left to them. The Israeli settlers won't leave. Even if they allow the state to be born, it probably won't succeed, not having a single contiguous border, as history (e.g., Pakistan) has shown.

After the 1936 Arab uprising in what was the British Mandate, the Peel commission was created to find a solution to the crisis. In 1937, the commission proposed a plan to partitian the land into separate states. During a debate about the plan, Chaim Weizmann said, “The Jews would be fools not to accept it, even if the Jewish state were the size of a tablecloth.” Mr. Weizmann regarded agreeing to the idea of a Jewish state as an important first step. But the Zionists did not agree to the plan’s borders. The Arabs would have greatly benefited from a similar, more flexible, perspective.

The Arab leaders rejected the 1937 plan. They didn’t want their land merged with Trans-Jordan, the plan required the transfer of about 120,000 Palestinians from their homes, they hated the idea of a Jewish state, and they wanted above all an independent state over all of Palestine. Ten years later, after they rejected of the 1947 United Nations partition plan, the state of Israel was created, followed by Israel’s war for independence and the Nakba, which was the catastrophic eviction of about 700,000 Palestinians from their homes. The word Nakba should also be translated as debacle, or fiasco.

Clearly, after the rejection of each peace plan, if a Palestinian state was an investment, the Arabs suffered from diminishing returns. But the extremists have held on to "from the river to the sea," and are forever martyrs devoted to their cause. Hamas may be destroyed, but the cause may well live on. To get to a solution, what's needed on both sides is patience, restraint, and education. It's a pipe dream.

One State

Across college campuses there have been protests with chants of "from the river to the sea." I learned that they mean a single nation governing all the land with equal justice and freedom for everyone. Sounds great, but I'm not sure exactly what they mean. Some may simply want Israel to change its policies. I'm not sure what the chanting protesters waving Palestinian flags mean.

The idea that Israel would extend citizenship to Palestinians is not ridiculously unrealistic. Netanyahu's right-wing coalition would likely have to be replaced by a government with a leader who is willing to take a risk for peace. The Palestinians would have to give in to pressure to accept Israeli citizenship. The pressure would have to come from trusted Arab sources within Israel, voices for change, that would point out what Palestinians would gain and what they wouldn't lose by accepting citizenship.

Once citizenship is accepted, areas under military control in the West Bank would be placed under civilian rule of law. Organizations in Israel would raise money to help Palestinians, now Palestinian-Israelis, keep their homes. Zoning rules would be changed so that their homes and businesses would not be demolished. The Israeli settlers wouldn't leave but the system that supports their expansion into the West Bank would be abolished.

No longer fed a constant diet of Hamas ideology, Palestinian-Israelis would not be proud to be martyrs. They wouldn't want their children to die as warriors and human shields. Their children would have an education that I hope would be elightened, and Arab-Israelis are happy with.

Security and strict access to the Temple Mount compound, also known as Haram al Sharif, must be ensured. Either the agreement between Israel and Jordan is strengthened, and everyone abides by its rules, or the complex is put under international control. The latter idea may be unrealistic, but international control over Jerusalem was in the 1947 UN partition plan. Israel should not ever approve tearing down the compound and rebuilding the temple, the beginning of the end times.

Notes

  1. Omar Khayyám, The Rubáiyát
    Stanza LXXI, Quatrain 36, translated into English by Edward FitzGerald, 1859 4th ed.

    زین پیش نشان بودنیها بوده است
    پیوسته قلم ز نیک و بد ناسوده است
    در روز ازل هرآنچه بایست بداد
    غم خوردن و کوشیدنِ ما بیهوده است

  2. The Zionist movement was encouraging Jewish immigration, but in the 1930's Jews were fleeing from the Nazi holocaust and few countries were letting them in. After the massacre in Hebron and the Arab uprising of 1936, Jews would be justifiably wary of Arab leaders saying they would be allowed to stay and live peacefully under their rule. It wasn't clear how much political freedom they would have. If Arab rule was to be like living in the Ottoman empire, the Jews would have to pay a poll-tax and acknowledge the superiority of Islam. Allah would again be sovereign over all Palestine.

  3. Seraj Assi, Mass Graves in Khan Yunis Reveal Unspeakable Horror of US-Backed Gaza Invasion
    Truthout, April 26, 2024
  4. The Avalon Project, Balfour Declaration 1917
    Yale Law School Lillian Goldman Library
  5. The U.S. and the Holocaust
    A film by Ken Burns
  6. Eli Barnavi, The Sephardic Exodus to the Ottoman Empire
    "How Jews fleeing Spain and Portugal transformed the region."
    My Jewish Learning
  7. Avi Shlaim Ph.D., The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World
    Norton Paperback January 17, 2001

    "The Zionist movement, which emerged in Europe in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, aimed at the national revival of the Jewish people in its ancestral home after nearly two thousand years of exile. The term "Zionism" was coined in 1885 by the Viennese Jewish writer Nathan Birnbaum, Zion being one of the biblical names for Jerusalem. Zionism was in essence an answer to the Jewish problem that derived from two basic facts: the Jews were dispersed in various countries around the world, and in each country they constituted a minority. The Zionist solution was to end this anomalous existence and dependence on others, to return to Zion, and to attain majority status there and, ultimately, political independence and statehood.

    Ever since the destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C. and the exile to Babylon, the Jews yearned to return to Zion. This yearning was reflected in Jewish prayers, and it manifested itself in a number of messianic movements. Modern Zionism, by contrast, was a secular movement, with a political orientation toward Palestine. Modern Zionism was a phenomenon of the late nineteenth-century Europe. It had its roots in the failure of Jewish efforts to become assimilated in Western society, in the intensification of antisemitism in Europe, and in the parallel and not unrelated upsurge of nationalism. If nationalism posed a problem to the Jews by identifying them as an alien and unwanted minority, it also suggested a solution: self-determination for the Jews in a state of their own in which they would constitute a majority. Zionism, however, embodied the urge to create not merely a new Jewish state in Palestine but also a new society, based on the universal values of freedom, democracy, and social justice."

  8. Avi Shlaim, The Two-State Solution – Illusion and Reality
    Palesting-Israel Journal, Vol. 26 No. 3&4 2021
  9. United Nations
    Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: 1917-1947 (Part I)
    Origins and Evolution of the Palestine Problem: Part II (1947-1977)
    The Question of Palestine
  10. Report of the Palestine Royal Commission,
    League pf Nations Mandates Palestine, July 1937

    "Considering the attitude which both the Arab and the Jewish representatives adopted in giving evidence, the Commission think it improbable that either party will be satisfied at first sight with the proposals submitted for the adjustment of their rival claims. For Partition means that neither will get all it wants. It means that the Arabs must acquiesce in the exclusion from their sovereignty of a piece of territory, long occupied and once ruled by them. It means that the Jews must be content with less than the Land of Israel they once ruled and have hoped to rule again. But it seems possible that on reflection both parties will come to realize that the drawbacks of Partition are outweighed by its advantages. For, if it offers neither party all it wants, it offers each what it wants most, namely freedom and security."

  11. Holocaust Encyclopedia, Hajj Amin al-Husayni: The Mufti of Jerusalem
    The United States Holocaust Museum

    "In exile between 1937 and 1945, al-Husayni, claiming to speak for the Arab nation and the Muslim world, sought an alliance with the Axis powers (Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy)..."

  12. List of Killings and Massacres in Mandatory Palestine
    Wikipedia

    "The neutrality of this article is disputed."

  13. Robin Wright, The Jihadi Threat 5: Drivers of Extremism
    Wilson Center, December 8, 2016

    The word jihad is somewhat misunderstood, in that it primarily means struggle, strive, or exert oneself to be a better muslim and, by extension, a better person. It also means, secondarily, to struggle against the oppression of other religions or political groups.

  14. Ilyas Ahmad, Sovereignty in Islam (Continued)
    JSTOR, Journal article:
    Pakistan Horizon Vol. 11, No. 4 (December, 1958), pp. 244-257 (14 pages)
    Published By: Pakistan Institute of International Affairs
  15. Seyyed Hossein Nasr, The Spiritual Significance of Jihad
    Al-Islam.org

    "On the more external level, the lesser jihad also includes the socio-economic domain."

  16. Nicholas Casey, ‘Where Is the Palestinian Gandhi?’
    The New York Times Magazine, May 1, 2024

    "Issa Amro, who has been arrested and beaten for simple acts of defiance, is trying to pursue nonviolent resistance in the West Bank at a time when violence has become inescapable."

  17. Joel Greenberg, Sharon Touches a Nerve, and Jerusalem Explodes
    NY Times, Sept. 29, 2000
  18. Israeli settlers storm Al-Aqsa Mosque complex on fifth day of Sukkot
    Al Jazeera and News Agencies Oct. 4, 2023

    "Israeli settlers have stormed the complex in groups and attempted to perform ‘Talmudic rituals’, according to a Waqf official."

  19. Megan K. Stack The View Within Israel Turns Bleak
    The New York Times, May 16, 2024
  20. Nicholas Kristof Invading Rafah Doesn’t Help Israel
    The New York Times, May 18, 2024
  21. Max Can't Help It! Israel is More F*ckd Than You Know
    Medium, October 22, 2023

    "The problem of secular Jews losing control of Israel is easily visible in Israel’s inability to form a stable government in the past few years."

  22. Shabbat 31a, The William Davidson Talmud (Koren - Steinsaltz)
    Sefaria

    "There was another incident involving one gentile who came before Shammai and said to Shammai: Convert me on condition that you teach me the entire Torah while I am standing on one foot. Shammai pushed him away with the builder’s cubit in his hand. This was a common measuring stick and Shammai was a builder by trade. The same gentile came before Hillel. He converted him and said to him: That which is hateful to you do not do to another; that is the entire Torah, and the rest is its interpretation. Go study."

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