I’ve seen this TV ad several times now, and it galls me every time: “Drug money supports terror. If you buy drugs you might too.” To which the obvious rejoinder is: So legalise them already.

Continue reading →

How many Jews does it take to change a light bulb? It depends.

How many Israelis does it take to put up a fence between Israel and Palestine? It depends on your definition of ‘fence’.

Needless to say, this is not the fence that I think is in the best interests of Israelis to put up. My fence would follow pre-1967 borders and involve the removal of Israeli settlers. The ‘security fence’ being built roughly follows those borders, but cuts off from Palestine Palestinian towns that straddle the ‘green line’. This fence will also separate a few Israeli farmers from their fields, but more importantly, put a good number of settlers on the “wrong” side of a proto-border, for want of a better term. Temperary security fences have a habit of sticking around for a long time.

A poll out Tuesday will be grist for the op ed pages Wednesday: “A majority of Palestinians believe the aim of their 20-month-old uprising should be to eliminate Israel and not just end Israeli occupation in the West Bank and Gaza Strip,” reports Reuters.

It’s one of those depressing polls, where my intuitions about majority sentiment need to be adjusted pessimistically–even after obligatory bias checks: It’s technically a majority–51%–but with a three percent margin of error, a broader moniker, such as “around half of all Palestinians,” would be a more balanced description of the poll result. The poll shows a hardening of Palestinian public opinion since last December, when a similar poll found 44% supported the elimination of Israel.

I last needed to adjust my intuitions pessimistically as a result of a poll conducted among Israelis in March 2002. It showed that 46% of Israelis favored the forced “transfer” of Palestinians out of Palestine to Jordan or elsewhere. “Transfer” is a euphemism for ethnic cleansing, and it implies the end of Palestinians living in Palestine. Palestinians are perfectly free to found a Palestinian state, the expressed sentiment goes, as long as it is east of the river Jordan.

Sixty percent of Israelis supported “encouraging” Palestinians to leave Palestine, while 31% would “transfer” even Israeli-Arabs out of Israel. (I can’t bring myself to remove the scare quotes from “transfer”.)

I was surprised by both results. At the time, the Israeli poll was explained away by Israeli moderates as a perfectly understandable venting of frustration at the current situation, and that Israelis didn’t really believe in a plan that had hitherto been espoused by fringe fanatics. No doubt, Palestinian moderates will argue that Palestinians are merely venting their frustrations, and that they don’t really want to eliminate Israel. Would that both were right.

The one lesson to take from this is that roughly half of each group’s population cannot bear the thought of the other side living on their own land. Extremists on either side have succesfully destroyed all middle ground, and both sides are engaging wholesale in the demonization of the other as a monolithic enemy. And yet, it remains evident to all save the extremists that the existence of both states is the only feasible peaceful soluton. The only choice available to either side is how many civilians will be killed before this solution is enacted. And no, this is not naive–Israel has the option to withdraw unilaterally and build a wall around Palestine to satisfy its security concerns. Palestine has the option to engage in Ghandi-esque forms of nonviolent resistance, and quickly regain the unequivocal support of the rest of the world that Israel will find impossible to resist.

It’ll be interesting to see if US op-ed pages evaluate the Palestinian poll in the context of Israel’s own hardening of public opinion, or if they cannot resist an easy swipe. It would be a victory for jingoism.

A gem from Matthew about our Dean of old. The New York Times issued this correction today:

Because of a transmission error, an article yesterday about a visit to the Philippines by Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz to assess plans for American troops to extend a counterterrorism training mission with the military there misstated a phrase in his description of the situation. He said, “The stakes are large there, and so are the problems” — not “Mistakes are large.”

A picture caption misidentified the object under Mr. Wolfowitz’s shoulder. It was a life preserver, for use if his helicopter landed in water, not a holster.

Transmission errors are a wonderful thing. No such luck for the Uruguayan president: Here is an AP story from yesterday:

BUENOS AIRES, Argentina – Uruguayan President Jorge Batlle offered a teary apology in a nationally televised meeting with Argentina’s president Tuesday for calling Argentines a “bunch of thieves” and sharply criticizing its leadership.

Looking somber, Batlle went on television at the side of President Eduardo Duhalde at the Argentine leader’s suburban compound to say he was sorry for his outspoken comments, broadcast a day earlier.

I too apologize immediately every time I insult a much bigger neighboring country, but could Batlle have gotten away with claiming transmission errors? Did he not say Argentines are a bunch of chiefs? Or whatever the Spanish equivalent is.

Continue reading →