The One Year Anniversary

 

The entrance to my office building this morning. The riding office of the Minister of Foreign Affairs is my tenant. So a couple of people with a flag, two folding chairs and some chalk - perhaps there will be friends arriving soon - have set up camp. They have decided that the anniversary of a massacre of Israeli Jews was an appropriate time to protest against Israel and Canadian government policy supporting Israel (in whatever minimum, ambiguous way they have). They write "365 days of Joly (the name of the Minister) Genocide," which of course, is inaccurate. It's actually been 365 days of captivity for Israeli hostages, 365 days since a pogrom by Hamas terrorists, since a barbaric slaughter was unleashed against innocents while they danced at a music festival and families while they slept in their homes. Do I go down and point out the inaccuracy? The revision of history? The repugnance of trying to flip the script on the anniversary of a bloodbath that has set in motion so much anguish and heartbreak across the Middle East and around the world. I would go talk to them if I thought it would accomplish something. But I think they know exactly what they are doing. And that's the worst part. Not their ignorance, their shamelessness.

World War 3

I've been wondering what World War 3 might look like, and whether we are already here. And if true, that would be a good thing.

Trump talks about it all the time on the stump. Of course, that's just hyperbole designed to scare people so they'll vote for him. Maybe he's actually on to something, just not what he thinks. 

After World War 2, which culminated in the United States dropping two atomic bombs on Japan, the United Nations was established. It had a couple of main objectives, and one of them was not to establish A Universal Declaration of Human Rights, that came later. The two objectives were, first to create a forum of international deliberation in order to avoid the cascade of events that degenerated into World War 2, and could lead to World War 3. The second objective, related to the first, was to make sure nuclear weapons are never used again. It was understood implicitly that WW2 had changed the rules of engagement, and any war could henceforth potentially lead to a catastrophic conflagration that would destroy most, if not all, of humanity. Since World War 2 the UN has largely been successful. Wars have been contained to certain areas and regions. And nuclear weapons have not been used. So far so good. 

For most of the post-WW2 period, the world was bi-polar, organized around two rival ideological spheres of influence centered on the two major nuclear powers, The US and the USSR. That came apart with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989, and for the last 30 years or so the new global order has been shaking out. During the Cold War terrorism and proxy war became a mainstay of international conflict. The nuclear powers engaged in it, as a way of avoiding direct conflict with each other, and minor political actors were only too happy to accept the support of the major powers.    

I began thinking about this because of what we are seeing currently in the Middle-East, as Israel and Iran climb the escalatory ladder of war. Analysts are warning about the situation becoming a regional war, as Israel contemplates its target for retaliation in response to the unprecedented ballistic missile attack by Iran. Seems to me that we are already in a regional war, one that has been waging since at least 2005/2006, when Israel unilaterally evacuated from Gaza (2005) and Hamas took over, and there was a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon (2006). The analysts say that it can get much worse, there are many more rungs to climb up the escalatory ladder. No doubt about that, there are many more bombs to drop and ballistic missiles to launch, from both sides. But in a conflict that is fundamentally ideological, not territorial or existential in nature (and won't be, remember Israel is a nuclear power), this conflict will remain a game of tit-for-tat, two sides punching at each other until they decide they've had enough. 

Israel's main concern in this conflict has been about re-establishing its military reputation and deterrence after the humiliation of October 7th, and not just with regional rivals (and allies) but also with its own citizens. This is the process of escalation in action. It's the reason that the defeat of Hamas in Gaza, even if that means destroying most of Gaza, and the defeat of Hezbollah in Lebanon (even if it means destroying large parts of Lebanon) became such a pressing objective for Israel. One can imagine alternative pathways that the conflict could have taken. One that was focused on the return of the hostages instead of the restoration of Israeli deterrence. Imagine that Israel chose not to bomb Gaza to smithereens and instead took a longer more tactical and gradual approach to choking off the supply of arms to Hamas. Imagine that it gave Egypt an ultimatum to respect its peace treaty or it would occupy the Philadelphi corridor. Imagine that it worked for a regional political solution with the US and other Arab allies (Jordan, Saudi Arabia) rather than a military one. It was at least within the realm of possibility. Very little time was afforded any possibility other than taking the military route, for particular reasons.  

It may be that what turned this ongoing regional ideological conflict into a 'World War' is the role played by the UN, which is extremely ironic of course. Such a statement depends on how we define 'war', which in the post-WW2 period was broadened from destructive physical conflict to include "Cold War". The globalization of war gets expressed in our age through the UN, which sometimes acts as fuel to simmering regional conflict and expands it in the global sphere. Through the UN, terrorist proxy groups became legitimate global political actors, under the guise of the Palestinian cause. UN-affiliated agencies, UNRWA in Gaza, and the failed UNIFIL in Lebanon, became a permission structure for the activities of terrorists, or in some cases became directly associated and even active with terrorist groups, by aiding and abetting them. In the broader context, Iran and its radical allies have leveraged the prestige of the UN and its agencies (including, most regrettably, the ICC and the ICJ) to promote an anti-America/anti-Israel agenda and to organize and amplify its messaging. This has spread the wildfire of hatred and anti-Semitism to the streets of western cities and on to university campuses. The Palestinian cause planted the seed of corruption that grew and spread across the planet. Iran and its ideological allies have run with it. They don't actually care about the Palestinian cause, they just use it for cover because it carries such currency in the context of the UN. This is what World War 3 actually looks like, facilitated by the UN. 

The UN is not unredeemable, but it needs major reform to stop being an agent of hatred and destruction. The first step is to recognize that the UN is not simply a disinterested political forum. Its founding and mission is an expression of the values expressed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and those are the values of human progress, and that's democracy. There is no peace and security without human rights. The two go hand in hand. So until the UN starts to take concrete steps to promote democratic values and combat the regimes dedicated to opposing those values, it will fall prey to manipulation, and risk becoming complicit by fomenting global conflict. 

* * *

Post-Script on the death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar.

From the National Post:

"When he died, Sinwar was wearing a bullet-proof vest and carrying an UNRWA identity card... The two other, also killed in the building, have been identified. One was a senior official with the Hamas-run Ministry of Defence. The second was a teacher with UNRWA (also carrying his UNRWA identity card.)" 

The Right Side of History

Something I've heard from pro-Palestine (usually) young people: "I know I will be on the right side of history” (or conversely, “I know you will be on the wrong side of history.”) I have to laugh at how ironic that statement is coming from people who have experienced the least amount of history, and are generally uninformed about it. Still, it's something I always feel I need to address in a thoughtful way.

They are saying it, because they have been convinced that the founding of the State of Israel was a catastrophic injustice done against the Palestinians. They believe the displacement of Arab residents, who they claim are indigenous, renders the State of Israel illegitimate. Everything they believe flows from that premise. This is questionable on a variety of grounds, chiefly whether the resident Arabs were more 'indigenous' than the Jews who can concretely trace their presence to that region from about 1500 BCE. 'Palestinian' actually only became a widely accepted political identity around the time of the establishment of the State of Israel. 

Still, the matter of 'conquest' is problematic (or as some call it 'settler-colonialism'). There were Arab communities that existed in Mandate Palestine (pre-State of Israel) that were either liquidated, displaced or absorbed when the State of Israel won its independence during the war. The same process, more or less, as happened in the United States, Canada, every country in Central and South America, Africa and most of Asia. In other words, if you have a problem with Israel, you should have a problem with most, if not all, of the modern global map, which I believe renders the argument absurd or moot. If not, you have to admit to having a double-standard bias against Israel.

But let's say we agree with the principle that every self-identifying 'People' has a 'right' to self-determination, and let's say the Palestinian People qualify. Certainly the Jewish People do too. So why don't people see it that way? Do the Palestinian people have 'more' of a right to self-determination than the Jewish people? Or again, is a double standard at work?  

They typically answer, sure the Jewish People deserve the right of self-determination, just not there, on Palestinian land. Ok, then where? Surely, displacement or occupation of territory belonging to someone else is inevitable anywhere you choose for the Jews (except maybe Antarctica). In this case, what's really meant is nowhere.

Double-standards toward Israel abound on a variety of subjects - in the past year it's concerning what Israel may or may not do in the course of self-defence. Israel is expected to adhere to standards of war time behaviour that no other country has ever been expected to comply with. Do all these double standards constitute anti-Semitism? Perhaps. I don't want to get into questions of psychology, and I think anti-Semitism is largely a socio-psychological phenomenon. Let's stick to the question of the 'legitimacy' of the State of Israel, inasmuch as any state can be said to have 'legitimacy'. 

Israel has been fighting for its existence for 76 years now, since it won a War of Independence in 1948. Actually, 76 years is not a very long time. You might say that the country is still in its turbulent adolescent stage of finding an identity. But so far, I would argue, despite efforts to brand it as an 'apartheid state' and a 'racist state', what we have seen is actually the steady march toward global acceptance. As its Arab neighbours have modernized and wanted to join the international community, they have either made peace treaties with Israel (Jordan, Egypt), recognized Israel and established diplomatic relations with it (UAE, Bahrain, Morocco) or are on the road in that direction (Saudi Arabia). The trend is clear. The countries that continue to oppose Israel are the most dysfunctional and backward Muslim countries, in particular Syria and Iran, because it serves the political interests of their autocratic leaders. Especially the theocracy of Iran, which considers Israel to be the pebble in the sandal of its project to establish a Muslim Caliphate throughout the Middle-East.

What this indicates is what is at stake in the fight for Israel's legitimacy and existence. Israel is the frontline of the battle to maintain progress and modernity in the Middle-East, a place where modernity clashes with tribalism and ethno-religious loyalties and hatreds. Israel's fight is literally the fight against a worldview that promotes intolerance, strict adherence to Islamic Law and the abrogation of individual human rights. In other words, it's opposition to turning the clock back on 1000 years of social and political progress. 

Israel is the vanguard of the West. It represents western values and acts internationally in accordance with western standards and the rule of law. The Israeli leadership engages in conflict, not out of 'hatred' and pledges to 'annihilate' a 'Great-Satan' as the mullahs of Iran declare. It does not claim to act according the will of God. Israel does not wage war via proxies, it has no imperialist ambitions, and does not engage in terrorism abroad, as Iran does. While Israel's rivals seek its extinction, Israel has only ever sought to live in peace and security with its neighbours. Every military action Israel has ever undertaken has been defensive in nature, even when it's been preemptive it has been to stop an imminent attack. Or as with Gaza and Lebanon conflicts currently, it has been in response to a direct attack(s) against its sovereignty and citizens. 

Which brings us back to the question of Palestinian self-determination, the cause celebre of university students and Islamic studies professors in the west. One thing of which I am certain, Israel is not going anywhere and time is not on the side of the Palestinians, contrary to popular opinion. Israel will emerge from the current conflict stronger than ever, and the anti-Israel coalition will be weaker. The opportunities for a negotiated political solution - a process in which Israel repeatedly engaged in good faith for decades - are becoming fewer and farther between. The next round, which will involve the rebuilding of Gaza, may well be the last. The right side of history and the future is clear.

Public Media's Shameful Bias

As the old saying goes, if it bleeds it leads.

We can't turn away from tragedy because our Darwinian brains are genetically programmed to pay extra attention to potential threats and dangers, even to exaggerate them. It's not just morbid fascination. Social media takes advantage of this with their algorithms to keep us watching and sell us things. If we accept that it's in our genes to be drawn to danger, and I think it's undeniable, people can't be held entirely responsible for their difficulty in resisting this tendency. But the purveyors of information certainly can.

I'm talking about this because I'm disgusted by the mainstream media's coverage of Israel's current military actions in Lebanon. Especially disappointed by public broadcasters such as PBS, BBC and CBC, who I typically prefer to watch. They've interviewed citizens on the streets of Beirut and emergency room physicians treating the injured. They've shown the destruction of homes and buildings in Southern Lebanon, where Hezbollah is embedded, and from where they have been launching rockets at the communities of northern Israel for decades, but particularly since October 8th. What they haven't shown are the abandoned towns of northern Israel, because there's not much to see. They haven't shown the damage done by the thousands of rockets fired into Israel, because frankly, there hasn't been that much (although there has been some). Israel has spent decades and billions of dollars building the Iron Dome missile defense system and it has proven extremely effective. That's a great story, but protection against destruction (as opposed to actual destruction) isn't terribly exciting. 

The mainstream profit-driven media can be forgiven for their morbid obsession with covering tragedy and destruction, but not public broadcasters. If money isn't the reason, then why the obvious bias? The answer is found in the mission of taxpayer-funded media, which typically centers on telling the stories of the marginalized, the under-represented and minorities. In some ways this makes public media even more susceptible to a certain kind of oversimplification, one that characterizes some people as victims and others as victimizers. It's quite astonishing to witness how readily public broadcasting has fallen into the trap of creating a moral equivalence between the State of Israel and terrorist groups Hezbollah and Hamas. One side a democratic state accountable to its citizens and the rule of law, the other side outlaw non-state actors accountable only to their patron. One side whose mission is to protect its constituents from harm, the other who exploit their constituents by promoting harm to them. The country defending itself against terrorism is thus portrayed as the aggressor and the homicidal/suicidal terrorists are depicted as aggrieved. It would be absurd if it wasn't so shameful.    

The consistent media bias against Israel, I don't believe, is due to systematic anti-Semitism, and I'm very wary of calling everything and anything anti-Semitism. There are plenty of stories about Jewish people that are fair and positive. The bias of public media against Israel is more closely related to the impetus of publicly-funded agencies (whether in Canada, the UK or the US) to apologize for being associated with power. It's about having guilt for regrettable historical injustices, and wanting to makes amends by acting as an agent of contemporary social change. The result is the predominance of stories that elevate perceived victims. In Canada it's noticeable in the way stories about our indigenous minorities feature so heavily in public media. These are stories that implicitly romanticize the aggrieved and portray them as inherently righteous. But so much of the truth gets glossed over and whitewashed in the narrative. 

And so it is with Israel. Because Israel has an army dedicated to the defense of its citizens and borders, and because it is effective, it is seen as the aggressor, and the terrorists that use innocents as human shields and embeds in civillian communities are seen as victims. The latter is the war crime, not the former. The latter is genocidal, not the former. It's mindboggling that public media can't or refuses to figure this out.

Sweet Tea

The late morning sky 

is blue

soft as a mattress -

we sit together  

on the 7th floor balcony 

enjoying a sip of sweet tea

       the sunshine

            golden

the clank of spoon

against ceramic cup

stir            scream

                                 F-35

                point

    wait

Beirut.

Paging Sanity

It's my 60th birthday today, so I have to say something - "speech, speech" isn't that what they cheer after you've blown out the candles on the cake? As if you have some new wisdom to impart at your advanced age...

No guarantees here. But I do remember that I made a blog post about turning 50. It's interesting to look at again. It was a short, lighthearted, humourous list of reflections and observations. Nuggets like "I appreciate a good pair of shoes," and "I believe more in fate, intangibles, positive energy, karma." Clearly I wasn't getting any wiser with age. I can only assume I am less so now, by a decade. But I will say one thing about my 50 year old self - I seemed content. My post ends with "I am happier to be exactly where I am." 

These days I'm feeling grumpier.

I can only assume it's because since turning 50 I've experienced 10 years of chaotic politics and social media madness. Actually, I officially retreated from social media in the summer of 2019, when I deleted my FB account. But even with minimal exposure on my personal devices, the social media ecosystem has a way of making an unavoidable impact wherever you are.  

And so it was last night. Of course the talk of the house was the stunning, ingenious and lethal Mossad attack on Hezbollah targets. Thousands of pagers suddenly exploding on the hips and in the hands of militants and operatives all over Lebanon and Syria. At last reporting there were as many as 3000 casualties from the attack, with 31 dead, including 19 members of Iran's RGC, and 3 children (plus reports today of 9 more killed and 300 injured from exploding walkie-talkies.) The media went nuts about it, calling it James Bond spy movie stuff etc. Surveillance camera footage of pagers detonating went viral. We see them blowing up in market places, stores, at fruit and vegetable stands, on the street and in cars. People were killed and injured inside their offices and homes. 

The unprecedented ingenuity and craftiness behind the attack is certainly something to marvel at. In the grander political scheme, Israeli intelligence had to do something jaw-dropping to reestablish deterrance after the catastrophic failure of Oct 7th, and this certainly fit the bill. Like the assassination of Haniya in Tehran, it demonstrated a capability no one predicted.

Today I'm feeling disheartened. 

As we spoke about the attack last night, my wife checked her phone and laughed. What's so funny I asked. She showed me a 'witty' comment made by someone online, along the lines of "That took some balls!" Another one was, "We were inside Haniyah's bedroom and now we're inside Nasrallah's pants." I shook my head, and asked her why she found this funny. She said, well, they deserve it (I paraphrase). I said that I didn't find it funny at all, which elicited some tension between us. She said she understood why people wanted to make light of the attack, and celebrate a moment of 'look how good we got them!' I told her that bombs detonating in public places, killing, injuring and maiming thousands of people (many totally innocent) wasn't something to joke about. As I left the room I added, "This is a war." 

Actually, I felt shame and disappointment that glee was the response of so many Jews online. 

Since October 7th, each time the Jewish community has gathered to publicly demonstrate against the war in Gaza, the message has been to bring the hostages home. It hasn't been against Palestinians, or to kill Hamas militants, or even to get the mastermind Sinwar. It's been all about the safe return of our brethren. We have used our public voice to show our resilience in this time of great heartache, not to drum up anger and hate against anyone (as others have done). This has made me very proud of my community.

With this on my mind, I listened to the first part of Sam Harris's latest podcast called "Where Are the Grown-Ups?" My question exactly. In it, Harris talks about his latest dip into social media (like me, he swore it off a few years ago). What he finds scrolling through X (formerly Twitter) is a carnival of racism, violence (mostly by 'immigrants'), and conspiracy. He comments: "If I had to summarize the intent of X's algorithm at this point, it would be twofold: First, to make Elon Musk more famous than he already is, and second to make every white user of the platform more racist." 

The conventional wisdom is that social media has made us more angry, callous, impolite, racist, unsympathetic, tribal, aggressive and ignorant. It is not by sheer coincidence that someone like trump ascended to political power in this environment. I have been feeling encouraged that Kamala Harris's more positive approach to politics has been gaining traction. People are getting tired of the hostility and divisiveness. 

I think I will revive my 50-year-old self's sentiment - "I believe more in fate, intangibles, positive energy, karma."  Let's hope that includes, justice for trump after November.

Jihadism Is Psychosis

"We care more about the lives of their children than they do, and they weaponize that." A corollary is Golda Meir's famous statement, "Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us." Still so true.

The line is from an interview with Sam Harris on Dan Senor's indispensible Call Me Back podcast, and it has stuck with me. I've commented about this paradox before, in a blog talking about dying as a political tool. I'm thinking about it now as more than just a despicable military tactic.

It sums up so much of the moral dilemma and paradox faced by Israel, and by extension the west. It sums up how fanatical and nihilistic the enemy's ideology is. How contrary to basic morality and humanity it is. How the stakes of this battle are actually so much greater than just territorial or political, it's civilizational. And it summarizes how the enemy uses our values against us, to destabilize our society and in some cases, like mine, family relationships, not in spite of, but because of our empathy, sympathy and decency. Our morality is the fuel for their iniquity and that's a problem.

I think of my daughter who asks, rightly so, why don't you care as much about the reported 41,000 Palestinians who have been killed in Gaza as you do about the Israelis? I'm proud of her for asking that question. It's the right question for anyone with any basic sense of human decency and empathy to ask. I'd be worried if she didn't ask it. 

My first response is obvious, we're Jewish. We need to care about our own. And as the global response to this war shows, we have plenty of enemies, people who want to do us harm, anti-Semitism is alive and well. But as justified as that answer is, that sort of tribalism also feels like part of the problem. It offends even my own sense of humanity, something I learned from being Jewish, which is also presumably why so many Jews are so sympathetic to the Palestinian cause. (Tellingly, we aren't seeing any Arab sympathy for the Israeli victims of Oct. 7th.) 

What my daughter is implicitly saying with her question is; even if the enemy doesn't care about their own women and children, it's morally incumbent upon us to care about them. If they intentionally put them in harm's way, it does not negate our basic moral responsibilities to our fellow human beings. We can't sacrifice our decency and humanity in a fight against their indecency and inhumanity. If we are like them, or if we are worse, according to the scale of carnage and destruction that we are inflicting upon them, then they win. 

Yes and no. 

Our problem as a society is that we think of them in 'normal' terms. We have sympathy for them on that basis, which is only natural. We say, look at the squalor they live in, the oppression, Gaza is overcrowded, an 'open-air prison' (no mention of the border with Egypt.) Is it any wonder they are angry and will go to such extremes to fight for their 'freedom' and self-determination? This is 'normal' thinking. But if they were normal in their thinking, if their goals were the security of their families and a better way of life, would they have launched a suicidal attack against an obviously superior military? Would there be such pride in sacrificing their women and children for their cause? Would there have been such maniacal glee in their Go-Pro filmed brutality and bloodlust?

The only possible answer is that this is a type of madness. 'Normal' does not apply. Jihadism is a form of psychosis. According to the National Institute of Mental Health, "Psychosis refers to a collection of symptoms that affect the mind, where there has been some loss of contact with reality... a person's thoughts and perceptions are disrupted and they may have difficulty recognizing what is real and what is not." Jihadism is a mental illness like other types of pervasive delusional thinking, dangerously divorced from reality, and with homicidal/suicidal tendencies. That's the proper framework within which to view it. Can a society, or large swathes of a society, be psychotic? (the clinical term is 'Mass-psychosis') I think history has proven definitively that the answer is yes.   

It's 'normal' to have sympathy for those suffering from mental illness. But only if they can and want to be helped. The delusional, psychotic, unrepentant, murderous Jihadist is a danger to his loved ones and society, and needs to be either put away or, if armed and rampaging, neutralized. No one can live with a murderous psychopath next door, or god-forbid in their own house. And what we know about dealing with psychopaths is that they will not stop until they destroy themselves, their loved ones, and everyone around them. And that's when sympathy becomes at best enabling and at worst self-destructive. That's what we're dealing with.