Making Bad Decisions

According to the UN Gaza is on the brink of full-scale famine. Media images have started appearing of dirty children in soiled, ripped clothing in the rubble-strewn streets of Gaza holding metal cups and bowls clambering for ladles of watery soup, like a scene out of a Dickens novel. No doubt Israel will be blamed. CNN did a story the other day about the ten countries including the US and Canada who have suspended funding to UNRWA in the wake of a report that as many as 10% of the agency's 12,000 employees in Gaza have ties to Hamas, and a dozen are known to have physically taken part in the attacks against Israel on October 7th. The CNN story ended showing a desperate Palestinian woman pleading to the camera that if UNRWA ceases services everyone in Gaza will die. Count on CNN to focus, not on the corruption of the organization that has both implicitly and explicitly supported terrorism with their activities, but rather on a victim's heartbreaking plea for continued funding of that same corrupt organization. It's hard to fathom how by now everyone doesn't understand that the catastrophe of the Palestinians in Gaza (and the West Bank) is the responsibility of the Palestinians and their so-called leadership, underwritten, enabled and supported by the funding of the international community via the UN. It's somewhat heartening to see that the rot below the surface is finally being exposed. But I'm not terribly encouraged that anything significant will come of it. Unfortunately, some important funders of UNRWA, like the EU fearing a backlash from their Arab citizenry, are not getting the message. In a recent podcast, Sam Harris, in his inimitably calm rational way, lays out the moral and political stakes of Israel's war against Hamas. He covers most of the points I posted about in my Moral Clarity series (he calls them 5 myths), but much more clearly and succinctly than I do. It's one of his remarks near the end of the podcast that sticks with me most. A factoid I didn't know. Harris notes that when Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7th attack, was in an Israeli prison, he was treated to remove a life-threatening brain tumour. I'm not suggesting that Sinwar should not have received the medical care he needed while in Israeli custody (although I doubt that the hostages in Palestinian detention are receiving anywhere close to the same care.) But think about it. Israeli surgeons in an Israeli hospital (at Israeli taxpayer expense) saved the life of the man who years later would plan and execute the slaughter of their citizens in the most savage attack on Israeli soil in its history. I can't think of a more straightforward example of the way that Israel and the Palestinians operate in separate moral universes. Of course, it wasn't only Sinwar's surgery that permitted him to become Israel's nemesis, it was also his release from jail as part of the absurd 1:1000 prisoner swap. All of it highlights how we in the west have continually undermined our own position because we fail to grasp how our (higher) moral standards have been leveraged against us by our enemies. They do it through our media. They do it through our universities. They do it through our international aid organizations and charities. I'm not suggesting we should lower or alter our moral standards. On the contrary, we need to do everything we can to raise and protect them. And to do that we need to acknowledge when we're being played and stop making bad decisions based on it. Our bad decisions have allowed the Palestinians to live in the delusion for decades that Israel will one day go away. They've chosen and supported their corrupt and genocidal leaders based on this delusion. We've enabled the delusion with our funding of UNRWA, with our anti-Israel demonstrations, with our anti-Israel universities, with our bleeding heart media coverage, and most importantly, with our own weak political leadership and decision-making, both in Israel and in the diaspora. Weakness sends a signal that we can be played with. As Harris says in his podcast, had Israel responded to hostilities with pacifism it would have been suicidal, had the Palestinians responded with pacifism, they would have had a state long ago. They had no incentive to act responsibly and take a reasonable position because we in the west have shown time and again that given enough pressure we'd cave. It's time that we helped the Palestinians, learn from their catastrophically self-defeating mistakes, by no longer showing weakness, and not making any more mistakes of our own.  

Resumé For An American President

Sexual assault.

Adjudicated rape.

Defamation.

Defrauding the public.

Bank fraud.

Insurance fraud.

Business fraud.

Falsifying business records.

Misuse of funds from a tax-exempt charity.

Tax evasion.

Accepting foreign emoluments.

Willful retention of National Defense Information.

Corrupt concealment of documents.

Mishandling classified documents.

False statements to a federal official.

Election interference. 

Racketeering.

Conspiracy.

Conspiracy to obstruct justice.

Obstruction of an official proceeding.

Insurrection.

Incitement to violence.

Dereliction of duty.

Impeachment.

Racism.

Bigotry.

Misogyny.

Adultery.

Draft dodging.

Bankruptcy.

Bankruptcy.

Word flowers

CLICK HERE TO HEAR AUTHOR READ

Word flowers

            redolent blossoms

of sticky nectar

                           my mind 

             buzzed by  

meaning

                 moves from petal  

to petal 

              to petal 

pollen spray of sentiment

              dust blooms

                    astral floating 

   settling on the

infinite 

      moment 

 

I was in love 

   once

          and believed  

that word

          and so it was 

until  

         it wasn't

but in memory 

          the scent is still 

so

        sweet.

The Age of Stupidity

Has there ever been a stupider time? There's just so much stupidity available for consumption these days, it's so widespread the world teems with it. Used to be people were careful about saying stupid things. These days people revel in it. There's no shame in public stupidity. Stupidity finds stupidity and reinforces stupidity. There are groups organized around stupidity. Tribes of stupidity. People are proud of their stupidity and shout it from the hills. Saying stupid things is like carrying a flag - a freedom banner that says 'I'm so free I can say the stupidest things imaginable!' People wear stupid slogans on their clothes. Support stupid people who say the stupidest things in their politics. They buy stupid products advertised by stupid people who make stupid claims about them. They watch stupid movies, play stupid video games and listen to stupid songs. This is truly the age of stupidity. I'm not saying there aren't smart people. And I'm not saying smart people aren't doing smart things. I'm saying that stupid people saying and doing stupid things rule the day. So much so that even smart people are saying stupid things. I like to watch videos online about ideas. I've noticed that there are a lot of very smart, highly educated people promoting and taking seriously some of the stupidest ideas. Lately, for example, I've been interested in theories of consciousness. Reading books about consciousness from  lay-scientific and philosophical perspectives. For decades, the theory and study of consciousness was an area considered marginal at best in academia. It wasn’t taken seriously. If you wanted an academic career specializing in the theory of consciousness it was a fast track to obscurity or unemployment. Now there seems to be an entire industry of academics solely devoted to theories of consciousness, and online discussions about consciousness abound. They talk about consciousness from all kinds of angles, philosophical, psychological, neurological, zoological, sociological, quantum-mechanical, mathematical and spiritual. The funniest part is that no one is quite sure what consciousness is, and they all say as much. Maybe that’s the reason some of the stupidest theories by smart people I've seen are posited about consciousness. They say consciousness does not really exist, or that rocks are conscious, or that consciousness exists outside of our consciousness, or that what we think is consciousness is actually a computer simulation in which we live. I have nothing against stupid theories. History demonstrates how some theories once thought stupid turn out to be correct. It's important to put forward stupid theories. But most stupid theories turn out to be just stupid, and these days we're inundated by them. The difference is that there used to be a system in place to separate the promising stupid theories from the ones that are just stupid. There were gatekeepers before that blocked most of us from hearing the unpromising stupid theories. That gatekeeping system has evaporated and now we hear them all. Obviously social media is a big part of it. Smart people with stupid ideas can reach a wide audience, just like dumb people with stupid ideas can, and everyone loves attention. In fact, stupid ideas are magnets for getting attention. It's how the National Enquirer became a newspaper empire. If you’re an academic toiling in obscurity on a stupid theory, the incentive to put your half-baked ideas out there is undeniable. Of course, for the rest of us with stupid opinions, social media has been a bonanza. We can take adolescent pleasure in showing how free we are to say stupid and irresponsible things. At the beginning of widespread internet access we all thought it would make us smarter and more informed. It turned out the opposite. We learned that we are far more attracted to stupidity than expertise. Ignorance is definitely bliss. It feels good to let our cellphones tell us what to do and how to think. But we shouldn't forget that being stupid is actually a very big deal. Stupidity inevitably leads to chaos, disorder and destruction. Wars result from stupidity. I think our turn to toward populist far-right politics relates to our age of stupidity. With so much stupidity on display we want strongmen leaders to save us from ourselves. Our pervasive apathy and disillusionment also relates to all the stupidity to which we are constantly exposed. Even our fear of AI relates to stupidity. Many of us believe it's inevitable that the computers we create will become more clever than us and decide to be our overlords because we're just too stupid to do anything about it. We seem convinced by our own stupidity that we are irredeemably stupid. That would be a paralyzingly self-defeatingly stupid conclusion to draw.

Buddha

Are we not supposed

       in the thick heat of the day

to kill mosquitoes?

The Sermonizer

My wife hates it when I sermonize. I don't blame her. It's my vice. Even when I am venting frustration about politics, I somehow end up preaching, as you've probably found from reading this blog lately. 

So there we were chatting at my wonderful mother-in-law's 85th birthday party this weekend at our home. Most of the crowd had gathered around the dining room table to partake in the various homemade gastronomic delicacies prepared by my wife. All the seats were taken. As it is beyond my skill-set to stand around a buffet table making small talk while balancing an overflowing plate of food in one hand and a fork in the other while trying to stuff my face, I politely took myself and my over-capacity plate (and drink) to the living room couch. I sat there alone for a few minutes shovelling it in, before I was joined by my strapping, handsome, 15-year old nephew. He didn't have a plate, I presume because he'd scoffed his food down as athletic teenage boys do. Looking bored out of his mind, he plopped his muscular 6-foot frame down next to me on the couch and smiled. I said, "I guess you'd rather be playing hockey?" He didn't answer, understanding instantly that the question was rhetorical. I thought to myself, poor kid has no idea what he's in for sitting next to me.

We began talking about school. He's in grade 10 (or as we call it here in Quebec, Sec. IV). I asked him about the government exams he has to write this year. He said, English, French, Science, but the worst, he said, was History. He's not a great student in general. More of a jock-type, as you might have guessed by my description of him. You'd think French or Science would be the tricky subjects. History, the worst? I inquired in a  puzzled tone. Yeah, he said, what do I care about the fur trade? The French colonists? You live in Quebec, I stated the obvious. The government here makes policy that affects every day of your life. Some of it seemingly ridiculous, like the language laws. Understanding the history helps us understand why. "Actually," I say to him, "you probably don't feel it at all. You live on your little island. I get it, believe me. I was exactly like you. Grew up in my English-speaking Jewish enclave. Went to Jewish school. Had only Jewish friends. Went to Florida for Christmas break like all the Montreal Jews. The only time you ever see a dyed in the wool Québecois is on the ice at the arena, I bet. Must feel like you're playing against a foreign team." He nods. "Your world is so small," I repeat, without condescension. "At least this semester we're going to study World War I," he says. "Ah, the Conscription Crisis," I declare. The comment draws a blank. For him, there is a modicum of interest in that period because it's closer to his personal history on one side of his family. His paternal grandparents were born in Europe, survived WWII, came to Canada as refugees, and speak with accents. "You see how important history is," I tell him. "You are history." He smiles politely. "But I have trouble remembering dates," he says flatly. 

Now I'm thinking about how this kid is the embodiment of history. How his grandparents escaped persecution. How he doesn't have a care in the world because of all the sacrifices they made. And of course I'm relating that history to my own which is similar (although my grandparents came before the war), as it is with all Jews. I tell him, "Understanding history, caring about it, is actually a way of appreciating who you are and how far your family has come, what they had to go through to get here." 

It makes me think about our ancestors, I say to him. And not just from the last hundred years, but our biblical ancestors too. "You know, how they came out of slavery, and wandered in the desert, and got the Torah at Sinai and were led to the Promised Land," I say. "Jewish history repeats." Now, I realize I have to tread lightly, because what 15-year old kid wants to hear a sermon from his uncle? But I seem to still have his interest, because I'm sort of connecting his history to our history. He's looking engaged, and not strictly out of respect for adults.

"But even if you don't believe any of it," I say to him. "Let’s say you think it’s all BS. You don't believe in the biblical Israelites, or that we were slaves in Egypt, or that we wandered in the desert for 40 years, or were given the Tablets of Law at Mt. Sinai, any of that stuff. The Torah tells us something else very special. Something that's as relevant today as it was back then. Maybe more so."

"What's that uncle Glen? he asks.

Mindful that I have to keep it short, I say, "At the very end of the story, Moses tells the people, after everything they've been through... not that God has given them all the answers... but that he's given them a choice. God has shown them 'the blessing and the curse', and he tells them to choose wisely. What he means is that it's up to us, no one else, what we do with our lives. There's no one to blame if it doesn't work out, no one to point a finger at." I tell my nephew that I don't think that any other western religious tradition offers that as the ultimate message. Muslims are told to surrender to Allah or be deemed unworthy apostates, like the Jews are. The Christians blame the Jews for rejecting Jesus and we are damned to eternal hell for it. I say to my nephew, "In our sacred scripture, we're told that we have no one to blame but ourselves for our predicament. And that's the secret sauce of our endurance and success. And it's also why you've got so much to be thankful for. The power is yours how to run your life, and thanks to your grandparents, you've had a lucky head start."       

At that moment, my sister-in-law enters the living room and says to my nephew, we've got to leave, get your coat. "Saved by the bell," I say with a chuckle. 

My nephew lifts himself up off the couch like he's carrying a boulder, looks down at me from his towering height and says, "I like talking to you uncle Glen." We weren't talking about the rapidly fading playoff hopes of our beloved hapless Habs (the Montreal Canadiens hockey team), but I can tell he's being sincere. 

Moral Clarity part 20: Taking the Palestinians seriously

Israel is judged differently. We're seeing the hypocrisy on full display at the International Court of Justice this week, where South Africa is making a case against Israel for genocide. As retired Canadian Supreme Court Justice Rosalie Abella put it succinctly in a Globe and Mail article, "It is a legal absurdity to suggest that a country defending itself from genocide is thereby guilty of genocide." 

The double standards go deep. What other nation, after being brutally savagely attacked by an enemy, is expected to respond 'proportionately'? What other nation at war against an enemy whose sole stated mission and purpose is your annihilation is told they must use restraint? How is fighting back not self-defense? What other nation is accused of 'genocide' when it engages a terrorist aggressor in military operations by dropping flyers to try to minimize civillian casualities? After the United States was attacked by terrorists on September 11th was there a discussion of 'proportionality? Between 280,000 and 315,000 Iraqi civilians were killed according to a conservative estimate in that operation. Was the US accused of genocide? The Syrian Network for Human Rights has stated it documented 230,784 civilian deaths and 14 million displaced persons in the Syrian Civil War between 2011 and 2023. That war has resulted in an estimated 470,000–610,000 violent deaths, making it the second deadliest conflict of the 21st century, after the Second Congo War. Did any members of the international community take Bashar Al-Assad to the ICJ for genocide? I'll give you a hint, no.

In the war with Hamas there is no doubt that Palestinian civilians have suffered greatly. And the reason for that is because unlike a 'normal' war, with a 'normal' combatant, the Hamas army does not seek to protect non-combatant civilians. On the contrary, it seeks to use them as a tool of warfare. That the international community is not unanimously outraged by this and does not demand full-throatedly that this criminally inhuman practice stop immediately, is to me the most unfathomable and shameful  aspect of the current conflict. They would rather accuse Israel of genocide.

We know that Israel stands alone because it's unique in a host of ways. It's a tiny country of unusual religious, historical and geographical significance. It's the only country whose existence was given assent by the international community via a vote of the UN. But the scrutiny of Israel's conduct shouldn't be seen as unique. That it seems unique is an indictment of the way the international community let's other nations get away with murder, literally. Furthermore, it only seems like Israel is held to a higher standard of moral conduct vis-a-vis the Palestinians, because they are not held to any standard of moral conduct at all. They are infantalized and treated as children under guardianship, coddled and enabled by the UN and many other Arab and non-Arab nations who take advantage of them. For their part, the Palestinians like to have it both ways. They want the rights and privileges of being treated like an 'adult' member of the international community, without any of the accompanying responsibilities. 

Some people argue that there's no such thing as Palestine, and the Palestinian 'nation' doesn't really exist. I'm not one of those. I don't think anyone has any right to tell another group of people how to identify themselves. All identities are a conglomeration of fact and fictions, whether they are based in politics, culture, race or religion. It's about stories we tell ourselves. But I suspect that part of the reason some people don't take the Palestinians seriously, in spite of the flag, the slogans, and the narrative they embrace, is because serious people take responsibility for decisions and actions. The Palestinian people must be held to the same basic standard.

When it launched its war on Israel, Hamas was hoping that it would be joined in the fight by the Palestinians of the West Bank (as well as Hizbollah and other Iran-backed and anti-Israel factions). They miscalculated. West Bank Palestinians didn't join the fight because they are (quietly) hoping Israel will succeed in destroying Hamas so they can regain control of Gaza. Another example of the Palestinians hoping Israel will clean up its messes. It's hard to take them seriously.