This note is immodest, and is likely to provoke condemnation.
It makes an appropriate nod in the direction of Jonathan Swift's classic of a slightly different name. It also fits within my concern for politics, and the plight of Americans, old enough to vote and do other things, who are not yet sure of what to do in November.
My proposal follows from an assessment of Barack Obama's declaration of support for same-sex marriages and his opponent's reaffirmation of his own staunch opposition.
A public opinion poll and its analysis suggest that the President may have erred.
Or maybe not. Analyses say as much about the analysts as about the American people.
USA Today, which commissioned the poll, headlines the findings that "51% agree with Obama's endorsement of gay marriage."
The first paragraph (the one readers are most likely to see before their interest pales, says
"More than half of Americans say they approve of President Obama's stance that same-sex couples should be allowed to marry legally, but 60% say that his shift in position will have no bearing on how they vote in the November election."
The next paragraph is not so good for the President.
". . . . Nearly 13% say his shift in position will make them more likely to vote for him, while 26% say it will make them less likely, suggesting that more supporters of likely GOP nominee Mitt Romney feel more strongly about this issue than do base supporters of Obama."
The Christian Post article about the same poll emphasizes the problems for Obama.
Its headline is that "Obama's Gay Marriage Stance Could Cost Him Votes," and the first paragraph
"A new poll shows that President Barack Obama's decision to support gay marriage might make many independents and even some Democrats less likely to vote for him in November."
So we are not sure, but the President may lose more than he gains.
He was wise to get his position out early, firm up his support among contributors and voters (in that order of importance) for whom the issue is vital, and hope that other matters will smother the importance of same-sex marriage by the time those who oppose, but not intensely, will be deciding how to vote.
Given the lack of certainty, my proposal can help Obama to drive his opponent into a corner where the vast majority of Americans will sneer or even jeer, at least in the quiet of a private room.
Beware. The following is for consenting adults only.
It is meant for a population that kvells at the opportunity to legislate about bodily pleasures.
The President should bolster his support for same sex marriage with a statement in favor of masturbation.
Research by a distinguished British medical college indicates that at least 75 percent of males and close to 40 percent of females admit to doing it. The data shows that admission of the practice increases along with socio-economic status. Authors of the study surmise that many more people do it, but that it is especially the better educated who are willing to admit it. A compilation of American studies find that the incidence is at least as high in the United States.
What's the payoff for the President to admit that he supports masturbation, and may even have partaken of its pleasures himself?
Mitt Romney may be forced by the positions he has held in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Ward Bishop and Stake President) to support his Church's doctrine, which is four-square against the dirty stuff.
The guide for Mormon missionaries makes explicit a prohibition against homosexuality.
"God delights in chastity and hates sexual sin. . . . Baptismal candidates are to live the law of chastity, which prohibits any sexual relations outside of a legal marriage between a man and a woman. They are not to participate in abortions or homosexual or lesbian relations." (Preach My Gospel: A Guide to Missionary Service, p. 77)
Spencer W. Kimball, who served as Prophet and President of the Church 1973-85 linked masturbation with homosexuality.
"Prophets anciently and today condemn masturbation. It induces feelings of guilt and shame. . . . no young man should be called on a mission who is not free from this practice. What is more, it too often leads to grievous sin, even to that sin against nature, homosexuality. For, done in private, it evolves often into mutual masturbation-practiced with another person of the same sex and thence into total homosexuality...."
Apostle Mark E. Peterson, who served as a leading member of the Church hierarchy from 1944 to 1984, wrote a letter for missionaries that he entitled, "Steps in Overcoming Masturbation." It included the following points:
•"Never touch the intimate parts of your body except during normal toilet processes.
•If you are associated with other persons having this same problem, you must break off their friendship. Never associate with other people having the same weakness.
•When you bathe, do not admire yourself in a mirror. Never stay in the bath more than five or six minutes -- just long enough to bathe and dry and dress and then get out of the bathroom into a room where you will have some member of your family present.
•When in bed, if that is where you have your problem for the most part, dress yourself for the night so securely that you cannot easily touch your vital parts, and so that it would be difficult and time consuming for you to remove those clothes. By the time you started to remove protective clothing you would have sufficiently controlled your thinking that the temptation would leave you.
•When the temptation to masturbate is strong, yell STOP to those thoughts as loudly as you can in your mind and then recite a prechosen Scripture or sing an inspirational hymn. It is important to turn your thoughts away from the selfish need to indulge.
•It is sometimes helpful to have a physical object to use in overcoming this problem. A Book of Mormon, firmly held in hand, even in bed at night has proven helpful in extreme cases.
•In very severe cases it may be necessary to tie a hand to the bed frame with a tie in order that the habit of masturbating in a semi-sleep condition can be broken."
There are Mormons who consider themselves faithful, but depart from official doctrine. They are organized and publish regularly. Church officials advise the faithful to avoid reading dissenting publications, and have threatened sanctions against those who contribute articles.
Among the items produced by Mormons who hold reservation about Church doctrine, and an indication that an Obama endorsement of masturbation might attract some Mormon voters, is a long and thoughtful article from "a faithful LDS Physician (who) in fear of reprisal from church leaders . . . asked that his name be withheld." Among his points:
". . . Jesus Christ never said anything about masturbation. . . almost 100% of males report masturbation during puberty. This demonstrates that it does not lead to a change of sexual orientation, or disease, or anything negative, but that it is developmentally appropriate and leads primarily to a healthy marriage bond in the majority of cases. . . . Church leaders only began talking about it in the very late 1800's when they told youth the same false medical information that was popular at the time - that it caused insanity. . . . masturbation can be a spiritual celebration . . . God absolutely approves of masturbation. . . . I have felt God's presence and spirit with me as I have thanked him for the great gift of sexuality while masturbating, and while daydreaming of how much I loveand am attracted to my beautiful wife. Masturbation helped my wife learn how her body can experience orgasm."
At times it may be difficult knowing if you are encountering a light-hearted affirmation of Mormon doctrine, or an anti-clerical spoof from among the faithful. See, for example, the clip linked here, "Mormon Beliefs: Masturbation Causes Homosexuality."
Mitt Romney owes the American voter clarity. And those outside the country who depend on its support, yet also worry about sacred doctrines against spilling their seed. (Genesis 38:9-10)
Obama's sense of propriety, or his staff's calculations of offending voters by hitting below the belt, may curtail any such campaign in behalf of masturbation. It will demand artistry from his staff to produce comments as sanctimonious as those he made in behalf of same-sex marriage. Then he spoke about his daughters' friends who were children of loving same-sex parents, and loyal aides in same-sex partnerships. Masturbation will bring the President to talk about his own behavior.
Did he do it? Does he still do it? Can he talk about it? Will it hurt Romney?
Will a presidential challenge dealing with masturbation do anything more than affirm the view that America's style of politics is touchy-feely in the extreme, and prefers such stuff rather than debating the hard issues of economics and foreign policy?
--
Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus)
Department of Political Science
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tel: +972-2-532-2725
Cell: +972-54-683-5325
Fax +972-2-582-9144
irashark@gmail.com
Among the glories of a professor emeritus is a capacity to wander the stacks of a good library in search of something that looks interesting, without worrying how it will fit into this semester's courses.
I found by chance FDR, the Vatican, and the Roman Catholic Church in American, 1933-1945, Edited by David B. Woolner and Richard G. Kurial (Palgrave: 2003). It is a collection of articles that emerged from a conference in 1998 that focused partly on the Vatican document, We Remember: A Reflection no the Shoah. The authors of the papers appear to be all American Roman Catholics, some of them members of religious orders and/or affiliated with Catholic institutions of higher education.
The papers deal partly with Jewish issues, i.e., the Vatican's activities with respect to the Nazi conquest of Europe, the Holocaust, and the anti-Semitic priest with a huge radio following, Charles E. Coughlin.
Those are worthy of discussion, but the primary message that I drew from the book, which it does not discuss directly, is the similar political status of American Catholics and Jews in the period before and after World War II.
What I'm talking about is the extent to which Catholics and Jews shared the status of outsiders in America. Similar to what is apparent in many histories of Jews in America during the period, this book demonstrates Catholic political insecurities in the presence of an Administration that was overtly concerned with the votes and the economic opportunities of the working class and lower middle class, in which Catholic and Jewish "newcomers" were prominent. Catholics and Jews had immigrated in large numbers from the mid-19th century to the onset of World War I. There were many more Catholics than Jews to attract Democratic politicians. However, both came as supplicants to the Protestants who were firmly in control of national politics, with the aristocratic Roosevelt the archetype of the class.
A prominent indication of Jews' status as outsiders was Roosevelt's concern not to portray the fight against the Nazis as something for the Jews. Important here were the largely unsuccessful struggles of Jewish leaders to get the State Department and the White House to relax immigration restrictions for the sake of Jews who sought to escape Nazi-controlled or Nazi-threatened areas of Europe, and the later refusal of the US armed forces or the White House to order air strikes against the death camps.
Catholic insecurities were not associated with anything close to life or death, but were none the less much different from what has been apparent subsequently. Then they appeared in the difficulties of Roosevelt to send a representative to the Vatican. An Ambassador was out of the question. He even had to obfuscate about a "temporary" personal appointment in order to slip through the vicious anti-Catholic campaign directed at the media and Congress by Protestant clergy.
Prominent Jews and Catholics were welcome at the White House. It would be a great distortion to agree with extremists who persist in describing the President as anti-Semitic or anti-Catholic. Yet both Jews and Catholics were considerably below the top of the President's agenda. Their concerns less important than his efforts to influence Congress, as well as the State Department and military leaders (who did not simply "take orders" from the White House), and to keep together a political coalition of Northern Catholic and Jewish voters along with Southern Protestants who included more than a few anti-Catholics and anti-Semites.
There were more than a few anti-Semites among the Catholics. Most prominent was Father Charles E. Coughlin, and an Irish-American member of the Vatican Secretariat who--according to a chapter in this volume--did what he could to mask the anti-Semitic nature of Coughlin's radio messages while transmitting to the Pope and his advisors messages from the White House and American Bishops who wanted the Vatican to act against the Detroit priest on account of his anti-Semitism as well as his opposition to the New Deal and the President's foreign policy.
Several chapters deal with Pius XII's attitudes, activities, and non-actions with respect to Nazis and Jews. Contributors reflect the change in Catholicism that came after the Holocaust. Prominent were John Paul II's visit to Yad Vashem, and his description of Judaism as Christianity's "older brother,"
Essays describe Pius XII's primary concerns with the Catholics of Europe, and his preoccupation with keeping Germans and the Allies from bombing Rome and other sites important to the Church. He also expressed his impotence with respect to Nazi power and determination. Contributors report the reluctance of the Pope and some of his senior colleagues to make explicit the revulsion they felt about mass killing of Jews that was known to them early on due to reports from European church personnel. This reluctance was associated with a belief that explicit anti-Nazi statements would make things worse for Catholics without helping the Jews.
The authors of this volume do not avoid severe criticism of Pius XII's actions and lack of actions. Prominent among them was his severe criticism of Allied bombings of European cities compared to his silence in response to the German bombing of British cities.
The authors do not deal explicitly with the still-unresolved and controversial question of Pius XII's sainthood. However, several chapters fit it with the numerous other writings and archival material on both sides of that man's holiness and failings.
A great deal has changed in the United States since the 1940s. There is an American Ambassador to Vatican, and Israel. Varda and I have hiked and talked at length with a friend who is a former Ambassador of Israel to the Vatican, and the Honorable Mrs. Ambassador.
African-Americans now demand greater economic opportunities rights rather than having to pursue a battle against lynching and legal segregation. Hispanics, East Asians, and South Asians are prominent in parts of the United States--and factors in politics--where they were virtually unknown in the 1940s.
A Catholic has not made it to the White House since John F. Kennedy, and a Jew has not made it past a Vice Presidential nomination. However, the presence of both groups in the upper strata of government, business, and academia is so great as to be unremarkable. I can thank one of my friends, a Christian Arab who is Associate Dean of the Hebrew University Law School, for pointing out that the present Supreme Court of the United States includes six Catholics, three Jews, and no Protestants.
--
Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus)
Department of Political Science
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tel: +972-2-532-2725
Cell: +972-54-683-5325
Fax +972-2-582-9144
irashark@gmail.com
The country once riled (and still so in some localities) on the subject of alcohol and which has pursued a war against drugs since the 1970s is now beginning a presidential campaign with same-sex marriages as a central issue.
Its difficult to decide between ridicule and laughter, sadness and tears The country involved so heavily in the world is tying itself up again in an issue that is existentially personal.
While there are a number of countries that recognize or permit same-sex marriages or civil unions of various kinds, I know of none where the issue has the same political centrality as in the United States.
Israel and a number of other countries do not allow the performance of same-sex marriages within their borders, but recognize those performed elsewhere under generalized treaties granting recognition to the lawful actions of other countries. Israel also provides health insurance and survivors' benefits for couples of the same sex living together without the sanction of any formal arrangement.
Gay and lesbian couples, as well as heterosexual couples who do not care for the ceremonies of the Rabbinate, have wedding parties with symbols and words of a conventional Jewish marriage, and lots of guests who eat and dance, but without an Orthodox rabbi performing the ceremony and without being able to register the results with the Interior Ministry.
A number of heterosexual couples--including those with a partner not recognized as "Jewish" by the Rabbinate--may follow those ceremonies by a visit to Cyprus for a civil marriage, which they register with the Interior Ministry on their return.
With or without registry, most Israelis and the Jewish State does not bother themselves with couples whose arrangements are "unconventional."
The day after the President's announcement, Ha'aretz devoted the top half of its first page to an article headlined, "Following Obama, Ministers and Knesset Members: To Consider Same Sex Marriages." There was a picture of the Finance Minister at a meeting of Likud Gays. Quotations expressed his ambivalence on the matter--he's changing his mind but not yet ready to vote in favor--and other political figures who spoke about religious parties along with their own commitments to personal rights.
The print or Internet editions of other secular dailies emphasized the prospects of the new coalition changing policies dealing with settlements and the recruitment of ultra-Orthodox. There was some coverage of the President's announcement, not especially prominent, without anything like Ha'aretz's concern with its implications for Israel.
A radio interviewer pressed the Chair of Knesset to express himself on same-sex marriages. The response wandered to and fro, and can be summarized by,
It's none of my business. . . I occupy a public position (He did not say that he was a leading candidate to be chosen President of Israel at the end of Shimon Peres' term) . . . People must realize that Israel does not have an absolute separation of religion and the state (Reshet Bet).
The English edition of the ultra-Orthodox Hamodia put an editorial on its frong page, "Obama Takes A Giant Step Backward."
The media drama surrounding the announcement by Barack Obama of his support for single sex marriages came a few days after Vice President Joe Biden's "outing" on the same issue, and produced predictably strong counter pronouncements by Mitt Romney.
On the evening of the day after his announcement, "Obama on same sex marriages" brought 738 million Google hits. Earlier on the same day is brought 374 million then 482 million. Those numbers are as good an indication as any for its political salience.
"Obama on Iran" brought only 238 million Google hits, "Obama on the economy 969 million, and Obama on Israel 360 million. We seem to be more important than Iran, and less so than the American economy or gay rights.
Same-sex marriage is arguably a matter of civil rights. Equivalent to the end of slavery or at least the end of racial segregation? Maybe.
It should also be viewed along with a great country's prior concern with alcohol and present concern with drugs, both to an unusual extent among western democracies, and its equally unusual incidence of incarcerated citizens, many of whom have been taken out of society because of extreme attitudes about drugs. The country that prides itself on freedom has a history of being one of the least free among democracies.
The ban on same-sex marriages by most states is a continuing existence of this lack of freedom, while the debate as part of presidential politics shows a continuing struggle in public about issues considered personal in many other countries.
All of this fits with the United States as unusual it is preoccupation with religion, shown by standing beyond other democracies--including Israel--for the incidence of citizens who say they believe in God, pray regularly, and demand legislation about abortion and marriage.
Commentators indicate that the decision to go public was not an easy one for the White House, insofar as it may cost the President more with some groups than he gains with others.
He was already on the right side with gays and lesbians, given his actions on "don't ask don't tell." One poll shows 52 percent of Americans favoring same-sex marriages, but opposition prevails among African Americans and Hispanics--two groups important to the President--which tend to be religiously conservative.
If same-sex marriage bans in Michigan, Ohio, and throughout the South reflect voter sentiment in those states, the issue could tip the election to Romney.
Barney Frank is not a disinterested party. He also represents my home town of Fall River in the U.S. House of Representatives. He has said that voters have lost interest in the issue, and that the economy will outweigh sex in voters' decisions.
"This country is moving, and what's interesting is every time somebody does something that's supportive of our rights, it turns out to be (a) popular and (b) not very controversial . . . Many Americans already assumed Mr. Obama supported same-sex marriage . . . Politically, it's kind of a nonevent."
According to a New York Times reporter,
"President Obama's endorsement of gay marriage on Wednesday was by any measure a watershed. A sitting United States president took sides in what many people consider the last civil rights movement, providing the most powerful evidence to date of how rapidly views are moving on an issue that was politically toxic just five years ago."
Bombshell or nonevent, the substance of the dispute marks American society again as an outlier among western democracies.
It's importance to American politicians makes us wonder about big brother.
Coming up is another meeting of the European-UN-American committee and representatives of Iran. Discussions in advance of the meeting suggest that Iran's representatives will accuse the committee of unfairness in its excessive concern with Iran's nuclear program, while Europeans and Americans will urge on Iran low- or mid-level enrichment that will, hopefully, keep its program short of military utility. (If it doesn't keep slipping out of the net like North Korea.)
The new minister in the Israeli government, former commanding general of the IDF Shaul Mofaz, has expressed himself against any Iranian nuclear program, including those that others may define as "civilian."
With the American president seeming to give priority to continued discussion with Iran, and immersed in a debate about marriage, those inclined to bet should put a bit more on the side of Israel giving up on outside help and acting independently.
--
Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus)
Department of Political Science
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tel: +972-2-532-2725
Cell: +972-54-683-5325
Fax +972-2-582-9144
irashark@gmail.com
The affiliation of Kadima to the Likud-led coalition came in the middle of the night, at the 11th hour before a Knesset vote to dissolve and begin the onset of an election campaign. It triggered not only the surprise and wonder of commentators, but shrill criticism of Shaul Mofaz for being a turncoat.
On the evening following the announcement, prime time news showed one film clip after another with Mofaz calling Benyamin Netanyahu a liar, and swearing that he would never join a Netanyahu coalition.
The next day the left-of-center Ha'aretz headlined on its print and Internet editions, "63 percent: Netanyahu and Mofaz acted on the basis of political motives and not out of concern for the country." The number came from a poll whose key question might be faulted for its capacity to produce a desired result. ("Did the agreement between Netanyahu and Mofaz to work together result from a concern for the country or personal political motives?") The right of center Israel HaYom (Israel Today), bankrolled by Netanyahu supporter Sheldon Adelson, headlined, "Unity and Opportunity."
What is described as several hundred or a thousand individuals, said to be Kadima supporters, participated in an ad hoc street demonstration in Tel Aviv against the agreement. Insofar as organizers moved quickly without a formal permit, the police moved to break up the demonstration with what Ha'aretz described as excessive force. Tzipi Livni approached the crowd, expressed herself against the old style unprincipled politics of the man who defeated her in the party election for leadership, but may not have actually participated in the demonstration.
What we have in the responses to the broadening of the coalition is an insight into contrasting views of how politics ought to be.
On the one hand is a view that we might call rational and honest democracy, where candidates and parties present their case to the voters, speak nothing but the truth about their values and intentions, and persist in those postures until the next election.
On the other hand is a view of more limited democracy, where the voters select individuals and parties, but implicity grant them discretion to operate as they see fit until the next election. Then they can be judged on the basis of fidelity to earlier promises, and their success or failure on other grounds, including whatever allegations are levelled against them for one or another kind of corruption.
The second view of politics is the more complex and nuanced. It recognizes that politicians are actors of a sort, whose career depends on their appeal to the masses. They must speak well. It helps if they are good looking. In some cultures (e.g., the US more than in Israel) they campaign along with wives and children trained to look adoring. It is recognized that politicians lie. (Googling for "why politicians lie" produces 38,100,000 hits.) Reading some of the "literature" gets quickly to the need to please a diverse cluster of potential supporters, the fluid nature of political discussions and memory, and notions about the boundaries of acceptable lying, fudging, or dissimulation.
If it is not already clear, I'll admit to my support of this second view. I see politics as a profession. Its path to excellence is not as codified as medicine or law, but resembles them in combining study and experience along with requirements of personal intelligence.
Among the skills required of politicians is a capacity to adjust in the face of complex issues and changing circumstances, with an eye on how the voters will respond to whatever alterations in posture or tactics seem appropriate between one election and the next. Depending on laws and politics, an individual may have to operate in a between-election mode for several years, all the while economics and foreign affairs are fluid, small or major crises erupt to demand responses, and party colleagues, political allies, or antagonists present changing problems or opportunities.
Experience is important in medicine, law, and politics. What is regrettable is that the world's richest and most powerful country, important for all others, is also inward looking and parochial. This is understandable. The rest of the world may lament the situation, but Americans can afford to think mostly about themselves. They also tend to be limited in the languages and histories of others.
It should be no surprise that American politics emphasize domestic issues. What is most risky for the rest of us is the nature of presidential politics that allows the speedy ascension of individuals with no or severely limited experience in issues beyond the country's borders. George W. Bush and Barack Obama may be good enough for Americans to win two terms, but their actions in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East produced tragedy or ridicule.
The differences between politics in autocratic and democratic regimes are clear, but more a matter of degree than kind. Things are more open in a democracy, and the rules permit freedom of criticism and organization. Yet even dictators must think about the limits, beyond which there is likely to be a more severe penalty than in an orderly democracy for violating what is acceptable to powerful others.
What we are hearing by way of shrill criticism of the Netanyahu-Mofaz deal is partly the harping of individuals and parties who feel they have been left out and will lose by the arrangement, and partly the shrill comments of individuals who would like politics to be simpler, more straightforward, and what they call "honest."
The first group I respect for their adhering to the political norms of opponents. They are using language likely to enhance them with supporters, financial donors, and those who might be enticed to vote for them whenever the next election rolls around.
The second group provokes me to use the word "naive."
I also admire truth and predictability, but I see the environment of political decision-making as requiring skills of maneuver and flexibility.
There are limits to what is acceptable.
Against politicians who break the law, a decent society has ample capacity to interrupt an established period of office holding. Israeli authorities moved Moshe Katsav to trial and eventually to prison from the presidential residence. For a while he shared a cell with a former Minister of Health, and may have encountered a former Minister of Finance. Ehud Olmert has been in court for some time after having to resign as Prime Minister. The file of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is still with the state prosecutor, who promises a decision about bringing charges in the near future.
Against politicians who operate within the law, but who violate what voters view as campaign commitments or good sense, the opportunity for change comes at the next election. In the United States, elections occur on fixed dates. Israel and other parliamentary regimes are more flexible. Along with maximum terms, which may seldom be served completely, there is always the opportunity to declare the end of a parliamentary term, and schedule an election. What produces a sudden opportunity may be the calculation of the leading party that time is ripe for renewal of its mandate. Or the realization that sitting members cannot bring themselves to decide about budgets or other pressing matters. Or the sense that voters are restive, and demand an early change.
As in other cases, there is room for discretion. The voters' mood months or years ago cannot provide clear instructions for what sitting politicians must decide today or tomorrow.
--
Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus)
Department of Political Science
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tel: +972-2-532-2725
Cell: +972-54-683-5325
Fax +972-2-582-9144
irashark@gmail.com
Israelis went to bed expecting the Knesset to finalize arrangements to dissolve itself and declare a national election for September 4th.
We woke to the news that Benyamin Netanyahu and Shaul Mofaz (who recently defeated Tzipi Livni in a party election to be the leader of Kadima) had agreed to Kadima's entrance into the government, and had cancelled plans for an election.
Media managers sent wake up calls to commentators, and they began their work about 3 AM. Since then a larger number have gotten the news, and are expressing themselves.
Speculation is the name of the game.
Prominent among the possibilities that seem reasonable is an ability of the government to function without the support of utra-Orthodox parties. Currently there are 94 out of 120 MKs whose parties are in the government, only 16 of which are the ultra-Orthodox parties SHAS and Torah Judaism.
High on the agenda will be the exemption of yeshiva students from the military. There is a standing order of the Supreme Court that the status quo violates standards of equality, but the subject will remain complicated even with the diminished power of those opposed to major change. There will be pressure to include Arabs in the demands for some kind of national service. Arab members of Knesset have for some time expressed their opposition to having their people forced to work for the Jewish state.
The IDF is not enthusiastic about having to accept ultra-Orthodox or Arabs. The one is not prepared by education for the demands of a modern army, and the other will present a myriad of security problems. Both groups, if they are included in a revised law of national service, are likely to face the alternative of working in social service agencies, with the Arabs assigned to work in their own communities.
Among the questions-- Would the ultra-Orthodox and Arabs have the choice of military service or something else, or would the IDF be given the role of taking them into military service, or turning them over to a National Service Administration?
The issue of military exemptions is part of a larger array of questions concerning the ultra-Orthodox. It is widely recognized that many of those claiming to be studying all their lives are not doing that. They are working in unreported jobs or doing domestic chores while their wives work. Religious academies are keen to cooperate with the bluff insofar as they get money from the government per student reported. We only hear about a few of the most blatant cases of falsehood, e.g., students who never existed or are no longer living in Israel.
Reformers hope that the end of blanket military exemptions will allow the ultra-Orthodox to live honest lives, go to work, pressure their rabbis to include useful subjects in their children's education, and maybe become too much involved with the burdens and advantages of modern life to have so many children.
The lessened weight of the ultra-Orthodox in the Knesset may also produce pressure against existing policies to grant large families discounts on local taxes and water bills, and favorable mortgages used for purchasing housing in neighborhoods designed for them.
Also outstanding are Supreme Court dictates about removing settlers from land owned by Palestinians. Prior to the suprise announcement of the new coalition, right-wing Likud and other MKs had been formulating a proposal to alter the law in order to deal with the Supreme Court decision in at least one of these cases.
This, too, is complex. Israel claims to be a nation of laws, but that may not prevent the settlers and their friends from changing the law to protect their assets. "Illegal" houses and residents are already in place, alongside other neighborhoods of Beit El. The offer of compensation to the Palestinians who the Court has found to be the actual owners of the land is not likely work. Individual Palestinians refuse to be open about taking money from Jews for their property. To do so would violate the law of the Palestine Authority, and subject them to the death penalty. If the houses are vacated or destroyed, the IDF (with responsibility for governing areas of the West Bank not already turned over to Palestinians under the Oslo Accordss) is unlikely to allow Palestinians to live alongside Jews by virtue of the threat they would pose to the security of Beit El.
Yair Lapid is expected to sink, at least in the short run. With a new coalitiion having a large majority in the Knesset, there is little reason for Israelis to flock toward another party offering a better deal for the middle class. He has denounced the agreement as the old style of politics, and a way of providing jobs to insiders.
The rivals of Kadima who remain outside the government (a minority of 26 out of 120 MKs) are accusing the party, once again, of not having a clear program that distinguishes it from other parties. Whenever the election does occur, perhaps no earlier than the Fall of 2013, Kadima may claim that it is the most pragmatic and responsible of the parties. Or it may disappear as its MK's drift back to Likud or Labor from which they came.
A minister in the government, affiliated with Likud, has urged Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to worry more today than he did yesterday. (Yisrael Katz, speaking on Reshet Bet) Prior to the coalition agreement, Mofaz (a native of Iran), accused Netanyahu of "overplaying" Iran's threat, but he also criticized Barack Obama for a weak stand on Iran's nuclear program, and said that Israel could not allow Iran to have even a civilian nuclear program.
Beyond the speculations about details that may or may not flow from the new coalition, it is possible to see an affirmation of politics in the Netanyahu-Mofaz agreement.
Kadima emerged from the last election as the largest party in the Knesset. However, the party leader, Tzipi Livni could not bring herself to compromise principles by coalescing with Likud, Israel our Home, or the ultra-Orthodox. She proved herself an anti-political politician. For those who see politics as a process akin to religion as a cement of social harmony and good deeds (i.e., via political negotiations, compromise, and ultimately counting votes as the most civilized ways of dealing with dispute), she was the equivalent of an anti-Christ.
Israel is as divided by its multiplicity of cultures and perspectives as any western democracy. The religion of its large majority is one that celebrates national history and dealing with adversity. The Hebrew Bible portrays difficult encounters with others. The prophets elevated severe criticism of governmental and economic elites to sacred values, with their words read in synagogues on every Sabbath and religious holiday. The Book of Job subjects God Himself to severe criticism. Ecclesiastes depicts the fluidity of human experience (a time for love, war, peace et al) along with the folly of expecting salvation (nothing new under the heavens), and casts doubt on all absolutes.
Neither our culture nor our more recent history--from the Holocaust to the latest terrorist incident--provides us with the luxury of ignorinig politics as a way of dealing with others and ourselves.
Whatever comes out of this new coalition will not be perfect. We know that from Ecclesiastes, as well as from all previous coalitions. Members of Likud and Kadima are already indicating what they will not accept from their leaders' arrangements. Ultra-Orthodox MKs say they will protect the interests of Yeshiva students, and the Prime Minister says that he will work to integrate the ultra-Orthodox into the society and economy, rather than force them into the military.
The essence of politics is to argue, refine proposals in light of disputes, and ultimately vote. And even more ultimately it is to think about the fluidity of political arrangements. One should not expect an unrestrained crusade against the ultra-Orthodox. Israel's leading politicians--unlike the man currently sitting in the Oval Office--have reached their positions as a result of long apprenticeships and slow climbs up the governmental ladder. They know that coalitions are temporary. Each of the parties may need the ultra-Orthodox in the not-so-distant future.
--
Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus)
Department of Political Science
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tel: +972-2-532-2725
Cell: +972-54-683-5325
Fax +972-2-582-9144
irashark@gmail.com
Benyamin Netanyahu is sitting pretty with Israeli voters. Recent polls make him a sure bet to repeat as prime minister.
Not so simple is his standing within his own party. While his leadership is likely to be secure, there are enough signs of right-wing opposition to provide some worry. They also provide analysts with evidence that Bibi may be right of center, but not an extremist.
That label falls to others within Likud.
Moshe Feiglin is nemesis #1, nipping at Bibi's heels for more than 10 years. Feiglin is religious, and would emphasize the Jewish nature of Israel within and beyond its present borders by offering Palestinians financial incentives to emigrate. However, he has opposed programs of religious coercion. He would loosen requirements about kashrut, and facilitate civil marriage.
Parsing Feiglin's numerous ideas from his frequent, articulate, creative and idiosyncratic expressions is not worth the effort, given his minority position within Likud. He is a significant, but not more than an ideological troublemaker. Americans might compare his status to that of Ron Paul within the Republican Party. Feiglin has shown that he can win about a quarter of the vote in Likud primaries. He is enough of a threat to encourage Netanyahu to employ arcane party rules to keep him off the list of Knesset candidates and from other accomplishments.
Netanyahu's problems within Likud go beyond Feiglin. Sunday evening the prime minister convened a meeting of the Likud Central Committee, an often unruly assembly of some 3,500 members, in order to endorse his position as party chairman. Bibi wanted an open vote by raised hands, which would allow him to declare an endorsement by acclimation. Alas, there were opponents, shouiting loud enough to be heard above the din and with signs already prepared and waved in front of the TV cameras insisting on a secret ballot. The commotion caused Netanyahu to postpone a decision.
Netanyahu wanted an endorsement as "temporary" party leader that would hold until after the election, when there would be another internal election to select a "permanent" party leader. After the election, the post would be largely symbolic. Now, four months before the voting on September 4, it has the capacity to provide the leader with an opportunity to influence the crucial selection and ranking of party candidates on the list that will go before the voters. In Israel's system of proportional representation, members of a party's list enter the Knesset in the order of their placement, depending on the proportion of the vote received by their party.
Of special sensitivity here is Netanyahu's affinity for Defense Minister Ehud Barak, nominally a member of the Indepedence Party, but not assured of entering the Knesset on the list of that new and small break off from the Labor Party. Netanyahu's opponents in Likud, including some in the center of the party's spectrum, do not want Netanyahu to give a reserved place, high on the list, to someone who has not worked within the party organization, going to weddings, bar mitzvah's, circumcisions, and funerals, shaking hands, slapping backs, and promoting the party to potential voters.
Journalists report that opposition to Netanyahu at the Central Committee was heavily religious. This suggests that it reflects a substantial input of settlers or their supporters, similar to the population that provides the base of support for Moshe Feiglin.
Netanyahu is usually an articulate speaker, able to play the right chords in order to excite his audience. Sunday evening was not his best. Perhaps he was distracted by the opposition. He thanked the people of Israel for their show of support during Memorial Week for his late father, and went on to praise himself for leading the country to three years of economic progress with lower rates of unemployment than Western Europe or the United States. He also emphasized the greater sense of security felt by Israelis, due to the low incidence of Palestinian terror.
Here he showed himself to be detached. The day's news, peaking in the prime time shows which had just presented their headlines prior to the onset of his speech, highlighted citizens' expressions of insecurity. The reason was several recent killings, seemingly by young Jews fired up by another Friday evening of drinking and carousing.
By the next day, the prime minister had been put back on message. He opened a government meeting sounding more like a typical Israeli troubled by crime, and promised to increase the personnel on police patrols..
(Lest my overseas Zionist readers worry about their virtual country, police issued an official report showing that violent crime is actually decreasing.)
This Sunday was not the first time that Netanyahu has felt the hot breath of the right. Arguably it was his party colleagues and other Knesset Members of the right who brought about the end of his first term as prime minister in 1999. His offenses at the time were agreeing to American proposals at the Wye River conference to move the Oslo Accords further along by granting concessions to Palestinian in Hebron, and shaking the hand of Yassir Arafat.
The failure of one effort to slip through a resolution firming up his power in the Likud Central Committee, and a weaker than usual speech does not foretell the end of Netanyahu's career. Right wingers in his party can snip and remind hm of their potential, but they have no better candidate to get at least part of what they want.
On the other hand, many of his opponents are intense religious nationalists, whose faith does not contain concepts of compromise, concession, or down to earth reality. Bibi needn't worry now about surrendering the keys to the Prime Minister's Office, but he doesn't have anything like the tenure of a professor or government bureaucrat. The right wing of Likud and its friends in other parties will not go away, and may decide once again--as they did in 1999--that they would rather be right than be in power.
--
Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus)
Department of Political Science
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tel: +972-2-532-2725
Cell: +972-54-683-5325
Fax +972-2-582-9144
irashark@gmail.com
Years ago, at the beginning of my career as a political scientist, I learned about incrementalism.
That describes the gradual changes that generally occur in government.
I made my contribution to the subject by examining government spending. I found that governments that spent more or less, and were more or less generous in the provision of public service had been--compared to others--like that for several decades. All governments' spending increases in absolute amounts, due to inflation and population growth. However, high- and low-spenders tend to remain high- or low-spenders
Budgets and service levels are highly correlated with economic resources. The citizens of rich regimes generally enjoy better services, longer lives, and higher living standards than those of poor regimes. (The US is a notable exception, due to an unusual antipathy to government and taxation.) Economic change is also incremental. There are few cases of poor regimes suddenly becoming rich.
Since then, I have seen the same principle in most governmental actions, and have thickened my understanding of the process and its implications.
Policy is an accretion of actions, reflecting the balancing of demands from different interests. No interest gets all that it wants. Domestic peace requires a sharing of resources. Activists demand more for their concerns, but policymakers do what they can to keep most voters happy.
That generally means no dramatic changes in what governments do from one year to the next. There may be changes that continue in the same direction over the course of years, with results that do amount to significant change. However, dramatic change seldom occurs quickly.
One implication of incrementalism is distrust of politicians. They promise more than they deliver, and lead to the popular views that "they are all the same," and "you can't believe any of them."
The reality is that politicians who become policymakers cannot deliver more than a small portion of what they promise, without taking the difficult route of squeezing more resources out of an economy that is growing incrementally, or the even more difficult route of taking resources away from existing programs serving alert voters.
The model is most easy to conceive for a democracy, but also works for autocratic regimes. Rulers with a monopoly of power risk their jobs--and their heads--if they depart too sharply from what their regime provides and demands.
Note the frequency of the term "generally." Occasionally there are dramatic changes; sometimes revolutions, but not too often. Usually there are promises of reform, with only a small incidence of the promises actually implemented.
Politicians must sound innovative in order to garner support. Yet resources are limited. Change may occur in a few programs chosen for emphasis, but the status quo will prevail elsewhere.
Foreign policy also shows the influence of incrementalism. Stability is the norm, and woe to those who are overly heroic.
Witness the problems brought to the Middle East by the dramatic efforts of Al Quaida on 9-11 and the subsequent US-led invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. The current occupant of the White House is playing a more cautious game. He may have learned from the adventures of his predecessor. Caution in dealing with Iran and Syria reflects, in part, an effort to avoid the unknown repercussions of messianic actions.
Don't make things worse is the prime norm.
Israel's leadership may decide that breaking the status quo with respect to Iran is worth the risk, and better than accepting the dithering of other western governments. If so, it will have done so cautiously, after extended discussion and no shortage of reservations.
Jews learned long ago that waiting for the messiah was more appropriate than accepting a messiah, the latest prophet or guru who promised to remake the world. Jews subjected candidates to intense scrutiny, and none of them passed muster. The list of those rejected begins with various pagan emperors, then you know who, and goes on to Mohammed, Sabbatai Zvi, and Martin Luther. Each confrontation has been costly, especially in the cases of rejected messiahs or prophets who had numerous followers among the Gentiles.
Currently the dramatic ideas rejected hereabouts are to stop settlement activity, withdraw settlements, and do what is necessary to make peace with the Palestinians.
We've tried.
Lots of Israelis, overseas Jews, and Gentiles claiming to be our friends continue to press for change, but the support given to Benyamin Netanyahu in recent polls, and the emphasis of left-wing Israeli parties on domestic social issues suggests that the status quo with respect to Palestinians is the favored option.
Will the future tolerate a continuation of the status quo involving us and the Palestinians?
We'll have to wait and see. Prophets certain of Armageddon have failed to convince enough of the leadership or enough of the electorate.
The Oslo Accords of 1993 define the status quo.
The prior status quo was that resulting from the War of 1967. Between 1967 and Oslo, the IDF's civil administration was the government of the West Bank and Gaza.
Oslo provided the Palestinians with administrative autonomy in substantial areas of the West Bank and Gaza, and promised to move in stages to full peace.
Despite the claims of frustrated leftists that Oslo failed, and is dead, the Oslo Accords worked, are are still valid, at least to an extent. They did not produce a peace equivalent to that between the US and Canada, but have approached that currently prevailing between the US and Mexico.
Oslo provided autonomy to the Palestinians, which has held for close to 20 years. Palestinian authorities are responsible for social services, taxation, and domestic security in much of the West Bank and all of Gaza. Israel's forces enter Palestinian areas occasionally and briefly when its security demands it. Economic development is proceeding in both parts of Palestine. Living standrds are increasing, Israel is relying more on Palestinian security personnel in the West Bank, and Palestinians appear wary of heroic actions urged by activists. A prominent item in Ha'aretz carries the headline, "Palestinians struggle with apathy." (May 4, p. 3) When the Palestinian leadership was promoting its recognition by the United Nations last Fall, an article in the Los Angeles Times headlined apathy in the West Bank.
A slogan of the left is that Israel must agree to a two-state solution, or face a one-state solution, including all of Palestine and Israel, where the Palestinians will eventually dominate.
Nonsense.
Israelis leaders and population have shown ample indications that they will reject a one-state solution, and neither the Palestinians nor the international community has shown the will or the teeth to enforce it.
If Arab spring, summer, winter, fall, winter and again spring has demonstrated anything, it is that the Arabs of Israel live better than Arabs under Arab rule. They would live even better if they could bring themselves to create centrist political parties that trade support and participation in the government for constituent benefits. Their cousins in the West Bank and Gaza appreciate the benefits of the status quo over the prospects of another tussle with Israel.
My findings of incrementalism a half century ago have led me to caution in politics. While I do not oppose all change, I am wary of heroics, and loath messianics. It is easier to see the reasons for what exists than to be certain of what change will bring. We all know the value of campaign promises. Sometimes we vote to give change a chance, or to rid ourselves of incumbents who have proven themselves incompetent, evil, or corrupt. Change occurs. Often it is welcome, but generally it is incremental.
--
Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus)
Department of Political Science
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tel: +972-2-532-2725
Cell: +972-54-683-5325
Fax +972-2-582-9144
irashark@gmail.com
Israeli voters appear ready to renew the lease of Benyamin Netanyahu on the Prime Minister's Office.
A poll reported in Ha'aretz shows a near majority (48 percent) favoring him as Prime Minister. The aggregate support of his three nearest competitors do not match him: 15 percent prefer Shelli Yehemovich of Labor, 9 percent Avigdor Lieberman of Israel our Home, and 6 percent Shaul Mofaz of Kadima.
Ma'ariv's poll shows Likud winning 31 seats in the Knesset, Labor 18, Kadima 11, and the new party of Yair Lapid also 11.
American Jews and my Israeli friends who are embarrassed by Bibi's statements, actions, or inactions about Iran, settlements, domestic social policy, and Palestinians may have to accustom themselves to another few years of the same.
With Netanyahu's future assured, the question for some is which other party to support in order to influence the coalition he will create.
We are seeing in the run-up to the election (likely to be scheduled for September 4) a repeat of a pattern going back to 1977. While Likud and Labor have jostled for leadership of a coalition during most of that time (none ever winning an absolute majority of the Knesset), a series of political entrepreneurs have created what they typically label a third force, or centrist party, hoping to gain a place in the Knesset and becoming an important force in shaping coalition policy.
Stars have risen, shined brightly for the dissatisfied, and fallen. Individuals at the head of new parties have succumbed to the temptations to join a coalition in a minor role and thus lost their luster with voters looking for a new alternative, or have fallen victim to the scurrilous behavior of political nobodies who somehow got a place on the new party ticket, and then behaved badly once in office.
First up was ד"ש (Democratic Movement for Change), led by former commanding general of the IDF and well known archaeologist Yigael Yadin. The party won 15 seats in the election of 1977, Yadin accepted Menachem Begin's offer to join the coalition as Deputy Prime Minister and head of a major venture to renew poor neighborhoods. The party disintegrated less than a year later over its MKs' inability to agree on issues of policy
One of the results of the split in the Democratic Movement for Change was שינוי (Change) a party that went from tiny after the elections of 1981, 1984, and 1988 (2-3 seats), disappeared into Meretz over the next two elections, but came back with a refurbished anti-religious platform and won 6 seats in the election of 1999 and then 15 seats in the election of 2003. Then it crumbled when one of its Knesset Members was found to have hired a private investigator to dig up dirty stuff about another of its Knesset Members, and when the party leader, Yosef Lapid, waffled about participating in a coalition with religious parties, and was eventually ousted by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for anti-coalition behavior.
The label of Israel's most bizarre meteortic third party belongs to גיל-גמלאים (Age-Pensioners). A perennial also-ran, the party seemed destined for the same fate in the run-up to the 2006 election. However, it somehow became the darling of Israelis (most of whom well before the age of pension) looking for an alternative to the major parties. It won 7 seats, and its leader (80 year old Rafi Eitan with a distinguished background in intelligence and business, involved with the capture of Adolf Eichmann and the management of Jonathan Pollard) was given the title of Minister of Pensioner Affairs but virtually no functions, staff, or budget. Then one of the 70 year old unknowns who entered the Knesset on the basis of the party's unexpected victory found himself the subject of a sexual harrassment charge by a party activist said to be "over 50." According to her story, supported by a polygraph test,
"during a campaign meeting at his home . . . (the MK) took her on a tour of the house. When they reached the bedroom, he committed indecent acts and threw her on the bed, but she escaped and fled the house."
The most successful third party, and the one that was able to select a prime minister, is Kadima (Forward). It benefited from being formed by a sitting prime minister, Ariel Sharon, who split with Likud on the issue of disengagement from Gaza. It went on to win 29 seats in the election of 2006 when Ehud Olmert became party leader after Sharon's disabling stroke. Olmert served as prime minister until forced to resign due to multiple charges of personal corruption. The party also emerged as the most successful of the parties in the election of 2009, but the new leader, Tzipi Livni, proved unable to accept the politics necessary to create a coalition or to join the government formed by Netanyahu. The party declined during her role as leader of the Knesset opposition. Livni lost a party primary to Shaul Mofaz by a wide margin (65-35 percentages of those voting), and after a month sulkiing at home resigned from the Knesset.
From its beginning, Israeli critics accused Kadima of not having a distinctive platform that provided a clear alternative to those of Likud or Labor. In that context, it is ironic that the party fell at least partly on account of Livni's repeated insistence on the purity of her principles, which she refused to compromise by joining with obvious coalition partners.
The current darling of disatisfied Israelis is Yair Lapid (son of the late Yosef), a successful and handsome media personality who quit a prominent role in television news to create a party he calls יש עתיד (There is a future). So far his proclamations of principle have encountered commentators' yawns or criticism. One of his planks claims to represent Israel's Middle Class, while several parties already say they are doing that. Another plank claims to be a creative way of dealing with military exemptions for the ultra-Orthodox, by giving them a blanket exemption of another five years, after which young ultra-Orthodox men must serve in the military or national service. Critics claim that this provides Lapid with a nice way to say that he is reigning in the ultra-Orthodox while sitting with their parties in the coalition, and producing a reform claiming eventual equity but likely to be extended after its initial five year period of being "the end of examptions."
The once-dominant Labor Party may have come back from a bad patch. It last selected a prime minister (Ehud Barak) after the election of 1999, when it won 26 seats under the name of ישראל אחת (One Israel). Labor selected two left-of-center leaders in succession who led them to 19 seats in the election of 2003 (Amram Mitzna) and again 19 seats in the election of 2006 (Amir Peretz). The centrist Barak won back the leadership, but the party dropped to 13 seats in the election of 2009, and then further to 8 seats after Barak led five colleagues out of what he called a leftist aggregate to create the party he calls עצמאות (independence). Current polls show that Barak's party may not clear the minimum necessary to elect any Knesset members, while Labor may be refurbishing itself to become again one of Israel's two largest parties.
Completing Israel's likely party lineup will be the leftist Meretz, currently languishing with 3 seats, Sepherdi and Ashkenazi ultra-Orthodox parties now with a feisty and internally divided total of 16 seats, an Orthodox, Religious Zionists, and right of center settler aggregation of several parties currently with 7 seats, the right of center and largely Russian-speaking Israel our Home with 15 seats, but worried about the prospect of an indictment for economic wrong-doing against its iconic leader, Avigdor Lieberman.
All of this may confirm the analysis of Jewish comity that begins with the question, why do two Jews require three synagogues?
It is common to say that Arabs are learning democracy alongside of us. The next Knesset is again likely to have three largely Arab parties with 9-11 seats,
--
Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus)
Department of Political Science
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tel: +972-2-532-2725
Cell: +972-54-683-5325
Fax +972-2-582-9144
irashark@gmail.com
There is a lesson in the reports of Barack Obama's visit with the President of Afghanistan a year after bin Laden's killing.
As reported by the BBC
"US President Barack Obama has pledged to "finish the job" and end the Afghan war, addressing the US public live from a military base in Afghanistan. . . . He arrived in Afghanistan on a publicly unannounced visit to sign an agreement on future Afghan-US ties with President Hamid Karzai, ahead of a Nato summit. . . . Mr Obama said signing the pact with President Karzai was "a historic moment" for both nations. . . . In the speech, beamed back to prime-time evening audiences in US, the president said that at the upcoming Nato summit, to be held in Chicago, the alliance would "set a goal for Afghan forces to be in the lead for combat operations across the country next year"."
One should view this against the background of numerous reports about the chronic corruption of the Karzai regime, the history of Afghanistan being a place but not a country with a functioning government, and the foolhardy efforts of the Bush Administration to remake the place that by all signs is unable to be remade.
Obama's actions and comments appear to be transparently ridiculous, but they are wise. They reflect how a president should deal with a legacy of madness.
It seems like he is throwing Afghanistan under the bus, but there may be no real buses in that God-forgotten place.
One of my own Afghanistan stories, not meeting the standards of social science research, but still worthy of attention--
In 1976, the U.S. Information Agency brought me to Kabul to lecture at the university. I was put in the Intercontinental Hotel on an inner-city mountaintop, away from everything of interest. I persuaded my handler to put me in a less isolated hotel. After a day or two wandering the town (my handler could not get permission for me to lecture to students, and my sole venue was a two hour discussion with faculty members), I asked how to get to an interesting locale out of the city. Directed to the "central bus station," I climbed about a truck, whose body was outfitted with wooden benches, and headed west. Over the course of the next 50 miles or so, the truck broke down several times. Alongside the driver was a fixer, whose job was to jump out, open the hood, do something, jump back alongside the driver, and sit there until the next need to fix.
At the end of the ride, I found a place to spend the night, which cost me about $4, including meals, with another $2 required to have a man sit in my room throughout the night and keep feeding the stove with pieces of wood. The location was high and cold, and it seemed wise to spend a little more in the village. This was the man who asked me, "How long does it take to get to America from here by bus?"
My conclusion: no real buses in Afghanistan, so Obama is not really throwing the country under the bus. Rather, he is doing what he can to lessen the damage caused by his predecessor's foolishness, and covering over the decision with a rationale that may appeal to American voters who don't know much about Afghanistan, and probably don't care.
No doubt that Obama's profession of concern for Afghanistan is a blatant lie, but infinitely wiser than what George W. Bush proclaimed as his aspirations. Likewise, Obama's exit from Iraq. No less a transparent cover for fleeing from an impossible dream, but that is what politicians may have to do.
And what is likely to be the result of the American exit from Afghanistan? Probably more Afghan taxi drivers in those American cities where I have met them, some of whom may be those professors I met in Kabul, and hopefully more writing like Kite Runner. I'll guess that Afghanistan will go back to something like it was before George W. Bush, or before the Russians sought to remake the country, or before the British tried in the 19th century.
You think this is a lousy way to run a country?
The United States is not a country, but an empire. Think Rome, Britain and France at their height, or maybe even the Soviet Union. Extraordinary renditions are not all that different from the Gulag.
Empires have places like Afghanistan and Iraq. One can argue about the US going there, but the American leadership must find some way to leave.
And the implications for Israel?
Different story. This is not Afghanistan, but a western democracy with social services similar to those enjoyed by Americans, a military capacity to be wary of, and well placed advocates in Congress and the US Administration. Some of Obama's actions in the Middle East have been nutty in the extreme, but Israeli politicians and their American friends will push for better.
--
Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus)
Department of Political Science
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tel: +972-2-532-2725
Cell: +972-54-683-5325
Fax +972-2-582-9144
irashark@gmail.com
At one time, a mantra of American politics was that politics stops at the water's edge.
Then there was Vietnam.
Long before Vietnam there was considerable dispute about entering World War I. Irish immigrants were prominent among those not wanting to risk themselves for Great Britain. When the next European war was already underway in 1941, with growing implications for the United States, the United States House of Representatives approved the extension of the draft by only one vote. Three and one-half months later, the response to Pearl Harbor was widespread, but later were claims about Roosevelt overlooking clear signs of a Japanese attack, and letting it proceed in order to give him a good excuse for joining Britain's war.
Post-Vietnam controversies about Iraq and Afghanistan, the "war on terror," Guantanamo, and extraordinary renditions ought to snuff out any life remaining in the American notion about politics stopping at the water's edge.
So why the surprise that Israeli politicians are quarreling in public about attacking Iran?
Prominently against an attack are former heads of Mossad and Shin Bet, and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.
Notice the label of "former." The most outspoken opponents are out of power.
Prominently not against an attack are Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu, the Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak, who is a former commander of the IDF, and another former commander of the IDF, Moshe Ya'alon, who is also a minister in Netanyahu's government.
The most recent commander of the IDF, Gabi Ashkenazi, has commented in public, but it is difficult to determine if he supports or opposes an Israeli attack. He has said that sanctions against Iran are "less costly than all the other options" while advocating "keeping all the options on the table."
The present commander of the IDF, Benny Galtz, has said that he does not expect Iran to be intent on developing nuclear weapons, but is not on record as firmly oppoised to an Israeli attack.
The issue is difficult and well as sensitive. There is no assurance that the international community or the United States is serious about taking the steps necessary to keep Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. There is no assurance that a nuclear armed Iran can be kept from using its weapons by the capacity of Israel to respond with its own nuclear weapons according the epigram that worked in the Cold War and so far in the case of India and Pakistan--i.e., MAD, or mutually assured destruction.
There is no assurance that an Israeli attack can do more than destroy part of Iran's nuclear facilities. Opponents claim that Iran can recover from such an attack in a matter of months, and then be even more assiduous about using nuclear weapons against Israel.
On the other hand, advocates claim that other countries may participate in an attack begun by Israel and that the damage to Iran can be severe enough to tip the balance of argument within Iran against continuing its nuclear program.
There is no firm evidence in support or opposition to these competing scarios.
We should not be surprised that individuals with serious credentials in the field of security disagree about the likelihood of one scenario or another. And once arguments go beyond the inner rooms of government and out into the public, we should not be surprised to hear participants accusing one another of political motives.
What are prominent are only the most general scenarios. Individuals with technical expertise are arguing about the probabilities of one or another kind of munitions available to Israel or the United States being able to destroy one or another element of Iranian nuclear, missile, and air defense capacities.
Israelis high and low do not lack for other imponderables. Chief among them is the willingness of President Barack Obama to maintain sanctions severe enough to curtail Iranian nuclear ambitions, or to use his own military options at an appropriate time if sanctions do not deter the Iranians.
The lack of success in restraining North Korea and the waffling of Europeans and Americans in the face of platitudes from Iranian negotiators do not encourage Israelis who are themselves waffling about military options.
Americans have their own problems, beside being unsure of Iranian intentions or capacities. Not the least of their worries is an inability to determine what Israel is likely to do, how far Israel can be pressed, or what "red line" crossed by Iran will trigger an independent Israeli attack.
Israelis with weighty reputations do not readily dismiss other Israelis with weighty reputations who express opposing views. Prime Minister Netanyahu speaks forcefully, but has not acted.
Soon after Yuval Diskin criticized the Prime Minister and Defense Minister for their "messianic" and indefensible postures with respect to Iran, Israeli politicians began discussing dates for an election.
Does this mean that postures about attacking Iran will be the stuff of a political campaign from now until whenever the election occurs, perhaps in September and October?
Other issues likely to figure in the campaign are the military exemptions and other benefits granted to the ultra-Orthodox; the government's posture with respect to settlements defined as illegal by activists or the Supreme Court; demands for greater social equity, economic regulation, and lower prices that were subjects of last summer's demonstrations; and the perennial issue of Palestine.
Anyone expecting clarity and simplicity about attacking Iran should not be in this game.
--
Ira Sharkansky (Emeritus)
Department of Political Science
Hebrew University of Jerusalem
Tel: +972-2-532-2725
Cell: +972-54-683-5325
Fax +972-2-582-9144
irashark@gmail.com
