Congolese massacre

As long as we are on the subject of the Belgians (see entry below) . . . it is worth knowing that the NY Times today reports that 966 villagers were slaughtered last week in the Congo. While it is not clear who did it you can be sure it will not go down anywhere in the annals of history. No one seems to care enough to do anything or say anything. You can bet that there will be no UN resolution, no big investigation, no blue-ribbon panel investigating this, and no minute-by-minute account a la Thomas Friedman, like we had with the massacres of Sabra and Shatilla.

("Why not?" you ask. The answer lies in the unfortunate historical fact that there are no Isrealis near the Congo. Had there been an earthquake inthe Congo last week and Israel would have sent a few troops or rescue workers to the country to help out, I am certain that the UN would be there trying to figure out how to tell the world that since Israel was in the region, she is responsible for this. But for the poor Congolese who have no one to blame but their own pitiful civil war, they will have to settle for a mass obituary of about 5 column inches in the New York Times.)

It is rather sick that massacres are only good as political cash. If there is nothing to be gained from exploiting their deaths, 966 people will die, and the world will barely notice. The biggist exploiter is of course the UN. They are charged with the responsibility of dealing with this. Failure to adequately deal with this will be yet another stain on their already filthy image.

Where are the Rachel Corries of the world? Where is the ISM defending the Congolese? Why are their lives worth less than the home of a weapons smuggling terrorist?

Belgian courts

As long as we are on the subject of courts (see the entry below), the NY Times reports today that the Belgian court announced today that it is easing the rules for who can be brought up on war crimes charges. Now victims have to be Belgian, the plaintiffs have to live in Belgium for at least three years, and the accused has to come from a non-democratic country that cannot administer justice itself.

There are a few ups and downs to that new legal modification. On the up side: 1) Sharon and Bush can now have all the waffels they want - ie, they can visit Belgium. 2) We do not have to rename Belgian waffels to something stupid sounding. On the down side: 1) I can no longer request that Arafat be brought up on charges for crimes against humanity.

This all seems like a move to make the US happy, and not risk getting bogged down in whatever punishment will get metted out to the French come the end of the war.

Judicial and extra-judicial systems

Today's NY Times reported on the trial of Marwan Barghuti. Apparently everyone involved on the Palestinian side is just sitting around and making fun of the trial, instead of participating. Wittnesses are asking for movies to be held inthe court room, and people on the stand are just ripping up papers handed to them by prosecutors.

Naturally I feel the frustration of the courts, as well as the participants. However if the Palestinians do not cooperate in the court system and do not attempt to take it seriously, Israel will have little choice but to start doing everything extrajudicially. Extra-judicial punishments are the last resort of a system when one side is outside the pale of the judicial infrastructure.

Ignorance

Rachel Corrie, the professional activist who was killed by an Israeli army buldozer, is now a celebrity. Lebanese women are now naming their children after her, reports the Deborah Sontag in the Times today.

According to the article "she began her education at an alternative elementary school that her mother helped found. In fifth grade, she and her class gave a press conference on world hunger; in seventh, she helped organize a student walkout in support of striking teachers."

Now she is dead.

. . . And so concludes a brief, but no doubt unproductive, career of speaking out about things she understand poorly. It is a shame and a sick thing that we encourage people to speak before understanding what they are saying. The fact that everyone is entitled to their own opinion does not mean that everyone's opinion is equally valid. The fact is we encourage people to speak and we do not really emphasize the relationship between language and thought. Rachel Corrie did not understand the situation, neither do most of the groups there. They understand that they do not like someone or some situation. So they react.

When Rachel Corrie was in fifth grade she did not understand much about global poilitics, or the economics of feeding the poor. In seventh grade she certainly did not understand the issue of striking teachers. Anyone involved in higher education knows that this is a mst complicated affair. In both cases, to employ a favorite expression of hers, she was a tool of some organization that wanted a little girl's face to put on their stupid campaign.

In elementry school she was a tool of Sally Struthers and her teahcers. Now she was a tool of the American Left and the palestinians. First they put her behind a striking barracade. This time they put her between an army and a terrorist. This time she was killed.

There is a line from Zamyatin's We that comes to mind: "In her case the velocity of the tongue is not calculated correctly: the velocity of the tongue per second should always be a trifle slower than the velocity per second of thought, and not by any means, the reverse.'' In Corrie's case the velocity of her actions was a trifle slower then her thought. There is nothing noble about being impulsive and making mistakes. IF (and this is a truly big if) she meant well, she should have given her actions a bit more thought. She should consider what the army was doing, and who she was protecting and why. If she meant well, whe should have considered what the best way to generate peace in the region was. Defending the home of a terrorist is not the way to achieve peace.

I wonder how many more "martyrs" these peace organizations plan on creating to support a cause they simply do not understand and do not comprehend the stakes for both sides.

Dinner

I had dinner with "L" and "S" and "N" and "S" at this place on 6th between A and 1st. It was called something like Deram Cathcer. The place was vegan and had a menu full of this crap about live food. Live food is just food that is fresh and still has all the live bacteria that was there when your salad was still sitting in the dirt.

They did have this China Cola which wasn't awful. I had this sandwich with mushrooms, it was OK.

The whole experience was too trendy for me. I need protein.

Cosmopolitianism

There is a rather interesting article here which is a response to an article by Martha Nussbaum about cosmopolitianism. Martha Nussbaum is a rather famous contemporary philosopher. Cosmopolitianism is a rather trendy topic in philosophy these days as well as an interesting topic. Cosmopolitianism is concerned with the question of whether one ought to attempt to be a patriot to some country or a "citizen of the world". Is there a good reason to favor one particular group of people over your own beside for the fact that it is your own.

I do not have the inclination here to go in to any lengthy discussion of this, but what seems important is not any particular piece of country, that one ought to have any alligence to, after all, a country is just a piece of land. What one ought to be allied to is an ideology. Why do I say that? I think I am very fond of freedom and democracy. I like the United States pretty much because it provides this. If the US became a theocracy or a tyranny, who here would like it?

There is nothing sacred about land, there is something sacred about liberty. Should one be cosmopolitian? I think not. Should one be a patriot? I think not also. Should one support a good and just state? Of course. If one's state is good and just, should you support it? Of course. It is for that reason that we fought the communists throughout the cold war. It is for that reason whe defended Israel all these years. It is for that reason we are now fighting Iraq. It is for that reason that one needen't feel bad about lack of participation by the UN in the war against Iraq. The UN is made up of contries that are are just and good, and also countries that are pretty sh!tty. As long as we are with the good countries, we are on safe moral ground.

When we speak of truth, justice and the American way, we are promoting an idea. There is nothing wrong with being Canadian or Japaneese. There is soemthing wrong with promoting an ideology that runs counter to the ideal that we want to foster.

So when people speak of the cosmopolitian question, what they should be asking is what kind of genocidal maniac are they supporting along with everythig else.

Dinner at Rush Hour

Last night I had dinner in this place called "Rush Hour" in the Lower East Side. It is right off Rivington on Ludlow. It is open pretty late, and the food is realy good. It is mostly a burger place, but they have some good other stuff too.

Media Ethics

It is the fate and responsibility of journalists to make certain sacrifices. It is sad, but true. Becoming a journalist is a trust that is rarely taken with the gravitas that it merits. When one becomes a journalist they must give up their committments to two things. First they may have no opinions. Their opinions are to be subordinated to the facts. They must be opinion-celebate - ie, not have any. A journalist with an opinion is not a journalist, he is someone who tell you what he thinks, not what happened. Journalists tell you what happened. Second, a journalist sacrifices his right to be news, in favor of reporting it. Journalists are given a certain amount of fame and publicity and public recognition in exchange for their simply gaining access to those media that are clost to those of us whose lives costrain us away from the news. When a journalist becomes his own story he has hit the farthest point from objectivity. A journalist who cannot even put up the pretense of objectivity is not a journalist.

Peter Arnet violated both of those by giving an interview to Iraqi TV. His responsibility was to be there and tell us what happened, not to be someone we have to find out about too. Airing his opinions, and even just having them, also violates what we want in a journalist, someone who will give us the news.

He deserves to be fired, and removed from whatever professional organizations journalists have. He is a disgrace to the profession. He forgot where the line was between making and being the news, and he also forgot the line between the news page and the op-ed page.

If anyone now says "Oh, such and such is true - I saw it on the news" it is suspect. We can reply "It is like when Peter Arnet reports something, you got his OPINION".

No ne had any illusions that anyone inthe media was objective, but apparently he tried the least.

Back in the USA

I have returned to my homeland. I love JFK. It really makes me feel like I am in New York.

I need sleep. . . .

Zzzzzz

Sunday in Tel Aviv

I spent Sunday in Tel Aviv with "YG". We did lunch at Café Nona, and then took some pictures around Kikar Rabin visited Steimatzky book store, and then had some ice cream in a place called something like Cicilieria (or whatever).

I then went to the Old City of Jerusalem where I hung out with "YS" and had a chat with a teacher of his. It was a truly interesting experience.

Sheva Berachot and cosmopolitanism

I spent Shabbat at some old age home cum weekend hotel for Sheva berachot. It was nice. The other side of the family was British. I was glad. Lately I am getting used to the idea of the British as allies. It was one of those interesting sort-of arranged marriages where the groom and bride met about two or three times before they were engaged. The wedding was really out of some really old story where two families living two thousand miles apart were united because they were both headed by well respected Torah scholars and their children were almost destined for this. There were many backs and forths no doubt. It was facinating seeing these two houses unite and observing what they had in common. They were so similar. Because of their cultural similarity the transition from one family to the other was seamless.

There was a moment on Friday night when the family of the groom all left the room to ritualistically wash their hands, and the family of the bride was a bit dumbfounded because they wash their hands only after the Friday night blessings are said. The groom was of German origin and the bride descended from Eastern Europe. Otherwise their songs, dress, and vernacular were identical. I can admit that it was a bit odd hearing Yinglish (Yiddish-English) in a British accent. It must be nice being part of such an international community.

My past few days

On Thursday I went to have lunch with some old friends at the van Leer Institute in Rehavia, and then had a smaller lunch with another friend at Hebrew University. We ate in the Sinatra cafeteria. The Sinatra cafeteria is a place I used to eat in often when I was a student at Hebrew U. This summer it was blown up by a suicide bomber. I also had luch at Moment two days ago, as I mentioned, and then on Saturday night I met a friend (and teacher) at Atara, all places which have been attacked by suicide bombers. On Friday, I bought olives in Machne Yehudah, also the scene of previous suicide attacks. I can only conclude that suicide bombers want to attack places where I go. They keep missing me, but hmmmm. It is enough to make one a bit paranoid.

The olives were really good. They were the kind that were very spicy. They were the ones soaked in hot pepper something or other. I ate them all weekend, and my mouth was burning, but they were soooooo addictive.

Security Checks

It seems like every time I come to this country the way they handle security gets more and more pervasive. Today my bag must have been searched six or seven times. On my way in to the university, the bus station, the café, the Machne Yehudah market. . . I think there is a real market here for transparent backpacks. That might expedite this whole bag checking thing. It used to be one of those cute Israeli things that made this country unique. At some point it becomes a real burden. The central bus station now has both metal detectors and x-ray machines. It is almost as if half the country is employed in checking and protecting the other half. This has got to stop. The country cannot go on like this. It is enough to make one nuts and think that all the world's problems are the fault of the Palestinians.

Clock Changing time

Israel changed the clocks a few days ago. As if my Jetlag and crazy schedule was not enough to mess me up.

Taxi Driver Wisdom

Yesterday I was in a cab and I asked the driver if there was anything interesting on the news. Naturally he told me. And he told me.

The Americans, he explained, have an ideology and rally behind their flag and their president. He claimed that such was not true about the Israelis. He went so far as to claim it was never true. That really shocked me that it was like that. I thought that such might have been true since 1980 or maybe even since the mid 70's, but he was quite serious.

I was somewhat taken aback. Then he went on to criticize Americans for being 1) so naive and squeamish, and 2) for caring about Iraqis. He says that it is obvious that if we just bombed the hell out of the place and then invaded with massive amounts of ground forces we would loose some people but we would just get the whole thing over with quickly. So we loose a few hundred people, he says. It would be worth it. Moreover, he claims that we should not try to hard with the Iraqi soldiers. They are not people who deserve the mercy that the US is giving them.

I was not all that much in the mood to argue with a cab driver, moreover I had to get off.