George Handlery about the week that was. The choice of facts determines the case. Can the Palestinians deliver on their contract? The uses of “distributory foreign policy”. Piracy is a low-risk enterprise. Bank robbers are around: liquidate the banks.
 
1. This is how CNN International commented (Dec. 27) the IDF’s action in Gaza: Israel attacked “just a week after the cease-fire ended”. This rendition is constructed upon two connected occurrences. Event A is the expiration of the cease-fire. Event B is the action against Hamas. If we only concentrate on these two components, we get the impression of a rather rash action taken in response to a development in which both sides might share responsibility. (Without pockets, there would be no pickpockets.) Thereby the case is made for the “overreaction” as some commenting governments label the sorties. Only the chain of events has a third component. It is the rocketing of Israeli settlements (call them indiscriminate attacks) by Hamas in control of Gaza, the area from which the action originates. In this case the chain of events ranges from an expired cease fire, then it proceeds through rocket attacks on civilians that are guilty of being Jews and finally the process is completed by the IDF’s attempt to bomb Hamas targets. Through the insertion of the additional component, the two cases become highly dissimilar. Therefore, so must be their evaluation. Anyone who, while aware of the second scenario sticks knowingly to the first one becomes guilty of distortion by suppressing a salient fact. It is not right that this happens but it is, at the same time, hardly surprising.
 
2. The crux of an Israeli-Palestinian peace settlement is not primarily the drawing of a border or, becoming more fundamental, the agreement that a Palestinian and an Israeli entity are to share the region. The primary difficulty is that, even if those who represent the Palestinians (and who they are is far from clear) want peace and not only a cease-fire, the question arises whether they are able to control their own radicals even if they wish to do so.
 
3. Food for thought. As early as December 10, a UN Rapporteur condemned rocket attacks on Israel as a violation of international law. At the same time, Israel’s response to rocket attacks was judged to be “collective punishment” judged to endanger the well-being of Gaza’s inhabitants. Unjustly, Israel punishes the “entire population” for the “political development” within the strip in that it lets only a limited amount of essential goods pass into the zone. An NGO added its own weight to the critique. It turned with a (pro forma) complaint to the ICJ. Olmert, Barak and other Israeli leaders are to be tried for crimes against humanity. Accordingly, the NGO asked for the issuance of an international arrest warrant against Israel’s leadership.
 
4. Seeking the viewers’ response, a newscast raised this rhetorical question: why does the international community not do more to stop the violence in Gaza. The realistic answer could be two-fold. First, the Israelis might be listening but they are, nevertheless, disinclined to get used to being shelled and, furthermore, they are stubbornly unwilling to go down without resistance. At the same time Hamas is not responding to criticism – this explains why so few bother to address them. Hamas perseveres knowing that the “concerned” will complain where that works and that the measured outrage will augment its chances to prevail.
 
5. During the cold war, the American umbrella provided relative security. This cover made it possible to get on the cheap brownie points from the potential foe by criticizing the US. It also made affordable the luxury of politely discovering some virtues of the communist system whose aggression has been immanent to its order. As an afterthought, and by repressing all the evidence, “talking” to Moscow allowed the hedging of bets. This inclination to deny the worst has its explanation in that the West would not have wanted to use power for purposes the East was contemplating. Then the end of the cold war broke out. Peace and security seemed to be guaranteed without an effort and therefore attainable without a protector. Turning against the US lost the element of risk it entailed, while the cheers of the third world and the approval of the blabbering classes at home were assured. In the era following the disappearance of the old east-west confrontation of armies, foreign policy seemed to be transmutable into an exercise of distributing foreign aid. This era is now about to end although, due to inertia, “distributory foreign policy” is likely to continue for some time. The gap between the change of objective conditions and policies is normally wide in times of change. Nevertheless, new dangers and foes are emerging. With the hoped for retreat of the US from “unilateralism”, the positive side of the account that lists the benefits of American retreat is also shrinking.
 
6. Undeservedly, this got little attention. Her PM promised that, Pakistan would not be the party to use atomic weapons first. The military brass is dissatisfied because, compared to India, Pakistan is “too small” to make such a promise. The good news about this is that the soldiers apparently think that a promise made to the enemy raises the bar and that the pledge entails a moral obligation.
 
7. On December 12 a pirate vessel attacking a merchant ship was chased away by an armed chopper. Even so, a crewmember of the assailed craft was killed. The pirates were not fired upon. The upshot is that to the reasonably pirate, the risks of their activity must appear as pegged low. They might say, “If I win I gain all. If I fail, I only lose what I might otherwise have gained”. By not destroying pirate vessels, the activity is given the status of petty crime sanctioned by the application of correspondingly limited force. The “risk-gain” calculation tilts further. As a spokesman put it, the pirates attack because warships to scare them off “cannot be everywhere”.
 
8. A new, desperation-inspired saying that also admits failure, is haunting east central Europe. “It is better to have two million Chinese immigrants than five hundred thousand Gypsies”. (The region attracts a large number of Chinese settlers.)
 
9. The economic crisis has damaged the reputation of the market economy, which its perennial detractors are not slow in exploiting. What actually happened was that crooks have discovered naively unguarded vaults and cleaned them out. Questioning the principle behind the free market because of the abuse of its freedom is like closing down banks for the reason that they attract bank robbers.
 
10. There was a time when both parts of Europe (the Catholic/Protestant and the Orthodox) were organized as “traditional societies”. This being the case, as a conglomerate Europe did not represent anything that could be rated above any other contemporary society. In fact, between roughly 400 and 1200-1500, a number of civilizations outranked Europe. The successful but unintended dynamic break with what seemed to be the unavoidable pattern governing mankind (stagnation of a relatively high level) has enough causes to fill a book. One of these had been the gradual separation of Church and State in the west of the Continent. Ultimately both institutions who had desired the mixture if it would augment their power, have benefited from the separation. Whatever the advantages to the contesting parties, western civilization has been a major beneficiary. Modern science and a corresponding legal order – the roots of material welfare reach back to it – could not have developed without separating the political and the religious realms. Today we are in some respect about to backtrack on this development. The idea of the special jurisdiction for religious entities involving parallel legality or the immunity from national law is gaining in acceptability. The initiative comes from (Christian) church-related circles that advocate Sharia courts to serve Moslems. Another source of advocacy is when lawbreakers – such as illegal immigrants – are given refuge in churches. This revives the long abandoned idea of class, profession and confession-based laws as well as immunity and law-free zones. The implications and ramifications regarding sovereignty, impartial and de-personalized justice, equality and other such trifles are staggering.
 
11. One more thing. The economic crisis makes us fear the nightmare of widening unemployment. A haunting personal nightmare of this writer is that “they are coming” and he is out of ammunition. Nearly as good is to be running with a pistol in hand and with a T34 in pursuit. In case, you are wondering: in real life, he survived the first one and won his race in the second instance. However, the worse dream he has is one that keeps him from falling asleep afterwards. It is that he is looking for a job. He cannot get one because he has the wrong background and, in addition, his convictions and political commitments are visibly “wrong”.