Tannishblog

Having just returned from Israel and learned about several of the most pressing issues with which that state is wrestling from an actual Israeli, I find it hard to suffer the foolish, arrogant mandates emanating from the American mediaplex regarding what Israel should or should not do. As the reversal of Jewish settlements in the Gaza region is foremost in the news this week, the NY Times has the chutzpah to tell the Bush Administration (not that they’re listening) what not to accept from Ariel Sharon (not that he cares).

Who wrote this? No by-line is present on the website; perhaps the hack should step forward. Anyone with credentials on the matter would surely list them, the lack of such braggadocio is telling.

What the NY Time is trying to tell our deaf leaders is to not let up on the demand to force Israel to relinquish control of the West Bank. Apparently, to this unnamed reporter, compromise solutions that affect the safety of the State of Israel are unacceptable. Israel is not supposed to give a little to get a little in return, but to give all and hope for fair treatment from a fledgling authority that hasn’t yet been tested from the people it is supposed to represent, an institution that cannot even be called a government. This article is full of “Should” and “Must” as if spoken by one of real authority who just happens to want to remain anonymous; curious, that.

Boston.com has actual reportage occurring on this issue, offered by Herbert C. Kelman, co-chair of the Middle East Seminar ad Harvard University and a professor emeritus of social ethics. The differences in credentials (or lack thereof) clearly shows; facts are laid out, consequences of possible mishandling the Gaza pullout from both sides are expressed, and the inevitable “Shoulds” are offered light-handedly and backed up with cool reason. Professor Kelman even offers a framework for future peace negotiations that attempt to alleviate the largest problem in this complicated issue: mutual distrust.

Professor Kelman insists on the possibility of a two state solution. From my own observations as a neophyte political outsider, I return home from Israel convinced that neither party concerned truly wants a joint custody agreement; Israel as a nation and as an economy is just too small.

I recall driving past the fenced-off Palestinian sections outside of Jerusalem. They were slums. For almost sixty years, while the world forced the Israeli Jews to the negotiating table, the Palestinians taught their children how to hate and kill Jews. Hamas, once a social service organization, used money that should have gone to education and welfare to train and equip suicide bombers and other radical factions within the so-called Palestinian state. Outside the same fences, the Jewish people planted millions of trees to turn the once barren deserts into a fertile landscape on which they can build a nation and grow an economy. Inside the fence lay desolation of a land and its people, self-inflicted; outside, a flourishing of the same land by different people. To whom does the land belong: to those who nourish or to those who destroy?

And the American media, so sure of itself, loathes a winner and roots for the underdog that will chew off it’s own leg to prove a point.