Sar Shalom
Louis Brandeis that is.
Courtesy of an op-ed in yesterday's New York Times about the filibuster, I learned of Justice Brandeis' line from a dissent, "The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding." Therein is the crux of Obama's approach to Israel.
Many Israel-supporters ascribe Obama's actions to an animus against Israel. Such an assessment has two problems. One, there are facts that contradict it. Two, the is an alternative theory that explains why he has taken the actions he has. While not flattering of Obama, it does not describe any degree of malice on Obama's part.
A place to start would be how Obama's worldview was formed. When Obama got his start as a community organizer in Chicago, he had two main types of sources of information on the Mideast conflict: the Palestinianist spokesmen, such as Rashid Khalidi and Edward Said, and the liberal Jews of Chicago, such as Abner Mikva and Sam Minow. From the first group, Obama absorbed a sense of Palestinian grievance. The second group provided reason not to take it at face-value, nor did it provide any defense of Israel's presence in Jordan's 1949-conquest. However, because the second group did defend Israel where Jordan failed to conquer in 1949, Obama thought he had heard "both sides" of the conflict and thus knew everything that he truly needed to know, and thus he felt entitled to say "na na na na, I don't hear you" to anyone trying to point out anything that was not within the parameters of The Truth that his Palestinianist and liberal Chicago Jewish mentors taught him.
However, there are consequential gaps in Obama's knowledge of the Middle East. For instance, his mentors did not teach him about the history of the Pact of Umar. Nor has he ever pondered the possibility that his Palestinianist mentors, rather describing what we westerners consider a legitimate grievance, were merely dressing up their grievance that outside of the Temple Mount, the Pact of Umar is no longer in effect. Thus Obama combines an exceptional level of zeal provided by his Palestinianist mentors with an equally exceptional lack of understanding. As Brandeis wrote, it is the greatest threat to liberty, and thus we get UNSC 2334.
The Day of the Dhimmi is Done - Michael Lumish, Proprietor
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Obama. Show all posts
Thursday, January 5, 2017
Monday, June 20, 2016
How to discuss Islam
Sar Shalom
Much has been made about President Barack Obama's refusal to name Islam as a culprit in the attack at an Orlando night club last week. While Obama, and to lesser extent Bush before him, does leave this gap in his description of the threat, ignoring the valid motivation for doing so does nothing to address this shortcoming. What's needed is language that will define who we are at war with and that will let everyone not in that group that we are not at war with them. Failing to include those who are not a threat on our side both decreases our potential base of support and increases the needed work in order to prevail in the war, which provides a reason not to be overly broad in defining the threat.
With that said, the threat that the West faces is those who think that avenging the honor of Islam is a valid action. For instance, insulting Islam's prophet Mohammed is considered an affront to Islam's honor as is the existence of Jews living in dignity in the middle of Dar-al-Islam, which incites a rage that something must be done. In contrast, the practice of Islam, whether consisting of fasting on Ramadan, attending mosque daily, or wearing the hijab or even niqab, just so long as it does not include support for avenging Islam's honor is not a threat. Thus, when Obama, and before him Bush, try to convey the message that we do not consider the mere practice of Islam to be a threat, it is altogether proper to do so.
The proper criticism of Obama's treatment of Islam is that while he is correct to limit opprobrium to the vengeance of Islam's honor, Obama's definition of vengeance of Islam's honor is too narrow. It seems to be that Obama's proscriptions would be limited to those who either pick up arms for the sake of Islam's honor or who explicitly call upon others to do so. While Obama goes to the ends of the earth to confront those two categories of Islamists, and saying otherwise simply displays your ignorance of actions like the drone strike against Anwar al-Awlaki, there are other categories of those who provide tacit support for avenging Islam's honor. This quiet support for avenging Islam's honor comes most notable from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and related organizations that deploy rhetoric to conflate exposure of those who take action for the sake of Islam's honor with simple practitioners of the religion. A frequent feature of such groups is that they are constitutionally incapable of condemning violence on behalf of Islam's honor without also condemning "Islamophobia" in a manner that puts Islamophobia on a par with Islamicly motivated violence.
A further category of action for the sake of Islam's honor is the deployment of various forms of thought control such as that which prevails at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. While not including any violence, the creation of such cultures undermines the free flow of information that is the basis of Western civilization.
In conclusion, the language we need to discuss Islam is one which will say that avenging the honor of Islam is unacceptable. This includes not just directly engaging in violence for the cause or explicit advocacy or direction to do so, but also apologia for those such actions or saying that one would not personally engage in such actions but that doing so is a legitimate path within sharia. However, any practitioner of Islam who uncategorically portrays avenging Islam's honor as illegitimate will be welcomed with open arms as a citizen of the West.
Much has been made about President Barack Obama's refusal to name Islam as a culprit in the attack at an Orlando night club last week. While Obama, and to lesser extent Bush before him, does leave this gap in his description of the threat, ignoring the valid motivation for doing so does nothing to address this shortcoming. What's needed is language that will define who we are at war with and that will let everyone not in that group that we are not at war with them. Failing to include those who are not a threat on our side both decreases our potential base of support and increases the needed work in order to prevail in the war, which provides a reason not to be overly broad in defining the threat.
With that said, the threat that the West faces is those who think that avenging the honor of Islam is a valid action. For instance, insulting Islam's prophet Mohammed is considered an affront to Islam's honor as is the existence of Jews living in dignity in the middle of Dar-al-Islam, which incites a rage that something must be done. In contrast, the practice of Islam, whether consisting of fasting on Ramadan, attending mosque daily, or wearing the hijab or even niqab, just so long as it does not include support for avenging Islam's honor is not a threat. Thus, when Obama, and before him Bush, try to convey the message that we do not consider the mere practice of Islam to be a threat, it is altogether proper to do so.
The proper criticism of Obama's treatment of Islam is that while he is correct to limit opprobrium to the vengeance of Islam's honor, Obama's definition of vengeance of Islam's honor is too narrow. It seems to be that Obama's proscriptions would be limited to those who either pick up arms for the sake of Islam's honor or who explicitly call upon others to do so. While Obama goes to the ends of the earth to confront those two categories of Islamists, and saying otherwise simply displays your ignorance of actions like the drone strike against Anwar al-Awlaki, there are other categories of those who provide tacit support for avenging Islam's honor. This quiet support for avenging Islam's honor comes most notable from the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR) and related organizations that deploy rhetoric to conflate exposure of those who take action for the sake of Islam's honor with simple practitioners of the religion. A frequent feature of such groups is that they are constitutionally incapable of condemning violence on behalf of Islam's honor without also condemning "Islamophobia" in a manner that puts Islamophobia on a par with Islamicly motivated violence.
A further category of action for the sake of Islam's honor is the deployment of various forms of thought control such as that which prevails at the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University. While not including any violence, the creation of such cultures undermines the free flow of information that is the basis of Western civilization.
In conclusion, the language we need to discuss Islam is one which will say that avenging the honor of Islam is unacceptable. This includes not just directly engaging in violence for the cause or explicit advocacy or direction to do so, but also apologia for those such actions or saying that one would not personally engage in such actions but that doing so is a legitimate path within sharia. However, any practitioner of Islam who uncategorically portrays avenging Islam's honor as illegitimate will be welcomed with open arms as a citizen of the West.
Monday, May 16, 2016
Ben Rhodes
Sar Shalom
While plenty of others have laid out the know-it-all attitude of President Obama as conveyed by the New York Times Magazine profile of his communications director Ben Rhodes, there's another angle I would like to cover. To get at my angle, it would help to look at Nicholas Kristof's column from last week about Obama's responses to the Ebola crisis in 2014 and the Zika crisis now. During the Ebola crisis, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) predicted that without intervention, the epidemic in Liberia could mushroom to 1.4 million cases. An epidemic of that scale would have been a vastly greater threat to us than a handful of medical experts traveling there, coming back, and monitoring themselves during the potential incubation period for the disease.
However, the balance of risks did not stop the self-appointed experts like Phyllis Schlafly, Donald Trump, and the Republicans in Congress from declaring that America had to be "kept safe" by stopping all flights to Africa. In actuality, the intervention by western medical crews brought and end to the Ebola epidemic in western Africa and there was not a single fatality from western-contracted Ebola. What this episode demonstrates is that there is such a thing as expertise and that those crafted Obama's response, presumably from the CDC, knew what they were doing. However, until the epidemic was contained, to the self-appointed experts, the public health community was simply what one might call "The Blob."
Just as there is such a thing as expertise in public health, there is also such a thing as expertise in international relations. Unfortunately, as David Samuels' profile of Ben Rhodes demonstrates, Obama's attitude towards international-relations expertise is the same of the self-appointed experts' attitude towards public-health expertise. There are legitimate reasons to challenge the community of experts. For instance it would be useful to call attention to facts that most experts ignore and there is nothing inherently wrong with having values (that is, view of what ought to be) that differ from those of most experts. However, there is a difference between an experts' professional assessment (that is, view of what is) and the application of that expert's values (what ought to be). Spurning the experts' advice, in effect dismissing their analysis because you dislike their conclusions, and treating their assessments of what is as if they were their assessments of what ought to be, creates a substantial risk for disaster. That is what Obama and Rhodes have done.
While plenty of others have laid out the know-it-all attitude of President Obama as conveyed by the New York Times Magazine profile of his communications director Ben Rhodes, there's another angle I would like to cover. To get at my angle, it would help to look at Nicholas Kristof's column from last week about Obama's responses to the Ebola crisis in 2014 and the Zika crisis now. During the Ebola crisis, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) predicted that without intervention, the epidemic in Liberia could mushroom to 1.4 million cases. An epidemic of that scale would have been a vastly greater threat to us than a handful of medical experts traveling there, coming back, and monitoring themselves during the potential incubation period for the disease.
However, the balance of risks did not stop the self-appointed experts like Phyllis Schlafly, Donald Trump, and the Republicans in Congress from declaring that America had to be "kept safe" by stopping all flights to Africa. In actuality, the intervention by western medical crews brought and end to the Ebola epidemic in western Africa and there was not a single fatality from western-contracted Ebola. What this episode demonstrates is that there is such a thing as expertise and that those crafted Obama's response, presumably from the CDC, knew what they were doing. However, until the epidemic was contained, to the self-appointed experts, the public health community was simply what one might call "The Blob."
Just as there is such a thing as expertise in public health, there is also such a thing as expertise in international relations. Unfortunately, as David Samuels' profile of Ben Rhodes demonstrates, Obama's attitude towards international-relations expertise is the same of the self-appointed experts' attitude towards public-health expertise. There are legitimate reasons to challenge the community of experts. For instance it would be useful to call attention to facts that most experts ignore and there is nothing inherently wrong with having values (that is, view of what ought to be) that differ from those of most experts. However, there is a difference between an experts' professional assessment (that is, view of what is) and the application of that expert's values (what ought to be). Spurning the experts' advice, in effect dismissing their analysis because you dislike their conclusions, and treating their assessments of what is as if they were their assessments of what ought to be, creates a substantial risk for disaster. That is what Obama and Rhodes have done.
Tuesday, October 13, 2015
On "Jewish values"
Sar Shalom
Barack Obama's typical response to those who complain that he favors the Palestinians too much is that in actuality he does support Israel, but that that support is rooted in Israel's "Jewish values." When Israel strays from these "Jewish values," Obama sees it as his place to prod Israel to come closer to those values that make Israel worthy of support.
It may be tempting to dismiss Obama's protests as camouflage for his ulterior intent to reimpose the Pact of Umar on Middle Eastern Jewry. However, I do not think any such approachcould be intellectually defended [Update:] has any reasonable chance of convincing anyone who does not already believe so. A better approach would be to ask what exactly does Obama mean by "Jewish values?" One possible suggestion I would offer for Obama's concept of "Jewish values" comes from a fictional account by Victor Hugo:
To relate this story to Israel's situation, the Palestinians are like Montparnasse with Israel as the elderly gentleman. The Palestinians are poor and see others' possessions as belonging to them, and thus try to rob Israel. Israel, being in a stronger position, suppresses the attempted robbery. But, Jewish values mandate sympathy for the downtrodden, do they not? Thus, if Israel were truly acting in accordance with "Jewish values," she would give the Palestinians what they are attempted to seize despite having them at her mercy, as the elderly gentleman did in the vignette. Could this be what Obama expects of Israel, that sympathy for the downtrodden should override all assessment of what leads to their being downtrodden?
Barack Obama's typical response to those who complain that he favors the Palestinians too much is that in actuality he does support Israel, but that that support is rooted in Israel's "Jewish values." When Israel strays from these "Jewish values," Obama sees it as his place to prod Israel to come closer to those values that make Israel worthy of support.
It may be tempting to dismiss Obama's protests as camouflage for his ulterior intent to reimpose the Pact of Umar on Middle Eastern Jewry. However, I do not think any such approach
All at once, in this whitish band, two figures made their appearance. One was in front, the other some distance in the rear.
"There come two creatures," muttered Gavroche.
The first form seemed to be some elderly bourgeois, who was bent and thoughtful, dressed more than plainly, and who was walking slowly because of his age, and strolling about in the open evening air.
The second was straight, firm, slender. It regulated its pace by that of the first; but in the voluntary slowness of its gait, suppleness and agility were discernible. This figure had also something fierce and disquieting about it, the whole shape was that of what was then called an elegant; the hat was of good shape, the coat black, well cut, probably of fine cloth, and well fitted in at the waist. The head was held erect with a sort of robust grace, and beneath the hat the pale profile of a young man could be made out in the dim light. The profile had a rose in its mouth. This second form was well known to Gavroche; it was Montparnasse [a street ruffian].
He could have told nothing about the other, except that he was a respectable old man.
{...}
While Gavroche was deliberating, the attack took place, abruptly and hideously. The attack of the tiger on the wild ass, the attack of the spider on the fly. Montparnasse suddenly tossed away his rose, bounded upon the old man, seized him by the collar, grasped and clung to him, and Gavroche with difficulty restrained a scream. A moment later one of these men was underneath the other, groaning, struggling, with a knee of marble upon his breast. Only, it was not just what Gavroche had expected. The one who lay on the earth was Montparnasse; the one who was on top was the old man. All this took place a few paces distant from Gavroche.
The old man had received the shock, had returned it, and that in such a terrible fashion, that in a twinkling, the assailant and the assailed had exchanged roles.
[After obsering a struggle, Gavroche caught the exchange between the old man and his attacker]
He was repaid for his conscientious anxiety in the character of a spectator. He was able to catch on the wing a dialogue which borrowed from the darkness an indescribably tragic accent. The goodman questioned, Montparnasse replied.
"How old are you?"-- "Nineteen."-- "You are strong and healthy. Why do you not work?"-- "It bores me."-- "What is your trade?"-- "An idler."-- "Speak seriously. Can anything be done for you? What would you like to be?"-- "A thief."
A pause ensued. The old man seemed absorbed in profound thought. He stood motionless, and did not relax his hold on Montparnasse.
Every moment the vigorous and agile young ruffian indulged in the twitchings of a wild beast caught in a snare. He gave a jerk, tried a crook of the knee, twisted his limbs desperately, and made efforts to escape.
The old man did not appear to notice it, and held both his arms with one hand, with the sovereign indifference of absolute force.
The old man's revery lasted for some time, then, looking steadily at Montparnasse, he addressed to him in a gentle voice, in the midst of the darkness where they stood, a solemn harangue, of which Gavroche did not lose a single syllable:--
"My child, you are entering, through indolence, on one of the most laborious of lives. Ah! You declare yourself to be an idler! prepare to toil. ... Woe to the man who desires to be a parasite! He will become vermin! Ah! So it does not please you to work? Ah! You have but one thought, to drink well, to eat well, to sleep well. You will drink water, you will eat black bread, you will sleep on a plank with a fetter whose cold touch you will feel on your flesh all night long, riveted to your limbs. ... You desire fine black cloth, varnished shoes, to have your hair curled and sweet-smelling oils on your locks, to please low women, to be handsome. You will be shaven clean, and you will wear a red blouse [prison uniform of that day] and wooden shoes. You want rings on your fingers, you will have an iron necklet on your neck. ... Believe me, do not undertake that painful profession of an idle man. It is not comfortable to become a rascal. It is less disagreeable to be an honest man. Now go, and ponder on what I have said to you. By the way, what did you want of me? My purse? Here it is."
And the old man, releasing Montparnasse, put his purse in the latter's hand; ...
Les Misérables, Volume IV, Book IV, Chapter II
To relate this story to Israel's situation, the Palestinians are like Montparnasse with Israel as the elderly gentleman. The Palestinians are poor and see others' possessions as belonging to them, and thus try to rob Israel. Israel, being in a stronger position, suppresses the attempted robbery. But, Jewish values mandate sympathy for the downtrodden, do they not? Thus, if Israel were truly acting in accordance with "Jewish values," she would give the Palestinians what they are attempted to seize despite having them at her mercy, as the elderly gentleman did in the vignette. Could this be what Obama expects of Israel, that sympathy for the downtrodden should override all assessment of what leads to their being downtrodden?
Monday, February 16, 2015
On randomness
Sar Shalom
There has been much written about Obama's use of the word "random" to describe the attack on the Hyper Cacher supermarket outside Paris, and his spokespersons' defense of that characterization. While asserting that the Hyper Cacher is not a manifestation of Jew-hatred is clearly a major offense, it would be worth taking a look at what the word "random" means before asserting that that is the meaning of the word in this particular instance.
It would be helpful to illustrate the possible meanings with some hypothetical examples. Suppose Hamas were to launch a salvo of rockets going north-northeast from Gaza in a manner that they could land in Qalqiliya as easily as they could land in Petach Tikva. Now suppose Hamas put controls on the guidance systems to make sure that they land in Petach Tikva and not in Qalqiliya. Now suppose that Hamas instead of launching rockets north-northeast from Gaza were to launch mortars at an IDF convoy preparing to invade Gaza. Which if any of those scenarios are "random?" For two of the three, the answer is unambiguous. If Hamas were to be unconcerned whether the rockets landed in Petach Tikva or Qalqiliya, it would be a completely random act and a mortar attack on an invading convoy is clearly not a random act. However, the rocket attack at Petach Tikva sparing Qalqiliya has a random element and a non-random element. I would maintain that the randomness of the indiscriminate attack on Israeli nationals would be more significant than the efforts to spare Qalqiliya. Furthermore, it is this randomness that would contribute to making such an attack a war crime.
Returning to Hyper Cacher, while the attack was discriminating in its target among Frenchmen, it was not discriminating in its target among Jews. An example of a discriminating target among Jews would be an office of the Hebron Fund, a group that promotes activities that the Very Serious People of the world arrogantly say "legitimately" grieves the Arab world. By selecting the non-discriminating target, the attackers introduced some degree of randomness to their act, and that randomness exacerbates their crime.
The above description only states a possible meaning for Obama's use of the word "random." From just the speech in which he used that term, one could not tell whether the meaning was that the attackers intended to kill Jews and didn't care anything else about the victims or that they attacked a random supermarket that happened to be kosher. Obama does have a record of being blasé about Islamic radicalism, a record that would induce people to leap at the second meaning. However, before the speech in which he described the act as "random," he did describe it as anti-semitic, which would mean either he was retracting his initial statement or he intended the first meaning. If that was his intent, it was not the first time he made this type of gaffe.
There has been much written about Obama's use of the word "random" to describe the attack on the Hyper Cacher supermarket outside Paris, and his spokespersons' defense of that characterization. While asserting that the Hyper Cacher is not a manifestation of Jew-hatred is clearly a major offense, it would be worth taking a look at what the word "random" means before asserting that that is the meaning of the word in this particular instance.
It would be helpful to illustrate the possible meanings with some hypothetical examples. Suppose Hamas were to launch a salvo of rockets going north-northeast from Gaza in a manner that they could land in Qalqiliya as easily as they could land in Petach Tikva. Now suppose Hamas put controls on the guidance systems to make sure that they land in Petach Tikva and not in Qalqiliya. Now suppose that Hamas instead of launching rockets north-northeast from Gaza were to launch mortars at an IDF convoy preparing to invade Gaza. Which if any of those scenarios are "random?" For two of the three, the answer is unambiguous. If Hamas were to be unconcerned whether the rockets landed in Petach Tikva or Qalqiliya, it would be a completely random act and a mortar attack on an invading convoy is clearly not a random act. However, the rocket attack at Petach Tikva sparing Qalqiliya has a random element and a non-random element. I would maintain that the randomness of the indiscriminate attack on Israeli nationals would be more significant than the efforts to spare Qalqiliya. Furthermore, it is this randomness that would contribute to making such an attack a war crime.
Returning to Hyper Cacher, while the attack was discriminating in its target among Frenchmen, it was not discriminating in its target among Jews. An example of a discriminating target among Jews would be an office of the Hebron Fund, a group that promotes activities that the Very Serious People of the world arrogantly say "legitimately" grieves the Arab world. By selecting the non-discriminating target, the attackers introduced some degree of randomness to their act, and that randomness exacerbates their crime.
The above description only states a possible meaning for Obama's use of the word "random." From just the speech in which he used that term, one could not tell whether the meaning was that the attackers intended to kill Jews and didn't care anything else about the victims or that they attacked a random supermarket that happened to be kosher. Obama does have a record of being blasé about Islamic radicalism, a record that would induce people to leap at the second meaning. However, before the speech in which he described the act as "random," he did describe it as anti-semitic, which would mean either he was retracting his initial statement or he intended the first meaning. If that was his intent, it was not the first time he made this type of gaffe.
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