Letters to the Editor
Baldie McEagle
Published Letters: 992 Editor's Choice: 3
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Simple, not easy
[Read the article: Who needs Dana Perino when you have the NYT's Michael Gordon?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I don't think Rosen said "easy." Was it "easy" for South Africa to give up and stop eating its children? No, but it was sure as hell simple.
My scorn and derision was specifically aimed at the notion that a solution including right of return is practically possible, let alone "easy."
Jan, you're still sounding disingenuous. I personally doubt that any solution that does NOT include some right of return would in fact be a solution at all. Rosen seems to be saying the same thing. So to me, you are saying a solution is simple but impossible. Well, that's how we got here---thinking the problem is intractable.
So here we are back at South Africa.
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Lookit electro!
[Read the article: Who needs Dana Perino when you have the NYT's Michael Gordon?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]He done got hisself a deg-ree in Middle East history! All a-sudden like!
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Pathetic
[Read the article: Who needs Dana Perino when you have the NYT's Michael Gordon?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Peace treaty with Egypt, Check. Peace treaty with Jordan, Check.
That degree will do you more good if you stop wiping your butt with it.
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It's like conversing with Bucky!
[Read the article: Who needs Dana Perino when you have the NYT's Michael Gordon?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Like I said, facts and reality don't matter to hate mongers and closeted redneck retards like you. Haters hate, that's what they do. A couple of years ago it was 'The Likud Menace" now there is no Likud so you've switched names to some other boogeyman.
But be clear, you'll always have a boogeyman. Because cowering superstitious jerks like you who dart out from the mob once in a while and flip me the bird need a boogeyman. Otherwise you'd have to put down the bong and have an original thought once in a while and that terrifies you.
Boogahboogahboogah!
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OK, I guess
[Read the article: Who needs Dana Perino when you have the NYT's Michael Gordon?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Nir Rosen wrote: Any actual expert on the region, or any sincere person with even passing familiarity with it would know that genuine peace has always been easy to achieve ..."
But that's not the same as saying peace WILL be easy.
Sure, I'd accept compensation as equivalent to a full right of return, as long as people had a choice of whether to return or to be compensated. But no one's asking me.
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Exactly how I read it
[Read the article: Who needs Dana Perino when you have the NYT's Michael Gordon?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]He did use that word, Baldie. However, the way I read it was that "the parameters of the solution are easy to find," rather than "implementing the solution will be easy." I think the context bears my reading of it and that Jan's focus on that word is a bit forest-for-the-trees. But I'd be happy to be corrected.
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Er, electro
[Read the article: Who needs Dana Perino when you have the NYT's Michael Gordon?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Look up those big words before you use them. Saves you trouble later.
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As I expected, and right on schedule and right on target
[Read the article: Who needs Dana Perino when you have the NYT's Michael Gordon?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Bucky, you're confusing me with someone else.
I try to leave you alone---for that very reason.
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Then you haven't heard about South Africa
[Read the article: Who needs Dana Perino when you have the NYT's Michael Gordon?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well it is really hard for me to imagine a meaningful solution that puts Jews as a minority in Israel.
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I'll try to be serious for a moment, Jan
[Read the article: Who needs Dana Perino when you have the NYT's Michael Gordon?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I'm mystified as to how either of you can read "genuine peace has always been easy to achieve" as anything but "peace is easy to achieve."
I can't say what Rosen was referring to, but if you go way back, peace generally has existed in the Middle East when both sides have agreed to stop killing each other and left the other alone. (I know---childish, isn't it?)
The Turks left the Christians alone within certain restrictions (paying a tax rather than serving in the Caliph's armies) and with certain privileges (like running the empire instead). Similar with the Jews. Each religion or sect had its own town, village, or quarter.
The Crusaders and Seljuks had peace whenever the military leaders on both sides agreed on it. Same with inter-Arab wars.
Only the Romans couldn't leave the Jews alone. They too had a political war machine that, like ours, drove them to attack their neighbors for no better reason than to make money, lay waste to competitors, meddle with politics, and so on, or for no reason at all. And they went out of their way to oppress first the Jews, then the Christians.
(Funny how states can control their behavior toward other states---and their peoples' behavior toward minorities---when they want to.)
So I read Rosen as saying that the solution is blatantly obvious: stop refusing to let people live in autonomy and decent circumstances. Leave each other alone, and there will be no need for fences. Stop encouraging the politicians to prolong the situation just to take advantage of it.
The 2-state approach does not fully deliver on those points, and will always fail as long as the Israelis---or whomever they have put in control of the Palestinian territory---are dishonest with the Arabs and with themselves. A policy of return would cut out the political middlemen on both sides and settle the problem directly. That's my feeling.
And the reason I jumped on your use of the suicide excuse in the first place is that pretending Israelis can't and won't figure this out on their own is a familiar lie. It's analogous to stating that Americans will never stop driving Hummers, so we shouldn't consider giving them other options they might prefer. It's also a well-known dishonesty.
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Sorry, Bucky
[Read the article: Who needs Dana Perino when you have the NYT's Michael Gordon?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]So you did not put "It's like conversing with Bucky!" in the title of your post?
Of course I said that.
David Sugarman actually would have been a better example. Go back to whatever it was you were doing.
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Sticks vs carrots
[Read the article: Who needs Dana Perino when you have the NYT's Michael Gordon?]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Seems to me that carrots are always less expensive and more effective in the long run for trying to get international actors to do what you want them to do. For one thing, they don't break everything nearby when you swing them.
The downside is that they don't scare anybody. But that's also the upside.
Do we have the right to influence world events? Yes, of course we do, because we're so bloody rich (or were). That means that we are positioned to take the most advantage of any result---including peace. So why not do what it takes to get there?
I've commented before that usually merchants prefer peace because it allows them to trade. Not anymore. The wrong merchants are in power.