Baby Steps on Israel/Palestine. By Walter Russell Mead.

Baby Steps on Israel/Palestine. By Walter Russell Mead. Via Meadia, July 20, 2013.

Kerry merits support, and a new strategy. By Rami G. Khouri. The Daily Star (Lebanon), July 20, 2013.

PA’s hesitance to jump at Kerry deal reveals Arab League’s loss of clout. By Herb Keinon. Jerusalem Post, July 19, 2013.

Palestinian leadership displays grassroots mindset that time and world opinion is on their side, and will eventually wear Israel down.

Kerry’s Illusion of Momentum. By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, July 17, 2013.

The High Price of Kerry’s Pyrrhic Victory. By Jonathan S. Tobin. Commentary, July 19, 2013.


Mead:

There appears to be some movement on the Israeli-Palestinian issue due to the efforts of Secretary of State John Kerry late this week. The New York Times is reporting that face-to-face negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians may resume soon pending the release of several Palestinian prisoners by Israel’s government—a deal Kerry apparently reached with Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu late Friday night. This agreement, however, is far from set in stone:

But officials who have been briefed on the negotiations, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to do otherwise, said the prisoner release — and the larger agreement to resume talks — depends on a vote in the coming days by an Israeli leadership that has been bitterly divided over the issue.

 

In announcing Friday that Israelis and Palestinians had established “a basis” for resuming direct peace negotiations, Mr. Kerry included a caveat. “If everything goes as expected,” he said, chief negotiators for each side will convene in Washington “within a week or so.”

While some might scoff at these developments as inconsequential, it is on balance good news as far as it goes. All things being equal, the US benefits when Israelis and Palestinians are talking, and the collapse of the peace process when President Clinton turned it into an “all or nothing” choice in the closing months of his presidency was a major setback to US foreign policy. Ever since then, we’ve been trying to recreate what Clinton—who to his credit had brought it along for many years—threw away.

 

The cold hard truth is that a final peace between the two sides remains very far off. But that doesn’t mean that developing a political framework through negotiations between the two sides is useless. Concessions and agreements can improve living conditions for people in both groups, chip away at the big problems that continue to block a final agreement, and help build the knowledge and trust that could one day be the basis for a final agreement.

 

But to get to that elusive final agreement, two things have to happen. First, there needs to be a framework that gets the two sides sitting down at the table at all. And then there needs to be a way to keep that framework viable even as it becomes impossible to ignore the reality that the two sides aren’t ready for a final deal. Kerry is getting close to the first, but is still far from the second. We’re glad it’s happening and we applaud the skill that is at work.

 

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is far from the biggest problem the Middle East currently faces: the metastasizing Sunni-Shiite war, the failure of political and economic development in much of the Arab world, the Iranian nuclear challenge are all bigger issues. But this is still a good step and very much in US interests. It’s also a sign of how much both Netanyahu and President Obama have learned about working with each other since the tumultuous beginning of the administration. The two leaders need each other and both have gotten better at managing the relationship.


Tobin (Pyrrhic Victory):

After weeks of looking silly chasing his tail in what appeared to be a futile attempt to revive Middle East peace talks, Secretary of State John Kerry is looking like a winner this afternoon as he was able to announce that he had been able to “establish a basis” for a new round of negotiations of between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. Assuming the Palestinians actually show up next week in Washington as Kerry thinks they will, this will be something of a victory for a secretary who has gone from humiliation to humiliation during his brief term in office. Even if all it amounts to is a photo op, Kerry can claim it is evidence of the diplomatic prowess he thinks he possesses. But before he starts writing his Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech (if it isn’t already composed at least in his head), we need to understand that it is highly unlikely that anything good may come of this initiative. Even worse, the price the United States has paid for getting even this far may be far higher than any possible good that could come from this event.

 

It should be understood that the tentative and highly conditioned agreement to return to negotiations was only won by an American agreement to accept Palestinian preconditions that President Obama had already rejected and that would, in no small part, tilt the diplomatic playing field against Israel:

Ahmed Majdalani, a PLO executive committee member, told the Associated Press that Kerry has proposed holding talks for six to nine months focusing on the key issues of borders and security arrangements. He said Kerry would endorse the 1967 lines as the starting point of negotiations and assured the Palestinians that Israel would free some 350 prisoners gradually in the coming months.

This came after President Obama phoned Prime Minister Netanyahu yesterday to pressure him to cooperate with Kerry. Israel had already agreed to talk without preconditions, but apparently the president wanted Netanyahu’s assurance that he would not protest the way the secretary had buckled to PA leader Mahmoud Abbas’s conditions. But having arrived at negotiations in this manner, neither Kerry nor Obama seems to have considered what comes next. The Palestinians have already made it abundantly clear that they won’t actually negotiate in good faith but will only show up expecting the U.S. to deliver Israeli concessions to them on a silver platter. Even if he wanted to sign an accord, Abbas hasn’t the power to speak for all Palestinians. Since that is a certain formula for failure, it is incumbent on Washington to understand that another breakdown in talks could serve as a new excuse for Palestinian violence.

 

The reason why rational observers have been so wary of Kerry’s initiative is not just the fact that the Palestinians had no interest in returning to negotiations they’ve been boycotting for four and a half years. Both Israel and the Palestinians didn’t wish to obstruct Kerry’s desire for talks. He might have left off once the Palestinians demonstrated their lack of interest, but since he persisted in this manner, they felt they had no choice but to show up.

 

But Abbas and the PA are too weak to agree to any deal that would conclusively end a conflict that neither Hamas nor much of Fatah actually wants to end. Recognizing the legitimacy of a Jewish state, no matter where its borders might be drawn, is something that no Palestinian leader can afford to do at this point in history. The culture of Palestinian politics that has revolved around the delegitimization of Israel and Jewish history makes it impossible. That’s why they’ve already rejected three Israelis offers of a Palestinian state including almost all of the West Bank and a share of Jerusalem. So even if Netanyahu were foolish enough to agree to withdrawals that would, in effect, recreate the independent Palestinian terror state that already exists in Gaza in the West Bank, Abbas still can’t say yes.

 

But by forcing this confrontation at a time when conditions simply don’t exist for a resolution of the conflict, Kerry is not just occupying himself with an issue that is clearly less pressing that the other crises in the Middle East like Egypt, Syria or the Iranian nuclear threat. Since failure is foreordained and the Palestinians are likely to bolt the talks at the first opportunity, what will follow will be far worse than merely a continuation of the present stalemate. The Palestinians will treat any outcome—even one created by their intransigence—as an excuse for either an upsurge in violence against Israel or an effort to use their status at the United Nations to work to further isolate the Jewish state.

 

Just as damaging, by again putting the U.S. seal of approval on the Palestinian demand for the 1967 lines as Israel’s borders, Kerry and Obama have also worsened Israel’s position once the talks collapse. Any outcome other than total Israeli acquiescence to Palestinian demands would also serve as justification for more European Union sanctions on Israel, even, as is likely, if such a surrender were to fail to be enough to entice the Palestinians to take yes for an answer.

 

Netanyahu will be criticized by many in his party for going along with what is likely to be at best, a farce, and, at worst, a dangerous trap. But having already rightly said that he was willing to negotiate with Abbas under any circumstance, he must send representatives to Washington. But neither he, the people of Israel, nor the Jewish state’s friends in this country should be under any illusions that what will ensue from Kerry’s diplomatic experiment will be helpful.

 

As much as Israel wants and needs peace, the conflict is at a stage when the best that can be hoped for is that it be managed in such a way as to minimize violence and encourage Palestinian development. Though Kerry is offering the PA lots of cash, there is little chance it will be used appropriately or get the desired result.

 

Next week’s talks may be heralded as an unprecedented opportunity for peace, but the odds are, we will look back on this moment the way we do foolhardy efforts such as President Clinton’s Camp David summit in 2000 that set the stage for a bloody intifada that cost the lives of over a thousand Jews and far more Palestinians. The agreement to talk about talking is a pyrrhic victory for Kerry. Those who cheer this effort should think hard about who will bear the responsibility for the bloodshed that could result from Kerry’s folly.

Paul Krugman’s Nasty and Inane Attack on “Libertarian Populism.” By Nick Gillespie.

Paul Krugman’s Nasty and Inane Attack on “Libertarian Populism.” By Nick Gillespie. The Daily Beast, July 19, 2013.

U.S. Meritocracy Has Given Way to Aristocracy. By Erick Erickson. NJBR, May 30, 2013. With related articles.

The Libertarian Populist Agenda. By Ben Domenech. NJBR, June 6, 2013. With related articles.

The Beltway Burkeans vs. Heartland Populists. By Ben Domenech. NJBR, July 2, 2013. With related articles.

Paul Krugman’s Delusions About the GOP and Populism. By Robert Tracinski. NJBR, July 16, 2013. With related articles.

Fear of Rand Paul’s Rise. By Ben Domenech. NJBR, July 20, 2013.


Gillespie:

The Times columnist no longer bothers to engage with his opponents, writes Nick Gillespie, but simply calls names and makes sweeping declarations.


It’s got to be a pretty good gig to be Paul Krugman. He’s rich enough to bitch to The New Yorker about not being able to afford a home in St. John so, sigh, St. Croix has to do. He’s got tenure at the second-best college in New Jersey, an equally secure gig at the second-best newspaper in New York, and he’s even copped a Nobel Prize (economics, but still). He’s asked for his opinion on pop bands in a way that I’m pretty sure Milton Friedman or John Kenneth Galbraith never experienced (thank god for small favors). “The New Pornographers are probably technically better than Arcade Fire,” he’s solemnly sworn to Playboy. “But what the hell? It’s all good.”

 

The man also known as Krugtron the Invincible is able to utter such fallacious conventional deep thoughts as “the Great Depression ended largely thanks to a guy named Adolf Hitler” and that the 9/11 attacks were just the ticket to goose the soft early-’00s economy in lower Manhattan (“All of a sudden, we need some new office buildings,” he actually wrote in the Times on September 14, 2001) and still be taken seriously. He’s repeatedly called for a bogus alien invasion that occasions even more super-stimulative spending than we’ve seen already in this awful 21st century—an idea presumably lifted, unacknowledged, from the Watchmen comic books.

 

Best of all, Krugman has attained that rare level of eminence where he doesn’t even have to engage the very opponents he dismisses as beneath contempt. Like Kurtz in Heart of Darkness and Apocalypse Now, he just needs to wave his hand, mumble vague abjurations, and rest assured his devoted minions will finish his work for him.

 

Krugman’s latest target is “libertarian populism,” which he summarizes thus: “The idea here is that there exists a pool of disaffected working-class white voters who failed to turn out last year but can be mobilized again with the right kind of conservative economic program—and that this remobilization can restore the Republican Party’s electoral fortunes.”

 

This ain’t gonna happen, chuffs Krugman, because . . . because . . . because . . . Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.)! Despite the fact that the former Republican vice-presidential nominee and marathon-time amnesiac is nobody’s idea of a libertarian or a populist, Krugman insists that libertarian populism is doomed precisely because  to “the extent that there was any substance to the Ryan [budget] plan, it mainly involved savage cuts in aid to the poor. And while many nonwhite Americans depend on these safety-net programs, so do many less-well-off whites—the very voters libertarian populism is supposed to reach.”

 

Had Colonel Krugman ventured outside his ideological compound, he might have happened upon the writings of Tim Carney of The Washington Examiner. To the extent that libertarian populism has a policy agenda, it’s mostly thanks to Carney, who likes to write books attacking right- and left-wing crony capitalists. He’s libertarian in that he consistently believes that freer markets function more fairly and more efficiently, and he generally thinks people should be left alone when it comes to economic and personal freedom (he’s not an absolutist on most things). He’s populist in that he is basically obsessed with what he sees as concentrations of power and wealth among elites who rig markets, status, and more against the little guy.

 

Unsurprisingly, Carney’s libertarian-populist policy agenda has precious little to do with starving poor people to death or stoking white working-class resentment against dusky hordes (Carney is pro-immigration). Unless by dusky hordes, you mean Wall Street banksters and well-tanned pols such as Speaker John Boehner.

 

For better or for worse, it’s filled with prescriptions such as “cut or eliminate the payroll tax” (that’s the one that hurts low-wage earners the most); “break up the big banks and/or place stricter safety and soundness rules on them” (hmm, how does that help the Rothschilds again?); and “end corporate welfare” (Carney specifically name-checks the awful Export-Import Bank and subsidies to Big Sugar, which both receive bipartisan congressional support).

 

You can take or leave some or all of Carney’s libertarian populism—what sort of crazy, pie-eyed dreamer not only thinks that “second homes shouldn’t get a mortgage deduction” but that the deduction for first homes “should be capped at $500,000” and then reduced more in the future?!?!—but to confuse it with Paul Ryan’s Path to Prosperity is a sign that Krugman needs to get out more often. Intellectual shut-ins are a dime a dozen these days, and they all stink just as bad as the next one.

 

Earlier this year, in fact, Krugman managed to offend some of his staunchest ideological confreres. In a blog post meditating on why he is always right (a curse, really, I’m sure), Krugman briefly considered the remote possibility that he was stacking the deck by either unfairly cherry-picking data or opponents to his own advantage. Naw, the super-scientist concluded, before offering up this irrefutable hypothesis: “Maybe I actually am right, and maybe the other side actually does contain a remarkable number of knaves and fools.”

 

Such pompous jackassery moved one of Krugman’s biggest fans, Bloomberg’s Clive Crook, to declare, “A line has been crossed when the principal spokesmen for contending opinions have no curiosity whatsoever about their opponents’ ideas and radiate cold, steady contempt for each other . . . This is America’s biggest political problem—and Krugman’s not part of the solution.”

 

I think Crook is a being a bit melodramatic (especially for a Britisher), but he’s on to something that Krugman exemplifies perfectly when it comes libertarian populism, the possible benefits of a fake alien invasion, and, to be honest, the relative merits of Arcade Fire. In opting out of engaged conversation in favor of an extended monologue in the theater of his mind, Krugman and all other similarly self-blinkered public intellectuals of whatever bent or camp or ideology do us all a real insult.

Archaeologist Yosef Garfinkel Announces Discovery of King David’s Palace at Khirbet Qeiyafa.

Khirbet Qeiyafa, a Judahite fortress in the Elah Valley, where the Bible says David slew Goliath. Excavations by Yosef Garfinkel unearthed a multichambered gate, artifacts, and now a palace dating to David’s time in the early 10th Century BC. Greg Girard/National Geographic.

King David’s Palace at Khirbet Qeiyafa? By Noah Wiener. Bible History Daily, July 18, 2013.

Excavations uncover 3,000-year-old palace, believed to be that of King David. By Nir Hasson. Haaretz, July 18, 2013.

King David’s Palace was Uncovered in the Judean Shephelah. Israel Antiquities Authority, July 2013.

Archaeologists say they’ve found one of King David’s palaces. By Lazar Berman. The Times of Israel, July 18, 2013.

Archaeological claims that King David’s palace was discovered may be overstated, prof says. By Erin Roach. Baptist Press, July 19, 2013.

King David’s Palace Discovered? Archaeologists Find Huge Palace, Storeroom At Khirbet Qeiyafa Site. By Meredith Bennett-Smith. The Huffington Post, July 19, 2013.

3,000-year-old palace in Israel linked to biblical King David. By Alan Boyle. NBC News, July 19, 2013.

Khirbet Qeiyafa: An Unsensational Archaeological and Historical Interpretation. By Israel Finkelstein and Alexander Fantalkin. Tel Aviv, Vol. 39, No. 1 (May 2012).

The Birth and Death of Biblical Minimalism. By Yosef Garfinkel. Biblical Archaeology Review, Vol. 37, No. 3 (May/June 2011).

The keys to the kingdom of David. By Assaf Shtull-Trauring. Haaretz, May 6, 2011. Also here.


Wiener:

The Israel Antiquities Authority’s (IAA) July 18, 2013, press release is crowned with an extraordinary headline: “King David’s Palace was Uncovered in the Judean Shephelah.” At the close of the seventh season of excavations at Khirbet Qeiyafa, the Hebrew University Professor Yosef Garfinkel and IAA archaeologist Saar Ganor announced the discovery of “the two largest buildings known to have existed in the tenth century B.C.E. in the Kingdom of Judah” with great fanfare. One of these buildings is a centrally located 100-foot-long palatial structure decorated with elegant imported vessels. Garfinkel told the Israeli newspaper Haaretz that “there is no question that the ruler of the city sat here, and when King David came to visit the hills he slept here.” The other structure, a pillared storeroom, features hundreds of storage jars “stamped with an official seal as was customary in the Kingdom of Judah for centuries,” according to the IAA press release.

 

Khirbet Qeiyafa has produced numerous exciting and controversial finds (see links below) that have kept the Biblical archaeology world buzzing. Overlooking the Valley of Elah in the Judean foothills, the fortified Judahite site of Qeiyafa, on the border with the Philistines, has produced persuasive evidence to support the kingship of David at the beginning of Iron Age II, when the Bible says he ruled. The unique presence of two gates at the site has led Garfinkel to identify it as Biblical Sha’arayim, which means “two gates” in Hebrew.

 

However, some scholars are skeptical of Garfinkel’s claims. Garfinkel has used evidence from Qeiyafa to argue that David and Solomon ruled over a well-organized and fully urbanized Judahite state in the tenth century B.C.E. Last year, Tel Aviv University’s Israel Finkelstein and Alexander Fantalkin published the article “Khirbet Qeiyafa: An Unsensational Archaeological and Historical Interpretation” critiquing Garfinkel’s methods, chronology and interpretations, and Foundation Stone codirector David Willner published an immediate response after today’s press release calling the announcement “unabashed sensationalism.”

 

The dramatic headline is sure to elicit a great deal of debate. Khirbet Qeiyafa is an undoubtedly important site, and we look forward to an imminent archaeological discussion on the newly uncovered palatial structure.


Hasson:

Two or three rows of stones stretching across 30 meters. That is what remains of what is believed to be King David’s palace, or at least the palace of a senior district governor that served the king some 3,000 years ago, according to scholars from the Hebrew University in Jerusalem and the Israel Antiquities Authority.

 

These vestiges have been excavated in recent weeks at Khirbet Qeiyafa on the Judean foothills, not far from Beit Shemesh, and they are expected to rekindle the stormy debate about the existence of the Kingdom of David. In the meantime, some archaeologists are fighting to prevent a new neighborhood from being built on this hill, which they claim constitutes proof of the biblical account.

 

This is not the first time that the excavators at Khirbet Qeiyafa, Prof. Yosef Garfinkel of the Hebrew University and Saar Ganor of the Antiquities Authority, make waves in the Israeli archaeological community. In recent years the two claimed that their findings from the biblical site poke holes the minimalist approach to Israeli archaeology. This approach, which is identified with several leading scholars from Tel Aviv University, asserts that archaeological research disproves what is written in the Bible, and that the Bible cannot be used as a reliable historical source.

 

The debate centers mainly on the question of the existence and the power of the United Monarchy – the joint kingdom of David and Solomon in the 10th century BCE. The minimalists claim that there was no such kingdom, and if it did exist it was limited to Jerusalem. Jerusalem itself, they claim, was no bigger than an average village. The opposing camp, comprised of archaeologists who propone the maximalists or the biblical approach, claims that the Bible faithfully reflects the situation in the region during that period, with emphasis on the existence of a strong and significant kingdom with Jerusalem as its capital.

 

This debate, which has occupied Israeli archaeologists for decades, occasionally finds itself another arena for the battle. In the past, the scholars have argued over the city gates at Hatzor, Megiddo and Gezer, and later the findings in the City of David in Jerusalem. In recent years, Khirbet Qeiyafa, a fairly low hill south of Ramat Beit Shemesh, has become the focus of the debate.

 

On Thursday, Garfinkel and Ganor completed the excavation at Qeiyafa after seven years. Their findings attest to the fact that this was an important district capital that was subordinate to Jerusalem and ruled its surroundings, and that the culture was Judahite-Israelite rather than Canaanite or Philistine. They suggest that Qeifaya be identified with the city of Sha’arayim that is mentioned in the Bible. “And the wounded of the Philistines fell along the road to Sha'arayim,” relates the book of 1 Samuel, describing the pursuit of the Philistine army immediately after David’s glorious victory over Goliath. According to Garfinkel and Ganor, Qeiyafa discredits the minimalist approach and proves the existence of the United Monarchy.

 

Garfinkel and Ganor raise several arguments. First pertains to Qeiyafa’s location, opposite Philistia, on a hill that controls its surrounding and the major road that crosses the Elah Valley. Garfinkel believes that the Kingdom of David was a medium-sized principality rather than a regional power, but also far from the insulting minimalist description as a village. He believes that this kingdom had three centers: Jerusalem, Hebron and Qeiyafa, each a day's walk from the other. A few years ago he and Ganor walked from the City of David in Jerusalem to Qeiyafa in order to prove this claim.

 

Second, they point to the fact that no pig bones or statuettes of goddesses were found at the site. “It’s clear than neither the diet nor the ritual here were Canaanite. The entire material culture here is Judahite,” says Garfinkel. An ancient inscription found at the site is written in proto-Canaanite script, one of the predecessors of Hebrew script, and therefore strengthens their claim that the ethnic identity of the site was Judahite. The power of the kingdom is indicated by ceramic artifacts originating in Cyprus and Egypt, which are evidence of international commerce. All that has led the archaeologists to conclude that Qeiyafa was a district capital in the Kingdom of David.

 

The newest discovery, which was excavated in recent weeks, consists of remnants of the low wall at the top of the hill. It is 30 meters in length, and is unusually thick and strong. The two men estimate that this is the last vestige of a luxurious public building that was about 1,000 square meters in size, far larger than the private homes. Judging by the thickness of the wall, the palace was at least two stories high, if not more, the archaeologists say.

 

“There is no question that the ruler of the city sat here, and when King David came to visit the hills he slept here,” says Garfinkel. They also excavated the remains of another structure that they identify as a storage building, which they say is evidence of regional tax collection.

 

Unfortunately, most of the palace was destroyed 1,400 years after it was built, and replaced by a large Byzantine building.

 

The meager traces leave fertile ground for a continued debate among the archaeologists. Garfinkel’s minimalist opponents raise questions about the dating of the palace and its importance, as well as about its links to the kingdom in Jerusalem and to King David.

 

First, claim the critics, the ethnic identity of the inhabitants of the site has not been proven. Some, like Prof. Shlomo Bonimovitz and Dr. Zvi Lederman of Tel Aviv University, claim that these are the remnants of a small Canaanite kingdom that existed in the Judean foothills between the Kingdom of Judah and the Philistines. Even if it is Jewish, it is possible that this was a settlement that was actually connected to an Israelite kingdom that was located father north, in the Ramallah region, and predated the Kingdom of David. The critics also want to see evidence of the dating of the large stone wall, since only few vestiges of it remain.

 

But the main argument against many of the biblical archaeologists is that they are biased by the biblical text – a text that was written hundreds of years after the events, and by a writer with a clear political and religious agenda.

 

“I haven’t been at the site during the past season,” says Finkelstein, “so I can't judge the nature and date of the structure. There’s no question that this is an interesting and important site. The excavators attribute it to Judah. Alexander Fantalkin and I suggested that it should be seen as a border fortress of an Israelite unit whose center was on a mountain north of Jerusalem. In any case, I would be careful about uncritical links to biblical traditions that were written down hundreds of years after the site was abandoned.”

 

Prof. Aren Maeir of Bar Ilan University is digging not far from Qeiyafa on Tel Zafit, which during that period was the Philistine city of Gath – a city far richer and larger than Qeiyafa. He agrees that it is a Judahite site, “that’s the simplest and most logical explanation. But does that mean that we can raise arguments about the kingdom of David and Solomon? That seems to me a grandiose upgrade,” says Meir. He believes that this is an attempt by “an ancient Judahite entity” to draw a border for itself vis-a-vis the Philistine city of Gath. “The destruction of the site demonstrates that this experiment didn't last for long, and how does that accord with the biblical explanation of the victory of the United Monarchy?”

i24, Israeli 24-Hour News Channel is Launched. By Ruth English.

Israeli 24-hour news channel launches, with eyes on the world. By Ruth English. Washington Post, July 18, 2013.

i24 News website.

i24 News English Promo. Video. satkrak, June 2, 2013. YouTube.




i24 English News Launch. Video. Seb Jec, July 17, 2013. YouTube.

The New Puritans. By Mark Oppenheimer.

The New Puritans: When Did Liberals Become So Uptight? By Mark Oppenheimer. The New Republic, July 15, 2013.

Fear of Rand Paul’s Rise. By Ben Domenech.

Fear of Rand Paul’s Rise. By Ben Domenech. Real Clear Politics, July 19, 2013.

Domenech:

Michael Gerson is terrified of Rand Paul. “This disdain for Lincoln is not a quirk or a coincidence. Paulism involves more than the repeal of Obamacare. It is a form of libertarianism that categorically objects to 150 years of expanding federal power. During this period, the main domestic justification for federal action has been opposition to slavery and segregation. Lincoln, in the Paulite view, exercised tyrannical powers to pursue an unnecessary war. Similarly, Paulites have been critical of the 1964 Civil Rights Act for violating both states’ rights and individual property rights — an argument Rand Paul himself echoed during several interviews as a Senate candidate. This does not make Paulites racists. But it does make them opponents of the legal methods that ended state-sanctioned racism. . . . What does this mean for the GOP? It is a reminder that, however reassuring his manner, it is impossible for Rand Paul to join the Republican mainstream. The triumph of his ideas and movement would fundamentally shift the mainstream and demolish a century and a half of Republican political history. The GOP could no longer be the party of Reagan’s internationalism or of Lincoln’s belief in a strong union dedicated to civil rights.”

 

I am unfamiliar with the moment when Gerson, unstoppable promoter of paternalistic big government that he is, was bequeathed the ability to define the Republican mainstream. But Gerson’s depiction of the libertarian view of the Confederacy is simply fraudulent. I hear far more defenses of the South’s approach from Pat Buchanan sympathizers than from libertarians. Paleoconservatives may find much worthy of defense in the Confederate state, but consider: The Confederate Constitution amended the US Constitution to better facilitate technocratic rule. The Confederate ruling ideology, derived from John C. Calhoun's concurrent majorities, remains current in leftist thought today (see Lani Guinier). The Confederacy was the first to introduce mass conscription. The Confederacy staged a series of repressions and massacres against local autonomy (east Tennessee, central Texas, Alabama, Mississippi, western North Carolina, etc.). The Confederacy imposed an internal-passport regime for civilian travel later echoed by European autocracies. The Confederate state took over most of its own economy by war's end. And the Wilsonian “progressives” contained a surprising number of Confederate sympathizers who saw it as a noble experiment and set about applying its principles in the form of the segregating the federal government, fomenting the Klan, and more.

 

Agrarian non-interventionists have their sympathies for the Confederacy (see Copperhead, which glorifies the Sixties peaceniks – the 1860s), but that’s hardly a viewpoint unique to libertarianism. And for those who actually study history, the idea that the Confederacy was a liberty-oriented alternative to Lincoln and the Union is absurd – in many ways, its worst aspects were the forerunner of the modern technocratic top-down state.

 

Beyond getting the definitions wrong – and purposefully so, in a Sharptonesque manner – Gerson’s attempt to define Rand Paul as someone who cannot shape the future Republican coalition is just the latest sign of how afraid the party’s elite are of the rising coalition of libertarian youngsters and the populist middle class. “Since 2010, almost all the intellectual energy in the Senate has come from Tea Party lawmakers like Rand Paul and Mike Lee, who tend to be relatively dovish, skeptical of foreign aid, concerned about civil liberties, and contemptuous of neoconservatives. Making the case for an activist foreign policy has fallen largely to Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham, both of whom increasingly resemble the aging characters in Kingsley Amis’s The Old Devils, shambling around the Senate chamber and waxing nostalgic about the good old days when they could bomb other countries in peace. Beyond Rep. Tom Cotton, the neoconservative darling who still staunchly defends the Iraq intervention, there’s little fresh blood among Republican hawks in Congress these days. So perhaps it makes sense for Liz Cheney, the daughter of one of the architects of Bush-era foreign policy, to provide a Senate counterbalance to Paul.”

Concerned neoconservatives have nothing to fear on this count. If Paul is correct about the trajectory of the coalition, his views will achieve more prominence. But there will be a debate first, and the people will decide who they agree with. It could be a messy debate, public and ugly on the stage in Iowa, but that debate will happen. If Gerson and his allies have confidence in the strength of their ideas, they should be prepared to make the case for them . . . not attempt to escape the debate by writing Senators – particularly those with a young, passionate following – out of the party.

 

 

Rand Paul: Conviction Politician. By Michael Gerson.

Rand Paul: Conviction Politician. By Michael Gerson. Real Clear Politics, July 19, 2013. Also at the Washington Post.

Gerson:

To this point, Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky has been the Republican flavor of the year. Events from the IRS scandal to NSA revelations to the Obamacare train wreck have corroborated libertarian suspicions of federal power. And Paul has shown serious populist skills in cultivating those fears for his political benefit. For a while, he succeeded in a difficult maneuver: accepting the inheritance of his father’s movement while distancing himself from the loonier aspects of his father’s ideology.

 

But now Paul has fallen spectacularly off the tightrope. It turns out that a senior member of his Senate staff, Jack Hunter, has a history of neo-Confederate radio rants. And Paul has come to the defense of his aide.

 

Paul’s attempt to dismiss the matter has only added to the damage. “It was a shock radio job,” the senator explains. “He was doing wet T-shirt contests. But can a guy not have a youth and stuff? People try to say I smoked pot one time, and I wasn’t fit for office.”

 

But Hunter’s offenses were committed as an adult. They included defending a regime founded on slavery, comparing Abraham Lincoln to Saddam Hussein and raising (in Hunter’s words) a “personal toast every May 10 to celebrate John Wilkes Booth’s birthday.” This was not a single, ideological puff but rather a decade spent mainlining moonlight and magnolias in the ruins of Tara.

 

Paul is rumored to be considering a 2016 presidential run. So his dismissal of the sympathetic treatment of a presidential assassin as the equivalent of sponsoring a wet T-shirt contest requires some explanation. The easier political course for Paul would have been to cut this embarrassing tie and reduce the damage. He still might be forced to do so. But his reluctance is revealing.

 

This would not be the first time that Paul has heard secessionist talk in his circle of confederates — I mean, associates. His father has attacked Lincoln for causing a “senseless” war and ruling with an “iron fist.” Others allied with Paulism in various think tanks and Web sites have accused Lincoln of mass murder and treason. For Rand Paul to categorically repudiate such views and all who hold them would be to excommunicate a good portion of his father’s movement.

 

This disdain for Lincoln is not a quirk or a coincidence. Paulism involves more than the repeal of Obamacare. It is a form of libertarianism that categorically objects to 150 years of expanding federal power. During this period, the main domestic justification for federal action has been opposition to slavery and segregation. Lincoln, in the Paulite view, exercised tyrannical powers to pursue an unnecessary war. Similarly, Paulites have been critical of the 1964 Civil Rights Act for violating both states’ rights and individual property rights — an argument Rand Paul himself echoed during several interviews as a Senate candidate.

 

This does not make Paulites racists. But it does make them opponents of the legal methods that ended state-sanctioned racism.

 

To put the best construction on it, Paulites tend to hate war and federal coercion in any form, even in causes generally regarded as good. They opposed the Cold War and nearly every post-World War II American exercise of power. They equate the war on terrorism with militarism, imperialism and empire. And they remain unhappy about the War of Northern Aggression.

 

Not all libertarians, of course, view Appomattox as a temporary setback. A libertarian debate on the topic: “Lincoln: Hero or Despot?” would be two-sided, lively and well-attended. But Paulism is more than the political expression of the Austrian school of economics. It is a wildly ambitious ideology in which Hunter’s neo-Confederate views are not uncommon.

 

What does this mean for the GOP? It is a reminder that, however reassuring his manner, it is impossible for Rand Paul to join the Republican mainstream. The triumph of his ideas and movement would fundamentally shift the mainstream and demolish a century and a half of Republican political history. The GOP could no longer be the party of Reagan’s internationalism or of Lincoln’s belief in a strong union dedicated to civil rights.

 

The Hunter matter is also a reminder that Paul is a conviction politician. His convictions, however, are the problem. In January, Hunter wrote that the “philosophy hasn’t substantively changed” between Ron Paul and his son. Rand Paul’s goal is to legitimize the Paulite movement, not repudiate its worst elements. But his ties to those elements may put an upward limit on his political rise.

In Egypt They Hate Us, They Really Hate Us. By Marc Lynch.

They Hate Us, They Really Hate Us. By Marc Lynch. Foreign Policy, July 19, 2013. Also here.

When anti-Americanism is this popular in Egypt, Washington should stay as far away as it can.

Lynch:

This week, Hosni Mubarak’s old media boss, Abdel Latif el-Menawy, published an astonishing essay on the website of the Saudi-funded, Emirati-based satellite television station Al Arabiya. Menawy described a wild conspiracy in which the U.S. ambassador to Egypt, Anne Patterson, directed Muslim Brotherhood snipers to murder Egyptian soldiers.

 

It would be easy to dismiss the ravings of an old Mubarak hand if they were not almost tame compared with the wild rumors and allegations across much of the Egyptian media and public. Even longtime observers of Egyptian rhetoric have been taken aback by the vitriol and sheer lunacy of the current wave of anti-American rhetoric. The streets have been filled with fliers, banners, posters, and graffiti denouncing President Barack Obama for supporting terrorism and featuring Photoshopped images of Obama with a Muslim-y beard or bearing Muslim Brotherhood colors.

 

A big Tahrir Square banner declaring love for the American people alongside hatred for Obama rings somewhat false given the fierce, simultaneous campaign against CNN and American journalists. The rhetoric spans the political spectrum: veteran leftist George Ishaq (Patterson “is an evil lady”), the Salafi Front (calling for demonstrations at the U.S. Embassy against foreign interference), the reckless secularist TV host Tawfik Okasha (whipping up xenophobic hatred), leaders of the Tamarod campaign (refusing to meet with Deputy Secretary of State William Burns because the United States “supports terrorism”), and Brotherhood leaders (blaming the United States for the military coup).

 

The tsunami of anti-American rhetoric swamping Egypt has been justified as a legitimate response to Washington’s supposed support for the now-deposed Muslim Brotherhood government. There is no doubt that many Egyptians on both sides are indeed enraged with U.S. policy toward Egypt. Nor is there any doubting the intensity of the anti-Brotherhood fever to which Washington has so effectively been linked. Nor, finally, could anyone really disagree that the United States has failed to effectively engage with or explain itself to the intensely polarized and mobilized new Egyptian public.

 

Still, there is clearly more going on than just a response to current U.S. policies. Hostile media campaigns and anti-American sentiments long predate the rise of Mohamed Morsy and his Muslim Brotherhood. Mubarak’s regime made an art form of using the state media to bash America while pliantly going along with American policies. Those legacies have left enduring habits of political thought. Today’s rhetoric and methods feel eerily familiar, even with their turbocharged energy and distinctive tropes. The overall effect is High Mubarakism, in which state and “independent” media churn up anti-Americanism, anti-Islamism, and extreme nationalism to legitimate the state’s rule.

 

What’s new is the intensity of the anti-Brotherhood views around which the campaign is built. This cements a widespread acceptance of these populist messages and methods among many Egyptians who would have angrily scorned them under Mubarak. The polarizing dynamics are fueled, at least among the politically engaged public, by jingoistic media and by the amplifying, accelerating effects of social media. A handful of liberal voices and veteran revolutionaries are pushing back on this trend, but they are swimming against a fierce tide for now. They will likely seem prescient should those activists who try to challenge the new government find themselves targeted through use of the same discourse, just as they were under Mubarak and by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) in 2011.

 

Egypt’s resurgent nationalism offers a potent lesson in the darker side of the new Arab public sphere. The proliferation of satellite television and social media has undeniably given a new platform to individual voices, protest movements, and contentious public debate. But the same platform is equally available to regimes, to illiberal forces of both Islamist and secularist varieties, and to populists of all description. The new media environment has proved ideal for the rapid, unchecked spread of rumors and allegations, for the enforcement of the new party line, and for the mobilization of rage against alleged enemies of the state – whether American, Brotherhood, Palestinian, Syrian, or Turkish.

 

While this virulent Egyptian populism has many targets, Washington remains a distinctly valued target. Denouncing the United States is politically useful to every Egyptian faction. The SCAF, like Mubarak, finds anti-Americanism useful in masking its strong relationship with Washington. Secular elites and felool (“remnants” of Mubarak’s regime) find it useful in deflecting attention from their own return to grace. The Muslim Brotherhood finds it useful in returning to the movement’s own anti-American comfort zone. Anti-Brotherhood activists find it useful as a way of appealing to nationalist public opinion to justify support for the coup. (Leaders of the anti-Morsy Tamarod campaign have been notably enthusiastic about this extreme state-nationalist agenda.)

The anti-American rhetoric that has always flowed freely through the Egyptian media has been mirrored in public opinion. Again, this long predates Egypt’s revolution or the election of a Muslim Brotherhood government. In May 2008, only 4 percent of Egyptians agreed that the “United States will allow people in this region to fashion their own political future as they see fit without direct U.S. influence,” while only 6 percent approved of the leadership in Washington, according to polling by Gallup. This changed very briefly after Obama’s election and his June 2009 speech at Cairo University, as approval of the United States in Gallup polling peaked in mid-2009 at 37 percent. But that number crashed below even George W. Bush levels within a year. In late 2011 (well before Morsy or the Muslim Brotherhood took power), over 70 percent of Egyptians opposed U.S. economic aid to Egypt. Back when the SCAF (not Morsy) aggressively prosecuted (and the media demonized) U.S.-funded NGOs, virtually nobody – including the NGOs – was willing to stand up and defend such aid. Few Egyptians think they will suffer politically by bashing America.

 

Washington has clearly struggled to respond effectively to this hostile, polarized, and intensely mobilized arena. It isn’t clear that any alternative course would have been received more positively, given the public mood. In my view, Washington was right to focus on the democratic process rather than supporting individual groups, whether the Brotherhood or secular activists. It was clearly right to give the Muslim Brotherhood the chance to govern when it won elections. It was right to try to keep a low profile and not be seen as trying to shape Egyptian political outcomes. But Washington also made many mistakes, of course, such as being overly accommodating in public toward the SCAF in the first year and a half of the transition and toward President Morsy when he took inflammatory and anti-democratic measures. And the Obama administration consistently failed to communicate these principles in a way compelling to the Egyptian public.

 

For many months – particularly after Morsy’s November constitutional power grab – a wide range of Egyptian and American analysts had urged the administration to speak out more clearly in defense of liberal values and push the Morsy government harder in public on human rights and tolerance. This would have been the right public stance. But nothing short of full-throated endorsement of one side’s position would likely have been heard amid the din of Egypt’s polarized politics. It’s easy to see why Washington’s attempt at a low profile and evenhandedness managed to antagonize both sides. There’s little tolerance for those in the middle when every Egyptian political trend has adopted the classic Bush position of “you’re either with us or against us.”

 

Typically, this would be the time for me to call for renewed public diplomacy to try to combat anti-American misconceptions and convince Egyptians of American intentions. But let’s be real. American efforts to push back against the most outlandish allegations are certainly worthwhile, but have obvious limitations. No, American battleships are not moving toward Egypt to launch an invasion. No, Ambassador Patterson did not conspire with the Muslim Brotherhood or offer to sell the pyramids to Israel. No, Obama is not a member of the Muslim Brotherhood and isn’t going to be impeached over secret payments to them. All well and good, but entrenched opinion is unlikely to be moved.

 

What about the broader arsenal of public diplomacy? Once upon a time, the expensive American Arabic-language satellite television Alhurra was supposed to be the kind of news source that would break through such a hostile media fog. But as has been the case since its launch, it has made virtually no difference or impact on the Egyptian debate. Nor does it appear that the much-touted digital diplomacy, whether Facebook pages or Twitter feeds, has made many inroads into a public debate dominated naturally enough by Egyptians themselves. When such online accounts have made news, it has usually been for the wrong reason.

 

A much broader, more vigorous effort to engage publicly and privately across all Egyptian political groups and segments of the population in the last few years is always good advice. Now isn’t really the moment, though. Accusations of having met with U.S. officials are once again a valued currency in Egyptian politics. Efforts to engage either with the U.S. Embassy or with high-level visitors like Deputy Secretary Burns just give the invitees the opportunity to grandstand by ostentatiously refusing to meet them.

 

Public diplomacy isn’t going to solve America’s Egypt problem, I’m afraid. This emphatically does not mean that Washington should ignore Egyptian voices or give up on efforts at broader, deeper engagement, though. Washington should pay close attention to what it is hearing from the Egyptian public, even while recognizing the politics driving those messages. It is never a good idea for U.S. policy to hunker down, convinced by its own messaging or dismissive of widely circulating ideas or critiques.

 

The overwhelming lesson of the last few years should be that publics matter, in all their variety and internal contradictions, even if it is difficult to predict exactly how or where their impact will manifest. Public diplomacy should be seen here as a long-term strategic investment, not as a quick fix. The Obama administration should certainly engage more broadly with a wide cross-section of Egyptian opinion and craft a more compelling narrative to make sense of its seemingly contradictory policies. It should do so even as it understands that little it says or does will make any immediate difference in Egypt’s highly polarized, intensely politicized public sphere, where anti-Americanism is a surefire and cost-free political winner.

The Arabs’ Spring and Our Mindset. By Paul R. Pillar.

The Arabs’ Spring and Our Mindset. By Paul R. Pillar. The National Interest, July 17, 2013.

The Rise of Sectarian Populism in the Middle East. By Scott Helfstein.

The Rise of Sectarian Populism. By Scott Helfstein. The National Interest, July 18, 2013.

The Zimmerman Verdict and the Resurrection of the Old Jim Crow. By Lisa Sharon Harper.

The Zimmerman Verdict and the Resurrection of the Old Jim Crow. By Lisa Sharon Harper. Sojourners, July 18, 2013.

Has the G.O.P. Gone Off the Deep End? By Thomas B. Edsall.

Has the G.O.P. Gone Off the Deep End? By Thomas B. Edsall. New York Times, July 17, 2013.

Right-wing talk shows turned White House blue. By Paul Goldman and Mark J. Rozell. Reuters, April 11, 2013.

Republicans Still Think We’re the Problem. By Rush Limbaugh. RushLimbaugh.com, July 18, 2013.

Rush:

So this explains why the left is always trying to drive me and other conservative talk radio hosts and other conservatives off the air. They’re trying to save the GOP. Ladies and gentlemen, let me tell you what this means. I’ve told you over and over again that the left – and I’m now gonna expand that to say “Washington.”  Washington will always tell us what they fear. That was why they set out to destroy Sarah Palin.

 

They fear you.

 

They fear conservatives.

 

Conservatives are the monkey wrench.

 

You all are the only thing standing in the way of Washington transforming this country into something it was not founded to be, and this story in the New York Times has multiple purposes. It tells us who they fear, and it also illustrates who they're going to try to destroy and who they have been trying to destroy. We even have people in the Republican Party who profess to be conservatives, but they’re not. They profess to be.

 

They’re constantly urging “caution” and “reason” and “restraint” and things. And while doing that, they claim to be objecting to the same things we do. They claim not to like Obamacare. They claim not to really like amnesty and immigration reform. But their solutions are to trash us – to trash conservatives – and prepare ineffective, minimalistic policies that end up involving more government.

Fear of the Missing White Voters. By Dan McLaughlin.

Fear of the Missing White Voters. By Dan McLaughlin. RedState, July 17, 2013.

The Baseless Hatred of the EU Towards Israel. By Melanie Phillips.

The baseless hatred of the EU towards Israel. By Melanie Phillips. MelaniePhillips.com, July 16, 2013.

Rolling Stone, Begging the World to Pay Attention Again. By Jim Geraghty.

Like a Crazy Ex, Rolling Stone Desperately Hoping You’ll Pay Attention to Them Again. By Jim Geraghty. National Review Online, July 18, 2013.

How the Palestinian Leadership Is Ignoring History. By Alan Dershowitz.

How the Palestinian Leadership Is Ignoring History. By Alan Dershowitz. The New Republic, September 28, 2011.

Dershowitz:

Palestinians are in the process of seeking sovereignty from the United Nations, but in doing so, they are asking for more than what was offered them in any prior negotiation with Israel—including during the talks involving President Clinton and Ehud Barak in 2000 and 2001. Rather than more, it is imperative that the Palestinians get less.

 

It is imperative to world peace that the Palestinians pay a price—even if it’s only a symbolic price—for rejecting the generous Clinton/Barak offer and responding to it with a second intifada in which 4,000 people were killed. It is also important that Israel not return to the precise armistice lines that existed prior to the 1967 war. If the Palestinians were to achieve a return to the status quo prior to Jordan’s attack on Israel in June of 1967, then military aggression will not have been punished, it will have been rewarded. That’s why Security Council Resolution 242—which was essentially the peace treaty that resulted from the end of the Six Day War—intended for Israel to retain territory necessary to give it secure boundaries (Indeed, in the formal application submitted by Abbas, he sought membership based on UN General Assembly Resolution 1810-11 of November 29, 1947, which would put the borders where they were before the Arab armies invaded the new Jewish state in 1948. This would reward multiple aggressions.)

 

Yet, however important it is that aggressive and unjustified violence not be rewarded, the international community seems bent on doing just that. If the end result of Jordan’s 1967 attack on Israel—an attack supported by the Palestinian leadership and participated in by Palestinian soldiers—is that the Palestinians get back everything Jordan lost, there will be no disincentive to comparable military attacks around the world. If the Palestinians get more than, or even as much as, they rejected in 2000 and 2001 (and did not accept in 2007), then further intifadas with mass casualties will be encouraged. A price must be paid for violence. That’s how the laws of war are supposed to work and there is no reason to make an exception in the case of the Palestinians.

 

I support a two-state solution based on negotiation and mutual compromise. But the negotiations must not begin where previous offers, which were not accepted, left off. They must take into account how we got to the present situation: The Arab rejection of the UN partition plan and the attack on the new Jewish state that resulted in the death of one percent of Israel’s population; the attack by Jordan and its Palestinian soldiers against Israel in 1967, which resulted in Israel’s capture of the West Bank; Israel’s offer to trade captured land for peace that was rejected at Khartoum with the three infamous “no’s”—no peace, no recognition, no negotiation; Israel’s generous offer of statehood in 2000-2001 that was answered by violence; and Olmert’s subsequent, even more generous, offer that was not accepted by President Abbas.

 

Efforts to achieve peace must look forward but they must not forget the past. A balance must be struck between not rewarding past violence and not creating unreasonable barriers to a future peace. But the Palestinians made it clear last week that they reject such balance.

 

I was at the United Nations on Friday when President Abbas made his speech demanding full recognition of Palestine as a state with the borders as they existed just before the Jordanians and Palestinians attacked Israel. In other words he wants a “do over.” He wants the nations that attacked Israel to suffer no consequences for their attempt to destroy the Jewish State. He wants to get back The Western Wall, The Jewish Quarter, and the access road to Hebrew University. Only then will he begin negotiations from this position of strength. But why then negotiate if the UN gives him more than he can possibly get through negotiation? Will he be in a position to seek less from Israel than what the UN gave him? Will he survive if he is seen as less Palestinian than the UN? Abbas blamed Israel for the self-inflicted wound the Palestinians cynically call the Nakba (the catastrophe). He denied the Jewish history of the land of Israel and he quoted with approval his terrorist predecessor Arafat. He refused to acknowledge Israel’s legitimate security needs. Abbas’s message, in sum, left little or no room for further compromise.

 

I also sat in the General Assembly as Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu offered to begin negotiations with Abbas, with absolutely no preconditions, in New York, at the United Nations, that very day. He said he would come to Ramallah to negotiate with him or keep the door of his Jerusalem office open. He did not even require as a precondition to negotiations that the Palestinians acknowledge what the UN recognized in 1947—namely, that Israel is the nation-state of the Jewish people.

 

Although many in the international communities and on the editorial pages of newspapers claim that Abbas wants to negotiate a two-state solution, while Netanyahu has refused to do so, the truth was on full and open display at the General Assembly on Friday: Netanyahu wants to negotiate a peace now, whereas Abbas wants to win recognition from the United Nations before any negotiations begin. As Netanyahu put it: “Let’s stop negotiating about negotiating and let’s just start negotiating right now.”

 

If the Palestinians accept Netanyahu’s offer to negotiate a peaceful two-state solution, it will get a real state on the ground—a state that Israel, the United States, and the rest of the international community will recognize. It will not be on the pre-1967 borders because the Palestinians are not entitled to such borders and because such borders are not conducive to peace, but it will be close. The Palestinians will get a viable state and Israel will get a secure state.

 

If, on the other hand, the UN were to reward nearly a century of Palestinian rejectionism and violence by simply turning the clock back to 1967 (or 1947), it will be encouraging more cost-free rejectionism and violence. The Palestinians must pay a price for the thousands of lives their rejectionism and violence have caused. The price must not be so heavy as to preclude peace, but it must be heavy enough to deter war.