In an old Laurel and Hardy film, the pair drive up to a man’s house, and get into an argument with him. Angered, he breaks something on their car. So Hardy marches over to the house and breaks something. Tit for tat, and soon the man is methodically destroying the car while the duo methodically destroy the house.
That’s the Israelis and Palestinians.
I heard one Hamas apologist say, “You don’t understand. This is about freedom.” No it’s not. No way can it bring any liberation, but only worsened immiseration for Gaza, a hell-hole long (mis)governed by Hamas. Motivated not by love for Palestinians but hatred for Israelis. If there’s any rational logic, it’s to provoke Israel to reciprocal atrocities to make it look bad — never mind how bad Hamas looks. Their hatred does have a cause, but when it inspires horrific crimes against innocents, it’s a derangement that can produce nothing positive. “Freedom” my ass.
I’m no pacifist. There are things worth fighting for. During South Africa’s Apartheid, I thought the Black majority should overthrow the white regime by force of arms. In the end, reason prevailed instead and the outcome was negotiated. However, with no Mandela and de Klerk, it’s hard to see reason prevailing between Israelis and Palestinians. But impossible to see Palestinian liberation by violence; the military power imbalance is prohibitive. That’s the difference there; violence is a dead end that can only worsen matters. Palestinians should look instead to Mahatma Gandhi’s playbook (and Martin Luther King’s). That’s their only possible route to achieving justice.
Tragically, Israelis are hardly less deranged; on an almost messianic mission, with all the inhuman irrationality religion imbues. What an irony that the Jews, of all people, cannot see this; can’t see Gaza’s parallel to the Warsaw Ghetto. What Israel is now inflicting on innocent human beings in Gaza is no less evil than what Hamas did in Israel last Saturday.
Back in 2015 I wrote an imagined Israeli election speech proposing not just a Palestinian state but a Marshall Plan type project to make it flourish, with the two states thriving together cooperatively. (Read it here: https://rationaloptimist.wordpress.com/2015/03/14/i-have-a-dream-israeli-election-speech/)
Then it still seemed plausible, if only barely. Imagine if today Israel chose not to follow Hamas down the road of brutality; just refused to; turned the other cheek. But the enmity, repeatedly ratcheted up by each side, has grown too deep. Irrationality triumphant.
Which naturally brings me to the U.S. House of Representatives — controlled by the Hamas Republican Party.
After McCarthy lasted just months, and Scalise just hours, can any Republican assemble the practically unanimous GOP support needed to secure the gavel? Having smashed the old paradigm where a party’s members all vote for their chosen leader. Let’s hope a few Republicans withhold their votes from the vile Jim Jordan.
What Democrats should do is pick the least bad House Republican, and all just vote for that person. If even half a dozen Republicans see fit to join in support, that would resolve the speakership. This would not require any sort of deal, it would be a fait accompli. Not an explicit bipartisan coalition per se, but something close to that in practice. And Democratic backing would render this House governance invulnerable to the Republican nihilists who brought down McCarthy. Those crazies would go from all-powerful to irrelevant. A very good thing.
Presumably Democrats could find a Republican who’d facilitate avoidance of further debt ceiling and shutdown nonsense, and enable support for Ukraine. Such would, with 212 Democratic votes, need only minimal Republican buy-in — ending the paralyzing rule the GOP had enforced requiring a “majority of the majority” for any action. Greatly smoothing the legislative process on everything.
Such action should earn Democrats vast public applause, for putting aside partisanship in favor of serving the national interest. A stark contrast against Republicans. But is it naive to imagine today that even half a dozen likewise sane, responsible, public-spirited, courageous people might still be found among the 221 House Republicans?
