Peter Isackson

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      Can the US Really Rally Other Nations?

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      On May 25, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken appeared alongside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in an effusive demonstration of love and mutual admiration. The show the two men put on in the aftermath of a shaky ceasefire looked like a private celebration of a threefold victory for Israel thanks to its aggressive show of force. The rockets from Gaza have stopped; Israel is still in control; the US will stand by Netanyahu, thick or thin.

      Is Israel an Apartheid State?

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      What has emerged from Blinken’s visit for Americans is a “mission accomplished” feeling. The US will now be able to write the entire event off as insignificant and return to their normal activities. These include arguing about how much not to spend on infrastructure, discovering the truth about UFOs or getting vaccinated so that people can start partying again as summer approaches. Hamas has been disarmed. The disaster in the Holy Land has been avoided.

      The problem for any serious observer is that their comforting discourse is in total dissonance with the historical context. The media across the globe have noticed that for the Biden administration, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a low priority, an unwanted distraction from the real business of the hour: creating a positive image for the recently elected president, young in the office (a mere 125 days) but old in years and inevitably stale in his thinking.

      Embed from Getty Images

      What does all this tell us about President Joe Biden’s policy with regard to Israeli-Palestinian relations? Some have hinted that, under pressure from progressives and some centrist Democrats, the Biden administration might consider modifying its ever-forgiving relationship with Israel by, for the first time, imposing conditions on the generous military aid the US provides year after year. No trace of that pressure appeared in Blinken’s discourse. Instead, the policy he hints at sounds like an anemic version of the Trump-Kushner peace plan. Biden talks about achieving stability by encouraging trade and investment. This essentially means the US will release enough cash for the rebuilding required for the Palestinians to function minimally within the Israeli economy.

      In his meeting with Mahmoud Abbas, the president of the Palestinian Authority, Blinken evoked a gift of $360 million, not quite half of the appropriation of $735 million in supplementary military aid to Israel the Biden administration requested earlier this month and which some Democrats in Congress are currently contesting. Despite meetings with leaders in Egypt and Jordan, there is no indication that Washington may seek to address the historical causes of a never-ending series of conflicts. That will be left to others. Blinken summed up his intention in these words: “The United States will work to rally international support.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Rally:

      Incite a group of people and, in extreme cases, a mob to back or participate in a project that may or may not be in their interest but which reflects the goals and interests of the one who incites

      Contextual Note

      The style section of The New York Times features an article about a high school student named Adrian in California who, on May 17, produced a flyer to invite kids from his school to an open beach party for his 17th birthday. A friend spread the invitation to Snapchat and TikTok, whose “For You” algorithm turned it into a national event. Thousands of people responded and arranged to travel to Huntington Beach to be part of the event. The response ballooned uncontrollably, leading the two young friends to seek a willing commercial partner and turn it into an organized, paying event in Los Angeles, simply to avoid being accused of provoking a riot. It ended with a fracas on the beach, clashes with the police and hundreds of unhappy customers when no party materialized in Los Angeles. It did, however, instantly turn Adrian into an internet influencer.

      Adrian now understands what it means to rally his contemporaries and indeed how easy it is to do it with the right plan. The Biden-Blinken plan to rally international support not only seems more modest and vague than Adrian’s, but it is far less likely to succeed. Blinken’s promise contains the principal themes of the discredited Trump-Kushner plan, without the ambition. The countries he appears to be rallying are either part of last year’s Abraham Accords initiated by Donald Trump or sympathetic to its goals. They essentially consist of Israel’s neighbors to the south: the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Egypt.

      The Trump-Kushner plans rallied these nations around the idea of collaborating with Israel to create a prosperous business zone in the Middle East. It promised to turn the Occupied Palestinian Territories into a prosperous tourist attraction, allowing it to participate in the kind of glitzy commercial culture that has triumphed in Dubai and provided a model for Neom, Saudi Arabia’s futuristic city in the desert. Jared Kushner and friends imagined that Gaza could become one giant beach resort like Waikiki, Acapulco or Cancun.

      Historical Note

      This may be what was at the back of Antony Blinken’s mind when he proposed to “promote economic stability and progress in the West Bank and Gaza, more opportunity, to strengthen the private sector, expand trade and investment, all of which are essential to growing opportunity across the board.” The underlying logic is the same as the Trump-Kushner peace plan, once touted as the “deal of the century,” a game-changer destined to transform the economy of the Middle East, consolidate an objective alliance between Israel and Saudi Arabia and isolate Iran. For historical and cultural reasons that should have been obvious to anyone familiar with the region, no one apart from the ruling class of those Middle Eastern countries took the plan seriously. Even they did so mainly out of diplomatic politeness toward Donald Trump and deference to the always redoubtable economic and military might of the US.

      The difference between the Trump-Kushner plan and Blinken’s vague proposal is that in the first case, the cash would be counted in billions. Most of it would have been provided by the Saudis, allowing them to gain cultural control over the Palestinians. The Palestinians would inevitably be beholden to the Israeli-Saudi alliance’s money and technology on the simple condition that they humbly accept their supporting role in an economy designed to further the interests of the ruling class in the US, Israel and the Arabian Peninsula. The Palestinians, with or without an identifiable state, would have their role in the neo-liberal economy assured, ensuring peace on earth forever after.

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      Blinken appears to have accepted the collaborative vision that Jared Kushner imagined, but in stating it, he unwittingly reveals its fundamental flaw. “Asking the international community, asking all of us to help rebuild Gaza only makes sense if there is confidence that what is rebuilt is not lost again because Hamas decides to launch more rocket attacks in the future,” Blinken said. The US has never reconciled the contradiction that comes from the fact that Hamas, which it classifies as a terrorist organization, came to power in a legitimate democratic election in 2006. Some might judge that the US, with a history of sending its mighty military into different regions of the world on false pretexts and prolonging its assaults on other populations for decades, could also be classified as a terrorist organization despite its democratically elected government.

      There is something chilling when Blinken evokes the idea “that what is rebuilt is not lost again because Hamas decides to launch more rocket attacks in the future.” He is telling the Palestinians that if they choose to react to any perceived injustice and repression with the limited weapons at their disposal, they should expect everything that is built or “rebuilt” to come toppling down on their heads once again. This is a threat, not a peace proposal. It is a cynical affirmation of might over right. It is also an explicit denial of democracy and respect for the outcome of democratic elections.

      The test of Biden’s ability to influence events in the Middle East will come very soon with the result of the Vienna talks concerning the United States’ eventual return to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), the nuclear deal with Iran. Benjamin Netanyahu is using the occasion to put pressure on the US to abandon the talks. Joe Biden promised during the 2020 election campaign to return to the JCPOA. If the US fails to do so, some will see it as a sign of Israel’s continued power to dictate US foreign policy.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Is Israel an Apartheid State?

      by

      For the news media in the US, ideas have no importance. Only words count. They function as badges of identity. In the 20th century, nutritionists bandied the slogan, “You are what you eat.” Despite the warning, obesity and diabetes have continued to spread. In today’s “woke” society, you are not so much what you eat, but the words you choose to use and the words you know how to avoid. Every American needs a list of offensive words to banish from their vocabulary. The various social media people subscribe to play an important role in establishing those lists. The owners of the media — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc. — have taken on a major part of that burden, and, of course, the users of social media have honed their collective skills at the cancelling such lists permit.

      The list is constantly growing. This past week, John Dickerson, interviewing Senator Bernie Sanders on the prestigious establishment media program, CBS’ Face the Nation, used the occasion to make a major contribution to the list. The word he selected for permanent exile from conversations about Israel is “apartheid.”

      In the era of fake news, some things simply stand as facts. For example, for any serious political analyst with an objective understanding of historical governments, Israel is an apartheid society. Full stop. The only reason to cast doubt on that assertion is the fact the word is native to neither Hebrew nor English. A purist might say it can only apply to a country where Afrikaans is spoken. Israel has not succeeded in replicating every detail of South Africa’s notorious system of racial segregation, but it has produced something so close in act and spirit that the two systems can easily be confounded.

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      Not many Israelis speak Afrikaans, but the Israeli government hates the word and has decided that uttering constitutes a confession of anti-Semitism. And, of course, because Israel hates it, right-thinking Americans automatically reject it. That was clearly Dickerson’s message to Bernie Sanders. Like any self-respecting establishment journalist in the US, Dickerson believes in always aligning one’s thought and approved vocabulary with the good guys while opposing the bad guys. As the Israelis are the good guys, they should control the vocabulary we use to describe them.

      Sanders dared to object to the automatic alignment of US thinking (and vocabulary) with Israel. Instead, he advocates “an even-handed approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.” Dickerson, who knows the good guys from the bad, saw his opportunity to challenge Sanders. “You mentioned an even-handed approach … How do you have an even-handed approach to terrorists who want to destroy Israel?”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Even-handed approach:

      An ideal shared by the established media in the United States that consists of presenting all issues as a contest between two rivals (one of whom is identified as less legitimate) while ensuring that, in the interest of fair play, the weaker one will be allowed to make one point before the dominant position steps in to crush it by refusing to acknowledge any form of reasoning put forward to defend itself.

      Contextual Note

      In this case, Dickerson wastes no time trying to appear objective. Rather than asking Sanders what an even-handed approach would look like, he cites Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s tendentious criticism of Sanders, rejecting even the possibility of being even-handed. It isn’t about the suffering Palestinians. It’s about the terrorist organization, Hamas. Consideration of the people and their history can only be a distraction. Conflicts are about the struggle for power, a contest between the good guys and the bad guys.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Leaving aside Palestinian misery or the fact cited by Sanders that “the Netanyahu government has become extremely right wing and that there are people in the Israeli government now who are overt racists,” Dickerson moves on to a more important point: the recrudescence of anti-Semitism in the US. He notes that “there were 193 reports of anti-Semitic incidents this week, up from 131 the previous week.” This permits him to counter Sanders’ claim that it’s “possible to be a critic of Israeli policy, but not be anti-Semitic” by remarking that “it doesn’t seem to be playing out that way with this uptick in random attacks.” Sanders is too polite to point out the absurdity of Dickerson’s logic. The fact that anti-Semitism exists for some people, and that its manifestation tends to increase during moments of conflict, in no way implies that those, like Sanders himself, who criticize Israeli policy must be anti-Semitic.

      But just mentioning anti-Semitism allows Dickerson to score a point. In any conversation, as soon as anti-Semitism is mentioned, every other issue pales in significance and fades into obscurity. That is how the establishment media, including the supposedly left-wing Guardian newspaper, destroyed Jeremy Corbyn’s reputation in the UK. It has even been used against the Jewish Sanders himself. Dickerson knows it’s the easiest way to end a debate on the consequences of Israel’s actions.

      Historical Note

      All this leads up to the big question, the scandalous fact that other progressive Democrats have begun using a forbidden word: apartheid. Dickerson advertises his disgust, calling it “that kind of language,” even though it’s merely a word with clear historical connotations. He blames “that word” for increasing “the level of vitriol that has contributed to this anti-Semitism.” Put on the defensive, Sanders responds: “I think we should tone down the rhetoric. I think our goal is very simple. It is to understand that what’s going on in Gaza today.” Sanders vainly wants to put all these questions in their real historical context. Dickerson sees no need for history.

      The not-quite-but-nearly establishment outlet, The Huffington Post, seized on Sanders’ reply to back up Dickerson’s assault while developing a somewhat more even-handed account. The author of the article, Sanjana Karanth, cites elements of the historical background rather than representing it as a simple contest between Netanyahu (the good guy) and Hamas (the bad guy). She delves into the meaning of apartheid: a regime that “uses laws, practices and organized violence to cement the supremacy of one group over another.”

      She cites the members of Congress who accused Israel of being an apartheid state. Dickerson cited only two witnesses, Netanyahu and Biden. Karanth makes the pertinent point that Israel’s critics vehemently condemn anti-Semitism, disproving Dickerson’s claim that the two are inextricably entangled.

      But then Karanth offers the disingenuous comment that spokespersons for representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib “did not immediately respond to HuffPost’s request for comment on whether they would follow Sanders’s recommendation and stop calling Israel an apartheid government.” Sanders never suggested banning the word or the idea of apartheid. At most, by suggesting the critics “tone down the rhetoric,” he was suggesting it would be prudent not to speak the truth too boldly, given the current hypersensitivity of the American media. And yet the title of Karanth’s article reads: “Bernie Sanders: Progressives Should ‘Tone Down’ Calling Israel An ‘Apartheid’ State.”

      Karanth then switches gears and cites some other voices to demonstrate that the attribution of apartheid to Israel has some merit. This included South African President Cyril Ramaphosa’s remark “that the violence in Gaza reminded him of the apartheid era in his own country.”

      These two examples, from the corporate giant CBS and the corporate-owned but more freewheeling Huffington Post, illustrate one of the most serious failings of US media. We could call it the hyperreal problem of even-handedness. It is hyperreal because commercial news media clearly adhere to what they consider a “safe” editorial stance, discouraging them from being even-handed while at the same time trying to appear objective.

      Investigative reporter and media commentator Matt Taibbi weighs in on the issue this week, remarking that “the news business is a high-speed operation whose top decision-makers are working from a knowledge level of near-zero about most things, at best just making an honest effort at hitting the moving target of truth.” But most media have also strictly defined their “zones of truth,” which defines the truths they will talk about and the ones they will avoid.

      Dickerson, for example, can talk about the truth that Hamas is classified as a terrorist organization, but he avoids acknowledging the truth about living conditions in Palestine. When you combine zones of truth with near-zero knowledge, it’s no wonder people have little confidence in the news media.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      It’s All About Al-Aqsa

      by

      AP journalist Joseph Krauss reports that “Israeli police escorted more than 250 Jewish visitors Sunday to a flashpoint holy site in Jerusalem.” That flashpoint was the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, the scene of clashes initiated by Israeli police that earlier this month helped trigger an 11-day war.

      Considered the third holiest site in the world by Muslims after Mecca and Medina, Al-Aqsa was originally built a little over 1,400 years ago. Buffeted by earthquakes throughout its history, it was repeatedly restored. It remains an important symbol linked to the narrative of the life of Prophet Muhammad. After the Arab-Israeli War of 1967, the Israelis agreed to maintain it as a place of Muslim worship, but the authorities today claim the right to monitor and restrict access to the compound.

      The Future of Jerusalem Matters to Us All

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      The Israeli raid inside the Al-Aqsa compound on May 7 and a campaign of expulsions of Palestinian inhabitants of East Jerusalem were the twin precipitating causes of the latest conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. The symbolic significance of the attack on Al-Aqsa became immediately clear across the Arab and Muslim world, recently reputed by pundits and politicians to have become indifferent to the plight of the Palestinians. 

      The mystique surrounding former US President Donald Trump’s celebrated Abraham Accords in August 2020 — touted as a “strategic realignment” generously amplified by the media — led many to believe that Arab solidarity with the Palestinians was a thing of the past. The oil-rich nations of the Middle East — the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and even Saudi Arabia — were deemed to be looking at a future of normalized relations with Israel. For most observers, that implied their silent acceptance of pariah status for Palestinians in the Jewish state.

      The armed struggle this month has had its own effect of amplification. It has radically increased understanding across the globe of the humiliating conditions of daily life for Palestinians in Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and even inside Israel. In the US, for the first time in recent memory, expressions of sympathy for the Palestinian cause have come to the fore. Even a Fox News collaborator, Gerardo Rivera, who calls himself a “Zionist Jew,” pleaded the case of the Palestinians on the air, to the profound displeasure of the non-Jewish, pro-Israeli Fox hosts.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In other words, there is a hint that the tide of public opinion may be shifting. The disproportionately brutal behavior of the Israeli government has become too evident to justify dismissing any criticism of Israel as proof of anti-Semitism (despite Bret Stephens’ absurd insistence). The expectation is growing that in the aftermath of the conflict, adjustments will have to be made for a clearly desperate situation to evolve in a positive direction.

      The actions of the Israeli authorities in the past few days cast doubt on that expectation. Inviting Israeli Jews, visibly with a settler mentality, to enter the mosque compound with the symbolic intent of claiming it as a possession of Israel rather than as a universal religious site can only be seen as a provocation. The Israeli authorities required Palestinian Muslims to surrender their ID at the door and barred those under 45 years old from entering.

      Just as the Israeli government had dismissed the expulsions of Palestinians in the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood of East Jerusalem, calling it an isolated “real estate dispute” to be settled by the courts, enforcing policy concerning access to Al-Aqsa appears to the outside world for what it is: a hostile act targeted at Palestinians. Krauss cites police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, who justified the policy by claiming that “the site was open for ‘regular visits’ and that police had secured the area.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Regular visits:

      In the context of Al-Aqsa Mosque, planned and organized intimidation, monitored and enforced by the Israeli government to ensure that Palestinians understand that they must on all occasions feel humiliated by their political masters

      Contextual Note

      What does Rosenfield mean by “regular visits?” The word “regular” has several meanings in English. In this context, we would assume it means in accordance with the rules. But regular can also mean happening in a repetitive fashion or at an established frequency. As such, it may even be a synonym for often. It can also simply mean normal, making it a synonym of unremarkable. 

      So, what should Palestinians and indeed the rest of the world understand when Rosenfield evokes Israeli visits that are “regular”? He wants listeners to think that it’s both natural (normal) and legal (according to the rules). But many Palestinians view the reality of Israeli “visits” to Al-Aqsa as normally and repetitively provocative. They also see them as strategically designed by right-wing Israeli visitors as an act of intimidation that serves as a prelude to the glorious day in the future when Jewish culture will have so overwhelmed Arab culture in East Jerusalem that the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound will function more as a museum or public monument than as a holy site for Muslims.

      Or perhaps worse. Al Jazeera reports that in the immediate aftermath of last week’s ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, “hardline Israeli settler groups have raised calls on social media for Jewish worshippers to enter the premises. The groups’ objective is to rebuild the Third Jewish Temple on the grounds of Al-Aqsa Mosque, according to their websites.” That’s why the Israelis must frequent the mosque compound as “regularly” as possible. They are seeking to erase 1,400 years of history.

      Historical Note

      Although the Israeli government claims it has no intention of calling into question the status quo that grants Muslims the right to pray at the site, Al Jazeera notes that in the recent past, “increasing numbers of religious and far-right Israelis have visited the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound.” Palestinians have noticed the trend, sparking their fear that Israel may be seeking to take it over or partition it.

      Should such fears be taken seriously? Having witnessed Israeli encroachment on designated Palestinian territories through its relentless, decades-long settlement campaign and its direct attacks on Palestinian culture, Palestinians feel that their trepidation is justified. The expulsions in Sheikh Jarrah are but one recent example among many. Some have been more dramatic and economically destructive than others, such as the building of the West Bank separation wall, an act that should have evoked, in some people’s minds, the historical memory of the wall that surrounded the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw during World War II.

      Regularity requires regulation. If “regular” behavior is to be encouraged, there is an absolute need for regulation, the establishment of rules and respect of the same. Without regulation, resolution will be impossible. The United Nations has repeatedly attempted to use its largely unenforceable resolutions as a means of regulation, but to no avail. The US veto at the Security Council has provided Israel with a foolproof insurance policy. This has allowed Israel to violate not only past treaties and dozens of UN resolutions with impunity, but also to escape scrutiny of the countless alleged cases of human rights abuses and even war crimes in recent decades.

      The latest conflict demonstrates that any hope of stabilizing the asymmetric situation characterized by a nation committed to colonial domination and content with institutions that merit comparison with South Africa’s institution of apartheid will be illusory. The asymmetry and disequilibrium have suddenly become both too visible to neglect and too deep to maintain. A return to the precarious balance achieved since 2014 seems untenable. The Kushner peace plan promoted by Donald Trump, when it finally emerged after three years of being billed as the “deal of the century,” turned out to be the joke many of us expected it would be. That kind of improvisation is no longer conceivable.

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      The Americans and Europeans have steadfastly embraced the ideal of a “two-state solution” initially launched in 1974 and ratified by the Israeli government and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1993. Most realistic observers today dismiss it as illusory. Historical events since 1993 have created a situation in which neither side now believes the kinds of rules that would apply to a viable two-state solution could be respected, let alone formulated.

      Something must be done at the international level. Perhaps the next step will require “regular visits” by serious diplomats — especially American ones — willing for once to assume the role of honest brokers. Given the state of American democracy and the apparent indifference of the Biden administration to the Palestinian drama, that appears unlikely to happen any time soon. 

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

    • 75 Shares129 Views

      in World Politics

      Biden Invests His Capital in Israel

      by

      Though the stale expression “political capital” has become a handy item in every pundit’s vocabulary, there was a time when the financial metaphor would have seemed jarring and paradoxical in the context of democracy. Its popularity today reflects a disturbing trend in the reasoning that governs democratic decision-making. The traditional focus on ensuring the general welfare and responding to the will of the people has been replaced by a process of cold calculation we associate with the world of finance and investment. Politics is no longer about governing. It is exclusively about winning elections, accumulating capital and living off the spoils of victory.

      The New Police State

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      Living metaphors play on comparison between two disparate orders of reality. Dead metaphors fester in their own world as meaningless rhetorical artifacts. Attempting to analyze US President Joe Biden’s strategy of refusing to comment on Israel’s disproportionately violent campaign of “self-defense,” New York Times journalists Annie Karni and David E. Sanger propose this explanation: “Mr. Biden’s tactic was to avoid public condemnation of Israel’s bombing of Gaza — or even a public call for a cease-fire — in order to build up capital with Mr. Netanyahu and then exert pressure in private when the time came.” In this case, the metaphor is so definitively dead the authors don’t bother with the epithet “political” and simply call it “capital.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Political capital:

      According to the New York Times, the advantage one hopes to obtain from offering a gift to someone known to be selfish, greedy and disrespectful

      Contextual Note

      US media have made a major effort in recent days to make sense of the strategic logic behind Biden’s behavior at the height of the crisis that some now believe has been resolved by a ceasefire. Of course, nothing at all has been resolved, even if the fireworks have come to a provisional halt. The media, as usual, focus on identifying winners and losers. They present a scorecard and retrospectively imagine the strategy that governed the play of the actors. 

      Embed from Getty Images

      Western media continue to view what is clearly a deep, complex and enduring historical crisis not for what it is, but as a game being played by leaders on both sides seeking to reinforce their image and consolidate political capital with their base. In this reading, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s aim was to cling to power after losing an election. The adversary, Hamas, reacted with the sole motivation of reaffirming its position as the most resolute defender of the Palestinian cause, all for the sake of obtaining electoral advantage both in Gaza and the West Bank. The analysis contains a grain of truth but appeared more as a random factor in a much bigger geopolitical drama than as the basis of a serious account of the events.

      What journalists call political capital today was once expressed by the notion of “goodwill,” a term borrowed from business vocabulary that includes the idea of customer satisfaction, trust and loyalty. Like so much else in the English language, goodwill itself has been transformed by the trend to financialize our thinking about everything under the sun.

      The authoritative Shorter Oxford Dictionary (SOD) gives this primary definition of goodwill: “Virtuous, pious, upright position or intention.” Investopedia begins with this definition: “Goodwill is an intangible asset that is associated with the purchase of one company by another.” The SOD does include another definition of goodwill in use as early as 1571: “the possession of a ready-formed connexion of customers” used to evaluate “the saleable value of a business.” Investopedia sees goodwill as an asset before citing its virtuous status in the eyes of customers. The SOD puts virtue first, customers second and “saleable value” (= asset) last. Goodwill began its history as a virtue and ended up as a proprietary asset.

      Historical Note

      Political capital has definitely replaced political goodwill as an operational concept in modern political thinking. Kenya may be the last English-speaking country to continue to use the metaphor of political goodwill in preference to capital. In an editorial dated May 15, 2020, the Times of San Diego referred to goodwill as something real but now associated with the historical past. “It was not so long ago that we experienced a time of goodwill in our national political life, with Jimmy Carter promising never to lie… Now all that has changed,” adding, “we have lost what had been an open window to the fresh air that characterized the late 1970s.”

      There are two related semantic principles underlying this historical shift that reveal a lot about how society itself has changed, precisely in the decade that followed Carter’s presidency. The first concerns the shift in social culture itself from an ability to focus on collective interest that has been replaced by a narcissistic obsession with individual competitive advantage. The second concerns the trend toward the financialization of all human activities and attributes.

      The 1980s witnessed the triumph of the transformative Thatcher-Reagan ideological coalition. The ideas associated with government “of the people, by the people and for the people” found themselves suddenly radically subordinated to theoretical principles purportedly derived from the logic of free market capitalism. The idea of goodwill has always had a collective connotation. It was never about an asset or property, but a state of mind shared by the public. In 2007, Robert Kuttner in The New York Times complained that George W. Bush’s warmongering “squandered the global goodwill that has long been the necessary complement to America’s military might.” Goodwill was an asset shared by the nation and its people.

      Kuttner correctly noted that Bush’s Middle East adventures both broke the solidarity of goodwill and squandered its value as a collective asset. In 2004, Chris Sullentrop, writing for Slate, noticed how, at the same time goodwill was disappearing from the media’s vocabulary, Bush himself relentlessly insisted on the idea of political capital. “Now the most common usage of ‘political capital,’” according to Sullentrop, “means the power that popularity confers on a politician, or something like that. ‘Political capital’ is shaping up to be the first buzzword of the second Bush administration.”

      Sullentrop cites multiple examples in Bush’s discourse. In 2001, the president, newly elected (by the Supreme Court), explained: “I earned capital in the campaign, political capital, and now I intend to spend it. It is my style.” Really? Is spending one’s public reputation — to say nothing of blood and treasure in the Middle East — a feature of presidential style? When Time magazine asked Bush, “What did you learn about being president from watching your father?” he answered, “I learned how to earn political capital and how to spend it.” There are many other examples. If for Americans “time is money,” for post-Reagan Americans, goodwill (earned or unearned) is also money.

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      In 2008, Barack Obama insisted that he was on a mission to restore America’s goodwill. But after eight years of Bush, the very idea of goodwill had lost all its ancient connotations of being “virtuous” and “upright.” It was now reduced to the simplistic idea of marketing the nation’s image to the rest of the world. By continuing most of Bush’s policies, from maintaining his tax breaks for the rich to prosecuting Bush’s wars and even expanding them to new regions, Obama’s efforts at creating goodwill could only remain superficial and cosmetic. That bothered no one in Washington, since the reigning ideology, formerly focused on seeking politically coherent solutions to complex problems, had converted to an ideology based on the newly adored laws of branding and marketing.

      Some saw Donald Trump’s triumph in 2016, built around his guiding principle, “America First,” as a shift away from even the need to spread goodwill. In reality, his hyper-narcissistic ideology was an extension of the same trend that had replaced the notion of virtuous action by that of accumulated assets.

      And what about Joe Biden’s plan to order to “build up capital with Mr. Netanyahu and then exert pressure in private when the time came”? It sounds like a joke. Playing the accomplice to someone else’s criminal actions cannot produce political capital. Al Jazeera quotes Nader Hashemi, a Middle East expert at the University of Denver: “[T]he more Israel is coddled, supported, sustained, the more belligerent and intransigent Israel becomes to making any concessions.” Bibi Netanyahu is not done with managing America’s foreign policy.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      The New Police State

      by

      The world Americans now live in has acquired all the trappings of a police state. But unlike police states of the past, with soldiers at every street corner, the police and their policing techniques have become invisible. Invisibility is the key to their efficacy. We mustn’t see what is ensuring our security.

      William M. Arkin, writing for Newsweek, describes it as a vast, secret underground force. “The force, more than ten times the size of the clandestine elements of the CIA, carries out domestic and foreign assignments, both in military uniforms and under civilian cover, in real life and online, sometimes hiding in private businesses and consultancies, some of them household name companies,” he writes. 

      Media: How Debunked Stories Continue to Thrive

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      Here is a rare instance of the independent press living up to its mission of informing the public of what is deliberately hidden from its view. Arkin highlights its historical significance: “The unprecedented shift has placed an ever greater number of soldiers, civilians, and contractors working under false identities, partly as a natural result in the growth of secret special forces but also as an intentional response to the challenges of traveling and operating in an increasingly transparent world.” In the security state, the name of the enemy is “transparency.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      False identities:

      The only meaningful and useful identities in hyperreality

      Contextual Note

      Arkin describes in lurid detail the “completely unregulated practice” of fabricating for deceitful purposes superficially credible false identities. The science and art he describes is called “signature reduction.” This means that the ability to identify real people executing a variety of illicit tasks becomes exceedingly difficult, if not impossible. The aim is to protect such people from being exposed, a practice that may be frowned upon in normal circumstances, but must be applauded when done in the name of national security. 

      The belief that national security has become the fundamental mission of nations — practically to the exclusion of all others — implies a radical change in political culture. Rather than suspecting such practices of having the power to undermine the idea of trust that any society requires to maintain its social coherence, it puts the highest value on what is both secret and unregulated, and therefore simply fake. When a culture evolves in this direction its members spontaneously stop asking questions about such things. Fakeness becomes the accepted norm. Knowing that hyperreality has been implemented to protect us from dangers we are told are lurking in the shadows, we instead feel grateful.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Those who practice this new art and science of “signature reduction” refuse to recognize even its formal designation. Doing so would amount to admitting that the Pentagon’s game is to deceive the public rather than ensure the defense of a democratic society. That would be tantamount to heresy in a democracy as well as a betrayal of the principle of hyperreality: Everything must look real but remain unreal enough to permit plausible denial.

      Deep secrecy of this type has numerous advantages. By obscuring our perception of a phenomenon we know exists, the public stops believing in its existence, even after reading an exposé in Newsweek. “No one knows the program’s total size, and the explosion of signature reduction has never been examined for its impact on military policies and culture,” Arkin writes. “Congress has never held a hearing on the subject. And yet the military developing this gigantic clandestine force challenges U.S. laws, the Geneva Conventions, the code of military conduct and basic accountability.”

      Signature reduction means that the risk of being caught out for violating fundamental laws and ethical codes is also reduced. The practice should draw our attention to one of the most effective strategies of the new security state. It is the trend that consists of privatizing what were formerly government functions, a key to invisibility. The signature reduction program “engages some 130 private companies to administer the new clandestine world. Dozens of little known and secret government organizations support the program, doling out classified contracts and overseeing publicly unacknowledged operations.” The military fully understands the principle. When soldiers are replaced by mercenaries, people stop noticing that a war is still going on. 

      For the past five years, the Democrats have successively persuaded the respectable media that Russia’s meddling in US elections should be considered the most heinous crime of the century and the greatest threat to democracy. Newsweek’s article tells us that the massively funded “undercover force” of indeterminate size that has managed the question of reduced signature may “even engage in campaigns to influence and manipulate social media.”

      Is the Pentagon imitating the Russians or were the Russians imitating the US? What propaganda outfit or commercial entity today would not seek to “engage in campaigns to influence and manipulate social media”? That happens to be the only way anyone with a modicum of ambition can hope to get ahead, either individually or collectively? The culture of hyperreality rewards deception and manipulation. It also undermines social identity.

      We have entered an age in which disguise trumps — and possibly abolishes — reality. Newsweek tells us “a major task of signature reduction is keeping all of the organizations and people, even the automobiles and aircraft involved in the clandestine operations, masked.” Speaking of masks, some may begin speculating that there may be a connection between “signature reduction” and the COVID-induced campaign to persuade everyone to live in society behind a mask. In an age marked by the growing trend to define one’s image through cosmetic surgery, life itself becomes a struggle to define the mask behind which one will live and interact with others.

      Historical Note

      At the beginning of his article, William Arkin points to the phenomenon’s significance in recent history: “The largest undercover force the world has ever known is the one created by the Pentagon over the past decade.” He calls it “an unprecedented shift.” But the movement of what amounts to not just signature reduction, but signature erasure began much earlier than a decade ago.

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      The 20th-century consumer society produced generations of Americans who, in the first instance, sought to base their identity not on who they were, but what they could buy and display. This was the era early in the century of what economist and sociologist Thorstein Veblen described as “conspicuous consumption.” As the consumer society began to create new distinctions of status, the question of every individual having the right to create a personal “signature” began to become associated less with social relations and more with the kind of job one had, which in turn was linked to what one conspicuously consumed. This spawned a culture of consumerist prosperity that encouraged the development of what the late anthropologist David Graeber called the trend toward “bullshit jobs.”

      Graeber saw most of the jobs in the past half century as unjustified for any reason other than supporting the consumer society’s ideology and avoiding the “mortal danger” represented by people with too much free time to think about things and eventually act on them. Graeber defined five categories of bullshit jobs: flunkies, who serve essentially as foils to their superiors; goons, who deceive others for the sake of their employer’s immediate interests (maximum profit); duct tapers, who intervene to provide a temporary fix to problems rather than solving them; box tickers, who validate processes; and taskmasters, who manage and create a sense of usefulness for the others.

      The work described as “signature reduction” in Newsweek’s article consists of manipulating information and official documents to hide the real identity of people engaged in what would normally be considered illegal and antisocial activities. Are these also bullshit jobs? This description could be justified in a literal sense. They produce something resembling social excrement. They are designed for one purpose: to make the fake look real and the real look fake. The bull in the pasture chomps on, chews and digests the fresh green grass only in the end result to excretes in an unrecognizable form. The grass’ signature has been singularly and definitely reduced.

      The consumer society’s greatest achievement has been the reign of hyperreality. Hiding an invisibly growing police state is just one of its features. As a retired military officer cited in the article observed, “modern life is not as transparent as most of us think.”

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Media: How Debunked Stories Continue to Thrive

      by

      On May 6, The Daily Devil’s Dictionary dared to express surprise at the latest example of Russia-related fearmongering by the respectable corporate media. When Christopher Miller, who had recently risen to fame as acting defense secretary in the waning months of Donald Trump’s presidency, claimed to have unearthed an “act of war” attributable to Russia, the media jumped on the occasion. Miller was referring to the dormant “Havana Syndrome” dossier and accusing Russia of conducting direct-energy attacks against Americans in various places across the globe.

      Not wishing to miss the festivities, two prominent media outlets — CNN and Politico — immediately crashed the party. They quoted Miller’s warnings and mobilized their journalistic talents to promote a story capable of striking fear in anyone with an American passport. Curiously, The New York Times, always eager to accuse Russia of anything suspicious that takes place anywhere on earth, missed the scoop. It took them another week to get around to covering it, possibly because they were hard at work on another debunked story that they deemed worthy of resuscitating, concerning the reported Russian offer of bounty for killing US personnel in Afghanistan. Or possibly because they didn’t want to give credence to a Trump official.

      America Is Confused Over What It Means to Be Exceptional

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      The bounty story was their big scoop a year ago. In its coverage at the time, The Times claimed to reveal “a stunning intelligence assessment” intended to prove, as always, that Trump was covering up for his best friend, Russian President Vladimir Putin. Since then, even the intelligence community and the Biden administration have walked it back, but not The New York Times. Perhaps they believe it’s the best way to defend their honor.

      On May 10, four days after the publication of our article and two days before The Times decided to raise the alarm again, Foreign Policy published an article by Cheryl Rofer with the title, “Claims of Microwave Attacks Are Scientifically Implausible.” Apparently, no one at The Times had time to consult this article before publishing their account on May 12. Even Homeland Security News Wire publicly called the thesis into question on May 11.

      Foreign Policy describes Rofer as a writer specialized in scientific and political commentary who had spent 35 years as a chemist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory. In other words, she is not a journalist dabbling in science but a scientist now active in journalism. After sifting through the testimony, Rofer came to the evidence-based conclusion that the technology the intelligence agencies speculate may be behind the “attacks” probably does not exist. In her own words: “The evidence for microwave effects of the type categorized as Havana syndrome is exceedingly weak.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Exceedingly weak:

      For some media, highly probable, on condition that the evidence cited may possibly be construed as pointing to Russia. In all other cases: not to be taken seriously.

      Contextual Note

      To be fair, Rofer offers no definitive proof that the technology does not or cannot exist. She explains why she reached her conclusion: “No proponent of the idea has outlined how the weapon would actually work. No evidence has been offered that such a weapon has been developed by any nation. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and no evidence has been offered to support the existence of this mystery weapon.”

      Every journalist would be wise to follow the example of her reasoning. It doesn’t exclude the most extreme hypotheses, but points in the direction of others that are far more probable. “It’s possible,” she writes, “that the symptoms of all the sufferers of Havana syndrome share a single, as yet unknown, cause; it’s also possible that multiple real health problems have been amalgamated into a single syndrome.” This assertion contains two important truths. It reminds readers that, until there is proof of the technology at play, the cause remains “unknown.” It also points to the fact that many of the health problems we all encounter — particularly concerning perception and mental functions — may be attributable to multiple causes.

      Embed from Getty Images

      Miller based his belief in Russia’s “act of war” on a 2020 report from the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine commissioned by the State Department. According to Kyle Mizokami, writing in Popular Mechanics, the State Department’s assessment cited the fact that there “was significant research in Russia/USSR into the effects of pulsed radio frequencies.” There has also been significant research on witchcraft and psychedelic drugs, but that doesn’t mean Russia has weaponized witchcraft. The CIA, on the other hand, does have a history of weaponizing psychedelic drugs. The tendency to assume that research points to the existence of an operational weapon reflects the kind of tendentious reasoning psychologists call paranoia. Would this be the first time that the State Department has allowed paranoid speculation to pollute its scientific endeavors?

      In the guise of proof, the assessment offers this statement, as explained by Mizokami: “This could have resulted in the development of a portable, nonlethal, covert weapon designed to exploit something called the Frey Effect.” This sentence alone tells us we are in the presence not of science, but propaganda. The auxiliary verb “could have” gives the game away. Evoking a remote possibility to suggest a “probable” sinister outcome is standard procedure in all propaganda (and paranoia). Adding the detail of the “Frey Effect” makes it sound like serious research. Preceding it with the qualification “something called” further reveals that we are in a world of deliberate rhetorical imprecision.

      Mizokami has read Rofer’s article. He first presents the State Department’s circumstantial case and then provides an explanation of the Frey effect, noting that “there’s considerable debate over whether the Frey effect actually exists.” He concludes by aligning with Rofer’s scientific skepticism: “We may never know who’s behind the attacks, and what kind of weapon is being used.” A philosopher skilled at analyzing the logic of the English language would push it even further. We may never know whether there were “attacks,” in the sense of external aggressions. If there were no attacks, there was no weapon.

      Humankind, in the age of electronic communications, lives under a permanent barrage of microwaves, electronic signals and frequencies that may, for all we know, combine in various ways to produce diverse effects on particular people. The State Department seems to believe only Americans are targeted. That is why it suspects the Russians (and sometimes the Chinese). But other people elsewhere may be experiencing the same symptoms. Only Americans would report this to the State Department. Most scientists and logicians would want to take wider statistics into account before jumping to a conclusion.

      Historical Note

      This is pretty obviously a handy piece of fake news that establishment news outlets have now taken on a five-year-long joyride. But why? First and foremost, the story is readable and attracts eyeballs. It combines James Bond-style intrigue, next generation technology and science. It’s also fodder for Trump-haters and fits snugly into the new Cold War mentality that so much of the media now depends on to keep the public’s fear alive.

      The New York Times’ manner of stating the case offers an interesting technical explanation of why such a flaky story continues to work even after being largely discredited. Here is how it creates false perspective: “Though some Pentagon officials believe Russia’s military intelligence agency, the G.R.U., is most likely behind the case of the 2-year-old, and evidence has emerged that points to Russia in other cases, the intelligence agencies have not concluded any cause or whether a foreign power is involved.” The journalists here populate two-thirds of the sentence with opinion supporting the accusation and the last third with a negatively formulated admission that doubt may exist.

      The rest of the article offers a plethora of anecdotes about who thinks what, who has met with whom and other details, all of it serving to remind readers how troubling the issue is and how concerned they need to be. It concludes with an appeal formulated by a politician: “We really need to fully understand where this is coming from, what the targeting methods are and what we can do to stop them.”

      In other words, readers can expect a host of new articles on the question, perhaps lasting another five years. It’s a serial thriller.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      America Is Confused Over What It Means to Be Exceptional

      by

      The deepening Israeli-Palestinian conflict is quickly becoming a game of identifying which acts committed by either side in the course of the most recent fighting are war crimes and which are crimes against humanity. The failure on the part of both international institutions and powerful nations to provide even a minimum of perspective that might lead toward a satisfying resolution has become manifest. In today’s geopolitical hyperreality, perspective has become a luxury that politicians are not even allowed to consider.

      Nothing illustrates this better than the strutting and fretting of the US on the world stage. Most observers suppose that as Israel’s staunchest ally, the US alone has the minimum of moral standing required to influence, ever so slightly, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies and Israel’s behavior. The Biden administration actually has a chance to affirm its global leadership. Instead, as AP reports, “the Biden administration — determined to turn U.S. foreign policy focus away from the Middle East and Afghanistan — has shown no immediate sign of getting more deeply involved.” Can “turning away” be deemed a valid tactic in the foreign policy of the world’s mightiest nation?

      Biden Washes His Hands of the Israel-Palestine Affair

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      But the US is not only turning itself away from seeking a solution. It is also actively turning every other nation away. That is how it is using its power. Al Jazeera notes that “the US reportedly twice blocked over the last week resolutions that would have condemned Israel’s military response and called for a ceasefire.”

      On Sunday, the US had a chance to influence events at an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council. The New York Times gave this account of the US position: “The American ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, urged restraint on the part of both Hamas and Israel during Sunday’s Security Council meeting, which was called to try to find a way to end the violence.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Urge restraint:

      Refrain from making one’s own effort to restrain

      Contextual Note

      The United States has often been called “the most powerful nation on earth” (Barack Obama) and sometimes even “the greatest country in the history of civilization” (Mike Pompeo). When the legendary boxer Mohammad Ali insisted that he was “the greatest,” he got in the ring to prove it. On occasion, he failed. Despite his failures, boxing fans remember him as the greatest. In its role as the pinnacle of civilization and the most powerful nation ever, the US owns the ring. From Korea and Vietnam to Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya (to mention only a few), it repeatedly steps into the ring. It consistently fails.

      Why has no one in the mainstream media dared to point to the painful irony of a recurring situation? The presumed greatest nation in the history of civilization on earth now excels by showing little concern for the earth itself and even less for the safeguard of civilization. The irony becomes extreme when considering the case of Israel. One of the world’s smallest countries has consistently demonstrated its capacity to restrain — if not shackle — the power of the greatest nation on earth, leaving the United States on the sidelines in the role of a spectator with nothing more to do than quietly “urge restraint.”

      Embed from Getty Images

      What is behind the belief Americans continue to have that their nation is the greatest in the history of mankind? Objective observers across the globe might attribute the belief to the triumph over the past century of what is called “the American way of life.” Hollywood and TV have projected the image of a self-satisfied consumer society the rest of the world is called upon to envy. They can see that it also happens to be supported by the dictatorship of the dollar and the massive deployment of military might across the globe.

      In other words, the rest of the world recognizes that the US is an empire, just as most inhabitants of the Mediterranean basin two thousand years ago recognized the omnipresent power of the Roman Empire. Empires are not only coercive political and military forces with a skill for organizing and exploiting the economic resources of other peoples. As Shakespeare’s triumphant Henry V wittily observed in his attempt to persuade his future wife, the Dauphine Catherine, to violate her rigid French customs and kiss him, empires are also “the makers of manners.” They have the psychological power to impose what they have the habit of doing for their own pleasure as the accepted norm for anyone in the purview of their political and economic sovereignty. In that sense, the US may well be the most successful empire in the history of mankind.

      Americans and America’s media refuse to admit they function like an empire. They imagine their nation as a disinterested beacon of democracy and a purveyor of prosperity. When Americans claim their military is “a force for good,” they believe that the only reason the CIA overturns governments or that their troops “pacify” nations is to invite the downtrodden of the earth into the cornucopia of American consumerism. Even the otherwise subtle analyst, Francis Fukuyama, allowed himself to embrace that myth when he predicted the end of history in 1992, before belatedly postponing the date of that Hegelian moment.

      Historical Note

      As the US campaigns to prevent a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it’s worth noting a mildly surprising fact reported by Al Jazeera. Could this be the beginning of a historical about-face? Concerned by the global reaction to Israel’s annihilation of the building in Gaza that housed the Associated Press and Al Jazeera, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken demanded evidence of Israel’s claim that Hamas was operating in the building. In response, “Israeli military spokesman Lt Gen Jonathan Conricus told CNN on Sunday, ‘We’re in the middle of fighting. That’s in process and I’m sure in due time that information will be presented.’”

      Call this the in-due-time defense. In such debates, “due time” means the time it takes to forget the request. It is part of the science and art at which the Israelis excel, moving forward on the strength of never-ending faits accomplis. Ian McCredie has pointed out in these columns four years ago that Israel’s method is similar to the way the US expanded over the 19th century from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Consciously or unconsciously, Israel’s settlement strategy was modeled on America’s Manifest Destiny. McCredie sees another disturbing parallel with France’s Vichy regime during World War II.

      Could it be that US politicians literally believe Fukuyama’s thesis of the end of history correlating with the fall of the Soviet Union? Enthralled by the success of what is referred to as Pax Americana, are they tempted to see history frozen into a mythical ideal that appeared to triumph during the Cold War? Donald Trump became president by convincing enough Americans that he could “make America great again.” Most people saw that as an expression of nostalgia for the 1950s. Similarly, Joe Biden represents the best throwback the Democrats could propose: a candidate enamored of the good old days of American power and intent on restoring the vanished American prestige he remembered from his youth.

      Using its veto on Sunday, the US cast the sole vote at the UN Security Council quashing a resolution calling for a ceasefire while condemning Israel’s military responses as excessive. In its absolute subservience to Israel and willingness to buck the unanimity of other nations in the Security Council, perhaps the nostalgia of manifest destiny and the memory of a time when the US won wars and dominated through force are what guide US presidents today to bend before Israel’s will. Israel’s brand of exceptionalism, marked by its tendency to defy all restraint, may be the fantasy that enables Americans — now condemned to do little more than “urge restraint” — to believe in their own myth of American exceptionalism.

      Could that be the real lesson emerging from the current crisis? President Biden’s unconditional support of Israel’s right to self-defense — criticized, on the right, by Senator Tom Cotton, who calls it a “policy of weakness and appeasement,” insufficiently supportive of Israel right to unrestrained offense and, on the left, for its failure to take into account Israel’s oppression of Palestinians — demonstrates how what has become truly exceptional is the confusion about what it means to be exceptional.

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More

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      in World Politics

      Biden Washes His Hands of the Israel-Palestine Affair

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      Faced with a serious clash in Jerusalem between two communities divided on the subject of religion, the Roman Empire’s man of the hour, its colonial governor Pontius Pilate made the bold decision to suppress his own opinion and not to intervene in the debate. As a patriotic polytheist, he had no time to waste on disputes concerning monotheistic truth. Instead, he washed his hands before the raging mob. He let those who held local power and who shouted the loudest have their way. His action, dating from two thousand years ago, eventually spawned the proverbial expression, “To wash your hands of the affair.”

      When a far more violent crisis broke out in Jerusalem last week, US President Joe Biden demonstrated his own firm resolution to steer clear of an escalating conflict that had begun in East Jerusalem and has now reached beyond Israel’s borders into Lebanon and Jordan. Biden has taken up his post at the washbasin to avoid having to speculate about the truth.

      White America’s Burden in the Holy Land

      READ MORE

      In a phone call to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu last Wednesday, Biden reaffirmed the position traditionally taken by all recent US presidents that consists of deferring to Israel’s every wish. Netanyahu appreciated Biden’s compliance. He reiterated to the media the logic the Biden administration endorsed: “They have upheld our natural and self-evident right to defend ourselves, to act in self-defense against these terrorists who both attack civilians and hide behind civilians.”

      Today’s Daily Devil’s Dictionary definition:

      Self-evident:

      Unquestionably true, especially when the assertion corresponds to one’s self-interest

      Contextual Note

      When a modern politician bandies about the adjective “self-evident,” it inevitably evokes Thomas Jefferson’s famous words in the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

      As a child of the European Enlightenment, Jefferson built his reasoning on philosophical grounds that appear beyond the scope of Bibi Netanyahu’s commitment to self-interested expediency. What Jefferson described as self-evident were “truths.” In contrast, Netanyahu evokes “rights” he considers self-evident, specifically the right to violate international law when Israel feels threatened. Jefferson’s “truths” are the equivalent of axioms in mathematics. They stand as true without being derived logically from any other truth. Netanyahu’s “rights” are self-declared rather than self-evident.

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      Jefferson modeled his thought on the political philosophy of the English philosopher John Locke, a proponent of government by consent of the governed. Locke insisted on the government’s requirement to respect its citizens’ “life, liberty and property.” Jefferson extended the meaning of “property” by calling it “the pursuit of happiness.” Even non-property owners in a democracy could thus be deemed citizens. (That of course excluded slaves, including Jefferson’s own slaves, who existed as the property of property owners).

      Most modern politicians have lost all interest in philosophy. They prefer to evoke half-remembered philosophical concepts and use them as meaningless rhetorical placeholders. In his attempt to sound Jeffersonian, Netanyahu expediently skips an important step in Locke’s and Jefferson’s political reasoning: the philosopher’s insistence that a government’s legitimacy is derived from the consent of the governed. That ultimately means that political rights exist not as self-evident principles but as an effect of the law, which is the expression of a social and political consensus serving to limit rather than expand the government’s capacity for aggression.

      Netanyahu takes the Jeffersonian idea of a self-evident truth about political systems, turns it on its head and transforms it into the inalienable right of the government to violate the rights of the people under its jurisdiction. Concerning self-evident truths, Locke wrote: “I may warn men not to make an ill use of them, for the confirming themselves in errors.”

      Some justly accuse Jefferson of cheating, having glossed over the paradox of slavery while asserting that all men are created equal. Netanyahu’s insistence on Israel’s “self-evident right” to self-defense places him closer to Thomas Hobbes, the philosopher of passive obedience to governmental authority, than to Locke. Hobbes’ emphasized the idea of “sovereignty by institution.” It supposes citizens voluntarily yield their rights to the institution and cannot contest its sovereignty.

      Bibi naturally assumes the Jews have transferred their rights to his government. He also expects the Israeli Arabs — citizens who theoretically, but not in practice, have equal rights with the Jews — to do the same, but they now may be revolting. As for the Palestinians in the occupied territories, the only rights they can claim are derived from international law, which the Israeli government routinely flouts.

      The current strife in Jerusalem began with the cynical, supposedly legally justified expulsion of Palestinians, who had been living in their homes in East Jerusalem for decades after the forced reassignment of residency that followed the Palestinian exodus in 1948. This demonstrates how far from the self-evident truths of Jefferson and Locke the supposedly democratic Israeli government has veered. Property even for Arab citizens of Israel is a purely relative concept. As for life and liberty, the Gazans, in their open-air prison, have no hope of enjoying such rights.

      Historical Note

      When the Israelis destroyed the building housing the offices of AP and Al Jazeera in Gaza City on Saturday, they demonstrated their disdain for the liberty of the press. Americans and the US government should be appalled at this violation of what they deem to be sacred “constitutional” values. But it has become evident — if not self-evident — that the Biden administration has no interest in promoting a moral reading of the events in Israel. Calling for a voluntary ceasefire is admirable but will have no effect. When he expressed his “hope … that we will see this coming to a conclusion sooner than later,” he appeared hopeful but helpless. 

      In his victory speech in November, Biden insisted that the nation’s vocation was to “lead by the force of its example and not the example of force.” Faced with the current crisis, he is neither showing an example nor leading, but rather following Israel’s example of leading by force. Many are wondering whether the very idea of leadership by the United States hasn’t lost its former meaning.

      Embed from Getty Images

      In February, clownish UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson effusively announced that “Joe Biden has put the United States back as leader of the free world in a fantastic move that has helped the West to unite.” Johnson was reacting to the speech in which Biden promised to return to the Paris Climate Agreement and move forward with the Iran nuclear deal. The return to the climate accord took place effortlessly but appears to be of little consequence. As for the Iran deal, negotiations have been engaged but possibly too late to expect any enduring success.

      The Biden administration’s anemic reaction to the growing crisis in the Middle East demonstrates that, rather than confirming the nation’s status as “leader of the free world,” it would be more apt to call it “the follower of an apartheid state.” A 2017 article in The Atlantic pointed to the persistent but absurd habit reigning in the media of referring to the US president as the “leader of the free world.” The idea of dividing the globe into the free and the unfree worlds theoretically disappeared with the fall of the Soviet Union. This time around, what has disappeared is the very idea of American leadership. Fewer and fewer countries believe in it. Biden’s hesitations and inaction on various important issues illustrate why.

      Martin Indyck, writing for Foreign Affairs, offers a realistic analysis of the stakes and tactics underlying the superficial game the various concerned parties have been playing in the current crisis. He concludes that “the most basic instincts of the Biden administration are correct.” This is reassuring for the administration, but Indyck may not have noticed the long-term deterioration of the world’s perception of US leadership. He may be mistaken when he sees little risk in simply throwing up one’s hands at yet another Middle East crisis and hoping for a return to “normal.”

      Pontius Pilate’s disinfected hands played a role in launching the religion that would eventually dominate Europe. Still, Pilate’s Roman Empire thrived for another three centuries before one of its emperors, Constantine, decided to turn it over to the Christians. How long does Biden expect his empire to last?

      *[In the age of Oscar Wilde and Mark Twain, another American wit, the journalist Ambrose Bierce, produced a series of satirical definitions of commonly used terms, throwing light on their hidden meanings in real discourse. Bierce eventually collected and published them as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary, in 1911. We have shamelessly appropriated his title in the interest of continuing his wholesome pedagogical effort to enlighten generations of readers of the news. Read more of The Daily Devil’s Dictionary on Fair Observer.]

      The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect Fair Observer’s editorial policy. More