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Sunday, November 23, 2014

This week's notable links follow, especially on Israel, where this summer's Gaza war and the coming elections, on top of nearly twenty years of Likud rule (minus two years for Ehud Barak, 1998-2000) and far-right demagoguery have left a great many Israelis more racist and bloodthirsty than ever. When I talk to people about Israel, they usually throw their hands up in the air, but this is important -- not least because the US is becoming increasingly Israelized, as you can see from Obama's latest escalations in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, and as is portended by the Confederate/Tea Party revolt -- the lynchings the latter dream about are now real in Israel.

• Michael Konczal: Frenzied Financialization:

  The financialization revolution over the past thirty-five years has moved us toward greater inequality in three distinct ways. The first involves moving a larger share of the total national wealth into the hands of the financial sector. The second involves concentrating on activities that are of questionable value, or even detrimental to the economy as a whole. And finally, finance has increased inequality by convincing corporate executives and asset managers that corporations must be judged not by the quality of their products and workforce but by one thing only: immediate income paid to shareholders. [ . . . ]

  But the most important change will be intellectual: we must come to understand our economy not as simply a vehicle for capital owners, but rather as the creation of all of us, a common endeavor that creates space for innovation, risk taking, and a stronger workforce. This change will be difficult, as we will have to alter how we approach the economy as a whole. Our wealth and companies can't just be strip-mined for a small sliver of capital holders; we'll need to bring the corporation back to the public realm. But without it, we will remain trapped inside an economy that only works for a select few.

• Bill McKibben: Congress is about to sabotage Obama's historic climate deal: Slams Sen. Tom Carper (D-DE) for voting in favor of the Keystone/XL pipeline, despite praising Obama for his "climate deal with China." But that's just an example.

  By now it should be clear that giving in to the Republicans does not "pave the way" for future compromises -- that's the Lucy-with-the-football lesson that President Obama has spent his entire term in office learning. Much more fundamentally, though, the problem is this: you can't cut carbon without, you know, cutting carbon.

  The president's accord with China doesn't actually do anything except set a target. To meet that target you have to do things. If you don't do things -- if you keep approving pipelines and coal mines and fracking wells -- then you won't meet the target.

  For the moment, Keystone is the best example of this principle. So far we've stopped it for three years, and in the process pushed companies to pull $17 billion in investment out of the tar sands. That money would have built projects that would have dumped the carbon equivalent of 700 new coal-fired power plants into the atmosphere. We've done something real -- something that will actually help, say, Delaware which has a, you know, coastline.

• Israel links: There's been a steady stream of reports of communal violence between Israelis (especially West Bank and Jerusalem settlers) and Palestinians, which might seem to be symmetrical except for the Israeli state, which holds a practical monopoly on violence and directs it at Palestinians. The number of incidents of attacks by Palestinians against Israelis (an errant car here, a stabbing there, five killed in a Jewish synagogue) has triggered speculation that a third Intifada is in the works. Like the first two, all a third will prove is how intransigent and unengaging Israeli politics has become -- an old story where pent-up frustration gets the best of caution, even knowing that Israel will take every provocation as an excuse for ever greater violence. However, what is different this time is the degree that Israeli civilians have taken the lead in attacking Palestinians, both violently and economically through their campaign to rid Jewish businesses of Palestinian workers. This is happening partly due to the unchecked racism in Israeli political discourse, and to the loss of restraint in Israel's legal system. So the question this time isn't whether there will be an intifada but why there is already a pogrom -- a state-backed civilian riot against a hated ethnic minority.

  • Kate: Israeli government plans 185 miles of new Jewish settler roads in the West Bank: That's just one of dozens of press reports: Israel to approve 200 units in Jerusalem settlement; Palestinian shot dead by Israeli forces in al-Arrub; Palestinian worker shot dead in Israel; Body of Palestinian man found with signs of torture; Soldier stabbed in Tel Aviv dies; Palestinian suspect shot; Israeli forces open live fire at Palestinians during clashes [in Bethlehem]; 58 Palestinians kidnapped in various Arab towns; Israeli settlers torch mosque in Ramallah-area village; Israeli settlers accost Palestinian officers near Nablus; Gun-toting settlers attack female students near Bethlehem; Jews threaten to kill head teacher for having Arab workers at school. Also a link about the Rasmea Odeh case which shows that Israeli injustice is practiced even in Chicago.
  • Kate: Hate attacks in Jerusalem and Israel include one by settler girls: Also: Palestinian woman run over by Israeli near Shu'fat; 2 Israelis stabbed in fight with Palestinians in East Jerusalem; Child seriously injured during interrogation in Jerusalem; Vandals deface car of Acre imam who called for tolerance after J'lem attack. It was also the 20th anniversary of Baruch Goldstein's massacre of 56 worshippers at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron -- often cited as the pivotal event that wrecked the Oslo Peace Process. Goldstein died during the attack, and has been treated as a martyr: "At his funeral, Goldstein was eulogized as a hero, with one speaker, Rabbi Yaacov Perrin, declaring that even 1 million Arabs 'are not worth a Jewish fingernail,' while attendees shouted, 'We are all Goldsteins!' and 'Arabs out of Israel!' Following the slaughter, Goldstein was also lauded by Rabbi Dov Lior, who was and continues to be the chief rabbi of Kiryat Arba and one of the most influential figures in the religious Zionism movement, who called Goldstein, 'holier than all the martyrs of the Holocaust.'" And many more reports along these lines.
  • Annie Robbins: Kahanists attack school after synagogue killings: In Hebron, where the martyred murderer Goldstein is buried, so I figure the "provocation" was merely convenient. Nor was that the only case of settler violence reported here: "And speaking of stories that the mainstream is not covering, Yusuf Hasan al-Ramouni, 32, a Palestinian husband, father, son, and brother was lynched Sunday in a bus in Mount Scopus, which adjoins Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem." Robbins also has videos of Israeli forces spraying "skunk spray" in Palestinian neighborhoods.
  • Gideon Levy: In Israel, only Jewish blood shocks anyone: In Israel, five Israelis killed in a Jerusalem synagogue is a world-class outrage, but 2200 Palestinians killed in Gaza is a statistic. "But this is a society that sanctifies its dead to the point of death-worship, that wears thin the stories of the victims' lives and deaths, whether it be in a synagogue attack or a Nepal avalanche. It's a society preoccupied with endless commemorations in the land of monuments, services and anniversary ceremonies; a society that demands shock and condemnation after every attack, when it blames the entire world."
  • Philip Weiss: Netanyahu's 'battle for Jerusalem' can't end well for any of us: When some horrible act of violence occurs, the instinct of most political leaders is to call for calm, but Netanyahu's speech following the killing of five Israelis in a Jerusalem synagogue was, as Weiss puts it, "blood curdling."
  • Jeff Halper: Israel sows despair and senseless violence: "And the 'Zionist answer' to the downward cycle of senseless violence in which Jerusalem finds itself: house demolitions, mass arrests, revoking the 'residency' of native-born Jerusalemites, closing Palestinian neighborhoods with concrete blocks, arming Israeli Jewish vigilantes and cheap shots at the last person who believes in a two-state solution, Abu Mazen. Everything, that is, except an end to occupation and a just political solution. This is what happens when a powerful country forgoes any effort to address the grievances of a people under its control and descends into raw oppression."
  • Isabel Kershner: Israeli Cabinet Approves Nationality Bill: Could use more detail here, but the legislation appears to be aimed at stripping rights away from "Arab citizens of Israel," including citizenship in some cases. Intriguing sentence: "In what appeared to be a political deal, Mr. Netanyahu promised government support for the hard-line versions of the bill in a first reading in Parliament this week on the condition that the law would be moderated before any final approval."
  • William Saletan: Hate Thy Neighbor: Subtitle: "How Israel teaches its citizens all the wrong lessons." For instance, there's the policy of demolishing the homes of the families of already-killed "terrorists": "In other words, the logic of the policy is that it punishes people who don't commit acts of terror. Terrorists want to die, so they aren't deterred. Israel targets their loved ones, who would suffer more acutely, in the hope that this "price" will intimidate the would-be perpetrator. That is the logic of hostage taking, and of terrorism."
  • Michael Wilner: Cornered but unbound by nuclear pact, Israel reconsiders military action against Iran: So the sabre-rattling resumes, just as the US and Iran are putting the finishing touches on a deal promising to return Iran to the good graces of the NPT, certified as a state that is not developing nuclear weapons. Of course, Netanyahu wants to torpedo that deal (and is probably expecting the Republican congress to do his dirty work for him -- after all, they were elected precisely for their inability to think independently). He also no doubt wants to bring up the spectre of Iran any time the US suggests he negotiate peace with the Palestinians. But wasn't it just a few months ago when he admitted that his last round of sabre-rattling was nothing more than a scam to hustle the dumb Americans, and that Israel never had any intention of attacking Iran in the first place?

  I also want to single out Richard Silverstein: Terror Rules Jerusalem: He points out that the "heinous synagogue terror attack by Palestinians in the West Jerusalem neighborhood of Har Hof" took place on grounds of the former Palestinian village of Deir Yassin, "where the Irgun murdered 100 Palestinians as part of the pre-war (1948) violence that eventually led to the Nakba," adding "It's horrible to think that this single place could be the site of two such tragedies." He doesn't mention that the ratio of dead is close to the historical norm for matched sets of Israeli and Palestinian massacres. He then quotes Jerry Haber:

  In the next few days, after the IDF and the settlers will have taken their vengeance, under the Orwellian cover of "deterrence," life will go on. The settlers who commit price-tag attacks will be condemned for a day, then understood, then arrested, maybe, convicted maybe, and pardoned, probably. The soldiers and police will do whatever they want with impunity, B'tselem cameras or not. Land will be expropriated, freedoms eliminated, the matrix of control and, most of all, the routine will continue until the next time, when Jews die, and the clueless Israelis hold everybody and everything but themselves responsible.

  Silverstein then moves on to the death of Yusuf Al-Ramuni, who was found hung in an egged bus he drove. The Israelis promptly declared the death a suicide, although there is evidence that he was lynched.

  Further, in the media rush to cover the horrific attack on the Har Nof synagogue, let's not forget that this incident preceded it. Terror always has a context. Do not forget that no matter how heinous an event, something equally heinous preceded and incited it.

  While the world justifiably gasps at an attack on a Jewish house of worship, let's remember that Palestinians see their own mosques and cemeteries torched and desecrated by settler price taggers. They see hundreds of heavily armed Israeli Police defiling the sacred precinct of Haram Al Sharif. Does anyone believe that a Muslim is not as horrified by this encroachment as a Jew is by an assault on praying Jews?

  It takes two, and Palestinian rage derives from Israeli provocation. Certainly, the settlers who murder Palestinians believe the converse. So why not credit Palestinian rage as much as Israeli? [ . . . ]

  Examine once again Bibi's response to the Kafr Kana police murder. He dispensed with rote regret altogether. He launched into barely controlled rage at Palestinian protests against this cold-blooded murder and warned they would be "dealt with" severely if they didn't learn to behave themselves.

  Bibi doesn't mind the current level of civil unrest. It plays into his hand for upcoming elections, and this is literally all he cares about. Israelis flock to the strong man, even if he's utterly unable to stifle Palestinian terror. The problem will be that Bibi will win an election, but have no more idea how to quell the rebellion after the election than he does now.

  Silverstein thinks a Third Intifada is already here, "but unlike the earlier Intifades, this one is a mutual affair in which Jewish terror (whether official and State-sponsored or vigilante-based) responds to Palestinian terror (or vice versa)." Actually, he forgets the overwhelming preponderance of Israeli violence in both previous Intifadas -- a term which gives Palestinians more strategic credit than they deserve. (In fact, I've long argued that the second Intifada should have been named for Shaul Moffaz, the man who started it, and looking back Pogrom might have been more accurate; looking forward it certainly will be.)

  You might also read Silverstein's later post, In Race for Next Shin Bet Chief, May Worst Man Win. In the US we're so used to voting for "lesser evils" that the "may worst man win" notion is not just alien, it's downright terrifying. Ever since the German CP really did let the worst man win, we've been popular frontists -- partly because the world has never been so vile, nor the hope for revolution so sweet, to let the world crash so dismally. (The right, on the other hand, with its distorted vision and messianic fervor, has often done just that.) On the other hand, Silverstein has become so pessimistic about Israel that the only chance he sees is complete breakdown. It's a scary argument.

• Also, the US war machine is heating up: If Republicans want to pick a fight over the arbitrary, unilateral abuse of presidential power, they're welcome to start here:

  • Mark Mazzetti/Eric Schmidt: In a Shift, Obama Extends US Role in Afghan Conflict: "Obama's order allows American forces to carry out missions against the Taliban and other militant groups threatening American troops or the Afghan government, a broader mission than the president described to the public earlier this year, according to several administration, military and congressional officials with knowledge of the decision. The new authorization also allows American jets, bombers and drones to support Afghan troops on combat missions."
  • US-led airstrikes said to have killed more than 900 people including 52 civilians in Syria since September.
  • US plans to arm Iraq's Sunni tribesmen with AK-47s, RPGs, mortars.
  • Andrew Bacevich: Daydream Believers: Disposes of five key myths Washington insiders believe only as a matter of faith (and in many cases their jobs), since the facts clearly don't support them: "The presence of US forces in the Islamic world contributes to regional stability and enhances American influence; The Persian Gulf constitutes a vital US national security interest; Egypt and Saudi Arabia are valued and valuable American allies; The interests of the United States and Israel align; Terrorism poses an existential threat that the United States must defeat."

Also, a few links for further study:

• Paul Krugman: The Structure of Obamacare: This is fairly basic, but still above most heads, so worth explaining:

  It's important to be clear what this does NOT mean -- it doesn't mean that there is a huge hidden burden on the public. For the most part, people buying health insurance would have bought it anyway. Under single-payer, they would have stopped doing that, and paid taxes instead; under the ACA, they continue to pay premiums but don't pay the extra taxes. There's no secret extra cost.

  So, why was Obamacare set up this way? It's mainly about politics, but nothing that should shock you. Partly it was about getting buy-in from the insurance industry; a switch to single payer would have destroyed a powerful industry, and realistically that wasn't going to happen. Partly it was about leaving most people unaffected: employment-based coverage, which was the great bulk of private insurance, remained pretty much as it was. This made sense: even if single-payer would have been better than what people already had, it would have been very hard to sell them on such a big change. And yes, avoiding a huge increase in on-budget spending was a consideration, but not central.

  The main point was to make the plan incremental, supplementing the existing structure rather than creating massive changes. And all of this was completely upfront; I know I wrote about it many times.

  Most single-payer advocates will counter that the health insurance industry deserved to be destroyed. Of course, I agree, and would like to go further in nationalizing health care -- the insurance industry isn't the only sector that rips the public off, even if it is unique in how little value it adds to the system. However, if the obstacle to single-payer is the political power of the health insurance industry, it would be worthwhile looking at reforms to ACA that would knock that industry down a notch or two. The "public option," which was a key part of the original act, was one: this would weaken the industry in two ways: by drawing customers away, and by reducing profit margins through tougher competition.

  I suspect the main source of opposition to the ACA is the kneejerk belief common on the right that prefers policy made by profit-seeking private companies over the public-servants of government bureaucracies. It's hard to see why anyone should believe that, but sometimes business doesn't cut its own throat, and sometimes government does.

  Krugman writes more about ACA and partisan blinders here:

  The mind reels. How is it possible for anyone who has been following politics and, presumably, policy for the past six years not to know that Obamacare is, in all important respects, identical to Romneycare? It has the same three key provisions -- nondiscrimination by insurers, a mandate for individuals, and subsidies to make the mandate workable. It was developed by the same people. I and many others have frequently referred to ObamaRomneycare.

  Well, I've know for years that many political pundits don't think that understanding policy is part of their job. But this is still extreme. And I'm sorry to go after an individual here -- but for God's sake, don't you have to know something about the actual content of a policy you critique?

  And what's actually going on here is worse than ignorance. It's pretty clear that we're watching a rule of thumb according to which if Republicans are against a proposal, that means it must be leftist and extreme, and the burden on the White House is to find a way to make the GOP happy. Needless to say, this rewards obstructionism -- there is literally nothing Obama can do to convince some (many) pundits that he's making a good faith effort, because they don't pay any attention to what he does, only to the Republican reaction.

• Nancy Le Tourneau: Understanding the Threat of a Confederate Insurgency: Starts with a long quote from Doug Muder's Not a Tea Party, a Confederate Party, which makes the point that the first war the US lost was the Civil War -- not in 1865, when the Confederate Army was disbanded, but by 1877, when Reconstruction ended with the restoration of the Confederate aristocracy, setting the stage for Jim Crow and all that. If I understand LeTourneau correctly, she's arguing that the explosion of neo-Confederates is a last-ditch reaction against change -- something more likely to be a sporadic nuisance than a gathering wave. Nonetheless, the ability of the right to resist and even roll back reform is a repeated theme in American history, and we're seeing way too much of it now.

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