She looked over his shoulder
For vines and olive trees,
Marble well-governed cities
And ships upon untamed seas,
But there on the shining metal
His hands had put instead
An artificial wilderness
And a sky like lead.

A plain without a feature, bare and brown,
No blade of grass, no sign of neighborhood,
Nothing to eat and nowhere to sit down,
Yet, congregated on its blankness, stood
An unintelligible multitude,
A million eyes, a million boots in line,
Without expression, waiting for a sign.

Thursday, January 15, 2009

Ugh, palestine

Take a look at this op-ed. Maybe I'll elaborate on this more later, but the facts are so naked. Israel has done all sorts of terrible, stupid, and immoral things in the occupied territories, but in general they have a pretty practical view of the whole thing as far as I can tell. See the quotes from leaders of both Hamas and Hezbollah for a contrast. How can anyone with a straight face think these people can be dealt with on a rational level? What the fuck is Israel supposed to do with people like this on the other side?

All sorts of left-leaning folks make the case that the radicalism of these two organizations has it's roots in Israeli abuses. I submit that based on the statements in Mr. Goldberg's article, the rhetoric is both deeper and older than anything Israel has ever done. Why don't we ask Nasrallah whether his opinions about Jews and Israel are based on anything that's happened in since 1940? I think he'd say something like "Well all of those are bad, but it's much deeper than that." He has to; to say otherwise implies that a negotiated solution would be possible as long as Israel "made up" for those wrongs. And clearly, neither he nor Hamas wants coexistence, concessions or not.
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