mother rachel returns

Ynet news, English website of Yediot Acharonot newspaper, reports at least two rabbis having stated that the matriarch Rachel, wife of Jacob and mother of Joseph and Benjamin, appeared in Gaza and assisted Israeli soldiers in the fighting. According to Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, a former Chief Rabbi and spiritual mentor to the Shas (Sephardic religious) party, she appeared at the entrance of a house and warned the soldiers to be careful because terrorists were inside. Rabbi Mordecai Eliyahu went a step further, claiming to have sent Rachel himself, although at least one other Rabbi disputes this.

It's easy to make fun of stories like this, but they reflect an important point. Most people (and especially most men) associate their mothers with warmth and protection and their fathers with a rather more distant, judgmental aspect. Accordingly there is an enormous hunger for a female as well as, or in place of, a male deity. But men, who have most of the power, generally do not want to give it up.

Different religions resolve this tension in different ways. In Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christianity, the figure of Mary accomplishes the task, nominally the mother of God but, in popular versions of the religion, a co-equal or even dominant figure. Hinduism similarly features goddesses like Lakshmi and Paravathi who--while officially serving as the consorts of male deities--often play a no less important role.

Judaism, which is more vehemently monotheistic--and some would say, male dominated--has no precise equivalent. Here is where Mother Rachel (Rachel Imenu, pronounced with a hard "ch" in Hebrew) is so important. Although she has limited theological significance, Rachel has long been a symbol of physical redemption and return from exile, largely because of the passage in Jeremiah that portrays her weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted because they are no longer nearby. Probably the most emotional song following the Six Day War was entitled "Re'i Rachel Re'i" [Look Rachel Look], encouraging the Matriarch to take notice of the Israelis' return to Bethlehem; and Rachel's Tomb [Kever Rachel Imenu] in that city has, after the Western Wall, been the most emotional pilgrimage site since that period. Rachel has thus, in a popular if not official sense, taken on at least part of the role played by female saints and deities in less purist religions: forgiver, comforter, the familial/emotional as opposed to the national/political side of exile and redemption.

What troubles me about the Gaza story is not its improbability--I find the appearance of a Biblical Matriarch no more improbable than many other things that happen in the Middle East, and considerably less so than some--as the nature of her intervention. In the story as related by Yediot, Rachel warns the soldiers not to enter a house because there might be dangerous men waiting inside. But every Israeli soldier was aware of this danger, anyway: it would not have taken a supernatural intervention to tell them.

Even more disturbing is the outcome. In the story, the soldiers hearken to Rachel, enter the house very carefully . . . and kill the inhabitants. It is difficult to believe that Rachel, who died in childbirth, would be happy with this result, even if the inhabitants were all heavily armed (I shudder to think if they weren't).

I haven't seen Rachel lately, but as I write this I am conjuring up a definite image. She is sitting in Bethlehem and, for the first time since 1967, has begun crying again. Why are you crying, I ask her? I am crying because my children have returned only to begin killing each other, she replies. In the Biblical version God tells Rachel to refrain from weeping because her children will someday return. Who, using what argument, will tell her to stop crying now?

obama first week

Great symbolism, tackled a lot of important issues (Guantanamo, financial institution reform, etc.) in a more-or-less right direction, the change in style (more energy, less confrontational) is certainly most welcome. Still very concerned that the stimulus bill is all over the place: he seems to want to do the right thing, but hard to resist the impression that Congress is using him for its own ends. Their strategy seems to be, we all love change, but change turns out to be whatever we wanted to do before anyway. No idea where he is headed on foreign policy, and not sure he has one, either. New presidents always say the domestic issues will come first, but they don't always wind up having that luxury.

Is it me or are the Republicans still in a time warp? I saw Mitch McConnell talking about the need for new tax cuts, we need to put more money in people's pockets and let them decide what to do with it, he looked like a leftover from the Reagan era that they forgot to take off the invitation list. We (they) had better get some younger, more up-to-date spokespersons or it's going to be a long four years.

one state, two states, three states

Once the casualties have been tallied and the war crimes allegations traded--and once, one hopes, Gilad Shalit has been returned to his family--attention is likely to focus on the long-term future of the Middle East. Since 1993, diplomacy has focused on the so-called two-state solution: a new Palestinian state or entity would arise alongside Israel and everyone would go home happily. It's not exactly going out on a limb to suggest this has not worked out as planned. In the aftermath of the Gaza War, it's hard to see any Israeli Government countenancing a further withdrawal from the West Bank, an event which might quickly lead to Hamas rockets pointed, not at Sderot and Beer-Sheva, but at Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Ben Gurion Airport. Palestinians, for their part, are increasingly disenchanted with the two-state concept, which they see as a trick to maintain an unequal division of the land without addressing the underlying issues. While American and Israeli diplomacy both cling to a two-state concept, it seems a distant hope at best.

With the two-state idea in limbo, some experts--Palestinians but also a few Israelis--have begun to revive the one-state concept, which was the essential Arab position until about 15 years ago. Writing in today's N.Y. Times, Muammar Qaddafi, of all people, endorsed this solution, calling for the establishment of a new "Isratine" that would encompass Israeli and Palestinian aspirations under a single national roof. Israelis, of course, see this as simply a polite call for the destruction of their country, and have shown little interest in the concept. Yet in an odd way, with Israel controlling most of Mandatory Palestine and facing increasingly violent insurgencies from the Arab population--insurgencies that constantly threaten to involve indigenous Arabs together with those in the territories--the proposal has already been achieved.

My personal view is that neither the conventional two- or one-state solutions are viable under present circumstances. I cannot understand how two states, one of which has perhaps ten times the per capita income and hundreds of times the military power of the other, can live together peacefully without inviting outside interference. Nor can I understand how putting everyone together in one country would make things any better. More likely, it would lead to a new and more violent replay of the 1948 civil war, with the difference that the Jews, who control the economy, military, airports, and almost everything else of value in the country, would probably assert even more one-sided control.

To paraphrase Sherlock Holmes, when all the solutions to a problem are improbable, you have to begin to look at the least improbable alternative. To me, the least dangerous approach has always been an interim and slow-moving rather than a full and immediate solution. I don't know exactly what this approach would look like, but here are some preliminary thoughts:

First, I think it needs to be recognized that the PLO and Hamas have failed to provide peace and security in the territories and begin to think about a new arrangement. Ideally this would involve some kind of direct involvement by the Jordanians (West Bank), Egyptians (Gaza), or a combination thereof. At the very least, there should be some kind of peacekeeping force, composed of European, Islamic, or neutral countries, to provide order in the territories and separate the Israeli and Palestinian forces. Many Israelis hate this idea, pointing out the failures of the Lebanon and (pre-1967) Sinai peacekeeping forces, and fearing that Israel would face rocket and suicide attacks without being able to strike back. Hamas itself has objected to having foreign forces on its territory. But the Sinai and Golan peacekeeping forces have produced relative calm for the past generation. Can anyone say the same for the West Bank and Gaza?

Second, and together with the above, there needs to be a serious plan to rebuild the economy in the West Bank and Gaza so that--if not quite the equal of Israel--it is at least robust enough that the residents have something to lose in a future conflict. This is often perceived as utopian, but is actually less so than commonly thought. In the first decade or so after 1993 there was a significant development of the Palestinian (as well as Israeli) economy. Many of the buildings that Israel knocked down in the past few weeks were put up in that period. An infusion of cash, together with stability provided by outside peacekeeping forces, would help it happen again.

Third, and most important, both sides must use the time gained above to make serious changes in what might be called constitutional structure--the legal and cultural arrangements by which each side understands itself and its relation to the outside world. The requisite changes on the Palestinian side are perhaps easiest to see. There needs to be a real acceptance of Israel, in Arabic and English, and by Hamas as well as Fatah or what's left of it. The UN and Europeans, who have been so eloquent in decrying Israeli atrocities, must condition further support on the elimination of textbooks that celebrate war and martrydom over peace and coexistence. It's pretty hard to make peace with people who think you are the equivalent of pigs or monkeys; many Israelis have probably stopped trying.

But Israel must make equally painful changes. It is frankly absurd that the country is debating whether Arab parties should be allowed to participate in elections, or whether Arab parents should be able to send their children to Jewish preschools. Even if every inch of the territories should be returned, more than twenty percent of the Israeli population will be Arabs, a much higher percentage if guest workers, Russian immigrants, and others with no or questionable Jewish background are included. A state that was a medina l'kol ezrakhekha--a state for all its citizens--would be a far more likely candidate for peace than one which privileges Zionist Jews over all other residents. Orthodox Jews, who are frequently Zionists but increasingly emphasize the religious over the national aspect, might also feel more comfortable in such a state.

Finally, there must be meaningful peace with Syria and at least some kind of understanding with Iran and its surrogates. Little kids follow the big kids, not the other way around. A peace that does not involve these regional powers is likely doomed from the start.

None of this is guaranteed to succeed. But if something like the above could go forward for (say) 15 or 20 years--economic growth, state-to-state peace treaties, an end to cross-border violence and terrorism--it is at least possible the dynamic would change, and things that seem impossible today would start to come into focus. The most probable outcome, I think, would be a sort of one-and-a-half state solution, with two states controlling their own internal affairs but with a unified economy, foreign policy (anything is possible), and security apparatus. Issues which now seem uncompromisable, like the Right of Return (both Israeli and Palestinian) and control over holy places, would become much more so if the two sides learned, slowly but surely, to trust each other. A prolonged cooling-off period might also produce new leadership on both sides, reversing the militarization of the Israeli and Palestinian ruling classes that makes acheiving peace so difficult.

President Obama has promised an Administration that is realistic, patient, and honest. The honest truth is that Israelis and Palestinians are not ready for a final peace agreement, and that efforts to push them into one are likely to make things worse rather than better. A series of interim steps, involving substantial economic aid and involvement by foreign peacekeeping forces, offers at least the chance for long-term improvement. In American terms twenty years is a long time. In the Middle East it is nothing. Besides, Obama is only 47. In twenty years he'll still be around, and the world may look a lot better if he takes his time.

fiat and chrysler

I suppose you have to be an Italophile to be excited about FIAT buying a 35 percent stake in Chrysler the other day. FIAT, you may recall, was supposed to have an arrangement with GM a while back, but the latter backed out of the deal when FIAT hit the skids a few years ago. Now the roles have been reversed, and the Italians are riding to at least the partial rescue of another troubled American firm.

One question is what they will call the FIAT-inspired cars that arrive at Chrysler dealers in the next few years. As of now only high-end Italian cars (Maserati, Ferrari, etc.) are available in the United States. If you wanted (say) a Punto, Bravo, or 500, you had to buy in in Italy and sneak it home in your suitcase. But these names won't mean much to American buyers. We used to joke, when I was younger, that it would be fun to drive around town in a Chevy Cappuccino. I think the name is still available, isn't it?

obama's first day

Well it's official, even a professional cynic like myself was moved by the site of the patrons at the Caffe Italiano turning down the Albanian disco music to listen to Obama speak, and I think that Bush himself looked more comfortable back in Midland. I heard perhaps one too many instances of self-congratulation (did you know that he was the first African-American president?) and smugness all around. But it was surely an encouraging start.

What struck me most about the speech was its Kennedyesque overtones. I had expected more of a Rooseveltian emphasis on hard times, nothing to fear but fear, and there was some of that too. But there was more of the "bear any burden" optimism than I had expected for such hard times. My earliest memory is of Mahalia Jackson [sp?] singing the National Anthem at Kennedy's inauguration in 1960: intentionally or not, Aretha Franklin recreated at least part of that for me. That Ted Kennedy collapsed after the event only added, in its way, to the parallel.

I still don't know what to make of Obama. As a symbolic leader he is already up there with Kennedy and Reagan, the most photogenic presidents of the television era. On the substance I'm rather less sure. I don't as yet see much connection between his "change" theme and the reality of a quasi-Clinton restoration, or between his professed moderation and the largest expansion of Government in memory. And the whole ritual of discrediting the past leader in order to anoint the new one is a bit too tribal for my taste. But I've proved many times that I'm nowhere near the mainstream. We'll see.

tax policy, "stimulus," and the new administration

Fiscal policy will play a central role in the new administration, although the tax part may be secondary to the spending part for a time. What is the Obama team proposing, what are the Republicans countering, and who's right or wrong?

Basically the Democrats are proposing an $800 billion stimulus package, of which the majority is increased spending and something like $300 billion "middle class" tax cuts. This is on top of money already allocated to financial institution relief or bail-out (take your pick) and additional promises like universal health care, changes to social security and medicare, etc. (These last are supposed to save money, although that hasn't always been the case.) The spending appears to be a grab bag of infrastructure and education programs, increased unemployment assistance, assistance to State and local Governments, and so forth; much of this will undoubtedly change during the markup process.

The Republicans, bouncing back from their latest electoral debacle, have countered with proposals to (surprise) place somewhat more emphasis on tax cuts, including businesses as well as individuals, and to rein in or at least target the spending increases better. Republicans (and some Democrats) have also complained about use, or misuse, of the financial bailout funds. A cartoon, reprinted in Sunday's NY Times, suggested that the public would prefer Tony Soprano to ensure that funds are used wisely.

There are also the usual run of expiring and other tax provisions, which would attract attention in an ordinary year but are taking something of a back seat now.

My instinct is that the Republicans are right to challenge Obama on both the general philosophy and the details of his "stimulus" package. Economic stimulus is such a broad term as to be almost entirely meaningless: a program of Reaganesque tax cuts and military spending increases would qualify as a stimulus program, as would sprinkling money from helicopters. While more spending on education or infrastructure may be good ideas in their own right, it's hard to see what they have to do with the current fiscal crisis, or (if the goal is imply to inflate the economy at all costs) why they are better than other alternatives. It is likewise entirely proper to ask where the Wall Street bailout funds are going, a looming scandal that the public has only begun to focus on, and whether the new ones will go to necessary or merely pork-barrel projects.

The problem is that the Republican alternative, in particular the tax portion, is even less well targeted than the Democrats'. It's not entirely clear what led to the current crisis, but it almost certainly wasn't high corporate tax rates. The GOP, like some liberal Democrats, thus risks appearing to push a discredited agenda that has little or anything to do with the current mess.

My own feeling is that everyone needs to take a step back and think about correcting the problems that led to the current meltdown, including excessive debt, poor financial regulation, and weaknesses in key industries--including the political system--and try to fix those rather than rushing headlong into a huge stimulus package that will create gargantuan deficits without necessarily addressing any of the underlying issues. Real tax reform, as opposed to willy-nilly tax cuts, might be an important part of this program. It may be that it is too late for all this, that the economy simply requires a large infusion of cash and it doesn't matter all that much how it gets there. Perhaps, as Yogi Berra might put it, half of the crisis is 90 percent psychological, and it is more important to take bold action than to worry exactly what action is taken. But it's rarely a good idea to fight new evils with methods designed for old ones, and I have the distinct sense that is what both Democrats and Republicans are doing. Both Kennedy and Reagan inflated the economy, and both were pretty popular presidents. But where were the economy, and the Government, a few years later?

bush to obama

There will be a great deal of festivity surrounding the transfer of power in the next few days, likely enhanced by the fortuitous intervention of the Martin Luther King Holiday. We can expect to hear a great deal of celebration, much of it justified, about how far the country has come in the last three months, not to mention the last forty years. How much of this celebration will be temporary, and how much reflects lasting change?

One must begin here with the legacy of the outgoing president, George W. Bush. There is an inevitable tendency to downgrade the departing leader in order to make the new one seem better by comparison, a tendency which Bush's nearly universal unpopularity has only augmented. In medieval Rome, mobs would drag the body of the dead pope through the streets, something they would not have dared do while he was alive. Bush will presumably escape this fate, but a sort of Glorious Revolution narrative, emphasizing his evil and incompetence and its replacement by the Good King Obama, has begun to take root. Paul Krugman suggested in the N.Y. Times that mere replacement is not enough, the evils of the old regime requiring formal investigation to prevent their possible recurrence.

I think a bit of perspective is in order here. Lately I have been reading "Dead Certain," a book on the Bush Presidency by the journalist Robert Draper. Draper spares none of the limitations of the Bush era, including the emphasis on loyalty over competence and the rather cynical exploitation of 9-11 for political purposes, which began to catch up with Bush even before his reelection in 2004. (Remember the Bush-Kerry debates, even more one-sided that the Obama-McCain editions.) A related theme is the difficulty of the Austin-Washington transfer: Bush's highly personal style, which emphasized good relationships with key Texas players and an emphasis on a few well-defined reform programs (education, tort reform, etc.), traveled poorly to Washington, where the issues were more complex and the atmosphere less forgiving. The change in political spectrulm was also important here. Like Lyndon Johnson years before him, Bush's style and substance appeared mainstream in Texas politics: in Washington he appeared both exotic and extreme.

Yet Draper's book by no means makes Bush appear stupid, incompetent, or evil. We are taken back to the days after 9-11, and reminded of the nearly universal support his initiatives, including at first Iraq, received from actors across the political spectrum. His quiet persistence and dignity, in particular his concern for dead or wounded soldiers and their families, comes across quite effectively.

One hopes that some of this sense of proportion--of the fate of good intentions and the difference between campaigning and governing--will also be applied to Bush's replacement. The Obama transition has been a model of dignity, purpose, and balance. Yet many of his supporters, like Bush's before him, have exaggerated the nature of his mandate, calling for a huge expansion of Government power in ways that have little or anything to do with the current economic crisis. Others have carried the inevitable hagiography--the celebration of his wife and children, the ties to the civil rights movement, the alleged brilliance of his oratory--to absurd extremes. Obama himself, with his religious inclination, appears thankfully immune to these excesses. But a harsh dose of realism--of unexpected issues and unlikely alliances--faces both his supporters and his country. Here's hoping that humility will triumph over excessive pride, and the celebration will give way quickly to the hard, morally ambiguous work of remaking a strong but dispirited country.

waltz with gaza

Arriving a few hours early for the NYU tax seminar I decided to take in "Waltz with Bashir," an animated film about the experience of Israeli soldiers in the First Lebanon War (beginning 1982). The tax seminar was lots of fun. Waltz With Bashir wasn't.

The film recounts the efforts of one middle-aged Israeli, who appears to be based on the director (Ari Folman) himself, to reconstruct his memories of the war, and especially the massacre of Palestinian civilians at Sabra and Shatila, which was conducted by Lebanese Phalange but (the film suggests) condoned if not encouraged by the Israelis themselves. Using the animation device as a tool to mediate between reality and memory--we are never entirely sure what actually happened and what the protagonist and his comrades remember happening--the film demolishes every conceivable myth regarding modern war and the Israeli state's conduct of it. Soldiers are shown firing on civilian targets and (even worse, in Israel) abandoning comrades under enemy fire. A soldier returns on furlough to find the country indifferent to the war and enjoying foreign music. An Israeli tells the Phalange, in English, to stop shooting civilians, but with the clear implication he could have done so sooner. Then Defense Minsiter Ariel Sharon is depicted--inaccurately, I believe--enjoying a meal at his ranch while the fighting escalates.

Some have seen Waltz With Bashir as an anti-Israel film and feared that it will contribute to still more criticism of the Gaza War. (Folman is an avowed peacenik and has been strongly critical of the current offensive.) I tend to see it as a comment on broader issues of war and memory that transcend national boundaries. There is no implication in the film that other armies behave any better than Israelis, and no idealization of the other side except perhaps the faceless victims of the Shabra/Shatila atrocity. Indeed, in a memorable scene, Arab irregulars are seen laughing, singing, and (in one case) urinating after they believe they have wiped out an Israeli unit, not noticing a lone soldier who survives by hiding behind a rock.

That said, the movie inevitably brings to mind the suffering in Gaza, where pictures of dead or bleeding civilians (many of them children) have become regular staples of evening newscasts. Some Israelis, notably Gideon Levy of Ha'aretz, have made this comparison explicit, even suggesting that Gaza--because of the direct as opposed to indirect Israeli role--is worse than the Lebanon invasion. Yet there are important differences in the opposite direction. Israelis ultimately turned against the First Lebanon War because they saw it as an imperial adventure not directly related to Israeli security. The Gaza invasion, by contrast, was a direct response to Hamas's renunciation of a cease fire and firing of rockets at Israeli civilian targets. Nor have the critics made clear how one should fight a war against an enemy which intentionally subjects its civilian population to danger. As one Israeli commander put it, pointing to a series of booby-trapped houses, the choice was my soldiers or their buildings: look around and you'll see what choice I made.

My own view is that the war in Gaza demonstrates the futility of both extremes. Neither the peaceniks, who seem to believe that withdrawal from more territory will solve everything, nor the hard-liners, with their talk of "lessons" that often prove the opposite of what was intended, appear to have much of an answer. The real lesson, I think, is that efforts to forge an immediate solution--by more withdrawals or more force-- are likely to make things worse, and that only a gradual peace process, most likely involving outside intervention and organic changes in both the Israeli and Palestinian polities, has a serious chance of success. I'll come back to this as soon as the shooting stops.

the world's shortest honeymoon (part two)

Conventional opinion has it that Barack Obama enters the presidency riding a huge wave of popular approval and will be--if not the most popular president in history--certainly the best of the (admittedly mixed) recent lot. Yet already one can perceive a rather less sanguine outcome, and not far off, either. Consider the following:

1. Obama is promising to take on so many different issues, so quickly, that disappointment is all but inevitable. So far he is promising a several hundred billion dollar tax cut; an eight hundred billion (at last count) "stimulus" package; and a reworking of social security and medicare at the same time. By most standards this would amount to the most impressive package of legislation in one year at least since 1933--and without even reaching national health care or his many other policy proposals.

2. Obama is establishing a pattern of vagueness in policy pronouncements, coupled with inspiring but ultimately empty rhetoric, that encourage both friends and enemies to assert their own agendas without fear of offending him. Even before his inauguration, there is sniping over the content of the stimulus package, potential difficulty on several appointments, and so forth. Because Obama does not seem wedded to one or another ideological position--or simply because he is young and inexperienced--no one, from Arlen Specter to the Democratic leadership, seems especially worried about offending him.

3. The combination of Obama's emphasis on domestic issues, and the uncertain ideology of his foreign policy team, gives foreign countries little incentive to moderate their behavior in America's interest. Israel, for example, appears to be essentially brushing off U.S. proposals for a cease-fire, and probably rushed the Gaza offensive because it was not sure it could rely on Obama's (like Bush's) support. Obama's rather vague pronouncements on the Middle East have done little to reassure them.

None of this is necessarily fatal, and Obama weathered similar criticisms about vagueness in his presidential campaign. But campaigns are not governing, and the combination of a vastly overambitious domestic agenda and burgeoning foreign policy crises--all the while relying on a vague "change" mantra that is not anchored in any substantive political philosophy--suggests a daunting first year. I have lately been reading "Dead Certain," Robert Draper's fine book about the Bush Presidency. Bush came in with another vague mantra (compassionate convervatism) and a sense that his personal skills, as in Austin, would override substantive political problems. It didn't quite work out that way.

richard john neuhaus 1936-2009

Father Richard John Neuhaus, editor of First Things magazine and a prominent intellectual conservative, died yesterday at age 72. I initially came across First Things passing time in a bookstore waiting for our new car to be ready and I haven't stopped reading it since. Neuhaus, a former left-wing Lutheran who evolved into a right-wing Catholic (but not necessarily in that order) had an opinion on almost everything and was not shy about expressing it. Probably he is most famous for his book, "The Naked Public Square," which argued forcefully for the inclusion of a religious perspective in public policy debates. His obituaries also emphasized his work in Catholic-Evangelical dialogue (he believed these two movements constituted the future of Western Christianity and had a relatively low opinion of the liberal mainstream churches). But he could, and did, dabble in everything from abortion (which he opposed) to Jewish-Christian dialogue (which he favored) to Presidential politics and everything else in between: an intellectual and a spiritual leader in the best sense of both terms, someone who made you approach any subject in a manner different than you did before.

One of the most interesting things about Neuhaus--and Catholic intellectuals in general--is the way that he (they) challenge our existing political categories. In Rick Perlstein's "Nixonland," Neuhaus shows up as a Eugene McCarthy delegate to the 1968 Democratic convention, arguing for a forceful position against the Vietnam War and in favor of social justice. Later he became a powerful voice in the anti-abortion movement and a strong critic of political correctness, with regard to both personal and political mores. A similar, although not identical path, was trod by Eugene Genovese, whom conservatives wanted fired from Rutgers for supporting the Vietcong and later became a prominent neocon himself. But did Neuhaus or Genovese really change, or did the world change around them? For that matter are Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, who take an all but pacifist position on foreign policy and support radical action on behalf of the world's poor, really "conservatives" because they oppose abortion, gay rights, or other contemporary lifestyle choices? Who decides what is liberal or conservative in the first place, and how helpful, if at all, are these categories in our political discourse?

the ground war in gaza

Reports from both sides suggest a hardening of positions as well as a rapidly increasing level of casualties in the fighting. The death of more than 40 civilians in or near a UN-run school constitutes a sort of perverse propaganda victory for Hamas but suggests a level of suffering for the Palestinians that goes well beyond past conflicts. Israeli sources argue that they were returning mortar fire from the area, but confirm that the Army's policy is to lay down heavy fire before sending foot soldiers into an area--apparently a lesson from the Lebanon War--and, generally speaking, to regard anything that moves (especially at night) as a legitimate target. Israeli television also suggested today that, if a cease-fire could not be salvaged on conditions acceptable to Israel, more reserves would be called up and presumably a larger part of the Strip would be occupied.

At this point one should probably speak not of good but of less bad outcomes. Perhaps the least bad of these would be for Israel to have won a clear-cut military victory, surrounding key towns and controlling access to key positions, but without actually entering central Gaza, Khan Yunis, etc. with the attendant casualties and human suffering. Like the 1973 October War, this would leave Israel in a strong position but without so humiliating its adversary as to make future peace (or even cease-fire) talks impossible. The danger is that, the longer the fighting goes on, anything less than a complete reoccupation become unacceptable, leaving both sides with little incentive to back down and taking things back essentially where they were a few years ago.

There has been much criticism of Israel for its increasingly hard policy and seeming ambivalence regarding civilian losses. The reality is that fighting an enemy which has announced its intention to destroy you--even to destroy itself if necessary to accomplish this--does not bring out the best in people. It is sad to say, but I wonder if the terrorists have not succeeded in taking everyone down to their level, and if we are not seeing in Gaza a smaller version of the rather horrific future that awaits if wars against extremist nations--Iran, Pakistan, whatever--become the wave of the future. I am reminded of John Dower's book about the Pacific War, "War Without Mercy," which describes the difficulty Americans had in perceiving the Japanese as human after the attack on Pearl Harbor. I don't think anyone needs to be reminded how that war ended.

the bcs system and the need for a playoff

It has become an annual rite to demand that college football establish some kind of playoff--even the President-elect has gotten involved--but this year makes the point even more than most. Yesterday Mississippi, which wasn't even the second best team in the southeastern conference, beat Texas Tech, which was in the BCS running until the very final stages. The Pac 10 (or 12), whose teams were underrated because of the perception that it was a "weak" conference, has apparently won all or nearly all its bowl games. Utah breezed over more highly rated Alabama. This comes on the heels of the last two BCS "championship" games, in which Ohio State was clobbered both times, leaving a clear impression that somebody else should have been there.

The argument against a playoff--aside from sheer inertia--is that it would ruin the regular season and lead an also-ran to claim a fictitious title. There's something to this: the NCAA March Madness does indeed have something of this effect in basketball, as do the Major League Baseball playoffs. But March Madness has 65 teams, I believe, and Major League baseball allows about a quarter of its teams to participate, with even higher percentages in basketball, hockey, and other sports. By contrast, no one is proposing that more than eight teams participate in a college football playoff, out of a couple of hundred that play in Division One. The current system already makes the regular season irrelevant for all but the handful of teams at the very top, and ruins most of the remaining bowl games in the process. As someone in the locker room put it, "you don't make no champion on the computer." From his mouth to the BCS's ears.

salvaging something out of the gaza war

The Gaza War drones on into its next phase, with Israel rejecting a 48-hour cease-fire and apparently preparing a ground offensive. The decision is understandable: the proposal sounded more like a time-out, designed to get Hamas back on its feet, than a serious truce agreement. Nevertheless, the violence has an increasingly ritualized character, and it is hard to see the issue being satisfactorily resolved by it.

One sign of hope, if a faint one, is the reaction of observers on both sides to the ongoing violence. I have previously discussed the range of opinion on the Israeli side, from enthusiastic supporters to liberal doubters to some (like Gideon Levy in Ha'aretz) who have all but labeled their own group the aggressors. But the Arab side too has seen a surprising range of opinion. While there has been a predictable surge in sympathy for the Palestinians--and criticism of Egypt and other Arab states for not helping them--that sympathy has not always been extended to Hamas, who many see as having created and exploited the crisis for its own purposes. Indeed, as Ari Shavit wrote today, many Israeli authors have actually shown more sympathy for the Gaza leadership than have their Arab counterparts.

Given these overlapping opinions, and the unlikelihood of any clear-cut military verdict, one would think the Gaza War might be susceptible to a negotiated settlement--or, more hopefully, that it might prove the basis for a more general Mideast agreement. Progress in the Mideast, when it has come at all, has usually done so on the heels of military conflict. But it has required some kind of outside involvement, typically American, to force the parties together and apply pressure as needed. The Obama Administration had planned to deal with other priorities first. It may not have that luxury.

south side sox

Whatever one thinks of Barack Obama, he certainly looks cool in a T-shirt and a White Sox cap. Always a White Sox cap: I've thought carefully and can't remember him in a Cubs, Bears, or any other Chicago outfit. Which may tell a story, of sorts.

The White Sox have historically been the team of the working class, no nonsense, and primarily (but by no means exclusively) African-American South Side of Chicago--the place were Bad Bad Leroy Brown of the 1970s pop song dwelt. The Cubs, by contrast, play in a North Side neighborhood that is, or has at least become, somewhat fashionable and increasingly gay. Wearing one hat or the other in Chicago--unlike New York, no one ever wears an out-of-town item--instantly identifies you as being on one side or another of the cultural divide.

At times, the rivalry gets testy, as when a vendor outside Comiskey Park (the White Sox home) tried to sell us a shirt captioned, "Wrigley Field: The World's Largest Gay Bar." (I talked my son out of buying it by threatening to call him "Jew Boy" every time that he wore it. ) Presumably Obama would not share this rather uncouth and not-especially-tolerant sentiment. But given the flap over Rick Warren--not to mention events in California, where Black voters helped pass an antigay referendum--one has to wonder: is Obama taking yet another step back into the cultural "mainstream," or is he just looking good?