You, sir, are worse than Hitler ;-)

I hadn't even realized people received "pro-natal" subsidies.

Who knew?

If you want to produce an aging population with a declining birth rate, shouldn't you try to promote economic prosperity? It's not clear to me that Israel's current Gaza policy does this.

Whoops I meant "pre-natal." Freudian slip I guess.

Well it amounts to the same thing methinks. This is particularly pointed vis a vis Arafat's comment about the ultimate Palestinian weapon: the womb.

Here I am going to make a statement about the environment and the need for people (all people) to be responsible about human population growth, let alone creating human beings - using the womb - to attack another people, as per Arafat.

Regardless of whether one "believes" in environmental impact or not, ecosystems and also human systems like agriculture are in fact not to be taken for granted but have been destroyed by people who don't look into the future and who have chopped down all their trees, for example, causing entire populations to disappear or become severely impoverished and victims of environmental disasters - like mudslides and the loss of topsoil (look at Haiti and also certain Native American groups for examples, like the Mimbres, extremely gifted people who just disappeared possibly because they used all their trees for fuel.) Similarly the Dust Bowl was caused by unenlightened farming techniques in near-desert conditions.

Overgrazing has also destroyed grasslands and hastened desertization in vast regions of America, parts of Africa and Asia.

Wierdly environmental causes are dear to the Left so I don't see how Certain People Who Are Pretending To be Left Wing or Who Have Completely Lost Their Sense of Proportion Vis a Vis Really Important Issues Confronting Our Planet mesh this pre-natal subsidy business with environmental concerns.

Those of us who were born in near-desert environments are particularly sensitive to these issues. Ecosystems are delicate and easily unbalanced and where water is scarce, common sense would seem to dictate some - well - common sense about how many people can ultimately live in arid/semi-arid regions. In parts of the US rapid growth has already caused wells to fail and long range problems with irrigation have been noted for ages now, including for example salinization of the soil downstream, which renders the earth infertile.

This is evident in Afghanistan but more immediately salts carried down the Colorado and also the Nile due to the Aswan Dam could be a problem in the future for the rich farmlands in Egypt and California.

So. About "genocide." We are supposed to ignore everything we have already learned about deserts, overpopulation in certain delicate environments, the ability of people to care for their young, etc, which could ultimately result not only in poverty but in the death of BILLIONS due to the destruction of the environment in order to make a political point?

The Chinese were ultimately forced, due to mass starvation, to impose severe limits on the number of births allowed per couple.

It is highly hypocritical of the anti-Kramer argument in this case not to take into account the bigger picture here.

But worst of all I am really really concerned about the degree to which people are taking leave of simply common sense lately.

Ron, I agree with you that Israel's policy vis a vis Gaza doesn't seem to be promoting prosperity AT THIS POINT.

However aren't you maybe looking at this as a snapshot rather than as a point along a continuum?

When Israel left Gaza expensive greenhouse infrastructure was left intact, with millions having been invested to purchase it for the Palestinian people.

It was destroyed.

Indeed, there had been talk of leaving the settlements themselves intact, perhaps to be used as a potentially prosperous resort. However, the Palestinians insisted they be razed; so they were. The planned housing projects on the land never materialized, instead rockets were launched from the ruins.

Building materials to repair the sewage plant and system, which had already been funded, were sent back over the fence packed with explosives, aimed at Israeli civilians.

The border crossings were repeatedly attacked and instead of people coming to work in Israel, terrorists were sent to blow up targets there including a hospital. This particular incident, where a Palestinian woman was being treated for free, fortunately was forestalled in time to prevent a real disaster. But eventually trust was completely eroded and travel and therefore economic opportunity, severely restricted.

So, I am not sure exactly how Israel is supposed to create a prosperous economy in Gaza given the nature of the government there particularly since the Hamas takeover, which was very violent.

Do you have any ideas?

Sophia,

Ron doesn't know what Hamas and Islamic Jihad did to the industrial zones that were created at various crossings on the border to provide the Palestinians with work.
So instead of bussing 2 and 3 hours into Israel to work they were 10 minutes away from their homes. Whole factories were uprooted in Israel and set up at Karni, Erez and other points only to have them bombed and shot up.

Ron also doesn't know about the culture of clans where the better off a man is when he has many sons.

Sol,

Have you come across Judith Butler in anti Israel activities in the US?

Judith Butler: As a Jew, I was taught it was ethically imperative to speak up

Philosopher, professor and author Judith Butler arrived in Israel this month, en route to the West Bank, where she was to give a seminar at Bir Zeit University, visit the theater in Jenin, and meet privately with friends and students. A leading light in her field, Butler chose not to visit any academic institutions in Israel itself. In the conversation below, conducted in New York several months ago, Butler talks about gender, the dehumanization of Gazans, and how Jewish values drove her to criticize the actions of the State of Israel.

...shouldn't that be "world-renowned" theatre in Jenin?

I read the interview with Butler than you linked, Cynic.

She seems like a serious person. And her comment about Israeli Arab families in the Galilee who lost relatives in Gaza is particulary affecting. I think we do tend to forget that we're all interconnected not just in Israel but across the planet.

However, her musings on the wrongs of "ethnocentricity" seem impractical to me. This is especially a bit ironic given "gender troubles," ie self-identification as gay or bi, etc. People used to be in the closet for self-defense and are now proudly "out," which is sort of like Israel isn't it? not being ashamed to be Jewish? which isn't to say the Diaspora isn't also Jewish and also valuable any more than heterosexuals are devalued by gay pride!

Anyhow I think she is mixing up some issues here.

And, there are practical reasons for identity groups. Having a family for one thing - look at the case of the Argentine man recently introduced to his "real" father - for him, that created his identity, something he values. Being Jewish is part of that, same with any other national, religious, sexual or ethnic group - why is this something to be ashamed of or abandoned?

Also, she argues that the state shouldn't impose identify.

Fine - should she?

Put another way should Butler or any other person who argues against Israel have any more right to say we can or can't identify with Israel or with Jewishness than the most hardcore Zionist who says we must identify with Israel, otherwise we are "self-hating?"

People have a right to opinions but they don't have more rights than others do they? And either way - pro-or-anti - here we have people who are making our minds up for us.

This is where it starts becoming offensive.

I do think there is an issue with Jews who are critical of various state policies of Israel being labelled "self-hating," when indeed there is a vast range of Jewish opinion out there; I think we have to be careful about this.

Most of us can see the difference though, between Jews who are critical, who would seek nonviolence, etc, and those who mock us, undermine Jewishness as well as Israel and maybe are outright antisemitic.

Sophia, Butler is indeed a serious person, that is a seriously rabid one. Butler, like Sara Roy, Anna Baltzer, Norman Finkelstein, and others of their ilk, trade on their Jewish antecedents to give added sting to their attacks on Israel and the Jewish community at large, which border on the antisemitic, if when they aren't frankly such. Butler is such an exemplar of this loathsome type that Edward Alexander took note of her in his excellent book, "The Jewish Divide Over Israel: Accusers and Defenders." (Why did her name come up here?)

"...Martin Kramer describes a scurrilous attack on his left flank by many of the usual suspects, beginning with Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada, and supported by MJ Rosenberg, and Juan Cole to name two. It looks like Kramer is attracting all the right opponents."

You can add the loathsome Richard Silverstein of Tikun Olam as one of those usual suspects. Dexter Van Zile singled out Silverstein up as example of psychopathology in his recent essay, "Kreisky's Children."

Sadly, in certain circles it will beoome an accepted, unquestioned commonplace that Kramer advocated genocide, along with the following lies that have also become commonplaces"

-Ariel Sharon ordered (or committed) the massacres at Sabra and Shatila.

- The IDF murdered Rachel Corrie.

- Alan Dershowitz advocates the use of torture, and plagiarized other authors when writing his books.
- From Time Immemorial has been definitively refuted.

- Ben Gurion urged expulsion and genocide of the Arab population.

- The IDF killed Mohammed Al Dura.

- The IDF used white phosporus in violation of international law during Cast Lead.

- There are "Jewish-only" roads in Israel and the territories.

- The "settlements" are all built on land stolen from Arabs.

You can probably think of many more. Some charges, no matter how absurd, have a way of sticking.

In a rational world, the Israel-attackers and -haters in Gaza would have been left to rot on the vine.

In the world as it is (as it exists in Israel--more concerned with "what the world [the 'nations'] think" than how to keep its Jews from being murdered, here-and-there now, and en masse if the Arab-Iranian confederates have their way--in that irrational world, the enemies of the Jews in Gaza are pampered and catered to so that Israel appears as "so humane" and "so Fair."

In that world of Israel, devoid of logic, the Arabs of Gaza--hankering to kill Jews (remember the Amalekites?)--are kept strong and, as they have no need to labor for their existence and support their offspring, can spend their energies on reproducing themselves and keeping their rage and hatred of Jews at a white heat.

Reason no longer applies, only the emotion of fear--not of being murdered piecemeal or in huge batches, which is the only fear (that of either/or: life or death) that should be primary, but the fear of being thought less than the paragon of high morality no matter if that will result in self-sacrifice which is suicide by unnecessary choice.

Sol,

With regard to your #14 comment to Ron; what has been ignored is the scene prior to the "triumphal entrance" by Arafat and his cohorts into Gaza.

There was a steady improvement in all facets of life and the Israelis and Palestinians were coming to agreements on a whole range of topics.
That all changed when the PLO thugs, thousands of them armed to the teeth, rode in, in a huge convoy from Egypt, and started clearing out those Palestinians in discussions with the Israelis.

Sohia,

Put another way should Butler or any other person who argues against Israel have any more right to say we can or can't identify with Israel or with Jewishness than the most ......

because they are the "elite" who know better than us what's good for us.
Arrogance knows no boundaries for all the clichés they use to temper their images.

By the way she writes:
So I agree with you. But I think we have to get over the idea that a state has to express a nation. And if we have a bi-national state, it's expressing two nations.

and completely ignores two distinctly different cultures (in time, in behaviour).
Pity she did not study the colonialism of the Europeans practiced in Africa where bi/tri etc., national states were set up to the untold misery of the natives.