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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated
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From: Nadine Carroll7/7/2009 5:48:54 PM
   of 793877
 
Michael Totten interviews Jeffrey Goldberg of the Atlantic about the Mideast. Excerpt:

MJT: It is. Americans also believe there is a solution to every problem.

Goldberg: Yeah. Solutionism is an American religion. That’s the most dangerous one. The other aspects of this are the misunderstandings. We can’t understand why a Palestinian would want his son to become a suicide bomber.

It’s because his son is not an individual in the same way Americans are. He’s a valuable instrument in the deliverance of salvation for his people. His desires, dreams, and goals are all selfishness. That’s just Western selfishness. I don’t know. I’ve been trying to work these things through for years.

There’s something admirable about Palestinian steadfastness.

MJT: We don’t have that sort of steadfastness.

Goldberg: No, we don’t.

MJT: But our society is better off without it.

Goldberg: Of course, it is! (Laughs.) What are they getting out of it? But our categories of success and failure are not their categories of success and failure.

It leads to the immorality of narcissism, that their collective need is so important that they can kill children with moral impunity. That’s one place it leads. The importance of remaining steadfast to the cause gives them license to do anything. Man, but when you’re licensed to do anything, it gives you power.

When I talk this way, when we think about it this way, I have a hard time seeing a Western-style state flourishing there over the long term in that climate.

Read the whole thing
michaeltotten.com
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