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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (52221)	9/15/2001 4:21:01 PM
From: Fred Levine	Respond to of 70976

Michael-- Back to Lord Acton's, "too weak to be wise" aphorism. Both the Palestinians and the Israelis are extremely factionated. In Israel, there are the ultra-orthodox who won't recognize the state until the messiah comes, and the secular jews, who, between them, run the gamut from the peaceniks to the hawks. The religious right wants what they consider their biblical heritage, virtually all of Palestine, while the more moderates are willing to exchange land for peace. There is limited, if any, potential for consensus. Among the Palestinians, there are the large group still determined to eradicate Israel, and a more moderate faction. In addition, there has not been time to establish a rule of law. There are, however, few Israelis who want to kill Arab civilians. I fear their number will increase. There are many Arabs who rejoice at Jewish blood. Frankly, it looks grim to me. One definition of evil is that which gratuitously hurts someone. The term gratuitous is the hard one to define. Perhaps, the terrorists think that American loss of life was not gratuitous, but a fulfillment of a holy mission. Obviously, most of us disagree violently with that. However, Americans have an enemy who is determined, at all possible personal cost, to harm us. I don't think the ones who did so are rational by western standards. I wish I saw a practical alternative to a military response. In fact, the solutions proposed by Sun and Jerome, however well meaning, to use Skinner's behaviorism, reinforce the violence. Perhaps criminals are also deprived and misunderstood. I don't want them stroked for their criminal behavior. I also think Jacob is correct when he points out that we are doing a classic "blame the victim" shtick. A monstous horrible crime has been committed by criminals. The primary question is how are going to stop more crimes now! fred