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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (99030)	5/24/2003 2:09:50 PM
From: skinowski	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

John, I don't know whether or not you noticed the article by Ed Rothstein, which I pasted a couple of entries after your post. It discusses the movie "Matrix", with all these realities, layered beyond and underneath each other, each claiming the be the real thing, only to be exposed as just another illusion, spoon-fed to the "revolutionary", the same way as the preceding - background - illusion - had been fed to the "naïve" and the unsuspecting. It should be called "“Beyond Rashomon, Good and Evil". Not only do we, people, see realities differently, but reality itself is only a construct created in our minds. Mind you, I don’t necessarily subscribe to all this gnoseological extremist stuff, at least not in the vulgar paranoid fashion, used by the current crop of internet populists. However, it does appear at times that great numbers of ambitious little matrix builders are toiling day and night at their keyboards, trying to - if not make us believe their constructs, then at least to confuse us enough, so we would begin to question things we believed before. To me, the article by Hanson is an honest piece of thinking, showing a genuine effort to understand the conflicts raging in the world, and an attempt to envision solutions. On the other hand, I think that the article by Mr. Khalidi is meant to manipulate. He talks about the influence of "neocons" in Washington, he (sort of) equates victims of suicide bombers with civilians killed in anti-terrorist actions, he attempts to leave an impression that the responsibility is somehow primarily in our - American - backyard. He disregards the entire universe of religious and other passions, which prevented Arabs from ever seriously considering peaceful coexistence with Israel. Islamic extremists, who present a great danger to other Muslims, as well as the world at large, do not enter the front stage in Mr. Khalidi's version of reality.

To: JohnM who wrote (99030)	5/24/2003 3:01:04 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Is the so-called roadmap already a failure. So says Rashid Khalidi of The University of Chicago writing in The Nation. It is already a failure, but for the opposite reasons than Khalidi gives. Did you note how Khalidi a) bemoaned the lack of fixed (i.e. not performance-based) timetables in the 'roadmap'), b) decried any expectations of Palestinian performance ("decimated police" and all that), and had great sympathy for the root causes of Palestinian violence, noting "it didn't come out of nowhere", as if blowing up kids on buses was the only natural response to occupation? Can you say, apology for terror, big-time? What he wants, is for Palestinian terror to continue while the Israelis roll back, which of course will make Palestinian terror easier and more effective. The real bottom-line question is, is terror just another acceptable political recourse to frustration, or is it to be treated as unacceptable and beyond the pale? Khalidi obviously regards it as acceptable. Against Israelis, that is.

To: JohnM who wrote (99030)	5/24/2003 7:34:02 PM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 281500

re: Road Map or Road Kill? The Road Map has been strangled in its crib. Aborted before birth. Died of neglect. Look at what the U.S., Israel, and the Palestinians have said, and compare it to what they've done. There isn't a single player in this tragedy, who truly wants peace, or is willing to make any meaningful sacrifice to get peace. Bush has his eye on the upcoming election, and the Israel Lobby. Sharon, as always, prefers Land instead of Peace. He'll take Peace, sure, but only if he gets all the Land he wants. Arafat and Abbas say they want peace, but have neither the means nor the willingness to take on Hamas. Sharon greets the Road Map with plans for more settlements embedded in densely-populated Arab areas. The Palestinians greet the Road Map with a wave of suicide bombers. The Americans present two nicely-bound copies of the Road Map to Abbas and Sharon, and follow that up with........nothing. Apparently, we're done. We let Sharon get away with saying the settlements policy is unchanged. This is an awfully small fig leaf for Blair to hide behind. That, really, was what the Road Map was: motion masquerading as action. The Middle ground, in the Middle East, is being hollowed out. Made irrelevant. The Middle is: the Labor Party in Israel, Abbas and Arafat in Palestine, the nationalist secularists throughout the Muslim world, the Democratic Party in the U.S., the Europeans, anybody who believes in the UN or international treaties. Everywhere, the Unilateralists, the Rejectionists, the Maximalists, are triumphant. And none of them, from Hamas to the NeoCons, wants peace. In a world without WMD, this would be a tragedy. In a world where WMD are ubiquitous, it's suicidal.