- Western Christianity and the idea of India Jason Fernandes, Asian Review of Books
- Meet the new spice barons Wendell Steavenson, 1843
- Cultural evolution vs. memetic evolution Arnold Kling, askblog
- The emerging political costs of partial annexation Michael Koplow, Ottomans & Zionists
Palestine
Nightcap
- ‘S’ is for Slander (‘P’ is for Palestine) Irfan Khawaja, Policy of Truth
- Ethnicity, Insurgency, and Civil War Fearon & Laitin, APSR
- John Locke and the Hebrew Bible David Conway, Law & Liberty
- Trading with the enemy: An American tradition Murray Rothbard, LRC
Nightcap
- Populism and American political institutions Michael Zuckert, National Affairs
- The Fed’s shifting goalposts George Selgin, Alt-M
- Tariffs can be deflationary Scott Sumner, MoneyIllusion
- Rashida Tlaib and the allure of shiny objects Michael Koplow, Ottomans & Zionists
Nightcap
- What’s so bad about annexation? Michael Koplow, Ottomans & Zionists
- On property beyond sovereignty Kerry Goettlich, Disorder of Things
- Not all British memsahibs were racist snobs Philip Hensher, Spectator
- Why I am against economic sanctions Branko Milanovic, globalinequality
Nightcap
- A socialist wave in Chicago Will Bloom, Jacobin
- Chicago has clearly voted for change Aaron Renn, City Journal
- Teaching Machiavelli in Palestine Irfan Khawaja, Policy of Truth
- NATO in an age of populism David Reynolds, New Statesman
Nightcap
- Kurds fed up with Erdogan and the PKK Fazel Hawramy, Al-Monitor
- Somalia’s fractious politics Anzalone & Hansen, War on the Rocks
- How to make anti-terrorism a misnomer Michael Koplow, Ottomans & Zionists
- Guess the rain’s down on Titan Caleb Scharf, Life, Unbounded
Nightcap
- No easy road: easements and occupation in the West Bank Irfan Khawaja, Policy of Truth
- Clouds over the Pacific: War, Stagnation, and the end of the Asian Century James Holmes, National Review
- Was philosophy founded by non-Western women? Dag Herbjørnsrud, Aeon
- Natural History of a Cherry Tree Nick Nielsen, Grand Strategy Annex
Nightcap
- Knowledge gave rise to, and empowered, the State Peter Burke, History Today
- Why not a Palestinian Singapore? Michel Kochin, Claremont Review of Books
- Jacques Derrida and the problems of presence Derek Attridge, Footnotes to Plato
- An argument against world government Robin Hanson, Overcoming Bias
From the Comments: How can we not consent to government if we obey it voluntarily?
Irfan Khawaja has a good argument on Yoram Hazony’s new book on nationalism, which is being thoroughly and thoughtfully dissected by Arnold Kling:
Does anyone understand the point that Kling and/or Hazony are making about the relation between legitimacy based on voluntary acceptance, and consent? On the one hand, the claim is that in a legitimate government, we obey the law “voluntarily”; on the other hand, the claim is that we do not consent to government. How can we not consent to government if we obey it voluntarily? Coming the other way around: how can we obey it voluntarily if we don’t consent to it? Even if Hazony wants to broaden consent beyond the Lockean account, that’s still a broadening of the conditions of consent, not a nullification of the role of consent. The combination of claims that Kling attributes to Hazony does not seem coherent.
Well?
As a reminder, this is not a philosophical argument. Well, it is but it isn’t. I suspect this is about Israel and Palestine as much as it is about logical rigor. Stay tuned, and don’t be shy about having your say!
Nightcap
- Identity: the lies that bind Laura Miller, Slate
- Puzzles about college Javier Hidalgo, Bleeding Heart Libertarians
- Nike is winning the culture war David French, National Review
- Oslo is dead. Long live Oslo! Martin Indyk, the Atlantic
Nightcap
- The lost cause of the confederation Michael Koplow, Ottomans and Zionists
- When Concorde was the future Stuart Nathan, 1843
- Young and Russian in DC Ben Schreckinger, Politico
- The 50-year fall of the American middle class Regina Munch, Commonweal
Nightcap
- A new history of Islamic Spain Peter Gordon, Asian Review of Books
- A Palestinian perspective on Labour’s anti-Semitism row Nimer Sultany, Disorder of Things
- The crumbling of French culture Guillaume de Thieulloy, Law & Liberty
- Can Asia and Europe make America’s alliances great again? Tongfi Kim, the Diplomat
Nightcap
- Before Indiana Jones came Abraham Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron Blake Smith, Aeon
- Can economists and humanists ever be friends? John Lanchester, New Yorker
- A Guaranteed Income would undermine the social virtues of work John McGinnis, Law & Liberty
- On Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Palestine, and the Left Corey Robin, Crooked Timber
Israelis Kill Unarmed Palestinians in Gaza
The Israeli Defense Force is killing unarmed demonstrators in Gaza. The Defense Force is on one side of the fence, the demonstrators on the other. What happened is that the ruling political party in Gaza, Hamas, sent the demonstrators to try and breach the fence separating Gaza from Israel. The declared purpose was to have Gaza Palestinians exercise their “right of return.” Hamas means the “right” of Palestinians to return where their forebears used to live, or maybe not, or nearby, etc, right inside present-day Israel. Of course, if Israel allowed this, Israelis might just as well start packing. It would be the end of the Jewish state that already has about 1.85 million Muslim and Christian Arab citizens. Both Palestinians and Israeli Arabs reproduce faster than Israeli Jews, by the way. (It’s the Jews’ fault, of course; they should get busy.) Hamas generously would allow Jews of Middle Eastern origin to remain as second-class, tribute-paying dhimmis. All the others, the majority, would have to leave quickly. Ethnic cleansing is the best scenario if Hamas wins, according to Hamas. The worst? Hamas does not say.
The mid-May 2018 demonstration was presented as a way to commemorate what Palestinians call “the disaster “– meaning the creation of Israel and the wholesale defeat the Arabs suffered in the war they had started against the new state. Initially, it had nothing to do with the inauguration of the new American Embassy in Jerusalem. It was mostly the Amerileft media that created a link with such devices as showing the inauguration in Jerusalem on a split screen with the rioting in Gaza. Many Americans, some of whom can’t place the US on a world map, would have believed that Palestinians were dying while the Americans and Israelis were gaily drinking champagne right next door.
The Israelis had warned early on that they would shoot demonstrators who tried to breach the fence separating Israel from Gaza. They did, killing about 70 Palestinians. That’s harsh but no one can call it unfair: They said it clearly: If you touch our fence, we will kill you. Don’t touch the fence, I would say. Little detour: the magazine Commentary pointed out that the Gaza authorities claim that 1600 Gazans were wounded by real bullets. What’s wrong here is the ratio of wounded to killed, 1600/70. It should be something like 1600/500 . It does not add up or else, the Israelis snipers are real bad at their job. Go figure!
Hamas thinks it’s winning because of the large number of unarmed demonstrators, its youths, wounded and killed. It’s been acting like this forever. Just a week ago, Gazans (who may have been Hamas agents or not) deliberately destroyed the valve to the main pipeline supplying Gaza with diesel fuel. The more misery ordinary residents of Gaza suffer, the happier the Hamas government is because Israeli atrocities give it standing among the ill-informed and mindless everywhere. I am tempted to feel sorry for Gazans myself because of the terrible government they live under. I can’t quite do this; below is why.
Hamas was elected in proper well observed elections. Although the Hamas government is well overdue for a new election, I would argue that the initial election makes Hamas one of the most legitimate governments in the Middle East. Hamas is explicitly an Islamist party. It does not think well of freedom of religion. It wants to impose sharia but does not feel strong enough yet. Hamas is in favor of polygamy. Young Gaza Palestinians are dying because of actions encouraged by their government, the Hamas government. Their parents properly elected that government. There has been no rebellion against it. The mass of the population seems loyal.
Hamas is insuring an aggravation of a situation in Gaza that is pretty much intolerable already. Israel left Gaza unilaterally 15 years ago but it maintains a partial blockade of the territory. It provides fuel and electricity and most of the water available, on its terms. It allows certain merchandise in but not others. Cement is limited, for example, I read in a source I can’t quote now but that I found credible at the time that Israeli Customs allow in milk and sugar but not instant coffee – which makes life more enjoyable. There is almost no work in Gaza, except working for the Hamas government. Nevertheless, no one there is starving because the territory is largely on welfare. Gaza has one of the highest educational achievement scores in the world although there is malnutrition there.
Gaza is a welfare non-state. It has no industry and very little else by way of earning its living. (That’s in part because of Israeli control over its borders, of course.) It’s an economic ward of the UN and secondarily of the European Union and of the USA. American Jews are thus among those supporting through their taxes riots where the main demand is “Death to the Jews!” The Leftmedia does not seem to be willing to mention, or it actually does not know, that the Israeli blockade of Gaza would be ineffective, almost useless, if Egypt did not join in. Yes, Egypt is also impeding the movement of goods, funds, and especially of people between itself and Gaza. And the PLO, which rules the West Bank, the other part of Palestine, has its own punitive measures against Gaza. Hamas is everyone’s favorite!
If you too feel revolted by the Israeli killings of Gaza demonstrators, and if you don’t think that righteous indignation is its own reward, I invite you to take two minutes to answer the following simple and sensible question:
Suppose you have a chance to advise the Israeli Prime Minister; suppose further that you have reason to believe that he will pay attention to you; what’s your advice to him regarding the present situation in Gaza (mid-May 2018)?
You can be sure that I have answered the question myself.
PS I am not Jewish, never have been, never will be. I am not a fundamentalist Christian either.
Mea Culpa: Israel and Palestine
So, I let myself be captured by Irfan’s cultured, bright, well-spoken, and fact-studded critique. He is right, on the main. My short essay is loose on many facts. I did not know what I did not know. And where it’s not completely wrong, it’s often sloppy. So, for example, I shouldn’t have said that Jews were not allowed on the mosque’s esplanade. I should have said (and the damned thing is that I knew it) that they were not allowed to pray there – but then, what if a Jew takes a walk on the esplanade and prays inside his head, and what if, unbeknownst to him, his lips move a little? As they say in French: “Irfan m’a mené en bateau.” At any rate, I will simply confess that nearly all my facts are wrong so I can recover my purpose, at last. Don’t worry, I won’t take much of your time. Here are a handful of real real facts and their obvious implications:
- Palestinian Muslims (or a single one) assassinated two Israeli police officers a few weeks ago on the mosques esplanade or near it.
- The assassin or assassins used a gun or guns.
- Israeli authorities – that exercise de facto control over the area- responded by setting up metal detectors on entrances to the mosque’s esplanade.
- Metal detectors are useful to alert to the presence of most firearms and of some bombs.
- Palestinian Muslims protested this measure in several ways, including with riots.
- The people whose safety could have been improved by the existence of the metal detectors were both Israeli security forces in the area and the great many Palestinian Muslims who constitute the bulk of the visitors to the same area.
- Thus, Palestinian Muslims protested -including with rioting – security measures that were likely to benefit them most (in terms of numbers).*
That is collective irrationality.
I suppose that Irfan, or another subtle defender of irrationality, will argue that the installation of metal detectors at those sites is another step in Palestinians’ loss of sovereignty over the Holy Places, and thus the violent reaction. Sure thing! This defense implies that Palestinian Muslims have to be ready to be assassinated by other Palestinian Muslims in order to enforce a shred of Palestinian Muslim sovereignty over that small area.
That is insane.
*I ignore, of course, the idiotic view that Muslim terrorists could not possibly kill other Muslims at a sacred site of Islam. Muslims have been killing tens of thousands of Muslims, specifically, for the past twenty years. Some terrorists, who called themselves Muslims, chose to engage precisely in mass killing at Muslim religious sites such as mosques. And then, there are Jewish terrorists, and even the occasional dangerous illuminated Christian.
Notes On Liberty 