Category: discussions

Douglas Murray interviews Benjamin Netanyahu

January 30, 2024 • 9:15 am

I am feeling poorly today, so posting may be light. I do my best.

I know that the name “Netanyahu” is synonymous for “Satan” in most people’s minds, and he’s often completely dismissed or ignored. Douglas Murray, too, is often dismissed as being too conservative  or xenophobic. But you’d be missing out if you didn’t at least watch this new 32-minute video of Murray interviewing the Israeli Prime Minister. It’s entirely about the war, and Murray doesn’t refrain from asking hard questions, like what responsibility Netanyahu bears for the October 7 attacks, what he thinks of all the Israelis who dislike him, and so on.

But I found most of it enlightening, especially on the topics of Gaza, Qatar and Iran.  The Prime Minister pulls no punches about Gaza, insisting that there is no solution beyond “total victory” over Hamas, and that victory will have a huge effect on deterring other countries in the region, including Iran.  After watching this, I’m convinced that Netanyahu will not accept any kind of ceasefire.

As for “what about afterwards?”, Netanyahu says that Israel will supervise Gaza when hostilities end, though I don’t know how that would work or would go down with the world.

Netanyahu says that although Qatar seems to be playing a double attitude towards the war (hosting Hamas leaders while brokering peace), Netanyahu insists that Qatar must use its “considerable influence” to get the hostages free immediately, as well as providing them with medicine.  What if it doesn’t? Well, Netanyahu will have some words with Western countries.

Finally, the Prime Minister says that Iran simply must not be permitted to develop nuclear weapons, for it’s already inciting violence without them, and it’s horrible to imagine what they could do with nukes.  He insists that the civilized world cannot allow Iran to develop nuclear weapons.  (Murray misses the chance to ask “how can the West do that?”)

Again, I strongly recommend that you take half an hour and watch this. I didn’t want to at first, but now I’m glad I did.

People talking too much

December 17, 2023 • 11:00 am

I believe I’ve mentioned this before, but now I’ve formulated a rule about it.

I think that the trend for one person to talk at great length in conversations started—or at least increased exponentially—during the pandemic. I noticed then, and am still noticing, that there’s an increase in the amount of monologuing during conversations. (My theory for this, which is mine, is that people were isolated during the pandemic, and made up for it by talking a lot during social interaction.) That is, you can be having a  a chat with someone, and during that time the person you’re talking to tends to dominate the discourse, going on and on for minutes at a time.  Often this is accompanied by a lack of interest in the more laconic person, and if that happens to be me, I feel that the yakkers are interested only in themselves, not in the person they’re talking to. In other words, I see monloguing not only as a bit rude, but also self-centered.  Since I don’t like to interrupt people (that’s a rule I had in my discussion seminars when I was teaching), I wind up feeling that I’ve been to a lecture, not a conversation.

I believe I’ve heard the rule below somewhere, but can’t remember where. But here’s the rule, which is now mine and here it is:

If you’re having a conversation with someone, you should utter only one to three sentences before you give the other person a chance to talk. 

I hasten to add that I’m not indicting everyone here, just a few people. Nor should you assume that if you talk to me regularly, you’re one of the guilty parties!

Now clearly there are exceptions: people telling stories or jokes, or when the other person encourages a monologue.  But otherwise, if you want to have a real conversation in which ideas are exchanged and personal bonds formed, I suggest adhering to the 1-3 sentence rule. I am trying to do this myself now.

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Here’s a cartoon taken from a very helpful article called “When you talk too much” on the site Etiquette for the Business of Life:

Discussion for readers

December 2, 2023 • 10:30 am

I’ll be occupied most of the day, so here’s your chance to weigh in on anything. There are lots of questions you can discuss, but feel free to vent about what’s on your mind.

1.) The Hamas/Israel war. I find myself perhaps overly occupied with this, perhaps because I was in Israel only two weeks before it started, but also because it tweaks my Jewish DNA.  What’s your take? Will Israel really destroy Hamas? If it does, who will govern Gaza? Should Israel have attacked Gaza in the first place? Is there any more it can do to avoid the deaths of Palestinian civilians.

2.) Trump: Many people are now predicting that he’s a shoo-in for President next year, a possibility that frightens me greatly. One of them is Andrew Sullivan, whose sensors detect a move towards Trump:

But the moment I knew his presidency was almost certain was when the Brexit result was announced in June, when everyone still assumed Hillary was a shoo-in. Something was stirring. And that’s why, after my annual trip back to Britain last week, I’m feeling the nausea again.

The mood is just ugly — a deep pessimism suffused with barely stifled fury. It’s not quite right or left, as we used to understand those things. It’s more irrational than that, and less predictable. A usually mild-mannered, anti-Brexit friend of mine told me that the lockdowns had filled him with a ragethat was as unfamiliar to him as it was white-hot. Another friend talked about the perils of polarization, and then, as we went back to her house for a cup of tea, I noticed she had an enormous EU flag covering her entire front window. A pollster friend who specializes in focus groups said that pessimism and anger were starker now than ever: almost 80 percent, he said, saw their country as in a “steep decline” — Tories and Labourites, for different and often opposing reasons.

. . . And Gallup’s latest polling on how the public feels about crime should terrify the Democrats. Coming back to DC this week after seven months away, I’m struck by how stark the decline has become. It says something when a city is experiencing a massive wave of carjackings, bars the cops from pursuing them, and just hands out free AirTags so you can track your stolen car yourself.

There’s also a Washington Post op-ed by Robert Kagan, “A Trump dictatorship is increasingly inevitable. We should stop pretending.”

Let’s stop the wishful thinking and face the stark reality: There is a clear path to dictatorship in the United States, and it is getting shorter every day. In 13 weeks, Donald Trump will have locked up the Republican nomination. In the RealClearPolitics poll average (for the period from Nov. 9 to 20), Trump leads his nearest competitor by 47 points and leads the rest of the field combined by 27 points. The idea that he is unelectable in the general election is nonsense — he is tied or ahead of President Biden in all the latest polls — stripping other Republican challengers of their own stated reasons for existence. The fact that many Americans might prefer other candidates, much ballyhooed by such political sages as Karl Rove, will soon become irrelevant when millions of Republican voters turn out to choose the person whom no one allegedly wants.

Is Trump’s election really that certain, even if he’s convicted of felonies (something that would probably happen after the election)? Will he be able to pardon himself? (He can’t do that for state crimes.)

3.) Why are there so many waxing parlors in Cambridge?

If there aren’t at least 50 responses by the end of the day, I’ll be very sad.

UN repeatedly condemns Israel, but Palestine (and Hamas) get off scot-free

October 30, 2023 • 11:15 am

Everyone who pays attention to the UN knows that it has repeatedly condemned Israel but barely goes after countries like North Korea, Russia, or Iran (all UN members), even though it’s pretty clear that these countries violate human rights far more often than does Israel. The UN seems to have an obsession with condemning Israel, and the reasons seem pretty clear. I won’t go into them now.

You can see this “disproportionality” at the UN Watch site, where you can read this summary and see some of the resolutions:

From 2015 through 2022, including the above, the UN General Assembly has adopted 140 resolutions on Israel and 68 on other countries. For texts and voting sheets, see the UN Watch Database, which will include the 2022 UNGA resolutions after they are published by the UN in January 2023.

The UN Watch Database also documents that from 2006 through 2022, the UN Human Rights Council has adopted 99 resolutions against Israel, 41 against Syria, 13 against Iran, 4 against Russia, and 3 against Venezuela.

Isn’t it strange that the number of resolutions against Israel is greater than resolutions about the rest of the world combined? If you look at them, most condemn Israel for “occupation” as well as other bad deeds.

What about the Palestinian territories, which aren’t an official UN country but have “observer status” at the UN? (Note, though that the State of Palestine is recognized as a country by 138 of the 193 United Nations member states.)

Wikipedia has a site called “List of United Nations resolutions concerning Palestine”. Some text (bolding is Wikipedia’s):

The following is a list of United Nations resolutions concerning State of Palestine. From 1967 to 1989 the UN Security Council adopted 131 resolutions directly addressing the Arab–Israeli conflict, with many concerning the Palestinians; Since 2012, a number of resolutions were issued dealing directly with the modern Palestinian State.

Looking at the list, I can’t find a single one that condemns Palestine for anything; most are resolutions about aid to Palestine, and a number of them are also condemnations of Israel. It’s fair to say that the UN has largely ignored human rights violations by Palestine, and you can’t say that there are none!  Now I didn’t scrutinize this long list minutely, but it’s clear that there is serious “inequity” in the degree of UN opprobrium of Israel vs. Palestine.

But surely, I thought, there must be a UN condemnation of Hamas’s raid on Israel on October 7. Well, the General Assembly put up such a motion, but an amendment (not a resolution) condemning Hamas’s attack was rejected! Click below to read the article from UN Watch:

Bolding is mine:

The UN General Assembly adopted an Arab-drafted resolution today calling for a “humanitarian truce” in Gaza, after rejecting a Canadian amendment that would have condemned the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks by Hamas and demanded immediate release of hostages taken by Hamas.

Israel’s U.N. Ambassador Gilad Erdan called it “a day that will go down in infamy.”

The [final] resolution was adopted by a vote of 120 to 14 with 45 abstentions.

Outrageously, the resolution failed to condemn Hamas for its October 7th massacre of 1400 Israelis, or for its abduction of more than 200 Israelis including children and babies, or even to mention the word Hamas.

The resolution also failed to recognize Israel’s right to defend itself and its citizens against terrorism.

The resolution calls for “immediate, full, sustained, safe and unhindered humanitarian access…to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid” but, as noted by the Czech Republic, doesn’t provide assurances that this will not be abused by Hamas and other terrorists.

The text also calls on Israel, “the occupying power,” to rescind its order to evacuate northern Gaza.

Prior to taking action on the resolution, an amendment led by Canada did not pass, as it failed to reach the required two-thirds majority. That amendment would have “unequivocally reject[ed] and condemn[ed] the terrorist attacks by Hamas that took place in Israel starting on 7 October 2023 and the taking of hostages.”

Kudos to Canada for a game try, but they abstained from the vote on the final resolution. From the National Post of Canada:

In the end, the amendment failed, unable to garner the required two-thirds majority of votes in the General Assembly. The vote saw 88 members in favour, and 55 against, with 23 abstentions.

I can’t find a list of countries that rejected Canada’s amendment.  There’s more:

The resolution itself passed by a margin of 120-14.

Canada was among the 45 nations that abstained from the final vote after the amendment failed to pass. Gilad Erdan, Israel’s UN emissary, left little doubt about his feelings when it was over.

“The spectacle we just saw proves beyond a doubt that the UN is committed — sadly, tragically — not to preventing, but ensuring further atrocities,” he said.

“We saw exactly what (Hamas) dreams of doing to every Israeli and Jew and we will not sit idly by to let them re-arm and commit such atrocities again. We won’t, just as every single other member state in this room wouldn’t.”

Well, so it goes. While I disapproved of Israel’s siege on Gaza, which is now lifted, and am pleased that Gaza is now receiving humanitarian aid (but concerned that much of it will fall into the hands of Hamas), why couldn’t the UN find it in its heart to condemn the butchery of 1400 Israelis, many of them civilians?  What happened in southern Israel is beyond belief. You tell me why the UN refused to even address it.

Here’s the final vote on the whole resolution; the U.S. abstained because the resolution didn’t condemn Hamas. It’s interesting to see the countries who joined the U.S. and those, including Great Britain and other EU countries, who abstained. Click on the tweet and then on the black list to see the way the vote went.

A snarky but true comment:

Kudos as well to the Czech Republic, whose defense minister, shocked by the amendment’s rejection (the country voted “no” on the final resolution along with the U.S,), even suggested that her country leave the UN:

My conversation with Richard Dawkins

October 30, 2023 • 9:45 am

About ten days ago I had an hourlong conversation with Richard Dawkins for his Substack site, “The Poetry of Reality“.  The video, from YouTube, is embedded below. As Richard says in his written introduction:

We covered a myriad of controversial topics plaguing our world today: from the religious conflict in Gaza to modern-day struggles with freedom of speech, from the prospect of revolt against oppression to considering the demands of the Maori people, and also on affirmative action and the debate about race.

In other words, it wasn’t about evolution—the usual topic of our discussions.

As always, I can’t bear watching myself on video, but I’m sure I’d stand with what I said, for I do remember a bit.

But I do note that Malgorzata watched the whole thing and sent me two corrections.  First, I mixed up Abba Eban with Ehud Barak. It was Eban and not Barak who made the comment about “Palestinians never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity.” Also, I’m told that the Haredim (ultra-Orthodox Jews) are not completely free from service to Israel.  Malgorzata notes that there are “thousands of Haredi men queuing in front of military posts, asking to be let into the army. Others worked 24/7 collecting bodies (and body parts) after the massacre, cleaning, working in hospitals, and helping Jewish refugees from both the north and south and north borders.” I knew about the Haredis cleaning up after terrorist attacks (they’re willing to take on very gory jobs), but was unaware of their help after October 7.

With those corrections in mind, here’s the video. Feel free to comment below, but I don’t think I’m going to watch this.

Discussion

July 31, 2023 • 9:20 am

I got zero hours of sleep last night. Zero. That’s twice in four days, so you can well imagine that my neurons are somewhat gummed up.  Let’s have a discussion while I recover (and feed the ducks).

Here’s the new result of a new NYT Siena Poll for the GOP candidates:

With all the indictments against him pending, Trump still looks unbeatable.  My question is this: readers have already prognosticated that there’s no way Trump could see jail time. And even if he’s multiply indicted, I don’t see anybody in the lineup moving ahead of him. This is above my pay grade, but can Trump still be elected President, and serve as President, if he’s convicted of a felony?

Also, do you think any of the candidates above can overtake him? If not, will he beat Biden?

Glenn Loury and Matt Johnson discuss the legacy of Hitchens

July 19, 2023 • 12:00 pm

Who among us hasn’t said to themselves, “I wish Hitchens were here. What would he make of all the identity politics going down?” And indeed, given the man’s unpredictability, it’s hard to know, though Matt Johnson thinks that Hitch would definitely be antiwoke.

Johnson recently came out with a new book, How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment.  There’s a six-minute video discussion below, and an intro and Q&A on Loury’s website. Click below to read Loury’s intro and an excerpt, and then watch the video (you can skip the printed Q&A since the text beyond the intro is a transcript).

Here’s Loury’s intro:

Identitarianism is now so deeply ingrained in left-liberal politics, it’s easy to forget that things weren’t always this way. Material economic concerns once formed the solid core of left activism and thought on the domestic front: labor protections, combating economic inequality, providing services for the poor, and so on. Anyone who didn’t put those issues at the center of their politics couldn’t reasonably call themselves a member of the left. Now these quite serious issues have been displaced by a superficial obsession with race and identity. If you’re not calling for “racial justice,” it seems, it doesn’t matter how many warehouse workers you organize. Even Bernie Sanders found himself in the crosshairs of his ostensible allies when he downplayed identity politics in the 2020 Democratic primaries.

Christopher Hitchens was a writer and thinker produced by—but not reducible to—that older tradition of left-wing thought and activism. For much of his life, he was an advocate for organized labor and a strong social safety net. He took the ideas of justice, equality, and democracy very seriously. Sometimes this led him to positions that would be at home on today’s left, as when he advocated for reparations for the descendants of slaves. But sometimes his commitments put him at odds with his fellow travelers, as when he supported the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that Iraqis were being deprived by Saddam Hussein of their right to democratic self-determination.

Hitchens also believed that identity politics was a cheap substitute for what he saw as real political action. My guest this week, the writer Matt Johnson, thinks that, on that issue, Hitchens had it right. In fact, Matt wrote an excellent book about it. There was nobody quite like Hitch. His rhetorical force and precision, his moral clarity (even when he was wrong), and his wit seem in short supply today. I’ve hosted some left-liberals, like Mark Lilla and Norman Finkelstein, who are unafraid to speak out against “their side” on identity politics. And clearly Matt believes that the left can recover something of Hitch’s spirit, otherwise he wouldn’t have written the book. Despite my own political commitments, I hope he’s right.

I’ve read Johnson’s book, and it’s pretty darn good, though if you know your Hitchens well, you may find little that is new. Nevertheless, Johnson’s argument, supported with quotes, is persuasive.

Below, Johnson tells us about the pervasiveness of identity politics, and Loury asks him why are liberals, for instance, so divided given that they can’t agree on fundamental liberal issues.

One comment: Hitchens was in favor of reparations towards minorities, though Johnson implies otherwise. You can see that in this video debate between Hitchens and, ironically, Glenn Loury.

One question and answer:

GLENN LOURY: How Hitchens Can Save the Left: Rediscovering Fearless Liberalism in an Age of Counter-Enlightenment. The great Christopher Hitchens can save the left. The left’s in trouble. It’s worth saving, says Matt Johnson. And one of the reasons it’s in trouble is because it’s immersed in what Hitch called “the sinister bullshit” of identity politics. And Hitchens can save us from that, too. How so?

MATT JOHNSON: He was very opposed to identitarianism, because he saw it as regressive. In one article, he wrote, “If we were dogs, we would all be the same breed.” Emphasizing human difference is unhealthy and it’s tribal and it’s become very obsessive on the left. You know, I’ve listened to you for years, Glenn, you and John McWhorter. I’m not a fan of the DiAngelo school of identitarianism, not a fan of Kendi.

These guys, they really do frustrate me. I look at the history of the Civil Rights Movement, and I wonder what Martin Luther King or Bayard Rustin would say about a movement that encourages large audiences of white people and corporations to look inward and identify and root out the racism instead of just looking at inequities in the society and trying to address them on a fundamental level.

It’s this toxin. It’s so easy to be tribal. It’s so easy to identify with a group. And Hitchens, in Letters to a Young Contrarian, for example, just said that identity politics is a cheap excuse for politics to the extent that the left was enmeshed in it, which it really has been for a long time. It was giving away one of the most important moral principles that it could hold, which would be universalism. We should try to move toward a colorblind society. I know that saying that automatically gets you branded a reactionary. It’s like saying “all lives matter.” You’re viewed as somebody who’s fighting the progress of racial justice in the country. I really do think that that should be the end goal. And if it takes 200 years, so be it. If it takes 500 years, so be it.

But I think there are a lot of people who don’t think it’s the goal we’re striving for. I think they think that race is this eternal fact about us, and racial division is an eternal fact about our politics. And Hitchens always hated that idea, and he thought we could be radical enough to get past it.