Worldwide Java Jag: 2008-05-04

Monday, May 05, 2008

JIMMY GOES TO CHELM

Now that President Carter is home safely and the din of comment and criticism that accompanied his mission to the mid-east has died down, perhaps it is a good time for a little post trip questioning and analysis.

First, it remains unclear whether his trip was discussed or authorized in advance by the state department. Carter says yes, Rice says no, Carter calls Rice a liar; Rice says the trip was “not helpful.” Secondly, when he met in Damascus with Khalid Meshaal, the exiled head of Hamas, was he embracing a terrorist with blood on his hands or a legitimate leader who uses violence, like all other leaders, a tool to accomplish policy goals? Thirdly, when Carter visits Hamas in Gaza, was he legitimizing an already functioning government or was he giving a boost to Hamas as if it didn’t exist as a real government before?

Actually, Carter’s travel visa may have been stamped Syria, Israel and Gaza but it should have read Chelm. That is because the denial of reality and the utter foolishness of the Israeli and Palestinian inhabitants more closely resembles that of the residents of the Polish town of Yiddish folklore than what it says on today’s maps. It may be fair to say that Carter’s trip only highlighted the intractability of Israeli/Palestinian silliness, while doing no one any real harm or for that matter any lasting good.

The first fateful decision, the one that started the Chelm mindset, goes back sixty years when the founding of Israel was denied by her Arab neighbors. No matter that the Jews possessed land and arms, and the U.N granted them statehood. According to the entire Arab world, Israel doesn’t exist. To this day that policy folly has been at the root of all the wars and all the bloodshed. Hamas has continued to embrace this belief. This is undeniable… except to an ex-peanut farmer from Georgia.

Here is Chelmian logic at its best. I deny you, you deny me, but let’s kill each other even though neither of us exists. That’s exactly what Jimmy found on his trip. Sure Hamas made a few absurd, future-conditional declarations about all the Palestinians all over the world voting. Then, perhaps, a temporary truce (hunda) could be contemplated. But only in Chelm would this pass for a “breakthrough.” The Israelis are no better. A million and a half Arabs living on Israel’s southern border, voted in an election for a government called Hamas, and the Israelis are dickering over recognizing it. That is beyond Chelm logic, that is Chelm logic on April 1st.

The citizens of Gaza voted for Hamas as their parliamentary majority party. Subsequently, the cowardly, inept, and corrupt PLO police/gunman slunk away from Gaza after a brief shoot out. Hamas consolidated its power. Just what about this does Olmert’s government not understand? Who gave the Israelis the authority to decide what government is legitimate or not? When Jimmy sees the logic of recognizing Hamas, and tries to make policy based on that recognition, of course he must be vilified and castigated, for he is a prophet in Chelm!

Do we here at Java Jag have to spell out reality for everyone? Has what passes for Chelm logic so pervaded the thinking of the Israelis and the West that delusion is the order of the day? Foolishness the only operating plan forward?

We think Hamas is the legitimate government of the Palestinian people in Gaza. It is not practicing “terrorism” nor is it a “terrorist organization.” Its missiles, mortars, mines, car bombs, sniper fire, tunnels, and kidnappings are authorized, conscious, deliberate acts of war launched against its sworn enemy. Israel’s response -- tank fire, rocket firing drones, and ground invasions are acts of war conducted by another legitimate government. Two legitimate elected governments are at war.

That wasn’t very hard, was it? The key to breaking the Mideast mind set, the Chelm-like infatuation with delusion, is to recognize things as they are. For Israel to recognize Hamas for what it is. For Hamas to recognize Israel for what it is. For the both of them to stop pretending that they are at anything but at war, asymmetrical or otherwise. War happens; it’s not unknown in the Mideast. When practiced by governments, it’s not “terrorism” or acts thereof.

If Jimmy had gone on his Mideast peace mission with this mindset, he could have made some real progress. He could have leapfrogged over Condi and the State Department’s continued denial of reality. If he had started with the goal of overcoming the Arab world’s 60-year old operational fallacy of ignoring Israel’s very existence, he could have turned heads. Instead, with the Palestinians and Hamas still in the denial stage, and the Israelis, for their own reasons, playing along he could accomplish nothing.

Through their denial of Israel’s existence, the Palestinians had Carter boxed in the minute he landed in Damascus. Once he proceeded to act within that framework of illogic it was easy for the west and the Israelis to heap their abuse on him. For how do you have legitimate negotiations with governments guided by illegitimate policies? Carter should have set terms in advance to meet with Hamas, terms that reflect 60 years of reality. He could have also declared Gaza a state, but then it would have to be responsible for its actions like any other state. Unfortunately, that was all beyond Carter’s intellectual ken, for in Chelm, the fool’s denial of reality is the source of all laughter.