Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Please Note: I Really Don't Care About the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

In my post, Donald Trump's Israel First Policy, I wrote, "I hold no opinion on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict..."

In the comments, Yossi responded:
You seem to care a lot for someone who doesn't care - I'm the same way :-P
Let me repeat, I hold no view on the conflict. I really don't care if the Israeli army bulldozes its way through Palestine or if the Palestinians launch a massive suicide attack that drives Israelis into the Mediterranean Sea.

There are all kinds of conflicts all around the world where I am sure good and bad are done but I do not believe it is my job to resolve any of these conflicts or to care very much how they get resolved.

Basic economics teaches us that time and resources are scarce. That goes for trying to understand all global conflicts and, even more so, to try and participate in them. I doubt I can even name most of the current conflicts.

When it comes to far off conflicts, I fully subscribe to the Adam Smith observation about distance and concern.

I write about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict not because I care about how the parties resolve the conflict, if they ever do, but because as an American I am dragged kicking and screaming into the conflict with my taxpayer dollars being used to finance Israel in the conflict (I would protest as much if the money was going to Palestine). More important, I see the U.S. taking a position in this foreign conflict, getting entangled if you will, as pissing off Muslims.

That does increase danger for me.

To step in the middle of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is not an America First policy.

Stepping in the middle of the conflict, the way Trump appears to want to, is an Israel First policy.

This is what I object to, not a particular view on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict itself.

My concern is about staying out of foreign entanglements---all of them.

-RW

11 comments:

  1. Ok so Yossi thinks that, but what does Yoshi the green dinosaur think about all this?

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    1. did not expect this kind of reference

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  2. This column appears at first glance to be heartless, but in fact it is simply practical. I'm going to guess that you, RW, really do feel some pain when innocents are slaughtered, your words here notwithstanding, but you're absolutely correct to say that it's impossible to follow all the world's conflicts, much less resolve them.

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  3. "Heartless" for not wanting to spend one's life disentangling a thousand foreign conflicts where it is not at all clear who the "good" guys and "bad" guys are, and for not wanting to murder millions of innocents in order to "save" innocents.

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  4. During the 2000 Presidential campaign it became known that George W. Bush's only visit overseas was to Israel, where he became good friends with former Israeli general, Ariel Sharon. Then shortly after the War on Terror began in 2001, Israeli police tactics for handling Palestinians started being taught to American police departments across the country. American police departments were sent to Israel to be indoctrinated into seeing the American taxpayers as eternally suspect, despite any evidence to the contrary. In effect, the American taxpayers are parasitized to pay for their loss of individual freedom, and propagandized to worship the state, and it's Israeli allies in the eternal War on Terror.

    President Donald Trump will double down on this Orwellian system of American serfdom as he strives to emulate Israel by enforcing Israeli policies and tactics here in America. That is why I care about the Israeli and Palestinian problem.

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  5. RW, can you cite Adam Smith's observation?

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    1. http://www.targetliberty.com/2016/12/adam-smith-on-distance-and-concern.html

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  6. Unfortunately, we are also at war with the dark forces represented in this Adam Smith quote:

    "In great empires the people who live in the capital, and in the provinces remote from the scene of action, feel, many of them, scarce any inconveniency from the war; but enjoy, at their ease, the amusement of reading in the newspapers the exploits of their own fleets and armies. To them this amusement compensates the small difference between the taxes which they pay on account of the war, and those which they had been accustomed to pay in time of peace. They are commonly dissatisfied with the return of peace, which puts an end to their amusement, and to a thousand visionary hopes of conquest and national glory from a longer continuance of the war."

    Too many Americans fulfill this to a tee. This is another reason I hold to the Christian faith, because in it I see a way out of this quagmire that infects the hearts of men.

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  7. When the state of Israel was created, 88% of the privately owned land was owned by Arabs. What about the principle of "muh property rights", Wenzel? No one is saying that you have to fight for the Palestinian Arabs, but surely you should acknowledge their property rights.

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  8. Not a cent for Israel.

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