Posted on 2/26/2004, 2:04:23 AM by SJackson
In Socrates Way, Ronald Gross delves into Socrates' allegory, "The Cave".
"Socrates' cave represents the world of our 'received beliefs.' Each of us harbours a myriad of ideas, attitudes, and opinions that have been 'programmed' into us by our upbringing, schooling, culture, and social and media environment. The 'chains' that bind us to these ideas are our understandable desire to please others, to be accepted, and to save ourselves the effort of thinking things through ourselves."
Israel today finds itself in such a cave. Its received beliefs include the inevitability of the two state solution, the need to have US approval for all its actions, the absence of a military solution, that world opinion matters and finally that settlements must be evacuated in order to affect a disengagement plan. As a result, Israel has accepted a very narrow range of available options to resolve the conflict. Labor is prepared to abandon most of Judea, Samaria and Gaza and Likud is prepared to abandon a few percent less. A narrow range indeed. And still there is no one to negotiate with, no one who will accept Israel's largesse and be thankful for it, or at least agree to live in peace with her. Sharon, who has a reputation of thinking out of the box, or cave, if you will, can do no better than to propose a way for Israel to retreat from most of Yesha without a negotiating partner.
The US, which is living in a cave of its own, is rattled by this very small departure from its received beliefs. These beliefs include the belief that Saudi Arabia's regime must be protected in order to protect America's oil supplies, that the US must maintain the fiction that Saudi Arabia is its friend no matter the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, that the war on terror can be or is being fought at home and abroad, even though the three states that are most complicit in harboring, directing and financing the terrorists - Iran, Saudi Arabia and Syria - are being allowed to continue their support of terrorism, and finally, that if Israel is forced to make enough concessions to Arab hate, then peace can be achieved, or American interests protected.
And so, both the US and Israel pay homage to the Roadmap, which in turn, pays homage to the Oslo Accords. The Oslo Accords were based on the premise that an entity, the Palestinian Authority, must be created in order to have someone to negotiate with. It was thought that it wasn't enough to have the PA represent the Arabs in Yesha only, but that it should also represent the Arab refugees outside of Yesha. Accordingly, the PLO was invited back to Israel with thousands of terrorists on the precondition that it amend its Charter calling for the destruction of Israel and agree to forego violence and incitement. That was ten years ago and the preconditions have yet to be complied with.
The Left in Israel continues to believe that Oslo was a good and necessary idea, but that it was a mistake not to enforce it. The Center-Right believe it was a bad idea, but are not willing to abandon the central premise that the PA must be maintained in order to have someone to negotiate with when they are ready.
Gross further comments on value of received beliefs:
"Such acceptance is not entirely bad. In most cases, these ideas, opinions, and attitudes are quite serviceable. We should not have to think through everything ourselves. We do not need to challenge everything. But we do need to know how to conduct such self-examination of our beliefs when it is required. Otherwise, we will live our lives as unwitting intellectual puppets."
So, the challenge to both the US and Israel is to conduct such self-examination.
The US has Syria, Iran and even Saudi Arabia in her sights, but is unwilling to rock the boat until after the elections. But rock the boat it must. These three countries are all supporting terrorism in Iraq and must be stopped. The US can't afford to have the Shiites take over Iraq until a constitution is agreed upon that protects the autonomy of the Kurds and protects religious tolerance and women's rights. The US has also to worry about the influence of Shiite Iran over Shiite Iraq. Furthermore, if Saudi Arabia is destabilized, the US has to worry about the local Shiites taking over the oil in Saudi Arabia, which is located in their midst. These problems dwarf the conflict in Israel and a solution in Israel in no way makes them easier to resolve. Quite the contrary. If the US succeeds in having its way with these countries, then the resolution of the conflict in Israel will be much easier.
Israel, on the other hand, is showing no signs of abandoning its received beliefs, at least not until after the US presidential elections. Even then, Israel will not be able to go it alone and chart an independent course. Israel is stuck with the fact that there are one million Arabs in Israel and about three million in Yesha. They are not going to go away and Israel is not going to expel them. Israel is also stuck with the fact that Israel, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan, is too small for two states, especially when one is hostile to the other. It may be that the two-state solution is a pipe dream and incapable of working. The more difficult this proves to be, the more the Arabs and the world will clamour for a bi-national state.
It is hard to envisage an end-of-conflict solution for decades. That is why building a fence and consolidating Israel's hold on what remains, and perhaps even ceding some of the Arab triangle, offers the best hope for Israel to stabilize the situation. The Right, as opposed to the Center-Right, is resisting the abandoning of any settlements. Unfortunately, I have yet to hear them put forward any ideas as to how this might be possible. They don't want a two-state solution or a bi-national state solution, so what other alternative is there?
Anyone care to do a self-examination of our received beliefs? Anyone got any bright ideas?
I bet all this "political correctness" garbage was started by a fan of Plato, now that I think about it.
You beat me to it.
If he can't get this right you really have to wonder whether it is worth reading the rest of the article. I didn't.
The military facts of life are that, half way through every all-out war that Israel has with it's Arab neighbors, the United States of America has to mount a massive logistics effort to re-supply the IDF which we conduct at the cost of alienating the Europeans and the Arab world. In the Yom Kippur War, it cost us the Oil Embargo with the resulting damage to our economy.
Not that we do it grudgingly, Israel, but Americans don't appreciate being taken for granted by those we sacrifice for.
That's so......French.
If you expect American aid, Israel, expect American input. (See Golden Rule: "He who provides the gold, provides the rules.")
If, Israel, you are militarily capable of doing it all on your own and you resent our input.........Then go for it.
However, no crying for Uncle Sam's help in the middle of the war or after the war.
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