Crusader War College

Growing up...

Goodness, Israpundit is on a roll! Shmuel Sokol has a brilliant post on the Israeli need to GROW UP. [P: Hattip to jen, who noticed that I had pasted the wrong url!]

A wise man once described the difference between a child and an adult as follows. Adulthood, he stated, is not a matter of age. Rather, it is to be defined as the capacity to work towards delayed gratification. The current situation in Israel can be defined as the onset of a second childhood for the Jewish people. We want peace, and we want it NOW!

There has been a veritable plethora of plans and accords presented in recent weeks. The inadequacies of these ill-conceived solutions have already been pointed out by every pundit and columnist with a brain in his head. I would rather take the Macro approach and address the fundamental, underlying issue behind this desire for immediate gratification.

It is understandable that Israelis want an immediate solution. They have endured more than we in America can conceive, and they have had enough. They want an end to the hate, the death and the fear. They have run out of patience.

All of this is understandable. However, the adage that to understand all is to forgive all is utter foolishness. We must not give in to the illusion of “immediate gratification”. It takes an adult mind to realize that solutions take time. Yes, there are solutions, many of them, but they all have one thing in common: patience.

Damn straight! The biggest problem Israel has is that it is a liberal Democracy, and so is subject to coming down with bad cases of Liberalus free-ride-ium: All that money being produced by a free market, going to waste upon the people who earned it, when there are so many people in need! Why not take from the rich and give to the poor? From each according to his ability to each according to his need? Why not display the innate kindness, goodness, yea RIGHTEOUSNESS, of our souls, says the liberal, by practicing charity with other people's money? Consequences? Bah! Not to worry about it! Democracies are powerful, resistant to such petty concerns, and will be able to come up with solutions that will solve ANY PROBLEM! Put it to a vote! Human nature and reality must bow before the Will Of The People!

There are many, many examples of how Loony Liberal political and economic theories have created more serious problems than the ones they were intended to solve. However, these adherents of pure theory, egged on by the ultimate beneficiaries of their unearned largesse, ignore the consequences, damn human nature, and pass more laws in an effort to make things work the way THEY want it, not how nature and God dictates they should work.

Thus, it takes a certain amount of self-imposed blindness and callousness to continue to insist that people's incomes and lives be fed to the meat-grinder of loony liberal political enterprises. Since reality is fully connected, it is easy for the problems in one area of life to leak through to other areas, and that the bad consequences of ill-conceived social programs cross-contaminates other aspectes of human life while superficially relieving a problem that was perceived to be politically necessary to solve.

While it is true that part of being an adult is the ability to overcome the temptation of immediate gratification, another ability of an adult is to think things through, look ahead, plan, and CHANGE plans as necessary, based on feedback, both positive and negative. Everyone loves and can deal with positive feedback, but loony liberal blindness inherently filters and rejects negative feedback. Considering negative feedback is, to use a New Age phrase, to accumulate negative energy and thus create a situation where problems cannot be solved. "Don't Worry, be happy!" is their chant: Negative feedback is, in their minds, not an indication of a problem, BUT A PROBLEM IN ITSELF. Ignore it, and it'll go away. If anyone brings it up, they are guilty of keeping the problem alive, and thus legitimate targets of attack: If they'd just DROP IT, then it'll go away by itself.

It is this attitude that is working here in the Israeli mind, and mostly from the left, who are adept at making promises and talented in spinning things so that nobody notices that they can't deliver on their promises.

I'll be honest: I don't know if Sharon is serious or not. Starting by dismantling illegal settlements is a poor indicator, since Israel is a nation of Laws, and thus SHOULD get rid of illegal settlements. It is what separates them from the Palestinians, who have little to no concept of the Rule of Law.

Do I believe that the Sharon plan of Disengagement will work or is best for Israel? I cannot say, since I am not an Israeli, and my life is not on the line: making decisions that dictates the course of other people's lives is a thing liberals do, and I'm a Conservative who, 200 years ago, would have been classified as a Classical Liberal (liberationist?). However, I DO believe that, in implementing the plan, the Israelis will come to a consensus, whatever it is, and I think that arriving at that consensus is good for Israel.

Now, I'm not a liberal fool tool for believing that, just because a decision has been arrived at by consensus, that it is automatically the best plan or that it will automatically work with no problems whatsoever: I'm a Conservative, not an idiot, and so believe in the fallibility of man. But in a Democracy, nothing gets done unless the majority agrees to do something, and at the present stage of Israeli politics as I view it, there IS no majority in favor of any specific plan of action, merely majorities clearly AGAINST some plans of action. For instance, I think Transfer is the best solution in the long run, but I think I can confidently say that, at this time, the Israelis would not only say "NO!" to Transfer, but "HELL NO!".

There is no clear majority in Israel FOR any specific plan, because the current Government was elected on a platform that they have now abandoned, since Disengagement was a solution proposed by the Labor party, and who lost at the polls because of it. If Disengagement is now the consensus position, it may be time to ask the Israeli people to decide who can do it better. That is, if it IS the consensus position. There's sure to be a party that will advocate any one of the other possible solutions, and they may gain enough seats to send a message to the future coalition government that, whatever policy is decided upon, that Disgenagement shouldn't be considered.

My opinion? Its high time for another national debate to decide where to go next, letting the public integrate the bitter lessons learned from the the continued failure of the Oslo Agreements, the failure of the Roadmap, AND the existance of the second intifada, as feedback, and handing out a mandate on where they want to go next. Israelis may shudder at the prospect of having to go through an election: Believe me, its election year in America, and I'm shuddering too. An election in a polarized citizenry is like trying to clean out the septic tank while it's still being used: Highly unpleasant and prone to nasty and unwelcome surprises.

The point is, they've got to DECIDE. Things will come to a head the moment the IDF arrives to dismantle a LEGAL settlement. Until then, it'll all still be fantasy and infantile dreams of having cake and eating it too on the part of the Israeli public. Not to deride them, but they have, like in the United States, a Left wing that is as loopy and nationally suicidal as ours, and who specialize in pandering and pushing pipe dreams instead of hard reality, and which creates political distortions that are as hard to manage in their society as they are in ours. Only the results of an election will shut them up (and only then temporarily).

Posted by ptah at January 1, 2004 10:16 AM