"The Arabs are worms. You find them
everywhere like worms, underground as well as above."
Yehiel Hazan, an Israeli Knesset member from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's
ruling Likud party, in a parliamentary debate. Yeah, we give guys like this $3 billion a year.
People say all kinds of things in parliamentary debates. That's what happens when you have a parliamentary democracy with lots of different parties.
We give Egypt two billion dollars a year, but you don't have to worry about what their parliamentarians might say because, uh, they don't have an independent legislature.
Still, you don't seem too worried about the money we give Egypt. I'm sure you have excellent, well-considered reasons. I doubt it's a matter of your directing phony, half-assed outrage at convenient targets.
Toodles!
Posted by: | December 19, 2004 at 07:59 PM
hey anonymous, jump to conclusions person. as a matter of fact, i am very opposed to US aid to egypt as well as jordan. but the fact of the matter is that they don't get nearly the amount israel does. oh yeah, and they're not occupying and massacring an entire population.
the only reason egypt and jordan get so much money is cause mubarak and abdullah are sell outs, and it's their "reward" from the US for sitting idly by while palestine is slaughtered.
Posted by: scott | December 19, 2004 at 10:05 PM
Only $3 billion? Are you sure? What about weapon loans? Yeah apparently America "loans" Israel bombs. I don't know how Israel pays back spent bombs but I think it might be the testing them on humans and human infrastructure that counts as Israel paying its way to US companies and the US government.
Posted by: Mark Elf | December 20, 2004 at 03:27 AM
Whether or not Egypt is massacring and occupying a population is something I doubt you know much about, or have much interest in. Several majority Arab countries have been engaged in "Arabization" programs of their non-Arab minorities for some time. Iraq was the worst, but Morocco, Syria, and others are also guilty. All of this largely takes place under the radar of the Trendy Left, because none of these countries allow journalists to take exciting pictures that people like you can passively imbibe and get excited about.
This isn't just about the Middle East. In fact, it's a much bigger problem than that. The problem with Recreational Radicals is that you get excited over opportunities to march and vent phony outrage about things you have no control over, but what about those things they *do* have power over? For example, every year six million children under the age of five die of severe malnutrition or attendant complications. One reliable estimate is that the total cost of preventing one of those deaths is about $200 bucks.
So why are you marching and spewing, rather than making us much money as possible and donating say, 75% percent of it to the World Food Program to save dozens lives? The answer, I suspect, is because you really don't have much interest in taking responsibility or saving lives. You like being angry. You like to sneer upward at other people for abusing their power, and sneer downward at those who you think are ignorant.
In the end, it's all about sneering. You don't give a shit about justice or human rights. Children are dying for your silly fantasies of righteousness. Get a job. Donate money. Less glamour, but less silly, too; and finally you'll be facing up to your responsibilities as a privileged human being in a deeply imperfect world.
Posted by: al-Farabi | December 20, 2004 at 02:52 PM
thanks al-farabi for explaining myself to me. i'm sorry, but it's not about sneering. i support your ideas and the people who choose that path. personally, i'm not a bandaid solution guy. malnourishment, etc, won't be solved by food handouts.
to mark, i think you're right. we did recently "loan" israel some cluster bombs. a safe number is $3 billion. but i know last year on top of that we gave them $9 billion in "loans."
Posted by: scott | December 20, 2004 at 10:06 PM
No, of course sacrifices that require dedication and effort are "band-aid." Only easy, cost-free indignation like yours will solve anything. Talk about taking the easy way out...
Enjoy your privilege. See ya'.
Posted by: al Farabi | December 20, 2004 at 10:15 PM
Actually, I'm not going yet. Let's say genuine, material sacrifices on your part really would just be bandaid solutions, and only marching really changes anything.
Still, the question remains: every year six million small children die agonizing deaths while silly priviliged Westerners focus on other things. Meanwhile, in the entire Arab-Israeli conflict dating back to 1948, how many children have died on both sides. Maybe three thousand, if we count everyone under 18.
You, as a priviliged, urban Westerner, get to choose which problem more merits your attention: is it the six million little kids who will die terrible deaths this year in sub-Saharan Africa, or the hundred or so who will die in Palestine.
Which do you choose, and why?
I'll spoil the ending for you: your choice has nothing to do with justice, or love of your fellow man, or any of the bullshit you tell yourself. It has to do with which conflict presents a convenient and lazy target for you to vilify, so that you can create a silly, self-serving heroic self-image for yourself.
You don't care about victims, you care about victimizers. This is your problem. This has always been the problem of the Trendy Left.
And yes, I can explain you to yourself. I know you better than you know yourself. The same why you "understand," say, right-wingers, I understand you.
Posted by: al Farabi | December 20, 2004 at 10:34 PM
i hate these discussions via the comments section. if you really want to talk, you can email me, that's what it's for. if you want to prove your intellect in a public sphere, i can assure you not enough people read this to make it worthwhile.
first of all, who are you and what do you do? how do you assume you have the moral authority to address me in the manner in which you have?
i do much more than march in the streets. i agree that marching isn't that effective, and people who only march aren't contributing a whole lot. but just because world hunger is not my focus means that i'm insincere and lazy? believe me, if i was looking for convenience, i wouldn't choose israel/palestine.
it is my belief that most food relief programs are bandaid solutions. "look, hungry people, throw food at them!" i'm in favor of people pursuing that route if they want, but for me world hunger is just one symptom of a deeper problem. to end hunger, poverty, disease, etc, we need to look at what causes them. in my opinion, it is neoliberalism, corporate militarism, and in general, capitalism.
under the current system, it is just not profitable to feed or vaccinate sub-Saharan kids, because they are outside of the market. until we have a system in place where people come before profit, there will always be starving children.
i'm intersted in doing all i can to change the system instead of just treating those excluded from it.
and feel free to respond, but if you do, please refrain from personally insulting me. it's not that it hurts my feelings, it's just stupid and pointless.
Posted by: scott | December 21, 2004 at 01:33 AM
Ok I'm an MD. When I was younger I used to think along the same lines as al Farabi - i.e. "concerned about worse health status in the poor? A social injustice? Well get off your butt and start taking care of uninsured people instead of complaining."
For a long time I did just that. One lesson I learned was, you can do some real good for the individuals you see - but no matter how hard you work, there are millions more in line that you can't help. The problem is a dysfunctional health care system. Taking care of individual patients won't fix that. You need to get political, figure out solutions and mobilize other people and try to bring about change.
I hope this isn't too far afield. The point I'm trying to make is, individual acts of charity are good, but they don't change systems. What's needed for that is critique, communication, activism. In that sense, ideas ARE important. Talk is important. And it's wrong to tear Scott down for putting facts and opinions out on the web. That's part of what mobilizes people toward change.
Posted by: Andrew Schamess | December 21, 2004 at 10:08 PM
thanks for the comment and the support, andrew. i appreciate it. what you added was very informative. thanks! and i really like you website.
Posted by: scott | December 21, 2004 at 11:51 PM
Mr. Schamess,
First of all, I've apologized to Scott for attacking him. Obviously, he's a good guy and doesn't deserve to be spoken to that way. The fact that he responded thoughtfully to my disrespectful tone shows that he has a lot of class.
However, I disagree with your analysis. Of course I agree that ideas are important! But I would argue that part (and only part) of the dysfunction in our healthcare system is that the middle class and working class people who blow 15 billion dollars a year on ice cream are unwilling to donate even a miserable fraction of that cost to, say, expand the services offered by the excellent Free Clinics that provide health services to all comers but are forced to run on a shoestring year-after-year, begging for tiny donations.
And anyway, health care in a western country is not a good analogue here, because the amount of coordination and logistics that are required is immense, making government involvement a necessity. But other issues are not like that. For example, a horrendous famine in Malawi was virtually wiped out in the space of three months...how? Just by distributing free seed around the country, for godssakes, allowing farmers to grow their own food. All that is really necessary in cases like that is for the "haves" (i.e., privileged westerners like us, middle and working class) to decide that it's inappropriate to blow our fifteen billion on ice cream (and so on) when we can use the same money to prevent other people from STARVING TO DEATH.
I agree with Scott and you that the problem is that the people with power just don't care. Where I depart from you is in thinking that "the people with power who don't care" is US, the average hyper-privileged westerner who has the money to meet his basic needs and still spend money on luxuries. WE are the bloated capitalist fat cat luxuriating on the back of the dying and the poor. And in my mind hyper-publicized causes like Israel/Palestine just give our young luxuriating kids a way to imagine that they're fighting the oppressors, when in fact *they are* the oppressors.
al Farabi
Posted by: al Farabi | December 22, 2004 at 03:45 AM
al farabi is the epitome of a "house nigger" what kind of arab are you?
if you really cared about hungry people, you would think about overthrowing sadistic governments, many of who are U.S. sponsored. and keep talking about iraq and their 'arabization programs'. wake up fool, america put saddam in power to go to war with iran, so any products of saddam hussein's dictatorship are the fault of the u.s. now they will put another puppet to replace saddam and after 20 years he will go sour and they will call him a demonic hilter clone and slaughter MORE irqis in ANOTHER war.
Posted by: faisal | January 03, 2005 at 10:59 AM
Faisal,
It is men like you who keep the Arab world weak and silly. Why such fear of accepting responsiblity? Why do all our failures have to be laid at the doors of others? I'm sure you think that when Arab men murder Darfurian women and children that this is somehow someone else's fault. After all, if you can find any role played by any Westerner in the history of Darfur, then--gotcha!--this proves that Arabs are not to blame.
I'm so tired of people like you. You make me despair of ever seeing a better future for the Arab people. But of course, there are six billion people on this planet, and the world is bigger than just the Arabs. But this observation makes me a "house nigger" in your silly, feckless eyes. Westerners have convinced you that it's okay for you to be a racist, because after all you're only an Arab and when an Arab is racist he is a freedom fighter.
You're the pet Arab of young Western pseudo-radicals like Angry White Kid. He means well, so he has an excuse. What's your excuse?
Posted by: al Farabi | January 07, 2005 at 05:14 AM
whats your excuse, racist. what do 'darfurian arabs' have to do with palestinians or iraquis. Just as much as thugs in the recent decades of civil wars on the balkans have to do with the situation in ireland, for example.
Being what you call a pseudo-radical is largely dictated by the material circumstances of our lives. Give me a year off and the pay and I'll gladly spend that year as a volunteer.
Now the question, why against Israel? Because it is there that you have desperate circumstances combined with still a relatively democratic environment, and thus a real possibility for change. Being a 'pseudo-radical' and helping in any way to further the discussion is fair enough for me.
Posted by: someone | January 22, 2005 at 04:24 PM