Whoever witnessed a real discussion about the Israeli Palestinian problems is bound to feel often disappointed and even deceived. The reason behind this feeling is that the arguments of both parties seem to go pass each other as if they were engaged in two simultaneous monologues instead of a dialogue. The reasons are manifold: a high level of mutual dislike or even hatred, high stakes and may be personal involvement. However, besides these and other factors, the discussion of the Israeli Palestinian conflict often falls into one of the two pitfalls: being either narrow-focused or out-of-focus.
The first pitfall consists of analysing one of the players or even one aspect of the players’ behavior completely out of the general historical, political, economic and social context. This inevitably leads to harsh conclusions regarding the side under the investigation. This mistake is common for apologists of both sides. According to this type of analysis the Palestinians are motivated by irrational anti-semitic impulses and fanatical Islamic drive for violence exacerbated by an utter disregard for human life. This completely leaves out the reality of the occupation, the paucity and ineffectiveness of alternative means of resistance.
According to the partisans of the Palestinian side, Israel is an apartheid state striving to subjugate its neighbours and take their land and resources through permanent and premeditated exercise of gratuitous violence. This completely omits the true nature of the threats to which Israel is exposed and the real difficulties of fighting off armed guerrilla assaults.
The opposite pitfall is known as “but what with” strategy. People engaged in this kind of argumentation try to shift the focus from a concrete instance of abuse to other similar or purportedly similar behaviours perpetrated either by the antagonist or by other members of international community. This kind of strategy is even worse since it prevents any meaningful discussion of the problem.
The outcome of this two pitfalls are dire since the general understanding of the motifs of behavior for both sides is lacking and they end up being presented in a much more negative way than the history and the present achievements of these two outstanding peoples would otherwise merit. This, in turn, may have contributed to their own mistrust of the other and have brought the conflict to unhealthy realms of the war of good against evil.
In this blog I would like to put the political events back into their proper context so that the motifs of the people involved would become clearer to outside observers. My underlying goal is to make readers understand that in this conflict the logic of the context often dominates what outsiders would consider as common sense or sound judgement.
Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israel. Show all posts
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Tuesday, January 24, 2012
The situation around Iran
With the adoption of oil embargo against Iran the EU has raised the stakes even further in the Western standoff with Iran. This action, which probably is bound to have more negative effect on ailing European economy than Iran, is hardly a sensible step if one is after coercing Iran into stopping its nuclear development. To begin with these sanction failed measurably in the past, especially in Iraq, where the brunt of these sanctions fell on the civilian population. Secondly, in recent years Iran has acquired vast currency reserves due to the high prices on oil and gas. It will take many years before these sanction will have biting effect, especially given the reluctance of Iran's main partners China, India, South Africa and Turkey, to take part in the embargo. So why then has the EU undertaken this apparently self-defeating decision? I think the EU knows that the effect of the embargo is going to be short-term anyway, since the main Western antagonists of this drama have already chosen the path of war.
Israel is undoubtedly interested in thoroughly defeating Iran. Indeed, if Iran decided to stop its nuclear work Israel would have been the loser, because the Iran's role in the region, although enhanced by its nuclear advances, relies primarily on the influence it wields among the resistance groups in Palestine, Lebanon, Shia groups in the Arab countries and Syria. From the Israeli perspective, the most desired outcome would be a complete drying up of the financial and military assistance provided by Iran to its allies. This would be feasible only as the result of a serious military defeat suffered by Iran. Hence Israel is interested in waging a war against Iran even more than it is interested in cessation of its nuclear program and it is prepared to pay for that a substantial price in terms of military and civilian losses.
As much as Israel wants to fight Iran it cannot currently start the war. The first reason is that such a thorough defeat of Iran is hardly possible through the use of air force alone. The deficiency of over-relying on air superiority has been demonstrated in the last Lebanon war of 2006, when Hezbollah guerilla group could frustrate Israel just by staying put. Although it is probable that Israeli air force is capable of overcoming the Iranian air force and anti-air defenses, it still would have pay a very hard price for a very humble achievement. Besides Israel acting alone would have to overcome serious logistic problem of fighting a war with a country separated by at least two sovereign states. In short, Israel would need the support of its NATO allies, primarily the US.
Such support, either military or otherwise, would have been gravely endangered should Israel be the first to attack. In addition, this action would be censured or even actively opposed by the neutral, but Iran-leaning countries like Russia, China and possibly India. Finally it would also exacerbate the anti-Israeli sentiment among the people of Muslim countries, which may have farther negative outcome on the stability of the region. All this reasons will prevent Israel from initiating the attack.
The US itself seems to be eager to flex its muscles once more. It conveniently evacuated its military, but not para-military forces from Iraq and amassed very impressive naval forces in the Gulf. It has a lot at stake at this conflict. Firstly, it needs to prop up the failing fortunes of its allies in the area, including Israel and the Gulf states; secondly, in periods of financial insecurity the power of manipulating oil reach countries become almost a necessity. There is also a personal revenge matter: though there are countries that have bloodied American nose more than Iran, there is no country that has done it with such a gratuitousness and in-your-face manner. Finally, without dealing with Iran, the war in Iraq will go down in history as the horrendous miscalculation, something that the US can ill afford. Yet as well as Israel, the US finds it difficult both for the internal and the external reasons to initiate this conflict.
On the other side there is Iran, which definitely does not want to go to war. It has most to lose in the event of war and least to gain. Supported by its oil revenues and emboldened by its success in crushing the decent it has acquired a status of regional super-power and if left to its own devices it will most assuredly gain more clout in the coming years with its enemies crumbling from inside in the waves of Arab revolutions. It gambled in its opposition to the Western demands and took a position which leaves it with little place for maneuver. The Iranian bet is that no matter what the West will not dare to attack.
This Iranian self-assurance seems to be a miscalculation. It's true that the West is reluctant to initiate the conflict, but it's also true that the Iranian uncompromising stance represents the tool for the West to manipulate Iran into initiating the conflict by some ill-advised action or suffer a series of humiliating and potentially debilitating measures. The recent decision by the EU is designed either provoke Iran into some kind of retaliatory response, e.g. closing the strait of Hormuz, which would certainly invite a crushing response or appear weak and incapable of following through its earlier belligerent language.
All in all, the unfortunate conflict seems to be almost unavoidable, since it's hard to assume that the stronger side (the West) will give up and that the weaker side (Iran) will come to its senses.
Israel is undoubtedly interested in thoroughly defeating Iran. Indeed, if Iran decided to stop its nuclear work Israel would have been the loser, because the Iran's role in the region, although enhanced by its nuclear advances, relies primarily on the influence it wields among the resistance groups in Palestine, Lebanon, Shia groups in the Arab countries and Syria. From the Israeli perspective, the most desired outcome would be a complete drying up of the financial and military assistance provided by Iran to its allies. This would be feasible only as the result of a serious military defeat suffered by Iran. Hence Israel is interested in waging a war against Iran even more than it is interested in cessation of its nuclear program and it is prepared to pay for that a substantial price in terms of military and civilian losses.
As much as Israel wants to fight Iran it cannot currently start the war. The first reason is that such a thorough defeat of Iran is hardly possible through the use of air force alone. The deficiency of over-relying on air superiority has been demonstrated in the last Lebanon war of 2006, when Hezbollah guerilla group could frustrate Israel just by staying put. Although it is probable that Israeli air force is capable of overcoming the Iranian air force and anti-air defenses, it still would have pay a very hard price for a very humble achievement. Besides Israel acting alone would have to overcome serious logistic problem of fighting a war with a country separated by at least two sovereign states. In short, Israel would need the support of its NATO allies, primarily the US.
Such support, either military or otherwise, would have been gravely endangered should Israel be the first to attack. In addition, this action would be censured or even actively opposed by the neutral, but Iran-leaning countries like Russia, China and possibly India. Finally it would also exacerbate the anti-Israeli sentiment among the people of Muslim countries, which may have farther negative outcome on the stability of the region. All this reasons will prevent Israel from initiating the attack.
The US itself seems to be eager to flex its muscles once more. It conveniently evacuated its military, but not para-military forces from Iraq and amassed very impressive naval forces in the Gulf. It has a lot at stake at this conflict. Firstly, it needs to prop up the failing fortunes of its allies in the area, including Israel and the Gulf states; secondly, in periods of financial insecurity the power of manipulating oil reach countries become almost a necessity. There is also a personal revenge matter: though there are countries that have bloodied American nose more than Iran, there is no country that has done it with such a gratuitousness and in-your-face manner. Finally, without dealing with Iran, the war in Iraq will go down in history as the horrendous miscalculation, something that the US can ill afford. Yet as well as Israel, the US finds it difficult both for the internal and the external reasons to initiate this conflict.
On the other side there is Iran, which definitely does not want to go to war. It has most to lose in the event of war and least to gain. Supported by its oil revenues and emboldened by its success in crushing the decent it has acquired a status of regional super-power and if left to its own devices it will most assuredly gain more clout in the coming years with its enemies crumbling from inside in the waves of Arab revolutions. It gambled in its opposition to the Western demands and took a position which leaves it with little place for maneuver. The Iranian bet is that no matter what the West will not dare to attack.
This Iranian self-assurance seems to be a miscalculation. It's true that the West is reluctant to initiate the conflict, but it's also true that the Iranian uncompromising stance represents the tool for the West to manipulate Iran into initiating the conflict by some ill-advised action or suffer a series of humiliating and potentially debilitating measures. The recent decision by the EU is designed either provoke Iran into some kind of retaliatory response, e.g. closing the strait of Hormuz, which would certainly invite a crushing response or appear weak and incapable of following through its earlier belligerent language.
All in all, the unfortunate conflict seems to be almost unavoidable, since it's hard to assume that the stronger side (the West) will give up and that the weaker side (Iran) will come to its senses.
Thursday, October 06, 2011
I am very happy that an Israeli scientist has been awarded the prestigious Nobel price. It makes me proud to be an Israeli too. This makes me also wonder what was so special thirty years ago that allowed Israel to collect several of these awards during the last decade. I decided to make a little comparison of the state of the Israel's science today and thirty years ago. I used Scopus research engine, a pretty exhaustive source of scientific citations, to see how many papers associated with Israeli institutions have been published in the last 30 days and compared this number with one-month worth of publications in 1980 in Israel and other leading countries. In order to provide a fair comparison with other countries and between different time points I divided the numbers by the population size so the results below represent a monthly number of publications per 1 million inhabitants.
To see the citation tables for 2011 and 1980 press here
These results show that Israel is loosing it's place as a leader of the scientific community. Although, in terms of the number of publications, Israel is still comparable with an average European country, the trend is worrisome. Israel retreated from a position of the "light upon the nations" to mediocrity. In 30 years it has increased its scientific outputs by several hundred percents, while the leading nations have done so by thousand percents, leaving Israel far behind.
However, the real increase in the scientific productivity is not reflected in these numbers. It comes from the developing countries that have, for now, a comparatively low per capita contribution. However, in gross numbers these countries are fast becoming the next powerhouses of science. China's scientific output is only marginally smaller than that of the US and is far ahead of any other country. No doubt it will soon overtake the US as being a leading publisher of the scientific papers. Other developing countries, such as Turkey and Iran, are growing constantly. In terms of the total number of publications they have overcome Israel several years ago and will soon overcome even larger Western nations.
This all means that to stay relevant Israel should increase amount of resource and the efficiency of their use. Otherwise very soon the technological edge will be in other people's hands. Judging by the state of the Israeli science today, this Nobel flourishing of the Israel's science may very well be its Indian summer.
To see the citation tables for 2011 and 1980 press here
These results show that Israel is loosing it's place as a leader of the scientific community. Although, in terms of the number of publications, Israel is still comparable with an average European country, the trend is worrisome. Israel retreated from a position of the "light upon the nations" to mediocrity. In 30 years it has increased its scientific outputs by several hundred percents, while the leading nations have done so by thousand percents, leaving Israel far behind.
However, the real increase in the scientific productivity is not reflected in these numbers. It comes from the developing countries that have, for now, a comparatively low per capita contribution. However, in gross numbers these countries are fast becoming the next powerhouses of science. China's scientific output is only marginally smaller than that of the US and is far ahead of any other country. No doubt it will soon overtake the US as being a leading publisher of the scientific papers. Other developing countries, such as Turkey and Iran, are growing constantly. In terms of the total number of publications they have overcome Israel several years ago and will soon overcome even larger Western nations.
This all means that to stay relevant Israel should increase amount of resource and the efficiency of their use. Otherwise very soon the technological edge will be in other people's hands. Judging by the state of the Israeli science today, this Nobel flourishing of the Israel's science may very well be its Indian summer.
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