Deep in the Amazon

Stellar local journalism by the Allentown Morning Call reveals rather brutal working conditions at the local Amazon.com warehouse. Things are rough in that section of Pennsylvania right now, which means Amazon.com is perfectly happy to plow through an ever-rotating mass of temporary workers lured with the promise of a full-time job, then put through a blistering pace until they can't keep up and are fired or quit (or simply are injured).

UCI Students Convicted for Disrupting Speech

Last year we talked about an incident at UC-Irvine where various students affiliated with the university's Muslim Student Union disrupted a speech being given at the school by Israeli ambassador Michael Oren. UCI ended up suspending the MSU (the suspension was originally for a year, but this was reduced on appeal). But the students were also criminally charged under a California statute which prohibits "willfully disturb[ing] or break[ing] up any assembly or meeting that is not unlawful in its character", and have just been convicted.

Eugene Volokh analyzes the statute and its application against First Amendment doctrine and thinks it is constitutionally permissible as a legitimate time, place, and manner restriction.

Project Runway Power Rankings!

Oliv(i)er's departure last night left us with seven designers remaining. And while many are excited to see him go, let's be fair -- the last few challenges have not played to his strengths. I mean, that was two straight weeks with models who project into three-dimensional space!

Anyway, roughly halfway through the season, where do the designers stand in this viewer's humble opinion? Read on to find out!

(1) Viktor: After an iffy start, he's found his groove and become one of the strongest and most consistent designers on the show. A few of designs (particularly the gown which should have won the prints challenge) have been nothing short of stunning, although much of the time he's simply standing out amongst a weak field. Still, he seems to be in excellent shape to make Fashion Week.

(2) Anya: The fan favorite (as well as my own), I firmly believe that if this was Project Runway: Season 11 she'd be running away with it. Anya clearly has the most natural eye for design of any of the designers, and the strongest point of view that has lead to some truly beautiful garments. But while her sewing skills have mostly held up, we saw the first stumble this past challenge, and remains possible she could unravel (figuratively and literally).

(3) Josh M.: I know, I know -- I find him obnoxious too (though his too-obvious crush on Anya is adorable). And frankly, I don't think he's that good. But he does have some intriguing ideas, it's just an inability to edit that does him in. The cynic would say that if you throw enough details and features and flaps and pockets on a garment, of course some of them will be interesting (if only by accident). I say that I see some genuinely neat stuff on his outfits that signal a real point of view.

(4) Anthony Ryan: Another fan favorite, but annoyingly inconsistent, and a lot of times too safe. In client-challenges, Anthony Ryan seems to excel in giving the customer what he or she wants, which is a mixed-blessing, since clients often don't want something too cutting edge.

(5) Kimberly: Another extremely inconsistent designer. She's had several looks that demonstrate a real flair for design, but others that were just "wtf" moments. What's odd about Kimberly is that even though she typically does have good construction, I often don't feel like that's a strong suit, probably because sometimes the concept is so off-kilter that even making it "well" will still look bad.

(6) Bert: Bert started this season as the loveable curmudgeon, transitioned into a pure villain, and has since swung back to being (mostly) loveable. Good for Bert for showing genuine character growth! Unfortunately, Bert's design aesthetic doesn't lend itself to this show. He knows how to sew, and he knows how to work with clients (surprisingly enough, given his crotchety attitude), but he rarely makes looks that have any "pop", and that's going to catch up with him sooner rather than later.

(7) Laura Kathleen: Ugh. I don't see what the judges see in her. Laura Kathleen thinks she is so hot, and she's so not. Her designs are unified in being boring and off-the-rack; her avant-garde look was basically a dull prom dress. She doesn't have any major strengths as a designer that I can see, and she's exceptionally catty to boot. I hope she goes home and soon.

Will Palestine Be a State For All Palestinians?

This is a distressing interview published in Lebanon's Daily Star. Abdullah Abdullah, Palestine's ambassador to Lebanon, informs us that Palestinian refugees will not be given automatic citizenship in any newly created Palestinian state. This applies to Palestinians living in surrounding countries (including Lebanon), but also to Palestinians living in refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza (that is, in the territory that comprises the to-be-created Palestinian state):

The ambassador unequivocally says that Palestinian refugees would not become citizens of the sought for U.N.-recognized Palestinian state, an issue that has been much discussed. “They are Palestinians, that’s their identity,” he says. “But … they are not automatically citizens.”

This would not only apply to refugees in countries such as Lebanon, Egypt, Syria and Jordan or the other 132 countries where Abdullah says Palestinians reside. Abdullah said that “even Palestinian refugees who are living in [refugee camps] inside the [Palestinian] state, they are still refugees. They will not be considered citizens.”

Abdullah said that the new Palestinian state would “absolutely not” be issuing Palestinian passports to refugees.
[...]
The right of return that Abdullah says is to be negotiated would not only apply to those Palestinians whose origins are within the 1967 borders of the state, he adds. “The state is the 1967 borders, but the refugees are not only from the 1967 borders. The refugees are from all over Palestine. When we have a state accepted as a member of the United Nations, this is not the end of the conflict. This is not a solution to the conflict. This is only a new framework that will change the rules of the game.”

Of course, PA policy on this matter is not set by their Ambassador to Lebanon. Still, this is extremely troublesome on several levels. In terms of the desire to resolve the conflict, it is notable that the Ambassador explicitly is disclaiming that as an objective or a result of attaining statehood. In this, he echoes right-wing Israeli sentiment that the Palestinian movement is not fundamentally about attaining self-determination, but about obliterating Israel as well. Meanwhile, from a human rights framework, the Ambassador's position maintains and ratifies the stateless status of millions of Palestinians, including many which would be under the jurisdiction of the new Palestine. That sort of callousness should give everyone pause.

Different Speeches for Different Audiences

Apparently, "the left" is disappointed with President Obama's UN speech, which focused primarily on chastising the international community for its obsessive focus on Israel and its deliberate apathy towards that state's security and legitimacy needs. They wanted to see a more aggressive push by the President towards restarting negotiations.

Whatever. First, the Obama administration has hardly been quiet about pushing for a return to the negotiating table. I'm not sure why it was particularly important that he lay out a 12-point plan before this particular body. Much like how the President's pressure on Palestinians apparently doesn't count because it wasn't sufficiently public, apparently it is valid practice to ignore the administration's tireless efforts to return the two parties to the negotiating table because it is merely being plastered over the front page of every newspaper in America, rather than at the UNGA.

But more importantly, forums matter, and this was a speech that the UNGA diplomats needed to hear. The fact of the matter is that one of the major obstacles to a just peace between Israel and Palestine is that a substantial portion of the international community rejects in principle basic things like "Israel shouldn't be destroyed" or "it's bad when suicide bombers blow up cafes in Tel Aviv". That norm has been for too long unchallenged, and it is a great thing that the President took it upon himself to break that streak. While Avigdor Lieberman's approval fills me with shame, it is notable that President Obama gave what Ha'aretz is calling "probably the warmest pro-Israel speech ever given at an annual UN General Assembly meeting by any U.S. president, bar none." This is a body that doesn't hear many such speeches, and it needs to.

Not every forum is like the UN, of course. Not every relevant location to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is a place where Israeli concerns are systematically marginalized and the Jewish people are routinely denigrated. In other places, it is the Palestinians who are marginalized and ignored, and in those places people need to be informed of the legitimate aspirations and true suffering of the Palestinian people. And in other locations, the problem isn't really lack of awareness of either side's plight, but a simple need to get people back in a room together. And in those places, that's the message that should be sent.

But the UN is a specific audience, with a specific character flaw that needed to be picked out. It's not the only thing President Obama should do, but in this forum, before this audience, it was the right speech at the right time.

The Puzzle of Obama as Not Pro-Israel

NY Mag has a good and much-talked about article up on President Obama's struggles to be seen as "pro-Israel", even though by any objective metric he has been a stalwart supporter of the Jewish state. President Obama has leaned upon Israel, this is true, but he has also leaned upon the Palestinians as well. Moreover, Obama's pressure on Israel has in my view clearly been in support of policies in Israel's own interests anyway (the settlements are catastrophic for Israel from both a moral and strategic perspective). His outlook on the conflict mirrors of that of many prominent Israelis, most notably opposition leader Tzipi Livni.

But therein lies a large part of the problem. President Obama's positions are perfectly within the Israeli mainstream. But they happen to be reflected by the party out of power. The current Prime Minister and Obama do not see eye-to-eye. It is easy to cast personal and political tensions between the two as tension between America and Israel.

I actually think David Bernstein has a solid read on this. I don't think that Obama was actively trying to bring down Bibi's coalition (though I don't think he would have shed any tears if it had happened), but I agree that President Obama's avowed "anti-Likud" standpoint is going to be problematic when Likud is in power. President Obama is clearly correct that "pro-Israel" and "pro-Likud" are not the same thing, but the potential for political awkwardness is obvious.

Bernstein also notes the rise of Israel as a central part of conservative domestic political mobilization as something President Obama didn't anticipate. I think this is right as well, but I think Bernstein elides a critical part of this story. The effort by the GOP to turn Israel into a partisan wedge necessarily implies that there will be a concerted effort by GOP operatives to cast President Obama as anti-Israel regardless of whether the attack is fair or not. That's how politics works, of course -- it is not as if virulent Obama opponents are going to come out and say "hey, he's got a point." They are going to try and find an avenue for why whatever it is he's advocating represents bad policy by a bad president who should be defeated. The conservative critique, in other words, doesn't flow organically out of policy disputes, but is political theater promulgated by political opponents who hate Obama far more than they love Israel.

The most obvious example of this was Noah Pollak, who in 24 hours did a complete 180 on his beliefs about what policies were good for Israel after realizing the opportunity to launch an attack ad against the President. This helps illuminate part of President Obama's sin: he is guilty of caring about Israel enough to actually have opinions about it, and try and promote them. People like Pollak, on the other hand, appear to be complete mercenaries when it comes to Israel -- they don't have actual beliefs about what is best for Israel, they just have a political calculation about how to use Israel to hurt Obama. Others explicitly urge that to be "pro-Israel" is to lack any such beliefs -- a standpoint which is frankly bizarre. If I told you I cared deeply about America and its future, and you said "Oh really? What policies do you support?" and I replied "oh, it doesn't matter to me -- whatever the current government decides, I'll just support that", you'd be right to challenge just how deep my commitment runs. Caring about something means having opinions about it.

Obviously, one can be genuinely pro-Israel and disagree with President Obama. But a sober look at political realities requires us to admit that a not-insubstantial portion of the political attack on Obama comes from those who have no discernible (or at least stable) opinions about Israel at all -- who view Israel as a useful rhetorical tool to bash the President and will happily mouth whatever position makes those attacks feasible at any given time. These people, of course, are no real friends of Israel at all, and as Robert Wexler boldly put forth today, it is Israelis who will "pay in blood" for it.

Mearsheimer's New Friend

I'm pretty skittish about the term "self-hating Jew". Remember that post I wrote about how self-loving Jews is a better moniker? Most of the time, it seems fairer and more sensible, and keeps the focus of the debate where it belongs.

But there are exceptions. Gilad Atzmon, for example, describes himself as a "proud self-hating Jew". So far from me to disagree. Anyway, Atzmon is one of the most vicious and vitriolic anti-Semitic writers out there today -- even stalwart anti-Zionists of the "[I] want the state of Israel to be destroyed" mold think he's beyond the pale -- and even the briefest perusal of his writings demonstrates a proclivity for attacking Jews, Judaism, and Jewishness with the fervor of a neo-Nazi.

So it is disappointing to see that, if Atzmon's publisher is to be believed, John Mearsheimer has endorsed Atzmon's new book. You can follow the links to see some of what that endorsement entails, with Atzmon approvingly quoting proto-Nazi Otto Weininger (himself an early Atzmon prototype) on the subject of Jews and Jewishness.

It has to be said that, deserved condemnations aside, there is something deeply tragic about this. The Israel Lobby, in addition to whatever moral problems there might be with it, was also a bad book on a purely scholarly level. And Mearsheimer has only slipped from there -- his list of "good Jews" was an appalling exercise, and this latest step towards the depths of anti-Semitic depravity is even worse. But once upon a time, Mearsheimer was an important international relations scholar. His theories on neo-realism were (and are) exceptionally important. Ironically, The Israel Lobby itself is virtually incomprehensible under Mearsheimer's own theoretical model (neo-realism posits that domestic lobbies should be descriptively irrelevant in international relations).

I don't mean to say we should forgive Mearsheimer simply because he was once important and had valuable things to say. But we should recognize the tragedy of the fall. It has been swift, shocking, and very, very ugly.

Bibi: Dumb or Wrong?

Tom Friedman has a column up lambasting Bibi Netanyahu for putting Israel's future as a Jewish, democratic state at risk. Matt Yglesias says there's "an awful lot to agree with" in Friedman's column, but argues that he gives Bibi too much credit in attributing his postures to ignorance. Rather, Yglesias' argues, Bibi has made it evident that he has a strong substantive commitment to the settler project, and all the damage Israel's taking to its international reputation are costs Bibi is absorbing with open eyes. It's not that Bibi is making a "misstep" -- he's just made a calculation that his allegiance to settlements is worth growing international isolation.

I'll parrot Yglesias' words back: there's "an awful lot to agree with" in that. I do agree that Bibi is substantively committed to a vision of greater Israel that is in my view immoral and unsustainable. While he has some recognition that a Palestinian state will have to come into existence eventually, he doesn't really have any plan for it, nor does he have any qualms about gobbling up as much of the West Bank as possible before that day occurs. This is important to note, because while Israel has had leaders willing to make bold strides for peace, Bibi is not one of them, and that fact has to be part of any short-term appraisal of how Israel and Palestine got to the position they're in right now.

Still, I don't think it gets the whole story either. First, I'll reiterate my view that Bibi's primary motivator is neither ignorance about Israel's situation, nor ideological commitment to Greater Israel, but simply short term personal/political self-interest. Yglesias cites his decision to stay with Likud when Ariel Sharon broke off to form Kadima as proof of his status as an ideologue who is willing to gamble, but I think it is more consistent with basic political self-preservation instincts. Even while Sharon was part of Likud, Netanyahu was constantly sniping at him from the right--that's a large part of why Sharon packed up and left. Netanyahu would have had no credibility in Kadima and would have been marginalized if he'd tried to join. Leading Likud's rump faction was clearly his best move, and it did indeed pay off.

Second, Yglesias' point that Bibi knows and is willing to accept growing international isolation as a price to pay for settlements doesn't account for a key aspect of Bibi's worldview: that international isolation is simply a fact of life of Israel no matter what it does, and has little to do with the settlement project at all. Settlements are the current preferred rhetoric for folks who find it impolitic to simply say they dislike Israel as a concept, but they aren't actually playing any causal role. True or not (I think it's more true than Yglesias thinks but less than Bibi does), for someone who believes that "international isolation" is going to be a relative non-factor in one's analysis, because it isn't something that can be helped.

Finally, the fact that Netanyahu has, at times, recognized the need for a Palestinian state and respects Israel's democratic character indicates, to me, that settlement expansion is at the very least not his only ideological commitment. He is not just a National Union MK in drag. But I think he's simply too mentally weak to see the tension, and thus is attempting to delude himself that Israel can maintain its current path without consequence. It is a painful choice for Bibi, and sometimes when people are faced with painful choices they just attempt to put off choosing, covering their eyes to the dilemma in front of them. That, too, is part of what Bibi is doing.

The Laziest Nation on Earth

Most politicians go around telling folks that America "is the greatest nation on earth." A bit of patriotic puffery, perhaps, but not without some truth either -- our accomplishments, influence, and reach stand unrivaled across human history. But Rep. Steve King (R-IA) has a different perspective. America is "a nation of slackers" -- and that's why we have an unemployment crisis.

Now, since Rep. King is among the dimmest bulbs in Congress, I feel compelled to explain again that the unemployment rate only includes persons who lack a job but are still pursuing one (otherwise it would include, for example, full-time students, and that makes no sense). So the idea that unemployment is simply the result of people slacking off is -- in addition to insanely offensive -- not really possible to square with what unemployment measures.

Michael Moore's Frustrations Boil Out Into Racism

Left-winger Michael Moore (Moore is not, to my knowledge, a registered Democrat, finding them too moderate for his tastes) has lashed out against Barack Obama, finding him to be acting too White for his tastes: "I went into the polls voting for the black guy, and what I got was the white guy..."

Bill Maher (who is a professional jerk) finds it funny too. As Ta-Nehisi Coates observes, it's just racist.

. It really is no better than the Kenyan anti-colonial bit, and in fact is good deal worse. I said this yesterday on twitter, but it would be as if my Jewish accountant messed up my taxes and I said, "Dude, you're Jewish, what the hell?!?!"

In fact, I'd be getting exactly what I deserved. If you paid more attention to Obama's skin color, than to his speeches, the voluminous amounts of journalism noting his moderation, his two books which are, themselves, exercises in moderation, than you have chosen to be ignorant.

You are now being punished for that ignorance. No one should feel sorry for you. Try not being racist.

This whole "acting White" phenomenon is so ridiculous anyway. It's just a racialized stand-in for "I don't like nerds" or "I don't like squares". But of course, the race-element to it invests it with an extra historical punch. And when White people arrogate to themselves the right to determine who is and isn't authentically Black (and, in effect, tokenize the entire Black race as their pet revolutionaries) -- yeah, that's pretty racist.

Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Hamas)

Freshman Republican Representative Joe Walsh (R-IL) has introduced a resolution endorsing any Israeli annexation of the West Bank. In doing so, he explicitly promoted a "one state" solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict:

Walsh asserted that "there is no such thing as a two-state solution, and no such thing as land for peace. The ultimate peace is going to come through annexation, through Israel having sovereignity over the whole land, from the Mediterranean to Jordan."

Hamas could scarcely say it better. A one-state solution ends up with a huge Palestinian minority; likely an eventual Palestinian majority. At which point they vote to rename "Israel" "Palestine", abolish the state's Jewish character, and in all probability inaugurate all sorts of illiberal and discriminatory legislation against Jewish residents.

I've noted before that Walsh is no friend of Israel or the Jews. And here we see proof of that. Walsh is advocating nothing less than the end of Israel, the end of the Zionist dream of a Jewish democratic homeland. It renders him arguably the most overtly anti-Israel Congressman since Cynthia McKinney (D-GA), and the Jewish community should let him hear it.

The Unrepentant

A former St. Andrew's student convicted of racially abusing an Israeli classmate has been sentenced to a fine of 300 pounds payable to the victim and 150 hours of community service. He intends to appeal, but also had this to say about the student he abused:

“Mr Reitblat was an American studying over here so he’s from a rich family – I hope he gives the compensation to a good cause and doesn’t just fund his own greed.

Going straight back to the well with the "rich greedy Jew" trope I see. Well, at least he learned a valuable lesson.

(The victim actually is planning on donating the funds to victims of terrorist attacks in Israel).

Jewish Jihadists

Tablet Mag has a mesmerizing piece up about the young women who attend a radical settler school deep in the West Bank, where they are raised to be extremist warriors against any agent (Israeli, Arab, or otherwise) seeking to remove them from the area. The article does a good job capturing the raw religious fervor underlying the girls (albeit also eroticizing it in a more-than-a-little-creepy manner). It also makes quite clear the utter disdain these radicals have for Israel and the bulk of the Jewish people more generally. Though they consider themselves fighters for the Jewish people, they have no qualms about violently resisting the state of Israel (and proudly boast of attacking Arabs and their desire for "vengeance"). This love/hate relationship they hold towards the broader Jewish community -- seeing themselves as authentic representatives of the people while simultaneously viewing most of their religious compatriots with contempt -- is a quality they share with certain other, similarly marginal strains of the Jewish communal tent.

But the most important point is the way the girls and their teachers talk is virtually identical to how radical Islamist extremists speak. This is not surprising -- expected overlaps amongst fanatical religious extremists aside -- the young women at times explicitly hold out Arab terrorists as models, wondering why Jews can't be more like them (once again, folks I thought to be my enemy are apparently instead models to emulate). They mock traditional Jewish concerns for justice and repairing the world, in favor of a vision of theocratic autocracy imposed at the tip of a sword. They are, in effect, Jewish Jihadists.

What's the Downside?

The line on the upcoming NY-09 special election (triggered by the resignation of ex-Rep. Anthony Weiner (D)) is that Republican Bob Turner appears likely to score the sizable upset in this Democratic-leaning district. Turner has leveraged the anger some ancestrally Democratic but hawkish Jews (e.g., the Russian Jewish community) have towards President Obama's policies on Israel to pull into a small but noticeable lead as polls come to a close.

It certainly will be a feather in the GOP's cap if they win this race. But that's not what the post is about. Rather, it is about some last-minute mailers going out by Turner's allies attacking, once again, the proposed construction of an Islamic Center near Ground Zero.

Doug Mataconis, who says he probably wouldn't support the Democrat in this race, sees this and asks: "Do New York Republicans Really Want To Win An Election By Appealing To Religious Intolerance?"

Really? Do we even need to ask at this point?

Why wouldn't they? The tragic fact is that a significant portion of the American population doesn't think that Muslims should have the same rights as other religious groups to build Mosques. There is very little downside to latching on to it. If even the ADL is willing to join in the hit parade, why should Republicans feel skittish about it?

Refuse To Be Terrorized

It is the tenth anniversary of 9/11. There is a lot to reflect upon, most notably, the many thousands who lost their lives that day. It was a dark day for America, but also a day of courage, where brave men and women demonstrated that heroism and honor were well-represented amongst ordinary Americans who happened to be in New York, Washington, and onboard Flight 93.

How best to honor their memory? How best to defend against the scourge that killed them? Spencer Ackerman has it right: The best way to beat terrorism is to refuse to be terrorized. To stand firm and resolute and insure that not a thread of our constitutional fabric, not an inch of our democratic tradition, not a morsel of our civic values, are sacrificed at the terrorist's altar. That's how we win, and they lose. And that's how you honor American courage.

Just Why Do We Have Employment Discrimination Laws?

A provision in President Obama's proposed American Jobs Act would prohibit employers from discriminating against prospective employees on the grounds that they are currently unemployed. This is in response to reports that some companies are limiting job openings by explicitly turning away job-seekers who are not currently employed elsewhere.

In the Washington Post, Charles Lane takes aim at the proposal, with a hearty concurrence from Jonathan Adler. While I don't have a strong opinion yet on the provision itself (having just learned of it), I have to say I find Lane and Adler to be very unpersuasive critics. Both, in my view, give a short-shrift to the purposes that underlie employment discrimination law -- narrowing its ambition in ways that would not just obviate the need for an "unemployment discrimination" provision, but many other anti-discrimination provisions they claim to support.

Lane makes the case that for some firms in some cases, it is perfectly rational to discriminate on basis of immediate past employment history. For example, a company might prefer a candidate who is up to date on current trends in the industry versus one who would need time to get up to speed. Consequently, we should be reluctant to "assign malicious intent without a lot more specific information", and trust the market to punish firms that do discriminate in an inefficient manner.

Lane's argument could be (and sometimes is) used against all employment discrimination laws (if it's really irrelevant, the market will solve, otherwise, it's rational market choice and should be left alone). Adler at least makes an effort to preserve some of them by analogizing to racial discrimination, where, for much of our nation's history, a company who attempt to hire in a non-discriminatory fashion would be beset by boycotts, intimidation, and violence. Even though racial discrimination is inefficient and race is not relevant to job qualifications, it would persist because no company could break from the status quo and hire racial minorities without incurring huge costs. Employment discrimination laws are justified in such cases to solve a first mover problem (and, notably, companies would prefer such a law to be in place for that very reason).

The first problem with this distinction is that it probably doesn't apply today -- it seems unlikely that in 2011 a company which did hire Blacks would face a coordinated campaign of violence and intimidation as a result -- which means it is hard for Adler to avoid arguing that employment discrimination law as a whole has passed its prime and should be repealed (which maybe he does think, I don't know). But in any event, the second, larger problem is that it doesn't even touch on a different rationale behind employment discrimination laws: that certain sorts of appraisals should be restricted even where they're arguably relevant, either because they're morally inappropriate or because we believe whatever efficiency gains might exist from a free market system are outweighed by the damage done to the discriminated-against group member and general American values of inclusion.

The obvious example on this front is discrimination on basis of disability. One clearly can think of many cases where disability is relevant in an employment decision; and far more where it is isn't so clearly irrelevant so as to demand an inference of "malicious intent". Nonetheless, we bar it anyhow, both because we think the harms it imposes upon the disabled outweigh whatever efficiency gains would manifest from an open market, and because we've made an assessment that such discrimination is morally suspect as a general rule. The ADA, of course, has not been an economic catastrophe -- whatever economic losses it has created by barring "efficient" discrimination we appear happy to absorb as a cost for a more inclusive American society.* Meanwhile, we don't have the ADA because we think employers are malicious -- this is the misleading strawman that tells us that for their to be discrimination, there must be some villain cackling about how much he hates minorities. Not at all -- we often have anti-discrimination laws not because there are evildoers who need to be warded off, but rather because there is a maldistribution of opportunity in our society that we view as unfair.

Now, one element of disability discrimination law (indeed, most employment discrimination provisions -- race is a notable exception) is that if an employer actually can prove that the disability is relevant to bona fide occupational qualification (BFOQ), then that is a valid affirmative defense. So we don't even ban this sort of "efficient discrimination", we just force employers to back it up. This defense apparently is incorporated into the proposed unemployment discrimination provision. Indeed, it appears that provision is stricter still -- barring such discrimination only when it was the sole rationale for the employer decision (thus giving a pass to "mixed motive" cases, where employment status was one reason among others for the employer's decision).

Lane recognizes these caveats but darkly warns that they'll be "endlessly litigated before settled case law emerged" and thus will act as a deterrent to company hiring (Adler concurs). This is unlikely: as noted, the provisions parallel already extant statutory rules in Title VII. Far from being a judicial blank slate, it overlays itself upon anti-discrimination rules that are quite settled and well-known to HR professionals -- they stand out only in that they track the weakest threads of contemporary anti-discrimination law. It would be difficult to imagine a new regulation that would be more easily absorbed by the business community. Adler's assumption that companies will simply avoid hiring people at all for fear of being sued under the new provision seems more than a little melodramatic.

* It is also possible that there is a separate sort of first mover problem being solved here, where it was irrational for any one firm to recalibrate itself to be inclusive towards the disabled but a net utility boost could come once we unlocked the potential of a hitherto underutilized segment of our society. One thing that I think capitalism does very well is that it is adaptable to varying sets of constraints: when a new restriction is imposed, firms don't throw up their hands and give up, they look for new ways to create wealth and utility consistent with the new regime.

Has the Fever Broke?

The situation in Egypt with respect to Israel has badly deteriorated, with Israeli diplomatic staff forced to evacuate after the embassy was attacked by a mob. As distressing as that scene was -- and it was -- it also appears to be non-representative of either the current Egyptian government or the leaders of the protest movement. Indeed, six stranded embassy staffers were rescued by a team of Egyptian commandos, and the Egyptian government has promised to prosecute those responsible for the attack.

Meanwhile, Bibi went out of his way to praise President Obama for his leadership during the crisis:

Netanyahu praised the United States for intervening with Egypt in order to rescue the Israelis. “I would like to express my gratitude to the President of the United States, Barack Obama. I asked for his help. This was a decisive and fateful moment. He said, ‘I will do everything I can.’ And so he did. He used every considerable means and influence of the United States to help us. We owe him a special measure of gratitude,” Netanyahu said.

That's the sort of language that, to me, is designed to extend beyond the proximate events and heal deeper wounds. If so, it is a welcome development and worth noting.

UPDATE: Speaking of fevers breaking, Turkey is backing off earlier threats to send in its navy in escort of new flotillas. Baby steps, people.

Retaliatory Measures

The Israeli foreign ministry is contemplating various retaliatory measures against Turkey after the latter expelled the Israeli ambassador, cut military ties, and is threatening to provide military escort to any new flotilla seeking to break Israel's blockade of Gaza. It's typical Lieberman fare: pugnacious, probably counterproductive, and forcing the Prime Minister's office to distance itself. The main highlights are beginning cooperation with the PKK (a Kurdish terrorist organization working to establish an independent Kurdish state in Southeast Turkey), including potential weapons sales, and flooding the UN with complaints about Turkey's treatment of minorities (such as the Kurds).

I'm obviously not wild about supplying weapons to a recognized terrorist organization. But I will admit to finding ironically appealing sending a convey to southeast Turkey filled with Kurdish-language instruction books and other educational materials geared towards the Kurdish people. Totally non-violent "solidarity" measures, but I guarantee Turkey would flip out (Kurdish language and culture is heavily suppressed by the Turkish government). And hey, if we're talking about supporting national self-determination for local populations under the heel of another power, well, what's good for the goose....

As for the human rights complaints, both Israel and Turkey long have a habit of using such proclamations as proxies for diplomatic conflicts (see, e.g., declarations regarding the Armenia genocide). Still, it's not as if there aren't serious points of concern that deserve public airing: For example, the Turkish prime minister threatened to expel 100,000 undocumented ethnic Armenians if resolutions regarding said genocide were passed (ironic, no?).

On the other hand, there is no reason to think that UN human rights bodies will give Turkey anything but a clean bill of health no matter how serious its violations are. After all, countries in the UNHRC's good graces can get away with quite a bit: Sri Lanka earned laudations for its actions against the Tamils in the midst of killing up to 1,000 civilians a day. There is no reason to think that the UN holds any particular interest in holding Turkey accountable for wrongdoing, and it will be particularly resistant to doing so when it seen as acting on Israel's instigation, so it is not clear what any Israeli complaints would accomplish.

How It'll Go

My girlfriend told me that the early response to Obama's speech from various pundit-types was positive. She was optimistic. I, on the other hand, forwarded this account of what we could expect:

Day 1: Media tells us that Obama's speech was decent, relatively noncontroversial fare -- focusing on bipartisan solutions which have a history of support from both parties.

Day 2: Republicans claim that they've never heard anything more radical in their entire lives, and that basically we're witnessing the rebirth of Maoism combined with Nazism.

Day 3: "Is Obama's jobs plan fascist? The controversy brews!"

Cite as precedent: The individual mandate, "based on 1967 borders".

There's Always Someone

When various rabble-rousers in Egypt were agitating to annul the peace treaty with Israel, I remarked somewhat smugly that "reputation for rabid warmongering aside, there is no political constituency of note in Israel that has called for a repudiation of peace with Egypt. It seems that once Israel makes a final agreement with one of its neighbors, it is capable of keeping it with little fuss from its citizens' end." So of course I read an Israeli editorial in Ynet that proposes doing just that. Because Lord knows if Israel didn't have its share of morons it would just be too easy.

Fortunately, it does seem like this guy is quite the marginal figure -- there remains "no political constituency of note" making this call that I've seen. And even in Egypt, the claim that there is some groundswell support for annulling the treaty is also badly overstated (the "million man march" that was planned to press for canceling the treaty drew terribly). But still, it's just so, so annoying.