Daring to Ask

Temple Law Professor Jaya Ramji-Nogales dares to ask: "What's wrong with teen sexting"? It's something I've wondered myself.

Posing for or simply allowing semi-nude photos to be taken of oneself seems to me to be typical teenage risk-taking behavior -- standard slumber party fare. The difference in today's world, of course, is the technology that can spread the image virally and have a real impact on a teenager's reputation and future. Rather than recognizing the problem as one of immaturity and perhaps naivete, the district attorney's heavy-handed approach seeks to brand these girls as immoral miscreants while letting the boys responsible for spreading the images do so with impunity. The message, then, is that girls must be chaste at all times or else they will face serious repercussions, but "boys will be boys." Moreover, this "blame the victim" mentality assumes that the girls are the sole cause of a rather complex problem. Perhaps that's what the district attorney plans to teach at his re-education program in which those charged are to "gain an understanding of what it means to be a girl in today's society."

Well, it's a good thing these girls have the nice DA to tell them "what it means to be a girl in today's society!" As far as I can tell, being a girl means that society can treat your body as its property and condemn you as a harlot if you choose to be sexually active.

The latest flurry of these stories, if nothing else, has shown that the cure is worse than the disease: the putative "victims" (the young women) are being met with the full fury of the law -- including threats to have them permanently labeled as sex offenders. The young men who are receiving the pictures are typically getting off with a wrist slap (no pun intended).

Nobody is denying that sexting is generally a foolish thing to do, but that applies to a lot of teenage behavior. Given that I don't actually have a problem with teenage sexual activity (so long as it is safe, consensual, and uncoerced), it is difficult for me to justify this reaction based on anything but the catch-all of slut-shaming young women.

It's All So Confusing

Oh, if only the feminists never came around. Then kids wouldn't be blaming Rihanna for being abused by her boyfriend.

What has happened — and what Rihanna and Chris have to do with Gloria and us — is that by inventing oppression where there is none and remaking woman in man’s image, as the sexual and feminist revolutions have done, we’ve confused everyone. The reaction those kids had was unnatural. It’s natural for us to expect men to protect women, and for women to expect some level of physical protection. But in post-modern America, those natural gender roles have been beaten by academics and political rhetoric and the occasional modern woman being offended by having a door opened for her. The result is confusion.

I'm not sure what work "natural" is doing here (or "post-modern", for that matter, but that's a common theme in conservative writing), but there doesn't seem to be any warrant for why "women are equal" should correspond to "blame women for being beaten." We "expect" men to protect women? What does that even mean? Historically, it means putting women "not on a pedestal but in a cage", as Justice Brennan put it. Historical masculine "protection" of women meant protecting their own exclusive rights to women, which, quite often, included their exclusive right to act violently against them -- through deprivation, through beatings, and through rape. What history is K-Lo reading where this traditional masculine paradigm didn't manifest itself in horrific violence towards women, particular in the home? And always this violence was justified either as the "natural" right of man to "his" woman's body, or as the proper response to "his" woman's obstinacy. Always.

Via Feministing.

Is it the Silence or the Speaking?

Jacob Shrybman gives his account of a presentation he attempted to give at Chicago's DePaul University detailing the experiences of Israelis who live in Sderot:

When I welcomed the custom of a question and answer period following my presentation, the very right of free speech that I welcomed to the audience of now over 100 people was thrown in my face and denied to me. First, an audience member verbally attacked me, expressed his support for the firing of rockets into Israel, and ended his anti-Semitic rhetoric filled rant with a question irrelevant to anything in my presentation. I then pointed out to the audience the same fact I want to point out in this article, that this person was not simply criticizing Israel but was clearly expressing his support for a terrorist organization.

Yet before I could finish answering the question, I was interrupted and silenced by the overwhelming Hamas supporters. Next, another audience member stood up and screamed out, calling me a “dirty whore” in Arabic and proceeding to grab his crotch and scream “Here’s your Qassam!” in Arabic.

Shrybman refers to this event as stifling his free speech. To me, that distracts from the issue. So much of the Israel/Palestine debate devolves into dueling accusations of "silencing" that I am now automatically leery of these sort of "free speech claims". Is aggressively hostile questioning during a Q&A session, after the presentation had concluding, a free speech violation (presumably in the moral, not legal, sense)? I dunno, maybe -- Shrybman seems to feel he was not actually allowed to answer the questions and that he was drowned out by a crowd that simply wanted to scream hate.

And that's the problem. As much as I care about open dialogue and norms of communication -- and I do, very much -- the content does matter. I'm less concerned that the conversation broke down here than I am by the fact that some members of the DePaul community engaged in anti-Semitic rants, vulgar threats, and at one point (according to Shrybman) "laughed at raw footage of kindergarten children running for shelter as a Qassam was fired at their city." In other words, the problem is that certain members of the DePaul community have become infected with a sickness -- a moral failure of imagination that lets them pronounce hate and cheer death and consider themselves righteous all the while.

Get Well Soon

I just wanted to send some well wishes to my friend Jeremy, currently deployed in Iraq, who suffered a concussion and an array of minor injuries after an IED exploded several meters away from his position. He got off relatively light -- the brunt of the explosion was taken by an Iraqi army comrade standing next to him, who is currently in stable condition. Jeremy seems to be recovering well, and knowing him he's itching to get back onto the front lines with his platoon (though he was slated to be transferred to a less combative position anyway -- coordinating battalion actions during the evening when the normal leadership is asleep). Knowing his wife, she's less than thrilled at his gung-ho attitude.

Anyway, best wishes to Jeremy to make a full recovery (and also to the unknown Iraqi Army Captain who may have unwittingly saved his life). We're all thinking of you.

The Hard Road Before Sheikh Nasser a-Din al-Masri

When I was younger, I used to wonder why there wasn't a Palestinian equivalent to the Israeli peace movement. Israel had Meretz and groups like Peace Now -- where were they in Palestine? Palestinian politics, in my mind, was a battle between different varieties of terrorists: secular Fatah, Islamist Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and Marxist PFLP and DFLP. It wasn't so much that I expected every Palestinian to adopt a Meretz-like line so much as the seeming lack of political diversity that confused and frightened me.

These were the opinions of a young kid, and of course today I recognize them to be too simplistic and ill-informed. Nonetheless, there remains the nagging question of why the movement to create an independent Palestinian state has so persistently remained within the confines of violent struggle?

Gershom Gorenberg (via) has a fabulous essay examining that precise question in, of all places, The Weekly Standard. It explores the idea of a Palestinian Gandhi or Martin Luther King -- the history of Palestinian nationalism, the persons promoting non-violent ideologies, and the barriers to seeing such a dream become reality. It is a stellar piece of work, and I highly recommend it.

There is one more obstacle to the emergence of a non-violent Palestinian resistance movement that Gorenberg doesn't really address. Palestinians want an independent state and an end to the Israeli occupation -- both just goals that persons worldwide ought support. But for some of them, including many of the political leaders, that is not all they want. Some want to destroy the state of Israel. Some want to slaughter the Jewish inhabitants. Some might be willing to allow Jewish inhabitants, subject to Palestinian domination or Islamic theocracy. Some might settle for expelling the Jews (or the "Zionist" Jews -- the Jews who can't trace their ancestry in Israel/Palestine prior to some arbitrary date). These goals, of course, should not be supported by anyone concerned with justice or progressivism. The general problem is that these agenda items bleed together: when Hamas kidnapped an IDF soldier, were they trying to advance the goal of ending the occupation, or killing off the Jews? The answer is: both. The trouble is, I can support one, but I'm obligated to abhor the other.

Whatever support I have for the creation of a Palestinian state is tempered by the fact that -- even outside the tactics they use to achieve the goal -- many of the people pursuing such an outcome are also pursuing much darker and ignoble ends; ones I cannot support; ones that put my very life in peril were they to come to pass. And unfortunately, the tactics for the former are applied equally to pursue the latter.

When it comes to non-violence, however, the mixture of laudable and terrible ends does more than just muddy the waters -- it is outright poison. While Gandhi's satyagraha may have succeeded in getting the British to leave India, he never extended the principle to see if it could get them to leave London as well. I'm skeptical the expansion would have met with much success.

The point isn't to undermine the possibility of a Palestinian non-violent resistant developing. I believe one can, and I sincerely hope it does. The point is that the viability of such a movement will depend on disentangling various Palestinian political aspirations -- some of which are the sort which could be worthy heirs of King and Gandhi's legacy, and others which are nightmarish inversions of them.

And It's Out of the Music

The Palestinian youth orchestra that serenaded Israeli Holocaust survivors has been roundly condemned by local Palestinian authorities for its trip, and has now officially been disbanded by the local PLO, whose officers claim the Holocaust is "political" and that the children were being "exploited" by the orchestra director.

Khaled Abu Toameh reports:

Adnan al-Hinda, director of the Popular Committee for Services in the Jenin refugee camp, said that the participation of the children in the concert was a "dangerous matter" because it was directed against the cultural and national identity of the Palestinians.

He accused "suspicious elements" of being behind the Holon event, saying they were seeking to "impact the national culture of the young generation and cast doubt about the heroism and resistance of the residents of the camp during the Israeli invasion in April 2002."

It was a small good thing. Now, it is just another victory for the forces of hate over the forces of peace.

Myth-ing Authors

Virtually every time I go into a book store, I check to see if a new installment of Robert Asprin's "MythAdventures" has come out. The Myth series is a light-hearted fantasy comedy, filled with whimsical humor and (very, very) bad puns. I've been reading it since my 5th grade teacher introduced it to me when I was 10.

Coming home for spring break, I ducked into a book store to buy a gift for Jill, and, as is custom, I looked to see if any new books had come out. And, to my delight, not just one but two new stories (both co-written with his relatively recent collaborator, Jody Lynn Nye) were on the shelf. I happily purchased both (along with Jill's gift of course), and brought them home.

I finished the first book before Jill arrived, but the second, Myth-Fortunes (what did I say about bad puns?) had to wait until my plane ride back to Chicago. I felt a little bit silly -- there is no denying the Myth series is a children's series, and I generally take a bit of pride in reading some footnoted academic tome while traveling. But at the end of the book (which I quite enjoyed), there was an epilogue. It turns out that series creator Robert Asprin had died suddenly last summer. He was 61.

For some reason, this hit me quite hard. I've read Asprin's work (including his Phule series, though less religiously) for a long time -- it is one of the few continuous links between what I do today and what I enjoyed as a child. Growing older means those sorts of links begin to die, in this case literally.

Nye indicated that she will likely continue the series on her own. That's good -- I still want to hear more about the adventures of Skeeve and the gang. But still, it is a bitter pill that one of my favorite authors has passed away.

RIP, Robert Asprin.

What Passes for Good News

Hey, Republicans had a good week in the tracking polls! While Congressional Republicans saw a net two point gain in their approvals, Congressional Democrats fell two points. I guess the country finally is turning a corner and showing its true "center-right" colors.

Or, you know, maybe even Congressional Republicans couldn't stay at 17/72 approvals forever (they're now at 18/71 -- Democrats are at 43/49).

Of course, this poll doesn't include reactions to the Republican budget that wasn't -- brought to you by a media that decided to commit a sudden and random act of journalism by pointing out the GOP was essentially handing out blank pieces of paper with talking points on them and calling it a "budget". On the other hand, maybe the lack of detail was for the best: "Adding numbers to it would be like assigning a horsepower rating to Hot Wheels."

Another Jew Roundup

It's all I have time for between wooing my shiksa goddess.

The IDF released its casualty list from Operation Cast Lead. It claims a Palestinian death toll of 1,166, with 708 being "Hamas terror operatives". Its list of children (under 16) casualties is considerably smaller than that being put out by Palestinian sources. My guess is the truth is somewhere in between.

Gaza and Darfur: Some Lives Matter More Than Others. The events in Sudan, of course, shouldn't exempt Israel from exacting critique of their actions towards the Palestinians (and vice versa). But let's not pretend that the statements of many foreign governments towards Israel are anything but provincial power politics.

Latino radio host stirs up anti-Semitism in California (some of which seems clearly anti-Semitism in the form of criticism of Israel, and some of which has nothing to with Israel). Via Aliza "La Jewminicana" Hausman.

Shmuel Rosner tries to spin this as a problem, but the fact remains that 72% of American Jews approve of how Barack Obama is handling the Arab/Israeli conflict. To be sure, the strength of support is even higher on other issue areas. But it's more intensity of support: Obama's overall job approvals are at 74%.

Jews with tattoos. The reason (okay, one of the reasons) I don't get a tattoo is that I don't think it coheres with my religious values. But I don't judge other people who view their Judaism differently than I do.

The Israeli Air Force reportedly struck an arms smuggling convoy in Sudan -- Hamas denies the arms were meant for them.

Yemeni Jews reluctant to be rescued. The Forward reports that while conditions for Jews do seem to be worsening in the Arabian Peninsula state, the Jewish residents are reluctant to depart, citing inadequate jobs and opportunities elsewhere and the lack of compensation they would receive for their homes. I'd add that the Yemenite Jewish community is thousands of years old, and for many people, this is their home. Why should they have to leave? If they want to, that's fine, but if they want to stay, then our efforts should be focused squarely on pressuring the Yemenite government to give them all the protections of law and equality enjoyed by other citizens of the nation.

It's in the Music

Palestinian youth orchestra from Jenin serenades Israeli Holocaust survivors. But is it struggle or surrender? Amazingly, I find myself not to care.

Via Ignoblus

Jill's Here Jill's Here!

YAAAYYYY!

Who Justifies the Means?

Ta-Nehisi Coates hits back against the idea that the hyper-tough on crime approach has been vindicated by events.

I'm less certain that the "tough on crime" approach has been "largely vindicated" by events--mostly because I think a large part of the events include the moral costs, and the real costs to communities where alarming numbers of men are under the watch of the state. One should consider the numbers here--blacks make up a third of all drug arrests, and black men are 12 times as likely to be imprisoned on a drug conviction. Four in Five of these arrests were for possession, not sale. Perhaps this is because the drug epidemic has run rampant through black communities, but probably not. The difference in illicit drug usage is slight (9.5 percent of blacks have used illicit substances, 8.2% of whites). Those are the sort of numbers that feed an intense distrust of the justice system in many black communities. I think Ross (though I can't be sure) sees the ends justifying the means. But the means are disproportionately born by people who live far away from those "Nixon to China" conservatives.

Coates goes on to tell about a college friend of his who was pursued on suspicion of being a drug dealer for no other reason than he was Black. For this man (who ended up being killed by the officer), the price of Blackness was death. The officer was not punished in any way, and still remains a cop.

I don't bring this out to be cheap or try to shame my colleague, but to say that when you live close to that line, when you've been stopped by the police several times, when you know innocent people who are dead, when you know kids who are coming up fatherless because of our obsession with drugs, it becomes difficult to say that events have vindicated our strategy. Cases like Prince's wear on an essential thread in our democracy--a belief that the people who are charged with protecting you, actually care about protecting you. We've paid a heavy price for our crime policy. I'm heartened that some conservatives are starting to see that.

The norms of policing have gotten to be such that being Black makes you automatically suspect to the police. Some departments are more explicit about it than others, but nobody who has to bear the costs of over-policing is under any illusion about what is going on.

Sex and Rape With Dolls

* Some spoilers ahead *

As Joss Whedon's new Fox drama Dollhouse finally hits its stride at episode six, some of the deeper philosophical questions posed by the show need a bit more play. I want to focus on of the more apparent ones: is what is happening to the Dolls rape? I don't mean the institutionalized rape of Sierra in Episode Six -- that's a clear cut case. I mean, when the dolls have sexual intercourse on an engagement, is that per se rape because they can't consent?

The revelation in episode six that Mellie is a doll really sharpens this point, because it puts a new frame on the sexual activities of the dolls. When the other dolls (namely, Echo) have sex, we're primed to see it as part of an engagement: we see the programming, we know that the personality isn't "real", and we see it all wiped away at the end. Meanwhile, her "partner" also knows what he is purchasing -- he is aware that he's getting a doll, and thus knows all about the consent issue.

With Mellie, by contrast, we were not told she was a doll in advance, and thus rooted for her as a person to land Ballard. So when she finally does get him in bed, it is a great triumph, and we all cheer. Until it is revealed she is a doll -- now, all the issues of consent come crashing back down on us. It's quite the clever inversion. Ballard, of course, does not know Mellie is a doll and that distinguishes him from the Dollhouse clientele insofar as rape seems to require actual knowledge of lack of consent.

But I want to explore what we mean when we talk of "consent" in the dolls. I will concede flat out that the dolls did not truly "volunteer" for their position in any meaningful sense. We saw that in the pilot episode, and I'm not sure if it's possible to consent to a complete erasure and recreation of your personality anyway. In any event, as one of the woman on the street put it, "The only reason someone would volunteer to be a slave is that they is one already."

The problem is, I'm not sure where that gets us. Well, that's not entirely true: It establishes that the Dollhouse are engaged in human trafficking, because they are committing a crime of violence against the original personality. But I don't think it establishes the capabilities or rights possessed by the dolls. The argument from lack of consent seems predicated on the fact that the "true" personality of Echo (Caroline) or the other dolls isn't consenting to actions in question -- only the construction is. This itself seems based on a notion of the unencumbered, unitary and individually determined self -- an image that I don't buy. Echo's personally as an active is imposed from without. But guess what: All of our personalities are, to varying degrees, impressed upon us via external forces. We have, it is true, at least a little more say in rounding off the edges, but it is a fact of human existence that all of us are living lives that are not entirely of our own creation. I don't think in of itself can negate consent.

Consider this hypothetical. Say a person was kidnapped off the street, and he had his personality permanently erased (it can't be recovered) and was imprinted with a new one. Then he was released back into the world (so this differs from Dollhouse in that the persons who reprogrammed him are exerting no control on him after he is released from the facility -- they ignore him ever after). Would we be comfortable saying this person, in their new personality, can never consent to anything? They can never sign a contract, they can never have sex, they can't even live independently? I don't think we are. True, his new person is completely severed from the old (that's tautological). But is it less "real"? How? Released into the world, the Active would behave essentially identically to any other person, including believing they are who they think they are and believing they are independent and autonomous. It would seem to compound, not mitigate, the violence impressed upon their body to say they've been permanently stripped of their capacity to act, when that isn't how they are experiencing their own life.

The second line of argument one could make regarding consent would have to do with how tightly the dolls' reactions are scripted by their imprint. There is a big difference between imprinting a personality that is designed to be attracted to a specific person, and an imprint which would actually override one's rational choice capabilities and force them into sex with someone, whether they like it or not. Real personalities are adaptable -- we have proclivities, but they are modifiable by actual lived experiences. And actives aren't robots -- like all of us their decisions are conditioned off their personality, but within those strictures they make independent judgments and engage in rational deliberation and critical thought. In episodes two and five, we are given hints that Echo's imprints are not tight scripts. If she was simply robotically programmed to be the perfect date for Richard, then when he stepped completely outside his expected parameters and become a sociopathic killer, she would have been left unable to function. But that's not what happened -- she instead responded roughly akin to how we'd imagine a "real" person would who was attracted to Richard prior to discovering his true self. Likewise episode five -- Echo's observations and experiences (including regaining her sight) seemed to pretty clearly affect the nature of her "true belief" in the cult leader.

This isn't to say that what Dollhouse is doing is morally okay. It's not -- writing and erasing someone's personality is a crime of violence in of itself. But the narrower question of whether actives can consent while on engagements seems tied up in a notion of the unified self, which I think the show is actually rather effectively deconstructing. The actives reason and make choices within roughly the same set of constraints as any other person. That the particular nature of those constraints comes from specific corporate necessities, rather than generalized social pressures, doesn't seem like a major distinction.

Yummy Yummy Constitutions

I'm reading Pierre Schlag's new article, Spam Jurisprudence, Air Law, and the Rank Anxiety of Nothing Happening (A Report on the State of the Art), 97 Geo. L.J. 803 (2009). It is, shall we say, strange. Quite out there, even for me, and I tolerate quite a bit of out there. This isn't an insult -- Prof. Schlag is quite deliberately intending to be out there, complete with "autonomous" footnotes that talk back to the author and refuse to do what they're told. For example, footnote 64 brags about including a pin cite, footnote 66 tells you to "See (or not) Symposium, Bush v. Gore, 68 U. Chi. L. Rev. 613 (2001)", and footnote 67 remarks "Also, do you like the small cap font above? I live for that." (I, too, have an intense adoration for small caps, and detest legal citation modifications which omit it. It pains me that blogger doesn't let me write in that font, and I'm forced to choose between lower-case or normal ALL CAPS!). I guess I shouldn't call it "footnote" anyway, because in footnote 30 it named itself "Daniel."

So that should give you a taste of the weirdness. The thesis of the article, as best as I can discern it, is that legal scholarship is "dead" (that part he's clear on) -- outside the treatise writers, it is a bunch of professors talking to themselves about imaginary things, listened to by nobody, with no effect and no real hope for an effect except that it transmits to the next generation of law students that this is what law is: a sort of self-important mediocrity existing in the middle of the bell curve between excellence and sloth (only trying desperately to hide the mediocrity, like an upper-class socialite treats her husband's alcoholism).

Eh. I'm probably willing to give this thesis more credence than 99% of the legal population, and I'm still saying: Eh. But this passage was golden:

I once read an article that purported to elaborate about what the Constitution should be. Now what struck me as odd was that the author really did want to free himself (and his reader) from any official pronouncements of what the Constitution is. This struck me as incredibly weird. What an odd thing to do. If the question “What should the Constitution be?” is not anchored in what the Constitution is (whatever that might be), then why not go for broke: I say let’s have a constitution that guarantees universal health care, tastes a lot like Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, and is laugh-out loud funny. You leave it to me? I say: Go big. (833)

The Law Journal published four responses to Prof. Schlag's article, which you can access from here: they're by Richard Posner, Robin West, Daniel Ortiz, and Richard H. Weisberg. Dan Filler comments as well at The Faculty Lounge, where he notes that the conservative (if iconoclastic) Posner "found himself in far more agreement with Schlag than he ever expected."

This doesn't surprise me all that much -- not only is Posner quite the iconoclast, but he's always been relatively close to the CLS positions that Schlag represents, just from a significantly more right-wing (and empirical friendly) stance. It's one of the reasons I find Posner so interesting, as a left-leaning fan of pragmatist and CLS/CRT style thought. I haven't read Posner's response yet, but I'll bet it's a good one.

Jew(el) of a Roundup

A Jewish metal band named Black Shabbis? I heart already.

Labor enters into Israel's governing coalition, with apparently a very sweet offer (including the Defense Ministry) from Netanyahu. Matt Yglesias is not pleased. I, not really caring if Labor lives or dies (though quite concerned about the state of the Israeli left), am more unsure -- certainly, the idea of a hard-right Likud-led coalition did not strike my fancy.

Norman Geras reviews Caryl Churchill's new play in verse.

Martha Nussbaum jumped the gun: 90 year old Jewish women practice for their (much belated) Bat Mitzvot.

An interesting exhibition at Penn State documents Jews in far-flung locations.

Graphic Violence

So after an epic battle against my computer, it looks like I finally got my CD/DVD drive working. Which means, among other things, I can play Heroes of Might & Magic V. I've been a fan of the whole M&M corpus for some time now (I adore Might & Magic VI and VII and find VIII passable [IX was wretched], and was also quite a fan of HOMM II and III).

The game is fine -- not stellar, but fine. But something about the graphics bugs me. They look almost precisely as if you took Warcraft III and made it into a turn based game. It's uncanny and a bit unnerving. And I feel like a lot of games have adopted this graphical style. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is a bit odd, as Warcraft III has a distinctively cartoon-y look to it that I think looks far less polished than many other games I've seen (compare it to, say, Halo 3 or Final Fantasy XII). Even put it against HOMM 3 (which by now is quite dated) is an interesting comparison -- obviously there is more detail in HOMM5, but I would call the third version quite a bit more artsy, if you will, and it feels weird to see a game step away from art. Again, not a criticism, just an observation and an oddity.

Colbert vs. Serenity

NASA opened a poll to name a module of the international space station, and it looks like "Colbert" won due to a write-in campaign launched by the Comedy Central host. It received over 230,000 votes. The article mentions that "Serenity" placed second with over 190,000 votes, but it fails to note the concerted campaign by "Firefly/Serenity" fans which helped it reach that lofty position.

Frankly, if Colbert can only get 40,000 more votes than a mid-tier movie and one-hitter-quitter TV series, I'm not sure he deserves the "victory". Serenity now!

UPDATE: In case any new visitors are confused, I should note that I love both Firefly and Serenity. Taking down Colbert may be impossible -- but that makes us mighty.

Another Canceled Event

There seems to be something about human rights conferences and South Africa that just doesn't mix. In the wake of South Africa's refusal to grant a visa to the Dalai Lama (almost definitely under Chinese pressure), the organizers of a peace conference meant to coincide with the World Cup have decided to cancel the event. The government said the Dalai Lama's presence would be a distraction from the World Cup, but I can't imagine it would have been more distracting than the torrent of criticism being leveled right now from all corners of the globe.

Maybe the committed anti-imperialists of Malmo, Sweden can shlep down to South Africa and try and get the World Cup canceled too, brave defenders of justice that they are.

(Thanks to Chingona for the tip-off).

Bedtime Quick Hits

Clearing the browser before sleepy-time.

Abbas tells the EU not to lift the boycott on Hamas.

Vermont Senate strongly backs gay marriage bill.

Are we on the brink of genuine class warfare?

I once had a job interview with Amanda Terkel. It went catastrophically bad (not her fault -- it was just one of those interviews), and needless to say, I didn't get the job. Nonetheless, even if I did bear a grudge (and I don't), nobody deserves to be stalked by Fox News.

Why the success of the Black immigrant doesn't tell us much about the state of their American-born counterparts.

Alyssa Rosenberg reviews Dollhouse (and situates it inside Joss Whedon's larger body of work).

An Upset Victory for Mediocrity

The Forward writes on ultra-Orthodox pressure on El Al to run flights more accommodating to their religious sensibilities. The big sticking point at the moment is in-flight movies, which the rabbinate deems too secular and "immodest". El Al so far refuses to budge, so a group of rabbis released a guide to super-kosher flying. And here's the irony: it appears the way to attract an ultra-orthodox Jewish clientele is to suck at your job:

Meanwhile, airlines that are widely regarded as offering poor customer service — one symptom of which is the absence of in-flight movies — are highly recommended by the guide, and are likely to experience heightened popularity among Haredi travellers in coming weeks.

For domestic flights within the United States, US Airways is movie-free and therefore deemed the most kosher. The airline ranked last in the 2008 American Customer Satisfaction Index, a survey of airlines conducted by the University of Michigan.

For European travel, the no-frills approach of state airlines of post-communist countries strikes a chord with the rabbis. They endorse Poland’s LOT and Ukraine’s Aerosvit Airlines, which is ranked as “poor” by the Official Airline Star Ranking run by aviation consultancy Skytrax.

Travelers to Britain are urged to choose British Midland Airways, which shows no movies except on Tuesdays. On Tuesdays the guide suggests that travelers request to be seated in one of the 36 seats between rows 7 and 11, where there is an obstructed view of the screens.

I'd reference the old Jewish joke ("Why did God create Gentiles? Someone has to buy retail!") except that elsewhere in the article the super-observant Jews are quoted as saying they'd pay more for fewer amenities (or as they put it, an "appropriate environment").

Between these guys and Madoff, Jews are at risk of losing our reputation as being wise with money. Somebody page Tommy Thompson, quick!

A Positive Exchange

Posted on SSRN is an exchange on the legality of Israel's Operation Cast Lead between Prof. David Luban (Georgetown) and Prof. Amos N. Guiora (Utah). Luban argues that the operation violated both jus ad bellum and jus in bellum requirements, Guiora argues that it did not. It constitutes a stellar example of a fair-minded, scholarly inquiry on a subject of passionate concern.

I highly encourage you to download and read the whole thing (it's not unreasonably long). Perhaps the most interesting point was the agreement between Luban and Guiora that Gaza should not be considered "occupied" under international law. Luban came to this conclusion for two reasons: First, labeling Gaza as occupied would impose obligations on Israel to interfere more heavily in the Gaza strip (specifically, it'd have to actively govern it), which is the opposite of what everyone wants. Second, and more pragmatically, Luban observes that "genuine occupying forces -- which, in the words of the International Court of Justice, have 'substituted their own authority' for that of the government (Uganda v. Congo, decision of Dec.19, 2005, para. 173) -- do not have to fight their way in."

But the discussion encompasses a far broader range of topics: proportionality, the way the law of war interacts with asymmetric warfare, whether or not Hamas infrastructure writ large is a legitimate military target, and many others. I again give it my full recommendation.

Via Paul Cassell

I Chose Wisely

Kung Fu Monkey:

There are two novels that can change a bookish fourteen-year old's life: The Lord of the Rings and Atlas Shrugged. One is a childish fantasy that often engenders a lifelong obsession with its unbelievable heroes, leading to an emotionally stunted, socially crippled adulthood, unable to deal with the real world. The other, of course, involves orcs.

Via.

Dalai Lama Denied

South Africa has denied the Dalai Lama a visa to attend an international peace conference in Johannesburg, CNN reports. A presidential spokesperson said the Dalai Lama's attendance was not in the interests of the nation, claiming it would be a distraction from the 2010 World Cup and would alienate South Africa's relationship with China.

Archbishop Desmund Tutu and F.W. De Klerk have announced they are likely to boycott if the decision is not reversed.

I Miss All My Apps

I had to swap hard drives on the computer. That means reinstalling everything, getting Firefox to relearn my preferences, etc. etc. It also means my N scores are gone, which is unbelievably devastating to me. You have no idea.

Become Jewish

Nike's been running a fairly entertaining series of ads for its Air Jordan line of sneakers, under the tagline "become legendary". Basically, they show college hoops fans showing an irrational dislike of a name, place, or event due to its association with a heartbreaking defeat by their beloved fan. So a Texan at his daughter's sixth birthday party talks about how "it was a day he'd never forget" in a miserable monotone -- then cutting to clips from that day when Syracuse drubbed Texas to win the NCAA championship. Or a manager from Syracuse who says that none of the 600 employees at his manufacturing plant are named Ray ("no Raymonds either"), with a cut away to Ray Allen lighting up the Syracuse University Orangemen.

And I'm thinking, these are good ads. But the one I really want to see is the Kentucky town which converted en masse to Judaism in response to Christian Laettner's famous last-second fade away OT winner. That would be edgy advertising.

Israel to Investigate IDF Abuses

The Forward has the report. This comes on the heels of dogged media coverage by the Israeli paper Ha'aretz (see, e.g., here, here, and here). However, it is an open question as to whether the IDF has the institutional capacity to carry out a truly open and exhaustive investigation. Nonetheless, it is important to get the ball rolling, and it is a tribute to Israel's free press that this inquiry is even occurring in the first place.

Meanwhile:

In 2004, four years into the second intifada, two pessimistic predictions were published regarding the uprising's long-term implications. "I am certainly worried," said the first speaker. "Clearly, we are paying a price for this war. The officer's job is to protect the soldiers from their instincts, and explain to them the proper rules of behavior. Our problem is that the soldiers do not consider the problems while they are in uniform."

The second speaker shared his worry. "My greatest worry," he said, "is the loss of humanity due to the prolonged warfare."

The speakers? These are not two enemy-of-the-state journalists. The first speaker was then Chief of Staff (and current candidate for defense minister) Moshe Ya'alon. The other was his then-deputy, current Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi.

See also: Jeffrey Goldberg.

Sanford and Daughters

The only thing worse than being Mark Sanford, the Republican governor of South Carolina who rejected unemployment stimulus aid, is being a Mark Sanford imitator. I'm looking at you, Sarah Palin.

Even after the delightful Zimbabwe comment,I still have some residual goodwill towards Mr. Sanford stemming from this campaign-season editorial. Ms. Palin, needless to say, has no such chits to cash in with me.

A Falk Statement

"Great cases, like hard cases, make bad law."
-- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.

UN special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories Richard Falk (yes, the one who questions whether the American government was complicit in 9/11) believes Israel's Gaza operation constituted war crimes of the "greatest magnitude".

"If it is not possible to [distinguish between military targets and surrounding civilian entities], then launching the attacks is inherently unlawful and would seem to constitute a war crime of the greatest magnitude under international law,"

I not only strongly suspect that this statement is wrong, but if it is descriptively true then it represents a very dangerous development in the laws of war, one which creates a massive incentive for armies to embed themselves inside civilian infrastructure. If the art of war, like the art of boxing, is to hit and not be hit, then why wouldn't a group like Hamas choose to embed itself inside a civilian location where it apparently would constitute the highest grade of war crime to fire back? Ultimately, Prof. Falk's rule represents the legalization of human shields.

Back when Prof. Falk was appointed as special rapporteur, international law professor Julien Ku slammed the pick, saying he is "basically unqualified to be a human rights investigator." The reason, Prof. Ku maintained, was that while Prof. Falk is undoubtedly a luminous figure in the theory of international law, his entire career has been that of an advocate -- someone who created and forwarded normative positions.

So Falk may be a well-known and influential scholar in his day, but none of this means he would be a very good investigator tasked with gathering complex and sometimes hotly contested facts in a highly dangerous and politicized environment and then applying legal norms to those facts in a credible and persuasive way.

And indeed, Israel's objection to Falk in the first place was that Falk had apparently prejudged it -- he already has happily chirped Nazi comparisons and casually throws out terms like "war crimes of the greatest magnitude" without any serious substantive investigation.

But here we're seeing something different. It is an advocate's trick: smuggling in what I take to be a significant positive change in the structure of the laws of war -- that when a defender utilizes civilian areas to shield military targets, the attacker is criminally responsible for the ensuing civilian casualties -- as the current state of the law. This would seem to be symptomatic of what Prof. Ku was talking about -- Prof. Falk continues to envision himself as a trailblazer rather than a fact-finder.

Perhaps the law of war should be changed to adopt Prof. Falk's stance. But one gets the feeling that, if the rule is adopted, it will not be because it has been interrogated and found to represent the most sensible rule of war, but rather it will be adopted because it vindicates the "correct" side. This is why I put the Holmes quote at the top of this post. A significant body of international law relevant to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict remains unsettled (Right of return, the interpretation of UN Res. 242, just war theory, and the right to gain territory through war, to name a few examples). For some time now, I have gotten the distinct feeling that these disputes are being "settled" with an eye towards vindicating as many Palestinian and/or Arab claims as possible. Sometimes, the resulting rules may make sense (I think the rule against gaining territory through warfare is reasonably sound), sometimes I may disagree with them (as I would with the above shift in burdens in urban warfare scenarios). But the point is that these decisions are not being made through dispassionate, legal processes. They are being settled in the context of a paradigmatic "great case" -- with all the social, legal, diplomatic, and moral pressures that entails. The ensuing structure of legal precedent forged under this weight will likely not find itself amenable to just or expedient resolution of conflicts.

Because of this, it is possible -- even likely -- that these rules will simply be ignored the next time the international community decides to wade into the war crimes arena. Israel/Palestine will hence become the Bush v. Gore of international law. But unlike the American judicial system, the international legal arena does not have the reservoir of trust and goodwill that would allow it to absorb the shock of such a case and still maintain a culture of independence and impartiality. Unless international law is going to continue to be a basically ad hoc imposition of global power politics clothed in legal jargon, this is not a positive development.

Metro Tales

On the way to Columbia Heights tonight, three young people (maybe a few years younger than me -- at least one said she was a college student) were carrying a life-sized cardboard cut-out of Barack Obama. Well, that's not quite right: one was carrying it, and the other two were having trouble keeping their composure, as they thought it was hilarious. I thought it was nice. It got a lot of smiles from the other passengers, a lot of pointing and gawking and laughing and grinning. I liked that.

On the way back home, I transferred Green Line to Red Line at Gallery Place. Walking up the escalator, I noticed that the escalator let us out way at the end of the platform. "Not again," I thought. I then immediately realized that, obviously it happened "again" because the escalator doesn't move. It's going to let me out at that same spot on the platform, every single time I travel to Gallery Place.

Finally, on the car ride home, the radio was playing an advertisement for UMD's MBA program. "The top ranked" (wow!) "part-time" (alright) "MBA program in the region" (what counts as a "region"?). The vaguely British sounding announcer promised it would prepare students to meet the challenges facing "our nation, our world, and our planet". Which is amusing, since I'm pretty sure "world" and "planet" are the same thing, albeit evoking different angles (the former being more social and political, the latter more natural and environmental).

Canada's Siberia

Not to be cruel, but it seems quite meaningful that George W. Bush's first post-presidential appearance comes a) 8 weeks after left office, b) out of the country, and c) in Calgary, of all places. Was Yellowknife booked?

Still Seeing Red?

Apropos yesterday's post on the modifications to the Durban II text, the AP and AJC's Durban Dispatch list some of the "red lines" still remaining. There are apparently two major issues outstanding: first, the deletion of a Dutch proposal to have a clause banning discrimination on basis of sexual orientation, and second, the blanket reaffirmation of the Durban I declaration, which contains the demonization of Israel that sparked controversy in the first place.

On the former, I am of course very upset that anti-gay discrimination likely will not be addressed at this conference. It is testimony to the degree of homophobia present in the world that this is still an issue -- unfortunately, the areas of discrimination which are most pressing are also least likely to be addressed because they are supported by empowered nations. As to what our response should be, I think that is something that should be done with reference to the gay and lesbian community. Particularly if the conference engages in outright condemnation of gay rights (or legitimizes anti-gay bigotry), I think that would be just as deserving of a walkout as anti-Semitic bigotry warranted the last time around.

On the latter issue, I'm more ambivalent. The blanket reaffirmation strikes me as more boilerplate than anything, and doesn't seem like a hill worth dying on. That being said, I admit I don't know much about the mechanics of international declarations and diplomacy, and I can very much imagine folks saying things like "as was put in the Durban I declaration, overwhelmingly reaffirmed at Durban II, yadayadayada...." So I don't know enough to say.

Wholly aside from these issues, there still is the fact of the conference itself to worry about, and Charles Ettinson points out that there is little in the way of safeguards to prevent the organizers -- Libya, Cuba, and Iran among others -- from running amok once the event begins. So, again, even if all the pre-conference issues are resolved, it would be wise to remain wary.

Specter to Pull a Lieberman?

MyDD has the scoop on an intriguing possibilities. Now Republicans get to have the fun of mediating between a rabid and infuriated base and preserving a much-needed Senate seat!

The Winner and Champion

Congratulations to Devils goalie Martin Brodeur, who just broke Patrick Roy's old NHL record for most career wins by a goalie:

Instead of hoisting the trophy, Brodeur took out a pair of scissors and cut the net.

"It's definitely harder than I thought," Brodeur quipped. "These basketball players, it's only a little net. This was a big net. I had help from a couple of my teammates."

Brodeur is almost indisputably the greatest goaltender in the history of professional hockey. He has the most wins (552), most wins in a single season (48), most total shutouts (118), second most regular season shutouts (100, three behind Terry Sawchuk), and second most playoff shutouts (22, one behind Patrick Roy). His career goals against average is 2.20, 10th all time. And he's still got some kick left in his career -- he'll probably top Sawchuk's record and almost definitely will top Roy for most playoff shutouts. Add three Stanley Cups, four Jennings Trophies, and four Vezina Trophies, and you've got a resume fit for a legend of the sport.

Congratulations to a true all time great.

Break Out Session

The Jewish Council for Public Affairs (not to be confused with the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs) is announcing a full court press for Jewish-Muslim dialogue. Noting the efforts at rapprochement with the Catholic Church after Pope Benedict XVI's recent missteps, they say that while that relationship is important, the most opportunity avenue for dialogue is no longer Judeo-Christian but Judeo-Muslim.

So far, so good. But then we get to the concluding graf:

"The battle will be uphill, the struggle difficult, the discomfort inevitable, but Muslim leaders have the opportunity to echo the historic declaration of the Vatican's Nostra Aetate," [Rabbi Marc] Schneier said, referring to the Catholic Church's official repudiation of the age-old accusation of deicide against the Jews.

Two problems. First, this implies that the only purpose of Judeo-Muslim dialogue is for Muslim leaders to see the light and issue a declaration recanting past anti-Semitism. There is no indication that Jews, too, will have to make any concessions or indeed, have anything to learn at all.

Second, if the point of this article was to break beyond the strictures of Jewish-Catholic discourse, this is a really foolish statement. Unlike Catholics, there is no centralized Islamic religious hierarchy which could issue a statement like the Nostra Aetate -- or for that matter, one which is promulgating the sort of anti-Semitic ideology that required that proclamation in the first place. The dialogue between Jews and Muslims is going to be more akin to Jewish-Protestant dialogue, which recognizes the factionalism and decentralization of the parties and doesn't expect some broad statement of consensus at the end. Jews and Protestants continue to talk even though some Protestants continue to harbor extreme anti-Semitic views. Jews and Muslims will have to proceed in dialogue the same way. The decision on which particular persons and groups we talk to and which we ignore is, of course, up for discussion -- but it's not going to be that similar to how Jews and Catholics worked this endeavor.

Victory?

The AP reports that the latest draft document of Durban II no longer singles Israel out for condemnation (no other country was mentioned specifically), and also has eliminated provisions which would make criticism of religion a human rights violation. The AJC has the new draft text, and it looks like this report is correct. The changes came after the EU threatened a mass boycott of the event. This now looks to have been averted -- the French Foreign Minister claimed that the changes mean the document no longer breaches EU "red lines".

This is excellent news, and I applaud the courage and conviction of the international actors who have hopefully made it possible for Durban II to focus on all the pressing issues of racism and intolerance that plague the global community. It was unfortunate that ultimately only a boycott threat could do what subtler diplomacy couldn't, but this was perhaps the most dramatic way for the EU and the rest of the west to indicate the seriousness of its position here. And I do hope that this shift means that the entire world -- Israel and America included -- can participate in this conference. Both Israel and America have much to learn and much to teach about questions of racism and intolerance. I'm not idealistic enough to believe that these conferences are anything remotely akin to a truly fair and deliberative environment -- but the symbolism matters.

There are, however, at least two potential avenues for concern remaining. The first is that the offending articles will be introduced during the conference as an ambush. Presumably if this happens, the groups that would have boycotted will simply walk out. The second is the behavior of NGOs at the conference. Much of the most offensive behavior at Durban I was done at the parallel NGO meeting. I'm not sure what role NGOs will play at Durban II, but given that the last time around they basically drove Jewish attendees off the grounds, it is worth keeping an eye on.

Still, fabulous job.

I Can't Believe This Change

AIGFP is now being headed by this guy:



Dead serious. Although I have to say, Che was never this effective at destroying capitalism.

Big Kid Win

Today, I completed all my errands (grocery shopping, buying an external hard drive, lunch, and taking my suits to the cleaners) in one trip. Not only that, but my parking space was roughly equidistant from each store, which made it a breeze to bring back each purchase to the car before going to the next destination.

It felt good. But it also worries me: is this what a "good day" is for adults? Because I do feel a little lame for being so happy.

Loss Leaders

I think liberals and conservatives react differently to losing. When liberals lose, they tend to assume it's because they're too gosh-darned enlightened for the masses. Often, they get quite fatalistic: they'll never win because their opinions simply aren't that popular -- too progressive, too complicated, too fair-minded, too nuanced. As you press further to the left, this sentiment is amplified: the far left seems to revel in the moral superiority that only being part of a tiny fringe can provide. They barely even pretend to represent the masses, except by proxy (the vanguard of the revolution and all that).

By contrast, conservatives can't seem to even grasp the idea that they ever might be unpopular in a democratic system. The far right always viewed itself as being the silent (and silenced) majority warring against communism negro agitators political correctness. The more, er, mainstream right is no different. Take an example from this roundup of right-wing loons:

Edward Cline took a more someday-you'll-be-sorry approach, claiming that "Americans have come knocking on the doors of elitists or leaning over the café railings or invading their legislated smoke-free bars and restaurants to ask: What in hell do you think you are doing?"

That's funny, because I observed that Americans just put a man whom I'm told is basically a Marxist into office by astoundingly large margins. After spending the last year screaming that Barack Obama was liberal intellectual urban cosmopolitan elitism personified, you'd think his sweeping victory might give the right some pause. No dice -- they're still 100% positive the people are absolutely behind them. It's rather amazing to behold.

"Modesty Patrol" Member Sentenced

An Israeli member of a "modesty patrol" was sentenced to four years in prison after being convicted of aggravated assault. He broke into the apartment of a formerly ultra-orthodox woman who the Haredi community felt was not living in accordance with their religious standards, and beat her until she required medical attention.

As I said, these men are Judaism's version of the Taliban. They are insolent thugs who deserve to be met with the full force of the law. This conviction is an excellent first step.

Bika Calls Out B-Hop -- But The Other Possibilities Sound Better

I'm a big Sakio Bika (27-3-2, 18 KOs) fan, but let's be real -- he'd got ripped to pieces if he gets his wish of a fight with Bernard Hopkins (49-5-1, 32 KOs). Bika might be tailor-made for Hopkins: He's a no-frills, tough as nails brawler (although his boxing skills have improved marginally recently) with a bit of a reputation for dirty fighting. Hopkins, by contrast, is equally tough, but a far wilier boxer and strategist who I don't think would have any trouble deciphering Bika.

Fortunately, this fight won't happen: Hopkins has bigger fish to fry with a possible matchup against Tomasz Adamek (37-1, 25 KOs) at Cruiserweight. But some of the other names Bika's folks mentioned in lieu of Hopkins pique my interest far more. Bika's promoters say that he's already been ducked by Anthony Mundine (35-3, 23 KOs) and Librado Andrade (27-2, 21 KOs). The Mundine fight could be massive in Australia (where both are based), and Bika/Andrade is a match-up I've wanted to see for a long time, since as far I can tell both are completely impervious to pain. I doubt that Bika/Hopkins would be a fight of the year candidate, as Bika's people claim. Bika/Andrade, on the other hand, I can very much imagine being in the mix.

Other names on the list include Carl Froch, Jermain Taylor, Mikkel Kessler, and Jeff Lacy. The winner (or, honestly, the loser) of Froch/Taylor would be an excellent and intriguing match-up between top 10 guys in the 168 pound division. Carl Froch (24-0, 19 KOs) has proven himself to be a solid and tremendously capable fighter. Jermain Taylor (28-2-1, 17 KOs) possesses unbelievable athletic gifts, but I would be very interested to see how he'd respond to Bika's strength and pressure.

Mikkel Kessler (41-1, 31 KOs) would be a big challenge for Bika -- but Kessler has been awfully gun-shy about taking on a real live dog recently, and Bika certainly would qualify as one. As for Jeff Lacy (24-2, 17 KOs), while the former champ escaped with a 10 round decision against Peter Manfredo, Bika blasted him out in three. Lacy's clearly not the fighter he once was, but a win by Bika over "left hook" would still be the biggest name on his resume to date.

Bring any of 'em on, I say. I want to see Sakio Bika in the ring again, and soon.

Hop, Skip, and Jump

I'm going home tomorrow for spring break. The usual disclaimer about lack of posting is in effect.

This trip is a little different though. I'm going to be working in Chicago this summer, which means this will be my last time going "home" for more than a quick visit for, well, for at least some time. It's a bit difficult, to be honest. I'm very attached to the house I grew up in. But so it goes. And it's not like I'll never go back. Just less often. And for less time.

There're No Words On It!

Congressional representatives are insisting that AIPAC never lobbied them on Chas Freeman (and AIPAC, for its part, says it took no position). Obviously, there are only two interpretations one can draw from this story:

1) They're lying. You know how folks who support Israel are.

2) They're telling the truth. This makes AIPAC even more pernicious -- people are so terrified of it can influence policy without even saying a word.

There is, in theory, option 3: That representatives came to their own conclusions that, on the weight of the evidence (including but not limited to Freeman's views on Israel), Mr. Freeman should not head the National Intelligence Council. This is of course too absurd to contemplate. Pro-Israel people aren't capable of having interests independent of the Jewish state, let alone evaluating them independent of what AIPAC dictates. It's a miracle they can even go to the bathroom without the Israel lobby's permission.

Meanwhile, J Street -- which also stayed out of the Freeman fight -- has released this statement.

A Minor Variation

Stephen Breyer's lecture detailing the history of the Cherokee nation's attempt to resist Georgia's theft and colonization of their land reveals something important. "State's rights" wasn't always just a fig leaf to promote White supremacy over Black people. Sometimes, it was used to promote White supremacy over Native Americans too. Georgia's action were in unbelievably flagrant violation of the law and dutifully signed treaty rights possessed by the Cherokee nation. It's the sort of thing that still outrages, 175 years later.

A Mass Exodus

The AJC has launched a new blog called "AJC Durban Dispatch", promising to be a one-stop shop for the Durban Review Conference (widely known as Durban II). Right now it is covering the steady drumbeat of criticism of the conference (due primarily to hyper vitriolic criticism of Israel and language which would make criticism of religion a human rights violation), and the various countries which have threatened to or already have withdrawn. So far, Canada, Israel, the US, and Italy are confirmed non-participants. Countries considering withdrawing include the UK, France, Germany, The Netherlands, and Denmark. The Netherlands, in particular, is taking some very aggressive steps, pressing for a unified EU front against the conference if it does not amend its language, and otherwise the Dutch will withdraw unilaterally.

Colleagues of mine in the civil rights community have differed with me over whether the US should have withdrawn from Durban II. I understand their concern: there are many, many important issues about race and racial injustice that are critical to discuss, and the US needs to get back into the fray of this international discourse if we're to have any hope of pushing the discussion in a positive direction. But at the same time, I think it is very clear that the Durban conferences have been abject failures in putting these issues on the public agenda. The only thing they're known for is attacking Israel. Can anyone in the general public name a single other outcome of Durban I? Can anyone name a single productive agenda item on Durban II?

What we're seeing is that the illiberal regimes who are seeking to make Israel the scapegoat for any and every human rights calamity worldwide have been quite successful -- they've made it impossible for us to discuss "human rights", only Israeli human rights violations. The best way to respond to that is to refuse to play the game. When, in Durban I, only the US and Israel withdraw, people could ignore it: It's only America and its lapdog Israel (or vice versa -- I can never figure out who is the tail and who is the dog in this telling of the tale), and of course they'll walk out. It doesn't have any purchase, because the world doesn't consider the perspective of the US or Israel to be relevant to anti-Semitism or anti-Israel politics. I think they're blinded by their own prejudices, but there it is.

A more broad-based boycott would be far harder to ignore. If the entire EU, plus Israel, plus Canada, plus Australia, and whatever other nations might join them (the Japan Times just editorialized its view that Durban II should be scrapped), the message will be sent that a firm coalition comprised of many of the world's most liberal countries will not countenance shielding the field of human rights violators by only targeting Israel. No longer will nations like Cuba and Libya be able to count on the international community as a whole affirming their charades. Perhaps they don't care -- but at least we'll have drawn the battle lines.

We Don't Have To Lose This Game

Columbia University Professor of Economics and Law Jagdish Bhagwati makes a very clever and innovative argument in favor of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). Essentially, his point is that EFCA is a good way of shielding American workers from the impacts of globalization while not resorting to protectionist measures which would interfere with free trade. Right now, most of our unionized workforce is in manufacturing sectors. Unfortunately, those sectors are the ones most likely to leave our shores.

Fortunately, there is lots of room to organize the service industry, which will be the heavy hitter that takes manufacturing's place once globalization shakes itself out. As Matt Yglesias points out, there is no intrinsic reason that manufacturing is well organized and service jobs aren't, except that the law was far more union friendly back in the days when factories were king. Passing EFCA would give some of the newer, up and coming unions (like the SEIU) a chance to make it so the new jobs created to replace departing manufacturing positions still provide decent compensation and working conditions for working and middle class families. That's a good thing.

An Employment Update

So I held off for a little bit just to make sure everything was firm and squared away, but now I can say exactly what this job I was hired for actually is.

The answer?

I'm working as an RA for Professors Emily Buss and David Strauss.

Ms. Buss's research interests include children's and parents' rights and the legal system's allocation of authority and responsibility for children’s development among parent, child, and state. She teaches civil procedure, evidence, and courses addressing the law's treatment of children. As Kanter Director of Policy Initiatives, she has worked with students to develop reforms that would improve the legal system’s treatment of youth aging out of foster care.

Mr. Strauss joined the faculty in 1985. In 1990, he was special counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee in connection with the nomination of David Souter to the Supreme Court. Mr. Strauss has argued eighteen cases before the United States Supreme Court. He has served as a member of the Board of Governors of the Chicago Council of Lawyers and is currently chair of the Board of Trustees of the Laboratory Schools. Mr. Strauss is, with Geoffrey Stone and Dennis Hutchinson, editor of the Supreme Court Review. He has published articles on a variety of subjects, principally in constitutional law. He is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. His current teaching interests are constitutional law, federal jurisdiction, and elements of the law.

Both do work in areas I'm fascinated by. Prof. Strauss' interests fit quite nicely with what I want to teach myself one day. Prof Buss' interests are a bit more tangential to me (though still very interesting), but they also happen to overlap near-perfectly with my girlfriend's research interests. It'll be nice to actually have useful contributions to our conversations again.

I am, to reiterate, very happy. Excitement city!

Now There's Something You Don't See Everyday

Hamas condemns Gaza rocket strikes against Israel. Of course, they don't mean as a general principle -- they mean rocket strikes right now, which are hurting Palestinian reconciliation talks.

Hey, whatever rocks the boat. Hamas condemning rocket attacks for any reason whatsoever is a big change, and one worth noting and celebrating. The fact that Hamas was willing to take this steps also raises hopes about a unity government not unifying over a shared commitment to military and terrorist "resistance". That's still a possibility, and it sounds from the article like Hamas is digging in its heels at some core Fatah demands on this score (recognizing past agreements with Israel -- including the recognition of the state -- and committing to peaceful negotiations), but at least we now have some countervailing evidence.

What's There To Talk About?

Abu Muqawama on talking with Hezbollah:

....Second, why on Earth would Hizballah want to talk to us? What would they want from us?

Third, it would be one thing if the only thing Hizballah has ever said about armed resistance was said in the Open Letter of 1985, but Hizballah leaders have repeatedly and consistently defined the organization as an armed resistance movement first and foremost. What's more, this armed resistance is no longer tied into concrete territorial demands that we could conceivably help out with, such as the Shebaa Farms. So that complicates things, both for us in dealing with them and also for them as they try to figure out what the future of their party holds.

Muqawama isn't adverse to talking with "enemies" per se, he just wants to know what exactly we have to talk about with Hezbollah. And I'm not really sure at this point, though I can see the benefit of having some channels of communication in case there is a crisis (I'm skeptical, frankly, that those channels don't already exist already in private).

I Waaant You To Want Me

I woke up this morning to a rejection email for one of the RA positions I applied for. I spent the next several hours wondering if anybody would ever hire me for any job, ever again.

But now ... someone did! I'm gainfully employed this summer! And the job looks great.

And I'm really glad that I heard before I took my exams. This is a big load off my shoulders.

Liberty U Thinks About Jews

Liberty University has established a "Center for Judaic Studies". Oh joy. They say that the purpose behind the establishment was so that their Christian students could understand how important the modern state of Israel is to Biblical prophesy.

I see.

Look, I'm willing to argue that as a Jew I want to be considered "useful" from within Christian theological frames. But that's not all I want, and I don't see any indication that LU's new center plans on engaging with Jews qua Jews in any substantive manner that doesn't replicate their pre-existing biases. Using us only as tools for your own worldview is kind of obnoxious, don't you think?

White Out

This picture, from a Swedish protest against the Israeli Davis Cup team at Malmo, Sweden (which went on to defeat the Swedish team), gets at one of the more pernicious elements in the way anti-Israel criticism operates.

Israel came under significant criticism for its use of White Phosphorus in the Gaza campaign. I'm not an expert on international law nor the law of war, so I might be wrong in the details, but here are the facts as I understand them. White Phosphorus' primary function is as an illuminating device and a smoke screen, and it is incontestably legal to use it against military target for these purposes. It also can be used as an anti-personnel device due to its potential to cause severe burns. The legality of this use is disputed, but the weight of the evidence seems to be that it is forbidden.

The critiques of Israel were not that it was using White Phosphorus as an anti-personnel device. Rather, the criticism was that it was being used (as illumination and smoke screen aides) in dense urban environments where it was known it would affect civilians. Again, the legal status of this use is open for criticism: The Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons, Protocol III (of which Israel is not a signatory to) prohibits indiscriminate incendiary attacks against military forces co-located with civilians, but exempts materials whose incendiary properties are secondary, like White Phosphorus. Still, it would be a fair claim that morally if not legally such use should be highly constrained, as the potential for unintentional damage to civilians would seem to be very high.

So, that's where I'm at: there are at least some grounds to allege that Israel used White Phosphorus in violation of the laws of war, though this is hardly beyond dispute; the case that Israel used WP in a way that isn't consistent with the highest moral standards, by contrast is much stronger. Hence, I don't think there is any problem, per se, with criticizing their usage.

But, I do think there is a problem with what the Malmo protesters compared it to. Zyklon B was the gas used in the planned, deliberate murder of millions of Jews in the Holocaust. The usage of Zyklon B was not a "war crime" in any meaningful sense, as it wasn't used in the context of a battlefield: it was just Hitler's preferred method of executing his genocide. The atomic bombings of Japan killed over 200,000 people, nearly all civilians. Napalm was used as an anti-personnel device and unlike WP its primary purpose is as an incendiary -- making its use in civilian areas a clear violation of Protocol III (the US, it's worth noting, is not a signatory either). I don't know what event they're referring to with Mustard Gas, so I can't comment on that.

Israel's WP use has not been alleged to have caused a single death, albeit severe burns on a few dozen victims. That's bad, of course, but it doesn't put it in the same breath as the other weapons on the poster. Of course, the Holocaust comparison is particularly repugnant, and in a significant way represents a form of Holocaust denial: If one can't understand why using White Phosphorus in a military campaign (which harms a handful of civilians but is responsible for zero deaths) is distinguishable from rounding up millions of civilians and gassing them to death, you clearly don't understand what the Holocaust was.

By trying to group Israel's actions into categories it clearly doesn't belong, the protesters significantly distort the terms of the debate and implicitly counsel responses to Israel's actions that would not be justifiable outside cases where they actually were doing something like napalming civilian areas. Ultimately, this is another example of criticism as moral hatred, with all the implications that flow therein.

There is very little probability that "criticism" such as this will have any meaningful impact towards creating circumstances of justice for the Israelis and Palestinians. But that is not its intent. Its intent is to externalize the bad actors as supreme evildoers, affirm that the protesters are not them by drawing strict lines between those inside and outside of society, with the latter group worthy of whatever hatred, scorn, prejudice or violence that is heaped upon them. It is primarily self-indulgent, and for that reason repugnant when actual people are suffering from the fact that too many people are content to mouth (or scream) ideological platitudes rather than work for solutions.

That's One Down

New Year's resolution #15 ... accomplished. Holla atcha boy.

Better Red Than .... Where I Am Now

Communism looks mighty tempting right now, less due to my desire to abolish property than to abolish property class.

A property class-less society. Now that's a revolution I can get beyond, comrades.

[This post possibly motivated by me entering my 12th straight hour of studying property. If someone wants to send a care package, preferably stocked with implements useful for stabbing my eyes out, I be greatly appreciative]

It's So Simple To Be Afraid

Matt Yglesias on the right's new star 14-year old Jonathan Krohn:

What does it accomplish to put a 14 year-old front and center at CPAC? What’s the message it’s supposed to send? That the conservative message is childish? That the right’s talking points can be easily mastered by a 14 year-old? That the CPAC audience doesn’t care about the knowledge-base of the speakers there, they just want to hear certain ritual beats repeated? I wouldn’t want to claim that liberals are so high-minded as to be above all that, but I’m hard-pressed to think of an example of liberals trying to flaunt disdain for knowledge and expertise.

It'd be one thing if Mr. Krohn was some sort of intellectual prodigy coming up with new, deep, and intricate philosophical or policy arguments that weren't being articulated before. But as best I can see, Krohn has simply gotten a jump at mastering the art of conservative bomb-throwing as well as any talk radio host. A skill, and in some ways a very impressive one (particularly in terms of the political knowledge it entails), but nothing worthy of the gold plated treatment he's been getting. Unless, of course, the GOP has been reduced to talk show bomb-throwing, which isn't out of the question.

Missed Opportunity

In a stroke of luck (bad or good depending on your perspective), the WBC protest was right during my Property review session, so I missed them entirely. What a shame -- I wanted to blow a kiss at them. But instead I just studied more arcane Property law.

Admitting a Problem?

The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education has released the results of its annual survey measuring Black enrollment in elite colleges and universities. I mostly looked at the Liberal Arts College data, primarily because I was curious how Carleton is doing. The answer is, we're getting better, but are still mid-bottom of the pack with a 5.9% Black incoming freshman class for 08-09. I suspect a lot of that has to do with the fact that we're located in God Forgot Me, Minnesota.* But that excuse only gets you so far: Williams is ranked second amongst LACs (10.4%) even though its in Even More Isolated Than Northfield, Massachusetts.

But that's not what caught my eye. The article, among other things, lets you compare the acceptance rates for Black applicants versus the pool at large. The plurality of schools had higher acceptance rates for Black students: Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore, Wellesley, Haverford, Pomona, Bowdoin, Wesleyan, Bates, Grinnell, Carleton, Claremont McKenna, Middlebury, and Colby.

At several schools, the proportions were more or less the same (within 3 percentage points): Trinity, Davidson, Oberlin, Colgate, Hamilton, Washington & Lee, and Harvey Mudd.

But quite a few schools were less likely to admit Black applicants than the average student: Bryn Mawr, Smith, Lafayette, Barnard, Macalester, and Bucknell. In some cases, the gap was extremely stark: 10 points at Bucknell and Smith, over 15 at Bryn Mawr. Worthy of note: three of these schools (Bryn Mawr, Smith, and Barnard) are all-women's colleges (three of the four on the list). I'm not sure what that means, but it sticks out.

* I learned to love and cherish Northfield in my time at Carleton, but even I'll tell you that it was not exactly what I envisioned when I thought about the type of town I wanted to spend four years in.

RIP Mr. Cohen

Steve Cohen, self-described "anti-Zionist Zionist" ("that should confuse the bastards") and author of the mid-1980s leftist tract That's Funny, You Don't Look Anti-Semitic, has passed away.

I imagine Mr. Cohen and I would differ on many, many things. But his efforts in challenging anti-Semitism from inside his socialist movement were extraordinary, and the contribution he's made to progressives of all identities and stripes in fighting anti-Semitism are beyond measure.

You Know Jews -- They're Only After That One Thing

Discussing the flare up over possible National Intelligence Council chair Chas Freeman, M.J. Rosenberg writes something that deserves some parsing:

Now Jonathan Chait of the New Republic is an interesting case. He's liberal on every single issue but Israel (on which he is pure neocon), not only liberal but brilliant. But when it comes to Israel, he just can't get beyond the ethnic pull. Even worse, he does not understand that his ethnic blinders (and that is all they are) have led him to support an approach to Israel that, if it succeeds, will destroy it.

This, of course, is a specific form of a question that gets asked quite frequently: "Why are Jews so liberal on everything else, but so conservative on Israel?" And Rosenberg answers explicitly what many others just leave unspoken: it's ethnocentrism.

There is blindness here, but it's Mr. Rosenberg who has it. Most Jews would reject the premise of his claim. In all but my absolute most conservative moments, I never saw my support of Israel as stemming from anything but liberal values. Israel wasn't an exception, it was normal -- just another liberal position I hold. The beliefs that Mr. Chait has about Israel, as far as he's concerned, flow part and parcel out of his generally progressive ideology. Many other progressives can't understand that this is how many Jews think; they can't fathom that progressivism can lead to an alternate path on Israel than the one they hold.

The latest turn the controversy has taken is with Rosenberg, Matt Yglesias, and Stephen Walt all asserting that the only reason Freeman is facing resistance is that he's said bad things about Israel. Here's Prof. Walt:

What unites this narrow band of critics is only one thing: Freeman has dared to utter some rather mild public criticisms of Israeli policy. That's the litmus test that Chait, Goldberg, Goldfarb, Peretz, Schoenfeld et al want to apply to all public servants: thou shalt not criticize Israeli policy nor question America's "special relationship" with Israel. Never mind that this policy of unconditional support has been bad for the United States and unintentionally harmful to Israel as well. If these pundits and lobbyists had their way, anyone who pointed that fact out would be automatically disqualified from public service.

And here's Mr. Yglesias:

[T]he habit of turning around and acting indignant when people point out that what’s motivating this fight is Freeman’s views on Israel is really pretty silly. When you hear that indicted former AIPAC director Steve Rosen, The New Republic, Commentary, Eli Lake, and Chuck Schumer are spearheading opposition to something you don’t say to yourself “they must be concerned about the human rights situation in China!”

The reason they're pushing back so hard is that, while certainly many of these people are quite concerned with Freeman's views on Israel, they are also claiming that they find Freeman's foreign policy views more generally -- his pro-authoritarian instincts on China, and his ties to Saudi Arabia -- distressing. I find it very unnerving that Walt, Rosenberg, and Yglesias can't even fathom that pro-Israel Jews could have other political commitments that hold them and motivate them (even if only in part) aside from Israel.

Chait's original editorial, for instance, focuses very little on Freeman's views on Israel. In Goldberg's first post, he mentioned that Freeman was "well-known for his hostility toward Israel, but what's more substantively troubling about this report is the obvious inappropriateness of hiring a well-known advocate for the interests of Middle Eastern autocracies to produce national intelligence estimates for the Obama Administration." All of this, we're led to believe, is mere hand-waving. Israel is the only thing that motivates these men. Everything else is a tricksy facade.

Now when we're talking about folks whose professional job is as advocates for Israel (like Mr. Rosen for AIPAC), then perhaps some skepticism is warranted. But the Walt/Yglesias/Rosenberg camp distorts the picture in their favor by only focusing on the Jews (and pro-Israel partisans) who are critical of Freeman, while neglecting to note that pro-Taiwan speakers are concerned, and Chinese human rights advocates are concerned as well. If you ignore everybody in the discussion who doesn't have a history of pro-Israel advocacy (and, of course, you assume pro-Israel advocates care about nothing else in the whole wide world), then it's easy to see a conspiracy. That doesn't make it right.

Finally, going off what I said above about how many Jews view there support of Israel as packed into broader idealistic/progressive views on foreign policy, it makes perfect sense that the concern over human rights is sincere. Chait continues:

Foreign policy idealists tend to believe in the value of supporting democracies versus dictatorships, and opposing genocide, even if this doesn't advance narrow economic or foreign policy interests. Realists disagree, which is fine. But the problem is that some realists not only disagree, but have defined the entire idealist worldview as being about Israel. In fact, foreign policy idealists have spent a lot of time defending, say, Taiwan. Not as much time as defending Israel, but of course Taiwan's citizens aren't actually under military attack from China the way Israel's have been from Hamas and Hezbollah. Now, it's true that a lot of Jews are idealists, and that foreign policy idealism is a good justification for the U.S.-Israel alliance. I'd argue that Jewish history before 1948 has more to do with Jewish belief in an ideology that elevates moral considerations over power politics and rejects the notions that a state can deal with its internal population as it sees fit.

And even if you suppose this entire world view is merely a construct to justify support for Israel, there are arguments to be dealt with. Walt refuses to defend Freeman on his ties to Saudi Arabia and extreme defense of China, thinking he can wave it all away by shouting "Israel-lover!" at the critics in the hopes that this will rally liberals to Freeman's side. The method of Walt's argument is vastly more distrurbing than the substance. Walt is arguing that any Jewish-American who does not roughly share his views on Israel (which, of course, disqualifies the vast majority) is presumptively acting out of dual loyalty, is probably coordinating their actions in secret, and should thus be dismissed out of hand. I think Walt has come to this conclusion on the basis of his foreign policy worldview rather than out of animus against Jewish people. But it's a paranoid analysis whose consequence is to make the debate about Israel much more stupid and mired in attacks on motive.

Put simply, Chait has a track record of supporting Israel, yes, but he also has a track record for supporting human rights and progressive policies worldwide. That history gets subsumed, however, once Israel comes into the discussion. Once Israel becomes a factor, the assumption seems to be that pro-Israel Jews can think of nothing else. That is a deeply unfair -- dare I say vile -- presumption. Walt's attack particularly teetered periliously on the brink of the "dual loyalties" charge, and essentially told his readers "don't trust what these men say -- they are lying to promote their Zionist agenda". It is impossible to have a mature discussion -- indeed, it is impossible to be Jewish (and hold whatever views that Rosenberg and Walt would tag as "neo-con") and be fairly included in the discussion -- when that is the standard we are held to.

Making Dreams Reality

Iran: Wants to wipe Israel off the map.

Hamas: Genocide of the Jews is in its charter.

Sudan: Actually committing genocide, right now!

Solidarity mission of Iran and Hamas to Sudan: Utterly unsurprising.