Amitai Etzioni Notes

Conservatism is dead; long live liberalism? (Part III)

Conservatism is dying on the vine [detailed here]; liberalism is not a mainspring of compelling and mobilizing ideas [here]. Obama draws heavily on—and contributes much to—a little known social philosophy known as communitarianism. It is centered around the importance of community, the common good, and service.

The nature of communitarianism is best illustrated by contrasting it with identity politics, the rejection of which is both a major theme of Obama’s campaign, and is symbolized by his post-racial biography and personhood. Identity politics build on what differentiates us from one another: our racial or ethnic origins; our sexual orientations; our separate past social histories. Identity politics led to attempts to form a ‘rainbow’ coalition, composed of various groups who considered themselves victimized—against the declining white, male majority. Other forms of identity politics pitted citizens against immigrants. Some of the more radical versions of multiculturalism also contributed to this kind of divisive politics.

Obama’s conceit is the mirror opposite of this kind of liberalism. On the stump, he repeatedly stresses that we are not from red states or blue states but from the United States. His statement, reiterated time and again, that we are not black, white, Hispanic, Christian or Jewish, but members of one overarching community, is much more than a flurry of oratory: it is a major social philosophy that seeks to draw the best out of all of us and invest it in making a better life for all.

A revival of the American community requires us to spend much less of our energy and resources on fighting one another, and invest much more of it in the common good, in those goods that serve one and all. Hence, Obama seeks not only social justice for the poor, but decent work at decent wages for one and all; he harps less on the uninsured, and seeks a health care system that will encompass all Americans; he is as open to those with a strong faith as he is to those who embrace secular humanism.

In The Audacity of Hope, Obama shows that he is well versed not only in the language of rights and entitlements but also that of obligations. He writes, "We value the imperatives of family and the cross-generational obligations that family implies...We value patriotism and the obligations of citizenship, a sense of duty and sacrifice on behalf of our nation."

Better yet, Obama used to stress that "in the end a sense of mutual understanding isn't enough. After all, talk is cheap; like any value, empathy must be acted upon." He recounted with pride that when he was a community organizer "[he] would often challenge neighborhood leaders by asking them where they put their time, energy and money." He put this key communitarian idea well when he stated: "If we aren't willing to pay a price for our values, if we aren't willing to make some sacrifices in order to realize them, then we should ask ourselves whether we truly believe in them at all."

Obama’s international policies strike the same basic note. He is looking to work with our allies and to engage our adversaries in a dialogue, rather than force down our allies’ throats policies the United States has generated and use our military power to forcefully change the regimes which adhere to values different than ours.

The nation is upon hard times. Its coffers are empty; creditors are at the gate; the military is exhausted and depleted; the regard with which America is held overseas is at an all time low; and major economic and security challenges pile up like so many storm clouds. The nation demands a prolonged period of restoration, one in which merely replenishing all that was squandered will entail raising taxes and keeping new expenditures under a tight leash. In plain English—sacrifices. People will be willing to put their shoulder to the wheel only if they are convinced that their efforts are dedicated to the common good, and not to the service of one group or another.

A three-way combination of addressing climate change, environmental protection, and development of sustainable sources of energy is a model and leading common good. It is not tailored to serve any particular group or class, but to provide for all our lives—and those of our children and their children. No wonder both liberal Gore Democrats and conservative Christian Evangelicals, the moderate left and the moderating right, can find purpose here.

Other Obama favored policies fit well into a communitarian agenda, such as dramatically expanding the opportunities for national service, drawing on faith based groups to participate in the delivery of social services, and fighting drug and alcohol abuse.

Returning the economy to a course in which everyone will be able to earn a “living wage” and all Americans will be able to gain and maintain their health insurance, two Obama goals, may sound like liberal themes. However, they are formulated as communitarian ideals because they do not call to serve only those most in need—the poor, the disadvantaged, the people of color—but all Americans. The same holds true for Obama’s educational reforms. All together these amount to what Michael Kazin and Julian Zelizer called “a new social contract.” (I would add paying one of the parents a wage during family leave from work when a new child is born. It is a very costly program; hence it must be gradually introduced. However, given that many European societies can afford it, it is hard to see that the United State—still richer—could not do the same).

One may argue that none of these communitarian themes are novel ones. Indeed, their echo can be heard in Bill Clinton’s call for finding the common ground. Bush had a communitarian minute when he called on Americans to dedicate 4,000 hours to volunteer work during their life time, a noble idea he forgot as soon as the teleprompter was turned off. His compassionate conservatism lasted a few speeches longer, before it too was dumped. Much more importantly, environmentalists have long championed ecological responsibility. However, whereas in the past communitarian ideas were treated as part of a much large package, Obama makes them the main theme of his public philosophy.

Communitarianism is far from being a fully worked-out social philosophy. It is only beginning to develop its international side. It has a way to go before it is ready to reconcile its commitment not to divide the members of the community against one another and to promote social justice. However, it is a compelling social philosophy whose time has come. You can see in the faces of the millions who turn out to cheer Obama, and who may carry him—and America—into a new age that is neither liberal nor conservative but communitarian.

Conservatism is dead; long live liberalism? (Part II)

George Packer argued that the steam has run out of the conservative movement, that its publications are vacuous, and its pundits a bore [discussed here]. But are there signs of a grand liberal revival? Could George Packer write a similar essay about liberal think tanks, pundits, and books? The Progressive Policy Institute, the think tank of the New Democrats, is barely heard of these days. The Center for American Progress is producing a steady stream of position papers, but these seem to be aimed more at policy makers than at generating liberal movement in the public square. The Brookings Institution used to be a major liberal think tank, and still produces a great variety of papers and books, but these have no shared ideological or political profile. Moreover, two of its leading economists are harping on the need to cut benefits and raise taxes in order to “save” Social Security and reduce the deficit, a rather conservative agenda. The New Republic surely shows less sparkle or verve than the conservative Weekly Standard. The most spirited of the lot is the New America Foundation, but it has no partisan political profile, agenda, or platform. Liberal thinkers may be doing a bit better than conservative ones, but this is not much of a claim.

Particularly disconcerting for those who are expecting the great liberal revival to follow the conservative demise is that significantly more Americans consider themselves conservatives rather than liberals, which is of obvious import for the forthcoming elections—a point well documented in John Micklethwait’s and Adrian Wooldridge’s book The Right Nation. This basic and important fact is all too often obscured because too many observers equate being Republican with being conservative, and Democrat—liberal. The cliché of the day is that the Republican brand is damaged, and given that Democrats are in ascendance—it seems that liberals, ipso facto, are in ascendance too. Actually, while most Republicans are conservatives, many Democrats are not liberals.

Let’s say it with numbers. Polls show that while about a third of the voters consider themselves conservative, less than a quarter consider themselves liberals (32% vs. 23%).  Only one out of three Democrats considers himself liberal (one out of four considers himself conservative and the rest view themselves as moderates). In contrast one out of twenty Republicans sees himself as liberal while most (two out of every three) see themselves as conservatives. In short, the GOP is largely a conservative party, while the Democrats are not a liberal party, but only have a liberal wing whose influence is strong during the primaries but not during the general elections nor when it comes to governing. (Some find solace in that there are numerous independents out there, but these also tend to lean more to the conservative than to the liberal side, albeit it not by a large margin).

It follows that Democrats can win big in 2008, especially in electing members of Congress, but still there will be a conservative majority. Recent by-elections in three states were viewed as harbingers of things to come as Democrats won in traditional GOP Congressional districts in Louisiana, Virginia and Illinois.  However, these Democrats ran as gun-loving, pro-business Democrats—in other words, as conservatives.  Indeed, Blue Dog Democrats, a group of fiscally conservative Democrats in the House, find themselves growing in numbers, gaining power, and able to defy party leadership and win conservative concessions.

In short, the conservatives’ well of ideas may well have run dry, but the American majority has hardly turned liberal. True, many of the conservatives are fiscal and not social conservatives; hence stem cell research, women’s rights, and the environment may do well. However, a return to grand social programs for the poor and the minorities, of extensive regulation of capitalism (Wall Street, the oil companies, and banks for instance), the liberalism of Kennedy and Johnson, not to mention of Humphrey and Como, faces many more hurdles. As sociologist Dalton Conley put it in the the New York Times, “The New Deal is not coming back. Can Democrats find a fresher way?”

Is there a third way that may guide the new administration? Could the most compelling ideas be neither conservative nor liberal but communitarian?

Give Clark a Star

I got to know General Wesley Clark when we both served as members of a commission studying how best to connect the dots, how to use information for national security without violating privacy and other rights. The commission was put together by the Markle Foundation, and met in Aspen, Colorado and Washington, DC, among other places. There were day long deliberations and the requisite cocktail hour and elaborate dinners. In short, a chance to get to know those you spend time with.

I am telling you all this because I want to make it clear that my heart did not go pitter patter when I heard Clark’s name mentioned as a presidential candidate—not because of some kind of bias against generals, but because it became clear to me that he isn’t a politician; he is very much a straight shooter. We need people like him who speak the truth, without beating around the bush, if you get my drift. Hence, I am particularly troubled by all those who jumped down Clark’s throat when he pointed out that the fact that McCain was a prisoner of war and that his plane was shot down is not necessarily a preparation for being a commander in chief.

This is a campaign in which the Internet is systematically loaded with all kind of smears, lies, half-lies, and misquotes about the presidential candidates. The editorial writers, the talking heads on the tube, and other such public voices have not broken out in a chorus demanding that such  dishonesty stop. They assume that each side will correct the other, and somehow the facts will bubble up. It is all part of free speech, they say.  But where do they get the nerve and find the audacity to censor Clark for speaking the truth? After all nobody is claiming that McCain’s limited and particular military experience has anything to do with being commander in chief. Fire away, General Clark.

By the way, I am not sure that military experience of any kind makes for a good president. Bill Clinton kept the country out of war and made it prosper for eight years, despite the fact that he had no more military experience than Obama and was rather uncomfortable around generals.

Indeed, the whole terminology is misleading. We do not want the commander in chief, the president, to be a military person. We want a civilian authority to lead the country and order around the military. This alone is a good reason why we should elect someone who is not “a military man” and leave the retired generals to speak truth from the side lines.

Hillary Belongs in the Cabinet

Offering Senator Clinton the position of the Secretary of Health and Human Services, to lead the reform of the American health care system, is a much better answer to the question “What to do about Hillary?” than making her the Vice President. Serving as Secretary of HHS will allow her to leave a mark on American society that will last for many decades, to the benefit of hundreds of millions of Americans—old, young and yet to be born. Furthermore, it will accord her an opportunity to correct major mistakes that she admits to making during her previous attempt to reform the health care system. Also, the position will provide her with a strong platform from which to launch her future political ambitions. As a bonus—whatever mess her husband inserts himself into will not involve the White House. 

Those who will feel that Senator Clinton is being slighted if and when she is not chosen as Vice President will need to be reminded how marginal the Vice Presidency is in the American government. The Constitution provides practically no mission and next to no power for the Vice President. It is the president who is the Commander in Chief, who chooses the members of the cabinet, who submits the budget to Congress, and so on—without even an obligation to consult the Vice President or even keep him or her informed about what is going on. The Vice President does preside over the Senate and, once in a blue moon, casts a tie-breaking vote. The rest of the time, the Vice President is at the mercy of the President. (Moreover, he is often closely monitored by the President.  Several times when I visited with Vice Presidents since 1980, a staff member of the President joined the meeting and took notes).

Historically, Vice Presidents have often been isolated and used mainly to stand in for the President in places he did not want to go, especially at the funerals of some heads of states overseas. Historian Stephen Graubard wrote that “the few months Theodore Roosevelt spent in that office, with nothing to do except to preside over the Senate, denied even a seat at the Cabinet table…[the] boredom was so excruciating as to make him think seriously of abandoning politics after his term of office, possibly choosing a university career instead.” According to historian Richard Baumann, Teddy Roosevelt said "I would a great deal rather be anything, say professor of history, than vice president." FDR’s Vice President John Nance Garner (1933-41) claimed the vice presidency "isn't worth a pitcher of warm piss." As Will Rogers, an early 20th century American humorist, put it: "The man with the best job in the country is the vice president. All he has to do is get up every morning and say, 'How is the president?'"

Because Dick Cheney was the Vice President for the last eight years, Americans tend to think about the Vice Presidency as an all powerful position, playing a leading role in foreign and military policy. There is no sign that Obama would wish to continue to such an unusual pattern.

There is a final bonus in Senator Clinton serving as member of the cabinet rather than as a Vice President: if it turns out that she finds it difficult to be a team player under the direction of President Obama, she will find out that it is much easier to replace cabinet members than a Vice President.

The EU Bombers

I live in a building owned jointly by a hundred families, a cooperative. The other day the board asked the members to vote on a plan to spend four million dollars on renovating the building. When the members voted “nay,” the board asked for another vote, on a slightly reconfigured loan. The membership reacted with great dismay, as it was obvious that if they had voted for the loan, no second vote would have been called for. They felt manipulated, and their resentment is still agitating our small community and threatening future plans to act in unison.

EU politicians are responding to the Irish “nay” vote on the Lisbon Treaty in the same high handed manner my board did, and the effect will be the same. EU leaders are all for democracy—as long as the people vote the way they prefer the vote to come out. In effect, leading EU politicians are more devious than my board. At first they pressured Ireland to hold a swift second referendum. When the Irish refused, the EU politicians called for others to proceed anyhow.

First of all, both German and French leaders, and even the highly respected Prime Minister Jean-Claude Juncker of Luxemburg, called for the other 26 nations to proceed in ratifying the treaty. This move makes little sense if the EU is going to abide by the procedures it itself set, namely that all 27 member nations must ratify the treaty for it to take effect. Why ask for the remaining 26 to go through the trouble if the treaty cannot be legally implemented anyhow?

One response is that, as France's Europe minister, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, put it, that the EU will find some “specific means of cooperation” with Ireland. Another-- a two speed Europe, in which those nations that will ratify the treaty will work more closely together than the others. In either case, the remaining 26 countries do not plan to allow their people to vote on the very consequential treaty, and will rely on ratification by the parliaments. The result? Growing alienation from the whole EU project by large segments of the European publics.

The EU politicians involved are emboldened by the decades in which they made what they considered great progress without truly involving the people. The EU’s European Commission made hundred of decisions without effective public hearings or proper consultations with the citizens of the countries involved or even with the weak EU Parliament. Those decisions stuck because they often dealt with highly technical matters (e.g. harmonizing the axle widths of the railroads of the various countries);  the EU ignored the fact that many member nations did not implement the policies the EU pronounced (e.g. the requirement that each member nation dedicate 3% of its public budget to research and development); or — the decisions did cause a measure of resentment, but an initially limited one. However over the years, the high-handed ways of the Commission have become one reason major segments of European publics have soured on the whole idea of a united Europe. True, when the French and the Dutch voted “no” on a previous round of the treaty (then called a constitution), they had several reasons, but among them was a lack of ardor for the whole EU project.

Moreover, the issues the EU now faces are far from limited technical ones, but tap into deep-seated political, moral and emotional issues, such as what is to be done about immigration (which the citizens of several nations are keen to limit, while other EU nations allow immigrants in quite readily-- immigrants quick to move to other parts of the EU); terrorists (different nations have very different notions about civil rights); further enlargement (esp. the admission of Turkey); and above all, the surrender of sovereignty, which the significant increases in EU majority voting, detailed in the new treaty, will result in.

These are not matters that lawyers, civil servants, and a few representatives can rule upon in secret or opaque meetings, or ram through parliaments-- if the majority of the public has other preferences. Either the majorities will have to be persuaded, or the policies adapted. If the EU continues to proceed in the same high-handed, undemocratic way it has been acting, it will face ever more resentment and opposition.
The rejection of the further expansion and enlargement of the EU will express itself in many ways. In some cases, national governments that are pro-EU will be voted out of office. In others, voters will flock to nationalistic right wing parties or movements. Or, they will support strikes, demonstrations, and even civil disobedience to EU measures, or vent their frustrations in some other way.

The time has come when the EU authorities and those who champion the EU project either win more people over to their cause, or sharply modify their project. Most likely they must do both if the EU is to continue to grow and not regress to a merely trade union.

On the campus: forty years later

A 1968 issue of the New York Times magazine carries a picture of yours truly waving a finger at a mass of students at Columbia University. The picture accompanies an article I wrote on my experience, called “confessions of a professor caught in a revolution.” At the time, left-leaning students had occupied several buildings on campus after the university’s president ignored their repeated requests to discuss their grievances. Right-wing students sought to rush the buildings and drive out the occupying students. I belonged to a group of faculty that formed a cordon between the two groups, to prevent a confrontation sure to turn violent.  We succeeded.

Columbia, along with most other American colleges and universities, has come a long way from 1968. True, some still have stuck up presidents, and some still follow policies that give grief to anyone with a social consciousness. However, the fortieth anniversary of the student uprising at Columbia is a good time to note how far things have come. Doing so gives hope to those of us who continue to campaign for change on the societal level as well as in the university system.

•In 1968, all professors in my department were white males. At meetings of the admissions committee for graduate students, faculty often scrutinized photos of the candidates (required as part of the application in those days) and preference was sometimes given to those applicants found to be good looking  by the faculty (many of whom had student mistresses). These days faculties are diverse; perhaps not as much as they ought to be, but a long way from what they used to be. Also, colleges have adopted strict policies on intimate relations between professors and students, although these are not always enforced.

•Grayson L. Kirk, president of Columbia University in 1968, paid little mind not only to the preferences and views of students but also those of the faculty. He did not survive the 1968 uprising, and was unceremoniously retired. The new president, Andrew W. Cordier was much more accessible. Today you do still find presidents who pursue their own lights, but they tend to end up like Harvard’s former President Larry Summers—looking for another job.

•In 1968, Columbia University was expanding, paying little mind to the needs of its mostly lower income, mostly African American neighbors at the edge of Harlem. Today, many worry it is doing the same with its controversial plans for a new campus in Manhattanville. Although, to be sure, it is proceeding much more cautiously and somewhat more openly than in 1968.  Since then, the relationships between Town and Gown have continued to be complex and tense, in. colleges from Yale to UCLA. Still universities tend to pay more attention to the needs of their neighbors, especially if these are poor or members of minorities, than they did forty years ago.

•Columbia University prided itself in 1968 on its ‘core curriculum’—a series of courses (required for all undergraduates) on the history, philosophy, and culture of Western Civilization, with a strong emphasis on the classics.  Since then, partially in response to criticism that a curriculum dominated exclusively by ‘dead white men’ hardly amounted to adequate preparation for ‘contemporary civilization,’ the required curriculum has expanded to include numerous courses in non-western cultures, as well as more female and non-white author who write in the Western tradition. In effect, currently there are some who believe that Columbia and other universities have gone too far in trying to be multicultural, and have lost their role as institutions dedicated to transmitting the core of Western culture.

•The least amount of change since 1968 has occurred in the academic pecking order. Columbia and other high prestige universities still tend to scoff at “applied” disciplines such as criminology, education and social work, even business and engineering and tend to extol abstract subjects such as pure math, economic theory, and scientific models. The fact that applied and abstract disciplines have a lot to give each other—that applied ones serve as important corrective to blue yonder theories, and abstract theories can provide strong underpinning and drive new insights in applied ones—is not much better understood today than in 1968. Maybe it will take another forty years to bridge this gap. Given that colleges did make substantial albeit insufficient progress on the other fronts, hope springs eternal.

Obama: the second half

In the my wildest dreams, during eighteen years of championing communitarianism, I did not expect a presidential candidate to be as strongly identified with this political philosophy as Obama is. It is hence particularly important that he will not limit his message to “we are not from red states, not from blue states, but from the United States”—but will add: “Ask not what your country….”; that he will go beyond we-are-all-in this-together kumbaya—to we all will have to put our shoulders to the wheel to get this train back on the tracks; from feel-good politics, sprinkled liberally with the holy water of hope that has no cost-- to political leadership which seeks a mandate for change that will require sacrifices for the common good,.  In short, follow the communitarianism of responsibility above and beyond that of community-building, which is by far the less taxing part.
   
In The Audacity of Hope, written before Obama declared his bid for the presidency, the author showed, even more then President Kennedy, he understood that we should “ground our politics in the notion of a common good.”  Obama was well versed not only in the language of rights and entitlements but also that of obligations. In those far away days, in 2005, he wrote, “We value the imperatives of family and the cross-generational obligations that family implies…We value patriotism and the obligations of citizenship, a sense of duty and sacrifice on behalf of our nation.”
 
Better yet, Obama used to stress that “in the end a sense of mutual understanding isn’t enough.  After all, talk is cheap; like any value, empathy must be acted upon.”   He recounted with pride that when he was a community organizer “[he] would often challenge neighborhood leaders by asking them where they put their time, energy and money.”  In those days, he put it better than any other communitarian when he stated: “ If we aren’t willing to pay a price for our values, if we aren’t willing to make some sacrifices in order to realize them, then we should ask ourselves whether we truly believe in them at all.”   

On the campaign trail many of these profound insights have faded. We now hear painless declarations such as  “Our prosperity can and must be the tide that lifts every boat; that we rise or fall as one nation.” And such undemanding observations as  “…too often, we lose our sense of common destiny;  the] understanding that we are all tied together.”
 
True, occasionally we still hear echoes of the old Obama; but now the recognition that sacrifice we must appears as a sort of after thought. On the campaign trail Obama typically declares that now we “…require a new spirit of cooperation, innovation, and shared sacrifice.”

The nation is upon hard times. Its coffers are empty; creditors are at the gate; the military is exhausted and depleted;  the regard with which America is held overseas is at all time low, and major economic and security challenges pile up like that many storm clouds. The nation demands a prolonged period of restoration, one in which merely replenishing all that was squandered will entail raising taxes and keeping new expenditures under a tight leash. In plain English--sacrifices. If the next president will enter office without a mandate for such give rather than take, especially for imposing a hefty tax on oil, we are likely to sink deeper into the ditch in which we have been cast rather than to start to climb out.
   
Granted, being straight with the American people is to engage in risky politics. Walter Mondale got his head handed to him when he candidly addressed the need for raising taxes (although his main problem was not his candor but that he seems to look forward with glee to higher taxes rather than bemoan their inevitably). Jimmy Cater got into similar trouble when he tried to impose a tiny tax (50 cents) on gasoline. And John F Kennedy did not get to “Ask Not” until his inauguration. In contrast, Ronald Regan sailed into White House on wave of hope of a new morning in America, which required no more than being there at dawn.
        
Maybe the best one can hope for is not a Churchillian call for ‘blood, sweat, and tears,” but for Obama as the presidential candidate to quote the author of Audacity of Hope. For him to lay out the full communitarian message-- that community building does not mean merely embracing one another and laying to rest our divisions, but also serving the common good. That our rights are sacred but so are our responsibilities. 

Better, Obama can employ a communitarian device and ask the people what they believe. Do Americans see a need for sacrifices? How would they free us from our dependency on imported oil?  What are they willing to do to get the nation out of debt? How far do they hold that nation should go in protecting itself from terrorism?

A Personal Note

I am receiving a considerable amount of abusive comments here, in my email inbox, and in other places where I publish my thoughts (most recently in the British The Guardian and the French Le Monde).   Hence, I wanted to tell you that I am a fairly decent guy, at least I think so. I love dogs (I am not as crazy about cats); I dote on my small army of grandchildren (one is cuter and smarter than the other; nobody else’s grandchildren come close); I do not spit on the sidewalks nor do I blow smoke into anyone’s face. (I do sometimes jay walk; I just got a ticket after I crossed a street mid-block in Bethesda). And I do not curse, at least not when other people can hear me.

Above all, I am a champion of peace among nations and people, any time, any place. I was involved in close quarter fighting for two and half years before I turned twenty. The killing and maiming left me with a deep aversion to all forms of violence and guns. (Some of the most abusive mail I get is when I remind my fellow Americans that the Second Amendment does not authorize an individual right to gun ownership, and that guns in the house are much more dangerous for kids and spouses than for any criminal who might one day break in).

Soon after I graduated from UC Berkeley I wrote two books whose titles tell it all: The Hard Way to Peace and Winning without War. They dealt with ways in which the United States and the Soviet Union could work out their differences without coming to blows, ways to ensure that the Cold War would not turn hot and could best be terminated.

When I got my first job at Columbia University, I joined a group of faculty who, in 1968, formed a human chain to prevent students from a right wing group from forcing left wing students out of a campus building that they were occupying in protest against college policies: policies concerning Columbia's  institutional affiliation with the Institute for Defense Analyses (a weapons research think-tank affiliated with the U.S. Department of Defense during the Vietnam War) and concerning the university's plans for an allegedly segregatory gymnasium in Harlem.     

More recently I got a group of people from the left and right to endorse a statement that calls on all schools to teach children ways to resolve differences by using their words rather than their fists [here]. Adults, too.

For the last year, I have been trying to convince policy makers in Washington and elsewhere to stop presuming that all Muslims are terrorists, and to cease maintaining that the West is involved in a clash of its civilization with those of all others. I showed in great detail that Islam is no different from other religions and even secular bodies of belief, in that it can be read to promote war or spiritual growth, terrorism or peace. Moreover, I showed that most Muslims belong to the peace loving camp. Hence as long as we do not demand that they accept our form of government, we can find among them many partners in peace. (For more see Security First). You may disagree with me, but I do not believe that you will find these ideas violent or offensive.

I am especially proud, as an Israeli-American, to have issued a statement together with a leading Palestinian-American, Shibley Telhami, calling on both Israel and the Palestinians to put aside, for now, the blame game, and focus on the joint future. We pointed out that as long as each party holds that the other one started it all, each side will wait for the other to yield, instead of looking for a common ground which would require concessions from both parties.

My main problem is that I often can see both sides (or more) of many issues, and hence find it difficult to be fully on any one side. I do not believe that liberals are right all the time; I do not feel that neocons have horns and forked tails; I was a guest of the reformers in Iran and learned a lot from them, as I did from Shimon Peres in Israel. I am not sure that such moderation is a fault, though I do realize that being one sided makes for a better pitch, an easier advocacy. Anyhow nobody is perfect, and I cannot stop myself from trying to find the middle of the road. I am not even sure that I want to. Now how about giving the brick pats a rest, and let’s have a reasoned give and take?

The Israel I Was Fighting For

Sixty years ago, when I was fighting for Israel during its war of independence, I won a lot of respect. Now many of my liberal colleagues, including Jewish ones, raise their eyebrows. They hoped for an Israel that is citadel of individual rights, a land in which social justice prevails as laid out by the Prophets, and a peace-making nation—a sort of a Switzerland in the Middle East, only more enlightened.

Let's "bomb" Myanmar--with rice

U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates stated earlier this week that he “couldn’t imagine the United States dropping aid by air” to the million displaced people of Myanmar “without permission from the Myanmar government.”  “It’s sovereign air space, and you'd need their permission to fly in that air space," U.S. Joint Chiefs Chairman Michael Mullen explained to reporters. Such airdrops of urgently needed supplies like food, water and medicine have been suggested by, among others, Ky Luu, director of the U.S. Office of Foreign Disaster Assistance, and French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner. However, so far at least, they’ve not been carried out. The reluctance to send in food and medicine, whether or not a given government grants permission, raises an important issue concerning humanitarian aid and even more generally, international relations in the 21st century.