Monday, January 19, 2009

Refreshingly deep analysis of Israeli / Palestinian conflict

This article, in the American Conservative of all places, is a refreshingly deep and sober analysis of the Israeli / Palestinian conflict. I'm not saying you should take everything it says on face value, but it does go into much more detail than any other coverage I've seen recently, and is written by a fairly reputable source (political science professor at the University of Chicago).

The other interesting thing is the conservative angle here, which is something along the lines of, "Conservatives like Israel. Israel's current strategy is not only bad for Palestinians, but also for its own long-term survival. So Israel should change course." This ends up being a fairly nuanced analysis as a result. It also avoids the conservative tendency to ignore the humanitarian tragedy component.

I tend to give well-written, non-conspiracy-nut pieces like this the benefit of the doubt until the mainstream and/or conventional wisdom crowd can answer with an equally deep, nuanced rebuttal that treats all parties involved as real, contemporary people with real, contemporary problems (as opposed to the "Muslins have always and will always be terrists!" line of thinking).

1 comment:

Unknown said...

wow. are you reentering the blog-o-sphere?
also thanks for sharing this. my clock radio is set to npr so i've been waking up to gaza every morning, but it's an awkward time to really absorb world events.