News from the Front

I am usually pretty ambiguous about Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The Left likes to get on its high horse and ride it around on this issue, and damn me if I take the Right seriously about anything, so I tend to just ignore their oversimplications on the issue. Not surprisingly, that's Stephen Harper's story:

Mr. Harper said the conflict is the result of the fact that there is no Middle East peace process because "the current Palestinian government is not committed to a peace process. "Secondly, there is an immediate crisis because of the actions of Hamas and the actions of Hezbollah," he said, referring to the radical Islamic movement that controls the Palestinian Authority and the Shia Muslim group that controls much of southern Lebanon.

It's never one-sided. Not ever. But that's the technique in politics-- polarize the issue and ignore any and all nuances. Larry Zolf, who's recent political commentary has been rather less than perceptive argues that its all about the votes and I am inclined to agree with him.

In the Mideast crisis, only Harper has come out 100 percent for Israel. Harper is now Israel's best friend. Harper understands that the Tories have received little of the Jewish vote, perhaps because they are a bit too socially conservative and right of centre for the traditionally small 'l' liberal Jewish vote. Normally one would have to say Canadian Jewry would be a tough group for Harper's Tories to win over. But that is exactly what Harper has done. Harper's stand on Israel could get Harper his majority government, even if he does not break through in Quebec.

Meanwhile, my friend Adina, who has a fine blog of her own, sent me a link to the blog her sister Lisa writes. Lisa lives in Israel and like many citizens there, has been very concerned about the recent violence. I have to say that this post really impressed me. I find the thing most often lost in the arguments about various military actions is the effect on civilians-- the whole human shields argument is complete bollocks as far as I am concerned. But Lisa goes on to make an even better point about the effect of the internet on how both Lebanese and Israeli citizens feel about the war:

I do think about the fact that many of these bloggers are from their respective countries' educated, liberal elite and I am sure that amongst them are some future leaders. When this latest round of pointless death and destruction ends, when the anger dissipates, perhaps they will remember the personal connections with their "enemy." Think about what it means, if the next generation of Lebanese and Israeli politicians and business leaders have intimate and personal knowledge of the others' humanity. They won't forget that, even while there was a war going on, they were able to talk to one another and express their feelings. It's not so easy to kill someone you know. It's possible to contemplate embarking on a joint development project or business endeavour with someone from the other side - if you know him or her as a human being, not simply "the former enemy."

This is spot on as far as I can see. And it makes the principle of net neutrality even more important-- voices like this shouldn't be hidden, shunted to the bottom of search engines or given less validity than those of big corporations, many of which have economic interests at stake in one side of a given conflict or another.

But Lisa makes another even more important point. Part of the whole point of propaganda is to make in possible to dehumanize the enemy-- it's pretty hard to have a good war if you actually remember that human beings are involved on the other side, not just faceless evil monsters. That's an effect the net actually makes possible. It wouldn't surprise me if governments started to take steps to cut off that sort of communication between beliigernents under the aegis of
"security"-- but while it lasts, we should make every effort to spread the word that some people don't support this bollocks, whether they love their country or no.