Fences Do Not Make Good Neighbors
A lot of people seem to misunderstand Frost's famous poem, "Mending Wall." Perhaps the most quoted line from it is "Good fences make good neighbors" as if this is what Robert Frost meant, when actually what he meant is spelled out explicitly in the very first line and later repeated: "Something there is that doesn't love a wall." Something, indeed. Thus it is interesting to note that the BBC, upon an investigation of itself, has found that its coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been biased, in favor of Israel, and now the BBC promises to improve. That's a welcome development and one which would be almost unimaginable on this side of the Atlantic, yet I have no doubt that the BBC's self-investigation is a British style white-wash, a firebreak, intended to deflect more severe criticism of Israel, of its wall, just as the recent Mearsheimer and Walt paper, which ostensibly criticizes the influence of the Zionist lobby in America is also a firebreak, written by two self described 'philo-Semites' and 'supporters of Israel' to deflect more serious attention from the real issues.
Let me be blunt: it makes no sense whatsoever to think that a 'two-state solution' is appropriate for Israel and, in this context, it is unequivocally wrong for the US government to support Israel in any way. Suppose somebody decided that the 'solution' for US race relations problems would be to build a wall around Mississippi and Alabama, and then ship all persons of color to live within that wall. Can anybody claim such a solution has a moral strong point? Suppose somebody decided that every religious denomination in the US would be issued different color internal passports, but that only Congregationalists (the original settlers) would have blue passports with full civil rights. Clearly, an absurdity. Yet the equivalent 'solutions' are Israeli government policy with regard to the Palestinians (and non-Palestinian Christians), fully supported by the US, without a hint of opprobrium in the establishment US media. What I don't understand is why what's good enough for Americans—a liberal constitutional system with equal rights and protections for all—is not good enough for Israel and, further, what business it is of the US government to prop up a belligerent, religion-based state. As far as I'm concerned Israel is the new, old-South Africa, an unhappy apartheid regime, and the reform of its system of government cannot come soon enough, not only for the unfortunate Palestinians but for the rest of us who suffer from the disproportionate amount of trouble it stirs up.
I have been trying to find a good guest for EP to speak to these problems but thus far am drawing blanks. In part this is a question of choosing between employment (post-retirement employment can be fun, and lucrative) and doing an interview for an obscure podcast, and I understand that, but I do hope a former US Ambassador of some sort, or somebody of some stature, will jump out of the closet and be willing to take this thing on. I'll keep looking...
Posted by George Kenney on May 3, 2006 12:36 PM 
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