False Dichotomies

“We have no need, no need of your amber/Likewise your gold and your jewels – There is no true beauty in things of no use.” Waxwing (Alasdair Roberts – The Amber Gatherers)

“Would you rather have a Lexus or justice? A dream or some substance? A Beamer, a necklace, or freedom?” Hip-Hop (Dead Prez – Let’s Get Free)

The ‘Occupy’ phenomenon hasn’t yet made it to India, despite the country having a rich/poor divide that dwarfs anything in the West, and the fact that the Indian masses clearly have the stomach for long protests, as the success of the Anna Hazare movement demonstrates. Perhaps the historical legacy of caste divisions means that people are more content to tolerate economic inequality in a way that they wouldn’t elsewhere; it’s certainly noteworthy that the most sustained and radical opposition to neo-liberalism in India has come from the proudly godless Maoists. But it’s also important to note that it isn’t entirely obvious where an Indian ‘Occupy’ movement would occupy. The economic centres of Mumbai or Delhi do not occupy the same place in the national consciousness as Wall Street in New York or the Square Mile in London for the simple reason that most Indians wouldn’t be aware of their existence. But a recent article in India Today offers one possibility for an occupy movement – pace The Educators – namely the homes of the country’s ostentatiously wealthy. Read more

This is a guest-post by Nick D

Even by the abysmal standards of pro-Palestinian advocacy, and I write this as a strong supporter of the Palestinians’ right to statehood, Deborah Orr’s article (“Is an Israeli life really worth more than a Palestinian’s?”) was breathtakingly stupid, as well as deeply unpleasant in its trivialisation of a serious issue and empty show of moral concern. It was, however, emblematic of a certain style of  ostensibly pro-Palestinian politics, one concerned much more with image than substance, with glib rhetoric over logical argument, with a facile and easily digestible morality that presents a straightforward picture of victim and villain. The first task of those who consider themselves friends and allies of the Palestinians should be to rid the movement for justice of its false friends, and Orr is a prime example of the commentator who lazily piggybacks her way to a cheap point on the suffering of a region. The incoherence of her argument should be the first signal that she really doesn‘t care – that her whole article is a dog-whistle to the prejudices of her readership rather than an attempt to make a serious comment. She begins by asserting that it is widely held that the exchange of Shalit for over 1000 Palestinian prisoners amounts to a victory for Hamas, and that the deal has also made Netanyahu look weak. Orr then follows this by suggesting that this means the world has become “inured to the obscene idea that Israeli lives are more important than Palestinian”. This is absurd. If the world had indeed accepted the idea, would you not expect the media reaction to be the reverse – to acknowledge that both sides had received a fair deal, that 1000 Palestinians are indeed equivalent to one Israeli?  To acknowledge that Hamas has had the better of this bargain doesn’t at all imply the kind of calculus Orr claims it does, without any appeal to logic. Read more

Micah’s excessively-titled ‘On being a naïve, self-hating, single-issue sympathy tourist (or some notes on the Jewish civil war)’ isn’t a particularly original auto-da-fe. He grew up a ‘liberal Zionist’, an avid reader of Amos Oz and David Grossman, and believed that if Israel got out of the territories then all would be well. His Damascene conversion came with the “disproportionate” Operation Cast Lead, when he decided that the Zionist project had been a bad idea in the first place; a courageous stance, he thinks, especially given the Jewish Chronicle’s hatred for all things anti-Zionist.

Of some interest, however, is the following: “I had begun to ask whether Zionism and the creation of Israel had been ‘good for the Jews’, or indeed anyone else?…I could now see what a disaster this project was turning out to be for Jews and Judaism.” Like Micah, I’d accept that Israel has been bad for the Palestinians. No matter who is most responsible for the conflict, the creation of a Jewish State has meant their dispossession, slaughter, dispersal, and immiseration. If there will be peace, Israel will have to sincerely acknowledge the role it has played in Palestinian suffering. The Palestinians and the wider Arab world will have to do the same.

But I do not understand how anybody can sincerely argue that Israel has been bad for the Jews. Assessing this question is tricky. Measuring the happiness of an individual is hard enough. Doing the same for an entire people is exponentially more difficult. And it would be cheating to resort to counterfactuals, although it would be nice if Israel’s prophetically-inspired Jewish critics were to ponder what might have happened had Israel lost in 1948 (clue: look at the Nakba that took place in the few areas the Arab forces managed to win). Read more

Last week, Paris Hilton visited Mumbai to promote a new collection of handbags and accessories. On her first day in town, near a mall in the upmarket suburb of Andheri, and from the comfort of her chauffeur-driven car, she handed a $100 note to a beggar woman.  According to reports, the beggar woman, who was holding her baby, reacted in bewilderment. “Can I get change for this?” she asked the Mid-Day Metro photographer, Satyajit Desai. $100 is currently worth 4901 rupees, a miraculous windfall by any Indian beggar’s standards. But from her reaction we can assume that handling foreign currency was a new experience for her. Read more