The Path for Middle East Peace

       

I can’t remember the last time I’ve seen such unanimity in the mainstream media when it comes to an important topic.  The one I have in mind is the initiation of peace talks between the Palestinians and Israelis.  And from what I can tell, all the commentators are saying the same things, in virtually the same order:

First, thank you to Secretary of State John Kerry for bringing the two sides to the table and taking such a personal stake in the venture.  

Second, we express such gratitude notwithstanding our belief that a peace agreement here is highly unlikely.

Third, while such an agreement is unlikely, the conditions these days suggest that it might not be impossible.  The list of conditions might differ somewhat, but they typically involve the idea that international pressure on Israel is increasing (e.g., the EU’s boycott of goods produced in the Israeli Settlements), or that Israel may be interested in making peace with Sunni Muslims so as to join with them against Israel’s greatest enemy, Iran.  The commentators also list conditions that might increase the Palestinians’ motivations to make peace, but they are not emphasized as much as the conditions that bring Israel to the table.  

So there you have it – conventional wisdom.   I’m buying the first point.  And I’m buying the second.  As for the third, don’t kid yourself.  The conditions aren’t ripe for peace.  And the reason is simple: there is still too much distrust and even dislike between the parties.   What’s more, this is a (mostly) cold war that both sides think they can win.  So why should they make major concessions?  

Sure, color me a pessimist, for the present.  And yet I’m thrilled that the two sets of cousins are at least talking.  I’m thrilled that they are coming together to state the obvious: that peace is holy and we must never give up the dream.  And I’m thrilled that we have a Secretary of State who seems determined to make this issue the single greatest priority of his tenure at Foggy Bottom.   Why does Kerry’s apparent determination seem so important?  Because maybe he’ll think about the issue enough to put aside the obsession with a Final-Status Agreement – the one  that has eluded all of his predecessors -- and start thinking instead about baby steps.  In other words, once the inevitable happens and the parties recognize that they remain at loggerheads with respect to the Big deal, maybe Secretary Kerry will realize that those talks were just the prologue.  The real work will involve bringing these two cousins together one step at a time with the goal of reaching obtainable mini-agreements that (a) can last and (b) can be built upon over time to forge even more significant agreements.    

Here are some concrete examples of such mini-agreements.  Maybe Secretary Kerry can challenge both of these peoples to change their textbooks so as to present, robustly, both the Israeli and the Palestinian narratives of the history of the Holy Land.   We shouldn’t expect the resulting textbooks to be unbiased, let alone identical, but if both sides are sincere in embracing the task, at least they can humanize their cousins.  Similarly, maybe the Secretary can challenge both sides to agree publicly that the “other” has a legitimate claim to the disputed land.    That would certainly be a true statement, one that everyone who cares about the region needs to appreciate, and yet both sides can make this statement while continuing to maintain that their own side possesses the “superior” claim to the disputed land.  

More examples?  How about challenging both sides to agree publicly that their respective national movements are no less legitimate than the other national movements in the world – such as the claim of the German people to reside in the land of Germany, or the Italian people to reside in the land of Italy.  Maybe Secretary Kerry can challenge both peoples to agree publicly that they share the experience of having been victimized by more powerful military forces and thus understandably care deeply about justice as well as peace.  And maybe Secretary Kerry can work with these two peoples to agree to support NGOs that are currently on the ground striving to forge friendships between them, such as Heartbeat Jerusalem (an organization that forms ensembles between Jewish and Palestinian teenage musicians).  

These are just a few examples of ways in which these peoples can come together to fight the centrifugal forces that have maintained hostility in the Holy Land for generations.  Perhaps some of these “mini-agreements” are not as easily attainable as I am implying, but then again, there are surely other “mini-agreements” that I haven’t mentioned that could be substituted in their place.    

You’ll note, though, that I haven’t mentioned anything about a two-state solution, what the borders should be of such a state, each other’s claims to the holy city of Jerusalem, or the Palestinians’ claim to a “right of return.”   Negotiators have tried to resolve those issues over and over and over again, and they’ve always failed.  As far as I can tell, the parties are no less emboldened and intractable now than they were before.  So why should we think they’re ready to roll that same boulder up the same hill one more time?

Believe me, that boulder is going to fall right back down unless we try something different this time – something that will lighten the proverbial load.  To be sure, that “load” is supported by the fact that these two peoples differ significantly on their visions of the Holy Land at peace.  But even more importantly, it is composed of a myriad of psychological barriers led by the ever-powerful force of ignorance, which has been reinforced on both sides by decades of biased textbooks and physical separation. 

Just as nobody can run before he can walk, the Israelis and Palestinians cannot make peace before they recognize that this is not just a civil war but a family conflict.  These two peoples have so much in common, and yet there is also so much that separates them.  They must come to grips with these realities first, before they will be willing to make the difficult concessions that a negotiated peace requires.  But the good news is that as long as Senator Kerry stops swinging for the fences and concentrates instead on just keeping his eye on the ball and hitting singles, we all might come to realize just how much progress can be made.  That’s a nice way of saying that the combatants have made such a mess of the situation, that there are plenty of constructive ways to clean up.  

Peace is possible, folks.  Sanity demands it, and both sides want it.   They just need to be patient and do the hard work needed to make it happen.  That begins by embracing the idea of taking incremental steps that can work, rather than focusing exclusively (or even primarily) on the ultimate prize.

Take it from a Terrapin-lover from Maryland, “slow but sure” will win this race.  God knows, we’ve tried the alternative, and we’ve got nothing, and I mean NOTHING, to show for it.

By George I Think I've Got It

During the past two weeks, my wife and I celebrated our silver anniversary vacationing in England.   It was a wonderful fortnight, thanks in large part to the inspired itinerary that my wife planned.  With the help of a rental car and a whole lot of deep breaths (English roads are as dangerous as they are picturesque), we saw London, Cambridge, Stonehenge, Salisbury, Plymouth, Bath, villages in Cornwall and in the Cotswolds, Bath, Cheltenham and Oxford.  I’ve seen more incredible architecture in those two weeks than in five decades of American life.   Honestly, can’t we Americans at least try to pay attention to architectural beauty?  Just take a look at http://www.parks.ca.gov/?page_id=489, which is an example of the one of the more impressive American buildings I’ve seen in a while – the Stanford mansion in Sacramento -- and check out the eyesore that the urban planners have allowed to tower only a stone’s throw behind the mansion, thereby sapping it of any significant appeal.  That’s American architecture for you.  It’s all about functionality; aesthetics, be damned.

            While I marveled at the English buildings, the truth is that I’ve seen splendid architecture before in visiting other old-world countries.  What I came to appreciate for the first time this past fortnight was something that I had previously despised, and even now have to take with a major grain of salt.  I’m referring to that other English gift to the world – the royal family. 

            Late July was obviously the perfect time to visit England if you want a whole lot of royalty.  Our last day in London was the day of the regal birth.  I could see for myself the joy that the whole affair brought to the people of the city.   Even before the birth, the monarchy enjoyed an approval rating in England of over 80 percent.  Compare that with, say, the views that the English or the Americans hold of their respective politicians.   The affection that so many of the English “commoners” have for such figures as Queen Elizabeth and Prince William, not to mention His Royal Highness Prince George Alexander Louis of Cambridge, is palpable.  The closest thing in the States to which I can compare such affection is the way that we once admired  our professional athletes – before the steroid epidemic and other scandals required us to see them more as cheats and narcissists than as heroes.

            It is glib for social critics to look down their noses at the so-called “hero-worship” of celebrities, whether they don crowns or hit home runs.  Ultimately, these celebrities reveal that, far from being deities, they are “human, all-too-human” figures, who periodically will engage in embarrassing conduct.  But what I saw this past two weeks is that we don’t have to deify our heroes – or even look up to them as role models – to gain sustenance from them.   Merely by being born, Prince George Alexander Louis lifted the hearts of adult men and women in England and all over the world.  He symbolizes both the innocence of youth and the hope of adulthood with integrity.  Accordingly, while young George has yet to “achieve greatness,” he has surely been “born great” and we all can watch with interest as an even greater status is “thrust upon him.”   

One of the exciting things about the royal family is that they willingly make themselves available for the whole world to watch -- from womb to tomb, they belong to their kingdom, and in the case of England, to the world.  So while we are likely to see photos in 18 years about young George getting drunk in public, or engaging in a laughable public display of affection with a co-ed, or perhaps even smoking marijuana, we can all hope that in 48 or 68 years, we can see a mature George making a statement in some walk of life that shows compassion for others who are less fortunate, or perhaps an appreciation for the needs of the environment -- something that affects commoner, courtier, and crown-prince alike.

            Someday, for all we know, George might disgrace himself.  But for now, he represents a blank slate, and we are all free to place on that slate our hopes and dreams for a monarch with a conscience.  Frankly, as someone who has paid little attention to the British monarchy in the past, I can do the same with respect to his father, the future King William.  I’ll be pulling for them both, and I’m not even British. I can only imagine how much joy their “subjects” must get at the hope that these monarchs will ultimately do them proud.  

            To be sure, the English monarchy comes with a lot of baggage.  To visit England is to hear one story after another about the debauched behavior of past monarchs, including but hardly limited to, the infamous Henry the Eighth.   Even today, those of us who care about human rights and the ability of governments to protect them raise our eyebrows at the idea that one branch of the English parliament is the exclusive domain of a hereditary aristocracy, the so-called “House of Lords.”  As a religious American, I have only one Lord and I don’t care to think of that word in the context of another human being, least of all, someone who owes his “lordship” to a charmed birth.  Perhaps my newfound tolerance for English royalty is due to the fact that I don’t also use the term “King” to refer to God, so it doesn’t bother me so much when the English use that word in reference to their own monarchs.  Still, I for one am happy that George Washington had no interest in such a title, and that every time a new President is elected, we don’t immediately place his visage on all of our coins.   In other words, I’m not clamoring for the institution of the monarchy in America.  But for once, I have no desire to see it eliminated from England.

            Perhaps the bottom line is that I see the English monarchy today as a decent investment from the standpoint of the English public.  The royal family, I am told, owns roughly $50 billion in assets, which is slightly less than $1000 for every citizen of the U.K.  So I guess you can say that in order to allow that clan to enjoy “the lifestyle to which they have been accustomed,” every Englishman must pay a tax of roughly 15 pounds per year.  Before this trip, that may have seemed exorbitant.  Now, after seeing all the joy that George’s birth provided to the people of that country, I look at that price as a bargain.

            Of course, it could also be observed that if the monarchy were abolished, perhaps the antiquated “House of Lords” would go as well.  Perhaps.  Then again, we Americans live in a democracy in which every legislator serves subject to the will of all the people and none owes his or her appointment to an aristocratic birth.  And what has this brought us?  A Congress with an approval rating of 15% -- meaning that the tiny number of Americans that approve of our Congress rivals the tiny number of Brits who don’t approve of their monarchy.   

            No, I’m not inclined to condemn the Brits any more for their crown jewels and castles.  They can keep their monarchy … but please, folks, widen your damned roads!

The Champ and the Chump

I’m headed across the pond on Tuesday evening to a small island in the North Atlantic.  That means that this will be my last post until August.  It also means that I’ve got England on the brain.  

Rather than looking forward to my trip, I’d rather look back – in particular, to the “fortnight” that was Wimbledon.  Whether or not you’re a tennis fan, it was quite a championship.  First and foremost, most people will tell you, this will be the Wimbledon remembered as the end of an era in British futility.  For the first time in 77 years, Wimbledon crowned an Englishman as champion.  Admittedly, there are some Cubs fans who would die for that kind of success, but outside of the north side of Chicago, it’s considered quite the streak from Hell.  Congratulations to Andy Murray for finally getting that monkey off Her Majesty’s back.  And given that he has now won two major championships in less than a year, who knows?  He could become the next number one player in the sport.  But even if he wins four majors in a row, he won’t top last Sunday’s achievement.   

            So, this past Wimbledon was Murray’s tourney, right?  Not for me.  I’ll remember it more for the women’s side of the draw.  By the semifinals, it was clear that the tournament would be won by someone who had never before won a major championship.  I can’t remember the last time that’s happened.  And the winner, Marion Bartoli, had played in 46 major tournaments before she finally won #47.  That broke the old record by two, and established Ms. Bartoli as a true Cinderella Story.   

            By all rights, Bartoli should have been able to celebrate her record-setting victory in absolute peace, just like Murray did.  But alas, in her finest hour, she became a victim of one of the stupidest comments I have ever heard made by a prominent broadcaster – and that’s saying a lot.

            The comment reminded me of the way some of the boys spoke when I was growing up.  Let’s say they saw a girl who was drop dead gorgeous.  She might be called a “fox.”  Now, let’s say they saw a girl was considered average looking.  Her looks might be ignored altogether.   (In hindsight, I call that a blessing.)   And now, let’s say they saw a girl they considered less attractive than average.  She was called a “dog.”   It’s bad enough that one member of the canine family gets the royal treatment and the other becomes associated with sheer ugliness.  But why would someone suggest that another person is sub-human simply because of her physical appearance?  I can’t decide if that comment is more offensive or more stupid.

            And I feel the same way about the comment made last week by BBC commentator John Inverdale with respect to Bartoli.   If you were listening to Radio 5 Live in Britain, here’s what you would have heard out of Inverdale’s mouth: "Do you think Bartoli's dad told her when she was little, 'you're never going to be a looker, you'll never be a Sharapova, so you have to be scrappy and fight?'"

            Come again?   Methinks Inverdale was calling Bartoli a dog.  Well, do you mind if I call him a pig?  It’s true that Bartoli is a brunette, whereas Sharapova is a blonde.  It’s true that Bartoli is 5’ 7”, whereas Sharapova is 6’ 2”.   And I’ll even go a step further in recognizing that Bartoli has never modeled, as far as I know, whereas Sharapova is a stunning model.   But the last I checked, Bartoli was standing with the Wimbledon trophy whereas Sharapova didn’t get out of the second round.  So why is Inverdale praising Sharapova and insulting Bartoli?  I thought I had been watching a tennis match.  Apparently, Inverdale thought he was in a strip club – he’ll let the “dogs” in, but not without a snide comment.

            And snide it was.  He didn’t just suggest that Bartoli was ugly.  He raised the idea that hers was a look that not even a father can love.   That would have to be pretty hideous – three-eyeballs, two-noses kind of hideous.  Because if there is anyone who can appreciate the beauty in a girl, it’s her father.  

            Maybe Inverdale didn’t have those kinds of parents.  Maybe he comes from a rough family, where compliments and kindness are viewed as signs of weakness.  But please, don’t try to bring another family into your Hellhole, Sir.  Fortunately, the champ’s father, Dr. Walter Bartoli, wasn’t biting.   Having heard about Inverdale’s comments – both he and Marion were asked to respond to them – Walter Bartoli’s words were short and oh so sweet:  “I am not angry. She is my beautiful daughter.”

            Indeed.  Perhaps Marion Bartoli doesn’t have the face of a model.  She certainly doesn’t have a model’s body.  But she is by all accounts, smart, athletic, tenacious, and warm.   And if you Google her when she is not pouncing on a tennis ball, you can’t help but see her beauty come through. 

            That is, unless you’re the type that thinks of 40% of the female gender “dogs.”    

            BBC – I hope that jerk is off the air by the time I arrive at Heathrow on Wednesday morning. 

July 4th in the Piedmont

July 4^th is one of my favorite holidays.  To begin, I’m a summer person with a July birthday.  This is always a holiday where I can count on my kind of weather – warm!  But it’s also a time for a guy like me to reflect on what I love about my country instead of what I don’t.

What I DON’T love about my country is the way its politicians and media-talking-heads wield their power these days.  Yes, I go to the voting booth and cast my ballots.  And yes I subscribe to two daily newspapers and watch cable news fairly frequently.   But when I evaluate the performance of the lawmakers, the investigative journalists, or the gas bags on the tube, all I can do is lament the gulf between those power brokers and the ones I celebrate on July 4^th – the ones that most excite my patriotism.  The sad thing is, most of them have been dead for well over a hundred years.    

This July 4^th, my daughter Rebecca and I headed south into the region of Virginia known as the Piedmont.  Typically, when lovers of history think about celebrating July 4^th in the Piedmont, their minds immediately turn to Monticello, the home of the man who wrote the Declaration of Independence on that date in 1776.  Monticello is my favorite spot in America, and Jefferson is my favorite American historical figure.  But yesterday, Rebecca and I decided to leave Monticello to the casual tourists.  We drove instead to two more esoteric sites -- the homes of Jefferson’s two immediate successors in the White House, who also happened to be two of his best friends. 

Our day started at Montpelier, the home of the nation’s fourth President, James Madison.  I heard one of the Montpelier docents refer to Madison as an “underappreciated” President.  And that got me wondering, could that really be true?    Madison is widely known as the Father of the Constitution and is one of the two primary authors of the Federalist Papers, the critical document used to sell the Constitution to our fledgling Republic.  Given those accomplishments, not to mention the fact that he served for eight years as President at a time when the young nation was at risk of foreign takeover, how can people possibly not fully appreciate Madison?  

But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the docent was right.  Madison is kind of a forgotten man, at least relative to his accomplishments.  His visage can’t be found on any commonly used piece of currency.   There are no legends about him that have found their way into American culture.  He is not a figure who has made his way into Hollywood productions.  He’s not a war hero.  And he’s not even the central Virginian intellectual from the early days of the Republic that people most like to speak about.  So yeah, why did we go visit the home of this schmoe, anyway?  

I’ll tell you why – because Madison is a national treasure.    He overcame severe depression to create a set of laws that have remarkably stood the test of time.  This guy was a true philosopher, whose genius resulted not from having invented an original system of political ideas but rather from knowing how to take the state-of-the-art political philosophies of folks like Montesquieu and Locke and turn them into a living, breathing set of practical applications.  Do you appreciate, for example, a government that remains religiously neutral, and that carefully separates power between the federal government and the states as well as between the various branches of the federal government?   Thank James Madison.   

Some politicians go into the occupation for the glory.  They like the cut of their own jib – and the fact that their name is always in the paper.  Madison?  There’s a man, we were told at his house, who didn’t even sit at the end of the table in his own dining room.   His wife Dolly had that honor.  James placed himself in the middle where he could pick and choose the conversation in which to participate, or simply to eavesdrop on.  

One of the parts of the tour I found most interesting was the stop in Madison’s first floor study – the place of his death.   The docent explained that one of the doors to the study opens right up to the dining room.  When Madison was an octogenarian suffering from severe arthritis, he would lie on his bed in the study and, without seeing the folks in the dining room, simply join in their conversation.  I got the feeling that this wasn’t a vain man.  He was just someone who loved to learn and to serve.  And boy, did he ever serve.  For as much as we love Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence or Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation and Gettysburg Address, is there another document in our National Archives more impressive than Madison’s Constitution?   

Yes, I know that Madison owned slaves.  But given that he was an affluent white Virginian, you’ll forgive me if I don’t hold that against him.  He was simply behaving in that regard the way people of his lot in life behaved. No matter how much they traded for in the market, slaves commonly functioned as the bulk of a plantation owner’s assets; and back then,  just like today, few people give away the bulk of their assets.  

Aside from the slavery issue, the problem I had with Madison’s house was his graveyard.   It is a beautiful little graveyard, but there was something seriously amiss.  Madison’s gravestone was significantly larger than all the others.  Even Dolly’s was dwarfed by the stone celebrating our fourth President.  That didn’t feel right to me.  It didn’t seem in keeping with the Madison I love.  He was a republican with a small “r” and a democrat with a small “d.”   I wouldn’t think he’d want such a fuss made about him as an individual.  Wasn’t he just Jefferson’s “little brother”?  Hell, he barely won re-election in 1812 – and look at what that year has come to symbolize – the burning of our nation’s capital by foreign troops.

I suspect that, as Presidents go, Madison’s head didn’t swell up.  And that’s kind of why I love him.  That and the Constitution.   We owe the man a lot – and a pilgrimage to Montpelier is the least we can do.

Truth be told, Montpelier was the destination I most looked forward to when I woke up on the morning of the 4^th.  But my final destination, Ashlawn-Highland, turned out to be at least as meaningful.  If Madison was Jefferson’s little brother, Monroe was the little brother’s, little brother.  Though one thing I learned at his home is that Monroe and Madison weren’t always good friends.  It was Jefferson who brought these two former political opponents together; essentially, the great Jefferson got to pick his two ideological siblings and foisted them on each other.  But I get the impression that as they grew older, both Madison and Monroe appreciated the set-up. 

We don’t even have to look past the years of Madison’s Presidency to see how much he respected Monroe during the last half of their lives.  Monroe served, contemporaneously, as his big brother’s Secretary of State AND his Secretary of War.   I can hardly fathom how that can be possible, but Monroe pulled it off, and went on to win two terms in the White House, just like his older “brothers.”  

The docent at Ashlawn-Highland had a couple of agendas.  First, she had to explain to visitors who had just come down the road from the much more palatial Monticello, which was only two miles away, that Ashlawn-Highland was still a pretty darned sweet residence as early-19^th century residences go.  And second, that James Monroe needs to be remembered as great in his own right, and not simply as one of those non-descript Presidents like the eight who followed Andrew Jackson and preceded Abraham Lincoln.  

I listened for the docent to identify something about Monroe that was truly unique and memorable.  It wouldn’t have been hard for his predecessors.  Washington was the modern Cincinnatus, who could have been king but opted instead to be “just” a President.  Adams was the voice of Revolution, the little engine that could, whose force of will made sure that a group of colonies never gave up the dream of independence.  Jefferson was the quintessential Renaissance Man, about whom it was said after JFK once assembled “the best and the brightest” of his day, that “this was the greatest assemblage of intellect in the White House since Thomas Jefferson dined alone.”  And, as we have seen, James Madison drafted our most prized political document – arguably the most influential secular document since the Magna Carta.   

By contrast, what the hell can we say about Monroe that we can’t say about, for example, Millard Fillmore? 

For one thing, as the docent reminded visitors to Ashlawn-Highland, when Jefferson and Hamilton wanted someone who can “get things done,” they called upon Monroe.  No, he wasn’t an orator.  No, he wasn’t much of a writer; as they’d say today, he was prosaic, not poetic, and anything but quotable.   But he was a tireless public servant.  And was he ever a diplomat.  I don’t mean that in the sense of a person who speaks with the right euphemism, but rather in the sense of knowing the wisest positions to take and the proper way to advocate them so as to accomplish our greatest political objectives on the world stage.  

Stated differently, if our society today ever truly got sick and tired of watching Israelis and Palestinians fight over a small land mass in the Middle East and had at our disposal a functioning time machine, I’m thinking we might just want to summon James Monroe and whisk him off to Jerusalem.  If anyone could get that dispute ironed out, it’s him.  It’s no coincidence that after he served as Secretaries of War/Peace and became President, they named his tenure the “Era of Good Feeling.”  When it comes to statecraft, that man just got it.

And yet we’ve just forgotten him.  Again, let’s please remedy that failure.

Before Rebecca and I left Ashlawn, we hung out on the lawn with one of the “re-enactors” who was wearing the garb of a soldier in the early Republic and was kind enough to show visitors what it was like to fire one of the old early 19^th century rifles.  He reminded us that before we get overly sentimental about the leaders of yesteryear, we might want to keep in mind that the partisan squabbles back at the beginning of the 18^th century could be every bit as vicious if not more so than the political jousting we hear about today.  And he also called to our attention that lest we invariably read the noblest of motives into the conduct of our founding fathers, we might want to “follow the money,” for therein lies human motivation more often than not.\

Given that this blog is called the “Empathic Rationalist,” I suppose I should be hard-headed enough to think about the re-enactor’s words and not romanticize the past into something utopian.  But there is something about the early days of our nation’s history, and in particular, the stories of those who led us during those pivotal decades, that never ceases to leave me humbled and appreciative.  I can’t tell you how difficult it was to keep my eyes dry inside those two houses – and I am a man who doesn’t cry often.  Something overtakes me when I consider men like Madison and Monroe.  

Maybe I am moved a bit by the fact that those men remain underappreciated.  But there are many underappreciated historical figures, and I am not nearly so moved by thinking about them.  The difference is that these men in particular grappled on a very practical basis with our species’ fundamental questions of political philosophy, and through a combination of luck, pluck, brains, and common sense, they showed us all THE WAY.  

At a time when one Pope is conferring sainthood on another, in part due to his predecessor’s  alleged “miracles,” I nominate two secular figures for that same title.  And the beauty is, we don’t even have to call what they accomplished a “miracle.”  We can just call it a holy land.  

At a time when people are rioting in Egypt over the birth pangs of democracy, let us not forget that the great republican experiment known as the United States is still going strong after 237 years.  No, it’s not perfect, but if we all had the brains and the work ethic of a Madison or a Monroe, it could be pretty damned close.