Other Responses RE: Questions from Hanson (Carnage & Culture)

[John Hall]

>From Brad DeLong:
>From: "John Hall"
>
>I got this response. He sent it to me directly, so I feel entitled
>to post it here.
>
>Lots of bar posts agree with each other, so I thought that putting
>this here would increase the diversity of the opinions expressed.
>
>His Email is foib@ianbell.com, apparently, and his name is Ian Bell.
>
>People with problems concerning blood pressure might wish to avoid this
post.
>
>But if anyone has a stronger stomach than I do, feel free to drop
>Ian a note...
>
>========= From Ian Bell foib@ianbell.com ===
>Well, Sharon made the intifada by marginalizing the PLO by committing
>brutal, violent attacks on innocent Palestinians while Arafat was suing for
>peace. As a result the Palestinians lost faith in Arafat's ability to win
>through peace what intifada promised to win through war...

Ehud Barak was Prime Minister when Arafat turned down Barak's
proposals and decided to launch the current campaign of violence
instead. So it's not at all clear what Sharon had to do with it.

More generally, anyone who says "Sharon made the intifada" suffers
from Noam Chomsky's disease--the belief that everything bad that
happens is in some way the fault of people in the United States and
Israel, that no others have any moral responsibility for anything,
that they simply react in predictable and justifiable ways to crimes
committed by Americans and Israelis.

With such people you might as well hang it up right now. They live in
a perfectly invulnerable fantasy world.

Which is not to say that I like Binyamin Netanyahu or Ariel Sharon...

Brad DeLong --