Questions on Iran’s future

Iran is at a crossroads. We do not know what is going to happen, because its near future depends on the next move of an opaque government. Everyone is asking if it will crack down harder or somehow relent. I do not have many answers but I do have a lot of questions.

First, questions for people who back Mir Hossein Mousavi. His supporters, including most “Westerners”, are certain Ahmadinejad’s government rigged the election. Sure, there is some evidence that the election was stolen and should have gone to Mousavi, but how can we be sure? Did you witness the election? We are so quick to let our biases get in the way that if the pro-Western leader loses and self-identified Westerners are told he may have been cheated, all of sudden everyone believes it.

Second are my questions for Iran’s government. If the government cracks down on demonstrators and institutes martial law and more repression, will it work? Will angry Iranians hold back? Can they be repressed? A million people, or even more, were in the streets of Tehran. And in case the government has learned nothing from its own history, the clerics should open the books up and look at 1979.

So more repression could backfire terribly for the ruling elites. But what is their alternative? Elites will do anything to avoid losing power. They will not simply step aside and let angry young people sweep them out. That will only happen if the protest reaches critical mass and overwhelms the security forces. Even if the govt backs down, what are they going to do? Would they satisfy all the demands of the demonstrators? Or just enough to keep them quiet? Would they put Mousavi in power? What about those who voted for Ahmadinejad? Will they just roll over and accept it?

Here is a hard question for the same people. Is Mousavi so great? He preaches a message of liberalism, of which I like the sound, but look at his history. A leader of the Islamic Revolution, who approved of the seizing of the hostages at the US embassy; PM during the Iran-Iraq war, when a million people died (though that was instigated by Saddam); one time member of the leadership council of Hezbollah, and does not recognise Israel. Patrick Clawson, deputy director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, says “Mousavi is Ahmadinejad without the invective or anger.” That description does not fill me with hope. Would he be more likely than Ahmadinejad to give up building nuclear weapons? (According to the Jerusalem Post, no.) Given Iran’s Ayatollah-centered political system, does he even have that choice?

Iran’s future is in the hands of its government. It must choose wisely, balancing its desire for the status quo with a realistic handling of the crisis of confidence in its rule. Unless there is another revolution, do not expect a new, liberal democratic Iran any time soon.

One week reading Israeli and Palestinian newspaper bias

Day 6

Today we will start by looking at an Israeli paper, then a Palestinian one, then one that claims neutrality.

Yedioth Ahronoth

Wikipedia calls Yedioth Ahronoth (“latest news” in Hebrew) the most widely circulated paper in Israel since the 1970s. It gives right- and left-wing commentary, though it is seen as more of a tabloid than a newspaper.

The big news today is Netanyahu’s speech at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. He will be laying his policies out plain, they say. They also say he will give his support to the idea of a Palestinian state, but that it must be a demilitarised state. How a demilitarised state could keep its independence I do not know. The leader writes of this and shows photographs of protestors. In one, some women are holding signs saying “NO settlements/apartheid wall/Gaza siege”, and in another photo, counterpoint to the first, people are waving Israeli flags and holding a banner in Hebrew that I can’t read, but which the article reliably informs me reads “Barack Hussein Obama – an anti-Semite and hater of Jews”.

The next headline reads “Iran reformists: annul vote”. “Ahmadinejad rivals Mousavi, Karroubi say they will file an appeal to annul ‘illegitimate’ results of nationwide election”. Well, if you like. I doubt it would do anything. In the Israeli press, the assumption is that the Iranian election was rigged and fraudulent. I wonder if it really was. An op-ed embed in this story asks “The beginning of the end? Young Iranians may topple Ayatollah regime in wake of elections fiasco.” It should have been titled “Wishful thinking? Israelis hope young Iranians will topple the Ayatollah”.

You see, if all you read is Israeli newspapers, you will probably just presume the vote was fraudulent, along with the fact that Iran is about to declare nuclear war on Israel. So you could have trouble seeing that it is possible Ahmadinejad won the popular vote, or that the ruling clerics might be popular. There is certainly some evidence of violence and vote rigging. Do they mean the Iranian election should have gone to second-choice Mousavi? Are enough Iranians going to be angry enough with the result that they will take down the government?

The next headline down in Yedioth Ahronoth is about Jimmy Carter. Despite the protest we read about yesterday, he met with the town council of Gush Etzion, a Jewish settlement in the West Bank. The local council says it changed Mr Carter’s perceptions. A seemingly carefully selected group was brought into council leader Shaul Goldstein’s house to meet with Carter. The group included two religious leaders, two women who had lost family members to terrorists, and a pair of newlyweds who said that, if there were limits to the natural growth of settlements, they could not raise a family in Gush Etzion.

A link in this article leads to the report on Noam Shalit giving a letter to the former US president for his son Gilad. Unlike Haaretz, the Yedioth Ahronoth website does not have a timer counting the number of seconds Gilad Shalit has been kidnapped. It does, however, have the exact number of days, 1083, printed in the article.

Arab Media Internet Network

At first glance, AMIN is structured like the Palestine Chronicle: journalists write new articles every day or so and submit them to the newspaper. As a result, the links to all the old articles are down the sides of the page. There seem to be many more articles in Arabic than in English. According to Google Translate, this site does not translate from English to Arabic or vice versa. Here is a selection of the articles in Arabic. (Bear in mind that Google Translate is imperfect and it is not always possible to capture the shades of meaning of other languages.)

Is the establishment of a Palestinian state in the interest of Palestinians?

Palestinians pin their hopes on others

Suffering of prisoners and the suffering of 40 years of occupation

Exposing racism in the Israeli police and security forces

An Israeli ministerial committee ratifies a law against commemorating the Nakba

The Arabic headlines seem slightly more angry than the English ones. Here are some of them.

Will the Netanyahu government make progress toward peace?

Obama’s song and dance in Cairo

Oslo redux: Fool’s gold in Israel/Palestine

While I will not translate the full Arabic articles, the English articles are nonetheless pro-Palestinian. But they are well-written and full of insightful analysis. The article on if the Netanyahu government’s progress on peace, for instance, discusses why it may, though gives six reasons why it probably will not. Popular, hawkish governments are sometimes the ones who make real progress toward real solutions. This journalist, Elias Tuma, a professor emeritus at the University of California, recalls how similar leaders such as Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Rabin have surprisd us by signing lasting peace treaties. Being a strong leader, says Tuma categorically, “Natanyahu is capable of reaching and signing a peace agreement with Palestinians.” Then he gives six reasons why he might not.

First, Avigdor Lieberman, Foreign Minister and Deputy PM, submitted a bill to the Knesset banning commemoration of the Nakba. Second, Lieberman’s party submitted a bill demanding that Israeli Arabs recognise Israel as a Jewish, Zionist and democratic state. Third, the same party demands that Israeli Arabs serve in the military or another civic institution. Failure to do either of the last two results in loss of citizenship. Fourth, another party in the ruling coalition submitted a bill to declare that Jordan is Palestine. In other words, the Palestinians can leave Israel and go there. (I read about this idea elsewhere. It is really stupid. They might as well have declared that Russia is Israel.) It is not just cracks that support this bill: its supporters include three cabinet ministers. Fifth, Netanyahu has not accepted the two-state solution yet. Well, actually he has, but this article came two days before his speech where he said he accepted it. Sixth, Netanyahu insists on continuing construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Well, actually he said that new settlements would not be allowed, but natural growth of existing settlements (which are numerous) would be allowed. History will bear out the accuracy of this analysis. I think Elias Tuma is right.

Many of the articles are out of date, speculating on what Netanyahu (or even Barack) will say in his speech. This past weekend was something of a game changer because of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech and the election in Iran, so they are not so relevant anymore. One final note of interest on this site: there are a number of books in Arabic, written by Palestinians about Israel. If I could read Arabic, I would love to delve that much deeper into the experiences of Palestinians by reading them.

Bitter Lemons

Bitterlemons.org (subtitle: Palestinian-Israeli crossfire) is a project, financially supported by the European Union, to present Israeli and Palestinian viewpoints on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and peace process. It “maintains complete organizational and institutional symmetry between its Palestinian and Israeli components.”

Bitter Lemons offers a long list of links to such pertinent documents as Security Council resolutions; International Court of Justice decisions; the Athens Plan, a 2005 initiative calling for Israel to disengage from Gaza and the Northern West Bank; statements by political leaders; and other agreements and plans dating back to the founding of Israel.

I also appreciate that you can very easily access back editions all the way to 2001; and each weekly edition addresses a different topic. Some of the most recent are Obama’s Cairo speech; In the aftermath of Pope Benedict’s visit; and West Bank-Israel security issues. Many of the same contributors write in each edition. This week’s is Netanyahu’s speech on the peace process.

“A Palestinian View”: Ghassan Khatib calls Netanyahu’s speech “a failed public relations exercise” that “catered to the right-wing constituency that put him in the position he is in.” (An English transcript of his speech can be found here.) After taking apart Netanyahu’s “farcical” concept of a Palestinian state, Khatib says that the entity Netanyahu describes is not a state at all. I agree wholeheartedly, and will explain why tomorrow. Khatib continues by saying that the speech is a threat to peace, and that the American administration must clean up the mess. He also acknowledges the radicalisation of Palestinian opinion, and that this speech will not help that either. Mr Khatib is a former minister of the Palestinian Authority.

“An Israeli View”: Responding to pressure from Washington, the Israeli prime minister and his advisors thought of the best way they could address US government demands and throw them out at the same time: “give everyone–the US administration, his coalition, the Palestinians–a little of what they want. Confuse them, too. But also do something dramatic to satisfy the Americans.” He avoided confronting the real issues, and is “steeped in Revisionist ideology”. His coalition, meanwhile, will hold.

“A Palestinian View” (I do not really like the whole identity thing but I suppose it is relevant): Mr Netanyahu’s speech was “the death of hopes for peace and a Palestinian state.” Is that not a little premature and pessimistic? Anyway, the writer, a professor at Al-Quds University, goes on. He speaks of the PM’s invocation of Abraham when he said that the West Bank, like the rest of Israel, is Jewish and Israeli and whatever else makes it ours because it is the land of Abraham. But, says the writer, Abraham is a prophet of the Christians and the Muslims too. Are they not all his children? This article gets bitter. Though of course the Israelis, especially the government, should understand Palestinian viewpoints, the ones this writer mentions are the kind that Netanyahu’s base would reject out of hand. It therefore speaks less to Israelis in a position to do something and more to the already bitter. This man should aim his lemons higher.

“An Israeli View”: This final article, also bitter, blames the Palestinians for repudiating Mr Netanyahu’s acceptance of a Palestinian state. Moreover, “[h]ad they accepted Netanyahu’s offer, I have no doubt that there would have emerged in Israel an unprecedented consensus favoring a Palestinian state.” But that is like saying, if you offer me a bowl of rice off your banquet table, I should accept it graciously; and if not, I do not deserve it. This writer, a columnist for Haaretz, said that “they repeatedly reject Israel’s generous offers”. So it’s all their fault.

I very much enjoyed reading Bitter Lemons, because even what I do not agree with, I appreciate as a well-reasoned perspective. I can conclude that, as far as I have read, they do indeed uphold their position in the centre of the road. Tomorrow, I will draw conclusions from my week reading Israeli and Palestinian newspaper bias.

One week at the throats of newspapers at the throat of the Holy Land

Day 5

I get the newspapers I am reading from two lists, found here and here. I am hobbled somewhat in my weeklong endeavor by not knowing Arabic or Hebrew, but there seem to be a variety of news sources in English. Some of them are niche media, and others have wide appeal, and most are important because of the people they represent and influence. Unfortunately, as we shall see, they are not all equally worthy of our time.

The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy

I like global dialogue and democracy. Let’s take a look.

This organisation’s vision is an independent, democratic Palestinian state. The leader has a picture and headline about George Mitchell shaking hands with Mahmoud Abbas. This is Week in Review. For some reason this paper is also called Miftah (and is at miftah.org), which is shorter than the Palestinian Initiative… so I will call it Miftah. According to Miftah, “[t]his week was all about diplomacy”. US envoy to the Middle East, George Mitchell, met with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. Miftah says “Mitchell basically carried the message of his big boss, US President Barack Obama, urging the Israeli government to freeze settlement activity while pushing for its acceptance of the two-state solution.” Notice the words used. “Basically” sounds to me like “only”, implying that the big boss is calling the shots and the Israeli government has heard it before.

This article talks about potentially reassuring moves from the United States, and after each point begins a paragraph with “Still…” to say why things might not be wonderful yet. And for a recap, this article has some small stories. “Occupation authorities” (that’s the Israeli government) forced a man named Mohammed Gosheh to demolish his own home. When newspapers want to bring out your emotions, they make things personal, giving you a victim, a specific person you can feel sorry for.

A special report on “the Myth of Incitement in Palestinian Textbooks” is a prominent link. The Center for Monitoring the Impact of Peace, an organisation not described in this article, only named, “persisently” publishes articles on how textbooks produced and read by Palestinians incite hatred against Jews. As I said, this piece does not describe the Center, except to say that “the Center’s first director, Itamar Marcus, is a right wing Israeli supporter and resident of the West Bank settlement of Efrat.”

“The Center’s work reveals a deeply flawed methodology aimed at misleading the reader.” Unfortunately, we do not know anything about that methodology because, again, this paper does not describe it. I personally have trouble believing that the textbooks do not make people angry, as I find history books to be a hugely powerful propaganda tool. (Read this post for related discussion.) However, if I were a Palestinian, I would probably be pretty angry at the Israelis for everything. History books, newspapers, word of mouth: all carry stories about very bad things the Israelis have done to the Palestinians. And when an identity such as “Israeli” or “Palestinian” is thrust upon us, we usually want to defend its collective manifestation to the death.

This article was not particularly well written, as you only need to see what it leaves out to find its bias. More useful, therefore, are the 23 links it provides to back up its premise. Many of them are to Miftah and even Geocities, but some are to the European Union. One final note on this long list of links that supposedly proves this journalist’s point: the links to Haaretz and the Jerusalem Post are dead. Did the newspapers themselves take the stories out? Or are there not really any stories in those papers about the myth of incitement in Palestinian textbooks? Or am I reading something into nothing?

The heading that caught my eye fastest was actually the second from the top, but I resisted reading it until the apparently more important meetings of George Mitchell and the bulldozing of Mohammed Gosheh’s house. The heading reads “Doughnuts for Residency”. “Anyone who knows Arab culture,” the item reads, “will know that a sweet treat is usually offered by the bearer of good news.” (That could be useful to know.) The writer just bought doughnuts because she finally got her residency permit, which make her a legal resident of Jerusalem. She has lived there for 11 years already. The reason she and her husband have had to wait so long for a permit to live together, she writes, as if I could not guess, are the “complicated and extremely discriminatory” laws designed to screw with Arabs. The writer of this article has some very angry things to say about Israeli law, though she hides her anger under smooth-flowing, personal-feeling prose.

Miftah is not only news. As far as I can tell, it is more of a think tank, with leadership and policy programmes, and links to other organisations, such as Al-Quds 2009, where I found these evocative paintings by a Palestinian artist.

Jerusalem Newswire

I get an idea of this paper’s orientation from its main headline: “Israelis tell ‘Bibi: Reject Obama’s demands”. Right underneath this was a link for donations reading “Help keep JNW on the front lines of the media war”. I did not know the media were at war as well.

The main article says that “a strong majority” (clarified later in the article as “nearly six out of ten”) of Israelis told Binyamin Netanyahu that they do not want anyone building a Palestinian state in Israel on land that, really, is just for Jews. The journalist discusses Netanyahu’s speech this coming Sunday, where he is expected to address “President Barack Obama’s belligerent foray into Middle East politics, the Israeli-’Palestinian’ conflict and the Iranian nuclear threat to Israel – an issue Washington has relegated to a position of secondary importance.” So Barack’s reaching out to Muslims is belligerence, the ‘Palestinians’ have no legitimate argument and Iran’s nukes are no longer interesting to the US. The final paragraph is on the two-state “‘solution’ [which] calls for the peace-loving Israelis to give their land to the Jew-hating Palestinian Arabs who remain committed to destroying what would be left of Israel.” This writer’s bias is palpable and his inability to see clearly on this issue makes this whole article a joke. And when I realise that this whole website is written by the same author, I find it is he who is the joke. Let us try again.

Arutz Sheva (Channel Seven)

At IsraelNationalNews.com, Arutz Sheva is Israel’s #1 news site, eh? Does that mean #1 for feelings of superiority and hatred too? There is only one way to find out.

The leader is about Jimmy Carter. Because three days ago Jimmy Carter declared “Mideast peace is impossible without Hamas”, and yesterday won an award from the Palestinian Authority, residents of a Jewish town he is planning to visit called Gush Etzion “express their disapproval of the meeting.” The article quotes a grassroots committee who issued a statement reading “Carter has always, and will always, speak up and defend those who wish to destroy the State of Israel. He pushes an anti-Israel agenda, while presenting himself as a good-willed broker who seeks peace and is ready to listen to ‘both sides.’ This makes him all the more dangerous.” This article is designed to pick Carter apart so thoroughly as to be able to counterpunch his every argument and deed. And it claims only to be quoting from a letter by an unofficial group in a Jewish town of 44,000. Perhaps this newspaper believes the group speaks for all Jews.

According to this article in another newspaper, Arutz Sheva is a religious Zionist radio station and is viewed as the voice of the Israeli settler movement. Also known as Arutz-7, it has been shut down by the authorities for being pirate radio (transmitted from a boat and over the internet). Gush Etzion, as you may have guessed, is in the West Bank, not far from Bethlehem. Along with the two-state solution, the question of Jewish settlers in the West Bank seems the most controversial, and both are being pushed hard by the Americans. Therefore, if we want to understand the issues, we should listen to the settlers. Whether you agree with it or not, Arutz Sheva is an important read.

Israel’s foreign ministry says that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s electoral win in Iran means the world must act now. Actually, it does not say what action we, the world, must take. All Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman is quoted as saying is that “the international community must continue to act in an uncompromising manner to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear [weapons] and to cease its support for terror organizations and destabilization of the Middle East.” No specifics on what we should do or what Iran does.

An article near the top is about a rocket fired by “Gaza Arab terrorists” that did not hit anyone or do any damage. The Palestinian Authority blames Israel (though I do not know how you could blame a country for something) for wild boars in Samaria that are destroying Palestinians’ crops. Israel (again I wonder who) is apparently doing its best to cull the hungry swine. And while I was thinking the Jerusalem Newswire was just a radical rag, I found an article just like the one I turned my nose up at earlier. 56% of 503 survey respondents said that Netanyahu does not need to agree to freeze construction of settlements in the West Bank. The good thing about this article is that it can teach you about each major Israeli political party, because the writer breaks down how the supporters of each answered the survey. 81% of those who vote Likud said Israel can continue building settlements, whereas 68% of those who vote Kadima believe Israel has no choice but to give in to American demands to halt construction. It is clear that Likud voters (and the party that answers to them) are tough and steadfast, and Kadima voters are a bunch of pussies.

One week of the Israeli-Palestinian war of words

Day 4

It has become clear to me that it is too difficult to report every day on the same four newspapers I set out to on day 1, simply because not all of them change every day. My two choices for Palestinian papers, especially, are slower to change and not really written by Palestinians in Palestine. I am also having trouble keeping up with the workload of reading and analysing several newspapers a day. I will take from a wider selection of newspapers while keeping my main objective in mind: aiding our critical thinking by comparing reporting bias in Israeli and Palestinian news media.

Palestinian Information Center

The Voice of Palestine (or the Voice of Hamas), the PIC “aims to promote awareness about Palestine, the Palestinians and the Palestinian issue and to balance the often distorted picture presented in the mainstream media.” It is available in eight languages.

The leader reads “Palestine resistance fighters clash with an IOF [Israeli Occupation Force] patrol”. It is an interesting change of words. If this headline had been written for Israelis, it would have read “Palestinian militants clash with an IDF [Israeli Defence Force] patrol”. They even had a name for the organisation that released the information and conducted the attack: the Palestine Eagles Brigades. Newspapers give names to people they want to make seem more human, and ignore the names of those who are less than human. (One might read, for instance, “10 foreign terrorists were killed fighting with local citizen Menso El Rey.”) “The Eagles added that its fighters managed to withdraw safety and that the attack was within the framework of retaliating to occupation crimes against the Palestinian people in the West bank and the Gaza Strip, especially the aggression on farmers.” The article is only 107 words long.

Down the right side of the website, which always attracts my attention before the left side, are the following links (with pictures): Palestine: What it’s all about; T-shirts mock Gaza killings; Farming under fire and F16’s in Gaza; Attacks on medics during Gaza war; Use of phosphorus bombs in Gaza; Al Nakba: The catastrophe of Palestine, 1948. I do not contain my curiosity and go straight to the link about the t-shirts. It led to an Al Jazeera video on Youtube you may want to watch. (You can find lots of other Al Jazeera videos on how evil Israel is from here.)

Other PIC articles are also short. There is less attempt at providing an analytical justification for why the Israeli state must be destroyed; they just get to the point. One talks of a meeting between Hamas and the Egyptian government and combines this news with a Hamas statement that the “PA [Palestinian Authority] security apparatuses’ practices against Hamas and the resistance in the West Bank” must end. It is not clear how these two issues are related.

I find three links to an item titled “Barak calls on IOF to prepare for fresh war on Gaza” all visible at the same time. One was “Most Read”, one “Most Printed” and the other was running across the top banner. Clearly, this was an article I am supposed to read. A picture of an unsmiling Ehud Barak greets us. The article does not say much beyond the headline, except that it uses words like “deeper” and “larger” than in January to describe the threatened offensive in Gaza. Remember what I said yesterday about numbers being used to evoke sympathy, anger and evidence? This article ends with the following: “The latest Israeli war on Gaza that started late December 2008 and ended in late January 2009 claimed the lives of almost 1,500 Palestinians and wounded almost 6,000 others.” This is a quarter of the words in the article.

Another feature of note on this website is the left-hand banner, part of which reads “Palestinian Memory Bank”. Apparently, every day the site reports something that happened to the Palestinians in history on that day. There are two dates, 1996 and 1974, and neither is particularly damning or interesting. But since they presumably have something to put there every day, what this section is saying is that on every day of the year, the Israelis have been assholes.

The Jerusalem Post

Apparently, the number that turned out to vote for the next president of Iran was “massive”. As I clicked on this leader, the first thing I noticed was not the body of the article but a banner: “The Iranian Threat”, a small picture of Iran and an apelike Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. I wonder, if Ahmadinejad is defeated at the polls, will they replace his picture with one of Ayatollah Khamenei. In wording almost identical to something I read yesterday, the article asks if Iran will keep “hard-line President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in power or [elect] a reformist who favors greater freedoms and improved ties with the United States.” Whom would you rather elect, a hardliner or a reformist? The Post conceals its bias against Ahmadinejad like a burka made of air. I wonder if it would not be more effective to be more subtle. Anyway, says the article, it does not really matter who wins because “crucial policies are all directly controlled by the ruling clerics headed by the unelected Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.”

And if the Ayatollah were not enough reason to give up hope, the next article says “Mousavi [that’s the other guy running for president of Iran] win would not stop nuke drive”. Oh dear. Then what’s the big deal? Do Israelis really care if the Iranian government stops cracking down on bloggers?

More headlines about Netanyahu’s speech on Sunday. “Noam Shalit gives Carter a letter for son” is probably just a way of reminding everyone that Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was kidnapped in Gaza. “Israel better at security issues than US” is a funny headline about a funny subject: comparing the numbers killed in Iraq and Afghanistan to those killed in Israel and Palestine, the numbers of minorities incarcerated in the US to those incarcerated in Israel, and the better life expectancies in Israel to those in the US, Egypt and Syria. If one is digging for the point of this article, it is probably to say to the US, “you have no business telling us how to treat people, because our record is superior to yours.” In other words, we will keep building settlements in the West Bank whether you like it or not.

And then we come to a thoughtful, relatively balanced article: the op-ed. I am used to Canadian and American newspapers, where the bias is most visible in the op-eds and editorials because they come right out and state their affiliations and beliefs. The articles feel more balanced. However, this feeling may come from my having been socialised by North American news media and not Israeli or Arab. It is possible that those socialised by the kind of reading I am doing this week find the language normal and balanced; and it is the differences that enable me to see bias more clearly.

Today’s op-ed is called “Peace vs. Reality”. Allow me to represent the opening passage. “Palestinian and Israeli youth gather on a soccer field for a friendly match as part of a sports peace program. Two steps forward. IDF soldiers kill Palestinian civilians in the war in Gaza. Two steps back. Bereaved Israeli and Palestinian parents meet each other to share their pain and promote peace and reconciliation. Two steps forward. Hamas launches dozens of rockets daily on the South, killing and terrorizing civilians. Two steps back.

“However many steps forward the grassroots peace process takes, the harsh winds of reality, fanned by the political leadership on both sides, send peace spiraling backward.”

At multiple levels, attempts at peace are being made. It is not just the governments that are talking. This piece discusses an argument that broke out among Israeli and Palestinian teenagers at a meeting arranged by the Peres Center for Peace. It then describes a documentary of the uphill battle Palestinian and Israeli peace activists face. The article makes little use of numbers and instead shows the humanity, the legitimate grievances, the bad choices, and the killing on both sides of the conflict. This editorial is my favourite of anything I have read so far this week. I will stop for today in order to preserve the hope with which it was written.

One week trying to understand Israeli and Palestinian newspaper bias

Day 3

Palestine Media Center

The official mouthpiece of the general secretariat of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO). The two-state solution is a big thing here. Three headlines have the words “two-state” in them. Another headline uses the word “Apartheid”, and there is an apparently separate link saying “Israeli Apartheid” next to it. I would not deny that the plight of the Palestinians is apartheid, only that it is a very strong word. If life is as bad for the Palestinians as it was for non whites under apartheid, they are in trouble.

The most interesting thing is to hear Ehud Barak himself using the word. He says that, if there is only one state, and if the Palestinians cannot vote, “it will be an apartheid regime.” Fancy the defense minister of a right wing Israeli cabinet admitting something like that. Are we actually making progress?

Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak says, according to the leader, that a two-state solution is coming sooner or later. (Yet another article on foreign pressure for a two-state peace says is about Javier Solana, Foreign Minister of the European Union.) Egypt and Israel are on reasonably good terms—Egypt is one of the only two majority Muslim countries, with Jordan, that recognises Israel—so pressure for Palestinian independence is likely to come from them. The US is pushing for the two-state thing, and Egypt and Jordan are its allies, so they may feel emboldened to push too. President Mubarak also said the Palestinians must work hard to achieve unity. That might be the biggest obstacle to peace.

For the past two days, I have seen talk about Prime Minister Netanyahu’s speech on Sunday. The Palestine Media Center (PMC) says “Netanyahu will adopt ‘two-state’ language on Sunday speech.” Seems a little vague. They might as well have said “Netanyahu will give all the Palestinians a job and a pension”. Any politician can speak in terms that sound good. Only action can make peace.

According to the PMC, Netanyahu will be asking for a lot in return for Palestinian independence. The Palestinians must recongise Israel and “[h]e will ask [not demand?] Arab states to normalize relations with Israel during negotiations, rather than after Israel withdraws from occupied Arab land”. I do not feel the bitterness from the PMC that one feels in other media from Palestine. Of course, they are just as prone to bias as any other medium; but you let your guard down when you hear relatively conciliatory tones like these.

As the PMC points out, Palestinian independence is only one condition of peace negotiations. “It is unclear”, it says, “whether Netanyahu will accept the other condition, which is US President Barack Obama’s demand for a total halt to all construction in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem.” In fact, the PMC has a set of links entitled “Permanent Status Issues”, and they are Jerusalem, Settlements, Refugees, Water, Borders, Summary of Palestinian Positions. Each is like an encyclopedia entry on Palestinian grievances for each issue, along with a long list of links regarding the issue you are reading about.

For instance, on the subject of Jerusalem, while the Israeli papers talk of the long history the city has had as capital of a (future) state of Israel, this section says the opposite. “For centuries, Jerusalem has been the geographical, political, administrative and spiritual center of Palestine.” It begins the Israeli story at the 1967 war, several thousand years after the Jews do, and says that since then, the Israeli state has taken over and expanded East Jerusalem in “a classic example of ethnic gerrymandering.” The PMC continues, talking about the illegality of Israel’s occupation of Jerusalem according to “a long line” of UN Security Council resolutions; discrimination against Arabs; Jewish settlement; and forced evictions and demolitions. “The Palestinian Position” (or that of the PLO, anyway), is, basically, follow Resolution 242 (here and here—apparently the PLO did not initially accept 242), and make Jerusalem a free city. They make some good points.

Haaretz

Like yesterday, the Holocaust museum gunman tops the list. I am interested that some senile American racist shooting up the Holocaust museum is so important to Jews (or the ones writing this newspaper, anyway) that they put it right at the top. The article was very long (more than 1100 words) and read as a mixture of a report of the shooting and the biography of a white supremacist.

“Rightists to Peres: Not your place to call for Palestinian state”. A picture of Israeli President Shimon Peres shows him looking deeply pensive in his chair. The president is largely a figurehead, so he does not have much power. For this reason, two right wing Israeli parties, one of which is in the governing coalition, spoke out against Peres discussing the two-state matter with Javier Solana. One of the parties, the National Union, said the president should cancel such meetings in future. Though the prime minister is likely to give some form of endorsement to the Road Map to Peace and the two-state solution in his speech on Sunday, it is likely that the parties that objected to Peres’ meeting with Solana feel it puts undue pressure on him. A link to this article from a couple of weeks ago says that President Peres criticised a right wing politician’s suggestion that Jordan should be the base of the Palestinian state. It was a fatuous suggestion, but was Mr Peres within his bounds to say so? And why is there so much stress on the right and left? The ideological divisions in Israeli society may be particularly wide; or perhaps Haaretz is keen to exploit them.

Another major story in today’s paper is that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) released documents saying that Iran began its plan to enrich uranium in 1987 under the moderate Mir Hossein Mousavi. If a moderate could start a nuclear weapons programme, this implies, the Iranian state must be evil through and through. That said, buying centrifuges does not mean you are trying to make a bomb. The article does not mention that. And it repeats the fact that the centrifuges were bought on the black market.

The IAEA reported that the nuclear facility in Natanz was spinning 5000 centrifuges, up by 1000 from February, and has 2000 more ready to start enriching. I do not know how many that is. It is just a number. Do Israelis know how many bombs could be made with 7000 centrifuges? (According to the New York Times, it is enough to make one or two nuclear weapons a year.) I have noticed that numbers are a good way to win an argument. Since they can be manipulated, like all facts, numbers of bad things are always bigger on their side than ours, even if we do not know what the numbers denote. The article ended on the subject of the upcoming Iranian election in which Ahmadinejad and his opponent, Mousavi (the one who started enriching uranium) will be competing and left few wondering whom the newspaper was supporting. The public were reflecting “on whether they want to keep hard-line President Ahmadinejad in power or replace him with a reformist more open to closer ties with the West.”

Finally, Palestinian police found a 15-year-old boy hanged for allegedly collaborating with Israelis. His father, uncle and cousin confessed. Tragic and senseless, of course; but like the story about the little Zionist town in yesterday’s Palestinian Chronicle, we seem to be picking at small things about our enemies to exploit for propaganda’s sake. See how messed up they are? the journalist is saying.

The Alternative Information Center

To mix things up today, we are going to look at the Alternative Information Center, a joint effort between Israeli and Palestinian activists. The AIC calls itself internationally oriented, progressive (I like those words, even if I don’t know what they mean) organisation engaged in “dissemination of information, political advocacy, grassroots activism and critical analysis of the Palestinian and Israeli societies as well as the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.” It strives for equality, freedom and rejection of separationist ideology. Perhaps not all news from the Middle East is anti- or pro- something. Or perhaps it is. Let us see what we can learn from this website.

The first thing that catches my eye is a video about a weekly protest of the separation barrier in a Palestinian village near Bethlehem. The speaker, a Palestinian, makes it clear he considers it apartheid, and says this wall is pushing the suffering of his people. Not all the protestors were Palestinians, however. An Israeli citizen had joined the demonstration, expressing his support for the tearing down of the wall. They are brave people, face to face with a dozen or more soldiers.

The podcast of a press conference by the parents of an American activist who was injured by the Israeli military. Jail time for those who deny the existence of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state, or who commemorate the Naqba (the 1948 Palestinian exodus). Criticism of Netanyahu for his inaction on Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Photos of the Israeli attack on the UN mission in Gaza in January. A UN report on an Israeli order for more Palestinian housing demolitions. Another on checkpoints. A “new wave of unopposed attacks” by Jewish settlers on Arabs. If this truly is unbiased or evenhanded news, the Israelis have a huge amount to answer for.

But it is not. There are Israeli Jews on the editing team but that does not make it balanced. A neutral, equal parts Israeli and Palestinian perspective of reporting would not use words like “occupation”, because it is one-sided word. It would also show the perspectives of moderate Israelis, Jewish settlers and perhaps someone who had been injured by a Palestinian rocket attack. The AIC had none of those. While its points may be valid, even a cursory glance at the website evinces that its claims to critical analysis are unconvincing.

Tomorrow we will examine different newspapers, including the news from Hamas’s point of view.

Barack and Islam: the to-do list

President Barack has just given a speech in Cairo intended for an audience of the entire Muslim world. The speech was a good one–sincere, inclusive, friendly–but there is a lot more to be done.

Though I do not think Islamic terrorism is America’s biggest problem, nor will it ever be, I do think Islamic extremism poses a serious threat to American interests. Those interests include free markets, secularism, democracy and peace. And contrary to popular belief, extremism is caused far less by poverty and religious pluralism than by perceived injustice with no outlet through which to vent. And on this note, we begin Barack’s To-Do List for Better Relations with the Islamic World.

#1: Encourage freedom and support pluralism in Muslim countries

The Barack administration needs to work with its allies among Muslim countries to ensure everyone has a voice. With so many repressive states that are nominally Islamic, and so many of them (again nominally) aligned with the US, Barack and Hillary need to continue the pressure on people like the House of Saud to allow freedom of expression. Eliminating extremism is not a question of democracy per se; indeed, the idea of democracy has become a laughing stock among many Middle Easterners. The unpopular Bush administration promoted democracy as a panacea, and as soon as an Islamic party (Hamas) was “democratically” elected, it refused to recognise it.

But pluralism and freedom are still ways to promote peace–if you disagree with me, you can say so without getting arrested. To say they are not suited to Islam is nonsense: they were part of Islamic civilisation for at least 500 years during the Islamic Golden Age. Without pluralism and freedom of expression, Muslim civilisation would never have made such great scientific advances. Saying pluralism and Islam cannot coexist is like saying Muslims speak with one voice. Yet these values are at the root of the debate going on within Islam today. Having lived in Indonesia, Barack is in a good position to understand and sympathise with Muslims.

His charm is also handy. Though I do not like the idea that charm can move mountains, it can. They have won him his popularity up to this point, and have even slightly increased the United States’ abysmal image among Muslims. Charm has brought him to this point, but it can take him no further. It has opened up many doors, and Barack must enter with a plan. The focus of his plan must be understanding.

#2: Foster cross-cultural understanding

Back to the president’s speech. Barack set some things straight about religious freedom in America. “[F]reedom in America is indivisible from the freedom to practice one’s religion. That is why there is a mosque in every state of our union, and over 1,200 mosques within our borders. That is why the US government has gone to court to protect the right of women and girls to wear the hijab, and to punish those who would deny it.

So let there be no doubt: Islam is a part of America.” (Youtube, 12:00)

He addressed the stereotypes many Muslims hold of America and Americans hold of Muslims. He has started the intercultural ball rolling. Other people need to run with it. Start programs that teach, at all ages, about each other’s culture and religion and help them to see each other’s points of view. Let them see and feel the plurality of views among the people, that the other side is not a monolithic or hateful mass, and the new ways of thinking all of us can learn from this interaction.

Even the language we use limits our understanding. It can be difficult not to speak and think in terms of “Muslim countries”, “Islamic states” and moderates vs. extremists, but there is so much more to the issues than this thinking implies. We need to realise that, like everywhere, there are nuances in the groups we are talking about that we can work with to achieve goals that benefit everyone.

“And I believe that America holds within her the truth that regardless of race, religion, or station in life, all of us share common aspirations to live in peace and security; to get an education and to work with dignity; to love our families, our communities, and our god. These things we share. This is the hope of all humanity.” (Youtube, 12:30) Barack has begun to bring us all together in common humanity.

Another part of his plan is the prison at Guantanamo Bay.

#3: Close Guantanamo

Barack said “unequivocally” that he prohibited the use of torture by any forces he commands. This is quite the promise for an American president to make, as it is convenient to invoke the misleading ticking time bomb scenario and to the charge of torture plead patriotism. If no stories of torture emerge under his presidency, we should be impressed by his adherence to principle.

He also said, as he has done before, that he will close Guantanamo. Great. When? When everyone else agrees to take the US’s prisoners? I am not clear on why the prisoners at Guantanamo cannot be shipped to civilian tribunals in the United States. This is the most logical answer to me. By asking other countries to take them, the US government is asking favours. Charm has made closing Guantanamo a possibility, but it will not ensure the safe transfer and fair trial of its prisoners without costs to the US’s international political capital. And that capital will run out even faster if he does not do what he promised on the campaign trail.

#4: Bring the boys home from Iraq

Barack has promised to bring the troops home from Iraq by 2012. This may or may not be a good idea; suffice it to say, it is a promise, and fulfilling it will bring him credibility (right in time for his reelection). As part of the wider War on Terror, which many Muslims see as a war on their religion, the war in Iraq was framed as the way to keep the US safer. Having inflamed many a Mohamedan mind with images of fear, torture and killing, it has clearly had the opposite effect.

Part of the reason is the us vs. them attitude exhibited by all the War’s protagonists. We have a tendency to view struggles as good against evil, and I need to know who everyone around me supports so that I can know who the good guys are. But conflict is rarely about good and evil but two groups who do not want to listen to each other and admit they are wrong. Barack seems to realise this, and when he speaks of reconciliation with the Islamic world, he is trying to forge a wider “us”. Bringing the troops home from Iraq would mean that one of the biggest symbols of “them” to so many people, the continuation of a war on Islam, will be over. That is, unless American troop presences elsewhere become increasingly seen as illegitimate. The wrong moves in Afghanistan could reverse progress on Barack’s goodwill efforts.

#5: Win Afghanistan and Pakistan

The United States military, in conjunction with Pakistan’s, has an incredibly difficult task ahead of it: stabilise perhaps the most dangerous region on earth. They have scored some military victories, but the real question is, are they winning hearts and minds? This is war among the people, not between states, and it is not clear that technology and manpower will end it. What is needed are hospitals, schools, entrepreneurship, legitimate government, grassroots organisations and the rule of law. These are not possible outcomes in the short, election-focused, American political attention span.

Barack must make skeptical Muslims realise the benefits of this war, which will be very hard. Perhaps even harder, he also needs to show progress. “[W]e plan to invest $1.5 billion each year over the next five years to partner with Pakistanis to build schools and hospitals, roads and businesses, and hundreds of millions to help those who have been displaced…. [W]e are providing more than $2.8 billion to help Afghans develop their economy and deliver services that people depend upon.” (Youtube, 20:16) Will it be enough?

Likewise, Barack must sell this war realistically to the American people. The American public needs to understand that Afghanistan is a twenty, thirty, forty-year project. Not resolving every last one of these conflicts in Barack’s term will not make him a failure. But no matter how long it takes, it will cost more money and more lives. If they are not clear on these points, they will demand the troops return home as soon as there is an Afghani equivalent of the Tet Offensive. If that happens, Afghanistan will become an oppressive, totalitarian Islamic state, a hotbed of extremism and America’s worst nightmare. It may go the way of Iran, or it may go a lot further. Ironically, Iran is a potential ally in defusing the Islamist threat on its borders.

#6: Stop antagonising Iran

That is just what the hardliners want you to do. When governments feel threatened, many, especially those whose economies are booming, will act tough. If their nation is threatened, proud nationalists in Iran will vote in a hawkish government, on the belief that it is better positioned to protect them. Pushing Iran on any major issue will give Iranian government hawks just the backing they need to escalate the country’s military and nuclear development. A conciliatory approach, however, will give liberals room to manoeuver in Iranian politics, and the results could be a partner in the wider fight against extremism.

It is very unlikely the US and Iran will get into any direct conflict, as I have said before; but Iran could still put a stop to Barack’s plans in the Muslim world, especially if oil prices rise again. If, on the other hand, the US reached out to Iran as a partner in the wider struggle against extremism, it may gain from it. It would be seen as less threatening to Muslims as once believed. Its government is not as psychopathic as some Americans seem to think, and the people have some power to choose their representatives. Iran’s government might look petty if it rejected an olive branch; then again, it might look justified. Iran’s people may perceive a bigger threat in the form of the equally belligerent Israel. With a lot of effort, Barack could smooth over the tensions between these two. This task will be easier if Israel cooperates. Progress on Israeli-Palestinian peace dialogue would not hurt.

#7: Resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict

But how? Does he have a new road map? Will he try to resurrect an old one? Barack proposes a two-state solution. Is this idea viable? Creative, new ideas could be encouraged. Does he and his team have any new ideas, such as some of the ones shot down here, on any of the complicated issues? Will the president lead peace negotiations? Will he continue to back Israel unconditionally? If so, and it certainly seems so given his actions since his election and his use of the word “unbreakable” to describe the US-Israeli relationship, what are the consequences for the Palestinians’ security? For example, is the American government willing to provide more humanitarian aid to the Occupied Territories? What would it take for it to intervene to stop an Israeli offensive in its territories or neigbours? Will American-led progress elsewhere among Muslims make finding a resolution easier? The answers to these questions will determine the outcome of peace talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians. It might take a lot longer than eight years, but if Barack can move ahead on a resolution between the longtime rivals, he will have done his best. Honest efforts to end the violence in Israel will be viewed positively by some people, but let us hope Barack is not stepping into the crossfire with this one.

#8: Stop calling the United States a Christian nation

Every president the United States has ever had has invoked the Christian god in his speeches. It is time to stop throwing bones to the Christian majority of the United States and to start acknowledging what it really is: a pluralist nation. Actually, Barack has already done this one. So he is well on his way. This task completed, perhaps more Muslim Americans will emerge as political leaders, making American politics more pluralist, and thereby wiser.

In his speech, President Barack went into details about how American Muslims have helped make America great. “Since our founding, American Muslims have enriched the United States. They have fought in our wars, served in government, stood for civil rights, started businesses, taught at our universities, excelled in our sports arenas, won Nobel Prizes, built our tallest building, and lit the Olympic Torch.” (Youtube, 8:31)

Barack and his administration have a daunting to-do list. Can he complete all these tasks and realise our goals of a more peaceful and just world? He has started many of them already, and eight years is a long time in the modern world. But anything could derail progress: another major terrorist attack in the name of god on American soil, broken promises, American domestic politics, nuclear weapons here, a collapsed state there. But I have confidence that the Barack administration can maintain the support and good judgement it needs to resolve one of the major conflicts of our time, between the US and Islam.

Youtube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BlqLwCKkeY

Contrarian views on what you may be worried about

Are most people natural worriers? Or are they just worried because all the worriers around them tell them to be?

Boy, there are a lot of worried people out there nowadays. Almost everything you could worry about, people have exaggerated it to the stature of Godzilla, poised to bring down civilisation as we know it. Popular books and newspaper articles warn of the end of everything we hold dear.

Fortunately, there are some skeptical optimists out there to shed a little perspective on things, put a stop to all the irresponsible fearmongering and help you get back to living your life. I should note that I do not read just to maintain my optimism, I read to maintain a balanced viewpoint on things. When everyone seems to think something is bad, there is always someone else to tell you the good side of things. This post will give you the pessimists’ side of things, followed by a contrarian’s. Both are worth listening to before you decide to worry. (Please follow the links I provide to get my full side of each story.)

Pessimist: Climate change is the biggest threat to our civilisation and the biggest challenge to our generation. It threatens to destroy everything we hold dear.

Contrarian: That is unlikely. To be clear, I am not denying climate change, nor that it could be harmful. What I am not convinced about is that everything is going to blow up in our faces and our grandchildren will be left with nothing. Climate change is one of those issues on which we have too much certainty, too much worrying that the end is near, and not enough debate about the facts.

Furthermore, every generation worries about environmental collapse. When I was young, it was the ozone layer. Thirty years ago, it was global cooling. And so on for the past hundred years. None of these problems has destroyed us yet. I guess we are just more resilient than the doomsayers realised.

Pessimist: We are running out of natural resources. Oil has peaked, wood is disappearing, and wars are brewing over water. We are in big trouble.

Contrarian: The first problem with these arguments is that they are trying to predict the future without firm grounding in the present. Sure, those things could be true, but we are always finding ourselves wrong about them. We thought gold, silver, copper, iron and so on would all run out completely twenty or thirty years ago, and they have not. Oil might have peaked but we do not know. Existence of debate about something (like peak oil) does not mean it has been proven. And water supplies are getting thinner in some places, where there is indeed water war, and greater in other places, as global warming frees up water supplies embedded in glaciers. Besides, how could we run out of water? It could become harder to find for some people, and harder to clean and desalinate, but surely we are not going to run out.

The second problem is that the future changes every day. Predictions by the wisest experts are notoriously unreliable, partly because every time there is a new, disrupting technology, everything changes. For instance, a big environmental problem at the end of the 19^th century was horses. Everyone was getting around in horses, but horses were leaving messes all over the streets. Flies were being born in great numbers and spreading disease. What was to be done? Then, the automobile came along and saved the day. The point is, we do not know what new technology is coming or when. Every time a new technology comes along, yes, of course, it causes new problems, but it also solves old ones. The better technology gets, the better our understanding of science is, the more likely we can find our way out of the mess. I admit we could be in trouble, but people talk as if, if we turn on another light or start up another car, society will collapse. We are stronger than that.

Thirdly, I am not worried about the depletion of any of these things. Humankind has proven itself highly adaptive to change, and the depletion of one or another natural resource will be shaken off so we can go destroy something else.

Pessimist: China’s rise is a military and economic threat to everyone else, especially us westerners.

Contrarian: We are really scared of China, aren’t we? But why? First, China is not as “rising” as some might have you believe. As I wrote earlier, China is not about to overtake the United States in anything except instability of its environment.

Second, the rise of China is, for the most part, a good thing. It means a big new market for companies from the rest of the world, and new businesses, ideas, products and so on for the world outside China. The China of Mao’s era or before would not be helping to stop piracy in the Arabian Sea, or terrorism on its Central Asian borders. It means more wealth and, in my opinion, more security, not less.

Third, the rise of this or that country is always feared, and always has been. When Japan was ascendant in the 1980s, the bookstores were full of books saying how powerful it would become and take over the world. How many books do you see about that now? What are you afraid of? That China will take over the world? That Chinese business will be more competitive than your country’s? The only problem I see is that Chinese consumers and businesses will use more and more natural resources and create more and more pollution. But it would be hypocritical of me to tell them to stop trying to achieve a better life.

BUT, say the pessimists (and I was one of them a couple of years ago), China could be the source of the next world war. No doubt, China’s Taiwan policy could mean a war between China and Taiwan that the United States might step into. But what is the likelihood of that?

Contrarian: First, a war between China and the United States would be immensely costly. The Chinese government and some of its people would be behind a war to regain Taiwan, but they are not so arrogant as to think they could simply defeat the United States in a year or two. Americans, on the other side, are unlikely to want to engage one of the most powerful militaries in the world simply for the sake of Taiwan’s independence.

Second, there are many people from China in the United States and many from the United States in China. These are people who will do anything to avoid war between the two countries. That means thousands of people saying, “if you want them, you’ve got to go through me.”

What are some other looming wars you may be building a bomb shelter for?

Pessimists: Iran is building a bomb and war is inevitable.

Contrarian: War with Iran is highly unlikely. Aside from a few opportunists, nobody wants it. Iran is not attacking anyone and Barack is not attacking them.

Pessimists: North Korea is shooting rockets and threatening everyone. Won’t they go to war too?

Contrarian: They cannot. Nuclear weapons are so powerful that no one can ever use them. North Korea is a complicated matter but nuclear weapons are among the least of our worries.

Besides, who would want to fight a war when this economic crisis will bring the world to its knees alone? The pessimists, including one of my favourite historians, Niall Ferguson, say that it could lead to depression and war, like the 1929 crash did. (To be fair, Ferguson said “there will be blood”, not “there will be world war”.) I, contrarian, think things are fundamentally different and are not as bad as in the 1930s.

We have lower trade barriers and fewer suffocating regulations than in the days of the Depression. The stock market crash in 1929 was inevitable: stock markets sometimes go up and down slowly, but when they reach such dizzying heights as in 1929, they crash painfully. The crash was pretty big in 1987, too, but then things recovered. The Great Depression was brought on, however, by excessive protectionism and regulation that I do not think we will resort to. Though today there is, of course, a risk of war, none of the major powers are about to become socialist, fascist or communist, and none of them have tariffs even approaching those of the 1930s. You might lose your job, but this economic crisis will not mean the end of the world.

The reason we are told to worry about all these things is that people want to draw attention to their cause, and they know that it is not enough to say “the climate is getting slightly warmer” or “there is a remote possibility of war”. Instead, one person exaggerates, then the next person doubles it, and so on around the circle until everyone is screaming and throwing their hands in the air.

To answer my original question, my guess is that worriers on one end tell everyone else to worry, so they do. Please do not let yourself get caught up in the hysteria.