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The NY Times today quotes a Giora Eland, a former Israeli National Security advisor to Prime Minister Netanyahu who voted against Netanyahu last week and blames him for the deterioration of the relationship with the USA, as complaining of the American response since the election to Netanyahu's promise that A palestinian State would not be established on his watch as an overreaction. He says "Everyone understands this is part of the political campaign. To try and say 'I caught you'...well it sounds like 'I've been waiting until you make such a mistake and now I'm going to exploit it.' "
My problem is as follows. First the 'everyone' he references is not everyone but rather those cynical enough to understand that what a politician says when running for election is a form of fiction. When Netanyahu made the remark, did he intend to be taken seriously by those to whom he was speaking and whose votes he apparently won over in sufficient numbers to get elected. Was it Netanyahu's intention to be understood by them as fictionalizing or did he intend to be taken at face value? And if he did, when and by whom does the fiction analysis take over?
A little long-winded. I apologise. I am reminded of Bill Clinton who spoke this way 24/7. Have we any expectation of being able to understand that a politician says what he means to say or is the language useless to those who listen and vote?
There is what we expect in the sense of what we predict.
There is what we expect in terms of the standards we set and hold them to.
There is what we expect of our media, including expecting our media to hold our politicians to account properly and effectively, or alternatively expecting our media to distort reality in line with our preferred prejudices.
It is so easy to stop buying dishonest, trivial and incompetent media. As it happens they sell very well indeed. From this we infer that people do not want competent, serious or honest media. People want to be deceived.
From this we infer that we get the politics we want. We choose that it be that way.
For that reason we get politicians like Netanyahu with the bare faced arrogance to mock anyone taking his election statements seriously or on face value. However, since he was appealing to violent racist sentiment, we have to assume that he finds such sentiments compatible with his own values.
But bear in mind there were other candidates who did not choose to appeal to those vicious sentiments nor to those vicious voters, so cynically saying that all politicians are the same falls flat. Clearly they are not, or every candidate would have been as cynical. Instead, serious politicians made a case for peace, and for justice, and had a decent level of support for their views. So not all Israelis are racist and vicious. However there is a component of the electorate that has those qualities and they are the voters to whom Netanyahu appealed. Since he clearly needs their support to govern, and since they clearly are sufficiently numerous to give him the job, we have to assume that he will act in ways that retain their support and that is bad news for supporters of peace and justice in Israel.
To conclude - what do we expect? We may anticipate cynical and dishonest behaviour from some politicians, we have to recognise that there are other politicians who do not display the same vicious qualities, and we choose which type of politician gets to run the shop for us. If you don't like the result, blame the electorate and their choice of media.
As long as you pay your media to print and promote lies, then expect to be told lies.
Originally posted by finneganAfter the past history of attacks from all sides, what should the average Israeli expect?
There is what we expect in the sense of what we predict.
There is what we expect in terms of the standards we set and hold them to.
There is what we expect of our media, including expecting our media to hold our politicians to account properly and effectively, or alternatively expecting our media to distort reality in line with our preferred prejudic ...[text shortened]... edia.
As long as you pay your media to print and promote lies, then expect to be told lies.
Originally posted by normbenignYou live in your little dream world. When you make a remark like that after so many debates on this forum, it is clear that you are entirely oblivious to reality testing.
After the past history of attacks from all sides, what should the average Israeli expect?
Originally posted by finneganFinnegan sees an empty post, immediately the wheels are turning
There is what we expect in the sense of what we predict.
There is what we expect in terms of the standards we set and hold them to.
There is what we expect of our media, including expecting our media to hold our politicians to account properly and effectively, or alternatively expecting our media to distort reality in line with our preferred prejudic ...[text shortened]... edia.
As long as you pay your media to print and promote lies, then expect to be told lies.
"How can I turn this into being something about my favorite hobby horse."