Soccer Dad

The sins of the Academy

In "Detached from reality" Gerald Steinberg writes a devastating critique of those who remain undeterred by the failure of Oslo. First he berates the players:

It was driven by the personal ambitions and naive optimism of Yossi Beilin, Shimon Peres and the Labor Party, aided and abetted by eager European mediators and officials in the Clinton administration. Journalists who forgot that their job was to report the news, and not to become cheerleaders for political programs, also deserve some of the dubious credit.

"Naive optimism" might give these people too much credit, but I can't disagree with anything else in this paragraph!
Then he turns on his own:

But let's not forget some of my fellow academics who gave the process legitimacy, maintained the facade of peace long after the failure of Oslo became clear, and, even worse, continue today as if nothing has changed.

What went wrong?:

WHEN CONFRONTED with stark evidence of suicide bombing and Palestinian incitement, academics should be the first to rethink the theoretical starting points. However, like everyone else, we suffer from cognitive dissonance; when presented with evidence contrary to our beliefs even academics will try to rationalize disturbing data to reinforce their existing worldview.

This applies to the media too.
Why did the ideas of Oslo appear to work?

Their peace dialogues succeeded because they were limited to a small group of Israeli participants from the self-declared peace camp, partnered with Palestinians who tended to be aligned with Arafat's Fatah organization. These Palestinian leaders met relatively few Israelis who opposed giving up on Jewish historic links to Jerusalem or accepting Palestinian refugees claims.

When these views turned out to reflect those of the majority of Israelis – who reported to their military units to fight terror, voted twice for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, and now demand unilateral separation – Palestinians appeared to be taken by surprise.

I can't add much to this excellent article. It's a must read.
Crossposted on Israpundit and Soccer Dad.

Posted by SoccerDad at June 14, 2004 03:10 AM | TrackBack