Machiavelli wrote that a prince had to do hateful things first and quickly so people would forget and get used to a better world. Dribbling out harsh decisions makes people hate princes.
In Machiavellian terms, Hamas made a canny move – horrible deeds over a couple of days triggered Israel’s lengthy response. In Machiavellian terms, Israel could have reacted quickly and overwhelmingly so everyone might eventually forget. But with Hamas embedded in the civilian population, Israel can’t react without getting everyone mad.
Hamas put Israel in a box. The good answer would have been choosing leaders long ago who’d have steadfastly worked to integrate the Palestinian population. Many Palestinians had voluntarily remained as Israeli citizens, represented in the Israeli legislature and elections.
But decisions have consequences. A warmhearted life together now looks unattainable. Neither side is willing to share the ancient land. So the Middle East won’t settle down. The consequences for America are serious despite Obama’s and Biden’s hopes to settle the conflict to ease a pivot toward dealing with China.
Giving allies carte blanche has consequences. America kept objecting to Israeli resettlement on Palestinian land but did nothing about it, implicating America, making our ideals of liberty and justice for all seem like a cynical joke, and sacrificing the worldwide power of American idealism.
Universal human rights are central from both Israeli and Palestinian perspectives. Both are right and both have violated the other’s. Too many ultra-nationalists in both Israel and Palestine are too angry, too committed to their own claims, to respect each other’s.
But the importance of respect for each other’s rights is constantly reinforced around the globe.
I asked a law student who’d immigrated from the Soviet Union why ethnic infighting had torn it apart in view of the universal principles the Soviets proclaimed. We talked about it over a tape recorder at a restaurant near the Law School. She explained that the Kremlin used divide and conquer tactics to hold onto power. Eastern Europe, the Baltic states, Belarus, Georgia and Ukraine have now split off and Russia’s effort to get Ukraine back is bleeding both.
Much of Africa is caught in religious, ethnic and tribal warfare. They can’t protect their health or their infrastructure if their politics prioritizes killing each other.
The great Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, and the Congress Party they led, tried to overcome ethnic and religious tensions in India, but Prime Minister Modi follows politicians who used violence to hold onto power.[1] India was on the verge of great breakthroughs in science and technology with enormous potential for Indian welfare, but now people question whether India has a future.
China has been silencing, kidnapping, sterilizing and enslaving Uighurs, the name for a large community of Chinese Muslims going back to the Middle Ages. It spends heavily going after Taiwan, the South China Sea and many of its East Asian neighbors. Vietnamese hostility toward the Chinese was one reason that our fighting Vietnam was so foolish. But the Chinese waste huge human and capital resources over religious and ethnic conflict.
Much of Latin America has been fighting wars over control of the poor instead of working together at regional development. Unfortunately, the US contributed to that fighting, to our everlasting shame.
Religious and ethnic wars are a dead loss to national health and prosperity. The so-called white nationalists are doing their best to get the US to jump into the same cesspool. They are, in effect, trying to destroy America.
When will we ever learn?
[1] On the use of violence in Indian politics, see Ashutosh Varshney, Ethnic conflict and civic life : Hindus and Muslims in India (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002).
Steve Gottlieb’s latest book is Unfit for Democracy: The Roberts Court and The Breakdown of American Politics. He is the Jay and Ruth Caplan Distinguished Professor Emeritus at Albany Law School, served on the New York Civil Liberties Union board, on the New York Advisory Committee to the U.S. Civil Rights Commission, and as a US Peace Corps Volunteer in Iran.
The views expressed by commentators are solely those of the authors. They do not necessarily reflect the views of this station or its management.