Friedman's Fractured Time and Space
Gah. Fractured time, fractured space, and Friedman's most recent op-ed in the New York Times. He writes: "The struggle for hegemony over the modern Arab world is as old as Nasser’s Egypt."
What? Considering that's preceded by, "That is, Gaza is a mini-version of three great struggles that have been playing out since 1948", Friedman's sense of history is conveniently truncated. Of course, that seems to be one of the root issues of the whole conflict: When does the history of the region begin?
He continues, "Because nothing has damaged Palestinians more than the Hamas death-cult strategy of turning Palestinian youths into suicide bombers."
Granted, I've never been to Gaza, and I've spent very little time talking to Palestinians (what, to be flip, everything I know about Palestine I learned from Joe Sacco and Paradise Now), but to declare that "nothing has damaged Palestinians more" denies those very same Palestinians any opportunity to, I don't know, articulate any individual motivations for themselves. It denies them agency in a very similar way that, I don't know, Israel has systematically denied Palestinians agency since 1948 (if you want to begin your history there).
From there, Friedman frames the current conflict: "Hamas’s overthrow of the more secular Fatah organization in Gaza in 2007 is part of a regionwide civil war between Islamists and modernists."
Right. Only if you see Islamists as simply reactionary cavemen opposed to modernist ideas like progress and liberty and rationality. My immediate reaction to Friedman's description is that it's reductive, simplistic, and predicated upon the belief that modernism is always a self-justifying program; and further, that Islam is not a modern religion (echoes of Naipaul, perhaps?). But then, allowing for a plurality of belief would just be too difficult to get on the page.
Gah. Not much more than right now, but you can find Friedman's piece here. Maybe he'd write something different if he were living in Gaza at the moment, but Israel has decided that journalists are better served spending time in the handful of Israeli sites rocketed by Hamas.
What? Considering that's preceded by, "That is, Gaza is a mini-version of three great struggles that have been playing out since 1948", Friedman's sense of history is conveniently truncated. Of course, that seems to be one of the root issues of the whole conflict: When does the history of the region begin?
He continues, "Because nothing has damaged Palestinians more than the Hamas death-cult strategy of turning Palestinian youths into suicide bombers."
Granted, I've never been to Gaza, and I've spent very little time talking to Palestinians (what, to be flip, everything I know about Palestine I learned from Joe Sacco and Paradise Now), but to declare that "nothing has damaged Palestinians more" denies those very same Palestinians any opportunity to, I don't know, articulate any individual motivations for themselves. It denies them agency in a very similar way that, I don't know, Israel has systematically denied Palestinians agency since 1948 (if you want to begin your history there).
From there, Friedman frames the current conflict: "Hamas’s overthrow of the more secular Fatah organization in Gaza in 2007 is part of a regionwide civil war between Islamists and modernists."
Right. Only if you see Islamists as simply reactionary cavemen opposed to modernist ideas like progress and liberty and rationality. My immediate reaction to Friedman's description is that it's reductive, simplistic, and predicated upon the belief that modernism is always a self-justifying program; and further, that Islam is not a modern religion (echoes of Naipaul, perhaps?). But then, allowing for a plurality of belief would just be too difficult to get on the page.
Gah. Not much more than right now, but you can find Friedman's piece here. Maybe he'd write something different if he were living in Gaza at the moment, but Israel has decided that journalists are better served spending time in the handful of Israeli sites rocketed by Hamas.
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