From: joedees@bellsouth.net
Date: Tue 12 Nov 2002 - 03:57:21 GMT
John Hawkins: Why do you think there is such a profound
difference between the American and European view of the
conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians?
Victor Davis Hanson: There are a variety of reasons that can
properly be debated about their relative roles. But we can agree on
the general picture -- fear and appeasement of terrorists, rising
Muslim populations (largely unassimilated) in France, Germany,
and Scandinavia, inherent anti-Semitism, identification of Israel
with the US as an overdog, proud power, guilt over past
colonialism, financial interests in the Arab world, along with
concerns for oil supplies, and generally the largely backdrop of
easy and cheap ways of opposing the United States in ways that
cost nothing but alleviate European concerns about stature, pride,
and their own diminished role in the world. That is not to say
there are not legitimate issues; it just explains why the Europeans
would allow a quarter-million Muslims to be butchered under
their noses in the Balkans when they had the power to stop it, and
yet fret impotently over Palestinians far away. The end of the
Soviet threat and the rise of the EU are creating a new tension in
the West, and it will only quicken and manifest itself in ways well
beyond disputes over the Middle East.
===============================================================
This was distributed via the memetics list associated with the
Journal of Memetics - Evolutionary Models of Information Transmission
For information about the journal and the list (e.g. unsubscribing)
see: http://www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/jom-emit
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Tue 12 Nov 2002 - 04:01:02 GMT