[Update at end]
A perfect Post-Modern state would be a state that exists in multiple realities. In one reality, it would be a struggling, potentially viable state struggling under the burden of oppression. Such a state would feature plucky but out-gunned Resistance fighters fighting for freedom. When its overpowering oppressor reacted with Nazi-like indiscriminate disproportion to attacks, the state would be devastated but its people would persevere. The freedom fighters would be toasted as heroes to much of the world for their fortitude and refusal to submit.
During and after the most recent incursion by Israel into Gaza, this was precisely the image that was projected by the international media; this is the Gaza seen by the overwhelming majority of Muslims in the world. It is the Gaza seen by most inhabitants of the MSM universe. Richard Landes linked to an article describing what happened when a confirmed believer in "Gaza" was confronted with the non-Post-Modern brick and mortar (and sand) Gaza inhabited by actual people, rather than actors in a Post-Modern morality play:
I'm a poet, an English Jew and a frequent visitor to Israel. Deeply disturbed by the reports of wanton slaughter and destruction during Operation Cast Lead, I felt I had to see for myself. I flew to Tel Aviv and on Wednesday, January 28, using my press card to cross the Erez checkpoint, I walked across the border into Gaza where I was met by my guide, a Palestinian journalist. He asked if I wanted to meet with Hamas officials. I explained that I'd come to bear witness to the damage and civilian suffering, not to talk politics.
What I saw was that there had been precision attacks made on all of Hamas' infrastructure. Does UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticize the surgical destruction of the explosives cache in the Imad Akhel Mosque, of the National Forces compound, of the Shi Jaya police station, of the Ministry of Prisoners? The Gazans I met weren't mourning the police state. Neither were they radicalized. As Hamas blackshirts menaced the street corners, I witnessed how passersby ignored them.
THERE WERE empty beds at Shifa Hospital and a threatening atmosphere. Hamas is reduced to wielding its unchallengeable authority from extensive air raid shelters which, together with the hospital, were built by Israel 30 years ago. Terrorized Gazans used doublespeak when they told me most of the alleged 5,500 wounded were being treated in Egypt and Jordan. They want it known that the figure is a lie, and showed me that the wounded weren't in Gaza. No evidence exists of their presence in foreign hospitals, or of how they might have gotten there.
Read the whole thing.
In reality, Gaza is a proto-state ruled by a gang of thugs whose animating philosophy consists of overt anti-Semitic genocide based on their reading of the Koran. Consider which description is closer to the reality on the ground in Gaza. Then consider that when even the Saudis understand that supporting Hamas in Gaza is effectively supporting an Iranian incursion against the West and the Sunni world, the Western (including American) approach to Hamastan is not only intellectually bankrupt and psychologically deluded, but also profoundly self-defeating:
Courtesy of Melanie Philips:
There has never been a situation like this. ‘Surreal’, as Daniel Pipes expostulates, just doesn’t begin to describe what America, Britain and Europe are doing in Gaza. America has pledged $900 million for the ‘rebuilding’ of Gaza; at the ‘donors’ conference at Sharm el Sheikh yesterday, pledges from more than 70 states including Europe and Britain swelled that total to more than $4.4 billion. The beleaguered British taxpayer may be rather surprised to know that bankrupt Britain is throwing £30 million at the place.
These governments all piously intone that the money will not end up in the hands of Hamas. This is utterly absurd. Hamas run Gaza. They control it. Nothing happens there without their say-so. UNRWA, which is apparently supposed to distribute the humanitarian aid, is riddled with Hamas operatives amongst its staff; Hamas won more than 80 percent of the vote in the last election for the UNRWA workers association and the UNRWA teachers association.
To avoid the money going to Hamas, we are told with a straight face, aid is to be funnelled through the Palestinian Authority. But the PA are in the West Bank. They are not in Gaza. Hamas run Gaza. The PA have no more power to stop that money from ending up in the pockets of Hamas than they have of flying to the moon.
Who can doubt that the $4.4 billion will go straight to Hamas so that it can buy yet more rockets and missiles and construct yet more death-dealing factories to enable them to bombard Israel and kill the innocent?
In no other global conflict do the nations of the world throw money at an area waging aggressive war, even while it is still lobbing missiles at its victims. According to Israel’s ambassador to the UN, there have been nearly 100 rocket and mortar attacks from the Gaza Strip since the ’ceasefire’ on January 18. These have been increasing in number, with 12 rockets fired at Sderot on March 1 alone. On Saturday morning, two new and improved Grad rockets, capable of yet greater destruction than before, hit Ashkelon; one hit a school.
And for this Gaza is to be rewarded to the tune of $4.4 billion.
Even the Saudis seem to think this is mad:
Saudi Foreign Minister Saud al Faisal told al Arabiya TV that rebuilding Gaza would be ‘difficult and fool-hardy, so long as peace and security do not prevail’ in the territory.
But of course; Saudi knows full well that what America, Europe, Britain and the rest have just done is hand $4.4 billion to the Iranian war machine against not just Israel but the Sunni Arab world.
There is now a "cease fire" in the Israel-Gaza non-war, yet the ceasefire only attains to one side:
Gaza attacked Israeli civilians 29 out of the past 35 days
While Hillary Clinton is fixated on Israel opening borders to Gaza and while billions of dollars are pledged to ease Hamas' burden of taking care of the area it conquered by force (I believe that would accurately be called "occupation,") Israel has gotten love letters in the shapes of Qassam rockets and mortars for 29 out of the past 35 days.
How many of the donors mentioned, as an aside, that perhaps if Hamas stopped the shooting at schools in Ashkelon and Sderot, that just maybe there would be a chance that Israel wouldn't bomb any buildings in Gaza?
As far as I can tell, none.
For too many people, it can seem preferable, in the short term, to deal with the fantasy they have constructed rather than the often less appealing reality that hides behind the fantasy. As even the Sunni Arabs, no friends of Israel, understand, the current approach cannot work for long. Yet the West's ideas, based as they are on fantasies, are unworkable and serve the goals of our worst enemies rather than those who would prefer peace and coexistence.
When a patient cannot deal with reality and constructs a delusional world in which to live, their ongoing inability to deal with the unpleasant reality they are attempting to escape causes them to continually expand their delusion. Eventually, they become completely cut off from reality and end up in the hospital. Our MSM and part of our political elite have been escalating their fantasy construction at the expense of reality.
Our elites in the MSM and in our liberal governments have apparently convinced themselves that the fantasy world they have limned is a faithful depiction of the underlying reality. Even when the facts on the ground are at odds with reality, the sages of the elites convince themselves they are finding a deeper reality. ("False but accurate.") When data doesn't fit the picture they have constructed int heir minds, they simply leave it out of the discussion.
This has a long history.
Note how similar this is to Saddam Hussein's Iraq depicted by Michael Moore, with children happily flying kites, and the Iran of Roger Cohen, where Jews live happily in freedom and peace. This kind of hallucinatory fantasy creature has a long history; consider the Stalinist death culture celebrated by Walter Duranty as a quasi-Utopia, a literary fiction for which he won a Pulitzer Prize. Our MSM has a long history of constructing reality to fit their desires. Such mythopoesis has come to full fruition just at the time when the MSM most finds their livelihoods and agendas threatened. In response to the existential threat, our MSM has regressed to their earlier, partisan, and biased roots.
Our collective failure of reality testing can only end in one of two ways. Either reality will eventually reassert itself which usually requires a violent precipitation of the fantasy (war, terror attacks, violence) or we will force ourselves to face reality before push comes to shove. We must all hope that our young President is as smart and adaptable as he thinks he is; reality has a nasty habit of gaining your attention when you least expect.
[Update: To anticipate those who might point out that the neocons and/or George W. Bush made the same error in Iraq that I am suggesting we are making in Gaza, I would simply point out that if you believe this, you are rather effectively making my point. The anti-Iraq position holds that by misunderstanding Iraq and the aspirations of the Iraqi people, ie imagining they want Western style freedoms and democracy, we stumbled into disaster. This merely reinforces my point: when one acts based on fantasy rather than reality, disaster is likely to ensue. I might also mention that all of us, due to the distortions that are unavoidable for our mental aparatus, always react to a world that is a mixture of reality and fantasy; the goal should always be to minimize the portion of our world view that is based on fantasy. This is expressly what the Post-Modernists misunderstand and precisely why our Post-Modern elites bungle so badly.]
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