Politicians: their mind & their morality

The case of Israeli’s politicians and their ‘mind foundation’.

What we ought to do depends largely on what we ought to believe, and in all matters other than the basic needs of our nature our opinions govern our actions.
(Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1979:49)

By Ylli Përmeti

One of the questions that comes in our mind is: what politicians think about their actions? Furthermore, why they are so indifferent for the atrocities in the Middle East and elsewhere? What they think about their power that we give to them? Do they preserve their rationality when they are in power? With what and how they implement their policies? And finally, do we need them?

The questions above, reflects the social tensions which are manifested in the recent political crisis. Tensions that spreads either in domestic issues or in international issues. Citizens across the planet feel unsecured and without future. How then, can one explain the above diachronic questions? Being on this contextualization, I’ll borrow the fundamental questions by Bent Flyvbjerg who reasonably insist to explain the social sciences by using phronesis: (1) Where are we going with this politicians? (2) Who gain and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power? (3) Is this kind of development desirable? (4) What, if anything, should we do about it?

I'll try to witness some of the major investigations from the most prominient writers in foreign issues regarding the recent development in the Middle East.

[1]Jane Hunter wrote two decades ago on her book about Israeli’s Foreign Policy and detected the problems at the time: [F]or varying reasons, Israel was largely shut out of the Eastern Bloc, the Arab world and NATO countries. That left its potential clientele to be found on the peripheries: pariahs such as South Africa and Guatemala, the strong-man regimes of Taiwan, Zaire, and Chile, and the occasional government wary of strings-attached arms purchases from the superpowers (emphasis added).

The next paragraph reflects their dichotomy in their policies:

[A]s time went on an additional problem arose: arms sales became the motor driving of Israel's Foreign Policy. In times of economic crisis it became the supreme exigency. In September 1986, the Israeli defence minister explained to a press conference what was behind a raft of scandals involving Israeli arms exports and technology thefts (these last, most frequently from the U.S., have been an inevitable hallmark of a small country attempting to sustain a full-scale armaments industry). "...We cut our orders in our military industries..." he said, "and I told them quite frankly: 'Either you'll fire people or find export markets (emphasis added)."

As it is clear from the above paragraph the same ideology exist nowadays by the U.S. policies: [2]the Bush administration requested on February 2006, and Congress later approved, roughly $463 billion in funding for the Defence Department. That would be enough to spend in any high school in America to a four year college and to explore our knowledge in geoenerery/green energy. On the other hand, both these countries have created enemies just to keep the population in a continuously obscurantism. Exactly the same, is doing Berisha’s government in Albania: their enemy is corruption. Who, then, create the corruption in this country? Who else, government planning. Is the same mindness gubernatorial consultation in every government that underestimate the notion of polity its self. They will create enemies all the time for the reason that , they have to keep the population under control in a total repression.

Back to Israel: [3]Noam Chomsky in his book, Interventions --point out that the problem is not the Palestine but the will of U.S. since, United States impede the progression of the conflict. As it looks, the opportunity was lost at the time (1973) and Chomsky quotes:

…[U].N Security Council Resolution 242 (November 22, 1967) added a provision for a Palestinian state in occupied territories, which Israel would evacuate. But the U.S. has unilaterally blocked that resolution for the last thirty years (emphasis added). [4] Then, do Israel (with the supporting of Bush's administration) feel threat as they pretend in their commitment to the war? Thus, their plan goes beyond threats: Iran commitment to the war. They need Iran to 'bite the bait', and after that using their weapons. This view might look iconoclastic but is the most relevant view (!). Their mind is full in excretion. They’re doing just what they call free market: big corporation that serve the interest of big bosses. For them, the way of neolebaralism is the only way that have to be teached to the demoi. Then, the first question is already answered: with these policies we are going undoubtedly from bad to worse.

Furthermore, just to strengthen the above argument -- whilst the war continue in the Middle East there are efforts to ease the situation: [5]The U.N. Security Council has approved a resolution by a 14-0 vote, with the United States abstaining. The resolution "stresses the urgency of and calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected cease-fire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza."

And U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said: the U.S. "fully supports" the resolution but abstained "to see the outcomes of the Egyptian mediation" with Israel and Hamas, also aimed at achieving a cease-fire. This action is called in an international jargon derogating from the fundamental rights of human being and leads us to the conclusion of a zero sum game.

Wilst the European leaders support the immediate cease-fire the American policy DO NOT [...] Rousseau would put this moral fluxion as: Tous est dans un flux continuel sur la terre, i.e. everything is in constant flux on this earth (1969: 88).

In the next analysis I’ll emphasise my deliberation on the second question, i.e. Who gain and who loses, and by which mechanisms of power?

[1] Israeli Foreign Policy by Jane Hunter South End Press, 1987
[2] Here's What America Really Spends on Security by Christopher Hellman Published on Wednesday, November 14, 2007 by MinutemanMedia.org.
[3] The rules of disengagement in Israel-Palestine May 10, 2004 Interventions.
[4] Why Israel feels threatened By Benny Morris Published: December 30, 2008 New York Times. [5]Israeli government says Gaza offensive to continue Associated Press on o9 Juanuary.