Selections from Tony Judt, When the Facts Change (New York: Penguin Press, 2015).
"Why the Cold War Worked"
p. 81 "By bringing America into Europe to provide security against further change, the West Europeans assured themselves of the stability and protection required for the reconstruction of their half of the continent." --- "The Soviet Union meanwhile was left to get on with the dictatorial governance of the half of the continent, with the promise of noninterference in return for its abstention from further adventures.--"
"Freedom and Freedonia"
p. 104 "The truly brutal European wars of our century (20th) have been confined to Eastern and Southeastern Europe. Nothing in modern American, British, French, Italian, or even Spanish experience can match the traumatic dislocation , the murderous violence, and the sheer sustained sadism of the civil wars in and between Balkan states before 1914, between 1941 and 1948, or since 1991."
"The Road to Nowhere"
p. 111 "We are mesmerized by the raw rhetoric of this 'war on terror': any politician who can convincingly label his domestic or foreign critics as 'terrorists' is guaranteed at least the ear of the American government, and usually something more."
"Israel: The Alternatives"
p. 117 "In this way Israel could remain both Jewish and at least formally democratic: but at the cost of becoming the first modern democracy to conduct full-scale ethnic cleansing as a state project, something which would condemn Israel to the status of an outlaw state, an international pariah.: "Washington's unconditional support fro Israel even in spite of (silent) misgivings is the main reason why most of the rest of the world no longer credits our good faith," "With American support, Jerusalem has consistently and blatantly flouted UN resolutions requiring it to withdraw from land seized and occupied in war. Israel is the only Middle Eastern state known to possess genuine and lethal weapons of mass destruction."
"A Lobby, Not a Conspiracy"
p. 127 "We shall see the Iraq war and its catastrophic consequences as not the end of an era that began in the wake of the 1967 war, a period during which American alignment with Israel was shaped by two imperatives: cold-war strategic calculation and a newfound domestic sensitivity to the memory of the Holocaust and the debt owed to its victims and survivors."
"The 'Problem of Evil' in Postwar Europe"
p. 135 "President George W. Bush's 'axis of evil,' a self-serving abuse of the term which has contributed greatly to the cynicism it now elicits." "We are losing the capacity to distinguish between the worst sins and follies of mankind: stupidity, prejudice, opportunism, demagogy, and fanaticism -- and genuine evil." --- p. 136 "The question is what other evils we shall neglect -- or create -- by focusing exclusively upon a single enemy and using it to justify a hundred lesser crimes of our own." --- p. 137 "Today, when Israel is exposed to international criticism for its mistreatment of Palestinians and its occupation of territory conquered in 1967, its defenders prefer to emphasize the memory of the Holocaust."
"Fictions on the Ground"
p. 146 "President Obama faces a choice. He can play along with the Israelis, pretending to believe their promises of good intentions and the significance of the distinctions they offer him. Such a pretense would buy him time and favor with Congress. But the Israelis would be playing him a fool, and he would be seen as one in the Mideast and beyond." --- p. 149 "Israel's exclusive claims upon Jewish identity... reduces all non-Jewish citizens and residents to second-class status." --- p. 152 "Israel finds it difficult to conceive of other ways to respond, other than its habitual resort to force." --- p. 153 "Israel has missed many chances: a 40-year occupation; 3 catastrophic invasions of Lebanon; an invasion of and blockage of Gaza; and a botched attack in international waters."
"What Is to Be Done?"
p. 159 "Why would anyone suppose that the Israel of Mr. Netanyahu will find it in its heart the political will or prudential generosity to leave the Palestinians anything worth having in the far more contentious territories of 'Judea and Samaria?' " --- p. 167 "Thanks to the 'Jewish State's abusive treatment of the Palestinians, the Israel/Palestine imbroglio is the chief proximate cause of he resurgence of anti-semitism worldwide."
"Its Own Worst Enemy"
p. 184 "The United States is often a delinquent international citizen. It is reluctant to join international initiatives or agreements, whether on climate warming, biological warfare, criminal justice, or women's rights; the United States is one of the only two states (the other being Somalia) that have failed to ratify the 1989 Convention on Children's Rights. The present U.S. administration has unsigned the Rome Treaty establishing an International Criminal Court ad has declared itself no longer bound by the Vienna Convention on Law of Treaties, which sets up the obligations of states to abide by treaties they have yet to ratify. The American attitude toward the United Nations and agencies is cool, to say the least." --- p. 186 "Bush's account of America's global struggle against the forces of darkness didn't even mention America's allies." --- p. 190 "Fifty-five percent of the world's development aid and two-thirds of all grants-in-aid to the poor and vulnerable nations of the globe come from the European Union. Asa share of GNP, U.S. foreign aid is barely one-third the European average." --- 'Soft power is about influence, example, credibility and reputation." --- p. 192 "There are only 700 Americans currently serving overseas in UN peacekeeping missions (out of a total of 45,000 personnel." --- p. 195 "More than one in five Americans is poor, whereas the figures for continental Western Europe hover around 8 percent." :Fewer than one American in three supports significant redistribution of wealth -- 63 percent of Britons favor it and the figures are higher still on the European continent."
This treatment of of Tony Judt will be continued in a subsequent blog.
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