GlennRenn has a lengthy sausage on how employers are utilizing telecommucting capabilities to allow workers to stay employed in the U.S., essentially by having them retain big-city salaries while living in the Podunks and Peorias.
I think he's right in seeing this as a win-win from an economic standpoint, although it would be nice to see Bangalore, too.
A point not made, since it's not yet realistic, is that this sort of geographic diversification is also a helpful defense against some terror threats. Currently, something like nineteen gazillion folks jam themselves into Stuyvesantville every day, because that's where the action is. If by virtue of virtuality, this action becomes steadily less concentrated in one small island, then even if the evildoers get ahold of a dirty bomb, the potential negative impact on the economy is minimized.
Not a pleasant thought, but there, on the periphery regardless. Have a lovely day.
- Moishe Potemkin
We here in Potemkinville lack the sensitivity that is needed to refrain from commenting on disengagement during disengagement. We're also losing speaking rights with family members that consider our political views beneath contempt.
Very well.
A number of analysts with more sophisticated views than the hysteria ("Sharon's trying to destroy Israel so his son won't go to jail! He'd rather that they get butchered in the street when Hamas and France team up, just so long as they aren't prosecuted!") infecting numerous (clearly not all, likely not most) right-wing enclaves have suggested more reasonable rationales for disengagement.
One explanation (Jonah Goldberg, I think) is that Sharon is making what will almost certainly be the development of Taliban-led Afghanistan II into the world's problem, rather than Israel's. As the world's response will probably be less inhibited than Israel's, the subsequent response provides a better solution to what had been Israel's problem.
Another, less original (but not less valuable) thought is Charles Krauthammer's, who sees it essentially as a more efficient use of defense resources.
I have a couple of thoughts that appear to not have been beaten to death, and I post them here with the commensurate anticipation of such. First, I think that much of the Islamist aggression is directed more at killing people than obtaining territory, in which case the alleged moral victory in Israel's withdrawal is somewhat hollow. Second, and more importantly, I think the spontaneous support demonstrated by Iran's youth after September 11 prove nothing so much as the fact that even societies bred on virulent hatred for the "other" cannot sustain this hatred for very long. When it's available, real life tends to get in the way.
I don't wish to be unclear - enormous and horrific damage can be wrought in the meanwhile, as was evident both during World War II and, more recently, in Arab-fomented terror. However, the platform of terror contains the keys to its own undoing. Even if a terror-led state is established, its dissolution lies in the same tools used for its establishment. Second, human nature apparently cannot tolerate such abnormalities for very long. From a historical perspective, the current flavour of Islam in an historical aberration, and a reversion to the mean is, I think, almost inevitable.
Assume, as most realists do, that Hamas takes the reins in Gaza. Further assume that as they are largely in cahoots with Abbas, that they only play at peace in Gaza while encouraging terror in the West Bank. I think that this play at peace subsequently carries its own momentum, where (some? a few?) lads turn to selling pomegranates rather than modelling suicide belts, and so on.
In the short-term, of course, defensive needs are paramount, and I'm not as convinced as I wish to be that Israel's responses to future provocations will be adequate. Over the longer term, however, there exist extrenal catalysts (be they Irshad Manji, George Bush, or, for that matter, Nike, Britney Spears and similar depredations) that actually support and sustain normalization can and will be brought to bear, and I do not believe that even the most notorious tyranny can prevent that from happening.
As always, and particularly in this issue, I fully concede that I might be wrong. This hastily scrabbled-together essay outlines the essentials of my own support for the withdrawal.
- Moishe Potemkin