Book review: (In)Sights: Peacemaking in the Oslo Process Thirty Years and Counting

A recent opinion column following Hamas’s attack of Oct. 7 had a reference to this book, “(IN)SIGHTS, Peacemaking in the Oslo Process Thirty Years and Counting.” The book is written by Gidi Grinstein and Prof. Ari Afilalo, neither of whom I had ever heard of before. But the Oslo Process was and maybe still is the best mechanism for a peaceful solution of the Arab/Israeli conflict and a Two State solution. Gidi Grinstein was a member of the Israeli team at Oslo. He was not one of the top level diplomats but rather one rung below. At times as he said, he carried their bags. After Oslo he has continued to play a role in every diplomatic and/or informal effort at a solution. From W. Bush’s Roadmap to Israeli Prime Minister Olmert’s numerous meetings with Abbas to come up with an agreement. Book chapters go into detail on the major issues at Oslo; borders, settlements, security, Jerusalem, refugees, etc. Some of those insights are anecdotal such as prior to the meetings in Sharm El Sheik the Israel team is putting together position papers detailing bottom lines and what they are willing to trade away. The author makes the observation that he doesn’t think such an effort was under way on the Palestinian side. The Israeli team was made up of professionals with education, and experience in diplomacy. While the Palestinian team was until recently in exile in Tunisia. He adds that the Prime Minister at the time, Ehud Barak, was a super smart individual who would read in detail each of these papers and comment and makes changes to them. While Arafat was reported to rarely read anything. One report suggested Arafat never even read the text of the Oslo agreement that he signed. One note of special interest to me, as I think very little of George W. Bush, was that the author thinks the framework of Bush’s Roadmap was better than the Oslo framework. In the Oslo framework a Palestinian state would only be declared after a final settlement. Nothing is agreed – until everything is agreed. In the Roadmap, a Palestinian state would have been declared within provisional borders that are later finalized. In the Roadmap, the different issues can be agreed on individually, before final agreement. Alas, as the author notes this wasn’t acceptable to Arafat either. The author speculates that ultimately why Oslo failed and why the Roadmap failed, was Arafat was never willing to accept less that his maximalist positions. After the War of Independence Israel held 78% of the British Mandate, with Jordan holding just 22%, together with Gaza held by Egypt. Arafat was never willing to accept less than that 22%. He was not willing to accept less than all of Jerusalem. He was never willing to accept less than the full Right of Return for all refugees, all five and a half million and counting with their descendants. Some of these refugees are second generation US citizens. Nope, they have right of return. That no country would be willing to give up its sovereignty to that extent didn’t matter. It was a principle. Oslo ended with the Second Intifada. Many think Arafat wanted to get through violence what he couldn’t achieve through negotiations. And for many that war served to convince that the Palestinians are never going to accept Israel. The author spends several pages on the beginning of the violence of the Second Intifada starting with Ariel Sharon’s walk on the Temple Mount. As the author notes, this walk was planned and approved by no less than Arafat himself. Unfortunately, unseen events and circumstances led to violence. Which led to more violence in a spiral that could not be easily stopped. Whether Arafat wanted to stop it or not is debatable. That it continued for nearly four years could only have been with at least some approval by Arafat. This book was published in February 2023. Reading it in November 2023 we know something the author doesn’t. I’ll quote at length from the book: “Meanwhile Hamas has been promulgating an alternative model for Palestinian national security by defying and rejecting Israel. Around Gaza a new equilibrium has emerged that is in essence an informal Hudna. Israel now acknowledges the reality of a Hamas government and no longer seeks to topple it, allowing it to be funded in cash by Qatar and facilitating movement of goods, labor, and business people across the border. As of the spring of 2023, thousands of Gazans cross to Israel daily. In return, Hamas helps to keep the border quiet, while Israel has built defenses above and below ground. Hamas seems to be inching towards a similar path of coexistence with Israel, like the one that Fatah took in the 1980s: de facto recognition of Israel's existence without abandoning the commitment to the struggle with Israel into the PLO Phase Plan. “As I've discussed earlier, Gaza and the West Bank remained fundamentally different in one crucial sense. Around Gaza Israel is deployed along the 1967 Lines, defines Gaza as “foreign territory,” and has no claim to any of it. This means that an independent Palestinian polity has emerged in Gaza - namely in a portion of “historic Palestine” with tacit Israeli recognition. That, of course, is a very significant move towards a reality of a two-states-for-two-people.” We now know that this was all a ruse, two years in the making, to lull Israel into a false sense that some “alternative model” has emerged. A Hamas with a Hudna that accepts Israel’s existence. When I lived in Israel the Labor Party was the major political Party. The Second Intifada so discredited their attempt at peacemaking that the Labor Party has all but ceased to exist. Now Gaza has erupted. When the shooting stops many have expressed the opinion that a peace process needs to be restarted with the express purpose of achieving that two-state solution. It is going to be a long time before Israelis will trust their security to a Palestinian State. I’ve read many books on Oslo and I rank this one as the second best. The best is still Padraig O’Malley’s, “The Two-State Delusion.” Actually, these two books complement each other well, or whatever is the opposite of complement. “Insights,” is as optimistic as a book can be. (No sure how the author feels today.) While “Two-State Delusion” is completely pessimistic as the word delusion in the title implies.

Inside the Middle East; Entering a new era.

Finished the book, “Inside the Middle East”. While the book is about more than just Iran, it was the author’s main focus. The author really sees Iran, as an expansionist threat. He discusses at length the Iran corridor; Iran to Iraq to Syria to Lebanon, which allows Iran to threaten the Eastern Mediterranean. Also, the Shite crescent: Iran to Yemen, which allows Iran to threaten both the Strait of Hormuz and the Bad el Mandeb strait and the Gulf of Aden. I think there are a couple of things we can know. One is that sanctions aren’t going to ever so cripple the Iranian regime that they come begging for relief. The second, sanctions aren’t going to cause the Iranian people to rise up and overthrow the regime. Least not any more than would want too otherwise. One of the favorite arguments of neo-cons is to make an analogy to the rise of fascism, particularly Nazi Germany. That we could have stopped Hitler early on. But not every two-bit dictator we don’t like is an Adolf Hitler and not every country that opposes us is another Nazi Germany. Germany was a major world power. An economic and manufacturing power. World War One showed their strength. While the author doesn’t make the analogy, a sufficient number of neo-cons do. And to a certain extent Iran’s expansionist policies are reason for caution. But the Iranian corridor didn’t come about because Iranian troops invaded Iraq and toppled the government of Saddam Hussein. The US did that, and in their monumental incompetence of the neo-cons it didn’t occur to them that Iran might fill the vacuum. Ditto Iranian influence and expansion into Syria. This didn’t happen because Iranian troops marched like a Nazi Germany over running western European countries. Syria’s civil war created Iran’s opportunity, together with the rise of ISIS. Lebanon came unglued with their civil war starting in the early 70’s. Iranian troops weren’t involved. In Yemen, Iran has shown itself incapable of driving a victory. Iran is not Nazi Germany. Even before the Iranian revolution, at the height of its economic power the Shah couldn’t create even the semblance of a modern state. Towards the end of the book the author makes a comment: “at a minimum, the West must require Hezbollah to eliminate its missile stockpile.” How exactly, would the West do that? Israel tried with disastrous results in 2006. All that happened was it became obvious that Israel couldn’t eliminate Hezbollah’s missile stockpile. Wars just don’t work out the way the neo-cons sell them. But I am extremely conflicted in my opinions on this. I went back and reread some of the articles that came out shortly after the Iran Nuclear deal was concluded to remind myself of the thinking at the time. One article, in the New Yorker by Steve Coll reported Obama didn’t like the deal, but saw the only alternative as war. And indeed, there was a time, if memory serves 2012, when it did look like an attack and possibly war with Iran was eminent. When Trump exited the nuclear deal, I’m sure he was under the influence of Bolton and Pompeo who told him that a childishly sounding sanctions regime of “maximum pressure” would cause Iran to crumble. Iran didn’t crumble and, in the ensuing, escalating military attacks I think Trump saw his advisors were leading him into a Middle Eastern war. Which was something he always consistently said were disasters. Trump, in what was probably the only good thing he did, deescalated the military actions. Absent a new nuclear deal which will provide Iran sanctions relief and probably prevent the regime from failing, what do we think the future would hold? Speaking for myself, another failed or failing state in the Middle East is not necessarily preferable to an underdeveloped state that hates the US. Iran keeps saying it doesn’t want nuclear weapons, but keeps moving closer, I assume in hopes of a deal that will end the sanctions. But Iran can’t continue to get closer to a nuclear weapon, before they actually have a nuclear weapon. I can be wrong, maybe war with an expansionist Iran is inevitable. Perhaps sooner or later the war has to take place to stop Iranian expansion. But let’s this time be honest. What is it realistically going to take to achieve what goals? Obviously, so many US soldiers were killed in the cakewalk that was supposed to be Iraq, that we aren’t about to repeat that mistake and put boots on the ground in Iran. No, this war, will only involve raining death and destruction on Iran from the sky. How many Iranians will have to die? One hundred thousand? Half a million might be a conservative estimate. And what will that achieve? I think we can all know we aren’t going to get a democratic Iran that will be a beacon of peace in the Middle East. What if we require “unconditional surrender”, as in WWII, which is the righteous war hawks always want to emulate? Unfortunately, again without an occupying force we can’t control anything. Like I said, I’m very conflicted, except for this, war is very unlikely to offer a good solution. Or even perhaps the least bad. Just a final note. Not all of the book focuses on an expansionist Iran. A good deal of it also focuses on an expansionist Turkey.

The failure of Oslo

I am one of those people who held out great hope that Oslo would bring peace to the Middle East. Its failure is difficult to accept. Not just by me, but by many others which is why several attempts have been made to restart or duplicate the process. Following the last round of fighting in Gaza President Biden committed to helping rebuild. I have to admit I was cautiously optimistic. It was however doomed to failure as Biden stated that the US would be working with Fatah, the recognized government on the West Bank, not Gaza. Fatah then murdered a dissident fueling several days of violent demonstrations throughout the West Bank, further plummeting the popularity of Fatah. However, in that initial stage of cautious optimism I decided to read a bit more on Oslo and try to get a better understanding of why it failed. And more importantly, is there a way to fix the failures and arrive at some peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians. To that end I set about reading some of the lesser known books on Oslo written by those who were there but did not occupy the highest diplomatic levels such as Dennis Ross. There have been many critics of Dennis Ross’ book, “The Missing Peace.” With the main criticism being it is way too US and Israel friendly, dismissing Palestinian offers and concerns above Israel’s. While that criticism could to a certain extent be considered valid when reading the book, one should remember that Dennis Ross did represent US interests. Even if the US is playing the role of balanced or impartial broker, the US has interests in the process, and the region, and cannot be a truly uncommitted bystander. The other point in favor of The Missing Peace, is there is nothing missing from the book. Regardless of what other books one reads, the facts, i.e., the events and meetings are the same. The interpretation of how much weight those events should have is opinion and should be understood by the reader. Nowhere does Ross say something happened that didn’t happen. Or fail to report something that did happen. Actually, that’s not true, but it’s something on the other side. A demand by Arafat that Dennis Ross fails to mention that as I will point out later would have caused Oslo to fail even if all other parts had succeeded. For what it’s worth, here is my interpretation of why Oslo failed. The two main reasons Oslo failed: a faulty premise of land for peace, a decision that all the issues, (settlements, Jerusalem, refugees, termination of the “armed struggle) had to be resolved together, the parts couldn’t be resolved separately. In the end however, Oslo failed as Arafat was not willing to make an agreement. Many people may think that he should not have accepted any agreement, and they may be right, but the Oslo agreement and process was predicated on finding an agreement. The faulty premise of Oslo’s was the concept of land for peace. After the six-day war Israel adopted a policy of land for peace. Israel would return the areas it occupied in return for peace. (Because Israel is a democracy and doesn’t speak with a single voice it’s not hard to find sentiments that the land should not be returned.) For the first several years Israel had no takers. Actually, rejection in the form of the Arab League’s three no’s: no peace, no negotiation, no recognition. And a subsequent war in 1973 served only to convince many in Israel that peace was not to be had. That changed in 1977 when Egypt’s Anwar Sadat went to Israel to extend a message of peace. And while it wasn’t easy, Israel and Egypt signed a peace treaty returning all of the Sinai for full peace and recognition including an exchange of Ambassadors. That treaty worked because of land for peace. Of the four issues at Oslo, the settlements are probably the most visible in the news. In this it is important to remember the history and scope of the settlement. Obviously, there were none prior to 1967, but after 1967 and up to Sadat’s peace overture, there were virtually no settlements. Settlements expanded only after 1977 with the election of Menahem Begin and the Likud. But even, in 1994 at the time of the signing of Oslo, there weren’t that many settlements. Removal of all the settlements would have been feasible in 1977, had Jordan stepped forward for the Palestinians, or if the Palestinians had someone other than the PLO to represent them. By 1994, removal of all the settlements was already not realistic. Some plan of a land swap, 3% to 5% might have worked. (The Olmert agreement in 2008, called for a 6.3% land swap.) Again, perhaps there shouldn’t be a land swap, that they should all be dismantled. That would however mean that the Palestinians have three non-negotiable demands. Palestinians refuse any limits on the right of return – even Palestinians born in say the US with US citizenship must have the right of return. And on Jerusalem, that demand of Arafat’s that I mentioned above, regarding Jerusalem. Arafat was holding to a position that Jerusalem belonged to all Muslims and must be negotiated will all the world’s Muslims, or at a minimum, the entire 22 nation Arab League. Like the right of return, this is an outrageous demand that really can’t realistically be met. Many people can disagree with me when I say Arafat didn’t want an agreement, but it’s hard to argue that with these two absolute demands, the right of return and Jerusalem, that Arafat was willing to come to an agreement. However, when I think Arafat was to a large extent the reason for Oslo’s failure, we really should also be fair. Clinton blamed Arafat, and I think he was wrong to do so. Arafat didn’t want to go to Camp David. He specifically told Clinton that he didn’t want to attend as Arafat feared he would get the blame for failure. Clinton more or less forced Arafat to attend, so then blaming him for its failure was not correct. The person who wanted Camp David was Israel’s Ehud Barak. Barak was facing an election that he knew he would almost certainly lose. Knowing he was probably going to lose the election allowed Barak to make concessions that he knew would be almost impossible, if not downright impossible to get Knesset approval. Afterwards, Barak claimed that when Arafat rejected those concessions, it gave Israel the high road. But those Israeli concessions were tied with Palestinian ones, which were unacceptable to Arafat. Had Arafat accepted them, he feared they would have been the floor for future negotiations. When I said I sought out alternate views of Oslo, I feel I really did make an honest attempt. But there is one glaring hole, missing from all I’ve read are Palestinians voices. Does that matter? When you deal with a democracy there are lots of competing voices. Leaders are pulled one way, then the other by political forces. When dealing with an authoritarian, such as Arafat, there really is only one voice. And while Arafat may have forces outside his control pushing a different way, such as Hamas, those factors play less a role than a leader who needs to worry about the next election. There are two more sources of Oslo’s failure. The first is to a certain extent tied to land for peace. After Yitzhak Rabin was elected Prime Minister but before Oslo, then Secretary of State James Baker met with Syria’s Assad who told him he would be willing to sign a peace treaty with Israel in exchange for Israel’s withdrawal from the Golan. Baker flew to Israel where Rabin indicated a readiness to withdraw for peace. For ten years until Assad’s death backroom negotiations between Israel and Syria would repeated displace Oslo. They remained backroom negotiations as Assad never agreed to meet face to face with Israelis leaving Israel to always doubt the extent to which Assad was actually willing to go. Assad for his part, wanted to always back away from full peace. A second problem was democracy. Arafat didn’t have to worry about elections, but both Israel and the US did. After Rabin’s assignation Shimon Peres became Prime Minister of Israel but he never enjoyed popular support. I never really understood why but Peres understood only too well that the next election was going to be very difficult. And of course, he lost. Benjamin Netanyahu was elected and Oslo came to a complete halt. Netanyahu was not interested. Netanyahu was in office from June 1996 to July 1999, and when he left office, a new election was starting in the US. While Clinton couldn’t be reelected, Al Gore and the continuity of the Democratic Party is severely challenged. Clinton who first knew Rabin and came to believe, as have most other observers, that Rabin was really willing to make peace and offer up a Palestinian state. Clinton wants it with every bone in his body, a willing Ehud Barak and a willing Arafat it might just work. But of course, it didn’t. And in the middle of the US election the Second Intifada starts, dooming the reelection of Ehud Barak. A final postscript regarding land for peace. Sadat get all of the Sinai back. In those negotiations between Syria and Israel, Arafat was only too aware that all the Golan was on the table to be returned. But all the West Bank was not on the table. Later Ehud Barak withdraws from all of Lebanon, even has the UN certify the return of 100%. Then Ariel Sharon withdraws from all of Gaze, even pulling up the settlements. But Arafat can’t get all of the West Bank. Whether or not Arafat understood, the West Bank is not the Sinai, the Golan, southern Lebanon, or even Gaza, the West Bank is too central, to integral to Israel’s security to ever give up. For people who recognize Israel’s security needs it is hard to envision any assurances of a termination of the “armed struggle” that Israel could rely on and withdraw from the West Bank. It’s just not possible. It would have been possible in 1977, and many of us waited with baited breath at the time for Jordan’s Hussein to step forward. But he didn’t, and now it’s probably too late. The best of the books on Oslo was probably the last one I read, “The Two State Delusion”, by Padraig O’Malley. However, if you read this book be prepared to be depressed, the author sees no hope for a solution and musters all the evidence to support that argument. Another good source is “Shattered Dreams: The failure of the peace process in the Middle East, 1995 to 2002”, by Charles Enderlin a French journalist who closely followed the negotiations. But for a first source, one should read Dennis Ross’ Missing Peace. Regardless of how one thinks of his evenhandedness or lack of, all correspondence and negotiations went through him. Added note: I’m currently reading a biography of Jimmy Carter by Kai Bird. The author states that when Carter interviewed Cyrus Vance for the position of Secretary of State, Carter told him he wanted “bold, comprehensive initiatives – not the incremental diplomacy practiced by Kissinger.” I can’t help but wonder if that isn’t exactly why Sadat chose such a bold initiative as traveling to Israel and speaking directly to the Israeli Knesset. And it was the engineer in Carter that decided to essentially lock Sadat and Begin up in Camp David until they ironed out the differences and come to an agreement. It worked that time. And this same tactic worked when used by Clinton with the parties in the Kosovo war at Dayton. It didn’t work with Israel and the Palestinians. A new book just out that will be waiting for me when I return from Germany is Martin Indyk’s, “Master of the Game: Henry Kissinger and the art of Middle East Diplomacy.” Generally lost to memory is that Kissinger fostered three separation agreements; two between Egypt and Israel and one with Syria. The one with Syria still stands. If a Palestinian state isn’t in the foreseeable future, perhaps a return to an “incrementalist” approach can at least help improve the lives of Palestinians.

Democracy Fix

Finished my book “Democracy Fix.” It was more than just a bit disappointing. It was long on describing the problem, and spent a disproportionate amount of time on the judicial branch, but very short on the fix part. This is what bothers me a lot about liberals, Democrats, or the left in general, there is no real effort being made to propose solutions to the problems in our democracy. Despite the preamble to the constitution starting with the words “We the people” our constitution was decidedly not designed to be a democracy of we the people. The constitution, was designed to be an oligarchy. Voting was intended to be limited to those who were perceived to be “stakeholders”, i.e. wealthy white males who owned property. From there the problem starts. Many people have a list of what they perceive to be the major problems. The top five on my list; vote suppression, the cap on the size of the House, gerrymandering, the Electoral College, the imbalance in the Senate which gives two Senate seats to each state regardless of population. What intersection exists between my list and the author’s I would have liked to see a plan for the “fix” part. No such real fixes were included. While the Electoral College was on the author’s list, be a worthless book if it wasn’t, there is no proposed wording for a constitutional amendment to replace it. Few, if any, country uses straight majority vote; they either have a runoff election or some other type of ranked choice voting. What are the recommendations by others more knowledgeable on this subject. Gerrymandering is another failure of our democracy. Until recently the left seemed to put all its hope that the Supreme Court would save the day. Now that we know they won’t, what would be a solution? Which would be better; independent commissions to draw district lines, or each state be a multi-party district? Or some other solution? I don’t fault the author for not discussing the cap on the size of the house, that is a problem on very few people’s list. The arguments for increasing the size are the population imbalance between districts. Another argument is seven states currently have just one representative, which could leave as much as 49% of that state’s population without representation in the House. The biggest failure is the lack of solutions to voter suppression, or increasing voter participation. When Obama was elected in 2008 and the memory of election 2000 was still fresh in everyone’s mind a fix would have been easy. Should it be federal law mandating the ratio of voting centers and voters? Should federal law mandate how long polls should be open? Early voting? Unfortunately, the left sees the problems, but just doesn’t have mechanisms for recommending solutions.

Twilight of Democracy

One of the most valuable lessons I ever learned was back in the early 70’s. I wanted to understand why Russia was so undemocratic despite their constitution having a democratic framework. The answer it turns out was simple; everyone just agreed to corrupt the system. As it was explained to me, if someone brought in a petition to get on a ballot and wasn’t a member of the Communist Party, they would just toss the petition in the garbage. And so, it is that I learned the fragile nature of democracy. It isn’t the constitution, the institutions, or the laws, that maintains a democracy, it requires a constant vigilance by we the people to keep it a democracy. This was around the same time as Watergate and I have always faulted Ford for pardoning Nixon so we couldn’t learn how he had attempted to corrupt democracy through his personal use of the FBI and his attempts to subvert the IRS to spy on his political enemies. And because this never came to light it was easy for people to accept that Obama had tried to subvert the IRS regarding Tea Party groups. They also didn’t understand why it was so unacceptable for W. Bush to fire 8 AGs for what appeared to be political reason. These aren’t things that are supposed to happen in a democracy. Twilight of Democracy, by Anne Applebaum is an extension of a shorter magazine article on the subject. Perhaps because there just wasn’t enough new material to fill a book, even one of just 189 pages, I found the book very disappointing. The author spends a chapter each on Poland’s and Hungary’s slide away from democracy. But neither Poland or Hungary had a long history democracy. Perhaps it just wasn’t that hard for them to lose it. The US however has a long history of democracy. And even if we haven’t actually lived up to those ideals, the vast majority of people pay lip service to them. So, how is the US doing? It is unfortunately, this chapter on the US that is most disappointing. She offers up nothing that one doesn’t get from a cursory reading of the news. Trump is a disaster. She throws in a few recent examples. But she does not begin to mine the wealth of examples out there. Perhaps, and I don’t feel good about pointing this out, but perhaps it is because Anne Applebaum does not want to see them. Anne Applebaum admits to being a Republican but left the Party in 2008 following the nomination of the proto-Trump Sarah Palin. She doesn’t say what she saw in the Party in the W. Bush years. Certainly, it was those years that more than any other saw the Republican Party slip towards authoritarianism. The lies leading to the invasion of Iraq. The outing of a political opponent’s wife as a spy. The AG scandal, torture, the “with up or against us” slogan, the Patriot Act. And while I can’t fault Chief Justice Robert’s credentials, he certainly is no crony. We can find a lot to fault in the failed nomination of Harriet Miers, and the successful nomination of Alito. If my mind was a bit more agile how many more examples could I come up with off the top of my head. There are to be sure, there are several books on the subject. As a matter of fact, John Dean, of Watergate fame, wrote a book Conservatives without Conscience, detailing some the authoritarian tendencies of the Republican Party. Somehow, Anne Applebaum doesn’t see these things. Authoritarianism and anti-democratic tendencies didn’t start with Trump. Final note: I couldn’t remember the name of John Dean’s book so I went to Amazon and lo and behold on August 25th John Dean together with Robert Altemeyer (a psychologist who spent his life studying authoritarians) have a new book coming out: “Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and his followers”. Now that is a book I will really be looking forward to.

Democracy in Chains

Recently I made a statement saying I wasn’t sure what the ultimate goals were of the Republican Party, or how many Republicans even supported which ideas. A Facebook friend suggested the book, Democracy in Chains. The book is an investigative look at the far right Libertarian Party. Largely supported by Charles Koch, the movement can actually trace its roots back to the 50’s. Specifically, the Brown vs. Board of Education ruling that segregation was unconstitutional. It would be easy to just call them “racists” and be done. But that would be missing the story this book tells. The ruling was important not because it would fuel a racist backlash against public education, but because this movement saw that it could co-opt that racist backlash to further its goal of abolishing public education, segregated or not. The author shows how this movement slowly adopted talking points that without ever making reference to racism or integration, could convert people over to their side. Today, many of us are familiar with those talking points: school choice, vouchers, and the catch-all “freedom.” I don’t know how many non-conservatives recognize the stealth approach of vouchers to abolish public schools. Certainly, over the years I have had several conversations with liberals who wanted to see vouchers. I remember mentioning it once that this was just an attempt to abolish public education. This person rather contemptuously and openly told me I believed in conspiracy theories. Among the other goals of this movement: eliminate unions and any worker’s powers or protections, privatize Social Security and Medicare, privatize as much of the government as possible with the exceptions of the military, police and fire. But even there, they want to privatize those parts that can be privatized. And to anyone who follows the news, this privatization is well on its way. And of course, a flat tax to replace the current graduated tax. Their guiding philosophy is that governments being majority ruled will always take from those who have more. This taking, above what those with more would be willing to give voluntarily is the same as theft. Ronald Reagan, our 40th President, said it clearly, “government is the problem.” To what extent Ronald Reagan bought into this philosophy is hard to know. Quoting from the book, “The budget director, [David Stockman], it turned out had failed to make clear to the president and his political advisors - much less to the American people – that the colossal Kemp-Roth tax cut, as it came to be known, would necessitate tearing apart the social contract on a scale never attempted in a democracy.” An essential element of this Libertarian movement was secrecy regarding its goals, or even its existence. That has begun to change now as I think the Libertarian philosophy has become more widespread and popular among conservatives. Essential in this is never really saying just how extreme are their views, for example, elimination of all public education is never openly discussed. It’s still the buzz word of “choice.” Will the Libertarian philosophy succeed? It has some things going for it. First, by making it stealth, it can be different things to different people. Second, it’s well funded, and relentless, and compromise forbidden. It’s a movement, 70 years in the making; they are used to taking long view. And they have seen real success. They are aided and abetted by our mainstream news media, which has a hard time walking and chewing gum at the same time, and thanks to budget, cuts only has the resources to focus on the issue of the day. Indeed, the stealth funding of the Tea Party by Charles Koch, was not recognized in real time. Rather it was continually reported as a “grass roots” movement. Nothing was further from the truth. It isn’t just the anti-democratic nature of the conservatives in this movement, but the acceptance of these anti-democratic methods to suit their own goals. When I recently reviewed the book “Twilight of Democracy” I pointed out how the author, a Republican didn’t complain about the anti-democratic abuse of power by Republicans in either the Whitewater investigations or Benghazi. No, what the author complained about was the abuse of power by Republicans in their dismissive acquittal of Trump’s impeachment. While I sound like a broken record here, I don’t know that the US can survive. The only thing that prevents me from being more pessimistic, is an inability of seeing how it can end. There isn’t going to be fighting in the streets, so what other options are there for a nation to self-destruct?

The War of Return

With the recent news that a fourth nation in the Arab League has committed to “normalizing” ties with Israel, this book comes at an opportune time. The War of Return, details how the Palestinian refugees from Israel’s 1948 war of Independence have been used as pawns by the Arab countries as a political weapon against Israel. The book’s subtitle tells it all; “How western indulgence of the Palestinian dream has obstructed the path to peace.” The history is well known; as a result of Israel’s war of Independence, around 750,000 Palestinians fled their homes. This book isn’t about how that happened, other than the authors point out, they fled because of the war; if Arab countries hadn’t invaded Israel no Palestinians would have fled, and there wouldn’t be Palestinian refugees. But there was a war, and there was a refugee problem from that war. What ultimately created the insurmountable problem that the “right of return” is today, is the focus of this book. As the authors explain, in previous conflicts refugees were not resettled back into the countries they fled or were expelled from. World War Two and the immediate aftermath saw millions of refugees who fled or were expelled from one country to the next. The authors detail some of these: “no fewer than twelve million Germans fled or were expelled from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Ukraine, Romania, Yugoslavia, and the Baltic States”; “three hundred thousand Italians were forced out of Yugoslavia”; and “14 million Muslims fled India for Pakistan while Hindus and Sikhs made the opposite journey.” None of these today live in refugee camps. As another example, the authors point to 3.1 million North Korean refugees who fled for South Korea in the Korean war. A UN organization, UNKRA was set up to settle these refugees. So successful was this resettlement, that in 1958, UNKRA was disbanded as no longer needed. And of course, today, South Korea is an economic powerhouse, one of the Asian tigers. Wars have always produced refugees, what is different about the Palestinians was and is a desire to maintain them as refugees. The refugees from WWII were handled by the United Nations organization for refugees, UNHCR. But because the UNHCR goal was resettlement of refugees in the nations where they fled, the Arab nations, wanted a different organization for the Palestinian refugees. UNRWA was created for just for the Palestinians and maintains them as refugees. At the same time the UN passed resolution 194 which called for peaceful resolution of all disputes between Israel and the Arabs. Paragraph 11 in that resolution states, “the refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practical date.” This has been pointed to by Palestinians as the justification for the “right of return.” As the authors explain at length, there never was or is any right of return for refugees from any conflict. And a UN resolution does not have the ability to confer any such right. In 1965 UNRWA decided to extend eligibility to the children of persons who were themselves born after May 14, 1948. That is, the children and grandchildren of the original refugees. In 1982, the United Nations General Assembly passed a resolution further extending eligibility to all descendants of the original Palestinian refugees. The authors point out how unique this is. All other refugees ceased to be refugees when they gained citizenship in another nation. Not so the Palestinians. Over two million Palestinians refugees living in Jordan have Jordanian citizenship yet maintain their status as Palestinian refugees. Whatever governments we want to consider as existing in Gaza or the West Bank, Palestinians in these areas, have passports and the right to work in these areas. They cannot truly be considered refugees, yet some 2.2 million are considered refugees by UNRWA. Today the only truly stateless Palestinians are those living in Lebanon, which refuses to grant them a path to citizenship. Of the approximately 5.5 million Palestinian refugees how many meet the original operational definition of “persons whose normal place of residence was Palestine during the period 1 June 1946 to 15 May 1948 and who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 conflict” UNRWA refuses to say. Yet Palestinians refuse to relinquish the right of return. To most westerners the idea that 5.5 million, mainly descendants should have some right to return is difficult to fathom. This has led many westerners refuse to believe that this isn’t a core Palestinian demand. Rather they believe that it’s a bargaining chip, that the Palestinians would exchange for an independent state. The Oslo accords broke down when Arafat claimed he could not give up the right of return. It wasn’t the right of return that was the bargaining chip, it was the independent state that was given away to keep the right of return. With the news that the UAE is normalizing ties with Israel, it is very likely that a few more will follow suit. Bahrain and Qatar and possibly Morocco are on the short list. To make the right of return work the Arab Nations needed a united front. That front might now be crumbling. The end result might be an independent Palestinian state, without a right of return.

Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East Just read a great book, Black Wave, about the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran. Thinking about the book beforehand I thought I could understand the regional rivalry, but that was completely wrong. Before the discovery of oil in 1938, Saudi Arabia was a desert populated mainly by nomadic tribes. There could have been no rivalry with Iran, the ancient nation of Persia, with its rich history. The conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran is entirely a very recent occurrence. The author Kim Ghattas, who was born and raised in Lebanon tries to answer the question, “what happened to us?” She points out “the question may also surprise those in the West who assume that the extremism and the bloodletting of today were always the norm.” Back when I lived in Israel, 1975 to 1985, Israeli TV used to show an Arabic movie on Friday afternoon. These movies were usually made in Egypt (which as the author points out had the third largest movie industry in the world at that time). These movies were very similar to the teen movies of Anette Funicello and Bollywood today. But what would strike one today if they were to see one, is the secularism of Egyptian society. Women wore entirely western clothes, the sexes mixed freely, they went to discotheques. Other than they are set in Egypt, they could have been teen movies from the 50s and early 60s here in the states. There have been no shortage of books tracing Islamic fundamentalism and the rise of al-qaeda, ISIS, Hezbollah, or Hamas. What there haven’t been is a book on how Islamic fundamentalism took over the governments of the middle east with what the author calls “the dictatorship of religion.” Starting her history in 1974, she points to three seminal events that occurred in 1979; the Iranian revolution, the siege of the Holy Mosque in Mecca by Saudi zealots, and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Other events that shook the middle east in that same period: civil war in Lebanon; Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982; Sadat’s peace treaty with Israel, and Sadat’s assassination a few years later; Assad coming to power in Syria; Saddam Hussein coming to power in Iraq; the Iraq Iran war. And that’s just a partial list. Reading the book, one is reminded of these events, great and small. At the time of the Iranian revolution in 1979, the Islamic nations of the middle east praised the revolution. That praise did not last. In 1987, Pakistan’s President, Zia ul-Haq sent Sunni militants to attack Shia villages. In fighting that lasted two weeks “52 Shias and 120 Sunnis were killed”. The author points out “here then was the epicenter of modern-day sectarian bloodletting, the first of its kind on modern times. Sectarianism had been weaponized”. The author’s full story of “what happened to us” cannot be put into a short review such as this. And it’s one of the few books about the middle east where Israel isn’t the main actor on the stage about which all events are related. Anyone who wants to understand the modern middle east and how it arrived to its “what happened to us” moment, will find this book very informative. I read a lot of books on the middle east; this is one of the best I’ve read in a while.

I try to follow news and books concerning the Middle East. Unfortunately, these books are generally written by authors who are supporters of Israel. I don’t read many books by Palestinians or books that take a pro-Palestinian view. This isn’t so much a choice but rather a function of how I come to know about a book which is generally through best seller lists, such as the New York Times, or a bookstore like Barnes and Noble. Pro-Palestinians books are not well represented in either of these two sources. However, even within these sources I don’t make a point to read many pro-Palestinians sources. I have found most of them, and this applies whether it is a leaflet handed out at a rally or a book such as I’m linking to below, the Palestinians are to a major extent, bystanders, rather than actors with an interactive role. This book, is very much the same. I came upon this book trying to find something on the Madrid peace initiative. Firing up Amazon, this book came. Since I had read an earlier book by Rashid Khalidi, The Iron Cage, I picked it up. Since the sub title of this book indicates that it concerns the failings of the US in the peace process, it piqued my curiosity. If I had to distill the author’s complaint into a single idea, it would be that the US government does not support Palestinian rights as they do Israel’s. The author states “my primary objective is to reveal how closely entwined have been the respective policies of the United States and Israel toward the Palestinian people over recent decades. Logically, this should have disqualified America from playing the role of intermediary between the two antagonists ….” The author discusses three “moments” in the peace process to drive home his point. The first moment is Begin and Palestinian autonomy in 1982. The back story to this first moment followed Sadat’s unilateral peace initiative with Israel. In theory this peace was also supposed to bring about a Palestinian state after some interim period of limited autonomy or self-rule by Palestinians. When Reagan came into office, he coined a phrase “PLO fighters” to appeal to moderate Palestinians to join a peace process and the author speaks optimistically about The Reagan Plan. (I have to admit I don’t really remember any Reagan Plan.) However, no moderate Palestinians came forward. (A point the author fails to mention.) Hence, the Reagan Plan went nowhere. The second moment was the Madrid – Washington negotiations, 1991-1993. As the author admits these talks failed, albeit not his main complaint, when Bush lost the election to Clinton. At this same time Yitzhak Rabin replaced Begin as Prime Minister and started back channel talks with the PLO that resulted in the Oslo accord. At this point, it’s hard to understand the author’s complaint, this is without a doubt the high point of the peace talks and certainly since that point. The third moment is Barak Obama and Palestine, 2009 – 2012. Regarding Obama’s failed attempt at Middle East peace the author acknowledges that the effort was quite possibly doomed to failure when first, in 2009 Netanyahu, the ideological successor of Menachem Begin was elected Prime Minister, and then second, the Republican takeover of congress in 2010. Obama attempted to halt settlements but was completely defeated by Netanyahu and congressional Republicans. I read the book because I read about the Israeli - Arab conflict. Unfortunately, because the author, disappears any role of the Palestinians it is not a very balanced book. Israel does a lot of things wrong, certainly their settlement policy is very likely leading to disaster. The US does a lot of things wrong. They could be more balanced to the Palestinians but by their continued reliance on terror and armed conflict they just don’t give US lawmakers much to work with. The Palestinians also do a lot of things wrong, and this can’t just be ignored. As for the author’s general complaint that the US does not as actively support Palestinians as much as Israel the author notes several times this is partly due to demands that Palestinians renounce terrorism without making any such demand of Israel. There is no equivalence. Israel does not put bombs on buses carrying Palestinian children home from school. Israel does not put bombs in restaurants where holiday celebrations are taking place. Israelis don’t intentionally plant bombs at bus stops filled with Palestinians. If the author wants to make the argument that Palestinians are under occupation by Israel and these are legitimate measures of an armed struggle, then make that claim. But that argument is decidedly different than a claim of equivalence.

Yep, Pence and Trump a great combination. Seeing as Pence's political career is all but over anywhere outside Indiana, this would be his one shot. But I'm still waiting for next Monday; will the GOP dump Trump? I can't believe the once Grand Old Party want's Trump to forever be the symbol of the Republican Party. May we live in interesting times. Boy are they.

Review "The Great War of Our Time"

In his book “The great war of our time” the author Michael Morell, who rose to the rank of Deputy Director of the CIA describes his time at the CIA. It is an interesting book and well worth the read. Unfortunately, or perhaps not the author sets out to write a nonpartisan book. This meant that certain stories had to either be created or maintained. For example the beginning of the book describes the author’s role in delivering the DPB to the President, in this case George W. Bush in his first year in office. So despite numerous books that describe Bush as detached and unquestioning during these briefings, this author claims that Bush would rapid fire questions at him. Is this true? The author gives us no anecdotal stories of this questioning. The two or three anecdotes he does provide concern trivial matters not really connected to the briefings. We do learn however about the “now you’ve covered your ass” statement. The author claims Bush did make this statement however it was a joke. The statement was not following the August 6th briefing “Bin Laden determined to attack in the US” but rather an earlier briefing in which Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld asked if the intel chatter could be to goad the US inton an over reaction. I can easily believe the authors claim on the timing of the statement, what I find less believable is that it was a joke. Why would it be a joke? If Bush or the VP asked for this information how was it a joke when it was provided? No, it doesn’t add up. The answer by the way on the question came in the form of a followup briefing “UBL threats are real.” When the author describes the Bin Laden briefings the author again, to be nonpartisan has to include the disclaimer that no action could be taken because the intel was nonspecific. This just doesn’t cut it. First, why bother providing the information if there was nothing that could be done about it? Second, and this is very important, in the late 90s I had a job that required frequent air travel, there was no shortage of times the airports were on alert. And when intel told of a millium bombing all the ports were put on alert. At one of those ports bomb making supplies were intercepted. Threats generated alerts in the late 90s, nothing in the first nine months of Bush’s administration. The author also claims that the Bush administration had planned a series of meetings to discuss terrorist threats. This information is contradicted first by Richard Clark and second by the Bush administration’s own record. No such reviews took place. As we come to the intelligence concerning Iraq’s WMD again the author is forced to toe a party line. The intel was in good faith, the CIA just genuinely just got it wrong. As part of that evidence the author claims other countries also thought Saddam had hidden WMDs. That statement however is contradicted by the Downing Street memo; “the evidence is being fixed to fit the policy.” If British intelligence had thought Iraq had WMD the memo would have read “the evidence is being used to support the policy.” Same with the evidence Colin Powell presented at the UN, just honest mistakes. Sorry doesn’t add up. The rest of the book in interesting, the first part however for me anyway the most informative.

Cruz upset Trump with a close third place by Rubio. I personally don't understand Trump. I can't for a minute believe he actually wants to be President. Does he not know he would have to live in the White House and like work. Can he really think he can live in a Manhattan Penthouse and appear a couple of time a week in a Board Room like on the Apprentice and that's all it takes? No he's got to drop out, or lose out. Then it's Cruz or Rubio. Cruz is a disaster, Rubio is merely terrible. Super Tuesday is March 1st and at the latest by mid March we will probably know. Will it be a disaster or merely terrible?

Conservatives and "conservatives"

There are conservatives, in the mold of Edmund Burke, then there are “conservatives” or movement conservatives. There is nothing wrong in being a conservative; conservatives just don’t believe in rapid change, they would rather change be gradual and cautious. When Republicans took control of congress in 1994 and rolled out a paper listing over one thousand government departments that they wanted to eliminate there was nothing remotely timid or cautious to that change. What they wanted was nothing less than a complete overhaul of government. As was frequently stated “shrink government to a size that can be drowned in a bathtub.” In the argument between Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke, Paine argued for the rights of man which he saw as in conflict with a monarchy. Democracy and monarchy cannot coexist, he wanted to change the system to a democracy. Burke desired a gradual change. There is nothing gradual about the change desired by today’s “conservatives.” When Rick Perry states he wants to eliminate three government departments, even if he doesn’t remember exactly which ones, there is no discussion of whats wrong or what should be done differently, it’s all about the change. That’s why “conservatives” only disparage government as the problem never a solution, to discuss government in any other way would prompt the discussion of what needs changing and the best way to go about that change.

Guest column about Gaza

I published this column in our local paper today. Imagine a teenager growing up in Gaza. This teenager wants a better life not just in material things but in things that are less tangible; a government that represents the shared values, culture, and heritage of the Palestinians, one that can understand their aspirations. That teenager may look around at Gaza and think how poorly Hamas has served the Palestinians. This teenager then looks to the West Bank, no Hamas to fire rockets at Israel. No Hamas to periodically attack Israeli soldiers. No Hamas that attacks border crossings which Israel then closes for months on end only to finally open them for only a few hours a day. But you know what else that teenager doesn’t see when he looks at the West Bank? He doesn’t see a significantly better life for Palestinians. In the absence of terror attacks the Palestinians on the West Bank have very few benefits to show for what many of them might consider a sell out to Israel. And the sad part is, if we wanted a peace process, this latest round of fighting between Israel and Hamas comes at the exact time Hamas was as powerless as it’s probably been in years. They couldn’t pay their bills, they were forced to accept a unification government with Fatah that gave Fatah almost everything and Hamas next to nothing. Whatever Hamas has been doing since they took total control of Gaza in a mini civil war in 2006 they didn’t build schools, didn’t build hospitals, didn’t build any of the infrastructure for a functioning society. And the worst part of what that teenager might think, is that in reality, what Hamas is doing now might just have the largest impact on change, if not a peace process, at the very least an accommodation that does in fact improve the lives of the people in Gaza. As a result of any future cease fire Hamas may force Israel to loosen border restrictions, especially on building materials. And even if Hamas isn’t providing a better life for Gazans it’s at least letting them feel as if they are not rolling over for the Israelis. It’s hard to shake the thought that when Hamas kidnapped and killed the three Israeli teenagers they were anticipating exactly the Israeli overreaction they got. And with that overreaction the unification government is dead, Abbas and Fatah are marginalized. Future International negotiations may very well be with Hamas in Gaza not Fatah in Ramallah. It’s also hard to shake the thought that Israel’s Netanyahu’s overreaction was exactly what the Likud and Israeli settlers wanted; reinforce the idea that Israel is under siege and cannot possibly make concessions or any possible arrangement with the Palestinians. Here’s his evidence Israel doesn’t have a partner for peace. The elements in Israeli and Palestinian society that don’t want a two state solution are both getting exactly what they wanted from this latest round of fighting.

Conspiracy theory

I just finished reading an interesting book “The Widow’s Web” by Gene Lyons. It’s about a murder in Little Rock Arkansas in the early 80s. A wife murders her husband but since the murder weapon isn’t found the Grand Jury reaches a decision not to indict. The woman then finds an individual who she convinces to murder the wife of her defense attorney presumably so she can then marry him. The alibi she sets up for both murders is that her husband was involved with a criminal mafia and that this mafia has connections at all levels of politics. This in itself wouldn’t be taken seriously except that the county sheriff, who had aspirations to higher office, does decide to take her seriously and gave almost daily press conferences in support of the wife’s claims even though not a shred of evidence existed to support them. There were at that time two newspapers in Little Rock competing for readers and both papers competed with each other to cover and lend credence to the sheriff’s claim. As the author makes clear large numbers of people in Little Rock and the state of Arkansas were perfectly willing to believe that there was in fact a massive criminal conspiracy involving lawyers, judges, prosecutors, even two State Supreme Court justices.
Reading the book a sane person can’t help but wonder how could people believe this (my short paragraph above doesn’t do the conspiracy justice) and then I remember, this takes place in the early 80s. This is the same time frame as the Satanic Cult child molestation trials which are described so well in the book “The Devil’s Disciple”.
Which brings me to my question: Why are we so willing to believe conspiracies? Is it an American cultural thing or is it human nature? Or is it human nature and here in the states we just fuel it more than others? Or is it just as prevalent in other countries and we just don’t read about it? From ten years in Israel I don’t remember there being conspiracies but when you are surrounded by enemies whose stated goal is to wipe you off the map maybe you don’t need conspiracies. Certainly the “Protocols of the Elders of Zion” is evidence that other countries do have conspiracies and the fact that surveys show that large proportions of the Arab population believes that 9/11 was perpetrated by the Mossad leads credence to conspiracy theory being human nature.
I’m leaning more to human nature but two factors I believe make it more pervasive here in the US. The first factor is the Republican Party has nothing to really offer voters. Yes, there are some who think that free market forces are better than government regulation but I think a large proportion of the people who vote Republican are voting against the Democratic party not necessarily for the Republican party. At least since WWII (I don’t know enough about before) the Republican Party has pushed some form of conspiracy agenda. Senator Joseph McCarthy wanted people to believe that our government, especially the State Department was infiltrated by communists from top to bottom. The John birch society was pretty much founded on the same idea with President Eisenhower no less a communist agent. Today millions believe that Obama wasn’t born in the US and therefore is illegally President and is promoting some never quite fully explained socialist agenda on the US. I remember in West Chicago helping a friend Len move some furniture from Bill’s house (he was a nut case for those who don’t know) house when Bill started to spew utter nonsense about the Clinton’s having 750 million dollars in a Swiss bank account from cocaine smuggling. This was straight out of the “Clinton Chronicles” which was some of the most wildly unbelievable conspiracy stuff at the time. We didn’t read much about it in Chicago, it was mainly popular in the south, particularly Arkansas. Prior to this I was never sure if anyone did actually believe it but obviously there were believers. (To his credit, Len Mahoney who had a serious case of Clinton Derangement Syndrome thought this was over the top). But it obviously wasn’t for others. Ken Starr had two investigations to determine if Vincent Foster’s death was a suicide or murder. I could go on but I think the point has been made the Republican Party pushes conspiracy.
The second factor for why conspiracy theory is so prevalent here is we have nothing to rebut conspiracy claims. As Israel has long claimed a balanced media only benefits the liars. The most bogus idiotic claims such as “death panels” cannot be called bogus and idiotic. Conservatives in Texas have recently tried to introduce into the school textbooks a statement to the effect that McCarthy has been largely vindicated by history when the opposite is true. I don’t think it is generally known that the Satanic Cult trials of the 80’s have all been discredited. And I think with each conspiracy theory it becomes easier to believe the next one. When the inspectors couldn’t find the evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq it wasn’t evidence that there were any instead it was evidence Saddam had hid them so well. How many people today know that there just plain weren’t any WMDs? That Saddam had destroyed them in the mid 90s.
I have always thought that if someone had told me and others back in the Nixon administration that Richard Nixon had claimed to have invented something he obviously didn’t I’m convinced that we would have laughed in their face. That literally tens of millions believed that Gore claimed to have invented the internet is just evidence for me that once people start to believe nonsense it’s easier to believe more nonsensical.
There was no greater point to this post, just a rambling thought. And again the book was interesting.

David Brooks wants his party back.

Today I made the decision to actively work for the Democratic Party. David Brooks column today convinced me.

For the past 20 years while the Republican party was taken over by an extreme right wing David Brooks watched and at best sat silent, at worse he echoed their talking points. During the Bush years he never objected to even the most extreme policies. He voiced only the most muted concern about the nomination of the absolutely most unqualified person possible to be VP, Sarah Palin. And now that the crazies in the form of Sarah Palin and the Tea Party have completely taken over the Republican party, What does David Brooks want? He wants Obama in his second term to govern from the center right.

No David Brooks, you need to work to get your own party back. I like mine just where it is. Actually I would perfer it a little farther to the left.

BTW good luck getting your party back.

Partner for peace

Unfortunately Israel does not think it has a partner for peace. The spectacle that followed the election of Hamas where over 100 people were murdered, some reports stated that people were broken out of jail only to be thrown off rooftops, is one of the prime pieces of evidence.