From: Osher Doctorow [log in to unmask], Wed. April 10, 2002 5:33PM
Paul Hoffman is correct as usual.
The use of statistics by educational, governmental, and other agencies like
the World Bank obscures a little thing called RELEVANCE, which also relates
to ISSUES. The formation of committees to study non-issues is only
paralleled by the statistical analysis of non-issues. At the risk of
seeming extreme, it would not surprise me to see *Grass is green* being the
object of a statistical study complete with surveys, polls, hypothesis
tests, etc.
One of the things that behavioral and social scientists have learned (but
not always detailed-oriented historians or politicians) is that there really
are profiles of psychopaths or their sociocultural analogs. Psychopaths
and sociopaths blame others for everything. In Melanie Klein's
psychoanalysis, they are paranoid schizoid, while neurotics and psychotics
who blame themselves are depressive. Depressives have a possibility of
learning to feel remorse and responsibility and causal attribution to the
correct causes. Paranoid schizoids have too much *baggage* to be likely
candidates for remorse and responsibility - their world is a world of
blaming others period.
A second thing that we have learned is that women are the most abused
majority in history, and that Islam is and has been historically at the
extreme end of abuse of women whose position in Islam has tended to be lower
than cattle.
When we combine these two little lessons, the question becomes not how much
land to give away to the Palestinians in exchange for peace but whether the
Israeli self-defense against indiscriminate terrorism has anything in common
with the Western defense against indiscriminate terrorism. It certainly
does, and those U.N. Security Council members who voted to censure Israel
for self-defense but not the USA for self-defense reveal not only their
ignorance but their deep hypocrisy. For them, and I hasten to add for the
World Bank, statistics is a continuation of the art of lying and
selfishness.
As for the Palestinians whom the news media has shown *with tearful women
and children,* the issue as I see it is which psychologists and
psychiatrists they should consult in an effort to improve their paranoid
schizoid selves. After all, people do come before land, and true Holiness
is not materialistic but within the Spirit.
Osher Doctorow
----- Original Message -----
From: "Paul Hoffman" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, April 09, 2002 2:59 PM
Subject: Re: World Bank on Palestinian Authority
> My sympathies go out to Nigel Roberts, World Bank director for the West
Bank
> and Gaza. But he seems unaware that the Palestinian Authority is at war
> with Israel. Is is too young to have experienced real war, as it was
fought
> in the Battle of Brittain? too naive to realize that in a war, there is
> little else but suffering, death and destruction -- even destruction of
the
> "infastructure" that he helped to create in Gaza and the West Bank? If
the
> conditions of warfare are too much for Mr. Roberts or for the PA, let them
> simply stop it. As 55 years of "occupation" has taught us, the Israelis
> have no desire for war, they do not fight unless they are provoked, and
they
> will cease their "destruction" of infrastructure just as soon as they can
> see a willingness on the part of the palestinians to cease and desist from
> unprovoked murder of innocent people.
>
> The Israelis are on record for creation of a Palestinian State, so what's
> the beef? Whether it will be 90% or 94% or 96%? Let's give up the
> murderers and their sponsors, bring them to justice, then stop the
killings,
> permanently. Get the parties to the table, be prepared for some give and
> take, and recognize at the outset that there are some things that are
> non-negotiable for the Israelis, just as there are some things that are
> non-negotiable for the Palestinians. Once a spirit of good will replaces
> the shrieking of incompetent politicians, the infrastructure can be
rebuilt.
>
> I suppose things would have been much easier for Nigel Roberts and for the
> World Bank, had the PA been able to reach accommodation with Israel over
the
> shape of the borders of a new Palestine in the region. Or failing that,
if
> Hamas had been able to continue to brainwash larger waves of the best and
> brightest young palestinians, sending them to their deaths in Israeli
Cafes
> until, they hope, the second holocaust of the Israelites is accomplished.
> Or does Mr. Roberts have hopes that Hamas will once again be able to
resume
> those murderous bombings, once the Israelis are forced to abandon their
> effort to uproot the terrorism that's been unleashed in that part of the
> world? Will that event make Mr. Roberts' job more secure? Or does he
sense
> instead the need for World Bank financing (and his own job) might be in
> serious jeopardy?
>
> I have no fear of the latter. I rather think that his job may become even
> more secure and his associates even more lucratively compensated for their
> infrastructure building under a different Palestinian Authority; one that
is
> finally capable of intelligent action, worldly compassion and a spirit of
> compromise. To the shame of palestinians everywhere, we've not seen this
> yet. Instead, we experience the rather nauseating sight of one PA
> spokesperson after another attempting to rationalize a pathetic ineptitude
> for leadership by extolling a corrupt, untrustworthy Arrafat, dramatizing
> the pain and suffering of the underclass in the area and, of course,
blaming
> it all on the Jews.
>
>
> --- Original Message -----
> From: "Robin Rice" <[log in to unmask]>
> To: <[log in to unmask]>
> Sent: Friday, April 05, 2002 9:01 AM
> Subject: World Bank on Palestinian Authority
>
>
> > One day old news, but relevant to the raid on Palestinian Bureau of
> > Statistics and more general destruction of infrastructure of the
> > Palestinian Authority by Sharon's government.
> >
> > (Apologies for length. The URL itself was too long to send.)
> > - RR
> >
> > From the Financial Times
> > http://news.ft.com/home/uk/
> >
> > Palestinians stand to lose billions in aid
> > By Harvey Morris in Jerusalem
> > Published: April 4 2002 20:18
> >
> > A senior World Bank official accused the Israeli army on Thursday of
> > destroying the internationally funded infrastructure of the
> > Palestinian territories, undermining the last hopes for reconciliation
> > in the Middle East.
> >
> > Nigel Roberts, World Bank director for the West Bank and Gaza, said
> > the army had destroyed water and electricity facilities, homes,
> > schools and public buildings during its week-long invasion of
> > Palestinian towns.
> >
> > He warned that if Israel dismantled Yassir Arafat's Palestinian
> > Authority, the world donor community - due to provide $1.5bn this year
> > - would lose the main conduit of aid to the Palestinian people.
> >
> > "We are impressed by the performance of the Palestinian Authority in
> > delivering services under extremely difficult circumstances," he said.
> > "If they are incapacitated, eliminated or delegitimised, the donor
> > community will lose its channel to the Palestinians."
> >
> > He said the donor community's nine-year-old programme in the
> > territories was intended to build up the institutions of an emerging
> > state - "assets now being needlessly damaged or destroyed".
> >
> > International aid officials and diplomats protested on Thursday that
> > they were being barred from entering the West Bank by the Israeli
> > authorities, who have declared the invaded cities closed military
> > zones.
> >
> > "That is illegitimate and a violation of existing agreements," said
> > Terje Larsen, the United Nations Middle East special envoy. Demanding
> > unhindered access to the West Bank for food and medical convoys, Mr
> > Larsen urged the Israeli government to respect international law in
> > the midst of a growing humanitarian crisis in which the civilian
> > population was trapped under curfew.
> >
> > He was speaking hours after Israeli tanks invaded Nablus, the seventh
> > and largest town to be occupied in as many days. Heavy fighting was
> > reported.
> >
> > A stand-off continued in Bethlehem where Israeli forces were besieging
> > the Church of the Nativity, where some 200 Palestinians, some armed,
> > have been holed up for two days.
> >
> > A pharmacist, who said he was inside the church, told the Financial
> > Times by telephone that up to 240 Palestinians, including civilians
> > and policemen, were huddled on the floor after Israeli soldiers
> > blasted open a door.
> >
> > Israeli officials denied the church had been damaged and have assured
> > church leaders it would not be attacked.
> >
> > "They bombed the south door of the church and damaged the wall," said
> > the man, identifying himself as Aziz. "We're all lying on the floor.
> > There's no treatment for the wounded. Two were wounded when we came
> > here two days ago and another when they bombed the door."
> >
> >
> >
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> > Robin Rice
> > Data Librarian
> > Edinburgh University Data Library
> > Main Library Bldg., George Square
> > Edinburgh EH8 9LJ
> >
> > [log in to unmask]
> > 0131 651 1431
> > http://datalib.ed.ac.uk
> > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
> >
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