At odds

Thursday, 29th January 2009

David T., of Harry's Place, sends an e-mail criticizing my posts on Israel, Hamas and Walt-Mearsheimer. It ends:

You were palpably relieved to hear from Sir Jeremy Greenstock that Hamas had "no "charter" for the destruction of Israel in its political programme". I can see why the Mearsheimer and Walt thesis would also be an extremely comforting one. Both of them suggest that things are not, in fact, as bad as they might once have appeared to you. Naturally, therefore, you will now be thinking about turning the spotlight on the motives of those who have been urging you down what you must now be thinking of, as a primrose path of error.

I don't think that you're going to be moveable from these positions, so I won't try.

I'm puzzled. Why wouldn't I be willing to be persuaded by his arguments? When I went back to look at my original item on the Greenstock remarks, I found I said the diplomat had made a "forceful impression". I ended a follow-up item by asking if Sir Jeremy was correct about the charter. I honestly didn't know the answer. David posted a response which I reprinted. As for Walt-Mearsheimer, the reason I've shown some interest in their thesis - apart from events in Gaza and the fact that Stephen Walt's new Foreign Policy magazine blog, is an extremely thoughtful read - is that it makes me question certain assumptions I'd held about American foreign policy. (Similarly, I've always dipped into another realist blog, Greg Djerejian's Belgravia Dispatch.)

Having been proved wrong on Iraq and George W. Bush's foreign policy, I now have a habit of listening to more points of view than I once did. That's been the case for quite a while now. David clearly sees this as some sort of opportunistic ploy.