I wrote:
> >Brad's assertions seem the result of fallacious either/or
> >(black/white) thinking. Either one accepts the Oslo "Peace" plan to
> >set up Bantustans or one is an enemy of peace in general. Said's
> >basic criticism of Oslo was that it wouldn't _really_ create peace.
Brad writes:
> And the road we are on now--the highly predictable road that follows
> from the smash-up of Oslo--will?
>
> Will the means, and you will the end. Edward Said willed the end of
> Oslo--which end he (naively?) saw as a means to a "better" peace--and
> so he willed our highly predictable current situation: we may have
> lost our last chance to get off the road that leads to the expulsion
> of the Palestinians and the nuclear destruction of Tel Aviv.
this is nonsense. One's will is pretty irrelevant if one doesn't have the power. Brad should be criticizing those _with_ power, whose wills have an effect in the historical process. Rather than trashing a dead man who can't defend himself, Brad should be attacking Bush for supporting Sharon wholeheartedly, trashing the Israelis whose colonialist expansionism (exploited by and encouraged by Sharon) created the current situation, trashing Arafat for caving rather than seeking a real peace. These are people with power.
I don't think anyone can say that _any_ event in history is "highly predictable" (so that events occur "with iron necessity toward inevitable results"). Does Brad have a model of history that predicts as well as, say, supply & demand? Please, Brad, show it to the world! Or is it simply a matter of "highly predictable" predictions made after the fact? those are easy!
If I were to be as arrogant as Brad seems to be here, however, I could say that it was "highly predictable" that Oslo would fail _even if Said had supported it_ since a program of setting up Bantustans with little or no Israeli concessions would fail. There's a _structural antagonism_ between Israel colonial domination and expansionism vs. the Palestination status of being dominated and ripped off that would NOT have been solved by Oslo, even if Said had supported it.
Now, if a public intellectual's words are as powerful as Brad seems to think they are, then _Brad_ should take responsibility for supporting the Oslo plan, which was destined to collapse. He thus should take responsibility for the current Hell in the Middle East.
Jim D.