Mideast Sympathy Calculator

[Not enough people liked this one. I liked it. So for posterity...]

This is a quasi-mathatical exercise meant to determine which of the currently notable middle eastern actors in the drama about Israel is most deserving of my sympathy. This isn't necessarily a contest of who's right, though that matters, but a question of whether these people are worth caring about in more than abstract humanitarian terms. I've considered the most visible players in today's events (Lebanon, Israel, and Palestine), but neglected other significant ones, such as Egypt and especially Syria. Details are further constrained to post-1945 or so

I've got neither Jewish nor Arab heritage, so I don't consider myself to have a dog in this fight. Nor do I feel any other first-principles loyalty for any of the states or parties involved here. In calculating sympathy, I do cop to an America-centric stance.

I may have inadvertently forgotten some categories, but here we go anyway:



Mideast Sympathy Calculator

1. They really deserve a homeland. Then again, who doesn't?
Israel: 1
Lebanon: 1
Palestine: 1

2. Israel and Palestine lay claim to said homeland based on millennia-old scripts crabbed by drunken shepherds. Zionism is annoying, and is the most recent claim. The old Arafat-headed exile PLO was annoying too. Best I can tell, the Lebanese aren't quite so afflicted by this, their homeland being roughly unquestioned since the French colony broke up. (I think a lot of peoples' sympathy might go the other way on this one.)
Israel: 0
Lebanon: 1
Palestine: 0.5

3. They're all three potentially violent places, thanks to their own actions and the actions of their neighbors. Tough to be an average Joe anywhere over there. Who started it this time? Who made the last ill-advised incursion? Who shot whom last? I don't think it matters much when the mortars are raining down. As far as the magnitude of atrocity goes, the various imprisonments, military or terrorist bombings, homeland grabs, invasions, and bigotry look about similarly egregious from this distant angle.
Israel: 1
Lebanon: 1
Palestine: 1

4. They all, in their modern versions, were former colonial entities, artificially divided. Colonialism, like, sucks and stuff, dude.
Israel: 1
Lebanon: 1
Palestine: 1

5. I'm inclined to describe all three as having their politics unduly influenced by religion.* Israel, however, seems more liberal (small-l, with respect to human rights, personal freedoms &c.), with a relatively sane court to balance it's relatively insane expansionism. Lebanon, despite some nasty interim periods, has a history of democracy, and maintains a free press, liberal universities, etc. Palestine seems only to go through the motions, and is merely authoritarian to my eye, to the extent it's allowed to govern itself at all.
Israel: 1.5
Lebanon: 1
Palestine: 0.5

6. Lebanon is a cosmopolitan place, and has been, really, since the times of the Phoenicians. That diversity has resulted in political ups and downs, as different ethnicities have obviously not always been comfortable with one another, and at the end of the day, centering your government around these religious differences is just plain nuts.* Israel has problems with its Palestinian minority as well, relegating them to second-class citizens, but still they have to all work at the factory together. Don't see much of anyone but Palestinians in those areas Palestine manages to control.
Israel: 0.5
Lebanon: 1
Palestine: 0

7. Culturally, Lebanon is easily the most appealing of the bunch, with some nice French architecture, outdoor cafes, the best food, comfort with the sin of alcohol consumption, and the sort of diversity that comes from a millenia-old hodgepodge of influence. Israel seems vaguely annoying with its attempt to be monolithic and Jewish. Though it's through no fault of its citizens, the areas occupied by Palestine are in rough shape. What I'm saying is if these places weren't busy lobbing bombs at each and kidnapping people, I know where I would most want to visit.
Israel: 0.5
Lebanon: 1
Palestine: 0

8. Hizbolla operates freely in Lebanon, beneath the government's eye or maybe with a nod and a wink. The Palestinian authority has armed militias over which it evidently has no control whatsoever. Israel guides it's questionable international relations under official state policy.* I'm not inclined to say that this excuses very much, but at least its military actions are technically accountable to/by its citizenry. Again, the effectiveness of government thing.
Israel: 0.5
Lebanon: 0
Palestine: 0

9. Israel is propped up by the U.S. for local political gain. Lebanon has been significantly influenced by Syria for (I imagine) similar reasons, as well as (I assume) expansionist ends. Palestine has been cynically held up as a martyr by other Arab states.
Israel: 1
Lebanon: 1
Palestine: 1

10. The holocaust was horrible, however (cue pile-on here) its significance becomes less relevant with time to the situations of the day. Especially since it was committed by Germans and not Arabs. I can't really get too much traction with anti-semitism as a reason to grant Israel sympathy. Minorities get persecuted anywhere, just ask a Frenchman of Arab descent. But then again, anti-semitism is what forced the hand of a lot of Jews to pick up and become Israelis.
Israel: 1
Lebanon: 0
Palestine: 0

11. Expansion is a rotten policy, really. Greedy, punitive, and short-sighted.
Israel: -1
Lebanon: 0
Palestine: 0

12. Israel displayed some big brass ones in their war of independence and then in the six-day war. Sure they bought their guns from us, but what the fuck, it took some real gumption to repel a whole region that wanted to annihilate them. They continue to live with the hostility of an entire region that wants to annihilate them. That gets some real sympathy.
Israel: 1
Lebanon: 0
Palestine:0

13. No nuclear weapons here. Wink, wink.
Israel: -1
Lebanon: 0
Palestine: 0

14. Israel is our U.N. voting buddy (whoopty-doo). They like us for everything, most of the time, except when they accidentally blow up Americans. We need somebody over there that likes us, don't we? And we're stacking the deck againt anyone else liking us, right?.
Israel: 1
Lebanon: 0
Palestine: 0

15. The World Trade Center bombers were from, uh, Saudi Arabia. But Lebanon has made nasty moves to Americans on occasion.
Israel: 0
Lebanon: -1
Palestine: 0

16. Lebanon denuded its famous cedars. Fuckers.
Israel: 0
Lebanon:-1
Palestine:0



So tally that up and how are we doing? Who gets my most sympathy points?

Israel: 8 sympathy points
Lebanon: 6 sympathy points
Palestine: 5 sympathy points

I guess a plurality of my sympathy goes to Israel, but not by a whole hell of a lot. Certainly not by a large enough margin to justify the U.S.'s lavish affection for the place.

Keifus

* apply this lesson the U.S. as you will.

[note: a more poorly edited version of this first appeared here.