With Ms. Klein my general reaction is agree, agree, disagree, not sure, agree, disagree, agree, agree. (on each point, not a radically revising general sense -- she`s worth listening to, to be sure.) Equally, like her criticism of Obama as logo-ized, post-election, her brand is formidable too (evidenced by students carrying around her tomes.)
What I would want to say to her directly about her latest offering is this, that there is a positive side (or at least was, it may have not be any longer positively contributing to the debate) to the fence. It is this: prior to the fence a prevalent West Bank mentality was to wonder why Israelis shouldn`t live completely free. The argument was that if threatened, they would simply have the Army brutalize the Arab neighbours until things were to the settler`s liking. The fence represents a sea-change in this thinking. While prone to the critique of constituting gated-communities at least it was a realization basic defence trumps offence. |
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