Let's imagine a story that will help us
clarify a number of important concepts.
It is a nice summer day and you just
parked your car on a street that's full of small shops and cafes. You turn around
and, surprise, you see a friend you haven't seen since your school days.
Together, you go to a nearby cafe, and he tells you what he's been doing since
your school days long ago.
He says he inherited some money and bought
a company that manufactures electric home appliances. He was getting by but not
for long because the competitors were modernizing and getting ahead of him. He
hired a team of engineers to work on a new product that should have propelled
him ahead of the competitors. The engineers came up with a product based on a
new concept for an appliance that outperformed anything produced before, yet
costing less than anything in use today.
He had the appliance tested, approved and
licensed by all the private laboratories and government agencies having
jurisdiction in this matter. But then, it happened that one of the appliances
caught fire, causing damage to a house but no injury to people. The licenses
were immediately revoked, and he was ordered to recall every unit that went out
to the public.
You are a lawyer that respects the rigors
of the law even if you're acutely aware that the law can be an ass at times.
You are also a student of philosophy that's deeply interested in the human
condition. You sense the resentment that your friend has developed for a system
that licensed him to make a product, then revoked the licenses for what appears
to be no good reason. So, you probe him to assess his thinking.
Having gathered a great deal of
information, you paint a mental picture of what your friend is about at this
moment. You happen to see a man that's carrying on with two simultaneous
narratives. They are going in opposite directions but not on the same track.
Thus, they are unlikely to collide, but they produce a great deal of tension
and anguish in him. Here is where he is at:
On the one hand, he is attacking the labs
and the agencies that revoked his licenses after the malfunction of an
appliance that's unlikely to happen again. On the other hand, he is attacking
the same labs and same agencies for being lax when granting licenses to
manufacturers that make unsafe products. So, you're puzzled as to how he views
himself. Does he believe he's a good guy that should not have lost his
licenses? Or does he believe he's a bad guy that was nabbed by a system that's
there to protect the public?
Well, dear reader, you must have guessed
this is an analogy for what comes next. You are correct. In fact, what comes
next is a discussion of an article that came under the title: “Why Hong Kong
has a right to self-determination,” and the subtitle: “Come to think of it, so
does Greenland.” It was written by Clifford D. May and published on August 27,
2019 in The Washington Times.
The friend in the story is Clifford May
representing Israel. The appliance that may or may not be defective represents
the system of governance anywhere in the world ... be it a liberal and
democratic system or one that is authoritarian and domineering.
Not knowing what Clifford May has written
before, and reading his latest article, you sense that it's a normal piece
unfolding along a track that's biased in favor of the democratic system of
governance. But if you know who Clifford May is, and you're familiar with what
he's been writing for decades, you'll find that this track goes in the opposite
direction of what he's been writing all along to justify Israel's reckless
behavior.
This is analogous to the friend that
attacked a licensing system he views as lax when granting licenses. But also
attacked the system for being so rigid, it nabbed him for a trivial reason. To
bring this anomaly into focus, I condensed, and slightly modified Clifford
May's current article to make it sound like those he should have written
throughout the years, but never did:
“The time when you buy countries is over.
Take Hong Kong (Palestine.) There was a quid pro quo: The Jews gave out
Benjamins, the Americans gave out Palestine and the Golan. This was called a
'principle' and given a name: The Tel-Aviv/New-York crime Syndicate. Hong
Kongers (Palestinians) responded taking to the streets to defend their way of
life. Why didn't Britain (USA) hold a plebiscite and give the people of Hong
Kong (Palestine) an opportunity to decide their future? China's (Israel's)
rulers, when admitted to the UN, undertook certain obligations: People have the
right to self-determination, their political status and the pursuit of
economic, social and cultural development. Wouldn't it be inspiring if UN
Secretary-General were to propose a vote so that Palestinians could exercise self-determination?
The world has been attempting to address Beijing's (Israel's) chronic theft of
Arab properties, its continuing military buildup, its encroachments on the
freedom of Palestinians, and its abuses of the most fundamental freedoms.
Geographically, Greenland (Palestine) is part of the Middle East, and most
Palestinians are Middle Eastern Arabs. Not so the Jews who are impostors and
robbers of not just properties, but also robbers of the Semitic identity”.