Tiffin, Ohio (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Quite a few people believe things that are not true, but that do not do much harm. The 70 percent of Americans who believe in angels would be an example of this. On the other hand, some false notions have real-world negative consequences. We will show briefly below […]
A Gallup poll taken late in 2023 shows that 53 percent of Americans think that the Republicans are better at running the economy, a 14 percentage-point lead over the Democrats that is the highest since 1991. An IPSOS poll taken around the same time shows roughly the same thing – a ten point lead for Republicans on the economy: 35% to 25%. An NBC poll from late 2023 shows an even wider gap of 49% to 28% in favor of the GOP. Finally, a snap poll of those who watched the Trump-Harris debate in September also gave the Republican Party a 20 point margin on the economy, although the margin has shrunk since then.
In late September of 2024, a Gallup poll showed these trends continuing. Americans currently give the Republican Party a six-percentage-point edge, 50% to 44%, as the party they think would do a better job of keeping the country prosperous.
The point remains: Tens of millions of Americans are convinced that the Republican party does a better job with the economy, and believe that the economy is the most important issue facing the country. They vote with that in mind. This is a crucial advantage for Republicans running for office at all levels.
But the people who think that the GOP is better for the economy are mistaken, and the facts are out there to prove it. In fact, Democratic administrations do a substantially better job with the economy by almost any measure.
Based on Bureau of Labor statistics since the end of the Cold War, there is a stunning difference between the number of jobs created under Democratic and Republican administrations. There were 50 million jobs created in the US under the Clinton, Obama and Biden administrations; In contrast the total of jobs created under the HW Bush, W Bush and Trump regimes were a paltry one million in total. These numbers were fact-checked by the Washington Post, and remain unchallenged to my knowledge.
But wait, there is more. There is also a stark difference between Democratic and Republican administrations when it comes to growing the economy. Over the past 75 years, Democrats have been much more successful in increasing the Gross Domestic Product and wages, and reducing the rate of unemployment, according to the Economic Policy Institute and many other analysts.
And these differences are not at all trivial. The New York Times reported in February 2021 that: “Since 1933, the economy has grown at an annual average rate of 4.6 percent under Democratic presidents and 2.4 percent under Republicans.The average income of Americans would be more than double its current level if the economy had somehow grown at the Democratic rate for all of the past nine decades.”
While it is true that presidential administrations are not always able to control the economy as much as they would wish, and that both bad and good policies sometimes take years to have noticeable effects, the differences described above are just too significant to be dismissed. Democratic administrations have produced much better economic outcomes, and have done so for decades.
So if you are among those legions of Americans who think that Republicans are better economic stewards, please rethink your views. And if you hear someone make such a claim, please correct them politely but firmly.
About the Author
Arnold Oliver is an emeritus professor of political science at Heidelberg University in Tiffin, Ohio. A Vietnam veteran, he belongs to Veterans For Peace, and can be reached at soliver@heidelberg.edu.
By Javed Ali, University of Michigan | – (The Conversation) – Iran fired at least 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on Oct. 1, 2024, amplifying tensions in the Middle East that are increasingly marked by “escalation after escalation,” as United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres put it. Iran’s attacks – which Israel largely deterred with […]
(The Conversation) – Iran fired at least 180 ballistic missiles at Israel on Oct. 1, 2024, amplifying tensions in the Middle East that are increasingly marked by “escalation after escalation,” as United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres put it.
Iran’s attacks – which Israel largely deterred with its Iron Dome missile defense system, along with help from nearby U.S. naval destroyers – followed Israel’s killing of Hassan Nasrallah, the longtime leader of the Tehran-backed Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, on Sept. 27.
Amy Lieberman, a politics and society editor at the Conversation U.S., spoke with counterterrorism expert Javed Ali to better understand the complex history and dynamics that are fueling the intensifying conflict in the Middle East.
How much more dangerous has the Middle East become in recent weeks?
The Middle East is in much more volatile situation than it was even a year ago. This conflict has expanded far outside of fighting primarily between Israel and Hamas.
Now, Israel and Hezbollah have a conflict that has developed over the past year that appears more dangerous than the Israel-Hamas one. This involves the use of Israeli special operations units, which have operated clandestinely in Lebanon in small groups since November 2023. In addition, Israel has been accused by Hezbollah of conducting unconventional warfare operations – like the exploding walkie-talkies and pagers – and launched hundreds of air and missile strikes in Lebanon over the past few weeks. The combination of these operations has destroyed Hezbollah’s weapons caches and military infrastructure and killed several senior leaders in the group, including Hassan Nasrallah.
Now, the conflict has the potential to widen well outside the region, and even globally.
What does Iran have to do with the conflict between Israel and Hamas and Hezbollah?
Iran has said it fired the missiles into Israel as retaliation for attacks on Hezbollah, Hamas and the Iranian military.
A coalition of groups and organizations has now been labeled as Iran’s “Axis of Resistance.” Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khameini, and senior military commanders in the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, or the IRGC, have issued unifying guidance to all the different elements, whether it is Hamas in the Gaza Strip, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon or Shia militias in Iraq and Syria.
Before Oct. 7, 2023, all of these groups were ideologically opposed to Israel, to a degree. But they were also fighting their own conflicts and were not rallying around supporting Hamas. Now, they have all become more active around a common goal of destroying Israel.
Iran and Hezbollah, in particular, have a deep relationship, dating back to the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and the creation of the Islamic Republic of Iran.
During the following few years, Hezbollah launched a brutal campaign of terrorist attacks against U.S., French and other Western interests in Lebanon. The group, then known as Islamic Jihad, first attacked the U.S. embassy in Beirut on April 18, 1983. That attack killed 52 Lebanese and American embassy employees. However, at the time, U.S. intelligence personnel and other security experts were not clear who was responsible for the embassy bombing. And given this lack of understanding and insight on Hezbollah as an emerging terrorist threat, the group aimed even higher later in 1983.
Following the embassy attack, Hezbollah carried out the October 1983 Marine barracks bombing that killed 241 U.S. service personnel. Before the 9/11 attacks, this was the biggest single act of international terrorism against the U.S.
Hezbollah was also responsible for the kidnapping and murder of American citizens, including William Buckley, the CIA station chief for Beirut. And it carried out airplane hijackings, including the infamous TWA 847 incident in 1985, in which a U.S. Navy diver was murdered.
So, Hezbollah has a long history of regional and global terrorism.
Within Lebanon, Hezbollah is a kind of parallel government to Lebanon. The Lebanese government has allowed Hezbollah to be this state within a state, but they don’t collaborate on military operations. Currently, the Lebanese military is not responding to Israel’s attacks on Lebanon. This shows how dominant of a force Hezbollah has become.
How damaging are Israel’s attacks on Hezbollah?
Hezbollah has clearly taken losses in fighters, but Hezbollah is a far bigger group than Hamas and operates on a much bigger physical territory across Lebanon.
The Israeli military assesses they have destroyed at least half of Hezbollah’s existing weapons stockpile, based on the volume and intensity of their operations over the past few weeks. If true, this, would present a serious challenge to Hezbollah’s long-term operational capability that took decades to acquire.
What security risks does this evolving conflict present for the U.S.?
Looking at how Hezbollah demonstrated these capabilities over a 40-year stretch of time, and based now on how Israel has hit the militant group, it would not be a stretch to speculate that Hezbollah has ordered or is considering some kind of terrorist attack far outside the region – similar to what the group did in Argentina in 1992 and 1994. What that plot would like look, how many people would be involved and the possible target of any such attack are not clear.
Hezbollah’s leaders have said that they blame Israel for the attacks on it. About a week before Nasrallah’s death, he said that Israel’s exploding pager and walkie-talkie operations in Lebanon were a “declaration of war” and the “the enemy had crossed all red lines.”
Since then, Hezbollah has remained defiant, in spite of the significant losses the group has sustained by Israel these past few weeks. Questions also remain about how Hezbollah’s leadership will likewise hold the U.S. responsible for Israel’s actions. And if so, would that mean a return to the type of terrorism that Hezbollah inflicted on U.S. interests in the region in the 1980s? As recent events have shown, the world is facing a dangerous and volatile security environment in the Middle East.
The Conversation is an independent, not-for-profit media outlet that works with academic experts in their fields to publish short, clear essays on hot topics.
By Helen Benedict ( Tomdispatch.com ) – With the first anniversary of the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel approaching, the death toll in Gaza climbing to more than 41,500, and Israel inflicting ever more extreme violence on the West Bank and now on Lebanon as well, something very different happened recently in a poky classroom at Columbia University. Two young men, one […]
( Tomdispatch.com ) – With the first anniversary of the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel approaching, the death toll in Gaza climbing to more than 41,500, and Israel inflicting ever more extreme violence on the West Bank and now on Lebanon as well, something very different happened recently in a poky classroom at Columbia University. Two young men, one Palestinian and one Israeli, both of whom had lost people they deeply loved to the conflict, came to speak not about fear and anger, revenge or oppression, but about reconciliation, friendship, and peace.
One of them was Arab Aramin, a 30-year-old Palestinian from Jerusalem whose little sister, Abir, had been shot and killed in front of her school by an Israeli soldier. She was 10 years old.
The other was Yonatan Zeigen, a 36-year-old Israeli who grew up on the Kibbutz Be’eri near the Gaza border, where his mother, the renowned peace activist Vivian Silver was killed by Hamas on October 7, 2023.
Both men are fathers, both thin and lightly bearded, and both are members of the Parents Circle, a joint Israeli-Palestinian organization of 750 bereaved people working together to end the cycle of revenge that has so scarred their lives. They and other members of the group were touring New York City and the Boston area to introduce the Parents Circle and its philosophy to Americans.
Moving From Anger to Empathy
I went to hear the men speak when they were at Columbia and was surprised to find them tucked away in one of the most remote corners of the university, in perhaps the smallest classroom I’ve seen in all my decades teaching there. It seemed chillingly symbolic that a group carrying a message of reconciliation in this time of extreme violence and conflict should be relegated to such a hidden and shabby spot.
The visitors began by asking us, the audience of about 20 people, to introduce ourselves. Among us were several Israelis, a few Palestinians, a Jewish law student from Iran, and other students and teachers from a variety of departments around the university, including political science, Middle East studies, and in my case, the Graduate School of Journalism. One man startled us by saying he was a Palestinian who lived in Ireland and had once fought with and killed people for the Irish Republican Army but is now devoted to promoting peace. Like the rest of us, he had come to hear how the speakers had moved from grief and anger to promoting reconciliation and empathy.
“Peace Became Irrelevant”
After the introductions, Zeigen and Aramin, each squashed into one of the old wooden desk chairs cluttering the room, opened by telling their own stories with striking honesty, for it is impossible to talk about reconciliation in a land mired in conflict without also bringing up heartbreak, history, and hate. Zeigen, who wears his hair shorn tight to his head, emphasizing his finely boned face and huge brown eyes, began by describing his mother. “She was a feminist, a peace activist — she devoted her life to that,” he said, his voice instantly sad. “I grew up knowing lots of Palestinians because of her work. She would take us into Gaza to meet her friends. But I knew my Israeli peers did not experience this because of the divisions between our peoples.”
Once he was grown, Zeigen became an activist himself, soon moving to Haifa to study law, thinking that would be the best way to help forge peace. But after he married and became a father, while no progress was being made between Israelis and Palestinians, he began to give up. “Peace became irrelevant and I fell into a political coma,” he told us.
He switched from law to social work and had two more children. “I tried to hold onto the fantasy that I could live a normal life.” He did not wake from that political coma until Oct. 7th, when his wife told him what was happening. He called his mother at the kibbutz while it was under attack.
“We Decided to Say Goodbye”
“We talked through the morning about how the once celebrated Israeli Army was not coming, a dual experience of knowing something was happening but being unable to understand it, to grasp the scope.” Then he heard shots and screaming through the telephone. “They are in the house,” his mother told him.
“I asked her, what should we do? Keep talking or say goodbye? We decided to say goodbye.” He paused, then told the audience, “I was lucky.” He gestured to two other members of the Parents Circle sitting nearby, Layla Alshekh, a Palestinian, and Robi Damelin, an Israeli, both mothers who lost children to the conflict. “Most of us do not get to say goodbye.”
Zeigen’s own mother was killed in the safe room of her house that day, but he was unable to find out her fate for a long time because the house had been burned down. At one point, she was considered a hostage, then her bones were found and identified and he knew for sure.
“I sat down and said, ‘What now? What should I do with this pain and helplessness? What should all of us do?’ I realized my illusion of safety was gone. That we all need to shape an alternative reality where no one should pay this price. Otherwise, it will happen again and again.”
“We Are Not Weak People Who Kill”
Aramin, who also wears his hair cut short and has huge brown eyes, spoke next, telling the rapt audience that he was only 13 when his sister died. She had just bought some candy and was standing outside her school when an Israeli border guard shot her with a rubber bullet and killed her.
“She was everything to me, my second mother, even though she was younger, because I was just a stupid, naughty boy,” he said with a sad but wry smile. “I kept going into her room to find her before I remembered she was not there. All I could think about was taking revenge. But I had no gun, so I lied to my parents, stopped going to school, and went to the checkpoint instead to throw stones at Israeli soldiers.”
Luckily for him, a friend of his father saw what he was doing and reported him to his parents. His father sat him down and told him it was time to have a talk.
Aramin’s father, Bassam Aramin, had himself been arrested for throwing stones at Israeli soldiers when he was 16, and served seven years in an Israeli jail for his actions. But whenever Aramin asked his father how he had been treated in prison, Bassam refused to answer. A founder of Combatants for Peace, which describes itself as “an organization of former Israeli and Palestinian combatants leading a non-violent struggle against the occupation,” and a member of the Parents Circle himself, Bassam only wanted to talk about peace.
“Abir’s murder could have led me down the easy path of hatred and vengeance,” he wrote in an autobiographical essay, “but for me there was no return from dialogue and non-violence. After all, it was one Israeli soldier who shot my daughter, but one hundred former Israeli soldiers who built a garden in her name at the school where she was murdered.”
“My father is my hero,” Aramin told us. “When I said I wanted to kill the soldiers who killed my sister, he told me, ‘We are not weak people who kill. We have strength in other ways.’ But I still needed revenge. So, he said, ‘I understand, but first you must make peace with yourself.’”
Bassam then took his young son with him to Germany, where he had been invited to give a talk. While there, he and Aramin also toured the former Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald.
“He wanted to take me out of my stress, but he also wanted me to learn about the narrative of the other side,” Aramin explained to me later.
“I started to cry like crazy for all the people who had died there,” he told us in that classroom. “But then I felt even more confused. I realized I knew nothing about my enemy. All I knew of them was that they had killed my sister, and that they were the soldiers who would storm into my house at five in the morning to harass my father because he had a Palestinian ID and my mother had an Israeli ID, so they were not supposed to be in the same bed.”
His mother was Palestinian, but because she had been born in East Jerusalem, she had a Jerusalem ID that looked Israeli. That was enough to subject them to persecution.
“So, I taught myself Hebrew and I began to learn that if you want to kill yourself, keep hating your enemy. If you want to save yourself, then learn about your enemy. I began to lose hate and fear of the other side. But it took me seven years to make peace with myself and to understand that behind every Israeli is a human being.”
Both Aramin and Zeigen agreed that the first step toward ending the cycle of revenge is for Israelis and Palestinians to listen to each other’s stories, learn each other’s language, and come to see one another as the humans we all are.
Listening From the Heart
The Parents Circle conveys this message not only by holding talks like the one at Columbia, but through videos of bereaved people telling their stories, an online guide to conflict resolution, and an educational program aimed at both children and adults called Listening From the Heart. The goal is to move people away from thinking in binary terms of “us versus them,” “victim versus oppressor,” or “right versus wrong” to considering instead how to accept people’s differences while working toward peace.
“Our organization does not advocate a political solution to the conflict,” explained Shiri Ourian, executive director of American Friends of the Parents Circle, who was touring with Aramin and Zeigen. “Our vision is for a reconciliation process to be alongside any political solutions.”
Zeigen elaborated further in a text: “Declaring in advance a solution (one or two states, federation, etc.) is not constructive if there is no ability to reach that solution in total agreement. The point of the Parents Circle is to train both peoples to accept or reach a solution from a place of equity, of acknowledging each other’s narrative, pain, and reasoning, and to be able to build trust and a shared future.”
As one of the organization’s campaigns stated, “If you have lost a family member due to the conflict, and you are also tired of the never-ending cycle of loss of life, we would like to see you with us.”
Banned
At home in Israel, the Parents Circle has been sending bereaved Palestinians and Israelis to talk together in schools for some 20 years. It also runs youth programs and an Israeli-Palestinian Memorial Day every spring, which the organization says is the largest such jointly organized peace event in Israel.
These actions have long been controversial in a land where so few Israelis and Palestinians ever get to know one another, but since October 7th, the Israeli government seems to see the Parents Circle as downright dangerous — so much so that the Israeli Education Ministry recently banned its speakers from entering schools at all. (Twice!)
The first ban took place in April 2023 which, according to the Jerusalem Post, the ministry excused by citing a new rule prohibiting any educational program that “slanders” the Israel Defense Forces or its soldiers. The Parents Circle sued, a judge reinstated its right to speak in schools, and then the Ministry barred them once again. The Circle has been battling that decision in court ever since.
Yuval Rahamim, Israeli co-director of the Parents Circle Families Forum, lamented the ban in a blog he wrote in September 2023. “A generation that grows up shielded from alternative viewpoints is ill-equipped to engage in meaningful dialogue, bridge gaps, and work towards peaceful solutions… In such a scenario, the cycle of animosity and mistrust continues unabated.”
Letting Go of Revenge
In their talk at Columbia, Zeigen and Aramin also emphasized that understanding and even friendship between their peoples is essential if lasting peace is ever to be achieved. This doesn’t necessarily mean forgiving those who kill, it only means letting go of the need for revenge. “I do not want my son to see his sister or brother die like I did,” as Aramin put it.
Both men were quick to add that the members of the organization hold a wide range of views about how to solve the conflict, but the view they all have in common is this: nobody wants anyone else’s child, brother, sister, mother, or father to die in the name of their own loved ones. As Rahamim wrote, “The tears shed by a bereaved Palestinian mother are no different from those of a grieving Israeli mother.”
Once Zeigen and Aramin had finished telling their stories, they took questions from the audience and, naturally enough, given that we were at Columbia, the subject of campus protests came up. Neither man seemed much impressed.
“Instead of exporting solutions, you have imported the conflict,” Zeigen told us. That made a few of us blink.
“If you want to promote peace in Israel, give up the flags,” he continued, adding that he has nothing against the flags and their symbolism, but that in protests, they only serve to emphasize divisions. “Put the flags down and hold up peace signs instead.”
Aramin agreed. “The land doesn’t belong to Palestinians and it doesn’t belong to Jews,” he said. “God gave it to us all.”
If only more people would listen right now, with Gaza lying in rubble; Israeli bombs crushing southern Lebanon; war spreading ever more widely across the region; and tens of thousands of children, women, and men maimed or killed.
Tomdispatch is intended to introduce readers to voices and perspectives from elsewhere (even when the elsewhere is here). Its mission is to connect some of the global dots regularly left unconnected by the mainstream media and to offer a clearer sense of how this imperial globe of ours actually works. www.tomdispatch.com
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