One of the things that I find most depressing about discussions on Crooked Timber and elsewhere is that it seems to be absolutely impossible to have a civil argument about Israel and the Palestinians. I’m now very reluctant to post on Israeli or Palestinian politics, as, I suspect, are my co-bloggers (and very probably bloggers elsewhere). For some reason, it seems to be difficult for supporters and critics of Israel’s policy to argue reasonably with each other – or at the least, the unreasonable voices very quickly swamp the reasonable ones. Why? And why do arguments on this issue become so much more heated more quickly than on other issues, given there is at least some potential for agreement (barring the crazies on both sides, most people seem to be prepared to accept some kind of two state solution)?

NB – lest this post become an example of what it’s seeking to criticize, I’m going to be especially ruthless in deleting comments that I think are unhelpful or that lay the blame all on one side in an overheated way.

Update: to be clear about my deletion policy for this post – if all you have to say is that (a) the treatment of Palestinians is part and parcel of the plot to oppress brown-skinned peoples everywhere, or (b) that Palestinians are inherently untrustworthy and all bent on destroying Israel, or anything even vaguely along these lines then please take your comments as already stipulated – whatever their intrinsic merits, they’re part of the dialogue of the deaf that I’m complaining about, and will be deleted.

The provisional Iraqi government has declared a 60-day state of emergency in the run-up to an all-out assault on Falluja (pop. 300,000) by US Marines.

Heavy explosions were heard in Baghdad as government spokesman Thair Hassan al-Naqeeb announced the state of emergency over the entire country except Kurdish areas in the north.

“It is going to be a curfew. It is going to be so many things, but tomorrow the prime minister will mention it,” he said. Interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi will give more details Monday, he said.

Al-Naqeeb declined to say whether the announcement signaled an imminent attack on the insurgent stronghold Fallujah, saying, “We have seen the situation is worsening in this area. Any obstacle will be removed.”

“So many things.” I can hardly wait to hear more. For some reason this reminds me of the quote from Arafat when asked why he had to have eight different security services: he looked surprised and answered, “Why, Hosni Mubarak has 12.” Middle Eastern politics are so reassuring. Here’s to hoping the state of emergency lasts only 60 days.

As a complement to “Kieran’s post”:https://www.crookedtimber.org/archives/002820.html, Michael Gaster, Cosma Shalizi’s and Mark Newman’s “electoral map”:http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/weblog/286.html where area is proportional to population is fascinating, as well as weirdly beautiful – like butterflies exploding. Gaster-Shalizi-Newman also have a really interesting “analysis”:http://www.cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/election/ of the distribution of votes for for the Republican candidate – go read it now.

Update: according to Cosma, the histogram on his site showing 300 odd counties with 99% Democratic support was the result of a coding error – however the map is accurate.

!http://www.utsc.utoronto.ca/~farrell/cartcolors.png!