Smith, Marx, and Driving in Israel

The main difference between the socio-economical theories of Adam Smith and those of Karl Marx is that Smith had postulated that wealth can be generated (and explained how), while Marx had assumed that wealth is constant, and anything gained by one party must have necessarily been lost by another.  This is the "zero sum game" philosophy of life, which seems to be prevalent throughout eastern Europe and the Middle East.  As one ex-Soviet friend of mine has put it, "in America when people see a rich man, they want to be as rich as him; in Russia, they want him to be as poor as them".

The end result is that people here seem to believe that they can get ahead either by working for their own cause, or else they can gain some game points on the big scoreboard in the sky by blocking others from achieving their own goals;  often the latter method even takes precedence over the former.

When applied to driving, this philosophy means that a car is not just a device for getting quickly and safely from point A to point B, but also for preventing others from doing the same.  Therefore, all driving maneuvers are designed to block as much of the road as possible, and generally obstruct the path of all other drivers.

The rules of driving seem to be:

1. Never Yield.  Only females yield, real men stand on their own at any cost.  (I refer here mainly to men although many women also follow these Rules; a woman who does is crowned as "drives like a man").

2. Do not slow down either, slowing down is a form of yielding.

3. All lane changes should be carried out starting at the lane furthest from the destination; e.g. when exiting a freeway on the right, make sure you're in the leftmost lane first.

4. Always drive on the left hand lane, which is supposedly the fastest, but of course isn't when everyone crowds in there; but Real Men would never drive in the right hand lane because that's admitting that their car is not the fastest one around (even if it is a 20 year old Subaru that cannot do more than 50 kph).

5. All traffic lights, road signs, one-way streets etc. are merely recommendations.  The only reason official rules are followed is because offenders are blocked by other drivers who follow rule 1.  People gladly enforce the law on others, even when they do not obey it themselves when they can get away with it.


6. Never signal, signaling is for sissies.  (Military rules dictate that troop movements should be carried out in a way that would disclose to the enemy as little information as possible about the intended destination.  On the road, all other drivers are of course our enemies).

7. Always block as much as the road as possible.  Despite rule 4, professional drivers do not mix with the crowd on the left hand lane, and of course they would never be caught dead in the right hand lane, so they drive in the middle, prepared to block any lane at any time.  (I once saw a taxi driver who managed to block off all three lanes of a highway while letting off passengers).

8. Always honk at anyone who tries to get in front of you, or even thinks of getting in front of you (even if you are way behind).

Drivers (and victims thereof) are welcome to add to the list.

Why Middle East Peace Talks Alway Fail

There have been numerous attempts to mediate the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and each and every one of them had failed.  Since Gunnar Jarring in the 1970's, all mediators have arrived energetic and hopeful, reported swift progress, yet failed to reach any substantial agreement.  Even the Camp David accord and the Oslo agreement, which were accompanied by practical arrangements on the ground, had failed to achieve anything near to a lasting peace.

It seems to me that the main reason that all mediators fail, is that they are trying to solve the wrong problem.  They listen to both sides, and try to form an agreement that would redress the wishes of both sides as they express them -- namely, peace and security for Israel, freedom and independence for the Palestinians.  This is the substantial mistake: while these items may well be on the opponents' "nice to have" list, these are not what they really want, therefore no agreement which any mediator can formulate on this basis, would ever solve the problem.


So what do the warring parties really wish for?  Judged by their behavior rather than their talk, each side wishes for no less than the complete conceptual and physical elimination of their opponents.  This does not necessarily mean that they intend mass genocide (though some extremists on both sides do), but even people who seem to be otherwise sane and rational, behave as if they'd wake up one morning -- in the rather near future -- to find the other people gone, and have the country to themselves.  In this frame of mind, any agreement is viewed as at best a passing nuisance, to be ignored until it goes away.

The source of this seemingly strange aspiration is that it had actually been achieved at one point in the past!  In 1948, after fighting had subsided, about 50% to 70% of the Arab population of the areas which ended up in Israeli hands, was gone.  On the other hand, it is a less publicized fact that of the Jewish population who had lived in areas which ended up under Arab control (Jordan and Egypt), exactly 100% were gone (that's the only case I know of in history of a perfect ethnic cleansing).

I am not completely despaired though.  Our late former foreign minister Abba Eban used to say, "peoples and states would behave rationally, but only after having exhausted all other possibilities".  I think both sides are pretty close to the end of their rope, so at least mainstream leaders may be persuaded to enter some practical agreement; the pact just has to be presented as a temporary arrangement to ensure that it lasts.

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This blog is just a grabbag of opinions, views, nonsense and other musings.

 Readers of Hebrew can also peek at my other blog at http://veryshortname.blogspot.com