Gaza, COP28, Trump campaign: the subtexts

 

Gordon L. Weil

Daily news reports hide what may be the real news.

By focusing only on the day’s events, we may be misled and miss the underlying reality. This possibility arises on the most central issues these days.

Most important is the war between Israel and Hamas, a terrorist group. Nothing good can be said about Hamas, which is dedicated to the elimination of Israel by the use of terrorism. Israel is right in trying to eliminate it as nearly completely as possible.

A vast majority of Palestinian Arabs in Gaza and the West Bank are not affiliated with Hamas. Yet, in Gaza, Israel justifies killing noncombatants, including children, and destroying cities as the most effective way to destroy the terrorist leadership.

U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin tried to explain to Israel the basic error in this policy. “In this kind of a fight, the center of gravity is the civilian population. And if you drive them into the arms of the enemy, you replace a tactical victory with a strategic defeat,” he said. Israel maintains that it tries to avoid civilian casualties, a claim denied by observable facts.

Amid speculation on the future of Gaza after the war, one possible answer is overlooked. Israel might want the Arabs out of Gaza so the area could become incorporated into Israel – part of the one-state solution of the Israel-Palestine conflict favored by powerful right wing forces in Israel. To them, leaving residents of Gaza no safe place to live could make sense.

Unless all Arabs are forced out of Israel-Palestine in pursuit of this policy, Austin’s warning must be taken seriously. The area could stand now at the beginning of a prolonged armed conflict. It’s possible that the only way to stop it would be for the U.S. to get much tougher with both Israel and Hamas.

Suppose the leaders of major crime organizations called a summit meeting, inviting the police and FBI, to come up with a plan to eliminate organized crime. At the end of the meeting, the participants could issue a statement describing a phase-down. Innocent people who had suffered because of previously lax crime enforcement would receive compensation.

That’s more or less what has happened in the international climate summits each year. World opinion is supposed to be impressed by high-level commitments made by top officials to slow global warming and aid the innocent. Yet, the use of coal and oil increases. On the surface, lofty goals are shared; in practice, targets are missed. In fact, they are not even seriously pursued.

This year’s COP 28 summit may be the worst. Dubai’s Sultan al Jaber, his country’s oil chief, is the COP chair, but has said, “there is no science out there, or no scenario out there, that says the phase-out of fossil fuel is what’s going to achieve 1.5.” That’s the target limit for global warming this century in Celsius degrees. It has no chance of happening.

At this meeting the clash between al Jaber’s environmental role and his efforts to sell oil reveal the true nature of environmental summits as oil industry trade shows. It’s so blatant that U.N. Secretary General Antonio Guterres rejected al Jaber’s proposed climate deal, because it “says nothing about eliminating emissions from fossil fuels.”

Donald Trump runs for president and displays great confidence in polls suggesting that he would easily win the Republican nomination and defeat Joe Biden in the presidential election. While most presidential campaigns offer agendas and embody the views of their party, Trump’s GOP has no platform.

His campaign is not about issues, which may explain why he has avoided debates. Trump’s campaign is about Trump. Beating Biden could serve as proof that he won the 2020 election. Biden now signals that he runs mainly to defeat Trump, as if to finally nullify claims about the last election. He would also protect against Trump’s planned vendetta against his opponents.

Facing major criminal trials that could complicate his return to the White House, Trump focuses on delaying final decisions until after his next term as president would end in 2029. For him, the campaign and election are not about becoming president but about what a judge has called his “stay-out-of-jail free” card.

Trump’s lawyers argue that the campaign insulates him, giving him a special legal status. But a federal appeals court just ruled that he could not use his new run for the presidency to claim immunity, noting “his campaigning to gain that office is not an official act of the office.” Still, the lawyers lodge appeals from adverse decisions, trying to run the clock.

Each case – Israel’s action against Hamas, the COP 28 climate summit, and Trump’s campaign – shows that what the principal actors say and what they mean can greatly differ. Their true intent could be dangerous.

Executive branch takes over lawmaking; Court responds

 

Gordon L. Weil

This country still struggles to achieve popular control of government.

In Revolutionary terms, the king would give way to the Congress.  Nice idea, but it’s not working.  What’s even worse, people are growing used to an extremely powerful executive.

The idea behind the Constitution was to prevent the chief executive from controlling everything and instead to give the ultimate power to the people’s representatives.  Legislative bodies would make the laws and presidents or governors would carry them out.

This idea largely failed because of Congress.  From the Civil War onward, it began passing some of its powers to the president and his executive branch agencies.  Congress might normally set national policy, but it would leave the details to the executive.  As issues seemed to become more complex, Congress increasingly left the hard legislative work to “experts.”

Complaints would arise about decisions made by expert regulators, but the Supreme Court deferred to their special knowledge.  It would not overrule their judgments on the facts unless they were completely unreasonable.  The focus of much day-to-day lawmaking shifted to executive agencies and away from elected officials, responsible to the people.

This week, the Supreme Court has heard a case that makes the point. The SEC, the federal securities regulator, charged that a major fund investor had fraudulently overvalued his assets. He faced a trial before an administrative law judge, not a court, who ruled against him.  He was found guilty, heavily fined and denied the right to work in investments.  The SEC approved.

Whatever his guilt or innocence, the investor was “tried” by an official who reported to the agency making the charges.  Congress had given the SEC the right to do that, stripping itself and the courts of their powers.  The Court is now considering if Congress could create this system.

In another major case that will soon be heard, the Court will decide who pays for observers that must be carried on some boats to discourage overfishing.  Congress failed to set a rule, but a federal agency came up with an interpretation that makes the boat owner pay. A lower court deferred to the regulatory body.  The Court will decide if the agency can set such broad policy.

The Supreme Court has begun to see if it can restore the concept that Congress makes the laws and cannot give the executive branch free rein.  Last year, the conservative Court majority departed from its traditional deference to regulators and ruled that Congress had not given the Environmental Protection Agency certain Clean Air Act authority.

Even more significantly, the Court’s conservative majority found that Congress had not given President Biden’s administration the authority to eliminate about $430 billion in student debt.  Political views aside, it was difficult to imagine how any president could spend that kind of money without legislative approval.

Right now, Maine faces the same kind of situation.  The tragic mass shooting in Lewiston merits a review allowing state government to learn if it could have been prevented and to ensure it would not happen again.

Governor Mills appointed a blue ribbon panel of qualified and respected members of the Maine community.  As a creation of the governor, this body has no powers of action.  It can review, report, and recommend, though technically its report goes only to the governor.

No sooner had the group assembled than it asked the Legislature for subpoena powers.  If the Legislature agreed, it would be turning the governor’s commission into an agency with governmental powers.  Yet lawmakers had no role in deciding on the commission, its scope, its budget and its members.  The request was a classic blank check from the Legislature to the governor.

The purposes of the commission are appropriate and necessary.  The membership is impressive. Yet their first act requested a change in status without formal legislative approval of their creation.  They want subpoena power without having encountered any opposition from anyone in providing information.  It looks like they have already decided to assess fault for the shooting.

People’s confidence in government is undermined by the kind of paternalism implied by allowing executive branch officials too much power.  Legislators may say they favor broad policies, but they leave the laws people must accept and follow to people outside of the legislative branch, who are not held accountable by voters.

The answer might be to restore both the power of the Congress and the Legislature and public confidence by passing simple laws that allow few exceptions and are specific in their terms.  Affected parties will complain about losing the treatment they need, almost always to create jobs. They need time to adjust. The latest tax law changes showed its possible.

The problem isn’t about the “administrative state.”  It’s about the failure of legislators to do their constitutional job.

Israel-Palestine, U.S. Congress are zero-sum games

 

Gordon L. Weil

The Israel-Palestine-Gaza conflict and House Republican politics might seem to have nothing in common.  But they do.

Both yield no hope of compromise.  It’s impossible when parties believe they are fighting over a limited resource.  That’s called a “zero-sum game.” When one side wins, the other side must lose.  It’s winner-take-all.

In Israel-Palestine, two groups insist that the conflict there is a zero-sum game.

Extreme right-wing parties in Israel’s current governing coalition want to absorb Palestine into a single country under Israeli rule.  Arabs would be killed, expelled or required to live as second-class citizens.  Israeli Jews, they believe, have an ancient right to a land that was once theirs and that provides them shelter in a hostile world, at its worst during the Holocaust.

On the other side is Hamas, a terrorist group that sees Israel as occupying lands that had been under Arab control for centuries.  Its solution is to kill Jews or terrorize them so they leave. Because it is not bound by international norms, it feels free to rampage at will.

The limited resource in this case is territory. Each side maintains that it has a legitimate claim to all of it.  Some Palestinians and Israelis favor a two-state solution reached through compromise, allowing each side to prosper.  The world community presses for this solution, imposing the concept on Israel and the Palestinians, but without a real effort to make it happen.

Presumably, Hamas saw no chance of its anti-Israel goal being reached and worried that the U.S., some Arab countries and Israel would make a peace deal over the heads of the Palestinians.   So it attacked and refocused the world’s attention.  So far, the only result is a war with innocent victims on both sides.

In Washington, the limited resource is political power.  The slim GOP House majority tries to deny to a Democratic president and Senate the power to appropriate funds or make laws as might be expected to be done by the majority party.  If the Republican goal is to shrink government and keep taxes low, they wield power.

While compromise might advance the national interest, it would deny the House GOP the full force of its power.  While the controversial issues run the full range of the non-military activities of the federal government, they matter less to the GOP than its legislative veto.

This quest for minority control reaches its extreme when GOP Sen. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama blocks all senior military appointments unless he gets his way on a single issue.  Even some of his fellow Republicans believe he has gone too far.  His power, not foreseen by the Constitution, is more important than the nation’s Armed Forces.

In short, the national interest, which could emerge from a compromise, cannot be pursued because of a quest for power.

As bad as both of these conflicts over limited resources – territory or power – may be, they cause something even worse.  Success seems to depend on reducing the opposition to being seen as inherently inferior or evil.

If you agree with Israeli policy, then you may choose to see Palestinians as followers of a different creed that is inferior to yours.  If you see the Palestinians as Israeli victims, then you may hold all Jews responsible for Israel’s policy.  From these attitudes comes Islamophobia and new waves of Anti-Semitism.

If you agree with extreme GOP views, then you may see Democrats as socialists or, even worse, as traitors.  If you are a left-wing Democrat, you may see the Republican right as racist.  Both views are misguided, but make compromise impossible.

In a broader sense, these views, repeated with great passion, threaten society itself.  They can end up holding every member of a group responsible for the views and actions of some members of that group – collective guilt.

Consistent and creative advocates of compromise are missing.  Nobody takes short-term political risks to promote long-term solutions.  That requires advancing proposed solutions, even if they may not ultimately succeed.  They can influence, if not change, the focus of controversy.

The U.S. and Europe could lay out a possible two-state formula for Israel-Palestine, offering more benefit for each side than endless conflict.  Neither side would endorse it, but it could bring about real negotiations. Otherwise, bloodshed will continue, and neither side will prevail.

President Biden could propose to Congress a comprehensive package of proposals on government funding and key policies.  It would not be adopted as proposed, but Biden could be the leader who set the table for negotiations.  Otherwise, government may become paralyzed.

In either case, a compromise could produce results or failure would allow public opinion to assign responsibility. 

Now, two sides ensure that the best for one side is the enemy of the good for both. That’s wrong, because these need not be zero-sum games.