The word “gaffe” is of obscure origins (possibly deriving from a French word for a boat hook) and means or at least used to mean a blunder. In recent years the word has been expanded to include something journalist Michael Kinsley once wisecracked: a gaffe is when a politician inadvertently tells the truth.
Over the last week or so the meaning of the word has, apparently, expanded once again to include telling uncomfortable truths. When Mitt Romney questioned the security arrangements at the London Olympics was it a blunder? An inadvertent telling of the truth? Or just plain telling an uncomfortable truth?
A day or so ago when Mitt Romney remarked that the reason that the per capita GDP of the Israelis was so much higher than that of the Palestinians was it a blunder? An inadvertent telling of the truth? Or just plain telling an uncomfortable truth? I think almost unquestionably the latter and, apparently, Marc Thiessen agrees with me:
The media is accusing Mitt Romney of having committed another “gaffe†abroad — this time when he suggested that cultural differences help explain why the Israelis are so much more economically successful than Palestinians.
One small problem with that: What Romney said was not a gaffe. He was absolutely right.
In reporting the so-called gaffe, the New York Times explained that Romney simply does not understand that the Palestinians’ economic problems are all Israel’s fault: “The Palestinians have long complained that their economy is in a chokehold from Israeli security measures,†the Times declared, adding “The West Bank is subject to trade restrictions imposed by the Israelis, while Gaza was subject to a near-total Israeli blockade on people and goods after Hamas took control of its government five years ago. Mr. Romney mentioned neither during his speech on Monday.â€
But these security measures are the direct result of culture — the culture of terrorism that permeates the Palestinian territories. In 2009, the Pew Global Attitudes Project showed support for suicide bombing on the decline across the Muslim world, with just one lonely exception: the Palestinian territories: “[M]ajorities or pluralities among eight of the nine Muslim publics surveyed this year say that suicide bombing and other forms of violence against civilians can never be justified to defend Islam; only in the Palestinian territories does a majority endorse such attacks.†[Emphasis added].
That’s just the tip of the iceberg. I have little doubt that there’s a kernel of truth in the Palestinians’ complaint that the Israelis’ sanctions are suppressing their economy below what it otherwise might be. That could explain a fraction of the difference between the economy of the Palestinians and that of the Syrians or even the Lebanese. The sanctions do not explain the difference between the economy of Israel and those of Lebanon, Syria, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Iraq, just to name a few of the countries in the region.
The Palestinians’ problems do not end with Israel’s sanctions. There’s also corruption, lack of liberty, cronyism, kleptocracy, and undercapitalization. That the Arab countries have a tradition of not lending money at interest, clearly a cultural difference, might have something to do with their inadequate capitalization.
Under this new definition of “gaffe” what isn’t a gaffe? Discrete lying by omission?
Well, I agree with Pat Lang on this one. Compared to other factors, culture is a minor one.
As far as “gaffe” goes, I don’t think it was one because gaffe’s are unintentional and it appears Mr. Romney meant what he said. It was a dumb thing to say though (both politically and factually) and it makes one wonder why he chose to highlight that one factor.
Oh, and I think Marc Thiessan is about the last guy I’d consult on this topic – the extent of his knowledge of the Middle East is about zero and he’s one of the few that thinks waterboarding is not only legal, but also effective and morally just.
I recall reading a study linked at the old Winds of Change about 7 yrs ago that purported to answer the counterfactual of how wealthy would the Middle East be if they stopped their various hot/cold wars and embraced open, if not free, trade with Israel. The improvements for everyone were significant, but perhaps more so, for the Arab-aligned countries that were seeking to isolate Israel. Is that state of affairs, cultural or political or both?
I don’t think you can separate politics from culture that neatly. And, much as I tend to agree with Pat not to mention respect his views, I think he’s being a bit paternalistic on this.
Unless you believe that, absent the Israeli sanctions, Palestine would have per capita GDP larger than Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, or KSA then there’s more than Israeli sanctions involved. What is it other than culture? If you believe that, please support it with something.
Please note that I’m not defending the Israelis (and, as I’ve mentioned elsewhere, I don’t subscribe to the “no daylight” strategy advocated by Mr. Romney).
And I agree that Romney’s comment was no gaffe. By any definition that pre-exists this week. It was impolitic, though.
I’m just using my Anglo-Saxon proclivities for beliving that freeing people to exchange goods and services would be in the long-term mutual interest of the people, though certainly no panacea.
A politician telling the truth can be a fatal move, especially if it is an uncomfortable truth, or one that doesn’t agree with a PC behavior or the notion of the day. There is so much cognitive dissonance in this pattern too, as people ‘say’ they want a leader to be authentic and honest. But, when such a person expresses a distasteful POV or opinion they are vociferously taken to task and derided for so-called political stupidity.
Maybe, whether one can serve up the truth or not, is more a matter of lacking innate rhetorical eloquence or that intangible charisma factor that often seems to be able to pull a person through winning others over, even thought they may be otherwise vapid in life experience or real ideas.
I dont think this is Romney speaking truth, or a matter of being PC. Andy has it right. If you find yourself agreeing with Thiessen, rethink your premise. He knows squat about the peoples of the Middle East. I will take Lang any day. Absent Israel, I suspect GDP would be higher for the entire area, but no one knows.
Just for fun, look at a detailed map of the West Bank. You can see how it has been divided up by settlements. Remember that the Israelis control all travel in the area.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/middle_east_and_asia/westbank_july_1992.jpg
Steve
steve, will you answer dave’s question to andy?
For my part, my father-in-law was stationed in Saudi Arabia in the 50s, and when he was babysitting my kids several years ago, he picked-up and read my copy of The Closed Circle by David Pryce-Jones and told me later that was dead-on; he had many moments of recognition. He is pretty much a Jimmy Carter democrat on foreign policyand religious issues, and about as far from a Neocon as I can imagine. Its a different culture and we need to keep arms-length.
“I dont think this is Romney speaking truth, or a matter of being PC. “
If this comment was referencing my post, I wasn’t talking about Romney, but in generalities. Speaking the truth is not always something others can digest — whether it’s about economics, health care, wars, cultural influence, ‘fairness,’ regulations, ad infinitum.
That why Dave’s dissection of the word ‘gaffe’ has been interesting to contemplate, as the term seems to have evolved into drywall tape for comments that bomb, in an attempt to hide everything from a true verbal crack to an unguarded spoken truth.
I don’t think it’s bigotry on my part (bigots always say that, don’t they). I think it’s arithmetic. Here are a few statistics (all from Index Mundi):
Per capita GDP
Israel $31,000
West Bank $2,900
Syria $5,100
Lebanon $15,500
Jordan $5,900
KSA $24,500 (and a quarter of that is oil)
I’m not arguing that the difference between the per capita GDP of Syria and that of the West Bank isn’t due to the sanctions Israel has imposed. I’m sure it is.
The question is why Syria and Jordan’s per capita GDPs are so much lower. I don’t care whether you call it “politics”, “culture”, “history”, or “social reasons”. There’s a difference there. A third of Jordanians are Palestinians, for goodness sake. It looks to me as though the tighter the connection to the West, the higher the GDP. I’d call that a cultural difference.
It ain’t post-colonial syndrome. KSA is the least colonized and has one of the highest per capita GDPs; Lebanon is one of the most colonized and it has one of the highest.
Why is the UAE’s per capita GDP twice that of Portugal? Are we to conclude that “culture makes all the difference” in explaining this disparity?
We should really turn that around and ask: What’s the evidence that culture is a big factor? Granted, Romney was quoting from a book he’d read on the topic, but I think what he said was wrong – culture does not make “all the difference” unless one believes that culture can explain the disparity between North and South Korea or hundreds of other cases.
Circumstances matter a great deal. It is true, however, that not all economic systems are equal and it’s also true that the best system, so far, is the free enterprise system that came out of the western tradition. Culture only becomes a factor when it is unable to adopt that system. So, why have the Palestinians failed? Is it because they are culturally immune to the free enterprise system? Or is it because they haven’t had the opportunity to even try?
I think we’re arguing at cross-purposes. I would call “haven’t had the opportunity to even try” a cultural difference. Much of what you’re calling “circumstances” I’m calling “culture”.
Well, since the preponderance of the UAE’s GDP is due to oil exports that might have something to do with it.
Absent Israel, I suspect GDP would be higher for the entire area, but no one knows.
Yeah, if only the Jews weren’t there they’d all live in peace and harmony, and they’d all be richer than Crassus. I bet they would have legalized gay marriage, too.
From Lang’s piece: [The Palestinians] long quarrel with the Jews is a tragedy for all mankind.
Long quarrel? The avowed purpose of the Palestinian leadership FOR DECADES was that all the Jews in Israel needed to be exterminated. That goes beyond mere quarrel. When you add in the fact that they have actually been trying to do it (by strapping bombs to their sons and daughters and sending them out to kill themselves just so long as they take some Jews with them) pushes this all the way to crimes against humanity. And this is the leadership that the Palestinian people choose.
Yeah, that kind of culture is going to go really far in the 21rst Century. “Buy our smartphones, infidel, or my daughter will suicide bomb your daughter’s pre-school!” The products produced by such a culture would practically sell themselves.
culture does not make “all the difference†unless one believes that culture can explain the disparity between North and South Korea or hundreds of other cases.
Yes, because the Stalinist culture in the north is EXACTLY like the culture in the south.
So, why have the Palestinians failed? Is it because they are culturally immune to the free enterprise system? Or is it because they haven’t had the opportunity to even try?
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that for the last several decades the overriding focus of the Palestinians has been to destroy all the Jews in Palestine instead of doing something productive with their lives. Hard to get far in life when your big goal is to set off your suicide vest in a crowd of children. I mean, what’s the blast radius on one of those things, fifty to a hundred feet? That’s as far as you’ll get, and only as goo.
I don’t think so. When a foreign government essentially controls your land (and regularly annexes portions of it), and takes active steps to prevent some of the necessary conditions that enable a free market system (like a stable, functioning government), that is not a cultural factor. When your population is essentially stateless with a good portion of that population living in camps as refugees (for four generations!) in neighboring countries, that isn’t a cultural problem. For free enterprise to have the chance to succeed it requires certain conditions and those conditions are absent from the proto-state of Palestine. The reason is political, not cultural.
Similarly, North Korea’s failure to adopt free enterprise and the disparity between North and South have little to do with Korean culture. Obviously, Korean culture is compatible with free enterprise – so the problem there is also political. Same with East and West Germany – same culture, much different outcomes.
It’s 25% of UAE’s GDP. Let’s zero that out and their still ahead of Portugal. Take out oil and the UAE has the same per capita GDP as the UK! If culture is a major factor in economic outcomes, then what is the explanation?
Well, I don’t want to derail the thread with a debate on that. I have a personal rule about that, abortion and some other topics. I’ll just say that’s a pretty simplistic, one-sided description of what is, in reality, a difficult, complex, multifaceted problem.
We have a different definition of culture then.
That’s what I was saying. As far as I’m concerned there are only physical (geography, climate, natural resources, and the like), biological (human, animal, and plant), acts of God (i.e. hurricane, earthquake, etc.), foreign aggression, and cultural. Cultural includes institutions, preferences, language, religion, politics, and economy, just about everything that involves human action other than foreign aggression.
I’m not arguing that none of Palestine’s poverty is due to foreign aggression but you sound like you’re arguing that all of it is.
I’ll just say that’s a pretty simplistic, one-sided description of what is, in reality, a difficult, complex, multifaceted problem.
Why did the Palestinians lose the country they had in 1947-48? Why did they not have a land for so long? Have they been willing to trade peace for land? So far only grudgingly so, and they haven’t really stopped their own campaign of violence. When have they seriously offered peaceful co-existence with Israel? Putting Hamas in charge of Gaza pretty much showed that they simply will not stop on this front. It’s been extermination or bust.
Personally, I’m not sure supporting Israel is the proper thing for the US to do. I don’t particularly care about Israel anymore than I do Djibouti, Moldova, Montenegro or Luxembourg. Our foreign policy should be about doing what is best for our interests.
But to call the Palestinians in particular and the Arabs in general anything other than bloodthirsty savages just defies reality. If they weren’t sitting on oil and trade routes no one would care about them anymore than they cared about the wars in central Africa in the 1990s. Or was the genocide in Rwanda (a small part of a larger situation) complicated too? Complicated enough to justify hacking up several hundred thousand people with machetes? Or just complicated enough to strap a bomb to your child hoping to kill the neighbors little bastards, too? How complicated do things have to be before we start rationalizing away atrocity?
No, no excuses. The Palestinians decided as a people that the only solution to their problems was genocide, and they pursued that as best they could for decades. (Luckily for the Jews of the world the Arabs seem completely incompetent – even Lebanon fell apart on them.) They were a displaced people? So what? There were LOTS of displaced peoples after WWI and WWII in Europe. Those cases, like the situation in Palestine, were matters of treaty. So far, only two groups have decided on genocide to settle matters: the Nazis and the Palestinians. That’s it.
(In fact, how displaced were the Palestinians? Were they distinct from the Arab peoples around them prior to a treaty designation?)
…
Yes, the UAE has diversified their economy in recent years – into construction, finance and tourism, as well as manufacturing. Construction and manufacturing are greatly helped by cheap energy. Finance is greatly helped by lots of money sitting around with nothing else to do. (So’s construction, for that matter. Talk to Drew about money and manufacturing.) Think they could do any of that without massive oil profits? Think they could maintain it if the spigots got turned off? Especially given that they’re still importing about half their workforce?
We have a different definition of culture then.
I guess so. Mine includes a little more than funny costumes and what spices people use in their food. But then my people, being Anglo-Saxon, care about governance and property rights. (Good thing, too, ’cause English food sucks.) That’s MY culture.
Another view.
Icepick,
Ok! Not much point in further discussion then.
The culture is often a product of geogrpahy; the Middle East contains the largest tropical desert climate in the world, punctuated by arable land on high elevations and exposed river valleys. Those features dictate the type of economies and the type of family and tribal units that are adapted. The geography creates continuing conflicts between nomadic animal-husbandry and urbanized agriculture. It helps dictate the security strategies and social expectations in places like the market. When Palestinians show their support for terrorism, they are not supporting the violence per se, they are supporting closer relations against more distant relations in the same ways they having been doing in the Middle East for thousands of years.
From the most recent link from Andy: Steve Chapman wrote, “Israelis, and Romney, may say all this is entirely the fault of the Palestinians for not making peace. But that’s a separate issue. “
No, that is the CENTRAL issue. Palestinians have placed genocide above every other consideration, even above the safety of their children. What culture can claim to be striving for the betterment of its children when it wants them to strap on bombs and blow themselves to Hell in order to maybe kill a few Jews? Not exactly the best way to invest in the future.
But then the Palestinians have lots of people egging them one. From the non-Arab, but still savage, Muslim world we get this:
Yeah, but none of this has anything to do with anything, does it?
Also, I will note that you don’t have anything to say about all the displaced peoples after WWII (also displaced by treaty) who didn’t decide that those that displaced them must be exterminated at any and all costs. Palestinians stand alone in that regard. Surely the love of suicide, murder and genocide over everything else is a cultural norm.
In an arid climate, water is more valuable than gold or oil. Somewhere on the internet there are maps of the water resources (above and underground). Overlay these with boundaries, and you will begin to see a pattern. Look closely at the areas where there is dispute.
That is pretty broad and I guess by that definition, most differences can be labelled “cultural” differences. But I don’t think most people think of it that way. I think few would suggest that East Germany lagged behind West Germany because of German culture or “East German” culture, though by your definition that would make sense.
I think it’s pretty clear that the vast majority is due to the conflict with Israel and the politics of that conflict, no matter who one chooses to blame for it. I don’t discount culture entirely, but I think it’s a minor factor compared to all the others. And I certainly disagree with Romney when he says that “culture makes all the difference.”
I’m frankly surprised “Palestine” does as well as it does considering it isn’t even a recognized country, it’s geographically non-contiguous and it has almost no access to world markets or financial institutions. Despite those deficits (and there are plenty more) their per capita GDP is about the same as Pakistan.
And I also think you have to take time into account. Israel developed very fast thanks to a diverse, highly educated immigrant population, a lot of financial and other support from western powers, a supportive diaspora, etc. Israel was able to start from nothing very quickly.
Where I do think culture matters with regard to Israel is zionism. That’s fading now, but it did help make Israel what it is today.
“Black September”
The Palestinians and Syria tried to overthrow Jordan and failed.
Their response was to kill Israeli athletes at the 1972 Olympics. That is what the culture was all about then. It has not changed.