It’s About Time (May 3, 2024)
Welcome to Home & Away. It was a chaotic and confusing week, here on college campuses and in the Middle East. Plus there was a noteworthy editorial in the Washington Post I want to highlight as well as an even more noteworthy set of comments by a certain presumptive presidential candidate.
Confusing Time in the Middle East
There is talk of a possible hostage/prisoner exchange leading to a pause in the fighting in Gaza. But it is not clear any possible deal will be enough for Hamas, which seems to want an open-ended ceasefire and an end to Israeli occupation—while any possible deal may also be too much for the Israeli prime minister, who is intent on pursuing his white whale of eliminating Hamas through military means in order to maintain the unity of his right-wing coalition government.
This political reality also makes it difficult if not impossible for Netanyahu to offer up a political track to Palestinians that over time could marginalize Hamas…and might make it difficult to close a deal with the Saudis who are reportedly prepared to normalize relations with Israel but only if they get a security treaty and civilian nuclear assistance from the United States along with something on the Palestinian front from Israel.
Further complicating matters is Netanyahu’s declaration that Israel will attack Rafah with or without a hostage deal. This may well turn out to be the case, although at least as important as whether Israel goes into Rafah is when and how it does so, particularly in terms of employing military force, facilitating humanitarian aid flows, and minimizing civilian casualties. I am off to the Middle East tonight, which means my understanding of the situation might improve as a result of what I hear and see in Israel and elsewhere. If so, you will read about it in next week’s newsletter.
Chaotic Time on Campus
The situation on many college and university campuses in this country is not good. Things are messy and getting messier. I know the protests and encampments present administrators with some difficult choices, but difficult is not the same as impossible. Proving this point is the reality that some schools are faring much better than others. As always, leadership matters.
Leaders should set boundaries and then enforce them. There is nothing worse than red lines that turn out to be blurry or dotted, something that invites escalation and contempt for the rules and the law. Administrators have the obligation to call in law enforcement to remove anyone in the community who won’t voluntarily abide by the rules and outsiders who have no right to be on campus in the first place. College and university officials also have a self-interest in acting before situations escalate. As a rule of thumb, it is less difficult to maintain order than it is to restore it.
A few additional thoughts. Free speech is a right, but not the only one. Nor is it an absolute. Students and others have the right to go to class, take exams, work in a safe environment, hear alternative points of view, and attend commencement. Schools have the obligation to protect these rights. Free speech is not license to disrupt legitimate activities much less intimidate or injure others. Nor is it freedom to damage and deface campuses and buildings. That is lawlessness.
Members of any and all academic communities need to be reminded of the rules governing conduct and the consequences of violating them. This should apply to students and faculty. Anyone who violates the rules ought to pay a price; this is at the core of civil disobedience as developed by Henry David Thoreau and practiced by Martin Luther King, Jr. and others. Civil disobedience is not a revolutionary act but rather one that accepts the rule of law and the legitimacy of the political system even though the disobedience is motivated by disagreement with specific laws or practices and aims to change them. Those involved in the protests ought to take off their face coverings if they are persuaded that what they are doing is right.
All of which means those protesting in a manner that violates stated rules or the law should be prepared to accept any punishment coming their way, be it from school or governmental authorities. Depending on what they do, students should be prepared to be suspended or expelled. As for faculty, they should be prepared to be suspended or fired. Tenure is meant to provide protection against intimidation, not a cover to violate school guidelines and the law.
Since we are talking about institutions of higher learning, one could be excused for thinking the current context provides something of an opportunity to educate. I find it hard not to be struck by anecdotal reports of what many of those in the encampments do not know about the history of the Middle East peace process or the rule of Hamas. It is not that Israel is always right -- as anyone reading this newsletter knows, I have been quite critical of Israeli policy – but it is also true is that the history of the region is one of shared responsibility. The Palestinians are more than victims. They have had a hand in determining their fate. All of which is to say students and faculty and staff would benefit from teach-ins amidst the sit-ins.
One more thought. One irony of the protests is that they further increase the odds Donald Trump will be the next president of these United States if only because the protests reinforce the perception that things are spinning out of control, be it on our border, in our cities, or on our campuses. This perception will only be strengthened if the Democrat convention this August resembles Chicago in 1968, which it well might. And whatever the flaws of Joe Biden’s Middle East policy, Israel will have a much freer hand to do what it wants in the Occupied Territories and beyond under a Trump presidency. This too seems not to have occurred to those in the encampments.
Time for a Change on Climate Change
I thought I would take a step away from the immediate debates and say something about climate change. Things are getting hotter out there but not just because summer is coming.
Much of the attention devoted to the issue is what countries are doing (or not doing) either individually or collectively to mitigate, i.e., reduce, the scale and pace of climate change. The results strongly suggest we will never overtake the problem, even if that is the predominant focus. To the contrary, the gap between the politics and the reality of climate change is large and growing.
So I was surprised in a good way to see a Washington Post editorial this week on what is known as geoengineering. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, it is admittedly an idea that seems to belong more to science fiction than science. It involves injecting particles of one sort or another into the atmosphere to reflect sunlight and in the process cool things down. It doesn’t affect the amount of carbon and other heat-trapping gases we put into the atmosphere, but rather offsets their effects.
The idea has long been controversial. Some oppose it out of fear it would provide an excuse not to do more to reduce the use of fossil fuels or slow carbon emissions or stop the destruction of rain forests. I have two reactions to this. First, it is not either/or. We can and should do more to reduce carbon emissions through regulation or shift to alternative fuels (or to capture carbon already released) while we explore the potential for geoengineering. And second, you would have to be living in la la land to think that the course we are presently on (not to mention convening more annual UN-sponsored summits, such as the one recently held in the UAE and the one to be held this November in Azerbaijan) will turn the tide.
Yes, there is the danger geoengineering could be tried and like many actions could have unintended adverse consequences. The smart response is not to reject it out of hand but to devise experiments that are safe and responsible.
Then there is the governance issue. Who decides what is allowed? In this country, could a state suffering from drought do something on its own? Could a company? Or internationally, what about a country doing something that would have implications for another? Again, the answer is not to prohibit geoengineering but to get serious about designing the necessary domestic and international safeguards that would allow us to learn about it in a responsible manner.
Geoengineering is needed as part of the toolkit for contending with climate change. It was technology (above all mRNA vaccines and Zoom) that allowed us to get through the global challenge of Covid-19 relatively well. My bet is it will be technology, including geoengineering, that holds out the best chance to making sure climate change does not become the defining issue of this century. The time to get going is now.
Time Out
You should all take time to read Time—more specifically the interview in Time of the former president. What comes through loud and clear is that Donald Trump is poised to reject the outcome of the 2024 election if he loses—and to encourage his supporters to take to the streets and even use violence. In the foreign policy realm what comes through no less loud and clear is that every friend and ally of this country has been put on notice that U.S. backing cannot be assumed under a Trump administration. There may be some overlaps between Biden and Trump – on China, trade, Afghanistan – but on matters big and small, foreign and domestic, the differences are profound.
Sixty years ago, there was a presidential election in this country in which one of the two candidates portrayed the coming election as a choice, not an echo. I will end by saying it is truer today than it was then.
As always, some links to click on. And feel free to share Home & Away.
Richard Haass in the news
Tuesday, April 30: Morning Joe
Wednesday, May 1: CSIS Civics at Work: The Role of Business in Sustaining Democracy
Thursday, May 2: Morning Joe; Laura Coates Show on POTUS (SiriusXM)