That aside: there are interesting questions of genre and site–whether a public blog can be a locus for conversation, and the pursuit of truth, rather than for persuasion, and the pursuit of victory. It is to some extent a quixotic (albeit longstanding) hope to think that a conversation can be both public and untainted by eloquence. This may be more evident on this particular topic, but I think it is a generic problem.

But on the particular topic: it’s also that most everything has been said–it’s not as if there is an interesting solution lying around that hasn’t been considered. The decision of the conflict is of very great interest; but as an intellectual topic, it is repetitive and dull. And hence it is perfectly understandable that you would devote your salon to different subjects.

Tell me, what news is there of the cholera in Odessa?

There are many things that can change when people of good faith stir themselves to talk about them. This, right now, is not one of them. It can all be left to the people who think their bombs or rockets are righteous, or their dead babies sanctified.

You posed very interesting and important questions in your comment, and then said you have no interest “in trying to talk about it with people… who have a total inability to talk about it.” I find it quite distressing that you are willing to let those people stifle the conversation that needs to be happening among the rest of us. It is through such conversations that someone like me might be able to decide whether marching on Washington would be worthwhile. Perhaps this is fine with you because you think the answer is “no” or you simply don’t care. I don’t know. Meanwhile, you and Atkins are ceding to others any intellectual influence you could have on someone like me.

More fundamentally, I am dismayed that the strategy of shouting down people like you and Atkins is actually working to stifle discussion.

There is almost no one who approaches this conflict as a thing to understand or know about, or to have discussions about. What do you do about a history this tainted and painful? What do you do, actually, about people who shoot rockets at your territory from sites around civilians? What do you do, actually, about people who keep your people in a sociopolitical arrangement that has strong resemblance to apartheid? I don’t have the faintest idea. I only know that I’m not interested in trying to talk about it with people who have far too many ideas, far too much certainty, and a total inability to actually talk about it. Because that’s what blogs are specialized to do: talk. They’re not about marching on Washington or sending support to combatants: do that if that’s what you think will produce an outcome that you find to be an improvement.

http://www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/1-latest-news/2299-gag-rule-on-gaza-a-grand-bargain-with-brutal-power.html

Basically, his response is that to shy away from a topic due to likely backlash is cowardly; to avoid the topic because you can’t find any “good guys” is childish (“How about rooting for the innocent people being slaughtered?”); and to claim that the whole endeavor is “pointless” is odd considering that the “point” is among other things to register your complaint and possibly put pressure on our government, just as with any other political blog post.

Considering that Israel is likely to maintain this offensive until there is too much international outcry, the “point” of speaking out seems pretty clear to me, assuming you agree that minimizing the bloodshed is a worthy goal.