[Buddha-l] Re: Re: Gog and Magog

[Dan Lusthaus]

Chris,

Thanks for both links. I hope Richard B. reads them.

The first link clearly explains that there is no international standard for
water sharing, and that the international community is adverse to setting
such a standard (it would cause too many international conflicts). The
second (a powerpoint slide show, basically, with generalities but few hard
details) acts as if such a standard did exist and measures things according
to that standard (with charts, etc.).

Both inform that Israel and Jordan have been cooperatively working on the
water issues for decades, ad hoc without final agreements, yet largely to
the satisfaction of both parties. The second link offers its "Elements of
the multilaterial 'positive-sum game'" [slide Equitable and Reasonable
Distributions (3)], and, after listing them, states on that slide "Israel is
already following a similar strategy unilaterially."

That's it in a nutshell.

Note, on a separate slide, there are charts showing the Israeli and
Palestinian proposals for water sharing between Israelis and Palestinians,
and the final amounts are (as is pointed out on the slide) identical. What
is in contention is the legal standard by which allocation is to be
determined. As anyone involved in any legal procedures can explain, no
matter how trivial and contentious these sorts of legalistic wranglings
might get, their consequences are rarely trivial. In this case, setting an
inflexible standard would not allow for future reasonable flexibilities. So
both parties are -- rightfully -- approaching that cautiously. That is also
a caution for careful hermeneuts to be wary of such terms as "equity" when
the standard by which equity is measured is not established. As both links
explain, there are multiple, competing theories of what would count as
"equitable" at play.

In the meantime, everyone is getting their water, and they seem to largely
be on the same page as to what the contours of a settlement of the issue (at
least for the foreseeable future) will look like.

Bottom line, however, is that Richard B.'s horror story is a fiction, part
of several decades of propoganda that is more interested in generating
emotional response than in getting any facts straight (it willingly utilizes
gross falsehoods, but so repeatedly that they start to sound like facts).
It's very effective, apparently -- but that still doesn't make it true.

cheers,
Dan