Bill Clinton really seems to be losing it.
“People who claim to want the nation-state are actually trying to have a pan-national movement to institutionalize separatism and division within borders all over the world.”
So nationalism is really an internationalist movement to let each country have its own independence? Is this anything like the libertarian slogan about taking over the government and leaving you alone?
Did this make sense in his own head? Or to his speechwriter?
He added that often, people “have found more political success and met the deep psychic needs people have had to feel that their identity requires them to be juxtaposed against someone else.”
Like the evil Republicans who are always out to put y'all back in chains, ban abortion and bring back the 50s. Except it never seems to happen.
But a Bill Clinton speech wouldn't be complete without backhandedly blaming Israel for lack of peace.
Clinton repeatedly held up his old friend Rabin, who was assassinated in 1995, as the standard that contemporary politics is falling short of. Rabin was a man changed over his life, Clinton said, displayed courage and was so reliable that then-Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat was so “in awe of him” that he was ready to make agreements based on trust.
Clinton called the day of the assassination his worst day in the White House, adding, “I remain convinced that had he lived we would have achieved a comprehensive agreement with the Palestinians by 1998 and we’d be living in a different world today.”
For a long time, liberals have been handing out these compliments to Rabin. Because he's dead. If he were alive and Arafat turned him down, then he would be just another evil Israeli leader. But since he's dead, it's easy to hand him these compliments while implying that it's the fault of Israeli leaders after him that there's no peace.
It's a strawman theory that is useful because it's impossible to test. Rabin becomes a martyr to a peace that would have existed if not for Israel.