Acland Street

One of the folk over at Yglesias is talking about civility in political debate, and says, inter alia,

"After several generations of negotiations and concessions, I may not think there’s much room for further reconciliation between pro-lifers and pro-choicers in the United States. That I don’t necessarily feel the same way about Israelis and Palestinians, though, doesn’t betray an inconsistency at all. Frankly, if that conflict began to resemble the culture wars in America, and the political debate cooled along with it, it would be the most promising development in the Middle East since the creation of modern Israel."

Sorry, that I really don't get. We're dealing with facts on the ground, yes, we can't wish ourselves back to a point where we had better options, sure, but surely if we were back in 1945 or 46 with the wisdom of hindsight we can see now that it would have been better not to do this at all? If somebody had cleared their throat and said "Yes, moving millions of Europe's jews into a part of the world where they're surrounded by and infiltrated with people who hate them and are going to go on hating them as, among other things, usurpers and displacers is a good idea exactly how?" then that, surely, would have been a very promising development. Then all the jews could have come to Australia and we wouldn't be in the situation we are now where Cafe Scheherazade in Acland Street is having to close for lack of custom.