=jplt9 Draft 'Letter-to-the-Editor''s of the JP et al. starting 1 April '04 =============================================================== The question is not whether Sharon should be indicted, but whether his apparently terminally procrastinating Attorny-General should be indicted. ================================================================== As any cat-owner knows, Netanyahu is quite right in insisting that that the poor must be weaned from depending on handouts, when they could be out catching mice. =============================================================== To: injer@jpost.com 'In Jerusalem' is more or less worthless. Jerusalem is the spiritual capital of the Jewish people; it is not ( present downtown trend notwithstanding) a honky-tonk town. But the Pesach edition (2 Apr '04) featured an (inadequately) illustrated article on the last streetwalker. I'd hoped for information on a rather different sort of experience. ================================================================ To: tt@ou.org cc: letters@jpost.com, letters@haaretz.co.il Once again: The Jerusalem Orthodox Union's Israel Center includes pamphlets from the (banned) Kahane movement in its reception-area literature rack. A disingenuous disclaimer states that the OU Israel Center does not necessarily endorse the political nor halachic opinions expressed in available pamphlets. The Israel Center has long functioned as a common-denominator resource center for all persons following or interested in orthodox Judaism. ================================================================= Draft essay: Sharon affair Re: JP 1 Apr '04 (Derfner) Derfner writes: "According to other leaks, Attorney General Meni Mazuz isn't sure he wants to go along with Arbel's recommendation to indict because he has doubts about the evidence. Before he can feel sure about winning a conviction he needs positive proof that Sharon knew he was helping Appel on his business deals in return for Gilad's 'salary' [ apparently a one-time payment of $700,000, deposited in the Sharon family's Sycamore Farm account ]. The Israel Attorney General is either a fool or a knave. The latter seems to be the case. A few preliminary points: First of all, both in the USA and Israel, it's not clear whether the Attorney-General is supposed to be the general Attorney for the Chief Executive, or for the citizenry. If the later, then Mazuz is acting most improperly. An Attorny-General should represent the citizenry, and be chosen by an independent commission. Second: The decision to indict should be based on the belief that a crime has been committed, not on estimating that one can win a conviction. And the decision to indict should not be made by the chief prosecuting attorney. Similarly: Although the IDF reportedly (JP) demonstrated that EU funds to the PLO had been used by the PLO to support terrorists -- and demonstrated it not merely beyond a reasonable doubt, but beyond a rational doubt -- (producing payment orders signed by the PLO Chairperson) -- an EU committee refused to conclude that the funds had been thus diverted, arguing that their was no 'conclusive evidence', since it was possible that the authorized payment was never disbursed. And this is similar to the jury acquital of the accused slayer of Meir Kahane. They acknowleged that the accused had fired the shot, but claimed that their was no proof that that shot was the one that killed him. One might say that all these examples show the (disingenuous, sophistic) application of the fallibilst causual fallacy. Philosophic fallibilism is merely a matter of interjecting doubts (usually feigned doubts) at points where no reasonable person would have doubts. It is somewhat like a cranky child asking "Why, why" to everything you say. It is, in an epistemlogic contst, a matter of 'refusing to take yes for an answer'. Philosophic fallibilism may be applied to causality (theory of action) or to meaning (theory of meaning). For examples (insofar as memory serves): Fallibilism applied to causation: A USA jury refused to convict the accused assassain of Meir Kahane. They acknowleged that the accused had fired a bullet, but questioned whether that bullet killed that unlamentable hate-monger. The absurdity of such a conclusion may be shown by imaging a case in which such a conclusion would not be absurd, and then showing how different such a case would be from the case at hand. For example, the jury's verdict would not have been absurd if: the bullet had been picked up by an unexplicably unreported freak tornado, and desposited gently in a child's candy-coated easter- egg basket, leaving the deceased to take his most conincidental leave of this world at the hand of person or persons unknown. But such an event is no improbably, and would have been so extraordinary, that the prosecution cannot reasonably have been expected to show that it did not occur. For an example of fallibilism applied to theory of meaning: Bill Clinton's now-classic 'It depends what you mean by 'mean'.' Again: the issue is not whether Sharon should be indicted; but whether Mazuz should be indicted. Again: Derfner reports that is said of Mazuz that: "he [Attorney- General Mazuz, apparently questioning the State Attorny's recommendation that Sharon be indicted for accepting a bribe] needs positive proof that Sharon knew he was helping Appel on his business deals in return for Gilad's 'salary'" The term 'positive proof' is inept and problematic; I'll try to turn to that soon. Note that the Attorny-General apparently does not dispute that: Appel paid $700,000 to Sharon's son; the son had no apparent business experience that would justify such a payment [nor, apparently, did signficant work in exchange for what would be for an average Israeli about 60 years' wages ] that money was deposited in a Sharon family account; Appel sought Sharon's assistance in several business dealings; Sharon was aware that Appel sought his help. Apparently Sharon did something which tended and/or was intended to further Appel's interests; and presumably Sharon would have known that the money had been received by his son. It is presumably evident that Sharon would have had access to that money, as it was deposited in a family ranch account, not in his son's personal account. So the point on which Mazuz is apparently tottring is merely: is there 'positive proof' that when Sharon did whatever he did, that Sharon knew that (a) this would, or at least might, help Appel; and (b) did Sharon know that he, Sharon, was doing this "in return for Gilad's 'salary'" Well, put that way, one might well say: no. But this is quite a large slop of hogwash through which conceptually to slog. I mean, like: critique by conceptual exegetical analysis of a lukewarm marshmellow. First of all, the notion of 'proof', which properly is predicated of deductions in formal systems -- mathematics, originally Euclidean geometry -- is here problematic. To win a case in law, one does not 'prove' the accuasation [ except in the anachronistic sense of trial by personal combat; as Shakespeare said, concluding an erstwile noble sonnet in a bawd rhetoric flourish by evokeing a joust of rather different sort, "If this be error and upon me prove'd', I never writ nor no man ever love'd" . [Which fails as proof in formal logic: p is not entailed by: {If [if p then q] and if [not-q]} . (And so we must admit that impediments often exist to "the marriage of true minds". But this case has little to do with such pure Platonic adentures in ideas. Now unless Sharon suffers from advanced -- (I forget the name of the syndrome; but I think I've sent out a neuron search party, so it may be delivered to me in a few minutes -- oh yes, 'Alzheimer's disease' -- though it's not yet a demonstrated disease, merely a syndrome associated with a buildup of plaque on neurons) , he must have been aware that was he was doing was in return for what had been done. They said of deKoonig, ending his life in Alzheimer's, that he kept on painting, but was not aware the next day of what he had painted. And Gary Trudeau, in his Doonesbury, has a poignant cartoon of a genteel and gallant Congresswoman -- I forget the name of the Congresswoman whom his cartoon was modeled upon -- who had fallen into Alzheimer's, remarking to an old friend, "Dear, not only do I not remember who you are, I can't even remember what you just said, but you have raised my spirits greatly." So you see, it's not a matter of loss of intelligence, but of loss of other faculties -- short-term memory, for one thing [as that Canadian Jewish writer -- Mordechai Richler, isn't it -- notes: with age, one's short-term memory goes while one's long-term memory returns -- he can't remember what he had for lunch yesterday, but he can now recall every detail -- or rather, very many details -- of his childhood. I wonder what role a minor brain inflamation -- the sort of thing that might even be controlled by taking a few aspirin regularly -- plays. I did seem to notice a heat on my forehead on Rodos, especially just before I broke down. And once or twice experienced something similar in response to the 'flu. I called it 'psychedelic flu'. And in the first stage of my breakdown, I had a great augmentation in psychic powers, and maybe in perception to; but at the cost (as in psychedelic experience) of will-power. And my personality is too inhibited to enable me to do much without will-power. Leary once said, pretty nearly: Only a 'swinger' can handle psychedelics -- that is, the sort of personality that is used to proceeding from the id, rather than waiting on a green-light to the ego from the super-ego. (As you see, Freud has his uses as well as his abusers.) So indeed, if Sharon were in such a state, it could be the case that his son received a large payment, and Sharon did something that might benefit the payee, but, like the Playboy protagoniste, did so from independent motive, or at least was unaware that he had done so under a sense of repaying an obligation. Most of use refuse to acknowelege the ways in which we prostitute ourselves. As Herbert Gold (I think) once wrote, 'Nowadays, when you asked for a $100-an-hour hooker, they send you in an Ad-man.' But of course Sharon is not suffering from Alzheimer's (though he's so stupid, it might take some time to know. They told Dorothy Parker: Herbert Hoover (or was it Calvin Coolidge -- heavens, where do WASP's get such assonantial names) is dead. She replied, 'How can they tell.' One way that ordinary language analysis highlight's the absurdity of a fallibilist ploy, is to imagine an extraordinary situation in which such a response would not be absurd, and then let the reader see how for such a situation is from the situation at hand. And hence how inappropriate the proffered response is. Anyhow, the notion of 'in return for' depends upon what is done, not upon what is believed, understood, or thought. I recall a Playboy cartoon: a handsome young woman raises her left hand for a cocktail or highball refill, as her lowered right hand removes her blouse, remarking, 'Oh, just one more, if you're absolutely sure it won't obligate me in any way.' As Edgar Allen Poe said when his British manservant enquired, ''Ay Guv'nor, wot we tip the boid that gave the message': Quid pro Quo. Well, these are rambling notes and repetitious, but I'm too sleepy to tidy them up now. --------------- sa, Mevo Modi'in, 14 Nisan; after getting rid of as much of the chametzedike Finlandia pure grain vodka as possible, despite the inferiority of Heinz Worcestershire sauce. I'll flambee the last of it tomorrow morning. =================================================================