From Szoraster@lgc.com Sat Apr 6 08:27:24 2002 Received: from mailscan4.cac.washington.edu (mailscan4.cac.washington.edu [140.142.33.15]) by lists.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.01) with SMTP id g36GRMDN018114 for ; Sat, 6 Apr 2002 08:27:22 -0800 Received: FROM mxu1.u.washington.edu BY mailscan4.cac.washington.edu ; Sat Apr 06 08:27:22 2002 -0800 Received: from oasis.zycor.lgc.com ([134.132.112.31]) by mxu1.u.washington.edu (8.12.1+UW01.12/8.12.1+UW02.01) with ESMTP id g36GRLc6028948 for ; Sat, 6 Apr 2002 08:27:21 -0800 Received: from ausvw.ad.lgc.com (ausvw.ad.lgc.com [134.132.115.10]) by oasis.zycor.lgc.com (8.11.3/8.11.3) with SMTP id g36GSPt06356 for ; Sat, 6 Apr 2002 10:28:25 -0600 (CST) Received: from 134.132.92.92 by ausvw.ad.lgc.com (InterScan E-Mail VirusWall NT); Sat, 06 Apr 2002 10:27:01 -0600 Received: by lgchexch001 with Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) id <2LRGHPZ0>; Sat, 6 Apr 2002 10:27:02 -0600 Message-ID: <462F323275D6D311BA0200805F356C5201F2F9A0@LGCADEV001.ad.lgc.com> From: Steve Zoraster To: "'classics@u.washington.edu '" Subject: RE: VDH Date: Sat, 6 Apr 2002 10:26:53 -0600 MIME-Version: 1.0 X-Mailer: Internet Mail Service (5.5.2653.19) Content-Type: text/plain; charset="ISO-8859-1" On Saturday, April 6, 2002, at 7:38 AM, Ross Scaife wrote: > But that's not so much what led me to bring the subject up as simply the > spectacle of a classicist so intent on engaging a broad public by means > of writing suffused with classical references. Classics is an intensely > inward-looking profession: most of its practitioners are perfectly > content to go for decades addressing themselves primarily to extremely > small groups of similarly trained and like-minded colleagues, so > Hanson's example IS in that sense quite notable. That's obviously > separate from whether you agree with him or not. A possibly relevant question is whether any classicists besides Victor Davis Hanson are willing or able to suggest solutions to the Palestinian-Israeli problem that have not been already tried? Or whether they can make predictions about the future upon which a practical American foreign policy can be built? Although not a classicist, I will state that the history I have read from ancient to modern leads me to believe that there is no "final" resolution to the problem except for the expulsion of one side or the other from Palestine. On one hand this conclusion simplifies my life because I no longer bother reading about the latest peace proposal. On the other hand.... Well, on the other hand I start thinking that it would make sense for the United State to offer increased opportunities for immigration to the United States by Arab Palestinians with families. Thereby gaining both a moral victory over other countries and some future good citizens. I am, of course, hoping that having families will lead these as yet hypothetical immigrants leave the problems of the Old World behind them. Which is probably an example of hope overcoming rational analysis. Steven Zoraster .