US bans students from “blacklisted” countries from getting access to Coursera
hummusforthought.com
hummusforthought.com
Here's an even better question: if your enemy thinks like you, talks like you, acts like you, shares your values and views the world the way you do, is he your enemy? Can he be your enemy? Why would he be your enemy?
Let's consider a central question.You espouse a belief in freedom, a nation built on liberty. Your enemy denies this, proclaims you a tyrant, and endeavors to make war against you. How do you respond?
One method undercuts your enemy's message, reaffirms your core values, and has the potential to alter and modify your enemy so that he is predisposed to be united with you.
The other affirms his message, strengths his position, and emboldens those who follow him.
This leads to the last question: what is your objective? Is it victory, or something else?
What better path to victory then to alter the mind of your enemy until he is incapable of fighting you?
Our educational assets ought to therefore be shared. To sensor them in the name of security is foolish.
Sure. Previous to the 20th century, most wars were fought over control over resources, land, and prestige.
Sure. Previous to the 20th century, most wars were
fought over control over resources, land, and
prestige.
Spurious differences but holding a great deal of emotional charge.
edit: added quote.
Porthos: I mean, what are we killing them for?
Because they sing psalms in French, and we
sing them in Latin?
Aramis: Porthos, have you no education? What
do you think religious wars are all about? What better path to victory then to alter
the mind of your enemy until he is incapable
of fighting you? Our educational assets ought
to therefore be shared. To sensor them in the
name of security is foolish.
they could easily find cheaper and more
efficient ways than what they've been doing.
Clearly, the goal is not to help.
That they would freely and openly welcome our help, without suspicion of malice or harm. [1]
[1]
Pakistan halts polio vaccination campaign in response to Islamist violence against health workers
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xkPDLw7E_Q
Pakistan polio vaccination under high threat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2ouBgZmpnI
edit: formatting
Since you chose the example of polio vaccinations, I think it would be fair to mention that Pakistani leaders have an excellent reason to oppose polio vaccinations. It turns out, and you can easily Google for this, that the CIA set up a fake vaccination program in Pakistan to get a hold of Bin Laden's DNA.
It's bad enough that there are false allegations, mostly religion-based, against Western medical intervention in these countries. But to actively feed this distrust by abusing what little trust these people had, just to accomplish a public symbolic victory over a terrorist organization, was an utterly despicable act on part of the US administration.
This seems like a fairly, um, naive set of questions. Let's imagine a hypothetical guy who shares all my values and views. Everything I like, he likes too. Everything I dislike, so does he.
I like Thai food. He likes Thai food.
I like Settlers of Catan. He likes Settlers of Catan.
I like reading Orson Scott Card. He likes reading Orson Scott Card.
I'm gunning for a promotion at work. He's gunning for the same promotion. Oops.
I like a girl called Susan. So does he!
When you consider just how alike we are, it's clear (?) that there is no room for conflict between us.
> What better path to victory th[a]n to alter the mind of your enemy until he is incapable of fighting you?
You're going to end up with fundamentally different modes of thought and perceptions afterwards, since this is you fighting the other guy but removing even the capability from him. It's more of a Brave New World alpha-epsilon relationship than a peer-peer relationship.
Conflict isn't caused by cultural difference, even though it's an easy, stupid explanation. Conflict is primarily caused by incompatible goals. When resources are scarce, incompatible goals are plenty.
Is that so ridiculous, or is the theory that if the Iranians get steeped in American culture that they'll want the Shah back the ridiculous one?
The parent comment was a bit hyperbolic, but it wasn't absurd, and there's truth to it. Claiming that the parent meant everyone was gunning for Susan (that it, turning it into an argument about identical individuals) was absurd.
This isn't true. The more similar you are, the more incompatible goals you'll have; your culture informs your goals. Anything which is diminished in quantity when someone else partakes of it is a source of conflict, and the conflict will be greater the more people want it. Incompatible goals decrease with distance; I can honestly say that I don't care at all how various African warlords divvy things up among themselves. And though I have opinions on what public art should look like where I live, I'm happy to let people far away put up whatever weird monuments they like. There is more conflict between San Francisco workers and San Francisco poor than there is between either and anyone in Dubai.
Individuals fight over things they can't share. Demographic groups do the same. Israel isn't likely to challenge the US for Susan. But if Israel wants to see the West Bank populated by Jews, and the US wants to see it populated by Arabs, they can't both win. And if the US wants to host the world financial capital, and England is so culturally alike that it also wants to host the world financial capital, they'll fight.
You're primarily interpreting goals solely as "taking limited resource X". Nothing about political desires, entertainment desires, preferred styles of food, family structures (eg nuclear vs extended), so on and so forth.
If I like 3D movies, it doesn't put me at odds with someone else who likes 3D movies. Or, for a stronger example, if I like secular law, it does put me at odds with someone who wants sharia law. This is not something that has an exhaustible quantity - it is a difference of culture, and is one less point of friction if we ameliorate it.
Perhaps a better example. If 9/11 was due to Irish terrorists, the US public would not have signed up in the order of hundreds of thousands to invade England and topple the English government. But this is what happened to Iraq. Iraq had done absolutely nothing, nothing at all, to the US public. Yet because it was in the same geographic region as the guys responsible, the US quite happily used Iraq as a proxy to flex their might. Hell, even if the 9/11 terrorists had been English, the US still wouldn't have invaded England, unless it actually was an action of the English government. If they had been terrorists from any NATO country, that country would have been left alone.
The SF workers and the SF poor fit into the original commentor's statement. They think very much alike, but there are still points of friction where they don't. Nevertheless, they are not actually killing each other en masse - rock-throwing and protests. US and Arab cultures are not so much alike, but the US citizenry volunteers to go to the other side of the globe and kill Arabs that have not wronged them.
The more alike your cultures are, the more difficult it is to demonise the other, and the better you'll get on. Fighting over limited resource X is not the be-all and end-all of cultural dissonance.
> for a stronger example, if I like secular law, it does put me at odds with someone who wants sharia law
I'm making the point that this is only true if you happen to share space with that other person. Right now you're getting along famously with millions of people who want sharia law, because they're safely far away in a different jurisdiction.
Cultural differences, even vast ones, are neither necessary nor sufficient to provoke conflict (although they definitely make it easier). Disputes over limited resources such as, say, Strasb(o)urg, aren't necessary either, but they can be sufficient.
Having said that, I'll repeat that I largely agree with your comment.
I'm one of several people pointing out that the question is ludicrous. Your enemies are far more likely to be quite similar to you than they are to be different. Parent's position was overwrought when it was posed, not because I did something to it.
Sure, a good argument can be made that a culture based on Islamic fundamentalism is philosophically and ethically much worse than living under the droning malevolence of Christianity, but in reality there's little honor in being second place when both ideologies come with followers who run a big part of the world with money, advanced weapons and technology.
And I agree, one of the few concepts that could offer a way out of this is indeed education, hopefully paving the way for rationalism and humanism.
If you really want to hear something controversial from me: I don't think the problem is political at all, at the core it's all about religious ignorance and religion-inspired values. Politics has a way of resolving itself, religion does not (except, again, through education hopefully).
Also I'd like to point out that I don't write comments to get upvotes - although it's nice to see people agreeing with me on stuff, I'm really here for the discourse. I fully expect my comments on this thread to turn gray shortly, to be honest.
>Both have values centered on abject ignorance and strict religious ideas
Having other confused people agree with you does not make it true. You believe in a caricature regarding both countries.
So people who don't agree with you are "confused" now?
> You believe in a caricature regarding both countries.
I agree it's problematic to make statements about entire countries. But it's comparatively easy to observe what their political systems act like in practice. Of course that doesn't necessarily reflect what the majority of citizens actually think and believe.
I must confess I find it hard to understand your tone here. We seem to agree on the basics. The only difference between us would be that you assert I have an exaggerated perception of certain traits.
You're right, now I am confused.
> I suspect many know it is not anywhere near true but enjoy anything that paints the powerful US in a bad light.
It's interesting that you perceived my post to be like that. It's not meant to be. Sadly, the US doesn't need any help to appear in a bad light, and again the same goes for the Muslim world by the way. That doesn't mean I'm happy about it.
I think it's more difficult to hear criticism coming from your friends than from your enemies. That's because your enemies have questionable motives. But your friends just worry about you and your destructive influence on yourself as well as your surroundings. That's exactly how many Europeans feel, I guess. Well, at least that's how I feel.
It's not a theocracy, but it's still a militaristic country run by the religious right. Leading to all the things you complained about, and more.
Source? Or do you just consider all US politicians "the religious right" to fit your argument?
I have. Indeed, my parents grew up in one. My dad still laments how Islamization undermined the secular democratic goals underpinning the country's independence movement. Nobody who has actual experience with the U.S. and such countries would say "the only difference is one side has redefined what the word means in order to continue using it in elections." This is the sort of adolescent false equivalence that will get you upvotes here on HN, from other people who have no experience with either Islamic nations or often even how religion functions here in the U.S.
Your errors are two-fold and fundamental: ignoring the ratios of extremists to moderates in the respective countries, and conflating the communitarianism that exists in America (not just in Christian but also in Jewish and Islamic communities), for the authoritarianism that exists in many Islamic countries.
> This is the sort of adolescent nonsense that will get you upvotes here on HN
Sigh, this is the second time someone accuses me of angling for cheap upvotes. I didn't think it would get any, and that's not why I wrote it. I really do believe ignorance is the root of most evil that has befallen both systems, and I really do believe there are interesting similarities between them. Something which you seem to agree with at least partly.
That's not a popular stance, and if the goal was to get votes you'd think I'd have chosen something much less controversial and foam-around-the-mouth inducing.
I get that you're frustrated, but just because my comments don't turn gray immediately when you click on the down arrow doesn't necessarily mean I get karma from them either. And again, I think what upset you most is probably a misunderstanding in the first place.
I wasn't talking about cultural differences, I was talking about liberty. This is the basis of my point about conflating communitarianism for authoritarianism. Most religious Americans, particularly Christian Americans, display many characteristics of communitarianism: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communitarianism. To them, liberty is not impinged by the establishment of religiously-based social standards and expectations. It's not totally consistent with classic liberal ideas about individual freedom, but is in fact quite consistent with a game-theoretic understanding of how totally free choice at an individual level isn't necessarily what maximizes free choice at a societal level. Rational secular humanists often believe in economic regulation, but ignore the fact that the same forces that lead to problems in unregulated economies can apply to unregulated societies.[1]
In Islamic countries, the prevailing mood is far more authoritarian. The practical importance of religious leaders and their edicts is far stronger. There is a chasm of difference between laws in a democratic society having a religious influence because the polity happens to be religious, and laws having a religious basis because of state establishment of religion.
> Sigh, this is the second time someone accuses me of angling for cheap upvotes.
For me, and I would imagine 'bananacurve as well, the purpose of mentioning upvotes was not to accuse you of angling for cheap upvotes, but to deride the upvoters.
[1] Right now, I live in Wilmington, Delware. There is an urban decay here. In 2011, we had 23 murders, for a city of about 70,000 people. Berlin that same year had less than 20, but is a city of 3.1 million people. The social structure has collapsed. Most of the kids are raised without involvement from fathers, gangs have replaced the authority structure that would've come from parents, etc. And "education" isn't going to fix it. Wilmington spends about $14,750 per year per pupil, as much as Switzerland, which is the OECD country that spends the most. Germany spends less than $10,000 per year per pupil. I'm not saying religion is the solution either, but you can't blame people for thinking it could be. Unrestricted individual liberty, where people have sex whenever they want and men abandon women and children as soon as they become inconvenient, clearly isn't leading to the greatest possible prosperity for the community. I'm not sure why European countries don't suffer from these ailments to the same degree, but I have a feeling that socialism has something to do with it, serving as a replacement for the communitarianism that is breaking down in many places in the U.S.
It's not a conflation, it's a difference in perception. You can assert that your opinion is the only valid one as long as you want, but if we're going to have a discussion about it I'll have to disagree on that point.
Communitarianism may be how they perceive themselves, but if you look at the prevailing structures that image falls apart pretty quickly. In fact, American-branded Christianity displays many of the characteristics of Authoritarianism, since it's also a quasi-political system rooted in many aspects of public and private life. Let me recycle your condescending Wikipedia-pasting maneuver here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarianism.
It's a strict hierarchy that comes straight down from a deity, branching off to layers of people with power derived and intertwined with that religion. Obedience is seen as a mandatory trait, and those Communitarian properties are only exhibited as long as members don't violate one of the many arbitrary tenets and restrictions on behavior. One of the many restrictions is by necessity the censure of science and knowledge.
At the same time, I'd be ridiculous to call the US an outright Theocracy, even though it has some similar traits. But the strict and militaristic hierarchy complete with large-scale control of public opinion makes it a better match for a system that has strong authoritarian traits.
Such is the limitation of labels. It's often hard to find one most people can agree with. They're of limited use in these cases, other than to approximate a certain meaning. However, that approximation is very brittle when communicating with people who are pissed off and/or disagree strongly about everything to begin with.
> In Islamic countries, the prevailing mood is far more authoritarian.
That's something we can agree on, as I believe I've said earlier in those comments you like to mock.
The difference between communitarianism and authoritarianism is not one of perception. It's one of "we decide that this is how we behave" versus "some authority decides how we behave." Whether American Christianity is communitarian or authoritarian may be one of perception, but what perspective do you have as someone who is admittedly unfamiliar with American Christianity?
> It's a strict hierarchy that comes straight down from a deity, branching off to layers of people with power derived and intertwined with that religion. Obedience is seen as a mandatory trait, and those Communitarian properties are only exhibited as long as members don't violate one of the many arbitrary tenets and restrictions on behavior. One of the many restrictions is by necessity the censure of science and knowledge.
This is not actually how religion functions in the U.S., especially among Protestant Christians, which are the largest religious group. I'm not religious, but my wife is, so I attend services about once a month. The message revolves around finding a personal relationship with God, not blind obedience to "many arbitrary tenants and restrictions on behavior." That's the meat and potatoes of mainstream American Christianity. Indeed, there is an anti-authoritarianism built into Protestant Christianity: it is based on a rejection of the authority of the Catholic Church to dictate the meaning of the religion, and elevates individuals seeking a personal, individual connection with God.
I agree. (Sorry for the edit, I misread you there)
But to your point. Just because your religion provides you with a "personal relationship with God" (which I believe pretty much every single religion does by the way), doesn't mean you're not living in a restrictive framework of questionable ethics. And just because Luther rejected the Catholic church doesn't mean (especially American) Protestantism isn't a throwback to the agrarian age.
However, my basic criticism is much simpler: I criticize the validity of a belief in imaginary magical beings, especially ones that spread fear, ignorance, and suffering as their believers impose this nonsense upon themselves and, more importantly, others.
Now, whether American religious communities display more of the characteristics of communitarianism or authoritarianism is a matter of opinion.
> But to your point. Just because your religion provides you with a "personal relationship with God" (which I believe pretty much every single religion does by the way), doesn't mean you're not living in a restrictive framework of questionable ethics.
And my point is that American Christianity focuses on the person relationship with God, and not an authoritarian framework, while Islam in Islamic countries tends to focus on the authoritarian framework. American pastors by and large do not get in front of their congregations and say "do this and don't do this, otherwise you'll burn in hell." To most American Christians, that's not the function of religion in their lives. But in most Muslim countries, that is the function of religion. They don't eat pork because their Imam says not to. They wear headscarves because their Imam says to. The relationship with God is also important, but the regulatory framework derived from religious text as interpreted by religious authorities is also very important.
You're entitled to believe that the ethical framework of American Christianity is questionable, but that doesn't make it authoritarian. And you're welcome to believe that American Protestantism is a conservative throwback, but that doesn't make it authoritarian. Believe it or not, free thinking people can find their own way to conservative ideas, and free communities can impose conservative rules on their members because they feel it will enhance their collective prosperity, not just because some authority figure tells them to.
> I criticize the validity of a belief in imaginary magical beings, especially ones that spread fear, ignorance, and suffering as their believers impose this nonsense upon themselves and, more importantly, others.
You've moved the goalposts quite a bit, from asserting that American society is essentially authoritarian in the same way as Islamic society, to making a generic criticism of religion. Religion = bad, and America and Saudi Arabia, etc, have lots of religious people, and that's bad. Right? You're ignoring that the function and nature of religion between the two societies is very different.
I agree, see above. I misread your statement where your point was instead to imply that whatever the truth, I lack the capability of determining it. ;)
I allege both are at work, but only due to the fact that its Communitarianism is a very shallow self categorization, a glorified self image. As a whole, I think American society is rather exclusive, it's religiously controlled and does have strong authoritarian traits in my opinion, but I already said why.
To give one example why I think Communitarianism is self-deceptive: the group of people who tend to be against creating social support structures are without fail religious conservatives. Health care, welfare, development programs, you name it - they're against it. It may well be true that they believe those same functions should be administered through the local church community, but that doesn't exactly make their intentions any less deplorable.
The fact that last week the whole community helped poor old Mrs Smith clean up her yard doesn't make up for rejecting the funding of more social workers.
> You've moved the goalposts quite a bit
Granted. I felt it necessary to come back to the original point in the original post, since we have drifted quite a bit in an effort to "correctly" label American Protestantism. Making a generalized criticism of religion was my central point, talking about the perceived similarities between the American and the Muslim system was only an extension of it.
When I expressed a hope that education could lead rationalism and humanism, I was implying that it could do so by healing away religious ignorance.
Yes and no. There are certainly "liberal" and "community" focused Christian churches.
But there is also, and proudly, a very distinct, baptist/fundamental/born again Christian tract that absolutely is driven by the stereotyped "angry man preaching fire and brimstone" to a chorus of Amens and Hallelujahs. People who believe that "gentle and caring" Christianity, not to mention atheism and hedonism, are what are wrong with the world, and only a vengeful God, and those not afraid to tell the hard word, is the only "solution".
Our objective is not to win these countries over. It is to keep them from posing a threat to our oil supply, key allies, etc.
We have already lifted restrictions for Syrians as the OFAC (Office of Foreign Assets Control) has a general license for educational content (Syria General License No. 11A) issued. We are working with the State Department and OFAC for licenses or exemptions for the other affected countries and we hope to get the remaining blocks lifted soon.
More info at http://blog.coursera.org/post/74891215298/update-on-course-a...
Should you get nowhere regarding Cuba and Iran, it might not even be too bad to forward a link to this discussion to sympathetic people at the State Department. I think we have a nice tech-community oppiniometer and some interesting talking points here.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_embargo_against_C...
Criminal penalties for violating the embargo range up to ten years in prison, $1 million in corporate fines, and $250,000 in individual fines; civil penalties up to $55,000 per violation.
Like others, though, I'm glad to hear you're doing something about it. Well done.
Under the law, certain aspects of Coursera’s course offerings are considered services and are therefore subject to restrictions in sanctioned countries
Is that the case?
There are a small list of countries for which the US has a pretty comprehensive ban on doing business in/with. For these countries, the rule is "no" unless there has been a specific exception made to allow some particular kind of business.
There is a much larger list of countries for which there are partial bans covering specific items or services, at least without getting some kind of license. With these countries, the rule is "yes" unless you are dealing with a kind of business that has been specifically restricted.
The article, and most of the comments here so far, make it sound like we are dealing with the second situation, and Coursera's type of business has been added to the restricted list.
That does not seem to be the case. The countries involved are in the first group, where the default in the US is "do not do business with" unless there has been an exception made for your business. (By the way, that's also how it has been in the EU for most of these countries until fairly recently. I believe the EU has been transitioning them to the second group, where they will have a set of specific areas that are restricted).
The US appears to actually be OK with offering MOOCs in these countries. There is already an exception in the first group for Syria that allows Coursera to offer courses there, and they have restored access. They are now working to get exceptions for the other countries, and from what they say on their blog it sounds like the State Department is going to be OK with this.
I know this works, since it has been applied in my home country (Germany) to astonishing results.
This incident als further highlights that we (speaking of Europeans now) need non-US based online services. Remember the last big Paypal scandal, when all online-retailers that sold Cuban rum had their accounts frozen?
Yeah, won't be the last.
Because good diplomacy won't help the military-industrial complex increase its revenue.
With good diplomacy, neither you, nor them, nor their enemies would buy more bombs.
In Civ V, at best they like you, and worst (and more commonly) your cultural achievements will just make them hate you even more.
I distinctly remember The Daily Show sending somebody to Teheran to ask people in the street if they new the show and they found quite a bunch who said yes!
So IMO you are right, but only as long as Iran is well-integrated in the internet. Guess which 5% of Iran realized this recently.
- United States 17%
- Iran 16%
1. http://www.wingia.com/en/services/about_the_end_of_year_surv...
This was a survey where they asked thousands of germans, which country would be the most dangerous.
And more people mentioned the US than Iran.
> even Germans consider [that] the US [is] a bigger threat than Iran [is].
not
> even Germans consider the US [to be] a bigger threat than Iran [does].
Nobody's made any claims about what Iranians think.
Not only are the professional middle class not a majority of the population, and within them are not unanimous about US-style government, but to say that they like the actual US and its actual current behavior is IMO an unsustainable stretch.
It always has to be remembered that it was largely the religious extremists of Iran that freed Iran from the yoke of the US - who might have believed in democracy for itself, but not for Iran.
This article is yet another example of idiotic foreign policy US has been pursuing lately.
"My pet drone watches over me as I sleep..."
Hey, they are not "stuffed" but apart from that this idea sounds pretty much like what they are doing right now in the US: Military drones are made as toys for children.
http://www.amazon.com/Fresh-Metal-Tailwinds-Predator-Drone/d...
People whose nations we've occupied, though, unaccountably fail to love us even though we help feed them. Perhaps you're right, and it's just a question of sugar content.
Government control by foreign invaders is not conducive to massive buy-in from local supporters before "blue jeans diplomacy" has already worked. It's complete ahistorical fantasy to think otherwise.
Also, Communist Romania. The first five-ishyears of that were pretty relaxed because there were, for practical purposes, no Romanian Communists to be put in power;they needed to make some first. And Romania only fell because the Soviets did.
No country in recent history has been so thorroughly defeated both in military terms and in ideology as Germany. It would have been _incredibly_ easy to dole out severe punishment on Germany after WW2 (let's say, massive economic reparations, a ban on heavy industry, exclusion from public office/certain professions for any past member of the NSDAP). Some things like that were on the table.
Google Morgenthau plan.
Had that happened, I can assure you that either, we'd have had another big war within Europe by now, or (West-)Germany would have drifted towards the Soviet Union, or both.
Instead there was economic upswing and americanization. We became rich, we became fat, and we became disinterested in German nationalism and revenge (for injustices real and even moreso imagined).
That is the success story.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish%E2%80%93American_War#Cu...
Blue jeans and chewing gum only entered the picture after the war, after all, not during ;)
Well, sure. Blue jeans, fast food, rock 'n roll, and two-thousand-pound bombs.
Projection of power at all levels in the lives of ordinary people, from privacy to education.
I'm completely dumbfounded that they consider themselves protectors of freedom, how such cognitive dissonance runs rampant within the US is beyond me.
http://ec.europa.eu/trade/policy/countries-and-regions/count...
What does it have to do with the matter at hand?
>'the protector of freedom' is someone that doesn't boycott Syria
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
Not my argument, what are you even arguing against?
If I were you, I'd question myself why I create strawmen, am I interested in the truth, or am I guided by misplaced nationalism?
I'd hazard to say that the median american experiences a media echo chamber.
That's not special, all countries I lived in do that. But they usually don't delve too deep in doublespeak.
Also, you don't have to be mad.
That's a Solomon solution, I have to admit.
Are people really arguing for Bashar al Assad's right to study molecular biology?
Why would you educate the engineers of an enemy state on how to build smart weapons? Even if a 20 year old left leaning engineer doesn't want to hurt anybody now, who knows where a lucrative career path will direct them in 10 years time.
Are people really arguing for Bashar al Assad's right to study molecular biology?
Because all Syrians are just like him?
You know, it tends to be the educated people who are more against war and destruction. The higher the level of education of the population, the less it wants to go to war.
I suspect this was triggered by Coursera accepting money. The US has laws against doing business with certain countries. When Coursera started offering signature track classes where they charged money they are now doing business with restricted regimes.
I have been surprised that there is no discussion of your initial point, that there are very rational reasons why a state might want to control access to educational material. Sure maybe offering people will lead to greater humanity ... or maybe it will lead to terrorists who can build sophisticated drone bombs. I don't know but I'm surprised it not a more prominent issue.
- why is Cuba one of the four countries in the blacklist and not other totalitarian regimes like China etc?
- why is Marijuana illegal for the most part and not alcohol?
- have the Palestinians the right to defend themselves?