Credible Punditry, capitalist style
Reader comment on item: Arafat's Failure May Offer Seeds of Hope

Submitted by Barry Gottesman (United States), May 7, 2002 at 13:28

In the financial world, a pundit or a guru who goes out on a limb and makes a claim, bears a certain amount of reponsibility. If one continues to push a stock or a sector that collapses, obviously it is understood that the hustler is not trusted any more. Clearly, he or she was wrong and will not to be trusted further.
What I find remarkable is that when it comes to foreign affairs and geo-politics, the same pundits can be wrong again and again and without any accountability for their mistakes. The same "experts" who were so clear about how there would be a morass of death and destruction in Afghanistan have no shame going on the telly again talking about what a Vietnam Iraq will be. Don't the media have any shame at all?
The same is true with regard to the Israeli/Arab situation: how many liberal "terrorism experts" have said that following the so-called "Operation Defensive Shield" there would be a manifold increase in shahidic bombings? Nu? as we say here in Canada, where are they.?
Getting back to the article that Daniel wrote: A clear analysis has been made. Barring an unexpected outside shock (e.g. the collapse of Jordan, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia - or an revolution in Iran) there will be a collapse of the "Al Aqsa Intifada".
Let's go back in a year from now when all the Edward Saids, and Yossi Beilins will be trying to explain why the jihad collapsed (peace talks, political horizons etc...) and remember it started with the crushing of the infrastructure, the humiliation of the leadership and the "castration" of the Palestinian psyche.

What needs to happen is the introduction of a capitalist style type of responsibility in analysis of geo-politics. Hey, maybe a true capitalist media will be a good thing.

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