Are You Telling Me the Truth?

また前日のことだが、保険金請求書を返送するとの連絡を、確か今月10日あたりにもらっていたが、さっぱり届かないので保険会社に電話してみた。「１週間ほど前にお送りしました」とのこと。国内ならもちろん、日本からでも１週間もかかるはずがない。キミ、ウソをついてるんじゃないの？そうでなかったら、途中で紛失したことになる。

今日、Q が来て夕食を作った。一体、どういう判断基準で来る日と来ない日、食事を作る日と作らない日を決めているのだろうか。自分の態度がぎこちないことに気づいている……。

漢字とかなを並べただけの「意味のない日本語」をプリントしたＴシャツを着ている人がいる。これもファッションのひとつ。しかし、歴史認識を誤っていると相変わらず批判される日本の、その歴史と深く関係するデザインがこの国でカジュアルに使われていると、話はちょっと複雑だ。
先週、日本ではめったに見ることがない「十六条旭日旗」を描いたバッグを持った人と、同じデザインの帽子をかぶった人を立て続けに目撃した。数年前、この旗をモチーフにした服で登場し、激しく非難された中国の女優がいたことを思い出した。
旭日旗は旧海軍のシンボルで、現在も海上自衛隊が使用していることを知らずのことだろうが、歴史を軽々しく扱うものだと思う。「旭日旗グッズ」で金儲けしているのは誰なのか？

From “Elusive Peace”:

DAY 9, 19 JULY 2000: … as Robert Malley recalls, ‘Arafat asked one more thing.  He said, “Can I have a period where I will go and consult?  Could we take a break?  Could I consult with my Arab colleagues, because this goes way beyond my own prerogatives.  We’re talking about Jerusalem.”’  But Clinton would not accept this, fearing that if people left the pressure cooker of Camp David the whole deal would be frittered away.  The president also feared, as did Barak, that Arafat would simply pocket the offer and use it at a later stage to ask for more concessions.  Clinton insisted on a straight yes or no then and there, and that Arafat should spell out whether he regarded the offer as a basis of concluding a final deal.

When this answer came it was a no, which was, as Sandy Berger recalls, ‘a very big setback for us’… (p. 110)

[Barak] needed Clinton to declare that all id4as presented at Camp David were null and void, and he asked for something more to show the Israelis what he had really won for his co-operative gestures: a new strategic upgrade of Israeli-American relations and a package of new military support to show that Camp David had not weakened Israel; the US embassy to be moved from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, to show that Barak’s offer had strengthened, not weakened, the Israeli hold on Jerusalem; and a US commitment to fight a unilateral declaration of statehood by the Palestinians, including a guarantee of opposition to admission to the UN of that state if it was unilaterally declared.  Ross promised to discuss these requests with Clinton.

DAY 15, 25 JULY 2000: [Martin] Indyk and [Aaron] Miller wanted the President not to take sides and not to blame either Arafat or Barak for the failure of the summit.  Thus their statement was balanced and did not assign blame to either side.  But, as he reviewed this statement over breakfast, Clinton rewrote some of the passages and at the press conference his pitch came from his heart.  He said he had enormous respect for what Barak had done and the Israeli public should be proud of their Prime Minister.  There was no similar praise for Arafat.  (p. 120)

I (Jacques Chirac) would like to point out that no countries and no media subscribe to the Israeli version of events.  The whole world shares the same feeling, even Mexico… [Ariel] Sharon provoked incidents and he did so with the consent of your government.  The discrepancies have to be considered: sixty-four Palestinians and nine Israeli Arab dead, 2,300 Palestinians wounded, while, on the Israeli side, only two civilians and one soldier were killed.  No one can believe that the Palestinians are to blame for this chain of violence.  On the basis of my experience of guerilla warfare in Algeria, I know how to interpret this kind of imbalance…  it’s up to Israel to make the first gesture.

To that long speech Barak replied by saying that ‘Arafat must not be rewarded for his bad behaviour.’  (p. 129)