As Gary alerted us to, Sharon has had a serious stroke:
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a serious stroke Wednesday night after being taken to the hospital from his ranch in the Negev desert, and he underwent brain surgery early today to stop cerebral bleeding, a hospital official said.
Mr. Sharon’s powers as prime minister were transferred to Vice Premier Ehud Olmert, said the cabinet secretary, Yisrael Maimon.
In a brief statement outside the hospital, its director, Dr. Shlomo Mor-Yosef, said that Mr. Sharon, 77 and overweight, had suffered "a significant stroke." He said that Mr. Sharon had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage with "massive bleeding" and was undergoing surgery.
An aide said that the prime minister was in critical condition and might not survive.
Even if Mr. Sharon recovers, the likelihood is small that he can campaign vigorously and win re-election to a third term on March 28.
The TImes is suggesting this means Netanyahu stands to gain electorally in March now.
“The TImes is suggesting this means Netanyahu stands to gain electorally in March now.”
it certainly seems inevitable that there will be some such effect. How much remains entirely to be seen.
I once never would have thought I’d be praying (figuratively speaking) for Sharon’s health, but that’s what I’ve been doing for the past year, and more so since he broke with Likud, and more so since his stroke of recent days.
It’s so typical, though. The one reliable thing in Israel-Palestinian events is that whenever there’s a positive development, it all goes to hell soon enough.
Once again, if I believed in a God, I’d say “God help Israel and would-be-Palestine.”
Although I actually do have some small optimism that the majority of the Israeli public knows at least some of what must be done, and that Kadima and Labor will continue, and do it. But at the least that will be much much harder now.
Israeli prime minister rushed to hospital
IIsraeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was rushed to a hospital late Wednesday after feeling ill, his
If folks are wondering about the legal situation, see here.
The party situation, see here. It’s summarizable in one word: chaos.
And this conclusion is almost surely correct: “Analysis: A tragic end to Ariel Sharon’s one-man show.”
“God help Israel and would-be-Palestine.”
Amen.
Why would Sharon’s exit from politics benefit Netanyahu?
I don’t recall Bibi’s being a great success when he was in office. He won the PM-ship on a wave of grief over Rabin’s murder – and thanks to slick marketing, when Israel separated the Prime Minister position from its parliamentary roots and made it more like a “Presidential” election. His response to the second intifadah was, IIRC, brutal-yet-ineffective. (Whereas Sharon’s was brutal-but-effective.)
Israelis aren’t stupid. They’ll put up with a lot, but only if the leadership seems to know what it’s doing.
Oops. Make that the first intifadah, I think.
Good post at Mark Kleiman’s blog.
Why would Sharon’s exit from politics benefit Netanyahu?
Because of the utter developing chaos in Gaza, chaos that is only going to multiply even more when the political stability of Israel worsens, in the immediate aftermath of this situation.
So you have Ehud Olmert, Bibi Netanyahu and Amir Peretz as the new head of Israel’s Labor Party. Amir Peretz is an unknown and between the developing crisis in Gaza and the crisis of Government, his popularity isn’t going anywhere. You also have Ehud Barak – that’s a possibility – but he made several major errors – including the impression he created with the Lebanon withdrawal – he handled the political play really badly so it ended up being exploited as a propaganda victory. He was a lousy politician in a number of ways – bad at communicating what he was doing, and it is not clear he will want to reenter the political fray at this point. With Gaza imploding, and the situation feeling insecure people may be unwilling to trust him.
Ehud Olmert has some centrist popularity – but it is not clear he is going to be able to project enough strength to be voted in as Prime Minister after Sharon. – he might pull it off, but it is not clear he has the necessary breadth.
Which leaves Bibi as the alternative. Which is why he might end up benefitting. In any case, he’d obviously have a very different relationship with President Bush than he did with President Clinton. Moreover, there were some polls already suggesting that there was a swing towards Bibi after Sharon’s stroke.
But in any case, I would bet there there is going to be, one way or another, a centrist coalition government.
“Why would Sharon’s exit from politics benefit Netanyahu?”
Because with Sharon gone, some of his more right-wing (loosely speaking; it doesn’t mean in Israel quite what it means elsewhere, of course) support will stream back to Likud.
Sharon had credibility as a “strong” leader who will “protect” Israel, and who is a “realist,” and not a wooly-headed deluded-peacenik Laborite. Some who were willing to support him in leaving Likud for Kadima will inevitably return “home.”
Kadima was, despite the prospects of being the next plurality party, still more a notion than a party, and still more a one-man show than a party. Whether the other Parliamentary emigres to it can pull it together into something coherent, well, let’s just say that that sort of thing is not a strength of Israeli politics and politicians.
Bibi’s response to Palestinians was plenty popular on the right/Likud side. He lost office because of the corruption investigation, not because of his approach to Palestinian relations (which is pretty much… well, I have no kind words, shall we say).
In this case I’ll agree with everything alcibiades said.
“He lost office….”
The office of Prime Minister, that is, when he lost to Barak. Who then lost credibility and office for a variety of failures, with the failure at Taba allowing Sharon to portray him as unreliable, willing to give away too much, and generally insufficiently competent.
Oh hell.
Well, at least it’s natural causes, we think so far.
Better than another assassination, yes. Ain’t it thrilling we have such a low bar to find small [mixed metaphor goes here]?
Better headline:
Sharon to undergo surgery to fix hole in heart
Sometimes even the newspapers get it right.
On the other hand, the trumpeting of pleasure from many quarters at the news isn’t something I look forward to, but I’m sure some are already putting it out there. Doubtless that nice Mr. Ahmadinejad will send a card.
Yes, I knew it would be fast.
Then again some would get all weepy eyed if Milosevic were diagnosed with cancer.
I wouldn’t. You, Gary?
This seems a watershed moment. Could anyone tell where Israeli politics were headed even with Sharon healthy?
What is the Netanyahu plan for Gaza and the West Bank? I cannot imagine that Sharon’s plans will survive if he does not.
dmbeaster, Jonathan Edelstein’s blog (link) is always a good source for internal Israeli politics.
Yes, I knew it would be fast.
You were right, Gary, but it was an easy call.
It was also an easy call that some would get weepy eyed over one of the great ethnic cleansers of all time.
If we were talking about someone who had made a career out of destroying Jewish homes in order to make room for Palestinians, would there be any sympathy here?
It’s a rhetorical question, don’t bother answering.
It was also an easy call that some would get weepy eyed over one of the great ethnic cleansers of all time.
For criminintly, the reason Menachim Begin could make peace with Egypt was that Israelis trusted him enough with security issues to let him do it. In the same way, Sharon was looking for the 2 state solution with Palestine, rather than the the no-Israel or no-Palestine alternatives.
Thanks for the incoherence.
This seems a watershed moment. Could anyone tell where Israeli politics were headed even with Sharon healthy?
The point wasn’t where Israeli politics were headed, but to force Palestinians to have some sort of politics rather than being run by a sort of organized crime syndicate. Which sadly has not happened yet.
Um, check the papers dude. Sharon and his cohorts were the crime syndicate. What WON’T you ignore?
Hey, FRM,
Let’s talk realpolitick for a second. Israel is nuclear. At the very minimum, language like “crime syndicate” is inappropriate. At the next degree, given that Israel is nuclear, we might consider how to avoid getting Israel into a doomsday stand-off. (Maybe that’s what we’ve been doing for years.)
Some positive news:
The predictable:
Since the ObWings software only lets me post one link per comment, there will be this and two more.
Palestinian democracy today.
Israeli democracy today.
Gaza government today.
Just today’s news; I didn’t make it happen.
“Just today’s news; I didn’t make it happen.”
Contrary to popular opinion, GF is not the root of all evil.
Well, I do what I can. I only hope I can add at least just a little every day.
At the very minimum, language like “crime syndicate” is inappropriate. At the next degree, given that Israel is nuclear, we might consider how to avoid getting Israel into a doomsday stand-off
In other words, let’s give in to the terrorists.
felixray,
Are you guys talking about Oslo?
Gary, no reasonable person would disagree with the notion that Israel’s institutions function better than those of the Palestinians. The occupation obviously has something to do with this–I’m not saying that it gets the Palestinians off the hook, because it doesn’t, but it is likely to be a factor.
On Sharon, it’s possible to hold as many as three thoughts in one’s head simultaneously. Maybe even more, but it’s too early in the morning for me to try it.
1. Sharon is preferable to Bibi. One has to be pragmatic in this world and deal with the fact that many if not most countries are run by people who should be serving out life sentences in prison. Sometimes these sociopaths run dictatorships and sometimes they obtain their power through democratic means.
2. Does anyone seriously think Sharon was headed towards a solution along the lines of the Geneva Accords?
3. As for Sharon himself, he’s a mass murderer, no better and no worse than, say, Richard Nixon. Nixon didn’t personally lead a unit into a Jordanian village and blow up houses with people inside, being more the desk-bound kind of killer, but otherwise they seem similar on an ethical level.
Points 1 and 3 overlap, so maybe that’s two and a half thoughts.
BTW, as is probably obvious, I don’t agree with the point of etiquette that says you don’t say bad things about public figures who are very sick or dying or have died. That’s quite proper in private life, but when you’re talking about public figures, particularly figures with a lot of blood on their hands, it usually leads to politically motivated distortions of the historical record.
Which, on the other hand, is not to say one should gloat over someone’s death or make jokes about it. This is one point where I think the belief in Judgment Day leads one to take the right attitude–if a murderer dies it’s silly to say nice things about what a lovely person he was if one thinks he is now facing God’s judgment. The proper attitude it to hope for God’s mercy on that person, just as you want it for yourself.
I’m somewhat mixed on the issue of saying nice things or not about people when they’re struck down in some way; as it happens I believe in Judgement Day, but the way I would look at it is it’s not up to me to do the judging, and announce how God will look upon someone, because I just find it very hard to second-guess God and think the way He does (which is why I fail, of course, as Yoda would put it); then there’s that whole, “Judge not, lest you be judged,” so I try to keep quiet and not run around condemning people. I believe in Divine Mercy. I’m glad of it, at times, when I’m especially useless.
Of course one can stand up and say one is against something without necessarily condemning; a denunciation isn’t quite the same thing. But it seems a bit pointless when that person is incapable of carrying on doing it, so whatever I think/have thought of Sharon seems hardly worth expressing now, so I’ll keep quiet in case I end up condoning the bad or scrabbling for the moral high ground. But I was distressed when I read the news last night, and I have prayed, and keep praying, that Ariel Sharon recovers. It has come to seem to me over the last year or so that he is a best shot at peace.
Well, if Sharon was a mass murderer, etc., at least he was one who tried to do something constructive afterwards: “… some good I mean to do / Despite of mine own nature.”
At any rate, exulting over his stroke implies a callousness to the Palestinians who may well suffer as a result.
“… some good I mean to do / Despite of mine own nature.”
Now that’s something Yoda might say. What’s wrong with “I mean to do some good”?
Edgar from Lear? (Not looking it up…not looking it up…)
Sharon may be a mass-murderer, but from a purely pragmatic standpoint he’s been working towards a better future for Israel and Palestine over the past year, and has the best chance of anyone of pulling it off. If there’s any chance of a swift and miraculous recovery for him, I’ll take it – Israel and Palestine will be better off for it.
Edmund isn’t it? Or is it in fact Yoda?
And yes to Iron Lungfish.
Edmund. Right. (5.3.248-49)
Pat Robertson says God struck Sharon down. Watch what you say, watch what you do. Watch what you think, too.
I just want to say, after reading that last post, and weeping for a moment, that I just don’t subscribe to the branch of Christianity that goes in for Where Was God or A-Ha God Certainly Gotcha There Sonny Boy.
I mean, if Pat’s response to, “Why Sharon and not so many others?” is, “The Lord works in mysterious ways,” then I guess you can ascribe anything you like to God.
Oh, wait…
…the reason Menachim Begin could make peace with Egypt was that Israelis trusted him enough with security issues to let him do it.
I love this — Begin got his start as a terrorist and was a real mover and shaker is messing up prospects for peace between Israelis and Arabs. A prime career path for making peace — I guess everyone needs Guido now and then. Its like Nixon and China — having been a prime architect is messing up the situation in the first instance, he allegedly gets credibility for straightening it out.
Sharon is of the same ilk — becoming a “peace maker” after a long career as a s%!t disturber.
Such people deserve praise only to the extent that they admit the error of their past ways. Otherwise, they are still just Tony Soprano doing an occassional good deed.
dmbeaster, surely you’re not saying that some people are not allowed to do good? Because if not, then why shouldn’t good be praised?
Pulling out of Gaza was a pragmatic thing for a hardline Israeli expansionist to do. Obviously that upset Sharon’s old allies, because many of them are stupid ideological fanatics. That doesn’t mean Sharon himself has become a convert to the notion of a just peace. Sharon has, to my knowledge anyway, never given the slightest hint that he’s willing to achieve peace along the lines outlined in the Geneva Accords, or along the lines discussed at Taba. If he does, fine–I’ll start talking about his change of heart myself. Anything less than that would be unacceptable to even the most moderate Palestinians (and rightly so). The fact that Sharon is heralded in this country as someone who has turned his back on his old ways and is now the old warrior (a technical journalistic term for a war criminal who is our ally) striving for peace just goes to show how biased towards the Israeli side the media coverage is in the US.
I would have liked to have seen Sharon impose a just peace on the region, and I think he might have, though “even the most moderate Palestinians” might have found it unsatisfactory. But now we’ll never know, except for those who do and say contrary opinions the result of biased media coverage.
James Casey:
I am all for praising good deeds — just not for mistaking an occassional good deed as proof of a good man. People who create the mess are hardly deserving of much praise simply because they take steps to clean up their own mess.
As for Sharon, his good deed list is prety meager. The Gaza deal seems motivated by expediency and simply reflects a mild retreat from a policy of expropriating Palestinian lands, rather than foregoing it or, God forbid, making amends for past land grabs championed by Sharon.
But none of that will matter much since barring a miracle, his political career is largely over. What will fill the vacuum?
dmbeaster,
“a policy of expropriating Palestinian lands”
Just for the record, Gaza was an “Egyptian land” up to 1979, and West Bank a “Jordanian land” up to 1988.
I don’t think there is anything magical about the Geneva Accords, in fact I suspect they are much more likely to lead in the long term to a huge an ugly attack on Israel because it would make it look so easy. But I would support a mostly just and mostly peaceful solution in almost any form. It looked to me like Sharon was heading in that direction. It also looks like there is much less chance of that without him.
“Just for the record, Gaza was an “Egyptian land” up to 1979, and West Bank a “Jordanian land” up to 1988.”
And that really shouldn’t be just for the record. That is the kind of point that wouldn’t be ignored in any situation other than the Israel/Palestine situation.
I’ve sworn off commenting on I/P issues, but I’ll venture a toe into the water. Take a specific plot of land in the West Bank. Say it was taken over by Israelis and settled in 1985. It can be characterized as Jordanian land — land within the sovereignty of Jordan — but, if owned at the time by a person who’s ethnicity can be described as Palestinian, it can also be called Palestinian land.
I have a friend who lives on the Blackfeet reservation. Indian land in some senses, white man land in others. American land. These descriptions co-exist.
One can claim that there was no such thing as people of ethnicity described as Palestinian. And there are people for whom this talking point is deemed significant. It seems to me, though, that “Jordanian” as a description, either ethnic or national, is itself a fairly recent invention. These terms are all constructs. Denying the existence of Palestinians strikes me as all the more a construct. Some family was living on a plot of land. Give them any name you want, but you still have to recognize them as human beings. And if they owned the land — either in fee or by copyhold (I’m using our vocabulary because I’m writing in English — and mean only to approximate the concepts) — they have an interest that has to be considered, distinct from the question of allegiance to some distant sovereign.
(My French-Canadian farmer ancestors did not lose title or other rights to their farms when Wolfe defeated Montcalm, or when France signed the Treaty of Paris.)
Jordan had control of the West Bank until the 1967 war and Egypt had the Gaza Strip. So far as I know nobody is proposing that the West Bank be returned to Jordan and the Gaza Strip to Egypt. If the Palestinians were arguing in favor of this it would be one possible form of a just solution, but nobody seems to be doing this.
The current injustice has to do with the fact that Israel has been settling its citizens in these two locations without granting Israeli citizenship to the Palestinians already living there. This is equivalent to apartheid. Imposing this policy has involved a lot of land theft and state violence to enforce it. There are two possible just solutions–Israel gives up the territories or else it keeps the territories and grants the Palestinians citizenship.
As for favoring a just solution of any form, that’s a very nebulous statement. The minimum the Palestinians would accept would be the 1967 borders, with minor adjustments–maybe scraps of equally good Israeli land exchanged for settlements the Israelis don’t want to give up. That’s the Geneva Accords, basically. Since it also corresponds to the maximum the Israelis will give up, it’s clearly the closest thing to a just solution available. But I don’t doubt that some American supporters of Israel will willingly accept any solution the Israelis think is just, which is what I think has been going on with all the overheated praise given to Sharon. If you call something a peace process and don’t pay any attention to what the final goal should be, then you set the stage for further whittling down of a Palestinian state. If you don’t think Palestinians have the same rights as Israelis, this is a perfectly sensible way to proceed.
Not to argue these much-argued political points, but:
“acceptable to one side” != “just”.
“apartheid” != “whatever critics of Israel want it to be for rhetorical purposes”
Charley,
It can be characterized as Jordanian land — land within the sovereignty of Jordan — but, if owned at the time by a person who’s ethnicity can be described as Palestinian, it can also be called Palestinian land.
Ah, so the Jews who are living in the West Bank are Palestinians, too. I get it! And since Ariel Sharon was born during the British’ Mandate of Palestine, then he’s a palestinian, too! No wonder arabs call him a “terrorist”! It’s all so clear now 🙂
And speaking of “West Bank”, here’s an interesting fact regarding the origins of that name:
The name “West Bank” was apparently first used by Jordanians at the time of their annexation of the region, and has become the most common name used in English and related languages.
Any idea what it was called prior to that? Any idea why Arabs insist on using the term “West Bank” when referring to that piece of land?
I know nobody is proposing that the West Bank be returned to Jordan and the Gaza Strip to Egypt.
Okay… So why bring it up?
The current injustice has to do with the fact that Israel has been settling its citizens in these two locations without granting Israeli citizenship to the Palestinians already living there. This is equivalent to apartheid.
This is equivalent to ignorance. Apartheid? Then explains over 1 million of Israeli palestinians? Please? Pretty Please?
There are two possible just solutions–Israel gives up the territories or else it keeps the territories and grants the Palestinians citizenship.
Uh, okay..
1) Israel gives up territories
Jordan did not recognize Israel’s right to exist and did not relinquish claims to the West Bank till 1988. That means that if Israel was to unilateraly withdraw prior to that, it would see the west bank get reoccupied by Jordan in a matter of days. The same Jordan that did not recognize its right to exist. Would such a move seem reasonable to you?
2)keeps the territories and grants the Palestinians citizenship
That would be contrary to the resolution 242
whose most important feature is the “land for peace” formula, calling for Israeli withdrawal from territories it had occupied in 1967 in exchange for peace with its neighbors.
Hence Israel couldn’t just make palestinians citizens and keep west bank.
The same Jordan that did not recognize its right to exist.
Spilt milk. You want a just solution? Gotta give up talking points like this. Where’s Jordan now? Because we’re talking about a deal now, not a deal 35 years ago. (Where Jordan was before 1990 is even less relevant to the question where it’s going to be 5 years hence).
That would be contrary to the resolution 242
Any deal endorsed by the parties would get UN backing. Res. 242 is no barrier to a negotiated settlement. It’s not even a very good talking point. There’s a lot to be said for having a single state from the River to the Sea, with all residents equal citizens.* There’s no majority for this now, obviously. On either side.
Ah, so the Jews who are living in the West Bank are Palestinians
Well, before 1988, I suppose they could have been Jordanians. Or illegal aliens in Jordan. This is the problem with race-based states, whether Israel, Jordan, or Germany. (There’s a movie — the name escapes me — where the bad German is revealed to be such by using the terms German and Jew as if they were mutually exclusive. It’s an ideological and defective way of looking at German-ness, and ultimately worse than harmful.) It’s a defective construct, though, as there are, and will always be, Jewish Jordanians, Muslim Israelis, Germans who grandparents came from Turkey. Was Sharon a Palestinian? Not as we commonly use the term now, although there have been, as you note, times when it was the right word. Will there ever be Jewish Palestinians again? Hard to see right now, but never is a long time.
* I’m not really sure why apartheid isn’t a fair description for the belief system, embraced by many on both sides, that finds this solution utterly unacceptable. RF?
Not to mention, that the Palestinians NEVER ASKED FOR Israeli citizenship. They want their own state, not to be part of Israel. That has been their consistent position.
Israel has done a lot of evil and/or dumb things in dealing with the Palestinians, but not granting citizenship to people who didn’t want it and did want every Israeli dead was not one of them.
Most Israelis have acknowledged for many years now that there will have to be some kind of Palestinian state. Exactly how big it should be, exactly which pieces of land belong to it, and how exactly this state is to be prevented from inviting an Arab army in to annihilate Israel (the way these same people tried to do on several prior occasions) are hard questions that have to be answered first. But they cannot be answered just by self-righteously condemning anything done differently than the way the Palestinians wanted it done. Both sides have used all sorts of nasty tactics to jockey for better negotiating positions. I would have more respect for people who blasted Israel’s land-grabbing methods, if they ever made more than a perfunctory condemnation of the Palestinians’ murderous ways.
Israel was justified in taking control of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip during the 1967 war and they are justified in holding on to those territories for security purposes so long as there is no political solution available, but they weren’t justified in settling those territories. Once they started settling the territories, picking out the best land and forcing the Palestinians to live under military occupation with Israeli settlers in their midst, they were practicing apartheid. You’ll note, Stan LS, that I didn’t say that Israel practiced apartheid against its own Arab citizens . I gather there is discrimination against them, but it doesn’t rise to the level of apartheid. They have the vote. They can presumably live wherever they want. No doubt you’ll leap to correct me if I’m wrong. Palestinians on the West Bank can’t pack up and move to some hilltop in pre-1967 Israel, but Israelis can move to the West Bank. There’s a certain lack of symmetry there.
Two categories of people in the occupied territories, with one group obviously having far more rights than the other and the system maintained by the use of military force, often brutally applied. Hence that word “apartheid”. You could figure all this out for yourself, I imagine. If you wanted to, that is. But bringing up the red herring of the Israeli Arabs was sort of like pointing to the existence of free blacks in 1850’s America as proof that there wasn’t slavery. And no, I’m not equating Israel’s policies to slavery.
As for what is just, rilkefan, is your point that the Geneva Accords are much too generous to the Palestinians? The truly just solution would be both sides living together in the same land in peace, but that isn’t acceptable to the Israelis and I’d be nervous about it myself if I lived there, so the more moderate Palestinians are willing to take the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. So the Palestinians get 22 percent of the land and the Israelis get 78 percent. But somehow, the way things are going, I kinda suspect that 78/22 ratio is going to get significantly larger. No doubt some self-styled Israel supporters will claim that’s fair.
I would have more respect for people who blasted Israel’s land-grabbing methods, if they ever made more than a perfunctory condemnation of the Palestinians’ murderous ways.
Understood. Killing people is awful, and awful people do it. Creating a just settlement isn’t going to end all violence, of course. It’ll be more effective than land grabbing, however. See, I’d have more respect for your complaint, trib, if you would recognize that between killing people and land grabbing, one is cause (in part) and the other effect. Stop the one, then stop the other, by all means. (And wrt the latter, by any means necessary). But shouldn’t you first stop that one that (a) a cause and (b) in the power of reasonable, civilized people to actually stop?
And is it not reasonable for me to want the negative activity by the people I’m paying to stop? The people I’m not paying, yeah, I want them to stop too, but my leverage is less . . .
“one is cause (in part) and the other effect”
Not always so simple, I think – part of the reason for holding the land in question was as a defensive buffer or to contrrol people being used as proxy attackers.
* I’m not really sure why apartheid isn’t a fair description for the belief system, embraced by many on both sides, that finds this solution utterly unacceptable. RF?
Pakistan was formed in 1948, the same year as Israel. So, did the creation of Pakistan end the Apartheid system there, or just get rid of the Hindus? About 20% non-Jews live in Israel, including the Druze and Bahais, who have been dealt with in not so generous ways in neighboring countries, is that apartheid? Is the better example Libya, where the last Jew there died in 2002, and hence has finally freed itself from the apartheid system and can serve as an example to the rest of the world? What happened to the Jews in Yemen and Ethiopia and Russia? Did they all emigrate to Israel because they were racist?
Holding land for security purposes and building settlements are two different things, of course. In fact, if the concern was that people in the West Bank were supporting terrorism, why provide them with more civilian targets and why provoke more terror by stealing people’s land?
I’ll also add that terror has always gone in both directions in this conflict.
Holding land for security purposes and building settlements are two different things, of course.
Answer this, if Muslims are allowed to live in Israel, and they are, why then cannot Jews live in the West Bank? What is so wrong with that? Are there laws that say you can’t sell land in Irael to a Muslim? I don’t think so. Well then, what are the laws about selling land to Jews in the West Bank, or Jordan for that matter? Or is it a “special case” because the Jews are apartheid, you know?
The truly just solution would be both sides living together in the same land in peace, but that isn’t acceptable to the Israelis and I’d be nervous about it myself if I lived there
Yeah, because the Israelis are suicide bombers and all that. How are those greenhouses doing, you know the ones that were given as a gift to the Palestinians by the departing Israeli settlers? You know they could produce enough produce to feed all of Gaza.
That 78% / 22% remark reminded me of this, I think from The Village Voice, 2002:
DaveC,
I should also mention that the PLO was formed in 1964 with a goal of destroying Israel. That’s 3 years prior to the occupation.
A rather inconvenient fact for some…
Donald,
Holding land for security purposes and building settlements are two different things, of course.
Ofcourse, but you show some ignorance here:
In fact, if the concern was that people in the West Bank were supporting terrorism…
Terrorism? That’s not the concern here. Here’s a map of israel. Take a close look! Israel is less then 10 miles wide without the west bank. The country can be cut in half in a matter of minutes.
Leaving West Bank in the possession of a country that just attacked you and that doesn’t recognize your right to exist would be pure lunacy! And beside that important fact, have you ever heard of a country ceding lend to an enemy that doesn’t recognize its right to exist? EVER?
DaveC: Answer this, if Muslims are allowed to live in Israel, and they are, why then cannot Jews live in the West Bank? What is so wrong with that?
It is news to me that Muslims are allowed to set up Muslim-only communities in Israel, and build roads through Israel that only Muslims are allowed to drive on, and Jews are only allowed to cross at checkpoints guarded by armed Muslims. Or, for that matter, have their Muslim-only communities inside Israel guarded against Jewish incursions by Muslim soldiers. Is this your contention, Dave, when you try to equate the two situations?
Stan LS, of course anyone who is familiar with Israeli geography can see the strategic value in hanging on to the West Bank, and the water value (as it were) in hanging on to the Gaza Strip. The problem for Israel has always been:
1. If the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are declared part of Israel, then Israel must either:
(a) Grant full Israeli citizenship to all those who live there
or
(b) Become de jure what it already is de facto: an apartheid state.
2. If the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are held in limbo, “Occupied Territories”, then it is illegal for Israel to build any permanent settlements there for its citizens. Further, the Geneva Conventions protecting both civilians in time of war and captured enemy soldiers come into play – and Israel is unquestionably in breach of the convention protecting civilians.
Israel has chosen to walk a tense and uncertain line between 1b and 2. The West Bank and the Gaza Strip are still officially “Occupied Territories”, and the Palestinians who live there are not entitled to any of the rights of Israeli citizens: yet, just as if Israel had conquered and claimed these territories, permanent settlements are built there, as if Israel were an apartheid state.
The only choice Israel has never wanted to make is 1a.
DaveC, are you really unable to discern that I’ve said that the Palestinian majority is also up for practicing a form of apartheid? That’s at best — there are plenty of folks more interested in genocide.
I don’t know why you bother with this there’s-someone-worse rhetorical technique, because I know of no one who finds it remotely persuasive. If your kid comes home from school with a C in geometry, and you know it’s because of intentional choices he’s made (not real inability) you might be a little upset: ‘I know you could be getting an A if you’d only work a little harder.’ And then he says, ‘The guy who sits behind me cuts class every third day, is stoned half the time he comes to class, and is getting an F so low it’s sucking his grades in other classes down.’ Do you say, ‘Oh, alright. I guess you’re doing just fine’? Or is it more like, ‘Yes, I’m glad you not as irresponsible as that, but really now, I expect you to try harder, and if you don’t, we’re going to have to re-examine some privileges you’ve got going here . . .”
He says, ‘You only complain about my grades, never about the grades of that guy sitting behind me. I’d have a lot more respect for your standards of effort if you were more upset about how little work he does.’ Then, ‘I know why you complain about my effort, and not his. It’s because you hate me, and by extension hate yourself. I don’t have to do my homework — you have to go to therapy.’
I like this site for references and descriptions.
“…and the Gaza Strip are still officially ‘Occupied Territories’….”
You might or might not want to update on this point.
I’m, incidentally, reading every comment on this thread with interest. I thought it might be a slight change, perhaps for the better, if I read and listened while I attempted to still my knee-twitchiness.
Besides, my fingers are busy twitching while waiting for news of Hilzoy.
I admire your restraint, Gary. My whole participation in this thread is a serious violation of a New Years resolution. Not 242, but however many I’ve made they’ve all been violated.
DaveC, Jesurgislac responded to your point as I would have (except she writes better). The issue with the settlements isn’t the question of whether Jews should live on the West Bank. It’s a question of one group having rights and the other living under a brutal military occupation. You don’t seem to be aware of the facts Jesurgislac mentioned and once again, as I’ve noticed among some Israel supporters, you seem blind to the lack of symmetry. If Jews have the right to live on the West Bank, then why don’t Palestinians have the right to return to the land where 400 of their villages were bulldozed? That was ethnic cleansing, you know, and according to Benny Morris, who actually came out in favor of ethnic cleansing a year or two back, it was then followed by a period of time in the late 40’s and early 50’s when several thousand Palestinians were killed when they crossed the border. A minority, according to Morris (I’m actually citing Avi Shlaim citing Morris) were armed and probably deserved it. Many others were just trying to sneak back to their villages. Which gets to Stan LS’s point about the date for the founding of the PLO. Hard as it seems to be to imagine, the Palestinians have legitimate complaints that go back well before 1967. It may be too late to reach a completely fair solution for all sides at this stage, but it’s hardly surprising that people who were forcibly driven out of their homes (something that was lied about by Israel and its supporters for decades) might form a group dedicated to returning the favor. As for why I’d be uneasy about a one state solution, again you don’t seem to have the slightest awareness of the fact that there are fanatic idealogues on both sides of the fence, and along with the fanatics, there are also the usual “centrist” types in both societies who seem keenly aware of the offenses committed against their own side and not at all concerned over the crimes their side commits against the others. Maybe I’m a pessimist, but I’d expect a one-state solution to turn into a Lebanon-style civil war in about a week. Both sides would commit horrendous atrocities and we’d hear the usual one-sided denunciations from many Arabs on the one hand and from many American supporters of Israel on the other.
StanLS, I know how skinny pre-1967 Israel was and grew up on a diet of pro-Israel polemics. Except I thought they were objective. I was a Christian Zionist as a teenager and didn’t turn into the Palestinian-sympathizing leftie you see here until much later. Israel does have legitimate security concerns and to the extent that anyone still thinks an invasion from Jordan or the future Palestinian state is likely these days, any final peace agreement should take this into account. I’m not a military expert, so I’m not sure what the solution would be. It strikes me that the US need only say that any invasion from an Arab army will be treated the way Saddam’s army was treated when our former pal misunderstood April Glaspie and invaded Kuwait. If Israel doesn’t want to rely on a guarantee from the US (but why not?), they could insist on some sort of military outposts on the Jordan River or whatever.
I’d sympathize more with Israel on this kind of negotiating point, though I’m doubtful that military invasions are the chief danger they face. But none of these concerns even remotely justifies the settlement policy.
This is also, to a lesser degree, the problem with the Wall. If it were solely a security measure built in good faith, it would be on the 1967 borders. This would be a hardship for the Palestinians who wouldn’t find it easy to cross into Israel proper to work, but until they can suppress their suicide bombers it’s perfectly fair for Israel to separate itself from people who blow up their children. Though speaking of fairness, last time I looked the majority of the children killed in this current uprising have been Palestinians killed by Israelis.
BTW, I also agree in part with the NYT editorial today–until the Palestinians can show they can control their rocket-firing fanatics in the Gaza Strip and the gun-toting kidnappers, then they can’t very well expect to have a state handed to them. But the NYT was cowardly and dishonest and incomplete as usual in summarizing the history of Sharon’s atrocities in their “news report”. Nothing but Arab allegations, you see, not what historians and human rights groups and reporters have said. In their serious news story (not the one dedicated to what Arabs think), they refer to Sharon as, of course, a “longtime warrior”.
Jesurgislac,
It is news to me that Muslims are allowed to set up Muslim-only communities in Israel, and build roads through Israel that only Muslims are allowed to drive on, and Jews are only allowed to cross at checkpoints guarded by armed Muslims.
It’s news to me that Israeli non Jews are not allowed to drive on those roads.
Are you sure?
Its news to me that only Israeli Jews guard those checkpoints. Aren’t there Druze in the israeli army? Wow! So much news!
Jes,
then it is illegal for Israel to build any permanent settlements there for its citizens.
Uhm. If settlements get dismantled can they still be “permanent”?
and Israel is unquestionably in breach of the convention protecting civilians
Not sure as to what you are referring to here, but palestinian terrorist groups choose to operate in civilian areas, so your beef should be with them.
and the Palestinians who live there are not entitled to any of the rights of Israeli citizens: yet, just as if Israel had conquered and claimed these territories, permanent settlements are built there, as if Israel were an apartheid state
As was mentioned before on this very thread.. Jordan did not relinquish its claims until 1988. Surely, had Israel given citizenship to Palestinians living on a land being claimed by Jordan, you would be the first one complaining that Israel is instigating hostilities.
The Oslo accords took place in 1993 (which lead to a peace deal with Jordan in 1994). That’s only 5 years in “limbo”. Oslo gave the Palestinians an autonomy, their own police force, etc., and obviously that wasn’t supposed to be the end of it.
Donald,
I give 2 sh/ts about the settlements, so you are barking up the wrong tree.
Though speaking of fairness, last time I looked the majority of the children killed in this current uprising have been Palestinians killed by Israelis
In fairness, Israeli soldiers do not use Israeli kids as live shields. Israeli kids do not run around around, during fire fights, throwing stones at armed Palestinians. Nor are Israeli toddlers are paraded around with grenades and guns, and taught to be shaheeds.
Here’s an interesting analysis of the casualties of this conflict.
The percentage of palestinian female non combatants killed is under 10%. Israeli female non combants killed is slightly uner 40%. Would you like to speculate why such a disparity?
Take a look at graph 2.24. Hmm.
between killing people and land grabbing, one is cause (in part) and the other effect.
Only if you concede that the “part” is pretty small. Arabs were killing Jews in the Middle East well before 1967, and indeed well before 1948. The Arab leadership was pro-Nazi, and there were pogroms in the area in the early part of the century.
So let’s not blame it all on the settlements.
Israells used Palestinian civilians as human shields, Stan. The Israeli courts recently ruled that practice illegal. As for minors being killed, do you think it acceptable for Israeli forces to shoot teenagers for throwing stones? Or to bait them and then kill them when they react? Chris Hedges reported seeing that happen in an article in Harper’s and also in his book War is a force that gives us meaning.
On the human rights violations of both sides, I trust the reporting of groups like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Israeli group B’Tselem more than I do anyone else. Here’s link to some of B’Tselem’s statistics on Palestinian deaths. They’ve also got sections on Palestinian terror attacks on Israelis.
http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Casualties.asp
(Gary, I expect you to stick to your resolve to stay out and not jump in here to make snide remarks about my refusal to take the time to learn how to make a weblink. Someday, maybe.)
Anyway, the number of Palestinian-on-Palestinian deaths in this intifada is a pretty small fraction of the total. I recall reading numerous times (including in the NYT) that more than half the Palestinian deaths were civilian and obviously most of these were inflicted by Israel.
Regarding Bernard’s point, much of the violence against Jews by Palestinians probably has been caused in part or in whole by vicious anti-semitism and not simply as a reaction to Israeli misdeeds and atrocities. But the racism charge cuts both ways. In his book “One Palestine, Complete”, on page 104 in my copy, Tom Segev quotes an early Zionist writing in 1891– (the Jewish settlers) ” treat the Arabs with hostility and cruelty, trespass unjustly, beat them shamelessly for no sufficient reason and even take pride in doing so.” That doesn’t exactly fit the view I used to have and some of my friends still have of early Zionists who wanted to live in peace and harmony, only to face the relentless and irrational Jew-hatred of their Arab neighbors. The book also makes it clear what surely the Arabs knew or suspected, that the early Zionists were willing to resort to forced transfer of the Arab population if that’s what it took to achieve a Jewish state. So I dont think either side has any sort of primeval innocence they can look back on.
“It may be too late to reach a completely fair solution for all sides at this stage,”
I’m reasonably sure this is incontrovertible.
“If Israel doesn’t want to rely on a guarantee from the US (but why not?)”
4000 years of history.
I’ve opposed West Bank (Jewish) settlements all my life, passionately, furiously, which is why I was a member of the American affiliate of Peace Now in the Eighties, and worked hard for what I saw as a just settlement.
Shutting up again, or trying to. But asking the Jews to rely on others will simply not fly for another few centuries.
I’d be entirely sympathetic to similar Palestinian assertions. Most cultures in the world have far longer memories than Americans do, and that’s far more appropriate than most Americans think, in my view.
Americans, and I speak as one born and bred, tend to be good at distance, but less good at understanding history.
Some things need centuries and generations to heal, and there’s no getting around that.
I failed to shut up here, obviously. Trying again. All I really ask for is appreciation of the complexities and ambiguities, which most commenters are showing, to one degree or another. There is no absolute right or wrong in the land under discussion, and the only people I’m offended by are those who do not appreciate that.
I do believe in “Palestinian” getting a capital “p,” by the way.
I feel so utterly peaceful and Boddisatvalike in ignoring other stuff. Go, me.
Donald,
I think you are straining a bit for moral equivalence. Nasty individual Zionists mistreating Arabs does not fall into quite the same category as pogroms incited by political and religious leaders.
And did Arab suspicions really justify anticipatory murder?
Like others, I try hard to stay out of I-P threads. I recognize that Israel is far from blameless, but it is simply impossible not to react to what I perceive as an enormous double standard in judging the behavior of the two groups and, I will add, fails to assign adequate responsibility for the Palestinians’ plight to Arab nations and to the Palestinians’ own actions and choice of leadership.
I’m reasonably sure this is incontrovertible.
I’m not sure it’s even meaningful any more.
Bernard: Nasty individual Zionists mistreating Arabs does not fall into quite the same category as pogroms incited by political and religious leaders.
True. The determination to force an entire people into involuntary exile is not in the same category as outright murder: Ferdinand and Isabella expelled all the Jews from Spain, Hitler tried to kill all the Jews: F+I are not in the same category as Hitler.
But one must go rather far to be in the same category as Hitler.
I do not find F+I’s expulsion of the Jews to be morally neutral: no more do I find the Zionist expulsion of Muslim and Christian Arabs to be morally neutral. What was and has been done to create and maintain an artificial Jewish majority in what was Palestine was wrong – deeply, horrifyingly wrong. The European and American settlers who came to Palestine had no more “right” to it than any other colonialists have a “right” to land they take from the natives: I do not accept religious justifications for colonialism, theft, forced exile, and murder.
“I do not find F+I’s expulsion of the Jews to be morally neutral…”
Britons tend to be interestingly forgetful that Britain did it first, long before Spain.
Possibly not surprising from the country that founded the blood libel, to be sure.
It doesn’t get taught much in British schools, somehow. Motes, and all that.
Silly of us to remember.
“I do not accept […] justifications for colonialism, theft, forced exile, and murder.”
I trust Wales and Scotland will be uncolonialized by the English any day now. As soon as the Normans leave, perhaps. (I leave the more obvious unstirred.)
Get back to us after that, perhaps.
But one must go rather far to be in the same category as Hitler.
True, but it is a distance many Arabs were happy to travel not so long ago. Please check the career of Muhammed Amin al-Husseini, an organizer of pogroms who found a true kindred spirit in Hitler, and became an active Nazi supporter. Perhaps the history of misbehavior in the region is not so one-sided as you imagine. And perhaps the Palestinian excuse of “Zionist provocation” needs to be looked at with a bit of skepticism.
Bernard,
Arafat’s uncle!
His place as leader of the radical, nationalist Palestinian Arabs was taken by his nephew Mohammed Abdel-Raouf Arafat As Qudwa al-Hussaeini, better known as Yasser Arafat. In August 2002, Arafat gave an interview in which he referred to “our hero al-Husseini” as a symbol of Palestinian Arab resistance.
Hm. 2002?
From the wikipedia entry:
On 21 July 1937, Al-Husayni paid a visit to the new German Consul-General, Hans Döhle, in Palestine. He repeated his former support for Germany and “wanted to know to what extent the Third Reich was prepared to support the Arab movement against the Jews.” He later sent an agent and personal representative to Berlin for discussions with Nazi leaders. From August 1938, Husseini received financial and military assistance and supplies from Nazi Germany and fascist Italy.
The Mufti established close contacts with Bosnian and Albanian Muslim leaders and spent the remainder of the war conducting the following activities:
Radio propaganda on behalf of Nazi Germany
Espionage and the fifth column activities in Muslim regions of Europe and the Middle East
Assisting with the formation of Muslim Waffen SS units in the Balkans
The formation of schools and training centers for Muslim imams and mullahs who would accompany the Muslim SS and Wehrmacht units.
This is a man Arafat much admired.
Looks like Arafat was fond of his uncle’s tactics:
But, the violence in Jerusalem generated rumors throughout the country, many carrying fabricated accounts of Jewish attempts to defile Muslim holy places, all to inflame the Arab residents.
and
On the afternoon of Friday, August 23, 1929 Jerusalem Arabs came to Hebron with false reports of Jews murdering Arabs during the rioting there, even saying thousands of Arabs had been killed.
Sounds familiar? More…
Bernard, I agree that whatever violence Ahad Ha’am (the 1891 letter-writer) was describing isn’t in the same league as the anti-Jewish pogroms of the 1920’s. But all the same, he’s describing obviously racist attitudes and it’s also clear that the early Zionists (leaving aside the binationalists) were quite prepared to countenance forced transfer of populations if the opportunity arose. I see an overall moral equivalence here. I sometimes compare the I/P conflict with the various conflicts between white Americans and native Americans. I don’t think the Zionists were as bad as the whites of the 17th-19th century in the US, but there’s an obvious similarity. To me, anyway. Palestinian atrocities, in turn, remind me of some of the more grotesque atrocities committed by native Americans against white settlers. This is why I don’t think the Nazi connection has any deep meaning. Part of that was “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” and people in these circumstances don’t need an outside ideology to teach them to hate the people they perceive are trying to displace them. The Mufti was a despicable human being, but he’s the sort of war criminal (like Sharon) that pops up in these conflicts.
Gary, unless Jes is some sort of English chauvinist I doubt she’ll be too shocked at the news that England had an atrocious human rights record with respect to the Jews, the Scots, the Irish, etc…. Most of us lefties don’t feel right unless we spend at least a few minutes each day denouncing the atrocities committed by our forefathers. I for one see the I/P conflict partly through the lens of American history as mentioned above.
“Gary, unless Jes is some sort of English chauvinist I doubt she’ll be too shocked at the news that England had an atrocious human rights record with respect to the Jews, the Scots, the Irish, etc….”
Of course not. But it appears I find myself a tad irritated at times with those who ride in on their high horse of moral superiority to deliver morally superior lectures. Apparently. It turns out that we all live in places that are flawed, and it might possibly become all of us to keep that in mind, is all. No shock involved. Just a possible reminder that none of us are in much of a good place to lecture the other over their evil country or government. Myself included, of course. But also others.
After that, I’m up for the group hug.
I’m still not discussing I/P. I don’t find that remotely easy, you know. It’s a spiritual exercise. Lift one two three.
My soul damn well better grow from this. I expect at least a millimeter, or it ain’t worth it.
However, while not discussing I/P, I do hope, Donald, that you understand that you don’t have to explain “us lefties” to me.
As I’ve mentioned here before, my mother was a card-carrying member of the Party, and I rose to awareness as a baby of both the Old and New Left. I literally went on my first protest marches before I could walk, for civil rights, and against the Vietnam War. I still remember the crowds from sitting on my father’s shoulders in 1963, when I was four years old. No sh-t. It was a sea of people.
Later I went on my own. In case that isn’t clear.
Much of the left pisses me off no end, but that’s because I’m of it, and I hate the fools who let it down. We can do better. We must always do better.
I don’t think the Nazi connection has any deep meaning. Part of that was “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” and people in these circumstances don’t need an outside ideology to teach them to hate the people they perceive are trying to displace them.
Donald,
Your dismissal of the Mufti’s Nazi associations makes it impossible for me to reply rationally to your comment. No “deep meaning?” His motivations, real or imagined are irrelevant. He was, by his own behavior, and by his choice of allies, someone who supported and instigated the mass murder of Jews, wherever they were. Nothing changes that. Nothing mitigates it.
And Arafat saw him as a hero.
From my point of view one of the reasons these threads are so difficult is that supporters of the Palestinian position seem utterly unable to accept that the Palestinians, and Arabs more generally, bear any significant responsibility for the mess. Oh sure, there are statements, like calling the Mufti “despicable,” but they are always followed in short order by the excuses and rationalizations and comparisons.
Of course Bernard sees nothing wrong with the US cooperating with Stalin.
Consistency means nothing, as long as there are points to be scored and settlements to be created.
Don’t worry, demography will solve it.
Don’t worry, demography will solve it.
Funny, I don’t think that Jews will be wiped out of the Middle East, as many people so fervently hope. It’s not gonna happen.
Funny, I don’t think that Jews will be wiped out of the Middle East
And, when Arabs are the majority even in Israel proper, will you still practice your little “oh no! it isn’t apartheid!” dance?
Yeah, you will. And there will be war. You’ll act even more confused.
unless Jes is some sort of English chauvinist
Heh. Not even English, in fact.
Listen, if anyone on ObWing ever starts a thread about atrocities committed by the British on the rest of the world in the name of Empire, or the English on the other countries in the Union, I’ll be right there denouncing my country’s track record. (Unless I manage to keep my New Year’s resolution to spend less time online, of course.)
DaveC: Funny, I don’t think that Jews will be wiped out of the Middle East, as many people so fervently hope. It’s not gonna happen.
Nor do I think that Israel will succeed, long term, in maintaining its artificial Jewish majority by force and violence. It’s too unstable a situation to last: you cannot endlessly grind people down into the dust and treat them as lesser beings to be killed with impunity, to destroy their homes, to take their land, to wipe out their crops, without getting a violent reaction from some, and a bitter reaction from all.
Of course Bernard sees nothing wrong with the US cooperating with Stalin.
Consistency means nothing, as long as there are points to be scored and settlements to be created.
Felix,
Your comment comes very close to defending genocide.
Stalin has nothing to do with this, and in any case the US cooperation with him did not have as its purpose mass exterminations. Are you suggesting that if the US was justified in cooperating with Stalin to achieve certain common goals, then the Palestinians were justified in working with Hitler for their common goals? Or is it that we should not have cooperated with Stalin at all, and left Hitler to rule Europe? Whatever else would have happened in that case, there surely would not have been an Israel, so I guess that’s a big plus from your point of view.
The goal of al-Husseini, the one he shared with Hitler, was the murder of Jews. The equanimity with which you view this gives more than a hint of where you are coming from.
Don’t worry, demography will solve it.
Still hoping for the final solution, are you?
Of course Bernard sees nothing wrong with the US cooperating with Stalin.
See, this is the problem with talking I/P, or engaging with people who live in Binary World. There’s a huge space between ‘nothing wrong’ and ‘a difficult and not morally neutral choice, but in the end the right way to go under the circumstances.’ Were there a million things wrong with cooperating with Stalin? Of course there were. Would I have done it? Yes, and for the same reasons it was done. Isn’t adulthood a bitch.
I babbled incoherently here.
I’m sad for many reasons. For the potential loss of the dead Palestinian and Israeli babies, and for the potential loss of all those who might not have been killed had he gone on.
I’m also sad for the souls of those who focus not on that. Did I pray, I’d pray for them to overcome the shriveling of their souls and minds. They are focused on other things.
I’d pray for their souls, did I pray.
Other have other foci. I pray for their souls, as well. We are all flawed, we all need to do better.
felixrayman: Palestinians have a right to a state. On this do we agree?
Do Jews also have a right to a state?
Let’s see what you think, since you are not shy of giving your thoughts.
Posting rules, everybody. I’m out of this thread myself before I say something I’ll regret.
I wrote completely incohrently about Sharon here<http://amygdalagf.blogspot.com/2006/01/sharons-road-to-peace.html/a>, by the way. I’m still thinking muchly about Sharon, and expect to be doing thtat for decades hence. He led a life of much right and wrong and right.
Flip responses from those who have never had to make a fraction of the moral choices he had to make are interesting, but not so very much. Glib and easy are, after all, painless. They don’t involve worry over a cousin, but merely an abstract victim. They don’t involve fear of personal death, or loss of a kidney, but merely a snide aside.
They are not, per se, brave nor thoughtful
But we listen, because that’s what us Jews do.
Bad formatting out!
Jews make morally comprising descions. We have no alternative, prefable, choice.
Having made them, we are condenmed, as well as compromised.
Those who speak about that tend to be doing a rorshach test.
Thoughtful answers are good. Those who make the simple answers reveal who they are, and I don’t mean “anti-semites,” I mean peopel who are inable to think other than simply.
Good luck to them with that, and may they forever after avoid morally complex situtations, such as planet Earth.
Meanwhile, most thinking is useful worth it. Would that be more of that, and less reductionism.
Meanwhile, most thinking is useful worth it. Would that be more of that, and less reductionism.
“Don’t worry, demography will solve it.”
Indeed. Death to the Jews.
Good to see that made clear.
“Don’t worry, demography will solve it.”
Indeed. Death to the Jews.
Good to see that made clear.
Grand to see that typepad still refuses my comments.
Grand to see that typepad still refuses my comments
Fuck Typekey, and those who use it.
Grand to see that typepad still refuses my comments
Fuck Typepad, and those who use it.
All we shall ever see is these blank pages. All that we do shall be made blank. All that is better is lost.
Typepad.
“Don’t worry, demography will solve it.”
“Indeed. Death to the Jews.”
Maybe Typepad is randomly enforcing the posting rules.
Emily says:
From Blank to Blank —
A Threadless Way
I pushed Mechanic feet —
To stop — or perish — or advance —
Alike indifferent —
If end I gained
It ends beyond
Indefinite disclosed —
I shut my eyes — and groped as well
‘Twas lighter — to be Blind —
There’s a huge space between ‘nothing wrong’ and ‘a difficult and not morally neutral choice, but in the end the right way to go under the circumstances.’
Well that’s the point. Bernard will defend the US allying itself with the greatest mass murderer in history, but will use any Arab connection with Hitler to defend the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. He’s inconsistent.
Your comment comes very close to defending genocide.
The hell it does. You are the one defending ethnic cleansing here. I am pointing out that you are being inconsistent in doing so.
felixrayman: Palestinians have a right to a state. On this do we agree?
I no longer believe in rights. They don’t exist.
Indeed. Death to the Jews.
Demography is not violent. All the Palestinians need do is survive, and wait. The only thing Israeli Jews have to fear is that they will be treated as they treat others.
Bernard, to me, a mass murderer is a mass murderer and a person who kills a child is a child-killer. I don’t think better or worse of such a person because of the political ideology or cause that “justified” the child killing. Even if someone has a just cause, and I think the Palestinians had every right to resist a plan that involved their possible expulsion, it’s monstrous to kill innocent people for it.
When I call the Mufti a despicable human being and a war criminal like Sharon, you see that as a kind of exoneration because I don’t think the Hitler connection means much. I don’t agree. The line that is crossed here is when you deliberately kill innocent people–if the Palestinians like the Mufti had never heard of Hitler I strongly suspect they would have behaved exactly as they did behave, which was badly. I base this belief partly on those comparisons you seem to find irrelevant or evasive.
I think comparisons are useful. I’ve read a little about other wars –the US/Indian conflicts and the French/Algerian war seem similar to the I/P one. And what I notice is that you have the same sort of horrific atrocities committed in those conflicts that one has in the I/P conflict. The French settlers ended up leaving Algeria because they didn’t think they’d be safe and the Algerians who sided with the French were slaughtered in the tens of thousands after the French left. French civilians were murdered by the Algerian insurgents in the most gruesome ways imaginable–I’ve got Alistair Horne’s book on that war open and decided not to type out some examples. As for Native Americans, they had no chance of killing off the whites after King Phillip’s War, but they sometimes tried to kill as many as possible. I don’t think the Algerians were instructed by Hitler (if anything, the Hitler sympathizers were probably more common on the French side) and the same is true of the Native Americans, yet they often acted with extreme viciousness.
So anyway, I brush off the Nazi connection as having any deep significance because in similar conflicts where two ethnic groups struggle for the same land, there are people who clearly want to kill as many of the opposing group as possible.
As for moral evasions and so forth, I think the Palestinians do bear much of the blame for the conflict. I don’t think terrorist responses to injustice are ever justified. I mostly jump into threads like this one because in the US, the conflict is usually presented in ways that strongly favor the Israelis. People know about the terrorism and the antisemitism of the Arabs–they don’t know that the early mainstream Zionists intended to forcibly transfer the Arabs if necessary and if the opportunity arose, and they don’t know that this actually happened and that it was accompanied by numerous massacres and they don’t seem to know that Sharon committed his first massacre of civilians in 1953 and yet now he’s prime minister. But if the geopolitical situation were different and the US supported the Palestinians and opposed the Israelis, I’m sure everyone would know all about that. Then I would be popping into threads pointing out that the Palestinian “freedom fighters” murder children and some had supported Hitler, but frankly, I would put a lot more emphasis on the murdered children than the Hitler connection.
Now when I was younger I was quite a bit more sympathetic to the Palestinians. After all, Knoxville has quite a few them. I would drop into Asa Harb’s store every day. And the guys at the Ali Baba Time-Out deli out on Kingston Pike were really nice dudes. rilkefan probably knows who I am talking about. I was a regular and talked with them quite a bit, and I know how they lost everything before they moved to the US. But years later after working with a lot of Israelis, I know how they joint-ventured stuff with the Palestinians, and worked for charities that benefitted non-Jews in the West Bank, and were truly some of the most liberal people I knew. So then when the bombing at Hebrew University killed a long-time friend of one of my friends, well there is no justification for this whatever. Killing kids for going to college? How the hell can you justify that? And it was done with the same mind set as 9/11, killing people who were just going to work. So I have changed big time. Maybe I don’t have the hurt personally, but I hurt for my friend. Now, that may be irrational thinking on my part, but nobody is going to convince me ever, ever that the Israelis are disproportionately bad, because I know better. Maybe they are not perfect, but by and large I think of them as the good guys.
Gary, people are losing their tempers here over issues of terrorism, ethnic cleansing, and genocide and you’ve chosen ths moment to launch your own personal jihad against Typepad and the infidels who use it. I admired you for your (short-lived) restraint and for some twisted reason I admire you even more for this.
(But you’re violating posting rules.)
Getting back to Bernard’s point, on second thought I’ll modify what I just said –the Mufti’s decision to try and kill Jews anywhere makes him an even bigger monster than he already was, so I was wrong with respect to him. And Arafat– well I never heard too many people have much good to say about Arafat anyway. That said, I don’t think the Nazi connections of some Palestinians are of any great significance in evaluating the rights and wrongs of the two sides.
“the Ali Baba Time-Out deli out on Kingston Pike were really nice dudes.”
Never chatted with them. The Palestinian who ran the deli I used to go to in Noe Valley was a nice man.
I consider myself pro-Palestinian, I/P conflict aside, which makes their (tolerance of the) use of violence harder to accept. Just wish they had had better leadership and hadn’t been exploited by the Arab govts.
The deli guys were Muslim, but most of the Palestinians there were Orthodox, like Asa, who was a hot head. I remember him going ballistic when one of his son’s buddys was talking about being in Jordan’s armed forces. Now that had to have been at least 6 or 7 years after Black September and the young man couldn’t have possibly been involved in that war. But the PLO did in fact attack Jordan, and did occupy part of Lebanon. That was a long time ago, but there it is.
The Time-Out deli was a favorite because my wife is a vegetarian, and they had these sandwiches, emptaboels or something, with deep fried eggplant and cauliflower drizzled with sesame sauce, plus other mysterious spices. When asked what was in it, they said “There is not a word for that in English”. I think that we may have been a little bold, like asking Colonel Sanders for his secret recipe. Perhaps you will drop back by in the area. My dad mentioned that they are expanding “the lab”, ORNL, to add some sort of super-collider. I guess Fermilab kind of lost out because of politics or something.
I almost lost the comment, but AOL allowed me to click on reload and I got them back, so Ive got that going for me…
Hey Dave, I go back for xmas and folks-getting-old kinda stuff. If you’re in town next year let me know and I’ll buy you a beer somewhere.
If Sam and Andys were still there, that would be my pick. Steamed Deli sandwiches, maybe a Reuben w/ the horseradish, too. Can’t find em in Illinois.
Explanation of sandwich here.
Donald,
Thank you for clarifying your comment, and for thinking carefully about al-Husseini. I misinterpreted some of what you said, and I apologize.
I am reluctant to comment further on the underlying issue, because my views are complex. Suffice it to say that I have great sympathy for the plight of the ordinary Palestinian, and that I think Israel’s settlement policy is, broadly speaking, misguided for any number of moral and political reasons. But I also think that assigning the blame for the entire mess completely, or even primarily, to Israel and the Zionists, is wrong.
Finally, I do think that much anti-Zionism is tinged, or worse, with anti-Semitism. I do not consider your comments to be in that category.
“The only thing Israeli Jews have to fear is that they will be treated as they treat others.”
Because that’s where it all started. It all flows from that.
The whole “set up a democratic Parliament for all” thing was so wrong.
Check.
“I admired you for your (short-lived) restraint and for some twisted reason I admire you even more for this.”
Damn Ambien made me insensible. Embarrassing, and I apologise. It’s, as I’ve said, the most dangerous drug I’ve ever taken. It completely strips away my forebrain before it knocks me out, but doesn’t stop me from reading and using my keyboard.
It’s the best way I know to make a public fool of myself. My apologies to all. Color me very red.
The whole “set up a democratic Parliament for all” thing was so wrong.
I do not think the word “all” means what you think it means.
Apology accepted Bernard. You didn’t actually insult me anyway, but I was wondering if you were thinking nasty things about me.
I sometimes wonder what good I think I’m accomplishing getting up on soapboxes in comment threads. It feels good to vent, I guess, but I should probably try to stick to my New Years resolution and cut way back on this stuff.
No need to apologize Gary. I thought it was a welcome relief to see you getting mad at software.
Do Jews also have a right to a state?
Do the Kiowa have a right to a state? the Cheyenne? the Basque? the Yaruba?
In Binary World, the answer to all four questions is yes, and so states should be set up, no matter what the human cost. In the real world, the disruption of setting up these states probably outweighs the “right” to have them imposed on the people living where they would be created.
If it was 1947 all over again, I’m not sure what I would think should be done. It was maybe a little too easy for Euro-centrics to be maybe a little too casual about the human costs of creating a Jewish state, whether out of guilt or racism.
It’s not 1947, of course, and so one has to make do the best one can.
Charley,
I don’t think the question actually is whether the Jews, or the Kiowa, et al have a right to a state. The question is whether such groups have a right to live free of persecution – physical or other – adhering to such religious and cultural practices as they choose. Of course they do(For the benefit of all – yes this includes Palestinians).
Zionism was motivated in large part by the conviction of some European Jews that there was no way for Jews to achieve this short of a Jewish state. Can anyone say they were wrong?
Thus I do not think the case for Zionism generalizes to all other minority groups. Establishing a state is not a right – it is one way to obtain a right. There are others. Should African-Americans have a state? Had the civil rights movement failed I would say yes. It did not fail. (Insert standard disclaimers about current status of blacks, etc.) Similarly, I believe the Palestinians should have a state. I see no other practical way in which these rights can be secured.
As for 1947, I think it is imperative that critics of Israel do say what they think should have been done, and be prepared to discuss the likely consequences of their alternative. Indeed, I think that critics of Zionism have an obligation to understand the real problems that motivated it.
In this lies, maybe, the reason these threads get so heated. There is a very deep-seated sense on each side that their critics simply ignore history.
(To head off an obvious response: Of course being a victim of persecution does not give one the right to become a persecutor. My purpose here is not to weigh Israeli and Palestinian misconduct. It is to discuss the issue of having a right to a state).
Of course I understand why Zionism arose, and the basis of its strong moral claim. The problem with Zionism, in my view, is perfectly encapsulated in the way the Absentee Property Act has been applied. (And yes, if it must be said, the Coloradoans’ treatment of the Cheyenne was very bad, and the various acts of violence against Israel, and individual Israelis, is awful).
There are undoubtedly some who oppose Israeli policy, and/or existence, out of anti-Semitism, or ignorance of history (whether willful or not). There are undoubtedly some who opposed the invasion of Iraq because they hated America, or because they loved Saddam Hussein. I have serious problems with the Zionist project, as applied, and it has nothing whatever to do with either ignorance or antipathy towards Jews. In my case, I’d say it’s quite the contrary on both counts. Most people with whom I’ve discussed I/P at all, if they agree with me about my reservations, share these attributes with me. I understand that it’s a lot easier to just project some kind of illegitimate view onto those with whom one disagrees, than it is to face the areas of disagreement. Doesn’t make it correct or worth anyone’s time: slander isn’t argument, much less civilized discussion.
OK, I’m now falling silent on I/P for a while, and won’t read anything further on this thread. I have this luxury, of course, because (a) my life has not been turned upside down by the Zionist project and (b) I’m not spending my days worrying about getting blown up whenever I get on a bus, or go to a restaurant. Were I in either circumstance, I’d probably spend more energy tring to find a just way out of the situation we’re in, rather than trying to convince the other guy (and his friends) that he’s getting what he deserves.
For those of you unfamiliar with Sand Creek, it seems to me that the conduct of the IDF in Jenin, and the PLO everywhere, actually compare pretty favorably to the conduct of the Colorado militia at Sand Creek. The whole body-parts-as-trophies thing takes them off the charts in my view.
“I do not think the word “all” means what you think it means.”
All.Abdulmalik Dehamshe, Talab El-Sana, Azmi Bishara, Wasil Taha, Jamal Zahalka, Mohammad Barakeh. Issam Makhoul, Ahmad Tibi included.
Given your wisdom and expertise on Israeli-Palestinian relations, I’m sure you could give, of the top of your head, without googling, a brief precis of the political careers of each of these men, and their various differences, and chat a bit about the political history of the parliamentry Arab parties.
To be sure, they’ve worked a bad deal. A deal in many way comparable to the situation of, say “blacks” in America in much of America’s history, though also wildly different in many ways. There’s much to condemn. Israel has done many things wrong, and I’m one of the first to say so whenever that’s the topic.
It’s nice to have a clear grounding in the full facts and history from which to engage in such condemnation, though.
“OK, I’m now falling silent on I/P for a while, and won’t read anything further on this thread.”
I hope you change your mind on that. For all that any of us go off now and again — and I’m still deeply embarrassed by my Ambien-induced incoherency above, which I’d delete if I could — this has been one of the calmer, more productive, blog thread conversations on Israel and Palestine I’ve seen in a long time, and that in itself is a tiny comfort, and one maybe only myself could use.
Nobody gets scot-free (must look into derivation of that term, too) out of discussions of Israel and Palestine, because there’s far more than enough wrongness and horribileness in the history there.
But the job of finding, if not “solutions,” but ways of going on that are least bad, still desperately needs to be done, and thoughtful people turning away from debate with those who disagree is, absolutely, the wrong way to turn, in my view. It’s dirty, painful, hard work, and that’s the work most worth and necessary to do.
People’s lives hang in the balance, as do those of children yet to be born. Ways of fairly getting along have to be found. They must be found.
And it’s better that they be looked for with words, with language, with thought, with mutual respect, than with guns, c-4, and hatred.
Your 12:40 post is sort of inspiring, Gary, but do you think that a handful of people slanging away at each other in a comment thread (even with an above-average degree of politeness and mutual comprehension for this topic) are doing that much to further the cause of peace in the Middle East? That’s what I was getting at when I said I need to cut back on this stuff. I get a warm fuzzy glow when I think I’ve made my point adequately, but what have I actually accomplished?
In contrast, when Katherine writes something there’s usually some practical action to take that she includes.
“Your 12:40 post is sort of inspiring, Gary, but do you think that a handful of people slanging away at each other in a comment thread (even with an above-average degree of politeness and mutual comprehension for this topic) are doing that much to further the cause of peace in the Middle East?”
Each of us is a world. Each of us is a mass of moral potential. Touch and affect and change one, and you’ve changed a world.
All of our worlds, combined, make up the larger world.
We all change the world with every thought, every understanding, every step, every act.
“That’s what I was getting at when I said I need to cut back on this stuff. I get a warm fuzzy glow when I think I’ve made my point adequately, but what have I actually accomplished?”
Affecting a single person’s thought changes their world. And we all go on in this world to affect each other. Large and small.
Every bit counts. Every bit hurts or helps. It all matters. It all can change things.
A thought now might result in an act to save a life seventy years from now. We don’t know.
But I try to take the opimistic view. It’s often proven at least as correct as the pessimistic view, for me.
We are all individuals, and we are all our own worlds, and we all have the power to change world after world, even unto objective reality. We are all powerful, at times, little though we notice. Together, we can save some of ourselves.
Apparently dizziness makes me a bit poetic, and all that. Beg pardon if it’s all crap. I’m always with the moods.
I’m hardly trying to discourage anyone from working with any organization, or, having sufficiently studied the history enough to avoid making a fool of one’s self, flying to Israel/Palistinian and doing some practical and helpful work, mind.
Talk, though, does have its place. Minds do change at times. This matters, greatly. Sometimes.
Palestine. Sorry.
Charley,
Just in case you relent and read one more comment, understand that I was answering your question as to who has a right to a state by saying that a state is not a right, but sometimes the only means available for a group to protect its rights.
I don’t think that anything I said can be read to question your attitudes or grasp of the issues.
It’s nice to have a clear grounding in the full facts and history from which to engage in such condemnation, though.
Sorry, but you apparently still do not comprehend what the word “all” means. So I’m going to go with what I said before, what Israeli Jews have to worry about is that they will be treated as they treat others.
“So I’m going to go with what I said before, what Israeli Jews have to worry about is that they will be treated as they treat others.”
All Jews have to worry what people such as you think, indeed.
That threat won’t be gone for a very, very, very, long time. Meanwhile, some of us do what we must, mistakes included.
Some of us are still alive, because of that.
Most, unfortunately, are not.
They were more trusting.
Only others of us are left around to chat on the internet.
I can’t and don’t speak for the dead, but I do think of them, every day.
Given your record of demanding action, not talk, Felixrayman, might I ask exactly what you’ve done in the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace, by the way?
(Unlike Felixrayman, I believe talk helps; he does not, as he has repeatedly said when attacking Katherine here, and others, for doing nothing but writing words. I can defend my position with words; he, however, by his own stance, obviously cannot.)
What decade did you sign up with Peace Now in? What year did you put your body in the way of a bullet? What day did you throw yourself in front of a bullbozer, and not just lecture Jews on the internet about their moral flaws?
What day in 2004 or 2003, even, did you write passionately about the moral complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian problem, without simply blaming the Jews?
It must have happened, and a URL will prove it.
Impress us with your past words from, say before December 2004, and make me shut up. Give us the courage of your convictions.
Show us from what mountain of morality you stand on, and find the Jews insufficient, Felixrayman.
If you prefer to start with your essay about Arab politics in Israel, that’s okay. I’m sure you can do that, as well, without access to Google or anything other than your inherent knowledge of the topic, felixrayman.
We only talk about that which we know, of course. Some of us.
If you prefer to start with your essay about Arab politics in Israel
In Israel? Still missing out on what the word “all” means. Think about if for a while.
as he has repeatedly said when attacking Katherine here, and others, for doing nothing but writing words
I attacked no one. I stated that the situation was getting worse, and that if people continued to act as they have in the past, the most rational expectation is that things will continue to get worse. If people take that as an attack, they need to look at themselves and ask why they take it as an attack.
might I ask exactly what you’ve done in the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace, by the way?
Even if that were my cause, why would I need to do anything? As I said above, all the Palestinians need do is wait and survive to have a better chance at a just outcome. Presumably Israeli Jews have been treating them as they wish to be treated when the power situation is reversed, right?
felixrayman, what, precisely, would you regard as a human gesture to begin talking with fellow humans?
I’m not a robot, you’re not a robot, but what does it take for you to stop acting so hatefully, and act like a human being, and not a completely effedd up asshole?
Because, jeebus, if you haven’t noticed, that’s whom you play here, and that’s whom you like to play to us Jews. Oddly, we’ve tended to notice that people who play that role usually come and kill us shortly thereafter. I’m willing to believe you’re not likely to do that. Use a phone number or something, since you have that modern option. Some of us literally are in danger of being killed, most particularatly in Israel. You, maybe not so much. One stance is easier than the other.
Give me a call. 720 and my number is in the book.
A small essay, or couple of paragraphs, indicating knowledge of the history of Arab parties in Israel over the decades might be, to be sure, a highly useful starting place.
I don’t expect it will happen, but, hey, surprise me, and start on the moral high ground, why don’t you?
“Comment text is required”
See, that’s what I mean about typepad.
Gary, I’m glad you’re realizing that the um, relationship between you and felixrayman isn’t very healthy. I’m not real good at the peacemaking thing, so that’s all I’ll say on that.
This thread is likely to die soon anyway, since so many of the regulars here seem to have sworn off I/P discussions. I’ve noticed people saying similar things elsewhere, that they refuse to get into a discussion of the I/P conflict because it gets so unpleasant and I’ve got a couple of fairly obvious ideas about that. First, the question of whether someone who harshly criticizes Israel and Zionism is antisemitic is always there in the background or comes out and there’s mutual resentment and hostility on both sides just for that reason alone. It’s good to bring that out in the open right at the start.
And then there’s the related problem, where someone focuses almost exclusively on the sins of one side and either denies or whitewashes or excuses the sins of the other. (If the person focuses on the crimes of Israel then the antisemitism issue comes up and if it’s the Palestinians who are always condemned, than I for one start suspecting unconscious racism.) The partisans of both sides do this by reflex, and even people who try not to do it tend to fall into it. It doesn’t have to be this way. If Obsidian Wings commenters can’t talk about these things calmly, I’m not sure who could.
“The partisans of both sides do this by reflex, and even people who try not to do it tend to fall into it. It doesn’t have to be this way. If Obsidian Wings commenters can’t talk about these things calmly, I’m not sure who could.”
I’ve never had a problem yet getting along with numerous Palestinian friends and allies, in my sojourns with Peace Now, or similar endeavors. Or in just hanging out, and having tea or whatever.
Americans who have never met a Palistinian, but think they speak for them, are another question. They pretty much tend to be complete flaming assholes.
Rule of thumb, but I’m always hoping for an exception.
Palestinian. Sorry.
Gary, this provide-an-essay-or-you’re-unworthy-to-talk thing you’re doing is ad hom, likely a violation of the posting rules, and certainly rude. Please desist and put frm on your list of people worth avoiding getting in a spat with.
Criticizing the many crimes of Israelis and Jews without being anti-Semitic isn’t actually all that hard, by the way. It’s a long list, and an awful lot of Jews have written books doing it. Many of us read them every day, and actually note the difference between them, and the other stuff.
“Gary, this provide-an-essay-or-you’re-unworthy-to-talk thing you’re doing is ad hom,”
I may not have been clear. My phone number is 720-565-3074. I live at 2295 Goss Circle East, Apartment #11. Boulder, Colorado, United States of America. You want to walk around the curve at 23rd street to note that this is the building at the curve. I’m two floors up.
I’m very open for discussion, during times I’m vaguely awake.
If this is insufficiently non hominem, I don’t know how I can do better. I’m here, I run around the internet putting out my opinion, and I lay myself as open as I know how to being told how I’m wrong.
I am sure I am wrong at times, and I welcome hearing about it. If that’s ad hom, I’d only wish other people would post under their own name, and provide their own phone number. I don’t feel terribly brave in doing so.
“this provide-an-essay-or-you’re-unworthy-to-talk thing you’re doing”
Having said what I said, I’d be appreciative, rilkefan, if you might either support your claim, or withdraw it. I’m delighted to be called down for the flaws of whatever I’ve said and said stupidly, but I’m less happy about mischaracterizations, and I’m fairly fuss about such, yes.
Thanks.
“and I’m fairly fuss about such, yes.”
Fussy. My mouse has been acting bizarrely for a couple of days now.
Gary, you seem to be commenting in a slightly less coherent fashion than usual. I believe my above statement is accurate, but likely I’m not the person to argue with you. I respectfully suggest you call a friend to chat, or read a poem by Richard Wilbur, or listen to some Bach, or write hilzoy a long interesting letter.
“Gary, you seem to be commenting in a slightly less coherent fashion than usual.”
Every damn time.
Ack, Gary, I hope that posting all private info isn’t a general bar for discussing tricky matters; I for one would never pass it.
Let me put it this way:
Felixrayman, your comments in this thread haven’t been particularly helpful, in the sense that they’ve been cryptically terse, challenging, and remnolent of the kinds of suggestions that many people find ominous. If you would like to put forth arguments and research, if you would like to engage some of the commenters here, who have (mostly) been appropriately careful with their words and their emotions, then meet them fairly and without levity on this really really freaking difficult topic.
Gary, it takes at least two people to discuss, a flamewar, rather fewer.
As to the value of discussing Israel/Palestine on the net: I must say I’ve learned quite a bit, carefully, zigzaggedly, while following threads–I click through to sources on every serious, intelligent conversation about the subject, so ignorant I still feel–on the subject over the years. The discussions have almost all left me very sad. (Edelstein’s informed analysis of what is happening now leaves me feeling less hopeless.) One of the things I learned was how it could be that people removed from a warzone felt it necessary to send some of my professors were receiving death threats.
So, be serious in your arguments, pseudonymous felixfayman, and be careful in your self-revelatory bravado, Gary Farber.
(Thus ends your sanctimonious intrusion by a degraded daughter of Ephraim for the evening.)
[Two copies of this deleted by Slart; noted to avoid confusion downstream]
Oh, blast it all to hell. I meant to be sanctimonious, not putain de sanctimonious three times over! I thought that the whole f’ing point of the Turing-Test connerie was that it would prevent spambotitis in honest commentors.
Would someone PLEASE delete two of those?
And now that it’s posted three times, it’s “redolent.”
I thought it was sort of a reminiscent redolence.
“…and be careful in your self-revelatory bravado, Gary Farber.”
Anyone who has ever wanted to go after me has never had to look hard. The very least I can get out of that is fake bravado.
Really. There’s no protection there, so why shouldn’t I at least wave the non-protection around as if it meant something more than it does, since it means nothing at all?
The least it can do is make for a wavy sentence or two. Big whup. I. Am. So. Brave.
I also used to be able to do a pushup, and a chinup. I am the macho macho guy. Woot.
I also think everyone who thinks that using a pseudonym protects them is completely deluding themselves, but I’ve talked about that before, and feel no need to repeat myself. Whatever comforts.
“Gary, it takes at least two people to discuss, a flamewar, rather fewer.”
I’m rereading that with a semi-colon, because that’s all I have or tend to be.
Meanwhile: West Side Story as my distraction. Gosh, the Jets are so very pale.
I dunno, JM, I thought your comment was insightful enough that it deserved repetition, on the off chance that it may have increased the impact.
Gary, while I don’t think that online etiquette should necessarily be decided by majority vote, I would cast my vote to support rilkefan’s suggestion. I certainly understand if there’s some residual bitterness over the BS that Katherine’s efforts were meaningless (a bitterness I share), but if you hold some resentment at people who use a handle (or some contempt because you feel we are fooling ourselves), given that this consists of almost everyone who comments here, (though again, I don’t think that the mere fact that everyone does it makes it right, but rather a number of other reasons), I think you should sort that out rather than taking it out on us.
I also think everyone who thinks that using a pseudonym protects them is completely deluding themselves
I agree to a certain degree–one shouldn’t post wantonly and unseriously while trusting one’s identity to remain unrevealed, but one shouldn’t call attention to personal data (such as phone numbers) without expecting they’ll be abused.
Personally, I’m by no means stable enough in my career to have a massive commenting result show up under my real name. However, since I’ve been online, I’ve taken as many pains as possible to ensure not being too appalled should any of my pseudonymous writings eventually be attributed to me.
But hey, if you want to publish your phone number and address, go right ahead; please, though, don’t expect it of all your interlocutors.
First, the question of whether someone who harshly criticizes Israel and Zionism is antisemitic is always there in the background
Well that’s bullshit now, isn’t it? You’re just saying that you’re prejudiced, how is that a way to start a dialog?
Felixrayman, your comments in this thread haven’t been particularly helpful, in the sense that they’ve been cryptically terse, challenging, and remnolent of the kinds of suggestions that many people find ominous
It’s not my job to be helpful. I’m not your webmonkey. And yeah, I’m, terse. That’s not an insult.
So far, the thing that people seem to find most ominous is that someday the Palestinians may treat Israeli Jews the way Israeli Jews have treated the Palestinians. I can certainly see why this might scare Israeli Jews, can’t you?
The Israelis ethnically cleansed a whole territory. “Who, me?”, they say.
Agreed: a semi-colon would have been better.
“but if you hold some resentment at people who use a handle….”
Of course I do not. I simply don’t think I’m displaying bravery or bravado by not. That’s all. I’m sorry if I wasn’t clear in that.
Whatever works, works.
I’ve been more than close friends with folks using handles since at least age 12 or so, and I’ve never betrayed their confidence, or had an unkind word for their understandable usage, as it happens. That’s 35 years now.
That I fear for everyone who thinks that that means someone out to get them won’t find that it works that way is an entirely different question, and one I wish I had more help to offer beyond the fact that it rarely works that way.
“Agreed: a semi-colon would have been better.”
No need, given the public offerage of one.
More like: come get us, asshole, because now we’re armed.
For no reason and no history, of course. Just sheer Jewish obnoxious wackiness. Who could see it coming?
(If anyone cares, I do not own a gun, and never have, and never have considered purchasing one. Until half an hour ago. Fucktardy language makes the thought cross the mind.)
I blew past the posting guidelines there.
If I need to be banned, so do it. (Again, how long do bans last, what’s the appeal method, where are the clear guidelines, etc.?)
Apologies, also.
It’s not my job to be helpful. I’m not your webmonkey. And yeah, I’m, terse. That’s not an insult.
So what exactly are you doing here, besides breaking the posting rules?
Maybe you see this as countering calumnies, as responding to personal affronts, as maintaining your reputation, as letting no affront go unchallenged, as holding up a cause, as being consistent in the face of opposition, as cultural interruption—
–but this is a discussion forum; people here tend to respond better to invitations for discussion. I’m trying not to insult you, but I think your latest comment is rude to people who’ve been debating in good faith here and dismissive to my and others’ pleas for careful debate.
Look: so far, my comments haven’t even begun to address to I/P conflict. I’ve just been talking about civility and honesty in the debate. If you must attack me for that, felixrayman, it’s on you.
I obviously have to congratulate felixrayman for touching my buttons. It didn’t feel good for me, and I’m sure it felt no better for anyone else, but he did hit the right places.
Or I did, myself, in response. I don’t feel happy about it, or proud of myself, to be sure.
In fact, it makes me feel ashamed of myself.
I’ll try to take it as a lesson for the next time, though I’ll probably still fail at my ideals.
I live, and only occasionally learn.
“Look: so far, my comments haven’t even begun to address to I/P conflict.”
I didn’t have to read that to feel shame and apologetics.
I’m self-banning now, for a time. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said stuff, and I don’t mean that in any way as regards others, but solely because I did wrong. Apologies. Bye for a bit.
To quote my hero Hobbes: “Live and not learn, that’s our motto”.
Anyone need a laugh?
Given the lack of interest of clarity of any blogowners, I give myself until 9 p.m., Rocky Mountain Time, January 11th, 2006, to be clear.
It would be nice if the blogowners would make with the clarity of the rules, I say for the umpteenth time as I leave. Apparently they don’t feel the need. Shame, that. But not my call.
So what exactly are you doing here, besides breaking the posting rules?
I broke no posting rules. Take it up with those who did.
Maybe you see this as countering calumnies, as responding to personal affronts, as maintaining your reputation, as letting no affront go unchallenged, as holding up a cause, as being consistent in the face of opposition, as cultural interruption—
No, I see it as telling you the truth.
If you must attack me for that
If you think I have attacked anyone here, I really hope you never see me actually attack someone. All I have done is argue for a fair fight. Many oppose the idea. Are you OK with the Palestinians taking over and treating Israeli Jews as Israeli Jews have treated the Palestinians?
That is the core question you need to honestly amswer.
frm: note that you are assuming a premise not all here agree with. It might be more productive to argue about the premise directly, if you want to argue.
Okay, fine. No, I am not okay with it. I can’t speak for Gary, but based on what he said above, I’d bet a fair bit of money that he’s not okay with it. Though I would also guess that we’d both disagree with you about some of the relevant facts about “how Israeli Jews have treated the Palestinians.”
Can I assume that you are okay with it? You sure sound like it. And yet, in that case, what moral objection is there to those policies in the first place?
I can’t figure out whether you’re trying to argue that the Israelis should do unto Palestinians and they would have Palestinians do unto them, or that you’re hoping that the Israelis suffer the same things that they have inflicted on the Palestinians. Gary and a lot of other people clearly think it’s the latter, and I tend to agree, but I’d like you to spell it out.
They’re pretty different things, see. The difference between “you were once a slave in Egypt, so feel free to enslave those Egyptians,” and “you shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”
Also, can I assume you would not be okay with Israeli Jews blowing up Palestinian children in shopping malls? Or would that be part of a “fair fight”?
Do you realize that one could easily answer “no” to both that question and your question? And that, therefore, they don’t tell us very much about either who is more in the right or wrong, or what a solution would look like?
A solution? Ok, here’s my proposal. The Palestinians will control the water supplies for all of Israel. The Palestinians will control the airspace above Israel. The Palestinians will control all the borders of Israel. The Palestinians will have control of all the major roads within Israel and will set up checkpoints on those roads. Israel will have no army, the Palestinians will have one. The Palestinians will keep, for an indeterminate time, “security control” over all Israeli property. Israeli Jews will be permitted, occasionally, while submitting to checkpoints, to travel on a few of the roads in Israel.
Sound fair to you?
Good lord, I’m honestly stunned. This thread blew up in the last few hours and to a large extent it’s not even about the I/P debate.
Gary and frm clearly don’t seem to like each other much, but I come back and it’s like a barroom brawl erupted with chairs being tossed around in all directions.
And felixrayman, I was just pointing out a simple fact of the I/P debate– one-sided criticism, or even what is only perceived as one-sided criticism immediately draws out suspicions of either antisemitism on the one hand or racism on the other. I was saying people could clear the air from the start by saying where they are coming from and I somewhat naively assumed that this could be done at Obsidian Wings if it could be done anywhere. My somewhat dewey-eyed optimism on that score has just died a messy death.
In some cases I suspect the suspicions of racism or antisemitism are justified–I certainly have heard people on talk radio or seen letters to the editor where I thought, without much question, “antisemite” or “anti-Arab racist”. More commonly it’s probably just ideological–people pick sides and filter out or downplay atrocities that don’t fit the way they want to perceive the conflict, but they aren’t necessarily racist or antisemitic. But it may look that way, especially to people equally dogmatic on the other side.
No. Does it sound fair to you? And didn’t I just answer this question? Whereas all of mine remain unanswered.
Which part sounds unfair?
Oh, fun–an unending series of rhetorical questions meant to prove some obscure point that a poster utterly refuses to state directly. Why is this vaguely familiar?
When you decide to give a straight answer to a single question, or anything approaching an actual description of your position, I’m all ears. Until then, I don’t have time for this.
I was saying people could clear the air from the start by saying where they are coming from and I somewhat naively assumed that this could be done at Obsidian Wings if it could be done anywhere.
OK, I didn’t do it from the start, but I eventually did. And I tried to steer the “Hayride to Hell” into the ditch, where we could contemplate the busted wheel. “Hayride to Hell”, by the way was one of Gerald Collier’s unappreciated songs, includinding the many from “The Best Kissers In The World”, as well as his country music stuff. Good luck, G, wherever you are and of course good luck GF.
A: No. Does it sound fair to you?
B: Oh, fun–an unending series of rhetorical questions
I see, it’s OK when you do it. It isn’t OK when other people do it. I suppose that seems consistent to you. Carry on.