Politics Gaza

I think we'll have a better sense after the 2013 elections in Israel and Palestine.

Netanyahu is likely to win again in Jan.

Indications are that both Abbas (Fatah) and Meshall (Hamas) wont run in 2013, if and when elections are held. Two issues at play are reconciliation between the PA and Hamas and how much Iran will continue to have a hold over Hamas.

 

it is astonishing to me that an idiot of netanyahu's scale could be re-elected. even as the gaza massacre and the subsequent debacle could be turned to the temporary advantage of the israeli right, it remains the case.

why is it that such support as iran might provide hamas is an Issue where the blind support the united states provides the israeli right in particular is not?

 

oh, my. what an interesting question. i love these kinds of questions. because they are extremely difficult to answer without revealing what belies beyond.

 

Perceptions and politics.

In Israel, Netanyahu is polling higher than he did before the latest conflict.

And as low as the world's (outside of the US) opinion is of Israel, Iran is even lower.

 

thing is---and i wonder whether there's data about this yet---the "perception" argument relies on two naive assumptions: first that the place you stand is necessarily neutral (this goes out the window with even a rudimentary introduction to philosophy) and second that the us still operates in a top-down media climate that reinforces that sense of neutrality of one's own position on political matters like this. on the second, i do not think that still obtains--it is no problem to access information that forces you disable the pretense that the united states is somehow neutral in this situation. i don't think pretense is strong enough a word. but i'll leave it aside for now. suffice it to say that you have to be operating in an information environment wholly dependent on state department and/or pentagon press releases---the "free press" in america in short---to believe that nonsense. the united states is *entirely* complicit in israeli colonialism. what i wonder about is whether bibi had managed to endanger even that with the outrageous declaration that 3000 new settlements are to be built in east fucking jerusalem days after the united states and israel (and their canadian lackies) made Solemn Declarations about the un recognition of palestine as a non-participant state observer constituted an abandonment of this joke we are told to call the "peace process." there is no peace process. there is a procedural figleaf created by the us and israel to cover for israeli colonial occupation of the west bank. there is nothing else. that colonialism is destructive for all sides--for us interests, for israel (in the deformation of ideology, the undermining of any claims to the status israel could have appealed to after world war 2 and so on) and, obviously, to the palestinian people, who find themselves subjected to an ever-widening brutalization while the us and israel blab about some imaginary peace process. it's the worst kind of disengenousness. but to see it, you'd have to operate in information environments not conditioned by the servility of the american press. and that is something i think has largely fallen apart--but that sense is anecdotal. which goes back to the question of data.

 

It is an interesting question. Personally, I see little if any distinction and will probably go to my death without understanding how others can justify one. Political motivations, history, biases and the like most certainly feed into differing perspectives but in the final analysis, there is no "justifiable" support over "unjustifiable" support. At least not in this instance where both sides could be seen in need of allies.

Which leads me to another question. What might transpire if both sides were left to sort out their differences without outside influences? Influences which are motivated by their own agendas?

 

In my opinion, that would depend on whether the moderates on both sides had control, or the extremists.

 

Go pour yourself another drink, dear. Can't you see I'm pontificating?

 

Could you pontificate naked? At least I'd have something to watch.

 

Umm, I'm already naked.

 

Well, get yourself ironed, then

(Damn.. sometimes I shoot myself in the foot!)

 

I can't. You fired the maid.

(Sex cancelled)

 

Well, she kept pontificating, even after a formal warning.
--- merged: Dec 5, 2012 at 9:20 PM ---
The bottom line on Palestine, as with all confilct, is that it will only be resolved when everyone involved wants peace. That will require talk. It must be hard to talk when so many people are shouting to voice an opinion and claim victimhood.

My sympathies lie with the average family trying to live worthwhile lives in Palestine and I am very conscious of my own country's contribution to the problem, historically.

There is a lot of cant about what is going on, from all sides. In the meantime, people suffer. I wish the UN would accept Palestine as a full member, personally. US vetos make that an unlikely outcome, in my view.

 

If the US pulled back it's unconditional support of Israel, I can't help but wonder if the Israeli people might vote in a party more willing to compromise. Isolated and without the support of a major super-power might give them pause to realistically consider their position and the consequences of their colonial pursuits. Would Iran feel compelled to provide support to Hamas, if the US was not in the picture? Maybe, maybe not. Would Iran try to disrupt a viable agreement between Palestine and Israel? If they did, the US and other nations would be justified in taking up the matter with Iran directly rather than using the Palestinian/Israeli issue as a wedge.

 

It will take more than that.

Today's is the 25th anniversary of Hamas

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“We will never recognize Israel’s occupation of legitimate Palestinian lands, and we will not recognize Israel,” the Hamas leader told the cheering crowd. ​

​

“Palestine is our land from the Mediterranean Sea to the River Jordan, and we will never give away an inch of it,” he added.​

Israelis across the political spectrum support a two-state solution. Fatah and the Palestinian Authority support a two-state solution. There will be no two state-solution until Hamas changes its tune or the Palestinian people vote in a party that is not aligned with the two regimes in the region, Iran and Syria, that are committed to the total destruction of Israel.

 

israel has besieged gaza for 6 years in order to assure hamas could not operate as a conventional political organization in power--which would entail myriad compromises in everyday life and would have been the most obvious, direct route to moderation on hamas' part. israel has staged two massacres in gaza timed right after american presidential elections.

no-one in their right mind thinks the problem is hamas.

this language is obviously not awesome if you believe that this farce the americans insist on calling the peace process is legitimate. but it isn't. you know it. i know it. people on the ground in gaza and the west bank sure as hell know it.

israel is the regional military super-power. israel is a very good customer of american weapons systems and pretty effective at making their own systems. israel is a colonial power. israel holds all the cards. it is ludicrous to continue making the pretense that israel is a victim. it isn't. and it's even more ludicrous to blame hamas' language for israeli actions.

the only plausible way forward in terms of peace is for the israeli right to fall. but this circle of creating justifications for violence and then whinging about being the victim of the violence that israel itself creates by its actions is what keeps the right in power. because they pretend to "do something" about it---by following and extending the exact colonial thinking that causes the violence in the first place. the situation is israel's responsibility. it is the israeli settlement program that is the central obstacle to peace.

 

I think I am in my right mind to believe that it takes both sides committed to peace to make it happen and that the only plausable way forward is for the Israeli right to fall and Hamas to fall.

In a democracy, the Israeli right can be voted out; in the authoritative, anti-democratic control that Hamas maintains in Gaza, that is far less likely.
--- merged: Dec 8, 2012 at 7:22 PM ---
More from Mashall:

"We are not giving up any inch of Palestine," said Mashaal. "It will remain Islamic and Arab for us and nobody else. Jihad and armed resistance is the only way. We cannot recognize Israel's legitimacy."​

And you think that is the road to a two-state solution?

 

Hamas' very existence is a reaction to Israeli oppression. This:

“We will never recognize Israel’s occupation of legitimate Palestinian lands, and we will not recognize Israel,”

is rhetoric which cannot be made manifest in any appreciable way. Even if Hamas were to go so far as to proclaim recognition of Israel, it would hardly change the circumstances..

Israel would have a difficult time imposing further upon Palestinian lands in an atmosphere of peace and cooperation.

Hence, there'll be no peace and cooperation until they are done plundering.

 

The 1993 Oslo Accords and the Wye River Agreement, the Camp David 2000 Summit, the Quartet (US, EU, UN, Russia) Road Map all suggest that two sides committed to peace can eventally happen...with the right players and both sides willing to make concessions.

Blaming Israel, who was not the first to walk away from any of the above, while minimizing the Hamas extremist Islamic rhetoric, its ties to Iran, its authoritative stranglehold on Gaza is simply not the way towards a peaceful solution.

Just me speaking my right mind.

edit. You may recall that in 2005, per the Quartet agreement, Israel dismantled all settlements in Gaza and turned authority over to the PA. The following year, Hamas came into power in Gaza and the missiles into Israel became a way of life.

 

you presuppose the "peace process" has legitimacy. it doesn't. the united states is nothing like a broker. and that is the consequence of a fundamental policy error. that policy error is also complicit in the settlement program in the west bank. the us is, in short, not in a position to say shit about peace when its policy has been systematically supportive of the israeli right.

so yeah, it does take parties who are interested in peace. but neither israel nor the united states is interested in peace. they're interesting in talking about peace while the settlements continue to expand. they're interested in the word peace. but they aren't interested in peace. they're interested in continued israeli colonialism. that's not peace. that's the problem.

a consequence of the delegitimation of this "peace process" farce is that hamas is able to be credible. they are the demonstration that the policy errors of the united states combined with the disengenuousness of the israeli right have made conventional process moot.

thinking about a viable solution has to break out of the bankrupt processes that have been in place. but make no mistake---it is the united states and israel that bankrupted those processes.

the only way forward involves the united states getting out of this "peace process" and admitting its complicity in the failures of the previous processes. it's time to hand the baton to others.

the imperial united states is a relic. it's over. done. and the reason for that is the incompetence of the united states. there's no-one else to blame, nowhere else to look.