at this point, i do not think the general "israel question" or any of its derivative formulations are still relevant. israel is a fact.
no-one who at this point is still talking about driving the israelis into the sea.
it seems to me that if you maintain this idea when you think about the conflicts ongoing there, you box yourself into an all-or-nothing logic that serves to reinforce the impression that the conflicts are intractable, there is nothing to be done, blah blah blah.
dragonlich:
i am under no illusions about sharon as elected--geez. my point was that so long as he is in power, i see no hope of any resolution. so long as likud is in power--particularly in a situation like the present one, wherein they rely on a far right coalition, there is no hope.
sharon props himself up by exploiting fear--he is a more extreme manifestation of the same kind of exploitation of fear for political ends that is so central to the bushcampaign.
you position on the wall is contrary to the facts. the wall functions as de facto annexation. it is an enormously damaging act, its construction, politicall, psychologically. i would maintain that i must be dismantled.
as for this:
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You (along with many others) seem to be under the impression that Israel is the source of the problem, and the poor Palestinians the victims. In reality, both sides are to blame, and both sides are victims. Israel shouldn't be forced to give up anything as long as the Palestinians and the surrounding states won't accept Israel's right to excist in the first place. If you ignore that last bit, and let Israel concede everything, the end result will be the destruction of Israel, and the murder of most of the Jews living there.
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i think you are wrong.
at this point there is no question that it is israel that is brutalizing the palestinian population.
it is a colonial power enforcing a horrific kind of occupation.
it is israel that creates and maintains a political situation the outlooks within which are so utterly bleak that people would consider blowing themselves up--a nihilist act only imaginable in a context of total domination. think about the material disparities that separate the israeli state from the palestinians. just think about it. to attempt to shift understanding of this conflict to a level that imagines anything approaching symmetry between the opponents is delusional.
that the rhetoric of many surrounding countries too often moves from political opposition to antisemitism is not in doubt. that this slide complicates things is also not in doubt. but i think it all too easy, and all too facile to go from that to ignoring the facts of the matter in this particular conflict.