Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - If it all boils down to Israel, how would you handle it?

roachboy · 09-16-2004, 08:10 AM

dragon: on your response to no. 2

so far i had tried to avoid this...on what basis is a religious text a legal admissable claim to property or land? i do not see how the claim could possibly work, shifting from one genre to another (religious text to secular law)--that is why i repeatedly argued that this does not matter, that the state of israel is a fact, a political reality, the backstory of which does not make the slightest difference.

on your response to no. 3: this sounds dangerously like the kinds of arguments made to justify apartheid, which often referred to the "lost race of white people" to explain a prior claim--often this "lost race of white people" are invoked in colonial explanations of great zimbabwe. do a search. you presuppose the legitimacy of a prior claim (see above) and then deploy a series of further arguments that appear bizarre unless you accept the premise of your argument.
i do not accept your premise.
could you try to explain your position another way?
is there another way?

on no. 4: the counter to this should be obvious to you. it was at the center of the discussion we had earlier. it seems still like an arbitrary distinction you make--it is ok for the idf to bulldoze houses, for settlers to attempt to starve out palestinians by taking land on control spots for water supplies, (for example--and these are only examples, the list coudl go on and on) both of which can be seen as acts of war on an entire people--but not ok to respond in kind? this is a two-sided conflict--it makes no sense to act as though it is otherwise. if the state is condoning explicitly or looking the other way and therebyt indirectly condoning brutality, then why should it surprise you that, as the situation gets more desperate, you see desperate horrible acts in response.

this is NOT to say that it is ok to blow up civilians.
but it is to say that you will get precisely nowhere by pretending that these acts are undertaken without motive.

and what is the point of putting palestinians in scare quotes?

09-16-2004, 08:10 AM	#82 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	dragon: on your response to no. 2 so far i had tried to avoid this...on what basis is a religious text a legal admissable claim to property or land? i do not see how the claim could possibly work, shifting from one genre to another (religious text to secular law)--that is why i repeatedly argued that this does not matter, that the state of israel is a fact, a political reality, the backstory of which does not make the slightest difference. on your response to no. 3: this sounds dangerously like the kinds of arguments made to justify apartheid, which often referred to the "lost race of white people" to explain a prior claim--often this "lost race of white people" are invoked in colonial explanations of great zimbabwe. do a search. you presuppose the legitimacy of a prior claim (see above) and then deploy a series of further arguments that appear bizarre unless you accept the premise of your argument. i do not accept your premise. could you try to explain your position another way? is there another way? on no. 4: the counter to this should be obvious to you. it was at the center of the discussion we had earlier. it seems still like an arbitrary distinction you make--it is ok for the idf to bulldoze houses, for settlers to attempt to starve out palestinians by taking land on control spots for water supplies, (for example--and these are only examples, the list coudl go on and on) both of which can be seen as acts of war on an entire people--but not ok to respond in kind? this is a two-sided conflict--it makes no sense to act as though it is otherwise. if the state is condoning explicitly or looking the other way and therebyt indirectly condoning brutality, then why should it surprise you that, as the situation gets more desperate, you see desperate horrible acts in response. this is NOT to say that it is ok to blow up civilians. but it is to say that you will get precisely nowhere by pretending that these acts are undertaken without motive. and what is the point of putting palestinians in scare quotes? __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite