|
actually, sticky, i dont think that is the case.
and i think it is at best a tendentious reading of what i said above.
i think that israel is a simple fact of the matter. it is a nation-state like any other and is not going anywhere. israel has any number of options available to it for ameleriorating the situation endured by the palestinians and in so doing to ameliorate the situation for itself. it could, for example, dismantle the settlements in the west bank. it could stop the routine harrassment of palestinians at check points. it could stop the barbarism in gaza. it could stop trying to undermine the palestinian government and could assume that the exercise of power just might moderate hamas--except of course that the israeli right needs hamas to be as it is because that way it functions as a legitimation for more oppression in gaza, etc. (do you have any idea what has been going on in the gaza strip?)
it could abandon this idiotic discourse of terrorism and along with it begin a process whereby even the israeli right--which i see as the primary motor of all these problems--would find itself having to consider the palestinians as human beings.
it could dismantle the racist underpinnings of the discourse of "terrorism"---it could reconsider the meanings that have come to be of a piece with the notion of israel as a jewish state.
it could participate in the fabrication of an actually viable palestinian state, not the patchwork fantasy that cannot and will not survive that is presently on the table--you know, that series of dots separated by settlements that israel wants to be understood as de facto extensions of itself.
as for the more complex issues like the right of return, i dont know.
that one seems to me to function on a different register.
but everyone knows this. so it seems that it functions for all sides as a way to spike negociations. someone has to be benefitting from the present appalling state of affairs.
that said, there are any number of ways that israel could change its policies and direction.
the nihilist "conditions have to be as they are or israel will cease to exist" line seems not worth the time it takes to type, and much much less as an guide for thinking about the situation.
and this line of thinking seems the particular purview of americans. you dont see this kind of nonsense in israel, except perhaps for amongst extreme right wing parties, those dominated by extreme right wing settlers who are themselves a significant motor of the trouble israel has.
__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear
it make you sick.
-kamau brathwaite
|