hiredgun

powerclown, thanks for your most recent post, as it does much to illuminate your perspective for us.

As I read it, you broadly see that group violence and population displacement have been a regular feature in the sweep of world history. You outline a number of examples, some quite old (how did populations in the Near East and North Africa become Arabic speakers anyway?) and others more recent (you mention Eastern Europe; India-Pakistan 1947 and East Pakistan-West Pakistan 1971 are also good examples, not to mention North American settlers vis-a-vis natives). In this historical view, which I take as essentially morally neutral, the influx of European Jewry as well as Sephardi Jews into Mandate Palestine and then Israel is seen as more or less given; as a historical fait accompli which is now a status quo which actors in the present must accept as they develop new forms of identity and reconstruct their relationship to particular pieces of land.

Let me know if there is a major problem with this interpretation of the basic thrust of your narrative above.

That's interesting, and I partly agree - the Israeli-Palestinian issue is not historically unique in terms of population transfer - but there are some significant problems or issues that I'd like to hash out.

1) It is difficult to derive normative value from your essentially descriptive account. In other words, the type of history you create above merely states what is (and perhaps an underlying assumption is that whatever does happen, is therefore justified; or perhaps that 'justification' is meaningless and that there is only what happens and what doesn't happen; what people can and can't do, but no such thing as what they should do.) In other words, you talk about tragedies that have befallen various peoples and seem to imply that because these things happened and because these people (let's assume for the moment) did nothing, that therefore all people in similar situations should similarly allow themselves to be dispossessed and dispersed.

It seems to me this is a dangerous way to do history because it really says nothing about the present until it has become the past.

So for instance, your account entirely obscure the process by which Jews reacted to injustice and oppression and Israel became Israel, which was through a concerted national struggle that most certainly used force and violence as a primary basis. Zionist groups smuggled people, cash, and arms into British-controlled Palestine. They carried out bombing campaigns, including campaigns designed to terrorize local populations. In the war of 1948, entire areas of the Mandate were systematically cleansed of Arab populations, either through intimidation, or in some cases direct extermination. All of this is well documented and widely accepted by Israeli historians, so if you're going to object to any of it, please say so explicitly.

In your account, this whole messy process is collapsed into the status quo ante. It becomes the reality that new actors must accommodate simply because it happened. But if that's the case, why does anyone do anything new? And wouldn't it be true that if the Palestinians (for example) managed to capture the Negev tomorrow and establish a state there, that 50 years from now Israeli refugees of that war should simply silently accommodate the fact? Isn't there a contradiction somewhere here?

Note that I'm not trying to simply reverse what you said (Palestinian historical grievance is justified, or conversely isn't justified.) I'm saying it's just far trickier than that.

2) While the loss of mandate Palestine may be a recent historical event (1948-49), your story above does not take into account the post-1967 occupation, which is not a historical artifact but a present and ongoing activity. There is ample information in this thread about the combined effect of economic blockade, settlement activity, and systematic de-development that has destroyed the West Bank (and especially the Gaza Strip) as viable societies. In other words, the grievance of Palestinians is not simply a historical memory of displacement that they must learn to get over - and believe me, I agree that the sooner that the retro-nationalist nostalgia for a partly mythical historic Palestine is dissipated, the better - but also and primarily their current conditions, in which they are systematically prevented from living ordinary lives and pursuing the ordinary goals of freedom and prosperity. Gaza in particular has been slowly choking to death under Israeli closure, blocked from receiving many imports including much food and medicine, let alone technology and capital investment.

This is not, therefore, a good analog for Coptic Christians in Egypt (for example). There are a great many serious social issues facing Muslim-Christian relations in Egypt, and I don't wish to downplay them. But I would point out that by and large - by and large - Copts enjoy citizenship and property in Egypt and are largely able to live, worship, and prosper as equals. They actually form a disproportionate share of the Egyptian business elite (a common phenomenon; see Amy Chua on 'market dominant minorities'). It is not comparable to the situation of the stateless Palestinians living under Israeli control but outside Israel's democratic borders.