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.

No.

No country should have to Tolerate suicide bombings and rocket attacks into their country in the name of peace. You're showing your agenda.
-----Added 13/1/2009 at 01 : 42 : 43-----
Shown restraint toward what? Tolerating their citizens being killed?

Time to go do errands, I'll be back later. It's been fun discussing this and I hope it continues, I suspect we'll get to the baseline circular argument that defines the situation in Israel soon.

"I don't paint situations with words as dramatic as possible to imply one side as bad and the other as victims."

One side has terrorists that are killing and terrorising a large area of Israel, killing - I believe - 20 people in 8 years.

The other side has a fully equipped modern military/slaughtering machine and is massacring civilians on a daily basis, massacring almost 1000 in a few short weeks.

One of these things is not like the other.

If someone kicks you in the shin, do you kill their family? No? That's restraint. Kicking them in their shin would be a measured response.

Would you prefer that people in Northern Ireland where still blowing up and shooting one another? That people in the UK should still be terrorised by bombs and bomb threats?

accept some pain on a road to peace, or accept oceans of agony in continued war, there are your choices.

Complete and total victory comes through the death camp or in a movie. In reality, people just don't give up like that while they still have breath, no matter what happens... and the indiscriminate killing of civilians will only raise a greater army of those willing to die to get revenge.

Roughly 25% of those killed in gaza at the moment were children. How many parents, siblings and relatives do you think that will raise up against Israel? How much money do you think will be thrown at them from the arab states to try and get their revenge?

250 children... That's an entire, fair sized school. Just try to picture it.

as of about 2 hours ago:

971 dead.
4,418 injured.

the israelis have not agreed to peace for 40 years in significant measure because they've not done anything but expand the settlements in the west bank. dismantling them in gaza was a step--but not a substitute.

i've already written a few times about the intertwining of israeli strategic understanding, tactics and the opening of a space for hamas.

one thing that's funny is that folk who support the action in gaza are quite sure they know what would happen if israel were serious--that is, if it was able to decide to risk the political fallout of taking on the far right in the west bank and it's supporters, many of whom are american, begin at the least stopping new settlements as a way of indicating that maybe, just maybe, this time it's serious about peace. because like it or not, israel has tried to have it both ways for way way too long--talk about a 2-state solution (since oslo) and expand the settlements. always the same.

but if the desire for a peaceful resolution of this conflict were to supplant fantasies of the greater israel, perhaps things would change. or maybe they wouldn't.

one thing for certain--the supporters of the israeli right have no idea, because up to now, israel by it's actions with respect to the settlements (for example) shows it isn't serious

Israel generally gets very good press in the US. For whatever reason, people here are sympathetic to Israel. What's interesting is that they seem to be blowing some of their good will. There was a picture of a bloodied Palestinian child on page 3 of the Milwaukee Journal the other day. It caught me by surprise, because the US press generally turns a blind eye to suffering on the Arab side. A people which does not exist, cannot exist and will not be allowed to exist as a people is now in America's papers. That's a major change, and indicative of a major fuck-up on the part of Olmert, the Israeli military, and the Israeli right.

The Palin-n-Bush crowd will no doubt incorporate this trend into its persecution complex -- oh poor us, poor Israel we are persecuted so by the communist/nazi press. 1, 2, 3...start the whinge-in!

I would accept your analogy, and agree with you, if I believed that Hamas and other organizations would eventually stop if Israel simply chose to ignore the attacks.

I still don't agree that Israel should have to ignore the attacks in a hope that they will eventually stop (as with the Norther Ireland situation). However, it would without a doubt be in their best interest if they would, assuming that with time the attacks would not escalate, and there would not be any plans to execute something much worse. Which is a huge assumption.

That being said, I do believe Hamas and other organizations wouldn't stop until Israel, as a nation, was gone. That belief really is at the heart of the disagreement between me and you (and I suspect others).

Does this work the same the other way? Does the Israeli fear of losing loved ones on buses, or at sbarro restaurants incite the same feeling?

Of course.

Which leads me back to my original line of thought, I really think that Israel finds itself in a dichotomy. Respond with force or accept the consequences of doing nothing. It is unfortunate that a multitude of every day people that do not want any harm done to Israel or themselves are caught in the middle.

going off of this...

What about those fantasies of 'the greater israel'? What place does Israeli greed and zealotry have in this current military endeavor? This being directed at those who rationalize Israeli displays of aggression and brutality.

I'm interested to know how, in one or two generations, the state of Israel went from a nation of pioneers and land grabbers to a nation of beleaguered suburbanites. With nary a semblance of unethical behavior on their part while getting there.

Doesn't the illusion strike you as odd? Don't you feel like you're missing quite a bit of that 'on the ground' realism that really comes in handy when you're considering a foreign conflict?

I do not believe that Israelis should die just for being born there. I do not support Hamas or any other group that believes violence will solve their problems. But for pete's sake, somewhere there has to be place where personal identification with Israel ends and the realization that direct action and culpability on the part of the Israeli government, with the support of many of its people (many of them religious zealots) plays a part in the continued rocket attacks and general insubordination of the Palestinians living there with them. I mean, come on. I don't understand why, WHY, this unquestioning support of Israel exists. I can only imagine that it is some sort of misguided identification with them because of their lifestyle and (largely) skin color. Which isn't much of a reason, if you ask me. Prove me wrong. Please.

i'd like to point out hiredgun's post no. 201, which for some reason i overlooked and suspect that maybe others did as well, as it is a well-argued counter to the aspects of the dominant pro-israeli narrative that i tend to simply rule out because it functions to erase the entirety of post-67 history. i've seen nothing approaching responses to that. when these narrative are criticised, it seems the move is to switch narratives. why is that?

among the arguments i've been making is that this action in gaza is a horrendous error even if you maintain israeli interests, as dictated by the right, as paramount. here's an indication of why:


Israel may face UN court ruling on legality of Gaza conflict | World news | The Guardian

i think this piece lays out the problem that this creates for israel, the problems with prosecution of a case, were it to come to that, and--most importantly--the limits of the international community as it is currently constructed to deal with this kind of obvious violation of humanitarian law and international conventions that outline the basic rules of war.

another mistake was olmert's decision to talk publicly about his humiliation of condoleeza rice over the un security council resolution calling for a cease fire--which she wrote and lobbied for.

U.S.: Olmert never asked us to abstain from UN vote on Gaza truce - Haaretz - Israel News

more recent articles in haaretz claim that olmert is coming under pressure from inside his own government for an immediate cease fire.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055214.html

it's hard to know what is going on in domestic politics in israel--the ny times published an obviously false article on its front page this morning arguing that there was universal support in israel for the gaza action--it is obviously false because if you read the israeli press at all--AT ALL--you can see that it is. but at the same time, war marketing and its twin in panic generation may work to the continued political advantage of the right--so as olmert fucks up, and as pressure mounts even within the goverment to stop this lunacy in gaza and he ignores it---so as olmert begins to isolate himself again--the genuinely frightening of a likud win in the next elections begins to surface.

the only way this could get any worse is with that idiot netanyahu in power.
criminy.


========
971 dead
4418 injured
as of about 8 hours ago.

80,000 people internally displaced in gaza.

I don't think you are taking into consideration the history of continous displacement of Jews since the time of the Roman Empire, so that is a dubious statement as it relates to the middle east being arbitrarily sliced into 'states' by the British and French after WWII. It was a period of consolidation of power in the entire region, and so I have no problem taking into consideration irgun, haganah et al activities to these ends. If you want to blame someone for opening pandoras box here, blame European anti-semitism. Being displaced from their homes en masse is nothing new to Jews so a Palestinian army capturing the negev pre-1948 would mean the jews peacefully resettling elsewhere, as they've done for ages. Palestinian rejectionism preceded Israel's occupation and is an independent cause of the conflict. Violent rejectionism will not evaporate when the occupation ends, but it would be easier to combat if moderates on both sides are heeded. While in the court of public opinion, Israel's right to self-defense has been branded illegitimate, while the the Palestinians remain unquestioned.

Perhaps the worst consequence of these emphatic public marches and hysterical demonstrations is that it will reinforce Palestinians' faith in their own innocence and victimization, and preclude a self-examination of their responsibility in maintaining the conflict. That suicidal self-pity has led Palestinians from one historic calamity to another, and is precisely the reason why Israel is so adamant about its self-defense (aka occupation, to some).

Palestinian political history follows a depressingly predicable pattern. First, a peace offer is presented by the international community, to which the mainstream Israeli leadership says yes, while all factions of the Palestinian leadership say no. Then the Palestinians opt for war and pay a bitter price for their failed attempt at politicide. Finally, the Palestinians protest the injustice of their defeat which, after all, was supposed to be the fate of the Jews.

From the Palestinian perspective, there have always been compelling reasons for rejecting each of the compromises that could have resolved this conflict in a two-state solution. The UN partition plan, Palestinians still argue, offered the Jews a state on a majority of territory though they were only a minority of the population. The argument ignores the fact that 62 percent of the Jewish state envisioned by partition would have consisted of desert, while the Palestinians were offered the most fertile land. The argument is even more absurd because the Palestinians, and the Arab world generally, would have rejected Jewish statehood in any form.

As for the Camp David offer, Palestinians argue that it would have left them with a series of non-contiguous cantons, not a real state. Yet a few months after Camp David, Palestinians rejected the offer of a contiguous West Bank under the Clinton Proposal and at Taba. The reason for that Palestinian rejection was, and remains, their refusal to waive the demand for refugee return to pre-67 Israel - that is, to accept the Israeli offer to cede the results of the 1967 war in exchange for a Palestinian acceptance of the results of the 1948 war.

The end result of each Palestinian rejection was that history moved on, and the map of potential Palestine that remained to be negotiated invariably shrank.

Under the Peel Commission, the Palestinians would have received 80% of the territory between the river and the sea; under the 1947 UN partition plan, 45%; under Camp David, around 20%. Where are the Palestinian voices demanding an accounting from their leadership for the self-imposed decisions of the past? Where is the debate about whether years of suicide bombings were a wise response to the Israeli offer of Palestinian statehood - let alone a debate about the moral and spiritual consequences of turning Palestinian Islam into a satanic cult?

During the first intifada, Israeli society underwent a self-confrontation. For the first time, non-leftist Israelis conceded that the Palestinians have a grievance and a case, and that, by not offering the Palestinians any option besides continued occupation, they shared at least partial responsibility for the conflict. The result was that a majority of Israelis came to see the conflict as a struggle between two legitimate national movements (rightly or wrongly), and that partition wasn't only politically necessary but morally compelling.

Rather than undergoing a similar process, though, Palestinian society has regressed even further into a culture of denial that rejects the most minimal truths of Jewish history and Jewish rights. Both intifadas should have been the Palestinians' moment of self-confrontation. Yet Palestinians still refuse to take the most minimal responsibility for their share of the disaster. By passing the blame to others, Palestinians absolve themselves of responsibility for change, incapable of challenging those who speak in their name, and indeed, casting their free and democratic vote in favor of a continuation to the violence.

If Palestinians continue to replace self-examination with self-pity, it's because their avoidance mechanisms are reinforced by the international community, whose sympathy for Palestinian suffering becomes support for Palestinian intransigence.

At any given time, there are only about 400,000 people in Gaza. ~1/400 has been killed in the past few weeks. ~1/90 has been injured in the past few weeks. 1/5 has been displaced in the past few weeks.

What if tomorrow all of Miami was dead and all of LA was injured? What if all of California and Texas were displaced?

No, that's not the analogy.

The analogy is a process with meaningful results and progress, whih has pronlems as it progresses - For the IRA progress was release of prisoners (many/most with 'blood on their hands), the institution of cross-border institutions and political reform (which was the initial reason for the start of 'The Troubles').

So, the British didn't simply sit on their hands and wait for the IRA to stop bombing them... They, through a process of NEGOTIATION, put in place a series of measures, which over more than a decade led from a low intensity war to peace.

It didn't happen overnight and it didn't happen without pain... but, eventually, it happened.

Patience. Tolerance. Fortitude.

Making peace is harder than waging war.

In a conflict, one side postures that it will not stop until the other side is completely defeated. In reality, almost all conflicts stop a long way short of that.

Israel's stated intention is to destroy Hamas.

How would that even be possible? Ever?

There's a huge area of exploring options for peace in between the two extremes of all-out-war and pacifism.

Lifting the siege peace meal in return for reduced missile attacks.
Recognising Hamas as the legitimately elected authority.
Negotiations over release of prisoners.
Programs of spending on hospitals, schools and jobs inside Gaza and the West Bank.
etc, etc, etc... and that's before you even start to think about endgame settlements and things like right of return and borders.

There are so many political options to bribe and kick Hamas and the Palestinians toward moderation and peace, it's ludicrous to suggest that violence of pacifism are the only two options.

'Unfortunate'

It was 'unfortunate' that a lot of people on 9/11 got caught up in a political dispute between a group of terrorists and the US govt's policies.

powerclown...
thanks for the post above.

i don't buy it. you present a compelling argument with the information that you include, but only with the information you include. what about the occupation? what about the settlement program? what about the political consequences of the legitmation of extreme rightwing political organizations via coalition? remember, it was someone from one of these far right groups that shot peres.

what your narrative does is to stage both jews and palestinians as if they were objects, like rocks of tables, closed systems in abstract environments that simply repeat their characteristics. what your narrative does is writes your view of the contemporary situation backward into a long-term, very general "history" that leads back to it's startig point so that the entire argument becomes circular and traces the essence, like a rock of a table---repetition of the same stretched out in time is a map of characteristics performed. so a rock is inevitably a rock if you start out with the object and collapse the past onto it. so tables are inevitably tables--you might as well talk about table-like trees that express their inner being by being worked into their true table form.

most of your story is a story about the dynamics put into motion by occupation that pretends occupation is not a strong factor. most of your story erases the simple fact that this dynamic has degraded both sides by living under it, by enforcing it, by accomodation of it. this dynamic follows from particular choices made within particular ideological contexts by particular people who were in positions of control over particular institutions.

you want this dynamic to follow from a necessary and eternal conflict. that is fantasy.

the ideological context is important obviously because, no matter how irrational in itself the dominant elements and/or stories may be, it nonetheless shapes the policy logic which in turn shapes collective actions and reactions.

and that dyamic explains the generalized pathology which has resulted. if you want a template for thinking out the connection between colonial domination and pathology, check out fanons "wretched of the earth" sometime. it tells another story, one that you obviously do not know or do not want to think about, but which is nonetheless necessary if stories which are not simply self-legitimating parables are of any interest.

no doubt stories like yours, and their mirror images in other stories told by other groups that you did not write down, which are similar but not exactly to yours, were significant elements within the ideological context that made occupation through brutalization of the palestinian people a sensible choice, that rationalized the settlement programs--and legitimated various modes of reaction to those choices, which in turn rationalized further occupation choices, which in turn...on and on.

no doubt stories like yours, and their mirror images in other stories told by other groups that you did not write down, which are similar but not exactly to yours, remain significant elements in keeping these dynamics in place, along with their consequences.

http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m...azaBoyTank.jpg


That ranks right up there with "thay want to throw us into the ocean".

what is it about reality that makes it so hard to keep in mind?

this morning's update:

984 dead, 4540 injured.

reports of shelling in gaza city and rafah.

powerclown do you see a difference between being Jewish and being a Zionist or do you see them as one in the same?

The BBC is now reporting more than 1000 deaths, almost 5000 injured.

BBC NEWS | Middle East | 'More than 1,000 killed in Gaza'

"A spokesman for Hamas, which controls Gaza, said any ceasefire agreement would have to entail a halt to Israeli attacks, a complete withdrawal of Israeli forces and the opening of border crossings to end the blockade of Gaza. "

Look at that... Hamas want the 18 month-long siege lifted. Who'd have believed it?!?

:rolleyes:


Again, this comes down to my belief that Hamas means what they say and won't stop until Israel doesn't exist.

*rolls eye*

I'm simply glad the world only has 6 days more of this kind of Bush-II-ian nonsense as the absolute position of the globe's only superpower... Though Obama doesn't exactly fill me with hope on this subject...

Wonderful spot of ESP there, The Nasty. Magnificent. Even I hadn't examined the hinges of my belief opinion. (It's about being open to change)

((Well edited))

maybe the appeal of simplistic interpretations to rationalize this horrific action is in direct proportion to the realities that are being created by it---the worse the situation becomes, the more folk who support the israeli action are likely to run away from it, retreating to a special zone of myths and denial. to wit:



Palestinian death toll in Gaza reaches 1,000 | World news | guardian.co.uk

i added bold type to some of the main points in this piece, figuring that maybe they'll jump out at the folk who seem to have to run away from information in order to maintain the sang-froid necessary to argue that this is a good idea for israel.

This goes both ways. According to more-or-less official Israeli ideology, Palestinians are not a people. According to this line of thinking, Palestinians have no history, unlike the Jews who can claim thousands of years of history. We see this position acted out every day in US papers and in threads like this. It is also acted out in Occupied Territories and within Israel itself. You can see why people would take this position once they buy into Zionism, but it's not exactly an attitude that's going to win over the Palestinians. This is where the ideology of the nation-state gets you.

Not sure what you mean, could you elaborate?

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Gaza clinic destroyed in strike

BBC NEWS | Middle East | Israelis 'shot at fleeing Gazans'

Is there any theoretical point at which the level of losses becomes unacceptable?

Sorry, but yes. When the level of western-like losses becomes unacceptable. I have no reason to believe otherwise.

It strikes me, really, how the words of the people who actually have the balls to go into places like the current day Gaza strip to ease the suffering of people in the way of harm are so handily disregarded by people who talkie talk talk their way around a humanitarian tragedy. Really makes you think. Don't you think?

reports are that un headquarters in gaza city was hit with at least 3 white phosphorous shells. last reports are that it is still burning.
this report says a bit about why these shells are such a problem:

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/mi...353779666.html

this is not just any building.
the relevant paragraph:


a hospital in the taw el-hawa district of gaza city was also shelled.
there are 500 people inside.

there are so many problems with this that it's hard to know where to start.

1054 dead
4860 injured as of 2 hours ago


it seems obvious that the casualties and damage and impact of these have surpassed the "acceptable" already---olmert's government was reported as split a couple days ago about whether it made sense to continue.

some within israel are beginning to strengthen their opposition to this madness.

Israeli human rights groups speak out as death toll passes 1,000 | World news | The Guardian

and it may be the case that the political consequences for israel are not going to be what the right wants:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1055585.html

meanwhile, there are reports of negociations for a cease fire happening in egypt as we speak.
information about the substance of these talks drifts around the fog of disinformation, so we'll have to wait to know much.

Israel apologizes to Ban for hitting U.N. compound | Reuters

When their building is mistakenly shelled, the U.N. gets an apology, while the Palestinians are merely told it's Hamas' fault that the innocent are dying.

One in three of those who are dying are children. It's Hamas' fault, right? So if Israel obliterates Hamas, won't that mean there will be no one left to be responsible?

I sincerely hope the Israel right dies along with the Bush era.

But I'm not holding my breath:
Tough war talk benefits Israeli leaders

Overwhelming Israeli support of Gaza op | Confronting Hamas | Jerusalem Post

these reports about support within israel seem to me elements of the marketing of the war itself.
manipulated polling functions to give the impression of unanimity, which in turn functions to marginalize dissent.
if you read haaretz or even the jerusalem post, you see a very different picture--much more fractured.

but across the board, we should not underestimate the sophistication of the israeli media correlate of the gaza action.

anything goes if you control the frame of reference through which that anything is parsed.

Wouldn't an alternative version of your paragraph below be just as relevant? If not, why not?

The Palestinian refugee problem has been perpetuated by the Palestinian Arabs and their supporters for almost 60 years, after which time there is no practical way to return the original refugees, many of whom are no longer alive. Their descendants have married non-Palestinians and non-Arabs, so that many of the people claiming right of return were never in Palestine to bein with, and are descended from people who were never in Palestine. Palestinian advocates claim that the refugees of 1948 have a right guaranteed in international law to return to Israel. There is no such law. The Fourth Geneva Convention, often cited in this context, does not stipulate a right of return for refugees. UN Resolution 194, also cited as the basis for this "right" is a resolution of the UN General Assembly. Such resolutions are not binding in international law. No nation has the obligation to admit enemy belligerents. Moreover, Resolution 194 does not insist on a Right of Return. It says that "refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so."

Israeli attempts to resettle refugees outside the camps have been blocked because of objections from neighboring Arab states. Israel has allowed more than 50,000 refugees to return to Israel under a family reunification program. Arabs who lost property in Israel are eligible to file for compensation from Israel's Custodian of Absentee Property. Claims were settled for land, more than 10,000,000 NIS (New Israeli Shekels) have been paid in compensation. No compensation has ever been paid to any of the more than 800,000 Jewish refugees from Arab countries, who were forced to leave and abandon their property.

Further, the claims to right of return as a solution of the Palestinian refugee problem should be viewed in the light of the intent of the claimants. This intent has been announced repeatedly and publicly: To destroy Jewish self-determination and the state of Israel.

I would suggest Arab governments and Palestinian advocacy groups have acted in bad faith to prevent a solution to the problem. Ralph Galloway, formerly director of UN aid to the Palestinians in Jordan, stated:

While decrying the plight of the refugees, Arab governments have caused the UN to pass resolutions that have decried Israeli attempts to resettle refugees in the Gaza Strip or the West Bank. Efforts by Israel to improve the living conditions of Palestinian refugees in the Gaza strip or to give them new homes outside the refugee camps has been met with UN resolutions discouraging these efforts. The most conciliatory position of the Palestinians, presented in the Taba in 2001 negotiations, called for actual return of all Palestinian refugees over an extended period. This would have the effect of destroying Israel as a Jewish state, gradually if not immediately, through shigting demographics. Admission of several million refugees would soon create an Arab majority in Israel. This would violate the right of self-determination of the Jewish people, who would no longer have a national home. Other proposals are more drastic in their effects. Thus, the intent of pressing right of return claims is a violation of several provisions of the Charter of the United Nations and of international law.

The right to self determination is recognized universally as a compelling law that takes precedence over other considerations. The right to self determination was the basis for the creation of Israel, and was cited in the debates leading to the UN partition decision. It is absurd for Palestinians to claim the right to a state under this provision, while at the same time claiming that justice demands their right of return circa 1948, a thing which would prevent the people of Israel from exercising their own right to self determination, and which would result in the destruction of a democratic member state of the United Nations.

well, powerclown, there are problems with the above---but i appreciate the level of the post. so thanks for making it.

a) we weren't talking about right of return.
we can i suppose---but it is a change in the topic--enough so that it could be a separate thread.

the problems that the notion of israel as an exclusively jewish state has created are legion and obvious. the way that ideological construction intersects with the right of return are quite complicated and difficult---but when i've said that it is well past time for israel to be understood as a modern-nation state and to be held accountable to the standards of any other modern nation-state, it was implicit that i was making a statement about this question of whether it makes sense for israel to be an exclusively jewish state. on this, i can see both sides of the matter insofar as backward-looking narratives are concerned. but if you look at contemporary realities--the consequences of actually implementing it---what it produces is a variant of apartheid.

i think that is a problem.
no doubt, were the same conditions to obtain in a different place, you would find it to be one as well.

that's as far as i am willing to go on this question.
make of it what you will.

b) there are camps inside israel in addition to the camps in lebanon and jordan. so the move to blame the neighboring states for the palestinians situation is not exactly accurate--but it is also not exactly inaccurate. it's just too simple. and it's underlying trope---good faith israel and bad faith arabs--is ludicrous once you factor in the post-67 situation. which leads me to the main point.

c) you cannot address post =67 realities it seems. every post you make erases occupation, erases the settlements, erases the destructive dynamics this has put into place.
every post you make reduces the situation to that of a western---white hats, balck hats, showdown in front of kitty's saloon at high noon.
this goes round and round. i don't know how interesting it is to continue this, because if the trajectory of the thread is indicative of what's to follow, you integrate post-67 situations into your viewpoint. you can't take it seriously, you cannot look at it.

what you prefer to do it to lock things into a very long-term, highly abstracted narrative that outlines an intractable conflict in which fundamental questions of identity are at stake.
i see this as being of a piece with the logic of "terrorism" it's reverse side in a nationalist ideology that cannot see anything except the reflections of it's own elements.

d) your claims about the primacy of self-determination are curious.
if you believe what you say, what basis was there for refusing to recognize the results of the jan 06 elections? what possible justification is there for the state of siege?
or is it the case that only certain types of self-determination are fundamental, and that others, which you do not like, are less fundamental.

this kind of stuff makes a mockery out of the very idea of self-determination.
you know it does--and were this another situation that involved different political committments on your part, i do not doubt that you'd be making those arguments.

two weights, two measures it seems.


==================================================
to set out of the debate mode for a moment:

this is not at all an easy topic.

for what it's worth, i have found it very difficult to force myself to look at what's happening in gaza. it is beyond disturbing to me. and i think to some extent that i made this thread and keep adding things to it because by writing stuff down and gathering information, i have something to do with it and with the affect that it raises. so i made this thread and keep working on it in order to enable myself to keep looking at a reality that is truly ugly, in which there seems to be nothing but lunacy at the level of the political actors--blinkered, short-sighted political organizations which frame the world in simple-minded ways ("terrorism") and forget that "terrorism" is a fiction for the most part, a way of acknowledging without describing or understanding an action---policy choices made on the basis of the discourse of terrorism are bound to be lunacy. so it is here, in gaza. hamas seems incompetent and delusional in their hope that they could play chicken with israel, which was planning this action for AT LEAST 6 months and was, by all appearances, waiting for an excuse to roll into gaza. egypt is playing a delightful role of making sure that its border with gaza remains closed, standing by and watching as the carnage unfolds in part, it seems, because the mubarak government would love to see hamas get the shit pounded out of it and is perfectly content to sit by and watch the israelis do that work for him. the americans under the bush administration have been unspeakably irresponsible in this situation.

i expect this is a difficult situation for all of us to look at--to force ourselves to look at.

so strange as it may seem, particularly here, i wanted to say thanks to all for doing it, for making yourself look one way or another.
because no matter whether we agree or not about what's happening and why it's happening, the fact is that this is a brutal situation that seems to suck the life and optimism out of you, even if you sit in comfortable surroundings and interact with this situation by way of snippets of news that float back from god knows what sector of the fog of disinformation.

Hmm...apartheid...I disagree.

Why would you want to delegitimize Israel as primarily a jewish state? Why is that? Would you delegitimize japanese rule in japan, the right of mexican self-determination in mexico, the french in france, the chinese in china, the spanish in spain, the new zealanders in new zealand, the indians in india? We all see when France clamps down on their muslim minorities the minute they start up with the violent public protests, the chinese do the same with their minorities, the americans do the same to theirs in detroit (riots of 67).

As far as settlements, I've addressed the refugee situation and the farce that is allowed to continue in the name of palestinean right of return, which is really what this is about. It will never be more than a farce: a carefully choregraphed, deliberately self-sustained problem whose sole purpose is to get rid of Israel. The Palestineans are never going back to 1967 (well, theres still Iranian nukes to consider, right?), so the sooner they come to this conclusion, the sooner their circumstances will improve.

powerclown---like i said above, i only went as far as i did on this question because it was implicit in other things i had said--but it's really a digression from the topic of the action in gaza. while this is not an easy topic, i'd be happy to continue about it, but in another thread sometime.

a two-state solution is not about right of return so you haven't addressed the question at all.
the only perspective from which you might be able to imagine that you have is if you work from some quaint viewpoint on "the greater israel" without saying as much.
this would -make some sense of your posts, really---but it would also align you politically with the most extremist rightwing elements of the israeli political spectrum---you know, kach party, kahane---which would raise all kinds of other questions--among them questions concerning racism.

i am not sure that this is the viewpoint you operate from. but it sure sounds like it.

The occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza strip throw into question Israel's zionist self-definition. The people there are for the most part not Jewish, yet Israel controls them and their territory. As long as that situation continues, Israel undermines its own legitimacy. This is why Israel is in the throes of an identity crisis.

It goes both ways of course. It aligns you to a certain tried and true ideology as well, doesnt it. Its ok, I understand why you can't answer the hard questions.

guyy, the occupation needs to end, I agree. Now someone send the memo to the rest of the middle east who happily perpetuate it.

I'll say this much and bow out of the numbers party: all is fair in love and war. May the best man win.

your idea of "ending the occupation" is expelling all palestinians from their land. you blame neighboring countries for not going along with your fringe view of the "greater israel."

my idea of ending the occupation is a two state solution, a viable coherent palestine operating alongside a viable coherent israel.

and there's a host of positions to the left of the kach party. most positions are to the left of that. most positions in israel are to the left of that: they've been classified as a "terrorist" organization since the mid-1990s.

want answers to hard questions?
ask away.
just be prepared to actually answer some yourself.

For the record, so is mine.

then why have you posted what you've posted to the thread?

This is part of what I was getting at in #201. If "all is fair", as you say, then on what basis do you make any of the moral judgments you make in the rest of the thread? If you believe that, then you believe that there is no morality in international relations, that in times of war there is no law but the law of the jungle, the law that might makes right. In itself this is a coherent belief, but you cannot hold to this and simultaneously denounce or praise either side. In fact, you cannot hold to this and make any moral judgments about war at all.

I didn't say there were no morals or laws; I was referring to tactics and strategy. Call it a Battle of Ideas if you want to stay morally neutral I suppose. And roachboy, I posted what I did here because I think alternative perspectives are a good thing, and since tfp is a democracy perhaps some enjoyed the distraction. Ill add this since the op of the thread decided to indulge me in a temporary change of topic and we left it hanging:

In the late 1800s, what you call Palestine was a land without a people, in the sense that the people living there did not think of themselves as a nation. While much of the land was barren, there were a few hundred thousand people living there. The Arabs living there did not, however, call themselves Palestinians. That is because in the late 1800s, there was no sovereign entity known as Palestine. (In ancient times, it was a Roman province.) The whole region, along with much of the Middle East, belonged to the Ottoman Turkish Empire, and Palestine did not even exist as a specific entity within the empire; nor had there ever been a sovereign entity known as Palestine. The area that today is called historic Palestine was at the time of Ottoman rule subdivided into different districts within the empire, reporting to different governors.

If there was no Palestine, then there were no Palestinians.

If you asked the average person living there at the time to identify themselves, they may have identified themselves as members of a family or clan, as Muslims, possibly as Syrians (since historic Palestine was considered by many to be part of southern Syria, which itself was not an independent entity at the time), or they would have identified as Arabs or as subjects of the Ottoman Empire. The Palestinians didnt become a self-identifying people until later, perhaps around 1920 (or even much later), and that was largely in response to Zionism. One could say that had there been no Zionism, there likely would have been no Palestinianism. Research the difference between an Arab, a Kurd, a Berber, and a Persian - all Muslims who live in the Middle East - and find out which states are associated with which of these peoples today, and which nation has no state. Also, define Pan-Arabism, and find out the years in which it appeared to thrive.

i'm aware of the history of the region, powerclown.

so what you're saying then is that the category people use to self-identify determines whether they do or do not have a claim to the land they'd lived on, and that their families have lived on, for--o i dunno---hundreds of years in some cases?

what that argument does is operate by false equivalence. you want to create space for the zionist project of the 1920s and to do it you render palestinian claims to the land the same as zionist claims by collapsing them back onto national-identity. what matters is who you say you are.

i imagine that were you confronted with this and were your home at stake in it, you'd not find that a terribly compelling line of thinking.

what i see in your posts is a version of the doctrine of manifest destiny.
that worked out real well in the states for the native americans.
it seems from reading what you've written that you'd have no problem with a similar fate awaiting the palestinians.
same logic: native americans really didn't "own" the land anyway.
besides, god gave this land to "us."
so "we" took it.
and the dead can't complain.

if you want to talk directly about gaza, then fine.
if you want to talk about the policy choices that have resulted in it, then fine.
we can agree or disagree--but at least we're talking about the same thing.
right now, we aren't talking about the same thing at all.