Israel and Collective Punishment
Are we in the midst of a third Intifada? Or something even worse? Like an all-out war?
The Palestinians issued a general call to arms on Friday, after Israeli forces pushed deeper into the Gaza strip and after a new round of air strikes. Nearly two dozen people (22 Palestinians and 1 Israeli) were reported dead in the early morning hours.
The Israeli escalation presumably has two goals: to rescue a kidnapped soldier and to stop Palestinian rocketing from Gaza. Both those goals are legitimate. But the Israeli strategy of collective reprisal against an entire civilian population, including the targeting of crucial civilian infrastucture and the acceleration of a medical-humanitarian crisis, is not only grossly counter-productive but also morally reprehensible. Such a move is reminiscent of strategies and policies from an earlier era to which the Jewish state ought to be especially sensitive and averse.
I am no admirer of Hamas, not by any stretch. Nor do I consider the kidnapping and rocketing of the last few weeks to be anything short of barbaric. Nor do I think that a strategy of terror suicide bombings can be classified as anything short of inhuman. Indeed, the extremist flank of the Palestinian movement has only strengthened the hand of Israeli extremists.
Ad in a deadly dance, the inverse is also true. The clock of history cannot be started today, or a week or two weeks ago. While the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is hardly symmetrical, the leadership of both sides bears responsibilties for the current dismal state of affairs. Yet, let it be noted that the rise of Hamas is not only the logical product of Israeli intransigence, it is also the bitter fruit of Ariel Sharon’s policy of having acitvely encouraged an Islamic opposition to the more secular, traditional leadership of the PLO.
And where, by the way, is the Bush administration? Isn’t Israel the number one recipient of U.S. aid in the world? Is our government not concerned about the current military situation spinning out of control and sparking a regional catastrophe? Even the shallow fiction of the U.S. being an independent “honest broker” in the conflict has been consumed in the flames of this week’s violence.
There’s also a conspicuous silence among American liberals on what is happening in Gaza. Part of the silence is purely ideological, for sure. Another part of it stems from the growing myopia of politically habitating in the Bush-Anti-Bush paradigm. How many blogopsherian words were spent today on Gaza? And how many spent on the Lieberman-Lamont debate? What weight is given to each event?
Here’s a a good piece by Matt Rothschild.Â
AÂ good ground-level piece from (the conservatve) London Telegraph.
A cry of outrage from the Guardian.
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July 7th, 2006 at 1:34 am
Thank you for posting this, Marc. The widespread silence—in the White House, in the blogosphere— has been deafening. And the Israeli moves these past 24 hours have gone beyond overreaction into what looks more and more like deliberate provocation.
July 7th, 2006 at 2:20 am
Hey Marc, where’s the mention what Israel did last year?
Pulled OUT of Gaza.
Every settler, every soldier, every Israeli. (Hmm, maybe not on the Egyptian border.)
Palestinians have had a year to achieve peace, if they want it. They elected Hamas; Hamas has accepted terrorism; Hamas is responsible. Hamas accepted terrorists also murdered two Israeli soldiers.
Anytime Hamas wants Israel to stop, they should release the hostage. Terrorists started the “deliberate provocation”, rather than peaceful development. It has long been Palestinian oppression that stops free speech and free religion, not Israeli action.
Israel wants the Palestinians to stop fighting — maybe attacking them until they surrender will do the trick. Nothing else has has for nearly 60 years.
July 7th, 2006 at 4:51 am
marc,
this post is angry, perceptive, and very sharp, everything a blog should be. i was especially impressed by your comments on sharon and his encouragement of jihadist opposition to the plo. keep up the excellent work, and add my thanks to the list.
July 7th, 2006 at 5:00 am
I’m surprised that Marc and others want Bush to take some action on this, since they don’t like past actions of his in the mideast–or, anywhere I guess. What should he do…pull troops from Iraq and send them to Gaza? At least that would give Kerry, the real leader the left wanted, a chance to support it before he opposes it. Well, Marc does hit the silence of the lambs, I mean left, too. Oh, if you can’t tell, I haven’t read the linked articles, yet.
July 7th, 2006 at 5:05 am
I didn’t bother reading all but the first sentence of Matt’s piece: “For sixteen months, Hamas honored its unilateral cease-fire.” That’s crack smokin pure and simple.
They’ve launched rocket attacks – as have other groups – and endorsed but didn’t admit to the suicide bombings.
This while they do their having-their-cake-and-eating-it-too-routine of refusing to explicitly recognize Israel while accepting a Palestinian state – they haven’t endorsed a two-state solution yet.
To say that this attack is disproportionate is no longer valid: a majority of people in Palenstinian lands voted for the group that has ordered rocket attacks and the kidnapping of the IDF soldier. Ismael Haniyah was reported as the orderer of the kidnappings. The PRIME MINISTER!!! This is the upshot of the Palenstinians democracy. It is democracy, but the people must bear the fruit of electing people they knew full well would act this way regardless of Israelli actions, good (Gaza pullout) or bad (beach bombing – which still is unresolved)
July 7th, 2006 at 5:22 am
Marc: “The Israeli escalation presumably has two goals: to rescue a kidnapped soldier and to stop Palestinian rocketing from Gaza. … Those goals are legitimate.”
Why presume that the legitimate goals are the actual aims of the escalation and collective punishment? The Israeli leadership has been explicit that destroying the elected Hamas government is an objective of their actions. That is not a legitimate goal.
Accomplishing that goal will also lead directly to re-occupation of Gaza, another illegitimate goal.
Rockets are a problem, not a crisis. They’ve killed 8 Israelis in the last five years. The response of the Olmert government has been reckless pandering to domestic political pressures. They’ve been freed from having to face the long-term consequences by the blank check we write them.
July 7th, 2006 at 7:02 am
Marc, thank you for posting this. Its very important that Americans think about this issue. Ryan’s got his facts wrong, and he unintentionally endorses collective punishment.
July 7th, 2006 at 7:03 am
You get a lot of weird, sometimes death-threatening Zionists when you publicly write about this issue. So don’t be surprised when they show up here in your comments area.
July 7th, 2006 at 7:05 am
I meant “one” – as in you. When I have written about this issue, and active in Jewish anti-occupation policies, I was shocked to see the vitrio and threats coming out of nowhere.
July 7th, 2006 at 7:23 am
What’s the big picture here? Israel sees the Palestinians as a threat, and as long as it does so it will never allow them to achieve self-determination. Does anyone really think otherwise? All of this talk about Israel’s “concession” in pulling out of Gaza… all the better to torture the inhabitants with endless shelling and sonic booms! Israel’s strategy is obvious: it will keep any nascent Palestianian state divided and in poverty. What we’re seeing now is not collective punishment but the continuation of this general strategy. And because Israeli actions only intensify and perpetuate the threat from the Palestinian side, it’s a strategy that doesn’t offer much in the way of hope.
July 7th, 2006 at 7:42 am
Marc, I want to add my thanks for posting this. Although I have my own views about where the primary responsibility lies for this endless situation, which I have expressed before–as a Jew, I am in on the dirty secret that the Zionists always intended to try to take over all of Palestine–it doesn’t matter much now who is most at fault. What matters is how long the rest of the world is going to allow it to go on, especially given that the US and Europe in particular have the power to bring both Israelis and Palestinians to heel and force a peace settlement on both sides, complete with UN peacekeeping troops in Israel and Palestine, which to me is the only solution. But instead American and European leaders of all political persuasions have pretty much left Israel to do what it wants in this highly assymetric power struggle. Leaving aside the human suffering, which is great, this is an incredibly stupid policy to follow for anyone who claims to be concerned about terrorism, since this festering situation is the best recruiting tool the terrorists ever had. Evidently our leaders are more afraid of the Israel lobby than of terrorism (and yes, Virginia, there is an Israel lobby, just ask Hillary Clinton.)
July 7th, 2006 at 7:43 am
The strategy is called “soft transfer.” Many Israelis support “transferring” Palestinians out of Israel – as well as what they euphemistically call “the territories.” They can’t actually pull a Milosevic, too high profile. Instead they make life so tough for Palestinian familes and children that the middle classes and job-creating types leave WB and Gaza out of frustration, leaving the poor, who they hope will leave or submit.
I’ve heard from Israeli anarchist friends that they are trying to make a deal with Mubarak for Egypt to run Gaza.
July 7th, 2006 at 8:08 am
Israel is not the aggressor, they are the ones being agressed against….for 60 f_ing years. Israel is not the attacker, it is the one being attacked…..for 60 f_ing years. It is not the not the Palestinians that are trying to survive, they are surrounded by dictator supporters, It is the democracy, enjoyed by many peaceful Palestinians as well btw, that is trying to survive.
I say use whatever force necessary against the attackers, then add some not necessary.
July 7th, 2006 at 8:16 am
Two books for Jim Russell to read:
“Israel/Palestine: How to End the War of 1948″ by Tanya Reinhart
“A History of Modern Palestine : One Land, Two Peoples” by Ilan Pappe
Once he has read these, he might actually know something about the situation there. If there is anything Jim thinks I should be reading, I would be happy to hear it.
July 7th, 2006 at 8:21 am
btw both of the books I am recommending are by Israelis. For a taste of Reinhart’s point of view, check this interview:
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=50&ItemID=2595
July 7th, 2006 at 8:28 am
And for a taste of Ilan Pappe’s views:
http://www.logosjournal.com/pappe.htm
July 7th, 2006 at 8:28 am
I’d add Said’s ouvre. To say Israel is the aggressor is like saying if I move intto your house and let you live in the basement, even though I contro the lights and furnace down there – and then I attempt to at least make the basement a nice home – and in turn you continously take over the basement and even threaten me and my kids, I am the aggressor cause after all God promised me the basement.
July 7th, 2006 at 8:29 am
I meant God promised you the house.
July 7th, 2006 at 8:52 am
Marc sez: “The Israeli escalation presumably has two goals: to rescue a kidnapped soldier and to stop Palestinian rocketing from Gaza. ”
Wrong, Marc.
This action was planned far, far, in advance. Planning probably began right after the illegal colonists were pulled out. The goal is Israel’s Final Solution. Kill as many Gazans as possible, and ultimately empty the strip for re-colonization. Then they plan to do the same thing with the West Bank.
The only real solution is a South African style one-state solution, with equal rights for all and an end to the racist Jewish-supremacist laws.
Israel’s “god is my real estate agent” claim to legitimacy is pure bullshit.
July 7th, 2006 at 9:39 am
Good post. Thank you.
It’s all very sad. Those of you who have let your anger consume you are aiding and abbetting the current violence. I have my own sense of who is responsible for what, but it can’t be denied that the political leadership of both sides have done some terrible things and that both Palestinian and Israeli citizens support a politics of retribution.
This isn’t to say that details and history don’t matter, they do. It’s just that those of us living thousands of miles away, who aren’t losing family members or living without food and medicine or even living in fear ought to have cooler heads and continually encourage both sides to eschew violence and the sort of bile that Matter and Jim Russell emit.
July 7th, 2006 at 9:46 am
Excellent points, Mavis, I totally agree with you despite my own views about who bears the most responsibility.
July 7th, 2006 at 9:52 am
Mr. Cooper, you have largly gotten it right; although Liberty Dad too (strange day, this) raises very legitimate questions as well.
We should also note; trying to find Bush on Israel goes back to day one of Bush one; those policy wonks of the Clinton years with their hands on apprach had really fouled things up!
The bloggers might be granted some slack, trying to opine on the sheer volume of the Bush White House’s “foul ups, boners, and practical jokes (on us)” gets pretty daunting. As for the huge drain on the treasury: Stay the course, don’t cut and run. (repeat until the eyes glaze). Just WHERE am I to find some common ground with these people? The overplayed Leiberman story is at least a chance to indirectly debate Iraq, and that’s why it’s getting all the attention.
Matter would seem to call for an end to Israel, that it is too much a represive religious state to moraly exist. Do J.C. Cummings and Michael Balter also insist on this one state solution?
I’d ask you to consider this: What Bush and 9-11 produced was a legitimazation/embrace/tolerance of far right think tank wankery (all hail Hitchens!) ; and that sick chicken is roosting home like a mofo.
It’s true little was said about Isreal this week; but little was said about what Bush WAS doing , photo opts at Graceland. Bush is reduced to trying to rap himself in Elvis, but at this point it is a fat Elvis indeed.
July 7th, 2006 at 9:57 am
“Do J.C. Cummings and Michael Balter also insist on this one state solution?”
I’m not sure at this point, but Israeli historian Ilan Pappe does–see the interview with him I linked to above. Despite the long history of a Jewish state, the idea of a state based on ethnicity seems odious, doesn’t it, especially when not everyone who lives in Israel is Jewish? How can it be justified as a matter of principle? How does it differ fundamentally from Nazi ideology in terms of race purity? I remember my grandfather telling me that I had to marry a Jewish girl because the goyim were “different,” although just exactly in what way he was unclear about. I didn’t take his advice, however, and married a lapsed Mormon and then a lapsed Catholic.
July 7th, 2006 at 10:10 am
I think that a one state solution may not work now but it is a guaranteed eventuality, within 50-100 years, as progress takes hold and people – like the rest of humanity – lose their tribalism. At the same time, I think pragmatism calls for a 2 sate solution now – not the bantustans and holding of settlements that Olmert seems to call for – but a solution based on the 67 borders, and the removal of the apartheid wall. There is a tremendous set of articles – one for one state, one for two, in the last new left review. They both should be available online at newleftreview.net
two states:
http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR27202.shtml
one state:
http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR27203.shtml
Dont’ let Fred Halliday dissuade you from reading this impassioned debate. I side with Peled for now, but Tilley makes some great points…
July 7th, 2006 at 10:31 am
James Zogby offers a detailed and devastating column on the subject….and the silence. It’s worth reading the whole thing.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-zogby/the-deadly-silence-about-_b_24557.html
July 7th, 2006 at 11:30 am
Hmmm wonder where Daily Kos is on this issue? Palestine advocacy would probably be bad for business for him.
July 7th, 2006 at 11:38 am
For once Tom Grey, Liberty Dad, makes a good point: Terrorists started the “deliberate provocationâ€
Presumably he’s referring to the Haganah, the Irgun and the Stern Gang.
July 7th, 2006 at 11:45 am
Funny Marc but I saw several comments on the current mess in Isreal/Palestine on various “liberal” blogs. Guess we don’t read the same ones.
Bush won’t pressuire Isreal because:
a) In a political WH the notion of upsetting akey voting group (right wing Jews – Likud supporters – ain’t gonna happen.
b) Bush has already made it clear that he won’t support Hamas in any way and, besides, we only recognize elections that we win. Guess the Diebold Machines were late in arriving.
c) who would listen to this crowd anyway? As some other people have already mentioned their stellar work in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somal;ia, Iran, and N Korea have provided the critics of the Blogispher with what is known as a “Target-rich Environment.”
July 7th, 2006 at 11:49 am
Sorry you feel that the Lieberman/Lamont race and the debate is unimportant. I guess it is for one who has trouble with electoral politics but in the real world I think challenging the smug, self-righteous cant of Holy Joe is most important and the fact that he seems to be losing more important still. But I’ll leave this for another day.
July 7th, 2006 at 11:55 am
The rise of Hamas the logical result of Israeli intransigence???? It was intransigence to sign the Oslo agreement in 1993, intransigence to keep that agreement and deploy out of Palestinian cities even as Hamas was blowing up buses in Tel Aviv? Intransigence to finally act to protect your own citizens from murder and mayhem?
Hamas didn’t attack Israel because Israel was intransigent. They attacked them because they wanted to blow up any chance of peace. And the business about Israel encouraging fundamentalism is a tired old red herring. It’s true, the shin bet did tolerate the fundamentalists when they thought they would serve as a counterweight to Fatah (probably a dumb policy), but that ended twenty years ago with the first intifada. Hamas rose because people were fed up with the corruption of the fatah regime under Arafat. Remember, Arafat and fatah have been in control of things over there since 1995, not the Israelis. Indeed, Fatah used the fundamentalists for their own purposes (attacking Israel) since 1987, and certainly during the last intifada.
Hamas brought this down on the Palestinians. Israel withdrew every soldier and settler out of Gaza, and all they could think to do was start firing rockets at poor development towns and kibbutzim in the desert. Every war involves collective punishment. Name one that didn’t. Is it not collective punishment for every man woman and child in Sderot to live under the threat of rocket attacks from Hamas.
And the reason that most Americans haven’t made any noise about it, is that most Americans have more common sense than the people on this blog.
And Illan Pappe has been outed as a demonstrated liar.
July 7th, 2006 at 11:56 am
RLC – what threads about Israel/Palestine on mainstream (as opposed to radical) blogs?
July 7th, 2006 at 12:04 pm
Even if everything “MarkC” above says is true, it still doesn’t justify what Israel is doing. That is what (American, mostly not Israeli) Zionistts don’t understand…a commenter at Huffpost after Zogby’s column wrote “1 Israeli life is def. worth more than 1.5 million Palestinian lives.”
Real Jewish values there. I don’t know how people can justify these Israeli war crimes, esp. in the name of Judasim “love thy neighbor”
July 7th, 2006 at 12:08 pm
“RLC – what threads about Israel/Palestine on mainstream (as opposed to radical) blogs?”
Is HuffPo “radical” ?
July 7th, 2006 at 12:23 pm
Sure it is – just as Kevin Drum and Digby are. Now “Instapundit” – there’s fair and balanced!
July 7th, 2006 at 12:24 pm
On this note, Matt Yglesias has a post up at TPM Cafe that admits nervousness about blogging on the subject because it launches “Thread Wars” that get crazy. Of course, one could argue that’s what happens most of the time anyway, so it’s just a lame excuse.
Juan Cole, who I don’t consider a “radical”, has posts up on this as well as a piece in Salon.
July 7th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
Also, Talking Points Memo had some critical posts up from the guy filling in for Josh and Robert Wright and Yglesias conducted a long discussion on BloggingHeads.tv, if you can stand to watch that thing. (I find it painful to actually watch bloggers collect their thoughts, staring out at “me” while they scratch their noses and suck on their starbucks.)
July 7th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
M. Balter, I would say it IS a fundamental diference in ideology that, in Israel as opposed to Nazi Germany, those of the non-state religion are not put into boxcars, taken to camps, and gassed to death. The non jew in Israel does not have his possesions stolen, the gold removed from his teeth, and his skin used for lampshades. Last time I checked, jewish doctors in Isreal have not used non jews for dubious medical exparaments, like forcing twins to have sex, injecting healthy people with unspeakable infections and starving them to death. Just a few things off the top of my head. While these are substantive diferences in behavior, I would suggest they stem from ideology.
Alas, Mr. Cooper turns out to be right again; in asmuch as the Leiberman / Lomont debate was a real washout. Same old thing with Joe easily getting away with the “cut and run” mantra.
July 7th, 2006 at 12:44 pm
By the way, let’s wait a little before we talk about a humanitarian crisis. So far, Israel’s knocked out a few power stations, they haven’t committed mass genocide yet. Reminds me of another famous “humanitarian crisis”, the Jenin massacre, which turned out to be a bunch of hoowie (sp?).
Jcummings, do you really mean to cite a posting by one jerk as representative of anything? As to war crimes, please see above paragraph.
And to all the genius conspiracy theorists here who claim all of Israel’s actions are guided by an evil master plan to dominate the occupied territories, this is just crypto-anti-semitism. Assume the entire population shares the same plan, no different than the “Protocols”. Anyone who really understood Israeli society would know how totally ridiculous this is. The majority of Israelis want peace with an independant Palestinian state within the 1967 borders IF ONLY THE PALESTINIANS WOULD LET US.
July 7th, 2006 at 1:11 pm
RLC – other liberal blogs?
Forget Huffpo – being that this is one blogger, someone who happens to be Arab American. The blog itself has been bare – and the “top news” stories have been as avoiding of Palestine as the major media.
MarkC,
Its “hooie” And most of Israel’s Western critics are Jewish so don’t give me utter bullshit about “crypyto-antisemitism.” I’m a Jew, and an AntiZionist. Many Zionists preferred dealing with Nazis during the second world war than saving Hitler;s victims but I digress….
I believe you’re dead wrong. Yet I reject the jibber-jabber side issues. The Palestinians will let you have 2 states – last I saw Olmert’s plan was to leave the West Bank cantonized into Bantustans with settlements stretching to the Jordan Valley.
Be all of that as it may, the actual “fact on the ground” is that the numbers of Palestinian civilians killed, lives disrupted etc. far outweigh anything that has been done towards Israel – in which 6 people have been injured total by those dreaded Kassams – and only one person has been kidnapped. We’re not talking about a spate of suicide bombings. So whoever is right about ultimate intent, it is Israel that has caused more harm, by all human standards – except for one that states that Palestinian civilians are expendable.
You’d be able to make your case if yotu had one if you acknowledged that kill rations of about 4-1 makes Israel more culpable.
And again, don’t refer to me as an Anti-Semite. Its Anti-Semitic, in my opinion, when Jews attack other Jews. The treatment that Anti-occupatoin anti-Zionist Jews get from the community is disgusting and arguably Anti-Semitic.
July 7th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
How delicate that kind Matt Yglesias is, wondering whether to bemoan a major human catastrophe for fear of a thread war.
July 7th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
MarkC – before you haul stuff like “crypto-anti-semitism” out of your sewage system, you might engage in a reality check. Here’s a “liberal” authenticating that “Greater Israel” wasn’t a fictional conspiracy hatched from the minds of “Jew-haters”.
http://www.tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20050905&s=halevi090505
You paint a picture of Israeli politics that has no bearing on reality. It’s an Israel without the settlements, without expansionist ideology, without racism, with no history of Israeli terrorism, without a fundamentalist belief in the Zionist mission even among secular Israelis, without ironies like Likud aiding the rise of Hamas, without what has been characterized cleverly here as “God is my real estate agent” expansionism, and without major characters like the flesh and blood General Ariel Sharon, as opposed to the recently canonized “can’t we all just get along” version on life support.
Israel is far from being the only bad actor in this tragedy, but what you’re trying to sell here is an absurdist fiction that’s insulting, literally and figuratively.
July 7th, 2006 at 1:35 pm
Okay, today the silence has indeed been broken. Reg, thanks for pointing out that Salon had put up the Juan Cole piece. I’d seen stuff on his blog, of course, but missed it on Salon.
MarkC. You need to read a bit more widely. History is your friend. Vile name calling is not.
As long as you value one people’s pain more highly than that of another, one people’s humanity more than that of another….you’re damned.
And I don’t use that word figuratively.
July 7th, 2006 at 1:41 pm
From Juan Cole’s Salon article, for those of you who resist links.
“…The paradoxes of Kadima policy created a powder keg, and it was set off on June 9 when an Israeli artillery barrage, replying to the Qassam rocket attacks, went astray and hit a Palestinian family picnicking on the beach. The image of the survivor, little Huda Galia, orphaned and weeping hysterically at the sight of her relatives’ bloody remains, touched the entire world.
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WaCJn4hdjc]
“(The Israeli military, as usual, denied responsibility, saying that the Palestinians themselves had mined their own beach, but Human Rights Watch and most European newspapers who looked into it did not find the Israeli denials plausible.) The Israeli newspaper Maariv buried the story. But it was front page news for weeks in the Arab press.
“What happens in Israel, Gaza and the West Bank has consequences in the rest of the region and the world. On June 22, Al-Jazeera reported that an Iraqi guerrilla group attacked a U.S. Humvee in the name of Huda Galia. As the situation in Gaza becomes more explosive, the possibility for it to exacerbate tensions in Iraq and elsewhere only grows. On last Friday, 3,000 Egyptians demonstrated at al-Azhar square in Cairo after Friday prayers against the Israeli actions.
“After the beach horror, passions ran high in Gaza and the West Bank. On June 25, a coalition of tiny guerrilla groups launched an attack on an Israeli military outpost on the Gaza-Israel border, killing two Israeli soldiers and capturing a third. There is no reason to think that the Hamas government was involved; its cabinet members were nearing an accord with President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah on a formula that would involve de facto recognition of Israel. One of the three guerrilla groups behind the attack was a splinter group from Hamas, but it is probably loyal to militant Hamas dissident Khalid al-Mashaal, in exile in Damascus, who rejects the civilian Hamas Party’s willingness to adopt Abbas’ formula for negotiating with Israel.
On Tuesday, June 27, Palestinian Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas announced his acceptance of the negotiating platform proposed by Abbas. The same day, another Palestinian guerrilla group kidnapped, and later killed, an Israeli colonist on the West Bank. On Wednesday last week, the Israelis made their first incursion into Gaza and destroyed the electricity plant. They have since struck at remaining generators. On Thursday they detained dozens of Palestinian lawmakers, cabinet members and activists. The lawmakers had been freely elected at the polls, and there is no obvious legal basis for Israel to detain them, nor is it likely that they were directly involved in any of the guerrilla actions. They were in essence kidnapped and held for ransom.
“The only logical explanation for Olmert’s actions, aside from tough-guy posturing, is that he wants to continue to degrade the Palestinian government and radicalize the population. The Israelis cannot get law and order in the territories this way, of course. Nor is there any reason to believe that these massive and disproportionate acts of violence against the Gazans will increase the chance that their captured soldier will be returned.
“But Olmert clearly has something else on his mind. His actions indicate that his ultimate goal is to ensure that no Palestinian state emerges any time soon that can challenge Israeli plans to annex more of the West Bank and keep its stateless residents divided and weak, prone to outbursts of ineffectual violence and easy to label as “terrorists.” If the elected Hamas government falls over the crisis, all the better. But the Israelis had a PLO government until this year and would not negotiate with it, either. The point is not to negotiate. The larger issue, that such a policy will prevent this terrible conflict from being solved, and will inevitably create blowback against Israel and the United States, does not seem to concern Olmert, the U.S. government or the U.S. media…”
July 7th, 2006 at 1:43 pm
Okay, I’m trying that link to the video again, since the other one didn’t load properly.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5WaCJn4hdjc
July 7th, 2006 at 2:08 pm
Excellent posts in this thread, rosedog. Yes, the Israelis used to hold the Palestinian Authority responsible for all terrorist acts, now they hold Hamas responsible for everything and anything. The people most responsible for terrorism in Israel are the Israeli leaders who cynically push all Palestinians to the wall and then point their fingers with satisfaction when a small minority of Palestinians react violently–thus rationalizing the oppression of ALL Palestinians once again.
btw MarkC, the charge of anti-semitism has been leveled so many times at critics of Israel–even when they are Jewish!–that it really is losing its punch. Need to find something else.
Wall: Please justify to us the existence of a state based on ethnicity. Just because Israelis don’t usually act like Nazis (except on occasion) does not answer the question I posed.
In summation: I agree with Mavis that the solutions NOW require both Israelis and Palestinians to stop all violence, and I think this must be forced by the external powers. But this can never happen unless Israeli crimes are acknowledged and the blatant protectionism of Israel ends. European leaders have made some strong criticisms of Israel today, I hope that is a beginning.
July 7th, 2006 at 3:34 pm
M. Balter, I think you changed the question, and what you’ve left me is a little abstract. I would argue out that Israel, at it’s worst, has NEVER acted like Nazi Germany on a good day. These glib comparasions are silly because I believe, yeah, Nazi Germany did put the E in Evil. As Bill Maher says, “Oasis were not the Beatles.”
In an abstract sense, I suppose, you COULD have a kind, decent, fair and human State based on ethnicity (We are The United Icelandic Republics, but man, do we LOVE black people!), yet I agree, on the face of it it’s a terrible idea. Forgive me, I do tend to sympathize with the posisition of the postwar jews. Also, I think Cummings makes an overstatement here, perhaps SOME western critics of Israel are jewish, but MOST?
Reg, I think you unfairly put words in Cooper’s mouth, very unlike you. He painted no such picture, but rather suggested most of the people in Israel want peace, and want a peaceful, two state system. It suggests Israel has been provoked into leaning on a hard right, militaristic goverment at odds with the core values of it’s people. There’s a lot of that going around.
And what about this “Israel actually wants all of Palastine” stuff? Do YOU believe there is no undercurrent of anti-semitism there? What would Irving Howe say?
July 7th, 2006 at 4:14 pm
Speaking personally, I would never equate even the most racist of Zionists with true Nazism. As with most historical complexities, there probably is no political simile that really applies to the sorrow of Israel/Palestine. But if forced to name one, perhaps South Africa under apartheid has elements of similarity. Yet, not enough to ultimately be valid.
And, yeah, of course many if not most Israelis want a peaceful, two-state solution. But those inclinations aren’t calling the shots, and they haven’t for a long, long time.
July 7th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
Such a move is reminiscent of strategies and policies from an earlier era to which the Jewish state ought to be especially sensitive and averse.
Please spare us the bromides about what The Jews should do or how they should be. The Jews — like the Irish, the Uzbeks, redheads, gays, international tournament Scrabble Players — are a collection of individual human beings who aren’t capable of acting as a single organism. It’s also absurd and mentally lazy to liken the bombing of a power plant to the Nazis trundling over European Jewry.
That said, Israel was morally wrong to bomb that power plant.
July 7th, 2006 at 5:55 pm
BTW, Hi back, Michael B!
July 7th, 2006 at 5:58 pm
Wait a minute, Wall. I wasn’t responding to Marc Cooper but “MarkC”, who hauled out the notion that it was “crypto-anti-semitism” to think that Israel harbored any notions of occupying what the Israeli right-wing considers “Greater Israel”. I can’t for the life of me figure out why the settlers were funded and encouraged by a succession of Israeli governments if there was no intent to keep those lands.
I know that there has been controversy in Israel over this issue, but even now – when many old Likudniks recognize that most of their policies have been a failure – there’s an unwillingness to simply withdraw to ’67 borders. I can’t speak for the late Irving Howe in the current context, but I know that while Dissent tends to be very pro-Israel in a general sense, as was Howe, they have also been extremely critical of the movement to colonize the occupied territories, as have many Israelis.
Incidentally, I don’t have any problem with the Israelis retaliating harshly for terrorist acts. For all I care, they can assassinate the entire leadership of Hamas – although I think it would be politically probematic at this point. But they engage in some pretty indiscriminate stuff that routinely results in far more “collateral” deaths of Palestinians than any Israeli casualties from suicide bombers. And, crazy as the whole dance seems, it appears to inspire more resistance and willing participants in terror. I don’t have an answer to this, but both sides seem to be acting along the lines of the classic definition of insanity.
You can argue who’s crazier or who has more right to this or that piece of land or who’s killed more innocents, but the combination of religious extremism, tribalism and an absolute sense of historical victimization on both sides that drives this thing means it’s going to continue to go down the tubes. I’m very pessimistic.
July 7th, 2006 at 6:05 pm
My Bad, -MC Wall
July 7th, 2006 at 6:31 pm
Here is, incidentally, a long passage from a manifesto written in 1923 by Zeev Jabotinsky, an influential early Zionist who is the spiritual and ideological father of figures like Begin and Sharon. It’s fair to say he was a fascist – he and his follower wore brown military uniforms and expressed indifference, if not hostility, to any cause or moral claim outside of Jewish nationalism. Jabotinsky admired Mussolini before he allied himself with Hitler. To his credit he was outspoken in sounding the alarm to European Jews in the ’30s. He was, of course, vilified by the Zionist left, but it’s clear that his ideas were ultimately more historically relevant to the ultimate reality of Zionism as regards the Palestinian Arabs than those who he calls “our Peacemongers”. At least Jabotinsky was no bullshitter – either to himself or anyone who would listen. The title of this particular piece – The Iron Wall – speaks volumes. An Iron Wall is what it’s finally come to. (With apologies to any and all who were raised on “Exodus”.)
“Every native population, civilised or not, regards its lands as its national home, of which it is the sole master, and it wants to retain that mastery always; it will refuse to admit not only new masters but, even new partners or collaborators.
“This is equally true of the Arabs. Our Peace-mongers are trying to persuade us that the Arabs are either fools, whom we can deceive by masking our real aims, or that they are corrupt and can be bribed to abandon to us their claim to priority in Palestine , in return for cultural and economic advantages. I repudiate this conception of the Palestinian Arabs. Culturally they are five hundred years behind us, they have neither our endurance nor our determination; but they are just as good psychologists as we are, and their minds have been sharpened like ours by centuries of fine-spun logomachy. We may tell them whatever we like about the innocence of our aims, watering them down and sweetening them with honeyed words to make them palatable, but they know what we want, as well as we know what they do not want. They feel at least the same instinctive jealous love of Palestine, as the old Aztecs felt for ancient Mexico, and the Sioux for their rolling Prairies.
“To imagine, as our Arabophiles do, that they will voluntarily consent to the realisation of Zionism, in return for the moral and material conveniences which the Jewish colonist brings with him, is a childish notion, which has at bottom a kind of contempt for the Arab people; it means that they despise the Arab race, which they regard as a corrupt mob that can be bought and sold, and are willing to give up their fatherland for a good railway system.
“There is no justification for such a belief. It may be that some individual Arabs take bribes. But that does not mean that the Arab people of Palestine as a whole will sell that fervent patriotism that they guard so jealously, and which even the Papuans will never sell. Every native population in the world resists colonists as long as it has the slightest hope of being able to rid itself of the danger of being colonised.
“That is what the Arabs in Palestine are doing, and what they will persist in doing as long as there remains a solitary spark of hope that they will be able to prevent the transformation of ‘Palestine’ into the ‘Land of Israel.’ “
July 7th, 2006 at 6:51 pm
“the transformation of ‘Palestine’ into the ‘Land of Israel.’ “
Well, historically it was the land of Israel, called Judea. Sephardic Jews have inhabited the area since prehistoric times, and the Arabs have not. They came in later after the Romans exiled some Jews, but not all.
What the Arabic peoples have done is take over territory occupied by others, yet I see no one dares mention that fact. And it is a historical fact no matter how inconvenient for some to cope with. This is the comment I got from my Jewish boss today in a ride around discussion. He’s been there several times as well, not that makes one an expert but it’s something at least. Any retaliation from Israel is going to look unfair due to the modernity versus Middle Age-esque stagnation. Palestine is an Arabic invention.
July 7th, 2006 at 7:01 pm
There’s a gap in that account of about 1700 years.
July 7th, 2006 at 7:17 pm
Irving Howe would say that Palestinians don’t deserve a state. In fact thats what he DID say. Howe was a good critic and had some incisive things to say, but he was a brutally anti-Palestinian thinker and most of what he said wouldn’t even be said now by the neocons.
July 7th, 2006 at 7:56 pm
Then how do you explain this attack on his advocacy for a Palestinian state from “Americans For A Safe Israel” ???
July 7th, 2006 at 7:57 pm
ooops!
http://www.afsi.org/OUTPOST/97SEP/sep3.htm
July 7th, 2006 at 8:29 pm
Howe was a staungh enemy of Palestinian statehood in the early seventies and I didn’t know he changed his tune.
I stand corrected with some caveats, mostly that Howe – and your conception of being for a Palestinian state ignores fundamental realites. First toff is that liberals who advocate a Palestinan state without thinking through their position end up contradicting htemselves into positions that undermine (and perhaps express the obscene core) of what they are advocating in the first place.
To state, as you do that you would have no problem with Israel assassinating Hamas leaders (which they never do without collateral damage- but the act in and of itself is criminal) yet have a problem with the current blatant (as opposed to slow) war crimes, or to state that Israel has the “right” to do anything, especially after something so trivial as the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier (who I’m sure has killed or has helped kill some Palestinians) belies a sympathy with Israel that may not be spoken. This is an orientalist sympathy that tthe ewst can defend itself from wogs but for heaven’s sake don’t blow up those power plants. Much like Howe and American liberals bemoaned the Sabra and Chatilla massacre yet always added context of how bad Arafat was.
Howe and Dissent were character assassins of thsoe, who whether you like them or not, were responsible for bringing Palestine to liberal and left American sympathies, Noam Chomsky and Edward Said. I share Howe’s criticism of the Bourgeois Jewish experience, but Jewish socialism is actualyl alive and well. Howe and his magazine were always first to defend Israel, though, and rarely if ever published advocacy of Palestinians by Palestinians.
July 7th, 2006 at 8:57 pm
Yeah, I’m a big supporter of Israel. It’s my obscene core. As for Hamas, they deserve a place in Hell for sending out children as suicide bombers. While I’m being glib, I’ll add that IMHO Sharon would have been a totally legitimate target for assassination after his actions in Lebanon.
Of course, to paraphrase Woody Guthrie, some people assassinate you with a six-gun, but Irving Howe will assassinate you with a fountain pen. The bastard…
July 7th, 2006 at 9:02 pm
I find it interesting that some in here mock Marc, saying that he is invoking Bush to do something. Actually, Bush has already done something – he denied the democratically elected government of the Palestinians. Than he followed it up by cutting off funds, which are strained through Israel anyhow, and dried up their ability to even function. It is true, the National Security State has never met a democracy that it did not want to destroy.
Of course, the current Israelis government has overacted regarding the kidnapping of one of their “sons,” they are so concerned over him that they make the living hell in Gaza even worse – don’t you know, that’s how you win friends and influence people to release hostages? They learn well from our government, and how it has used 9/11 to get what it really wants – damn the memory of the slain. Actually, this is always the reaction of modern “statehood,” it’s all a big joke.
I will spare you the replay of what I have said in the past regarding this issue, it is really one of the disgusting wonders of the world. We can all thank this governments foreign aid for the tragedy. It is no different than any other part of the world that we support tin pot dictators, and enrich fattened aristocracies. That is all I have to say.
July 7th, 2006 at 9:11 pm
Great post, Marc. I’ve always been bothered the reluctance of liberals to disucss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict , while right-wing bloggers are unabashed in calling for more killing, bombing and starvation of Palestinians.
In response to those who claim, that with Israel out of Gaza, why can’t the Palestinians stop complaining, let’s keep in mind, first of all, that Gaza is a overcrowded, impoverished area, totally cut off from the rest of the world. Israel is still in control of Gaza’s airspace, waters, borders and land crossing. It controls who can exit and leave Gaza, and what food, medicine, or goods can get into Gaza. As Azmi Bishara, a Arab member of the Knesset writes, Gaza is “a huge penal colony, a collection of overcrowded slums, a cesspool of poverty and frustration ready to explode at any minute because there is no hope — that is Gaza.”
However, I don’t like the comparison of Israel to Nazi Germany. What Israel is doing in the Occupied Palestinian territories is bad enough; we don’t need to make it worse by dragging the Nazis into it.
July 7th, 2006 at 9:12 pm
The “gap” includes more of the same. It’s the age old human struggle: for land, water and resources. There’s never been a gap in that tune anywhere.
July 7th, 2006 at 9:15 pm
All recent Nazi comparisons have been unwaranted. It’s the ad populum du jour. The only real comparison is with Stalin.
July 7th, 2006 at 9:18 pm
Incidentally, JC…of all the things you’ve ever said here that I would take issue with, the notion that “Jewish socialism is alive and well” has to be the one that strikes me as the strangest. The only other place I’ve seen that sentiment expressed in recent decades is on neo-nazi websites.
July 7th, 2006 at 9:48 pm
The Israelis took the painful step to leave Gaza and this is the thanks they get – continued terrorism.
Obviously disengagement didn’t work.
It’s doesn’t take a genius but it does take someone with an IQ greater than room temperature to see what is going on here.
You are deluding yourself if you think Hamas will ever accept a two state solution and you are deluding yourself if you think the Israelis will accept the loss of self-determination.
July 7th, 2006 at 11:09 pm
what’s really noticeable about this thread (apart from rosedog’s wonderful blend of sanity and indignation, and reg’s usual blizzard of well-chosen links) is how none of the pro-kadima/likud/sharon posters have even mentioned, let alone tried to refute, marc’s main point (which, incidentally, pops up in the title of his post), namely, that collective punishment is an entirely unjustifiable and atrocious form of warfare that is quite rightly condemned when practiced by governments other than israel’s. even if, as some of the nastier contributors here suggest, israel is entirely in the right and unquestionably the victim of decades-long palestinian treachery, they still have a moral and legal obligation not to target civilian infrastructure and not to condemn an entire population in the name of national self-defense. this point stands regardless of what one thinks of, say, one versus two-state solutions or the validity of comparing israel and nazi germany.
July 7th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
Yeah, my relatives had their shack stolen a thousand years ago, it’s about time I go get it back…and I’ll hurt the thieves living in it today!
July 7th, 2006 at 11:43 pm
God gave it to me!
‘cuz the Bible told me so!
July 8th, 2006 at 1:59 am
In my last post, let’s substitute the phrase “deranged thinking” for crypto-anti-semitism. People who believe that the world is run by conspiracies are deranged. Anyone who sees Israel’s many gestures towards peace and/or disengagement as part of a secret plan to repossess the territories is deranged.
On the other hand, anyone who thinks that Israel is going to let terrorists murder and terrorize their citizens, and then let the world tell them to stand down, and that they deserve it, is also deranged. Fortunately, it is not the world, just the left wing blogosphere, that is deranged.
Get it through your heads that after the first intifada a major change took place in Israeli society, and a significant portion, a majority, became convinced that there is no future in the occupation, and want it to end. This is not just Ilan Pappe and his friends, it is the mainstream. Sure, in the negotiations Israel will play games and try to keep settlement blocks, but in the end everyone knows what a peace agreement will look like. If we ever get there, not just the U.S. and Europe, but ordinary Israelis will force the government to come to an appropriate agreement.
And please, don’t show how ignorant and bigoted you are with this “God is my real estate agent” crap. Would you want to be judged by the extremists in your society?
July 8th, 2006 at 2:19 am
One word about assymetry. This is nonsense. Retaliations are always assymetrical. If I attack somebody on the street, does that mean that the police should only send one person, because I am one person?
If, as at least Mark Cooper concedes, Israel has a right to defend itself from missile attacks, does that also mean Israel only has the right to kill eight defending militants, because eight citizens have been killed by Qassams? In a military operation, you achieve your objective, regardless of the number of enemy dead (not talking about civilians, mind you). So far, Israel has done admirably in that regard. As far as I have read, no civilian casualties in this operation.
July 8th, 2006 at 2:44 am
Virgil says: “Of course, the current Israelis government has overacted regarding the kidnapping of one of their “sons,†they are so concerned over him that they make the living hell in Gaza even worse – don’t you know, that’s how you win friends and influence people to release hostages?”
Thanks, Virgil, for pointing out what few have been willing to say: Israeli leaders don’t give a damn about the soldier, as demonstrated by their actions which are indeed the best way to get him killed. But they are happy to have excuses to attack the Palestinians (all of them, not just their leaders), which is what this is all about. Some people here need to ask themselves why Hamas was elected–because Palestinians are intrinsically bloodthirsty (a racist notion), or because they are desperate?
btw I would be interested in knowing how many people here have actually been to Gaza and the West Bank and actually know Palestinians who live there? As one who can answer yes to both questions, I can tell you it changes one’s perspective quite a bit.
July 8th, 2006 at 3:52 am
Mark C,
“So far, Israel has done admirably in that regard. As far as I have read, no civilian casualties in this operation.”
Is this true? According to BBC, over 30 Palestinians have died in the last 2 days alone. Were they all militants?
July 8th, 2006 at 5:49 am
There have been many reports of civilian casualties, Mark C simply doesn’t know what he is talking about.
July 8th, 2006 at 6:42 am
Reg –
You think that groups like Workman’s Circle, Tikkun (to an extent,) and other NY based groups are not “Jewish Socialism?” As a Jewish socialist, I take issue with you taking issue with that!!! I come from four generations of socialists, who identify socialism with Jewish theology.
To state that it anyone conspiracy theorized here is bullshit, but thats what one would expect from someone who believes that Israel (which has killed nearly 100 civilians in a month) has killed no civilians.
July 8th, 2006 at 7:02 am
In addition to those mentioned by commenters above, bloggers who posted on these events in a timely way were Max Sawicky and Steve Clemons, both on June 29 and several times since.
I’m not a big fan of insisting that bloggers post about any particular topic, or drawing conclusions from their failure to do so. Blogs aren’t newspapers. On the other hand, when a situation this large, serious, and potentially explosive goes on and on with not one reference from blogs that usually cast a fairly wide net, it’s fair to be concerned that that the topic may be being studiously ignored.
July 8th, 2006 at 7:09 am
For following the situation, this site by an Israeli writer is helpful. Yesterday, he said:
“The latest offer being made by the Hamas is said to be release of all the women prisoners and elderly prisoners who have been in jail since before the Oslo accords. Israeli government officials still say no deal. Shalit’s father, who has been cooperative with the Israeli government until now, and appeared remarkably self-controlled to the press, has lately begun saying bluntly that Israel should make a deal to release his son.”
July 8th, 2006 at 7:51 am
“… collective punishment is an entirely unjustifiable and atrocious form of warfare that is quite rightly condemned when practiced by governments other than israel’s.”
This is the crux of the matter, isn’t it? If Israel wants to blow up Hamas offices with missile strikes at 2AM when nobody is around, well, that might be counterproductive, but not immoral on the face of it. Likewise for retaliation in kind against missile attacks on Israel, even if that sometimes entails “collateral damage”. But that’s not what we’re seeing here. Crippling infrastructure is different, as we saw with Gulf War I, the sanctions against Iraq that followed, and, for that matter, with the current reign of terror by militants in Iraq and their infrastructure sabotage. It’s slow-motion, delayed-effect lethal force against the most vulnerable.
War is politics by violent means, but a baby who gets sick because water is tainted, and who can’t get good treatment because hospitals can’t function well, shouldn’t be regarded as a Palestinian in any political sense. That infant had no say in the political choices made that led to the attacks on the infrastructure that endangers his life.
As far as I can tell, the calculation being made by the current Israeli leadership is this:
Either
(1) Palestinians will rid themselves of the leadership that provoked this catastrophe in their society,
or
(2) Palestinian society will finally be crippled for good by the eventual exodus of all halfway competent people in it. What you’ll get is a slum society, run by gangsters (even if many pose as hypermoral jihadis), perpetually dependent on foreign aid handouts, and eventually wearing out its welcome with the international community.
Which way is it trending? Several of Gaza’s largest employers have relocated to Egypt. Trade from Palestine into Israel has slowed to a trickle. So the economy is going down the tubes. How aboutt the polity? The withering attacks on Gaza are likely to simply strengthen Hamas in future polling. SO, to me, Scenario 2 seems the likelier of the two futures. And that’s very sad. If your response is, “the Palestinians will deserve it”, go tell it to a baby dying of cholera in an ER ward with no lights on.
I wish I knew what the right answer was. For now, I have to content myself with being fairly sure that the current offensive is a long, long way from being the right answer (if “content” is quite the word I’m looking for.) This conflict has been going on ever since I can remember, and sometimes I think I’ll breathe my last in an intensive care unit, decades from now, with CNN in the background reporting on the latest developments in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.
July 8th, 2006 at 8:35 am
Those of you who think that comparisons of the Israeli right wing and the Nazis are unfair ought to review the following picture:
http://www.karmalised.com/archives/normal_Hebron_16.jpg
For those link-averse, it’s a picture of graffiti saying “Arabs to the Gas Chambers.”
This picture came, originally, from a photographic exhibition by an Israeli soldier. It was part of a group of similar images showing the racist and yes, Nazi-like, attitude of the illegal colonists in the West Bank. This type of sentiment is common among the colonists, who regard the Palestinians as the “untermenschen” and themselves as the master race.
Once again, the only real solution is a South African style one-state solution, with equal rights for all and an end to the racist Jewish-supremacist laws.
Israel’s “god is my real estate agent†claim to legitimacy is pure bullshit.
July 8th, 2006 at 9:40 am
“God” has nothing to do with it. Bodies on the ground at certain historical timeframes does. Of course land taken, by anyone, can be taken back and so on, so…
July 8th, 2006 at 9:42 am
Things like that picture are like declaring washroom rantings the policy of the state. It’s BS ad populum.
July 8th, 2006 at 9:55 am
Right-Wing nationalists, German or Israeli, Aryan or Jew…will do whatever it has to, in order to survive.
July 8th, 2006 at 10:12 am
If Israel has the right to demand the return of its soldier then what right do Palestinians have in regards to the hundreds of children who sit in Israeli jails not too mention the 6000 adult prisoners as well. Over 1000 of them have been charged with no crime and are simply been held under admistrative detention. Many have been kidnapped in the middle of the night, captured, they remain faceless before a silent world. A couple weeks ago in Amman Olmert said a jewish life has more valuable than palestian life. This sort of toxic racism is at the core of the present discourse. Everyone knows the brutal inhuman calculus which frames all of these debates It must stop. As Ali Abunimah said its time that we call on brave israelis, just as we called on brave white south africans, to engage in a voluntary process with Palestinians to dismantle the entire infrustructure of occupation–the settlements, the wall, checkpoints, military, ecomomic strangulation, the aparthied laws in the israel that says that an israeli can marry anyone in the world but a palestinian. Its starts now
July 8th, 2006 at 10:20 am
As for the almost uniform silence from lib bloggers let me quote Dennis Perrin
” I’ve seen no consistent liberal outrage of any kind in bloggyland. Not surprising, given that most of the prominent libloggers are politically narcissistic and beholden to a corporate party that supports this type of aggression. Show solidarity with the Palestinians as they are pummeled by a nuclear-powered aggressor state funded with their tax dollars? Why, when there are more important issues at hand, like mocking clueless New Republic writers and pondering which presidential primary should be first. It took weeks before some of the less timid libs said anything about Haditha, so why the fuck should they be in any hurry about what’s happening this very moment in Gaza?”
July 8th, 2006 at 10:25 am
“Any retaliation from Israel is going to look unfair due to the modernity versus Middle Age-esque stagnation. Palestine is an Arabic invention.”
This is from “liberal democrat” Mark York. It must stop
July 8th, 2006 at 11:26 am
Its strange that there hasnt been anything of substance on this issue in The Nation, which while imperfect is usually good on this issue. How about leaving the immigration beat and writing a big cover story, ala your old Panama pieces, Marc? You are a good witness journalist – and a cover story on this is neccessary.
For that matter, where is former Pro-Palestinian firebrand Hitchens? Or William F. Buckley jr. who a lifetime ago, before the Neocons, was actually a sane conservative voice opposing the occupation, influencing hte Rogers plan that Nixon failed to implement because of Meir and Kissinger.
July 8th, 2006 at 11:32 am
Matter,
The settlers in Hebron are miserable people, and have managed to make the lives of Palestinians in that city a living hell. I have no problem with comparing the Hebron settlers to Nazis.
However, the Hebron settlers are marginal in their views, even among the Israeli settlers. In my opinion, the primary obstacle of peace is not the extremist settlers but the failure of Israelis to treat the Palestinians as equals. Even Israeli doves view the human and political rights of Palestinians as subordinate to Israeli security and political concerns, a framework that ironically has left Israel far less secure by convincing Palestinians they can only win their rights by violence and enabled radical groups like Hamas to thrive.
Again, what Israel is doing in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is bad enough; there’s no need to muddy the waters by dragging the Nazis into the discussion
July 8th, 2006 at 12:42 pm
On the subject of the liblogs, let’s keep in perspective who these people are. Almost uniformly, they became politically obsessive in the wake of the Bush ascension and the war in Iraq. They are focused almost exclusively on domestic politics – even their blogging on the war is essentially through the lens of it being a disastrous mistake for the U.S. Frankly, in so far as they have any analytic competence, it’s pretty much limited to the “expose Bush, the GOP and Dems who fail to fight” realm.
I find it pretty pathetic that a segment of the “in-crowd” liberal blogs are currently more consumed by a “YouTube bad music videos war” than “bemoaning” what is happening in Gaza, to use JC’s phrase, but truth be told, bemoaning is about all they could do. They don’t focus on international issues unless and until they become part of the policy debate in the Beltway, and right now this isn’t.
The usual suspects among bloggers have an MO that leads them to mirror the “official” discourse and in particular the vagaries of Bush. Marc’s observation on this is correct, more so than any agendas. The exceptions are folks who feel like they’ve got a dog in the race, which would tend to be a regional expert like Juan Cole, or folks – be they ethnically Arab or Jewish – who have some sense of a bond to the region. Otherswise there’s a world of pain and most of it gets ignored.
This is just an observation. I doubt that there’s any conspiracy of silence, because for most liberals condemnation of Israeli’s for overkill has become a pretty easy call. Almost as easy as figuring out where a solution might come from is hard.
And if anyone has any doubts about “double standards” as regards Israel or the efficacy of the Israel lobby, check out the Steve Clemons post which Nell linked to. It’s a reminder of the Israeli attack on the U.S.S. Liberty which killed dozens of our sailors and injured over a hundred. Had any other country in the Middle East launched this attack, they would have been subject to retaliation. What Israel got was both a free pass and a cover-up which had zero credibility. And lots and lots of aid. Frankly, I’m sick of the U.S. playing tail on this dog.
Any further aid to either party should be tied to a settlement based on 1967 borders. I think too many folks on both sides have become too crazy and xenophobic to allow any such thing to work, but we let people all over the world blow each other to hell. It’s always tragic, for the blood of innocents. But what makes the Israelis and Palestinians so special that we would give either of them anything other than basic humanitarian assistance if they refuse an internationlally supervised settlement and persist ? Hasn’t anyone ever heard of calling a bluff. Particularly with the Israelis, who’ve gotten enormous military aid, even after they’ve made it clear they’ll kill Americans if they perceive us in the way of their military “solutions”.
July 8th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
According to Seymour Hersh, “the size and sophistication of Israel’s nuclear arsenal allows men such as Ariel Sharon to dream of redrawing the map of the Middle East aided by the implicit threat of nuclear force.” …. Ze’ev Shiff, an Israeli military expert writing in Haaretz said, “Whoever believes that Israel will ever sign the UN Convention prohibiting the proliferation of nuclear weapons… is day dreaming,” and Munya Mardoch, Director of the Israeli Institute for the Development of Weaponry, said in 1994, “The moral and political meaning of nuclear weapons is that states which renounce their use are acquiescing to the status of Vassal states. All those states which feel satisfied with possessing conventional weapons alone are fated to become vassal states.”
Seymour Hersh sites other threats in The Samson Option. Referring to the U.S. failure to support Israel’s invasion of Egypt in 1956, including in the face of nuclear threats from the Soviet Union, one unnamed former Israeli official told Hersh in the late 1980s:
“You Americans screwed us…We got the message. We can still remember the smell of Auschwitz and Treblinka. Next time we’ll take all of you with us.”
From:
http://www.carolmoore.net/nuclearwar/israelithreats.html
Fascist/Right-WIng Nationalists are dangerous, no matter what ethnic group they come from.
July 8th, 2006 at 3:03 pm
Anyone who isn’t familiar with Benny Morris, the Israeli historian who has, he believes, documented a policy of expulsion of Arabs as one of the goals of the founders of the Israeli state, should check him out. A controversial figure because he embodies the schizophenia that attends any realistic investigation into the subject of Zionism but refuses to let go of it’s premise. For the record, I believe that the 1967 borders of Israel are, at this point, as legitimate and necessary as any national entity and that a two-state solution should be proposed and guaranteed by the international community, including peacekeeping commitments by the United States, assuming the parties are willing to accept that (presumably after all available economic and political leverage is applied externally, with no bullshit). If that’s not good enough for anyone on either side of this mess, fuck ‘em. But, in the context of discourse in the U.S., I am most disgusted by a tendency to historically sentimentalize the Israelis – almost treating them as though they’re the 51st state and to demonize the Palestinians. I say – with no irony – demonize everybody unless and until they cut the shit.
Reading stuff like Morris – who was a leftist “peacenik” until recently – and recognizing that the underlying imperatives of the Zionist project, once one accepts it, has, with hindsight, validated Jabotinsky’s essentially fascist perspective – serves as a good antidote to all of the knee-jerk stuff that privileges the historical victimization of one group so that anything done on their behalf is justified. Not long ago I would have been inclined to link to interviews with a guy like Amos Oz in reflecting on Israel/Palestine, but I have this nasty feeling that history has left the decent folk in the dust.
(Morris interviewed in “Logos”, 2004):
There are circumstances in history that justify ethnic cleansing. I know that this term is completely negative in the discourse of the 21st century, but when the choice is between ethnic cleansing and genocide—the annihilation of your people—I prefer ethnic cleansing.
And that was the situation in 1948?
That was the situation. That is what Zionism faced. A Jewish state would not have come into being without the uprooting of 700,000 Palestinians. Therefore it was necessary to uproot them. There was no choice but to expel that population. It was necessary to cleanse the hinterland and cleanse the border areas and cleanse the main roads. It was necessary to cleanse the villages from which our convoys and our settlements were fired on.
The term “to cleanse†is terrible.
I know it doesn’t sound nice but that’s the term they used at the time. I adopted it from all the 1948 documents in which I am immersed.
What you are saying is hard to listen to and hard to digest. You sound hard-hearted.
I feel sympathy for the Palestinian people, which truly underwent a hard tragedy. I feel sympathy for the refugees themselves. But if the desire to establish a Jewish state here is legitimate, there was no other choice. It was impossible to leave a large fifth column in the country. From the moment the Yishuv [pre-1948 Jewish community in Palestine] was attacked by the Palestinians and afterward by the Arab states, there was no choice but to expel the Palestinian population. To uproot it in the course of war.
Remember another thing: the Arab people gained a large slice of the planet. Not thanks to its skills or its great virtues, but because it conquered and murdered and forced those it conquered to convert during many generations. But in the end the Arabs have 22 states. The Jewish people did not have even one state. There was no reason in the world why it should not have one state. Therefore, from my point of view, the need to establish this state in this place overcame the injustice that was done to the Palestinians by uprooting them.
And morally speaking, you have no problem with that deed?
That is correct. Even the great American democracy could not have been created without the annihilation of the Indians. There are cases in which the overall, final good justifies harsh and cruel acts that are committed in the course of history.
And in our case it effectively justifies a population transfer.
That’s what emerges.
And you take that in stride? War crimes? Massacres? The burning fields and the devastated villages of the Nakba?
You have to put things in proportion. These are small war crimes. All told, if we take all the massacres and all the executions of 1948, we come to about 800 who were killed. In comparison to the massacres that were perpetrated in Bosnia, that’s peanuts. In comparison to the massacres the Russians perpetrated against the Germans at Stalingrad, that’s chicken feed. When you take into account that there was a bloody civil war here and that we lost an entire 1 percent of the population, you find that we behaved very well.
The Next Transfer
You went through an interesting process. You went to research Ben-Gurion and the Zionist establishment critically, but in the end you actually identify with them. You are as tough in your words as they were in their deeds.
You may be right. Because I investigated the conflict in depth, I was forced to cope with the in-depth questions that those people coped with. I understood the problematic character of the situation they faced and maybe I adopted part of their universe of concepts. But I do not identify with Ben-Gurion. I think he made a serious historical mistake in 1948. Even though he understood the demographic issue and the need to establish a Jewish state without a large Arab minority, he got cold feet during the war. In the end, he faltered.
I’m not sure I understand. Are you saying that Ben-Gurion erred in expelling too few Arabs?
If he was already engaged in expulsion, maybe he should have done a complete job. I know that this stuns the Arabs and the liberals and the politically correct types. But my feeling is that this place would be quieter and know less suffering if the matter had been resolved once and for all. If Ben-Gurion had carried out a large expulsion and cleansed the whole country – the whole Land of Israel, as far as the Jordan River. It may yet turn out that this was his fatal mistake. If he had carried out a full expulsion – rather than a partial one – he would have stabilized the State of Israel for generations.”
July 8th, 2006 at 3:10 pm
Michael Balter: “Some people here need to ask themselves why Hamas was elected–because Palestinians are intrinsically bloodthirsty (a racist notion), or because they are desperate?”
Allow me to do the misanthropic calculus: Human beings are instrinsically bloodthirsty (as well as stupid, irrational, ad infinitum), Palestinians are human beings, therefore Palestinians must be intrinsically bloodthirsty. Humanity’s contempt for all life (including that of its own species) has been evident ever since early man wiped out the Neanderthal. I, for one, refuse to dehumanize Palestinians by pretending they are not subject to the same, unfortunately very human, impulses of the rest of us.
July 8th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
I want to apologize to Marc for overposting-and-pasting, but this is a hell of a subject. I’ll shut up now.
Also, Michael Turner’s comments were for me the most though-provoking. And here’s another Steve Clemons link that I found useful. The “intra-Islamist” aspect of this eruption seems to be key to any understanding of current events. For what that’s worth. (Which is probably not much in the scheme of things. I just hope someone does Michael the favor of changing the channel to Seinfeld re-runs.)
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001518.php
July 8th, 2006 at 3:27 pm
War is hell and civilians will get killed. The biggest and most unforgivable behavior of the Palestinian leadership is not that they have made failed to accept Israel and decided instead to fight over it for the last 60 years devastating their people, but their terrorists tactics against other countries civilians over these years. Israel is the nearest, but lets not forget the plane hijackings with the picking and choosing of for throat slitting, the pushing of old people in wheel chairs off of ships into the ocean, the assassination of children competing in Olympics.
While we can all be shocked and saddened to the point of wanting to cry at the scenes of innocent civilians caught in the middle of f_ucking wars, It is quite another. even more shocking, to find the terrorist side has chosen to put them there purposely, by plan, as specific targets, with the intent to kill as many as possible……even their own. Sickening.
July 8th, 2006 at 3:35 pm
So Hussein’s mistake was not “cleansing” more Kurds. It was not “complete” enough, now look at him.
Would Morris agree, that Hitler would have saved the world a lot of trouble if he had would have only “cleansed completely”, for get all that Warsaw Ghetto stuff; just get to cleaning the divine land God had blessed them with.
I mean Communism and most Western/Christian hating ideologies were created by Jews or the Jews made up most of the subversive elements destroying proper and righteous society. It was either them or us, right?
July 8th, 2006 at 5:39 pm
Signs of hope? From the ndependent:
“A senior Israeli cabinet minister suggested for the first time that some Palestinian prisoners might be released if abducted Army Corporal Gilad Shalit was freed and Qassam rocket fire halted.
The hint by Interior Minister Avi Dichter came as the Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that Israel had already promised potential releases from among certain categories of prisoners in return for the freeing of Cpl Shalit.
Mr Dichter was quoted as telling a conference that in such circumstances ” Israel knows how to carry our a release of prisoners as a goodwill gesture,” adding “We did it in the past and we know how to do it.”
Mr Abbas went significantly further by saying Israel had already promised the Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak they would release “a “number” of prisoners among those “that have been there for more than 20 years, those that are sick, women and children.”
July 8th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
Jim, earlier in this post Michael suggested that you’d benefit from reading the work of some fine Israeli historians like Illon Pappe and Tanya Reinhart. If i wanted to expand on that list i’d throw in Jacqueline Rose (her new book “the question of Zion” is fantastic, Avi Shlaim and certainly Benny Morris . No need to be ethnocentric about this, so for Palestinian writers Edward Said (who always stressed that there must be a reconcilation between the Jewish and Palestinian narratives of suffering) and Khalili immediately come to mind. To repeat Michael’s query–what books on the subject can you recommend we read?
July 8th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
Maybe you all would be interested in reading the current piece by Benny Morris in TNR:
http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060710&s=morris071006
July 8th, 2006 at 7:45 pm
I have these on .PDF files:
[Ha'aretz] Survival of the Fittest – An Interview with Benny Morris
[Israel Studies, 1997] Rashid Khalidi–Palestinian Identity (Benny Morris)
[Jerusalem Report, 2004] The Tantra ‘Massacre’ Affair (Benny Morris)
[Journal of Palestine Studies, 1982] Collective Punishment in Beit Sahur (Benny Morris)
[Journal of Palestine Studies, 1986] What Happened in History (Benny Morris)
[Journal of Palestine Studies, 1988] The New Herut Supermarket (Benny Morris)
[Journal of Palestine Studies, 1991] Response to Finkelstein & Masalha (Benny Morris)
[Journal of Palestine Studies, 1995] Falsifying the Record – A Fresh Look at Zionist Documentati (Benny Morris)
[Journal of Palestine Studies, 1996] The Israeli Press & the Qibya Operation, 1953 (Benny Morris)
[Journal of Palestine Studies, 1998] Fabricating Israeli History – The ”New Historians” (Benny Morris)
[Journal of Palestine Studies, 1999] Operation Hiram Revisited – A Correction (Benny Morris)
[Journal of Palestine Studies, 2000] Israeli Intransigence (Benny Morris)
[Journal of Palestine Studies, 2000] Israeli Militarism (Benny Morris)
[Logos, 2004] Benny Morris’s Shocking Interview
[MEMRI, 2001] ‘’The Arabs Are Responsible’’ – Post-Zionist Historian Benny Morris Clarifies His Thesis
[New Republic, 2001] The Failure of Israel’s ‘’New Historians’’ to Explain War & Peace (Benny Morris)
[Shoah Resource Center] Response of the Jewish Daily Press in Palestine to the Accession of Hitler (Benny Morris)
[Tikkun, 2001] The Right of Return (An Interview with Benny Morris)
I have a “Ilan Pappe Responds To Benny Morris” should I post it?
July 8th, 2006 at 8:06 pm
And.[Journal of Palestine Studies, 1996] Peace Politics (As’ad AbuKhalil)
[Journal of Palestine Studies, 1996] Stuck In the Past (As’ad AbuKhalil)
[Journal of Palestine Studies, 1998] Non-Muslims on Islamists (As’ad AbuKhalil)
[Journal of Palestine Studies, 1999] George Habash & the Movement of Arab Nationalists (As’ad AbuKhalil)
Prolonged Wars – A Post-Nuclear Challenge, 1994 (As’sad AbuKhalil) (466 Pages)
My Edward Said is way too much to copy and paste.
[Comparative Studies of S. Asia, Africa & the ME, 2004] Thoughts on Zionism in the German-Middle Eastern Context
[Holocaust & Genocide Studies, 2003] The Theological Reaction of National Religious Zionism in Palestine to the Holocaust
[Jewish Quarterly Review, 2005] Esther’s Children – A Portrait of Iranian Jews
[Jewish Quarterly Review, 2004] Elvis in Jerusalem – Post-Zionism & the
Americanization of Israel
[Jewish Quarterly Review, 2005] On Jesus, Paul & the Birth of Christianity
[Jews for Justice in the Middle East, 2002] The Origin of the Palestine-Israel Conflict
[Journal of Nietzsche Studies, 2002] Nietzsche’s Transvaluation of Jewish Parasitism
[Middle East Report, 1989] From Commentary to Tikkun – The Past & Future of ”Progressive Jewish Intellectuals”
[New Literary History, 1991] Interpretations at War – Kant, the Jew, the German (Jacques Derrida)
[Religion & American Culture, 2004] The Christianization of Israel & Jews in 1950s America
[Journal of Palestine Studies, 1978] Israel’s Zionist Left & ”The Day of the Land” (Khalil Nakhleh)
[MERIP Reports, 1978] The Israeli Communist Party & the Radical Anti-Zionist Left
[Modern Judaism, 2005] Christian Zionism & Its Historical Significance
[Modern Middle East Sourcebook Project, 2004] The Evolution of Political Zionism, 1897-1917
[New Left Review, 2001] The Tears of Zion
[New Political Economy, 2005] Post-Zionist Perspectives on Contemporary Israel +Review Essay+
[Review of Politics, 1961] Germany, Turkey & the Zionist Movement, 1914-1918
[Social Identities, 2002] European Zionist Emissaries & Arab-Jews
[Social Text, 1979] Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Victims (Edward Said)
[Strategic Insights, 2005] The Effects of Zionist Discourse on the Arab-Isreali Peace Process
[Western Political Quarterly, 1972] A Study of a Successful Interest Group – The American Zionist Movement
American Freedom & Zionist Power
The Zionist Plan for the Middle East (Israel Shahak & Oded Yinon)
If any body would like some, I could e-mail.
July 8th, 2006 at 9:23 pm
Israel bad; palestinian arabs good. I got it now. It’s all a misunderstanding.
July 8th, 2006 at 11:38 pm
Benny Morris tells his readers in the New Republic that he and I walked a stretch of
road together as ‘revisionist historians’. This is how is article begins with a factual
mistake; an article which is meant to show that my works is a fabrication. This is a
falsification of history as I could not be a partner to a person who had already in 1988
held views I found unacceptable morally. I was privy to the views, he only aired later
on, already in our first meeting back in the late 1980s. I was fully aware – as he
seemed to trust me – of his abominable racist views about the Arabs in general and the
Palestinians in particular. Unlike others, I did not feel that his good qualities as a
chronologist which came out in his most famous book, The Birth of the Palestinian
Refugee Problem (Cambridge 1987)– he was never a proper historian – and especially
his invaluable contribution in aggregating data for us on the 1948 ethnic cleansing –
made up for his bigotry and narrow-mindedness. In fact, there was, and still is a direct
line between the kind of chronology he provided in the 1980s – which had very little
analysis and therefore hid well his justification for ethnic cleansing – and his recent
over confidence that he can provide such analyses in his latest works instead of his
conventional collection of facts. Such an attempt was made in his Righteous Victims
which came out in 1999: a book in which analysis was replaced by his right wing
ideologies. It was much easier to accept him as a data collector – without much
ideology – than his new presumptuous posture of a historian who shares with us his
views. Now that we know all we want to know, and much more I suspect, about his
views, we can only long for the old Morris.
The debate between us is on one level between historians who believe they are purely
objective reconstructers of the past, like Morris, and those like me, who claim that
they are subjective human beings striving to tell their own version of the past, like
myself. When we write histories, we built arches over a long period of time and we
construct out of the material in front of us a narrative. We believe and hope that this
narrative is a loyal reconstruction of what happened – although as was discovered by
historiographers Morris had never bothered to read – we can not ride a train back in
time to check it. Narratives of this kind, when written by historians involved deeply
in the subject matter they write about – such as in the case of Israeli historians who
write about the Palestine conflict – is motivated also – and this is not a fault but a
blessing – by a deep involvement and a wish to make a point. This point is called
ideology or politics. Zionist historians wanted to prove that Zionism was valid, moral
and right and Palestinian historians wished to show that they were victimized and
wronged. Morris wanted also to make a point recently – that ethnic cleansing of
Palestinians by Jews was justified in the past and would be acceptable in the future.
Lately he shared with us some other views that explain his listing of he calls the
‘factual’ mistakes in my book – that of viewing all the Arabs and all the Muslims as
barbarians and primitive people. This also apply to their documents, sources and
histories. Anyone who argues with him about these ideas is ‘factually’ wrong.
I had a different point to make: I condemned the uprooting of the Palestinians and the
violence inflicted on them, as well as the de-Arabization of Jews who came from Arab
countries to Israel, the imposition of military rule on Palestinians in Israel before 1967
and the de-facto Apartheid policies put in place after 1967. I also cry out against the
callous Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. I do it not only as
human being, but also as Jew, who feels appalled that such crimes can be committed
by Jews after the holocaust. I studied history to find out why it happened and gave
answers through analyzing Zionist ideology, the historical colonialist context in which
Zionism emerged and so on.
When something is burning in your bones you might mistake names and dates as did
Morris in his review in the New Republic when he smeared my friend Avi Shalimwho
fell from grace in Morris’ eyes because of his Zionism. Morris accuses Shalim for
identifying with a British diplomat of the 1940 he calls James Troutbeck and which
he sees as anti-Semite. There was never such a person. Morris means probably John
Troutbeck who was not an anti-Semite as Morris writes, quite on the contrary. Does
this misspelling of the name, or that almost all the Arab and Palestinian names he
mentions in his first book, disable us from understanding the points he makes or
miss the zeal with which he drives them home? Or does his manipulation of the Ben-
Gurion diary’s text, as has been exposed unfortunately by a rival of both of us,
Ephraim Karsh (who rejects the ‘new history’ but none the less exposed a serious gap
between Morris’ text and the original diary of Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister of
Israel) of all people, undermine our respect for his work? Not in my books at least. I
am worried about moral issues not the natural human follies of professional
historians.
——————————————-
Do you Homieeees want the rest….?
July 9th, 2006 at 1:31 am
A group of prominent British Jews are circulating a petition loudly decrying Israel’s latest assault of Gaza. I got the following story from BBC
Some 300 prominent British Jews Friday condemned Israel for its brutal invasion of Gaza and urged the UK government to achieve an immediate ceasefire.
The Israeli regime is “using its enormously superior military might to terrorize an entire people,” they said in a full-page petition published in the Times newspaper.
“Bombing power stations and cutting off fuel supplies deprives people of electricity, refrigeration, pumped drinking water and sewage disposal services. It holds hostage hospital patients on life support systems, or undergoing dialysis,” the petition said.
The well-known British figures, describing themselves as Jews for Justice for Palestinians (Jfjfp), included playwright Harold Pinter, film director Mike Leigh, historian Professor Eric Hobsbawn, and actor Miriam Margoyles as well as a large number of academics.
They said that Israel was trying to present an isolated incident regarding the capture of a soldier, while ignoring their “regular snatching of Palestinians from their home.”
There were “thousands” of Palestinians held without trial, including women and children.
Jfjfp spokesman Dan Judelson said the prominent Jews “simply do not see how Israel can defend attacking civilian targets such as water works and power supply.”
“There are those in the community who say that Jews should not criticize Israel. But Israel is damaging itself through this kind of action,” Judelson said.
He told the BBC that many people believed the attacks on Palestinian infrastructure “were less about liberating Cpl Shalit and more about seeking a pretext to over-throw Hamas.”
Their petition criticized the response by the US and its allies in calling for restraint as “desperately inadequate.”
It was a situation that requires “determined action by the international community,” it warned.
“We watch with horror the collective punishment of the people of Gaza. Everything reasonable must be done to secure Corporal Gilad Shalit’s safe release but nothing Israel is doing contributes to that aim,” it warned.
The Jewish leaders called on the British public to write to their MPs to demand that the UK government breaks its silence and acts “to achieve an immediate ceasefire.”
Their community leaders were also urged to write to the Israeli Embassy to “make them understand their actions are wrong, their explanations unconvincing
July 9th, 2006 at 7:22 am
Neodude,
I don’t see anything in the article about revisionist historians, and I don’t have any idea who you actually are.
Leaving aside the issue of whether the recent action in Gaza is either morally or strategically defensible, maybe you could address the points that Morris makes in his article, rather than referring to previous statements that Morris has made.
The points that he makes are that:
1. Hamas’ ultimate aim, as that of other Islamists, is the liberation not just of Palestine:” it is a basic tenet of Islam that any land conquered for the faith remains rightfully, in perpetuity, sacred Islamic land”, and that all other territory is fair game: “And beyond this realm lies the rest of the world, the “Land of War” (Dar Al Harb)–territory that is fair game for conquest and must yet be conquered or converted to Islam.”
The trouble that I am having in understanding the point of view of most people commenting on this blog, the point of view that it is the Palestinians that are the victims, and the Israelis that are the perpetrators, is that when I read statements like those in the Hamas charter, and hear about how Palestinian children are officially educated about Jews, I wonder why people like yourself are so clear that the Palestinians are the ones who are the victims. I might disagree with many Israeli actions, but I find Palestinian actions equally if not more problematic.
2. He quotes from Hamas charter.
July 9th, 2006 at 8:03 am
Marc Cooper,
This is a quote from the Guardain article:
Comment
From the eye of the storm
In Gaza, an apricot tree stands in symbolic defiance of Israel’s shameful retaliation
“But Gazans would not compromise their humanity, even with the escalating military operation. Contrary to the insinuations of Israel’s media and public relations machine, the majority of Gazans truly hope that Israel’s hostage soldier is treated humanely and eventually freed. Palestinians dearly miss the basic human rights that Israel’s military occupation has deprived them of for so many years, and would not wish their loss on any soldier.”
I don’t believe one word of this statement. I am amazed that the Guardian printed it, and that you linked to it.
July 9th, 2006 at 8:40 am
Sorry, the 3 paragraphs at July 8th, 2006 at 11:38 pm, are taken from “Ilan Pappe Responds To Benny Morris”.
July 9th, 2006 at 8:49 am
If any anti-Aryan and/or anti-German and/or anti-Christian ideology that would have or did grow out of the Warsaw Ghetto, would make sense. May not be totally true…but would be understandable and justified at some level.
European Jews and many other outsiders came and took land and forced non-Jews into forced concentrations of refugee camps. You can not treat people like this and expect respect.
You can not treat Palestinians, like the Christians have treated Jews in Europe, and expect them to act the way you want them to.
July 9th, 2006 at 9:37 am
The only reason why the extreme prevails is because it is in power, this goes for either side of the equation in this regional conundrum. Neither side, at this juncture is able to rule or exist in it’s present form. Neither Israel, nor the Palestinians can peacefully co-exist – both show themselves incapable of peaceful modern statehood. They are incapable of solving this problem on their own.
This is why there must be a third element brought into the equation, it is the onlt way to cut this torturous knot. First, we must form an veritable army of international peacekeepers – it should consist of a true mixture of world representation. It might be organized through the UN, but it cannot consist of those in control of the security council vote. In other words, those Western nations which have consistently ignored this problem, or have supported the current status quo either directly or by default.
This international peace keeping force should represent every element extant for national health in the modern world. That which can support and sustain a viable infrastructure, in other words, a building force that can and will establish viable institutions that can eventually be taken over by the present population. Construction of viable homes – health care – education, agriculture, i.e., I mean EVERY area that promotes the health of a people.
Now, I am not saying the the western countries, primarily the United States should not participate, they have sent billions of dollars into the region – however, that has all gone into the purse of Israel, and we have seen both the good and bad that has come from this “foreign aid.” This money should be deposited into the international force that I have mentioned above. It will be equitably given out between Israel and the Palestinians with the specific proviso(s) that will follow.
First, the mere presense of such an international body in the territory we speak the serious nature of our intention, and will be the signal of good will. Second, there will be a return to the pre-1967 borders – as represented upon the basis of international law written in the preamble of the UN ruling after the war. Third, all Israelis settlements will be vacated which have been established upon the land in mention and they will remove their troops from the occupied territory (as defined). The Israelis may station their troops along their borders, but their will be an equal international peace keeping presence at those borders – I’m sure you get the gist of what I mean. Fourth, the wall in process shall be stopped – and it will be removed swiftly. Fifth, avenues of commerce and trade will be opened between the parties. Sixth, there will be no incursions made into the Palestinian region – nor will there be “fly overs,” or any form of activity which can be interpreted as aggression – the same goes for both. Breaking of these rules will result in immediate fiscal punishment.
Of course, this is not the venue for laying out an entire plan – it is just a very inadequate outline (if that). The mere presence and viability of an international group with the make-up (and power) that I am promoting will be enough to stop the cycle of violence. I see this as the only option if this issue is seriously going to be addressed.
July 9th, 2006 at 9:44 am
RE: Miriam’s observation. Because it is the accepted far left position. No matter what Palestinians do, they are absolved, by this victimhood status. Euopean Jews shouldn’t be there, according to this line of thinking, and so anything goes.
In contrast Israel overreacts to street thuggery with major military operations, thus the victimhood is enforced. Palestinians have had bad leadership that enriches itself while dooming its people to poverty, an Arab world MO. The noise of victimology drowns that out too.
July 9th, 2006 at 9:48 am
“Palestinians dearly miss the basic human rights that Israel’s military occupation has deprived them of for so many years, and would not wish their loss on any soldier.â€
Who says this besides the writer? There’s no Palestinian source, not even anonymous so I agree.
July 9th, 2006 at 10:46 am
I must say I am impressed and proud of the number of Jews commenting here and linked to here that criticize the Israeli govt’s offensive defense for its existence. This shows genuine compassion and concern by a free and democratic and diverse people for the Palestinian people’s predicament, caused by their own very poor leadership for 60 years.
It is a testament to democracies. To a peoples right to disagree. To a peoples power to moderate the extremes of their leaders by their voice and vote.
Where are these voices from Palestinians or Arabs here, or links to books or articles of moderate Arabs that would stand up for Israel’s right to exist, that would condemn the terrorising of the Israel civilian population, that would criticize the attacks from the other side that led up to the latest ‘offense’ by Israel?
You can surmise for yourself. My opinion is they do exist in the peaceful Arab population but cannot be uttered for pure fear of violence from their dear leaders. The radical leaders that ask for their sons and daughters as smart firing pins in a never ending war fueled by uncontrolled and democratically unchecked rabid religious hatred.
For those morally challenged here. That only see the sad results of provocation and attacks and continued war. Who here believes this would stop tomorrow if the attacks on Israel stopped tomorrow? And who here believes the Palestinian leadership has now, and has always had, the power to stop it now? Thank you…..I thought so and so do I.
This, I submit, is where the real power lies!
July 9th, 2006 at 11:09 am
Jim, I do not know whether you are being serious and have a lack knowledge, or whether your wish is to maintain the status quo – either way I do not intend to justify your comment with a serious answer. Either bone up on the issue at hand, or go haunt some site that does not have a clue of what is going on.
That is all I have to say – to your absolutely ludicrious babble. Sorry if that sounds gruff, I have no patience for nonsense, the subject it too serious.
July 9th, 2006 at 12:32 pm
Damn Virgil. I put allot of time and thought into that comment. Maybe it is ludicrous babble after-all. I was thinking it portrayed reality pretty succinctly….scary.
Maybe Reg is right. Maybe I am politically insane. Logic blinded by biases, fairness blinded by favorites, thinking impaired by…..well, biscuits and gravy.
But hell, was it too much to ask to just answer the question in the comment, so the court of public opinion here could judge which of us is the craziest? Your response didn’t offer them much evidence.
July 9th, 2006 at 1:12 pm
Here is my answer in the words of another, Nelson Mandela – I hope you understand, and if not now than at some point in the future:
“It is a useless and futile point, for us to continue talking peace and non-violence against a government whose reply is only savage attacks on an unarmed and defenseless people.”
July 9th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
Jim you’ve shown such brillliant insight on this topic. Im surpised, then, that you’ve yet to offer up any recommended readings.
July 9th, 2006 at 9:40 pm
Thank you Ahmed, but I’m really not all that brilliant I don’t think. Sometimes just a good common sense and willingness to call bad behavior what it is can be confused as brilliance.
My recommended readings are the newspapers and listing is the Nightly tube news. I mean, this conflict has been in them every other day for most of my adult life. Unless all the news we get in the USA is controlled by the Jews too, one tends to believe what they hear.
The latest episode in this sad story is just a repeat of a thousand like it in the past. Israel has ask the leaders of the Palestinians to control the terror bombings of their civilian population and territory, or they will do it themselves. Israel build themselves a wall between themselves and the terrorists to try to solve the problem without bloodshed. The terrorists found a way to lob bombs over the wall, and finally found a way to dig under the wall, I’m sure in plain site and with the knowledge of the Palestinian leadership.
Israel if forced to do the job themselves by entering Gaza and rounding up or killing the terrorists.
It’s a very old story Ahmed, repeated and reported over and over again in our lifetimes. The fact is the Palestinians do not accept that Israel has any ‘territory’. Why does one need to read a book of someone elses excuses for this?? It really does not require brilliance. It is really as simple as this.
Now would you be considerate enough to answer the straight for questions I posed in my comments.
July 9th, 2006 at 9:44 pm
“listing is the Nightly tube news” would be “listening to the nightly tube news”.
July 9th, 2006 at 10:14 pm
Rock a bye Jim on the treetop, when the wind blows the cradle will rock. When the bough breaks the cradle will, and down will come Jim cradle and all… hush now Jim, don’t you cry, everything will be just fine.
July 9th, 2006 at 10:26 pm
Uh oh, forgot the “fall” part – but no need to be alarmed.
July 10th, 2006 at 2:44 am
Jim I’m hardly surprised by your answer. if you wish to defend the indefensible thats your choice. The reality, which you should know, is that in practice its the israeli state which has rejected any recognition of palestinian national rights and has sought to deny the historical dispossesion which has afflicted every palestinian. You throw the word terrorism but can i ask you a question: when israel practices collective punishment or targets innocent civilians (as every human rights group who has looked into the fighting has documented) is that no state terror? And do you really mean to tell us that human rights watch USA, b’tselem, amnesty international are all lying? are you serious? Perhaps for you an israeli life really is more valuable than a palestinian one. Shame. And after more than 40 years do you still really believe that the occupation is “defensive” and if so perhaps you can explain to us why there is further annexation occuring in occupied jerusalem and why settlements–which are designed to impede and constrain any viable state– doubled under oslo. The Boston Globe recently carried a first hand account of whats going on in Gaza as we speak. As we watch the barbarity unfold, I ask people like Jim what do you have to say for yourself now?
My life in Gaza
By Mona El-Farra | July 10, 2006
THE IRONY IS almost beyond belief. Since the capture of an Israeli soldier on June 25, the Gaza Strip has been subjected to a large-scale military operation, what Israel calls “Summer Rain.” Because Israel bombed the power plant, and the area needs electricity to pump water, most of Gaza now has almost no access to drinking water. In the heat of summer, rain would be a blessing far more welcome than the ongoing bombings.
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Sign up for: Globe Headlines e-mail | Breaking News Alerts I am already starting to lose track of days and nights, of how many bombs have dropped. Since the main power plant was destroyed, we have had to live with no electricity. What we do get is patchy, and barely enough to recharge our mobile phones and our laptops so that we do not lose all touch with each other and with the outside world.
As a physician, I fear for our patients. Twenty-two hospitals have no electricity. They have to rely on generators, but the generators need fuel. We have enough fuel to last a few days at most, because the borders are sealed so no fuel can get in. The shortage of power threatens the lives of patients on life-support machines and children in intensive care, as well as renal dialysis patients and others. Hundreds of operations have been postponed. The pharmacies were already nearly empty because of Israeli border closures and the cutoff of international aid. What little supplies were left have gone bad in the absence of refrigeration.
Food too is spoiling without refrigeration, and food supplies are low. West Bank farmers threw away truckloads of spoiled fruit after sitting for days and then being denied Israeli permission to enter Gaza. Children grow hungry as we watch the food that could nourish them thrown into the garbage instead. More than 30,000 children suffer from malnutrition, and this number will increase as diarrhea spreads because of the limited supply of clean water and food contamination.
As a mother, I fear for the children. I see the effects of the relentless sonic booms and artillery shelling on my 13-year-old daughter. She is restless, panicked, and afraid to go out, yet frustrated because she can’t see her friends. When Israeli fighter planes fly by day and night, the sound is terrifying. My daughter usually jumps into bed with me, shivering with fear. Then both of us end up crouching on the floor. My heart races, yet I try to pacify my daughter, to make her feel safe. But when the bombs sound, I flinch and scream. My daughter feels my fear and knows that we need to pacify each other. I am a doctor, a mature, middle-aged woman. But with the sonic booming, I become hysterical.
This aggression will leave psychological scars on the children for years to come. Instilling fear, anger and loss in them will not bring peace and security to Israelis.
Ostensibly, this bombing campaign started because of the soldier’s capture. To the outside world it might seem like an easy decision for Palestinians: Let the soldier go, and the siege will end. Yet for Gazans, even in the face of this brutal violence, another decision comes, not with ease, but with resolve. He is one soldier who was captured in a military operation. Today, several hundred Palestinian children and women are locked in Israeli prisons. They deserve their freedom no less than he does. Their families mourn their absence no less than his family does. So while Gazans endure Israel’s rainstorm, most want the soldier held — not harmed — until the women and children are released.
Most Gazans also believe that Israel’s latest assault was pre-planned, that the soldier’s capture is merely a trigger. Israel dropped thousands of shells on Gaza, killing women, children and old people, long before his capture. This time, Israel attacked Gaza within hours of a national consensus accord signed by Fatah and Hamas, which could have led to negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis. That would have pushed Israel to give up control of Palestinian land and resources. Gazans believe that the goal of Israel’s military campaign is the destruction of both our elected government and our infrastructure, and with it our will to secure our national rights.
Though we do not now live with ease, we live with resolve. Until the world pressures Israel to recognize our rights in our land, and to pursue a peace that brings freedom and security to Israelis and Palestinians, we both will continue to pay the price.
Mona El-Farra is a physician and human rights advocate in the Gaza Strip.
July 10th, 2006 at 7:17 am
Israel is an illegitimate, racist slave state that should be dismantled using the South African solution as a model.
July 10th, 2006 at 8:39 am
Heart wrenching stories from a war zone Ahmed. The sad sad part is in only takes one horrific act by radicals from either side to destroy peace agreements that stood a chance. Israel lost a peace making Prime Minister by Jewish radicals. Palestinian radicals have torpedoed several agreements with their suicide bombings.
The territory disputes I am satisfied could be resolved by reasonable people on both sides in the end. It has worked for Egypt and Jordan.
Unfortunately the extemes never give the moderates an opportunity to succeed.
Please don’t play the racist card on me. Of course I do not value an Israel life more than a Palestinian one. I am not Jewish and I am not religious. Any bias I may show is from my understanding of who is being the bigger obstacle to peace. IMHO, the Palestinians must accept Israel and must control the attacks on it. Neither of these has happened yet. I know Abbas is trying like hell against all odds, from his own people.
Virgil, Please speak clearly. BTW, people have claimed I had fallen out of my crib on my head already. They may be right……I can’t remember, but it doesn’t make for a good argument……..does it?
July 10th, 2006 at 8:52 am
“I know Abbas is trying like hell against all odds, from his own people.”
And I should add Israel has not helped him either with this movement into Gaza.
July 10th, 2006 at 11:44 pm
“Heart wrenching stories from a war zone Ahmed”
THis is not a war jim, its a military occupation roundly condemned by international law and subsidised by our government. Israel maintains tens of thousands of foreign troops, 400 00 settlers, checkpoints again against not only UN resolutuons but alos the international concensus. You admit that youve read no books on the topic and get all your information for the mainstream US papers. I’m going to be completly blunt with you here. Your views have been formed from an atrociously biased diet of ignorance and misrepresentation by the media, when the occupation is never referred to in lurid descriptions of suicide attacks, the apartheid wall 25 feet high, five feet thick, and 350 kilometers long that Israel is building is never even shown on CNN and the networks, and the crimes of war, the gratuitous destruction and humiliation, maiming, house demolitions, agricultural destruction, and death imposed on Palestinian civilians are never shown for the daily, completely routine ordeal that they are. Thus its no surprise that people like yourself have such a low opinion of Palestianians and such a distorted view of the power dynamics.
July 11th, 2006 at 1:06 am
And here’s Gideon Levy, the briliant Israeli journalisat Haaretz
“It is not legitimate to cut off 750,000 people from electricity. It is not legitimate to call on 20,000 people to run from their homes and turn their towns into ghost towns. It is not legitimate to kidnap half a government and a quarter of a parliament. A state that takes such steps is no longer distinguishable from a terror organisation.â€
July 11th, 2006 at 8:31 am
Ahmed, do you have some names of academics, who write in English?
I have access to data bases of academic journals….I would like to add more.
July 11th, 2006 at 9:36 am
Sorry, just went through one of your posts;
Khalil Nakhleh
Rashid Khalidi
As’ad AbuKhalil
Illon Pappe
Tanya Reinhart
Jacqueline Rose
Avi Shlaim
Can you add anyone else?
July 11th, 2006 at 9:41 am
Yaeh, I know my spelling sux, I blame spell-check for spoiling me.
July 12th, 2006 at 5:25 pm
Yeah no Palestinian ever targeted a civilian. They take the high road and stage sit ins. I mean these commentaries are so far out of context it’s as if one side has a leftist pass and the other the entire burden.
July 12th, 2006 at 11:10 pm
Hey, Mark York, er Publius here’s an idea for you. IF you take issue with someones comment perhaps you could try actually engaging them in a debate on the substance of what they wrote. Try it out and let me now how it works for you.
July 13th, 2006 at 6:27 pm
I have, but yours is a closed mind and so is this case. If not you would have denied my charge but I see you didn’t and can’t.
July 13th, 2006 at 6:28 pm
“and 350 kilometers long that Israel is building is never even shown on CNN and the networks”
False on its face. Where else would I have seen it?
July 14th, 2006 at 11:46 am
Are you a complete idiot, Mark York. Both sides have deliberately targetted civilians and engaged in grotesque acts of violence. That to me is obvious. But to suggest as you do that there is some kind of symmetry between the military occupation and a stateless people who live under de fact martial law is not only delusional but deeply immoral. The bulk of palestianians who resist the occupation do so non violently. They go to school even when their schools are being bombed, the ytravel through checkpoints, they endure the daily humiliation imposed on them by the soldiers, the settlers, they face unmitigated levels of brutality metd out by the occupation. These are the facts that you choose to willfully ignore. Have you heard about Mustafa Barghouti and the PNI, Hanan ashwari the work of the ISM? Have you not read about the sit ins, the non violent protests against the wall sated by a joint group of palestinans, jews and solidarity activists. Do you read the coverage in Haaretz? This demonstrations are supressed violently by the IDF. Its time for people like you to wake up, shake yourself mout of your racism, grown up and look at whats going on with a sense of honesty.
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