I’m still thinking about the Nakba panel at Columbia last night. Christopher Varley tells me of a tee shirt he once saw a young Arab wearing in Jerusalem: “So how far east do you want me to move?” The Palestinian was of course talking about what Israelis want. Well, we always talk about what Israelis want. There are giant organizations in Washington dedicated to that idea.
But what do Palestinians want? That was the beauty of the conversation in Schermerhorn Hall last night. Jews were asking that question. What do Palestinians want? A simple question, maybe a complex answer. I don’t know. Don’t we need to ask?
Related posts:
- Nakba Commemoration at Columbia U. This Week
- ‘Times’ says there are equal #s of Jews and Palestinians between river and sea; Mearsheimer says, more Palestinians
- Tough Israelis Tell Mearsheimer, ‘Give the Palestinians a State in Jordan’
- ‘Deep Down Obama Gets It’–Says Woman Who Elicited Candidate’s Statement that ‘Palestinians Suffer the Most’
- Aaron David Miller: ‘Palestinians Fired at Israelis, Leaving 85 Palestinians and 16 Israelis Dead’
{ 24 comments }
I think that what most Palestinians want is what Kissinger once wished for: that the Bible had been written in Uganda.
Article seven of the elected government of the Palestinians, the guys in charge, is pretty clear. I really am curious what the Jewish tree is because evidently that's the one I can trust
Moreover, if the links have been distant from each other and if obstacles, placed by those who are the lackeys of Zionism in the way of the fighters obstructed the continuation of the struggle, the Islamic Resistance Movement aspires to the realisation of Allah's promise, no matter how long that should take. The Prophet, Allah bless him and grant him salvation, has said:
"The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews." (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem).
Very good question.
Decolonisation.
Like South Africa: some settlers leave, others disarmed and deprivileged, under the political influence of the native arab population.
Who is a settler Otto, which Jews would that be. And why should Israel voluntarily commit suicide?
We don't know, we will never know, what the Palestinian people really want. But we know what they do. Phil, for all his hatred of strong Jews, is not ready to embrace a policy of killing Jews for sport, so he pretends the Palestinians want something else. Maybe they do, but in any event its irrelevant.
Their identity is now based solely on their hatred of Jews. The Arab world, Israel, and to some extent the United States has created this monster. It's a shame, but it is a monster, and the monster must be destroyed.
I can speak for myself as a Palestinian: All I really want is to have the right to live peacefully, own property, and move freely on the land of my ancestors, regardless of what God I believe or don't believe in.
I emphasize that I personally don't necessarily want to live, own property or move freely in Palestine. I want the RIGHT to do those things. Once Palestinians have the right to do this, that's really all I care about, and where I live becomes a mundane personal question where Palestine, NY, London and Rio are assessed on their mundane virtues.
For me, the issue of property, return and free movement in Palestine is not important for these goals themselves, but for the vital importance of getting rid of the hateful evil ideology that denies those things. Similarly, the strugglt in the American South was not specifically about access to bathrooms and bus seats, but about fighting the hateful evil ideology that denies those things.
This is the fundamental racist stupidity at the heart of the Zionist argument for Palestinians to 'compromise'. You can not compromise into accepting that you are a lesser human. The only possible compromises can happen after we've gotten rid of the racist laws that deny people their basic rights because of religion.
OT:
Richard, are you familiar with Dennis Fox's weblog?
http://blog.dennisfox.net
I ask because in his youth he seems to have been an earnest, left/humanist zionist not unlike yourself, and then he went to live in Israel and apparently his ideas changed.
He paraphrases Joel Kovel's take on zionism: "Zionism’s logic could only lead to a state built on inequality and expulsion."
On the one hand, Richard, you seem to have signed a vow that you would never allow any information or facts to affirm such a view in yourself.
What Phil calls "bearing witness" you often try to impugn as "propaganda" originating in the Palestinian side. Dershowitz would no doubt agree with you….
(Actually the source of the rhetoric is almost entirely humanism and justice. Regarding the attitude of Hamas etc., one day you are going to perceive that the Nakba itself inculcated the most extreme passions of the Palestinian militants and over time, probably served to confirm any anti-Jewish rumors about treatment of "the goyim".)
Certainly no matter what optimistic progressive vision of zionism you hold, you can admit that the zionist reality in the Middle East has been one of brutal military triumphs, a colossal loss of life and livelihood surpassing even the crusades, and is essentially aggressive and hostile to any opposing it?
(That trimphalist characteristic even colors your rhetoric about "no zionist endgame in sight".)
This is strikingly different tone than the one which tries to refute the Joel Kovel argument above.
So, are you proud that zionism hasn't let human lives interfere with its eventual glory? Do you not consider yourself a little bit imperialist?
These are also some good questions, worth answering, not to us here, just silently, to yourself, first.
I think the Palestinians would like their land back. I don't think they have any other problem with Jewish people whatsoever. This is true of Muslim, Christian and Marxist Palestinians alike, in my view.
The Palestinians are not antisemites in any classical sense. They are merely "anti-squatter". If all the Zionists would move to say, Skokie Illinois, they would never hear another word from the Palestinians except, "shalom"… in both its meanings.
There is an immense effort of disinformation and propaganda whose objective is to cloud the perception of this very, very, simple fact.
Very good question.
Posted by: Richard Witty | April 29, 2008 at 09:09 AM
Oh!! Richard. I can't believe my eyes.
So if we do not like to read your long meandering notes, we have to admonish Phil to head your advise?
i cannot speak for the palestinians as a group or for an individual palestinian. i would like to see justice. this scares israelis/zionists.
"All I really want is to have the right to live peacefully, own property, and move freely on the land of my ancestors, regardless of what God I believe or don't believe in. "
Sounds fair to me.
"This is the fundamental racist stupidity at the heart of the Zionist argument for Palestinians to 'compromise'. You can not compromise into accepting that you are a lesser human. The only possible compromises can happen after we've gotten rid of the racist laws that deny people their basic rights because of religion."
Don't ask Jews to fundamentally compromise either, even by any math or inference, and you might get somewhere. Historically and presently, we've been asked to accept abuse, and resent it.
Unwillingness to compromise is NOT a virtue in my opinion. I believe that Jews/Israel/Zionists SHOULD be willing to compromise even things that are fundamental, so that others may live well.
I expect the same of virtuous, courageous, thoughtful Palestinians.
I don't see that determination need be constructed of aggressive rhetoric. It frankly upsets me that you shift so, Saif. Where I suspected a humanization of the other, I get the condemnation that describes a dehumanization of the other.
I wish you would acknowledge the importance of self-assertion to a people, to the Jewish people, and actively appreciate that element of it, even if you desire for it to evolve into some condition that is more convivial and just.
I'm a Zionist in the sense that I affirm the right of the Jewish people, a nation, to self-govern. That definition does not necessarily require suppression of another, but it does require the assertion to remain.
There are MANY Palestinians that do assert the importance of a Palestinian nationalism, not just the individual right to travel/own/reside freely. And, for some, the form of that nationalism allows for Israeli nationalism, and for some it doesn't at all.
The reality is that Israelis are there, and will not conveniently not take up space, not exist. And, the reality is that Palestinians are there, and will not conveniently not take up space, not exist.
Cosmopolitan? National? Theocratic?
"All I really want is to have the right to live peacefully, own property, and move freely on the land of my ancestors, regardless of what God I believe or don't believe in. "
Sounds fair to me.
"This is the fundamental racist stupidity at the heart of the Zionist argument for Palestinians to 'compromise'. You can not compromise into accepting that you are a lesser human. The only possible compromises can happen after we've gotten rid of the racist laws that deny people their basic rights because of religion."
Don't ask Jews to fundamentally compromise either, even by any math or inference, and you might get somewhere. Historically and presently, we've been asked to accept abuse, and resent it.
Unwillingness to compromise is NOT a virtue in my opinion. I believe that Jews/Israel/Zionists SHOULD be willing to compromise even things that are fundamental, so that others may live well.
I expect the same of virtuous, courageous, thoughtful Palestinians.
I don't see that determination need be constructed of aggressive rhetoric. It frankly upsets me that you shift so, Saif. Where I suspected a humanization of the other, I get the condemnation that describes a dehumanization of the other.
I wish you would acknowledge the importance of self-assertion to a people, to the Jewish people, and actively appreciate that element of it, even if you desire for it to evolve into some condition that is more convivial and just.
I'm a Zionist in the sense that I affirm the right of the Jewish people, a nation, to self-govern. That definition does not necessarily require suppression of another, but it does require the assertion to remain.
There are MANY Palestinians that do assert the importance of a Palestinian nationalism, not just the individual right to travel/own/reside freely. And, for some, the form of that nationalism allows for Israeli nationalism, and for some it doesn't at all.
The reality is that Israelis are there, and will not conveniently not take up space, not exist. And, the reality is that Palestinians are there, and will not conveniently not take up space, not exist.
Cosmopolitan? National? Theocratic?
How did all this begin? In 1880, wasn't most of the land at issue
96% Arab-occupied for centuries? Jewish immigration gradually escalated. What appeared in the early days? New Jewish immigrants who had purchased land from absentee Arab landlords grew crops, hired their own, etc. The ordinary Arab
suddenly found that his goats couldn't roam and chew as had been so for centuries. As more and more Jews came, the ordinary Arabs found they were being left with the worst land, and they gradually banded together. The Arab intellectuals in the big cities picked up on the growing tension, the Palestinians became aware that as a group they were slowly being dispossessed from the land of their forefathers. Ethnicity and religion fanned the flames of what had once been isolated examples of class conflict. Riots commenced in the 1920's and 30's.
The Brits, fighting WW1, had promised both the Jews and Arabs what each conceived as their respective just deserts. But, up until the later 30's, the Brits had mostly protected the Jews–when the Arabs finally grew a loud black voice, one could say, the Brits curtailed Jewish immigration.
Hitler invaded Poland.
The usual story regarding colonialism took on a new partner: Auschwitz. Truman rubber-stamped the joint venture to defeat Dewey.
The simplest fact in all of this is the Arabs, now known as Palestinians, were originally completely innocent. As innocent as Anne Frank or Rosa Parks.
How long before saifedean's heart is respected by action?
Look at what's going on in the USA's election.
Look what happened to Bush I when he tried to curb settlement
expansion. Look at the letter his son handed to Sharon.
Look at the history of Algeria.
The Jews don't care about democracy. They want a permanant safe haven, and in a style they'd like to take as custom. I don't blame them. The Palestinians want the same thing.
If the Zionists took Uganda, as the Americans have taken Iraq (and are now imposing Gaza-style occupation on it), would we really have to ask, What do the Ugandas want?
ML King said it all, and for everyone.
sorry for the dupes–typepad's defense against robobots in defective action.
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"I'm a Zionist in the sense that I affirm the right of the Jewish people, a nation, to self-govern." — R. Witty
During the past couple of centuries, quite a few new "nations" were proclaimed in Africa, Asia and the Middle East, governed by expatriate Europeans. Ultimately, all but one transitioned to local rule, either democracy or autocracy.
The exception is Israel, which exerts control over the Palestianian territories, but (owing to the Zionist obsession with a Jewish supermajority) refuses to extend them either nationhood or citizenship.
Zionists are caught in a trap, because to come out and admit that an ethnically exclusive state is their goal would sound racist, and would bring fresh global condemnation. Yet as long as the real goal remains concealed behind the smokescreen of "security," no peace settlement is possible. Proposals have to be rejected for contrived reasons.
Ethnic cleansing is what zionists need to do, to achieve what they really mean by a "secure" Israel — one in which Jews will forever be a large majority. But there is no internationally recognized right to have an ethnically exclusive state. So stalemate prevails. And time is not on Israel's side.
The Jews deny the right of the majority ethnic population (until 1965, the biggest groups were from England, Germany, and Ireland) to retain demographic power in the USA, but push the Jewish demographics in Israel under any mask available.
And the USA government rubber stamps this.
Why? Other than the American campaign finance system?
That seems the real answer.
In the past certain people were born to privilege. The USA came up, standing for equality in the wake (or dross) of the French Revolution and European Enlightenment.
The USA forgot the native Americans. Yet the Puritans were political refugees.
Jews trot out America's history to defend their policy.
As If there's been no Nuremberg Trials.
Israel is destined to go on the Nurmeberg docks as soon as
average Americans wake up. The crisis at the gas pump might provide the boost.
The easy way the gas pump crisis in the USA went over in the 1970's will not be repeated.
Arabs are smarter.
The internet is here.
Many will wake up from their slumbers.
What Congressional committees would be relevant to the questions of US policy towards Israel/Palestine?
Who is on those committees?
Don't worry, they are American Jews and those in their pocket.
It's been that way for a long time, Richard. As you know.
Any other comments on what Palestinians want?
Charles,
One's own representative may not be on the committees that effect anything at all, and writing to them about Palestine might effect them once a bill comes to vote.
But, that representative wouldn't have the means to initiate anything.
Committee members get to initiate legislation, and are the critical people on specific subject areas.
They get lots of mail, and screen it, but intelligent mail does get read. Ranting rarely does.
Well said saifedean. Do you know other Palestinians who might be willing to contribute on this blog? I'm sure Phil would agree they would be very welcome participants.
'It frankly upsets me that you shift so, Saif. Where I suspected a humanization of the other, I get the condemnation that describes a dehumanization of the other.'
Oh just go away and give us a week or so off from this stuff Richard, please. Saif referred to hateful ideology etc, not Jews. Stop mischaracterising others' positions and opinions to better fit with your evasions.
'I wish you would acknowledge the importance of self-assertion to a people, to the Jewish people, and actively appreciate that element of it, even if you desire for it to evolve into some condition that is more convivial and just.'
Imagined response from Saif – 'OK Richard, I acknowledge the importance of self-assertion to a people.. happy? Now get your co-religionists off my family's land'!! How would that strike you Richard? Too 'polemic'?
'What Congressional committees would be relevant to the questions of US policy towards Israel/Palestine? Who is on those committees?'
No prizes for guessing, surely. AIPAC stooges to a man I would hazard. Would there be even one Arabist, let alone an Arab?
'Any other comments on what Palestinians want?'
Just their land back thanks, if that's OK.
Richard won't have it. He himself and his property, is protected by Gentile police. His son will return the favor by joining the IDF.
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