Eric Alterman has an excellent piece of reporting on Israel at 60 in the latest Nation.
Though it has a Zionist backbeat–Alterman describes his own intense
relationship with Israel; I wish other Jewish
journalists would be half so honest about their attachment–it can be
read as a companion to Ian Lustick's forthcoming piece in Middle East Policy about an Israel that has lost its way of conceiving its relations to the outside world (now linked at Lustick's site).
Alterman describes many of the same currents Lustick has also put
his finger on: the feeling that it is "five minutes to midnight," as
political scientist Naomi Chazan says; that Israel is on the verge of
"semi-sanctioned" apartheid or a one-state solution; that it can't
leave the occupation and it can't justify it either. Also, Alterman
picks up the end-times feelings throughout Israel about the Muslim
world. Even at the liberal Jewish magazine he's associated with,
Moment, Alterman reports, many contributors subscribe to the idea that
you can't deter Iran, they only want to destroy Israel, so let's hope
the U.S. takes Iran out. Sounds like Dissent, 20 years on.
Alterman is a Zionist, and I fault the piece for being immured in
the Israeli narrative, for not having more imagination. Lustick sees
the same desperate situation in a more detached manner and sees the crisis as a failure of both Zionism and anti-Zionism, says that creative leaders must help
the Israelis and their neighbors to imagine a pathway out of the
desperately mistrustful situation that they have come to, whatever the
terms of that resolution are, in order to end the existential
nightmares that now proliferate in the region. Alterman places faith in his Israeli informants. He dismisses the idea of a
one-state solution as satisfying only a tiny minority of Israelis (none
of whom he speaks to, as he also eschews the occupied territories, and
the Israeli right wing). And he offers the following ideas about
peace:
interviewed think it will be necessary to work out a way for the
hard-core settlers to remain where they are but be located inside
Palestine. After all, if they are so attached to the land–rather than
the state–let them stay on the land in another state. [Novelist A.B.] Yehoshua was
particularly animated on this point. "If you will give the Palestinians
the maximum amount of the territories but say to them, 'You will have to
take 60,000 to 70,000 Israeli Jews as Palestinian citizens, and you can
have your secular Palestinian state,' that would be a great outcome and
could facilitate the transition. The American Jews will pour money on
them, and this will benefit their economy." His hopes go so far as to
plan for platoons of Israeli Arabs to protect the settlements inside
Palestine to provide a "bridge" between the two nations, "knowing, as
they do, the intimate codes of the two people." Yehoshua shares Chazan's
view that if you strip the conflict of ideology and religion, it is
solvable.
Well O.K. But if you strip the problem of
religion and ideology, then why not let Zionism go out the window, too, and it's two
people learning to live together? If you strip the problem of religion
and ideology, you actually do find your way to a one-state solution. If
you insist that the Palestinian state is secular, well, can the U.S. even make that insistence in Iraq? Did the U.N. make that insistence when it partitioned India and Pakistan? Notice also Yehoshua's assumption that the U.S. will
lavish money on the new Palestinian state. And I guess we will do that. But
this has been the assumption all the time, that we must sanctify with cash the arrangments that brutalized people halfway across the word come up
with. If we have to pay, then we get to play. Americans must try to
help these people reconceive their future, and that includes Americans
who are not Zionists.
This is not a serious suggestion. Many of the settlements are on land that Palestinian consider there own and surely they will have a real estate law that recognizes this.
Therefore the settlers would be evicted. No Israeli government could stand by while Jews were being evicted from the biblical lands.
Alterman is just coming up with another plan that will never work, just like the two state solution. These are charades without end that are designed to perpetuate the status quo.
Israelis I interviewed think it will be necessary to work out a way for the hard-core settlers to remain where they are but be located inside Palestine.
I find this a very interesting scenario too, for many reasons.
But not so much this: platoons of Israeli Arabs to protect the settlements inside Palestine. I would take a close look at the history of this security enterprise. It goes way, way back. Didn't it start like this with the first Yishuv? With Arabs as guards? And that later were exchanged with Jews?
Hmmm? The Towers of Yorke
Phil:
Alterman's article is an excellent review of mainstream liberal and left-wing opinion in Israel. Both Alterman and most of the people he talked to are people I feel close to politically.
The reason I see you as intolerant in your stubborn anti-Zionism is that the one people in the world you don't seem to care about are your fellow Jews. If one state could work for both Jews and Arabs, that would be great; I'd be all for it. But it's a fantasy. Sixty years of conflict have proven this — first, because the Arabs violently rejected even a small Jewish state in 1947-48, and now because the settlements have created an intractable problem for Israel.
I totally agree with A. B. Yehoshua that the Palestinians should offer Israelis settlers the right to live as a minority in a Palestinian Arab state in an analogous way that Arabs live as a minority in the Jewish state.
the settlements have created an intractable problem
Dunno, Ralph–Nothing like a tractor to solve the intractable!
I even know of an American company that makes bulldozers, and I think they have offices right there in Israel!
Why not remove the settlers the same way that Samir Nasrallah was removed from his home? Seemed to work…
Or is that the caterpillar-wielding zionists hold the intolerant position?
Ralph:
You don't seem to get it. We non-chosen don't want to support your damned ethnoreligious state anymore. As you might have noticed, our traditions forbid the establishment of any state religion– that is perhaps the most important part of our country. Your privileging of one religion over others is not compatible with that tradition, and your lobbying groups will not be able to hide this incompatibility for ever. We don't want to give billions of dollars, year after year, to another state that oppresses and occupies people based on ethnoreligious difference. I especially don't want to be giving my tax money to a state that would exclude me from being a citizen based on ethnic or religious difference.
You can do whatever you want with your racist state, but don't ask us to pay for it any more, especially when houses in Detroit are selling for a dollar, upwards of 40 percent of Americans don't have adequate healthcare, and our infrastructure is falling apart.
You are breeding resentment here in the US, whether you admit it to yourself or not. Please make arrangements to make it on your own, without the patronage of your super-sugardaddy.
Alterman's proposal is the most viable, as I've been stating publicly for four years.
It solves the issue of sovereignty, the jurisdiction of the new state. There is no need to protect the settlers' insistence of annexation of the settlement blocs. They are not Israel. They are Palestine.
If the settlers want to live in Israel, then they should return to geographic Israel.
As it is CRUEL to forcefully remove anyone, let alone 450,000, the Palestinian state would then likely find a way to allow the individual settlers to perfect their individual title in most cases, NOT cavalierly throw them out of their homes.
And, it would create a precedent by which Israel would be expected to rescind its prohibition from return per the 1950 laws, and allow for similar perfection of title of land within Israel, by compensation, and making what is not yet consented, consented under consistent rule of law.
Within Palestine, while it does not get the media or left's attention, there are similarly disputed title issues to resolve.
It gives both states the opportunity to revive to a state of lawfullness, rather than less than full civil law.
The attribution of the geography as Palestine says NOTHING about the relevance or irrelevance of Zionism perse.
It is an elegant expression of humanism, that could result in peace and democracy in both states.
As the left poses, it is likely that Palestine will define a less democratic state for the absence of minorities and the issues of fairness that that compels.
While Israel has done less than perfectly, Palestinian residents ARE legally full and equal citizens of Israel.
In some ways "more equal" than conservative Jews that wish their marriages to be considered valid.
"[M]ost of the Israelis I interviewed think it will be necessary to work out a way for the hard-core settlers to remain where they are but be located inside Palestine"
The essential political aim for the Palestinian arabs – a need they have had for about a hundred years now – is to protect themselves from racist Jewish colonialism. So to say that they must accept the racist colonials staying is just the same as arguing that they should accept the racist colonials under the British occupation pre-1948 or that they should accept them under the Israeli occupations since 1948: the whole point of Palestinian nationalism is that they should not have to accept these bigots colonising them any more, so Alterman is just one among many allowing himself to accept Israeli chauvinism as THE major constraint on his 'peace' proposals, which thus remain colonial and unworkable proposals. He's just calling for Palestinians to accept defeat and bantustan status in another guise.
In addition, the settlers would continually appeal to Israel and the Israeli armed forces to interfere in the Palestinian state, to protect their interests and privileges, so there would be no effective sovereignty in the issue that mattered most, just something like the Panama canal zone, with very privileged colonists and a constantly interfered with native 'sovereign' government and population. And Israel would use any efforts by the Palestinians to remove the settlers, which would be inevitable given the hatred these groups have for the populations in which they have been deliberately embedded, to expel and ethnically cleanse the Israeli arabs (yet more! and again!).
'The reason I see you as intolerant in your stubborn anti-Zionism is that the one people in the world you don't seem to care about are your fellow Jews.'
Utter balls. Phil, unlike yourself and Alterman too, sees himself as a human being first, Jew second. Phil is cluey enough to understand what is obvious to most of us without a blood-tie to this issue – that Zionism, like all nationalisms, is dangerous to it's enemies, but in the long run even more poisonous to it's adherents.
You appear to use Zionism as a test of ethno-religious soundness, as if anti-Zionism equals self-hating antisemitism. Is that right? 'Caring about your people' must involve adherence to an ideology that implicity supports the dispossession and oppression of another people – yes?
A Jew who criticises or opposes Zionism is, so far from 'not caring' about his people, out in front of you lot in terms of discerning the clouds on Zionism's horizons and the sort of weather they are likely to bring Jews everywhere.
'first, because the Arabs violently rejected even a small Jewish state in 1947-48, and now because the settlements have created an intractable problem for Israel.'
This makes it sound as if the settlements occurred naturally, like evolution or climate change, and Israel had nothing to do with them, an innocent bystander. Israel BUILDS them Ralph; they don't just happen.
And I love the almost deliciously sly way you characterise the Arabs' rejection of Israel's theft of their land as 'violent', while the settlements just 'exist', seemingly not commissioned, violently or otherwise, by anybody. That sort of bias seems to be imprinted in some people, as if the bald prejudice involved simply doesn't register with them.
While you and Alterman and Dick Witty wring your hands and furrow your brows, yet more Palestinians are having their land confiscated so that blow-in Jews from anywhere can take up residence there. If this is creating a problem, stop Israel creating the settlements.
'As it is CRUEL to forcefully remove anyone, let alone 450,000, the Palestinian state would then likely find a way to allow the individual settlers to perfect their individual title in most cases, NOT cavalierly throw them out of their homes.'
Oh blow it out your ass Richard. This hypocritical balderdash is, or ought to be, beneath you. It takes some chutzpah to be able to say such a thing with a straight face. You want, or rather expect, the Palestinians to behave like Gandhi when the shoe is on the other foot, but while your mob wear it, the jackboot is fine, eh?
'I totally agree with A. B. Yehoshua that the Palestinians should offer Israelis settlers the right to live as a minority in a Palestinian Arab state in an analogous way that Arabs live as a minority in the Jewish state.'
I don't think the settlers would be all that thrilled by such a notion… would they be happy to be treted as second class citizens by the people they used to lord it over, with the IDF at their shoulders?
Alterman's idea seems designed to prolong the agony yet again; the only game plan the Zionists have left.
'He's just calling for Palestinians to accept defeat and bantustan status in another guise'
That about sums it up.
These settlers who will be allowed to remain in the OT, they will be citizens of the new Palestine? Like Doug Feith is a citizen of the U.S.? And they will fulfil their responsibilities to their new home just like Doug did to his?
This is a phony proposal. If Israel is incapable of dealing with its citizens who are breaking the law, then it does not deserve recognition as a state. The Palestinians can rightly claim that they have no one with whom they can work.
There won't be a "Palestinian" state.
And the Jews will not only live in the Jewish state- including Judea and Samaria, but will also return home to Gaza (for the 7th time in history).
STATISTICS: JEWISH POPULATION FLOURISHING IN JUDEA AND SAMARIA
The Jewish population in Judea and Samaria is rising steadily despite Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's stated freeze on building in the expanding Jewish communities in the stony green hills that carpet the region.
The latest figures released by the Interior Ministry show that the Jewish population growth in Judea and Samaria is triple the 1.7 percent increase in the entire Israeli population.
========================================
PEACE NOW DOCUMENTS YESHA GROWTH, COUNCIL PROUDLY ACKNOWLEDGES
The Yesha Council of Judea and Samaria Communities responded to the Peace Now report, thanking the group for documenting the positive phenomenon of Jewish growth in the regions liberated in the 1967 Six Day War. “The latest report proves that Jewish settlement in the area does not stop for a minute, not due to terrorism, building freezes, political pressure, or legal decrees,” the council said. “We thank Peace Now for documenting this important Zionist enterprise.”
Council members expressed satisfaction with the report’s finding that Jewish population growth in Judea and Samaria continues to be three times that of the growth within pre-1967 Israel. The Yesha Council said it hopes to see the Jewish population in the area pass 300,000 by the end of next year.
========================================
NATIONALISTS THANK PEACE NOW
A "Peace Now" report finds that Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria (Yesha) has nearly doubled, mostly east of the partition wall.
The ultra-left radical organization, which seeks a Palestinian state in Judea and Samaria – areas of Israel populated by hundreds of thousands of Jews – states that the rate of new construction in Yesha has jumped 180% compared to last year. It further finds that 55% of the new construction is happening east of the partition wall, most of which is designated by the Road Map plan for a future Palestinian Authority state.
MK Uri Ariel responded with good cheer. "Finally, after years of Peace Now causing strife and dissention in our society, it finally brings Israel some good news," said the National Religious Party/National Union party whip.
Thanks for noting that Alterman chose not to meet w. Palestinians to gauge their view of Israel at 60. Naturally, it helped focus his story better. But it also left out 1/2 of the narrative.
You're wrong in stating that Alterman didn't meet w. the Israeli right. Benny Morris certainly counts as a member of the right.
I also think Alterman made at least one mistake in stating that Tzipi Livni's father was "an extremist minister." He certainly was an extremist. But I highly doubt he was ever a minister (though I haven't done any research to prove this).
The basic problem with the idea is that the vast majority of settlements are on stolen land. The expansion of the settlements always results in more land being stolen.
Any such proposal would entail massive amounts of compensation to the Palestinians who have lost their land due to settlement foundation and expansion. But that is assuming Palestinians would find financial compensation acceptable – quite often (as Jewish settlers offering to buy Palestinian land have discovered) they don't want money – they just want their land back.
My own solution would be brutally simple – on an advertised date simply withdraw Israeli Army and Border Police units. Make it very clear to all parties that after midnight on dd-mm-yy the units will be withdrawn to the Green Line and will not participate in operations beyond the Green Line unless Israeli is under a military invasion.
Most of the settlers, the majority of whom have been enticed to live on the settlements by a variety of financial incentives (basically cheap housing and subsidised utilities) would move back to Israel well before the advertised date.
That would leave a remaining fanatical hardcore who would become de-facto land thieves. It's then a process of using various financial measures, coupled with isolating the settlements (no food, water, electricity) in order to persuade the settlers to leave. The siege would enable the settlers to present themselves as heroic victimised Jews being turned out of their homes, which is their favourite narrative, and to eventually leave with pride and honour intact.
I really hope the Palestinian state, under heavy pressure from the E.U (the USA has absolutely no sway on the Palestinians; as due to numerous facts Phil documents here the USA haszero credibility) closes down the settlements peacefully.
Unfortunately the plan I've outlined probably would result in a number of Palestinian and Jewish deaths. But hopefully in the majority of cases the settlers could be persuaded to leave peacefully. This is what happened in Gaza, which came as a surprise to many of us. In any case the ongoing occupation results in violence and death on a weekly basis.
In time, I see a small Jewish minority existing within Palestine, as has been the pattern of life for centuries. The focus for this community would be the handful of settlements that were established by legally buying land from Palestinians.
Roger,
That's a lie. MNot even the Paleos can claim that.
And of coursre, THEY will return the Jewish-owned land that they stole- in Hebron, in Gaza, around Jerusalem, and elsewhere.
There won't be a "Palestine", and if the Arabs can't live in our land in peace, then they can't live here at all.
They will leave for their own lands elsewhere.
Fears.
The significance of the Alterman description is that what happens in Palestine is Palestinian law.
If Palestine itself wants to be more rhetorical and angry than practical, then it as a state would have lawlessness as a precedent, rather than compromise and accommodation.
What was is no longer.
It is no longer for the Jews that lived in the region 2000 years ago, clearly. It is no longer for the Palestinians that lived there 60 years ago.
Whatever solution even occurred within Palestine would be a new one. And, it would have to decide if it wanted to be governed by the rule of law, colorblind, consistent, principled, or a political standard.
Consistent color-blind rules of property would be part of that precedent setting.
In Europe, as a result of Nazi, Russian, American, French actions (all of them), former property rights were thrown up in the air. The "facts on the ground", meaning peoples' current homes, were honored, regardless of how they came to them. (With exceptions).
The wrong is the continuance of the annexation, and the state participation in the continuance, and the historical failure to allow valid claims to land that does have documented support for different title than currently.
"Mafish"'s proposals are not accepted anywhere currently, and are extremely remote that will be accepted anytime. And, if acted on, would quickly result in the universal condemnation of Israel, and permanently, including the US.
It would not achieve any strategic security, nor any fulfillment of Torah in any interpretation.
Richard S,
Your bitter post sounds odd to me, and different from your formerly stated goals.
Richard S,
Your bitter post sounds odd to me, and different from your formerly stated goals.
Richard what exactly is it that you find bitter about Richard S's response?
His anger generally?
1. That he considers it wrong to ignore the Palestinian narrative?
2. That he labels Benny Morris as a member of the Israeli right.
3. or Livni's father an extremist?
I have no idea about Livni's father, or the circumstances that caused his perspective. … But that not one side can decide is obvious and the only road to a "sustainable" solution. Concerning Morris, many, many would agree. (Can we please have a collective psychoanalysis for both Israelis and Paletinians …)
Lately I have noticed a couple of instances that tell me Richard Silverstein is very much on the radar of the people who cherish Israel's influence and power and love black and white colors (the good vs evil tale) in this context.
I thought you didn't.
Is the arrogance of Mafish Falastin more acceptable than Richard's anger to you?
If Richard S values Israel's security as Israel, through the means of a just peace, then we are one the same page.
I would expect that he would also be on the same page in what is important as Alterman and Seliger.
But, if he finds compromise of his own observations or specific conclusions as a basis to "break", then he might be in fact hindering peace efforts.
For those that regard "kick them off the land" as appropriate response to 450,000, I have severe ethical questions about your reasoning.
If Phil's in that column, then I have similarly severe ethical questions.
There is no "restoration" as there was no starting point, no original status, at least as far as the current parties are concerned.
And, it is NECESSARY to separate issues of sovereignty from issues of title and application of law, otherwise one ends up fascist, no matter how progressive one thinks they started.
Why do you avoid my questions? Richard.
This is a recurring phenomenon. Why don't you tell me what exactly triggers your suspicion concerning his response?
The settlers will have to leave, period. They were were placed there after Palestinian families had their homes and livelihoods destroyed by fanatical jews. And not that long ago either.
Alterman and anyone else who believes that zionist crazies will be allowed to stay in a Palestinian state is out of their freakin mind…..
"For those that regard "kick them off the land" as appropriate response to 450,000, I have severe ethical questions about your reasoning."
Really? Return to where you came from is unethical? Return that which you have stolen, unethical? Justice, unethical? International law, unethical?
You my fine cultist friend have no conception of ethics.
Zero….
In
Since you define conditions–if, but's–and end in the suggestion that Richard Silverstein is either heading towards or guilty of fascim (the utter discussion killer):
otherwise one ends up fascist, no matter how progressive one thinks they started.
you should be prepared to show what exactly led you to this conclusion in his 9 lines. Where is the hard evidence of a latent fascist tendency or fascism in his lines below:
Thanks for noting that Alterman chose not to meet w. Palestinians to gauge their view of Israel at 60. Naturally, it helped focus his story better. But it also left out 1/2 of the narrative.
You're wrong in stating that Alterman didn't meet w. the Israeli right. Benny Morris certainly counts as a member of the right.
I also think Alterman made at least one mistake in stating that Tzipi Livni's father was "an extremist minister." He certainly was an extremist. But I highly doubt he was ever a minister (though I haven't done any research to prove this).
See if you can wrap your little pea for a brain around the fact that Israeli Arabs are home – they come from and have lived in "Israel" for thousands of years.
Israeli settlers are most often fascist nutters coming from Israel(all 60 years of its existance)or from America or Europe.
There is simply no ethical comparison between the two groups, unless of coure you believe jews to be somekind of superior master class of human.
Clearly you do.
See if you can wrap your little pea for a brain around the fact that Israeli Arabs are home – they come from and have lived in "Israel" for thousands of years.
Israeli settlers are most often fascist nutters coming from Israel(all 60 years of its existance)or from America or Europe.
There is simply no ethical comparison between the two groups, unless of coure you believe jews to be somekind of superior master class of human.
Clearly you do.
See if you can wrap your little pea for a brain around the fact that Israeli Arabs are home – they come from and have lived in "Israel" for thousands of years.
Israeli settlers are most often fascist nutters coming from Israel(all 60 years of its existance)or from America or Europe.
There is simply no ethical comparison between the two groups, unless of coure you believe jews to be somekind of superior master class of human.
Clearly you do.
I was referring to Richard at all in that post, but to the previous posters here who insist that some arbitrary past date is the reference date and only approach to contested legal claims.
Richard's tone relative to Alterman and prior to Seliger were reactive, bristled, and in my view arbitrary.
At one point earlier he stated that he breaks with anyone that considered Israel's response to Hezbollah in 2006 (at any reference point) to be appropriate.
So, he broke with me at that statement.
There is no perfectly just about any decision with regard to Israel/Palestine/Lebanon. All actions involve some element of injustice.
For example, to forcefully remove 450,000 is unjust by my book. Those that advocte for doing that to achieve "justice" willingly undertake major surgery to cure a lesser illness, all when there are alternative methods (none painless).
That was I wasn't referring to Richard S at all.
Not if a deal is made. Settlers given property rights as recognized by Palestinian law, in return for restoration of property rights of some of the Palestinians in Israel.
We have a perfect speciman in Richard
Witty. Instead of engaging him, which is pointless, let us examine the phenomenon that he represents.
Within two sentences of his posts, I know who it is and immediately scroll past him. I can tell who it is, his sentences cause a characteristic brain fog, only his style can do this.
Does anyone have any theories of how his mind works? One thing I have realized and amazes me , is that even with all the blatant hypocrisy, he truly believes what he says.
Peters,
You said nothing in that last post, in complaining about how I say nothing.
The issue on the table is the proposal to orient to Palestine/Israel at 67 borders, and what it would take practically to get there.
The options that I see are the militant option:
1. Throw the settlers out (all of them, including those that are basically non-religious, non-expansionist civilians buying inexpensive housing near where they work). It satisfies a political litmus test but NOT a legal one, which is determined on an individual case, and not by generalization.
or the negotiated option:
2. Allow those settlers to remain that are willing to live within sovereign Palestine, and compensate sufficiently to perfect title (in a color-blind manner, ie independant of the ethnicity or religion of the current owner). Maybe the state would pay the majority of compensation.
It creates a PRACTICAL means to achieve the multiple objectives of a viable Palestinian state, without engaging in a subsequent injustice to remedy a prior one.
Law deescalates the pendulum swings of one injustice done to remedy a prior one, to remedy a prior one, to remedy a prior one. It gets to consent. "WE ACCEPT".
If Palestinians choose not to accept, then likely they will face the "solution" of forced removal.
Its not a solution, its just a war.
The two-state proposal is a solution, though noone will be perfectly satisfied. That's why they call it compromise.
The people making this proposal are not genuinely worried about the settlers' "attachment to the land." The settlements were never located at sites of religious significance, but were positioned by Sharon in order to control the aquafirs and block any possibility of a coherent Palestinian society emerging. The settlers' only attachment is to the idea of a regionally dominating Israel.
What's really driving this proposal is the old Zionist panic over those pesky Palestinians they forgot to purge from the Jewish sector in 1948. As long as the Zionist behemoth was moving forward, it was always assumed that the future would bring some answer to this problem, such as dumping them in Jordan during the next "existential crisis." But now that the Zionist engine has gone into reverse and it looks like Israel will soon have declare its borders just like everyone else, there are fewer and fewer possibilities for ever creating the racially pure state that has always been the goal.
By falsely suggesting that there is some parallel between the legal status of the Arab population inside the Green Line and the settlers of the OT, Zionists are trying to lay the foundation for some kind of deal that will rid them of their "demographic problem." I'm surprised Alterman fell for this.
On my style.
I don't enter into discussions that resemble interrogation. Been there, done that.
Leandor stating "why didn't you answer my direct questions" will nearly certainly be frustrated in talking with me.
You can call that pointless if you desire to "win".
If you want to dialog, we can get there.
If you start with the premise that Israelis have no right to be there at all, not even a conditional or relative right, then we don't have a basis of communicating at all.
If you are interested in solving a tangible problem, that would be a useful discussion, that can be based on mutual respect.
"By falsely suggesting that there is some parallel between the legal status of the Arab population inside the Green Line and the settlers of the OT, Zionists are trying to lay the foundation for some kind of deal that will rid them of their "demographic problem." I'm surprised Alterman fell for this."
Its not parallel. The only common status is that of less than perfected title, that can be perfected within the context of law.
Forcefully removing 450,000 will confirm the opinion of the majority of Israelis that the Palestinians regard Israelis as "not there", a repitition of nazi or Jim Crow invisibility (except as a "problem").
Replacing one injustice with another, solves nothing.
NOONE posting here lives on land that they have parallel perfected title to. Anyone in North America is living on "stolen" land. Anyone living in Australia is living on "stolen" land. Anyone living in Europe is living on "stolen" land.
But, we live, and therefore have the rights of residents, however we came to reside, by virtue of our ancestors theft and brutality, by purchase from someone guilty of theft and brutality.
Facts on the ground cannot be undone, they can only be healed.
We aren't living on stolen land in the last 30 years, Twitty.
We aren't living on land in contravention of international law.
We aren't living on land that was stolen during a so-called peace process.
After approx 12 million innocents were slaughtered during the WW2, including approx 6 million jews, to steal land and property and to 'cleanse' the Nazi state for ethnic 'purity' – the world decided that you couldn't just do that kind of thing anymore and made it the most grevious crime around.
Thats why we had no problem kicking Iraqis out of Kuwait, as but one example.
Israel illegally, immorally obtained Palestinian land by aggressively attacking its neighbours. And after this crime they proceeded to colonize land they were supposed to vacate as outlined by res. 242 after the '67 fiasco.
450 000 jews can be removed peacefully if they agree to return to where they came from not that long ago – or they can be removed kicking and screaming as they did in Gaza.
There was simply no valid reason for them to be there outside of the religous fanaticism that put them there in the first place.
Again – less than 30 years ago and into the 21st century of the modern era; by a people who became famous for uttering the phrase "never again", Palestinian families were callously kicked out of their homes without compensation, in some cases beaten, murdered
and we're supposed to believe that removing the people who have done this is wrong – and even more should be allowed to continue to stay in there homes after the illegal occupation of the territories has ended?
Also keep in mind that these fanatical trash have been able to live and thrive by stealing not just land but vital water resources while being protected by the Israeli army and having Israeli law ignore the abuses and crimes of the settler population in the West Bank.
Keep dreaming, Richard….
And which individuals are those fanatical trash.
Or, do you just lump every Jewish resident of suburbs of Jerusalem with every Kahinist outposter.
Agree to return to where they were not long ago.
You mean, within their mothers' wombs? Or, go back to Russia? Or, are you suggesting (like Ed and Ahmenijidad) to go back to Poland?
And if some of them wanted to stay and fight so they can continue their little racist utopia than they can die for their racist beliefs.
The world can do with a few less religous fanatics who believe that a God gave them license to steal land, or that He thinks they are better than everyone else and so are above human laws.
Don't ya think?
I know you do….
I don't have any stats to work with, but I'd say the solid majority believe they are there according to God's will….
I don't know where they should go, to be honest. Back to the countries where they came from – most of them still have there passports I'm sure.
Did you care what happened to the thousands of Palestinians who were kicked from their homes, Richard? Where should they have gone?
Oh right – Jordan. Hey – maybe the Jordanian government will take them?
I don't know about you, but I don't worry about them too much. Unlike the Palestinians I have a notion that they'll receive some kind of compensation package for their troubles….
Leandor stating "why didn't you answer my direct questions" will nearly certainly be frustrated in talking with me.
Richard, as you noticed, I assumed you did answer my questions, what exactly made you so angry about Richard S.'s mail in a slightly meandering fashion. Inquisitorial? No! Curious? Yes, definitively.
And yes, I have understood that there is a loyalty litmus test for you surrounding the Lebanon war. Which he failed. So your animus has a longer history; although not the one I suspected. I was wondering if your response was influenced by the slurs against him I have read recently, e.g. by Daniel Pipes among others.
Besides you should have noticed by now, that I defend people under attack almost automatically . Its one of the features I find most hard to control, and thus easy to notice.
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Besides Leandor is an interesting name, it's not the name I use though, that is: LeaNder. I got used to it after all these years.
Those Palestinians that are struggling should be helped.
The political outrage does not accomplish that.
It only punishes another.
For those that were born in the settlements (the suburbs and the outposts), that is there birth home, their native land.
For those that have lived in the settlements for more than a short period of time, those are their homes, their now native land.
For those whose parents were dispossessed but never saw the land that they were dispossessed from, it is not their native land. It was their parents.
The former villages literally do not exist anymore. A great tragedy.
But past.
What is just in the present?
Are only past realities part of your math of what constitutes justice?
How would you include the present facts on the ground into your consideration? The facts that are people, living breathing soulful people?
next week i will visit israel.
i want to see:
Auschwitz-Birkenau
Treblinka
Bełżec
Sobibór
Chełmno
Majdanek
Maly Trostenets
before the squats collapse this ersatz entity by the weight of their deep hate.
take pride jewry. never has such concentrated hate been gathered on earth. and only the size of a growing new jersey.
Feels the question mark here wasn't intended:
What is just in the present?
was it? How about an exclamation mark? Why not turn in into a definition of justice altogether. What is now, settlements and outposts, is present thus it must be just. What is gone is past and thus must have been unjust. Sad, but gone; and just, since present.
What is just is the present!
or better still:
Justice is presence
Injustice is past
Richard, for someone interested in the deeper human layers in the poetry of existence the philosophical, spiritual aspects of life like me, you often feel like an utterly unhuman indoctrination machine.
Justice considers both present and past, mostly present towards making the future decent.
Resentment considers only the past. It has NOTHING to do with justice.
Negative emotions/feelings: resentment, dislike, hate, anger, …
vs
Positive emotions/feeling: Fondness, affection, liking, love …
You will agree that both layers are highly subjective, unstable but also basic layers in the human experience with all its stains.
Your definition of resentment as only related to the past, does not feel very helpful to me. The Nazi's resentment clearly spring-fed the vision, the fata morgana of an empire for thousand years to come.
This corresponds with my experience. What do the scriptures say on this issue?
"I was angry with my friend: I told my wrath, my wrath did end. I was angry with my foe: I told it not, my wrath did grow." – William Blake
If your orientation is reactive, oriented to anger at the past, then it will yeild angry results.
If your orientation is solving a problem of reconciling two sets of needs, then it will yeild solving the majority of those needs, but probably not all.
Outrage that ends at outrage, that doesn't proceed to design and consideration accomplishes a SMALL minority of needs fulfilled.
If your orientation is reactive, oriented to anger at the past, then it will yeild angry results.
If the above angry, reactive anger originates in Israel, matters are absolutely different, I guess. Aren't they? (see e.. Yossi Klein Halevi, Lustick, p. 35. Have you read it?)
That you consider Richard Silverstein the problem and not the mindset that wants to nuke the ME into surrender, makes me wonder if you only present yourself as interested in a solution with the Palestinians but in fact deeply abhor it(see Halevi) . After all the only thing Richard demanded was dialog with the Palestians, he wanted to see their wishes and ideas presented next to the Jewish Israeli ones. And that is a threat for you? Something you can only discuss via a distorted discussion of resentment, which of course is always "theirs" and never "ours.
Richard S. did nothing but demand a "balanced view" wanted to know something about the Palestinians side. Why is this an utter necessity in some contexts but not in others? What is your balance rule?
Could it be it something like:
Every Palestinian narrative has to be balanced with the Jewish point of view. But the Zionist or Jewish Israeli narrative does not need such a balanced account, since it is a democracy and a righteous nation.
East Jerusalem's education crisis
from BBC News
Israel's main civil rights group is planning a mass protest to highlight the inadequate provision of classrooms and school places in East Jerusalem. Tim Franks has been to meet some of the children who do have places in public classrooms, but finds the conditions in which they are being taught to be crowded and unsafe.
It is best to wear sturdy shoes to reach the overflow wing of Shuafat Elementary School for Girls. You get to the entrance over a small hillock of rubble and broken glass. Most of the pupils at the girls' school live in the Shuafat refugee camp.
It has been that way for the last 15 years, the length of time that the school has been open. Two hundred and eighty-five girls between the ages of six and 10 are crammed into a house, which was built as a home for a single family…………
ENTIRE ARTICLE- link to news.bbc.co.uk
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