Yesterday I mentioned a Jerusalem Post editorial about settler violence, prompted by the enchanting picture below. I did not get into the full religious delusion of the editorial itself. I am going to excerpt key phrases in that editorial now, to convey as much. And you think we Americans had it bad with Christian fundamentalists! From the JPost:
"…a photo of 'a Jewish settler' confronting
unseen Palestinians in northern Samaria….No group could better undermine the case for Jewish rights
in the West
Bank than settler radicals. In a world predisposed to see all of Judea
and Samaria, and east Jerusalem, as Palestinian… [settler violence has]
spiked, serving to close minds and harden hearts [my emphasis; whose minds are they talking about??] to Israel's legitimate
security concerns and historic civilizational tie to the West Bank. This behavior bolsters the notion that peace can be achieved only by a full Israeli withdrawal to the 1949 armistice lines…
Let's be clear. Only a small number of Israelis living over the
Green Line are extremists. And in some areas, olive harvests really do
pose a genuine security dilemma – with trees growing in proximity to
schools, for instance. [As fervid as the witches warning Macbeth about the Birnham woods!]
…Settler leaders recently launched an advertising
campaign to tell Israelis why we should feel connected to Judea and
Samaria. But radicals running wild in the hills of Judea and Samaria
achieve the opposite. How sad that a relatively small group of fanatics
has been able to divert the spotlight…
Of course it is Palestinian intransigence that is
torpedoing such a solution.
Is it necessary to expain how deluded this is? Palestinian intransigence? What about the insistence in a major newspaper that the whole of Palestine belongs to Jews because of the bible? Would this madden Palestinians who have had no right of self-determination for 60 years even as India, Pakistan, and Israel got theirs? Would it frustrate the two-state solution? My friend Steve F. insists that most of Israeli society is for a 2-state solution. Certainly Olmert is. He can say so only as he is leaving office. And the Jerusalem Post, a leading newspaper, insists on the right to Judea and Samaria? Puts "settlers" in quotation marks? One can only wonder what kind of dreamworld these people are living in, and why Americans hearts and minds, the only hearts and minds that might be open to this madness, are supporting them in this delusion. Remember that David Horovitz, the editor of the JPost, was an honored guest at AIPAC, surrounded by rightwingers, without a non-Zionist in sight. It seems that all these people are truly committed to apartheid–and what Olmert called an apartheid struggle–in the expansive Jewish state whose boundaries they refuse to define.
The JPost and its minions suggest that a civil war is coming within Jewry and Israel over this question. One that actually puts Jeffrey Goldberg and me on the same side, behind Obama, and the bitterenders like Kristol and Horovitz on the other. Obama I have said can triangulate Mearsheimer, Mel Levine, and even Marwan Barghouti, the Fatah guy who in prison worked with Hamas guys to forge a two-state solution offer, and who may be coming out soon. But is it too late to triangulate?
"And in some areas, olive harvests really do pose a genuine security dilemma – with trees growing in proximity to schools, for instance."
Damn. I wish I had thought of that!
"Only a small number of Israelis living over the Green Line are extremists."
Any israeli living over the Green Line and anyone who supports keeping any Israeli living over the green line is ipso facto an extremist. Sentences like the above are the clear signs of bigotry.
Reminds me if a typical Bushie, born on first base and yet always
thinking he hit his way there…
deserves a few good towel snaps in any gym locker room
Damn. I wish I had thought of that!
You should have. Having many, many well educated people is about as important as obstructing the education of other tribes.
In this context, not to be missed: "Israel deliberately forgets its history" by Israeli historian Schlomo Sand in Le Monde diplomatique, Sept. 2008.
http://mondediplo.com/2008/09/07israel
Another ranting post.
An alternative approach would be to distinguish between issues of sovereignty and issues of title. (Although in the mind of fanatics, each are described as "our" land.)
It is possible to distinguish between the two, without resorting to the language that results in ethnic cleansing of Jews from areas of land that they have had historic and recent good title to.
Appeal to "law" rather than "mob".
It will earn you more respect among rational people.
There are 450,000 Israelis that live over the green line.
The options are to:
1. Annex the land and remove the Palestinians
2. Divide the control of the land in a maze by current population
3. Establish sovereignty at the green line to Palestine, but afford the settlers a means to perfect their title to land that is now their real home, and allow them to live peacefully in Palestine as Palestinian citizens.
4. Annex the land and remove the Jews from their homes
I am an OPPONENT of ethnic cleansing, of mass forced removals, in EVERY PRESENT, including this one.
The third option is the most just.
Do you concur?
"I am an OPPONENT of ethnic cleansing, of mass forced removals."
UNLESS it was done to Palestinians. After all, unlike the Jews, they actually lived there for thousands of years. Time to give somebody else a chance.
Many Jews lived there for thousands of years, and were expelled in the 1920's through 1967.
(I never met a "two thousand year old man". I met his son though.)
Actually, it was Rob Reiner I met, not Mel Brooks' son.
"Many Jews lived there for thousands of years."
No they didn't Richard. According to the standard histories of the region the population of Palestine prior to the arrival of the Zionist settlers was 96% Muslim and Christian. Only 4% Jewish. And most of them were in Jerusalem.
I'm surprised you didn't know this.
Many Jews lived there for thousands of years, and were expelled in the 1920's through 1967.
(I never met a "two thousand year old man". I met his son though.)
He is right. There were Jews who paid the price of Zionism too? What did they think about Zionism. What relation did they have to their the non-existant national unity of Palestinans before the advent of Zionism.
4% Jewish in what year?
Jerusalem was majority Jewish, Hebron close to majority, Safed similarly.
There were multiple waves of ethnic cleansing of Jews historically from the land.
There is NO valid statement "we were always there". No one was anywhere. We live in a world of migration, even Palestinians.
"We were always there" ONLY serves the motivation of cleansing of the other.
LAW allows for diversity. Politics is more of a mob approach.
"4% Jewish in what year?"
1880. See any standard history, such as Charles D. Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (2007).
"There were multiple waves of ethnic cleansing of Jews historically from the land."
Before the Zionist influx? Do you have any citations that support this claim? I've never heard it before.
Romans, initial establishment of Islam, Crusades are biggies.
The present-day Palestinians are for the most part descendants of the biblical Jews, per historian Schlomo Sand (see reference to Le Monde diplomatic above), who wrote:
"Then there is the question of the exile of 70 AD. There has been no real research into this turning point in Jewish history, the cause of the diaspora. And for a simple reason: the Romans never exiled any nation from anywhere on the eastern seaboard of the Mediterranean. Apart from enslaved prisoners, the population of Judea continued to live on their lands, even after the destruction of the second temple. Some converted to Christianity in the 4th century, while the majority embraced Islam during the 7th century Arab conquest.
Most Zionist thinkers were aware of this: Yitzhak Ben Zvi, later president of Israel, and David Ben Gurion, its first prime minister, accepted it as late as 1929, the year of the great Palestinian revolt. Both stated on several occasions that the peasants of Palestine were the descendants of the inhabitants of ancient Judea (2)."
"Annex the land and remove the Jews from their homes"
That is the obviously just solution, just as if the US had put 100,000s of settlers into Iraq. Removal of colonists is the fundamental right of the colonised, and in his support/exsuse of this jewish colonialism, Richard Witty reveals (once again) his hatred of the palestinians.
"Romans, initial establishment of Islam, Crusades are biggies."
But Richard, it's not true that Jews were "ethnically cleansed from the land." Not by the Romans, not by the Crusaders, not by the Crusaders. (By the way, it would be impossible to be cleansed by all three goups successively.)
But if your point is that, as Yankee posted, many once-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine converted to Islam, I'm sure you're correct.
There's been much discussion here in earlier threads about the so-called "Roman exile" myth. They included citations of historical works. If you want to disagree, you're going to have to cite your own sources.
Some people find the lachrymose version of the Jewish narrative edifying psychologically, but it's not historically accurate.
You mistranslate Witty's disposition: most of the settlers living in the occupied territories are in the major bloc near East Jerusalem, and were not in the battle of ideology that the West Bank is really Sumaria (although many may sympathise with that thinking) but were used as political pawns to populate the area by enticing them with highly subsidised homes and cheaper living (at the cost of the Palestinians). It definitely is NOT the first time a state has cunningly used their citizens to exploit their goal; Witty feels that their removal would be similar to the removal of dispossessed Palestinians in this conflict, which is not altogether unjust (although in under differing legal circumstances).
Now who's law are we meant to be circumventing towards? A law of occupation? A law of a nation that holds total autonomy over a population that sees their control over them as illegitimate? The law of the UN whom Israel undermined over and over?
Proposal number 3 seems grand but is there a consensus on whether these settlers want to be ruled by a Palestinian state? Or are made aware that this state will be in total dependence on Israel? Would they fear reprisal and possible ethnic tension thanks to this enmity that saw Palestinian relatives removed for their better living?
"Proposal number 3 seems grand but is there a consensus on whether these settlers want to be ruled by a Palestinian state?"
No. They would have to choose whether to live in Israel or in Palestine. If living on the land is most important to them, they will live in Palestine as Jewish Palestinian citizens, afforded equal due process under the law and full citizenship.
If they choose to live in Israel, the Israeli state should assist their return.
Also, the flip side of the proposal is that every Palestinian unlawfully dispossessed of their land, be afforded their day in court, and either compensated or property restored. (My preference is to allow residents to reside, and perfect title mostly by compensation.)
I know firsthand (actually second hand) the tragedy of either no compensation, or compensation even for property taken. (My in-laws were wealthy in Hungary prior to the holocaust, but on both sides of my wife's family, property was taken and not paid for, except in really extremely token and extremely reparations from Germany.)
It is not satisfying, but it is recognition of wrongs (even if necessary and inadvertent), and a statement of wishing to right the wrongs.
And, I also know that even this proposal is extremely unlikely to be accepted in Israel.
Today, Tzipi Livni announced that she was unable to form a coalition government with Kadima as leading party, because of fear by Shas party (sephardic religious party), that she would allow Jerusalem to be divided and sovereignty transferred to Palestine.
So, that leaves likud as the likely plurality winner in a new election in three months (not three years like the US), and forming a coalition with Kadima as minor player, and Shas and other religious parties also as minority players.
It would likely exclude center-left labor party, liberal-left Meretz party (not invited into even Kadima coalition), the two Arab parties (also not invited into Kadima coalition).
A coalition of likud/shas/Israel beitanyu will be an expansionist coalition, extending much more than currently into overtly fascist territory internally, and apartheid-like in the occupied territories.
There is a strong possibility of confrontation with Iran, of increased rate of expansion in the West Bank (still likely to be gradual rather than directly forceful), increased suppression of dissent within Israel, and decrease in regulation of financial and other institutions.
The world melts down financially, and Israel adopts the melted ideology, rather than learning, as the rest of the world is already.
Present day Palestinians are a mongrol people, same as Jews, same as really all people except for Australian aborigines but with different influences (more desert Arab, far less European). The speculation that the Palestinians are THE descendants of the 10 lost tribes, is appealing, but really a forced fantasy.
I'm sure its true that many were prior descendants of former Jewish residents, but not as a people. It definitely supports the prospect of sympathy with Jews' cousins.
Australian aborigines are the only indigenous people that I'm aware of, that resided across an ice age. All others migrated within the last 20,000 years following the last glaciation cycle.
When/if likud wins and Israeli politics move to the right, there will be MANY more Jews in the US attracted to alternative visions of what it means to be Jewish from the nationalist Zionist format (with little spirituality).
Dissent will be the least effective if it requires demonization of Zionism (alternately defined as the self-government movement of the Jewish people, or as intentionally cruel and expansionistic) as part of its line, or demonization of Jewry.
It will only be effective if it suggests mutual decency, reconciliaton, actual peace.
Likud will undertake actions that result in a single-state, as existed prior to the first intifada when the two-state solution was the then goal of Palestinian dissent.
Every ball, for every community, is in the air, none caught, none controlled.
I am worried for the safety of my son, going to Israel on Monday for the next year. I think I'm going to ask him to reconsider.
Is there anyone on here more fucking stupid than Richard Witty? ..if so I haven't seen them.
Pay attention idiot witty…the population of Palestine in 1935..according to the official population Census done by the British, which you may access at the British National Archieves, was 543,000 Muslim Arabs, 54,000 Christian Arabs and 28,000 Jews.
Now,… are you a liar or just stupid? Which is it? It's impossible for a reader of your posts to tell.
And as for this ..
" 3. Establish sovereignty at the green line to Palestine, but afford the settlers a means to perfect their title to land that is now their real home, and allow them to live peacefully in Palestine as Palestinian citizens"
The land your settlers are living on is STOLEN….they have no valid deeds to this land…it's not their home.
You really are a racist witty…why don't you move to Israel. What are you doing in America?
Thank you for your information, Richard.
I have been following Israeli news for a few years now, and I have been very concerned at how Israel can survive, considering that it has such irreconcilable internal differences that it can only unify itself during aggressive action. The government does not seem to be able to control the ultra-orthodox wing, and I'm not sure that removing the settlers is even possible.
If Israel starts a war with Iran, I believe it would be the beginnings of her final death-spiral. Americans will be angry, and will want someone to blame, and the issue of the Israel Lobby is now simmering below mainstream discourse, but not if new trouble starts.
Americans do not need much of a pretext to go to war. The bait has been strung for some time, and the Big Fish will be caught; it's already stinky up there.
Richard-
Your son will be safer in Israel than he would be in the US….much less violent crime here in Israel.
Regarding your proposition no 3—all I can say is that the Israeli Arabs VEHEMENTLY oppose the idea of living under Palestinian rule, which is what Avigdor Lieberman's party proposes (it is really bizarre that he is accused of supporting "transfer" even though he says the Israeli Arabs would remain in their homes but their territory would be transferred from Israeli to Palestinian rule).
The Israeli Arabs would stay in Israel as Israeli citizens under my proposal.
The best outcome is clear majorities in each state, and significant enough minorities to comprise a genuinely multi-cultural society.
One of the criticisms of the Palestinian and pro-Palestinian proposal of remove the settlers is that it is a strategy to make the West Bank "Jew-free", a true ethnic cleansing.
""4% Jewish in what year?"
1880. See any standard history, such as Charles D. Smith, Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict (2007)."
Using 1880 as a reference, 120 years ago, would make it unlawful for the majority of Americans to reside here.
The present is a better reference, if you seek justice, with remediation of title claims, with all arguments heard (including Palestinian prominently) and considered.
"it is really bizarre that he is accused of supporting "transfer" even though he says the Israeli Arabs would remain in their homes but their territory would be transferred from Israeli to Palestinian rule"
Of course that's the ethnic cleansing that he wants, to get the arabs out of Israel where there are some legal restraints on their treatment, to a situation where they can be bombed and starved like the native arabs in Gaza and the West Bank. Like the South Africans who wanted sovereignty for the bantustans with all the blacks having citizenship only for Transkei, barracking the native population into native 'sovereign' entities is the mark of colonial bigotry, shared by A. Lieberman's party.
Of course the Israeli arabs opppose being expelled from Israel — if they are expelled, they will then be bombed and starved by the Israelis like the other native Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. That's what 'transfer' is about.
"Using 1880 as a reference, 120 years ago, would make it unlawful for the majority of Americans to reside here."
I'm afraid you've gotten confused, Richard. It was YOU who said that the Jews had lived there "for thousands of years," as a justification for the cleansing of the Palestinians by the Zionists. I was just correcting you.
Jews have lived there continuously for thousands of years, and have survived recurring attempts to ethnically cleanse them from the land, whether as religious adherents that reject conversion to Islam, or religious adherents that reject conversion to Christianity, or refugees from holocaust and other coerced removals.
There is an historical basis for Jewish residence in the land, including the West Bank.
That is not the same question as dominance of the land.
That is a different political question.