The second day of the One State for Palestine/Israel: A Country for All Its Citizens? conference had a much more ominous tone than Day 1. It focused on the long road to building a one state solution – from the obstacles of the current moment to the challenges of building the movement to get us there.
One of the reoccurring themes of the day was the incredible amount of violence that the speakers expect Israel to use to maintain the status quo. The day started with Phyllis Bennis reminding the audience that just because the two-state solution is dead doesn't mean that one state is assured. Rather she expects that a two state "solution" will be imposed on Israel/Palestine that keeps the current inequalities in place.
As'ad Ghanem spoke next. Ghanem is a Palestinian citizen of Israel and a preeminent Palestinian academic who has been at the forefront of calls from the Palestinian
community in Israel for equality and national rights. He began his talk with the joke "here is the session with the bad news." Then he continued:
The bad news is that if Israeli is ready to conduct a mass killing in the West Bank and Gaza, and the starvation policies for 2 million Palestinians in Gaza, if the danger comes from Haifa . . . if I'm sitting in the Israeli cabinet with Avigdor Lieberman and Barak and Netanyahu, I mean just imagine they are more than ready to conduct another ethnic cleaning than in '48. Israel is ready to conduct another ethnic cleansing.
This idea was repeated throughout the day – the war in Gaza was just the latest chapter in a historical process that began over 60 years ago where Israel has appropriated Palestinian land through force. Although much attention is given to the incredible ethnic cleansing that took place in 1947-49 with the founding of the state, many speakers expect it could happen again and think the incoming government is capable of doing it.
In addition, as Ghanem's quote above demonstrates, the speakers did not expect the violence to be isolated to the occupied territories. Ilan Pappe referred to the recent riots in Umm al-Fahm as a practice run at for increased military control of Palestinian communities inside Israel. He also warned that the violence in Gaza was "just a preamble." For all the visionary thinking of an egalitarian future, Nadia Hijab summarized the current focus as simply trying to stay on the land that Palestinians currently have in the face of Israel's ongoing efforts to force them into smaller and smaller areas. All in all, a pretty sobering day.
One of the most important points of this discussion to me was the point that this violence is not an arbitrary decision, but the inevitable outcome of maintaining a system of such inequality. Ali Abunimah said this best:
Even to maintain the status quo, Israel would have to carry out escalating Gaza-style massacres on a regular basis in an attempt to terrorize and subdue the Palestinian population. In 2009, if you support Israel's claim to be a Jewish state, you must also in practice support its massacres, because those are the price of maintaining it.
This is an electrifying statement, and one that I think is true. The violence that both Palestinians and Israelis face are tied to maintaining a system where Jews are given special and exclusive rights over others. While Jewish Israelis do face the threat of violence, Palestinians face the threat of wholesale massacres like we saw in Gaza. And the speakers though it will only get worse.
I defer to them in their reading of the situation, the speakers at this conference certainly knew a lot more than I did. It is a terrifying and humbling thought and I think this is part of what gave this conference such energy and urgency. The movement for equality and justice in Israel/Palestine is not just a
movement to "do the right thing", but a movement for survival.
Compare south Africa, which had to conduct colonial style wars in Namibia, Angola, and Mozambique (not to mention lower profile efforts elsewhere). This was for a number of reasons, but I think a principal one was to make itself appear to be the indispensable assistant in the region to the global hegemon, the USA.
Well, yes, Israel will need to conduct small-scale counterinsurgency operations in response to a small but growing rocket and terror threat, but labeling these as "massacres designed to maintain the status quo" just reminds me that the speaker is the son of the former Jordanian ambassador the the UN, a demonizer of Israel whose goal is the destruction of the Jewish state and its Jewish population, and a sanctimonious prig with no sense of proportion.
Rowan – no, S. Africa fought in Southwest and Angola to prevent those countries becoming ANC bases, or at least to make it as difficult as possible for them.
Savimbi's UNITA made it almost impossible for the ANC based in Angola to journey to S. Africa.
Just like the French in Algeria, the S. Afrikans were winning militarily, but bankrupted financially to the point where the continous effort – military and political – bankrupted the country.
Now, there is no danger of that happening to Israel, because of our (yours and mine) tax dollars being guaranteed by obama, bush, clinton, the whole congress and house of reps no matter what.
Why, we could be in a depression and 30 billion would still be guaranteed by our PR person of the year aka the POTUS.
Oh, sorry – IS guaranteed no matter what.
Suck on that, GM and auto companies who want 4-6 billion LOANS.
America has its priorities straight, n'est-ce pas?
So sayeth Euro-hasbara:
"Well, yes, Israel will need to conduct small-scale counterinsurgency operations in response to a small but growing rocket and terror threat, but labeling these as "massacres designed to maintain the status quo" just reminds me that the speaker is the son of the former Jordanian ambassador the the UN, a demonizer of Israel whose goal is the destruction of the Jewish state and its Jewish population, and a sanctimonious prig with no sense of proportion."
Yep, just what we expect from the Israel-only hasbara tag-team — don't debate the facts, attack the speaker. Euro-hasbara is worse than a "sanctimonious prig." He channels the Nazi regime's dehumanization of the other side (the landowners). It's just this kind of out-of-step rhetoric that further isolates the Zionists from humanitarian, two-state Jews . . . not to mention the entire rest of the world.
History will not be kind to Zionists.
"the speaker is the son of the former Jordanian ambassador the the UN"
Why do you feel that being the son of the former Jordanian ambassador to the UN reflects badly on somebody?
'Small scale counter-insurgency operations' apparently now includes air-strikes in Sudan.
Finally, a post that is cutting to the chase.
Good. This is the issue, and it is finally being framed for the American audience (or, at least, a tiny proportion of it…)
That tiny proportion that has antisemitic tendancies.
it amazes me that the holocaust has always been used as leverage to justify ( silently or not) this special ticket to commit a similar action on the palestinian people… i guess this comes from being a special 'chosen' people on the one hand, and an equally depraved desperate people on the other, being both at different times depending on the collective zeiglest at the time i suppose…. talk about fucked up…
Yes, Rowan. One air-strike by drones, with 100% target destruction, and no civilian casualties. I fear for the Palestinians on the day their war against Israel no longer becomes cheap and easy to contain, and every Israeli family counts a victim, rather than those like myself (the rather-extensively-bombed non-settler indigenous-since-ever Jerusalemite Jews) being written off as unlucky whiners.
I don't like being lectured on the improprieties of a Jewish state by a man who owes his station as a critic of Israel to his father's job with the Hashemite government. HE is the artificial creation of an artificial state, the non-person rulers of an unpeople. I don't have as much of a problem with real Palestinians, many of whom are ISRAELIS, many of whom are Jerusalemites, and just as critical of Israel and with far more reason and more leverage.
This is a test from TypePad Support.
This is an example of why America might be able to regenerate itselfafter the fall..the concept of standards even in war and the insistence on justice …is still working in some quarters.
You will never see this happen in the IDF in Israel. They have no standards, no regard for justice or honor. They worship themselves and the life of jews and no one else…that is all there is to them.
History will talk about them the same way we talked about nazis. The only difference being no one ever called the German army cowards.
US soldier gets 35 years in deaths of 4 Iraqis
2nd US soldier convicted of murder in deaths of 4 blindfolded Iraqis; gets 35-year sentence
GEORGE FREY
AP News
Mar 30, 2009 12:54 EST
A U.S. soldier convicted of murder in the execution-style slayings of four blindfolded Iraqis apologized for shooting one of them in the back of the head, but said he acted out of concern for his fellow troops.
"Nothing is harder than losing a soldier," Sgt. 1st Class Joseph Mayo said in closing arguments after he was found guilty of murder. "Or calling a mother or a wife and telling them that you tried, but wondering if you did enough. I apologize to the military for what I've done. I apologize to the soldiers; I never wanted them to have to go through this."
Mayo told the court — just lawyers and a judge, with no jury — that he shot one of the Iraqis with a 9mm pistol. A judge-only decision is possible in military courts.
Mayo of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, pleaded guilty to premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit premeditated murder in the proceeding at the U.S. Army's Rose Barracks in southeast Germany.
He pleaded not guilty to obstruction of justice in the incident, which happened while he was deployed in Baghdad. Military prosecutors later dropped that charge.
The 27-year-old was sentenced to 35 years in prison with the possibility of parole and will be incarcerated at the military prison in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He will be dishonorably discharged, have his rank reduced to private and forfeit his pay, though not immediately.
His lawyer, Michael Waddington, said Mayo would testify against another soldier involved in the incident and could be eligible for parole in about 10 years. Mayo has been in the Army for nearly a decade.
Col. Jeffrey Nance, the judge overseeing the proceedings, told Mayo that he "entered into an agreement to commit premeditated murder" that saw the four Iraqi men shot in the head by the side of a canal in Baghdad between March and April 2007.
According to testimony Monday and at previous courts-martial, at least four Iraqis were taken into custody in spring 2007 after an exchange of small arms fire with Mayo's unit.
The Iraqis were taken to the unit's base for questioning and processing, although there was not enough evidence to hold them for attacking the unit. Later that night patrol members took the Iraqis to a remote area and shot them so that they would not be able to attack U.S. forces again, Mayo testified.
He said the unit's first Sergeant, John Hatley, 40, instigated the plan and that Mayo and another senior member of the unit, Sgt. Michael Leahy, volunteered to help kill the detainees.
Earlier this year, Leahy, 28, of Lockport, Ill., was convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after he admitted to the killing of one of the detainees and shooting another. He was acquitted of murder over a separate incident in Baghdad in January 2007.
Nance asked Mayo if it was his intent to kill the prisoners, and if he was frustrated by the thought that, if detained in the usual way, the prisoners would soon be back on the street to shoot at U.S. soldiers.
"Yes sir," Mayo replied.
"If we took (the) individuals to detention they'd be released in a matter of days," he told the court. "(Hatley) said we should take care of them. I agreed."
"I believe I was acting in self-defense," Mayo said. "I just wanted to take care of my soldiers."
But he admitted that neither he nor his men were in any immediate danger, as the detainees were blindfolded with their hands bound.
Hatley, who is also accused of pulling the trigger, will be court-martialed on charges of premeditated murder, conspiracy to commit premeditated murder and obstruction of justice on April 13. He also faces murder charges from the separate incident in Baghdad in January 2007. The Army has not released a hometown for Hatley.
Waddington said that under a deal reached with prosecutors, Mayo will testify at Hatley's court-martial.
Two soldiers — Spc. Steven Ribordy, 26, of Salina, Kansas, and Spc. Belmor Ramos, 24, of Clearfield, Utah — pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit premeditated murder and were sentenced to prison for their role in the incident last year.
Staff Sgt. Jess Cunningham, 29, of Bakersfield, California, and Sgt. Charles Quigley, 28, of Providence, Rhode Island, had charges of conspiracy to commit premeditated murder dropped this year.
All were with the 1st Battalion, 18th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade, 1st Infantry Division. The unit is now part of the Germany-based 172nd Infantry Brigade
Yes, Rowan. One air-strike by drones, with 100% target destruction, and no civilian casualties. Posted by: Eurosabra | March 30, 2009 at 10:44 PM
– haha, yes, right — they were all members of the Iranian Pasdaran militia, blacked up to look like Sudanese independence fighters. Well, they're all black for good, now.
Secondary detonations from Fajr-3 rockets will do that, you know.
Again, cheap, easy, and disposable.
But longer-range, better rockets. They're trying. First one to carry GAS ends Gaza.
Do you think they are too sane to try that? If they were sane, they'd have stopped the rockets long ago. There are plenty of Arab/Islamic regimes that simply sit and hate (Egypt, Jordan), a few that prepare the next war (Lebanon, Syria) and some sub-state and state actors (Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran) doing their best to destroy Israel.
Interesting how none of the discussants note that the violence of '47-'49 was initiated by the Arabs with the intent of destroying the Jewish community of Palestine, and that all of the discussants are okay with the ethnic cleansing of Jews. Hard to see how withdrawal from Gaza was intended to maintain the status quo, and why the war had to spill over into Israel, except for Hamas's genocidal goal.
They are honest about the destruction of Palestine's Jewish community having been the Palestinian goal for at least the last 90 years, they are just phrasing it in a way that blames the Jews.
Israelis are not Jews.
There is scant evidence they are human beings.
Regardless of whether Abunimah meant his comment as agit-prop or not it still seems to me to embody a truth that Israel ought to pay attention to. In essence it's making yet another South Africa parallel, saying that unless there's an agreement the non-Palestinian arabs are going to be perfectly happy to see this chronic violence go on, and so once again in a different way than Olmert talked about recently concerning "apartheid" you have the South Africa comparison all over again via chronic violence.
And if Israel thinks that by merely showing that this or that person who they kill or are after are terrorists, well, Nelson Mandela would have qualified for sure as one too, and the world sure don't look unkindly on him.
And for any Israeli who still views what Abunimah says with complacency the statement coming out of the Arab League meeting in Qatar saying that the Saudi/Abdullah proposal is going to be yanked off the table soon unless it's accepted ought to shake them out of same. The truth of the matter for the last few decades at least has probably been that except for Iran and to a much lesser extent Syria the rest of the arab states have not done much to help the Palestinians in terms of money for arms, arms themselves, technology to fight and etc. Indeed on the whole the Egyptians have probably done much actively obstructing the Palestinians' use of violence. And what the statement from Qatar might well mean is that at least some of this is now subject to change.
I have often seen Israeli condemnations of the Saudis as a sort of root of their problem in a way, but I suspect that the Israelis have seen nothing yet if the Saudis want. Merely taking the handcuffs off their billionaire private citizens to start sending dough if not their sons to the Palestinians and Hezobullah and etc. could make a huge difference, not to mention if the Saudi gov't itself started secretly using its money and resources to help the Palestinians. And whatever else the U.S. does it isn't going to go to war with Saudi Arabia, nor even impose any sanctions upon it.
In essence this just might be the first signs of a sea-change taking place in the situation, overturning decades of what we think of as the status quo. Even if many of the arab countries don't mind seeing Iran squeezed over its nukes, that's still going to strike them as yet more unbalanced policy by the U.S. always squeezing them and never Israel. So maybe what we're seeing now is their advance memo to Obama that he's got to do something to be fairer because their patience is coming to an end.
It's a bit early yet to predict this, but it sure seems more possible today than yesterday.
Secondary detonations from Fajr-3 rockets will do that, you know. Again, cheap, easy, and disposable. But longer-range, better rockets. They're trying. First one to carry GAS ends Gaza. Posted by: Eurosabra | March 30, 2009 at 11:35 PM
These Fajr rockets are part of the smoke and mirrors, Euro trash boy. there is no independent evidence of any sort regarding what the victims of the airstrike were doing, or even who they were. As for the GAS (as you put it), that is a product of your own imagination, which reminds me of Aaron Klein's — he is always inventing phony Abu's, who tell him implausible things like "We are ready to flood downtown Tel Aviv with poison gas as soon as brother Meshaal gives the word."
Eurosabra, do you feel safer in the knowledge that all of your neighbors are united in their hatred of you? The weakest, you consider insane, because they won't stop resisting, no matter the cost or the odds. Others sit and bide their time. Others actively prepare for the next battle. Don't you think it's just a matter of time before they have the upper hand? Wouldn't this be a good time to reach out and make peace, before more people get seriously hurt?
SN,
Interesting idea that Saudi might want to make itself a front-line state in the war against Israel, but I suppose if people as culturally opposed to Shia Mujahadin as the Lebanese can decide to hold their nation's future hostage to Iran's decision to fight to the last Southern Lebanese Christian (cf. Israel's refusal to get suckered into the destruction of Ait a-Shaab), then surely an imminent Qaeda Kingdom can decide to self-immolate.
They won't, though, because Israel is Saudi's and the Emirates' natural brake on Iran.
Euro:
Sound points but I wonder if that braking idea isn't getting less valid in the Saudi and Emirate eyes? After all what do they see but that the continuation of the I/P conflict and Iran's steadfast support of the P's has just *enhanced* Iran's prestige in their Islamic world and amongst their populations.
Not unlike the somewhat weird effect of the U.S. piling into Iraq to combat extremism, and in some ways strengthening Iran.
Indeed, but for the I/P conflict, and the Israel/Syrian tensions where would Iran be? Nowhere near as prominent on the world or even the regional stage, right? The Saudis and Emirates and others could then just probably count on the ancient arab/persian antipathies to at least keep themselves fairly secure with their own people and watching Iran with a dubious eye. But Iran has made itself a hero of sorts with Hizbullah, and now that people see that the "facts on the ground" are such that if no settlement is reached fairly quickly there will never be a two-state solution, well, it's now or never maybe in their eyes.
E.g., if forced to choose, they will choose siding with Iran against Israel, no?
Plus, they do have the U.S. now sitting on either side of Iran, which constitutes some pretty big possible brakes, and I think they sense that the U.S. would indeed come to their defens now in the event the Iranians did try something frontal on them.
Lots of speculation on my part, but they do seem to be playing their cards in the direction to keep this open at least, true?
Saudi has had plenty of wars against Israel to which to send "expeditionary forces", and somehow, it's never been much of a priority. Why would the major Sunni Arab power eliminate one leg of the triangle in order to face Shia Iran alone, especially when it is MUCH closer to Iran than Israel, and Iranians have VERY long memories of the Saudi support for Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war?
Unless of course you think that the only thing that matters is Islam, in which case the position of the Israeli Islamic Movement becomes…interesting. And infidelicious.
What the al-Saud family wants is for the US to SUSPECT that it might have to do more to keep the Kingdom happy vis-a-vis Israel.
I remember the US drone strike on "Mullah Omar" in Afghaistan, except of course that the poor dead individual was not Mullah Omar. Israel has a habit of declaring any individual killed by a drone a terrorist after the fact. The "proof" of the drone victim's terrorist activities is the fact that he/she was killed by a drone. Lovely circular logic, because, of course, the IDF never make mistakes and never kills civilians.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/23/gaza-war-crimes-drones
"What the al-Saud family wants is for the US to SUSPECT that it might have to do more to keep the Kingdom happy vis-a-vis Israel."
Got a horse-laugh from me with that one; they've undoubtedly gone to sleep thinking about how to do that on the cheap every damn night *since* '67 . (And the "infidelicious" line was worth a smile too.)
I dunno about it being all bluff now though, I think the strategic environment has changed there, or maybe just some fundamentals have been revealed that were unclear before. As I said, if you were of the al-Saud's what would seem the best way to stuff Iran back behind its borders and thereby lessen its prestige amongst the masses? A settlement of the I/P conflict, right? May even persuade Iran not to drive towards a Bomb, or to abandon whatever further development of same it might have in mind.
And what would worry the hell out of you? No settlement, a conflagration, Israel having at Hizbullah in Lebanon and maybe the need to occupy a good part of same again. Syria getting drawn in, an intifada at the same time … in other words a forcing event. Oil through the roof, demand through the floor, all at a time when their other investments in the West are in the dumpster.
Sure, the Saudis and others have resisted more involvement in the past, but at a price, and with falling oil revenues it ain't so easy to buy off their people with trinkets anymore. And, right or wrong, there does seem to be the sense that it's now or never for a two-stater. (With even Obama looking set to accept this via that paper he commissioned and will be getting shortly.)
So as a Saudi what's better in lieu of a settlement? A conflagration? Or at least just getting the monkey off their back by more actively supporting the Palestinians to keep throwing themselves against the Israeli wall? At the very least it seems to me it would be to do *something* to prevent the Iranians from completely controlling the Palestinians and becoming the Islamic hero-state.
You're clearly right though that they'd greatly prefer first to just use words to try to get Obama to do something and bluff a bit. But just the fact that are doing that at least says something to me at least. Why now, for instance? Maybe they think that they can't sustain any bluff, so they aren't now.
Circumstances can force you into a corner of having to choose, and I note that you didn't deny that if so forced that the Saudis would indeed have to side with Iran instead of Israel, right?
Very interesting issue, but gotta get some sleep. Don't know what time it is where you are but it's pillow time here. I'll look for your thoughts in the morn.
Eurosabra wrote:
"Interesting how none of the discussants note that the violence of '47-'49 was initiated by the Arabs with the intent of destroying the Jewish community of Palestine, and that all of the discussants are okay with the ethnic cleansing of Jews."
Eurosabra how could you think to get away with this traditional Zionist narrative at this stage? Ik was exploded around thirty years ago and Benny Morris, one of those who laid the bombs under it, hasn't changed the more accurate version in his more recent publication on the events of 1947 – 1948 in spite of his shift to the right politically.
The Arab 'invasion' of 1948 was preceded by civil strife,lasting about five months, in which both sides were guilty of violence that was however often initiated by Israeli troops. This period was apparently decisive for the fate of the Palestinian community. It was destroyed and exiled. At that stage the Arab powers decided to come in. That they had the common goal to 'drive the Jews into the sea', as the traditional narrative has it, is belied by the fact of their hopeless disunity and disorganisation.
Morris holds the Zionist myths up to the light and finds them wanting. One of his exercises in this regard is particularly apposite in view of Eurosabra's murmuring. I quote from Slaim's review of his book:
" One example is the tendency of Israelis to hail the "purity of arms" of their soldiers and to contrast this with Arab "barbarism". "In truth, however," writes Morris, "the Jews committed far more atrocities than the Arabs and killed far more civilians and PoWs in deliberate acts of brutality in the course of 1948." "
Adam,
I hear your sadness. I am sad too that the focus of a prospectively humane idea originates and remains in the mode of "resistance".
It dooms even the effort to be considered the diplomatic machinations of an enemy.
It needn't be that if the proponents are clear about the positive statement of what their goal is.
If their goal is a civil, consented single democratic state, then they would focus on what creates a democratic state rather than the negative expression of that (what they oppose).
It must have been disappointing for those that actually do propose a single democratic state.
Among the Palestinians that you met, did you get the sense that they considered that THEY were part of a new state in which they were enthusiastic peers with the Jewish majority/minority, or did you get the sense that they considered the new state really Palestine?
Ana,
They don't and I don't, really. Most of the Israeli Islamic Movement has been actively complicating the State without tipping their hand as an underground, while most Jerusalem Palestinians have been preoccupied with daily life and resurrecting the institutions of an incipient Palestinian state. (To say nothing of Israeli-Palestinians farther west, who have a socio-cultural investment in the Palestinian cities of the coastal plain, Akka-Haifa-Jaffa.) The ability to sustain this dualism in the face of a coherent terrorist offensive by localized, decentralized forces is a challenge. Gaza, and Jenin before it, is at the heart of the Palestinian war effort, such as it is, while the truly scary ones are farther out–Lebanon, Syria, Iran. The problem is that the rhetoric, at least, brooks no compromise–an Islamic Palestine from the river to the sea is EVERYONE's end goal, with the caveat that there will be a few nods to socialism by the PFLP, and that Fateh is powerless to impose it, and the Islamic Movement is still busy playing footsie with the State of Israel, at least until such time as the Northern/Southern Branches decide to anathematize each other and wage civil war as in Gaza.
I suspect that Daniel Bar Tal's study has classically described Eurosabra's accepted narrative.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1060061.html
Ethnic cleansing of resident wogs in the 'only democracy in the Middle East' is now on the table, and all we can do is wait for the justifications for it.
It will come to pass, sooner rather than later, and then there will be a campaign to gain Israeli Lebensraum.
"And for any Israeli who still views what Abunimah says with complacency the statement coming out of the Arab League meeting in Qatar saying that the Saudi/Abdullah proposal is going to be yanked off the table soon unless it's accepted ought to shake them out of same."
I wouldn't be too concerned about the proposal being yanked off the table. What's their alternative? Declare war?
When the US wakes up to the very real fact that they haven't actually got billions of dollars to throw to thst shitty little Levantine country, the Israelis (Ashkenazi or Sephardim) will be left on their own.
The Sephardim/Mizrahi will adapt, as they have done for a couple of millenia, but the Ashkenazi will have to go home.
Welcome back to Moldova, Mr Lieberman!
Julian's perspective – and that of every other Zionist scumbag on this blog – is rooted in Israel's military strength (relatively speaking).
Notice how he dismisses the chances that the Saudi Peace plan would be rescinded.
The emphasis is: Israel would beat them up, so they have no choice.
Israel is a bully then. You have to listen to the bully, right? Otherwise you'll get a pummeling.
Yea, we all understand that. Hence, why your piece of shit country is going to fail.
They keep thinking the almighty dollar is still almighty and that they can lean on it. There are some great, ancient Israelitic prophecies that come to mind. Do you all remember the one about, "It will be as if he ran from a lion, and a bear met him, then he ran into his house, and a snake bit him. It will be dark, altogether dark, with no light in it." (or approx).
Eurosabra referred to Jordan as "non-person rulers of an unpeople."
What is a "non-person" or an "unpeople"?
Julian wrote:
"I wouldn't be too concerned about the [Saudi/Abdullah] proposal being yanked off the table. What's their [the Arab League] alternative? Declare war?"
Oh, as I somewhat noted above, maybe worse; from their safe distances start using their billions and their other resources (diplomatic and etc.) to vastly increase the funding and support of Palestinian and other militants to stage incessant, ever more sophisticated attacks on Israel.
All I'm saying is, if I was an Israeli I wouldn't have your complacency. To a large degree on this plane geography is still destiny, and Israel is still a small country with a small population that has put damn near all its eggs in one basket (the U.S.), sitting in the midst of a sea of potential enemies, some of whom are very rich. Over the long long run, In the absence of peace who would you rather be?
Well, yes, Israel will need to conduct small-scale counterinsurgency operations in response to a small but growing rocket and terror threat, but labeling these as "massacres designed to maintain the status quo" just reminds me that the speaker is the son of the former Jordanian ambassador the the UN, a demonizer of Israel whose goal is the destruction of the Jewish state and its Jewish population, and a sanctimonious prig with no sense of proportion.
What a bunch of horses**t. For the record, Ali Abunimah's family is completely Palestinian – his father is from the West Bank town of Battit, his mother is from the town of Lifta, ethnically cleansed by Israel in 1948. His anecestor were probably living in Palestine for centuries before your ancestors came & colonized the place in the 20th century.
And your comment that Abunimah wants to destory the Jewish population is just another example of genocidal paranoia.
I've got to say…Eurosabra makes mince meat of y'll.
I really wish there was a televised I/P Firing Line debate. I'd nominate Euro for the Israeli side. :-)
eurosabra quote " all of the discussants are okay with the ethnic cleansing of Jews." indeed, with a definitive statement like that, he is really making meat of us all… it is called his own tainted meat, that no one other then you would touch with a fork…
It's more than a bit rich given the artificiality of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan that the scion of one of their elites presumes to dictate the fate of millions of Jews, advocating a one-state solution when he knows that Palestine has a caretaker Fateh government and extreme Islamists waiting in the wings. Certainly Mizrahi Jews were expected to assimilate into Israel, with nary a peep about their lost homes, and not inform the Algerians, for example, that they had to cede sovereignty to the followers of La Kahena, and be governed by a Jewish Berber medieval revolutionary government to redress a thousand years of Arab-Islamic colonialism. Tu quoque is a fun game played all over the Middle East.
Irredentism is great sport, unfortunately there are VERY few one-state advocates on the Arab side of the aisle who can admit that the only Palestinian political party that might govern Jews fairly is Balad, or Barghouti's National Initiative and even then they would be swept aside as Fateh in Gaza (using the usual methods, leg-breaking, sudden drops from high buildings, firing squads). A long period of germination in which the "humanistic" parties on both sides predominated, along with an acceptance of the Israeli judiciary to handle the transition, might have made it possible. As it is, a prospective Islamic dystopia is in the offing–look at local government by the Israeli Islamic Movement, Northern Branch, and compare to Hamas in Gaza.
All the states in the region are "artificial," euro-person, if by that you mean, created by colonial fiat — most conspicuously, "Israel".
Eurosabra, I doubt there are that many advocates of a single state in the occupied territories, and only those limited to the elites of intellectuals are capable of expressing the model that could provide proper rights to a large Jewish minority/small Jewish majority.
What cannot be mistaken though is that Fateh and Hamas have been dominant but are not hegemonious, especially at this stage. They are only in the reigns of power because of the failures of the PLO and the PA. As we have seen that the Palestinians are more than willing to throw out the bums and try an alternative. PS I also find it very dishonest to look at "examples" of Hamas in Gaza who do not even control their own taxes and call that a good model for Islamic governance as well as a party of Islam in a Jewish state. Hardly great precedents to go by if you want one to govern the entirety of Israel and Palestine singularly.
What many are missing here is the satisfaction that a good portion would have by dismantling Israel. I think the sentiment for that does ring true for the oppressed (and how can it not?).
No one said this was going to be easy.
PS Did you even read Abunimeh's book about the solution?
Well, we can assume the brutal eliminationist purges are the way that Hamas handles the opposition, and Christians, and along with their genocidal charter, means that Israel has no intention of a one-state solution with a majority of Palestinians voting Hamas. The Israeli Islamic Movement received 99% of the vote in Umm al-Fahm and governs an underserved, nationalist-separatist Muslim city without violence, playing footsie with the Israeli government over Sharia, which already obtains in civil law for Israeli Muslims anyway (marriage, divorce, inheritance, mainly.) So we do have a model for a party of Islam in a Jewish state, a democratic party that essentially works, and it STILL (from time to time, and piano piano, sotto voce) kills a few Jews.
Abunimah's book is utopian in that it presumes a developed common political culture that can moderate disputes between extremists. Given the democratization of violence (a hundred men with plastic explosives brought life in Jerusalem to a standstill between 2000-1) any extreme party would have a veto on the process. Essentially, enough sharing of ground rules that a common life could be built. Since that doesn't exist even between Hamas and Fateh, it would be ludicrous for Israelis to seek disempowerment in favor of Hamas.
we can assume the brutal eliminationist purges are the way that Hamas handles the opposition, and Christians…
speak for yourself, dear boy. 'we' do not necessarily assume everything that you do.