I don't like the Where's the Palestinian Gandhi? talk in part because it's so disingenuous, in a highminded Monty-Pythonish way. If the analogy holds, and Israel is India under the Raj, well darling, this must be England, and then why don't we just take our boot off their neck, or beat down the doors of our representatives, rather than discussing in our august journals how the wogs ought to behave to compel us to get our boot off their neck?
But here's a take on the journalism angle in Gershom Gorenberg's Where's the Palestinian Gandhi piece in the Weekly Standard, from Jim Sleeper in Talking Points:
"The piece was originally commissioned by The Atlantic," he wrote me. "They accepted it – and then, for reasons having nothing to do with politics, sat on it for a long time. Meanwhile, an editor from The Atlantic who likes my work moved to the Standard… When at last The Atlantic decided not to publish it, he offered to."
This is not utterly persuasive. Editors always tell you that politics has nothing to do with it. Politics always has something to do with it. Maybe good politics, in this case! Maybe the Atlantic made the right call. I bet they told Walt and Mearsheimer politics had nothing to do with it.
Related posts:
- Neocon revisions: ‘Weekly Standard’ compares Israel to India under Raj
- Where is the Palestinian Gandhi–again
- Gandhi model worked because British and Indian elites shared common values. (Not so in I/P)
- Where is the Palestinian Gandhi? In Israeli prison, of course!
- Slater: Palestinian nonviolence has generated repression and settlements
{ 28 comments }
The assumption that a cessation of 'violence' from the Palestinians would lead to any favours being granted to them is untrue, whether or not such a cessation is feasible, which would imply that wildcat 'violence' doesn't exist, which it clearly does — Palestinian bulldozer drivers running amok with their machines, as they have done twice, are wildcat 'violence'. Many if not most of the Palestinians shot for 'approaching the fence' in Gaza are not in reality bent of planting bombs, as claimed, so the question of their being 'wildcat' doesn't even arise. Israel simply fabricates its claims that they were bent on 'violence', and would do so more if a cessation of 'violence' were commanded by e.g., Hamas, as from time to time it has been.
he is in an Israeli jails somewhere.
where is the jew who can say
"israel has no right to exist. jews are the cause of palestinian violence. palestinians do not need a gandhi unless he is piloting an apache attack helicopter blowing the hell out of ariel or jewish occupied hebron, jewish occupied areas of palestine."
'banality of evil' is for work a day nazis doing paperwork. does not apply to jews. for jews: joy of evil; pleasure of evil; living for evil; effortlessness of evil; need to be evil; evil r us.
"where is the jew who can say"
He was last seen at Antony Lowensteins:
http://antonyloewenstein.com/blog/2009/03/31/an-unhelpful-discourse-on-israel/
And his name is Jeff Halper. Of course, he won't meet the schlomo's standards, but he's at least saying something instead of deprecating the business acumen of the Palistinians, like Suzanne.
Rowan:
"Many if not most of the Palestinians shot for 'approaching the fence' in Gaza are not in reality bent of planting bombs, as claimed, so the question of their being 'wildcat' doesn't even arise."
Everyone knows they are just planting roses. When the Palestinians dig tunnels under the fence they are as Jimmy Carter stated "defensive tunnels".
5 dancing shlomos:
"'banality of evil' is for work a day nazis doing paperwork. does not apply to jews. for jews: joy of evil; pleasure of evil; living for evil; effortlessness of evil; need to be evil; evil r us."
Just plain outright hatred of Jews. Keep it up. The more you express your feelings, the more you keep on losing.
I've never liked Gershom's use of 'accidental' when describing the settlement process. Another form of whitewashing.
Julian, posting all your comments twice does not make them any more persuasive.
Imagine the nerve of those Palestinians, who think being put "on a diet" an excuse for them to dig tunnels to smuggle in food.
If they were a reasonable people, they would go off to some corner somewhere and just die without bothering their betters.
I was also irked when I learned that Gorenberg's piece was published in the Likudist Weekly Standard; particularly because the titled asked where is the Missing Mahatma. Well, we know where: in prison, exiled, or murdered.
But when I read the piece I came to a different conclusion: Gorenberg's piece is probably the first substantive article in the history of the magazine that provides a perspective never before seen in WS pages. His audience is definitely not an amen — or, in this case, hosanna — choir. Conservatives have a lot to learn about what's really taking place in Palestine. Hopefully, a few did reading this article.
@edwin
Julian wasn't talking about tunnels under the Egyptian-Gaza border that are dual purpose. That is, smuggling weapons and smuggling food. He was talking about the tunnel under the Israel-Gaza border that that idiot Carter said was a "defensive tunnel". Israel destroyed the tunnel in November and killed several Hamas soldiers in the attack that destroyed it.
Exactly why Jimmy Carter thought that a tunnel from Gaza to Israel was "defensive" is a question that he hasn't answered AFAIK. The sole potential use of such a tunnel was to attack Israel. That is how Palestinian fighters captured Gilad Shalit.
Carter was probably just being his usual senile self. He heard "tunnel" and thought "smuggling tunnel", then ignored the weapons that the terrorists smuggle through the tunnels.
Or maybe Thom, it was a defence tunnel, which would have been used to launch surprise attacks on the IDF when they invaded, which was inevitable. It would have been stupid for Hamas not to dig those tunnels seeing as they know Israel was never interested in peace.
Digging a tunnel is very different from actually attacking Israel.
"he's at least saying something" what jef halper says is not enough. One has to state his opposition to Zionism like this blog admins. Why not say Phil and Adam? They are much more like the ideal hero of the shlomo guy
terrorists smuggling weapons
LOL! They should only ship in them by the container load!
Actually, according to all reports, IDF soldiers entered Gaza, above ground, to attack and kill those who were in the tunnel. Nothing indicates that the tunnel exit was in Israel. If it was, the IDF could have easily either entered the tunnel from Israel(by remote controlled vehicle if they were worried about a booby-trap), or set up an ambush on the Israeli side for anyone exiting the tunnel into Israel. They didn't do that, so the idea that it was truly a defensive tunnel is perfectly sane and rational, given what we know.
Hezbollah had a whole slew of defensive tunnels built in Lebanon, which enabled them to avoid the massive indiscriminate shelling from Israel during the 2000 War. Hamas could have easily learned the lesson from Lebanon that defensive tunnels provide protection from aerial attack.
Oops, that was the 2006 War, not 2000.
Yes, but defensive tunnels run lateral to a border, to provide movement ALONG a front.
Since you agree with Hamas's goals, you agree with their methods. Génocidaire.
Many thanks for the correction. That changes everything:
Of course the Palestinians would never get their food from Israel. Absolutely not.
And to actually resist the worlds most moral army!
If the Palestinians aren't going to go off to a corner and die, respectable like, but actually have the audacity to resist 60 years of brutality, torture, and occupation, then they need to be taught who their betters are.
Rowan,
The tunnel exit was not in Israel. The closest it got to Israel was 300 feet and
Eurosabra,
It did run along the Israeli border
Please quit the Orwellian paranoid crap. My desire is for a situation in Israel/Palestine where every person is treated equally, regardless of ethnicity or religion. If you think that is agreeing with Hamas' goals, then so be it. You're entitled to your opinion. But equality is not genocide, anymore than war is peace, freedom is slavery or ignorance is strength, despite what you may have learned in Israeli schools.
Yes, along, as a kidnap tunnel.
Defensive tunnels are at a distance from and parallel to a border.
Doesn't matter anyway. Jihad is eternal.
Mossad assassinated the Palestinian Gandhi and the Palestinian Gandhi's family.
The real question is, where's the Palestinian Jabotinsky? Or Begin? Shamir? Sharon?
Rowan, The tunnel exit was not in Israel. The closest it got to Israel was 300 feet… Posted by: Shafiq | April 01, 2009 at 03:48 PM
I assume you are responding to 'tree', not me, Shafiq. We are not the same person — I do not use pseudonyms, ever.
The reason that the question "where is the Palestinian Gandhi" is so important, is that the methods of violence adopted by the militant approach has been an UTTER FAILURE to make change.
And, the reason for that is that violence is rooted in anger, and anger-derived political analysis is thin and trivial, denying the needs and rights of one sliver after another sliver, until ONLY the needs and rights of the idiotically defined "politically correct" are validated.
In the name of democracy, the militant approach ends up harming the majority.
It takes a conflict, calls it an oppression, harms, then whines that others got caught in the crossfire.
Rather than apply the skills of human reconciliation to the problem.
Its as if the product of one's life is fight and fight until your person is totally alienated from all things formerly intimate or merely enjoyable, and then die.
Rather than, work to make good happen, so that your life, the product of your life, and the process of your death is an integration, a unity.
The term jihad means struggle. There are comparable terms in Jewish thought and in Christian thought and in Hindu. In practise, it refers to the struggle to bind oneself to the will of the One, rather than the distraction from that.
When jihad, or struggle in any of the traditions is used to justify warring (violent or even non-violent – but still punitive in motive), the words become debased. They become fascist terms rather than liberatory.
They cause more harms than they heal.
That is the significance of the Bhagavad Gita, which states yes, struggle, even if you don't see the good or goal in your struggle, but ALWAYS keep your eye on the prize. Your goal is integrity, NOT victory over another.
Rowan,
I apologise, I did mean tree.
Eurosabra,
That's what I meant, parallel to the border.
Richard Witty,
The peaceful approach was tried from 67 to the first Intifada – nothing changed. It's also being tried by Fatah in the West Bank – the settlements continue to expand, the Palestinians still spend hours queuing at the checkpoint, and the settlers are more violent than ever.
Witty is just wittering his liberal 'profundities' again, he has a whole repertory of them, and I am sure his jazz playing is as soporific as his 'profundities,' and just as interminable too — this is a dangerous aspect of jazz, it can go on and on and on and on and on, just like Witty's comments do.
Shafiq,
The period from 67 to the first intifada was ANYTHING but peaceful. Were you alive then? Did you not notice a few dozen hijackings, conspicuous international terror incidents?
I agree with you that the expansion of the settlements, and any privileges for roads, etc are a big problem.
My preference for dealing with it would be cross-border collaboration between well-meaning Jews and well-meaning Palestinians. However, there is SO MUCH distrust from both sides, that say in Jenin where there has been a bunch of cross-border collaboration and relationship building, the local Fatah group broke up a teenage orchestra run by an Israeli Arab rather than accept that they played a gig in Israel to holocaust survivors.
If there is any effort that induces mutual sympathy it was the experience by Israelis that "yes, these Palestinians are real human beings with heart and minds" and the experience by the Palestinians "they really experienced those things. I didn't know."
Utter separation and the ignorance of the other that that engenders is the OPPOSITE of what is needed.
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