Our friend Seham, a Palestinian-American in California, declined our challenge to produce a positive forward-looking solution in Israel/Palestine. You'll see there were a ton of smart comments on her post. We asked if she wanted to add anything to her original points.
It wasn't Obama, it was the war on Gaza. Obama was busy vacationing in Hawaii when Israel was dropping phosphorus on kids in Palestine, besides he couldn't bring himself to condemn the indiscriminate slaughter of Palestinian civilians because "there could only be one President at a time." Though that didn't stop him from condemning the attacks in Mumbai in November.
It's not just about the land theft, war crimes, illegal detentions, routine human right violations, starvation, the collective punishment or the extra-judicial assassinations. It's more disgusting to watch this attempt to reduce one of the richest cultures in the Middle East to "terrorists" in order to pull this whole thing off. We had a poet that every Palestinian could quote, he died last year and this is how we buried him. Old, young, conservative, secular, students, senior citizens, everyone went out in the streets and wept over his death, followed by three days of mourning. When is the last time that happened anywhere else in the world... for a poet? Nobody ever objected in all these years while this vilification took place in the media. I mean, Arabs objected, but "the white man" always needs a non-Arab intermediary before they can listen to Arab concerns.
Moving forward would seem so much easier if an apology took place first.
Either the IDF is the most inept military force on earth or we take the screed that Israel was dropping white phosphorous on kids for the ignorant lie it is. And you wonder why more people don't believe your wild accusations?
Moving forward would seem so much easier if an apology took place first. Yes, that feels very much the essential point.
Apologising would be an admission of guilt. How can one feel guilty if one feels one is carrying out the word of G-d? Part of honouring the RoR would be to verbalise guilt over the Naqba(s). Israel will not do this anytime soon. It will probably insist the Arabs take a collective course on the Holocaust first…
Gert is right. Any public apology would undermine the legitimacy of the founding of the Israel state itself, as well as its formal UN recognition post Nuremberg–in 1948 the trials of former Nazi Germany people were still going on full-tilt (and of course they go on to this day, 64 years later. Have German reparations stopped? Not really. Admission of guilt thus has practical secular implications that ride shotgun with Zionist and/or Jewish religious faith. However patriotism in the sense of my country right or wrong combines the two. Many Americans who aren't even concerned about getting or keeping plum political slots, by vote or appointment, would never admit Shrub's attack on Iraq was plain wrong– especially those who lost their sons and daughters over there. It would of course make those deaths not "merely" meaningless, but morally wrong as well. Think of the implications for diaspora Jews and Israelis. Israel will not apologize any more than any USA neocon will ever apologize. They need their comic book version of the world and will keep their collection, no matter how many abstract people die or are brutalized as a result.
Does a black man (Obama) need a non-Arab intermediary before they can listen to Arab concerns? Or does Obama qualify as white in this case? I know that the Ashkenasim got their white credentials the moment they declared the state of Israel, but I remain unconvinced of their sense of security in their white identity–and I think that is a big part of the problem here. Glenn Greenwald has a piece today that hints at the wide streak of Orientalism that flows through American foreign policy. In sum, we need a much better race analysis of this whole mess. Made curious by the intensely hysterical response in the Jewish community to anyone who dares compare Nazi racist tactics with those which constitute Israeli policy toward the Palestinians, I have been doing some research into those comparisons–which, by the way, have been happening since at least as far back as the Nakba.
There is a theory from certain authoritarian factions in the West that because political Islam produces Islamist terrorism, the entire Islamic world needs to be brought to heel or crushed. This isn’t unlike Nazi theories that because of political Judaism’s huge role in producing Communist terrorism, the entirety of Judaism needed to be crushed. The irony is that today, the Zionist faction of political Judaism is the linchpin of “crush Islam” coalition. When political Judaism’s pattern of negative influence is pointed up to certain Jews, they’ll sometimes maintain that the Jewish people are merely a leavening agent, propelling history forward. Is that what the Nazis were doing, too? Pushing history “forward”? What a self-serving rationale for atrocious behavior.
Have the Arab countries apologized and made reparations for throwing 800,000 Jews out of their homes and stealing their property?
I'd actually prefer hearing Arab concerns from the mouths of Arabs. I do know that I am beyond tired of hearing issues that reflect Jewish opinions or sensibilities. If whites need an intermediary, we don't need a Jewish intermediary. We already have that problem.
Regardless of whether they do or not, if Israel demanded this it would conflict with their central tenet that all Jews should be in Israel. If the Arab countries paid Israel reparations for this exodus, it would do wonders to catching the hypocrisy of Israel's continued "reservations" that only serve to stop the peace process. Forcing anyone from their homes is a violation of basic human rights and should be condemned. But the key difference is that the Palestinians lost self-determination. This argument is only used to further slow the peace process when it is Israel, as the strongest player, that needs to make concessions.
It wasn't the Palestinians that forced Jews out of their homes in other Arab countries. Israelis and their supporters are always looking for any excuse to deny the Palestinians their rights. If they got compensation from the Arab countries that uprooted them (which I think they should–after the Palestinian issue is settled) then it will be some other thing. By the way, it wasn't the Arabs that chased all the Jews out of their countries. In some instances, the light upon nations took it upon themselves to bomb the Arab Jews in order to frighten them into going to Israel… funny how we never hear about them. http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/zionism/impact/... The Jews of Iraq, Article by Naeim Giladi : http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/zionism/impact/...
Good call. Thanks for the comment!
Funny, Netanyahu never mentioned it. What is he, an anti-semite? I encourage you to use every means at your disposal to put a stop to this nefarious jew-hater.
There have been apologies, just stated in terms of "we are sorry that Palestinians suffered", NOT an acknowledgement of cause or blame. There won't be a formal apology until there is some progress. By "it was Obama" that made the difference as far as recognition of Palestinian experience recently, its NOT that he said or did anything relating to Gaza, but his whole persona is of reconcilitiaton, identifying obstacles and methodically removing them. The obstacles that remain are naked. They're naked as far as Israel, and they're naked as far as Palestine solidarity.
Had it not been for Israel's ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, the Jews of Arab countries would most likely be back in their lands of origin enjoying their homes and the fruits of their labors. How about a population exchange with the Sephardic Jews returning home and the ethnically cleansed Palestinians returning to their homes? How about apologies on both sides for the same actions? BTW, Israel certainly was not unhappy with the large influx of Jews from Arab countries who came to Israel. There were not enough European and American white-skinned Jews immigrating to boost the Jewish population and these darker skinned Jews, who were long treated as second-class citizens, were needed to do the labor that was once done by the dispossessed Palestinians. There is also evidence that in some instances, especially in Iraq, Israel encouraged the flight of the Jews. In this article posted by Jews Against Zionism, an Israeli Jew tells of his role in helping to frighten the Jews of Iraq into fleeing their home country. http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/zionism/impact/...
LIES Dhimwit. You are simplifying the Jewish flight from the Arab world. The exodus of the Iraqi Jews is not attributed to any one cause. Furthermore, you blame ALL ARABS. Do we blame ALL JEWS for what the Zionists have done? And continue to do? No. You don't care about debate. You just come here to cry antisemitism and create diversions. You're the one who is full of hate and steeped in ideology. Not us.
Yeah, we know, thedhimmi, all arabs should always be lumped into the same pot–what did the Palestinian arabs have to do with that? Should we lump all jews in with Madoff? Just to get the proper handle on what we are dealing with here in the USA?
Yeah "the Man did it" and this means "the White Man"–even if he's actually half white but is regarded by the culture as all black, and similarly, suddenly American jews are "white men"–even though people on all sides of the fence ignore this equation all the time. If you need somebody to blame, blame the "white man" and no matter what they are guilty of, they are gentile white males., invariably from a Christian background even if today they are atheists or agnostics. NIce catch. Always good to know who the ultimate bad guy is in the world. At least the world of empathy agrees on that bright line test.
You always need yeast for food, and for infection. Always ask, as you clearly do, what do you want to progress towards? A good beer, or a female problem? Somebody please point out where there was "progress" that did not turn into who's ox is being gored? Equality under the Law really did progress in the conceptual sense for awhile, but now it is merely substituting one king for another, so to speak. No amount of Orwellian speech can change the facts on the ground–the fireman decision is the last attempt to maintain equality under the law. Once she gets in, progress is all over in the sense of equality under the law. Over in the I-P situation, things have been going backward since the Nuremberg Trials.
Good luck getting American whores to deal directly with Arabs–the Jewish pimp always stands between.
Stop playing the victim, Man. Shouldn't you be at a the beer hall?
Leavening agent! Yeah, a great euphemism. Who could make that one up?
Would those 'whores' include Media Trolls, Senators and Congress Reps?
Why do Palestinians always talk about "starvation" when they have weapons and hatred flowing freely in their society? There seems to be a connection here.
Obama's half-white in case you've forgotten. The 1st half-white President.
Don't you read Ebony?
Yep.
Why does Israel always talk about "self defense" as it engages in "preemptive wars" and keeps expanding its "facts on the ground" and why does it call such expansively settled land "disputed" rather that occupied land? And isn't there some connection between the Palestinian tin cup of water and the Israeli swimming pool?
haveabeer, it sounds like you expect time to stand still and people to stop acting like people, all because a "she" is going to "get in" somewhere that you seem to believe she(plural) don't have any business being. Which leaves me wondering what equality under the law means to you. To me such equality seems a complex issue, without simple or easy answers.
"Palestinians always talk about 'starvation'"? "They have weapons and hatred flowing freely in their society"? Well, since you say so, it must be true.
And there's no hatred flowing freely in Israeli society, and of course they have no weapons–barely a few David sling shots and stones…
Shouldn't you be in Israel, making daily pilgrimages to the American Jew who shot all those praying muslims in their house of worship?
No. The she I referred to is Obama's pick for next US Supreme Court justice. Not any she. One who expressed open bias many times. She does not hold the same view of equality as you do. Her judicial decisions would be based on empathy only towards selected groups. If a claimant is not a member of one of those groups, which she defined many times, said claimant would get no empathy.
Do you think it is easy to arrive at a new concept of justice within a
society in which injustice has been accepted as due and right for some
but not for others? Do you think that a personnel department has a
magical source for arriving at the perfect answer to the conundrum of
past and present? I don't. Sotomayor may not be perfect, but she is
no less perfect than the rest of the august group. Why hold her to
higher standards than others?