There was a Bluestocking bookstore reading by Bill and Kathleen Christison, reported by desertpeace, which says the audience responded militantly to tales of Palestinian dispossession and nary a Zionist in the room.
Bill’s final reading was about Israelis comparing their treatment of Palestinians to the U.S. treatment of Native peoples in this country. Israelis use it to justify their behavior and say that they should be able to “take care of Palestinians”as the U.S. took care of the American Indians. The Israeli historian, Benny Morris, said that the great American democracy could not have been accomplished without the destruction of the Indians.
Note this demonstration outside the American embassy in Tel Aviv last month, at which Israelis wore Native American headdresses and held tomahawks and declared, "Give us back Manhattan, the third most holy site for Indians." Thereby expressing solidarity with dispossessed peoples– not.
(h/t Peter Voskamp)
Another irritation I have with you is that every issue that you disagree with, rather than argue the merits of, you dismiss as “hasbara”.
It contributes to my view that you are engaging in propaganda, rather than argument.
The reason the argument has merit, “you did it to the Native Americans”, is that it explains what occurs in history in times of necessity. White immigrants to the US are alternately portrayed as genocidal priviliged, and as common working people, and as heroic revolutionaries.
And, by the same people.
The same should be true of Israelis, of Zionists, and in parallel roles. YOU should articulate the same confusing combination of statements, as Howard Zinn did in describing the Irish draft dodgers from the Civil War, while condemning the same group (occassionally the same individuals) as ruthless torturers of blacks in New York for being the “reason for the war”.
Courage of observation, of convictions, of reality. Not opportunism of arm-chair Monday morning quarterbacking.
Witty?
You seem incapable of making a moral judgment. All you would have to do here is condemn the use of Native Americans as a symbol of zionism. Seems simple enough.
Why can’t you do that?
The reason the argument has merit, “you did it to the Native Americans”, is that it explains what occurs in history in times of necessity.
No, actually it explains what occurs in history in times of being imperialist, brutal and racist. It also shows how the United States have changed for the better in the meantime. That Israelis have now lowered their standards to that of slave-holding, patriarchal, 19th-century societies is remarkable enough. That they try such idiotic strawmen as the one above, more so.
I would simply reply to the faux-Natives “Well, as FULL U.S. CITIZENS WITH VOTING RIGHTS, why not start a political campaign to that effect? After all, this is a democracy and you’re part of it. Unlike, to take a random example, the Palestinians on the West Bank.”
Well put Koshiro,
Richard’s argument would have us believe that if the Americans knew what they now now, aftare aknowledging he crimes of their past and the gencide they inflicted, they would do it all again.
I don’t follow your logic, Richard Witty. Has the world learned nothing since Hitler?
He too used the American saga to justify his POV; as well Hitler used British colonialism. Either the Nuremberg trials were simply Victor’s justice (Might makes right) as Goering thought, and the Geneva Conventions worthless, or not. Does “never again” simply depend on who’s ox is being gored?
Please elaborate on Zinn’s POV in the context you mention. The Irish draft riots
were an expression of resentment against the fact that anyone who could afford
$300 could by themselves out of Lincoln’s military draft; since the Irish were mostly recent poor immigrants that did not include them; as well Lincoln was paying
blacks $1,000 each to soldier and the Irish were competing with blacks for subsistence jobs–in fact the Irish took the jobs blacks would not take in the North.
How could the Irish not resent being conscripted when barely in this land a few years when they were often treated worse than blacks in the North?
Despite, that reality, I reimind you of the Irish brigade; that Irish fought in large numbers–more on the North, but also for the Confederacy.
Anyeay, to sum up, what the hell are you driving at?
immigrants that did not include them
by=buy
Anyeay=Anyway
strike the last line
Good Lord, Richard, take a break. You really do react in reflexive kneejerk fashion to Phil’s posts in ways that just make you look silly. You actually have the beginnings of a legitimate point here–the same people who are lionized in one context are blamed as villains in another. I’ve noticed this myself. But there’s a simple explanation for this–people are sometimes victims in one context and villains in another. The fact that Puritans were persecuted in England was no reason for them to treat Native Americans with contempt. Roger Williams understood this, as did a few others. The extension to the Zionists is obvious.
It’s a fact that, for reasons that never cease to astound me, some Zionists (beginning as best I can tell with Benny Morris) use the US policies towards Native Americans as some sort of moral justification for their treatment of Palestinians. It’s astonishing, because Chomsky and Finkelstein and probably others have long used the same comparison to show that Zionism is just a later example of the Western belief that land occupied by “inferior” breeds is there to be taken by the more “civilized” folk.
What’s bothersome about you is that you don’t see this. You start off with a legitimate point about the ironies of history, and then totally forget the moral point. You ought to be upset at Benny Morris–instead you are mad at Phil. I wish I could say I was surprised.
That Israelis would attempt to use the genocide wrought on the American Indian peoples as a justification for their own efforts in regard to the Palestinians indicates just how far over the edge they’ve gone.
More and more like Afrikaners every day.
Curiously enough when I compared Israeli rhetoric about Palestinians to that of 19th century Americans about Indians on my own weblog five years ago, Zionists were screaming for my head on a platter. Endured a couple of death threats.
Would they make up their mind? Is what happened to the Amerindians a positive model of how to deal with indigenous peoples? Or was it a crime?
And how does this event differ from what happened in Germany between 1937 and 1945?
No it appears, Israelis have the right to eat and have and slice their cake however they will.
Do as I say, not as I do.
Which spawns yelping self-righteous apologists like Richard Witty who think that the world owes their disingenuous fabrications and fake anguish a hearing. How I wish Phil would put a cork in that particular flatulent mouth sometime.
BDS. It’s time. The world needs less apartheid and genocide. Not more.
Curiously, to pick up your word, a racist tune on FrontPage Mag, an article that mysteriously disappeared after a while, started my journey beyond the mythoi, with no return, it seems. …
With the same kind of logic (Israel = America) one could argue that in times of crisis it might make sense to return to death penalty for gays or somebody who rapes the daughter of the nobility but not a peasant as in Shakespeare’s time. Progress, equal rights all being illusions.
We can of course return to the Darwinian obsessions of the Nazis, no doubt. The right of the stronger. The question is, how is this related to religion or more precisely how does a self-defined liberal squeeze it in his larger outlook?
What I find more interesting is that Israel compares itself with the United States in this context. Is this the larger horizon? I am kidding of course. But the frontier myth comes to mind.
Hey No fair with the Mark Twain. I would bet a large sum that he wrote that in a satire.
I am sure that apologists for South African apartheid also called on the United States treatment of the native americans in support of their mistreatment of the native african population. It was a sign of their bigotry.
Skilled at dismissal.
Rather, you are skilled at heavily slanted accounting, your stock in trade.
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How the hell did Richard Witty manage to have the first comment here again? This article was empty when I came to compose my comment.
And once again, he has nothing to say, loudly.
Please cork him Phil.
Either Witty starts writing sensible and articulate and relevant comments or his empty divagations should not see trouble the waters here.
What a farce your pen name is Richard. You have neither the acquaintance of wit nor pith.
Live with it. I work at my computer.
Richard, owning a computer does not give you a right to pollute this site when you have so little of substance to say.
Protected by goy cops and goy soldiers.
Meanwhile, your heart beats with joy when young American jews join the IDF.
The reason I say “skilled at dismissal”, is that it seems that you are unable to retain the concept that there are two rights in this situation, not only a right and a wrong.
That is the overly simplistic right-wing Zionist view, and the overly simplistic fanatic resistance view.
But, it is the innaccurate one.
How are you going to achieve a good outcome by cowboys/Indians as the extent of your reasoning capacity?
Witty: “The reason the argument has merit, “you did it to the Native Americans”, is that it explains what occurs in history in times of necessity.”
Please define “necessity” as you use it here.
Then answer your own question (and we will be glad to respond):
“How are you going to achieve a good outcome by cowboys/Indians as the extent of your reasoning capacity?”
“Live with it. I work at my computer. ”
And we know what your work entails don’t we Mr Hasbara? And you have the gall to accuse Phil of engaging in propaganda, rather than argument. Pot meet kettle.
It’s amazing how the anti Israel zealots here can dish it out but can’t take it. Witty is just about the mildest defender of Israel and you want him silenced.
I disagree. He’s just more sly. Please do give us your defense of the POV at issue here, which is that Israel is merely doing to the Palestinians what the early Americans did to the Native Americans.
The best Phil can do, and not just for Richard, is to make the comment system display the last comment first and the first comment last. I admire this system in big news portals because it does not give “Internet soldiers” monopoly on the attention of the readers. Think about it. By giving the first commenter the right to always show his comment first, you are giving that commenter as much, if not more, attention and credit than the blog author and the blog post. You know that every single reader of your post will read what the first commenter had to say, and the later one is posting a comment, the less likely that comment will be EVER read and the less encouraged he or she is to comment.
On the other hand, rolling down comments so that the last one posted shows first will expose more comments, diversify the attention and deny the monopoly of it to “soldiers,” and will make the comments more up-to-date.
The only way out of this (for someone looking for attention) is to post unusual number of first-level comments in every post. But in this case, abuse will be more easily spotted.
Fact is, this WordPress system is entirely inadequate for carrying on any extended discussion.
Fact is, this WordPress system is entirely inadequate for carrying on any extended discussion.
We can always use a plugin like the one we had in the older interface.
The zionist morality is unfathomable. The yargue that because the US did it then so can Israel. Next are they going to argue because the Germans did it, then so can the Israelis. But what is really stupid from their point is the Native Americans in the US today have full rights of citizenship — it is illegal to discriminate against them in education, housing or employment. If Israel is ready to give those rights to its nonJewish citizens, then so much the better. But of course we all know that they will not.
The view that Israel can do it because your benefactors did it, is not what they are saying, not what I’m saying at least.
I’m saying that you do what you have to do in times of necessity.
And, when you have kinder options, you use them.
Terror directed solely at civilians for example, is an option to never use, and the Palestinian cause was set back fifty years by that chosen method.
Yes, you are, willfully oblivious to the fact that Israel’s refusal to respect international law has no basis in necessity.
Will you please explain why it was necessary for the United States to exterminate the Native Americans? This policy was debated at the time and many sensible voices argued for accommodation. Much of the policy was dictated by people acting outside the law and then the law not being enforced. But could you tell us why you see a historical necessity in the extermination of the American Indians.
One side of my family had Stalinists roots. I remember them talking about the historical ‘necessity’ of purging the wealthier Ukrainian peasant farmers (kulaks) and expropriating their land. I didn’t like the argument then, and today it is recognized as even a more heinous crime than was realized then. Your historical necessity argument is equally sick.
But Israeli “terror” was sucessful, wasn’t it?
Lately we are reminded that it wasn’t the Holocaust that helped create Israel, but the determination and success of the Zionists. Remember?
The bride is beautiful, but …
Whatever it takes so you don’t have to live next door to a Palestinian. If they won’t listen to reason…
You must ignore my posts to say that Kyle.
I state consistently, that to my understanding, Israel has enough land now currently, and need not expand, and need not suppress.
We are still waiting. Witty, why do you believe that the extermination of the North American Indians was ‘neccessary’? And you have linked that ‘neccessity’ to expulsion of the Palestinians from their ancestral lands. What are you trying to say?
Witty, I read your posts, and in the one above you claimed “necessity” in your argument. You embrace suh positions when it suits your argument and disavow them in other contexts. The way you revel in such cognitive dissonance is arguably the most disturbing thing about you.
Syv,
The Indians were not wiped out by Europeans. They were moved, similar to the Palestinians.
There were mass deaths from disease primarily. New pathogens that the Indians had never been exposed to and had no immunity to, came over “with the Mayflower”.
There were a few instances of intentional genocidal actions, but they were very rare.
The European migration was new. They had dealt with tribes infringing on hunting/fishing/trapping areas, but not on the scale of European migration. It was a tragedy, not a genocide though.
The difficulty for Americans, that they go into utter denial about, is that WE are beneficiaries of that expropriation of land. We don’t currently conclude to right the wrong, except in rhetoric and cultivated angers.
The hypocrisy is that the same community of people that refuses to right the wrongs relative to Native Americans (and are beneficiaries of those wrongs in some respect), DO condemn Israelis for the same.
The question relative to necessity is “was it really necessary, were there other options?”
In the case of the European refugees in eastern and some in western Europe, there were none. The holocaust and post-holocaust were THAT big a deal. And, the stresses that European and American states experienced after that time, were that desparate and callous.
If anything, the America First orientation that was instrumental in opposing immigration of all communities to the US, and is still, was among the most callous, as in the states and Canada there was plenty of available land, but not so many jobs (Canada was the most generous after the war relative to prior Jewish immigration).
Richard,
The Indians were indeed wiped out by Europeans. They destroyed by theft of land, segregation, and destruction of their means of survival.
So please explain why this was necessary?
Curiously, Richard is aiming for consistency in his arguments now.
The mass genocide in America was not genocide, according to Richard.
Ergo the apartheid and genocide in progress in Palestine is not genocide either.
I am waiting to hear his thoughts on lebensraum and German expansionism in the late 1930′s.
The Indians were destroyed by disease, which was inadvertently introduced to the New World.
The motive for the European settlement of the region was NOT for the bloodlust to decimate the Indians, but to alternately survive poverty, religious persecution, and opportunity (not really trivializable as greed).
It occurred at a time of population growth, disease, social and political changes in Europe. It was a force of nature.
Among Indians themselves, there were violent push-pulls for territory, and changes in tribal alliances. It was experienced, and was abrupt, due to the isolation of North America from Europe.
Everywhere else though in populated areas in Europe and Mediterranean, including the Levant, experienced a great deal of push-pull in settlement, and a great deal of violent removals. Its a fantasy to conclude that Palestinian society was peaceful and stable or not already experiencing social changes, similar in ways to upheavals in Europe.
The romantic view of “we were always there” is a myth. Some truth, some exageration, presented for an identity and an assertion.
Responding to Witty’s apologetics, using his own example, if the genocide of the Amerindians by American colonists was not genocide because some of them survived, then the genocide of the Jews by the Nazis was not genocide because some of them also survived.
The difference between genocide and tragedy is intent.
The Europeans that arrived in the New World were preoccupied with their own needs. Indians were an obstacle to those needs, but the Europeans that arrived generally just wanted them to move, not to die. At early phases in European migration to the New World, MANY just wanted to co-exist, there was no either/or relationship.
That is a similar descriptor for the Zionists relative to the Palestinians, that early they sought only to reside, to do their thing. They likely had an initial predisposition to respect a neighbor, but also likely were appalled at some of the non-European values and behaviors. Only after violence was inflicted on Jewish Zionist (and non-Zionist) residents did any either/or approach come up widely.
Suppression was not intended. (I’m sure a few individuals intended violence and suppression to Palestinians, but there are nuts everywhere.)
The genocide of Jews by the nazis was intentional, orchestrated, applied, and largely completed.
That you would so trivially equate the two, says very bad things about you.
Its not who survived that makes the difference, but INTENT and application. A tragedy is a disaster that occurs without malevolent intent. Genocide requires intent and orchestration. And genocide is killing, not forced removal.
Forced removal is very bad, but its a different word than genocide.
Syvanen is correct. And I see Witty excludes himself as a native-born American “because your benefactors did it” and not “our benefactors did it”). Hitler as well as
The colonial Brits (Kipling) did what they did out of what they deemed “necessity.”
(Cf the White Man’s Burden concept with The Chosen People concept).
Terror was used by the jewish pioneers towards their control of land already occupied. So now the Palestinians should not be copycats, in the interests of
their prior rights before the Jews came, commencing in the last score years of
the 19th century?
Richard, I’ve said before I think you have good intentions, but sometimes your bias is so blatant it totally cancels them out. “Do what you have to do”, you say, justifying in your typical weasel words the ethnic cleansing practiced by Zionists and by American settlers generations earlier. On the other hand “terror directed solely at civilians for example is an option to never use”.
That’s simple naked racism. What the Zionists did in 1948 was terrorism aimed at civilians, which you justify, but when it is aimed by Palestinians at Jews it can never be justified. It doesn’t matter that you’re liberal, with good intentions, someone who genuinely does want peace for both sides. You do. But you’re also an unconscious racist or you couldn’t possibly say what you just said in this post. And of course it’s unconscious and you will come up with some sort of rationalization for it.
In some ways, when you’re at your best, you remind me of Michael Lerner (which I mean as a compliment), but this was you at your absolute lowest. Not that you will see it. Very depressing, really.
The common thread that I hear is the desire to condemn someone.
Its just not necessary.
There are few instances in history in which intentional genocide occurred. The Native American experience and the Palestinian are not examples of that.
There is callousness, but not the intent to annihilate that is inherent in genocide.
“Terror directed solely at civilians for example, is an option to never use, and the Palestinian cause was set back fifty years by that chosen method.”
That’s Richard, giving his moral condemnation to the historically inevitable use of terrorism against settler colonialists. I happen to agree with his moral judgment, but from what one sees of history terrorism on both sides is almost universal when colonialists try to take over already inhabited land, so if the term “historically inevitable” has any meaning, it applies here.
Yet Richard doesn’t want anyone casting blame if blame is to be cast on Zionists, who also used terror. You see, that was historically inevitable, which apparently means in his mind that no moral blame attaches. And faced with the US/Native American analogy, he also defends the white settler conquest as historically inevitable. It seems that blame is a bad thing in this case too.
So if you’re keeping score–
Whites take Native American land and use terror (but only occasionally genocide)–blameless
Zionists use terror and ethnic cleansing against Palestinians–blameless
Palestinians use terror against Zionists–Blameworthy
Donald,
Don’t oversimplify what occurred relative to the Indians.
There were military abuses of Indians and over an extended period. Inidans were political players in inter-colonial wars, not neutral, not observers. The French and Indian war for example that preceded the revolution included alliances of some tribes with the French, and some tribes with the British. After the American revolution, the most conspicuous enforcements were by Andrew Jackson, who is also a populist credited with articulating some of the ideology adopted by the America First worldview.
The Indian wars after the Civil War were the last military harrassment of Indians.
The greatest tragedy of the Indians was the forced prohibition from speaking their own language, from practicing their own traditions. They were forcefully assimilated.
In that respect, there is much for Indians to identify with Jews who are asked to assimilate, rather than retain some strong element of their tradition.
I had an experience when I ran the Green Island Spoken Audio Cooperative, in which an Indian called me to complain about a title that we had in our library that he regarded as a fictional misrepresentation of any Indian culture. In conversation he asked me about my name, what nationality it was. I told him that I was Jewish. He said that it didn’t sound like a Jewish name. I told him that it was an Ellis Island name. That a clerk assigned the name to my great grandfather. The Indian said, “I was given one of those names too.”
Modern Israel is not that. But, original Israel was a frontier new indigenous effort. NOT colonial. The parallel to early Zionist settlement was the hippie commune that I lived in near Eugene Oregon in 1973. In the middle of the night, a “neighbor” drove onto the land, turned on floodlights and proceeded to shoot. Two bullets went through my cabin. A glass was broken but no one was hit. We hit the dirt.
The police said that it was probably someone poaching deer. I said “bullshit”. My cabin was targeted.
Were we colonists? NO.
And also, please don’t misrepresent my comments to infer support for Israeli terrorism, either in the past or the present, when it occurs in fact.
How absurd. A few wacko Israelis have a demonstration and immediately it’s the opinion of every Zionist.
Perhaps if Palestinian Arabs had gone on killing sprees and anti Jewish riots in the early 1920′s things might have turned out different for them.
link to camera.org
What’s absurd is Israel calling on the “International Community” to witness Ihre Kampf when the said community knows, the way they know dark from light, that Israel heartily despises it.
Yes, Julian, the difference is that the Palestinians never had economic power over
England. Thus they could never had pressured England to write out Zionist aspirations in the Mandate; the proof of the pudding is that the conditional
protection of native Mandate inhabitants in the Balfour Declaration has never been honored. Talk about putting the real politic cart before the ethical/moral horse!
had=have (pressured England, etc)
“write out”=ignore
(The Balfour Declaration did write in Palestinan rights, but it was ignored)
This “you did it to the Indians” constitutes phase three of Gabriel Ash’s brilliant dissection of Israel apologizing. The four phases are:
1) We rock. (Israel invented the microchip, etc.)
2) They suck. (They mutilate female genitals, etc.)
3) You suck. (You did it to the Indians.)
4) Everything sucks. (With all the genocide on in the world, why pick on Israel?)
All defenses of Israel go through these phases. It all becomes too predictable with time.
5) Native Americans exist to be bilked anon.
This is hardly a new tactic. The Hasbara Birds have been using it for years.
Also:
5) Every homosapien is an irrational maniac genetically engineered for loving to hate us and for a fetish for Hitler.
6) Being jewish means being rational. Goys are more animalistic.
I am part of both the native and invader blood. My father got a partial head right from the Osage tribe and my maternal great grandmother was allegedly an orphaned Comanche infant. This is not the Israeli narrative at all. I am from a long time California settler family. So many I know have indian blood. How many Israeli Jews are half arab? Not too many I should think. These analogies are stupid.
I have read the letters of some of my genocidal ancestors, good ol’ Injun fighters. They leave no doubt that genocide was what they were up to, and for the same excuse the Israelis give: those damn Injuns fought back when the white men tried to take their land.
So now the Israelis acknowledge the parallel with genocide. Maybe that’s progress.
Actually, many Israeli Jews are all Arab, but that is a whole other ball of wax.
Not to mention that the Palestinians are in large part the descendants of the Jews who were never driven out of Judea by the Romans.
As Jewish by descent as many mongrelized European Israelis.
Genocide most certainly was the intent of the early American settler; ‘Mad’ Anthony Wayne was instructed by George Washington to clear the Indians from the region around Fort Pitt. Early Jewish traders in the Appalachian region & Ohio River valleys benefited from and assisted with the cleansing from the region of its indigenous people.
As well, Jewish slave traders were among the earliest settlers in slave regions of the young America.
So Richard’s argument becomes, “We helped to ethnically cleanse Original Peoples in the Americas, so it’s okay to do the same thing in the Levant.
Fascinating that Joshua already ‘cleansed’ that region, wiping out Jericho, the Amalekites, Canaanites, Amorites, etc. Some folks just refuse to stay genocided!
Please cork him Phil.
Either Witty starts writing sensible and articulate and relevant comments or
Not a good advice.
Precisely what differentiates this blog from PEP (progressive except for Palestine) ones is that, because Phil’s right, he doesn’t need to muzzle polite contrarians like Witty. At Engage or Harry’s Place or Z-Blog you see difficult-to-handle dissent (the one that says things they don’t like without shouting) tolerated up to a certain point, beyond which their motto becomes operative — “if you can’t beat them, ban them.” Not at Mondoweiss.
Witty isn’t polite though, he is passive-aggressive.
Passive agressive in response to interrogation.
No, passive-aggressive out the gate.
Any points that I’ve made that you consider valid in any way?
Or do you just distrust so thoroughly that you won’t consider them?
You know, deceptive hasbara?
G-D forbid anybody interrogate Richard Witty.
Here’s a question for you Richard:
Jesus said give to the Lord’s what is his, and to Caesar what is Caesars’s–are you saying there is no difference regarding the Jews and the current state of Israel?
If not, what are you saying?
I have nothing against a contrarian view.
I have a lot against a dissembling loudmouth who comments primarily to hear his own voice.
On a secondary level his intention is to obfuscate.
Neither of those motivations merit publication.
I have nothing against the publication of an opposing viewpoint. This thread where Richard has finally come out in favour of Stalinist necessity bothers me not at all.
If the man has verbal diarrhea he should politely stay out of the concert hall until he can get control of his bowels. That the man has a computer and an internet connection is no reason we have to hear his whiny voice first on every article.
This is not counterpoint. This is hijacking and disruption.
I don’t know why Phil puts up with it.
When Witty has something on topic which we haven’t heard from him before four hundred times, then no reason Phil shouldn’t publish it. But to allow Witty to whine here like a small and unpleasant baby throughout every thread – that’s not an alternative viewpoint, it’s encouraging bad manners and distracting from the articles and real discussion.
Of course my views are an alternative viewpoint.
I regard the needs of both communities as deserving sympathy, and therefore the means to reconcile is my primary focus.
That is not yours obviously.
I don’t agree with you, alec. Richard may be too spontaneous and often guided by fear and bias concerning Phil’s approach, but he tries to communicate and he admits errors. We had people here that bothered me much more than Richard ever did.
Although, yes, admittedly I have been and still seem to be as much obsessed with Richard as you seem to be. That’s why I am paying attention. Were we seem to differ is the degree of distrust you bring to his notes. Try to find out what exactly triggers it and address it directly, that would be an interesting contribution.
If you want to be the first to comment, devote your time to developing strategies to beat him, if you have enough time and it is important enough for you, that is.
LeaNder, since when and where has Richard Witty ever admitted an error? Please point to a precise instance.
He did, citizen, not always and surely not as much as we want ;) but almost ALWAYS when someone”politely” points out an error/misreading/misunderstanding to him. I noticed one such incident not long ago. Don’t ask me to dig through all the comments. More easy you simply test it yourself and pay close attention.
But notice this doesn’t mean different point of views, in this context he is very insistent – partisan, but it is always connected with a too fast judgment on his side. If he is shown, he is wrong, he admits it, and yes he apologizes.
The Zionists as Native-American meme does indeed show the lunatic imagination of certain Israelis.
Beyond that, Zionist moral justification is also sought by analogy to the American conquest and seizure of the Southwest US from Mexico.
No doubt, the American-Mexican war was a despicable act of imperialism. Having said that, each and every Mexican national living in the conquered territory became a United States citizen upon signing the peace treaty.
And yes, of course, the majority of those Mexicans may well have been treated as second class citizens by law. Yet the US has long since recognized the injustice in that mistreatment, and offical state discrimination has long been unacceptable and illegal.
Israel’s problem is that it came a century too late to the imperialist game.
Israel’s problem is that it came a century too late to the imperialist game.
Worse is that they are unwilling to give full citizenship rights to the Israeli Palestinians to this day.
A valuable contribution to discussion on this topic is provided by Norman Finkelstein in his examination of “the generic conquest myth” – highlighting “the apparently disparate instances of the English conquest of North America, the Dutch conquest of South Africa, the Nazi conquest of eastern Europe, and the Zionist conquest of Palestine.” See pp. 89 to 98 in Norman G. Finkelstein, Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict [the section 'The Virgin Land or Wilderness Myth' in the Chapter "Settlement, Not Conquest" / Verso 2003].
Why don’t you say what you understand his argument to be, rather than referring us all to “scripture”?
I have a very bad impression of Norman Finkelstein, having seen how he treats people that disagree with him.
“I have a very bad impression of Norman Finkelstein, having seen how he treats people that disagree with him.”
You mean those who label him a self hating Jew and Holocuast denier?
He’s been dogmatic and personally abusive in correspondence with me. I’ve seen him abuse a liberal professor that shared the conclusion of 67 borders, but sought to achieve that through persuasion and mutual respect rather than contempt. (He didn’t just differ with her, he accused her of lying repeatedly, and of collaborating with “nazis”.)
And, yesterday I saw a “debate” with Martin Indyk.
I find it odd how frequently his language, approach, arguments are parroted in discussion blogs like this one for example.
In contrast to Howard Zinn, whom I referred earlier as appreciating irony, I don’t experience that with Norman. He’s relentless, and not in pursuit of knowledge.
“And, yesterday I saw a “debate” with Martin Indyk.”
There was no debate with Martin Indyk. Like most coewardly Zionist propagandists. Indyk refused to debate Fink and bleated like a lamb that he’d been sandbagged when he found himself confronted by Funk.
Incidentally, I don;t blame for accusing the liberal professor that advocated the return to 67 borders, by means of persuasion and mutual respect rather than contempt. Anyhone arguing for such a measure is being disingenous because Israel do not respond to persuasion and mutual respect, and never have.
That’s why, in spite of your seemingly moderate tone Richard, no one believes you are being honest when you claim you want a 2 state solution but argue it should only be achieved by treating Isrel with kid gloves. It suggests you don’t really want a political settlement, because what you are proposing a strategy that you know will yiled nothing.
Quite a projection on your part Shingo.
Perhaps you can argue rationally why you think that persuasion is impossible.
My argument to Zionists and right-wing Israelis is that a treaty with accountability is a more prominent component of security than weapons. That weapons serve as a confirmation of agreement, not instead of agreement. And, that as the problems are tangible ones, they are nearly certainly resolvable.
And, that a healthy Palestine is more likely to be a good neighbor to Israel than an impoverished one, especially if Palestine’s health comes largely as a result of sincere assistance and interaction with Israel.
Among Israelis, peace is considered a danger, so a component of my argument is that there is real danger, but the extent of it is exagerated as much of it is conditional meaning that in different conditions, there would be much less emotional and tangible hostility.
In a word, that Israel can influence the tone of the relationship, and need not only react.
Peace though is NOT possible solely by political means. The definition of borders alone, does not result in peace. And, application of solely political means to exact redefinition of borders does not result in peace.
That, peace is realized mostly through social means.
So, when the concept of “dialog” is abused as insufficiently militant, compared to BDS, I conclude that the intention of BDS is NOT peace, but some other more opportunistic or malevolent objective, and that those that adopt it from a sense of compassion for Palestinians, are being manipulated.
Especially when the BDS campaign is presented so vaguely and punitively.
He’s been dogmatic and personally abusive in correspondence with me. I’ve seen him abuse a liberal professor that shared the conclusion of 67 borders, but sought to achieve that through persuasion and mutual respect rather than contempt. (He didn’t just differ with her, he accused her of lying repeatedly, and of collaborating with “nazis”.)
Could you please be more specific about Norman’s dogmatism and personal abuse? I find this highly interesting, since we all know Norman’s temper, don’t we? Put another way: his public image?
I find it interesting that someone with the public image of a polite liberal can defame Norman’s late mother as a Kapo, without the least evidence and keep his “polite image”. Don’t you?
Also: Who is the liberal prof and how did he abuse him? Did he tell you in this context why he begs to differ, did he give you a reason why he used whatever term? I am not a fan of the use of Nazi, but what specifically made him use it?
And, yesterday I saw a “debate” with Martin Indyk.
What debate?
I find it odd how frequently his language, approach, arguments are parroted in discussion blogs like this one for example.
What specific arguments? Concerning the UN? Do you honestly suggest this basic consent didn’t exist without Norman Finkelstein? Do you feel like a parrot occasionally too?
Funny, Witty, your characterization of Finkelstein is how I view you. The irony is that you
write here and Finkelstein is a world famous academic, with a command of much
scholarship regarding history.
If you see him in person, from a skeptical perspective, he is not particularly persuasive, but is frequently abusive.
Its a failing on his part, that he is aware of, but doesn’t change.
I question his scholarship as well. For a very long time, in the Indyk discussion for example, he referred to the International Court of Justice as binding law. I pointed out to him in correspondence that the International Court of Justice was not in fact a court, but more analagous to a Grand Jury, whose role is to consider cases for prosecution, for referral to the UN General Assembly, but not to authoritatively adjudicate themselves. In later lectures, he modified the degree of authority that he implied the ICJ held.
If he was such a concise scholar, he would have been aware of that exageration of their authority.
It’s not a projection on my part Richard, it’s an observation based on the many posts of yours I’ve read.
Ppersuasion is not impossible, but is hihgly unlikely to work. This is based on Israel’s history or derailing agreement and flouting laws, both interntaional, and it’s own. Isreal has had ample opportunity to be persuaded, but it has chosen not to be. So what evidence is there that they will be in the future?
Your argument that a healthy Palestine is in Israel’s interest cannot be ignored, but Israel sees a healthy Palestibe as a foe and a potential threat. As you point out, Israelis regard peace as dangerous, though the danger is largely hyped and based on irrtaionality.
Peace will only be achieved by degrees, and will take taime to establish. The point I am making is that Israel will not be persudaded to allow a palestinian state to emerge simply out of benevolence, but mutual interests and the current arrangement does not encourage such an outcome. Therefore, Israle must be pressured, and even feel some pain before it decides that it’s policies must change. Coddling Israel will not lead to change.
Israel clearly believe that blockades work, otherwise they wouldn’t be applyign them to Gaza. The intention of BDS is based on the intention of those applying it, NOT what you conclude. If you have evidence that BDS is not motivated ny peace, but some other more opportunistic or malevolent objective, then let’s see it.
What you have proposed, as an alternative to BDS, is itself vague and aimless, which leads me and others to believe that you only opposed the BDS because it might actually produce an outcome.
You’ve never asked what I propose.
Tu Quoque
From PBS:
From The Atlantic:
Note the earliest historians can argue for the possibility of a known use of disease as a weapon occurred centuries after the continents were depopulated.
From a point of power and war, it would be really strange if it was discovered and not used for ones owns aims, long before it systematic exploitation as weapon. Would this have happened without the initial experience? I wouldn’t completely call all Indian memories in this context conspiracy lore, but then I haven’t really looked closer into this.
But yes, I expected the argument from Richard. In some contexts complexity is needed in others simplification. Will he follow your last link? I doubt. Among First Nation Canadians many such stories circulate.
Learn the history, not only the myth.
It is not disrespect to Indians to learn more about their specific challenges at different periods of time.
The element that is “cowboys/Indians” meaning overly simplistic is the notion that because someone experiences a tragedy, pain, that there must therefore be a conspiring demon orchestrating it.
It just ain’t so. There are really very cases that genocide is intentionally orchestrated on a scale that it can be affected. Israel isn’t capable of genocide of Palestinians. The most that they can do is to force them to move, which is bad enough.
The conditions in which that would happen are the same ones as in 1948, that is during time of war.
Most here regard BDS as instead of war. Most center-right Israelis regard BDS as a tactic with which TO war.
The people here are not the deciders on that question. If BDS is unsuccessful and a vanguard from Hamas determines that a next step is a natural progression, then they will be associated.
If Israel treaties with the PA, before or during BDS campaign, likely the proponents will describe themselves as the straw that shifted the debate, taking credit.
Those of you that have more skill than only to dissent, you will contribute to the transition of Palestinians from oppressed and unhealthy to free and healthy, by more constructive means more effectively.
I know you don’t like recommendations from me.
I remember an old Jefferson Airplane album, Blows Against the Empire, about dissenters that hijack a starship evacuating a devastated earth (meant for the presidents and generals and families). The urge was to gather the physicians, the farmers, the solar energy geeks, the artists.
The dissenters were mostly useless.
Witty, state enforced genocide was not something the average German ever believed in; as it is now
not what the average zionist American or Israeli Jews believes in as a concept to pursue, yet is is happening before our eyes.
This is irrelevant to the known fact that the colonists deliberately attempted to exterminate the remnant of the population, not by disease but by force of arms.
Curiously enough, the ravages of disease might explain how it is the European Americans had such an easy time of it eliminating the native populations.
However once they did have the upper hand, there is no doubt about the intention
There is a documented instance of a British colonel holding peace talks at which he gave gifts of new blankets: blankets deliberately infected with smallpox.
On the other hand, the Israelis at one point were hard at work at some biological weapons to target Arabs.
The ironic result was that any biological weapon to which the Palestinians are vulnerable is one to which the vast majority of Semitic Israelis would fall victim. I.e. the biological weapons they were developing were weapons against themselves. I think at this point, the program was hastily shelved, lest some of the strains get out into the open and recommence Himmler’s work.
The Israelis were at work on an Arab bomb? Where do you get this stuff? Stormfront?
While I am skeptical that there was Israeli research on biological weapons genetically keyed to Arabs, there is certainly a history of Israeli biological weapons research directed at Arabs.
Israeli Biological Weapons Profile, NTI
The indicents of biological weapons used intentionally were extremely rare.
I don’t hear any suggestion of live and let live in your posts, Alec.
And I don’t hear any indices of live and let live in your posts, Richard Witty. Let’s look back to the movie Cabaret. One tune involves ” if you could see her as I see her, she wouldn’t seem Jewish at all.” Now, juxtipose that tune to an imaginary tune advocating Jewish uber alles, that is, the Jewish Birthright progam, and of course,
continued operating of the USA foreign policy, with most goy tax dollars going
to Israel and Egypt( so long as Egypt rubber stamps any Israeli regime’s policy).
The Indian history is a good parallel to Israel/Palestine.
Its a story of larger historical forces that cannot be stopped in origination, but can be reconciled and healed by those that seek to stop warring.
Those that desire to continue warring on both sides’ right-wing (including those that name themselves as leftists) will keep doing so, and blaming the other for all ills.
Larger historical forces?
What rubbish…
That’s your justification for apartheid and genocide.
Even Hitler made a better case for his crimes than you for yours.
You think that migrations from crowded, diseased, impoverished, oppressed Europe were not larger forces at work?
Are they your ancestors? How can you demean them so?
Richard:
First. Have you been to Europe? I live here. Many of the cities are are human and beautiful in a way that very, very few cities in North America could compare.
Second. Yes, I do renounce the crimes of my ancestors. I will not own property in North America, won’t live there and feel ill thinking of the enormity of those crimes.
Good enough for you?
Unlike you, the tie of tribal blood does not urge me to forgive or forget mass murder and genocide. I do not believe that my ancestors or myself are a chosen people. Nor do I believe that other rules apply to us and we have the right to infringe on other groups including collective murder.
But that’s just me. I know you feel differently.
Hitler did do. And so did the German people under Hitler.
Have you ever read the Portrait of Dorian Grey, Witty?
(Judging by your writing, you’ve never opened even an essay by Wilde, but let’s leave that for the moment.)
Look in the mirror, Witty. Have you ever wondered how the Germans turned a blind eye to what was happening in the camps in the 1940′s? Wonder no longer. You are the German delivering baked goods to the guards quarters at Auschwitz and voting for the National Socialist Party. You might not be gunning down the trainloads but without your support it couldn’t happen.
Funny how people become what they hate.
Israelis the children of god? No, Hitler’s bastard brood.
Alec,
I travel to London annually. And stay with my holocaust surviving mother-in-law.
Europe too is constructed on colonial residue. There is no place on earth that is not. And, for a VERY long time, much of Europe was overtly anti-semitic (racist), including through 1948, when they were relieved of addressing their own racism by the formation of Israel.
It took assertion to make Israel. And assertion occassionally extends to persecution.
An attitude seeking reform, and by persuasion, says that “enough” is truly enough, that expansion is not needed.
Attacks on Israel’s identity however are relative to the history of the formation of Israel growing out of the holocaust, an effort to “finish the job”.
That when Palestinians make any common cause with those with a racist bent to criticism of Israel, they inadvertently are making common cause with the nazi movement, and the gamut of similar movements prior.
Its a very tough dilemma for a truly anti-racist dissenter, how to clearly oppose injustice, without investing in injustice, worse injustice.
As its a very tough dilemma for a lover of Israel and Israelis (as irritating as they can be), to have to defend their existence while likud is in power.
I don’t justify apartheid by any stretch. I just don’t indulge in careless definition of dissent in opposing it.
So, while the 1948 events were a tragedy to Palestinians, they (in general, not my sanction of every incident) were a necessity for the Jewish people to form as a nation.
So, Richard Witty, can we take at least 20% of your net annual income to balance now what you
(via your birth as a non-native American), say is practical justice?
It’s a good analogy in the sense that yes, the victims in Europe became the aggressors where they migrated. They saw land inhabited by “inferior” people and decided that as the “civilized” ones they had the right to take it. Some of the invaders were more ruthless than others. There were people like William Penn and Roger Williams who had good intentions and treated Native Americans as equal, but they were a minority. Most whites favored ethnic cleansing and some favored genocide and those are the policies that prevailed (though usually more ethnic cleansing than genocide). It was not “historically inevitable” that the examples of William Penn and Roger Williams weren’t followed, except in the sense that one tends to expect bad behavior from humans in such situations. But that’s in no way a moral justification for it.
And of course Native Americans weren’t saints. They fought each other, and they committed atrocities both against each other and against whites. But most of us nowadays have no trouble understanding that the whites were the aggressors.
The analogy to the I/P conflict is very nearly exact, though in the case of I/P it’s more ethnic cleansing and apartheid–I for one don’t think the word “genocide” should be used. There were some Zionists who wanted to live in peace and equality with the Arabs, with no notion of imposing a Jewish state on them or with the idea that they were an obstacle. But obviously those Zionists (like Judah Magnes) were not the ones whose opinions prevailed. Your attempt to put all the blame on the Arab violence in the 20′s is noted–as usual, it’s all the other side’s fault. But there was this little thing called the Balfour Declaration that had the Arabs worried.
Described by the London Review of Books as “both an impressive analysis of Zionist ideology and a searing but scholarly indictment of Israel’s treatment of the Arabs since 1948,” and by Noam Chomsky as “. . . the most revealing study of the historical background of the conflict and the current peace agreement,” the author [Norman G. Finkelstein] and the publisher [Verso] of Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict should be supported by the purchase of the book. In fact, buy a copy for your personal library and one for the local public library.
While you are waiting for your copies to arrive, pp. 89-98 are available on-line on the Google books site — go to the Google page for “Image and reality of the Israel-Palestine conflict” and search under “Historian Francis Jennings.”
Support democracy. Oppose propaganda.
“Support democracy. Oppose propaganda. ”
Why because democracies are anathema to propaganda and war crimes?
This is a perfect example of the thoughtless sloganeering from Richard Witty which should not be published, Phil.
I know the comments of most people who write this tripe don’t see the light of day. Why do we have to put up with the persistent inanity of Richard Witty?
Because I’m a human being, and present a credible critical true perspective on a critical problem of our day.
Your specific chain of reasoning, is not the only possible one.
Differ with the content, with the emphasis, with the political signficance of my perspective if you like.
Please restrain yourself from efforts to censor.
Witty shows why no American should ever think any Jew has a lock on morality or ethics. That’s his contribution. It’s important, especially given the usual conflation
ignoring the relative free will , and the ignoring of simple victim,e.g., what was Anne Frank and the brave active courage of Rachael Corrie.
[emphasis mine]
Richard Witty moves into the light from the dark side. Congradulations! Palestinian ROR is the only moral stance.
Richard, thanks for your posts on this page. You know a great deal more about the history of the Indian removals in the US than most people here.
” You know a great deal more about the history of the Indian removals in the US than most people here.”
This conclusion is based on what, exactly? I for one am aware of (some of) the complexities of American history, but unlike Richard, I don’t blather on about historical inevitabilities as though they provide a moral defense. It was inevitable that whites would come to these shores–it was not inevitable that people like William Penn and Roger Willliams would be the exceptions to the usual rule of white arrogance. And anyway, since when is historical inevitability (true or not) supposed to be a moral defense? Unpleasant and immoral as it is, terrorist attacks on colonial settlers appear to be historically inevitable as well, yet somehow Richard is able to denounce those as never justifiable. I agree, but then why doesn’t he say the same about settler terrorism against native peoples?
Donald,
I simply don’t see any point in projecting late 20th century post-colonial mores on long-dead individuals.
When looking at history closely, it is definitely possible to play monday-morning quarterback and say that a certain decision was wrong or foolish. It isn’t possible, though, to really know the whole mind of a historical actor. Over something as vast as North American Euro-American/Indian relations, one can say that displacement was inevitable, but the means might be different, and in fact they were: they covered the whole range of missionizing, assimilation, forced assimilation, ethic cleansing, war, reservations, etc. There was a lot of human drama on both sides, and Indians were anything but passive victims shifted around by omnipotent white demigods. That post-colonial narrative degrades Indians as much as it demonizes whites.
Uh oh, here I go disagreeing again – DavidF it must of course be asked, since when is murder and theft either on an individual basis or collectively “projecting late 20th century post-colonial mores on long-dead individuals.” ? No, there are things that transcend the formal retorts of some “historians,” not everything can be sealed in a specific time or era.
Officially what you are talking about in historical study is “presentism.” It can indeed be a problem in peripheral subject matter in the course of history – like saying about native dress in a region “how ridiculous that looks,” that is reading current forms of fashion perhaps of the present into the past. However, not in matters of murder, theft, and many injustices that still plague us today.
Presentism is also a tool, used by many historians use to excuse the atrocities of the past to a certain supposed set of mores as opposed to how we think today. I can remember a professor I had who bristled with all his Oxford “authority” at a statement I made about slavery as written by Plato’s, four classes of men –
Plato states that the Guardians – the rulers of society – will no longer be able to distinguish between the various classes of men, the gold, silver, bronze and iron men, who make up society. This will bring about strife. Plato notes that his four classes of men are like Hesiod’s, but it is fairly clear from the text that Plato has moved on to a new subject – strife between classes in society – the lowest being slaves.
Well the professor balked about the statement that the view was wrong, and that “iron men” being slaves as a sort of destiny was incorrect. He said of course it was incorrect, but men of Plato’s period did not think that there was anything wrong with this analogy – men did not think badly of slavery like we do today, you are practicing “presentism” (said my professor). It was at this point that I responded, “than why is Plato discussing the subject if there were no difficulties,” because there was indeed historical uprisings even during the time of Plato – and he was trying to formulate a theory that said it was natural – if nothing were wrong there would have been no uprising and no need for Palto to form these theories. The professor has nothing else to say, end of discussion.
So as I said earlier there are issues like murder, theft, slavery, and various injustices which transcend time. Indeed, in some of the ancient pictorial text there is an arrow being shot over a wall, which depicted FREEDOM, in other words from ancient times. So lets not have these issues relegated to an “ancient mind” that does not think the same way we do.
v…, for Plato, in a well-ordered society the slaves would be those whose nature was to be ruled. The strife would result from “slaves by nature” occupying roles inconsistent with their nature. Plato took it for granted that only a minority was suitable for rule, and most needed to be ruled by others.
The idea that inter-group ethics should be the same as intra-group ethics (i.e. universal human rights) is a pretty new idea. The ancient Israelites had very strict internal ethics, but the rules for dealing with competing peoples were quite different:
When you draw near to a city to fight against it, offer terms of peace to it.
And if its answer to you is peace and it opens to you, then all the people who are found in it shall do forced labor for you and shall serve you.
But if it makes no peace with you, but makes war against you, then you shall besiege it; and when the LORD your God gives it into your hand you shall put all its males to the sword, but the women and the little ones, the cattle, and everything else in the city, all its spoil, you shall take as booty for yourselves; and you shall enjoy the spoil of your enemies, which the LORD your God has given you.
Thus you shall do to all the cities which are very far from you, which are not cities of the nations here.
But in the cities of these peoples that the LORD your God gives you for an inheritance, you shall save alive nothing that breathes, but you shall utterly destroy them, the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Per’izzites, the Hivites and the Jeb’usites, as the LORD your God has commanded; that they may not teach you to do according to all their abominable practices which they have done in the service of their gods, and so to sin against the LORD your God.
Deut. 20:10-20
Except, Richard, that you do blame Palestinians for terrorism and you also blame rightwing Zionists for their most indefensible atrocities. But when the
blame gets a little too close to home, when mainstream Zionism starts to look responsible for much of the problem (I don’t say all), you start talking about how it is bad to hold people responsible for their sins if you want peace. You simply don’t practice what you preach–you can’t live up to your own ideal.
Except for one thing DavidF nothing you posted in reply resembles the current situation in the genocide of the Palestinians – second, examples from fairy tales do not count. There is no ethical protocol taking place, and if there is there is none which is even close to the standard of a watching world. In other words, your reply did nothing to even put the slightest ding in my argument – you get an unsatisfactory grade, try again next time.
That last is a trope or meme that I heartily wish would vanish. I see it all the time–person X criticizes, say, the white settlers, and person Y says that painting the Indians as victims “degrades them” and portrays them as helpless and as lacking agency and so on and so forth. Too often people talk this way when they just don’t want us to draw some unpleasant moral conclusions about the white settlers.
Well, no, it isn’t degrading to Indians to talk about them as victims. Victims can be quite active and even capable of committing atrocities themselves and can’t all be lumped into one category (a child is not responsible for what an adult does) and still be victims who were ultimately crushed by overwhelming odds against them. And as for whites, it degrades them (if we wish to play that game) to say that they were incapable of understanding the immorality of what they were doing. In the history of European conquest there were people all along who realized that what Europeans were doing was wrong, starting with Bartolome de La Casas in the West Indies. In US colonial history there were people like the Quakers and people like Roger Williams in New England. It’s not a question of us 21st century types grandly imposing our moral values on the past and feeling superior (I don’t know what I would have thought back then), but one can notice that even then, by the standards of their own time, some Europeans recognized that what their countrymen were doing was wrong.
Anyway, even if one wants to let the white settlers off the hook, the question is how close their behavior comes to the behavior of the Zionists in the 20th and 21st century. And whether one should, as Richard does, let the colonialists (Zionist and American) off the moral hook because what they did was “inevitable”, while condemning Palestinians for their terrorism. I think Richard is having it both ways and I’m a little stunned even by the low standards I’ve come to expect from him when reacting to Phil that he’d defend Israel’s conduct by lumping it in with the white settlement of America and saying “historical inevitability”.
I think holding anyone on the “hook” is vindictive.
Assessing needs and making sure that needs are confidently met, is more progressive and more humane.
“historical inevitability” was NOT my term.
I prefer Howard Zinn’s approach (I assume that you read “A People’s History”), of mutual sympathies. Again, in his description of the masses of immigrants to America, he doesn’t depict them as genocidal conspirators, but of working people either escaping poverty or persecution. And, at the same time he does describe how those working people did join up as Indian fighters to chase them from their lands.
BOTH. Not binary. Not cowboys/Indians.
There is a point in DavidF’s post, which is of Monday morning quarterbacking, and oriented to blaming someone, as if that accomplishes any improvement to anyone’s life. So, rather than commit to improving Palestinian lives, the commitment is to externally shamed politically correct sequences of arguments.
If the focus is improvement of Palestinian lives, then that can be achieved from multiple perspectives. The chain of political correctness is more analagous to a religious dogma.
I think that I’m on the right track frankly.
Just as bad as trying to justify Israeli colonialism by means of past European Imperialism, is the European Zionists’ newfound zeal to connect all things Arab with Nazism, a trend possibly started by Jerkowitz.
This way they can oppose the ‘ceding of land’ (who wants to ‘cede’ land to Nazis?) without even mentioning settlements.
Witty: “Hasbara” will do just fine for me, thanks…
And yes, we’re definitely talking about a ‘final push’. It manifests itself on many levels, including the stepping up of Hasbara efforts in many guises (see also Israel’s ‘Cultural offensive’) and the ridiculous attempts at stalling the inevitable (talks about ‘settlement freezes’, ‘Pharaos’, ‘natural growth’ and ‘kintergartens’…)
You sound paranoid attributing some conspiracy to any perspective that differs from your chain of “reasoning”.
I’m confused. There are Israelis who readily admit they break treaties, slaughter Palestinians, and put the remainder on reservations? Not that there’s anything wrong with that?
“It isn’t possible, though, to really know the whole mind of a historical actor”
Oh, right. We have no way of knowing how native americans felt about things. They were most likely enjoying themselves on the Trail of Tears.
“Well, no, it isn’t degrading to Indians to talk about them as victims. Victims can be quite active and even capable of committing atrocities themselves and can’t all be lumped into one category (a child is not responsible for what an adult does) and still be victims who were ultimately crushed by overwhelming odds against them. And as for whites, it degrades them (if we wish to play that game) to say that they were incapable of understanding the immorality of what they were doing”
Bingo!
alec understands what this allusion to the Native Americans means. Israelis knowingly commit genocide.
With the revival of the stacked deck in this room, I’m going to return to just addressing Phil’s posts, not commenters.
Thanks Richard. Much appreciated.
Richard, if you would confine yourself to commenting when you have something of substance to say, your life and our lives would improve.