Everyone is talking about Larry Derfner’s amazing piece in the Jerusalem Post about the hypocritical/exclusive Israeli right to self-defense, post-Goldstone:
And what right do the Palestinians have to defend themselves against this?
None.
Why? Because we’re better than them. Because we’re a democracy and they’re a bunch of Islamo-fascists. Because ours is a culture of life and theirs is a culture of death. Because they’re out to destroy us and all we are saying is give peace a chance.
One look at the ruins of Gaza ought to make that plain enough.
Here is our idea of the "laws of war": When Israeli bulldozers rolled across the border into Gazan villages and flattened house after house so Hamas wouldn’t have them for cover after the IDF pulled out, that was self-defense. But if a Palestinian boy who’d lived in one of those houses threw a stone at one of the bulldozers, that was terrorism.
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Amazing is right! I had to check the banner twice, and I still don’t believe it.
Derfner’s piece is a must-read, definitely. But I am wondering about WHO is talking about it, Phil. I haven’t seen any. Anyone else?
Terror is blowing up a bus station, a cafe, a hotel. Terror is shelling civilians for years.
There may be other possible responses to terror, but denial is not one of them.
And you completely missed the fact Derfner is pointing out that “self-defense” is the Israeli denial of the terrorism they commit against the Palestinians. You engage in that denial yourself, so I am not surprised that it went right over your head.
Terror is attacking a civilian population with nowhere to hide.
Terror is how Israel was founded and continues to practice to this very day. Funny Richard, how you continue to tal about blowing up a hotel, when this is what Israel did 60 years ago.
Funny how you harp onblosin up a bus station, a cafe, a hotel, when not only has this not taken place for 3 years, but Israel probably blew up a few bus stations, cafe’s and hotels in Gaza i January alone.
There may be other possible responses to Israeli terror, but denial is not one of them.
Terror is raining white phosphorous on innocent women and children under the Dahiyeh Doctrine.
link to khaleejtimes.com
Richard,
So is it correct to assume that you don’t believe dropping one ton bombs atop of schools, hospitals, apartment buildings is also terrorism? Why? If the Palestinians had a state and a military and they defended themselves the way that Israel does would it cease being terrorism in your eyes? These seem like such kindergarten level questions but I feel like I have to start at a very basic level with you. Are you being paid to leave this really silly comments or do you believe them? It seems unimaginable that you could read day in and out the accounts of the barbarities that Israel inflicts on the Palestinian people yet still leave the same inane comments day in and out. Are you paying attention or are you a cyberbot?
Then stop denying Israeli terror.
Hamas bombing bus stations or schoolbuses or cafes or hotels is not a “response”. Similarly, shelling civilian towns is not a “response”.
Seeking to target Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFLP terror launching sites is legitimate defense.
Excess can be described as terror. I regard a one-ton bomb on an apartment complex containing mostly civilians to be excess, and therefore state terror.
If shelling civilian towns is not a “response”, then where is your condemnation of the 7,700 shells Israel fired into Gaza in 2005/2006?
Hor does collective punichment and dropping WP in civilians target Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFLP? How is bombing UN compounds, schools, hospitals and police stations legitimate defense. it that’s self defense, the so is bombing bus stations or schoolbuses or cafes or hotels.
BTW. The raid on Gaza was not self defense. Israel started the conflict, having already carried out an act fo war in the form of the occupatino and the blockade.
And if a 1 ton bomb on an apartment complex containing mostly civilians is terror, then why not a 500lb one?
Seeking to hit the actual launching sites of Palestinian rockets is a legitimate act of self defense. If conducted properly, it would involve very careful targeting of the launch sites with weapons that would be chosen to minimize the chance of innocent bystanders being hurt or killed. This, of course, has nothing to do with the war on Gaza, which was a war crime from start to finish. And it has little to do with many of Israel’s acts of violence against Gazans before the war started. And nothing to do with various Israeli acts of gratuitous sadism, such as flying jets over Gaza in order to cause sonic booms and terrify children.
And the blockade of Gaza is not self defense–it is collective punishment, which is illegal. If the Palestinians had the military capability, they would have the right to sink Israeli ships which enforce it.
Seeking to target Hamas, Islamic Jihad, PFLP terror launching sites is legitimate defense.
——————————————————————————————————
So by that rationale, targeting uniformed soldiers, military installations, military vehicles, equipment and personnel is fair game.
If we’re debating “response” as a form of a solution, then violence is the wrong response, either way.
The occupation produced resistance. The first Intifada started in 1988, more than 20 years after the occupation started.
So, a reasonable human being would conclude that ending the occupation would end the violence, but instead, Israel escalated the violence.
Now, if you think that the Israeli government “had no choice”™ but to escalate the violence, then I say Israel had several opportunities. But, Israel is not interested in any solution that would have it returning the West Bank to the Palestinians.
Incidentally, according to the Israeli human rights center, B’Tselem, the vast majority of Palestinian attacks on Israelis are against military targets, not civilians ones (such as buses or shopping malls).
The statistics are there on their website.
Richard you just said that Israel participates in state terror. You said tossing one ton bombs onto apartment buildings was terror… earlier you said that Israel has the right to respond to terror so I am wondering why you think it is OK for Israel to use terror to respond to violence but not OK for the Palestinians to do the same? Is it because deep down inside you are actually incredibly bigoted and racist and you don’t believe Jewish and Palestinian Christian and Muslim lives are equal? It’s easy to condone and justify state terror when the victims are just Arabs, right, Richard? You are either incredibly, savagely racist or you’re a pro and you are feigning stupidity to confuse people away from what Phil and Adam are trying to do on this site: EXPOSE THE HORRORS OF THE ISRAELI OCCUPATION SO THAT REGULAR DECENT AMERICANS MIGHT REALIZE WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON AND START TO QUESTION WHY EXACTLY THE GOVERNMENTS OF THIS COUNTRY FEEL THE NEED TO PROSTRATE THEMSELVES TO ONE OF THE LAST REMAINING COLONIALIST APARTHEID REGIMES IN THE WORLD. Why Witty, what’s in it for you?
Seham,
You know I take issue with your tone and goal.
If your goal is dignity for Gazans, then that should not require Israel to grovel. They should do what they can to get there, and that would be the topic of discussion here.
“What can Gazans do? What can Palestinians do? What can solidarity do to enhance the quality of life for Palestinians, to make decent lives, self-governed?”
That is not the subject of discussion here, or most places where the left gathers. The subject is nearly always stated in negative condemnatory terms, nearly always again ignoring Palestinians actual well-being, in favor of some political rhetoric.
I suspect that the reason for that is a desire for street cred, MORE than a desire to improve the lives of Palestinians. “Our analysis is more biting”.
Rather than, our approach is more effective, even if not pure.
The goal is not “dignity” for the Gazans.
The goal is freedom. To tear down the prison walls. To banish the guards in the towers, the snipers. To be able to grow crops without armed bulldozers coming to plow it all under. To rebuild their society without armed bulldozers coming in again to demolish everything. To freely import the necessitites of life and export what they produce. To be able to wake in the morning without the fear of sudden violent death raining down from above.
You tell the inmates of a prison that, if they bow down and submit to their jailers, they might be granted “dignity”, when what they need is liberty.
“If your goal is dignity for Gazans, then that should not require Israel to grovel. ”
That’s revealing. For Richard, it’s really about Israel’s dignity and his own dignity as someone who identifies with them. For him to admit the full extent of Israel’s crimes wouldn’t be a step that an honest peace activist should take–it would be “groveling”. True reconciliation would require people on both sides to admit the crimes committed in their name.
I grew up around this sort of attitude–a lot of southern whites who claimed not to be racist bitterly resented any talk of what they or their immediate ancestors had done to keep blacks in their place. They had no intention of “groveling”, which meant being honest about the legacy of white racism. On the other hand, they were more than willing to talk about the extent to which poor blacks could be held responsible for their poverty due to their behavior. Honesty about that was expected.
RW just doesn’t get it, again. Imagine my surprise.
————————————————-
I suspect that the reason for that is a desire for street cred, MORE than a desire to improve the lives of Palestinians. “Our analysis is more biting”.
————————————————–
Street cred? Is that code now days for “those barbarian Palestinians”? Kind of like the use of the term “urban” to refer to inner city “ghetto” youth?
No. You miss the point and I’m not surprised.
Palestinians feel outraged when an injustice takes place, regardless of who’s involved.
When the car of a Jewish colonialist in the West Bank rolled over and crashed, Palestinians rushed to the vehicle and rescued a pregnant Jewish settler and her unborn baby.
Along come the Richard Wittys of Israel and its propaganda and make up a thousand excuses for Israel’s slaughter, with nary a sense of shame or moral outrage, let alone an obligation toward their fellow human.
So, while Palestinians focus on their own suffering in asking for the world’s civilized nations for help and compassion, in discussing their plight, people like you focus on dehumanizing the “enemy”.
Those are the reasons for the differences in discourse. But, that doesn’t change the fact that you’re a bigot.
“You know I take issue with your tone and goal.”
What’s my goal, Richard? I want to know how it is possible that you can justify all of Israel’s criminal conduct and then only offer some really half-baked lame condemnation only when everyone attacks your disgustingly biased, racist and lame remarks and then feel like you have the moral authority to lecture anyone about anything at all. When you begin to justify any of Israel’s criminal acts you really lose the authority to lecture anyone else about the motivations behind their comments. You are an apologist for apartheid, plain and simple.
“If your goal is dignity for Gazans, then that should not require Israel to grovel. They should do what they can to get there, and that would be the topic of discussion here.”
What in the world are you talking about? Nobody gives a crap whether Israel grovels or not. You think I or any other Palestinian gives a crap whether Israel grovels or not? Palestinians want the siege on Gaza to end so that they can develop their own infrastructure and rebuild their lives and their futures for Palestinian children. Whatever preposterous psychodrama Zionists do or don’t go through in their twisted little minds is meaningless to Palestinians.
I get that it is difficult to shift your thinking from condemnation to strategy, particularly towards articulating a strategy that doesn’t condemn those that you’ve imprinted as “enemy”.
That “conclusion” is in Adam’s post heading “There’s no point talking to Israelis”.
Terrorizing in any form in response to terror done doesn’t get very far.
Its a form of giving up.
Try cooling your head, deliberately NOT getting stimulated to rant (as part of your political pallette then), and brainstorming what CAN be done to make change.
I promise you that ranting, even if that makes sense, confirms the impression of hothead publicly.
Shifting one’s thinking from condemnation to strategy is not diffuclt Richard, it just doesn’t work in the case of a belligenrent and criminal sindicate like the Israeli government.
Its actually the only thing that works.
If it actually worked, then we would have seen evidencen fo it after 40 years instead of failure.
If you don’t see change, then you are not looking.
Even former staunch expansionists Sharon, Olmert and others left likud because they recognized that Palestinians existed, will, and deserve self-governance.
I’ve just finished Khalidi’s Palestinian Identity, written in 1997. He lauded the shift in both Israeli and Palestinian consciousness of abandoning the concept that the other didn’t exist, that the norm was of recognition, that the only issues remaining were to reconcile the form of that recognition (not a small or inconsequential question).
The point is of change. Reluctant, but acknowledged in both communities.
What you are trying to protray as change is purely cosmetic. The Israeli government has stated that a peaceful settlement is not possible.
Neither Sharon or Olmert recognized Palestine or the Palestinians rights. Olmert stated that he believed in Israel’s eternal right ot all the land from Jordan to the sea and Sharon is the ptron saint of the settler movement.
The pioneers of terrorism in the Middle East: On March, 6, 1936, Zionist terrorists threw bombs in Haifa market, killing 18 Palestinians, and injuring 38. On December, 31, 1937, scores of Palestinians were killed and injured when Zionist terrorists threw grenades in the vegetables’ market near Nablus gate in Jerusalem. On July, 6th, 1938, 21 Palestinians were killed and 52 were injured when Zionist terrorists detonated two car bombs in Haifa market. On July 15th, 1938, 10 Palestinians were killed and 3 were injured when Zionist terrorists threw grenades at mosques in Jerusalem when worshipers were leaving. On July 25th, 1938, 35 Palestinians were killed and 70 were injured when Zionist terrorists detonated a car bomb in the Arab market in Haifa. On July 26th, 1938, 47 Palestinians were killed and others injured when Zionist terrorists threw grenades in the market of Haifa. On August 26th, 1938, 34 Palestinians were killed and 35 were injured when Zionist terrorists detonated a car bomb in the suq of Jerusalem. On March 27th, 1939, 27 Palestinians were killed and 39 were injured when Zionists terrorists threw grenades in the middle of Haifa. On June 12, 1939, a Zionist terrorist gang attacked the village of Balad Ash-Shaykh and kidnapped five villagers and later killed them. On June 19, 1939 9 Palestinians were killed and 4 injured when Zionist terrorists threw grenades at a crowd of Palestinians. On June 20th, 1947 78 Palestinians were killed and 24 injured when Zionist terrorists put bombs in a crate of vegetables in the suq of Haifa. And on and on and on. Source: Al-Hurriyyah magazine, no. 1183, April 26, 2008.
(source: link to angryarab.blogspot.com
Good for you, matter. Not that Mr. Witty would bother to read your post, or that it would make a damn bit of difference.
Ricahard,
Your obsession with avoiding condemnation comes down to your fear of accountability and coinsequence. What you want, is for Israel to get off scott free for it’s crimes.
Terrorizing in response to terror done doesn’t get very far, but it has served Israel handsomely and they certianyl don’t look like giving up.
As for dignity for Gazans, that must go down and your most sanctimonious and patronizig line yet. There is no dignitity withotu freedom liberty and self determination, and treating Israel with kid gloves isn’t going to deliver any of those rights to the Palestinians.
As you might have noticed, the further you go down this dihonest path, the more of an extrmist you are revealed to be.
I regard condemning others as a sin on my part.
“Let he who is guilty cast the first stone”.
Then you sin here everyday, in nearly every comment you make. You condemn Hamas, you condemn “the left”, you condemn anyone who strongly disagrees with your opinions, you condemn other commenters, you condemn BDS, you condemn non-violent direct action, you condemn the idea of Israel as a nation of all its citizens, you condemn anyone who offers anything other than the mildest of criticism of Israel. The only things you seem incapable of condemning is Israel and yourself, and those you constantly justify, while offering the faintest of criticism, not of yourself, but of Israel.
con⋅demn
/kənˈdɛm/
1. to express an unfavorable or adverse judgment on; indicate strong disapproval of; censure.
Self-examination, Richard. It would help you immensely, if you are still capable of it. Commenters here could help you if you would listen.
I believe that I criticize actions and policies.
Perhaps you don’t know the difference.
I certainly am not going to condemn myself, and I will not invest in any form of criticism that extends to “Israel should not exist”.
Is that mention of a hotel meant to be a reference to a specific, well-known act of Middle Eastern terrorism?
“Is that mention of a hotel meant to be a reference to a specific, well-known act of Middle Eastern terrorism? ”
Yes, the King David Hotel.
The King David Hotel bombing was more military than civilian terror as the British central mandatory intelligence was sited there.
Irgun undertook worse and more frequent terror on civilians than the King David Hotel.
The hotel that I referred to was the bombing of civilians attending Passover celebration. I forgot the year.
Don’t you just looove it when Zionists justify Zionist terrorism. “Oh, but… but… but… the civilians, they just got in the way!”
Gee Richard, you sure do use interesting words when describing Zionist terrorism. I wonder if you would similarly justify ohh… I dunno… Iraqi terrorism with such interesting terms…
“The market bombing in Sadr City was more military than civilian terror as the American occupations had a military base there.”
Right, Witty?
When it suits them, the media, Israel’s spokespeople and RW refer to such groups as “paramilitary”. Read the various articles on Wikipedia regarding the Israeli Palestinian conflict and the heavy handed bias will become clear.
And just like that piece in the Jerusalem Post, the hypocrites and propagandists just don’t see their own colors. The cognitive dissonance is astounding.
But, since Israel controls the narrative, especially in the west, the Palestinians will always be dehumanized and Israelis will always get a pass.
In this case RW is a concern troll. He suddenly gives two poops about the well-being of Palestinians and the ways through which they can go about improving their situation.
Chutzpah doesn’t even begin to describe it. A sense of superiority, bigotry, arrogance and condescension though, sure come close.
The King David Hotel bombing targetted civlians and well as military personel and was directed at the British who had the exlcusibve legal authority to administer the teritories.
In other words, the bombing was an act of armed resiatnce, the very same tactic that you decry when the Palestinians practice it. Unlike the Israelis however, the British were not oppressing and massacring the local population.
The hotel bombing obviously took place a long time ago, yet you raise it as though it were a recent event and refelctive of the events stil taking place. More lies and obfuscation.
And who was that English diplomat who was killed by the Jewish extremists?
Lord Moyne; also the Swede, Count Bernadotte
The Richard Witty Manifesto, worth reprinting. Originally from the comment section beneath Jack Ross’ review. It strikes me as a political romantic manifesto. I am a bit of a Romantic myself, but I always considered the political/nationalist strain in the German Romantic tradition dangerous.
Richard Witty October 11, 2009 at 7:33 am
Zionism is a good in the world.
The history and present of Jewish identity and life is enhanced by the existence and security of Israel.
And, rather than a pervasive “Jewish question”, with the hosts’ audacity to willingly persecute in multiple contexts, and over centuries and centuries, is a great good for the world as a whole.
But, there are side effects, some harms, some confusions, that require reform.
I am a “live and let live Zionist”, a Zionist that regards “enough” as enough.
I and millions others won’t retreat from that. But, that view of need of enough is NOT mutually exclusive, NOT exceptionalist, NOT expansionist, NOT colonialist.
It is a revision of history to describe the peace-seeking Zionist as those attributes.
And, as such, the work at hand is to create the objective conditions, and the consciousness among the American and Israeli Jewish community to voluntarily accept enough.
It won’t happen as a result of indisciplined punitive approaches. It will be deterred by those approaches.
If you believe that Israel will not exist at some near future time, and that that setting will be more just than an “enough” Israel, then go to war, if your hypocritical conscience can stand the responsibility of it.
There is some truth to the manifesto–Zionism didn’t have to be aggressive and expansionist. Perhaps communism didn’t have to be totalitarian. In real life it mostly has been that way. It won’t become the kinder gentler version unless the proponents of kindler gentler Zionism are forthright and honest about the real sins of actually existing Zionism and stop making excuses for it. Which is where Witty falls far short, unfortunately. We’ve had plenty of the “shooting and crying” sort of Zionism. That’s only served the cause of public relations image improvement, not an actual change of behavior.
That’s all well and good but it doesn’t matter what Zionism could have been, what matters is what Zionism is now. And what it is, in its current form, is the rationalism of ongoing crimes against humanity.
You haven’t read Donald.
I consistently state that it is reasonable, helpful, to criticize Zionism, but unreasonable, punitive, unjust to demonize Zionism.
I consistently speak for reform and for mutually consented peace. Consistently.
Less than that standard would be a betrayal of fundamental commitment to justice.
Chaos,
All politics is present, not a dismissal.
If you describe vigilance EVER as important, that is the significance of it, that history/politics can tip, and as a result of our actions.
So, to need to commit to the simultaneous features of the Israeli basic law, is not a moral compromise, but an affirmation.
Israel, haven for the Jewish people. Israel, equal due process under the law for all.
Simultaneious. A brilliant vision. A reality in development.
There is some truth to the manifesto–Zionism didn’t have to be aggressive and expansionist. Perhaps communism didn’t have to be totalitarian.
You are on to something here with this parallel. Some turn of the century social democrats and communists were the best men and women of their generation. Social democrats were actually democratic, and even Lenin’s Bolsheviks prior to 1917 were no more authoritarian than the Czarist regime they helped to overthrow, but in the end the most violent won the day and then became monsters. The Bolsheviks, who held the preponderance of the combination of weapons and the will to use them, overthrew liberals, social democrats, and agrarian activists during the second revolution, and ended up murdering most of them over the next decade.
Perhaps the Bolo’s would have become monsters anyway, but the exigencies of seizing power at gunpoint and then defending their new regime during the counter-revolution and War Communism years, almost exactly what Zionists did in 1948 and after, warped their moral compasses by providing easy moral justification for dehumanizing their opponents. It started for the Bolsheviks with small categories and without organized opposition gradually expanded with political leadership’s constant beating of the drums of perpetual threat. I think it got easier over time. Soon it became an unquestioned norm for many.
It is likely that many 1948 Zionists saw establishment of Israel as a matter of physical survival. They probably felt it necessary, perhaps not consciously, to dehumanize Arabs in order to make it easier to terrorize them into fleeing their homes. More accommodating Zionists lost the internal political struggle that followed, and gun Zionists established the pattern of interaction with Arabs. Ethnic cleansing requires that someone go face to face with a victim and threaten them with violence. It can’t be easy for sane people to rob others if they see them as being like themselves. Clearly the dehumanization hasn’t ceased, and I suspect it has intensified over the decades. Youtube Bans “Feeling The Hate In Jerusalem”
Now it is a political weapon deliberately cultivated by pro-colonization Zionists. Although an extreme analogy, Orwells ‘Two Minute Hate’ comes to mind. It is only a difference in degree from the incessant anti-Arab, anti-Persian, and anti-Muslim diatribes, often brazen and outrageous lies, we are bombarded with by much of the MSM. If colonial Zionists were merely interested in defending Israel, such excitement of hatred would not be necessary. However, it is very helpful in convincing the world to ‘move along, nothing to see here’ and ignore ethnic cleansing and colonization in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and to maximize support in the United States for incessant wars in Muslim lands. Who pushed hardest for the ‘war on terror’ during its early days?
One of the legacies of Communism is the unearthing of human remains during agricultural plowing in Russia. Let us hope that Zionism leaves a better one.
Richard, you can’t face up to your own hypocrisy on human rights, so you dress it all up in noble sounding rhetoric and claim that I haven’t read you. Which is a falsehood and you know it. There are liberal Zionists who don’t do what you do–whitewash many of Israel’s crimes. I wouldn’t dream of criticizing them the way I criticize you, because you’ve earned the criticism and they haven’t.
You could defend the right of Israel to exist on various grounds without sinking to the moral level that puts you at odds with the major human rights groups that have written about the blockade, for example. But I think your ego and self-image are too deeply wrapped up in the positions you’ve taken for you to change.
Israel, equal due process under the law for all.
link to mondoweiss.net
Zionism, by its very definition, seeks to disenfranchise an entire ethnic group.
I bet if you had your own TV show, you’d cut in and say, “We’re out of time. Let’s leave it there”.
My commitments are long-term, both in my history and in my goal.
The REST on the principles of mutual humanization, NOT on legal human rights, though equal due process under the law is a large component of my goal.
International governance also rests on the concept of “consent of the governed”, and is rejected on the local ground by MANY. If enlightened Norway, Sweden, Denmark, had political issues that they perceived as persecutorial to their political existence, they would also site that “international law is flawed”.
To get to consent for international institutions, requires supporting and developing the quality of the function of the institutions, before there is a crisis, so that when a crisis occurs, the international institutions function well and can be relied on as super-sovereign.
Right now, they are dismissed, partially because historically they are used opportunistically in times of crisis.
The way the blockade has effected me, is to motivate me to suggest paths that can achieve international consent, rather than the wishing for the magic that opening a port to the governance of a militia represents. (I assume that any on the ground sovereign state has the legal right to open or close ground borders as they wish.)
Get motivated. Get willing to undertake the effort in terms that are not your own druthers.
Approach my proposal as a brainstorm. “How can we…”, rather than as an habitual condemnation.
Richard,
Your refernce for international governance is just double speak for denying Palestinians self determination. Israel is all to happy to call for UN peacekeepers when it applies to it’s enemies, but woudl be loathed to submit to such measures. which is why they are more necessary in the occupied territories than the Gaza port.
Israel automatically interprests any effort on behalf the international community to reign it’s criminality in as persecutorial to their political existence, including agreements like the NPT, but insits that others be forced to comply.
If you agree that any on the ground sovereign state has the legal right to open or close ground borders as they wish, then you must accept that Hamas has this right also.
You seem to be under the delusion that your “proposal” is somethign new and untested. It has been tested and been a demonstrable failure.
It’s time for Israel to grown up.
“habitual condemnation” is used for habitual bad actions. If you can’t see that, why not?
My point is not to suggest that my specific proposal or that it comes through my voice at this moment is of any significance (though I think the proposal has merit).
The point is to shift from objection to proposal. To be like water that breaks up rocks by seeping into them, rather than like blocks of ice that hit hard but just break up themselves, rather than changing the rock.
Dude seriously, can you stow the stupid metaphors? No offense, but you really are not good at the artistic speech.
I find it hilarious, incidentally, that half the time you spend shooting down solutions, and the other half lamenting that you don’t think anyone else has solutions.
The Richard Witty Manifesto, worth reprinting. Originally from the comment section beneath Jack Ross’ review. It strikes me as a romantic political manifesto. I am a bit of a Romantic myself, but I always considered the political/nationalist strain in the German Romantic tradition highly dangerous.
Richard Witty October 11, 2009 at 7:33 am
Zionism is a good in the world.
The history and present of Jewish identity and life is enhanced by the existence and security of Israel.
And, rather than a pervasive “Jewish question”, with the hosts’ audacity to willingly persecute in multiple contexts, and over centuries and centuries, is a great good for the world as a whole.
But, there are side effects, some harms, some confusions, that require reform.
I am a “live and let live Zionist”, a Zionist that regards “enough” as enough.
I and millions others won’t retreat from that. But, that view of need of enough is NOT mutually exclusive, NOT exceptionalist, NOT expansionist, NOT colonialist.
It is a revision of history to describe the peace-seeking Zionist as those attributes.
And, as such, the work at hand is to create the objective conditions, and the consciousness among the American and Israeli Jewish community to voluntarily accept enough.
It won’t happen as a result of indisciplined punitive approaches. It will be deterred by those approaches.
If you believe that Israel will not exist at some near future time, and that that setting will be more just than an “enough” Israel, then go to war, if your hypocritical conscience can stand the responsibility of it.
Thanks for the second write of it.
It poses the question, of whether individuals are seeking peace or seeking some dissolution of Israel.
Blah blah blah, because if you’re not with us, you’re with the terrorists, blah blah blah…
Keep telling us you’re a liberal, Witty, while you keep touching every neoconservative goal post.
I fully admit I seek a dissolution of Israel, but that isn’t the opposite of seeking peace. I seek the dissolution of Israel as a state based on ethnic supremacy, one that denies the indigenous people of the land the right to live in their own homeland. The choice between seeking peace or seeking dissolution of Israel is pretty duplicatous choice offering. A more honest offer would be between war and dissolution of Israel. Dissolution of Israel, as its one of the major arms purveyers in the world, as well as starting many of the wars in the region and attaking its neighbors, and one urging the U.S. into involving itself in its wars, would be much more favorable to peace. However, I only seek the dissolution of Israel as a state based on ethnic supremacy, ethnic cleansing, mass murder and terror. Rectify those conditions, and I won’t have a problem with it. Yes, I understand pro-Israel people are ready to fight, to commit mass murder and ethnic cleansing to create and expand Israel and to maintain ethnic supremacy of Jews within the state. The victims resist, and the Richard Wittys of the world say we have no peace because sometimes the victims resist with violence having their land and homes confiscated and their lives made hell.
I don’t see any good whatsoever that’s come out of Zionism. The Zionists colluded with the Nazis early on to “solve” the “Jewish question.” And, rather than a pervasive “Jewish question”, with the hosts’ audacity to willingly persecute in multiple contexts, and over centuries and centuries, is a great good for the world as a whole. That’s the wierdest “good” I’ve heard on this blog, to assist other nations in “solving” their “Jewish questions” by getting rid of their Jewish populations. But maybe apt with respect to Zionism, I just fail to see it as a “good.”
Thanks for the admission.
I don’t consider the commitment to destroy the basis of another’s state’s sovereignty, their self-governance, as resembling peace in really any way.
But then again, Witty, you seem to think scorching children with white phosphorous and bombing international schools and relief agencies constitute self defense, so I have a feeling your definition of “peace” is just as faulty.
Pretty effing funny, LeaNder.
Zionism is the Jewish version of the KKK. Except worse. Zionism has achieved an acceptance of its sick supremacist goals that the KKK can only dream of. Zionism has achieved a body count of the hated “untermenschen” that the KKK can only dream of. Zionism has obtained nuclear weapons and threatens the world with them. The KKK has at best infantry weapons. Zionism has captured some 95% of the U.S. Congress. The KKK had Strom Thurmond and Trent Lott, at best.
What always surprises me is when someone does an explication in favor of Zionism, as a modern state with great technological achievements, and a sophisticated culture in spite of what it does to the Palestinians. One time when I was writing about this same argument someone was making in favor of the invasion of Iraq, saying how advanced the US was and how they would teach the backward nation of Iraq, I used a link which I consider to be an analogy about the barbarous massacre of the people by this “sophisticated” group. It can be used in the same fashion on how Israel constantly attacks the Palestinians, except they do not have to send mechanized troops thousands of miles to do the deed.
The analogy (the link below) is imperfect, because those who presently commit commit such heinous crimes are not hunted prisoners, but the murderous hunters. Not caged, but loose, considered great leaders, and on a killing spree – not by a person at a time, but millions (use what number you like, remember this was an analogy originally used about the USA). They are not sparsely armed, but are the world “super-power,” so very sophisticated and “advanced,” so cultured –
THE CULTURALLY ADVANCED AND SOPHISTICATED AGGRESSOR
I trust you get the point.
Without wanting to deny the value of his speech, Obama in Cairo also denied the Palestinians the right to using violent resistance, IIRC.
There’s another justification for asymetric violence, and that is the state monopoly to apply violence. There is no “hey it’s not fair if the state can do violence to us and we can’t hit back ” . So if you can frame the conflict in this mold you can justify the asymmetry without having to resort to “we can because we’re better”. I think Ben Gurion was already aware of such legitimacy benefits of having a state. It’s possible to prove that the argument is not valid, but the discussion becomes more complicated, and ‘more complicated’ means a lot of people will buy the ‘state’ point of view.