Even
Mr Abbas’s position has been steadily eroded over time because he has absolutely nothing to show for his years of pursuing a peace strategy based on a negotiated settlement – except for expanded Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
If a figure such as Mr Abbas cannot survive in the present climate, then he is likely to be replaced by a far more radical and uncompromising leadership. No Palestinian leader can or will negotiate while Israeli colonisation of the West Bank continues. Mr Netanyahu’s refusal to call a halt to expanding settlements means in effect there will be no two-state solution.
If that is so, then the prospect is for a long and bitter fight for equal rights within one state. That would spell the end of Israel as a democratic Jewish state. It would come to resemble in many ways the struggle against apartheid in South Africa. If Mr Netanyahu believes that he has achieved a victory by refusing to halt the settlements, he is wrong. It is more like a project of national suicide.
” It is more like a project of national suicide.”
Somebody should tell to all the speakers I’ve been watching and listening to on CSPAN
for a hour or so now–Jewish Federation Of North America Annual Conference. It’s like being at an old fashioned Bund rally.
This is exactly why American Jews should encourage Hispanic immigration to the US.
In fact, the article has given me an idea for a fantastic Jewish-Mexican dinner entre, called carne Masada.
Or maybe that was in dubious taste? Put it down to my “ethnic defensiveness”, Ishmael.
Would you take it the wrong way, Mooser, if I said that I love you, man? :)
Strictly from hunger, man, that’s where I get that stuff.
And my love to you and yours.
Put it down to a rip-off from the Hip-Hop Hoodios is more likely.
Like dinner needs desert (“A pish un a fortz iz vi a khasene un a klezmer!”) a joke needs a punch line. I wonder what it is? I only know how it starts:
“It tastes great, but after you eat it…”
No drawbacks at all for anyone if we have an open borders policy? Just wondering. I mean is that akin to free trade, or no? Is there anything in the notion that Jesus had no family or kids to support? Just asking.
How about “ethnic offensiveness”?
Oh but it’s much uglier than just a simple ‘national suicide’.
It’s been a self-decapitation in slow-mo.
The reality of the p0pulations’ desires have not changed.
The two-state approach is still overwhelmingly compellingly the most desirable.
Netanyahu’s approach of continued annexation is accurately described as a national suicide approach, a train accelerating towards a wall.
You act as if that wall hasn’t already been hit, Witty. It’s too late. Israel has committed itself to forcing a one-state solution by depriving the Palestinians of the resources and political freedom they needed to have their own state. Israel had one last chance to turn around, but instead of joining with the momentum of Obama’s call to end the settlement practices, Israel kicked Obama in the metaphorical nuts and is building even more. And then successfully lobbied to cow Obama into shutting up and sacrificing whatever vestige the US had as a neutral arbiter.
Wake up, Witty. Netanyahu’s signed Israel’s dissolution warrant.
And tell us, Richard, would their be any limits to the sovereignty of the new Palestinian state you advocate? Would it be as sovereign as the Jewish state in every way? Netenanhu (sic) was just on CSPAN speaking to the Jewish Federation of North America annual conference attendees–he clearly would not agree to two equal states in terms of sovereignty. I’ve asked you this question countless times on this blog and you never answered. Two things the PM said was the Pal state would have to be
de-militarized and there could be no law of return for Pals as part of the peace package. In the past, he’s mentioned other things Israel would never agree to as part of a 2-state solution.
I guess my question is, most overwhelmingly desirable to whom? When you answer, start with the proposition that all men are created equal and with the same inalienable rights–you benefit from that proposition, so why shouldn’t everyone?
I don’t see you moving to Israel. But that’s a general declaration. Tell us your picture of the basic profile of your recommended Palestinian State in comparison to Israel’s. Much obliged.
I personally prefer fully sovereign, as in right to maintain a military, to conduct foreign policy, to manage economy, to form its own currency, to administer its own laws.
There is a danger though in becoming that state. That is that if there is armed conflict between even factions within Palestine, and Israel, and there is any basis of less than conscientious enforcement of state monopoly of power, then a state of war would exist between Israel and Palestine. And, if Hamas came to power, then it would be entirely in Israel’s right to entirely close its borders, and if attacked military, to respond in kind with the objective of military victory (still subject to international law, but to the standards between two states at war, not the opportunistic guerilla morphing to “state” by factions like Hamas.)
It may be in Palestinians’ best interests to be part of Israel, rather than realize full sovereignty in fact and obligation (to its civilians, and to its relations).
But, that would be their decision.
I don’t know what would happen if Palestine became a willing puppet of a larger power.
Witty: “And, if Hamas came to power, then it would be entirely in Israel’s right to entirely close its borders, and if attacked military, to respond in kind with the objective of military victory (still subject to international law, but to the standards between two states at war, not the opportunistic guerilla morphing to “state” by factions like Hamas.)”
In the context of: “I personally prefer fully sovereign, as in right to maintain a military, to conduct foreign policy, to manage economy, to form its own currency, to administer its own laws.”
OK, so it seems the job of the USA is to give the Pals the same opportunities as Israel has now to be very right wing? Where in this vision is the USA’s best interest? I thank you for your direct response (finally), and look forward to your next response. Also, I noticed that you did answer my question relating the concept of the law of return, not to just Jews but to Pals. We’d like to hear your thoughts on that; thanks mucho!
Palestine can offer any right of return they prefer, on territory that they are sovereign to.
Israel can similarly.
I think I’ve stated on numerous occassions, that I favor Israel repealling its 1950′s laws prohibiting return itself, prohibiting access to due process, and repealling the abandoned annexation law.
The land taken that could have been claimed should be compensated. Those that are alive that were residents should be allowed to return to Israel as citizens, as should any that were born within the jurisdiction that is or becomes Israel.
But, that “right” should not be granted to descendants on the basis of their being descendants.
The whole world is in a VERY different place in Israel/Palestine now that Abbas has announced his intention to not run again and likely to resign all PA posts, and the likely resignation of a majority of existing ministers, leaving no PA.
He is exasperated. Netanyahu missed the messages of that.
We’re in the status of origination of policy, but with the background of impossibility of reconciling with Israel as it is, leaving the single-state as more plausible, however flawed and impossible it is.
Anything to avoid equal rights. Wasn’t it Golda Meier who said of the refugees, “the old will die and the young will forget?”
Not only did the zionists plan the mass expulsion, but they planned to escape the consequences by waiting for people to die. RW, what compensation do you believe is appropriate for the permanent exile from one’s homeland, for generations deprived of nationality, for destruction of homes and livelihoods, for razing whole villages and destroying the society that existed, for mass executions and no doubt mass graves in unknown locations, for lifetimes spent in refugee camps, for thousands mowed down by Israeli guns just for attempting to return to their place of origin, or the many tortured or killed by Israel in the course of imposing its regime, all this because your beloved founders of Israel wanted an exclusive Jewish state in their land which you claim belongs to you?
RE: “But, that “right” should not be granted to descendants on the basis of their being descendants.”
So no equal rights contemplated for your Israel? Any Jewish person is entitled to return to Israel even if they and their ancestors never lived there and/or because
they may or may have lived their 2,000 years ago? But the Palestinians don’t even
get an inherited
right of return going back less than a century? How do you justify this double standard of state justice, Richard Witty? You can’t. You cut off your morality and ethics simply due to trending demographics. Yet you actually live in, and get all the benefits of equal rights afforded by the USA, which doesn’t care if trending demographics means the dilution of the white Christian group that founded the country, and if any object to this changing of demographics and people power by the numbers, you’d be the first to cry “Racist bigotry!”
Netanyahu recently praised our military personnel that participated in the joint USA-Israel military exercise; he said, some 1400 US guys and girls. Our nation is in a virtual civil war about national health care; Israel has socialized health care and likes it very well, thank you. Regulars on this blog how much taxpayer money goes unconditionally to Israel, and to Egypt and Jordan to make nice with Israel. What is in our national interest?
I don’t mean what’s in the interest of Zionists or the military-industrial complex Ike warned us about, or the banks or insurance companies. Here’s some context:
link to counterpunch.org
And here’s a followup; I wish to remind you that the Weimar Germans did not have
the same tradition of free speech and liberty that we have, nor did they have the tools available to us for dissent, such as the internet:
link to counterpunch.org
I believe it’s valuable to put work in spelling out the positives of a single state solution. There are of course “positives in the form of avoiding negatives” but that is not enough. Philip has written a few times about “I have a dream”. It’s a very different thing from being naive.
So will there be an amnesty for Israelis who could be prosecuted for wat crimes and/or assualts or other crimes against the Palestinians? Or will they get to run around loose? Can they go to America or other countries?
Not to mention that even people with an almost inhuman amount of forebearancr and forgiveness could still find among them those whose desire for revenge is personal or has become a madness.
Let’s hope for the best.
In my dream world, Bush, Chaney, and all the top say 25 neocons in the Bush government would be tried for war crimes; I’d like to add some of the stink tank scribblers too. Ditto for Israel’s top perps.
See I don’t think Netanyahoo is stupid or crazy enough to not realize that he is forcing a single state solution; everyone knows exactly that this will happen and (using racist arguments) make the “Jews” 50% instead of 100%.
I think he is waiting for another chance, or carefully plotting another situation, where they can ‘finish the job’ and engage in forced population transfer . As much as how many Palestinians are giving up and leaving the West Bank through Jordan, it may not be fast enough. Of course, its been 60 straight years of oppression, so perhaps I’m mis calculating; the the Israeli Govt just may feel it is sitting in a comfortable position until the day comes where most Palestinians have conveniently left the ‘land of Judea and Samaria’ and they can just quietly move along with life and take control of it all.
You might be right; as Israel did their turkey shoot on Gaza when they did, and as a set up, attacked the Pals on the day of the U S elections, the Israelis are always scheming for what they think is in their best interests. Now there’s also Iran. We will get to see if Obama even has clue–so far, no. Or, if Obama does, his half-black hands are tied by
AIPAC and his own wish to remain POTUS, same as Shrub.
Watch the fence. That fence will be the border eventually. The Palestinians can hope for war and terror all they want, but once that fence is done, slowly but surely it will delineate the lines between an Israeli state and a Palestinian entity.
The Palestinians think they are clever in postponing a state so they can seek a one state solution. Too bad. It`s going to be rough going for Israel, but ultimately, they will win and the Palestinians will have wasted all these years and blood with their hateful agenda only to find out that Israel is never becoming Palestine.
“The fence will be the border”, Nomi? What happened to Judea and Samaria? Are you advocating evacuating settlements on the “Palestian side” of the fence? Are you in favour of the establishment of a “Palestinian entity” (reminds me of the old “Zionist entity” lingo)?
As for Jimmy Carter, he’s aware of poll after poll taken among Arabs that have shown that even if Israel withdrew completely from those disputed areas (not “occupied Arab lands”), the Arabs would still reject Israel’s right to exist. It’s not how big Israel is but that Israel is that’s the problem…and Mr. Peanut knows this. And he knows about the offers made by Barak and Clinton at Camp David 2000 and Taba which would have handed over 97% of the West Bank, 3 percent of Israel, all of Gaza and one half of Jerusalem and a $33 billion bonus as icing on the cake. And he knows what the bloody Arab “counter offer ” has been…hundreds of deliberately murdered Israeli civilians.
Surely he knows that the PLO was formed in 1964…long before Israel was in the territories. And surely he knows that nothing has changed in the Arab mindset since then or before. Carter sees the Palestinian Authority websites, maps, schoolbooks, hears the imams calling for death to the Jews, etc. He knows full well that the proposed 23rd Arab state–second one to be created within the original borders of Mandatory Palestine as Britain received it on April 25, 1920–plans to replace Israel, not live side by side with it. The evidence for this is overwhelming.
The Arabs are consumed with murder and hatred, and have attacked us with such barbarity that to call it war is to dignify an offensive composed almost entirely of war crimes. Yet Israel has not thrown there democratic values out the window in the name of security, as illustrated both by the elaborate judicial review imposed on security policies and by the freedom given Arab MKs to vilify Israel and side with its enemies who murder Israeli civilians. Most dramatically, we have sacrificed our own soldiers’ lives to minimize civilian Palestinian casualties in ways that few, if any, democracies would under similar circumstances.”
The U.S. government gave $50 million to the PLO. Will this infusion of cash into the PLO coffers be used to establish more schools that brainwash yet another
generation of children with the tactics of hate and martyrdom?
The indoctrination begins in kindergarten camps in Palestinian territories, and is incorporated into summer camps for children of all ages. Hatred is deeply ingrained into the minds of these children from the beginning. Palestinian leaders are sending these brainwashed Arabs on suicide missions to murder Israeli civilians on school buses, disco’s, pizzeria’s, cafe’s and hospitals.
This is the result of decades of brainwashing by the Palestinian media.
link to nzherald.co.nz
March 3, 04
“”The killing of Jews has become a form of worship that gets us close to God,” said bomber Nabil Mas’oud in a pre-recorded videotape. “”
One mother on a PA video was quoted as saying, “We encourage them to Shahada ([martyrdom] for the homeland, for Allah…We don’t say to the mother of the
Shahids, ‘we have come to comfort you’; we say, ‘We have come to bless you on the wedding of your son.’ We give out drinks, we give out sweets…the mourning is a
joyous occasion.”
Another is quoted as saying, “I am happy that he [my 13-year-old son] has been martyred. I will sacrifice all my sons and daughters (12 in all) to Al-Aqsa and Jerusalem.”
Fifteen-year-old Mahmoud Sumara stated, “We meet every day and decide. We just want to get Israelis. I want to kill them.”
A young 9-year-old Palestinian proclaims, “When I wander into Jerusalem I will become a suicide bomber.”
At what age is this martyr-mindset established? A youngster at the tender age of 4 years on a Palestinian TV children’s program stated his desire to start a Jihad war.
Please ask President Obama to draw a line in the sand, and “Just say No to the PLO!”
Hamas utilizes every possible means to capture young minds, including the Internet. Al-Fatah, a children’s magazine, sports colorful graphics, comics and photographs to attract young children.
Harmless, you say? Alongside these “harmless” entries are items that canonize suicide bombers, encourage terrorist attacks and promote hatred for the Jews.
Children can view pictures of headless suicide bombers with captions that praise their heinous acts.
One article on the website boldly declared to the child-readers: “There is nothing greater than killing oneself on the land of Palestine for the sake of Allah.”
We all know what the annual infusion of cash into Israel’s coffers gets everyone in the region. Last I checked it was sniper rifles for target practice on Palestinians, White Phosphorus, 1000 pound bombs….
What’s a one time 50 million compared to 3 billion direct and another 3 billion direct to Egypt & Jordan (to kiss Israel’s ass) annually, and another 10 to 15 billion annually to Israel indirect aid?
And we all know here that Israeli kids go through K-12 without any knowledge that the Pal kids their own age had lived on the Israeli kids’ land for centuries?
Since 1948 Israeli leadership had no clear vision for the future. The successive governments have always relied on the might-makes-right policy. First it was the “Arabs” that Ben Gurion sought to expell from Palestine, then as Israel pushed outward, it was the Golan Heights followed by the West Bank and the Sinai.
Later, when Israel couldn’t stand up to Iraq it had the US do its dirty work for it, and now its Iran’s turn.
And while to a great extent it was easy to deal with neighboring nations at the barrel of a gun, when that policy was applied to the Palestinians it failed. It failed because Israel was incapable of seeing the Palestinians as human beings who required basic rights, equality, and had basic needs. Israel thought that the 1948 strategy of ethnic cleansing could be repeated over decades and eventually Palestinians will either leave or submit.
In the long run, for Israel to survive in the Middle East, it will have to undergo a paradigm shift in its regional and domestic policies. The first step would be to recognize the people of the region as equal human beings.
“Since 1948 Israeli leadership had no clear vision for the future.”
I’m convinced that Israel was designed and intended to work within a colonial rubric, that is, with all the surrounding areas firmly under Western colonial control. But things didn’t turn out that way.
Yeah, I think that’s correct. Nolan’s conclusion that the first baby step for Israel’s survival is to recognize the Palestinians as people entitled by birth to be treated as equal human beings by the state. Given the fact of the Shoah, and the history of
anti-semitism, it’s too bad the Zionists didn’t get a land without people, but the fact there were people living there when they came is just the truth. The colonial period
was already in disfavor when came the Nuremberg Trials; and now we have Israel
created as if this was not already obvious; slowly it’s getting more obvious, and all this time the Palestinians have paid the price for the West’s slow grasp of more sophisticated humanism.
The Cherokee Trail of Tears might be a good historical parable for Abbas to look at. Appeasement of colonialist ambitions (the Richard Witty approach) can be quite dangerous. Of course terrorism and violence, against such a strong enemy can also be self-defeating. To my mind, the Palestinians have achieved their best results (the start of the Oslo process) with the use of mass non-violent resistance, as in the first intifada. BDS fits that mold of effective action.
The Oslo accord was supposed to be an interim agreement until final status was negotiated, but the joke was on the Palestinians when it turned out that Israel considered the Oslo accord to be the final status agreement (with minor adjustments). In the last the last 17 years, nothing has changed. The Oslo accord only made matters worse for the Palestinians and Israel continued demolishing more homes belonging to Palestinians and building more colonies for settlers.
“non-violent resistance, as in the first intifada”.
You have a very odd definition of non-violence.
Odder than your definition of “self defense” encompassing the bombing of hospitals and the spraying of bullets and white phosphorous over unarmed civilians, witty?
Yes, there was non-violent resistance during the first intifada.
link to en.wikipedia.org
To insist that there was no non-violent action during the intifada because there were also instances of stone-throwing is equivalent to insisting that there was no non-violent civil rights action in the US in the 60′s because there were violent riots during the same time frame. RW doesn’t know the history. Non-violent action has existed for decades in the occupied territories, as well as within the green line, and it has been overwhelming met with violence from the State of Israel. But Richard will never admit that the Israeli State bears any responsibility for the violence it metes out.
Of course, Witty, you do agree that all during the Oslo accords the settlements grew, right? If that’s not proof of bad faith on the part of Israel, what is? And now we have it again!
Its not necessary in the present. It is a choice by likud, a bad one for many reasons.
Enough is sufficient to most Israelis.
Again, words are important. There are common meanings to the word “non-violent”, that do not include rock-throwing. The images of rock-throwing Palestinian teenagers relative to a tank are moving.
The images of rock-throwing Palestinian teenagers relative to Israeli teenagers on foot, held to the standard of restraint of a human military, is violent.
Depending on the pictures presented, one is David fighting Goliath, the other is just hooligans.
With real non-violence, both pictures are convincing.
Oslo has ended up making things worse for Palestinians, but at the time it represented a positive shift in Israeli policy. There was momentum toward greater recognition of Palestinian rights, which has since been lost.
Richard, stone throwing at heavily armored soldiers is nothing but symbolic resistance. If you really insist on labeling it violent, it is so clearly within the bounds of self-defense of an occupied people.
It may be symbolic, but it is nowhere non-violent.
Your language means something.
Richard Witty: crusading against the deadly scourge of adolescent Palestinian stone-throwers.
Just find another word than the deception: “non-violent”.
Richard, tree is right. I was wrong, in taking your bait and proceeding according to the downright offensive assumption “1st intifada=stone-throwing protests”. I certainly did not imply that equation when I originally spoke about the 1st intifada.
And still, your characterization of stone-throwers as “violent” is a worse deception than what you accuse me of (and your fixation on making that characterization is inappropriate at best). They are civilians, not proper combatants by any stretch. There is real violence in this conflict, which earns the name (as in, the shooting of stone-throwing children, or settlers’ stoning of civilians), beyond the theater of stones hurled at tanks.
Again, the term “non-violent” means something.
When others see you calling rock-throwing as non-violent, they dismiss your points from then on. Language means something.
Are you a fool tree? “There was some non-violent demonstration during the intifada”. That’s equivalent to saying “Israel engaged in some self-restraint during Cast Lead.”
The inference is that the intifada was a principled non-violent movement in the tradition of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, for whom discipline to real non-violence was a CRITICAL component of their effort.
Rationalization is what your opponents do.
Witty, how often were Gandhi and Martin Luther King faced with tanks? Does the story of David and Goliath mean anything to you? Goliath is now the IDF. Suck it up.
In 1989, I was shown pictures of demonstrations where there were rock-throwing thirteen year olds, with hooded individuals carrying automatic weapons 100 yards behind. It made an impression on me.
Non-violence is non-violence. Rock-throwing is violence.
The words have meaning.
Does Omar Barghouti advocate for rock-throwing, as “non-violent”?
So Witty, I guess you condemn the Civil Rights movement as violent, in spite of your self-declared admiration (oh so very sincere I’m sure) of MLK? Ahem, Black Panthers. Same with the anti-occupation movement in India? Because there was plenty of violence there, too.
So, Witty, is Zionism non-violent? I’d love to see you worm your way around that one. Heh.
I condemn the violent parts of the civil rights movement as violent.
I applaud the generations-long work of the NAACP and other disciplined and professional organizations that gave up careers to WORK (rather than only “fight”) for civil rights.
I knew Bobby Seale in DC in 1981. He insisted to me that the entire scope of the panthers efforts to arm (and train) individuals was strictly in self-defense. They did NOT throw rocks. He stood up to oppose coercion proposed by radicals, in favor of dialog, at meetings that I attended with him, to my surprise. It changed my views on a lot of things.
We weren’t close friends. I doubt that he would remember my name.
So… you’re a hypocrite, Witty. You will laud parts of the civil rights movement and condemn others, but then the entirety of Palestinian resistance gets condemn — obviously, not because there is some violence tied to it, but in fact, because it is Palestinian. You won’t say it… overtly… but you’ve made it pretty clear. Thanks!
You ignored my other question. Is there even a non-violent aspect to Zionism?
You really are an exagerator, Chaos.
I questioned the use of the word “non-violent” to describe rock-throwing. Where did I “condemn the entirety of the Palestinian civil rights movement?”
“Is there a non-violent component to Zionism”?
Historically, in the majority of Zionist effort that was settling (residing not some demonized “colonialism”), institution building, defense of property and person, economy.
In the present, Israel is a state, and the responsibilities of a state are clear to defend citizens from external and criminal assault.
How to is a question. Whether to is not.
The use of the term “non-violent” is not a figurative question. Its a descriptive one. If there is violence, then the adjective “non-violent” is false.
Witty: Fleeing to the shoals of semantic prestidigitation when his shaky argument topples. Since 2007!
Witty, do you deny the core of Zionism requires it to expel non-Jews to create a Jewish majority state? Do you deny that has been done over 90% of historic Palestine? And how was that accomplished, at any point, through purely peaceful means?
The above post should have been here. Sorry for the duplication.
Its not necessary in the present. It is a choice by likud, a bad one for many reasons.
Enough is sufficient to most Israelis.
Again, words are important. There are common meanings to the word “non-violent”, that do not include rock-throwing. The images of rock-throwing Palestinian teenagers relative to a tank are moving.
The images of rock-throwing Palestinian teenagers relative to Israeli teenagers on foot, held to the standard of restraint of a human military, is violent.
Depending on the pictures presented, one is David fighting Goliath, the other is just hooligans.
With real non-violence, both pictures are convincing.
“Its not necessary in the present.”
So… it was necessary in the past, Witty? Ends justify the means, do they? The difference between Likud and its predecessors is you think Likud has a choice but those before didn’t?
What was the magical event that cost Israel its justification for ethnic cleansing? Out of curiosity, Witty? When did it go out of fashion, precisely?
Chaos makes a good point, Richard. There is no Israel without ethnic cleansing. How is anything defensible that requires ethnic cleansing?
But to get back to our argument–I’m willing to settle this with an agreement. I will agree that Palestinian rock-throwing is technically violence, if you agree 1) that Israel perpetrates military occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, which in itself constitutes far greater violence than any stone-throwing demonstration against it, and 2) that it is absolutely not your place to define what actions constitute the “essence” of the 1st intifada, based on your limited and partisan (mis)understanding of it.
Without agreement on that context, I will rightly regard your arguments as hypocrisy.
Nolan, are the actions of Palestinians and Israelis truly the same? Take a sheet of paper, and list all of the Israeli suicide bombers you can remember; all of the times that Israelis bombed pizza parlors, school cafeterias, wedding receptions, shopping malls, busses. Name all Jewish airplane hijackers .. since 1903. How many Jews were involved in Bali, Madrid, Beslan, the twin towers? How many Arabs have died in pogroms at the hands of Jews, during the last 4,000 years? How many times have Jews decapitated, hanged, dismembered or stoned Arabs? There is no death penalty in Israel. List all other countries in the Middle East which do not execute Arabs.
If there is a cycle of violence … why is that sheet of paper still blank?
They say that “Israel is also murdering Arabs,” and that more Palestinians than Jews have died during the intefada. (If the reverse were true, would the world suddenly love the Jews?). More Germans than Englishmen died during World War II. Does this give Hitler the moral high ground? Hundreds of Serbian civilians perished in the bombing of Belgrade – and not a single American was even injured. Palestinian logic would conclude that Milosovic was a saint!
Virtually all of the three thousand Palestinians killed during these past four years were suicide bombers, terrorists killed in gun battles, dissidents lynched by fellow Arabs for their beliefs, women and children used as human shields or foils by their “brave fighters” – and yes, dozens of people who were caught in the line of fire.
Few recall that when Israel began using aircraft to destroy terrorist facilities (following the massacre of Jewish shoppers at a Netanya mall) the Jews actually publicized the targets in advance, in order to minimize Arab civilian casualties.
Every morning, at least one Palestinian wakes up with a smile and the thought, “I’m going to murder some Jews today.” They strap on explosive belts and guns, and search out any soft target they can find – a city bus, a baby, a student, a jogger. Israelis do not wake up in the morning and set out to murder Arabs. In rare instances when a Jew actually injures or kills a Palestinian, he is arrested and prosecuted. Contrast this with the Arab hero who shoots a Jewish baby. This “martyr of Palestine” will be eulogized by Arafat, his family made rich and his picture proudly displayed throughout the Arab world.
“Cycle of violence” – indeed ?!?!
Where you freaks come from? Do you all just copy-paste the same Zionist bullshit and spam blogs you find threatening?
Oh and Witty, how does it feel to know your Jewish country club is about to accept a couple million darkies? Poor poor Juice.
This cut-and-paste job appears to be particularly dated; Arafat died five years ago.
Yes, they do. And replying to them only encourages them.
Cliff, please excuse our retarded sister, ignore her
I try to avoid acknowledging troglodytes.
This one is cut and pasted from Think-Israel by a Dr. Steve Berger of Tel Aviv Medical Center. Again, no attribution and a long paste. Consider yourself reported for abusing the comment function here. Again, if you want to make points, use your own words, or at least a short quotation and an attribution. If you can’t make your points with your own words, maybe you are just regurgitating and not really adding anything to the discussion.
Great job, tree.
===============
“Virtually all of the three thousand Palestinians killed during these past four years were suicide bombers, terrorists killed in gun battles, dissidents lynched by fellow Arabs for their beliefs, women and children used as human shields or foils by their “brave fighters” – and yes, dozens of people who were caught in the line of fire.”
Man, that is for shit-fucking sure your brain on ziocaine!! Idiot, the whole world saw it!! If I didn’t know any better (that apparently, they needn’t bother) I would think you’re one of them agent provocateurs (a kochleffel in plain speech)
” How many Arabs have died in pogroms at the hands of Jews, during the last 4,000 years? ”
Says in the book of Esther that we massacred 70,000 Persian citizens.
And then Baruch Goldstein knocked off a few more “goyim” to commemorate the event.
Ask a dumb question, get a dumb answer.
Nomi, do you really think the commenters here are not educated or just dumb? Nobody here’s still in grammar school.
Let’s assume that N-yahoo knows what he is doing and is pursuing policies that could result in a single state solution. The danger is, of course, that could be the end of Israel as a Jewish state. How is that end to be avoided? Ethnic cleansing is the only solution. Most rational people find this difficult to comprehend because they see this as resulting in international outrage of such intensity that Israel would be shunned completely. But this did not happen in 1948 the last time Israel cleansed away the native population because the world was then just recovering from WWII and had more important things to worry about. My guess is that Israel is hoping for another world war that could give them that kind of cover. Maybe this is why they are trying so hard to goad the US into attacking Iran. Hard to say. Otherwise, their current policy just doesn’t make any sense.
As Dov Weissglass said, the Israeli national policy is to kill any hope of a Palestinian state. And of course a one state solution is “national suicide”. The only possible alternative is a permanent apartheid state, this is clearly what Israel is planning, betting (correctly in my view) that international apathy will prevail.
There will be no outrage, no shunning, anyone who suggests such tactics is obviously an anti-semite, and the US Congress will vote more money for Israel to build more walls.
The apartheid solution is not stable. The Israeli’s may hope that it could last forever, but it cannot. If Israel tried it would go the way British Rhodesia, Boor S. Africa or French Algeria. It is easy to see why apartheid can’t work but it is quite impossible to predict the manner of its collapse.
The apartheid situation has been in place for 42 years, changing only for the worse and more repressive. I think the Israelis can definitely be planning that it will continue as such for another 40 years and more. For them, it is preferable to the alternatives.
I think what’s missed in terms of talking about the end-game that pro-occupationist Israeli have is also what’s missed by those who talk way too blithely in my opinion about a one-state solution as if all the Palestinians have to do is utter those words and it will become a reality.
That is, as I think it out at any rate, there is a end-game that the pro-occupationists have that doesn’t involve any genocide at least and a way that they are going to be able to avoid any one-state solution too and that is, whenever they think they’ve gone as far as they can, draw their border carefully around where they are, exclude every Palestinian possible, and say to the world “there.” And from there any further talk will be met with Israel’s rebuke that it involves its own internal affairs, period.
Likely to be very effective I think, which is why I think the pro-occupationists are betting on it. True, since it’s not a negotiated settlement they can’t get any agreement to limit the sovereignty of what’s left of Palestine, but I don’t think they really care about that anyway. (If they did they’d be negotiating now seriously.) Israel will be so strong and occupy such strategic ground that they will say “go ahead now state of Palestine, get an air force; strive to see how many seconds of life it would seriously have in the event we decided to take it out.”
This is somewhat of a trump card that Israel has I think, with that “internal affairs” cry having quite a resonance in international law and much less theoretically too amongst many many states of the world that fear international meddling. (Such as, for instance, China, not to mention lots of little states that have always been more readily interfered with in their internal affairs.)
True, Israel playing this gerrymader card, even successfully, would still leave it with its own Israeli-Arab citizens. But it would exclude the others and at one go essentially totally knock out their claim to any “equal rights.” And then as to their own arabs I suspect that the Israeli occupationists feel that hey, one way or another they will deal with that problem separately. Expulsion at worst, more likely a whole constellation of incentives to leave and disincentives to stay, economic, social and etc. etc.
Indeed, one thing that’s struck me as I’ve looked at the evolving maps of the settlements and the roads is what strikes me as the clear design at work paying attention not just to taking the strategic ground or the best ground such as that with water, but connecting these settlements together or placing them in such a way vis a vis each other that when the time comes the gerrymander, while the borders taking them in and leaving other stuff out will still look somewhat crazy, it will still be less crazy and disjointed than it otherwise would look if there was no guiding hand behind where these settlements have been started and allowed to expand and etc.
In short I think the one-staters are deluded to believe that Israel would have no answer to them, and that those who think that Israel is in somesd iron cul-de-sac forcing it to claim the entire West Bank with all the misery that would mean for Israel are mistaken as well.
Your scenario is quite probable.
Sin Nombre I agree with what you are saying here:
that they are going to be able to avoid any one-state solution too and that is, whenever they think they’ve gone as far as they can, draw their border carefully around where they are, exclude every Palestinian possible, and say to the world “there.”
That is their intention. But I have looked at the settlements map as well and it does not make any sense for a viable Palestinian state. The Israelis are currently in a dilemma; they know that they can’t take all of the WB but they can’t decide on where to stop. They want to draw a boundary but if they do then they cannot claim land beyond that boundary. I think Tolstoy described Israel’s dilemma quite clearly with his great short story:
How much land does one man need
link to online-literature.com
Even if Israel draws a line and sets boundaries, how does it keep the settlers from infiltrating, given that it can’t stand up to them? And what happens when the Palestinians shoot the infiltrators?
I agree that the Israeli leaders are reassuring themselves that we (Israel) have gone on muddling through with two mainstays,(1) a succession of helpful Western Goy states, the longest lasting, the USA, and (2) the funding of our activities and UN veto support; so we have good facts on the ground support to believe that we will continue to muddle on, although eventually, we may have to lean more on nonWestern states such as China and India, to keep on muddling through (with us in the power role); all these goy states mean nothing to us beyond this goal. It might get a bit harder when we need to partner more with non-Western states to stay on top since, for example,
China and India do not have any “white guilt.” But we can do it because we can keep draining the West to ramp up our offering to China and India; none of the interested party nations will ever keep us with us and the timeline favors are singular purpose (at the expense of the Pals) because due to our diaspora we own the West and the East needs our Western-learned technology and our universal banking interests. We are strong because nobody else has our global network strength–that’s the ultimate hole card, “the wandering jew.”
syvanen November 9, 2009 at 9:33 pm
Great points, guys. I’ll throw in that it seems clear to me that the original colonization strategy had the entire West Bank as a goal. I don’t think there is any consensus among pro-colonization Zionists on where to stop, and I hope that disagreements keep them from coalescing before enough external pressure can be generated to force a just solution which will remove the Zionist-generated threat to my country.
Sin Nombre’s theory on the endgame sounds as plausible as Syvanen’s, the latter of which I share. However, it would leave another festering Gaza-like area between Israel and Jordan. I think that the Israeli political establishment would like Jordan and Egypt to take on governance of Palestinians, so they can be rid of their responsibility as the occupying power and be able to count on those two de facto client states (courtesy of our tax dollars) to suppress Palestinian aspirations.
The problem is that neither Jordan nor Egypt want more Palestinians. Gaza is a mess and contains an armed and organized Islamic political movement (Hamas). There is no way Egypt will ingest that poison pill. What’s in for them?
Would Israel invite Jordan to take over the pockets of Palestinians left after a unilateral Israeli annexation and walling-off of most of the West Bank? The ‘Auschwitz’ borders security faction will definitely not want an Arab state with sovereignty over land on the west bank of the Jordan River.
If Israel unilaterally annexes most of the West Bank and walls it off and Jordan does not assert security control over the remnants, then Israel will be faced with another Gaza-like open air concentration camp situation with its options for punitive terror operations like Cast Lead Dreidel greatly reduced. What is an end game if they decide to try to ‘ride it out’? A resumption of Palestinian violent resistance in the West Bank will do wonders for reverse aliyah of their best and brightest.
One key time constraint on all of these processes is the maintenance of power over American foreign policy by the Israeli Lobby. The day that ends, the international environment that Israel faces will flip on a dime to a mixture of hostility and apathy, the latter of which cuts both ways. No one likes ethnic cleansers and colonizers. No one else will defend Israeli crimes after the United States government stops.
The Israeli political establishment, which is almost unanimously in favor of ethnic cleansing and colonization, knows that they have some finite amount of time left for a solution to their ‘demographic problem’. I think a faction, how large I am not sure, are waiting for the chaos of a regional war to undertake another Nakba to drive Palestinians out of the West Bank. Peace talks and a lowering of tensions are exactly the last thing these extremists want.
Where does it end without negotiations leading to a genuinely just peace that lowers tensions? Even if they are successful with Nakba 2, there will still be a dispossessed and angry Palestinian people right across the border in Jordan, who will no doubt no longer be so supine, and in Gaza.
@Nomi998
I come so often to this site to learn about the conflict of the Middle East, and i just noticed that most of your messages come from link to think-israel.org
Next time i see your name i will skipe it
Thanks
Good idea. Nomi is like an indoctrinated child; nobody here takes Nomi seriously, not even the “Pro-Israel” crowd here.
Sin Nombre’s assessment is astute.
Netanyahu is gloating that the PA is likely to be very weakened. He likely thinks of the PA as a nice enemy, while Hamas is a mean enemy. One less enemy means that he can concentrate on his end game, which is as he has stated, the status quo as perfectly acceptable, with all Palestinian aspiration limited to secondary businesses serving the Jewish dominated Israeli economy.
No citizenship, so no possibility for future peer participation a generation hence.
(Our Jewish grandparents were poor, working people. My grandfather sold fish retail. His son was a successful capitalist – also in the fish – and potatoes – business but at a large scale – primary supplier to Burger King on the east coast. His son is a prominent corporate lawyer. His kids will probably fully assimilate.)
(My family went a different way. My other grandfather was a tailor then clothing wholesaler. My father took over my grandfather’s business tripling its size but thats it. I was a reluctant accountant, a radical asked to make money for rich people, now formally unemployed though voluntarily participating in the economic planning for a sustainable society.)
The Netanyahu “vision” is for permanent Palestinian subordination or emigration. Jabotinsky’s vision, NOT Ben Gurion’s (to criticize the amateurishly monolithic characterizations).
Netanyahu’s vision of subordinated Palestine.
J Street’s vision of orderly transition to peer and democratic Palestine, with A prospect for subsequent unification if large minorities with equal rights existing in Israel and Palestine.
One-state Abunimeh vision of single state through BDS isolation, punishment and likely subordination of Zionists, resulting in nearly certain civil war with again MANY civilians caught between the willing killing of the hotheads.
Your comment on your own comment does not follow logically. I agree with your first comment. Your supplement comment is BS. Given the current power structure in the USA (& Europe to a bit less extent), BDS is the way to go.
You don’t understand Abunimah’s ideas, or the BDS movement.
“That is, as I think it out at any rate, there is a end-game that the pro-occupationists have that doesn’t involve any genocide”
Don’t believe the hype: When you trap a group of people, build a wall around them and then bomb them –that’s genocide.
And it has happened, is happening and will likely happen some more. This is the end game and you’re watching it in real time. But I hope that doesn’t fuck up your theory.
The Israeli end game is to continue the game–and keep establishing “facts on the ground,” or bargaining chips. Just look, and look back. The pattern is as clear as day.
I’m sure Obama personally knows it. But, he has to deal with AIPAC types and wants 8 years purely for his own ego and family benefit before any others’. He’s like any US congress person or POTUS except JFK & Carter. Ike doesn’t county since he was our top war hero and was free from the lobbies in that sense.
You don’t even have to look — the Israelis themselves say that. I can dig up a metric ton of quotes that Israelis probably assumed would never get translated from Hebrew.
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