Palestinian Joke #134
Question: Where can Israel find the Palestinian Gandhi?
Answer: Exactly where they put him, in administrative detention.
Not that I’m in any way playing into the Palestinian Gandhi dialogue, I think its actually pretty diversionary/racist. But sometimes you have to laugh in order not to cry right?
Jamal Juma’, the director of the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, also known as Stop the Wall, was summoned for interrogation on the night of December 15th. Jamal has been detained by the Israeli military and has not had access to a lawyer since the 16th of December. I was in the Stop the Wall Office on the 15th of December. I said hi to Jamal. I’ve met him on a couple of occasions. He is a quiet man with a commanding presence.
I read the news of his arrest last night, sitting in the home of another non-violent Palestinian activist, Musa Abu Maria of the Palestine Solidarity Project. He was not surprised to hear about Jamal’s arrest. He told me the story of his first arrest and time in prison. An IDF commander showed up at his home and asked him to come with him for a few hours to talk over a cup of tea. Musa asked if he could have a minute to say goodbye to his family. He knew what tea and talk were code words for. He was nineteen years old.
If past actions set precedence and they do. Jamal will likely not be charged with any crime (because he has not committed one) but will be held in prison for a long time (interrogated, tortured) without charges. Israel does this through a process called administrative detention that allows the state to hold Palestinians for periods of three months at a time (renewable indefinitely) without charges.
Mohammad Othman, another Stop the Wall executive member has been detained by Israel since September. His first administrative detention order expires this week. Jamal is set to be brought in front of a judge today.
Mohammad, Jamal and many of the scores of other Palestinian’s with orders of administrative detention, are in Israeli prisons not because they have committed a crime but because they are non-violent ant-occupation activists. Israel has begun to understand that non-violent activism in Palestine is a serious threat to the occupation. Those engaged in non-violent struggle often have an excellent analysis, they are determined and they are gaining traction domestically and platforms for spreading their message internationally. It scares the shit out of Israel so it is not surprising that they are responding with repressive military actions. This is a military occupation and it maintains itself by using the tactics military oppression.
It’s about time we had a discussion centered solely on this one specific faulty talking point that everybody’s favorite Zionist keeps dragging up — although one notes his gotten rather reticent about using it any more. One supposes he’s been dreading this topic.
the whole debate over the lack of a palestinian ‘ghandi’ is completely juvenile. israel, the narcissistic prom queen, must be approached just so or its delicate sensiblities will be offended. in any event, a whole pageant of palestinian MLKs have been ‘detained’ or murdered, while israel is filled to the brim with kosher bull connors.
“a whole pageant of palestinian MLKs have been ‘detained’ or murdered, while israel is filled to the brim with kosher bull connors.”
Speaking of juvenile, will you guys ever tired of the “Palestinian Victims/Jewish Bullies” rhetoric? You forever accuse Jews of “playing the victim” yet by standing up for Jewish national sovereignty it seems Israel is, on the contrary, refusing to be a victim.
Jews refusing to be bullied–I don’t suppose that could be what really bothers you?
Meier Kahane speaks to us from his grave of the bullying Palestinian children who deliberately stand in the way of the IDF bullets.
Israel’s not milking the “victim” role for all it’s worth, huh.
Do you think those people are entitled to that money, Chaos? Or are they just greedy Jews?
so, then, you support reparations payments to african-americans for slavery?
The Holocaust survivors aren’t getting that money, Israel’s government is. I don’t think it’s appropriate that money meant as reparations for the Holocaust is instead going to bulldoze Palestinian homes and buy fresh supplies of cluster bombs and white phosphorous, no.
Neither do I! We agree!
Then maybe you’d better apologize intimating that Holocaust survivors are “greedy Jews,” OJ.
the greedy ones are
their Jewdihood’s just a tragic accident, innit?
shoe fits, wear it
i’m probably going to regret asking this, but what the f*ck is “Jewish national sovereignty . . ..”?
Its really too bad if the question about the Palestinian Gandhi feels racist.
If a dissenter is asking for the trust of a participant, they have to earn it. Earning it is not a racist criteria.
Has Israel earned anyone’s trust, after sixty odd years, Witty?
Also, Palestinians in prison? Invisible to Witty. Did you all notice that? Not a word. Not even a glance.
I second Chaos. You were noticeably absent on the post about Jamal Juma’ being arrested (and all the other non-violent Palestinian activists).
Also, the Israel that you’re so willing to defend, has higher government and social hostilities on adherents of other religions, than the Palestinian territories (according to the Pew Forum). In the case of social hostilities, it ranks alongside the likes of Saudi Arabia, Iran and Somalia.
The question was on the relevance of the concept of “Palestinian Gandhi”.
It is a relevant, NOT a racist question.
If the issues themselves were not so volatile, maybe the need for such moral leadership would be diminished. But, the reality is of eggshells, of terror, of over-reactive military deterrence.
Holy shit. You really don’t care, do you? You don’t care that non-violent Palestinians who are guilty of nothing are ending up in Israeli prisons, for political reasons?
God, you’re such an awful racist monster, Witty.
It may or may not be racist, but it is erroneous. It presumes that the Palestinians have not made good faith efforts to resolve the conflict. It presumes that if they had made good faith efforts (as defined by the Zionists) the conflict would have already been resolved. It presumes that because they haven’t made such an effort that their suffering is self-inflicted. It presumes that Palestinians do not have the right to self-defense. It presumes that Palestinians have a responsiblity to behave as Zionists propose that they behave. It is a completely dishonest framework erected to forestall a resolution to the problem. So maybe it’s not racist, but the label is irrelevant.
The question implies that no such person exists (ignoring the several prominent ones that are in prison). I don’t see how that is any different to Benny Morris’ “Arabs are inherently violent”
Oh yes, sure, the search for the Palestinian Gandhi is VERY relevant. It’s a good-hearted, well-meaning, open-minded Zionist inquiry. But if you go and try to compare Israeli racist, colonialist brutality to that of the British Raj, that is just beyond the pale. Richard Witty will have one of his patented INCOHERENT new agey meltdowns.
It’s not, Shafiq. Witty’s the sort of person who would look at disproportionately high incarceration rates among African Americans and come to the conclusion that they just deserve to be in prison, because that’s the way the system works!
Which would merely disgust me, but what really embroils me is that he’s going to pretend to call himself a liberal when he’s so blatantly racist and reactionary.
“It is a relevant, NOT a racist question.”
Of course the question for the uninitiated is a backhanded retort -
Meant to imply that there is no one of the stature of Gandhi among the Palestinians because they are supposedly so base, and secondly that they are given to nothing but overt violence. Regardless of the fact that most of the resistance from the Palestinians has been non-violent, Mr. Witty wishes to play upon what is displayed via propaganda on the boob tube for those unfortunate individuals that get all of their information and news from the propaganda dribble that is displayed there.
As for Mr. Witty, I think he has sunk to a new level here. I would say it is reaching probably a proxy of “the banality of evil” that Hannah Arendt spoke of years ago. Where someone sits in a matter of fact way, not directly involved in this instance, but of the same sentiment – saying “this is just the way things are.” So, just as the violence against us increased, so it does against the Palestinians, and the arm chair bureaucrat (Witty) sits there saying it is just a matter of following orders. He will retort like Eichmann that “he did nothing physically to the Palestinians.” However, he becomes part of that entourage without conscience who just allows the atrocities against the Palestinians to continue, in the name of the “Jewish state.” It might be noted here that Goldenhagen might have been wrong in regard to the German’s, but in reference to the 90% plus Zionists in that wanted the Gaza Massacre and their ardent supporters in the USA, it might bear more fruit toward reality.
Wow, VR. You’ve got Witty nailed down even better than I do. It’s kind of sad to think that the sort of personality that would have been standing trial at Nuremberg not only runs rampant in Israeli politics, but also insinuates itself into American academics and politics as well as respectable Jewish culture.
this is the Jewish democracy! the only democracy of the ME!!! Disgusting.
Richard,
I will put to you that these people are trusted to deliver Gandhi-inspired non-violent but effective movements and this is precisely why they are put into administrative detention. Trust me.
Eva, I believe your assessment is absolutely and utterly correct.
If a dissenter is asking for the trust of a participant, they have to earn it.
Are Witty and OJ being especially incoherent today, or I am being especially dim? What does that Witty quote mean? Sincerely, I have no idea.
No, you are not dim, it can be a challenge. Pick up verbs only and see if it has words that have logical connection to the topic, then try the same with nouns, take a stab at what is likely to have been a thought process and you are there!
Dziekuje, Eva. (I was going to try to respond in Polish, but I realized my vocabulary has been reduced to ordering kiszka and piwo). Sometimes you end up questioning yourself as you try to disentangle the logical pretzels Witty (half)bakes.
Civil disobedience is a communication, an attempt to influence attitudes en masse.
Who is going to support rock-throwers, or those that condemn institution-building?
One practice of non-violent civil disobedience is to FILL the prisons. Its costly, seen, principled.
An actual non-violent civil disobedient is willing to sit in jail. His/her body is a message in itself. It doesn’t need false puffing, but does need accurate and candid continuing communication.
“An actual non-violent civil disobedient is willing to sit in jail. His/her body is a message in itself. It doesn’t need false puffing, but does need accurate and candid continuing communication.”
Is the point that Palestinians aren’t capable of accurate an candid continual conversation? Can you give examples of accurate and candid continual conversation on the part of Israel and its supporters, and what good it brought about?
Witty, you can’t even get Gahndi right. He never said that violence is an unacceptable means of resisting oppression. Violence, rather, is a sign of the weakness of your position, while non-violent resistance is a symbol of psychological, spiritual and political strength.
You’re a fucking racist, Witty. If they aren’t “Hamas-supporting terrorists” than they’re “rock-throwing malcontents,” to you, huh? Meanwhile your “Chosen Ones” roast people alive with white phosphorous and harvest organs from the dead and you don’t even bat an eyelash — because as far as you care, Zionist is good and Palestinian is evil.
Who is going to support rock-throwers, or those that condemn institution-building?
Please do not tell me that you actually believe that “little kids” throwing rocks at tanks is somehow violent resistance. I’m sorry but throwing rocks at Tanks that belong to one of the most powerful military machines in the world is symbolic resistance.
Furthermore, none of us have a problem with the Palestinians building up institutions. What we have a problem with is the notion that somehow Palestinians building institutions under a brutal Israeli occupation is somehow going to remedy the situation.
That somehow these institutions are actually going to “help” the Palestinians when its the Israelis who really control EVERYTHING. Today the Palestinians have a water ministry who consisting of people who aren’t allowed to tap into their OWN aquifers, a security apparatus who cannot operate without Israeli permission, a tax collecting agency that can’t collect taxes without the Israeli go ahead, a transportation appartatus that is completely at the whim of Israeli checkpoints, a civil land ministry that cannot even issue building permits without first getting permission from the housing ministry in Tel Aviv, Palestinians can’t even issue real VISA’s to people born in the West Bank or Gaza, but they can give them “symbolic VISAS!”
Anyway I hope you understand the point here.
Palestinians have institutions but the brutal Israeli occupation makes them obsolete and worthless. Israeli is today an apartheid state, its time you understood that, accepted that, then tried to remedy that.
Thats the crux of the issue, the only issue, and the final issue. No amount of Palestinian introspection can fix the I/P conflict, only Israeli acknowledgment of the brutality they inflict on the Palestinian will lead to an end to this conflict, and the sooner you realize that the better.
But, but, those rocks have the potential to chip the paint off of the Merkava tanks! Do you realize how much the taxpayers (the American ones, at least) have to pay to paint those things?!?
Anti-Semitism! Islamofascism! Holocaust! Dhimmis! Never again! *bark* *bark* *bark*…….
Richards, you said
“One practice of non-violent civil disobedience is to FILL the prisons. Its costly, seen, principled.
An actual non-violent civil disobedient is willing to sit in jail. His/her body is a message in itself. It doesn’t need false puffing, but does need accurate and candid continuing communication.”
Do I understand you correctly? You are arguing that by allowing themselves to be arrested and imprisoned Palestinians are practicing costly, seen and principled non-violent civil disobedience with their bodies, which (bodies) are messages in themselves.
If I do understand you correctly, than the only thing left to do is to be thankful to IDF for facilitating civil disobedience of all those would-be Ghandis that rot in the Israeli jails without trial.
Next time participants of protest marches in Nilin and Bilin are dragged to the waiting trucks to be carted to Israeli prisons we should throw flowers at IDF soldiers for helping them in their acts of civil disobedience.
White is black Q.E.D
Witty, you ought to be barred from using the English language for this drivel, and thoroughly inhumane thinking:
Right. A father of three should martyr himself and his family’s food and livelihood, especially after his house and his parents’ house were obliterated in the Gaza massacre, to sit in a jail to satisfy your cruel idea of non-violent protest. And then there’s something incomprehensible about “false puffing?” And some other incomprehensible assumption about being in that jail and experiencing “accurate and candid continuing communication?” With whom?
A dissenter has to keep the awareness of those that are genuinely non-violent civil disobedients in the public eye. That is noble work.
That emphasizes the IMPORTANCE of their integrity, the Palestinian Gandhi, and not only the Palestinian tactician.
So, the message conveyed about those that are in jail, is that they are so committed to their effort that they are willing to undergo suffering and even boredom, even lack of notoriety, for their cause.
But, if their integrity is false, or thin, then you end up risking your integrity, your credibility, on a gamble.
And, for those that are motivated by morality, of actually being concerned that their dissent results in greater good (not only victory), then you end up risking something deeper again for a gamble.
There are Palestinians that have that moral depth. Their history of struggle, and struggle in service to community itself, creates that depth (not in all by any means. In most it creates animosity, not moral depth.)
If you follow animosity, that is what will result. If you follow those with moral depth, “Palestinian Gandhi”, then that is what will result.
Fuck. Why dont I follow Shmuel’s advice….?
Here, let me take over. Witty’s gotten chickenshit about responding to me, if you haven’t noticed.
Witty? Was Zionism forwarded by non-violent protest against the British Mandate? Right. So where they hell do you get off criticizing the Palestinians when your pet ideology has led to the murder of thousands and the ethnic cleansing of hundreds of thousands (millions ultimately, when you factor in the families that have been raised in refugee status)?
You don’t believe in non-violent protest. If you did, you’d reject Zionism outright as a violent and militant political movement.
In other words, you’re a racist and a blatant hypocrite. No news there, though, really.
The commitment to non-violence is the ONLY means by which Palestinians will achieve mass support. There is no possibility that Europeans or Americans will consent to support those that shifted tactic from terror to temporary non-violence.
The gruesomeness of the terror is too present, at least among those that were adults during the late 90′s and early 00′s.
So, in that light, the willingness to go to jail is a demonstration of determination, a message in itself.
Or, are you too reactionary to hear from me that encouragement of humane Palestinian determination?
I despise the opportunist and the malevolent in political “discussion”. One would think that a sincere dissenter would similarly. They would instead emphasize getting the message accross, in the only ways that that is possible.
Phil’s blog is a case in point. WHEN Phil’s blog is of description, it communicates. When Phil’s blog is of propaganda (by his tone, and by his selection), it alienates.
Witty? Nobody cares about your hollow prevarications and your stilted, pseudo-academic diatribes.
The fact is, time and time again, you prove yourself to be a racist:
One set of rules for Jews.
Another set of rules for Palestinians.
Every time, Witty. EVERY. TIME. You are the one who is alienated, Witty, and isolated by your fanaticism and moral cowardice, Witty. Not Phil Weiss. So get over your pathetic self.
Nobody takes you seriously. And they never will. You’re a failure.
“So, the message conveyed about those that are in jail, is that they are so committed to their effort that they are willing to undergo suffering and even boredom, even lack of notoriety, for their cause.”
Bullshit, complete and utter – no civil rights leader wishes to sit in jail and be silent. When King was thrown in jail there was a battery of lawyers to spring him, it is always the makeup of resistance to get people out as soon as possible. Only some troll like you Witty would say sit there in silence, when it has not even been classically practiced in ANY well known peaceful protest movement.
Second, being in jail in Israel is not the same as being in jail with the Israelis. You are subject to constant torture and harassment, there is a system of perpetual detention without charge. Israel, for the Palestinians does not have the basic wherewithal of jurisprudence, nor recognition of the humanity of the Palestinians, to jail anyone.
Exactly what institution-building are you referring to? The only institution-building that Zionists have supported is the construction of a (deliberately) corrupt collaborationist Palestinian Authority that disgusts even many Fatah members. Oh, and you (plural) directly supported the birth and growth of an institution called Hamas, and your 18 year occupation of southern Lebanon, AFTER the goal of driving the PLO out had been achieved, stimulated the formation of Hezbollah and guided (with figurative bullwhips) its social and political development. If they are extremists, it is because YOU made them so. The own goals from you geniuses mount, and innocents around the world pay the price.
The rocket attacks on Sderot are YOUR fault and are a direct consequence of largely Ashkenazi, i.e. European, Zionist ethnic cleansing and colonization of indigenous Palestinians, followed by their incarceration in the world’s largest open-air concentration camp. And yes, I mean concentration camp, because that is EXACTLY what it is: the herding of undesirables into a centralized location, i.e their concentration, where they can be more easily controlled.
The IDF has engaged in deliberate and calculated destruction of Palestinian economic, social and civic institutions in both Gaza and the West Bank: bombed schools, civic centers, local government buildings that keep birth and marriage records, farm land seeded with land mines, factories razed, computer equipment, the foundation of a modern economy, shot with rifles, etc. There is a wealth of evidence for these crimes, and Zionists who whitewash them do nothing but incubate disgust for their cause.
Not only are you Zionists exacerbating existing antisemitism, but you are inflaming a vastly larger group of otherwise sympathetic people around the world to see you as barbaric racist thugs who are a serious threat to peace and stability, not because of who you are, but because of what you DO. Where do you think it is going to end, and how much sympathy do you think you will have when it does?
Sandy Stone? As I live and breathe it’s you, matey! How are things in Gumdale?
Isn’t it painful, OJ, having your head that far up your own ass?
according to Witty likes, the disgusting racists, rockets throwers are terrorists because rockets hurt the IDF neo-Nazi Army members
I am not a humble man, but I have to admit that MRW and Eva are infinitely more intelligent than me. They have both penned a thoughtful, eloquent response to a comment by Richard Witty, while I am still scratching my head, having no f*cking idea what he is talking about.
Its costly, seen, principled.
Eh?
I’ve met people like Witty before. They think if they can confuse you with nonsensical semantic constructions, you’ll just assume they’re smarter than you are. It’s kind of like that one lizard that shoots blood from its eyes to confuse other creatures.
I wish I were, marc b. Frankly, I’m still at ”Its costly, seen, principled.“ I mean, who the fuck writes like this? It’s nonsensical. I should have listened to Shmuel, who told me to stop responding to Witty. Shmuel has a mental discipline I dont have, and mental discipline is intelligence. And if you notice, Shmuel keeps his own counsel, and values his own time.
Self-discpline is valuable, but I’m too much of a hot head to make it a permanent character trait. I have also counseled against responding to Witty, who I am convinced is not a real personality, but a random language program, the project of some MIT undergraduate with a dual major in computer programming and psychology. The logic, the syntax, the grammar of it all is so foreign, opaque, cryptic, to borrow one of the fictional-character-known-as-Witty’s rhetorical devices, the redundant adjectival. When you’re arguing with Witty, it’s probably best to treat is as a game of sorts, like playing chess against a computer, only in this case the computer has been programmed by a chimpanzee.
The question about the Palestinian Gandhi concerns details regarding what Israel does with savvy and public peaceful Peaceful dissenters, Gandhis budding in these times and circumstances. It is meant to reveal the reality on the ground–it points to factual reasons
why no Palestinian Gandhi has been revealed to the world–in contrast to the
disparaging suggestion that the Palestinians are incapable by nature and nuture
of producing a Gandi (or MLK). A participant doesn’t need to trust the dissenter, but he/she needs to have enough objectivity to listen, check over the dissenter’s facts themselves, chew all over, and not obscure a full answer to the question.
Surely if you need the other side to produce a Ghandi, then you are on the wrong side.
Ouch, you nailed it spuxx.
Best comment of the thread, spuxx! LOL
Do you mind if we all quote that at Witty the next time he rolls at the canard? Because trust me, he will roll it out again in the future.
Wow. That sort of sums it up, doesn’t it? Thanks spuxx.
GREAT comment.
There was a supposedly uneducated poet from South America lionized years go, a weaver.
One of his poems was: ”They will say you are on the wrong road if it is your own.“ It pierced me; I never forgot it. Your comment reminded me of it, spuxx.
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Where is the Palestinian MacArthur?
Exactly… why do the Palestinians need a Ghandi when they’re facing tanks and, jet fighters, and Apache attack helicopters on a daily basis, even when non-violently resisting Israeli brutality.
To be fair, Palestinian society needs both influences. Otherwise you end up with a country like… Israel.
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