Ilan Pappe at EI (thanks to Nader Hashemi):
Every now and again many liberal Jews seem to liberate themselves and allow their conscience, rather than their fear, to lead them. However, many seem unable stick to their more universalist inclinations for too long where Israel is concerned. The risk of being defined as a "self-hating Jew" with all the ramifications of such an accusation is a real and frightening prospect for them. You have to be in this position to understand the power of this terror.
Just weeks ago, Israeli military intelligence announced it had created a special unit to monitor, confront, and possibly hunt down, individuals and bodies suspected of "delegitimizing" Israel abroad. In light of this, perhaps quite a few of the faint-hearted felt standing up to Israel was not worth it.
We should have recognized that Goldstone was one of them when he stated that, despite his report, he remains a Zionist. This adjective, "Zionist," is far more meaningful and charged than is usually assumed. You cannot claim to be one if you oppose the ideology of the apartheid State of Israel. You can remain one if you just rebuke the state for a certain criminal policy and fail to see the connection between the ideology and that policy. "I am a Zionist" is a declaration of loyalty to a frame of mind that cannot accept the 2009 Goldstone Report. You can either be a Zionist or blame Israel for war crimes and crimes against humanity -- if you do both, you will crack sooner rather than later...
Ever since the creation of the State of Israel, the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed by Israel were either terrorists or killed by "mistake." So 29 out of 1,400 deaths were killed by an unfortunate mistake? Only ideological commitment could base a revision of the report on an internal inquiry of the Israeli army focusing only on one of dozens of instances of unlawful killing and massacring. So it cannot be new evidence that caused Goldstone to write this article. Rather, it is his wish to return to the Zionist comfort zone that propelled this bizarre and faulty article.
...We have been there before. In the late 1980s, Israeli historian Benny Morris wrote a similar, sterile, account of the 1948 ethnic cleansing of Palestine. Palestinian academics such as Edward Said, Nur Masalha and Walid Khalidi were the ones who pointed to the significant implications for Israel's identity and self-image, and nature of the archival material he unearthed.
Morris too cowered under pressure and asked to be re-admitted to the tribe. He went very far with his mea culpa and re-emerged as an extreme anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racist: suggesting putting the Arabs in cages and promoting the idea of another ethnic cleansing. Goldstone can go in that direction too; or at least this is what the Israelis expect him to do now.
Professionally, both Morris and Goldstone tried to retreat to a position that claimed, as Goldstone does in The Washington Post article, that Israel can only be judged by its intentions not the consequences of its deeds. Therefore only the Israeli army, in both cases, can be a reliable source for knowing what these intentions were. Very few decent and intelligent people in the world would accept such a bizarre analysis and explanation.
Goldstone has not entered as yet the lunatic fringe of ultra-Zionism as Morris did. But if he is not careful the future promises to be a pleasant journey with the likes of Morris, Alan Dershowitz (who already said that Goldstone is a "repentant Jew") between annual meetings of the AIPAC rottweilers and the wacky conventions of the Christian Zionists. He would soon find out that once you cower in the face of Zionism -- you are expected to go all the way or be at the very same spot you thought you had successfully left behind you.
Winning Zionist love in the short-term is far less important than losing the world's respect in the long-run. Palestine should choose its friends with care: they cannot be faint-hearted nor can they claim to be Zionists as well as champions of peace, justice and human rights in Palestine.
Judge Goldstone seems to have wanted (or to want now) to believe that the mentality of “to make an omelette you must break eggs” (other people’s eggs) — so apparent as a driving philosophy of the Israel-creators of 1948 (driving individuals if not the entire military toward expulsion of 85% of the Palestinians; and driving the new State to deny re-entry to each of the exiles, without regard to whether s/he was in fact a (military) danger to the state — was temporary, and not a well-preserved and indeed increasing mental state. What I learn from the post-1948 history — the military governorate of pre-1967 Israeli Palestinians, the occupation, the siege, the wall, the settlements, the indiscriminate attacks (Lebanon 1982, 2006; Gaza), the Mavi Marmara — is that Israel has, so far from shaking off a temporarily necessary mental aberration, adopted as a permanent mental attribute a war-crimes-are-us stance. It appears beyond self-cure. At best, the international community can cure it (or wrap it in a straight jacket). Pappe is right. And Israel is busily closing the small space once left between the ultra-right / lunatic fringe Zionists and spaced-out lovers of an imaginary (nice) Israel with its threats to hunt down delegitimizers. I hear the tromp of the jack-boots. I think Judge Goldstone did, as well.
“”I am a Zionist” is a declaration of loyalty to a frame of mind that cannot accept the 2009 Goldstone Report.”
What ridiculousness. According to this , saying “I am an American” is loyalty to a frame of a mind that cannot accept the War in Iraq.
“So it cannot be new evidence that caused Goldstone to write this article. Rather, it is his wish to return to the Zionist comfort zone that propelled this bizarre and faulty article.”
Yeah, that must be it. Or you could listen to what he has said from the beginning, which is that his report is not a repudiation of Zionism or Israel, and that he expected Israel’s cooperation, but had to go on what he had without it. You could also read the responses of Zionists to Goldstone’s op-ed and realize that he’s not “returning” to any comfort zone by virtue of writing an op-ed two years after the fact.
“Morris too cowered under pressure and asked to be re-admitted to the tribe. He went very far with his mea culpa and re-emerged as an extreme anti-Arab and anti-Muslim racist: suggesting putting the Arabs in cages and promoting the idea of another ethnic cleansing.”
Aside from the fact that Pappe has long harbored animus toward Benny Morris in the form of personal and professional jealousy, none of what Morris says today is inconsistent with what he said before. Benny Morris and Richard Goldstone share the following in common: both have written with authority on their subject of expertise, and both have had their work distorted by the anti-Zionist far-left.
“Very few decent and intelligent people in the world would accept such a bizarre analysis and explanation.”
Except that intent is a major factor in determining whether international law has been broken, and there are more than a few decent and intelligent people who would accept what Goldstone and Morris write, notwithstanding those like Ilan Pappe, with political axes to grind.
“Palestine should choose its friends with care: they cannot be faint-hearted nor can they claim to be Zionists as well as champions of peace, justice and human rights in Palestine.”
Indeed, it’s important to reject all criticism of Palestinians.
What hypocrites you people are.
HOPHMI- “What ridiculousness. According to this , saying “I am an American” is loyalty to a frame of a mind that cannot accept the War in Iraq.”
How interesting. A lawyer who can’t tell the difference between nationality and ideology.
“How interesting. A lawyer who can’t tell the difference between nationality and ideology.”
Ah, but he know, when it comes to shoes, the difference between black and white!
Yes, shoes! That’s the ticket. Mine are getting worn out!
“and there are more than a few decent and intelligent people who would accept what Goldstone and Morris write,”
Which part of what Morris has written are you talking about? Because we lefties accept him when he writes that Israel came into existence through ethnic cleansing accompanied by over 20 massacres. We reject his thinking when he says ethnic cleansing was justified. And not just the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Zionists, but also the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans by whites.
You want a link? Here it is– link
Now I’m curious hophmi. You come in here with your usual arrogance, talking like you have the moral and intellectual high ground. Did you know what I just told you (all in the link I provided)? Do you support Morris’s viewpoint that ethnic cleansing is justifiable? I really am curious. The charitable interpretation is that you didn’t know this, you believed something else (what, I don’t know) and you came in here thinking you were informed when you weren’t. The uncharitable assumption is that you’re a racist defender of ethnic cleansing like Morris.
“Because we lefties accept him when he writes that Israel came into existence through ethnic cleansing accompanied by over 20 massacres.”
I accept his finding that there were some massacres, as there are in every war, that they took place on both sides, that there was NO ORGANIZED PLAN of ethnic cleansing as the anti-Zionist left repeatedly asserts, that Morris’s work has repeatedly been distorted and misquoted by others, including Shlaim and Pappe, and that Morris is stating a hard truth when he says that most of the countries in this world have bloodier histories than Israel does and that had Israel “finished the job,” there would be no conflict today. Cynical to be sure, but what part do YOU disagree with?
Do you accept those findings?
What Morris says is that in the early phase of the war the expulsions that occurred were for military reasons, and that in the second part of the war they became deliberate ethnic cleansing. Stepping out of his historian’s hat, he then endorses it and wishes it had gone further.
I think that on the early phase of the war the cleansing might have been for military reasons, but I don’t think the people doing it were idiots–they couldn’t possibly help but think how convenient it would be if the Palestinians weren’t allowed back. So I’m not sure there’s really that much of a distinction. Morris says that transfer was in the air long before the war, so it seems a bit silly to think that for a few months the notion was temporarily forgotten even while it was being carried out.
For the most part people accept Morris’s history–where people disagree is in the area where we are all mindreading, but I think my mindreading is more plausible than one that says that Zionists were in favor of transfer, but forgot about that during Plan Dalet and then remembered it again later in the war. It seems more likely that Plan Dalet was for military purposes, but the added “benefit” of getting rid of some unwanted Palestinians was floating around in their heads.
The objection people have is to Morris’s proclamation that he supports ethnic cleansing. I said this already and you sidestepped it by employing a euphemism “finishing the job”. And no, I don’t think if Israel had done a more complete job of ethnic cleansing they would be better off. They’d be even more hated than they are. It’d be interesting to see what the alternate universe Benny Morris and hophmi would say then. How much more completion would the job need if a total ethnic cleansing didn’t work?
So you knew Morris supported ethnic cleansing? Do you agree with him?
“So you knew Morris supported ethnic cleansing? Do you agree with him?”
I don’t think he supports ethnic cleansing. I think he is against vilifying Israel for something he feels any nation would have done under similar circumstances, and I think he is tired of his work being used to delegitimize Israel as a Jewish state. Benny Morris was a refusenik during the First Intifada and has said that he would do the same if he had it to do over.
Read the link I provided. He supports ethnic cleansing. He says so and even says it was okay when whites did it to Native Americans. If you want to say that Benny Morris doesn’t mean what he says, okay, but I can only go by what he says he thinks.
hophmi, you don’t think Morris supports ethnic cleansing? From the link provided by Donald:
Now what do you think?
As far as the two dozen massacres of civilians documented by Morris, you think they were not part of an overall plan? They were committed independently of one another? Oops, I committed another massacre. And does it make much difference? We’re talking about 24 different instances of Jewish forces slaughtering Palestinian civilians. Is there less culpability if these events were all coincidental to one another? As Morris also says in that link, Ben-Gurion knew that Palestinians had to be transferred or relocated or cleansed in order for Israel to come into being. Do you think Morris, or Ben-Gurion, was wrong? I think they obviously were right. But if it was necessary to force this relocation, and Jewish massacres played a huge role in inducing this relocation, what is the basis for your conclusion that it was not done according to a plan? That it was just one of those things that happened, as opposed to being the result of what certain people did.
Long-established hasbara blames the Palestinians for leaving “voluntarily” and has used that as an excuse from day one for preventing their internationally recognized right of return. How do you feel about that? Did Palestinians waive any rights by fleeing?
…and then sixty-five words too far, over the real heart of the matter. Donald is right, and anyone who actually bothers to read the transcript of the interview will see that.
He regards Zionism as worthy of struggle.
“there was NO ORGANIZED PLAN of ethnic cleansing as the anti-Zionist left repeatedly asserts, that Morris’s work has repeatedly been distorted and misquoted by others”
Even if Morris doesn’t like it, his facts will be used by people who draw their own conclusions. It seems to me while he didn’t find a concrete, overall plan, the fact that transfer was discussed repeatedly and actually carried out should tell you the Yishuv leadership had a general, abstract plan, basically knowing it would be done somehow. Morris wants us to believe there would have been no transfer if the Mufti and his followers just sat back and accepted partition. I think the evidence he cites for that is flimsy.
Morris has always complained about his work being used for anti-Zionism. That’s tough cookies. There were other ways to learn about the nakba before he wrote ‘Birth’.
By the way, Morris had his reckoning well before 2004.
link to washingtonpost.com
“Despite his book’s critical success, which came mostly outside the country, Morris could not secure a university post in Israel after its publication. He announced in a 1996 newspaper interview his intention to leave for the United States.
Ezer Weizman, a hero of the 1948 war and Israel’s president at the time, summoned Morris to his office that afternoon. He asked him if he supported Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state. After receiving Morris’s word that he did, the president arranged a post for him at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, where he lectures today. “
“Benny Morris was a refusenik during the First Intifada and has said that he would do the same if he had it to do over.”
While it’s true that Morris doesn’t see any worth in the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, it’s really hard to accept he’s categorically rejecting the transfer of the Palestinians there when he retroactively supports it in 1948. I’m not interested in playing armchair psychiatrist so let’s keep it simple: Any goodwill he bought was pissed away.
“He regards Zionism as worthy of struggle.”
And he regards Palestinians as worthless. “Struggle”, I suppose, is Wittyese for “ethnic cleansing”.
You’re not even trying here Richard. Shouldn’t there be some Nietzschean rhetoric about being strong enough to face the complexities of harsh choice or some such rubbish? Come on, you can blow smoke a lot harder than this.
How’s that for irony. Do you know what the Arabic word for “struggle” is, Witty?
It’s jihad.
“I think he is against vilifying Israel for something he feels any nation would have done under similar circumstances, ”
Say what you will about Stalin, at least he had the gumption to deport the Volga Germans en masse and put some east Germans in labor camps. He only led the biggest country in the world for 30 years; at least one of his policies had to be for the best.
You read the interview that you posted, didn’t Donald.
You didn’t read the quote of “kill or be killed”? You think that was misrepresentative?
Maybe so. I don’t know anyone that was alive at the time that holds a rosier picture.
YES. Yes it was. Jews in Palestine have never been killed at anywhere near the rate that Israel kills non-Jews today. Never. Not ever. Well, maybe during the Crusades, but you know, that was a European import. Or possibly if you delve back to the Roman era.
Witty, you’re characterized yourself and Morris as Zionist jihadists.
Chaos,
You’re trying to convince Witty? Perhaps Jihad has gone too far?
Hej!
War criminals never make a distinction between real threats and innocent people. So no, I don’t think that the Zionists were right to deliberately drive hundreds of thousands from their homes. I know that’s hard to conceive for a racist like you, Richard, someone who automatically sees a Palestinian as a demonic threat to your very existence unless kept at a distance or in small enough numbers so they don’t pose a threat.
Anyway, Richard, I’m going to take a different tack with you. Asking you to be morally consistent is a waste of time–it’s like discussing quantum mechanics with a dog. It’s not just silly, it’s almost a category mistake. I’m just going to take you at your word and assume you’d order war crimes yourself even if you are squeamish to do them yourself. So how many hundreds of thousands of Palestinians would you have driven out? How many massacres? Give me a ballpark figure.
How anyone can read that and not conclude that the ethnic cleansing was the intentuion from the beginning. Morris and others admit that without it, there woudl never have been a Jewish state, so having migrated to Palestine and invested so much energy realising this ambition, we’re supopsed to believe that the ethnic cleansing was one big happy coincidence? Especaily in ligbt of the fact that the Zionjst founders were openly speaking about the necessity of it?
Worthy of ethnic cleansing.
Superb post Donald.
Thank you.
Nicely put Chaos.
Ready yourself for Witty to declare that you know nothign about him.
“we’re supopsed to believe that the ethnic cleansing was one big happy coincidence?”
Well, not entirely happy. According to Slater, it could have been done much more nicely.
No organized plan for ethnic cleansing? And you really believe this? Well, it doesn’t accord with this passage quoting Ben Gurion before the war:
“Regarding the Galilee, Mr. [Moshe] Sharett already told you that about 100,000 Arabs still now live in the pocket of Galilee. Let us assume that a war breaks out. Then we will be able to cleanse the entire area of Central Galilee, including all its refugees, in one stroke. In this context let me mention some mediators who offered to give us the Galilee without war. What they meant was the populated Galilee. They didn’t offer us the empty Galilee, which we could have only by means of a war. Therefore if a war is extended to cover the whole of Palestine, our greatest gain will be the Galilee. It is because without any special military effort which might imperil other fronts, only by using the troops already assigned for the task, we could accomplish our aim of cleansing the Galilee.”
From a protocol of the Government of Israel, translated from Hebrew by Israel Shahak, in “Truth or Myth about Israel? Read between Quotation Marks” by Charley Reese in The Orlando Sentinel (13 June 1999); later published as “What Israeli Historians Say About 1948 Ethnic Cleansing” in Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (September 1999).
“Richard, someone who automatically sees a Palestinian as a demonic threat to your very existence unless kept at a distance or in small enough numbers so they don’t pose a threat. ”
Back to name-calling rather than addressing content.
It is war Donald. I hate that it got there. But it did. To fail to acknowledge the reality of the time, is just to revise history.
You know what I hate more. I hate that people that revise history (Zionist and anti-Zionist) are actively PUSHING for a resumption of war.
“It is war Donald. I hate that it got there. But it did. To fail to acknowledge the reality of the time, is just to revise history.”
I never read your posts Witty except the really short ones. And every time without fail you give me incentive not to read the longer ones.
For one thing, if it was Jews who were cleansed from Palestine, you would not make these excuses. You certainly wouldn’t accept the idea that the Palestinians were defending themselves from people who constantly discussed transfer when no one else was around.
In short, you wouldn’t be saying, well, in the few areas the Jews conquered, they expelled all the Arabs, or, the Palestinians had to do it, otherwise it would’ve been done to them. You’d be unreservedly indignant.
Of course you and every other apologist for the nakba, the one instance of racial segregation liberals have to tolerate, otherwise they’re racist themselves, will never being saying this: For the people of Palestine, Lebanon, the Golan and Sinai, it would’ve been all too good for them in the long run if the Arab armies occupied Palestine and deported any Jew who entertained the idea of a Jewish state. Aborting Israel in 1948 would’ve saved tens of thousands of lives over the next 62 years. This argument is good enough against Palestinians.
“t is war Donald. I hate that it got there. But it did. To fail to acknowledge the reality of the time, is just to revise history.”
Nonsense Richard. There’s war and then there are war crimes. I know you can’t see it when your side does it, but imagine that someone said, oh, say, that Palestinians have the right to use any means necessary. Not just hitting soldiers, but also killing Jewish civilians and driving survivors out of their homes. You would never make excuses for that. Never.
Still, I recognize that for you Jews are human and Palestinians are not, or not in the same sense –you don’t wish to engage in “unnecessary” cruelty to animals, but nobody expects to live with hundreds of thousands of wild animals in one’s own home. So the question stands–How many hundreds of thousands of Palestinians would you have driven out? Would you make a distinction between villages that establish a peace agreement with their neighbors and those where all the men are engaged in conflict? Is anyone who is Palestinian subject to expulsion? How many massacres would you authorize if necessary?
Or what Andrew R said.
More rhetoric and insult rather than thought.
Do you not agree with Morris’ contention that the setting was “kill or be killed”?
It’s too obvious.
I support that Israel survived. And, I reluctantly acknowledge that it took warring to do so.
If a partition had been afforded by the Palestinians and Arab League, then maybe there wouldn’t have been war, but that is not the case.
And, unless you are horribly naive or entirely gullible, you will acknowledge that the Palestinian civil war and the Arab League war DID undertake material actions to forcefully remove masses of Jewish residents from their homes – ethnic cleansing – during that war.
There was an extended and active actual siege of Jerusalem for example.
You weren’t there, and apparently you haven’t even read.
Historical truth ALWAYS incorporates observations that support one’s predisposition and that conflict.
The present is the world in which we live though, and therefore PROPOSAL and current ethical behavior is what we are judged by.
To do nothing to improve the well-being of Palestinians would be negligent, inhumane. That rabid Zionists ignore Palestinians and dutifully loyal solidarity do nothing to improve Palestinian well-being (only fight, no work) is a tragedy.
Jewish exceptionalism seems to be a rather common thread among Zionists.
We recently had a figure of around 50,000 here as the acceptable number for ethnic cleansing – with lots of financial compensation of course because we are civilized.
“Do you not agree with Morris’ contention that the setting was “kill or be killed”?”
In Sheikh Muwannis and the other villages around Tel Aviv for example, it was not kill or be killed. These villages had non-belligerency pacts with the Haganah and did not quarter soldiers or contribute men to the Husseini militia or the ALA. The armistice agreement with Egypt specifically protected the villages of the Faluja pocket, al-Faluja and Iraq al-Manshiyya and Rabin ordered these villages demolished. The war was over before their people were expelled. al-Majdal Ashkelon took in refugees from other villages and was depopulated again during 1950.
The overwhelming majority of the Palestinians were unarmed. This should be common sense. If they were such a threat, they wouldn’t have been expelled so easily. It would’ve been more costly for the Yishuv and they would’ve lost more settlements. They were not facing a threat equal to what they inflicted.
The refugees were a threat only in an abstract way. They were expelled because Palestine was invaded by European racists.
>> I support that Israel survived. And, I reluctantly acknowledge that it took warring to do so.
Very generous of you to “reluctantly acknowledge” it. Good thing you’re not in any way actually BOTHERED by it.
>> … you will acknowledge that the Palestinian civil war and the Arab League war DID undertake material actions to forcefully remove masses of Jewish residents from their homes – ethnic cleansing – during that war.
Watch this, RW: The ethnic cleansing of Jews by Palestinians / Arabs was immoral and unjust.
See how easy that is? Ethnic cleansing is wrong – always and everywhere. Too bad you’re not even able to “reluctantly acknowledge” that.
It is always true that civilians get the brunt of harms that well-armed and ideologically disciplined militant cadre impose.
The civilians’ rights are the ones to be affirmed, the present civilians. Not the militants.
When militants use civilians’ suffering for their own opportunistic agendas, the civilians AGAIN get stolen from. Both sides.
Nuance is the place to stay, NOT on which side is good.
And, to stay at nuance, you have to see the truth in the others’ perspective, even as you conclude differently. It does not mean to insult, to harm, to punish. It means to see, to live with dynamic tension, with the prospect of subsequent respect and reconciliation.
Andrew,
There is always the problem in any decision of reconciling the needs of different scales. You speak of the relationship of an army (or even an uprising) relative to a community. They are different scales. The smaller scale is always the abused. So an army overwhelms a community (even a careful one). A squad overwhelms a family. An armed individual overwhelms an unarmed.
It is still rational for Zionists to defend their community, as irrational as it looks from a different scale.
If you disagree with the contention that war was occurring, argue that. If you agree that war was occurring (mutual hostility and to the death), then you have to accept a different set of rules.
War is fucked. That states, that militants, willingly expose civilians to war sucks, especially if they have other ways to reconcile conflicts.
Where there is no willingness to reconcile conflicts, war is the outcome.
>> Nuance is the place to stay …
Nuance is the smoke-screen you hope will lend respectability to you as you “rationalize terror” and “invest in it”, as you fail to condemn blatant immorality and injustice, and as you continue to support Zio-supremacism.
Unfortunately for you, nuance doesn’t do a good job of concealing the ugly truths about you.
“And, unless you are horribly naive or entirely gullible, you will acknowledge that the Palestinian civil war and the Arab League war DID undertake material actions to forcefully remove masses of Jewish residents from their homes – ethnic cleansing – during that war.”
Well Mr. Witty, why don’t you take a stab at my rationale for writing this: “In short, you wouldn’t be saying, well, in the few areas the Jews conquered, they expelled all the Arabs, or, the Palestinians had to do it, otherwise it would’ve been done to them”
Maybe because I expected you to drudge out the Jewish Quarter?
You obstinately ignore my point and confirm it: It’s okay for Jews to commit expulsion in the name of defense, but not okay for the same to be done against Jews. This makes you a racist and blowing “war is hell” crap doesn’t work as a distraction.
By the way, I agree war was occuring and blame the Zionists for starting it. Because it did not start on 29 Novemeber 1947, it began when the British occupied Palestine and the Zionists joined them as an auxillary force. Occupied people have the unconditional right to fight the occupier.
“Historical truth ALWAYS incorporates observations that support one’s predisposition and that conflict.”
Speak for yourself. Just because you have a stake in mass murder to achieve a racially pure society (the nakba) doesn’t mean we all do.
“Occupied people have the unconditional right to fight the occupier.”
Please show me where that right includes the right to target civilians.
Nuance is the accurate understanding.
Demonization is the distortion.
A racist is someone that proposes racist actions in the present. During conflict, the assertion of one’s liberation is not racism. I get that you can’t hold in your mind that Israeli independance and the struggle for it was simultaneously liberation and suppression. But it is the truth.
From forming false understandings of the past, one can act immorally in the present.
So, I agree with you that Zionists that believe that the birth of Israel was only innocent and did not entail harms that need to honestly be healed, are living in a dream world.
But, I contest that those that simplistically believe that punishment of Israel or Israelis (rather than reconciliation) will improve the condition of Palestinians live in a crueler dream world, one of promises that will not be fulfilled.
Partisan self-talk does not further Palestinians well-being nor liberation, especially if war is a result which is FAR FAR more oppressive than occupation even (mutually oppressive).
Guns are not the media of democracy. And, they are certainly not the media of peace.
I think the burden is on you to show me where the occupier has the same right.
You support a Jewish state, you support what must be done to achieve it. When you explain what gives the IDF and the pre-state militias the right to target civilians, your question to me will be redundant.
“Please show me where that right includes the right to target civilians.”
Here’s the problem: how are you defining “civilians”? Are you talking about people living in, say, Tel Aviv? or are you talking about the settlers actively occupying Palestine? Because the situation as to each is different.
“But, I contest that those that simplistically believe that punishment of Israel or Israelis (rather than reconciliation) will improve the condition of Palestinians live in a crueler dream world, one of promises that will not be fulfilled.”
Witty, this is worth clarifying: No one wants to punish Israelis. When you punish someone, they already did the crime. Israelis are still doing it. BDS is one tactic to make them stop, albeit indirectly (I don’t think BDS is expected to directly work).
BDS is a form of protest and solidarity. Protest is meant to be coercive. It is not equivalent to blockading Israel.
The rest of your post is platitudinal claptrap.
So someone who justifies racist actions in the past is not?
Liberation is a matter of perspective, is it not Witty? Wouldn’t whites liberating their country from back people not be racist Witty?
What about punishment for the sake of justice Witty? Punishing a murdered does not necesarily improve the conditions of the victrim’s family, but do you dispite thay it is necessary to stop the murder killing others?
But guns are what was used for libertion of Israel Witty. Does that mean Israel is not a democracy?
“Professionally, both Morris and Goldstone tried to retreat to a position that claimed, as Goldstone does in The Washington Post article, that Israel can only be judged by its intentions not the consequences of its deeds. Therefore only the Israeli army, in both cases, can be a reliable source for knowing what these intentions were. Very few decent and intelligent people in the world would accept such a bizarre analysis and explanation.”
But it goes further than this, doesn’t it? The compliment is also asserted: that one need only look at the consequences of the acts of Hamas in order to judge them. If Hamas asserted that their intention was only to hit government facilities in Sderot, for example, would that stated intention be given a moment’s consideration? And yet an equally untenable statement to the effect that the I”D”F tries to minimize civilian casualties, but just so happens to “accidentally” kill civilians over and over again, is not only NOT cited as grounds for committal, but is often accepted as common knowledge.
Although Judge Goldstone has indeed been subjected to tremendous pressure, I think the real explanation for his disappointing op-ed is that he was and remains a Zionist who, with all his heart, wants to believe the best of Israel – if not in practice, then at least in theory. The mandate and report of the fact-finding mission he headed were in fact biased in Israel’s favour (see e.g. Jerome Slater’s “What’s REALLY Wrong with the Goldstone Report” – link to jeromeslater.com ), and he is now selectively clutching at the few straws offered by the McGowan Davis Report, in Israel’s favour.
It is unfortunate that he felt compelled to write this vague, inconsistent and wishful op-ed, but I believe it only serves to strengthen his achievement in producing the report that he did (overcoming significant personal bias) and the importance of that report – not among those who have been looking for any excuse to dismiss it, but among those who have and will be convinced and impressed by its unequivocal condemnation, first and foremost, of Israeli brutality.
Goldstone could simply have turned the UNHCR down, declaring “conflict of interest”. It is a very good thing he didn’t.
This is a very good description of the difficulties in claiming to be a “progressive Zionist”. There are basically opposite ideas embedded in that concept and to try to maintain both at the same time leads to mental instability.
I wasn’t aware that Morris became a rightwing loon after his breakthrough research. That has to be as good of an example of cognitive dissonance as there is.
“Every now and again many liberal Jews seem to liberate themselves and allow their conscience, rather than their fear, to lead them. However, many seem unable stick to their more universalist inclinations for too long where Israel is concerned”
Ilan is just such a person. Brave, honest, remarkable to be able to stand up like he has and stay standing.
He just nails the issue like no one else
‘Just weeks ago, Israeli military intelligence announced it had created a special unit to monitor, confront, and possibly hunt down, individuals and bodies suspected of “delegitimizing” Israel abroad.’ — Ilan Pappe
Before reading this assertion by Ilan Pappe, I commented under the preceeding essay by Philip Weiss (‘In January, Goldstone …’), speculating that Goldstone may have caved to credible death threats from Mossad.
Pappe comes right out and says so, making the link to a military intelligence announcement which predated Goldstone’s volte-face, and may well have been highly pertinent to his decision.
Actions taken under duress are legally null and void. Would Israel stoop to blackmail against a UN rapporteur to burnish its image? Plenty of history suggests that such below-the-belt tactics would be entirely in character for the scrappy little zionist state.
i just got this news update in my inbox
Jim Haygood wrote:
“Before reading this assertion by Ilan Pappe, I commented … speculating that Goldstone may have caved to credible death threats from Mossad.”
Well I don’t know if Pappe is exaggerating or not saying that the Mossad has actually said it was going to “hunt down” Israeli critics or not, and indeed I kind of doubt it would be so open about it even if true.
On the other hand what’s the historical background, if any, to the idea of hyper-zionists killing or taking other extreme action against fellow jews who aren’t “toeing the line”? Is there any such history?
If not, then unless the Mossad really did make an open threat I doubt this is the kind of thing that a Goldstone would take as reasonably serious. If there is any goodly amount of historical precedent however, especially with extreme actions taken against family members of dissenters, then surely I would think that this would be something widely known and understood in the jewish community generally that a Goldstone would know, and would likewise be perceived as a very real threat.
So, anyone know? Is there any evidence that, in modern times, “dissenting” jews and/or their families who are seen as harming the larger jewish community/Israel have actually been targeted for violence? That this has been done other than one just one occasion or two by this or that little nutcase and/or little movement, but instead is something that could indeed be expected?
sin, there are numerous reports of the zionist terrorists (irgun/stern) in pre israel palestine targeting non zionist and leftist jews. if no one weighs in here i’ll do some research but this is not CT stuff, it’s part of history.
One [in]famous case dates from 87 years ago. The orthodox Jewish poet Jacob_Israël_de_Haan–who has been described as a one-man “precursor of Amnesty International”–was assassinated in 1924 on orders of the Haganah. This was freely admitted in Toldot Hahaganah, the official history of the Haganah (the same page lists other terrorist acts such as bombings against Palestinian civilians in glowing terms). His murderers lived as free men who occupied high offices and died of natural causes as late as 1990.
Naeim Giladi, an Iraqi Jew who immigrated to Israel after its founding, wrote the book:
Ben-Gurion’s Scandals: How the Haganah and the Mossad Eliminated Jews.
Avi, Giladi’s book would be a bombshell if true but I’m not that impressed by a book that has no footnotes other than a bibliography, especially when he discusses documents he illegally copied (p. 12) and can’t cite. It seems like a mix of common knowledge bolstered by anecdotes and speculation. And he really needs more corroboration for this (p. 99):
In any case, the book’s online.
I very much would love if you left my insult of Pappe here, actually posted.
That is that his posting is another dogmatic presentation.
Go troll on your own blog.
Hopefully, he’s immigrating soon if he hasn’t already. But that raises the question? Who can come and who do we exclude? Do we need failed Zionists here? Or do we leave them to their fate? In my lifetime, we’ve taken in Fascist Russians, Germans, Italians, Spaniards, Cubans, Vietnamese, Iraqis, Israelis, Colombians and all the rest. When is it going to stop? As our Colonial policies continue to fail, we can’t expect the Scandinavians to keep taking up all the slack. They’re getting weary as well.
‘Just weeks ago, Israeli military intelligence announced it had created a special unit to monitor, confront, and possibly hunt down, individuals and bodies suspected of “delegitimizing” Israel abroad.’ — Ilan Pappe
As long as we are on the subject, everyone here should be aware that we have been noticed. For some time, I read this site but did not speak. It’s one of the few things you can thank Witty for, it just became unbearable to remain silent.
But I have less to lose than some of you. As Palestine goes South, the extremists will become more extreme. I have been down this road in another venue and it will get ugly. You have the right to say what you believe in, until you don’t. Then it can get expensive. Many of us don’t understand this because we’re recent Americans(age). Targeted killings performed by Israel are routine. They have freedom of action here as well and no reservations. Make sure you are aware of what your choosing. None of us expected the savagery of the Gaza Relief boat, but you saw what happened. Americans were murdered. If they are willing to do it on the high seas, then they can do it anywhere.
Good luck