I struggle with something that Israel supporters say: Well you did it to the Native Americans, who are you to tell us not to do it? Some of these hasbarists even show up wearing Indian headdresses and war paint to try and rub it in-- you're as racist as we are. Recently a liberal American-Israeli Zionist even made the dig personally, saying, You live on ethnically-cleansed land. And it's true, I look out my window and see a hickory tree whose nuts Native Americans made liquor from. But they're not here anymore. And my awareness of the ethnic cleansing here sometimes stops me.
Last week I went to a forestry lecture at Columbia University's Earth Institute where I learned a fascinating fact. Lecturer Matt Palmer put up a power-point graphic showing how much of the earth's forests are old growth, never cut down. Around the world old growth constitutes about a third of world forests. In Asia, it's about 15 percent. In Europe, it's 25 percent. In Africa it's about 10 percent (the sub-Saharan rain forest area). In North and Central America it's about 40 percent (think of those untouched Canadian and Rocky Mountain firs). And in South America it's 75 percent.
So 2/3 of the forests in the world were either planted by humans or regrown after being harveste; and environmentalists spend a lot of energy these days trying to stop that figure from getting larger because of the environmental consequences.
The focus is South America, because their reservoir is so large. Rapacious western colonial culture got there relatively late, and the continent is relatively unpopulated.
South Americans can argue, hey, you did it to your forests, why can't we do it to ours? And they'd have a point. They are being held to a higher standard. But history changes, ideas change, notions of justice evolve. It's essential that we behave differently from our ancestors because this issue poses a global crisis. People have now woken up, and carrying on the same activity today will have dire consequences. I believe this argument extends to ethnic cleansing in Palestine. The settlers of my property got away with racism. The global political consequences of such actions today are potentially explosive.
It’s the “now it’s our turn” argument. I once heard an Israeli Likud politician use it about corruption: Ben-Gurion’s Mapai party was thoroughly corrupt, and all of a sudden, now that we’re in power, kickbacks and embezzlement are no longer OK? NOT FAIR!
It’s a pretty threadbare argument which says that because genocide and ethnic cleansing occurred in the past, then it is fine for us to do it. It’s almost a boast amongst these people, such is their perversion of history and reason. Perhaps they would also like to proudly compare their policies to Southern racial discrimination, Jim Crow, the Klan and public lynchings, since that is a more accurate parallel to what they are doing now.
Please, enough of the guilt for the acts of our forefathers.
Slavery was legal at one time. Pushing indiginous people out of the way of modern “progress” was acceptable back then (though not to everyone). Does the logic of “others did it before so we can do it too” provide justification for Israelis to subject Palestinians to a holocaust, to slavery, or to a future mass ethnic cleansing?
Of course not.
More importantly, as a direct result of what happened to the Jews and others during and prior to WWII, a set of international laws were set down in writing to prevent such actions in the future: the Geneva Conventions of 1949, which were signed by Israel but violated repeatedly since.
What is being judged here are the actions of a modern nation, created by the United Nations, which is flaunting and violating modern international laws it agreed to abide by. Ironically, Israel flaunts and violates international laws created because of the oppression of Jews and intended to prevent future oppression of Jews and others who might be subject to oppression (like the Palestinians).
Several commentators here are taking Phil’s thoughts, which were good as far as they went, way too far. The displacement and subjugation of indigenous populations is a current and ongoing process today, in North America no less than Palestine. I posted these two links to an excellent information gateway below, but here they are again:
link to intercontinentalcry.org
link to intercontinentalcry.org
If Zionists remind us that ours is also a settler state, whose crimes are no less modern, perhaps they will, inadvertently, have done something good for once.
JOEC- Your point is very well taken and not generally appreciated. The same process is still occurring on a global scale as can be readily verified by the fate of all of those Third World people living in US satrapies which have been blessed/cursed with oil and other natural resources. Powerless people who stand in the way of imperial objectives are removed, one way or another. It is right and proper to criticize Israel, however, we must keep in mind that Israel’s behavior is staunchly supported by empire. One can argue the extent of Zionist influence on imperial policy, however, to suggest that empire’s actions would be benevolent or at least benign sans Zionist influence is crass imperial apologetics. So too, the myth that the US is a bastion of civil rights. The fate of the Palestinians is inexorably linked to imperial strategy as influenced by Zionist power.
As to the argument that the US engaged in ethnic cleansing, the answer seems to me simple and straight forward. Yes, our ancestors did and it was wrong, but there is little which can be done to correct the situation now. Empire is currently committing massive human rights violations and that is where our priorities should lie. Israel, an integral part of empire, is committing massive human rights violations which have been enabled by American Zionist support making Zionists directly responsible for crimes being committed now and in the future. The question is primarily a moral one. We oppose the crimes of empire and Israel because they are wrong, past injustices notwithstanding. Humanity must transition away from war and violent power-seeking if the species is to survive. It may already be too late.
“which is flaunting and violating modern international laws it agreed to abide by. Ironically, Israel flaunts and violates international laws ”
I don’t see Israel flaunting international laws, but it certainbly flouts them often enough.
>> I don’t see Israel flaunting international laws, but it certainbly [sic] flouts them often enough.
Are you certainb? ;-)
RoHa says:
May 19, 2012 at 9:37 pm
“which is flaunting and violating modern international laws it agreed to abide by. Ironically, Israel flaunts and violates international laws ”
I don’t see Israel flaunting international laws, but it certainbly flouts them often enough.
1. FLAUNT
- link to merriam-webster.com
to display or obtrude oneself to public notice . 2. : to wave or flutter showily …
2. FLOUT–
link to merriam-webster.com – Similar
to treat with contemptuous disregard : scorn . intransitive verb. : to indulge in scornful behavior. See Usage Discussion at flaunt. — flout•er …
3. FUCK –
As in Dumb: Person clueless about the Queen’s English but who likes to flaunt his impressive vocabulary.
I’ve only been using flaunt for flout for about 30 years. Live and learn. The wonders of Mondoweiss.
Thanks for the attempted defense eljay, but his was an inadvertent typing error, while mine was lazymindedness.
@ eljay
I’m about as certainble as can be.
Irishmoses,
in a Another Forum which both eljay and I infest, it is regarded as a law that any post which corrects a grammar of spelling error will itself contain at least one such error.
>> Thanks for the attempted defense eljay, but his was an inadvertent typing error, while mine was lazymindedness.
Yeah, I know, but it was worth the jab. :-)
>> … in a Another Forum which both eljay and I infest …
I’m intrigued…
If you do not know me as RH3, then there are two eljays on the internet. This is a disturbing thought for both of us.
>> If you do not know me as RH3, then there are two eljays on the internet. This is a disturbing thought for both of us.
I was intrigued…but now I am disturbed. 8-o
Then again, if the other eljay is as likeable as I am, the world is better off with two of us. :-D
His picture shows a green, multitentacled monster, but his style of thinking and writing is very like yours.
Creepy.
>> His picture shows a green, multitentacled monster …
OK, well, that’s definitely not me. I’m not green. :-)
Found him. He’s American. And the monster, if I’m not mistaken, is Cthulhu.
Oh, and I write better poetry than he does. IMHO only, of course. ;-)
“And the monster, if I’m not mistaken, is Cthulju.”
So you can see why I thought you were the same person.
Yet again while having validity we see what I think is the wrong perspective on this Israeli argument.
Yes, sure, Phil and others say with that measure of validity, we *used* to do those things but don’t anymore. But the jibe still resonates.
Seems to me the added retort ought to be “so if you want to behave like ethnic cleansers and racists of old go ahead, but don’t then pretend you’re something else just to get American money and support.”
Laws change, even if not everyone changes with them. It is no argument to say, “We can do it today because you did yesterday.” The Holocaust (let it be emphatically remembered) was LEGAL in Germany when it occurred. It was probably legal internationally. (The genocide convention is dated 1951.) If Israelis want to use the “it was legal before so its legal now” argument, let them argue with that!
When USA killed-off and pushed-off the Native Americans, it was not yet regarded as a crime. Force and violence were normal tools of statecraft. (Indeed, the Nazis thought this was still the case when they began WWII. They were quite affronted by the victors-justice of the Nuremberg trials which made war-crimes of aggressive warfare.) Most of it happened before 1900. But in 1945, the UN Charter forbade use or threat of violence to acquire territory or settle international disputes.
Although the PLANS for Zionism may have started while colonialism (and even expulsive-colonialism) was still in vogue among the militarily-dominant races, by 1948 (and even by 1945 when the Jewish terrorism which started the British withdrawal began in good earnest) the law was changed.
The UN Charter had come into effect (forbidding acquisition of territory by use or threat of war) and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (and the four Geneva Conventions of 1949) were being debated, all in the aftermath of the Nazi attacks on most of Europe and the Holocaust.
By 1967 the Fourth Geneva Convention had been signed by Israel (06.07.1951) and its strictures as to settlements were well known. (Israel’s argument that the convention does not apply to the OPTs has no support whatever. Israel is a clear scofflaw. The USA supports this by use of its UNSC veto.)
Well-said, Phil. I would add, however, that none of this excuses us settler colonialists from our responsibility to fully support ongoing indigenous struggles for self-determination and decolonization in our neck of the woods. Here are a couple of relevant pages from a site that seems to be as good of a jumping-off point as any other:
link to intercontinentalcry.org
link to intercontinentalcry.org
Pretty much every organization in the “North America” section of the second link badly needs your money. But if you absolutely aren’t in a position to do anything else, why not drop a letter in the mail to Leonard Peltier occasionally?
http://www.whoisleonardpeltier.info
To the Zionists who argue this point, I say, first, thanks for your honesty. Most Zionists deny the Naqba, and vehemently deny that a slow-motion Naqba is under way right now.
I would draw a further distinction between the actions of Israel and white Americans. According to Jared Diamond’s excellent scientific survey of the matter “Guns, Germs and Steel”, it is probable that over 90% of the Native American population of this continent died not as a consequence of intentional violent acts of the Europeans, but rather, smallpox. As the germ theory of disease was unknown in the early 1500s, while tragic, this mass die off was not intentional. There has been nothing unintentional about Zionism’s treatment of the Palestinians.
Moreover, although America did ethnically cleanse the remnants of the Native American people, we eventually came to uphold our ideals of freedom and liberty when we unconditionally made all of them U.S. citizens. (They did not have to recognize white America’s “right to exist.”)
We tried a “two-state” solution, in the form of the reservations, and even concluded “treaties” with them, which today have the same legal status as treaties with foreign sovereigns. But we could not in fairness reconcile that with the reality that they were integrated into our continental nation but did not have “equal rights under law”.
I would argue that the “one-state” solution we have today, where Native Americans still have treaty rights and a limited self-government, together with full U.S. citizenship, may be a model solution for a certain other long-enduring conflict. And thank you Zio-fascists for pointing that out.
Binyamin is, surprisingly, the only one to mention the crucial point of full citizenship. A Native-American can move anywhere in the U.S. and cannot be prevented from buying property just like any other citizen. The Palestinian is a sub-citizen and there is no qualm about, rather a determination to keep him that way.
I think most Americans feel some shame for what happened to the natives, even going so far as to claim native blood (often with little or no proof) as a point of pride. Though Indians were treated in the past in a way that I think any Palestinian would easily recognize, current Anglo accounts in literature and common perceptions in society give native-Americans a nobility that is in no small part due to guilt about a history that none can deny. The connection between injustice and the Native-American is very solid in the American mind, whether or not most Americans are aware that all is not well even today.
Of course, complete conquest allows we modern Anglos to indulge in this elevation of those who have no chance of seeing the return of their civilization, no chance of claiming even having even a tiny compensation for the loss of a way of life that would impact the modern white man.
For me, the terrible history of Anglo treatment of the Indian is a driving force behind my efforts for the Palestinians. I cannot go back to 1800 to work against what I know was wrong (as futile as that would be even if I could), but I damn sure can work against my own self-satisfied countrymen supporting the current iteration of the same project.
The proof of hypocrisy in American lamentation about the Indian today, is the support of Israel, either actively or through apathy that allows the repulsive pandering to Israel by the U.S. government.
It’s to the credit of many Jewish Americans (and far too few non-Jewish Americans) that they are very disturbed about what Israel is doing and, like Phil and Adam and many others, are acting while the tragedy is in progress.
Forestry and Ethnic Cleansing? I was expecting maybe you’d talk about the JNF and greenwashing, where they uproot Palestinians’ olive trees and plant Pine trees over destroyed villages.
Trees are not a one-size-fits-all solution. The forests in the Northeast are quite different today than the ones the Pilgrims encountered, but they were not free of human impact. Native American tribes had been practicing forestry management to keep the tall widely-spaced trees with plenty of room for deer to run underneath them.
As has been mentioned further up, the history of Native Americans on this continent is not finished. There are still many injustices being committed today and there are still ways that America as a country can address previous wrongs and honor prior commitments.
Great analogy, Phil. European colonists, immigrants and their American descendents were/are the beneficiaries of their own genocidal campaign and I count myself among them. Israeli Jews are presumably the beneficiaries of their genocidal campaign against Palestinians. The moral equivalency here still doesn’t account for how American tax payers benefit from a Jewish Israeli genocide against Palestinians. We fight foreign wars, we bear the brundt of worldwide criticism and contempt, tragic terrorist attacks, and an oil embargo all in support of Jewish supremecy in Israel. Immoral as it is to colonize a foreign land and kill and expel the natives, it can be understood in historical terms as the greed and avarice of man in pursuit of power and profit. Subsidizing the genocidal campaign of another nation without one brown penny’s worth of benefit, and lots and lots of liability, is insanity.
You are using the wrong word, Phil, and hence, are diminishing your argument(s).
“Environmentalist” is too narrow, and the distinction is important.
“Ecologist” is the correct term for the breadth it serves because the nature of an ecologist is to consider the consequences of the results of actions upon all living things and the constant/variable processes in an environment. They also consider all interactions of environments (broader: ecologies) within a living system.
Environmentalists (and single-minded tree-huggers) say don’t cut any Rocky Mountain forest trees, among there things.
Ecologists (and recently US/CAN Park Wardens as a result of the devastating cross-state and province fires in 2000 and rediscovery of 100-yr-old Indian photos and text) know the forest must be culled intelligently and regularly to provide new food growth for wild animals and to give room for elk/deer bucks with 14-point racks and large animal families to roam freely. Ecologists know to rid a forest of pine trees (“gasoline”) and keep the firs. It isn’t a tree for a tree or forest’s sake.
Ecologists know that it wasn’t climate change that caused the severe drought in northern Mexico. As Seth Godin remarked in a talk, it was hunters illegally killing four panthers that were responsible for keeping the rabbit population in check. The rabbits overran the environment, ate all the grasses, and turned the area into a desert.
So these slow-minded wits who taunt you with Indian Chief garb forget (or don’t know) that when the British, French, and Spanish were both forming alliances with Indians–especially in your neck of the NY woods where the Tyendinaga Mohawk and Tekanawita’s 600-year-old representative form of government called Tekanawita’s Great Law of Peace which became the basis for US governance–or were taking their lands in war starting in the 17th C…while all this was going on the Sephardic Jews (starting in the 16th C via Spain/Portugal/Netherlands) were selling Black slaves (a Dutch trade) to Central America and the Brit/Am colonies from their headquarters in Curacao.
Tell your taunters racism is in their blood. Let’s see them try blackface and see how far their constant and tedious fallacy of irrelevance arguments take them.
For my comments on our Indian history, see
link to mondoweiss.net
and
link to mondoweiss.net
USG created an Indian policy post-WWII called Liquidation, then changed it to Termination because of WWII. Check out who was Secretary of the Interior then.
“Well you did it to the Native Americans, who are you to tell us not to do it?”
I thought I allready learned something from Zionists today, but this is my second lesson:
If someone’s committing genocide against Jews he can tell them: Well you did it to the Amalekites, who are you to tell us not to do it?
Oh wait, that was my third lesson. The second one was:
Jews had no right to uprise in the Warsaw ghetto, because they were dressed as civilians. (Because of “perfidity”, read international law)
I thought history was a tool that enabled mankind to correct past mistakes and plot a brighter future for all.
What’s that?
My utopian passport?
Hmmmm….
The British Empire (and other colonies) colonized lands, but the native population remained within the territory. Which eventually was recovered by means of declarations of independence such as in the case of India – as would have been the case in Palestine. Comparing this much more recent colonization of an ideological cult with a sense of entitlement to that land is irrational. Nobody is awaiting a right of return either.
Need some help here. Can someone supply me with a link or two where the argument in the first sentence was used? Preferably by someone in some influential position (as opposed to some off-the-wall wingnut)
Would someone for one minute use the argument ‘Some of the people who say that heavy drinking is morally wrong have a history of heavy drinking: so heavy drinking is OK’? Or the even less promising ‘Some of their ancestors were heavy drinkers’?
The question ‘Who are you to say this?’ is really preposterous. Both those people who have some experience of doing wrong and of the costs it entails and those people who have kept themselves pure and free of the sin in question have a valid point of view from which to explain that the right path is better. If you’re advised for good reason not to do something then it isn’t of the greatest moment to enquire whether the person who advises you has always respected those reasons in his or her own life. The reasons are good ones either way.
It’s a somewhat different matter if someone offers personal or family history not simply as an example of but as a justification for drinking or whatever it may be. We don’t seem to be dealing with this argument here – no one’s saying – at least no one’s saying clearly – that the historical success of the British or American expansions justifies what Israel is doing. If someone does produce this argument we can deal with it.
There’s an important flaw in the ethnic cleansing comparison between what the European colonists of North America did in the 17th through the 19th centuries and what the Zionist colonizers have been doing since 1947 (or thereabouts, I’m not trying to nail down a fixed starting point ).
It’s about the relationship of forces. The Native inhabitants of this continent never had a chance. Their small numbers were overwhelmed with an unstoppable tidal wave of millions of people coming in from Europe. There were a few stands made by the plains Indians that stunned the U.S. Army, but that was it. Even without the large technological advantage, the sheer powers of numbers sealed the fate of American Indians. The demographics were unbeatable.
The relationship of forces in Palestine was and is quite different. A well armed minority of Jews, with a lot of help from rich, technologically advanced Western nations was able to establish a state by force and expel most of the larger Palestinian population. But they didn’t expel them far enough or wipe them out. Within the area of “Greater Israel” under the control of the Israeli government and military (any difference there?) the populations are about even, with the Palestinians increasing at a higher rate that the Jews (I’m not saying “Israelis” to compare with “Palestinians” because its an empty, meaningless category. In the Jewish State only Jews have the rights that we in the USA would associate with citizenship.)
So when Zionists laugh and poke fun at people in the USA, saying “Hey! We only did what you guys did…ha ha.” They should stop and think about the real difference between the two experiences. Being a tiny minority, the American Indians were crushed as a people and have to this day never recovered. Not so with the Palestinians and their future won’t be like that which befell Native Americans.
>> I struggle with something that Israel supporters say: Well you did it to the Native Americans, who are you to tell us not to do it?
Leave it to Zio-supremacists to argue the immorality and injustice perpetrated by others as justification for the immorality and injustice they commit.
“Israel: We may not be as good as the best but, hey, at least we’re not as bad as the worst!” (TM)
Reach for the bottom, boys, reach for the bottom!
Anyway, if I were American, I’d have a bigger struggle with Israeli supporters pointing out America’s on-going hypocrisy regarding – among other things – offensive warfare, large-scale devastation, illegal munitions, assassination, torture and absolution for war criminals.