But, can he see the past? Or even the future?
Although as a news hound, I am glued to the minutiae, the developments and steps unfolding around this massacre and conflict in Gaza, it is important to keep my eye on the big picture as well. Hamas, and the Israeli discourse about Hamas, are not occurring in some ahistorical vacuum — as much as western news outlets and Israeli talking heads would like you to believe.
Hamas is not the first Palestinian group to be the subject of Israeli onslaught. And this is not the first time Israel wrecks havoc on civilians in Gaza, the place where a major, largely civilian uprising took place in 1987. The same official discourse about fighting terror was employed against the PLO as Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 to destroy it (which left 17,500 dead, including more than 1,000 in Sabra and Shatila).
This all occurred before Hamas, the rockets, and the suicide bombings as well. This points to the need to examine the underlying root causes. If Hamas and these rockets are not the problem, what is? Is it Palestinian resistance? Many will argue Palestinians deny the right of Israel to exist. A more accurate term — since most Palestinians know Israel exists and resent it and its history deeply, is “resist.” Resistance needs something to resist, by definition. That is why Israeli officials prefer the term “terrorism.” It is devoid of context, whereas “resistance” implies a dynamic between sides.
A look at that dynamic, the bigger ideas and their history will be useful for understanding why Israel seems to be in perpetual conflict for the past 60 years (not the past thousands as I’ve heard many ignorant Americans say).
Saree Makdisi locates the origins of Israel’s brutality in Gaza in the imperatives of the Zionist project: maintaining Jewish supremacy on a historically-diverse land:
This inhuman madness will end only with the end of the violent ideology that spawned it — when those who are committed to the project of creating and maintaining a religiously and ethnically exclusivist state in what has always been a culturally and religiously heterogeneous land finally relent and accept the inevitable: that they have failed.
Others also see Gaza within a framework of Israeli history, a series of violations against Palestinian rights of self-determination and return to their land of ownership. According to Victoria Buch, this ideological disposition is not inherent to Israelis, but is learned:
Believe me, these Jewish-Israeli mainstreamers are not natural-born monsters. They just do not know any better. Alas, I used to be one of them. Then one day I stumbled, more or less by chance, into the West Bank with a group of activists. I acquired some Palestinian friends and finally understood the criminality of the treatment of the Palestinians by my country. And I learned to ignore the daily portion of preposterous propaganda which is provided to my compatriots by the media in lieu of “news”. But how to convince my compatriots not to listen to this propaganda? I do not know.
Sadly, I do not either. It cannot possibly help that leaders of the Western states share the same presumptions about having a state for one religious group on the holy land. This fundamental failure to consider the “non-Jews,” to pay homage to the Balfour Declaration’s terminology for the native majority, leads to criminal blinders in contemporary events — which only further the killing.
Robert Fisk predicts the West will still ask “why do they hate us” even after witnessing the same bloodshed in Gaza we are seeing. They continued to ask it even after so many other past massacres as if they never happened.
He makes the great point that Western leaders who furthered the Israeli line about avoiding civilian deaths are just as accountable:
What is amazing is that so many Western leaders, so many presidents and prime ministers and, I fear, so many editors and journalists, bought the old lie; that Israelis take such great care to avoid civilian casualties. “Israel makes every possible effort to avoid civilian casualties,” yet another Israeli ambassador said only hours before the Gaza massacre. And every president and prime minister who repeated this mendacity as an excuse to avoid a ceasefire has the blood of last night’s butchery on their hands. Had George Bush had the courage to demand an immediate ceasefire 48 hours earlier, those 40 civilians, the old and the women and children, would be alive.
Israel avoiding civilians deaths is a lie born of propaganda, and derived from Israel’s aspirations to win a place of normalcy among the world’s nations. This challenge for normalcy is the direct result of its clearly heinous origins, the mass ethnic cleansing of the native people.
To give Israel some credit, it merely took the same path almost all settler-colonial countries did — from the United States to Australia. But it did so in the post-colonial era when the rest of the world was getting past the idea of western citizens planting the flag in foreign lands without regard to the people of the country they chose.
Israel is based on old ideas about the nation-state being made up of one ethno-religious group and has thus come to symbolize this deplorable history. Israel is certainly not the only violator of this in the world, and even in a region full of problematic countries, but it is at the source of a major conflict in which too many innocent civilians pay with their lives. Absent a long-view of the conflict that rejects perpetual dispossession of peoples, we will only witness more Gazas in the future.
Related posts:
- Media Bias on Gaza Crisis Favors Israel
- Israel Risks the Talibanization of Gaza: the Long-View on Israel and Palestine
- The Myth of Israel’s “Targeted” Killing
- EI: Is the UN complicit in Israel’s massacre in Gaza?
- Reuters: Israeli Forces Enter Gaza
Wait, doesn’t Hamas and the Moslem Brotherhood call for an exclusivist state, made up entirely of Moselm Arabs? How is that different? I’m not saying Israel is right; I think the point, that trying to impose a homogeneous state in that region is doomed to failure, is a good one. However, it is not as if Hamas is offering a different vision.
Posted by Rocket88 | January 7, 2009, 7:29 amWho claimed that Hamas is offering a different vision? Nobody, it’s you that suggested it though. I think everybody agrees that Hamas will have to play a part in any solution to the conflict, but for the last week and a half, I have heard nobody advocate for a complete adoption of all of Hamas’s goals. So stop trying to characterize any criticism of Israel as support for Hamas.
Posted by Kamal | January 7, 2009, 8:25 amSoldiers invade Gaza hospital, execute wounded: link
Posted by Anonymous | January 7, 2009, 9:03 amThe only way to prove to Israelis that your vision is not nonsense is to implement it successfully in ONE Arab country. Show us ONE Arab country that is a full fledged liberal demcracy which treats its minorities well (including Jews), and perhaps we will say you are not crazy.
But trying to make Israel the test bed for you crazy ideas? No way. You are an Arab, fix your own home first and lead by example.
Posted by Anonymous | January 7, 2009, 9:29 amIsrael avoiding civilians deaths is a lie born of propaganda
How interesting, because Kabobfest is largely propaganda borne of lies.
Listen to an NPR interview on the subject of civilian casualties in urban combat. You seem to think it’s easy to avoid.
You also seem to think that Israel is responsible for every civilian casualty. What is Hamas’ magic formula for avoiding killing Palestinians?
How do you think that killing civilians helps Israel? In past conflicts, they have been pressured (and acceded to the pressure) to withdraw when they hit civilian areas. Do you think they just go in, pick a mass of civilians to kill, so they can then pull out? Do you think that’s their goal?
Try to make some sense.
Posted by Roy | January 7, 2009, 9:32 amThe video kabitches will never present:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kroyMfkoRHA
Posted by Defeat Gaza | January 7, 2009, 10:34 amThe formula you sausageFesters have adopted is, “Hamas doesn’t exist”. No matter what Hamas does, who is murders (a lot more Palis than Israel has), what it does to sabotage the lives of your people, you’ll claim to the bitter end that you don’t see hamas, don’t hear hamas, don’t know hamas.
Israel needs to do nothing. It is a vibrant, dynamic, resourceful nation which has survived the brunt of war for 60 years. Note how after 60 years of your whining and moaning and philosophizing, something like 85% of the Israeli public supported the Gaza operation.
That number, by definition, includes the Druze, Christians and probably more than one Bedouin whose people in Beer Sheva are under Hamas rockets just like Jews.
You’ve hit your knack, Will. This is by far the best article you’ve written. The Palestinians have resisted for 60 years, and suffered. The Israelis resisted the resistance, and prospered. That’s the reality. The world is moving on, leaving the Palestinians to “resist”.
The Jews are not leaving, Will. For the last thirty years, Jewish birth rates are growing, while Arab birthrates are falling. Discounting Gaza, Jews are about 63% of the population between the Mediterranean and the Jordan river, and this balance (at worst) will be maintained, although several predictions show Jews growing to 75-80% in this land.
That’s the reality. A Jewish, democratic state. Resist, Will. Resist.
Posted by Anonymous | January 7, 2009, 10:44 am“How do you think that killing civilians helps Israel? In past conflicts, they have been pressured (and acceded to the pressure) to withdraw when they hit civilian areas. Do you think they just go in, pick a mass of civilians to kill, so they can then pull out? Do you think that’s their goal?”
When you drop bombs on people, it is usually with the intent to kill them. Though I’m sure if you reach far enough up your ass, you can pull out a “humanitarian” reason for doing so. I guess you missed the part where Israel murdered over 17,000 in its attacks against Lebanon in 1982, including over 2,000 in the Shabra and Shatila massacre. None of this led to Israel being pressured to withdraw.
Israel’s goal is to terrorize the Palestinians into submission. Doing so requires they kill a lot of people. No matter how many people they maim, kill or terrorize, one thing is always constant for Israel and it supporters: their utterly inexhaustible sense of self-righteousness and certainty that their crimes fall into a different category than others, they are always victims acting in self defense, even when they shoot kids, and it is always someone else’s fault.
This righteous fury is a constant phenomenon in the Israeli, and before that Zionist, dispossession of Palestine. Every act whether it was ethnic cleansing, occupation, massacre or destruction was always portrayed as morally just and as a pure act of self-defense reluctantly perpetrated by Israel in its war against the worst kind of human beings. In his excellent volume The Returns of Zionism: Myths, Politics and Scholarship in Israel, Gabi Piterberg explores the ideological origins and historical progression of this righteous fury. Today in Israel, from Left to Right, from Likud to Kadima, from the academia to the media, one can hear this righteous fury of a state that is more busy than any other state in the world in destroying and dispossessing an indigenous population.
It is crucial to explore the ideological origins of this attitude and derive the necessary political conclusions form its prevalence. This righteous fury shields the society and politicians in Israel from any external rebuke or criticism. But far worse, it is translated always into destructive policies against the Palestinians. With no internal mechanism of criticism and no external pressure, every Palestinian becomes a potential target of this fury. Given the firepower of the Jewish state it can inevitably only end in more massive killings, massacres and ethnic cleansing.
The self-righteousness is a powerful act of self-denial and justification. It explains why the Israeli Jewish society would not be moved by words of wisdom, logical persuasion or diplomatic dialogue. And if one does not want to endorse violence as the means of opposing it, there is only one way forward: challenging head-on this righteousness as an evil ideology meant to cover human atrocities. Another name for this ideology is Zionism and an international rebuke for Zionism, not just for particular Israeli policies, is the only way of countering this self-righteousness.” (“Israel’s Righteous Fury and its Victims in Gaza”, Ilan Pappe)
Posted by Sean | January 7, 2009, 10:55 am“The same official discourse about fighting terror was employed against the PLO as Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 to destroy it”
…So the rocket attacks on Sderot aren’t terror? Do tell how that works.
The main problem with Israel’s Gaza attack is that its tactic is ineffective, precisely because it is so heavy-handed; that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the moral force to try and prevent continuous terrorism against its people, which are essentially acts of war since they come from the elected government.
As for “resistance”, there’s resistance on all sides — Israel was founded partly out of resistance to aggression and attacks against the Jews by Palestinian Arabs, just as there were aggression and attacks by Jews against Palestinian Arabs.
BOTH SIDES had something to ‘resist’.
BOTH SIDES were perfectly legitimate residents of Palestine. To claim otherwise w/r/t pre-1948 Jews denies their fundamental human rights, and more generally, the dignity of immigrants and dispossessed peoples.
NO MATTER WHO WON, one side was going to treat the other side poorly after the war.
ISRAEL BEHAVED POORLY after 1948, we agree. Anyone who’s familiar with the work of Benny Morris knows that.
But had Israel *lost* the war of 1948, the treatment of the losers by the victors would have been far WORSE.
You can’t claim that one side is immoral for winning a war if, had *your preferred side won the war*, things would have been *much worse*.
And no, religious fascism is not a legitimate ally for ‘resistance’, just like the people of Sderot wouldn’t be justified in joining Gush Emanim because of the rocket attacks.
If Hamas wants a say in the future of the Palestinian people, they need to recognize Israel’s right to exist in some form, and BECOME SECULAR.
Secularism is the only legitimate future for any state in the region, Israel included.
Posted by Joe | January 7, 2009, 10:55 am“”Israel is based on old ideas about the nation-state being made up of one ethno-religious group and has thus come to symbolize this deplorable history.”"
This is a ridiculous lie.
Israel holds the GREATEST PROMISE for a pluralistic society of any government in the Middle East — all the tools in its constitution are right there! It has an incredibly robust civil society looking to move Israel in a progressive direction, such as the New Israel Fund. And the state is far more cohesive than, say, Lebanon, with better respect for individual liberty.
Israel itself integrates a huge number of peoples, relatively successfully — from Israeli Arabs to Sephardim, Black Hebrew Israelites out in Dimona (who all talk like they’re from Chicago even though they’ve never been to America, lol) to immigrants from Russia and elsewhere.
Compare this to, I dunno, ALL THE OTHER COUNTRIES OF THE ENTIRE GODDAMN REGION.
Is there progress to be made? Sure. Housing discrimination? Sure. Still problems w/ honor killing in Israeli Arab communities? Sure.
But these are FIXABLE PROBLEMS. America’s had problems with discrimination, and indeed we still do, but we’ve managed to progress along and forge one of the least-racist societies on earth (Ironically, I used to think America was one of the most racist countries around… until I actually started traveling).
Israel’s got a strong potential to follow America’s example.
And if there’s one thing the world needs, it’s more countries like America.
Posted by Joe | January 7, 2009, 11:05 amSean, if you replace all the "Zionist/Zionism" in your essay with "Arab", you just might understand the pro-Israel perspective.In the meantime, it appears that Israel has ripped Hamas to shreds. The terrorist group is declining combat, fearing complete dismemberment by the IDF. I've read several Hamas spokespeople now say (with some shock) that Israel has "gone mad". Translation: Please don't hurt us.Maybe it's time to change the goals of the operation to unconditional surrender of Hamas leadership, ala Nazi Germany.I've been very skeptical, but all indications are that the IDF is winning, not just on the ground, but in the mind of Hamas. We're just a week and a half into this. Imagine if this goes on for another two weeks. Every person has their breaking point, even Islamofascists.And here's a new Israeli technology to stop those weapons smuggling tunnels.
Posted by Anonymous | January 7, 2009, 7:08 amWith the failure of Hamas to destroy Israel and the failure of the Gazans to prevent the tyranny of Hamas, I think the only thing left is the no-state solution.
Posted by Anonymous | January 7, 2009, 11:20 amI think you forget how well that worked out last time. When Jordanians ruled West Bank there was constant mortar bombardment of Israeli cities.
Furthermore, the reasons for Israel holding on to West Bank in some form – one-state, federation, autonomy, etc. – are strong. The original purpose of settlements in the West Bank was to provide Israel with some strategic depth against invading Arab armies.
From West Bank to the Mediterranean is only 10 miles in some places. No Israeli government will allow such a threat, leaving the country exposed to being sliced in two by an invading force.
But Israel has peace with Jordan, you say? In geopolitics, you don’t look at intentions, you look at capabilities. Intentions change. Capability often drives intent.
Posted by Anonymous | January 7, 2009, 11:33 am…So the rocket attacks on Sderot aren’t terror? Do tell how that works.
Where did Will say that? I must have missed that part.
The rocket attacks are a terrorist response by an utterly defenseless people against the state terrorism of the fourth most powerful military in the world.
The main problem with Israel’s Gaza attack is that its tactic is ineffective, precisely because it is so heavy-handed; that doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the moral force to try and prevent continuous terrorism against its people, which are essentially acts of war since they come from the elected government.
You can say the same thing about Hamas’ rocket attacks. Israel’s siege of Gaza is collective punishment, which is a war crime, as well as an act of war against the people of Gaza. Israel’s continued ethnic cleansing, transfer of its citizens onto conquered territory and occupation of the West Bank are all violations of the Geneva Convention. Israel’s willful targeting of civilians and non-military targets in Gaza are all war crimes whose purpose is to force the people of Gaza to renounce their government, and thus constitute terrorism by definition as well as war crimes. You seem to think Israel’s atrocities are justified by Hamas’ actions, which are in turn a response to those very atrocities.
Stop pretending that Hamas’ rocket attacks occur in a vacuum.
As for “resistance”, there’s resistance on all sides — Israel was founded partly out of resistance to aggression and attacks against the Jews by Palestinian Arabs, just as there were aggression and attacks by Jews against Palestinian Arabs.
Israel was founded by a group of invaders who entered a country where they were originally a small minority of the population with the stated goal of seizing all the land for themselves and establishing a Jewish majority state. They never had any intention of living as equals with the Palestinians.
BOTH SIDES had something to ‘resist’.
The Palestinians were and are resisting the theft of their country and their ethnic cleansing from the land. The Jews were “resisting” attempts to prevent them from stealing the land.
BOTH SIDES were perfectly legitimate residents of Palestine. To claim otherwise w/r/t pre-1948 Jews denies their fundamental human rights, and more generally, the dignity of immigrants and dispossessed peoples.
The majority of Jews were not legal immigrants to Palestine, nor did they come into the country, as most immigrants do, with the intent to absorb themselves into the fabric of the country and become equal citizens with everyone else. Instead the Zionists came there as invaders, with the stated goal of creating a Jewish majority state in a land where they were not the majority, a goal which could only be accomplished through ethnic cleansing, which is what they did. To say that a group of invaders have the same right to the land as the people who lived there for centuries is a lie and a gross distortion of the concept of human rights.
NO MATTER WHO WON, one side was going to treat the other side poorly after the war.
Perhaps, but we can’t know that for a fact nor does your speculation excuse the atrocities the Jews committed in their goal of an ethnically-dominated state. It was never part of the Arab or Muslim agenda to drive the Jews out of any part of their territory prior to the Zionist attempts to steal the land for their exclusive use. Had the Jews not not done this, or planned to do this, it is reasonable to assume they would have been welcomed in the Muslim world as they always had been.
ISRAEL BEHAVED POORLY after 1948, we agree. Anyone who’s familiar with the work of Benny Morris knows that.
But had Israel *lost* the war of 1948, the treatment of the losers by the victors would have been far WORSE.
That is highly doubtful. The Arabs did not have an ideological agenda of ethnic supremacism or exclusivism the way the Zionists did. They had no ideological agenda of getting rid of the Jews. Since there is no fact you can base this on, your presumption the Arabs would have been worse can only be based on your belief in the moral superiority of Jews.
You can’t claim that one side is immoral for winning a war if, had *your preferred side won the war*, things would have been *much worse*.
Israel was not immoral for winning the war. It is immoral for creating the conditions that led to the war and for its conduct before, during and after the war. Of course, everyone enters a war with the intention to win it. Not everyone enters with the goal of an ethnically purified state.
If Hamas wants a say in the future of the Palestinian people, they need to recognize Israel’s right to exist in some form, and BECOME SECULAR.
Why, because you say so? I think it is for the Palestinian people to decide what role Hamas will play in their future, if they have a future. Hamas has said they will recognize an Israeli state on the 1967 borders in exchange for recognition of a Palestinian state free of abuse or influence by Israel. That is eminently reasonable. It is Israel that refuses the right of the Palestinians to form their own state under the government of their choice.
Secularism is the only legitimate future for any state in the region, Israel included.
The Soviet Union was a secular state. Look how well that turned out. Secularism is not the basis for a legitimate country, civilization is.
Posted by Sean | January 7, 2009, 11:44 amWhen you drop bombs on people, it is usually with the intent to kill them.
I didn’t ask that. Try again: WHY would Israel want to kill civilians, when in the past, it has caused them to have to end their operations?
Incidentally, when Hamas mortars killed a couple of Palestinian schoolgirls recently, was that their intent?
Do you believe that no Palestinians have been killed by Hamas bullets or mortars in the recent fighting?
Posted by Roy | January 7, 2009, 11:49 amHamas is the “inconvenient truth” for you SausageFesters. You just pretend it doesn’t exist. Convenient. Well, after the IDF is finished, maybe it won’t exist.
Sean,
The war launched by the Arabs against the Jews was PRECISELY to cleanse the Arab/Islamic lands of Jews, for the express purpose of maintaining their ethnically-dominion in the region. This was tried again in 67 and 73.
Is Gaza under Hamas not an ethnically pure theocratic Islamist state? Is the West Bank not an ethnically pure state?
Name all the diverse religious and cultural groups in the West Bank, Sean.
If you define nationalism and self-determination as racism – which you have for Jews – then this standard must apply to everyone else as well. Then the Palestinian “resistance”, is nothing more than about creating a homogenous, ethnically “pure” homeland for the Palestinian people. Where is your outrage then?
Name all the diverse religious and cultural groups in the West Bank, Sean.
Posted by Anonymous | January 7, 2009, 12:38 pmAnon, maybe I’m remembering wrong, but aren’t there a fair number of Palestinian Christians in the West Bank?
Posted by Joe | January 7, 2009, 1:11 pm“”But Israel has peace with Jordan, you say? In geopolitics, you don’t look at intentions, you look at capabilities. Intentions change. Capability often drives intent.”"
The blanket statements of “In geopolitics, you…” pegs you pretty squarely as an IR undergrad.
Strategic depth ain’t what it used to be. The difference in Israel’s defense based on whether they control the West Bank or not isn’t nearly so much in modern warfare as it was, say, a few decades ago, and it can’t come close to the continued security risks of continued occupation.
Your silly maxim about capabilities and intentions illustrates Aristotle’s quote that “young men should not utter maxims” quite beautifully. Capabilities are important, but SO ARE INTENTIONS. Western European countries have reasonable confidence in one anothers’ intentions, and for good reason. Jordanian intentions are almost similarly clear. Comparing an era where Jordan was a direct enemy of Israel to an era where they’re at peace misses the point entirely.
For what it’s worth, though, some older Palestinian friends of mine miss the era of Jordanian rule.
Posted by Joe | January 7, 2009, 1:16 pm“”It was never part of the Arab or Muslim agenda to drive the Jews out of any part of their territory prior to the Zionist attempts to steal the land for their exclusive use. Had the Jews not not done this, or planned to do this, it is reasonable to assume they would have been welcomed in the Muslim world as they always had been.”"
You’re living in a psychotic fantasyland.
Posted by Joe | January 7, 2009, 1:18 pmSean, I always look forward to your thorough responses. Thank you.
Posted by Mohammad | January 7, 2009, 1:37 pm“Occupation” is a pretext for waging war on Jews, as explicitly called for in the Hamas charter and by every Palestinian religious and cultural leader who has ever spoken on the subject.
Posted by Anonymous | January 7, 2009, 1:59 pmHamas is the “inconvenient truth” for you SausageFesters. You just pretend it doesn’t exist. Convenient. Well, after the IDF is finished, maybe it won’t exist.
If you can show me where anyone here specifically denies the existence of Hamas, I’ll give you a cookie.
The war launched by the Arabs against the Jews was PRECISELY to cleanse the Arab/Islamic lands of Jews, for the express purpose of maintaining their ethnically-dominion in the region. This was tried again in 67 and 73.
That is a myth based on nothing of substance. There was never a plan to ethnically cleanse the Jews from israel. Secondly, Israel was the aggressor in almost all its wars, and not the Arabs. The only exception to this was the 1973 war, where Egypt and Syria went to war to recover territories stolen during the 1967 war. Even Menachem Begin has admitted as much:
http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0794/9407073.htm
Is Gaza under Hamas not an ethnically pure theocratic Islamist state? Is the West Bank not an ethnically pure state?
No, it is not.
Name all the diverse religious and cultural groups in the West Bank, Sean.
It would take a while to research them all, but off hand there are Catholics, Protestants, Greek Orthodox, Shia, Sunnis, Druzes, Samaritans, Bedouins, Palestinians, Islamists, secularists, commnunists and a lot of other categories I could mention. Yasser Arafat’s wife was Christian, and Huwaida Arraf, one of the leaders of the International Solidarity Movement, is a Palestinian Christian married to an American Jew both of who have lived and worked freely in the West Bank, though Ms Arraf is barred from entering Israel with her husband under Israel’s racist laws, and Mr Shapiro is now offically deported from Israel for being critical of Israeli policies and offering nonviolent resistance to the occupation. Despite “sleeping with the enemy,” none of the patholigically Jew-hating Palestinians have gotten around to killing her or her husband yet, and the only time her husband has faced threats were from Israeli soldiers firing at the Palestinian ambulances he rode in or the death threats he and his family received from the terrorist JDL after the sleazy tabloid New York Post labeled him the “American Taliban.”
If you define nationalism and self-determination as racism – which you have for Jews – then this standard must apply to everyone else as well. Then the Palestinian “resistance”, is nothing more than about creating a homogenous, ethnically “pure” homeland for the Palestinian people. Where is your outrage then?
I do not define the right to self determination as “racism.” It is one of the most fundamental rights under international law and one of the first precepts of the UN Charter. Howver, ethnically cleansing other people and stealing their land is not what most civilized people have in mind when they think of ‘sefl-determination.”
Nationalism is not necessarily racist, because your nationalist vision need not be ethnically based. But very often it is racist, or has strong underpinnings of racism, as we have seen with the Nazis.
The fundamental ideology underpinning Israel is Zionism, which is a racist as well as nationalist ideology, as it affirms the alleged right of the Jews to always maintain a Jewish-dominated, Jewish majority state in Israel no matter how the demographics of that state should shape up in the future. Should Israeli Arabs ever outbreed the Jews in Israel, there is little reason to doubt the racist logic of Zionism on that day will be any different than it was in 1948. Chances are they won’t let it get that far before taking action, and some prominent and powerful political and religious figures have already called for the ethnic cleansing and indeed, the “extermination” of the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs.
Posted by Sean | January 7, 2009, 3:46 pmYou’re living in a psychotic fantasyland.
The psychotic fantasyland is where people like you can watch Israel right before the eyes of the world slaughter hundreds of innocent children mercilessly, systematically starve an entire population, and ethnically cleanse the Palestinians and steal their land, and yet still clap excitedly about a wonderful, peace-loving, democratic country Israel is.
Only someone living in a psychotic fantasyland can watch the American government with the collaboration of both the Dems and Repubs systematically bankrupt the American people to reward a bunch of financial crooks and launch wars of aggression in Iraq and Afghanistan that have led to the deaths of over a million people with over 4 million people made refugees, and then say with a straight face we need more countries like the US.
We need more countries like Switzerland and Finland that pursue progressive policies at home and in their relations with other countries and don’t go around painting bullseyes on other countries. We need less militaristic, belligerent countries like the US and Israel.
Posted by Sean | January 7, 2009, 4:00 pmSean, I always look forward to your thorough responses. Thank you.
Thanks Mohammad. Same here.
Posted by Sean | January 7, 2009, 4:05 pmThere was never a plan to ethnically cleanse the Jews from israel.
So the invasion of Israel by Arab armies in 1948 was meant to accomplish what, exactly? All that blood-curdling rhetoric on Arab radio about “pushing the Jews back in the sea” was just harmless poetry?
Secondly, Israel was the aggressor in almost all its wars, and not the Arabs.
If Israel had waited for the gathering Arab armies to attack it before responding, thousands of more Israelis would have been killed. To call Israel the aggressor, however, is patently absurd. Tactical surprise allowed the IDF to marshall limited resources, often on three fronts, and repel the Arab attacks. These wars have been heavily researched and written about. You should do some due diligence before accusing Israel of premeditated aggression.
Is Gaza under Hamas not an ethnically pure theocratic Islamist state? Is the West Bank not an ethnically pure state?
The answer to both is yes. But you don’t need to believe me. Give Hamas a call and find out for yourself.
Catholics, Protestants, Greek Orthodox, Shia, Sunnis, Druzes, Samaritans, Bedouins, Palestinians, Islamists, secularists, commnunists and a lot of other categories I could mention.
Really? Wow, that’s fantastic. Of course, ALL THESE individuals are cultural Palestinians. So, technically, they ARE ethnically pure. Furthermore, how many Catholics and Protestants are there in the West Bank? Could you count them on your fingers? Druze? The Druze have made official peace with Israel. Bedouin? Palestinians Bedouins. For a Palestinian to marry a Bedouins would be a disgrace. Shia? Let’s get real.
As for your “secularists and communists”, we’re counting political ideology as a “culture”? In that case, Israel is the MOST DIVERSE country in the world!
The Palestinians want a pure ethnic state in West Bank and Gaza. That’s the bottom line, and your pathetic attempt to disprove it only highlights how little you know.
I do not define the right to self determination as “racism.”
Yes, you do. Let me demonstrate.
Nationalism is not necessarily racist, because your nationalist vision need not be ethnically based.
In other words, a nationalist vision which IS ethnically based, IS Racist! So when the Kurds of Iraq, Turkey and Iran want to become their OWN state, they are racist. When Chechens want their own state not under control of Russians, they are racists! Ethnicity IS a primary consideration for self-determination, Sean.
The fundamental ideology underpinning Israel is Zionism
No, the fundamental ideology underpinning Israel is Judaism. That’s who Jews are, Jews. That’s what Israel is, a country reestablished to provide a national home to Jews. Zionism is a modern political expression of the Jewish people to assert their national right to self-determination. Zionism achieved its objective 60 years ago.
racist as well as nationalist ideology
We’ve already established your double standard on this issue. You do not call the Palestinians, Kurds, Chechens or Japanese racist for desiring a pure national home for their people.
right of the Jews to always maintain a Jewish-dominated, Jewish majority state in Israel no matter how the demographics of that state should shape up in the future
Wasn’t this the problem for Palestinian Arabs with Jewish migration? As Jews kept streaming into British Mandate Palestine, purchasing land and property, the Arabs became increasingly agitated that these non-Arab, non-Muslim Jews were polluting their lands.
No one has a problem with minorities, as long as they stay minorities. As the Jewish population rose, the response of the Arab community was violence, because they felt they were losing ethnic control of the area.
some prominent and powerful political and religious figures have already called for the ethnic cleansing and indeed, the “extermination” of the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs
Yes, in response to Arab aggression and violence, certain elements of Israeli society have radicalized. These people have little support. While Israel has the capability to ethnically cleanse Palestinians, it doesn’t excercise that capability.
In contrast, Hamas, which openly calls for the extermination of Jews everywhere, not just in Israel, everywhere, does not get such condemnation from you, or from SausageFesters. Explain this discrepancy to me. Who in their right mind doubts that if Hamas could expel the Jews, they would? Hell, they just expelled all of Gaza’s Christians and legalized crucifixion for heretics!
Posted by Anonymous | January 7, 2009, 4:29 pmSpeaking of 1948, 1% of the Jewish population was murdered by Arab armies. This compares to 0.03% of the Palestinians in Gaza who have died in the IDF’s recent operations.
I thought I would mention that, since we’re redefining genocide, and all.
Posted by Anonymous | January 7, 2009, 5:48 pmSo the invasion of Israel by Arab armies in 1948 was meant to accomplish what, exactly? All that blood-curdling rhetoric on Arab radio about “pushing the Jews back in the sea” was just harmless poetry?
No, it is a lie started by David ben Gurion. Though I grant this bit about “pushing the Jews into the Sea” is probably one of the most widely circulated and quoted Zionist memes in existence, there is no evidence that any Arab leader at the time used these words or anything like them, nor is there any evidence of a plan by Arabs to ethnically cleanse the Jews. I have challenged well-drilled Zionists before to come up with the source of this alleged quote, and no one has ever been able to deliver.
There is, however, quite a bit of historical evidence that the Zionists planned to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from the word go. Indeed, given that the goal of Zionism was to establish a Jewish majority state in a land where they weren’t the majority, it is difficult to see how they could have accomplished this without ethnically cleansing the Palestinains.
http://www.counterpunch.org/martin03112005.html
If Israel had waited for the gathering Arab armies to attack it before responding, thousands of more Israelis would have been killed. To call Israel the aggressor, however, is patently absurd. Tactical surprise allowed the IDF to marshall limited resources, often on three fronts, and repel the Arab attacks. These wars have been heavily researched and written about. You should do some due diligence before accusing Israel of premeditated aggression.
What you call “tactical surpirse” most Americans would call a “Pearl Harbor style attack.” It is abundantly clear who started Israel’s wars, and who fired the first shots, and Begin admitted as much. Speculation that the Arabs were about to atack and Israel beat them to the punch is just that: speculation. The undeniable fact is that it was in every case Israel that opened hostilities with either full scale military assaults or ethnic cleansing and massacres, including 1948.
Is Gaza under Hamas not an ethnically pure theocratic Islamist state? Is the West Bank not an ethnically pure state?
The answer to both is yes. But you don’t need to believe me. Give Hamas a call and find out for yourself.
First off, Gaza and the West Bank are not “states.” There is no law in place that defines these territories as “Islamic” in character, unlike laws that clearly define and mandate the Jewish character of Israel.
Catholics, Protestants, Greek Orthodox, Shia, Sunnis, Druzes, Samaritans, Bedouins, Palestinians, Islamists, secularists, commnunists and a lot of other categories I could mention.
Really? Wow, that’s fantastic. Of course, ALL THESE individuals are cultural Palestinians. So, technically, they ARE ethnically pure. Furthermore, how many Catholics and Protestants are there in the West Bank? Could you count them on your fingers? Druze? The Druze have made official peace with Israel. Bedouin? Palestinians Bedouins. For a Palestinian to marry a Bedouins would be a disgrace. Shia? Let’s get real.
I think I susccessfully demonstrated that the West Bank and Gaza are multicultural societies, your hysterics about “ethnic purity” to the contrary.
Israel is one of the few if not the only countries that mandates “ethnic purity” by law (or religious purity, or racial purity, or however it is Jews define Jews).
“We must ensure that the State of Israel has a definite Jewish majority, or otherwise the notion of a Jewish state will become void,”
http://www.ajn.com.au/news/news.asp?pgID=525
I do not define the right to self determination as “racism.”
Yes, you do. Let me demonstrate.
Nationalism is not necessarily racist, because your nationalist vision need not be ethnically based.
In other words, a nationalist vision which IS ethnically based, IS Racist! So when the Kurds of Iraq, Turkey and Iran want to become their OWN state, they are racist. When Chechens want their own state not under control of Russians, they are racists! Ethnicity IS a primary consideration for self-determination, Sean.
Most countries are multiethnic in nature. When your nationalist vision says that only one ethnicity has the right to be dominant, and all others are second class citizens, that is racist. It is not racist for a particular ethnic group that has occupied a particular territory for hundreds of years and has strong ties to that land to say “we wish to form a state.” That is the right to self-determination, recognzed by international law.
The fundamental ideology underpinning Israel is Zionism
No, the fundamental ideology underpinning Israel is Judaism. That’s who Jews are, Jews. That’s what Israel is, a country reestablished to provide a national home to Jews. Zionism is a modern political expression of the Jewish people to assert their national right to self-determination. Zionism achieved its objective 60 years ago.
No, it is not. Many people who call themselves “Jews” do not even practice the Jewish religion. Judaism is not even the basis of Jewishness, let alone Israel. Zionism is a racist, colonialist movement with the philosophy that the Jews had the right to exercise their right to self determination in a land that didn’t belong to them, and to establish a Jewish majority state where Jews would be dominant in a land in which they were not the majority. Since Israel has not defined its borders and is continually expanding them, Zionism did not achieve its goal 60 years ago. It is clearly a work in progress, as we can see in the West Bank, Gaza and South lebanon. There is a diference between saying the English right to self determination gives them a right to England and saying that it gives them a right to India.
We’ve already established your double standard on this issue. You do not call the Palestinians, Kurds, Chechens or Japanese racist for desiring a pure national home for their people.
There is no double standard. I have already pointed out that nationalism can be racist in nature, which is obvious from the examples of Israel and Nazi Germany, or based on citizenship, religion, regional affiliation and other factors, and where all citizens are at least in theory equal, such as Switzerland.
“Nationalism may manifest itself as part of official state ideology or as a popular (non-state) movement and may be expressed along civic, ethnic, cultural, religious or ideological lines. These self-definitions of the nation are used to classify types of nationalism. However, such categories are not mutually exclusive and many nationalist movements combine some or all of these elements to varying degrees. Nationalist movements can also be classified by other criteria, such as scale and location.”
In other words, nationalism need not be racist.
“Nationalism does not necessarily imply a belief in the superiority of one ethnicity over others, but some people believe that some so-called nationalists support ethnocentric protectionism or ethnocentric supremacy.
The Nazi ideology was amongst the most comprehensively “racial” ideologies: the now defunct concept of “race” influenced aspects of policy in Nazi Germany. In the 21st century the term “race” is no longer regarded as a meaningful term to describe the range of human phenotype clusters; the term ethnocentrism is a more accurate and meaningful term[12].
Ethnic cleansing is often seen as both a nationalist and ethnocentrist phenomenon. It is part of nationalist logic that the state is reserved for one nation, but not all nationalist nation-states expel their minorities.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationalism
Wasn’t this the problem for Palestinian Arabs with Jewish migration? As Jews kept streaming into British Mandate Palestine, purchasing land and p
roperty, the Arabs became increasingly agitated that these non-Arab, non-Muslim Jews were polluting their lands.
They became agitated because they were being ethnically cleansed off the land which was purchased for the exclusive use of Jews, to serve as the foundation of a state these same Jews defined as expanding way beyond the boundaries of the land they had purchased, and in which they intended to be the majority in the theoretical land they claimed as their own even though they were not the majority in that reas. It didn’t take an Einstein then or now to understand what the Zionists intended or that the only way they could reach their goal was by getting rid of the native Palestinians. That they got “agitated” over this is no surprise.
No one has a problem with minorities, as long as they stay minorities.
What happens if they don’t “stay minorities,” Herr Reichsfuehrer?
As the Jewish population rose, the response of the Arab community was violence, because they felt they were losing ethnic control of the area.
No , because they were being driven off the land by people whose stated purpose in being there was to establish a Jewish state in which Arabs would be a minority, if they were allowed to stay at all.
some prominent and powerful political and religious figures have already called for the ethnic cleansing and indeed, the “extermination” of the Palestinians and Israeli Arabs
Yes, in response to Arab aggression and violence, certain elements of Israeli society have radicalized. These people have little support. While Israel has the capability to ethnically cleanse Palestinians, it doesn’t excercise that capability.
Opinion polls show that 57 per cent of Israelis support the policy of ethnically cleansing the Palestinians euphemistically referred to as “transfer.” Avgidor Lieberman who is the head of one of Israel’s most powerful political movements openly advocates it, and Tzipi Livni openly alluded to it when she said to Israeli Arabs that “the national solution for you is in a different place.”
http://www.antiwar.com/hacohen/h123002.html
Numerous Orthodox rabbis, including the head of the powerful Shas party, have called for the “annihilation” of the Palestinians, or for acts of revenge against them, or legitimized the killing of civilians in war. Their remarks have often met with the approval of many other prominent rabbis. These powerful rabbis have the authority under Jewish law to decide matters of religion and their pronouncements carry more weight among many of the faithful than secular Israeli law.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/1270038.stm
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/1,7340,L-3283720,00.html
http://www.rense.com/general82/geno.htm
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/968729.html
These dangerous and barbaric opinions are anything but a minority view of extermists in Israel. Israel’s ongoing construction of ilegal settlements in the West Bank involves the forceful disposession of the Palestinians is blatant ethnic cleansing.
“Transfer isn’t necessarily a dramatic moment, a moment when people are expelled and flee their towns or villages. It is not necessarily a planned and well-organized move with buses and trucks loaded with people, such as happened in Qalqilyah in 1967. Transfer is a deeper process, a creeping process that is hidden from view. […] The main component of the process is the gradual undermining of the infrastructure of the civilian Palestinian population’s lives in the territories: its continuing strangulation under closures and sieges that prevent people from getting to work or school, from receiving medical services, and from allowing the passage of water trucks and ambulances, which sends the Palestinians back to the age of donkey and cart. Taken together, these measures undermine the hold of the Palestinian population on its land.” (Ha’aretz, 15.11.2002)”
http://www.antiwar.com/hacohen/h123002.html
In contrast, Hamas, which openly calls for the extermination of Jews everywhere, not just in Israel, everywhere, does not get such condemnation from you, or from SausageFesters.
That’s because they never called for the extermination of Jews everywhere.
Explain this discrepancy to me. Who in their right mind doubts that if Hamas could expel the Jews, they would? Hell, they just expelled all of Gaza’s Christians and legalized crucifixion for heretics!
It would be rather hard for them to expell any Christians past Israel’s blockade, but thanks for the laugh anyway. You’re really in looney land now.
Posted by Sean | January 8, 2009, 2:58 pmSean.
Thank you as well.
Will
Posted by Palestine Center | January 8, 2009, 3:47 pmya habibi! Thank you, Sean, for such in-depth, thorough, well researched and reasoned responses. (you saved me an awful lot of work! lol)
Posted by alfannaan | January 10, 2009, 10:46 pm