"Pro-Palestinians" don't seem to be "pro-anyone"

[shira]

Last edited Fri Aug 30, 2013, 09:55 AM - Edit history (1)

...This is the crux of the Palestinian support worldwide – it simply doesn't care about Palestinians. These people are in it to bash Israel, pure and simple, and their “love” of Palestinians is merely the hammer they use to do the bashing with. They use incendiary words like "apartheid Israel"; they accuse Israel of "buzzword" crimes that do not occur here, but that are common (and ignored) across the Arab world; and they proudly espouse a "one state solution" theory knowing full well that it would spell the end of Israel. We see the bizarre spectacle of liberal feminists supporting Hamas, who stand against everything a liberal of any nature believes in, except dislike of Israel; we see even gay rights movements joining the anti-Israel brigade, standing with countries and societies that imprison homosexuals or worse, against Israel, the only Middle Eastern country where gay rights are an accepted part of the legal and cultural system. It beggars belief.

If these "pro" Palestinians actually cared about the Palestinians, they may well still be pressuring Israel for concessions, but they'd also be thinking about nation-building, and about the future, preparing the Palestinians for a future emancipation, as the Zionist leaders did for 50 years prior to the establishment of Israel. I have yet to see any groups who talk economic development for Palestinians, or who set up educational funds to advance Palestinian children.

Where's the pressure on the Palestinians from their “friends” to break the cycle of violence? Why do we not see pro-Palestinian groups putting pressure on Abbas and others, castigating deeply offensive holocaust denial? Why do we not see pro-Palestinians working with Palestinians to establish peace groups, which have a strong voice on the Israeli side, such as Peace Now? Where is the outcry when the Palestinian Authority suppresses press freedoms or its insanely high corruption levels mean it regularly loses the wages of Palestinian Authority employees?

Instead of boycotting Jewish business worldwide, why is there no incentive to encourage Jews in the so called "West Bank" to employee more Palestinians, perhaps even grants to make them business partners? No, these "Pro-Palestinian" groups, whether they attempt to cross the Allenby bridge by foot, head off from Greece by boat, or scuffle at Ben Gurion airport, are only interested in "Israel is evil" publicity. They appear to have no love for Palestinians and they do nothing to make their lives better nor do they contribute any positive ideas or suggestions to the debate. Their websites, newsletters and gatherings are dedicated to rehashing Zionist history, reworked anti-Semitism (under the guise of anti-Zionism), and demonizing Israel.

more...
http://www.thecommentator.com/article/1609/_pro_palestinians_don_t_seem_to_be_pro_anyone

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

1. Why is the West Bank refered to as

the so called "West Bank" in the article?

Should it have a different title or owners?

It would be darn gracious to encourage Jews (Why not call them Israeli citizens?) in the so called "West Bank" to employee more Palestinians since it is their own land, and it would help them live a a higher standard of class: albeit it a second tier.

[azurnoir]

2. well because Israeli Jews who are so inclined prefer the West Bank be called by its bibilical name

which is Judea and Samaria relating to the kingdom of David and Solomon and they do not beleive it is Palestin ian land

and Jews (as in all everywhere) has a more political punch than Israeli or Israeli Jews

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

3. Is there another name for "Israeli Jews who are so inclined to prefer the West Bank"

since it is not considered part of modern Israel?

I guess that would raise another question. What do "Israeli Jews who are so inclined to prefer the West Bank" consider the present inhabitants of said lands?

This inclination to consider lands now populated by another people as rightful territory of "Israeli Jews who are so inclined to prefer the West Bank" akin to the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland, South Africa under apartheid or the Sudeten crisis.

The more you push a population that has little to lose is foolish: no matter where they are on the globe.

[azurnoir]

4. as I just stated Judea and Samaria is the prefered name by some at least

as to pushing a population there is very little to lose when your military controls most of that populations movements at least outside of their proscribed area's

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

5. Paperz please!

[azurnoir]

12. the name would be settlers n/t

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

19. That is probably not the name that the Palestinians would give to them.

The more accurate description would be invaders, but I am sure that there are more colorful titles that they have in mind.

[shira]

23. The Palestinian leadership believes all Israel is a settlement...

...and all Zionists are invaders. It's all over state controlled Palestinian Press, Academia, and Politics.

[azurnoir]

25. ya and that's why they asked for all of Palestine er Israel at the UN huh? oh wait........n/t

[shira]

52. That's what they say they want in English. Not so much in Arabic. n/t

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

70. I'm more interested in your opinion. Do you believe that the "so called settlers"

have a legal or moral right, not a biblical right since there's a lot of shizzle in the bible that is just silly, to be creating "so called settlements" outside of Israeli borders?

[Ken Burch]

26. They'd probably also say "colonialists".

Not endorsing the specific wordage, just pointing out the term.

[oberliner]

9. This is a completely false statment

Maybe consider the source?

[azurnoir]

11. as I said by some that means not all please reread n/t

[aranthus]

6. But why? And who are these people?

Those are the big questions that the author leaves un-answered. Why do these pro-Palestinians act this way? Why does it appear that many of them seem to be more interested in bashing Israel than in actually helping the Palestinians? The easy anwer of anitsemitism doesn't necessarily work (though it isn't necessarily wrong either). At least it seems to me to be an incomplete explanation.

[shira]

15. Why do you think? Any guesses? n/t

[aranthus]

17. Several.

Last edited Thu Sep 6, 2012, 09:49 PM - Edit history (1)

1. The Palestinian cause is itself more anti-Israel than it is pro-Palestinian. Remember that the Arabs of Palestine went to war, not to gain a state (which agreeing to the Partition would have given them), nor because of refugees (because there weren't any), nor because the Jews had stolen "Arab" land (becasue the Jews hadn't taken anything). They started the war to prevent the creation of a Jewish state. Since this is what the Palestinian cause is about, it's bound to draw supporters from those who believe the same.

2. The surrounding Arab states are more anti-Israel than they are pro-Palestinian. Most (especially Jordan) don't even want a Palestinian state, and the article points out how they mistreat the Palestinians in their midst. But the activists need the cooperation of the Arab states to even try to enter Israel or be a part of the program. They aren't going to antagonize their hosts by pointing out that the Emperor has no clothes on.

3. Israel is a number of things which a large part of the Left hates. It is Western, pro -US, religious, capitalistic, and Jewish.

4. That same part of the Left (the part that is influenced by Marxism) doesn't believe in nation states. It's fantasy world is populated by "non-ethnic secular democratic states". It doesn't actually want a Palestinian state. Instead that part of the Left seems to think that it could create a model of its favored state out of the ashes of Israel. The Palestinians are just a useful tool for reaching that goal.

5. The Gekko Syndrome (named for Gordon Gekko). Israel is a part of the West that these people think is wreckable, and you target that part of the enemy that you think you can destroy.

6. Israel is obviously the stronger party, and weakness equals virtue. So Israel is bad, and has to be destroyed.

There are probably other reasons I could think of, but these seem to be the big ones.

[Ken Burch]

27. Nobody on the left hates Israel for being "Jewish"

And, for that matter, the left doesn't HATE Jews-in fact, throughout the worst times in modern history, it was the left, and pretty much ONLY the left, that spoke out against the greatest enemies of the world's Jewish communities...Hitler and his allies. The non-left didn't choose to try to stop Hitler until it was too late to matter.

If the left really hated Jews, why would it have included such people as Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Eduard Bernstein, Emma Goldman, Howard Zinn and Bella Abzug(to name but a few) in the past and why would it include people like Amy Goodman, Noam Chomsky and Leon Rosselson today?

Stop trying to paint the left as if we're worse than the Nazis...you don't HAVE to take Israel's "side" in the I/P dispute just to prove you don't hate Jews.

Also...what's so special about the nation-state? It's not as if that concept creates anything positive in this day and age. The only chance humanity has of surviving is to get beyond nationalism and to live together as free and equal human beings-that simply can't happen anymore in ethnically-based states. The Balkans proved that, once and for all. It's why Albert Einstein described nationalism as "the childhood disease of mankind". Religious-based states almost always end up becoming dictatorships. The only reason the United States isn't a police state is because WE are officially secular...if we were "a Christian nation", democracy would be dead. And so, horrifically, would most Americans who aren't Christian.

[aranthus]

31. I'm sure you believe that, but it simply isn't true.

It's a mistake to think that the only antisemites are those like the Nazis. In fact, the Nazis were unique among antisemites. The section of the Left that I'm talking about is pretty obviously antisemitic. In fact, they arguably deligitimize all religions (of which Judaism is one), all nationalities (of which Judaism is one), and any other ideological identification that isn't the Left. Not to mention that they are clearly against the existence of a Jewish state. Try telling the Italians that you aren't anti-Italian for wanting the destruction of Italy. And the fact that some or even many who are nominally Jewish are on the Left is irrelevant. I and the Left care about what those people think, write, say, and do. And if they toe the basic Leftist line, then they are going to be hostile to Judaism, so the fact that they are nominally Jewish doesn't matter.

What's so special about a nation state? That's like asking what's so special about meaningful diversity. Humans and human civilization need that to remain healthy and viable. Individual nations promote technological and artistic creativity. They make the world a more interesting place. They promote adaptation to new circumstances. They protect, preserve and promote national cultures, and that diversity is inherently good for humans.

I suspect that the single world state which you champion would soon lead to the end of all civilization for a long time. Here's why. There is no such thing as a perfect system. Or as Simon's Law states, "everything put together falls apart sooner or later." Now a single large state is going to be more prone to failure because of its size and singularity. It's more unwieldy, less able to respond to changes, less tolerant of local ways of doing things outside of the single national culture it will create, more prone to orthodoxy, more likely to become moribund. In other words, the bigger they are, the sooner they fall, and the harder. Rome was the closest thing that the West has seen to your single state model, and when it collapsed, the dark ages lasted about a thousand years. They would have lasted longer except that there were other civilizations in the world that could pick up the pieces. But in your fantasy world there won't be any other societies but the one that has collapsed. So the interregnum will be very dark and very long; probably the greatest disaster to ever befall the human race.

[Ken Burch]

32. Actually, I don't champion a "single world state".

You can't centralize anything to THAT degree. What I was saying is that the ethnically-based nation state is becoming not only obsolete, but dangerous, both to the states around it and those who live within it. But it's not as if the only choices are world government or the ugly nationalist status quo. Nor is it true that people can ONLY be inspired to create through nationalism. Opposition to nationalism has created many works of beauty and brilliance. So have the movements that supported and continue to support(by various methods)human equality, a fair distribution of wealth and power, and an end to all forms of bigotry(and it needs to be remembered that bigotry and nationalism are usually closely related). And many of the world's artists consider themselves world citizens, feeling no special allegiance to any country or any culture.

There will need to be a variety of states and systems, but it's crucial that all states be secular and that none privilege any ethnicity, race, or creed over any other. Only a state that is neutral on the level or ethnicity, creed, and culture can be democratic and egalitarian in any sense(and you need at least some degree of egalitarianism to avoid total barbarism). And as much as possible, all states need to be demilitarized and to be based on negotiations rather than force as the primary means of resolving disputes, since the use of force pretty much always produces an outcome that is cruel and unjust to the losing side of the conflict.

There can be diversity without rivalry...there can be variation without chauvinism...that's what I'm saying...not that there should be world government. A system or regional federations might be what is needed-run democratically, run from below, and with a bias against war and greed. Such federations could put an end to conflict without imposing stifling conformity.

Also, why do you equate skepticism about religion(which is always skepticism about ALL religions, btw)and support for secularism with antisemitism or antizionism.? Most of the early Zionists were agnostics or athiests...a lot of Israelis today are still basically secular. I could see your argument there if people were speaking out against religious Judaism but saying that all OTHER religions were hunky dory. But nobody on the Left that I know of, is making any arguments along those lines. People on the left may, in some cases, be anti-clerical or antizionist...but it's simply wrong to equate that with antisemitism. It isn't the left that wants or ever wanted a Judenrein world. What the left wants is a world where nobody at all is oppressed. That is the opposite of antisemitism, or of any form of bigotry.
Indeed, if you truly want to wipe out antisemitism, this can only be done by working to wipe out ALL forms of bigotry. It can't be done by saying "everybody has to unquestioningly support the Occupation and the settlements AND the siege of Gaza, and everybody has to act as if antisemitism is wrong but all OTHER forms of hatred are no big deal". The truth is. ANY form of prejudice could create its own death camps.

[pelsar]

33. do you ever live in a fantasy/religious world...

have you EVER in your entire life lived in a communal society...the kind that you believe can exist. There have been countless attempts in that last 100years or at least studied them an learned why they ALL failed?

There can be diversity without rivalry really?


What are your plans for those people who become religious, either while be a representative or worse get elected to this federation, and start including god in their legislation? Are you going to ship them off to a camp to get "re educated?"

...which reminds of a great clip i just saw and i believe this really typlifies your view

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/wed-september-5-2012/hope-and-change-2---the-party-of-inclusion

[Ken Burch]

35. I'm not going to apologize for having hopes for a better world.

What we are now talking about has nothing to do with the I/P situation, so it can't be said to be in any way threatening to you.

If people want to be religious, fine...just don't be supremacist about it. Religion itself isn't the problem...it's the "God's on MY side" types that are the problem.

Part of what is needed is to create and continue dialogue as a means of problem-solving and dispute-resolution. If we can do that, we can probably work with the existence of most belief systems...without it, remaining as we are now with a brute force-based means of problem-solving, nothing can get better at all, because the problem will always be "solved" by whoever has the most weaponry...and you can't assume that the side with the most guns is always the side you'd WANT to have imposing its will.

You seem to think that anyone who disagrees with you about anything has to have a point-by-point, detail-by-detail plan for every aspect of everything that might ever happen. That's not a realistic expectation of anybody, no matter what they believe. Nobody who defends the status quo has any such plan...why should those who want to promote alternatives have to?

I don't offer point-by-point microplans on everything because I don't fancy myself to be a global emperor. Any system anyone created or preserved as an alternative to what we have now would have to be flexible, would have to be open to suggestions from all sides and to dialogue from without it...To try to offer the sort of detail you'd demand would be to claim an almost delusional level of intellectual perfection and to view myself as possessing my own equivalent of papal infallibility. Solutions to problems even in a world that reflected my own values would be arrived at by listening to as many people and as many ideas as possible...any rational person would probably acknowledge that.

In this exchange, we are simply discussing ideas about the world. So you have no need to be obsessed with trying to discredit or silence me, OR to try to prove that I have a nefarious hidden agenda(like the one you keep searching for with me even though you know I have no such agenda at all).

You have no reason to be paranoid about a person suggesting a global future without aggressive nationalism.

[pelsar]

41. the core of your philosophy....is the video

Your intolerant ken, your intolerant of people who want to live in a communal society with ideas that are not like yours. Your saying they can live, but only in your definition of a communal society but not in one that they define.

take any religious person, they are going to want to live in a community that shares their ideals Do you know what that means?

its the little baby jesus on the front of their church, or perhaps not selling food openly during the ramadan fast, for others, its no cars driving on Saturday. How about the person who wants to promote a society based on competition? Will those things "hurt you"....no, but I'm sure you certainly wont be tolerant of them will you, especailly if they want to expand on their communities to include additional ones. Can they proselytize and spread their view?...will you support their right of them to redefine a society that is directly against your vision?....

these are not "details" this is the core of "your society". I just want to know how flexibly your side is going to be? Are christmas lights allowed? how about cutting off the thiefs arm? and of course FGM? Are you going to disallow the hamas justice system.

these are not details.....there are quite a few people who disagree with your vision, do you plan on "educating them"? or what
_____

btw you keep on repeating this sentence:
i am trying to silence you"
its a pretty stupid one, repeat it all you want, but if your here, you dont get a free ride to promote views that in fact are:
simplistic, intolerant, naive and certainly dangerous when the wrong people agree with you (bush in promoting the elections in gaza)

[Ken Burch]

43. I've noticed that you call me intolerant every time I say something YOU disagree with.

Do you not see the contradiction and irony in that strategy?

I have never told you you have no right to hold differing views than the ones I hold. Nor have I ever called for anyone to be oppressed or persecuted. Nor have I even wished anyone any harm. ALL that I've done is hold views that aren't yours on some things. That's ALL this is about.

Basically, from what I can see, the only thing you would accept as proof of "tolerance" on my part would be if I were simply to always defer to you and change my views to yours on command. That's not going to happen. You have the right to your views and I respect your opinions...that doesn't mean I'm obligated to adopt them. You're simply one other person with one other opinion...you're not the Cosmic Arbiter of Reality.

And you don't have to keep turning this into "what would you do about Muslim hardliners, smart guy?". Not all Muslims are hardliners(most aren't, just like most people in most other religions and cultures aren't), and in any case I was talking about global ideas, not just the I/P situation.

As to religion and diversity...I believe that everyone has the right to hold their beliefs, so long as they don't use their beliefs to impose on the rights of others. That's the most tolerant and inclusive view a person can take.

Simply assuming that ONE particular culture is inherently superior to all others isn't a workable strategy for making alife better...because making life better at all means figuring out a way to get people of varying creeds(including the lack of a metaphysical creed)to agree on some way of getting along with each other. I'm never going to be a global emperor, so I don't have to personally have all the answers to everything myself...the people of the planet, through various structures and means, are going to have to work out the answers together. That's the only way you can get answers that aren't inherently reactionary and unjust to large groups of people. Giving some cultures something like a natural right to expect the rest of the world to treat them as their betters had no chance of making the world a better place...simply because no culture, anywhere, is that freaking superior.

As to Gaza...it's obvious that, if the IDF couldn't get rid of Hamas the first time they occupied, they can't manage it if they come back. That conclusion derives from simple logic. Logic also demonstrates that, if limiting the food supply to Gaza hasn't dislodged Hamas yet, it never can dislodge it, because a revolt would have happened by now if it were going to happen. That pretty much dispenses with the ideas you have for "solving" the Gaza situation.

[pelsar]

48. the intolerance is that they must agree to your basic beliefs....

As to religion and diversity...I believe that everyone has the right to hold their beliefs, so long as they don't use their beliefs to impose on the rights of others. That's the most tolerant and inclusive view a person can take.

but that doesn't work at least not for the religious....For instance:

some christians believes that to celebrate christmas it has to be open and public and that they need public displays of baby jesus including on public lands since its for the community.

your belief, I am assuming is intolerant of such views and needs to impose your view on the christians which says no public displays in public land (or something like that)

well?..who is imposing whos views? your or the christians?
____

feel free not to answer, i just exposing the inherent contradiction in your views and that your putting forth a cultural superior point of view.

[Ken Burch]

50. It works here.

The churches can put those displays on their own property-you can have displays that everyone can see...the dispute in the U.S.(as you SHOULD recall, having grown up in Michigan)was about putting religious displays on public property. Christians(or people of other faiths)do not have to put their displays on public property just to be true to their own beliefs. All I'm saying is that people of faith can be expected to respect the boundaries of peoples of other faiths...or of people whose faith is to their own conscience.

What's the alternative to my approach? What would be more tolerant, as you see it?

And when you use the term "flexibility"...aren't you just using it to rationalize using a more illiberal and force-based approach?

(btw, I was unable to watch the Jon Stewart clip due to technical problems...but my assumption is that the reporters are asking...based on the keywords shown below the clip link...to include Nazis in the Democratic party. No view I've expressed is remotely comparable to THAT.

Oh, and as to the "communal world"...I'm a leftist-I'm not a Communist Party member circa 1947 with a portrait of "Uncle Joe" on the wall. Nobody on the Left today is working for anything remotely like Stalinism- other than a handful of cultists and weirdos who have no significant support WITHIN the Left).

[pelsar]

60. you miss the whole point....

You very big on "respecting" others.....at the sametime your whole approach is the destruction of cultures and you believe your being "tolerant."

thats the point.
All I'm saying is that people of faith can be expected to respect the boundaries of peoples of other faiths...or of people whose faith is to their own conscience.

no....thats what you with your narrow understanding of other cultures do not seem to get. Faiths, just like your "progressive version" seem to believe that everyone has to believe like you believe.

in this case you claim that others "can be expected"..... got news for you, those "others" can be expected to proselytize and to try to convince others to join their faiths, and in fact not to "respect" the boundries that you have declared. They are "on a mission from god" to save souls and no "left progressive" boundry defintion is going to stop them. For that to happen you have to make them change their faith.....are you willing to declare that you believe they have to change and adapt the boundries you have declared, that today they do not accept?
___

the video is about the tolerance and the hyporcrisy of those who in the one breath declare they are tolerent while claiming their bigotry and intolerence in the second.

[Ken Burch]

54. I'm not intolerant at all...you just say that because you think it makes me look bad...

It's just a bit of "point-scoring".

But I'm not intolerant.

I just disagree with you. I just don't accept this notion regarding culture that a person can only unquestioningly defend a particular culture OR seek to destroy that culture. For some reason, it's intolerable to you that I reject that.

You make it sound like I'm this year's Pol Pot or something. And it's not clear how to respond to that, because you won't stop calling me "intolerant" or implying that I'm some sort of wanna-be Bonapartist until I abandon any and all disagreements with you not ONLY about the I/P situation but apparently also about economics, culture and anything else(am I allowed to root for any sports franchises you don't root for?)

I get it that you are from a heritage of misery, and that centuries of gentiles prior to me are responsible for inflicting it. That shaped you in many ways. Tragically, the main thing it seems to have taught you is to reduce life to nothing but an endless war...and endless fixation with "taking the hill"...and to a belief that, because of the betrayals of the past, trust is impossible in the present AND the future...hope is impossible too...anything beyond simply taking the hill is, in fact, impossible and not worth trying. The world needs to be changed precisely because people are still being taught that lesson-and you've given up on changing it at all.

[pelsar]

61. tolerent?

really?...didnt you call me some kind of "anti-arab/muslim" or that i hate muslims, i cant remember exactly but it wasn't very tolerent of you....
___

LOL ....you've got to kidding..you actually wrote this?
I get it that you are from a heritage of misery, and that centuries of gentiles prior to me are responsible for inflicting it. That shaped you in many ways. Tragically, the main thing it seems to have taught you is to reduce life to nothing but an endless war...and endless fixation with "taking the hill"
____

i just think you should admit that you believe your views are actually superior to the those of the jewish settlers, the hamasnik, the taliban, the republicans, the capitalists, and that for a better world that have to change their cultures and accept the basics that you believe.......

or are you doing to defend the republicans and the tea party and the progressives and the taliban as having a right to believe what they do and you are willing to defend all of their rights not just to believe, but to spread their viewpoints and influence people with out calling them names.?

tolerence is measured by not how you treat the people who agree with you, but by those who you disagree with.....and you've called me enough names to clarify that.

[Ken Burch]

73. First, they aren't "My" views, they're simply views I share. I didn't invent them

And none of this has ever been about my ego. If you are asking if I agree with those views, well yes...but that doesn't mean I regard myself as personally superior to anyone.

I disagree with the groups you mentioned, but it's possible to do that without feeling personally or culturally superior. It's simply about disagreeing with some people on some ideas. I'm not sure why you seem to be so fixated on trying to prove that I'm a snob or a closet imperialist.

When I referred to some views you held as prejudiced, you were in the process of expressing views that seemingly denied that Palestinians care about whether they live or die, whether their kids live or die, or being able of displaying any signs of common humanity. It wasn't about you as a person and my apologies for having hurt your feelings or caused personal offense. That was never my intention, and yet I've done so. My bad, as we say.

[pelsar]

76. ken...you dont "hurt my feelings...nor do i feel insulted by you....

israel as a culture is far more blunt in its discussions and far less PC..its a much healthier way to live, we dont hide behind "words that cant be said and have no idea where this "nirvana is" that you seem to refer to where every one is of equal caring of everyone.

Yes i am prejudice, perhaps you believe you aren't, until your tested and boy will you be shocked. Its not a difficult thing to understand and its most natural of human characteristics. I will protect my family before i protect my neighbor, I will protect my friends before i protect the stranger....

hence i care "less" of the Palestinians than i do of my fellow citizens....i go to my fellow citizens funerals, know some of them personally and that affects me. I dont go to the funerals of the syrians who have been killed, the norwegins, the Palestinians who have been killed, do not know them. Of the Palestenians, I do not trust their society, their education department their government because they are not democratic and hence I do not identify with them.

that is the prejudice that your referring to. If you believe that is racist, as per your definition, then feel free to call me " pelsar the racist"..its ok with me.
______________________

now, on to your definitions. I understand very well that your world nirvana is based on a certain world view and values..one of them being respecting other cultures, except that word like "liberal" no longer means what it once meant.

for all of these other cultures to fit within your world view and "get along" they also have to change. And here is the problem. As i understand your world view, it means these other cultures may have to stop doing the following, and the local, the indigenous people see your demands as being very disrespectful.

1) no more FGM
2) no more circumcision (MGM)
3) no more Kosher or Halal food (the slaughter is no longer "modern."
4) no community displays to celebrate their religions
5) no more cutting off limbs of thieves
6) no more stoning
7) no more ritual murders
8) no more forced marriages
9) no more underage marriages
10 ) no more throwing virgins in to volcanos
11) no more burning the wives after the husband dies
12) equal weight in the court of law to man an female
13) no more underage marriages
14) no more restricting the education of women



i could go on..the list in fact will reach the hundreds if not thousand of the cultural aspects that will have to changed in other cultures for those members to be able to 'join' your nirvana club.

the funny thing about that list is that is probably the very same list the british had when they colonialize other countries and attempted to change their culture..what we defined as imperialism. They didnt always succeed because many of the locals disagreed and fought back.

so now you come along with pretty much the same list. The difference? is you believe that it can be done differently. Its the very same goal, but this time you figure it will happen with that 'invisible hand" of nature and the guidance of the learned.

well the "invisible hand concept is as old as religion itself, and is using the local learned man (priests, rabbis, imans.....). So i have three conclusions:
1) your belief is religious in nature
2) your belief is imperialistic in nature
3) your strategy is the same as any religious group, in fact its identical to the "t"

You all claim you respect and love the 'other" and yet you all claim that you know whats best for everyone else.
and that is the essence of the elitist/superior attitude that you have yet claim you dont have.


You have declared that the progressive society is the future and that due to nature and its invisible hand it is inevitable and all of the others will eventually "get in line" and if not (hmm what does happen to those people who express free will and dont agree? ....what is the progressive equivalent of the christian hell?)

if you respected other cultures and dont claim any superiority than you would respect their traditions as well, and that includes the ones that disagree with (fgm, etc) but you don't...hence my conclusion

[shira]

97. But Pelsar, you said you believe working Western values into Gaza...

...and other totalitarian, theocratic societies is what will lead to long term peace. You wrote previously that western culture is superior to cultures led by the Taliban or Hamas.

Isn't that a form of cultural imperialism on your part?

Not that I disagree with you. But we can take this to the extreme, like many progressives do, and not hold, for example, 3rd world cultures or societies accountable for anything. Hence, the reason Amnesty International focuses far more on Israel than any other neighboring state. Or why progressives against Israel could care less about what goes on in Syria. They all say they expect more from Israel (meaning they expect far less from Israel's neighbors). It's moral relativism (they can do what they wish like FGM, etc) vs. cultural imperialism (western version of liberal human rights and values).

No one could possibly be for both - being a moral relativist as well as a cultural imperialist. It's impossible.

I think the keyword here is "liberal" values, not "progressive" like Mr. Burch believes in. IMHO, liberals are far more tolerant of the "other" than progressives like Ken who are intolerant of "the other".

[aranthus]

63. But you are against "nation-states"

There are only two kinds of states in the world. First, there are those held together by the cohesive force of national identity (ehtnicity). Places like the US, Italy, Israel, Japan, etc. Second there are those held together by brute force. Places like the Soviet Union, Iraq, etc. States which require force to survive, don't survive for very long. Multiple states will generate different ethnicities. So the alternatives (in the real world) are an international system of nation states, or else a single super state held together by an ultimately stifling world culture, or else held together by massive amounts of force. Both those other alternatives will fail. And what is so bad about nation states? Well nothing really. They are simply the expression of the average human's desire to live with those who think and live in approximately the same way. It makes inerpersonal and business relationships possible. Difference among people are always going to cause conflict, so eliminating nation states won't do anything to achieve peace. It will simply create different modes of conflict.

"There can be diversity without rivalry..." In the world of the Left, of course there can. In the real world, there can't. By the way, there is already a country that is a pretty close approximation of a secular state that does not priviledge one race over another (at least the closest approximation yet existing). It's called the United States of America. Of course, the Left just loves that country, doesn't it?

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

72. "The section of the Left that I'm talking about is pretty obviously antisemitic."

Last edited Fri Sep 7, 2012, 10:18 PM - Edit history (1)

Could you be specific? Cite examples? Who?

[aranthus]

85. Walt and Mearsheimer

"The Jewish Lobby" is the dual loyalty canard dressed up in academic regalia. It's classic antisemitism. All of the anti-Zionists.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

86. That's it? Who are these people? Are they on the left, and if so

why does that warrant such a broad brush? Two names?

[aranthus]

88. Because I have work to do.

Last edited Sat Sep 8, 2012, 06:02 PM - Edit history (1)

I was trying to list people who were obviously on the left (such as Walt and Mearsheimer) and also point you in the direction of something that they had written. That takes time that I don't have right now. However, I can toss out more names if you want. Alexander Cockburn, Gore Vidal, Norman Finkelstein, Gilad Atzmon. These are/were prominent Leftists, and fairly well known antisemites. M. Rosenburg is someone on the Left that some would disagree with, but he did proudly coin the phrase "Israel Firsters" to describe American Jews who support Israel.

Also, the point is what the beliefs of the ideology are, not individuals. An ideology that thinks that all religion is evil, and all nationality is evil, and that they must be done away with, is not going to be friendly to any religion or nationality, of which Jewish is both.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

91. Thanks. You have presented a handful of stale nothing.

Since you have work to do you best attend to that. Your reply shows little of substance.

[aranthus]

94. Denial.

What would you consider of substance?

[Recursion]

99. Why do you hate the Kurds?

What did the Kurds ever do to you?

[shira]

58. If the Left really hated Jews....

First, it's not all the Left, but mostly those on the Left who are anti-everything (Capitalism, Zionism, the West in general). I'd say they're anti-Imperialist, but they're not as they support Imperialist regimes like Iran, Russia.

Second, if you're going to bring up Leftist Jews...

...Karl Marx, Rosa Luxemburg, Eduard Bernstein, Emma Goldman, Howard Zinn and Bella Abzug(to name but a few) in the past and why would it include people like Amy Goodman, Noam Chomsky and Leon Rosselson...

...then you also need to note a deep irony. They're Jews who argue Judaism is a faith, not nationality or a people. Just people who practice a faith, nothing more. And that's essentially why Israel shouldn't exist. Jews are not a people, nor are they a nation worthy of Israel. But if that's what they believe, then as non-practitioners of the Jewish faith, they are by their own definition non-Jews as they are not part of any people or nation. They therefore cannot be used as "fellow" Jews whose criticism can be shielded from accusations of anti-semitism.

[Ken Burch]

59. They don't say that Judaism is simply a faith

They also tie it to a culture, or rather a series of cultures. They clearly identify AS Jewish, and no one is truly entitled to challenge that identity. What they mean by challenging the term "the Jewish people", is that there isn't any such thing as a single Jewish race. Since there isn't, since there are many races and cultures that identify as Jewish, what's the problem? And, in practice, the State of Israel doesn't treat Jews as a "race"-recognizing, instead, that Israeli Jews are not racially homogenous and since it makes no effort to force all to adopt Ashkenazi culture and the Ashkenazim forms of Judaism. They treat the component populations as peoples from various, related traditions that deserve to have a state of their own. It is...multicultural.

As to anti-zionists, why is nothing short of brutal denunciation of them coupled shrill demand that they abandon their beliefs, good enough for you? Antizionists are not Nazis, nor are they inquisitors. My theory is that they have taken their views out of frustration and despair-a sense that the state you unquestioningly defend is, as they see it, incapable of change, incapable of even trying to make peace, incapable of ceasing to treat Palestinians horribly. Rather than obsess with denouncing antizionists as intrinsically evil(which they aren't) why do you not, instead, push the Israeli government to stop doing the things that drove people of goodwill to a position of hostility towards their state's existence in its current form? Why not try a positive approach, especially since the purely negative one you have taken(demonization of people just for disagreeing with you and demands for unquestioning public support for a state that doesn't deserve it any more than any other state)simply hasn't been effective in helping to solve the problems we keep talking about?

[shira]

65. Look up the definition of a nation. Israel fits the bill...

...regardless of what Marxist Jews say.

At least you admit these people are hostile towards Israel. Of course, that's obvious. They're anti-Israel more than they're Palestinian, which is the point of the OP. They should be denunciated for their views. After all, these aren't liberal Zionist doves we're talking about here (like Amos Oz or the people from PeaceNow). In fact, they hate liberal Zionist doves and side with people (Hamas) whose goal is to end Israel (and not peacefully). IMHO, avowed enemies of Liberals deserve every rational denunciation they receive. Their views are essentially hard rightwing (that's been proven here on these forums many times over). And being that their views are radically rightwing, it's child's play refuting their bile. Maybe they should consider 'switching sides' and working for real peace and cooperation with Palestinians, rather than working with Hamas and the PLO (who they unquestionably support).

[Ken Burch]

71. "denunciated"? should they be refudiated as well?

And no, they don't side with Hamas. They simply realize that it's there and has to be worked with in some way.

And did you realize that you just used the phrase "regardless of what Marxist Jews say"? That's the kind of phrase the Klan and Jesse Helms used to use.

[shira]

82. They don't side with Hamas? They just realize they must work with them?

It appears they enjoy working with Hamas. Why don't they denounce Hamas for who they are, and speak on behalf of Palestinians who have big problems with these misogynists, racists, and homophobes? These anti-zionists don't seem interested in Hamas' victims on either side (Palestinians or Israelis). Why not work with them on the condition of making it crystal clear they're against all Hamas stands for?

Hamas considers these people their friends. You think Hamas is misled?

You accuse Zionists of siding unquestionably with the GOI. But isn't that exactly what the pro-Palestinians of the OP are doing? If not, what's the difference?

[azurnoir]

7. why do we not 'see'?

must be because 'we' are not looking or 'we' hope that those who only listen Wolf Blitzer or Fox News will believe the crap 'we' are pedaling

note the author of this piece must have been using the Majestic plural form of 'we' or perhaps he confuses w's with m's

[shira]

13. Good question. Do you have an answer?

Are those things actually happening; you know, the things "we" don't see?

[azurnoir]

18. look around but you'll have to step outside of your usual Hudson Institute

PJ's Media, CAMERA, Palestine Media Watch, CIF Watch, UN Watch, and for a difference NGO Monitor oh and let's not forget Algeminer BTW they have an exclusive you forgot to post guess which one

now let me guess which will your reply be "you got nothing or will it be vids from the above mentioned groups or both ?

[shira]

20. look around where? show "us", please. "we" still don't see these things. n/t

[azurnoir]

21. then 'we' aren't looking too hard are 'we'

but I knew you'd like that Majestic plural

[shira]

22. maybe there's nothing for "us" to find...

...which explains why, after 2 posts, you've provided zip.

[azurnoir]

24. and as I stated maybe you aren't looking too hard

so here ya go and from sources I'm sure you'll trust

The Independent breaks out the violins in an interview with Salam Fayyad.

Yes, the Arab Spring and Iranian nuclear threat are forcing the Palestinians to learn that the world really doesn’t revolve around them. And yes, Fayad’s nation-building campaign is undermined by the Palestinian economy’s hyper-dependence on foreign aid — an uncomfortable truth raised by the World Bank and now by UN diplomats.

But in their collective amnesia, neither Fayyad nor reporter Donald Macintyre mentioned Israeli efforts help the financially strapped PA: most notably an unprecedented attempt by Jerusalem to arrange a $100 million IMF loan for the PA.

http://honestreporting.com/salam-fayyad-and-the-independent-collective-amnesia/

An End to Holocaust Denial for Palestinian Authority Youth

Now, a small grassroots movement is beginning to take shape among Palestinian Authority students who are reaching out for information about what the real Holocaust was..

A delegation of 22 students made a trip to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Museum in Jerusalem on Wednesday to learn more on the subject. The group was led by 21-year-old Mujahid Sarsur, who learned from an Israeli roommate during his time at university about the murder of six million Jews during World War II.

As the youths fasted – this being Islam's holy month of Ramadan – they listened to a special guide explain in Arabic the history of images they clearly found horrifying.

Writing for The Associated Press, Aron Heller described the girls in hijab (hair coverings) as they “turned away in horror at the sight of Jewish corpses being shoveled into pits.” They “huddled together,” he wrote, as they watched footage from the Auschwitz death camp. A 15-year-old PA boy attending high school in Jordan told Heller the field trip helped him to understand “Jews had nowhere else to go” after World War II.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/139214#.UElJepacSQh

ps did it occur I was busy dinner homework with kid ect

[shira]

53. How do those articles address what "we" are seeing...

....from the pro-Palestinians according to the OP?

[azurnoir]

64. It must be frustrating what those articles show is that Palestinians are working on those problems

all by themselves fancy that, but why one must wonder is the author so insistent here when as I stated earlier all one must have is a bit of knowledge on the subject, what conclusions are we to reach, what are his motivations for writing such stuff?

[shira]

66. You must not have read the OP very carefully....

...because it's about supposedly pro-Palestinian people who are anti-Israel way more than they're pro-Palestinian. In fact, there's no evidence these supporters of Palestinians are pro-Palestinian at all.

The articles you cited have zip to do with that.

Try again?

[azurnoir]

67. so despite the fact that Palestinians are aware and working to solve these problems

ProPalestinian people are still supposed to criticize, I see lol it's never good enough for some I guess

[shira]

69. Please show that the ISM, FGM, PSC, BDS, Mondoweiss, and EI folks...

...are doing things in the OP that "we" do not see.

[azurnoir]

75. once again Palestinians are taking care of it themselves but yet groups must continue to condemn

Palestinians to be what legitimized? and you fail to answer where is this going what conclusions should be reached?

[shira]

83. The OP is about pro-Palestinians like the Mondoweiss and EI crowd...

...not about Palestinians themselves. It appears you can't argue against the article.

Palestinians are doing some good things, but credit for that doesn't go to the BDS folks.

[azurnoir]

84. I pointed out that the very things the article is caterwauling about are actually already being

addressed by the Palestinians themselves, but thank you apparently that of course does not suffice they must be condemned further as I said earlier its never enough for some apparently

[shira]

93. You're changing the goalposts. The article isn't slamming Palestinians....

It's slamming their faux supporters in the anti-zionist movement.

"We" don't see the antizionist "pro-Palestinians" doing any of those things in the OP.

It's obvious you don't either.

[shira]

100. So because Palestinians are starting to address some things...

...then there's no reason to criticize the government?

[Scootaloo]

8. "I'm rubber you're glue!"

A group of people - Team America: Israel Division - who actively experiences joy from the murder of Jews, because it gives an excuse to kill more Arabs has no room to make this complaint. A movement - "Israel supporters) who, in the vein of Alan Dershowitz and Jonathon Hoffman, accuse Jews they disagree with of being genocidal Nazis, scourges of the Jewish people, kapos, judenrat... has no room to call anyone hateful, much less the specific appelation of "antisemite". Political sychophants, who believe that anything that dribbles out of the Israeli government's mouthpieces is 100% legitimate and unquestionable, whether it be on the topic of why it's okay to kill kids or steal homes from under people, have no place to lodge complaints about hypocrisy or duplicity. People who clasp their hands and hope for a region-wide war just so Israel can prove it has a very large cock do not get to call anyone else "evil."

[shira]

14. So who is qualified to make this complaint? n/t

[Scootaloo]

36. Well, it's not you. n/t

[shira]

55. So who? n/t

[oberliner]

10. Liberal feminists supporting Hamas is quite bizarre

That much I do agree with.

[shira]

16. So too are Gays and Jews who support Hamas....

Like chickens supporting Colonel Sanders.

[Ken Burch]

28. Liberal feminists do not support Hamas.

Opposing the occupation is not "supporting Hamas"-the equation of the two things needs to be put to rest.

Neither do gays or Jews.

You don't have to take Israel's side in the war, and you don't have to defend the West Bank Occupation OR the Siege of Gaza to prove you don't "support Hamas".

It's possible to take a position independent of either side.

[oberliner]

29. You are wrong

From Medea Benjamin, Code Pink:

The 66-member delegation met several times with Hamas officials in the several days it spent in Gaza, and delegates (including me) encouraged them to write a letter to Obama expressing that he visit Gaza while in the Middle East to see the damage for himself of the assault earlier this year and the border blockade. One Hamas official stayed up all night and wrote the letter to Obama for the delegates to deliver to Cairo tomorrow.

Check out the photos of me and Tighe Barry with one Hamas official and the letter, and of delegates building three playgrounds, here.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/codepinkalert/3592786540/

http://codepink.org/blog/2009/06/a-letter-from-hamas-to-obama/

Medea Benjamin: Hamas Delivers Peace Letter to President Obama

The Hamas government in Gaza reached out to President Obama on the occasion of his visit to the Middle East, announcing that Hamas was willing to talk to all parties "on the basis of mutual respect and without preconditions."

The letter represents a significant development and an effort by Hamas to present a new face to the Western world. While Osama bin Laden used the occasion of President Obama's visit to deliver a scathing attack, Hamas has reached out to a feminist U.S. peace group to deliver a letter to Obama urging dialogue, mutual respect and adherence to international law.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/medea-benjamin/hamas-delivers-peace-lett_b_211586.html

[Ken Burch]

30. meeting with Hamas doesn't equate to SUPPORT of Hamas

It's about support for a negotiated resolution.

Hamas isn't going to be militarily defeated...so what alternative IS there to negotiating with it? It's not possible that stalling will produce a better Gaza leadership.

[pelsar]

34. strengthening hamas is supporting them

Their priorities are messed up: rather than promoting the basic rights of the people of gaza not to live in fear be it israeli strikes or hamas moral squads, these people are strengthening the hamas government by attempting to provide funds, political recognition of their government and all that entails.

nationalism/supporting the gaza 1% (to use the buzz word) being far more important than the very basic right of the gazans for personal security as well as social security.

funny how all of those "women rights activist" suddenly seem to forgotten about "womens rights in a theocratic state. and prefer to support the males leaders....

way to go "progressives" helping to shore up your local facist govt.

[Ken Burch]

37. What would you prefer?

It couldn't be pro-woman to put defeating Hamas(something that, if it were possible, would require an incredibly bloody war and send a lot of women and children to early, violent deaths)before everything else.

What they're saying is that Hamas is there and, realistically, it's not going to go away...therefore, there's no alternative to trying to negotiate with it in some way(as there was no alternative, in the end, to including the Irish Republican Army in peace negotiations in Northern Ireland).

Making a big show of denouncing Hamas would be like all those people who made big shows of denouncing the Soviet Union and the Eastern European satellite states/colonies in the 1949-1989. Sanctimony was a total failure then(the Warsaw Pact fell because the people of Eastern Europe rose up against it and because Gorbachev made it clear that he wouldn't send in the Red Army to save the Stalinist dinosaurs, not because of "Ich Bin Ein Berliner" or "Tear Down This Wall!&quot ...and it would be a total failure in this situation as well.

[pelsar]

39. there are other alternatives....

what you do is keep the solutions limited, so that the only conclusion is what you believe...very very very very narrow minded

study history with an open mind....you'll find other solutions, but only if your really interested, of which i dont believe you are

in the meantime, at least admit it: your solutions. what your promote does in fact help strengthen hamas and their ruling elite to keep down the people while exploiting them

the progressive way....

[Ken Burch]

40. No. I study history. And I study reality.

Last edited Fri Sep 7, 2012, 04:55 AM - Edit history (1)

Macho, stubborn, drawn-out "stay the course" options, of the sort I'd assume you favor, don't work anymore. Creating "facts on the ground" doesn't work anymore...at least not in terms of creating any positive results.

Sending the IDF back into Gaza is NOT an option. That can't achieve anything and it's not possible for the IDF to militarily defeat Hamas. The proof? The fact that the IDF couldn't do it when they were there last time...for years and years and years. It's not as if restoring the occupation in Gaza can do anything the previous occupation couldn't do.

[pelsar]

42. well your wrong...

try to find another option....can you?


or is strengthening hamas the only one you've got?

[Ken Burch]

44. The other options are either

A) the status quo (the continued siege of Gaza and things like the continued restriction of Gazan access to water and the areas of the sea in which Gazan fisherman can try to catch fish)

B) an Israeli invasion of Gaza and the re-establishment of the Gaza Occupation.

That's pretty much all I can think of.

What were you going to suggest? Turning the place back over to Egypt? News flash...I don't think they even want it.

And all of the possible options would have the effect of rallying the Gazan population around Hamas, because the population pretty much always rallies around the leaders of a regime when that regime is under military attack.

[pelsar]

49. but but but you claimed you read history

not a whole lot it turns out....

but i do believe you made the point: all you can think of is two options, both of which serve to back your view that strengthening facist theocratic regimes (based on the 1%) is ultimately good for the people...

i admit words fail me, it took many israelis years to accept that stalin was in fact a facist killer and not the saviour of the left....that supporting facism, directly or indirectly does not infact do anything good for "the people" some just dont seem to get it

[Ken Burch]

51. fascism, not "facism"-and why are you bringing Stalin into this?

Pretty much every leftist in the Western world repudiated the Stalinist heritage when Khruschev made his "Secret Speech&quot and sent the Red Army tanks into Budapest to prevent the establishment of a non-dictatorial Communist state) in 1956. Stalin has no relevance here, and no view I've expressed compares in any way with the delusional loyalty old-line CP'ers felt towards "Uncle Joe".

I don't claim to be infallible or all-knowing-so tell me, what other option am I missing? You just agreed that restoring the Gaza IDF occupation wasn't an option-so what the hell else is there?

Just tell me what you're thinking of...history offers no other ideas.

[pelsar]

62. not so fast..

history offers no other ideas.

i guess we can conclude that you really dont know much about history....

try doing some research on how societies developed, changed, what caused them to......(not countries but local societies, cultures)

[Ken Burch]

74. societies changed for a variety of reasons

Changes in the availability of food supply, disease, changes in climate or environment conflict with neighboring societies...and efforts of those within societies to change them from within.

Other than the last one, there's no effective or moral method to change a society in the post-1945 world, however.

[pelsar]

77. didnt i mention research?

you didnt do any research at all...zero, zip, nada. very disappointing. You just used your "boiler plate" answer with out checking out how socieites change with outside influences, and thats because you dont want to know.


"this is not 1945 anymore.....

so lets clarify this: you believe that no matter how "bad" any government is: it can be the taliban stoning people, it can be iran hanging homosexuals, it can be saudi arabia cutting off heads, Rwanda machetting people to death, Sudan having non declared government sponsered genocide. Pot Pol clearing out cities and killing people who wear glasses, Saadam gassing the kurds

and in your opinion there is no moral method to interfere and change those governments because they are all "internal matters" and up to the people.

and that is moral from your point of view?

___

reminds me of a quote a long time ago by a poster who was against invading iraq, it went something like this:
"Saadam may have been gassing the kurds, but it was his people to gas"

[Ken Burch]

78. I would interfere with leaders like Hitler, Mussolini and Franco.

and a lot of others.

That kind of "interference" from outside, however, doesn't work in the Middle East, because of the equation people would naturally make there between said interference, however well-intentioned, and imperialism.

Specifically what KIND of interference are you talking about here? Obviously, if the IDF tried to overthrow Hamas by force, pretty much every Gazan would resist that, simply because they'd resist the outside interference.

It also couldn't work outside progressives to call for a revolt against Hamas, because that call would automatically be resisted BECAUSE they were outsiders. We can assume no Gazans would rise up against Hamas as a result of such a thing. Things like that don't work, actually. in the post-1945 world regimes only fall when people living under them choose to make them fall of their own free will. The apartheid system didn't fall in South Africa because rock stars in the U.S. and Britain said apartheid was a bad thing. The Warsaw Pact didn't fall because Reagan gave a speech about taking down a wall. In both cases, it was the people, themselves, without outside prompting that did the rebelling. Medea Benjamin denouncing Hamas and calling for its overthrow would have been a pointless act, since it couldn't succeed in causing such a thing.

[pelsar]

79. now you confused me.....

That kind of "interference" from outside, however, doesn't work in the Middle East, because of the equation people would naturally make there between said interference, however well-intentioned, and imperialism.


what equation? because the are arabs? muslims? culture? history?...what exactly is this difference that is so stifling that they cant get beyond it (now your claiming that these cultures are all static?) but that the europeans can



and are you declaring that outside prompting never helps ever.....ever ever ever? and that its immoral to even try? just clearing up a few things

[Ken Burch]

80. It doesn't work when it interfaces with memories of the colonial past.

It can work when such a past isn't part of the situation.

It's difficult, however, for people outside of a particular country revolt against that country's leadership if the wish to actually revolt isn't already present within.

And, obviously, no one in Gaza would listen if somebody like Medea Benjamin were to call for a revolt against Hamas. You know that as well as I would. They aren't going to take marching orders from people with pale skin and blonde hair.

If you're talking about trying to replicate the Eighties thing of exiling the existing Palestinian leadership...that's not achievable in this situation...Hamas, from what I can see, doesn't have a single leader who holds the kind of preeminence that Arafat held back in the day, so it wouldn't be a matter of just exiling one guy. You'd have to be able to find and apprehend dozens of figures, and even then the short-term opening their absence might create would probably be filled by one of the Gazan factions that are even crazier and more bloodthirsty than Hamas. Having that happen would achieve nothing.

Besides...if "outside prompting" were going to be effective in the West Bank or Gaza, wouldn't Mossad or Shin Bet have figured out how to go about it by now?

[pelsar]

81. still confused

so these arab cultures are static and cant change? they simple cant get over their past?

so just to confirm no outside promoting will work and its immoral to even try

and your against outside interference when saddam was gassing the kurds, because stopping that would also be immoral, and of course it was immoral for obama to interfere and tell Mubarrak he has to go and moral not to mention anything about assad (both are middle eastern countries with that same "cultural problem.&quot

[Ken Burch]

90. They CAN change...but they need to be the ones starting the change.

In Egypt, the Egyptian people made the change and Obama came along later(it appears that mainly what the Obama administration has done, unfortunately, has been to work to PREVENT as much democratic and economic change as possible.
They would also have advised the secular liberals to run on a free market-privatization platform(an extension of what Mubarak himself had been imposing, but supposedly with slightly less corruption, and would have cooperated in the general long-term U.S. effort to destroy left-wing parties, the only ones whose programs for a secular society could have won working-class Egyptian support, in Egypt and everywhere else).

Cultures don't change solely on the demand of OTHER cultures. And Nazi Germany doesn't apply on that, because everybody involved in working for the end of Nazi Germany were part of the same Western culture that PRODUCED Hitler in the first place-which was also the same culture that produced the dispossession of indigenous peoples(while some within and some without worked to stop that)and the same culture that produced the slave trade(at least the Western Hemisphere portion of it that produced most of slavery's historic revenues).

The wish to change has to start from below...change can't be real and valid if it's imposed from without as a spoil of conquest. And in Germany, if you're going to bring that up again, the people, after the defeat of Hitler, were bringing democracy back on their own, and would have done so even if every non-German soldier had gone home on VE day. If democracy takes root in Libya(and at this point it looks as if it will) it will be because the Libyans wanted it...NOT because of the NATO bombing. Qadaffi/Khadaffi/Yo, Daffy! or whatever the hell his name was couldn't have been brought down solely from without if the Libyan people hadn't wanted him brought down.

You seem to be fixated with trying to trap me into endorsing some horrible thing or another. Why is it so important to you to do that? If you disagree with me, can't you just discuss the ideas under consideration on their merits?

[pelsar]

92. research...the key to new ideas but only for the non religious

Cultures don't change solely on the demand of OTHER cultures

i didnt write that, nor claim it.....seems your arguing with yourself again. Had you done the research, you would discovered there is far more to what you presentlly believe..but that is why we do research, to open our minds, discover aspect that we didnt know about, you appartently are not that interested ...



If democracy takes root in Libya(and at this point it looks as if it will) it will be because the Libyans wanted it...NOT because of the NATO bombing. Qadaffi/Khadaffi/Yo, Daffy

i would say that without Nato killing hundreds if not thousands Lybia would look more like Irans version of the arab spring or Syrias version

are you claming that NATO's bombing had no affect?

_____
oh btw your excuse for why the liberals lost in egypt is just hot air..those are the most ridiculous excuses i've ever heard....I'm not surprised as for one who believe in the "inevitable conquest of the progressive platform, you've got to have an excuse that totally ignores what the people actually wanted and voted for. the liberal platform took in 10%

---
You seem to be fixated with trying to trap me into endorsing some horrible thing or another.
i just think you should be less religious in your beliefs and more realistic. In general if you took those beliefs to discuss the problem in E.Europe or in Afganistan and I would read them, i would just smirk and not even bother with a comment. But you here, and your views read by the naive, idealistic and someone needing something pretty to believe in can get caught up in your one sided views and get taken advantage of as do so many like corrie.

there will those that lack critical thinking skills and will not see the contradictions in your posts, the fluid value system that has no consistency to apply to any situation, a view point that is so lopsided that it borders on racism, with its base assumptions of one group being helpless and the other super powerful, even when history shows otherwise.....

Perhaps my writing will cause some nice liberal girl at a nice college who was thinking of going to gaza/westbank why should she go and endanger her life just to help support a society that is anti womens rights, anti democracy. Perhaps she'll turn her efforts to making a better world by activly promoting liberal values and not support regimes that reject those very values. Perhaps she'll read, and wont believe that nationalism is more important than liberal democracy and that creating a theocratic dictatorship is in fact NOT the road to democracy. Perhaps she'll do some research to learn the options.

Your views are anti liberal (becuase they are so niave) and just like any simplistic far right wing view can be dangerous for those who actually act on them. They should not be allowed to float around without being challenged.

[Ken Burch]

95. My God...My God...are you calling for U.S./NATO ATTACKS ON GAZA? That's insane!

It would kill tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people(90% of whom would be innocent civilians). It would cause a massive Arab rising aimed not only at Israel(this time, that rising would win)but at every American. You'd have every U.S. embassy between Rabat and Damascus in a 1979-style hostage situation. How can you possibly suggest such a thing?

Such a call(and please stop making me try to guess what you support...just say it in the first place...that's how grown-ups debate...nothing you supported was ever so obvious that anyone should have been able to guess it anyway) shows IN ITSELF a complete lack of critical thinking, and of morality...because it assumes a positive result when such a result would always be severely in question(Russia would probably jump in against the U.S. in Gaza in order to maintain the power balance...or had that not occurred to you?)and because it assumes that massive loss of life is a trivial concern.

As to Libya, what I meant was(and you KNOW I meant this)Libya could not have had a democratic transition if NATO had launched attacks on Qadaffi without their being an indigenous democracy movement going on at the same time. You'd have to agree with that. Democracy isn't real and can't survive if it is imposed as a badge of and synonym for conquest. If the Libyan people had still been pro-Qadaffi(as they were until a few years ago)NATO bombings couldn't have achieved anything.

And the use of western force hasn't protected or spread liberal values anywhere in the world since 1945. The European Theatre of World War II was the last time any official military forces in the world fought FOR democracy. Since then, it hasn't been intended to, it's just been about power balances and property rights...neither of which has anything at all to do with anything liberal. The use of western force was irrelevant in the Eastern European democratic rising of '89, since such force WASN'T used. And the presence of western force hadn't done anything to stop the worst repression the people of Eastern Europe experienced during the 1949-89 period. It did nothing for the democracy activists in East Berlin in 1953, Budapest in 1956, Poland in 1958, and Czechoslovakia in 1968. That should tell you something.

And, while you are entitled to express your view on why the people of Egypt voted MB, you are NOT entitled to declare your view to represent unchallengeable fact.

Finally, stop calling me "religious" and "naive". If you think I'm wrong about something, just explain why you think I'm wrong on the merits. And just say in the first place what you support as opposed to what I support. When you debate someone, you're supposed to treat them with some level of basic human respect. I extend that respect to you(and have even praised you at times when I agreed with you, such as on your condemnation of the settlers). You keep disrespecting me on a personal level and it needs to stop. I've never done anything to you to deserve that. In fact, I've never done anything TO you at all...I've simply expressed some views you simply disagree with, and none of those views are extreme or dangerous.

Here's the truth about me:

I don't support any anti-liberal regimes or movements. I simply recognize that, to get peace in a situation where a World War II-style "unconditional surrender" result is impossible, you have to get the cooperation of everyone, including the more unpleasant players. I actually despise Hamas as much as you do...but unlike you, I recognize that ending the war is impossible without getting them, in some way or another, "in the loop".

I don't have a hidden agenda, nor are my views contradictory(they simply reflect the truth that no situation is as starkly "either/or" as you paint it and that no good ever comes of making "lesser evil" choices, since evil can't be sustained in the end anyway and choosing any evils means making everyone who wants good see you as an enemy.

I don't support anything that would ever do you, your family or your country personal harm. In fact, as I've stated before, if we were ever to sit down and have a beer sometime we'd probably get along just fine.

I JUST DISAGREE WITH YOU. Can you please just accept that that's all there is here? Can you please just leave it at that?

And no young college student could do anything to defend liberal values by supporting the use of military force anywhere in the world, especially western military force. These days, military force is largely on the side of the wealthy, of male domination, of heterosexual domination, of white supremacy, of greed, and of inequality. Nobody in a uniform is anybody's liberator anymore. There's nothing NATO can do about Hamas.

[pelsar]

96. your funny....your so wrapped up in your dogma..

Last edited Mon Sep 10, 2012, 03:40 AM - Edit history (1)

i'm not suggesting that NATO bomb Gaza, i just made a comment that without NATO Lybia would probably look more like syria or iran. something that contradicts your views about western interference (how its ALWAYS bad because the arabs/muslim cant get over the trauma of past events)

When you debate someone, you're supposed to treat them with some level of basic human respect

ahem...shall we recall the various accusations that you laid upon me?...if that is your definition of "respect" (not that i care, but i always enjoy your contradictions). Besides this is how we debate in israel, so i suggest you learn to accept characteristics of a different culture. (Unless of course this is on your list of things other cultures have to change to join your version of utopia)


And the use of western force hasn't protected or spread liberal values anywhere in the world since 1945
since you stated more than once that Lybia is "on the road to democracy"...i would call that protection...
----

I don't support anything that would ever do you, your family or your country personal harm.
nor are my views contradictory

Your views are "incomplete." You can't answer the real consequences of your views of those actions. When i press, you avoid them. That is why i put them in the "religous" catagory. When you can't deliver realistic answers and why they infact would cause lots of harm.

for instance: corrie is a great example:
the girl was trying to protect a tunnel entrance that imported missile ingredients. Military Intelligence through sensors and other means determined this. Exposing/destroying those entrances has been determined to be the best and most efficient and less dangerous way via bulldozer.

your reaction is: israel bad, because it didnt use a means that would endanger many more israelis lives, for an solution that wouldnt even work (block it with cement).

at this point, you can no longer give a reply since, your greater sympathies lie with corrie and not with the people on the receiving end of the missiles. Thats fine with me, as long as you state it, yet you can't.

at the sometime, your cant even offer an alternative realistic solution to solve the importation of missle ingredients. You now have more information of why your solution will not work, hence now you should be thinking of a second solution, but you can't can you?

You've already stated that israel has the right in 'theory" to stop them, but but but but, if there is a Palestinian civilian around that might get hurt or that their possessions might get destroyed than israel does not have their right.

give that hamas is half "civilian" civilians are always present. Hence the real consequence of your "solution" is that israel can do nothing.
________

and you expect me to respect that point of view?...the one that says realistically, we shall do nothing while people 200m away try to kill us? (but your really really dont like the kassams

get real.....

___
and finally: i gave you a simple challenge, one that directly challenged your claim that you have an open mind, to do some basic research on cultural changes (without outside military intervention) and you have come up empty. This is not a difficult task, not with google at your finger tips. The requirement? honest research and an open mind to learn what may contradict your present views.....

[oberliner]

45. Yes it does

If you are a peace activist and you meet with Hamas and have a photo op with one of their officials and pen an op-ed extolling their desire for peace then you are supporting Hamas.

If you found them to be repugnant and opposed to the values that you stand for as a liberal feminist (which I would think most would) then you would not meet with them, have your photo taken with them, etc.

Real courage would have been going to Gaza to aid the Palestinian people there while refusing to meet with Hamas officials, and instead making a statement demanding the government be held accountable for their shortcomings with respect to human rights and progressive values.

A peace activist doesn't pose for a photo with a government official and then proudly display that photo on their website if they don't support the person they are being photographed with.

[Ken Burch]

47. The U.S. and Israel refused to meet with the PLO for decades...the PLO didn't go away.

The British government refused to meet with the IRA for decades...the IRA didn't go away(in fact, it's political wing, Sinn Fein, became more popular as the Brits refused to talk to the IRA).

Doesn't that suggest that the "I won't talk with THAT group" strategy simply doesn't work?

Hamas is a reality...I don't like it any more than you do...but, for the dispute to end, for the killing to end, Hamas has to be included in the process, because it will sabotage any process it isn't included in and that will just means the killing will go on. Given that, what possible alternative exists to finding some way to at least get some sort of cooperation from them in ending the fighting?

[oberliner]

56. Code Pink does not represent a government

They are ostensibly a group of liberal, feminist, peace activists.

Do you think Medea Benjamin would display a picture of herself meeting with a representative of Netanyahu's government?

Of course she would not. Because she opposes that government. She is opposed to what he stands for.

Would she display of a picture of herself meeting with a representative of the Bush administration? No she wouldn't.

She did, however, have her photo taken with a Hamas official and displayed that picture on her site.

[shira]

57. Ken, you were wrong. Feminists like Medea Benjamin support Hamas. EOM.

Judith Butler does too. In fact, she says Hamas and Hezbollah are social movements that are progressive and part of the global Left. She's not only a feminist, she's a Jew and a champion of Gay rights.

Don't just argue she's wrong and only represents a few people and is in no way influential. Butler once wrote the following:

It may be that binationalism is an impossibility, but that mere fact does not suffice as a reason to be against it.

That pretty much sums up your philosophy, right?

She's being awarded with a prize named after Theodore Adorno. Do you know who he is? As way back as 1969, he wrote that the Leftist, anti-zionist, student movement displayed fascist tendencies. This is old news you continue to deny.

[LeftishBrit]

46. Makes some good points, but too much of a broadbrush

'If these "pro" Palestinians actually cared about the Palestinians, they may well still be pressuring Israel for concessions, but they'd also be thinking about nation-building, and about the future, preparing the Palestinians for a future emancipation, as the Zionist leaders did for 50 years prior to the establishment of Israel. I have yet to see any groups who talk economic development for Palestinians, or who set up educational funds to advance Palestinian children.

Why do we not see pro-Palestinians working with Palestinians to establish peace groups, which have a strong voice on the Israeli side, such as Peace Now?'

I agree that many so-called pro-Palestinians do not do any of these things, and are purely negative -and I have made this point on DU a few times; but it's not ALL. Indeed there are many groups that do aim at co-operation between Israelis and Palestinians and/or support economic and educational projects for Palestinians. Look at many of the members of the Alliance for Middle East Peace:

http://www.allmep.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=5&Itemid=4

I would add to these the British Shalom-Salaam Trust

www.bsst.org.uk

And for collaborative peace-making efforts between Israelis and Palestinians: the One Voice Movement:

www.onevoicemovement.org


I do think that some people that claim to be pro-Palestinian are nothing of the sort (and this would include most Arab governments!). Some are Islamists with a doctrinaire religious agenda; some are mirror-imageists who think that America and its allies are an axis of evil; an a fair few are xenophobic isolationists who are anti-foreigner in general and antisemitic in particular. But there are also a significant number of people and groups that claim to be pro-Israel, but have no real concern for Israelis or Jews - they include neocons who regard Israel as a useful pawn, oops, I mean strategic ally, for American military interests; fundamentalist Christian Zionists who see Israel as there to help fulfil the prophecies in Revelations; and certain right-wing Europaean anti-immigrant bigots who have decided that they hate Muslims even more than they hate Jews.

[shira]

68. The OP is about the pro-Palestinian movement....

...represented by the ISM, FGM, PSC, BDS, Mondoweiss, and ElectronicIntifada crowd. It is these people who represent most of the pro-Palestinian movement. And the OP is spot-on about these types, who are supported by many here at DU.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

87. Prove it. Name them.

[shira]

89. When “pro-Palestinian” means anti-Israel

Certainly the Palestinians in Yarmouk are not the only victims of the Assad regime’s brutality in Damascus and elsewhere in Syria. But you might think that a bombardment aimed at Palestinians would incur the outrage of all those who profess to be “pro-Palestinian.”

You would, of course, be wrong. The websites of the International Solidarity Movement, the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign continue to ignore the suffering and death of the Palestinians in Syria.

Until I see a mention of Yarmouk on one of these sites, I will have to conclude that “pro-Palestinian” is just another term for “anti-Israel”– that any sympathy these organizations profess for Palestinians is far outweighed by their hatred for the world’s only Jewish-majority state.

http://hurryupharry.org/2012/09/08/when-pro-palestinian-means-anti-israel/

[Recursion]

98. Nope. Nice try though.

I'm sure thinking that makes you feel better, so carry on.

[shira]

101. And note the silence WRT Turkey now...

The Israel bashers have been silent about:

a) Turkey's occupation of Cyprus
b) Turkey's brutal killing of ethnic Kurds
c) Turkey's repressive human rights record against journalists (more imprisoned journalists in Turkey than any other nation)
d) Turkey's current repression of civil rights
e) Turkey now building a wall to keep out escaping refugees from Syria.

What do we hear?

Nothing! Silence.

It's only Israel that gets the Israel bashers' juices going...

...can't figure out why.

[shira]

102. Palestinians in Syria Killed, Injured, Displaced Arabs, Human Rights Organizations, Media Yawn

http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/3706/palestinians-syria-killed-injured-displaced

It is not only the Arabs and the Palestinian governments who are turning a blind eye to the mass displacement of Palestinians. Human rights organizations and the mainstream media in the West are also ignoring the plight of the Palestinians. This is, after all, a story that lacks an anti-Israel angle.

[shira]

103. Why no BDS or flotillas WRT Turkey?

There is a country in the Middle East which makes a great play of being a democracy and about espousing Western ideals regarding human rights, and is forever bragging how different this makes it to its despotic Arab neighbours. But this self-same Middle Eastern country for decades now has been occupying the lands of one of its neighbours and conducting apartheid-like discrimination against its internal minority community. Its charismatic right-wing leader has one message for its close ally the United States and for the EU, with which it seeks closer ties, but quite another for its internal allies.

Isn’t it time this so-called democracy was held to account, and was made to face up to its hypocrisy? Isn’t it time the international community as a whole, and the International Solidarity Movement in particular, launched a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Turkey?

The crux of the argument by those engaging in BDS against Israel is that, no, they don’t single out Israel because it’s a Jewish state or because it is an ally of the West. They choose to boycott only Israel, they claim, because it’s a democracy and should therefore behave like one – and because boycott of a tyrannical regime doesn’t work, whereas boycott of a democracy can influence its citizenry to lobby for change to the offending policies.

Well, dear friends of the BDS movement, now is your chance to prove that you are not just shills for terrorists and Arab rejectionism, that you are not closet antisemites or anti-western ideologues and that you really care for oppressed peoples everywhere.

Now that the eyes of the world are focussed on Turkey, here is your chance to say no to Turkey’s occupation of Cyprus. Here is your chance to say no to Turkey’s institutional discrimination against Kurds who, unlike the Palestinians, have no autonomy, no government, no parliament, no courts, no police, no education system of their own, and whose very language is suppressed by government edict. Now is the time to send your message to Prime Minister Erdogan and his cronies that the world will no longer tolerate their brutal repression of human rights.

http://cifwatch.com/2013/06/23/a-modest-proposal-for-a-new-boycott-divestment-and-sanctions-campaign/

[shira]

104. The Humiliation of Palestinians in Arab States

#t=193

[cali]

105. gee a right wing Palestinian/Muslim hate filled piece of shit has the unmitigated gall

to piously and hypocritically whine that people who are "pro-Palestinian" don't care about Palestinians. Of course he lumps everyone who is "pro-Palestinian" together.

What a disgusting pus-bag.

More right wing garbage from Shira.

Shocked, I tell you. I'm shocked.

[shira]

106. Attack the source all you want. The argument is 100% accurate. Here's a video for u to ignore...

I just posted it above your message, but I'm sure you glazed right over it.

Don't worry, it's not just you ignoring it but all your fellow friends who loathe Palestinians but say they care so much about Palestinian rights. Ask yourself why none of you could give a toss about the content in the following video and then get back to me. After all, it's you guys who bitch, moan, and wring your hands claiming to be pro-Palestinian.

Then again, I don't expect a reply to this as none of you are honest enough to talk about it.

#t=193

[cali]

107. deflect, deflect, deflect, shira dear.

the issue is what Israel is doing. You know, your sainted state that YOU think does not wrong. The issue is the Israelis stealing Palestinian land and killing any hope of peace and two states.

How fucking dare the likes of YOU who really does hate Palestinians and who has demonstrated that over and over and sickeningly over, call people who don't agree with you on "Israel is always right" Palestinian haters. You lose no opportunity to post articles that denigrate Palestinians and paint them in the worst possible light. You don't give a shit about the suffering of Palestinians. You cheer on oppression constantly.

disgusting.

[jessie04]

109. Incredible video.

Thank you for the education.

[shira]

110. Note the utter silence from the alleged pro-Palestinian crowd. Not a peep. n/t