Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forum
The Global March to Jerusalem, a brave and admirable attempt to awaken the world’s conscience
<snip>
"On March 30th a ground-breaking event will take place. I had not expected it would ever happen when I first heard about it. While teaching at the Summer University of Palestine last July in Beirut, I met a group of Indian Muslims taking the course. They told me they were organising a people’s march to Jerusalem to bring to the world’s attention to Israel’s assault on the city’s history and culture, and its impending loss as a centre for Islam and Christianity. They explained how they and their friends would set out from India, drawing in others to join them as they passed through the various countries on their way overland to Israel’s borders.
They seemed fired up and determined, and I could not but admire their zeal and dedication to try and rescue this orphan city which has been abandoned by all who should have defended her. But I thought their ambitions would be thwarted by the harsh reality of trying to implement their dreams. It would never succeed, I thought, but I was quite wrong. The movement they and their fellow activists spearheaded, called the Global March to Jerusalem (GMJ), is now in its final stages. A distinguished group of 400 advisers, including Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Nobel Laureate, Mairead Maguire, are promoting the GMJ. The marchers will head for Jerusalem or the nearest point possible on March 30th.
This date also commemorates Land Day, a significant anniversary for Palestinians. On that day in 1976 six Palestinian citizens of Israel were killed by Israeli forces. They had participated in a peaceable general strike to protest against Israeli confiscations of privately owned Palestinian land, and paid with their lives for this act of non-violent resistance. Since then this tragic event has been commemorated annually by Palestinians everywhere. Today, it is a fitting reminder of Israel’s other confiscation of Jerusalem’s land, ongoing since 1967.
No one knows the exact numbers of marchers who will make it, but they promise to be large. Land caravans have been traveling for weeks from India, Pakistan and other Asian countries towards the meeting places in the countries bordering Israel. At the same time, marches towards Jerusalem will take place from within the occupied Palestinian territories. “Palestinians and their international supporters will attempt to get as close to Jerusalem as they can, whether at the borders of Lebanon and Jordan, at checkpoints in the West Bank or at the Erez crossing with Gaza”, the organisers have announced."
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/03/the-global-march-to-jerusalem-a-brave-and-admirable-attempt-to-awaken-the-worlds-conscience.html
= new reply since forum marked as read
Highlight:
NoneDon't highlight anything
5 newestHighlight 5 most recent replies
Fozzledick
(3,860 posts)This will not end well. 
shira
(30,109 posts)Last edited Fri Mar 30, 2012, 05:50 AM - Edit history (1)
Where Hamas and Hezbollah ministers and their openly anti-Semitic BFF like Gilad Atzmon (who of course endorses the march) are described as peace activists?
Wait until the mass media starts airbrushing Syria, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Muslim Brotherhood out of the story altogether, in order to portray these terrorist sympathizers as peace activists.
In fact, count on it.
"The Israeli cabinet has met urgently to discuss security arrangements against the marchers at the borders and in the West Bank. In a sign of panic, they have accused Iran and Islamic fundamentalism of being behind the GMJ."
quote is from the link in OP.
aranthus
(3,385 posts)I heard one of these "Progressives" on LA Pacifica the other day talking about the LA version of BDS. At least he was honest enough to say that BDS is about enforcing Right of Return. So who are the "real" Progressives? I don't think I get to decide, anymore than I get to tell Omar Barghouti what BDS is about. I think they get to tell us. I think that they are telling us exactly what they are about.
aranthus
(3,385 posts)
Violet_Crumble
(35,961 posts)Have we run out of obscure people to build up into massive threats on Israels existence? 
jimmie
(318 posts)i could have guessed what mondoweiss would have said.
King_David
(14,851 posts)King_David
(14,851 posts)'Several rally participants expressed anger over the presence of Neturei Karta members, and a verbal altercation erupted between the two groups. '
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4210239,00.html
Ha Ha
who would have thought thety didnt want them therer.
Cant imagine why.
They beat them too, they beat up those Jews....
King_David
(14,851 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)http://www.timesofisrael.com/neturei-karta-rabbis-beaten-and-verbally-abused-at-jordanian-land-day-rally/
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)those who beat the rabbis, which was a disgusting thing and shouldn't have happened, do represent the true spirit of that march.
It wouldn't surprise me if those who did the beatings were agents provacateurs...If that turns out to be the case, Haaretz will probably dig up the facts on it.
jimmie
(318 posts)those that beat the rabbis DO represent the true spirit of that march.
Seems they have a problem with jooz.
Exactly how many anti- Semitic acts would it take for your progressive antenna to go off?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Last edited Mon Apr 2, 2012, 07:58 PM - Edit history (1)
The Palestinian resistance is not based on hatred of Jews. They would do all that they've done if anybody else had occupied their land AND made them leave. It's not like they'd be ok with the status quo if only other Arabs or other Muslims were administering it.
You just want to try to badger progressives into defending permanent Israeli control of the West Bank-even though you know Israel has no right to control that area.
shira
(30,109 posts)Pretty damned ugly.
One staters against peace. Their mirror opposites would be the extreme Kahane camp.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)UNLESS you accept that the Palestinians must have the entire West Bank, and that a future Palestinian state must not be forced to live under conditions that would allow the Israeli government to shut it down and re-establish the Occupation at a moment's notice.
To succeed, a two-state solution has to mean
1)That the Israeli government must never be able to shut off Palestinian access to water, electricity, or travel.
2)That the Palestinian economy must never be subject to being shut down by the Israelis.
3)That, as Palestine must commit never to attack Israel, Israel must equally commit never to invade Palestine.
If you can't accept those three things, at a bare minimum, you do NOT favor a two-state solution. It's not a two-state solution if the Palestinian state has to live perpetually on sufferance, in the way Netanyahu's proposals would force it to.
shira
(30,109 posts)...than one state phonies against peace who team up with extreme rightwing bigots sharing their hatred. That was the point.
I'm for 2 states and had Arafat accepted in 2000, there would already be a Palestine for 12 years. I wouldn't have had a problem with that deal had it gone through. It's not Israel's fault Arafat chose Intifada 2 rather than responding with a reasonable counter-offer to the Clinton Initiatives.
You want an end to occupation and settlements, then blame the Palestinians. Israel made a fair offer more than a decade ago. The side you favor chose war. There's no sense pretending otherwise.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)I hadn't realized that you have the defying definition of what a "two stater is".......
You can't fairly claim to be a two-stater UNLESS you accept that the Palestinians must have the entire West Bank,
you seem to have this incredible ability to be able to know the future, i 'm always impressed with that ability
To succeed, a two-state solution has to mean....
_____
so in conclusion, given your absolute knowledge and definitions, is there a 1.75 stater, if someone doesn't agree with your definitions, but really wants to be a "two-stater? and i do have a few questions about the future of Libya, Syria etc, given your absolute ability on reading the future.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)and still retain any credibility and authority.
You'd have to concede that NO Palestinian leader could ever survive in office if he or(eventually, perhaps, she)were to accept Bibi's arrogant and demeaining "security concept"-a concept that would make Palestinian independence perpetually conditional and provisional, subject to being undone by the Israeli government through the use of force at any given moment. How could you possibly think it's reasonable to expect them to agree to those things(the permanence of the major settlements, a state of affairs that would by itself make it impossible for Palestinians to have a real state; complete demilitarization, a requirement that would make such a state helpless and a humiliation that is demanded of no other state on the planet;
IDF troops in the Jordan Valley, which would mean that the Occupation would, in effect, go on forever, to name but a few).
All I did was lay out the things any valid two-state deal would have to include. You can't really quarrel with any of them, especially the no interrupting the water and electricity.
If a two-state solution is to succeed, it cannot put EITHER state in submission to the other, nor can it be something that makes one side or the other lose face...this is all that I'm saying. And the few things I laid out are required to avoid a Palestinian state be seen as pathetic and subservient. You don't have to think that Palestinians are saints to know that a two-state solution must result in a state that is seen as being equal in status and prestige to Israel-that putting Palestine into the status of statehood on sufferance is to doom the two-state idea to failure.
Why is it so important to Bibi and his government to humiliate the Palestinian side? Why does the government you risk your life for think that "winning" is more important than making sure the war actually ends?
(and in any case...why does Bibi harbor the delusion that, if only he got the Pals in some back room, they'd gladly accept whatever crumbs he'd toss them?...it's as silly as the notion that, if it hadn't been for, first, "the other Arabs" and, later, the PLO, that ordinary Palestinians would have been glad to make peace with Israel WITHOUT getting their own state as well).
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)If Palestine is able to adhere to their commitment to police themselves and their border, keeping militants in check and refraining from any attacks themselves, then there will never be any reason for Israel to invade, institute a blockade, limit trade or anything else. Israel can never promise to NEVER again ever invade because it is likely that they will need to when they are attacked from the Palestinian side of the border. But that is entirely within Palestine's power to control. Look at what happened in Gaza... Israel never took taking any action until Hamas began firing rockets and mortars.
Opposing demilitarization is a non-starter. Are you even serious about that? First of all, any threat to a fledgling Palestinian state is going to be coming from INSIDE its borders, not outside. There is no credible international military threat that exists wrt a newly formed Palestine, except for possibly Israel, which would only occur due to the breakdown of peace. So why would Israel agree to equip Palestine with weapons whose only purpose could be to use against Israel?
Just as other states like Germany, Iraq or Japan were disallowed militaries, for the time being, so would Palestine. Responsibility for its defense would fall to either an organized Arab co-operative or by Israel itself. Or they can agree to UN peacekeepers just like Lebanon and Egypt did at various points. The fact is that the last thing Palestine needs to worry about is building an army. It'll have its hands full just preventing their state from collapsing. Putting precious money and resources towards weapons seems like one of those ideas that indicates someone in charge is making poor decisions.
You don't have to think that Palestinians are saints to know that a two-state solution must result in a state that is seen as being equal in status and prestige to Israel.
Yeeeeeeah, here's the thing though. Palestine has to build status and prestige itself. It isn't something Israel is even capable of giving them. And if that's your REQUIRED benchmark for the creation of a Palestinian state then you are giving them a 0% chance. Because Palestine is, and will be, entirely subservient to Israel and pathetically unable to provide for itself without constant Israeli buttressing. You even built it into your demands, for chrissake!
"You can't really quarrel with any of them, especially the no interrupting the water and electricity. "
How is a state that can't even make its own electricity supposed to be "equal in status and prestige" to a state that's creating artificial hearts and super-processer microchips?
Why does the government you risk your life for think that "winning" is more important than making sure the war actually ends?
Why? Where have you been for the past 100 years. They think winning is more important than the end of the war BECAUSE IT IS! Duh.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)Last edited Tue Apr 3, 2012, 07:07 AM - Edit history (2)
I actually don't even pretend to know what the various Palestinian groups talk about, what their real demands are and what they are willing to live with. I don't even speak arabic!!
On one end we know of Palestinians who prefer the occupation to the risk of a hamas take over of the west bank (as in gaza) or a weak PA govt that might be like syria. (you probably don't like them or want to hear from them.....) On the other end of the scale we have Hamas, who really don't care about anything other that nationalism....
Inbetween is a host of variations. So which leader/dictator will be willing to sell concession to his people as did Sadat and Begin and Sharon is something I can not know (unlike you).
and not being so strong as you are in analyzing the psychology of different people and their motivations who belong to different cultures across the globe (damn your good!), i also regret to say i cannot possibly understand what their bottoms lines are and ultimate motivations.
hence i can only deal with what i know and what i need to live in a secure environment: And that starts off with a stable Palestenians govt that cannot attack us...so that means they will not have F-16s, modern tanks, long range artillery, drones, anti aircraft missiles....and if they so attempt, i will be one of those that volunteer to be part of the force to take them out.
as far as electricity, fresh water, etc thats the responsibility of their state, its goes with the territory of statehood...i.e. none of my business. If they can't even handle that, then they have no business having independence.
they failed BIG TIME in gaza, those mistakes by us will not be repeated.(of course there are those that believe they succeeded big time in gaza....which do you believe?)
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I've never liked Hamas, despite repeated insinuations from the contrary-it was just that I didn't think that getting rid of Hamas was more important than everything else.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)its not getting rid of hamas...that is probably next to impossible, just as it will be nearly impossible to get rid of the imans of iran or those of saudi arabia.....but they can be prevented from expanding.
it simply depends on what values are more important to you: nationalism or civil rights, where do you put the emphases and resources.
clearly your more in agreement with the rightist of the world that believe that nationalism is more important than civil rights, hence hamas taking over gaza, with all of their nationalism and "negative civil rights is well "not that important."
Whereas if you had been "fighting" for civil rights (minority rights etc) as the most important value you would have been "in shock" at the result of the israeli pullout. Not only has the civil rights of the gazans gone far far backwards in to the 16th century but now there is no way to even pressure the gazan govt. The only way for change now is the iranian, syrian, libyan model....and those are not very successful either for those who believe in civil rights.
it just depends upon which values are more important: nationalism or civil rights....your simply more of a nationalist, as are most progressives that i've met. (israelis not included).
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Nothing would be better in Gaza if Israel had stayed. Obviously the settlers were going to have to go, since their presence there was never anything but toxic and negative. From what I've seen, the Gaza settlers never bothered to try treating the people of Gaza as their equals, or to recognize that those people had a real history and connection to that place. They acted like it was THEIR land, and that the Gazans had no real right to stay in the place where they'd lived for generations.
I'm not in agreement with rightsts on anything. And I'm not a nationalist. What I am is an opponent of the idea that any one nation or group has the right to make another nation or group live at its mercy, or to treat all the inhabitants of the subjugated nation as if they are collectively responsible for the worst choices of the most extreme people in the subjugated group.
It's impossible to make a progressive case, in the 21st Century for the idea of one nation's army holding another nation perpetually under siege, in THIS day and age. The days when Occupations might have had any positive or hope-inducing effects on a country ended with the end of the Occupations of Germany and Japan-and those were occupations of an entirely different nature, both of which pretty much left the civilian populations of both countries alone. Also, Palestinians have done nothing that could possibly merit treating them like post-World War II Germany or Japan. They weren't trying to take over the world, OR trying to create a Judenrein planet. They didn't operate death camps or subject anybody to the equivalent of the Bataan Death March. Also, it's never going to be possible to get them to sign a document of unconditional surrender.
Your attitude about Gaza and the West Bank is very Kiplingesque...in every post you make, you sound like you're committed to "tak(ing) up 'The White Man's Burden"
to quote Brecht). And the tone you take has a lot to do with why Palestinians, from what I've seen, regard the Occupation as a form of colonialism. It's not possible to make peace with another country by talking down to them and expecting them to accept that YOUR country is "their betters". Peace can't be built on subjugation.
I want civil rights, and equality for all. But neither can be created in the Territories through keeping IDF troops in place, OR by maintaining the Siege of Gaza. Saying that is no slam on the IDF-it's simply a recognition that, in the end, however "enlightened" anybody thinks the military occupation they defend in any particular area to be, in the end, that occupation will become just as arrogant as that of the Romans in Judea, Samaria and Galilee. Israel does NOT need to go to that place to survive.
The way to make a democratic future for Palestine is to give THEM a chance to make it-not to treat Palestinians as if democracy and "human rights" can only come to them as things imposed by the Israelis as a badge of conquest.
You have to LET people breathe, if you want them to breathe free.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)i guess you definition of 'letting people 'breath" is to let whole countries be taken over and ruled by people who's belief in your "civil rights is non existent...but they are "breathing' as per your definition.
the best thing about the middle east and all of its events is that we get to see political theory put into action...and yours theories and beliefs area actually happening. Its always fascinating to see who's beliefs are from events (and change with the changing events) vs those who are "religious" and don't change no matter what actually happens...
so i guess we can say your satisfied with hamas taking gaza, the islamists being voted in, in egypt, the koran being a fundamental part of the Libyan law.
after all, its your theory in action, you should be proud of the results or at least satisfied......are you?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)It's not like Palestinians would be better off being DENIED independence until Hamas ceases to exist.
You have no evidence to show that Palestinians gain anything from having the IDF on their soil-no evidence that the Occupation has done anything to encourage democracy there(in the Seventies and Eighties, your fellow soldiers frequently arrested and on at least some occasions killed democratically elected West Bank polticians-how the hell was THAT about protecting human rights? How has the practice of hassling even NON-violent protesters(when nonviolence should be a guarantee that your demonstration will be left alone)foster human rights? How does the defense of what you yourself have acknowledged are illegal settlements and illegal settlers helped create reconciliation and democracy?
If you really believe that you're fighting for human rights and progressive values by keeping Palestine subjugated, I put it to you that you are completely out of touch with reality.
And, sure, there might be a tiny minority of Palestinians who say they prefer the Occupation-news flash, there were black collaborators with South African apartheid. There are also Native Americans who think the Great White Father was right to make them give up their languages, religion, and customs. All any of that proves is that some people have their price-which is something we've all learned in this ugly "free market" world.
Keeping the IDF in the West Bank is not helping build democracy there. The people of the West Bank are already anti-Hamas(Hamas never carried that area in the first place). The way to reinforce that anti-Hamas position is to let them have space.
Like you, I want a stable Palestinian government that would not be aggressive towards Israel. But I see what you don't-and that is that the only way to GET such a government is NOT to insist on the degrading "security concept" terms Bibi wants to impose-terms that would ensure the tiny, castrated statelet that would be tolerated provisionally by Israel rather than accepted as a permanent fact of life, on too little land area to survive would be seen by Palestinians as a humiliation and a defeat, and would thus cause the overthrow of any Palestinian leadership that accepted them, which would, obviously, guarantee that the war wouldn't end at all. I want to avoid that nightmare. I personally want Israel and Palestine to have real peace-a state of affairs that requires that neither country be seen as vanquished or defeated.
That is the opposite of your disgusting suggestion that I privilege nationalism over human rights.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)and whether you like the results or not?..care to answer (i couldn't help but notice you avoided it)
and your theory is right inline with the "right"..the one that views nationalism over human rights. Your theory as i understand it, is first give them "nationalism" (exactly what the right believes) and afterwards the people will demand a new govt and get themselves a western democratic society ..isnt that your theory?
care to comment on that "road" in regards to Iran, Gaza, Egypt, Syria, Libya?
i noticed the nationalism, i noticed the dictatorships, i noticed the failed revolts...i didn't quite notice the road to western democracy, perhaps i'm looking in the wrong place
If you really believe that you're fighting for human rights and progressive values by keeping Palestine subjugated, I put it to you that you are completely out of touch with reality.
I'm not fighting for human rights and progressive values....thats your job. My job is the security of israel, my job is show how dangerous and naive views like yours are. (and too shoot at the people who are trying to kill me.)
___
btw this is not the subject, but this you deserve, and i'm holding back:...but you are one very intolerant person:
All any of that proves is that some people have their price-
so if someone does not believe the way they are "supposed to", it means they were "bought off" and you cannot conceive that they have different beliefs simply because they believe differently....yikes..that intolerance is simply mind boggling
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And I'm not responsible for what's happening in those places.
It's not clear that the story is over in any of those situations though. What alternative would YOU have proposed? Should the U.S. and Israel have been fighting to keep every Arab tyrant in power while also trying to overthrow the Iranian state from without? Outside intervention in the Arab/Muslim world has never led to that world being made more democratic-in case you haven't noticed it, the U.S.-imposed "governments" in both Iraq and Afghanistan are still considered a joke by everyone who lives in those countries.
It's not as if those places would be better if the Arab Spring wasn't happening, or if the Shah hadn't been overthrown(we both know the Shah's removal from power couldn't have been prevented anyway).
You're acting like somebody in the Johnson, Nixon or Reagan administrations...acting as if it were possible to freeze history until a "better" outcome could be imposed on it from outside. It's not possible to have prevented the Arab Spring or to have saved the Shah...and trying to do either would only have made the U.S. and Israel even more despised in the region. Why even bother with what would have to have been futile?
If you don't claim to be fighting for human rights or progressive values, why did you feel entitled to invoke them in the name of defending the Occupation...especially since you know the Occupation hasn't fothered either of those things?
In the end...and this saddens me...your position comes down to the assumption that Palestinians, other Arabs and Muslims are inherently morally inferior to you-and inherently incapable of EVER governing themselves in a civilized manner-and therefore, they MUST be kept in permanent subjugation to either Israel or the U.S. This is a racist position, it is also essentially a fascist position, and worst of all, it is a position that can't ever lead to Palestinians deciding not to see you as their enemy(a decision that is a necessary precondition to getting them to not shoot at you.)It doesn't matter what you actually say, it's the logic of your argument in defense of the Occupation.
(btw, you ARE a soldier in an army...so why is it any different for Palestinians to shoot at you than it is for you to shoot at them? You can't still believe that you, pelsar, are ALWAYS somehow the victim in this exchange-are personally the oppressed while the Palestinians are the oppressors. That's delusional. Your use of force cannot always be assumed to be morally privileged over their use of it. The use of force is the use of force, and killing is just killing. I don't want YOU getting shot at...but I don't want Palestinian civilians getting shot either. The lives on both sides are of value.)
pelsar
(12,283 posts)you believe that if we do X, then there will be peace. I did not ask if you are responsible, i asked if you are satisfied with the results? or at least the process.
are you?
its really a simple question and we see what you believe should happen actually happening to various arab countries over the years:
Iran, gaza, syria, egypt, Libya.
they are all now "breathing" and according to you will now become western democratic (as i understand your theory). WELL?
Has not gaza followed the very path that you perscribe? no israeli settlements, Palestenian voting in their rulers, governed by their own ... So i ask you again, are you satisfied with gaza and the path they are now on? (come on now, just answer, you've already said your not responsible....)
___
btw, i am not a victim...i don't have that mindset, so you can cross that off your preconceived notions) oh yea, stop with the racist crap, your the one who has shown intolerance not me.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)You accused ME of trying to tell the future...isn't that what YOU are doing there...ascribing the worst possible intents to Palestinians simply because they are Arab?
How is that NOT racist?
It's pretty much the same thing as assuming that every white person in Massachusetts is a segregationist because most white people in Mississippi were.
You can't just come to an absolute conclusion that Arabs must forever be denied the right to govern themselves. Until the last 200 years or so, most of the governments of Europe were just as repressive as the Arab states are now...and yet THOSE places changed. Is it not the height of Euro-centric arrogance to assume that ONLY people in Europe can free themselves and govern themselves?
And...again...how can you think that maintaining the Occupation can prevent the nightmare scenarios you keep conjuring up? How can preserving the status quo possibly have ANY effect other than to give the most extreme elements in Palestinian politics the only possible conditions under which they can make their case? At one point will the Occupation create the magic alchemy you seem to think it will create and show the Palestinians "the error of their ways"? While I'll concede that democratic political cultures, in the PAST, were created under a military occupation, that does NOT mean they were ever created BECAUSE of it. The Zionists didn't create a democracy BECAUSE the British Army was occupying Palestine. And it's not even an unchallengeable position that the postwar occupation of West Germany made that country a democracy-the anti-democratic forces had already been permanently crushed in the war, and the pro-democracy people, on their own, were making the case among the German people that they needed to make a democratic future. If the occupation there had any real effect(and again, it's morally wrong to compare Palestinians to the occupants of the former Nazi state, since Palestinians never wanted anything similar to what Hitler wanted)it was to
essentially make the West Germans feel obligated to waste their votes by making the so-called "Christian Democrats" the dominant party of the Federal Republic-to put the CDU, party with more former Nazi supporters in its ranks than any other postwar party the position of "natural governing party" instead of the Social Democrats, the party that was most purely anti-fascist and anti-Holocaust-that, and the forced rehabilitation of far too many ex-Nazis, were the main things the postwar U.S. occupation of West Germany achieved.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)all of your attempts to change the subject will not help.....I'm not biting.
i shall ask again, a simple question:
gaza has followed your theory of israeli idf removal, settlements destroyed, gazans voting, and the govt that voted in has the right genes (nationalism)....they are now 'breathing"
are you satisfied? is this not exactly the process that you've been preaching about....
well?
i have made no assumptions what so ever, I'm simple asking....
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)What happened in Gaza does NOT prove that that's the only thing that CAN happen if Palestinians gain independence.
It simply isn't as simple as you think it is.
And it simply isn't possible to produce a better outcome by KEEPING the IDF in the West Bank.
That is my answer...it isn't a "yes or no" OR an "either/or" question, so you can't expect that sort of answer.
I've now put your query to rest.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)thats just one of your million assumptions.
ok so now we have established that at least in gaza, your "breathing" theory of IDF leaving, settlements destroyed, Palestenians voting and getting theocratic dictatorship can be considered a failure....
fair enough?
and i repeat, i do not claim that this is inevitable as if god commanded it (though I'm sure hamas believes so), but we clearly see where you theory does not always work.
i think thats a reasonable conclusion..
do you agree (then we can move on.)
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Nor did I ever claim to be infallible.
What happened in Gaza is irrelevant...and it does NOT justify keeping the status quo in place in the West Bank.
What you defend protects no one.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)irrelevant to whom? to israelis, to Palestinians? to the PA to Hamas, to the Egyptians, to the Iranians? or just to you?
______
i understand that you have to avoid talking about gaza and declare that its "irrelevant" after all, lets face it, gaza was done exactly as per your posts and the end result was Hamas governing.
so just for fun: why is gaza irrelevant? you don't like that hamas took over once they started "breathing?" or you don't care now that they are governing by their own and civil rights are no longer a relevant issue (thats what i believe is your stand).
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)The Occupation was never GOOD for civil rights. It couldn't ever BE good for civil rights. It's not as though people in Gaza would be freer if only the IDF was still there. They had no civil rights in Gaza UNDER the Occupation.
Gaza does NOT prove that the Occupation of the West Bank has to go on.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)what you suggest is called "political theory" it putting for a bunch of political moves that you believe will produce an end result.
If your political theory requires a nationalistic state and that is the enough, then i would say your political theory has worked: Hamas controlling gaza is the epitome of a fanatic right wing racist nationalist state, but it is their state....they are "breathing."
and i would say congratulations are in order.
_____
however you also claim that your for "western civil rights"....well in that part, if that is really true, than having hamas in power is massive failure for your theory. Not only has the "civil rights" gone backward in gaza, hamas is creating an independent society that appears will be working/trading with an equally islamic egypt and iran. Western civil rights will simply not an issue.
____
On the assumption that your not satisfied with the result (you claim you don't like hamas...), the question is 'what went wrong"...after all we're all familiar with the statement:
Only a fool repeats the same thing over and over again and hopes for a different result
hence anyone who is not a "believer" but bases their belief on actual events, would look at gaza and wonder: what went wrong?
well, are you a religious in your beliefs or are they 'event based"? (a telling sign is the inability of the religious based beliefs to offer alternatives, options, they usually repeat the same mantra no matter what happens)
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I am not personally responsible for the current situation in Gaza. And Hamas would still dominate Gaza if the IDF were still occupying the place. After all, Fatah took political control of the West Bank while the IDF was there.
Also, I don't want a "nationalistic state" anywhere. I want democratic states everywhere. But what you are missing is that keeping the Occupation going in the West Bank hasn't STOPPED nationalism. Nor can it. How can keeping one country's troops in control of another country possibly lead to the control with the troops developing democracy. Palestine has nothing in common at all with the postwar Germany and Japan, so it's not appropriate to compare it to those situations, as you rather smugly did. The days when "democracy" can be imposed with bayonets are gone, my friend. They ended forever in the jungles of Vietnam.
So what do you want from me?
Do you seriously expect me to buy your argument that the Occupation is some how a positive thing for Palestinians? Or that Gaza would be Hamasrein if only the IDF hadn't left? Neither argument has any basis in reality, since Hamas grew UNDER the Occupation.
There's no inconsistency in being anti-Occupation AND anti-Hamas-any more than there was in supporting American independence while the Thirteen Colonies still had slave plantations, mass illiteracy, poor sanitation, low, life expectancy, no right to vote for women or people of color, and the beginnings of the genocide against Native Americans-a state of affairs, in short, far worse than current conditions in Gaza or the West Bank.
To cynically use the rhetoric of "democracy" to justify maintaining the status quo in the West Bank is just as bad as those white South Africans who smugly called the ANC "terrorist" and said that they were keeping apartheid in place "for their own good".
Nobody, anywhere, deserves to be told that they aren't ready to govern themselves. To do so is, in fact, to express a colonial idea.
Even Mahatma Gandhi rejected it.
So I've proved I'm not a "religious believer", and I've proved I'm not an apologist for freaking Hamas. Don't ever call me either again. I don't have to agree with YOU on these issues just to prove I'm a serious and open-minded person.
shira
(30,109 posts)You say that if Israel quits the occupation and uproots settlements in the W.Bank, as it did in Gaza, there would be peace, civil rights, and democracy.
But you were wrong about Gaza. In fact, things have gotten worse there. Worse for the Palestinians there and worse for the Israelis who are the targets of Hamas rockets.
You seem to want more of the same WRT the W.Bank.
If there is no peace after a W.Bank withdrawal and the W.Bank turns to shit like Gaza, then what will you say or do?
Will you apologize? Admit your error?
I doubt you'd do or say anything about the lack of democracy and civil rights in the W.Bank after a withdrawal. So it really appears, in conclusion, that all you truly care about - and all you will advocate - is rightwing nationalism. How are we wrong?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)(also, I never said that JUST ending the occupation would bring peace. I said there also had to be a real recognition process that would include not just compensation to those who weren't allowed to return to their homes but apologies for their expulsion and an admission that Arabs had just as deeo a connection to the area as those people who identify as Israelis, plus a truth and reconciliation position. Don't distort or simplify my views.)
Sharon made it sound like Gaza was all Palestinians were going to get, and did not treat Palestinians of any stripe with any respect as he handled the so-called "withdrawal". It can't be compared to the West Bank situation at all.
I want an end to the oppression of Palestinians in the West Bank. How can that possibly happen WITHOUT the Occupation ending and without the settlements being removed? We both know the land area taken up by the settlements is too large to make it possible to make a real state on the pitiful remnants that weren't taken by the settlers.
You have never made a case for any possible way that the Occupation can ever lead to anything better for the people of the West Bank. You have never made it because you know that no such case exists and that no Palestinians at all really want the Occupation to go on(the handful who say they do are comparable to the tiny handful of black collaborators with the old apartheid regime in South Africa-in any country, you'll always find sellouts and opportunists).
shira
(30,109 posts)The problem is that you can't bring yourself to admit that what Hamas and the PLO really, truly want is not self-determination, recognition, compensation, end of occupation, settlements, etc...
That's all nice and they'll take that, but what they really want is the end of Israel.
You should know that by now.
If they wanted their own land, they could have had it back in 2000 had they negotiated in good faith. They would have asked for the things you think they require in order to close the deal. But they didn't. How do you square that? You don't. You just keep repeating the same, stale cockamamy BS.
Please stop telling us that we believe the occupation is a good thing for Palestinians and that it must continue. The point we're trying to make is that your theology (and that's what it is b/c it's based on nothing but blind faith) doesn't work. It doesn't lead to anything better for either the Palestinians or the Israelis. That said, maintaining the occupation is the lesser of 2 evils and that's all we're saying. When the PLO, Hamas, etc.. want peace, they know they can have it almost immediately. It's up to them.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Reality doesn't support the idea that the status quo is good for anybody.
shira
(30,109 posts)You need to realize the majority of Israeli Liberals, the Israeli Left, disagrees with you. And it's not just them. The American Liberal Left, nearly all Democrats in Congress and the Senate, also disagree with you.
You know your arguments are crap when you have to fabricate reasons as to why your opponents don't agree with you.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)If you're on a discussion board asking your opponents questions while expecting answers in return, then we should expect answers to our questions. We very rarely get them, which leads us to believe you know you're wrong, you can't defend your view, but you'll keep on advocating for it anyway. The only question that really remains is 'why'. Why advocate for a position you know to be wrong, harmful, and unjust.
I am for 2 states and I don't demonize Palestinians, so it makes no sense responding to the rest of your post. Demonization means resorting to half-truths, lies, and exaggerations in order to paint one side in the worst light possible. When I criticize Hamas, the PLO, and advocates for the Palestinian cause who advocate the same positions as Hamas and the PLO, I don't have to lie or exaggerate. Do you really think that legitimate criticism = demonization?
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)my so called opposites are those who claim to oh so want a 2 state solution but then claim there isn't one because it's all the Palestinians fault over things that happened in the past Olmert's offer was popular for quite a time until it was shown to be a falsehood, now in vogue excuse is Taba which was over a decade ago, however it is never quite explained why if Israel so wants a 'solution' to or peace why it does not make the Palestinians those same offers now, but rather keeps building and building and building some more.
The conclusion we're left with is that Israel has the peace it wants in the West Bank and what Israel wants there now is more of a piece not peace
as to your questions not getting answered don't you mean that you do not get the answers you desire so in a IMO rather childish way claim the question wasn't answered at all?
all that said explain this if you do not lie or exaggerate explain your claims about Olmert and Khalood Bawadi? that's just for starters
oh and you did not answer who "we" is, seems or could be taken to be an admission of an organized effort by a third party here on DU, if not then explain who "we" are ?
shira
(30,109 posts)My opponents here tend to hold positions that are identical to those of known antizionists and their organizations. I can't buy that 2 state advocates happen to also be fans of the Free Gaza Movement, ISM, BDS, PSC, IAW, GM2J, etc. Those organizations are clearly anti-zionist, for one state, and against peace. Maybe you can explain how it is that you're for 2 states but closer in ideology to the one staters than you are Zionist 2-staters.
my so called opposites are those who claim to oh so want a 2 state solution but then claim there isn't one because it's all the Palestinians fault over things that happened in the past
The Palestinians didn't counter Israel's offer. You don't hold them accountable one bit for that. The reason being, if you did, that would be hasbara.
Olmert's offer was popular for quite a time until it was shown to be a falsehood,
No falsehood about it. Erekat and Abbas said Olmert's offer was serious. The Geneva Initiative people commended Olmert for his efforts.
now in vogue excuse is Taba which was over a decade ago,
The Palestinians owe the world an explanation as to why they not only rejected that offer, but chose to start Intifada 2.
however it is never quite explained why if Israel so wants a 'solution' to or peace why it does not make the Palestinians those same offers now, but rather keeps building and building and building some more.
What makes you think the Palestinians would accept if the offer was on the table now? If Israel were to offer it now, would that prove to you Israel wants peace?
The conclusion we're left with is that Israel has the peace it wants in the West Bank and what Israel wants there now is more of a piece not peace
That's the conclusion you want to believe.
How about the conclusion that the PLO doesn't want peace and wants Israel destroyed? Has that ever crossed your mind?
as to your questions not getting answered don't you mean that you do not get the answers you desire so in a IMO rather childish way claim the question wasn't answered at all?
You know very well what I mean when you never answer questions. Don't be coy.
all that said explain this if you do not lie or exaggerate explain your claims about Olmert and Khalood Bawadi? that's just for starters
What's there to explain? Erekat and Abbas said Olmert's offer was serious. Badawi intentionally lied in order to smear Israel. "See, this is what those inhumane bastards do to children". Explain the lie or exaggeration.
oh and you did not answer who "we" is, seems or could be taken to be an admission of an organized effort by a third party here on DU, if not then explain who "we" are ?
Are you afraid of your shadow? I think you see Zionist conspiracies everywhere. Obviously the "we" here refers to me, Pelsar, and Shakti WRT Ken's arguments.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)“While the (Israeli army) did not target the girl directly, they launched an attack with three missiles on a densely populated area, which caused
the death of the girl, the injury of three civilians and the damage of several houses in the area,” Al Mezan noted in a statement.
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=471498
Raja Salam 'Abd al-Karim Abu Sh'aban
2 year-old resident of Gaza city, killed on 09.08.2006 in Gaza city. Did not participate in hostilities when killed. Additional information: Fell off a slide and bumped her head when a missile fired by the IDF hit an orchard 100 meters from the house.
http://old.btselem.org/statistics/english/Casualties_Data.asp?Category=13®ion=GAZA&sD=29&sM=09&sY=2000&eD=26&eM=12&eY=2008&filterby=event&oferet_stat=before
Shaul Arieli of the Council for Peace and Security, which developed a map with a final border as part of the Geneva Initiative, said Israel's capacity to swap territory with a future Palestinian state is more limited than what Olmert reportedly proposed.
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/haaretz-exclusive-olmert-s-plan-for-peace-with-the-palestinians-1.1970
Nabil Abu Rdainah, Abbas's spokesman, told the official Palestinian news agency WAFA that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's plan showed a "lack of
seriousness."
Under the proposal, Israel would return to the Palestinians 93 percent of the West Bank, plus all of the Gaza Strip, when the Palestinian
Authority regains control over the Gaza Strip, which the militant group Hamas seized from forces loyal to Abbas in June 2006.
Olmert presented Abbas with the proposal as part of an agreement in principle on borders, refugees and security arrangements between Israel and a future Palestinian state
http://www.haaretz.com/news/pa-rejects-olmert-s-offer-to-withdraw-from-93-of-west-bank-1.251578
Netanyahu: I won't carry out an Olmert-Abbas peace deal if elected
Opposition leader favored by polls to sweep elections if held today rejects proposal to divide Jerusalem, says would toss out agreement between current PM, Palestinians
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3533242,00.html
ok? so what do the Palestinians owe the world again? what conclusion? none of your claims and/or diversions account for Israels continuing to expand the settlements nor do they explain away that Israel is about to make 3 outposts official settlements,
___________________________________________________________________________________________
now as to my not answering your questions I was hardly coy as you claim I was quite plain in my words so once I again I do answer but when you do not get what you want you claim to have gotten nothing
___________________________________________________________________________________________
and now my favorite the Zionist conspiracy accusation nope I am afraid of very little here on DU, you did however play coy the first time I asked so I worded the question in a way I knew would get an answer and guess what you gave me the one I expected it's just I wonder if Shakti and Pelsar would agree maybe so maybe no 
shira
(30,109 posts)When I ask you questions or point to things that contradict your reports and prove them false, I want you to acknowledge you're wrong. Or at the very least, admit that you don't have enough evidence to prove your POV. I will do the same in return.
Deal?
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)feel free to interpret that any way you like but I can do it for you if you like be sure to let me know okay?
shira
(30,109 posts)You seemed pretty confident about Olmert/Badawi just a few posts back. How about an honest exchange, no bullshit, no distractions, no evasions? Otherwise you're making the case for me. The point being that just about every single anti-Israel claim is complete horseshit, incapable of being defended honestly. Just ugly smears and libel.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)First: Olmert
1. Erekat was quoted saying Olmert's offer was serious:
http://blogs.mcclatchydc.com/jerusalem/2009/06/former-israeli-pm-olmert-im-not-dead.html
"It's very sad," said Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. "He was serious, I have to say."
2. Olmert was given the royal treatment by the Geneva Initiative organization, which claimed his offer was very similar to theirs. An email reply from their Director of Foreign Relations confirms it:
http://upload.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=124&topic_id=339669&mesg_id=340032
And now Badawi
You must have forgotten that I already cited a Reuters correction a few weeks ago showing they apologized for reporting the story wrong the first time around. Here's their correction:
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)anything I posted especially the stuff concerning Khalood Bawadi's tweet which does not mention the name of the child killed
she was killed because of the sound or blast wave causing her to fall, so apparently if the bomb did not fall directly on her Israel had nothing to do with her death
now I am trying to imagine what the raving and outcry would be if the death of a Jewish child were parsed in such a manner, but we see it all the time where the death of a Palestinian child is concerned
on Olmert-Erekat may have thought it a 'serious' offer too bad the Israeli government did not agree
shira
(30,109 posts)...from having an open, honest debate on these 2 issues. The facts prove your claims to be false and your sources crap, but you can't admit it.
Classic.
Let's remember this one, okay?
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)do you think your proclaiming this or that makes it so, it certainly seems that way and perhaps it is in your world.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)and no i don't believe your have an open mind...as you stated earlier, people who don't believe like you do, you seem to disrespect their view and beliefs as if the 'don't count" "have be bought off" etc......that is not characteristic of someone with an open mind.
but enough of that...you seem not to have noticed that i am not claiming that the occupation is a positive thing
Do you seriously expect me to buy your argument that the Occupation is some how a positive thing for Palestinians?
you like to make up stuff, so you can make your arguments as comfortable as possible...for instance I never said your an apologist for hamas, yet for some reason you think i claim that.
__________
what i am claiming is that in the hierarchy of values your far more nationalistic than "civil rights". You seem to believe that people should first and for most be governed by people of their own similar genetics (we'll ignore the racial aspects of that for now) and only after that can one address the fact that the citizens have to right to civil liberties.
I don't care what you "anti"....i'm far more fascinated in "how much" what is worse in your eyes, what is better.....
Clearly you still believe that the process that of israeli disengagement from gaza and their voting and hamas take over is acceptable to you as a Palestinian choice.
i'm just clarifying it. (and it has nothing to do with the occupation, just the process that you seem to believe in).
I understanding better now, that in the progressive world, the final result is actually not that important, what is important is the process....is that true?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)If they are living as an independent country, rather than under some other country's occupation. Also, I go with Mahatma Gandhi's quote about people preferring to have a bad government that they run themselves rather than any government imposed by someone else.
And you are lying about me when you say I don't care about civil rights. I simply reject the idea that the Palestinians are more likely to create a state with civil rights if they are forced to live under at the mercy of the IDF for decades to come. That's completely different than dismissing the importance of civil rights. I care about them...and there's no contradiction between that and supporting self-determination. The two go together.
I don't have to place fighting Hamas first to prove that I care about civil rights. Hamas is not more important than everything else in the entire situation. Why do you pretend that it is? And we both know that defeating Hamas couldn't possibly lead to a more democratic Palestine.
You have never accurately described my views...you have just cynically twisted to personally demonize me.
And as to the argument that I place people governing themselves before EVERYTHING else...you do realize that there's a massive irony in you making that argument as a committed Zionist, don't you? The whole basis of Zionism is that a particular people can ONLY be free if they get to live in their own enclave, with power over everybody else who happens to have a home in said enclave.
Why do you keep pretending that keeping the Occupation in place is about protecting civil rights when it never has been.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)thats why you have no serious problem with hamas ruling gaza.
I don't have to place fighting Hamas first to prove that I care about civil rights
no you don't, since you've made it clear that you have something very strongly in common with the right:
people preferring to have a bad government that they run themselves
even when that includes a facist dictatorship that is cruel to the its minorities, dangerous to the area around as well as everybody else
btw Mahatma Gandhi's time has past and his philosophies are no longer relevant in the year 2012
which brings us back to gaza....they are now governed by their own, so we can assume that you are now satisfied with the result and see a repeat of such on the west bank as a positive development....i believe you have made that VERY CLEAR.
btw
there is no "irony" as a zionist, since zionism unlike hamas and the PAs ..both of which use religious law as a foundation to their rules..i.e. racist. Zionism has a western foundation law of civil rights for everybody.
Why do you keep pretending that keeping the Occupation in place is about protecting civil rights when it never has been.
I dont, you keep writing it and i keep ignoring it because its nonsense
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)Fine. What is keeping Palestine from doing the same? Why do they need more than Israel, Germany or Japan to build their democracy? You have always said that ending the occupation would bring peace, right? But in Gaza it brought violence. So if ending the occupation and making concessions and breaking down all the settlements will have only a negative effect on Israel, why do it?
You're asking Israel to risk a lot considering that Palestine has yet to show that they are capable of maintaining a peaceful democratic state. Why not let them build it and get it up and running before the occupation is ended? Do you think that they are that inferior to all those other states that managed to do so much more with so much less?
Palestinians should be building a democracy for themselves regardless of whatever Israel does. It's for them after all. Why do they need Israel to bribe them to avert total failure like you insist?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Israel doesn't gain any real security from keeping things as they are. Why can't you see that?
And why can't you see that keeping the IDF in the West Bank is the best possible way to PREVENT democracy from taking root there?
There's nothing positive in the current situation...no one is made safer by preserving it. It not only isn't good for Palestine, it's a disaster for Israel. It does not keep Israelis safe and it can't lead to peace. Why pretend otherwise?
No one should ever die for a stalemate.
shira
(30,109 posts)Israel could do all that it agreed to do WRT the Clinton Initiatives back in 2000. They could make it happen tomorrow. But that would not be enough. War would continue. The likelihood (something like 99.99999%) is that things would get far worse. So what's to gain?
Note the parallel to the Arab Spring. Take for example Egypt. You thought the Arab Spring would lead to good things. But it's getting worse. I'm sure you still believe, despite things getting worse for all, that you were right. Why? What was to gain from that? If the choice is between Mubarak and worse than Mubarak, why choose the latter?
Same goes WRT the occupation. If the choice is b/w the occupation and a situation that is worse than that, why choose the latter?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)It's not as if the status quo makes ANYBODY at all safer or freer.
Why can't you see that they way things are now just doesn't work?
shira
(30,109 posts)You feel that "worse than Mubarak" is better than Mubarak.
You feel that "worse than the occupation" is better than the occupation.
Why would anyone sane choose a situation that is more harmful and dangerous than the status quo? If I could summarize your position in one sentence it would be:
"Fine, the situation will be worse, nothing will improve for anyone, but it's all for the best".
Do you agree with that line?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)My position is that there's no hope in the status quo. You know perfectly well that I'm right about that, and that perpetuating the Occupation can NEVER lead to a Palestinian leadership more to Israel's liking.
You also know that it's wrong to punish ALL Palestinians for the actions of an extremist minority.
It's not just about ending the Occupation...it's about the reconciliation and restitution process that has to accompany it. One of the most important things those who self-identify as "pro-Israel" could do would be to admit(as people like Michael Lerner do)that Palestinians DO have the right to be angry about what happened to them in 1948, and about the treatment they've received under the Occupation, and the settlements, and that they have the right to regard all of that as a series of injustices. Acknowledging that, admitting that the anger those people feel is valid legitimate even if you reject the tactics some use to express it(and I DO reject those tactics and have said so)cannot possibly harm Israel's security. And it might be the ONLY way to get Palestinians to support a different leadership and different approaches(things that you know as well as I perpetuating the status quo can NEVER achieve).
The one thing than CAN jeopardize Israeli security is to say nothing, back Bibi and Barak in public, and encourage the Israeli government to stay in the self-destructive patterns of stalling for time and "creating facts on the ground".
pelsar
(12,283 posts)their attempts at continuing what hitler tried to do and to the very survivors of hitler puts the Palestenian and all of their friends and allies in a position of being in essence 'hitlers friend.' for that a mere apology will not suffice. Not only was the attempt at killing the jews in 48 bad enough, but they again tried in 67...and if that wasn't enough they invented modern terrorism via attacks on israeli children as targets..hence they own not just us israelis an apology but the whole damn world for their inventiveness.
In fact they should be thanking us for not doing to them, what they tried to do to us...after we receive that apology, we'll consider the next step.
We'll start with those apologies from hamas, the PA, fatah, islamic jihad first......
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)attempting to continue the Holocaust?
just as offensive as if it were said of Israeli's IMO
pelsar
(12,283 posts)if as i understand his post that the zionist are akin to the whites of S. Afrika (i.e. the whole thing is the white mans fault)....then i shall give him the other side.....
fantatical viewpoints bring out fanatical viewpoints...if Mr Ken would like to climb down from his simplistic one sided devoid of history viewpoint...then i shall adjust my post.
its just a mirror
______
Violet_Crumble
(35,961 posts)What you posted was bigoted and revolting, and there's no excuse or justification for it. If you actually don't hold the viewpoint that Palestinians are like Nazis, then I wish you'd delete yr post....
pelsar
(12,283 posts)The Palestenians and arabs may have intended to slaughter many of the israelis in 48, but i don't believe they would have taken up where the nazis left off....
however
the concept that this all israels fault and israel owes the Palestinians apologies is just as pathetic...
Violet_Crumble
(35,961 posts)Yr still trying to make excuses for posting something that was revolting, and you still haven't gone back and deleted it. If you truly thought something was disgusting, you wouldn't have posted it in the first place, and you wouldn't need to be asked twice to go back and delete it....
pelsar
(12,283 posts)Last edited Fri Apr 6, 2012, 01:37 AM - Edit history (4)
Hence whether or not i believe they are disgusting or not, it appears to be the standard and i've decided to attempt to meet that standard...while at the same time not only wondering if i can actually write such crap but certainly curious to see how one can accuse me of disgusting exaggerations while constantly reading the following:
israel is starving the gazans
Israel is massacring the Palestinians
the IDF is stealing organs from the Palestinians
gaza is a concentration camp
gaza equals the warsaw ghetto
all of those are nazi tactics, that since the word nazi is left out, it is acceptable...i.e. call us nazis just don't use the word: a very PC solution.
and a few more equally disgusting statements
israel is carpet bombing the gazans
kassams are little more than fire crackers.......
Israel controls the egyptian foreign policy
israel control the US congress..
now normally i spend days, weeks tediously going through posts asking for proof, definitions and sometimes the poster after literally a year or two may actually drop the accusation...untll the next one.
so my proposal here, is that those who believe my post is not within the standard accusations here, because i used the "N" word, just ask that i remove the "N" word and just "hint" it....that in fact is the standard is it not?
Nasti accusations based on a minimal evidence and flexible definitions.
Violet_Crumble
(35,961 posts)I've asked you to delete what you said. You haven't. What you posted was revolting and incredibly bigoted, and right up till now I thought better of you than that. But now you've made it very clear that you just don't see the problem with what you posted...
Absolutely revolting.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)i'm not blaming anybody for my post...i wrote it, my words....i just made a decision to join the ethics of the community
see how easy this is;
did the Palestinians and others want to massacre the immigrants of jews from the german camps?....
well they did massacre the jewish doctors nurses on the way to haddassa hospital...guess from that i can infer the rest (that is how its done here, take a little fact and expand upon)
pretty pathetic isn't it...just as pathetic as accusing us of carpet bombing, concentrations camps, starving the Palestenians....
absoluty revolting
____
i have been here for a few years...and the middle east has gone through massives changes of all sorts with all kinds of different events..yet one aspect has not changed.....
the accusations upon israel....they pile up one after another, sometimes obvious sometimes subtle...making israel out to be some kind of monster society
absoluty revolting
___
Violet_Crumble
(35,961 posts)What I find inexcusable is that you seem to think it's acceptable to make a totally bigoted comment like you did because yr apparently pissed off that something was posted that was extreme at some point. So fucking what? Using that 'logic', should I run round making bigoted comments about Israelis because there's been some posts in the past making ugly and bigoted comments about Palestinians? Of course not, so why do you think you should do it?
And you ARE blaming others for what you posted. It's the 'but they made me do it!' defence'...
pelsar
(12,283 posts)is more of a 'enough is enough' kind of response.
when were accused of carpet bombing gaza, starving the gazans, etc etc etc etc...all are extreme positions that in fact are simply wrong.
as far as I'm understand i'm expected to explain why its not true and do so patiently and use the facts i have, to back it up. As soon as i am done with that, soon the IDF will be accused of stealing organs out of the Palestinians....after a week of those explanations, i will come across something else...and so on and so forth.
those accusations together create a bigoted picture of Israel as a racist country. Apparently what i write has little affect since the accuations just keep on coming in different variations.....
so why not reverse it?....i'll take a little fact that the haddassa nurses and doctors were massacres and do what i see here?...expand upon it and make the hint that in fact, that perhaps that really is the plan for all of the jewish israelis. i.e. genocide.
i'll let the others here prove that its not so...
logical? not really, at least not for me, but hey..thats the standard here, and i can adapt to the environment.
and that revolution you felt when you read it?..welcome to my world
Violet_Crumble
(35,961 posts)You were the one who called Palestinians a bunch of Hitlers. You and you alone. I honestly believe after reading the past few posts that you really don't see there's a problem with making ugly and bigoted comments about Palestinians, as all you seem to want to do is go on about Israelis. Yr just so wrapped up in it that you haven't even bothered to pause and have a think about what I said in the post yr replying to. So I'll point it out yet again in the hope you take some notice. Comments are made about Palestinians that are negative generalisations. Don't sit there pretending it only gets aimed at Israelis. And don't try to justify yr post with that extremely bigoted comment by pointing to what anyone says. We're all supposed to be adults here. How about taking responsibility for what you say and actually saying things that you honestly believe? Because if you can't do that, and you don't apologise for posting that or go back and delete it, I'll go looking for people who honestly want to discuss the conflict and don't indulge in making bigoted comments. The ball's in yr court...
pelsar
(12,283 posts)and i do see the problem with making ugly and bigoted comments about Palestinians...that was why i did it. Precisely why I did it...
you wrote you were disgusted...well welcome to my world when i read that kind of crap about israelis and its acceptable.
do you feel that disgust when we're accused of stealing organs from Palestinians? do you feel that disgust when when were accused of making gaza in to concentration camp?
if not, then it should be clear about the double standard that is so glaring here and that is the point of the post and that would be an interesting discussion.....
if there is one standard or two?
Violet_Crumble
(35,961 posts)They didn't. But that's all you want to talk about is how it's about someone or something else, so don't try changing the subject, or yet again turning it into being all about Israelis and nothing else.
Here's a dose of reality for you to chew on. People who call Israelis a bunch of Hitlers and Nazis get banned. They don't when it's Palestinians they're aiming those slurs at. Don't pretend anything otherwise. I have zero respect for anyone who'd call either Palestinians or Israelis Nazis or a bunch of Hitlers, not even if they say afterwards 'oh! I was only trying to make a point!!'.
I had a fair bit of respect for you up till now, pelsar, but that post blew it all away...
shira
(30,109 posts)Now here's mine:
pelsar
(12,283 posts)I'm very aware of the PC game played here: one doesn't call israelis nazis...one uses the descriptive words of the nazis to describe israeli actions.
its a childs game:
gaza the concentration camp (gosh kind of reminds us of what the nazis did...)
gaza the warsaw ghetto (another nazi connection)
carpet bombing (images of berlin, dresden come up)
and so it goes and all equally disgusting and vile, (but at least they didn't call us nazis so its acceptable
______
your just mad because i didn't to use the proper PC translations, but that was intentional (since that would have gotten no response what so ever).
Violet_Crumble
(35,961 posts)It all boils down to you pointing to someone or something else as being the reason you posted something that was bigoted and incredibly ugly. I've noticed that you always try to steer the discussion away from what you posted to what someone else posted. I'm guessing if I keep on replying, you'll keep on returning and posting the same 'look over there!' stuff repeatedly. So fucking what? I've lost track of all the Nazi comparisons when it comes to the Palestinians, but actually calling either people a bunch of Hitlers is right up there as being the worst. Congrats on breaking that barrier..
Yr not getting it. btw, I'm disappointed at you, not mad. I actually think yr better than that, and while I would have expected it from one or two others, not you. Also, not being particularly PC myself, I don't react to ridiculous claims that I'm being PC. I just say what I think and run with it from there.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)Last edited Sat Apr 7, 2012, 03:51 AM - Edit history (2)
and that was the reason for it..however it was not aimed at you. Now it gets tricky because, i am not apologizing for the post, not in any form shape or matter. I will however give you a more detailed explanation for it, and you can decide yourself whether or not you see it as an excuse or not.
Ken has many times accused me of mistakenly liking the Palestinians to Nazis, it doesn't really bother me, and i never bothered to "call him on it, since it was never relevant to the discussion. However it was clear to me that this is a red button for him. Hence, when ken made with his exaggeration and simplistic post, i responded with an equally simplistic post using for what i see as an "red button" for him an attempt as talking to him in his "language." Clearly you have that very same "red button" but 1000x more sensitive.
i dont....being called a nazi is pretty much "day to day." be it directly or indirectly (gaza the concentration camp- makes me a concentration camp guard) .When I'm accused of it be directly or indirectly, the images come clearly to mind and disgust me as does the accusation since there is nothing to compare...however, i have no sensitivity personally to that so i have no problem using it in reverse.
but ken does....or so i assume, hence the post....an attempt to elicit a reaction and discussion with him on what i consider a simplest naive, one sided solution.
anyway, you can take this as an explanation or an excuse its up to you...
____
a side note is that i do intentionally being the discussions to be "about me"..its a bit more difficult to accuse the IDF of being mass murders or acting as nazis etc when one of them gets to respond directly to the accuser, sometimes it works sometimes it doesn't.
Violet_Crumble
(35,961 posts)I don't like it when either Israelis or Palestinians are likened to Nazis, and I've always wished there was an auto-delete function available to deal with any godwinising so I didn't have to look at it when I visited DU. I have this 'meh. Not again.' reaction to one or two folk who love their godwinising, but you are someone who I don't expect to see it from, and I'm far harsher on those I get on with that those folk I don't...
I think both you and Ken are good blokes, and what you say you see of him isn't what I see, and visa versa. What I think the problem is is that both of you have such different posting and thinking processes that nothing connects and there's lots of misunderstandings and it all turns into a bit of a mess. There's only one person in this group who I'd read and go 'I don't agree with anything you said, but goddam, we're like cyber-twins coz we write the same way even if I write far more longer and pointless waffling sentences!' Unfortunately they had a kidlet and don't post anymore 
But what I don't want to see, and that goes for anyone in this group I have a soft spot for (y'all know who you are) is posting some nasty and bigoted stuff to try to prove some point because they think someone else has done it. C'mon, we're better than that! Yes, it'd be so fucking tempting to react to a hypothetical DUer who justifies bigotry against Muslims by pulling the exact same 'logic' on them in reverse when it comes to Jews. But you think that for a second, and then cringe a bit at the thought of not only the instant PPR, but having to type the hateful shit that you actually find revolting yrself, and you end up giving it a miss. I was a bit blindsided by yr question aimed at me that I know you know full well the answer to already, seeing as how you and me have been around in this forum for years and you know how I feel? You know how I feel about things like comparing Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto, and I've been very outspoken in the old I/P forum about it...
Can I ask you that in future I'm never going to be caught out with you posting some ugly stuff that I know you don't actually believe yrself? I enjoy reading yr posts when yr talking about how things are in Israel, but I don't enjoy them when I encounter a clanger like that one. Leave that stuff to the trolls, and get more value out of being informative about stuff on the ground...
pelsar
(12,283 posts)and don't worry about Ken and i...i know he's a good guy.... yes our thinking processes are very very different, but that in fact is the standard here in the conflict.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Last edited Sun Apr 8, 2012, 08:37 AM - Edit history (2)
that it went too far), had and has nothing to do, in MY mind with Naziism (btw, the bombing of Dresden was the R.A.F. bombing Germany, not Germany bombing somebody else).
For me, the association was with the U.S. bombing of North(and, at times, parts of South)Vietnam.
I was not equating Israel with Nazi Germany...nor would I ever do so.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I never spread the organ theft smear, and in fact I'm pretty sure I attacked it. I certainly never believed such a disgusting claim, and from what I read, nobody here believed it either(if anyone did, I assume it got them banned and properly so).
And nothing I have ever said about Israel was comparable to either that OR to your poisonous equation of Palestinians with Nazis(something you personally owe every Palestinian in the world an apology for-including those who fought in the British Army AGAINST Hitler).
(which is a slanderous comparison, since, unlike Hitler, Palestinians were not trying to create a Judenrein world.)
Also, I have never said the events of 1948 were exclusively Israel's fault. What I said should be apologized for was the expulsion of the 800,000 innocent Palestinian civilians. Saying that is not equivalent to calling anybody a Nazi, nor is it a vicious attack on Israel.
The suggestion was made in the name of getting Palestinians to accept officially(I think they accept it on a practical level already)that they wouldn't get full RofR. That part of what I've heard the descendants of displaced Palestinians saying(in the writings or people like Karl Sabbagh, for example)was that one of the things they most want is, simply, acknowledgment...and acknowledgment that they did and DO have a real connection to those lands...that, unlike the myths spread by the early Israeli governments, the Palestinians were never just "generic Arabs" who simply showed up(or were brought)in at the last minute for the sole purpose of causing trouble.
There were a number of things the Arab side could have done differently...there were things the Palestinian side did differently...but the most important thing, and this goes for both sides, is to acknowledge that innocent people were harmed, and that that harmed needs to be addressed somehow.
That is totally different from demonizing a country or calling anybody a Nazi. And what I proposed wouldn't do Israel the slightest bit of harm.
Finally, I would never equate Israel with Nazi Germany. While I have issues with what the Israeli government has done in the name of security, that's just not something I'd even THINK, let alone say.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)i disagree...you've said bundle and bundles of horrible things about us, you just don't recognize it
What I said should be apologized for was the expulsion of the 800,000 innocent Palestinian civilians
and what should the Palestinians be apologizing for, since clearly you believe its important....your pretty good about our list...please list theirs
I'll help:
1)
2)
3)
but for the record, i disagree with the 'apologizing" business to countries and societies....
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I've never attacked Israels as a people...and never would.
In every country in the world, there is a clear line of demarcation between the government and the people.
I've never held the people of Israel responsible for the Occupation or the settlements...most Israelis, as I've understand it, think the settlers are crazy and that the settlement project was a destructive and destabilizing idea. You've criticized the settlement project yourself IN THIS FORUM.
And nothing I've said was "horrible" or unforgiveable. I don't want Israel to go out of existence. I want it to go back within the lines it should be back within(the pre-1967 lines)in exchange for the Palestinians fully accepting it(the PA did accept Israel in 1994 so it's not like their side hasn't accepted the state at all)and in exchange for compensation, apologies and acknowledgment that Palestinians do have a deeply-rooted history in the lands in question. That's not an evil position, and it's more legitimate than the "land swaps" scam(we both know Bibi wouldn't give them anything that could possibly make up, example, for the survival of the Eilat settlement, since that settlement bisects the West Bank and makes a contiguous state impossible).
I've attacked people who used terms like "Zionazi" and other abominations, and chased as many antisemites out of this forum as anybody else. So why are you so obsessed with proving that I have some kind of secret, hidden, evil designs
or that I'm a dupe? I'm willing to admit that I could be wrong about things-why can't you admit that YOU could be wrong about the Occupation actually being good for Israeli security?
And what's so terrible about apologies? Look at the world we live in...some of the most brutal wars we've seen have come about because an injustice was done to one people in the past and that injustice was never acknowledged. Isn't it better to try to get past that by acknowledging the injustices and trying to address them? Better that than, say, giving somebody like Slobodan Milosevic a chance to rally an army of hate by giving a speech about a battle that took place hundreds of years earlier. People respond to apologies. So do nations. They help end ancient enmities. What possible harm could be done? And what good is done by refusing to apologize and saying, in effect "Shit Happens"? Does leaving a bitter taste in a people's mouth ever lead to a greater good?
As to things Palestinians could apologize for
1)Some of the tactics(I've never defended any of the objectionable tactics, as you know)
2)Not always being willing to negotiate in the past.
3)Not always making a distinction between "Israelis" and "Jews".
pelsar
(12,283 posts)in real life when we've hurt someone, its not always intentional....sometimes we say something and we simply didn't know it is a sensitive point and we subsequently apologize while learning why. We apologies because there are things we couldn't or didn't know, but we never the less said something "horrible.'. this is some of that "reality here as well."
clearly in your mind you've said nothing wrong...i disagree. Its probably your belief system (religious like) that prevents you from seeing or acknowledging that not only can you be wrong when you express your beliefs but that no one else can "find fault" as you wrote nothing I've said was "horrible"
i suspect its part of your intolerance for other viewpoints and people's beliefs is where the problem lies, you don't have much in the empathy/respect area, when it comes to different beliefs the are not in sync with your own, note the lack of tolerance and disdain to anything defined as "right".
but yes from my point of view, you've said some pretty horrible things......if you were actually open minded, not only would you be going back over your posts and wondering what they were, and since your big on apologies, you might inquire and in fact apologies for them.
again i don't really put much stock in those apologies, but you seem to....
and me being wrong?...zillion times, but i don't put my faith in fairy tales since everyone here has their own version, and most are nothing more than that, fairly tales with violent endings. any solution, in my opinion has to assume that 30-50% will disagree and some will do what they can to ruin it and that includes violence....your version of the fairly tale solution does not contain that assumption which is why it never leaves the fairly tale section.
get real with it, take your plan and make that assumption and ask yourself who will stop the violence and how will affect the other side...
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)that I insulted your neighbor, the general(the guy I wasn't even personally discussing, btw)? And are you still mad about what I said about the Gaza bombing? (I changed my phrasing on that later..why wasn't that enough?) What will it take for you to move on about those things? Why does it still matter what I said about the bombing? My comments didn't make any difference as to how the situation played out. And why isn't it enough that I modified that comment later?
It's now clear to me what this is really about:
Basically, you're not going to stop this bullshit interrogatory abuse until I endorse the Occupation, pretend that everybody in the IDF is morally superior to any other soldier on the planet simply because they're in the IDF(as if being in the IDF is somehow holier than being in any other army), and, in general, agree that your country must be exempt from any public criticism and that you, personally are infallible when speaking about everything involving the I/P security situation simply because you happen to wear a uniform. I can't do either and retain my humanity or still be progressive about anything. I can't endorse oppression.
The Occupation doesn't work. It doesnt' protect Israelis and it can't democratize Palestine. If it could have democratized Palestine, it would have done so by now, after forty-five years. Why can't you let go of YOUR religious-like belief that either of the things you think the Occupation accomplishes CAN happen.
Why are you so obsessed with going after ME, anyway? I'm really not that important and nothing would be better for you or your country if I stopped posting. I'm not anti-Israel and you know perfectly well not anything worse than that, either. I haven't harmed Israel in anything I've posted, and I'm not capable of harming Israel. Please just accept that and get off my case already.
I don't deserve to be demonized by you or to have you impute a dark, hidden agenda to me as you just insinuated upthread. Stop already. I'm just one guy with an opinion.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)that your a religious type belief, that has a very limited ability to even explore different options that may disagree with your basic beliefs and zero tolerance for those who are democratic to disagree with you and while looking down upon the Palestinians as helpless victims that are not really responsible for their actions (in general).
i'm not saying you have to endorse oppression, we're just exploring the ones you do, indirectly and the ones you don't...the differences being interesting.
As far as the IDF being holier than any other army..hardly, nor is that my claim.
Criticize israeli policies, its generals, its people all you want, thats what freedom of speech is all about and celebrate it.
but as long as you make foolish and naive statements that you can't back up, i will comment. I think you should stay, but try to back them up with more than just the standard list of "i don't like violence, therefor my opinion is valid and all of the others are wrong.
I realize this is really hard for you, and i wonder if ever in your life you've had your values questioned. This is my world, where values have actual repercussions..if you want to join the I/P conflict then i think its reasonable to be prepared to backup and fight for your values......
but opinions like yours do actually do harm. It inspires naive people like corrie to go to low level war zones where they have little understanding of what is going on..... not to mention supporting directly/indirectly a dictatorship
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I've mainly lived in very right-wing areas.
What you are doing isn't questioning my values or having a sincere dialogue. I'd be interested in that. You are refusing to accept that I believe what I say I believe, and you are setting up false things for me to agree to to validate my beliefs.
I want Hamas to leave power. OK? Can you please just accept that that is settled and that I don't secretly support them?
It's disgusting that you keep implying that the only way I can PROVE I don't support them is to say "ok, the Occupation was right after all". It's not either/or. And there's no way to know that the Occupation would forever have kept Hamas from taking over Gaza.
What I don't support is Western supremacism or the notion that only "the West" cares about freedom.
I'm open to other ideas about the West Bank...but you haven't provided any...and especially you haven't provided any evidence that keeping the Occupation in place in Gaza would have made a better Gaza OR that not taking the IDF out of the West Bank is going to produce Palestinian democracy. You also haven't made any real case for the idea that a fully democratic Palestine would gladly make MORE concessions to Israel than the existing Palestinian leadership has been willing to make, or that rank-and-file Palestinians would ever have just accepted living under permanent Israeli military occupation as their natural station in life. The United States has been democratic(more or less)for many years, and has launched just as many wars(mostly unjustified, other than the involvement in World War II, which should have started earlier)as any dictatorship. Democracy doesn't necessarily produce a nation of saints.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)you appear to like things black and white...well the real world is not black and white its mostly gray and when it is just black, it quickly becomes gray again.
you may not like hamas, but you certainly PREFER, i repeat that key word PREFER..and again PREFER hamas over israeli occupation.
my question is simply why? whats makes them better than israeli occupation. Not inorder for you not to get side tracked,
...you have claimed that hamas rule was inevitable so the question is valid.
just answer the question, nothing trickery here, nothing hidden, just make a statement and explain why, you don't have to like them, i get that, but why do you prefer them....
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Please stop saying that I do.
If you disagree with me about things, that's fine, I accept that...but stop saying that I support things I DON'T support.
If you want to argue that, following the departure of the IDF from Gaza, Hamas took power there, that is historically correct as correlation. However, you can't assume it was causation.
Had the Occupation ended in the late 1980's, when that superior local Palestinian leadership emerged, Hamas wouldn't even EXIST as a political entity...yet, rather than help that superior leadership you say the Occupation produced, the government you fight for KEPT THE TROOPS THERE, and kept building more settlements...and, by so doing, GAVE Hamas its chance. What became Hamas later was, at that time, just an Islamic charity organization. Had the IDF and the settlers left in, say 1989, that's what Hamas would still be today.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)the leadership of intifada I was wiped out by arafat......it had nothing to do with the IDF or the occupation, so your attempt at blaming the IDF for what arafat did makes no sense.....except that you have to blame israel for something that was entirely an Palestinian affair.
you seem to have trouble with the concept of limited options. Limited options, like limited resources means we have to make choices. Whereas neither choice maybe our best choice our ideal choice, never the less we have to make them. This is what the I/P conflict is all about, and what your have a very very very difficult time understanding.
When israel left gaza there was what we call limited choices..either the corrupt PA or the religious hamas. For those advocating israel leave the west bank, those two choices have not changed.....infact the west bank has the same make up that was in the west bank before israel left gaza. So the choices for what your advocating is the same.
do you think its wise to start a series of events that may end with hamas controlling the west bank?....dont forget it happened in gaza....do you even care? is it even relevant (or can you read the future with 100% accuracy?)
____
i'm impressed:
Had the IDF and the settlers left in, say 1989, that's what Hamas would still be today. your ability to read the past and understand events that might or might not have happened is fantastic...and you can read the future as well from what i understand...I'm very impressed with your abilities btw
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Based on your argument, THAT should have bolstered the local leaders you keep talking about and prevented BOTH the PLO AND Hamas from ever gaining purchase in the Territories.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)history lesson: Intifada I was the real grass roots rebellion that is every progressives wet dream. An educated oppressed, that knows its oppressors, knows their language and understands the culture and has a real strategy.
and they succeeded....in their first goal: recognition of their right to a state by the oppressors. Then the "world interfered"...the UN, the progressive NGO's and every other official govt group and the
communications were taken away from the locals to the PLO..the guys who were funneled the money, the guys who were supported by the "world" as the representatives of the Palestinians, the guys who did not live there, the guys who tried to take over Jordan, took over S.Lebanon....the guys you probably supported
Israel had little choice but to go with the negotiations in Oslo...that had amongst other aspects, bringing arafat and the PLO to Palestine to be its leader.....
Just like the elections in gaza that brought in hamas, bringing in Arafat was one of the ideas so stupid that only a bunch of politicians and believers would push for.
this is what happens when the reality is ignored.
and this is where you fit right in, you were probably very happy about arafat returning to take control locally and thought it was a great thing, you probably though the elections in gaza was a great idea as well.. (classic case of the "moral superiors" telling the locals whats "good for them"-somethings never change)
i believe you confuse process with consequences as being important and prefer the process with the end result being less important....i.e. you will cheerlead the process but if the end result is bad, you'll either take no responsibility for it, and "blame" the other guy for making it fail.... (as per your gaza failed because sharon wasn't nice enough excuse)
reminds me of the excuse for communism. Its a great idea, but it failed because of poor implementation (i.e. reality and people).
the potential of intifada I were wiped out for the Palestinians by bringing in Arafat who then commenced with a very different strategy that was intifada II....who brought him in, and why they did that is what you should be questioning....look in a mirror for that answer.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)They must have had names, after all.
And is there any evidence that the people of Palestine actually supported these guys? Or had heard of them?
If you don't identify them, I have no reason to believe that they actually existed.
And here's the part of reality YOU are forgetting...even if Arafat was kept OUT of Palestine, the PLO itself was still there and its cooperation was still going to be needed to make a real peace agreement happen. How would THAT have happened under this magically wonderful approach you keep accusing the rest of the world of sabotaging?
Even with the local leaders to claim were emerging, you were still going to have to deal with the PLO at some point...just as the British had to deal with Sinn Fein to get actual peace in Northern Ireland. It's not as if you could have taken everybody in Fatah out militarily...if that was possible, your army would have managed it by the late Eighties.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)if you don't know anything about them, then i would suggest that you also know very little about the differences between intifada I and intifada II and why one succeeded and the second one failed.....
in fact why don't you write out for me the differences, and if you don't know, you can feel free to ask...think of it as a test, a test of your knowledge and a test of your "claim to have an open mind."
start with Nasser-easiest to find
When Nasser Juma says Yasser Arafat led his people to "disaster" in the last years of his life, he speaks with authority....the Palestinian leadership under Arafat was folly
http://www.miftah.org/Display.cfm?DocId=9178&CategoryId=5
And here's the part of reality YOU are forgetting...even if Arafat was kept OUT of Palestine, the PLO itself was still there and its cooperation was still going to be needed
I'm not forgetting it, I'm just letting your recognize that your support for Arafat and others was creating the foundation for a disaster, to use Nassers words. Whether or not he could have been kept out or not, was a Palestinian and "world" decision, not an israeli one. And whether or not it was possible is even questionable....however his means of governing based on corruption was ignored by many (including you i suspect).
You might note where as Nasser blames israel for much, he put the most blame upon arafat/PLO/Hamas for stupid and failed policies (and nothing, nada, zilch about arafat being "disrespected by israel"
......its called taking responsibility for ones actions, and understanding their are consequences for them
you, on the other hand, disrespect the Palestinians and look down upon them as unlike Palestinians like Nasser, you believe there are helpless victims....who knows the Palestinians better? you or Nasser?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I didn't SUPPORT him. It was about understanding who had to be worked with in order to actually END the war.
It was about recognizing the reality that a large number of Palestinians supported him...and that, therefore, he and the PLO were going to HAVE to be included in the process in some way.
Including the PLO was about your favorite word "reality". Reality REQUIRED including them. If they hadn't been included and you'd ONLY had an agreement with whomever these other, "home-grown" Palestinian leaders you are talking about, the war with the PLO would just have gone on, and Hamas, a group both of us hate, would still have emerged. What, exactly, would then have been achieved?
It's the same thing as acknowledging, in the Northern Irish situation(which has some parallels)that peace could ONLY come if Sinn Fein was included as a negotiating partner. A lot of Ulster Unionists wanted power-sharing ONLY with the Social Democratic and Labour Party, a more moderate group, but a group whose popularity has been in decline in the Catholic community in Northern Ireland for decades now and isn't likely to stop being in decline. Having a peace deal only with the SDLP(a group that never actually had any connection with the armed struggle)would have been pointless.
On this point, I'm in agreement with Rabin, who pointed out that you make peace with your enemies, not your friends.
BTW, how much support among rank-and-file Palestinians did these "home-grown" leaders have, it really wasn't going to mean much that he was there-any more than it meant anything in Zimbabwe that Abel Muzorewa (a figure with no real personal base of support among ordinary black Zimbabweans and thus no credibility at all), was part of a "compromise" with Ian Smith. To end a war, you have to either score an outright military victory(which wasn't and isn't possible for either side in the I/P war) OR you need a peace agreement including ALL the combatant forces.
You still haven't said who these superior Eighties home grown Palestinian leaders were...you'd think that the Israeli government would have wanted to publicize their existence heavily.
I'm still puzzled about this argument your making...this curious notion that one side in a war should get to, in effect, CHOOSE who leads the other side and who on the other side they negotiate with...and the jury's still out as to whether that strategy ever had a chance of producing peace. Look at what South Africa might be like now if the white minority leaders had done what the really wanted and negotiated ONLY with Inkatha. The place would be like Angola by now. Look at what Northern Ireland would still be like if the Ulster Unionists and the British government had continued to refuse to negotiate with Sinn Fein. Would you want to live in either place if that's how things had gone?
pelsar
(12,283 posts)its simple, that is what the Palestinians say, your argument is with them, not israel.....you should be asking them why if they knew he was so corrupt why they welcomed him with open arms
guess you don't like to read that do you......
so who were these leaders of intifada I?..the research that you are incapable of doing, or perhaps you simply don't know how?
Intifada I was organized through popular committees under the United National Leadership of the Uprising. The UNLU, was a coalition of the four main parties: Fatah, the PFLP, the DFLP and the PPP. You will note that Arafat and his cronies in tunis were not involved.
thats enough for now...since its difficult to discuss something when you clearly know nothing about them, so now i've given you enough to start to learning.....
and try to figure out why intifada i was the only time the Palestinians gained land, while in Intifada II they lost again...this is test of your knowledge, without which you can't really discuss that period very well.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)But it's not as though your side was going to be able to force him out as leader and replace him with someone you preferred and they suddenly make Arafat's influence totally vanish.
Even if he stayed in exile...he was always going to have a large cadre of armed loyalists...nothing was going to get THEM to switch to the leaders YOU think they should have followed instead. And there were too many of them for the IDF to simply have been able to wipe them out because...well, because your side never came CLOSE to wiping them out.
Arafat was a louse...but his cooperation was still going to be necessary at some level...because even if you kept him in exile, he was always going to have the ability to scupper any deal he didn't agree with.
You seem to forget that.
And that is the fatal flaw in your argument here.
A peace deal excluding Arafat was always going to fail.
And I don't like Arafat...he was never my kind of guy...I'm just recognizing that dealing with him was going to be necessary. Can you understand the difference between that and being the president of his fan club?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Nasser Musa is a new figure, he's working now to supplant the old Fatah leadership...and that's to the good...I truly do with the guy well and will edit my previous post to remove all comments about him.
But Nasser Musa's isn't what I was talking about, or what I thought YOU were talking about...
First of all...Musa is just rising in Fatah's ranks NOW...we were discussing the Eighties, and this "other leadership" that you state the continuation of the Occupation produced...you still haven't said who the leaders were back THEN...that was thirty years ago...Nasser Musa would have been a child back then.
Second...Musa just left the Al-Aksa Martyr's Brigade...he's a reformed terrorist...I respect the guy for that, as I admire anyone who chooses nonviolence...but he was one of the people DOING the things you attacked Arafat for in Intifada II.
Third...Musa, as an Al-Aksa Martyr's Brigade member was and is a member of FATAH...he's part of the PLO...he therefore doesn't represent an alternative to the PLO nor does his emergence vindicate the Eighties Israeli strategy of refusing to negotiate with the PLO.
I got all that from YOUR link.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)"We are the generation that was most connected with the base of the Palestinian people. We were active in the first and second intifadas;
_______
why don't you look up these names...
However, the uprising was predominantly led by community councils led by Hanan Ashrawi, Faisal Husseini and Haidar Abdel-Shafi, that promoted independent networks for education (underground schools as the regular schools were closed by the military in reprisal for the uprising), medical care, and food aid The Unified National Leadership of the Uprising (UNLU) gained credibility where the Palestinian society complied with the issued communiques.
want more?
Yasser Arafat was denounced yesterday by a senior figure in his own Fatah movement who accused the Palestinian leader of sheltering corrupt officials and setting his people on a path to 'hell'.
thats enough....now its your turn to start doing the research...and keep in mind the "test"...the difference between the two intifadas....
its not about replacing the PLO, its about Arafats corrupt ruling style, his sidling the local leadership, replacing them with his own cronies and the disaster he brought upon the Palestinians, i.e. they failure was in a large part their own doing (i know, you can't accept that, because you have an open mind).
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)But they would never have agreed that the Israeli strategy of keeping Arafat in exile was going to help anything.
And none of them would ever have argued that it was better to keep the Occupation going...or even said that to your side in private.
And fine...Arafat was denounced...as he should be for his flaws and corruption...that still doesn't vindicate the idea of trying to kick him out of the process...because it was never going to be possible to end the war unless Arafat and the large group of armed cadre aligned with him went along with it. That's what you don't get.
That's why "the Troubles" went on for decades in Northern Ireland...because the one side(the Unionists and the British) kept insisting that they would only deal with ONE faction on the other side...the faction that wasn't actually involved in the armed struggle.
Making peace with one group of Palestinians without getting Arafat and his loyalists on board in some way was ALWAYS going to mean that the war would just be carried on by Arafat in his crowd. None of the people aligned with him were going to defect to the other leadership.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)actually its the Palestinians that are arguing that bringing in Arafat was a mistake..not israel. i just agree with them.
Do you agree with these Palestinians? (notice the lack of reference to occupation and israel, this a "Palestinian question about Palestinians leadership and Palestinian politics)
I repeat:
notice the lack of reference to occupation and israel, this a "Palestinian question about Palestinians leadership and Palestinian politics
this is leaving your "comfort zone" but i have confidence that you can do it....
do you agree with these Palestenains who have come forth with their opinion of Arafats policies and strategy (not to mention kicking them out of their leadership roles and creating a corrupt dictatorship in their place- and dismantling what they created)
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)That doesn't, however, mean that they were endorsing keeping him in exile.
You still haven't explained how a peace agreement could have been made without including him in some way or other. His cadre were never going to just stop being loyal to the old bastard, and as long as they were, that still meant that no peace deal that excluded him could possibly work.
You do get that, right?
My position here is about making sure the war actually ended-not my "comfort zone". This really isn't about ME at all.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)the intifda I leaders have claimed the arafat was a disaster, created a strategy and policies that failed them...
can't really have a peace agreement if one side creates policies and strategies that will not work....isn't that what you are always claiming?
well here you have the Palestinians also blaming their own leadership for the failures of the process (strategy and tactics....)
can you agree with them or not?
______
I understand that to answer will be difficult for you because it negates your foundation that believes the Palestinians are helpless victims and can affect nothing, but here you have Palestinians who disagree with you, that because of arafat they are in a worse position....
..so whom do you listen to? them or your "template" of auto pilot of blaming israel
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)But you ALSO can't end the war without cooperation from all the combatants.
Arafat was a dirtbag, but it was STILL going to be necessary, even with the emergence of these other leaders, to negotiate with him and get his aquiescence in whatever deal was made. It simply wasn't going to work to totally leave him out-and that's not admiration for the guy(I never did admire him, or even particularly like him)it's about reality.
In saying that, I'm not saying anything Yitzhak Rabin wasn't saying.
And I never "blamed Israel"-I critiqued things the Israeli government did...that's not the same thing as demonizing the nation. It's not mentally healthy, or is it reflective of a democratic attitude, to assume that there's no differentiation between state, regime, and people.
So, please, relax. I don't have your country and I don't hate you. And I wish only the best for both.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)do you agree or disagree with these local Palestinians that arafat policies both strategic and tactical were disasterous.
try to keep your answer limited first to the question, after that you can expand as much as you want
i have no opinion if you hate israel, admire israel, think were dirtbags or whatever....i'm just looking at your progressive values, the most glaring and obvious to me is this superior attitude of yours that negates both what the Palestinians and israelis believe:
so....back to arafats policies...do you believe they had a major affect on the conflict (disastrous for the Palestinians) as do these other Palestinians? or do you know better then them and disagree?
this is not a trick question, it does however push you into a corner, a very uncomfortable corner....whatever your answer is, will be very interesting to say the least.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)All I have been saying is that, to end the war, he was going to have to be included in the negotiations and the process in some way or another, simply due to the amount of firepower and the number of cadre he controlled. Making that observation doesn't absolve the guy of his massive screwups, and there was no reason for you to think that it did.
See? I am open-minded, despite what you said.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)Last edited Sat Apr 14, 2012, 09:56 AM - Edit history (1)
your saying he HAD to be included..and i in fact am not arguing that, ...but since many like me, including leaders of the Intifada I movement claim he was disastrous, whats behind that is that he destroyed the movement by both sides toward an agreement.
that was arafats legacy and it continues to this day the destruction that HE caused.....It was an internal Palestenain problem to solve (get rid of him), that politically could not be done, and it lead a complete reversal of the gains of intifada I
nothing israel could have done to stop it. the word disaster means exactly that.....arafat was a disaster, no israel, not israeli politicians, not Palestinians, but their leader and his corrupt comrades.
thats why in the 1990s, 2000 it was irrelevant what israel did, the results would be the same- nothing good was going to happen while arafat was power and now its up to the Palestinians to remove his legacy and its repercussions which continues to this day in gaza and in the west bank.
______
and now i shall explain to you why he was such a disaster from the israeli point of view:
the intifada I crowd, kept their limited violent protests restricted to the west bank and gaza and their protests did not involve firearms, that lead to some tacit agreements of what the IDF would be using in return. That had major repucusssions throughout israel as to what their aims were, and the real leaders of the Palestinian the intifada I crowd knew this. Israelis within the green line were not threatened and many reservists did not like the idea of going to the territories to face relativly peaceful protestors to defend essentially the settler movement and infact refused to go.... and you have to realize the reservists are made up of the "middle educated class"...the core of the israeli society, the motivated, educated ones...(the ones you have dehumanized in the past)
Arafat once he got power, took the violence across the green line and started killing israelis everywhere via suicide bombers. Suddenly the IDF was awash with reservists volunteering for duty since now all of their families were being threatened, not jus the settlers.
the israeli defense cost the Palestenans much, as it reversed much of what they gained in intifada I (that is partially what the intifada I people are talking about, not to mention hamas getting a foothold and eventually getting kicked out of gaza (fatah)...all belong to arafat.
that is the jist of what he did....and that legacy exists today in both missiles from gaza and our remembering just how easy and quickly the violence crossed the border. The Palestinians have a lot of work to do to reverse that legacy...its up to them, not us...
his "wrong" decisions had and have consequences
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)Violet, you're clearly intelligent enough to understand that pelsar was not making any actual comment about the Palestinians resembling Nazis but was facetiously satirizing the sort of accusations commonly leveled towards Israel. This was done to highlight the lack of intellectual honesty and critical thinking that are the hallmarks of these sorts of posts. If the post was bigoted or unfair then it did its job. To take it at face value and demand an apology is to ignore the post's meaning in favor of taking the easy road and attacking its language. It is reminiscent of those American high schools that banned Huck Finn on account of its racist language while paradoxically ignoring the novel's deeper anti-racist message.
edit: just read through the whole thread. Please ignore above.
Violet_Crumble
(35,961 posts)The post WAS making an actual comment about the Palestinians being like Nazis. Nothing in that post said anything about it being facetious. Seeing as how yr so damn sure you knew the motivations behind the post, I'll now decide that all the posts they're referring to were in themselves facetiously satirising earlier posts calling the Palestinians Nazis. See? Two can play at this game.
But comparing pelsars post to a literary great is kind of amusing and worth the time to read yr post!
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)Pelsar explained it in his subsequent posts to you. I'm hardly guilty of inventing a motivation on his part. He articulated it all quite well.
But comparing pelsars post to a literary great is kind of amusing and worth the time to read yr post!
I'm sorry, is that meant as a refutation of pelsar's use of satire? Since when do we demand that a post be eloquent before defending its publication? Your criticism of my (apt) parallel indicates a failure to critique it on its merits. In this case I suspect you know that I'm right. I refuse to believe that you actually took pelsar's uncharacteristically obnoxious post by its word, even if that's how you chose to play it.
Violet_Crumble
(35,961 posts)You come along nearly a week later, and read an entire exchange where unlike me when I started responding to the original post, have the luxury of seeing how it turned out, and yr going on about it? Not sure what yr trying to achieve here, since pelsar and I worked it out between ourselves. Bigoted comments in this forum should be condemned by everyone. Unfortunately it appears that's only the case when bigoted comments are made about Jews or Israelis in yr case...
As for the rest, I know what I think when I post, and it gets a bit tiring to see myself being told by people who don't know me what I supposedly think...
btw, the comments in the original post weren't *obnoxious*, they were *bigoted*. They were aimed at Palestinians, and they were bigoted...
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)Actually, I responded to your post as it was written, as I read them in order. Later when I read the thread in its entirety I edited my post to indicate that it was no longer relevant. I'm not trying to achieve anything. Once I saw the thread's resolution I recanted my statements. I did leave them up because I thought they would have relevance to those who came across the thread later on, as I did. My edits were intended to indicate that my posts were unfair criticism considering the eventual outcome. I don't feel like I was taking unfair advantage.
Bigoted comments in this forum should be condemned by everyone. Unfortunately it appears that's only the case when bigoted comments are made about Jews or Israelis in yr case...
Do you honestly believe that I feel that way? That bigotry only counts when it's directed at Jews?
I happen to agree with you about bigoted comments. I did not count this as a bigoted comment on account of it's facetious intent. I actually think it is important to distinguish between true bigotry and satiric statements intended to highlight the absurdity of said bigotry. Parroting racist ideology in an attempt to fight it is obviously very different in intent than publishing bigotry to reinforce its message.
btw, the comments in the original post weren't *obnoxious*, they were *bigoted*. They were aimed at Palestinians, and they were bigoted...
You're right, they were bigoted. But they were not aimed at Palestinians...
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)is hardly an excuse for such a nasty post
shira
(30,109 posts)Your position seems clear to me:
The Palestinians need their rightwing nationalism first and foremost. Screw human rights. Maybe that comes next, maybe not. Doesn't really matter. You won't do or say anything about it - just as you don't WRT Hamas in Gaza now.
So when it comes to Palestinian self-determination and rightwing nationalism, that appears by far to be the most important thing to you. I'm not even sure western civil liberties plays a role at all. If it did, you'd have something to say about how the PLO and Hamas are bad for and bad to their people.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I support Western human rights, and you know it.
And I've condemned Hamas for unacceptable acts in this forum. What do I have to do, put denouncing Hamas and Fatah ahead of ANY other priority in this situation? Am I supposed to say that Palestinians should submit to being kept in one unjust situation because another country somehow, supposedly, knows better than them what they need? DO I have to support the status quo until Bibi says things can change?
Do you honestly think that it's even possible for one nation to make a second nation, in this day and age, "democratic" at the barrel of a gun? That "elections" imposed as an act of conquest can ever be legitimate?
How is that NOT imperialist? How is that NOT bloody arrogant?
You build democracy by letting a people come to it on their own terms...not by treating them as if they have to have it forced on them.
shira
(30,109 posts)No one here but you says continuing the occupation helps the cause of human rights. The argument is that the occupation is the lesser of 2 evils. You prefer the worse of 2 evils because you believe the status quo must change, no matter what. That's insane b/c many lives are on the line. You're advocating for something worse than the status quo, for both Israelis and Palestinians. And you're not even arguing that it will improve anything. You want change for the sake of change.
When it comes to a Palestinian state, rightwing nationalism comes first to you. Western civil liberties.....whatever. If it never happens, so be it. It'd be nice if it does, but you'll neither do or say anything to bring it about. For rightwing nationalism, you're outspoken. Against Israel? No problem. For Palestinian civil rights, not a peep. I'm sure you support western human rights. For westerners. For others like 3rd worlders, you don't. Rights for women and gays in Gaza is nowhere near as important as rightwing nationalism that empowers Palestinian theocratic dictatorial rule. That's a complete betrayal of progressive, liberal values.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)You don't have to defend the Occupation just to prove you don't back right-wing nationalism. Stop lying about what I think about this.
The Occupation isn't the answer to right-wing nationalism...especially since it's being carried out by a right-wing nationalist coalition government.
shira
(30,109 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)You just want to demonize me and imply that I support things you know I DON'T support...like "right-wing nationalism"...and I've done nothing to deserve it.
The problem with your position is that preserving the status quo doesn't offer any hope at all changing the Palestinian leadership for the better-nor does it offer any hope for creating a more democratic political culture in Palestine-the two things you have accused ME of not caring about. I DO want a more democratic Palestine...as, I think, do the Palestinian people...and you don't have any serious suggestions of how to make that happen. That proves, by your own logic, that YOU don't care about human rights in Palestine, but simply want to keep people living there under permnent military occupation ordered by a right-wing nationalist Israeli government.
And you set up a false absolute in insisting that, unless a person is obsessed with demanding that Hamas and Fatah create a fully democratic Palestine(I'm including Gaza in Palestine for the sake of that argument)right NOW, before the Occupation ends, that a person doesn't care whether Palestine is democratic or not, and is perfectly happy to see the place be a police state. That is the elaborate lie you've pushed about my views in this exchange.
Let me give you some examples from American history that challenge that position...would you say that if in the 1770's I supported the abolition of slavery(as many already did in that era)
but simultaneously supported the cause of immediate independence for the Thirteen colonies(as many of the same people did at the same time, such as Benjamin Franklin and John and Samuel Adams)that this would have meant that I wasn't sincere in supporting abolition?
Or that if I were to say I support abolition AND women's suffrage, while also supporting the Union cause at the start of the Civil War(at a time when many people simultaneously held all three positions and at a time when the Lincoln Administration was on the fence about abolition and wasn't even remotely interested in women's suffrage)that I wasn't sincere about opposing slavery and wanting women to get the right to vote?
Or that it wasn't possible to vote for FDR in 1932 AND still claim to support the end of Jim Crow or the rights of workers to organize...NEITHER of which FDR supported at the time and only one of which(the right to organize)he came around on even half-heartedly towards during his entire term as president?
pelsar
(12,283 posts)Last edited Thu Apr 5, 2012, 02:32 AM - Edit history (1)
Where is the Parallel of the US foundation documents is that had the words "all men are created equal" etc....to that of the hamas and PA foundation documents that have religious law as their base?
furthermore hamas and the PA have fanatic govts actively supporting their views, both economically and politically, the US internal society was basically a "private matter."
As your found of saying that this is not post WWII and occupation are so passé....well this is not post colonial US either
_____
you might as we'll be comparing Stalins Russia to the US
____
the only thing that you proved without a doubt, is that in the world of civil rights and nationalism, you put nationalism first. and that appears to be standard of the progressive movement which is why progressives can be seen at protests and marches with hamas types and others who believe in religious dictatorships, something no liberal would stomach.
and more so, in this century, so far wheres as see many many protests all over the world an other international type stuff for Palestinian nationalism (again a right wing position), we in fact see little for "civil rights" for the hundreds of societies that don't provide for them including hamas. So whereas there is "grass roots" progressive effort for nationalism, its reasonable to assume there will not be the same coalitions and pressure for Palestinian civil rights. One reason is once they have their nationalism the "progressives" will not just lose their partner (hamas types) but will get a strong, well organized enemy to the those western civil rights issues.
and we've seen how progressives fold when there is the slightest pressure...i.e. the progressives who visit the west bank, be it as aid workers or "summer camp protests" keep their western values hidden and "out of sight" so as not to offend the locals.
You might take notice what just happened to the liberal democrats in egpyt, in iran (they were hung by khomenni)....not to mention the complete lack of international "grass roots" outcry for those events. Once a country is established and is "working", interference in their internal governmental system is minimum...hence iran is free to hang homosexuals, stone women, etc without major "progressive protests."
Its not a matter that you want civil rights for the Palestinians, (i need it more than you), its that you want nationalism first and in order to get their your even willing to stomach a hamas government with all of its implications both internal and external...and that you have shown over and over and over again.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)were in the U.S. Constitution. The existence of those words didn't stop the slave trade from continuing until 1808, slavery itself from continuing until 1862, and Jim Crow from hanging on until 1964...this, in a country that had its first presidential election in 1793.
(There's also the fact that women didn't get the vote until 1920.)
In every instance in which any group won legal equality with property-owning white men(the only type of people who had full citizenship in 1793)in the U.S., they did so ONLY after decades or even generations of struggle. LGBT people STILL haven't won full legal equality here. It will be years more, if not decades before the transgendered win full legal equality.
Working-class people are in the process of LOSING full legal equality as the unions continue to lose power.
Thus, despite your smug assumptions to the contrary as a former American citizen(at least, I assume you were born here and lived here before you made aliyah...correct me on this if I am wrong)it was NEVER valid to say that the achievement of human rights in the United States was bound to happen, was "only a matter of time". It came at a massive cost in human lives(and, in part, helped lead to a civil war, as you may recall from your grade school history class).
Those lofty words in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence also did nothing to stop the theft of the continent(and what amounted to genocide)against Native Americans(an act which, combined with the long heritage of slavery, Jim Crow and homophobia/transphobia, means that the U.S. has committed much greater and far more vicious crimes against human rights than any Palestinian state ever could).
The United States is still, over 230 years after the Declaration of Independence, unable to truly claim that it treats all people as if they were created equal. By your logic, knowing how hollow the notion of "freedom" was and is in the U.S., everyone who did NOT insist on full 21st Century democracy as we know now it BEFORE the U.S. gained independence was guilty of preferring "right-wing nationalism" to democracy and had no right to claim that they cared about human rights at all, even if they helped slaves escape on the Underground Railroad!
Alll of which supports my main contention...if my OWN country did not have full democracy and legal equality for all(both of which I support everywhere)AT the beginning, what moral standing to I have to demand it of any OTHER country?
And who is anyone to say that Palestine must have democracy before independence if, really, not that many currently democratic countries in the world had it when they gained sovereignty, or when they emerged from the prehistoric mysts to build shacks(as was the case in, say, England and France, neither of which were democratic in any real sense for at least the first 1800 years of THEIR existence as national entities).
I support democracy AND self-determination...and my support for self-determination does NOT compromise my support for democracy. The history I laid out above proves my point.
shira
(30,109 posts)...other surrounding ME countries. Why is that?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)It's just that I realize that it can only be real if it is built from below and from within...and that Americans shrieking about it from outside can't really do much to bring it about in places where it doesn't exist.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)the reason why tolerance is essential in all societies (something that you lack btw), is because societies are not perfect and are continually evolving, for better or for worse. Societies base their cultures and their evolution on their base foundations. This remains so until there is a revolution and a new set is produced.
all the US improvements were and are based on the secular founding documents, hence the healthcare argument before the supreme court is based on those very documents and those that came after.
The societies that you are promoting have foundation documents and philosophies that are contrary to your belief in western culture and rights. This is not even theory. We see it, in gaza. Gaza is exactly what your philosophy has given "birth to" Self-determination for the gazans.....you wont get your western democracy there, because their foundation documents and codes are against it.
and yes do look at history, not that of 100 years ago in europe (you've already declared that what happened there 60 years ago irrelevant). Look at the middle east now.....religious law is becoming the foundation documents for Egypt, Libya, PA, Gaza, Iran.
You may support nationalism (known as self-determination) and western rigths, but you support first and foremost nationalism, that is veryveryvery clear, otherwise you would be shocked at hamas governing gaza and wondering what "went wrong", but you don't even see it as something that went wrong...and that is the most interesting part.
personally i don't care if the Palestenans have a civil war as did the US on the way to democracy, nor like france riots in the streets etc....however, i do care if on their way to 'democracy" they keep on trying to murder me, in which case they are not going to see their democracy, since we're going to have to return fire and lots of it.
and yes i was born in Detroit, and have two degrees from the Univ of Michigan and still retain my citizenship
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I've proven over and over again that I don't. Please don't keep saying I support what I DON'T support.
I don't have to be a Western supremacist to prove that I'm not soft on Islamism.
And the only way to avoid those countries going ultra-religious is to make sure that secularism is not equated with being subordinate to "The West".
I've said that I don't like Hamas...that's all I NEED to say. You can't seriously argue that the siege your army has imposed on that place can possibly change Gaza for the better...and if you can't say that, you aren't entitled to keep bringing the questions of secularism and democracy into this as if you, and ONLY you, care about them.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)what your having trouble admitting is that you accept a right wing, theocratic government, knowing full well, that such a govt tosses any kind of western civil rights "out the door" simply because of your preference for the "proper genetics."
we also know from the past events of the "arab spring" that such gov'ts apparently do not lead to a western civil rights oriented democracy....
its nothing more than clarification of the events and your beliefs and what is MOST important and what is LESS important.
We all have hierarchies.
For instance, i prefer assad as ruthless dictator of syria... why? not because i don't care for human rights, but because as far a syrian is concerned, i prefer the quiet border that assad has maintained and don't want the risk of it becoming like Lebanon, hence the trade off.
You in terms of gaza has made the same trade off: preference for a nationalistic anti civil rights govt as opposed to other alternatives....of which you have trouble imagining.
btw..this is clearly false:
And the only way to avoid those countries going ultra-religious is to make sure that secularism is not equated with being subordinate to "The West".
did you really just write that statement? are u really that blind by your own theology? Look around, Egypt is already applying shari law, and it has nothing to do with the west, like gaza it has to do with shrewd political maneuvering of the MB....politics
__________________
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)There's no way it could have been acceptable to keep Gaza under IDF occupation.
I didn't approve of the way Sharon handled the matter...he should have coordinated with the PA.
As to Gaza, I don't approve of Hamas...it's just that I recognize that there was no way to get them out of power there. What would you have advised? Having the IDF overthrow Hamas in Gaza by force? Yes, that might have temporarily removed them, but they would then immediately have regained power, with increased support, because no one in Gaza would have backed any alternative regime imposed by Israel and Gazans would have rallied around Hamas.
I am against Gaza being under Hamas control...it's just that I recognize that nobody from outside could possibly do anything about it. It's comparable to my attitude about the Warsaw Pact states and the Soviet Union. I was against their dictatorial policies, worked as(at the time)a member of Amnesty to help prisoners of conscience there, denounced those places as a mockery of the notion of socialism-but I didn't support calls for confrontation, especiially military confrontation, with the "Soviet bloc"-because I realized that, without causing a global nuclear catastrophe from which nothing and no one could ever really have recovered, even if they did physically survive, there was no chance of those states being brought down from outside(by contrast, there was always a pretty good chance that Hitler could have been stopped, were it not for the fact that the European right and American capitalists were big champions of his cause right up 'til the late 1930's)and it wasn't worth the massive loss of human life that would have been involved to try and bring them down.
Also, I felt that the shrill, arrogant calls my country's leaders made for everyone to be involved in the "fight against the 'Communist threat'" were mainly a diversion...this diversion having two primary objectives:
1)To discredit the entire Left, even the vast majority of the left that, after 1956, had nothing whatsoever to do with the Soviet Union;
2)To provide cover for the dictatorial right-wing states the U.S. was allied with in the Cold War era(all of which implied that anyone who opposed them was "a Communist" or was in league with Communists(because, the twisted argument went, it was simply impossible that a starving campesino in El Salvador or a Black or Colored person in South Africa would ever rebel against the conditions they were subjected to without some conspirator from Moscow or Havana telling them to do so).
This is why the rhetoric I hear from your country's leaders is so familiar to me...and why I feel such great suspicions about it-my country's leaders INVENTED it.
That's not the same as WANTING them to be control. I also support those within Gaza that are working for democratic alternatives.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)it was very very coordinated with the PA and Hamas for that matter. Not a single bullet, not a single kassam was fired, the various forces moved in coordination with the authorities so that there were not mistakes. (hundreds of israels all concentrated together would be a prize for a few kassams fired by hamas or the PA), yet not one was fired.
lets start with your primary premise being wrong
now..are you still blaming israel for "withdrawing wrong' for "no coordination with the PA or do you have some other way of blaming israel that so insulted and paralyzed the Palestinians that all that was left was for them to shoot kassams and wait for hamas to take over?
__
btw a sure sign of a theocratic belief is the inability to think of alternatives...if you can't even think of a even a couple.....well you might consider that you not so open minded as you would like to believe.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Obviously, the settlers HAD to go, as all the West Bank settlers will have to go.
There would still have been the rockets even if Gaza had stayed occupied. It's not like staying would have made it any easier to find the people launching the rockets.
And Fatah couldn't have had any authority or credibility in Gaza if its control was reinstated their through intervention by your army.
If I was wrong about there not being coordination, I stand corrected on that point.
Still, Sharon DID make it sound, very much, as though Gaza would be ALL that Palestinians were going to get for a state-not only that, but he implied that in exchange for that tiny crumb, they were expected to be thankful.
And if you say that there are SOME Palestinians who secretly want the Occupation to go on, perhaps there might be a few, but obviously they'd be a pathetically tiny minority...comparable to the tiny group of South African blacks who prospered by collaborating with Botha and Co.
The existence of the forme group in Palestine does NOT make a case for preserving the Occupation...any more than the existence of the latter group made a case for preserving the apartheid regime OR made it defensible that the Israeli government disgraced itself by giving aid and comfort to the Afrikaner police state in its dying days(and possibly gave it a few more years to oppress the majority that it otherwise never would have had).
The IDF had been in Gaza for decades before that withdrawal...if that presence hadn't dislodged Hamas before the IDF left, how would keeping the IDF there have made any difference at all? What would have worked in the next few years that hadn't worked in the previous forty?
pelsar
(12,283 posts)first of all, i doesn't make a difference what sharon says or doesn't say....If the Palestinians can't make their own society because of a few words by an israeli, then they don't in fact deserve a country because they don't have the means to make the decision that are required. What if Netenyahu says "boo" they all are now paralyzed?
like i said, if you can't think of any alternatives other then "one or the other" then your not really that open are you?
your claiming the Palesteians of gaza had two choices: israeli occupation or hamas occupation...secular occupation or religious occupation (btw, i'm no sure your right about that minuscular few that prefer israeli occupation...at least not any more, do you have any idea how cruel religious law really is?- but there wont be any polls about it)
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)It's not like the IDF HAS to be there just to stop Hamas. Hamas is not invincible even within Gaza. But it can't be brought down by ISRAELI intervention. IF it could have been, you guys would have managed that BEFORE The withdrawal.
Nor does the political situation at the start of a country's history offer any guarantee for what that situation will be like as the country develops. Palestine has a democracy movement and it will grow. I support those within Palestine who work for democracy, and gladly so. The only thing I DON'T do is support the idea that Palestine should democratize in order to meet the demands of outsiders. Supporting that is just as unfair as saying that Israel should join Palestine in a unitary state to appease the demands of outsiders. The most effective way to work for democracy is to do it without being arrogant-and doing that does NOT mean not working hard for it...it just means not being an overbearing jerk about it, which is what you really want me to do.
As you see it, what WOULD be a third alternative? It's not like it was ever reasonable to expect Palestinians to accept Begin's proposals for (what we all know would be Tibetan-style)"autonomy". That autonomy would NEVER have meant that Palestinians would have been left alone by the Israeli government to run their own affairs...and even that autonomy would have been worthless if the settlements had continued to be built, since the largest ones bisect Palestine and were specifically placed where they were to make the West Bank non-contiguous. And the government you defend won't even do the simple, sensible, and risk-free thing and put a permanent settlement freeze into effect.
It isn't an effective strategy to keep GOADING and provoking the Palestinian side. That strategy has no hope of derailing Hamas OR reducing extremism, and it has no hope of creating a better Palestinian leadership. Why defend what clearly doesn't work, and what clearly DOES put the lives of you, your fellow soldiers, and all the citizens of Israel, at perpetual risk? How can it possibly make sense for your country's leader's to deliberately keep inflaming the whole situation?
No proposal that left the IDF in the West Bank(such as Bibi's humiliating and arrogant "security concept", which wouldn't have left enough land in Palestinian hands to do a damn thing with)could have been acceptable to Palestinians. That is the flaw in all your smug assumptions. None of them regards the presence of you and your fellow soldiers as benign(and you wouldn't regard it so if YOU were in THEIR place...but you can't even imagine the life they lead, or the way they see the world, because you have no personal knowledge of oppression. You were raised in Michigan, not Iraq or the Pale. You just made aliyah because of your commitment to the cause, and you could move back home any time you wanted at no risk whatsoever.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)you seem to be stuck on two points:
the only two options are israeli occupation or hamas occupation...and the you add:
Palestine has a democracy movement
it does and is just as strong as that in egypt, in syria, in iran....meaning you can't seriously believe that they will over throw hamas.
i have made no assumptions at all, you keep filling it in, so that you can continue with you same line of thinking...i'm asking you to come up with a few more alternatives....you don't seem to be able to.
_____
you tell me that i can't imagine what its like to be under the occupation...at best i can get an idea, but not really feel it on a day to day level. However, unlike you i know what the faces look like of a 5 year old children when soldiers burst in to their home at 2:00am.
can you?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Obviously, it would be more terrifying than anything I could imagine.
And the biggest difference between the two of us is that I'm not willing to assume that the entire Palestinian nation is a dead loss. Given the conditions they need, they are just as capable of living up two the better angels of their nature as anyone else is.
well try....this is a political solution you keep claiming, that means there is more than one an it also means thats any solution you propose can be shot down and ruined by a single event by someone who disagrees with you, because that is how fragile political solutions are.
so if can't even think of a few solutions, that can serve as a backup if your original one fails, thats not saying much for you 'open mind."
your either assuming (as do all believers) that everyone will see "your light" once they get a chance to, or that it will be so strong that no one can oppose it.
neither is true.
____
and again your assumptions about me are wrong. I assume the Palestinians like any culture can be changed to adapt to the western ideals of civil rights....so can the taliban so can the iraqis, so can any culture.
i would say one of the differences between us is that whereas i respect the different cultures, i make no bones about it, that they may keep the Idiosyncrasies of their different culture as long as the base is western civil rights. Any society that can't or wont, gets to go to the top of the list for criticism etc- and nobody gets official help if they don't have such a foundation. (they can stealth help, like the christian missionaries).
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Why not just say "human rights"?
People all over the world have sought those rights...half the problem is the arrogant assumption that a lot of people in "the West" make that we have a natural right to claim moral superiority over all other cultures, and that whatever we might do is ALWAYS more enlightened than any other culture...that, for example, it was always more enlightened and modern for European settlers to clear out pasture and wipe out the buffalo than it was for Native Americans to work with the natural world as it was and to base their lifestyle on not overusing the resources.
Or that private land ownership was always superior to any society in which land was traditionally held collectively.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)just for fun:
Native Americans to work with the natural world as it was and to base their lifestyle on not overusing the resources.
the did..the indians, overuse the local resources, that is why they had to move on all of the time. They would send a complete buffalo herd over the cliff so they could have meat, using only one or two.
______________
but you are just as arrogant: will you defend FGM? forced marriages? honor killings? Keeping women in potato sacks, uneducated, how about slaves? (still exist today), hanging homosexuals?
there are cultures that have those aspect as part of their culture, that the believe just as strongly as you believe that those are their rights and in fact are superiors to yours, and you have the gall to claim your right and they are not?..damn thats arrogant of you.
so go ahead: defend the cultures that hang homosexuals as not being evil, defend FGM and please don't give me any crap about "educating them" thats just a nice way of saying: i'm right, and your wrong and i will now change your culture because mine is superior. (but i will do it like the christian missionaries did...)
go on defend honor killings so as not to be "arrogant."..or is it only some cultural aspects that have to be changed, and your willing to keep the "nice cutsy ones" like native dancing, and bead making but not FGM
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I don't have to support keeping the IDF in the West Bank OR defend the continuing siege of Gaza to prove I don't defend FGM , slavery and honor killings(neither of which are going to be stopped by the Occupation anyway).
The point of the Occupation and the siege isn't to fight against those things.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)Last edited Sun Apr 8, 2012, 06:27 PM - Edit history (3)
.half the problem is the arrogant assumption that a lot of people in "the West" make that we have a natural right to claim moral superiority over all other cultures,i would say that you are probably super arrogant, 100x more than i am, nay 1000x
I claim that the western ideal of civil rights (i don't really understand what a human right is) is morally superior to that of other cultures and their definition of rights. For instance i reject the talibans version of women's rights, i reject irans version of citizens rights and obligations.
Unlike you however, i do acknowledge that they believe their version of citizens (human) rights is morally superior to the wests (they have made this very clear). I do acknowledge that they have the right to believe that as well.
you i believe totally reject even the concept that other cultures can even believe something different from your version of human rights....you can't even conceive of the idea that it is even possible to reject your human rights because they are 'universal".....
You might want to ask the taliban why they reject your "universal rights," they will probably explain to you why you are an arrogant SOB, full of shit and they might explain you their version of "universal rights."
that arrogance of yours is 1000x mine, because not only will you totally reject the talibans explanation but even their right to believe something different from you. (Your rights are universal, theres are not, thats a good definition of arrogance)
more so...your respect of other cultures is limited..as long as they accept you "universal rights" only then will you respect their culture. Assuming that you even acknowledge that the talibans have the right to believe what they want, i doubt you'll respect their version of justice (stoning women, etc).
____________________________
the point of the blockade is to limit the amount of rockets that can be brought in that are used to shoot at us....for reasons that are unclear to me, you want that blockade lifted with the consequence that they can bring in even larger rockets to shoot at us....(so much for our human rights-cleary some human rights are more important than others).
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)This is getting tiresome and I've done nothing to deserve this treatment.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)Last edited Mon Apr 9, 2012, 01:40 AM - Edit history (1)
Even if I give u a hundred different options but u won't be able to accept any of them, you are so wrapped up in your single solution you can't even think of a single different one.
In fact you can't even see that your plan even if implemented perfectly could easily turn out very differently than your vision...you can't even think of a single thing that could go wrong, when there must be a million of them.
You claim u have an open mind, well at least give me a few places where your plan might go wrong..and what would you consider "wrong". If anything and by wrong I mean what the Palestinians do not Israelis as that is your default position
Im not sure you can even do that
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)totally different.
And unlike you with your obsession with personally demonizing me, none of what I said was ever, by any stretch of the imagination, a personal attack on you. Can you please just accept that already?
Of course I'm willing to accept that self-determination could have negative effects...It's not as though I've argued that it would lead to Utopia.
Worse case scenario...in theory, the Palestinians could try to attack Israel proper...but given the size of your country's war machine, it's doubtful they'd be that reckless...and there's no reason to assume the other Arab countries would back them in that attack. I'll concede that it's possible.
Palestine could end up with continued bad government. Fine. Obviously that's a possibility.
I've never claimed that Palestinians were saints or that their leaders were infallible, so you've had no reason to assume that I thought any such thing or that I believed myself incapable of error.
The one thing I do feel strongly about, though, is that the status quo isn't sustainable...and that preserving it isn't good for Israelis, let alone Palestinians.
Now will you PLEASE stop playing "I dare you"?
I really would like to know what YOU would think would be good alternatives.
(I'm guessing that you still think something like returning the West Bank to JORDANIAN control would be a good idea).
You act like there are any number of obvious superior alternatives to what I've been talking about...if you're going to claim that, you need to spell those out if your going to carry out this debate on intellectually honest terms.
And you need to give up on trying to silence me...I am not an enemy of Israel, and I haven't asked the Israeli government to do anything I wouldn't ask the United States to do...all I've done is point out that the status quo doesn't work. If it did, there wouldn't BE anyone that did anything called "terrorism", and there wouldn't be anyone doing as reckless as building the illegal settlements.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)that means no such thing as "hate legislation" for instance...the concept of shutting down a viewpoint because you don't like it, censorship is abhorrent to me. and yes i 'm for all the cartoons that one can imagine....including allah peeing on christ if someone so chooses or visa versa. (or moshe if you prefer).
i just like reading how your for civil rights, but only if a certain group of people have a leadership where they have the proper genes (thats pc for racism), even if it means a dictatorship. I enjoy the way you skip over history, pretend it never happened to make a point
like this...you've got to be kidding...
.in theory, the Palestinians could try to attack Israel proper...but given the size of your country's war machine, it's doubtful they'd be that reckless...and there's no reason to assume the other Arab countries would back them in that attack. I'll concede that it's possible.
have you missed what hizballa has been doing, what happened in 48, 67, 73, 1980s (lebanon) what iran has been threatening and doing..i mean are you really that blind?
but just for fun, if they are "that reckless" and the PA govt claims "its not us, its them..." will you back israel unleashing its war machine to stop the attacks, using the limitations of military equipment today (i.e. no phasers) in attacking an urban area or will you prefer that we let them shoot at us (please don't say "we have the right to defend ourselves.....thats such an empty phrase).
but this is a breakthrough...
Of course I'm willing to accept that self-determination could have negative effects...It's not as though I've argued that it would lead to Utopia.
.... but this has no affect on your opinion , that despite the negative effects, its still preferable....(like what negative affects)
shira
(30,109 posts)...under any Arab leadership. I have to practically force it out of you. Whether it's Hamas, the PLO, or Lebanon. Never, ever do I see you writing about it. The "progressive" pro-Palestinian groups you support give very little lip service about it, at best. When it comes to other Arab civil rights around the mideast, your "progressive" allies are almost entirely silent. For example, Egypt, where things are getting worse despite your being for the Arab Spring. The MB there is portrayed as "moderate". I don't even see your "progressive" allies worried in the least about the Egypt/Israel peace treaty, which leads me to believe they simply don't care about it.
All I see is anti-Israel activism. Nothing that is genuinely pro-Palestinian, pro-women's rights in the ME, for gay rights, or free speech. You and your progressive allies are for those things when it comes to western society, but not when it comes to third world countries. You're all very, very careful not to upset the powers that be around the ME, except for Israel.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)the Arab Spring, a movement whose story is far from over. YOU are the one who was insisting that the U.S. needed to keep backing Mubarak-he was a "power-that-be" and you never called for HIM to democratize or even to do anything about Egyptian antisemitism(which was just as bad under him as under Nasser).
shira
(30,109 posts)....as to how things were very likely (around 99.999% certain) that the human rights situation in Egypt would get worse (civil liberties would get worse). THAT is happening, will continue to happen, and is beyond dispute. As bad as Mubarak was, he was the lesser of 2 evils. The MB is far worse. For some reason you are reluctant to admit this. Why?
If we are ONLY talking about liberal/progressive values, and nothing else, you would agree that Egyptians (as well as the rest of the region) are better off under Mubarak than the MB.
As to Gaza and the W.Bank, we know what kind of governments are in charge there and know exactly how they will operate. They will be neither liberal or progressive, in any measurable way. But that doesn't make a difference to you. They could be the Taliban and you would still call for Taliban authoritarian rule there. Nationalism first and foremost. Freedom from occupation. If rightwing nationalism did not come first, you'd actually advocate against Hamas and Fatah (rather than shielding them from criticism). You'd demand more civil liberties for Palestinians there, rather than argue that it's cultural imperialism to demand such a thing. You'd call them out for being against genuine peace. Remember, it is YOU and your comrades who say you're pro-Palestinian, pro-human rights, pro "all that is good and moral". So what are you doing for the Palestinian cause OTHER than advocating for rightwing nationalism and bashing Israel?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And you don't care about the Palestinians...you just want people to obsess on the "Palestinian leadership" and agree to say nothing about the Occupation or the settlements. You only talk about the Palestinian leadership because you want everybody to give the Israeli leadership a pass on everything...or worse yet, you want us pretend the Occupation and the settlements are perfectly acceptable, to accept your view that those things have nothing at all to do with the Palestinian decision to resist, and to join you in shrilly defending the status quo, which would automatically also mean we couldn't be left-of-center on any other issue. The Occupation is as right-wing as anything on the Palestinian side.
As for Egypt, I like neither Mubarak NOR the MB...but it's not as if the story is over in Egypt. The vote for the MB was, from what I've heard, a reaction to the fact that the liberal parties in Egypt weren't very supportive of working-class concerns, allowing the MB to appropriate those issues.
And, for the love of God, shira, you can't still pretend that it would have been possible to KEEP Mubarak in power, or defensible for the U.S or Israel to try. What would YOU have done...have the IDF strafe Tahrir Square? Get U.S. troops to go house-to-house in the middle of the night, Iraq-style, arresting anti-Mubarak men of military age? The ENTIRE COUNTRY wanted Mubarak out...When something gets that big, how can you just force it to come to a dead stop?
shira
(30,109 posts)This is just classic:
Focusing on Hamas, which you say you don't support, is bad for the Palestinian cause because doing that keeps the "pressure" off Israel. See, I'm not asking you to "obsess" over Hamas. It's difficult forcing you to say anything about Hamas.
This is why I agree with Pelsar and believe you're for rightwing nationalism first and foremost. That's what Hamas wants too. Progressive and Liberal values are simply not that important to you. You've pretty much admitted that with your reluctance to ever criticize Hamas for their theocratic/sharia rule. It's not like you had much to say about Mubarak either, until the Arab Spring started. Obviously, you believe that bashing Mubarak is also pro-settler hasbara.
It's not that I don't care for Palestinians. It's that YOU say you do, being pro-Palestinian. I have to call BS on that, given that you believe speaking up against Hamas (Egypt, Libya, Syria) is doing Israel a favor.
That's rightwing humanitarianism, Ken.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I oppose them and want them out. I've said that over and over again.
You can't seriously argue that someone has to defend the siege of Gaza to prove they don't like Hamas.
And it couldn't be progressive to defend military action there such as OCL since such action only really killed Gazan civilians and could never have had progressive results. Don't you understand that?
And it could never have been progressive to say that Mubarak should have been kept in power, since there was no hope of anything ever getting better if he did...whereas there is open space now and there are possibilities for change. Mubarak would just have handed over to his corrupt kids and then the story would have been over forever, just as it would have been in Iran if Pahlevi had passed power on to his kids(none of whom would ever have disbanded SAVAK).
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)because, prior to this year, there was no real chance of getting rid of him. It's pointless to publicly attack regimes whose grip on power is secure...the U.S. government criticized the Soviet Union(and usually hypocritically)on human rights for decades and none of that criticism achieved anything except to look shrill and embarassing. None of it HELPED the Soviet dissidents. And also, this is the Israel/Palestine forum...not the Egypt forum...so comments about Mubarak wouldn't have fit in here.
If U.S. people attacked Hamas like YOU want them to, loudly and pompously denouncing them Reagan-style, it would endanger the lives of dissidents in Gaza, because it would give Hamas ammunition to claim they were American stooges. It couldn't HELP pro-democracy people there. Do you want me to get Gazan and Palestinian pro-democracy types KILLED?
I have often criticized Hamas. I just don't do it on your command. And why should I be obligated to?
pelsar
(12,283 posts)the iranians who attempted an uprising were begging for just that.....public statements denouncing the iranian regime, not only did they receive nothing, there were also killed and beatup by the regime.
soviet dissidents loved the US criticism of the USSR, and the way it denounced them, it made them feel that there was support, that the weren't fighting alone...
____
hamas on the other hand, gets actual indirect support from the progressive left, not just silence and the acceptance of its rule..
i assume you don't see the irony...you're all fired up to criticize and democracy which is fine, but your against a similar outcry (protests, UN meetings and reports, attempted boycotts of hamas, university sit ins etc) against a theocratic dictatorship.....
i would call that indirect support of a dictatorship which is not saying much for ones belief in civil rights as a right for all.
shira
(30,109 posts)Last edited Sun Apr 8, 2012, 10:53 AM - Edit history (1)
As much as you say they matter to you, you and your progressive friends are simply unwilling to say or do anything about it. Those fellow progressives and liberals of yours in Gaza and Egypt? Whatever. They can go to hell as though they're nonexistent there. You won't do or say anything for their rights either. Persians fighting the Iran government a couple years ago? Fuck them too, right?
So please. Whatever you do from now on, do NOT argue for an end to occupation based on humanitarian concerns. They simply do not factor in for you, neither before or after any regime change or an end to occupation. Gazans under Hamas rule do not matter to you just as Palestinians suffering under apartheid conditions in Lebanon do not matter to you. Same WRT Egyptians under Mubarak or the MB. Same WRT Persians under Iran rule.
You're indirectly supporting oppressive sharia style rule.
When you have zero to criticize in those places, you're calling for nothing more than rightwing authoritarian nationalism. Rightwing humanitarianism. If you don't agree, tell me the difference b/w YOUR brand of humanitarian concern vs. the most extreme rightwing humanitarianism practiced by Saudi Arabia, Syria, Libya, Iran (all being on UN committees for human rights).
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I want political, economic, and social democracy throughout the world. But that needs to happen on the world's terms.
It can't be legitimate to impose it from without....look at Iraq to see how disregarded the so-called "democratic" government imposed by U.S. force is...look at Afghanistan as well. It's not that people in those places don't want democracy...it's that they don't want it dropped on them AS A BADGE OF CONQUEST, with the unstated assumption that they could never have come up with it on their own.
And I have criticized Hamas, and opposed the Egyptian religious extremists...I just didn't support the alternatives you implicitly wanted(permanent Israeli military control of Gaza and the defense of Mubarak by the U.S. Marines)instead.
It's enough that I state(once again)that I want Hamas out of power in Gaza, and that I support a secular democratic Palestine. That is all I need to do.
Democracy is gaining in the Middle East. The people are fighting for it on their own. It only hurts the democratic cause to tie it to Western supremacist rhetoric like you want me to do. No region or culture can automatically claim superiority over any other...all are in flux and in the process of development.
shira
(30,109 posts)...in Gaza, Syria, Egypt, and Iran. The International Left could care less for the oppressed in those nations.
You're the same, and that means you're not for their human rights either. Sure, you'll criticize Western governments for their wrongs, but 3rd world nations are off limits. Any liberals there are non-existent. It's "bigoted" for you and yours to oppose the right-wingers in charge there and join forces with liberals fighting for their rights.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Supporting Israeli "security" policies or supporting Mubarak wouldn't assist them, though.
None of the liberals in Egypt wanted Mubarak to stay on...they all wanted him out...and the story isn't over in Egypt yet. If the liberals rectify their mistake of supporting market economics rather than worker's rights and social benefits(and that was actually one of the main reasons the MB prevailed in the early elections)the situation can change drastically.
It would have been anti-democratic to OPPOSE the Arab Spring, as you did. And opposing it could never have led to something better coming along later. Besides, it wasn't exactly in my power to stop any of what happened.
And you don't know what I say and do outside this forum-so don't make assumptions about that.
shira
(30,109 posts)...or during the Iranian uprising a couple years ago. Or in Libya. Syria. Gaza.
But nothing.
Just silence.
Be honest. You feel doing that is wrong and Imperialist. Pro-Israel hasbara. Am I right?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I wasn't silent about the Iranian revolts, I supported the dissidents in thread after thread here.
And I've never had any use for Ahmadinejad, and have repeatedly made THAT clear. I just don't want to see huge numbers of Iranian civilians killed in missile attacks. Those attacks would kill a lot of anti-Ahmadinejad Iranians, and would have no guarantees of even getting close to any Iranian nuclear facilities, assuming that Iran actually is trying to build nuclear weapons, which is still far from clear.
My position on Iran now is based on opposition to needless loss of life, not support for the fascist regime there.
And I was always clear that I thought Mubarak should hold real elections and allow secular opposition parties, rather than insisting on forcing the spectrum into his "party" vs. the MB. Prior to the Tahrir Square rising, there wasn't actually much else anyone could do regarding the Egyptian situation, since prior to that there was no reason to think there was any chance of change.
I didn't discuss those issues in the I/P thread because neither of those situations pertained to the I/P issue. Really, we should get rid of the I/P thread and allow the discussion of I/P issues throughout DU, which would make more holistic
discussions of these issues possible...rather than hiving this off in one somewhat hidden forum with unusually restrictive rules of discussion.
shira
(30,109 posts)Last edited Sun Apr 8, 2012, 02:18 PM - Edit history (1)
...or in Gaza?
If not, why doesn't the international left do it?
Now unlike Egypt, Syria, Libya, and Iran, human rights in Gaza and the WB is on topic in this forum. Where's all the concern? Article after article after article....?
pelsar
(12,283 posts)the MB has been supporting the lower stratus of the society for years, decades, just as hamas was in gaza. It was rather amusing to read about the "arab spring" and the democracies that were on the brink of developing there, same crap i read about when khommeni took over or when there was voting in gaza.....you would think some would learn. Real politics is not about "tweeting" or writing on forums"...real power politics is who's in the actual street making an opposition, places where western progressives "fear to go."
__________________
hence both take overs were to be expected, it was only the naive who thought otherwise. As far as egypt goes, now its a tossup who gets control and how they work it out politically: the army vs MB...the democracy liberal movement was DOA as it was in gaza. The difference is that whereas in egypt there was probably not much that could have been done, there were options in gaza that were all shut out by the naive an simplistic and racist viewpoints..
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Keeping the IDF there was never going to stop Hamas.
You haven't even suggested any good options for Gaza. You've picked apart what has happened, yet you've offered no ideas for anything at all that could have made the situation better. Let's hear what YOU think might have worked.
And the point I made about the liberals not backing working-class issues does NOT mean that Egypt can never be democratic(and thus, as you'd like to pretend, must always be kept under a "benign" despot like Mubarak). What it means is that the Egyptian liberals need to incorporate working-class issues into their agenda-that's not an impossible thing for pro-democracy types to do.
shira
(30,109 posts)Last edited Sun Apr 8, 2012, 10:54 AM - Edit history (1)
China has zero to worry about WRT security if it were to ever end their occupation.
Not so WRT Israel, as we see from thousands of rocket attacks and an Intifada that came on the heels of a peace offer to end that occupation in 2000.
You think the Israeli occupation is immoral? Fine, then I'm going to accuse you of dehumanizing Israelis and not giving a rat's ass about their security considerations. You obviously know more than they do or don't believe they're entitled to any security. You should just tell them they have nothing to fear despite events from the past 2 decades since Oslo started. Tell them all that is THEIR fault. They should have ZERO security concerns. Hamas and the PLO will play nice all of a sudden, based on your blind faith in those extreme, sharia style, rightwing regimes. Those disgusting PMW videos calling for the murder of Jews? Whatever. That can all be safely ignored as well.
Your position on the occupation is far and away more immoral.
Want to debate that? Whose position is more moral/immoral? Let me know...
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)The closest I came to that was that Begin's "autonomy" proposals wouldn't have given Palestine a great deal more control of their internal affairs than China offers Tibet. Begin wasn't going to guarantee that he would stop arresting elected West Bank city council members and mayors, for example. Even if that was a slight exaggeration, you would have to admit that it was never realistic for Begin to actually expect Palestinians to settle for "autonomy", knowing that it wasn't real and could be taken away at any moment.
Israel doesn't have to have troops all over the West Bank to be secure. Having them at the border would achieve that. I didn't say that Israelis have no security concerns, either. I said that there were better ways of dealing with those than the methods used at present...such as actually ENDING the conflict, something you refuse to accept is even possible(and, for all I know, something you may not even WANT to see happen).
It's not as if the way things are now keeps Israelis safe. All it does is leave the issues that have stoked Palestinian anger unresolved and simmering...eventually to boil over. There's nothing to be gained from the present Israeli security tactics, which basically amount to stalling for time until...what? every INCH of Palestine is covered by the illegal settlements?
Why are you so loyal to an unsustainable situation? How is keeping things the way they are good even for Israel, let alone the Palestinians? It hardly helps that country that the militarization of life is becoming more and more ingrained.
I care about Israelis as much as about Palestinians. That's why I disagree with your approach...the things you defend simply don't do any good.
shira
(30,109 posts)Israel offered to end the conflict. Arafat refused and declared war (Intifada) instead. And you still blame Israel for that. How fucking immoral and twisted is that?
You've seen those disgusting PMW videos. Given what you saw, what makes you think the PLO or Hamas wants an end to the conflict, and peace with the Jews? Seriously. I can't wait for the answer.
And troops at the border wouldn't help stop the rocket launchers within the W.Bank shoot down airplanes or send kassams into a densely populated Jerusalem or Tel Aviv. Let me ask you - if Israel ended the occupation and the Palestinians started hitting Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, hitting airplanes, hitting vehicles in rush hour traffic on the highways.... would you be for Israel re-occupying the territory, on the grounds that Israel is simply indefensible w/o that occupation?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)But not the re-establishment of an indefinite occupation...since that wouldn't solve anything.
shira
(30,109 posts)Last edited Sun Apr 8, 2012, 01:14 PM - Edit history (1)
Despite Goldstone being proven wrong and Israel's proven record WRT safeguarding civilians, the "world" would go apeshit when Israel defends itself from much worse coming out of the W.Bank.
How should Israel defend itself if the Gaza operation 3 years ago was barbaric?
We know how Israel will be attacked from the "moral powers that be" for daring to defend against such an onslaught. What motivation does this give Israel for going through with a withdrawal, if they can neither defend themselves or re-occupy?
I want a serious answer to that.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)if you cannot even imagine anything other than the two options....hamas or IDF occupation you've got the classic viewpoint of a fanatic religious person..and i've known many...you cannot possibly understand anything else....think of something, really really try.
people with open minds, can think of several solutions to any one single problem...
infact this must be the 100th time you've mention that i think the arab society can never be democratic, i'm guessing this is probably about the 50th time (i tend to ignore absurd accusations), I've mention that i think otherwise....
you're definitly in a 'rut'. Egyptian liberals could use some help as can the iranians as do the Palestenians from the intl "progressive society" ....they need some boots on the ground to spread the world what they're selling. They're will be a cost, some will lose their lives, some will spend time in jail, some will be tortured...but that is the price of those who really believe and are willing to put their lives on the line for it...twittering "doesn't count."
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Please just tell me what the hell you're thinking of there...ok?
(and you know perfectly well that I don't support "Hamas Occupation" so please retire that phrase as well).
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)(although that's not workable at present and likely won't be for decades, if ever).
A Belgian-style federation of Israel and Palestine might be a possibility...but it would have to be politically weighted so that neither national community had more power than the other.
Giving Gaza back to Egypt wouldn't help anything...nobody in Gaza wants to be an Egyptian citizen.
Please just tell me what other options you are thinking of?
pelsar
(12,283 posts)Give me a short hierarchical list
And don't be vague
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And are you EVER going to stop interrogating me about my beliefs? This is tiresome and pointless, and I don't deserve it.
I never go after you as an individual. All I've done is question some of the acts of your country's government...which doesn't justify your tactics towards me.
I'll take a stab at your loaded question, to humor you. Freedom, democracy, social justice and self-determination are equally important to me. I support them all equally.
Now I've answered all the trick questions you're entitled to ask of me. Just stop. This is abusive and I never abuse you.
And I'd like to point out a contradiction in your argument...you keep saying that lack of full democracy in advance justifies denying independence to Palestine, yet you admit that the Occupation has never been about getting Palestine to democratize and that keeping the Occupation in place is unlikely to cause democratization. Those two thoughts run into and derail each other.
Had it ever occurred to you that YOU might be wrong? That perhaps, if what's been done since 1967 hasn't worked yet, then there's a good possibility that it never will? The U.S. didn't even take this long to admit that it was silly to keep pretending that Taiwan wasn't the home of the real government of China.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)in the real world, nothing has the same "weight". We have what is called limited resources and what is most important we put our most energy:
We see this in your posts, you spend endless energy writing posts about self determination but nothing about social justice. In fact i can't even recall a single post about that.
Lets say you are head of the UN and the people you want to help are occupied. Are you going to first help them get out from under the yoke of occupation or are you going to spend you limited resources on creating books so that they can be taught in their schools about social justice?
i suspect you would spend your energy and resources to first remove the occupation, as that is what all of your posts indicate, hence you do have a hierarchy of what is more important and what is less.
its that list of yours that i'm interesed in, that you claim doesn't exist , but really does.....
---------
And I'd like to point out a contradiction in your argument...you keep saying that lack of full democracy in advance justifies denying independence to Palestine,
I don't say full democracy....i just want the foundation for it to be established, and the occupation does nothing to stop that from happening, infact freedom of speech was actually stronger under the occupation than under the PA or hamas today.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I don't wish harm to Israel and I'm not an antisemite. Just stop this interrogation. I've done nothing to deserve you treating me as if I'm your enemy, or as if I'm a dupe. Can you please just accept that all I am is a person who has a reasonable disagreement with you?
Here's what YOU don't see: there is just as much risk to Israel's security from keeping the Occupation in place as there would be in getting rid of it. Because the security of any occupying country is always ultimately endangered by allowing the rage of an occupied people to fester and grow. What, exactly, do you think is going to be made better by stalling? Has there ever been a situation that you know of in which maintaining an occupation has ever actually MODERATED the feelings of an occupied people? I've never heard of that happening at any point.
And you've truly got me wrong on one point...I'm not against people of one race living in a state governed by another. I'm fine with that-the issue is HOW they are governed. What I am against is people of one race holding people of another(and in this case, it may not even be racial, but simply ethnic or cultural)under their sway by force of arms. I'd favor, for example, something like Israel and Palestine setting up a Belgian-style federation-something that recognized the national entities but still provided full democracy for all. But, just as I'd object to Palestinian Arabs holding Israeli Jews under military dominance, as a person who believes in democracy I have to oppose the opposition situation-it's clearly equally wrong in both cases.
There's a difference between saying it's wrong for one ethnicity to be governed by a state led by another(which is the view you imply that I hold, but that I actually don't)and saying that one ethnicity should be held under the military dominance of another(which is what I actually oppose, and which most reasonable people would oppose anywhere).
pelsar
(12,283 posts)but there is a reason...your views are not just simplistic but in a way dangerous, as you might inspire naive college kids to join the "useful idiote crowd" that hamas and friends love to use.
.I'm not against people of one race living in a state governed by another. I'm fine with that-the issue is HOW they are governed
so given that hamas has been imposing shari law on its citizens and under israeli occupation it did not exist. There were no "nation wide elections under the occupation and neither is it under hamas.
Hamas governs by the gun and during the protests apparently has no problem using them, and i guess they don't really care for rubber bullets, etc
Hamas like the occupation has checkpoints, detentions etc
The israeli occupation was secular in character giving some basic freedoms to the gazans, hamas doesn't.
The israeli occupation provided for freedom of movement and reporting by international and UN NGOs...hamas doesn't.
The israeli occupation provided for basic security to both israeli and gazans...hamas has instigated a tit for tat war that erupts anytime anywhere.
_____
if your stating your sole concern is "HOW they are governed, its reasonable to say that Hamas is much worse than the israeli occupation, yet you prefer hamas, simply because they have the "proper genes." This has nothing to the do with israelis being jews, it has to do with your general racist attitude.
saying that one ethnicity should be held under the military dominance of another(which is what I actually oppose, and which most reasonable people would oppose anywhere).
its not HOW they are governed, as clearly hamas is much much worse than the occupation, but still you prefer it.
my only guess and feel free to correct me, is that you believe with hamas as the proper ruling party, they are on the road and this is the singly only road to western value democracy
since that is the only answer i can think of that doesn't reak of racism...(meaning your making a trade off: having a govt of the proper race (gaza/arab) for the meantime and eventually that will "see the light" and rid themselves of such a racial attitude.
hows that for a clarification of you beliefs?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Hamas would have taken over Gaza even if the IDF were still there. It was going to be impossible to stop them. Gaza was Hamas' base of support...what could the IDF possibly have done to stop them that Fatah wouldn't have been able to do?
It's not as if Fatah didn't have just as much weaponry at its disposal as the IDF
And I seriously doubt that, aside from a few collaborators on the Mossad payroll, there were ever any significant number of Palestinians who were ever GRATEFUL for being kept under Occupation. Human beings are never grateful for having some other country's army staying on their country's soil indefinitely. No Palestinian ever regarded the IDF as liberators.
And I hate Hamas and you know it...you are lying if you say otherwise. I don't have to agree with your analysis of the situation to prove that and I don't have to defend the Occupation to prove that. You are imposing conditions you have no right to impose.
The Occupation was a dead end...it had no chance of leading to anything better if it stayed into place...
And it was never going to produce a better Palestinian leadership. How COULD it do so in the future if it hadn't in forty-five years? What was going to make that happen that hadn't made it happen up 'til now?
perhaps Hamas itself might not have gained support, but some other group pledged to ending the Occupation by any means necessary WOULD have done so...do you really imagine that the majority of Palestinians, left to their own devices, would have been perfectly content to leave the status quo in place until YOUR side was willing to let it end? That's as ignorant as the assumption that, if it weren't for "Arab leaders", the Arab rank-and-file wouldn't have cared about Israel coming into existence. That rank-and-file was always in solidarity with the people of Palestine.
Nothing in my views has been hidden and my views are not dangerous.
When you say "it would be better if a particular people had never been allowed to govern themselves" you automatically abandon ALL progressive views and turn into Colonel Blimp. It isn't possible to defend subjugation in one situation and be liberal in another.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)but you prefer hamas subjugation to israeli subjugation....
unless your claimng that hamas is not subjugating but are liberators (perhaps thats it?)
ok, so you tell me, what is hamas as a governing body to the gazans? IN YOU OPINION...liberators, occupiers, something in between?...what?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I oppose ANY subjugation. And what you said about intifada I is utterly bogus. The point of that intifada was to get out from under the Occupation...it's not as if they just wanted to get rid of Fatah. And intifada I did not vindicate the previous Israeli refusal to recognize the PLO as the negotiating voice of the Palestinian people, because there wasn't an alternative leadership.
If there had been, that leadership would have still emerged after Oslo, because nothing that happened under Oslo prevented such a leadership from emerging. And it goes without saying that any alternative leadership would have asked for the same terms Arafat asked for-none would have settled for anything SHORT of independence...and none proposed settling for less, or for less territory. If they had, the world would have heard of it.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)i quote you again:
It isn't possible to defend subjugation in one situation and be liberal in another.
well what is hamas?.....liberators or subjugation.....or something in-between
simple question but you can elaborate if you feel i made it too simplistic
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)between one of the other. I think they are loathsome, repressive thugs.
You know perfectly well I oppose Hamas. I don't have to say that it would have been better to keep the IDF in Gaza to prove that. It serves no purpose to keep framing everything about this as "either/or".
Why are you so fixated on making me choose between options that are equally abhorrent to me? I never thought of Hamas as liberators. I'm against their being in power in Gaza, but it's not really an occupation as such. I'd call it a usurpation.
Finally, why are you so fixated in vindicating the IDF presence in Gaza when you know perfectly well there is no way to re-establish it? What purpose would it serve in getting people to agree that they should have stayed, when it's obvious that they can't go back and that history can't be reversed?
pelsar
(12,283 posts)this is the place you don't want to go, hence you keep closing your eyes to it. but at least now were getting somewhere, your calling it an usurpation..ok i'll buy that. Can i assume from your point of view is "one step up from israeli occupation?
I am not "vindicating anything...i am comparing and asking you to compare as well, using your very general value system,....which you are trying very hard not to.....
at one point you claimed that hamas rule was inevitable, hence its reasonable to find out why you prefer hamas rule over israeli rule..that means comparing the various aspects (since hamas has long ruled out western polls and the westerners there would be too afraid to publish anything in that respect)..so we guess.
_____
the conclusion comes AFTER we compare, you don't first have a conclusion (unless your a believer and close minded...) then game the data/information to meet your belief. First we compare the various aspects of the society, the we match those against our values, throw in a few future options and get to a conclusion...
thats how its supposed to be done....
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)It's neither better nor worse than Israeli Occupation. Both are oppression and both are wrong. And the Hamas control in Gaza(which may well be transitory)is neither a step up OR a step back from the previous Occupation. The story is not over there...
I'm not obligated to choose one OR the other. Can you please just accept that fact? And then can you let this interrogation end? I feel like this is the Inquisition and you're trying to force me to recant a heresy. That's not an appropriate way to discuss things here.
And I'm not a religious zealot-I constantly examine my own beliefs on a whole range of issues. What I reject is the assumption on your part that, if only i questioned myself even more, I'd accept your analysis as absolute truth, rather than simply one person's opinion from one perspective in the conflict.
It's intellectually dishonest to keep saying, in effect(and this is what you DO effectively keep saying) that an "open-minded" person would HAVE to agree with you. To argue that is to argue that YOU are as infallible as you claim I think myself to be.
I could be wrong about everything in life. OK? I accept that. It's just that that doesn't require me to accept that your position(that the previous Occupation was the lesser evil)was right.
And with that, this whole exchange should be put to rest.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)were Israeli Occupation or Hamas Occupation.
But the only chance to get any OTHER choices was to end the first. It's now been proven that the Israeli Occupation of Gaza was never going to produce democracy. If it hadn't happened in forty-five years of Occupation, it wasn't going to in any future years of Occupation.
And, especially, you were NEVER going to get a Palestinian leadership that would ever, under any possible circumstance, have accepted Bibi's "security concept"-a concept that would have made Palestine only a pseudo-country, with too little surface area to to anything with.
pelsar
(12,283 posts)just a history lesson, and this comes from a muslim Palestinian who has relatives in gaza who used to post here:
intifada I started in 1987, thats 20 years after the occupation began, it was a grass roots rebellion that succeeded and was in fact a real step towards western democracy that had real backing and and a real local leadership developed, what destroyed it was bringing in arafat.
l.e. under the occupation something very positive developed that had potential, what destroyed it was a combination of progressive mentality, politicians, the UN and every other organization, that had their hands in the "till".
__
i realize you have absolution no idea of what i just wrote about, and your probably in "automatic mode" of rejecting what you don't know, so before you react, do a bit of research or at least try....you claim you have an open mind?, well, now would be an good time to show it.
and if you have a hard time understanding what exactly happened, you can always ask
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)I do know of one poster who's husband is a Palestinian Muslim but she rarely if ever posts here anymore, so who?
pelsar
(12,283 posts)whereas we hardly agreed, her interpretation of the events had more credibility than the others. and her take on arafat and what he did was something i had guessed at but never knew to what extent he was blamed though she did blame israel for bringing him in..... (look it up)
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)The people who led Intifada I were NOT grateful to be under Occupation. They would always rather have been independent.
What they were rebelling against was the Occupation. And if your argument had any validity, democracy would have developed after 1987 anyway. Democratization was not stopped by Oslo, for God's sakes.
I would have been thrilled to see a genuinely popular alternative leadership to both Hamas and Fatah emerge-in fact, I still would be. But you can't seriously argue that re-taking Gaza(which I suspect is what you WANT me to support)could have a positive effect on Gaza now. What you still don't get is that Palestinians don't want Israel telling them who their leaders should be-and they never will want that. Is this really so hard to understand?
Finally, if the Occupation had the magical effects YOU ascribe to it, why did we NOT see a different and better leadership emerge IN Gaza while the IDF was still there? Why didn't we see the people of Gaza BEGGING the IDF to stay? Shouldn't those things have happened if your history of the situation was accurate?
pelsar
(12,283 posts)i think gaza should remain under the control of hamas and friends with the indirect/direct support of the UN, George Gallaway and anybody else who believes in such things. Its serves us as a good reminder of just how things can go wrong when we actually listen to naive voices...we now have over a million people under the real threat of random missile attacks....
as i wrote...do the research, clearly you've done nothing:
Finally, if the Occupation had the magical effects YOU ascribe to it, why did we NOT see a different and better leadership emerge IN Gaza
it did.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)There was never support for any leadership, in Gaza or anywhere else IN Palestine, that would have settled for anything short of independence. And you know it.
And nothing would be better in Gaza NOW if the IDF were still there. Hamas would still be popular there and would still be growing. They'd be doing even worse things and the IDF wouldn't be able to stop them.
You call ME naive...but what's really naive is believing that an Occupation would ever be regarded as a time of liberation by the people living under it. No people, anywhere, has ever felt that way about having a foreign army on their soil for an indefinite period.
You keep assuming that the population there would have been fine with the post-1967 status quo if only it hadn't been for "the leaders". That is bullshit. There was ALWAYS going to be massive resistance.
If Occupation was really such a paradise for Palestinians, then tell me, why aren't they all just applying for Israeli citizenship?
pelsar
(12,283 posts)as per your style you like making up stuff so you can stay within your comfort zone......you really don't like be challenged when there is information you don't know about....this is now very very obvious.
now, close your eyes because this is a short history lesson..not for you
intifada i was a local grass roots rebellion against the occupation..though it was spontaneous (after a car accident) the local leadership took some control and organized it well.They understood israeli mentality (unlike you, perhaps because they live there), kept the violence limited and within specific areas.
They were successful in influencing israeli public opinion and to recognize the need for a Palestinian state, and oslo was born...this was done on a local level. Arafat, hero of the progressive left, stepped in brought in his "management and management style of corruption, tossed out the locals, and further developed his corrupt regime...and then started intifida II which had a very different charter of the intifada I and different goals.
end of Palestinians progress toward their own state.
now you can open your eyes.....
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)They did it well before anyone took their land or made them leave.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)to the Jews living in Palestine
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)Or can you tell me when the British GAVE land in Palestine belonging to Arabs to Jews?
Because what I always learned was that Britain merely ALLOWED Jews to immigrate and purchase land there. If they took any Arab land then it was because that land was sold to them by said Arab. The Jews being killed and terrorized weren't even Zionists or immigrants anyway. They were the same Jews that had been there for generations. Their neighbors, that is who was targeted for ethnic cleansing and murder first.
As Ken said: They would do all that they've done if anybody else had occupied their land AND made them leave. It's not like they'd be ok with the status quo if only other Arabs or other Muslims were administering it. If it is reasonable to expect the Arabs to resort to terrorism because their land was occupied and they were made to leave, then what is reasonable to expect of the Jews who were being harassed, threatened and then either evicted or murdered?
Or is this not a level field? Why is it that an event as innocuous as Britain allowing Jews the right to immigrate to a small section of Palestine is considered a reasonable excuse to commit war crimes, while the act of Jews defending themselves from said war crimes seems to then become the justification for the commission of even more heinous Palestinian acts than before?
France has a lot of Muslim immigrants lately. Would you consider an organized attempt at killing and expelling some French Muslims by concerned citizens to be an understandable act? (Not recent immigrants either... Muslims that had been there previously. Say since Robespierre's time.)
Even better... let's say a Palestinian gunman opened fire in New York City and killed an acquaintance of mine. Would heading out to kill my Palestinian friend Omar be a reasonable response iyo?
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)However here is the Balfour Declaration which is still being used to justify Israels holding the West Bank among other things
The declaration, a typed letter signed in ink by Balfour, reads as follows:
Foreign Office,
November 2nd, 1917.
Dear Lord Rothschild,
I have much pleasure in conveying to you, on behalf of His Majesty's Government, the following declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations which has been submitted to, and approved by, the Cabinet:
"His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country".
I should be grateful if you would bring this declaration to the knowledge of the Zionist Federation.
Yours sincerely
Arthur James Balfour
The records of discussions that led up to the final text of the Balfour Declaration clarifies some details of its wording. The phrase "national home" was intentionally used instead of "state" because of opposition to the Zionist program within the British Cabinet. Following discussion of the initial draft the Cabinet Secretary, Mark Sykes, met with the Zionist negotiators to clarify their aims. His official report back to the Cabinet categorically stated that the Zionists did not want "to set up a Jewish Republic or any other form of state in Palestine or in any part of Palestine".[6] Both the Zionist Organization and the British government devoted efforts over the following decades, including Winston Churchill's 1922 White Paper, to denying that a state was the intention.[7] However, in private, many British officials agreed with the interpretation of the Zionists that a state would be established when a Jewish majority was achieved.[8]
The initial draft of the declaration, contained in a letter sent by Rothschild to Balfour, referred to the principle "that Palestine should be reconstituted as the National Home of the Jewish people."[9] In the final text, the word that was replaced with in to avoid committing the entirety of Palestine to this purpose. Similarly, an early draft did not include the commitment that nothing should be done which might prejudice the rights of the non-Jewish communities. These changes came about partly as the result of the urgings of Edwin Samuel Montagu, an influential anti-Zionist Jew and secretary of state for India, who was concerned that the declaration without those changes could result in increased anti-Semitic persecution. The draft was circulated and during October the government received replies from various representatives of the Jewish community. Lord Rothschild took exception to the new proviso on the basis that it presupposed the possibility of a danger to non-Zionists, which he denied.[10]
At that time the British were busy making promises. At a War Cabinet meeting, held on 31 October 1917, Balfour suggested that a declaration favorable to Zionist aspirations would allow Great Britain "to carry on extremely useful propaganda both in Russia and America"
This page was last modified on 21 March 2012 at 18:47.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balfour_Declaration_of_1917#Text_development_and_differing_views
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)And what Balfour in practical term indicated was just what I said... it merely ALLOWED Jews to immigrate and purchase land there. If they took any Arab land then it was because that land was sold to them by said Arab.
You said that Britain GAVE Arab land to the Jews, which is inaccurate. Balfour didn't give the Jews anything but the right to go to Palestine. As far as the Jews immigrating and building a national home there, how can that in any way be considered "taking Arab land" unless you're beginning with the premise that all of the land (in a more general sense) in Palestine belongs exclusively to the Arabs in perpetuity by virtue of the fact that some Arabs were living in part of the land that fell within the area defined as Mandate Palestine.
Also Balfour specifically said this: "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine" which negates the idea that Balfour indicated Britain was giving Arab land to the Jews. If anything, Britain was giving Ottoman lands to the Arabs.
Besides, if you really think that the Palestinians "would do all that they've done if anybody else had occupied their land AND made them leave" then why haven't they been attacking Jordan this whole time?
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)parse it any way you please
and this quote from the comment I am replying too
"Besides, if you really think that the Palestinians "would do all that they've done if anybody else had occupied their land AND made them leave" then why haven't they been attacking Jordan this whole time?"
seems your memory is short because
Response to Reply #21
34. what about black september?
When the Palestinians formed their own military within Jordan and attempted to claim part of it for themselves... probably the closest thing to the IP conflict to ever occur in Jordan. When confronted by Palestinian militarism and terrorism within his own state Hussein reacted somewhat more severely than the Israelis ever have. His army rolled in and mushed them. Thousands were killed within 11 days. Tens of thousands by the end of the month. Then there was the expulsion of the entire Palestinian leadership and all of its fighters.
September 1970 is known as the Black September (Arabic: أيلول الأسود
in Arab history and sometimes is referred to as the "era of regrettable events." It was a month when Hashemite King Hussein of Jordan moved to quash the autonomy of Palestinian organizations and restore the his monarchy's rule over the country.<2> The violence resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of people, the vast majority Palestinian.<1> Armed conflict lasted until July 1971 with the expulsion of the PLO and thousands of Palestinian fighters to Lebanon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_September_in_Jordan
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=124&topic_id=225782#226238
however in 1988 Jordan ceded the West Bank to the PLO and at that time the UNGA acknowledged a Palestinian State on November 15 1988
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)So how is promising a Jewish homeland in Palestine in any aspect stealing Arab land? Since when was Palestine declared the exclusive property of "the Arabs?"
seems your memory is short because
My point exactly. The only difference between Jordan's actions and Israel's is that Jordan acted without mercy or morality. They crushed the Palestinians, massacred them and either cast them out or rule over them via a monarchy that excludes them. In what was originally the land of Palestine.
So it seems that the Palestinians would NOT do all that they've done if anybody else had occupied their land AND made them leave after all. It's just that any opponent other than the Jews would mercilessly crush them. Only by fighting the Jews can they get the world to pay attention and even support their cause.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)of course do you think I'd forgotten that Black September is used to portray the West Bank occupation as not so bad, which is IMO like using slavery to portray Jim Crow as not so bad either.
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)In that case, do you have a rebuttal?
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)and my rebuttal was already made if you want more then let's look at 1988 and what percentage of Jordanian citizens are Palestinian?
Really the they only hate us because we're Jews falls quite flat and ignores the 'Israeli' only roads, settlements, the almost nightly house raids, the checkpoints, the settler attacks on Palestinians that IDF routinely turns a blind eye to(that's not their job) and maybe the reason for the hatred is revealed.
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)This isn't about whether Palestinian hatred is justified. Go back to your initial comment. You're insisting that Palestinian terrorism began as a reaction to Israelis stealing their land and that this response could be expected regardless of whether it was Jews or Arabs. The fact that you are using Israeli responses to this initial violence merely supports my point. Israeli only roads were a natural reaction to Palestinians constantly shooting at Israeli cars. Settlements are ultimately the moving of Jews BACK to areas that they previously inhabited and were ethnically cleansed from. Settler violence is a very recent phenomenon which hardly reflects the reasons for this conflict being initiated.
100 years ago, Jews began immigrating to Palestine and the reaction was to massacre and expel indigenous (and later foreign) Jews. Arabs immigrated and the response was to integrate them.
Your argument is predicated on the assumption that Arabs in Palestine bore a natural right to rule the land and control the influx of minorities lest they lose their demographic advantage. The idea that this rule is sacrosanct and must include the entirety of the Middle East (barring Iran) is referred to as a matter of fact. So much so that the decision to allow Jews the right to immigrate to a tiny sliver of the whole can be un-ironically referred to as "stealing Arab land."
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)a natural reaction? so Jews in Hebron have a natural right to move back take over houses ect is that your stance if so explain why Arabs who lived in what is now Israel do not have the same right or is it that Israel demolished and/or renamed villages in an attempt to wipe from the page of history?
"100 years ago, Jews began immigrating to Palestine and the reaction was to massacre and expel indigenous (and later foreign) Jews. Arabs immigrated and the response was to integrate them."
the earliest Arab massacre of Jews I could find was an incident in 1834 that happened during an Arab revolt against the Ottomans in Safed however that obviously had nothing to do with Jewish immigration after that we move to 1920 and the Nabi Musa riots and of course Hebron but both of those incident happened after Balfour. Now as to your assertion that Arabs Palestine to create some artificial majority that has been disproved again and again here, we should believe then that prior to Zionism Palestine was largely uninhabited?
"Your argument is predicated on the assumption that Arabs in Palestine bore a natural right to rule the land and control the influx of minorities lest they lose their demographic advantage. The idea that this rule is sacrosanct and must include the entirety of the Middle East (barring Iran) is referred to as a matter of fact. So much so that the decision to allow Jews the right to immigrate to a tiny sliver of the whole can be un-ironically referred to as "stealing Arab land."
no my argument was that the colonial British promised something that was not theirs to promise.
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)History, and myself, would respectfully disagree with you.
There was no Palestinian resistance when the territories were occupied by Jordan and Egypt -- despite the existence of the same refugee camps and abysmal poverty. There was on Palestinian resistance when they were occupied by Britain, or for five hundred years before that, by Ottoman Turks, or before that, Gulf Arabs, Franks, Byzantine Greeks and Romans. In fact, the original Palestinian resistance was led by Jews and that was almost 2,000 years ago.
This particular piece of property, Palestine, has been occupied by a dozen different (non-indigenous) peoples for centuries. However, Palestinian resistance we see today began with and is built upon the presence of Jews.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)Guess you've never heard of Black September, huh?
shira
(30,109 posts)Palestinians never resisted the Jordanian or Egyptian occupation from 1948-67.
Black September was 1970 and was an attempt to topple the government of Jordan. What does that have to do with Jordan's occupation of the W.Bank from 1948-67?
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)exactly what did Jordan or even Egypt for that matter do to create resistance, what was being resistaed? Jordanian only roads? Jordanian only settlements? Nightly house raids by the Jordanian army? Jordanian settlers uprooting olive trees? Jordanian settlers attacking Palestinian shepherds?
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)How about placing all Palestinians in filthy refugee camps while denying them access to state health, education and economic services? How about Jordan actually annexing all of East Jerusalem and the West Bank? You think settlements are bad, Jordan actually took everything.
And when the Palestinians decided to carve their own state out of Jordanian land, Jordan responded not by forming "Jordanian-only roads" as you so quaintly suggest, but by crushing them. By mashing them mercilessly into the dust. Does that somehow not qualify as an event worth resisting? In your world, is the segregating of roads for security purposes a worse crime than wholesale slaughter? Jordan killed so many Palestinians no one is even sure how to count them all accurately. THEN it expelled the Palestinian's entire political leadership. The whole PLO was totally cleansed. (Can you even imagine Israel doing such a thing to Hamas? Laughable, isn't it?)
That said, Palestinian terrorism far predates any of the items that you are positing as its cause. It is patent nonsense. For example... segregated roads grew out of the problem of Palestinian gunmen firing on Israeli cars. It is not a chicken and egg problem.
But you have your answer anyway. Jordan took the entirety of Western Palestine for itself, forced its inhabitants into filthy camps, massacred them to an extent that was exponentially worse than the sum of anything Israel did over 65 years, and expelled their entire leadership organization.
I do not know if they uprooted any trees though.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)I think that may be hyperbole. Verbal abuse, yes - but beaten?
Is there confirmation beyond that one source from Jordan that you translated down thread?
King_David
(14,851 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)Land Day commemorates a violent crackdown on March 30, 1976, by Israeli forces against Palestinians who were protesting land confiscations. This year, protests and demonstrations in many countries, including Lebanon, were coordinated as part of a “Global March to Jerusalem.”
The Syrian Social Nationalist Party, some leftist Lebanese groups and around 200 foreigners and Arabs took part in the gathering. Among the foreigners were rabbis.
Read more: http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Politics/2012/Mar-31/168631-demonstrators-peacefully-mark-land-day-at-beaufort-castle.ashx#ixzz1qhY0JUbK
(The Daily Star :: Lebanon News :: http://www.dailystar.com.lb)
jimmie
(318 posts)You had to figure they would show up.
<<shaking head in disbelief>>
shira
(30,109 posts)azurnoir
(45,850 posts)Germany but that little sound bite of yours does make for 'good copy' the party however is considered far right however secular.
The Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) (Arabic: الحزب السوري القومي الاجتماعي?, transliterated: al-Ḥizb as-Sūrī al-Qawmī al-'Ijtimāʕī, often referred to in French as Parti Populaire Syrien or Parti Social Nationaliste Syrien), is a far-right secular nationalist political party operating in Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.[7][Third-party source needed] It advocates the establishment of a Syrian nation state spanning the Fertile Crescent, including present day Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Jordan, the Palestinian Territories, Israel, Cyprus, Kuwait, Sinai, southeastern Turkey and southwestern Iran.[8] It is the largest political group in Syria after the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party,[9] with over 100,000 members. In Lebanon, it is part of the March 8 Alliance.
Founded in Beirut in 1932 as a national liberation organization hostile to French colonialism, the party played a significant role in Lebanese politics and was involved in attempted coups in 1949 and 1961 following which it was thoroughly repressed. It was active in the resistance against the Israeli invasion of Lebanon from 1982 to 2000 while continiously supporting the Syrian presence in Lebanon. In Syria, the SSNP became a major political force in the early 1950s, but was thoroughly repressed in 1955. It remained organised, and in 2005 was legalised and joined the Ba'ath Party-led National Progressive Front.
<snip>
Since its inception, the party endorsed an open hostility to colonialism and advocated national self-determination, which eventually led to its ban by French authorities and the incarceration of Saadeh in 1936. Saadeh was sent to trial in 1936 and spent six months in prison for creating a clandestine party.[10] He was also accused in the trial of having been in contact with the fascist movements of Germany and Italy, but the charge was dropped as a letter was addressed from Germany denying any relationships.[10] It is during his months in prison that Saadeh laid down the final ideological foundations of the party in The Genesis of Nations.
This page was last modified on 29 March 2012 at 00:00.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Social_Nationalist_Party
shira
(30,109 posts)Also, from the very source you linked from (you must have missed this):
^ Michael W. Suleiman (1965). Political parties in Lebanon. University of Wisconsin. p. 134. "The flag of the Syrian Social Nationalist Party has a black background with a red hurricane (reversed swastika) in the middle, encircled by a white rim (...)" also pages 111-112 in the edition of Cornell University Press, 1967 "Thus, the Syrian national anthem for the PPS sang "syria, Syria uber alles" to the same familiar tune of "Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles"
176) The hand gestures in saluting and the "long live the leader" bore striking resemblances to the Nazi practice. The swastika was replaced with a hurricane as a PPS symbol,(177) while the storm or combat troops were present in both. Both Hitler and Saadeh, in addition to having the same title of 'the leader', held and exercised all legislative and executive authority."http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_Social_Nationalist_Party
This page was last modified on 29 March 2012 at 00:00.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)were dropped long ago, do keep trying, it would be enough for most to that SSNP was a far rightist party however not for you apparently is that because they're Arabs? I ask because I seem to remember you have many times in the past attempted to create a direct link between the Palestinians and the Holocaust.
shira
(30,109 posts)Looks like just your average, typical KKK brownshirts letting off a little steam...
WARNING:
Don't watch the videos if you've just recently eaten.
shira
(30,109 posts)Have a look at the scene at last Friday’s “Global march for Jerusalem” demonstration in London. “From the river to the sea” calls for Israel’s annihilation. A Hezbollah flag (it wasn’t the only one). The Neturei Karta freak show. “Zionism, terrorism”. This is what deranged Israel hated looks like.
more...
http://hurryupharry.org/2012/04/01/scenes-from-a-london-hatefest/
=====
Several Labour MP's there getting their Jew hate on.
