Absolutely not. If an ultra-Orthodox coalition ever got control of Israel, suspended many civil rights, and insisted on permanent reoccupation of the West Bank (or perhaps even parts of Jordan and Egypt) based on the Torah, I would in no way support that. I support Israel because they are a democracy, because they have reached out to the Palestinians, because they have proven a willingness to negotiate and a respect for human rights which has dwarfed the other side.
On a tangent, this is a reason I think Israel has some serious problems in long-term survival. Demographics will catch up to it – the ultra-Orthodox population is growing in Israel faster than the secular one. Right now Shas and their ilk are coalition breakers. They may soon be much more. Also, the Arab US population is growing faster than the Jewish US population. One day they will have more political power than the Jewish US population, and an autocratic Jewish regime in Israel will not be tolerated. It is sad for a moderate pro-Israeli like me, but at least I can read the writing on the wall.
Well, I disagree with your perception of what the Israelis have done. As I’ve said, I feel any proposals Israel has put forth at their heart simply legitimize the land grab the Zionists pulled in 1948 after the end of the British Mandate. And the way it’s conducted itself in places like Southern Lebanon and the West Bank make me seriously question any commitment to human rights they may profess. And if Israel were a real democracy, do you not think it would be democratic to put the issue of right of return to something like a referendum? (I’m not saying they haven’t, since I don’t know one way or the other.)
I take issue with that historical interpretation. My understanding is that the UN divided Palestine into 2, leaving one part for Arabs and one part as a Jewish homeland. The surrounding Arab countries disagreed with this plan and vowed to take back the entire territory by force. The Palestinians themselves were oddly silent during these procedings, as much of their leadership had left the territory during British rule.
The Arabs fought a brief war with Israel and lost. That doesn’t sound like a land grab by Israel to me. That sounds like a military victory coming after a defensive war.
More generally, a one-state multicultural solution only works if both parties are willing to tolerate each other for the purposes of building a civil society. Although there are a few examples of such constructive efforts on the Palestinian side, they are distressingly and unacceptably rare, and are outweighed by widespread support for suicide killing among the Arab populace.
Okay, okay - Just don’t tell my boss I’m sneaking in here .
First off the Golan Heights isn’t really an issue, because it is not so much an Isreal/Palestinian problem as an Israel/Syria problem. Someone can correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think the inhabitants of the Golan were ever really considered Palestinian - As I recall most of the reamining inhabitants ( of which there are few ) are Druse. The Golan was not part of the 1948 mandate territories ( it was until 1922, but was ceded to France therafter and became part of Syria in 1944 ), but rather a chunk of Syria that Israel seized in the Six-Day War in 1967. Israel’s occupation thereof has consequently been on somewhat shaky ground under international law, but because it is a strategically important sector ( a military highpoint ), Israel has understandably been loathe to surrender it while it remains on such shitty relations with Syria.
As to the non-contiguous nature of the proposed Palestinian state - Well, you’re right, it’s a problem. It has long been my view that the only sane and economically sound resolution to the problem would be an integrated Palestine-Israel confederation - But of course that is utterly impossible politically at this point. Otherwise there is no good solution and indeed it gets worse as the placement of Jewish settlements is such that the last Israeli proposal basically proposed ( I’m half-remebering here, as I don’t have time to look it up - Corrections welcomed ) slicing the Palestinian areas into four discontinuous chunks. This was one of the stumbling blocks in the negotiation. Negotiations were presumably on-going and unresolved as to travel restrictions,water rights, et al.
The other issue Putting aside the ‘right of return’ problems for now ) is indeed Jerusalem, which for real political reasons neither side can apparently afford to bend too much. One of the reasons I prefer the internationalization solution. But that too, is politically unacceptable it seems.
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These are secondary reasons. The main reason that Israel has been so much more successful than the occupied territories isn’t because Israel had better access to financial capital, it’s because Israel had better access to human capital.
Israel was founded by a massive influx of Europeans, many of them very highly educated but virtually all of them much better educated than the locals. This gave Israel a huge leg up in developing an economically and technologically advanced society. Under these circumstances, it’s hardly fair to criticize the Palestinians for not having world-class universities.
With regard to financial investment, Collounsbury likens Arab investment in the occupied territories to investment in apartheid South Africa. The only problem with this analogy is that it doesn’t go far enough. In the 70’s and 80’s, it looked very much like Israel planned to eventually annex the West Bank and (probably) Gaza and make it part of Israel proper. Thus, providing lots of cash to help Palestinians in the West Bank would have been (or, at least, looked like it would have been) effectively equivalent to investing in Israel itself. Not, obviously, a very attractive prospect for an Arab state.
Finally, with respect to Edwino’s demographic comment, the fastest growing segment of the Israel population is its Arab component. The far right, as Edwino points out, is growing fast, too. This creates either a real problem or a real opportunity. It’s likely that in the next thirty years or so there will either be an Israeli civil war or Olentzero’s dream of “a secular, democratic state in what is now Israel that fully and democratically integrates both Jew and Palestinian” will become a reality by default.
This to me is IMHO closing your eyes to well over half of the situation. As discussed elsewhere, the “Zionist land grab” was for the most part legal and legitimate. Jews moved to Palestine, and bought land on which to live. They paid money for the land to the Ottoman land holders, and as a consequence, the Palestinian tenant farmers were forced off. While I’m sorry about that, there is nothing inherently wrong about it. Renting a house which was rented by your parents and grandparents doesn’t mean that the house is any more yours. If some guy comes along and buys the house and decides he doesn’t like you as a tenant, you have no legal claim to the house. Sad but fair.
Most of the actions of Israel since then have been purely defensive, as results of Arab aggression. Actions on the West Bank and Southern Lebanon were only precipitated by terrorism. And, Israel willingly withdrew from Southern Lebanon after the Lebanese government, with the backing of the UN, agreed to make it more secure. If the Palestinians came out and said similar, the Israelis would have been out of the West Bank long ago. But they haven’t. To date, Arafat has not even condemned terrorism in Arabic.
Putting the issue of right of return to ballot in Israel would be like holding a referendum on whether to turn the keys to the White House over to Osama bin Laden. It would be a total waste of time. What would possess Israelis to basically vote themselves out of Israel? I don’t see why the Israelis should be morally or financially responsible for 4.6 million refugees created largely as a consequence of actions over which they had no control. Sure, there were some instances of injustice. In those cases, financial and even land recompense is in order. This is exactly what Israel has proposed. But not for 4.6 million violently anti-Israeli refugees.
Well, as some supporting arguments for my position on the aggressive territorial expansion of the Zionists in Israel, I wanted to post two quick links. One is an article from the International Socialist Review, and one is a chapter from a book by Ralph Schoenman called “The Hidden History of Zionism”, from which the ISR article draws heavily.
I haven’t read them fully yet, and I plan to over the next day to cover them better in this debate. edwino and flowbark, you two ought to read them too, even if you’re sure you’ll completely disagree with them, if only to better understand the sources I’m using for my arguments.
For every single moment, from the first day of Israel’s existance right up until today, tens of millions of Arabs have been committed to wiping out Israel.
How many Arab states today formally acknowledge Israel’s right to exist?
Judging from the first few paragraphs, those are polemical pieces. I don’t plan to read them, simply because I lack the necessary background to fully evaluate their factual statements. (On other topics, I would be more comfortable reading through such claims.)
A couple of months ago, I looked for a short history of the middle east, by somebody without an obvious ax to grind. I ended up choosing Cleveland’s A History of The Middle East (1999).
If anybody is aware of a history of the Middle East that is available on the web and is relatively nonpartisan (or at least makes a visible attempt to weigh the existing evidence), please let us know.
As an aside, I’d like to thank Olentzero for attempting to present the PLO’s POV, notwithstanding the differences of opinion we may have.
I will not be around until Monday – I am going to a conference for a few days.
I will try to read the articles, but they are definitely biased. Keep in mind that you are only getting 50% of the story. Keep in mind that the Israelis have publicly acknowledged wrongdoing in many of the cases of “atrocity.” Keep in mind that most of Israeli actions since 1948 are provoked.
If you are looking for a good resource on-line, http://www.mideastweb.org seems to be reasonably fair, with viewpoints from both sides. It links to very interesting stuff, including a Israeli/Zionist look at Deir Yassin: http://www.ariga.com/peacewatch/dy/
Again, I acknowledge wrongdoing on both sides. There are 5 million Jews and 5 million Palestinians in Israel and Palestine. They deserve the right to govern themselves and live in freedom. I believe the Israelis have made the offers, but I think that they can still do better. I think the Palestinians have embraced terrorism as a means to get their goals, and I think the Israelis have every right to fear for their security, and take necessary action. I think that the Palestinians must change this before the Israelis can offer better.
WHO commited the acts at Sabra and Shatilla? Can you even answer that for us?
Now for some books to read about the history of the Middle East.
For a good pre and durring WW1 look at life in the area read “Seven Pillars of Wisdom” by T. E. Lawence. Disclaimer: T.E. Lawence was extremly pro Arab after the war so I can’t vouch for any of his writings after that (if he had any I am not sure) my personal opinion is that his pro Arab sentiment came from his personal interactions with Arabs durring the war and personal commitments he made to individuals durring the war.
For what I consider to be a good read overall: “The Israeli/Arab Conflict: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict” It isn’t a history book but a collection of political writings and speaches given by the people who count, the leaders.
Arafat is credited by Israel for being ‘behind’ the suicide bombers and yet the PA security force was making arrests in the territories for those somehow involved in it. They call for his removal although the Islamist groups claiming responsibility (Hamas, Islamic Jihad) for bombings have admitted disrupting PLO peace talks because…well, because they don’t want peace I suppose. This fact alone causes one to wonder what the point is in expecting certain expectations to materialize (such as the 7-day cease fire) when a certain percentage is admittedly working against that premise, which may or may not be under Arafat’s control.
Hamas is also a social and political organization which provides funding to worthy causes - schools, hospitals - and does these bombings on the side, I guess. Not knowing much about it, I am sure at least that when in the past they have warned suicide attacks in response to X, they meant it. And so they have done it. And then those responsible are celebrated despite the fact that negotiations were in progress. Which one is more representative of the Palestinians as a whole, Hamas or the PLO(or PA)?
I apologize if this has been addressed elsewhere already; I did make attempts to find things but my connections are timing out often here. (Frustrating.)
I suppose you mean “who physically had their fingers on the triggers”? Well, the Christian Phalangists and the troops of Haddad, both Lebanese. But allow me to quote at length from a book by John Rose called Israel: the Hijack State…
OK, so the Israelis have already invaded Lebanon by this time, in response to the attempted assassination of Shlomo Argov, Israeli ambassador to London. Now the IDF has sealed off a refugee camp inside Lebanon armed troops hostile to the Palestinians, and allowed them to enter the camp.
Now they’re lighting up the camp at night to help these same Lebanese troops do the work Israel armed them for.
And what’s going on in broad daylight is plainly visible to the Israelis.
…and they didn’t do anything about it. Hardly surprising, given the fact that they set the whole thing up in the first place.
Now we have high-ranking Israeli military figures congratulating them for their work.
The militia knew what they themselves were up to. The Israelis could plainly see, by daylight and the flares they provided at night, what the militia were up to. The Israelis met the militia leaders, congratulated them, and offered them further material assistance.
And, finally, this:
Between 700 and 1900 Palestiniian lives lost, in one incident over two days, as part of a larger reaction to the attempted assassination of one Israeli. How long a span of time would we have to cover in order to find an equal number of Israelis killed by Palestinian attacks?
So, in answer to your question, again, it was the Lebanese Christian Phalangists and Haddad troops who physically did the killing at Sabra and Shatila. But Israel aided and abetted this massacre to such an extent that the blood runs all the way up to Sharon’s elbows, regardless of what an Israeli court ultimately determined about his complicity in the matter. It’s been argued before that Sharon, who commanded the entire IDF at the time, couldn’t be held responsible because he couldn’t possibly have been aware of what all his troops were doing at any given moment. If that is so, why hold Arafat responsible for every Palestinian suicide bombing and terrorist attack that happens on Israeli soil?
Here are the appropriate footnotes for the preceding material:
T.L. Friedman, New York Times, 26 September 1982.
Noam Chomsky, The Fateful Triangle: The United States, Israel and the Palestinians (London 1983), pp. 364-5.
Olentzero: Ok, but finish the story. After the massacre of 800-1900 Palestinians by Christian militias in Lebanon, 400,000 Israelis -over 10% (!) of the population at the time- took to the streets, protesting the atrocity.
I maintain that such a broad protest would not have occurred in most countries; the attitude would have been, “Hey, we didn’t do it”.
Still, it is tricky to strike the right balance here. It appears from the evidence that Sharon may be an unpunished war criminal. At the same time, Syria has done worse, with far less societal introspection. OTOH, that 400,000 estimate may be too high… yi-yi-yi.
That’s just silly. No country, short of resorting to mass behavioral modification, can have all its citizens be of one mind on any issue; if that were true we probably wouldn’t be having this debate now. It is entirely possible for one portion of the population to protest an occurrence while those in charge who could or should be held responsible deny all culpability. The name My Lai ring a bell?
Additionally, the fact that there was a protest in response to the Sabra and Shatila massacre doesn’t prove that members of the Israeli government and military aren’t responsible in any way for the incident. As a matter of fact, the mere existence of a protest says very little in and of itself. Was it by leftists in Israel protesting the government’s complicity, or was it by militant Zionists decrying the inhumanity of the uncivilized Arabs and demanding the Israeli government do something about it?
No doubt Sabra and Shatilla is one of the ugliest episodes in the recent history of the region, abd someone needed to have their feet held to the fire for that one. No Israeli should be proud of what happened there.
Neither shoud any Palestinian be proud of what the bomb blasts have been doing daily in Israel - mudering children on school buses is as far down as humanity can go.
The difference is, I don;t see ANY Palestinians protesting these acts, and demanding better from their leaders. No excuses, they should stop the bombs. If they cannot, don’t blame Israel for trying.
Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces and settlers, 29 Sep 2000-25 Mar 2002: 1142
Israelis killed by Palestinians, 29 Sep 2000-12 Feb 2002: 244
A five-to-one ratio in Israel’s favor. How high does that ratio have to go in order for Israel to successfully “stop the bombs”? Six to one? Ten to one? One hundred to one?
Its a shame there has to be any ratio at all - no one needs to be killed. But if you are attacked, what options do you have? Would you, personally, allow a would-be atacker to blow up your kid without trying to stop him? I doubt it, no matter what his motivation may be, you would likely protect your child. This is what Israel is doing. I’m not sure how else to put it.
(Please note, I am not a supporter of the extremists who think Palestinians should be driven out of the West Bank, or anything remotely resembling that. I also do not think it is humane to have people living in refugee status).
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