Gaza, Israel, Hamas, etc

Welcome, Troll #16904. Yes, of course Israel can bomb Gaza and the West Bank and Golan Heights to dust, just as the U.S. imagined it could have bombed Viet Nam to dust. But the U.S. and its puppets (the survivors, that is) had to drag their sorry posteriors out before having them shot off. So it will be with the Israeli mass murderers.

Hope you enjoyed your visit.

read Jennifer Loewenstein's piece "If Hamas did not exist" -

www.counterpunch.org

And it would be helpful to have rabble-rousers (even trolls) post references to useful readings rather than occupy the space simply with our own opinions and the all too frequent ad hominem mudslinging. 

This was written and published on YNet (the web service of Yediot Ahronot which is a mainstream, some would say conservative, mass Israeli newspaper) before the Gaza attack and after a Hamas demo earlier this month. It's quite instructive as far as Israel's role in building Hamas:

Hamas rally our fault: Israeli officials who endorsed Hamas’ creation should be held accountable 

I agree with Hoodeet.  I completely disagree with the opening post, but considering that there is a wide range of points of view on the left about the Israel-Palestine situation, we're not going to throw people off babble for posting what "Objective Observer" did.  If he starts posting racist stuff about Palestinians, then fine, we'll toss him, just as we toss babblers who post anti-semitic stuff. 

Until then, I would appreciate it if people would not resort to namecalling.  If you have a problem with something someone has written, alert a moderator.  (Since oldgoat and I are officially on vacation, then contact jrose until tomorrow - jrose AT rabble DOT ca - but I just happen to be reading this for interest now, and thought I'd intervene early in the thread before it got ugly.)

I absolutely do not - nor with you - but if this is a moderator's decision, I will of course comply with it. I just want to note the unusual number of new posters whose first post is of this nature.

Is there anything in particular you disagree with? I believe I've been quite even-handed in laying out the current situation, at least from my point of view.

But that's really beside the point, which is how does this conflict actually come to a conclusion. The prevalent attitude seems to be that if Israel just withdrew to some previous version of its border and allowed all the descendants of the Palestinians who were expelled in the 1940s to return, then all would be well. Unfortunately this would have the practical effect of destroying "Israel". It would not end Judaism, far from it. But the character, the founding purpose of Israel would be impossible to maintain.

A fellow babbler named Martin Dufresne has this as his tag line:

"Nuke the Knesset"

I don't understand how that statement isn't loaded full of racism and hate...

 I make it a policy to bold my links.

That will be a relief for all those Arabs who are not allowed on Jewish only roads in the West Bank. I am sure there are going to be some red faces in the IDF, when I send them my blistering letter, explaining to them that they have been applying the wrong traffic control policy all these years.

Or are you saying that "Arabs" are not a race?

My, what an educational de-bait; oh, sorry for the misspelling.

I was replying in a rather sarcastic way to melovesproles' views regarding hypotheticals. It had nothing to do with my later statement, which I still stand by, that Israel is not a race-based state.

Good question, but off topic. Maybe you should start a thread about that.

No. Its a stupid question. And no, it is not at all worthy of a thread. Race is, as we know, a socially constructed concept. This fact does not change the fact that "race" however it is socially constructed has tangible impacts in social intercourse.

For example, the IDF applies policies that prevent Arabs from driving on many road in the West Bank.

Since this is the New Elbbab, let's start with first principles.

Remember the 750,000 Arabs who were expelled from Palestine in 1948? And their descendants?

They could all return tomorrow.

All they have to do is undergo an Israel-recognized conversion to Judaism! Then, under the Israeli "Law of Return", they immediately become citizens! They might not get their land and homes back, but hey, first come, first served.

See, it's not race-based at all!

It's de-mock-race-y!

You people are being way too hard on this legitimate expression of left-wing thought about the Middle East.

Ridiculous. For one thing, there have been fairly lengthy studies which have articulated how the Basic Laws of Israel, directly impugn the rights of Arabs who are Israeli citizens. I suggest you research those studies, rather than continuing the embarass yourself here.

As for the liminal differences, as to what is Israel, and what is not Israel, that makes absolutely no difference, since the policies are racist and applied by the state of Israel. It makes no difference, if the racist policy is conducted external to the recognized borders of a country -- it is still a racist policy.

And in point of fact, Israel has no borders. This is a fact. There are no Israeli laws that define its borders. Just like there is no constitution that establishes whether or not Israel is a religious state, or a secular one, only a collection of "basic laws" that serve as a basis for a legal system.

The attempt to create a unified constitution was put on hold a long time ago, largely because the secularists, could not reconcile their differences with non-secularists.

Such blatant lies. If you, Objected Observer, can't be honest about the essential nature of Israel, the self-proclaimed Jewish State, Zionism, a supremacist ideology, and the occupation which is also a colonization of Arab land and the dispossession, ghettoization, and subjugation, dehumanization, and brutalization of those same Arabs, it is no wonder your discourse here is childish, juvenile, and racist in itself.

Sadly, your pathetic and racist perspective seems the predominant viewpoint in Israel today. Worse, the opinion leaders in North America and Europe are so cowed by the juvenile but mass opionion such as yours that they have failed in their humanitarian obiligation AGAIN! 

Once more a racist, genocidal state is not confronted but appeased by the West. 

FM, one of your points was that it's wrong for Israel to describe itself a (I'm using your words here) "Jewish State".

Just out of curiosity, is it wrong for Iran to describe itself as the "Islamic" Republic of Iran? I don't think it is, since most people in Iran are Muslims, and it's none of my business anyway what Iran calls itself.

By the same token, why should you care if Israel calls itself the "Jewish State", if they actually do (officially anyway).

He has already been admonished by a moderator for it.  Are you here to shadow-moderate or are you here to participate?  If the former, then buzz off - we have enough moderators and you haven't been appointed as one of them.  If the latter, then let the moderators do their job and stop derailing threads with arguments about whether other people are breaking the rules.

That goes for everyone else, too.  It would be so great if a moderator could intervene and ask for restraint without everyone turning it into a 50 post argument about whether the moderator is in order or not.  If you want to talk about the the subject of the thread, talk about it.  If you want to talk about something else, go elsewhere and talk about it.

Thanks.

LOL.

OK, so anybody who is a supporter of Israel in its current fight with Hamas is a racist? Is that your position? Because Jack Layton supports Israel's right to defend itself in this particular conflict. And I'm very sure that Jack Layton is not a racist.

Unionist certainly was being restrained. I agree.  My response to Unionist did not suggest that s/he was the one being hateful; I was simply responding to Unionist's correction of my use of the term "ad hominem". And I was expressing my personal distaste for name-calling, which serves only to vent and raise the temperature of a discussion.  

(and to Frustrated Mess's reply)

Jack Layton is the leader of a party that's slavering after power within the established system and even if he believed the premise of Zionism is racist he would be nuts to state it publicly.  The official line is "Israel's right to exist", a mantra for all politicians.

In a way, even defenders of Palestinian rights have to utter it.  Reminds me of the msm articles about Nicaragua in the 80's:  all references to the Sandinista government had to have the modifier "Soviet-backed", "Cuban-backed", "Marxist" or some such epithet, attached.

 I know, too, that the seemingly harmless mantra may well be taken as a code that reinforces the hegemonic powers' justification of  "Israeli policy, right or wrong".  And I also believe that we have to keep pushing all the political parties, providing a counterweight to the pro-Israel-right-or-wrong (IRoW) party heavies, but I doubt we'll ever get a clear and unequivocal pro-Palestinian statement from them until economic pressures bear fruit.  What those economic pressures may be --success of the boycott of Israel, changes in the pro-Western Arab world, a complete meltdown in the US, peak oil resulting in a clearer position of China vis a vis its oil suppliers, whatever-- I won't even venture a guess.

I wish it were as simple as getting Jack Layton or even Iggy to change their public mantras.

A little perspective, perhaps?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/dec/30/israel-hamas-gaza

19 deaths in six+ years reads like a bathtub drowning stat; or a fraction thereof.

Yes, they obviously don't matter.  Geez, what are the victims' familes complaining about? 

I'll bite. Bathtubs w/o lifeguards? 

Got a link? The NDP's official statement on the current conflict is here and makes no mention of "Israel's right to defend itself." It's a pretty obvious attempt to remain "even-handed" and simply calls on both sides to cease hostilities and return to the negotiating table. So what did Layton say and where did he say it?

Last March, which has nothing to do with the current action which began a few days ago. Liar.

Pogge, I'm with you in spirit, but why would anyone engage this character who just tells bald-faced lies in an effort to bait?

Here's a random sample, plucked from his opening grenade:

The Israeli blockade began (and later escalated) in 2006 with the election of Hamas to head the Palestinian Authority - at the same time countries like Canada halted aid. It had nothing to do with rockets.

Israel pulled out in September 2005. Not "about 5 years ago". Facts are malleable in the hands of this individual.

Bullshit. There was no "peace agreement" with the PA, before, during, or since. Israeli disengagement from Gaza, known as תוכנית ההתנתקות, was a completely unilateral operation never negotiated with or agreed upon by anyone in the PA.

As Cueball points out, anyone who cares knows or can find all these facts and many more. The rest of the OP, to the extent that it purports various facts, is equally false - and it's not ignorance, it's deliberate. No honest person can make a series of innocent mistakes like this out of ignorance. Honest ignorant people (that's most of us) ask questions or look up the answers.

It is vile and horrible to reduce the level of discussion and revert to haggling with Israeli propagandists at a time when Gaza is dying.

No, I'm done with you because I don't debate with people who call honest folks liars. This is the same conflict as the one going on in Mar 2008. It's like saying WW2 ended when France fell, then another war started with the Normandy invasion.

I just wanted the opportunity to drop a link to the NDP statement alongside his quote to show up the obvious difference between his story and reality. As it happens, I had occasion yesterday to check on the official statements from both the Libs and the NDP since this began and I knew what he'd said didn't ring true. Had he substituted Michael Ignatieff for Jack Layton he would have been exactly right. I think the NDP position is a pretty bland affair but it's obviously not what this character described.

Edited to add:

Nor can it be called an end to occupation when the occupying power retains control over all borders, coastline and air space and reserves the right to send in its armed forces at will.  As far as Gaza is concerned, Israel simply turned a colonization project into an open air prison.

It's completely about religion, although it has morphed into a false racism, where each side demonizes the others characteristics, even though both antagonists are Semitic.

I agree with you. Of course it is about water and gas. But access to water and mineral resources is often dependent, not always, on control of the land. Even in our modern, materialist society going to war against a people for water and minerals is still viewed as simple banditry. Which it is.

So there becomes a need for "the narrative", the myth building, the noble-izing of the ancient art of sacking and plundering. Onto the stage rolls God, Country, Tribe, and Father. In the current case, it is like rolling sevens. We've got God, country. tribe and father  all rolled in together.

As well, in any case of colonialism through race, we have the foreigners who can claim some ancient untested right to the land, and who are often much more rabid than the natives, to lead the charge into the"unsettled lands'. Think "settling the West" and the impact on First Nations in North America and we get the idea.

As unfortunate as it is, we must demolish the mythology to get to the reality.   

It is not at all about religion. It is about land and resources, pure and simple. The religious trappings of the various factions involved are secondary, and their cause expressed often in a religious form. The "religious" motif, is one almost wholely introduced by the Zionists, when in fact, the Arabs were calling for a secular state long before the 1948 Zionist attack, and the expulsion of the Arabs. The PLO explicitly rejected the religious construction of issues in its 1964 founding charter. They maintained this view throughout the Arafat period.

The Arabs only picked up on the religious construction of the issue with the founding of Hamas in 1988.

Furthermore, the idea that this is "all about religion" only obscures the real issues, and contributes to the ideological grid lock.

New blog: Harm to civilians during the fighting in Gaza and Southern Israel - it's being used to provide information by a number of Israeli human rights groups.



H/t to Oxdown Gazette which is a division of the growing Firedoglake empire.

The Return to Zion

It's a good thing then that it isn't based on religion.  Things could be so much worst than they are now if it were.  Of course land and resources are included, the promised land, the promised resources.

If the religious fanatics from both sides were removed from the equation, how quickly do you thing the ideological gridlock would disappear along with them?  People on both sides who are religious but might be persuaded towards a secularist resolution of the conflict would be justified in being more frightened of their own respective extremists than those of the enemy.

Jews, Muslims, and Christians (of various denominations) lived together in peace in the Middle East and Palestine specifically for centuries - until British imperialism, hungering to displace the Ottoman Empire, struck an alliance with largely non-religious Zionists to create a colonial beachhead in the region. Herzl at one time was favourable to having Uganda as the Jewish "homeland". The religious Jews, both those in Palestine and in the "Diaspora", were overwhelmingly non- or anti-Zionist.

It wasn't coveted in their dreams for centuries. That is modern mythology. Zionism was a tiny movement among Jews until after Hitlers pogrom. Sephardic Jews were promised land, jobs and proseprity if they chose to immigrate to Israel.

 The process of assimilation of the Sephardic Jews of the Arab lands was one encouraged by direct invitation by the Zionists, and propelled by increasingly negative attitudes towards Jews (and indeed some tit for tat expulsions by some Arab countries) in response to the expulsion of the Arabs of Palestine within some Arab countries. 

To say that there was no bias against Jews in the predominantly Arab Muslim lands prior to the creation of Israel would be false, but in the main the two populations lived fairly peacefully side by side for centuries. In fact, it was the Arabs and Turks who most readily accepted Jewish refugees into their lands during the European pogroms, until the policy of accepting Jewish immigrants was forced on them by the European powers.

The fact that Arabs find specific interest in long standing cultural icons such as the Temple Mount, is not at all suprising, nor is it unusual for liberation movements to find such monuments that speak to a joint heritage important in their symbolic iconography. There is nothing particualarly religious about it.

The religious view of the conflict, established by the Zionists when they decided to impose there religious state in the midst of the Arab populations served very directly to assert and unassailable "religious" claim that superceded the secular rights of individuals, based in faith, who occupied the land which they desired.

As usual, the religiously founded ideology served the purposes of power and wealth, and was not the primary motivator of the Zionist cause, but merely a tool that asserted an ideological justification to support the claim manifested as the right of conquest.

Insisting that the conflict is religious is to mystify what is all too real. And mystifying the claim on Palestine, so that the claim could not be challenged by secular human morality was the latent intent behind asserting the religious construct upon the issue, as was done by the Zionist.

To assert that the issue is about religion is to fall into their trap, and make it appear as if the conflict is unresolvable because it is theologic in nature. First and foremost it must be understood that the conflict is about land and resources, and its resolution lies in the assertion of "human rights" over "liturgical right".

The Zionists are fine with the conflict being defined in theological terms. It served their purposes and reduces everything to the irresolvable theological dispute, in which might is the only real mode of discourse, since human rights are of negligible weight in the realm of theology.

This advantages their cause, since they are the powerful, and the Arabs are weak.

I have no argument with this.  I believe, as I've alluded to more than a few times, that religion was manufactured for many purposes.  It is humanities greatest all-purpose invention, and its wonders are still being put to good use, for those that gain from it, and it is being used as it was intended, to provide cover for inhumanity.  As for history, it too is often misused to represent various causes.  False Memory: Misusing History in the Arab-Israeli Conflict

What motivates the people who occupy those quaint hilltop communities throughout "Judea" and "Samaria?"

Cueballs response above is the most relevant. But to answer your question of what motivates those folks:

Ethnic fanaticism. You can do the pinhead argument of whther that is racism, or contains racism.

Some of those racists on the hilltops are completely secular. And if the explicitly religious zealots were to leave, there are plenty of secular racists to replace them. I had a friend who would be counted among the latter. Not surprisingly, a very complex individual. But that doesn't change who has was/is and what he did.

Both Cueball and Ken have answered the "motivation" question quite accurately.

There is no doubt that many of the settlers are led by religious wingnuts. What is instructive is to see the Israeli regime sweep these characters aside as one does a housefly, when they stand in the way of Israel's geopolitical and colonial needs. The best example is how Sharon set a deadline for the settlers to leave Gaza, then went and chased the stragglers out, with a few nutbar rabbis condemning him to hell as a traitor to God etc. etc.

A good analogy would be the Conservative Party and some of its evangelical Christian base. Some of the followers may be motivated by foolishness (though in both Canada and Israel, we're talking about a minority). But the underlying interests of the Conservative Party have everything to do with oil and gas tycoons and capitalism generally. God doesn't enter into that equation.

If it can be agreed that this conflict is really about giving Israel an excuse to attempt to seize lands and resources for Israel, then it certainly is to Israel's advantage to have Hamas fire rockets at them. When Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006, it was widely reported in foreign media that the Israeli soldiers who were supposedly kidnapped by Hezbollah in a "daring, cross border raid" were actually in Lebanon when they were confronted by Lebanese police. Coupled with the information that a few days ago Lebanese police discovered and dismantled seven timer-controlled rockets aimed at Israel one can only assume that if Hamas were not firing rockets at Israel, then the Israelis would have to do it for them. 

Remember that Mossad, by its own motto, makes war with deception.

Ok, ohara. Tell us what you think about the Israeli attacks on Gaza, and I promise to answer you without any reference or comparison to White Supremacists.

1. Stop all incursions whatsoever into Gaza (with the sole exception of hot pursuit, if and when that should be applicable), and declare a unilateral ceasefire.

2. Unilaterally and publicly recognize Hamas authority over Gaza, pending further peace talks.

3. If rocket attacks continue, formally ask Hamas to stop them.

4. If they do not stop immediately, ask the Security Council to intervene - offer to end the blockade as soon as the Security Council acts.

5. If the Security Council refuses to act in a situation where rocket attacks continue while Israel observes a unilateral ceasefire, get back to me. Not before.

NOTE: The above does not represent "my position". It's just a sample answer to your question, a series of steps which even supporters of Israel might give some consideration to implementing. The above does not amount to "self-destruction", just to forestall any dismissive comments.

see below

Thanks, aka Mycroft.

I've known Rachad for more years than I care to count. It's vital to have a clarion voice like his in academia. He is a widely respected activist.

Spoken like a true fascist. Congrats. You finally made the grade.

On the bright side, I am personally delighted that it seems that (from the usual cohort of 5 or 6 appologists that visit this board) it is only you whose attachement to intellectual honesty and basic human morality has been so corroded by years of lying to yourself that you are able to shamelessly offer up this shit for the world to see, without apparent embarassment.

I think I get it now.  In Klondike fashion, the 20th Century saw a rush of squatters and settlers onto the land solely for the boundless wealth of its resources.  And as for all the archeological activity, it has nothing to do whatsoever with attempting to link ancient mythology to the present, and thereby providing false fodder for a claim to the land spanning 1000s of years.  It is merely a search for buried treasure.

Slumberjack, your attempts to understand Jewish political, cultural and religious history are laudable.

Makwa, the similarities between the Zionist settler views of the indigenous Arab population's relationship with the land, and that of the European settlers here, are truly chilling.

Even now / We are not lost: If you look out at the night / You'll see the colours and the lights seem to say / People are not far away, at least in distance, / And it's only our own dumb resistance / That's making us stay.

Who's "us"?

Yeah, I would agree with you that "mass murderers" is a more apt characterization of the current situation. The bombers are certainly not stopping to inquire into the racial complexion of the children they slaughter. Thanks for that clarification.

A few days ago I showed a South African friend Google Earth for the first time and we had a look at the privileged white suburb of Johannesburg where he'd grown up. I noted the wide bungalow rooves, well maintained lawns and backyard swimming pools. Scrolling north a couple of k's brought us to a black shantytown, with 30 houses occupying the same space as one white home. The difference in lifestyles was....suggestive.

Then we scrolled to where I grew up in south western Ontario and I noted the wide bungalow rooves, well maintained lawns, backyard pools...and I realized, SHIT!...we're part of the same animal. The only reason my home turf didn't have a shantytown tucked handily by for cheap labour is because most of our First Nations people died from European diseases. 

Otherwise, I realized with a shock, it would look the same.

Then I scrolled over to Gaza and noted the arable productive lands on one side of the fence...and the crowded tiny circumstances on the other side. 

And I understood why the western press is all singing the same song. It is the song of colonial kin. It is the song of the colonialists. 

Israel is a principally white European colonial project. It is a work-in-progress. Its EXPLICIT if unexpressed goal is to drive the Gazans from the land which will then be colonized by the Israeli state. They have similar ambitions for the West Bank.

They do not want peace. They want land. They will pay for it with their blood, if the rate of exchange is deemed good. That is the job of the IDF. 100:1 is the best deal their war machine has gotten yet.

I'll say it again. 

THEY DO NOT WANT PEACE. THEY WANT LAND.

I mean, I think most people here get that. I get that. But still, I am shocked when I put it like that.

But really, that's it, isn't it? A colonialist state with a superior military force with the support and complicity of western nations is attempting to force an indigenous population from its land in order to have it for itself.

Seems pretty racist to me.

Yeah..., it's a shame our "Opposition" parties seem to have a blind spot about it.

Closing for length.