Israel to pull out of Gaza

[The_BlauerDragon]

[quote name='Vendetto' post='1660108' date='Jan 23 2009, 14.44']What are they moving towards if not more violence? That whole statement brands them not as a social movement, but as terrorists.[/quote]

I think that's a very good point. Demanding respect as a "Social movement" while simultaneously (in the same breath, no less) threatening to continue with terrorist attacks is hardly the way to have your claims of "honorable intentions" taken seriously. As much as I hate to say this, I think that as long as there is life in the middle east, there will never be peace in the middle east. It's a never ending cycle that will continually threaten to pull the rest of the world back into it again and again. As for Israel pulling out of Gaza, perhaps someone should try explaining to them that abstinence is the best policy (ie. If you don't invade in the first place, you won't have to worry about pulling back out).

[Samalander]

[quote name='Ser Reptitious' post='1660917' date='Jan 24 2009, 19.34']Does that somehow make their violence more acceptable?[/quote]
No, but people like that can be reasoned with, and become pragmatists when they attain power. Religious fanatics never do.

[The Progressive]

[quote name='shadowbinding shoe' post='1660627' date='Jan 23 2009, 22.32']Mahatma Gandhi??? Canada for that matter? And tagging Israel as colonial is false. It's laws and culture are influenced from European ideas, but the same can be said of Lebanon. Some of its population came from Europe, but an even bigger part came from the other Arab countries. It owes no loyalty to Britain.[/quote]

Ghandi's tactic was possible because of demographic factors and Britain's unwillingness to become Nazis, but before him there were bloody revolts starting as early as 1857. And seriously, Canada is your example? Don't you know anything about the history of ethnic cleansing and genocide in North America?

And Israel is a colonial power because its zionist formation are heavily influenced by the colonialist ethos of Europe at the time, along with the fact that most of the original Arab inhabitants of the land and their descendants are now living in permanent refugees ghettos.

[quote]No, but people like that can be reasoned with, and become pragmatists when they attain power. Religious fanatics never do.[/quote]

That's hilarious because it has been Israel's policies for several decades to exterminate the secularists while turning a blind eyes toward the fundamentalists. You reap what you sow: [url="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123275572295011847.html?mod=googlenews_wsj"]How Israel helped to spawn Hamas.[/url]

[The Green Fish]

[quote name='Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt' post='1660952' date='Jan 24 2009, 20.21']Ghandi's tactic was possible because of demographic factors and Britain's unwillingness to become Nazis, but before him there were bloody revolts starting as early as 1857. And seriously, Canada is your example? Don't you know anything about the history of ethnic cleansing and genocide in North America?

And Israel is a colonial power because its zionist formation are heavily influenced by the colonialist ethos of Europe at the time, along with the fact that most of the original Arab inhabitants of the land and their descendants are now living in permanent refugees ghettos.[/quote]
Here is a short list I made of "Things Zionism was influenced by":

1. Dreifus Affair
2. Pogroms in Russia
3. Socialism - Karl Marx
4. The National Movement of 1848
5. The Bible
6. The American Constitution
7. Science Fiction (ever read "Alt Noi Land"?)

I guess then that Israel is an Antisemitic, Communist, Fascist, Religious, American and Imaginary country... :)

[Usotsuki]

[quote name='Ran' post='1660684' date='Jan 24 2009, 09.17']I agree that Israel is not a colonial power. I think its relationship to Palestine has only very superficial similarities to that, and I don't really think it's helpful to discuss the dynamics in those terms when looking at it objectively. The issue of Israeli settlers in areas that were not Israeli territory prior to 1967 is problematic in this, but I don't really think that the situation really fits colonialism.[/quote]

How so? The taxonomy of colonies contains two base families, extraction and settlement. The defining feature of a settlement colony is migration under the aegis of the metropolitan power with the intent to accomplish a permanent change in the local demography.

That the metropolitan power, in this case the British Empire, was ambivalent about the migration and the costs this generated in terms of its relationships with other client states and their comprador elites is hardly a disqualifying factor. The British Empire was dependably unreliable when it came to supporting settlement expansion, see the frustrated land hunger of the Founding Fathers of the United States for just one example.

[quote]In terms of more subjective theory, there's something to be said for Palestinians seeing their situation through the filter of colonial experience, but that's just a way of trying to grasp what's going on through analogy.[/quote]

Palestinian identity was formed in the process of dispossession by incomers. Compared to many other settlement societies Zionism had, in my view, more compelling justification in terms of licit aspirations to ownership of the specific territory and of course a particularly well established apprehension concerning the dangers of being a people without a nation.

However, the Palestinian narrative of colonial dispossession, which is rather more than simply an attempt to understand their situation through grasping at analogy, isn't noticeably undermined by either point. The contentions that the fact of residence outweighed aspiration to inhabit and that injuries inflicted by a third party and apprehension concerning the possibility of further injury created no entitlement to disadvantage the Arab population of the mandate territory are hardly untenable.

And if one accepts this argument the defining differences between the experience of the Palestinian people and that of the inhabitants of other regions that became spaces for settlement aren't dependent on any particular feature of the process of dispossession, but rather that the dispossession was for any number of reasons unusually ineffective.

Sixty years after the foundation of Israel the populations are approximately equivalent and of course the Palestinians possess a hinterland several orders of magnitude more important than that of any other national movement in search of a state ensuring that the Palestinian-Israeli conflict has far greater salience than any other territorial squabble between far fewer than twenty million people.

[The Progressive]

[quote]The contentions that the fact of residence outweighed aspiration to inhabit and that injuries inflicted by a third party and apprehension concerning the possibility of further injury created no entitlement to disadvantage the Arab population of the mandate territory are hardly untenable.[/quote]

This sentence is quite clunky, do expand some more Usotsuki.

[Usotsuki]

[quote name='Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt' post='1661023' date='Jan 24 2009, 19.40']This sentence is quite clunky, do expand some more Usotsuki.[/quote]

Clunky :blush: how unkind. :P

In short, it doesn't matter that you wanted to live here we actually did, and it doesn't matter what injuries were done to you in other places we were not responsible so you aren't entitled to one inch of land, one bite of an olive or to cause one of us even a slight bruise by matter of compensation .

[Ser Reptitious]

[quote name='Samalander' post='1660942' date='Jan 24 2009, 11.06']No, but people like that can be reasoned with, and become pragmatists when they attain power. Religious fanatics never do.[/quote]

I'm glad we agree! :)

Now, as per my earlier post, I think Israel would be wise to find those people within Hamas and deal with them, while simaltaneously sidelining the religious fanatics within that movement.

[Samalander]

[quote name='Pax Thien Jolie-Pitt' post='1660952' date='Jan 24 2009, 20.21']That's hilarious because it has been Israel's policies for several decades to exterminate the secularists while turning a blind eyes toward the fundamentalists. You reap what you sow: [url="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123275572295011847.html?mod=googlenews_wsj"]How Israel helped to spawn Hamas.[/url][/quote]
I'm going to surprise you and agree. However, we were not the only ones who made this mistake. The US backing of Afghanistan's Mujahidin will later breed Al-Qaeda.

[Samalander]

[quote name='Ser Reptitious' post='1661036' date='Jan 24 2009, 21.58']Now, as per my earlier post, I think Israel would be wise to find those people within Hamas and deal with them, while simaltaneously sidelining the religious fanatics within that movement.[/quote]
Hamas itself is a religious movement that thrives on religious zeal and the misery of it's own people.
Only secular forces can be reasoned with (mind you, Israel, never, in it's history, had what one might call a religious Prime Minister).

[Ser Reptitious]

[quote name='Samalander' post='1661046' date='Jan 24 2009, 13.07']Hamas itself is a religious movement that thrives on religious zeal and the misery of it's own people.
Only secular forces can be reasoned with (mind you, Israel, never, in it's history, had what one might call a religious Prime Minister).[/quote]

I think we're starting to go in circles here. As I have said previously, there are bound to be some people within Hamas that are more moderate and pragmatic than others. Maybe it's just my personal perception of the man, but [url="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ismail_Haniyeh"]Ismail Haniyeh[/url] has never struck me as a religous zealot. Israel could do worse than at least [i]trying[/i] to negotiate with the likes of him.

As I have also already previously stated, Hamas is not simply going to disappear just because we want it to. It will have to be a part of any permanent solution to this conflict, whether we like it or not. Recognizing that fact and attempting to find people within Hamas that can be negotiated with would be a good start.




MOD EDIT - Fix Link

[Bellis]

[quote]I'm going to surprise you and agree.[/quote]

[quote]I'm glad we agree![/quote]

Oh great. Just when I become mod everyone starts getting along and playing nice. :sleep:

[shadowbinding shoe]

I'm not sure why Hamas=Palestinians is assumed in various posts here. It is a movement among the Palestinians but saying that negotiations must occur through them or all is lost is a false view. While they hold Gaza and have violently eradicated and suppressed all opposition there for the moment that is all they have so far accomplished. Even within Gaza many hate them though they fear to express it. Maybe you could say you can only make a durable peace with the hardliners but then would they still be considered hardliners? While Haniyeh is relatively moderate within Gaza his power pales next to the power of the Hamas militia (or has until now) which are more hardliners,

[Ser Reptitious]

[quote name='Bellis' post='1661063' date='Jan 24 2009, 13.27']Oh great. Just when I become mod everyone starts getting along and playing nice. :sleep:[/quote]

:lol:

... and in an Israel-Palestine thread, no less! Somebody oughta check the temperature in hell!

[Ser Reptitious]

[quote name='shadowbinding shoe' post='1661072' date='Jan 24 2009, 13.38']I'm not sure why Hamas=Palestinians is assumed in various posts here. It is a movement among the Palestinians but saying that negotiations must occur through them or all is lost is a false view. While they hold Gaza and have violently eradicated and suppressed all opposition there for the moment that is all they have so far accomplished. Even within Gaza many hate them though they fear to express it. Maybe you could say you can only make a durable peace with the hardliners but then would they still be considered hardliners? While Haniyeh is relatively moderate within Gaza his power pales next to the power of the Hamas militia (or has until now) which are more hardliners,[/quote]

I certainly don't equate Hamas with all Palestinians, but for better or worse they are a powerful player within the ongoing struggle and trying to completely sideline them is not likely to work in terms of achieving permanent peace.

[Ran]

I think I tend to agree with Dershowitz's argument as to why Israel isn't now a colony and why it's hard to fit it into typical colonial paradigms even before 1947. I will grant, however, that the idea of Israel as a colony has more relevance to Palestinians than simply analogy. And as I said, the issue of Israeli settlers in areas marked out for Palestine is a real problem.

[Datepalm]

[quote name='The Green Fish' post='1661003' date='Jan 24 2009, 21.14']7. Science Fiction (ever read "Alt Noi Land"?)[/quote]

Lol. Seriously

Ever read any A.D. Gordon, or Martin M. Buber? They're just plain weird sometimes.


[quote name='The Green Fish' post='1661003' date='Jan 24 2009, 21.14']I guess then that Israel is an Antisemitic, Communist, Fascist, Religious, American and Imaginary country... :)[/quote]

I can see where the equivelating of Zionism with Colonialism comes in, especially as Usotskis, um, [i]byzantine[/i], sentences point out, but for the most part* it dosen't share, ideologically, various aspects - like racism and exploitation.

WHich might well be so much semantics, except thats not how Israelis see it (nor do I think we should see it that way. ) which is why all of this is going around in circle - Israelis, in terms of our entire education and national history and so on are just not going to go "Oh, right. [s]White [/s]Jewish guilt here. Terrible, terrible thing, all that nasty Zionism business, lets put in affirmative action and try to move forwards." And it's not becuase we're colonially minded racists, but becuase, to a large extent, it's really [i]not like that[/i] so we see no reason to toss much of our founding, justifying myths out the window. Zionism is not the white mans burden or whatever.

*yes, the early zionist movement had ite's share of racist nutjobs. The leading Ideology, until, well at least 1977, wasn't.

[Usotsuki]

Byzantine and clunky, I'm having a bad day especially given the fact that I'm almost entirely sober :cry:

[Datepalm]

[quote name='Usotsuki' post='1661152' date='Jan 25 2009, 00.30']Byzantine and clunky, I'm having a bad day especially given the fact that I'm almost entirely sober :cry:[/quote]

I totally meant byzantine as a compliment. I think to converse like that should be everyones highest aspiration.

[Usotsuki]

:lol: I'm all for it as long as we avoid the outbreaks of eye-gouging which gave a certain sense of adventure to debating within earshot of the moderators of Constantinople.