Israel and the Palestinians, pt.1
1. RustlerPike - 7/30/2001 4:57:19 AM Hmmm.
2. RustlerPike - 7/30/2001 5:00:43 AM
This will require work (I hate work). Like - I'll have to put up links to maps and stuff, right?
Is there a maid to go along with a new thread? Like, to help me clean up clutter and stuff? Or a eunuch perhaps, to search for useful links and put them up?
The Old Days were so useful in so many things. Nowadays you can't have servants unless you're filthy rich.
3. RustlerPike - 7/30/2001 5:04:52 AM
A thought I had this morning: if I were in charge of Israeli PR, I would cease calling the Occupied Territories by that name, or by the biblical Judea and Samaria. I would start calling them the Disputed Territories, or the Former Jordanian Territories. After all, there was never a Palestinian state there (or anywhere), and the only reason the Arab world is so adamant about giving the Palestinians self determination west of the Jordan is... well, you figure that one out by yourselves.
4. PelleNilsson - 7/30/2001 6:17:01 AM
Why not call them simply the West Bank?
Back in January I put together a some notes on the events after WWI which made the Middle East into what it is today. I could dig them out and make them linkable.
For maps this is probably the best site. Most, if not all, of those maps are produced by CIA.
Now I have to go and say quasi-clever things at a meeting. See you later.
5. stostosto - 7/30/2001 7:01:42 AM
Ruster,
regarding Ramallah pictures:
I don't like them. I don't like anyone to be exposed to such brutality anywhere, ever.
But I don't know why you think posting them again and again achieves anything.
They horribly document unfettered hatred and bestiality on the part of the people who committed that crime.
But your cause is not furthered unless you can establish:
1) that this is representative of Palestinians in general
and/or
2) that the PLO leadership incited it and condoned it, if not actually ordered it (you keep mentioning Arafat controlled media's systematic hate propaganda. Could you please provide an example, or, preferably some statistical documentation of how Pal media incites violence. It's undeniably relevant to the understanding of the situtation).
3) that the Palestinians have no comparable ugly experiences with Israeli tanks and bullets and combat helicopters and F-16s.
6. stostosto - 7/30/2001 7:38:58 AM
For your information:
Here is a radio spot announcing a radio reportage called "Three days on the West Bank" produced and broadcasted by Danish Radio.
"In Hebron 40,000 people are held captive by 16,000 Israeli soldiers in order to secure the protection and free movement of 400 Israeli settlers".
(Quoted from memory, I heard it this morning).
The reportage was made in February, broadcast in March, now re-broadcast this evening.
The Danish Radio has a site called Human rights in Palestine (sorry, it's in Danish)
On the front page, it says:
The UN, the EU and the USA criticises Israel for human rights violations in the occupied territories.
We ask:
* Can Israeli compliance with human rights reasonably be demanded?
* Is it possible to criticise Israel without being accused of anti-semitism?
* And what are human rights worth if the West does not dare to ask its friends in Israel to comply with them?
Then some quotes from a human rights report by UN high commissioner Mary Robinson plus a link to a listing of UNHCR reports and documents.
7. stostosto - 7/30/2001 8:08:01 AM
Oh, here it is, that text I quoted from memory earlier (my translation from Danish):
Since the Intifada - the Palestinian uprising - broke out on Sep. 29 of last year, 40,000 Palestinians in Hebron's old part of town H2 have been almost totally banned from exit because 1,600(*) Israeli soldiers are charged with securing the free movement for 400 Jewish settlers.
The Palestinians are allowed only a few hours per week in which to make their shopping. Otherwise the town has been totally closed to the Palestinians.
The Jewish settlers have been able to move freely all during the seige. Palestinian children have been able to hear Jewish children play right outside their doorstep. Most Palestinian schools are closed and have been turned into Israeli military forts.
Here - including a series of pictures
---
(*)Not 16,000 as I said earlier.
8. stostosto - 7/30/2001 8:24:05 AM
A list of links for the benefit of the host, courtesy of the Danish Radio site on Human Rights in Palestine
9. RustlerPike - 7/30/2001 9:52:52 AM
sto3:
Could you please provide an example, or, preferably some statistical documentation of how Pal media incites violence.
This is from Palestinian Media Watch. It was written last year, and is very relevant to the Ramallah lynchings. You can either believe the guy or not - there doesn't seem to be any documentation - but I can tell you I saw that (amateurishly produced) footage of the 'rape scene' on TV here:
"This week on "Panorama", Palestinian television's cultural program, a brutal scene from a Palestinian movie was shown in which Israeli soldiers throw a Palestinian girl on top of their jeep and rape her, and then murder her parents. (See part 1).
"The messages on the religious broadcasts by the official Palestinian Authority religious leadership this summer, show that the religious worldview of the Palestinian Authority is identical to the principles of the Hamas. According to the Palestinian Authority religious leadership, Islam's war with the Jews is eternal, the peace agreements are temporary, and Allah will inevitably liquidate the state of Israel. (See part 2).
"One category of the heightened incitement that can be measured is the increase in quantity and heightening of the severity of violence clips on PA TV. As an established daily routine, clips showing violence against Israel and the Israeli army are shown daily between regular programming on Palestinian television. By using pictures of riots from different time periods, which have undergone careful editing, Israeli soldiers are presented as cruel and murderous while the Palestinians, especially the children, are presented as heroic fighters. Broadcasting these clips creates a perpetual warlike atmosphere..."
10. stostosto - 7/30/2001 10:45:43 AM
Rustler,
do you watch Pal TV? Can you understand their language? Do the Pals watch Israeli TV?
To what extent do Israelis and Palestinians understand each other's language?
11. jexster - 7/30/2001 10:52:48 AM
UR certainly closer to the scene than I RP and I cannot speak to the quality of Palestinian reporting. Even your selectively biased impressions are infinitely superior to anything I might add.
I do know however that "they kill our children" is a recurring theme. Widely shared, it is not made up out of whole cloth. There is enough real ground to it without resort to such garbage. I understand that Palestinians generally prefer Aljezeera TV if they can get it to their own news.
This brings up another one of those odd parallels. Partisans on both sides forever complain about the media. Jews rail. Palestians bitch and carp.
12. Jenerator - 7/30/2001 10:56:29 AM
Rustler,
This question may be premature to your current discussion, but what are your predictions regarding Jerusalem? (What do you think will happen? Do you think that the Mosque of the Golden Dome will be destroyed?)
13. rubberducky - 7/30/2001 11:11:02 AM
Re: Message # 2, RustlerPike.
Is there a maid to go along with a new thread? Like, to help me clean up clutter and stuff? Or a eunuch perhaps, to search for useful links and put them up?
you could request a co-host, but i doubt you'll get many takers for a 'maid'.
14. concerned - 7/30/2001 11:20:41 AM
The middle east, particularly the eastern shore of the mediterranean, has always been a cringe producing part of the world for me. Unfortunately, it still looks like it'll get worse before it gets better.
15. jexster - 7/30/2001 11:46:08 AM
No shit Concerned...me too...just got my morning propaganda briefing from the corner terrorist...exasperated I wondered aloud what might happen if every Israeli and Palestinian could manage to go just one week a year without saying something awful whether its true or no about the other.
16. jexster - 7/30/2001 11:48:06 AM
Serendipidously, I read this on my return:
On June 18, in broad daylight, Palestinian gunmen in a yellow taxi overtook Danny Yehuda--the father of three--as he drove on a highway near Homesh...and shot him to death at point-blank range. Taking responsibility for Yehuda's execution was a group calling itself "Battalions of the victim Thabet Thabet." The organization claimed to be avenging the death of Dr. Thabet Ahmed Thabet of Tul Karm, who until last December, when he was gunned down by undercover Israeli forces, had been a dentist and director-general of the Palestinian Authority's health ministry.
In killing Thabet, the Israelis were apparently retaliating for a terrorist attack in the coastal town of Netanya just hours earlier, though nobody has established a connection between Thabet and the fatal explosion. A profile in the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz later revealed that Thabet and his wife had been open advocates of peaceful negotiation with Israel; moreover, she credited their ability to have children to an Israeli friend who had pleaded with her to be treated by a Tel Aviv gynecologist. ("The Israelis gave me my life," Mrs. Thabet said, "and then the Israelis took it 19 years later.") In a state of depression following Thabet's assassination, one of his relatives shot and killed Israeli restaurateurs Motti Dayan and Etgar Zeituni, themselves peace advocates, as they shopped for supplies. At Danny Yehuda's funeral--scarcely a week into the cease-fire declared after 21 Israeli youths were blown up at the Dolphinarium dance club--grief-stricken settlers denounced Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon for failing to declare war against the Palestinian Authority. "We need another Goldstein," shouted some of the mourners. They were referring to Dr. Baruch Goldstein, who killed 29 Arabs at prayer in the Tomb of the Patriarchs in 1994....
Tribal Warfare
17. RustlerPike - 7/30/2001 11:55:36 AM
Pelle:
Why not call them simply the West Bank?
For one thing, there is no added PR value in it. For another, 'West Bank' sounds bad to right-leaning Israeli ears: the terms refers to the West Bank of the Jordan River (as opposed to the East Bank - which is present-day Jordan). This is the territory as viewed from an Arab perspective. From an Israeli perspective, it's on the east.
Otoh, considering that the East Bank (Transjordan) which was 80% of British Palestine was handed over whole to the Arabs (in the 20s I think), it would make some sense to view all of the territory west of the Jordan as a single 'West Bank', which, if the British had chosen to effect a 20-80 split along the Jordan, would have gone to the Jews.
18. Francis Urquhart - 7/30/2001 11:57:20 AM
Barak - Separate or Die
Rustler,
Your thoughts --
"The only answer is to establish a border for Israel in which we will have a solid Jewish majority for generations to come. It might take three or four years to delineate the lines around settlement blocks. At the beginning, I would not dismantle settlements. But in due time, I would take isolated settlements into the settlement blocks or into Israel proper."
19. RustlerPike - 7/30/2001 12:00:01 PM
Sto3:
do you watch Pal TV? Can you understand their language? Do the Pals watch Israeli TV?
No, no, yes (though I don't know to what extent.)
To what extent do Israelis and Palestinians understand each other's language?
Most male Pals seem to know Hebrew, while most Israelis do not know Arabic.
20. RustlerPike - 7/30/2001 12:26:34 PM
Jen:
(What do you think will happen? Do you think that the Mosque of the Golden Dome will be destroyed?)
You really want to know what I think? Well - I can tell you what I would do and I can say that I believe it will happen but I can't give a very rational prediction of how it would happen, except to say that it would require a very charismatic, messianic-type Israeli leader, moreso than even Ben Gurion (who was a short, bald, evil party functionary). Someone like Herzl.
My view of what would happen is that the Temple Mount would be divided between the Jews (who would get the northern two-thirds) and the Muslims (who would get the rest). This way the holiest Muslim mosque on the mountain - the Al-Aqsa Mosque, built later than Al-Aqsa, on the ruins of the Jewish Temple - would remain in place and in Muslim hands. The golden dome - called As-Sahra if I am not mistaken - would be moved into the Muslim part of the Mount. What exactly would be built in its place - a full-fledged functioning Temple or something more symbolic - would be up to this man, I guess.
I have to be with my daughter now. I am overwhelmed by all these questions and feel the need to answer them all properly yet feel that I can't. I'll keep trying though.
21. Wombat - 7/30/2001 12:41:12 PM
Good job, RP!
22. jexster - 7/30/2001 12:46:23 PM
RP...If you feel up to it..I'd like your comments on the Tribal Warfare article posted above...I have read similar typographies of Israeli politics before but never anything quite like this guy's piece in terms of analyzing the peace process/prospects...
23. jexster - 7/30/2001 12:52:07 PM
And also, I am sure you have heard the Palestinian complaint "The sufferings of the Jews were caused by Europeans. Europeans should be the ones to answer with their blood and their land. Why us?"
From what I can gather, US Palestinians eventually give up this endless refighting of '47. What about those who live back your way?
24. PelleNilsson - 7/30/2001 1:30:42 PM
Rustler
The provisions of the Mandate for Palestine, as agreed at the 1920 San Remo Conference, specifically excluded Transjordan (the East Bank) from the projected Jewish national home. The British didn't "give it to the Arabs", it was Arab.
25. Jenerator - 7/30/2001 2:02:01 PM
Rustler,
The golden dome - called As-Sahra if I am not mistaken -would be moved into the Muslim part of the Mount. What exactly would be built in its place - a full-fledged functioning Temple or something more symbolic - would be up to this man, I guess.
When you say Temple, do you mean David/Solomon Temple? I have a feeling that if and when this happens, your country (especially Jerusalem) will be flooded with Christians thinking that the end is near.
The Temple being rebuilt is one of "the signs" in Biblical prophecy for the second coming of Christ.
Aside from the cultural hatred between the Israelis and Palestinians, I honestly don't know how the holy sites have survived the religious animosity. Are there any sites that if damaged or invaded, you think full fledged war would break out?
P.s. You're doing a great job!
26. jexster - 7/30/2001 2:13:55 PM
I totally agree with Kinsley's piece. It would have been flawless save for his statement about Liberal outcries against MAD during the freeze. The point being that there was nothing whatsoever in the Freeze proposal itself that would have changed MAD inasmuch as the freeze levels were many times higher than the level required for mutually assured destruction.
He should have dropped a footnote saying what I said and what Jay said. MAD in the 1980's was really about first strike capabilities and the corrolary he mentions later in the article about absorbing a first strike.
But that goes back to the fundamental charge of freeze advocates - instability of deterrence and spiraling arms races which in turn caused greater instability leading to greater spending etc..
Nuclear Arms Control Theory of that time - "Apes on a treadmill."
27. jexster - 7/30/2001 2:14:43 PM
OOPS sorry....am in a runnign battle with FU on AP thread...hit wrong link
28. Andonly - 7/30/2001 5:02:39 PM
From Ha'aretz:
On November 12 last year, when the Palestinian Intifada was already in full swing, Mary Robinson, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, came on an official visit to Israel and the Palestinian territories. Mary Robinson was already well-known in the past, having served as the president of the Republic of Ireland. Whether because of her position in the UN, or for other reasons, she had a reputation as being anti-Israel. ...
While Robinson was visiting the area of Hebron and Kiryat Arba, those accompanying her proposed that she visit the Jewish neighborhood of Tel Rumeida, in the Israeli-controlled section of Hebron. Her bodyguards were provided by the UN force in the area known as TIPH - Temporary International Presence in Hebron.
On the way, shots were fired at her convoy. One tracer bullet hit the vehicle that was accompanying Robinson. The travelling party's immediate assumption was that the shots had been fired by Israelis, apparently Jewish settlers who were trying to target the important guest. ...
cont.
29. Andonly - 7/30/2001 5:02:56 PM
The remnants of the bullet were extracted from the UN vehicle and sent for ballistic tests. Ironically, these were performed by the ballistics department of the Danish police. The UN report on the ballistic tests was recently published, and the findings indicate that the bullet that hit the vehicle was fired from an AK-47 Kalachnikov rifle. This is a weapon with which Palestinians, including members of the security forces, are armed. Such weapons are not used by IDF soldiers or the Jewish settlers.
...[TIPH] personnel in the area [also] conducted a reconstruction at the site of the shooting, together with the Danish experts. The report containing the results of the reconstruction "clearly designated the origin of the shot: a house in the H1 area, north of Bal Al-Zawiya." A reminder: H1 is the area under Palestinian control in Hebron. From all this, it should have been concluded that those who fired at Ms. Robinson's convoy were Palestinians.
This concludes the affair, except that what is now missing is a statement by the honorable lady, Mary Robinson. More precisely, an apology for the blame she cast on Israel. But this has not happened. ...
30. Andonly - 7/30/2001 5:05:12 PM
Pike, have you considered copying recent pertinent posts to this thread from International?
31. stostosto - 7/30/2001 5:27:29 PM
[...] ballistic tests. Ironically, these were performed by the ballistics department of the Danish police.
Why "ironically"?
32. Andonly - 7/30/2001 5:30:47 PM
"Ironically" because of the recent Danish brouhaha over Israel's ambassador, which the article goes on to complain about.
I should have linked the rest of the piece, sorry...
33. RustlerPike - 7/30/2001 5:34:19 PM
Ando:
Pike, have you considered copying recent pertinent posts to this thread from International?
Like which ones? I think we'll have enough posts here soon enough... but maybe you have some specific ones in mind?
34. RustlerPike - 7/30/2001 5:37:03 PM
Jen:
Are there any sites that if damaged or invaded, you think full fledged war would break out?
Definitely, if any of the Muslim sites on the Temple Mount were moved or demolished by Israel, the result would be a furious, total regional war.
35. Andonly - 7/30/2001 5:38:43 PM
"UN Human Rights chief owes Israel an apology; Danes owe one to ex-Shin Bet head"
The author makes it sound like the Danish objection to Carmi Gillon is still playing itself out. I was under the impression it had been settled.
What sayeth thou, Sto?
36. Jenerator - 7/30/2001 5:40:05 PM
What about Jewish holy sites?
37. RustlerPike - 7/30/2001 5:42:50 PM
Jex:
RP...If you feel up to it..I'd like your comments on the Tribal Warfare article posted above...
Very acute analysis of Israeli society (the 'Five Tribes'). I'll put up a link to it, I think. The description of the deal proposed in Camp David is also good.
The guy's conclusion in the end I disagree with. He sees us as becoming a 'nice Jewish boy' country somehow. Problem with that is the neighbors don't let nice Jewish boys live. This is not a nice neighborhood and you don't survive here by being nice. It's like Woody Allen evicting someone from his Harlem apartment and then expecting to stay alive just because he smiles to the neighbors on his way to his limo every evening. Matter of fact, it's even more hopeless than that.
38. RustlerPike - 7/30/2001 5:47:31 PM
Jen:
What about Jewish holy sites?
Well, they tore apart Joseph's Tomb in Shchem (Nablus) and we didn't start WW3. There's not much to tear apart, now is there? The Romans already tore apart and burned almost everything we had.
Would war break out if they somehow tried to tear down the Western Wall? I guess it would, but I can't see how that would happen in any case, since it's in our hands. Also, tearing down the Wall would probably adversely affect the stability of the entire Temple Mount, which is holy to Muslims as well, of course (as are most Jewish shrines, come to think of it).
39. RustlerPike - 7/30/2001 5:51:54 PM
Jex:
I am sure you have heard the Palestinian complaint "The sufferings of the Jews were caused by Europeans. Europeans should be the ones to answer with their blood and their land. Why us?"
Well, that's one Pal argument that has absolutely no chance with us Jews since the Holocaust. We don't expect or want anything to do with European soil - soil that holds six million tortured Jewish corpses.
40. stostosto - 7/30/2001 5:55:45 PM
Ah.
Yes.
We seem to have established quite a reputation with the Israelis recently.
I do think Gillon (the incoming ambassador) is at least partly to blame himself, though. His fault: Honesty. He publicly said he had been responsible for Israeli security using "moderate physical pressure" when interrogating terrorists (justifying it by the necessity to extract information that could save innocent lives).
This left the playing field wide open for human rights activists to bring the legal machinery down on him.
There is that awkward UN convention saying "moderate physical pressure" is torture; and that torture can never be excused by anything, be it war, civil war, state security or whatever.
This, goes the view of the anti-Gillons, left them with no choice but to file criminal charges.
Why not object to ambassadors from countries with worse human rights records than Israel? Well, they haven't publicly confessed to torture, and the burden of proof is impossible to lift.
Gillon's case, by contrast, is clear-cut. Exonerating him would amount to giving preferential treatment to Israel somehow considering Israeli justifications for torture reasonable even though the convention explicitly says there can be no justification under any circumstances. Equality under the law, you know. We do mean to comply the UN conventions that we sign, don't we? (Israel has signed it too, by the way).
I actually believe the legal(istic) case is water tight. However, as I have mentioned before, in this case it's trumped by diplomatic immunity conferred by another convention. Which does make sense, imo.
41. RustlerPike - 7/30/2001 5:56:24 PM
FU:
Barak: "The only answer is to establish a border for Israel in which we will have a solid Jewish majority for generations to come. It might take three or four years to delineate the lines around settlement blocks. At the beginning, I would not dismantle settlements. But in due time, I would take isolated settlements into the settlement blocks or into Israel proper"
I don't see how anything like that can be done without a strong consensus in Israel, that would make it possible to shove such an arrangement down the Right's throat. There is no way to achieve such a consensus around a withdrawal unless it is accompanied by a very real and convincing peace treaty -which the Pals are unwilling to give. So it's all theoretical. Let's not forget this man was whupped mercilessly at the polls.
42. stostosto - 7/30/2001 6:10:17 PM
Andonly,
the case is settled, Gillon has immunity, no action will be taken against him by Danish authorities. He may be exposed to milk-hued rears or equivalent folksy actions, though.
But your columnist knows nothing:
What is worrying about Denmark is that the radical left in that country has succeeded in extracting anti-Semitic sentiments from the national hiding-place. Perhaps more suited to Denmark is the friendship of the radical Pol Pot, who is admired there by the left.
Rubbish.
They are not out to get Carmi Gillon, they are out to get Israel. Carmi Gillon, who never demanded that torture be carried out even though the Danish press has said so, is too good for Denmark.
Nonsense.
Some may be out to "get Israel". But that's out of sympathy with the underdog Palestinians. You can't automatically "anti-semitise" everyone who thinks the Palestinians have a just cause.
Because you know what? They do.
And Gillon has never said he condoned torture? That's the first time I've read that anywhere.
43. RustlerPike - 7/30/2001 6:15:29 PM
The Middle East dispute boils down to this: the Arabs want everyone to zoom in on the small strip of land west of the Jordan, and on the fact that Israel has been ruling the West Bank by force since 1967. If this were the whole story - the Arabs would be in the right and we would be in the wrong, no doubt about it.
But one zooms out, in territory and time, and sees a completely different picture. Zoom out to the entire Mideast and Israel is a tiny sliver of land surrounded by endlessly huge Arab territories, some of which are the world's worst 'rogue states', and are declaredly developing weapons of mass destruction with intent to use them upon us.
Zoom out to a timeline that begins in the early-to-mid-20th century and you see a homeless people, savaged and raped like no people ever was, returning to its ancestral homeland to reclaim sovereignty and control over its destiny. You see - a bare three years after the crematoria at Auschwitz closed down - the entire Arab world swooping down on the Jews that remained - some of whom were Auschwitz survivors - with intent to 'throw them into the sea'. Then you see a similar attempt 20 years later, in 1967.
This is how the Pals came to be occupied. The settlements were born out of a feeling Israel's leadership had that there was no way anyway the Arabs would let us live in peace. If that is the case -and if the Arabs are going to find any excuse to come at us every decade or two - what do you lose by holding on to the West Bank? Nothing, really. If we gave every inch of the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians, would we have peace? No. We would have war, and the Palestinians would be lobbing Syrian-supplied katyushas into Tel Aviv.
44. stostosto - 7/30/2001 6:22:54 PM
Hey, Rustler, that's not bad, actually:
Judging this dispute all depends on the zoom.
45. RustlerPike - 7/30/2001 6:24:00 PM
You can't automatically "anti-semitise" everyone who thinks the Palestinians have a just cause.
Because you know what? They do.
Yes, they do - but only if taken out of every possible context. And let me give you the Israeli corollary to the Palestinian 'why don't the Europeans give the Jews a state': why don't the Arabs give the Palestinians a state?
Isn't that a much more realistic and workable solution to this problem? Think about it: Abdullah steps down, the Pal majority in Jordan takes over in democratic elections, the rich Arab states and the West finance repatriation of Pals from the West Bank and Gaza and the various refugee camps in Lebanon etc. to Jordan, the new Palestine - problem solved, everyone lives happily ever after.
46. stostosto - 7/30/2001 6:25:15 PM
I completely fail to see what advantages the settlements have given Israel, though. Now, you are stuck with them.
47. stostosto - 7/30/2001 6:33:24 PM
Rustler, your "every possible context" is a dizzying mega-zoom of 2,000 years. One which you undertake with truly impressive, even convincing, unswervedness. But one which is and must be rather difficult for the Palestinians to undertake. And one which surely is without parallel anywhere else.
Hell, the East Germans weren't too happy when "Wessies" turned up and demanded their rightful property back -- and that was only 40 years.
48. stostosto - 7/30/2001 6:38:02 PM
Isn't that a much more realistic and workable solution to this problem?
"realistic and workable"? As opposed to just, you mean? But yes. Israel isn't going to disappear, so you do have a point. Its "realism" and "workability" depends, however, on whether the Palestinians can be made to consider it "just" as well. As any conceivable solution does.
49. Erinys - 7/30/2001 8:32:12 PM
RustlerPike, I grinned when I saw this new topic on the top of the list this morning.
If I was at war with someone, I'd want to know their language, as a devious tactic. What's your take on that, RP? Are you at a disadvantage, not knowing Arabic? Or does it make you feel 'superior' that more of them have learned your language, instead?
Going back to read more of the thread...
50. Andonly - 7/30/2001 10:57:35 PM
""realistic and workable"? As opposed to just, you mean?"
The Palestinian notion of justice in this case, and the Israeli notion of justice, are not the same. And unfortunately there is no court equipped to decide what is "just" here, other than the court of Palestinians and Israelis. As for the long zoom vs. the close zoom, you don't need a 2,000 year old vantage point from which to recognize that Israel had to come into being. 75-100 years will do, and if you actually look at that history--not just sound bites from it--you'll see there's ample fault on the Arab side to place the Palestinian's plight as much in Arab laps as Zionists'. Pike is right: were there real justice, Arab nations would set about absorbing some refugees. If there were justice, they'd do it in exchange for a real peace settlement, and like Sadat they'd take the lead in this rather than agreeing to it at Taba only when a) it was already manifestly too late (although I confess I still held out hope at that point), and b) they had gotten genuinely scared of the possibility of a regional war.
Now, we are where we are. I maintain that, unless Arafat does a sudden and dramatic turnaround, he will not be the Palestinian leader with whom Israel signs a final status agreement.
51. Andonly - 7/30/2001 11:17:21 PM
I do agree with you, Sto, that Ze'ev Schiff is over the top: "Some may be out to "get Israel". But that's out of sympathy with the underdog Palestinians. You can't automatically "anti-semitise" everyone who thinks the Palestinians have a just cause." On the other hand, it makes you wonder why the Palestinian cause is so readily perceived as underdog-ism (if you will).
Do Danes consider the Catholics in N. Ireland underdogs? Or is it the Protestants? Are Palestinians an oppressed regional minority, or are they the grossly manipulated proxy warriors of an oppressive majority?
"Because you know what? They do [have a just cause]."
Which just cause is that? The one which requires a state and self-determination? Or the one that seeks to reclaim Palestine "from the river to the sea"? The one which demands equal access to water resources and freedom from domination by the IDF? Or the one that insists on denying Israel the means to protect itself from this very people and its allies sworn to destroy Israel (Iraq, Iran, Syria)? How about the one which claims that the Wailing Wall is not actually a Jewish artifact at all?
Frankly, I don't know how you can believe maximalist "justice" isn't running the Palestinian show right this minute. Saying the Palestinians have rights is all well and good, but there are rights and then there's the wedge. Which is which depends on who's making and keeping agreements; Arafat is discredited.
52. Andonly - 7/30/2001 11:24:54 PM
Incidentally, did anyone see that Diarist by Martin Peretz in The New Republic last week, which quoted a translation of the "moderate" (and now dead from heart failure) Jerusalemite Faisal Husseini's interview in Al Hayat? He likened the Oslo process to a "wooden horse" out of which the intifada, and ultimately the complete reclamation of Palestine, would be accomplished.
Some moderate.
53. Andonly - 7/30/2001 11:28:54 PM
Oh, and a little noted development: in April, Douglas Feith was appointed Undersecretary of Policy at the Defense Department.
This man is as hardbitten, as unsentimental, as hard-core pro-Israel, pro-Likud as they come.
54. IrvingSnodgrass - 7/30/2001 11:38:13 PM
Andonly:
Re Message # 28 and Message # 29:
This concludes the affair, except that what is now missing is a statement by the honorable lady, Mary Robinson. More precisely, an apology for the blame she cast on Israel. But this has not happened. ...
Mary Robinson is not the sort of person who should be doing the job she is. She loses objectivity easily, decides one side of a dispute is the villain, and ignores all evidence to the contrary. Her handling of the East Timor situation in 1999 was appalling, and taught me that this is a woman who should never be trusted with any responsibility on the international scene. So it doesn't surprise me at all that she has decided the Israelis are in the wrong, and that she sees all evidence as pointing that way.
55. Andonly - 7/30/2001 11:38:46 PM
Some Feith links, ca. Netanyahu admin (Feith himself was a Reagan State Dept official):
Washington Times article
Detailed interview with Feith about Mideast
56. Andonly - 7/30/2001 11:57:59 PM
Correction, Defense Department official.
Irv, I didn't know Robinson had been in East Timor.
It was clear to me at the time of the survey she did in the territories/Israel that, based on anecdotal stuff I'd read and heard, something was not quite even-handed about Robinson's conclusions, but I saw not one press report question a single assertion made in her report. None outside Israel, that is. Plus, the shooting made Israel look dreadfully bad.
I am convinced now that the mood of the international press is part of what is driving Israelis into a corner, politically. They do not care what the Europeans think, because nearly all that's coming out of Europe publicly is Israel-bashing, which virtually no one I've spoken to from Israel thinks is not at least partially motivated by old-fashioned European antisemitism.
57. Andonly - 7/31/2001 12:23:07 AM
The American press is no better, by the way. Everything is done by innuendo and conflation of data--OK for internet polemic, but not good for reporting, IMO.
(There are fair reporters and analysts out there, of course--I mentioned the FT's Avi Machlis and Gareth Smyth in Intn'l--but they're in stark competition with the sensationalists who despise Israel.)
58. IrvingSnodgrass - 7/31/2001 12:28:02 AM
Andonly:
Yes, Robinson was in East Timor briefly during the hand-over... long enough to antagonize everyone. In fact, the situation sounds eerily similar to the Israeli one... she was "not quite even-handed" (a good phrase), she chose the popular villain, and spoon-fed her ignorance to the international press, which didn't squawk.
The Western media and the Western public always looks for a "bad guy" in any situation, and it's never quite that simple. It's very easy (and comforting) to blame Indonesia for East Timor (rather than the Indonesian military, which defied the president and commited atrocities along with the East Timorese "militias"), and it's easy to blame Israel for the Palestinian situation... these cheap shots play on existing prejudices, and are swallowed wholly.
59. RustlerPike - 7/31/2001 2:12:59 AM
This is what I'm trying to say.
60. RustlerPike - 7/31/2001 3:46:19 AM
I put over 90 minutes' worth of work and early-morning energy into that. I simply cannot keep up this pace of participation. I shall be working and doing other pressing stuff until Thursday. Please behave while I am gone. I don't want to find bubble gum on the chairs and sperm gobs on the keyboards when I get back, OK?
Cya. Be back Thursday or Friday, max.
61. IrvingSnodgrass - 7/31/2001 3:58:57 AM
Nice graphic, Rustler... makes your point well.
62. stostosto - 7/31/2001 6:35:58 AM
Ando #56
...nearly all that's coming out of Europe publicly is Israel-bashing, which virtually no one I've spoken to from Israel thinks is not at least partially motivated by old-fashioned European antisemitism.
And that's a reflection - understandable, of course - of paranoia and seige mentality in a nation born out of the Holocaust. It's also quite convenient wouldn't you say? Providing a blanket dismissal of any criticism.
My experience is people in Europe, certainly in Denmark, really don't have much emotional stake in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. (And if they do, it would most likely be pro-Israeli, a feeling reinforced by anxiety over the rising number of militant muslims here).
But it looks as if one of the parties is constantly denied their right to a state, and that doesn't look right.
You seem to agree with this. Your beef with PLO/Arafat is mistrust that they will ever settle for less than throwing Israel into the sea, hence making deals with them impossible until they realise they'll never get that. Ever. And you could argue, I suppose, that the outside world, including the Euros ought to put more pressure on the PLO in order to make them realise it. There's something in that too.
But now we're getting into a lot of details. It's much easier - and a lot less convolutely conspiracy-minded - to take the PLO at face value. Arafat acknowledged Israel's right to exist in 1988, as you may recall.
And, speaking of "making and keeping agreements" there is always the Israeli settlements...
63. stostosto - 7/31/2001 6:41:58 AM
I am not sure Rustler's graphic makes his point well. Unless it is that Israel brutally holds the Palestinians hostage while the Arab neighbours are trying to come to their rescue...
But it's a nice display of illustration and Flash skills.
64. stostosto - 7/31/2001 7:24:24 AM
Ando:
were there real justice, Arab nations would set about absorbing some refugees. If there were justice, they'd do it in exchange for a real peace settlement, and like Sadat they'd take the lead in this
That does sound like a good idea. A big part of the problem in the Middle East is the latent political instability and social strains in the Arab countries which is checked by authoritarianism, oppression, and the occasional populist sound bite - like Bashar Assad's remarks on Jews during the Pope's visit.
Corruption, incompetence, weakness, failure to achieve economic development, lack of democracy, lack of prospects for the young, breeding grounds for extremism. If only Israel's neighbours were sensible Scandinavians...
65. Andonly - 7/31/2001 8:25:42 AM
"And that's a reflection - understandable, of course - of paranoia and seige mentality in a nation born out of the Holocaust. It's also quite convenient wouldn't you say? Providing a blanket dismissal of any criticism."
I agree completely. Except that you seem to think that antisemitism is gone, and that now all that remains is the Jewish paranoia that excuses criticism. Yet the anti-Israel bias of much news reportage of events in the ME mankes it impossible to conclude that no vestige of antisemitism exists. You can cite underdog-ism, and you'll surely be right (I would add European guilt over colonialism), but when you get right down to it people, including reporters, harbor assumptions they don't say out loud. And one such asumption sems to be that Israel's demise would be a nice capstone to the End of the Colonialist Era, and after all Jews are used to suffering, and anyway they deserve it for having become Zionists.
66. Andonly - 7/31/2001 8:34:50 AM
"And you could argue, I suppose, that the outside world, including the Euros ought to put more pressure on the PLO in order to make them realise it. There's something in that too."
Gee thanks for that concession, but I wouldn't necessarily advocate Euro pressure on Arafat. The potential for backfire is pretty high. The Pals need a new leader, period. It's their show, they have to do what they're going to do.
"But now we're getting into a lot of details."
By all means, let's not let too many facts get in the way of preconclusions. Too many details. Must keep things easy.
"It's much easier - and a lot less convolutely conspiracy-minded - to take the PLO at face value. Arafat acknowledged Israel's right to exist in 1988, as you may recall."
The PA did not. It was a tactic, as I've already said, and which anyone who has followed events knows very well. Meaningless.
Anyway, you should read the second Feith link above. In retrospect, it damns the Netanyahu admin, it's hair-raising politically, but quite informative about the real nature of the negotiations process. (In short: people who take such things at face value are woefully deluded.)
67. Andonly - 7/31/2001 8:36:14 AM
"If only Israel's neighbours were sensible Scandinavians..."
Heh! But they aint. All day long, too.
68. Andonly - 7/31/2001 9:45:34 AM
"The Western media and the Western public always looks for a "bad guy" in any situation, and it's never quite that simple. It's very easy (and comforting) to blame Indonesia for East Timor (rather than the Indonesian military, which defied the president and commited atrocities along with the East Timorese "militias"), and it's easy to blame Israel for the Palestinian situation... these cheap shots play on existing prejudices, and are swallowed wholly."
Irv has it right.
Frankly, I think the West is sick of seeing Jews as victims. Enough of the Holocaust already, and aren't Jews doing well now? Look, they're rich in America and prosperous enough everywhere else, no one is trying to shove them into ovens anymore.
So it's easy (and detail-free) to assume the mideast is no different, that all the Palestinians want is a country and some redress for past wrongs.
Unfortunately, the Palestinians who want that are not the ones Israel must worry about, or deal with, or rely on to keep commitments.
69. Andonly - 7/31/2001 9:55:47 AM
Here's an example of what Arabs tell each other (it's an Arab Free Press report linked to Lebanon Wire, out of Beirut). It's followed by what is obviously the correct story.
Beirut, militants blast Jewish temple stone laying
BEIRUT, July 30 (AFP) -
Lebanon, and militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas denounced Monday the Israeli government's "backing" of Jewish extremists who symbolically laid a cornerstone for a third temple by the gates of Jerusalem's Old City.
"The Israeli government continued to try to impose what it considers as a solution, with violence and force and the backing of extremists in their aggression against the Palestinians and the holy" al-Aqsa mosque compound, said Prime Minister Rafic Hariri.
Hariri called in a statement on the "international community to deter the occupation (Israel) from its plans to bury the Arab and Islamic identity of the al-Aqsa mosque."
On Sunday, a small group of extremist Jews laid the cornerstone in a brief ceremony but then removed it again, stirring a storm of protests in the Arab world and clashes between Palestinians and Israeli police.
Hariri also reminded that Israel had "refused a recommendation, backed by the Arabs and the international" community, at the recent summit of the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations in Italy for international observers to monitor the situation in the Palestinian territories.
[Note that there is no mention of the UN videotape fiasco here, or the fact that rebels in Macedonia have operated with impunity under the noses of UN peacekeepers there...]
A Hezbollah statement said the "enemy government has again carried out an ugly crime against Islamic holy places through its backing to Zionist gangs who desecrated the al-Aqsa mosque."
cont.
70. Andonly - 7/31/2001 9:56:00 AM
"The pretext of laying the cornerstone to build the alleged temple is part of relentless attempts to fulfill the Zionist dream of removing this Islamic holy place and Judaize Jerusalem and erase its Islamic identity," it said.
"The Zionists had to back down before the uprising of the Palestinian people and its revolutionary upheaval to defend its sacred places -- a fact that asserts the vitality of this people and its great sacrifices," it said.
[See following report to learn what "had to back down" refers to.]
Hezbollah pledged to "stand by the Palestinian people and we will not remain idle before the danger threatening Jerusalem."
"We call on the (Islamic and Arabic) nation, with all its forces, parties and governments to be up to the confrontation at this historical moment because the Zionists will do it again if they find laxity toward their crime," it said.
"Jerusalem is the responsibility of all of us, and defending it is a duty for every Muslim and Arab, and this can only take place if we stand together with the sacred uprising in Palestine," it said.
Meanwhile, some 500 veiled women militants of the Shiite radical Hezbollah gathered at the Fatima gate, at the border with Israel, to warn Israeli Prime Minister Ariel "Sharon not to play with fire because the Katyusha is awaiting you."
Hezbollah continues to spearhead the guerrilla war against Israeli forces in the Shebaa Farms disputed border area, since the Jewish state pulled out its troops from southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation.
A group of Hezbollah women also threw stones on the other side of the border, as some of them waved Lebanese, Hezbollah and Palestinian flags.
In the Rashidiyeh Palestinian refugee camp, near the southern port city of Tyre, some 1,000 followers of the radical Islamic Palestinian group Hamas demonstrated to protest against the "aggression" against the al-Aqsa mosque.
71. Andonly - 7/31/2001 10:07:35 AM
[Not mentioned in Haberman's account is the fact that Palestinian demostrators refused to leave after police contained their rioting, and so there was a standoff, which is what Hizbullah means by "had to back down". The following is from the NY Times.]
Melee at Jerusalem's Most Sacred, and Explosive, Site
By CLYDE HABERMAN
JERUSALEM, July 29 — Jerusalem and its sacred places returned to the center of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict today when Palestinians on an elevated Muslim compound hurled stones at Jews praying below, provoking a battle with the Israeli police.
Hundreds of Israeli officers in riot gear rushed into the Aksa compound after a barrage of rocks, some quite large, sent Jewish worshipers fleeing from the Western Wall. The attack came on a day when Jews traditionally gather there to mourn the destruction of two ancient temples.
The police fired stun grenades and tear gas in skirmishes with scores of young Palestinians on the elevated plateau, referred to by Jews and many Christians as the Temple Mount and known to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. About 15 Israeli officers and more than 30 Palestinians were reportedly injured, none critically.
Compared with past clashes at the site, which over the years have sometimes ended in considerable death, this one could be deemed mild. What mattered was that it happened at all. The plateau is ground zero for conflicting religious sensibilities, and violence there produces reverberations that can be at least as loud as the boom of a stun grenade.
Adding to the tensions today was the fact that the current conflict had started at Al Aksa, although for much of the 10 months that have since passed, Jerusalem's Old City has been relatively trouble free.
cont.
72. Andonly - 7/31/2001 10:08:31 AM
The continuing Palestinian uprising — intifada in Arabic — began after Ariel Sharon, now the Israeli prime minister, visited the Temple Mount last September accompanied by 1,000 or more police officers. An investigation committee led by former United States Senator George J. Mitchell later concluded that "the Sharon visit did not cause the `Al Aksa intifada,' " but added that "it was poorly timed, and the provocative effect should have been foreseen."
The spillover effects of Jerusalem's problems were evident today with new exchanges of fire between Israelis soldiers and Palestinian gunmen in several parts of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. And in Pisgat Ze'ev, a Jewish neighborhood in northeastern Jerusalem that Palestinians consider occupied land, a car bomb exploded in the parking lot of an apartment building, lightly injuring one man.
But most people here focused on the violence in the Old City of Jerusalem, specifically the Western Wall, an enduring section of a supporting wall from the ancient temple complex above.
For observant Jews, today was Tisha b'Av, a day of fasting, and a day for recalling the destruction of temples in 586 B.C. and in A.D. 70.
cont.
73. Andonly - 7/31/2001 10:09:08 AM
By the thousands, they flocked to the wall overnight and through the day, many following customs associated with mourning the dead. They sat on low chairs or on the ground. They wore shoes made of canvas, or went barefoot. Some tore their clothes. All day, they read Lamentations, from the Old Testament.
But Tisha b'Av has another tradition here. It is when a fringe group called the Temple Mount Faithful tries to lay claim to the elevated plateau and pave the way for a third Jewish temple to supplant the mosques that have been there for centuries. The Faithful, whose numbers today could generously be put at 40, bring with them a 4.5-ton stone that they proclaim the cornerstone for the new temple.
Unvaryingly, the Israeli courts refuse to let them ascend the mount, and dozens of police officers block their path. This year, as before, Israel's High Court of Justice ruled that the closest they could bring their cornerstone was a parking lot outside the Old City's Dung Gate, some 300 yards from the mount.
They barely made it even that far today. A truck carrying the huge stone was allowed to linger for mere seconds before the police ordered it away. The small contingent of the Faithful then gathered, as ever, beneath the Moghrabi Gate leading to the mount. There, they chanted nationalist slogans and heard their leader, Gershon Salomon, denounce Prime Minister Sharon as "a wimp" who has caved in to Arab pressure.
But while it had been clear for days that Mr. Salomon and his followers would once again get nowhere near the Temple Mount, major figures among Palestinians and Israeli Arabs declared otherwise. They described the gathering as a genuine Israeli attempt to destroy Islamic shrines, and vowed to resist with bloodshed, if necessary. A "day of rage" was ordered.
cont.
74. Andonly - 7/31/2001 10:09:23 AM
In that atmosphere, a clash seemed inevitable.
It came midday with a shower of stones on worshiping Jews, thrown by young Muslims above. Women cried out in fear and ran, covering their heads with chairs or prayer books. In a separate section of the wall, men held prayer shawls above their heads to ward off the stones.
That was when the Israeli police charged into the Aksa compound, though they never entered the mosque itself. They fired stun grenades and a few volleys of tear gas, and fended off a cascade of rocks with plastic shields. Some Palestinians said the officers also fired rubber bullets, but police officials denied it.
"The Palestinians were just looking for an excuse for a party," said Mickey Levy, the Jerusalem police chief. But in Cairo, Amr Moussa, the secretary general of the Arab League, blamed Israel for the violence, saying the police action showed "bad intentions."
As rough a day as it was, the fighting did not last long. Both the Israeli authorities and Palestinian clergymen worked to restore a fragile calm to Jerusalem. They succeeded to the extent that Muslims streamed peacefully from the Noble Sanctuary after their noon service, and Jews drifted back to the Western Wall, where they once more swayed in prayer and gripped the ancient stones.
75. stostosto - 7/31/2001 10:30:06 AM
Ando #65
(I haven't been able to keep up on more recent posts):
when you get right down to it people, including reporters, harbor assumptions they don't say out loud. And one such asumption sems to be that Israel's demise would be a nice capstone to the End of the Colonialist Era, and after all Jews are used to suffering, and anyway they deserve it for having become Zionists.
Do you really honestly believe that?
Your crediting Europeans with historical guilt over colonisation is way out in the wilderness, btw. That was the sixties and seventies, perhaps. Now, Europe is gripped by angst and introversion at all those strangers coming from the exact countries that were colonised (plus a number . What is to become of our culture? Language? Society? Identity?
Indeed, Europe seems to be developing a seige mentality of its own, and it's nothing to do with Jews. Arabs are a better candidate, actually. The buzzword is 'muslim'.
So guilt? When we are most assuredly in the process of becoming victims ourselves? Why, even the Americans have the audacity to behave as though they're more powerful and richer than us, making fun of us and ridiculing our hypocrisy while contaminating our youth with McDonald's and Britney Spears, Microsoft and Hollywood.
Guilty? Ce n'est pas nous.
76. stostosto - 7/31/2001 10:31:46 AM
(I so love to speak on behalf of all Europeans!).
77. marjoribanks - 7/31/2001 10:47:28 AM
Spike,
Kudos on a job well done on your new thread.
Lest you take my future absence here as a slight, let me hasten to state again that I have unilaterally withdrawn from all comment on the politics involved with the Israel/Palestine question. Should the thread meander someday to history, or even tourism (say, the snorkelling in Eilat) I will join in happily. In the meanwhile, please do not take my disengagement personally.
Ta.
78. Andonly - 7/31/2001 10:55:50 AM
Sto, my theory is that modern Europeans have adopted the language and moral stance of the US civil rights era to distance themselves from the sin of colonialism. Especially England and France, whose liberals over the last decade have responded in sympathy to the sentiments of their relatively large Arab and subcon populations, rather the way liberal whites in the US and South Africa respond to blacks' resentments over white racism. And sympathy is expressed in this psychology as a form of prostration: 'Here, you can have the Israelis, we don't love them anymore, do you forgive us now?'
Finding Israel the perennial bad guy is the way European liberals absolve themsleves: if they support Palestinians now, that makes up for their forebears having conquered the Ottoman empire, divided it up, and colonized the indigenous territory of Palestine with European Jews whom the rest of Europe (and America) did not like well enough to invite onto their own continents.
In Denmark, I imagine the anti-Israel dynamic serves as exculpation for the very anti-Muslim biasis you describe. That is, the Danish left does penance on behalf of the Danish right, which has become xenophobic in the face of heavy immigration and culture shock. 'See, we don't just hate Muslims, we hate their Zionist oppressors too; and that makes us as rational and even handed as ever.'
Israelis, naturally, are not willing to be someone else's price for absolution. And in the paradigm, they sense they're being set up by--let's face it--Christian nations, to play the part of sacrificial saviour all over again.
79. stostosto - 7/31/2001 11:48:12 AM
Ando
Having read your convoluted speculative hypothesising three times over, I almost think it is internally consistent.
80. MaxMacks - 7/31/2001 12:42:45 PM
will this work for me this morning - gtting posted here?
81. MaxMacks - 7/31/2001 12:45:40 PM
seems to work.
stostosto...this is a subject that I have much interest in but I fear to express any opinion
that seems to be sympathetic to the Pasestians
as almost invariably such comments are labelled
"anti-Semetic". meaning I guess anti-Jewish
Since ironically both the Jews and the Arabs
are Semites.
so good luck I will read your reports
Rarely have I read any thing in the USA press
that is objective regarding the mess in Palestine.
82. Jenerator - 7/31/2001 1:14:04 PM
My best male friend lives in the UAE and he says that the mass population there is EXTREMELY anti-Jewish. Second in the line of hatred is America.
Last week he told me that at university, he listened in on a conversation in which the male students discussed Arafat nuking Israel, and that it "should" happen and that hopefully Allah wuold take care of "those Jews".
83. PelleNilsson - 7/31/2001 1:38:14 PM
When reading Andonly's recent series of posts I fixed on the same statement that sto quotes in Message # 75. Her Message # 78 is just so much uninformed nonsense.
The upside of this is that now when we know that in Andonly's mind any criticism of Israel and its policies has its origins in open or suppressed anti-semitism or in an "exculpation of anti-Muslim bias" (God, what psycho-babble!) we no longer have to pay undue attention to her tiring multi-post diatribes.
84. PelleNilsson - 7/31/2001 1:40:19 PM
MaxMacks
How do you define "objective" in the Isaraeli-Palestinian context?
85. PelleNilsson - 7/31/2001 1:41:41 PM
Jenerator
Ask you friend where the UAE nationals send their children for higher education.
86. Jenerator - 7/31/2001 1:42:44 PM
I like Andonly's "multi-post diatribes".
You accused Khaval of the same thing before falling in love with her, ya know...
87. PelleNilsson - 7/31/2001 1:51:34 PM
Here is another example of European anti-semitism
Israel Warns Officials of Legal Risks Abroad
Clyde Haberman New York Times Service
Monday, July 30, 2001
Chance of Arrest in Palestinian Rights Cases
JERUSALEM The Israeli Foreign Ministry has sent a warning to government, army and security officials. Be careful in choosing
destinations when traveling abroad, it cautioned, because certain countries might be prepared to charge ranking Israelis with violating Palestinians' human rights.
The advisory that went out last week was not worded quite that
bluntly. It ecommended, as a senior ministry official put it Friday, that high-level officials "do their homework" to avoid stumbling into "a legal embarrassment."
[...]
88. PelleNilsson - 7/31/2001 1:57:27 PM
[...]
It was not lost on some Israelis that they themselves have in the past supported the "globalization of the criminal international law," as it was called by Alan Baker, a legal adviser to the Foreign Ministry.
Mr. Baker mentioned the Holocaust, seemingly referring to Israel's abduction of the notorious Nazi figure Adolf Eichmann from Argentina in 1960. Mr. Eichmann was put on trial in Israel, found guilty and hanged in 1962.
"We always had an interest in true criminals being brought to justice," Mr. Baker told Israeli radio. The problem now, he said, is "a tendency to exploit this good thing for political achievements such as delegitimizing the state of Israel and its leaders."
Full article.
89. PelleNilsson - 7/31/2001 1:59:07 PM
Not at all. khaval and I had a quasi-secret affair over in TT long before that. You need to keep up better with cyberspace gossip.
90. marjoribanks - 7/31/2001 2:05:31 PM
Jenerator,
Your UAE friend is full of shit, as so many of your friends seem to be. The UAE is super-close to the USA in any number of ways.
It is, by the way, formally anti-Israel. But you can and will see Israeli businessmen in Dubai.
91. Andonly - 7/31/2001 2:34:49 PM
"in Andonly's mind any criticism of Israel and its policies has its origins in open or suppressed anti-semitism"
In Pelle's empty brainpan any criticism of self-righteous hostility toward Israel is psychobabble or, per Sto, paranoia.
I am, myself, critical of the Israeli right. And lately, too, the Israeli left. But I'm vastly more critical of the Palestinian leadership, for it could have ended this conflict long ago and shamed Israel into giving it what the vast majority of Pals want.
But no, that leadership wants to win via diplomatic or military force.
However, Pelle Who Speaks Little and Says Less, I'm glad to see you've relinquished passive aggression for more direct confrontations. Now if only you can find a couple means of contradicting those you disagree with without resorting to empty sneering, you'll be a man.
(There's your cue to post that chainsaw picture again, dear.)
92. Andonly - 7/31/2001 3:05:10 PM
Regarding the question of extraditions and trials of suspected war criminals: this won't be a popular view here or anywhere, but I've gradually been forming an opinion since the Pinochet extradition that perhaps the whole thing isn't such a grand idea after all.
Growing up, the idea of the Nuremberg trials always struck me as flawed in some way I couldn't put my finger on. Ultimately, I decided the problem was that they were symbolic more than anything else, that no retribution against some small collection of men was possible for the scale of horror the Holocaust entailed, and that there was something a little obscene in mounting show trials in which they could remain defiant before those who once followed them. But more than that, it seemed to me the politics of such trials could easily overtake their moral significance, and that under the right circumstances this could undermine the political authority of whomever conducted them.
Now we're seeing, in the proposed extradition of Ariel Sharon to the Hague, a transparent attempt at undermining the authority of a sitting prime minister at a moment that would make it extremely advantageous to Israel's enemies. The same thing was done to Milosevich during the NATO campaign, and as much as I wanted to see Milosevich fall and Serbia capitulate, it struck me as a terrible precedent.
Until there is an apolitical international justice system--and there surely is not one now--wars should not be conducted via the international courts, for if they are, those courts will lose all semblance of righteousness.
Meanwhile, the world of justice seekers could fall back on that old standby: assassination. Failing that, a grudging admission of impotence.
93. Andonly - 7/31/2001 3:20:50 PM
Sto: "And, speaking of "making and keeping agreements" there is always the Israeli settlements..."
I am anti-settlement, so are most Israelis. But I don't believe one settler should depart under fire, or that Sharon's policy of continuing building in existing settlements while Pals persist in violence is necessarily misguided.
Rather, I consider the internal expansion of settlements a form of bloodless guerilla warfare, far preferable to shooting children.
94. stostosto - 7/31/2001 3:21:22 PM
marj
as usual you declare Jen full of shit without having the slightest idea of her source. I have no doubt she reports her friend's account accurately, and I have no doubt his story is true. Even if UAE is officially "super-close" USA.
I have heard and read enough of macho chest-thumping Arabs here to be pretty sure such brain-dead bravado is commonplace in Arab countries. And I vividly recall the enthusiasm that greeted Saddam's Kuwaiti adventure and subsequent scudding of Tel Aviv from the masses in most Arab countries, including "super-USA-close" Egypt.
Which no doubt is part of the overall problem. It's actually quite amazing that Hussein of Jordan saw fit to strike a peace deal with Israel. The Jordanians have even clamped down hard on anti-Israeli riots on the East Bank.
Or maybe that shows that courageous leaders don't really need to be constrained by such street emotions. But few Arab leaders have such courage, even as they aren't showing much enthusiasm for the Palestinian cause - the "maximalist" cause, that is.
95. stostosto - 7/31/2001 3:25:37 PM
Ando,
right, settlements are "guerilla warfare" far superior to shooting children. I guess that's internally consistent too. A real rhetorical feat.
But I thought Israel was an established full-fledged UN-recognised state. Not a guerilla movement.
96. marjoribanks - 7/31/2001 3:31:07 PM
"I have no doubt she reports her friend's account accurately, and I have no doubt his story is true. Even if UAE is officially "super-close" USA.
I have heard and read enough of macho chest-thumping Arabs here to be pretty sure such brain-dead bravado is commonplace in Arab countries."
Sto, the UAE is the UAE, not Egypt and not Palestine and not even Saudi Arabia. There are precious few Arabs in the UAE, by the way, the vast majority of the residents are foreigners there to work.
Perhaps some juvenile said something about Arafat and nukes and Israel. I dispute strenuously, however, the idea that the UAE can remotely be seen as anti-American or that anti-Americanism is anything of a perceptible phenomenon among those few UAE citizens.
As Pelle pointed out, they flock to the USA for education. They do big business with the USA and American corporations. The American Chamber of Commerce is, believe it or not, one of the more powerful and influential organizations of any type in the UAE. If anything, the UAE is at the forefront of the Arab world in absorbing America and Americanism (though second to Qatar). There are no street demonstrations and the type you are obviously thinking of wrt Egypt et al. UAE citizens are extremely rich, extremely comfortable, and extremely pragmatic.
I speak from some comprehensive knowledge of (and experience with and in) the UAE, by the way.
97. marjoribanks - 7/31/2001 3:32:34 PM
Trouble is, dear sto, that you're looking at the Arab world in broad strokes no less than Pike. Silly, conventional, mistake.
98. stostosto - 7/31/2001 3:35:21 PM
marj,
don't they also have lots of Egyptian and Palestinian foreign workers there? They do in Saudi and Kuwait.
99. Andonly - 7/31/2001 3:39:22 PM
Sto to Pike: "I completely fail to see what advantages the settlements have given Israel, though."
Seems there are two major schools of thought on the subject: 1) The Palestinians will always be a threat, therefore they must never have a state on the WB because of its strategic importance, settlers guarantee the indefinite postponement of Pal statehood; Oslo was something we got roped into, to our grave detriment; 2) There are moderate Palestinians, we have good relations now with Egypt and Jordan, we should encourage the moderates and deal with them because we don't want to rule another people indefinitely and would rather be at peace, they deserve a state, and the territories are a liability anyway; Oslo was the way toward reconciliation.
Until lately, and for the last eight years or more, I think most Israelis and American Jews believed #2 much more than #1. The way to resolve security questions was via negotiation. Now they know #2 can't come about yet, and the hardliners are more vocal and powerful than ever, but my sense is that the majority of Israelis still believe that the Pals must eventually have their state and that most of the settlers must eventually leave.
The question is, under what circumstances. And personally, I'd like to see an agreement so committed to peace on both sides that Israeli settlers would feel no more concerned about remaining in the territories than Arab Israelis feel about living in Israel. But that's in the pollyanna world we don't inhabit.
100. marjoribanks - 7/31/2001 3:45:52 PM
Sto,
Of course there is such a population. So?
101. pseudoerasmus - 7/31/2001 3:52:11 PM
Andonly's Message # 78 might have a remote chance of making some sense (purely logically speaking, not experientially) if somehow Western Europe were alone in sympathising with the Palestinians. But they are not.
One could say, without exaggeration, that almost everybody in the world who is not Jewish and who is not an American-style Christian fundamentalist sympathises with Palestinians. Ask a Chinese, or an Indian, or a Mexican, or a South African, in the street. If he had an opinion at all, it would be to sympathise with the Palestinians.
102. Andonly - 7/31/2001 4:15:12 PM
Pseudoerasmus's Message # 101 might make sense if people formed their opinions everywhere on the basis of exactly the same beliefs and and information. But they don't.
People sympathize with others for numerous and varied reaons. Why should the West sympathize with the Pals for just the same reasons as your uninformed guy on the street in Zimbabwe?
103. pseudoerasmus - 7/31/2001 4:19:48 PM
Well, the extreme uniformity of the opinion suggests a similar motivation for the opinion.
104. Andonly - 7/31/2001 4:20:45 PM
Or in Jo'burg?
***
What a drag to have to abandon my troublemaking now that PE has arrived, but my son demands that I give him the computer, and my promise to capitulate is overdue. It's either give in or bomb his room.
105. ElliottRW - 7/31/2001 4:47:06 PM
I sympathize with the Israelis, I sympathise with the Palestinians. It's a bad situation. The only quick solution is for a third party (say, Saddam Hussein) to make the disputed territories and natural resources unusable for a several centuries (for example: nuke Jerusalem). No prize, no conflict.
106. stostosto - 7/31/2001 5:37:27 PM
marj, you are right, they're not Arab, they're apparently predominantly Pakistani and muslim Indians.
People of the United Arab Emirates according to CIA World Fact Book.
Why do you find it so unlikely that Jen's pal may have overheard some Arabs or even ex-pat Pakistanis discuss Israel the way she said?
Intriguingly, only 20% of the population there are UAE citizens, btw.
107. stostosto - 7/31/2001 5:43:13 PM
Ando, if your #1 reason in your #99 is valid, then how can the Israelis ever be trusted in negotiations? If it is not, then what use are the settlements to Israel?
(And thank you for responding to my question, it's an honest one).
108. stostosto - 7/31/2001 5:57:52 PM
MaxMacks #81:
stostosto...this is a subject that I have much interest in but I fear to express any opinion
that seems to be sympathetic to the Pasestians
as almost invariably such comments are labelled
"anti-Semetic".
Please don't hold back. The above probably already labels you anti-semitic anyway, you know. So, perhaps you could start by telling us: Why are you such a rabid anti-semite?
Where are you based, by the way?
109. Andonly - 7/31/2001 6:41:47 PM
Sto, the only person I have can ever recall having branded a Jew-hater online is Azure Toonces Wannabe, and then only because she professed as much. Macks has nothing of that sort to fear from me, nor have you.
110. stostosto - 7/31/2001 7:18:33 PM
Ando, I didn't mean to imply that.
Rustler voiced his suspicions against me once, though. (As he has done against others, at least PE).
I was completely taken aback.
111. Andonly - 7/31/2001 8:23:10 PM
Anyway, PE's talk about the man-on-the street view of the Pal-Israel situation is irrelevant to my theory of European guilt, which specified leftists and emphasized Frogs and Limeys. The world is not comprised solely of leftists. But leftists are disproportionately represented in the media. So, if the BBC or Reuters reports that Israel did X without reason or provocation, then it will be picked up in Jordan and Uganda and perhaps Beijing. So Britons and Africans and Chinese might have their opinions shaped by the same rhetoric, but only the Britons' view might be influenced by the dynamic I described.
People everywhere believe good stories, no matter whether they're true. But I think European leftists have a special axe to grind.
112. pseudoerasmus - 7/31/2001 8:25:34 PM
Or, since the pro-Palestinian sympathy is almost universal and uniform (across national and political lines) in the world, the most parsimonious explanation is that pretty much the same motivation underlies it.
113. Jenerator - 7/31/2001 8:40:13 PM
Marj,
My full of shit friend is a son of a wealthy oil man, born in Pakistan, with residences in Sharjah, Jeddah, Belgium, Toronto and London.
He has three degrees and is a man of honor. When he says that the climate at university is hostile to Israelis, I believe him.
114. Jenerator - 7/31/2001 8:45:16 PM
Secondly, that wealthy Muslims send their children to university in the US means jack shit with regards to US loyalism in the UAE. For the most part, I think it is safe to say that conservative Muslims believe the US and its culture to be sexually deviant and shameful in the eyes of Allah. Remember, that the World Trade Center bombers lived in the US!
115. Andonly - 7/31/2001 8:56:29 PM
"Ando, if your #1 reason in your #99 is valid, then how can the Israelis ever be trusted in negotiations? If it is not, then what use are the settlements to Israel?"
I've been wondering how to answer your question.
As to the first part, well, who's doing the trusting? You'll note that Egypt and Jordan, which have peace treaties with Israel, and Qatar, Oman, Morocco and Mauritania, which have economic and diplomatic arrangements with Israel, have not been invaded or nuked recently. The only countries with which Israel doesn' play fair are those which also abrogate agreements.
So, when you ask whether Israel can be trusted, I have to ask, By whom?
On the other hand, I believe I agree with Douglas Feith that dmeocracies should never agree i advance of negotiations (as per Oslo) to come to specific agreements with terroristic entities or dictatorships. As he says, it's fine to talk, but it's bad policy to promise anything. Promises lead to dishonesty, since the nature of liberal democratic governments engaged in negotiations with radicals is to downplay to their own constituencies any violation of agreements by the opposition. This tendency backs them into a corner, so that if the opposition is not in fact negotiating toward compromise, the democratic government is still so politically invested in promoting the process that it cannot admit when bad faith does dominate the opposition position.
116. Andonly - 7/31/2001 8:56:42 PM
Netanyahu manouvered himself into what Feith called a dishonest position--he was negotiating toward a resolution of Oslo, but he had no intention of getting there. Barak, whom Israelis elected explicitly to deliver peace, cut through the smokescreen and demonstrated that Arafat was either not prepared or not able to deliver Palestinian concessions toward a "just and comprehensive peace". What happened at Taba afterward was heart wrenchingly beside the point, I believe, because Arafat failed to make any of it possible. Rather, he let street rage reign, and Israel did the same. But think about it: had the IDF been PR-clever enough not to have risen to the bait, would it have mattered? Who can negotiate with a mob?
The Pals have held the cards for some time now, despite Israel's military superiority. One wonders why they have not yet resorted to abject pacifism--i.e., massive, peaceful demonstrations, road sit-ins, etc. Why have they not laid down their stones and molotov cocktails and Kalashnikovs and mortars, and done what has worked in India, in the US, and everywhere an occupier considers himself civilized?
The answer is, their intentions--the intentions of those leading the violence--cannot accommodate compromise. As long as the maximalists drive the process, the question of whether Israel can be trusted is sort of irrelevant. Just my opinion.
117. pseudoerasmus - 7/31/2001 9:12:55 PM
I'm not sure why what Jenerator's alleged friend allegedly says is so incredible. It seems perfectly plausible to me.
118. Andonly - 7/31/2001 9:37:50 PM
As to the second part of your question--if the Pals can in fact come to an agreement with Israel and live in peace, what's the point of settlements--I really don't know whether there's any point at all to having distant settlements. I mean, there may be, but I'm not competent to say what it might be.
Still, what would you have Israel do? Twenty percent of Israel is Arab. Why should New Palestine not contain Jews? (And please, skip the assertions about illegality of settlement of territories conquered in [defensive] wars, it's as meaningful to me as a tort law in a murder trial.)
119. Andonly - 7/31/2001 9:52:02 PM
"Or, since the pro-Palestinian sympathy is almost universal and uniform (across national and political lines) in the world, the most parsimonious explanation is that pretty much the same motivation underlies it."
Well, I figure human psychology from Beijing to London to Harare is not always amenable to what you conceive as parsimonious explanation, and that it surely isn't "universal and uniform (across national and political lines)".
In any case, the issue isn't pro-Palestinian sympathy but antipathy toward Israel.
One doesn't necessitate the other, any more than pro-Pakistani sentiment necessitates anti-Indian sentiment, or vice versa, among people who have no stake in the conflict between India and Pakistan.
120. RustlerPike - 8/1/2001 1:16:47 AM
One post though I said I wouldn't, wrt Pe's contention that 'the man on the world street' is unanimously against Israel:
One of the big surprises I had in my first months living in Kenya was the discovery that the people are exceedingly pro-Israel. I was called 'an Israelite' rather than a Jew or Israeli: Kenyans' knowledge and experience of the Jewish people was through the Bible - and through Israel's modern history. They knew our history from Abraham's time to Jesus' - and then again from 1967 and Entebbe. So all the heroic stuff fit together somehow: there was a straight line from King David to Yonni Netanyahu. And the embarrassing Middle Ages usury stuff - they don't know that (they're living through something worse, with the Indian supercaste in Kenya, btw). And they are Christians with a belief that is still naive and grassroots, kind of like the American West as described in various Mark Twain books.
So the overall Kenya man-on-the-street mood is that Israel is not only good - it is the Land of the Israelites, the heroes of the Bible. A lot of my wife's friends and relatives actually believed Jerusalem was located somewhere in the sky, before I assured them it wasn't.
If you conducted a poll, I wouldn't be surprised if you found that most Kenyans believe that the Messiah will come when the Jews rebuild their Temple, and they view the Israeli-Arab conflict through Christian Messianic spectacles. Most are also quite anti-Muslim for internal Kenyan reasons.
Bye again.
121. pseudoerasmus - 8/1/2001 3:21:48 AM
Well, East Africa has had historical run-ins with Arabs (slave trade), so probably that colours their perspective.
122. pseudoerasmus - 8/1/2001 3:23:34 AM
I wonder which few countries voted against the (in)famous "Zionism is racism" resolution by the UN?
123. RustlerPike - 8/1/2001 4:19:06 AM
There is a pretty interesting, very long running and heated debate in East African papers on the subject of Islam and the slave trade, between Prof. Ali Mazrui (Muslim guy from the coastal Swaheli tribe) and other profs - mostly from the Luo tribe I think. Mazrui cites cases like dark-skinned Sadat's rise to power as proof that the Arabs are not racist.
Also, while Jennster is the only representative here of the messianic Christian train of thought (yes Jen - the David/Solomon Temple... there is no other!...), I think that in the real world there are a lot more Americans who share her basic attitudes and beliefs than those who share yours (dimpled chads notwithstanding). I think Pat Robertson's show does OK in the ratings, does it not?
Interesting: it's a lot like the situation in Israel. Here, the intelligentsia doesn't believe in the religious messianic stuff. It doesn't believe in anything, other than its own superiority. It therefore does not want to fight for anything. It therefore leads the nation towards what could be total disaster, because our enemies have no such pacifistic intelligentsia.
The ones who wind up saving the day over and over again are the 'simpletons', the guys who vote Likud and Shas.
When all this plays out, the ones who win this for us will be our believers and your believers. Jennster and Shas. Already, it is thanks to the Jennsters that we don't have a pinko in the White House (I'm sure Gore-Lieberman would have taken sides with a Peres-Beilin approach in the end) and thanks to the Likudsters, Shassters (and Rustlers) that we have a hawk-led national unity government.
124. RustlerPike - 8/1/2001 4:22:00 AM
(I am imagining luscious Jennster next to a bearded, swarthy Yemenite Shasnik now).
125. stostosto - 8/1/2001 4:53:09 AM
This discussion (and Rustler's simpleton remarks) reminds me of a quote that goes something like this:
"In war, you are doomed to employ your opponents' methods"
Anyone familiar with that?
(I don't think it holds true, btw).
126. mgleason - 8/1/2001 6:31:25 AM
Voting record and text of UN Resolution 3379 containing the determination that Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.
Yeas: 72, Nays: 35, Abstensions: 32.
Voting record of UN Resolution 46/86, revocation of the determination of UN Resolution 3379.
Yeas: 111, Nays: 25, Abstentions: 13.
Text of UN Resolution 46/86.
127. mgleason - 8/1/2001 7:21:35 AM
As a point of interest, while I found Resolution 3379 to be readily available in the UNISPAL area of the Question of Palestine site (maintained on the UN server by the Division for Palestinian Rights), Resolution 46/86 was nowhere to be found, save for a brief mention in an excerpt of the 1991 UN Yearbook:
In other related developments, the General Assembly, in a virtually unprecedented action on 16 December 1991, by resolution 46/86, repealed the 1975 resolution by which it had determined that zionism was a form of racism and racial discrimination.
128. Wombat - 8/1/2001 8:14:56 AM
In the 1960s and 1970s Israel provided technical assistance to a number of subsaharan African countries. Uganda--pre-Idi Amin--was one of them.
129. pseudoerasmus - 8/1/2001 8:39:55 AM
Apparently that didn't prevent it from voting in favour of the "Zionism is racism" resolution!
130. pseudoerasmus - 8/1/2001 8:40:55 AM
Well, in 1975 Uganda was ruled by Idi Amin.
131. Jenerator - 8/1/2001 9:45:04 AM
Thanks Rp!;-)
132. PelleNilsson - 8/1/2001 10:27:08 AM
Good sleuthing magleason!
133. marjoribanks - 8/1/2001 10:35:30 AM
Spike,
I think you are vastly overestimating the messianic impulses in the American populace at large. The segment of the US populace that would fit your description is quite small and diminishing if anything. Those TV shows you're talking about aren't on regular TV, and are mostly irrelevant anyway.
BTW, a relative of mine was Mazrui's aide for years and years when he was at Makerere University in Kampala.
134. RustlerPike - 8/1/2001 10:43:48 AM
"In war, you are doomed to employ your opponents' methods"
I donno about 'doomed', but one certainly learns much from his opponent. The Pals are using our strategies (play the underdog, lay on the guilt) on us and we are learning theirs (or at least I am...).
Only problem is, when we actually use those Arab techniques on them, we are branded war criminals and taken to the Hague. I'm surprised Bashar Assad and Abdullah of Jordan haven't joined the lawsuit against Sharon, on behalf of their fathers - the heroes of Black September and El Hama.
Katzir, for instance, has been the victim of settlement by provocative Arabs, who learned that one from our settlers in Hebron. I myself intend, as some of you know, to counterattack one day by buying a house in or near Umm El-Fahm and seeing how the Arabs deal with that little bit of democracy.
Another Muslim technique I have come to admire is the conquest of territory through sound: the wails of the muazzin remind us all, five times a day, who controls the air around us.
My plan is to put up some heavy duty speakers and broadcast Israeli Independence War songs, as well as some Jimi Hendrix and Stones songs right after the muazzin finishes his piece.
I dream of rocking Arara, Ein a-Sahleh and Barta'a to 'Voodoo Child' and 'Heartbreaker'. Call me a romantic.
135. RustlerPike - 8/1/2001 10:47:26 AM
I think you are vastly overestimating the messianic impulses in the American populace at large.
I'm waiting to see if the Americans on the thread agree with you. I distinctly remember (the real) George Bush consulting with Billy Graham in the White House at the peak of the Gulf War crisis.
136. Wombat - 8/1/2001 10:56:24 AM
Most Americans sympathize with Israel for a variety of reasons. The messianic Christian "sympathy" is in a small minority. I would also be leery of their sympathy, since it is tied up with Armageddon and the return of Christ. When this happens, only those who recognize the divinity of Christ will be "saved." That would not include us Jews.
It has been argued that the Israelis have used the same methods against the Palestinians as the British used against the Jewish underground in the 1940s (collective punishment, destruction of houses, etc.). Israel's existence speaks to how effective those methods were.
137. RustlerPike - 8/1/2001 11:23:56 AM
It has been argued that the Israelis have used the same methods against the Palestinians as the British used against the Jewish underground in the 1940s (collective punishment, destruction of houses, etc.). Israel's existence speaks to how effective those methods were.
Rejoinder 1: Yes, Israel's existence shows that these methods have been quite effective against the Palestinians, whose (usually stated) aim has always been to destroy us.
Rejoinder 2: Yes, the Brits used those techniques on all their colonies - and they lost all of them (at least the ones overseas). So? Israel has no colonies - certainly none overseas.
Rejoinder 3: The Arabs have been using the same methods against Israel for the past 70 years: pillage, destroy, kill, bomb, maim, terrorize, preferably civilians, even more preferably children. Israel's existence speaks to how effective those methods were - and are.
138. RustlerPike - 8/1/2001 11:29:45 AM
"Morale and psychological manipulation has a significant place in the minds of Jews, and formed a very important source of strength in the "Hebrew State"...
Dis-information has been one of the bases of morale and psychological manipulation among the Israelis, and propaganda played an important role in the psychological prodding of world political leaders to support Zionism...
The "Protocol's of the Elders of Zion" did not ignore the importance of using propaganda to promote the Zionist goals. In the second protocol is written: "Through the newspapers we will have the means to propel and to influence". In the twelfth protocol: "Our governments will hold the reins of most of the newspapers, and through this plan we will possess the primary power to turn to public opinion."
[Al-Hayat Al-Jadida, official PA daily, Jan 25 2001]
(from Palestinian Media Watch)
139. Jenerator - 8/1/2001 11:34:30 AM
I have worked through Revelation and have read many books on eschatology. The "end times" is the hardest subject for me because of the language and use of metaphors and symbols in Revelation. In my heart, I believe that God has a special plan for the Jews and because I believe Christianity to be the fulfillment of Judaism, I feel as though we are brothers in a sense.
Rapture, the second coming of Christ, the anti-Christ, and Armaggedon are all topics that are hotly discussed these days. More than ever, the Christian community at large is expressing the foreboding sense that "the end is near" and is directly related to what's going on Israel today. I firmly believe that many of us are holding our breath waiting to see what happens to the Golden Dome, which seal is broken next and for any clear signs of tribulation of world leader rise from the ashes.
On Christian radio, one of the top shows is called "End Times". It even has a publication and broadcast across the world.
My Messianic friends believe we're already in the final stages before the anti-Christ, and all are ready to return to Israel (depending on what view they have of the rapture) to see the dead in Christ rise.
140. Jenerator - 8/1/2001 11:38:44 AM
P.s. The #1 book on the Christian market (and one that has done well on the NYT best sellers) is Left Behind by Jenkins and LeHaye, it deals specifically with the end times and what's going on in Israel.
141. stostosto - 8/1/2001 11:38:44 AM
Jen,
You must be joking!
142. Jenerator - 8/1/2001 11:42:42 AM
Sto,
Kidding about what?
143. RustlerPike - 8/1/2001 11:45:12 AM
It was concerned, I think, who said the Mideast was a part of the world that always made him (her?) cringe. Well - imagine what living here is like. I tell you - living in Israel gives you gas.
On the other hand, if the choice is between living somewhere where you get gas, and living somewhere where you get gassed, I guess Israel is the better choice.
144. Wombat - 8/1/2001 11:59:37 AM
The difference being that you are far less likely to be gassed in the United States than you are in Israel.
145. Andonly - 8/1/2001 1:04:16 PM
Pike to Banks: "I'm waiting to see if the Americans on the thread agree with you."
I agree with him.
However (and Sto, no Jenerator is not kidding at all, messianic Xtians do believe this stuff, and there are plenty of them living in the southwestern and southern US, whence our Shrub hails) it isn't impossible that religious convictions can seep into foreign policy on some level. But I doubt they'd do Israel any good; their political application would be comparable in efficacy to homeopathy.
146. RustlerPike - 8/2/2001 1:37:46 PM
Wombat:
The difference being that you are far less likely to be gassed in the United States than you are in Israel.
Yeah, I guess. But you never know. A sufficiently pugnacious Israeli leadership could spell major trouble for American Jews, I think. A large scale expulsion of Palestinians would probably entail a large scale rise in antisemitism in the USA. Which would engender a large scale wave of emigration to Israel. Which would give us exactly what we need most: people to settle in the newly depopulated heartland formerly known as 'the West Bank'.
147. RustlerPike - 8/2/2001 1:46:56 PM
As for the Christian believers being few in number: if the situation of religion in Israel is comparable, I would say this -
a. sometimes a relatively small minority is the one that consistently sways the vote, or the opinion polls. Certainly this is the case in Israel.
b. religious myths incubate in people's minds and hatch in times of crisis. During the Gulf War, for instance, I was surprised to find people who considered themselves secular speaking to me about this or another biblical prophecy, or some rabbinical pronouncement, that they thought was relevant to figuring out what was happening and how it would end.
I wouldn't underestimate the power of religion. While Western Christian nations - and the only Jewish nation - are largely nonreligious, or non-practicing, it doesn't mean that the basic religious beliefs and myths do not have deep, hidden roots in their psyches.
148. RustlerPike - 8/2/2001 1:57:15 PM
Ma'ariv's site asked people if 'the presence of children in the house in Nablus should have caused the operation to be called off' (a misleading question, I think, since the children were not in the building being attacked but stood outside it, on the street). With 2,191 votes, 72% answered 'no'. There are now 5,005 votes and the nays are at 73%.
149. RustlerPike - 8/2/2001 2:03:20 PM
The previous poll asked if women should serve in combat roles in confrontation zones. 53% of 5,966 votes were against.
I, myself, would send all the women in Israel to go get themselves blown up in Ramallah.
150. RustlerPike - 8/2/2001 2:05:38 PM
Or better yet - have their eyes gouged out. That would be cool. I really see no reason why this crap should always be happening to the menfolk. Looks awful unequal to me.
151. Wombat - 8/2/2001 2:26:33 PM
Rustler:
This is an interesting sub-text: the status of the Zionist belief that Israel is a safe haven from antisemitism compared to Europe and now the United States.
I cannot speak for Europe, my experience there was that Jews were not particularly numerous, and were still considered somewhat "exotic."
In the United States, however, unlike in Europe, even implied antisemitism is a catastrophe for a candidate for any political office. Pat Buchanan and Jesse Jackson can tell you that. Overt antisemitism lands one on the lunatic fringe.
If Israel takes robust steps against the PLO, there may be a rise in black antisemitism (fellow oppressed...yadda yadda), but that is of little consequence in the overall scheme of things. The Jewish community will probably divide on the issue, as will the rest of the United States.
152. RustlerPike - 8/2/2001 2:26:57 PM
Sorry - that may have offended some people. I received my wife's alimony suit yesterday and met the local social worker and her feminista boss yesterday, so I'm feeling a tad aggressive towards the female gender.
(a side of me I'd never known existed).
153. Wombat - 8/2/2001 2:32:22 PM
Rustler:
Do try and separate your marital life from this thread. The ugliness that you sometimes convey gives the reader sympathy for your ex, whether she deserves it or not.
154. marjoribanks - 8/2/2001 2:34:06 PM
While this site was down, I posted the following in Khaval's forum.
----
This week's New Yorker has a fascinating and lengthy article on Solzhenitsyn by David Remnick. One bit of it was very interesting, and I wanted to get Spike's and Andonly's take on it. I will post it here too.
Solzhy has been accused, quite widely, of anti-Semitism. I totally disbelieve this, and Remnick makes it clear that he also does not accept this. He does say, in the light of this, however, the following -
"It is true, however, that, as a Russian patriot, Solzhenitsyn has written of the "incomparable sufferings of our people," and, as such, clearly does not believe in the uniqueness of Jewish suffering in the past two centuries or in the idea of Jews as a symbol of persecution."
This statement is made baldly, without qualification, but even so it is clear that Remnick makes it as a kind of sub-indictment.
I was struck by this because it makes explicit one thing that I believe consumes many Jews, even secular and cosmopolitan individuals. It is also the item of contemporary Jewish identity and world-view that is the hardest sell to the vast majority of the world.
Does this quote constitute a genuine indictment of Solzhenitsyn? Does one have to toe this particular intellectual line or be tinged with anti-semitism?
I'll go one further - I've been examining closely my own feelings wrt this question and while not 100% I think I lean towards Solzhy's stance as represented by Remnick. Am I, who consider myself a rock-solid friend of the Jews, thus to be seen as shaky, potentially anti-Semite?
155. RustlerPike - 8/2/2001 2:35:36 PM
This is an interesting sub-text: the status of the Zionist belief that Israel is a safe haven from antisemitism compared to Europe and now the United States.
Don't forget, though, that I am extremely unrepresentative of any single stream in Israel. Secular Zionism is dead in the water - though I think it is about to rise from its ashes, thanks to Yasir A.'s terror war.
If Israel takes robust steps against the PLO, there may be a rise in black antisemitism (fellow oppressed...yadda yadda), but that is of little consequence in the overall scheme of things.
What if there is a war like the one I predicted earlier: the US and Britain against Saddam, and Israel against the Pals, and most of the WB&G Palestinians get thrown across the Jordan River? Wouldn't there possibly be some very serious backlash against the Jews when it was all over?
(I know we're deep into speculative territory, but what the fuck).
156. RustlerPike - 8/2/2001 2:41:33 PM
Marj:
You are only an antisemite if deep down inside you hate the Jews. If you don't, you're not. Even if you despise some things about them and like others (the way I do, for instance), you don't really qualify for antisemitedom, I don't think.
157. marjoribanks - 8/2/2001 2:46:31 PM
Spike,
I know, deep down and not so deep down, that I am not in any way what I would call an anti-semite. But the fact remains that there is, in my view, a strong case to be made that the litmus test that Solzhy is evaluated by is commonly a yardstick applied in this country at least. I'm interested in what you have to say about the litmus test and its validity.
I also posted the following quote from Remnick and my comment below it -
"In his text, Solzhenitsyn often seems irritated that there is a "taboo" against discussing the "Jewish question", that one must either endorse certain notions of Jewish history or be branded a bigot."
See, I agree with this bit quite thoroughly. I also agree that Western society is riddled with actual anti-semitism, and that often if it looks and quacks like it, it is anti-semitic. But there is a line there that is more often blurred than not, and it is crossed far too often to accuse and pillory and demonize than is good for anyone involved, or for intellectual honesty.
158. Wombat - 8/2/2001 2:49:06 PM
Rustler:
If the US and Britain go to war with Saddam (one can only hope...), Israel will--as before--be strongly urged to stay out of it. If Saddam succeeds in involving Israel by launching unprovoked attacks with WMD, he will get little sympathy outside of the region.
Most Americans are able to distinguish between Jews and Israel. The one instance that concerned me was the Jonathan Pollard case, when one man's loyalty was clearly not to the United States, but to Israel, for which he was generously rewarded by the latter. More instances of that might lead to a general suspicion of Jews.
159. RustlerPike - 8/2/2001 3:01:01 PM
marj:
I'm not sure I trust myself to answer your question well. It is true the Jews use guilt as a weapon of war (against each other as well as against others). It is true also that Jews, while having suffered worse persecution - in my view - than any other nation I can think of right now, a great many Jews have known extreme success and enjoyed the good life in quite a number of places and times (the US in the present day being the best example perhaps).
I think the Jews are a special people: I think they have special talent, I think their culture and national character is essentially a good one and I think the world will benefit when they become a strong nation with a position of leadership. I think, for example, that if we had the right conditions here in Israel - like peace and prosperity for a few years - odds are we would come up with an AIDS cure.
This talent means the Jews succeed a lot, but this success often gives rise to resentment among non-Jews, and resentment breeds hate and persecution.
160. RustlerPike - 8/2/2001 3:02:10 PM
I now must play a game of Red Alert 2 with my son Erez (both of us against the computer teams).
161. PelleNilsson - 8/2/2001 3:08:10 PM
Rustler
I think their culture and national character is essentially a good one and I think the world will benefit when they become a strong nation with a position of leadership.
I don't disagree with that. One of the tragic aspects of the current situation is that it diverts energy away from other things. I don't think it was a coincidence that Israel emerged as a high-tech hothouse in the period of relative calm that followed the first Intifada.
162. marjoribanks - 8/2/2001 3:09:47 PM
Spike,
When you return, I think that your post is fine and justified.
I am specifically asking - is it suspect (in your view) if I think that Jews have not uniquely suffered? Is it suspect when a country or group or famous writer explicitly states this?
I find it interesting (and encouraging) that you also think of the Jews as a symbol of immense achievement. I do too. Which is why the pairing of an institutionalized insistence that they be remembered as auniversal symbol of suffering is ironic and often contradictory.
In the USA, and correct me if I am wrong others, there is an overt suppression of Jewish triumphalism (such as exhibited, very justifiably, by Spike). The emphasis is always on suffering, and it is probably a pragmatic, bet-hedging, emphasis. Do you all agree?
163. Wombat - 8/2/2001 3:41:06 PM
Marj:
I guess you weren't around in 1967. I think the most positive thing about the Jewish experience in the United States has been the ease with which most Jews have become de-ethnicized. Other than support for Israel, and even that varies considerably, I cannot think of an issue that unites Jews as a people in the United States (unless it is the annual pledge by Baptists to increase their efforts to convert Jews).
164. RustlerPike - 8/2/2001 4:16:08 PM
marj:
The reason I feel uncomfortable with my answers is, when push comes to shove and I am under intense attack (as happened with Pe's insistent hammering, some months back, on the matter of Jewish ethnicity and right to Israel's land) I do revert, it seems, to the word 'antisemitism', perhaps unjustifiably. So I don't want to pretend I am more secure than I really am.
I don't think anyone is 'suspect', really. If you don't think Jewish suffering is unique that's a legitimate opinion. But what other nation had a third of its people slaughtered?
How many Tutsis were there before the genocide there?
165. RustlerPike - 8/2/2001 4:24:39 PM
Some Libak for ya:
Jerusalem, June 2001
Jerusalem, June 2001 (sign reads: 'we must defeat Arafat')
166. marjoribanks - 8/2/2001 4:27:10 PM
The Tutsis is a bad example, for "your" argument, Spike. As far as I know, they were halved in the 60's and then halved again in the 90's.
The Armenians lost half of their population to the Turks.
Hell, entire peoples have been wiped out in the Americas.
167. marjoribanks - 8/2/2001 4:31:37 PM
I like Libak, a lot. But what is the irony/humor/interest in the first one?
--
Spike,
I have decided that I in fact do not think that the Jews have suffered uniquely.
I consider them a symbol of suffering, though. And I, personally, am genuinely and viscerally chilled by the Holocaust to a deeper extent because it took place in an industrialized manner, in Europe, in so-called civilized climes and times, in a place that still purports to be a pinnacle of human culture and achievement.
This is my opinion, rendered from my gut. By the way, I also (from my gut) consider the Jews a symbol of phenomenal achievement.
168. pseudoerasmus - 8/2/2001 4:32:27 PM
The former Soviet Union also affords dozens of examples. Chechens, for example, lost half their population during the deportation to Kazakstan in the 1940s.
169. Wombat - 8/2/2001 4:33:41 PM
They ought to drop that fella onto a Palestinian police station. Talk about your bunker busters.
170. marjoribanks - 8/2/2001 4:36:33 PM
Oh, I get it now, those are super-soakers.
171. Andonly - 8/2/2001 5:29:09 PM
Bat: "If Israel takes robust steps against the PLO, there may be a rise in black antisemitism (fellow oppressed...yadda yadda), but that is of little consequence in the overall scheme of things."
Probably right. But in the event of Pike's major confrontation scenario there could develop serious problems in cities that have large black populations (Detroit, Philly, DC), a history of black-Jewish animosity, or notable pro-Arab contingents (San Francisco--where, during the Gulf War, some demonstrators carried signs that said "We don't want your Jew war").
Remember that blacks make up the majority of the armed services (maybe not the Air Force?), and if we were to get dragged into a protracted war the consequences of resentment could be troubling, even bad for the prosecution of the war effort.
But I agree, the US government will not be recreating Dachau any time soon.
172. Andonly - 8/2/2001 5:45:32 PM
"I find it interesting (and encouraging) that you also think of the Jews as a symbol of immense achievement. I do too. Which is why the pairing of an institutionalized insistence that they be remembered as auniversal symbol of suffering is ironic and often contradictory."
Well, history's full of ironies. But personally, I'd rather not think of myself or my fellow Jews as victims.
"In the USA, and correct me if I am wrong others, there is an overt suppression of Jewish triumphalism (such as exhibited, very justifiably, by Spike). The emphasis is always on suffering, and it is probably a pragmatic, bet-hedging, emphasis. Do you all agree?"
I think it is an unseemly political tool.
"I, personally, am genuinely and viscerally chilled by the Holocaust to a deeper extent because it took place in an industrialized manner, in Europe, in so-called civilized climes and times, in a place that still purports to be a pinnacle of human culture and achievement."
Agreed...
173. stostosto - 8/2/2001 5:45:50 PM
Reposting something I said at World Crossing:
Khaval,
I was on vacation when the Gillon case was rolling here, so I've had to do some backtracking in order to understand what went on.
I made a quick search on Gillon on the Danish parliament's web site. There were three questions asked to the foreign minister by MP Søren Søndergaard of the left wing party the Unity List.
This one startled me:
"Can the minister inform us when the Ministry of Foreign Affairs received requests from several Israeli human rights organisations (B'Tselem and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel among them) not to acknowledge Carmi Gillon as ambassador to Denmark due to his record as directly responsible for torture in breach of international law?"
Foreign Minister Mogens Lykketoft's answer:
"On June the 18th and 19th the Ministry received written notes from B'Tselem and PCATI respectively concerning the appointment of Carmi Gillon as new Israeli ambassador to Denmark. In response of June 22 to the leader of the B'Tselem, Jessica Montell, the following was stated:
c "Both Israel and the Palestinian Authority have legitimate security concerns, but these must be addressed in full respect of human rights and within the letter of the law. Both parties have committed themselves to respecting human rights and fundamental rights. Both parties must live up to that commitment. Therefore, Denmark and the EU will closely follow the question.
c In accordance with diplomatic practice, Denmark does not intend to question whom the Israeli government chooses to represent it in Denmark."
I have been getting quite a rap from online Jews about this matter pitting this as "Denmark against Israel" - and it turns out the whole thing was initiated by Israeli human rights organisations requesting that Denmark block Gillon as ambassador!
>>> 174. stostosto - 8/2/2001 5:46:21 PM
>>>
Andonly linked a column the other day from Haaretz which grossly misrepresented the incident to the effect that "the Danish left had succeeded in reinvigorating slumbering national antisemitism". (I quote from memory).
Mein Gott! I have to conclude the stressful Israeli situation induces rash judgment and jumping to knee-jerk prejudiced conclusions.
And for those of you who are prone to such, I'd like to inform you that antisemitism is practically non-existant here. It has about as many and as quaint adherents here as, say, sumo wrestling. It is simply not an issue.
175. Andonly - 8/3/2001 12:50:17 PM
Sto, thanks for your 173, it clears up a lot. I was wondering why Denmark of all places had chosen out of the blue and at this particular point in time to get persnickety about Israeli diplomats. Certainly looked like questionably motivatd Euro leftists trying to hijack the political spotlight.
But no, it was Israeli human rights activists--who I believe it's fair to say are leftists as well--entreating another country to undermine their own right-wing government's legitimacy in a time of war.
It doesn't seem that the media have caught on to this at all. At least, I haven't run across any commentary about it pro or con.
Pike, do you know if B'tselem and co. ever attempted within Israel to have Gillon prosecuted or banned from holding government office or anything like that? Did activists ever appeal to the supreme court about it, or did they just go straight to Denmark?
176. Andonly - 8/3/2001 1:12:53 PM
Banks:
"In his text, Solzhenitsyn often seems irritated that there is a "taboo" against discussing the "Jewish question", that one must either endorse certain notions of Jewish history or be branded a bigot."
See, I agree with this bit quite thoroughly. I also agree that Western society is riddled with actual anti-semitism, and that often if it looks and quacks like it, it is anti-semitic. But there is a line there that is more often blurred than not, and it is crossed far too often to accuse and pillory and demonize than is good for anyone involved, or for intellectual honesty.
A trip to one of Table Talk's "Let's Hate Israel" threads is all that's needed to confirm the truth of everything you say in the second paragraph. But the issue of antisemitism and Israel is tough to address in simple terms, since the subtleties of human antipathies aren't always displayed openly.
I have noticed a tendency among people to think of Israel in terms of what it means to them, and therefore to presume about what Israel should do, or not do, or what Jews should do or not do with regard to Israel, as though what Israel means to others is (naturally) what it should mean to Jews.
Too many Jews in the West have milked the Holocaust, have made ourselves into walking martyrs, and generally exploited the history of Jewish suffering.
But Israel seems to be viewed by some non-Jews fed up with all that as the greateat example of Jewish exploitation. It isn't; it's the result of a quest for self-determination, that's all. But since such quests don't usually require that those who embark on them must have suffered more than anyone else in history, one does tend to wonder about people who claim the Zionist enterprise wasn't really "necessary", and use the unexceptional nature of Jewish suffering to buttress their argument.
177. Andonly - 8/3/2001 2:09:56 PM
Here's a Ha'aretz article claiming Sharon has no game plan but to stay in power. It also calls for unilateral separation from the Palestinians.
178. Andonly - 8/3/2001 2:24:46 PM
Another, more analytical, article, same subject as the Rosenbaum linked above:
Sharon Has the Power
179. Andonly - 8/3/2001 2:40:35 PM
Also, anyone interested in the question of Israeli military superiority should follow the link at today's Ha'aretz to Ze'ev Schiff's piece, "What Cordesman Really Said".
And this piece by Amira Hass suggests maybe the Pals are trying to turn a corner. And perhaps Sharon's strategy of not negotiating under fire is not so vapid as the previous two articles I linked suggest:
Stop shooting, says Palestinian press
By Amira Hass
The Palestinian news agency Wafa yesterday ran a lead editorial dubbed "The Stone and the Shoe," calling for an end to the military aspects of the Intifada and attacks inside Israel, saying the Palestinians should use stones and shoes instead of weapons to challenge the Israeli occupation.
"We have to admit that no matter how ma
Israel's formal stand wrt the WB&G