Palestine
The Economist:
We’ve asked the Palestinians to lay down their arms. We’ve told them their lack of a state is their own fault; if only they would embrace non-violence, a reasonable and unprejudiced world would see the merit of their claims. Over the weekend, tens of thousands of them did just that, and it seems likely to continue. If crowds of tens of thousands of non-violent Palestinian protestors continue to march, and if Israel continues to shoot at them, what will we do? Will we make good on our rhetoric, and press Israel to give them their state? Or will it turn out that our paeans to non-violence were just cynical tactics in an amoral international power contest staged by militaristic Israeli and American right-wing groups whose elective affinities lead them to shape a common narrative of the alien Arab/Muslim threat? Will we even bother to acknowledge that the Palestinians are protesting non-violently? Or will we soldier on with the same empty decades-old rhetoric, now drained of any truth or meaning, because it protects established relationships of power? What will it take to make Americans recognise that the real Martin Luther King-style non-violent Palestinian protestors have arrived, and that Israeli soldiers are shooting them with real bullets?
How shrill.
And anti-Semitic.
That’s it, no honorary CUNY degrees for those Trotskyites at the Economist.
Ah yes – the old tricks are the best tricks – nicht wahr? Rowdy unarmed Nakbahteers (who have yet to advocate – you know – normal state to state chicanery like Official Recognition, swapping ambassadors etc) get blitz’d in their peaceful violations of internat’l law.
The “3 No’s of Khartoum” bear a heavy penance courtesy of Arab League’s intolerance as terms like “Palestinian Sympathy Fatigue,” “Nakbah Redux,” “annexation,” and “Right of Relocation” debut in the ‘forever quest’ for something something Palestine
We already have very little to say when people we don’t like are killing peaceful protesters (see Hafez & Bashar Assad, the Chinese Communist Party, Mahmoud Ahmedinejad). Us lefties are hardly immune (how many here preferred to leave the Libyans to their fate?).
When people we DO like are killing them (Bahrain, Israel, Yemen), we are very practiced at averting our gaze, throwing up our hands, or painting them as violent and threatening even when they are not.
How much do you want to bet that Inhofe or someone similar uses these protests as an argument for raising our subsidies to Israel, and that Chuck Schumer backs him?
Us lefties are hardly immune (how many here preferred to leave the Libyans to their fate?).
That’s a pretty ugly bit of warmongering rhetoric right there. Reminds me of the heady days of 2002-2003, when anyone who opposed war became indifferent to, if not actively in support of, the real and imagined monstrosities of Hussein regime.
Thanks, djw. I was trying to come up with a way of saying exactly this and kept deleting failed attempts at doing so.
Reminds me of comment threads like this.
Yes, once again, when someone has the terribly bad taste to point out that your policies have bad outcomes, you respond by playing the victim.
And you still have no answer.
Policy X has outcomes “a”,”b”,”c”, and “d”.
I would very much like to avoid outcome “d”, but not enough to overcome my preference for “a”, “b”, and “c”.
If someone attacks this position by saying you don’t care about “d”, then the holder of the position is justified in calling out the attacker’s bullshit.
If someone actually does this, yes, you are perfectly justified.
If, on the other hand, someone points out that your policy will cause Outcome D, and that this a problem, whining that they’ve attacked your heart is just a shabby dodge from someone who can’t, or won’t, argue forthrightly about costs and benefits.
It’s wrong for people who support the Libyan intervention to attack its opponents’ motives instead of talking about policy and consequences. It’s equally wrong for those opponents to pretend that their motives have been attacked in an effort to avoid talking about policy and consequences.
I didn’t get that from the discussion, but then again the opponents of our actions in Lybia kinda veered into my realm of vague, concerned obstinacy on the issue, so its possible I just didn’t catch it.
Brad, let’s look at the language:
“Preferred” is a statement about priorities, about ranking things against each other, exactly what you are doing when you evaluate a, b, and c against d.
And it received exactly the same response as somebody who actually claimed “You don’t care about the civilians in Benghazi!” would have received.
People are taking the perfectly valid you make and using it as a dodge to avoid perfectly legitimate questions about policy and priority.
I don’t agree with you at all on that particular instance. You may be correct about past occurrences, but I don’t think “preferred to leave the Libyans to their fate” in the context of his post was fair wording.
Opinions about Libya do not necessarily say anything about what one “prefers” concerning the fate of Libyan protesters, and since that seems to be what tequila is implying, I would call that aside loaded and unfair.
Brad,
I preferred to leave Saddam Hussein in power. I sure as hell didn’t want Saddam Hussein to be in power, but among the options, that’s the one I preferred.
And you remind me of the Republicans who voted for the Ryan Plan.
When someone points out what your policy would do, whine about how unfair that is and pretend your honor has been insulted.
Write again when someone says that the Republicans “prefer” that old people die. The REAL complaint (as you point out)is that the inevitable result of the Republicans’ policies is that, due to unnecessary lack of medical care, people will die. No one cares if they prefer it or not.
Contrast to Libya. No one opposed to intervention “preferred” that Libyan protesters die. Intervention instead looked to have a bunch of equally bad, if not worse, consequences. As I recall, those opposed were quite willing to be tarnished with the “some protesters will die if we don’t intervene” brush because the bad consequences were . . . a lot more people dieing, and another endless war against muslims.
As opposed to cutting killing old people to give tax breaks to billionaires, that seems pretty defensible, neh?
This is me, writing again.
Except it’s not ‘old people,’ it’s sick people.
Grayson’s statement is one hell of a lot more personal, and carries a lot more of an implication that the deaths are what the accused wants to see happen, than anything that has been written about Libya war opponents on this thread, or on any LGM thread on which this pose of victimhood has been struck.
In point of fact, they did prefer it. They preferred to the alternative, which was a military intervention.
Which is a perfectly legitimate position to argue – that they prefer the less-bad option to the even worse option, but don’t pretend this isn’t a decision about which choice is preferable.
Don’t hide behind a grammar police stance, either. It isn’t about phrasing. There is no phrasing that is going to be acceptable to people who have settled on victimhood as their argument. They just want to bully their opponents, to make even the raising of this point look unfair.
Awesome thread, btw.
Noting how similar your whining about ‘Don’t judge my heart!’ was to George W. Bush really left a mark.
Reminds me of the Republicans’ health care plan.
Sounds like Tom Clancy called it about 20 years ago, in “The Sum of All Fears” – in which a group of Palestinian protesters decide to follow the Gandhi/MLK playbook, and an outside observer comments: “They just figured out how to destroy Israel.”
I think that tactically this may be the best thing the Palestinians effectuate- it may have no effect on the pro-Israel lobby in the US, but it very well may have a huge effect in Europe- especially when the PA goes before the UN asking for recognition of statehood
There have been nonviolent demonstrations taking place for a few years along the West Bank barrier route, mainly in villages that have been separated from olive orchards and other agricultural land by the wall. Bi’lin comes to mind. Many Israeli leftists and anarchists have regularly joined those protests.
As usual, though, no one in the Western media gives a fudge unless someone gets killed.
Funny thing: I’ve seen a wider range of debate about the occupation in the Israeli press than in most North American media.
Five bucks says this is the thread where the Donalde finally gets banned.
He never rants about the actual content of any post. He just shows up randomly to scream about his blog.
I understand Machiavellian elan is involved.
Above was me. Maybe. I’ve been told I am not me.
I suspect the Commentary take will be the dominant narratvie among the few people who even notice: Those people weren’t Palestinians at all, but defecting Syrians. Some tore down a fence! Therefore they deserved to be shot.
Outside of some rocks, this was the first intifada. No one gave a damn, and I expect no one will care now.
The US support for Israel was much weaker during the first intifada. Since the second intifada happened roughly around the same time that Americans decided that Arab terrorism was the Greatest Threat To Our Nation Ever, American anti-Palestinian attitudes hardened.
That this is happening in conjunction with other pro-democracy rallies in the Middle East just might make a difference, by fitting it into a different context.
As long as they Palistinians keep breaching the sovereignty of Israel by the constant rocket barrage, few will understand their cause…..
That needs to stop. No country does that and expects the opposition to come to the table.
When you’re talking about a country breaching another country’s sovereignty, you’re talking about Israel, right? That “Palestinians” was just a typo, right?
I mean, you didn’t just FORGET about all those Israeli troops stationed all over the West Bank, did you? And those segregated highways and checkpoints? And the almost routine troop incursions into Gaza? Not to mention the semi-annual bombings and attacks into Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon?
Typo, right?
Not to mention the blatantly illegal Israeli settlement cropping up all over the West Bank like poison mushrooms (and formerly in the Gaza Strip) with the full consent and military protection of the Israeli government.
Concern troll is sincerely concerned.
Really most sincerely concerned.
Sorry, forgot the link.
So, when can we expect you to laud they Palestinians for their adoption of peaceful methods of resistance?
I haven’t read anything about a rocket crossing Israel’s border in some time. Just peaceful people, getting mowed down. And yet, what do you have to say about the matter?
Hey, didn’t you hear they threw some rocks at the border fence? Violence!
It’s time to move them somewhere down the dusty road in a place the chosen peoples decide. It says so in the desert writings in a language of the long-dead.
Well, we supported South Africa for years when it was an apartheid state, so I see no inconsistency in our dealings with Israel.
If you look at US history, we almost always support the oppressers over the oppressed.
Or at least when it behooves our corporations.
“Well, we supported South Africa for years when it was an apartheid state, so I see no inconsistency in our dealings with Israel.”
That was true in the early 80s, but by the late 80s the Afrikaner regime had become so reviled that Mel Gibson and Danny Glover could battle them in a hit summer movie. If Israel continues to have right wing governments that tell the rest of the world to go screw, something similar will happen to them. Don’t forget that it was only four years ago that Jimmy Carter got all but blacklisted for using the word “apartheid”. Now that comparison gets made explicitly and without controversy in editorials in Haaretz:
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/israeli-policy-will-end-up-isolating-it-to-the-point-of-sanctions-1.362429
The U.S. Government’s reflexive support of far right Likud policies isn’t set in stone.
No, but it sure does look like it sometimes.
I find the pro-Israel lobby to be much stronger and entrenched than the pro-apartheid ones.
Nothing will change. The pro-Israeli lobby dominates our government and prohibits any rational policies in the region. As auditorydamage points out above, the Israeli press is far more critical of government policies there than the Western press.
The pro-Israeli lobby dominates our government and prohibits any rational policies in the region.
That’s it…..it’s all the fault of those damn JOOOS….
Troll is trolling.
Hey, Norman, since you can’t contribute anything of substance to the thread, maybe you can answer a question I’ve had for a while. Where did the whole “JOOOS”-for-Jews thing come from? I’ve only seen the spelling when someone is making an allegation of antisemitism. It seems like a weird tic.
So one cannot simulaneously be Jewish and legitimately concerned about the effect of a single, particularly strong, foreign policy lobby.
Good to know.
Odd that you should mention it, but both of my Jewish colleagues, including the one whose father is Israeli, oppose Israeli policies on these issues.
Actually, a lot of them are evangelical Christians looking to bring on Armageddon.
Oh, no no no. The vast majority of Jews in this country have nothing to do with the Israel Lobby, and don’t agree with its policy.
If you weren’t a right winger, you’d be able to understand the difference between masses and elites, and how they can have very different beliefs about things.
It always astounds me how progressives can be even more cynical than conservatives, even when we have the examples of MLK, Ghandi, and Mandela before us. You’re right, it will never work, the Palestinians should just bow their necks and accept permanent subservience.
I agree with this, at least in spirit.
It’s not that I think a good outcome in Israel/Palestine is likely. History, generally, is not on the side of The People and The Masses in individual conflicts, and the history with Israel/Palestine is not heartening.
But I think that the emotional reaction of hope is the right one. It could happen. Non-violent protest against a democratic or semi-democratic oppressor has a real history of success. Non-violent protests have overthrown occupying forces in the past.
And most of all, what we’re seeing in Palestine right now is really, actually revolution. It’s ordinary folks finding a way to organize themselves and risk their lives and livelihoods on behalf of a greater cause of justice and a vision of a new order.
Non-violence isn’t magic and doesn’t produce immediate results. Nothing will change tomorrow. Or the day after. Perhaps not next year or the year after that. That doesn’t mean it’s the wrong strategy. The point is to demonstrate that laws are unjust and to break through to calloused authority.
Gandhi’s first major salt march was in 1930 and the British ended up imprisoning thousands of people. India didn’t become independent for another 17 years.
I think an interesting question is whether palestine be the center of a new Arab democracy movement? See Focal Points: http://ow.ly/4VPyq
Quoting @Anonymous:
‘He never rants about the actual content of any post. He just shows up randomly to scream about his blog.
I understand Machiavellian elan is involved.’
Actually, I have a post you folks might consider, that is if Scotty and Porn Guy don’t pull a Meade attack and edit/delete: “Israel-Bashing Progressives Paint Iran/Syrian-Backed Border Incursion as ‘Martin Luther King-Style Non-Violence’”.
Still delusional I see. Get therapy, Donny Boy, you will feel so much better.
How’s the big expose on Tintin coming, Donnie?
You got that right, Donalde. Partyin, Partyin, Partyin, looking forward to the weekend myself. Cheers!
This video just reminded me what a high price I paid for taking the bus all those years. :(
Donalde is real
[...] Palestine – “Or will we soldier on with the same empty decades-old rhetoric, now drained of any truth or meaning, because it protects established relationships of power?” Since the US is the best government money can buy, the answer is yes. This entry was posted in Potpourri. Bookmark the permalink. ← Reader Feeder Bits for (Tue. 17-May-11 1733) [...]
Wait, don’t tell me, I know this one.
‘He never rants about the actual content of any post. He just shows up randomly to scream about his blog.’
Hey, gave you sick fucks a shot. Serves me right for attempting to treat you idiots like adults. My bad. Won’t happen again, dolts.
[link added for dramatic clarity -- ed.]
Won’t happen again, dolts.
Promises, promises.
[...] Palestine : Lawyers, Guns & Money [...]
Needs more BWAHAHAHAHA. Also, fuckers.
I think you are right, Donald. After I clicked on your link, it changed my mind about a lot of things. It takes a tough man to make a tender policy prescription like that.