Israel to World: "Suck It."

Amateurist that smells off to me, like some colonial divide and rule propaganda.

I mean I dunno an awful lot about middle east politics but are you saying they only have themselves to blame? Chicken and egg and all that but wtf?

no. not in the slightest. you're reading into my comments stuff that simply isn't there.

i'm just saying it's a weird situation where the palestinian authority claims to be the rightful state actor for the palestinian state which encompasses west bank and gaza. and hamas claims the same. except that the PA has no practical control in gaza and hamas has little authority in the west bank.

this situation arguably complicates things for all parties involved.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatah-Hamas_conflict

i mean, it's a mess:

Ismail Haniyeh (Arabic: إسماعيل هنية‎ Ismaʻīl Haniyya; sometimes transliterated as Ismail Haniya or Ismail Haniyah) ( Arabic pronunciation (help·info)) ; (born January 29, 1963) is a senior political leader of Hamas and one of two disputed Prime Ministers of the Palestinian National Authority, the matter being under political and legal dispute. He became Prime Minister after the legislative elections of 2006 which Hamas won. President Mahmoud Abbas dismissed Haniyeh from office on 14 June 2007 at the height of the Fatah-Hamas conflict, but Haniyeh did not acknowledge the decree and continues to exercise prime ministerial authority in the Gaza Strip.[1] The Palestinian Legislative Council also continues to recognise his authority.

Thanks, I guess Im still wondering if Israel likes to help keep it this way- to keep the land grab going and the people divided?

Which begs the question, where does the illegal appropriation of Palestininan land by Israel fit into your scheme as a driver for this internal political division, obstacle to the creation of a viable Palestinian State, dehumanisation of Israelis and so on?

land grab lol

yes, use 'apartheid' instead

it doesnt beg the question, it raises the qeustion

"you wonder if a one-state solution is possible in the next 70 years."

ppl said same about Northern Ireland 30 years ago. A US prez who didn't cater to Zionist maniacs would be a nice start.

finally, some nuanced political opinions itt

It doesn't do anything to a question. For all of Israel's faults, and the moral bankruptcy of allowing radical Orthodoxy to settle throughout the West Bank, I'm not sure how you can characterize Israel as land grabbing after they evicted 25 settlements and nine thousand residents from Gaza + the West Bank in 2005. Or do you consider that a smokescreen for the super secret land grabbing they were doing in the background?

Which begs the question, where does the illegal appropriation of Palestininan land by Israel fit into your scheme as a driver for this internal political division, obstacle to the creation of a viable Palestinian State, dehumanisation of Israelis and so on?

― kiwi, Tuesday, June 1, 2010 8:55 PM (21 minutes ago) Bookmark

talk about begging the question!

i mean i think you know the answer to your own question. it hasn't helped. it's really bad. and it's continued more or less under every administration no matter their official policy on new settlements. israel has not appropriated land in gaza as far as i know, but i don't know how relevant that is.

haven't settlements continued though--new ones, i mean? it seems that israel is forever talking out of both sides of their mouth on this issue.

No new settlement building in a bit, I believe. There was that whole natural expansion of current settlements debate thing.

by request:

http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2010/06/carnage-cruise.html

Thank god, Dennis Perrin is here to solve the conflict.

Btw, amateurist: http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnw/20100601/pl_usnw/DC13636

No new settlements since the beginning of 2010. So way more recent than I thought, but still completely halted.

by whose request????

too bad he muddled a decent post with this statement

Numerous poor brown people butchered in the defense of humanity.

I'm glad I read that Perrin piece for the insight into Israel's propensity to destroy themselves in a mad rage of suicide. Btw, Perrin means literal suicide. Not like political suicide. He thinks Israel is gonna blow itself up because the tide is turning against them. Like that time in the Yom Kippur war when they were losing and so blew themselves up. Man, that was short-sighted of them.

is he referencing masada?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masada#The_Roman_siege

which raises the question: what does john zorn have to say about all this?

you could even say it begs the question

hey, i actually used that phrase correctly upthread, unlike 99% of the times people use that phrase.

so 9000 land grabbers down... just 400,000 to go!

dude I think there are more israelis than that

anyway, don't you mean that Britain illegally land grabbed? since the Israelis got the land legally. well, then there was that war when Israel got attacked and took more land, so i guess that's also land grabbing. anyway, what's your point? should all the Jews move back to their ancestral home of Lower East Side?

Mordy, that's nice news you linked, but let's not exaggerate or anything with that "completely halted":

"Prime Minister Netanyahu has fulfilled his promise of last November to impose a ten-month moratorium on new construction in the West Bank," said AJC Executive Director David Harris. "Let's remember that Israel's bold decision to freeze new construction was an unprecedented good-faith gesture intended to move the Palestinian Authority to resume direct negotiations, yet, despite the Israeli action, President Abbas has still refused to return."

I mean, not trying to be glib or argumentative, but the "good-faith gesture" of a temporary moratorium on something even Israel's staunch allies consider a gigantic problem is like ... I dunno what that's like.

two issues. One is new settlements and one is freezing settlement building in actual settlements afaik. i could be wrong tho.

The Israeli government moratorium, however, does allow for completion of about 3,000 housing units in existing communities that were started before November 26, 2009.

wouldn't any palestinian 'good-faith gesture' also be something that most of us would agree should be something they should be doing anyway?

er too many 'be somethings'

Nabisco, I could be reading it wrong but:

The Israeli government moratorium, however, does allow for completion of about 3,000 housing units in existing communities that were started before November 26, 2009.

means that they're grandfathered in since they were slated from Nov 2009. So existing communities construction got grandfathered in, completely new settlements didn't and aren't going on. But I could be wrong! I'm hunting for answers but it's hard to find data on settlements (probably because many of them are illegal wrt to Israel too! i don't know when the last time the government actually sponsored brand new settlements was!)

okay, apparently i'm wrong, this looks like a government sponsored settlement from last year: http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel-begins-new-settlement-despite-u-s-opposition-1.276244

so i take it back.

anyway, i think i'm dropping this thread for awhile. i think the current israeli government sucks in a million ways and i feel like shit every time i try to argue for some nuance in the situation when i'd rather be bitching about how much Bibi sucks. kiwi, i recommend this book: http://www.amazon.com/Operation-Shylock-Confession-Vintage-International/dp/0679750290 -- It might give you some ideas.

xpost - Mordy, all I was saying was that ... if you happen to be of the opinion that settlements are kind of an independent aggressive act that shouldn't be happening, full stop, the idea of a temporary halt to construction as a noble good-faith gesture is a little weird.

And yes, of course the same applies to loads of violence coming from occupied territory.

(In fact, part of why the settlements are interesting to me is that they're an area where Israel, despite having working top-down state authority that Palestinians don't, sometimes seem to lack the political will to do things like restrict settlers or clear out illegal settlements, because it looks bad to the public -- which is like a tiny version of the problem Palestinian leadership has with basically everything.)

seriously israel needs to evict all of the settlers, resettle them in the pre-67 borders, and that's that. there's no way to understand the settlements except as a kind of creeping colonialism. as sharon was fond of saying, changing the "facts on the ground."

i guess the problem is that likud gov't has no interest in doing this, and if liberal gov't did this they would get stomped on in subsequent elections?

lots of good debate itt. refreshing compared to the inflammatory axe-to-grind hatefests I have seen elsewhere.

was thinking same thing, even in the context of ilx

was thinking abt this thread earlier today and what amateurist says about the illegal settlements absolutely having to go as a precondition for any progress whatsoever seems very otm to me.

"you wonder if a one-state solution is possible in the next 70 years."

ppl said same about Northern Ireland 30 years ago. A US prez who didn't cater to Zionist maniacs would be a nice start.

― kind of shrill and very self-righteous (Dr Morbius), Wednesday, June 2, 2010 3:01 AM (5 hours ago) Bookmark

morbius,,, what the fuck are you talking about?!

seriously, what?

northern ireland isn't a single state now, nor was it thirty years ago. but sinn fein/ira was talking about a single state for *the whole of ireland* that would displace the existing republic. now, that hasn't happened either.

while we're on the subject of terrible things the brits did c. 1922 -- "anyway, don't you mean that Britain illegally land grabbed?" woah, hey, come on, mordy. it was a league of nations mandate, and n e ways who was the land being grabbed from? the ottoman empire, the og land-grabbers in the region. the idea was to set up a jewish state without prejudice to the existing population, yes? whatever, the brits weren't being illegal.

Another way of saying this is: who will Israel blame from now on? Are they essentially hoping that hardline groups like Hamas will fill the spotlight, lending more justification to their activities? Is cutting off Arafat maybe a way of racheting up the conflict, giving them license to do, well, whatever they want?

― [nabisco], Thursday, 13 December 2001 01:00 (8 years ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

nabisco.... otm

Personally never quite understood the obsessive global focus on Israel, a tiny dysfunctional country surrounded by bigger dysfunctional countries in a world full of dysfunctional countries that treat their own people or their neighbors like shit. Settlements should def. stop, but then, in the scheme of things, the settlements are some of the least egregious/atrocious state-supported actions being executed on a regular basis. And yet they're all it takes to stir the pot, or at least this particularly hyper-inflated pot. I mean, are any borders legitimate or less than arbitrary? Can any borders be defended on historical grounds beyond that of "land grab," spoils of war, cartographic meddling or shady dealings?

Anyway, just frustrating. I understand the import of the region, and its relationship to other conflicts, but, like, get in line.

Personally never quite understood the obsessive global focus on Israel, a tiny dysfunctional country surrounded by bigger dysfunctional countries in a world full of dysfunctional countries that treat their own people or their neighbors like shit.

they're white?

Ha, that would explain part of it. Or whiter, at least.

Every ILX Israel discussion seems to go through the exact same motions.

Hey Josh in Chicago; it's 'cause everyone hates the Jews.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUwbZ9AlSPI

in the scheme of things, the settlements are some of the least egregious/atrocious state-supported actions being executed on a regular basis.

I can't agree with this. "Expanding settlements" is a classic tactic for rulers to eliminate enemies. It was Saddam Hussein's preferred method of expanding his influence, for example. Just get more and more Sunnis moving onto more and more Shiite and Kurdish land. Eventually either their culture and identity break apart and become subsumed or they get fed up and leave. But where will Palestinians leave to?

Point being, with so many states actively eliminating its enemies in the most horrible way possible (e.g. rape and machete campaigns in Congo or Sudan), Israel's settlements, bad though they may be, produce disproportionate outrage. Does not invalidate the outrage, but it reveals a lack of perspective to compare, say, Saddam Hussein's preferred method of expanding his influence and Israel's own policies. At least at this juncture. Maybe future Israel will transgress to that degree, in which case, kudos on your prognostication.

See also China (xpost)