Israel to World: "Suck It."

This exchange yesterday I found interesting:

One of my very brightest Jewish friends from school is Israeli-born and heavily invested in Zionism (let's just say a cousin of hers has been in a coma for four years). I am reluctant to discuss it with her because her emotionalism around I/P is completely at variance to how coolly and logically she looks at any other issue.

― I eat truffle fries because my captors say they'll kill me if I don't (suzy), Monday, 31 May 2010 10:59 (2 days ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

I basically feel the same about those heavily invested in anti-Zionisim

― Ismael Klata, Monday, 31 May 2010 11:07 (2 days ago) Bookmark

This flotilla story sums up for me how a) Israel squanders any good will it may have had and shoots itself in the foot with its actions, e.g. the blockade itself b) its democracy does flourish (check the Israeli media) and c) how people around the world do indeed (Josh is 100% right) get disproportionately wound up about it.

otm

Wow, excuse me for getting disproportionate about Gaza. Really, what was I thinking? I guess I need to post about all the other absolutely horrible, grinding atrocities around the world first, so that I can prove I'm not focusing, like, too much on poor old Israel. Lead the way, though, Daniel and Josh. Who else should we be talking about on this thread?

Back to Josh's point about all property being theft, so fuck it - it's true, so many borders were basically drawn with blood. Like the French border with Germany, or the US border with Mexico, or whatever borders American Indian territories have. So I guess we'll just keep on truckin with the violent conflict and genocide model of map-making. It just plain works! We could apply this to other things too. Consider the making of a shirt. For most of human existence, it was women who made them, for free, for their husbands and children. Think of the money we could save on our wardrobe budgets if we just relied on this simple, time-tested mechanism.

otm, I spend too much on shirts

fairly squalid and scummy little Middle Eastern state then we'd be less inclined to react the way we do... If their supporters at least admitted Israel was not as impressive a democracy as even Turkey, that'd be a start

― Wenlock & Mandelson (Tom D.), Wednesday, June 2, 2010 1:17 PM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark

hmm, ok

probably better take this to the "turkey to kurds: 'suck it'" thread

oh no, we don't have one

"Disproportionate" only in a world where history, religion and social/cultural psychology dont exist,if only Moses was found down the Congo instead of the Nile eh!

"Who else should we be talking about on this thread?"

Totally missing the point.

I've come across so many people who don't bat an eyelid when it comes to issues like the Burmese regime, the massacres in Congo and Sudan, for example, yet when the subject of Israel comes up they become extraordinarily agitated. Just talking about my own experience.

Tracer, we should just make war illegal. That would do it, right?

The ironies really do abound. The only reason Israel is held up (wrongly) as a paragon of democracy and human rights is in comparison to its direct neighbors and antagonists. Similarly, Israel may smugly operate with "restraint," but that smug restraint is all that's kept it from "solving" its problems the way they would have been (wrongly) solved in any other era. I truly believe in a Palestinian state, at least as much as I believe in an Israel. But I'm also not willing to believe that given the way things stand, a freshly minted Palestine would not immediately declare war on Israel, or at least continue to fight, which would be their right, were Israel ever willing to cede that right. It's a sea of Catch-22s.

Ultimately, any self-interested state will eventually understand the benefit of stasis and stability, as far as that goes, but no one can force either side to reach that point. Which is of course stating the obvious. But as long as there are either explicitly or tacitly state-supported objectors on both sides who would rather die than back down or compromise, this will play out for decades more. All borders may be drawn in blood, but at some point enough blood is spilled that the players decide enough is enough. The map is drawn when the blood dries.

I've come across so many people who don't bat an eyelid when it comes to issues like the Burmese regime, the massacres in Congo and Sudan, for example, yet when the subject of Israel comes up they become extraordinarily agitated. Just talking about my own experience.

OTM

I'm also not willing to believe that given the way things stand, a freshly minted Palestine would not immediately declare war on Israel, or at least continue to fight

Not, in itself, a reason for Palestine not to exist. Lots of countries start questionable wars

xp

They're still white, btw.

"I'm also not willing to believe that given the way things stand, a freshly minted Palestine would not immediately declare war on Israel, or at least continue to fight"

Not, in itself, a reason for Palestine not to exist. Lots of countries start questionable wars

― May be half naked, but knows a good headline when he sees it (darraghmac), Wednesday, June 2, 2010 2:04 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark

super argument

Well, exactly. But that underscores the irony: this doesn't seem likely to be solved by treaty or compromise, which leaves attrition. But if a Palestine did declare war, there's no question who would "win." And yet if Israel "won," it would actually lose. And if Palestine didn't declare war, there's little doubt the same agitators within would continue to agitate, which brings us right back to the status quo, only with a bigger, better defined target for Israel to pointlessly hit.

xp well Josh just nailed it tbh, but let me just state that I'm a great personal believer in shitty wars myself, obviously.

Ah I get it. It's the Minority Report theory of international relations! In case some future Palestine starts a 'war' (?! I'd love to get a look at that army) their society must continue to be crushed in the present. Just to be sure. Elegant - simple - like all the best solutions.

tracer, i think there should be a palestinian state, but the idea that there aren't palestinians who want to destroy israel, and who have powerful friends, is wilfully naive

That would be a very naive thing to think, I agree!

I believed that til this very second

http://watan.com/en/images/stories/gaza-children-looking-for-food-in-a-garbage.jpg

"We <3 Israel"

well, hang on, you just said that palestine wouldn't start a war (via sarcastic quotation marks) and that it's army wouldn't be much to speak of (via more sarcasm), so...

i guess you're saying you want there to be a fair fight

Any actual settlement that led to a Palestinian state and included right of return would change the psychology of the region so profoundly that I think it's pretty pointless to speculate on what a hypothetical Palestinian army might do, much less use that as a justification for current policies.

So weird that you would automatically assume a profound change in psychology, yet chide anyone for further speculation. I wouldn't assume anything beyond still more (very slow) mutual self-assured destruction, and even then, who knows? The whole thing is so rife with degrees of "who knows?" that specific outrage is pretty much negated by the sheer amorphousness and complexity of the conflict.

I'm just going with your hypothetical, dude. IF a settlement were reached, Palestine would start a war with Israel, and then use their unlimited international global sympathy card to make Israel the bad guy AGAIN! Right? What I'm saying is - putting aside the vanishingly tiny possibility of any future Palestinian state to even have its own army, much less have one capable of mounting a credible conventional threat - I don't think it's controversial to say that an actual settlement would be an unbelievable event, and affect the mentality of both sides in ways we can't predict.

Also NB "mutual self-assured destruction" is a phrase useful in describing the balance of power between two roughly comparable powers - say, the US and the USSR in the 70s. Not between a barely existing society of rocket chuckers and the IDF!

Oh sorry I keep forgetting that the Palestinians have powerful friends. Like Turkey!

and iran and syria

though it's a fair point that israel's neighbours have been historically shitty towards the palestinians (and indeed continue to be)

Tracer, you misread what I wrote several posts back. If Palestine got its own state, there would still be players within that state who would maintain the status quo (like Hamas), and therefore Israel would still be blockading/bombing/murdering/whatever you want to call it. The difference would be that Palestine, as a state, would then have to defend itself formally, either directly or by proxy, or cease being a sovereign state, almost by definition (a la Syria vis a vis Iran). The only way to chill the radicals would be a) civil war, which would be no better for the Palestinians, or b) to end Israel, which isn't going to happen, which results in a similar symbolic stalemate. I say symbolic because, as I noted above, Israel, with its superior military, could quickly "end" this if it behaved truly as monstrously as some say it behaves, but that would be a pointless victory, because I can't imagine anything more likely to "end" Israel, as such. By default - and this is another irony - they are in essence balanced powers, because the Palestinians are so outmatched, to the extent that Israel is prevented/pressured from exerting its military might. If a Palestine got borders, the right of return, a military, open support from allies, etc., that would better "balance" the conflict, which in turn would better justify Israel unleashing itself. See what I mean?

Another way to put it is the greatest threat to a Palestinian state may be the creation of a Palestinian state. But again: who knows?

I sort of see what you mean, but you don't seem to consider that extremists (on both sides) would probably lose quite a bit of oomph in the event of a settlement. Their basic raison d'etre wouldn't exist any more.

huh? what do you think extremist raison d'etres are?

xp Yes, see- P-IRA for instance

They'd still be around, but there'd be (in the best case scenario) some breathing space at least for more moderate influences to emerge on the Palestinian side.

there has to be some kind of resolution for the palestinians, and the extremists don't seem to have the upper hand on the west bank, so... the leap has to be made, as people have been saying for 35 years. really though. i don't think it will satisfy the extremists, but nothing short of genocide ever will, and (as in northern ireland to an extent) some measure of material amelioration will marginalize them

xposts in re disproportionate attention: I think you have to remember that the Holocaust is one of the two most written about subjects (the other being the Bible, IIRC), and that Jewish subjects in general probably occupy a highly disproportionate amount of print in the Western World. I mean you can't have it both ways - Jewish culture tends to aggressively promote awareness of Israel in the larger public. You can't then complain when the negatives also attract attention. If there were a substantial highly educated and motivated Congolese population in the US and Europe you'd probably see a lot more attention on Congo.

*Before anyone gets the wrong idea from this post, I am Jewish.

Not to mention the significance to Christianity and Islam, etc. etc.

that definitely contributes to it, yet this is still front page news in countries w/ few jews and little interest in jewish culture.

I mean, it's not illogical, it's not a conspiracy: beyond the history of jews/jewish culture, israel's also at the center of the most politically charged region in the world (both geographically and politically...)

10 people dying in israel *is* more important than 10 people dying in country X - 10 people dying in israel is likely to affect world politics in a way that 10 people dying in country X will not. so while it's perfectly logical that israel's actions are disproportionately under a microscope - it's also important to highlight that they are. there are worse things that have happened in the world today that will never reach a major newspaper.

(let alone lead to millions of people protesting, UN actions, etc.)

Maryland woman injured at Jerusalem protest
Art student loses eye, hospital official says

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-woman-loses-eye-20100602,0,1901718.story

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_QZ63j9GySo0/SkUTzNCfC0I/AAAAAAAAAAM/B6hJDnWQP9s/Tentative%20Icon.jpg
Emily Henochowicz
A Visual Adventure!
http://thirstypixels.blogspot.com/

Sorry to interupt the actual debate with dubious lols, but.

10 people dying in Israel *is* more important than 10 people dying in country X

Not really.

Govt forces continuously killing people would be a pretty big deal almost anywhere

Dig that second imprisonment painting. Kinda reminds me of Franz Marc.

re: disproportionate attention - I feel more invested in this because I'm a) Jewish and b) American and both of those are tied up pretty directly with Israel. so that's my excuse.

xp

did we even talk about the Peter Beinert essay? i'm sure it was linked to. since we've moved on from the particular issue of the flotilla to the ideological underpinnings of the state of israel itself (only the biggest fish for ilx as always)...

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jun/10/failure-american-jewish-establishment/

this Gershom Gorenberg piece on the idea (fantasy?) of a palestinian gandhi was good too

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/016/329fvswo.asp

I read it this morning on the bus, after it'd sat on my table for a week. It looks correct on the broad strokes, but practically speaking I don't see how worrying about American Jews' disillusion with Israel affects the unsolvable tensions between Palestinians and Israelis.

To be reductive, his argument boils down to: "young American Jews feel detached from the belligerence of the Netanyahu government."

Not really.

Govt forces continuously killing people would be a pretty big deal almost anywhere

right, well, this wasn't my point. my point was that if the government kills 10 people in, I dunno, madagascar, it wouldn't have a political ripple that immediately affects american and european politics, two wars, world terrorism, economics etc. the scope of the darfur massacre had to get GIGANTIC before it became something that affected world politics in the same way that israel does when it takes over a boat.

Govt forces continuously killing people would be a pretty big deal almost anywhere

not really. the sri lankan civil war never got this kind of play.

Beinert essay was brought up somewhere else I think...? I agree with Alfred's take (article seemed kinda obvious to me)

not really. the sri lankan civil war never got this kind of play.

dude, TRUFFLE FRIES

To be reductive, his argument boils down to: "young American Jews feel detached from the belligerence of the Netanyahu government."

― Filmmaker, Author, Radio Host Stephen Baldwin (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, June 2, 2010 10:49 AM (2 minutes ago) Bookmark

it's a little deeper than that, it's about bibi's consituency, which is growing. the demographics of young israel and young american jews are pointed in opposite directions.

right, that's more what I got from it.