Now that the withdrawal from Gaza is underway, and the settlers being relocated have failed to transform their personal trauma into a national trauma, it is high time to ask whether or not the dismantlement of Jewish settlements and redeployment of troops will advance Israeli-Palestinian peace. Published in 2003, James Ron’s thoughtful book Frontiers and Ghettos provides a convincing answer to… return to article
-
subscribe to print magazine
-
email this article to a friend
-
Reader Comments (24)Page 1 of 1 pagesHmmm… think returning the land to the people who, you know, actually LIVED there before the ridiculous fiasco in the 50s tore it away from them would help? It’s so ironic with all the discussion about Iraq and the numerous security resolutions Hussein broke that no one seems to remember/care that Israel has broken more UN “resolutions” than Hussein could have ever dreamed!
Posted by g-love on Aug 18, 2005 at 8:28 PM g-love is right. To date, Israel is in violation of 69 U.N. resolutions and probably many more had the U.S. not vetoed the others passed by the General Asembly in overwhelming majorities. I do not by this “disengagement” from Gaza as a concession to Palestinians. These ultra-right Jewish settlers are myopic in their assertion that they are the victims and there should be no disengagement. The only viable solution is a two-state solution with Palestininas in full control of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank with their capital in East Jerusalem. While Sharon is pulling out from Gaza, he is quckly annexing large swaths of the West Bank due to that “security fence” which has been declared illegal in the ICC. I support the Saudi position: an end to Arab hostilities to Israel if it returns to its pre-1967 borders. That way, Israel exists and the terrorists lose their major recruiting tool!
Posted by Liberal on Aug 18, 2005 at 11:12 PM I, and most other Americans, think g-love and Liberal are right. But the entire American political class which includes the corporate media is arrayed against justice in the Middle East.
Cindy Sheehan said : “You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you’ll stop the terrorism.”
Let’s keep repeating that until, welling up as one voice, it redefines reality.
Posted by John Francis Lee on Aug 19, 2005 at 4:19 AM I can see where Cindy Sheehan is going with the America out of Iraq/Israel out of Palestine, but to suggest that will end terrorism is innacurate. Peace between Israel/Palestine would be a huge step and it goes without saying that, someday, getting out of Iraq will pay dividends.
But, as long as there’s a U.S. prescence in Saudi Arabia, there will still be terrorism a la Al Qaeda. Plus, there’s sick a-holes all over the world; if they’re not blowing themselves and others up for one thing, it’s for another.
Posted by g-love on Aug 19, 2005 at 2:53 PM I never said that a just resolution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict would end terrorism but that it would eliminate a vast recruting base for Al-Qaeda in the Middle East. Al-Qaeda can only survive as long as it has a large group of young men to recruit from. Al-Qaeda capitalizes on their dissatisfaction with U.S. policies to get them to blow themselves up. Ending the Israeli/Palestinian conflict would take that recruting tool off the table and force Al-Qaeda to look for other issues. Remember, Al-Qaeda’s ambitions are only regional- we get taken off their hitlist if we demonstrate and even handedness with the Israeli/Palestinian conflict and show that we have no long-term ambitions in Iraq.
Osama Bin Laden is no fool. He knows what he wants and has said he would not call for more attacks against the U.S. and its allies if they end their one-sided support for Israel, which really is not a radical proposal.
Then we can forget about Al Qaeda. Hezbollah and Hamas no longer have a call to arms in the region. Thus these groups lose their base and disintegrate or get pushed back into the extreme where they originally were.
Posted by Liberal on Aug 19, 2005 at 9:36 PM g-love:
“But, as long as there’s a U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia, there will still be terrorism a la Al Qaeda. Plus, there’s sick people all over the world; if they’re not blowing themselves and others up for one thing, it’s for another.”
There certainly are people who would rather destroy things than build them up. The point is that these small collections of violent, murderous people can only accomplish their goals with the acquiesence of a large number of the population in which they live.
Chairman Mao said something like “The people are the sea in which the revolutionaries swim”.
As long as United States foreign policy is based upon fundamental injustice there will be a dispossessed, despairing population of Palestinians and other Muslims willing to look the other way as Al Qaeda or other groups make their plans and move among them.
The far-right wing in Israel has already accepted death as a way of life, and the rest of Israel is bowled over by the financial resources that the far-right brings to bear upon the Palestinian “problem”. Thirty three percent of Israelis live in poverty while the “settlers” live in “villas”, subsidized by American taxpayers. Americans even pay them to leave and for the destruction of their villas when Sharon decides that he’d rather turn Gaza into a Concentration Camp for the Palestinians and to move the “settlers” to the West Bank instead, some behind the Apartheid Wall built on land that is beyond the green line of the 1967 borders, others in settlements that even George W Bush said should not be expanded. The “American” regime is now taking its orders from Ariel Sharon.
And we ordinary Americans and ordinary Israelis will pay for it all. In dollars and in bloody suicide attacks a la 9/11 while the far-right wing continues to slime as anti-Semitic anyone who dares point out what has been staring us all in the face for decades.
It is no more anti-Israel, let alone anti-Semitic, to point out the monstrous deeds of the Likud than it is anti-American to point out those of this neocon regime we Americans, and the rest of the world, presently suffer under. In fact it is incumbent upon all of us Americans to stand up and put an end to these aggressive American wars and the fundamentally unjust foreign policy which underpins them.
See :
There is Such a Thing as “Too Late”
and
Pax Americana and Christian Values
for solid, centrist discussions of our present moral obligations.
Posted by John Francis Lee on Aug 20, 2005 at 7:31 AM Good points, JF Lee… but the single biggest issue to bin Laden is the American (ie, “infidel”) presence in Saudi Arabia. Not that we should placate barbarous pieces of shyte like him and his breed, just pointing out that along with the mess in Israel the Saudi issue is a big one.
Personally, I’m all for pulling every dime of support out of the entire area - including Iraq - and letting the chips fall where they may. If these people are so backwards, ignorant and flat-out stupid to kill each other over centuries old religious nonsense, I say let them. The gene pool is polluted enough already, time to clean it up!
Posted by g-love on Aug 20, 2005 at 8:01 PM Common Dreams is hardly centrist. It’s more like far left. I don’t consider myself centrist either (I definitely lean right) but you should at least follow “truth in advertising”.
Posted by chopper on Aug 21, 2005 at 2:37 AM g-love:
I guess the ‘g’ in ‘g-love’ stands for genetic? You seem to have a pretty racist view of the world. There are plenty of Americans cheering on George W Bush from a religious position that I might characterize as “backwards, ignorant and flat-out stupid” in terms of its results. Christian terror, Jewish terror, Muslim terror… terror is a common human failing. The Human Race ain’t what it’s cracked up to be.
I don’t know that there still is an American presence in Saudi Arabia. I thought that ended when the “Mission Accomplished” sign went up and Haliburton and Bechtel began construction on the 14(?) permanent American bases in Iraq.
But the point that I am trying to make is that although, as you point out, there will always be people seeking an excuse to get violent, the question is will there be enough pent-up hatred among the general population to allow them to succeed. They cannot do it on their own. They need the tacit approval of the population, or someone, somewhere will drop a dime on them.
Posted by John Francis Lee on Aug 21, 2005 at 7:37 AM chopper:
Yes, Commondreams is a collector of news and views from the left, but I think that the two essays I linked to were centrist in their perspective. Or do you disagree?
Posted by John Francis Lee on Aug 21, 2005 at 7:39 AM John—
Yes, America has a presence in Saudi Arabia, at the request of the Saudi Government. It is this presence that is the (original, non-revisionist) basis for the 9/11 attacks by al Qaeda. Later, AQ cited the usual reasons for the attack once they saw how the world reacted: Isreal out of Palestine, Sanctions against Iraq, etc.
America is in the middle east (in part) to support the cheapest oil on the western world. Oil that all of use every day. The question is, what have we done to free ourselves from foreign oil? I have seen no behavioral differences between Left and Right wingers. America has total solidarity on it’s thirst for oil. Shame on us.
Posted by Fuji on Aug 21, 2005 at 11:51 PM Fuji -
One last time on my point. It is not Al Qaeda that is the real problem.
Yes, they are the efficient cause of mass murders. Yes these mass murders would not have occurred without Al Qaeda’s efforts. And no, no one anywhere deserves to be murdered for the acts of their government. Not Americans, not Britons, not Iraqis, not Afghans, not Palestinians, not Israelis, not ... not, not.
But Al Qaeda, and groups like Al Qaeda which will always be with us in some form, cannot be successful without the acquiesence of the sea of humanity in which they swim.
Drain that sea of despair, then gather up the terror fish and try them for their crimes in a court of law, for it is law that they are attacking most fundamentally, and it must be the law that triuphs over them.
No one anywhere is actively pursuing Osama bin Laden with any success. And that is because there are many, many people who hate the United States’ policies in the Middle East and around the world and, despairing and impotent themselves, are sympathetic to any operation able to defy and hurt the United States as United States’ policies have defied and hurt them.
Why we refuse to see this, to confront it head on, is a fucntion of the power of those with a vested interest in the fruits of the United States’ unjust policies throughout the world.
Why we allow “the American Way of Life” to be defined in terms of oil consumption is similarly a fuction of the power of those with a vested interest in the fruits of such a definition.
And the power these groups have has been given them by all of us who are too timid or too lazy too unimaginative, to un-American, to realize that we have no vested interest in the oppression of Palestinians or Iraqis or in an economy based upon a purposely profligate use of oil.
By all of us who allow the minion morons in the corporate, main stream media to define “our American Way of Life” rather than to define it daily ourselves.
Posted by John Francis Lee on Aug 22, 2005 at 4:18 AM Lee, please show me where I wrote ANYTHING that could be even remotely construed as “racist.”
To begin with, you obviously don’t understand the term; religion has nothing to do with “race.” I made the gene pool comment as more of a joke - which you obviously didn’t get - in reference to the ridiculous bickering over a shitty sandbox in the Middle East, due to the same, tired and lame religious nonsense. At some point, if the PEOPLE (i.e. from varying “races”) are so hell-bent on killing each other I see no reason to continue draining billions/year to support them.
And yes… there’s some scary parallels to some of Dubya’s more nefarious, religious-zealot supporters and the psychos in the Middle East. Agreed.
Posted by g-love on Aug 22, 2005 at 2:42 PM I agree with JF Lee that although there will always be groups like Al Qaeda, they will always exist on the extreme fringe of society unless they have a solid base from which to recruit. Eliminating this base must be the long term anti-terrorism strategy- not by murdering them but by giving those ordinary folks no reason to hate America and thus a likelihood of sympathizing with extreme Muslim groups. In the short term, we must decapitate the command structure of Al Qaeda, but we are so bogged down in Iraq creating more terrorists that it would be useless now. I still do not understand how fighting a transnational terrorist group that easily blends into society will be fought through more domestic suppression and ground troops.
Posted by Liberal on Aug 22, 2005 at 7:27 PM g_love:
’ Lee, please show me where I wrote ANYTHING that could be even remotely construed as “racist.” ‘What?
’ The gene pool is polluted enough already, time to clean it up! ‘
That looks racist, sounds racist, smells racist.
I realize that racists are now trying to shift their hateful racial rhetoric to religious slurs. “Islamofascist” is a favorite. The present Pope was a member of Hitler Youth. No one calls him a “Christofascist”. No one calls Ariel Sharon a “Judaeofascist”.
But Lt Gen William “Jerry” Boykin, the newly promoted deputy undersecretary of state of defence for intelligence, said “I knew my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real god and his was an idol.” Maybe the General has his god and his gun confused?
It may well be that at an earlier point in our evolution, if you’re not offended by my acceptance of the explanatory power of the theory of evolution, natural selection was strong for behavior that helped groups to cohere and thus to strongly distinguish themselves their own in-groups from other out-groups of humans competing for the same resources.
I have to assume that this “us and them” behavior is genetically rooted, so deep is it implanted into our psyches, so hard is it to control, so spontaneous is our rooting for “our team” and demonizing the “other” whether it’s the NY Yankees or the “Islamofascists”.
Is your wish to “clean up the genepool”, as you so nazi-nostalgically put it, emblematic of this “drive”?
Or is there something broken in some people, take Eric Rudolph for instance, who are possessed by a hatred of… what, themselves?... that is so strong that they will look for some absolute moral justification to kill… not themselves of course… but to kill other people. And then to blasphemously don halos for doing so? Kill a Commie, abortionist, Islamofascist for Christ.
Eric Rudolph, Osama bin Laden, Ariel Sharon… there is an endless stream of these characters playing on their own and our hatred, destroying others’ worlds. There but for present good luck go I.
The Palestinians are presently unlucky, beset upon by the Israelis sustained by the deep pockets of the United States’ Treasury. We Americans have almost off-handedly annihilated the Palestinian nation over the course of the past four decades.
On 9/11 the United States’ luck ran out. We had absent-mindedly so brutally crushed and humiliated a people, not “just” the Palestinians but most of the peoples of the Middle East, that they allowed a truly “hate-full” man to operate among them and to strike back at their inattentive oppressor.
Eric Rudolph eluded the FBI for quite awhile. Poeple in the southern hills, Christofascists?, did not lift a finger to help bring him to justice.
There will always be hateful people. They need not always find conditions ripe for their hatred to bloom.
Cindy Sheehan said it : “You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you’ll stop the terrorism.”
Posted by John Francis Lee on Aug 22, 2005 at 9:36 PM JF Lee is right that the people of a small North Carolina hill town did not lift a finger to help capture Rudolph, a wanted murderer. Not only that, I have read that he actually received material support from some of the locals, who knew this madman was hiding out in the woods just outside of town but did nothing. I have also read that some locals gave him food and other necessities. Now, aren’t these people just as guilty of aiding and abetting terrorists as any Muslim charity or cleric? Shouldn’t the people of this town who helped Rudolph be in jail for, maybe, treason? Oh, wait, they probably voted for George W. in 2000 and 2004, can’t touch ‘em then.
Posted by Liberal on Aug 22, 2005 at 11:10 PM “That looks racist, sounds racist, smells racist”
Look, genius…. are you that dense, or do you have no sense of humour, logic and/or history? First of all, if the gene-pool thing is “racist,” please explain which exact races I supposedly insulted/slandered. Oh that’s right - don’t bother, because you can’t. Really, what I was referring to was MANKIND’S nonsensical reliance on religion as the be-all, end-all to virtually everything.
My main point was that - I can’t even believe I have to spell this out - if folks in the Middle East (which spans many races, right?)or anywhere else for that matter can’t get beyond the silly religious basis for slaughtering each other, then I say let them. To me, a person of ANY race who is mindless enough to kill based on centuries old nonsense dating back to when people thought Appollo was the reason for thunder, then I see no reason to get in their way of removing their own mortal coil. And that is my blanket assessment of ANYONE - black, white, purple, brown, whatever!
Capiche?
Hell, if anyone comes off as “racist,” go back and read your comments regarding Israel/Palestine. Perhaps “racist” isn’t quite the right word; “anti-Semite,” perhaps?
Of course you don’t intend it that way, I only bring it up to point out the folly of your response. And guess what?? While not completely innocent, I AGREE with your assessment of the Palestinian issue! How about dem apples, eh?
Posted by g-love on Aug 23, 2005 at 2:27 PM g_love:
Peace brother. I’ll try and do as you do and remember that we’re all one big family and that any one of us is as liable to fall into the same old predictable errors as any other. And that I often do.
It’s not what I am but what I do. And it is always possible to change my behavior when it starts to impinge upon another’s rights or just their reasonable expectations.
Posted by John Francis Lee on Aug 24, 2005 at 4:54 AM John Franis Lee- Yes, I consider both articles leftist in their perspective. “Pax Americana and Christian Values” contains a caricature of conservative and libertarian views. I could go into detail about the difference in the world view between Hayek and Ayn Rand, for instance, but that would be way off topic. The author’s implicit admiration for European social welfare spending and social engineering gives no hint of the many problems such things cause. Of course we are not doing much better because Bush has actually drastically increased domestic problem, leaving us, like the Europeans, saddled with huge under funded programs that will be unsustainable in the long run. The Europeans will just reach their day of reckoning a little sooner than us.
Posted by chopper on Aug 24, 2005 at 7:34 AM Hmm, maybe I shouldn’t post at 2:30am after just waking up, domestic problem above should be domestic spending.
Posted by chopper on Aug 24, 2005 at 7:36 AM chopper:
In “Pax Americans” I was looking at :
Our government now openly defies international law, invading other countries in violation of the UN Charter, and torturing prisoners in violation of the Geneva Convention. Our foreign policy is based on military force, intimidation and exploitation.
‘The secular ruling ideology would collapse without the support of its religious base. Since it reflects Nihilistic and relativistic values that are the antithesis of Christian values, why do Christians support it? ’
In “Such a Thing as ‘Too Late’ ” I marked the references to Martin Luther King Jr and to Dietrich Bonhoeffer and his found “confession” after his execution by the SS :
Guilt
I am guilty,
But not in the way you think.
I should have earlier recognized my duty;
I should have more sharply called evil evil;
I reined in my judgment too long.
I did warn,
But not enough, and clear;
And today I know what I was guilty of.I think that it is now generally accepted that the causes these two men worked for are central to our conception of ourselves as “civilized” people.
Posted by John Francis Lee on Aug 24, 2005 at 11:10 AM It’s all good, Lee!! Methinks we’re really on the same page, anyway - peace.
Posted by g-love on Aug 24, 2005 at 1:27 PM Lee- I grant you that both these men worked for worthy causes, however the quote above was from the article, and the article I thought was definitely left wing. I could enlist all sorts of historical figures to support my positions, it wouldn’t change the fact that my views are to the right. The articles, like the magazine overall, leans left.
Posted by chopper on Aug 24, 2005 at 9:16 PM I’d like to believe that there is a solution to the endless rancor between Israel and the Palestinians, but I’m on the verge of giving up hope. Whether walls are built or Gaza is 100% Palestinian, the presence of Israelis in the West Bank settlements and the status of Jerusalem as the Israeli capital will still provoke hate and killing. The evacuation of Gaza, and any of the West Bank locales that are considered to have been set aside for Jews by God, will also serve as points of radicalization for Jewish extremists. And in reference to the author’s point that “...it is no longer the case that Israeli liberals underscore their country’s ethical obligations toward their occupied neighbors, as they did during the first Intifada”, i.e. any feeling of sympathy from Israeli peace advocates toward Palestinians, there were one-too-many busses and public places bombed long ago for those sentiments to be too widespread.
It’s no coincidence either that the most radical positions taken, whether Israeli Jew or Palestinian Muslim, come from those who claim to have the special favor of God. The young man who shot Yitzhak Rabin was as convinced he was doing God’s work as the bomber who looked forward to Paradise as the Pizza Hut he was in exploded and went up in flames. There are few notions as empowering and as likely to foster extremist tactics as that one of being God’s favorite; you basically give yourself permission to do anything you can conceive, no matter how horrible. That these characters are in the minority is something to be minimally thankful for, but despite that, one or the other side can easily find the wherewithall to attack the other. Suicide bombings? Mortars fired over the walls into Israel (or into Palestinian neighborhoods)? Another assassinated prime minister or peacemaker? Will it be radical Jews or radical Muslims who shoot first? Or will it be murderous nationalism at work? It doesn’t matter much considering the decades of bitterness and bloodshed that have passed so far. The simple thirst for revenge on the part of a few could be enough to derail any peace agreements that might come about in the future. I’m afraid there’s an incredibly deep well of zeal and fury in the region that may last for decades to come, no matter what measures are taken to undermine the violence. That may all sound terribly pessimistic, but it’s not an unwarranted thought considering the alienation they’ve built up toward one another for longer than Israel has existed as a state.
Posted by Kuya on Aug 25, 2005 at 1:02 PM Page 1 of 1 pages -
register a new account »Posting Security
Also by Neve Gordon
- Gaza in the Crosshairs
Israel cites all the wrong reasons for its invasion of Gaza. - The Experiment in Gaza
- Israel and Hamas Just Say No To Peace
Over the past 40 years, the Arab League's position on Israel has radically shifted. It's time for Israel to recognize the change. - Fighting the Larger War
The War On Terror is unique because its political, temporal and geographic borders are unknown and its enemy is fluidly ill-defined. - Israel’s September 11 Effect
Israel is uniting in its war with Lebanon - The U.S.-Israeli Somalia Plan
Popular Discussions
- The 9/11 Faith Movement
Many Americans believe 9/11 was a conspiracy by the U.S. government
1979 posts since Jul 11 06 - What’s the 411 on 9/11?
891 posts since Dec 21 05 - Democrats: It’s the War
659 posts since Nov 1 05 - Was the Presidential Election Stolen?
462 posts since Jun 19 06 - A Fundamental History Lesson
The rise of National Socialism proved politics and religion don't mix
427 posts since Oct 10 05
© 2005 In These Times | Reprint Policy | Privacy Policy | Powered by Expression Engine | RSS Feeds
