Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness: hard men make a deal
Yes, yes, I know, Northern Ireland and the Middle East are entirely different situation, and things that worked in one place are not going to necessarily work in the other. Nonethless, in this week’s historic Northern Ireland unity agreement, there are certain universal principles from which anyone looking to broker a peace deal anywhere ought to learn.
The original Good Friday agreement ten years ago was brokered by very different parties to the ones who have now joined a unity government. On the Catholic side, it was the SDLP of John Hume who was the dominant voice at the table, while the Ulster Unionists of David Trimble represented Protestant loyalists. But the electorate eventually rejected those parties, and each community chose more uncompromising parties — the Sinn Fein on the nationalist side and the Democratic Unionists on the loyalist side — to represent them at the table.
The government of Tony Blair did not flinch or give up hope, it pressed on, pushing the chosen representatives of both communities into a process that led to agreement. And the agreement may be far stronger than its predecessor, in that it was brokered by hard men on both sides and that has left no significant rejectionist constituency on either side.
The implications for the Middle East should be obvious: Palestinian voters have chosen Hamas to represent them; imagining that Hamas could be excluded from any peace process is not only absurd, it is self-defeating and dangerous.
The grownups of Europe and the Arab world understand that; that’s why they’ve backed the unity government that has drawn Hamas and Fatah together in a single administration. But the hard-line Likudniks who still write the Bush Administration’s policy are still hard at work on schemes designed to split the Palestinians in the naive hope that Hamas can be sidelined.
Conflict Forum reports that there are detailed plans in place to marshal new economic, political and security efforts aimed at smashing Hamas and boosting President Abbas. The very scary clowns who churn out these plans in Washington labor under the illusion that they can manipulate the process through the selective application of sanctions and resources in a way that will prompt the Palestinian electorate to reject Hamas and restore Fatah. Yeah, right, just like all those sweets and flowers the Iraqis have thrown at U.S. forces over the past four years.
If the berserkers like Elliott Abrams in the Administration are not curbed, they will succeed only in destroying the Palestinian Authority and bringing anarchy to its domain, ending all prospects of peace for Israel, and — in that phrase that has become popular on the Republican primary speech circuit — almost certainly “following America home.”
Great post. It was always the IRA’s sign-on to any agreement that was crucial; the SDLP may have sympathized with some of the aims of the hard nationalists, but they hardly shared a love for their tactics. Hamas here is clearly playing the IRA role (ironic since the IRA trained with the PLO, the current Fatah, back in the day) and can be handled in the same way. Give them a dignified way out of the violent spiral, and they just might take it.
Very astute analysis!
This amazing photo of Paisley and McGuinness, indeed,
is not Rabin-Arafat. It’s Sharon-Meshaal. Sigh…
Over the entrance to the UN (and every other international meeting place as well) ” should be inscribed these words of The Godfather:
“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.”
I could never understand why Bush thought that simply talking to someone was a sign of approving them. International diplomacy is a world in which (as that other master manipulator said) “Nations don’t have friends but only interests.”
What Belfast teaches the Middle East: absolutely nothing. The IRA never had the subjugation, expulsion or extermination of all the Anglo-Saxon population of all the British Isles (the “Occupied Celtic Territories”) as their stated goal in their charter.
Ho hum, “Zionist Youngster” — at least your name holds the promise that some day you’ll grow up…
Care to refute my argument instead of hurling insults, Tony?
yeah, Tony – show some respect to “Zionist Youngster,” since his comment was a respectful comment offering a rebuttal to your post. As he says, care to refute his comment rather than hurling insults?
Also, the decommisioning of weapons was a first step leading to the result we have today in Northern Ireland, similar to the roadmap steps required of, yet not at all fulfilled or even begun, on the part of the Palestinians. Once the Palestinians act to prevent the historic and current acts of violence against Israel, further good faith efforts on both sides can proceed.
Okay, sorry about the insult, but let’s make this really brief. I made clear that there’s no simple equivalency between Northern Ireland and Israel and the Palestinians, that the parallel I was drawing was in the principle of accepting that when hard-liners have popular support, they cannot be excluded from any peace process. Whatever is in the Hamas charter, Israel has no alternative, if it wants peace with the Palestinians, but to engage with it (the PLO charter also rejected Israel’s existence, that didn’t stop Israel negotiating with it — and by the way, the Likud charter forbids the creation of a Palestinian state anywhere west of the Jordan river, but you don’t hear anyone saying they can’t be included in any peace deal).
The IRA/Sinn Fein position has always been for a single, united Ireland, i.e. absolute rejection of the claims of the loyalists to remain part of Britain, and of the idea that the loyalists are actually a majority in Northern Ireland since they see Northern Ireland as an artificial entity carved out of Ireland itself.
Zionist Youngster is offering a propangda version of what Hamas actually seeks — plainly, there’s a substantial element within even that movement that is ready to accept a two-state solution, at least as a necessary evil in their terms.
And no, Rick, the decommissioning of weapons was not a first step, it came only in the course of a process that led to a clear political solution. It was never accepted or implemented as a precondition for talks.
So there, a respectful explanation of why you’re both missing the point.
Thanks, Tony.
I beg to differ with there being no alternative to talking with Hamas. This sounds very similar to the battered wife’s argument as to why she must stay with her husband.
Again, for the Hamas/IRA analogy to be perfect, the goal of the IRA would have to be “the liberation of all the Occupied Celtic Territories from Anglo-Saxon rule”, which means London and Manchester as well as Belfast. Once you see it that way, you realize why there’s much, much more at stake for Israel than there ever was for the United Kingdom.
You say the Hamas Charter is a dead letter. Pending proof, I have to disagree. In fact, so far I have seen nothing but proof of the opposite–that Hamas stands by its charter in both word and deed. Its education of the next generation to hatred, as demonstrated by the Mickey Mouse clone, is contrary to all aspirations of peace. It’s one thing to resist occupation; it’s totally another to raise the next generation to never stop hating the other side.
You call it propaganda. If the truth be propaganda, then OK. Evidence of “a moderate element within Hamas”, much like a similar “moderate element within Al Qaeda”, is still awaited.
I can’t understand the cost of talking with the bad guys.
Let’s stipulate that Hamas is a group of bad people who want to destroy Israel and kill Jews etc etc. Granted and no question about it. So what’s the big deal about talking with them? Talking doesn’t mean liking or agreeing or respecting or even tolerating them. Talking is a strategic element of conflict.You can talk with them and also make war against them at the same time, if that is necessary.
You don’t think that if any of you were Palestinian you might actually support Hamas, like half of the Palestinian population do? You don’t think it’s a rational choice for Palestinians?
Tony,
This post is/was about the importance of bring extremists to the table.
Whether one might join Hamas or not is irrelevant to that initial point.
It’s fine to shift the ground of the conversation so long as you admit that you are doing so.
Tony, you ask if I don’t think it a rational choice for them to support Hamas. My answer is that I don’t think reason is a dominant player, if it is a player at all, in this conflict.
The problem, in a nutshell, is the insistence of people like you, out of good intention, no doubt, but through the glasses of a worldview that I consider inapplicable to our situation, to see it in terms of pragmatic benefits and cost/value analysis. In contrast, I view this conflict as nearly totally ideology-driven, therefore exhibiting a multitude of behaviors that are anything but rational. There’s nothing rational about Jewish history, and there’s nothing rational about the Muslim suicide bomber. It’s all about ideology, about beliefs, about strongly-held convictions. I go from that viewpoint.
Right, and you spin that out and it tells you there’s no prospect of peace ever, or some self-serving nonsense about it being something that only becomes possible when the Palestinians change their whole mindset or some such, but it’s self-serving denial — I was a Zionist, once, too. It’s all about denial of the obvious — that the circumstances that brought Israel into being created this conflict because it deprived hundreds of thousands of people of their land and property. You don’t need an ideology to tell you anything if you were forced off your land or out of your home and gunpoint, and told that those wielding the guns had passed laws that prevented you from ever returning…
Don’t give me your “well meaning people of good intention” bit; I was once one of you. It’s more than possible to take a rational look at Jewish history and at the history of the conflict; it’s essential.
Denial of the obvious? Upon seeing the “Palestinians”, having been granted their demand that a whole area be cleaned Jews (the Gaza Strip), fire rockets onto territories within the 1949 Armistice Line (Sderot) instead of using that area to build their homeland, what can be more obvious than the conclusion that theirs is not a fight for the independence of their state but against the independence of the Jewish state? That is obvious!
I know what your answer is going to be: the Gaza Strip isn’t enough; do the same to the Jewish settlements in Judea and Samaria. Yes, and if we do that and get rockets on Tel-Aviv (G-d forbid), what are you going to say? I know that too: the Right of Return for the “Palestinian” refugees. Never mind that that would spell the end of the Jewish state (G-d forbid). No, it’s all about your warped concept of “justice”, never mind the consequences.
It is not their land and it is not their property; the Land of Israel, including Judea and Samaria, belongs to the Jews, because that is what G-d says in His Torah. G-d’s Word is the only correct standpoint from which to understand Jewish history, world history as a whole and our current affairs. We agreed to the UN Partition Plan in 1947 although we had absolutely no obligation to do so; because the Muslims responded by making war against us, they have forfeited even the moral right to this land. All the rest of the world belongs to the non-Jews, this we have no problem admitting and saying; but this one single, solitary land, this strip on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, belongs to us. In contrast to the Muslims, who believe the whole world belongs to them, without exception.
So you’re saying you’re not well-meaning and good-intentioned? You’re like the Naturei Karta, capable of embracing those who wish to wipe the Zionist Jewish state off the map (G-d forbid)? Inquiring minds want to know.
As I said: the only correct view of Jewish history and the history of this conflict is the Torah-based one. All others are incorrect, because they see everything from the inherently blinkered vision of human beings rather than from the full and unobstructed view of G-d.
And I was once one of you.
Boy, I didn’t have to scratch the surface very long to expose where you’re coming from, did I? Actually, I sensed it as soon as you put Palestinians in quote marks. By the last para you’re in full-on Taliban mode. You’re entitled to your views, but there’s no real basis for discussion here. I’m sure the Torah and the deity you have constructed for yourself will sort it all out for you.
Good luck!
“Expose”?! You think I ever intended to hide my views? I never did. If not here, then my blog tells everybody what I think.
Quote marks are fitting for fictional nations. “Palestinian nation”, “Iraqi nation” and “Californian nation” are the same in that regard: the making of nations from scratch, just on the basis of geographic or (the irony!) colonial demarcations, for the purpose of political gain.
That “deity you have constructed for yourself”, Tony, is the one who got both your ancestor and mine out of slavery in Egypt to eternal freedom in the Land of Israel. You’re Jewish, right? That’s how we Jews came to be as a nation–by divine fiat, not by geographic happenstance or through the ruler-markings of colonial empires. That’s why the Land of Israel, and only the Land of Israel, is ours and only ours. Without acknowledging that truth, you really are nothing but a rootless cosmopolitan. And the fact that you take pride in it both astonishes and saddens me.
May HaShem steer you to the correct path.
ZY
Oh, and I forgot:
You said, “Taliban mode”. But you, in your support of the “Palestinians”, who are in reality the Israel chapter of the Islamic jihad, give aid and comfort to the real Taliban. By standing against Israel, you give, whether you know it or not, support to Islamic imperialism, which wishes to Talibanize the whole world.
Weigh this: suppose both religious Jews and Muslims are theocratic–“theocrazies”, Taliban, whatever you wish to call them; it isn’t true, but granting it for the sake of argument, the fact remains that Jewish “theocraziness” is by necessity limited to a single area (the Land of Israel), while Islamic theofascism has the entire globe in its sights. From the hard-nosed, pragmatic, cost/value point of view, which one to support and which to oppose is a no-brainer. But don’t let that get in the way of the “territorial dispute between two equal claimant nations” narrative you’ve so firmly embraced.
You idea of what being Jewish means and mine are so different that on your terms, I’d have to answer no — I’m not part of any nation created by divine fiat or that proclaims a deity who makes real estate contracts that allow some people exclusive right to live on some land at the expense of others. Sorry, but if what you mean by Jewish is, in fact, what Jewish means, then I’d have to say I’m not Jewish. But in my reading of Jewishness, your rabid nationalism has no place.
If you guys are going to argue about who is right, who is wrong and who is moral or immoral then you will never solve the problem.
Tony, David,
You both seem to me to be saying, “#1 has his idea and #2 has a different idea, and they just have to agree to disagree”. But when two ideas are about reality and they contradict, there is no possibility for both to be true.
Example: when a scientist says the world is more than four billion years old and a Bible-believer who interprets Genesis literally says it is only 6,000 (I hold to the former, FYI), is it coherent to tell them that they must “agree to disagree”? If the scientist is right, then the world is over four billion years old for the Biblical literalist too, and if the Biblical literalist is right, then the world is 6,000 years old for the scientist as well.
So, when I say the Jewish nation was created by divine fiat out of the slavery of Egypt, then I’m making a claim that’s true for all; conversely, if you showed me that never happened, I would have no recourse but to relinquish my belief, because reality isn’t like the taste of ice-cream, which can truly be “excellent” for one person but “nauseating” for another.
And the same goes for the clash of narratives concerning this conflict: I say, “Islamic jihad against Israel in particular and against all the non-Muslim world in general; no other choice but fight it to the end”; you say, “Nationalistic land dispute, in which the Palestinian nation is struggling for its independence, and Israel should end its occupation and grant it”. I recognize that narrative, but recognition does not equal acceptance; in my view, my narrative is true, and the other narrative is false. If it’s true then it’s true for you too, and if it’s false then it’s false for me as well. But at least it can be debated.
Given the choice between my “rabid nationalism” and rabid Islamic imperialism, I think I know which is preferable. But again, that’s my narrative.
Hi Tony – interesting blog, and I think the parallels you draw are valid. But one thing that strikes me abou the current situation in the north of Ireland is how, in very different senses, and over different time periods, both sides have a huge amount to gain. Paisley and the Loyalists finally get the home rule they always sought, along with the kinds of commitments that suggest to them nationalist surrender – having already given up the guns and bombs, they have also agreed to support the police. it is something they can sell to their people and which will certainly outlast Paisley himself. But in the longer term all the aces are in the Nationalists’ hands. This is the excuse Britain desires to divest itself (gradually) from ‘Ulster’ and hand over more and more to the Irish government. Peace, economics and demographics will take care of the rest: peace, because without bombs and guns (merely increased crime) the attraction of the south will become stronger and stronger, now that it is no longer the theocracy of old and now that it has taken on ‘Tiger’ status economically; economically, because the ties that bind the two parts of the island will become ever stronger as result of trade. And demographically because by about 2030 Catholics will be in the majority in the North. It might take another generation or so, but in the end there will be a united Ireland. On none of these points is the equation exactly comparable in Israel-Palestine (they should be, but, sadly, they aren’t).
Thanks Gavin — I think, though, to clarify again, far from seeking a specific parallel, I was trying to illustrate the general point about the folly of thinking more hardline elements that have popular support (much less when they’ve been democratically elected) can’t simply be excluded from a process, if that process is to have any prospect of success. That’s really the prime point I’m trying to make, given what’s being done by the U.S. and it must be said, by the European Union (following Washington’s lead, quite disgracefully) in trying to topple the Hamas government and imagine that a peace deal can be struck between Israel and Mahmoud Abbas — not even Abbas himself believes this nonsense, yet it’s the basis of U.S. policy and by extension EU policy, and will almost certainly plunge the Palestinian Territories into a civil war that will put paid forever to any prospect of a formal peace agreement.
But I think the points you make about the demographics and economics of Ireland are important — after all, sovereignty seems to mean less and less in Europe these days, and both Britain and the Irish Republic are ultimatley part of the EU…
Tony,
Frankly, I don’t think arguing with ZionistYoungster is going to be very productive. I went to his blog, and he’s not kidding about G-d promising the entrire land of Israel to the Jews. He also believes that Islam is” worthy to be called the heir of Nazism in our present times.” You can choose to engage him if you wish, but I don’t see if going very far.
What’s interesting is that while ZionistYoungster thinks the notion that Zionism has colonialist elements is both an anti-semtic slur and a Palestinian – sorry, “Palestinian” – fairy tale, the early Zionists had no problem accepting this. Everybody should read “The Iron Wall” by Vladimir Jabotinsky, the father of Revisionist Zionism & the progenitor of the Likud. A couple of fascinating quotes:
Sorry, here’s the link to Jabotinsky’s essay:
http://www.marxists.de/middleast/ironwall/ironwall.htm
Peter, I agree — there’s no point in engaging “ZionistYoungster” — I stopped a while back. And yes, Jabotinsky was pretty frank about what they were doing — the same Jabotinsky whose portrait hung in pride of place behind Sharon’s desk. (Curiously enough, the same Jabotinsky that was an open admirer of Mussolini and his Fascist movement, as a model — I remember his acolytes in South Africa, the Betar kids, once demonstrating their “tagar” — their movement’s term for discipline — by one senior member yelling at one of his junior’s to drop to the floor and perform ten pushups, which the meathead duly did… Uh, yeah, very impressive… Reminded me of those demonstrations the Indonesian army would do for visiting Americans, when soldiers would swallow live spiders and such like…)
Aren’t we all too fastidious and prissy now to accept that no nation on earth now exists without having followed Jabotinsky’s dictum.
David,
Of course, you are right. As somebody has said, “Just because we are born in sin, doesn’t mean we have to commit to suicide.” I should also point out that I used he term “some colonialist elements”, because while I believe that there are some colonialist aspects to Zionism as it historically evolved, I do not believe these wholely define Zionism.
The point of my quotation of Jabotinsky was not to demonize Israel or Zionism, but to respond to ZionistYoungster’s polemics against Palestinians. I am curious to know what our anti-Palestinian friend makes of the writings of this famous Revisionist Zionist.
I don’t know what ZY would say. But for my part I would say that the Palestinians are very lucky that it was the Jews who settled in the same land (putting aside the debate about how many Palestinians were actually there in 1910-20-30) because if it had been Moslem who had moved in — let’s say the Egyptians or Saudis — we would never have heard of Palestinians. The world would accepted without comment that the indigenous Palestinians had simply lost to a more powerful force. It is ONLY the fact that the Palestinians lost to Jews which makes their situation well-known.
By the way, Tony, there’s an article in Al-Ahram about the emergence of Salafist groups in Gaza & the West Bank. These guys make Hamas look like choir boys:
http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2007/844/re1.htm
The reality is that Quartet boycott is further deepening Palestinian radicalism & anger, the very forces that brought Hamas to power in the first place.
David,
Fair enough.
David, I’m sorry, but this sort of self-righteous delusion about “the Palestinians are lucky it was Jews who settled there or we would never have heard of them” can’t go unanswered. We didn’t hear about them for decades while their land was confiscated and they languished in refugee camps. It was only when they started hijacking airliners, actually, that the term “Palestinian” actually entered the international media lexicon. Even when they did, Golda Meir tried to tell us that, in fact, they didn’t exist.
I think you’d do better with Peter’s formulation, that being born in sin doesn’t require you to commit suicide. Regardless of the sins of its creation, Israel is an intractable reality.
Peter — on Salafists in Gaza — yes, I think the Alan Johnstone case is also an example, when you see the leaders of Fatah and Hamas demanding his release, to no avail.
Sanctions against the Palestinians are turning Gaza into Mogadishu, and the Israelis and the West will also suffer the consequences in the long term. But unfortunately U.S. policy is controlled by people who think like ZionistYoungster, e.g. Elliot Abrams…
Ah well, of course you don’t want to argue with me over the substantial points. Just like on Daily Kos, you prefer to delve into the particulars (checkpoints, “Apartheid Wall”, targeting civilians etc.), which, while important, are only residues of the really big and relevant questions: whether the Jews really have a moral right to this land; and whether this whole issue, the entire Israel/”Palestine” conflict, is really of such global importance that people are justified in calling for its forced (anti-Zionist) “solution”.
I can’t make you debate if you don’t want, naturally. But I’ll answer a few things posed here and see what comes out next.
Peter H, of course I’m not kidding. Did you think I was some kind of bored person who says things for the fun of it? I take the Torah seriously, including what it says about G-d promising us this entire land. That’s the best response Zionism has to those who accuse us of “stealing”, and to those who say neither the British imperials nor the United Nations had the right to promise us this land. I agree: neither had the right; but G-d, to whom all this world belongs, does.
As for Jabotinsky: his talk of Zionism as colonialism was flawed (assuming there isn’t a greater context here; I’ll have to look it up), because “Zionism as colonialism” means (and that’s what the anti-Zionists say) that the Land of Israel isn’t our motherland, just as Algeria wasn’t the motherland of the French pieds-noires who settled there. No, Zionism is not a colonial enterprise, for it does not involve the establishment of a colony away from the motherland, but nearly the opposite: the return of a nation from foreign lands (the Diaspora) to their one and only motherland. We did nothing but take back what has always been ours.
Tony, there has never been such a situation, in which the status of “refugee” is carried over to subsequent generations. Those of 1947-9, who are the only ones truly deserving of the name, “refugees”, could have been cared for by the governments of Egypt and Jordan before 1967, but those chose not to, because they preferred to keep the flame of hatred against Israel; and now in Gaza after the evacuation (ethnic cleansing of Jews from it, to be more accurate) in August 2005, the descendants of the refugees have opted to destroy the greenhouses donated to them by Bill Gates and use their sites for launching Kassam rockets on Sderot.
I already said this, but this just fails to be registered: “resistance” consists in acting for the goal of ending tyranny or occupation; it does not consist in teaching kids to hate the other side with mortal hatred. The narrative of the “Palestinian people struggling for their independence” wears a bit thin once you consider their raising of their children on genocidal Jew-hatred, such as the recent Mickey Mouse lookalike program on Hamas TV. By raising their children on the heritage of suicide bombing, the “Palestinian” society has forfeited its very right to exist; and no, I’m not calling for their genocide, but they’ll have to do without a state. None of Jabotinsky’s “Iron Wall” stuff, which is pretty much what we have today; they’ll have to be expelled. Because, to tack on Golda Meir’s famous saying, they hate the Jews more than they love their children.
“Unfortunately U.S. policy is controlled […]”–yeah, dress those 1930’s conspiracy theories with that new, shiny anti-Zionist clothing and everyone will hail you as a noble, righteous progressive. And US policy is so, so controlled, that’s why Bush forced a ceasefire on Israel in August 2006 before we’d defeated Hizbullah, and why, ever since 9/11, because of the misguided view that this local conflict is behind all Islamic terrorism worldwide, this “Zionist-controlled” (why don’t you go “ZOG” and be done with it?) government has been trying to do a Czechoslovakia on Israel, by compelling it to do negotiations with those who have the goal of nothing less than its destruction (G-d forbid).
Israel’s war is not the war of a Western colonial occupier stealing the lands of an indigenous people, but the war of a non-Muslim nation resisting subjugation by Islamic imperialists. You, Tony, are on the wrong side of history. May HaShem light your eyes to the correct way of viewing the world.
ZY, there’s no point debating anyone who says their god handed out a real estate contract, end of story. What did this deity you have constructed for yourself have in mind for the Palestinians, by the way? (Or does he not exist for them, only for you?)
As for your comments about my reference to US policy being controlled by people who think like you, I specifically made clear what I meant by citing Elliott Abrams, the meshugenah Likudnik who is in charge of White House Middle East policy. That’s not a conspiracy theory, that’s a simple fact…
Tony, you mean you think it can’t be debated. I think it can, but that’s just me. I think your proposition, “this deity you have constructed for yourself”, as against mine, “the very deity who got both our ancestors out of Egypt”, is inherently debatable. But you don’t feel like debating it, so I have no choice but respect that…
G-d says, that when He agrees that it is time for the nation of Israel (the Jews) to inhabit the Land of Israel, then that must be done, and non-Jews are to be treated fairly as is His law for the “ger toshav”. But that means they have to accept that this is our land (just as immigrants to France have to accept that this is France and not “Northern Algeria”; hint, hint), which the “Palestinians” don’t, therefore they should be driven out (just as any immigrant who thinks his hosts are really his guests should be driven out).
And as I made clear, explaining Israel’s behavior by appealing to “US control by crazy Zionists” is a rehash of the accusations of the 1930’s (see: Lindbergh). Israel is far more restrained than it would be, because of its leaders, who set so much store in what the world thinks; if Israel actions were dictated by the will of the people (the Israeli Jews), you’d come begging for the return of the present situation. The people have had enough of receiving Kassam rockets without a military retaliation. After Gaza, those who now say the evacuation of Judea and Samaria should follow are a tiny and despised minority among the Israeli Jews. But that’s not something you can see from your comfortable armchair in the Diaspora.
Tony,
We agree on the intractable reality part but your continued harping on “sin” bothers me in that I don’t hear you (or anyone else) harping on the original sin of Saudi Arabia or Sweden. It’s only Israel which is to be placed at a disadvantage because it was born out of force of arms and somehow should feel guilty about that.
I don’t think it should it all. Yes, it took the land. That’s how nations are created. Every nation.
David — firstly, a state that calls itself “Jewish” (not quite legitimately in my book) can’t have that attitude, because it violates the very foundations of Jewish ethics. Israel was founded on the basis of a sin committed against another people — you may argue that it was unavoidable, but it happened nonetheless. Ethnic cleansing is ethnic cleansing — it began with acts of violence, such as the Deir Yassein massacre, calculated to drive the bulk of the Palestinian population to flee their homes (pretty much what the Serbs were trying to do in Kosovo in 98), and ended up with legal mechanisms that denied any Palestinian Arab who was not present in his property on the day the State of Israel was declared the right to return to that property. (Even half of the land owned by Palestinians that didn’t flee in 48 was eventually confiscated by the state.)
For practical purposes, your position boils down to the fact that the superiority of Israeli military capability allowed it to claim the property of others as its own, and that this is the way of the world. But the obvious conclusion for the Palestinians, then, is that they simply have to fight their way back onto the land they lost, because it’s force of arms that creates intractable historical facts.
1948 –
Before the war the Arab League secretary-general announced “This will be a war of extermination and a momentous massacre which will be spoken of like the Mongolian massacres and the Crusades”. Did he mean what he said? Considering that the Arabs ethnically cleansed Jews from every bit of land they managed to put their hands on (E. Jerusalem, Atarot, Kalia, Kfar Etzion), he probably did. Several years later the Arab states managed expelled nearly all of their native Jews. and confiscated their property I have no doubt that they would have liquidated the entire Jewish population had they won the 1948 war. I’m in favor of Palestinians getting reparations, but Arab cries about injustice, well, they do smell of hypocrisy.
“Jewish ethics” –
I’m an atheist and am probably not qualified to speak on the subject, but what you mention doesn’t exist. Judaism is no more or less ethical than other religions. The only reason that Jews over 2000 years did not abuse their power is because they had none. It’s like the rabbi who never broke the dishes because he never went into the kitchen. Historically the Jews have always understood themselves as a religious group and a nation.
Tony,
Jewish ethics is the one thing you cannot appeal to in your arguments against the return of Jews to inhabit their land (a.k.a Zionism). You can appeal to international law, you can appeal to the Humanist Manifesto, you can appeal to the Gospel according to Karl [Marx], but you can’t appeal to Jewish ethics, because they’re on my side, not yours. Numbers 33:50-53:
“And the LORD spoke unto Moses in the plains of Moab by the Jordan at Jericho, saying: ‘Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them: When ye pass over the Jordan into the land of Canaan, then ye shall drive out all the inhabitants of the land from before you, and destroy all their figured stones, and destroy all their molten images, and demolish all their high places. And ye shall drive out the inhabitants of the land, and dwell therein; for unto you have I given the land to possess it.”
You can’t get a better example of Jewish ethics than the Torah itself, and, as you can see, it’s not on your side.
You’re right, there’s no point arguing with you. Not sure why you’re bothering, though — I’ve stopped. Why don’t you just leave us (the people who read this site) to stew in our misconceptions, and go and pray for us or gird your loins or something.
Tony,
I don’t know where you get the idea that Jews are somehow more moral or ethical than others and thus have some sort of obligation to be continue to turn the other cheek to prove how much better they are. As a Jew, I totally reject that approach.
As to ” the obvious conclusion for the Palestinians, then, is that they simply have to fight their way back onto the land they lost, because it’s force of arms that creates intractable historical facts.”
Well yes of course that is what they are doing. How much more obvious could it be?
David — I don’t say “Jews” as in those born Jewish are more moral and ethical than anyone else; I say that this is the foundation of Judaism as I see it, as per Hillel’s summation of Judaism: “That which is hateful unto yourself, do not do unto others. All the rest is commentary.”
That for me is what Jewishness means; if it’s simply a tribal or faux-national identity, I’m not particularly interested in it. And on the Palestinians, the point is that you’re essentially endorsing that choice, saying this is the way it must be. Either you surrender, or you fight. Which would mean Israel would never have any chance of coexisting peacefully with its neighbors. If that’s the case, I think you’ll see it decline rather quickly — after all, Israelis have a very Western middle class existence, and they have plenty to lose. By contrast, the Palestinians have very little left to lose.
Tony,
1. Please don’t mistake acknowledgment (of how the world works) for admiration.
2. I bet you can also find some quote from Hillel which suggests that self-defense is very legitimate.
Now none of anything I have said should suggest that I am in favor of the settlements etc etc or of much of Israeli policy. I just don’t get up on my high-horse about how moral I am or aim to be.
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