I decided to introduce this thread in the light of some of the disparaging attitudes expressed about the Palestinians and DanishDynamite`s recent thread concerning possible solutions to the Israel/Palestine conflict which seemed to me to miss some very basic and important issues, issues successfully manipulated and hence fequently obscured by the Israeli propaganda machine.
Peace negotiations cannot be successful and are in fact a "red herring" unless there is JUSTICE (a word sadly missing from the posts in Danish`s thread and most of the discussions about a Middle East "solution"), and that justice is essential and can only exist between equals.
The "peace" brigade is another particular Western neurosis. As any jolly foreigner will know well, justice is the only serious guarantee for peace. Equitable solutions are what is demanded and "peace" as the objective is erroneous and deceitful.
It seems that "peace" to Israelis is merely a way of ridding themselves of a problem. Palestinians are problems, not people for the Israelis. And justice is not a component of any Israeli negotiation, including Rabin's, that has taken place.
Israel shoud not negotiate peace in order to rid itself of the Palestinian problem. That is an ends-related activity and has nothing to do with peace. With a negotiation like this, peace is both the means and the ends. The Israelis and the Palestinians are neighbours - or one and the same if a binational state gets off the ground. That is a total given. If you do not treat each other with this future in mind, how can anything like a negotiation start?
In all honesty, I think the window for a 2 state solution has opened and closed and you have Sharon and his settlement building policy (and Barak, the Israeli dove), to thank for that. A meaningful Palestinian state is probably impossible to achieve now.
The first prerequisite of negotiation is of course trust.
Given Barak's and Netanyahu's and Sharon's active support of the insertion of an extra 300,000 Israelis into the West Bank when the Oslo process was at its height, it is suprising Palestinians are still prepared to negotiate at all. There were, after all, several years of restraint and good faith by the Palestinians which we can compare to the biggest and most disgraceful betrayal by Israel. This, of course has been the way with the Israeli state since it`s inception. It simply will not negotiate in good faith with the Palestinians. The record is clear - except with Zionists, who continue to believe in their uprightness and continue against most of the evidence to blame the Palestinians for lack of good faith when they know that they are truly the ones not to act in good faith.
How do you build trust? One thing you don't do is to say Israel will withdraw unilaterally, Israel will not deal with such-and such a leader, Israel has the right to terrorise while the Palestinians do not have the right to defend themselves. Palestinians are terrorists and we are good soldiers in the war on terror, Palestinians must completely yield to us before we talk to them etc etc. You also don't bring to bear the power of the US to ensure a miserable outcome for your peace partner and a winner-takes-all outcome for yourselves. You don't renegotiate the split of land arrived at at Oslo, presenting Palestinians with a bantustan that has no future - and then berate them for not negotiating - as you have with the Barak/Camp David fiasco. You don't assassinate Palestinian leaders, radical or not, who are expressing a desire to come to the table as Sharon has repeatedly done. You don't do these things if you want to build enough trust to negotiate. You only do them in order NOT to negotiate. That is why Israel did them.
Just try doing a reversal. In what conceivable universe would Israelis accept Palestinians choosing Israel's leader, Palestinians building a wall around Israelis, Palestinians unilaterally cutting off the most God forsaken rump of what Israelis currently call Israel proper, Palestinians demanding that no negotiation go forward if Israelis keep defending themselves? It is unacceptable - and Israelis would find this so for Israelis, right? That it has gained currency in Israel as a way to do business with Palestinians is appalling and shows how deeply the Zionist narrative has infantalised the Israeli notion of Palestinians and removed any sense of responsibility from Israelis.
Israeli distaste of Palestinians - for no good reason when placed against their own peerless record of bloody, bad faith expansion - is a huge impediment. Many Israelis (members of this forum too), believe Palestinians to be dirty and inferior and treacherous - all notions hugely delusional, it goes without saying.
As for Arafat, we can all give a wink and a nod about him, the universal monster, and just try to cut him out but it won`t work. Arafat has many flaws, but next to any Israeli leader, left or right, in the last 40 years, with the exception of Rabin, he has shown himself to be pretty consistent. Israelis demonise him, but not their own. I suspect this is because to be a "reasonable" leader for Israelis, a Palestinian would have to cave, surrender himself to their good graces, in effect. But look at the record. The shabby examples of Israeli leaders of the last 40 years, including Peres, have never been able to bring themselves to negotiate. The one good leader they had, Rabin (no angel and someone who really stretches the idea of 'good-faith negotiation' to its definitional limit), had little difficulty. And Arafat was able to deliver years of relative stability. Who, on the Israeli side now, is of that stature?
Right of return - why not extend this right? Israel has managed to bring in a million and a half Eastern European, Central Asian and Russian Jews in the space of a few years. In any case, 4 million is not the number Israel would be looking at. If they are prepared to look at this problem, they will prepare themselfs for a just solution that keeps Israel viable - although multi-ethnic and non-racial/religious in its constitution.
I think the right of return is a moot point - and a bad way of looking at the problem. I think Israelis will have to extend the franchise to the Palestinians at some point - or simply acknowledge that they live in a fascist state. The communities are now too interlocked. This is a good solution, but one that is admittedly, currently beyond an Israeli electorate completely unprepared to shoulder it`s responsibility. It may be that history does for them what they themselves could not show the courage to do.
In terms of what Arafat "promised" the refugees - this is another example of Zionist narrative infantalising Palestinians. His position on right of return (shaky in the last ten years) is in response to what is demanded of him by those whom Israelis purged from their homes. No matter how distant the election that gave him a mandate, he is still seen by every rational human as being the Palestinian representative. Look at that word! It means he "represents", not that he "promises".
At bottom, if Israelis keep thinking that Palestinians are a problem they have to control by whatever means they see fit, the problem will never go away. A negotiation is not a series of unilateral steps taken by one side with a few pretend consensual steps to 'prove' it was a negotiation. Palestinians are not stupid and they see this for what it is - domination masquerading as negotiation. Negotiation is a painful process of recognising that the people across the table are as human, as valid and as worthy as you. A good negotiation has partners who attempt to put themselves in the shoes of their opposite numbers and who wish to apply to them the ethics that they expect to be applied to themselves. Israelis should genuinely be looking out for the best solution for the Palestinians; not by Israel's own notion of what is good for them - but by the aspirations of the Palestinians. They have never, including under Rabin, done this. No negotiation has taken place with the aspirations of Palestinians, their welfare and their future, in the hearts of the Israeli leadership.
And again, the idea that the Arabs won't recognise Israel is one of those persistent Zionist myths that doesn't bear close examination. Israel`s problem is that a warlike people will not come to the table and negotiate a future for them. Yet the warlike people, endlessly and maudlinly deceiving themselves about how it is peace they want are the Israelis. The Israelis are in a cocoon of their own self-delusion and it is, as usual, the Palestinian population who must bear the consequences.
There is no solution while the Israelis do not even begin this process of humanising Palestinians. The Palestinians as a people, in this respect, are far more able to apply this criterion than Israelis. They are far from perfect, but no one can say they haven't tried to bridge the gap. Excepting one brief (in my view inadequate), attempt by Rabin the Israelis have attempted to keep the conflict going in order to justify expansion. And the history of this conflict provides total vindication for this view.
Peace without justice will not work. Oslo, even with the forebearance of the Palestinians, was bound to fail because of this lack of justice and lack of respect from the Israeli side. It's this intrinsic lack of awareness that is such a strong streak in peoples whose governments dominate the weak. Supremacist Afrikaners were exactly the same.
One last thing - Israel has elicited our money, our arms and our goodwill in pursuit of its supremacist dream. Yet it is not prepared to accept our criticism. We are to uncritically support Israel as it destroys Palestinian culture, lives and future but we are not to make comment. I resent my democracy involving itself in the bankrolling of a supremacist state and so do millions of others.
This will only get worse for Israel as people realise the truth and the Zionist narrative is placed forever where it deserves to be placed: in the trashcan of history.
Peace negotiations cannot be successful and are in fact a "red herring" unless there is JUSTICE (a word sadly missing from the posts in Danish`s thread and most of the discussions about a Middle East "solution"), and that justice is essential and can only exist between equals.
The "peace" brigade is another particular Western neurosis. As any jolly foreigner will know well, justice is the only serious guarantee for peace. Equitable solutions are what is demanded and "peace" as the objective is erroneous and deceitful.
It seems that "peace" to Israelis is merely a way of ridding themselves of a problem. Palestinians are problems, not people for the Israelis. And justice is not a component of any Israeli negotiation, including Rabin's, that has taken place.
Israel shoud not negotiate peace in order to rid itself of the Palestinian problem. That is an ends-related activity and has nothing to do with peace. With a negotiation like this, peace is both the means and the ends. The Israelis and the Palestinians are neighbours - or one and the same if a binational state gets off the ground. That is a total given. If you do not treat each other with this future in mind, how can anything like a negotiation start?
In all honesty, I think the window for a 2 state solution has opened and closed and you have Sharon and his settlement building policy (and Barak, the Israeli dove), to thank for that. A meaningful Palestinian state is probably impossible to achieve now.
The first prerequisite of negotiation is of course trust.
Given Barak's and Netanyahu's and Sharon's active support of the insertion of an extra 300,000 Israelis into the West Bank when the Oslo process was at its height, it is suprising Palestinians are still prepared to negotiate at all. There were, after all, several years of restraint and good faith by the Palestinians which we can compare to the biggest and most disgraceful betrayal by Israel. This, of course has been the way with the Israeli state since it`s inception. It simply will not negotiate in good faith with the Palestinians. The record is clear - except with Zionists, who continue to believe in their uprightness and continue against most of the evidence to blame the Palestinians for lack of good faith when they know that they are truly the ones not to act in good faith.
How do you build trust? One thing you don't do is to say Israel will withdraw unilaterally, Israel will not deal with such-and such a leader, Israel has the right to terrorise while the Palestinians do not have the right to defend themselves. Palestinians are terrorists and we are good soldiers in the war on terror, Palestinians must completely yield to us before we talk to them etc etc. You also don't bring to bear the power of the US to ensure a miserable outcome for your peace partner and a winner-takes-all outcome for yourselves. You don't renegotiate the split of land arrived at at Oslo, presenting Palestinians with a bantustan that has no future - and then berate them for not negotiating - as you have with the Barak/Camp David fiasco. You don't assassinate Palestinian leaders, radical or not, who are expressing a desire to come to the table as Sharon has repeatedly done. You don't do these things if you want to build enough trust to negotiate. You only do them in order NOT to negotiate. That is why Israel did them.
Just try doing a reversal. In what conceivable universe would Israelis accept Palestinians choosing Israel's leader, Palestinians building a wall around Israelis, Palestinians unilaterally cutting off the most God forsaken rump of what Israelis currently call Israel proper, Palestinians demanding that no negotiation go forward if Israelis keep defending themselves? It is unacceptable - and Israelis would find this so for Israelis, right? That it has gained currency in Israel as a way to do business with Palestinians is appalling and shows how deeply the Zionist narrative has infantalised the Israeli notion of Palestinians and removed any sense of responsibility from Israelis.
Israeli distaste of Palestinians - for no good reason when placed against their own peerless record of bloody, bad faith expansion - is a huge impediment. Many Israelis (members of this forum too), believe Palestinians to be dirty and inferior and treacherous - all notions hugely delusional, it goes without saying.
As for Arafat, we can all give a wink and a nod about him, the universal monster, and just try to cut him out but it won`t work. Arafat has many flaws, but next to any Israeli leader, left or right, in the last 40 years, with the exception of Rabin, he has shown himself to be pretty consistent. Israelis demonise him, but not their own. I suspect this is because to be a "reasonable" leader for Israelis, a Palestinian would have to cave, surrender himself to their good graces, in effect. But look at the record. The shabby examples of Israeli leaders of the last 40 years, including Peres, have never been able to bring themselves to negotiate. The one good leader they had, Rabin (no angel and someone who really stretches the idea of 'good-faith negotiation' to its definitional limit), had little difficulty. And Arafat was able to deliver years of relative stability. Who, on the Israeli side now, is of that stature?
Right of return - why not extend this right? Israel has managed to bring in a million and a half Eastern European, Central Asian and Russian Jews in the space of a few years. In any case, 4 million is not the number Israel would be looking at. If they are prepared to look at this problem, they will prepare themselfs for a just solution that keeps Israel viable - although multi-ethnic and non-racial/religious in its constitution.
I think the right of return is a moot point - and a bad way of looking at the problem. I think Israelis will have to extend the franchise to the Palestinians at some point - or simply acknowledge that they live in a fascist state. The communities are now too interlocked. This is a good solution, but one that is admittedly, currently beyond an Israeli electorate completely unprepared to shoulder it`s responsibility. It may be that history does for them what they themselves could not show the courage to do.
In terms of what Arafat "promised" the refugees - this is another example of Zionist narrative infantalising Palestinians. His position on right of return (shaky in the last ten years) is in response to what is demanded of him by those whom Israelis purged from their homes. No matter how distant the election that gave him a mandate, he is still seen by every rational human as being the Palestinian representative. Look at that word! It means he "represents", not that he "promises".
At bottom, if Israelis keep thinking that Palestinians are a problem they have to control by whatever means they see fit, the problem will never go away. A negotiation is not a series of unilateral steps taken by one side with a few pretend consensual steps to 'prove' it was a negotiation. Palestinians are not stupid and they see this for what it is - domination masquerading as negotiation. Negotiation is a painful process of recognising that the people across the table are as human, as valid and as worthy as you. A good negotiation has partners who attempt to put themselves in the shoes of their opposite numbers and who wish to apply to them the ethics that they expect to be applied to themselves. Israelis should genuinely be looking out for the best solution for the Palestinians; not by Israel's own notion of what is good for them - but by the aspirations of the Palestinians. They have never, including under Rabin, done this. No negotiation has taken place with the aspirations of Palestinians, their welfare and their future, in the hearts of the Israeli leadership.
And again, the idea that the Arabs won't recognise Israel is one of those persistent Zionist myths that doesn't bear close examination. Israel`s problem is that a warlike people will not come to the table and negotiate a future for them. Yet the warlike people, endlessly and maudlinly deceiving themselves about how it is peace they want are the Israelis. The Israelis are in a cocoon of their own self-delusion and it is, as usual, the Palestinian population who must bear the consequences.
There is no solution while the Israelis do not even begin this process of humanising Palestinians. The Palestinians as a people, in this respect, are far more able to apply this criterion than Israelis. They are far from perfect, but no one can say they haven't tried to bridge the gap. Excepting one brief (in my view inadequate), attempt by Rabin the Israelis have attempted to keep the conflict going in order to justify expansion. And the history of this conflict provides total vindication for this view.
Peace without justice will not work. Oslo, even with the forebearance of the Palestinians, was bound to fail because of this lack of justice and lack of respect from the Israeli side. It's this intrinsic lack of awareness that is such a strong streak in peoples whose governments dominate the weak. Supremacist Afrikaners were exactly the same.
One last thing - Israel has elicited our money, our arms and our goodwill in pursuit of its supremacist dream. Yet it is not prepared to accept our criticism. We are to uncritically support Israel as it destroys Palestinian culture, lives and future but we are not to make comment. I resent my democracy involving itself in the bankrolling of a supremacist state and so do millions of others.
This will only get worse for Israel as people realise the truth and the Zionist narrative is placed forever where it deserves to be placed: in the trashcan of history.
And the reason for the occupation is?
