Peoples Geography — Reclaiming space

Creating people's geographies

The Palestinian Right of Return Doha Debate

*** View it here and google video (below)

The Palestinian Right of Return was considered 28 March 2007 at the Doha Debates, a public forum for dialogue in Qatar.

The speakers were invited to respond to the debate proposition: ‘This House Believes That Palestinians Should Give Up Their Full Right of Return

Yossi Beilin, a Knesset member and Chairman of the Meretz-Yachad party and Bassem Eid, of the Palestine Human Rights Monitoring Group argued for the motion.

Israeli academic Ilan Pappe and Ali Abunimah, cofounder of The Electronic Intifada and the son of Palestinian refugees, challenged the motion.

Moderator Tim Sebastian as always plays devil’s advocate vigorously.

It screened on the BBC last weekend and is now finally on the web.

Over 80% of the Doha Debate audience voted for the team who argued against the motion.

See also EI for an exchange between Bassem Eid and Ali Abunimah. A podcast page of all Doha Debates can be found here.

35 comments on “The Palestinian Right of Return Doha Debate

  1. Servant
    18 April, 2007

    Thank you for this. I’m listening to it now and grinning from ear to ear. Ilan Pappe is just awesome. One person one vote. It’s that simple.

  2. peoplesgeography
    18 April, 2007

    Glad you’re grinning. Pappe is terrific, as is Abunimah. The moderator makes me laugh. Very old school debating style. Its nice when he actually lets them respond and get a word in edgeways …!

  3. sophia
    19 April, 2007

    Ann,
    Thank you for this info. Take care and work well. We will miss your posts.

  4. Jack
    19 April, 2007

    Echo Sophia above, Ann!

    -Jack

  5. peoplesgeography
    19 April, 2007

    THanks, guys :)

  6. Emmanuel
    20 April, 2007

    Considering the fact that most of the audience, if not all of it, consisted of Arabs, 18.4% willing to give up the right of return is quite a lot. If the audience had consisted of mostly Jews I’d be surprised if those not willing to give up the right of return would achieve more than five percent.

  7. peoplesgeography
    20 April, 2007

    Hi E-Man (moniker as per your blog, wherein you say Emmanuel is not really your name),

    Thank you for your comment. Indeed, 18% might be surprising to some, and as we saw, a minority of Palestinians have what they see as pragmatic reasons for relinquishing this right. That is their choice, but it is important, as Abunimah points out, that a choice be offered. Moreover, for the majority of the Palestinians in the OPT who matter the most, they are on record as wanting to retain this right. Third, there is no evidence that relinquishing this right will accrue a peace or statehood dividend.

    I do challenge your presumption that “most, if not all” of the voting audience comprised of Arabs. I would suggest that neither you nor I can know the obviously (and delightfully) multicultural audience mix simply by sight. Many of us have an appearance of indeterminate ethnicity. I had an Israeli student last year who might have been an Arab. Her friend in the same class was an Iranian-born student, who might have been an Israeli.

    As for me personally, I support the right of return in principle and can see no reasonable argument to mount against it. Indeed, it is an important pillar for a just and lasting peace. I think Abunimah and Pappe have done a good job, in the short time they were accorded, in outlining the case. If you can lodge any substantive objections, you are welcome to do so.

    I would suggest that the Israeli government can not deny this right whilst simultaneously insisting upon maintaining their own RoR extended to any and every Jew anywhere in the world to settle in Israel.

    The choice seems clear. Offer right of return as an option to eligible Palestinians who wish to use it (and it won’t be everyone in the diasporic Palestinian communities in various countries who have happily settled there who wish to use it) or stop insisting that aliyah (Jewish right of return) be maintained.

    If Israel is worried about practical settlement issues of any Palestinian returnees, why is it not apparently a problem for any number of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe to “return” (despite being foreign to the region)? Let town planners do their job. The underlying, non-religious rationale for aliyah, to give any Jew a safe haven, no longer exists. Israel is arguably the least safe place for Jews, as argued by Jews themselves. It no longer serves even Shoah survivors satisfactorily.

    This is not about Israel’s existence, but its hegemony.

    Just as there are diasporic Jewish communities in their respective countries who would not wish to live in Israel, so too there are Palestinians in various diasporas who are happy to live in their respective adopted countries.

    But the Right of Return has to be offered as an option. To offer it to any Jew around the world, regardless of whether they have ties or are indigenous to the Middle East or not, and not to Palestinians, who do have long standing ties, is inconsistent at best. At worst, it is the height of hypocrisy and racist double standards and is not and can not be the sustainable basis for a just and lasting peace.

    In sum: Maintain aliyah? Fine. If so, RoR for Palestinians must also be correspondingly offered. It has to be both or neither for equity, security, fairness—for all.

    Your thoughts on this as an Israeli are welcomed. I do agree that there would be resistance in Israeli society, going by attitudes polled*. To many outside observers, we are dismayed by a culture of fear, racism and entitlement that has been whipped up by a government and status quo that benefits most from stalling meaningful peace efforts, as Israeli society lurches further towards bellicosity. As an Israeli I’m sure you have seen most of these (embedded) Israeli press links, but if not you are invited to peruse them.

    I’d like to see an Israel where this kind of much needed public debate is conducted.

    Ann

    * Y-Net: “Recent poll reveals steep rise in racist views against Arabs in Israel; many participants feel hatred, fear when overhearing Arabic, 75 percent don’t approve of shared apartment buildings”

  8. Emmanuel
    20 April, 2007

    Relinquishing the right of return would not happen in a vacuum. It would be part of the final settlement between Israel and the Palestinians which would establish a Palestinian state. Just as there is no absolute guarantee for Palestinians that relinquishing this right would bring peace, there is no guarantee for Israelis that acknowledging the Palestinian right of return would bring peace either. Just as most Palestinians don’t see any pragmatic reasons for relinquishing this right, the same is true regarding the lack of pragmatic reasons for Israelis to accept it.

    I don’t see the right of return as being any different from any country’s immigration policy. Israel has the right to choose who will immigrate to it and who will not, just like other countries don’t accept everybody, and not just on an individual basis but also group-based criteria.

    The only viable solution which would be good for both sides is the two-state solution. A one state solution, or a two-state solution with Palestinian right of return into Israel itself, would make this place a big mess and is not a compromise at all, since Palestinians would get all that they demand and the Israelis would get nothing. For Israel, giving refugees a right of return to the State of Palestine and compensation would be the maximum acceptable solution.

    Sari Nusseibeh once said that the dream of return is not just a dream of geographical return, but also a return in time to what used to be before 1948. There is no turning back the clock. What exists now is nowhere near what existed sixty years ago.

    I’ve blogged about racism in Israel in the past. That is something that needs to be addressed seperately. The over one million Palestinian citizens of Israel must be treated equally. But the Arabs inside Israel and those in the territories and elsewhere are two very different cases. The Arabs here should be accepted as equal Israelis, the others should not.

  9. Servant
    21 April, 2007

    A one state solution, or a two-state solution with Palestinian right of return into Israel itself, would make this place a big mess and is not a compromise at all, since Palestinians would get all that they demand and the Israelis would get nothing.

    I hear this from a lot of Zionists but I don’t think it is really true. What I hear from Palestinians is an earnest desire to live with Jews under a government where each person has the same rights. Justice in other words.

    Maybe there’s a great fear on the part of Israelis that they will be overrun by the indigenous population similar to what the Afrikaners felt before apartheid was abolished.

    The fears of the white settlers were never realized.

    We in the west like to dictate the terms of every dialogue and still pretend that it’s an earnest dialogue when its really not. We love to say what’s on the table and what’s off the table before anyone even sits down – in violation of every principle of conflict resolution ever developed.

    If we say we won’t talk about certain things as a pre-condition to talks, what we are saying in actuality is that we want what we want when we fucking want it and that’s all there is to it.

    Which frees the other side to respond in kind. They are also entitled to want what they want when they fucking want it. Only they’ve been waiting 60 years for Israel to make good on the terms of its United Nations Charter.

    There’s nothing wrong with that as an opening position. We want what we want when we want it is a perfectly valid hard ball negotiating tactic which has worked well for the people in power throughout history until recently. Until now.

    Now we have the whole world is at war over the west’s authority to dictate colonial terms to people of the Middle East.

    We can’t very well turn around and act like innocent victims because we imposed our will on other people and now more than half the planet refuses to go along with it.

    The Palestinians are making a very generous offer. One person one vote. If Israel loses the demographic problem then it just goes to show that it was never a viable proposition in the first place.

    On the other hand, if Israel really does want to live up to its claim of being a democracy, then the only way to do that is to be a real democracy. You can’t have some people who are more equal than others. That’s simply racism no matter which way you slice it.

    If the only morality supporting Israel’s right to exist as the status quo is the good graces of the United States military, I don’t know how much longer that’s going to protect Jews anyway.

    Because in the process of making the world safe for Jews we have borrowed from our grandchildren’s grandchildren’s futures to pay for this Global War on People Who Disagree with Israel.

    And in the meantime we’re running out of fossil fuel and running out of breathable air and we spending all the money that its going to cost to find solutions to those problems making the world safe for Jews.

    I’d like to tally up the cost in lives and military hardware for this GWOT and send the bill to Israel. We’re not fighting for freedom, we’re throwing good money after bad to perpetuate an idea that was a bad idea in the first place.

    The only solution is to let the people who lived in Palestine reclaim their property or receive just compensation at todays market valuations (not 1948 prices). If Israel can afford to buy Israel let them stay in a racist state that they pay for.

    But if Israel can’t afford it they should seriously consider whether they are better off with Israel than without it.

    The rest of the planet is waiting while Israel figures out what they want to do.

  10. peoplesgeography
    21 April, 2007

    Servant says it very well above and I agree with and endorse all his comments, but particularly:

    On the other hand, if Israel really does want to live up to its claim of being a democracy, then the only way to do that is to be a real democracy. You can’t have some people who are more equal than others. That’s simply racism no matter which way you slice it.

    If the only morality supporting Israel’s right to exist as the status quo is the good graces of the United States military, I don’t know how much longer that’s going to protect Jews anyway.

    To Emmanuel, I would add a few comments. On two states, on the contrary, I and many others think the two state solution is becoming less viable. I’d be all for it were it tenable.

    While it might have been viable had Israel not continued its illegal settlements and encroachments into the West Bank, rendering any future Palestinian state into territorially discontiguous, “swiss-cheese” bantustans, a two state solution is now all but an insoluble one. So for all practical purposes, it is Israel that has led us to the bi-national one state solution as the only truly viable one, by dint of its actions sabotaging a two state solution. Can you see the Israeli government evacuating all West Bank and illegal settlements?

    It can however also be a desirable vision for both peoples, a positive rather than negative “compromise”.

    When you write “return to Israel itself”, to which Israel do you refer? 1948, 1967 or 2007 borders? And speaking of which, the Israeli state could start behaving like a state as accepted and defined in the international community and define its own borders. So where are its borders, and why does it refuse to define them?

    Israel would get “nothing”? I’d say Israel has already grabbed a lot, recalling Sharon’s exhortation to settlers to “move, run, grab more hills, expand the territory. Everything that is grabbed will remain in our hands. Everything we don’t grab will be in their hands.”

    Israel has a state. It lacks real security and it will never get it with the existing status quo. There is and can be no military solution for this. One key reason for this is that it lacks a willingness to be a part of its own region. What it would gain is tangible but not necessarily material, yet probably more valuable — security with its neighbours, peace for itself, acceptance into the international community rather than being a rogue state.

    It is also worth inserting a reminder that rather than constituting Palestinian “demands”, the Right of Return is enshrined in international law.

    Certainly, a lot has changed in sixty years. But if we do not want more of the same (and worse), we must think innovatively and seek solutions that do look to the future for both peoples.

    Attempting to maintain an artificial Judaic majority (through aliyah) will not secure Israel’s security nor peace.

    Yes, the Israeli government has the reasonable right to decide its immigration policies, but not to inflict racist policies on others within its jurisdiction such as the OPT, nor at the expense of a fifth of its own citizens upon whom it has applied a shocking denial of family reunion law (narrowly passed), a fundamental denial of basic human rights.

    What does a Jewish state entail? It means maintaining Jewish privilege (and specifically, Ashkenazi Jewish privilege) and upholding apartheid, racist laws. You acknowledge the racism within Israel as a problem but as yet do not see the connection between this culture and the insistence upon a Jewish state.

    This connection arises because there was no organic Jewish majority. To get from A to B (and to remain static at B) is going to encounter a lot of natural resistance, and can not continue by force of arms, which it is ultimately based on and underpinned by.

    By your own reckoning also (you point, for example, to an article that claims the RoR would not be claimed by many diaspora Palestinians) there would not be an unreasonably large number of Palestinians coming to live in their ancestral homes, some of which still stand. So how would it be a “big mess”? How could it not be reasonably absorbed whereas off-the-boat Jewish settlers from Russia can be?

    You conclude by saying that Israeli Arabs should be accepted as equal citizens (in contradistinction to those in the diaspora) but they are not. They are often discriminated against and this is often institutionalised racism and discrimination. So while I agree it is a separate issue in some respects, it stems from the same culture of supremacist entitlement that arises from insisting upon a majority Jewish state.

    At your blog, you voice fears that a future hypothetical Palestinian majority might kick Jews out. But Europe has been the source of historical Jewish persecution, not the Middle East. Before the establishment of the state of Israel, Jews, Christians and Muslims had long co-existed in the region. Any resentment was because of the occupation and dispossession, hatred of oppression since 1948 primarily, not because of anti-semitism, a largely European phenomenon.

    What would ensure Israel’s security and prosperity, and acceptance into the region and international community (not inconsiderable gains, I would have thought)?

    1. Ending the long standing brutal military occupation and allowing Palestine to develop (rather than withholding tax credits, restricting movement, depriving them of electricity and subjecting them to starvation, not allowing aid in) is one way to treat people equally.

    2. Allowing the limited number of diaspora Palestinians who wish to do so their international law-sanctioned RoR.

    3. Reasonably restricting aliyah in the sense that automatic citizenship is not granted to anyone Jewish—recognising that this infringes upon the rights of others and is inherently undemocratic

    4. Embracing the idea of a bi-national state that respects pilgrimage by the three Abrahamic faiths rather than an exclusivist Jewish one.

    5. Treating its Arab citizens fairly, revoking racist laws and ultimately jettisoning the insistence that Israel artificially keeps a Jewish demographic majority

    6. Returning thousands of Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners, many in “administrative detention” without charge or trial, many children

    7. Respecting borders, after you finally define them; respecting international law

    8. Restitution/ compensation for all dispossessed Palestinians

    9. Educate Israelis about the region and make an effort to be of the region. This works reciprocally with Arab nations also making an effort and increasing ties, cultural and economic.

    Have you read Tony Judt’s The Country That Wouldn’t Grow Up? Recommended. Also see (and there’s a lot of stuff out there, but this is particularly pertinent to the topic at hand): Binational vision of Israeli Arab Mayors, report

  11. Emmanuel
    21 April, 2007

    This doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere. I won’t be able to convince you why Palestinians should not return to Israel (within the green line, the 1948-1967 borders) and you won’t be able to convince me why Israelis should acknowledge the right of return.

    I do see the two-state solution as still possible. It won’t be easy to implement but the one-state solution won’t be any easier.

    The Palestinians and Israelis have been fighting for more than 100 years (not just the 59 years of Israel’s existence). Putting them in one state is a dangerous experiment. Let’s try a few decades of peace between two states. When the two sides no longer see themselves as enemies (and not just officially on a piece of paper, but a real change of hearts), only then can those two states seriously consider uniting into one.

  12. Servant
    21 April, 2007

    Very interesting the interview on your blog with Israel ambassador Gillerman, Emmanuel. He’s a very good sport to trust a comedian to get that close to diplomacy. What was he thinking? When he was asked if Israel should nuke Iran all he could do is deny that Israel has nukes. The jury is still out whether that’s going to be funny or not.

    I think Israel is seriously considering a tactical nuclear strike on Iran. What do you think? Can you share your thoughts about current events with Iran?

    You’re a good sport too to share your thoughts about the future of Palestine and RoR. Thanks for your thoughts.

  13. peoplesgeography
    21 April, 2007

    That was a funny Daily Show interview.

    E-man, feel free to comment with your thoughts on Iran if you wish.

    Insomuch as anything is yet possible, I agree that “the two-state solution (is) still possible. It won’t be easy to implement but the one-state solution won’t be any easier.”

  14. Emmanuel
    22 April, 2007

    Iran is a complicated issue. It is against Iran’s neighbors’ interests (including, of course, Israel), as well as against the US and EU’s interests, to allow that country to have nuclear weapons. I don’t believe Ahmedinijad when he says the nuclear program is only for civilian purposes, and there should be harsh sanctions on Iran so it will fully open up its nuclear facilities to inspections, to make sure no nukes are being produced.

    A war with Iran at this point is in nobody’s best interest. Hopefully, political and economic pressure, as well as internal pressure from Iran’s population, will bring an end to the nuclear weapons program.

  15. peoplesgeography
    22 April, 2007

    Thanks E for your comment. It imbibes the official party line, so to speak, taken by Israel.

    It is also, I would suggest, not a line that can be taken on faith, that Iran’s nuclear program (and I would correct you here, it can not be called a nuclear weapons program) poses a threat to anybody, any more than the usual risks posed by nuclear energy.

    The international community has more reason to be concerned by the already existing nuclear arsenal in Israel, who hasn’t opened them up for inspection at any point by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

    When Israel agrees to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) it might have some shred of legitimacy to call for sanctions and inspections of Iran, when it agrees to open its nuclear facilities to the same scrutiny.

    Iran is, of course, a voluntary signatory to this treaty. Moreover, what evidence can you produce that we can not reasonably believe that Iran will use its nuclear program for civilian use as intended?

    I can tender evidence that Iran has invited western participation in its nuclear program (from AP in Israeli daily Ha’aretz: Tehran invites West to build nuclear power plants in Iran).

    I can tender evidence that, while his opposition to zionism as a political ideology is clear, the oft-repeated canard that President Ahmadinejad said he wanted Israel “wiped off the map” is demonstrably untrue.

    I can tender evidence that more and more countries, including Australia, are seriously looking towards nuclear energy to power their industries and provide electricity, and that countries like France, to cite but one example, source well over 60% of their energy from nuclear sources.

    I can tender evidence that the West actually encouraged the then Shah of Iran to pursue nuclear energy and helped Iran build the Bushehr nuclear facility. Siemens, the giant multinational, helped launched Iran’s nuclear programme just a few decades ago. It was in fact the Islamist Iranian Revolutionary Guard that was against Iran going nuclear, and interest in a nuclear programme was revived only after the devastating Iran-Iraq war — a war the western arms dealers encouraged.

    I can tender evidence that the Bush and Cheney administration have scuttled every substantive initiative consisting of bona fide offers of talks and cooperation that could have provided a diplomatic solution to the tension with Tehran.

    So if Iran is complying with inspections, what right does the Israeli establishment have to presume to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability, as it did Iraq’s in 1981? We already know it can not abide any other country in the region being in the nuclear club, or to rattle its nuclear deterrence or challenge its regional supremacy and bullying, quite frankly.

    Israel has no right at all to commit or block any of this, nor to deny Iran’s legitimate national development which in part sees nuclear energy as a source it wishes to develop, as do other nations.

    Israel has no credible right at all to call for a halt to a nuclear weapons program in Iran either. If it keeps being belligerent, this will likely only increase Iran’s desire to have this nuclear deterrent for its perceived protection from Israel, becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy brought into motion by Israel, not the Mad Mullahs of Iran. And as you are a political science student, I’m sure you’d be aware that President Ahmadinejad is only slightly more than a figurehead, he’s not where the heart of decision-making power is.

    So what have you got to back up your claims? I’d be interested to see the evidence. I’m happy to point to links, and indeed most are already freely available here on this site for perusal by anybody interested to read them.

    As for part of the real rationale for the Bush-Cheney neocons to go into Iran, I would suggest that you can not light an even bigger fire to extinguish a smaller one, even though that “smaller one” is a raging inferno.

  16. Emmanuel
    22 April, 2007

    “Israel has no right to halt a nuclear weapons program in Iran either.”

    Usually international politics isn’t about rights or justice , but about interests. A nuclear weapons program in Iran is definitely a threat to Israel, which is why it is working against it. But it is also a threat to other countries.

    If it were just nuclear energy, fine. But the IAEA has said in the past that Iran isn’t cooperating fully, so it cannot guarantee that its sole purpose is energy. Uranium enrichment and the future possibility of producing plutonium, are very worrying. Take a look at this article, whose second part details some of the West’s and IAEA’s concerns.

    The offer to the west is interesting and should be looked into, but it in and of itself does not mean Iran isn’t planning on making weapons.

    Yes, the West started the nuclear program in the days of the Shah. Continuing the nuclear weapons program now is against the West’s best interests, regardless of how it started.

    “I can tender evidence that, while his opposition to zionism as a political ideology is clear, the oft-repeated canard that President Ahmadinejad said he wanted Israel “wiped off the map” is demonstrably untrue.”

    Really? I’d like to see the evidence that he wouldn’t try to destroy Israel if he had the capability.

    By the way, what I’m saying is my own view, however close it might be to the party line (which would probably be a bit more aggressive than this). I don’t feel like getting nuked.

    (I hope this doesn’t appear twice, I pressed the submit comment button and my comment didn’t appear so I’m trying again).

  17. peoplesgeography
    22 April, 2007

    International politics is indeed about interests, but it is also most assuredly about rights and justice, otherwise it would be an ungovernable jungle.

    I’d like to see the evidence specifically that an Iranian weapons program would be a threat to Israel and to other countries. Iran has not invaded any country in decades. Iraq invaded Iran in the 1980s war, with US support. So where is the evidence that its weapons pose a threat?

    How on earth would Israel be destroyed without also destroying Iran? Mutually assured destruction still applies.

    You presume to know the West’s best interests, as narrowly constructed by the neocons in Tel Aviv and Washington. I contend that these extremely ideological sectional interests can not be construed as “western interests”. It doesn’t represent the bulk of the international community, and other powers such as Russia and China are being pressured by the US to apply financial sanctions on Iran. It is doubtful they would do this without aggressive neocon lobbying, with its faulty reasoning and outright untruths. The West’s interests are not equivalent to the Likudnik view of the world.

    I wager that Iranians don’t want to get nuked either, or invaded, including the 25000 Iranian Jews who live there (that’s a conservative estimate, some articles put the size of the Iranian Jewish community at 40 000).

    Yes, the message was queued in my spam filter, as legitimate comments sometimes are, awaiting release before appearing. It happens occasionally but I do check the queue regularly.

  18. Emmanuel
    23 April, 2007

    Opposition to Iranian nuclear weapons isn’t the position of only Likudniks and neocons. Even moderate and peacenik Israelis (and Americans) are scared of Iranian nukes.

    Regarding the mutually assured destruction – that’s based on the assumption that both countries are rational. When Iran’s president is an adherent of a messianic-apocalyptic version of Islam, there’s a legitimate fear Iran might think that a nuclear war would be the best way to bring back the missing Imam. I know it is far fetched, but it is a possibility.

    I’d be happy to see some proof that Ahmedinijad doesn’t plan on destroying Israel once he has the chance.

  19. Servant
    23 April, 2007

    I see the only tool political scientists have in their tool box is the call to prove a negative. No one can prove anything hypothetical.

    When your only tool is a hammer everything looks like a nail.

    Do you want assurances that Israel will even exist in a hundred years? If we stick to this line of “reasoning” I’m absolutely positive that it will not because it will have exhausted all credibility and people will have enough of it.

    What “proof” do we have that Israel isn’t going to use its nuclear weapons? What “proof” do we have that Israel has nuclear weapons? And who is the biggest liar that denies even having them in the first place? Then turn around and say that Iran is lying. That’s hilarious.

    Also it is a specious lie that Israel is rational and everyone else is insane. Exactly the opposite is true. Israel is irrational and everyone else in the region is sane.

    And the insane are running the asylum.

    I was hoping for some original insight into the problem from someone in Israel. But now I can see that what passes for thought there is extremely superficial.

    Sorry I asked if these are the only bullshit type of answers we’re going to get. I hear Emmanuel’s style of argument at least 10 times a day on at least five different media channels here in the United States. The pro-Israel propaganda is ubiquitous in our media. And each and every one of these talking heads repeats the lie that Iran wants to wipe Israel off the map. It’s a lie. It’s a lie. It’s a lie. Stop repeating it. It doesn’t make you any more credible.

    Fortunately you can get accurate information if you have access to the Internet(s)(tm) and the Israel spin machine cannot keep people from drawing their own conclusions.

    I conclude that Israel is a country of liars. Where’s the proof to that I’m wrong?

  20. peoplesgeography
    23 April, 2007

    I agree with Serv., the onus of proof is not on Iran but on those that try to prevent its legitimate nuclear development. Mohamed ElBaradei, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, is already on record as saying there is no evidence that Iran’s enrichment program is related to a military program.

    As for evidence that President Ahmadinejad expressly stating that he has no problems with Jews (other than the clear living evidence of 40000 Iranian Jews happily residing in Iran), the following is a transcript from the Congressional Quarterly Sep 21, 2006 in which several reporters fielded questions to President Ahmadinejad:

    AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): No, I’m not anti-Jew. Jews are respected by everyone like all human beings. And I respect them very much.

    Let us remember that in Palestine there are Muslims, Christians and Jews who live together. We speak of the Palestinian nation, of a people all in all embracing everyone. I never have said the Muslims in Palestine alone should decide about their fate.

    They used to live freely together. But ever since the arrival of the British, with the imperialistic goals they had, and then the arrival of the Zionist system of thinking into that land, the problems were created.

    So why not let the people there decide for themselves, and then let’s see what happens? Let’s give that a chance.

    QUESTION: Yesterday, I approached you and asked you a question. And after you found out that I’m an Israeli reporter, you ignored me.

    I want you to know I’m an authentic Palestinian Jew. My family arrived to this area in 1882, when the Turks ruled this area. So I think I deserve an answer from you, even according to your definitions.

    One thing: Can you clarify once and for all, do you seek the destruction of Israel, or don’t you seek the destruction of Israel?

    AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): We love everyone around the world: Jews, Christians, Muslims, non-Muslims, non-Jews, non- Christians. We have no problem with people.

    What we object to are acts that are inappropriate against us, or acts of occupation, of aggression, of violence, of displacement of nations. We have no problem with regular people.

    We have no problem — everyone we respect. Everyone should enjoy their legitimate rights.

    But, again, I repeat that we oppose aggression and violence and murder. And we say that loudly.
    … You see, our position is very clear: We work within the framework of NPT. We seek to define our rights within that framework and nothing more.

    I don’t quite see why so many people are so sensitive about the “enrichment” word. It seems that this “enrichment” word has become the sort of lingua franca of our time and day.

    But let’s see, it looks to me that the problem is something else. It seems to me again that the United States government and some European countries should make some changes and alterations in the way they treat the Iranian government and speak with us.

    AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): You see, they can’t look at our nation as they have in the past 27 years (inaudible) trying to impose their views on us because that’s not possible.

    But if they recognize that we too, as a nation, have rights that they too recognize international law, well then many things are possible, and the concerns too will be removed.

    QUESTION: Your Excellency, I’m not a speaker of Farsi, but there is a debate going on as to what exactly you said at the conference on the World Without Zionism.

    Did you say that Israel as a state should be wiped off the map or did you say something else? Could you just please specify this, because there is this debate going on?

    And if you said Israel should be wiped off the map, that’s very scary. If you said something else perhaps less alarming; perhaps you could tell us.

    AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): It’s quite interesting. I mean, it seems to me that there’s a strong Zionist lobby. And it seems to me that I face this question wherever I go. And I have always been ready to answer.

    I am not saying that you are a Zionist lobbyist, sir. I’m just saying that wherever I go I face questions like this.

    But I’d like to say that we are opposed to aggression. We are opposed to occupation. We are opposed to murder and violence, whoever commits them — does not matter — whoever is an aggressor, whoever who is the source for disgracement or is a murderer.

    I mean, I’m talking about aggression and occupation as an abhorrent act wherever it occurs, whether in Palestine that is occupied, whether in Lebanon, in Vietnam, in Iraq.

    AHMADINEJAD (THROUGH TRANSLATOR): We oppose killing on such scale. And, you know, we have tried to offer some proposals on Palestine: the referendum that I discussed earlier, with the participation of everyone.

    Now, when you speak of referendum, you’re thinking of a process, naturally. You’re not speaking of anything else. It’s within the framework of the United Nations Charter.

    We do believe that the Zionist role in creating conflict around the world should be thoroughly examined by the media. It is a responsibility. Let us not forget that they represent a complex group, a complex organizational system, that has been the source of many problems.

    Now, we cannot force our will on the vast part of the world because there is a small group that has a certain interest related to wealth and power.

    Let’s not forget that Zionism is a party that, in fact, it has no religious affiliations. They might say that, “Well, we’re Jews,” but that’s really not true and that’s not the fundamental foundation of Zionism.

    And let’s not forget that after all, the prophet Moses, was a supporter of peace, was a supporter of justice. He opposed aggression and occupation, and he opposed war and the displacement of people. He saved the children of Israel, banning Israel from pharaohs of the time, from occupiers from aggressors of the time.

    So how can the followers of Moses possibly destroy the homes of people over their heads in their homeland to take, and to kill, actually, an infant that is feeding in the arms of a mother?

    These Zionists, I want to tell you, are not Jews. That’s the biggest deception we’ve ever faced.

    Zionists are Zionists, period. They are not Jews, they are not Christians, and they are not Muslims. They are a power group, a power party. And we oppose oppression and the aggression that any party that seeks pure power, raw power goes after.

    That description above is virtually indistinguishable from that of orthodox Jewish group, Neteuri Karta, and is certainly not a hanging offence. Criticism of and opposition to political zionism, a secular and not a religious movement, abounds.

    Now, as to your charge that the President is an adherent of a messianic-apocalyptic version of Islam, show me the evidence that they believe that nuclear war would bring the coming of the Imam. Don’t buy into the fear-mongering. Investigate for yourself. I’m sure you’re aware that there is a messianic -apocalyptic vision of Rapture Christianity that holds sway among many evangelicals in the White House. I’d suggest we’d have more to fear here. I can supply links if you haven’t already come across them, there’s plenty of good investigative material on this. Can you show me similar evidence about President Ahmadinejad and a putative belief linking a desire to bring about an apocalypse?

    Rather than President Ahmadinejad, admittedly a loose cannon but hardly a real threat, threatening to destroy anyone, its various members of the Israeli establishment threatening to kill him. (We need to kill him: Israel should not shy away from threatening to kill Iran’s Ahmadinejad, Y-Net, 20 April 2007):

    Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has to be killed. Really be killed, I mean, physically. He should be eliminated, put to death, assassinated, and all those words that serve to say the same thing.

    Former Mossad Director Meir Amit said this explicitly in a recent interview with the “Kfar Chabad” weekly. It is indeed a very impolite way to express our disgust with the Iranian archenemy. Government officials, including ones who have retired already, usually merely hint at such matters – that is, if they choose to talk about them at all.

    And still, Meir Amit is right. Here too, while we are so busy with manners and etiquette, the man in Teheran is vigorously advancing the extermination plan for the people of Israel.

    This hateful claptrap passes for journalism in Israel? It is in fact Iran that is being threatened, Iran being humiliated and Israel who is trying to wipe it out financially.

    There’s no evidence that rational people are fearful of Iranian nukes any more than other countries nukes. Many of us don’t buy into the fear propagation, including Jews and Arab countries. There is in fact widespread opposition to such a move, including within the US Congress. Even US generals have argued that a war against Iran would be sheer folly, threatening to resign.

    E, you have more to fear from your own government than from Iran’s. The menace is at your own door.

  21. Emmanuel
    23 April, 2007

    First of all, I don’t support a war with Iran or assassinating Ahmedinijad. I’d support such a move only if it was clear that the threat was imminent, and it isn’t. I support sanctions.

    You don’t see Ahmedinijad’s one-state solution as a threat because you agree with it. To Israelis, his proposal means wiping out Israel and reversing the results of our War of Independence, which while it was a disaster for Palestinians was the best thing to happen to Jews in hundreds of years. Since he’s already doing his best to destroy Israel by supplying arms to terrorist groups (who you see as freedom fighters) like Hamas and Hizbullah, we have reason to believe he’ll use nuclear capabilities to bring about his vision for Palestine.

    Islamic messianism is in no way the only kind of messianism threatening Israel, the Middle East and the world. Our own Jewish far-right messianic settlers and the 700 Club’s idea of a Christian Armageddon are very dangerous.

    In your answers to me, it seems as if you see me as some kind of far right hawkish nut job. If you look through my blog you can see that my views are quite dovish. While exchanging views with those who disagree with me is very interesting, sometimes it is downright depressing. There seems to be a huge gulf between even the most dovish Israelis (people like Yossi Beilin, not Ilan Pappe who is really in the fringes) and the most dovish Arabs.

  22. peoplesgeography
    23 April, 2007

    E., I don’t quite see you personally as a Likudnik, though I see that as the worldview that holds sway over Israel generally, whether from the centre-left or right. The Israel left-of-centre buy into it too, though not as extreme. A Yossi Beilin is not a Bibi, but they both share the same precepts about an ostensibly existential threat.

    With regard to you personally, for me this is evidenced in your implicit acceptance that President Ahmadinejad poses a real threat to Israel, and that a nuclear program there should be prevented by diplomacy but then force, as you buy into the rhetoric that it poses a threat to others, as you stated.

    Only some sections of the Israeli peace movement are willing to really deconstruct this. It seems Israel has moved so far towards bellicosity that an academic like Ilan Pappe is deemed fringe. Yet his fellow New Historian (yet with very different politics), Benny Morris, is presumably not considered fringe. One has to wonder about what is considered fringe in a country that has allowed the elevation of an openly racist brute, Avigdor Lieberman, to the Deputy Prime Ministership, and where Benyamin Netanyahu or Bibi, who even the conservative J-Post calls bigoted, is the most popular politician in Israel.

    Your contention that this was the “best thing to happen to Jews in hundreds of years” is also arguable — because Israel refuses to settle the Palestinian question equitably and blocks meaningful peace efforts that would see Palestinian statehood and security for Israel, its state must always be backed by the extreme use of force and indefinite dependence upon the largesse of American tax dollars and blind support. Destructive militarism and perpetual insecurity will always be in Israel’s future if it continues on this ever-damaging course, hardly “the best thing to happen to Jews in hundreds of years.”

    Moreover, Israel’s fate is tied to the fate of the Palestinians. They are extricably linked and Israel needs to come to terms with that in coming to a just settlement, rather than pretending it doesn’t exist or continuing the brutal military occupation.

    I do acknowledge that you embrace the renewal of the Saudi initiative in your blog, and call for talks. I also like your idea here, for all governments: “Israel needs its leaders to have conflict resolution advisors, not just military advisors.

    How is Iran supplying Hezbollah with arms any different than the US supplying arms for Israel? Yes, I do question the delegitimising and fear-mongering label of terrorist group and the ‘terror‘ weasel word generally. A terrorist state has a far more destructive capacity. Hezbollah has a right to defend southern Lebanon and secure the release of hundreds of prisoners detained illegally by the Israeli government, its goal in capturing the Israeli soldiers, who are combatants and not civilians.

    Need I remind you of the proportion of Lebanese civilians killed in the war last July/ August? Over a thousand Lebanese civilians were killed to a couple of hundred combatants. In contrast, 116 Israeli soldiers were killed to 21 civilians. Eighteen Israeli Arabs who were excluded from Jews-only bomb shelters also died. To your credit, you call these civilian casualties unacceptable, yet you did not support calls for a ceasefire, insisting that Hezbollah be smashed and that a “smarter war” was possible.

    So most of the Israeli casualties were combatants. Most of the Lebanese casualties were civilians. It is hard to escape the conclusion that Israel was in fact targeting civilians. The evidence is right there in the figures. Yet you claim Hezbollah are the terrorists? What was Israel’s targeting of the civilian infrastructure of the entire country, leveling much of it, or the second atrocity at Qana, the killing of UN personnel, the killing of a thousand Lebanese civilians, or the use of phosphorus bombs, or not providing maps of unexploded cluster ordnance that continues to threaten farmers and their families, or firing 90% of those cluster bombs in the last 72 hours of the war, when a ceasefire was known to be imminent, if not terror? Cluster bombs are the ultimate weapon for targeting civilians. And still in your blog you parrot the claim that it was Hezbollah who targeted civilians (unlike the IDF, naturally). The myth of the IDF’s purity of arms has been shattered on numerous occasions. Meanwhile, Israeli border belligerence and threatening overflights continue.

    Incidentally, Uri Avnery wrote a persuasive case for a two state solution yesterday and argued that advancing a one state solution would be harmful to the Palestinian cause. I’m open to considering both, provided that Israel cease its illegal settlements and adhere to and define borders etc. The piece is here and is a recommended read.

    It is indeed dismaying to see this persistent gulf that you mention, but only determined dialogue can bridge that, backed up by good faith actions. When the Israeli government refuses to even talk to the democratically elected governing authority of the OPT, Hamas, you can see how this gulf widens and each is out of synch with the perspective of the other. Again, you implicitly buy into this by accepting the terrorist tag affixed by the neocon Likudniks, even though you are not one yourself.

    Voltaire is ever-apposite in reminding us that “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities” — or commit the mistake of believing the flimsy and tenuous justifications that lead to these atrocities, based upon fear and ignorance of the other, as well as willful propaganda.

    Obviously, we are not going to “solve” the I-P conflict here. But it has been interesting and instructive drawing out the contours and discussing it. You are free to visit and comment and I hope you will keep questioning and investigating the actions and claims of your government, as we all should ours.

    Lastly, quelling the perceived threat from Iran based upon its solidarity with the Palestinian suffering is easy. Recognize the Palestinian right to exist in their homeland. End the occupation. Cease illegal settlements. Respond to meaningful peace overtures. Stop standing in the way of a Palestinian state and starving and blocking their development. Stop calling for transfer. Acknowledge the past. That would obviate and defuse all the source of legitimate animosity toward Israel. The ball is, as it has been for some time, in Israel’s court.

    Here’s a hopeful link: Palestinians and Israelis Building Peace Together.

    B’Shalom.

  23. Servant
    23 April, 2007

    Well argued, Ann and E-Man. It’s only through open discussions like these that I ever learn anything.

    You always hear one side or the other but you never see them juxtaposed and correlated like this.

    Thank you both for the complex exposition of the issues and the perceptions of those issues. I wish I could be as gracious as you both are, but as American I feel like someone has my head in a sack and they beat me mercilessly every time I try to escape.

    E-Man – This phrase also strikes me as extremely self-centered in a world at war over the proposition that the west can establish a colony anywhere it likes and anyone who disagrees is automatically deemed a “terrorist.”

    “the best thing to happen to Jews in hundreds of years.”

    Perhaps this is true – but it seems to consider only the outcome for Jews as unrelated to what is happening to the rest of the world as a result.

    Further – one has to deconstruct it a bit further and ask if Jews are right about Israel as the panacea for anti-Semitism. It could just be true that this is not the same world as Europe in the 1930s and that Jews are safer than any people in the world in most of the west.

    Maybe it’s time to move on and face the reality that justice means that Jews have the same rights as everyone else in the world. And maybe the standard of measurement for justice is not how the world treats Jews standing off by themselves with their own human rights that are more important than everyone else’s – but how the world serves justice to everyone.

    I don’t see why it is not apparent to everyone that justice is a prerequisite for peace – in addition to “interests” as a way of seeing perceiving the right thing to do. If “interests” are the only measure of right and wrong then we have returned to the moral standards of tooth and nail and the only way to resolve any moral issue is through the principle that might makes right. And therefore the powerful will always have the final say in such a world.

    Again. Excellent dialogue. Thank you both.

  24. peoplesgeography
    24 April, 2007

    a world at war over the proposition that the west can establish a colony anywhere it likes and anyone who disagrees is automatically deemed a “terrorist.”

    That’s one of the best and clearest encapsulations I’ve yet read, as a matter of fact, Serv., as is the rest of what you wrote. Your important reminder about interdependency – no man people are an island is also appreciated:

    Perhaps this is true – but it seems to consider only the outcome for Jews as unrelated to what is happening to the rest of the world as a result.

    And, crucially (one good turn deserves another ;) ):

    … one has to deconstruct it a bit further and ask if Jews are right about Israel as the panacea for anti-Semitism. It could just be true that this is not the same world as Europe in the 1930s and that Jews are safer than any people in the world in most of the west.

    Maybe it’s time to move on and face the reality that justice means that Jews have the same rights as everyone else in the world. And maybe the standard of measurement for justice is not how the world treats Jews standing off by themselves with their own human rights that are more important than everyone else’s – but how the world serves justice to everyone.

    … justice is a prerequisite for peace – in addition to “interests” as a way of seeing perceiving the right thing to do. If “interests” are the only measure of right and wrong then we have returned to the moral standards of tooth and nail and the only way to resolve any moral issue is through the principle that might makes right. And therefore the powerful will always have the final say in such a world.

    Quite. Perfectly put with crystal clarity.

  25. Emmanuel
    24 April, 2007

    Jews have exactly the same rights as everybody else, no more and no less. One of those rights is the right to self-determination in their own state (a right which should be given to the Palestinians alongside us, when they guarantee their government won’t continue fighting to reclaim the 78% of Mandatory Palestine that are now Israel). Israel is not a colony, and I am not a colonist or colonizer. To say that the world is at war because of Israel is disingenuous. Do you truly believe all the problems of the Middle East would not have existed if Israel had not been created?

    You are asking me to rethink Israel’s existence, and I am not willing to do that. I constantly question whether Israel’s actions are just and correct, I am willing to do a lot of things for peace, but giving up on my country isn’t one of them. That is also why Ilan Pappe is considered fringe and pisses the hell out of people, including me – not because he is pro-peace, but because he is anti-Israel. By the way, Benny Morris is also considered fringe.

    Israel hasn’t been a saint, at times being too aggressive, using munitions it shouldn’t have used or targeting the wrong places, but I do not believe it tried to kill civilians, while Hizbullah and Hamas did. Hizbullah, as long as it just fought the army, was a guerilla group, but when it started shooting rockets deliberately at civilians, armed with little balls meant only to kill and mutilate, it showed that is a terrorist group. Besides, it started the war by kidnapping soldiers from within Israel – definitely an act of war, whether they’re terrorists or not.

    Your claim that Israeli Arabs were excluded from Jewish-only shelters is false. First of all, there is no such thing as Jewish-only shelters. Whoever is in the shelter’s vicinity can go in. Most of the Arabs who were killed died in Arab villages where there were no shelters, which is a serious problem. It’s the joint responsibility of the local authorities and the government. The Arab mayors never thought they needed shelters, and the government should have taken steps to build them. There is a degree of discrimination here, but this is not a case of Apartheid where Arabs were deliberately left outside to die.

    I believe Israel should make peace with its neighbors by creating a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza and giving the Golan Heights back to Syria. Our leaders’ failure to advance the peace process is very upsetting. What has to be done is clear to me, but how to get there is the problem. Israel has legitimate concerns regarding its own safety that need to be taken into consideration, just like the Palestinians’ concerns need to be taken into consideration, without being immediately labeled as hogwash. The fact that Hamas talks of the whole country as “holy Muslim territory” scares us. They are only willing to give us a ceasefire in exchange for their state, after which they will continue their Jihad (and that’s what they’re saying they’ll do, not our own wild interpretation). In Israel, only the most extreme far-right still talks of this whole land as given to us by God. In the PA, it’s their government! It is a legitimate concern. I don’t expect Palestinians to become Zionists, but neither should they expect us to become anti-Zionists.

    Today in Haaretz there are two pieces that I agree with and may clarify my position even further. The Editorial, and Yossi Sarid’s article.

  26. peoplesgeography
    24 April, 2007

    “Jews have exactly the same rights as everybody else, no more and no less.”

    This is a normative statement, it should be true but is demonstrably not true both within its borders—-non-Jewish citizens do not have all the same legal rights as Jewish Israeli citizens and in fact are actively discriminated against in some cases—and between Jews and non-Jews in the OPT and elsewhere. One such example is the law that disallows an Israeli Arab to live with their spouse if the spouse is from the West Bank or Gaza. Yet any non-Israeli Jew around the world who marries an Israeli can automatically settle in Israel. That is a glaring disparity between the rights accorded to Jews and the right accorded to others, to cite but one example; others include the disparity in free speech and vilification laws as they pertain to the Holocaust.

    So few Israeli Jews know what the discrimination is really like against Israeli Arabs. Amira Hass is one, a rare journalistic light who lived in an Arab town. Susan Nathan, brought up to be a committed zionist, is another. In her book, The Other Side of Israel, Susan Nathan details how she decided to live in the Arab town of Tamra, witnessing first hand the active discrimination of the Israeli state against Israeli Arabs (Bedouins, even more so).

    Most of her friends were “absolutely horrified” by the decision. Now even that attitude beggars belief, but racism is so endemic in Israel. You acknowledge this somewhat, but do not connect the dots with militaristic zionism. As Nathan says: “They didn’t understand the degree of discrimination in the state against Arabs. There is a militarist discourse in Israel. Jews are brainwashed to feel under threat. I was the same but the country needs more people to do what I did and speak out. We can’t sit on the fence anymore. We must stand up for our beliefs.”

    As she mentions in the book, there is a near-total exclusion of Israeli Arabs from public sector jobs. In a country where they make up 20 to 24% of the population, only six of the 13,000 employees of the Israeli Electricity Corporation are Arabs, for example.

    “when they guarantee their government won’t continue fighting to reclaim the 78% of Mandatory Palestine that are now Israel”

    There can be agreements but guarantees can not be asked of either side, just as we have no guarantees that a greater Israel won’t continue to be pursued either. Nor can you make an agreement contingent upon an absolute guarantee. This is another scuttling tactic.

    If anything it is the extreme zionist view that has eyed a Greater Israel, and they have great influence on policy. They want all the land of “Eretz Israel” —the total biblical Jewish homeland they believe God gave to the 12 tribes of Israel which includes all of present-day Israel and the OPT, Lebanon, most of Syria, part of Egypt and a large part of Jordon. Can I ask for a guarantee they won’t keep fighting?

    Israel already controls the choicest parts of the West Bank including 50% of its fresh water resources. Zionists are on record as saying they wanted the southern Lebanon and the water resources of the Litani River. Israel can invade Gaza any time it chooses to enter and reoccupy it, the Syrian Golan Heights that supply it with one-third of its total water, and the 25 kilometre Shebaa Farms area of South Lebanon it never relinquished after seizing it as well in the 1967 war.

    The PA has been quite secular. Hamas was elected because it wasn’t corrupt, not because it was religious.

    Israel, armed to the teeth, is really frightened that the Palestinians want all of Israel? Get real.

    The best way to secure borders is to first define them, and not provoke further enmity. Scuttling peace initiatives, viable statehood and continuing to steal Palestinian land (can’t the Israeli state control its own settlers?) is not going to achieve that. That’s common sense.

    So why doesn’t it make the moves that would bringing it the closest to a guarantee of peace, E.?

    Until and unless it does, the Israeli establishment’s failure to embrace these practical proposals only indicates that it doesn’t want peace, it wants territory; all the evidence so far points to Israel wanting an Eretz Israel, not the other way around. This is projection because it is Israel actively committing these crimes right now, rather than simply speculating that the Palestinians might do so, all the while making life even harder for them and peace less possible such that it can only increase their enmity against Israel.


    “To say that the world is at war because of Israel is disingenuous. Do you truly believe all the problems of the Middle East would not have existed if Israel had not been created?”

    Who said that the “world is at war because of Israel”? A statement cannot be disingenuous if it wasn’t made. Let’s be specific. Is the US at war in Iraq because of Israel, among other reasons? You bet. There’s no shortage of evidence, again, freely available here. I could give you half a dozen quite easily.

    And again don’t conflate attribution of causality — no one said they believed all the problems in the Middle East would not have existed if Israel had not been created either — another straw man you set up. In order to address someone’s arguments effectively, you first have to represent them accurately.


    “I do not believe it tried to kill civilians”

    This is a belief, not a fact. It is also a belief not borne out in figures and empirical evidence, which you have not provided at any point whatsoever.


    “You are asking me to rethink Israel’s existence”

    It is not about whether Israel should or should not exist at all, but the form this takes. It is a governance question, not an existential one. It is attempts to frame all such legitimate questions of governance, rights and justice as existential ones of survival that is disingenuous. If anything, it is the Palestinians that are facing anything near existential crisis.

    “when it started shooting rockets deliberately at civilians, armed with little balls meant only to kill and mutilate, it showed that is a terrorist group.”

    This is no different from how the IDF operated, only with far more bombs, more civilians killed and a higher proportion of civilians. You can not prove they didn’t deliberately target civilians, and the results in fact disprove your “belief”.

    Or is the IDF somehow so inferior to Hezbollah guerilla fighters that it keeps missing military targets? As for the other canard that Hezbollah hides among civilians, that is another myth. In fact it is the IDF that have recently been outed as despicably using civilians as human shields.


    “Besides, it started the war by kidnapping soldiers from within Israel – definitely an act of war”

    This is a false assertion. I really have to wonder whether you read, here. Did you not hear the Olmert government’s admission, see the numerous articles revealing that the war was in preparation for at least a year? Israel’s numerous incursions in Lebanese territory might equally have been regarded as acts of war, but I don’t see Hezbollah starting one. Israel’s provocations have been many and worse. The UN reported that Israel violated the United Nations-monitored “blue line” on an almost daily basis. This wasn’t an act of war, it was a pretext.

    As to Hezbollah’s firing of ineffective Katyushas, Hizbullah’s military doctrine states that it will fire Katyusha rockets into Israel only in response to Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians or Hizbullah’s leadership, and that has been borne out in evidence ie they have overwhelmingly acted defensively not offensively.

    In contrast, the IDF has terrorized the general Southern Lebanese population, breached the border and airspace numerous times, destroyed private property, and killed numerous civilians. I’ve already mentioned the prisoners illegally detained.

    “there is no such thing as Jewish-only shelters. Whoever is in the shelter’s vicinity can go in. Most of the Arabs who were killed died in Arab villages where there were no shelters, which is a serious problem. It’s the joint responsibility of the local authorities and the government.”

    This statement is not false as much as needs to be qualified. As you note, there are no shelters in Israeli Arab villages and this is a joint responsibility between the local authorities and Israeli government. Arab Israeli villages receive less funding and are subject to active discrimination, so that the shelters are Jew only in effect still stands. It wasn’t a matter of Arabs seeking shelter being excluded from them but nor was this simply an accident of geography. Another example of discrimination has been in the difference in damages given to Israeli Arab and non-Arab villages.

    They are only willing to give us a ceasefire in exchange for their state

    Again, not true. The Hamas government has already offered a hudna and abided by it for well over a year and a half until Israeli provocations once again. So they gave you a ceasefire — I don’t see a state.

    In Israel, only the most extreme far-right still talks of this whole land as given to us by God. In the PA, it’s their government!

    In Israel, the extreme far right also influences policy. More than the PA, which, as noted before, has been quite secular, they are in a position to act upon their extreme beliefs and the Israeli government turns a blind eye to the crimes of the racist settlers. In Hamas, its all just rhetoric which typically softens once in government (not that Israel has allowed them to govern).

    I could write so much more. I’ll leave it there for now for lack of time. Many of your assertions surprised me this time around for obvious baselessness. On the other previous occasions, there was a bit more apparent authentic argument. It makes me wonder whether you are really just positing parroted propaganda because you feel obliged, or this is what you really believe. I would expect a political science student to be a bit more aware of the situation with war planning regarding Lebanon (and Iraq), for example.

    As Amira Hass has written, can you really not see?

  27. Servant
    24 April, 2007

    Wow! Are you showing off for ANZAC day, Ann?

    Your supporting links remind me of my home state’s namesake in full-tilt mode.

    I’m going to find a hole and jump in it. Don’t want to be anywhere near the place where this much ordinance lands. :P

    The old Marine barks. Uraaaaaaaaaaah! Go Navy!

  28. peoplesgeography
    24 April, 2007

    You callin’ me a ship? ;) Seriously, that was link-lite. I’d invite E. to do his own reading. I can point to links but with this latest dispatch the links would have been multitudinous. I may yet come back and insert more relevant references tomorrow on our Anzac Day public holiday when I have more time.

    Thanks for noting our impending public holiday, Serv., you Iowan wonder. Must be your Marine background.

  29. Emmanuel
    25 April, 2007

    I never said there was no discrimination in Israel. Israel is far from perfect. There is still much work to be done to achieve equality within Israel. The occupied territories are a whole different thing – I don’t support the settlements at all.

    I support the law barring the entry of Palestinian spouses into Israel. The Palestinians in the territories are still our enemies.

    others include the disparity in free speech and vilification laws as they pertain to the Holocaust.

    Actually, free speech is one of the areas where there is no discrimination. Arabs, including (and especially) members of the Israeli parliament, can say anything they want, as long as they don’t incite violence.

    What laws are you referring to with regard to the Holocaust? I’m not sure I understand what you mean. If you mean that people can’t equate the Palestinians’ situation to the Holocaust – I don’t remember anyone being legally penalized over such a statement. (By the way, the situation in the territories is bad enough without calling it genocide, which it isn’t even close to being, despite what that Irish couple thinks).

    Who said that the “world is at war because of Israel”? A statement cannot be disingenuous if it wasn’t made.

    I was referring to Servant’s comment about “a world at war over the proposition that the west can establish a colony anywhere it likes and anyone who disagrees is automatically deemed a “terrorist” , though now that I think about it he probably meant the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and not Israel.

    Regarding the guarantee that they won’t keep fighting – I was referring to Hamas statements that it would only agree to a temporary ceasefire, and that is not good enough. If they officially agree to a lasting peace that’s a whole different story. Hopefully, Israel’s leaders will get enough sense and start talking to the Arab League, which might prompt Hamas to be less hard-line (despite today’s escalation).

    Israel, armed to the teeth, is really frightened that the Palestinians want all of Israel? Get real.

    Statements like this really piss me off. It’s a legitimate concern and nobody should dismiss it as bullshit. The Palestinians can make Israelis’ lives miserable if they want to, even if they are less armed than Israel.

    When you ask me to consider the binational solution, I see it as asking to rethink the existence of Israel. Israel with a Palestinian majority would be Palestine, not Israel. This is very important to understand.

    Regarding the Lebanon war – there were plans for a war in case one breaks out. There are always plans in the drawer. The war definitely would not have broken out without Hizbullah’s attack. I agree that Israel should not have violated Lebanese airspace and should have provided Lebanon with maps of minefields, but this does not justify Hizbullah’s actions on July 12. If they had taken down an Israeli plane in Lebanese air we would not have any legitimate complaint.

    I notice that you see everything as Israel’s fault all the time. The Palestinians and other Arabs are infallible. I, on the other hand, see both sides’ faults. It seems odd to me that you criticize me for a lack of original thought when it seems that you yourself are doing quite a bit of parroting of the Arab party line.

  30. peoplesgeography
    25 April, 2007

    I never said there was no discrimination in Israel.

    Nor did I accuse you of this. In fact I noted your acknowledgment of the racism.

    Hopefully, Israel’s leaders will get enough sense and start talking to the Arab League

    Indeed. And you seem to have cleared it up re the statement Serv made, so I’ll let that one go.

    I don’t dismiss your fears as “bullshit”, simply as implausible given the current asymmetry. Again, a just settlement can take a lot of fire out of these grievances, and the impetus behind “making Israelis lives miserable”. How about starting with not making Palestinian lives miserable, which is fuelling their grave and legitimate grievances? And there is no equivalence, and in fact a stark asymmetry, between Israeli and Palestinian misery.

    A just settlement will also solidify Israel’s 1967 borders once and for all, within which the insisted-upon sectarian Jewish majority may be maintained.

    What laws are you referring to with regard to the Holocaust?

    I was referring to laws in Europe rather than Israel when talking about the differential in rights, the ones that slap harsh penalties such as imprisonment for Holocaust denial yet deem anti-Islamic images “free speech”. I did not go into the tension between hate speech and free speech in depth, I only touched upon it, pointing to the perceived anomaly.

    The war definitely would not have broken out without Hizbullah’s attack.

    That is sheer speculation and very unlikely. Yes, a war was being prepared for, but there are many suggestions that it was not simply a contingency, and that Hezbollah’s capture of soldiers was simply used as a pretext. The ludicrous lack of proportionality in Israel’s response points to the fact that it wanted this war rather than somehow just responding to this one act. If it was, why bomb the whole country? Your reasoning is rather unconvincing. You write in circularity: “there were plans for a war in case one breaks out.” But a war didn’t break out, Israel made it a war when it could have been a peaceful prisoner exchange. Did Britain strike all of Iran recently for their capture of twelve Brits in disputed waters?

    Let’s examine the facts. After a long string of Israeli provocations (many of which, going by your measure, would have been considered war worthy), Hezbollah captured a number of combatants (not civilians).

    What did Hezbollah want by their capture? To exchange them for hundreds of Lebanese prisoners illegally held by Israel. Did Israel engage in exchange talks? No, the Shin Bet scuttled them. The militarist state deliberately chose war, and not just strikes on southern Lebanon or Hezbollah, but on the whole country and civilian infrastructure, and blockading it afterwards.

    Capturing soldiers for the purposes of prisoner exchange has been set as a precedent before, and even if objectionable in no way invites an attack, a war upon the whole country. Did it get you your soldiers back? No. Israel’s own intransigence suggests that it wanted this war, it was just looking for a pretext.

    So how does capturing combatants, not civilians, as Israel has done in hundreds, possibly justify the wholesale bombing of residential communities all over Lebanon, including non-Hezbollah and Christian communities in the north? Quite apart from the monstrous lack of proportional response, it didn’t achieve Israel’s stated objectives. The soldiers are still with Hezbollah and Hezbollah are still there in force as a Lebanese movement.

    It is Israel’s actions that constitute an “attack”, and in fact war crime, under international law: The First Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions, 1977:

    “It is prohibited to attack, destroy, remove or render useless objects indispensable to the survival of the civilian population, such as foodstuffs, agricultural areas for the production of foodstuffs, crops, livestock, drinking water installations and supplies such as irrigation works, for the specific purpose of denying … sustenance value to the civilian population or to the adverse Party, whatever the motive, whether in order to starve out civilians, to cause them to move away, or any other motive.”

    Of course, Israel doesn’t hold the UN in high regard, except where it can make political capital out of it, selectively calling for others to adhere to UN resolutions whilst ignoring the most of any country, behind the skirts of the US.

    “If they had taken down an Israeli plane in Lebanese air we would not have any legitimate complaint.”

    Again, sheer speculation. The pattern of lack of proportionality would definitely suggest otherwise.

    I notice that you see everything as Israel’s fault all the time.

    If I do (and that’s your perception), so must a good deal of the Israeli and international voices I present. And I give credit where credit is due, such as here, here and here.

    The Palestinians and other Arabs are infallible.

    Oh really? Simply by presenting the Palestinian perspective, I am saying that they are infallible? Where do I say that? If the alternative media appears to be pro-Palestinian (excuse me, pro-justice), it is only because the mainstream media is so decidedly one-sided and neglects it. We are often a corrective but it does not mean we are also not critical, such as here. I also endeavour to present joint initiatives; in addition to the one linked to in a previous comment, there are other applauded joint initiatives such as here and here.

    I, on the other hand, see both sides’ faults.

    Seeing both sides faults (and there are faults on both) does not mean that they are both equally to blame in this conflict. Israel bears greater responsibility for the reasons I have repeatedly laid out. Nor am I in the facile business of comparing my coverage with yours. This is not a news service that claims to be neutral, nor do I think it is possible to be neutral. My stated aim is to present the thinking, critical under-reported perspective, not the corporate propagated one we are saturated with on Fox News and other outlets of that ilk that absolves Israel. If Israel weren’t so uncritically reported, we wouldn’t need to be so critical.

    quite a bit of parroting of the Arab party line

    Just what would that be? Do more than a dozen (almost two dozen in the League) Arab governments all speak with the same voice? Are they all homogeneous politically that we can discern a single tongue? I wouldn’t even know what the “Arab party line” is, so please tell me. I call it as I see it, and the cause I’m for is justice. In South Africa in the 1980s I’d be batting for the blacks (because that would be a just cause, not because I was toeing the black “party line”), nor would that mean that I was anti-white. That would be news to my white South African friends. In the 1930s I would be speaking up for European Jews, in the 1960s I would be speaking up for women, and others. Justice is my only party line, E.

    Hannah Arendt, whom I’ve quoted elsewhere, once astutely noted that “though tyranny, because it needs no consent, may successfully rule over foreign peoples, it can stay in power only if it destroys first of all the national institutions of its own people.” I suggest that we are seeing this with alarming alacrity within Israel today, evidenced in so many instances, including this one.

  31. Emmanuel
    25 April, 2007

    I agree that Israel should not make Palestinian lives miserable (and I know that it is). I don’t agree with most of what Israel is doing in the occupied territories.

    I didn’t say Israel wouldn’t complain if a plane would be shot down – I just said it would not be a legitimate complaint, as opposed to complaining about Hezbullah’s attack on our soldiers, which I do see as legitimate (the complaint, not the attack – and in this case, even the international community agreed).

    Shooting all over the place doesn’t mean it was planned – it sounds more like winging it. Israel achieved almost nothing in this war, which means our side planned it very poorly. We definitely overreacted, but I do think we should have had some sall scale military reaction. In 2000, we did not react when our soldiers were kidnapped, so Hezbullah felt it could safely do it again. Now Hizbullah will think twice about doing this again.

    The best way to get the Lebanese people who are in Israeli jails released would be through peace negotiations with Israel, not through attacks.

    I never said you need to be balanced. I tried to show that your claim that I’m just following an official line is no more true about me than it is about you.

    Somehow we’ve gone all over the place with this. We started with the Palestinian Right of Return and somehow got to Iran and Lebanon. Bringing up every aspect of the conflict isn’t very constructive. I have a suggestion: I’ll keep reading your blog and comment on specific issues and I invite you to read my blog and comment whenever you want. What do you think?

  32. peoplesgeography
    25 April, 2007

    That’s fine E., as stated before, you are free to comment. I don’t see it as too much of a problem that a lot of ground was covered, it’s constructive to look at it in ten points as it is to look at it in one, for while the devil is in the detail, a big picture perspective is also important. That’s the nature of this and any complex conflict.

    I could write another refutation of a number of things in your last comment (peace negotiations would normally be the best way, but the Israeli government hasn’t come to the table, forcing Hezbollah’s hand to retrieve illegally held prisoners by way of exchange; I’d dispute that some sort of military response was in fact warranted, rather that is applying a cure that’s the same or worse than the disease and the heavy hand of militarism is what gave rise to and escalated the problem in the first place — and counterproductive in that Hezbollah will just be on the greater defensive now rather than thinking twice, that a prisoner exchange and military restraint is far from “not doing anything in 2000”) but I’ll leave it there.

    To clarify, I was less criticising you for a lack of original thought than wondering about your motives in repeating obviously baseless assertions. I wondered whether you yourself subscribed to them or whether you felt obliged to present Israel’s official position, is all.

    My only constraints are time at the moment as you may have noted from my blog hibernation post. But I’ll still be around and more regularly later in the year. So if I don’t immediately comment on your blog you’ll know why, but I will endeavour to visit.

  33. Pingback: Reclaiming Space: The Palestinian Right of Return Doha Debate « Maldivian Dissident

  34. Adrian
    21 July, 2007

    Saying that a Jewish right of return morally necessitates a Palestinian right of return is a neat argument. But what if Palestinians get their right of return, become a majority, and democratically vote away the Jewish right? What will happen then? These ‘European Jews’ the Palestinians consider such foreigners certainly don’t have a right of return to Europe. Jews (like Protestants and Catholics at times) have fled persecution in various European countries for centuries, and none of those countries (except AFAIK Spain) has ever apologised or invited their descendants back.

  35. Ann El Khoury
    21 July, 2007

    Hi Adrian,

    Thanks for your comment. With respect to your question, a democratic state for all its citizens, with laws enshrined guaranteeing equal rights for all regardless of religion, would effecteively obviate this. No one group would need to be a numerical majority as minority group rights are protected. This is a vast improvement on the current situation. Nor would any Israelis have to leave, but nor would the ‘aliyah’ superecede a native Palestinian rights either. The proposal is not that Israelis leave or relinquish rights, but that clearly racist and inequitable privileges be relinqushed.

Leave a Reply

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

WordPress.com Logo

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo

You are commenting using your Google account. Log Out /  Change )

Twitter picture

You are commenting using your Twitter account. Log Out /  Change )

Facebook photo

You are commenting using your Facebook account. Log Out /  Change )

Connecting to %s

Timely Reminders

"Those who crusade, not for God in themselves, but against the devil in others, never succeed in making the world better, but leave it either as it was, or sometimes perceptibly worse than what it was, before the crusade began. By thinking primarily of evil we tend, however excellent our intentions, to create occasions for evil to manifest itself."
-- Aldous Huxley

"The only war that matters is the war against the imagination. All others are subsumed by it."
-- Diane DiPrima, "Rant", from Pieces of a Song.

"It is difficult
to get the news from poems
yet men die miserably every day
for lack
of what is found there"
-- William Carlos Williams, "Asphodel, That Greeny Flower"


Categories