Doing Business in Occupied Palestine
The lives of ordinary Palestinians is something that doesn’t tend to get much play in the American media. But here’s Sam Bahour, a Palestinian entrepreneur, talking about the difficulties of simply trying to peaceably start businesses in the West Bank. It involved spending 15 years on a series of tourist visas:
The absence of peace between Israel and Palestine is a negative-sum dynamic. Both sides, in other words, would be better off if peace could be reached. But there is no peace. And Israel, as the stronger party, has managed to allocate the vast majority of the deficit onto the Palestinian population. Israelis, in other words, are somewhat worse off than they would be under conditions of peace. But Palestinians are much worse off. The stronger side making the weaker side bear the brunt of the negative consequences of a bad situation isn’t particularly unusual. That’s life. But it’s not justice.
70 Responses to “Doing Business in Occupied Palestine”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
May 21st, 2009 at 4:13 pm
The absence of peace between Israel and Palestine…
Right, it’s just like the absence of peace between Germany and Poland in 1940.
May 21st, 2009 at 4:48 pm
it’s even worse to try to start a business in gaza. the blockade covers just about everything, from building supplies to chocolate. it’s pretty much impossible to have any normal commercial activity there.
May 21st, 2009 at 5:05 pm
Thank you for speaking out loud.
May 21st, 2009 at 5:11 pm
Israelis, in other words, are somewhat worse off than they would be under conditions of peace. But Palestinians are much worse off. The stronger side making the weaker side bear the brunt of the negative consequences of a bad situation isn’t particularly unusual. That’s life. But it’s not justice.
Yup. It’s not justice for either side.
Then again, if the Palestinians are “much worse off”, you’d think they’d have settled by now. They haven’t, which provides powerful evidence that Matthew doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
May 21st, 2009 at 5:32 pm
Then again, if the Palestinians are “much worse off”, you’d think they’d have settled by now.
I remember wondering back in fall, 1990, “Why haven’t the damned Kuwaitis settled by now?”
Of course, in the end it turned out they were barbarians who understand nothing but violence.
May 21st, 2009 at 6:08 pm
Israel isn’t worse off. It’s better off. It gets choice lebensraum for its volk and cheap labor. Well worth the occasional suicide bombing or random rocket attack.
May 21st, 2009 at 6:46 pm
If I didn’t think the Arabs could end this conflict fairly quickly if they sincerely wished to make the necessary compromises — things like giving up Jaffa, or the right to stage missiles in the West Bank (the topic of your previous equally balanced posting on this subject) — I might agree with you.
But I do think that.
Lots of the usual Nazi hate speech here. Nice neighborhood.
May 21st, 2009 at 7:42 pm
Re abb1
Actually, there was peace between Germany and Poland in 1940. Poland was conquered in 1939. But, of course, it should surprise no one that Mr. abb1 doesn’t know his fucking ass from a fucking hole in the fucking ground.
May 21st, 2009 at 10:41 pm
Wow, it turns out the Intifada has been bad for Palestinian small business? Shocking!
May 21st, 2009 at 11:04 pm
You know, Larry, one of my best friends, his dad was in Dachau. He was the only survivor of his family. Parents, eight brother and sisters, including twins. Makes you think.
I read your stuff, Birnbaum, and then I read Hannah Arendt’s writing on the banality of evil, and the descriptions of the men who were little pieces of the Holocaust. You have just the right touch. That careful distance and disinterest, that facile contempt, the unthinking self absorption, and the easy willingness to blame victims for their suffering, the automatic tolerance for oppression, the endless subliminal current of self pity.
You would have made an excellent concentration camp guard at Dachau. Your writing has all the right qualities.
May 21st, 2009 at 11:49 pm
What kind of settlement are you envisioning? It seems that Israel will only accept a Bantustan-like arrangement. Do you think that the Palestinians not agreeing to that shows intransigence on their side?
I am not sure about the cheap labor. Due to security concerns this has been mostly eliminated, I believe.
So, in your opinion, Israel is willing to settle for a Palestinian state along the 67 border? If so, why are hundreds of thousands of Israeli colonists being settled in the West Bank?
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:37 am
Well, Den, one of your best friends is Jewish? That apparently gives you the right to shower me with hate speech. Talk about facile contempt.
To nevertheless address two serious points in your comment. Do I seem glib or ironic in my comments here? That isn’t because of the situation, which G-d knows is unbelievably painful and complicated. It’s because of Yglesias’s Hallmark-card analyses, which are at some level masterpieces of irony.
Blaming the victim. The Arabs have had, with rare exceptions, appallingly bad political leadership over the past 60+ years. It’s not my place to blame them for this. But ultimately this is not something that can be solved from the outside. So I wouldn’t talk of blame here, but I would say that responsibility is an issue. No one can solve this problem for them. They must solve it for themselves. Until they do, not much is going to change.
Sortition, I’m too tired to restate my thoughts about this at length, but the short answer is no, the deal will not be as good as they might have gotten up until 1967, or for that matter 1949. Vowing to drive people into the sea and then losing wars with them in the effort to do so has consequences.
May 22nd, 2009 at 1:47 am
It seems that Israel will only accept a Bantustan-like arrangement.
No, Zionists will not accept a Bantustan-like arrangement. If they were offered a Bantustan-like arrangement, they would demand something else. There is no point in negotiating with them.
May 22nd, 2009 at 5:12 am
That’s true, Larry Birnbaum is a vulgar racist and a Nazi-Zionist troll, who can’t stop talking about ‘Arabs’ in such a manner as if ‘Arabs’ were some different species.
That’s Zionism for you. Of course many of the Zionists are Arabs (aka Semites) themselves, which makes their delusions so much more hilarious.
May 22nd, 2009 at 7:33 am
Re abb1
That’s true, Larry Birnbaum is a vulgar racist and a Nazi-Zionist troll, who can’t stop talking about ‘Arabs’ in such a manner as if ‘Arabs’ were some different species.
Actually, Arabs are a different species, more closely related to their ape ancestors then the rest of the population. They have more in common with their chimp cousins then with the rest of us.
May 22nd, 2009 at 8:05 am
SLC, abb1 gets his rocks off being hateful. Your doing the same doesn’t help matters. Even as sarcasm, your posting is unacceptable. Do you feel you were provoked by his hate speech? You can’t control what people who hate will say online. You can only control what you say.
May 22nd, 2009 at 8:21 am
Yeah, I sure do detest racist swine like you, Larry; you got that right. And you sure don’t control me. Good.
May 22nd, 2009 at 8:55 am
You’re an ass.
May 22nd, 2009 at 9:03 am
Your last posting is unacceptable, Larry; it’s almost as if you were getting your rocks off being hateful. Control yourself, buddy.
May 22nd, 2009 at 9:37 am
Abb1,
If the territory of Israel is to be ‘given back’ to the Palestinians, then just where do you want the Jews to go? And don’t say “America”, because the Israelis have too much self-respect and dignity to want to share a country with Jew-hating yahoos like yourself.
So just where is the new Jewish State to be? Somalia? Madagascar? Birobidjan? COme on, cough it up. What’s your plan? And don’t give us some nonsense about Jews and Muslims sitting down to sing “Kumbaya” together. Fortunately, the Israelis are not pussified hipster Rodney King pacifists, they are real men who know that no one gives you justice, you have to fight for it in blood and fire.
May 22nd, 2009 at 9:49 am
Abb1, the point is that Larry Birnbaum is not a vulgar, racist Nazi-zionist troll.
This is part of the problem actually, the automatic categorizations of black and white, the attribution of monstrous features to monstrous attitudes.
Mr. Birnbaum is not a monster. He does not pull the wings off of flies. He does not cackle with glee urinating on babies. He does not masturbate to thoughts of toture.
Indeed, Mr. Birnbaum is most likely a civilized and decent man by his lights, kind to babies and small animals, donating to charitable causes, a lover of music, courteous within his social circle, etc. etc. I will not challenge any of these qualities.
On the other hand, the same could be said for many or most of the administrators and guards at Dachau. They were not succorred from Germany’s most depraved and sociopathic elements.
They were, for the most part, ordinary decent people, like Mr. Birnbaum. Because that’s the median where everyone tends to lay. And the thing that distinguished them from the rest of us, the thing that makes them resemble Mr. Birnbaum, was merely some special quirks in their thinking, either pre-existing, or acquired, by which they were able to shunt away moral culpability, to avoid thinking about the horror that they were a part of.
When you read Hanna Arendt, on the banality of evil, her views of Eichman. Or when you read those who have studied such men, the views are remarkably consistent. They were self consciously civilized, concerned about spilling of blood, focused on conducting their operations as efficiently and humanely. Horror was being done, yes, but regretably as a necessity.
It is startling how Mr. Birnbaum’s views and mental pathways mimic those persons. His attitude that the victims are authors of their victimisation, that they are secretly in control. His thesis that if the Palestinians truly wanted peace, they could have it. His careful avoidance of contrary facts. His penchant for bellowing like a gored ox whenever he feels personally offended, or perpetual moral one upsmanship. The cloak of civility behind which he excludes Palestinians from humanity.
Seriously, one could take everything Mr. Birnbaum has written in here about Palestinians, substitute ‘Jews’ for ‘Palestinians’ and insert it into Eichman’s diaries and no one would know the difference.
I frankly find this disturbing. We don’t seem to have learned anything in the last century at all. The mental gymnastics, the tricks and quirks and careful pathways of thinking to justify the Holocaust are all reproduced in exactitude.
It does no good to think of Mr. Birnbaum as a monster, for clearly he is not. Nor can we think of him as an atavism, for the strain of his kind of thinking is common, and others such as SLC are openly murderous. I bear no ill will towards Mr. Birnbaum, while his views and his manner of thinking is the view and thinking of concentration camp guards in the Holocaust, he himself guards no concentration camps, takes no direct role in murder and atrocity. Even if the currency and legitimacy of his thinking is the gateway to murder and atrocity, I think its far too great a moral weight to impose on one man puttering away in comments on someones political blog.
Rather, I am simply disturbed by what I see, and I see no real way to reach him or wake him to the moral atrociousness of his thought. Even after WWII was over and some of these men were in the dock or fled, they still held to their appalling convictions, the mental armour they had built to live with what they had done was impenetrable.
I could ask Mr. Birnbaum to be reflective rather than reflexive. I could ask him to contemplate matters not in a partisan way, but through lens of compassion and fairness. I could ask him to address himself to the actual thinking and mental evasions that made the Holocaust, rather than reducing that event and every other event to moral cartoons. I could ask him to read Arendt, Eichman, the actual psychological studies of the Holocaust, the investigations of the culture and circumstances that produced it, and compare these with his own thinking and modern circumstances.
I don’t think he will. I don’t think that he is capable of it. And I suspect that if he ever even began to make the effort, that the process would quickly become so repellent he would stop.
You know, history is littered with atrocities. The thing that makes the Holocaust particularly unique is that I don’t think any other atrocity was ever so publicly and minutely examined, so carefully sifted, so thoroughly investigated.
And it seems after all that, we didn’t learn a damned thing.
Or perhaps the Larry Birnbaums of the world simply choose to forget.
May 22nd, 2009 at 9:51 am
Re Hector
Interestingly enough, Madagascar was proposed as the Jewish homeland in 1935 by none other then one Adolf Eichmann, although, of course, his position was that it would not be voluntary.
May 22nd, 2009 at 10:06 am
Re Den Valdron
This the same Hannah Arendt who could never get over her infatuation with her mentor, Martin Heidegger, the well known philosopher, apologist for Hitler, and Nazi party member?
I actually find Mr. Valdrons’ comment about Mr. Birnbaum to be more atrocious and objectionable then the comments of Mr. abb1. Mr. abb1 is clearly a deranged nutcase with a fixation about Zionists. On the other hand, Mr. Valdron comes across as serious commentor. Actually, Mr. Birnbaum come across to me as someone rather sympathetic to the Palestinians and a supporter of the two state solution. To compare him with concentration camp guards is outrageous. But apparently, anyone who supports a Jewish state in Palestine is comparable to a concentration camp guard to fucktards like Mr. Valdron.
May 22nd, 2009 at 10:07 am
What’s with all the bullshit, Hector? Jews and non-Jews alike can stay or go to any place they want (and have legal rights) to go. Those (both Jews and non-Jews) who have no place to go and can reasonably demonstrate to be in fear for their lives apply for a refugee status and live in refugee camps (or countries willing to accept them) until the situation improves.
This is how it’s done in the post WWII world; this is how it’s done for the human being of all races and ethnicities.
Now, if you think you’re super-human, then fly the hell off this planet, settle on Krypton and leave us the mere mortals alone.
And if you are human, then what the fuck the difference does it make whether you’re a Jew or not? Where will the Jews go? The same place people with shoe sizes 9 thru 11 go. Nobody cares about you being a Jew and you shouldn’t either. Just be a human being among human beings, that’s all.
May 22nd, 2009 at 10:17 am
Mr. abb1,
I’m not a Jew, moron, I’m a Christian. And just as I would like there to be states whre Christianity is the state religion, likewise the Jews have the right to build a state where Judaism is the state religion, and where the purpose of the country is to protect the Jews. The Jews should feel under no obligation to honor the absurd fiction that Islam is equal to Judaism. Like it or not, if you force the Jews out of Israel they will find another country that they can make their own, where ignorant yahoos like yourself will be forced to submit yourself to Jewish dominance. And if you don’t like it, go f*ck yourself.
You on the other hand think religion and ethnicity are no more important than shoe size. Typical of the modern hipster secularist. And it proves the point that the biggest enemy of Judaism today, the modern Amalek, is not Islam: it’s Hipsterdom. From the point of view of the Jews, a Yglesian hipster is worse than a Jihadist. The first requirement of a healthy Jewish state is that Yglesian liberal writings be burned as subversive antisemitic propaganda.
May 22nd, 2009 at 10:52 am
Israelis, in other words, are somewhat worse off than they would be under conditions of peace.
Unless your utility function includes positional goods and Schadenfreude, in which case they’re *better* off because they have someone to look down on.
History (and not just Israeli history) demonstrates pretty clearly that most people’s utility function *does* include positional goods and Schadenfreude. This is part of why Israel has no interest in any peaceful solution. (A *just* solution is even worse from the Israeli point of view, requiring them to give up many of their current unjust advantages.)
The other part is that if you just keep building enough settlements, eventually you’ll have the whole territory and all the Palestinians that aren’t dead yet will be displaced refugees fleeing into other countries and therefore not your problem. That’s the Israeli right’s desired end condition – unstated, of course.
Some parts of the Israeli left are open to reasonable two-state solutions or to one-state solutions with equal rights for non-Jews. But they’re essentially powerless within Israel, and have no influence on the government’s actions.
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:04 am
Den, very eloquent, but still hate speech. To compare Israel’s occupation of of the Palestinians, with all the pain it inflicts on them, to genocide, the premeditated murder of millions of Armenians, Jews, Gypsies, Rwandans, Bosnians and Albanians, Sudanese, and others over the past century, is a moral disgrace. To compare me with a concentration camp guard is hyperbole verging on anti-Semitism — because the point of such a comparison is to wound me on account of my ethnic and religious background. But who knows — perhaps you would think it within the bounds of acceptable political discussion if someone were to compare Barack Obama with a slave overseer because of “socialist” tendencies. Somehow I doubt it. You probably imagine yourself to be a liberal.
SLC, I appreciate your comments in this instance.
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:24 am
Well, Hector, you’re apparently just a troglodyte, so what are you doing typing on the keyboard? Go hunt some goats and sacrifice them.
State religion my ass – are you a complete idiot? Israel is probably the least religious state on earth, something like 85% (off the top of my head) of the Israeli Jews don’t believe in any deity whatsoever. Yes, you are clearly an idiot.
Den Valdron, don’t overdramatize. The guy is simply a racist nutcase, extremely proud of his bloodline. He spends all day wondering about every person he meets or reads about in the news: is he or isn’t he? What’s his mother’s maiden name?
I know the type, a provincial racist, just like a skinhead in Alabama somewhere.
In his mind there’s one big Arab, one big Jew, one big Dutch (for some reason they hate the Dutch more than other Europeans) who fight each other, this is how he sees the world. You know the joke: “earthquake in China – terrible news, but is it bad for the Jews?” – that’s our friend Larry.
And no, he can’t be a decent guy. He’s an unpleasant guy. Probably pulls wings from the flies too.
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:47 am
Some parts of the Israeli left are open to reasonable two-state solutions or to one-state solutions with equal rights for non-Jews
The dividing line is where Zionism ends. There is no solution within Zionism and can’t be. Zionism requires institutionalized racism, fear- and hate-mongering, permanent war – or else people tend to lose their tribalistic enthusiasm and turn normal again.
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:55 pm
In other words, your little shtick about Jaffa is pure manipulation. Your real position is that whatever the Israelis are benevolent enough to offer is good enough for the Palestinians.
May 22nd, 2009 at 12:58 pm
This is historically true, but is no more of a theoretical necessity for Zionism than it is for any other form of nationalism, most of which are also historically based on racism, etc.
May 22nd, 2009 at 1:14 pm
I keep carping about this, but here goes again. Things are not as simple as they seem and can rarely be reduced to simple equations in Israel and the Palestinian Territories.
Regarding “Zionism”: many of my friends (though not enough to make a difference) voted “Meretz”. Certainly not a party in favour of “institutionalized racism, fear – and hate-mongering, permanent war”.
Feel free to respond, just please don’t call me names or try to psychoanalyze me: I am neither Israeli nor Jewish, but I have spent a good deal of time in Israel, Jordan and the West Bank over the last three years.
Thanks.
May 22nd, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Sortition (and Mark, I suppose),
I don’t mind political nationalism, the communitarian sort. People live in a community, they are attached to it, they are proud of it, they defend it, want it to flourish, to make the best of it.
I also don’t mind cultural ethnic nationalism; by all means: sing your songs, speak your language (did I mention that Zionists literally destroyed Yiddish?), cook your ethnic food, worship your ethnic gods – fine with me.
But Zionism is both political and ethnic. That’s what it is, by definition. It aims to advance an ethnic group (not a community) by political means, using a state apparatus, i.e.: by means of violence.
Every time a similar ideology rears its ugly head in Europe (France, Austria recently), every time someone somewhere suggests that some group of people should be treated differently because of their ancestry (Jean-Marie Le Pen: “La France aux Français”), immediately an alarm goes off – fascists! Nazis! And that’s correct, it’s a very good reason to be alarmed.
So, what’s different with Zionism? I really don’t understand. Maybe you guys can set me straight, but I doubt it. I have thought about it a lot.
May 22nd, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Mark,
Unfortunately, things are rather simple and they keep getting simpler. The role of Meretz and the “Zionist doves” in the past may be worth discussing for its historical implications, but today they have declined to such a sorry state (3 MKs out of 120) that they no longer matter.
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:01 pm
This is true for every manifestation of nationalism. Zionism is not different – it is the same. It is the same as European nationalism, U.S. nationalism, etc. These always have their more fundamentalist, virulent representatives and their more sophisticated, tolerant representatives. In times of distress, the former tend to become more dominant. Israelis have been going through a lot of distress (due to the actions of their own governments), and the result is Israeli pubic opinion as we know it, but this is not any different than, say, the dynamics of U.S. public opinion following Sept. 11, 2001.
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:13 pm
You know, Sortition, it’s called “negotiation.” The Israelis aren’t going to offer anything out of benevolence at this point — not after living at the point of a gun for 60+ years. And the Palestinians aren’t either — not after losing so much and then living under occupation. So they’ll have to negotiate something. Your original question — well, it wasn’t really a question, but I took it as well meant and at face value — was, would Israel will be happy with the 1949 Armistice line? The actual answer is, they aren’t going to say in advance of negotiation what they might settle for, any more than the Palestinians will, because the minute you do that, you put yourself at a disadvantage. If you had a lawyer representing you in some difficult negotiation, and he went in and just blurted out your bottom line, and it later turns out you could have gotten something better than that, then that lawyer would be guilty of professional malpractice. You could sue him for damages.
But of course, you, and Yglesias, and everyone else who wishes Israel ill already know this. It’s just your “shtick” to pretend that you don’t understand the obvious.
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:16 pm
No, it’s not the same, far from it. A nationalist movement is often defined by a community, country. American nationalism, for example, can not be based on ethnicity, it just won’t work – there is no common ancestry. French nationalists (except for the Le Pen crowd) care about France the country, not people of Gallic ancestry. That’s common and it’s legitimate.
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Just want to say “Amen” to Dan Valdron’s little essay above.
The real problem is that the mental armor of the “Larrys” of the world is actually quite widespread; it came to murderous conclusion in the Holocaust but the underlying attitudes can be found in any case of bigotry. Valdron perfectly describes certain racist relatives of mine with whom I’ve had several arguments. Their assumption that the victim is responsible for his or her own situation was based on race, but the “logic” was the same, except that at the core of it isn’t logic at all: it’s a cowardly sense of self that allows the bigot to devoutly believe that he is truly better than those worse off than him in a system in which he can think of himself as the ruling class, and that his “betterness” consists not in any actual demonstration of any kind of intelligence or ability that he secretly knows he lacks but in some easily identified outward characteristic (skin color, ethnicity) that separates him from those he can now comfortably despise. The core of it is pure fear, which is why bigotry so often takes the form of harping on the violent nature of the despised group. I have relatives who are quite sure that the “civil rights” in the 60’s just meant “race riots,” even though living in the middle of Pennsylvania they were so far away from any actual race riots that their fears of them are purely hypothetical.
There are lots of people in every country who could be found to be camp guards in Nazi Germany.
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Surprisingly enough, we have all heard about “negotiations” and understand the concept well. The question was, and is, what are those negotiations about. If Israel (and you) is expecting the Palestinians to accept something that is less than a state on the WB and Gaza (which constitute 22% of the area west of the Jordan river), why is Israel (and you) pretending that dispute is over Jaffa, etc.?
No. In reality the dispute is, and has been for a very long time, about those 22% and about whether the Palestinians can have a state at all, with Israel wanting significant parts of the WB and effective control of all of it.
May 22nd, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Whether a common ethnicity exists in reality matters very little. Genetically and culturally, European (Ashkenazi) Jews and Mediterranean basin (Sefardi) Jews are quite different. What matters is a notion of “us” that is exclusive. This notion is inherent to nationalism.
May 22nd, 2009 at 3:12 pm
First of all, Zionism is an Ashkenazim phenomenon, the Sephardim are merely tolerated. “They stink like Arabs”, I heard there. The demise of the Labor party can be plausibly explained by their electing a Moroccan to be the party leader a few years ago.
Second, it doesn’t have to be real. Nazis had a set of rules on how to define a “Jew”, Zionists use almost the same exactly rules.
The “notion of us” is inherent in anything and everything. Us, the IT experts. Us, the Catholics. Us, the workers of the world. Us, the women. Us, the Jews. Us, the Bostonians.
Each one of these groupings can be meaningful in some context and wicked in others.
So, your definition of nationalism is lacking substance, I’m afraid.
“Bostonian”, in addition to geographical and cultural, is also a political category; Boston’s representatives in the Federal government are trying to benefit the Bostonians, perhaps at the expense of New Yorkers, and that’s all right.
But “Jew” is not a political category, unless you’re a Nazi or Zionist. It’s simply obscene to use it as a political category.
May 22nd, 2009 at 3:49 pm
Sortition, so your contention is, straightfowardly, that the only thing to be negotiated is whether there is going to be a Palestinian state and how much of the West Bank it will have, i.e., where the borders are going to be.
Interestingly enough, the Palestinians themselves think that it’s also about refugees from 1948-49 and their descendents, and whether they can move to Israel. That’s the issue they put on the table. And the Israelis think it’s about their security and whether any Palestinian state would be in a position to, e.g., launch missiles at them. That’s the issue they put on the table. And both parties think it’s also about Jerusalem.
Which is to say, the dispute is, on its face, and contrary to your contention, not merely about “those 22% and … whether the Palestinians can have a state at all.”
But you already knew that.
And so, of course, does Yglesias.
May 22nd, 2009 at 3:58 pm
I don’t agree at all that it is becoming more simple. I think there is the appearance of polarization, but that the situation is far more fluid than it appears.
I also think that reductionism isn’t at all helpful (although I’d be happy to agree that both Israeli and Palestinian politicians are at least as guilty of that as anyone.)
Sortition, what is your solution? Especially regarding Jerusalem? (I’m genuinely curious, not looking for an argument, just curious.)
And Abb1, given that Israel exists, and if we accept your contentions, what is your solution? A republic? (also genuinely curious.)
May 22nd, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Mark, I have no problem with Israel. Hey, it’s a country, with buildings, roads, cities. I have no problem with with Israel, just like I wouldn’t have had anything against Germany – as a country, geographical entity – in 1939.
It’s the government, it has to change.
Zionism needs to be banned, like Nazism has been banned in Germany after the WWII. Or, at least, marginalized, like similar racist cults in the US and elsewhere.
Return of the refugees. Return of the territories of Syria and Lebanon. Full annexation of the WB and Gaza, or, perhaps, a temporary two-state solution based on the pre-six-day-war status and then a unification.
It’s the most natural thing, except that it’s impossible as long as Zionists control the state. But they would be easy to get rid of with, probably, just a few months of economic sanctions – the Ashkenazi segment will most certainly jump the ship at the first sign of serious economic or security problems; they’ll move to Brooklyn. I suspect there is already a net decrease of the Ashkenazi population in the last decade or so.
May 22nd, 2009 at 6:07 pm
It really is amusing, Larry, that when push comes to shove, you willingly and happily ally yourself with SLC’s stream of violent profanity. Despite your civilized veneer your thoughts and attitudes are the gateway to his vulgarity and violence. You might want to think about this comfort you have with partisan thugs.
Call it ‘hate speech’ if it offends you, but we both know that it is nothing of the sort. It is simply the truth, as unpleasant and uncomfortable as it is for you.
I have the luxury of pitying you, Mr. Birnbaum, because despite the fundamental evil, the racism and hatred which you have subscribed to, the dishonesty and hypocrisy with which you have arranged this portion of your life, I do not believe that you have any real opportunity to do harm in the world. I pray that you never end up as a concentration camp guard, for though you are suited to it, I would rather not see you before God having willingly taken those sins on your soul.
May 22nd, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Originally it was, but most Israeli Jews now accept its premises, regardless of origin.
I agree – that was my point. Thus US nationalism is just as feasible and real as French nationalism or Jewish nationalism.
As I wrote, nationality relies not only on a notion of “us”, but on an exclusive notion of “us”. Conflict and primacy are derived from this exclusivity. It is true that other ideologies rely on such notions (although they are far from being inherent in “everything”). What of it?
A Jew is a political category to a Jewish nationalist (i.e., a Zionist) in the same way that French is a political category to a French nationalist. Why is Jew as a political category more obscene than Bostonian or French?
May 22nd, 2009 at 6:56 pm
Re Den Valdron
It really is amusing, Larry, that when push comes to shove, you willingly and happily ally yourself with SLC’s stream of violent profanity.
I haven’t noticed that Mr. Birnbaum has used any profanity as he is a perfect gentleman putting up with the anti-semitic crap spewed by Mr. Valdron. However, I am not a gentleman and since I am also an atheist, I have no concern whatever about facing Mr. Valdrons’ non-existent friend in the sky. As I stated previously, Mr. Valdron, behind the veneer of intellectual profundity, is no better then Mr. abb1 and Mr. Trevor. If Mr. Valdron objects to the use of profanity, he is cordially invited to take his objections and stick them where the sun don’t shine.
May 22nd, 2009 at 7:04 pm
The issue of Jerusalem is part of the territorial issue. Israel as part of its expansionist stance wants to take control of areas of Jerusalem that are in the West Bank.
The other two issues are, like the Jaffa line, just a smokescreen. Israel could easily absorb, over time, a few hundreds of thousands of refugees and the Palestinians indicated repeatedly that they do not expect more than that. As for security, like any country, if attacked, Israel could retaliate proportionately. In view of the level of violence from both sides, it is clearly the Palestinians who need assurances of security from the Israelis.
May 22nd, 2009 at 7:04 pm
I pity you too, SLC. But I think you rather enjoy being an ignorant thug.
By the way, I notice that you haven’t been flogging ‘Hama Rules’ lately? That’s not like you. Are you feeling well?
May 22nd, 2009 at 7:40 pm
Re Den Valdron
I pity you too, SLC. But I think you rather enjoy being an ignorant thug.
Coming from a pompous asshole like Mr. Valdron, I consider this to be a compliment.
May 22nd, 2009 at 7:58 pm
Mark,
The solution is, quite simply, a fully sovereign Palestinian state along the 67 lines. Land swaps on a 1:1 basis can be carried out by mutual agreement. Hopefully, a special status for Jerusalem, based on mutual agreement, would be found. If no such agreement can be reached, then Jerusalem, as well, should be partitioned along the 67 line.
If you think this is too simple to be feasible, have a look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taba_Summit.
May 22nd, 2009 at 11:26 pm
I would think, SLC, that you get so few compliments, that even bemused contempt is welcome.
I’m glad you’ve found the internet to be offensive on. I’d hate to think of you simply raving away on streetcorners.
May 23rd, 2009 at 3:13 am
Why is Jew as a political category more obscene than Bostonian or French?
Um, Sortition, what kind of question is that? This is how the human society evolved – race-based politics is viewed as wicked, while community-based politics are acceptable and noble.
I suspect it’s exactly because ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ are fake, irrelevant (or, at most, highly superficial) concepts and ‘community’ and ’social class’ aren’t.
Also, I suppose, many find it obscene to brand people this way (’Goy’, ‘Negro’, ‘Jew’, or ‘woman’ for that matter) for political reasons. Nationality is something you can change, at least theoretically. You can’t change your (even fake) ancestry.
May 23rd, 2009 at 8:54 am
Well, I’ll compliment SLC. While I disagree with him on many issues (I think a two state solution is necessary) I admire his tough-mindedness, his lack of sentimental soft-headedness, and his courage in defying the politically correct lies of our time.
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:24 am
That’s true, Hector. Also tough-minded, pigheaded, with the lack of sentimental soft-headedness, and with courage in defying the politically correct lies of their time: the Nazis.
And look how they ended up. The same, most certainly, is bound to happen to Zionism; so you better go crawl back under that rock, fellas.
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:30 am
“The other two issues are, like the Jaffa line, just a smokescreen. Israel could easily absorb, over time, a few hundreds of thousands of refugees and the Palestinians indicated repeatedly that they do not expect more than that. As for security, like any country, if attacked, Israel could retaliate proportionately.”
This is just ridiculous. First, the number of refugees from 1948-49 and descendents that Israel will be willing to accept is 0. Compensation, yes, but the notion that they’re going to absorb several hundred thousand people who would genuinely prefer that they weren’t there is a non-starter.
Second, as for the use of deterrence to prevent attack, they can do that now. The whole point pf the negotiations from Israel’s perspective is to put a stop to having to exist in a constant state of militarization, and in particular, to not be put in the constant quandary of somehow dealing with violet non-state actors who don’t seem terribly deter-able. That’s what they’re trading land for. Not for the status quo.
But again, I imagine you already know that too.
Oddly, your subsequent answer at 51 isn’t half-bad. Add in security guarantees for Israel regarding non-militarization of the resulting state, and compensation for refugees from 1948-49 coupled with an explicit statement that they’ll press no further claims in this regard, and I expect they’ll have a deal. Not a deal that’s wonderful from the Palestinian perspective, admittedly. But a deal that will get the Palestinians a state.
Which is supposedly what they want. Unless, you know, that’s the smoke scren.
May 23rd, 2009 at 9:31 am
Mr. Abb1,
The other thing I like about SLC is he doesn’t buy into this politically correct hipster nonsense that all cultures and religions are equal. Quite obviously, some are superior to others. I fear for the future of the world if vile Islamophiles like yourself get in charge.
May 23rd, 2009 at 10:26 am
You’re much too much fun to be real, Hector. You are pulling my leg, right?
You and SLC are probably the same guy with a weird sense of humor. You are the Medium Lobster from Fafblog, admit it.
May 23rd, 2009 at 11:13 am
This is just ridiculous. First, the number of refugees from 1948-49 and descendents that Israel will be willing to accept is 0.
Tip toeing towards genocide again, are we? Mr. Birnbaum is at least consistent. It reminds me of the situation of Jews fleeing Germany prior to WWII and finding that entrenched racism made it difficult for them to find a new country.
But, oh my, I’ve made an appropriate reference. I’m sure Mr. Birnbaum will bleat about hate speech.
Still, I have to wonder about his blanket declaration of policy. Zero? That’s such an extreme number.
>Compensation, yes,
Oddly, I’ve never heard of any offer or serious discussion of compensation. To my knowledge, Israel’s position on the refugees that it has created are that they are someone elses problem.
But then, typical from Mr. Birnbaum.
>but the notion that they’re going to absorb several hundred thousand people who would genuinely prefer that they weren’t there is a non-starter.
Now if only there was some way to do something about the 20% of the Israeli population that was a arab.
>Second, as for the use of deterrence to prevent attack, they can do that now.
How’s that working now? Setting aside the question of attacks from other Arab countries, which have not occurred for over 35 years. It appears that deterrence has had very little effect.
>The whole point pf the negotiations from Israel’s perspective is to put a stop to having to exist in a constant state of militarization,
Nonsense. Israel needs to exist in a constant state of militarisation. It just doesn’t want actual risk. The Israeli state and society is now bound up in a martial mythology based on the glorification and re-enactment of past victories.
> and in particular, to not be put in the constant quandary of somehow dealing with violet non-state actors who don’t seem terribly deter-able. That’s what they’re trading land for. Not for the status quo.
But there is no trading land, merely land theft. In the West Bank, Israel’s policy is apparently that we are in control and we will continue to steal land, until such time as the Palestinians recognize our current thefts and what we consider a reasonable level of control. And the longer that takes, the more land we’ll steal and keep, and the more control we will exercise.
Mr. Birnbaum has some idea that this is viable and just.
Y’know, I think that from here on in, I’ll just call Mr. Birnbaum Dachau-boy.
May 23rd, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Re Den Valdron
Mr. Valdron, of course, ignores the Jews who were expelled from Arab countries subsequent to 1949 (some 800,000) because, of course, they don’t count to the Valdrons of the world. From now on, I’ll just call Mr. Valdron mother fucker boy.
May 23rd, 2009 at 1:31 pm
abb1,
“French” or “Bostonian” are not any more of a community-based categories than “Jew”. Each of the three labels encompasses a group that is too large to be a community. That, maybe, is the fundamental fallacy of nationalism: the pretense that a group made largely of strangers is the primary unit of identity of its members.
Besides, politics of exclusion can be wicked even when it works at the level of true community.
May 23rd, 2009 at 1:51 pm
Couldn’t agree more.
That’s really a good move.
May 23rd, 2009 at 1:53 pm
larry birnbaum,
Of course. The question, however, is not what “Israel is willing” to do, but what is a reasonable settlement. Unlike the territorial and sovereignty issues, however, the refugee issue is made up in the sense that no true conflict of interests is involved – the refugees can be absorbed without any real sacrifice on the part of the Israelis.
The Palestinians have been pushing for such a deal for decades. This is exactly what they have been demanding at Camp David in 2000. This is what the Arab peace initiative is about. Israel has been “unwilling” to agree to such an arrangement because they wish to keep their colonists in the West Bank and to keep the Palestinian state subordinate to Israeli control.
May 23rd, 2009 at 2:26 pm
No, Sortition, I disagree.
Community, in the sense I use this word here, can be anything from a village to the whole planet; it’s any geographical area with a population. “Bostonian” or “European” is nothing like a “Jew” or “Slav”, it’s a completely different concept.
Politics of exclusion can not be as wicked in a community. Suppose the US government builds a wall along the borders and stops all illegal immigration. How wicked is that? Not so much, I’d say.
But if in the same country (community) the whites decide to separate from the blacks (let alone to get rid of them altogether) – that’s a disaster. Exactly because all these people – black and white, Jews and WASPs – they all live together; they are physically close, connected, mixed.
See, you can build a fence to separate from your neighbor – not a big deal, but separating from your wife is much, much more dramatic.
May 23rd, 2009 at 3:21 pm
Amazingly enough, Sortition, what YOU think is a “reasonable” settlement isn’t dispositive here. You actually don’t, despite your claim to the contrary, understand the word “negotiation.” An outside agency might force Israel to accept the deal you outline — something people like you and Yglesias would dearly love to see, no doubt. But under no other circumstance would Israel take a deal like that. Although this may come as a surprise to you, they disagree with you about where their interests lie, and they don’t think that allowing in hundreds of thousands of embittered people who wouldn’t be loyal citizens would be a good idea, strangely enough. From their perspective in fact this goes to the crux of the matter: Arab acceptance of a Jewish state in Palestine. (Which is also a key reason why the larger Arab peace plan you mention, while a possible basis for negotiation, isn’t a deal Israel will take as it stands.) And, perhaps weirdly from your perspective, but like every other nation in the world, they see determining who can immigrate as a “sovereignty issue” as you put it.
And since they are occupying the land, they actually have some pretty good leverage here. The Palestinians aren’t going to get a state until Israeli troops leave. That’s exactly why people like Yglesias like to pretend that there’s some reason why Israel should end the occupation before the deal is struck. Israel of course doesn’t have any intention of doing so.
Finally, regarding Camp David, as far as I can glean from public sources, everyone on the American team except Malley came away from from there with exactly the opposite impression as the one you depict.
May 23rd, 2009 at 3:51 pm
Right, right. When I meet Larry in person, the first thing I’ll do is grabbing him by the ball, squeezing hard, and then politely asking him to strike a deal with me by signing his house and his bank account over to me. You know, the Zionist way of doing business.
May 23rd, 2009 at 10:12 pm
larry birnbaum,
In normal usage, this kind of might-makes-right approach is called “extortion”, not “negotiations”. If you consider this to be legitimate, there is little that can be said, except that when you find yourself at the disadvantaged end of such a power relationship you may reconsider. But, again, at least spare us the “they want Jaffa” nonsense.
There is not a single source that I am aware of, including the Israelis, that claims that the Palestinians wanted more than a state along the 67 lines, with some moderate number of refugees repatriated. The Americans and the Israelis have blamed Arafat for being inflexible, but they did so for his refusal to give up land and sovereignty within the 67 borders, not because he asked for anything beyond that.
May 23rd, 2009 at 10:48 pm
abb1,
Ok, I didn’t understand “community” in the sense you meant it. The notion that a community must include all the people living in a certain place or else must include none of them is non-standard as far as I can tell. For clarity, I’ll call such a group “an inhabitancy”.
I disagree with both of the claim that inhabitancy-based politics is necessarily benign and the claim that non-inhabitancy-based politics is necessarily evil.
On the one hand, an inhabitancy can wage aggressive war on a people in another place, or it could exploit those foreigners in various ways. US foreign policy, for example, has been a series of such activities. On the other hand, a subset of an inhabitancy can act politically toward legitimate goals – for example, people with disabilities can work politically to achieve societal arrangements that are appropriate for their situation.
I think it is fairly clear that no technical condition such as shared area of residence can serve as a line separating legitimate political action from illegitimate. It is the content of the politics – its ideology, its goals, its means – that determine its legitimacy.
May 24th, 2009 at 5:05 am
Aggression is, of course, illegitimate, but that’s not a community politics. This the same as with individuals: an individual has the right to pursue his own interests, but not to attack other individuals.
As far as people with disabilities, or women’s movements, homosexuals, or any sort of “affirmative action”-style movement for that matter: yes, it can be legitimate, of course. The difference here is that the goal of all these movements is to restore equality that is lacking in the system: presumably, as soon as the disabled or homosexuals achieve the equal status – there is no point in having that movement anymore.
But if some organization for the women (or disabled or homosexuals) demanded a preferential (as opposed to equal) treatment in the community (like Zionists do for their subjects) that would’ve been immediately recognized as an equivalent of racism and opposed.
Anyway.
You seem to have painted yourself in the corner now where your position is that there no way to define an illegitimate political movement; in every particular case it has to be determined somehow. How? Who is to decide?
Are neonazi movements illegitimate? “White power”? Yes? How did you determine? And can you even determine, or you only entitled to an opinion that’s as valid as another person’s opinion?
May 25th, 2009 at 2:23 pm
To me, it appears that it is you who is stuck in a corner, where you have already started coming up with exceptions to your rule disallowing political activity promoting the interests of groups within an inhabitancy. Now you have explain why Jews cannot claim legitimate special interests within the community in the same way disabled people do. And what about the interests of Indians in the U.S. – can they claim special consideration due to their history? I think your position is very difficult to defend.
As for the more general question of how to decide what is legitimate, the idea that you will be able to come up with a technical a rule that could be applied automatically is simply unrealistic. This is true whether or not we accept the particular principle you suggested. Of course, some principles can be sketched, but since we are not dealing with a formal system like math or formal logic, the application of those principles in any specific case always involves personal or group judgment.
That does not mean that every opinion is “valid”, it only means that validity is a matter of judgment. I, for example, see neonazi ideology as illegitimate and judgments to the contrary are in my opinion invalid. I simply realize there is no judgment-free way to prove this. It is well known, of course, that this problem of lack of rigorousness is not a issue that is unique to moral claims – one cannot prove, say, that the moon is not made of cheese in a judgment-free way. That does not mean that the claim the the moon is made of cheese is “valid”.