Israel to World: "Suck It."

your compartmentalization of possible motivations is suspect bro

That's cool, Mordy - not in the mood for an argument, anyway. Also, Mets to win tonight? Should be good.

Shakey, maybe think about it like this - what is the operative motive? If you're hungry, and you don't hate anyone, you steal and eat some bread. If you're hungry and you hate somebody, maybe you stab them and then eat their bread. When we ask why you stabbed them, you might say it's because you were hungry and maybe if you weren't hungry you wouldn't have stabbed them, but hunger isn't what made you stab them. The hatred is.

maybe think about it like this - my life sucks and the lives of everyone around me sucks. why does it suck? well everyone around me says it's cuz the Jews are oppressing us. stupid Jews. what can I do about it? pretty much nothing. man this makes me angry and full of rage and helplessness, so angry I'll do pretty much anything. some guys I know try to kill as many Jews as possible, maybe that's a good idea. hey there's a Jew now! gonna stab

now I feel like we're in a bad theater class now

sure - hatred is always justified by blaming a particular group for your problems. even the nazis had gripes about the jews (and in particular blamed them for german defeat during ww1). everyone has problems in their lives. if your solution to stopping hate-inspired murders is to make the murderers life perfect -- you're going to be really frustrated.

like if you think ending the occupation is going to end jew hatred in the arab world you're living in a fantasy. cf jew hatred + anti-jewish violence in the arab world predates the formation of israel. cf jew hatred exists throughout the entire arab world, not just among palestinians in israel.

idk if perfection is required, "less shitty" would be a good starting point

xp

jew hatred + anti-jewish violence in the arab world predates the formation of israel

sure it does, but it's also gotten way worse since the formation of Israel, and Israel's actions are partly the reason for that.

a good starting point for what? it won't end jew hatred because jew hatred exists independently of the occupation. in fact i'd argue that the occupation exists because of jew hatred, not vice-versa.

xp gotten a lot worse? i disagree. jews in the middle east are safer now than they ever were before the formation of israel. maybe the hatred is worse (i doubt it) but arab ability to act on that hatred is much much less

While Jewish communities in Islamic countries fared better overall than those in Christian lands in Europe, Jews were no strangers to persecution and humiliation among the Arabs. As Princeton University historian Bernard Lewis has written: “The Golden Age of equal rights was a myth, and belief in it was a result, more than a cause, of Jewish sympathy for Islam.”17

Muhammad, the founder of Islam, traveled to Medina in 622 A.D. to attract followers to his new faith. When the Jews of Medina refused to recognize Muhammad as their Prophet, two of the major Jewish tribes were expelled. In 627, Muhammad’s followers killed between 600 and 900 of the men, and divided the surviving Jewish women and children amongst themselves.18

The Muslim attitude toward Jews is reflected in various verses throughout the Koran, the holy book of the Islamic faith. “They [the Children of Israel] were consigned to humiliation and wretchedness. They brought the wrath of God upon themselves, and this because they used to deny God’s signs and kill His Prophets unjustly and because they disobeyed and were transgressors” (Sura 2:61). According to the Koran, the Jews try to introduce corruption (5:64), have always been disobedient (5:78), and are enemies of Allah, the Prophet and the angels (2:97-98).

Jews were generally viewed with contempt by their Muslim neighbors; peaceful coexistence between the two groups involved the subordination and degradation of the Jews. In the ninth century, Baghdad’s Caliph al-Mutawakkil designated a yellow badge for Jews, setting a precedent that would be followed centuries later in Nazi Germany.19

At various times, Jews in Muslim lands lived in relative peace and thrived culturally and economically. The position of the Jews was never secure, however, and changes in the political or social climate would often lead to persecution, violence and death.

When Jews were perceived as having achieved too comfortable a position in Islamic society, anti-Semitism would surface, often with devastating results. On December 30, 1066, Joseph HaNagid, the Jewish vizier of Granada, Spain, was crucified by an Arab mob that proceeded to raze the Jewish quarter of the city and slaughter its 5,000 inhabitants. The riot was incited by Muslim preachers who had angrily objected to what they saw as inordinate Jewish political power.

Similarly, in 1465, Arab mobs in Fez slaughtered thousands of Jews, leaving only 11 alive, after a Jewish deputy vizier treated a Muslim woman in “an offensive manner.” The killings touched off a wave of similar massacres throughout Morocco.20

Other mass murders of Jews in Arab lands occurred in Morocco in the 8th century, where whole communities were wiped out by the Muslim ruler Idris I; North Africa in the 12th century, where the Almohads either forcibly converted or decimated several communities; Libya in 1785, where Ali Burzi Pasha murdered hundreds of Jews; Algiers, where Jews were massacred in 1805, 1815 and 1830; and Marrakesh, Morocco, where more than 300 Jews were murdered between 1864 and 1880.21

Decrees ordering the destruction of synagogues were enacted in Egypt and Syria (1014, 1293-4, 1301-2), Iraq (854­-859, 1344) and Yemen (1676). Despite the Koran’s prohibition, Jews were forced to convert to Islam or face death in Yemen (1165 and 1678), Morocco (1275, 1465 and 1790-92) and Baghdad (1333 and 1344).22

The situation of Jews in Arab lands reached a low point in the 19th century. Jews in most of North Africa (including Algeria, Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and Morocco) were forced to live in ghettos. In Morocco, which contained the largest Jewish community in the Islamic Diaspora, Jews were made to walk barefoot or wear shoes of straw when outside the ghetto. Even Muslim children participated in the degradation of Jews, by throwing stones at them or harassing them in other ways. The frequency of anti-Jewish violence increased, and many Jews were executed on charges of apostasy. Ritual murder accusations against the Jews became commonplace in the Ottoman Empire.23

for improving the lives of other people and reducing tensions?

idk it's so tiresome having you point out how you think one side (which happens to be your side) is moral and rational while the other side is full of amoral irrational hate-filled ideologues. it's just weird, such a blind spot, and so scrupulously maintained.

yes I have read Bernard Lewis

i don't understand - you want me to throw a bone to equivocation bc then it'll satisfy your need to blame everyone equally? israelis as well as palestinians have done terrible things and bear responsibility for the current status quo in Israel and the territories. does that mean that jew hate in the arab world is the fault of israel? no, that's historically inaccurate.

israelis as well as palestinians have done terrible things and bear responsibility for the current status quo in Israel and the territories. does that mean that jew hate in the arab world is the fault of israel? no, that's historically inaccurate.

exactly! was that so hard

no, it was very easy bc it was the kind of thing that stupid people say to make them sound fair and thoughtful

netanyahu could not have been clearer that there will never be peace ever. saying the holocaust was the palestinians' idea is just wild.

no, it was very easy bc it was the kind of thing that stupid people say to make them sound fair and thoughtful

why I do think I've just been insulted. it does is something I take as self-evident, but it often gets lost in overheated rhetoric, so bears repeating or at least acknowledging imo.

I used to be much more hopeful about the chance of peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians. I've come to believe that the problem is that there are two competing ideological narratives that cannot coexist. Specifically, for the sake of accuracy, the dominant narrative of the Palestinian nationalist movement is the primary impediment in that it is inherently a maximalist exclusionary ideology. Its foundational claim - that the Israelis are European colonists that need to leave 'Arab Palestine' - is not just false, but by its existence leaves no room for the Israeli claim of a Jewish State in the Levant. That's why the Palestinian leadership has never been able to sign a deal with any PM. I've also come to believe that without this tension of resistance against the Jewish State the Palestinian identity cannot even function. It becomes subsumed into a more general Arab Islamic identity. Its entire context is as resistance to Jews. It doesn't matter that there are plenty of wonderful human beings that just want to live their lives, who have legitimate grievances, etc. The central grievance of Palestinian nationalism cannot compromise by definition. No amount of conflict resolution can change that. I'm sorry if this is a bummer to hear but I feel pretty pessimistic about the entire thing. If it makes it easier to hear if I say that the Israeli identity is also maximalist and exclusionary and therefore equally to blame, then sub that in where you feel it belongs.

'Equally to blame'? So you also think that Israeli identity doesn't exist outside of resistance to Palestinian state?

What do you think the Israeli dominant narrative is? (x-post)

Correct, the ideology regarding a Jewish return to Israel existed for ~2,000 years before the establishment of the State of Israel.

I think the Israeli dominant narrative is "Israel is the holy land where we had a Temple and a sovereign nation before it was destroyed. We were in exile for 2,000 years and returned to the land to reestablish our State." I think there are also elements of "We suffered in exile and needed a sovereign State to protect ourselves."

Oh - Fred I misunderstood. No, I do think the Israeli identity exists outside of resistance. But I know how important equivocations are. So if you want to read it as "Israel identity is also maximalist and exclusionary" because otherwise you can't accept the critique, then I'm giving you permission because it's secondary imo.

How much space do you think that leaves?

(x-post)

that all sounds reasonable to me. both ideologies need to go/be reconciled but there's no signs of that happening any time soon.

xxxp

Enough for a two state solution. I don't think the Palestinian narrative can allow for two states since that suggests a legitimacy to yr colonizer.

I can perfectly 'accept' it, whatever that means, I just think it's bigoted nonsense.

Bigoted how? Because you don't believe that the Palestinian identity sees itself as an indigenous people being colonized by European interlopers? Or because you think it is much more than that and that belief is secondary to something else? Or do you just use words like bigoted when you're confused and trying to shut the other person up?

It's bigoted because you're condemning a whole people to a subservient existence due to things inherent in their 'identity'.

I'm not condemning anyone to anything. I'm giving my opinion for why they can't negotiate a two state solution. I'm not a policy maker and if I was I would encourage them to return to negotiations (as Bibi has done repeatedly btw) and push them to accept two states.

But you're also saying that those negotiations would never work, ie. you're saying that Palestinians would always be an occupied people. Due to their 'identity'.

I don't know that some individual at some pt didn't stab an innocent. However I do know that there has never been a jewish political movement or theological one that excused sanctioned or championed the stabbing of innocents as an appropriate path to political liberation.

― Mordy, Wednesday, October 21, 2015 5:01 PM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Never you say?

One particularly extreme group, perhaps a subgroup of the Zealots, was known in Latin as sicarii, meaning "violent men" or "dagger men" (sing. sicarius, possibly a morphological reanalysis), because of their policy of killing Jews opposed to their call for war against Rome. Perhaps many Zealots were sicarii simultaneously, and they may be the biryonim of the Talmud that were feared even by the Jewish sages of the Mishnah.

According to historian H.H. Ben-Sasson, the Sicarii, originally based in Galilee, "were fighting for a social revolution, while the Jerusalem Zealots placed less stress on the social aspect" and the Sicarii "never attached themselves to one particular family and never proclaimed any of their leaders king". Both groups objected to the way the priestly families were running the Temple.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zealots_(Judea)

massive xpost

I'm saying that the reason negotiations have failed is because the Palestinian identity sees Israelis as colonialists who don't deserve any State in any of historical Palestine, so a two state compromise would undermine that identity. If negotiations succeeded I think that violence against Israelis would continue because the "true" occupation is 1948, not 1967, again because Israelis would not stop being colonizers. They would just have been effectively chased off some of the land they had originally stolen. This also explains why the withdrawal from Gaza increased militant action against Israel and didn't decrease it xp

good call - i was specifically referring to during the diaspora but yes i had forgotten about the zealots xp

Mordy, you're a good person, I really think that. You're smart, you're knowledgable. But I continue to think that that is bigotry, no matter how much you say 'no, but it's also because Israeli would never stop being colonizers!' You're saying that Palestinians would never be able to change their identity, to forgive, or get over their grievances, the way for instance black South Africans 'forgave' apartheid without going on the murderous rampages that Boer-naysayers warned about.

It's quite honestly pretty textbook colonial bigotry, imo. People say that all the time: 'No, but they're so aggrieved now that it would be a bloodbath if we gave them what they wanted'. Used to keep up whatever aggrieves them.

I mean, that is my opinion. I'm just being honest. Sorry.

I cannot take credit for this idea about the competing national narratives. I read it in Haaretz:
http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.678483

Most Israelis view the conflict as a struggle between two national movements: the Jewish national movement – Zionism – and the Palestinian national movement as part of the wider Arab national movement. The internal logic of such a view leads in principle to what is called the two-state solution. Even if the Israeli right wing preferred for years to avoid such a view, eventually it has been adopted by Netanyahu, albeit reluctantly, and is now the official policy of his government.

The point is that those Israelis who see the conflict in the framework of a struggle between two national movements assume that this is also the position of the other side; hence when negotiations fail, the recipe advocated is to tinker with some of the details, hoping that further concessions, on one or the other side, will bring about an agreement.

Unfortunately, this is an illusion.

The basic Palestinian position, which usually isn’t always explicitly stated, is totally different and can be easily detected in numerous Palestinian statements. According to the Palestinians’ view, this is not a conflict between two national movements but a conflict between one national movement (the Palestinian) and a colonial and imperialistic entity (Israel). According to this view, Israel will end like all colonial phenomena – it will perish and disappear. Moreover, according to the Palestinian view, the Jews are not a nation but a religious community, and as such not entitled to national self-determination which is, after all, a universal imperative.

According to this view, the Palestinians see all of Israel – and not just the West Bank and Gaza – as analogous to Algeria: an Arab country out of which the foreign colonialists were ultimately expelled. Because of this, Israel – even in its pre-1967 borders – never appears in Palestinian school textbooks; because of this the Palestinians insist never to give up their claim to the right of return of 1948 refugees and their descendants to Israel.

This is also the reason for the Palestinians’ obstinate refusal – from Abbas to Saeb Erekat – to accept Israel as the Jewish nation-state in any way whatsoever. At the end of the day, the Palestinian position views Israel as an illegitimate entity, sooner or later doomed to disappear. The Crusader analogy only adds force to this claim.

One expression of the gap between the Israeli and the Palestinian perception is evident in the diplomatic language of both sides when they refer to the two-state solution. The Israeli version talks about “two states for two peoples,” sometime adding “a Palestinian nation-state living next to the Jewish nation-state.” The Palestinian version refers only to a “two-state solution,” never to “two states for two peoples.” It is obvious: If the Jews are not a people, they are not entitled to a state.

This is also the reason why there is no regret among the Palestinians for their rejection of the 1947 United Nations Partition Plan. As far as I know – and I would be happy if proven wrong – there has until now not been any serious Palestinian debate around their rejection of partition: There have been innumerable discussions and publications about their military defeat in 1948 in their attempt to prevent the establishment of Israel, but no Palestinian leader or thinker has openly admitted that the decision to reject the UN Partition Plan and to go to war against it had been politically or morally wrong.
To this very day, no Palestinian intellectual or politician has dared to admit that had the Palestinians accepted partition then, on May 15, 1948 a Palestinian Arab state would have been established in a part of Mandatory Palestine, and there would have been no refugees and no Nakba (“catastrophe”). It is much easier to deny moral responsibility for the terrible catastrophe the Palestinian leadership has brought upon its own people.

This is not just a matter of historical narrative: It has political implications for the here and now. If Israel is not a legitimate state based on the right to national self-determination but an imperialist entity, there is no ground for an end-of-conflict agreement based on compromise.

Most Israelis who maintain that the conflict is a territorial conflict between two national movements tend to believe that a territorial arrangement, linked in one way or another to the pre-1967 Green Line, is the way to reach an eventual resolution of the conflict. Yet the Palestinian behavior under Arafat at Camp David 2000, as well as during the negotiations between Abbas and former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, suggests that something much deeper is at stake.

When Abbas insists repeatedly that his movement cannot give up the claim to the Right of Return because this is “an individual right” reserved to every Palestinian refugee and his descendants, the implication is that even if there will be an agreement on the territorial issues, and even if all West Bank settlers will be evacuated, the conflict will continue to exist and fester. This is also the reason why Abbas refuses to follow Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and address the Knesset as a symbol of reconciliation – this would imply accepting Israel’s sovereignty and legitimacy.

I am well aware that the moderate public in Israel – which acknowledges the Palestinian right to self-determination, opposes Jewish settlement in the territories and supports the two-state solution – finds it difficult to internalize the fact that the Palestinians basically do not accept Israel’s right to exist. But there is no way to deny this uncomfortable truth. Yet this should not lead to despair or the acceptance of the status quo because “there is nothing we can do.”

Fair enough. It's certainly possible that the identity could develop in such a way that it allows space for an Israeli space. It might evolve to the point where it realizes that Jews are indigenous to the Middle East and have the right to a State in the Levant. It could even continue to believe that they are colonizers, but decide that the pursuit of peace is more important than chasing out the occupiers. But at this point in time I don't see how we get from here to there. It's not bigotry - I don't think this is genetic, or essential, or required, or eternal. But I do think these are the current stakes, and when I read pro-Palestinian advocacy, this anti-colonial argument is the one I see most frequently and most prominently. So if it is an impediment to peace (and I believe it is) advocates of Palestinians who do believe that two states are the only way forward are doing Palestinians no favors by maintaining and promoting this anti-colonial narrative. xp

Cool. That is no longer what I think of as bigotry.

I agree that it would be tough to stop the anti-colonial narrative, not least of which is because Israel is often used as a scapegoat for a much broader hatred of western colonialism, so getting completely rid of it would require stopping a whole lot of bad western behaviour... But I'd still say there's some pretty clear steps that could be taken, that would lessen the idea of Israelis as colonizers, chief among them stopping the settlers from colonizing more of the West Bank...

I would guess that the majority of the Arab and muslim middle east, though to varying degrees at varying times, has always preferred a solution in which there would be no "Jewish state" of Israel. I have to admit I am fascinated by the idea of a "bi-national" state with two populations so close in number (I think Arabs in Israel and the territories combined now just slightly outnumber Jews but it's almost 50-50?). Is there any historical precedent for such a state? I am also fascinated by the concept of a muslim state with a Jewish "minority" of almost 50%.

Actually I'm not sure that it's a muslim majority given that some small percentage of Palestinians are Christian, but it would be just slightly Arab majority, I think.

Is there any historical precedent for such a state?

there's gotta be, although not one with the unique historical factors that went into the creation of Israel

likely suspects would be maybe somewhere post-colonial Africa or SE Asia...?

Slight Muslim majority if you include Gaza. Somewhat substantial Jewish majority if you do not. But it's v speculative bc trying to get an accurate demographic count of the territories is very difficult.

In this moment of crisis, both Israelis and Palestinians are experiencing intensified fear, but the fact is that the vast majority of the violence and increased repression has been directed at Palestinians. Over 45 Palestinians have been killed and over 2000 injured and hundreds detained without charge. Ten Israelis have been killed, and scores injured in individual attacks. Jewish mobs are roaming the streets of Jerusalem and elsewhere, chanting “Death to Arabs” and attacking passersby. An Eritrean asylum seeker was killed this week after being mistaken for an attacker based on racist assumptions.

What is happening today must be understood as an uprising which is the inevitable result of decades of occupation, dispossession and state violence. This resistance will only end when the Israeli government stops brutally oppressing Palestinians so that they too can live with freedom and equality. Demonizing and inciting hatred of Palestinians will only lead to more violence, suffering, and never-ending occupation and apartheid.

https://jewishvoiceforpeace.org/netanyahu-shamelessly-exploits-the-shoah-to-stoke-fear-of-palestinians/

Is there any historical precedent for such a state?

Trinidad is 40% Indian, 38% African fwiw.

Fiji also close.

Oh I think Guyana is similar demographics to Trinidad, actually.

Leans a bit more towards Indian but not too far off.