Israel to World: "Suck It."

doesn't sufficiently make a commitment to nonviolence bc they have a long history of violence, still glorify bombers, and continue to engage in violent resistance. the non-violence canard is just a smokescreen.

who is "they" here, the residents of nabi saleh? not having "a long history of violence" as a condition of commitment means that there will never be palestinians with a sufficient commitment to nonviolence

& anyway the non-violence "canard" is a "smokescreen" for... what, exactly? what is it hiding?

yes, the residents of nabi saleh. and you can't commit violent acts and glorify previous violent acts and then claim that you're committed to nonviolence.

there's a phenomenon of palestinian activists claiming one thing (like a commitment to nonviolence) during interviews w/ western media and then saying something different in arabic. isn't this entire third intifada thing pegged to demands to release palestinian prisoners - many of whom are in jail for violent acts against civilians? even if nabi saleh were engaging in non-violent protests, they're doing so for the purpose of getting violent terrorists released from prison.

what 'third intifada thing'? that's more or less a frame forced on the article by the author and the editors.

Nabi Saleh, Bassem hoped, could model a form of resistance for the rest of the West Bank. The goal was to demonstrate that it was still possible to struggle and to do so without taking up arms, so that when the spark came, if it came, resistance might spread as it had during the first intifada. “If there is a third intifada,” he said, “we want to be the ones who started it.”

Bassem saw three options. “To be silent is to accept the situation,” he said, “and we don’t accept the situation.” Fighting with guns and bombs could only bring catastrophe. Israel was vastly more powerful, he said. “But by popular resistance, we can push its power aside.”

this is the only mention of it in the piece

& anyway im open to the idea that bassem tamimi is endorsing violence in arabic while condemning it in english--but i havent seen that anyway, and it would be a *much* stronger refutation of the nyt mag article than stuff about stone-throwing, at least to me and imo

ok that's fair. i can't tell to what extent the third intifada meme is being pushed by the media and to what extent it's being pushed by actual palestinian activists. i've certainly heard it a lot over the last month.

but certainly if bassem tamimi is speaking for the community (and that's the role I believe the NYT is placing him in) it's legitimate to question exactly how committed to nonviolence nabi saleh is. even if he is himself committed to nonviolence - spotlighting one particular voice when there's a mess of contradictory evidence is the problem i think.

Show me any nonviolent resistance group in history and I'll find you members who had previously advocated or even continued to advocate violence. Nonviolence is always in part a calculated decision by a group with less capacity for force. Accusing Palestinians of having a strategy isn't in itself all that damning.

ok, but this is the spokesman for nonviolent protest who has been arrested for promoting rock throwing, whose village continues to throw rocks at israeli cars + vehicles, and whose village has a long history of committing terrorist acts (including the Sbarro bombing) and continues to glorify those terrorists. the standard for being praised for nonviolence should be a little higher than putting up a billboard and conducting an interview.

The luster of non-violence for most ppl stems specifically from the fact of its success. If India were still under the British, it would be a historical footnote.

Obviously the Palestinians say a lot of things specifically for foreign consumption. I think the supposed renunication of violence because of its lack of effectiveness, is an adoption of a certain Western critiques of the intifadah. I am in no position to judge whether it's earnest or merely tactical propaganda.

Not sure what to make of this - but at the very least Bassam is still glorifying murderers (maybe despite his own personal beliefs about violence + nonviolence):

http://www.israellycool.com/2013/02/17/haaretz-ignores-inconvenient-truths/

there's something great about the epithet "unrepentant released Sbarro terrorist"

but at the very least Bassam is still glorifying murderers

And the Roths, by the use of 'murderer', are negating any political aspect to the Tamini's actions. Was Begin a 'glorified murderer'?

I'm not even picking any side here, I just think that both of them tend to argue in bad faith.

I don't know if I'd say "bad faith" given that the person at issue was responsible for their daughter's death.

and I don't really have any problem with calling someone who plans an attack aiming to kill civilians a murderer. I just don't agree with this tactic of delegitimizing the Palestinian resistance and cause by imposing purity tests on an entire village.

ok, but this is the spokesman for nonviolent protest who has been arrested for promoting rock throwing, whose village continues to throw rocks at israeli cars + vehicles, and whose village has a long history of committing terrorist acts (including the Sbarro bombing) and continues to glorify those terrorists. the standard for being praised for nonviolence should be a little higher than putting up a billboard and conducting an interview.

― Mordy, Tuesday, March 19, 2013 11:39 AM (1 hour ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

yeah i dunno, im happy to weigh rock throwing + and the onetime presence and current 'glorification/ of terrorists against three years of weekly nonviolent protest and figure that the tamimis and nabi saleh have met the standard

Has anybody offered to help move these groups of people to other, noncontiguous lands? I feel like the land here is at least part of the problem. It feels like a poisonous place.

awful big piece of land to make a UN protectorate or whatever

...

the land itself is...part of the problem, yes

a UN protectorate or whatever

Had to google that. I was thinking more along the lines of a nature preserve. You know, give a little something to the hyraxes.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/mar/19/obama-urged-israel-two-state-solution

I was thinking more along the lines of a nature preserve.

in my more nihilistic moments I have thought someone should just nuke the place and render it totally uninhabitable for anybody. problem solved.

there could be some advance warning even - everyone who wants to die in the holy land, your wish is about to come true! Everyone else gets a free pass to the country of their choice.

plus if ever two groups of ppl had experience w/ being kicked out of their homes it's a the jews + palestinians amirite?

god the guardian is really such a shitty newspaper

Yeah with their demographic studies and quotes and whatnot

more just their transparent editorializing in the guise of a 'news story' which doesn't contain any news, but those demographic studies (i read that FP article when it first came out) are not particularly great either. they rely on including gaza in all demographic calculations, and using historical growth data instead of contemporary data to paint a particularly distressing picture. the truth is that israel could annex all of the west bank tmmrw (i'm not even just referring to area c - a + b too) and it would still be a jewish majority.

+ based on current birthrates for palestinian + jewish populations would continue to be a jewish majority into the near future (and all trends point to palestinian birthrates only decreasing further as they integrate more into a first world country w/ universal healthcare + family planning)

There is a bit of filling in a story to talk about Obama going to Israel for his first state visit. Wish he hadn't gone at all, tbh, just to piss off morons in Florida.

if they want to run a news story about obama going to israel there is plenty to discuss w/out pegging the story to israel's demographic destruction and the death of the mythical two state solution - topics that by all accounts from serious newspapers (aka NYT, WAPO, WSJ, etc) aren't supposed to come up during the visit at all.

Also their paper size is The Berliner, which is just another sign of German Imperialism in Europe

The article says that those topics won't come up during the visit at all. They're just reporting on what people have been saying ahead of the visit, but maybe they shouldn't do that.

More settlements all around, then!

essentially this story is: "obama isn't planning on discussing two state solution or the peace process in any serious formal way on this trip, but these ppl wish he would!" in 1500 words or so

Yeah, which stokes the fires of the anti-Semitic left

Wish nobody had reported on what was being omitted at the climate change conference in Copenhagen because that ain't news.

it's not like the ppl they're quoting are particularly newsworthy -- kerry they get on an old quote w/ questionable relevance, and they mention gatekeepers which is timely, but look at the ppl who make up the bulk of the article:

Alon Liel, a former director general of the foreign ministry in Jerusalem and a former Israeli ambassador to South Africa
David Aaron Miller – a negotiator in efforts by the Clinton administration to broker an Israeli-Palestinian agreement and an adviser on Middle East policy to six US secretaries of state
S Daniel Abraham, a US billionaire, confidante of American and Israeli leaders, and founder of the Center for Middle East Peace in Washington
Martin Indyk, a former US ambassador to Israel and now vice-president of the Brookings Institution

Yeah none of them have a valid opinion

you've convinced me gukbe. peacelovethegap.

No doubt. Actually only posted it because it was throwing "apartheid" around.

Not sure what I was meant to be convincing you of, mind.

netanyahu apologized to erdogan over the flotilla raid!

& agreed to compensate families to boot. good lord.

Israel to World: "Sorry, we fucked up"

i'm into that decision