One should be clear that this sociopathic indifference to (or even celebration over) the deaths of Palestinian civilians isn't representative of all supporters of the Israeli attack on Gaza. It's unfair to use the Goldfarb/Peretz pathology to impugn all supporters of the Israeli attack. It's certainly possible to support the Israeli offensive despite the deaths of these civilians, to truly lament the suffering of innocent Palestinians but still find the war, on balance, to be justifiable.Dear Glenn,
-The Greenwald
No. It isn't.
Shalom,
IOZ
57 comments:
Yes it is. I'm personally indifferent and unaware of how many view those deaths as a necessary evil, but there's nothing impossible about it, even if you may think it ought to be.
But TGGP, what you're missing and Mr. Greenwald is missing is that the civilian deaths are the war. And thus, no, it is not possible to cheer the latter and mourn the former, for you would cheer a pure, notional entity that exists in the real world not at all.
It's nothing new.
Right. As Cüneyt put it. Saying you support the "Israeli offensive" while lamenting dead civilians is like saying you're for the sack of Carthage but against the destruction of cities, or for the Final Solution but against the killing of Jews. It isn't a moral position, but a category error.
If Hamas - as a matter of policy - places its military assets in civilian areas how could the Israelis attack Hamas military targets without civilian casualties? If you are a pacifist, fine, go right ahead and invoke the “innocent civilian” defense. If not, well, sorry, but every war ever fought entailed the deaths of some innocent bystanders. Like say, the 6500 missiles sent hurtling into Israeli towns over the last three years.
And I say that as someone who believes Israel was wrong to do what they did this time around.
Your analogies would only work if the purpose of the Israeli attacks were to kill civilians - or at least part of the purpose. Psychopaths like Peretz do indeed believe that terrorizing the population is part of the purpose.
The problem is that there are people who support the attacks who don't believe that this is the purpose, rather simply the reason is to wipe out Hamas and/or stop or vastly reduce the bombs coming from Gaza.
(and to be clear, none of this is what I think. Along with political motives I do in fact believe that there are elements in the Israeli government that do want to terrorize the Palestinian population in general)
And these people would argue that the only way to stop the missile attacks is to kill Hamas leaders and their followers and the only way to do that given the very limited confines of Gaza is to bomb the entire region - which necessarily involves the death of civilians. And they could conceivably lament this.
It's wrong-headed, ethnocentric, and probably racist, but it is possible in a non-psychopath kind of way. And it is a moral position.
Bring on the movin' vans.
Who want these folk?
"Some" innocent bystanders. Hah! The human shield excuse is one of the lamest of all justifications for civilian massacres, most memorably expressed as "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." There would be no Hamas and no missiles if Israel weren't committed to recreating the Warsaw Ghetto as an exercise in displaced-retributive nostalgia.
rogmur - the people who believe that the purpose of the Israeli attacks is anything other than terror and punishment are willfully self-deluded and ignorant of the history of the conflict going back decades. It is a campaign of terror-bombing. The Israelis are using white phosphorus as an incendiary. It's just a scale-model Dresden.
"After Palestine, the Zionists aspire to expand from the Nile to the Euphrates. When they will have digested the region they overtook, they will aspire to further expansion, and so on. Their plan is embodied in the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", and their present conduct is the best proof of what we are saying.”
From the Hamas Charter.
Yeah, if only the Israeli’s weren’t so damned intractable.
And again, I say this as someone with no dog in this fight and no real preference for any outcome. There is blood on the hands of both sides. I think the American media and political elites insane in their defenses of Israel. But acting as though a sovereign nation is going to do nothing while several thousand missiles are launched against them every year is an exercise in delusion.
So wait, the sanctions weren't to punish the population, the deprivation of food, power, water, medicine, leg room, etc... None of these were to punish the population. And no, no, the bulldozing of homes isn't to punish the population, nor the incendiary bombing...
This is a punitive expedition. If the killing of civilians is incidental, then please tell me: what else is this war for? How is this any different from the torching of Atlanta, or Vietnam?
Your "sovereign nation" could stop holding millions of people in stateless subjugation. See above In Re: the Warsaw Ghetto. You know that Palestinians had more per capita Ph.D.s than any people in the world? Not, in other words, inclined to religious nutjobbery. Hamas exists because Israel destroyed Palestinian society. Mounting the soap-box to declare Hamas the prime mover since it is "dedicated to the destruction of Israel" or whatever is a cheap trick, and even the five-year-olds can see the strings.
That's a red herring, Anonymous. Nobody said that Israel had to do nothing.
The idea that you can have a war that only kills the evil people but spares the innoscent will never lose its appeal. Despite the fact that such a thing is impossible.
Yeah, this thing isn't exactly a hard nut to crack, I was in a deli the other day reading the newsticker on Fox and it said the casualties were something like 400 dead, 2000 wounded Palestinians vs. 4 dead Israelis from the rocket attacks. It's not hard to see that Israel is in the wrong here, you mealy-mouthed motherfuckers. Disengage your public school programmed Holocaust guilt for two seconds and imagine how you would feel about virtually any other nation on Earth behaving the way Israel does, and see if you can justify this bullshit then.
just for the record, the militants don't "hide behind civilians". they are civilians.
Disengage your public school programmed Holocaust guilt for two seconds and imagine how you would feel about virtually any other nation on Earth behaving the way Israel does, and see if you can justify this bullshit then.
Um...
September 11th death toll: 2,974.
Iraq death toll: 90,253 - 98,521.
So, overall, we seem to feel pretty OK about that shit.
Just sayin'...
Two points: Greenwald distinguishes "innocent" Palestinians. I'm assuming members of HAMAS, or at least the gun-toting ones, or perhaps just people that have fired rockets do not count as innocent in his calculation. So Israel's attacks consist of the killing of some innocents and non-innocents and one could favor those attacks based on the latter while regretting the former. Furthermore, utilitarians support locking up or punishing criminals, but they don't see that as an unblemished good (as might people who support a revenge-based justice regardless of the consequences). The harm suffered by the criminal is an unfortunate cost necessary to prevent larger harms to the general public. These are fairly common mainstream ideas I would think you were already aware of.
HAMAS exists because Israel created it to counter the PLO/Fatah, which was a bigger headache at the time (Islamists were once considered useful against leftists). If Israel did break off the siege, I think HAMAS would continue to exist, though it's actions would likely change.
From the Hamas Charter.
Yeah, if only the Israeli’s weren’t so damned intractable.
And again, I say this as someone with no dog in this fight and no real preference for any outcome.
Chaim Weizmann said in 1919:
We said we desired to create in Palestine such conditions, political, economic and administrative, that as the country is developed, we can pour in considerable numbers of immigrants, and finally establish such a society in Palestine that Palestine shall be as Jewish as England is English or America is American. . . . I hope that the Jewish frontiers of Palestine will be as great as Jewish energy for getting Palestine.
This is a quote from Ancient History, the piece by Sheldon Richman available at Cato.org:
When a disciple of Herzl's, Max Nordau, went to Palestine and found Arabs there, he told Herzl, "I didn't know that--but then we are committing an injustice."
And this is from Ze'ev Jabotinsky:
"Culturally [the Palestinians] are 500 years behind us, spiritually they do not have our endurance or our strength of will . . . They look upon Palestine with the same instinctive love and true fervor that any Aztec looked upon his Mexico or any Sioux looked upon his prairie." Thus, "we conclude that we cannot promise anything to the Arabs of the Land of Israel or the Arab countries. Their voluntary agreement is out of the question."
I'm sure we can play all night long, quoting shitheads after shitheads. I'll just remark that one side has nukes and the other has...uhhh shitty Qassam rockets ?
See also the points raised by Aaron in a previous post.
Personally, I don't believe you can be even-handed on the issue. Unless you were a fascist and/or a racist.
I'm assuming members of HAMAS, or at least the gun-toting ones, or perhaps just people that have fired rockets do not count as innocent in his calculation.
And how many of those who died were involved in rocket firing ? How many people died from those rockets ? How many rockets were fired prior to the breaking of the cease-fire by Israel ?
From what I've heard, we're looking at something like 5 civilian deaths among Israelis. This is what you dare point to, to justify the deaths of 500 people ? Those 500 all participated to the firing of rockets ? And all the deaths that are to come ?
And if not, then when are the Palestinians going to get their revenge, and how ? Certainly, if 1 Israeli life is worth 100 Palestinian lives, then you understand Palestinians will behave accordingly.
The whole pro-Israeli propaganda is based on a two-faced schizophrenic approach to murder:
1/ some shitty Qassam rockets might kill civilians (and as I hinted at above, they rarely do), and that's INTOLERABLE ! BOUUUU ! MURDERERS !
2/ So intolerable, actually, that you win a free ticket to civilian bombing land. In this wonderful attraction, you don't only bomb highly populated civilian areas, after months of a fascist blockade, you also get to tell Palestinian civilians to just suck it up. This is war, pussies, you should have done our bidding and not elect evil resisting Hamas officials.
------
And then, I read you guys explain how horrible Hamas is and how it's such a waste that they won't meekly stand in an open field and wait for the bombs to crash.
More from the Hamas charter.
"Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it."
"The Islamic Resistance Movement believes that the land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgement Day. It, or any part of it, should not be squandered: it, or any part of it, should not be given up. "
"There is no solution for the Palestinian question except through Jihad. Initiatives, proposals and international conferences are all a waste of time and vain endeavors."
The only hope for any peaceful solution is a two state solution where Israel and Palestine ignore one another and go their separate ways. If you can point to one Palestinian organization with any possibility of being viewed as a legitimate voice of the Palestinian people which doesn’t contain calls for genocide in its foundational documents it might actually be possible to argue the moral high ground for them. Personally, I don’t see either side as having any claim to any moral high ground. Those of you who blindly support the Palestinians and act as though they are eternal victims are no different then the John Bolton’s of the world acting as though the poor Israelis are just minding their own business when suddenly those mean ole Muslims attack for no reason.
If you want to side with the people who quote The Protocols of the Elders of Zion as a legitimate work while declaring their objective to be nothing short of the obliteration of an existing state, be my guest.
Of course, I hope I’m not guilty of “Mounting the soap-box to declare Hamas the prime mover since it is "dedicated to the destruction of Israel" or whatever…”
How true – it really is a “cheap trick” to use their own charter as an indication of what they believe. I should take IOZ’s word for what they want over their own declared goals any day.
I'm pretty sure that the Lions' declared goal is to win the Super Bowl.
What is the problem with having the Zionist state be dissolved? It's establishment was a fiat of European & American convenience, both to buy off the guilt of complicity and collaboration with the Jewish holocaust, and to create yet another settler outpost in a resource-rich part of the world. For all the fig-leaf of the UN mandating the occupation of much of Palestine by European Jews as the state of Israel, there's no reason that cannot be reversed. The Soviet Union was in existence for longer than has the state of Israel, and is now gone.
One thing that Israel's massive crimes against Gaza (which are at the same time war crimes and crimes against humanity) will do is remove forever any notion that a two-state solution is possible to the problem of Palestine. The only peaceful way forward will be a secular, democratic state in all of historic Palestine. This does not seem likely, so I expect we'll see a Greater Israel along Boer lines (nearly complete anyway) and eventually a butcher's bill to be paid. Given the debt that Israel is racking up, settling that bill will horrific.
If you will it, it is no dream
littlehorn, I'm not trying to "justify" anything. First, I don't believe that normative concepts (like "justice") have any objective truth value. Second, I'm more indifferent to the Middle East than Adam Smith's hypothetical gentleman was of China. I'm merely contradicting our host's remark about logical possibility. As far as I can tell, you don't seem to disagree with me about HAMAS fighters being (in theory if not in Israeli practice) distinguishable from innocent civilians.
eventually a butcher's bill to be paid. Given the debt that Israel is racking up, settling that bill will horrific.
What nonsense. There is no "bill" nor any debt-collector to ensure it is paid. Did the Native Americans ever "settle" the bill with Europeans? Were the Germans subjected to a horrific settlement at the hands of European Jews (or God, if you believe in such a thing)? Did the Japanese repay the Chinese blood they spilled or even the Bolsheviks that of their own subjects? Of course not, because moral debts are merely imaginary ones with no impact on reality. L.A Rollins explains more in The Myth of Natural Rights, republished with an introduction from yours truly.
Okay sir, you're a Lebowski, I'm a Lebowski. That's terrific.
TGGP, you're confused. What the Native Americans lacked and what the European Jewry lacked was the ability to outnumber their occupiers. Israel is not a matter of moral debt, but of a demographic bomb, if you can tolerate the catch phrase. And that, buddy, well, even Olmert knows about that bill. What do you think got Sharon to believe in a two-state solution of any sort?
But sure, sure, call us moralists. It's the conversation of a thousand straw men, so you're free to pick whichever oversimplification you like.
If Hamas - as a matter of policy - places its military assets in civilian areas
Sorry, I'm late. I see there's no Chex Mix left. fuckers.
Anyway, just dragging my ass by to mock the "civilian areas" complaint. Gawd, that's a pig- stupid one. IT'S A FUCKING POSTAGE STAMP, packed with Palestinians like a '64 Westphalia full of hippies on their way to an O.A.R. concert.
What isn't a fucking civilian area?
the_system:
Obviously I meant BESIDES us and Israel, we all know the only country that's a bigger pack of bloodthirsty hypocritical shits than Israel is the good ole US of A. I mean, shit, where do you think they learned it from? They've just become more brazen about it than us, that's all.
Also, to you remaining dipshit Israel terror state boosters:
http://wonkette.com/405252/bill-kristol-still-writing-for-nyt-arguing-for-iranian-war-etc#more-405252
This is the company you find yourself in: Bill Fuckin Kristol. Please rethink your knee-jerk support of Israel, or, you know, kill yourselves, either one works for me. Don't worry, there will be plenty of dipshits left to defend the indefensible. Israel Uber Alles!
Dear Paul:
First, love your prose style – some of the strongest writing I’ve encountered since Ann Coulter’s last “book” came out.
Second, Hamas, as a matter of policy, intentionally places military assets in the most densely populated civilian areas possible creating a win-win for them.
It’s not exactly close-hold information that insurgents fighting technologically superior nation-states do this. We might call it “Fighting the Man 101.”
If I were a Hamas leader that is exactly what I would do. It is a great weapon to use in the international arena and it works quite well.
For a starter course go read FM 3-24, where a great deal of discussion is given over to how to deal with an enemy intentionally digging into the most populated civilians areas it can find.
My pointing out that this widely known and used tactic is rather obviously being used by Hamas apparently ranks me as being among the pig-stupid.
Oh well, better then being a self-described “righteous bad-ass” wielding a “clue-by-four” which is of course “like a 2×4 of awesome upside the head” any day.
Like wow, dude, that’s some awesome writing! You rawk!!
I strongly disagree with all the Israel critics. Israel is simply trying to survive; if you think a one state solution is possible you are as deluded as your political beliefs - there would be mass killing, rape, etc, on a scale unprecedented since the Holocaust or the Armenian genocide. But kudos to those of you who are at least frank enough to admit that you seek the destruction of a sovereign state.
IOZ, on the other hand, uses his snark as a shield to hide his true intentions. He's pro-Palestinian and anti-semitic, and he doesn't give a fuck what happens to Jews. But he is correct about one thing: killing Hamas members won't do a damn thing. Hamas, with its charter calling for the destruction of Israel, was democratically elected; killing the fighters won't solve anything because the women will educate the next generation of in the same way.
Olmert, Livni and Barak launched this offensive simply because there's an election next month and they're losing in polls to Likud. If they had cared about stopping the rocket fire, they've had since the pullout to do it.
There are only three possible longterm solutions that are favorable to Israel: (1) Build a moat under the Gaza-Egyptian border (it was proposed before the pullout) to prevent the smuggling of weapons; (2) Retake Gaza and rule it like Lord Cromer ruled Egypt, with collective punishment and complete control of Gazan educational and religious institutions; (3) evict all Gazans into Egypt, the way a lot of Palestinians were evicted into Lebanon and Jordan.
It's a sad state of affairs that Progressivism rules the world to such an extent that the extermination of Israel can be discussed publicly, but evicting the Palestinians into ancillary Arab land can't be.
Lastly, IOZ - when Progressivism runs its course (it's not far off) and collapses in a spent heap and Islam takes over, I'd like you to remember your support for the Muslims when you're in hiding or dead because of your sexual orientation.
How true – it really is a “cheap trick” to use their own charter as an indication of what they believe. I should take IOZ’s word for what they want over their own declared goals any day.
And how weird it is that such an organization thrives when Israel is truly and solely all about peace.
More seriously, the Zionist racist bullshit quoted above predates by far the creation of Hamas (which wasn't opposed by Israel by the way), as well as its prevalence in Palestinian life. There was a time when Hamas was at the margins. As to how it came to the center of the scene, I think Israel can be blamed for that.
Israel had multiple opportunities to behave with honor and dignity; instead, it chose to betray everything and everyone, and now the biggest movement in Gaza is the most extremist one. What a surprise. That's what they wanted the whole time.
It's a sad state of affairs that Progressivism rules the world to such an extent that the extermination of Israel can be discussed publicly, but evicting the Palestinians into ancillary Arab land can't be.
Lastly, IOZ - when Progressivism runs its course (it's not far off) and collapses in a spent heap and Islam takes over, I'd like you to remember your support for the Muslims when you're in hiding or dead because of your sexual orientation.
It's a sad state of affairs when some Zionist thinks he can come here infect us with his propaganda. And what a nice fantasy world you're living in. Islam will "take over". From my perspective, it looks more like it is fascists like you who will take over.
I also like the fear you're trying to instill in IOZ, with your take-over by Islam scenario that you've taken out of your ass.
littlehorn, I'm not trying to "justify" anything. First, I don't believe that normative concepts (like "justice") have any objective truth value. Second, I'm more indifferent to the Middle East than Adam Smith's hypothetical gentleman was of China. I'm merely contradicting our host's remark about logical possibility. As far as I can tell, you don't seem to disagree with me about HAMAS fighters being (in theory if not in Israeli practice) distinguishable from innocent civilians.
I'm glad you're that sophisticated, but I don't really care what your view of justice is.
As for the Hamas "fighters", they are not distinguished from innocent civilians.
So Israel's attacks consist of the killing of some innocents and non-innocents and one could favor those attacks based on the latter while regretting the former.
So, to sum up Greenwald's position:
The fact Israeli civilians have died is so terrible, that one can understand the sacrifice of Palestinian civilians, you know, for the previous civilians' safety.
And if this is what you really agree with, then tell me why you're not rooting for the occupation of Iraq ?
Strange, how the "run the Palestinians into the desert" dude chose the Armenian genocide as one of his go-to human rights references. Is there anyone as unintentionally ironic as a partisan?
Anyway, I'll make that the whole of my point. I am truly interested in what our dear host has to say about this. The Progressives and the Islamo-Fascists are apparently locked in a bitter struggle over the fate of the world, or something, and the Mohammedans are gonna come over here and stop our buttfuckery if we don't let the Israelis do some buttfuckery of their own on the Gazans. Right? I am following, correct? And I presume that Achmed bin Achmed and all his pals also lust after our white women?
Cuneyt, the native americans did start out outnumbering the colonists. But enough of them died and the colonists multiplied until the scales tipped. And the Chinese have always outnumbered the Japanese. It is certainly within the physical capability of the Israelis to exterminate/expel enough Palestinians to outnumber them.
I also think a one-state solution is an idiotic idea for Israel, but I think it's a lousy idea for the U.S as well.
littelhorn, how hard must you try to be this obtuse? Neither Greenwald nor I was voicing support of Israel's actions. We were just pointing out a logical possibility. I don't support the Iraq Attaq because 1: fuck Iraq and 2: gimme back my taxes.
Oh Christ, one of those idiots who thinks we're all that's standing between radical Islam and a world-wide Caliphate! Awesome!
Motherfucker, Islam ain't doing SHIT. A bunch of goatfucking Saudi Arabians and a handful of Egyptians got lucky one day 8 years ago and hit our complacent asses with a fairly horrific terrorist attack (there's been worse), and ever since then dipshits like you have been looking for Boogey Man Bin Laden under your beds and giving yourself over to wholly unrealistic paranoid fantasies of some sort of Red Dawn scenario where Mohammeds are forcing us all into camps and taking away our bibles and pickup trucks or whatever the fuck. It's fucking absurd. Get a grip, you lunatic.
"Yes": just one minor problem with your suggestions - Gaza is part of Egypt. It is that part of Egypt which has been under Israeli occupation since its annexation during the Six Day War in 1967, hence the term "occupied territories". There is no (legal) Gaza-Egypt border, and you can't evict the Palestinians into Egypt from Gaza because they're already there.
Seriously Yes, you are the dumbest motherfucker who has ever shown up in these comments by a country mile, please go kill yourself, or at the very least castrate yourself and do not breed, and kill any poor pinhead children you might have spawned before now. The world does not need more of you.
Wwwwahhhh someone is pointing out that Israel is a bunch of murderous shitheads, that's so anti-Semitic! Progressivism bloo blah bloo! Kill all the Palestinians, err, I mean, push them into lands where they are not welcome, because I'm too much of a dumbshit to realize that none of the other "Arab" countries neighboring Israel wants the fucking Palestinians there either!
Let me explain something to you, you fucking turd: The Holocaust does not entitle the Israelis to a free hand to do whatever the fuck they want, whenever they want. Engaging in their own genocide makes them as bad as the Nazis, PERIOD. I don't give a fuck how many bullshit ass charters you dredge up, you don't get to shake your pom-poms for genocide because some people in an entire race or ethnicity want to perpetrate their own on Israel. I hope you get bowel cancer, you ignorant, hatefilled bag of shit.
Curiously, no one ever notes that hating Palestinians is also, strictly speaking, anti-Semitic.
Curiously, no one ever notes that hating Palestinians is also, strictly speaking, anti-Semitic.
No one wants to hear you and your etymological lessons, you anti-Semite.
littelhorn, how hard must you try to be this obtuse? Neither Greenwald nor I was voicing support of Israel's actions. We were just pointing out a logical possibility.
I don't know about you, but I'm pretty sure Greenwald said this:
It's certainly possible to support the Israeli offensive despite the deaths of these civilians, to truly lament the suffering of innocent Palestinians but still find the war, on balance, to be justifiable.
So here, Greenwald basically provides moral cover for supporters of Israel's actions. You do the same.
You understand that I can't accept that murderous fascists can be considered humane in any way. That is called rationalizing. It's not direct support. It comes close enough for me.
Greenwald is trying to distinguish some hypothetical bleeding-heart supporters of bombing Gaza with people like Goldfarb in order to demonstrate just how far out there Goldfarb is.
Greenwald would likely dispute that he is providing cover, I personally don't care.
You understand that I can't accept that murderous fascists can be considered humane in any way.
How about all the varieties of murderous non-fascists? It seems rather anachronistic to have such focus on an ideology that virtually nobody has admitted to holding since WW2. I don't find "humane" to be a meaningful concept, although quoting the Roman bard I would say all things done by humans are human to me. If you refuse to believe that Hitler (who at least wasn't Ludendorff) could, say, be saddened by cruelty to animals, because that's logically incompatible with other acts you disapprove of then have fun being willfully ignorant.
I think some people here are misunderstanding Greenwald. Go read the whole thing, as they say.
"You understand that I can't accept that murderous fascists can be considered humane in any way. That is called rationalizing. It's not direct support. It comes close enough for me."
You give pompous, self-righteous blow-hards a bad name.
Thanks anonymous. I work very hard to obtain that effect. It does sound pompous and self-righteous in hindsight. Then again, I always enjoy calling Israelis murderous fascists; they talk about freedom and democracy all the time, see. How's that for pompous self-righteous bullshit ?
If you refuse to believe that Hitler (who at least wasn't Ludendorff) could, say, be saddened by cruelty to animals, because that's logically incompatible with other acts you disapprove of then have fun being willfully ignorant.
Jews and animals belong to different species. More importantly, Hitler was a deranged person and I wouldn't use his example to disprove any point about the general public.
I'm saying it's cowardice to say that you're "truly lamenting" the deaths of Palestinians, which would be the humane thing to do, but without going all the way and condemning Israel's actions.
What 'good' thing(s) can possibly 'balance' the deaths of innocent people ? How can the deaths of innocent people be on the sideline of a greater plan ? I would think the gravest action is always at the center of everything.
If I rob a bank and I kill someone, even if the aim was to steal money, when i'm judged, people ain't gonna judge me for stealing. They're gonna judge me for killing.
Littlehorn, I was sympathetic to your point, and I suppose I still am, but you're losing focus.
It's not about balance. It's about distinction. Some people here, and those described by Greenwald, believe that you can separate this specific incursion into Gaza from Israel's policies regarding Gaza or the PA entirely, or separate this particular incursion from, say, the blockade of Gaza.
If you can, then that's alright. That's not abetting fascism. Oh, and by the way, please, please, please stop throwing the word around; it's giving me a headache. Like TGGP said, murder's not exclusive to fascism, and while we might call Israel many ugly things, fascism is a bit of a hard fit. There are surely fascistic elements within Israel, as there are in all nations, but anyway, I've said it.
Back to the matter at hand, some of us think that, no, you can't bottle up the current Gaza war and say that its killing of civilians is accidental or incidental and not essential, when Israel is, at the same time, mind you, carrying out vindictive policies as a matter of principle against the Gazans as a whole. The same people can't be merely indifferent to Gazan civilian suffering on one hand and openly pursuing it with another.
The Hitler animal anecdote has no weight, here, either. People are all too easily hypocritical when it comes to cruelty and kindness. What's fair for one is not fair for another. Monsters, indeed, can appear kind and even be kind, while otherwise being no less monstrous. But that doesn't mean that there shouldn't be some cognitive dissonance.
Greenwald's saying that such people are good people, perhaps, who just lack information. That's a kind way to look at it, and maybe he's right, judging by the e-mails he's gotten. And ultimately, I take from his entry the same point I got from IOZ's. It actually is possible to lament the suffering of the Palestinians while supporting the war, just as it was possible and maybe still is to mourn the dead Iraqis and support that war and occupation.
All it takes is not knowing what the hell you're talking about. That's usually a good fix for that whole dissonance thing.
I was thinking the same thing Cüneyt. I thought that paragraph was odd when I read it on Greenwald's site, and wasn't surprised that Ioz picked it up, but I had concluded it was possible, if the person holding the opinion was an idiot, or misinformed.
Mind you, Glenn writes: "Those who favor the attack on Gaza due to that calculus are certainly misguided about the likely outcome. "
They're misguided about the progress of the war, not just its outcome.
Given the greed, self interest and power hunger that was REALLY behind the Iraq War, I cannot be as kind as you are, Cuynet, to those who still "support" said war while mourning the Iraqis. F&^% 'em!
Like TGGP said, murder's not exclusive to fascism, and while we might call Israel many ugly things, fascism is a bit of a hard fit. There are surely fascistic elements within Israel, as there are in all nations, but anyway, I've said it.
I guess I'm using the term a little broadly. Indeed, murder is not exclusive to fascism. And surely, Israel is an untainted democracy on the inside. Okay, it's not a dictatorship.
But I still find that the whole attitude towards Palestinians, that is, how Israelis are seeking complete dominance over their lives, that attitude is completely deserving of the term 'fascist', and then some.
You don't blockade a population unless you want to control it. You don't bomb it, invade it, occupy it. That need for control is fascistic, even if Olmert doesn't recite lines from Mein Kampf, or whatever book the fascists read.
So let's call a duck a duck, shall we ?
But you're inflating the term. This is not calling a duck a duck. This is calling all birds ducks, because they all have feathers.
Fascism's not about the need to control. Not exclusively. That is, ah, human nature. No wait. That's nature. Will to power, my friend, is not fascism, any more than Ashurbanipal and Genghis Khan could be called fascists.
This is all semantics, I know, and you criticize fairly. It's just good to be precise, you know? Otherwise you're into "Islamofascist" and "Communazi" territory.
Curiously, no one ever notes that hating Palestinians is also, strictly speaking, anti-Semitic.
In my experience, this observation is commonly raised in high-schools as an expression of can't-we-all-just-get-alongism.
Yes said: ...kudos to those of you who are at least frank enough to admit that you seek the destruction of a sovereign state.
If said 'sovereign state' were in any sense legitimate, I might feel this snipe had some merit. But Israel is illegitimate from it's very foundation. It is a colonialist occupation from it's very beginning and cannot be otherwise. Even if you grant some validity to it's initial existence post-1949, it has been a rogue state since 1967 through it's illegal occupation of Gaza, the West Bank, and the Golan.
If the inevitable emergence of a single state of Palestine does in fact result in your imagined bloodbath and rape fest (and I do not grant this as given), we must lay the blame for it on those who established the colonial settler state in the first place: the Zionists and their enablers -- mainly the U.S., England, and France.
TGGP said: I also think a one-state solution is an idiotic idea for Israel, but I think it's a lousy idea for the U.S as well.
Why should the U.S. have anything to say whatever about what is best for Palestine and the Palestinian people? The U.S. hasn't particularly distinguished itself in acting on behalf of anyone but the most narrow segments of U.S. and Israeli elite interests. The U.S. has no right to dictate anything in this situation. It's true that a single state in Palestine isn't in the interest of Israel as a Jewish state and Zionist project. If Jewish people genuinely want to live in peace in Palestine, it will only happen in the context of secular state. If such a state seems impossible at this point, you can thank Israeli and U.S. policy that systematically gutted the secular Palestinian movements specifically to prevent the emergence of a Palestinian state.
Phillip Allen: What is the statute of limitations on the creation of illegal states? I mean, there probably isn't a nation in existence today being run by direct descendents of the original inhabitants. Certainly North, Central and South America are all filled with nations every bit as "illegal" as Israel by any such definition - the only difference being the number of years that have passed since the present occupiers stole the land from the people who had stolen it from someone else (for example Europeans stealing the Dakotas from the Sioux who had stolen it from the Crow….). Is it 75 years? 100 years?
Sorry folks, but anyone who spent 5 minutes with on encyclopedia and/or wasn't blinded by self-justifying anti-semitism would know that Israel was not set up as a colony by the Western powers to expiate their guilt for the Holocaust. Leave aside the fact that if you don't think countries created by Western powers are legitimate, you don't recognize most of the countries in the MIddle East(or in Africa or Asia, for that matter)-- the fact is, Israel wasn't given to the Jews by anybody. It was in fact the result of the failure of the British partition of Palestine. The Jews accepted it and the Arabs didn't; the Arabs tried to ethnically cleanse the Jews(of which there were 250,00 in residence at the time) and they got their asses kicked instead. The notion that they all ever wanted to, ever could have, or ever will get together and form one, big happy secular state is a fantasy of people who believe in the Tooth Fairy and spend a lot of time singing "Kumbaya".
I'm not sure why the desire for national determination is ok for Kurds and Swedes but when expressed by Jews is fascism. I'm not sure why self-defense is a crime only when practiced by Israelis. I do know that it's absurd to claim that Israel somehow forces Hamas to randomly bomb it's citizens, a practice which, by the way, can't possibly be justified by claims of self-defense and can only exist to invite attack by Israel . The notion that the Palestinians have no agency, that they're forced to destroy themselves because the Israelis are so darn evil, is stupid and condescending, as is the notion that Israel has any interest in "controlling" them, beyond the requirements of self-defense. Israel doesn't build walls and impose blockades because it thinks Palestinians are inferior or because it wants to obliterate their culture. It does it because, when they have the chance, Palestinians have a nasty habit of blowing themselves up on buses.
But the bottom line for all you potty-mouthed ranters is this--the Jewish people don't care what you think. It's sad to see civilians die, even if, where the tables turned, those same civilians would be dancing in the streets. It's sad to see hospitals bombed, even if the people who invited the bombing have built bunkers underneath them. But the fact is, Israel is not about to dissolve itself because you happen to think it's illegitimate and it's citizens are not going to endure rocket fire or suicide bombings to satisfy your desire for some sort of cosmic justice. Israel has been the Jewish homeland for 3000 years, and there have been Jews there all of that time. Maybe the world has been inconvenienced by the Jewish people managing to get control of it again, but that's just too goddamn bad. Call it fascism if you want, but after 2000 years of getting brutalized by every nation on this earth, I prefer to think of it as "fuck you".
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