In the American discourse, anything that Israel does to Palestinians is justifiable.

There’s a sort of feeling, I think, that everybody already pretty much knows how much shit Israel has to deal with, but that nobody cares about Palestinians dealing with more-or-less the same thing.

Goddam right, Mencken. When you get fucked, you fight.

How is this hard to grasp?

The americans got fucked in the late eighteenth century, and they fought.

The south africans got fucked for decades, and they fought.

On and on. You can’t swallow it? Lock and load. Fight them.

And now? If you’re getting fucked?

Put a mag in the rifle and fight….

mikey

It’s called ethnic cleansing. I can’t think of an instance where it’s *not* a wicked thing.

but the lack of empathy to Israel is, well, disturbing …

No, it’s not. An analogy: Whenever I read histories of Indians attacking the American frontier — or indeed of AIM “terrorists” attacking the FBI or seizing Alcatraz — I feel *no empathy for the other side* because it deserves none. The only thing I wish for in reading of such things is that the occupying, colonial power might have experienced more, not less, grief. Fuck ‘em. Cold blooded? Yeah, well, when governments of sacred ethnic (be they white Xtian or white Jewish) groups stop taking what is not theirs, then we can talk.

Congratulations for being part of the problem. Hooray religionists!

The Karelians called, and yes, they would like their country/autonomous area back if it’s no trouble, thanks! (What is this “tell it to the Karelians” argument supposed to demonstrate, anyway? The Karelians can’t have theirs back, so no one else should either?)

[gingerly submits]

I agree with you. Although some aspects of the pre-1967 borders are rather silly and some settlements must be kept (also, speaking as a Jew, any settlement that denies me access to the Western Wall and the Old City of Jerusalem, is straight out) … perhaps in exchange for some land within pre-1967 Israel. Of course, the big issue is water.

Still, as long as the perception is “we negotiate with those people, and they still attack us”, there ain’t going to be any progress on the Israeli side (I reckon Palestinians can and do say the same thing). What those on both sides who hold such attitudes need to realize is that their attitudes are allowing violent extremists to hold hostage (choice of words on purpose) the peace process. However, it would help if baby steps were meant with perceivable (having whole towns under siege by rocket fire may represent a lower death toll than suicide bombers, simply do to the ability of suicide bombers to actually blow themselves up in crowds of people rather than being lobbed randomly, but having whole towns under siege is not going to be perceived as progress) advantages.

Of course, Palestinians could argue that they also need to perceive incrimental peace dividends from the Israeli side, which they have not seen. However, when you look at historical precident, that Israel has not simply done #2 (pun intended) of your options, one could argue that Israel is being restrained. Anyway, if the goal is a two state solution, Israel is one of those states — and Israel was supposed to have included much of the occupied territories anyway (debatable, I know) … so to expect Israel to be chipped away into nothing is hardly to, in good faith, embrace a two state solution.

The problem in the Israeli/Palestine conflict is, of course, that each side feels that merely to accept the other side is a pretty huge compromise (and, don’t forget the water) — each side has a good reason to feel that they should have 100% of Israel/Palestine. How do you get people to take a “leap of faith” into a peace process with nothing to give them confidence that the other side won’t just take advantage of the peace process, regroup behind the walls erected, and then completely destroy the other side as soon as the slightest breech in the walls occurs?

If the Likudniks, neo-cons and similar types were half as clever as they think they are (and nobody is as stupid as someone convinced by stereotypes about his ethno-religious group that he’s clever), they would have unilaterally declared recognized Palestine as an independent state and when the first rocket flew into Israel said “that’s an act of war” and invaded it … deported all the inhabitants somewhere else, and when people complained, they could have responded “well, what about the Karelians, etc.”.

True enough; my favorite nonfiction tends to be in that genre (the Mismeasure of Man; Cadillac Desert; Debbie Does Dallas). But that’s a general characteristic of humanity; we’re a deeply irrational, vicious set of creatures. Perfectible, or close to it – I’m pretty sure that a society can exist where cruelty isn’t a part of day-to-day life and technology enables the common welfare and leisure instead of depriving from it – but still vicious and irrational.

For what it’s worth, communities of experts generally right themselves – scientists as a whole were all wrong about abiogenesis in the 17th century, but that’s changed considerably since then. On the other hand, non-scientific governance is usually dominated by random hits followed by horrible misses – Abolitionism is a feather in the cap of certain religious sects against the science of the day (but not most of them, at least not for a long time – the general trend among churchgoers seems to have been to accept slavery), but the same congregations went on to spearhead Prohibition and, when push came to shove, became the constituency for modern non-scientific racism.

The experts are generally deadly wrong when everyone else is; expertise isn’t a panacea. (Even the socialists of the imperial days were widely in favor of imperialism – it was simply how things worked. Positivism was a sort of universal calling in the 19th century.) On the other hand, they’re much less likely to be wrong than others, and collective/democratic decision-making does just as bad a job as expert-selection of reflecting the prejudices and stupidities of the day.

The rocket attacks from Gaza, while certainly not an ideal situation, are vastly better than the scores of suicide bombers that struck Tel Aviv and the like in the early part of the decade.

Here are, in my opinion, Israel’s options from here on out:

1.) Work toward a two-state solution

2.) Expel the Palestinians forcibly from the West Bank and Gaza

That’s pretty much it. They can’t keep up (and they’re finally starting to recognize this) their policy of saying that they’re occupying the territories and creating heavily-armed settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. It’s bad for Israeli security, it’s illegal under international law and it is in the long run completely unsustainable, unless they want to take in every Palestinian living in those territories as a citizen (and they don’t for obvious reasons). So what do they do?

My personal preference would be to have a two-state solution and a heavy barricade to protect against attacks. And stop trying to move onto the Palestinians’ land.

I certainly agree with you, but the counter-argument is “if Israel hadn’t used such strong armed tactics, imagine how much worse they’d be — by responding so severely, Israel shows it means business and thus is detering attacks, which would be more severe if Israel did not respond but rather showed its weakness”. The counter-argument is that when Israel does make a baby step (even if it is pretty much a pseudo-step), there is even more violence toward Israel (e.g. now that Israel has withdrawn its settlements from Gaza, there are more attacks from Gaza not fewer).

There is a lot of begging the question in the Likudnik arguments, that’s for sure. But one thing to remember is that the “tough-guy” rhetoric and actions from some in Israel betray an extreme amount of weakness (which is the ironic thing — the “bomb the heck out of Gaza” people think they are showing how strong Israel is which will ward off further attacks — but in reality they are showing how weak their side is) on the part of the “tough guys” — if the Palestinian cause is to go anywhere, baby steps undertaken by Israel (even if not 100% in good faith) need to be rewarded with less violence rather than punished with more violence.

Until then, many Israelis will feel that any backing down would disastrously weaken Israel’s position. A two state solution does, by definition, involve Israel, so Israel ought to be able to defend itself. And could you imagine what kind of response any nation would have if it were under the kind of barrages faced by Israel? We pretty much took out a government for a terrorist attack that, on a percent of population basis, was far less severe than what Israel faces rather often.

One doesn’t have to agree with what Israel does, but the lack of empathy to Israel is, well, disturbing …

Considering how many people could subside on the fairly fertile areas of interior California – or, really, every nook and cranny of the US west of the Mississippi – that sort of thing could lead to an awful lot of deaths. Thank God it’s just a wacky hypothetical.