lord of the blog

« The Lord's Diary. Hammersmith Hospital 3.11.05 | Main | Responses »

Saturday, November 12, 2005

Responses Middle East

I think I need a regular post on the Middle East.

It is very important to some people who visit this site and also to me but other visitors ask me to cover more general political issues. That will become easier as I use the Lord’s diary more.

I am looking for an opportunity to speak on foreign affairs/ Middle East/UN in the Lord’s and will do so as soon as possible.

The only point I wish to make in relation to the many comments is about the ‘blame game’. If anyone was qualified to apportion blame for the problems in the region then I don’t doubt that depending on your historical starting point, Turkey, France, Israel and UK/US would all get their fare share.

So however would the region itself.

The blame game is an interesting and fully legitimate debate but it is not enough in terms of finding solutions. Most people accept that we need a process in the Palestine/Israel dispute and that both sides are losing at the moment although inevitable the Palestinians are suffering most.

Modernisation is an important factor in the area. It is the inability to modernise politically, industrially and economically that underpins a lot of the problems. Israel could not conceivably resist effective negotiation if the region had stable, free and developed societies.

Condoleezza Rice was spot on when she said the main failing of the West had been to back governments that were seen to be in control rather then ones that might bring the rule of law and free societies.

Oil wealth has worked against the interests of the people in the area because it has given rulers access to vast fortunes which has been a corrupting influence not least because they don’t need to raise taxes from the population which encourages a culture of accountability.

The type of argument taking place on this site is rather different to those that take place amongst many Arabs. I find they don’t ‘do’ the history bit quite so much. They tend to focus on what needs to be done in their countries. One of the reasons I remain optimistic in the long run is because both Islam and the Arab countries are more focussed on the need to change and take control of their own destiny then I think was happening in the past.

One of the most frustrating things about the world we live in is that we know what needs to be done to get peaceful relations within and between countries but we don’t know how to achieve it quickly enough. Countries that have the rule of law and a relatively free and uncorrupted system don’t have the same degree of internal conflict and are better at resolving neighbour disputes.

Sometimes we do nothing in the face of brutality and put our collective heads in the sand as we did with the Rwanda massacres. Sometimes we intervene ineffectively as in Somalia, sometimes we dither as in Bosnia (and that had terrible consequences not just in the killings but because it also convinced many Moslems that the West would never intervene to help them and that is when many of them decided to fight) and sometimes we intervene either clumsily as in Iraq or more successfully in Kosovo and Sierra Leanne

That is why each set of events needs a special response. Whether it is Iran or North Korea or Iraq there is no template which provides a solution. I hope to return to this in the future.

Clive, (and also Dan and Nick – though Nick I think you’ve strayed far off the point – the issue we’re speaking about is Israel. There is no comparable situation in the world, let alone in the Middle East).

“The blame game is an interesting and fully legitimate debate but it is not enough in terms of finding solutions. Most people accept that we need a process in the Palestine/Israel dispute and that both sides are losing at the moment although inevitable the Palestinians are suffering most.”

Before any meaningful “process” can be developed, there needs to be factual and honest exposition of the facts. This is not happening. The debate is still largely dominated by propaganda which presents Israel as the primary victim of the situation, a shining beacon of democracy in a sea of savagery, and Palestinian resistance as being the root cause of all violence. There is also a large amount if misinformation about the history of the conflict which is only now being confidently challenged, not just by pro-Palestinian writers but within the Israeli academic establishment. Anyone who’s interested should read “Righteous Victims” by Benny Morris, a leading Israeli historian at Ben Gurion University (and certainly no friend of the Palestinian cause) who, despite his disregard for the status of Palestinians as human beings, at least has the decency to tell the truth: that Palestinians have been, and continue to be, the victims of a violent and systematic process of ethnic cleansing starting in 1948.

People in the West can view these as matters of history which should be put aside for the sake of peace. Westerners have that luxury. The problem with this argument is that Palestinians are still living the sharp side of that history today. How do you tell a refugee in Nablus to put history aside when he and everyone he knows has lost someone to Israeli bombs and bullets? When at any moment the Israeli army can bomb his street, enter his home and arrest him, demolish his house or kill his family? When every day he suffers the indignity of being harassed by heavily armed teenage thugs at Israeli check-points set up to defend illegal and heavily subsidized Jewish settlements housing doctors, bankers and lawyers from New York, Paris and London as well as immigrants from Eastern Europe and Russia?

The issue is presented in the West almost entirely in terms of popular myths.

Among the most common is that Israelis only target “terrorists” while Palestinians target civilians. – This is contradicted by every major human rights organization that monitors life in the occupied territories. See “Beyond Chutzpah – On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History” by Norman G. Finkelstein for a thorough compilation of analysis and conclusions from thousands of reports by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem. Their conclusions on Israeli human rights abuses and the targeting of civilians are effectively unanimous. In the words of Physicians for Human Rights USA:

“the pattern of injuries seen in many victims” including “the high number of gunshots to the head” did not indicated Israeli use of arms in self defense but rather the “targeting solely for the purpose of wounding or killing".
[Source: http://www.phrusa.org/research/forensics/israel/update_commentary.html]

Consider this. Since 2000, 3734 Palestinians have been killed by the IDF (source: http://www.palestinercs.org/Database/Date/). The number of Israeli civilians killed is 754 according to the IDF website. (http://www1.idf.il/dover/site/mainpage.asp?sl=EN&id=22&docid=16703). Lets add the number of IDF troops killed and use the figure of 1,074 Israeli dead. What we are expected to believe is that, while these 1,074 were deliberately targeted, over three times this number of Palestinians died by accident.

While suicide bombings are reported without fail, and while discussion of the conflict cannot begin without the customary condemnation of suicide attacks, Israeli human rights abuses are routinely excused as justifiable, if clumsy or excessively forceful, “acts of self defense”. Even Dan, from whom I usually expect far more, characterizes the ultimate solution as one which “guarantees security for Israel” without even a mention of security for Palestinians, clearly in dire need of protection from massive and overwhelming Israeli violence. The fact that such a usually well informed and balanced character as Dan can be so totally misled shows how pervasive these myths are.

Another common myth is that Ehud Barak offered Arafat huge concessions for peace at Camp David but that Arafat threw these back in his face. Anyone who believes this has clearly never read the terms of both the Oslo and Camp David agreements. What Arafat was offered was A) set of disjointed enclaves, overlooked by illegal Israeli settlements, surrounded by the Israeli army, Jewish-only roads (guarded by Israel checkpoints) passing through and dividing Palestinian territory in order to link these illegal settlements to Israel, B) no control over airspace, sea-ports or external borders, limited control of water resources, C) freedom for Israeli armed forces to enter Palestinian territory at will, D) continued Israeli control over large parts of the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and E) the relinquishing of the right of nearly 4-million Palestinian refugees to return to their homes in return for compensation to be paid not by Israel but by the “international community”.

All serious analysts of the situation recognized this for what it was – a continuation of Israeli occupation under the name of a “Palestinian State”. In the words of John Mearsheimer, professor in the department of political science at the University of Chicago:

"it is hard to imagine the Palestinians accepting such a state. Certainly no other nation in the world has such curtailed sovereignty."
["The Impossible Partition," New York Times, January 11, 200

Further, the very idea that the US is presented, without the slightest irony, as an honest peace broker in all of this shows just how far from reality the official story really is.

The South Africans coined a now famous phrase after Nelson Mandela came to power which they used to refer to the a process for overcoming a legacy of decades of vicious racist repression and unjust treatment of blacks by the Apartheid government – “Truth and Reconciliation”. If we expect there to be any room for reconciliation we must first make room for the truth. Without it there can be no justice and therefore no peace.

S.

Firstly, I don't think Nick or I are denying the suffering of the Palestinians or their right to liberty, self-determination and economic justice. These are not disputed here. In actual fact, the Israeli state has pledged itself to Palestinian statehood. The task is to hold them to their word.

"Even Dan, from whom I usually expect far more, characterizes the ultimate solution as one which “guarantees security for Israel” without even a mention of security for Palestinians, clearly in dire need of protection from massive and overwhelming Israeli violence."
Of course, Israel's security must be guaranteed. Do you not think that Israelis fear violence as much as Palestinians, event if the casualty rate is weighted towards the Palestinians? Israel's security depends not on just the proclamation of peace by neighbouring states - and there is no longer an excuse that the West Bank needs to be held to prevent a Jordanian invasion. Israeli security depends on a successful and politically strong Palestinian state. And I think that Israel is the architect of its own problems.

I don't think we have a dispute, so far as goals are concerned. The only grounds for disagreement may be the tactics used by some Palestinian groups. For me, the killing of Israeli civilians cannot be justified, just as the killing of Palestinian civilians cannot be justified. There is just no way I'd be prepared to condone or excuse those who blow themselves up to kill Jews. And I do not think there is sufficient evidence to proove that most Palestinians - who include a large number of Christians - would subscribe to the ideologies of the jihadists, even if some do praise the "martyrs".

Hamas and the PIJ will not stand in PNA elections to test their level of support. Their ideologies are foreign to Palestine and their financiers are foreigners. Suicide bombing has been imported from Iran and allies the Lebanese Hezbollah, while the jihadists have embraced the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fraudulant document written by a Russian and propagated by the Nazis. I see no difference in the racial supremacy of the ultra-Zionist settlers illegally occupying the West Bank and their supporters in the Knesset and the American Christian Right, and the violent religious fundamentalism of the jihadists. Both groups do not represent mainstream thinking in their respective countries and both must be defeated.

Dan,

"Do you not think that Israelis fear violence as much as Palestinians, event if the casualty rate is weighted towards the Palestinians?"

Since the likelihood of being killed or wounded in the occupied territories is far greater than that of being killed within Israel, the answer is no, I don't believe that Israelis fear violence as much as Palestinians. Since Palestinians are largely unarmed, under occupation and can be bombed and shot from the safety of American Apache helicopters and sniper towers the answer is again no. Since their oppressor has unconditional support and backing from the world's only superpower while they themselves live on an average of $2-per-day, the answer is again no. By the very fact that at least three time as many Palestinians have been killed since 2000 as Israelis, it is implausible to suggest that the two communities face comparable risks and fears. To suggest that the risks and circumstances are comparable is not only to hide behind moral equivalence; it's an issue of statistical equivalence which is demonstrably false. It is also to argue that an occupier's right to protection is comparable to that of the occupied.

It is, further, to disregard the chronology of events. Palestinian violence is a response to occupation. Israeli violence is in the pursuit of conquest and domination. Don't take my word for it, ask Ariel Sharon:

"It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization, or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands."

-- Ariel Sharon, Israeli Foreign Minister, addressing a meeting of militants from the extreme right-wing Tsomet Party, Agence France Presse, November 15, 1998.

"For me, the killing of Israeli civilians cannot be justified, just as the killing of Palestinian civilians cannot be justified."

Nor, apparently, is it eligible to be understood or placed in context.

"Hamas and the PIJ will not stand in PNA elections to test their level of support."

They have never claimed an interest in government. Their stated aim is to fight the occupation. Despite this, however, Hamas has famously been responsible for numerous grass-roots community programs in the territories while the PNA counts its money and send its delegates to high powered meetings to pretend they're statesmen.

"Their ideologies are foreign to Palestine and their financiers are foreigners."

But enough about Zionists.

Yet again, I'm not trying to condone or promote suicide bombing. But I am saying that the reasons for it need to be understood and addressed. To simply put it down to foreign influences is not just inaccurate, it's lame and inadequate. The leadership and membership of Hamas and Islamic Jihad are highly intelligent people, not children who've been brain washed by evil Iranian spies. Moreover, they are Arab Sunnis. If you knew anything about orthodox Sunni groups you'd know that, even if they were to accept money from Iran (and if I were in their position, against an occupying force being armed by the American tax payer, I'd take my resources from where ever I could find them) they would never in a million years accept orders or ideological instruction from Tehran.

"jihadists have embraced the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, a fraudulant document written by a Russian and propagated by the Nazis."

I have no doubt that hatred of a Zionist oppressor soon translates into a hatred of everything Jewish and that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion probably doesn't seem very far fetched to someone who's grown up under Zionist repression. Just as the Nation of Islam's belief in White Devils didn't sound far fetched to Malcolm X, having grown up as a black man in the relatively black-friendly and repression free USA of the 1920s. But to somehow suggest that Hamas and PIJ are motivated by some extension of European anti-Semitism is so preposterous that I'm beginning to wonder if I'm speaking to the same Dan. Are the Ahwazis motivated by "Anti-Iranianism"? Were Native American attacks against white settlers (often brutal and involving the killing and mutilation of women and children) motivated by "Anti-Europeanism"? Can you really be suggesting that those who expel a population that has done them no harm, and establish a "Jewish State" on their land in the name of Zionism, then invade and occupy those refugees that have escaped, killing large numbers of them every year since 1967 and repressing those who revolt, and those who don't, alike, with tactics which Desmond Tutu has described as being worse than anything he ever saw in Apartheid South Africa, and which have been universally condemned as crimes against humanity by all major human rights groups, that these colonisers and occupiers in the name of Zionism and Jewish nationalism can legitimately claim that the hatred they face from their victims is due to "Anti-Semitism"? Please, just so that I can get some sleep, tell me you're joking.

S.

S,

i don't think i strayed off any point; you began the debate by challenging anyone to name another country in the Middle East that was as 'racist' as Israel, which is why i used the examples of Arab expulsions of Jews, and Saudi Arabia's discrimination.

Likewise the reference to Israel as a democracy (or at least one that is more democratic than its neighbours) also sets it apart from other states - ditto the fact Israeli Arabs have far greater political rights than other Arab citizens in Syria/Saudi/Egypt etc. I bring this up to refute your waek argument of Israel being a racist nation comparable to Nazis. But when i mention Israeli Arabs poltical rights to vote, serve in the Knesset etc you totally ignore this.

Indeed it seems that instead of looking at what I or Dan say, you find it easier to attribute false arguments to us and then rebut them, rather than actually take any of our counter-arguments. So you claim that i state that all violence is Palestinian, or that i am making excuses for Israeli military actions - even though i call Israeli actions clumsy and brutal and also condemn it as much as i condemn suicide bombing. But because you can only argue in a straitjacket manner - where people must be entirely uncritical of one side, or totally comdemnatory of the other, itis not surpising that find it easier to refute arguments none of us are making.

I just want to take up the Zionist=racism point to use for your claim of Israel as uniquely racist in the Middle East.

It is interesting to note that pre-war Palestine placed direct restrictions on Jewish immigration, in order for the Arabs to keep 70% of the population; this was done by the British at the behest of the Arabs; during WW2, when Jews were being gassed, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem held meetings with senior Nazis in Germany. Would you say then, that Arab intentions in Palestine were racist and directly equivalent to the Nazis, with whom they were having meetings? The Peel Commission of 1937 proposed giving the Jews a tiny proportion of Palestine that was less than their share of the population; yet the Arabs were opposed to any land being given (even though much of the terrain had been uninhabited by Jews legally emigrating since the 1850s). Would you not agree this was racism? The UN parition plan gave the Jews much less land than the 1949 Israel borders - but the Arabs were not prepared to accept even this. Again the suspicion must be not that the Jews were planning to throw out the Arabs, but that the Arabs did not want any Jewish homeland to exist at all.

Many countries in the world give citizenship priority to people with a cultural/family/ethnic tie to the country concerned - so the idea that Israel is unique in this sense is false. So if Palestinian citizenship is not open to the entire world, are you then going to claim a Palestinian state is racist?

You don't also deal with the fact Israel gave 1 million Arabs citizenship - yet you claim Israel is a racist state on a par with the Nazis. Do you ignore this as 'irrelevant' or because it refuts your racism argument?

You detail Israeli military actions and their brutal effects on Palestinians as if i somehow disagree with you (again this is typical of the straitjacket type of arguing). But i do agree with you here. Perhaps you think i underestimate the wrong nature of the attacks by use of the word 'clumsy' or by the fact i refer to Israel's targetting of militants above civilians. Yet Israel does kill many innocents - i have never excused or not condemned this openly and clearly.

Yet you never actually condemn suicide bombing, committed by groups who openly celebrate the murders of children and women on buses and cafes, "not condoning" is not the same as condemning.
DO you regard this kind of killing as 'protection' If so, then you are a terrorism apologist. And - leaving aside the immorality of these acts - they do not protect Palestinians in the slightest. Can you name any achievements of the Second Intifada? From your 'all is black and white' argument of course, no criticism of Palestinian action is at all possible, so perhaps the idea you can be in favour of Palestinan state yet condemn suicide bombings strikes you as analagous. Indeed in so far as you do mention condemnation- you state it as 'customary' as if such killings are a mere detail.

Suicide bombings do have political effects on countries. The idea Israelis aren't as frightened by the prospect as a PAlestinian is of an Israeli tank or rocket is absurd - how can you really state Israelis aren't afraid? Or do you think the deliberate targetting of civilians in cities isn't important because they are Israeli?

Restrictions on Palestinian movements is awful - but, perhaps if there were not large groups of Palestinans trying to kill as many Israelis as possible, then these barriers would be removed. Why did far fewer barriers exist before the Intifada? Why is the ideal of a Wall now being accepted by the Israelis, when ten years ago no-one would have endorsed it? The Palestinian economy would be in far better shape if free trade with Israel were allowed; so a choice has to be made - you cannot have suicide bombings freely taking place AND expect free trade also.

Hamas may have intelligent people, but intelligence is no sign of moral virtue. Yes their actions ARE evil. I find it hard to comprehand the logic of someone (Someone) who asks us to find Israeli actions evil or wrong, but then can't condemn the deliberate killing of women and children. This is latent anti-Semitism from groups who teach it is a holy duty to kill Jews. And you mention the attitudes of Palestinians 'since 1967' - but of course Islamic Jihad and Hamas don't recognise the 1967 borders either. Do you want to comment on this, or will you ignore this as being inconvenient to your 'only one side is to blame' argument?

When criticising Zionism you say Israeli expelled a population that did Jews no harm? I refer you to the points made about Arab population control of Jewish immigration in the 1930s. There was also rioting against Jews in that time. Expelling Palestinians was wrong, but it was hardly unique - Arab states expelled Jews that, to use your phrase, 'did them no harm' - something you either don't criticise (despite your moral stance on Israeli expulsion of Palestinians) or attribute to Israel, in which case - and using your logic - Israelis would attribute Palestinian expulsions to Arab states starting war in 1948. Arab anti-Semitism, fanned by extremist religious groups in the Middle East, is surely as much the running sore as the lack of a Palestinian state. Your arguments seem more tilted towards disliking the existance of Israel than they are towards the lack of a Palestinian state. But if that is a misrepresentation, i apologise immediately.

Extremism exists in every society. Jewish zealots such as Meir Kahane can be paralleled by Palestinian terrorists engaged in murder funded by groups overseas. Israel is a schizophrenic nation politically. But it is easier for you to believe it as some uniquely evil or racist Nazi country hence if Israel isn't a perfect country it must be a rogue state - you refuse to judge Arab countries or Arab actions in history by the same standards. This blurs your view where every Israeli action is always wrong, and any Palestinian atrocity can be justified. .

I'm sorry that you think that criticism of Palestinian terrorism as harmful to the Palestinian cause is somehow 'anti-Palestinian', or making an excuse for Israeli atrocities. It does not, but your straitjacket approach to debate is as restrictive and contrived as people answering any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism.

I am led to believe that peaceful cooperation between Israel and Palestine will be assured very soon. Prayers of many are being answered.

Nick

“i don't think i strayed off any point; you began the debate by challenging anyone to name another country in the Middle East that was as 'racist' as Israel, which is why i used the examples of Arab expulsions of Jews, and Saudi Arabia's discrimination. “

No, in the middle of the debate I challenged anyone to name a country with the same racially exclusive laws as Israel. A country which legally defines rights in terms of ethnicity. You mentioned Saudi Arabia, I replied that this was a false analogy because Saudi Arabia is not founded on the expulsion of an indigenous population and its wholesale replacement by another ethnic group. Saudi law prevents not only Europeans and Jews from becoming citizens, but also other Arabs and Muslims. Switzerland has similarly difficult citizenship and ownership laws. Those traveling to Saudi (largely as guest workers) do so out of choice, for financial gain and with full knowledge of the laws under which the country operates. Palestinians are not guest workers. They are an indigenous population expelled from their lands by (largely) European colonists.

“Likewise the reference to Israel as a democracy (or at least one that is more democratic than its neighbours) also sets it apart from other states[…]But when i mention Israeli Arabs poltical rights to vote, serve in the Knesset etc you totally ignore this. “

No, I didn’t ignore this at all, I answered it twice. I asked you to explain the value of an Arab vote in the Knesset when the population of Arabs is carefully controlled to ensure that they never become a meaningful constituency in their own land.

“Indeed it seems that instead of looking at what I or Dan say, you find it easier to attribute false arguments to us and then rebut them. So you claim that i state that all violence is Palestinian, or that i am making excuses for Israeli military actions - even though i call Israeli actions clumsy and brutal and also condemn it as much as i condemn suicide bombing.”

No, I stated that the implication of your argument was that the so called “cycle of violence” was caused by suicide bombing and that this is the central cause of essentially defensive Israeli violence. Your implication is that Palestinians attack, and Israelis defend, albeit “clumsily”. To use the term “clumsy” for the killing civilians has a clear implication. It implies that Palestinian civilians are only killed by accident and that the IDF doesn’t target them. Whether you intend or appreciate them, your arguments are based on questionable assumptions and contain questionable implications. These, for the most part, were what I was addressing.

“I just want to take up the Zionist=racism point to use for your claim of Israel as uniquely racist in the Middle East[….]It is interesting to note that pre-war Palestine placed direct restrictions on Jewish immigration, in order for the Arabs to keep 70% of the population”.

Don’t the UK and every other country in the world have restrictions on immigration? There’s a difference between controlling immigration from abroad and expelling an indigenous population and them preventing them, by force of arms, from returning to their homes.

“during WW2, when Jews were being gassed, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem held meetings with senior Nazis in Germany. Would you say then, that Arab intentions in Palestine were racist and directly equivalent to the Nazis, with whom they were having meetings?”

See my reply to Dan regarding the nonsense that Palestinian resistance against Zionism was based on “ant-Semitism”. In fact the Grand Mufti went much further than that and maintained a close relationship with Himmler, helping him to recruit Bosnian Muslims into the SS. But as Benny Morris explains in his book “Righteous Victims”, Palestinian opposition to Zionism simply can’t be put down to “anti-Semitism”. It’s an implausible explanation. These actions were based on the simple fact that European Zionists had designs on practically every square foot of land on which Palestinians lived. Nazi hatred of Jews was based on centuries of European anti-Semitic myths and lunatic beliefs about racial supremacy. There is a difference. Seeking alliances with the one major world power at the time which appeared to recognize a “Zionist plot” doesn’t strike me as all that difficult to comprehend if your land is being taken from underneath in the name of Zionism. At the height of its influence in the United States, the Black Nation of Islam had open alliances with Nazi organizations based on equally ill-informed and simplistic ideas of shared interest – both groups wanted racial segregation. The Nazis wanted it because they viewed Blacks as inferior and the NoI wanted it because they wanted to release black communities from what they saw as white domination of their lives. Does this mean that Malcolm X was therefore a supporter of the KKK and that their aims were one and the same? Of course not.

“The Peel Commission of 1937 proposed giving the Jews a tiny proportion of Palestine that was less than their share of the population; yet the Arabs were opposed to any land being given (even though much of the terrain had been uninhabited by Jews legally emigrating since the 1850s). Would you not agree this was racism?”

Now you’re being ridiculous. If the French refused a UN plan to turn the suburbs of Paris into a separate state for Algerian immigrants, would you regard French opposition to this as being motivated by anti-Arab racism? What about if the UN tried to declare Bradford a “Pakistani Muslim State” for Pakistani immigrants and their decedents? Could opposition to such plans be regarded as racially motivated? No, of course not. It was not for the British to divide up Palestinian land and hand it over to European immigrants. Palestinians had every right to object. Indeed, given what’s happened since I’d say they didn’t object strongly enough. Read further and you’ll see that Palestinian leaders of the 1936-39 uprising demanded immediate elections but these demands were brutally repressed by the British using force of arms and mass imprisonment of Palestinians.

“The UN parition plan gave the Jews much less land than the 1949 Israel borders - but the Arabs were not prepared to accept even this. Again the suspicion must be not that the Jews were planning to throw out the Arabs, but that the Arabs did not want any Jewish homeland to exist at all.”

You should finish your sentence. The Arabs did not want any Jewish homeland to exist on land already occupied by Palestinians. If Cyrpus had been assigned as a Jewish Homeland, would you regard Cypriot opposition as racist and unreasonable?

“Many countries in the world give citizenship priority to people with a cultural/family/ethnic tie to the country concerned - so the idea that Israel is unique in this sense is false.”

Palestinians have a cultural/family/ethnic tie to the country. Many of them still have their front door keys which they kept in the hope of returning to their homes in 1948. What more of a link do you want?

“So if Palestinian citizenship is not open to the entire world, are you then going to claim a Palestinian state is racist?”

Palestinians have been among the strongest proponents of a single state for both Arabs and Jews living on equal terms with equal rights. This has been consistently opposed by Israel and the United States.

“You don't also deal with the fact Israel gave 1 million Arabs citizenship - yet you claim Israel is a racist state on a par with the Nazis. Do you ignore this as 'irrelevant' or because it refuts your racism argument?”

No, I twice deal with it and indeed regard it as irrelevant because the demographic controls in place deliberately render this 1-million a powerless minority. Perhaps you’re someone who believes that democracy begins and ends with the right to put bits of paper in boxes every four years. If so this must be the source of our disagreement.

“Perhaps you think i underestimate the wrong nature of [Israeli violence against Palestinians] by use of the word 'clumsy' or by the fact i refer to Israel's targetting of militants above civilians. Yet Israel does kill many innocents - i have never excused or not condemned this openly and clearly. “

See above points on the implications of “clumsiness”. Whether you intend to or not your comments excuse Israeli actions. I think this is more an indication of the pervasiveness of common myths than of any intent on your part.

“Yet you never actually condemn suicide bombing”

Quote from my post on November 11th: “I condemn them”

“Can you name any achievements of the Second Intifada?”

Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. The fact that people are finally at least paying lip service to the Palestinian cause whereas they ignored it for decades before. These two will do for now.

“The idea Israelis aren't as frightened by the prospect as a Palestinian is of an Israeli tank or rocket is absurd - how can you really state Israelis aren't afraid?”

Yes, I agree that all human beings fear death and injury. But that’s not really what we’re talking about. The question is whether Israelis have as much reason to fear violence as Palestinians. The official statistics and entire banks of human rights reports conclusively show that they don’t.

“Restrictions on Palestinian movements is awful - but, perhaps if there were not large groups of Palestinans trying to kill as many Israelis as possible, then these barriers would be removed.”

Again, you offer a chronologically incorrect excuse for Israeli action but no hint of an explanation for Palestinian violence other than irrational fanaticism. The occupation appears to play no role in anything you say. Indeed, one could almost conclude from your words that the occupation is the result of Palestinian violence and not the opposite.

“Yes their actions ARE evil. I find it hard to comprehand the logic of someone (Someone) who asks us to find Israeli actions evil or wrong, but then can't condemn the deliberate killing of women and children.”

I’m not all that interested in whether you or the average Brit wants to bandy around words like “evil”. A simple recognition of historical facts, chronology of events, legal definitions and the responsibility of your governments (and therefore yourselves) in the issue would be a start.

“This is latent anti-Semitism from groups who teach it is a holy duty to kill Jews.”

Looks like you’ve caught me out there Nick. My objection to Israeli state terror supported and funded by the American tax payer and given diplomatic support by the UK and EU is just a front. My hidden agenda was a second Nazi holocaust for which I was hoping to drum up support through this obscure blog that’s read by about five people a month. Good work youngster.

“And you mention the attitudes of Palestinians 'since 1967' - but of course Islamic Jihad and Hamas don't recognise the 1967 borders either.”

Neither they nor any Palestinian has any moral obligation to recognize these borders. Indeed, no Israeli government has ever respected these borders, nor even the borders with Lebanon, Jordan, Syria and Egypt. Palestinian recognition of the ’67 borders constitutes a monumental concession for peace and act of good will, for which they should be duly thanked and compensated. If, however, any Palestinian doesn’t accept the ‘67 borders they are perfectly within their rights as people who still have a legitimate claim to homes from which they and their families were expelled in 1948. It is a matter of pragmatism that Palestinians recognize borders enforced upon them by violence, it is not a moral obligation.

“When criticising Zionism you say Israeli expelled a population that did Jews no harm? I refer you to the points made about Arab population control of Jewish immigration in the 1930s.”

I take it therefore that a Pakistani army expelling whites from Northern England would have your blessing? Since when did demands for immigration controls by an indigenous population become grounds for the expulsion of those people from their land by immigrants?

“Expelling Palestinians was wrong, but it was hardly unique - Arab states expelled Jews that, to use your phrase, 'did them no harm' - something you either don't criticize”

As before Nick, this came after the 1948 expulsion of Palestinians and was a populist reaction to it. I say quite clearly in my previous posts that is was “no less of a crime”.

“Extremism exists in every society. Jewish zealots such as Meir Kahane can be paralleled by Palestinian terrorists engaged in murder funded by groups overseas. Israel is a schizophrenic nation politically. “

No, Israeli policy is perfectly consistent – the control of Palestinian land and the expulsion/subjugation of the indigenous inhabitants. Within those areas where they have managed to whittle Palestinians down to a tiny minority, they control them without force but through demographic engineering. In those areas they don’t yet control, they use murder and intimidation to drive the inhabitants out. The only problem is that the inhabitants refuse to leave.

S.

Hi Clive,

'I think I need a regular post on the Middle East.'

Damn right. From a foreign affairs point of view, solve that conundrum and many others will fall into place.

'The blame game is an interesting and fully legitimate debate but it is not enough in terms of finding solutions.'

Agreed. I my self get sucked into 'they did that, but they did that first, no they did that first, no they did that first' type discussion. While from some aspects, namely learning an awful lot about the history of the why, it does not, as you imply, help with the solution.

In actual fact, the blame game is exactly what certain interested parties want - it serves their interests, which makes me feel rather ashamed actually.

Anyhow, I look forward to the future debate.

Regs, Andy

I agree with Andrew. There's not a lot I'd disagree with "Someone" with regards to the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, but I do not feel that violence by either side can ever ensure security. It might vent frustrations or appeal to those seeking vengeance, but I can't think of one aspect of the violence that has brought any positive reward to either side. The fact is that the Palestinians are not going to go away and Israel is not going to vanish. And those who cheer on either side while sitting a comfortable distance away are not helping either side. Regardless of the blame, why not deal with the practicalities of settling the conflict and seeking justice and reconciliation? Sooner or later, a compromise will have to be found. The sooner, the better for the longer a resolution is delayed, the more suffering both Palestinians and Israelis will have to endure.

Clive: Back in January, I raised the issue of the use of illegal incendiary bombs in the Coalition attack on Fallujah in November 2004. You responded by stating that the issue of the use of napalm-style fire bombs was "not the first priority", adding that "I am aware that some people who were, for whatever reason, opposed to the war want to portray the UK and especially the US in a bad light." http://clivesoleymp.typepad.com/clive_soley_mp/2005/01/response.html

You later added: "I have looked at the pictures and other evidence about napalm or similar weapons I am not convinced there is enough evidence to justify me pursuing the allegations. We should and I believe do stay within the international agreements on chemical, biological and nuclear weapon treaty's [sic] but the real problem is that we are not taking them forward and that is complicated by this issue of failing states."

Today, the US has admitted to the use of these bombs after months of denials. The use of incendiary weapons prohibited for attacking civilians or civilian areas under Protocol III of Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. But these weapons were used by Coalition troops and Britain is a member of that Coalition. British troops participated in the Fallujah campaign and are active members of the Coalition.

Now you know that these are not rumours but facts, what are you going to do about it? One of the chief arguments you used for the overthrow of the Saddam regime was the dubious allegation that he used poison gas on Kurds in Hallabjah - although it is highly probable the Iranians were responsible. If Hallabjah was a crime worth regime change, then what should be done about foreign occupiers using illegal incendiary bombs against residential areas in Fallujah?

Just to take S's points -

He is inconsistant in his argument. He compares Israeli citizenship policy and says this is unique because it defines citizenship on the grounds of ethnicity (though Black Jews, Sephardic Jews, Indian Jews together make up 50% as much as 'white' Ashkenazi Jews, though of course there are Israeli Arabs and Druze also. When i mention Saudi Arabia S states that, because there was no Saudi indigenous population expelled , its discrimination is OK.

The restrictions on Jewish emigration to Palestine were not 'like everywhere else', but were a political device designed to make sure Jews were never more than 30% of the population, so would never have rights in a Palestine. Arab riots against Jews, instigated by the Arab politican leadership was not 'normal' either. The idea that these restrictions were not politcally/racially motivated is false.Yet you think this is normal, whilst asking people to believe that Israel is somehow a uniquely pariah state.

The point about Zionism was that it aimed for a state in Palestine, not taking over all of it. So the comparison with the British hypothetically offering 'all' of Cyprus to Jews is also false. Whilst no doubt there would be many Zionists who would have wanted to take all of Palestine, the political leadership of Zionism was willing to accept the Peel compromise of 1937.

The fact remains that had the Arabs accepted 1937 or the UN plan of 1948, they would have far more land than today. Jews had been emigrating to Palestine since the 1850s - were not these also 'indigenous'? So can you see why i make the point that to criticise Palestinian tactics is not to criticise the Palestinian cause? I see the same mistakes being made today with the suicide bombings - it is cutting away at the land for a future Palestinian state. Why is it invalid to examine this? Why make the same mistakes as 1937 or 1948? Where is the endpoint going to be?

The riots and attacks on Jews in the 1920s and 1930s were racially/religiously motivated and were against Jews living in the area, not because they were preventing a Palestinian Arab state from emerging. Most of the land Jews had cultivated was barren or in the Negev desert, or bought from Palestinians - it could not be seen as expropriated in the way you imply.

You make an interesting example of supposing Bradford Pakistanis declared independance - opposition to it would not be racist - hence Palestinian opposition to Jewish self-determination in the 1930s was not racist either. But rioting against Pakistanis (as there were Arab riots against Jews in the 1930s) would be racist. Supposing Pakistanis were fleeing persecution from elsewhere, and England decided to prevent any Pakistanis coming to seek refuge, indeed decided to collaborate with the persecutors - then you have the parallel with the political leadership of Palestinians and the Nazis.

You implication that Arab expulsion of Jews was a 'populist' reaction suggests you think it was 'natural' and not therefore 'racist'. If - (if..) - that is your argument then it is hypocritical. I'm sure Arab Jews had the keys to their doors when thrown out. Yet Arab countries persecuted them and drove them out, even though they spoke Arabic, had been in the area for centuries - and could be considered Arabs - indeed Iraqi Jews pre-date the arrival of Arab populations. Is it not regretable in some way that the idea of a Jewish Arab is seen as anathema? Did these Jewish Arabs not have as much cultural affinity with Iraq for example as Palestinians did with Palestine? Indeed they had more in common with their Arab neighbours than Israelis.

Why do you find Arab population control of Jewish immigration in pre-war Palestine 'understandable', whilst at the same time denouncing Israeli citizenship for all Jews as 'racist'?

You imply that because the Jews had been in Palestine for less time than the Arabs this in turn means that they were not entitled to as many rights to self-determination as Palestinians (again, if this is misintepreting you, then i'll happily apologise!). But to take a different example here; most people accept the validity of self-determination or independance for Serbia's Albanian minority in Kosovo. Yet many of the Albanians were brought into Kosovo by Tito after WW2. Does that make Kosovan self-determination wrong?

You say that the Israeli Arabs are designed to have minimal political rights. But they can denounce Israel in the Knesset and speak freely; their rights are far in advance of Arab democratic rights elsewhere - but i can also see how they do not feel a full part of Israel. Yet if Israel is a 'Nazi' state, then what does that make Iran, Egypt, Saudi - who treat minorities far worse than Israel? Again, why did Israel give citizenship to Arabs if they were intent on wiping out all Arab presence? A 'Nazi/Racist' state would have expelled all Arabs to maintain supposed ethnic homogeniety. You ignore this essential point. If Israel is racist for being a Jewish state, is Syria racist for calling itself an Arab Republic? Is the title the Islamic Republic of Iran discriminatory? How can you state that Israel is uniquely racist/discriminatory as a moral argument then ignore these examples?

I don't intellectualise about what evil is: i think celebrating blowing up children and deliberately targetting them is evil, as is not giving a damn where a rocket is fired. If that makes me unreasonable, so be it.

Occupation is a fundemental cause of the trouble - i agree with you . But suicide bombings are also cause. If you think the post-1967 occupation is the problem, then why do you not also accept groups that don't except 1967 borders as a problem too?

Presumably they would not recognise the 'solution' (Palestine on 1967 borders), so it is valid to separate suicide bombings as a cause of, and not just a reaction to, the crisis. And what are the benefits it has brought to Palestinians at the end of the day? List any achievements of the Intifada. DO you think it has made a viable Palestinian state more or less likely - do you think Palestinians will get more or less land than what was offered in 2000. Supposing there had been no Intifada after Camp David - might not things have been better?

You try to get round this by stating that Palestinians have no moral obligation to accept 1967, because of what happened in 1948. This kind of argument can be stretched in any direction.

The Israeli Right might argue that they have no moral obligation to accept 1967 either because it was a defensive move against Egypt, Jordan and Syria. Or that denying Palestinians the right of return to within 1949 Israeli borders is to parallel the expulsion of Jews from Arab lands, and the fact that the land taken in 1949 was after a war foisted upon Israel by its neighbours. Or that 1948 was justified because of the attacks in the 1930s.

What seems apparent is that your argument is less to do with the 1967 occupation and more to do with 1948. So the issue of comparitability between Israel's racism and those of Arab countries is in your view, not so much who is more racist - rather it is who is more sovereign. Your de facto justifcation of Saudi discrimination in citzenship laws is that it is more morally acceptable than Israel's Law of Return because it is in your view a more sovereign country that (presumably) can do what it likes. Because you consider Israel a product of theft in turn ANY action or charactersitic of Israel is always going to be illegitimate. And in turn any Arab/Palestinian action is justified or 'understandable' even if it is at least as bad or worse than Israeli actions or expulsions. So Israel's denial of the 1967 borders (occupation) is the problem, but Palestinian refusal to accept the 1967 border (Hamas claims all of Palestine) is understandable.

Your frustration at Israel's right to exist (or rather the reality of its existance) in turn is used to delegitimise anything Israeli. The rights of Israeli Arabs are more democratic than in other Arab countries - and better than how neighbouring countries treat minorities, where there is no freedom of speech. You mention the Israeli academic Benny Morris - but could an Arab academic voice similar criticisms of the regimes he/she is living under? He/she would lost much more than a Professorial Chair. But in your line of argument, because you dislike the existance of Israel per se, in turn you aim to discredit the existance of Israel as an entity. So you make much effort to portray Israel (as opposed to Israeli occupation) as the pariah Nazi/racist nation to try to provide a moral basis for being against a Jewish homeland. So, the political rights of Israeli Arabs, which may not be enough, must be, if not perfect, then totally discredited and discounted in any argument about Israel being 'uniquely racist'. Ditto Israeli Arab women who can vote.

If you think Israel still should not exist because of 1948, then it is like Greeks saying they shouldn't recognise Turkey because of the Ottoman Empire. Or indeed Jews claiming they are entitled to all of Palestine as their ancestors pre-dated the arrival of Arabs centuries ago. Most countries come into existance on some form of painful compromise - that is as true of Muslim countries as it is Christian countries. That may be regretable for the victims throughout history but it is a fact. But 2005 is not 1948. Otherwise how far should the process of unravelling end? Is Turkey illegitimate because of the Ottoman Empire? Should England be renamed Wales because the Anglo-Saxons took land from Celtic Britons?

As to Israeli citizenship laws being uniquely racist, would an Arab Palestine be 'racist' for prioritising citizenship to Palestinian refugees? If the West Bank is not open to American Jews - would that make Arab Palestine racist? I suspect Palestinian citizenship would not be open to people other than the descendants of Palestinian refugees from 1949. Jewish settlers would probably not be given citizenship it is fair to say, as (presumably) they would wish to make the land part of Israel. In turn Israeli citizenship will not be given to all Palestinian 1949 refugees for a similar reason. I am not arguing this is right or wrong - but it can hardly be unique.

The Annan Plan for Cyprus endorsed the preventing of most Greek-Cypriots (who also kept their title deeds) ever being allowed to return to the North to protect the demographics of the Turkish speaking population. This Plan was warmly endorsed by newspapers and politicians in the UK and EU who criticised Israeli occupation and settlements. But whilst i disagree with Turkey, i would not claim that Turkey is a fundamentalist or Nazi country. So as i say the main purpose of your argument that Israel is uniquely racist or some kind of Nazi state owes more perhaps to emotion and wishful thinking on your part than objective analysis.

But in all this is tragedy, far removed from the blame game. And the Middle East, particularly the Near East, is a fascinating mixture of different influences that i think does create politically schizophrenic systems. The hybrid architecture always can challenge preconceived notions of what is 'Western' or what is 'Arab', what is 'Jewish'. Is Christianity a Crusader religion or is Orthodox Christianity an embodiment of the East rather than Europe? Whatever the legitimate debates of the Middle East, or who fired the first shot, it is fair to say that no debate or news coverage can ever truely accurately measure both the suffering of people - or the ingenuity and character of individuals and their achievements. They will always be stronger and better than the wars fought around them.

"And those who cheer on either side while sitting a comfortable distance away are not helping either side. Regardless of the blame, why not deal with the practicalities of settling the conflict and seeking justice and reconciliation? Sooner or later, a compromise will have to be found."

A solution can only be found on the basis of truth and justice. This is not about choosing sides in a football match. It is about recognising realities in order to find a lasting and just solution. The "everyone is wrong/right, why can't we all get along" strategy might work for a beauty queen acceptance speech but has no basis in reality. Israel is an occupying force. Its occupation must end. Its occupation is the cause of the violence against it. These are not just simple, uncomplicated facts, they are uncontroversial in terms of international law and the commentary of most serious analysts.

However, popular myths, pushed by the media and politicians, persist today. The fact that the withdrawal from Gaza is reported as some huge concession for peace is one such myth - the Israelis withdrew from occupied land, this is a basic obligation not a huge sacrifice. The unreported reality is that while settlers were removed from Gaza, their presence was so strengthened in the West Bank that the net effect was an increase in settlements on occupied land. This is hardly reported at all. The official story is "Israel Sacrifices for Peace", end of story.

This is about recognising reality and ascribing responsibility based on truth and justice. And yes, taking sides when a destitute refugee population that is being oppressed by an overwhelmingly powerful occupier is perfectly warranted and indeed necessary. Not doing so is an act of moral cowardace.

S.

Someone: Please clarify your position, do you believe that Israel has a right to exist? You say that the PNA has sold out, but this argument is commonly used by those who wish to see the complete annihilation of Israel, such as Hamas. I do not think that my position - the co-existence of Israeli and Palestinian states on the basis of the 1967 border - is a "beauty queen acceptance speech" but a pragmatic position also held by the democratically elected PNA, the UN and even most Arab states. The unrealistic and destructive view is the denial of a two-state solution.

S, points taken, but there is no contradiction between taking sides - in the sense of supporting Palestinian statehood and opposing Israeli occupation - yet also be willing to condemn what is wrong (suicide bombing). I do not criticise anybody for taking the Palestinian side, and presumably someone who believes in a Palestinian state in West Bank Gaza is also believing in 'both sides' living in peace

Dan,
“Someone: Please clarify your position, do you believe that Israel has a right to exist? You say that the PNA has sold out, but this argument is commonly used by those who wish to see the complete annihilation of Israel, such as Hamas.”

Your question doesn’t have a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer. To answer it, one has to differentiate between historical facts and moral interpretations of those facts. It is a historical fact that the establishment of Israel required, and involved, massive and violent ethnic cleansing of an indigenous population. This is not only obvious after the fact, it was understood by the Zionists as a necessary prerequisite for the establishment of a “Jewish State” in Palestine. This is a simple fact of history which is acknowledged by mainstream Israeli scholars. I believe that ethnic cleansing is always and everywhere a crime and that the establishment of Israel was based on just such a crime. To that extent the answer is no, I do not believe that Israel has an inherent right to exist in its current form and location. Do you or other readers believe that the Sudanese have a right to establish an Arab Muslim state by expelling and terrorizing Christians in Southern Sudan?

However, it is also a fact that this crime has now been committed and that generations have been born on that land that had nothing to do with the initial crimes against the indigenous population. To that extent it would be morally wrong to argue that these people should be removed from the land en masse, since they have nowhere else to go. But to argue that they have exclusive rights to that land does not automatically follow either as a moral, practical or political argument. The “two-state solution” is an issue of practical and political judgment, nothing more. To disagree with it doesn’t make one a fanatic, extremist or member of the Flat Earth Society. Edward Said can hardly be described as a supporter of Hamas or suicide bombing, yet he fervently believed, until his death, that Jews and Palestinians should live in a single state with equal rights, and that this was the only just solution. By definition that would mean that there would be no “Jewish State”. But why should that be characterized as an extreme and unconscionable position? Why should I or anyone else be obliged to support or accept the notion of a Jewish State, especially one achieved through murder, repression and massive ethnic cleansing?

To the extent that a “Jewish State” requires exclusivity for one ethnic group above another, surely it is proponents of such an entity who must provide a moral, legal and historical justification for it. I find it strange that we are expected to accept the “right” of such a state to exist on Palestinian land without question, and that to question this “right” is somehow analogous to questioning a basic and fundamental law of nature.

Incidentally, Edward Said (as well as Walid Khalidi and many other prominent Palestinian commentators) also regarded the PNA as an unrepresentative bunch of corrupt, self-serving hacks who were stealing money intended for the people they pretended to serve, and that they were “elected” because they were effectively the only game in town.

You characterize Palestinian denial of “Israel’s Right to Exist” as an extreme position without acknowledging that acceptance of that right is, by definition, a denial of the rights of millions of Palestinian refugees to return to the homes they were expelled from. Those Palestinians who accept Israel’s “right to exist” are making a huge sacrifice of their own rights (I personally cannot imagine ever making such a sacrifice and I’m in awe of any Palestinian who has the magnanimity to do so). Those who deny the right to existence of a “Jewish State” on their land, however, have every moral and legal right to do so.

Your question also neglects the fact the in both word and deed, the Israeli government (whether Labour or Likud) has historically denied the right of existence of a Palestinian state, and continues to actively work to prevent this outcome despite cooing about the need for peace in the public arena. It should not be assumed that Israel is committed to a two state solution just because it says so. One of Sharon’s ministers has publicly stated that the withdrawal from Gaza is part of a strategy to “freeze” progress towards the establishment of a Palestinian state by focusing Israeli attention annexing the West Bank – and this is indeed happening as we speak. The settlements are growing by the day and the “security wall” is cutting off large chunks of the West Bank from Palestinian access, effectively annexing large swathes of Palestinian territory, taking with it the most arable land and richest water resources. It is clear that both Labour and Likud are still committed to the principle of a Greater Israel, encompassing all of the West Bank and parts of neighbouring countries as well. Gaza was never part of this plan [follow this link to see a map of “Eretz Israel” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Early-Historical-Israel-Dan-Beersheba-Judea.png – you’ll notice that Gaza isn’t part of it] and “giving it up” for “peace” is a ploy. The dark side of that ploy is unfolding right now in the West Bank and Occupied Jerusalem but is not being reported in the western press who, like trained dogs, show remarkable discipline in sticking to the official story despite the facts. Israel is in this for the long run and if they can’t expel Palestinians en masse because of international pressure, they will do everything possible to make life un-livable in the occupied territories and play a waiting game in the hope that the Palestinian population will slowly leave the camps and try to find lives in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and elsewhere. This is already happening in Lebanon where the population of Palestinian refugee camps has fallen from several hundred thousand to around one or two hundred thousand as people simply give up the fight and move elsewhere. This “quiet” form of ethnic cleansing is Israel’s fall back strategy.

So to answer your question, I believe that a two state solution may well be the only practical way forward. But only if this truly means a Palestinian state which is viable, secure and completely free from Israeli intimidation and interference. If the current Israeli/US/British plan for a “two state” settlement is imposed, however, all we have is continued occupation by a different name. If that is the way Israel wants to go then the only way forward is one state for all, with equal rights, and the removal of state which believes it has the right to occupy and govern Palestinians even when they are in their own “state”.

S.

Dan,

'The use of incendiary weapons prohibited for attacking civilians or civilian areas under Protocol III of Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons. But these weapons were used by Coalition troops and Britain is a member of that Coalition. British troops participated in the Fallujah campaign and are active members of the Coalition.'

We have signed up to Protocol III, the US has not. However, they have signed up and ratified (1997) the Chemical Weapons Convention, and their admission today, which we supposed last year, meants they are in violation of that.

Nick,

'...Israel is somehow a uniquely pariah state.'

Israel, almost singularly among democratic states, is not doing very well. Here is the current Democracy Index for Israel and 35 other democracies: http://www.idi.org.il/english/article.asp?id=14112005160449

While 50% of those surveyed do not support 'transfer' (read 'ethnic cleansing'), 50% are either appeasers of 'transfer', or actually support it.

Add to that the 1200 human shields the IDF have confessed to using in the last 5 years (and you can be damn sure they are not Palestinian human shields); sonic booms; extra-judicial killings; collective punishment; and the inequality (see survey above), Israel IS a pariah democracy.

Further, yesterday I heard this disgusting news: 'An Israeli army captain accused of firing bullets into the body of a 13-year-old Palestinian girl in Gaza in October 2004 has been acquitted.':http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/4440490.stm

The charges, light as they were, were:

1. Illegal use of his weapon,
2. Conduct unbecoming an officer,
3. perverting the course of justice by asking soldiers under his command to alter their accounts of the incident.

On the third count, apparently some of his soldiers changed their testimoney, thus, they undermined the case against this officer, and brushed under the carpet his actions

So what are we to make of the other charges and his aquital of them:

Quite simply, shooting a 13-year old girl carrying a schoolbag on her way to school means you get shot at.

Once shot, IDF soldier should "confirm the kill", "even if it's a three-year-old, needs to be killed."

There was no illegal use of IDF weapons, this is standard procedure.

Officers in the IDF are expected to kill 13-year-olds (and 3-year-old) in this manner.

I am disgusted, and feel that this can only happen in a pariah democracy, and further, they should not be allowed to use the word 'democracy' as it sullies the word.

Regs, Andy

Regarding current moves in the Israeli/Palestinian conflict - WooHoo!!

International troops (70 I'm informed) are to be used in at the Rafah crossing. I believe we need more international troops (if only Skippy had decided to go to Israel/OT instead of Iraq) policing the Israeli's and Palestinians, however, one foot (or 140) in the door is a start, and can be built on.

The PA are OK with these troops, and Israel is as well. Hamas is not, but I think eventually it will, and will start to revert back to what it was when the Israeli's created it - a counter to the PLO (Fatah), after the elections.

Regs, Andy

A pariah democracy is an interesting term Andy, and more accurate than Nazi/Racist.

But what is the 'pariah' here? The fact that Israel is a democracy in the Middle East? What i have been debating with S about is his/her view that Israel is some Nazi/Fascist state. Can a Maronite or Sunni Muslim from Lebanon go to Damascus and sue the military over abuse of power in Lebanon? Against what standard do we judge Israel on the one hand, and Syria/Iran on the other? A trigger happy military may make Israel a pariah on the one hand (though does the fudged investigation into Deepcut make Britain a pariah?) - but the fact you can sue the IDF also shows a pariah in that this would not be possible anywhere else in the region. One of the aspects about the Middle East is that one claim or argument can often have two totally different meanings.

By European standards, Israel does indeed do badly: if Israel wished to be considered a fully Western country than it must rightly be judged by higher standards and condemned where appropriate. A liberal democracy does not impose restrictions on movements and bulldoze orchards. But if we are to label it Nazi/Pariah, then a comparison with its neighbours is required. I'm sure that Turkey's actions against Kurdish freedom of speech or (until recently) even use of language breaches many international conventions. Is Turkey also a pariah democracy in your view?

How many foreign human shields protest outside the offices of Hamas about suicide bombings? How many victims can sue Islamic Jihad for the murder of their relatives? Does Palestinian violence meet the Geneva Convention?

The illegality of Palestinian terrorism is surely as bad as the illegal or wrong actions of ISraeli military; or rather it is 'extra-judicial' as Hamas and others recognise no law other than a random definition of 'innocent' and 'guilty' civilians.

The US/UK war in Iraq, which killed thousands of civilians, was hardly legal on the basis of international law. The July 7th suicide bombers in London used the same arguments that Hamas uses for justifying the deliberate targetting of civilians in Tel Aviv or elsewhere. Surely both atrocities are wrong? In your view would assasinating OSama Bin Laden be more or less acceptable that assasinating Sheikh Yassin?

Of course had Israel relinquished most of the land gained in 1967, perhaps some of this might have been avoided. But forty years on, if the future Palestinian state is to work, Hamas is going to have to declare its hand. Will it accept the two state solution or not?

The risk of civil war in Palestine is real, though not inevitable. The PA wants a secular Palestine, but with Islamic cultural values (not all Palestinians are Muslim), whereas Hamas wants an Islamic state. The contradictions within a nationalist vision on the one hand (the by-product of the secular Arab nationalism epitomised by people like Nasser or George Habash), and a religious vision on the other may break violently. So if the PA agree with the 1967 borders (as it has accepted), but Hamas - a growing political force - do not accept the two state solution in any way, then who will be the spokesperson politically for the Palestinian cause? Who gains from Palestinian division here? How does it serve the people?

I was surprised that Mahmoud Abbas succeeded Arafat; i suspect that a younger generation is in the offing and i think Saeb Erekat is the next leader in the long term (just my guess). He comes across as tough but pragmatic, and i reckon the Israelis might even prefer talking to him even if he takes a tougher line for the simple reason that both sides know where they stand.

Had suicide bombings not been intensively launched after Camp David, the Palestinians would have had a better diplomatic and political platform on which to voice grievences. With suicide bombings much of this would simply be ignored by world media or obscured by the cycle of violence.

S for example made a highly relevant point about how the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza being than followed by expansion in the West Bank. Yet coverage was often of burning synagogues - and subsequently more suicide bombings. Calm and a clear advocate of the PAlestinian cause in turn can lead to fewer actions obsuring grievences.

It would be much harder to justify blockades and trade restriction on Gaza/West Bank if there were not the spectre of suicide bombings being unleashed through any porous route.

So this leads back to whether Hamas is ever going to alter its beliefs and accept the existance of Israel. If it does so explicitly then Palestinian diplomacy is no longer chained by the stratijacket where Palestinian state aspiration (Abbas/Erekat) is interspersed with calls for Israel's destruction (Hamas). Hamas provides the welfare services for many Palestinians, but it could serve them further by serving their political needs better - particularly if they are going to enter the political arena.

Hi Nick,

‘But what is the 'pariah' here? The fact that Israel is a democracy in the Middle East?’

Not in the way I meant, no. I mean it is seemingly untouchable, and compared to other democracies, especially other democracies in Europe and our own, it’s democratic standards of freedom, equality, etc etc; democratic value, are a lot lower than us.

‘What i have been debating with S about is his/her view that Israel is some Nazi/Fascist state. Can a Maronite or Sunni Muslim from Lebanon go to Damascus and sue the military over abuse of power in Lebanon?’

I don’t think they can. However, asking that question means you have missed my point entirely.

Democracies should be measure against democracies imv, not to do so is a red herring imv, and simply a smoke screen which can be used to say “well, we’re not as bad as xxxxxx”

’Against what standard do we judge Israel on the one hand, and Syria/Iran on the other?’

A ‘democracy index’. I’ll explain later how this index could be used further afield; at the UN.

A trigger happy military may make Israel a pariah on the one hand (though does the fudged investigation into Deepcut make Britain a pariah?) - but the fact you can sue the IDF also shows a pariah in that this would not be possible anywhere else in the region. One of the aspects about the Middle East is that one claim or argument can often have two totally different meanings. ‘

Deepcut is a stain on our Democratic index. Your point about being able to sue the IDF is a red herring imv; in a democracy, one should be able to sue the military, further, the military should be of such as standard that no sueing is required. Sueing the IDF is almost pointless though as they are protected by the state to the hilt in a very non-democratic way imv.

’By European standards, Israel does indeed do badly: if Israel wished to be considered a fully Western country than it must rightly be judged by higher standards and condemned where appropriate. A liberal democracy does not impose restrictions on movements and bulldoze orchards. But if we are to label it Nazi/Pariah, then a comparison with its neighbours is required. I'm sure that Turkey's actions against Kurdish freedom of speech or (until recently) even use of language breaches many international conventions. Is Turkey also a pariah democracy in your view?’

Turkey’s democratic index is also lacking behind the average and the best. I reserve the word ‘Pariah’ for the worst of the worst. Regarding the label ‘Nazi’, it is emotive, but in some ways accurate.

’How many foreign human shields protest outside the offices of Hamas about suicide bombings?’

You’re seemingly making excuses for the IDF’s use of human shields, perhaps you have a view on their use, and what should be done about it (if indeed you do not think they should be used). Hamas has a terrorist wing which is a terrorist organization. Unless your saying the IDF is the same, you’re on shakey ground.

’How many victims can sue Islamic Jihad for the murder of their relatives? Does Palestinian violence meet the Geneva Convention?’

Apples and oranges, which do you no service.

The illegality of Palestinian terrorism is surely as bad as the illegal or wrong actions of ISraeli military; or rather it is 'extra-judicial' as Hamas and others recognise no law other than a random definition of 'innocent' and 'guilty' civilians.’

It is as bad, I agree. I would say that one expects terrorists to behave in a certain way, it is their nature, however for a state to abuse its power in a similar way to a terrorist organization, imv, makes that state a terrorist state; a supporter and propagator of terrorist ways.

’The US/UK war in Iraq, which killed thousands of civilians, was hardly legal on the basis of international law.’

Disputed, but I agree in principle.

’The July 7th suicide bombers in London used the same arguments that Hamas uses for justifying the deliberate targetting of civilians in Tel Aviv or elsewhere. Surely both atrocities are wrong?’

Agreed, both are wrong.

’In your view would assasinating OSama Bin Laden be more or less acceptable that assasinating Sheikh Yassin?’

If there was an international sanction for the judicial killing of OBL, I would agree with it. The point is it would be judicially sanctioned by the international community.

’Of course had Israel relinquished most of the land gained in 1967, perhaps some of this might have been avoided. But forty years on, if the future Palestinian state is to work, Hamas is going to have to declare its hand. Will it accept the two state solution or not?’

It will. Regarding how much land, I still think the original UN Partition Plan map should be used: http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/MFA/Facts+About+Israel/Israel+in+Maps/1947+UN+Partition+Plan.htm

’The risk of civil war in Palestine is real, though not inevitable. The PA wants a secular Palestine, but with Islamic cultural values (not all Palestinians are Muslim), whereas Hamas wants an Islamic state. The contradictions within a nationalist vision on the one hand (the by-product of the secular Arab nationalism epitomised by people like Nasser or George Habash), and a religious vision on the other may break violently. So if the PA agree with the 1967 borders (as it has accepted), but Hamas - a growing political force - do not accept the two state solution in any way, then who will be the spokesperson politically for the Palestinian cause?’

The PA of course, by definition.

’Who gains from Palestinian division here? How does it serve the people?’

Islamists gain; Zionists (religious Zionists; people who want the current Israeli controlled areas to be expanded to match the alleged area mentioned in holy scriptures).

’I was surprised that Mahmoud Abbas succeeded Arafat; i suspect that a younger generation is in the offing and i think Saeb Erekat is the next leader in the long term (just my guess). He comes across as tough but pragmatic, and i reckon the Israelis might even prefer talking to him even if he takes a tougher line for the simple reason that both sides know where they stand.’

Agreed.

’Had suicide bombings not been intensively launched after Camp David, the Palestinians would have had a better diplomatic and political platform on which to voice grievences. With suicide bombings much of this would simply be ignored by world media or obscured by the cycle of violence.’

I’m fairly sure you’re correct, however, there would still be some who would not accept the solution, and after many decades of psychological warfare committed against the Palestinian people in the OT’s, scars are deap, and, as both sides have elements within them that call for ‘and eye for an eye’, the vicious circle continues.

’S for example made a highly relevant point about how the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza being than followed by expansion in the West Bank. Yet coverage was often of burning synagogues - and subsequently more suicide bombings. Calm and a clear advocate of the PAlestinian cause in turn can lead to fewer actions obsuring grievences.’

As I understand it, the synagogues where no more, having been deconsecrated, but the burning of the buildings was certainly inflammatory. True, many of the Gaza settlers have become West Bank settlers, again, inflammatory.

’It would be much harder to justify blockades and trade restriction on Gaza/West Bank if there were not the spectre of suicide bombings being unleashed through any porous route.’

Suicide bombing is simply a method of killing people, much like any other method of killing people. It seems taboo to those that hold life dear; less so to those who believe in an afterlife. The use of suicide bombing against civilian casualties should always be taboo, but there are purely military reasons why it is an excellent method of warfare against troops, for obvious reasons.

’So this leads back to whether Hamas is ever going to alter its beliefs and accept the existance of Israel. If it does so explicitly then Palestinian diplomacy is no longer chained by the stratijacket where Palestinian state aspiration (Abbas/Erekat) is interspersed with calls for Israel's destruction (Hamas). Hamas provides the welfare services for many Palestinians, but it could serve them further by serving their political needs better - particularly if they are going to enter the political arena.’

When Hamas does alter their beliefs, as it will imv, then the Real Hamas (as in the Real IRA) will be formed. There will always be those who do not agree with a change in direction, hopefully, as with the Real IRA, they will become more and more marginalized as time passes and they are taken into custody.

Regs, Andy

It will be interesting to see what happens over the next five years, where both Israel and Palestine will probably have different leaders.

One possible light on the horizon, and i think Clive alludes to it in his general introduction to the forum, is the exhaustion with the conflict - from both sides - intellectually and emotionally. But that i mean exhaustion with the conflict, not the respective causes. This, and a more established changing of the guard leadership wise (where each side isn't thinking X isn't going to be around long, so who cares) may make 2006-2010 much more different than 2000-2005. Things may get far better or worse, but what i don't think is going to happen is that things will stay the same.

One thing that comes across on this forum - and actually it is a positive point, is how, through the strength of debate and opinions, people here were never flippant about the issues. History is extremely important here - so we don't impose what we would like to think happened/happening, and try to read reality through this prism. Of course history and its intepretation is also subjective, but history i now see more clearly is important to political identity and how policies are formed. We should know the history but also realise the importance of the facts within it, and perhaps what the debates here were about was the level of importance people from their viewpoints attached to different facts.

But as to the future on the subject matter of the topic, for good or ill, we shall see.

“The US/UK war in Iraq, which killed thousands of civilians, was hardly legal on the basis of international law. The July 7th suicide bombers in London used the same arguments that Hamas uses for justifying the deliberate targetting of civilians in Tel Aviv or elsewhere. Surely both atrocities are wrong? In your view would assasinating OSama Bin Laden be more or less acceptable that assasinating Sheikh Yassin?”

The London bombers were middle-class kids with a movie image of martyrdom in their heads. They themselves, however, never suffered the oppression that breeds the frustration and desperation behind Palestinian suicide bombing. The two cannot be compared. If we are legitimizing assassination on the basis of responsibility for the mass targeting and murder of civilians then Ariel Sharon should have been disposed of many years ago, no doubt with your blessing and support. He is not only responsible for the massacres of refugees at Sabra and Shatilah but the massacre at Jenin and the daily killing of civilians by troops under his command (the 13 year old girl mentioned by Andrew is a standard example, not a unique one) Sheikh Yassin was born and raised under a brutal occupation. Ariel Sharon was born a free man in a powerful country and committed (and continues to commit) his crimes at the height of this power. Firing a rocket at a man in a wheel chair should be somewhere further down your list of priorities.

I was under the impression Sheikh Yassin was raised in Egypt...

And the question of the occupation he may have lived under doesn't excuse his deliberate and consistent targetting of civilians. The fact he was a man in wheelchair is irrelevant; he got his injuries through playing football - whereas maimed victims of Hamas suicide bombers or of Israeli bombings were not responsible for their wounds.

All i was saying was that there is no moral difference between killing Bin Laden or killing Sheikh Yassin.

I'm hardly advocating Ariel Sharon! Arafat was never indicted incidentally over the PLO's warfare against the Maronite Lebanese, which might (or might not) also explain why no-one ever bothered about Sharon's actions in Lebanon either. Would you say Arafat committed crimes at the height of his power (Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades being linked to Fatah)?

Unfortunately this is the amoral world of realpolitik where in the Middle East leaders with distinctly dubious histories often are in power. That doesn't mean dialogue isn't required (the Uk dealy with Loyalist and IRA figures to take a different example).

You make an inconsitent argument in saying the bombings of July 7th are 'not comparable' with suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, and i find your ambivalence odd considering the moral outrage you feel towards the killing of Palestinian innocents. Or is it convenient to say that the July 7th bombings are 'different' to killing Israeli citizens in a cafe because one is closer to home than another? That is hypocrisy. A fair degree of Palestinian bombers have also been 'middle-class' (does the morality of terrorism depend on family income all of a sudden?) Suicide bombing is motivated out of malice and calculation. Would you say the Phalangist murders also were borne out of 'frustration'?

But these debates are becoming circular. I think we have to wait and see what happens. By the way what is your view of Saeb Erekat - do you think he will lead Palestinians?

Nick,

“I was under the impression Sheikh Yassin was raised in Egypt...”

No, he was born in Palestine and his family moved to Gaza after their home was destroyed in 1948. He studied in Egypt at Al-Azhar University before returning to Gaza.

“And the question of the occupation he may have lived under doesn't excuse his deliberate and consistent targetting of civilians.”

You are remarkably consistent in your ability to find reasons and excuses for Israeli violence, yet you regard Palestinian violence as inexplicable and motivated purely by “malice”. The logic of Palestinian suicide bombers is “you kill our civilians, we will kill yours”. You may not like it, but it is born out of decades of indiscriminate violence by a military force against a largely civilian population. To suggest that the motivation is “malice” is again to deny the role of Israel in subjugating an entire population to the point where suicide bombing becomes a popular method of resistance. You are disappearing into self-righteousness rather than analyzing the reasons why things happen the way they do. You seem obsessed with suicide bombing as the be all and end all of the conflict, despite the fact that it accounts for a relatively minor number of deaths. You even go as far as to offer mitigating arguments for the killing of a 13 year old school-girl by the IDF, calling her murderers “trigger happy” (implying exuberance rather than malicious intent) and their acquittal as a “fudging” of the investigation rather than what it was – an assertion by the court that the killing of children by the IDF is perfectly allowable under Israeli law if these children wander into “security zones”. This is not a unique incident, the killing of Palestinian children by settlers on occupied territory has been just as easily justified by Israeli courts. Your counter argument, no doubt, will be “well, at least the Israelis have courts!”. Good for them. If the brother or father of this girl is today strapping a suicide belt onto his body and heading for Tel Aviv, would you describe his actions as motivated by “malice”?

“All i was saying was that there is no moral difference between killing Bin Laden or killing Sheikh Yassin.”

Why? Because they target civilians? All I was saying, based on your argument, is that there is no moral difference between this and the killing of Ariel Sharon, who is responsible for more civilian deaths than both Osama bin Laden and Hamas put together and doubled. But in your world they all died by accident. And besides, they were murdered by a democracy, which is okay. If you have the backing of an electorate you can kill as many people as you like. It’s just uncivilized to do it without taking a poll first. If you believe the difference is that Sharon respects some form of law while the others don’t, the perhaps you’d like to hear from the man’s own views on the subject:

"Israel may have the right to put others on trial, but certainly no one has the right to put the Jewish people and the State of Israel on trial."-- Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, 25 March, 2001 quoted in BBC News Online

“I'm hardly advocating Ariel Sharon! Arafat was never indicted incidentally over the PLO's warfare against the Maronite Lebanese, which might (or might not) also explain why no-one ever bothered about Sharon's actions in Lebanon either. Would you say Arafat committed crimes at the height of his power (Al-Aqsa Martyr Brigades being linked to Fatah)?”

As before, your argument contains the implication that the occupier has the same rights to defense as the occupied. Sharon led an invasion of Lebanon. He built allegiances with the Maronite Christians in order to attack the Palestinian refugee population that Israel had been responsible for expelling from their lands into Lebanon in the first place. Having invaded and killed upwards of 20,000 Lebanese and Palestinian refugees, he and his army facilitated the massacres at Sabra and Shatila, for which he has been publicly charged at the Hague (if he sets foot in Belgium, he’ll be arrested as a war criminal). Incidentally, this invasion was a response to what the Israelis called, the PLO “Peace Offensive” – that is, the PLO was offering to recognize the 1967 borders as the basis for a two-state solution. This could not be allowed by Israel, and so the bloody invasion of Lebanon was devised to ensure that such a potential obstacle to the establishment of “Greater Israel” was killed in its tracks. I am the last person in the world to offer desperate excuses for Arafat, but your constant wish to present Israeli violence as a reaction to Palestinian provocation is simply illegitimate in all senses: legal, moral and historical. Israel is the occupier, the Palestinians are the occupied. They were pushed into Lebanon, they didn’t invade. Any enmity between the PLO and Maronite Christian warlords needs to be first placed into this context. This doesn’t excuse any and all actions taken by Palestinians but it does put the burden of responsibility on Israeli action as the source of violence.

“You make an inconsitent argument in saying the bombings of July 7th are 'not comparable' with suicide bombing in Tel Aviv, and i find your ambivalence odd considering the moral outrage you feel towards the killing of Palestinian innocents[…]That is hypocrisy. A fair degree of Palestinian bombers have also been 'middle-class' (does the morality of terrorism depend on family income all of a sudden?).”

Now you’re just being silly. “A fair degree of Palestinian bombers have also been 'middle-class'” ?! – I suggest, Nick, that you’re pulling that out of thin air and are therefore being very dishonest. Most bombers have been from Gaza, a wretchedly poor place, and the rest have largely been from poor homes in the West Bank. On one or two notable occasions a Palestinian with Israeli citizenship has conducted an attack, and of course there’s the famous case where two British men were involved in attacks. But this can hardly be described as a “fair degree” of the total number of attacks. The point I made is so obvious as to be almost tautological. The July 7th bombers cannot be said to have been motivated by persecution faced by their families, their communities or themselves, whereas Palestinian bombers are certainly motivated by repression (physical and economic) that they themselves have experienced and lived through every day of their lives. Your rejection of this and any other explanation for suicide bombing leads to one conclusion and one only – that Palestinian society is inherently violent and that their violence cannot be explained or understood. That suicide bombings would be taking place regardless of Israeli oppression. Unlike Israeli violence, Palestinian violence is simply calculated and malicious, and has no roots in any understandable, practical context.

“But these debates are becoming circular. “

No, these debates are about very basic and fundamental issues and are not unsolvable mystical puzzles. The term “blame game” is used by those who wish to avoid discussions of responsibility. Blame/responsibility exists as a matter of objective fact. It is not created by discussion of these facts. To talk about avoiding “the blame game” is just another way of avoiding uncomfortable facts which will not go away by being ignored. As long as dehumanizing myths regarding Palestinian resistance persist in western public opinion – and that’s what they are, whether you intend them to be so or not – then lop-sided support for Israel will continue and so will the violence. It is a slogan but it is also a statement of fact – “No Justice, No Peace”.

“I think we have to wait and see what happens.”

No, I think we have to become actively engaged in ensuring that a realistic image of the conflict is exposed and that our governments do not perpetuate myths and support an oppressive occupier. Our governments bear responsibility for what’s happening, and therefore so do we.

“By the way what is your view of Saeb Erekat - do you think he will lead Palestinians?“

That much we’ll have to wait and see.

S.

No S, a number of Palestinian suicide bombers were university graduates/students from what (relative to the area) could be seen as middle-class, though the main point is that class doesn't mitigate/excuse murder.

Trigger happy as a phrase implies a criminal recklessness of soldiers in the IDF - i do not and never excuse such actions, they are to be condemned, whilst you are excusing suicide bombings by refusing to condemn them or making a weak argument that killing Israelis is 'not comparable' to killing Londoners. Hamas don't just target civilians exclusively: their whole propaganda celebrates the murders. Does Israel hold public celebrations when Palestinians die? A suicide bombing against a soldier might be considered one thing (though i disagree about suicide bombings) - but targetting schoolchildren with intent is wrong both morally and politcally. If you can name any achievements to the Palestinian cause this has brought, kindly do so.

And since when have i ever said anything about supporting any 'Greater Israel' by the way? This is your standard technique of attributing false arguments then rebutting them.

You say the PLO supports 1967 borders but Israel does not. Then what do you say about the fact Hamas/Islamic Jihad don't recognise the two state solution in any shape or form - suicide bombing is as much the problem as Israeli occupation. And if Hamas is to assume a more political role (if it wins elections) it will have to declare whether it accepts two states explicitly and in its constitution.

You justify Palestinian suicide bombings on the reason of 'the rights of the occupied should be greater than the occupier' which is the basis of your moral ambivalence to killing Israelis. But Israeli citizens in a cafe or going to school are not occupying anyone. Just as a Palestinian child who protests isn't harming anyone. And the motive for these killings is nothing to do with respecting 1967 borders, but fighting for a one-state fundemantalist republic which is the aim of Hamas.

The Phalangist might also have claimed they were 'occupied' by Palestinians who were trying to take over Lebanon. The July 7th bomber will have claimed his Muslim brothers in Iraq were being occupied by the US/UK in Iraq. They believed in this passionately, the fact they were not Iraqi would hardly have mattered to them as Muslims. You understand the importance of the Ummah and kinship among Muslim societies - you yourself mentioned how you identified with Palestinians as both an Arab and a Muslim. It is not so different for other Muslims to identify with Palestinians as fellow Muslims either in all contexts.

Terrorist groups also define themselves and their actions via kinship; the July 7th bombers believed it was their duty to kill as Muslims; likewise Hamas bombers believe it is their religious duty to kill Jews.

You seem to take the line whereby deliberate killing of innocent civilians should be judged, not on the morality of the action, but on the nationality of the perpetrator. If July 7th atrocities had been committed by an Iraqi would you then refuse to condemn it in the way you excuse Hamas bombings? Or would you say that the two British suicide bombers who murdered in Tel Aviv were acting unreasonably because they were British rather than Palestinian? You use the dry almost legalistic term of 'rights of occupied being greater than rights of the occupier'. In your view then, is suicide bombing justified on the nationality of the perpetrator? Weren't the July 7th bombers - to use your line of argument - claiming they were aiding the occupied? Weren't they effectively using exactly the same line of reasoning as Hamas?

I suspect that in reality you seek to differentiate between London bombings and Tel Aviv bombings not because of the morality/immorality of them, but because one is closer to home.

All the same de facto arguments you make for Palestinian suicide bombings could just as easily be made by some for July 7th, by the Phalange etc. If you are happy to place the enemity of the Maronite/PLO 'in context' but make sweeping justifications about other atrocities. The PLO did attack Maronites and were seeking to build a power base in Lebanon at their expense, so the idea PLO presence was benign is wrong. But that still makes the Shatila massacre an unquestioned, unmitigated evil - a crime against humanity.

As to Sharon beng indited, was Arafat ever indited for his crimes? How about the Sudan government who are welcomed at the UN and Arab League whilst they killed 1 million Southern Sudanese and get the Janjaweed to slaughter Muslims in Darfur? UN members have blocked any attempts to recognise Sudan as genocide. The point here is that, in the amoral world of realpolitik, leaders with blood in their hands often pass through freely depending on their political use. That may be regrettable but it's a fact. Would you not say that Arafat belonged in the dock along with Sharon?

So i do not go along with the suicide bombing is caused by repression terrorism apologist argument. Why did Hamas launch suicide bombings back in 1994 when the peace process was just beginning? Why every time there was an ease in border restrictions did Hamas immediately launch more killings? The aim for them is total war - just in case an agreement is reached, and the reason for that is that an agreement would imply a two state solution - something Hamas does not accept. This explains suicide bombing a lot more than the Left's argument of 'desperation'. You yourself have referred to the fact Hamas has intelligent rational people. You should accept that suicide bombing is calculated operation.

And it harms the Palestinian cause; i never said Palestinian society was inherently violent. If i am 'obsessed' with suicide bombings, then you are obsessed with the line of argument that only one side is ever to blame, that Israel is uniquely evil, the most discriminatory arch Nazi state in the Middle East. Being a democracy doesn't excuse wrong-doing (eg Israel/West Bank, US and Uk going to war in Iraq). It was you who invited people to name other places where discrimination was practised or where rights were imperfect in the Middle East.

Terrorism can indeed become cause rather than effect. It can also change countries; see how July 7th is leading to fundamental changes in English law. Terrorism, whether people agree with it or not, is not a peripheral issue, except to those conveniently insulated from it.

The Middle East will never be solved in one magic moment; it will only come through incremental steps. So it is right to question both the moral validty of suicide bombings, but also their practical political effect. An end to such bombings would lead to gradual improvements as Israel would find it much harder to justify blockades and restrictions. In turn this would aid the Palestinian economy - see previous posts here on how ending suicide bombing would help matters. To take a different example Northern Ireland - a highly imperfect situation. Yet isn't it better than before 1994? Do you think Sinn Fein should pull out and return to violence on the grounds there is no united Ireland?

To criticise tactics is not to criticise the cause, however much you feel the tactics are justified. And what is the Hamas cause? It's not the 1967 borders or a two state solution. Would you say that, however much you feel they were justified, Palestinians ended up with less land as a result of not accepting proposals in 1937 or 1948?

When i said the arguments were becoming circular all i meant was that to some extent we are all probably re-stating what we have said before. I believe in both Israeli and Palestinian states - you take a dogmatic view that people must be for one or the other and be totally uncritical of any aspect of that action - no matter how wrong itis politically. Either way, as you conclude in your previous post, to the future, we'll have to wait and see.

OK, we know a little about Whisky Pete:

http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=9660366&sort=whole#9667072
http://boards.fool.co.uk/Message.asp?mid=9662481&sort=username

We also know the it was used in Fallujah for 'shake and bake' missions (this after we were told it was only used for obscurance and lighting).

We found this out here:

'b. White Phosphorous. WP proved to be an effective and versatile munition. We used it for screening missions at two breeches and, later in the fight, as a potent psychological weapon against the insurgents in trench lines and spider
holes when we could not get effects on them with HE. We fired "shake and bake" missions at the insurgents, using WP to flush them out and HE to take them out.'
missions.http://sill-www.army.mil/FAMAG/Previous_Editions/05/mar-apr05/PAGE24-30.pdf

Interesting, just below that, this was mentioned:

'c. Hexachloroethane Zinc (HC) Smoke and Precision-Guided Munitions.We could have used these munitions. We used improved WP for screening missions when HC smoke would have been more effective and saved our WP for lethal '
http://sill-www.army.mil/FAMAG/Previous_Editions/05/mar-apr05/PAGE24-30.pdf

I'd never heard of it, so I dug a little and found that it is nasty stuff, and known to be nasty stuff (Operation Vacuum):

http://www.exercisevacuum.com/hc_smoke.htm

Check out this site, and the video: http://www.exercisevacuum.com/

Also: http://www.exercisevacuum.com/HCsmoke.pdf

Did anyone see coalition forces use (never mind the civilians in Fallujah being issued with) gas masks when using the above?

Me neither.

Regs, Shaggy

“No S, a number of Palestinian suicide bombers were university graduates/students from what (relative to the area) could be seen as middle-class, though the main point is that class doesn't mitigate/excuse murder.”

Well done Nick. Someone from a family living on $7 per does indeed qualify as middle-class in comparison to a someone living on $2 per day. A valuable on non-trivial point you make. To help prevent the need for repetition you should try to read an entire argument instead of using the most superficial aspect of everything I write. The term “middle-class” was part of a longer description of the 7th July bombers as people who lived lives free of oppression, and who had recourse to any number of alternative avenues to fight injustice besides blowing themselves up on the tube. Someone living with an Israeli boot on his neck in the Gaza strip has fewer such avenues, if any. The two cannot be compared in any way. Your wish to do so is in line with your general line of reasoning that Palestinian violence is ideological, born out of anti-Semitic “malice” and has no connection with the racist oppression imposed on them by Israel and the United States.

“Trigger happy as a phrase implies a criminal recklessness of soldiers in the IDF”

Dangerous driving is an example of “criminal recklessness”. Shooting a 13 year old girl because she strayed on her way to school is a deliberate act of murder. You again choose words which avoid any implication of Israeli intent to cause harm to civilians. This is despite the assessment of all major human rights organizations that the IDF does indeed target civilians as a matter of policy. Whether you understand it or not, your words provide an excuse of IDF murder.

“whilst you are excusing suicide bombings by refusing to condemn them”

Again, repetition can be avoided if you read more carefully. Quote from my post on November 15th: “Quote from my post on November 11th: “I condemn them””.

“or making a weak argument that killing Israelis is 'not comparable' to killing Londoners.”

If the 7th July bombers had been refugees from the horrors of Fallujah and were exacting revenge on the British tax payer for the crimes they and their families had suffered at the hands of our government and their superiors in Washington, then there would indeed be moral difference between this and the actual events of 7th July.

“Hamas don't just target civilians exclusively: their whole propaganda celebrates the murders.”

Just like the British, American and Israeli forces, they characterize the death of civilians as a necessary but regrettable consequence of war. They've repeatedly said that if the their critics would kindly supply them with Apache helicopters and F-16's with which to fight the occupation they'd stop suicide attacks immediately. They celebrate the acts as an attack on Israel and the occupation, they do not celebrate the deaths of civilians as an end in themselves as you suggest. But they are more honest about it – their logic is simple, as long as you kill our civilians we will kill yours, that the occupation and brutalization of Palestinians will not come without a price for Israelis who, as you’re fond of reminding us, have electoral control over their government. US, UK and Israeli state terror dwarfs the combined efforts of Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Al-Qaeda. This isn’t a defense of the latter, it’s a recognition of the true nature of the former, without the window-dressing of demonstrably false claims of concern for civilians.

“Does Israel hold public celebrations when Palestinians die?”

No, they hold judicial hearings and declare the murders legal.

“And since when have i ever said anything about supporting any 'Greater Israel' by the way?”

Read again. You won’t find me ascribing this belief to you. I draw your attention to it as a continuing Israeli gaol. There’s a difference.

“You say the PLO supports 1967 borders but Israel does not. Then what do you say about the fact Hamas/Islamic Jihad don't recognise the two state solution in any shape or form”

Again, repetition would be avoided if you’d read previous answers to the questions you’ve now asked three times. Palestinians who’ve been driven from their homes have an absolute moral and legal right to the land they and their families were expelled from. The acceptance of the 1967 borders by many Palestinians is a pragmatic (and monumental) concession for peace, not a recognition of the right of Israel to ethnically cleanse the area within the 1967 borders. Those Palestinians who do not accept these borders, or the “right of Israel to exist” are perfectly within their rights to do so, since this recognition is a sacrifice to their right to return to their homes.

“The Phalangist might also have claimed they were 'occupied' by Palestinians who were trying to take over Lebanon."

They might have claimed this but these claims would have to be compared with objective fact. The Palestinians in Lebanon remain, to this day, in refugee camps in the South of the country. They had been pushed into Lebanon and had significant support there. Where would you have them go? But again, the role of Israel in all of this seems never to enter your sentences. Why were there Palestinian refugees in Lebanon? The “PLO” was not some independent entity but was made up of these refugees. They would not have been in Lebanon had they not been expelled from their homes. The Phalangists were fighting against Muslim Lebanese as well as Palestinians. As before, you’re pulling arguments out of thin air. Isn’t reality enough to be dealing with? By what logic do you argue that those who pushed Palestinians into Lebanon then have a moral right to team up with forces within Lebanon to mount further attacks on the same refugee population?

“The July 7th bomber will have claimed his Muslim brothers in Iraq were being occupied by the US/UK in Iraq. They believed in this passionately, the fact they were not Iraqi would hardly have mattered to them as Muslims. You understand the importance of the Ummah and kinship among Muslim societies - you yourself mentioned how you identified with Palestinians as both an Arab and a Muslim. It is not so different for other Muslims to identify with Palestinians as fellow Muslims either in all contexts.”

Thank you for that shallow, ignorant and cliché ridden explanation of what I and “other Muslims” believe. We savages in the Muslim world are always grateful when Bernard Lewis type drivel like that is offered up as a bullet point summary of the beliefs and attitudes of a billion people. I, as someone who lives a comfortable, oppression free life cannot credibly claim that the act of blowing myself up in a tube train is a last resort forced upon me by the strength of my oppressor and my weakness and lack of arms. The situation of a Palestinian suicide bomber (or indeed a Chechen bomber) is clearly and obviously different from that. I’m not sure if your insistence that the two are equal is due to your need to delegitimise the scale and intensity of Palestinian suffering under occupation or to imply that all Muslims, being, as we are, members of an international death cult pursuing our duty to kill all Jews and infidels, are each potential suicide bombers, regardless of whether we are in London or Gaza.

“If July 7th atrocities had been committed by an Iraqi would you then refuse to condemn it in the way you excuse Hamas bombings?”

Read above regarding condemnation of attacks on civilians. Also read above regarding the difference between a London bombing by survivors of Fallujah and one carried out by an angry under-achiever from Bradford.

“I suspect that in reality you seek to differentiate between London bombings and Tel Aviv bombings not because of the morality/immorality of them, but because one is closer to home.”

There’s no need to suspect. Just read. I’ve explained the difference.

“As to Sharon beng indited, was Arafat ever indited for his crimes?[…] Would you not say that Arafat belonged in the dock along with Sharon?”

Not along side Sharon, no. The latter’s crimes are of a magnitude that Arafat couldn’t have equaled. Again, Sharon was an occupier. His actions were (and continue to be) in the pursuit of illegitimate territorial conquest, whereas Arafat was leading (at least until he sold himself at Oslo) a resistance to occupation. But having said that, I wouldn’t have raised any objections if Arafat had been indicted, as long as the greater crimes of Sharon, and those of every previous Israeli leader from Ben Gurion onwards, were recognized and amended for first.

“How about the Sudan government who are welcomed at the UN and Arab League whilst they killed 1 million Southern Sudanese and get the Janjaweed to slaughter Muslims in Darfur? UN members have blocked any attempts to recognise Sudan as genocide.”

UN investigators stopped short of defining the killings in Southern Sudan as “genocide” because this has a specific legal definition. Sharon’s actions in Lebanon fit well within the definition of a war crime. There is a difference between a politically motivated UN vote (as in the case you mention above) and a legal indictment handed down by a recognized legal body with no political affiliations, as in the case of Sharon.

“So i do not go along with the suicide bombing is caused by repression terrorism apologist argument.”

Cheri Blair, Jenny Tong, and a number of British and Amercian civil servants I’ve spoken to who’ve visited the territories would disagree with you.

“Why did Hamas launch suicide bombings back in 1994 when the peace process was just beginning?”

See previous comments regarding the terms of the “Peace Process”. Also, read something about these terms yourself. Here’s a place to start: http://electronicintifada.net/new.shtml

“So it is right to question both the moral validty of suicide bombings, but also their practical political effect.”

But never to allow for there to be any cause other than ideological insanity. In which case there are no causes to address and no policies to adopt other than Blair and Bush’s “War on Terror”. This is a smoke screen to deflect attention away from practical causes. You and others like you may indulge in this to your hearts’ content. It won’t make any difference. As long as the causes remain, so will the symptoms.

“An end to such bombings would lead to gradual improvements as Israel would find it much harder to justify blockades and restrictions. Yet isn't it better than before 1994? Do you think Sinn Fein should pull out and return to violence on the grounds there is no united Ireland?”

If there had been no Irish resistance there would be no change in NI.

S.

Clive,

Having supported the attacks on Fallujah, what do you think is now your moral responsibility to the people subjected to the horrors that are slowly beginning to surface after months of white-washing by both the US and UK governments?

S.

The concept of kinship and brotherhood among races within Islamic societies is hardly an ignorant statement to make. Indeed i consider that it is one of the major strengths of Islam, highlighting its diversity and cultural richness from Turkey to Indonesia (best expressed in architectural variety as much as anything else).

Your embittered response and attempt to link this obervation with a Bernard Lewis Clash of Civlilisations-thesis is totally out of place - again trying to imply something that isn't there. Are Muslims who protest against Iraq or Palestine 'wrong' because they are not from the specific ethnic background as the victims?

I don't think Ariel Sharon is the equivalant of Bin Laden, just as i don't think that is true of Yasser Arafat. You use moral relavitism to compare Sharon with Arafat, whilst claiming the former is the same as Bin Laden. Both figures have blood on their hands, but this is true of much of the Middle East. Bin Laden is in a different league.

Your 'explanation' of the genocide in Sudan paraphrased the UN's, which has been much ridiculed. If you think Darfur doesn't 'quite fit the legal definition', then explain these legal niceties to the victims. Suicide bombings openly breach conventions of warfare - though that doesn't stop you from producing justifications for them.

It is not 'obviously' different to compare the killing of civilians in Tel Aviv with those of London. You are as much a hypocrite as Jenny Tonge and other people who are happy to make excuses for suicide bombings, until it happens here and then suddenly engage in half-baked and unconvincing explanations for the 'differences'. The only real difference is that one city has Israelis. Both cities however contained innocent people. It is notable that you duck the issue