Realistically, I don't think any solution will ever fully address the injustices received by the Palestinians. But at the same time, they can't just accept being walked over and accept whatever arrangement Israel/US puts in front of them. Progress and concessions were made on both sides at the Taba summit, peacefully, but unfortunately it was cut short. Apparently, Israel thought it was giving back too much. It would be nice if all sides can just lay down their arms, get back to the negotiating table, and resume those talks. The Palestinians would certainly love that -- being destitute as is, they have far more to gain from it. But I don't think Israel is in a place right now where they'd be willing to resume those talks.
ARRRGGHHH! It's not about proving one side better or worse when both sides are, objectively, utterly devoid of intelligence, morals, ethics, and common sense. Your whole problem is that you would use one side's actions to justify your own side's equally abhorrent actions. I called you out on it, got wrapped into a debate about religion (my own fault, and I think I lost), which morphed into a "he-said-she-said" see-saw that only serves to exemplify my original point. In conclusion - this argument is stupid, and I don't really feel much pity for either side, other than for the children caught up in their parent's religion-fueled, anti-intellectual, and morally repugnant feud.
You don't feel pity for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians being expelled from their home during a civil war, and millions thereafter in subsequent conflicts, and not being allowed to return because the other side considers them a "demographic problem"? That's not a religion-fueled, anti-intellectual, morally repugnant grievance. That's an injustice. One which Israel has steadfastly refused to take responsibility for throughout its existence. What about all those in the West Bank who's aspirations for a viable state was denied for decades, and all the while Israelis confiscated their rightful territories with illegal settlement building? I can't feel pity for them, because somehow that's their fault? We can condemn much of the violence on both sides. But there is a clear loser in this conflict, one which has taken overwhelmingly the brunt of the violence, and yes I do pity them.
I ceased to pity the responsible parties when neither side made any effort to rectify those injustices pragmatically or with reasonable concessions so as to end the violence. Even after many, many years. Naturally, nothing said in one sentence "conclusion" is an absolute... Injustice and pity are not mutual, nor are they immalleable or timeless. Oh, I pity the pain and suffering. But not the injustice. Both sides threw out any aspirations of moral supremacy a long time ago. I have no argument with that stance. My (initial) focus was on stating that using such arguments as justification is absurd. BTW: Thanks for the discussion. It's been enlightening and interesting.
Yes the Palestinians are on the short end of the assymetric war and the Palestinian people do deserve pity whether that means they deserve moral deference I'm not sure. Obviously Israel has done terrible things to the Palestinians and has done much to continue the conflict but at the same time the Palestinian side IMO shares much blame. Hamas when it took control of Gaza it could've focussed its efforts on providing better services for the people instead of continuing to advance the fight against Israel. Even if Israel was blockading them. The leadership of Hamas could've gone on a PR campaign to the rest of the World, particularly the Arab world, on getting more resources to the Palestinians through humanitarian channels. Arafat during the 90's could've cracked down harder on Palestinian militants. Overall though the Palestinians could recognize that the path of armed resistance isn't working and instead embrace the path of Ghandi and compel the Israelis to the bargaining table through non-violence. IMO as long as their are rockets, suicide bombings and such Israel and its supporters will continue to justify heavy handed responses by pointing to their own pain. A non-violent resistance though would strip away the rhetorical cover of a war on terrorism to bring the focus squarely on the suffering of an occupied people. As I've said I can understand why both sides do what they do but it doesn't make them right.
I don't necessarily think Gandhi or MLK's methods will work since Israel and Gaza are separate states. I think it is just a bad situation. It would be nice if we could just have one secularist state instead of two religious ones.
I agree with the non-violent approach in principle, but I don't think it can just be relinquish violence, and then Israel will be willing to negotiate around fair terms. They have too much on the table to lose. It has to be a very large, organized effort. Something on the scale of the Intifada, but without militant factions trying to "help out" with strikes (whether believed to be retaliatory or not) in Israel. And even then, I suspect Israel will find some excuses to not relent. I think a huge faction of their leadership will deem it to be not in their interests to have an empowered, healthy, viable Palestinian state at their border, one in which the overwhelming majority of the population would still be very much resentful of it's past behavior. The other difficulty is that there isn't a centralized power structure capable of reining in all the various militant factions. Any attempt by moderates to assert that type of authority would likely invite violence or maybe assassination attempts against them.
That's essentially what the PLO was pursuing for nearly 20 years, and they were called "rejectionist" and "extremists" for that stance.
Israel will be a much harder nut to crack than the British when it comes to non-violence. A good article by Ghandi's grandson on non-violence as a way of liberating the Palestinians. ****** .....Gandhi was asked by this reporter if ahimsa (nonviolence), the spiritual core of his grandfather’s campaign, with its roots in Indian soil, can be transported to the West Bank and Gaza. He was confident it could. “All religions talk about nonviolence, love, respect,” he noted. “True, the Western family of religions, for economic reasons, have tended to be more competitive, more violent than religions in the East. But ahimsa can be applied wherever there is conflict.” Contrary to media images, instances of nonviolence long have been a component of Palestinian resistance. In the mid-1980s, the Palestinian psychologist and Gandhian, Dr. Mubarak Awad, arrived from the U.S., and led small, nonviolent actions on the West Bank. At one, in the village of Qattanah, where Israelis from the Nature Preservation Society were uprooting olive trees, Awad had Palestinian farmers plant new ones under Israeli noses. The farmers were instructed: no stone-throwing, no bringing farm implements that might be mistaken for weapons, no running away, no resisting arrest. The Israeli soldiers on the scene left without making arrests. In 1988, at Beit Sahour, Palestinians tried to practice economic self-sufficiency—backyard gardening was encouraged, a dairy farm was set up—so as not to have to buy Israeli products. Beit Sahour residents also refused to pay taxes. The Israelis responded by confiscating $2 million worth of valuables, including furniture, from the tax resisters. The battle over the wall has led many Palestinian women to engage in nonviolent resistance. (Lucy Nusseibeh, head of Middle East Nonviolence and Democracy, writes that Palestinian women have been employing nonviolent tactics since the days of the British Mandate.) In Budrus, for example, in western Ramallah, women and girls have thrown their bodies between Israeli bulldozers and their trees. Many have wound up being brutally beaten by Israeli soldiers. The question was put to Gandhi: Wouldn’t such brutality discourage the Palestinian leadership from resorting to nonviolence? Speaking from the Indian experience, he replied that it is only natural that the nonviolence of the oppressed often will be met by the violence of the oppressor. “Small numbers of women can be easily suppressed,” he explained. “To counter that, Palestinians must confront the Israelis in large numbers. I asked Arafat and the other leaders why they don’t lead 500,000 refugees, men, women and children, in a prayerful, peaceful march from Amman to Palestine. Could the Israelis shoot down 500,000 innocent people and live with their conscience? Would the world sit back and watch this genocide?” Palestinian leaders were understandably fearful of a bloodbath. Mohammed Alatar, director of Palestinians For Peace And Democracy, found Gandhi’s idea unrealistic. But he did agree with the main point, that massive nonviolent resistance is the best hope the Palestinians have for liberation, given the hopelessly inadequate military option. http://www.wrmea.com/archives/July_2005/0507018.html
I definitely agree about Israel being a greater challenge. Great Britain really wasn't all that interested in holding on to India. They were giving up their colonial holdings all over. Anyways, it's still the best way to go. They'll get more sympathy from the US population if Israel can't bring up the "terrorism" excuse.
