The anti-normalization movement plays into the hands of the state of Israel’s policy of separation. By refusing to engage and even on some level cooperate with Israelis, Palestinian anti-normalizers accept this policy.
Anti-normalization is one of the hottest topics in the Palestinian community, although very few people can define exactly what it should mean. It is a term that gained strength in the 1980s against accepting the status quo of the occupation. Those who supported anti-normalization then were concerned about the occupation becoming a secondary issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. A growing number of Palestinians working for Israeli businesses, a lack of political vision or a strategy for ending the occupation and the absence of the Palestinian case from the international discourse were alarming trends for Palestinian activists.
However, since the Oslo Accords “normalization” has become an out-moded term, a catch-all argument against Israeli-Arab cooperative efforts and a cover for character assassination in Palestinian politics.
When it comes to Arab countries and Israel, normalization is commonly understood as any relationship or ties between an Arab country with the state of Israel. However, some would accuse an Arab who visits Jerusalem of normalization, even if he did not meet any Israelis on his trip. That also means that visiting occupied East Jerusalem could be considered normalization. The same goes for meeting with Israelis for any reason, anywhere in the world, which can result in an Arab being labeled as a normalizer.
In Palestine, there are many definitions for normalization – it seems there are as many definitions as there are Palestinians themselves. Some Palestinians would define normalization as any contact whatsoever with Israelis or even Jews, regardless of their political stances. They would describe joint protests in the West Bank against the separation wall or settlements as normalization, and refuse to take part in them.
Others define it as contact with the official institutions in Israel, or any cooperation with people who work in these institutions. Joint work or attendance at events featuring Israeli academics who have been outspoken against the occupation could also result in accusations of normalization.
Perhaps the most confusing definition of normalization is any contact with Israelis who do not recognize the occupation, and are not actively working for the freedom of Palestinians. But this definition is problematic because the interpretation of it has led to different conclusions.
As an intellectual exercise, consider a Palestinian activist who meets Israelis in order to describe to them the effect of occupation on his life. Is he a normalizer? What if the meeting is with right-wingers, or even soldiers? What about a joint meeting between Israelis and Palestinians who support a bi-national state or a confederation? Many people who engage in these kinds of activities are labeled normalizers.
Organizations like the Parents Circle, Combatants for Peace and others who speak to classes at schools in Israel and give students an introduction to the implications of the occupation and conflict on the Israeli and Palestinian communities could be labeled as normalizers by some of the definitions above. The Israeli Ministry of Education doesn’t share the anti-normalization notion and therefore has recently banned the Parents Circle from having Palestinians speak in Israeli schools.
Another example would be +972 Magazine, which is sometimes criticized for not having more Palestinian bloggers. Many Palestinian bloggers are hesitant to write on a site with Israelis for the fear of being painted as normalizers. They don’t want to be smeared by the anti-normalization campaign and lose their reputation.
There is nothing normal about these “normalization” activities. Writing about life under occupation on a magazine with Israeli writers is not normal. Speaking to classrooms about life in Palestinian cities is not normal. Meeting with Israelis in a dialogue group to discuss how to change the current status quo is not normal. Normalization better describes armchair critics who complain about the occupation without taking action. Normalization is pretending that Palestinians can end the occupation by ignoring Israelis.
It is sad that some anti-normalization activists are so focused on protesting “normalization” activities that they have forgotten to show up to protest against growing settlements in Jerusalem.
Instead of mobilizing Palestinians to protest a joint Israeli-Palestinian event, Palestinians should be mobilizing to increase the numbers of Palestinians protesting in Sheikh Jarrah and Silwan. It is ironic that many of the Palestinians constantly present at these protests are labelled “normalizers.”
East Jerusalem and the anti-normalization dilemma
Growing up in East Jerusalem, I was very active in the Fatah youth movement. I was an anti-normalization activist, and at that time, I opposed any dealings with Israelis. I attacked people for being normalizers, and I used my writings to taint peoples’ names for working with the “enemy.”
Years later, I have come to understand that this position was immature and blind. My high school, Al-Rashidiyeh, which was the only school my parents could afford, was supported by the Jerusalem municipality. My parents had to pay taxes to keep their residence in Jerusalem. My father was hospitalized for heart problems in an Israeli hospital, while I was telling others that talking to Israelis is an unforgivable sin.
The reality in Jerusalem is too complex for some anti-normalization activists to understand. When my brother Tayseer was killed by Israeli soldiers, we had to get a permit from the Israeli government to bury him in Jerusalem. However, some extreme activists would say we were normalizing with an Israeli institution.
Anti-normalization activists ignore the reality in places like Jerusalem. Most Palestinians in East Jerusalem work with or for Israelis in West Jerusalem. If they work in the West Bank, they could lose their Jerusalem residency on grounds that their center of life is outside Jerusalem. Should they quit their jobs and endanger their residency status? If so, why has this not been brought up by the anti-normalization movement in Jerusalem?
Most Palestinians in East Jerusalem use the Israeli health care system, pay taxes to Israel, and receive social security benefits. The anti-normalization movement is blind to these realities, and is unable to define itself because of the implications.
Now, I wonder how many of those who protested the Israeli Palestinian Confederation gathering at the Ambassador Hotel and the Palestine Israel Journal event at the Legacy Hotel are subscribed to these services from the state of Israel. Would that make their protest hypocritical?
Anti-normalization activists and separation policy
A few weeks ago, a group of Palestinian and international activists boarded Israeli buses in the West Bank, to highlight the separation policy implemented by the Israeli state. Their message was that they don’t accept being treated as inferior to Jews in the West Bank. They wanted to show that roads and buses for Israelis only is not an acceptable practice.
According to many of the definitions above, their actions would be considered acts of normalization. They wanted to ride Israeli buses supported by the Israeli government. They wanted to ride buses with settlers who confiscated their own lands. These activists could have been painted as supporters of integration with settlers and therefore normalizers. It is true that the overall goal of these activists was to highlight the separation policy in the West Bank, but the Palestinian activists’ challenge to it was implemented through a normalization action.
The anti-normalization efforts play into the hands of the separation policy that the state of Israel is implementing in the West Bank. By refusing to engage and even on some level to cooperate with Israelis, Palestinians accept the state separation policy, they accept segregation and then cry foul about the separation and segregation policies.
This is not to say that all cooperation with Israelis is good, there is a place for non-cooperation as a method of nonviolent resistance. However, a clear strategy must be drawn – not emotional reactionary behavior that leaves the definition of non-cooperation or normalization vague and broad. I myself practice some of these non-cooperation strategies which I cannot discuss due to an Israeli law.
Perhaps the most confusing argument against normalization is the one made by those who support a one-state solution, yet at the same time consider themselves anti-normalization. If one supports a bi-national state of Israelis and Palestinians living together with equal rights then the best way to achieve that is to increase contact between the two sides and not limit it. A bi-national state with two separate populations is an apartheid state, therefore, those against “normalization” and for one-state are advocating apartheid.
Supporters of a bi-national state shoot themselves in the foot by refusing to create a model to advocate for. Demonstrating how a bi-national state would function by working together would be much more effective in achieving their goal than disengaging from Israelis.
In effect, some anti-normalization activists actually enforce the Israeli government strategy of segregation. If Palestinians believe that the current Israeli government is turning the West Bank into a ghetto, then they should be challenging the policy and not reinforcing separation.
Cooperation between Israelis and Palestinians recognizing the goal of ending the occupation is an important act. It is not IPCRI and other types of joint Palestinian-Israeli organizations that Palestinians should be fighting, as some campaigns in the West Bank have been focusing on. It is the occupation. We as Palestinians must rethink what is normal so that we can truly fight normalization, which is accepting the status quo without action. Israelis standing hand in hand with Palestinians for freedom and human rights are brothers in arms and there is nothing “normalizing” about that except common humanity.
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Bosko
Vicky
I applaud your organization/s who managed to gain some additional rights for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. But as you say, you have not been entirely successful in gaining them full human rights in Lebanon.
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I hear what you say about how the nascent Israel wanting Jewish residents but it still does not negate the facts that there were Jewish refugees too not just Palestinian Arab refugees. It also does not negate the fact that the Arabs, including the Palestinian Arabs also bear a responsibility for the refugee problem, both Arab and Jewish, because they started the war against the nascent Israel. Not only did they start that war but they openly declared their intentions regarding the Jewish Palestinians. They clearly stated that they wanted the Jews out of Palestine and had their war succeeded, the Jews of Palestine too would have become either refugees or dead.
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So, back to solution mode. What should we do now? My own opinion which contradicts probably 99.99% of those who post here, is this:
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Do everything necessary to make the two state solution a reality. Let the new Palestinian state accommodate as many of the Palestinian Arab refugees as possible. Let Israel keep it’s 20% Arab citizens as Israeli citizens. The rest of the Arab refugees should be settled in third countries, including Arab countries who should be pressured to accept their responsibilities. If you want, then insist on cpensation for refugees as long as you don’t discriminate against Jewish refugees. Either BOTH Jewish and Arab refugees should get compensation or neither should. Pick your choice but please at long last in human history stop insisting on solutions that are discriminatory against Jews.
Sinjim
@Henry: What Laila meant with the “so they can feel like human beings” line is not that Israelis aren’t human beings. She’s saying Israelis want normalization because they will feel like Palestinians accept them as human beings.
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The fact is that not a single Palestinian said anti-normalization means not interacting with Israelis. For example, your misinterpreted quote from Laila is part of a comment where she invites Israelis to come visit her and learn about Palestinian experiences.
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You claim that Maath demands Israeli Jews be ashamed of themselves, when in fact she is saying that in a political context Israeli Jews must acknowledge the occupation and the racist privilege afforded to Jews in Israel. That does not mean being ashamed of being Israeli Jews. That means acknowledging honestly and openly Israel’s injustices.
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You claim that Miki calls for total war on Israel because he or she says that the Palestinian struggle is not just about occupation and the West Bank and Gaza. Look, Henry, there are millions of Palestinian refugees who live in exile as a direct result of Israel’s ethnic cleansing. There are hundreds of thousands of refugees in Lebanon alone, who live without a citizenship in any country. Justice for them and acknowledgement of their human rights is a part of the struggle, but it is independent of the occupation. That is not a declaration of total war.
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You say that you are ignorant of Palestinian answers. Well, that much is clear given how you reacted with such anger over Palestinians voicing their people’s basic concerns. So now I’ve given you some of those answers as a Palestinian. Will you acknowledge that you misinterpreted what the Palestinians here were saying?
Sinjim
@Ayla: You really have to stop with the psychoanalysis. You don’t seem to realize how insulting and demeaning it is.
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This is not about trauma. The activists who bothered to respond here despite the insults that you (yes, you) and others have thrown at them aren’t petulant children, who are motivated by a damaged psyche. You’ve implied that we’re cowards as opposed to the brave, manly Aziz, while others have straight up called us psychos, war-lovers, and haters. If there’s trauma here, it’s a result of how Israelis react every time a Palestinian shows signs of independence.
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This is about Palestinians who’ve said there is such a thing as red line. Cooperation with those organizations and initiatives that deny our humanity and our rights must be avoided. You, Ayla, may be fully comfortable associating with an organization that accepts bloody money from the Israeli version of the Council of Conservative Citizens, but it’s not your people’s blood that soaks those bills.
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The issue is becoming clear to me. What most bothers Israelis about anti-normalization is that element of Palestinian independence from Israelis. You are our occupiers, but you want to be our liberators, too.
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This is reflected in your repeated pleas that Palestinians accept cooperation with Arava, which according to its website is led almost entirely by Jews (there are handful of token Arabs, none of whom are members of the Board of Directors). What kind of a supposed joint Jewish-Arab effort has no Arabs in a leadership position? What kind of a joint Jewish-Arab effort accepts money from and lavishes praise on anti-Arab organizations and individuals?
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At some point, clearly not any time soon, you’re going to have to realize that coexistence cannot come at any cost. Paying for it with the basic human dignity of Palestinians, under occupation and in exile, is simply unacceptable.
Bosko
“@Henry: What Laila meant with the “so they can feel like human beings” line is not that Israelis aren’t human beings. She’s saying Israelis want normalization because they will feel like Palestinians accept them as human beings”
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If someone like me gave such an explanation, I would be accused of wait for it … “Hasbarah”. But really, Laila was veryclear about what she meant.
AYLA
@Sinjim–obviously, I’m sorry to have insulted anyone, and I’ll try to learn from that. I was responding to Vicky re: the trauma, etc. And I don’t think she’s wrong. There are many levels to this conflict, and that is one of them. I know this from talking to Palestinians. Not here online: here, in Palestine.
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There *is* trauma here, and it is absolutely because of what you say, and many, many other reasons, and on both sides. If that sounds demeaning, I’m sorry–it’s a fact.
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It’s easier for me to talk well about the Arava Institute than, say, the event that was cancelled that Aziz posted about originally, because I know the AI. There is a serious problem with the AI taking money from the JNF. Everyone at the AI knows this. People there (faculty, students, staff) speak out against the JNF’s actions all the time, and they are actively trying to raise different sources of income so they can cut ties with the JNF. They’ve been trying for two years. There’s a lot of discussion right now about how to handle the fact that they are still in bed with the JNF. But alum–palestinian and israeli–keep saying that no matter what, their bonds should not be severed over this; they should keep working together to end the occupation. they keep talking about how the AI changed their lives, and the ripple effects of those changes on themselves and the landscape, here. So: shut down the AI and curtail all such future relationships? What good does it *really* do. Does it really hurt the JNF? Does it really send an anti-JNF message that gets heard in any significant way? The relationships forged at the AI are much more significant and powerful than people who don’t know participants seem to realize. And the person I’m in most contact about this issue right now is a participant who comes from a Palestinian refugee family. He has not decided what to do. But he would never find my my comments here demeaning, either.
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You’re talking out of both sides of your mouth, Sinjiim. The Arava has trouble recruiting Arab board members and teachers at this time–guess why? I agree though, there should be many more Arab faculty members at the AI. The power of the AI, frankly, is the students. But guess who would agree with me? Palestinian students, including those who are very angry about the ties to the JNF, and who agree with you about the imbalance on the board, faculty, etc. Alum of the AI go on to be on the board, teach at the AI. As you know, there’s an imbalance of development, which leads, in turn, to an imbalance on the faculty, board,etc. The AI is changing that landscape.
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The Palestinian participants of the AI do not feel a loss of dignity. You do, on their behalf. But you have not walked where they have walked, any more than I have walked where you have walked.
Laila
@ Bosko, listen man, do you see the difference between a lets say a german talking to me about peace and how should we Palestinians end the conflict and an Israeli serving in the army or willing to do so!! i cant enteract with him or her just like any other person in this world. There is an army suit and occupation thats stands in between, so no matter how hard i try the fact is there and i can’t deal with him like i deal with other humans. Does this clear my point??
and to be exact, think of it, the (Israeli) army man or women who might have killed palestinians, demolished even my own house.. do you really think i will be able to consider him as human as some other person somewhere else that has nothing to do with my own suffering?? Of course that will change 100% if he or she aknowledges my rights as a Palestinian! Is it clear now?
Sinjim
Oh come on. The reason that AIES has no Arabs on its board of directors and only 4 Arab professors out of over 25 is because of anti-normalization efforts? Because in the absence of these big bad Palestinians, the Board of Directors would be tripping over themselves to get an equal number of Arabs to join them? I mean, are you seriously claiming that, before the scandal over its source of funding emerged a few years ago, Arabs had equal representation at AIES?
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The reason that fewer and fewer Palestinians accept this organization is precisely because it has no problem accepting the racist money of the KKL. The excuse that you can’t find alternative sources of money is simply not good enough. The ones who do accept AIES are fools who are doing nothing but legitimizing the theft of their people’s land so that they can gain some Jewish friends, as if the only way to make deep and lasting connections with Jews is through support for anti-Arab racism.
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Let me ask you this, Ayla, would you ever work with an organization that took money from and openly lauded anti-Semites? How about homophobes or anti-black racists? Would you ever work with an organization that says Jewish rights must be compromised for the “greater good”? Would you accept an organization that employs unrepentant terrorists and mass murderers?
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That is what you and the others who are advocating normalization are demanding of Palestinians. You are demanding that Palestinians put aside their selfish concerns about these factors so that you can push forward with the goal of coexistence with organizations like AIES and IPCRI. Well, Palestinians haven’t even been assured of Palestinian existence, never mind coexistence with the occupier.
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You’re right I’m not one of those tools who allows myself to be used by Israeli racist propaganda efforts just so I can make friendly with Israeli Jews. But you know what, I’m a Palestinian descended from people who were ethnically cleansed, too. The first time I visited my homeland, I tried visiting the home of my late grandfather — where he was born and grew up until he and his family were expelled. I found out that it had been demolished so that an overpass could be built. The closest I got to seeing a memento of my family’s history is the home of his uncle’s family, who were also expelled. It stands to this day but is home to a Jewish family now.
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Every time these organizations accept money from and legitimize the racism of the KKL and the Israeli state in general, I feel a loss of dignity on my own behalf, Ayla. I don’t care what AIES does to help the environment or that it has helped “hundreds,” which is what its website says. It is guilty of perpetuating a gross level of racism and injustice against all the millions of the Palestinian people. That doesn’t change just because a few Palestinians and Arabs participate in this charade.
PeaceLady
Interesting text with a true point! Is the text also available in Arabic? Or can somebody translate it – at least as a summary? Because I think it is also important for the Only-Arabic-speaking community to understand.
Bosko
Laila
I have already told you that you are free to hate Israelis because they are soldiers and they do oppress your people. I heard you the first time but I am afraid that you are the one who has not heard me. What I said to you is that your people are not the innocents that you make them out to be. You too have hurt Israelis and it has been going on for 63 years or even before. Your people have declared war on Palestinian Jews (who later became Israelis) nearly 100 years ago and you have made no secret about what you want to do with them. So those soldiers too have the right to defend their families from you, just like you assert your rights.
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One more thing though. Most Israelis that I know, would prefer to solve this not through war but through compromise. But since your people have opted for war at so many junctures, it had to be war. And unfortunately war hurts people. And most of all, it hurts ordinary people.
AYLA
@Sinjim–that’s a beautiful response, all around. Thank you for it. Mostly I am moved by and agree with everything you said.
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re: the AIES–I’d only say that there’s a big dilemma worth fighting through for alum, particularly palestinian alum; the positive ripple effects of the place are changing the landscape here more than the website apparently reveals (hundreds), and not just helping the environment, and not just because jewish israelis and palestinians live together and become something of a family (their words, not mine); the program attracts a caliber of student/human who tend go on to be leaders in this landscape, in part thanks to the AIES, and to the relationships they build, here. I’ve asked two of them to write a post for 972 in response to this dialogue. I hope they will.
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I’d add that as far as anti-normalizaiton goes, the AIES is an excellent example both of something clear-cut to me in that their link to the JNF is NOT okay, period (I respect the movement to boycott them based on this relationship), AND because the effect of their work is so important that it’s worth it for their own alum to struggle with this problem, as they are.
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lots of appreciation for you, Sinjim. As always.
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I’m grateful that you have visited your homeland. For what you found–the overpass, overpassing your grandfather’s home–this is a deep loss for all of us. There is a reason I live in the Negev. And it’s increasingly sh*tty here, too (relocation of Bedouin). All of this overpassing, building–even the water can no longer reach the land.
Laila
@Bosko
Oh my Lord, Allah, whatever! WOW WOW WOW I have no clue why I am even answering such an insane statement from your side. I think you have got to correct your historical and conflict infos.
Or maybe join to Nabi Saleh or Bilin or visit the house in Anata (Anatot) or even the (Arab Jahaleen beduin tribes), visit the Jordan valley and see for yourself.
Z
It seems that Aziz is missing some points or ignoring it on purpose, it’s not true that we Palestinians don’t have an agreed definition on Normalization..what about the largest coalition of the Palestinian civil society represented by the Palestinian BDS National Committee
(BNC) definition of Normalization ALWAYS make sure to read it before writing http://www.bdsmovement.net/call#.TvrpT9V6gto
And for the Majority of the Palestinian youth YES they are AGAINST Normalization as they are represented in the BDS movement and they even stated that clearly in 2010 check the link:http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1220 or http://pacbi.org/atemplate.php?id=163 ..I also suggest reading it before writing anything about Normalization in the future so you don’t look fool again.
Bosko
Yea Laila, that’s exactly the reaction that I expected from you. To paraphrase you: ‘We are 100% right, you Jews, or Zionists (or whatever else you call us) are 100% wrong”.
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That’s why this war has been going on for so long because you guys are so good at deceiving yourselves. And yes, I know, just because I stand up for my people I am a racist right? Come on, say it there will be plenty of lemmings on this site who will back you up. You are at home in here …
Richard Witty
“The issue is becoming clear to me. What most bothers Israelis about anti-normalization is that element of Palestinian independence from Israelis. You are our occupiers, but you want to be our liberators, too.”
The issue is that with externally enforced limitation of contact, that there is no possibility of peace.
You imagine vanity where there isn’t.
When groups like IPCRI are specifically and officially identified as an excluded organization, that participation at their events and joint presentations are a violation of anti-normalization, the term is KNOWN then to be petty, arbitrary, isolationist, even racist.
Yes, you have a right to exclude contact, but you have moral responsibility to make ACTUAL change in the relations between Palestinians and Israelis and the rest of the world.
The anti-normalization approach CEMENTS the status quo, as a consequence.
I’m sure that Palestinian participation in cross-cultural efforts have been vain, insulting in ways, coopted.
I read here of the Freedom Ride efforts. The sense I got from the effort was that the expectation was that the single effort would be seen internationally as so compelling as to evoke change. But, that belies the fact that there were a nearly a thousand freedom rides in the southern US, that they took seriously the Gandhiish dictum of persistent determination for a clear and limited specific goal. And succeeded.
And it didn’t feel so good for the 450th freedom ride, that attracted no attention in the press, in which the participants were harrassed and accepted it in their determination to humanely and humbly bring the issue ACTUALLY to the attention of the world.
Inspire us, don’t harrangue us.
Aziz’s positions inspires liberal Israelis. His positions say, “you are a human being, I will relate to you as a human being” and “I myself will not be dehumanized”, in a meeting, in a forum, in public communications.
Henry Weinstein
To Vicky & Sinjim
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Vicky, I wrote also “Maath Mosleh put it explicitely: “Is or is not the Israeli state illegally established and morally should be dismantled”?
I took the time to write an analysis, and I didn’t misquote or distort anything. You took a bit of my wording, Vicky & Sinjim, doing so allowed you both to depict me as someone who don’t recognize right of return and who is opposed to full and equal rights.
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In my analysis (digest in comment Tuesday 27, 2011 5:05 pm), I didn’t omit right of return and I ended my wording by saying: “So it doesn’t matter if The Transfuge wants to end all forms of discrimination and start a new process, I mean Civil Rights & Social Justice struggle, unless The Transfuge call for the removal of Israel. Removal by what”?
I say it again, I stand for Israel’s right to exist and I stand for full and equal rights for all Israeli citizens. I stated this explicitely several times on 972. I’m also against Gaza’s blockade and against the annexation of East Jerusalem. Maybe you can guess I don’t support the military occupation of Palestinian territories? But that’s not the topic, my own personal viewpoint on the conflict, the topic is the Anti-Normalization ideology and its consequences.
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Most of Anti-Normalizaters on this thread just want to forbid any debate on this, they all blame Aziz for exposing their ideology to the “abnormal” side. And when they are not blaming Aziz, they blame ‘Zionist’ Leftist commenters to have the audacity to express their viewpoints. Bad luck, I’m still here.
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So according to BDS Sacred Scriptures Israel is “abnormal”, “the normalization of Israel” would be “normalizing the abnormal”. Why should I be forbidden to say I disagree with this kind of psycho-rigid Prohibitive Thought? After all, I’m not Israeli, no ties in Israel, never been in the land of the IDF. I’m only connected with Israeli Jews by my blood & soul: is it a crime?
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When Laila (Tuesday, December 27, 2011 11:43 pm) responding to Bosko said: “@Bosko, listen man, do you see the difference between a lets say a german talking to me about peace and should we Palestinians end the conflict / and an Israeli serving in the army or willing to do so”!!!
Let’s say I’m not at all amused to read she has chosen “a german”, and don’t tell me it’s unvoluntary, I’m 52 and I had experienced too many times in my life this kind of riddle (and worst, of course).
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Vicky, when you explain “Many people here do not believe that Zionism is compatible with those rights”, it’s not an explanation for me, it’s your belief, their belief, an absurd dogma which means something only for the believers.
Do you believe Israel= Zionism, as simple as that, Vicky? Do you believe Israeli children= future IDF soldiers? Do you believe Israeli Jews, people like Yuval, Dimi, Noam, Ami, Joseph, are all guilty to be ‘Zionist’ – even if they are not, Anti-Normalizaters don’t care who they are – simply because they are Israeli Jews? Do you believe the entire Israeli people is bad, an “abnormal” people? Do you believe there is not a single difference between the Israeli present political & military system and the Israeli people? Do you believe Israel must be dismantled, erased, for the sake of the Anti-Normalization Church? Do you believe the only way for an Israeli Jew to find ‘redemption’ is to convert to Anti-Normalization Church, and become a renegade? And so on.
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Personally, I don’t trust anymore BDS & Anti-? Ultra-activists. Why should I be willing to be stigmatized and negated by people who hate me blindly? And it has nothing to do with a lack of empathy with Palestinians, it has something to do with a lack of empathy with ? Ultra-activists.
Sinjim
It’s clear Henry that you are misunderstanding every single word that Palestinians have said here. You’re accusing them of saying that Israelis are abnormal when they’re saying that the state and the occupation are abnormal. You’re accusing them of wanting to dismantle the Israeli people when they’re talking about dismantling the structures and institutions of racism. How do you get rid of racism and occupation without ending the institutions that perpetuate them?
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To answer your questions: 1) Yes, Israel as it currently exists is equal to Zionism. 2) Israeli Jewish children will be soldiers in the future because that’s what they are mandated by law to be. That needs to be changed because it is forcing all Israeli Jews to participate in the immorality of the occupation. 3) The writers of 972 are Zionists only if they say they are. I’ve gotten this wrong recently, but no, no one should assume that someone is a Zionist just because she’s Jewish. 4) No one has said that the Israeli people are bad or that they’re abnormal. Neither claim is true or fair. 5) There is a difference between Israel’s political and military system and the Israeli people. Anti-normalization is aimed at the former, not the latter. 6) It depends on what you mean by Israel. If you’re talking about the system of government and the institutions of racism, then absolutely yes, it must be dismantled. If you’re talking about the lives of the people, then no, that’s a crime against humanity.
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You have taken the words of Palestinians here and decided it means that they want to destroy Israelis. You ignore that every single person here has said that they want Israelis to visit them and participate with them in the struggle for the things that you yourself say you support. Yet no amount of explanation has changed your mind.
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@Ayla: And what will they say that’s different from anything you’ve said to defend it? My argument is that the means matter just as much as the ends. You are telling me that the ends matter more. And that’s what they will argue as well.
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Thank you for your last comment. I appreciate that you took the time to write it. But at the end of the day, it’s just pixels on a screen, and that’s all they’ll be so long as Israelis accept their occupation and dispossession of the Palestinian people as normal.
Richard Witty
Sinjim,
When IPCRI is named by the PACBI as an organization that engages in normalization and is a target for isolation, then your comments about directing attention at the institutions of oppression rather than the Israeli people, is ludicrous.
It is beneath you to rationalize so.
Sinjim
@Richard Witty: Last, I checked the IPCRI is not the Israeli people. It is a political organization, which includes former members of the Mossad, the IDF leadership, and others who have committed crimes against the Palestinian people in its activities. PACBI says this is wrong. That is not an attack on the Israeli people.
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You have repeatedly engaged in distortions about what I’ve said throughout the comments, including saying that I called Aziz a traitor. I would ask that you stop doing so.
Vicky
“Vicky, when you explain “Many people here do not believe that Zionism is compatible with those rights”, it’s not an explanation for me, it’s your belief, their belief, an absurd dogma which means something only for the believers.”
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Under the current laws, anyone who converts to Judaism or has one Jewish grandparent can go to live in Israel, often receiving financial incentives to do so. A Palestinian who was expelled from Jaffa in 1948 has no such right. Clearly this is a gross inequality, and it exists because of a central tenet of Zionism: the need to preserve Israel as a Jewish state. That means a Jewish majority, and therefore no right of return for Palestinians. Jews are privileged above Palestinians in this set-up. This is just the tip of the iceberg.
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You might argue that there are different forms of Zionism and that Zionism doesn’t have to look like this. But this is mainstream political Zionism as it exists today, and this is what Palestinians are in opposition to now. I think it’s also worth pointing out that the only form of Zionism that acknowledges full Palestinian rights is non-statist.
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I know you oppose the occupation. But I don’t think you have fully thought through the implications that ethnic nationalism has for people who are not of the privileged ethnicity. A lot of people seem to live with this contradiction in their heads and they don’t reconcile it. There are so many unjust laws in operation in Israel (rooted in Zionist ideology) that their revocation would result in a state so completely different as to be another country entirely.
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“Do you believe Israeli children= future IDF soldiers?”
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No. I believe that Israeli children are Israeli children. They are, however, growing up in a heavily militarised society in which it is the norm to see assault rifles on the bus. It is their state that sees them as future soldiers, not me. I’m not the one that serves them with conscription notices when they’re seventeen. I hope that in refusing to accept this situation as remotely normal, I am honouring the fact that they are children, not tomorrow’s conscripts.
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I am at a loss how to answer the rest of your questions. It is clear from everything I’ve written on +972 that I have friendships with Israelis, that personally I am comfortable interacting with anyone (soldier or settler), and that I believe in always trying to look beyond people’s actions (however bad) because humans have value simply as humans. It is just the nature of my interaction that I am careful about. I will not do anything to downplay the occupation or to prop up systemic injustice. There is a difference.
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From what you are writing, it seems that you are struggling to see Israelis as separate from the system, as you don’t seem to comprehend the idea of activism being directed against a system and not against individuals. I don’t hate you, or anyone. I do hate the injustice that is leaving people in the Jordan Valley homeless and impoverished. I refuse to buy Jordan Valley dates because I don’t want to line the pockets of people who are profiteering from that misery. I watch an elderly woman cry as her home collapses in front of her, and when I campaign for British organisations and shareholders to divest from the company that makes those bulldozers, it means I hate you blindly? It is not about you. It is about that woman and all the others like her. Normalisation blots them out and downplays what is happening to them, which would be the last straw on top of everything they are already enduring. Anti-normalisation makes it abundantly clear that this is wrong, and absolutely anyone is welcome to help redress the wrong: Israeli, Palestinian, or little green man from Mars. As I have written in the comment thread on another post, the mere act of an Israeli travelling into the OPT to meet with Palestinians can be anti-normalisation, as segregation is the norm here. Such meetings undermine that status quo.
Richard Witty
“@Richard Witty: Last, I checked the IPCRI is not the Israeli people. It is a political organization, which includes former members of the Mossad, the IDF leadership, and others who have committed crimes against the Palestinian people in its activities. PACBI says this is wrong. That is not an attack on the Israeli people.”
Content – IPCRI is an NGO (non-governmental organization)
Communication – You indicate that you want perfection (“political correctness”), rather than sympathy and support.
Take it in. The language that has been directed towards Aziz has been grossly condemnatory, not a diifference of perspective. I perceive the language as warning, and prospectively beyond his credibility among some solidarity.
Your impression that PACBI definitions are concise, justifiable, and effective, is in error, a bit of wishing.
One observation. In the past week, a number of somewhat prominent Israelis have acknowledged the likely failure of the two-state efforts. Carlo Strenger today, Avram Burg earlier in the week.
The criticism of the current Israeli policies have been clear compelling reasons for that despondency. None of them have joined the resistance movement. That “invitation’ is far less convincing.
Miki
@Henry Weinstein – I have not had access to the computer the last few days, so my response to your comments come late.
I stand by my comment that that the Palestinian national struggle has never been ONLY about ending the occupation of the WB, EJ and Gaza. If you had even the most basic understanding of the Palestinian struggle and its history you would be aware of this fact.
The Palestinian national struggle began in the early 20th century, well before the state of Israel was created in 1948 and well before Israel’s 1967 occupation of the West Bank, EJ and Gaza. As SINJIN points out, the Palestinian struggle also encompasses justice for the millions of Palestinian refugees forced to live in exile. It also encompasses the struggle for equal rights for Palestinian citizens of Israel (who are actively discriminated against legally, socially and politically inside Israel – there is for example, at least 20 lsraeli laws which actively discriminate against non-Jewish citizens of Israel).
In relation to the Golan, I had not forgotten it – I simply did not mention it because we are specifically talking about the issue of normalization in relation to Palestinian civil society and instead focused on Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories.
You also deliberately misrepresent what BDS is about. BDS is not a total boycott of Israelis. It is a boycott of Israeli institutions and businesses. It has nothing to do with hating anyone because they are Jewish or even because they are Israeli – instead, it actively takes a position in opposition to all forms of racism, including anti-semitism. Nor has it ever called for the destruction of the Israeli state (in fact it takes no position in regards to either a one-state or two –state solution).
The Palestinian BDS National Committee has specifically pointed out that nowhere in the world is BDS being enacted against anyone simply because they are Jewish or simply because their nationality is Israeli. Instead institutions and businesses are chosen based on their direct contribution to grave human rights abuses and international law violations of the Israeli state and military or to rebranding campaigns that attempt to whitewash Israel’s crimes.
@Carmiel Frutkoff: Firstly the norm has been for your state – the state of Israel – to occupy, colonise, oppress and ethnically cleanse Palestinians. This is the norm and this is the source of the conflict.
Secondly, normalisers are those who refuse to acknowledge the settler-colonial nature of the Israeli state and want Palestinians to also ignore this as you, Henri and others want them too. Normalisers are those who refuse to oppose Israel’s colonial practices and instead want to normalize these practices. It’s not really that hard to understand.
Thirdly, my interest is in politically ending Israel’s oppression of Palestinians in all its guises (in the Occupied Territories, inside Israel and against Palestinian refugees who are prevent from returning to their property and homeland as stipulated under UN resolution 194). Whether you and I have an “emotional” connection and “love” each other is irrelevant to achieving these goals. What is relevant is: are YOU willing to work with Palestinians to achieve all three of these goals? If you are, then I am more than happy to work with you any day or night of the week.
Fourthly, you are welcome to love your religion, no-one says you can’t.
@Richard Witty – You clearly have never experienced any sort of oppression, let alone never been forced to live under a brutal military occupation or denied any basic rights, if you had you would not be asking such a stupid question like why can’t Palestinians just talk about the weather or a beautiful sunset.
Israel’s occupation and apartheid practices impact on the lives of Palestinians every single day. For those Palestinians living in the Occupied West Bank, EJ and Gaza, Israel’s occupation impacts on EVERY SINGLE aspect of their lives but you would prefer them to make nice chit chat with their oppressors about the weather. For Palestinians living inside Israel, they are regularly subject to discrimination and racism simply because they are Palestinians and Palestinians living in exile are prevent from even stepping foot in their homeland or visiting their relatives. Many of them, because they are refugees, cannot move freely without huge difficulties because they do not have the required documentatio because of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of their grandparents or parents from their homeland.
Your claim that anti-normalisation cements the status quo is laughable. What cements the status quo is Israel’s occupation and apartheid practices. What cements the status quo is normalisation and those who support it, like you. The reason why Aziz’s position inspires Liberal Zionists like yourself is because you are both singing from the pro-normalisation song book.
Anti-normalisation campaigning, however, on the other hand seeks to dissolve this cement and seeks to ensure that needs of the oppressed (as opposed to the needs of the oppressor) and put first.
Finally, Richard, your smug self-important demand that Palestinians should “inspire” you is disgusting and sickening to say the least. It is not the role or duty of Palestinians to “inspire” you. The duty of Palestinians, as with any occupied and.or oppressed people, is first and foremost to resist that oppression, occupation and ethnic cleansing. Their duty is not to make people who support their oppression, via normalization, feel all warm and fuzzy.
Bosko
Vicky
“t. Clearly this is a gross inequality, and it exists because of a central tenet of Zionism: the need to preserve Israel as a Jewish state. That means a Jewish majority, and therefore no right of return for Palestinians. Jews are privileged above Palestinians in this set-up”
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Cut the moralising Vicky. For 2000 years, wherever Jews were a minority amongst others, including Arabs, Jews were a convenient scapegoat for all the ills of those societies. Jews were persecuted and kicked from pillar to post and that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
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That’s why the central tenent of Zionism, at least today, is to have one tiny state in this imperfect world of ours where the Jews are a majority, where they can be masters of their own destiny and where if someone attempts to persecute them for being Jews, they can stand up and defend themselves.
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By the way, Israel if not unique in wanting to preserve their ethnic majority. Most western countries allow some immigration or intake of refugees. But just try to suggest to Italians, a Greek, Brits, the French etc that they have to agree to let in 20 million immigrants/refugees from say Arab lands or Africa or anywhere else (I am not picking on any one immigrant group) and see how most Italians, Greeks, Brits and Frenchmen would react …
Richard Witty
Its true. You shouldn’t change your thinking or process to accommodate my comfort level.
You should consider your approach because of its relative (considerable) inneffectiveness at changing hearts and minds, elections, policies, behaviors.
Vicky
“For 2000 years, wherever Jews were a minority amongst others, including Arabs, Jews were a convenient scapegoat for all the ills of those societies.”
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That’s not an excuse to deny Palestinians their rights. It’s a reason to make sure that refugee rights are properly enforced everywhere and at all times.
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I don’t think any European country is currently doing enough to promote refugee welfare. I know for a fact that asylum seekers in Britain are often treated very harshly. However, the difference in this case is that Jaffa wouldn’t be welcoming refugees from Sudan or Afghanistan or North Korea or anywhere else – it would be welcoming refugees from Jaffa. It is their home.
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“That’s why the central tenent of Zionism, at least today, is to have one tiny state in this imperfect world of ours where the Jews are a majority, where they can be masters of their own destiny and where if someone attempts to persecute them for being Jews, they can stand up and defend themselves.”
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Denying Palestinian refugees the right of return because you fear that Jews would then be persecuted is essentially saying that they aren’t to be trusted, that there is something about them that will inevitably lead to them being persecutors. That is a pithy illustration of the racism at the heart of political Zionism. It also illustrates the dangers of the various strains of imperalism, ethnocentrism, and religious supremacism that Jews and other minority communities have been subjected to over the centuries. You’re basically saying, “It’s happened to us – we need our own version to keep ourselves safe!” The problem is not with people, it is with ideology, and I will oppose any ideology that tries to privilege one human being above another, because it is dangerous and it literally destroys people’s lives.
Richard Witty
“That’s why the central tenent of Zionism, at least today, is to have one tiny state in this imperfect world of ours where the Jews are a majority, where they can be masters of their own destiny and where if someone attempts to persecute them for being Jews, they can stand up and defend themselves.”
I think this is a reasonable sentiment.
There likely are forms of right to return that would not disturb that.
The more rhetorical, those that resist proceeding to specifics, often quote the maximalist Palestinian nationalist theme of anyone that claims (not even can prove) to be descended from anyone anywhere in what was once Palestine, is entitled to return to “our land” anywhere in what was once Palestine.
That statement conveys the idea that there is no Israel, only Palestine.
It just ain’t so.
There must be specific criteria of what constitutes valid right of return in conformance with the intention of the original law. (It was not designed for multi-generational refugee status, but to address specifically the few years immediately after a war.)
Bosko
Vicky
“Denying Palestinian refugees the right of return because you fear that Jews would then be persecuted is essentially saying that they aren’t to be trusted, that there is something about them that will inevitably lead to them being persecutors. That is a pithy illustration of the racism at the heart of political Zionism”
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BS Vicky. It is called self preservation. It is called survival. It is called, we tried it before, for 2000 years being minorities in many places and I repeat, in many Arab countries too and it just did not work. So now we have to try something different. We have to try maintaining a majority.
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As far as not trusting the Palestinian Arabs. Well …. what can one say …. can you give me a reason why they should be trusted? I mean, there is a bit of a history between Palestinian Arabs and Israelis (ex Palestinian Jews) it’s not a good history, is it? Nor is the bad history entirely on the Jewish side. I don’t think the Palestinian Arabs were angelic towards the Jews either. I know they will never stop talking about Deir Yassin and the Nakba but they committed a “few” massacres of their own against the Jews of Palestine, even before the Nakba and Deir Yassin. Massacres like the one in Hebron in 1929 and other massacres during the Arab revolt in the 1930s.
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Finally, stop pretending that there are no other solutions to the Palestinian Arab refugee problem. I suggested one earlier on this thread and you just ignored it. The solution is the same as other solutions that were adopted in other similar conflicts where an exchange of population took place. It worked elsewhere in Europe after WW2 and in Pakistan/India. Only with Israel is there a push to compel Israel to solve it ALL BY ITSELF as if Israel is the only party that created the problem all by itself. I’ll tell you what Vicky, promoting that myth and promoting that solution is the thing that is RACIST. Why? Because I asked you to push for compensation to Jewish refugees from Arab countries but you just ignored me. And you are not alone! Everyone who is jumping up and down and is bashing Israel over the head because of the Nakba, is deathly silent about the equal number of Jewish refugees who were kicked out from Arab countries. What do I put that down to? One word: RACISM!!!!
Joel
There is something terribly wrong, when I’m thinking about what to write in this comment box and I realize that I can’t complement Mr. Sarah too much because that would clearly put him in an even more difficult position, as it would further confirms that he is in fact a “normalizer.”
Having been called a self-hating Jew, a J-streeter, a peacenik and even “no better than a nazi” in my efforts to promote awareness of the destructive nature of the occupation and the discriminatory laws in Israel I find it truly sad and ironic that those same efforts are here being labelled as “normalization efforts” (as part of my motivation stem from a care for Israelis and Israel), which, by judging from the comments here, seems to be just a little bit short of standing there with my gun in a settlement myself.
All non-violent and real change comes from dialogue and interaction; but only when it is communicated both TO the disagreeing listener and WITH that disagreeing listeners hopes and fears in mind. In my experience, when talking to a Jewish/Israeli audience acknowledging that Israel has a right to exist in peace and security usually lends a lot of ears for even the most critical comments. However, now I am learning that recognizing Palestinians right to statehood in a two state solution, equal rights for Israeli Arabs in Israel and a “just” solution to the refugee problem (or any other model based on the Geneva Initiative or Belin – Abu Mazen agreement) is not enough to earn that same ear from some of the Palestinians posting here.
So, my question to those defending the “anti-normalization”-position is this: is there anything I can say or do that would convince you to engage in dialogue with me (or my hypothetical organization) that would at the same time allow me to get my critical message through to Jews and Israelis, by allowing me to support their right to exist in peace and security? Or are you essentially saying the same thing as AIPAC; that I cannot at the same care and work for both Israelis and Palestinians, for both Israel and Palestine? That I have to choose either or and one’s gain is inevitably the other’s loss?
Because if we all have to choose sides and if we cannot cannot simultaneously recognize each other’s individual AS WELL AS collective rights JUST TO HAVE A DIALOGUE, what hope do we ever have to live together on the same land, be it in one or two states?
Vicky
Bosko,
I wrote that I believe in the universal application of refugee rights. Every refugee who wants to return to their original home should be able to do so, in addition to receiving compensation (also available if they don’t want to return). It’s a given to me that every displaced person should have the freedom to decide what they want to do, without other people imposing that choice on them. This much has been acknowledged by the UN. Given that I back that resolution, it should be obvious to you that I back its implication everywhere – it’s meant to be universal.
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“BS Vicky. It is called self preservation. It is called survival. It is called, we tried it before, for 2000 years being minorities in many places and I repeat, in many Arab countries too and it just did not work.”
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There were periods where Jewish communities flourished and played important roles in government and wider society, and times when they were persecuted. The same applies to other minority groups the world over. The difference between my approach and your approach is that I see persecution of minorities as the consequence of political systems that invest such great significance in people’s race and religion (or caste, or class…). This is especially true of empires, as subjugation of minority communities is a prerequisite for empire-building. It’s also true in countries where law is heavily influenced by religion. Historically there were periods when minority communities flourished in such situations, but this was typically dependent on the whim of the individual rulers. Pluralistic democracy as we know it now is a fairly recent phenomenon, and it affords far greater safety for minorities than the systems that preceded it.
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This doesn’t just apply to ethnic or religious minorities. Disabled people have faced prejudice and discrimination across the world, ranging from infanticides and ‘mercy killings’ to physical, verbal, and sexual abuse; discrimination in education and the workplace; and being stripped of their legal and civil rights. The stats on this (especially in the so-called developed world) make terrifying reading. I have experienced some of this myself, the worst being sexual assault (and being told that nobody would care because I wasn’t ‘a proper child’). This is not rare. It’s extremely common. It can also be tough to get justice, because we live in a world that privileges people whose bodies and brains work in a certain way. This too has been happening for millennia. It isn’t pleasant to live in a society where this happens, where people sometimes publicly debate the worth of people like you live on BBC Radio 4, but I am not about to ask for a separate disabled-only place where I can be away from ‘normal’ people. If the thought of such a request sounds bizarre to you, it sounds just as bizarre to me when people suggest that separating different ethnicities is an answer to systemic prejudice. The problem is not that people are different from one another. The problem is how we decide to view difference. Certain political ideologies paint it in a terrible light. Ethnic nationalism is one of them, and it goes contrary to everything that my own experiences have taught me about how to relate to other people.
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I’m surprised to see you hailing the Partition of India as a success. It was a brutal enterprise and the mass slaughters that took place were horrific, not to mention the forced population transfers. I can’t see that as something to emulate. The displacement and loss were also terrible in Europe, albeit not as bloody. How is uprooting communities a good solution to anything? This is exactly the sort of thing I would be afraid of with the two-state solution. I had no sympathy for what the settlers of Gush Katif were trying to do, but what happened to them was not right either.
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My other objections to the two-state solution you already know. Israel has taken care to build its settlement blocs on top of the best resources the West Bank has – the aquifers (giving it control of the West Bank’s entire water supply), and swathes of prime arable land. The issue with land swaps is that not all land is equal. Palestinians would be left with tatters of earth (that wouldn’t even be contiguous if the major settlement blocs are to be preserved) while Israel takes the best that the West Bank offers. The settlements have been planned and built in these strategic areas quite deliberately. The ones that could easily be swapped are built in less valuable areas. That is not just.
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Ariel Sharon expressed interest in what he called ‘the batustan model’ for a Palestinian state, and this is what it looks like on the ground. I can’t sign up to that. There was a time when I did, because the two-state solution was presented almost as default, my focus was only on Palestinians in the Territories, and the settlements were not as numerous and expansive as they are now. Since then my awareness has grown (and sadly the settlements have outgrown it).
Bosko
Actually, Vicky, on second thought, four words:
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Double standard and racism!!!
Vicky
“Given that I back that [UN] resolution, it should be obvious to you that I back its implication everywhere – it’s meant to be universal.”
How is supporting a UN resolution with universal application a double standard? Before I even made that comment, I wrote this in response to your comment on persecution: “It’s a reason to make sure that refugee rights are properly enforced everywhere and at all times.”
‘Everywhere and at all times’ should be pretty clear too.
Bosko
And another thing Vicky. You didn’t answer this either so let me amplify on it:
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There are about 62,000,000 refugees world. What are the rich western countries doing about it? Is America accepting Mexican refugees by the droves? No? Are they racist? What about Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Canada, Australia, the Scandinavian countries. They all accept only limited numbers of refugees. Why? Are they racist too?
Vicky
I did answer. I wrote this:
“I don’t think any European country is currently doing enough to promote refugee welfare. I know for a fact that asylum seekers in Britain are often treated very harshly.”
I put ‘European countries’ because your initial example didn’t involve the US. But I would expand my response to include the US too. I do think that Mexican immigrants to the US endure racism. It’s present in the dehumanising name that they’re given (illegal alien, alien, etc). It’s present in the peculiar idea that these ‘illegals’ have often handed over their life savings and risked being shot in order to live a luxurious life in the States (where ‘luxury’ typically consists in working like a slave for an exploitative employer and living in constant fear). The UK Border Agency is mired in racism. My eyes were opened to that several years ago, when I was involved in a campaign to keep a young woman from Afghanistan in England. She was staying with a lady from my church. Her appeal for asylum was denied. One morning the Border Agency representatives came to the house where she was staying, shackled her, and took her back to the detention centre without warning. The treatment in there was terrible – the conditions filthy, the staff often abusive. That is racism: the belief that it’s OK to treat these people like this because they are not British and therefore do not have the same rights. Even the rights they do have often get trampled on.
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Back to Palestine, the second part of the response I gave you earlier ran like this: “However, the difference in this case is that Jaffa wouldn’t be welcoming refugees from Sudan or Afghanistan or North Korea or anywhere else – it would be welcoming refugees from Jaffa. It is their home.”
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To elaborate: Palestinian refugees aren’t asking for right to asylum or right to settle. They want right to return.
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I am not going to qualify every statement I make on justice for Palestinians with a remark on how I also support the welfare of asylum seekers in Britain or interfaith dialogue or better support for people with disabilities. I have a lot of interests. If you want to know about them you can find me on blogs related to those things. My position can be summed up very simply: human rights are for human beings, full stop. Everyone is entitled to them. There is no need to add a qualification to that. It’s clear.
Bosko
So basically what I hear you are saying, Vicky, is that everyone is a racist, or if you are not saying it, then you should be because it is simply a fact of life that all people on this earth want to and do maintain their overall national character by limiting immigration and refugees.
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As for the “returning home” bit, Vicky, Jews lost their homes too many times in history. I myself come from families on both sides of my parents who lost our homes more then once because we became refugees. We just rebuilt our lives more than once instead of plotting revenge against those who did it to us (the Nazis and the Soviets).
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And Vicky, you still did not answer me about the compensation to Jewish refugees from Arab countries
Vicky
“And Vicky, you still did not answer me about the compensation to Jewish refugees from Arab countries.”
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I think perhaps you’ve not seen all of my comments. I wrote this:
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“I wrote that I believe in the universal application of refugee rights. Every refugee who wants to return to their original home should be able to do so, in addition to receiving compensation (also available if they don’t want to return). It’s a given to me that every displaced person should have the freedom to decide what they want to do, without other people imposing that choice on them. This much has been acknowledged by the UN. Given that I back that resolution, it should be obvious to you that I back its implication everywhere – it’s meant to be universal.”
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So yes, of course I support refugee rights for Jews who fled Middle Eastern countries. How could I not?
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I believe that governments don’t do their duty by refugees and asylum seekers (or vulnerable people generally) and that there is a strong racist element to that. The national character I want to have is a compassionate one that responds to people who are in dire need, often fearing for their lives. There was a quota on Jewish refugees who could enter the country during and before the Holocaust, which was criminal. How could I possibly want to force someone to remain in a place where they are at risk of death or serious harm in order to preserve the ethnic make-up of other countries? Refugees don’t leave their homes for pleasure jaunts, they do so for a serious reason.
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Secondly, you are forgetting that refugees often do want to go home again. They aren’t proposing to sit in their refugee forever, unless it’s never safe for them to go back. Their right of return is every bit as important as their right to asylum.
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Palestinian refugees who hope to enter what is now Israel are wanting to go home, so the analogy that you’re making doesn’t fit them right. If Iraq’s government turned round and announced that it would refuse to allow Kurdish refugees who fled Saddam’s regime to return because it would change the country’s national character too much, would you really want to support that? This is the corresponding analogy.
Henry Weinstein
To Vicky & Sinjim
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“From what you are writing, it seems that you are struggling to see Israelis as separate from the system”
You mean separate from Israel, Vicky?
Come on, Vicky, I’m a mixed-up multi-cultural guy. I’m not struggling, it’s very easy for someone like me to see them, to feel them “as separate from the system”. I have no empathy with any system, in other words.
Not only them: a lot of people. Until very recently I knew much more closer Iranians – and their tragic history, and Human Rights in Iran – because I lived among Iranians the best part of my life. I had no problem to see / feel that the Iranian people is truly very different from the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Israel, it’s much more recent. I thought it wasn’t for me. Because of a girl. Because I’m the son of a Lost One (try to imagine how I hate this). I didn’t knew until very recently Israel could have been my homeland, my shelter, alas. Sarah (not her real name, by respect) didn’t think so. I wasn’t a Jew for her, I had Jewish blood. She was Anti-Normalization, so to say. It broke my heart. I was a young man, knowing I was a Jew for Nazi and an awful lot of hatred people. It hurt me so deep that I skip Israel most of my life. Forbidden land, forbidden girls.
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“As you don’t seem to comprehend the idea of activism being directed against a system and not individuals”
I’m not easily influenced, never been. My Dad didn’t trust concepts, fairy tales. My mind is not driven by ideas, even if I studied a lot of them, Vicky. Even French, my native language, is a foreign language for me. Because of my origins. I’m like Kafka in a way, a living memory.
So when it comes to political ideas, I think about the consequences. It’s impossible for me to forget how the real world is messy, slaughter-friendly. I’m much more Schelling than Hegel. That’s why I think you’re wrong to believe the only way to change the present unjust Israeli system is your conceptualized activist way. I’m not too bad in political science, history of carnage should I say, and I don’t want to see Israeli Jews to the mercy of their present enemies for the sake of The Idea of Activism.
But be sure I always read attentively your comments, I don’t skip them, Vicky.
Same remark to Sinjim, even if I’m “hopeless”, “pathetic” and soon worst for him.
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Sinjim, thanks for your answer, good to read an entire comment without receiving stones!
By the way, no news from Laila?
I’m like Ayla saying “the means matter just as the ends”. You think the ends matter most, and you’re right being Palestinian. But that doesn’t mean we are wrong, I mean we are right to think it’s not the best way to speak to Israelis, by experience. How do you imagine persuading them to fight for equal rights when you refuse to normalize almost everything they know & have build, asking them to trust Activists for their security? Is it serious?
Am I hopeless to think it’s not enough to say: “Trust us, we hate you but everything will be all right”?
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For instance, when you say “It depends on what you mean by Israel”, go tell it to Israelis, I’m not brave enough to escort you, I confess.
“It depends”…
I’m just a French guy, not someone important in this world. For me, it means the state of Israel (institutions) and the Israeli people (languages, cultures, values, common history). I don’t mean the present political & electoral system, the Zionist Order in other words.
Still 1948 Israel has no constitution, because of the conflict, of Hatred to my opinion. Things could change and things will change, the question is how to prevent bloodbath, total war.
Me, I would like to see the beginning of a new start, a new process. Israel defined as the state of the Israeli people to begin, without any discrimination. A secular modern democratic state, with yes Israeli Hebrew values.
I would like to see Israel changing from a closed exclusive system to an open inclusive society, to begin.
I don’t see any alternative coming at the present time from Palestinian side, apart from saying “Give us the right to vote against you and to dismantle everything you have build”.
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Anti-Israel activists might pretend Israelis have just to throw their country to the dustbin and everything will be all right, but it’s bullshit.
You cannot change things without Israelis, and if you refuse to talk with Israelis unless they accept to throw Israel to the dustbin, you play with fire.
Richard Witty
There is a cognitive disconnect with the concept that the right of return applies indefinitely to children or children of children of former refugees.
Where is someone’s home?
I grew up in suburban New York, lived there for 18 years. It was my home, my formative identity construction.
But, I’ve lived in Massachusetts for more of my life. My children were born and grew up in Massachusetts. Their home is Massachusetts.
I chose where to live. That is different than a disenfranchised Palestinian.
But, for a Palestinian descendant of a former bona fide 1948 refugee that has resided in Lebanon, and for three generations, their children are denied citizenship to any state by virtue of the fact that they are Palestinian.
Where is their home? Ancestral?
There are some horrid European right-wing organizations that claim that basis of rights, ancestral, rather than current.
It is NOT black/white is the point.
From my perspective the denial of right of return entirely is extra-legal, AND the application of right of return is extra-legal.
A difficult primary issue. The specifics always deflected by solidarity.
Miki
@Richard Witty – ahhh spoken like a true dilettante and arm chair commentator.
What works, as people like Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jnr and others have shown is word and action is speaking truth to power and acting in a manner which speaks truth to power.
What changed the heart and minds of people and their behaviours in relation to Black civil rights and in Gandhi’s struggle was actually taking an active stand against oppression and the normalization of such oppression. This is what Gandhi did, this is what King did etc.
They both engaged in anti-normalisation actions which highlighted the oppression of their peoples and it was through this direct action they dramatized and highlighted the oppression that existed in order to create a tension in order to bring about change.
Both Gandhi and King noted that normalization of oppression did not change the oppression, it simply entrenched it. King pointed out for example, that “freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed”, while Gandhi noted “A ‘No’ uttered from the deepest conviction is better than a ‘Yes’ merely uttered to please, or worse, to avoid trouble”. Gandhi also pointed out that “All compromise is based on give and take, but there can be no give and take on fundamentals. Any compromise on mere fundamentals is a surrender. For it is all give and no take”.
So it seems folks like me have a choice between heeding the tactical advice of self-confessed armchair critics such as yourself Richard who have never bothered to engage with the struggle on the ground or activists of the calibre of King and Gandhi who put their bodies on the line to active engage in the struggle against oppression and repression.
Not really too hard a choice, Richard.
Bosko
Vicky
“So yes, of course I support refugee rights for Jews who fled Middle Eastern countries. How could I not?”
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Well then, you must be a very lonely voice who only speaks up about Jewish refugees from Arab countries when challenged. It seems though that too many of you on the other hand never miss an opportunity to call Israel racist for not willing to give up a Jewish majority for the sake of Palestinian refugees who feel that the only home that they can build is amongst Jewish people. I guess they are just in love with Jewish people, right Vicky?
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And at the same time, chorus who advocates compensation for Jewish refugees from Arab countries is non existent. Why do you think that is Vicky? I think it’s because of double standards and racism against Jews. Could that be Vicky? See what you made me do Vicky, I hate accusing people of racism but seeing that people lately go out of their way to accuse Israel of racism because they don’t want enemies to flood their country, now I am doing it too to those people.
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How about we collectively stop this nonsense and find some realistic and constructive solutions instead? Because I tell you, these accusations won’t work. Israel will still not allow the so called right of return because it just does not want to aid and abet it’s own destruction.
Bosko
I’ll tell you the REAL reason why they insist that the ONLY solution is RETURN. It is NOT because they love the Jewish people (what a surprise). It is because they still did not give up their old dream of Arab domination over all of Palestine from the river to the sea. They want to achieve that aim in stages.
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STAGE 1: Take over Israel be demographics.
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STAGE 2: Neutralise the IDF as a Jewish army.
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STAGE 3: Enforce Arab rule over what is Israel today with the, help of neighboring Arab countries.
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Voila, there you have it. Israel, the Jewish state, would be replaced by the 23rd Arab state and the critics who called Israel an ethnocracy, would suddenly lose their voice because to them an Arab/Muslim ethnocracy is permissible. Only the Jewish people are forbidden self determination, right? They are the racists. The people who exhibit their double standards against Jewish self determination.
Sinjim
For what it’s worth, I wholeheartedly endorse Vicky’s standard of support for all refugees and their descendants, no matter their ethnic, religious or other identity. I would also say that the only appropriate leaders of a movement for Arab Jewish refugees are those Jews themselves. It cannot be led by any other group of people.
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Let these refugees and their descendants make the case on the international stage as Palestinian refugees and their descendants have done. They deserve compensation for their loss, and even if they never exercise it, they deserve to have their right of return recognized by the offending governments.
Bosko
I very much doubt that those Jews would want their right of return exercised. Most of them say, very sensibly, ‘once bitten, twice shy’. They kicked out once, they persecuted us before, why give them a second chance to do it?
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But they do want compensation for the properties and assets that they lost. And why shouldn’t the Palestinians be treated the same way? Compensate. Te both groups for their losses. The case for the Jews is no lesser than the case for the Palestinians.
Richard Witty
“What changed the heart and minds of people and their behaviours in relation to Black civil rights and in Gandhi’s struggle was actually taking an active stand against oppression and the normalization of such oppression. This is what Gandhi did, this is what King did etc.”
Using the Freedom Rides as an example. There were a thousand of them. They were difficult for the vast majority of riders. There was not press arranged at the origination and destination points. They just determined to realize a specific goal by repetitive and courageous actions. They did not engage in abstractions like “justice”, or even anything so grand as “right of return”. Their goal was desegregated interstate traffic per federal law.
The actions that the Palestinian solidarity movement have undertaken have been recently romantic, more than determined, more than persistent, more than patient.
The flotilla effort was abandoned. After the IHH and IDF confrontation, that was advisable, as the flotilla movement had lost the moniker of non-violent dissent during that incident, publicly and globally. (A tragedy, as the idea was uniquely effective if undertaken patiently and non-violently.)
“Don’t tell us what to do. You are an “armchair” observer”.
That actually is the point. A movement that is attempting to communicate, is speaking to people in armchairs, millions of them, NOT a couple thousand highly militant vanguard.
If you wish to define anti-normalization in the benign terms that you are attempting to whitewash (after the harsh comments directed at Aziz), then do it already. Stick to the principles that define a policy that is not arbitrary, not punitive in worry. (Punitive in worry is what likud does. They are afraid that some comment will imply something disadvantageous, then lash out.)
There is something wrong with the reasoning if the PACBI excludes organizations like IPCRI as “normalization”.
I sympathize with your goal of not playing into Israeli propagandistic hands. There certainly are times when Israel falsely claims, “see how democratic we are”.
There is an element of avoiding moral discomfort, moral ambiguity, as if you are as much trying to not ruffle your own community’s sensitivities, as trying to accomplish some improvement in Palestinians’ condition.
I do hope to create some discomfort in your logic, in referring to the similarities of likud to anti-normalization, and further that the anti-normalization stand is the likud argument, that you are making the same one (that confrontation is the only and better alternative form of relations).
AYLA
Joel–I hear you.
Miki
@Richard Witty – seriously? You are really trying to argue that the Freedom Rides had nothing to do with the struggle for justice or the overall struggle for Black civil rights?
Read any history of the Freedom Rides campaign and it will explain that the campaign was part of a broader campaign for Black civil rights whose end goal was to win equal rights in all areas of life – education, housing, public spaces, socially, legally and politically, not just simply the desegregate interstate traffic laws.
In relation to your comments about the flotillas: the flotillas have not been abandoned – the most recent one happened just a month or two back and there are more planned.
In relation to building a movement, you clearly have no idea how they are built. But this is no surprise given you are, by your own admission not a solidarity activist but instead an armchair observer. All movements, including the Black Civil Rights movement in the USA did not start as fully fledged movements. Instead, they began as a result of a militant vanguard who had the guts and courage to take a stand. If you look at the history of any successful social movement, you will discover that for the majority of the movement’s time, it is made up of a militant vanguard who slow and painstakingly build the movement, drawing in small numbers of people. During this time, its standard practice for the broader public and the oppressor to deride this militant vanguard. Gandhi recognized this, famously pointing out: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”. However, its through the painstaking work of this militant vanguard who you deride that the movement is able to finally grow to stage where it starts to gain enough momentum that it can no longer be ignored by the mainstream or the oppressor.
Finally, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the reasoning of PACBI when it comes to IPCRI. Long before PACBI even included them in their statement, activists like myself viewed these groups as pro-normalisation because they are pro-normalisation.
Henry Weinstein
I agree with you, Joel.
Unfortunately, the One-Siders lead the Dance of Death.
Welcome in the Two-Siders People Club, Joel.
We are not many, alas.
Vicky
“I’ll tell you the REAL reason why they insist that the ONLY solution is RETURN. It is NOT because they love the Jewish people (what a surprise). It is because they still did not give up their old dream of Arab domination over all of Palestine from the river to the sea. They want to achieve that aim in stages.”
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How many Palestinian refugees do you even know? How many camps have you been in and worked in?
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Come to the point, how many Palestinians do you even know?
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The idea that ‘they’ are somehow plotting destruction and rubbing their hands gleefully at the thought instead of simply wanting to go home is frankly hateful. ‘They’ are not a monolith, they have faces and names. One of the first steps to a constructive solution would be to remember that, instead of talking about them as a sinister conspiracy-forming mob.
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“STAGE 1: Take over Israel be demographics.
STAGE 2: Neutralise the IDF as a Jewish army.
STAGE 3: Enforce Arab rule over what is Israel today with the, help of neighboring Arab countries.”
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Would you perhaps like to write the Protocols of the Elders of Shatila to go with that? Stages one, two, and three could make handy chapter divisions.
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If you ever find yourself in the West Bank, come and visit, and we’ll go into the refugee camps. You can hear their stories for yourself. This marks my last comment on this particular subject. I’m not prepared to participate in the dehumanisation of refugees by entertaining as a serious subject for discussion the idea that they are secretly plotting mass carnage, and their sincere desire to go home is just a cover for this ‘REAL reason’. They have enough to endure without their friends doing that to them.
AYLA
Vicky–thank you.
Richard Witty
“@Richard Witty – seriously? You are really trying to argue that the Freedom Rides had nothing to do with the struggle for justice or the overall struggle for Black civil rights? ”
You must be reading someone else, or projecting in some way.
The point about the freedom riders was their patient determination.
It contrasted with the willingness of the Palestinian “vanguard” to abandon tried and true principles of non-violent dissent. Persistence, patience, clearly defining limited uncontestable objectives (that connected to a larger whole), humility.
Why is the flotilla movement so impotent, currently? (Israeli intransigence, partially. Impatience on the part of dissent, partially.)
“All movements, including the Black Civil Rights movement in the USA did not start as fully fledged movements. Instead, they began as a result of a militant vanguard who had the guts and courage to take a stand.”
Please read your history. The abolition movement was a liberal one, definitely principled. The civil rights movement over a century was a liberal one, in fact mostly led by non-African Americans – NAACP – please don’t dare call WEB Du Bois an “uncle Tom” for that.
You’re preaching to a small tent, a tent that will remain small, is the point.
You don’t care about that?
AYLA
@Sinjim–we’re definitely going to have to agree to disagree, and hopefully go on appreciating each other. What you just added, a) that I don’t care so much about the means to the end, and b) that at the end of the day this is all pixels on the screen, I’d say: a) I do care about the means to the end; I think the scrutiny under which conferences such as the one in Aziz’s original post indicates that people really want to shut these conferences down, and b) YES–what we do here IS just pixels on a screen. But what they do at conferences such as those being shut down is not, and often what grows out of conferences such as that is also more israeli activism of the kind that Palestinians are rightly and justly calling for. Signing off, with respect and appreciation.
Bosko
Vicky
I am not accusing the refugees themselves of such plots although they definitely don’t want to see a state for the Jewish people in the Middle East. I don’t have to go to the refugee camps to know that. They are saying so themselves. Heck, you are saying so too yet I am not accusing you of a plot. I am just accusing you of bias.
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Nevertheless the broad three stages that I outlined are exactly how things would unfold and if you would have an open mind you would not even dispute it. Let’s just revisit it and you can argue against each one using logic instead of just dismissing it:
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“STAGE 1: Take over Israel be demographics.
This is self evident, let up to 5 million, or even less Palestinian Arab refugees become Israeli citizens and the demographics of Israel would change irrevocably.
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STAGE 2: Neutralise the IDF as a Jewish army.
With roughly equal numbers of Jews and Arabs in Israel, if Israel would want to call itself a democracy, it would have to allow Arabs to serve in the army. And at the least, inevitably, the IDF would transform into a mixed army of Jews and Arabs, probably in equal proportion.
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STAGE 3: Enforce Arab rule over what is Israel today with the, help of neighboring Arab countries.”
Do you think that such a state would live in peace and harmony? Kumbaya would be the order of the day? There won’t be old scores to settle? A Mutual love affair would break out between Arabs and Jews? Is that what happened in the past? The old Israeli settler movement would embrace the Hamasnicks? If you believe that, then you are naive to the extreme. My bet is that there would be internal friction. There would be jealousies if a sector of the community would be seen to be doing better than the other. There would be mutual blame for societies ills, finger pointing, scape goating, we have seen it all before. Sooner or later there would be clashes, riots, killings and revenge killings culminating in civil war.
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What would happen then? The army would disintegrate, Jewish soldiers would inevitably side with the Jewish population and Arab soldiers with the Arabs. And what would Arab neighbours do then? We have seen that before too. Sooner or later, they would intervene. Who do you think they would side with?
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I will leave it there. Argue against the above with logic Vicky. Convince us sceptics. Convince sane Israelis, forget the lemmings, they are the minority who are so blind that they are willing to step off the abyss for the sake of a “noble experiment”. I’ll stop there, I could be more nasty and hurtful but why should I be? I don’t believe this experiment is worth the risk. And more importantly, MOST Israelis don’t believe it either. Try and convince them Vicky.