Comments on: What is normal about normalization?

By: Fan

Fan — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 12:26:07 +0000

Hi Ayla,
You beat me to thanking Aziz for the article, and the opportunity to debate around it.
Could I possibly ask you a few questions about the conflict resolution and dialogue opportunities you touched upon? I am not a journalist, just very interested in this issue.
Many thanks,
Fan
givingpeacefaces (at) gmail dot com

By: an Israeli

an Israeli — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 12:33:41 +0000

Now that there’s a light rail that connects Jerusalem Arab Neighborhoods with Jewish west Jerusalem, half the people I see in west Jerusalem Jewish center are Arabs (sorry to say but all the Jews I talked to about this new phenomenon think that that’s a bit too much). So you can talk as much as you like about not normalizing relations with Israel. Fact is you just can’t stay away from our part of the the city. Arab families, groups of young men, women, walk around all day on Ben Yehuda, Jaffa streets, not to mention Mamilla. shopping, sitting in coffee shops etc. That’s seems very much to me like accepting Israel’s existence and presence in Jerusalem.

By: Henry Weinstein

Henry Weinstein — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 02:47:17 +0000

Hey Carlo Strenger, what do you think about all these comments?
HELP!!!

By: Bosko

Bosko — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 21:08:01 +0000

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.

By: AYLA

AYLA — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:48:01 +0000

@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.

By: Richard Witty

Richard Witty — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:42:26 +0000

“@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?

By: AYLA

AYLA — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:26:22 +0000

Vicky–thank you.

By: Vicky

Vicky — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:20:42 +0000

“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.

By: Henry Weinstein

Henry Weinstein — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 15:04:42 +0000

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.

By: Miki

Miki — Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:29:28 +0000

@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.