I have been steadfastly working on this book on Marx, ignoring my Covid, my Parkinson's, the chaos in the House of Representatives, the various trials of Trump, but I have my limits. This godawful \business in Israel is too much. I will try to return to the book but the world keeps interfering. I find this Al Jazeera news website a useful corrective, by the way.
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The Jewish People at least those living in Israel/Palestine realized their sins against the Palestinians under the duress of heroically rebelling against the infinite indignities of the Diaspora and realized too that the Palestinians were victims and people and a lot like them and not just the latest Nazis to kill the Jews- then the peace process evaporated and that hardened their heart. The Israelis are more powerful than Jews ever were, but just as vulnerable and the world every so often brands the Jews as evil and worthy of extermination- and even well meaning people, philosophers and people who read this blog, join in the festivities.
I don't condemn the Israelis or the Palestinians for to appropriate a religious saying: for the Grace of God go I"
Those who sit safely in their comfy armchairs can lecture the Israelis and the Palestinians all they want- your outrage is worth no more than an infant's bawling
The Al Jazeera opinion column claims that yesterday's terrorist attack was an act of resistance. I just reading about a young German woman artist, attending a musical festival for peace, who was kidnapped and probably murdered by Hamas terrorists.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/10/8/there-is-nothing-surprising-about-hamass-operation
Bertrand Russell points out the fallacy of the superior virtue of the oppressed. That is, oppressed people are capable of the same atrocities as the dominant classes are.
I'm not v much on Twitter (now X), but I became aware that yesterday a philosopher stirred up a bit of a hornet's nest on the platform when he used the phrase 'jus ad bellum' in a tweet without explaining it.
Jus ad bellum refers to whether there are just or defensible grounds for launching hostilities; jus in bello refers to whether the means used are just (or lawful). One might argue about whether Israel's actions have given Hamas jus ad bellum, as this academic said they had, but there's no doubt that Hamas's means fail the test of jus in bello. I said this in the first post I've written on Twitter/X. As it happens I can't as yet figure out how to see conversations (or threads) on the platform, so I prob won't be wasting/spending much time there.
Given Israel's intelligence and surveillance capabilities, I can't understand how an operation of this size and with this level of organization could happen. Probably won't happen but this should be the end of Bibi and his far-right government.
Israel will need to immediately replenish the Iron Dome missiles that have been expended as well as receiving other military aid. Excellent opportunity to combine aid to Israel and Ukraine in one bill. I see that a carrier group is headed for the area. Be nice if we had a Chief of Navel Operations (and an ambassador).
One more point.
During the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile there were several groups of armed resistance.
As far as I recall, they never killed a civilian, still less a child.
They assassinated several high ranking army officers. One group tried to assassinate Pinochet himself, but failed, killing 5 of his bodyguards in the attempt.
That same group began to kill police officers at random, which I did not approve of, since some of them were simply traffic cops and had nothing to do with human rights violations, but in any case they were in uniform and carried guns.
I believe that all of the above were legitimate acts of armed resistance, except maybe killing cops at random, but the difference between that and what Hamas did yesterday is very clear.
aaall
Apart from the Iron Dome missiles, I would be very surprised if Israel needed any additional military-aid money. The U.S. already gives Israel something on the order of 3 billion (with a "b") of military aid each year, and it has an official commitment to maintain what, in bureaucratic language, is called Israel's QMI (qualitative military edge). If 3 billion a year isn't enough to enable Israel to defeat a bunch of Hamas fighters/terrorists armed w paragliders, maybe some drones, home-made rockets, and AK 47s, then the Israel Defense Forces and its general staff are incompetent (which we know they aren't). Israel may decide to militarily occupy the whole Gaza Strip, which will cost money, but that's why Israelis pay taxes.
Ukraine is a different story: a smallish country fighting a very large one (in terms of population and resources, if not particularly competence). V. different situation. Combining aid to Israel and Ukraine in one bill is thus a v. bad idea from a substantive standpoint.
correction: QME (not QMI)
LFC, legislation isn't (and shouldn't be) an exercise in rigorous logic. Both will need things that go bang. Who they are and who/what they need to blow up is besides the point. Both nations will need aid and a solid majority in both houses supports aid to both. One and done, lemons into lemonade!
BTW, perhaps all the mini-Buchas should be factored into your calculus.
s.w., good point. Perhaps tearing down houses and letting settlers go wild instead of doing basic security wasn't a good idea. Heads should roll but probably won't.
The point is that the 3 billion a year in mil aid to Israel is close to an untouchable third rail in US politics. Almost whatever Israel says it wants and needs it will get from Congress as soon as they're able to pass bills again and there is a Speaker.
The Repubs will likely insist on doing Ukraine separately, even though objectively Ukraine needs aid much more desperately.
Last comment I think from me, so you have last word
LFC, understood but I assume enough Reps support Ukraine aid and consider it important enough to steamroller aid to both.
s. wallerstein, have you ever told, here or on some other platform, how you came to be in Chile, and what it was like living there duing the Pinochet years? Were you ever targeted by the Chilean security services? Or approached by the CIA?
Eric,
Ha, ha. No, the CIA never showed an interest in me. I was too ornery for that.
I was once beaten (no broken bones) by cops for participating in a demonstration and once arrested for the same sin without being beaten.
I worked in an human rights organization, Codepu, from 1985 to the end of the dictatorship in 1989.
It's important to point out that the most murderous and arbitary violence was immediately after the coup in 1973. There were a couple of months in which scores were settled and a couple of guys were shot for having long hair.
By 1985 there were unwritten rules about what you could do and what you couldn't do, as well of course as the written ones and working in human rights, as I did, was not especially dangerous or courageous.
A useful corrective? A lot of it is rank propaganda. The opinion piece, as Mr. Wallerstein has suggested, attempts (if only implicitly) to justify the wanton murder of civilians. Anti-Nazi resistance fighters didn't target civilians. Are the Palestinians' circumstances so desperate that they're justified in doing so?
GJ,
You should brush up on your WWII history. Anti-Nazi resistance fighters very much did target civilians (in some rather horrifying ways). Suspected collaborators were not treated kindly. When resistance groups got into conflicts with each other, families of resistance leaders were among the targets of competing resistance groups. "Anti-Nazi" was a very broad camp which included all sorts of groups which employed all sorts of tactics for all sorts of purposes.
Nazi-occupied or Nazi-controlled Europe at the high tide of the Third Reich encompassed a large area and gave rise to a variety of resistance efforts, so I think T.J. is right on the historical point, even if most of us think, for instance, of the heroic French historian Marc Bloch, who was executed by the Nazis, when we hear the phrase "anti-Nazi resistance."
None of this really bears on whether Hamas's tactics and means are justified, which they aren't. Israel's treatment of the Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank is, in a word, deplorable, but it is not equivalent to what the Nazis did. (Nor is it, I would surmise, the case that every instance of targeting civilians by an anti-Nazi resistance group was justified, though a lot of the judgment would probably depend on the particular circumstances of each case.)
P.s. Or we think e.g. of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, which was unquestionably a case of justified (and heroic) resistance.
The hurt civilians of Israel and the hurt civilians of Gaza are what I would call "our fellow sufferers." It's just that many of them right now are suffering more than any of us. Are they suffering because they deserve this crap? No! Are they suffering because politicians don't have the extra money to appease both sides? Yes! Until you solve the scarcity and money shortage--the Land Wars will continue. Until you solve the world's high price of energy, expect the status quo to continue on. When was energy at its cheapest for many? 1950s North America. If energy ever gets cheaper than that world-wide, you're talking paradise everywhere on this planet. Governments everywhere would have a great surplus & everyone would have a roof over their head with solar-panels and free plumbing. However, if the majority of people are kept poor, then the rich would have definitely more control over the poor than if the majority were wealthy and next to zero were poor. One of the keys to everyone experiencing plenty is a One-World Government. I hope it happens one day soon.
And please nobody comment that if Israel didn't have the 4th largest military on Earth, they and their neighbors would be wealthy and sitting pretty. Let's throw away this useless idea like Einstein's impractical opinion that if enough young men around the world protested the draft WW2 never would have happened. Or if everyone worked as a team everyone would have good health. I'm talking about a nation like Israel having enough money to support their military and having enough money leftover to keep good housing out of the periphery of places like Gaza. But if energy prices were low enough, Israel & the Palestinians could live in peace. If the majority of Palestinians had good housing and good incomes locally, young men would not need to seek refuge in an organization like that of terrorist Hamas.
I've heard someone once say Israel's martial ranking was 4th best. Google is spitting out between 18th and 32nd place gobbledygook. I probably thought it was 4th place originally because they have nukes and have never been defeated except maybe in Lebanon in the 1970s. Whatever.
Brian Leiter posted an informative piece from 2019 on the permanent siege of Gaza: https://merip.org/2019/07/israels-permanent-siege-of-gaza/
The indispensable background fact for adequately understanding anything that happens in Israel and in what should be a state of Palestine: Israel has been violating international law for more than 50 years, for occupying the West Bank and (for most of that time) Gaza.
https://www.juancole.com/2023/10/tribalism-international-palestinian.html
P.s. I know there have been previous efforts, but no serious ones for almost a couple of decades now. The parties have let the I/P conflict become frozen in a posture of irresolution. It makes no sense except for the political leaders on both sides whose interests it has served. Frozen conflicts only stay frozen under particular circumstances, and those circumstances have never existed here. Two 16 year olds at a negotiating table wd do better at this pt than any Israeli PM and Mahmoud Abbas.
Last point. Each conflict is its own thing. I recently heard that the PKK has dropped its demand for statehood and will settle for Turkey granting its Kurds more autonomy. The I/P conflict is different. Here the symbolism, not merely the fact but the symbolism, of sovereign statehood is absolutely crucial. This has not been adequately understood, esp by U.S. diplomats who know a ton about the region and may speak all the languages and know all the players but don't fully understand the more abstract but nonetheless crucial aspects of the situation.
I would speculate that one reason that Kissinger -- whom I generally loathe -- was fairly effective at Mideast diplomacy was not bc he knew about the Middle East -- he didn't know shit about the region -- but bc he understood, among other things, the symbolic aspects of intl politics. The moral is that you need not only the regional specialists but also the generalists (some of whom are disdained bc people think they don't "know" anything).
The Haaretz editorial that Jerry Fresia linked to is behind a paywall. Can someone who has access summarize what it says?
Eric
It probably says roughly what Gideon Levy said the other day on the BBC World Service, which is roughly what I said in my comment @9:05. However I don't know for sure.
See the following scene to get a fresh perspective on whether Israel should have War or Peace with their enemies:
"Video Link: The Fall of the Roman Empire: Senate scene: Analogous to Marcus Cicero and Seneca the Younger pleading for War or Peace towards the Palestinians from the Israeli perspective"
BTW,
I'm not equating the Roman Empire with Israel, or the Vandals with Palestine. What I'm equating is a similar situation and similar setting--but not exact in specifics.
Until I’m instructed to the contrary, I still think Perry Anderson’s analysis from some years back sadly remains largely correct: the non-viability of the two-state solution beyond its propagandistic value in defending the status quo and the unreachability of a bi-national one-state solution:
https://newleftreview.org/issues/ii96/articles/perry-anderson-the-house-of-zion
Jerry Slater’s much ignored book (such is the cultural power of those who rule our lives) is also relevant as to why:
“Mythologies without end: The US, Israel, and the Arab-israeli conflict, 1917-2020”
The editorial can be accessed with a free sign-up and by passing any ad blockers.
https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/editorial/2023-10-08/ty-article-opinion/netanyahu-bears-responsibility/0000018b-0b9d-d8fc-adff-6bfd1c880000?v=1696877958823
anon. @2:37 p.m.
So what solution did P. Anderson suggest or advocate?
p.s. Hamas of course rejects a two-state solution bc it doesn't want Israel to exist at all. One of the byproducts of a 2-state solution wd be to marginalize/weaken Hamas and similar groups.
anon.
Stephen Walt in his FP column mentions Slater's book.
link
Your question, LFC, brings to mind Raymond Geuss's point, in his essay "Must criticism be constructive?" that it is not necessarily appropriate to require a critic to propose an alternative. Anyway, as I read Anderson's essay, he is laying out the enormous difficulties standing in the way of any solution. But as I think his concluding paragraph suggests, any move towards a political solution to the current state of affairs will come about only if the power of the US in the entire region is severely stepped down.
Wrt your ps, surely many people are now of the view that the two-state solution is long past its sell-by date, not least because, as Anderson points out, of the massive and ongoing influx of Israelis into the West Bank? Linking such a position solely to Hamas surely poisons the well?
PS. thanks for your Walt reference--today wasn't my usual day for seeing whether and what he had anything to say
@ anon.
I'm not linking the position solely to Hamas -- that's why I used the word "byproduct," by which I meant "incidental effect." Past its sell-by date? -- maybe, but offhand I don't see a better alternative. Even if the label is dropped, I think the content can remain.
Israel has to withdraw from the West Bank to its pre-1967 borders.
I don't see a one-state solution as viable. There's too much hatred and religious fanaticism on both sides.
s.w.
I think there will have to be some modifications to the '67 border, otherwise a deal will never occur, but the changes (or many of them) cd come in the form of land swaps that would overall not nec. disadvantage the PA. But until one gets back to serious people in a room poring over maps, nothing is going to happen. And we're v far from that now.
LFC,
Agreed.
Agree with you as usual, Mr. W
Au contraire, s.w. & LFC. The two-state solution has de facto been nullified by Israel's deliberate pursuit of creeping annexation. As things now stand, the consequence will be an apartheid one-state solution, taking the place of one already apartheid state, occupied territory, and a vast prison camp.
An Egyptian intelligence official said Egypt, which often serves as a mediator between Israel and Hamas, had spoken repeatedly with the Israelis about “something big,” without elaborating.
He said Israeli officials were focused on the West Bank and played down the threat from Gaza. Netanyahu’s government is made up of supporters of Jewish West Bank settlers who have demanded a security crackdown in the face of a rising tide of violence there over the last 18 months.
“We have warned them an explosion of the situation is coming, and very soon, and it would be big. But they underestimated such warnings,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn’t authorized to discuss the content of sensitive intelligence discussions with the media.
https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-gaza-attack-intel-a5287a18773232f26ca171233be01721
What did the White House/Pentagon/US Intel know, and when did they know it?
Looked at a map. Given the non-negotiability of Jerusalem how does one create a viable Palestinian state instead of a land-locked rump entity that would be too small to ever be self-supporting? Also the settlers aren't going away and they vote.
Leopards/faces:
According to Haaretz,"Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering Hamas and transferring money to Hamas,” Netanyahu told his Likud party’s Knesset members in March 2019. “This is part of our strategy"
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2023-10-09/ty-article/.premium/another-concept-implodes-israel-cant-be-managed-by-a-criminal-defendant/0000018b-1382-d2fc-a59f-d39b5dbf0000
I agree with most of the points that Varofoukis makes in that video.
But he lets the United States off too easily when he says that we Europeans, including the United States, are guilty for keeping our mouths closed, turning a blind eye to the crime against humanity, so long as the deaths are outside the camera's reach and it's Palestinians and not the occupiers who are dying.
The United States hasn't just turned a blind eye. We have kept pouring more fuel on the fire, unconditionally sending billions for weapons to Israel, no matter how cruelly they treat Palestinians in the occupied territories.
If you have not seen this CNN interview of Mustafa Barghouti, it's worth a view. Barghouti is not affiliated with Fattah or Hamas (he is a leader of a different group he co-founded, Palestinian National Initiative; and he was the minister of information for the Palestinian unity government in 2007).
"This is 56 years of occupation, that has transformed into a system of apartheid. A much worse apartheid than what prevailed in South Africa.
Yes, maybe Hamas did not recognize Israel, but the PLO did and the Palestinian Authority did. What did they get? Nothing. Since 2014 the Israeli government would not even meet with Palestinians. And what you see today is a reaction to several things [he lists them] ..."
"...it's about asking the question: Why the United States supports Ukraine in fighting what they call occupation, while here they support the occupier....?"
https://twitter.com/davidrkadler/status/1711103806002377167
The interview is from 2 days ago, so when he says that he does not believe Hamas attacked any civilians or took civilians hostage, I suppose that may have reflected what information was available to him at the time. He goes on to say that he opposes violence against any civilians on either side.
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