So Israel is building more settlements. These settlements are in areas that if annexed apparently would make a continuous Palestinian state in the West Bank impossible. That would be according to every Western commentator I've seen on the issue an almost fatal blow to hopes for two states. Here's the New York Times with one example:
So far this week, Mr. Netanyahu’s hard-line government, defying the Western powers, has approved construction of more than 6,000 new housing units. The approvals follow an announcement late last month that Israel would continue planning for new development in the E1 area — a project northeast of Jerusalem that would split the West Bank and prevent the creation of a viable contiguous Palestinian state. Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations, has called this project an “almost fatal blow” to a two-state solution.Really quickly, first of course, Israel is not viable without US support. The US has to maintain a string of colonial dictatorships throughout Israel's region, has to impose bombings, sanctions and civil wars on countries outside of that string of colonies and if it was to stop, Israel would be forced to either negotiate a South-Africa style settlement that would end Zionism, or it would fight and lose wars against the countries in its region and accept such a settlement ending Zionism after.
So Israel cannot and does not actually defy Western powers. If Barack Obama told Netanyahu that these settlements would result in the US withdrawing its support for Zionism, Netanyahu would halt the settlements. Without US support not only would the settlements not be possible, but Israel as a Jewish state in a region of US-controlled stooge dictatorships such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain and others would not be possible.
But beyond that, I find humor in the idea that these blows are "nearly fatal". That raises the question of when would claimed hopes for a two state solution actually die, what would have to happen for a blow to those hopes to be fatal, as opposed to nearly fatal?
The answer to this question as I've said in this blog before is that the point of these hopes for a two state solution is not for there ever to actually be two states, but to allow Israel's supporters to pretend that they are not as evil as they are.
Barack Obama supports Israel restricting the access children in Gaza have to food. That is a disgusting policy, even by the values Obama claims to uphold. But because of hopes for a two state solution, Obama tells himself and those who'll listen to him that this policy is only temporary. A two state solution is around the corner after which children in Gaza will be able to eat what they want, their parents will be able to produce goods and export them.
Instead of a reflection of Obama's racist idea that Jewish children in Israel are more important than Arab children in Gaza, the siege is a temporary sacrifice to hopes for a two state solution. The purpose of these hopes is to shield people like Barack Obama from the implications of their own pro-Jewish racism.
So are these settlements really almost fatal blows to these hopes? These hopes were never real enough to live or die. States with tens of millions of people live under pro-US dictatorships and will have to be under US control forever if Israel is to remain viable as a Jewish state.
How is fewer than six million Jewish people having an enforced Jewish political majority state more important than over 40 million mostly Muslim people in Saudi Arabia, Jordan, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain and others having policy makers who are accountable to their voters? Because Barack Obama and other supporters of Israel are religious bigots who devalue Muslim people as human beings in service to Zionism.
Hopes for a two state solution are how they lie to themselves and to each other to disguise the anti-Arab racism and anti-Muslim bigotry inherent in their support for Israel. These hopes will not die or nearly die because of any settlement building. The impulse and need to lie to themselves and each other about their bigotry that fuels these supposed hopes for a two state solution are only growing stronger as Israel becomes more vulnerable.
But back to the Times, here is another funny passage:
Since the 1993 Oslo Accords, hopes for Mideast peace have envisioned two states, for two peoples, living side by side in security. But there is increasing talk now of a one-state future, which would be disastrous to both sides. By absorbing the West Bank, Israel would risk its character as a Jewish state because Israeli Jews could become a minority in their own country. Israelis would also have to decide whether to give Palestinians equal rights, the denial of which would harm Israel’s standing as a democracy.One state would be disastrous to both sides? The New York Times describes how the process of losing an enforced ethnic political majority state that White South Africans went through as a disaster for Israeli Jews, but where is the explanation of how it would be a disaster for the Arabs and Muslims? And if it's only a disaster for one side, why say both?
Westerners, liberal to conservative, just have a huge fog of lies that they tell themselves and each other especially about the Middle East and Zionism. If they were to stop lying, it would be more than a fatal blow to the supposed hopes for a two state solution.
51 comments:
Stark racism of "liberal" NYT is so naked that it is almost comical:
"Israel would risk its character as a Jewish state because Israeli Jews could become a minority in their own country"
Translated to plain English it means " The Arian state would risk its character as an Arian state because Arian Whites could become a minority in the country they took by force from the Natives".
At least German Nazis were natives to Germany, very unlike Zionist colony on Palestinian land. And of course, Palestinians do NOT have equal rights even in today Israel, but NYT liberals are not bothered too much by facts.
"Really quickly, first of course, Israel is not viable without US support."
This doesnt really hold up to scrutiny.
Israel in its first two decades achieved a high level of dominance before the us became a major supporter. To claim it wouldnt be viable isnt factual.
Try to read up on the israeli-arab conflict in the forties and fifties.
SL cannot read?
Arnold has NOT written about the history of Israel (back then supported by other imperialist powers). Arnold is simply stating a fact - without USA arms, money, foreign policy bulling and other kinds of USA support Israel would be a history pretty quickly.
SL also "forgot" that it was also USA (in UN) who made Zionist robbery of Palestinian land aka "Jewish state" possible.
"German Nazis were natives to Germany, very unlike Zionist colony on Palestinian land."
Possibly the most honest and important fact about the history of the 20th century wars: Nazi Germans were defending their own territory.
German children are urged to interrogate their grandparents: "What did YOU do in the war, Granddad?"
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/historian-stirs-interest-with-book-on-family-history-under-nazism-a-859027.html
Can you imagine American children being encouraged to ask their grandparents -- quick, before they die -- how many Iraqi children died because of your actions, Gramps?
No, Nazi Germans were doing the same as any other Western colonialist state - being racist to base their robbery on their imaginary " race pureness". Nazis were going to colonize Russia, by the way. Of course, "Arian" state was no better than "Jewish" state, even though Germans are natives to Germany, but some Slaves and Jews were as well.
Of course, USA war criminals are doing and have been doing the same as Nazi ones. No wonder, because all colonialists use the same stupid "logic" to whitewash their crimes, be it Churchill, Rhodes, Roosevelts, Peres or Goebbels.
The Nazis were unique in that they were the only white European colonialists to genocide other white Europeans (mainly Slavs) for the purpose of stealing their land.
A significant amount of Israel (Jaffa and most of the Galilee, for example) was seized by force of arms in defiance of the UN partition plan. And didn't many of the weapons used by the Zionist forces come from the Soviet Union? (They also got fighter planes from Czechoslovakia.)
During the 1950s Israel's main ally was France (the Algerian war meant that the two states shared an anti-Arab interest).
Stalin supported Israel creation - the big mistake, to put it mildly. But the imperialist states which were and are Zionist enables. France was a colonial settler body in Alger, the same as Zionists in Palestine, no matter who were the people they robbed of their land.
UK robbed the Irish' land and murdered (also indirectly, by starvation) and exiled a lot of them. I suppose, it was not unlike Zionist crimes. Also, UK robbed another European robbers of non-whites' land- i.e. Boers.
Zionists learned a lot from UK colonizers. More than that, a lot of laws used against Palestinians are British by origin - for ex, "administrative detention" - i.e. jail without real trial and without the pronounced end.
And don't forget about France supplying Israhell with the enriched uranium required for making Israhell's current nuclear weapons (the French ship that conveniently disappeared with a load of weapons grade uranium and then "appeared" empty in Israhell, and later returned to France without France even making a fuss about it). Not to mention American and other Western countries' finance and supply of the technology for reactors and nuclear bombs (from USA).
The Nazis started WWII with genocidal intentions, while the Brits didn't have genocidal intentions in the Boer War -- they wanted to subjugate the Boers, not wipe them out. While the Nazis had plans to use Slavic slave labour in their new eastern empire, this was only a temporary measure until they could breed enough German labourers to replace them.
The Cromwellian conquest of Ireland could be classed as genocidal, but it took place in the 17th century -- a time when it was normal for more than third of an occupied population to succumb to famine as "war fed on war". Western civilization was at its most brutal and ruthless during the 17th century, perhaps because it was in a highly precarious position economically due to the effects of the Little Ice Age on food production.
So, UK difference from Nazis is by "intentions" or lack thereof? Sounds pretty weak to me.
Prison camps for civilians with mass death were invented by the Brits in their war with the Boers. Of course, there were not "intentions", it just happened.
And no, the worst crimes of the Western civilization was in 19-20th century, when they did the big colonisation. It was against non-whites, of course.
And no, the Great Famine was not in 17th century, so let us let Cromwell alone. In the middle of 19th century Irish were dieing from hunger and food was exported from Ireland to GB. Ace age had nothing to do with one million Irish dead, British colonialism had. Of course, you could say that it was not intended. A great difference, sure.
By the way, I have read about politics of the Brits regarding the Irish till the very end of 18th. Sounds pretty much like what Nazis planned for the Slavs.
Israel would be forced to either negotiate a South-Africa style
settlement that would end Zionism, or it would fight and lose wars
against the countries in its region and accept such a settlement ending
Zionism after.
If Israel was facing conventional military defeat, couldn't it either use its nuclear weapons to destroy the Arab armies, or use the threat of nuclear escalation to extort sufficient military aid from the West to win the war conventionally?
And no, the worst crimes of the Western civilization was in 19-20th century, when they did the big colonisation.
Conquered the most territory yes, killed the most people NO!
19th century Europeans were thoroughly racist, but they were a lot more squeamish about genocide than they were in previous centuries, which is why almost no 19th century colonialism was of the 'settler' variety.
Israel's regional nuclear monopoly is an artifact of the colonial relationship between most Arab states and Western supporters of Israel.
Saudi Arabia and/or Syria and Iraq would neutralize Israel's nuclear options quickly and easily if not for the first's having its policy set by Washington DC instead of by the people of the country.
A Japan-like nuclear position would render Israel's nuclear program useless, and Saudi Arabia, whose people consider Israel by far its primary enemy would not tolerate Israeli military supremacy of any kind while they outspend Israel more than three to one on weapons every year.
Israel is not viable today unless Arab states are accountable to US embassies and military bases rather than to Arab people.
Youve made this claim on other threads before, when challenged on it however you offered a very weak defence for it, even though it seems to be one of your main viewpoints in regards to the region.
You seem to give up, declare that the last word has been spoken and then move on repeating the claim even though its own viability has been left very bruised and battered.
You seem to believe that if the arab people had a say they would elect governments who would engage in actions which would cause israel to become non-viable.
What are these actions exactly?
They could go to war with israel but this in the past didnt work, it just gave israel the opportunity to take extra land.
They could cut off all links, but israel isnt dependent on whatever links they had in the first place.
The other thread also had links which showed most arabs are even willing to accept the two state solution, if israel somehow was under threat of non-viability all it would have to do is accept this offering which most arabs themselves would accept.
It really is quite a weak claim that reality seems to go against.
Could you sum lmore recent French, UK and USA mass murders? From India to Madagascar to Algeria to Kenya to Vietnam to ....
And do not forget Belgian crimes in Kongo, it seems that these cute Belgians were not at all "squeamish" in murdering millions of Africans for rubber. "From 1885 to 1908, it is estimated that the Congolese native population decreased by about ten million people." (http://www.yale.edu/gsp/colonial/belgian_congo/) Then , there were the Dutch and so on...
MAYBE it is true that in 19-20th Western imperialism changed a mode of mass-murder - two World Was were but a colonial wars between two groups of colonizers, but still it was all wholesale and wholehearted colonial slaughter.
YOU could have some illusions and forgetfulness, but the facts are here
SA aparteid was boasting of its "Samson" will to die but not agree to equality. Where they are now?
Im confused as to why my response which pointed out the flaws or issues in your views points was deleted.
This is a separate thread.
Also my response to lidia was also deleted.
This isnt a fact however, we have historic examples of he us not being Israels major ally.
If arnolds viewpoint was true one would expect israel to do less well whenever its relationship with the us was weaker than it is now.
However this doesnt seem to be the case, facts and reality showed that israel did quite well even before the time period of when the us became a major backer.
The nazis in their scale and actions were indeed very unique in many ways, the only other nation or nations committing crimes to a similar degree around that time would have been the soviet union and the japanese empire.
Intentions do matter.
Irish historians themselves as a whole tend to see the famine not as a genocidal act.
It was the result of a potato blight and was exacerbated by british mishandling.
it is odd that UK was simply "mishandling" something and brought a mass death (and a potato blight would not be a reason for it, if UK were not robbing the Irish till they were helpless against such thing). I bet O'Gara would not agree that "Golodomor" (Ukraine) was not a genocide, even though it was not, really. But UK presided over a lot of famines - in India, for ex. It seems all of it was not their fault so much.
And why should I believe that UK "intentions" were better than Hitler's, if they really matter? After all, even Hitler was not, obviously, planning the Jewish genocide from the beginning. All colonialists, esp. settlers just want natives' land and sources, the mass murder is not their goal, just means to this end.
Sure, the official foes of Western imperialism are to blame, and USA, UK and France were just little white bunnies. See my answer to GC regarding their crimes here
http://mideastreality.blogspot.co.il/2012/12/near-fatal-blows-to-two-state-solution.html#comment-903645172
If you have something to say come out and say it and leave out ironic quotation marks or comments and "it is odd" statements.
This type of writing is something one would expect of a teenager.
Present your position with a bit more confidence.
As i mentioned historians who have looked into the matter as a whole do not consider the issue to be genocide, people such as
Cormac Ó Gráda.
.>I bet O'Gara would not agree that "Golodomor" (Ukraine) was not a genocide
Mistaken once more, it was unlikely to be genocide for this famine, even far worse than the Irish one, targeted and affected non-Ukrainians along with actual Ukrainians.
>And why should I believe that UK "intentions" were better than Hitler's
You can believe whatever you wish.
>if they really matter?
Intentions do matter, if one intends to harm someone for example they can be charged for it, if the harm was non-intentional they may not be charged or they would would likely experience a far less serious judgement.
>All colonialists, esp. settlers just want natives' land and sources, the mass murder is not their goal, just means to this end.
In the case of hitler extermination of various groups was his goal.
>Sure, the official foes of Western imperialism are to blame
Please leave out this teenage style of writing.
Anyway the soviet union and the Japanese empire are certainly to blame for the tens millions which they killed.
They themselves were nations who engaged in imperialistic actions, surely someone who claims to be anti-imperialist would oppose such things.
>As a matter of fact Hitler was a pupil of UK imperialists
Hitler was actually greatly influenced by the actions of the Turks towards the Armenians and even Genghis Khan.
""Who remembers now the destruction of the Armenians?"
As he put himself.
Ogara: This is the type of back and forth I don't consider productive. This thread is now closed to you. Future posts in this thread that I think are by you will be deleted.
You are welcome to post in future threads.
How would you define productive.
You cut off reasonable posts, many of which challenge the view of yourself and those with like minded opinions.
Yet you have time for posts which do nothing more than give you a compliment.
Apparently compliments directed towards you somehow furthers the discussion, comments related to actual important topics do not :/
The Congo Free State (NOT the Belgian Congo, which was no worse than any other African colony) was a throwback to an earlier era, when colonialism was an exercise (carried out by private organizations rather than by nation states for the most part) in unabashed pillage without the hypocritical veneer of "civilizing" the natives. That kind of plundering colonialism went out of fashion in most European countries during the 19th century, as zero-sum mercantile capitalism gave way to positive-sum industrial capitalism.
We both missed the best example where state colonialism in the late 19th/early 20th century resorted to outright genocide, namely German South-West Africa. Then again, it was the Germans who did that, and since Germans in the early 20th century were willing to treat Europeans as other Europeans treated Africans, it isn't surprising that they slaughtered Africans wholesale.
"positive-sum industrial capitalism"? Tell it to all peoples plundered and slaughtered in 19 and 20th, including China (UK), Philippines (USA), Haiti (France and USA) and so on. Sorry, but your equations somehow missed the price payed by colonized and semi-colonized peoples. And for me it does not matter who was a criminal - imperialist state or the private criminals, because the last case just more openly shows how the system works, directly instead of state serving the capitalist robbers.
AFTER Nazi crimes UK in Kenya was doing the same crimes by admission of UK politics. (Have you heard about the recent judgment regarding UK crimes in Kenya?) And it is only one example.
Not mentioning today's Libya and Mali - oil and uranium for blood of natives - is it not "positive-sum industrial capitalism"?
The Western interventions in Libya and Mali were not motivated by greed for resources (especially not uranium, which the French could just buy from Canada).
The French-led war in Mali was a war on terrorists (and unlike the Taliban in Afghanistan, the jihadis in Mali were hated by the people whose land they occupied), and Western intervention in Libya was revenge for all the terrorist attacks which Qadaffi's regime has sponsored in the past.
George, you really should start believe in tooth fairy (or how it is called in UK?)
The French invaded Mali because they want their investment in the North of Africa to be safe. They more or less put in place current "government" in Mali, they support Niger rulers because the big part of their uranium come from Niger, and they raped Libya because they wanted more pliant rulers there as well.
I do not know about Canadian uranium, but I bet the French have their own reasons to prefer African one - as they do,
And if the French do not want "terrorism" they should not topple Qaddafi and try now to topple Syrian Assad, because in both cases they more or less use the same "terrorists" they "fight" in Mali. The same is right about USA and UK, of course. Look also at Afghanistan in the beginning of 1979 - BEFORE USSR army came.
And, by the way, the French also intervened in other African states as well - see Cote d'Ivoire "Former" French colonies are not so "former" really, at least not from French point of view.
It is NOT "influence" it is colonialism. And "jihadists" were mostly put in their place by the French and other NATO states (Libya and long before) Qaddafi himself had told it before he was murdered by the same "jihadists". But then they were "your sons of a bitch"
And if I tell you about a serial rapist-murderer, would you ask me, whether I just believe that he ALWAYS in the wrong? Not always, just when he rapes and murder. Tell me when I was factually wrong, not ask such pathetic questions, please :)
Neo-colonialism maybe.
And it was Qaddafi's regime which had destabilized Mali in the first place by backing the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad, and thus opened up the area to the jihadis (even if Qaddafi didn't support the jihadis themselves).
Neo or old - the same colonialism. So, Qaddafi was guilty of support for not-jihadists, but the French and others are not guilty for support for coups in Africa and support for jihadists long before Qaddafi "had destabilized Mali". Anyway, at least Qaddafi was an African, and what the French have to do with Africa but their colonialism (with or without neo)?
You've said before that were from the former Soviet Union, and your incorrect transliteration of "Holodomor" suggests you are Russian, to be more specific (Russian lacks the "H" sound, but most other ex-Soviet languages have it -- also Ukrainian "H" is represented by the same Cyrillic character as Russian "G").
Maybe your obsessive condemnation of the West for plundering natural resources (as opposed to religious imperialism, or even exploitation of native workers -- the latter in particular is something I'd expect from a Marxist) is simply a matter of pushing your own country's national interests. After all, condemning the West for "plundering resources" implies that you would like natural resources to be more expensive, and Russia (as one of the world's greatest resource exporters) would benefit hugely from such a price increase...
Very funny. Yes, my native language is Russian, even though a half of my ancestors is from Ukraine.
Not only Marxists, but even some liberals know a bit about Western robbery of the world, you could look for it in Google.
Of course, I would prefer that Russia was something more than exporter of raw materials, so your guess is not exactly right :)
Anyway, I am a Marxist and antiimperialist first, no matter what my origins are. I guess for some people it is a foreign idea.
One important point (in my view at least) is that Marx and Engels weren't really anti-imperialist (Engels in particular was very enthusiastic about Germanizing the Czechs, to give one example). Twentieth century Communism owed its anti-imperialism to Lenin, not to Marx.
You could be right here, at least partially. Marx and Engels were no great fans of colonialism, though. They wrote quite forcefully against it in many cases. Even the Engels opinion regarding Czechs was not so simple. But, of course, Lenin was a great anti-imperialist, for sure, and incidentally, by his opinion, imperialism itself was quite a late development, from the end of the 19th, when both Marx and Engels saw only the beginning of it.
One more time, one has not to be a Marxist to be an anti-imperialist. Anarchists, for ex, but not only.
I never said that anti-imperialists must be Marxist (I only mentioned Marx because you claim to be a Marxist), but it's clear that you believe that anti-imperialists must perforce be anti-capitalist (although some people would disagree with you there).
Given that I come from a country (Britain) which is small, densely populated and used up most of its own natural resources in the process of making the Industrial Revolution happen (yes, the coal and iron ore used for that came from Britain -- they weren't looted from colonies for the most part), do you not understand why I feel threatened by people like you who champion natural resource producers?
Of course, one could be anti-imperialist and not anti-capitalist, if one thinks it is OK. I just believe that it is not logical, because modern capitalism is impossible without imperialism, esp. capitalism in the core (metropolitan).
Yes, coal and iron were local, but what about gold and a lot of other things - sorry, industrial revolution was build on colonial robbery as well. Not mentioning colonial markets, which are very important too.
But you got me wrong, I do NOT "champion natural resource producers". I just do not like imperialism, and it is not my fault that colonialism is usually after other peoples natural resources, Take your complains to imperialists where they belong :)
By the way, do you not understand why a lot of people all over the world feel threatened (and not only "feel") when UK rulers are interested in their resources and UK population do not protest it. This http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2011/01/zimb-j06.html
is just one example I have found after a one fast googling, but you could find much more if you want.
I'd blame the rise in inequality since 1970 more on technological change than on the fall of the USSR. Globalization was made possible by the use of computers to manage world-spanning supply chains, and the Internet in particular is highly conducive to monopolies driven by network effects (first Microsoft, then Google, Facebook and Twitter).
The rise of financialization was also driven to a heavy degree by the United States becoming a trade-deficit country in the early '70s (due to the recovery of West Germany and Japan, and the ruinous cost of the war in Vietnam), as described by Yanis Varoufakis in "The Global Minotaur".
Before the end of the USSR, Western capitalists were no less driven by profit-making. Still, they were a bit more cautious about cutting "their" workers part of spoils. On the other hand, about the same time the imperialist capital got a new (temporary) relief - it could spread to the vast territories which before had been out of reach - Eastern Europe, former USSR and China and so on.
Of course, the rebuilding of war-ruined Europe and Japan contributed to prolonged "good years" just as war economics jump-started USA economics out of the Great Depression.
Then everything started returning to "norm" and still doing it.
http://www.orb-international.com/article.php?s=new-poll-nearly-8-in-10-malians-support-international-military-intervention-in-the-north
The people of mali seem quite positive about the intervention, this should be noted.
Yes, sure, one more NATO bombing is good for natives. Just like it was good for Iraqis (a year after raping of Iraq we were told the same, and the poll is more than half a year old). The funny thing, when people are open against such "help" like in Pakistan, for ex, Tom is not citing it. Not mentioning that " Interviewers were unable to access the regions of Gao, Kidal and Tomboctou due to the current security situation"
. Sure the people is those places are happy with imperilaist attacks too...
The evidence shows that you are mistaken to hold hostile views against certain interventions lidia, if you have evidence to counter it or evidence to show that the majority feel otherwise, please present it.
Otherwise your views are somewhat empty.
As the saying goes "That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."
I've decided that Lidia will get the last word here.
I know you believe lidia cant go toe to toe with people but give her a chance, she might surprise us.
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