Israel-Hamas War 2023

[Razgovory]

No, what Viper is doing is arguing semantics about the term "Turtle Island".

Seems that Viper's argument is that the term is unique to the Huron, and is evaluating Minsky's throwaway line about "decolonizing Turtle island" in that light. Minsky - and others - are using Turtle Island to mean all of North America, which seems in line with what First Nations advocates themselves are doing these days.

I think that was Raz, not me.
I never heard of the phrase Turtle Island until reading the stuff posted here.

I've been reading a lot of stuff written by Palestinian supporters.  It's a term I kept coming across.  I suppose "decolonize North America" is the logical end point of fighting Settler-Colonialism. Anyway, it seems popular on college campuses. 

[The Minsky Moment]

My objection is to any narrative premised on dehumanization, whether the anti-Arab racism of the Israeli hard right or the new leftist anti-semitism masquerading as anti-colonialism.

Jewish settlement in Palestine was never a colonial project; they were never agents of some dominating imperial center.

The "indigenous" Jews of Palestine were justified in their desire to stay even if it mean resettling elsewhere in the country after the Arab progroms of the 20s and 30s. The Jews that legally bought land from the Ottomans and built homes and communities were justified in seeking a life in a land that they viewed as a long-lost ancestral homeland. The Jews that took advantage of the limited opportunities to immigrate to Palestine in the 30s while fleeing from persecution in Europe were also justified.   The  Jews that fled from persecution in Arab lands post 48 and sought refuge in the new state of Israel were also justified.  And so were those who later fled persecution in the former Soviet Union.

The Arabs forced in their homes in 1947-48 and again in 67 were (and are) also justified in seeking a return to their former homes.   And the West Bank Arabs are fully justified in fearing and even resisting the encroachment of illegal settlements that they understandably view as a prelude to an ultimate expulsion.

The key is to treat ALL people as human beings to be addressed in human terms, as opposed to mere instruments in a narrative demonology.  That makes for a more difficult analysis, and for more complex and perhaps intractable solutions, and it's really hard to fit on a t-shirt or a placard.  But on the plus side you are a lot less likely find yourself cheering for mass murder.

[Josquius]

Plenty of very sane people are demanding the One-State solution.  Tyr, you need to come to grips that the far-left see that as a desirable outcome.

One state solution. ! = genocide the other side.

What do you think will happen to the Jews in a Palestinian controlled state?

The whole point of a one state solution is that it isn't controlled by one side or the other.
And if Israel had agreed to this it's pretty unlikely it'd be with someone like Hamas in charge of the Palestinian side and Palestinian sentiment being aligned that way.

[Razgovory]

  Oh, you were serious?

[Josquius]

  Oh, you were serious?

I know, you don't have a clue about this issue and I shouldn't respond to you seriously. But hey ho.

[OttoVonBismarck]

At what point does an occupation becomes colonization?  When you remove people to put your own, is that still an occupation?  When you destroy people's home to build you own settlement is that an occupation?

A lot of times the answer is "it doesn't matter", colonization is heavily abused as a political term. It makes more sense to hit at the core issues at hand without using labels as cudgels.

It takes slightly more work but is a better framework for discussion. It isn't incredibly difficult to say things like "the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank is not morally justifiable, and exacerbates a number of regional tensions" or to differentiate it from say, the Allied occupation of Germany post-WWII, which virtually no one takes moral issue with. It isn't crazy hard to just recognize the ways in which a thing are objectionable.

Did the US, England and France intend to displace Germans to put their own citizens in place?

Did France occupy the Ruhr valley with the intention of setting up there their own business and using cheap German labor?  Did Denmark constantly move its border south?

I see you're learning, albeit it slowly--as I said, on can note the ways in which a thing is bad, which you have done here.

You didn't even have to use the phrases "settler colonialism", "apartheid", or "genocide."

[Razgovory]

Dude, they were together in one state.  It was a disaster.  The Arabs massacred Jews, launched a rebellion aimed in part to keep the Jews out and the country fell into civil war and split.  And no, the Palestinians aren't are going moderate because they are in a power sharing agreement.  They didn't become more moderate when the Israelis pulled out of Gaza.  A one state solution will look like Lebanon in the 1980's.

[viper37]

The Arabs massacred Jews,

You have a selective reading of history, don't you?
I suppose Ukraine is filled with Nazis and must be cleansed too.

[Razgovory]

You ready to be decolonized yet, viper?  The first thing should be to start "the obliteration of the Eurocentric cultural episteme"

[The Minsky Moment]

The Arabs massacred Jews,

You have a selective reading of history, don't you?
I suppose Ukraine is filled with Nazis and must be cleansed too.

Ukraine? Europeanized cultural elite exercising colonial domination over the repressed, true Slavic silent majority. 

There is no end to this bullshit narrative and the damage it can do.

[grumbler]

I don't think that there is any doubt that a one-state solution was possible in the post-WW2 period, but I am convinced that:
1. The Jews did not want that because they wanted a Jewish homeland where Jews had the power to prevent the incessant violent antisemitism that was widespread, not just in Europe.
2. The Palestinians would have accepted it.  The stories about Palestinians massacring Jews are not all incorrect, but they are overblown and fail to comprehend the actual cause of the problem (that being that Jews were buying land from absentee Ottoman/Turkish/Arab landlords and turning out the existing Palestinian farmers, who had been renting the land for generations).
3.  A power-sharing arrangement would inevitably break down, as we saw in Lebanon. Those arrangements don't withstand the changes that passing time bring.

I think that a one-state solution is absolutely impossible now.  The radicals on both sides have built up such hatreds that a joint state would be awash in the blood of both the guilty and the innocent.  The violence from both sides just creates more zealots (Israel has just created probably double the number of Hamas supporters as it has killed).

A two-state solution is almost as hard, especially if it attempts to satisfy Palestinian demands for the Oslo Accord borders.  The Israeli government feels that Israel conquered the West Bank fair and square, and so the Palestinians need to fid somewhere else to live.  The Western concept that borders can only be changed by agreement, not conquest (and, yes, that agreement is often coerced) is not a concept they think valid.

[DGuller]

I think a one-state solution by definition is unworkable, at least not a democratic one-state solution.  Pretty much all functioning democracies are either nation-states or melting pots, and it's not an accident.  When two rivaling ethnicities are locked in a zero-sum fight within the democratic system, sooner or later it's the democratic system that gives way, not the ethnic allegiances.

[OttoVonBismarck]

I do think the Lebanon example that has already been mentioned is salient, that was a genuine attempt at having two different sects share power in a constitutional arrangement to try and make sense in a country that (at its founding) was closely split between Muslims and Christians. The result was long civil war and a large emigration of most of the Christians.

A one state solution which has genuine power sharing will result in both sides jockeying for ultimate control, which will spill into violence.

A one state solution which enshrines the power of one of the sects is inherently undemocratic and creates a permanent 2nd class of citizen.

[crazy canuck]

I think a one-state solution by definition is unworkable, at least not a democratic one-state solution.  Pretty much all functioning democracies are either nation-states or melting pots, and it's not an accident.  When two rivaling ethnicities are locked in a zero-sum fight within the democratic system, sooner or later it's the democratic system that gives way, not the ethnic allegiances.

And yet Canada still exists

The problem is, as Grumbler stated, the extremists on both sides are in power.  That is not inevitable but it is the fundamental problem now.

[HVC]

Quebec had the little slip up with terrorism in the 60s with the FLQ, but we haven't spent generations killing each other. Situation is a bit different.