Doesn't Solve Anything--But Pain
More than a dozen friends and acquaintances have asked me to respond to the Agha-Malley oped in the New York Times, rather unfortunately titled "The Two-State Solution Doesn't Solve Anything"--a follow-up, it seemed to me, to their rather bleak, and not entirely conclusive article in the New York Review last June.
Perhaps I am distracted by the need to finish painting my deck, but I don't really see why the article has raised so many anxieties. I'm not at all sure what it adds. The argument, at bottom, is that the Palestinians and Israelis each have "core" grievances, the former dispossession, the latter, existential terror, and that when seen as ideological expressions of their respective national movements, these explain why the two sides are talking past each other. "The first step will be to recognize that in the hearts and minds of Israelis and Palestinians, the fundamental question is not about the details of an apparently practical solution. It is an existential struggle between two worldviews."
Really. A struggle between worldviews. Therefore, peace is more or less impossible, or at least the two-state solution is, because one worldview says a "Jewish state" contradicts the pain of the Naqba, and the other worldview says a Palestinian state contradicts Zionism's essential fairness--and also means accepting people who refuse to have the pain of the Naqba contradicted, and so forth. Put Ismail Haniya and Menachem Begin in the room and this is what you get. Obama has better steer clear.
I have learned much from Malley and Agha, but not this time. In fact, the entire framing strikes me as a little childish. Anyone who has--how would Dr. Phil put it?--"moved on" has learned that worldviews go on forever, but people nevertheless look for ways to improve their lives, or prevent their loved one's suffering, or both. If divorcing couples had to agree on the narrative of their marriage's dissolution before agreeing on custody arrangements, what child would survive the fight?
Palestinians hungry to develop their economy (about which, more in the October Harper's)know very well that making peace with Israelis on reciprocal terms, consistent with international law, is a promise they can make to their children. Most Israelis, still, feel similar things. Yes, the two-state solution solves nothing, or nothing finally. That's what makes it the solution for grown-ups.
The authors conclude: "As Israelis make plain by talking about the imperative of a Jewish state, and as Palestinians highlight when they evoke the refugees' rights, the heart of the matter is not necessarily how to define a state of Palestine. It is, as in a sense it always has been, how to define the state of Israel."
I agree, as any reader of my blog or book knows, that we need to refine our definition of a democratic Israel at peace. But then, why is the challenge any less for a democratic Palestine? I suspect this is a sly effort to suggest that, within the 1967 border, we need a bi-national state, not a state like Israel at all. If the authors believe this, they should have the guts to say it. For my part, a Hebrew republic called Israel will do nicely. Anyway, any effort at dismantling Israel will bring, not a one-state solution, but Bosnia.
How can anything resembling Israel produce anything resembling justice?
A Jewish state, where the equal rights of people not chosen by God are respected despite God not wanting them to be there.
Maybe if we just express our moral depth and understanding, while "reluctantly" supporting the status quo, everything will work out in the end...
At least for some people.
August 18, 2009 5:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bill: Please cut out the anti-Semitism.
August 18, 2009 8:15 PM | Reply | Permalink
Avigdor, please stop defending supremacism, and supremacist entities and policies.
August 18, 2009 8:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have no trouble with that, since I've never done those things.
Will you cut out the anti-Semitism? There are other web sites for that.
August 18, 2009 9:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bill: This one's for you.
"Top Sweden newspaper says IDF kills Palestinians for their organs..."
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1108384.html
August 18, 2009 10:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Israel has about the land area and population of New Jersey. The neighboring New York and Connecticut counties of Westchester, Fairfield and Litchfield have together about the land area and population the Palestinian West Bank, and nearby Nassau County is about like Gaza if you crowd its population into half its area.
Imagine then:
1) New Jersey and Westchester-Fairfield-Litchfield-Nassau (WFL&N) have the topography and climate, roughly, of Central Arizona.
2) Sixty years ago New Jersey became an independent country
3) Forty years ago it conquered WFL&N.
4) It has occupied WFL&N since then
5) Periodically WFL&Ner terrorists have blown things up in New Jersey
6) Hundreds of thousands of New Jersey "settlers" have, over these forty years, expropriated the choicer parts of the WFL&N desert, frequently humiliating, oppressing, and brutalizing nearby WFL&Ners.
Would pundits and policy-makers in, say, California be tearing out their hair agonizing over whether New Jersey and its neighbors were locked in an inevitable "existential" struggle and fearing that a "two state solution" could never "solve anything"?
August 18, 2009 6:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
PTroub: Your childish musings shed absolutely no light on the situation.
August 18, 2009 8:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Regressive Conscienceless Settler Tool: I wonder whether you use a "Big Lie" pseudonym out of fundamental ignorance and mental laziness, or due to latent Nazism. West Bank settlers being hypocrites above all else, the second seems more likely, but your rote AIPAC regurgitations on this site suggest the former.
August 18, 2009 8:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hilarious, talk about rote, it's you that have just ramped it up to a level of sounding like a parody of the IP debate at The Onion. It's that touch of Mao's Little Red Book that really makes it an exceptional example, you only left out the "running dog" part. I've believe I've seen more than one Arab comedian make self-deprecatory fun of your type of rhetoric here.
August 18, 2009 8:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
I don't know what the H you are talking about or think you are talking about, art.
At any rate, it is a rare day when any Arab comes anywhere near these comment boards. Might be interesting for a change, but if Arab BS were remotely as prevalent (in America generally, or on this site in particular) as the endless torrent of pro West Bank Settler Nutcase agitation were, rest assured that I would refut that form of anti-American nonsense with equal consistency. I don't doubt that fanatical broadcasts from the Palestinian lunatic fringe exist in copious abundance, but they are very seldom seen here.
August 19, 2009 7:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
The understatement of the day! Wonder why.
August 19, 2009 8:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Who needs Arab BS when you've got Philip Weiss, Helena Cobban and, to a lesser extent, MJ Rosenberg spouting the party line?
The only Arab commenter here I can recall was Sam Bashour. For some reason, he only wrote a few times and seems to have disappeared. As for the commenters, it's hard to tell, but the overwhelming majority do just fine espousing the Arab/Palestinian view that Israel - not just its policies, but its very existence - is illegitimate. It is a rare day indeed when sensible commenters from the far left of the political spectrum like Bernard Avishai and JoAnn Mort are the closest thing to defenders of Israel out there.
August 19, 2009 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
August 20, 2009 9:24 AM | Reply | Permalink
"Arab BS" -- PTroub's words, not mine.
Nice try.
August 20, 2009 10:03 AM | Reply | Permalink
Actually "Arab" was introduced by Artappraiser. I still have no real idea what she was trying to say, but am willing to grant a certain benefit of the doubt because she has probably read several hundred fewer transparent pro-settler propaganda echo posts from the warped-conscience non-Progressive "Progressive Conscience" than I and others here have over past months. Without the provoking context of that several times broken camel's back, my comment above might well seem extreme and unwarranted.
August 21, 2009 4:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Avishai: I greatly enjoyed your article. Keep up the good work - most of the other Middle East related posters at TPM are reflexively anti-Israel; I really appreciate the balanced view that you, a true Progressive, bring to the table.
One thing I have trouble understanding is Progressive anti-Semitism; it seems such a contradiction in terms. And make no mistake; unbalanced hatred of the only Jewish state in the world is engendered by anti-Semitism. There's no other possible reason for it.
August 18, 2009 9:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
None that you could ever wrap your brain around.
Say hi to Huckabee for me.
August 18, 2009 9:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Progressive Anti-Semitism" is one of many contradictions in today's troubled world. "Progressive" AIPAC Spouting is another, and easily twice as prevalent on this website and ten times more prevalent in America generally, Mr. Phony and Conscienceless "Progressive," so you are invited to stop being one of the thousands of pots calling a few dozen kettles black, and seek deprogramming for your Settler Lobby brainwashed mind.
August 20, 2009 4:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
PTroub:
There are lots of children's bulletin boards where name-calling is appropriate. Why don't you stick to substance when posting on TPM?
August 20, 2009 7:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
As I have noted already on another TPM blog page, exposing the sick lie behind your moniker is appropriate when your uninformed hypocrisy sabotages discussion after discussion. There is no such thing as a "progressive" with a "conscience" endlessly regurgitating sugar-coated West Bank settler talking points. I would like you to embrace truth for a change by adopting a name that does not constantly insult real open-minded progressives, to cease lobbing childish pot shots into the conversations of adults, to look in the mirror once in a blue moon to see how often what you say about others applies in spades to yourself, or go the bunker in the West Bank where you probably belong and leave the rest of us alone. In absence of any of those avenues being pursued, AIPAC trickery from you here will continue to be exposed here for what it is. By I and others fed up with 10+ years of this kind of disgusting, egotistical and quite utterly ridiculous perversion of America's foreign policy.
August 21, 2009 4:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is difficult to understand what Malley and Agha were attempting to accomplish with their op-ed. I suppose it's just a generic reminder that achieving a settlement that stands a chance of enduring will not be easy, and will require dealing with some tough long-standing issues. But I doubt anyone needed a reminder of that point.
August 18, 2009 10:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
This article by Agha and Malloy seems to have satistified no one. It struck me as an article written by a committee of disparate voices that was trying not to offend and ended up saying nothing. My reaction was that Malloy is trying to get back into the good graces of the establishment figures that can help one obtain high government position. Poor man seems to in a purgatory between state power and opposition.
August 18, 2009 11:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, if you're going to accuse someone of writing an article for the cynical purpose of getting back in the good graces of the powers that be, it would help if you got his name right. It's Malley, not Malloy. He's been around a long time and has mostly been criticized by those who consider him insufficiently supportive of Israel. His article in the New York Review of Books in 2003 about the failures of Camp David was one of the seminal accounts that exploded the myth that Arafat was solely to blame for the failure of Camp David. If Malley was, as you claim, trying to curry favor in Washington, authoring an article that many have interpreted as a silent endorsement of a bi-national state seems a curious way to go about it.
August 19, 2009 2:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
I agree that Malley's NYR article was very good. Unfortunately I think it precluded him from obtaining a position in the current administration. His was a courageous act. Perhaps my comments were somewhat unfair given that longer record. I should have said that he is now sounding a little gun shy.
August 19, 2009 2:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is difficult to understand what Malley and Agha were attempting to accomplish with their op-ed.
Irony? An article about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with no conclusion. Sums things up perfectly, I think.
The farce continues.
August 19, 2009 7:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
There was a somewhat interesting discussion of the Malley-Agha piece at JoAnn Mort's blog a few days ago. I'll reiterate what I said there.
I don't share the view that Malley-Agha are passively suggesting a bi-national state. As recently as this past June in the NY Review, Malley-Agha said much the same thing as in the NYT, but still endorsed the principle of two-states:
http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=6104&l=1
I do think the article is valuable in its recognition that the devil is not in the details, but in the mindset of the protagonists. The two-stae solution has foundered not over the details of land swaps, water rights, etc., or whether this or that proposal was sufficiently generous. It's not, as many around here like to argue, that if Israel would only make this or that adjustment or take some action they have heretofore resisted, peace would magically break out. The fundamental disagreements remain rooted in 1948. For Israel, it is still a question of existence.
Where Malley-Agha frustrate is in their failure to provide any suggestions at all for reconciling the competing narratives - hence their maddeningly vague conclusion that the conflict is over the definition of Israel. True, but how can we put this information to use?
August 18, 2009 10:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Armchair,
Remember a few weeks ago when the ring of rabbi money launderers, New Jersey mayors on the take, and a Jewish organ dealer was broken up?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2301722/posts
It was the stuff of movies, but for the fact that so many of them were Jewish. Because of that, the story was barely mentioned in the national press, and quickly dropped.
The FBI complaint quotes Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, the observant dealer of Goy kidneys, as saying:
...that all the organ donors he recruited were from Israel. He acknowledged that it was illegal to buy and sell organs, and told them "you're giving a compensation for the time," the complaint said.
"There are people over there hunting," for donors, he said, according to the complaint filed by FBI Special Agent Robert J. Cooke. "One of the reasons it's so expensive is because you have to shmear all the time," or pay various individuals for their help.
There are people over there hunting, Armchair. There are people over there hunting.
If this guy was an Arab who had been recorded by the FBI saying there were people in Palestine hunting Jews, the story would have received just a bit more airtime, dontcha think?
There are people over there hunting, Armchair. There are people over there hunting.
Maybe the top Swedish newspaper wasn't being so blindly anti-Semetic after all, eh?
What say you?
August 18, 2009 10:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bill:
The fact that you make the ignorant error of saying "anti-Semetic" instead of "anti-Semitic" does not improve the cogency of your argument.
August 19, 2009 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Hunting" for people to illegally buy organs from is far different than hunting them to kill them and to steal their organs. The fact that some Jew s are involved in illegal black-market organ trafficking does not to me seem to add significant credibility to the idea that they are taking organs from people by force.
August 22, 2009 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are participating in pure prejudicial bullshit fiction created out of thin air, with a few very old accusations used as inspiration. With thinking like that, I pray you are never seated on a jury where someone's life is at stake:
From Accusation of Organ Theft Stokes Ire in Israel by Isabel Kershner for the Aug. 24 New York Times.
August 24, 2009 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are participating in pure prejudicial bullshit fiction created out of thin air, with a few very old accusations used as inspiration. With thinking like that, I pray you are never seated on a jury where someone's life is at stake:
? Are you basing your reaction on BW's comments or on the story?
Your bolding implies that because Palestinians are the sources that it's all bullshit. News to you, perhaps, is the fucking FACT that this is hardly the only instance of the illegal removal of organs by Israelis. In fact, I suggest you google the name "Yehuda Hiss" and read all about him. Israelis are involved in the organ trade allover the world.
August 25, 2009 5:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
You read far too much into bold highlighting. My intent was to make it clear he used a accusations he heard in the 1990's which were in his 2001 book. Then he linked them to the New Jersey story. And then, did you miss my bold highlighting where he admitted he has no idea whether the accusations are true? Worse than any 9/11 conspiracy theorist, closer to the National Enquirer on UFO's, pure sensationalist tabloid trash and put all together a bit too reminiscent of "the Protocols" for any person of reason to take seriously. Garbage from someone so hungry for publicity that he'll go for the anti-semitic market.
hardly the only instance of the illegal removal of organs by Israelis.
So? Have you lost your minds somewhere along the line reading too many IP blogs?! As if that couldn't be said of many other nationalities! And likewise, I am sure that there are Israelis that have committed nearly every other crime imaginable. There are also criminals in every country on every continent. Wisconsin had Ed Gein getting away with making lampshades of human skin for quite some time, does that make Wisconsin a Nazi state?
August 25, 2009 8:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
An example of responsible reporting on the actual very serious and sad problem:
http://www.arabpressnetwork.org/articlesv2.php?id=3290
It's really a damn shame to turn this problem into a Hannibal Lechter meets Israel anti-Semitic potboiler...almost want to say: it's a crime.
August 25, 2009 8:40 PM | Reply | Permalink
I suggested that you look up Yehuda Hiss for a reason. But screeching irrelevancies without further fact checking appears to be all you can do in this case.
You see, aa, there's precedent:
Abu Kabir Operating Organ Warehouse
By IsraelNationalNews.com
http://www.israelfaxx.com/webarchive/2002/01/2fax0104.html
BTW, the original source for the above is Arutz Sheva, a rightwing newsite. They reported extensively on the Hiss scandals as his actions were deeply offensive on religious as well as moral grounds. What a bunch of self-hatin' ultra-Orthodox anti-semitic settler blood libelists, eh?
BTW, I'm agnostic on the truths of the Swedish story. There are difficulties having to do with mundane medical details and protocols directly related to kidney transplants, among other things.
Not that it would matter to you what I think. It's much more pleasing to you to imagine whatever...
Ignorance be your bliss.
August 25, 2009 10:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Isn't it a stalemate between intransigent worldviews? Israel holds all the cards; it must make the first step if there is to be any breakthrough, any substantive negotiation (let's lot even think about resolution just yet). Evidently, Tel Aviv is afraid if it gives an inch, it'll lose a mile - since that's its own, reliable gambit dealing with give/take situations. The two sides are immovable objects, and only one possesses irresistable force.
For now...
August 18, 2009 11:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Israel holds all the cards; it must make the first step"
Did you forget that Israel made the step of exiting Gaza?
August 19, 2009 1:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
Israel did not "exit gaza." Israel removed its 5,000 civilian colons from Gaza. That's all.
Gaza never stopped being under Israel military control, areal surveillance and attack, and siege. Since "leaving Gaza," for just a small example, there hasn't been a single day that fishermen in Gaza were not prevented fishing in Gaza's coastal waters.
August 19, 2009 4:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Israel exited Gaza, at great personal cost.
No need to rewrite history; let's stick to the facts that we all know.
August 20, 2009 7:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your bad and uninformed opinion doesn't constitute facts. See below:
"Under international law, the test for determining if an occupation exists is effective control by a hostile army, not formal declarations or organizational implementation. How the occupying power organizes itself in order to exercise its attributes is irrelevant to the fact of the occupation itself. The Israeli military has made clear that, even after 'disengagement,' it will retain overall security authority over Gaza and enter the territory when it wishes. According to the Hague Regulations, 'A territory is considered occupied when it is actually placed under the authority of the hostile army. The occupation extends only to the territory where such authority has been established and can be exercised'. International jurisprudence has clarified that the mere repositioning of troops is not sufficient to relieve an occupier of its responsibilities if it retains its overall authority and the ability to reassert direct control at will. The U.S. Military Tribunal at Nürnberg, Germany dealt with this question in the 'Hostages' case:
Human Rights Watch
"In August and September 2005, Israel unilaterally withdrew approximately eight thousand settlers, along with military personnel and installations, from the Gaza Strip and four small settlements in the northern West Bank near Jenin. While Israel has since declared the Gaza Strip a 'foreign territory' and the crossings between Gaza and Israel 'international borders,' under international humanitarian law (IHL), Gaza remains occupied, and Israel retains its responsibilities for the welfare of Gaza residents. Israel maintains effective control over Gaza by regulating movement in and out of the Strip as well as the airspace, sea space, public utilities and population registry. In addition, Israel declared the right to reenter Gaza militarily at any time in its 'Disengagement Plan'."
Human Rights Watch
August 20, 2009 8:47 AM | Reply | Permalink
What part of the word "exit" don't you understand? It means to go out. Most children understand it. It has nothing to do with international law - just look in your picture dictionary if you need more help.
August 20, 2009 5:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
The part where, when being called out on your misrepresentations, you pretend to believe that states are physical objects rather than legal entities.
August 21, 2009 6:10 AM | Reply | Permalink
The level of anxiety that one muddled op-ed can generate is truly astonishing. I guess something IS breaking, call it ice.
A&M do not say that a two state solution isn't the right solution." ( I do, but that is another thing). They say:
How much clearer they can be?They do say.
That is, they make a point that just calling any kind of deal that both Abbas and Netanyahu agree on, "peace" and blessing it is going to bring further disaster. The best way to read it is as a shot across the bow of the accepted framework for peace as merely facilitating negotiations between the two parties, (one impotent and one having all the cards).They don't say that the problem is reconciling worldviews. They do say that the worldviews matter. They call recognizing it "the first state."
Then they say the most important thing.
That is, they call attention to the fact that the framework for solutions touted in the West is deeply biased in favor of Israel, reflecting existing power relations. In this framework, Israeli rights and concerns are a given. Palestinian rights are a conditional promise to be handed over in return for good behavior. The negotiations focus on which rights Palestinians can have (one day), assuming Israel rights are what Israeli want.That is, A&M call for recognizing the imbalance in the way the problem has been conceptualized. On a weak reading, they call for more balance. On a stronger reading, they call for switching the balance, since a pro-Palestinian conceptualization is necessary in order to balance out the imbalance of power in favor of Israel. I would personally like a clearer support for the stronger reading.
But what scares the soft Zionists is that A&M call attention to the skewed language in which peace solutions are discussed. They are shocked, because the know that the next stage would be to call them out as bullies.
Just look at this site. The Middle East conflict is center stage, but all the commentators are A. Jews, B. soft Zionists, mostly from the pro-Israel policy establishment. No Palestinian, no Arab, nobody who begins the analysis from Palestinian rights is welcome. The leftmost guy is Bernard Avishai, an Israeli who, a year after the first U.S. president with an MBA finished wrecking the U.S., still argues that the future of Israelis and Palestinians depends on letting entrepreneurs with MBAs rule both societies.
Some balance!
August 19, 2009 6:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe you haven't been following TPM for long. If you have, I wonder how you could possibly be serious about this.
Among the contributors at TPM Cafe, Bernard Avishai and JoAnn Mort are the only two who approach the conflict from anything resembling an Israeli perspective. And even in this, they represent a pretty far left perspective - both, I would imagine, align themselves with Meeretz; they support Israel's existence but regularly criticize its policies and would seek to prod its politicians to make concessions in the interest of peace that a majority of Isrealis, I imagine, would oppose. MJ Rosenberg professes to be an Israel "supporter" but I have scarcely read anything of his that would constitute "support," instead using his blog to regularly excoriate Israel for its sins, finding common cause with the Gideon Levys and Philip Weisses of the world who take his ideas to their logical conclusion - that Israel in its current form - not just the occupation, but the State itself - is an abomination. Speaking of Philip Weiss, he and his crew at Mondoweiss (Adam Horowitz, Max Blumenthal), self-professed anti-Zionists, who run a website devoted to exposing the horrors of Zionism, had a regular forum here where they cross-posted their bilious rantings for some time (they seem to have disappeared, although I can't say whether it was an issue of (wise) editorial judgment or just a lull). Taking the place of Weiss and Co, Helena Cobban, another prominent voice of the far-left anti-Israel crowd, regularly holds forth. Although I haven't seen him for some time, Sam Bashour, a Palestinian businessman from the West Bank, has also been featured. Although supposedly a "moderate," Bashour's writings reflect the Palestinian narrative Malley-Agha talk about and are replete with telltale references to Israel's illegitimacy.
Apart from the fact that many of these commenters are Jewish by birth, the viewpoints are far outside the mainstream discourse on Israel-Palestine. Indeed, considering that their anti-Zionist beliefs are shared by, at most, around 10% of those who identify as left of center here in the US, I'd say they are decidedly over-represented.
August 19, 2009 10:21 AM | Reply | Permalink
Ooops, I forget Helena Cobban, Weiss is sometimes anti-zionist but he is very rarely here and he is also Jewsih. Otherwise, your bizarre description of Rosenberg, Avishai and Mort as "Left" is what I would expect of you. Left of Abe Foxman and Mort Zuckerman? Yes. But that is not a meaningful yardstick. Left of the majority of Israelis? Yes. But why is the spectrum defined with relation to Israeli and American Jews? Ahmad Saddat, who sits in Israel's jail, is also a leftist. If TPM is generally "left," why is he not part of the spectrum?
And the fact of everybody being Jewish (yes, Bahour did some posts, because he is a friend of Avishai. doesn't change the general tenor) seems totally normal to you. As if being Jewish isn't an issue here. This is like a discussion of rape with only men having their opinions expressed.
August 19, 2009 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
Weiss is always anti-Zionist and devotes his entire website to exposing purported Israeli perfidy. Rosenberg hasn't had a good thing to say about Israel since the 1990s. Avishai and Mort represent a viewpoint that, I would hazard, is far to the left of most Americans who identify as Democrats and probably left of those who identify as politically liberal. As you correctly point out, they would all self-identify as Jewish, although by your own universalist principles, their ethnic or religious identification really shouldn't matter, should it? Sure, an Arab voice would be welcome, but I feel comfortable saying that the spectrum of viewpoints expressed at TPM is decidedly more critical of Israel than that of mainstream discourse on the subject (unless you count the Nation or the Angry Arab as mainstream).
August 19, 2009 2:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
They are also far more sensible than the average lunatic. I am pointing out, following A&M, that the US discourse about the "solution" to the conflict in the Middle East is strongly biased in favor if Israel, with its "center" committed to seeing Israeli rights as given, and Palestinian rights as negotiable. You are proving my point.
This is the the most important insight in the op-ed by M&A, and both Mort and Avishai did their best to bury this insight. Of course you'd approve of that.
You are a parody. My "universalist principles" say that everybody should have the same rights. They do not say that identities do not exist. When identities are shaped by significant power differentials, diversity is a fundamental necessity for any progressive politics. You wouldn't think that all white juries sending blacks to death row is OK because race differences don't really exist, would you? Neither do I. There is a difference between the ethnic chauvinism you promote and being sensitive to the essential role of diversity in advancing equality.
Your generosity, once again, is humbling. A lot of things are "welcome," the question is which of them are a priority and who decides.
This is damning by faint praise.
August 19, 2009 3:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is telling that you take as the most important insight in M&A's piece that the "solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as conceived has been strongly biased in favor of Israel. Telling since the authors have fairly described the conflict as a struggle between two competing worldviews, without favor. Your point of view gives credit to the "right" of one side. You claim Israeli rights are treated as a "given." By "right" here, you must be referring to Israel's "right" to exist. Well, that much is a given; the rest is and has been negotiable.
Fortunately, in the US, your viewpoint enjoys scant support outside a small number of zealots in the blogosphere and academia. Unfortunately, it appears to be the position of the overwhelming majority of Arabs who have not really budged much over their opposition to the occupation - of Palestine. As M&A make clear, unless and until these attitudes change, real peace will remain elusive.
August 19, 2009 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
August 19, 2009 6:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
Just to drive the point that the times are a changing:
The LA Times publishes an op-ed supporting the boycott of Israel:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-gordon20-2009aug20,0,6144555,print.story
August 20, 2009 6:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
"As if being Jewish isn't an issue here."
Could you spell out your opinion in more detail, Evildoer? Are you suggesting that Jews should not be free to post on TPM? Maybe Josh should be replaced? Or MJ?
I'm trying to understand what you're getting at when you refer to your perception that "being Jewish is an issue here".
Why don't you elaborate?
August 20, 2009 7:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
When all else fails, cry antisemitism. You mastered the art of apologizing for Apartheid.
No, I am not suggesting that Jews should not be free to post on TPM. I am suggesting that coverage of the conflict in Middle East when all or most of the commentators are Jews is skewed and reflects the unrecognized institutional racism of the editorial board. I suggest that an editorial board mindful of this institutional bias would prioritize actively seeking to recruit qualified writers on the subject who reflect both a more diverse personal background and more diverse constituencies in terms of their politics. Naturally, if the editorial board were to act in this manner, the opinion of Jews on the subject would become less prominent to the extent that they become a smaller percentage of a larger pool of opinions.
Do you have a problem with that?
August 20, 2009 9:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why don't you take it up with TPM management? In the meantime, keep your anti-Semitism to yourself, or go find another web site that welcomes it.
August 20, 2009 5:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is worth pointing out that the owner of this site, Josh Marshall, has made a statement about his own commitment to Zionism (and his own discomfort with some of Israel's policies). I think it's fair to say that the majority of commentators that appear on this site reflect Josh's same commitment to Zionism mixed with a great deal of criticism of Israel's actions. Josh has, to his credit, expanded the voices on the site to include people like Cobban and Weiss, but the site still does seem to be very heavily dominated by Jewish liberals who are critical of Israel, but still firmly committed to the Zionist project.
Josh's full comments can be found here:
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/009318.php
I quote two excerpts below:
I'm hearing two streams of conversation about the war [in Lebanon] -- two whole worlds of conversation and debate, you might say, often as distinct from each other as night and day.
One is the one we all see every day in the mainstream news -- the major papers and news networks and so on. And then there's another -- one I'm exposed to largely, but not exclusively, through email we get at TPM.
And it's this latter conversation that's engaged my attention, rattled me and intensified and deepened my belief in Zionism.
. . .
Because in the mainstream debate I find myself very critical of Israeli policy on many issues -- particularly on the territories and particularly since 1996 -- and trying to wrestle with and figure out some way to pull the region back from the brink to which this administration has brought it. And then in this other debate I find myself driven back upon my core belief in the Zionist project and Jews' right to fight for their existence. And these are two points of departure for conversation that are, to put it mildly, difficult to speak from at the same time. It's a dissonance that's clogged my writing. But I'm going to work harder to overcome it.
August 22, 2009 12:37 PM | Reply | Permalink
What exactly is antisemitic in what I said? Explain this to us O great progressive conscience.
August 20, 2009 6:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'll quote your anti-Semitic trope again, to remind you: "As if being Jewish isn't an issue here."
It's customary, in places outside Nazi Germany, to focus on people's opinions and not on their religions or races. I'm surprised I need to remind you of this fact, evildoer.
Open your eyes. I don't care if you're Jewish, Episcopalian, or Martian. Why don't you express yourself without hate or bias, at least when you're on TPM?
August 20, 2009 7:44 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well, that's rich, because we are discussing a regime in which people's religion/race defines every fact of their life, and you are here defending that regime at every opportunity.
But really, are you actually suggesting that diversity does not matter? Are you actually suggesting that absence of diversity is not a problem? Are you actually saying for example, that the fact that the US has today a black President is really a non-issue, because what matters is a person's opinion and not his or her race? Are you that obtuse or just a lying shill? Do you think that it is by simple statistical fluke that the U.S. never had a black president before 2008? Or might it have something to do with discrimination, racism, the legacy of slavery, etc.? Do you think people who voted for Obama because having finally a black president meant so much to them are racists? Does the fact that I raise these questions makes me an anti-white racist?
Do you think that concerns about the absence of marginal groups from important civic and institutional spaces, university faculties, top brass, Congress, the Supreme Court, and yes, media, constitute racism?
I am pointing out that TPM is just one example of many, of a space in which a U.S. discussion about the future of Palestinians, a future on which the U.S. exerts considerable power, is carried out in the virtual absence of Palestinian voices, while American and Israeli Jews, who are implicated in the conflict as a party given that the state of Israel defines itself as "their" state and actively seeks both their support and their allegiance, dominate the debate.
I am calling attention to the inherent bias that is institutionalized in this space as well as in general in most of the forums that have any impact on the formulation of U.S. policy on the Middle East, bias against Palestinians.
Obviously, the absence of Palestinian voices does not bother you. You are quite comfortable with that, not because you are a "liberal" who doesn't care about race and nationality, but on the contrary because you care very much about the racist regime in Israel which of course depends on suppressing Palestinian voices.
Hate? Bias? Get yourself a mirror.
August 20, 2009 8:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is worse than dishonest. You are trivializing antisemitism. You are in fact contributing to making antisemitism legitimate by using the term in such a cynical manner to mean nothing at all.
Being Jewish matters to this discussion. It is a discussion about the state of Israel. That discussion implicates competing definitions of what it means to be Jewish. It also implicates constitutional arrangements in Israel that privilege Jews. It is utterly dishonest of you to suggest that being Jewish doesn't matter in this discussion. It certainly matters to me, as I would probably not have been as involved in this matter if I were not Jewish. And form simple observation it matters to most of the other Jewish voices that are often heard in this discussion. It even matters to those Jewish voices, like mine, who come to this issue from a generally universal perspective, because it defined the biographical trajectory that led us to where we are. It of course matters to Israeli Jews, because being Jewish defines their experience of living in Israel, an experience that is very different from that of Palestinians living in Israel.
For all these reasons, of course, being Palestinian also matters to this discussion. And that means that the fact that Jewish voices are privileged is obviously biasing the conversation.
Calling that concern "anti-semitism" is pissing on the graves of the people antisemitism killed.
August 20, 2009 8:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
The solution is simple, but only we Jews have the standing to propose iot and the power to carry it through. America must become a Christian State! This will completely justify and make moot all questions about Israel! Of course, if America becomes, as it should, a Christian State, us Jews will, all unshriven and unnanealed, be second-class citizens. But what do we care? It's not as if the system of religious tolerance and equality and seperation of government and religion has done very much for us. The Goyim are killing us here, we should all go to Israel!
Gee, gosh, why shouldn't the system which has worked so well for American Jews not work for Israelis? Is there some intrinsic difference in the Palestinians which makes them inelegible for rights. Sort of like, you know, being a Jew in a Christian country.
August 19, 2009 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Palestinians are ineligible because of historical persecution of the Jews. Or something like that.
Plus the God thing. He's very picky when choosing Semites.
August 19, 2009 1:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, then, I am going to propose what I am sure is cogent, logical and acceptable plan for peace in the Middle East. But first we have to get this discussion on a logical and more than that, just and moral basis.
So let's get started.
First of all, all of you who aren't Zionists, you need to understand you are anti-Semites. Oh, don't feel bad, most everybody (except for a few Jews, like me) is one. Yup, anti-Semites, baby. You could have been a guard or fed the ovens at Auschwitz! Can't be helped. Cause if I am reading MR. Guerrilla and Mr. Appraiser right, if you disagree with a Zionist about anything, he feels it's necessary to wail "Anti-Semite" like that's the whistle which brings the game to a halt and the referees running. There's an old Yiddish expression which, roughly translated means :"Go F--ck yourself" That is the appropriate response to those two. What can I say, some American Jews have been so well served by accusations of Anti-semitism, they have a certain affection for it. They even feel the need to invoke it, or if they gotta, create it where it doesn't exist.
That is why they are so quick to kvetch.
But yes, in fact that is the new definition of an anti-Semite, disagreeing with a Zionist. Oh yes, there are some guys england bringing charges against some anti-Semites right now!
http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/2009/08/anti-racism-on-trial.html
By the way, some of you might be interested in reading more of Jewssansfrontieres.com.
Imagine, a completely anti-semitic blog written almost entirely by Jews! It boggles the mind.
And for a complete listing of everything Mr. Appraiser or Mr. Guerrilla has ever said or will say: go here:
http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-to-make-case-for-israel-and-win.html
August 19, 2009 3:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
You really should spend some time with the gun-toting loonies at the health care town halls. You might discover you have more in common than you thought.
August 19, 2009 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
if I am reading...Mr. Appraiser right
You're not. But that's no surprise, given that you can't "read" a female silhouette avatar as female. My only comment on this thread was pointing out that someone was ramping up a flame war with some very tired and old ad hominens, the type that have been long parodied by comedians. Your comment shows me that I was being real dumb, in hopelessly and naively thinking that doing that would cause the discussion level to go up a notch.
August 19, 2009 4:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Talk about anti-Semitism! What about the suppression of Christianity! The US is an overwhelmingly Christian country, when do WE get our state? Well, I mean, when does my wife get her own state? I'm Jewish, so I already have one, with an big Army, and Atomic bombs with Stars-of-David on them. Can your two-bit, no-acccount, one- horse Christian religion (I'll spare you the Yiddish) say that?
But at any rate, it's plain to me, as an American Zionist Jew, that the only fair thing to do (think of how all the Christian settlers were persecuted by those awful Red Indians) is to make America an official Christian Country! Of course, that will make us Jews, all "unshriven and unnanealed" (unsaved by Jesus, that is) second class citizens.
August 19, 2009 3:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Moose, there are many officially Christian countries in the world, many officially Muslim countries in the world, and one officially Jewish country in the world.
Now can you explain your point again in a way that the fact-based community can understand?
August 20, 2009 7:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
"and one officially Jewish country in the world."
You misspelled "artificially."
August 20, 2009 4:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Explain.
August 20, 2009 5:05 PM | Reply | Permalink