September 3, 2001

4:50 PM

U.S and Israel pull out of UN conference on RiacismQuestion: when next Arafat asks the UN to step in and monitor the areas where there is the current strife, what will be the Israeli response? No matter how one feels about Israel and the Palestinian problem, is this approach 9UN) smart?
posted by Postroad (32 comments total)

...that would be racism. Not riacism.
posted by {savg*pncl} at 7:17 PM on September 3, 2001

Thanks. I worked out today. Too much so. Sorry for messy post. Will be more careful in the future.
posted by Postroad at 7:19 PM on September 3, 2001

I knew getting in shape was dangerous! Thanks for the reinforcement.

Off to grab some Nerds and Cheesecorn

k
posted by Kafkaesque at 9:11 PM on September 3, 2001

The Israeli response will be as it has been under Sharon: because international monitors will provide political embarassment for Israeli military action, yet will neither be present nor a hindrance to Palestinian terrorists, there is absolutely no way that the present Israeli government will agree to monitors.

As for the conference, the US has pulled out to deny the conference's concluding documents political viability. The only reason for participating in the first place was to stay in the game (a game of chicken) and try to steer those conclusions away from collision. That approach failed.

Of all the US diplomatic foutes-vous of late, this is the only one I agree with. Little good can come of the conference's interference; and whatever other good could have flowed has been stanched by this small-minded brouhaha.
posted by dhartung at 9:31 PM on September 3, 2001

Please do explain what "the Palestinian problem" is. Yeah, invade a country and subjugate its people and label them a problem.
posted by fleener at 9:43 PM on September 3, 2001

The Palestinians weren't (just) subjugated... they were driven from their houses, expelled from the land they were born in, and not let back in; this despite the original treaty for the creation of Israel, UN Resolution 181, created in 1947, that gave the Palestinians half of their land. The Israelis then expanded into their neighbor's territory and started settling it, effectively forcing the Palestinians into ghettos.

Of course, reparations will never be paid and they will never let the Palestinians back into their land... after all, then it wouldn't be a Jewish nation. The Palestinians would outbreed (and interbreed) with the Jewish settlers, polluting their pure Aryan Jewish blood.

History is tragically ironic, don't you think?!
posted by insomnia_lj at 10:45 PM on September 3, 2001

created in 1947, that gave the Palestinians half of their land.

Bullshit. Moreover, they were too stupid to take the half of the British Mandate of the Ottoman Empire they were offered.

It's faster to just say there shouldn't be an Israel, OK?
posted by ParisParamus at 11:03 PM on September 3, 2001

There was an interview with someone on (BBC) Radio 4, claiming that the Israeli racism was being used to provide an excuse for the US who want to avoid (as do the UK) being drawn into paying compensation for slavery (the other main topic at the meeting).

It certainly appeared to be the Americans pulling out with the Israelis scurrying behind - evidence, it was claimed, that it was America rather than Israel that wanted out.

Also, aren't on-line news sources slow? I was hearing news about this last night on the radio, but when I looked for links to post here, both the BBC and CNN took a couple of hours to get stories up. Why does Internet news drag behing radio/TV?
posted by andrew cooke at 12:34 AM on September 4, 2001

Of course, reparations will never be paid and they will never let the Palestinians back into their land... after all, then it wouldn't be a Jewish nation. The Palestinians would outbreed (and interbreed) with the Jewish settlers, polluting their pure Aryan Jewish blood.

What I like about this whole thing is that it`s so completely black and white. Anytime anything is done that involves the possibility of race being a factor, the people in power are automatically the modern version of the Third Reich.

This is comforting rhetoric if you A) tend to support the Palestinians over the Israelis and B) don`t feel the need for detail once the brush has painted the people who fee differently a dark shade of evil.

The truth is that it`s not at all simple. Israel was granted land by U.N. Resolution 151. This was to create something of a safe haven for the people who would soon migrate there, many (no exact numbers) fleeing the honest-to-goodness textbook example of genocide, of which they were a target. The Palestinians (or the people that we now call the Palestinians, as I don`t know how were identified at the time, nor how they self-identified) were also given a chunk of land.

I will grant right now that kicking people off their land and taking their homes is a *bad thing.* And therefore, a bad thing was done to many of the residents of the land that we are currently discussing. But they still refused the land. There were a bunch of wars, all declared by the surrounding nations against Israel (yes, you may take the position that Israel`s existence is an act of war. But then stop complaining about the other stuff because it is merely moving violations by comparison). In one of these wars, Israel managed to capture a sizable (and religiously significant) chunk of land.

Now, would you fault a nation for wanting to protect itself from those who would destroy that nation? That`s why Israel is holding the territory known as the West Bank.

That said, lets look at things that are happening now...

You have a nation surrounded by nations and organizations that have sworn to "drive every last one of them into the sea." And this same nation was created as a direct result of other people trying to do the exact same thing. So this nation, we`ll call it Israel, is a bit skittish about others wanting to wipe them out.

Of course, the people who got kicked out of there homes, we`ll call them Palestinians, are rightfully peeved at the intrusion. So they are a little less than friendly to the intruders. The intruders (Israel) see this as both a threat and as sympathizing with "drive `em into the sea" crowd.
Things get more tense in both populations.

The problem is that both sides, instead of being motivated by general best interest, are motivated by religion, with help from some very charismatic leaders. Hardly a prelude to compromise. Both sides go from rocks to rockets. Both sides get help from outside sources (the U.S. and Britain, or Saudi Arabia and Hamas). Each side sees the other side`s allies as an increased threat, and both sides get frustrated by their seeming inability to meet their objectives.

So now there is a conference about racism and the Palestinians say "Israel is racist. Condemn them and punish them." They then refuse to consider anti-Semitism as racism. Now, do you think this is going to make Jewish people very comfortable? I can tell you first hand we find it rather scary, so a nation that claims to be Jewish would be extremely upset, to say the least, about such a thing. Not likely to bring anyone to the bargaining table.


Now that I`ve let all that spill out, let me clarify. I am Jewish and I tend support Israel. They are my side. They are my side when they do good (Growing trees in the Negev, all sorts of cool advances in science and tech). They problem I have is they are my side when they do bad (rocket assassinations of ministers in another government, unjust treatment of a political minority). It hurts me to see "my guys" doing things that I find repulsive, even if "the other guys" are doing things that are just as bad.

However, to compare either side to the the third reich or to the ethnic cleansing in the Balkans is flat out irresponsible, to be polite. Nobody is setting up engines of death and lining up people to kill them for fun. Nobody here is using save labor to supply a war machine. Nobody here has said the other side is unfit to live and the root of all evil in the world. Nobody has said the other side is some sort of abomination of humanty. Nobody has said they are too good to mix or breed with others.

Nobody. Except now you, insomnia_lj. Are you sure you`ve stated your feelings in the most accurate way possible?

Of course, I realize that this is something of a thread hi-jack, and for that I apologize.

Mandatory OT: It is very possible that the U.S. government is afraid of the issue of reparations for slavery, but the U.S. has never felt the need to comply with U.N. resolutions that it didn`t agree with. Or felt were logistically impossible.
posted by chiheisen at 12:58 AM on September 4, 2001

of course, the u.s. can do what they like. nothing they do now surprises me...
posted by semper at 2:06 AM on September 4, 2001

chiheisen, I can understand what you say (and I find the whole UN racist thing a bit daft), but I think that your summary avoids something that - for me at least, and I suspect for many here - makes Israel the "bad guys".

The situation is so one-sided. Israel has all the money, all the firepower, all the American support, the majority of the sympathetic press coverage. The Palestinians have pretty much nothing - the only thing they have more of than the Israelis is dead bodies!

It does seem to me that Israel have to make concessions. For an equitable solution they have to lose more than the Palestinians just because the Palestinians have so little left to give.
posted by andrew cooke at 2:27 AM on September 4, 2001

I'm sort of with dhartung: this wasn't really the place for such discussions. But this row came about partly because there's nowhere else for them to take place right now. So when the US takes away its ball once again, it just sets a precedent for the rest of the world to try harder to wrest authority from them in future conferences.

(I note, in passing, that Chelsea Clinton starts her MPhil in International Relations next month at Oxford. In two years, she'll have a better take on world diplomacy than her father's successor.)

Where it does become a matter for a conference on racism is that the Israeli government is actually devaluing the evils of anti-semitism by crying it at those who oppose their tactics. If the school bully is Jewish, it's not anti-semitic to call him a bully, even if the other kids aren't angels. (Which is in part why I find the reparations argument specious; we have a moral responsibility to offset present iniquities, rather than seek inadequate compensation for past ills.)

Someone, please, point me to a new generation of politicians in this argument, because the warmongers on both sides are beyond use. To hell with them all.
posted by holgate at 3:02 AM on September 4, 2001

cheheisen's post was extremely insightful. Perhaps it's because it spelled out two issues about the whole mess I'd already on brain RAM as I read it.

One, as cheheisen points out, the "Mission Statement" of the government of Israel is to keep Israel pure. As if it does not value such purity of stock, what reason is there for Israel to exist at all? Any patriotism in fact, when taken in this context, pales in concurrent examination with the merits of the ineluctable progress that an ever condensing planetary human populous would make and is making.

There is either tension (war) or there is community (peace). Yet there seems to be one last tactic that works demonstrably well too. And that is the official position of such spineless states, such as America, to sluff off everything important, as it might hinder wealth making and be a hindrance to so-called "stability" or it might enrage the white, racist, Christian right. Heaven forbid any leader in this country take a "pro global" stance on shit.

This also seems to encapsulate the next quip from che I happened to also find interesting:

For America to deny that Israel does not have a right to its purity would be to deny that African Americans have no right to their own going (deserved or not) retributions. And for the US govt to agree that African Americans deserve no less than an apology for slavery would be an admittance that wrong was done by dint that whites, far removed from their slave-owning ancestors, still bear the blame for the plight of blacks today, indeed all minorities, in this country today. To "apologize", forget payment of "damages", would open up a whole tangential can of worms that the US could ill afford to pay, ill afford to face--that there are people, 99.9% of the people aren't the special ones who have voice in the exclusively special interested American jurisprudence. Therefore of course, pretend such issues do not exist. Walk out of, refuse to participate in, global summits of humanitarian importance. No tough issue need ever be solved with official, calculated, ignorance. America's gotten this far haven't they?
posted by crasspastor at 4:03 AM on September 4, 2001

Seems to me the whole conference was ill-conceived. Other stuff has been going on, like India taking umbrage at being put on the list for the caste system, something suggested by Switzerland. And then there's the dragging in of all kinds of nonsense like ecological racism, gender racism (sexism), class racism etc etc etc. What's the bleeding point? What good will come of it? The whole thing's now officially a farce.
posted by Summer at 5:05 AM on September 4, 2001

Hello?! Most UN events are farces. People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Or rocks.
posted by ParisParamus at 5:36 AM on September 4, 2001

Sorry - Israel is actually the only place in the world where Arabs can actually vote, express themselves freely and generally enjoy democracy. Name one Arab country where this is wholly possible. Thought so.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 5:38 AM on September 4, 2001

Thanks, MC. The point can't be emphasized enough that Israel is a tiny place surrounded by the most extreme of regimes, where you can't vote; can't say the government is wrong; can't suggest a different path; and much worse if you're a minority or a women. Even Egypt, which gets nearly as much money from the US as Israel, is a de facto military regime due to, as least in theory, threat of fundamentalist revolution. Even in this climate, Israel manages to have a society freer than the vast majority of states accusing it of racism, etc. This is not even kettles calling a pot black. It's kettles calling a drinking glass which has been burned by the kettles black!
posted by ParisParamus at 5:52 AM on September 4, 2001

ParisParasmus - cheers! You rightly mention Egypt, which could be misconstrued as vaguely democratic, and remind me of something else you only have in Israel. As we all know, Egypt, although supposedly anti-fundamentalist, severely persecutes and punishes anyone suspected of "blasphemy" against Islam.
In Israel, that minuscule sliver of land wedged between enormous expanses of Arabia, there exists complete freedom of worship and religion. People waffle on about Jerusalem - the holiest site for Jews and the third-holiest for Muslims- but the fact is that the Israeli state has always protected the Temple Mount and the right of Muslims to worship there.
People in the West need to realise who their friends and allies are. Freedom is good for everyone. Man or woman, Jew or Muslim - all benefit from it.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:37 AM on September 4, 2001

Sorry, Paris Paramus - I misspelled your name.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:42 AM on September 4, 2001

Name one Arab country where this is wholly possible. Thought so.

Lebanon. In spite of Sharon's best efforts in the 1980s.

MC: the territorial integrity of Israel and its citizens isn't (and should never be) under question; its behaviour in the land it occupies is.

And less of the "As we all know", please, when it's "as I believe".
posted by holgate at 6:43 AM on September 4, 2001

Holgate:I stand corrected. I have been to Lebanon and enjoyed it immensely. It's more cosmopolitan and Mediterranean than the Med itself. The heat of the question must have got to me.
However, it is an exception. As is your attitude about the territorial integrity of Israel and its citizens, unfortunately. Also, "As I believe" is very different from "As we all know". Belief and knowledge cannot be confused without all of us suffering.
So, thanks to your knowledgeable correction, I can say that, apart from Lebanon and Israel, there is no true democracy in the Middle East.
And, since you introduce a desirable element of rationality and justice, I would say Turkey is well on the way to joining Israel and Lebanon.
What do you think?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 6:55 AM on September 4, 2001

MC: I would go easy on Egypt. They seem to be trying. Or, at least, a lot more so than Israeli's other "neighbors." OK. Jordan seems pretty cool these days, too.
posted by ParisParamus at 6:59 AM on September 4, 2001

posted by ParisParamus at 7:04 AM on September 4, 2001

Yeah, Southern Lebanon is out of control, meaning the legitimate, democratic Lebanese government is unable to stop Hizbollah and other armed terrorists from treating it as a launching pad and de facto military camp.
However the democratic traditions of Lebanon and its main political parties cannot be condemned because of this awful occupation, any more than Spain for the Basque terrorists.
Unfortunately the situation is so bleak, PP, we must clutch at every available straw.
In a strictly political analysis, in terms of existing conditions for liberal democracy, it is still true that only Israel meets all of them. But, as you say, we should go easy on Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey - and even Jordan, whose new king seems to be at least making some gestures towards acceptance of Israel.
posted by MiguelCardoso at 8:18 AM on September 4, 2001

You cannot blaim Israel for Lebanon's problems, holgate. Their government was destroyed by the PLO long before either the Syrians or the Israelis invaded to "restore order."
posted by Ptrin at 9:47 AM on September 4, 2001

When we are discussing the Middle East, I would like to bring notice to the role of the media (Western, cuz thats the only media in the world). Theoretically, media is supposed to be an un-biased reporter and analyst of the matter at hand/events. But I personaly think that due to cravings for hype, the media has not done justice to its spirit.
For example, within half an hour of the Oklahoma bombing, CNN showed sketches of a bearded Muslim cleric as the prime suspect. I can assure you that people around my office here in the USA looked at me differently that day. But in the end, it turned out to be a celeberated US veteran. I did not see CNN making any apologies.
The point in fact, each side should make extra ordinary efforts to understand how the other side views things. Christianity is good, but a Christian does can be good or bad. Same goes for Muslims and Jews. One cant blame Islam, Judism or Christianity for what their followers end up doing.
posted by adnanbwp at 9:55 AM on September 4, 2001

Correction - Grammar Mistake

"Christianity is good, but a Christian can be good or bad."
posted by adnanbwp at 9:58 AM on September 4, 2001

Ptrin: Lebanon was a surrogate battleground for all sides during the 80s, just like Central America and Afghanistan. Now, whether Hariri has the clout and the finesse to get rid of the last vestiges of Syria's presence in the south is hard to tell, and it'll depend as much on whether Bashar al-Assad has a similar ability to look forward instead of back.

(There's a programme on R4 tonight about Islam in Egypt, which is being trailed along the lines that "this isn't the fundamentalism of the 70s; it's a middle-class, intellectual movement, and that's much trickier to demonise." Bizarrely, you're also getting something similar in Iran, where the young Islamic intellectuals are just waiting for the old clerics to die off.)

ParisParamus: Israel's democratic system wouldn't pass muster in, say, the US, given its tendency to place excessive power in the hands of a few extremist parties. The flavour of PR used in Knesset elections hasn't helped in sustaining peace negotiations, because it turns the Israeli government into a hostage to daily events rather than the long-term. I can't imagine, for instance, that anything like the current situation in Northern Ireland would have been reached under a similar system in the UK, given the deadlock at the end of John Major's tenure, when his majority relied upon the support of the Unionist parties.

The point being that there needs to be a multilateral framework that has proper focus on specific local issues, rather than the grab-bag of the UN conference; and there needs, I think, to be a careful cultivation among powers outside the region of those who are likely to take on the mantle of leadership in 10 or 20 years' time, rather than those whose attitudes were honed in the days of full-scale war.

After all, Moses never made it into the Promised Land.
posted by holgate at 10:27 AM on September 4, 2001

Crasspastor:

Guilty of drinking and posting. A dangerous combination. Yikes.
posted by crasspastor at 10:49 AM on September 4, 2001

Unfortunately the situation is so bleak, PP, we must clutch at every available straw.

I agree, which is why I said to go easy on Egypt. Lebanon has a Christian population and relatively strong links to Europe. But still, as long as Syria is Syria, Hezbolah(sp) and Company isn't going away.

Israel's democratic system wouldn't pass muster in, say, the US, given its tendency to place excessive power in the hands of a few extremist parties...

Well, we don't have a parliamentary system. But yes, I would agree it's kind of wacky over there, but it still must be remembered that by most definitions, Israel has been in a state of war since its founding. So I'm not sure how extremist it is.

Also, I'm not sure if you're referring to political extremism or religious extremism (the two can be prismed-out). Just keep in mind that particularly when the Arab population is taken into consideration, Israeli society is not ruled by the ultra orthodox.
posted by ParisParamus at 3:17 PM on September 4, 2001

An interesting thing to throw into the mix of this discussion is the entire 'clash of civilizations' factor. While Israel is geographically part of the Middle East, in most ways it is a Western country. Inside its borders it has Western-style problems with racism. Outside it's more in the 1900's model of Colonial-style oppression.

I have lived and worked in Israel working with co-existence groups, and while it's true that Israel offers on paper Western-style civil rights to Arabs (keep in mind that this extends only to Arab citizens of Israel, certainly not to Palestinians who are certainly the most abused Arab people in the world), in practice it's not all its cracked up to be. Certainly it's no South Africa (not by a long shot) but there are daily incidents that remind them they are second-class citizens. I don't think it's even debatable for anyone who has lived among both populations.

But aside from that it brings up a very interesting point that kind of gets to the heart of racism in general. Many people like to point to the example of the other Arab countries near Israel (Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt) and hold them up to show that they are backwards, and lacking in any sort of human rights.

It's important to remember that Israel was founded by (generally) wealthy, European Jews who attempted to create a secular state in the image of the countries from which they emigrated (Austria, Germany, etc.). It was further helped by hundreds of billions of dollars in donations from Jews around the world, and the emigratation of very highly educated and enlightened people from Europe and beyond. Furthermore, the United States, the world's most powerful and wealthy country, has given Israel unprecendented support and aid, including interest-free loans, billions of dollars each year, and guidance and support in all circumstances.

Imagine if Syria or Jordan or Egypt or any country anywhere in the world enjoyed those same antecedants and support! Israel is essentially a European/American country in terms of founders, economic support, and parlimentary system. To compare it to countries like Syria and Lebanon, where the concept of the Western-style state is only about 50 years old, doesn't tell you very much.

I believe that had things gone differently, Israel could have been a major positive influence on the Middle East. And it's probably not too late, but every day the Israelis continue their idiotic and self-defeating policies of oppression in the Occupied Territories it gets a little bit harder.

Surely Israel is economically the envy of every country in the region. The problem is, just like colonialism, people find it hard to learn from you if you use your new-found power to dominate the region and subjugate the natives, treating them as less valuable than yourself. Just like colonialism, Israel's brutish policies make it much easier for neighboring countries to divert attention from their own brutish policies.
posted by cell divide at 4:08 PM on September 4, 2001