Righteous Victims
February 3, 2024 9:07 PM Subscribe
1948 and the roots of Israeli-Palestinian conflict "In the time of the British mandate, Jews and Palestinians, and Western and Arab powers, made fundamental choices that set the groundwork for the suffering and irresolution of today. Along the way, there were many opportunities for events to play out differently. We asked a panel of historians — three Palestinians, two Israelis and a Canadian American — to talk about the decisive moments leading up to the founding of Israel and the displacement of Palestinians and whether a different outcome could have been possible."
Covers the Balfour Declaration, the birth of Zionism, the Peel Commission, WWII and after, 1948 and the naqba. And all through it, the long and torturous history of the two-state solution.
Covers the Balfour Declaration, the birth of Zionism, the Peel Commission, WWII and after, 1948 and the naqba. And all through it, the long and torturous history of the two-state solution.
“Human history becomes more and more a race between education and catastrophe.” H.G. Wells
posted by robbyrobs at 10:37 PM on February 3 [4 favorites]
posted by robbyrobs at 10:37 PM on February 3 [4 favorites]
> all this history needs to be forgotten
To be forgotten it may need to be remembered.
Truth and Reconciliation commissions were powerful
posted by constraint at 10:45 PM on February 3 [21 favorites]
To be forgotten it may need to be remembered.
Truth and Reconciliation commissions were powerful
posted by constraint at 10:45 PM on February 3 [21 favorites]
Excellent article, storybored. Thanks for posting as a gift.
posted by CCBC at 11:57 PM on February 3 [5 favorites]
posted by CCBC at 11:57 PM on February 3 [5 favorites]
Great article. I do have one or two things I'd like to expand on, which no doubt they might have done so themselves if given more time... this would take several thousand pages, surely.
>"It’s often argued against the Palestinians, How come you didn’t accept partition? But it’s important not to read history retrospectively. When you look at the demographic realities of 1947 and the division of the land, it was 55 percent for the Jewish state and 45 percent for the Palestinian state even though there were double the number of Palestinians as Jews at that point."
There were 1.2 million Arabs and 0.6 million Jews living in the Mandate when the UNSCOP was considering the issue. Yes, by land area it was a closer closer to a 50:50 split rather than a 66:33 split, but when you look at the quality of the land, Israel got the raw end of the deal. The majority of land allocated to Israel was the mostly uninhabitable Negev desert. Even today, it comprises about 55% of Israel, but only 8% of its population, many of them nomadic Bedouin. In terms of habitable land in 1947, it looks like it was a fair split from the UNSCOP.
Key consideration was given to fairly dividing sea resources, water resources and cropland between the two states, hence the strange map that was drawn.
In terms of water - hotly contested today - the Arab state would control all the highlands, and thus all ground water aquifer access. The Jewish state would control the Sea of Galilee - a freshwater lake - and it would supply water to their state.
Of course, there's no reason we would need to take that point in 1947 as the groundwork for a 66:33 split of habitable land - why not 1920, or 1900, or 1800, when Jews were an even smaller minority? The UNSCOP could only deal with the facts on the ground at the time, and, as noted in the article, the Holocaust was not a factor in their decision making at all. The Partition had nothing to do with the Holocaust, it was about trying to find the best solution for the people currently living in the Mandate.
---
>I want to speak about the destructive power of nationalism. What we have here is the collision between two national movements that were born at about the same time. In 1905, the Lebanese intellectual Najib Azoury published a book in which he said these two national movements would have a destructive effect on the whole region. At the end of World War I, three multinational empires collapsed, the Ottoman, the Austro-Hungarian and the Russian. None of them was great at that point. But look at what they were replaced by — mostly ethnic conflicts and the collision between national movements in Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Levant.
At the center of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire was the simultaneous population exchange that made the nation-states of Turkey and Greece possible - Turkey expelled over a million Pontic Greeks into Greece, while Greece expelled 400,000 Muslims into Turkey, thus both creating a more ethnically homogenous society that fit the model of 20th century nationalism. There is a similar parallel to the Nakba where 750,000 Arabs fled Israel to seek refuge in neighbouring Arab states while 900,000 Jews fled neighbouring Arab states to seek refuge in Israel, in both cases often leaving their property and assets behind.
I think it's interesting he couches it as Empire being replaced by Nationalism, as though it were something we could go back to. Nationalism is evil, but like capitalism - it's the worst system, except for the all the others. In a sense, perhaps this what the unprecedented period of world peace has been since WW2 - Pax Americana is basically just Empire all over again, looming large from far away, keeping the ambitions of lesser nations in check.
posted by xdvesper at 12:31 AM on February 4 [18 favorites]
>"It’s often argued against the Palestinians, How come you didn’t accept partition? But it’s important not to read history retrospectively. When you look at the demographic realities of 1947 and the division of the land, it was 55 percent for the Jewish state and 45 percent for the Palestinian state even though there were double the number of Palestinians as Jews at that point."
There were 1.2 million Arabs and 0.6 million Jews living in the Mandate when the UNSCOP was considering the issue. Yes, by land area it was a closer closer to a 50:50 split rather than a 66:33 split, but when you look at the quality of the land, Israel got the raw end of the deal. The majority of land allocated to Israel was the mostly uninhabitable Negev desert. Even today, it comprises about 55% of Israel, but only 8% of its population, many of them nomadic Bedouin. In terms of habitable land in 1947, it looks like it was a fair split from the UNSCOP.
Key consideration was given to fairly dividing sea resources, water resources and cropland between the two states, hence the strange map that was drawn.
In terms of water - hotly contested today - the Arab state would control all the highlands, and thus all ground water aquifer access. The Jewish state would control the Sea of Galilee - a freshwater lake - and it would supply water to their state.
Of course, there's no reason we would need to take that point in 1947 as the groundwork for a 66:33 split of habitable land - why not 1920, or 1900, or 1800, when Jews were an even smaller minority? The UNSCOP could only deal with the facts on the ground at the time, and, as noted in the article, the Holocaust was not a factor in their decision making at all. The Partition had nothing to do with the Holocaust, it was about trying to find the best solution for the people currently living in the Mandate.
---
>I want to speak about the destructive power of nationalism. What we have here is the collision between two national movements that were born at about the same time. In 1905, the Lebanese intellectual Najib Azoury published a book in which he said these two national movements would have a destructive effect on the whole region. At the end of World War I, three multinational empires collapsed, the Ottoman, the Austro-Hungarian and the Russian. None of them was great at that point. But look at what they were replaced by — mostly ethnic conflicts and the collision between national movements in Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Levant.
At the center of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire was the simultaneous population exchange that made the nation-states of Turkey and Greece possible - Turkey expelled over a million Pontic Greeks into Greece, while Greece expelled 400,000 Muslims into Turkey, thus both creating a more ethnically homogenous society that fit the model of 20th century nationalism. There is a similar parallel to the Nakba where 750,000 Arabs fled Israel to seek refuge in neighbouring Arab states while 900,000 Jews fled neighbouring Arab states to seek refuge in Israel, in both cases often leaving their property and assets behind.
I think it's interesting he couches it as Empire being replaced by Nationalism, as though it were something we could go back to. Nationalism is evil, but like capitalism - it's the worst system, except for the all the others. In a sense, perhaps this what the unprecedented period of world peace has been since WW2 - Pax Americana is basically just Empire all over again, looming large from far away, keeping the ambitions of lesser nations in check.
posted by xdvesper at 12:31 AM on February 4 [18 favorites]
Yeah, all victims, everybody fucked, all bad whatever. Not forgotten maybe, but moved past, it’s all The Who did what when and must revenge that and can’t forgive this that makes it never solvable.
As far as emotions, yeah, maybe everyone involved does need to put them aside. But the right of return is a different matter, and to let it just be waived as "bygones be bygones" would be a travesty, an open acceptance of ethnic cleansing as a state tactic.
posted by Audreynachrome at 1:32 AM on February 4 [15 favorites]
As far as emotions, yeah, maybe everyone involved does need to put them aside. But the right of return is a different matter, and to let it just be waived as "bygones be bygones" would be a travesty, an open acceptance of ethnic cleansing as a state tactic.
posted by Audreynachrome at 1:32 AM on February 4 [15 favorites]
Great article, thanks for posting.
So much has been lost, on both sides, and the replacement, the culture of permanent war is so bleak on both sides.
Nationalism is a pest on humanity, but going back to the old empires isn't an option. Maybe some sort of EU-like structures could work, but the EU depends on democracy and its institutions.
posted by mumimor at 2:19 AM on February 4 [3 favorites]
So much has been lost, on both sides, and the replacement, the culture of permanent war is so bleak on both sides.
Nationalism is a pest on humanity, but going back to the old empires isn't an option. Maybe some sort of EU-like structures could work, but the EU depends on democracy and its institutions.
posted by mumimor at 2:19 AM on February 4 [3 favorites]
all this history needs to be forgotten
I think one forgets history with regards to the Middle East at one's peril. For example, so many of the USA's decisions leading up to the Iraq War showed little to no understanding of the complex history of colonialism in the region and how being an occupying force would inevitably resurrect those historical dynamics.
However, I would say that history needs to accountable to the possibilities of the present. The reality is that whatever the history is, there are around 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians (if one includes refugees in Lebanon and Jordan) who need to find a way to live side-by-side in a small strip of land. History that aims at finding a way to make this happen via expanding understandings beyond a simple Palestinian vs Israeli conflict can be helpful. I see this article as helpful in this respect in the way it points out that the situation is partly the result of the British policies and partly the fault of other Arab countries which more or less expelled their Mizrahi Jewish populations in response to Zionism. Beyond what is discussed in this article, such history might also point out that the dynamic of Jews vs Muslims which overdetermines popular reaction to Israel/Palestine is a weird 20th century abberation. Muslim-majority countries were historically much more welcoming to Jews than Christian ones and that the reason there was a millenium old Jewish population in Jerusalem at all was because when Muslims captured it from the Byzantines they lifted the centuries' old Roman-decreed ban on Jewish residency there.
At the center of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire was the simultaneous population exchange that made the nation-states of Turkey and Greece possible.... Nationalism is evil, but like capitalism - it's the worst system, except for the all the others.
While it is helpful to contextualise the Nakba by point out that mass population removal was an unfortunately common feature of the first half of the twentieth century, I think a little more context is needed for the Turkey/Greece example. Or maybe better put, I wouldn't want to appeal to early twentieth century Turkey as a paradigmatic example of state formation. The Greco-Turkish war was full of genocidal incidents on both sides and came only a few years after the Turkish perpetration of the Armenian Genocide. And to what end? Turkey never achieved being an "ethnically homogenous society", is still riven by Turkish-Kurdish tension and conflict, and wound up fighting a war with Greece over Cyprus a half-century after this 'exchange'.
More broadly, I hear a lot of analysis of Israel/Palestine that says that only ethnically homogenous states are ever successful or stable, but given the fact that there are 6000+ languages in the world and only 195 countries, that just can't be true. The reason why there's been peace in (western) Europe for nearly eight decades is largely because Europe has become a massive multiethnic quasi-state. The nation-state era of Europe was one of regular warfare and bloodshed culminating in WWII. Nearly every generation raised in ethnically homogenous nation-state-era Germany/Prussia invaded France. The myth of the necessity of the ethnic homogeneity of the nation-state continues to wreak havoc in contemporary politics, making victims of the Rohingya in Myanmar and the Uyghurs in China among others.
That's not to say that a one state solution would work in Israel/Palestine. I suspect there's too much pain, too much grief, and too much anger for that to ever work. But that is a tragedy, not a natural necessity or ethnic destiny. Jews and Muslims were able to live alongside one another in relative peace for over a millenium even while Christians were subjecting Jews to pogrom after pogrom in Europe. Articles like this are helpful for pointing out how the situtation Israel/Palestine finds itself is the result of a contingent history of decisions and responses. That history cannot be undone, but the fact that it was governed by contingency, not necessity, means that the current spiral of violence upon violence is not a necessary one either. A different future is possible.
posted by nangua at 2:38 AM on February 4 [31 favorites]
I think one forgets history with regards to the Middle East at one's peril. For example, so many of the USA's decisions leading up to the Iraq War showed little to no understanding of the complex history of colonialism in the region and how being an occupying force would inevitably resurrect those historical dynamics.
However, I would say that history needs to accountable to the possibilities of the present. The reality is that whatever the history is, there are around 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians (if one includes refugees in Lebanon and Jordan) who need to find a way to live side-by-side in a small strip of land. History that aims at finding a way to make this happen via expanding understandings beyond a simple Palestinian vs Israeli conflict can be helpful. I see this article as helpful in this respect in the way it points out that the situation is partly the result of the British policies and partly the fault of other Arab countries which more or less expelled their Mizrahi Jewish populations in response to Zionism. Beyond what is discussed in this article, such history might also point out that the dynamic of Jews vs Muslims which overdetermines popular reaction to Israel/Palestine is a weird 20th century abberation. Muslim-majority countries were historically much more welcoming to Jews than Christian ones and that the reason there was a millenium old Jewish population in Jerusalem at all was because when Muslims captured it from the Byzantines they lifted the centuries' old Roman-decreed ban on Jewish residency there.
At the center of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire was the simultaneous population exchange that made the nation-states of Turkey and Greece possible.... Nationalism is evil, but like capitalism - it's the worst system, except for the all the others.
While it is helpful to contextualise the Nakba by point out that mass population removal was an unfortunately common feature of the first half of the twentieth century, I think a little more context is needed for the Turkey/Greece example. Or maybe better put, I wouldn't want to appeal to early twentieth century Turkey as a paradigmatic example of state formation. The Greco-Turkish war was full of genocidal incidents on both sides and came only a few years after the Turkish perpetration of the Armenian Genocide. And to what end? Turkey never achieved being an "ethnically homogenous society", is still riven by Turkish-Kurdish tension and conflict, and wound up fighting a war with Greece over Cyprus a half-century after this 'exchange'.
More broadly, I hear a lot of analysis of Israel/Palestine that says that only ethnically homogenous states are ever successful or stable, but given the fact that there are 6000+ languages in the world and only 195 countries, that just can't be true. The reason why there's been peace in (western) Europe for nearly eight decades is largely because Europe has become a massive multiethnic quasi-state. The nation-state era of Europe was one of regular warfare and bloodshed culminating in WWII. Nearly every generation raised in ethnically homogenous nation-state-era Germany/Prussia invaded France. The myth of the necessity of the ethnic homogeneity of the nation-state continues to wreak havoc in contemporary politics, making victims of the Rohingya in Myanmar and the Uyghurs in China among others.
That's not to say that a one state solution would work in Israel/Palestine. I suspect there's too much pain, too much grief, and too much anger for that to ever work. But that is a tragedy, not a natural necessity or ethnic destiny. Jews and Muslims were able to live alongside one another in relative peace for over a millenium even while Christians were subjecting Jews to pogrom after pogrom in Europe. Articles like this are helpful for pointing out how the situtation Israel/Palestine finds itself is the result of a contingent history of decisions and responses. That history cannot be undone, but the fact that it was governed by contingency, not necessity, means that the current spiral of violence upon violence is not a necessary one either. A different future is possible.
posted by nangua at 2:38 AM on February 4 [31 favorites]
A core belief I have regarding this situation that I think sometimes leads me into conflict is that I refuse to believe that Israelis are so far gone as to be categorically unable to live in peace in a democratic state with Palestinians.
I think believing that of Israelis requires a level of dehumanisation that I don't want to tolerate. I'm not sure exactly what steps would make that possible, but I believe it is possible, and I think the only way to think it isn't possible is to believe that Israelis are not equals on the international stage.
posted by Audreynachrome at 2:44 AM on February 4 [8 favorites]
I think believing that of Israelis requires a level of dehumanisation that I don't want to tolerate. I'm not sure exactly what steps would make that possible, but I believe it is possible, and I think the only way to think it isn't possible is to believe that Israelis are not equals on the international stage.
posted by Audreynachrome at 2:44 AM on February 4 [8 favorites]
For those who may hae missed the Nina Paley (over)simplification. Tht done, now I shall attend to the post, for which thank you.
posted by BWA at 4:46 AM on February 4 [4 favorites]
posted by BWA at 4:46 AM on February 4 [4 favorites]
No examination of the conflict is complete without an acknowledgment of how the other Arab states use and abuse the Palestinians and the conflict, and how this is one of the many factors that has perpetuated the conflict. The Arab despotisms love the P/I conflict: they keep those 4th-generation refugee populations in camps and refuse to integrate them into their own societies, producing more militants, and they use the Palestinian cause as a way to deflect opposition to their own regimes. Let the people of (Jordan, Egypt, etc.) protest the treatment of the Palestinians all they want, as a means of blowing off pressure that is actually generated by their own shitty governments.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not "on the Israeli side here", though if you actually put a gun to my head, I'd pick Israel. Fortunately, nobody is doing that. But putting them in the same state would just result in an arms race of who could have the most children, and this world is already dreadfully overpopulated even before the Jackpot of climate change that's about to happen. Free Gaza from Israel, free Gaza from Hamas, free Israel from Likud. Establish a state in the West Bank and a free city in Gaza, along something very close to the 1967 borders, kick the "settlers" back into Israel and make the Israelis deal with those motherfuckers. Make both Palestinian states secular, democratic and entirely demilitarized, with the USA or some international consortium guaranteeing security. Let those states decide how many people they want to give the "right of return" to (the answer will be, zero). Let the petrostates build up the infrastructure. Will this satisfy anyone? No, but it's about the fairest thing we can hope for.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 6:15 AM on February 4 [9 favorites]
Don't get me wrong: I'm not "on the Israeli side here", though if you actually put a gun to my head, I'd pick Israel. Fortunately, nobody is doing that. But putting them in the same state would just result in an arms race of who could have the most children, and this world is already dreadfully overpopulated even before the Jackpot of climate change that's about to happen. Free Gaza from Israel, free Gaza from Hamas, free Israel from Likud. Establish a state in the West Bank and a free city in Gaza, along something very close to the 1967 borders, kick the "settlers" back into Israel and make the Israelis deal with those motherfuckers. Make both Palestinian states secular, democratic and entirely demilitarized, with the USA or some international consortium guaranteeing security. Let those states decide how many people they want to give the "right of return" to (the answer will be, zero). Let the petrostates build up the infrastructure. Will this satisfy anyone? No, but it's about the fairest thing we can hope for.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 6:15 AM on February 4 [9 favorites]
I'm reading (well, listening to) Caroline Elkins' Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire , and I'm currently in the middle of a chapter about Palestine. In my extremely casual and limited understanding of the history of the area, I hadn't understood what a large role Britain had played and how many decisions were made that directly led to more, rather than less, violence.
Truth and Reconciliation commissions were powerful
I don't know what the actual process will be to get from where we are now to a point where some level of trust and reconciliation is possible, but what gives me hope is that I have seen in my lifetime several seemingly-unsolvable conflicts become more or less resolved, in the sense of creating institutions and frameworks that allowed people to move forward without violence, while also not requiring the forgetting of history. The obvious examples would be Northern Ireland and South Africa, but there have been others. The tools and approaches from those won't necessarily work for the conflict between Israel and Palestine, but I can remember how unsolvable those seemed at one point, and how unthinkable the current situation would have seemed except to the most optimistic of people.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:38 AM on February 4 [12 favorites]
Truth and Reconciliation commissions were powerful
I don't know what the actual process will be to get from where we are now to a point where some level of trust and reconciliation is possible, but what gives me hope is that I have seen in my lifetime several seemingly-unsolvable conflicts become more or less resolved, in the sense of creating institutions and frameworks that allowed people to move forward without violence, while also not requiring the forgetting of history. The obvious examples would be Northern Ireland and South Africa, but there have been others. The tools and approaches from those won't necessarily work for the conflict between Israel and Palestine, but I can remember how unsolvable those seemed at one point, and how unthinkable the current situation would have seemed except to the most optimistic of people.
posted by Dip Flash at 6:38 AM on February 4 [12 favorites]
Let those states decide how many people they want to give the "right of return" to
You surely don't mean that you will dump this responsibility wholesale onto these new Palestinian states when the right of return is to the homes of those who were forced to flee violence? To legitimise the outright and blatant theft of homes?
"settlers"
Could you expand on what makes these quotation marks necessary? In what way are they not settlers?
posted by Audreynachrome at 7:55 AM on February 4 [5 favorites]
You surely don't mean that you will dump this responsibility wholesale onto these new Palestinian states when the right of return is to the homes of those who were forced to flee violence? To legitimise the outright and blatant theft of homes?
"settlers"
Could you expand on what makes these quotation marks necessary? In what way are they not settlers?
posted by Audreynachrome at 7:55 AM on February 4 [5 favorites]
You surely don't mean that you will dump this responsibility wholesale onto these new Palestinian states when the right of return is to the homes of those who were forced to flee violence?
More like, it's up to those states to decide how many extra people they're going to take on, especially as nascent states full of traumatized people. I think as part of my pie-in-the-sky plan for a compromise solution, there should be some kind of fund set up by the petrostates, the USA, Israel, etc., wherein the great-grandchildren of people who kept their apartment keys should be paid the fair market value of their property.
Could you expand on what makes these quotation marks necessary? In what way are they not settlers?
Well, "settler" usually implies "of a more or less unoccupied place". Those evil clowns get scare quotes because they're both the beneficiaries of deliberate policy by Israel (making up reasons why the West Bank Palestinians don't actually own their land, etc.) and also because they themselves go around kicking Palestinians off their land at gunpoint. "Settler" is way too benign a word for them.
I do think Biden starting to move the needle by addressing the settlers is a genius move. As we get closer and closer to the election, you're going to watch Biden gradually move that needle somewhere way closer to a two-(or three-) state solution by constantly addressing only the most egregious parts of Israeli behavior—and while you might think that bombing the hospitals is the most egregious, it's not, because like it or don't, the hospitals really were military targets.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 11:20 AM on February 4
More like, it's up to those states to decide how many extra people they're going to take on, especially as nascent states full of traumatized people. I think as part of my pie-in-the-sky plan for a compromise solution, there should be some kind of fund set up by the petrostates, the USA, Israel, etc., wherein the great-grandchildren of people who kept their apartment keys should be paid the fair market value of their property.
Could you expand on what makes these quotation marks necessary? In what way are they not settlers?
Well, "settler" usually implies "of a more or less unoccupied place". Those evil clowns get scare quotes because they're both the beneficiaries of deliberate policy by Israel (making up reasons why the West Bank Palestinians don't actually own their land, etc.) and also because they themselves go around kicking Palestinians off their land at gunpoint. "Settler" is way too benign a word for them.
I do think Biden starting to move the needle by addressing the settlers is a genius move. As we get closer and closer to the election, you're going to watch Biden gradually move that needle somewhere way closer to a two-(or three-) state solution by constantly addressing only the most egregious parts of Israeli behavior—and while you might think that bombing the hospitals is the most egregious, it's not, because like it or don't, the hospitals really were military targets.
posted by outgrown_hobnail at 11:20 AM on February 4
Well, "settler" usually implies "of a more or less unoccupied place".
At the risk of nitpicking about semantics, people use it that way as a deliberate erasure of whoever was there before, but except for the times that humans have moved into new places following retreating ice or prior to human inhabitation (like during the settlement of the Americas some tens of thousands of years ago), "settler" has always meant displacement.
But I agree with your actual point that people frequently use "settler" as a neutral term that elides the actual process of forcing other people to leave, or killing them, or however else the settlers take over. (Like, people happily say things like "My great-great-etc's were settlers who came west in the 1800's," but they don't say things like "My forebearers took advantage of and assisted an ongoing genocide by moving into Indian Territory as the surviving previous inhabitants were forced to leave.")
posted by Dip Flash at 12:50 PM on February 4 [4 favorites]
At the risk of nitpicking about semantics, people use it that way as a deliberate erasure of whoever was there before, but except for the times that humans have moved into new places following retreating ice or prior to human inhabitation (like during the settlement of the Americas some tens of thousands of years ago), "settler" has always meant displacement.
But I agree with your actual point that people frequently use "settler" as a neutral term that elides the actual process of forcing other people to leave, or killing them, or however else the settlers take over. (Like, people happily say things like "My great-great-etc's were settlers who came west in the 1800's," but they don't say things like "My forebearers took advantage of and assisted an ongoing genocide by moving into Indian Territory as the surviving previous inhabitants were forced to leave.")
posted by Dip Flash at 12:50 PM on February 4 [4 favorites]
So much stems from the catastrophe of WWI.
posted by doctornemo at 5:51 PM on February 4 [2 favorites]
posted by doctornemo at 5:51 PM on February 4 [2 favorites]
Nina Paley
Oof if anyone else hasn't looked in on Nina Paley in the past five years or so...be careful, it's a wild and not entirely happy ride
posted by pullayup at 7:24 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]
Oof if anyone else hasn't looked in on Nina Paley in the past five years or so...be careful, it's a wild and not entirely happy ride
posted by pullayup at 7:24 PM on February 4 [1 favorite]
A core belief I have regarding this situation that I think sometimes leads me into conflict is that I refuse to believe that Israelis are so far gone as to be categorically unable to live in peace in a democratic state with Palestinians.
I am Israeli. I am living in a democratic state with Palestinians. (The USA.)
The difference is that the state in question isn't just officially committed to holding Jews and Muslims as equal before the law. The state has a successful track record of it. Getting a nation state to that point is hard. Keeping a nation state at that point is not nearly as hard. (Though the work is never done and lack of diligence results in things like 2016.)
Israelis are not categorically unable to live in peace in a democratic state with Palestinians. They are categorically unable to risk everything they have, up to and including their lives, for a hypothetical democratic state with Palestinians.
posted by ocschwar at 7:54 PM on February 4 [7 favorites]
You surely don't mean that you will dump this responsibility wholesale onto these new Palestinian states when the right of return is to the homes of those who were forced to flee violence?
Part of the problem with coming up with any peace deal is that both sides have to give shit up in order to have anything resembling peace, and right of return is the big one the Palestinians have to give up because Israel is not about to say "sure, let's just let any Palestinian - the overwhelming majority of whom don't think we're a real country and refuse to recognize our governing authority - move back here and displace our own citizens who live here now" because no nation would agree to that.
Given that just about everybody who fled during the Nakba is dead now anyway it's kind of a moot point, because what meaning has "right of return" when it's return to a place you've never lived? The Palestinian insistence on right of return is one of the primary reasons every two-state peace deal has failed - including all of the offers in the 1990s and 2000s - and they are never, ever going to get it, so it's well past time for them to find some other means of compensation, like asking Israel for a lot of money for basically national startup/re-startup (which has at least been on the table before).
posted by mightygodking at 10:53 PM on February 4 [4 favorites]
Part of the problem with coming up with any peace deal is that both sides have to give shit up in order to have anything resembling peace, and right of return is the big one the Palestinians have to give up because Israel is not about to say "sure, let's just let any Palestinian - the overwhelming majority of whom don't think we're a real country and refuse to recognize our governing authority - move back here and displace our own citizens who live here now" because no nation would agree to that.
Given that just about everybody who fled during the Nakba is dead now anyway it's kind of a moot point, because what meaning has "right of return" when it's return to a place you've never lived? The Palestinian insistence on right of return is one of the primary reasons every two-state peace deal has failed - including all of the offers in the 1990s and 2000s - and they are never, ever going to get it, so it's well past time for them to find some other means of compensation, like asking Israel for a lot of money for basically national startup/re-startup (which has at least been on the table before).
posted by mightygodking at 10:53 PM on February 4 [4 favorites]
and right of return is the big one the Palestinians have to give up
The democratic ideal of "Equal Protection of the Laws" requires that if the Palestinians don't have a right of return then no-one has a right of return. Real rights aren't limited to demographic groups.
posted by mikelieman at 12:16 AM on February 5 [6 favorites]
The democratic ideal of "Equal Protection of the Laws" requires that if the Palestinians don't have a right of return then no-one has a right of return. Real rights aren't limited to demographic groups.
posted by mikelieman at 12:16 AM on February 5 [6 favorites]
The international community has a duty to not give in to the will of a rogue state, plausibly accused of genocide, run by blood and soil ethnonationalists, a state that plays us advertisements about how cool and free and woke they are while their teenagers are posting war crimes online and laughing about it.
It's not just a duty, but it's healthy and good to refuse to accept this. To demand better, to impose sanctions, never waive a human right, doing this makes for a better, more accountable world, rather than trading away our morality for a temporary peace which where the only two options are an inevitable re-eruption of violence or completely inhumane ongoing repression.
Your concept of a two-party solution where you waive the right of return, legitimising the use of force for ethnic cleansing, and creating a joke of a state (Make both Palestinian states secular, democratic and entirely demilitarized) will only lead to more horror. A state whose borders are under the military control of their neighbour is a colony, which is why Israel has not been conducting a valid war against another state, but a mass genocidal action against a population it controls as an occupying force.
posted by Audreynachrome at 12:31 AM on February 5 [10 favorites]
It's not just a duty, but it's healthy and good to refuse to accept this. To demand better, to impose sanctions, never waive a human right, doing this makes for a better, more accountable world, rather than trading away our morality for a temporary peace which where the only two options are an inevitable re-eruption of violence or completely inhumane ongoing repression.
Your concept of a two-party solution where you waive the right of return, legitimising the use of force for ethnic cleansing, and creating a joke of a state (Make both Palestinian states secular, democratic and entirely demilitarized) will only lead to more horror. A state whose borders are under the military control of their neighbour is a colony, which is why Israel has not been conducting a valid war against another state, but a mass genocidal action against a population it controls as an occupying force.
posted by Audreynachrome at 12:31 AM on February 5 [10 favorites]
The difference is that the state in question isn't just officially committed to holding Jews and Muslims as equal before the law. The state has a successful track record of it.
Oh come on. Israel hasn't even had a successful track record of holding other Jews as equal before the law.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 6:26 AM on February 5 [4 favorites]
Oh come on. Israel hasn't even had a successful track record of holding other Jews as equal before the law.
posted by Glegrinof the Pig-Man at 6:26 AM on February 5 [4 favorites]
Wow, some wild comments to start off this Monday.
Just want to point out that for reaching a solution, or, you know, some lasting peace and live together situation…all this history needs to be forgotten. Absolutely not. Northern Ireland and South Africa would not agree. Their solidarity with Palestine is rooted in history. South Africa bringing a case against Israel to the ICJ is a way of making sure that history is not conveniently forgotten.
just about everybody who fled during the Nakba is dead now anyway This is completely untrue. Here you go: https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=living+survivors+nakba
posted by wicked_sassy at 6:44 AM on February 5 [6 favorites]
Just want to point out that for reaching a solution, or, you know, some lasting peace and live together situation…all this history needs to be forgotten. Absolutely not. Northern Ireland and South Africa would not agree. Their solidarity with Palestine is rooted in history. South Africa bringing a case against Israel to the ICJ is a way of making sure that history is not conveniently forgotten.
just about everybody who fled during the Nakba is dead now anyway This is completely untrue. Here you go: https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=living+survivors+nakba
posted by wicked_sassy at 6:44 AM on February 5 [6 favorites]
Muslim-majority countries were historically much more welcoming to Jews than Christian ones and that the reason there was a millenium old Jewish population in Jerusalem at all was because when Muslims captured it from the Byzantines they lifted the centuries' old Roman-decreed ban on Jewish residency there.
I know what you mean, but this is a damning with faint praise. The entire Arab/Muslim world in general was "meh" as far as Jewish presence. For every Golden Age in Grenada, there were plenty of pogroms, forced exiles, and persecutions. At the same time, places like the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth had periods of relatively free Jewish communities in Europe. So, while on average, it was better to be a Jew in Medieval Arabia as opposed to a Jew in Medieval Europe, A) that's grading on a curve to a severe amount, B) the worst (and best) days in the Middle East compared to the worst (and best) days in Europe, C) during even the best of times, Jews were still discriminated against and not treated as a free nation.
And all this happened way before Zionism became a political force, so the idea often bandied about where the Middle East was a multifaith utopia under Muslim hegemony before those Zionists came and destroyed it is part of the obviously false revisionist history of the Jewish people in the area. In fact, the last 75 years of Israeli independence has been the only time in the Middle East since the fall of Judea that Jews both as individuals and as a nation have been liberated and equal members of a society in the area. Any wistful looks towards the past with rose-colored glasses must acknowledge what came before and treat it as real. There is no going back, but more importantly, not everyone wants to go back for very good reason!
posted by Lord Chancellor at 8:03 AM on February 5 [6 favorites]
I know what you mean, but this is a damning with faint praise. The entire Arab/Muslim world in general was "meh" as far as Jewish presence. For every Golden Age in Grenada, there were plenty of pogroms, forced exiles, and persecutions. At the same time, places like the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth had periods of relatively free Jewish communities in Europe. So, while on average, it was better to be a Jew in Medieval Arabia as opposed to a Jew in Medieval Europe, A) that's grading on a curve to a severe amount, B) the worst (and best) days in the Middle East compared to the worst (and best) days in Europe, C) during even the best of times, Jews were still discriminated against and not treated as a free nation.
And all this happened way before Zionism became a political force, so the idea often bandied about where the Middle East was a multifaith utopia under Muslim hegemony before those Zionists came and destroyed it is part of the obviously false revisionist history of the Jewish people in the area. In fact, the last 75 years of Israeli independence has been the only time in the Middle East since the fall of Judea that Jews both as individuals and as a nation have been liberated and equal members of a society in the area. Any wistful looks towards the past with rose-colored glasses must acknowledge what came before and treat it as real. There is no going back, but more importantly, not everyone wants to go back for very good reason!
posted by Lord Chancellor at 8:03 AM on February 5 [6 favorites]
Oof if anyone else hasn't looked in on Nina Paley in the past five years or so...be careful
Yeah, Nina Paley gave a talk at my university in 2018, and a screening of Seder-Masochism. My take at the time was mostly "get off my side": talks a good game on Israeli-Palestinian relations, has a justifiably bitter position on intellectual property but the actual actions she takes are hard to sympathize with, and endorses a gender-essentialist form of feminism which borders on trans-exclusionary. In the years since, that third aspect seems to have eclipsed pretty much any sense I might have had that she was pursuing a good purpose through dubious means.
posted by jackbishop at 9:27 AM on February 5 [2 favorites]
Yeah, Nina Paley gave a talk at my university in 2018, and a screening of Seder-Masochism. My take at the time was mostly "get off my side": talks a good game on Israeli-Palestinian relations, has a justifiably bitter position on intellectual property but the actual actions she takes are hard to sympathize with, and endorses a gender-essentialist form of feminism which borders on trans-exclusionary. In the years since, that third aspect seems to have eclipsed pretty much any sense I might have had that she was pursuing a good purpose through dubious means.
posted by jackbishop at 9:27 AM on February 5 [2 favorites]
> Jews were still discriminated against and not treated as a free nation.
> In fact, the last 75 years of Israeli independence has been the only time in the Middle East since the fall of Judea that Jews both as individuals and as a nation have been liberated and equal members of a society in the area
i'm going to get a little fiddly about language here, because using the idea of the nation to talk about 1. the middle ages, and especially 2. the pre-classical period is pretty badly ahistorical.
as previously acknowledged this is me being fiddly about language. however, i feel no shame about getting fiddly about language here. the situation in the geographical region under discussion is probably the world's foremost example of the sort of situation where thinking clearly about language and the history of ideas is absolutely crucial if one wants to understand what's going on / evade all the presentist nonsense that keeps people from thinking or saying anything coherent about the matter.
1: ireland is the runner up, but it is a distant, distant second
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:41 AM on February 5 [3 favorites]
> In fact, the last 75 years of Israeli independence has been the only time in the Middle East since the fall of Judea that Jews both as individuals and as a nation have been liberated and equal members of a society in the area
i'm going to get a little fiddly about language here, because using the idea of the nation to talk about 1. the middle ages, and especially 2. the pre-classical period is pretty badly ahistorical.
as previously acknowledged this is me being fiddly about language. however, i feel no shame about getting fiddly about language here. the situation in the geographical region under discussion is probably the world's foremost example of the sort of situation where thinking clearly about language and the history of ideas is absolutely crucial if one wants to understand what's going on / evade all the presentist nonsense that keeps people from thinking or saying anything coherent about the matter.
1: ireland is the runner up, but it is a distant, distant second
posted by bombastic lowercase pronouncements at 9:41 AM on February 5 [3 favorites]
It's true that using the term "nation" is usually very ahistorical, but the Jews have for the last couple thousand of years considered themselves a nation, a people, an Am (עם). The later attempts to boil down Jews into simply a religion always failed because it was this very specific group of people with a national consciousness (that developed and manifested in different ways). Spinoza noted that the Torah was just the national constitution of Judah, and that after the collapse, exile, and diaspora, it was repurposed into a religion, but the formula has always been, "People who do Judaism aren't Jews, the thing that Jews do is called Judaism."
All this to say that Jews as a nation apart (and a people defined by its religion, customs, culture, law, and language) has been present in a way that was far rarer for other groups at the time. Even during the Middle Ages, when "Christendom" was the predominant categorization when dealing with "Other," Jews were separate from Christians beyond their religious affiliations. That's why I feel comfortable using "nation" when talking about Jewish peoplehood.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 12:38 PM on February 5 [2 favorites]
All this to say that Jews as a nation apart (and a people defined by its religion, customs, culture, law, and language) has been present in a way that was far rarer for other groups at the time. Even during the Middle Ages, when "Christendom" was the predominant categorization when dealing with "Other," Jews were separate from Christians beyond their religious affiliations. That's why I feel comfortable using "nation" when talking about Jewish peoplehood.
posted by Lord Chancellor at 12:38 PM on February 5 [2 favorites]
The difference is that the state in question isn't just officially committed to holding Jews and Muslims as equal before the law. The state has a successful track record of it.
Oh come on. Israel hasn't even had a successful track record of holding other Jews as equal before the law.
Yes, there are lots of Israeli Jews who feel hard done-by by the Israeli state.
Ask any one of them what better option they feel they have.
posted by ocschwar at 12:45 PM on February 5
Oh come on. Israel hasn't even had a successful track record of holding other Jews as equal before the law.
Yes, there are lots of Israeli Jews who feel hard done-by by the Israeli state.
Ask any one of them what better option they feel they have.
posted by ocschwar at 12:45 PM on February 5
oscwar.
"living in a democratic state with Palestinians. (The USA.)"
I'm slightly confused as to your thesis supporting: "The difference is that the state in question isn't just officially committed to holding Jews and Muslims as equal before the law." does this refer to the state in the United States or the state of Israeli?
posted by clavdivs at 1:58 PM on February 5
"living in a democratic state with Palestinians. (The USA.)"
I'm slightly confused as to your thesis supporting: "The difference is that the state in question isn't just officially committed to holding Jews and Muslims as equal before the law." does this refer to the state in the United States or the state of Israeli?
posted by clavdivs at 1:58 PM on February 5
USA: committed to holding Jews and Muslims equally accountable to the law. Track record of doing so.
France: committed to holding Jews and Muslims equally accountable to the law. Track record of failing at it.
Israel: founding documents implicitly stating they will not be held equally accountable to the law.
Hypothetical Democratic republic of Israel-Palestine: who the hell knows.
posted by ocschwar at 2:38 PM on February 5 [1 favorite]
France: committed to holding Jews and Muslims equally accountable to the law. Track record of failing at it.
Israel: founding documents implicitly stating they will not be held equally accountable to the law.
Hypothetical Democratic republic of Israel-Palestine: who the hell knows.
posted by ocschwar at 2:38 PM on February 5 [1 favorite]
The democratic ideal of "Equal Protection of the Laws" requires that if the Palestinians don't have a right of return then no-one has a right of return. Real rights aren't limited to demographic groups.
Completely fair, but the Palestinians have insisted on about right of return for decades, turning down multiple two-state deals because it wasn't included, and right of return is not going to happen. You can complain about the unfairness all you want: it's not going to happen, because the Israelis absolutely won't agree to it - for some very practical reasons - and because there is literally nobody who is interested in forcing the Israelis to give it up, because the Islamic and Arab governments of the Middle East don't actually give a shit about the Palestinians beyond using them as a cudgel to attack Israel.
A two-state solution without right of return can have some very strong incentives included to make up for its lack - as I said, financial compensation is obvious, but getting the Israelis to drop their demands re: demilitarization is another (and realistically a militarized Palestine that, after getting its own state, declared war on Israel would A) immediately make the case that the Israelis were right all along and B) probably lose that war quickly).
I know it's easy for me, a non-Palestinian, to say "right of return is an impractical ask that's preventing you from getting an alternative that is vastly better than what you have now." But just because it's easy for me to say that doesn't make me wrong.
> just about everybody who fled during the Nakba is dead now anyway
This is completely untrue. Here you go: https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=living+survivors+nakba
Did I say "everybody"? No, I said "just about everybody." In much the same way that there are still living veterans of World War II, there are still living survivors of the Nakba - but the Nakba is more than 75 years old now, and the average life expectancy in Palestine is a bit less than that. Assuming that someone had to be about four or five to even really remember the Nakba as it was happening, they'd be about eighty now, and there simply aren't a lot of Palestinians who are that old.
posted by mightygodking at 3:17 PM on February 5 [1 favorite]
Completely fair, but the Palestinians have insisted on about right of return for decades, turning down multiple two-state deals because it wasn't included, and right of return is not going to happen. You can complain about the unfairness all you want: it's not going to happen, because the Israelis absolutely won't agree to it - for some very practical reasons - and because there is literally nobody who is interested in forcing the Israelis to give it up, because the Islamic and Arab governments of the Middle East don't actually give a shit about the Palestinians beyond using them as a cudgel to attack Israel.
A two-state solution without right of return can have some very strong incentives included to make up for its lack - as I said, financial compensation is obvious, but getting the Israelis to drop their demands re: demilitarization is another (and realistically a militarized Palestine that, after getting its own state, declared war on Israel would A) immediately make the case that the Israelis were right all along and B) probably lose that war quickly).
I know it's easy for me, a non-Palestinian, to say "right of return is an impractical ask that's preventing you from getting an alternative that is vastly better than what you have now." But just because it's easy for me to say that doesn't make me wrong.
> just about everybody who fled during the Nakba is dead now anyway
This is completely untrue. Here you go: https://letmegooglethat.com/?q=living+survivors+nakba
Did I say "everybody"? No, I said "just about everybody." In much the same way that there are still living veterans of World War II, there are still living survivors of the Nakba - but the Nakba is more than 75 years old now, and the average life expectancy in Palestine is a bit less than that. Assuming that someone had to be about four or five to even really remember the Nakba as it was happening, they'd be about eighty now, and there simply aren't a lot of Palestinians who are that old.
posted by mightygodking at 3:17 PM on February 5 [1 favorite]
The democratic ideal of "Equal Protection of the Laws" requires that if the Palestinians don't have a right of return then no-one has a right of return.
I'm a Sudetenland German descendant. A Jewish Sudetenland German descendant. I can point on Streetsview the house to which I do not have a right of return. And in fact for a time I would have had to sign papers renouncing any claim to that house if I wanted to enter Czechoslovakia. (Moot now, thanks to Schengen, I think, and it's not like the CZ state would run my genealogy to make sure, but either way, I do not have any affirmative right to get CZ citizenship, and even if I applied and it got approved, I'm not getting that house.)
The right of return is not a universally acknowledged right for anyone. It's a bargaining chip in the ugly realpolitik of this conflict, nothing more.
posted by ocschwar at 3:33 PM on February 5 [6 favorites]
Its funny, because I'm also a Sudetenland German descendant. I too can point on Streetview to the house in Czechoslovakia I have no right of return to. It's not an uncommon experience.
I consider that a reason to say "No, that was wrong, ethnic cleansing is never acceptable and we should not tolerate that again, we will not let Israel get away with this".
posted by Audreynachrome at 5:49 PM on February 5 [5 favorites]
I consider that a reason to say "No, that was wrong, ethnic cleansing is never acceptable and we should not tolerate that again, we will not let Israel get away with this".
posted by Audreynachrome at 5:49 PM on February 5 [5 favorites]
>While it is helpful to contextualise the Nakba by point out that mass population removal was an unfortunately common feature of the first half of the twentieth century, I think a little more context is needed for the Turkey/Greece example. Or maybe better put, I wouldn't want to appeal to early twentieth century Turkey as a paradigmatic example of state formation.
Thanks Nangua, that certainly wasn't my intention, and in fact, I mentioned it to emphasize that such events - on a larger and far more brutal scale ** - were sadly the norm at the time in the region as a result of the collapse of the empire, yet Greece and Turkey aren't locked in an intractable conflict like Israel and Palestine. I'd use this example to also come to same, hopeful conclusion as you do, that eternal conflict isn't an inevitable outcome.
** Not only did they kill 350,000 Pontic Greeks before expelling the million or so that remained, you mention the Armenian genocide (roughly 1 mil killed) and ongoing Kurdish oppression, they also killed 250,000 Assyrians Christians (Sayfo), expelled 15,000 Jews from Thrace, and probably more I haven't read about.
posted by xdvesper at 6:09 PM on February 5 [2 favorites]
Thanks Nangua, that certainly wasn't my intention, and in fact, I mentioned it to emphasize that such events - on a larger and far more brutal scale ** - were sadly the norm at the time in the region as a result of the collapse of the empire, yet Greece and Turkey aren't locked in an intractable conflict like Israel and Palestine. I'd use this example to also come to same, hopeful conclusion as you do, that eternal conflict isn't an inevitable outcome.
** Not only did they kill 350,000 Pontic Greeks before expelling the million or so that remained, you mention the Armenian genocide (roughly 1 mil killed) and ongoing Kurdish oppression, they also killed 250,000 Assyrians Christians (Sayfo), expelled 15,000 Jews from Thrace, and probably more I haven't read about.
posted by xdvesper at 6:09 PM on February 5 [2 favorites]
The Zionist mythology is, and has always been, that they have the unambiguous right of return to their ancestral homeland after nearly 2000 years. But Palestinians are expected to give that up after 75 years -- or in some cases 75 days or 75 hours (the people who have left Gaza during the current genocide are now exiles; Israel is not going to allow them to return any more than it will allow the survivors of the Nakba and their descendants to return.)
What if most, or all, would in fact rather die than give up the right to their homes? Are you going to let Israel murder them all?
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:27 PM on February 8 [3 favorites]
What if most, or all, would in fact rather die than give up the right to their homes? Are you going to let Israel murder them all?
posted by adrienneleigh at 2:27 PM on February 8 [3 favorites]
Nobody's asking you to play into Zionist mythology, adrienneleigh.
posted by ocschwar at 10:53 AM on February 11 [1 favorite]
posted by ocschwar at 10:53 AM on February 11 [1 favorite]
Both of the countries of which i'm a citizen (the US and Canada) are in fact demanding that i do just that, ocschwar.
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:29 PM on February 11 [2 favorites]
posted by adrienneleigh at 1:29 PM on February 11 [2 favorites]
Both countries have foreign policies. You are not required to speak in support of them.
posted by ocschwar at 5:43 PM on February 11
posted by ocschwar at 5:43 PM on February 11
No, but i am required to pay fucking taxes in support of them.
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:39 PM on February 12 [1 favorite]
posted by adrienneleigh at 5:39 PM on February 12 [1 favorite]
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I know that doesn’t exist right now, but I just want to say who fucked who in the past doesn’t matter for solution, if they want a solution, must not care about this.
posted by ixipkcams at 9:44 PM on February 3 [8 favorites]