Personal Reflections On Palestine (Norman Finkelstein)

[Resistance]

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=4175

I've no sympathy for the settlers; indeed, I consider them legitimate targets of armed resistance (apart, of course, from the children). If, backed by armed might, they choose to steal the ground (and water) from under the feet of Palestinians, then let them reap what they have sown. However, I still struggle for the "correct" attitude toward Israeli soldiers. Leaving Gaza I see three Israeli young people stationed at the checkpoint: a shapely woman straight from the set of a James Bond film wearing close-fitting green fatigues and leather stiletto-heeled shoes, a young fellow sitting on a stoop singing and strumming on his guitar a haunting Hebrew melody, and a second youth wearing horn-rimmed glasses with very thick lenses. Each incongruously brandishes an assault weapon half his or her size. For God's sake, what are they doing here? But wait: Gaza is the "largest concentration camp ever to exist." Why am I pitying these concentration camp guards?

I have no more compunction as a Jew about Israeli soldiers (and settlers) suffering setbacks in the Occupied Territories than I have as an American about G.I.s suffering setbacks in Iraq. I celebrate every victory over foreign occupiers. Just as I rejoice in the blows partisans inflicted on the Nazi occupiers in Europe, so I rejoice in the blows Hezbollah inflicted on the Israeli occupiers in Lebanon, Palestinians inflict on the Israeli occupiers, and Iraqis inflict on the American occupiers. This solidarity doesn't spring from intellectual or political artifice. I don't struggle against my tribal or patriotic impulses to be morally consistent. Rather the contrary, it's constitutional - I viscerally loathe occupiers, all occupiers. (Another family gene?) It makes not a whit of difference whether they're Jewish or American. If I have compunction - and I do - it's for the combatants whose blood is shed. They are young, in the springtime of their lives. They could easily be my students. (Several of those shipped to Iraq were.) Most don't want to be where they are; they want to be home. If anyone has to be in the line of fire, how much I would prefer that they be the wretched politicians who sent them or the blow-dried, gym-fit pundits, academics and journalists who beat the drums of war, from afar. Nonetheless, I won't defend cocky marauders and conquering vandals, lawless ubermenschen riding roughshod over the lives of innocents. Nazi soldiers were also youths in the springtime of their lives….

... it's utterly hypocritical for Israelis to wonder aloud why Palestinians don't pursue a non-violent strategy. One obvious reason is that, whenever they have, Israel brutally represses it. The British philosopher Bertrand Russell, although a committed pacifist, doubted the efficacy of non-violent resistance in Nazi Germany: "It depends on the existence of certain virtues in those against whom it is employed. When Indians lay down on railways, and challenged the authorities to crush them under trains, the British found such cruelty intolerable. But the Nazis had no scruples in analogous situations." The burden is not only - or even mainly - on Palestinians to practice non-violence but also on Israelis to prove that they will react positively to it. Judging by the fates of Rachel Corrie and Tom Hurndall - not anonymous Palestinians but citizens of Israel's two closest allies - it would seem that Israel's response is closer to Nazi Germany's than Great Britain's. It must be said, however, that the suicide bombing attacks haven't helped - another reason to question their wisdom, although it must also be said that Israelis didn't display any mercy during the first, overwhelmingly non-violent, intifada either. Finally, even if terrorism did manage to effect an Israeli withdrawal, its very success would redeem a morally reprehensible weapon. The Palestinian state to which it gave birth might well become a place few Palestinians would want to live in.

[Jim Sagle]

1. Norman ain't nuthin' but Nazi filth.

:puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke:

[newyorican]

2. CLEAN UP AISLE ONE!!

:thumbsdown:

[dudeness]

3. funny how some people

see a glass half full whilst others see the same glass half empty..

Meanwhile, the Portuguese Nobel laureate in literature, Jose Saramago, invoked the "spirit of Auschwitz" in depicting the horrors inflicted by Israel, while a Belgian parliamentarian avowed that Israel was "making a concentration camp out of the West Bank." (The Observer, 7 April 2002) Israelis across the political spectrum recoil in outrage at such comparisons. Yet, if Israelis don't want to stand accused of being Nazis they should simply stop acting like Nazis... norman finkelstein

[dfong63]

5. so how come your accusation isn't "anti-semitism", Jim?

[Resistance]

6. don't expect an answer

this is a just a customary routine Sagle does whenever anyone speaks out against the immorality and injustice of Israel's occupation.

[Jim Sagle]

7. Self-evident.

[bemildred]

8. It's sort of tit-for-tat.

Finkelstein says much the same thing about Israelis,
but in a more detailed and coherent way. I personally feel
it would be better to leave the Nazis out of it, it just
muddies up the water, which is already fairly muddy.

[Resistance]

9. I see your point

but Finkelstein has obviously been tremendously affected by the Nazi holocaust, and draws on the horrors, abominable crimes, and cruel injustices to remind him that oppression and persecution against that racial 'other' group committed by the State are wrong, and must be vigorously opposed. It's not easy taking a stand, particularly in the face of all the blind nationalism which he surely is forced to confront.

[bemildred]

10. Violence does resemble violence,

no matter how much you pretty it up with words.

I wanted to explain the similarity, as I saw it,
and I do think Mr. Finkelstein would make his point
better if he had respected Godwin's law. One could
discuss occupiers without mentioning Nazi's, and it
would most likely set off fewer Pavlovian responses
in the audience. I must say his examples are telling,
but still, one could use the Japanese just as easily,
for example, or slavery in the Americas, two name a
couple.

It's not that I disagree with his comparison, its a
fairly obvious, if arguable one, and one sees it here
regularly. I tend to agree, I think the proponents and
practicers of violence are the enemies of all the rest
of us who have more constructive things to do, although
they will say such an attitude is completely unrealistic,
but in fact lots of people live that way. A distaste for
larceny goes a long way in promoting a quiet life.

http://info.astrian.net/jargon/terms/g/Godwin_s_Law.html

[dutchdemocrat]

4. Jewish Nazi?

I think he written a lucid article... and you labeling him is rather cowardly as he is over there seeing what it is really like and you are being sucked into the propaganda machine.

Nice piece. Out with Sharon!