Letters to the Editor
MacK..
Published Letters: 477 Editor's Choice: 49
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Too little and now it's too late
[Read the article: "Hamastan" vs. "Fatahstan"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It may be cynical, but since so many or Israel's backers see the Palestinians as little better than animals, perhaps communicating what has happened in Animal behavior terms might finally penetrate their thick skulls.
Training animals requires both punishment and reward. To punish an animal even when its behavior is good or improving is to simply drive it made -- similarly, good behavior rewarded, encourages further good behavior. So, how have the Israelis and the US treated the Palestinians -
When the Palestinians did what the Israelis and US wanted, at the behest of Likud and AIPAC they still got screwed. Settlements continued, US funding for settlements continued, the economic oppression of the Palestinians continued, the endless chorus that they should accept their lot continued, the US placed no pressure on Israel to investigate actions of its own forces (for example Rachel Corry), violence by settlers against Palestinians (remembering that whatever the average Israeli, settlers really hate Palestinians (its like blacks having the Klan move in next door)), the US pressed the Palestinians to accept a Bantustan state -- and the existing government was given minimal respect.
Did they get any reward -- nothing tangible.
So here is the question, why should the Palestinians see any downside to a Hamas government. What is going on now is a debate about how to make things worse, which involves a lot of head-scratching as the Israelis try to think what they might get away with that they are not already doing -- and finding it kinda tough. Sure, they could take human shields, but even the supone US media would find that a hard sell, they could cutoff aid -- food and medicine even more than they are already doing -- but holy shit, even AIPAC would have trouble spinning that away, cut off money and the Gazan economy -- well they have been doing that in various ways for the last 2 years.
A bigger problem for Israel is tone-deafness, both of Israel, the Likudniks and AIPAC and its lobby in DC. So shrill are Israel's shills, so inclined to fling charges of anti-Semitism, that they cannot engage with people in any normal way -- which means that increasingly they do not hear what people think. And my impression is that the US public mood is turning very dangerously against Israel; the recent calls by its shills (e.g., Lieberman, Perle, Krauthammer) for an attack on Iran, indeed perhaps a nuclear one, and heavy-handed lobbying by Israel, coming right now, with the situation in Iraq as bad as it is, and with a sense (fair or unfair) that the "Israel Lobby" that now wants Iran attacked, had a major role in getting the US into the Iraqi mess, may drive a backlash. In other words, the best thing AIPAC could do now for Israel's interests is to simply shut up, or start asking for a major humanitarian aid program for
Gaza (food, medicine) and real economic aid for the West Bank -- but don't hold your breath, as I said, the AIPAC types and Likud see the Palestinians as animals, vermin in fact . . .
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Is Islam a religion of violence -- are its beliefs facisistic
[Read the article: "Hamastan" vs. "Fatahstan"]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Well quite possibly. Certainly the extreme Shiites of Iraq are an unpleasant bunch, as are the Wahabbis. But historically Palestinians Muslims (many are and were also Druze, Christian (Maronite, Catholic and Orthodox) were the most liberal and cosmopolitan of Muslims, tolerant of alcohol, Christians eating pork, Jews and others -- there are reasons, mainly that Palestine with its neighbour Lebanon and the closer parts of Syria were a polyglot and cosmopolitan places. It did actually take Israeli encouragement to get Hamas going, while religious extremists have been able to sell the disaster that fell on the Palestinians since 1947 as gods punishment for being liberal Muslims -- and since nothing else has worked . . . why not agree.
More to the point, there are plenty of Jews, Christians and Hindus with views that charitably could be called violent and facist -- certainly some of the ultra-orthodox Jewish sects and the settlers, the extreme Hindu parties of India are pretty nasty, while a number of Christian groups, especially thos inclined to believe themselves "Elect" are pretty nasty as well.
So one can pick and choose . . . sure there are a good few more nasty Islamicists, and most of the nastier Jewish groups are confined to Israel and parts of Brooklyn, and the weirder Christians found mostly these days in the southern US and Northern Ireland, the wackier Hindus in India. But I'll say one thing, you do not find a bunch of dipshit AIPAC-like guys calling for these fundamentalists to be treated the way the Palestinians are treated -- but as far as a bunch of the Israel backers posting here are concerned, its all right to do it to the Palestinians and wholly wrong for the Palestinians to respond with violence.
To any supporter of Israel who seems to not understand the roots of reason behind Palestinian violence, I suggest reviewing the history of the Stern Gang and the Irgun -- it's not pretty at all -- it worked for the Israelis . . . why should the Palestinians not think that it might work for them?