Third UN School Attacked by Israel

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
61

[quote]So much with which to agree. But first a quibble:
"I do think that the creation of the state of Israel was an imperialist sleight of hand to hijack and confiscate the decolonization process of this region of the world. "

A little self-examination is a good thing here, and you have already acknowledged your “left” leanings. This small quote betrays the historical “deconstruction”–a term I use guardedly with a French philosophe.
The State of Israel was in process during the late Ottoman occupations, land purchases and rehabilitation, infrastructure, were well established before the British Mandate. Whether their efforts would have led to a state for the Zionist without the British Mandate is an impossible question.[/quote]

Fair enough.

Maybe i should i have said
“i can still understand how and why several generations of left-wing activists thought that it was an imperialist sleight of hand…”.

It was the old narrative.
It has many flaws, i’m well aware of that.
But it wasn’t entirely absurd, especially when one choose to adopt a not-too-narrow historical focus and count the Ottoman Empire among… the various manifestations of imperialism.

on the other hand (and it was my main point) :
-sticking to this narrative today, 75 fucking years after the fact, three generations after the fact, is entirely stupid.
-the new narrative is even worst.

Yes.
But the fact remains that the palestinian people(s) developed their aspirations to their own nation-states at the very same time the success of Zionism made them impossible to realize.
I can understand why they think they have been victims of an historical injustice.
Which does not mean that i think they are objectively right, and it does not mean that i approve their goals or their means.

62

Not really. Were the Germans in Sudetenland, Poland etc. “transnational minorities?” No. Palestinianism is best understood as the spearhead of pan-Arab nationalism. When it suited the purpose of pan-Arab nationalism the “Palestinians” were Egyptian and Jordanian nationalists.

The Holy Roman Empire used to be a patchwork of hundreds of mini states. They were easily united under Prussia because they shared a language, ethnicity and culture. The difference of course is that the Germanic petty states were once for a long time real sovereign states. They wrestled their independence from the Papacy and fought each other for centuries until they came to be united under Prussia and German grew into a nation.

If the Arabs in the territories are the spearhead of a wider nationalist movement and their identity only exists to reinforce this agenda then they have no legitimacy. The Arab world has legitimacy. Sovereign Arab nations could be said to have some legitimacy. The “Palestinian people” do not have legitimacy.

63

[quote]kamui wrote:

[quote]So much with which to agree. But first a quibble:
"I do think that the creation of the state of Israel was an imperialist sleight of hand to hijack and confiscate the decolonization process of this region of the world. "

A little self-examination is a good thing here, and you have already acknowledged your “left” leanings. This small quote betrays the historical “deconstruction”–a term I use guardedly with a French philosophe.
The State of Israel was in process during the late Ottoman occupations, land purchases and rehabilitation, infrastructure, were well established before the British Mandate. Whether their efforts would have led to a state for the Zionist without the British Mandate is an impossible question.[/quote]

Fair enough.

Maybe i should i have said
“i can still understand how and why several generations of left-wing activists thought that it was an imperialist sleight of hand…”.

It was the old narrative.
It has many flaws, i’m well aware of that.
But it wasn’t entirely absurd, especially when one choose to adopt a not-too-narrow historical focus and count the Ottoman Empire among… the various manifestations of imperialism.

on the other hand (and it was my main point) :
-sticking to this narrative today, 75 fucking years after the fact, three generations after the fact, is entirely stupid.
-the new narrative is even worst.

Yes.
But the fact remains that the palestinian people(s) developed their aspirations to their own nation-states at the very same time the success of Zionism made them impossible to realize.
I can understand why they think they have been victims of an historical injustice.
Which does not mean that i think they are objectively right, and it does not mean that i approve their goals or their means. [/quote]

Agreed.
The symbiosis of nationstate aspirations: Israel and Palestine; Kurds and Iran/Turkey/Iraq; Tibet and Han China; Uighur and Han China. All “co-developed” for various reasons of economy and migration and culture and history. Is a nation just a tribe with a flag?

64

[quote]
Not really. Were the Germans in Sudetenland, Poland etc. “transnational minorities?” No. Palestinianism is best understood as the spearhead of pan-Arab nationalism. When it suited the purpose of pan-Arab nationalism the “Palestinians” were Egyptian and Jordanian nationalists.

If the Arabs in the territories are the spearhead of a wider nationalist movement and their identity only exists to reinforce this agenda then they have no legitimacy. The Arab world has legitimacy. Sovereign Arab nations could be said to have some legitimacy. The “Palestinian people” do not have legitimacy.[/quote]

A few things :

-Even if the palestinians weren’t a Nation in 1900, or even in 1945 (a fact i acknowledged in my first post) they (try to) become one in their opposition to Israel.

They are not “Arabs” anymore, they are Arabs united by their experience with and against Israel. An expericen which set them apart of the other Arab Nations and other Arab people.

I suppose this process would probably have happened in a way or another, even without the creation of Israel. Because Zionism would still have been there.

-“being a nation” and “having some legitimacy” are two very different things in my leftist (and as such “non-nationalist”) eyes. I won’t automically derive the latter from the first, especially not in this case.

-i’m afraid pan-arabism is not the main force “behind” the palestinian movements today. The new generation is not nationalist anymore. It is islamist. Which shows both a radicalization and a deep change in political nature.

Had the Palestinian “natiogenesis” succeeded, it would actually be a good thing for Israel, since Israel would have someone to negociate a two-state solution with.

Now, they are facing something way worse than a wannabe-nation. They are facing a islamist version of a cultural revolution.
An ideological disease waiting to spread itself amongst the Arab citizens of Israel. (I suspect they are the primary target of Hamas’s “mediatic strategy”, before the fabled “international community”).

In a (quite ironic) way, the islamization of the palestinian movement means the death of its nationalist aspirations.
Hence my previous comment about the IDF being the last chance of survival of the palestinians as a nation.
If Israel doesn’t defeat the current incarnation of Hamas, they will be no Palestinians anymore. Only jihadists and their human shields.

65

[quote]kamui wrote:

A few things :

-Even if the palestinians weren’t a Nation in 1900, or even in 1945 (a fact i acknowledged in my first post) they (try to) become one in their opposition to Israel.

[/quote]

This merely demonstrates my point. Husseini himself was originally an Egyptian nationalist. With the rise of Zionism the concept of a Palestinian identity and right to statehood became merely a tactic of pan-Arab nationalism.

The whole Arab world is united against Israel. The fact that the Palestinians are on the frontline of Arab belligerence does not give them legitimacy as a distinct people with a right to form their own sovereign nation. And even if it did, Israel did not capture the territories from the Palestinian people but from the sovereign Arab states of Jordan and Egypt - States with whom the Palestinians identified themselves with in an ethnic, cultural and national sense. And if a national identity can be formed merely by illegitimate belligerency against another people then what legitimacy should we accord it? Would the allies have recognised the legitimacy of a people calling themselves Danzigians after the war?

And yet you appear to be accepting the concept of a distinct people known as Palestinians based solely on their shared opposition to a sovereign nation.

Islamic fundamentalism does not really change the pan-Arab nationalist character of the movement. It works in concert with pan-Arab nationalism.

I guess we disagree on what constitutes a “two state solution.” My interpretation is: British mandate % 2 = Israel and Jordan.

66

[quote]kamui wrote:

I come from the left of the left of the european far left.

[/quote]

Off topic, but what do you think of the identitarianists?

67

I had to google, never heard the word before. It must have arisen in the meltingpots of the world. If I understood it right, being a member of a small nationstate I’m probably kind of a result of identitarianism by default without thinking. Meaning, it’s a natural part of me without any ideological content. Interesting. It can have a sinister ring in it when made a conscious policy, though. The first page gave among others a link to Stormfront.
I have to read more, simple references to ontology and identity weren’t that helpfull.

68

[quote]kaaleppi wrote:
I had to google, never heard the word before. It must have arisen in the meltingpots of the world. If I understood it right, being a member of a small nationstate I’m probably kind of a result of identitarianism by default without thinking. Meaning, it’s a natural part of me without any ideological content. Interesting. I can have a sinister ring in it when made a conscious policy, though. The first page gave among others a link to Stormfront.
I have to read more, simple references to ontology and identity weren’t that helpfull.[/quote]

I was not so much asking about the ideology itself, but rather the people involved in the movement. I hate neo-nazis but the European anti-immigration movement is not solely made up of neo-nazis. In places like Greece and Eastern Europe these groups are mostly neo-Nazis but the Western European anti-immigration really has two main camps:

  1. People who are sick of mass immigration and the radical identity politics of the left.

And

  1. Neo-Nazis.

I share some views with 1. but none with 2.

I’m not a racial purist. I’m a cultural purist. For example in general the culture of the Chinese migrants in my country is in many ways compatible with my culture so I’m happy for some of them to be absorbed into the society and gradually assimilated. Some aspects of their culture are better than mine and my culture could benefit - for example, they have a very strong sense of the importance of the family, they greatly respect older people, they’re hard working and don’t commit much crime - etc.

But large numbers of people of other less compatible cultures are coming into my country and are imposing their own culture and fracturing the civil society. The most aggressive are doing this openly - for example, there’s a very popular sticker that many young Lebanese put on their car that has Australia with the red and white stripes with green cedar tree and the words “Under New Management.” The people who display these stickers are not religious Muslims - they’re secular thugs. Most of them were born in Australia and they have no cultural identity either because they’re alienated from their own Lebanese culture and they hate our culture.

Edit: Many of the Lebanese here don’t have any kind of cultural identity because the civil war in Lebanon fractured their own society. After the PLO moved in the society fractured into many overlapping camps > Lebanese, Palestinians, Druze, Shia, Sunni, Maronite, hard left secular groups etc. they all ended up fighting in each in a war of shifting alliances and backstabbing while France and the US stood by. My point is, large numbers of refugees came to Australia from the Lebanese civil war in the 80’s and 90’s. But they weren’t all innocent victims of the war looking for a better life. Many of them were crazies who’d just destroyed their own country and have moved into mine like locusts to start all over again.

69

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

I was not so much asking about the ideology itself, but rather the people involved in the movement. I hate neo-nazis but the European anti-immigration movement is not solely made up of neo-nazis. In places like Greece and Eastern Europe these groups are mostly neo-Nazis but the Western European anti-immigration really has two main camps:

  1. People who are sick of mass immigration and the radical identity politics of the left.

And

  1. Neo-Nazis.

I share some views with 1. but none with 2.

I’m not a racial purist. I’m a cultural purist. For example in general the culture of the Chinese migrants in my country is in many ways compatible with my culture so I’m happy for some of them to be absorbed into the society and gradually assimilated. Some aspects of their culture are better than mine and my culture could benefit - for example, they have a very strong sense of the importance of the family, they greatly respect older people, they’re hard working and don’t commit much crime - etc.

But large numbers of people of other less compatible cultures are coming into my country and are imposing their own culture and fracturing the civil society. The most aggressive are doing this openly - for example, there’s a very popular sticker that many young Lebanese put on their car that has Australia with the red and white stripes with green cedar tree and the words “Under New Management.” The people who display these stickers are not religious Muslims - they’re secular thugs. Most of them were born in Australia and they have no cultural identity either because they’re alienated from their own Lebanese culture and they hate our culture.[/quote]

You maybe have heard of the True Finns, a relatively new party in Finland. They got several seats in EU parliament in the last elections. Identitarianism as a term probably define them quite well. Some try to paint the as far right, which is bollocks, they are conservatives and traditionalists, which in finnish context means traits from both left and right. As a young party their biggest problem has been with weirdos and kind of nazis who tried to use them as a channel. They have cleaned their ranks of these elements recently. Not my thing, but they are on their way of turning from a protest movement to a real party.

Can’t be denied that cultural similarities ansd certain cultural values make assimilation easier. Asians fare better no matter what country they move in in.

70

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

[quote]kamui wrote:

I come from the left of the left of the european far left.

[/quote]

Off topic, but what do you think of the identitarianists?[/quote]

You know the old joke :
one trotskyist : one trotskyst
two trostkyists : a party
three troskyists : a scission

there’s another version now

an identitarian : an identarian
two identitarians : a movement
three identitarians : a scission
four identitariasn : a boy band

But joke aside, maybe you should make a thread about this topic.
Not only identiranianism but the whole “cultural supremacism” thing too.

71

[quote]kamui wrote:

You know the old joke :
one trotskyist : one trotskyst
two trostkyists : a party
three troskyists : a scission

there’s another version now

an identitarian : an identarian
two identitarians : a movement
three identitarians : a scission
four identitariasn : a boy band

[/quote]

That’s a good one. The problem with these groups is they can never gain widespread electoral success because too many interest groups are against it. The nativist platform will only ever get the white vote. The interests of the host society are essentially disenfranchised in one generation and relegated to a minority interest group opposed by every other interest group in society. This is where the multicultural experiment breaks down and the society becomes engulfed in sectarianism and civil war. That’s why the Marcusian gay cake rules are important. Can a gay man force a cross-eyed Islamic fundamentalist to bake him a gay cake? I don’t think so. Which is why many groups that might at first appear to be at odds - eg, gays and Christians - really have an interest in working together on this immigration thing.

72

[quote]kaaleppi wrote:

[quote]SexMachine wrote:

I was not so much asking about the ideology itself, but rather the people involved in the movement. I hate neo-nazis but the European anti-immigration movement is not solely made up of neo-nazis. In places like Greece and Eastern Europe these groups are mostly neo-Nazis but the Western European anti-immigration really has two main camps:

  1. People who are sick of mass immigration and the radical identity politics of the left.

And

  1. Neo-Nazis.

I share some views with 1. but none with 2.

I’m not a racial purist. I’m a cultural purist. For example in general the culture of the Chinese migrants in my country is in many ways compatible with my culture so I’m happy for some of them to be absorbed into the society and gradually assimilated. Some aspects of their culture are better than mine and my culture could benefit - for example, they have a very strong sense of the importance of the family, they greatly respect older people, they’re hard working and don’t commit much crime - etc.

But large numbers of people of other less compatible cultures are coming into my country and are imposing their own culture and fracturing the civil society. The most aggressive are doing this openly - for example, there’s a very popular sticker that many young Lebanese put on their car that has Australia with the red and white stripes with green cedar tree and the words “Under New Management.” The people who display these stickers are not religious Muslims - they’re secular thugs. Most of them were born in Australia and they have no cultural identity either because they’re alienated from their own Lebanese culture and they hate our culture.[/quote]

You maybe have heard of the True Finns, a relatively new party in Finland. They got several seats in EU parliament in the last elections. Identitarianism as a term probably define them quite well. Some try to paint the as far right, which is bollocks, they are conservatives and traditionalists, which in finnish context means traits from both left and right. As a young party their biggest problem has been with weirdos and kind of nazis who tried to use them as a channel. They have cleaned their ranks of these elements recently. Not my thing, but they are on their way of turning from a protest movement to a real party.

Can’t be denied that cultural similarities ansd certain cultural values make assimilation easier. Asians fare better no matter what country they move in in.[/quote]

Yeah I’ve heard of the True Finns. I don’t think any nativist party anywhere in the Western world has the chance of widespread electoral success and there’s not much they could do if they did. Eastern Europe seems to be divided along nativist mostly neo-Nazi lines versus Russian nationalist lines. Europe is heading towards disaster again in my estimation. Third time lucky eh?

73

The difference is that the Isreali army and defences are much better than the Palestinians. Hamas fires rockets at Isreal, which are aimed poor and shot down by the anti air defences (which costs Isreal a lot of money). Isreal fires rockets at Gaza, but hamas cant stop those. Result is high Palestinan victims and low Israelian victims. But those rockets Hamas fires are intended to kill people as well, i do believe that if Hamas would have better weapons they would start to kill Isrealians in big numbers. Its just that Hamas cant, but not that they wouldnt.

Hamas is wrong to fire rockets at Isreal and should stop. This is just asking for trouble and i dont blame Isreal for reacting (wether the measures Isreal takes are apropriate is another question). The actual people in Gaza should understand this and should stop theire support of Hamas (i know that they dont see it this way due to propaganda). Hamas is a rotten organisation that shouldnt be in charge of a country and people should stop supporting them. Hamas uses city´s as theire battlefield, which is asking for civilian casualties.