so Hamas' new government is broke

This is all assuming that Israel does not just shut down the PA, obv.

Israel's new gov't shutting down the PA doesn't seem too likely to me - if the int'l community's on their side, they may as well just sit back and let Hamas implode.

If you want to read my summary of what this academic johnny had to say, click here: http://huntingmonsters.blogspot.com/2006/02/hamas-palestine.html

One might say that this insight is scarcely one that is personal to you

That won't recognize the right of the state of Israel to exist.

It's also worth noting that nobody is cutting off aid to the Palestinians. They are cutting off aid to Hamas. The US plans to divert most of its PA aid to humanitarian organizations, for example. Food and supplies will reach the Palestinians as long as Hamas doesn't try to block imports. So naturally, that's exactly what they are doing (by blocking imports from Egypt). Note to aspiring corrupt PA govts: starving your own people is AOK as long as you get to blame Israel at your convenience. Who says that Hamas didn't learn any tricks from Arafat?

Speaking of which -- did Suha Arafat get paid this month? We certainly wouldn't want her to cut back on her daily Parisian shopping sprees when there are Palestinians without jobs or food.

(personally I find this illuminating an interesting point about the Arab world - that its zealots are often quick to proclaim the west/infidels/imperialists as the source of all their problems, neatly sidestepping any more deeply rooted, internal failings.)

And you're surprised by this? (I can't tell if you are or not)

Wait, I don't understand -- is Israel withholding tax monies it collected from Palestinians or is it just withholding appropriations from its own budget?

has there been talk anywhere else on ilx of the slide towards "civil war"?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6751079.stm
people who know more than me: what are the ramifications of this? is this what israel / USA wants?

I think ILX generally lost interest in Palesrael.

I got the impression ages ago that Palestinian civil war was something the Israelis actively wanted, but they may now be deciding that they did not really want it after all.

At the moment, the ramifications of all this seem to be that Hamas are taking over the Gaza strip. This might trigger an Israeli reoccupation of the strip, which would in some ways suit Hamas even if it sucked for many other people.

it would "suit them" in the sense that it would prove them "right"?

the street violence on the news last night was shocking. is the wall and israel security so strong that this violence couldn't actually creep across their borders?

I think ILX shies away from the shitstorm that occurs every time we discuss the Palesreal situation.

Palestinian civil war reinforces the commonly held isreali view that the arabs are base and violent and can never be civilised (pretty much the exact words of the mayor of jerusalem on the world this weekend on sunday)

but surely having a civil war on your doorstep is still a pretty bad thing? or is the thinking: "if they're killing each other then they're not killing us"?

That is an undercurrent but what it does is reinforce the idea that there can be no deal with the Palestinians and that there is no one who can be negotiated with, that the Palestinians can be nothing other than brutal and violent. Not realising that the cicl war is the almost inevitable consequence of disenfranchising an entire population and cramming them into ever smaller and ever more isolated enclaves.

it would "suit them" in the sense that it would prove them "right"?

I think more that if they fite each other they leave Israel alone, though obviously if they smash up Gaza then the IDF does not have to do it.

is the wall and israel security so strong that this violence couldn't actually creep across their borders?

I think it is strong enough such that it is more or less impossible for armed cadres to infiltrate into Israel proper except in exceptional circumstances, but they can fire rockets into border towns.

The word seems to be that Hamas are taking over in Gaza. This is interesting. I think there is an extent to which the Israelis and Americans have cosied up to Fatah, maybe they will arm them more to crush Hamas? It would not do much for Abbas & Fatah's credibility to become a blatant gang-boss for the occupation, but given the kind of pro-Western gangsters with zero credibility who run most Arab states it probably would not do them any harm in the long run.

I reckon Gaza is going to be like that refugee camp in Children Of Men during the uprising, only forever.

I think ILX generally lost interest in Palesrael.

For me lost hope is more like it, unfortunately. I'll never completely lose interest.

given the kind of pro-Western gangsters with zero credibility who run most Arab states it probably would not do them any harm in the long run.

But the fear of being seen as "collaborators" has been a problem for any remotely pro-peace Palestinians from the beginning.

I'm making a comparison with someone like Mubarak, the President of Egypt, who has zero credibility among Egyptians but can remain in power through force of arms and support from the west.

I've started feeling sorry for Mubarak, he is the emblematic "everyone hates you" rubbish Arab world leader. Where did it all go wrong?

One obvious problem with civil war is that the people who come out ahead are likely to be the best killers and the biggest demagogues. In the long term, an Israel with any sense would worry about that. But of course Israel has not yet exhibited a ton the long-term sense that would suggest promoting the opposite dynamic -- the kind of economic security and cultural development that lets people believe in cooperative moderates.

OK, well, civil war it is.

or is it civil war narrowly avoided??

The BBC's Matthew Price in Jerusalem says that once the decree is signed, the West Bank and Gaza Strip will effectively be split from one another - Gaza run by Hamas and the West Bank by Fatah.

i like this bit on the CNN page, makes it seem like the government buildings just crumbled and vanished in a POOF! of smoke and dust.

http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2007/WORLD/meast/06/14/gaza/newt1.gaza4.thu.ap.jpg

Source: Palestinian government dissolved

But the fear of being seen as "collaborators" has been a problem for any remotely pro-peace Palestinians from the beginning.

I suppose, although it did not stop Hamas running a unilateral ceasefire at the Israelis for several months last year.

I confess yes I have lost hope/interest in a lot of this... most days I think the world would be better off if Israel/Palestine/Lebanon just slid into the fucking ocean and we were rid of this endless internecine gangster-warfare

Funny, on the way home I was thinking about how the best way to negotiate peace would be to take any territory the two sides can't agree on and explode it. "Ok, you guys both want Jerusalem and neither of you want to share it? BOOM!"

But of course Israel has not yet exhibited a ton the long-term sense that would suggest promoting the opposite dynamic -- the kind of economic security and cultural development that lets people believe in cooperative moderates.

True. But both sides have been pretty adept at kick-the-can-down-the-road.

There's only one "side," though.

"Ok, you guys both want Jerusalem and neither of you want to share it? BOOM!"

awhile back on some other Israel thread I made the (excessively cynical but also joking - OR AM I) suggestion that the US should unilaterally tell everyone in Israel/Palestine (and particularly Jerusalem) that they have a few weeks to evacuate, at the end of which we are going to nuke the place into oblivion rendering it uninhabitable for the foreseeable future of humanity. PROBLEM SOLVED.

(cf. if you can't share I'm cutting the baby in half King Solomon solution]

Yes, let's turn everyone into displaced nationless refugees! It's working super with Palestinians!

hey I hear real estate in Iraq is cheap and plentiful these days

(I'm sorry)

I mean, sorry to be snarky, but I really don't like the way this conflict gets framed as two equivalent groups of people who just can't figure out how to share a piece of land. This is a situation in which one nation has all the land and uses part of it as a holding pen for refugees.

here we gooooooo

I mean I'm not pro-Israel by any means but who are you kidding that Hamas is interested in sharing anything

and my gallows humor is just about the only way I can process this endless, pointless cycle of recrimination and stupidity and violence

I didn't say Hamas was interested in sharing anything.

I'm saying that "sharing" between two parties is not really a relevant issue when one party already holds everything in question!

well why would/should Israel wanna give a bunch of land to people that are vowing to kill them/"drive them into the ocean"/claim the capital as their own

people are not born "hamas" the way a dog is born a dog and a cat is born a cat. people join hamas, they can leave it at any time. if you can achieve reconciliation in rwanda or sierra leone it should be possible in israel too.

in my mind, the real issue is not the behavior of the settlers or of the mainstream israelis or fatah or hamas (although hamas and fatah are probably marginally more reprehensible) but the fact that the US has pretty much unequivocally taken sides w/ israel for what, 40 years now?

a cat is born a cat

lolhamas

Nabisco, you're totally right, and I don't intend to suggest that there are two *sides* that are *equal*. I was only referring to the fact that there seems to be a belief among a significant number of people in each group that their respective group can just *wait things out* and the other side will ultimately lose. I mean that's what clinging to "right of return" is about -- and I'm not saying that's necessarily the majority position among Palestinians.

I really don't like to harp on it, but once the at least semi-autonomous PA was created, Arafat was at one point receiving TONS of foreign aid money and basically squandering it, which is what I'm talking about when I say "both sides" have shown lack of foresight. Of course obviously now with the new situation in the territories there's REALLY only one side.

i guess it's true that the rest of the international community unequivocally took sides against israel

it's sad and predictable that the west is willing to adopt paternalistic "we will fix your problems for you" schemes in africa, but adopts either hands-off or taking sides if the problems involve caucasians (hi dere yugoslavia, middle east, etc)

don't get me wrong I think the US's unequivocal support of Israel is disgusting.

Arafat could have done a lot more than he did to foster the kind of economic development that might have laid the groundwork for some kind of viable state, and I'm not convinced he really had the political will to do it. What we're seeing today is in part his fault.

plenty of blame to go around etc

<i>Israel meanwhile decided to sit and watch and the United Nations raised the possibility of sending for the first time an international force to be deployed along the border with neighbouring Egypt. </i>

I thought this was interesting, not sure what the U.N. forces would actually *do* though.

(damn old code habits die hard)

I really do think of both "sides" (sorry nabisco) as being essentially incompetent gangsters with no real interest in resolving the conflict peacefully. It seems like every move made by any given party is one of violent retribution doled out for short-term political purposes

(for ex. Sharon's deliberate provocation of latest intifadeh w/his Temple Mount visit, followed by his election and subsequent ass-kicking and gloating over Arafat's decline)

it's called "brain drain" - it happened in iran, it's happening in iraq right now. 20-30 years of warfare does that to a place.

xpost

Shakey, apart from being a funny defense of colonialism, that question doesn't really relate to what I was saying up there -- don't give me too much "here we go again" stuff if you're gonna be the one running with it! My statement wasn't about why anyone would want to do anything -- I was expressing frustration about the way the conflict "gets framed as two equivalent groups of people who just can't figure out how to share a piece of land." I think that's a fair frustration, since there is nothing anything like that kind of symmetry in the actual situation.

Hurting, yes, there's definitely a stretch of time there where you can pin a lack of good long-term planning on Arafat. I dunno: if I hold Israel to a higher standard on this stuff, it's because I think that's legitimate -- it's the functioning democracy that's occupying / exerting control over a patch of land and people. The stretch we're talking about is the only one during which anything even resembling an autonomous collective representation of the other "side" has existed. It seems especially weird to me to focus too much on what kind of designs a Palestinian faction like Hamas could have on the state of Israel, when the state of Israel right now owns, polices, controls, and bombs the land under Hamas's feet! It's like the two of us sitting around and I'm eating an entire pizza and criticizing you for being too greedy to share it with me.

An acquaintance of mine wrote a book on growing up in an Israeli military family - its quite illuminating in terms of how what started out as an idealized agrarian socialist experiment has devolved into a culture of perpetual military conflict and isolation. Pretty sad too. If I remember correctly, that's his dad on the cover in that photo from the 6-Day War.

x-post

I think Israel should be held to a higher standard too - the more powerful party always should be, especially when there's a disparity as big as this.

It's like the two of us sitting around and I'm eating an entire pizza and criticizing you for being too greedy to share it with me.

I don't buy this analogy (unless Hamas is threatening to just shoot you and take the entire pizza). Or do you think that hamas is just making a bunch of empty threats and Israel should recognize their authority and grant them automony - this is an honest question! I want to hear your suggestions as to how/why should Israel accomodate Hamas as the duly elected representative government.

Maybe because they were voted in?

I was expressing frustration about the way the conflict "gets framed as two equivalent groups of people who just can't figure out how to share a piece of land." I think that's a fair frustration, since there is nothing anything like that kind of symmetry in the actual situation.

I understand this frustration, but its largely semantics about what language we're using to describe opposing viewpoints - I'm not priveleging Israel as being morally superior, or Hamas as being militarily or politically or logistically the equal of Israel (obviously neither of these are the case). My frustration is with the no-win situation that 40 years of bullshit have engendered.

Maybe because they were voted in?

okay, so let's follow this to its logical end - Israel recognizes Hamas,. grants them the same level autonomy previously granted to Arafat before Sharon fucked everything up. Then what would Hamas do.

you honestly think Hamas would say "hey, great! take it easy on your side of the wall! We're just gonna build a nice, functional Islamic state over here, don't mind us."

I mean come the fuck on - you know damn well they wouldn't do anything of the kind, they would be emboldened to make further demands and wage as much all-out warfare with Israel as they could.

we should have held elections in germany and japan in 1945, then things would have turned out okay

and then hey, whoopee we're back to square one.

x-post

I mean come the fuck on - you know damn well they wouldn't do anything of the kind, they would be emboldened to make further demands and wage as much all-out warfare with Israel as they could.

I'm not convinced that's true. I'm not saying the outcome would be so great either, but it might be better than whatever comes out of a civil war. Besides, "all out warfare" with Israel on Hamas's part doesn't amount to much, and as pointed out above, they did agree to a cease fire at one point. How much more willing to cease fire do you think they'd be if Israel had, say, paid them the taxes collected from their own people?

Grr Shakey I am not saying Hamas are great! I am not saying, to puree some analogies, that Hamas might not theoretically like the thought of shooting me and taking the pizza! My point is that it would be odd to criticize them for possibly threatening to take the whole pizza -- something they have zero ability to actually accomplish -- if in cold hard reality I have already taken the whole pizza myself! There is something odd in pointing fingers at someone's abstract threat to do to you what you are already in practice doing to them.

functioning democracy, nabisco? in an apartheid system?

i think we're seeing the end of the palestinians. i mean, has hope for anything positive been anything above an absolute nullity any time in the past decade? arafat was always a fucko. it's not too often the world gets to see the extinguishment of a people. it's is just numbingly f*cking tragic. it's especially heartbreaking that israel has such a determining role in this slow grinding of a people into dust, given what israel used to be and used to represent to the world.

Well, they haven't exactly taken the whole pizza - more like taken half and spit on the other half.

Well if it weren't an apartheid system we wouldn't be thinking about "sides" in the first place -- there's at least one actor in this conflict that can be thought of as an authentic, official extension of a specific population.

but any concession they make to Israel would undermine their political legitimacy and places their elected officials at the risk of being assassinated as sell-outs, etc. The path of least resistance would be the classic middle-eastern political gambit of saying one thing and doing another - making a few concessions here and there/talking a good game to appease the foreigners, and then funnel money/arms to attack the enemy clandestinely. That seems like the most likely outcome to me, because that is what someone would do to STAY IN POWER. And that's all that really matters to these fuckers, on either side of the fence.

Nabisco I respect yr many well-reasoned opinions here on ILX but I don't follow yr point about Hamas - should Israel just discount Hamas' (yes, largely unrealistic but no less-threatening) stated policy positions when making tricky political decisions about their future...? Listen, I understand that Israel is violently fucking the Palestinians over on a daily basis, I do. But I'm asking to look down the road, in a very basic way, how should Israel deal with a hostile state that would essentially be existing thanks to their largesse and at the same time vowing to destroy them. If your the hand that feeds, how do you deal with being bitten.

x-post

it's is just numbingly f*cking tragic. it's especially heartbreaking that israel has such a determining role in this slow grinding of a people into dust, given what israel used to be and used to represent to the world.

Fuck, what Israel used to represent to ME, even -- green out of desert, democracy, "the fighting Jew!" Today it's mostly a symbol of paranoia and cynicism for me.

at least one actor in this conflict that can be thought of as an authentic, official extension of a specific population.

I'm honestly not sure who you mean here - technically Hamas is as authentic, official extension of a specific population as you can get. They won the popular vote, they've got the support of the people, etc.

"the fighting Jew!"

that book I linked to above does a great job of illustrating how this ideal inevitably developed into its current, much less admirable incarnation.

(ie raise several generations in a culture deeply enmeshed in fetishizing the military + a hostile "other" = violent assholes)

Shakey the problem here is that you keep trying to argue with me about tactical decisions on Israel's part, whereas the statements you're trying to pick at have nothing to do with that -- they're more about how we frame the situation rhetorically, and who has more of a moral burden to rectify things.

And for those same reasons I'm going to get annoyed by a few of your statements here:

- "a hostile state that would essentially be existing thanks to their largesse"
- "well why would/should Israel wanna give a bunch of land to people that are vowing to kill them"

Both of which make sense on some kind of "tactical" level, but on a moral level are basically colonialist: you're accepting Israel as the arbiters of people's entire political existence -- they may only have political existence via the "largesse" and on the terms of Israel.

okay explain this to me - on the one hand you argue (quite rightly) that Israel is in control, they're the "only side", they "own the pizza", whatever, but then on the other hand you take me to task for operating from the understanding that thus any Palestinian state/autonomy is only possible with Israel's express consent and assistance.

I really don't care about the semantics/language involved as we seem to both agree on the essential situation - what I do care about is what to do going forward. Which you seem rather hesitant to hypothesize about.

(although arguing about rhetoric/semantics is essentially why nothing ever gets satisfactorily resolved in this situation - everyone's too busy calling the other side murderers, colonialists, islamofascists, what-have-you. Let it go. Work out what can be done).

Both of which make sense on some kind of "tactical" level, but on a moral level are basically colonialist: you're accepting Israel as the arbiters of people's entire political existence

I mean well yes the situation is currently totally colonialist - do you want a medal for pointing this out or something? That doesn't make Israel's position RIGHT or VALID, it's just what they're policies have added up to after all this time.

Take a deep breath and relax Shakey, you're posting three-at-a-time.

"we will fix your problems for you" schemes in africa,

hi dere dafur

xpost

Well you didn't say "consent" or "assistance" -- you said "largesse" and asked "why they should," as if Israel would be doing Palestinians some huge favor by allowing them to participate in a meaningful political system.

Anyway. I don't see much use in speculating about solutions on a day when the shape of the Palestine you'll be solving for is completely up in the air. What, like I have solutions for this one? Please. But if you want the practical subtext to my moral/rhetorical stuff here, it's that I think Israel (by virtue of having the pizza) has imagined for a while that it can make solutions dependent on Palestinian groups meeting certain conditions, and that it can wait patiently forever in the meantime; but I actually kind of think that Israel (by virtue of having the pizza) is the entity with the moral responsibility to make that condition-meeting possible, and that their policy frequently seems perversely designed to accomplish just the opposite. I think Israel needs to shift out of the mindset of sitting sternly by and waiting for some Palestinian group to "earn" its basic existence, and instead actually invest in developing the conditions that can accomplish that.

anyone seen this & this before?

No, but I'm not sure what your purpose is in juxtaposing them.

well shit nabisco, I was hoping you had this all figured out!

Israel has totally fucked themselves with their oppressive tactics, as far as I can tell - you don't develop a stable neighbor by continually instituting draconian measures limiting their ability to feed, educate, govern and generally improve themselves. Hamas' current configuration is in many ways a monster of Israel's own making - they're like a dysfunctional child of an abusive, disdainful parent. And now the parent is sorta holding their breath to see if the child will either commit suicide, turn into a violent psycopath, or (least likely) become a well-adjusted adult.

two things i hadn't seen before

you don't develop a stable neighbor by continually instituting draconian measures limiting their ability to feed, educate, govern and generally improve themselves

This is actually the literal part of the word "invest" I had in mind above. I think on a lot of practical levels we probably agree about this stuff. Stability requires something that it's in people's interest to keep stable, and the territories really don't have much of that.

There's always been a weird cross-purposes thing going on with Israeli expectations, actually: one one hand, an effort to keep the occupied territories marginal, powerless, and ineffectual, and therefore theoretically less threatening; on the other hand, an expectation that the territories become functional, coherent, and effectual before they get offered any shred of self-determination. Considering how weird that combination is -- the requirement that governance kinda spring from zero to sixty in a blink -- it's not as surprising that the Authority's last attempt to navigate that went off the rails.

Yeah, the problem with Israel's approach, even among many more pro-peace elements, is this constant harping on about how there has to be a complete stop to terrorism before any negotiations can take place, and this constant tendency to fuck shit up again in the territories every time Israel doesn't like the way things are going. The reality is that Israel can't ever have 100% security, and it has to accept that.

we should have held elections in germany and japan in 1945, then things would have turned out okay

-- moonship journey to baja, Thursday, June 14, 2007 6:08 PM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Link

The reality is that Israel can't ever have 100% security, and it has to accept that.

So if we could press the magical 1967 button, Israel should still have to accept less then 100%?

Yup. That's life.

What nation does have 100% security? (Especially if part of what we're talking is terrorism, or militants in territory you're occupying?)

but any concession they (Hamas) make to Israel would undermine their political legitimacy and places their elected officials at the risk of being assassinated as sell-outs, etc.

This view makes the huge assumption that Hamas were elected on their anti-Israel stance. In fact, Hamas' strong anti-corruption platform and community/social work on the ground were far more of a determinant for the election outcome. And Hamas have already had ceasefires with Israel, without doing their political legitimacy any harm. Not to paint them as saints or anything, just pointing out that the politics are a bit more complex than some narratives would suggest. (many xposts)

most days I think the world would be better off if Israel/Palestine/Lebanon just slid into the fucking ocean and we were rid of this endless internecine gangster-warfare

it would make me very sad if these countries fell into the ocean, as I would like to go back to them again for a holiday sometime.

Just thinking of these countries falling into the ocean is making me all sadface... the little hyraxes can swim, so what will they do? why doesn't anybody think of them?

I am interested by the idea of Gaza as an Islamist mini-state. There might be something to be said in practice for splitting the two Palestinian areas into two polities, as I really have to struggle to think of any other non-contiguous countries in the world (other than ones separated solely by the sea).

Also, the Hamas revolution in Gaza is the first ouster of a sitting Arab regime in ages. Having been blocked from the fruits of their electoral victory, they have seized power by force. I wonder will this kind of thing spread to other Arab states where popular Islamists are blocked from power by entrenched mukhabarat states?

I'm just amazed that this has happened. Deny people human rights, economic rights, tell them to get their shit together democratcially, then reject their government and then they get all violent? Who on earth could have forseen that?

Oh yeah. No one involved in making Israeli of American foreign policy in the last 40 years. Cunts.

Or to put it another way

OMG Duelling governments: Abbas appoints new Palestinian PM

This is so exciting for me, as I am doing academic research on the world of feuding governments in general and Palestine in particular.

Maybe the question is more what does accepting less then 100% security entail?

This view makes the huge assumption that Hamas were elected on their anti-Israel stance.

Ok, then it'd follow that the 'Hamas is what Israel wrought' argument is null and void.

I think people are saying more that the collapse of the PA and the civil war in Gaza is Israel and the West sowing as they reaped, not so much the election.

Egypt's announcement today is interesting - wasn't expecting to see other arab nations close ranks against Hamas so quickly. Altho Mubarak is a totally corrupt asshole propped up by the West so his loyalties are not really surprising... still, looks like the current trend is indicating Hamas is gonna be seriously isolated and is being drained of support (CNN poll indicates a Presidential election held today would credit Abbas as the winner)

there was no way that the US could have played ball with hamas, or that europe could have continued to fund a hamas-led PA.

oh absolutely, just didn't expect it to play out quite this way

I reckon there is a certain pathological quality to the hostility towards Hamas and Islamists in general. no one can deal with them because they are insanely violent, even if they run extended truces. Fatah are suddenly fine, even if they have suicide bomber subsidiaries. This whole Hamas good, Fatah bad thing is totally irrational.

it is pretty blurry in regards to the actions of both parties, but there's clear difference in rhetoric - and politicos eat that shit with a fork

Altho Mubarak is a totally corrupt asshole propped up by the West so his loyalties are not really surprising...

the gangsters who run Arab states probably hate Hamas because they fear any kind of change from below.

(CNN poll indicates a Presidential election held today would credit Abbas as the winner)

what does it say for parliamentary elections? Under the PA constitution the government is responsible to parliament, not the president, meaning that parliamentary elections are the important ones.

I don't know how accurate polls are in Palestine. I don't think any of them called last year's elections for Hamas, though I may be wrong.

um no-one is saying fatah good/hamas bad!! or at least, no-one is saying it with any sincerity whatsoever. this is realpolitik.

xpost

SMC - rhetoric is a funny one, people take it so much more seriously than actions. weirdos.

TOGTQ - ok, I mean the general sense that "we" can do business with Fatah but cannot with Hamas; likewise with Islamists generally in the Arab world, who are seen as beyond the pale despite being the only credible challengers to local dictators.

US doesn't want to empower iran any further: 'our' dictators in egypt and saudi are 'better' than 'theirs'.

whatever you think of hamas and their goals i still can't wrap my head around the fact that they were elected democratically and then refused recognition by everyone

again it's realpolitik. but, on the other hand, israel's government was also elected democratically, and yet hamas won't recognize it...

there's gotta be some precedent for massive non-recognition of a popularly-elected government but I'm blanking on what that might be

it's "realpolitik" to harangue a dispossessed and pissed-off nation to hold democratic elections before they have judicial, journalistic, welfare, and education systems that function beyond the most basic level - and then not recognise the results when you don't like them? more like "idiotpolitik" (i won't get into the more conspiratorial explanations, which i'm sure the israel apologists here are aware of and reject)

it's "realpolitik" to harangue a dispossessed and pissed-off nation to hold democratic elections before they have judicial, journalistic, welfare, and education systems that function beyond the most basic level - and then not recognise the results when you don't like them?

it is if your main object is having the palestinians tear each other apart, yes. but also when -- as the west cannot -- you can't see islamist justice, islamist education, islamist journalism as being at 'the basic level'. the palestinians were confronted with a poor choice in the election partly owing to western complicity and divide-and-rule. i don't expect any better from israel and the US. if you accept the latter condition, the idea that hamas represents the palestinians becomes harder to accept. similarly if you accept they're economically dispossessed, the meaning of a freely held election becomes harder to grasp, because the shot-callers are always going to be elsewhere.

Tracer Hand is reading from the neoconservative playbook. Fuck the Wolfowitz-Perle "democracy is the only thing that matters" shit. One guy that quit=OTM.

we're ALL confronted with poor choices at elections due to western complicity and divide-and-rule

*zing*

boom!

"the american people were confronted with very poor choices, therefore the people of belarus will henceforth only recognize ross perot and his appointed deputies as the true leaders of the united states"

I must have missed the Clinton press conference where he wants to push Belarus into the sea.

thanx i was waiting for that

it's funny though - i did catch the repeated press conferences where bush insisted he wanted to "take out" iraq, yet the world continued to recognise him as the president of the united states

i also noticed israel's multiple assassinations of palestinian leaders, yet the world continues to recognise the current israeli leadership as authoritative - maybe if they had used the words "push into the sea" everyone would come to their senses

It would have been great if Saddam Hussein had foisted a pliant prime minister onto the United States because he found it uncongenial to deal with Bush.

statistically chances are good pliant "prime minister" (I assume that should be ahem President) would actually be better/more efficient Prez than Dubya

tracer your main thing is: the west should have respected the electorial choice of the palestinians. the belarus thing works both ways because most europeans *don't* particularly recognize bush as a legitimate president; even apart from florida '00, it's not as if critiques of the US system aren't common here. no-one would say that a democratic election even in the US represented the will of the people. so why in a place as economically fucked and dependent as palestine, whose governments have tended to be corrupt, would you do that?

anyway recognition is one thing, continuing to fund is another. if hamas still kept the 'push israel into the sea' clause, how could the EU still fund it?

with the iraq thing -- again, a lot of people *don't* recognize bush and a number of EU states went against him on the war -- but even then bush said he wanted to get rid of a dictator and give iraqis a free vote. however laughable and unthought-through, that's different from saying he wants to wipe out the iraqis. but i was against the war anyway.

i. what country doesn't recognise bush as president of the united states???
ii. if israel still kept its "we can assassinate anyone we want to without a trial", how could the US still fund it? yet it does, in spades

How is ii unlike American policy?

Honestly I think the whole morally equivalent argument gets a lot harder when we are talking about Hamas directly. I mean the EU has never been Israel's biggest backer and they are writing off Hamas.

well technically we assassinated Hussein by-proxy and with a show-trial.

legally-speaking, it is official US policy that assassinating foreign leaders is against the law.

wasn't there a jeep/svu in pakistan we hit with a drone b/c it had some Al-Qaeda leader in it?

god forbid any nation should have to cope with the people it occupies being hostile toward it

i. what country doesn't recognise bush as president of the united states???

none -- for obvious political reasons. but the hardline 'if they are elected then we must respect that' view seems naive, or at least concealing of something or other. the palestinian authority is already economically dependent so *whoever* got elected, it'd still be a very, very insecure state. it's insecure partly as a result of US-israeli action but what do you expect?

on point ii., uh? why would the US have a problem with that policy? israel assassinates palestinian leaders, fighters, and anyone who gets in the way -- with american arms. the US government has to be able to sell its policies, and in this case it apparently can. but the EU would not be able to sell 'let's fund hamas'.

wasn't there a jeep/svu in pakistan we hit with a drone b/c it had some Al-Qaeda leader in it?

Al Qaeda is not a country.

At least two schools in Pakistan have been bombed because of reports that Alzawahiri was hiding there. The first one killed 80 people, most of them children.

stay focused here - US propensity for killing whoever it likes is well-documented, but assassinating duly elected leaders is not something the military does as a matter of policy.

Al Qaeda is not a country.

So if Israel recoginized Hamasland as a country now, they'd be harder pressed to justify any military incursions against them? Because I kind of feel like the opposite is true. (not that that was your argument, just speculating.)

Israel is not the United States. The US and Israel have different policies regarding targeted political assassinations.

Israel's made it clear time and time again that they don't give a fuck about international law or respecting anybody else's sovereignty.

the US doesn't have to share or endorse every policy of regimes it props up, to be fair. pakistan, israel -- they aren't that picky.

"East is east, West is west, the two shall never meet". Apples and oranges guys. Democracy won't work in the mid-east. Not any time soon-that's a Bush-Tracer Hand fantasy. I can't believe someone on this thread is actually advocating Hamas as a valid political institution.

I think democracy can "work" anywhere (inasmuch as any form of government can be considered "working"), given the proper conditions. I'm hardly a neocon, but the "democracy in the middle east is impossible" arguments I've seen usually smack of racism and a profound ignorance of Islamic and middle eastern culture and history.

depends what you mean by "work". a world made up of sovereign democracies would still be a bloody, violent place.

haha yes exactly

Please... I'm no racist. Just going on what I've seen. Even Turkey's parliament is at the mercy of its military. We don't do democracy so well either. Let's not toss bombs like that-pun not intended.

Does anyone know what Fatah's charter or constitution or whatever they have says about its goals? I am imagining something along the lines of a Palestinian state from the Jordan to the sea.

Democracy won't work in the mid-east.

so you say, although a major factor preventing Middle East democracy is Western support for authoritarian regimes.

a world made up of sovereign democracies would still be a bloody, violent place.

empirical research suggests otherwise.

there'd still be fundamental conflicts over resources and/or religion.

Just like in Europe.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dissolution_of_Yugoslavia

ffs! europe was divided into two occupied armed camps for fifty years after it brought about the biggest war in world history and killed millions of innocents. i guess its last 15-odd years prove your point -- because there are no religious conflicts brewing in europe right now, nor does europe have any problems sourcing things like gas at the moment.

the idea of sovereignty itself (democratic or otherwise) guarantees war, since there's no authority that supercedes the nation-state

i've been pondering that for two days.

there never will be a democratic authority that supercedes the nation-state. i think there never could be. and i don't know practically how it would work even if people wanted it, which they don't seem to. whereas they do seem to want sovereignty. they'd have to *all* sign up to the nation-state-superceddin' authority, or you'd still be guaranteed war. i think war is guaranteed whatever happens, really.

the idea of sovereignty itself (democratic or otherwise) guarantees war, since there's no authority that supercedes the nation-state

that's nonsense, there are loads of sovereign states which never fight wars with each other.

Have any of you ever heard of the Democratic Peace hypothesis?

Costa Rica baby

yo vicar - there are loads of cars that don't get into wrecks, but the system of car transport we have, which involves individual control over velocity and direction, guarantees that there will be many wrecks every year

what i'm talking about is the concept of sovereign nation-states, each with supreme authority over itself, and between each of which lies a gulf of constantly negotiable gray area, i.e. the system that began with the treaties of westphalia. my contention is that this philosophy of nationhood guarantees war since there is never an enforceable authority that governs the interactions of these sovereign nation-states - if there were, the concept of sovereignty would lose its current meaning

my contention is that this philosophy of nationhood guarantees war since there is never an enforceable authority that governs the interactions of these sovereign nation-states

an enforceable authority that would... go to war, if the "governance of interactions" breaks down?

i hear that. but (obviously) the pre-westphalia system in europe was equally prone to wars. and: "there is never an enforceable authority that governs the interactions of these sovereign nation-states". this isn't quite true of europe after 1648 or now -- austria then or the US now, or whoever is regional big dog, has that kind of power, economic or military. the lesson of germany is that sovereignty is a massively mutable and manupulable thing, and it can be traded in in the "national interest" -- ie numerous small sovereign states may find they have sovereignty "in common" if it suits.

but the presence of an "enforceable authority" already implies war. you don't *have* authority if you can't enforce it.

TH - it does not follow that there will always be the same level of war. Your basic model does not take account of the decline over time in war mortality - wars are now less frequent and less deadly.

but the presence of an "enforceable authority" already implies war. you don't *have* authority if you can't enforce it.

I think the idea is that there is a difference between a Hobbesian state of nature and a Leviathan state that chucks people it does not like into jail... so if there was an Authority that could discipline countries that stepped out of line.

Your basic model does not take account of the decline over time in war mortality - wars are now less frequent and less deadly

the 20th century was the bloodiest, most genocidal century in the history of the world wtf are you talking about? the last 50 years /= "over time"

i find that very hard to believe -- targetting of civilian populations alone must up the mortality rate. wars between first-world states may be less frequent.

xpost

o if there was an Authority that could discipline countries that stepped out of line.

it would have to go to war...

the 20th century was the bloodiest, most genocidal century in the history of the world wtf are you talking about? the last 50 years /= "over time"

-- Shakey Mo Collier

i need to dig up the references, but lots of historians are discovering that this isn't true. the level of violence in the world is decreasing. the 20th century's showstopper extravaganzas are still less violent than the constant low-level strife of everything before

http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge206.html#pinker

"is decreasing" since when? what's the marker here? Since the Roman Empire? Since the Crusades? Since the discovery of the new world? Since WWII? How could there possibly be a bloodier period than WWII... besides, given that the world's population has been exponentially *increasing" not only were there more people killing each other in the 20th century, there were actually MORE people to kill....

anyway x-post just saw yr link but this:
It is true that raids and battles killed a tiny percentage of the numbers that die in modern warfare. But, in tribal violence, the clashes are more frequent, the percentage of men in the population who fight is greater, and the rates of death per battle are higher. According to anthropologists like Lawrence Keeley, Stephen LeBlanc, Phillip Walker, and Bruce Knauft, these factors combine to yield population-wide rates of death in tribal warfare that dwarf those of modern times. If the wars of the twentieth century had killed the same proportion of the population that die in the wars of a typical tribal society, there would have been two billion deaths, not 100 million.

is about RATES, not about ACTUAL NUMBERS OF PEOPLE KILLED.

I dunno gff that article is pretty ridiculous

between 1989 and 2005 the number of campaigns of mass killing of civilians decreased by 90 percent.

ooh a 16-yr period of tranquility. lolz @ a historian not grasping the insignificance of a "trend" documented over so short a period of time.

is about RATES, not about ACTUAL NUMBERS OF PEOPLE KILLED.

And the rates are decreasing?

The "but what about since the dawn of time lolz" argument is pretty weak imo.

ooh a 16-yr period of tranquility. lolz @ a historian not grasping the insignificance of a "trend" documented over so short a period of time.

But that means that the 20th Century has to be judged on the basis of longer periods than just 1914-1918 and 1939-1945, too, right? Still, with colonialism, anti-colonialism, regional conflicts like Iran-Iraq, and civil wars such as occurred in Russia and China, the 20th Century has to have a pretty high rate of war-related death.

kind of a rough time for russians, wasn't it.

anyway shakey, your beef with rate vs number doesn't make any sense. what else is there to compare except rate?

number of ppl killed by violence in a period, divided by number of people alive during period = measure of how violent it was.

well sure Michael the 20th Century should be judged on the years 1900-2001. Which, of course, includes the massive genocides in the earlier part of he century (how would stuff like Stalin and Mao's collective murder of their populations be construed...? Technically those aren't "war" deaths either, but by Pinker's definition of "death by violence" those would have to be included as well).

x-post

what else is there to compare except rate?

actual quantified numbers of people killed

if you have 10 ppl alive, and 5 die by violence... then later you have 100 people alive, and 15 die by violence, the later period is not three times as violent.

I understand the concept, its the reliability of the data I don't trust - there are huge hypothetical leaps necessary for quantifying those rates as far back as Pinker would like to go. Historically, instances of "we killed this many people" tend to outnumber estimates of "there were this many people at the world when we did it", I would think.

arggh "at the world" = "IN the world"

if only historians could come up with reasonable ways to make hypothetical leaps

well hey Pinker acknowledges all this (any effort "soaked in uncertainty" etc.) he just seems eager to set that issue aside in order to make a larger point I don't agree with that seems remarkably facile. If we just go on the last few centuries for which there ARE reasonably reliable population vs. death by violence statistics, I seriously doubt any "downward" trend is visible. If Pinker's goal is to resuscitate the notion that we're better off than our savage ancestors I'm not gonna argue with him, but that seems like a pointless position to take.

'Cause regardless of violence, we are all living far longer and succumbing far less to disease than we did even very recently.

Shakey Mo Collier

i think we got to the death rate argument via: liberal democracies are good for peace. i suspect the extraordinary decline in death rates in general skew the picture a bit, tbh. but there's also a eurocentricity about it all. the cold war was fought by proxy so those deaths are all "off the books" of the liberal democracies who were on one side of it.

good point about the proxy wars - yeah all those deaths in El Salvador and Peru and Vietnam and Cambodia, "we" didn't do that!

I thought the argument was that liberal democracies were unlikely to fight each other.

ah, that's true. it's a view that underpins neocon foreign policy so far as i can tell. "if we introduce democracy everywhere, then we'll have world peace." and when a liberal democracy makes the "wrong decision", as chile did, they get corrected, jack torrance-style.

Anyone (NYC area) interested in going to this tomorrow at 9pm, Walter Reade Theater?

Hot House
Series: 2007 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival [Jun. 15 – 28, 2007]
Director: Shimon Dotan, Country: Israel, Release: 2006, Runtime: 89

About 9,000 Palestinians are imprisoned in Israeli jails on “security” charges. Shot inside the Ber Sheba, Ashkelon, Hadarim, and Megiddo prisons, Hot House is a unique, probing documentary feature that explores the emergence of a Palestinian national leadership within Israeli prisons. The film offers a rare look at the experiences, motivations and mindsets of a number of key inmates––men and women, from Fatah and Hamas, serving multiple life sentences––and the remarkable degree to which they influence the political process in the outside world. Hot House provides a unique opportunity to observe events of historic proportions at their nascent beginnings while shattering the two-dimensional stereotypes and the often polarizing commentary presented by the mainstream media on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

An HBO Documentary film. Winner of the Special Jury Prize, Sundance Film Festival 2007. Presented in association with Makor/Steinhardt Center of the 92nd Street Y and The Frontline Club