tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752043102302398548.post8688507024417088497..comments2023-10-14T08:21:36.173-07:00Comments on Karl reMarks: Why twisting Netanyahu's arm won't work.Karl Sharrohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17442368022521436709noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752043102302398548.post-80617957724875461362009-06-17T05:59:22.890-07:002009-06-17T05:59:22.890-07:00You ask a very important question, that is why hav...You ask a very important question, that is why have the Palestinians inside Israel not been more active in the past. This in fact applies not only to them, but to the Palestinians in the occupied territories that also joined the struggle relatively late. A friend told me that in the early 80s Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza were even serving as municipal police for the Israelis, and they didn't think there was anything wrong with that. <br />The political consciousness of the Palestinian people developed in the Diaspora for very specific reasons. Palestine as a nation came into being in 1948, even though it still hasn't become a state. The real articulation of Palestinian nationalism happened in the 60s, under the leadership of Arafat but with significant contributions of an emerging intelligentsia that had the freedom not only to struggle but to think and publish in places like Beirut. Whereas all the other Arab countries came to the nation state through western mandates, the Palestinians in the Diaspora formed their ideas about the state they wanted through their class-consciousness and the need for self-determination. <br />The situation that the Palestinians lived in Arab countries reinforced this consciousness and aspirations. Relatively speaking, their counterparts within Israel itself had an easier existence, although this is not in itself an explanation for the lack of political activism, but the conditions they lived through were substantially different to those that the refugees lived in. What is crucial as well was that the 60s witnessed the formation of Palestinian nationalism as opposed to Pan-Arabism specifically, and it is a struggle that has not stopped until now, with other Arab countries trying to appropriate the Palestinian cause. In contrast, the Palestinians within Israel were denied the possibility of organisation but also their struggle was not as urgent and pressing as that of the refugees. <br />Despite all the talk of the 80s intifada being spontaneous, it was in fact prepared for and organised by the PLO, and specifically Abu Jihad (Khalil Wazir) who was assassinated by Israeli commandos in Tunisia in 1988, at a time when the PLO was not militarily active but the intifada was at its peak. This is crucial to understanding the big role that the PLO played in agitating within the West Bank and Gaza, and similar action was taken to rouse the Palestinians living within Israel itself. This is what makes the Palestinian struggle so distinctive, but at the same time explains its political decline today. Once it was transformed from a progressive project for self-determination and wider change it has lost some of its clarity.Karl Sharrohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17442368022521436709noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752043102302398548.post-86357317960996166722009-06-17T05:07:37.737-07:002009-06-17T05:07:37.737-07:00Philip Cunliffe wrote:
Just on European Jewry, I ...Philip Cunliffe wrote:<br /><br />Just on European Jewry, I agree that the post-war exodus perversely ended up realising the Nazis' goals, as well as relieving all the collaborators and anti-Semites of Europe of any further accountability. My point was only that if you were a European Jew in 1948, I can see that Zionism would have its appeal. <br /><br />On the Israeli Palestinians - the Israeli right baiting them speaks, I think, to the wider impasse of Zionism, and I can see it being self-defeating if it ends up prompting the Palestinians to further organise themselves in self-defence, and to develop a sense of their own strength in direct proportion to the Zionists' fear of them. But accounting a greater role to the Palestinians in Israel as agents of historical change to replace the Palestinians in the territories begs the question of why the former have not been more active in the past. Do you have any thoughts on this?Karl Sharrohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17442368022521436709noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752043102302398548.post-5030569544818222042009-06-17T05:06:06.761-07:002009-06-17T05:06:06.761-07:00Their time has come indeed! And in fact, they have...Their time has come indeed! And in fact, they have been getting more politically organised but also Israel has been getting tougher towards them, such as in the case of Azmi Bshara, the Arab member of parliament. The justification for accepting a two-state solution was that the Palestinians would get their own state, while Israel would still be open to question because of the Palestinians who live there and who will agitate until they turn it into a secular state. I think that was somewhat mistaken there, but still the role of the Palestinians inside Israel is very important in the coming years. <br /><br />On 1948, thorny question and circumstances play a bigger role of course, but in initiating a mass exodus for European Jews it meant that this was in fact a victory for the logic of the Holocaust, and in a sense it reinforced what the Nazis wanted which is a Jew-free Europe. It meant that integration was declared impossible, and also giving up on the idea of rebuilding European nations on solid grounds that would prevent this from happening. Which ever way you look at it, it was a blow for enlightenment ideas and a victory for narrow self-preservation.Karl Sharrohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17442368022521436709noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3752043102302398548.post-7390925726247041652009-06-17T05:04:13.491-07:002009-06-17T05:04:13.491-07:00Philip Cunliffe Wrote:
If the Americans are going...Philip Cunliffe Wrote:<br /><br />If the Americans are going to pull the plug on the Israelis, so to speak (which I think is a realistic medium-term possibility), then the Israelis' only rational response (which is not to say that they will make it) is to cut a deal with the Arabs and the Palestinians. As you say, their leadership is probably too blinkered to see that option, and will continue to degenerate internally and lash out externally. But what about the Palestinians in Israel? Do you think a case could be made that their time has come, given that the PLO surrendered and the Islamists have taken over the rump Palestinian nation outside of Israel?<br /><br />I disagree with you about Jews in 1948 by the way - Europe in 1948 was neither stable nor secure (everyone thought there was going to be another world war), and given that no one looked out for the Jews in the last war, why would they expect someone to look out form them this time around?Karl Sharrohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17442368022521436709noreply@blogger.com