In September 1997, a Mossad squad tried to assassinate the leader of Hamas, Meshal, by drizzling poison in his ear.

Yeah, you'd probably notice that sort of thing.
Justin | Homepage | 03.31.06 - 6:55 am | #

The problem for us is that Israel doesn't want a ceasfire. It suits its intentions for their to be a constant state of lowlevel attacks from Palestinians so that it can justify its settlements, annexations, the wall, expansions and bantustanisation of the Palestinians. It's part of the tragic double-bind that the Palestinians are in. If they resist, they don't have the armour and artillery and airforce and bombs to wage war so they are really in a state of semi-permanent defeat and being defeated. If they don't resist, the incursions, the settlements carry on anyway. Even so, Israel's justification to the world is that every Palestinian is a savage terrorist or, in essence, an Apache on the verge of being bunged in a reservation.
isakofsky | Homepage | 03.31.06 - 9:32 am | #

Poison in his ear? Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
lenin | Homepage | 03.31.06 - 10:09 am | #

Yeah, it was on Jordanian territory so Israel had to free sheikh Yassin from jail so King Hussein would not look bad. Later, they killed Yassin.

The problem with these hudnas is that they have loopholes. So, for example, right now there is a "hudna" but the Gaza is home to rocket launchers for Katyushas (not your father's Qassam) that can strike Askelon and Ashdod and terror attacks are carried out by the "al Aksa Brigades" so Hamas can say its living up to the hudna, when really, it isn't. Plus, the lull is due to Israel stopping more attacks through intelligence, the fence, and to Hamas need to build up their arsenal and manpower again.

In 1996 there was a peace election, Peres against Bibi just after Rabin was killed. Peres had it in the bag until Hamas blew up four Jerusalem buses with Israelis inside in a two week period, letting Bibi pulla rabbit out of his hat. Had Hamas not done that, Peres would have been elected and peace process might never have gotten so off track that it is now regarded as a total failure (at the time, it seemed to be working)
linguist | 03.31.06 - 4:16 pm | #

Linguist, the peace process was not driven off track by bombs or by the election of Netanyahu. It was driven off track by the massive settlement building that went on under the cover of Oslo. The greatest expansion of the settlements ocurred under Barak's "peace" administration, which tells you everything you need to know about the commitment of Labour to peace as opposed to Likud. This settlement building was intended to create "facts on the ground" which would prevent the two state solution from ever being implemented. The PA was co-operating with a process obviously skewed in Isael's favour. The process was causing more, rather than less suffering to ordinary Palestinians as a result of the restrictions on movement imposed under the agreement. So it was perhaps not surprising that Hamas was opposed to the Oslo process.

I am interested to know whether you believe that Peres would have frozen settlement building had he won the election in 1996. If you think he would have done, why did he support settlement building in the Barak and Sharon administrations of which he was a member, and why is he now a member of a party committed to annexing those settlement blocks, a policy which I presume to recognise to be somewhat unpopular amongst the Palestinians?
AJP | 03.31.06 - 5:26 pm | #

Linguist:
Hamas isnt firing the rockets -its Islamic Jihad and the al-Aqsa brigade. In fact Hamas have maintained a Hudna with discipline. thats why they are such a threat. Becuase they arent really doing what many would like them to do (ie attack and then incur the wrath of the mighty Israel)
nemesis | 03.31.06 - 5:48 pm | #

It's the not attacking that's incurring the wrath of Israel. This has echoes of the PLO circe 1982 in Lebanon.
Mark Elf (Levi9909) | Homepage | 03.31.06 - 6:09 pm | #

No question settlements were and are a problem. This obviously includes from 1993 on, when Rabin came in. I don't think they should have been built up at the time because now 100,000 may have to lose their homes if Olmert and company get their way. It lacked foresight, and was done for immediate political gain. At this time the debate is about tearing down settlements, not building them. Its horrific for Israelis. That said, the attacks are indeed a problem. If Hamas subcontracts attacks to al Aqsa, then there really is no hudna. I don't know how Peres would have handled it in 1996. However, the PLO wanted Israel to view its holy places in Jerusalem the way they did before 1967-- through a telescope. There was never agreement on what belonged to who by Israel and the PLO
linguist | 03.31.06 - 7:25 pm | #

If Hamas subcontracts attacks to al Aqsa,

This reminds me of the late 90's in Northern Ireland, when the Unionist parties scoffed at the p-IRA ceasefire on the grounds that they were "subcontracting" to the dissident republican sectlets. In other words, there was a total cognitive block against the idea that "ceasefire" might have meant what it said - thus having to ignore the fact that the dissidents probably hated Adams/McGuinness as bad as they hated the Brits.

But Linguist, the question remains - what makes you think that Hamas are doing any such thing? Why, for example, are IJ and al-Aqsa not being "subcontracted" by Fatah? Or Mossad, for that matter? Or - now here's an audacious concept - they are acting independently?
H. Blackrose | 03.31.06 - 9:19 pm | #

What about the Israeli governments hudna, how is that holding up against the Palestinians and their prolonged and wanton non-violent onslaught ?

I am sure they'll be much relieved at the needless slaughter of five people today, including the perpetrator an 'Arab dressed as a Jewish hitch-hiker' -

-so, no more kid gloves by the Israeli government, as in recent times, trying desperately to keep the peace and show their intentions are true, etc etc now Palestinians show their true colours
joe90 | Homepage | 03.31.06 - 9:20 pm | #

Linguist, dont you realise that the settlements that Olmert is talking about dismantling are not the same settlements that were so massively expanded over the past 13 years. These are the major settlement blocks that Israel intends to annexe in a massive illegal land grab. This crime is to be disguised by the dismantling of some isolated settlements in the midst of a media circus, as in Gaza. And by the way, when you use the term "horrific" to describe these staged evictions, you induce nothing but nausea in anyone who (unlike you) has even a vague sense of empathy with the Palestinians, subject to nearly sixty years of colonial dispossession at the hands of Zionists and now living either in exile or as virtual prisoners in their own land.
AJP | 03.31.06 - 9:54 pm | #

H Blackrose Hamas is in charge and they have responsibility to prevent attacks or Israel will do it for them
http://debka.com/headline.php?hid=2185 indicates no willingness to control attacks on Israelis.
linguist | 03.31.06 - 10:03 pm | #

Some of us remember debka's role in the Iraq War, so pardon me if I findt their claims questionable.
Dameocrat | Homepage | 04.01.06 - 1:11 am | #

I can't believe a professional writer has used "their" instead of "there" higher up the thread.

On the content of the posting, it's occasionally occurred to me that American sympathy with Israel might in some small way be linked to psychological awareness that the US was formed by driving peoples off their land to make way for incomers, and justifying it by portraying those peoples as savages.
Justin | Homepage | 04.01.06 - 9:52 am | #

Joe90 there's a rather distasteful enthusiasm for war in your post. Justin stop going on about spelling. Its even more distasteful.
johng | 04.01.06 - 3:50 pm | #

that is true, Justin, but the US was also a home to religiously persecuted refugees that was open to those people living freely. The idea of religious tolerance and freedom is common to the US and Israel. Plus there was persecution by the British-- King George and Bevin also unites the two countries
linguist | 04.01.06 - 4:34 pm | #

Oh yes, the British, without whom there would never have been mass jewish immigration into Palestine, the British who defended the Yishuv against Arab nationalist sentiment for decades, who allowed the Yishuv to develop the institutions of statehood (just as the freedom loving Israelis have done all they can to prevent the Palestinians to do the same), who helped Israel to invade Egypt in 1956, who helped Israel develop an illegal atomic weapon and who still supply weapons to the Israelis. Such persecution!
AJP | 04.01.06 - 9:15 pm | #

the Jews were there 3000 years before the British arrived and are still there 57 years and counting since they left. Such conceit! The British
who surrendered to Arab nationalist reactionary feeling, and passed the White Paper barring Jews in their hour of need. The British, who failed utterly in protecting Jewish population against riots in 1921, 1922, 1929 and 1936 and made the Mufti the institutional leader of the Arabs. Those British? The ones who used the Jews to get a Mandate for themselves in Palestine? The ones who abstained in the Partition vote? Are those the ones you mean?
linguist | 04.02.06 - 3:05 am | #

You're being a tad selective with your history there Linguist. Without the Brits (other things being equal) zionism would probably have failed.
Mark Elf (Levi9909) | Homepage | 04.02.06 - 9:51 am | #

At a certain point nationalism over-rides intellect. But the interesting thing about Linguists points is the phrase 'reactionary nationalism'. This takes us back to the golden age of progressive Zionism which attempted to argue that Zionism had come to liberate the Arab from his feudal shackles but was prevented from carrying out this mission by the power of the effendi and a 'reactionary nationalism' sponsered by the same, which would hold back all progress in the region.

Whats interesting here is the close connection between this brand of zionist progressivism and the idea of socialism as a kind of colonial mission. Continuity with views of the present involve attributing no possibility of historical agency to Arabs. We are the agents of history. They are its subjects.
johng | 04.02.06 - 10:52 am | #

linguist,
simple question- should Arabs and Jews have exactly the same rights in historic Palestine? i.e Israel, Gaza and the West Bank.

Is this compatible with a "Jewsish State"?
Anonymous | 04.02.06 - 1:03 pm | #

I don't think you have buy-in from the Arabs that this is an American style civil rights struggle. If the Arabs, including Palestinians, were to declare in all 3 languages (English, Hebrew and Arabic) that they are completely loyal to Israel in every way, will defend it from its enemies, and just want the chance to serve in the Israeli army and become nuclear engineers then yes, they should hsve fully equal rights. Barring that, equality is not possible.
linguist | 04.02.06 - 3:21 pm | #

If they affirm to the Jewishness of the state then they bar themselves from equality. If they don't then Israel bars them. Clever linguist, very clever.
Mark Elf (Levi9909) | Homepage | 04.02.06 - 7:01 pm | #

johng, that bit about "reactionary nationalism" is really kind of funny. I had heard oblique references to it in reading some commentary on early Zionist thought, but had forgotten all about it.

The self-serving nonsense which people come up with never ceases to amaze and amuse me.
________

Good point Mark, regarding the catch 22 of accepting the "Jewish state".

Linguist's argument is the basic hypocrisy of Zionism. If they (the Zionists) hadn't established a Jewish state (with the concomitant ethnic cleansing of the non-Jews), there never would have been any dispute in the first place. I suppose this hypocrisy, and inverted reasoning is the only way in which Zionists can justify their own position to themselves.

Oh-By the way, abolition of the old Jim Crow system in the US south, (or the acceptance of American Indians as full citizens) was never conditional on taking a loyalty oath - and certainly not on one to a state which self-identifies as a "white state".
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GregPotemkin | Homepage | 04.02.06 - 8:11 pm | #

Additional point:

Regarding this hogwash line so often used by Zionists;

the Jews were there 3000 years before the British arrived and are still there

I realize that Zeus worshippers were in Rome long before the advent of Christianity, and I happen to know some Zeus worshippers in the United States (admittedly, their primary sacrament is smoking pot), but I really don’t think that means they have a right to invade and occupy the Vatican, (and ethnically cleanse the current occupants) even though it was originally one of “their” cemeteries/holy sites.
GregPotemkin | Homepage | 04.02.06 - 8:25 pm | #

"Ethnic cleansing" means that one group was removed during the war from many cities and villages. So far, so good. However, Jerusalem was under siege and the siege could not be broken without Israeli control of the roads to Jerusalem, which necessitated this. The whole issue is beyond a post, or a book , or a thesis. So, it will be easy to nitpick the above sentences if you try at all. However (in my opinion) the Jews also have a claim to the land, and that was threatened by would-be Arab ethnic cleansers, who wanted to cleanse the land of Jews (and still do). Besides the population displaced was not out of proportion to that occurring in other wars at the same era. What is harder to understand, for me, is the historical persistence of the refugee problem, UNRWA, false historical memories and the insistence on returning to a territory, Palestine, that did not even exist as such until the British defined its boundaries in 1924.
linguist | 04.02.06 - 8:42 pm | #

"false historical memories," isn't that similar to Orwell's "1984" where citizens of Oceania learn to disregard historical facts that contradict the party line as "false memories?"
Montag | 04.03.06 - 10:39 pm | #

A false historical memory can mean many things, for example of a prior Palestinian state, that never existed, or a prior territory of Palestine (before the Balfour Dec. was issued in order for the Jews tohave a homeland, Israel Lebanon and Syria and Jordan were divided into a checkerboard of vilayets and sanjaks , ie regions, that have no relationship to any present day country, ie there was no Palestine then). Thus its hard to understand how a particular Arab who lived in the vilayet of Damascus could really consider himself Palestinian as opposed to Syrian based on his family history. Hence the alternate explanations.

Of course, the refugee camps in many of these countries have been maintained intentionally for 55+ years by Arabs, while every other intervening refugee problem in the planet of similar size that arose afterwards has long since been solved. Every effort to establish permanent housing structures, state citizenship, etc. has been refused.The camps are kept as political baseball bats against Israel.

Some of the Arab refugees have legitimate histories that they can trace back a couple of hundred years. However, the '48 refugees have been out for 57 years and many of them are dead. Their village has not existed for two generations. What exactly does the right of return mean to them? What does "end of conflict" mean to them? These are the questions that every good citizen should ask himself or herself.
linguist | 04.04.06 - 8:00 pm | #

Sad to see you drift into irrelevance there Linguist.

The fact that there was never a Palestine state doesn't mean that there shouldn't be one now. I'm sure most of the member states of the UN were never states before the second half of the 20th century.

It's true that some refugee issues have been settled by dispersing the refugees but others have been settled by giving the refugees the right of return. In any case, Israel is the only state that exists on the back of its refugees. No other state's population is outnumbered by native refugees.

What the right of return means is just that, the right of return. Why should Israel have a law of "return" when very few Jews can establish a historical connection to the country? If you're right about Palestinians not wanting to return, then fine. Give them the right and they can decide not to use it.

Regarding good citizens, how can you be a good citizen of a democratic state when you support ethno-religious supremacy in another?
Mark Elf | Homepage | 04.04.06 - 8:30 pm | #