Tao, I agree with everything you say, except (as the joke goes) your conclusion.
I would offer you the following challenge. Please give an example of when Israel attacked her neighbors without provokation by them first. I do not think you will be able to do it: Second Lebanon War, First Lebanon War, Yom Kippur War, War of Attrition, Six Day War, Sinai War, 1948 Palestine War go ahead, read about the causes and I think you will agree.
After thinking on how best to approach my response to the above it seems wholly right to make no distinction between them as they are collectively a part of the deliberately sustained US led policy in Israel. They all have the same provocation and attendant violence the US/Israeli position demands. A demand derived wholly on maintaining US control of the bulk of oil production in the region. If you are indeed aware of the historical relevance of each of these conflicts within the overview of Chomsky's thoroughly researched expose then it surprises me you even make the challenge. US encouraged Israeli expansionism, whether it be into the Sinai, Golan Heights, Jordan or Lebanon, led to resistance. You like to think of that resistance as as provocation. I am tempted to go into a case by case (bloodshed by bloodshed), analysis of how US/Israeli policy led quite deliberately to these clashes but it would simply take too long. But its results are plain. The capitulation of Jordan and Israel, the marginalisation of Syria and the de facto annexation of southern Lebanon and the Golans, with all their strategic necessity, was not done to make Jews feel safe. It was done to secure the territory of a US hegemony. A hegemony that had out manoeuvred the British one that had dominated pre 1939 because it wanted control of the vast resource it maintained. And in that light it would do well to consider that American entry into WW2 was most carefully deliberated.
But back to the real issue and the focus of your challenge. I think it wholly dishonest to deny the populations in direct contact the right to protest the deprivations asserted on them directly by the US/Israeli machine. The corruption of the Egyptian and Jordanian regimes by the US was achieved by threat and carrot, (nuclear escalation/ security and support of fascist feudal kingdoms), and officially drawn up in the Camp David Accords. That left Lebanon as a buffer between Israel and Syria and a brilliantly controllable nursery of plots and excuses. It has now Gaza in a similar position on the Egyptian border, and it can choose alternately where to increase humiliation and provoke what are really piffling attacks compared to the military capability of the USIDF.
To make sure there is plenty of confusion, and to insure a fully programmable "terrorist threat", the US also saught with its other feudal servant,
{(===But has servant connived to be Master?==)}* Saudi Arabia, to create that smoke and mirrors illusion called Al Quaida. Saudi controlled and funded through the Wahhabi network in full operational collusion with the US. A Pentagon dreamt Islamic special ops. So now in the west all perceptions are blurred in the news. What is clear is what is being funded by Syria and Iran is close to negligible. Any south American drug cartel is better armed than Israel's attackers. But it is enough to create an excuse for maintaining massive militarisation within Israel. A militarisation that protects that ultimate whip, a substantial nuclear arsenal at service to US interest in protecting the Med, Red Sea, Suez and the Arabian Oilfields. The refunding of those states that are in servitude to the US hegemony, corrupt feudal kingdoms and dictatorships they all are, continues throughout giving us this situation of Palestinians getting no assistance from their neighbours. Egypt, Jordan and Saudi turn a blind eye whilst the IDF has its long-running and ongoing "war game" foisted between Gaza and Lebanon, maintaining its readiness and capability. Just as Kissinger, who has long been a major player in the hegemony, suggested. Indeed Kissingers early manifesto on "Tactical, Limited Nuclear War", I think I am right in quoting, could be seen as a manifesto for Israel as a Nuclear Island state.
I have quite deliberately not been drawn in as your challenge demanded to getting lost in the too-ings and fro-ings whilst the US/Israel found settlement with Israel's neighbours. It was Israeli expansionism in every case that can be held root cause. Getting bogged down with who did what, where and when misses the causes altogether. US owned Israel has succeeded with ease in establishing and protecting its borders by overwhelming military might and feels no threat from anyone. Within its assured borders it practices a piecemeal driving of Palestinian landowners from their ancestral lands with a virtual impunity and an arogant dismissal of international law. So into the refugee camps the Palestinians go which are surrounded and harassed with every deprivation. Allowing a steady, carefully managed, flow of angry youth to be trained by the IDF itself in its infamous black ops or by the concentrated effort of very small and isolated groups supported tenuously by Syria and Iran. Israel will continue to drain its land of Palestinian blood into Gaza and a diminishing West Bank enclave. It is this dispossession that causes anger, not the politico/religious artifice pasted on top. It is Israeli policy to re-write all Israeli land ownership into the hands of loyal Israeli settlers. It seemed for a short time that what amounts to the capitulation, (most Palestinians would call it bribery), of Yasser Arafat would lead to peace but any such ideas soon showed themselves thwarted by what the US/Israel demanded, DEMOCRACY! Democracy swung with the will of the people to Hamas. So the Palestinians remain between a rock and hard place and I do not believe for a moment their situation will improve on that. Islam better get used to the idea that it will have to give up Jerusalem, its oldest claimants are back in too much force to resist. But what else can they do but resist since they are offered no alternative by anyone.
I think you are in an excellent position to be truly objective about the Israeli - Palestine conflict. I do not think you are being so in the current argument, so I will present arguments to show that you should change your position. Right now you are simply reacting to the current situation in Gaza. You need to step back and examine the underlying causes and history more deeply.
As you can plainly see above I am very
holistic.
You might be surprised, I agree with you and Chomsky here. I value life too highly to see Gaza civilians killed by Israeli military for mistakes made by Gaza and politicians and terrorists and Israeli politicians.
I would be surprised if you did not agree that civilian massacres were an unjustifiable wrong.
So, the broader context of my argument is that the issue is not really Israel vs. Palestine at all. It is valuing civilian life over the politician and power brokers of the greater Middle East.
Well mine is about the US/Israeli axis not valuing human life.
Your choice of the example of Nazi implementation and Jewish ghettos is a good start for comparison. If we are really going to understand the broader context of this issue, that will probably be our next stop in the discussion.
I am far from the first neutral comment to draw this analogy. Indeed with the tightening stranglehold on Gaza and that cowardly evil attack over the New Year it seems to be on many a commentators lips. I have justified my use of it on a thread here some time ago.
This is not true. Do you think the people of Israel do not want peace ? Who has the most to lose during war ? The Israeli and Palestinian civilians.
What war? I only see fractional protest at a painfully slow and vicious program of ethnic cleansing.
I do not believe your statement about not honoring ceasefires. Please provide me a reference to cite this, I will read it.
You listen to Chomsky? He is comprehensively researched and I trust it.
I would agree that politicians and power brokers are responsible for civilian casualties. But again, both sides to blame.
Ok And lets all ignore proportionality.
Ah ha, a conspiracy theory ! I love those !! So who wants to keep the tensions high ? The Israeli civilians ? So they can have their children sent off the the army to die in Gaza or the West Bank ? Lets think more deeply here.
lol, emotive but false argument. Hardly any Israeli soldiers die. How deeply are you willing to think?
Now here is an area that atheists and liberal Jews (which I am certainly one) might have some fun with. Maybe the big, evil capitalists in the oil companies, Exxon-Mobil, Shell, etc. are moving the pawns around the table to keep their high paying jobs and bonus coming. You might be able to convince me there is some of this going on. But the creation of Israel started before the US was involved. The Balfour Declaration put that action into play and was orchestrated by Britain. So lets blame them too
The dynastic lineage of the US hegemony precedes the Balfour Deceleration and its usurpation of British Sovereign administration was, as I said, quite a coup.
Every country ??? Do you consider Ahmadinajad and Iran to be exactly doves ??
No, he is a political tiger using every advantage he can. Unfortunately both China and Russia can see every advantage in allowing Iran to go Nuclear. Even the US hegemony has its competitors.
We might have some fun with this issue
I think I am going to like the atheist position, with perhaps just a little modification
I am an atheist. But this is my individual position and I in no way claim it to be a 'definitive' atheist position. Atheism is not a church to me. That said I always like a good discussion and look forward to your modification
* Hinted at in a recent thread discussing Obama's deep bow to the Saudi King.
