Israel over and over

Jewish Orthodox Rabbis, as well as many others, were opposed to Zionism.  They saw it as secular nationalism overtaking their historic theology.  According to Jewish theology, it was no accident that the Romans drove the Jews out of Israel in the first century CE.  It was God's will.  And it was God who must decide when they return, not men.  Orthodox Rabbis made dire predictions of what would happen if Israel were reconstituted prematurely by Jews acting without God's will.  They said nationalism would overtake religion, other nations would be angered, and a new anti-Semitism would arise.  Very prescient, and I think I like these guys.

Strangely, this is the 3rd time Israel has been established, and the first two times led to its disestablishment by a large empire.  What might happen this time?

The second time it was established, it was established on behest of one empire, with bags of money from Cyrus, then 600 years later, was disestablished by another empire, the Roman empire, which found Israel not to be an obedient vassal state, and tending to generate chaos.  100 years earlier, the Jews had invited the Romans in, because the Jews had been having internal chaos.

Secular observers don't have good stories for the first establishment of Israel.  Here we have as practically our only history the Torah, with very little independent corroboration.  The Torah was written down in the style of religious myth 500 years after the purported events happened.  So we can't really accept the stories about Moses, King David, and Solomon, as established facts at face value, rather only as religious myths--which might have some connection to the facts.

According to the Torah, Moses organized slaves who revolted from Egypt and escaped to set up their own state in Canaan.  There is no independent evidence of any of this.  But one very peculiar thing is that these "slaves" had weapons and knew how to use them.

My interpretation is that these "slaves" were not exactly slaves, and they did not exactly conquer Canaan, there is no evidence for the Battle of Jericho or that kind of thing either.  Instead, the Jews may have been mercenaries for the Egyptian empire, situated in Canaan to protect the Egyptian frontier from Assyria.  Mercenaries aren't generally slaves, but may be under contract.  Perhaps they didn't like their contract, and got out of it to become independent operators, do their own trade and security for cash.  And this was the first Israel.

One way or another, the first time Israel was "established," it at least had an imperial connection even according to the Torah story, though in the Torah version the imperial connection was looser than in my guess.

So initially, there was a mercenary culture.  The women didn't like where things were going with that.  So they sought out holy men in the area and got them involved to make the culture more civilized.  So when the rules were written, they were written so that it was the children of the women who were the chosen.  That's the mark that this religion was established for the women, in order to civilize the men.

So we see today, the descendants of the mercenaries and the holy men, which to me aptly describes the polarities we see among Jews from right to left.  The mercenaries are men and women like the Prime Ministers of Israel…a cadre of state terrorists, some with considerable previous terrorist achievements.  The holy men are like the unending battalions of Jewish peace organizers and leftist writers.  The Jews produced Jesus, who had many ideas that still resonate with leftists today.

Israel exists now because it was convenient to Imperial planners in Europe and the USA to have a battleship in the oil rich middle east manned by local operators who would rather die than see pan arab democracy--which the Empire doesn't want either because it would loosen their grip.

We know that twice when Israel was established (now and after the first exile) it was with imperial cash for imperial ends.  And perhaps this is actually the third time Israel has been established for imperial ends with imperial cash.  Which strengthens the suggestion that the outcome may be similar as well.

The orthodox rabbis were right, time had just not come for an Israel yet.  Israel needs to be established by God, not by empires.  Empires come and go.  And being an imperial mercenary is not a good thing to live for, even if the pay is pretty good.   Israel gives the worst of Jews the upper hand.

  

Finkelstein defending Right of Return (Great!)

Finkelstein defending Palestinian Right of Return (2010).

This is the best I've ever heard Finkelstein.  I can see from this he is a great teacher.

Funny his latest thing is that advocating the One-State-For-Palestinians-And-Jews is "historically criminal".  And full RoR makes many Israelis fear that they will be outnumbered…so no more Jewish supremacist state.  So then where is RoR

Finkelstein in this video does fully not address this issue.  Or he assumes that Palestinians can easily be compensated for lost property inside the 78% of the original Palestinian territory that Israel retains under existing law.  (What disconnected percentage do the Palestinians actually have now?  Nobody says, but on maps it's disconnected bantustans.  The UN, which had no rights to do this, gave Israel 55% even though Jews were 1/3 of the population, and owned less than 10% of the land.  Then by 1948 Israel had militarily taken 78%.)

I think he's right.  I think the Palestinians would mostly accept what conservative judges would consider reasonable compensation, even if it doesn't fully capture the actual hedonic loss as I might calculate it.  I think Israel under exceptionally leadership, the equivalent of FDR for USA, could accept and pay it, allowing a modest number to return, but retain Israel's desired Jewish majority.  And I think they will still retain the control they need if a small Arab majority arises in the distant future.  Jews have considerable impact in the USA with 2% of the population.  In South Africa rich whites are still rich whites who control everything, with a few rich blacks.

Of course as he says, it's not ours to say.  We both agree this fundamental rights including RoR must not be disclaimed before negotiation can start, as Israel has been doing for RoR, as well as the fake issue about recognizing Israel's "Right to Exist" (a nonexistent right for states…all states exist only conditionally to serve the rights of their populations and outsiders, if they fail to do those things, those populations may deserve to have the states remade differently).  All these things that Israel insists the Palestinians must do before negotiation will start are really just Israel deferring a diplomatic solution and seeking a military one: the physical and human destruction of non-Jewish Palestine.  Nobody should be fooled anymore.  BDS (if we ever get the S we need) is what Israel needs, not more US military hardware to crush Palestine.  Without BDS, they'll just keep doing what they are doing, and claiming it's "Self Defense."

Move along, the Hasbarats say

In one way or another, the defenders of Greater Israel, usually come to a conclusion saying that we could all live in peace if only the Palestinians were able to move along, forget the past, forget the minor detail that we stole their pretty country between the river and the sea brutally and illegally 66 years ago, and be happy with the subhuman status we have left them with in a decreasingly sized and increasingly dry and brutal refugee prison, which is for their own good, and from which they could rise again, if only they renounce ill will toward their dispossessor.

A commenter on a blog about Finkelstein's accusation that the insistence on Right of Return is historically criminal (I very respectfully believe the good doctor who knows and has done far more than me is nevertheless at least partly wrong, but a properly nuanced response warrants at least another post) has posted this wonderful reply:

I sit on a man’s back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means – except by getting off his back. — Lev Tolstoi 

I also don’t view them as passive actors or just as a victims whose fates rests solely on my (my country ) decisions, this game has two sides and they have made plenty of blunders on their own just as we did. — OlegR [the hasbarat being responded to]

In other words: I sit on a man’s back and make him carry me for 62 years and going, and I agree that the wounds and misery he sustains, and the times he has fainted sending me tipping over into a thorn bush or the avoidable rages he has felt at times and expressed after I pricked him to soldier on, are of the wounds we both share. 

If they insist on pursuing their dream of undoing my country i can only sadly shake my head an get ready for the next cycle of violence. – OlegR 

In other words – If he insists on rising up to the height that all human beings have a right to, to till his land, to bake his bread, and to live in freedom, I am afraid this would hurt my privilege because I don’t want to share this space. His presence will grow larger, and that makes me very uncomfortable even as people grow closer in many other countries. I am afraid of his passions, his mind, his poverty. I boast of my own liberal institutions that we built because it was a miracle, whether or not God exists, and not because I had room to produce knowledge. To even grant him a different space is too much to ask, he must earn it. I have not set a price yet.

Another commenter give a more concise reply to the Hasbarat:

My personal feelings towards the Palestinians are mixed Daniel
i don’t think that them living a shitty life benefits me in any way
and if that situation would change i would be glad. -- OlegR

 Of course it does. Your precious state is built on massive theft of land and property. Reparations will cost, a lot. 

Israel: Bad Idea, born with war crimes, and continuing unrepentant war criminal

The idea of a Jewish State harkens back to the time of Moses.  Modern states are, for better or arguably worse, multi-ethnic.  That's what's happened, and the Jews themselves used to be a higher proportion of Europe, once a big and famous part of the multi-ethnicities, often the most enlightened part, actually.  I think the reality of diaspora focused not so much on the tribe, the branding, the defense team, and so on, but with the power of the religion and the complex society it creates and ideas it engenders.

Zionism is a step backward from modernity, back to the tribe, the branding, and the defense team uber al, the religion being about traditional support for such things (though initially many Orthodox were anti Zionist).  But this is progress, ,according to the PR "hasbarats", the religion is becoming "stronger."

Progress so strong that modern Zionists scrawl "Arab" and "Death to Arabs" on buildings in the same ways as Nazis scrawled those things about Jews.  The whole West Bank Occupation seems more farse, perhaps, though sometimes deadly.  But what is the long range plan?

Israel was born in the war crime of a minority taking over 78% of the land initially by force and displacement of the once majority, some 750,000 Palestinians were sent to refugee camps in different countries, in 1948.  Palestinians owned 90% of the land.  The earlier UN plan, rejected by all Arab nations, was to have 55% of the land for the Jewish State.  All Arabs preferred a single state for all in the original Palestine.

I have seen posts suggesting that Israel was doing no harm in 1967.  But that ignores the still unsettled issues related to its criminal birth.

Chomsky suggests the peace effort focus on the Green Line internationally recognized borders.  People think of him as anti-Israel but he actually does seem to have some fondness for the Israel he once lived in.

As for me, I think we'd be better off without a Jewish State, and especially Israel in it's current incarnation.  I'd love to see the Chomsky solution but even that, I feel, is unfair to the Palestinians.  A start towards fairness, as I have argued previously, is the right of return.  I had also been thinking that the UN plan was more fair also--but even that was really unfair.  It is beginning to seem to me that a fully democratic and equitable state of all it's original citizens and their descendants is the best solution, and as much as possible a full right of return and restoration of property.  That would likely be an arab majority state, and not a Jewish state.

But we do have an Israel.  I recognize that it exists merely by talking about it.  It has developed endless pretexts as to why it can't negotiate with anyone, why it must ignore world opinion for security reasons, and so on.  The security arguments have been debunked by many people.  At least Israel could have complete security on the Green Line.  But it refuses to go back to there.

What should we do?  Stop giving any preferential treatment to Israel!  No more military subsidies, no 

more military support, no more special UNSC vetoes.  Let them pay their own way and fight their own battles on every level, including with the UN.  The State of Israel continues to a useless thug and liar, unable to deal with anyone.  For decades they've exposed Americans to security risks--as the supporter of an inhuman regime that continues the war crime of 1948 we deserve to be hated by all Arabs.

Treat it's oppressed Palestinian people as their own country and let them defend themselves, by freely importing what they need for all purposes, including military.  If there is any country we should attempt to be blocking military hardware and support to, it would be Israel.

Morally, anyway.  Even enlightened US leadership would talk to outlaw Israel.  Only Israel invents endless oaths (such as that you must first swear Israel has the right to exist) that counter parties must swear before they will consider talking, if they don't have to.  Well they are simply taking, over a slow process.  No need to talk about it with the takees.

I've heard the argument that Jews are special, they need their own state, etc.  There are many places Jews can live respectably now.  Including many parts of the USA.  The best solution to discrimination is fight it, and there has been considerable improvement since the 1800's when Zionism was formulated.  A secular multiethnic state may be even less possible than a Green Line state, but it would be a better solution.

High Time for Palestinians to be Free

An excellent post by Irish Moses outlines the history of the creation of Israel and the oppression of the original Palestinian majority.  At the end of World War I, Palestine, which had been a colony of the Ottoman Empire, was occupied by the British army and became the Palestinian Mandate with the intention of becoming an independent state.  Palestine's population was then 93 percent indigenous Palestinians and 7 percent zionist Jews.  The British never converted their Palestinian Mandate into an independent state, as was done for other Mandates in the Middle East.  In 1947 the UN drew up a plan to grant 56 percent of the land for a Jewish state and 43 percent for a Palestinian state even though the Palestinians still represented 2/3 of the population and owned over 90% of the land.  The plan gave most of the coastline and prime agricultural areas to the Jewish state.  The Zionists accepted the plan but the Palestinians (as well as the neighboring Arab states) rejected it.  Still it passed the UN General Assembly which was then dominated by American, European, and Russian influence.

Fighting between Jews and Palestinians broke out, and the US and the UN started exploring binational solutions, but by 1948 Zionists had conquered 78 percent of Palestine and had ethnically cleansed 750,000 Palestinians from their homes, giving that 78 percent of the land a Jewish majority.  Zionists declared their independence under the UN plan and their new state was first recognized by the USA, making it a fait accompli.

Palestinian refugees were forced into camps in Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan, as well as the West Bank and Gaza.  The West Bank was then a colony of Jordan.

In the 1967 Six Day War, Israel conquered the West Bank, East Jerusalem, and Gaza.  Legally it had a duty to give up those territories gained through war.  But instead it began treating the Occupied Territories as colonies, transferring Jewish citizens into new settlements while evicting more and more Palestinians from their homes, confiscating their lands, and subjecting them to harsh military rule.

During the past 47 years, the Palestinians have tried both violent and non-violent resistance with little success and much failure.  Now there are 750,000 Israeli Jews living on settlements on Palestinian land and that number is expected to grow by 50% by 2019.  Leaders of major political parties say that Israel has no intention of withdrawing from Palestinian territories which it considers to be part of a Greater Israel it inherited from Biblical times.

It's time we started looking at Palestinian terrorists as freedom fighters, struggling for their independence.

Satellite Photos

At great fanfare, the US releases satellite photos implicating Russian involvement in the war in Eastern Ukraine.  It has long been said, and likely true, that Russia has been arming separatists defending themselves from an illegally instituted government in Kiev.

However, everyone talks about MH17.  Here the story is unclear.  The US can clearly take photos, and show them, but doesn't show us anything on the day of shooting.  I have heard the US has a geostationary satellite over the region by a commenter in the comments to the above, so could be expected to have very relevant photos of the shooting.

I still believe the BUK theory, that ill trained Separatists fired off at a commercial jetliner by mistake.  This implicates Russia only in the supply of the weapons.  But other theories say that Kiev deliberately directed the jetliner into warring airspace to create an incident.  And some go further, when that failed the plane may have been shot down by a ground based missile on orders of Kiev.  I would doubt that, but the lack of photos brings up the tails of my probability estimation.

The satellite photos don't clarify the situation at all, in fact they make it murkier.  Funny this seems to be advertised as the proof we have been waiting for, or as if that's what it's supposed to be, even though it doesn't say that at all.

Lift the Blockade on Gaza

My latest congressional letter.

First step to peace should be lifting the blockade on Gaza.

There is a false narrative saying that "Hamas should not be rewarded for violence."  That is completely wrong.  Hamas was following the previous cease fire and did not order the kidnapping of three Israelis in the West Bank.  It is well known now that Hamas did not order this, and it likely had no way of stopping it either.  Indeed, Hamas had just proposed a unification with the Palestinian Authority.

Hamas only started launching small rockets into Israel after it was attacked brutally with heavy shelling by Israel.

Further, the blockade itself is an act of war against the State of Palestine, which is recognized by 134 nations in the UN.  Palestine has full legal rights to arm itself, even militarize itself, and attack Israel to end the illegal occupation which has persisted for many decades now.  That occupation is another continuing act of aggression, for which Palestine is legally entitled to self defense using violence directed at its occupier.

Israel has no legal right to de-militarize or block military hardware from any region of Palestine.  In so doing, it is blocking the legal right of another State to defend itself.

[I didn't think of adding this: Of course the correct narrative is that Netanyahu should be punished for uncalled for and excessive violence.  And the perfect remedy is to lift the blockade under international diplomacy and sanctions if required.]