Israel/Palestine Conflict (Redux Discussion Topic - June 1, 2006)
There was so much left to say that IIF will again discuss the Israel/Palestine Conflict. Many members felt the May 4, 2006 discussion left much still to be explored on this topic. This post will be updated with relevant background articles as soon as they are available.
posted by IIF BlogMeister @ 2:10 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
Since I will not be able to participate in the discussion I would like to share some thoughts here.
Both sides in this conflict have a large number of people, who see it as a struggle between life and death, win or loose. They are often acting on very dearly held religious convictions. There are then also on both side a large number of people interested in a solution that will at a bare minimum provide safety, security and a means of economic survival. Clearly a solution can be built on this last group and while I respect the beliefs of the others, they need to be marginalized (I certainly do not suggest eliminated) from the equation. The ability of the US to be a player in the equation will in my view depend on the ability of the US to support the creation of a viable solution in partnership with the third group. Any country aligning itself with either extreme will not be a positive actor in find a solution.
Jim asked specifically if I could talk about terror – an sad centerpiece in the fight – and specifically of could talk about the distinctions (if any) between terror as expressed in the case if the anti-Apartheid groups in South Africa (including Mandela's personal involvement in this activity) and terror in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. These are some of my thoughts. Note: I think that terror and issues around just war may warrant a separate topic.
Terror is usually the name given to activities of a group by a group opposing the group. I so not mean to trivialize the nature of terror and the horrible results. I am simply making the point that terror is in the eyes of the beholder – the one judging action as terror by the other enemy. The actors (often but not always) have a different view, usually claiming last resort, response to an unjust situation, a guerilla war tactic. In the case of this conflict, the use of terror in fundamentalist Islam (read here Hamas in this conflict) and terror by less ideologically driven groups (read Fatah) tends to be grouped all together. Some feel strongly that the actions of Israel is (at least at times) effectively also terror. Yelling at each other is not an answer to question. Without the risk of pre-judging the moral ground or justification of any terror activity, there are fundamentally different motivations at plan and the objectives are different. For an excellent analysis on terror and it's history I have found "Terror and Liberalism" by Paul Berman an excellent read. Here is a summary by the publisher: “Berman puts his leftist credentials (he's a member of the editorial board of Dissent) on the line by critiquing the left while presenting a liberal rationale for the war on terror, joining a discourse that has been dominated by conservatives. The most original aspect of his analysis is to categorize Islamism as a totalitarian reaction against Western liberalism in a class with Nazism and communism; drawing on the ideas of Camus in The Rebel, Berman delineates how all three movements descended from utopian visions (in the case of Islamism, the restoration of a pure seventh-century Islam) into irrational cults of death. He illustrates this progression through a nuanced analysis of the writings of a leading Islamist thinker, Sayyid Qutb, ending with some chilling quotations from other Islamists, e.g., "History does not write its lines except with blood," the blood being that of Islam's martyrs (such as suicide bombers) as well as of their enemies, Zionists and Crusaders (i.e., Jews and Christians). Berman then launches into his most provocative chapter, and the one he will probably be most criticized for in politically correct journals: a scathing attack on leftist intellectuals, such as Noam Chomsky, who have applauded terrorism and tried to explain it as a rational response to oppression. Berman exhorts readers to accept that, on the contrary, Islamism is a "pathological mass political movement" that is "drunk on the idea of slaughter." A former MacArthur fellow and a contributing editor to the New Republic, Berman offers an argument that will be welcomed by disaffected progressives looking for a new analysis of today's world.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.”
At some point we should have a forum on the definition of terrorism, if any. I should point out that the "eye of the beholder" definition is not relative but absolute. It is also far less useful. How useful would the term "genocide" be if it too were in the eye of the beholder?
This book by Berman sounds interesting. But there is a difference between Hamas and al Qaeda - in their targets as well as their cause. Hamas fights concretely for freedom whereas al Qaeda fights for something more than that. They are not allies at all. The Palestinian supporters of terrorism are NOT Islamists ala Sayyid Qutb. They use immoral means for a moral cause.
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