2nd reply

by Situationist

Posted to Poetry and Politics on 2003-08-23 10:29:00

Parent message is 503827
The deliberate harm done to the population and environment of Palestinians doesn’t even take into account direct killings. Snipers and curfew were mentioned, but the armed conflict isn’t really discussed in great length here. Armed conflict can be debated, but deliberate policy aimed at the destruction of a people’s livelihood can be documented. It isn’t about who has killed more of whom, but about who is holding the gun, and thus has the power to stop it. The ethnic cleansing, coerced transfer, and general mistreatment of Palestinians is not a matter of course but a matter of official policy.

Even the “road map”, which doesn’t provide a fair or equitable solution to Palestinians, especially refugees, and which singles out Palestinians as the root of all violence in this conflict, demands an end to colonization of he Occupied Territories. Yet Ariel Sharon insists to those who invest in this colonization that it may continue, just “quietly.”
Settlers are often heavily armed, and it’s questionable what is their military role. Photos are available wherein settlers have forced Palestinian farmers to stop planting their crops, where rifles have been aimed at fleeing children. Video is available where IDF forces secure an area and destroy whole markets. Whole villages are left without means of self-sustenance. Deliberately.


Ok, this is what I mean by homogenizing. You are completely correct in everything wrote factual. The empirical evidence, the travesty of it, and believe me…I do not, at all support the actions of the Israeli government of Zionist ideology.

However, what troubles me is the insistence that this is SOLELY a deliberate action. Very little is discussed about the structural components of the problem in Palestine. The structural coherence (or lack thereof) between Palestinian and other Arab nationalist movements. The disrepute with which Palestinians are held in even other Arab countries. 300,000 Palestinian were expelled from Kuwait during the 1st Gulf War. There is a colonial/quasi-imperialist structure at work which influences and is influenced by the agency of the Israeli and Palestinian factions. Agency is what reaffirms or defies that structure but the structure is in place.

Think of the time in which Zionism developed: at the height of European nationalism. Is it any wonder that the diasporic community of Jews should take advantage of the situations? And the Palestinians for that matter…their fight for freedom began in the midst of European nationalist revolutions.

I think the problem, in other words, is a problem which plagues people’s views of nationalism (a problem a professor of mine Patrick Hossay brought to light to me): nationalism is reduced to either some ethnically structured metaphysical movement or a behavorist or institutionalist framework, where because of the social interactions in which groups exist and act, nationalism necessarily develops in a step towards the development of institutions. But the political structure is so often left out of the discussion. Especially when it relates to US support of Zionist ideology….and WHY? Not in the name of Zionism or Israeli interests, but in US interests due to the political structure of the Cold War, the growing importance of oil to the economy, and the fear of pan-Arab nationalism sweeping thru the Middle East which made it susceptible to “Communist infiltration”.

The government of Israel of course cashed in on these concerns in the interests of its own nationalist project…not out of an institutional or behavior framework or out of any sense of ethnic unity…but rather out of a practical political position. The problem with reducing this situation to one of “ethnicity” is it reifies a particular racialized way of thinking about nationalism that hearkens back to German nationalism in World War I and II…and in that sense, Palestinian nationslism is just as ethnically motivated. I think the question of ethnic cleansing is IMPORTANT….and you’ve demonstrated this well. But what purpose does ethnic cleansing serve? Is it ethnic cleanisng for the sake of ethnic cleansing? Or is there some political motive as of yet unknown or simply ignored for the sake of expediency?

This ethnic cleansing, if we choose that term, yes should be stopped prosecuted and labelled what it is…but that doesnt solve the conflict and I think that by focusing on ethnicity you do yr own argument a disservice. You have a sense of the political structure which makes these actions possible…the economic greed, the system of power and exploitation…ethnic cleansing is symptomatic of a greater social disease: hegemony, capitalism.

All I’m suggesting is putting ethnic cleansing in a political framework rather than inverting the racialized polarity between West and East, Jew and Arab, etc, etc. What political motivations does this effect and serve? I think by expanding the question you expand the focus…and the persuasiveness and moral scope of the argument.


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