Here's why there will never be peace in Israel

Poststructural Pub
21

May I suggest you actually address what people have written. As far as I can tell no poster here has been apportioning blame in any systematic way. Some of us have requested more balance than was shown in the posted article that got the ball rolling. I was the one who did a detailed critique of the original article and also who called into question Lindsey’s credentials as a historian and a population geneticist.

My critique was nothing more than a an attempt to place Hezbollahs situation in context to get a feel for just how important a role they really play. My conclusion was that in the short term they played a significant role in destabilising the region but that their elimination would make no material difference in the medium to long term.

I suggested that the deep underlying reason for Hamas attacks was a rational feeling of disaffection with their fate and an equally rational belief that their condition can be rectified only through armed struggle. Nothing in taht quote undermines this. Perhaps if you’d quoted a bit about the methods by which the Palestinians were dispossessed, and compared Hamas’s methods now, with Israeli and proto-Israeli methods then, you’d arrive at some idea of what I, and others have really been saying.

After world war II, the major powers probably had no realistic alternative but to giving Zionists their wish for an Israeli state. I’m not talking about some abstract sense of guilt here; the whole western world was to some extent complicit in the holocaust. Something had to be done. But the solution meant that one group of displaced persons replaced another with no awareness that this was a problem that had to have a better solution to any canvassed so far.

What we have is a problem created by a very large number of different people and an even larger number of interconnected historical forces. The solution to that problem was amazingly inept and clumsy, whoever you care to blame for it, but, at the time, it was politically irresistable. It can’t be reversed now, even if we wanted that. All I am saying about blame is ‘don’t blame or demonise the victim’ in this clash of nationalisms.

Let me draw an analogy. The Vikings almost certainly set foot in or near the United States. Suppose they lived in, say, Maryland, for several generations and new evidence showed that after many years of colonisation, they were eventually driven out by surrounding Native Americans. Now suppose that they returned to, say, Norway, where they have been living as a frequently persecuted minority ever since. Now irrefutable evidence of their earlier possession of large slabs of Maryland comes to light and they return to repossess their ancestral home by force. The international community, feeling (rightly) guilty for the centuries of persecution, support their claim of course, and stand by approvingly as they move in to remove the current inhabitants of Maryland to make way for the rightful owners. Are you suggesting the folk of Maryland wouldn’t have a right to use force to repel the neo-Viking invaders? I rather doubt it.

If that’s not what you are saying, please stop demonising the Palestinians and their Arab allies.

22

Is the thread about something other than why there won’t be peace in Israel? Is there now a requirement for posting on a thread that one must refer to only what other posters have chosen to address and not the original thread? Things are changing so quickly around here it’s hard to keep up.

Wow, can you ever read an immense amount of BS between the lines (that was never written by me), Wombat, IMO. I said it was amazing that anyone can actually blame the USA for suicide bombers. How does that demonize ALL the Palestinians and Arabs? You quoted the Wikipedia earlier, so did I. All I said was that there are two sides. Actually in terms of the various religious sects of Islam, the sides appear to be innumerable. I’m going to free blackhawk from your criticism here, too. I gave him the Hal Lindsey link. I respect the gentleman’s opinion. That’s my choice and I’m free to make it, in spite of opinions to the contrary here. I respect your right to state your opinions, as well as everyone else here. It’s a crying shame that the privilege it not returned. I can see the shades of gray in the situation. What a pity others can’t. Please note, no one is singled out by ‘others’.

I’m fairly new here, no one really knows me well – so a small word of advice. Don’t go putting words “in my mouth” that I didn’t ‘say’ first. You will be called on it every time.

Judy

23

Yes it is hard. But if you are, by your own admission, going to throw fuel on the fire, expect to be interpreted as making a move in the conversation. How otherwise would your ‘fuel’ be relevant? I was doing you the courtesy of assuming you were actually joining in the conversation. Would you rather I didn’t?

The original ‘thread,’ by which I take it you mean post, was not about listing and evaluating the relative importance of causes, as the thread name suggested, but rather a post on the role of Hezbollah. It was very hard not to read post and thread name without thinking that Hezbollah, and by extension Hamas, were the single most important barrier to peace. Others disagreed, giving their reasons. That was the conversation you appeared to be joining.

If that was your intention, I’m relieved to hear it. But how was it provocative to say there are two sides? Who exactly were you ‘running’ from in saying that? Those defending the Palestinians weren’t denying that there are two sides. You start a post by saying you are (in effect) trolling and then express amazement when you are interpreted as being as good (bad?) as your word. If your intention had really been conciliatory, why not begin by telling us that?

Well to try to figure out what you are saying here as a move in the conversation is just to invite being told, after the event, that I am reading between the lines. Of course I would be. I would again be doing you the courtesy of assuming there is some conversational point to this remark but to find it I have to fill in the detail you’ve left out.

I didn’t criticise Blackhawk explicitly. I questioned the reliability of Lindsey as a historian and population geneticist. A little research reveals that he makes a living as a prophet. That is not a suitable qualification for gainsaying easily verifiable claims about the relatedness of ethnic groups. I’m still waiting to hear the evidence of his qualifications.

I simply don’t know what you are talking about here. I wasn’t criticisng Lindsey in some blanket way. I made two claims.

The first was that I hadn’t seen the genetic evidence on which his claim about the origins of the Palestinian people was based and asked for it. I’m still waiting. The silence is deafening. Facts about gene frequencies in populations aren’t ‘opinions’, except where the research hasn’t been done or is seriously inconclusive.

My second point was that even if Lindsey were right about the origins of the Palestinian people, that would not have been a justification for dispossessing them. I didn’t present that as an ‘opinion’, I presented two detailed analogies by way of argument. If the analogies don’t work, show me where they break down. If you think they do work, then I don’t think we have a disagreement here.

I’ve said all I have to say on this matter already.

24

Judy writes: “Can anyone actually believe that Israel and the United States are completely to blame for all the problems of the Middle East?”

No, but their contributions and presence are a substantial part of the problem. The Zionists have created a situation that seems to have no solution, and is dripping with the blood of innocent people on both sides. I believe the Israeli government’s agenda is responsible for driving the Palestinians to desperation resulting in terrorist acts of defiance. And the US has complicity with the Israeli government on this point for reasons I’ve already stated. Ever since WWII the US government’s policy in the Middle East has been corrupt and immoral resulting in hatred for America by the Muslim world. The US has put in power some of the most feared and hated tyrants around that region, and we still support some of the most repressive regimes. I never said the US and Israel were responsible for ALL the problems in that part of the world, but I will say they were, and still remain, key players in the problems that persist.

25

I apologize, Wombat. I didn’t know you were a genetic researcher. Actually I didn’t realize the ‘conversation’ had become based solely on genetics. I felt that religion and/or nationality was the criteria. I am not a genetic research scientist; but I would guess that the genetic make-up of Israelis and Palestinians are remarkably close … but that is assuming on my part. However, I do not see any claim in the piece from Hal Lindsey that his conclusions were based on genetics. IMO, it seemed to be based on the indigenous population of the area in question.

As for “throw fuel on the fire and run”, that was a poor attempt to place a small bit of lightheartedness in a sad subject. Re: trolling? Sorry, my chiffese isn’t up to par … as per Merriam-Webster Online:
1 : to move around ?
2 : to fish by trailing a lure or baited hook from a moving boat ?
3 : to sing or play in a jovial manner ?
4 : to speak rapidly ?

Not really important – simply a matter of semantics. As you said:

I’ve said all I have to say on this matter already.

Ditto

26

Thanks for clarifying, Judy. I’m sorry I misinterpreted you.

Actually I’m not a population geneticist but I am reasonably familiar with the latest developments in the field. My work requires that I keep up with, and collaborate with, experimental biologists in several fields. Although it’s not well-known to the general public, the work on genetic distance I was talking about is of vital importance in debates like this. I research and write quite a bit about ethnic and racial violence, as well as other matters to do with ethnicity, and it is absolutely vital for my work that I have a way of checking the accuracy of historians claims about the relatedness (or distinctness) of two ethnic groups. Since accounts of ethnic conflict are so often written from the biased point of view of one or another protagonist, genetic measures of distance are one of the best tools for revealing bias and factoring out one kind of distortion. Of course, there’s much more to it than that; two populations that are genetically very similar might well be culturally poles apart.

Palestinians and Jews do seem to be genetically very similar. Just how similar is still an open question. There are signifcant genetic differences between Ashkanzi Jews and Sephardic Jews and even bigger differences between these populations and Falashas.