07-25-2003, 05:39 PM
(This post was last modified: 07-25-2003, 05:45 PM by Occhidiangela.)
The "Palestinians" were used as a foil, as a cause celebre by the Arab world, when the illusion of Arab unity was still fashionable, to justify the invasion and destruction of Israel. That goal, by the way, has not been universally discarded, all rhetoric to the contrary considered. Politicians will often say anything to pursue an end, and Yassir Arafat is a politician, whatever else he may be.
The 1948-1973 wars proved conclusively that armed victory was not going to succeed, and Sadat's aggreement to the Camp David accords shattered the last illusion of Arab political unity, or Pan Arabism. OPEC restored a bit of that, but The UAR is dead. The Palestinians, who you will note did not get from the Hashemite leaders of Jordan any sort of commitment for autonomoy on the West Bank, were left swinging while the illusion lasted, then were used as a foil. IMO, they have been the saps for the rest of the Arab world since about 1947/1948. Arafat and other Palestinian factions dug their own PR grave from 1960-1983. The only way they could seem to draw attention to themselves was by acting out. Predictable response, I suppose, as they were often treated, by Arabs and others, as "children to be seen not heard while the adults were talking over dinner."
Munich 1972. Hijackings of a variety of airlines. Acts of violence. It is no accident that the word "Palestinian" carried the connotation "terrorist" to anyone not from the Mid East, and for some there as well, for about 20 years. It is no surprise that it takes little for that label to resurface, and to re stick, now. That was all they had to offer in terms of progress in their struggle to gain at least the West Bank/Gaza, per original UN Resolutions that created Israel, if not more. It was allegedly on their behalf, though, that 1948 through 1973 wars were fought, so that stain too was all over the righteousness of their cause.
The problem Arafat had was having to appeal to both those who would have settled for a West Bank/Gaza state, and those who insisted on cleaning out Palestine "from the river to the sea." You will recall that in 1948 Egypt took over Gaza, Hashemites in Jordan took over West Bank, and those Arabs did NOT provide "Palestinian" autonomy. The illusion of Arab unity was still strong enough to justify that, I suppose. It took defeat without hope of victory for Arabs to grope about for victory "by other means" which role Arafat and his folks among the expatriates, and those still living in Gaza and West Bank, were available to fill.
The Palestinians dancing in the street after 9-11 is an image I will neither forgive nor forget, nor do I forgive or forget Munich 1972, nor do I forgive or forget the numerous hijackings 1970-1989 around the globe, and the occasional American passenger who was killed "to make a political point." That stain on the "Palestinian" cause is permanent, even if the post-1967 occupation and colonization of West Bank, and the isolation of Gaza, by Israel is a fundamental political and moral error. (Which I believe it is.)
I am not Israeli, I am not Arab, I am a product of the Enlightenment and the societies it created. So is the state of Israel. None of the Arab nations is, though some may be headed that way in time.
Why was the USSR one of the first governments to recognize the State of Israel? Think about it. What was post WW II all about? Dismantling old Empires and reviatlizing nationalist movements in their place, of which Zionism was but one example. This was consistent with the Enlightenment and Revolutionary ideas that spawned Socialism, Republicanism (old meaning) and Communism.
The cultural tension at hand in Palestine today, using the pre 1947 land definition, is in my opinion a methaphor for a fundamental conflict between the Enlightenment and Tribal modes of civilization that has been in continuing conflict for over 300 years. The aristocratic/feudal model in pre-revolutionary Europe was a Tribal/Clan model. It took the age of revolution and the age of industrialization to remake Europe into an Enlightenment based model. Blood was the price paid, 1789-1914, and on through 1945. The Arab world (not "the Muslim world," big difference) is STILL stuck in the Tribal/Clan model of civilization, whereas Isreal is, even if Zionism is rooted in a Tribal/Clan basis, a child of the modern, Enlightenment version of world. Ironically, Saddam Hussein and Haffez Assad of Syria have a bit in common with Attaturk in their attempts to pull their countries toward the Enlightenment model, though they both had their feet sqaurely rooted in the Clan/Tribe mode. The Hawkish Jews in America have their feet in the Clannish/Tribal past as well.
I reject the Clan/Tribal model as valid in the modern world, and I point to how the Clan/Tribe model screws up my own nation. The gangs in our major cities, from the old New York Irish and Jewish gangs, to the Mafia, to the current gang structures featuring Chinese, Korean, Jamaican, Mexican, Anglo, and Black gangs, are pure tribal associations that attempt to establish their own rules and laws, in a finite area, as supreme over secular law. Gangs enforce street justice, society calls it murder, extortion, or aggrivated assault. Gangs, like the Logan Red Steps in San Diego, are into their third and fourth generations, with habits passed down from generation to generation. They are in direct conflict with the concepts and principles that fomr the core common cultural assumptions of our society.
History moves forward. Time moves forward. Going back to the Tribal model is regression and social devolution. The necessary common cultural assumptions necessary for rapproachment and peaceful coexistence simply do not exist, at present. The Arab world is still very much in a state of transition, or potential transition, regarding the momentum away from Tribes/Clans and towards the modern, Enlightenment based models that are the cornerstone assumption of the United Nations Charter.
The hypocrisy that any feudal, non-representative government is allowed to be a member in good standing of the U.N. strikes me as a fundamental weakness that exposes the U.N. for what it was, and has become: a dream of the future, not a "one size fits all" tool of the present. (Too bad, really, someday the dream may come closer to reality, I'd like to see it in my lifetime.)
The U.N., which gave Israel political legitimacy (a favorite term of yours Jester :) ) was initially the tool of the victorious powers of WW II, a club. It was a political tool aimed at preventing WW III and for remaking the world on a non-imperial model, even though it was founded by 5 "noveau imperial and old school imperial" nations and their allies. :P It was even then contaminated by the various agendas of its founders, and it cracked early, in Korea. It has never, in my view, recovered from that crack. (That said, the UN has not yet reached it full potential, and does some great work.)
Arafat and many Palestinians chose, for their own reasons, to pursue the path of war: Total war. The infatadah is, IMO, akin to the operating social and cultural antipathy behind the USSR/NAZI war on the Eastern front and the Civil War in Rwanda: "This Continent, Town, Country, Strip of Land, aint big enough for both of us. We cannot coexist peacefully."
For their part, any number of Israeli administrations (Sharon, anyone?) have taken a similar view. The longer this continues, the more socialized, the more Orwellian the mind set will become in the youngsters growing up today, both on the "Palestinian" side and the Israeli side. (By Orwellian I refer to the warfare state of 1984. Possibly a clumsy usage.)
Consider a similar conflict in Europe: Bosnia. The bad blood goes back some 100-500 years in the minds of some of the participants. That field of battle, the hearts and minds of those involved, is the toughest to engage on. What did it take, other than rivers of blood, to partially resolve that conflict? There are but 60 years of similar mental phantasms to deal with in The Holy Land, and look how intractable the parties are now.
In the Bosnia case, the so called leaders were locked in a room, with Pres Clinton and Warren Christopher, for a few days in IIRC Ohio, and weren't let out until they would agree on "a line in the sand." The foreign troops are still there, just as in Cyprus, Sinai, and elsewhere.
What's it going to take in the more complex arena of Paletsine/Israel? Probably something similar. Who will be busily working to undermine the whole thing?
I can predict that Iran, who had some 200 + agents provocateurs in Bosnia in the mid 90's -- sources vary, order of magnitude about right -- has at present a polotical stake it not letting it settle down unless it goes down "their way." Who else? Not sure, but there are doubtless others, both in the Hawkish Jew camp and the Palestinia Irredenta camp.
The basis for the conflict, real estate aside, and the bleak prospect for rapproachment is fundamentally cultural, as I see it.
If the common cultural assumptions are not changed, nothing else will change.
The 1948-1973 wars proved conclusively that armed victory was not going to succeed, and Sadat's aggreement to the Camp David accords shattered the last illusion of Arab political unity, or Pan Arabism. OPEC restored a bit of that, but The UAR is dead. The Palestinians, who you will note did not get from the Hashemite leaders of Jordan any sort of commitment for autonomoy on the West Bank, were left swinging while the illusion lasted, then were used as a foil. IMO, they have been the saps for the rest of the Arab world since about 1947/1948. Arafat and other Palestinian factions dug their own PR grave from 1960-1983. The only way they could seem to draw attention to themselves was by acting out. Predictable response, I suppose, as they were often treated, by Arabs and others, as "children to be seen not heard while the adults were talking over dinner."
Munich 1972. Hijackings of a variety of airlines. Acts of violence. It is no accident that the word "Palestinian" carried the connotation "terrorist" to anyone not from the Mid East, and for some there as well, for about 20 years. It is no surprise that it takes little for that label to resurface, and to re stick, now. That was all they had to offer in terms of progress in their struggle to gain at least the West Bank/Gaza, per original UN Resolutions that created Israel, if not more. It was allegedly on their behalf, though, that 1948 through 1973 wars were fought, so that stain too was all over the righteousness of their cause.
The problem Arafat had was having to appeal to both those who would have settled for a West Bank/Gaza state, and those who insisted on cleaning out Palestine "from the river to the sea." You will recall that in 1948 Egypt took over Gaza, Hashemites in Jordan took over West Bank, and those Arabs did NOT provide "Palestinian" autonomy. The illusion of Arab unity was still strong enough to justify that, I suppose. It took defeat without hope of victory for Arabs to grope about for victory "by other means" which role Arafat and his folks among the expatriates, and those still living in Gaza and West Bank, were available to fill.
The Palestinians dancing in the street after 9-11 is an image I will neither forgive nor forget, nor do I forgive or forget Munich 1972, nor do I forgive or forget the numerous hijackings 1970-1989 around the globe, and the occasional American passenger who was killed "to make a political point." That stain on the "Palestinian" cause is permanent, even if the post-1967 occupation and colonization of West Bank, and the isolation of Gaza, by Israel is a fundamental political and moral error. (Which I believe it is.)
I am not Israeli, I am not Arab, I am a product of the Enlightenment and the societies it created. So is the state of Israel. None of the Arab nations is, though some may be headed that way in time.
Why was the USSR one of the first governments to recognize the State of Israel? Think about it. What was post WW II all about? Dismantling old Empires and reviatlizing nationalist movements in their place, of which Zionism was but one example. This was consistent with the Enlightenment and Revolutionary ideas that spawned Socialism, Republicanism (old meaning) and Communism.
The cultural tension at hand in Palestine today, using the pre 1947 land definition, is in my opinion a methaphor for a fundamental conflict between the Enlightenment and Tribal modes of civilization that has been in continuing conflict for over 300 years. The aristocratic/feudal model in pre-revolutionary Europe was a Tribal/Clan model. It took the age of revolution and the age of industrialization to remake Europe into an Enlightenment based model. Blood was the price paid, 1789-1914, and on through 1945. The Arab world (not "the Muslim world," big difference) is STILL stuck in the Tribal/Clan model of civilization, whereas Isreal is, even if Zionism is rooted in a Tribal/Clan basis, a child of the modern, Enlightenment version of world. Ironically, Saddam Hussein and Haffez Assad of Syria have a bit in common with Attaturk in their attempts to pull their countries toward the Enlightenment model, though they both had their feet sqaurely rooted in the Clan/Tribe mode. The Hawkish Jews in America have their feet in the Clannish/Tribal past as well.
I reject the Clan/Tribal model as valid in the modern world, and I point to how the Clan/Tribe model screws up my own nation. The gangs in our major cities, from the old New York Irish and Jewish gangs, to the Mafia, to the current gang structures featuring Chinese, Korean, Jamaican, Mexican, Anglo, and Black gangs, are pure tribal associations that attempt to establish their own rules and laws, in a finite area, as supreme over secular law. Gangs enforce street justice, society calls it murder, extortion, or aggrivated assault. Gangs, like the Logan Red Steps in San Diego, are into their third and fourth generations, with habits passed down from generation to generation. They are in direct conflict with the concepts and principles that fomr the core common cultural assumptions of our society.
History moves forward. Time moves forward. Going back to the Tribal model is regression and social devolution. The necessary common cultural assumptions necessary for rapproachment and peaceful coexistence simply do not exist, at present. The Arab world is still very much in a state of transition, or potential transition, regarding the momentum away from Tribes/Clans and towards the modern, Enlightenment based models that are the cornerstone assumption of the United Nations Charter.
The hypocrisy that any feudal, non-representative government is allowed to be a member in good standing of the U.N. strikes me as a fundamental weakness that exposes the U.N. for what it was, and has become: a dream of the future, not a "one size fits all" tool of the present. (Too bad, really, someday the dream may come closer to reality, I'd like to see it in my lifetime.)
The U.N., which gave Israel political legitimacy (a favorite term of yours Jester :) ) was initially the tool of the victorious powers of WW II, a club. It was a political tool aimed at preventing WW III and for remaking the world on a non-imperial model, even though it was founded by 5 "noveau imperial and old school imperial" nations and their allies. :P It was even then contaminated by the various agendas of its founders, and it cracked early, in Korea. It has never, in my view, recovered from that crack. (That said, the UN has not yet reached it full potential, and does some great work.)
Arafat and many Palestinians chose, for their own reasons, to pursue the path of war: Total war. The infatadah is, IMO, akin to the operating social and cultural antipathy behind the USSR/NAZI war on the Eastern front and the Civil War in Rwanda: "This Continent, Town, Country, Strip of Land, aint big enough for both of us. We cannot coexist peacefully."
For their part, any number of Israeli administrations (Sharon, anyone?) have taken a similar view. The longer this continues, the more socialized, the more Orwellian the mind set will become in the youngsters growing up today, both on the "Palestinian" side and the Israeli side. (By Orwellian I refer to the warfare state of 1984. Possibly a clumsy usage.)
Consider a similar conflict in Europe: Bosnia. The bad blood goes back some 100-500 years in the minds of some of the participants. That field of battle, the hearts and minds of those involved, is the toughest to engage on. What did it take, other than rivers of blood, to partially resolve that conflict? There are but 60 years of similar mental phantasms to deal with in The Holy Land, and look how intractable the parties are now.
In the Bosnia case, the so called leaders were locked in a room, with Pres Clinton and Warren Christopher, for a few days in IIRC Ohio, and weren't let out until they would agree on "a line in the sand." The foreign troops are still there, just as in Cyprus, Sinai, and elsewhere.
What's it going to take in the more complex arena of Paletsine/Israel? Probably something similar. Who will be busily working to undermine the whole thing?
I can predict that Iran, who had some 200 + agents provocateurs in Bosnia in the mid 90's -- sources vary, order of magnitude about right -- has at present a polotical stake it not letting it settle down unless it goes down "their way." Who else? Not sure, but there are doubtless others, both in the Hawkish Jew camp and the Palestinia Irredenta camp.
The basis for the conflict, real estate aside, and the bleak prospect for rapproachment is fundamentally cultural, as I see it.
If the common cultural assumptions are not changed, nothing else will change.
Cry 'Havoc' and let slip the Men 'O War!
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete
In War, the outcome is never final. --Carl von Clausewitz--
Igitur qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum
John 11:35 - consider why.
In Memory of Pete