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sabotabbyIf you believe that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and sundry conflicts throughout the Middle East, will never be solved while current political and economic structures are intact, then I think you're likely right.
If you believe that said conflicts will not be resolved because you are the sort of curmudgeon who believes that people will always be fighting for some reason in one part of the world or another, then I disagree with you, but I'll shrug it off and not think any less of you for being cynical. I like cynics—I am one, at times—but if I didn't think a better world was possible, I'd have to pretty much give up, y'know?
If, however, you believe any of the following:
• there is something different about people in the Middle East that makes them fight more than people elsewhere, either because of a genetic factor or because of deeply rooted cultural values;
• Jews and Arabs have never gotten along and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been going on since the beginning of time and they never will get along because of something moronic written in some book somewhere;
• the ones who want to fight should be put on an island somewhere where they can duke it out and everyone else will shrug their shoulders and go on with their lives, and furthermore you are very clever for coming up with this solution all by yourself;
• "they" don't want peace;
• a resolution will only be reached once one population is deported or slaughtered; or
• the only way there will ever be peace in the Middle East is if a) the desert is turned to glass, b) the desert is turned into a parking lot, or c) someone drops a giant fifth-dimensional alien squid on a heavily populated area;
then really, you are an idiot, you lack historical perspective, and you are a racist schmuck. I got over that "turn the desert to glass" bullshit in high school at around the same time I got over Ayn Rand. It's basically the fascist end of the liberal "a plague on both their houses/cycle of violence" mentality and is just as absurd. The only reasons to think that you're living at the end of history are because you have an ego problem or are heavily invested in your own apathy, or both.
Yeah, just braid my hair and call me Pollyanna, motherfuckers. This too shall pass.
If you believe that said conflicts will not be resolved because you are the sort of curmudgeon who believes that people will always be fighting for some reason in one part of the world or another, then I disagree with you, but I'll shrug it off and not think any less of you for being cynical. I like cynics—I am one, at times—but if I didn't think a better world was possible, I'd have to pretty much give up, y'know?
If, however, you believe any of the following:
• there is something different about people in the Middle East that makes them fight more than people elsewhere, either because of a genetic factor or because of deeply rooted cultural values;
• Jews and Arabs have never gotten along and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has been going on since the beginning of time and they never will get along because of something moronic written in some book somewhere;
• the ones who want to fight should be put on an island somewhere where they can duke it out and everyone else will shrug their shoulders and go on with their lives, and furthermore you are very clever for coming up with this solution all by yourself;
• "they" don't want peace;
• a resolution will only be reached once one population is deported or slaughtered; or
• the only way there will ever be peace in the Middle East is if a) the desert is turned to glass, b) the desert is turned into a parking lot, or c) someone drops a giant fifth-dimensional alien squid on a heavily populated area;
then really, you are an idiot, you lack historical perspective, and you are a racist schmuck. I got over that "turn the desert to glass" bullshit in high school at around the same time I got over Ayn Rand. It's basically the fascist end of the liberal "a plague on both their houses/cycle of violence" mentality and is just as absurd. The only reasons to think that you're living at the end of history are because you have an ego problem or are heavily invested in your own apathy, or both.
Yeah, just braid my hair and call me Pollyanna, motherfuckers. This too shall pass.
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no subject
Date: 2009-01-05 04:12 pm (UTC)But never mind me, I'm only interested in saying freakin' insulting things.
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Date: 2009-01-05 04:22 pm (UTC)A few people have asked me if I'm ever going to use my Birthright Israel privilege to get a free trip... and my answer has always been no (and that privilege will expire when I turn 26 in four months). I last visited Israel with my family, roughly around the time Saddam Hussein decided Iraq would invade Kuwait. Perhaps if some time in the distant future, Israel is no longer a 15 on a scale of 1 to clusterfuck, I will consider it.
Re: ...word "thank you" being the same as "thank god"
Date: 2009-01-05 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-05 04:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-05 05:35 pm (UTC)flails
cries
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Date: 2009-01-05 05:56 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-05 06:51 pm (UTC)It's far more about nationalism and a secular jewish ethnic identity, and it's role as a settler state and the dispossession of the indigenous arabs. The PFLP was always a secular outfit. You have to understand how figures like George Habash fit into the conflict. Atheistic (and agnostic) jews are so cliche as a stereotype, and not just in the journals of nice jewish girls against the occupation like
The U.S. is a far more religious society.
When civil society suffers from war, and secular and leftist organizations are systematically destroyed, people often turn to both religion and militant acts of desperation. Iraq, for example, was once a very secular society: next to Israel, women there had the most rights of anywhere else in the middle east.
However, your idea for a single, secular state in the Israel/Palestine has merit. The late Edward Said, once a supporter of a a two state solution, eventually came out for a single state: "after 50 years of Israeli history, classic Zionism has provided no solution to the Palestinian presence. I therefore see no other way than to begin now to speak about sharing the land that has thrust us together, sharing it in a truly democratic way with equal rights for all citizens."
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Date: 2009-01-05 06:53 pm (UTC)If Israel is a 15, Baltimore is a 120.
Date: 2009-01-05 07:09 pm (UTC)"Israel 2006:
5.4 deaths from crime, terror and war per 100,000 inhabitants
United States 2006:
5.7 deaths from murder and non-negligent manslaughter per 100,000 inhabitants
Various U.S. metropolitan areas* report above-average deadly violence. Here are a few examples from among many. The numbers represent murders per 100,000 residents:
New York City, 7.3
Los Angeles, inside city limits, 12.4
Los Angeles metro area, 8.4
Miami metro area, 7.6
Philadelphia (AKA the City of Brotherly Love), 27.7
Washington, D.C., inside city limits, 29.1
Baltimore, inside city limits, 43.3
Detroit-Dearborn metro area, 23.0
The numbers come from data announced by the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation in its Uniform Crime Reporting Program. This program compiles data from local law enforcement agencies throughout the United States.
The FBI reported that 17,034 acts of murder and non-negligent manslaughter took place in the United States in 2006. This was at a rate of 5.7 deaths per 100,000 inhabitants.
By contrast, Israel's 188 conventional homicide victims plus 30 people killed by suicide bombings and other acts classified as terrorism represented a rate below 3.1 violent deaths per 100,000 residents. The Second Lebanon War in the summer of 2006 took the lives of 119 Israeli soldiers and 44 civilians. This added 2.3 points to Israel's violent-death rate, raising it to about 5.4 per 100,000 inhabitants.
As a percentage of population, the deaths of 119 Israeli soldiers in a six-week war were more than six times as great as the entire U.S. military death toll in Iraq for all of 2006. Despite this, Israel's rate of deadly violence including the Lebanon war deaths was not only below the 2006 U.S. murder rate but was less than the lowest yearly homicide rate ever recorded in the United States (5.5 per 100,000 inhabitants)."
Violent death---updating the U.S.-Israel comparison.
Ofcourse, Canada is way safer than the U.S., but I don't know to many Canadians who let the U.S.'s high murder rate stop them from visiting.
* I changed the order of the cities in the metro report to list those with a high Jewish-American population. Dearborn has the largest Arab-American population for a city of it's size.
Religion is an ego problem
Date: 2009-01-05 07:32 pm (UTC)The "end of history" meme post cold war, I think is usally a reference to Fukuyama; and really doesn't have much to do with the apocalypse; so much as regarding the struggle between capitalism and socialism is over--and now all remaining conflicts will be ethnic and religious. Fukuyama went from declaring victory of Western Liberal Democracy (Israel fits in there somewhere) to being a neo-conservative supporter of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, to then breaking with the neocons and voting Obama. He now believes: "War is the wrong metaphor for the broader struggle, since wars are fought at full intensity and have clear beginnings and endings. Meeting the jihadist challenge is more of a "long, twilight struggle" whose core is not a military campaign but a political contest for the hearts and minds of ordinary Muslims around the world." Frankly, I don't know why anyone listens to him, but his rhetoric seems to resonate with whoever is currently ruling (or going to rule) the U.S.
Anyway, Fukuyama's an opponent of posthumanity/transhumanity; but I'm sure he'll be enough of a hypocrite to embrace life longevity technology so I'll probably be hating on him for centuries to come. To bring this back to the topic, given advances in longevity medicine--I plan on living a very long time. If that's the case, I'm planning on seeing peace in the middle east--atleast for awhile.
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Date: 2009-01-05 07:38 pm (UTC)and, I'm tired of seeing well meaning people say "oh but it's all so COMPLICATED" or "both sides need to stop the violence."
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Date: 2009-01-05 07:39 pm (UTC)sigh.
yeah.
and yeah, also, to, not being the ones who decide. but we do get to have an opinon!
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Date: 2009-01-05 07:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-05 07:47 pm (UTC)In terms of territory, the state of Israel seems very interested in maintaining territories for defense, but not enfranchising the residents into it's representative democracy.
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Date: 2009-01-05 07:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-05 07:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-05 08:01 pm (UTC)Though, you can just read the funny pages.
Though I have to wonder what is causing you such angst because this problem doesn't directly effect you. Though perhaps it's lack of material effect on your own life is why you can have such an easy time to just avoid it.
I'm not criticizing your choice of not trying to understand this, but it makes me wonder why you read this post and participated in the thread.
Re: More underestimation of the power of moronic things written in some book somewhere.
Date: 2009-01-05 08:05 pm (UTC)And this is the point—"glass the desert" presumes that the current situation, which while having deep historical roots only goes back to 1948, is a permanent state of affairs. This permanence would make it unique amongst all conflicts throughout history, as the One That Is Permanently Unsolvable. By coincidence, it is also the one that is particularly prominent right now, while we (the special people living in the most special time) happen to be alive.
Make sense (I was rather angry when I wrote this)?
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Date: 2009-01-05 08:06 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-05 08:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-05 08:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-05 08:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-05 08:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-01-05 08:13 pm (UTC)I don't think peace is the first priority of people living in Gaza. It certainly wouldn't be mine under the circumstances. But that's different than them not wanting it at all.
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Date: 2009-01-05 08:16 pm (UTC)