All these middle-east threads are popping up again and divisions are forming along the usual lines.

So, here is my crazy thought:

The usual pro-Israel side say they oppose the occupation and they oppose what is going on in Gaza because they feel obligated to defend Israel. They feel obligated to defend Israel, maybe, because they think Israel, as an idea and a place, is under attack too.

Theirs is the same non-sense that goes "I may disagree with what you say but I will defend your right to say it.."

[ 23 January 2008: Message edited by: adam stratton ]

It's very simple. How can I help ohara, petsy, and whoever else put pressure on Israel to end both the occupation of the West Bank and the siege of Gaza?

If I understand them correctly, they oppose both. But I think that they think that I am really anti-Israeli.

I say I'm not anti-Israeli. And to prove it, I am asking them to lead the way to a more effective and less threatening approach to pressuring for an end to occupation and the siege.

[ 23 January 2008: Message edited by: Frustrated Mess ]

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Originally posted by adam stratton:
Theirs is the same non-sense that goes "I may disagree with what you say but I will defend your right to say it.."

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Originally posted by Martha (but not Stewart):

Why would it be nonsense for me to defend someone's right to say things that I disagree with? (OK, this is serious thread drift, but I couldn't resist taking the bait.)

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
So how can we help you to pressure Israel to end the occupation of Palestinian lands and end, permanently, the siege of Gaza, in a way that doesn't involve writing polite letters to bureaucrats who don't care?

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Originally posted by The Canadian Centrist:
Of course there is other ways on Israel; people like me look at it like us and the Natives here; yes, we took there land but be pragamatic about it - we cannot realistically abandon it and return to where our relatives immigrated here from. So we must work within the frame that all of us are here to stay.

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Originally posted by adam stratton:
Do you believe them when they say they oppose the occcupation but support Israel ?

Theirs is the same non-sense that goes "I may disagree with what you say but I will defend your right to say it.."

[ 23 January 2008: Message edited by: adam stratton ]

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I'm sort of at a loss. I see the current situation as untenable for both sides but can't really come up with any solution that will be acceptable for both. In msot conflicts, there are winners and losers and this is no different.

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It's an interesting idea, frustrated mess, but I can't say that i ahve any great answers.

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I am just asking those posters who say they oppose Israel's policies, but feel impelled to support Israel from what they perceive as unfounded attacks, to sort of lead the way in exerting that pressure.

Briguy raises a great point in the post. It is the definition of Occupied Terroritories. For many, myself included, the term refers to specifically Gaza and the West Bank when talkin gof a Palestinian State. Jerusalem is another area for discussion and their is almost no agreement on options there.

But Briguy asks about compensation from pre-1967.

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Originally posted by Briguy:
A lot of Arabs were driven from their homes and never properly compensated pre-1967 by the terrorism of the Stern gang and it's successors. Justly dealing with pre-1967 land claims is probably very akin to the Canadian government's dealing with native land claims (or lack of dealing, as the case may be).

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So are we to talk of both? Pre and post '67? if we talk of pre-'67 do we talk also then about those Jews who were removed from their homes in Arab lands? I raise this because while the numbers may be smaller it also happened in the post '48 world

What I am getting at is a need to define the parameters of the discussion.

What are we to talk about? Give thoughts about?

For me the discussion should focus on post '67 since that is the issue that many focus on.

But what do we do with Briguy's comment? How does one add this to the mix of possible solutions?

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:

I mean, if someone who supported Israel but opposed the occupation and the siege wanted to protest, what would he or she do? How would he/she go about it?

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Well, for many,"supporting israel" forces them to recognize that in the interests of security, you sometimes have to do things that are unpleasant, even awful. It can be contradictory to express "support" while urging victimhood. And that applies to both sides in this.

The best, I should think, is to try to give the impression that public opinion in this country is largely unfavourable to the occupation...as I think Israeli governments already know.

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Originally posted by Boarsbreath:
The issue is existential, for both Israelis and Palestinians. It's just moral for us. Nothing we could do or say will have much effect.

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The concrete solution is already known too, and has been for years. Two states, with more or less the boundaries now there (see Gwynne Dyer, passim, for both the pionts and the dry dismissive tone). That's what will be on the ground one day, sure as you could have said 200 years ago that one day there will be an independent Poland. But Canadian, even British, opinion had little to do with that, and it will have little to do with Palestine/Israel.

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I am just asking those posters who say they oppose Israel's policies, but feel impelled to support Israel from what they perceive as unfounded attacks, to sort of lead the way in exerting that pressure.

I mean, if someone who supported Israel but opposed the occupation and the siege wanted to protest, what would he or she do? How would he/she go about it?

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Well, the practice in Israel, is that you don't protest.

You go catatonic.

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So I say, okay, I believe you. I believe you oppose the occupation and situation in Gaza. So how can we help you to pressure Israel to end the occupation of Palestinian lands and end, permanently, the siege of Gaza, in a way that doesn't involve writing polite letters to bureaucrats who don't care?[/QB]

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I admire your idealism, and perhaps even share it, BUT I think there's reason we don't have Mid-East Peace, a reason that "Peace in the Mid-East" is talked about as that ultimate World Peace goal, like eliminating hunger ... without ever getting there. All our lives there's been talk of a struggle for Mid-East Peace without us actually getting there. This goes on since 1948. There is a reason.

Israel doesn't want peace. Their policy is what we see, and what we don't see, since it's not like Fox News is down in the Palestinian neighborhoods documenting lack of food, water, and electricity.

Israel could have peace. They just have to restrain their crazies, the settlers who keep stealing little bits of land and then defending it with machine guns. And they could take part of their military budget and use it to help the Palestinians.

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Originally posted by Stockholm:
If the Palestinians wanted peace then over 1,000 Israeli victims of suicide bombings would still be alive along with Rachel Corrie.

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If the Palestinians wanted peace then over 1,000 Israeli victims of suicide bombings would still be alive along with Rachel Corrie.

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Well, the practice in Israel, is that you don't protest.

You go catatonic.

Not surprising that gets reflected here.

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It's hard to be unsymapathetic with what makes progressive Israelis go 'catatonic.'

And the reflection that tends to have here with supporters of Israel who feel essentially stuck in the middle.

One can be sympathetic even if you aren't going to give these folks a 'pass'.

It's a desperate situation- and arguing about who is more wrong quickly becomes something like arguing about how many angels on the head of a pin. Important words and principle like justice become little more than bloody rags to be waved around.

It's a situation that when you look at what groups of people are actually to DO about it- all the exits look blocked.

But it's not acceptable for people who call themselves progressives and supporters of Israel to throw up their hands in despair.

You can cast aspersions all you want at how "the Palestinians" are just as bad. It's immaterial- you can have no effect on what they do.

what you CAN do is have an effect on what Israel does. Yes, that is very difficult to say the least. Daunting.

But there is an obligation to act.

It ought to be enough that they back returning all lands taken in '67, with a series of apologies for decades of Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians, and massive Israeli AND American support of the building of a stable and prosperous Palestinian state.

With, in addition, the release of the political prisoners and the dismantlement of all the fascist settlements.

It is simply unfair to ask Israelis to support the abolition of the State of Israel in any form in order to prove their sincerity and goodwill.

Nobody here is actually calling for the abolition of Canada as we know it. Radical change within it(and within the U.S., and both desperately needed)but not abolition of the country.

To put an obligation to become anti-Zionist on Israeli progressives and human rights supporters is also to guarantee that the Israeli government will build even more settlements, destroy even more olive groves, and steal even more Palestinian water supply, because you will make it politically impossible for anybody in Israel to stop the election of the hardest of hard-line governments.

A REAL two-state peace is possible. A one-state solution is decades away, if it will ever be possible.

[ 27 January 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

[ 27 January 2008: Message edited by: Ken Burch ]

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Originally posted by Frustrated Mess:
Look, I am asking something very simple. It is not all that complicated. ohara says he does not support the occupation and that he opposes the siege of Gaza. So, how does ohara voice those concerns? How does he protest? Can I join with him? That is all.

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Your question is indeed simple, and it deserves a simple answer.

Ohara and others could call for an immediate freeze on new or expansion of existing settlements, and an immediate start on withdrawal of all settlers. That's what organizations like B'tselem do:

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Israel has established in the Occupied Territories a separation cum discrimination regime, in which it maintains two systems of laws, and a person’s rights are based on his or her national origin. This regime is the only one of its kind in the world, and brings to mind dark regimes of the past, such as the Apartheid regime in South Africa.

As part of the regime, Israel has stolen thousands of dunams of land from the Palestinians. On this land, Israel has established dozens of settlements in which hundreds of thousands of Israeli civilians now live. Israel forbids Palestinians to enter and use these lands and uses the settlements to justify numerous violations of Palestinian rights, such as the right to housing, to earn a living, and freedom of movement. [...]

Because the very establishment of the settlements is illegal, and in light of the human rights violations resulting from the existence of the settlements, B’Tselem demands that Israel evacuate the settlements.

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Then, ohara and others could publicly demand that Israel end the siege on Gaza immediately, for starters, as ten Israeli human rights organizations have done:

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We, Israeli human rights organizations, publicly support the joint Palestinian-Israeli international campaign to end the siege on the Gaza Strip immediately.

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[Signed by: The Association for Civil Rights in Israel, B'Tselem – The Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, Amnesty-Israel, Bimkom - Planners for Planning Rights, Gisha - Legal Center for Freedom of Movement, Hamoked: Center for the Defence of the Individual, The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, Physicians for Human Rights-Israel, Yesh Din - Volunteers for Human Rights.]

They could publicly demonstrate and demand that various self-styled "Jewish" organizations in Canada take up these demands. They could directly, and through various organizations, pressure the Canadian government to promote these demands through diplomatic and other means.