en-us http://www.intensedebate.com/users/532332 Comments by homingpigeon http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2009/08/07/an-offer-they-cant-refuse/#IDComment30042043 They mean well, but it is too late. Forward thinking Palestinians and Israelis are working on the one country solution. Accept Israel control over the West Bank and Gaza, work for enfranchisement of Palestinians and the right of all to live anywhere between the river and the sea according to universally applied standards of property rights. Overcome Israeli apartheid, and let's not waste time working for independence of Palestinian bantustans. Sat, 8 Aug 2009 11:59:40 +0000 http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2009/08/07/an-offer-they-cant-refuse/#IDComment30042043 http://news.antiwar.com/2009/08/05/israeli-fm-tells-border-villagers-you-werent-conquered-you-were-liberated/#IDComment29699802 This is an interesting community. As Alawis, they are physically cut off and far from the demographic center of other Syrian Alawis. The rest of the Golan residents remaining from the pre-67 era are Druse. Through most of modern history their village has been too remote for either Syria or Lebanon to care precisely where the border line went. Apparently the French colonial officers marking the border in the '20s had had enough for the day and drew a line on their own charts without hiking through the terrain and correlating the line to the facts on the ground, hence the confusion as to whether they are part of the Syrian occupied Golan heights, to be returned to Syria someday, or part of Southern Lebanon. Meanwhile, they are reputed to be the main hashish smugglers for the area, keeping the Israelis supplied with good stuff from Lebanon. Thu, 6 Aug 2009 10:55:11 +0000 http://news.antiwar.com/2009/08/05/israeli-fm-tells-border-villagers-you-werent-conquered-you-were-liberated/#IDComment29699802 http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2009/07/27/weve-always-been-at-war/#IDComment28583438 There was the court jester who pinched the King on the butt. He then apologized to the shocked king by saying that he made a mistake and had thought he was pinching the Queen's butt. Sometimes the excuse is worse than the original misdeed. Tue, 28 Jul 2009 06:16:36 +0000 http://www.antiwar.com/blog/2009/07/27/weve-always-been-at-war/#IDComment28583438 http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/07/25/david-vine/#IDComment28334811 Whenever a new war appears on the horizon there are peace oriented people who are tempted to support it because they have been convinced that it will solve some humanitarian crisis, end a dictatorship, or liberate women. They must remember that any support of any military action abroad amounts to retroactive endorsement of the displacement of the Diego Garcians, the theft of their property, the shooting of their dogs, as well as any number of weapons programs and military boondoggles of the previous three or four decades which they had likely opposed at the time. This war apparatus cannot be created on short notice for transient whims. Sat, 25 Jul 2009 15:52:44 +0000 http://antiwar.com/radio/2009/07/25/david-vine/#IDComment28334811 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/07/seham-id-rather-hear-that-the-oppression-is-religious.html#IDComment27876408 Palestinians didn't want foreign immigrants to set up a state and displace them. In the last two centuries Palestinians accepted settlers and/or refugees who were Armenian, Circassian, Bukhari, Bosnian, Assyrian,German, and American, among others. None of these claimed ancestral ownership of the land on the basis of being distantly related to the religion of one of several civilizations that resided in the land millenia previously or tried to set up their own state at the expense of the people already there. If Druids had immigrated and then tried to set up their own state at the expense of everyone else there the Druids would have been opposed too. OK, there's some interesting buzz out of Israel regarding disgruntlement in the Negev over groups of resettled Arab collaborators, African refugees, and black American syncretic "Hebrews" who are becoming prominent in their numbers. Jewish Israelis are not amused by these people. If these odd new settlers started publicly claiming the land for their own future state with plans for displacement of the Jews, - well, the reaction of the Israelis might give a clue as to how it was that Palestinians objected to immigrants claiming the land for their own state. Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:01:33 +0000 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/07/seham-id-rather-hear-that-the-oppression-is-religious.html#IDComment27876408 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/07/obama-to-netanyahu-dont-build-here-netanyahu-forget-about-it.html#IDComment27734191 Why of course Israelis should be able to live anywhere in Jerusalem they want. And being reasonable they will allow Palestinians to live anywhere in Jerusalem they want, starting with the ones ethnically cleansed from the West side in '48. And if Israelis want to live in a house in East Jerusalem owned by someone, they will purchase it if the owner is willing to sell. In fact if the owner happens to be a family who was cleansed in '48 and is allowed to go back, that owner might actually be willing to sell. And it would help if the Israelis attended a charm school to learn how to be good neighbors, not throw loud parties all night to celebrate a takeover, not throw garbage on Palestinian neighbors, not have the army impose curfews on the neighbors for every Jewish holiday or whim, etc. Mon, 20 Jul 2009 04:50:46 +0000 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/07/obama-to-netanyahu-dont-build-here-netanyahu-forget-about-it.html#IDComment27734191 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/07/ohioan-declares-israeli-govt-is-slapping-us-across-the-kisser-with-our-money-.html#IDComment27685077 Seham Habibti, you can stop voting for Democrats now. Libertarians are the only ones who will unconditionally put a stop to this foreign aid boondoggle, the bulk of which is the welfare check for Israel. Sun, 19 Jul 2009 16:07:10 +0000 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/07/ohioan-declares-israeli-govt-is-slapping-us-across-the-kisser-with-our-money-.html#IDComment27685077 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/07/to-fully-understand-the-report-from-the-west-bank-above-consider-what-helena-cobban-reported-from-washington-today-from-an.html#IDComment27650941 I have heard of one righteous settler, the rabbi Froman, who has respectful relationships with Palestinians. He proposed the "one country" solution to Faisal Husseini in '91. I wish I knew more about him and how many others there might be with his thinking. Sun, 19 Jul 2009 04:56:24 +0000 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/07/to-fully-understand-the-report-from-the-west-bank-above-consider-what-helena-cobban-reported-from-washington-today-from-an.html#IDComment27650941 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/07/wait-bibi-jeffrey-goldberg-said-rahms-not-a-selfhating-jew-i-need-a-rabbi-fast-.html#IDComment26796843 Whatever else the pigeon thinks of Goldberg, calling a settlement "Neve Manyak" is clever. Thu, 9 Jul 2009 16:36:50 +0000 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/07/wait-bibi-jeffrey-goldberg-said-rahms-not-a-selfhating-jew-i-need-a-rabbi-fast-.html#IDComment26796843 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/07/loewenstein-why-would-anyone-who-can-get-along-with-arabs-want-to-exalt-the-twostate-solution-.html#IDComment26216834 Discussion of the two state solution is a distraction to avoid meaningfully wrestling with the issues. The one state solution is the intellectually honest one. The pigeon is delighted to see more discussion in this direction. It is a chance for extremists to make peace. When I read the justifications of the West Bank settlers they list the Palestinian villages that were destroyed to make the well known cities and parks of pre-'67 Israel and wonder why they should be singled out for having established their communities nineteen years later. In fact though the settlers tend to be more fanatic, and for all their faults, and for all the private property they have confiscated, they actually displaced less people from their homes than the residents of pre-67 Israel who have managed to acquire an unwarranted legitimacy for their actions. The settler advocates make an excellent point and here is common ground to begin a dialogue with Palestinians who wish to return to the areas they lost in '48. The '67 borders are not a sound way to discuss which settlements are legitimate and which are not. There is a spectrum of modalities involved in the establishment of settlements wherever they are between the river and the sea, ranging from using empty state land, to purchasing land, to blatant theft of land and displacement of indigenous inhabitants. This is what must be examined. I once met with the late Faisal Husseini who said that Rabbi Froman of the settlement Efrat came to him and said, "I have an idea, how about if both peoples share all the land as equal partners and have one state?" Husseini said that that's what had been the Palestinian position but they had abandoned it in favor of the two state solution as an effort towards compromise and moderation. The dear Rabbi got himself in deep trouble with his fellow settlers for suggesting this, but it was indeed a spark of light. Are there forty righteous West Bank settlers with whom we can begin this dialogue? Fri, 3 Jul 2009 13:15:27 +0000 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/07/loewenstein-why-would-anyone-who-can-get-along-with-arabs-want-to-exalt-the-twostate-solution-.html#IDComment26216834 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/07/first-they-came-for-trader-joes-then-they-came-for-target.html#IDComment26135349 Zionists will love you for saying that. As for me I want as many Jewish folk as possible in my Texas neighborhood. I want them happy, prosperous, and secure. I don't want them to go kill and displace Palestinians, or get themselves in a situation where they might get hurt, or at best live a stressful, neurotic, fearful life. Only Zionists and anti-Semites want Jews to go to Israel. And Zionism is Jewish self-hatred, based on the unfortunate belief that Jews can never live with anyone else. And Christian Armageddonist Zionism is a severe hallucination. Thu, 2 Jul 2009 16:07:11 +0000 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/07/first-they-came-for-trader-joes-then-they-came-for-target.html#IDComment26135349 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/if-settlements-were-a-colonial-project-per-shavit-then-whos-the-bad-guy-.html#IDComment25737732 "Worse, some of them are suggesting a grotesque analogy: that if settlers should have to leave Greater Israel, then Palestinians should have to leave Israel. (I believe that Livni has suggested this.)" This is one of the strongest reasons for opposing the two state "solution." Regardless of the fact that there should be no symmetry between the property rights of indigenous Palestinian inhabitants of the "pre-67" Israel, and the status of immigrants residing on stolen property in in the West Bank, this IS what will happen with the two state solution. The American public is not sophisticated enough or informed enough on the issue to understand that that the situations are not analagous. In the unlikely event that any settlements are evacuated, complete with clashes between IDF soldiers and settlers, televised scenes of mourning settlers being comforted for their painful sacrifice, then one can be sure there will be ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from Galilee and the Negev. The world will interpret this as equivalent to the trade of Turkish and Greek populations in the 1920s. The Palestinians will be outwitted again. People of good will should work to end the blank check to Israel, and to work for an expanded vision of reconciliation in which Palestinians have the right to return to homes lost in '48. In the event it is impossible to return to those homes they will receive compensation using the same formulas the state of Israel used to extract compensation from European countries for lost Jewish property. Accepting compensation will not affect the right to return to reside peacefully at any location between the river and the sea. Jews will also have the right to live anywhere between the river and the sea, and in fact anywhere in the Middle East. Jewish refugees from Arab countries will also have the right to compensation and return. If Zionists got over their primitive tribalism and chose to live with neighbors instead of displacing and outwitting them all the time, they would rise to cabinet level positions all over the Arab world within a generation or two. Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:45:54 +0000 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/if-settlements-were-a-colonial-project-per-shavit-then-whos-the-bad-guy-.html#IDComment25737732 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/naomi-klein-in-bilin-this-apartheid-this-is-absolutely-a-system-of-segregation.html#IDComment25617796 There's an important boycott: that of politicians who fall all over each other to see who can be most slavish to Israel. The likudniks hold politicians to account and will smash those who disagree with them, and reward those who agree. Too many people who are enlightened and aware on the Palestine issue will still vote for a politician who promises "to stand by our most important ally, the only democracy in the middle east, ....... ad barfium." We choose our politicians for everything except where they stand on this issue close to us. Time to abandon them, no matter how appealing a particular one might be on every other issue, and no matter how loathsome the opponent. If two candidates from the two ruling parties in America compete with each other to see who can best increase the size of the welfare check to Israel, then vote for a third party. I prefer Libertarian, but any other third party will be a step forward as well. Fri, 26 Jun 2009 22:34:37 +0000 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/naomi-klein-in-bilin-this-apartheid-this-is-absolutely-a-system-of-segregation.html#IDComment25617796 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/malcolm-hoenlein-didnt-like-ron-kesslers-report-on-his-comments-about-obama-apparently-he-backtracked-newsmaxcom-says.html#IDComment24804364 The ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians was well underway before the entry of any Arab armies into Palestine as was the Hagana-Irgun-Stern invasion of areas assigned to the Palestinians by the UN partition. Deir Yassin was in the intended international Jerusalem zone. The massacre there, which was skillfully used by the Hagana to panic Palestinian peasants into flight, happened on 9 April, 1948, five weeks before the British withdrawal, the Israeli declaration of statehood, and the uncoordinated chaotic entry of Arab armies. Whatever the rhetoric, the main purpose and accomplishment of the "invasion" of the Arab armies was to halt the Israeli advance and consolidate a hold on what was left of the sectors assigned to the Palestinians. OK, so the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians wasn't as terrible a crime as the Holocaust. But someone help this pigeon. Is a lie denying the fact of a smaller tragedy less dishonest (or delusional) than the lie denying a big tragedy? Are Zionists who lie about the circumstances of the Nakba to be compared to those who engage in Holocaust denial? Or is the denial of a smaller crime not as bad as the denial of a bigger one? Fri, 19 Jun 2009 16:04:45 +0000 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/malcolm-hoenlein-didnt-like-ron-kesslers-report-on-his-comments-about-obama-apparently-he-backtracked-newsmaxcom-says.html#IDComment24804364 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/it-never-ends-insistence-on-israels-right-to-west-bank-.html#IDComment24597490 Can we have a more sophisticated analysis of which settlements are illegal than simply referring to the '48 armistice line? What makes a settlement inside the green line legal and one outside the line illegal? "Extremists" on both sides of the quarrel ask this question and it is a legitimate one. There is a spectrum of circumstances for the establishment of each settlement ranging from blatant confiscation of private property and displacement of indigenous inhabitants to settlement on uninhabited and unclaimed state land - whether inside the lines established after the '48 war or the '67 war. Settlers - regardless of which side of which line they settled on - have a range of personalities ranging from those who are delusional thieves to those who badly need charm school to those who are decent folks. On the road to reconciliation in the one country solution - (serious people need to quit discussing the two state solution except when exposing it as a fraud)- the settlements must be examined and addressed by the degree of dispossession and displacement caused, not by what side of a line they are on. Wed, 17 Jun 2009 13:19:07 +0000 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/it-never-ends-insistence-on-israels-right-to-west-bank-.html#IDComment24597490 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/israelis-to-obama-save-us-from-ourselves.html#IDComment24084401 No one should force israel to change its government. But no one should force the US government to squander its citizens' tax money on it. Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:47:43 +0000 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/israelis-to-obama-save-us-from-ourselves.html#IDComment24084401 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/israelis-to-obama-save-us-from-ourselves.html#IDComment24084094 Yes, Hadash is communist and the pigeon disagrees with communism, but Hadash has Jews and Arabs working together. This is to its credit. Maybe we can learn something from them. Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:45:51 +0000 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/israelis-to-obama-save-us-from-ourselves.html#IDComment24084094 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/obama-to-israel-we-are-going-to-change-the-world-please-dont-interfere.html#IDComment23798013 Actually, more than just the Arab world, most of Asia and Africa actually. To get the picture, think of the donkey turds in the street you might have stepped in. And think of nice carpets. So if you haven't taken the shoes off when you enter the house, you do not point the soles at people, nor do you do not set your feet on desks or coffee tables. When you take them off the soles should be on the ground, not facing the sky. You should not set them on a chair or anything but the ground. Cosmopolitan upper class people might tell the visiting westerner that it's no problem but they're wrong. Either they've lost touch with their own working classes, peasants, and nomads, or they're just trying to make the foreigner feel at ease. I'm north American but just my exposure to that part of the world makes me instinctively adhere to the above and I'm always cringing in America at people being so indelicate with their shoes. Wed, 10 Jun 2009 12:47:13 +0000 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/obama-to-israel-we-are-going-to-change-the-world-please-dont-interfere.html#IDComment23798013 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/obamas-only-hope-and-it-is-a-slim-one-is-that-a-substantial-part-of-the-american-jewish-community-will-come-to-und.html#IDComment23714799 We need to de-legitimize this word "state." It is treif. It is not an act of friendship to call for a "state" for some tribe. It is a deadly obsession. It never was an act of friendship to the Jews to support an state for them. In fact this state is the worst disaster for the jewish people since the holocaust. And guilt ridden zionists should not let themselves off the hook by claiming to support a state for the Palestinians. The Palestinians fell into a Zionist trap by allowing themselves to accept that a state should be their goal. (Every time I hear the word I think of the money wasted on bureaucracies, postage stamps, currencies, national airlines, immigration officials, customs agents, diplomats, and other social parasites. Most of all I gag at the talent wasted on national armies). In the unlikely event that Israel agrees to allow a "state" on a few slivers remaining of historic Palestine, and the Palestinian leadership, such as it is, agrees to this, here is what will happen: A few of the outposts that are set up in the remaining scraps of real estate will be dismantled with great drama and brouhaha. (The larger settlements of course would end up as part of the Israeli state). Crocodile tears will be shed over "painful concessions" and the trauma of Israeli soldier having to uproot an Israeli settler. The next step will be for a massive ethnic cleansing to break out in the Galilee and the Negev driving Palestinians into their "state." After all they now have a state and should go to it as though they were rootless wanderers looking for nothing more than a state (how foul!) of their own. The American public, having just seen the painful evacuation of a few outposts will think this is moral equivalence. "Two states for two peoples." The tax paying public will not be sophisticated enough to note the difference. We've got to get off this riff of talking about the "state" as some sort of worthy goal for people. How about consistent and universally applied standards for civil rights and property rights? First step is to agree with extremists on both sides that there should be one country between the river and the sea. Let Israel formally annex what it controls, including the Gaza strip, while giving voting rights to all. Second step is to work for equal civil rights, and property rights for all. Those who call for a state for the Jews and a state for the Palestinians are not engaging in an act of friendship for either. They are cursing both. Tue, 9 Jun 2009 13:49:20 +0000 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/obamas-only-hope-and-it-is-a-slim-one-is-that-a-substantial-part-of-the-american-jewish-community-will-come-to-und.html#IDComment23714799 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/max-blumenthal-feeling-the-hate-in-jerusalem-on-eve-of-obamas-cairo-address.html#IDComment23397986 These guys seemed clueless as to the size of the welfare check they receive from the American taxpayer. One tenth of one percent of the world's population gets between a quarter and three quarters of US foreign aid, depending on how you do the accounting. Thu, 4 Jun 2009 20:44:28 +0000 http://www.philipweiss.org/mondoweiss/2009/06/max-blumenthal-feeling-the-hate-in-jerusalem-on-eve-of-obamas-cairo-address.html#IDComment23397986