From: Christopher Arthur (arthurcj@WAITROSE.COM)
Date: Sat Dec 16 2006 - 08:12:15 EST
Jurriaan is right that the de facto existence of Israel as a power they
can do little about is what any sensible Palestinian should recognise.
However do not dismiss the de jure issue so quickly for it is of
immense political significance. Israel's demand that Palestine
recognise it as a precondition of negotiations is a cover for the
hijacking of one people's country by another people. It adds insult to
injury by demanding the victim accept that their own dispossession was
legitimate. Obviously impossible, as the Israelis know very well, hence
its usefulness to keep peace off the agenda. However a realistic chance
of peace means recognition must be on the table and comes about as the
final act of the negotiation when the Palestinian side accept that all
their realisable demands (in effect the UN resolutions) have been met.
In brief Israel has a right to exist when the Palestinians recognise
it, not before. However, any sensible Palestinian must realise that the
de facto existence of Israel requires them to come to terms that
include de jure recognition as part of a peace agreement just as the
Israeli side must recognise Palestine in its 1967 borders.
Chris A
17 Bristol Road
Brighton
BN2 1AP
On 16 Dec 2006, at 11:24, Jurriaan Bendien wrote:
> Jerry,
>
> I do not know the answer - the most detailed information about Roman
> Rosdolsky is in the Science & Society article, to which I refer in the
> wikipedia article, but my memory fails me at this point. I thought
> there
> should at least be something on Rosdolsky in the wikipedia, but aim to
> improve the article in future.
>
> Over the years, I read many accounts of people who survived the death
> camps
> and they survived for all sorts of reasons - luck or fluke of fate,
> cunning,
> accident, ability and so on. The German wardens did not always follow
> formal
> bureaucratic procedures either, they might have taken a liking to
> particular
> prisoners, and so on. A very small incident, whim, or arbitrary event,
> might
> have been decisive in determining whether you stayed alive or died.
>
> I thought I might post this reminiscence, given the Holocaust-denial
> conference in Iran. I obviously don't think Mahmood Ahmadinezhad does
> his
> politics and country any good with this exercise. An honest scientific
> conference would at least discuss all sides of the issue. A number of
> Iranian students protested against this conference.
>
> The real question is whether the experience of the lengthy persecution
> and
> discrimination of the Jewish people in history, culminating in the
> Holocaust, can justify the oppression of the Palestinian people by the
> Israeli state, and if you believe, as Karl Marx did, that no people
> ("Volk")
> can be truly free and emancipate itself if it oppresses another
> people, then
> it doesn't.
>
> In my own experience of Jewish people, actually they don't usually like
> violent aggression or glory in it, far from it - but if they do use
> force to
> assert themselves and establish a limit, they often hit at the wrong
> thing,
> and that makes things worse, not better.
>
> The recent focus on "the right of Israel to exist" is in my opinion
> pathetic, a non-issue. It already exists, armed to the teeth. Mussa Abu
> Marzuk, second-in-command of Hamas's political wing, made quite an
> interesting comment in this regard recently: "It was not asked from
> the two
> Germanys to recognise each other, while the whole world recognised
> them. Why
> should Palestine, which is not yet a state, [be required to] recognise
> Israel?".
>
> If e.g. I make all sorts of "demands" that other people properly
> recognise
> me and my status, that is bad character or middleclass status anxiety.
> I
> make people recognise me and my status, by doing the things that
> inspire
> recognition and respect for what I am. Humanly, recognition from
> others is
> not something that you can "command" or force, you have to earn it by
> your
> actions.
>
> The Middle-East policy of the Bush administration has been a disaster,
> it
> has made everything so much worse. The neoconservatives are hypocrites
> I
> think. They claim they are in favour of religious freedom, but
> meanwhile
> they've stirred up a wave of religious hatred and fanaticism. The "war
> against terror" has produced more terrorists than there were before.
> And
> ironically, the position of the US in the Middle-East has worsened,
> rather
> than strengthened. Let's hope the recent Democratic victories in the
> Federal
> government will generate some new policy concepts. They're badly
> needed.
>
> Jurriaan
>
17 Bristol Road
Brighton
BN2 1AP
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