Paul B., I agree with you about this - many Palestinians were forcibly expelled, there's no doubt about that among scientific historians. Only Jewish deniers of the historical facts believe Palestinians left voluntarily.
Although Qaddafi's one-state solution is the correct one in my view, his Bedouin philosophy is coloured by the fact that he previously expelled tens of thousands of his unwanted Palestinian refugees from Libya.
A one-state solution is obviously politically inoperable at the moment in Israel/Palestine, since there is no mutual legal and political recognition/acceptance of Israelis and Palestinian exiles, which is precisely why Blairite proposals of "bi-nationalism" continue, even although they are equally unrealistic. The economy there is not self-sustainable, precisely BECAUSE of the conflict.
Some big obstacles to the solution are:
- historical: people over there are more concerned with the dead generations than with the living ("the image of the past weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living" - Marx);
- legal: equal citizenship rights for Palestinians, and full legal recognition and integration of Palestinian identity by a secular, democratic government, although technically possible, conflicts with the Zionist view of history.
- political: the Israeli politicians in fact show no interest at all in solving the Palestinian refugee question in an equitable way, they see themselves as engaged only in a perpetual "war of position" with a siege mentality; every "friendly" sign is apt to be viewed as a concession, in a highly polarised geostrategic situation.
- The Bush administration set back real progress in world history by one generation, by fanning the flames of religious hatred.
So I think the only way to force a constructive change is really to hit the Zionists where it really hurts them, namely, in their wallet - as soon as the rich helpings of US and EU taxpayers' handouts, endowment money and pension funds stop flowing into Israel, the Zionists start "singing another tune". In this sense, Naomi Klein's intuition is perfectly sound, and Bob Pollin doesn't make economic sense.
Religion is fine, but if you have no job and no income, you cannot survive just by religion only, even if your religion is post-Keynesianism. The question is whether the West wants to keep throwing more and more money at the problem, when the "stimulus" goes down the drain, and just sustains the problem, and in fact makes it worse.
Why should anybody finance somebody else, to destroy the very thing they are financing?
That is the subtle question Bob Pollin does not really consider, even although he is very aware of the waste in Iraq. Possibly that is, because Massachusetts is one of the richest areas in the US, where a student can afford to make a paper dart out of a dollar bill.
Personally, in my life I have been prepared to experiment a little with donations ("giving" as Mr Clinton calls it), but you wouldn't catch me flushing my salary down the toilet every payday, that's insane. The West makes everything better, when the West GETS OUT, i.e. when it stops financing the problem.
>From a Marxian perspective, the root cause perpetuating the problems of Israel/Palestine, generation after generation, is MONEY.
It's exactly why the bourgeois media (such as BBC) talk propaganda about EVERYTHING ELSE EXCEPT the money.
On the surface, it seems really great that Mr Blair has collected 7.7 billion dollars for Palestine, but in reality this is just a lever for all kinds of imperialist agenda's. It's buying sympathy, when you are really trying to do something else, for which the sympathy is a cover. Never underestimate human gullibility, educate yourself about it.
The site of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs is here: http://www.mfa.gov.il/ Jewish emigration to Israel is called "Aliyah" ("I liar") and Jewish emigration from Israel is called "Yerida" ("Ye rid her").
You can become Israeli citizen basically by birth, residence, naturalization, or the "right to return" if you are Jewish, but the Israeli state reserves the right to block anyone's entry to the territory it controls, for security reasons; or it may permit entry, in spite of the laws.
For example, the pop musician Cat Stevens was officially refused the right to perform music in Israel on the ground that his presence "might" prompt unlawful behaviour that would harm Jewish interests.
In practice, the Israeli state is contradicting its own laws constantly, resulting in widespread legal abuse and human rights violations which Mr Dershowitz glories in ( see http://www.hamoked.org/ ). According to Dershowitz's American-Jewish racist theory, if a Palestinian baby is burnt to death, the baby "invited it to happen", but if a Jewish baby is burnt to death, it is "a crime for eternity".
Emigration to Israel is now down to a trickle of less than 20,000 a year, while in the 1990s boom, there was an average of about 100,000 a year, but this included a lot of well-off people buying an extra house in Israel "just in case".
A lot of people in Israel actually have dual citizenships and thus hold more than one passport each; their commitment to Zionism is really spurious. There is no point in living in Israel unless you like to live with a lot of Jews and like Jewish culture, because practically speaking a lot of ordinary things do not work properly there, there is a lot of corruption and nepotism at every level, and in many areas you constantly have to dodge religious fanatics and spiessburgers.
Tel Aviv is the most progressive place, but Israeli cities do not rank highly on "quality of life" criteria, basically Israel is a bit like Brazil qua level of development. It's best to visit only after Ariel Sharon is really, truly dead.
Jurriaan
Now I've been crying lately,
thinking about the world as it is
Why must we go on hating,
why can't we live in bliss
Cause out on the edge of darkness,
there rides a peace train
Oh peace train take this country,
come take me home again
- Cat Stevens
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Received on Sun Jan 25 09:43:34 2009
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