Israel Refuses to Accept Truce

[Dean]

Gazans protest over Israeli siege (http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/494C1CC5-8311-4F9B-BF08-C25B253AF025.htm)

My question is, should Hamas institute a unilateral peace deal? On the one hand, it would force Israel to slow its incursions and economic strangle of Gaza. On the other, it would make Hamas - and Palestinians - appear weak and self-defeating. What are your thoughts?

[Faux Real]

Seeing as how Hamas has carried out quite a few unilateral ceasefires with Israel and Israel never stopped its violent operations/stranglehold with Gaza it's unfortunate to say nothing would change for the better, except for maybe less wide scale, extreme attacks.

Hamas used to offer ceasefires in exchange for an Israeli ceasefire that included stopping settlement building and violent attacks on the West Bank but now its only for Gaza, and I take that as a sign things are getting desperate.

All of this refusal to strike a deal with Hamas while 65% of Israelis want their government to do so. Ah, the shining example of 'democracy' in the near east. :sleep:

[Dimentio]

Israel has nothing to earn on a ceasefire given their superior strength. I am surprised they haven't re-occupied Gaza.

[Comrade_Scott]

what i find funny is how israel cries foul saying the palestinians are such war mongers and how they(israel) wants peace, but when it is offerd up they flat out refuse it then shell them, then are suprised when they are shelled back. kinda reminds me of how america demanded the territory held elections but the second the people chose hamas they blocked them and were supprised when the shit hit the fan.

[chegitz guevara]

The violent struggle is a complete failure. The only way the Palestinians are going to win in the face of a superior enemy is to adopt a non-violent approach. They need to win over the people of the empire in order to put pressure on Israel.

This isn't about non-violent principles, but adapting tactics to deal with an overwhelmingly powerful foe. Israel cannot be defeated militarily. For all the hoohah about Hezbollah defeating Israel, the reality is that their "victory" over Israel was in survival, not in pushing Israel back or winning battles (which is not to minimize their accomplishments).

[manic expression]

The violent struggle is a complete failure. The only way the Palestinians are going to win in the face of a superior enemy is to adopt a non-violent approach. They need to win over the people of the empire in order to put pressure on Israel.

The anti-apartheid struggle did no such thing, and they defeated apartheid in the end.

This is what Mandela said to the apartheid negotiators:

"If you want to go to war, I must be honest and admit that we cannot stand up to you on the battlefield. We don't have the resources. It will be a long and bitter struggle, many people will die and the country may be reduced to ashes. but you must remember two things. You cannot win because of our numbers: you cannot kill us all. And you cannot win because of the international community. They will rally to our support and they will stand with us." (source: "Beyond the Miracle" by Allister Sparks)

Do you think this applies to Palestine?


This isn't about non-violent principles, but adapting tactics to deal with an overwhelmingly powerful foe. Israel cannot be defeated militarily. For all the hoohah about Hezbollah defeating Israel, the reality is that their "victory" over Israel was in survival, not in pushing Israel back or winning battles (which is not to minimize their accomplishments).

What you say is valid, and I must be honest and say that I have no idea how the Israeli machine can be stopped, but I do know that the Palestinian people have the numbers and, with the exception of the US, the support of the international community. That's what the anti-apartheid struggle needed, and so I see hope in the same course for Palestine.

And also, the struggle in Gaza is also about survival, and so I think Israel faces the same odds as it did in Lebanon.

[Die Neue Zeit]

^^^ It won't matter in 20 years or so:



http://www.macleans.ca/world/global/article.jsp?content=20080423_11237_11237


Palestinian Arabs present a challenge to Israel that is at once more straightforward and infinitely more difficult to solve. Within one or two decades, the number of Muslim and Christian Arabs living under Israeli control (including in Gaza, the West Bank and Israel itself) will surpass the number of Israeli Jews. When that happens, if there is still no Palestinian state (and in the absence of large-scale ethnic cleansing), Israelis will be forced to choose between two futures. Their country will either be Jewish, but not democratic — in other words, a Jewish minority will control a land mostly inhabited by Palestinians — or Israel will be democratic, but not Jewish, because Arabs will form the majority in what will become a bi-national state.

...

Back in Ramallah, I meet with Ali Jarbawi, a professor at Birzeit University, and a man who understands that Israeli settlement of the West Bank threatens Israel as much as the Palestinians who live there. Like many, perhaps most, Palestinians, he favours a two-state solution with borders corresponding to the ones that existed before the 1967 war. But he thinks that Israel will only ever agree to what he describes as "a state of leftovers" — a fragmented patchwork of territory, surrounded by Israeli settlements. The Palestinians should continue to negotiate in earnest until the end of the year, he says. But, if by that time, a viable state is not on offer, they should change course, dissolve the Palestinian Authority, and ask Israel to formally annex the West Bank.
"I would say, 'Come, and settle wherever you want,' " he said. "Do you think that the settlement policy is one-way? It's an entanglement. Do you think you can put all these settlements and not be entangled with us? How can you imagine having all these enclaves and not be entangled with the Palestinians? Now, you divide the roads and you can have enclaves. But for how long can you continue with this if the end result is not a leftover state? We should tell Israel this: 'Do whatever you want. Put as many settlements as you want, wherever you want. And we're not going to talk to you, from now until 20 years. But after 20 years, we will go to the table. We will have a model of South Africa. What are you going to do?' "

[BobKKKindle$]

The violent struggle is a complete failure. The only way the Palestinians are going to win in the face of a superior enemy is to adopt a non-violent approach. They need to win over the people of the empire in order to put pressure on Israel.

What do you mean by non-violent tactics? How would such tactics force Israel to make concessions? The adoption of non-violence (something which most militants would not be willing to do) would simply allow Israel greater ease in pursuing their objectives.

[joe_the_red]

There is no need to even recognise the imaginary state of "Israel", no matter how many guilty Germans or capitalist pigs call it that. It has been, is, and shall continue to be Palestine to me. I agree with bobkindles on this, they cannot stop fighting the imperialists. Capitalist-fascist-imperialist pigs don't care how many people petition against them, as long as they have military control, they will continue to have their way and to force the populace to do things how they want. It is like that in almost every place that the imperialists have control. You can make as many political referendums as you want, all the capitalists have to do is to say it isn't legal and then declare martial law and use the military, and if you don't fight, you have to go along with it. -Joe

[joe_the_red]

If you watch what is going on in the capitalist nations, you'll see peoples' rights continuously disappear. Why? Because there are no violent resistance movements in the U.S.A., British Empire, and other similar nations. And so the government slowly but surely takes away the peoples' rights, because they have military control. -Joe

[ChairmanArt]

Right on, comrade Joe! I agree wholeheartedly with you and bobkindles in reaffirming here that Israel is the face of western imperialism in the Middle East, and thus its occupation of the land which we leftists refer to as Palestine in our recognition of the struggle of Palestinian people for liberation is no more legitimate than the current flurry of antagonisms which the Bush regime is sending at Iran (NO WAR ON IRAN, btw). And from this point of view, Hamas must never accept unilateral peace deals with the occupiers, because to do that would not only recognize and legitimize Western imperialism in the Middle East, but also get Hamas right where the imperialists want them in terms of crushing all opposition to imperialist domination, peace deal or not.

However, I would like to bring another point here. Hamas is, let's face it, very different than the PLO or any of the other progressive or even revolutionary fronts that have fought against the pigs of Israel. Given that Hamas is essentially an Islamic organization, which would presumably turn Israel into an Islamic state with repressive Islamic legislation similar or perhaps synonymous with Sharia law, should we revolutionaries support them simply because of their opposition to the beast of US imperialism?

Even if we did, we still wouldn't support a peace deal...

[joe_the_red]

The best we can hope for is to work with Hamas and try to convince them that if they want Islam, they can have it, but that it should not dictate peoples' lives. We want the same thing they want, a free Palestine, and I would be willing to bet that a large group of the members of Hamas would join our side when they learned from us about Communism. Many might even abandon religion, as Communism actually gives people what religion false-promises. If needs be, we can have a marriage of conveniance in the common fight against the capitalist-fascist-imperialist scum, and then deal work with them afterwards. The people will have freedom, there is no doubt about it. Here is a bit for anyone currently paying attention to this thread:

WHY WE DO NOT CELEBRATE ISRAEL

Between December 1947 and December 1950, over 530 Palestinian villages and towns were destroyed. * Half of the Palestinians were ethnically cleansed by underground Zionist forces even before Israel was unilaterally declared a state. *Palestinians call these events of the late 1940s the Nakba (Catastrophe).

The Palestinian refugees are the largest remaining refugee population in the world. *Seven million of the ten million Palestinians are refugees or displaced people. *They are prevented from returning to their homes and lands even though International law and UN resolutions demand it.

*The Israeli “Knesset” adopted a set of laws that are contrary to International law that ensured no refugees are allowed to return (as customarily happens at the end of a war) and that their land is confiscated for use by Jews only (“absentee property” laws). *The removal of 75-80% of non-Jews from what became Israel by 1950 was a necessary but not sufficient condition for creating and maintaining a Zionist-defined Jewish state. What the nascent state did subsequently was expand its borders and continue to appropriate native Palestinian lands, expel many of them and discriminate against those who remained at all odds.

Israel has no constitution but promulgated a set of basic laws that govern it essentially “for the benefit of the Jewish people”. * These laws recognize members of a particular religion (including converts) as nationals of the state regardless of where they live or their current citizenship. *In Israeli law, all Jews are part of Am Yisrael (the people of Israel). *To get papers of citizenship all they have to do is show up in the state and claim their automatic citizenship.

Israel is unique among the nations in not being a country of its citizens but of “Jewish people everywhere”. *No other country defines itself as a country for members of a particular religion (including converts) regardless of where they live. *No other country has supranational entities that have authority superseding state authority and native rights. *For example, the Jewish National Fund is not a state agency but it has on its own website the amazing statement that “The Jewish National Fund is the custodian of the land of Israel on behalf of its owners, Jewish people everywhere.” *91% of the land (most taken from the 530 Palestinian towns and villages depopulated between 1947-1949) is not privately owned but turned over from the custodian of “absentee property” to the JNF for lease by Jews.

Israeli law considers one fourth of the remaining Palestinians (300,000 of the 1.3 million Palestinians with Israeli citizenship) as “present absentees”. *This means that their land and/or homes were confiscated from them and turned to the Jewish Agency/JNF. *By international law they are considered internally displaced people (refugees).

Israel maintains an illegal occupation and colonization of the West Bank and Gaza for 40 years. *This includes: 133 illegal Israeli settlements, 562 military checkpoints, 610 flying checkpoints, Israeli-only roads and settlements built on Palestinian lands, denial of residency rights, 11,500 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli jails and, just in the past 7 years alone, 35,000 more Palestinians were made homeless by home demolitions and land confiscations. *The Gaza Strip was turned into a large concentration camp were 1.5 million Palestinians (most refugees) are held in a desert strip with what the UN Human Rights commissioner declared as “catastrophic” conditions.

Israel is funded to the tune of $5 billion (3 billion in direct aid, 2 billion other) from our (US) taxes and shielded from International law and basic human rights conventions by our government (e.g. 37 vetoes at the UN security Council). *We thus hold special responsibility in this situation (and in the atrocities in Iraq that derive from it), which is not the same for example for Darfur, Sudan (where our government is not funding oppression but is actually at least verbally trying to stop it).

Relevant Quotes

Israeli Artists’ declaration of 2002:
*"If the state of Israel aspires to perceive itself as a democracy, it should abandon once and for all, any legal and ideological foundation of religious, ethnic, and demographic discrimination. *The state of Israel should strive to become the state of all its citizens. *We call for the annulment of all laws that make Israel an apartheid state, including the Jewish law of return in its present form"

Albert Einstein
"My awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power, no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain - especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight strongly, even without a Jewish state."

Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder of Herut (later Likud Party of Israel) in “The Iron Wall: We and the Arabs"
"Every reader has some idea of the early history of other countries which have been settled. *I suggest that he recall all known instances. *If he should attempt to seek but one instance of a country settled with the consent of those born there he will not succeed. *The inhabitants (no matter whether they are civilized or savages) have always put up a stubborn fight.” "

Ehud Olmert, 5 December 2003
"The formula for the parameters of unilateral solution are: To maximize the number of Jews; minimize the number of Palestinians; not to withdraw to the 1967 border and not to divide Jerusalem.”

Yitzhak Rabin, 23 October 1979
"We walked outside, Ben-Gurion accompanying us. Allon repeated his question, What is to be done with the Palestinian population?' Ben-Gurion waved his hand in a gesture which said 'Drive them out!'"

Ben-Gurion
"it must be clear that there is no room in the country for both peoples . . . If the Arabs leave it, the country will become wide and spacious for us . . . The only solution is a Land of Israel, at least a western land of Israel, without Arabs. There is no room here for compromises . . . There is no way but to transfer the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, to transfer all of them, save perhaps for Bethlehem, Nazareth, and the old Jerusalem. Not one village must be left, not one tribe. The transfer must be directed at Iraq, Syria, and even Transjordan. *For this goal funds will be found . . . And only after this transfer will the country be able to absorb millions of our brothers and the Jewish problem will cease to exist. There is no other solution."

Israeli psychologist Avigail Abarbanel
"If a day comes, and I hope it does, when Israelis decide to stop living in denial, they will have to realise that real peace will only come through justice. Justice in this context means one thing, that the ideal of an exclusively Jewish state at the cost of an entire people might have to be abandoned. Only a bi-national state and a right of return for the Palestinian refugees will come close enough to rectifying some of the injustices committed in 1948 and since. Having been ethnically cleansed, this is also what the Palestinians are entitled to under international law and common human decency."
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-Joe