The Cellar - View Single Post - 6/15/2003: Palestinians swarm for body parts

rumi · 06-16-2003, 06:09 AM

But when you think about it, that describes an awful lot of colonies and former colonies. Some cultures produce a Ghandi in response to occupation. And some produce the above. What's the difference? Both are only human, why the vastly different response?

The two cases are just too different. The Indians numbered in the hundreds of millions; the British could not crush them militarily or ethnically cleanse them from their land-- it just wasn't feasible, nor were the British interested in stealing and settling the land. Nor were the Indians so brutally decimated. Yes, the British performed massacres, but they could never have made life so miserable for every Indian as the Israelis have done for every Palestinian man, woman, and child. So nonviolence was a viable option in India. The Palestinian population is small enough to control and grind away at. If there were a Palestinian Gandhi, we simply wouldn't hear about him, or he would be targetted by the Israelis, or run over by a bulldozer as the current non-violent activists. There are plenty of non-violent activists in Palestine, and I admire them greatly, but we don't hear much about them. We only hear about the crazy suicide bombers which fuel our stereotypes of Palestinians as an entirely barbaric people who just hate because they are taught/born to hate.

They have now been offered a state. Some of their response to the offer was to kill or maim 120 innocent bystanders and bus riders with rusty nails. A majority of Pals believe that "occupation" includes the entire land of Israel. Those are the facts of the last few weeks; how does this square with your understanding of the situation?

The occupation (no need for quotes, that's the legal word for it, and even Sharon has used it) of course includes the whole land of what is now called Israel. However, the majority of Palestinians do not insist on taking it all back; they realize that that is now an unrealistic goal and all they want is 22% of their land back-- the 1967 territories. The majority accept that! But they have never been offered a <b>viable</b> state-- if you bother to check out the details, you will see that they are being screwed. The Israelies are trying to take as much of that remaining 22% of possible, offering either nothing or worthless land in return, and maintaining control over water and other important things in the reservations they are offering the Palestinians.

06-16-2003, 06:09 AM	#9
rumi Resident-in-Training Join Date: Jun 2003 Posts: 7	But when you think about it, that describes an awful lot of colonies and former colonies. Some cultures produce a Ghandi in response to occupation. And some produce the above. What's the difference? Both are only human, why the vastly different response? The two cases are just too different. The Indians numbered in the hundreds of millions; the British could not crush them militarily or ethnically cleanse them from their land-- it just wasn't feasible, nor were the British interested in stealing and settling the land. Nor were the Indians so brutally decimated. Yes, the British performed massacres, but they could never have made life so miserable for every Indian as the Israelis have done for every Palestinian man, woman, and child. So nonviolence was a viable option in India. The Palestinian population is small enough to control and grind away at. If there were a Palestinian Gandhi, we simply wouldn't hear about him, or he would be targetted by the Israelis, or run over by a bulldozer as the current non-violent activists. There are plenty of non-violent activists in Palestine, and I admire them greatly, but we don't hear much about them. We only hear about the crazy suicide bombers which fuel our stereotypes of Palestinians as an entirely barbaric people who just hate because they are taught/born to hate. They have now been offered a state. Some of their response to the offer was to kill or maim 120 innocent bystanders and bus riders with rusty nails. A majority of Pals believe that "occupation" includes the entire land of Israel. Those are the facts of the last few weeks; how does this square with your understanding of the situation? The occupation (no need for quotes, that's the legal word for it, and even Sharon has used it) of course includes the whole land of what is now called Israel. However, the majority of Palestinians do not insist on taking it all back; they realize that that is now an unrealistic goal and all they want is 22% of their land back-- the 1967 territories. The majority accept that! But they have never been offered a <b>viable</b> state-- if you bother to check out the details, you will see that they are being screwed. The Israelies are trying to take as much of that remaining 22% of possible, offering either nothing or worthless land in return, and maintaining control over water and other important things in the reservations they are offering the Palestinians.