By Other Means
Melanie Phillips describes how a Palestinian intellectual touted as the epitome of the moderate turns out on closer inspection to be an advocate of a one-state solution to the Palestinian problem, which logically implies the end of a Jewish state.
Nusseibeh is certainly welcome to his own opinion, but it raises the interesting question of how much of the hostility to Israel is really Leftist Western ideology operating by proxy.
With his posh Jerusalem high school education, his Oxford and Harvard degrees, and impeccable western demeanor, Mr. Nusseibeh, like cultured Arabs and Muslims before him, represents the ultimate product of the 'white man's civilizing mission,' a contemporary replica of George Antonius, the Cambridge-educated Syrian political activist who was the toast of British chattering classes in Palestine and beyond during the 1930s.
Nusseibeh is certainly welcome to his own opinion, but it raises the interesting question of how much of the hostility to Israel is really Leftist Western ideology operating by proxy.
posted by wretchardthecat at 5/16/2007 06:54:00 PM
11 Comments:
Just about all of it.
For those who take the Melanie Phillips link, offered herein, do not fail to use her link to the New York Sun book review, which eviscerates the Palestinian buffoon. Why do knowledgeable persons continue to give way to such fabulists and prevaricators?
Facts are troublesome things, unless one is inclined to dismiss them in the interest of the narrative or personal “insight”. The Left has always leaned in the direction noble savagery.
Amos Oz. “Oz” How very apropos.
The Left hates Israel, I think, because deep down it also hates the religions that originated in the Holy Land. It loves the Muslim savages because right now they are the muscular ones who can "bring it" to Western civilization. Since the fall of the Soviet Union and the semi-integration of Communist China into capitalism, these intellectual buffoons have been casting about for some new foot soldier. Along came the minions of Allah...
I think one only has to read some of Eric Hoffer's (The True Believer, The Ordeal of Change, etc.)ideas to understand how others come to positions which prove to be stupid, even almost so.
I think Nusseibeh is being misread. He is simply saying that a one-state solution is inevitable eventually, not that a two-state solution is to be rejected.
Evelyn Gordon on the op ed page of jpost compares and contrasts the Irish peace process with the Israel/Pal peace process in Luck of the Irish.
She says that the Irish peace process developed with a number of rules while the I/P process has violated all those rules. The main rule that she mentions is that there should be consequences for either side if they violate agreements or violate demands set down by the moderators.
The Pals have been allowed to violate all their agreements with very little consequences. In most cases it was the international community that allowed the Pals to get away with violating the rules with no consequences, and mostly the EU.
What she doesn't address is why the international community lets the Pals get away with ignoring its rules. The reasons that I can imagine are that: the EU has some multi-culti belief that we can all just get along so no need to punish bad behavior; there is a fundamental belief that the Pal's have a more legitimate claim on the land than Israel does; a desire to appease the Arab countries, perhaps for oil reasons; simple anti-semitism.
It's probably some combination of these reasons but there will not be peace any time soon unless things change.
Love this phrase: "the homicidal narcissism of the western liberal intellectual."
That's exactly right, Jeff. The destruction of Israel continues to be inevitable.
"What she doesn't address is why the international community lets the Pals get away with ignoring its rules. The reasons that I can imagine are that: the EU has some multi-culti belief that we can all just get along so no need to punish bad behavior; there is a fundamental belief that the Pal's have a more legitimate claim on the land than Israel does; a desire to appease the Arab countries, perhaps for oil reasons; simple anti-semitism."
The fire that has engulfed the European/International Community Mindset for centuries has now created the "perfect storm" that has somehow mysteriously formed. It can all be done by proxy now; support someone else that wants to torture the jews who now can be viewed as the instigators of wars and strife (relieving them of guilt for what they did in the past)while simultaneously ingratiating themselves to the oil overlords. All without getting thier hands dirty this time.
Another factor: Israel was founded by socialists. Leftists embraced Israel because of this, but as Israelis left the kibbutzes to pursue free-enterprise endeavors, the left regarded them as traitors. And we have seen how the left deals with class traitors.
I don't understand it, but I do understand that, when in the company of anti-semites (whether as a nation in the world, or as a person in the street), you want to protect yourself at all times, whatever your own race or religion might be.
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