Polls, Palestinians and the Path to Peace (short article)

[brad]

youre the one who said israel may have to do ethnic cleansing (view espoused by many, btw)

[MMMMMM]

WTF are you talking about? I never said that.

[MMMMMM]

M: "I don't think your parallel examples are fitting; neither the citizens nor the government of the USA refused to recognize the USSR's right to exist."

Chris Alger: "Of course they did, or do you believe that President Reagan believed in the rights of "Evil Empires" to exist? Or that the USSR should never have negotiated with Reagan until he renounced that phrase?"

Hamas refuses to accept the right of Israel the nation to exist. While Reagan and US citizens may (or may not) have considered the government of the USSR to have no moral right to exist, neither Reagan nor the citizens of the USA ever questioned the right of the country of the USSR itself, or old Russia, to exist.

There is a world of difference between saying that a government has no right to exist (e.g. Saddam's Baath party), and saying that a country (e.g. Iraq) has no right to exist. Likewise, saying that Sharon's government has no right to exist is not the same as saying that the state of Israel itself has no right to exist.

One position is ultimately far less intractable than the other.

Making comparisons that aren't really apropos is asy to do in these complex disacussions, yet I feel it is one of the main reasons that Chomsky, and many other liberals, tend to derive bad conclusions. As I've said before, false equivalences really can be a problem when it comes to any type of reasoning--even moral reasoning.

[IrishHand]

Just a guess, but I'd say he's referring to your above quote:

If some organized folks told me that no matter what I were to do, they intended to kill me and push me into the sea, and I knew they meant it, I'd be damn sure not to give them any land that could put them closer to their goal. And realistically speaking, the concept of wiping them out as a pre-emptive measure would have to come under serious consideration.

Sounds an awful lot like genocide to me, especially since you've consistently argued that most Palestinians object to Israel's existence.

[MMMMMM]

I thought it was obvious that I was referring to groups like al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, not to ordinary Palestinians, when I wrote: "organized folk...(which) intended to kill me and push me into the sea no matter what I did."

In my very next posting in the thread, just to be sure that nobody misunderstood my meaning, I wrote:

"First of all, I wasn't intending to suggest consideration of wiping out Palestinians as a whole--only their most fanatically aggressive and violent organizations such as al-Aqsa."

So either you can't understand what you read or you don't hesitate to post derogatory crap without reading the rest of the related posts.

If you think I'm suggesting genocide after reading this, then God help your reading comprehension skills.

[Chris Alger]

"Hamas refuses to accept the right of Israel the nation to exist."

There is no "nation" of Israel; Israel is a state. There is a nation of Jews. Hamas purports to be able to live in peaceful coexistence with Jews. It is opposed to a Jewish state. Although Hama supporters themselves might sometimes fail to make these distinctions (its manifesto speaks alternatively of fighting "the conquerors" and "the Jews"), Pipes makes it clearly. He is referring to Palestinian acceptance of an ideologically Jewish state in the former Palestine, not Palestinian acceptance or tolerance of Jews in Palestine or elsewhere.

"While Reagan and US citizens may (or may not) have considered the government of the USSR to have no moral right to exist, neither Reagan nor the citizens of the USA ever questioned the right of the country of the USSR itself, or old Russia, to exist."

Hamas does not want to take the physical country now called Israel and turn it into a lake, nor to exterminate all of its inhabitants in the event the Jewish state is overthrown. Reagan opposed not merely to the current regime in Russia. In fact, Soviet leadership changed hands several times during his administration with no discernable change in Reagan's stance. Reagan was opposed to the ideology of the communist state and would have been opposed to any communist state in Russia just like he (and prior U.S. governments and millions of Americans) denied the legitimacy of every communist state everywhere. Likewise, Hamas is opposed to any Jewish state in the former Palestine. It is a question of opposing a state devoted to a particular ideology as opposed to the people living in it or the particular rulers of the day. By the same token, Bush is obviously opposed to any Baathist state in Iraq, regardless of whether it's headed by Saddam, his sons or their collegues.

Another example is the Pakistan-India conflict. Pakistan is an avowedly Islamic state. Many Indians obviously disagree with that concept. However, you would never hear Pakistan claim that it cannot negotiate peace or borders with India until all Indians accept the legitimacy of an Islamic state of Pakistan.

You still haven't explained why you insist that Israel should not compromise its territorial claims as long as any Palestinians deny Israel's legitimacy, while insisting that the Palestinians compromise their territorials claims even though Israel and many Israelis remain implacably opposed to the establishment of any Palestinian state. Nor have you explained why you believe that Israel's security concerns trump those of the Palestinians.

[Chris Alger]

"And it only takes a significant fraction of people--considerably less than 50%-who are committed to non-acceptance to ensure that peace remains impossible."

Israeli polls consistently indidcate that from 1/3 to 40% of the Israeli public opposes the creation of any Palestinian state. Moreover, the term "Palestinian state" as used in Israel typically assumes a demilitarized and only semiautonomous state whose policies are subject to Israeli veto, not full sovereignty as Israel enjoys.

Does it not follow from your statement above that Israeli rejectionism also makes peace impossible? How could one interpret your placement of exclusive blame on Palestinian attitudes as anyting but unfair bias against Palestinians?

OTOH, if minority opinion can always limit a government's ability to compromise, why can't a minority limit a government's ability to refuse compromise? In other words, what makes you think that minority rejectionism will always be more powerful than minority willingness to compromise, or is this phenomenon unique to Palestinians?

"So the percentage of Palestinians who believe in the necessity of the elimination of Israel is very significant at over 50%...."

Actually Pipes probably had to dig for last Spring's poll to get his 51% number. A more recent poll (December 2002, likely available to Pipes when he wrote his February 2003 article) from the same source show that 46% of Palestinians want a 242-style state (occupied territories), 47% want liberation of all of historic Palestine, and 4% would be satisfied with improving the Palestinian negotiating position. (Error rate of 3%, 95% confidence). http://www.jmcc.org/publicpoll/results/2002/no47.htm

Moreover, if Pipes is truly concerned about rejectionism his prescrption is backwards. Based on the polls, the PA is more willing than its constituents to compromise territorial claims. The government of Israel is way behind most Israelis on the same issue and currently opposes a Palestinian state in the occupied territories or even withdrawal and removal of settlements from them, a precondition to any viable Palestinian state. (Sharon's own party is on record as opposing any Palestinian state and Sharon's notion of a Palestinian state, if any, remains unspecified, but he's not willing to negotiate one in any case). Despite these facts, Pipes concludes that it is Palestinian rejectionism that "flourishes" and that the U.S. therefore should support Israel.

It is clear from his article that Pipes is a rejectionist himself, understands that most people abhor this attitude, and is therfore using old statistics and logical sleight of hand to shift blame away from those responsible for the current impasse.

[brad]

yep. but more importantly there are many others in positions of power who argue that the entire population of non jews be 'relocated' 'by any means'.

so even if M's position isnt identical with the extremists, still it fits in with their worldview, it seems to me anyway.

[adios]

Somehow I would guess that you would find a way to hold the USA responsible for all of the above.

These two statements are obfuscations:

"There is no "nation" of Israel; Israel is a state. There is a nation of Jews."

"In fact, Soviet leadership changed hands several times during his administration with no discernable change in Reagan's stance. Reagan was opposed to the ideology of the communist state and would have been opposed to any communist state in Russia just like he (and prior U.S. governments and millions of Americans) denied the legitimacy of every communist state everywhere."

I'm going to extricate myself from this discussion quickly and painlessly. I apologize for taking a shot at what you say and not debating it at length as that may not be quite fair. I'll try and refrain from getting involved in your threads.

[Chris Alger]

"Somehow I would guess that you would find a way to hold the USA responsible for all of the above."

Nope.

As for obfuscations, let me clarify.

Pipes and M contend that diplomacy with Palestinians is useless as long as many of them seek the destruction of the Jewish state, or the "liberation of historic Palestine." They contend that any agreement will be, at best, pointless because Palestinian opposition to the existence of Israel means that too many of them willl remain committed to using violence and unlawful force, or maybe some other illegitimate means, to wreck Israel.

These two statements, however, don't follow and in fact are grounded in a certain deliberate ambiguity concerning the Israel's "right to exist" and what opposing it actually means. If the phrase has any meaning, it is the right of Israel to exist under its current ideology as a Jewish state, as opposed to a state that makes no distinction regarding the ethnicity of its citizens.

History provides numerous examples of states conducting successful diplomacy while remaining fundamentally antagonistic toward the other party's official ideology or raison d'etre. U.S. diplomacy with the USSR is a striking example of countries that could produce workable agreements even though at least one of them considered the other an "evil empire" and both maintained a constant state of military tension toward each other. Israel's own agreements with Egypt and Jordan are more obvious examples: neither Arab country was called upon to acknowledge the Israel's "right to exist," yet the peace between these countries has endured and the border disputes between them have been largely resolved.

The deliberate exploitation of ambiguity occurs because any opposition to Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state is commonly interpreted as violent opposition to the right of Jews to a homeland in the former Palestine or violent opposition to Jews generally. Israel's right to exist is used indifferently with the rights of Jews to exist, an unstated assumption that has particular force due to the holocaust.

That's why I distinguished the nation of Jews from the state of Israel. If you need any further examples as to why this distinction matters, consider the positions of many Jews (like Einstein) that opposed the creation of a Jewish state, some of whom lived in the former mandatory Palestine and considered themselves committed Zionists. Tom Segev's One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs Under the British Mandate is an good source.