War declared, Israel v Palestine...

[Finnegan]

Finnegan,

You wrote "No more delusional than a two-state solution. Netenyahu has both stated openly, and demonstrated by his actions, that a two-state solution will not be countenanced. We can imagine that his removal would dispense with the impediment, but that too is equally delusional."

Any type of solution is far away at the moment, even a limited ceasefire, but on the scale of improbable outcomes the two-state solution seems less far-fetched than a single state. As the longest serving PM, Netanyahu has had devastating influence, but even he'll be gone sooner rather than later, so what he says and does won't carry much weight a year or two from now. Chances that Israel will be able to muddle through with its current system and coalitions are fading. (I accept this may be an optimistic view, but it seems at least possible.)

And "Again, without minimising the difficulties the process will entail, I point to Ireland. (...) I’m sure both those eventualities, from the perspective pertaining thirty years ago, looked equally as unobtainable. I prefer to remain optimistic."

Not sure it's a useful comparison: the Republic of Ireland has been independent for over a century and is becoming prosperous, while Palestine is still struggling for independence and statehood, not to mention poor and partly destroyed. Ulster and Ireland haven't fought several full scale wars backed by foreign powers plus Intifadas (not to minimize the Troubles, but totally different scale). Even there, despite all the newly accumulated goodwill, economic ties, common framework, shared language and even religion, nobody seems to be seriously pursuing unification yet, either in the South or the North. It will take ages. The single-state solution is the hardest to achieve because it requires either massive mutual trust or equally massive and sustained force/oppression. Israel is finding out the limits of that last approach; the Palestinians don't have the means to even consider it in the foreseeable future, as recognized by Hezbollah and their Iranian backers.

Even optimists have to prefer what may work one day in a distant future to something that will remain a total non-starter for decades to come. Alberto Toscano writes, in the penultimate paragraph of his generally sympathetic review, about the necessity of 'transitional arrangements'. He quotes Moroccan antizionist Abraham Serfaty, who envisages these as a revised form of two-state solution. I wonder if Dr Eid accepts the need for 'transitional arrangements' like these.

I think we can both agree that any solution seems at present a distant and forlorn hope. I lack your surety that the removal of Netenyahu will bring any such process closer. He is a figurehead who represents a current in Israeli society: a particularly uncompromising and murderous current. In a terrible mirror image of Black Panther Fred Hampton’s declaration that you can jail the revolutionary, but you can’t jail the revolution, you can jail Netenyahu, but you cannot jail murderous Zionist supremacy.

You may view a single state as an even more remote possibility than a two state solution. And while of course, any transition to a single state will be a long, painful and fraught procedure that could well feature an interim two state as part of a transitional process. However, if we want a foretaste of what any two-state solution would feature, we need look only to Gaza and the West Bank (prior to October 7th) because what else were these but a de facto two state. Nominally autonomous but entirely controlled by the Israeli state- and in the case of Gaza, monitored ingress and egress, retained control of food, electricity and water supplies, and who could arrest supply upon any given whim. What would be cause for any optimism that any future Palestinian state would be little more than a bantustan that remained dependent on the largesse of Israel? And bantustans that are incapable of accommodating the right to return of Palestinians displaced since the Nakba.

Speaking of de facto two state solutions, what else was the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921 that allowed the British state to retain possession of the industrialised and prosperous north east? In both the case of Palestine and Ireland, partition was not accompanied by lasting peace. I’m not entirely convinced by your objections. While of course both situations are in ways radically different in character; in other ways however, they share the commonality of long term enmity, mistrust, brutality, killings, bombings and atrocities on both sides. If Roman Catholics can come to prefer peace to a state of war despite their relatives being brutally tortured and murdered by the Shankill Butchers, and Protestants can decide that comparative peace represents a superior modus vivendi to seeking vengeance against the perpetrators of the Omagh bombing, then who is to say deep divisions cannot, given the will and the way, be overcome in Palestine/ Israel?

My optimism in relation to what you characterise as “a total non-starter for decades to come” is grounded by the fact that what you characterise “one day work(ing) in a distant future,” i.e. a two-state solution, will not, and taking history as evidence, cannot bring lasting peace and reconciliation. Surely it is better to seek long term peace, however arduous that path may be, in opposition to what ultimately represents a sticking plaster applied to festering wounds?

 

[Seanm]

Finnegan,

You wrote "No more delusional than a two-state solution. Netenyahu has both stated openly, and demonstrated by his actions, that a two-state solution will not be countenanced. We can imagine that his removal would dispense with the impediment, but that too is equally delusional."

Any type of solution is far away at the moment, even a limited ceasefire, but on the scale of improbable outcomes the two-state solution seems less far-fetched than a single state. As the longest serving PM, Netanyahu has had devastating influence, but even he'll be gone sooner rather than later, so what he says and does won't carry much weight a year or two from now. Chances that Israel will be able to muddle through with its current system and coalitions are fading. (I accept this may be an optimistic view, but it seems at least possible.)

And "Again, without minimising the difficulties the process will entail, I point to Ireland. (...) I’m sure both those eventualities, from the perspective pertaining thirty years ago, looked equally as unobtainable. I prefer to remain optimistic."

Not sure it's a useful comparison: the Republic of Ireland has been independent for over a century and is becoming prosperous, while Palestine is still struggling for independence and statehood, not to mention poor and partly destroyed. Ulster and Ireland haven't fought several full scale wars backed by foreign powers plus Intifadas (not to minimize the Troubles, but totally different scale). Even there, despite all the newly accumulated goodwill, economic ties, common framework, shared language and even religion, nobody seems to be seriously pursuing unification yet, either in the South or the North. It will take ages. The single-state solution is the hardest to achieve because it requires either massive mutual trust or equally massive and sustained force/oppression. Israel is finding out the limits of that last approach; the Palestinians don't have the means to even consider it in the foreseeable future, as recognized by Hezbollah and their Iranian backers.

Even optimists have to prefer what may work one day in a distant future to something that will remain a total non-starter for decades to come. Alberto Toscano writes, in the penultimate paragraph of his generally sympathetic review, about the necessity of 'transitional arrangements'. He quotes Moroccan antizionist Abraham Serfaty, who envisages these as a revised form of two-state solution. I wonder if Dr Eid accepts the need for 'transitional arrangements' like these.

Given that neither solution is on the horizon, going back and forth on what's least likely is not very meaningful. Better to look at what the proposals have accomplished in the past and are doing *in the present*.

As far as the Israelis are concerned, the two state promise has delivered: it's split the Palestinians politically and provided cover for an increasingly brutal occupation and a relentless programme of colonial expansion. The Palestinians meanwhile are in a much worse position than before Oslo. Immeasurably worse.

In the present, the two state promise continues to provide Israel's backers with plausible deniability *even as Israel boasts that it is and always has been bullshit*. "Oh, that's just these guys", we say, "They won't be around forever!" Forgetting that plenty was done to undermine the promise even under Labour governments. So the can gets kicked down the road at a time of maximal violence. After this genocide, we're assured, we'll be back on course.

The two state solution also serves to legitimise the idea of an ethno state. Its basic assumption is that it's just, and possible, to build a state that is either ethnically pure or divided along apartheid lines, a state founded on the elimination, within its borders, of a people that now live beside it. In other words it asks us to abandon certain founding principles of modernity as well as common sense. Don't underestimate the significance of that last bit: if you suspend reason you open a space where anything can happen, especially if you've conceded that Palestinians should not have the same basic rights as us, and Israelis should have exceptional rights. And, well, look what's happening!

The great benefit of proposals for a one state solution is that they force us to admit that you can't construct a zone where the normal rules of modernity and reason are suspended, and expect everything to go well. It's the only solution that starts from the premise that democracy, equality, human rights - all of that's actually real, and the Palestinians are included in it, everyone's included. In other words it's the only solution that doesn't justify what's currently happening.

 

[Seanm]

Respectfully disagree. The ultimate truism in any conflict is, know your enemy. Know what is driving him, know what they want. This, in my opinion, does NOT make such knowledge and recognition pro-genocide propaganda. If anything, it would (or should) make any reasonable, humane party start to think how they could separate ordinary Palestinians from complete wingnuts - and that means offering them a lot of what they want. Problem is, Israel has shown itself to be neither reasonable nor humane - in fact, a sort of larger version of Hamas.

You seem to think I'm making some general point about the benefit of treating Hamas as nice guys, and that is certainly not what I'm doing. I'm saying: you are badly wrong about Hamas; you have been actively disinformed by articles such as the one you've shared; and that the particular kind of ignorance spread by those articles is malign and genocidal.

Please do know your enemy. Interview here with Tareq Baconi:

Hamas w/ Tareq Baconi

Featuring Tareq Baconi on the history of Hamas. This is the context we need. And it is precisely what mainstream discourse mystifies, denies, and disavows.

thedigradio.com

Article by Seth Ackerman:

There Was an Iron Wall in Gaza

Addicted to territorial aggrandizement and encircled by enemies of its own making, Israel has freed itself of all moral constraints.

jacobin.com

 

[Finnegan]

Given that neither solution is on the horizon, going back and forth on what's least likely is not very meaningful. Better to look at what the proposals have accomplished in the past and are doing *in the present*.

As far as the Israelis are concerned, the two state promise has delivered: it's split the Palestinians politically and provided cover for an increasingly brutal occupation and a relentless programme of colonial expansion. The Palestinians meanwhile are in a much worse position than before Oslo. Immeasurably worse.

In the present, the two state promise continues to provide Israel's backers with plausible deniability *even as Israel boasts that it is and always has been bullshit*. "Oh, that's just these guys", we say, "They won't be around forever!" Forgetting that plenty was done to undermine the promise even under Labour governments. So the can gets kicked down the road at a time of maximal violence. After this genocide, we're assured, we'll be back on course.

The two state solution also serves to legitimise the idea of an ethno state. Its basic assumption is that it's just, and possible, to build a state that is either ethnically pure or divided along apartheid lines, a state founded on the elimination, within its borders, of a people that now live beside it. In other words it asks us to abandon certain founding principles of modernity as well as common sense. Don't underestimate the significance of that last bit: if you suspend reason you open a space where anything can happen, especially if you've conceded that Palestinians should not have the same basic rights as us, and Israelis should have exceptional rights. And, well, look what's happening!

The great benefit of proposals for a one state solution is that they force us to admit that you can't construct a zone where the normal rules of modernity and reason are suspended, and expect everything to go well. It's the only solution that starts from the premise that democracy, equality, human rights - all of that's actually real, and the Palestinians are included in it, everyone's included. In other words it's the only solution that doesn't justify what's currently happening.

Superb post.

 

[gavreid]

In less than 6 months, Israel has destroyed Gaza: UN expert​

As we’ve previously reported, UN Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Francesca Albanese has issued a report saying there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel is committing genocide in the Gaza Strip.
Presenting the findings in Geneva, Albanese has said that 25,000 tonnes of explosives – equivalent to two nuclear bombs – have been used to level entire neighbourhoods in Gaza, “erasing or severely damaging almost all civilian infrastructure and agricultural land, most of homes, healthcare facilities, telecommunications infrastructure, every university, most education facilities and innumerable cultural heritage sites”.

“Israel has committed three acts of genocide causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group, deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent birth within the group,” Albanese added.

After UN Security Council rebuke, Israel says Hamas deputy commander killed

Announcement that Hamas number three Marwan Issa was killed March 10 comes just a day after UN’s Gaza ceasefire call.

www.aljazeera.com

 

[gavreid]

Israel alone at the Security Council​

• 
  James Bays

Al Jazeera's diplomatic editor
I think what is slowly developing is global isolation and condemnation for Israel, it’s developing into a situation where it could become a pariah state.
Go back to apartheid in South Africa – that country was eventually suspended from the United Nations, for 20 years it wasn’t even let to take part in UN activities.
And I think it’s that sort of isolation and global disdain that Israel might be facing, and it’s exactly that that this weekend the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Prime Minister Netanyahu of when he talked about the possible Rafah offensive.
He said Israel is facing global condemnation and a real tarnishing of its reputation long term.

After UN Security Council rebuke, Israel says Hamas deputy commander killed

Announcement that Hamas number three Marwan Issa was killed March 10 comes just a day after UN’s Gaza ceasefire call.

www.aljazeera.com

 

[gavreid]

What you need to know about UN expert’s report accusing Israel of genocide​

Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, has issued a report on the war in Gaza.
In the report, she said there are “reasonable grounds” to believe Israel is carrying out a genocide in the Strip.
Here’s what you need to know:

• Albanese said evidence – gathered from organisations on the ground, investigative reports and consultations with affected people – suggests that Israel has committed at least three of five acts that fall under the UN Genocide Convention.
• These are “killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to the group’s members; and deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part”.
• Albanese noted that Israel has killed more than 30,000 Palestinians in Gaza since October 7. A further 12,000 are reported missing, presumed dead under the rubble. More than 70 percent of the recorded deaths have been women and children and Israel has failed to prove that the remaining 30 percent – adult males – were active Hamas fighters, she said.
• Israel’s heightened blockade of Gaza is also resulting in deaths by starvation, including that of 10 children daily.
• Albanese noted that Israeli forces have wounded more than 70,000 Palestinians and detained thousands of Palestinian men and boys, subjecting them to torture and mistreatment.
• Albanese also said Israel has destroyed or severely damaged most of Gaza’s life-sustaining infrastructure, including hospitals and agricultural land.

After UN Security Council rebuke, Israel says Hamas deputy commander killed

Announcement that Hamas number three Marwan Issa was killed March 10 comes just a day after UN’s Gaza ceasefire call.

www.aljazeera.com

 

[tones]

You seem to think I'm making some general point about the benefit of treating Hamas as nice guys, and that is certainly not what I'm doing. I'm saying: you are badly wrong about Hamas; you have been actively disinformed by articles such as the one you've shared; and that the particular kind of ignorance spread by those articles is malign and genocidal.

Please do know your enemy. Interview here with Tareq Baconi:

Hamas w/ Tareq Baconi

Featuring Tareq Baconi on the history of Hamas. This is the context we need. And it is precisely what mainstream discourse mystifies, denies, and disavows.

thedigradio.com

Article by Seth Ackerman:

There Was an Iron Wall in Gaza

Addicted to territorial aggrandizement and encircled by enemies of its own making, Israel has freed itself of all moral constraints.

jacobin.com

Thank you for those. I've read the article but haven't had the time to listen to the whole of the recording. It is clearly pushing a particular agenda, but one with which I largely agree. It has always been my opinion that the founding of Israel as a nation state was a major mistake - Balfour only ever said "a homeland" and stressed the need to respect the rights of the people already there, the bit that everyone seems to ignore. As Ian Black said in his excellent Enemies and Neighbours, the problem vexing the Zionists from the very beginning was, how do we get rid of these people?

I confess it came as a surprise to me to hear that Hamas was prepared to accept the 1967 borders with the right of return - which, I guess, would mean the destruction of Israel, at least in its present form. However, this is wishing for the Moon and sixpence. To take the example of my native Ireland, its current problems came about when a foreign people was planted in the North. They never succeeded in pushing out the locals completely (they needed them), but 4 centuries later, they are still there and still being a nuisance to, well, everyone. But, like Israel, they are there and they're not going anywhere. They have the same fanatical lunacy as do the extreme Zionists, but (thankfully) there are not as many of them and they don't possess the region's most powerful military. And their perceived protector is getting tired of their eternal intransigence, as, finally, is apparently Israel's perceived protector.

The worry I would see about some sort of unitary state is one on "Islamic principles". Now this is based on only a partial hearing and the phrase may be more completely defined later in the talk, but it depends on what that means. At one time, it meant tolerance for "people of the Book", i.e. Christians and Jews, who enjoyed substantial rights in Moorish Spain and in Islamic countries - the Jewish community in Mesopotamia was the heart of Judaism worldwide for centuries. But then came Israel, and these communities were driven out. Can this mutual tolerance come back? One of Islam's basic problems is that it is designed to be a majority religion - unlike Christianity and Judaism that have long since freed themselves from their roots and can be a minority, Islam has not adapted well to this - and some are bitterly anti-Semitic (as opposed to merely anti-Zionist). I believe the Iranian Government still circulates The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. If this is the sort of state envisaged by Hamas, I don't think it's a good idea. Sadly, I think we have a long way to go and a wait for a generation of more reasonable people on both sides.

 

[raysablade]

Israel alone at the Security Council​

• 
  James Bays

Al Jazeera's diplomatic editor
I think what is slowly developing is global isolation and condemnation for Israel, it’s developing into a situation where it could become a pariah state.
Go back to apartheid in South Africa – that country was eventually suspended from the United Nations, for 20 years it wasn’t even let to take part in UN activities.
And I think it’s that sort of isolation and global disdain that Israel might be facing, and it’s exactly that that this weekend the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned Prime Minister Netanyahu of when he talked about the possible Rafah offensive.
He said Israel is facing global condemnation and a real tarnishing of its reputation long term.

After UN Security Council rebuke, Israel says Hamas deputy commander killed

Announcement that Hamas number three Marwan Issa was killed March 10 comes just a day after UN’s Gaza ceasefire call.

www.aljazeera.com

So the the Palestinian people's continued suffering is in their long term interest?

 

[Somafunk]

Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on Palestine, has issued a report on the war in Gaza.

Francesca is well worth a follow on Twitter for her insight, and I particularly enjoyed her takedown of Kirsty Wark‘s Israeli bias on Newsnight a few months ago

 

[Seanm]

Thank you for those. I've read the article but haven't had the time to listen to the whole of the recording. It is clearly pushing a particular agenda, but one with which I largely agree. It has always been my opinion that the founding of Israel as a nation state was a major mistake - Balfour only ever said "a homeland" and stressed the need to respect the rights of the people already there, the bit that everyone seems to ignore. As Ian Black said in his excellent Enemies and Neighbours, the problem vexing the Zionists from the very beginning was, how do we get rid of these people?

I confess it came as a surprise to me to hear that Hamas was prepared to accept the 1967 borders with the right of return - which, I guess, would mean the destruction of Israel, at least in its present form. However, this is wishing for the Moon and sixpence. To take the example of my native Ireland, its current problems came about when a foreign people was planted in the North. They never succeeded in pushing out the locals completely (they needed them), but 4 centuries later, they are still there and still being a nuisance to, well, everyone. But, like Israel, they are there and they're not going anywhere. They have the same fanatical lunacy as do the extreme Zionists, but (thankfully) there are not as many of them and they don't possess the region's most powerful military. And their perceived protector is getting tired of their eternal intransigence, as, finally, is apparently Israel's perceived protector.

The worry I would see about some sort of unitary state is one on "Islamic principles". Now this is based on only a partial hearing and the phrase may be more completely defined later in the talk, but it depends on what that means. At one time, it meant tolerance for "people of the Book", i.e. Christians and Jews, who enjoyed substantial rights in Moorish Spain and in Islamic countries - the Jewish community in Mesopotamia was the heart of Judaism worldwide for centuries. But then came Israel, and these communities were driven out. Can this mutual tolerance come back? One of Islam's basic problems is that it is designed to be a majority religion - unlike Christianity and Judaism that have long since freed themselves from their roots and can be a minority, Islam has not adapted well to this - and some are bitterly anti-Semitic (as opposed to merely anti-Zionist). I believe the Iranian Government still circulates The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. If this is the sort of state envisaged by Hamas, I don't think it's a good idea. Sadly, I think we have a long way to go and a wait for a generation of more reasonable people on both sides.

Hamas are right wing religious conservatives, I wouldn't want to get behind many of their aims, regardless of whether they're realistic or not. The point really is just that they're not set on the elimination of Jews or of Israel, they're not beyond reason, they're not an entirely unitary outfit with singular and implacable aims. They can be negotiated with. That's something that's been systematically obscured in most mainstream accounts of the situation, which I think has been vital building popular acceptance of the genocide.

 

[gavreid]

Israel ‘likely to continue genocide crimes’ despite ceasefire call​

Israel is not expected to comply with the UN Security Council’s recent call for a ceasefire in Gaza, according to an international law expert.
“Israel has a significant record of non-compliance with international law,” Lima Bastami, director of the law department at the Geneva-based civil society organisation Euro-Med Human Rights Monitor, told Anadolu Agency.
“Although compliance with the UN Security Council resolution is mandatory, there are no direct measures or sanctions in case of non-compliance because it is a decision made under Chapter 6 of the UN Charter. We will likely witness Israel continuing to commit genocide crimes in Gaza, and have to appeal to the UN Security Council to issue a new decision.”
The possibility of decisions being made under the UN Charter, involving economic and diplomatic sanctions as well as the use of military force in the event of Israel’s noncompliance with the ceasefire call, is “unlikely” due to the US veto power, Bastami said.

76 Palestinians killed in 24 hours as Israeli air strikes target houses

Attacks on Gaza intensify amid growing global condemnation; Hamas says Israel faces ‘unprecedented political isolation’.

www.aljazeera.com

 

[PaulMB]

Something I'm not clear about: does the UN's call for an immediate ceasefire also call for the immediate release of the Israeli hostages taken during the October 7 massacre?
In the media there seem to be different interpretations.

 

[flatpopely]

Something I'm not clear about: does the UN's call for an immediate ceasefire also call for the immediate release of the Israeli hostages taken during the October 7 massacre?
In the media there seem to be different interpretations.

It should not matter if the hostages are released*, Isreal should stop slaughtering innocent people, end of.

* The hostages should be released but this should not be a pre-condition of a ceasfire.

 

[PaulMB]

It should not matter if the hostages are released*, Isreal should stop slaughtering innocent people, end of.

* The hostages should be released but this should not be a pre-condition of a ceasfire.

OK, although from the Israeli point of view the hostages are of primary importance.

What I was asking is if the UN document calls for the release of the hostages along with a ceasefire, there seems to be some ambiguity here.

 

[gavreid]

A permanent ceasefire and the release of political prisoners from Israeli jails would have seen all of the hostages/PoWs released months ago. The Israeli government doesn't want the hostages back, it's the last thing they want.

 

[PaulMB]

A permanent ceasefire and the release of political prisoners from Israeli jails would have seen all of the hostages/PoWs released months ago. The Israeli government doesn't want the hostages back, it's the last thing they want.

I don't see that. Surely the release of the hostages would be a political triumph for Bibi and his government, and would allow them to end hostilities, which at that point would have no purpose.

And I also wonder if Hamas wants a ceasefire at all. Or, rather, if its "owners," Iran and Russia, want one. It would continue to be to their advantage, as it has been for the past months, to keep the whole area, from Lebanon to Yemen, as much in flames as possible. For Iran, to bolster its aspirational role as dominant regional and Islamic power, and for Russia to divert attention and resources from Ukraine.

But my question was about the UN's document, and whether it includes or not the release of the Israeli hostages.

 

[flatpopely]

I don't see that. Surely the release of the hostages would be a political triumph for Bibi and his government, and would allow them to end hostilities, which at that point would have no purpose.

And I also wonder if Hamas wants a ceasefire at all. Or, rather, if its "owners," Iran and Russia, want one. It would continue to be to their advantage, as it has been for the past months, to keep the whole area, from Lebanon to Yemen, as much in flames as possible. For Iran, to bolster its aspirational role as dominant regional and Islamic power, and for Russia to divert attention and resources from Ukraine.

But my question was about the UN's document, and whether it includes or not the release of the Israeli hostages.

The government can end hostilities now. Why the obfuscation?

 

[PaulMB]

The government can end hostilities now. Why the obfuscation?

Of course. Just as Hamas can end hostilities now. It takes two to cease fire. (what obfuscation?)

 

[ks.234]

Of course. Just as Hamas can end hostilities now. It takes two to cease fire. (what obfuscation?)

No