[Dublin] Nakba Day events: Vigil (1pm) & Moving Gallery (5pm)

by Tim Johnston - none Mon May 14, 2012 04:06 tim.johnston33 at gmail dot com

"that facilitated the foundation of the State of Israel."
should read:

"that facilitated the foundation of the State of Israel and the State of Jordan, and would have facilitated the State of Palestine had there not been a big war instead."

But should we really be encouraging this?

I mean, larger population exchanges too place when India was partitioned in 1947 and they've all gotten over it and carried on with their lives. Why would anyone want to help the Palestinians live in the past and bury themselves in their own propaganda, rather than trying to get on with their existences?

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Mon May 14, 2012 11:02

'Why would anyone want to help the Palestinians live in the past and bury themselves in their own propaganda, rather than trying to get on with their existences?'

Excellent question, Tim.

Nicely couched in refined presumptions that the Palestinians are not trying to 'get on with' a shred of the remnant of their existences and resist their ethnic cleansing from their homeland by a colonial Caucasian nuclear Goliath masquerading as a Judaic David under threat from a handful of home-made fireworks buried under the hasbara/PR-op-agenda-blizzard pumped by the AIPAC of lyres orchestrated througout our corporate media.

Now why would anyone want to show any shred of human solidarity with such a bunch of destined losers living in the past; unless the last shred of their own history had not been entirely buried by the Anglophile propaganda hosing out from the too-big-to-fail program of spindustrial revolutionary stooges dismantling and sabotaging every and all attempts to put a democratic and egalitarian harness on the runaway hominid idiocy decorating itself as the pinnacle of 'western civilisation' as it rampages ever deeper into its blood-wallow of global war for hegemony and dominance??

Great question.

Maybe its because there remain a few still stoopid enough to think humanity might yet retain a toehold on the third rock from the sun.

And who remember that, before Balfour was a fart in the twentieth-century gale of neo-feudal escalation from the WASP arse, this island was the laboratory of their racist experiments to refine the self-delusion of these same white Caucasian ubermenschen, who continue to impose that same system of balkanisation and apartheid as it proceeds to its mindless biocidal polarisation of self-elevation at the expense of the reduction to destitution of the rest of us kaffir untermenschen.

Can you think of any other reason?

by Tim Johnston Mon May 14, 2012 19:11

"Can you think of any other reason?"

Other than helping them wallow in victimhood to their detriment, no, but that's why I asked -

thanks for the reply, but as you seem to have made up half of the words you used, I'll have to wait for someone else to explain.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Mon May 14, 2012 20:42

Pick up a dictionary.

I think the main assistance to their victimhood, in the meantime, is the land theft, internment, evictions, harassment at all levels, periodic bombardment of civilians incarcerated in deprivation, assassinations of their advocates, bulldozing of their humanitarian sympathisers...and of course the hasbara deluge(you'll know that word from your Noah story-book)spread across the corporate media with ye olde shekel lever.

Is it shekel that is problematic?Or the other words?

But c'mon Tim, when it comes to a prolonged detrimental 'wallow in victimhood', even Carlsberg couldn't aspire to doing it like holocaust monopolisers Zion Inc.

by Tim Johnston Mon May 14, 2012 22:14

Ahh... so the Palestinians have figured out the Zionist Jews are getting plenty of mileage out of that "holocaust thing" and want in on the victimhood action?
Good theory.
But it falls down when comparing the two - "my entire ethnic group was almost wiped out by Nazis" is not really on the same scale as "grandad had to move out of his village (for reasons uncertain) and now I can only live ten miles from that village".

No, as national mythologies go, I can see how the Nakba is powerful, but still they'd be better off organising a commemoration of how they being ill-treated to this day by their Arab brethren in those countries where they are still living in refugee camps, which is something of a barrier to their thriving as individuals and as a culture. It's more relevant and affects more people. And they could still blame 'the Jews' if they want. We don't generally tolerate whingeing about past events when we're talking reconciliation, let alone encourage them; I just wondered why anyone would want to make an exception in a particularly nasty conflict zone.

by lefty Tue May 15, 2012 05:47

TJ said: "Ahh... so the Palestinians have figured out the Zionist Jews are getting plenty of mileage out of that "holocaust thing" and want in on the victimhood action?
Good theory.
But it falls down when comparing the two - "my entire ethnic group was almost wiped out by Nazis" is not really on the same scale as "grandad had to move out of his village (for reasons uncertain) and now I can only live ten miles from that village".

Tim, back again and up to your old tricks ?? Bored with P.ie?? No point preaching to the choir??

So in essence, you are saying that because what happened to the jews during the holocaust was so awful, the palestinians should be embarassed to complain about any wrongs done to them that are less awful than this? Pure nonsense!

i.e if someone hurts you, you should shut up about it if your assailant once suffered more at somebody else's hands in the past.

where does that logic lead us? Well, for example, by your logic, north korea could bomb any country killing 19% of the population and they would have no right to complain since america once bombed them and killed 20% of their population which was clearly worse.

Russia lost 27 million people in the war so they could pretty much do what they like to anyone and any objections would be just sour grapes by your logic.

Clearly this is a fallacy and a nonsense argument!!

a few points:

(1)what happened to the jewish people during WWII is a matter between them and the perpetrators. Palestinians were not involved in doing that. It has no relevance to any discussion about Israel stealing palestinian lands and running what amounts to an apartheid regime and an open prison in Gaza
(2)many ethical jewish people worldwide believe that the hijacking of their history by the state of Israel as an excuse to diffuse criticism while they steal palestinian land is an affront to them and tarnishes the good name of jews.
(3)reducing the long suffering of palestinians to "grandad had to move out of his village (for reasons uncertain) and now I can only live ten miles from that village" is disgusting, racist and patronising.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Tue May 15, 2012 15:20

..by saying the partition of the Punjab has left no lasting problems in an island still wrestling with the shit our own patition dropped from Britannia's whupped arse...and ends by calling the nakba 'mythology'...you have to worry for the historical illiteracy of the poor shite.

Its like watching some poor bastard going down the dementia vortex....not a bad metaphor for the whole stinking Zionist crock of self-delusional myths projecting veracity through the religious filter of its biblical claims.

Maybe he'll set the blasphemy police on me.

by Tim Johnston Tue May 15, 2012 18:37 tim.johnston33 at gmail dot com

(1)what happened to the jewish people during WWII is a matter between them and the perpetrators. Palestinians were not involved in doing that. It has no relevance to any discussion about Israel stealing palestinian lands and running what amounts to an apartheid regime and an open prison in Gaza

You should take this up with mr. Opussy.
He brought up the Holocaust, not me.

by Tim Johnston Tue May 15, 2012 18:48

"..by saying the partition of the Punjab has left no lasting problems "

very neat needlework on that straw man you've made.

"in an island still wrestling with the shit our own patition dropped from Britannia's whupped arse...and ends by calling the nakba 'mythology'..."

I didn't want to bring Ireland into it, but... we have our own national mythology too, now you mention it. And the word 'mythology' clearly means something other than what you think it means. (It doesn't mean fictitious ..)

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Wed May 16, 2012 10:11

,,by your own petard.

It was not me, but YOU, who introduced the straw-man decoy of '..when India was partitioned in 1947 and they've all gotten over it..'.

Or hoist by your own hasbara, perhaps. I can understand how you mightn't want to bring Ireland into it...too many parallels for your comfort. But you also raised partition, as surely as your handlers raise their apartheid walls.

As for myths...stick up your hasbara myths, back in the cavity of Zionist PR-op false flaggery you recdivistically fly for the shekel of your paymasters.

Shalom.

by Tim Johnston Wed May 16, 2012 18:55 tim.johnston33 at gmail dot com

Calm down there, no need to get nasty. Imagine suggesting someone is getting paid to engage in conversations!
unless you can prove it, you should probably withdraw such a slanderous accusation because nobody is paying me anything, sunshine.

dehumanising someone who disagrees with you, either by suggesting they are paid "hasbarists" or that they're just plain bad, sounds awfully.. fascist to me I must say.

Anyway, "parallels" have their uses, but solving international problems is not one of them. Bringing India into it, according to you, is not relevant, but your bringing Ireland into it somehow is. Well, either they both are or they both aren't, OR they are relevant in different ways. I won't dispute it with you but then, my being here is merely a target for your daily Two Minutes Hate so, knock yourself out.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Wed May 16, 2012 19:41

..and here I come round again.

OK, I take it back, humblest apologies...you're probably an amateur. But please desist from accusing me of introducing YOUR partitionist straw men. That polite enough?

I have just sufficient nous to be way past hate-cultivation...common ground is ever my objective...but its hard to achieve with those who practise the quicksands shuffle with their own posts and accuse me of introducing their straw men decoys. Which were not straw men until I fed them back.
If it was not introduced as a decoy/derailment then recognise you were wrong to state that there is no residual criminal responsibility from the imposition of the zionist dream on an indigenous people, and the alluded to partitions in both Ireland and India/Pakistan.. and way beyond and expanding.

And your leap from my retort at your misrepresentation of my position denoting me as fascist....let me just say your definitions need a little tweaking. I shall elaborate if requested.

You could start by elucidating on where exactly I stated that '..bringing India into it is not relevant..'.

When I see myself deliberately misquoted and spun...I do tend to reach for the spraycan. If it reads like a professional, reeks like a professional and sure spins like a hasbara pro.... I'm inclined to think its either non too bright....or on a payroll.

I'll accept the former as a fallback, for the moment..unless you persist with your obviously partisan distortions.

by Eoin Thu May 17, 2012 09:23

Come on now. I'm sorry if this hurts a bit, but I REALLY dont think that Israel are paying lads to post stuff on indymedia ie. I mean... COME ON. It may be important to us, but its really just a small site with a few REALLY opinionated people that has no relevance or impact to wider opinion. I mean, have you EVER seen anybody here swayed by arguments to change their tune? If they were paying someone to post on here, who would they be convincing? 15 people by the looks of the number of different people that post. I'm sorry, but step back a bit and put on some reality goggles.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Thu May 17, 2012 12:03

..sure by the time AIPAC have sucked the shekels out to fund both houses of Congress and the zionist apologists in the media there couldn't be much left for a backwater like this..

But why do I get the uncanny feeling the object of the exercise is to distract from the issue of Israeli theft of Palestinian lands and the ongoing ethnic cleansing with some red-herring about micro-detail and the reduction to personalised noise??

And then there is the obvious fact that such a renowned and exemplary democracy as Israel would never countenance filthy lucre being spent on the distortion of the objective truth they hold in such reverence.

How could I have been so mistaken. Mea culpa. Next thing I'll be suggesting they'd clone our passsports and documentation for wet-ops...or pirate aid-ships and murder sympathisers on the open seas...or bulldoze women into the ground for standing against evictions of Palestinian families...or incarcerate a scientist who blew the whistle on illegal nuclear arms arsenals being stockpiled to ensure hegmonic dominance of the oil-resources of the region...

Have I no shame at all at all...making such outrageous suggestions...and in Ireland of all countries...where a brown envelope has never been known to cross an editorial desk in the long years of our pristine democratic...etc..etc..

by Seasoned_Internetter Thu May 17, 2012 14:47

Eoin never heard of "astro turfing" or electronic warfare (psi ops) budgets. or "hasbara"

Poor innocent soul! Haven't been on the internet long have you Eoin?

Eoin, it is well known that some people, both renumerated and voluntary (in the case of hasbara) have the specific job, 24/7, of going to a list of internet sites and "running interference" to prevent coherent discussion or "astroturfing" to create "fake grassroots support" for particular agendas or actions. There's even a "hasbara manual" telling you exactly how to go about disrupting / derailing discussions.

Recruits are given a list of sites and educated on the techniques and off they go. Is this all really so surprising as public opinion is shaped by stuff posted on key internet sites as well as by television and the MSM newspapers. Do you honestly think, having gone to so much effort and expense to shape public discourse and "manufacture consent", that the powerful would totally ignore a key section?

Television is largely controlled, so are newspapers. On those media, limited debate is allowed but it is often carefully framed. So until the internet is controlled too, those powerful entities with an agenda to protect or a war or economic policy or pro corporate election candidate to sell must resort to such crude methods as "astroturfing" or "hasbara" on these kind of uncontrolled opinion forming internet sites to prevent possible contagion of thought or "unframing" of the debate.

Most key popular sites not controlled by corporates and espousing alternative views would have "astroturfers" or "hasbara trolls" who monitor these sites on their lists, derailing discussions when deemed necessary.

There's not many real paid agents needed to do a lot of damage on the internet. It only takes one skilled operator to turn or poison a whole website community or destroy it. For the most part though it's merely silly people acting against their own interests unwittingly doing the work for free in an effort to validate their own brainwashed positions on imperialism and economics while the powerful look on and laugh at their sycophantic but useful idiocy.

Indymedia may not as popular as it used to be but its still a well known open publishing site uncontrolled by any corporate entities, not accepting corporate or commercial advertising and somewhat of a loose cannon so they've seen this kind of behaviour here too.

by Eoin Thu May 17, 2012 20:47

Puh-lease.

Wasn't doubting the existance of pro-Israeli bloggers, you sanctimonious dullard. Less "I'm from the internet and I know things" and more reality please. I'm sure they DO post about the place to augment opinion, I just REALLY feel that a dying, low volume site that has no impact on societal opinion like indymedia isn't exactly on their list of sites to do this. I reiterate, COME ON. Reality goggles. May as well start believing Israel has agents in your local pub to direct drunken conversations to a pro-Israeli stance.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Thu May 17, 2012 22:19

..that being, what is a bright boy like yourself doing bothering to waste your valuable time slumming on a '..dying, low volume site like this that has no influence on societal opinion...' ??

Just dropped in for a piss on your way to the Bar Mythzvah for a pint? Tell Alan hello, if you run into him.

by Seasoned_Internetter Thu May 17, 2012 23:59

Eoin, I said "So they have seen that kind of behaviour here too". I did not say when. indymedia used to have thousands of hits a week and was a very relevant site.Personally I think it will become more relevant again when people wise up to the disadvantages of Facebook and other corporate sites. And in the past if not lately It almost certainly experienced deliberate trolling and astroturfing and general derailing of threads of the kind I'm referring to.

I guess trolls like yourself itching to get the boot in can't hide their intentions for very long and your mask has fallen. your deliberate misrepresentation of what I said complete with abuse is very telling. I think you are just here to abuse and are not interested in an exchange of ideas so I won't waste any further time with you. In fact your abusive post contravenes the indymedia guidelines so should probably be hidden.

Off with you back to P.ie where your sort usually come from. There are enough trolls here already thanks.

by Tim Johnston Wed May 23, 2012 01:11 tim.johnston33 at gmail dot com

Eoin,

good question - the editors of the site can look at our IP addresses and see that they're not in Israel, but why bother?

A website (and I'm not saying indymedia doesn't serve a purpose within its own community) that does not allow outside opinions -or allows them to be shutdown via a combination of dehumanisation, the good old Irish 'pile-on' or the 'who's pulling your strings' tactics of opus there- is known as a rage site, and exists to alleviate the frustrations of those who would otherwise have no other outlet, but not to engage in actual debate.

So I don't think the actual hasbarists (those who defend Israel) would bother, but I'm in favour of rage sites generally, and every now and I again feel a comment is worth making when the situation demands. Evil triumphing while good men do nothing, etc. So while I know what the outcome will be, I'll do it anyway because one day someone will take the question seriously enough to engage with it.

In the meantime, sticks and stones, etc.

by lefty Wed May 23, 2012 07:42

Tim, just because you don't live in Israel does not preclude you from engaging in Hasbara!. As for the "when good men do nothing" comment, It seems to imply you consider yourself a good man. I know a few poor palestinians that might differ with you on that point having read your relentless apologies and excuses for the behaviour of Israel. See if you still feel the same when they start a war with Iran over their non existent nuclear bomb program, in spite of having 200+ undeclared nukes themselves, while not engaging AT ALL with the NPT program. It's not surprising there is a certain amount of "rage" on indymedia when posters like yourself comment here. Back to P.ie with you too sir!

by Eoin Wed May 23, 2012 11:40

And here is the crux of the matter, lefty. See how the definition is moved away from being in the employ of Israel to people who just take up willingly viewpoints that shed a bit of better light on Israel. Its awful convenient for someone to label someone as a hasbara drone just because they disagree with your point of view. By that frame of mind then anyone on any side of an argument could argue that they are Hasabarinas for x cause. For example, I could accuse you of waging a blogging war to curry favour in defence of Palestinians using predefined defense and offense arguments that distort truth, thus you are a troll, and either directly or indirectly in league with group x, and I dont need to argue with you.

What I'm trying to say is that, in light of Indymedia being a small impact site, it is unlikely that Hasbafarians are targeting it, especially as no one ever changes their mind. I'm sure no matter what I say, you wont, and no matter what you say, I wont. Thus, to label someone as a Hasbaroli just because they have a different viewpoint and interpretation of things, seems like a convenient way to avoid discussion. Its like closing your eyes and saying "na na na not listening, Hasbara" when its just joe bloggs from Athlone giving his take on things.

Its a common viewpoint on here, and I think requesting people go to Politics.ie is a dim view to take, because if you get rid of everyone that disagrees with you, what do you have? A self reinforcing circlejerk where everyone is right becasue everyone agrees with them. And then you get angry when you go out in the real world when someone disagrees with you because you are so convinced that you have the correct viewpoint.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Wed May 23, 2012 17:03

Allow me refer you back to Tim's original post and my reply, his consequent accusation that I introduced partition, his pretense at being replying to you with an embedded sly personal sideswipe at me en passant...and the fact its not not my first collision with his abusive methods and evasive dishonesty.

maybe he's not on a payroll, maybe he has not imbibed the handbook, maybe he has a sincere bone some where in his skeleton...but he sure conforms to the propaganda model...

Go back and reread it, unless of course you are a graduate of the same course of derailment.

I have attempted, and witnessed others attempting, to get Tim to stick to points he raises, but the proverbial mercury is easier lifted with the proverbial greasy fork. Once challenged, the shape shifts. He is a cynical and serial sabateur.

He has about as much interest in a just solution in Palestine and peace between the original inhabitants and the Israelis as Bibi has or Sharon had. Bad faith is no foundation for either honest debate or any semblance of lasting peace. The ethnic cleansing continues behind the platitudes and accusations and intermittent atrocities, evictions, ongoing land-theft and trial-less internments.

If you cannot accept that, I will consider that your purpose is also to divert any discussion of the real problems on the ground in Palestine, and distract with semantic argument about argument.

The posts remain for your consideration. Tim will consider this another example of my creating a 'rage site'. Are you in tandem on that assessment?

by lefty Wed May 23, 2012 18:26

"Hasbara has been described as "pro-Israel propaganda," but while "propaganda strives to highlight the positive aspects of one side of a conflict, hasbara seeks to explain actions, whether or not they are justified."
Historian Giora Goodman considers "hasbara" to mean "propaganda" in practice, explaining
The term "propaganda" acquired a pejorative sense during the first half of the twentieth century. Accordingly, British and American propagandists used "information" to describe their work and the positive-sounding word hasbara has generally been preferred in Hebrew. "Propaganda", ta’amula in Hebrew, is mostly reserved for what opponents do, but the term was often used by the Zionist movement to portray its own efforts to influence mass audiences."

Hasbara is mostly done by students and zionist volunteers for free. Israel doesn't need to pay people very often to do this astroturfing and apologist work on the internet. There are plenty of useful idiots about willing to do it for free.
However there was and is a lot of money flying around in the US for this kind of thing and I have no doubt indymedia has been targetted on a list in the past when it was an opinion forming site. Perhaps it's not the case now, but it certainly happened in the past.

Tim has been around here a long time as an apologist for many Israeli actions on palestinians, and by definition, he is engaging in slanted "public relations" or "hasbara". However a better word for it is probably "ta’amula". He's not smart enough to get paid for it so I'm pretty sure it's just voluntary on his part. Palestinians are actual real people and I find apologists who don't seem to think so , like Tim, who seems only interested in papering over Israels sorry ass no matter what they get up to, rather disgusting human beings. And to add insult to injury to the Palestinians, he's doing it for free. What an idiot and an immoral scumbag.

Its not a circle jerk I want. I love a good discussion with well informed people who also have a functioning conscience. However I just don't believe people like Tim have a proper working moral compass and seem to be able to write off the lives of lots of poor brown people in a very cynical and callous manner, and as such, discussion is clearly a waste of time with him and others like him. They seem more like sociopaths than well adjusted human beings. The best one can hope to do is close off the opportunity for folks like him to leak and spread their poisonous toxic waste apologist rhetoric further afield.

For Tim and others like him, each discussion is not so much an opportunity to learn and become better informed, as it is a chance to muddy the water and sew confusion while Israeli murderers and criminals get out the backdoor scott free.

Since it's not really ever a true discussion with him then I have no problem telling Tim to go away. It is the correct response to a sociopathic poisonous zionist apologist. Arguing with such a creature pointless exercise. In fact people Tim should count their blessings that I'm so polite to them. They certainly don't deserve it.

And you are right of course Eoin. The people who make excuses for Israel around here are not engaging in "hasbara". They are in fact engaging in "ta'amula"

And as for you Eoin, well, it looks to me like you just want to have a go at the leftys and anarchists and indymedia itself while it's down. Clearly just another destructive troll. By your own admission, you don't actually want a discussion either. Just an excuse to stick the boot in.
Indymedia may not be all it used to be now but a lot of interesting stuff came out as a result of this site. Remember, the comments are mostly just a sideshow, but there are plenty of interesting articles in the archive. Instead of getting the boot in, why not read some of them? Unless of course you just want to score points and take cheap shots, in which case my original suggestion stands (i.e. back to P.ie with you)

Here is a video especially for Tim of his hero the disgusting sociopath Mark Regev who at least actually does get paid for being a piece of shit zionist apologist:

Caption: Video Id: XMd_js_oQAk Type: Youtube Video
Embedded video Youtube Video

by Tim Johnston Wed May 23, 2012 23:19 tim.johnston33 at gmail dot com

lefty, to reply to your first comment (not the second, it is too disgusting and dehumanising to bother with) - as you well know if you have had the dubious pleasure of ever reading my posts on P.ie as you have repeatedly suggested, I have opinions on a wide variety of things that do not just include Israel and am very open to discussion on all of them. However, this is a left-wing site and unashamedly so. As such, I would not seek to violate the site rules or upset those who call it home by banging on about the free market and libertarian philosophy. Such views are not only unwelcome but are unlikely to convince an entrenched Socialist or Marxist.

However, Israel-Palestine is a subject that is 'up for grabs' in a way that economic matters are not; it is certainly not a left-right divided issue, and Liberals in particular have little consensus over what solutions might work there. As I remember from actually being a Socialist at one point, there is strong sympathy therein for Israel as well as for the Palestinian people and a desire to work out a proper peace. In that context I regard a lot of anti-Israel hatred to be very out of sync with a lot of Socialist/left-wing thought in general which has tended to take either both sides or none in any given conflict, at least when it comes to a choice between fuelling the fires or putting them out.

I think attempts to argue anything from a Conservative viewpoint would be a waste of time (both mine and yours), whereas I might find it worthwhile making an attempt at what I consider to be at least a "liberal" argument. I don't think either asking anyone to see things from Israel's point of view OR asking them to hold the Palestinian people at least partly responsible for the mess they're in is too much of a tall order. Neither side holds a monopoly on truth - or even right.

by Tim Johnston Wed May 23, 2012 23:47 tim.johnston33 at gmail dot com

my dear old sparring buddy,

"consequent accusation that I introduced partition"

It does help if you are clear about what you are accusing me of because it is not always so. I don't run away from any points you make but you will appreciate that getting into a "but you said, and then I replied..." type of conversation is very tedious for all concerned. But if it bothers you I will gladly reply: I introduced partition in the discussion. Historically I think partition is only a good or bad thing depending on context but my purpose was to point out that in India, for example, hundreds of thousands of people were displaced and are not still living in camps or planning military action against the 'other side'. They moved to their preferred side and got on with things - what I did NOT say or imply is that there are no lasting problems in Kashmir, Punjab or anywhere else. Bring Ireland into it if you wish, but there clearly were and are ongoing problems with that particular partition and so I would rather stick with my choice of model in the Indian situation.

I thought my point was very simple, and your reply was awash with rhetoric but entirely devoid of substance. After several attempts at deciphering I deduced that you think the nakba worth commemorating because the Palestinians are the underdogs in the struggle, although you will have a job explaining how the Arabs were the underdogs in 1948 which is when the actual Nakba happened. Needless to say, being the underdog does not rule one out as being the potential aggressor.

What I am saying is that while remembering the Nakba may be a personal journey of tragedy for some Palestinian families (and that's fine, no issue there) it is an inseparable part of a larger conflict, whereby Arab Nationalism was trying to assert itself. Now, you can call that "hasbara" or any other colourful name you like, but it is historical fact, and truth is not in the service of propaganda. Stating fact cannot be "propaganda", it merely is. You can deny the fact, in which case we are in different territory entirely, or you can simply shoot the messenger.

And, as I refuse to offer any refutation of wild accusations, this is just an Irish guy expressing an opinion.

by lefty Thu May 24, 2012 05:26

Tim, no surprises that you support right wing neo con economics as well as right wing zionist positions. You are correct that there is no point in discussing those with me either. Basically, like Mr Regev, you just aren't a whole person in my book. Might I suggest you go on a spiritual quest or something to try to regain whats left of your humanity

Tim I'm an atheist who believes in nothing but some simple arbitrary rules with which to live life by. Yet despite my rather bleak outlook on life, my value system seems positively saintly in comparison to someone like you.

I hope you don't have too many little right wing zionist children that you are pumping full of this bile. If you do have kids, tell me, will they be signing up as cannon fodder in the righteous "wars" against Iran or Syria Tim??

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Thu May 24, 2012 08:58

..to do a bit more thinking.

'I thought my point was very simple.'

Your points do tend to be very simple, Tim.
It must be a residue of your self-confessed 'socialist' past history. You retain the ideological inclination, while ditching the idea of questioning the received wisdoms of the status quo.
The word is simplistic. Another word for it is lazy; intellectually and psychologically. I could be more personal, but I refuse, as I have done before, to be drawn in your direction. It contributes nothing to the plight of the much abused Palestinian people, or the elimination of the delusions the Israeli population has been soaked in by their mercenary 'leaders'.

You write in absolutes.While my comments are '..entirely devoid of substance..', your own, while being '...just an Irish guy expressing an opinion..', constitute irrefutable and authoritative '..fact..' which '..cannot be "propaganda"..' because you have established in your subjective judgement that '..it merely is..'.

Your mind is closed, as firmly as any faith-clinging Jesuit's, and refuses to countenance any argument that does not fit your preconceived conclusions.

Re-read your own post, and try a little reflective self-analysis. It will require a little effort, but persevere and you will find the cells multiply even as the certitude retreats. Its the price of a modicum of intelligence, which you singularly fail to display. I have revised my judgement of you, downwards...I think lefty is right when he states that you are hardly on the payroll, as you probably serve Israel less well with your clumsy dogmatism than they would wish to be billed for.

by Tim Johnston Thu May 24, 2012 15:31 tim.johnston33 at gmail dot com

"Tim, no surprises that you support right wing neo con economics as well as right wing zionist positions. "

who mentioned "neo con"? not me. I think you are just throwing out words you imagine to be derogatory.

"Basically, like Mr Regev, you just aren't a whole person in my book. "

No, carry on. I don't know who that is but keep them coming. *gets popcorn*. You are really just revealing your true self now, even while hiding behind anonymity on an internet forum.

I believe site rules required you to play the ball and not the man, but knock yourself out. really.

by Tim Johnston Thu May 24, 2012 15:40 tim.johnston33 at gmail dot com

opus,

'Your points do tend to be very simple, Tim.'

thanks. simple questions do tend to be just that.

'I could be more personal, but I refuse, as I have done before, to be drawn in your direction.'

I don't remember having tried to psycho-analyse you, or any other anonymous internet persona, in the past. But then I take someone more or less at their word rather than engaging in tactics of trying ascertain (my idea of) their "real motives".

"It contributes nothing to the plight of the much abused Palestinian people, or the elimination of the delusions the Israeli population has been soaked in by their mercenary 'leaders'. "

well that's a substantial point. And brings me back to the question of whether the Nakba commemoration contributes anything either.

"You write in absolutes.While my comments are '..entirely devoid of substance..', your own, while being '...just an Irish guy expressing an opinion..', constitute irrefutable and authoritative '..fact..' which '..cannot be "propaganda"..' because you have established in your subjective judgement that '..it merely is..'."

I never said all your comments are devoid of substance, that would be a personal attack on you. why keep telling me I say things I didn't say? I can read perfectly well and see you are expressing an opinion, couched in rhetorical language and all fine and good but if I'm trying to extract and answer from it I have to dig out that facts. Also, I never said my opinion constitutes fact - but I did state facts, so obfuscating about the meaning of the word is hardly helpful, unless you want to completely gloss over it, which you have. You can tell when someone is stating opinion, and when they are stating facts, so there's no point feigning ignorance on that point. I do read what you write, but I admit my eyes glaze over at words like "spindustrial". You would enjoy Terry Eagleton I think.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Thu May 24, 2012 16:26

..contributes anything either.'

If thats your question, I think it does..particularly as it is an ongoing process of ethnic cleansing, initiated by the ultra-nationalisms and racisms bred in Europe, manifest in two millennia of anti-semitism and white supremacist delusions now decanted and mutated into the Zionist 'chosen people' tribal self-deification translated into an imperial political program. And while Palestinians pay for European crimes Europe can avoid the focus that might prevent recurrence.

If thats too complex, point out where, and I'll try and break it down for you.

Return question: by forgetting the Nakba, would Palestinians not become self-hating deniers of their own slow-burn holocaust?Forgetting your history seems like voluntary collective amnesia to me, or induced mass altzheimers.

Should the Irish get-over the famines?; or try to extract the lessons and prevent the still running agribusiness idiocy that sees one in five of our kids go to bed hungry while food exports again boom?

by lefty Thu May 24, 2012 18:46

"As such, I would not seek to violate the site rules or upset those who call it home by banging on about the free market and libertarian philosophy"

Sounds pretty much like the usual Ayn Rand chicago school shite to me Tim. And when you say libertarian, I'm pretty sure you ain't a Ron Paul supporter here. Am I wrong? How DO you feel about the politics of austerity? (apart from imposing it remorselessly on palestinians of course! We know you like that)

by lefty Thu May 24, 2012 19:04

---"Basically, like Mr Regev, you just aren't a whole person in my book. "

--No, carry on. I don't know who that is but keep them coming. *gets popcorn*.

Tim, you've been apologising for Israel for years in parallel with Mark Regev.
Saying you don't know who he is has to be just a downright lie, plain and simple, and is just not credible.
Well, in the bible Peter denied Jesus twice so I guess anything's possible!! ;-)
You'll probably still get into zionist heaven

As you well know, he's only the number one slimebag PR interface for Israel. The craven media spindoctor they wheel out to cover Israel's ass whenever they kill a few too many palestinians and the world has to take notice.
I even gave you a nice video link to watch. Don't wet yourself with hero worship. And don't choke on your popcorn!

by Tim Johnston Thu May 24, 2012 22:04 tim.johnston33 at gmail dot com

for the reply - Yes I see your point. Should they forget? I would say no they should not.
We remember the famine not because there's any danger of it repeating but because it's part of our 'national identity' - even though it is not part of the identity of anyone living in Ireland (since our ancestors, obviously, all survived it). How we think of it really depends on the degree to which we consider ourselves Nationalists though. That said, it is part of Ireland's national mythology, yes.
In the same way, the departure of Palestinians from their towns must be very similar to how the Greeks felt in the 1820s having to leave their homes on Asia Minor, where they had resided for literally thousands of years. Whether it plays a part in modern Greek nationalism I don't know, but the Palestinians have a right to construct their own narrative as much as any other nation. I am just not sure why *we* would commemorate it, in the sense that we wouldn't expect them or anyone else to commemorate the Famine. I get the solidarity argument too, but considering that it's very much a Nationalist event, it brings me back to a more basic question of why anyone on the political Left would support one set of reactionary Nationalists versus another set of reactionary Nationalists.

To answer again, no they should not forget nor become self-denying amnesiacs or whatever, I suppose it makes some sense to commemorate as an outsider from a 'solidarity' point of view, as long as one is very clear what they are commemorating and what they are and are not advocating as a response. If violence or revenge is the outcome, then it might not be a good thing. But in proper context, I can see how it makes sense.

by Tim Johnston Thu May 24, 2012 22:22 tim.johnston33 at gmail dot com

I hadn't heard of him until you posted the video, and whether you believe me or not is entirely irrelevent to my life and wellbeing, and entirely your choice. I can't possibly see how it is important anyhow. I don't quote the guy and doubt I would be interested in what he has to say.

Also, you must be confusing me with someone who has been 'apologising for Israel for years' as I spend very little of my valuable time doing that, and really didn't bother much discussing anything online until about 2 years ago. I would say 5% of the sum total of my online discussion is about Israel and entirely by accident, and that is more a reflection of the amount of time others spend attacking Israel - in other words, it's hardly a choice and I would rather spend 0% of my time doing it!
I also draw a sharp distinction between defending individual actions of the IDF or Hamas and defending Israel's right to exist and, to an extent, to defend itself. I mean, you don't launch threads defending the murder of Jewish babies do you? why, because nobody thinks the bad stuff is good. I think that both can be discussed independently, but the latter is of more concern.

As for getting into a discussion about libertarianism or austerity, I think I'll bow out - but also, since libertarians (and the free market) are forces for good in the world I certainly don't need to defend myself on that count. I don't know what your ideology is, 'lefty' could be meant ironically or any other way, and it's too vague to base any assumptions about your beliefs upon, so I can't really say whether your ideas are a force for good or not.

by lefty Thu May 24, 2012 22:54

Tim: doubt I would be interested in what he has to say.

Well ok, maybe there is some small hope for you yet...

Tim:Also, you must be confusing me with someone who has been 'apologising for Israel for years'

Nope!

Tim:as I spend very little of my valuable time doing that, and really didn't bother much discussing anything online until about 2 years ago. I would say 5% of the sum total of my online discussion is about Israel and entirely by accident, and that is more a reflection of the amount of time others spend attacking Israel - in other words, it's hardly a choice and I would rather spend 0% of my time doing it!

Now thats an EXCELLENT suggestion!

Tim:I also draw a sharp distinction between defending individual actions of the IDF or Hamas and defending Israel's right to exist and, to an extent, to defend itself.

Nobody has a problem with Israel's right to exist, not even Hamas. And everyone within reason has a right to defend themselves if genuinely attacked. (However 3 casualties versus 1400 is rather telling. Who is really attacking who?)
And you know full well that Ahmadinejad never actually said the famous phrase that he's always quoted as saying: "Israel should be wiped off the map"

"Norouzi translated the original Persian to English, with the result, "the Imam said this regime occupying Jerusalem must vanish from the page of time."[12] Juan Cole, a University of Michigan Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History, agrees that Ahmadinejad's statement should be translated as, "the Imam said that this regime occupying Jerusalem (een rezhim-e eshghalgar-e qods) must [vanish from] the page of time (bayad az safheh-ye ruzgar mahv shavad)."[13] According to Cole, "Ahmadinejad did not say he was going to 'wipe Israel off the map' because no such idiom exists in Persian." Instead, "he did say he hoped its regime, i.e., a Jewish-Zionist state occupying Jerusalem, would collapse."

Tim: I mean, you don't launch threads defending the murder of Jewish babies do you? why, because nobody thinks the bad stuff is good. I think that both can be discussed independently, but the latter is of more concern.

I'm rather concerned about the ratio of Palestinian babies killed to jewish babies killed though.

Tim:As for getting into a discussion about libertarianism or austerity, I think I'll bow out - but also, since libertarians (and the free market) are forces for good in the world I certainly don't need to defend myself on that count.

Keep drinking the Ayn Rand kool aid Tim!

Tim:I don't know what your ideology is, 'lefty' could be meant ironically or any other way, and it's too vague to base any assumptions about your beliefs upon, so I can't really say whether your ideas are a force for good or not.

Whatever about my ideology, It's clear free market capitalism is destroying the planet for the enrichment of a small number of people. Corporations relentlessly exploit resources in an unsustainable orgy, while polluting the ecosystems we depend on for our survival with total impunity. Animal species are going extinct at a ridiculous rate, we are fishing out the oceans. Most humans starve and live illiterate and enslaved while a small few have billion dollar yachts and penthouses. That system is just completely immoral as far as I am concerned.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Fri May 25, 2012 11:27

You really are confused.

The famine is not part of my 'national identity'...its part of my human history. As is the Holocaust, which took out more gypsies than Jews proportionately, and the Nakba is part of our common European history, and an equally shameful part, as are the centuries of rapine and plunder in the name of civilisation that continue today as wars for a spurious democracy which is actually a dictatorship of the corporatariat(I hope that phrase don't melt your overtaxed fusebox).
And before you say Palestine is not Europe...I'm referring to the origins of modern Israel.

'..part of Ireland's national mythology..'...??Dont you know the difference between myth andf history yet?Is the Holocaust a 'myth'?

Try a little thinking first if you even intend to reply...and if you do...please address my points...not some bubble in your imagination as to what I might be thinking.

Or are you just posting here to insult our intelligence??

by Tim Johnston Fri May 25, 2012 18:12 tim.johnston33 at gmail dot com

"'..part of Ireland's national mythology..'...??Dont you know the difference between myth andf history yet?Is the Holocaust a 'myth'? "

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_myth - some light reading.

National mythology is history, minus bits that are deemed of lesser importance, for whatever reason, just as the Famine is in Ireland, and the Battle of the Boyne is to some Loyalists. The difference between history and myth is that the latter exists less for factual edification and more to serve a people's self understanding. It's not "ahistorical", but merely selectively so.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Fri May 25, 2012 18:21

..that that is what Zionists are doing when they commemorate the Holocaust but elide the other ethnic minorities and political enemies and handicapped et al who also suffered under nazi racialist puritanism?

Creating a myth for ulterior motives and hidden political agendas.
Abusing the approximate truths of historiography for propagandist(hasbara)ends. Have we some sort of agreement?

by Tim Johnston Fri May 25, 2012 18:27 tim.johnston33 at gmail dot com

"Whatever about my ideology, It's clear free market capitalism is destroying the planet for the enrichment of a small number of people. Corporations relentlessly exploit resources in an unsustainable orgy, while polluting the ecosystems we depend on for our survival with total impunity. Animal species are going extinct at a ridiculous rate, we are fishing out the oceans. Most humans starve and live illiterate and enslaved while a small few have billion dollar yachts and penthouses. That system is just completely immoral as far as I am concerned."

well it's not a case of 'whatever' about your ideology at all; that's a very significant part of the accusations you've just made. You either have a workable alternative or you don't, or conceivably you would wish to tinker with the existing system in order to make it better, in which case you might have more in common with me than you'd like to admit.

Just to comment briefly, Native Americans made many animal species extinct, Easter Islanders cut down all their trees until their island ecosystem was destroyed, were they rapacious corporate free-marketers too? I would say it is more immoral to get upset about the people who have yachts if those people made their money honestly than it is to be angry about the legions of poor, starving illiterates in world, who live almost entirely in places where the free market doesn't exist; and they are instead ruled by superstition/archaic religion and culture, poor economic thinking, tribalism/collectivism and constant warfare and banditry.

To use just one further example, we have seven billion people on this earth, and the idea of feeding us all using, say, 12th century farming techniques is insane, for want of a better word, so for better or worse we're going to have to use modern methods if we're going to have any chance of avoiding mass starvation which, as you know well, is not caused by any shortage of food but by petty politics and simple infrastructural problems.

How would you go about creating a different system without causing significant shock to the one we have now, for example?

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Fri May 25, 2012 18:37

but back AT the topic, would you answer my question?

by Tim Johnston Fri May 25, 2012 18:39 tim.johnston33 at gmail dot com

.. yes we do, partly!
Even the Holocaust is commemorated without full recognition of its complete historical truth as you've pointed out - not that it is in any way false. And I am in fact, ethnically, part Romany, so I could feign offence at it - as could any handicapped person- but don't !

It is remembered by Jewish persons as part of their National Mythology in a way that neglects other people also killed during that time, of course. It's not out of disrespect (necessarily) to those other people but because the history of it serves their own self-understanding. However, the Jewish people don't 'own' it, but as you know virtually everyone is aware that they were not the only ethnic group destroyed by it. But then I'm not Jewish so it would be unfair of me to comment on how a Jewish person might view it through their own personal lens. Just as, in many way, it would be unfair of me (or anyone) to say a Palestinian person should not lament their grandparent's exodus from their former village. Their self-understanding is in many way independent of historical truth.

Having said that, I think one of the lessons that can be obscured by looking at the Holocaust through solely Jewish eyes is the Eugenic nature of the Nazi extermination programme. Rather than being designed to wipe out a particular 'race' it was of course designed to "sanitise" the pure German race, largely on the grounds of public health by removing "undesireable" elements from the populace. That such a disgusting and unthinkable crime had so banal a cause, and that such evil was seen as a bit of internal genetic mopping-up, should actually make us all stop and shudder.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Fri May 25, 2012 18:47

..that resembles progress I wasn't expecting.

And would you also accept that monopolising this persecution has been used by right wing zionist zealots to morally blackmail critics of zionism(many of them conscientious Jews)and smear them as antisemitic when the intent of these critics has been anything but antisemitic but merely humanitarian?

by Tim Johnston Fri May 25, 2012 19:21 tim.johnston33 at gmail dot com

.. I don't know. possibly. sorry can't give a better answer - it's less an opinion your asking for and more a statement of interpretation of the actions of other people - and I'm unaware of those actions so I can't comment. I don't know what "right wing zionists" argue because I don't know/care how they conduct their affairs. There are some nasty nationalists in Israel so little would surprise me. that'll have to do, sorry.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Fri May 25, 2012 23:54

you just went up in my estimation, for what little its worth, for unexpected honesty.

i can only suggest you take the trouble to catch up, it does actually matter. Innocent lives depend on our attention.

by lefty Sat May 26, 2012 09:00

Tim: "Native Americans made many animal species extinct, Easter Islanders cut down all their trees until their island ecosystem was destroyed, were they rapacious corporate free-marketers too? "

No but surely we're supposed to know better than a few primitive tribesmen Tim? Yet we actually do the same stupid things on a huge industrial scale plus lots more creative twisted things besides. Not out of real need but out of greed for ever more corporate profits.

Tim: "I would say it is more immoral to get upset about the people who have yachts if those people made their money honestly "

Now that's complete horseshit. Stop right there.....how many of those are there...really?. There is a saying that really applies here: "behind every great fortune is a great crime."

Tim: "than it is to be angry about the legions of poor, starving illiterates in world, who live almost entirely in places where the free market doesn't exist; and they are instead ruled by superstition/archaic religion and culture, poor economic thinking, tribalism/collectivism and constant warfare and banditry."

Erm...don't you think that the so called free market had quite a hand in creating many/most of these problems?? Because if you don't actually see this you really do have some serious informational blind spots that need to be addressed!!!

Tim: "To use just one further example, we have seven billion people on this earth, and the idea of feeding us all using, say, 12th century farming techniques is insane, for want of a better word, so for better or worse we're going to have to use modern methods if we're going to have any chance of avoiding mass starvation which, as you know well, is not caused by any shortage of food but by petty politics and simple infrastructural problems."

Here we go...I presume you mean pushing GM monocultures (that don't actually improve things but give corporations control of the food chain) on the poor brown people. Just lost brownie points there Tim.

Actually when the oil runs out, we will have little choice but to address these problems anyway. Better a controlled descent than a chaotic collapse don't you think Tim? Our food supply is intimately linked with the availability of cheap oil.

The fact is a study has indicated that the earth can only support 2 billion people using old methods and sustainable agriculture, and this is only if we all become vegans and compost everything including the bodies!! How likely is that if we are all just a bunch of selfish individualists ? We need to address overpopulation and we need to do it now in a controlled and fair manner (perhaps a lottery followed by a course which you need to pass before being allowed to have a child and serious social/tax disincentives for not complying) rather than leaving it until it is too late.

Tim: "How would you go about creating a different system without causing significant shock to the one we have now, for example?"

There is likely no easy transition from rampant consumerism and selfish individualism on a global scale to ethics based sustainable communal living with a much reduced population, but if we start now, we can maybe plan to make the inevitable transition in a more humane fashion than just leaving it until resource shortages and the breakdown of globalisation does it for us in a really horrific and catastrophic fashion, as our lords and masters are quite happy to do, being the complete sociopaths they are.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sat May 26, 2012 09:56

...is that not feeding the decoy?

Topic Naqba, I do believe.

by Shampain Socialist Sat May 26, 2012 10:48

Lefty : Yet we actually do the same stupid things on a huge industrial scale plus lots more creative twisted things besides. Not out of real need but out of greed for ever more corporate profits.

Undoubtably, but I think that saying only capitalist machines pollutes sort of rings false in my ears. I just have this image of USSR back in the day being just awful in realtion to environmentalism. Not to mention china. People pollute because of laziness, not solely due to want of profits.

Lefty: There is a saying that really applies here: "behind every great fortune is a great crime."

I dont think that everyone who owns a yacht is a criminal. Thats silly. Someone breaks their back studying for the first 30 years of their life to become an engineer or a doctor, works hard and earns enough money to buy a yacht, and you want to brand them a criminal and denigrate them for making something of themselves?

Lefty: Erm...don't you think that the so called free market had quite a hand in creating many/most of these problems??

Again, this doesn't quite ring true to me. The UN state of food insecurity in the world report 2011 highlighted that it is countries that rely on food imports that are affected by price fluctuations, not countries that are exporters. In this context, having or not having a free market has nothing to do with their plight as even if it didn't exist, they would still have to buy food from another country, ergo natural price increase and worsening of their situation.

Lefty: I presume you mean pushing GM monocultures (that don't actually improve things but give corporations control of the food chain) on the poor brown people.

How about you leave those "poor brown people" make their own decisions instead of patronising them and making decisions for them you neo-colonialist racist. "Oh no, you poor brown people dont know whats best for you so I'm going to stop you from buying these seeds, as I know best with my arts degree from Trinity college. There there, aren't you happier now scrabbling round in the dirt like I think you should be"

Lefty: We need to address overpopulation and we need to do it now in a controlled and fair manner (perhaps a lottery followed by a course which you need to pass before being allowed to have a child and serious social/tax disincentives for not complying) rather than leaving it until it is too late.

A Tax disincentive to prevent people having children? How right wing of you, ensuring only people who can afford it via capitalist greed can procreate, leaving the huddles masses forcibly sterilised, punished for not being rich enough. Oh and a course, with tests and whatnot to decide who can breed? Yeah that will weed out the illiterates and dyslexics, good thinking mein furher.

by Tim Johnston Sat May 26, 2012 18:15 tim.johnston33 at gmail dot com

'...is that not feeding the decoy?'

I do resent the suggestion that I raised those off-topic issues - I didn't ask those questions to myself you know.

'Topic Naqba, I do believe.'

agreed. Again. I think I need a lie down now.

by lefty Sat May 26, 2012 21:55

A final post to respond to points raised by SS/Tim then no more discussion on any subject not related to the article from me....

Lefty : "Yet we actually do the same stupid things on a huge industrial scale plus lots more creative twisted things besides. Not out of real need but out of greed for ever more corporate profits."

S S: "Undoubtably, but I think that saying only capitalist machines pollutes sort of rings false in my ears. I just have this image of USSR back in the day being just awful in realtion to environmentalism. Not to mention china. People pollute because of laziness, not solely due to want of profits."

ok The USSR did pollute a lot too but then again, that wasn't truly a proper ethical based society at it's heart, it was a stalinist dictatorship. And much of the pollution you are referring to is in the form of radio active waste largely a by product of the nuclear arms race with the "free market" US.

Much of china's current pollution problems are caused by "free market" US corporations moving their production to china for the cheaper wages and playing hardball with environmental protections in return for providing employment. (free market in inverted commas because it is only a free market for the poor, the rich get sociaism and bailouts!!)

The chinese communist party have to balance the jobs versus the environment and the environment loses there too. Thats capitalism for you, and china has paid a huge price for embracing this model. the alternative is a larger number of people dying from hunger. It's rather an intractable problem given the numbers of people they have to manage.

Lefty : "There is a saying that really applies here: "behind every great fortune is a great crime."

S S: "I dont think that everyone who owns a yacht is a criminal. Thats silly. Someone breaks their back studying for the first 30 years of their life to become an engineer or a doctor, works hard and earns enough money to buy a yacht, and you want to brand them a criminal and denigrate them for making something of themselves?"

what percentage of yacht owners does that limited scenario cover out of the total?? How many are capitalist scumbags exploiting third world countries or wall street criminals??

Lefty : Erm...don't you think that the so called free market had quite a hand in creating many/most of these problems??"

S S: "Again, this doesn't quite ring true to me. The UN state of food insecurity in the world report 2011 highlighted that it is countries that rely on food imports that are affected by price fluctuations, not countries that are exporters. In this context, having or not having a free market has nothing to do with their plight as even if it didn't exist, they would still have to buy food from another country, ergo natural price increase and worsening of their situation."

Nonsense, thats an oversimplification of the situation. Often growing cash crops to pay interest on national debts and loans instead of growing food for hungry indigenous people is a major issue. Ownership of arable land is a key issue. In Malawi for example, they slave every day growing tobacco instead of food in order to get enough money to rent a tiny patch of land from the tobacco companies to grow some food for themselves. They barely make the rents from what they are paid and usually go into debt, thus meaning they can grow less food. The tobacco companies control the prices to enslave the workers so they work their asses off but are still poor and hungry. yet the soil in malawi is very fertile and if they could actually just grow food there instead they would have no problems. It's all about who owns the means of production (land). This problem should not exist in malawi if capitalists and imperialists didn't "make arrangements" so they could steal all the arable land from the poor people living there in the first place. There are reasons countries have to rely on food imports. Also, aid packages often come with conditions that stipulate countries have to import a certain amount of subsidised corn etc from the US. Food is often used as a weapon too.

Lefty : I presume you mean pushing GM monocultures (that don't actually improve things but give corporations control of the food chain) on the poor brown people."

S S: "How about you leave those "poor brown people" make their own decisions instead of patronising them and making decisions for them you neo-colonialist racist. "Oh no, you poor brown people dont know whats best for you so I'm going to stop you from buying these seeds, as I know best with my arts degree from Trinity college. There there, aren't you happier now scrabbling round in the dirt like I think you should be""

Er...not using useless GM seeds that don't increase production and going hopelessly into debt to rapacious sociopathic corporations like monsanto for the privilege of using their patented seed and weedkillers is not the only alternative to poor agricultural conditions. I suggest you look up the Bt cotton debacle in india and the suicide rates of indian farmers. If GM is so great then why don't european farmers want it??
By the way, i don't have an arts degree from trinity. I studied hard sciences.

Actually I'm all for leaving the poor brown people alone. we should give them back their land and resources and get to hell out of their countries altogether. Trouble is, doing that would collapse our economic model which relies on exploitation, bullying, corruption, military interventions and stealing resources using cynical ploys at it's heart. We get our high standard of living off the backs of poor brown people in third world countries who often bear the true cost, and have to deal with our "externalities"

Lefty : We need to address overpopulation and we need to do it now in a controlled and fair manner (perhaps a lottery followed by a course which you need to pass before being allowed to have a child and serious social/tax disincentives for not complying) rather than leaving it until it is too late."

S S: "A Tax disincentive to prevent people having children? How right wing of you, ensuring only people who can afford it via capitalist greed can procreate, leaving the huddles masses forcibly sterilised, punished for not being rich enough. Oh and a course, with tests and whatnot to decide who can breed? Yeah that will weed out the illiterates and dyslexics, good thinking mein furher."

Equating someone wishing to open a discussion on the looming population problem and the unsustainable strain it puts on the ecosystem, with a nutjob who disliked jews and wanted to exterminate all of them out of unscientific irrational personal distortions of reality regarding racial purity is not reasonable. Godwins law says you lose this round! ;-)

I merely threw out some (admittedly pretty weak) suggestions off the top of my head to get the discussion going. Yes, I agree, any such tests would need to be fair to people such as illiterate / dyslexic people. They don't need to be written tests. As for the tax incentives, well that was mentioned merely as an adjunct to "social incentives". I agree with you, the tax incentive idea is indeed problematic as you say since rich people are always likely to have an advantage here. The right to breed should definitely not depend on income.
A fair lottery system for a licence to have a child would in theory be the same for rich and poor people alike, although as usual, rich people will try to game the system. The one child policy in china has limited the huge problems they would otherwise have had if it did not exist

People want to reproduce. It is a strong instinct. As an atheist I would even go so far as to say that the only reason we actually exist is in order to mindlessly reproduce our genes. However that is at odds with the resources available and if we don't grasp this nettle somehow and deal wih it, it will be back with a vengeance to sting us to death far more painfully later on. I think addressing this fact is not right wing but merely logical sustainable resource management 101. Someone mentiioned easter island in passing. That is a good argument for what I'm talking about here. I have consciously decided as a western resource consuming white person not to reproduce my genes out of ego and an inflated sense of my own self importance, so i'm not advocating a course of action for others that i am not prepared to voluntarily undertake myself. There are plenty of unwanted children in the world already who need a good home.

So, are you then saying that should we just leave things as they are and just let everyone reproduce like crazy and consume resources until we eventually have a huge resource/oil crisis and billions starve to death or die from disease / wars over the last remaining resources. How rational is that?? surely a controlled descent is better than a total chaotic crash??

As opus rightly pointed out, going off topic like this here is facilitating the zionist agenda to shut down discussion of nakba so this will be my last post on this stuff. back to the palestinian / Israeli related discussion then.

by Shampain Socialist Sun May 27, 2012 09:51

Yes, back to topic, sorry!

My two cents:
The way the nabka is portrayed is that evil zionists drove helpless palestinians from their land. I disagree. While getting non-biased historical accounts of the time is hard, a few things stand out to me.

At the very beginning of the civil war, the arab liberation army tried to blockade Jewish residents from their homes, sort of seems like what the Zionists did was exactly the same, except they won. Yes it is a catastrophe, but its a catastrophe more because they had their asses handed to them by a small pseudo state with less fighters that was completely surrounded by enemies. Then, realising that they had lost, expect the Zionists to let them move back in next door. To say that the Zionists tried to ethnically cleanse them is a bit misleading, because the Palestinians were trying to ethnically cleanse them right back. It was a war based on ethnic lines, which they lost. If they had won, I think it would have been just as horrific, if not worse.

Reasons for the palestinians leaving were varied, and while zionist aggression was surely a factor, some were also ordered to leave by the arab army. Seems many left of own accord as they thought that, since their plan was to exterminate the zionists, the zionists would do the same to them once they won.

Of course, this is all in the past. No going back now, cant undo what has been done. All we can do is try to get Israel to stop being dicks and building on occupied territory.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sun May 27, 2012 13:51

For starters, its no more 'civil war'(oxymoron in itself, anyway)than the current armed subversion of Syria being driven by Saudis, Turkey, Israel and the external Anglo/US WASP warmongering imperial forces rolling through to Teheran before the showdowns with Moscow to break up the remains of the Russian/Soviet empire and then Bejing in the neo-liberal globalisation totalitarian project outlined quite overtly in the Project for a New American Century(PNAC).

After the Holocaust Britannia and the US redirected the displaced Jewish refugees into their colonial garrison in Palestine as Fort Zion in the Wild East for the black gold oil-rush fueling their industrial graduation from coal(just as China is now attempting to do, and must be blocked from achieving as no counter-hegemon can be contemplated).
Balfour drew up the deeds in exchange(nice irony) for Chaim Weizman's(first Israeli president) surrender of his chemical formula for synthesising acetone, a plasticising accellerant of cordite crucial to the WW I efforts to contain the rise of industrial Germany as a competitor to the empire on which no sun may be allowed to set.

Founded on, and funded by, war profiteering, it is the offspring state that might be expected from such vicious rapacious parenting.

The history is there. Do the homework, its worthwhile.

It is where we are all right, and there is no going back...but if we dont get a halter of the horses its global biocide we confront.

Its literally a human race...against a demented simian atavistically primitivce war-cult, masquerading as moral arbiter of a world order posited on a pyramid of wealth and power based on racial heirarchical idiocy devised in a white supremacist Europe evolving over several millennia.

Our technological development makes it unsustainable as a paradigm of political management, and unless we understand the origins we will not solve it in a way that will prevent its recurrence. Its a long shot, but it kills a slow Sunday.

by Dr DryEye Sun May 27, 2012 14:43

I must say that I always enjoy reading Opus and Tim battling it out on the rights and wrongs of the Palestine question. It's a very complex situation , which we may never see resolved in our own lifetimes , but it’s good to see a couple of “old sparring buddies” teasing the issues out reasonably in this way .

"We need to address overpopulation and we need to do it now in a controlled and fair manner (perhaps a lottery followed by a course which you need to pass before being allowed to have a child and serious social/tax disincentives for not complying) rather than leaving it until it is too late." Lefty

A good point from Lefty there . The West Bank is amongst the most over-populated places in the world according to the UN .The birth rate there ,far from dropping , is actually increasing- along with rates of poverty - at an alarming rate .Any rational approach would see further population growth in that part of the world as simply not sustainable . But it’s not just the West Bank of course . Let’s get closer to home .
Look , the world is overpopulated and that includes here in Ireland !!! Let’s start from here and ask ourselves rationally how do we go about getting the birth rate in Ireland at least slowed down . The lottery idea would be a good one if everybody were to play fair ,but let's face it , we’re not all living in Dublin 4 . When it comes to population growth ,we are often dealing with vunerable people some of whom see having children as a means to getting on to already over stretched social housing waiting lists . Others are frankly scarcely more than children themselves or else too out of their heads on drink or drugs to take precautions . We often hear from the uncaring rightwing about law and order issues and the so called “culture of enlightenment” , but isn’t it about time that the leftwing showed a little tough love in this area ?

For all the ballyhoo in the press I thought that Dublin’s Lord Mayor Andrew Montague made a fair point last week when he proposed that pregnant women be tested for alcohol. That’s sensible , but shouldn’t perhaps one or two sensible and reasonable precautions be applied - before the damage is done , so to speak ? What we need is well worked out , fair prophylactic.measures to combat population growth socially . For example , something needs to be done about the proliferation of off- licences in virtually every street corner ,courtesy of the likes of Londis Spar and Centra , that sell cheap cans and alcopops to teenagers . And before anyone mentions ID having to be shown , let me assure you that over-18 ID rules are easily flouted through the simple expedient of getting older siblings to buy the alcohol for the underaged.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sun May 27, 2012 14:59

best attempted derailment I've seen all day...

Dont like the information leaking into the noise then?

by Shampain Socialist Sun May 27, 2012 16:44

Opus, stop trying so hard to sound clever. Your tirade of superfluous imagery can be summarised as: Not civil war as outside forces involved, who have self serving intentions.

Now if your post is not nitpicking and sidestepping the conversation I dont know what is. Derailment. We were talking about Nabka.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sun May 27, 2012 19:00

until Dr dry diverted it away down spurious overpopulation byroads and some eugenic population cull on the dispossessed ..as thought the population density were not the result of the West Bank and Gaza being concentration camps.
You're leaning towards the logic of Zyklon.

and Shamp, I'm nit-picking ok...you being the nit demonstrating historical illiteracy.

If you don't do more than two syllable words you'll find a dictionary online.

Your simplifications are disinformation. They certainly dont serve the victims of this plantation operation in ethnic cleansing.

Is that ignorance, or a zionic agenda?Its hard to tell..maybe even both. They often ride in tandem.

by Shampain Socialist Sun May 27, 2012 19:35

Diverting the conversation, avoiding my points and resorting to insults. Good job, really showing your historical literacy and debating nuance.

My "simplifications" are not disinformation. And I rather do not think they are simplifications, seeing as it is looking at in more detail the subject then has been discussed here before. If anything, saying Nabka is a black and white case of Palestinian victimhood is simplification and disinformation. I'm not the prodigious historian you claim to be, but it seems to me with even a cursory glance over the accounts by both sides its a bit more complicated than Nabka proponents want us to think.

Please, without getting sidetracked by ranting on about neo-capitalism or pedantics about whether it was a truly civil war or not, explain how my points (in my previous post) are disinformation.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Mon May 28, 2012 00:08

reductio ad absurdum says it all.

Civil war?

And to challenge that idiotic assertion is 'pedantic'???

Simplistic, disinformational, propagandist-serving, counter-factual,

I'm actually quite happy to leave the the judgement to any residual readership.

by lefty Mon May 28, 2012 02:30

Dr DryEye is being sarcastic I think. (possibly joe/tom/tim??) I qualified my comments somewhat from the original and they certainly need further qualification / refinement to maintain fairness before they are worth anything. It's a nasty non pc nettle which is difficult to grasp without raising ire. The instinct of reproduction runs very deep. My initial throwaway suggestions for dealing with it were rather poor and intended merely as talking points in need of lots of refinement and qualifications.

It was clearly never my intention to have my suggestions applied disproportionately to people like the palestinians in the west bank versus fat rich white wall street financial terrorists. In fact If anything they should be applied disproportionately to rich white americans who consume at least 20 times the resources of one person in africa. poor africans / palestinians are not the real problem here.

In fact since corporations are "people" now, it should be applied equally to them too. No spawning off little tax write off subsidiaries if you don't get a reproduction licence mr shell!! ;-)

As white westerners, it indeed makes sense to start with ourselves and personally I have done. However rich people consume more resources as poor ones so I disagree with specifically targetting the poor. Thats just elitist. It should be a fair lottery system that affects dublin 4 and tallaght equally. I do also happen to agree with closing off cheap alcohol sales from supermarkets etc as they are destroying the fabric of our society, but that's yet another off topic issue.

Population is a difficult problem to approach and much more thought is needed to find measures that could fairly address the problem. My initial rather poor suggestions were never meant to be taken as gospel but merely as initial talking points as a basis for starting a conversation.

All that said, it's very possible that dryeye is tim's sock taking the piss and derailing so more fool me for biting if it is.
Back to nakba.

by Shampain Socialist Mon May 28, 2012 08:57

Ok, so it wasn't a civil war. Now stop trying to change the subject and address my points.

"At the very beginning of the (redacted) war, the arab liberation army tried to blockade Jewish residents from their homes, sort of seems like what the Zionists did was exactly the same, except they won. Yes it is a catastrophe, but its a catastrophe more because they had their asses handed to them by a small pseudo state with less fighters that was completely surrounded by enemies. Then, realising that they had lost, expect the Zionists to let them move back in next door. To say that the Zionists tried to ethnically cleanse them is a bit misleading, because the Palestinians were trying to ethnically cleanse them right back. It was a war based on ethnic lines, which they lost. If they had won, I think it would have been just as horrific, if not worse.

Reasons for the palestinians leaving were varied, and while zionist aggression was surely a factor, some were also ordered to leave by the arab army. Seems many left of own accord as they thought that, since their plan was to exterminate the zionists, the zionists would do the same to them once they won."

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Mon May 28, 2012 11:50

If you are actually going to discuss 'the very beginning' I suggest you start with Shlomo Sand's(professor of history, Tel aviv University) book 'The Invention of the Jewish People'(Verso, 2009).

The zionist project was part of the racial theorising emerging from early genetic speculation and pseudo-scientific rationalisations of pyramidic heirarchical pecking orders(naturally with us pale-faced europeans at the apex/zenith of creation)that brought us the Nazi teutonic master race platform Adolf surfed to power and disaster on...at the expense of all untermenschen and quite a few of his duped and gullible compatriots, as well as have the planet's armies, navies and airforces.

Holocaust and Naqba are not the origins of the problem, they are just some of the symptoms.

To discuss 'the very beginning' requires a little more homework. To think otherwise is to simplify a complex of forces and vested interests and misunderstandings that only compounds the problems consequent to the deluded foundations of Zionist theorising and wish-fulfilment that go back to when Jews and Palestinians peacefully coexisted in Palestine, before European racist supremacisms imposed their colonial client on both the Palestinian and the Jewish peoples, as a false solution to European idiocy which still remains unsolved, and will do while Europeans glorify their sordid global history and mistake sophisticated savagery for civilisation.

If their are words there too big for digestion, mea fucking culpa.

Amazon have copies at around $11. Or try your local library.

by Dr DryEye Mon May 28, 2012 12:30

So long as the instinct to reproduce remains so strong your viewpoint will be pretty non-pc Lefty , but somebody had to raise the issue ; I’m pleased that you had the courage to do so .And no, I am not any of those people you mentioned being "sarcastic" .I’m not sure what you mean by me being “Tim’s sock” but it doesn’t sound very pleasant (sexist ?).Let me assure you that I do not know Tim Johnston personally . As I said yesterday I’ve often enjoyed reading Tim and Opus sparring on Indymedia ireland , that’s all. Over-population is something that does concern me very much. Whether it’s on the West Bank or on the puke covered pavements of Temple Bar early on a Sunday morning , I find it disgusting . How to deal with a nasty non-pc nettle? We should recall perhaps the ancient wisdom of the following rhyme :
If you gently touch a nettle , it will sting you for its pain.
Grasp it like a man of metal, soft and gentle it shalt remain

by Shampain Socialist Mon May 28, 2012 12:51

I don't see how your erudite posturings addresses my comment. Maybe I'm not smart enough, but it seems you just talk about everything but Nabka, which is the thread we are in, and what I was talking about. So, to reiterate, in the simplest, non-emotive language so that you cant twist out of context:

1. Nabka is not as black and white as people would want us to believe.
2. Claiming and insinuating (as this article does) that Nabka was borne of a unilateral desire on the part of the Zionists to ethnically cleanse is false and misleading.
3. Both sides were just as bad as each other. The difference is that the Zionists won.
4. The Palestinian exodus was multi factorial, not solely due to aggression from Zionists.

I think these points are true, as I understand them from reading around. There are more points that I would like to make but due to bias both ways in the history books I can't be as sure of them. I feel that these points are relevant as they affect our perception of Nabka. If you think that these points are false, please say why (I dont need references or anything).

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Mon May 28, 2012 14:45

I'm afraid, and at risk of accusation of 'erudite posturings', what I'm trying to do is give you the context. You are the one with atomist decontextualising tendencies.

1.I have tried to address the complexities...you are the one introducing simplistic and black/white metaphors.

2.I have no trouble accepting there was nothing 'unilateral' about the Zionist dreamscape...I have taken the trouble to inform myself on the history of the immediate as well as the earlier periods producing the colony. That includes Jewish writers such as the one I attempted to draw your attention to. Others, from Einstein(a self-proclaimed Zionist) to Primo Levi( a Holocaust survivor)warned of the inherent dangers of the project, as surely as Eisenhower warned of the current subversion of US democracy by its milirary/industrial complex. Zionism is multi-faceted, but toxic in its tribal/theological foundations, and many zionists were aware of this at the beginnings; many defected as the project mutated into its present mess.

3. The Palestinians accomodated earlier migrants until they realised displacement was the agenda, and then transferred to a justifiable policy of resistence to the invasion that developed into ethnic cleansing as it progressed and ripened under Anglo/US colonial policy for hegemony over the resources of the region, with the collaboration of a host of changing clients, from the Wahabbi Saudi royals to the installed Shah on his Peacock's throne.

4.The Palestinian exodus was primarily a response to Israeli terror against a non-militarised civilian population. This was first directed against the British who facilitated the plantation (and who controled the UN madated Palestine after the Ottoman collapse), just as they did in Ireland as a way of ethnic domination of the island. The Brits had the illusion they could control the situation(but exited stage-right after a few atrocities), just as the yanks did until the reverse takeover engineered through AIPAC, the Israeli lobby funding all sides in the US polity.

And yes, there is bias both ways, but the more high-powered engine of propaganda/hasbara by a long shot has been driven by Zionist zealots for the bones of two centuries.
There is little need for Palestinian propaganda as Israel produces enough 'facts on the ground' actual evidence, from conditions in the West Bank and Gaza, constant harassment and arrests, apartheid walls and checkpoints, bulldozing of villages and defenders, operations such as Cast Lead and the massacres of Sabra and Shatilla to make the necessity for such methods redundant.

I too could go on at length, and elaborate, but in hopes you wont be so quick to dismiss my efforts to expand your understanding, I'll stop here.

Shalom.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Mon May 28, 2012 15:17

Did you ever think, dr, of taking a dose of your own prescription??

Start the cull yourself...at home..thats where such charitable contributions are advised to be commenced.

Your turn to amuse a few of us. Go on..ya wil ya will ..

by Shampain Socialist Mon May 28, 2012 15:41

I didn't mean to be simplistic, and I recognise the complexities of the time, and agree that what I said is a simplification, but, it is at least a more in depth view than "Nabka was terrible, awful Zionists attacked innocent, defenceless Palestinians" that is being promoted here.

I take umbrage at the point that Palestinian resistance was justifiable. Yes, justifiable in the broader sense to resist occupying force, but unjustified in many of its acts (much like the acts of the Zionists) of targeting civilians. This disgusts me, just as much as civilian bombings in the north do. Again, I take exception to calling it ethnic cleansing, as by all accounts it was an ethnic war, and the Palestinians would have 'ethnically cleansed' too if they had won. They only get the PR benefit because they lost.

Yes, the exodus was prompted by largely (bot not solely) by zionist aggression. However, again this was part of the realities of war. Palestinan and Arab forces conducted attacks against civilians as well, and the story would be the same but reversed if they had won. Just because you lose a war doesn't make you morally superior, it just means you suck at fighting.

What I can agree with you on is the lack of need of Nabka as a rallying point, Israel has already shown its moral dubiousness with its conduct since winning the war.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Mon May 28, 2012 17:03

..and i think there is something a wee bit contradictory in your arguing against the atrocities(both in the north and Palestine) but so readily accepting the winner's fortunes of war.

I'm probably considerably older than you, so i've had a head start, and its not about not being smart enough, it takes time and work to ferret out honest information on this topic, not least because of the extraordinary pervasiveness of Israeli propaganda/disinformation(highly organised and well funded, it makes Goebbels look amateurish)and finance..not to mention their being welded to the Anglo/US imperial machinery like a parasitic siamese twin.
And, as you indicate, many Palestinian sympathisers are their own worst enemies. But its a bit like the native americans up against the combined might of a spread of european savage empires...and accusing them of savagery. As the brits did with the Irish...they buried Bloody Sunday under the false-flag black-ops often instigated by their implanted Steak-knives. No slouches in Kitson's boy scouts.

Add that to European war-guilt, and Israeli manipulation of that justifiable guilt, and you are up against a serious set of distortions. Mainstream media and lamebrain half-educated politician are easy meat for these professional PR smear campaigners who will bring a career to an end with a few well timed leaks and lies.

And we'll definitely agree that when it comes to waging war, they are the real Carlsberg....but its not an art I could ever be seduced into admiring.

by Tim Johnston Mon May 28, 2012 19:08 tim.johnston33 at gmail dot com

"to when Jews and Palestinians peacefully coexisted in Palestine, before European racist supremacisms imposed their colonial client on both the Palestinian and the Jewish peoples"

I had to stop at that one, opus. When was this time in history exactly?
Was it after the first Aliyah in the 1880s (?) when Jews fled Europe to settle under Ottoman rule? In which case it must be observed that neither Jews nor Palestinians at that time were independent in any real sense, in which case arguing that they were getting along just fine then makes sense only in the context that both were equally oppressed by the dying Turkish empire, and in any case we are talking about a period of roughly one generation or so. My point being that we can hardly replicate that scenario in order to bring peace to the region, without, for example, handing over Israel and Palestine to, say, Jordan. I think we would prefer that both be free and independent, and still not trying to kill one another.

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Tue May 29, 2012 09:57

..now where were we..oh yeah you were just after reminding us of those 'nasty nationalist...right wing zionists..'..at the root of the problem.

Then you felt the need to go lie down...conflicted emotions??

I do hope you are feeling better.

Oh, and you had just reminded someone the topic was Naqba...we dealt with a few things while you were absent...don't be locking a minor comment in illustration as the issue.

We're all aware we cannot return to Ottoman times, which were long and varied in tolerance under different regimes.

I'm inclined to think at this stage Israel will not allow, and for a long time has had no intention of allowing, any form of independent Palestine...or for that matter Lebanon or any other hegemonic challenger, or even independent example of a prosperous competitor. The bad faith of the US, and the lack of vision or moral gumption to challenge Israel's ongoing land clearances, indicates that, since at least Sharon, the lights in the region, to use an old metaphor, have been successively extinguished.

I am not optimistic. Between the 'rapture' loopers and the armageddon bring-it-on merchants...and then the Saudi fed Wahabbi zealots...it seems there are several fuses burning towards the same stockpiles.

It seems that just as in the teens and thirties of the last century, the imperial clocks of collision are wound tight. Ottoman collapse drew the European powers in for the carvery...and now Nato is chomping on the bones and Teheran-bound..unless I misread again...which I hope, but doubt, I do. What might survive such a collision is speculation beyond my calculus. I see no two-state survival...not while Bibi and his ultras rule.

by Tim Johnston Fri Jun 01, 2012 20:46 tim.johnston33 at gmail dot com

Well I move between optimism and pessimism on a frequent basis. I do think the forces who don't want any sort of two state solution are each trying to wait out the other, but in the context of this discussion, the Nakba itself has an ambiguous role.
On the one hand, like the Hebrews and the exodus, the forging of national unity depends on collective memory, as you've pointed out, and losing that memory serves no purpose. On the other, distorting that memory for political ends serves no peaceful cause. What was my original question really.

For example, is commemorating the Nakba a lament over the displacement of some 700,000 people during war, the causes of that war left aside temporarily, or is it a statement of intent regarding a "Right to Return"? Can it be one without the other? (I think so, incidentally).

Could one faithfully (particularly as an outsider) commemorate Nakba and ignore the causes of that displacement?

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Sat Jun 02, 2012 09:31

I think every 'people' distorts its national memory...national memory itself being a collection of versions of a set of histories retreating in time.

As for 'no peaceful cause', I'm inclined to think on the lines of those who believe we get no genuine peace without just solutions to those different versions of our common human histories. Is this not what is meant by the victors writing the dominant versions?War, and contested versions of self-justification, is at the centre of all our seperatist histories.

At present, to my understanding, the indigenous Palestinians as a group did not initiate the ongoing aggression and displacements and are betrayed in every attempt to get a just settlement..no matter how generous the concessions they make in their own historic homeland.

The empires are determined to allow their EU/US colony unlimited expansion and hegemony to suit their resource monopolising imperial ends.

I feel the ordinary Jewish people are being duped in this game(the levels of poverty/wealth polarisation in Israel itself and the increasingly blatant racism of its leadership, in lockstep with similar EU/US condescension globally is indicative), and that if the above-mentioned zealots get their Hitlerian death-wish...that same leadership will have its bolt-hole bunkers well stocked while the region fries in Hiroshima amplified.

Its hard to predict the war-gaming Strangeloves..but the Nato mission-creep escalations indicate that the long range sees beyond 'containment' of Russia and China to an eventual overt return to the presently covert ninteenth century 'open door' carve ups.

It may be that they hope to provoke the targets into providing an excuse. The evidence of falsified UN justified invasions by Nato in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya..rolling towards Syria and Iran with subversion and terrorist tactics honed in Latin America and elsewhere, and the tightening of the pressure in the Southern Pacific aint diagnostically sweet.
The mindset seems to be 'lets win it all while we can'....all-or-nothing martial glory-hunters have ruled the planet since the hominids first played with sticks and stones for each others caves and hunting grounds...many so-called 'primitive societies' came to grips with this pre-human behaviour and installed laws and customs to limit it...but for the WASPish European even the sky is no limit...witness the satellite GPS remote playstation kids 'bugsplatting' to their hearts' content from Dronesville, Pentagonia. Pandora's box has lost its arse and its hinges to their 'friendly fire'...and the watchdog media is well drugged and snoring in its corporate kennel. The financially induced economic turmoil and idiotic inability to address the redundancy of our war economics does not bode well.
Timescales? Depends on which general wrests the controls for how long, or how soon some rogue with the codes goes for glory..meantime Palestine remains a likely detonation point, for the usual reasons.