[Nettime-bold] Re: <nettime> Israel rushes to capitalise on terrorist attack

[karaite <karaite@yahoo.com>]

> I find  extremely disturbing the undue haste in the
> way that Israeli figures have used this appalling
act
> of barbarity to attempt to advance their own
> interests in the most outrageous way.

I am not a supporter of the current Israeli
government, but I find extremely disturbing the way
that people seem to expect Israel to behave if it is
at peace when it is in fact at war - not with the
Palestinian people, but with terror groups operating
among them.

While it is clear to all right-thinking people that
these terror groups will only be finally defeated when
there is no reason for them to exist any longer - when
there is a just and equitable peace established
between the two sides - in the meantime it is not
acceptable to ask the Israelis, as you seem to be
doing, simply to continue allowing their civilians to
be randomly murdered and blown up without attempting
to do something about it. The interests of Israel lie
in defending itself. Do you really find it outrageous
that Israel should defend itself? Perhaps you do.

Back on planet human, terrorist attacks on civilians
in Israel are a constant feature of everyday life
there, and the government usually (not always)
responds with military action aimed at preventing or
reducing the likelihood of further attacks. These
attacks shore up Palestinian anti-Israeli sentiment
and make further attacks more, not less likely. It
seems that neither side is capable of breaking the
cycle at the moment; peace will probably only be
achieved when both sides do so simultaneously.

In my opinion, Israel frequently responds
over-harshly, it frequently responds with undue,
misdirected, and inappropriate force, it is as guilty
of the deaths of civilians as are the terrorists and
there are some actions that are completely
inexplicable in the context of an attempt to reduce
the levels of attacks, but, just as the Palestinian
freedom fighters believe their actions to be
justified, since they see themselves as 'at war', so
do the Israelis. While sane and rational people on
both sides just want peace and continue to work
towards this, the leadership on each side has been
unable to achieve this; indeed, it is pretty clear
that Sharon's election victory was a direct result of
Arafat's inability to convince Israelis that the
Palestinians actually do want a just peace; itself a
direct result of Barak's previous inability to
convince the Palestinians that the Israelis actually
do want a just peace.

Meanwhile, attacking the Israelis for attempting to
defend themselves when at war is not merely a waste of
breath that helps no-one, it also betrays a massive
ignorance of 20th century history and the complex mess
of political and human disasters that have led to the
complex situation that now obtains in the Middle East.
Condemning the leaders of the Israeli military for
failing to act as if they are at peace when they are
at war is absurd.

Underlying it all, the very basis of Zionism - the
idea that the Jewish people should have
self-determination, is identical to the very basis of
the Palestinian claim - the idea the Palestinian
people should have self-determination. You can reject
both or neither - it is precisely because I am a
Zionist myself that I can see no logical position
other than to support the immediate establishment of a
Palestinian state as well.

What mystifies me is why so many otherwise intelligent
people from all parts of the political spectrum choose
one of the two and then reject the other one,
depending - I can only assume - on whether or not you
are more inclined towards anti-Jewish or anti-Arab
sentiments. The knee-jerk reaction to this kind idea
on nettime is to say words to the effect of 'Oh, but
*I* can't possibly be racist, *I'm* left-wing', to
which the only reasonable reply is 'Bollocks' - check
the mote in your own eye.

Choosing between the rights of the Palestinian people
and the Jewish people is racist. Palestinian
nationalism and Zionism in themselves are not racist,
but sadly, most supporters of either one take the
racist line of rejecting the other, whether they
accept it the fact or not. Oddly, those on the right
are more likely to be honest about this than those on
the left, who tend to be unable to accept evidence of
racism in their own minds, even when they do things
like equate Zionism with racism while simultaneously
pledging support for Palestinian nationalism.

Of course, I'm not accusing anyone on nettime of being
racist, (although anyone who thinks Zionism is racism
will already have dismissed me as a racist myself and
won't even get to this sentence.)

Meanwhile, the campaign for peace continues - on both
sides. May it come soon.

> I for one am sick of the total
> and complete lack of nuance present in American
> television

This is hardly a statement of particular depth or
incisiveness. So, you've noticed that American
television is shit. Look more closely, and you'll see
that all television is shit, even that television that
happens to reinforce your particular personal beliefs.
That's because it's an intrinsically shit medium aimed
at the intellectual lowest common denominator.

> attack, time and time again I only saw the same,
> identical, footage of the
> same 10 to 15 adults with about the same number of
> children.

This proves nothing other than that the station you
were watching only felt the need to buy one particular
piece of footage showing this. There may be more of
such footage or this may genuinely be the only
example. We will never know. Meanwhile, if you must
continue to watch television, you might choose to
notice that in television news, you always see the
same, identical footage of x time and time again,
every day, day in day out, whatever the subject.
That's because they don't buy in unlimited footage
that they show once each only; they buy in as little
as possible and show each as much as they can get away
with. That's how television works, and one of the
substantive reasons why it is a shit medium.

> Benjamin Netanyahu. When
> asked what the attack on New York meant for
> relations between the US and
> Israel, he said: "It's very good." He quickly went
> on: "Well, not very
> good, but it will generate immediate sympathy."    

There is never any point in quoting Benjamin
Netanyahu, who is widely considered to be a complete
idiot, even by his own right-wing Likudnik colleagues,
unless you are trying to demonstrate that he is an
idiot, which is pointless, since he has made a
successful lifelong career out of doing precisely that.

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