http://musliminsuffer.wordpress.com/
bismi-lLahi-rRahmani-rRahiem
In the Name of Allah, the Compassionate, the Merciful
=== News Update ===
December 21, 2006
A Moral Judgment is Called For
On Israel's "Right to Exist"
By JOHN V. WHITBECK
Now that the Palestinian civil war long sought by Israel, the U.S. and the
EU appears on the verge of breaking out, it may be timely to examine the
justification put forward by Israel, the U.S. and the EU for their
collective punishment of the Palestinian people in retaliation for their
having made the "wrong" choice in last January's democratic election -- the
refusal of Hamas to "recognize Israel" or to "recognize Israel's existence"
or to "recognize Israel's right to exist".
These three verbal formulations have been used by media, politicians and
even diplomats interchangeably, as though they mean the same thing. They do
not.
"Recognizing Israel" or any other state is a formal legal/diplomatic act by
a state with respect to another state. It is inappropriate -- indeed,
nonsensical -- to talk about a political party or movement, even one in a
sovereign state, extending diplomatic recognition to a state. To talk of
Hamas "recognizing Israel" is simply sloppy, confusing and deceptive
shorthand for the real demand being made.
"Recognizing Israel's existence" is not a logical nonsense and appears on
first impression to involve a relatively straightforward acknowledgement of
a fact of life -- like death and taxes. Yet there are serious practical
problems with this formulation. What Israel, within what borders, is
involved? The 55% of historical Palestine recommended for a Jewish state by
the UN General Assembly in 1947? The 78% of historical Palestine occupied
by Israel in 1948 and now viewed by most of the world as "Israel" or
"Israel proper"?
The 100% of historical Palestine occupied by Israel since June 1967 and
shown as "Israel" on maps in Israeli schoolbooks? Israel has never defined
its own borders, since doing so would, necessarily, place limits on them.
Still, if this were all that were being demanded of Hamas, it might be
possible for it to acknowledge, as a fact of life, that a State of Israel
exists today within some specified borders.
"Recognizing Israel's right to exist", the actual demand, is in an entirely
different league. This formulation does not address diplomatic formalities
or simple acceptance of present realities. It calls for a moral judgment.
There is an enormous difference between "recognizing Israel's existence"
and "recognizing Israel's right to exist". From a Palestinian perspective,
the difference is in the same league as the difference between asking a Jew
to acknowledge that the Holocaust happened and asking him to acknowledge
that it was "right" that the Holocaust happened -- that the Holocaust (or,
in the Palestinian case, the Nakba) was morally justified.
To demand that Palestinians recognize "Israel's right to exist" is to
demand that a people who have for almost 60 years been treated, and
continue to be treated, as sub-humans publicly proclaim that they ARE
sub-humans -- and, at least implicitly, that they deserve what has been
done, and continues to be done, to them. Even 19th century U.S. governments
did not require the surviving Native Americans to publicly proclaim the
"rightness" of their ethnic cleansing by the Pale Faces as a condition
precedent to even discussing what reservation might be set aside for them
-- under economic blockade and threat of starvation until they shed
whatever pride they had left and conceded the point.
Some believe that Yasser Arafat did concede the point in order to buy his
ticket out of the wilderness of demonization and earn the right to be
lectured directly by the Americans. In fact, in his famous statement in
Stockholm in late 1988, he accepted "Israel's right to exist in peace and
security". This formulation, significantly, addresses the /conditions/ of
existence of a state which, as a matter of fact, exists. It does not
address the existential question of the "rightness" of the dispossession
and dispersal of the Palestinian people from their homeland to make way for
another people coming from abroad.
The original conception of the formulation "Israel's right to exist" and of
its utility as an excuse for not talking to any Palestinian leadership
which still stood up for the fundamental rights of the Palestinian people
are attributed to Henry Kissinger, the grand master of diplomatic cynicism.
There can be little doubt that those states which still employ this
formulation do so in full consciousness of what it entails, morally and
psychologically, for the Palestinian people and for the same cynical
purpose -- as a roadblock against any progress toward peace and justice in
Israel/Palestine and as a way of helping to buy more time for Israel to
create more "facts on the ground" while blaming the Palestinians for their
own suffering.
However, many private citizens of good will and decent values may well be
taken in by the surface simplicity of the words "Israel's right to exist"
(and even more easily by the other two shorthand formulations) into
believing that they constitute a self-evidently reasonable demand and that
refusing such a reasonable demand must represent perversity (or a
"terrorist ideology") rather than a need to cling to their self-respect and
dignity as full-fledged human beings which is deeply felt and thoroughly
understandable in the hearts and minds of a long-abused people who have
been stripped of almost everything else that makes life worth living. That
this is so is evidenced by polls showing that the percentage of the
Palestinian population which approves of Hamas' steadfastness in refusing
to bow to this humiliating demand by their enemies, notwithstanding the
intensity of the economic pain and suffering inflicted on them by the
Israeli and Western siege, substantially exceeds the percentage of the
population which voted for Hamas in January.
It may not be too late to focus decent minds around the world on the
unreasonableness -- indeed, the immorality -- of this demand and of the
verbal formulation on which it is based, whose use and abuse have already
caused so much misery and threaten to cause more.
John V. Whitbeck, an international lawyer, is author of
"<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1892379228/counterpunchmaga>The
World According to Whitbeck". He can be reached at:
<mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
source:
http://www.counterpunch.org/whitbeck12212006.html
===
-muslim voice-
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