The Single-State Solution:
It's not working too well in relatively peaceful, prosperous places like Belgium, which makes me believe that when people like Tony Judt suggest it for Israel/Palestine, they are either being facetious or really mean "let the Arabs take over and the Jews disperse."
UPDATE: A seemingly informed commenter says that the Times story is overblown. But there is also a serious movement in Scotland to secede from Britain, and of course Quebec is constantly threatening to succeed from Canada. If groups like these are unhappy being in a single federation, it's pretty hard to a imagine a happy ending to a binational Israelstine, at least in this stage of the game.
Related Posts (on one page):
- The Belgian "Breakup" and the Future of Ethnic Federalism:
- The Single-State Solution:
On a more serious note, did you read the article. Judt is sober about the problems with a single-state:
Alternatively, Israel can continue to occupy "Samaria," "Judea," and Gaza, whose Arab population—added to that of present-day Israel—will become the demographic majority within five to eight years: in which case Israel will be either a Jewish state (with an ever-larger majority of unenfranchised non-Jews) or it will be a democracy. But logically it cannot be both. . . .
To convert Israel from a Jewish state to a binational one would not be easy, though not quite as impossible as it sounds: the process has already begun de facto. But it would cause far less disruption to most Jews and Arabs than its religious and nationalist foes will claim. In any case, no one I know of has a better idea: anyone who genuinely supposes that the controversial electronic fence now being built will resolve matters has missed the last fifty years of history. The "fence"—actually an armored zone of ditches, fences, sensors, dirt roads (for tracking footprints), and a wall up to twenty-eight feet tall in places—occupies, divides, and steals Arab farmland; it will destroy villages, livelihoods, and whatever remains of Arab-Jewish community. It costs approximately $1 million per mile and will bring nothing but humiliation and discomfort to both sides. Like the Berlin Wall, it confirms the moral and institutional bankruptcy of the regime it is intended to protect.
A binational state in the Middle East would require a brave and relentlessly engaged American leadership. The security of Jews and Arabs alike would need to be guaranteed by international force—though a legitimately constituted binational state would find it much easier policing militants of all kinds inside its borders than when they are free to infiltrate them from outside and can appeal to an angry, excluded constituency on both sides of the border.[5] A binational state in the Middle East would require the emergence, among Jews and Arabs alike, of a new political class. The very idea is an unpromising mix of realism and utopia, hardly an auspicious place to begin. But the alternatives are far, far worse.
To convert Israel from a Jewish state to a binational one would not be easy, though not quite as impossible as it sounds: the process has already begun de facto. But it would cause far less disruption to most Jews and Arabs than its religious and nationalist foes will claim. In any case, no one I know of has a better idea: anyone who genuinely supposes that the controversial electronic fence now being built will resolve matters has missed the last fifty years of history. The "fence"—actually an armored zone of ditches, fences, sensors, dirt roads (for tracking footprints), and a wall up to twenty-eight feet tall in places—occupies, divides, and steals Arab farmland; it will destroy villages, livelihoods, and whatever remains of Arab-Jewish community. It costs approximately $1 million per mile and will bring nothing but humiliation and discomfort to both sides. Like the Berlin Wall, it confirms the moral and institutional bankruptcy of the regime it is intended to protect.
A binational state in the Middle East would require a brave and relentlessly engaged American leadership. The security of Jews and Arabs alike would need to be guaranteed by international force—though a legitimately constituted binational state would find it much easier policing militants of all kinds inside its borders than when they are free to infiltrate them from outside and can appeal to an angry, excluded constituency on both sides of the border.[5] A binational state in the Middle East would require the emergence, among Jews and Arabs alike, of a new political class. The very idea is an unpromising mix of realism and utopia, hardly an auspicious place to begin. But the alternatives are far, far worse.
Now, one can disagree with Judt - I do - but your snark, failure to engage, and attack on Judt's motives is accomplishing exactly what?
DELETING STUPID COMMENTS
I would prefer a greater, Israel that would annex Gaza and the West Bank. I believe removing the religious characteristics of from the state of Israel would make this possible, and even acceptable to Palestinians.
One might have expected the part which headquarters the huge bureaucracy of the EU would be the more prosperous one. Maybe there is a stronger work ethic in the non-French part of the country.
And the Tony Judt types do not entertain counter-examples. For Cato, it was always, "Carthago delenda est," while for Judt et. al it is always, "Israel delenda est," though of course they are never quite that forthright about it.
To hear Justin complain about snark is amusing.
Are you uncomfortable with France being a French state? Russia a Russian State? or Syria an "Arab Republic"?
Israel is not a religious state; it is a Jewish state. Being Jewish is a cultural characteristic more than a religious one. There are plenty of Jews who are atheists. Judaism, very much unlike Christianity but somewhat like Islam, is a culture with a relilgious component. Your error is thinking of religion in a very modern, and very Western way.
Right?
I can explain his apparent incoherence by his being a so-called useful idiot, or an Arab dupe. Arab propaganda has grafted itself onto the original tree planted by the Soviets--remember that the PLO was a national liberation organization--and the post Soviet human-rights movement. So-called progressive intellectuals like Judt have jettisoned "national liberation", third-worldism for today's human-rightsism. The Arabs have successfully inserted the "right of return" as a human right into the false consciousness of Judt and his like.
One interesting thing about the "right of return" is that it's (maybe) the only thing that Arabs and Jews agree on: it would lead to the destruction of Israel. That's what makes Judt's ideas so frustrating.
Has the idea been floated of creating one country with several states? The proposal I have in mind: the national government could be divided up evenly with one side getting the Prime Ministership and the other the Presidency, the seats in the legislature could be split evenly. Is this feasible? The Olmert administration seems to have a good relationship with Fatah's current leadership. They seem to get along and work well together. The bi-weekly meetings certainly speak to this point.
David -- Oslo was kiled by Netanyahu's government's failure to recognize that it was in a huge position of power and failure to have any foresight. During that time, the Labor party would always say if we don't settle now, we will be negotiating with Hamas in 10 years. I thought that was hyperbole. Alas, it was not. History will show that it was Netanyahu who killed Oslo; I think the overwhelming majority of contemporary Israeli political scientists would agree with me as well.
And Chuck, after you have visited, please do send us a postcard to let us know what you thought after you informed yourself of the realities here on earth. Admittedly, many of those realities are not so nice, but they are the realities and it is much better to recognize them for what they are than to engage in denial, fantasy, or other unproductive. There can be very unpleasant results when one refuses to engage with reality.
[Note: I am not attempting to outdo Justin in snark, just to make my point.]
They tried that in Lebanon-- dividing up the gov't between Arab Christians and Moslems. It worked for about 30 years. Then the Moslems, who multiplied more rapidly, wanted a larger share of the goodies to reflect their greater share of the population. When they didn't get it, they started a civil war, which has lasted, on and off, ever since.
First, you seem to agree that the binational state proposal has at least the potential for generating even more and greater violence than today. Your "requirement" of a "relentless and engaged" US leadership and an "international" force suggest this. Otherwise, why would the situation "require" such things? Is this correct?
Also, I note the recurring use of "would" in your description of the future bi-national state. You say, for example, "the process has already begun de facto. But it would cause far less disruption to most Jews and Arabs than its religious and nationalist foes will claim." Can you provide any evidence for the "de facto" beginnings of the process? What's your reasoning behind your "would cause far less disruption" statement? How do you explain the fact that Arab leaders are on record for declaring that the binational state/right of return means the destruction of Israel? The binational state had its Jewish proponents back around the turn of the 20th century. How do you explain the fact that they have been marginalized in Jewish opinion since the 1920s Arab pograms?
My last question is related to the first point above. Most people would recognize that any project that "requires" a "relentless and engaged" US leadership of an "international force" has a very short half-life, to put it mildly. I can't remember when such a thing has ever happened in history. Can you? How can you seriously suggest such a thing? Can you imagine yourself as an Israeli? You're being asked to "outsource" your right of self-defense to vague "relentless and engaged" international bodies; those same international bodies have given no evidence of being "relentless and engaged" up to now in Israel's defense. What makes you so sure that things would change just because Israel becomes a binational state? Can you see that for an Israeli, history is filled with examples of "international bodies" leaving ethnic minorities (which is what the Jews would be in a binational state) hang in the wind to die?
You don't have to agree that apartheid exists in the occupied territories to see that South Africa is a better place now than it would have been if it hadn't abolished apartheid. I'm sure it has problems but they are smaller than they would have been otherwise.
The world has moved on. Read the Tony Judt article:
Only since the fall of Saddam and the blossoming of internecine conflict in Iraq have we seen an ultimately less successful Middle East colonial "creation" than the multi-confessional state of Lebanon, which only proves to be more unsuccessful with passing years.
As for the horrible state of affairs in Belgium, see brusselsjournal.com, such as this entry.
Another thing that's interesting about Judt is that his book on postwar Europe is mainly about how the "late-nineteenth-century separatist project" reached its fruition during and after the Second World War. Judt demonstrates that Europe today consists mainly of national states because of years of ethnic cleansing and worse. Of course they've "moved on" by now. So what? Why would Judt want to have Israel, and only Israel, "move on" if he didn't forsee the same process Europe went through? The usual answer is Bernstein's "facetious or extermination". I wouldn't go that far. Judt is just a dupe of Arab propaganda, as it's been filtered through so-called progressive so-called thought.
The fact is that nationalism is alive and active in much of the world. Even the Czechs and Slovaks, who have similar histories as peoples, speak similar languages, are both predominantly Catholic by religion, and have no significant history of recent intercommunal violence, chose to divide themselves into separate countries. The idea that the Israelis and Palestinians would enjoy living in one combined country doesn't seem plausible to me.
cvt, you are no better at this than the Georgia peanut farmer. Aand it least when he is not doing the "anti-Zionist" thing (and accepting donations from world class antisemites like the late Sheik Zayed), he contributes something of value by helping to provide housing for the needy. What is to be said of you other than that you spew the Israel = Nazi German/apartheid South Africa crap?
Even Basque Separatists have been losing support in recent years.
As for Scotland: Just like the Irish, they had been a separate country for centuries until united by the Act of Union of 1707. Since then, it's been an uneasy union, and so the question is whether Scotland, Ireland and England are one country or three. Ireland determined that part of it is Irish, and part of it is English, which is an interesting compromise.
I guess the issue is what makes a nation, or a country. Is it a common language? History? Culture? Alcase and Lorraine have dealt with this issue for generations as to whether they belong to France or Germany. I guess they have settled on France. For now.
I've never been called an anti-semite before. You set the bar pretty low.
Thank you for your intention to set me straight. Well, I guess Justin got me there. The lact of quotation marks or any other indication that these were Judt's words or ideas is what threw me off. In my other life as a teacher, I'm tuned in to catching students in plagiarism but I wasn't expecting such a thing here. Now I feel like an idiot, but at least I know not to respond to Justin any more. I wasn't aware of any feud between him and DB.
Freudian slip?
I don't follow your argument. If ethnic cleansing or worse is the end result of the separatist project, that's something to be avoided. Obviously. You must be making some other point but I don't see it.
And along with other factors that make for cohesiveness or lack thereof, economics can play a part. Many Western Canadians rich with natural resources, especially oil and gas, talk about breaking away, though they share a common language (English), history (moved from East to West, like in US), culture ("Canadian," drink Molson's or Labat), passion for hockey, etc. Scottish separatism has also been fueled by the prosperity brought by oil. (Did Alsace-Lorraine decide its own destiny or was it decided for them? What a tragedy that the French were not more assertive about it back in the '30s when it would have made so great a difference.)
hahaha...especially since he copied and pasted the exact same text twice on accident.
First, the term "moving on" implies some form of rejection. He's saying that Europe has rejected the separatist project. I'm saying that Judt demonstrated that Europe has "moved on" past ethnic separatism not through some high-minded rejection, but through ethnic cleansing. Europe has moved on because they have achieved the separatist project, not because they rejected it for some higher ideal.
No one knows this better than Judt. He wrote a 900 page book about it. How can he think that a binational state in Israel would lead to "peace" if they led to ethnic cleansing even in enlightened Europe? Israel began as a "separatist" state, which is what Judt himself shows made Europe peaceful. Now he wants Israel to create the same condidions that produced ethnic cleansing in Europe in the name of "moving on".
Maybe I'm alone in seeing a weird dissonance between Judt's scholarship and his opinions on Israel.
I think it's bad manners, at least, to pile on the ridicule after I admitted my mistake. Don't you have something better to do?
[Justin, why don't you go ahead and prove me wrong by showing Bruno you can respectful of those who do not share your "progressive" views.]
As for Belgium, it will fission one day. Flanders deeply resents the income transfer from them to Wallonia, and Wallonia is trying to stack the national deck by importing large numbers of North African Muslims hoping they will side with the socialist Wallons against the Flemish. It’s getting rough. Riot police units from Liege in Wallonia put down a Flemish demonstration in an apparently brutal manner. The police used a genital hold on Frank Vanhecke, the VB party leader and a member of the European Parliament. See a picture here. Now imagine if a member of Congress attended a demonstration in DC and the police grabbed him by the balls, beat him up and shoved him in a van.
Is that violent enough for you TRE?
Of course we have recently witnessed the police rough up a student, and taser him for too aggressive questioning of John Kerry. So perhaps some European fascism is getting imported into the US. Watch what’s happening in Belgium carefully, it might be your future too.
I was deliberately vague about whether I thought an apartheid system exists in the occupied territories and I said absolutely nothing about Nazi Germany. Drawing the first parallel is usually counterproductive and the second always is. Nevertheless, you decided to personally attack me, and accused me of two things I didn't do as well as being anti-semitic. W&M have written an entire book about your kind of tactics. I really don't need to say anything more.
my bad. i skipped over the post where you did that. catching up on this board is not an easy task.
Israeli Jews have formed a viable, indeed an economically prosperous and morally/ethically sound nation/state, founded upon the most elemental of classical liberal principles, separation of powers, balance of powers and checks and balances, etc., a state that consists of appx. 22% Arabs, btw. For example, their judiciary is arguably more fiercely independent than in the U.S. - no mean feat; by comparison the "judiciary" among the Palis, from the 1920's and forward, has too often consisted of summary executions and similar forms of autocratic and capricious "justice," used to cull any dissent, which is but one of the reasons why there are no sustained forms of dissent and counter-movements within Pali culture. And no, the Hamas/Fatah division doesn't represent dissent, it reflects tribal, clan and religio-political differences, largely in the form of bad and a bit less bad, though only marginally less.
It might be hoped for, at some point in the future, but presently the Palis do not evidence the ability to handle a two state solution, much less a one state solution, a "solution" that would result in a certain, inevitable finality.
you yourself rarely contribute anything beyond the standard conservative party line. i am quite capable of advancing a cogent argument when i am responding to one. unfortunately that occurs very rarely with some people on this site.
[and yes, i am a med student and an electrical engineer, but i don't really see what that has to do with anything)
I attacked what you seemed to be implying and invited you to correct me if I misapprehended what you really meant to say. Now, you say your intention was be "deliberately vague." That doesn't come across as a denial, and I will stand by what I said about those who liken Israel to apartheid South Africa.
I thought you were working the same meme as the peanut farmer (Israel is an "apartheid" state, as was South Africa until recently), hardly an unbiased and fair commenter on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Now you make clear, or at least as clear as you are willing to be here ("deliberately vague"), that you stand with M&W. No, I agree, you "really don't need to say anything more."
1) What have I said that pegs me me as someone who only spouts "the standard conservative party line," whatever you think that is. (Here we have another example of you declaring yourself the winner of an argument you have never engaged with. You did that when you maintained that I must be deaf if I had not heard and appreciated the so numerous and impressive denunciations of terrorists and terrorism by Muslims, then failed to cite examples of ringing, unequivocal denunciations by two of the leading Islamic groups in this country, CAIR and ISNA, who also happen to be unindicted co-conspirators in the Holy Land Charity case going on now.)
2) Point us to one or more of those cogent arguments you have made in posts to volokh.com. Or have you not yet found the opportunity to serve one up here? (Again, stop with the silliness and show us what you got.)
3) It explains some of the preening and thought processes, such as those are.
Now, go back to the books, because you have a huge amount to learn before you undertake responsibility for anyone's care.
"It (Israel) has imported a characteristically late-nineteenth-century separatist project into a world that has moved on, a world of individual rights, open frontiers, and international law. The very idea of a "Jewish state"—a state in which Jews and the Jewish religion have exclusive privileges from which non-Jewish citizens are forever excluded—is rooted in another time and place. Israel, in short, is an anachronism. "
My head is spinning trying to figure out just what country in that region of the world matchs the definition Judt gives i.e."into a world that has moved on, a world of individual rights, open frontiers, and international law."
Individual rights in an Arab country? What Arab country other than Iraq? International Law? Oh, Iran is doing real well with that one. Open frontiers? As in the Old West, perhaps. He objects to a Jewish religious state? Does he think, seriously that he is going to find freedom of religion in the Arab states in that region? Where, Saudi Arabia?
Seriously, what is Judt saying and what could he possibly use for an example? Am I missing something here?
1) i hardly consider this an "argument" that one can you win. at least i had the maturity to apologize when i made a mistaken comment. there was no need for you to step in...brutus was quite capable of correcting my mistake on his own. (i provided you a whole list of denunciations, easily clickable through google. you picked 2 from groups that you don't like and dismissed all of them out of hand. that seems like the actions of a sore loser rather than the "winner of an argument". and even now, you're holding a grudge which again is not the actions of a "winner". and yes the standard line "muslims never denounce terrorism" is a standard conservative party line.)
2) i am not about to go through all of my past posts, especially since i don't particularly care what you think of my posts. i don't desire your approval...i would actually be ashamed of myself if i held some of the beliefs you seem to think are deserving of respect.
3)"preening"? and this comes from a guy who just has to make sure everyone know that he's a doctor, a neurodoc no less. hahahaha...that line alone was worth taking a break from my studies for.
Now, go back to the books, because you have a huge amount to learn before you undertake responsibility for anyone's care.
correct me if i'm wrong, but is that the whole purpose of medical school. if you mean this as some sort of insult, it fell way short. you've accurately described exactly what i'm doing and why i'm doing it. congratulations on stating the obvious. however, i don't see the connection between my ability to provide adequate patient care and this website. is this a medical blog? are we discussing anything at all related to medicine? what makes you, a doctor, think that you have more authority than me, a medical student, on issues that have absolutely nothing to do with medicine?
*this of course assumes that you really are a doctor. if this is not true then at least i have the honesty to not pass myself off as something i'm not.
brutusbruno was quite capable of correcting my mistake on his own.The demonstation you mention was not related to Walloon/French matters. The demonstration was a remembrance of 9/11. The demonstration was illegal because the socialist mayor of Brussells denied a permit on public order grounds. He thought the demonstation might upset the Muslim population.
This in the home of NATO and the EU.
The inevitable progress of Western ideas across the world is a theme that keeps coming up, isn't it? This is just more of the same.
“The demonstation [sic] you mention was not related to Walloon/French matters.”
The demonstration has everything to do with the Flanders-Walloon conflict. Note that the riot police breaking up the demonstration were from the French-speaking region and they targeted VB party members. Speaking for the majority opinion in Flanders, VB opposes continued Muslim immigration because they know full well that it serves to dilute their votes. If Flanders can secede then Wallonia itself will break up into three pieces from it’s own internal conflicts. Part of it will go to Germany, part to the Grand Duchy Luxemburg and part to France. Thus Wallonia is fighting for it’s life and must to everything it can to continue Muslim immigration. This is why Freddie Thielemans banned the 9/11 demonstrations. He must do everything he can to stop VB from speaking out and giving the Flemish a voice. The NYT of course sides with socialist Wallonia and tries to discredit VB with the usual false charges of “racism” and “xenophobia.” When you have no argument, place the race card and start the name-calling.
Divorcing the 9/11 demonstration from the underlying Flanders-Walloon conflict is exceedingly myopic.
And one doesn't need to agree that the moon is made of green cheese to see that those who once did are better for their reform. No doubt they still have problems but they are smaller than they would have otherwise been.
The problem, in both cases and on approximately equal footings, is relevancy.
Israel is no more apartheid than Bush/Blair=Stalin/Hitler is a viable thesis, it takes a concupiscent advocate in the vein of W&M or Jimmy Carter, or a myopic dullard who has been swayed by such an advocate, to imagine otherwise; the enormities such advocates are forced to elide and occlude, and are further desirous of shoving down Israel's throat, are stupendously misbegotten. One may as well invoke a Constitutional convention on the basis of advocates such as a Tariq Ali or a new Herman/Chomsky alliance because the consequences that would ensue would ensure that society's rapid and decided devolution.
The Ideological Foundations of the Boycott Campaign against Israel (small pdf) contains a very solid and well thoughtout review of the apartheid charge, rightly aligning it not merely with absurdity, but with contemporary, late-modern forms of anti-Semitism as well, on substantive grounds. It's a solid exploration of some critical, profoundly misbegotten themes.
To compare costs, here in Michigan it costs a million per mile to recondition a highway. A million per mile for security from snipers and suicide bombers is cheaper and more useful.
I'd have to join Hiram's opinion that it does need explanation as to why anyone would listen to what Judt thinks of Israel.
Consider its size, population density, and position between the ocean and some large, sometimes unfriendly neighbors.
Now look at Monaco, Macao, Singapore, Hong Kong and Dubai.
If Gaza's residents stop spending their time in basements building rockets to shoot at Israel and start spending it in sweatshops building trinkets to sell to Walmart they'll be on a trajectory to having a pretty decent life in a decade or two.
And yes to what davod said. Sure, the distance between present-day SA and Zimbabwe is large, but only the willfully-blind can fail to see the direction of movement.
neurodoc, enough with the boldface already!
Any substantive disagreements with what I have had to say?
Meanwhile, "Israel is no more an apartheid state than New York or Illinois or California." Quote of the day!
But upon further review...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1703244,00.html
...I'm not seeing the comparison with Illinois too well.
It's also more than you can say about Jews in Arab neighborhoods in Israel. Or in Arab states.
Of course, it is a given that the tolerant Arabs are entitled to ban Jews from living in the PA administered areas and from the new Palestinian state once it is established, due, no doubt, to inherent and indelible racism of the Jewish people. And neither the Israeli government, the UN, the US or the EU seems to see any contradiction between that policy and a desire of the Palestinians to live in peace with Jews.
It didn't work very well in Lebanon, especially after the PLO set up a de facto state in South Lebanon in the early 1970s, terrorized the Lebanese who lived there, and paved the way for both Israel's invasion in the early 80s and the Syrian proxy state that is there now.
Or do you support a two-state solution where Judea and Samaria and Gaza become a truly sovereign independent state, with leaders that are openly or covertly dedicated to the destruction of the "Zionist Entity?"
So it had nothing to do with the unprecedented number of PLO attacks on civilians during the first year of Oslo under Rabin, which killed more civilians than any prior year in Israel's history? Or with Arafat breaking every single Oslo commitment from day one, including continuing official incitement against Israel and Jews in the press, schools, mosques and entertainment; creating mulitple armed forces, several times greater than the police force Oslo permitted, with military rather than police training, and filled with ranks of those who had attacked and killed Israeli civilians; refusal to disarm terrorist groups; planning, funding and carrying out attacks on civilians; refusing to cooperate in security measures; continuing to advocate the destruction of Israel while speaking in Arabic while assuring the US in English of his desire for peace -- and that's just for starters.
In the 1950s, the federal government came up with a plan to move Indians off the reservations and to the urban centers, including Chicago. This scheme was called, simply, Relocation. "Chicago's Urban Indians" looks at the resulting effects, both positive and negative, on our city's approximately 30,000 Native Americans today.
Economic opportunities for most Indians were limited. Some reservations were little more than shacks, without electricity or running water. In more desolate areas, unemployment typically ran from 50-80%, and the average life span for both male and female Indians was barely 44 years.
In the late 1940s, the Federal Bureau of Indian Affairs initiated its Relocation plan to encourage Indians to move to the cities, where there were jobs.
...
In reality, however, most of the Indians who moved from the reservations to the city exchanged one form of poverty for another ... The Indians were all settled in one poor, rundown neighborhood, Uptown.
While other ethnic groups were on the ladder of assimilation, African Americans were crowded into the south side "Black Belt." As WWI brought more and more African Americans into Chicago to find work, tensions rose. In 1919 a race riot broke out spear-headed by Irish gangs or "social athletic clubs." In the following years, African Americans would stay segregated, while European ethnic groups did not. Violence met attempts by Black families to move out of apartheid conditions into white areas.
...
In the 1950s, the spaces of the city began to be more sharply contested as the number African Americans had grown so large that a second ghetto, Lawndale on the west side, joined the southside Black Belt. Rather than promote integration as had occured with white ethnic groups, the Chicago Democratic Party, loed by former gang member Richard J. Daley, planned for continuing segregation. To block westward movement of African Americans into Daley's home ward, Bridgeport, an expressway and an 18 tower housing project served as a wall of segregation.
Apparently, the post is in support of a proposition somewhat along the lines of "Israel treats its Arab citizens in the same fashion that the U.S. treated people of color in the era of Jim Crow laws, and that the U.S. treats its indigenous population currently.
A stirring rebuttal of apartheid, that.
Brian K, I never saw the list of denunciations of terrorism and terrorists by prominent Muslim groups that you apparently found impressive and say you provided. Please direct me to where the list appeared on this blog or identify those on your list and what exactly they said. I will be more than happy to have a look and tell you what I make of them, if you will serve them up.
Please no "just Google 'Muslim,' 'terrorism,' 'denunciation,' etc." That won't do. Instead, you should clearly identify the ones you think most impressive and tell us where we may see them for ourselves in context. I am especially interested in any from those two unindicated co-conspirators in the Holy Land Charity case, CAIR and ISNA. Did any relate to the Blind Sheik and his crew, including Nosair? Sami El-Arian? (For this, we will allow you time away from Pharmacology. But don't neglect Pathology, because the Lange series is not so helpful with that.)
Quoted from above, attributed to Judt
"It (Israel) has imported a characteristically late-nineteenth-century separatist project into a world that has moved on, a world of individual rights, open frontiers, and international law. The very idea of a "Jewish state"—a state in which Jews and the Jewish religion have exclusive privileges from which non-Jewish citizens are forever excluded—is rooted in another time and place. Israel, in short, is an anachronism. "
My head is spinning trying to figure out just what country in that region of the world matchs the definition Judt gives i.e."into a world that has moved on, a world of individual rights, open frontiers, and international law."
Individual rights in an Arab country? What Arab country other than Iraq? International Law? Oh, Iran is doing real well with that one. Open frontiers? As in the Old West, perhaps. He objects to a Jewish religious state? Does he think, seriously that he is going to find freedom of religion in the Arab states in that region? Where, Saudi Arabia?
Seriously, what is Judt saying and what could he possibly use for an example? Am I missing something here?
For the time being, perhaps. But can anyone seriously dispute that Zimbabwe today is a much worse place, for blacks as well as whites, than Rhodesia was?
You know, don't you, that Egypt has more than once declined to take Gaza back. Now what does that tell us given how rare it is for sovereignties to cede territory, even the truly marginal.
Was that the one in which EV was talking about "gratuitous use of markup" in an attempt to give force to unpersuasive arguments. I believe that what he was talking about was something very different from use of boldfacing here to make clear who said something or to whom I am reacting. If I am wrong about that and EV or his co-bloggers (or a substantial number of others) are against boldfacing for that limited purpose, let them say so and I will try to use spacing or some other device.
Now, can we return to the substantive, putting the procedural on hold for the time being?
I think that's highly suspect, and if I had taken Latin in college I might be able to argue further with fancy terms like de jure and de facto. But we're closer to the realm of opinion versus fact, so I'm done.
Yet David, it was people of your ilk who after 1967 refused to negotiate with Jordan to give it back to them even though they had multiple opportunities to do so.
And David, would you stop making libelous generalizations about "the Left"? Really, it's getting old and making you look more and more like an extremist idiot.
Neurodoc, the people who think Hamas could be peacefully incorporated into the state of Israel are quite possibly mistaken. But your contention that 'Justin is clearly capable of so much better'? That's just crazy talk.
"making libelous generalizations... look more and more like an extremist idiot."
The jokes write themselves.
I agree with you. My earlier comment regarding South Africa and Zimbabwe was meant to indicate that SA is on the way to becoming Zimbabwe.
David Bernstein: You must be heading into moonbattery now that you have been "ilked" by Crazy Train, I may have to stop reading your comments. Unless of course you can extract yourself from the other "ilks" of this world.
it appears you were educated before evidence based practice came around. you might want to read up on it...it has allowed doctors to make significant gains in patient care. it also gives them proof that their recommended treatments are working rather than just waving their hands and saying "its gotta be right because if its not i might actually have to admit i was wrong and change my ways"
how about this one or this one? What excuse are you going to use this time to disregard these? Is Juan Cole some unindicted senior member of al queda? did the other website kick you in the crotch or something like that?
I will be more than happy to have a look and tell you what I make of them, if you will serve them up.
WOW! this has seriously got to be the most egotistical statement i've heard made by a doctor...seeing as how i've talked to few surgeons there was some stiff competition. Who granted you power to determine if a denunciation of terrorism is real?
(For this, we will allow you time away from Pharmacology. But don't neglect Pathology, because the Lange series is not so helpful with that.)
Perhaps you should stick with your day job and actually care for your patients. It's not right that you ignore them while you repeatedly make false claims online.
by the way, what is the lange series? sounds like a book to me. would you or wouldn't you recommend it over robbins (our text) or brs path (the review book written by my instructors)? is their pharm book any good? better than brs pharm?
What? Israel offered shortly after the 1967 war to give back ALL land it obtained except Jerusalem, in return for recognition by the Arab states. Jordan and the other Arab states responded with the Khartoum Confernce, which resolved the famous "three noes" -- " no peace with Israel, no recognition of Israel, no negotiations with it."
Jerusalem, of course, was supposed to be an international city under the UN 1947 partition plan. As soon as the plan was announced, Trans-Jordan beseiged the centuries old Jewish neighborhoods and eventually starved out the Jewish inhabitants. The world stood by and did nothing, although the British every now and then arrested and disarmed convoys that tried to bring food, water and medicine past the Arab blockade. After the Jordanians drove the remaining Jews out at gunpoint during the 1948 war, they systematically desecrated synagogues, cemeteries and other Jewish holy sites, turning them into stables, public latrines, and taking centuries-old tombstones to use as paving stones. For the next 19 years, Jordan allowed NO Jews -- Israeli or not -- into Jerusalem, and again, the world said nothing. Small wonder that Israel excluded Jerusalem from its offer to return the land that it had lawfully taken in its war of defense.
What you offer us are two links. One is to 2005 attack by Juan Cole, former MESA president, and decidedly Islamophilic, on the NYT's Tom Friedman, who pretty much said what I said. Cole, as you must know, is not "some unindicted senior member of al queda" (really, how stupid and tiresome these retorts of yours are), but he is anything but the unchallengeable authority on these matters you would present him as. Coles notes that Saudi clerics have denounced some acts of terrorism, but they are preachers of Wahabbism, the ideology that fans so much terrorism. And among the fatwas you would call to our attention are ones that not surprisingly condemn attacks within Saudi Arabia like the one on an American consulate there, that understandably given that the Saudis expect the terrorism to be directed at non-Muslims abroad, not at them with the goal of overthrowing the monarchy. Such denunciations are singularly unimpressive, especially when the Saudis have been such important supporters and enablers of terrorists.
You didn't specify what you found most impressive, if indeed you look into any of them, rather than simply relying on the say so of Cole. In particular, you didn't specify any by CAIR or ISNA, so all could see how genuine they might have been. If you had, we might have gotten into a discussion of those organizations' track records.
Notwithstanding what you point to, I remain of the belief, as do many others, like Friedman, that the Islamic world taken as a whole has been pathetically unenthusiastic about denouncing those who commit acts of terrorism against non-Muslims. If you think such denunciations as have come from the Islamic world have been quite sufficient, you can believe it.
Brian K, you said to me, "(I)t appears you were educated before evidence based practice came around. you might want to read up on it...it has allowed doctors to make significant gains in patient care." By "evidence based practice" do you mean the sort of thing that I was doing 20 years ago as a medical officer in the extramural program at NIH helping design, implement, and oversee multicenter clinical trials looking at various medical and surgical therapies. How about sitting on data and safety monitoring committees? And investigating allegations of scientific fraud, as I also did? But what would you only now starting your second(?) year of medical school, not having reached the clinical years, know of such? Do you have any experience at all of this, let alone real knowledge? Come back after you have graduated, completed 6 years of residency/fellowship, and been certified by 2 different ABMS boards and tell us about it. In the meantime, you have a lot to learn both about medicine and life.
[Robbins has been to pathology as Samuelson has been to economics. Does your edition of Robbins still have his appreciation to Marcia Angell, subsequently editor of the NEJM, saying she had been like an "angel" to him, or has that been dropped?
The Lange series is/was a set of paperbacks reviewing basic med school subjects in the manner that Emmanuals and Gilberts do law school subjects.]
OK, enough silliness, or are you so determinedly jejune?
If I had been aware of your previous post, I would have ignored you when you popped up with your challenge regarding the quantity and quantity of denunciations of terrorists and terrorists by Muslims. Now that I have, I won't waste any more time on you.
I cam back with examples. i made no attempt to find the most impressive ones...that was irrelevant. your claim was that muslims have not denounced terrorism. i disproved this by providing you with a google list of denouncements.
One is to 2005 attack by Juan Cole, former MESA president, and decidedly Islamophilic, on the NYT's Tom Friedman, who pretty much said what I said. Cole, as you must know, is not "some unindicted senior member of al queda" (really, how stupid and tiresome these retorts of yours are), but he is anything but the unchallengeable authority on these matters you would present him as. Coles notes that Saudi clerics have denounced some acts of terrorism, but they are preachers of Wahabbism, the ideology that fans so much terrorism. And among the fatwas you would call to our attention are ones that not surprisingly condemn attacks within Saudi Arabia like the one on an American consulate there, that understandably given that the Saudis expect the terrorism to be directed at non-Muslims abroad, not at them with the goal of overthrowing the monarchy.
ahhh...so you can safely ignore everyone you do islamophilic? you do realize that this will virtually guarantee that you only hear what you want to hear? but i did expect this response from you. any who tries to debunk your claims can simply be deemed islamophilic and ignored. You do realize there were no less than 7 denouncements of terrorism on that site. picking the least satisfying one doesn't allow to dismiss them all. you wanted the links, you should have at least read them all.
You didn't specify what you found most impressive, if indeed you look into any of them, rather than simply relying on the say so of Cole. In particular, you didn't specify any by CAIR or ISNA, so all could see how genuine they might have been. If you had, we might have gotten into a discussion of those organizations' track records.
Your right, I didn't. And i'm not going to. the original challenge was to show you that many muslims do indeed denounce terrorism and I have done that. i also didn't cite any be organizations that you were guaranteed to reject offhand again...i didn't want to provide you with an easy out but not surprisingly you found one again. The problem with CAIR and ISNA is that it i couldn't any find objective information about it...the anti-muslim side has its own slant and the muslim side has its slant...i'm not willing to wade through the BS to find the truth (or as close to it as i possible can).
Notwithstanding what you point to, I remain of the belief, as do many others, like Friedman, that the Islamic world taken as a whole has been pathetically unenthusiastic about denouncing those who commit acts of terrorism against non-Muslims
yup...this is just as i expected. did you even take a look at the second website? did you even type in your very own suggested search terms into google...that's all i did and these were the 1st 2 sites to appear. its not hard to find denunciations, you just have to look for them and you have to not reflexively dismiss them because they don't fit your worldview. (and no i do not find it surprising that fox news doesn't regularly carry live news feeds of pro muslim information)
By "evidence based practice" do you mean the sort of thing that I was doing 20 years ago...
Exactly. so you do know about it. so then why don't you apply it to other areas of intellectually inquiry?
Does your edition of Robbins still have his appreciation to Marcia Angell, subsequently editor of the NEJM, saying she had been like an "angel" to him, or has that been dropped?
it appears to have been dropped.
Now ought we to address you as Brian K or as Burrnini, the nom de plume you have used in the past
no you shall not. i have never used that name in the past. what caused you to make this (false) connection? my IP address? Ahh...i see...the e-mail, right? i picked up my throwaway e-mail address from somewhere...i read burrnini on a blog (can't remember which one...can't even say how long ago) and it stuck in my head. but let me ask you something...why would i espouse a view as burrnini exactly opposite to what i believe? scroll over to the Gen betrayus discussion boards and you'll see quite clearly that i value free speech. but again i don't find this surprising...you've found some link (however tenuous and false) to me and something you don't like and so you use it to dismiss me.
I'll leave you with some semi random quotes from articles you claim to have read so forgive me if i don't link them:
"Islam, the religion of tolerance, holds the human soul in high esteem, and considers the attack on innocent human beings a grave sin," said. "Even in times of war, Muslims are not allowed to kill anybody save the one who is engaged in face-to-face confrontation with them.
"Killing hundreds of helpless civilians," he added, "is a heinous crime in Islam."
The Grand Imam said that the Koran specifically forbids the kinds of things the Taliban and al-Qaida are guilty of. He said the jihad Usama bin Laden has called for against America is invalid and not binding on Muslims. He said that "Islam rejects all of these acts." He called terrorism un-Islamic. In fact, he says, "Killing innocent civilians is a horrific, hideous act that no religion can approve."
"Bombing embassies or destroying non-military installations like the World Trade Center is no jihad," Qadri said, and "those who launched the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks not only killed thousands of innocent people in the United States but also put the lives of millions of Muslims across the world at risk."
Dr. Al Qaradawi said that in Islam it is not permissible to attack places of worship such as churches and synagogues or attack men of religion, even in a state of war.
“Civilians, such as the German tourists, should not be killed, or kept as hostages. Jews, not in conflict with Muslims, must not be killed either. Anyone who commits these crimes is punishable by Islamic Sharia and have committed the sin of killing a soul which God has prohibited to kill and of spreading corruption on earth,” said Dr. Al Qaradawi.
When asked whether the killing of Jewish women, children and men is permissible, Islamic scholar Muhammad Al-Hanuti said that no one may be persecuted or tortured because of their religion.
I certainly don't respect most of the views held by above 4 quoted people...but they all are high ranking muslim clerics who have denounced terrorism and/or osama bin laden and none of three above restricted their statements only to saudi arabia.
this is can clearly to be seen as false from the link i've given to you above. 2 of the above quotes come from oct and nov of 2001. feel free to correct me if i'm wrong, but 2001 was 4 years before 2005.
the most plausible thing i can think of is a google search: burrnini site:www.volokh.com (the search brian k site:www.volokh.com obviously brings up nothing) but this brings up only a single posting...given that a total of around a half dozen people originally posted and given your apparently strong views on the topic, i kinda doubt you even read it in the first place. this means you had to do the search on purpose...which means you were already looking for fodder for your ad hominen attacks. (in the off chance you searched for "brian k yahoo" i am not the same brian k who lost 10 pounds using some diet drug nor is my last name keith.)
does this mean you couldn't find anything substantially negative about me that you had to make up a link between me and burrnini in order to dismiss me? It is amazing to see what extent people would through to avoid having to face reality.
In that 3/15/07 thread, you were dismissing any connection between the racial antisemitism put out by Nazi Germany in its day and the racial antisemitism the flows in the Islamic world today, with Mein Kampf widely circulated, sold, and alluded to by Arab sources, and the same for the hoary fraud The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. MEMRI translates Arabic into English so that we may know what is being published and broadcast in the Arab world, and one may see the great rivers of antisemitism that flow there, which many think is at least the equal of the Nazi's output in their day. No so far removed from the position you have taken countering me. (And you said you wanted to congratulate the U of Leeds administrator who saw to it that the German scholar never gave his 2-day seminar at the school.)
Nothing in the posts you own up to conflict with the burrninni one that you would disclaim. And we have never seen Brian K and burrnini together in the same room at the same time.
Ergo, we may reasonably conclude that Brian K = burrnini. (BTW, do you like burrnini have a cousin who is an obstetrician-gynecologist? So many remarkable coincidences!)
like i said, i took the name from somewhere...i did not think of it on my own. it is a throwaway e-mail address used to limit the amount of spam i go through. (i stopped using ones with random strings of numbers when websites began requiring verification of e-mail...it was a waste of time constantly creating new hotmail accounts) and yes, burrnini or some variation (berrnini, bernini, burnini) is not uncommon as a quick google search will show you. (the middle one is an men's dress clothing line...you can find it in the occasional mall in the states). you can even check on AIM...someone is using the screenname burrnini...and it's not me. (mine is a variation on the pop 'n fresh theme used by pillsbury many years ago.)
And we have never seen Brian K and burrnini together in the same room at the same time.
wow...you're really clutching at straws here. near as i can tell burrnini has made only a single post to this website. i haven't seen you and burrnini post together either, does that mean you're burrnini and this is all some elaborate trick of yours to avoid dealing with my argument? or does this mean that you also post under 'DG' who came up with nearly the same comment to burrnini as you just now did. i mean honestly, if you believe this is conclusive of anything i've got a rock here that keeps bears away.
do you like burrnini have a cousin who is an obstetrician-gynecologist?
yes i do, as i've stated before. but tell me...am i the only person on this planet that has a cousin who is an ob-gyn? anyway, your comparison breaks down once you realize that i do not read or post on broadsheet feminists. or wired or yahoo's messaged boards for that matter. (as a credit to volokh and the rest of the group here...this is the only blog i consistently read. occasionally glen greenwald's or a medical blog and rarely some random blog that someone tells me about)
and i noticed that once again, you ignored my arguments. are you going to admit defeat now? if your only cogent defense is to fallaciously attack me, i can only assume that you have no defense.
have you moved on to phase 3 of your plan to ignore reality? phase 1 - pretend it doesn't exist, phase 2 - slander opponent in an attempt to discredit everything he says, phase 3 - ignore reality?
do you at any point actually plan to rebut the many denunciations of terror? or are you going to continue sweeping them away with untrue generalizations?