This morning our Quaker Meeting held its regular (generally monthly) “Meeting for Worship with a concern for Business”. Since we don’t have a paid minister, it’s the responsibility of all members of the Meeting community to run all the Meeting’s affairs. So it’s quite a bit of work– but that’s the price we pay so that the spiritual gifts of all of us are equally recognized and valued. I love our way of doing things! (But boy, it was hot in the room this morning, even with all fans whirring like crazy.)
This evening we have the regular (also, generally monthly) business meeting of the C’ville Center for Peace and Justice. Phew! Enough meetings!
Meanwhile, here are a few of the other things I’ve been thinking about:
(1) The terrible current death toll from terror attacks inside Iraq. AFP is reporting today that More than 110 Iraqis were killed and 300 wounded in a three day suicide bombing blitz… That includes the incident in Musayyib where a fuel truck was exploded, though there are differing accounts of whether that was an intended part of the plan or not.
But how can someone culpably idiotic like Dick Cheney claim that the Iraqi insurgency is “in its last throes”?
How can any US leaders credibly claim that they brought “security and freedom” to Iraq’s people?
My first thoughts are for members of the country’s Shiite community, which seems to be the target of this wave of terror attacks. They must be feeling so pained, so vulnerable.
How long can Ayatollah Sistani and others who urge nonviolence continue to restrain the aggrieved from trying to hit back at those they accuse?
Meantime, I’d like to propose that communities around the world that held a 3-minute silence for 50 victims of terror in the UK also stage a silent commemoration for all the victims of violence in Iraq.
You have to know that many of those who were wounded in the attacks in Iraq, whose lives could have been saved if they’d had access to the kinds of medical services available in Iraq before March 2003, ended up dying in July 2005 because of the degradation of the country’s medical system and other public services under the impact of occupation. Perhaps those are the lives that we in the west should mourn the most.
(2) Sir Jeremy Greenstock— who’da thunk it? Remember Greenstock, the tight-lipped professional diplomat who was the UK’s representative at the UN during the lead-up to the US/UK invasion of Iraq, and after that was London’s representative inside occupied Iraq? So it turns out he wants to publish a tell-all memoir about those experiences. Okay, maybe not tell-exactly-all. But at least, tell a whole lot more than Tony Blair’s government currently wants told…
This, from the London Observer:
- Publication of The Costs of War by Sir Jeremy Greenstock, UK ambassador to the UN during the build-up to the 2003 war and the Prime Minister’s special envoy to Iraq in its aftermath, has been halted. In an extract seen by The Observer, Greenstock describes the American decision to go to war as ‘politically illegitimate’ and says that UN negotiations ‘never rose over the level of awkward diversion for the US administration’. Although he admits that ‘honourable decisions’ were made to remove the threat of Saddam, the opportunities of the post-conflict period were ‘dissipated in poor policy analysis and narrow-minded execution’…
Greenstock is also thought to be scathing about Bremer and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Greenstock’s British publishers, Random House, were remaining tight-lipped but it is thought that the book is almost certain not to be published in the autumn as planned. It was also to be serialised in a British newspaper.
… The Foreign Office last night issued a statement: ‘Civil Service regulations which apply to all members of the diplomatic service require that any retired official must obtain clearance in respect of any publication relating to their service. Sir Jeremy Greenstock’s proposed book is being dealt with under this procedure.’
Oh, censorship– don’t you love it? So much for a commitment to the basics of democracy…
(3) And while we’re on the subject of a not-yet-post-colonial Britain, I wanted to mention that I’ve been hurriedly reading an amazingly good book called Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya. The author, Caroline Elkins, was a doctoral student in the History dept at Harvard, where she evidently found some excellent mentors amongst her teachers. Building on a wide variey of sources, she tells the story of the brutal counter-insurgency campaign the British waged in the 1950s against a nationalist secret organization in Kenya called Mau Mau.
The parallels with the situation in occupied Iraq (and Palestine) today are shockingly numerous, and quite mind-searing.
The testimonies she records– from perpetrators as well as survivors of British colonial violence– are quite disgusting, including a lot more lethal violence than in Iraq or Palestine, as well as a lot of “interrogation” techniques that are just about exactly the same.
At the height of the anti-Mau Mau campaign, the British colonial authorities had moved just about the entire 1.5-million population of Kenya’s Kikuyu community into barbed-wire-fenced detention camps. In a bizarre system called the “pipeline” they were supposed to be moved between these camps according to whether and how much they cooperated with their British captors.
Elkins writes (p.xvi) that,
- Officially, fewer than one hundred Europeans, including settlers, were killed and some eighteen hundred [pro-British] loyalists died at the hands of Mau Mau. In contrast, the British reported that more than eleven thousand Mau Mau were killed in action, though the empirical and demographic evidence I unearthed calls into serious question the validity of this figure. I now believe there was in late colonial Kenya a murderous campaign to eliminate Kikuyu people, a campaign that left tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands, dead. Mau Mau has been portrayed as one of the most savage and barbaric uprisings of the twentieth century. But in this book I ask that we reconsider this accepted orthodoxy and examine the crimes perpetrated by colonial forces against Mau Mau, and the conisderable measures that the British colonial government undertook to conceal them.
Among the many parallels with today’s “counter-insurgency situations” in Iraq and Palestine:
(a) The fact that the worst anti-personnel atrocities against Mau Mau suspects (and innocent Kikuyu) were perpetrated by settlers– whether civilians, or those hastily drafted into the colonial army;
(b) The kinds of explanations given by the colonial authorities for the anti-British actions of the Mau Mau– including that they it was “psychopathological in origin”, not political; and that it stemmed from the unique problems the Kikuyu had in “engaging with modernity”, and thus represented some kind of “crisis of modernization” within Kikuyu society.
H’mm. Well if modernization includes British settler colonialism and consigning all the indigenes to gulags, maybe that is justifiably judged “hard to deal with”???
More on Elkins’ great book later, I hope.
(4) I’ve also been reading Swedish writer Sven Lindqvist’s amazing 2000 book, A History of Bombing. It’s a very informative and fairly unconventionally organized book. Here’s a handy little excerpt from the history for 1920:
- Like other colonial powers, the British had already been bombing restless natives in their territories for several years. It began with the Pathans on India’s northwestern border in 1915. It didn’t help much just to destroy their villages. But if their irrigation ditches were bombed, their water supply would be emptied and the topsoil washed away from the terraces. Then they got the message.
The British bombed revolutionaries in Egypt and the rebellious Sultan of Darfur in 1916. In 1917, bombers put down an uprising in Mashud, on India’s border with Afghanistan. During the third Afghan war in 1919, Dacca, Jalalabad, and Kabul were bombed by a British squadron chief named Arthus Harris. In his memoirs he writes that the war was won by a single strike with a ten-kilo bomb on the Afghani king’s palace. Harris would spend the rest of his life trying to repeat that strike. [He was the one who organized the fire-bombing of Dresden in WW2.]
That same year, the Egyptians demanded independence, and the RAF sent in three squadrons of bombers to control the rebellious masses. In 1920, Enzeli in Iran was bombed in an attempt to create a British puppet state, and in Trans-Jordan the British put down an uprising with bombs that killed 200.
This kind of thing was, only ten years after the first [aerial] bomb, already routine. But in Iraq the assignment was different. It was called ‘control without occupation.’ The RAF and its bombers were assigned to replace completely fifty-one battalions of soldiers, which was what the army had needed to control a country that, during the First World War, had freed itself from centuries of Turkish rule and now refused to accept the British as their new masters…
The first report from Baghdad describes an air raid that causes wild confusion among the natives and their families. “Many of them jumped into a lake, making a good target for the machine guns.”
Churchill wanted to be spared such reports…
Plus ca change plus c’est la meme chose, don’t you think?
Well that’s a coincidence. I’ve just been reading “Histories of the Hanged,” by David Anderson (2005), also a history of the Kenyan war.
Part of his conclusion:
” … Uhuru Day (12 December) is for national affirmation. ‘We all fought for freedom’ was its message when Kenyatta was President. The public memories of detention camps, of massacres, of punishments, and of dispossession were suppressed. National unity was the message. But the fact that Kenyatta had to keep reminding Kenyans again and again not to talk about Mau Mau was in itself pregnant with meaning. A thin veneer hid the truth: that just below the surface of public life, Mau Mau was being talked about all the time.”
I wonder whether a Kenyatta will ever emerge in Iraq.
quite agree that the mistreatment of Muslims in the former Yugoslavia was inexcusable and those who did not protest at the time and do whatever was necessary to protect those unfortunate people have little moral standing to lambaste present day Jihadists.
As for bombing colonies, the US went in for it big time in the 1920s in our pseudo-colony in Nicaragua. Here is a laudatory description the US Marines bombing the nationalist forces of AC Sandino at Ocotal in 1927:
“…the first major Marine air operation in Nicaragua began when five de Havilland bombers under the command of Major Rowell arrived at 1435 hours. After conducting reconnaissance flights to locate the concentrations of Sandino’s forces, ‘one after the other, the planes peeled out of formations at 1500 feet, fixed machine guns blazing as they dived to 300 feet, where they dropped their bombs.’ The observers used the rear swivel machine guns to shoot additional Sandinistas as the planes climbed back up to altitude. A ground observer of the air attack stated that it ‘was as if hell broke loose. Quick explosions, then a heavy thundering one, sometimes indescribable.’ During the forty-five-minute aerial attack, the aircraft strafed the rebels with 4000 rounds of ammunition and dropped twenty-seven bombs, killing more than 100 of Sandino’s men.
Most of the rebels fled from the bombing attack, but a small number continued to fight. The ground battle continued until after 1700 hours. When it was over, Sandino had lost as many as 300 of his estimated 400-500 men who participated in the battle; Marine and Guard losses were placed at one dead and five wounded.. . .
In November 1927, the concept of air operations broadened from just supporting ground forces to independent air actions. On 23 November, Marine aircraft located Sandino’s mountain headquarters of El Chipote in northern Nicaragua and started bombing it almost daily.”
People in the US forgot about this campaign and then wondered in the 1980s when a new generation of Nicaraguan nationalists named themselves “Sandinistas.”
“And now she’s too terrified to discuss her thoughts, in case she accidentally sparks controversy again.”
She says, “I was so surprised by the way it was misunderstood, and the disdain that came back at me was a real shock.
http://www.contactmusic.com/new/xmlfeed.nsf/mndwebpages/gyllenhaal%20terrified%20of%20discussing%20political%20opinions
Helenna; I worry if this happened in a country believe in freedom of speech and human rights, this case clear enough there is a problem in your country with freedom of speech
The fact that the worst anti-personnel atrocities against Mau Mau suspects (and innocent Kikuyu) were perpetrated by settlers
This hardly compares to either Palestine or Iraq. The Shiite and Kurds have been very calm in the face of provocations in Iraq. And there have been only a handful of incidents with Israeli civilians being violent in Israel/Palestine over the past 50 years.
The British in Kenya did not have a UN-sanctioned new state of their own, and the situation is that Iraq is a single state of it’s own, and the current insurgency is a power struggle within Iraq rather than between the Palestinians and Israelis (who are clearly destined to be in separate countries).
Also, the Israelis have clearly not engaged in a campaign to eliminate the Palestinians as a whole (or they would be gone by now, instead of increasing in numbers) and likewise the Sunnis are not the victims of mass genocidal violence from the rest of the Iraqis.
Helena, I was a small boy in Kenya when these events were taking place. I remember the detainees in their rags. In the fifties the idea of British exceptionalism was passed on very systematically. Our chaps didn’t do atrocities, we were taught, in a similar way to US self-teaching today. But as I grew up and started to drink with the “old hands” I found out a lot of things for myself. I was in Nairobi at the time of Uhuru. This is how I started to learn properly about the world.
I hope very much that those books about Mau Mau are widely read in the USA. I can tell you that in South Africa any available writing about the Mau Mau time goes around like electricity.
As for WarenW, I’m not surprised to find you here doing your usual thing. All I want to say to you is: qui s’excuse, s’accuse.
John– I’ve been reading david Anderson’s book, too. I consider Elkins’s work to be superior in several ways– most notably her use of many interviews she made with Kikuyu survivors of the counter-sinurgency violence, including the violence of the camps etc., plus her use of interview material with surviving settlers still as old men sitting around in their clubs in Nairobi and bragging about how they used to batter the “Kukes” till their brains were all over the floor, etc etc.
However, Anderson’s section on “The gulag” at the end of Ch.7 is succinct and fairly good; it has good numbers in it and also demonstrates how it was, finaly, the exposure of the extreme violence at Hola camp that –finally!– strengthened the pro-withdrawal movement in the British parliament sufficiently that it soon thereafter carried the day.
(He also mentions that one of the key whistleblowers aalong the way, about the terrible conditions in the camps, was a “Quaker social worker” called Eileen Fletcher… Go, Quakers!)
Helena, thanks for pointing me to Caroline Elkins’ book. I’ll be sure to pick up a copy.
And there have been only a handful of incidents with Israeli civilians being violent in Israel/Palestine over the past 50 years.
-WarrenW
Does this mean the Israeli military is composed of aliens since they are not Israeli citizens? Where are they from?
“The Shiite and Kurds have been very calm in the face of provocations in Iraq.”
In fact, the Kurds have been acting in an extremely brutal fashion since the beginning, including doing a bit of ethnic cleansing in the Kirkuk area. Assyrians in Kurdistan have also reported abuses by Kurds, ranging from harassment and intimidation to attacks on villages. Assyrians in Kurdistan were blocked by Kurds from voting in the January “elections”. The Kurds have lost a great deal of the sympathy they once had among the Iraqi population as a result of their abuses of power.
“there have been only a handful of incidents with Israeli civilians being violent in Israel/Palestine over the past 50 years.”
That is pure rubbish. There are multiple incidents reported every day of sometimes deadly violence settler violence against Palestinians.
And there have been only a handful of incidents with Israeli civilians being violent in Israel/Palestine over the past 50 years.
-WarrenW
So what about Dair Yassin, and the other activities of the Irgun and the Stern Gang? Has everyone forgotten about 1948 now? Or is WarrenW simply using Carl Rovian care in his phrasing, for it is true that Dair Yassin was very, very slightly more than 50 years ago. More abhorrent terrorism than Dair Yassin is difficult to imagine – the large-scale massacre of a village’s population by Israeli “civilians”. Might not have been considered genocide these days, but certainly ethnic cleansing.
Warren W.,
I forgot to mention the sometimes deadly violence by Shi`a extremusts against Christians, women, barbers who offer shaves and the “wrong” kind of haircuts, liquor merchants, and students who dare to hold picnics for mixed groups of men and women.
It strikes me that WarrenW honestly doesn’t know much about the history – or the present – of the region. His mistakes are often not due to malice. So for once I’m not going to get unduly irritated by his post.
For anyone not familiar with the phenomenom of settler violence, here’s an example.
Several of you have responded to my comment about Israeli civilians. Susan was particularly incoherent until I realized she does not know what a “Civilian” is. Hint: It is not the same thing as a “Citizen”.
Dominic was particularly obscure with his “qui s’excuse, s’accuse” comment. I cannot fathom the relevance. Perhaps my French is just too rusty? Anyone care to translate?
Shirin is simply fabricating when he reports daily “Settler violence” in Israel/Palestine.
I have not heard much about Assyrian/Kurd conflict in Iraq, and didn’t know there were a lot of Assyrians in Iraq. Are there any web references for this?
Alastair is simply confused. Helena’s comment was about the situation “Today”. I extended my remarks back 50 years (no further) to illustrate how confused Helena was. I thought 50 years was plenty. Alastair thinks “Today” applies to 55 years ago. I said there were hardly more than a “handful” in the 50 years. I think that still stands.
My point was simply that Helena was basically off base in finding similarities between situations that are fundamentally different. Remember, she said “The parallels with the situation in occupied Iraq (and Palestine) today are shockingly numerous, and quite mind-searing.” This obviously quite wrong. The only similarities are that some of the people in each case were white, and some were other tones and shades. And that there was a conflict.
“Shirin is simply fabricating when he reports daily “Settler violence” in Israel/Palestine.”
No, Shirin is not fabricating anything. There are reports every day in the media, from human rights groups, and from independent observers (many Israeli) of settler violence against Palestinians. Not only that, but at least one book has been written on the topic, as have numerous articles over the years.
“I have not heard much about Assyrian/Kurd conflict in Iraq, and didn’t know there were a lot of Assyrians in Iraq. Are there any web references for this?”
http://www.nineveh.com/Christian%20Assyrians%20face%20Oppression%20and%20Murder%20in%20Iraq%20with%20the%20Rise%20of%20Islamists%20and%20Kurdish%20Power.html
http://www.cascfen.org/news.php?nid=1007&cid=22
Let me know if you would like more information about the U.S.’s only ally in Iraq – those wonderful, humanitarian, angelic victims, the Kurds.
“Helena’s comment was about the situation “Today”. I extended my remarks back 50 years (no further) to illustrate how confused Helena was.”
You are the one who is confused, Warren W. In fact, if anything the number and severity of incidents of Israeli civilian violence against Palestinians has increased in the last couple of decades.
WW, your arguments have gone beyond the apparently “disingenuous” to the plain dishonest…
The only similarities are that some of the people in each case were white, and some were other tones and shades. And that there was a conflict.
Shirin:
I read with interest the web reports about the Assyirians on the nineveh website. Very little of the violence is shown to be caused by Kurds. Most of the violence is attributable to unknown terrorists or “Islamists”. The Kurds are mentioned mostly in regard to political events and secondarily with regard to competition (violent?) over housing and land use. This doesn’t mean the Assyrians aren’t suffering, of course.
The cascfen website is all about unfair political competition. You have failed to show “the Kurds have been acting in an extremely brutal fashion…”
No preference pointed to an article in Al-Ahram Weekly, a source I am not familiar with. Perhaps the more familiar news sources failed to carry the story about the hooliganism because nobody died in those incidents. Several sheep and gazelles are reported to have died, however. This is what passes for a “Settler Rampage” according to Al-Ahram. The incident happened 3 months ago. This is “Daily violence?”
By the way, the Al-Ahram shows a photo of a boy about to throw a rock. The kid has no kippa on so may not be a settler. In any case, it’s pretty clear the kid is about to throw the rock at the Israeli soldier, not the photographer. And the picture is 8 years old!
None of you are arguing that the situation in Kenya before independence is similar to the situation in Iraq today or in Israel/Palestine today. You have left Helena in the dust.
… continuation from my previous post, interrupted there a little by WW…
WW, your arguments have gone beyond the apparently “disingenuous” to the plain dishonest…
The only similarities are that some of the people in each case were white, and some were other tones and shades. And that there was a conflict.
Have you heard the words “settler colonialism” or “imperialist control”? Do you know what the politics of a situation looks like or– perhaps even more importantly, feels like– when one of two classes of people in a situation have the full protection of (their own side’s) legal system and indeed enjoy virtual impunity for their own actions under their own law, while members of the other class of people have almost no protections for either their lives or propoerty under this same “law”– that is, one that is imposed and maintained only through brutal military and policy violence?
I don’t even know why you bother hanging around here if you don’t even take into consideration simple political facts like that.
(I imagine the rest of the commenters here are educated enough that they understand these things. Hence of course they don’t need to reiterate them.)
But gosh, WW, perhaps your real motive for hanging around here is not to pursue your own further education and to contribute to a humane, evidence-based discussion among equals?!?
I would be “shocked–shocked!” to discover that were the case.
Warren W.,
You asked specifically about Kurdish-Assyrian “conflict”. I provided you with a couple of links on Kurdish-Assyrian “conflict”.
As for Kurds’ brutality toward non-Kurds, go back and read some of the accounts of the “liberation” of Mosul in which the Peshmerga participated side by side with the invaders. And find out about the “liberation” of Kirkuk, and how Kurds have treated non-Kurdish residents of that city both during and since.
Kurdistan is ruled by two brutal, ruthless, corrupt dictators, and the notion of Kurds as the archetypal pure, angelic victim is pure nonsense.
the notion of Kurds as the archetypal pure, angelic victim is pure nonsense
The notion that anyone is a “pure, angelic victim” is pure nonsense. The Kurds have sometimes been victims and sometimes victimizers, like just about everyone else in the region.
Shirin is simply fabricating when he reports daily “Settler violence” in Israel/Palestine.
Actually, he’s not. Settler violence against Palestinians has been a daily occurrance for a long time. Here’s an Amnesty International press release from the end of April:
Israeli authorities must put an immediate end to settler violence
It’s interesting that while Palestinian terrorist violence is always reported, the ongoing settlet violence against Palestinians doesn’t penetrate the news. Settler violence is directly linked to the dispossession of Palestinians of their land. That is at the root of the conflict, yet that too doesn’t penetrate.
It’s interesting that while Palestinian terrorist violence is always reported, the ongoing settler violence against Palestinians doesn’t penetrate the news.
Actually it does, particularly when it gets out of hand like the “olive wars” or this month’s attempted lynching.
It gets reported, but not the same way. Otherwise a WarrenW wouldn’t be able to type such a post.
What’s worse is that the US public has lost sight of the centrality of the settlement issue. The US media is to blame. You don’t see this confusion in other countries.
Yes, Helena. I’m thinking of the following from Anderson’s Chapter 7: “The numbers were never properly recorded … but a conservative estimate is that at least one in four Kikuyu adult males were imprisoned or detained by the British colonial administration at some time between 1952 and 1958.”
It worked for the British, in a sense.
My concern is that the next step in Iraq is for the Shiites and Kurds to become the equivalent of the Kikuyu “loyalists,” and the Sunnis to become the equivalent of the Mau Mau and their supporters or sympathisers.
Aren’t we already seeing the beginning of the Iraqi Gulag?
Susan was particularly incoherent until I realized she does not know what a “Civilian” is. Hint: It is not the same thing as a “Citizen”.
Oh, I read it wrong: I read citizen instead of civilian. sorry. those old learning disabilities acting up…
I just looked at the Remember These Children site.
The number of Israeli children killed so far this year in this violence: 5
The number of Palestinian children killed so far this year in this violence: 40
How sickening that the adults can’t get along well enough to keep the children alive.
“How sickening that the adults can’t get along well enough to keep the children alive.”
How especially sickening when the adults teach the children to embrace “martyrdom”!…Is it too naive to expect that both sets of adults, mutual grievances notwithstanding, can learn to teach their children to value life…the other side’s hopefully but THEIR OWN especially!
In Kenya in those days the settlers used to talk about the blacks endlessly in “tribal” terms. “Kyukes” this, Kamba that, Luo the other. Then there were stereotypes about Indians and anybody else who came into view.
The establishment of independent secular states was a liberation from all that. I wonder if Jonathan Edelstein has any idea of how powerfully people long to escape from the trap of being (or not being) “Kurds” or whatever it might be.
I mention this now becasue in my case the rooted opposition to any kind of racial or ethnic or “communal” or confessional politics comes from my early life in Kenya in the last awful years of settler colonialism there.
One of the last kicks of the waning colonial power was to try to force a “regionalist” constitution on Kenya (under the slogan of “Majimbo”). It was rejected in favour of “Umoja”, which means “Unity”.
I’m not reading the US press on the Isreaeli/Palestinian conflict regularly, so may be it escaped me, but I thought we would hear about it in Helena or Juan Cole blog if it had been reported : last week, I learned through EU news channels that Sharon had decided about the lay out of a further segment of the infamous wall. It concerned Jerusalem and would cut about 55’000 Palestinians from the rest of their city, from their works, family etc.. At the same time Sharon also asked the US for an increase of the several milliards dollars help the US promised for the relocation of the Gaza settlers. Sharon also plans new settlements in the Palestinian territories (to relocate the Gaza settlers ?). Since these announcements, the situation escalated at the borders of Gaza and the truth was broken several times. The US media seems to report about these attacks, but not about their context. It’s unbeleavable for me that the US continue to help Sharon/Israel with so much money whithout a clear condition that they halt the settlements and that they build their wall if they want, but not on Palestinian territory.
Concerning Elkins’ book, are you aware that there is an accusation of serious scholarly misconduct aired in the NYRB (or rather its letters column, come to think of it, in response to a review). I have no idea who is right, not having taken more than a cursory look at the book, and was not convinced by the letter, but if one wanted to use the book as a scholarly resource, it might be worth checking – I believe the letter writer gives an email address to contact him for his critique. Thought the NYRB wouldn’t print such a letter if it was obviously the work of a flake.
John R– D’you have a date for that letter? Or if you have a text, could you send it to me? If they published it I’d like to see it.
“Thought the NYRB wouldn’t print such a letter if it was obviously the work of a flake.”
I wouldn’t be so sure. See what Ward Churchill has to say about the systematic harrassment of shcolars who aren’t “on message” including by what he calls the US “left”, in an interview on Counterpunch right now.
WarrenW, read this page on settler violence from the Israeli human rights group B’tselem. Please note the first sentence:
Over, the years settler attacks on Palestinians in the Occupied Territories have become routine.
Do you still say “there have been “only a handful of incidents with Israeli civilians being violent in Israel/Palestine over the past 50 years”?
See what Ward Churchill has to say about the systematic harrassment of shcolars who aren’t “on message”
churchill, going “off message”:
“If there was a better, more effective, or in fact any other way of visiting some penalty befitting their participation upon the little Eichmanns inhabiting the sterile sanctuary of the twin towers, I’d really be interested in hearing about it. ”
becasue in my case the rooted opposition to any kind of racial or ethnic or “communal” or confessional politics …
does your opposition extend to ‘arabist’ and ‘islamist’ politics as well, dominic?
I wonder if Jonathan Edelstein has any idea of how powerfully people long to escape from the trap of being (or not being) “Kurds” or whatever it might be […] One of the last kicks of the waning colonial power was to try to force a “regionalist” constitution on Kenya (under the slogan of “Majimbo”). It was rejected in favour of “Umoja”, which means “Unity”.
I think the common denominator here is that any political system imposed by a colonial power, for colonialist reasons, is likely to fail. This is true whether the political system at issue is an artificially imposed regionalism (as in late colonial Kenya) or an artificially imposed unity (as in Iraq during the 1920s).
The Kenyans wanted a unitary state, fought for it, and deserved to have it. From available evidence, most Kurds don’t, and they don’t seem to think of being Kurds as a “trap.” The Kurds want self-determination and have fought for it for several generations; thus far it has been denied (frequently with Western connivance), but like the Kenyans, there’s no reason they should be shackled by colonial arrangements. The question of whether to join a unitary state, be part of a federal state or pursue independence should be up to them.
No Preference has cited several stories about ‘Settler violence’. In all the stories he cites, few people die.
Let’s be clear here, all I’m really saying here is that the vast overwhelming bulk of Israeli violence is done by the IDF.
The Palestinians (all civilians) have launched hundreds of attempts at killing Israelis just this year and they are reported only in a few Israeli news sources, as most of them fail, as well.
Compared the the number of attacks by Palestinian ‘Civilians’, there are only a handful of civilian attacks by Israelis. And most of them, like the the majority cited by No Preference, do not result in death.
I find it odd that, as an example of settler violence, two of you have now cited the same story in which nobody died but a sheep and a gazelle were poisoned. This is a grazing rights dispute.
And whatever is going on there, it ain’t like Kenya was.
WarrenW, how do you maintain that the IDF and the settlers are two different groups of people? The IDF is a volunteer force isn’t it, a bit like you National Guard? I’ve read that there are whole sections of the IDF that are settler-only. Maybe somebody can give better particulars. I know more about Kenya those days than I know about Israel now. For your information there was a settler regiment called the Kenya Regiment in those days.
WarrenW, how do you maintain that the IDF and the settlers are two different groups of people? The IDF is a volunteer force isn’t it, a bit like you National Guard? I’ve read that there are whole sections of the IDF that are settler-only.
The IDF is a conscript force; all Jewish, Druze and Circassian citizens serve three years of active duty from age 18 and are then in the reserves until age 45. (Arab citizens are exempted from mandatory service but can serve if they wish.)
I don’t believe that, at this time, there are any ‘settler-only’ units of the IDF. At one point, there were ‘territorial’ reserve units of the IDF made up largely of settlers – the settlements were originally envisioned as defensive outposts somewhat like Roman coloni – but the unit structure has since been reorganized. I believe this happened during the 1980s or 1990s. Currently, there are certain units that are settler-heavy, such as those that draw from the national-religious yeshivot, but they aren’t territorially organized and most of their members are from within Israel. As far as I know, the settlers aren’t currently organized into any military or paramilitary formation, although I could be wrong about that.
BTW, if you’re thinking of the kind of settler paramilitary units that existed in Angola and the former Rhodesia, then I’m pretty sure those haven’t existed in Israel since sometime in the early Oslo era.
Hi Jonathan.
I’m not a military person. Conscript is the word, not volunteer. The Kenya Regiment’s existence coincided with the British “national service”, compulsory military service for able-bodied young people, like Israel now, I presume. So I would presume that all settlers from outside the recognised borders of Israel would have to do time in the IDF like any Israeli would. Or not? I don’t know. Perhaps they are exempt and have the best of both worlds – the protection of the IDF without the obligation of serving in it. But I doubt if that is the case. Which means that WarrenW cannot say that it’s all IDF as if the settlers aren’t involved in the IDF.
My strong impression on this is as follows:
(1) Settlers are subject to the same conscription laws as other Israeli citizens… These give an “out” for certain groups of ultra-observant Orthodox Jews (haredim) on the grounds that the men in these communities are generally involved in VERY long-term religious study in yeshivot and the women are, of course, home having married young and started their families young.
(2) The haredim make up a not-large proportion of settlers (except in the East Jerusalem settlements that many Israelis don’t even “consider” to be settlements any more… another story.) Most of the observant Jews in the settlements are “national-religious”, a label that implies that they DO serve in the IDF, which does still have some special units that allow the “national-religious” tocombine their army service with some religious studies etc. There are many national-religious in the West Bank settlements; not many in in Gaza or Golan.
(3) Each settlement (outside E. Jeruslaem) has its own guard system, which is a combination of people from the settlement itself doing a rotation there, and private, corporate guards hired to supplement that effort and paid by the Israeli central government. It is these settlement “home guards” who are accused of having committed many of the violations, including beating up Palestinians, poisoning Palestinian livestock, etc etc. The settlement guards in the West Bank have “coordination” with the IDF Central Command, and are networked together. This is slightly different than forming a single terrirotially-based unit covering the whole WB, which was tried earlier.
(4) Of course all Israeli citizens in the OPTs, whether IDF, home guard, or civilian, receive the full due protections of Israeli law. Palestinians of the whole region (except east Jerusalem) are by contrast ruled under Israeli military regulations and have considerably less protections under the law…
I was under the impression that the home guard functions have been taken over by the IDF proper, but again I could be wrong.
And then again there is the settler ideology which as I understand it is promoted amongst all the Israelis and currently epecially in the form of flying orange flags from cars &c. These orange Israeli settler-supporting flags can also be seen in Johannesburg, with inscriptions in Israeli language, which I can’t read. The rival blue flags that I have heard of are not seen here. I gather the “blue” movement is not nearly so strong as the “orange” (settler) faction.
I presume the agenda of the orange flag-wavers is unconditional support for Israeli expansionism, as violent as it may be.
I gather the “blue” movement is not nearly so strong as the “orange” (settler) faction.
No, the orange faction is just a lot more fanatic and vocal, like militant minorities are everywhere. Polls in Israel have consistently shown majorities against the settler movement, and their support has declined as they have gone further outside the bounds of the law. They’re very good at organizing, making noise and conducting publicity stunts, but these days it’s a hollow front.
I also wouldn’t say that a “settler ideology” is “promoted amongst all the Israelis,” although I’m not entirely sure what you mean by this – are you saying that the government is promoting such an ideology?
WarrenW, you didn’t even read the excerpt I posted from the B’tselem report, let alone the report itself.
You see what you want to see. You already had made up your mind before any evidence was presented, for doctrinal reasons. There’s little point in talking to you.
Jonathan, you say yourself that the Israeli settlers are good at organising and making noises. That’s what I mean. I live near the Balfour Park Mall in Johannesburg, named after the “declaration” Balfour, and there are a lot of Jewish people living round here. I am quite certain that pro-settler propaganda reaches here, because I have seen the orange flags flying.
I suspect that wherever there are Jews, including of course Israel, this controversy is raging. Of course I wish that the peaceniks win out.
As to the political effect of settler propaganda, this is a matter of judgement. I don’t rate opinion polls very highly as a measure of that, or anything. What matters, to use an Israeli phrase, is the “facts on the ground”.
In general I think you are wrong to dismiss any kind of organised movement, big or small, reactionary or revolutionary. This is the stuff that politics is made of. Are you arguing a “silent majority”? Majorities are animated by organisers. If the blues are being eclipsed by the orange in public in Israel, my guess is that they are losing ground, unfortunately. Time will tell.
On another post, you write of “live issues” in Kenya. You are quite right about that. That’s another minority.
As to the political effect of settler propaganda, this is a matter of judgement. I don’t rate opinion polls very highly as a measure of that, or anything. What matters, to use an Israeli phrase, is the “facts on the ground”.
I don’t only rely on opinion polls (which I agree are of doubtful accuracy). Among the facts on the ground I have noticed are the following:
I could go on at some length, but my bottom-line impression is that, as the settler movement becomes more extreme and subversive, it has increasingly alienated itself from the public (even on the center-right).
In general I think you are wrong to dismiss any kind of organised movement, big or small, reactionary or revolutionary.
I don’t dismiss them. The settler movement is well-organized, fanatic, ruthless and politically connected, which makes it very dangerous. (One reason I give Sharon his due is that he’s one of the very few Israeli politicians, on the left as well as the right, who’s enough of a bastard to beat them.)
My quarrel is with your statement that “the ‘blue’ movement is not nearly so strong as the ‘orange’ (settler) faction.” In a head-to-head struggle, this is not so. The settler movement has survived and exercised power precisely by avoiding such a struggle, and now that one is under way, they’re losing.
Are you arguing a “silent majority”?
Not really. If you follow the Israeli media and discussion forums, the majority is far from silent. However, there are certain reasons the majority is not as vocal as the settlers:
This is hardly an unusual pattern in my experience. When the settlers had the reins of power, you heard very little from them on the streets, and the demonstrations came mostly from the left. Now that they are becoming marginalized, they have grown more vocal and extreme, but from my standpoint that is a sign of declining rather than increasing influence.
Jonathan,
The facts on the ground I meant were the numbers of actual settlers in place, the restricted roads for their use, and the wall. The wall is growing. The roads I think are growing too. I’ll be surprised if the number of settlers is not still growing. Your blues may be a majority by calculation but they are losing. We don’t know what is going to happen in Gaza. We must hope for the best but fear the worst.
The facts on the ground I meant were the numbers of actual settlers in place, the restricted roads for their use, and the wall. The wall is growing. The roads I think are growing too. I’ll be surprised if the number of settlers is not still growing.
I’m not sure about the roads, but you’re right about the wall and the settlers. Even here, though, there are trends that show that the settler movement is not achieving its goals.
For instance, although the total population of the WB settlements has grown, this growth has not been even. The great majority of the growth has occurred in Ma’ale Adumim, the Etzion bloc and the large towns along the seam line – i.e., in the areas designated to Israel in the Taba proposal. A third of the total Israeli population growth in the WB during 2004 occurred in the single settlement of Modi’in Ilit, a primarily haredi town which is right across the Green Line. In contrast, the majority of the settlements in the deep West Bank and Jordan Valley lost population or remained static.
Also, when considered in terms of land area rather than population, the WB settlements have not grown in several years. Moreover, according to Peace Now, new construction permits are being issued only in the settlements to the west of the fence while construction projects to the east have been quietly stopped.
Now, I’m not saying any of this is a good thing. I don’t think there should be any construction or movement of people across the Green Line until the final status of the territory is resolved through negotiation. I think it’s a bad thing that the settlements were ever built in the first place. What the current trends do show, however, is that the settler movement’s goal to create a “Greater Israel” throughout the West Bank is not being realized. Instead, the growth is all on the 7 percent of the West Bank that is within the wall while the other 93 percent is being slowly abandoned. There are no new facts on the ground; at most, some of the existing ones (and not all of them!) are being reinforced.
Likewise with the wall. It is being built, and built in the wrong place. But contrast the original route of the wall, which would have annexed 45 percent of the West Bank, with the current 7 percent route. For that matter, compare the currently planned route with the Taba map. The settler movement found it politically impossible to build their preferred route, not to mention that the courts refused to countenance it.
Again, I’m not defending the unilateral annexation of 7 percent of the West Bank. I have no desire to defend it! But achieving 7 percent of one’s goals is usually not considered “winning.” The trends show that Greater Israel is dead. The only question at this point is how much more the settler movement will lose. First things first – let’s get the pullout done, make the settlers show themselves for what they are and break their political power. Then we can push for the next stage.
Again, I’m not defending the unilateral annexation of 7 percent of the West Bank. I have no desire to defend it! But achieving 7 percent of one’s goals are usually not considered “winning.” The trends show that Greater Israel is dead. The only question at this point is how much more the settler movement will lose. First things first – let’s get the pullout done, make the settlers show themselves for what they are and break their political power. Then we can push for the next stage.
Jonathan,
I’ve taken due notice that you aren’t supporting the building of the wall on its actual layout and I’m glad of it. But when you say that only 7% of the goal of former settlers have been granted and that they are loosing, one has to look at what these 7% of lands are : the places in the desert aren’t as important as those in urban/suburban areas. Nor are all agricultural lands the same. Then there is also the question of water. I trust Sharon to have grabbed as much as he can; I think that the places he discarded were too difficult/costly to secure. I agree with you that the idea of Great Israel is gone (but for extremists). However Sharon is trying to use the presence of hawks in Washington in order to grab as much land as possible, without any reguards for the Palestinians.
BTW, the UN Security council is going to discuss a report on the building of the wall to-day. The report has been asked from Switzerland. But our foreign minister hasn’t yet disclosed its content. Well that will probably result in another UN condemnation of the Israelian government, without any practical effect on the ground. Only the US can put pressure on the Israelians and they won’t, at least as long as the Bushies are there.
Christiane, I think we basically agree on what Sharon wants. From where I sit, it looks like Sharon’s goal is to unilaterally impose Taba, with a few adjustments (he wants to keep much more of East Jerusalem and possibly the Hebron settlement, although I don’t see how the latter is logistically possible). And in case I haven’t already made my views clear, I’m opposed to this plan; I think Taba would be a fair settlement if agreed to by the Palestinians, but neither the Taba borders nor any other borders should be imposed unilaterally.
The issue under debate, though, is whether the current facts on the ground – construction, population, organizational strength vis-a-vis the state, etc. – show that the settler movement is “winning” or “losing.” That’s hard to determine without a clear definition of what “winning” means, but it seems like the settlers are losing on all but 7 percent of the West Bank. Whatever the morality or legality of annexing that 7 percent may be, I doubt that the settler movement would consider it a “win” if Israel’s final borders consisted of the 1949 armistice line plus a few suburbs and parts of East Jerusalem. The settlers have lost – even Sharon isn’t pushing their agenda any more – but they just don’t know it yet.
“Israelian government” — I just knew the Raelians were behind it!
Many generalizations about Israeli politics and trends from the likes of Dominic, who freely acknowledges ignorance of the “Israeli language.” That language, by the way, is Hebrew. No matter.
Might help to first grasp Hams ideology, which is frankly, starkly anti-Semitic. You don’t need to be conversant in the “Palestinian language,” you can find the Hamas Charter in English from a variety of sources, including here.
‘The Day of Judgment will not come about until Moslems fight Jews and kill them. Then, the Jews will hide behind rocks and trees, and the rocks and trees will cry out:’ O Moslem, there is a Jew hiding behind me; come and kill him’. (Article 7)
‘The land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Holy Possession] consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day. No one can renounce it or any part, or abandon it or any part of it.’ (Article 11)
Etc. So: which side is ideologically intransigent?
Many generalizations about Israeli politics and trends from the likes of Dominic,
yes and you’ll note these same people have precious little to say about HAMAS and Hezbollah qua “Islamic militias” confusing them for some kind of anti-colonial ‘people’s movement.’ Maybe this stems from a language issue as well: Dominic, Hezbollah means “party of god” in arabickian and HAMAS is an acronym for Islamic resistance movement. So what were you saying earlier about a ‘rooted opposition to confessional politics?’
”If the Prime Minister seriously wants to root out the causes of terror, he should expel Livingstone once more from the Labour party