Re: marxism-digest V1 #2898

[WWP-SF <wwpsf@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Ariana,

Are you aware that all of the fighting you see on the news -- all the
images of Israeli soldiers, tanks and helicopters firing on Palestinian
civilians -- is taking place inside the occupied West Bank and Gaza? The
right of people to resist occupation by any means at their disposal is
well-recognized, even under bourgeois international law.

I was in the West Bank and Gaza in late October and early November and had
the privilege of witnessing the new Intifada first-hand. The Palestinians
have risen up in a mass struggle against the U.S.-Israeli colonialist
occupation which oppresses them in every conceivable way. The Palestinians
control only the major cities and towns, and are surrounded by Israeli
armor, airpower and troops, with their extralegal, paramilitary, terrorist
bands -- the settlers. The media here has not begun to convey what is
really happening on the ground. The Israeli army, with their far superior
firepower, regularly fire rockets, tank cannon and heavy machine guns into
Palestinian residential areas, while the settlers roam the countryside
attacking Palestinian farmers, villages and vehicles. Fighting back under
these conditions is indeed heroic, but it is a heroism which we observed to
be very common among the Palestinian people.

You seem to want to draw an equal sign between the Israeli occupiers and
those resisting occupation. Would you also do the same in regard to the
Nazi occupation and the French or Yugoslav or Italian resistance in World
War II, or the Japanese occupiers and the Chinese resistance in the same
war? Your position is the equivalent of blaming the Vietnamese for
resisting the U.S. occupation and war on their land. The only just answer
in each case was for the occupiers to get out. The same is true here.

There is not going to be peace in the Middle East until there is justice
for the Palestinians. And "justice"  has very specific, minimum conditions:
A real Palestinians state with contiguous territory and control over its
own borders, not broken up chunks of land separated from each other by
Israeli settlements, forts and bypass roads; a Palestinian state with
Jerusalem as its capital; and the right to return for the millions of
Palestinians and their descendants forcibly expelled in 1948-49, 1967 and
at other times.

Richard Becker






At 11/23/00, ariana vigil wrote:



> >forcing Israel to adhere to the
> >consensus of the international
> >community, which recognized the inconvenient fact that Israel alone has
> >been the aggressor.
>
>bullshit.  i'm sorry, but that's just bullshit.  look, i'm not denying
>that israel is guilty of many instances of excessive and brutal force
>against palestinians, but i would never go so far as to say that israel is
>the sole aggressor.  i know the cnn pictures of armed israeli soldiers
>facing groups of unarmed palestinian youths look bad, but how should the
>israeli soldiers respond to crowds of protestors throwing stones and
>molotov cocktails?  throw stones back? give me a break.
>
>i have a question - a post awhile back mentioned something about a
>"two-state solution." what other solution is there?  the complete
>eradication of israel?  how exactly is that justifiable, let alone practical?
>
>(god, i have a feeling i'm going to get ripped to shreds for this, but i
>just had to say something.)
>
>
>
>a.v.
>
>
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