Re: [Marxism] the right of the victim to use violence

["Lüko Willms" <lueko.willms@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, 18 Jan 2009 14:23:32 -0500, sartesian wrote:

>  First, do the settlers in a settler state qualify as civilians,
> noncombatants?
> 
>  Then  is it conceivable that an oppressed group might have a tactical
> reason for attacking civilians?

   Let me quote from Al Jazeera's website:

> 
<http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/01/200916191833159347.
html>

------- cut ----------------------------
        
Israel's 'colonial tactics' decried


Azmi Bishara, an Arab-Israeli analyst and former member of the Israeli 
parliament, has lashed out at the Israeli media campaign being run alongside 
its war on Gaza that criminalises the victims and victimises the coloniser.

Speaking to Al Jazeera on Tuesday , Bishara said Israel's war on Gaza was 
disproportionate and punishes the Palestinian people for  refusing to bow to 
Israel's fait-accompli in the strip.

"Usually people are pushed to collective punishment because they want to 
punish resistance movements or national liberation movements."

"That's usually what colonial powers did, and that's what Israel is doing."

Bishara said the majority of Gazans are refugees, whose ancestors used to 
live in what is now Israel.

"Everybody knows that 75 per cent of the people of Gaza are refugees. 
Everybody knows that Israel disengaged from Gaza militarily, but occupies it 
economically and politically and also it besieges Gaza militarily."

"Israel would say, 'what would any normal country do if they were threatened 
by rocket fire? They would act'."

"But Israel is not a normal country, it is an occupying country, a colonial 
country and the people of Gaza are under siege."

'Punishing democracy'

Bishara said that Palestinians are being punished for choosing Hamas in the 
January 2006 democratic elections and accused Israeli officials for 
dramatising their lies.

"Shimon Peres, the Israeli president, should be asked, 'What would you do if 
your house is besieged and you can't feed your child, can't go to school, and 
can't take them to the doctors and physicians when they are ill.'"

"I consider Hamas rockets a protest shout, they haven't hurt many, only the 
few. They are weapons of the poor, used to express their will."

"What brought the war was the siege. When colonial powers have historically 
gone to occupy countries, siege has always been a weapon. Siege is a 
military action at the beginning of war."

"When it did not work to break the will of the Palestinian people... Israel 
realised that the rockets were a response to the siege, and they went to the 
next phase which was direct military aggression, which is actually now 
directed against civilians to punish them for their democratic choice."

"What I think will happen is a ceasefire that will mean an end to the siege if 
the rockets stop. It will happen after the deaths of so many people."

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Comradely yours, 
Lüko Willms
Frankfurt, Germany
--------------------------------

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