Bobby,

To preface, I appreciate your informed post. However, I think you've misunderstood me entirely. I said something to the effect that I suppose one *could make the argument that Israel has occupied Palestinian lands for five decades. I don't, however, believe the argument is valid. The phrase "five decades" is a significant shorthand, there. The historical exigencies include, of course, the holocaust of the Jews. Whether or not a wrong was perpetrated on a pre-existing Arab population from the West Bank to the Mediterranian in 1948 is, at best, an open question. That the survival of the Jews was in question, or could at least reasonably have been thought to have been in question, is plain, and wtih my shorthand, I intentionally by-passed that question. I am concerned with the facts of today, when the visitation of violence is not unilateral. For my own people, the spectre of the holocaust as mask, as proof of our moral superiority and victimhood is simply grotesque. Behind the tale of our legendary (and real) suffering, we hide actions which can only remind of actions perpetrated by those who wrought that suffering on us. That acknowledgment is in no way meant to suggest innocence on the part of the Palestinians. I mean only to remove the moral posturing from the exercise of power--on either side. I believe, too, that I suggested that if the Palestinians have enemies in the Middle East, those enemies exist in regimes other than the Israeli, too.

For the Jews, it seems to me that the terrible irony of the Israeli state is that if it succeeds, it can probably only succeed in destroying the very people it was meant to preserve.

Here, I will add the same caveat you did: it is late and I can only touch on these arguments.

Finally, I would suggest that the question of the Israeli and Palestinian states is peripheral to what is happening here (in New York), today. Today's events transcend nationalism and bigotry. They involve the antagonistic world views of secularism and religious fundamentalism. That, of course, is a fortune cookie assessment, but in this forum, points of view must be assembled in bits and pieces.

IP

here is a URL for alternative positions. my inclusion of it here does not necessarilly mean I support any views stated there.

http://www.alternet.org