Fisk: Bush Legitimizes Terrorism
So President George Bush tears up the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan and that’s okay. Israeli settlements for Jews and Jews only on the West Bank. That’s okay. Taking land from Palestinians who have owned that land for generations, that’s okay. UN Security Council Resolution 242 says that land cannot be acquired by war. Forget it. That’s okay.
—Robert Fisk in The Independent by way of Counterpunch
From
http://tinylink.com/?7Rbcu5oSxj
“Former United States Ambassador to Israel, Martin Indyk, told the Los Angeles Times that there was nothing new in Bush’s remarks except for the fact that they made it easier for Sharon to leave Gaza. That “will set precedents — for the full evacuation of Israeli settlements and for full withdrawal — and that is actually far more important than what the president said today.” Getting out of Gaza is a good thing for Israelis and for Palestinians. To a large extent, the rest amounts to rhetoric, rhetoric which will take a back seat when actual Israeli-Palestinian negotiations begin.”
Counterpunch is a worthless resource for this discussion. I have seen nothing in their pages that does anything but broadly demonize Zionism and Israel by reducing the entire movement and the nation-state it brought about to the most dystopian tendencies of its most Revisionist elements. I am not calling for a ban on Counterpunch. But do we have to treat writers such as Fisk and Neumann as if they approach these issues with anything like good faith?
Another view, from Yoel Marcus of Ha’aretz at
http://tinylink.com/?YPDWGVhdgp
“It’s no accident that the people who oppose evacuating the Gaza Strip are the same people who opposed peace with Egypt: Arens, Shamir, Geula Cohen, Tzachi Hanegbi, who barricaded himself on a water tower in Yamit. Where would we be today if they were in the majority? Where will we be tomorrow if opponents of the disengagement plan win?”
mobius posts a fisk column, a man so vile the term “fisking” is used to describe the analysis of a columnist to reveal his utter deceitfulness. mobius is such an anti semite…
Good Avi, because throwing that around doesn’t water down the meaning of the term, doesn’t put gentiles on edge when we use it and it’s actually true. That mobius posts such trash is disappointing to me, but it doesn’t mean he is a self-hater. Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to call people names? Making an accusation based on facts is one thing. Posting intestinally inflammatory remakes is a waste of time. Must like the religious extremists who wear kaffiyehs and kippot.
first of all, i think both of you could benefit from a reading of the edtior’s note i added to the sidebar well over a week ago.
secondly, i don’t post this stuff because i agree with it, i post it, #1. because it’s provocative and forces you to think, #2. because it provides alternative perspectives to those projected by the mainstream, and #3. because it’s good fodder for left-oriented discussion, which is essentially the theme of discussion on this site.
no one asks you to agree with what these authors says, i’m just looking to foster intelligent conversation on the topics presented in these editorials.
if you want to drop the “A”-bomb (“antisemite”), that’s your prerogative, but it doesn’t seem to hold much water considering i’m the guy who successfully led the campaign to knock jew watch off the top slot on google.
I see a lot of attacking the messenger and little if any challenging of anything written in the article
Babylonian and mo,
But my question remains, where is the good faith in Fisk’s approach to the subject? If Sharon finds a way to withdraw from Gaza, and begin withdrawal from the West Bank, then how in the world is this a “legalization of terror”? The entire tone of the article suggests that anything with the stink of Bush on it has no potential and must be opposed. I get the impression that the folks at Counterpunch would even rather see the defeat of Tony Blair and a return of the Thatcherites if it means a black eye for Bush. This is madness. There is no Left to orient to anymore.
I took Fisk to mean that by putting realities on the ground ahead of Palestinians’ right of return (which could include return of expropriated land within the Territories and title claimed by those outside Israel and the Territories)Bush was endorsing civilian disenfranchisment through acts of war.
I’ll read it again, though.
I haven’t yet read the article, but I have a question. 242 was passed in Nov of 67, few months after the six-day-war was over. I’m not a lawyer, but isn’t declaring what Israel did illegal a case of an ex post facto law. Was their precedent saying you couldn’t take territory in a war? I can’t find it cited in 242, but maybe that’s not how UN resolutions work.
Not acquiring territory by war is in the Geneva Convention. But since the war was defensive, and since Israel’s enemies did not agree to make peace until 6 or 30 years later(respectively), the situation gets more complicated legally. In any case, 242 is about ‘land for peace.’ As in, not one without the other.