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Heaven On Earth
A Taste of the Palestinian Narrative: Gaza Violence a “Prison Riot”
If you want to know what “Palestinians” think about their own internecine violence, here’s an eye-opener: it’s Israel’s fault! (I’m not kidding.) Now granted the author is the Executive director, National Council on Canada Arab Relations, and therefore more playing his role of demopath defending the Palestinian victim narrative from losing its grip on the Western imagination, but still, one has to admire the logic here. Self-criticism? Not.
Maybe he says something different in private.
This is not a civil war. It is a prison riot’
SAMAH SABAWIGlobe and Mail Print Edition 04/06/07 Page A13
GAZA: 40 YEARS AFTER OCCUPATION
Like mice in a laboratory, the people of Gaza squabble, looking for ways out
SAMAH SABAWIJune 4, 2007
‘Don’t forget us!” has become a standard way for my uncle in Gaza to end his conversations when we call him from the comfort of our home in Ottawa. So, this week, as we mark the anniversary of 40 years of Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, his
plea should not go unheard.
Is there an implicit underlying assertion here that before the 40 years of occupation, we were alright? Like Egypt wasn’t an occupier… and far more brutal and oppressive than the Israelis?
Anyone who has family in Gaza understands well what lies behind the headlines. For at least a year, my in-laws urged us to visit them there, hoping that a visit from the outside world would break their isolation, and that the sight of their grandchildren would bring a sense of normality to their lives and lighten up their dreary existence. Even though we had a dismal chance of being allowed to enter through the tightly controlled Gaza gates, we still planned to try this summer.
You can imagine our shock when, two months ago, we heard my in-laws saying: “Don’t come; it is no longer safe.” My in-laws, like many in Gaza, were not surprised to see the heightened level of violence between Palestinian factions in what is described here as “internal fighting.” The conflict in Gaza is not a fight born of sectarian tensions, since the vast majority of the population are Sunni Muslims. In fact, the families in Gaza are connected through an intricate social web, and I grew up with the Gazan joke that all Gazans are blood relatives. The violence is not purely political either – it is not unusual for a family to have members who are affiliated with the religious Hamas movement and others who are affiliated with the secular Fatah. People in Gaza know this is a special kind of war, a war that is funded by outside sources and fuelled by poverty and desperation.
The conflict started as a power struggle between Hamas and Fatah – with Fatah being under immense pressure from the United States and Israel to strip Hamas of its power. But Palestinians also know that now the fighting has gotten out of hand. Neither Hamas nor Fatah has much success maintaining any ceasefire as frustrated youths, born in the Gaza pressure-cooker with no future prospects and no hope in sight, take over the streets. My cousin described it best: “This is not a civil war. It is a prison riot.”
This “prison riot” was inevitable.
So the Palestinians had no choice. This is an internal version of the “progressive” take on the conflict in which Palestinians have no agency, can’t do anything but… in this case kill each other, including children and old ladies. By this logic, the Warsaw Ghetto between 1940-43 should have been a killing zone where Jews and Jews — who often joke how they are all one family — would wipe each other out.
After Hamas’s victory in the Palestinian elections early last year, Israel and the international community starved and imprisoned the 1.4 million Palestinians living inside Gaza in hope that they would overthrow an increasingly helpless and besieged Hamas government. It was a cruel act that meant collectively punishing an occupied people by attaching strings to badly needed aid.
You would not know from this that the Hamas government was bent on the destruction of Israel, lobbing shells at any Israelis their (fortunately) limited artillery could reach, and religiously intolerant. No, these folks, whose belligerent rhetoric and actions are part and parcel of their identity, were “helpless and besieged” — more of the “victim narrative.”
In the ensuing months, Palestinians found themselves in a unique situation. They were sealed off from the rest of the world, faced shortages of food, water and medicine, suffered high unemployment rates and lived in conditions not fit for animals. The only form of an income for many of Gaza’s youths was to join one militia or another. The more powerless the government became, the more powerful the militias got. Those who did not join a militia had to be in the protection of one. Many in Gaza began to wonder why at a time when basic painkillers were not getting through the Israeli controlled borders, so many guns became available.
In case you don’t understand, this “many in Gaza began to wonder…” is the beginning of a conspiracy theory: the Israelis are letting in weapons so the Gazans will kill each other. Of course, if the Gazans weren’t so fratricidal, those weapons might be turned on Israelis, so the logic makes little sense. But conspiratorial logic doesn’t need to hold the road: Bush can be an idiot and pull of 9-11 within 9 months of taking office…
Maybe the answer to this “question” lies in the values Gazans cherish: if they get a chance to smuggle (through the Egyptian Border tunnels), it’ll be guns rather than medicine.
Displays of power have always been more important to Hamas than the safety of their people.
More and more Palestinian intellectuals began to refer to this as the “Gaza Experiment.” Like mice in a laboratory, Gazans squabbled, looking for ways out. Every day, the pressure rose, the need to feed the family became more immediate and the sick began to die. While my mother-in-law was forced to endure the horrific pain of arthritis without treatment for many months, she still was thankful that her fate is better than that of others. My sister-in-law, a physician at the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, told me several months ago that a badly needed shipment of medication for cancer patients was held up for weeks at the Gaza gates. By the time it was finally allowed through, 35 high-risk cancer patients at the hospital had died.
And of course, the civil way out was never on the table, the idea that you stop your insane war with Israel, put an end to the rockets, stop the teaching of hatred, cease the attempts at suicide terror that recruit women treated in Israeli hospitals to go back and blow those places up. That simply wouldn’t do. After all, it might have a significant impact on the lives of the children of Gaza, to whose heartbreaking tale we now turn.
The story of the children in Gaza is even more heartbreaking. Many of them no longer find a reason to attend school and have turned to the streets for money. Some sell cigarettes or gum, and others steal for their daily bread. Israeli sonic booms in Gaza’s sky have always thrown fear into their hearts – a reminder of who has the power and who does not – but, lately, the booms have come from a return of Israeli shelling.
My young cousins in Gaza may not know how to read, but they know the different warplanes and what they are capable of doing. They brag that they are able to recognize a rifle by the sound of its shots.
So while the world looks with indignation at the situation in Gaza, let us not exonerate ourselves from the events that are unfolding. We can’t forget there are human beings living in that highly politicized strip of land. We have turned our eyes away from their miserable reality. While boycotting a government because of its political positions is legitimate, it is immoral to put conditions on aid needed to save lives. It is also immoral to deliberately sow the seeds of violence and to interfere with a genuine democratic process.
And it is equally immoral to turn our attention away from the fact that 40 years later, the people of Gaza and the West Bank have still not been freed from their giant prison cell.
Samah Sabawi
Executive director, National Council on Canada Arab Relations
I didn’t notice one clause of self-criticism. Did I miss it?
This man is a sheer liar. He’s right out of the Goebbels School of Falsification. He claims that “the borders” of Gaza are “Israeli controlled.” This is a very Big Lie, just what Der Fuehrer’s Minister von die Lugen would have apppreciated. Unfortunately, Israel does not control the Egyptian border with Gaza. It is controlled by “palestinian authority” armed police with unarmed EU monitors, who are there by agreement with Israel. The Euros are supposed to monitor what goes into Gaza so that weapons and ammunition do not go in without Israeli approval. I don’t know of any restrictions on Arabs going in or out unless these persons are non grata to the PA. Meanwhile, beaucoup weapons and ammo are being brought into Gaza through the tunnels under the border with Egypt, which Mubarak doesn’t seem much inclined to stop or prevent or slow down. Sabawi pretends not to know about the tunnels. Neither the Yanks nor the Euros nor the PA police seem much perturbed by weapons getting into Gaza.
Further, the claim of Gaza being a big prison is a lie, since Arabs and others go in and out through the Egyptian border, whether through the official border crossing or through the tunnels. However, when Egypt, led by Nasser, ruled Gaza up to June 1967, it was difficult for Gaza residents to get permits to leave. It was hard for them to even get into Egypt legally. Whereas many folk from Judea-Samaria [West Bank] were allowed by Jordan to go to Kuwait, etc., the Egyptians wanted to keep the refugees from leaving Gaza. This Sabawi character again utters big lies.
Just one more note, RL, I believe that the Arabs and their Western friends and sponsors are deploying not merely a “victim narrative” but a Jesus narrative, a crucifixion narrative. And that is part of the reason why their “narrative” has such resonance in the West.
RL, you say quite colorfully that the Arab narrative has a “grip on the Western imagination.” Indeed. I would add to my remarks in the post above that the Jesus narrative or crucifixion narrative is really much like a medieval passion play. In those plays, Jesus is an innocuous, innocent person who suffers a passion, is crucified, by –Guess whom?– by the Jews. Now Jesus is identified as a “palestinian” or as The Palestinians collectively, while He or They are crucified by –those called Zionists or Israelis or even –Yahud [by Arabs] or “Jews” by the most progressive and advanced Western persons of conscience.
RL,
As a Christian, grafted in to the root of Abraham, praise God in His mercy, I add my voice to Eliyahu in this never ending deconstruction that makes every person or group into the “New & Improved Jesus”.
In the mid 80′s, I became aware of a “religious” speaker on a Black university radio station, proclaiming that the black man was the new Jew. His bigoted spewing was anti-Jewish to the core as he placed the mantle of holocaust upon his own shoulders.
I believe this to be the voice of the Anti-Christ, as a grafted in gentile, it is the devourer calling himself the devoured. This is darkness calling itself light. The Beast with a microphone as his horn.
My eyes and heart are turned to Jerusalem.
Eliyahu, i don’t think it’s appropriate to pull out the big guns — “Goebbels school of falsification.” granted that the israelis have shut down only three of the four sides of the gazan rectangle, and the author has not included the other side. but i think that a) there is a strong element of israeli containment of gaza (by sea, by air, on two of three land sides), and b) that the egyptians are also not eager to open borders, but in large part that’s because the gazans are toxic and no one wants to deal with them.
but i’d save “the big lie” for big lies. it’s important to keep your powder dry. same with pogrebin.
I am no expert on christian mythology. Just few technical words. Generally medical supplies come to Gaza through Erez crossing. Lately and for a long time previously Erez crossing is constantly under fire. So the supplies are not transferred regularily and refrigerated supplies spoil. There are some SOB on both sides (too many) who do not care but enough people on both side do care, some because they lose money others because they are human beings other from both reasons. It was suggested in very unofficial, person to personn talks by Israeli minor officials to Pal. minor officials that the Erez crossing will be not be bombed, mortared ect, even unofficially, even few times a week. Nothing doing. I am not talking about peace, I am not talking about Hudna, nor about official truce. I am talking about bribing some body who can assure that at a certain time medical supplies will be able to go through. No body from Gaza, official or unofficial, can assure that. This much about medical supllies. Still the UN and UNRWA are passing all the time and they are bringing a lot of medical supplies. The ME being ME I am sure the rich and the elite (the writer family) and every body else who has political power and money (some people have a lot of money as in any place where there are a lot of poor) can get many medical supplies that are not available generally. I would say, knowing what I am talking about, that medically speaking the 20 years after the Egyptian rull were the best ever in the history of Gaza. This is not the situation now, all of you know why. It is an active war zone. but it is not a medical catastrophy the situation is better than in many parts of the ME. Some body said Iraq.
Hunger.
Hunger is a clinically defined syndrome. Blood test, urine tests, skin color, gums, teeth, ect. There are very many good and capable MD in Gaza who hate deeply any thing Israeli (some of the most murderous Pal. are MD, this is life or rather this is death) If there were any clinical signs of hunger in Gaza the noise, all over the world, would have busted your ears. Pictures of hungry children are comming from Africa. Not such pictures have ever come of Gaza. As any layman or expert who look at pictures from Gaza will tell there is no starvation there.
Do not belive me but ask any good MD to read the letter from Gaza. As for the political situation and the about Gaza being one big loving family the letter is as far from the truth as can be but I have written enough.
Well, what was the story in the 1930′s? Wasn’t there terrible internecine violence then too?
Also, I believe Palestinian factions are fighting other Palestinian factions in Lebanon.
So?
Regarding the hold on western imagination, here’s one analysis of the problem:
http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/016820.php#more
#4 RL,
granted that the israelis have shut down only three of the four sides
is too simplistic given that before Hamas resorted to the violence there were open borders.
The crossing points that permitted the movement of men and merchandise were only closed under duress of the bombings, shootings and terror infiltration.
The sea proved just a point for the Iranians to dump the arms for the “fishermen” to go to work.
As to the Egyptians not being eager about open borders; Egyptian behaviour is not so simply described.
Why did they permit the Gazans to have a run of the border, after Israel pulled out, for a week in which to move the tons of arms etc., stockpiled in Sinai over the top?
They have to put on a front otherwise it would be too obvious to Foggy Bottom that they are conniving …
There was a Hezbollah – Palestinian connection before the media noticed something, when they were perfecting those so called “IEDs” against Israeli tanks in Gaza and which knowledge was later passed on to be used in Iraq. A lot passed through those tunnels, not just arms and drugs.
You know now that Hamas has come to power and foreign countries cut off international aid for a while, the corruption and in-fighting of Palestinian politics is coming to light. The horrors of Palestinian rule is hitting home even to the Palestinians, and some are becoming more self-critical.
I think that we don’t really need to do anything drastic at all to improve the situation in Palestine. We only need to maintain our current policy of no foreign aid. We shouldn’t give aid to the Palestinian government at all, even if Hamas does back off its position to destroy Israel.
The flood of undeserved cash breeds corruption but masks the inefficiency of their political system. If the West would only let the Palestinian political systems hang out to dry, we might see a more accountable government arise out of Palestine in the future.
It doesn’t mean that aid should completely end, but rather individuals shouldn’t give any of it to their government. If someone wants to build schools or build infrastructure, give money to such causes directly instead.
not just to foggy bottom, but their own population.
all arab regimes use the hatred for israel as release valve for the hatred towards themselves. not supporting hamas or at least allowing them to import arms and money would cause them even more trouble internally than they already have.
they do crack down when they perceive a danger to their regime, but not otherwise.
RL, I don’t claim to be a certified expert on all Gaza matters. However, I believe that Egypt allows people into Egypt from Gaza if they have visas or entry papers to other countries, such as USA, Kuwait, Qatar, etc. I don’t think Egypt wants immigrants, even beloved fellow Arabs, but they allow Gaza folks to transit through Egypt to other places. Indeed, there is constant movement across the Gaza-Egypt border, both incoming and outgoing.
Now, if someone thinks that he may be persona non grata in Egypt, or does not want the PA, or EU or Egypt know that he has left Gaza, then there is the tunnel alternative. In news films that I have seen, these tunnels are fairly spacious, unfortunately.
By the way, before the hate movement called the first “intifada” started in December 1987, Arab residents of Gaza and Judea-Samaria moved fairly freely throughout all of the Land of Israel.
eliyahu,
i guess that caused some envy which contributed to the intifada later.
i may be willing to bet that if israel was in as dismal condition as the terriroties the desire to bring it down would be somewhat less acute.
one of the hardest things arab/muslim society must bear is the success of western society relative to theirs. this causes cognitive dissonance — why would allah benefit the infidels and not islam — which is in part what leads to the rationalization underlying the disregard and contempt for the infidel society as decadent and weak.
fp, you’re probably right that cognitive dissonance, not merely envy, is at work in the Arab hatred of Israel. This should be spelled out more explicitly. Muslims have been traditionally taught that Jews are the lowest of the low, besides being schemers, natural-born traitors and plotters, etc. And in practice, Jews were at the bottom of the social totem pole in Arab-Muslim-dominated society. This was true in the Land of Israel under Muslim domination, although there were periods when the Muslims feared Christian encroachment more and thus were more tolerant of Jews.
You know the old Hadith tale about the end of days when the Muslims will fight the Jews and kill them, while some Jews hide behind rocks and trees. The rocks and trees will cry out: O Muslim, a Jew is hiding behind me. Come kill him.
Yet, not only have the Jews been holding their own militarily since 1948, but they have prospered. So there you have very mighty cognitive dissonance. The way to fight it is to point out the phenomenon and spell it out in detail, including the history.
About Gazans traveling to Egypt:
Egypt lets Gazans in temporarily for several purposes, as far as I know. These include transit to other countries, tourism, visits, study [as at al-Azhar Univ in Cairo], and trade. Egypt is much more liberal with Gazan travel now than it was in the 19 years between the War of Independence and the Six Day War. In that earlier period, Gaza was much more like a prison. There was an avowed and undenied state of war between Israel and all Arab states. Gazans did not cross the Gaza armistice line into Little Pre-1967 Israel. What was worse for Gazans was that Egypt made it very difficult to leave Gaza for any purpose, although some permits were given by Egyptian authorities to Gazans. Egypt ruled Gaza then of course.
So, if anything, Gaza is much less of a “prison” now than it was up to the Six Day War. If the Arabs want a “two-state” solution [which might or might not be meant as a "final solution"] then they should not object to Israel forbiddng them from crossing the armistice line with Gaza. Actually, some Arabs are still allowed to cross from Gaza [for medical purposes, etc.], whereas before the Six Day War none at all crossed, except in acts of war by terrorist infiltrators [sponsored by the Egyptian govt].
Eliyahu,
Even after 2000 and until the Fence was started, travelling in Northern Israel one saw scores of West Bank taxis, private cars and trucks along the Afula Tiberius road.
Cynic, thanks for your testimony. Your account shows just how false is so much reporting in the Western [including American] MSM, as well as so many reports by Arab spokesmen, NGO mouthpieces, EU diplomats, etc.
well, one way to deal with the cognitive dissonance is to say we must defeat israel and kill the joos, to prove to allah that he’s right about them.
if the joos were to continue to prosper while the arabs get nowhere it would prove the quran wrong and that is a cognitive dissonance too huge to contend with.
fp, well, your description of their response to the cognitive dissonance and why is just about the way things are. Now if you could only explain this to the benighted American academics, then you would be a great hero. But I don’t know if they’d let you explain it.
eliyahu,
i have been explaining, but to an audience that cannot comprehend. they are not academics, but propagandists masquerading as such. consequently, their objective is not to understand, but to win politically. and they do, given the youth they produce.
and if you want to see what these “academics” produce, check out the comments on the finkelstein decision:
http://chronicle.com/news/article/2462/depaul-rejects-tenure-bid-by-finkelstein-and-says-dershowitz-pressure-played-no-role
the ignorance, inability to reason and political activism substituting for intellect is astounding.
fp, I looked at the Chronicle of Debased Education’s thread on the finkelshtunk affair. Without doing a precise count of the respondents, I estimate about 70-75% pro-Nazi maniacs and ignoramuses, Judeophobes, liars, veracity-challenged intellectuals, subjects of brainwashing experiments perhaps, etc. Articulate but uttering lies. It is repulsive to see these pontificate about finkelshtunk’s great contrib to scholarship, his high standards, etc. But none of them mentioned by name, by title, any particular book or article by norman f. as deserving of praise, as containing insights or previously unknown information. NF’s superior scholarship was affirmed as a generalization without any specifics, just as we are often told that Israel is a great violator of “human rights,” usually without specifics. Comparisons of Israel with Sudan, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc., are not made. Hence, we are dealing with a Judeophobic craze, an incipient pogrom. That some of these people are of Jewish origin is deplorable, but it shows just how powerful and pervasive psywar is in our times.
One of the repulsive things that I find about finkelshtunk is his accusation that Jews were somehow blackmailing the poor Swiss banks and the European insurance companies. Jews had accused Swiss banks of not allowing account holders to get to their money and of not paying heirs after the Holocaust. Now, it may well be that Swiss laws of escheat allow banks not to allow withdrawals from accounts after x number of years. So, if the survivors [account holders or heirs] who were impoverished and uncertain of their legal status, of their citizenship, after the Holocaust, were refused payouts by Swiss banks and did not have the means or time to fight for their rights after the war, then perhaps the banks could hide behind escheat laws after x years had passed. So what? Let’s not forget that Switzerland was a pro-Nazi neutral during the war. The Int’l Committee of the Red Cross [a Swiss govt agency] sent physicians to the Eastern Front to care for German troops at the start of the war. This was out of the ICRC’s deep concern for humanity other than Jews. Now, finkelshtunk comes along and charges Jews with blackmailing Swiss banks and Euro insurance companies. Disgusting. Yet self-styled “Leftists” go along with this morally offensive position, siding with the big banks and insurance companies.
eliyahu,
1st, NF would have been unknown had he not taken his position. the only reason anybody pays attention to it is because he seems “different”. this is a known technique by academics without serious intellect and contributions (new historians, behe on intelligent design, etc).
2nd, NF attacks the use of holocaust to advance one’s arguments, but he mentions it about himself everytime he talks.
3rd, the problem is not NF per-se, but rather all those who facilitated his university job and who recommended him for tenure. that he even reached that point says all you need to know about current US academia.
4th, the 70% comments you saw are mainly by student. what is scary is their total disregard for knowledge and ability to reason as a criterion for academic evaluation, not to mention public argument. they are totally devoid of it. which was my most important point: that the US academia today produces graduates who are utterly ignorant and cannot reason for 5 cents.
this is at the root of the gullibility of the us public, and the ease to which it can be manipulated. that’s exactly why you have rising anti-semitism, presidents selected rather than elected, stupid foreign policies and, in general, american decline.
when the educational system collapses, it’s over. it was the foundation of the west and by dismissing it the west has committed suicide. which is why the west will lose the conflict with islamism, unless the chinese and indians stops it.
fp, if you say that the 70% of NF sycophants are students, than that makes me a bit happier, that is, to think that it’s not the teachers or not all of them who are so mad or foolish or whatever you’d like to call it.
Of course, I saw the ignorance and inability to reason of college students way back in the 60s. What you’re saying is that it’s worse now. I don’t doubt what you say on this matter. I recall meeting some Ivy Leaguers here in Israel who should have been taking an ag college course in cow milking, or some such.
One way in which the system dumbed down the students was by undermining foreign language education, by eliminating FL as a requirement. If people could read French or Italian newspapers they’d have a better idea of what’s going on in the world. A lot of Americans would probably be insulted if I told them that the better Italian papers, for instance, are clearly better than the NYTimes. Many Americans used to enjoy looking down on “wops” in the old days. And then somebody tells them that their papers are superficial, dumbed down, barely informative, simpleminded in news “analysis,” etc., whereas Corriere, LaStampa, Il Foglio, etc. are better. LeFigaro and LeMonde are not as good as they used to be, unfortunately. Anyhow, the NYT cannot be taken seriously as a paper, except in the sense that the NYDaily News had to be taken very seriously years ago, if only because of its huge circulation. You might advise your students to learn a language enough to read the newspapers.
well, the point really was that there are quasi-professors producing schooled, but uneducated students.
and it’s not just languages. there is no longer classics, history (both international and domestic), science vs. religion, philosophy, logic.
watch any public debate and you can’t help detecting that people argue from ignorance and cannot reason. to them everything is a matter of opinions, none of which is better than the other, and that all you need to argue is instinct, intuition and personal experience.
it’s not just a matter of taking the wrong positions, but inability to distinguish truth from falsehood and knowledge from propaganda, even unawareness that there are such distinctions.
fp, well that’s a scary situation. I recall back in the US 35 years ago that democratization of education was being used as an excuse to lower standards. They dropped Foreign languages around then, for example. And a lot of the “identity” courses, like women’s studies, Black studies, and probably other fashionable fields of study too, like environmental studies, gender studies –and who knows what else– became an excuse to stress the emotional, the feelings, the sentiments, the progressive values, the opinions, the self-esteem of favored groups and the humiliation of those not favored [inc. Jews], rather than solid knowledge, logic, plus hard subjects –for some– like languages, history, political science, & so on.
Then Edward Said’s deceitful work on “Orientalism” became an excuse to disregard real historical knowledge in exchange for historical “narratives” that flattered the Arabs’ self-image. Most likely, the arguments that Said was to make in that book were drawn up and refined by a team or committee. Writing in the same vein as Said, the notorious Israeli New Historian [trained by Albert Hourani at Oxford] “agonized over the failure of ‘European historians’ to see the Sudan’s history as ‘the Sudanese and Egyptian historians understood their own history and past,’” as Albert Hourani, the Anglo-Arab historian, had suggested.
[quoted from: http://www.think-israel.org/green.sudan.html ]
So Comrade Ilan Pappe’, commonly identified as a “leftist”, was under the influence of the quite Establishment Anglo-Arab historian and propagandist, Albert Hourani. That’s more of an aside. The point is that both Pappe’ and Hourani [according to Pappe'] wanted the historiography of the Sudan to reflect how “the Sudanese and Egyptian historians had understood their own history and past.” Here objectivity flies out the window at least as fast as a Qassam rocket. What Pappe’ & Hourani seem to overlook is that the native African tribesmen in the Southern Sudan –not arabized and not islamized, suffering Muslim slave raids for centuries– might wish to see their own history and past in a way much different from how “the Sudanese and Egyptian historians” and Pappe’ and Hourani might want to see that history and past. Here Pappe’ clearly and unashamedly asserts the necessary primacy of subjectivity in writing history. At least for the politically correct.
Those Americans who remember the civil rights movement of the 50s and 60s have to bear in mind that in order to be politically correct today, they must favor Arabs and the Arabized over authentic African tribal Blacks. Said of course did a great deal to establish that viewpoint as CORRECT [pc]. And thus he did a great deal to lower standards, which you rightly complain about.
Clarification:
The notorious Israeli New Historian [trained by Albert Hourani] is Ilan Pappe’, if this was not clear.
I left Pappe’s name out of one sentence where it belonged.
i don’t think it’s just a lowering of standards. I actually don’t think there ARE any standards anymore, except whatever passes as groupthink at any point in time.
i chose the name of my blog of links very carefully: i think that what we are watching is the demise of knowledge and reason as a societal foundation.
this is what the islamists are doing at their end, and what the west is doing at its end. guess what the consequences will be.
[...] onomic wellbeing. So, it’s not rare that Palestinians blame Israel for the clashes: This is not civil war, it’s a pris [...]
Just to clarify what I wrote above regarding ease of ingress and egress from Gaza.
Gaza was most like a prison when ruled by Egypt from 1948 to 1967. The Egyptian govt made it very difficult for the inhabitants there to leave. This is a known fact that was widely recognized and discussed before and after the 1967 war. After the 6-Day War, it was much easier to leave Gaza than before that war because Israel allowed travel from Gaza all the way to the Jordan river and Jordan allowed Gazans to come in. Up till this current civil war in Gaza, the Egyptian border has been open and it has been relatively easy to leave. So what Sabawi was the opposite of the truth. I don’t know what, if anything, Egypt will do in response to the Hamas victory in the Gaza civil war.
The Israeli border with Gaza should be more sealed than it is because Gaza-based terrorists are at war with us.
accommodationabroad
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