Time therefore to introduce a new logic – and a new reality?

hhtp://yorketowers.blogspot.com

well said.

I only wish we had some Northern Ireland-style pressure from the outside, but I guess it’s up to us to generate that instead of bitching about it.

Tom, I’m definitely influenced by the soccer spectator attitude as you put it, but I don’t think it’s exclusive to that scene–there is also a logic that no political discussions can occur in a time of violence which plagues both the Israeli side (“we don’t need to talk to Hamas because as soon as they stop firing rockets, we will stop our incursions into Gaza”) as well as some on the Palestinian side (the hudna I think is based on this logic). It may be quite reasonable or violence to be considered as a political factor; it should be. However it should not be considered the only or primary factor because in and of itself, it is not a core political issue, only a tangential one. So, there is that important distinction. The more important one for me though, in trying to make sense of what I mean here in my post and how it relates to the very nuanced and important point that you made, is a distinction between political analysis and political developments. Violence certainly makes the latter difficult, if not impossible, for a number of reasons, practical, ‘political’ (as related to domestic politics), etc. A comprehensive analysis of the situation (as opposed to say, the reasons why it is difficult for political developments to occur) which treats violence as key, however, I would say is failed and unsound. That is what I was referring to in my post: those spectators who both not only see violence as the defining issue between the Israelis and the Palestinians, but also consider the mere mention of other political issues to be, in and of themselves, causes of violence, and thus find the solution to be a mutual putting-down of arms, and otherwise a satisfaction with the status quo.

I think that you are mainly referring to the “cycle of violence” talk in its most prevalent U.S form, which stems from viewing the conflict in Israel/Palestine as engendered by “non-Western” “irrational” attitudes. If only those crazy Middle Easteners were as cool-heeded as us Americans, this argument goes, things would be different. We just need to explain to them why violence is bad, and then they’ll see the light and progress towards peace.

This is what I call the “soccer spectator” attitude, because it reminds me of how people I know watch TV soccer matches and yell orders at the players (“shoot at the goal!! make a pass”!!). The “advisor” ends up congratulating him/herself for being both more intelligent than the people receiving the advice (e.g. “I, the outsider, have noticed some obvious ways to respond to the occupation that never occurred to its victims”), and more moral than them (through this very cheap and selective pacifism, that demands no self-sacrifice or any real commitment, just some random advice).

But things are very different in intra-Israeli debates. Take, for example, the situation in Sderot: only the other day the lives of dozens of schoolchildren were saved when a Qassam rocket hit an empty schoolyard. The children weren’t playing there, because they were directed not to play outside: it is too risky when the city has been constantly bombarded with rockets for the last seven years. This is not to ignore the ongoing crimes being committed in Gaza or the desperation that leads militants to shoot these rockets; my point is only that any activists wanting to remain relevant to the Israeli community cannot afford to ignore both the violence that these people are suffering from and the calls to escalate the violence towards the Palestinians to supposedly “deter the terrorists” (a solution that somehow sounds more and more realistic the more it ends up backfiring and making things worse).

And it is in this context that Israeli activists end up making arguments about the “cycle of violence”: assassinating a militant and a dozen bystanders, demolishing the house of another (and of some of his neighbors), bombing an electricity plant that serves the whole of Gaza – all of these won’t help because they just sow the seeds for more violence. In Israel, responding violently is a constant topic of public debate, even when the Israeli state has many more options of behaving differently that the Palestinians have: Israel could decide to end the occupation and change the entire situation, not just the tactics both sides use (and this is a crucial point, that makes discussions of Israeli and Palestinian violence far from comparable). I agree that these arguments should be accompanied by an analysis of the political situation, as opposed to a narrow focus on the violence itself; but not making them at all, at least in the Israeli context, leaves the calls to increase violence unchallenged, which is not a responsible thing to do. In other words, we don’t have the option of ignoring the violence: even if we do, other won’t. We can only try and convince people that there are better alternatives.

http://www.cactus48.com/senatorjoe.html