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1. I am still waiting for a rational definition, explanation, and justification of Israel’s “right to exist.” I’m also curious why all of those protesters were there to deny that ‘right,’ and not, perhaps, to object to the occupation.

   Comment by Yaman — 10/30/2006 @ 3:23 am

2. They very notion of a ‘right to exist’ is absurd. You either do or you don’t. The only reason that phrase exists is because many Arab countries refuse to acknowledge Israel’s existence, which brings up the idea of whether or not a country should have a ‘right’ to exist. It’s a stupid phrase.

   Comment by Morbo — 10/30/2006 @ 10:54 am

3. Morbo: Yes, the phrase is absurd. We agree that a state either does or does not exist, but it has no right to continue existing. States exist insofar as they have the power to maintain themselves and the legitimacy of those under their jurisdiction (this includes military jurisdiction). People’s opinions regarding Israel’s existence are not eternal goals, but their response to the current state of things. If Israel was not occupying the Palestinian lands, if Israel dealt justly with those Palestinians who were expelled from their homes in 1948, if Israel did not take a cavalier attitude with regards to its neighbors, among other things, there would be no problem with its existence. But the very fact that on a whim it feels it has the right to invade other countries and completely decimate their infrastructure and collectively damage the welfare of entire populations, is what produces resentment and even hatred. People’s rights are more sacred than state’s rights, and if the latter interferes with the former, then the state must go.

   Comment by Yaman — 10/30/2006 @ 12:59 pm

4. Make sure to vote Nov. 7th!

   Comment by alameda notary — 10/30/2006 @ 10:36 pm

5. Jews have lived in what is now Israel for over 3000 years. They are an indigenous people. The Arabs are not. Arabs have no legitimate claim to any land except central Arabia. All the rest they took by conquest. The Jews merely took back what was theirs to begin with.

   Arab Islam has produced nothing but disaster everywhere it has conquered. Civilized states, such as Byzantium, Persia, and Egypt, were overrun by Arab Islam. The cultures of those old states are the source of the “enlightened” Islam of the Middle Ages. There was nothing original about it; it was all taken by conquest from someone else. We can see today the result of 14 centuries of Islam in the Middle East - economic disaster, stifled creativity, and the production of absolutely nothing other than oil…which the West found, extracts, refines, and uses.

   As to ANSWER: it’s a front for the Workers World Party, and as such, has no agenda other than its own existence. ANSWER has no real interest in any issue other than co-opting the entire Left. Everyone’s pretty much on to them now, which is why almost no one bothers to attend their silly protests anymore.

   Comment by Scott — 10/31/2006 @ 8:57 am

6. Scott, your horrifying account of history is nice and all, but are you actually using it to justify anything? I don’t see the connection between it and what was said in the post or comments.

   Comment by Yaman — 10/31/2006 @ 2:39 pm

7. “People’s rights are more sacred than state’s rights…”

   Yes, but what about the rights of the people of Israel?

   Comment by Rohit J. Joy — 10/31/2006 @ 3:46 pm

8. Rohit: Their rights are not synonymous with the “rights” of their state.

   Comment by Yaman — 10/31/2006 @ 5:35 pm

9. Yaman, it’s clear as a bell. Only someone whose mindset is anti-Israeli would fail to see what I said. Israel has a “right” to exist because it’s the homeland of an indigenous people whose origins are THERE.

   Read it again if you don’t get it.

   It is the ARABS who have no historical claims to the Levant. It is THEY who came from the desert and laid waste to and destroyed the existing high civilizations of the area, from Persia to Egypt. It is they who imposed their alien “religion” by force.

   The historical Middle East is the home of many peoples, many religions, and many cultures. They are still there, even after centuries of oppression and violence from their Islamic rulers. As the Copts. Ask the Druze. As the Assyrian Christians.

   Comment by Scott — 11/1/2006 @ 9:07 am

10. Oh boy, Scott, you’ve really done a great job completely misusing and misunderstanding the “indigenous” argument.

    (1) The Ayrabs are not collectively seeking the restoration of Ayrab control to what is now Israel. In fact, it is the Palestinians who lived there–continue to live there–and whose properties were stolen and existence denied, and who are still alive, that have legitimate contemporary (not historical) claims to Palestinian land and more specifically to the properties of which they were dispossessed. Most Ayrabs, contrary to what you’ve implied by putting them on the same level as the early Zionist immigrants, do not advocate the expulsion of the entire Jewish population of Israel so that they can ‘win the land back.’ The popular view is to have one state under which all inhabitants, regardless of race and religion, coexist and live with equal rights. This is not the same as the early Zionist aspirations, which explicitly included designs to expel the native population. A poll by Haaretz earlier this year showed that over 60% of the Israeli population today favors giving incentives to the Arabs in its borders to leave the state. Just last week Avigdor Lieberman, an expulsion advocate, was integrated into the supposedly “moderate” and “peace-loving” Kadima party. At least on the Palestinian side, expulsion is not given the legitimacy it has in Israel, either in history or in contemporary times.

    (2) The contemporary definition of Ayrab is not defined racially or ethnically, but linguistically, though there is some overlap and some confusion here and there. The ‘authentic’ Ayrabs came from Yemen and the Ayrabian Peninsula. Everybody else has questionable lineage–I suppose along the same lines as the Ashekenazi European Jews–but they call themselves Ayrabs, and therefore are Ayrabs. You are not within your rights to deny them this identity, unless you also concede that Ashkenazi’s are not actually ethnically Jewish. This would be absurd, but maybe acceptable by your logic. The implications are devestating for your argument.

    (3) Yes, the Middle East is indeed the home of many peoples, religions, and cultures. It is unfortunate that the vast majority of every minority you pointed out though identifies as Ayrab, was opposed to the creation of Israel, and today continue to advocate the rights of dispossessed Palestinians. Unless you believe that the Ayrabs have brutally conquered and forcibly converted the hearts and minds of these mindless minorities to the Ayrab cause.

    Comment by Yaman — 11/1/2006 @ 5:38 pm

11. Those “displaced” Arabs from 1948 are more than matched by the 800,000 Middle Eastern Jews who were run out of their homelands after the establishment of Israel.

    Sorry, but that’s a fact. So let’s just call the “displaced” person argument a draw.

    When borders change, people move. More than 12,000,000 moved when Pakistan and India received independence. More than 3,000,000 ethnic Germans had to move after 1945. Those 400,000 Arabs who left Israel are a drop in the bucket of the postwar world. Get over it and move on. Everyone else has.

    Comment by Scott — 11/2/2006 @ 8:46 am

12. ‘So let’s just call the “displaced” person argument a draw.’

    Are you kidding me, man? Please, do not respond to this conversation until you have an inclination as to the meanings of the words ‘just’ and/or ‘moral.’ Please.

    Comment by Yaman — 11/4/2006 @ 6:29 am

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