Tuesday, June 16, 2015

"just a sober reading of that seems like it's just a call for genocide."

exactly.


it's difficult. nobody wants to accept it. but, it shouldn't even be surprising any more at this point. the israeli state has really made it's intentions crystal clear. and, the necessary first point - before we can even talk about un sanctions - is that this has to be entirely understood, because it remains this contentious and difficult to grapple with point.

but, my honest and realistic assessment? this isn't a conflict any more, it's an escalating slaughter. the humanitarian focus at this point really needs to be finding ways to get the palestinians out. i don't know what that means. maybe saudi oil money can build them a city on the coast or something. but, there's really not a realistic way to stop israel from slowly regressing to the point of mass slaughter - and it's an inevitability.

something else to point out is that israeli expansionism is generally exaggerated, especially in the conspiracy press. they talk about israel expanding into syria, for example. and this overlaps with the idea of israel as a settler-colonial state - which is broadly true in practice, if not in theory. but, i think we need to be clear about the contradictions here, and why it sets borders around israeli expansionism.

israel wants control of the areas that it believes were granted to it by god. it's crazy, but it's actually true and it seriously drives their policy. if you look at a biblical map of the region, what we today call the gaza strip was where the "philistines" lived. we're not sure who the philistines were, exactly, but they appear to have invaded from greece, and, considering the egyptian name (peleset) may have been the same people as the pelasgians. they're certainly not the same people as the palestinians (who are culturally arabic and actually largely genetically hebrew), but that biblical parallel is a large part of what's fuelling this. every good jew knows that fighting their enemies, the phillistines, is an integral part of being jewish. and, this is why the israeli state allowed gaza to be split out. it's outside of biblical israel.

now, consider a future where israel has all of this promised land under control, and it seeks to expand further. it would require a different justification, which would present two problems: it would need the state to move away from the state religion, and it would create a backlash from religious scholars. god did not promise israel the world. religious thinking is a strange thing for the rational mind to get it's head around, but just understand this: killing philistines is ok. settling historical israel is ok. but expanding beyond that is arrogance, and will no doubt produce prophets warning the chosen people not to disobey god - lest they bring upon themselves the repercussions that their ancestors suffered. so, the state can't get away with this, unless it secularizes. and, if it secularizes, it loses it's base.

that doesn't mean this can't happen, but a secularist and expansionist israel is a very different animal with a very different support structure.

so, it does seem safe to move them to the red sea - even if it leads to israel and egypt squabbling over who gets stuck with a parcel of land that neither of them want to administrate.