I promise to try to shut up after this - I find I've been
unreasonably chatty today. How do we know when to speak, how to
speak, when to be silent, how to be silent?? Anyway, with these
apologies...
At 11:39 PM -0400 19/4/02, Candice Ward wrote:
>There are so many sides to anyone's life as to
>beggar belief and shame judgment--Candice
Yes, that's an important qualification. But... and this reaches back
to an earlier discussion I was having with Dom - to suspend judgment
is a problem, given some actions; actions which are "evil", given how
gingerly I would use that word. And to condemn the Israeli State or
the IDF is not the same as condemning Jews, as Ivy has been at pains
to point out, or I do not believe so; unfortunately the rash of
antisemitic acts in Europe and elsewhere argue against this, much as
Muslim people everywhere in the Western world were abused after
September 11. People love polarisations; and how easily we make
scapegoats for our anxieties...
The destruction by the IDF of the entire infrastructure of the
Palestinian State, the cultural destruction commented on by Douglas,
the reckless disregard for civilian life the refusal of humanitarian
access to families desperately needing it, and the total disregard
for the Geneva Convention are actions which should be unequivocally
condemned, if justice means anything at all; if, conversely, a
condemnation of Palestinian suicide bombings of innocent Israeli
civilians is to mean anything either. Otherwise the rhetoric is
simply that only Jews or only Palestinians qualify as "innocent
civilians".
There was a letter in the Age today which suggested that no Israeli
Jews have been terrorists.... Aside from the continuous "am not/are
so" argument about the definition of terrorism (I keep thinking it is
a non-word which simply is used to define, from whichever point of
view, legitimate and illegitimate political violence; so the Israelis
say the Palestinians are terrorists and the Palestinians say the
Israelis are terrorists) this is an odd form of amnesia, given that
Israel was created after a terrorist campaign in which many
Palestinians were killed. It is at least generally agreed, among
liberal Israelis, that one form of restitution which must be
addressed is an acknowledgement by Israel of its own terrorist
foundation and history, and its forcible expulsion of the
Palestinians from their own homes.
Best
Alison
--
"The only real revolt is the revolt against war."
Albert Camus
Alison Croggon
Home page
http://www.users.bigpond.com/acroggon/
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