Will the Israeli left talk about occupation?

[Jefferson23]

Many protesters are reluctant to talk about the occupation and settlements for fear of dividing a unified movement.

Gregg Carlstrom Last Modified: 09 Aug 2011 12:19


The protests sweeping Israel this summer are striking not just for their size but for their politics: 300,000 people demanding social justice on the streets of Tel Aviv and other cities makes the Israeli left seem like a viable political force again, perhaps for the first time in years.

"The left here was all but dead," one protester said, a common sentiment in interviews over the last few days. Its formal institutions, after all, are moribund. The Labor party broke apart earlier this year, and until recently it was an uneasy member of Binyamin Netanyahu's right-wing coalition; Kadima, Israel's other main centre-left party, has had little influence since 2009, and its leader, Tzipi Livni, has been nearly invisible.

And so the protest movement was born out of frustration: with a seemingly ineffective opposition, and with an array of attacks on left-wing groups, such as the so-called "NGO bill" that would have authorised investigations into liberal human rights groups.

"Kadima not only said nothing about it, but in some cases they participated in the attacks on groups with leftist ideas," said Ran Cohen, the executive director of Physicians for Human Rights. "Kadima is not an opposition party."

remainder: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/08/20118815462771250.html

[pelsar]

1. gaza killed the left....

doesn't really make a difference how imperfect the gaza withdrawal was, as far as israelis were concerned the 6,000 kassams were more than enough to show that the concept of settlements for peace was nothing more than an illusion with the Palestinians.

more so, the fragility of the Palestinian leadership was also on show as the gazans not just voted in hamas for their social needs, but hamas took over by force what it couldnt do at the ballot box

also noted by israelis....was the farcity of the Palestinians in gaza failure to make the best of out of the situation. They may not have gotten all they wanted, but shooting 6000 kassams was not just a stupid response, but worse, they basically stopped AFTER the israeli invasion.

which proved the point from the right....that force does work.

and that any and every gaza failure will be Israels fault, further making the point that the Palestinians are incapable of taking responsibility for their actions
__________

all in all most of the talking points of the right were shown with the gaza pullout....the Palestinians in gaza could have proven them wrong, but they chose not to....of course they can still try.

[Jefferson23]

2. The Gaza pull out.

Get back to me when you have lived in Gaza, then report back how you made the best of it.

I wonder why the majority of the international community has been pressuring your government to end the occupation.
Oh that's right, they just hate you...I forgot. The ICJ advisory ruling, from 7 fucking years ago, they hate you guys too. I keep forgetting, glad you stopped by to remind me.




JERUSALEM — An Israeli government official said Friday the population in its West Bank (search) settlements has grown by more than 12,000 in the past year, reinforcing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's goal of strengthening large settlement blocs while withdrawing from the Gaza Strip.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,167143,00.html

Enjoying a moment of international sympathy, Sharon's government is moving swiftly to capitalize on its unilateral withdrawal and ongoing demolition of 25 Jewish settlements. The government's efforts are focused largely in the West Bank, land of far more religious and strategic importance to Israel than the remote slice of coastline it has left behind.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/08/27/AR2005082701113_pf.html


Praying with Their Eyes Closed: Reflections on the Disengagement from Gaza

Sara Roy

Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol 34, no. 4 (Summer 2005), p. 64

Essay


When the missionaries came to Africa, they had the Bible and we had the land. They taught us to pray with our eyes closed. When we opened them, we had the Bible in our hand, and they had the land. —Jomo Kenyatta, first president of Kenya.

On 9 June 2005, the last legal hurdle to implementing Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon's disengagement from Gaza was cleared when the Israeli High Court approved the plan and its removal of all the Jewish settlements there. The settlers, though angered by the decision, were not surprised and vowed to oppose their coerced departure with all means possible. Considerable media attention in the United States has been devoted to the suffering of the Jewish settlers and the personal costs for them of the disengagement. This attention has served to thaw and then humanize the often violent and zealous settler population, and in so doing, to illustrate and amplify the sacrifices Israel is making for peace.
By now a great deal has been written about the disengagement plan by both supporters and opponents. Many of the arguments in favor focus on the redeployment as an opportunity to break the near five-year-old political impasse between Palestinians and Israelis and usher in a new era of stability and peace. In April 2005, for example, President Bush stated that Israel's withdrawal will allow the establishment of "a democratic state in the Gaza" and open the door for democracy in the Middle East.<1> Tom Friedman was more explicit, arguing that "he issue for Palestinians is no longer about how they resist the Israeli occupation in Gaza, but whether they build a decent mini-state there—a Dubai on the Mediterranean. Because if they do, it will fundamentally reshape the Israeli debate about whether the Palestinians can be handed most of the West Bank."<2>

Embedded in both statements are a set of assumptions: that Palestinians will be free to build their own democracy, that Israel will eventually cede the West Bank (or even consider the possibility), that Israel's "withdrawal" will strengthen the Palestinian position in negotiations over the West Bank, that the occupation will end or become increasingly irrelevant, that the gross asymmetries between the two protagonists will be redressed. Hence, the Gaza disengagement plan—if implemented “properly”—will provide a real (perhaps the only) opportunity for resolving the conflict and creating a Palestinian state. It follows that Palestinians will be responsible for their success, and that if they fail to build a "democratic" or "decent mini-state" in Gaza, the fault will be theirs and theirs alone.

A Dubai on the Mediterranean?

It would be useful to consider what the Palestinians in Gaza have to work with to achieve success.

Today, there are over 1.4 million Palestinians living in the Strip. By 2010 this number will reach close to two million. The Gaza Strip has the highest level of fertility in the region—5.5–6.0 children per woman—and the population grows at a very high rate of 3–5 percent annually. Fifty years ago, 80 percent of the population had not yet been born. Fifty percent of Gazans are 15 years old or younger, with rapidly declining access to health care and education. The half of the territory in which the population is concentrated has one of the highest population densities in the world. In the Jabalya refugee camp alone, there are 74,000 persons per square kilometer, compared with 25,000 persons per square kilometer in Manhattan.<3>

http://www.palestine-studies.org/journals.aspx?id=6525&jid=1&href=fulltext

[oberliner]

3. From Fox News to Sara Roy - quite a spread of sources you've chosen

You've lived in Gaza? Under what circumstances?

[Jefferson23]

4. Unless you have a source that claims the opposite of what Fox reported

to be inaccurate, please post it.

I have no idea why you're asking me if I have lived in Gaza. Would it be a requirement in your mind?

[oberliner]

5. You wrote: "Get back to me when you have lived in Gaza"

That suggested to me that you had lived in Gaza and therefore had a better understanding of life there than one who hadn't.

I have no source that claims the opposite of what Fox reported, I just thought it was interesting that you had used sources from the extreme ends of the political spectrum.

[Jefferson23]

6. Well, you misunderstood..it happens. n/t

[azurnoir]

7. Perhaps the question concerning the West Bank for Israeli 'Leftists" is

do we want 300,000 or so settlers as our neighbors not to mention competing for the very same over priced housing we're protesting?

I'd wager the answer is a resounding no on both accounts