Hi Seth,
The analogy you present here isn't valid, in my opinion. The Palestinians are the victims of oppression, not terrorism. Their rights are being trampled by an oppressor with overwhelming military superiority. Should the Palestinians resist at all? Yes, certainly they should. Should they resist violently?
This is a tough question. I've usually supported the non-violent resistance approach, but recently I've begun to question that position. Chomsky made a point on this in an interview with David Barsamian which has stuck with me. Non-violent opposition only works if the oppressor is not willing to, or is restrained in some other way from, wiping you out. He even gave an example of a Palestinian town which refused to pay its taxes. They were crushed. Their stand was not reported in the US, nor was the Israeli reaction, which was to forcibly throw the people out of their homes and seize their property. The Israeli citizenry did not protest either, so the tax revolt merely resulted in the dispossession of a villiage.
Under these kinds of conditions, taking a "no violence" pledge means you are essentially surrendering. I can still respect someone who says violent resistance is still not justified, but I can see the logic of armed rebellion too, at least in that environment. However, you can support armed insurrection without supporting terrorist attacks on discos and pizzarias, as Yoshie states quite clearly. Just because you take up arms doesn't necessarily mean anything goes.
Besides, nobody is saying the US shouldn't use force in its response to the 9/11 attacks. The terrorists should be forcibly taken into custody and forcibly removed from society so they can't hurt anyone else. They should be fired upon if they shoot at police or other security forces that are trying to apprehend them. But bombing a foreign country, where 99% of the population is just trying to live through the winter and had no part in the atrocity, is simply out of the question. Those people are innocent, and the US right to use force to find and apprehend the guilty parties stops when these people are put at risk by any potential response.
Brett
Yoshie wrote:
>> Our position, I believe, should be to cut U.S. aid to Israel, so that
>> frustrated Palestinians won't have to resort to suicide bombings of
>> discos & pizzerias (attacks on military targets are another matter).
>> In other words, we should work hard to create a political world in
>> which better political tactics than suicide bombings become effective
>> for Palestinians, i.e., the world that will foster the growth of the
>> secular & democratic Left (as opposed to fundamentalist "political
>> Islam") among Palestinians.
You responded:
>Agreed. But what about the Palestinians themselves? Should they take a
>simple "No War" position on the struggle against occupation because the
>struggle has involved some horrific attacks on civilians? If not, why
should
>Americans take a "No War" position against a war to eliminate terrorists
who
>killed 6,000 people?