> It's a fallacy to reply to criticism by saying that critics have done the
> same or even worse. An example of Tu Quoque:
>
> "Arab states criticize Israel for oppressing Palestinians. They do the
> same. So there is no reason to stop oppressing them unless others stop
> likewise."
>
> "Many criticize Zionists for practicing settler colonialism, but they
> themselves have enjoyed the fruits of settler colonialism. So there is
> nothing wrong with settler colonialism & no reason to abolish it."
>
> Besides, why should Jews emulate actions taken by those who oppressed Jews
>
Matthew's argument, to which I was responding, was that there was a reason to single out the Israeli nation-state, among all of setter colonial nation-states, for destruction. The question that must be posed, therefore, is what -- if anything -- distinguishes Israel from the other nation states in this category, such that it deserves capital punishment, while they do not. Does it, for example, have a particularly egregious record of treatment of the indigenous population? If anything, its mistreatment of Palestinians pales next to the record of the American state vis-a-vis the indigenous people of this nation state, or the Australian, New Zealand, Canadian and various Latin American states vis-a-vis the indigenous peoples of their nation-states. Is its settler population especially oppressive? Almost uniquely among settler populations, comparable only to the African-Americans in Liberia, it was fleeing oppression of a horrific sort. The only answer I have seen on why Israel should be singled out is Matthew's argument that the timing of its settlement, area after 1945 when national liberation and decolonialization efforts were on the rise, somehow provided justification. This contention simply does not stand up to serious scrutiny, as I have shown.
If you are going to make an argument that Israel should be treated differently from other nation-states in the same category, then you must show how it is different from those other nation-states. My argument is not that there is nothing wrong with what nation-states in general, and settler nation-states in particular, do, but an argument that whatever their wrongs, a consistent approach to them is required. To single out for the most extreme punishment the one settler nation-state which, if anything, has the most mitigating factors for doing the wrong it has done, which was founded out of a desire to escape oppression, is not simply illogical, but extraordinarily suspect.
Leo Casey United Federation of Teachers 260 Park Avenue South New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never has, and it never will. If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters. -- Frederick Douglass -- -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: <../attachments/20010907/e81afe3b/attachment.htm>