<HTML><FONT FACE=arial,helvetica><FONT SIZE=2>Yoshie:
<BR>
<BR><BLOCKQUOTE TYPE=CITE style="BORDER-LEFT: #0000ff 2px solid; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 5px">It's a fallacy to reply to criticism by saying that critics have done the
<BR>same or even worse. An example of Tu Quoque:
<BR>
<BR>"Arab states criticize Israel for oppressing Palestinians. They do the
<BR>same. So there is no reason to stop oppressing them unless others stop
<BR>likewise."
<BR>
<BR>"Many criticize Zionists for practicing settler colonialism, but they
<BR>themselves have enjoyed the fruits of settler colonialism. So there is
<BR>nothing wrong with settler colonialism & no reason to abolish it."
<BR>
<BR>Besides, why should Jews emulate actions taken by those who oppressed Jews
<BR>by becoming settler colonialists themselves?</BLOCKQUOTE>
<BR></FONT><FONT COLOR="#000000" SIZE=3 FAMILY="SANSSERIF" FACE="Arial" LANG="0">
<BR>Matthew's argument, to which I was responding, was that there was a reason to
<BR>single out the Israeli nation-state, among all of setter colonial
<BR>nation-states, for destruction. The question that must be posed, therefore,
<BR>is what -- if anything -- distinguishes Israel from the other nation states
<BR>in this category, such that it deserves capital punishment, while they do
<BR>not. Does it, for example, have a particularly egregious record of treatment
<BR>of the indigenous population? If anything, its mistreatment of Palestinians
<BR>pales next to the record of the American state vis-a-vis the indigenous
<BR>people of this nation state, or the Australian, New Zealand, Canadian and
<BR>various Latin American states vis-a-vis the indigenous peoples of their
<BR>nation-states. Is its settler population especially oppressive? Almost
<BR>uniquely among settler populations, comparable only to the African-Americans
<BR>in Liberia, it was fleeing oppression of a horrific sort. The only answer I
<BR>have seen on why Israel should be singled out is Matthew's argument that the
<BR>timing of its settlement, area after 1945 when national liberation and
<BR>decolonialization efforts were on the rise, somehow provided justification.
<BR>This contention simply does not stand up to serious scrutiny, as I have shown.
<BR>
<BR>If you are going to make an argument that Israel should be treated
<BR>differently from other nation-states in the same category, then you must show
<BR>how it is different from those other nation-states. My argument is not that
<BR>there is nothing wrong with what nation-states in general, and settler
<BR>nation-states in particular, do, but an argument that whatever their wrongs,
<BR>a consistent approach to them is required. To single out for the most extreme
<BR>punishment the one settler nation-state which, if anything, has the most
<BR>mitigating factors for doing the wrong it has done, which was founded out of
<BR>a desire to escape oppression, is not simply illogical, but extraordinarily
<BR>suspect.
<BR>
<BR>Leo Casey
<BR>United Federation of Teachers
<BR>260 Park Avenue South
<BR>New York, New York 10010-7272 (212-598-6869)
<BR>
<BR>Power concedes nothing without a demand.
<BR>It never has, and it never will.
<BR>If there is no struggle, there is no progress.
<BR>Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation are men who
<BR>want crops without plowing the ground. They want rain without thunder and
<BR>lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its waters.
<BR><P ALIGN=CENTER>-- Frederick Douglass --</P></FONT></HTML>