>>. . . Thus, if you criticize Israel's colonialism, you'd have to also
>>criticize America's colonialism, to be consistent.
>>
>>Likewise, Americans capable of political sympathies for American
>>Indians would be also capable of politically sympathizing with
>>Palestinians, I think. Yoshie
>
>At that point you would have debunked your own argument.
>If the prospects of Palestinians for reclaiming some
>non-trivial part of their land parallel those of Native
>Americans, then they might as well forget it.
I'm not exactly arguing for the analogy between Palestinians and American Indians. I just think that pro-Israel & anti-Palestinian Americans are ideologically motivated by the analogy, whether they are fully aware of it or not. Why should anyone who doesn't want to recognize injustice done to American Indians, identifying with settler colonialists who displaced them, be capable of seeing injustice done to Palestinians? (N.B. Recognizing injustice is not the same as thinking that you could reverse history and undo all of it.) And if there were no injustice in settler colonialism, surely the Israeli government would be justified in its counter-insurgency warfare, if not in all the methods it used. -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>