narratives

[Max Sawicky]

>  . . .   Back to Chriss and his Southerners Stand In Solidarity With the
> Al-Aqsa Brigades...Does he really think that a two state solution
> or a secular  democratic state or whatevah "dispwnsation" eventually gets
> imposed, on both  fucking parties to the conflict, will eventuate using
those
> methods? Or will, Israeli public opinion shift further right, throw out
Sharon
> (typed Shamir, at first) to bring back the even more ferociusly effective
> Netanyahoooooooooo!
>   It's weak argumentation that pushes folks like me back towards
> being more  aligned against the more extreme pro-Palestinian positions.
> Seeing the disaster that right-wing and Labour Zionism has created but
unable and
> unwilling to embrace, w/o reservations the other narrative.
> Michael Pugliese, liberal no goodnik ;-(

Military victory of Palestine through armed struggle is clearly a fantasy,
but that is not the same thing as equating the violence on each side.
The Israeli point about moral equivalence is right; it's just that their
violence is what ranks lower in relative terms.

Praising armed struggle in this context is simply encouraging people
to self-destruction.  Doubtless they need little encouragement in any
event.  If the PLO made some miraculous turn to Gandhi-style CD,
the IDF would start shooting them anyway.  But I don't think they could
get away with that indefinitely.  Imagine if all the Palestinian martyrs
died
as innocents, or in non-violent resistance?
I don't think the current state of afffairs could last, but I could be
wrong.
Certainly the Palestinian cause would be no worse off.

The Tony Judt piece in NYR points out that bloody armed conflict has not
precluded settlement in other instances, so the use of arms by the PA
et al. on this account would not preclude a settlement either, although
it does not seem to increase its likelihood.

mbs