> But under present conditions the only people who will come to the hall,
> no matter how you phrase the invitation, will be people who already
> agree, and there aren't enough of them now to carry out (e) above.
>
> It is just so fucking easy to sit and dream up what "we" (whoever we is)
> should say or call for. It is so fucking hard to find and/or build a
> responsive audience willing to listen and capable of acting powerfully.
>
> And don't say (as Doug has frequently said in response to posts like
> this), "Well then, should we just sit around and do nothing?" That is
> pointless because "calling" for this or that is just a disguised way of
> sitting around and doing nothing while pretending to oneself that one is
> doing something.
By the way, Doug, you had asked a question and I didn't answer it directly :
>"1) Was the Gaza attack intended to derail the cease-fire plans?
>Bryan Atinsky wrote:
>A justified target, a strange timing By Alex Fishman
>Doug: Oops, this sort of answers my first question. But what do you think?
Bryan: Yes, I think that it is highly likely that it was inteded to derail the cease-fire plans, and perhaps try to use the future retaliatory attack as an excuse to enter Gaza (this aspect merely speculative on my part). I also believe the timing of the Abu Hunud assasination several months ago, just days before the Zinni arrival, was planned to have the results it did, as I also believe that it was the case for the timing of the opening of the Wailing Wall tunnel into the Arab Quarter of the old city in Jerusalem several years ago(the tunnel had been completed during the Rabin administration, yet they didn't open it because they knew it would spark violence, yet Bibi opened it right before the date an Army redeployment was supposed to take place), and probably a mulititude of other incidences. However, nothing can be PROVEN either way, so it is speculation...
Carrol,
Much of what you say above is true on a certain level, and I touched upon this near impossibility of influencing people with different ideological outlooks than oneself in my last letter.
But the point is, that this is true only in the existing conditions, and things have a way (possibility) of reaching a critical mass eventually. This can occur for a multitude of reasonings: a catalyzing event (for good or bad), changes in the economic situations, slow growth and eventual normalization of an idea, etc...and most of the time it is a combination of several factors and multi-directional (one aspect influencing another).
However, a change can never occur towards something that has never been proposed, fought for, or articulated to some degree.
Peter brought up NIMN (Not In My Name) from Chicago. My fiance and I visited them in Chicago a year and some ago and spoke to them about the situation here. They are a very good, well organized, relatively small group, and have had a huge amount of press coverage of their actions in comparison to their size. They are having somewhat of an impact on extending the limits of legitimate dialogue in the US on the Israeli occupation, in both the Jewish community and in general.
While groups like theirs may not be have the ability to convince individuals who are antithetical to their viewpoints to join them, they do have a catalyzing effect of getting people who already agree with them, yet felt isolated in their various communities around the US, to feel that they are not alone and that they can speak up more and become active in their own community about these issues. The growth of these small groups around the US may not be changing, whole-sale, the parameters of discourse, however, by existing, they have (perhaps) had some effect of pushing the limits of what is considered legitimate criticizm of Israeli and US policy, and I think that the fact that there has been a growth in the vocalization of critique coming especially from within the Jewish American community (an extreme minority nontheless), has made the legitimizing effect more general. (the fact that Jewish activists are critiquing the occupation allows non-Jews to somewhat extend the legitimated limits of their critique). It is still true that when non-Jews criticize Israeli policies, they are going to most likely be portrayed by some as Anti-Semetic, however, one needs can surmise that the critique has more substantiality, needs to be taken more seriously, when members of Jewish community and Israeli citizens are vocalizing some of these very critiques.
The same is the case with groups in Israel. While, as I stated in my last e-mail, a sort of ideological stalemate has occured in the Israeli public, that says nothing about the ability to activate people who more or less agree on ideological grounds, but are feeling helpless and isolated. One poignant example of this potential for empowerment is the growing number of conscientious objectors in Israel. There are many hundreds, if not thousands of Israeli men and women, who for moral reasons do not want to serve in the military in the occupied Palestinian territories. However, they often feel no way out and either serve anyway or use many excuses to get out of service. Lately, this has begun to change, with several hundreds of reserve soldiers signing outright that they are refusing to serve as part of the military occupation. This gained momentum in the movement is in no small part occurring due to the work of conscientious objector organizations such as Yesh-Gvul (Hebrew for "There is a limit/border"), New Profile and at Indymedia, we have made the issue of conscientious objectors a constantly highlighted feature. People are much more willing to make the act on their convictions when they feel that they are acting as part of a collective decision which has the potential for an objective impact. While this has not expanded into a mass objector movement and not ended the occupation, it has definitely put the Israeli government on the defensive, having to give answers and argumentations against the objectors reasonings, which have been getting quite an amount of press coverage.
In the future, due to perhaps a number of different factors, the public mood may change. When/if they do, as happened in the War in Lebanon in the 80's and with the army pull-out of Southern Lebanon a few years ago (the Four-Mothers group, a terribly conservative organization which nonetheless had an effect on the timing), the fact that these groups exist and are yelling with barely anyone listening, will be important. As with the Peace Now demonstrations in the 1980's which went from tens of people demonstrating, to hundereds of thousands at the end of the War.