[lbo-talk] Law Student With a History of Taking Left Turns

Nathan Newman nathanne at nathannewman.org
Fri Jul 18 10:32:51 PDT 2003


----- Original Message ----- From: "Brad DeLong" <delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU>
>Law Student With a History of Taking Left Turns


>To call for the ethnic cleansing and forced resettlement of five
>million Israelis is a left-wing cause?
>The things I did not know...

A bit of a stretch since all but the most extreme Palestinians would allow Jews to remain even if the whole "river to sea" area was made one country. The issue illustrates the difference between the Israeli extremists and the Palestinian extremists. If Israel annexes all of "Judea and Samarian", ethnic clensing is required since Jews would no longer be a majority, so a democratic Jewish state is impossible without ethnic clensing.

Conversely, Palestinians can obtain a state they would politically dominate without ethnic clensing, so even the more militant groups generally state that the Jews would be free to stay even if a single state was established for the whole region.

So attributing ethnic clensing-- the official policy of parties within the ruling Israeli government -- to Palestinians and their supporters is just inaccurate. Some Palestinian groups are anti-Jewish and want their expulsion, but it is not the official policy of almost any Palestinian groups.

-- Nathan Newman



More information about the lbo-talk mailing list