Jon Johanning wrote:
>
> It's not just the American public. The state of the debate on
> Israel/Palestine has deteriorated world-wide, as far as I can see. 99%
> of the participants in the debate these days are completely polarized,
> with each side screaming at the other (and doing more than screaming,
> of course, as the casualties attest). The other 1% is still trying to
> come up with an actual solution to the problem, but no one can hear
> them.
"Problem" is misleading. It is a conflict which in fact cannot be mediated (like that between Hitler's Germany and the Jewish population of Europe, or that between Japan and the Chinese people in the 1930s). Hence there is no "problem" to be solved but only a conflict to be resolved. At one time a (temporary) two-state "solution" to a "problem" might have been possible. But the program of the Israeli state to create "facts on the ground" (designed specifically to preclude such a solution) and the solidified commitment of the u.s. ruling class (or its representatives in both parties) to the support of Israel has made that solution impossible.
The contradiction will be resolved (if it does not first involve the world in a conflict which will destroy us all) only when the pressure of the Arab millions on Israel makes a secular democratic state of Palestine the _only_ recourse for the survival of the people of Israel.
This does not mean that there do not exist innumerable local situations or particular contexts in which the kind of conversation Jon hopes for can be carried out. Whether lbo-talk is one of those contexts I do not know. What one might call the material ground for such conversation is the existence of innumerable intelligent people of good will in the United States who really do not understand the utterly destructive nature of the state of Israel and really do not know the facts. (I simply deny out-of-hand the explanatory power of theories of willed ignorance.) With such people (who exist for the most part only in the U.S.) one can carry on (or attempt to carry on) friendly converastion, but one must recognize that the only ultimate goal of such conversation is to show them the irresolvable antagonistic contradiction between Zionist goals and the world's people. They are essentially recruiting efforts, not attempts at the illusory goal of a "solution" satisfactory to "both sides" of the "problem" of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Carrol