[lbo-talk] Chomsky regards himself as a supporter of Israel

Joseph Catron jncatron at gmail.com
Sat May 29 17:33:42 PDT 2010


On Sat, May 29, 2010 at 7:04 PM, SA <s11131978 at gmail.com> wrote:

First of all, you're living in, and I'm guessing a citizen of, one of the
> very many countries in the world forged through ethnic cleansing.

But not one in which all immigration and naturalization, not to mention a number of the rights of citizens, legally hinge on ethnicity.


> Second, Israel's "ethnic purity" is somewhat dampened by the Arabs that
> make up 15% of its citizens.

As I told Michael before, it's 20% now, but be that as it may, how many of them do you suppose Israel would hope to "land-swap" away in any final agreement?


> But I don't get the idea of taking a stand against the worldwide phenomenon
> of ethnically-motivated borders in the one place, of all places, where a
> nasty century-long conflict might be ended through partition.

First of all, the Palestinian people, including the global diaspora, will never willingly sacrifice enough of their rights - the right to return foremost among them - to make your proposal possible.

Beyond that, one settlement would be a victory over colonialism and imperialism, while the other would be a capitulation to them. You sound like one of the Israeli government spokesmen who has spent the last few days breathlessly informing the media that the Freedom Flotilla has political motives, rather than purely humanitarian ones.

-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."



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