Let me give some examples.
So I offer the unanimous public positions of every single Palestinian faction; and SA trots out a few minor, generally retired, PA functionaries, operating, as far as I can tell here, in their personal capacities, plus a negotiating team making offers it knew the other side would never accept behind closed doors? I've mulled over the kind of response this warrants, and am still not sure I have any idea.
(in part due to this very fear) the pragmatists are vulnerable to a sort of
> "peer pressure" dynamic from purists. This was exemplified in the link Joe
> posted recently regarding the views of Mustafa Barghouti - a pragmatist - on
> the refugee issue. When the al-Awda group noticed he'd expressed his
> pragmatic view, it engaged in a tactic similar to what Grover Norquist does
> when he sees a Republican politician flirting with something that can be
> construed as a tax increase.
All of this seems like a rather loaded way of describing an official being held accountable to his constituency. That isn't "peer pressure;" it's exactly how representative politics is supposed to work. Yes, Palestinian leaders are compelled to support the right to return because the right to return is the single most popular issue among Palestinians as a whole. I'm don't know what else you think should happen here.
> But what is extremely objectionable, and in fact dishonest, is (1) Joe's
> utterly poisonous practice of calling anyone who accepts the "pragmatist"
> position a "Zionist," a "racist," and a "supporter of ethnic cleansing"; and
> (2) his falsely pretending that no Palestinians embrace the "pragmatic"
> position, that they are all unambiguous purists, and that all supporters of
> the "pragmatist" position are (white/Jewish/western) "racists" and
> "Zionists" like Chomsky, Finkelstein, etc.
>
Well, advocates of the continued exclusion of Palestinian refugees do, ipso facto, support ethnic cleansing of the more brutal sort, as we saw on May 15 and June 5 of this year; I'm not sure what could be more self-evident than that.
Chomsky's on the record as a Zionist; or at least, if he's ever renounced this affiliation, which his current positions certainly reflect, I haven't heard about it. And aside from your own positions, your use of the cruder sort of hasbara ("I'm sure the Syrian Kurds will be glad to hear you explain that") gives away the game. I haven't been having these debates as long as some, but I'm competent to recognize that sort of thing when I hear it. ;-)
In any event, "Zionist" seems like a strange grievance in this context. One who supports the continued existence of a Jewish-exclusivist polity on ethnically-cleansed Palestinian land is, ex vi termini, a Zionist. Chomsky does, and you do; hence you are. Yes? Or am I somehow mistaken?
To me, there is a world of difference between a black activist musing that Jim Crow might be impossible to defeat, and a white racist (including the "benevolent," paternalistic sort*) actively supporting Jim Crow. Doug, Adolph Reed, and others might disagree with me on this; if so, I simply think they're mistaken, for reasons both principled and strategic.
*I'm reminded here of one big advantage Chomsky has. In his letter to white clergymen from the Birmigham jail, King wrote that "This 'Wait' has almost always meant 'Never.'" At least Chomsky has the honesty to skip straight to the "Never" part!
-- "Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre, mod sceal þe mare, þe ure mægen lytlað."