The Palestine thread

[cadence]

Settlers deserve it, don't they?


Conviction in Terror Murder of Father and Son

PA resident convicted of the murder of Asher Palmer and his infant son Yonatan.


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By Maayana Miskin
First Publish: 4/2/2013, 6:42 PM




Asher and Yonatan Palmer



Courtesy of Palmer family


Palestinian Authority resident terrorist Wael Salaman Mohammed el-Arjeh, of Hevron, has been convicted of two counts of murder in the deaths of Asher and Yonatan Palmer.

He will be sentenced in the upcoming days. Arjeh is facing life in prison.

Arjeh took part in an attack in which large stones were hurled at the Palmers' car. A stone hit Asher Palmer, who was driving, in the face.

The injured Palmer lost control of the car, possibly after losing consciousness, resulting in a crash in which both he and baby Yonatan were killed. Yonatan was two days shy of his first birthday.

Asher had been on his way to pick up his pregnant wife, Pua, from her job in Jerusalem. Pua gave birth to a baby girl five months after the murders, and named her daughter Orit, meaning "light."

The trial was attended by United States representatives due to the fact that Asher had U.S. citizenship.

Asher's father Michael expressed satisfaction with the verdict, telling Arutz Sheva, "Justice has come to light. This has been one of the hardest times of my life, as I fought to ensure my son and grandson's murderers would be punished."

Military court judges will give a verdict next month in the case of a second PA resident terrorist accused of taking part in the attack.


http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/166701

The "man" convicted of this attack was not a member of any organisation and is what can only be described as a civilian, so please spare me the outrage when any of these "civilians" are injured or killed by Israeli gunfire the next time they throw rocks at cars. They are trying to murder children and deserve all they get. RATS.

awful terrible story.

but what it reminds me of is affective social distancing, that goes on in ireland too... you know, the kerb stones painted red, white and blue, murals on the houses, both groups creating separate identities for themselves that are tied up in how different and better they are than the other group. the other group are beasts, cowards and killers, but we're not that. it's never our fault. we're the righteous and we're only defending ourselves against those oppressors over there. for both sides, what sort of a homeland is it that's worth the level of human cost we've seen? i'm sorry, but i don't understand positioning myself morally in those terms. it's obscene and one of the most depressing things about human nature, that capacity to hate with an anger and hatred that comes from this type of perverted moral conviction that sees the others as not even human. 

[seafoid]

Maybe those fiendish Israelis gave him cancer. 

Maybe some deaths in custody are more worthy of protest than others.

Detainee dies of heart attack at Gaza prison


Published yesterday (updated) 02/04/2013 17:35


GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Sami Hamdan Qishta, 50, died on Monday of a heart attack in a prison in southern Gaza, the Hamas government in control of the enclave announced.

Qishta was detained in a Rafah jail on charges related to financial crimes, the Gaza ministry of interior said in a statement.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I demand an independent public enquiry to get to the bottom of allegations that this man was tortured by Israeli Hamas thugs.

Tortured to death. It hardly matters which side did it. It's reprehensible.
But of course BDB will use it to justify whatever the latest Israeli atrocity is because the other side are not fully human.

[cadence]

Maybe those fiendish Israelis gave him cancer. 

Maybe some deaths in custody are more worthy of protest than others.

Detainee dies of heart attack at Gaza prison


Published yesterday (updated) 02/04/2013 17:35


GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Sami Hamdan Qishta, 50, died on Monday of a heart attack in a prison in southern Gaza, the Hamas government in control of the enclave announced.

Qishta was detained in a Rafah jail on charges related to financial crimes, the Gaza ministry of interior said in a statement.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I demand an independent public enquiry to get to the bottom of allegations that this man was tortured by Israeli Hamas thugs.

Tortured to death. It hardly matters which side did it. It's reprehensible.
But of course BDB will use it to justify whatever the latest Israeli atrocity is because the other side are not fully human.

and, equally, the affective social distancing that is created on the palestinian side is equally as socially harmful. in order to carry out an act like stone another person to death, the person doing that has to have the same conceptions about the others being lesser, and even inhuman as you say.

you want hatred, prejudice and murderous slaughter, get yourself some affective social distancing. that'll do it for you.

 

[seafoid]

Maybe those fiendish Israelis gave him cancer. 

Maybe some deaths in custody are more worthy of protest than others.

Detainee dies of heart attack at Gaza prison


Published yesterday (updated) 02/04/2013 17:35


GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Sami Hamdan Qishta, 50, died on Monday of a heart attack in a prison in southern Gaza, the Hamas government in control of the enclave announced.

Qishta was detained in a Rafah jail on charges related to financial crimes, the Gaza ministry of interior said in a statement.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I demand an independent public enquiry to get to the bottom of allegations that this man was tortured by Israeli Hamas thugs.

Tortured to death. It hardly matters which side did it. It's reprehensible.
But of course BDB will use it to justify whatever the latest Israeli atrocity is because the other side are not fully human.

and, equally, the affective social distancing that is created on the palestinian side is equally as socially harmful. in order to carry out an act like stone another person to death, the person doing that has to have the same conceptions about the others being lesser, and even inhuman as you say.

you want hatred, prejudice and murderous slaughter, get yourself some affective social distancing. that'll do it for you.

Israel runs the system. Palestinians  have no choice but to live in it.
The power imbalance is grotesque.

I think the Israelis never dealt with the Holocaust.
We often hear about the 6 million but do we understand how barbaric it was in practice ?


http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/dec/20/hitlers-logical-holocaust/?pagination=false&printpage=true

"But what of the quarter-million or so Polish Jews who somehow escaped the gassing, and who sought help among Poles in 1943, 1944, and 1945? Gross, along with Jan Grabowski and Barbara Engelking, records the undeniable fact that most of these people were murdered as well, perhaps half of them by Poles (following German policy and law) rather than by Germans.

Together, these Polish historians make two essential arguments that help us to understand the workings of deliberate Nazi persecution after the destruction of the Polish state. One is the continuity of personnel and of obedience. In general the Polish police continued to function, now taking orders from the Germans. Whereas in 1938 their job included preventing pogroms in independent Poland, in 1942 they were ordered to hunt down Jews. Second, local governments could be mobilized to capture Jews who had escaped the gas chambers. Poles in a given area were named as hostages, to be punished if a hunt for Jews failed. Local leaders were personally responsible for keeping their districts free of Jews, and could easily be denounced if they failed to do so. In the event of a successful hunt for Jews, local leaders were responsible for the distribution of Jewish property.4

"Peasants in the countryside, as Engelking and Grabowski demonstrate, were unconcerned with protecting the reputation of the Polish nation (with which they likely did not identify), but obsessed with their position relative to their neighbors.5 Peasants figure in all of these books as competitive, jealous, and concerned above all with property. Under German occupation, peasants regularly denounced one another to the Germans on all conceivable pretexts. This "epidemic of denunciations," as Grabowski puts it, made the prospect of rescuing a Jew from the German policy of destruction extremely difficult. Peasants noticed when a neighboring family was collecting more food, keeping different hours, or even bringing home a newspaper. All of these were signs that a Jew was being hidden, and led to denunciations which had overlapping motives: desire for the property of the Jews and those hiding them, and fear of collective German reprisals.
In this situation, as Engelking observes, it was highly irrational for Polish peasants to help Jews: "in the case of Jews seeking aid the costs of refusing them were zero, and the costs of helping them were enormous." As she and Grabowski both show, very often Poles acted as if they were rescuers, took the Jews' money, and then turned them in to the police. In Grabowski's study of dozens of cases of rescue and betrayal, he found that the Jews who were rescued rather than betrayed were precisely those who found their way to people who were not thinking of personal gain. This also holds of course for Poles such as Jan Karski and Witold Pilecki who voluntarily entered, respectively, the Warsaw ghetto and Auschwitz.6 As Grabowski is careful to stress, there were such people in the county he investigates, and throughout occupied Poland. Engelking recalls Wacław Szpura, who baked bread three times every night for the thirty-two Jews he rescued."

That sort of trauma does not leave a population in 3 generations

[cadence]

Maybe those fiendish Israelis gave him cancer. 

Maybe some deaths in custody are more worthy of protest than others.

Detainee dies of heart attack at Gaza prison


Published yesterday (updated) 02/04/2013 17:35


GAZA CITY (Ma'an) -- Sami Hamdan Qishta, 50, died on Monday of a heart attack in a prison in southern Gaza, the Hamas government in control of the enclave announced.

Qishta was detained in a Rafah jail on charges related to financial crimes, the Gaza ministry of interior said in a statement.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


I demand an independent public enquiry to get to the bottom of allegations that this man was tortured by Israeli Hamas thugs.

Tortured to death. It hardly matters which side did it. It's reprehensible.
But of course BDB will use it to justify whatever the latest Israeli atrocity is because the other side are not fully human.

and, equally, the affective social distancing that is created on the palestinian side is equally as socially harmful. in order to carry out an act like stone another person to death, the person doing that has to have the same conceptions about the others being lesser, and even inhuman as you say.

you want hatred, prejudice and murderous slaughter, get yourself some affective social distancing. that'll do it for you.

Israel runs the system. Palestinians  have no choice but to live in it.
The power imbalance is grotesque.

I think the Israelis never dealt with the Holocaust.
We often hear about the 6 million but do we understand how barbaric it was in practice ?


http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2012/dec/20/hitlers-logical-holocaust/?pagination=false&printpage=true

"But what of the quarter-million or so Polish Jews who somehow escaped the gassing, and who sought help among Poles in 1943, 1944, and 1945? Gross, along with Jan Grabowski and Barbara Engelking, records the undeniable fact that most of these people were murdered as well, perhaps half of them by Poles (following German policy and law) rather than by Germans.

Together, these Polish historians make two essential arguments that help us to understand the workings of deliberate Nazi persecution after the destruction of the Polish state. One is the continuity of personnel and of obedience. In general the Polish police continued to function, now taking orders from the Germans. Whereas in 1938 their job included preventing pogroms in independent Poland, in 1942 they were ordered to hunt down Jews. Second, local governments could be mobilized to capture Jews who had escaped the gas chambers. Poles in a given area were named as hostages, to be punished if a hunt for Jews failed. Local leaders were personally responsible for keeping their districts free of Jews, and could easily be denounced if they failed to do so. In the event of a successful hunt for Jews, local leaders were responsible for the distribution of Jewish property.4

"Peasants in the countryside, as Engelking and Grabowski demonstrate, were unconcerned with protecting the reputation of the Polish nation (with which they likely did not identify), but obsessed with their position relative to their neighbors.5 Peasants figure in all of these books as competitive, jealous, and concerned above all with property. Under German occupation, peasants regularly denounced one another to the Germans on all conceivable pretexts. This "epidemic of denunciations," as Grabowski puts it, made the prospect of rescuing a Jew from the German policy of destruction extremely difficult. Peasants noticed when a neighboring family was collecting more food, keeping different hours, or even bringing home a newspaper. All of these were signs that a Jew was being hidden, and led to denunciations which had overlapping motives: desire for the property of the Jews and those hiding them, and fear of collective German reprisals.
In this situation, as Engelking observes, it was highly irrational for Polish peasants to help Jews: "in the case of Jews seeking aid the costs of refusing them were zero, and the costs of helping them were enormous." As she and Grabowski both show, very often Poles acted as if they were rescuers, took the Jews' money, and then turned them in to the police. In Grabowski's study of dozens of cases of rescue and betrayal, he found that the Jews who were rescued rather than betrayed were precisely those who found their way to people who were not thinking of personal gain. This also holds of course for Poles such as Jan Karski and Witold Pilecki who voluntarily entered, respectively, the Warsaw ghetto and Auschwitz.6 As Grabowski is careful to stress, there were such people in the county he investigates, and throughout occupied Poland. Engelking recalls Wacław Szpura, who baked bread three times every night for the thirty-two Jews he rescued."

That sort of trauma does not leave a population in 3 generations

agreed on the jewish trauma, and i don't disagree that there's an imbalance of power too. but that power and trauma are not the only factors. to keep that type of oppression going, to hate the oppressed, and for the oppressed to hate the oppressor so much too, it also takes affective social distancing to create a particular type of collective consciousness. politicians, leaders of paramilitary groups, people not involved in either of those activities, we're all equally as vulnerable to the influence that asd can have too. it's a very powerful phenomena. 

without the affective social distancing, social groups can't hate each other enough to do the things we're talking about. the power itself doesn't make those things happen. it's why south africa didn't descend into a bloodbath when mandela was released and when the anc came to power. they didn't do the affective social distancing, in fact they went out of their way to humanise it all with the truth and reconciliation process.

[seafoid]

agreed on the jewish trauma, and i don't disagree that there's an imbalance of power too. but that power and trauma are not the only factors. to keep that type of oppression going, to hate the oppressed, and for the oppressed to hate the oppressor so much too, it also takes affective social distancing to create a particular type of collective consciousness. politicians, leaders of paramilitary groups, people not involved in either of those activities, we're all equally as vulnerable to the influence that asd can have too. it's a very powerful phenomena. 

without the affective social distancing, social groups can't hate each other enough to do the things we're talking about. the power itself doesn't make those things happen. it's why south africa didn't descend into a bloodbath when mandela was released and when the anc came to power. they didn't do the affective social distancing, in fact they went out of their way to humanise it all with the truth and reconciliation process

Israel is still at the apartheid stage. So kids are still being indoctrinated about how savage the Palestinians are. Maybe that is where SA was in 1975 or so. Israel does not allow its Jewish citizen to marry Palestinians. A lot of the asd is systematic and part of Israeli bureaucracy.   
They don't even call them "Palestinians" in Israel. They are just Arabs. 
Very few Jews live with Palestinians. you have 2 populations kept deliberately apart.
So of course there is asd.

But what are the Palestinians supposed to do now Israel has decided there won't be a Palestinian state ? 

[cadence]

agreed on the jewish trauma, and i don't disagree that there's an imbalance of power too. but that power and trauma are not the only factors. to keep that type of oppression going, to hate the oppressed, and for the oppressed to hate the oppressor so much too, it also takes affective social distancing to create a particular type of collective consciousness. politicians, leaders of paramilitary groups, people not involved in either of those activities, we're all equally as vulnerable to the influence that asd can have too. it's a very powerful phenomena. 

without the affective social distancing, social groups can't hate each other enough to do the things we're talking about. the power itself doesn't make those things happen. it's why south africa didn't descend into a bloodbath when mandela was released and when the anc came to power. they didn't do the affective social distancing, in fact they went out of their way to humanise it all with the truth and reconciliation process

Israel is still at the apartheid stage. So kids are still being indoctrinated about how savage the Palestinians are. Maybe that is where SA was in 1975 or so. Israel does not allow its Jewish citizen to marry Palestinians. A lot of the asd is systematic and part of Israeli bureaucracy.   
They don't even call them "Palestinians" in Israel. They are just Arabs. 
Very few Jews live with Palestinians. you have 2 populations kept deliberately apart.
So of course there is asd.

But what are the Palestinians supposed to do now Israel has decided there won't be a Palestinian state ?

you know as well as i do that asd happens in both social groups and it's how the mindset needed in order to stone someone to death is created, and it's how the mindset needed in order to consider people rats is created. it's not all doom and gloom though, there are large numbers of people over there who are appalled by what is happening and who want to improve this.

the difficult task for moderates on both sides is to try to pull those in their communites back from what they're doing and to build relationships with each other and to work towards creating as many positive relationships as they can. without this happening, any political solution tried will be viewed with suspicious, and there'll be antagonism, and the alternative all runs the risk of not having the longevity people desire. it's not an easy task by any means dealing with the pain and anger that both communities have done to each another, but unless the myths of otherness asd creates are overturned, it's going nowhere fast.

[seafoid]

agreed on the jewish trauma, and i don't disagree that there's an imbalance of power too. but that power and trauma are not the only factors. to keep that type of oppression going, to hate the oppressed, and for the oppressed to hate the oppressor so much too, it also takes affective social distancing to create a particular type of collective consciousness. politicians, leaders of paramilitary groups, people not involved in either of those activities, we're all equally as vulnerable to the influence that asd can have too. it's a very powerful phenomena. 

without the affective social distancing, social groups can't hate each other enough to do the things we're talking about. the power itself doesn't make those things happen. it's why south africa didn't descend into a bloodbath when mandela was released and when the anc came to power. they didn't do the affective social distancing, in fact they went out of their way to humanise it all with the truth and reconciliation process

Israel is still at the apartheid stage. So kids are still being indoctrinated about how savage the Palestinians are. Maybe that is where SA was in 1975 or so. Israel does not allow its Jewish citizen to marry Palestinians. A lot of the asd is systematic and part of Israeli bureaucracy.   
They don't even call them "Palestinians" in Israel. They are just Arabs. 
Very few Jews live with Palestinians. you have 2 populations kept deliberately apart.
So of course there is asd.

But what are the Palestinians supposed to do now Israel has decided there won't be a Palestinian state ?

you know as well as i do that asd happens in both social groups and it's how the mindset needed in order to stone someone to death is created, and it's how the mindset needed in order to consider people rats is created. it's not all doom and gloom though, there are large numbers of people over there who are appalled by what is happening and who want to improve this.

the difficult task for moderates on both sides is to try to pull those in their communites back from what they're doing and to build relationships with each other and to work towards creating as many positive relationships as they can. without this happening, any political solution tried will be viewed with suspicious, and there'll be antagonism, and the alternative all runs the risk of not having the longevity people desire. it's not an easy task by any means dealing with the pain and anger that both communities have done to each another, but unless the myths of otherness asd creates are overturned, it's going nowhere fast.

Most Palestinians are not involved in violence. They just try to manage difficult lives.
Israel is the problem. It takes a lot of indoctrination to turn a 4 year old into an occupation soldier 14 years later. I think Israel has to change.   Nobody asked Israel to occupy Gaza and the West Bank.

It's all bound up too with the mythology of Zionism- that the land is all Jewish land, that the Palestinians have no right to be there. And the economics of the space where Jews earn on average 20 times what Palestinians do. That is systematic.
But you won't get change unless Israeli Jews want to change.

Imagine the trauma the kids go through on both sides. It is so pointless.

[Itchy]

agreed on the jewish trauma, and i don't disagree that there's an imbalance of power too. but that power and trauma are not the only factors. to keep that type of oppression going, to hate the oppressed, and for the oppressed to hate the oppressor so much too, it also takes affective social distancing to create a particular type of collective consciousness. politicians, leaders of paramilitary groups, people not involved in either of those activities, we're all equally as vulnerable to the influence that asd can have too. it's a very powerful phenomena. 

without the affective social distancing, social groups can't hate each other enough to do the things we're talking about. the power itself doesn't make those things happen. it's why south africa didn't descend into a bloodbath when mandela was released and when the anc came to power. they didn't do the affective social distancing, in fact they went out of their way to humanise it all with the truth and reconciliation process

Israel is still at the apartheid stage. So kids are still being indoctrinated about how savage the Palestinians are. Maybe that is where SA was in 1975 or so. Israel does not allow its Jewish citizen to marry Palestinians. A lot of the asd is systematic and part of Israeli bureaucracy.   
They don't even call them "Palestinians" in Israel. They are just Arabs. 
Very few Jews live with Palestinians. you have 2 populations kept deliberately apart.
So of course there is asd.

But what are the Palestinians supposed to do now Israel has decided there won't be a Palestinian state ?

you know as well as i do that asd happens in both social groups and it's how the mindset needed in order to stone someone to death is created, and it's how the mindset needed in order to consider people rats is created. it's not all doom and gloom though, there are large numbers of people over there who are appalled by what is happening and who want to improve this.

the difficult task for moderates on both sides is to try to pull those in their communites back from what they're doing and to build relationships with each other and to work towards creating as many positive relationships as they can. without this happening, any political solution tried will be viewed with suspicious, and there'll be antagonism, and the alternative all runs the risk of not having the longevity people desire. it's not an easy task by any means dealing with the pain and anger that both communities have done to each another, but unless the myths of otherness asd creates are overturned, it's going nowhere fast.

Are you aware it was ballbag above that called Palestinians "rats". A fine Nazi type term which brings to mind extermination of this sub human rat like people to cleanse the world of vermin. What sort of social conditioning made Ballbag hate Palestinians you might wonder, what in his past would make him hate so much people he doesn't know. I wonder did those that did this wrong to Ballbag hate him with the same fury as he hates now. Anyhow, this sad case will be used by evil men to justify more evil acts and evil words as Ballbag has just demonstrated.

[cadence]

agreed on the jewish trauma, and i don't disagree that there's an imbalance of power too. but that power and trauma are not the only factors. to keep that type of oppression going, to hate the oppressed, and for the oppressed to hate the oppressor so much too, it also takes affective social distancing to create a particular type of collective consciousness. politicians, leaders of paramilitary groups, people not involved in either of those activities, we're all equally as vulnerable to the influence that asd can have too. it's a very powerful phenomena. 

without the affective social distancing, social groups can't hate each other enough to do the things we're talking about. the power itself doesn't make those things happen. it's why south africa didn't descend into a bloodbath when mandela was released and when the anc came to power. they didn't do the affective social distancing, in fact they went out of their way to humanise it all with the truth and reconciliation process

Israel is still at the apartheid stage. So kids are still being indoctrinated about how savage the Palestinians are. Maybe that is where SA was in 1975 or so. Israel does not allow its Jewish citizen to marry Palestinians. A lot of the asd is systematic and part of Israeli bureaucracy.   
They don't even call them "Palestinians" in Israel. They are just Arabs. 
Very few Jews live with Palestinians. you have 2 populations kept deliberately apart.
So of course there is asd.

But what are the Palestinians supposed to do now Israel has decided there won't be a Palestinian state ?

you know as well as i do that asd happens in both social groups and it's how the mindset needed in order to stone someone to death is created, and it's how the mindset needed in order to consider people rats is created. it's not all doom and gloom though, there are large numbers of people over there who are appalled by what is happening and who want to improve this.

the difficult task for moderates on both sides is to try to pull those in their communites back from what they're doing and to build relationships with each other and to work towards creating as many positive relationships as they can. without this happening, any political solution tried will be viewed with suspicious, and there'll be antagonism, and the alternative all runs the risk of not having the longevity people desire. it's not an easy task by any means dealing with the pain and anger that both communities have done to each another, but unless the myths of otherness asd creates are overturned, it's going nowhere fast.

Most Palestinians are not involved in violence. They just try to manage difficult lives.
Israel is the problem. It takes a lot of indoctrination to turn a 4 year old into an occupation soldier 14 years later. I think Israel has to change.   Nobody asked Israel to occupy Gaza and the West Bank.

It's all bound up too with the mythology of Zionism- that the land is all Jewish land, that the Palestinians have no right to be there. And the economics of the space where Jews earn on average 20 times what Palestinians do. That is systematic.
But you won't get change unless Israeli Jews want to change.

Imagine the trauma the kids go through on both sides. It is so pointless.

yep, israel is a powerful, militarised country, much more powerful that than palestine. winning an argument about that on it's own just means that those immoderates in israel might respond, yeh so?! the palestinians stone our children to death so they deserve everything they get from us. we're still in the entrenched position. the moral high ground claimed by both sides doesn't change anything. nothing shifts.

of course it's about rights, equality and anti-oppression, but that type of social change takes social and cultural solutions as well as political ones. politics on their own can't fix what's happened. rarely does. purely from a sociological perspective, it's helpful for people to understand the social processes that play a big part in getting them into the mess they get into. ignoring the power issue for a moment is helpful, because once you know what the asd is, you can take measures to lessen the harm it has. raising people's awareness of asd processes has it's benefits. awareness plays an important part of the aul' interactive social distancing process and changes how some people think. important to get in there at the coal face. make an impact, change people's perceptions... if i don't have an alternative way of looking at the world other than the one that supports my social group above all others, it's less likely i can reject this perspective of the world that i've been taught.

[Ball DeBeaver]

Itchy, if you would care to read the post again you will see that the RATS are the stone throwers, not the many pals who don't involve themselves in trying to murder children, but you only read what you want to read.

[cadence]

agreed on the jewish trauma, and i don't disagree that there's an imbalance of power too. but that power and trauma are not the only factors. to keep that type of oppression going, to hate the oppressed, and for the oppressed to hate the oppressor so much too, it also takes affective social distancing to create a particular type of collective consciousness. politicians, leaders of paramilitary groups, people not involved in either of those activities, we're all equally as vulnerable to the influence that asd can have too. it's a very powerful phenomena. 

without the affective social distancing, social groups can't hate each other enough to do the things we're talking about. the power itself doesn't make those things happen. it's why south africa didn't descend into a bloodbath when mandela was released and when the anc came to power. they didn't do the affective social distancing, in fact they went out of their way to humanise it all with the truth and reconciliation process

Israel is still at the apartheid stage. So kids are still being indoctrinated about how savage the Palestinians are. Maybe that is where SA was in 1975 or so. Israel does not allow its Jewish citizen to marry Palestinians. A lot of the asd is systematic and part of Israeli bureaucracy.   
They don't even call them "Palestinians" in Israel. They are just Arabs. 
Very few Jews live with Palestinians. you have 2 populations kept deliberately apart.
So of course there is asd.

But what are the Palestinians supposed to do now Israel has decided there won't be a Palestinian state ?

you know as well as i do that asd happens in both social groups and it's how the mindset needed in order to stone someone to death is created, and it's how the mindset needed in order to consider people rats is created. it's not all doom and gloom though, there are large numbers of people over there who are appalled by what is happening and who want to improve this.

the difficult task for moderates on both sides is to try to pull those in their communites back from what they're doing and to build relationships with each other and to work towards creating as many positive relationships as they can. without this happening, any political solution tried will be viewed with suspicious, and there'll be antagonism, and the alternative all runs the risk of not having the longevity people desire. it's not an easy task by any means dealing with the pain and anger that both communities have done to each another, but unless the myths of otherness asd creates are overturned, it's going nowhere fast.

Are you aware it was ballbag above that called Palestinians "rats". A fine Nazi type term which brings to mind extermination of this sub human rat like people to cleanse the world of vermin. What sort of social conditioning made Ballbag hate Palestinians you might wonder, what in his past would make him hate so much people he doesn't know. I wonder did those that did this wrong to Ballbag hate him with the same fury as he hates now. Anyhow, this sad case will be used by evil men to justify more evil acts and evil words as Ballbag has just demonstrated.

yes i am aware he called palestinians rats. that's why i posted. i think the point of it all is that we're none of us immune from viewing and treating others appallingly. affective social distance, the process, it perpetuates the reasoning that justifies the oppressive and awful behaviour. but it's also the method too. red, white and blue kerbs, murals on the walls, these create the otherness and justify the social distance at the same time. it happens everywhere, not just in israel. sadly we don't always opt for the healthier social processes.

[seafoid]

Cadence

of course it's about rights, equality and anti-oppression, but that type of social change takes social and cultural solutions as well as political ones. politics on their own can't fix what's happened. rarely does. purely from a sociological perspective, it's helpful for people to understand the social processes that play a big part in getting them into the mess they get into. ignoring the power issue for a moment is helpful, because once you know what the asd is, you can take measures to lessen the harm it has. raising people's awareness of asd processes has it's benefits. awareness plays an important part of the aul' interactive social distancing process and changes how some people think. important to get in there at the coal face. make an impact, change people's perceptions... if i don't have an alternative way of looking at the world other than the one that supports my social group above all others, it's less likely i can reject this perspective of the world that i've been taught.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/features/things-to-do-in-ramallah-when-the-u-s-president-is-visiting.premium-1.511722#

"Between the houses I saw groups of armed men dressed in olive green uniforms. There were children around them. The children ran toward me and started showering me with questions. I barely got in a question of my own: "Who are those people?" Yahud, Jews, the children answered.
They carried on with their questions. What was my name? How was I doing? Where did I work? Where did I live and what kind of car did I drive? A soldier approached and advised me to move away because stones are being thrown. The children asked if I was one of them, like the soldiers. I said I was Jewish like they are, but I was not a soldier. Not all Jews are soldiers"


Whose responsibility is it to educate those kids that not all Jews are soldiers?   To make the space for them to see that? 
And how should they interpret the Jews who are soldiers?

And what role do you see the economics of the situation having? 

[cadence]

whose responsibility?  Anyone in the community can do this.

the economics/trade has to be freed up... won't happen without a new agreement though. and yes, the agreement will have to be politically created, somehow, but getting that agreement to last will take a social and cultural shifting of attitudes about the others. it'll be a very fleeting agreement yet again otherwise and won't be maintained longterm unless that work and investment in communities continues.

[give her dixie]

In Palestine, Dignity and Violence

Tuesday, 02 April 2013 09:34
By Noam Chomsky,


The Swedish novelist Henning Mankell tells of an experience in Mozambique during the civil war horrors there 25 years ago, when he saw a young man walking toward him in ragged clothes.

"I noticed something that I will never forget for as long as I live," Mankell says. "I looked at his feet. He had no shoes. Instead he had painted shoes on his feet. He had used the colors in the ground and in the roots to replace his shoes. He had come up with a way to keep his dignity."

Such scenes will evoke poignant memories among those who have witnessed cruelty and degradation, which are everywhere. One striking case, though only one of a great many, is Gaza, which I was able to visit for the first time last October.

There violence is met by the steady resistance of the "samidin" – those who endure, to borrow Raja Shehadeh's evocative term in "The Third Way," his memoir on Palestinians under occupation, 30 years ago.

Greeting me on my return home were the reports of the Israeli assault on Gaza in November, supported by the United States and tolerated politely by Europe as usual.
Israel isn't Gaza's only adversary. Gaza's southern border remains largely under the control of Egypt's dreaded secret police, the Mukhabarat, which credible reports link closely to the CIA and the Israeli Mossad.

Just last month a young Gaza journalist sent me an article describing the Egyptian government's latest assault on the people of Gaza.

A network of tunnels into Egypt is a lifeline for Gazans imprisoned under harsh siege and constant attack. Now the Egyptian government has devised a new way to block the tunnels: flooding them with sewage.

Meanwhile the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem reports on a new device that the Israeli army is using to counter the weekly nonviolent protests against Israel's illegal Separation Wall – in reality an Annexation Wall.

The samidin have been ingenious in coping with tear gas so the army has escalated, spraying protesters and homes with jets of a liquid as noxious as raw sewage.

These attacks provide more evidence that great minds think alike, combining criminal repression with humiliation.

The tragedy of Gaza traces back to 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians fled in terror or were forcibly expelled to Gaza by conquering Israeli forces.

Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion held that "The Arabs of the Land of Israel have only one function left to them – to run away."

It is noteworthy that today the strongest support for Israel in the international arena comes from the United States, Canada and Australia, the so-called Anglosphere – settler-colonial societies based on extermination or expulsion of indigenous populations in favor of a higher race, and where such behavior is considered natural and praiseworthy.

For decades Gaza has been a showcase for violence of every kind. The record includes such carefully planned atrocities as Operation Cast Lead in 2008-2009 – "infanticide," as it was called by Norwegian physicians Mads Gilbert and Erik Fosse, who worked at Gaza's al-Shifa Hospital with their Palestinian and Norwegian colleagues through the criminal assault. The word is apt, considering the hundreds of children massacred.

Violence ranges through just about every kind of cruelty that humans have used their higher mental faculties to devise, up to the pain of exile.

The pain is particularly stark in Gaza, where older people can still look across the border toward the homes from which they were driven – or could if they were able to approach the border without being killed.

One form of punishment has been to close off more of the Gazan side of the border, turning it into a buffer zone, including half of Gaza's arable land, according to Harvard's Sara Roy, a leading scholar on Gaza.

While a showcase for the human capacity for violence, Gaza is also an inspiring exemplar of the demand for dignity.

Ghada Ageel, a young woman who escaped from Gaza to Canada, writes about her 87-year-old refugee grandmother, still trapped in the Gaza prison. Before her grandmother's expulsion from a now-destroyed village, "she owned a house, farms and land and she enjoyed honor, dignity and hope."

Amazingly, like Palestinians generally, the elderly woman hasn't given up hope.

"When I saw my grandmother in November 2012 she was unusually happy," Ageel writes. "Surprised by her high spirits, I asked for an explanation. She looked me in the eye and, to my surprise, said that she was no longer worried about" her native village and the life of dignity that she has lost, for her irrevocably.

The village, her grandmother told Ageel, "'is in your heart, and I also know that you are not alone in your journey. Don't be discouraged. We are getting there."'

The search for dignity is understood instinctively by those who hold the clubs, and who recognize that apart from violence, the best way to undermine dignity is by humiliation. That is second nature in prisons.

The normal practice in Israeli prisons is once again under scrutiny. In February, Arafat Jaradat, a 30-year-old gas-station attendant, died in Israeli custody. The circumstances might yet spark another uprising.

Jaradat was arrested in his home at midnight (an appropriate hour to intimidate his family), and charged with having thrown stones and a Molotov cocktail a few months earlier, during Israel's November attack on Gaza.
Jaradat, healthy when arrested, was last seen alive in court by his lawyer, who describes him as "doubled over, scared, confused and shrunken."

The court remanded him to another 12 days of detention. Jaradat was found dead in his cell.
Journalist Amira Hass writes that "The Palestinians do not need an Israeli investigation. For them, Jaradat's death is much bigger than the tragedy he and his family have suffered. From their experience, Jaradat's death is â(euro) [ proof that the Israeli system routinely uses torture. From their experience, the goal of torture is not only to convict someone, but mainly to deter and subjugate an entire people."

The means are humiliation, degradation and terror – familiar features of repression at home and abroad.

The need to humiliate those who raise their heads is an ineradicable element of the imperial mentality.

In the case of Israel-Palestine, there has long been a near-unanimous international consensus on a diplomatic settlement, blocked by the United States for 35 years, with tacit European acceptance.
Contempt for the worthless victims is no small part of the barrier to achieving a settlement with at least a modicum of justice and respect for human dignity and rights. It's not beyond imagination that the barrier can be overcome by dedicated work, as has been done elsewhere.

Unless the powerful are capable of learning to respect the dignity of the victims, impassable barriers will remain, and the world will be doomed to violence, cruelty and bitter suffering.

© 2013 Noam Chomsky