a very recent book by alain gresch (on the arab israeli conflict) says something to the effect that you cannot argue politics with nationalist who think that people are immutable or transcend history or religious folk who think that god has given them the land.
Going back to Mark's note on how national struggles are a mediation or forms of class struggle, in the international division of labour, where one stands in the fight against israel and the zionist is the litmus test of working class allegiance, and for a marxist it is class and only class warfare that counts. short of that one has to question one's historical position. and in a war, just or unjust, the human toll is high. mind you the human cost of this war relative to other third world conflicts is minimal in comparison. think of the african wars going on right now that no one hears about or the tens of thousand who died recently in the short blitz of the eriterian ethiopian war that israel financed. but with so many europeans and european intersts in the near east "one european life is worth million of arab and african lives." i think from the position in which i stand that much of the humaneterian talk in the west! is hypocritical or that it conceals a lot of bad faith.
Mark Jones <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]On Behalf Of Michael Perelman
> Sent: 05 November 2002 22:06
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: [PEN-L:31885] Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: dismantling due process
>
>
> Mark, I agree with Doug here. I understand that Japanese assassins use
> knives instead of sniper guns. The Israelis put some of their soldiers at
> risk -- despite the viciousness of their policy. The US fights where its
> personnel are at no direct risk.
>
> This is in no way an apology for Sharon.
The soldiers they seem to be 'putting at risk' seem to be recent
Russian-origin immigrants. But in fact this is just nonsense; they do not
put their soldiers at risk. Their soldiers commit warcrimes and massacre
civ! ilians. It is innocent Palestinians, men and women and children, who die,
not Israeli 'soldiers'. This is slow-motion ethnic cleansing. It is wrong to
excuse it.
Mark
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