Jim Devine writes: >> since they lack a state, it's very difficult -- if not impossible -- >> for Palestinians to articulate in practice what their collective >> interests, strategy, and tactics are.
This truly makes no logical sense. If the Palestinians don't know where they want to go, how are they going to get there? I suppose the fact that they have made very lttle progress over the past 100 years achieving articulated goals kind of supports your statement. However many other nationalistic movements were able to articulate interests, strategies and tactics without a state. One example would be the Zionists, so it certainly is not impossible to achieve, let alone articulate, interests, strategies and tactics. If you are correct, then you are implicitly saying that Palestinian action (i.e., "resistance") is prior to and/or unconnected to coherent political goals, which means that any connection between an act and a political result would be purely one of chance, which does not seem like a very efficient way to achieve a political goal. Again, you may be right in characterizing Palestinian political action, because they have made little political progress for 100 years, and is consistent with my point that the Al-Jazeera article (and similar statements) are much more focused on the righteousness of the cause as opposed to political practicality. David Shemano _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
