Date: Sat, 16 Mar 2002 14:53:40 -0800 (PST)
From: Wolf Factory <wolf_factory-AT-yahoo.com>
Subject: RE: Brilliant Canadian view of Palestinians


Reading over my reply, I realized that one point I
made needs to be qualified.
The suicide bombing attacks recently have impacted
Israeli economy
See for eg.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/middle_east/newsid_1875000/1875994.stm

This however does not make the day-to-day suffering of
all Palestinian as a result of Israeli violence
comparable to the suffering of all Israelis. 
Both sides experience fear but one can not say both
sides experience oppression and discrimination.

W.F.

--- Wolf Factory <wolf_factory-AT-yahoo.com> wrote:
> > If what Israel does is terrorism (and I'm not
> saying
> > it isn't), what do you
> > call it when Palestinians kill innocent civilians
> in
> > Israel?  What do you
> > call it when a Palestinian opens fire upon
> teenagers
> > at a dance?
> 
> I think the use of the word terrorism when it comes
> to
> the middle east is very troublesome, inadequate and
> ultimately unhelpful. 
> 
> A better approach to thinking about the middle east
> conflict is to think of it in terms of colonizer and
> colonized. From the history of such encounters, one
> can say the following about them: 
> a) They are never pretty.
> b) Never homogeneous (i.e takes different forms
> depending on country and location in history).
> c) Can never be resolved unless the colonized are
> obliterated or assimilated or freed.
> 
> The encounter leads to a great deal of bloodletting
> (mostly from the colonized side which is always less
> equipped to mount a fight) and can lead to a kind of
> madness that allows one side to reduce the other to
> a
> set of abominable characteristics. 
> 
> The question that one must always ask about such
> encounters, especially if one doesnt want to sink in
> the quagmire of attack and counter-attack, is a
> simple
> one:
> 
> Who has power over whom and why?
> 
> This question simplifies the situation without
> distorting it. 
> 
> This is ultimately a matter of magnification and
> perspective. A biologist can not hope to understand
> everything about the brain by simply studying a
> single
> neuron and ignoring how all the neurons form
> connections and networks.
> 
> Thus, if we focus on the Palestinian who is killing
> innocent Israelis, we can not help but condemn him.
> We
> want him punished in order to bring a small measure
> of
> comfort and justice to the families of his victims.
> However if all we do is maintain our focus at that
> level of magnification, we will fail to understand
> why
> other terrorists keeps poping up in his place, keeps
> coming back again and again in order to wreck havoc
> on
> more innocent lives. 
> 
> So what to do? The answer is to pull back and try to
> understand the whole situation. To ask that all
> important question: Who has power over whom and why?
> A
> suicide bomber who takes his own life and the life
> of
> those unfortunate Israelis around him does not
> oppress
> all Israelis, take away their freedom, hamper their
> education, their right to travel, build homes, set
> up
> businesses, play games, demonstrate, etc, etc. The
> suicide bomber does not regulate every aspect of
> Israeli life.
> 
> However, even after the Israeli tanks pull out from
> West bank villages and towns, the Palestinians, and
> here I mean ALL Palestinians whether they be direct
> victims of Israeli violence or not, feel the weight
> of
> oppression upon their shoulders, pressing them down,
> making them something less than human. 
> 
> An Israeli in a Tel Aviv nightclub, could forget
> where
> she is. She might be in New York, in London, in
> Paris.
> A Palestinian can never forget where she is. The
> soldiers at the checkpoints will quickly remind her.
> 
> 
> If this makes me sound like I forgive the suicide
> bomber his/her deeds than I have failed at
> communicating my thoughts. Explaining what leads to
> the creation of a suicide bomber is not the same as
> forgiving his/her terrible actions. Indeed such
> explanations, almost always, stem from a desire to
> end
> the conflict, to prevent further human lives from
> being lost through death or life long despair. 
>  
> W.F.
> 
> 
> 
> ====> "All the wolves in the wolf factory paused at noon, 
> for a moment of silence."
> ........from laughing Gravy by John Ashbery.
>
---------------------------------------------------------
> Looking for something good and original to read?
> Check out: http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~simmers/
> 
> __________________________________________________
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> 
> 
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> postcolonial-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---


===="All the wolves in the wolf factory paused at noon, 
for a moment of silence."
........from laughing Gravy by John Ashbery.
---------------------------------------------------------
Looking for something good and original to read?
Check out: http://homepages.nildram.co.uk/~simmers/

__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Sports - live college hoops coverage
http://sports.yahoo.com/


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