I think that depends on if you are going to be a participant in that greater economy or not. No land often means no participation, unless you count being low-paid labour on the land you once owned, which brings me back to my original point (35.2).

Absolutely fair enough on all points, with the sole exception of the last:

“The wall, which is the subject of this post is in part about security but its location is also a strategy to increase the pressure on remaining Palestinians to leave for economic reasons. “

I should have thought that the wall, with the attendant downsides on the Palestinian economy on the other side, would do the precise opposite: if it is the health of your local economy you are worried about, you would want to stay in Israel, surely?

I agree that many were advised to leave by Arab armies but others were threatened or had their homes destroyed, no one description encompasses exactly what happened. Either way, civilians were made homeless and they didn’t want to be.

I really don’t see where I implied Israel was an apartheid state, what I implied was that it was the intention to create a Jewish majority state in a country that was previously a Palestinian majority. The Jewish leadership at the time made no secret of this intent, I think we can call that a historical given?

Logically this could only be achieved by someone leaving. The Israelis knew that, they were open about it and still are today.

The wall, which is the subject of this post is in part about security but its location is also a strategy to increase the pressure on remaining Palestinians to leave for economic reasons. To maintain that Jewish majority.

“I am a right-wing libertarian but I’m still subservient to logic. “

That should be “therefore” not “but”.

“But they didn’t want that, they were supposed to leave.”

??

We are now getting into some very murky territory.

There is ample evidence that the Arabs who left Israel did so voluntarily on the advice of the invading Arab armies on the basis that they could then move back in and take the spoils after the war had been won and Israel wiped off the map. It didn’t work out that way.

More importantly, the fledgeling Israeli government was very clear that they would offer full Israeli citizenship to anyone who wanted to stay, as indeed they did.

Your accusation here is along the lines that Israel desires to be an apartheid state, if it is not one already or has been since its creation.

If that is what you are suggesting, can I recommend that you read this.

If not, perhaps you might like to clarify exactly what you do mean.

However some pertinent facts have fallen through the net.

1) Hamas is as much an Israeli creation as it is a Palestinian one. The Palestinian freedom movement was historically a secular one and Hamas received considerable support in its early days in order weaken Fattah control and ferment political infighting. In light of continuing PA failure in the face of Israeli oppression and US support Hamas gained popular support in time.

This was the long-term goal of the Israeli government in order to harden international support.

2) The Israeli government has never wanted peace with the Palestinians, they wanted them to leave. The Palestinian society in 1948 was essentially agrarian, by taking the land from them they took away their means to survive. Had the essentially middle-class/cosmopolitan Jewish Diaspora emigrating to Palestine recognised that a symbiotic arrangement could have been reached they could have roughly divided the society by function and there could have been a chance for peace.

But they didn’t want that, they were supposed to leave.

I am a right-wing libertarian but I’m still subservient to logic.

The Israel/Palestine issue is very difficult to deal with in anything other than traditional state/national terms & so libertarians tend to shy away. In any case there is a very good argument that this issue already gets far to much international attention compared to Zaire, Kashmir, Kosovo, Krajina & other very similar national conflicts

As for the Left/Right split, that is quite simple really and can already be seen in the comments so far. In broad terms for the libertarian right freedom is paramount, for the left equality.

Israel is the most free country in the region, and one of the most free in the world. This is particularly striking when compared to any of the countries that surround it. Hamas, the elected government of the Palestinians, are dedicated to destroying it and turning the entire Levant region into an Islamic state which like all Islamic states would be anything but free.

Israel is also one of the most technologically, militarily, and industrially powerful countries in the region. This is particularly striking when compared to the PA which is a basket case that exists purely on handouts from overseas. So this fight is extremely unequal, with the Palestinians undisputed underdogs.

The libertarian right supports Israel so as to lend its support to the freest place in the region against a force that would turn it into a very unfree place.

The much of the left supports the PA because it is the underdog and they want to try and lend their support to level the odds and make it a less grossly unequal pairing.

Especially comment 53:
“All told, in the past six decades, this region has witnessed no fewer than 22 full-scale wars over territory and resources, not one of them having anything to do with Israel and the Palestinians. And these international disputes, as I mentioned at the outset, are quite apart from the uninterrupted string of domestic clashes, military coups, acts of sectarian and ethnic vengeance, factional terrorism, and other internal conflicts that have characterized the greater Middle East, not infrequently attaining impressive heights of cruelty and despoliation. Nor is that the end of it. Underlying all of this are the unmoving facts, documented at length in the annual volumes of the Arab Human Development Report, of chronic instability, severe economic underachievement, social atrophy, and cultural backwardness. The greater Middle East is the only part of the world still largely untouched by the wave of positive change that followed the end of the cold war.

The notion that all of these problems can be waved away by “solving” the Arab-Israeli conflict is thus at best a delusion, at worst a recipe for maintaining today’s wider political, diplomatic, and social paralysis.

…

with the exception of Israel and with the partial exception of Turkey, the entire Middle East lacks a culture of conflict resolution, let alone the necessary mechanisms of meaningful compromise. ”

THAT is my point. Given the lack of a culture of conflict resolution, I’d hide behind a wall as well.

Jonn,

“I have nothing that comes even close to resembling a straightforward opinion on the Middle East. I don’t have the knowledge, and I don’t presume to pretend otherwise.”

Same here. Which is why I consider that the condemnation solely of Israel is not good enough, not helpful and not worthy of support.

“The PA’s values do have fuck all to do with mine. But it’s not the PA I sympathize with, it’s the Palestinian people. “

Quite so. My point is that you never see demonstrations of the size that you get outside Israeli embassies all over the world complaining about the conduct of the PA.

“My point, if I have one, is that a policy that focuses entirely on security by keeping the Palestinians locked behind a wall and unable to work themselves out of poverty … [is stupid and cruel]”

I broadly agree with you, but (see above) I don’t think it is fair to suggest that the Israelis have been focussing entirely on security for the last 60 years. So what possessed the Israelis to build it? Why the focus on security now?

Equally, given that the 7% of the West Bank that is enclosed by the wall is almost entirely composed of settlements, I am struggling to blame the entire employment problem in the other 93% (or ~99% excluding settlements) on the wall.

Or could it be that the Syrian, Jordanian and Egyptian border guards are equally unhelpful in terms of cross border employment and trade?

Robert,

Very briefly:
“although in fairness to myself, I did deliberately put it in such a way as to allow for alternative views “

but you deliberately put it in such a way that suggested that your explanation was a majority view and then did not provide a rationale that would allow the opposing view to be held sincerely and with reasonable motive.