Lesenswertes Interview mit John Mearsheimer und Norman Finkelstein. Gedanken zu Oslo, zu Rabins Aussage er unterstütze eine Etablierung eines palästinensischen Staats nicht und zur Veränderung der Wahrnehmung des Konflikts in den USA und Europa.

Weiter, Erläuterungen zur Möglichkeit, die Siedler aus den besetzten Gebieten nach Israel zu holen, die gemäss Umfragen mehrheitlich, bis auf eine gewaltbereite Minderheit von 10’000 – 15'000 Menschen, nach Israel zurückkehren würden.

Oder die Aussage eines israelische Sicherheitsbeamten zu einer äusserst einfachen Methode die Siedler, am Beispiel Hebron, zur Rückkehr nach Israel zu bewegen: Die israelische Armee sagt den Siedlern: “Wir verlassen euch!“

Zudem Gedanken zur israelischen Forderung von den Palästinensern als jüdischer Staat anerkannt zu werden. (Die Palästinensern anerkennen Israel seit 1988 auf der gemäss der UN Res. 273 als Israel, aber nicht als jüdischen Staat: Link)

Ein wichtiger Gedanke zu “Faktenkenntniss” legt Norman Finkelstein folgendermassen dar: Leute fragen mich immer wieder, wie es mir in Diskussionen mit Pro–Israel Propagandisten gelänge, Ruhe zu bewahren. Ich mache sie darauf aufmerksam, dass nur fundiertes Wissen über den Konflikt uns erlaubt, den Lügen mit Gelassenheit entgegenzutreten. FP 25. Okt. 2011

Oktober 2011

Greater Israel – or Peace?
By Scott McConnell

Pathbreaking scholars Norman Finkelstein and John Mearsheimer speak out about the precarious future of the Jewish state.

John Mearsheimer: The Israelis—and this was especially true of Rabin when the Oslo peace process got started—had no interest in giving the Palestinians a viable state. What they wanted was to restrict the Palestinians to a handful of Bantustans that were located inside of Greater Israel, and it could be called a Palestinian state. In a very important way, Oslo has been successful in that it has allowed the Israelis, working with the Palestinian Authority, to create a situation where the Palestinians have some autonomy in these Bantustans.

McConnell: You say this about Rabin too? He’s considered the most peace-oriented Israeli.

Finkelstein: He was the most rigid. Even Rabin’s wife, afterwards, during the Camp David negotiations, said that her husband would never have agreed to the concessions that [Prime Minister Ehud] Barak made. Now remember, Barak barely made any concessions. But she said her husband would have never agreed to that. I think she’s probably right. In Rabin’s last speech to the Knesset before he was assassinated, he said, “I don’t support a Palestinian state.” He said, “Something less than it.”

Mearsheimer: But here’s the question. Do you, Norman Finkelstein, think it’s a good thing there’s a Jewish state?

Finkelstein: No. But I don’t think it’s a good thing to have Christian states, Muslim states, or any kind of ethnic states. There is a difference between saying… remember let’s be clear about what the UN said. The UN said, “We want to create a Jewish state and an Arab state in Palestine.”

Mearsheimer: Right.

Finkelstein: But then the UN went on to say, and it was very explicit in the recommendation, “There cannot be any discrimination whatsoever in the Jewish state against an Arab minority.” Now, you may ask the reasonable question, “Well, if there can’t be any discrimination whatsoever, what do they mean by a Jewish state?” They never answer that.

Mearsheimer: A lot has changed since 1987 when the First Intifada broke out. First of all, there are many more settlers. And if you leave 60-plus percent of those settlers, you still have to remove…

Finkelstein: 200,000.

Mearsheimer: Right. You still have to remove a…

Finkelstein: If you look at the polls, the polls vary. But as high as 60 percent say they’re willing to be bought out. The Israeli expression is “quality of life settlers.” They just moved there because Israel gave them tons of mortgage subsidies and everything. They say, “Give us money, we’ll leave.”

Mearsheimer: But the fact is that if 40 percent of the settlers were to resist removal, it would be incredibly bloody.

Finkelstein: Yeah, but then you look at the polls, and the polls say about 10,000 or 15,000 would resist violently. The rest say they would oppose it, but if the army gives an order, “You have to leave,” only about 10,000 or 15,000 say that they would resist violently. In my opinion that’s mostly bravado. The actual number will probably be several thousand.
And then the Israeli former security people say there’s a really easy way to handle them: all we’ll do is say, “We’re leaving. You want to stay in Hebron with 160,000 crazy Arabs? Stay. We’re going.” And the Israeli security people say, “You’ll see how fast they’ll leave.”

People ask me, “Why don’t you ever lose your cool? Why don’t you get angry? I get so angry.” I say, “Because the reason you get angry is frustration. You know what the other person is saying is not true, but you don’t know how to answer it. You don’t know the facts, and that’s where the anger and frustration come from.” Continue reading→