Saturday, June 11, 2016

The Land of the Profoundly Blind

This is a most interesting development:

"Tel Aviv's mayor on Thursday blamed Israel's occupation of the Palestinian territories for a deadly attack carried out by two Palestinian gunmen that left four Israelis dead in the Mediterranean city. Labour Mayor Ron Huldai, 71, told Israeli army radio that the occupation was to blame for Wednesday evenings attack when two armed Palestinian men from near Hebron in the southern West Bank walked into a popular cafe and opened fire on revellers. 'We might be the only country in the world where another nation is under occupation without civil rights,' he said. 'You can't hold people in a situation of occupation and hope they'll reach the conclusion everything is alright... There has been an occupation for 49 years, which I was part of and I know the reality... We have to show our neighbours that we have true intentions to return to a reality of a smaller Jewish state with a clear Jewish majority'." (Tel Aviv mayor blames Israeli occupation for deadly cafe attack, middleeasteye.net)

OK, so Ron Huldai's still wedded to the racist idea of a Jewish majority in the rest of occupied Palestine, but still, credit where credit's due. Maybe, in recognition of the mayor's incredible achievement in iterating the bleeding obvious, we should consider rephrasing Erasmus' famous dictum to: 'In the land of the blind known as Israel Ron Huldai should be king.'

The grim reality, however, is that in Israel it's the profoundly blind who have always ruled the roost, and who are responsible for the 49-year-old occupation and colonisation of the Palestinian territories. For example:

"I promise that all those involved in yesterday's deadly terrorist attack will not escape punishment." Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman (Lieberman: Israel will hunt down all behind the Tel Aviv attack, Tovah Lazaroff, The Jerusalem Post, 6/10/16)

6 comments:

Grappler said...

I beg to disagree slightly, MERC. Israel has occupied territory outside the borders it accepted to acquire international acceptance of the Partition Plan since 1948 - that's close to 70 years.

http://mondoweiss.net/2014/11/documents-borders-palestine/

If Israel wants to retreat within those Partition Plan borders and compensate the families of the displaced Palestinians, that's fine. It would still be getting a good deal. Let it become the ultra-orthodox religious runt of a state that birthrate tends to suggest would happen in those circumstances.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-demographics-idUSKCN0RP0Z820150925

Meanwhile the non-Zionist members of Greater Palestine can get on with life without Zionism.

If it doesn't want to do that then it's Plan B - equality and justice for all within Greater Palestine.

Grappler said...

Going back to the link in my previous comment, this is the side of Israel that our totally unbiased MSM never shows:


http://www.reuters.com/article/us-israel-demographics-idUSKCN0RP0Z820150925

'Paltiel, of the statistics bureau, said Israel "would go bankrupt" unless the levels of employment and contributions to social security funds were changed.'

And a propos my comment in a previous thread on Israeli "inventions":

'To alleviate a water crisis Israel has invested billions of dollars in desalination plants, but they consume large amounts of energy and land.'


The Start-Up Nation indeed!

MERC said...

G, something of the full (and utterly shameful) story of UNGA resolution 181 of 1947, the partition resolution, may be found in my posts on the subject, so I'll just add the relevant label to this post for ease of access.

I make here only two points:
a) like all GA resolutions it was only a recommendation; and
b) most importantly, it did not give the Zionists the right to expel the Arab inhabitants (almost 50%) residing in the area allotted to the 'Jewish' state.

So plan B gets my vote.

Grappler said...

That article is fascinating, MERC, and has led me to dig around a bit more.

Current GoI debt as a percentage of GDP is approximately 65%. If our government debt was that high (it's around 36%) both major political parties would be seriously cutting services and raising taxes. GoI spending as a proportion of GDP is approximately 41%, and that of Australia 26%. And Israel has received enormous military assistance from the US to help build one of the top 10 arms industries in the world.

Why is Israel regarded as some kind of economic miracle? If Australia had similar debt and spending figures, both major parties would be proposing serious slashing of services and raising of taxes. And Australia has to pay for pretty well all of its own defence!

MERC said...

Very interesting data indeed. So Israeli settlers live off other Israelis who, in turn, live off the US taxpayer. What a success story!

Anonymous said...

Yes, nice lineal trajectory of thought guys. And why are Israeli settlers (in the West Bank) so heavily subsidised? They are doing the work of the Israeli government - expansionism. Another question is: What type of people does the Israeli government co-opt for this mission?

MG