In view of the apparent end of what passed for democracy in Israel, it’s time for me to repost my comprehensive proposal for US policy covering all aspects of relationships between the US and the Middle East. It’s over the fold.
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John Quiggin 
But surely a decision to have no policy is itself a policy? And why do you want to cause a recession in the US arms manufacturing industry?
Agreed. As I said, it’s a comprehensive policy, spelt out in all necessary detail. I’m sure the US armaments industry can take care of itself.
Unfortunately, stopping a bad policy cold can often cause a lot of damage in the uncontrolled unwinding and collapse of the bad position. Then again, sometimes cold turkey works and is the least worst plan.
I was told once that there’s a traditional Chinese saying that good iron should not be made into nails and good men should not be made into soldiers.
I have a dumb question. Here I sit in California, which used to be Mexico, which used to be Spain (and actually there was some France in there at one point …), and before that presumably belonged to one or several Native American tribes.
Why is it, exactly, that I am expected to look down my nose at Israel for keeping hold of land it won in wars? (Naturally, we all wish humans were peaceful, friendly, and never had wars. But.)
I don’t want to go down a rabbit hole. Can anyone explain in a coupld of sentences, what is the difference? (And I know about the arguments about second class this and that too. I read the paper, sort of, most days.)
Because if it is just that the UN existed in the 20th C and not in the 19th, then I already get that part. (Not quiiiite as dum as I look …)
I mean, to me, it seems like the UN is hugely biased and Israel is just basically unpopular. Is there more to it than that? How is it not a double standard?
And I realize that regular Palestinians are in difficult position. I don’t blame people for being angry.
I am just wondering, am I missing something in the big picture? But I am not asking anyone to go into the weeds. I just don’t get this one thing.
Can’t access the article. Can go back – always states “Over the fold” but it ‘aint.
H.C., that’s the joke, if you didn’t get it. But you may be deadpanning. It’s hard to tell over the internet. IMHO, the USA’s propping up of Israel has created a situation where the US and the M.E. are damned if they (the US) do prop up and damned if they don’t. Which course would have the most and worst repercussions going forward? More props or removal of the props? I guess it’s akin to winding down any bad position where “cold turkey” (no reference to the nation Turkey intended) or full indulgence and continuance of the dependence are both clearly contra-indicated. There has to be a wind-down strategy of some sort, one would think.
In my experience, when people say things like this, it’s often (although far from always) an indicator that they are not really asking a question at all, but instead playing a disingenuous rhetorical game. I hope that is not the case here, so I am going to make a serious attempt to respond to the question as if it’s genuine, but I’m going to feel better about doing so having first flagged my suspicion.
What makes you think that you are expected to look down your nose at Israel for keeping hold of land it won in wars? John Quiggin suggested nothing like that in the original post, and none of the comments that I have read have done so either.
If you could cite some of the things actually said or written by specific people who have actually made clear their expectation that you look down your nose at Israel for keeping hold of land it won in wars, then there is at least some possibility of providing an explanation of why they have done so; but in the absence of that additional clarification, no serious answer to the question is possible.
There are some possibly related things I could say which would not, however, constitute a direct answer to the question actually asked, and I might come back to those later.
Iko, Thanks. I missed the joke.
I’m happy to answer N. Winning land in wars is a crime under international law, and should never be justified. Until relatively recently, Israel’s claim was that it was only holding the West Bank because it was necessary for self-defence, and that it would return the land if it could be guaranteed of peace.
Of interest in this context:
https://www.britannica.com/topic/conquest-international-law
I’m still not clear on whether you expect people to look down their nose at Israel (as referred to in N’s question). More generally, N’s comments included this–
–and this–
–so I imagine that even if we take out the reference to looking down the nose, N might possibly want to ask whether you regard Israel any differently from other countries which hold land they won in wars; although your response that–
–suggests that your answer would be ‘No’.
Final response to N, who says “Because if it is just that the UN existed in the 20th C and not in the 19th, then I already get that part. (Not quiiiite as dum as I look …)”
The UN was founded just after 1945. Unless you are very, very dumb*, you might be able to link that fact to some events immediately preceding its foundation, and consider the comparison you are implying if you think conquest is justified.
* To be clear, I think you are not only playing dumb, but doing so to advance dumb arguments. Smart people do this sometimes, but often end up making fools of themselves, literally as well as metaphorically, You should think about that.
Professor, I appreciate what you’ve said, and I’m going to think about it.
Although I’m not sure I understand the thrust of what you’re saying – as my impression has been that Israel was generally not the aggressor in these wars. Of course, there are many gray areas in life. And, I wasn’t there. (I am having a thing over here with the media – but that’s a tangent.)
As to whether people think I am dumb, well who has time to worry about that?
I am not a troll though – certainly not. But don’t feel like you have to explain yourself again – like I said, I’ll read it over a few more times. I hope this won’t upset people too much. To me, I feel like Israel is my brother, and Palestinians are my friends. I don’t see why I can’t care about both. I hope that doesn’t upset anyone – that’s not my intention. I value your comments and I will consider them.
hi J-D, sorry if I have been slow in answering.
To answer your question, people here make such comments about Israel all the time in the paper. They call it “occupied”* land (the West Bank at any rate), and refer to even quite young people as “refugees.” I just find it puzzling, and people here seem intelligent so I just thought I’d ask. (I don’t ask these questions of people I know because it’s “politics,” and I don’t want to lose friends. Plus, not that many people here will know any more than I do.) Meanwhile, no one ever suggests that the US will ever give anything back, or that it should.
*Mind you, I do see that there is some ambivalence within Israel too, and maybe they never even wanted that land, really. But what are they supposed to do now, one wonders? I don’t think it’s as easy a choice as some people here in my country seem to think.
Using quotation marks around the word “refugees” doesn’t mean I don’t sympathize with people who see themselves that way. It may though mean that I don’t quite agree with that use of the term, after decades. (Again – these are not things I’d say to someone to their face – that would be very rude. People feel what they feel.) Otherwise, wars would never end.
It seems like my questions have caused a kerfluffle. I almost want to apologize. I’m not Australian and I just sort of happened upon this site. I can just go use Wikipedia some more.
There is a technical definition in international law of what constitutes military occupation of a territory. As far as I can tell (and I emphasise that I am not an expert), there is widespread agreement that in terms of this specific definition, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are occupied by Israel but also a significant body of opinion which argues that they don’t fall within this specific legal definition of occupation. You can find more information in Wikipedia or elsewhere about precisely what this definition is, about the precise technical arguments made by the people who say that the West Bank and the Gaza Strip don’t fall within this definition, and about the technical arguments made in response by people who say those those other technical arguments are wrong and the West Bank and the Gaza Strip are occupied territories in the international legal sense. However, I wouldn’t recommend that you invest time in doing so. It is possible that the legal status of the territories affects the legal qualities of the actions of the Israeli government generally, of the Israeli military and the General Security Service** in particular, and also of individual Israelis, but apart from that they are the same actions regardless of that legal status.
It may perhaps be partly the fact that there are people who argue that the territories are not occupied in the specific technical sense of international law which makes the way terms are used a signal of people’s sympathies.*** It is probably true in most if not all cases that people who insist on avoiding the term ‘occupied territories’ and using alternative terms (for example, ‘administered territories’) are signalling that they are supportive of the positions taken by the Israeli government; it is probably true that most if not all of those people most definitely opposed to the positions taken by the Israeli government would be likely to insist on the applicability of the term ‘occupied territories’. However, if you find the term ‘occupied territories’ generally used in news reporting, I don’t think it’s intended by the news organisations to signal sympathies, I think it simply reflects that it’s a term which is going to be generally recognised and understood as a description because acceptance of its applicability is widespread even if not universal.
** The General Security Service is the organisation which is oddly often referred to in English by the two Hebrew letters Shin Bet despite the fact that it’s seldom or never referred to that way by people speaking Hebrew.
*** Historically, using the terms ‘occupied’ and ‘occupation’ didn’t always have to mean that the people using those terms thought the occupation was unjustified. After the Second World War there was an Allied occupation of Germany: ‘occupation’ was the term routinely used by the Allies themselves as a description, implying no particular evaluation.
I’m not sure this is strictly accurate. I think you’ll find there are some people who say that the independence of some native American groups in their own territories should be recognised; I think you’ll also find there are some people who say that independence should be recognised for territories in the southwest once seized from Mexico by the United States (possibly even including California). I think the number of people who say things like this is small, but they do exist, or at least they used to.
Also, I’m sure there are examples from other parts of the world where people say there should be military withdrawals: for example, people who say that Turkey should withdraw from northern Cyprus, that Morocco should withdraw from the Western Sahara, that China should withdraw from Tibet, or that Russia should withdraw from the Crimea.
Thanks for your responses, J-D. I did end up poking around online and I did find, as you predicted, that one just ends up in a bunch of really tall legal weeds. Thanks for your thoughtful responses.
There was an intriguing post on Crooked Timber years ago about the Israel-Palestine dispute the basic point of which was (as I remember it) that a kind of positive feedback was the basic explanation for two related phenomena. One of those phenomena is that people discuss and debate and argue and dispute about the Israel-Palestine dispute much more than they do about other issues when it’s hard to find any impartial way of evaluating it as more important than those other issues. The other phenomenon is that these discussions tend to become more heated and conflictual than discussions of other issues.
The kind of positive feedback that’s relevant here begins when people who start out potentially interested in discussing multiple different issues find that they encounter more potential discussion partners for some of them than for others. If, for example, you post online about lots of different issues, you’ll get more responses for some posts than for others. If you choose to react in turn to the responses you receive, you will be discussing some issues more than others yourself, even if you didn’t start out with any greater level of interest in them. If a positive feedback loop develops, issues which at first are discussed only a little more than others will come, over time, without anybody planning or intending or desiring it that way, to be discussed much more than others. Also, positive feedback could account for people’s emotional investment in the issue progressively intensifying, making the dispute an unusually rancorous one, again without there being any particular intention or desire prompting that development.