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Rhetoric fails complexity of issue

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by Letters to the Editor

Tuesday, September 13, 2005

Apartheid, colonization, ethnic cleansing: those are only a few of the terms that an article about Israel should contain if it attempts to appeal to the basic sentiments of a leftist-liberal campus town. The fact that those catchwords have very little to do with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is beside the point.

No, I do not intend to imply that the Israeli Government is the true representative of God on Earth, and yes, Israel indeed has been responsible for too many atrocities. Almost 40 years of occupation of the Palestinian territories is grave enough. And yet, it seems when one has to describe misconduct, one's terminology is reduced to the keywords noted above. I am unable to understand how given the variation of evil in human life, the vocabulary of describing it is so remarkably poor.

Mohammed Abed in his article "Israeli withdrawal masks true intent" condemns Israel for its withdrawal from Gaza, but it also condemns it for having stayed there and in other Palestinian territories. It seems Israel cannot escape the critical pen of Mr. Abed no matter what it does. It is always doomed to be portrayed as having apartheid-colonizing-ethnic cleansing policies. According to Mr. Abed, when Israel withdraws from Palestinian land, it does it for the wrong reasons, namely, to propel "physical parathion between the two ethnic groups in historical Palestine." And when it stays there, it is ostensibly engaged in its colonization project. We should take notice of Mr. Abed's phenomenal achievement in philosophy as he proves Aristotle to be wrong: a proposition and its negation can both be wrong at the same time.

Furthermore, according to Mr. Abed, all Israeli actions are aimed at expelling the Palestinians and effectually colonizing Jews in their expropriated land. Even when Israel does the opposite and evacuates Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip, Mr. Abed contents that it is part of the scheme. He argues that Prime Minister Sharon's pullout of Gaza is a mere strategic arrangement of the chessboard due to Israel's failure to enforce its plan, which following that strange logic proves in turn that Israel has such a master plan. This reasoning is impossible to beat. An attempt to refute it will be as futile as proving to devoted Marxists that Marxist predictions are not valid.

Mr. Abed describes in length a narrative in which the Palestinians thrive to be the Jews' best friends, to be their ever-welcoming roommates in the small apartment west of the Jordan. The Jews, on the other hand in Mr. Abed's esteemed interpretation have been consistently and viciously trying to take hold of their roommate's strategic room. Next, their actions are interpreted as a part of their piecemeal plan to have it all for themselves. In developing his interpretation of modern Middle East history and politics, Mr. Abed does not allow facts, reason or even basic logic to come in his way. The result is indeed a convincing Hollywood fiction in which you know from the start who's right and who's wrong. The story Mr. Abed chooses to tell is neither the Israeli nor the Palestinian: he promotes a one-state solution which is neither Israeli nor Palestinian, while the majority of both parties clearly prefers to celebrate their identity and self-definition in their very own — albeit small — apartments.

I do not intend to follow Mr. Abed's article sentence by sentence to prove where he is wrong, where his speculations on Israeli motives are the less reasonable or plausible of all. And I readily admit I am afraid to get into the debate about 'legitimate moral claim' as he puts it. I find moral accounting an extremely intricate business. However, if Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon chose to refer to the difficulties and hopelessness of Palestinian routine life in his speech to the nation on the very day his pullout plan from Gaza was about to be executed, there might be more common ground than we usually think. Isn't such a delicate agreement a better way for a debate, for enlarging and enriching our political lexicon, than some false moral or historical comparisons?

Yoav Sivan

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Anonymous (September 13, 2005 @ 9:00am):

There may be confusion about Israeli intent but it's clear that Palestinian intent is the death of all Jews.

Mohammed Abed (September 14, 2005 @ 2:38am):

Dear Yoav,

Thanks for this; its quite a tour de force. However, I think you might have misunderstood the central claim of last week's op-ed. The claim was that leaving Gaza [6% of the land under direct military occupation by Israel, an area where 2% of the settlers lived] is a means to solidifying Israeli apartheid and colonization in the rest of historical Palestine. If I think leaving Gaza is a means to furthering colonization and apartheid elsewhere, this would not committ me to accepting the following two propositions, which I would have to accept in order to violate the principle of non-contradiction:

1: By staying in Gaza, Israel is engaging in colonization

2: It is not the case that by staying in Gaza, Israel is engaging in colonization.

The principle of non-contradiction committs you to the idea that for any statement P, the statement 'P and not-P' is false as a matter of logical necessity. Notice that this is not satisfied by the two statements you cite in your 'article:'

1: When Israel withdraws from Palestinian land, it does it for the wrong reasons, namely, to propel "physical parathion between the two ethnic groups in historical Palestine."

2: And when it stays there, it is ostensibly engaged in its colonization project.

First of all, I always thought that 'physical separation' and 'colonization' were distinct concepts. For example, if Israel withdraws its colonial settlers from Gaza, Gaza could still be a bantustan (the physical instatiation of the formula 'ethnic separation without self-determination for the blacks, Palestinians, etc.). Second, if Israel withdraws from Gaza, it could still be engaged in colonization and solidifying apartheid ELSEWHERE - which is the claim I made in my article. In any case, even if I was charitable to you and allowed that your presentation of my views was accurate, it would still not be the case that the second pair of propositions above is an instantiation of the formula 'P and not-P.'

I guess the moral of the story is the following: try to criticize my ACTUAL position rather than engaging in the usual ad hominem attacks. Second, if you have to adopt such low strategies as attempting to impugn my professional credibility, then make sure you fully understand the doctrines you are referring to.

Look out for the next column!

Your Friend,

Mohammed Abed

Mohammed Abed (September 14, 2005 @ 3:01am):

P.S.,

Here are some other examples of 'P and not-P' that would have to find in my article for your claim that I have violated the principle of non-contradiction to be true:

1: When Israel leaves Gaza, there will be a big party in Tel-Aviv

2: It is not the case that when Israel leaves Gaza, there will be a big party in Tel-Aviv

OR

1: Mohammed and Yoav frolic in fields of delicate flowers

2: It is not the case that Mohammed and Yoav frolic in fields of delicate flowers

OR.....

Anonymous (September 14, 2005 @ 10:24am):

"Mr. Abed's phenomenal achievement in philosophy as he proves Aristotle to be wrong: a proposition and its negation can both be wrong at the same time."

I'm also perplexed: you say that Israel committed so many atrocities and how "grave" the 40-year-old occupation is, yet you sit here and defend Israel and its "master plan." Have you watched the news at the time of the pull-out? Sharon states on TV to the whole world that despite the pull-out from Gaza, settlement building will continue in the West Bank and Jeruslem. So nothing has changed. With this pull-out, Sharon hit two birds with one stone: 1. He made the world think that Israel is doing something towards peace and 2. Saving on money and man power to protect the few Israelis living in that area.

And for the person who comments "Palestinian intent is the death of all Jews" I suggest you take a trip and go to Israeli schools and see how they teach their kids the hatred of Arabs in school songs. Plus, even your comment were true, you should use "Israeli" rather than "Jew" because a Jew here in the US has nothing to do with the brutal occupation of Palestine, thus try to distinguish between a nationality and a religion.

Anonymous (September 14, 2005 @ 11:00pm):

Mohammad critcizing someone else for using ad hominem attacks? Now thats hypocracy! Even in his response he threw around the word "aparthide" and "colonialism" multiple times. Its funny because he knows just as well as others that these words do not apply to the conflict. He uses them as ad hominem attacks and "buzz words" to get the extreme left wing to join his Islamic funadamentalist allies. Separating the Palestinians and the Israelis is no different from separating the Mexicans and Americans at the Southern boarder. Its not aparthide to have national boarders where residents of your country remain on one side and residents of another remain on the other side. Its called sovereignty. The U.S. is not "racist" or "aparthide" for separting is borders and people from Mexico, as Israel is not "racist" or "aparthide" for separating itself from the Palestinians, a violent people who support and engage in suicide bombing.