Re: Shoshana Lev's Response to J. Isaac

as for my "location" and my "investments," you are free to infer whatever
you like. Arguments from and about origins have no intellectual interest
or merit as far as I am concerned.

The piece is wrote is not the only thing I have written or said about this
issue. If you read the piece as an apology for Barak or as an attack on
"the Palestinians," that is because you choose to do so, and becauses in
this polarized environment it is easier to assign people to "sides."

What you say about Oslo is basically correct. I am not and never have been
an idolizer of Rabin, but it is interesting that you refer only to
Netanyahu and Barak. The Oslo accords, and the peace process that followed
from them, was profoundly flawed. As far as I understand many left-liberal
peace camp supporters in Israel have argued this and at the same time have
believed, as I do, that the very diplomatic process started at Oslo was
ground breaking and worth building upon. They have sought, in other words,
to deepen Oslo.

I am not a believer in political perfection.

My question to you is simple: now that you have enumerated the wrongs,
what is your alternative?

JI

On Tue, 7 Nov 2000 KSamman@aol.com wrote:

> Greetings,
> 
> Shoshana Lev, a Ph.D. student at Binghamton University, 
> asked me to forward this reply to you all.  -KS
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> -----------
> Response To Jeffrey Isaac
> 
> Shohana Lev
> 
> Dear Jeffrey Isaac,
> 
> There are so many levels on which to speak of this 
> process- not only the peace process-- but our own 
> involvement.  Your involvement with Peace now!
> and the anger veiled by the supposed reasoning of 
> a not so unusual political science report does not 
> seem ironic or surprise me.  It is also not surprising 
> that there are many white American Jewish intellectuals 
> who feel the way that you do.  What are the investments 
> in this political location?
> 
> I feel compelled to go point by point with you like a lawyer 
> proving you dead wrong on your own terms.  But I have a 
> feeling this would not sway your opinion.  I do not think 
> that even the "rationality" of your training is what is to blame.  
> If you were ever critical of the United States' policies,
> racism, or the many forms of colonialism still in function, 
> you would have to use some force other than reason to 
> come out with your tragically unbalanced equation in this matter.   
> That whether a small group of the many Palestinians living in 
> the Middle East utter or make a declaration of war on
> Israel is for the purposes of Israel and the United States' 
> ultimate political strategy quite incidental.  It is incidental to the 
> larger economic and political plans and goals of the larger and 
> stronger of two former partners of "peace".  
> 
> Jeffrey it is not that it is a crime to be strong (as you sarcastically 
> suggested in your call for a more "civilized" group of colonized 
> peoples).  It is that when that very strength is used for veiling
> destruction rather than curtailing it- an easier proposition for those 
> of such strength-  is when that very "strength" should be called to 
> task.  And how did it come to be?  Does Israeli "strength" have a 
> teleology?  I question your need to defend in a time when too few 
> question.  To say that all peace is flawed is intriguingly irrelevant 
> when the word 'peace' has all but lost its meaning. 
> 
> Whose fault is that you say?  Again, just as the call to give 
> the "imperfect" peace a chance is for you all the responsibility
> of the Palestinians.  I must contend that the imperfect peace 
> you spoke so eloquently of could simply be found in Israel's 
> capitulation to the Oslo accords.  And the declaration of war, 
> the very negation of this imperfect peace was sadly again on 
> the side of the Israeli government against the Palestinians.  
> After seven years of waiting for some sign of some kind of an
> imperfect peace, still there was none.  The Oslo accords were 
> never implemented--there were no attempts.  There was no 
> major withdrawal of troops, there was an increase of Jewish 
> settlements in territories supposedly given back to the Palestinians,  
> there were more settlements constructed under Barak than under 
> Netanyahu, houses were/are still being bulldozed, water in the 
> refugee camps is still being turned off for days at the leisure of 
> Israel-- not to mention the tanks, the helicopters, the bloodshed.  
> You talk about the responsibly of the Palestinians in all of
> this?  How on your own terms could it possibly add up?
> 
> 
>