Robin Hood

Not going to answer the self-determination question then. Thought not. If you want to characterise my challenges to you on the basis of your own words as trolling, then I think you have problems.

Thanks for pointing to the IFES report, which I read a while ago. The chief point is of course:

" the Palestinian population feels that a government must be democratically elected in order to be valid. Recent opinion polls suggest that Palestinians believe the government must go through elections in January 2010 to retain legitimacy."

Now, whichever way you cut it, the IFES clearly sees Hamas as the chief obstacle to holding elections. They are out to dismiss the progress made at Oslo, instead of building on it. This makes sense, given their political aims, but it prevents the Gazans from running their own show.

After all, they double-crossed Fatah in 2006 to assume power, killing around 500 Fatah members (by a variety of cruel means), and promptly began firing rockets into Israel (not that this excuses what the Israelis did in return): It is the "intra-Palestinian conflict" that the IFES cites as the chief roadblock, not the Israel-Palestinian conflict. This is what I have been saying.

Perhaps you have a more tortured reading of the document.

Now, Israel's view of the victor is of limited importance, as much as the rest of the world's is, but only insofar as if Hamas are re-elected, dialogue with Gaza will be frozen because it will be governed by a terrorist party who want Israel, a member of the UN, to cease to be. This is a matter of international consensus.

Where I hope we can agree is that it is absolutely disgusting that the crappy deal offered to BN by Clinton for the paltry return of a temporary suspension on settlements that are illegal(!) does not include asking for guarantees in terms of Israel recognising whatever constitutional arrangements the Palestinians do put in place: £3bn and a bunch more fighter jets and so on should at least buy that.

However, Israel's final view of the victor does not prevent the election itself taking place, any more than it did in 2006.

If Hamas were as interested in democracy as the Gazan people, they would be discussing constitutional arrangements with the PA in good faith and with some urgency. However, reading the offical reports from the CEC it is clear that this is not the case.

Hamas are letting their own people down. You are quite mad if you characterise them as any kinds of victims. If Hamas cared, the decisions on legal formalities could be done and dusted in a week, and with external aid, as in 2006, the logistical challenges could be surmounted. They don't, and their difficulties stem from this uncaring.

Again, while Gaza has horrific problems originating from beyond its borders, it is not occupied illegally by anyone other than Hamas. This is a matter of plain fact. As such, the politico article you cite without explanation, and it's links, are not germane to this debate.

Zionism today is the complete takeover and colonization of Palestine, and the destruction of it's indigenous semitic people.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y2B_f-cbwxM
http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/after-u-s-chides-netanyahu-ove...

Is it possible that Noam Chomsky has never mentioned the election issue with Hamas because he believes that one is better off criticizing the actions of ones own country (and thus that countries client states) than that of another country?

Also it is an indisputable fact that the United States has supported countless brutal dictatorships so why is free elections even an issue here?

Hamas is a brutal militarized resistance force, and the Israeli's are a brutal militarized occupation force. Let's forget this argument, agree they are both wrong and give peace a chance, which, I think, is what Chomsky would say as well.

Zole

Well, I'm not accepting that vulgar abuse deserves equivalency with sardony but you have a deal.

Your last post but one assumed that in trashing Finlkestein I must be pro-Dershowitz (I have read both btw). I'm not. I am, however, pretty down on the LRB, as I think it has a consistent anti-Israeli line. By which I mean it doesn't think Israel should continue to be.

More generally, I dislike the way in which opinion-forming on the issue is litigated by proxy through a few metropole pointyheads going back and forth. This tilts towards a kind of two-tribalism that I think retards the improvement of the situation itself.

So, as with everything, reading on the issue is a little from column A, and a little from column B. I greatly dislike much of "The Holocaust Industry", both in terms of what Fink says, and how it is parroted by LRB types as gospel.

Your invocation of Nazi comparisons, both with reference to me, to what I say and as somehow a worthwhile analogy, is typical of this kind of sloppy relativism. it also shows a level of comfort with atrocity-slinging that I find revealing and repulsive.

Israel is not "like" the Nazis, it is Israel, and should be treated as the thing it is, rather than have moral judgements put on it on the basis of things from the past you can compare it with. The fact that this is how Glenn Beck processes the world should be enough to get you to stop doing it.

I certainly do not ignore the horrors of 1948, 67, and so on. As I say, I'm a critic of Israel, especially the Likud party and the political spetrum rightward from there. So no elephants there.

Now, it is clear that elections under a renewed constitution are within Gaza's grasp. I think it is because Gaza has such a difficult time of it that democracy there is so important. You seem to be saying that these difficulties somehow excuse Hamas from attending to democracy. I think this sells Gazans short.

So here, I accept much of Chomsky's essential cynicism about Israel, and certainly about the current coalition. I don't accept that it is Obama that is the bad 'joke' - the recent stories of the GOP overtly undermining him seem more concerning to me.

You make the mistake Chomsky makes, which is to say "US/Israel" as if the latter were a transparent cipher for the former. If this is the case, then why the obvious exasperation by successive US presidents in trying to get a deal done? Why the clear opposition settlements that BN clearly agrees with? Why the GOP backstabbing of Obama recently? The story here is more complicated than you or Chomsky allow.

Also, to say:

"Israel has illegally and brutally occupied the Palestinian Territories for the past 43 years - by far the longest occupation in modern history. "

Is half-rubbish. The brutal bit, yes, Israel has at times been exceptionally brutal and some Israelis see arabs as less than human.

But Israel is a state created and recognised by international law. It is a member of the UN.

To say it is illegal now it a flight of fancy and one only suppportable if you think Israel *should* not exist, and if you had your way, would accordingly be extinguished.

It also ignores that Palestine as the idea of a national identity was also created in 1948, that there was no prior naiton of Palestine, on people who we (and they themselves) now call Palestinian. So in that respect also your statement is ahistorical.

The fact is that Israel is a lawfully contituted nation, and it will remain. In my opinion, it should remain, and the alternative is too horrible to contemplate. Your contemplations may be different. If so, we have little more to say to each other.

And I merely flag the fact that Chomsky consistently talks about "democratically-elected" Hamas, without mentioning that:

- they have no continuing mandate
- they are using pointless squabbling as a deliberate means of withholding another election that their own people want and can otherwise be acheived
- they double-crossed and then butchered Fatah in 2006, and
- far from being victims in Gaza, they are the oppresors, bringing much of Gazan life in line with their sexist, racist, antisemetic, violent, criminal ideology and contributing to the immiseration of Gazan people.

The above is axoimatic to a proper understanding of Gazan betrayal which, yes, is perptrated by all sides. But Chomsky ignores this, which is dishonest.

If you only read Chomsky, you would think Hamas are a kind of genteel Palestinian Sinn Fein, and wonder what all the fuss is about. This is crap, and Chomsky fans should have the honesty to admit that this is a real failure in Chomsky's vision of the Middle East.

Hello Zole and willoyen, good to see you are trying to pre-emptively stifle debate on this one and you have your tired little shibboleths at the ready. Neocon! Neocon!

Chomsky has his own sins of omission. As a starter for ten, he oddly does not find it germane that Hamas has now exceeded their exprired democratic madate, and are refusing to convene due elections.

Let's also remind ourselves of who Hamas are, what they do, and what they believe before trumpeting their electoral successes, shall we.

Why can't Chomsky acknowledge that the Palestinians, in their desperation, made a poor choice in 2006? It's one that does not help their liberation in any way.

Chomsky nevel fails to get a pointless, crude jibe in there. "Bad joke" indeed. What hyperbolic nonsense.