12 June 2007

Maria > Saul: back on track on a sunny tuesday morning

hi again,

back on track on a sunny tuesday morning.
actually I love what I am studing right now. after working in the IT industry for 8 years and travelling around south america and parts of africa for 3 years I am doing what I always wanted to: study! social anthropology, gender studies, human geography and international relations = that´s me with a postcolonial flavour.
what have you studied?

I find this statement of yours "it is not dangerous for West Bank and Gaza Palestinians to visit Israel, but it is dangerous for us to have them here! " a bit typical. it´s like "they" are one body, the arabs, the palestinans, the terrorist. "they" have worked as your low wage labour for years and years until Israel recently started to import asians for the crap work. "they" the arabs are more than a billion in numbers and that all of them hates Israel is lie. but with the ongoing unjustice and collective killings and punishment of palestinians and lableing all of them as islamic terrorist, how could any blem the arabs of not loving Israel? love and respect should be a two way relation. why is it only enough to mention that "the arabs" hate Israel but never ever mention why or that Israel hates "the arabs".

You say its difficult for you to understand the palestinas. I feel you that you are "suffering" from the same problem as with your feminism - you do acknowledge that they the arabs are suffering but you don´t "understand" why they haven´t taken the oppertunies to create their own state. who´s oppertunities? who´s rules? who is telling who to do what? last time they had a DEMOCRATIC election that we ALL wanted what happened? well, if you don´t understand the palestinas you see HAMAS only as anti-semitic. but if you dare look at the situations and upon them diffrently another picture will emerge. Its the same picture that until just recently israelipalestinans had to study and take exams on zionism in school. it´s the same picture that when a teacher takes her class out on a fieldtrip to mark out the green line it becomes a high level outcry. it´s the way the druse in the golan heights are beeing taxed on the rainwater they collect by the israeli occupation. hamas won because of their social projects which in the occupied territories are non existing because mainly Israel keeps it that way. but hamas won also because it differs from fatha that have played along with Israel without any victories. Israel would ofcourse never let the Other have that, and so the settlements keep poping up and by that excluding the palestinas from their own backyard. where should they go?
please show me the hamas charters and I will show you the zionist charters and other documents on "big Eretz" which works scarly as a grid to Israels expansion and politic.
a funny perspective with the peace agreements and oppertunites is to follow Israels resentless recjection if the Saudi plan, peace talks with Syria aso. This could indicate that as long as the plan dosen´t come from Israel it´s not a "good plan". so what makes the plans proposed by Israel so good and the palestinas "peace haters" by rejecting these plans?

"It is true that there were times when the other side was unwilling to discuss anything, not even the borders of June 4, 1967. But nowadays, the 22 member states of the Arab league declare that they view this border as a basis for peace - an accomplishment no one would have dreamed of 40 years ago.

And so, Israel is missing the opportunity to transform its military victory into its biggest achievement ever. It is losing the war of independence from controlling the lives of others."
antiisgood.wordpress.com/2007/06/04/living-the-lives-of-others/

you are living in their country. it´s not just something they "made up". almost all "israeli" cities have another past than a jewish one. sredot is for one an ethinical cleansed village from 1948. deal with it! it´s not you, as jewish, that are beeing bullied now. it´s actually you, the jewish, that are bulling. the violence from the palestines are justicefied but should not be exused. but since it´s not blind violence in that sense that it has no orgin then the worst thing Israel can do and has done for the last 40 years is to retaliate collectivly and with state power (from the air, in tanks, with bombs aso). do you never ask why there is a palestinan violence? I bet you that if you treated the chines or the romainas as you treat the palestinas they too would rebel, fight and eventually when nothing helps kill you. but since they are not the ones getting killed, bullied or stolen they will not kill you.

"Starting in 1991, Israel has been creating two kinds of expanses between the Mediterranean and the Jordan: a superior, open, developed and improved space for the Jews, and a shattered space tainted by intentional de-development for the Palestinians."
antiisgood.wordpress.com/2007/06/05/in-praise-of-the-occupation/

You say Israel goes first but there is no open road. If Israel goes first the palestinans has to go back and they have gone back in every case, in every major and minor matter. The last just recently when the goverment granted another settlement outside jerusalem on occupied land. The fear of getting killed in the west bank keeps you from seeing or understanding just how much back they have gone. The fear is real for you. but never does it seem to occur why? when I talk to my israeli friend (yes I actually do have some) about this he gets very intense. but it´s because the only time a normal israeli goes into the westbank areas is in the army. an army that is not the "purity of arms" but a colonial occupation power in the west bank. again, why wouldn´t the palestinas hate you when you are in the west bank? why would they differ the army, the state of Israel and the people who benifits from its policy when they in your eyes only are "arab terrorists" and in some rethoric should be deported to there "true" homeland - jordan?

"The Palestinians will never forgive us. Not only those who are alive today, but their children will despise us until their dying day, and theirs and theirs. They will revile us for having occupied them, exploited them, shelled them, and bombed them, and for having robbed them of their dignity and their land."
antiisgood.wordpress.com/2007/06/05/the-arabs-will-never-forgive-us/

why is colonialism bad only in the rest of the world but not in Israel? Israel is by the defintion of colonialism a colonialist and by it´s policies and formost action indeed a colonialist. the new thing here is that we are not talking about the 1800- century but 2007! the rabbin dont run the state of israel but they do decide over marrage, death and divorce don´t they. that´s not something you will find in any democratic state. futher more the state has "franchised" the land property issues to JNF among other zionist organisations. as you said, the region is all about territory and what better to let that be runed by a clearly one-sided and colonial ideology organisation that only have the intress of the jews in mind = ethinical.

yes you are right that there is racisim in sweden. i myself am black but it´s funny that five days in Israel beats all incidents of rasism in my entire 34 year life and i´ve lived in austria, canada, belgium, argentina and visited around 30 countries. i would never judge a whole nation or a people by 1/2 hour. but standing 1/2 hour in any border or checkpoint and watching Israelis in action does add to the picture of Israelis I have gotten by travelling in south america and thailand. I have ofcourse meet some really nice israelis in israel during my stay and abroad in my travells but there is a mentallity that is very deep and hard. one that I have had problems to understand but now when I have gotten a bit more involved I can se orgins from fear. the Israel I visited 14 years ago I didn´t like because of this mentality but my last visit proved for me that yes, that in israel it can only get worse. :(
tell me why I got single handenly picked at every border crossing when I have a swedish passport, travelling with swedes, have no luggage or look like the 30 000 other ethiopians jews in your country. it has nothing to do with me beeing arab or potential terrorist but more that the polarisation and fear that makes israel colourblind. u say that your wive is black but surely anyone from yemen is not black as africans or in your case ethiopian jews or indians? israel jewish hierarchy with the european jews on the top makes me sad but makes sense at the airports...

eliminating fear has to start on both sides and you start by adressing myths and hate rethoric. but also justice must prevail otherwise it is just as you say, pieces of paper.
i still have to figure you out saul you write very polite and in an open way. i wounder if you might be a teacher? i saw the picture of your son and he is adorable!

ps - what makes you sure that my lover is a "he". watch out for the norms of patrichal, whitness and eurocentrism.

gotta go and finish of my paper on the "african image". found a friend in edward said. have your read his orientalism?

peez...

: m a r i a

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