Mukhtar Ainashe
Washington, DC
United States

www.ainashe.net

Laila, of RAising yousuf, www.a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com

In order not to dominate Nasâ?? blog, if you would like further readings as to why Palestinians of 1948 do not wish to be referred to as â??Israeli Arabsâ? by Israelis or other Arabs, please email me and I would be happy to recommend some. As far as I know from my Palestinian friends who have Israeli citizenships, they refer to themselves as Palestinians (while adding that they are holders of Israeli citizenships). That, I believe, makes it clear that they are citizens of the State of Israel without erasing the fact of their Palestinian identity and distinguishing them from Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.

I did not prevent the discussion regarding your comparison of the status of Palestinians with other Arab peoples. I only said that your comparison ignores the simple fact of Israelâ??s occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people.

I could not agree with you more regarding the need for a discussion. But that discussion must not occur in a historic vacuum where Israeli atrocities and injustices towards the Palestinian people are suddenly dropped from the equation and where democractic action is assumed to be a postive — albeit inadvertent — effect of life under Israeli rule and hegemony.

I also disagree with your point about not comparing the status of Palestinians with that of Jordanians, or even the Palestinians in Jordan, or Lebanon or wherever. I think that comparisons are good, mine might be somewhat wrong, but that’s where the discussions come into play, to light the wrong sides. Preventing the discussion in the name of some “unfairness” would prevent any discussion.

FWIW, I do not claim that because the palestinians are/were in a better position compared to their folks in Lebanon for example, means that we can continue to opress them. But a one sided view from the opposite side is not correct either. The objective truth, assuming there is one, is somewhere in the middle. And any peace process (or discussion) should strive to find a middle point with which all can peacefully co-exist.

Nas, I’m terribly sorry for diverting the subject of your post.

It is important that you refer to individuals who live in the West Bank and Gaza as Palestinians. Also, individuals of the 1948 regions who have become Israeli citizens take â?? as you are well aware â?? great offence in being referred to as â??Israeli Arabs.â? I say all this because there have been many attempts since 1948 to instil the idea that those who existed in the region prior to the establishment of the state of Israel were Arabs in order to facilitate their expulsion into other Arab states.

Since no one is questioning the value of these democratic elections â?? except perhaps Bush at this point â?? your question regarding the â??luxuryâ? of elections and the lack of democratic elections in other Arab nations is far too simplistic.

Again, please do not compare the status of other Arab nations who live within clearly defined borders and recognized states with those of the Palestinians. The comparison is not a fair one as it ignores the debilitating role that Israel has played as an occuyping and colonizing force.

The discussions are definitely more interesting when there are contrarian views.

The original point Nass was making was that the American president is hypocritical because he says that Hamas can’t be accepted since it has it’s own armed forced, while he (Bush) is the chief commander of the armed forces of the US.

I’m only saying that this is not hypocrisy because it’s a different beast altogether. I do not say that Bush is not hypocritical in other points, only in this point.

And compared to other states that are not in a “occupied and barricaded territories” the palestinians had a democratic elections. How many Arabs have this luxury?!

With all the shouts and screams of Arabs on Israel, the Arabs under Israeli rule (either in the PA or Israeli Arabs) seem to have a better state compared to their fellows in Arab states. This is now much less true for the Arabs in the PA, but I believe it was so at least when not in active Intifida.

Ofcourse, I could also be wrong about this…

http://www.umkahlil.blogspot.com/ (from Germany)
http://bethlehemghetto.blogspot.com/ (from Palestine)
http://a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/(from Palestine)
http://living-in-gaza.blogspot.com/(from Palestine)
http://baqaacamp.blogspot.com/(from Palestine)
http://standingwitness.blogspot.com/(from Palestine)
http://beit-sahourghetto.blogspirit.com/ (from Palestine)

After that you may want to check www.palestineblogs.net (there are some Israeli and international pro-Palestine blogs that are worthy of reading too) and www.palestineblogs.com

For a weekly summary, please check my weekly posts on Global Voices, visit the below link:

http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/globalvoices/author/shaden-abdul-rahman/

And please feel free to email me if you need to ask about anything.

P.S sorry Nas

here is the web site mentioned earlier. look for Hamas 2.0
http://www.radioopensource.com/

I do hope that Hamas will change its ways, but even Hizballah didn’t really took down its arms since it became a political party, it did become more concious of (ab)using it’s armed forces (whatever you want to call them). So I can’t really say that Hamas following Hizballah’s lead is too encouraging.

Sugar, I’d be happy to read posts by those that are living in the PA, are there any?

I would like to address Shlofn Riz’s comment regarding the Palestinian Authority’s police force whose size “would put to shame any other police force.” Perhaps the fact of the police’s large size has something to do with the pressures that the US and the Israeli governments have placed on both Arafat and Abu Mazen to monitor and police the Palestinian people internally. This police force, as far as I know, does not — nor is it capable of — resisting IDF incursions on Palestinian territories and its daily infringements of Palestinian human rights.

I would also add the obvious point that in “the normal course of democracy” elections take place in actual States as opposed to occupied and barricaded territories.

Dana

A lot of reactions to Hamas winning elections in Palestine. Nas summaries some of these, then talks about after-shock. Shaden says, “thatâ??s what Palestinians inside want, you either support them or not but don’t think you have the right …..

We should however keep in mind that this is Hamas entering the political sphere of Palestinian politics as opposed to being it’s own independent group. In the same manner that Hizballah operates. Both were designed with different intents and purposes but are moving towards the same direction.

While I acknowledge the differences you pointed out it’s not a big discrepancy given that in a democracy a party is elected and operates an army to carry out its own policies. Hamas is now elected and has itâ??s own â??armyâ? (if we want to call it that) to carry out its own policies.

Needless to say that the current western reactions including Bush is based on the past operations of Hamas as a group and not as a political party. Politics changes many things, especially the nature of a group. They know this. They neglect it with reason.

I think that sadly it’s all about Hamas being an Islamic political party, I wish people can see what happened like those inside do…At least that’s the case with the Arabian blogosphere which apparently has been watching too much Bush lately.

Sigh

The PA doesn’t have an official army, but the size of their “police” force would put to shame any other police force. But that’s all besides the point.

In the normal course of a democracy the parties don’t have their own armies that execute their own policy without connection with the state policy. That is the main point of Bush, and of Israel.

FWIW, I’m an Israeli (I assume it was obvious), but I do hope to read and learn more on the opinions of arabs. Maybe even have some discussions…

That’s the difference between the PA having its armed forces and the Hamas having its own.

Not that the Fatah doesn’t have it’s own armed forces which makes his statements meaningless. But if you want to point that someone is incorrect you should at least try to keep your alegories correct.