Comments on: In which I reveal my Loyalist sympathies

By: Dave123

Dave123 — Mon, 10 Aug 2009 17:10:13 +0000

“For purposes of the point in this post, I think the analogy between the American Revolution and Palestine holds,”

Except Washington and Jefferson were never offered independence four times and rejected those offer because they wanted to take over all of England and kick the English out.

By: We Argue Benefits And Who Benefits And Would You Have Opposed The American Revolution? « Around The Sphere

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 16:00:08 +0000

[...] Jamelle at The League: Ackerman is right to compare this to the contention – occasionally made by retrograde conservatives/modern-day confederate-sympathizers – that American slavery wasn’t so bad, as it brought Africans to America, which is so much more awesome than Africa, or something. In fact, you can extend this argument to almost any instance of oppression; British domination of India wasn’t a complete wash, after all, Indians benefited from British education, British industry and British culture. Yes, a few million Indians had to die for “civilization,” but really, higher prices have been paid for less. [...]

By: Mark Thompson

Mark Thompson — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 13:54:16 +0000

Why did it take three days before someone finally made the obvious Life of Brian reference? Every person who commented on this post prior to this comment (myself included) should be ashamed of themselves.

By: That Fuzzy Bastard

That Fuzzy Bastard — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 03:45:50 +0000

Actually, to really annoy the K-Lo’s—and especially the Horowitzes—of the world, the better comparison would be to the Roman conquest of the Hebrews. The Hebrews were, after all, one of the more civilized tribes of the Middle East, but still fairly backwards before the Romans conquered them. Remember “Life of Brian”—”But apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a freshwater system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?” Yet the Hebrews were never properly grateful!

By: Jon Rowe

Jon Rowe — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 00:45:32 +0000

Ironically some of the neo-confederates at Lew Rockwell have been arguing of late that it would have been better if America remained a British colony. I suppose though that it’s part of a consistent anti-War stance.

Howard Zinn argues as well it would have been better if America remained a British Colony.

Honestly Toryish conservatives like Gilder I don’t see why this argument should act as such a reductio ad absurdum. So what if America remained a British Colony, then we’d be more like Canada. How horrible that would be.

By: Raj Saxena

Raj Saxena — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 22:06:03 +0000

Aggressive behavior like the voracious territorial expansion of the first few centuries of Islam?

By: A. Jay Adler

A. Jay Adler — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 21:23:49 +0000

Gilder’s argument is, indeed, reprehensible, an inhumane utilitarian (as Mark puts it) calculus that is doubtful on its own terms. We can never know, had the Palestinian and other Arab leaderships been willing to trade peace and a recognition of Israel for land as far back as soon after the ’67 war, or even ’73, when they could all feel a little better, how the Palestinian people might have fared economically in their own state these many years. Israel, and ardent – even while critical – supporters of Israel do not benefit from the support of the likes of Gilder.

That said, there are aspects of your post I’ll take issue with, Jamelle. Ackerman does not directly compare Gilder’s callous claim about the Palestinians to the heinous claim about slavery. He cites the latter as an example of Horowitz’s gambits. He would be wrong to make such a comparison. However unfortunate have been the lives of Palestinians these many years, they are not an enslaved people – far from it. Entertaining the comparison, even for purposes of considering the economic gain argument Gilder raises, presents the danger – if not done very carefully – of seriously maligning Israel.

Next, your use of variants of the expression “Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories” is problematic in two ways. The exact range of your reference is, I grant, unclear, but accordingly leaves open the easy reading of a) a set of lands that were legally established as the land of the Palestinian people and b) that Israel occupies (all) of them. One can be a firm supporter of the creation of a Palestinian state on the West Bank and in Gaza, as I am, while still wishing accuracy in the way we all articulate the situation. These lands were part of Britain’s Palestine Mandate, but so was what is now Israel. Then the West Bank, for one, was governed by Jordan. At the time of the ’67 war there was no plan by Jordan to relinquish control of that territory for the creation of a Palestinian state. Though pretty much everyone other than fanatical Israeli settlers recognizes now that those lands will one day form the basis of a Palestinian state, “Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories” offers the suggestion that there were lands that belonged to the Palestinians and that Israel occupied them.

I know that the term “Palestinian territories” is one of several commonly used formulations, but especially in conjunction with “Israeli occupation” it helps to establish a reality in language (I play here off the “reality on the ground” that Likud hoped to establish through the settlements) that is false. Likewise, though the term occupation is used almost as a syntactical connector between Israel and Palestinians, it needs to be remembered that for almost all of the time since 1993, the majority of the Palestinian people – however difficult their lives – have not lived under Israeli occupation but under the governance of some kind of Palestinian authority.

By: North

North — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 19:25:45 +0000

I suppose, but it doesn’t work for me since the fact remains that the Revolutionaries were themselves transplanted invaders. Actually on further thought I guess there are parralells since the Palestinians on the ground during each phase of the Israeli invasion/immigration were themselves transplants from an earlier invasion. Good point there.

By: Mark Thompson

Mark Thompson — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 17:09:59 +0000

I don’t know. For purposes of the point in this post, I think the analogy between the American Revolution and Palestine holds, even if it wouldn’t hold in most other contexts. I say that because the point here is that Gilder is relying on a strictly utilitarian calculus in which economic prosperity trumps all other considerations, a calculus that he would have to reject if he were seeking to justify the American Revolution. It’s difficult to see how you can say that it was appropriate for the Revolutionaries to value various liberties over economic prosperity but inappropriate for Palestinians to do so.

By: North

North — Thu, 06 Aug 2009 16:36:27 +0000

I agree. Canada by itself is a problem for the comparisons. Had the revolution not happened I’m not sure how much different the U.S. would look today. Maybe there’d be a parliamentary dominion of America? Actually, now that I think about it there probably wouldn’t even be a Canada. The British would probably have been happy to just parcel the whole continent off as one big dominion.

I’d agree a comparison to Crown vs. Indians is somewhat more accurate though it seems to me there are a lot more layers of complexity involved in the Israel/Palestinian issue than the Colonists/Native Americans comparison possesses.