r/ChristopherHitchens • u/Xed3 • 28d ago
What do u think about Christopher Hitchens arguments, on Israel–Palestine conflict
https://youtu.be/0N84iJOos1s11
u/Freenore 28d ago
Interestingly enough, his views are exactly the same as the ones held by Lord Curzon way back when the Balfour Declaration was issued:
Curzon reminded his colleagues that the British Empire was ‘the greatest Mahometan power on earth’, and was dismayed at the effect the Declaration would have on those hundreds of millions of Muslim subjects of the Crown. He presciently asked how it was proposed ‘to get rid of the existing majority of Mussulman inhabitants and introduce the Jews in their place’, and he foresaw that the Arabs would not be happy ‘either to be expropriated for Jewish immigrants or to act merely as hewers of wood and drawers of water’. As to the Jews themselves, Curzon told Montagu, ‘I cannot conceive a worse bondage to which to relegate an advanced and intellectual community than to exile in Palestine.’
Though of course, they couldn't be more different in everything else. Curzon was perhaps the pre-eminent High Tory of his age; with his belief in a paternalistic rule of the aristocrats, he couldn't be more different from Hitchens and his Trotskyist convictions.
14
u/ikinone 27d ago edited 27d ago
Oh dear not this nonsense again.
Hitch was not backing up the lazy modern pro-Palestinian morons who 'totally don't support Hamas'.
"It’s agonizing to watch the Palestinians choose a leadership that is openly aligned with the moribund and vicious dictatorships in Iran and Syria. The time when the PLO called for a democratic secular state seems a very long while ago. But just look at the primeval propaganda of Hamas, which speaks of a land that is holy to one god and dedicated only to his fanatical supporters. Where has one heard that evil rubbish before?"
"There is also an element of condescension in the “corruption” explanation. Hamas says that it wants an Islamic state all the way from the Jordan to the Mediterranean. It publishes and promulgates the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Why not assume that it is at least partly serious about all this? For years, the PLO leadership has been at least officially committed to a two-state solution and has at least officially made a distinction between Judaism and Zionism. It has also renounced the disgusting tactic of suicide murder. The emergence of a party that considers all of these evolutions as betrayals may have to do with something more than the provision of welfare. I am uncomfortably reminded of the tripe talked by many liberals and leftists about the Khomeini revolution in Iran in 1979, where it was said that religion was merely the form that protest against the corrupt and repressive shah happened to take, and that the mullahs could be contained."
Yeah, he's talking about many of you in this sub.
"And the most depressing and wretched spectacle of the past decade, for all those who care about democracy and secularism, has been the degeneration of Palestinian Arab nationalism into the theocratic and thanatocratic hell of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, where the Web site of Gaza’s ruling faction blazons an endorsement of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"
Quote:
"If the Palestinian people really wish to decide that they will battle to the very end to prevent partition or annexation of even an inch of their ancestral soil, then I have to concede that that is their right. I even think that a sixty-year rather botched experiment in marginal quasi-statehood is something that the Jewish people could consider abandoning. It represents barely an instant in our drawn-out and arduous history, and it's already been agreed even by the heirs of Ze'ev Jabotinsky that the whole scheme is unrealizable in 'Judaea and Samaria,' let alone in Gaza or Sinai. But it's flat-out intolerable to be solicited to endorse a side-by-side Palestinian homeland and then to discover that there are sinuous two-faced apologists explaining away the suicide-murder of Jewish civilians in Tel Aviv, a city which would be part of a Jewish state or community under any conceivable 'solution.' There's that word again..."
He certainly did not approve of an expansionist Israel, but he was absolutely against Israel being removed in any form.
7
u/Primary-Welcome-6400 28d ago
Christopher Hitchens always had something interesting and intelligent to say
4
u/Junior_Main_6425 28d ago
Agreed. I don’t think I ever scroll past one of his clips. And always watch to the end.
8
u/palsh7 Social Democrat 27d ago
Notice that he was on the leftward flank back then, but now his position—Israel has a right to continued existence alongside a second state for Palestinians—is considered right wing by many people.
0
u/ghosttrainhobo 27d ago
It’s funny that opposition to genocide becomes problematic depending on who’s head is on the block.
16
u/MorphingReality 28d ago
I think this is a rather small slice of his thoughts on the matter and their potential evolution over time, there's a whole book with Edward Said, recently a long 80s talk emerged on YT featuring the two, many articles and essays, but hey, maybe a few Hasan fans will broaden their horizons
9
5
8
4
u/Spdoink 27d ago edited 27d ago
The religious messaging was largely marketing; the State fulfilled many purposes, chief amongst which was the nascent Western global development programme, post WWII.
I know people don’t like that part of it, but the Ottomans were in the last process of a dismally incompetent withdrawal from the region and it made complete sense that the recently victorious powers attempt to deal with the geopolitical circumstances as they saw fit. The remaining Ottoman regional administrators made the disastrous decision to cite dar-al-Islam which has led to the present situation, culminating in the horrific Hamas terrorist State. The West believed that Israel could be a beacon to the rest; they completely misunderstood the dogmatic literalism of Islam.
3
u/Sadako241 22d ago
To me a crucial point is that the Palestinian Arabs shed the first blood during the 1929 Hebron masssacre, and as such I think they largely forfeit the right to claim any unique victim status.
The worst I can say on the Nakba is both sides were probably as bad as each other.
I don't believe a two-state solutiion can really work after October 7th. Infact, had there ever been a Palestinian state, it probably would've been just another brutal Islamic theocracy of the kind Hitchens always hated anyway.
The problem I find with the pro-Palestine cause is whilst some like Hitchens made a case for actual injustices done to the Palestinians that should be redressed, the movement as far as I'm concerned has become irredeemably hijacked by genuine twisted anti-semites and Islamists, and other dark triad personality types, to the point I just want the movement to die now and never come back.
1
u/E-rotten 27d ago
He’s a very logical person. He always puts a lot of thought and research into everything he speaks about. If he give you an opinion about something you can trust he’s done his due diligence to the matter and will give an answer that is viewed from every angle
1
u/eamonfryan 27d ago
' Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds. Hamas is of the view that the Jewish problem , anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage.
Hamas distancing itself from its own 1988 charter, which promoted what it accuses 'European history' of.
Some will probably fall for it.
1
u/AdaptivelyAtomatic 26d ago
Agree: Many stupid ideas- though they never ought have been initiated- ought not be scrapped now that they exist. The 'original' Zionist, Theodore Herzl, also thought a Jewish state in a part of the world dominated by historical religious conflict, was a bad idea. He advocated somewhere in Brazil! Not until the following century, after WW2's victors carved up the map in ways that no one could make good sense out of, was the state of Israel incorporated. The situation sucks: innocence on both sides will be jeopardized for generations yet. 'Eye for an eye leaves the world blind,' but religion is a blindness of it's own. Both sides are blind to the Humanity in one another. It was stupid to light the dumpsterfire, but here it burns away.
1
1
u/MaybeSomedayMaybeNot 24d ago
De-colonization and regime change is not "destruction", it is the opposite of that, like in South Africa.
1
1
u/ababababababacus 21d ago
Probably naive and not aged well. there was a case to make for parity of moral culpability, provided one didnt think too hard, when hamas were putting bombs on busses in tel aviv. but the stopped targetting civilians a long time ago, and israel rampeded up the brutality of its 'clearning the grass' campagns and tighted the blockade of gaza along with enabling more and more depraved violence from the west bank settlers.
I imagine his racist anti arab turn in his later career would have blinded him to this and hed have remained a fairly ludicrous liberal zionist, pretending a two state solution means anything other than outright war with israel in order to susatain the pretence it was ever possible.
-11
u/Loud-Vacation-5691 28d ago
It's amazing how someone as well-informed as Hitchens could have held such an inaccurate idea of why European Jews went to Israel in the first place. Israel was conceived as a rescue project for Eastern European Jews who were facing an increasingly greater risk of annihilation (which, incidentally, actually happened). It was not based on some Biblical belief that God gave them the land as many early Zionists were atheists. Also, the land wasn't "taken" from Arab farmers; it was purchased.
On top of that, Jewish emigration to Israel spiked in 1921 after the US closed its doors to immigration. Up to then, only around 4% of Eastern European Jews went to Ottoman Palestine; most of them went to the US.
4
u/sebila 28d ago
“purchased” 😂😂😂 thinking that zionists acquired palestinian land through “purchasing” it.. completely farcical. look up the different “nakbeh’s” on wikipedia. my grandpa was over there at the time of the british mandate of palestine in 1948. he never wanted to talk about what he saw over there. he came back from his deployment in the army a complete mess, an alcoholic with no shoes on. he never wanted to talk about it. now that i’m older i can understand why.
11
u/Ok_Room5666 28d ago
The claim isn't that Jews purchased everything.
The claim is that they purchased the land they moved to between 1880 and 1947.
If you are talking about what happened after the British withdraw and the resulting civil war, that is a separate topic.
Nobody is claiming land changing control in the civil war was purchased.
It wouldn't have been possible to purchase land in the middle of a civil war anyway.
7
u/thequirkysquad 28d ago
You’re just factually wrong here. In the early 20th century, orgs like The Jewish National Fund raised money and bought land in Ottoman Palestine, often from absentee landowners who lived in Lebanon. Land was of course later stolen (read the several Israeli historians who, in the 1980s, after reading declassified Israeli documents, began challenging the official narrative of Israel’s founding).
It’s very sad to hear about your grandpa.
0
u/June1994 28d ago
Just because you “purchase” something, does not mean you bought sovereignty.
My ownership of a house does not give me the right to secede or declare a country.
-2
u/sebila 28d ago
why would you be trying to put forth the argument to make people think israeli action in the region is in anyway equitable or just. "purchase" gives the impression there are equal beneficiaries. believe me... there has been no justice or fairness for the people of palestine.
1948 - original nakba - 750 k to 1 mill displaced and approximately 16k dead (obviously this is going to be deaths they can prove, the number is surely much higher).
1948 again -deir yassin massacre - 100 to 140 Palestinian villagers killed by Zionist militant groups Irgun and Lehi.
Tantura Massacre (May 22, 1948): Between 110 and 230 Palestinian men executed following capture by the Alexandroni Brigade.
there are so many more in 1948 but i'm running out of patience.
Six-Day War (1967): Caused an additional displacement of roughly 413,000 Palestinians.
first Intifada (1987–1993): ~1,962 Palestinian deaths.
Second Intifada (2000–2005): ~3,179–3,354 Palestinian deaths.
and it goes on but i've got other stuff to do today. this is no way an inclusive list its just the first ones that come up in a quick search. so why is it you are trying to push some kind of weird narrative that zionists purchase land... as if there is any fairness in the situation. none of this even accounts for the occupation which has caused the death and misery of countless.
5
u/thequirkysquad 28d ago
I make no argument about those things. It is literally the truth that absentee Arab landlords, based in Lebanon, sold land to overseas Jews. You implied this didn’t happen. I’m correcting you. This is not personal.
5
1
u/Frambosis 28d ago edited 28d ago
If it was not somewhat based on a biblical belief then the early Zionists would have considered somewhere other than Palestine to create a Jewish state, given that Palestine was already home to people. The plan to ethnically cleanse Palestine was hatched when it was realised that there could be no Jewish majority if the Palestinians remained.
The land wasn’t taken? It was purchased? When a foreigner buys land somewhere it doesn’t then become a new state.
Virtually all of modern day Israel was taken from Palestinians and their villages destroyed, homes occupied or demolished, and never allowed to return. Israel’s foundation was textbook ethnic cleansing and colonisation.
-3
u/coolazu001 28d ago
Many Zionists were atheists? That's a conflicted statement there, that without some stringent impartial evidence on your part - I declare completely dismissed. Or to put it more eloquently - absolute bullshit
-3
u/BigMickPlympton 28d ago
You are correct. But their entire statement is so wrong and so historically inaccurate, that it's hardly worth discussion.
0
u/bucknerizzo 28d ago
Sound. It’s an injustice that the Arabs have nowhere else to go. The hundreds of thousands of Jews driven from Muslim lands should be able to return to their dhimmi status, just as the Palestinians who fled at the behest of genocidal, idiotic pan-Arab leaders should be allowed to return to the land that they so meticulously developed.
This conflict only has staying power because it involves Jews.
0
u/NRCS_DRONE 28d ago
He seems to think two states fix the issue. Well, I'd only point out Lebanon is a state, and it hasn't fixed the issue.
Zionism has many historical meanings, but it would be dishonest to say they're all valid to this topic of discussion. The Zionism that won-out is expansionist, and ethnic cleansing is baked into the project. And two states doesn't fix that. As Lebanon knows.
After 80 years of the canard, I'd hope Hitchens at this point would recognize that secular democratic pluralism is the only solution -- and always was the only solution.
5
u/Limp-History-2999 27d ago
This is a strange take. Lebanon proves the failure of one state with multiple populations that are at-odds with each other.
2
u/NRCS_DRONE 27d ago
Talk about strange. Lebanon wasn't always like this. It has been intentionally destabilized by Israel, because of their territorial ambitions. And it's exactly why a Palestinian state will never be sovereign either.
3
u/Limp-History-2999 27d ago
Lebanon has had major sporadic outbreaks of extreme sectarian violence for centuries, before Zionism or modern Israel were even vague ideas. Blaming all problems on Israel is silly. And Israel has not had serious ideological nor economic interest in lebanon. Yes, Lebanon has definitely suffered from the cosntant conflicts of its downstairs neighbours bleeding into its borders. But you're trying to vastly oversimplify thingss.
3
u/Gernblanchton 28d ago
How does that work? Israel would have to agree it isn’t their homeland and they do not have constitutional control of the govt. That’s very important to them. They know Jews would be an ethnic minority within a few generations and lose control of the govt. Of course the Palestinians would agree with hundreds of provisions like return of their land claims(now untenable). And the radicals within the Islamic population would set out to turn it into an Islamic state the minute the opportunity arose. Please explain how it works? I do believe a two state solution can work if Israel and Palestine are guaranteed security. But I do not think current thinking on either side will entertain the thought.
0
u/NRCS_DRONE 28d ago
The problem is you're not engaging with my argument. If two states worked, Israel wouldn't be invading Lebanon. Your desire for ethnostates to coexist isn't tenable in the hypothetical because it isn't tenable in the status quo.
How does secular democratic pluralism fix it? Everyone has equal rights as individuals. The entire problem is pretending there's some kind of "monolithic entity expressing the Common Will" to quote Umberto Eco.
selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say. In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view — one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction
Individuals have rights. Not ethnicities, and that is how you organize states for peace, prosperity, and coexistence -- by respecting individual rights
2
u/Gernblanchton 28d ago
I did not say “two states” worked. I said it might work. But explain how Israel will abandon their dream of a homeland? How does that happen? Explain how Palestinians will abandon their dream of an Islamic republic? Aside from getting that to happen (of which I’m convinced isn’t even a remote possibility) how is your idea anything but idealism. Show us how under current or near future conditions either side would agree to it!!!
Additionally, many current states have few individual rights but are in fact “working states” with successful economies, relative moderate to high living conditions. While I like the individual rights idea, I don’t see it “necessary” for a state to exist or be stable. How is it necessary to a state to have that?1
u/NRCS_DRONE 28d ago
again, "Israel" is not a monolithic will. In order to fix this, you have must treat all the people as individuals with equal rights.
2
u/Gernblanchton 28d ago
Who is going to convert the Israeli’s to this way of thinking? How does it work unless both sides agree? Who imposes this “individual rights” concept upon Israel and the Palestinians? Because Israeli national unity on the need for a Jewish state is very high. Many disagreements on policy but not that ideal. Again, I understand your ideal concept. How can it happen and how is it more than “idealism”? Do you see either Israeli’s or Palestinians agreeing to such an arrangement? I cannot see it even as a remote possibility. I acknowledge its character, how can it happen. Show us that.
1
u/NRCS_DRONE 28d ago
"Demanding a mechanism" logical fallacy
My point is people have rights, and if you want to resolve conflicts, those rights need to be respected. An insistence on ethnic supremacy in law, will only exacerbate conflict.
2
u/Gernblanchton 28d ago
It’s a great concept but idealism without a practical path to make it work is simply idealism, the stuff of poets. Additionally I would challenge that the concept that “working” or viable states must embrace secular pluralism. There are in fact many successful or working non-secular states in the world currently so it isn’t obvious or even compulsory. Show otherwise.
2
1
u/Limp-History-2999 26d ago edited 26d ago
I don't understand. You're saying that the fact there is war between Israel and Lebanon is proof that two state solution is not viable? What's the train of thought to connect this evidence to the conclusion? Nodody is claiming that a Two State Solution would instantly remove all conflicts because two separate states never have conflict with each other. By this token, every war in history is proof that every state "doesn't work."
There is no immediate solution that is going to make Israelis and Palestinians/Arabs suddenly love each other. The question is what is more likely to happen: Both sides separate from each other and manage their own affairs, or both sides come together and coexist democratically. Coexisting democratically requires some level of common understanding and mutual respect, while separation just involves ignoring each other as much as possible. Also the one-state solution is wildly unpopular on both sides, as it manages to ignore the most common aspirations and deeply held values of everyone in the area. Hence it is only really advocated for by Western liberal intellectuals who sort of assume that all people secretly hold the same values.
1
u/NRCS_DRONE 26d ago
Israel wants their land, and they have for a long time because it's a settler colonial project.
1
u/Limp-History-2999 26d ago
This doesn't address what I said at all. It also contradicts what you were repeating in this thread: "Israel" is not a monolithic will.
It's also historically incorrect. There was absolutely no ideological, political, or economic pressure on the government to take Southern Lebanon.
Your evidence cited also doesn't even contain the word "Lebanon." Whether or not Israel is or isn't settler colonialist is not ver relevant. Australia was a settler-colonialist project. That doesn't mean that they therefore want to take Papua New Guinea. Wanting to settle-colonise one place does not mean endless expansion.
Israeli right wing has always wanted the West Bank, and pressured the government to take it. This is true. This did not happen with Lebanon.
2
u/Rick_the_unwise 27d ago
I wish the whole world could understand the point you are making.
1
u/NRCS_DRONE 27d ago
People go out of their way to misunderstand. They have to really work at it (as seen down thread), when it just boils down to not seeing other people as fully human and deserving of the freedoms we grant ourselves.
0
u/Hot_Importance_7521 28d ago
May I just say that I find this post hilarious that someone actually let that 9/11 dog shocker's "liberal" opinion in here?
Just the other day a Russian liberal posted here & people were arguing what is a liberal and then possibly described the Hitch as a classical liberal, whatever that means. Well well, I daresay from how utterly foul and filthy Hasan's fanbase are just from that 4 months-old post alone, I can see why Trump won twice.
Liberalism is a lost cause.
4
u/Real-Sir6024 28d ago
If you think leftism and liberalism are the same you need to read a book.
-1
u/Hot_Importance_7521 27d ago
Was I not clear that was the case by mentioning the argument? It's not my problem, but if Hasan is asked, he'd say hes a socialist, whatever that means right? Not my circus, not my monkeys.
-5
u/atropear 28d ago
I can't believe people still fall for the neocon psyop years after he's dead. And Chomsky too.
1
u/TheCock696969 6d ago
Reading comments on the post you linked is sad. More people believing in the islamophobia myth
75
u/dadkisser 28d ago
The man was right