Israel/Palestine and the Logic of Nationalism

by Dave Bennion · 2008-12-29 13:51:00 -0800
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While the Israel/Palestine conflict may not be the first thing Americans think about when they hear about immigration and immigrant rights, there is a lot of overlap between the two issues.  Disputes over citizenship, nationality, and sovereignty are central to both the U.S. immigration debate and the Israel/Palestine conflict.

That is one reason I have been watching Charles Lenchner's Peace in the Middle East blog for updates on the current war.  His debunking of Ten Myths About Israel and the Palestinians is sober and informative.

Both sides clearly have grievances, but there is a power imbalance that leads to outcomes like 225 Palestinian dead on Saturday vs. a solitary Israeli casualty.

Matthew Yglesias reminds us that "It's important to recall that the rise of Hamas is, in part, the result of a very successful Israeli effort to undermine the authority and infrastructure of Fatah and the Palestinian Authority."  Yglesias doesn't harbor much hope that the current assault will magically produce a moderate alternative to Hamas.

The enigmatic IOZ posits that:

The logic of fault is irrelevant. Only Israel has the power to make peace with the Palestinians, and it can only do so by making a deeply concessionary agreement involving land and reparations. Whether you believe that to be just or not is irrelevant. It is the only way.

I've thought for some time that the Israel/Palestine conflict could serve as a cautionary tale to the U.S., in a "There but for the grace of God" kind of a way.  Building walls to keep neighbors out, instituting progressively more restrictive and convoluted security measures, finding legal justifications for torture, mobilizing the military on a permanent war footing--these are aspects of U.S. society we now take for granted that ten years ago most Americans would have found quite alarming.  "No, that's not us, those are Israel's problems."

My view is not that the march of radical Islam inexorably led both societies down this path, but rather that a toxic mix of fear and overconfidence has, within the unsound framework of nationalism, produced similar results in democratic societies that should have known better.

As long as the life of the citizen is given infinite value while the life of the noncitizen is essentially valueless, national politicians will always be motivated to escalate situations of conflict in ways that lead to great loss of life and are very difficult to unwind.

[Image via Vivirlatino]

Dave Bennion
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