Dear Yuyutsu,

I still have hope in my heart that the good
people will win out and that one day, perhaps
not in our immediate future, but one day ...

Winning at someone else's expense is an old
paradigm and an increasingly obsolete model
of success. Separation leads to disintegration,
and joining leads to miracles.

We have to remove the walls that separate us and
the chains that hold us down. We have to remove
from our hearts the illusion that we are separate
and find at last the one heartbeat we share.

I find I have little stomach for rehashing arguments I have made against most of the points Mr Singer has again raised in what has become a depressingly long series of articles trumpeting the same propaganda message.

I have long lambasted him for trying to disappear the Palestinian people, an action I find deplorable.

I will however address the use of Newt Gingrich to support his contentions. This is a man who has been prepared to sell himself to the highest bidder (although I agree it is not unusual in American politics), had 84 ethics charges brought against him as Speaker, was fined $300,000 for those breaches and sanctioned by the house in a 395-28 vote.

He was the main protagonist in the actions against President Clinton over the Lowinski affair all the while carrying on an affair himself. He served divorce papers on his first wife while she was laying in a hospital bed battling cancer. Then went on to have an affair on his second wife.

After leaving congress in 1999 he set up lobbying companies and received payments from places like Freddie Mac, all the while condemning the practice in public.

In 2006 his declared wealth was $2.4 million but by 2010 it was $6.7 million.

He is a hypocrite, a crook, a liar, an adulterer and a nasty piece of work.

Some of his incredibly shady dealings continue to come to light. One involving his second wife Marrianne, an arms dealer. and the Israel Export Development Corporation for whom his wife worked. make fascinating reading.

http://www.dcbureau.org/201112136815/national-security-news-service/newt-gingrich-marianne-and-the-arms-dealera-buried-fbi-investigation.html#more-6815

It is very hard to ascribe anything but base motives for his recent statements about Palestinians. He is dropping quickly in the Republican nominee polls, especially to Ron Paul who has delivered a damning series of ads against him. Gingrich is desperate to open purse strings to keep his campaign afloat and is as unprincipled as they come.

A man for hire in anyone's language one can only imagine what his price was this time.

David,dear friend.
Newt has the brains of a newt.
The Palestinians are an invention,eh?
Listen up pal.They arent goin' anywhere. get used to it. The biggest delusional player here are the right wing ultra-fundamentalist Israelis.Dont worry about that. They base their identity on a historical fiction that they have injected into their politics and tried to make the basis of their piracy of real estate.
Half of moderate Israelis know what I am talking about. I have been in Tel Aviv long enough to tell you they are tired of the nethanyu charade
and are longing for some moderate policies that take the Palestinians into a deal. This gives those across the waters in the good ole US of A people like the Newt the absolute s..ts.

socratease

"I think that we've had an invented Palestinian people who are in fact Arabs and who were historically part of the Arab community. And they had a chance to go many places, and for a variety of political reasons we have sustained this war against Israel now since the 1940s, and it's tragic."

The idea that Palestinians are 'Arabs' and therefore should simply 'disappear' or join other Arabs outside Israel is, of course, racist, in that it denies Palestinians their human rights to their ancestral lands and the right to resist invasion. Gingrich is a moral imbecile.

David Singer, you must be desperate, to quote such a statement, as support for Israel's systematic disposession of the Palestinians

"The idea that Palestinians are 'Arabs'"

In 1948 they WERE Arabs and preferred to be part of Syria or Egypt. Perhaps now they are not and that's fine, but history is still history.

"and therefore should simply 'disappear'"

Who said that?

(but on the other hand, they wish the Israelis to 'disappear', which is as unlikely)

"or join other Arabs outside"

Most diaspora-Palestinians would have loved it, and in Jordan they actually did, but most Arab countries do not allow them. Lebanon especially holds them in sub-human conditions, using them for propaganda against Israel, not allowing them to leave their camps and have a life.

"Israel is, of course, racist"

Perhaps so, but that's besides the point: would any country in the world be willing to allow millions of hostile people to enter and deliberately overturn it from within?

"in that it denies Palestinians their human rights"

It's true and should be corrected, but even so they still currently have more human rights than in Lebanon and when under their own rule.

"to their ancestral lands"

They should get used to the idea that their lands are no longer there. Nobody is going to bulldoze freeways, factories, schools, hospitals and even residential high-rise buildings in order to rebuild the mud-houses of their grand-grand parents from the 1940's.

Many others have lost their ancestral lands, but everyone besides them has gotten over it and started again - except that their Arab brothers would not allow them!

"and the right to resist invasion."

The most ineffective and counter-productive form of resistance. If only they gave up terror against civilians, there would be no invasion ages ago. They also were twice offered to end the invasion (at least 99% of it), but they refused. At least they could have taken the 99% and kept demanding the other 1%, but no. It seems that they like the invasion more than [most of] the Israelis do, and probably for good reasons.

Yuyustu,

(1)Who said that the Palestinians would 'disappear'? Well, actually, it was the Zionists, the disapperance of the indigenous inhabitants of the region was always implicit in the Zionist enterprise(as with the colonisation of Australia and the Americas) and explicit in Zionist writings.

See 'The Arabs' by Eugene Rogan.

(2)'the mud-houses of their grand-grand parents from the 1940's.'

You're trying the justification 'Look how the colonists improved the area,the natives simply did nothing with the land'. So what,does the Palestinians 'failure to develop' invalidate their human rights and justify dispossession? Not now, not ever.

'Many others have lost their ancestral lands, but everyone besides them has gotten over it and started again' yes, except for those Zionists who decided to start again on someone else's land.

Yes, of course, the violence is all due to the intransigence of the Palestinians. Just ignore the facts that (1)the Israelis have the well-oiled war machine and are supported by the morally bankrupt US (2) the Palestinians are relatively defenceless (3) the 'settlements' continue to expand and the (4) the Zionist project is not complete.