Israel Matzav

The Nation goes off the deep end

From a reaction by one Ben Adler in The Nation - a far Left publication - to Newt Gingrich calling the 'Palestinians' an 'invented people.'

Gingrich seems to think the implication is that Palestinians aren’t entitled to their own state, although he doesn’t quite say so. If he opposes a two-state solution, that puts him on the far fringe of both American and international politics. (His spokesman says he supports a two-state solution as part of a negotiated settlement.)

But more importantly, Gingrich is laying out a perverse definition of statehood. Does Gingrich think that states should be ethnocentric? The United States isn’t, although Gingrich’s appeal is largely based on white Christian ethnocentric nationalism. Israeli national identity is as much a twentieth-century invention as Palestinian identity.

Say what you want about George W. Bush, but he believed that freedom and democracy were universal human rights. The Arabs in the West Bank and Gaza, like all people everywhere, deserve the protections of constitutional liberty and the right of self-determination. The people of Gaza City have those rights as much as the people of Des Moines, and neither group should have to prove to Newt Gingrich that they have a unified national ethnic identity to enjoy those rights.

Conservatives claim to treat people as individuals rather than members of groups. One might say that by focusing on the history of national identity a group of people does or doesn’t have, Gingrich is engaging in the worst sort of identity politics. A resolution to the people of the West Bank and Gaza, such as a two-state solution, is optimal for moral and practical reasons. You don’t need to believe in Palestinian national identity to recognize that. Nor, for that matter, do you need to reject Palestinian identity to oppose the right of return as impractical. But morality and practicality seem not to matter to Gingrich.

Dude.... The people of Des Moines aren't asking for their own state, nor would they be entitled to one. The 1933 Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States sets out four criteria for the definition of a state: a ) a permanent population; b ) a defined territory; c ) government; and d) capacity to enter into relations with the other states. The 'Palestinians' had none of the above in 1920 or at any other time since then when they were offered (and turned down) a 'state' anyway.

And by the way, do you support the Reconquistas creating a state of Aztlan too? (Hat Tip: Sunlight).

Labels: Newt Gingrich, Palestinian people

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:40 PM