July 3, 2007
WHAT THE SOVEREIGN WANTS, THE SOVEREIGN GETS:
Hamas surrounds kidnap hideout as Johnston's fate hangs in balance (Donald Macintyre, 04 July 2007, Independent)
Hamas's armed militias have intensified pressure for the release of the BBC correspondent Alan Johnston by taking up strategic positions around the populous Gaza City neighbourhood where the kidnappers are based.Posted by Orrin Judd at July 3, 2007 7:50 PMA civilian was killed in an exchange of fire early yesterday afternoon between Hamas and residents of the small neighbourhood in Sabra district. Hamas blamed members of the Dogmush family - one of whom leads the Army of Islam which claims responsibility for the kidnap 16 weeks ago - for the death.
Hamas executive-force members guarded street corners and were deployed on roofs of high-rise buildings bordering the Dogmush neighbourhood. At the same time, contingents of the Army of Islam's military wing, the Izzedine al-Qassam brigades, could be seen, dressed in black balacalavas, on side streets and wasteland close to the neighbourhood's west side.
In what appeared to be an increasingly concerted squeeze on the kidnappers, witnesses said that the Hamas forces had detained four more members of the family. There were unconfirmed reports that water and electricity had been cut off from some streets. In one street running through the neighbourhood, a concrete roadblock, apparently erected by Dogmush militants, was visible.
An Interior Ministry spokesman, Khaled Abu Hilal, said security forces "will not spare any efforts to free the British journalist".
Well, I suppose that if we redefine it enough we could speak of "sovereignity" in this context. Sounds like a running gang-fight to me. Just bandits, "natives," no more.
This is a common error in dealing with alien folkways; we try to force the customs and institutions of the other into our own familiar categories, as if the customs of this or that band of primitives were more than loosely analagous to our own.
No, what is described is no more than another manifestation of the failure of the jailhouse. We should, I submit, view those unfortunate people as we would view the man found beaten and robbed on the road up to Gallilee.
Posted by: Lou Gots at July 3, 2007 8:18 PMThere is no Palestine.
Posted by: ghostcat at July 3, 2007 8:35 PMThat's the fascinating thing--there is a Palestine even though they don't have a state yet. There is no secular alternative to Palestine.
Posted by: oj at July 3, 2007 8:45 PMLou:
Sovereigns have a monopoly on force, as Hamas is establishing. That's a classic definition. That they had to win an election to have the right to exercise that sovereignty is the redefinition.
Posted by: oj at July 3, 2007 8:48 PMSeems doubtful they will maintain their legitimacy by your own standards. If they do, more power to them.
Posted by: ghostcat at July 3, 2007 9:20 PMThe reason the West is trying to prop up a Fatahistan is because the PLO can't defeat Hamas at the polls.
Posted by: oj at July 3, 2007 11:45 PMUm, no, sorry. The reason the West is trying to prop up a Fatahistan is because Hamas's declared, uncompromising position is the obliteration of Israel.
(But let's ignore that since it's, um, a tad inconvenient to acknowledge.)
Of course, obliterating Israel is also Fatah's position.
(But might as well ignore that too while we're at it.)
Posted by: Barry Meislin at July 4, 2007 1:41 AMAs Israel obliterated Palestine. Tit, meet Tat. Both sides will get over it.
Posted by: oj at July 4, 2007 7:08 AMForgetting, of course, that
a) were it not for Israel, there would be no Palestine; and
b) that Israel's creation in 1948 also enabled the creation of Palestine; and
c) that Israel's efforts to return areas conquered in 1967 were rejected then---even as they are now.
"Of course," since these points absolutely must be ignored. Or to paraphrase Orwell, "Rejection is Acceptance."
Posted by: Barry Meislin at July 4, 2007 8:30 AMWWII enabled the creation of both. It was just a function of decolonization. Making the Palestinians wait sixty years for their state has had predictable ill effects.
Posted by: oj at July 4, 2007 11:09 AMI say it not so.
A rectification of names is in order. Merely examine the words, "as Hamas is establishing," which here are words of negation. Hamas is, by those words, not sovereign at the present time.
The so-called, self-proclaines "sovereignity" of the Palestinian entity is, at the very best, a process of becoming. To illustate, if we say, "Lou is losing weight; he is becoming thin," we know from the very words that Lou is not thin now.
In such a case, international law permits a state aggreived by the Paletinian entity's inability to fulfill the responsibilitie of sovereignity to protect inelf.
That Hamas is not sovereign at this time is a truism. It does not yet govern the whole nation. It is becoming sovereign, as witness this resolution.
Posted by: oj at July 4, 2007 6:10 PM