From: jle@lear.bos.locus.com (John Elghani)
Subject: Re: Resisting occupation
Organization: LC
Date: Thu, 24 Dec 1992 03:59:17 GMT

In article <1992Dec23.153301.25620@ncsu.edu> hernlem@chess.ncsu.EDU (Brad Hernlem) writes:
>Ron Evans writes:
>
>	Forgive my persistence, but I am not getting answers to my
>	questions.  How are the following positions dissimilar?
>
>	1)  As Palestinians are not given equal rights, they should
>	randomly kill Israeli soldiers in the territories until
>	they are treated equally.
>
>	2)  As the Bahai's are not given equal rights, they should
>	randomly kill Iranian soldiers until they are treated
>	equally.
>
>	3)  As Iraqi Kurds  are not given equal rights, they should
>	randomly kill Iraqi soldiers in Kurdistan until
>	they are treated equally.

If treated equally is the problem, its easy.  Here, the blacks 
are not treated equally, and I don't think they should battle
the Police, nor the National Guard.  The issue is occupation
and stripping of identity and dignity, killing and torture,
and and home theft, punishment to relatives of doers , ...etc.


>Number 1 and number 3 are most similar. Bahai's are not a nation; they
>are a religious group. Number 1 sprang out of the formation of a new
>country which chose to ignore the rights of a segment of the native
>population. Furthermore, many of the Palestinians currently under the
>domain of Israel fell into this position by land conquest in war.
>Soldiers are the direct instrument used by Israel to maintain this
>position. They are reasonable targets. Similarly, I would agree in the
>case of 3, although their position came about not so much as a result of
>occupation as a development in the policy of the Iraqi government. We
>should be careful, however, (and I am no scholar of Kurdish history) to
>distinguish an unwillingness on the part of a government to accept a
>nation as an equal and a response by that government to insurrection
>arrising out of purely political ambitions. From the information that I
>have, it would seem to me that both Saddam Hussein's state and the
>"Jewish state" share the common position that certain nations within
>their domain will not be granted equal status. With regard to 2, I do
>not think that killing Iranian soldiers would yield the desired effect
>since Iranian soldiers are not involved (I suppose this is only
>partially true since the police and military in Iran are branches of the
>same organization, unlike in the U.S.). 
>
>Frankly, Ron, I think I made myself pretty clear when I said that "In my
>opinion, no nation has a "right" to autonomy but each individual has a
>right to expect respect and equal rights within whatever country he
>resides either by citizenship or by force." Neither the Kurds, the
>Bahais, or the Palestinians have any "right" to expect an autonomous
>state. In the case of Palestine, however, the region was cut up by
>outside powers long ago. They allowed a highly nationalistic state to be
>formed in Palestine, a place which was by no means homogeneous. This
>state, the state of Israel, refuses to accept a segment of the
>population on equal terms. I will continue to find this appalling
>regardless if there is ever the formation of a Palestinian state.
>Basically, Ron, I find nationalism to be more evil than good.
>Nationalism can be used to great purposes but it is too easy to use it
>for evil.
>
>Brad "Ali" Hernlem (hernlem@chess.ncsu.EDU)
>       ^
>        \______________ For Jake :-) 
>                        And for all you who have been wondering.
> 


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