Monday, May 16, 2011

the inevitable third intifada.

and could it turn out to have been a trilogy all along?

i'm so tired and i have to get to va beach tomorrow, but i just thought i'd mention a little tidbit about a story that barely made it to my news feed... the arab revolution is knocking at israel's door.

and there was this one too... border clashes not the start of a third intifada. here's a little secret though... i think it is.

this is all uncertain, i know, so don't think i'm making these assertions with any delusion of certainty. the arab revolutions are tentative and i know full well revolutions can be hijacked or outright outmaneuvered and defeated.

but...

let's assume for a moment the arab spring is the arab awakening that i have always hoped for. let's assume it's the popular realization that the arab street can bring down despots simply by refusing to tolerate them anymore. violence is a tool, but violence is certainly not the prime mover. the prime mover is confidence. and the consequence is an interconnected protest movement that demands the basic freedoms that appeal to any decent conscience.

osama bin laden's death couldn't come at a more fitting time. just as the arab street awakens to their newfound ability, so too has the appeal of islamism been negated. after all, how can islamism portray itself as the antidote to autocracy as regimes fall like dominoes completely independent of islamist influence? how can the violent ideologies of hamas, hezbollah, and al-qaeda be taken seriously when nonviolent protests have set this whole awakening in motion, and nonviolent protests are accomplishing more in months than years of violent resistance? the arab spring is a cultural and ideological revolution as much as it is a political revolution... the revolution is the false dichotomy laid bare, and the third way is well on its way.

but hasn't this third way been waiting for it's big break in palestine all along, stuck between hamas and fatah? isn't a renewed resistance in palestine the natural consequence of a newfound arab confidence? and if palestinians and the arabs alike are confident in their moral authority, isn't nonviolent resistance the hallmark of that moral authority?

so there you go. my fun roundabout socratic questioning based explanation for why on nakba day, some seemingly insignificant protest occured, and israel killed over a dozen unarmed palestian protestors who tried to exercise their right of return by simply walking across the border towards the homes that should rightfully be theirs.

the arab revolutions and this protest are not isolated incidents. this is a new palestinian intifada precisely because this whole fucking thing is one giant, glorious, arab intifida.

now i know this might be overreaching for now but let me just pretend for a few minutes so i can go to sleep happy... if the false dichotomies that have made a mockery of middle east politics until now really come unraveled, it's all fucked. (in a good way.) what do i mean? i mean hamas is fucked, hezbollah is fucked, the muslim brotherhood is fucked, al-qaeda is fucked, and thus one of the greatest absurdities of the modern middle east, the false dichotomy of israel vs islamism, is also fucked.

but that's a pretty big if.

happy nakba day!

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