Invented People Are Still People
Daniel Larison has been laying into Newt Gingrich for saying the Palestinians are an “invented people” in a way that I think rather misses the most important point.
“Is this a real people?” is the kind of question that colonial powers ask all the time. The French professed that there was no such thing as an “Algerian” – there were Arabs and Berbers and French and other peoples in Algeria, but there was no historic “Algerian” identity.
Which is true as far as it goes. Algerian nationalism was born of the experience of French colonization; in the absence of that experience, it’s hard to know what kind of political entity Algeria might have become. But the salient point about the French in Algeria is that prior to independence the Algerians were not equal citizens of their own country. According to Paris, Algeria was integral part of France. But Algerians were not an integral part of the French nation.
That was the situation that had to be rectified, one way or another. Whether Algerian nationalism was the “right” solution is an unresolvable question, but it clearly wasn’t the only possible solution. The French could have granted full French citizenship to the entire population of Algeria. Algerian nationalism might still have developed – in our world, we have seen Quebecois nationalism and Flemish nationalism and Catalan nationalism and Scottish nationalism, even though citizens of Quebec, Flanders, Catalonia and Scotland are full members of the political communities of Canada, Belgium, Spain and the UK, respectively. But it might not have, or if it did, the character of that nationalism would inevitably be different.
But there was no chance that the French would grant this. And as De Gaulle recognized fairly early on, if France would not grant equality, it would inevitably have to grant independence. There was no third way.
When people say that the Palestinians “are just Arabs” they are on one level correct. In 1900, before Palestinian Arabic could have been influenced by Hebrew, the Arabic spoken by a citizen of Haifa would have been extremely similar to the Arabic spoken by a citizen of Damascus. “Palestinians are just Arabs” is as historically and ethnologically correct as “Palestine is just part of Greater Syria” – which, at various points in history, has in fact been the Syrian perspective on the matter.
And, on another level, it’s obviously incorrect. The Arabs of Palestine had the nationalizing experience of reacting to Jewish colonization of their country – country in the French sense of “native land” rather than “state”. That experience was foreign to the otherwise-similar population in Syria, and resulted in a distinct identity.
But on yet another level, what’s the point of the argument? One can imagine an alternative universe in which the Palestinian refugees of 1948 were accepted by the neighboring Arab countries, welcomed to settle permanently and become citizens. They might have continued to press claims against the State of Israel as individuals (as the Jews expelled by the Arab countries after 1948 might press their claims against those countries), but they would not be stateless. In this counterfactual world, the Palestinian refugees would be analogous to the refugees who fled India for Pakistan (and vice versa), or who fled Turkey for Greece (and vice versa).
And this is basically what happened with respect to the Palestinian Arabs who fled to Jordan, which annexed the West Bank in 1950. But in 1967, Israel conquered the West Bank from Jordan.
The Palestinian refugees living in the region but without citizenship in the state where they live are a collective problem, practical and moral. The most problematic are those who live under effective Israeli rule in the West Bank. (Yes, the Palestinian Authority has responsibility for the overwhelming majority of them, but the P.A. has neither the formal nor the de facto powers of a sovereign state; these Palestinian Arabs are still stateless, formally and substantively.) This problem can only be solved by making them citizens of a sovereign state where they live. That state could have been Jordan – if Israel had managed to achieve a land-for-peace deal with Jordan before 1988, when Jordan renounced all claims to the West Bank. It could be Israel – if Israel were willing to grant the Palestinians in the West Bank equal citizenship, which it isn’t, for entirely understandable reasons. Or it could be an independent, sovereign Palestinian state free from Israeli domination. Those are the choices.
When someone like Gingrich says that the Palestinians have “plenty of places” they could go, I have to wonder what that means. Does he mean that Lebanon is obliged to grant citizenship to the Palestinian refugees (and their descendants) who live there? Does he mean that the Israelis have the right to transfer the Arab population in some part of the territory it controls to some other place where they would rather that population lived? What exactly does he mean – if anything?
The Palestinian “question” is not one that, ultimately, turns on the “reality” of a Palestinian nation. It’s a question that turns, ultimately, on the goals of the State of Israel and of the surrounding Arab states. Neither the State of Israel nor any Arab state will volunteer to accept the Palestinian people who live in Gaza and the West Bank as full and equal citizens. Those are the salient facts. The question of whether the Palestinians are a “real” people bears mostly on the likely prospects of success of any Palestinian state that is created, not on whether such a state is practically and morally necessary.
Not to defend Gingrich, but there seems to be a slight distinction. If one wants to say that the Palestinian people have become a nation in response to some policy (Israel’s creation and occupation or whatever else) in much the same way as the Algerians gained an identity in common resistance to France or the Americans in their response to Britain or whatever, then that raises the question of whether instead of giving the Palestinians a state you can re-assimilate them — undo that impulse to nationhood — by some policy change. Now it’s hard for me to consider a policy which Israel might pursue to make the Palestinians suddenly all declare themselves, say, Jordanians. Alternately you could assimilate them somehow back into Israel which is the death of the Jewish state, but, OK. Whereas if you somehow say, look, the Palestinians have seen themselves as a discrete nation since time immemorial and that isn’t going to change anytime soon, then, you really got nothin’ but to give them a separate state. Even a joint Palestinian-Jewish Israel seems doomed under that view.
— Kieselguhr Kid · Dec 13, 12:15 AM · #
There’s no defending Gingrich, and if anything Millman is bending over backwards to be fair to him. This is all about preparing the ground for a policy where the “Israelis … transfer the Arab population in some part of the territory it controls to some other place where they would rather that population lived.” That’s ethnic cleansing – and that’s the POLITE term for it – it’s unspeakably vile, and the fact that a major politician can make that argument and remain a viable candidate is further evidence (as if we didn’t already have enough) that our polity has sunken to the level of a gangster state.
— Larry Maggitti · Dec 13, 12:34 AM · #
“That’s ethnic cleansing – and that’s the POLITE term for it – it’s unspeakably vile”
Is there not a legitimate national security argument to be made in favor of Israel annexing the Occupied Territories and expelling all the Palestinians? Not a good one or a persuasive one, but a legitimate argument?
The power disparity between Israel and the Palestinians certainly complicates all these issues, but let’s not get carried away.
Mike
— MBunge · Dec 13, 02:51 AM · #
Mike,
No, there isn’t. And the fact that you think there is makes you an inhuman monster. And that’s bending over backwards to be kind.
— Larry Maggitti · Dec 13, 03:07 AM · #
Mike, that argument is as legitimate as arguments for what became the Trail of Tears were in the 1800s.
— Derek Scruggs · Dec 13, 03:40 AM · #
Larry,
Get off your moral high horse — this is the internet for goodness sakes!
“Is there not a legitimate national security argument to be made in favor of Israel annexing the Occupied Territories and expelling all the Palestinians?”
Well, how about the fact that the Palestinian seem to want to grow up and kill Jews for a living and will never be happy until they get the Jews to leave all of Israel. So why not make them really miserable and kick them all out? Plus, I want to go visit Rachel’s Tomb and the Tombs of the Patriarchs and the Palestinians are a pain in the you know what about those holy sites.
— Fake Herzog · Dec 13, 04:08 AM · #
It’s pretty hilarious for Americans to complain about invented peoples.
Is there not a legitimate national security argument to be made in favor of Israel annexing the Occupied Territories and expelling all the Palestinians? Not a good one or a persuasive one, but a legitimate argument?
No, there is not. Ethnic cleansing— and that most certainly is what you’re describing— is both immoral and contrary to international law.
— Freddie · Dec 13, 04:19 AM · #
“Ethnic cleansing— and that most certainly is what you’re describing”
Considering the enormous number of African-Americans in prison in the U.S., it seems we’re guilty of “ethnic cleansing” a lot of inner cities. That is, if the behavior of the people being removed is going to be excised from the discussion.
Mike
— MBunge · Dec 13, 04:34 AM · #
“And the fact that you think there is makes you an inhuman monster.”
Dude, you need to learn that rhetorical proportionality is your friend. If you’re going to call people who express opinions on a blog “inhuman monsters”, what exactly do you say about those folks who send suicide bombers to kill civilians? If I’m an “inhuman monster”, what term do you apply to the perpetrators of the Rwandan genocide.
The first step in successfully advancing your argument is to NOT hysterically discredit yourself.
Mike
— MBunge · Dec 13, 04:39 AM · #
National security is a legitimate argument insomuch as security is always used to excuse illiberal and oppressive acts by governments. If you need to violate someone’s rights to feel secure, fine, but don’t expect a whole lot of moral sympathy on that count and definitely don’t expect to be vindicated by history.
— Console · Dec 13, 05:05 AM · #
And yes, there is a difference between a high incarceration rate, and moving all the black people in say, Detroit, to Nigeria.
— Console · Dec 13, 05:07 AM · #
I feel like I can believe that both suicide bombings targeted at civilians and calls for ethnic cleansing are monstrous. But I’m told that’s some kind of doublethink, or something.
Dammit, and here I was, angling for TAS’s Biggest Asshole. MBunge just shot my chances all to hell!
— Chet · Dec 13, 05:09 AM · #
“It’s pretty hilarious for Americans to complain about invented peoples.”
I would think so, too. Did somebody complain about invented peoples?
— The Reticulator · Dec 13, 06:51 AM · #
Yeah, it’s not a complaint so much as a high brow dog whistle for why we should treat Palestinians as less than people.
— Console · Dec 13, 06:59 AM · #
No.
The long term, or even the medium term survival of Israel depends on two things: acceptance by the Muslim Middle East, and the creation of a reasonably prosperous economy. A mass ethnic cleansing would eliminate both those prospects for decades to come. Most European, Asian, and African countries would almost certainly engage in a sustained economic boycott of Israel. I suspect many Americans would engage in a private boycott of Israel as well. The boycott, in combination with economic problems created by a massive violation of the rule of law, would almost certainly prove toxic to Israel’s high tech sector. A voluntary out migration of highly educated and technically competent Israelis would probably follow the forced migration of the Palestinians.
Ethnically cleansing the Palestinians would move Israel very much further down the road toward a fundamentalist religious state. Such a state would have greatly reduced economic, technological, and military resources. A fundamentalist state would also probably lack the diplomatic flexibility to adjust to economic and military vulnerabilities. The result would mean the failure of Israel as a viable state.
This naturally raises the question: do the people Newt Gingrich aimed his rhetoric at think carefully or critically about the steps that can help ensure Israel’s future? And if they do think about these matters, do they care? The evidence seems to indicate they do not.
— John Spragge · Dec 13, 09:14 AM · #
Well said, Noah. I guess my question is not whether there is any solution but why the status quo just won’t go on for generations. Currently, the Israelis are thriving economically and the Palestinians are not. Why won’t that go on indefinitely?
— Steve Sailer · Dec 13, 09:32 AM · #
Yeah, it’s not a complaint so much as a high brow dog whistle for why we should treat Palestinians as less than people.
It’s also a great excuse for inventing a meaning for what he said. (Speaking of inventing things.)
— The Reticulator · Dec 13, 10:15 AM · #
Yeah I know, we’re supposed to divorce newt’s ramblings from it’s logical conclusion because we don’t want conservatives feeling bad about having to vote for yet another ruh-tard.
— Console · Dec 13, 10:34 AM · #
Fake Herzog,
I have no desire to make nice with Nazi scum like you and Mike.
— LarryM · Dec 13, 02:43 PM · #
Mike,
You seem to think I’m interested in “successfully advancing an argument.” When confronted with people advancing morally indefensible courses of action such as yourself, the proper response is not to make judicious and calm arguments refuting same, it is rather to point out the fact that moral reprehensible course of action are being proposed. Treating advocacy of ethnic cleansing as an “argument” that requires reasoned refutation merely grants such advocacy an undeserved patina of legitimacy.
To put it another way, how would you respond to the following:
-an “argument” trying to justify the Rwandan genocide
-an “argument” trying to justify re-instituting slavery and enslaving the decedents of former slaves
-an “argument” that “consensual” sex with 10 year old children should be legalized
-an “argument” that Hitler was a nice guy
My suspicion is that you would not respond with a judicious logical argument, but rather would respond in much the same manner that I did. And you would be justified in doing so.
Now, I suspect that you don’t feel that your advocacy of ethnic cleansing falls into the same category as the above. It most definitely does, differing perhaps in degree only (though if Israel did indeed attempt to remove the Palestinians, the ultimate death toll would certainly much exceed the Rwandan genocide). The fact that you can’t see this merely proves that you are, in fact, a moral monster.
— Larry Maggitti · Dec 13, 07:17 PM · #
And the honest fact, Mike, is that, far from being rhetorically disproportionate, I am bending over backwards to be far more civil to you than you deserve. If I REALLY let loose and told you how I felt about you, I’d be banned from posting here in short order.
— Larry Maggitti · Dec 13, 07:21 PM · #
“That is, if the behavior of the people being removed is going to be excised from the discussion.”
This is particularly precious, and why ultimately the comparison of Mike and his ilk to Nazis is quite appropriate.
— Larry Maggitti · Dec 13, 07:28 PM · #
This gets us to the root of the problem both with Gingrich’s comment and the various defences of it. The rights claimed on behalf of the Palestinians inhere in individuals, not groups. Thomas Jefferson wrote that governments derive “their just powers from the consent of the governed”, not from the validity of the culture they claim to represent. Just about the whole of the European enlightenment, and certainly any legitimacy of the United States as a nation, rests on the notion that rights inhere primarily in individuals, not collectives.
As a corollary, guilt inheres in individuals as well, which makes the point Mike tries to make so completely wrong. Whatever you think of the American incarceration rate, or the “war on drugs” that primarily drives it, no American law contemplates or permits the incarceration or removal of anyone based on their ethnicity. The drug laws contain a host of injustices, but at least they allow for the incarceration of only those people whom a properly constituted court has convicted of intentionally violating them. That differs completely from the proposal to ethnically cleanse the Palestinians based on allegations about their collective behaviour.
— John Spragge · Dec 13, 08:27 PM · #
Larry,
I love you too.
As usual, Steve Sailer makes the most relevant point, although given toxic levels of Palestinian propaganda, eventually I suspect they will want to go to war to try and get their state/kill lots of Jews. They will fail, of course, but that might be the end game of the Occupation.
Meanwhile, here is the always fun Caroline Glick on Newt’s comments:
http://www.carolineglick.com/e/2011/12/gingrichs-fresh-hope.php
— Fake Herzog · Dec 13, 11:56 PM · #
Yeah I know, we’re supposed to divorce newt’s ramblings from it’s logical conclusion…
Hmmm. I’ll bet there’s a very special definition of “logical conclusion” in use here.
— The Reticulator · Dec 14, 03:15 AM · #
If you say the palestinians aren’t a nation, then the logical conclusion is that they can’t get their own state. Ruling out a 2 state solution, you aren’t left with a whole lot of options. The only humane option is making the palestinians citizens of Israel. But the type of people that would respond positively to Newt’s comments aren’t exactly the type of people that would welcome the Palestinians as equals, so you’ll have to forgive me if I don’t think Newt’s implications leaned that way.
Now, we can try to pretend that Newt was just making some academic musing with no implications for policy, but that’s exactly what I mean by attempting to divorce logic from Newt ramblings.
— Console · Dec 14, 04:15 AM · #
Reticulator, do you really want to try to make us believe that Newt Gingrich used his time in a national Republican debate to make a comment that had no specific meaning, but just happens to refer to a trope common enough among Israeli and American Jewish conservatives to rate several lines in a Law and Order episode?
The argument for Palestinian civil rights has never depended on the notion of Palestinian rights as a “nation”. Even if we define the Palestinians in negative terms, as non-Jewish people living in an area administered by Israel, they still have individual rights. That still leaves Israel with three stark choices: violate its own democratic and humanitarian ethics and perpetrate a mass act of ethnic cleansing, find a way to include the Palestinians, however defined, in a democratic Israel, or else go with partition and a second state.
— John Spragge · Dec 14, 08:09 AM · #
The argument for Palestinian civil rights has never depended on the notion of Palestinian rights as a “nation”.
John Spragge, I don’t watch the debates and I don’t watch Law and Order (or any television at all except for helping my wife watch Big Ten sports once in a while) so I don’t know what trope you’re talking about. An unfortunate byproduct of no TV is I often miss out on some of these cultural allusions. An advantage is that I’m not automatically thinking the same thoughts everybody else is.
I have read an argument that Newt was just making the point that the argument for Palestinian statehood does not depend on any historical nationhood. I spent some time googling for the quote in context so I could read it myself and don’t think I ever found it — the google search results were so taken up with people eager to take umbrage at what he said or (in some cases) defend his remarks. But the actual remarks were hard to come by. Just the same, when I see everybody taking umbrage using the same selective quote, I like to poke at it as I’ve been doing here.Newt does tend to think out loud and does not always speak directly to the point. I understand that as I tend to do it myself. It doesn’t bother me a lot. I accept the literal truth that the Palestinians are an invented people. Almost all national identities, as well as a lot of other identities, are invented to some degree. I think most anthropologists, sociologists, and maybe a lot of historians would agree. If the basis for the Palestinian desire for statehood is some historical nationhood, then it’s worth pointing out that that basis is not very sound. (I remember that once upon a time the trendy/academic left was down on nationalism and down on the whole idea of national identities. I suppose they have a right to change their mind when it’s convenient to do so.)
All the subtexts are amusing, I suppose. Maybe they’re even important. Maybe it would have been more politically correct for Newt to say what he said while standing on one’s left foot and twirling a ball on one’s nose? Or while blowing a dog whistle that’s tuned to the politically correct pitch.
— The Reticulator · Dec 14, 08:43 AM · #
If you follow Mr. Millman’s links to Dr. Larison’s comments on what Gingrich actually said, you get to a video of him making the comment in answer to a question about whether he identified as a Zionist. In context, Gingrich clearly identifies the so-called “invention” of the Palestinian people as a part or even a motivator for a war against Israel. In context, his arguments do not appear as a harmless or abstract observation.
If you want to follow it up yourself, go to the NYT Caucus blog
— John Spragge · Dec 14, 09:15 AM · #
Considering the enormous number of African-Americans in prison in the U.S., it seems we’re guilty of “ethnic cleansing” a lot of inner cities. That is, if the behavior of the people being removed is going to be excised from the discussion.
That is absurdly weak tea, Mike.
Don’t worry, John, Reticulator is just trolling.
— Freddie · Dec 14, 02:22 PM · #
It’s true but trivial that the Palestinians are an “invented people.” That’s sort of the point of nationalism — take a bunch of duchies, get them to call themselves Germans and to identify as such, and then use the resulting group for good or ill.
I haven’t watched the video, but I’d be more interested in what Gingrich’s point is. Does he think that the Palestinian leadership and street both lack the will to make peace on some variant of Clinton’s terms?
I think that’s really the foreign policy question on Israel Palestine. (1) Do you believe that if Israel instituted a settlement freeze, it would be possible to get the Palestinians to the table? (2) Do you believe that it would be possible to get Israelis to the table. (3) Do you think that there is any two-state deal that both sides would accept? (4) And if your answer is no, then what do you propose to do?
As far as I can tell, Obama’s foreign policy position on Israel Palestine is (1) the two state, Clinton style outcome is the just solution; (2) If Israel would make some concessions prior to negotiations, then maybe the PA would agree to the final deal that Obama would like to see; (3) but since Israel won’t make the concessions Obama wants prior to negotiations, we will continue with the status quo until something changes.
— J Mann · Dec 14, 04:43 PM · #
Why it matters Palestinians are invented:
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2011/12/14/palestinian-immigration-ettinger/#more-777726
— Fake Herzog · Dec 14, 08:06 PM · #
To create two states, a border must be drawn somewhere, but that “somewhere” should depend only on the parties’ current needs
Evelyn Gordon must be a Marxist who believes, “From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs.”
That’s what Territorial Governor Lew Cass told the Indians during treaty negotiations in the 1820s and 1830s. I don’t have the exact words in front of me, but it was usually something along the lines of, “You have so much land — much more than you could possibly use. We have need of it for raising crops and cattle.” Another Marxist.
— The Reticulator · Dec 15, 01:22 AM · #
If you want to follow it up yourself, go to the NYT Caucus blog
Thank you, Mr. Spragge.
BTW, if I was inclined to take umbrage at anything Newt said there, it would be the statement that “they have a chance to go many places.” What is that supposed to mean? (It looks like Noah asked the same question.)
— The Reticulator · Dec 15, 05:09 AM · #
“Had.” Not “have”
— The Reticulator · Dec 15, 05:10 AM · #