The ‘negative space’ argument: another reason why the U.S. should back Palestinian statehood (and why Hamas opposes it)
by one Dr. Robert Raymond Cargill who is Assistant Professor of Classics and Religious Studies at The University of Iowa. He is a biblical studies scholar, classicist, archaeologist, author, and digital humanist [?]. His research includes study in the Qumran and the Dead Sea Scrolls, literary criticism of the Bible and the Pseudepigrapha, and the Ancient Near East. He has appeared as an expert on numerous television documentaries and specials and is an advocate for social justice and public higher education. He previously worked and taught at UCLA.
Here is my comment:
Permit a bit of a telegraphed response to a few points:
a) you wrote - "Hamas would rather not have a Palestinian state than acknowledge an Israeli one". I put it to you that that approach has characterized all Mandate Arab political thinking since early 1920s when they rejected an "Arab agency", "parity", partition proposals in 1937, 1938, 1939 & 1947 and yielded on TransJordan being handed over to a Saudi Arabia refugee.
b) with a principled Hamas opposition registered, there can be no two-state solution. Right now, there are developing two Arab states west of the Jordan River: Fatahland and Hamastan so at the minimum, there has to be a three-state solution according to those who presume Palestinianism is legitimate and genuine, which is in dispute (yes, not only territories are disputed here).
c) as for defining territory, let's add VAT = Value-Added Territory. Jordan was part of the Mandate. Even the State Dept. claimed in early 1946 that Jordan's territory cannot become independent until the entire Mandate issue is settled. Review this: http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2011/09/semi-propaganda-smoothtalk.html. The area west of the river is too small geographically and topographically to solve the dispute and so, Jordan must become part of the new "whole" that perhaps will be divided, again.
d) Hamas will never be attacked in the way you suggest. Right now, it is, oddly, being propped up by Iran, via Hezbollah. For years, Egypt permitted the tunnels to flow with arms to be fired at Israeli citizens. Now Egypt is becoming Muslim Brotherhood and for the 6th time the gas line, under treaty, that supplies Israel has been sabotaged.
e) and ehtically, how can an academic define the area where almost 7 million Jews live as "negative"? that area, historically, reflects less than 25% of the original Jewish national home territory granted the Jewish people by an act of international law.
And Prof Cargill has responded there and I'll copy here:
yisrael,And I replied:
thanx for your comments. allow me a few comments in response.
a) agreed, but now i believe fatah (not hamas, but fatah) is willing to settle on a defined state with israel. of course, this would leave hamsa/gaza out of the loop, but i have argued a so called ’3-state solution’ before. as soon as hamas sees that fatah is going forward with west bank peace with israel, they’ll either get on board (less likely) or attack fatah (more likely, as they have already done this). however, israel and fatah/west bank should not wait on hamas to stall the process. we all know where the resistance is centered. fatah can use hamas as political cover to forge peace with israeli moderated.
b) see above.
c) prior to the arab uprisings, i would have said nothing is going to change in jordan. however, now that there is unrest there, unless king abdullah abdicates political power and creates a system akin to the u.k., he’s going to have unrest, which would leave the door open to border changes in jordan. it’s less likely, but if the gov’t falls, anything is possible.
d) hamas HAS been attacked in the way i suggest. during operation cast lead, fatah was showing israel where to bomb in gaza. you are correct that egypt will not be as accommodating now that the m.b. has more power, but do not confuse egypt with palestine: egypt doesn’t want gaza’s problems any more than israel (or fatah/west bank) does. they might offer public lip service support and open a tunnel, but they won’t stand in the way if gaza comes under attack.
e) with regard to comment e, i do believe you are stretching a bit. ‘negative space‘ is a technical artistic term referring to the space around a subject, but not the subject itself. to imply that the word ‘negative’ in this technical phrase in any way passes a qualitative judgment on any people or group risks appearing as a desperate attempt to intentionally misrepresent a phrase for the purpose of introducing ethnic (or ethical – i couldn’t tell from your misspelling) tension.
i also find irony in the fact that you refer positively to the ‘act of international law’ (i.e., the u.n.) that established the early borders of the state of israel, while when this very international body is asked to consider the same for palestinians, it is opposed and derided by the very organization that earlier benefited from the u.n. (israel) as a political body with no jurisdiction in the matter. go figure.
as i said earlier, people will find a way to discuss this matter into chaos. israel would force the arab league into recognizing it as a state by simply accepting the peace deal they are going to one day accept anyway.
also, don’t forget the possibility of an ‘israeli spring’ – israel moderates and liberals are growing tired of the bad economy and the use of palestinian tensions by conservatives/hawks to distract from their fiscal woes. it would not surprise me if israelis began rallying against their government and demanded a peace settlement or risk the collapse (or maybe the no confidence) of an israeli government led by a prime minister that after all didn’t get the most vote.
It’s just before a three-day New Year/Shabbat holiday here so I’ll just make one factual correction:
you write: “also find irony in the fact that you refer positively to the ‘act of international law’ (i.e., the u.n.) that established the early borders of the state of israel, while when this very international body is asked to consider the same for palestinians, it is opposed and derided by the very organization that earlier benefited from the u.n. (israel) as a political body with no jurisdiction in the matter. go figure”
sorry i was too concise but I was referring to a series of decisions of the Great Powers and then 54 nations of the civilized world, between 1915 and 1922 (Sikes-Picot; Balfour; Versailles Peace Conference; San Remo; and the League of Nations) which established several fundamentals in international law: the Jews have the right to reconstitute their national home; that their right to ‘close settlement on the land’ is guaranteed; and that only the Jews possessed in Palestine what we would term national-political rights where as all others, literally, “non-Jews” is the language, are guaranteed personal and religious rights only. Arab nationalism was to find its expression, at that time, in Lebanon/Syria, Iraq, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, etc. Today, there are some two dozen Arab countries. I’d like to think that we Jews deserve at least one and that it be in our patrimony.
But since you mention the UN, in my opinion, since the Arabs and Jews were offered a partition, territorial compromise or land-for-peace in today’s diplomatic parlance, and whereas the Jews accepted and the Arabs didn’t, that framework simply doesn’t exist anymore. It’s what as we say, “off the table”. So, any attempt to recreate that or have its paradign apply is a non-starter.
I will return after the holidays.
^
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