Revision Of Argument Analysis

Wulpi 1

Ryan Wulpi W131 Gabriel Downs Cover Letter for Revision Paper I chose to revise my Argument Analysis paper, for simple reasons. I did not get a good grade on that paper, mainly because I didn’t follow the guidelines of what was asked. I changed quite a bit, mostly taking out a lot of the summary and replacing it with more of my opinion of what the author’s were trying to say. I chose these revisions, because, like I said before, I wanted to show that I could follow guidelines and write a good paper. I hope that it worked.

Wulpi 2

Ryan Wulpi W131 Gabriel Downs Draft 1

The question that I am going to be evaluating is an ongoing conflict that has been around for over a thousand years. It deals with the fight over Israel between the Israelis and Palestinians, and whether or not they can co-exist side by side as two separate states. The place where they now are is a difficult one, trying to come up with a peace plan that both sides endorse. One that also benefits both sides equally. We are going to be looking at a specific question inside this bigger picture, ‘what does separation mean?’ There are two sides to this argument: one Israeli and the other Palestinian. The first side is the Israeli point of view from Yossi Alpher, who is the co-editor of bitterlemons.org and bitterlemons-international.org.; he is also the former director of the Jaffe Center for Strategic Studies and a former senior advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak (bitterlemons.org). In his essay, titled “Two schools of thought,” he talks about a large majority of Israelis favor separation, “or, in Israeli parlance, disengagement” (Alpher). There are two different schools of thought that are outlined in this article. Both agree with the aforementioned disengagement plan, but they differ on how to achieve their stated goals, “both… favor ongoing integration, though with radically different purposes in mind” (Alpher). The right-wing supporters “appear to

Wulpi 3

favor an Israeli withdrawal from all or most of the Gaza Strip and from a much smaller portion of the West Bank – possibly only a few settlements in the north” (Alpher). “… they also insist that the partial Israeli withdrawal they envisage must be sustainable over the long term – that it constitute (sic) a political ‘solution’” (Alpher). At the opposite end of the argument are the left-wing and center “for whom separation or disengagement means Israeli withdrawal from the entire Gaza Strip and most of the West Bank, with the exception of the Jordan Valley, the green line settlement blocs and East Jerusalem” (Alpher). According to this article, “both schools of thought cite Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat’s record supporting or tolerating terrorism and his failure to convincingly acknowledge Israel as a legitimate Jewish state, and reject the option of negotiating with a Palestinian leadership led by him. This is their shared point of departure for the disengagement or separation idea. Both stop short of advocating any sort of severing of infrastructure and labor ties. They recognize that cutting these links would cause extreme hardship for Palestinians, hence more instability and extremism” (Alpher). I don’t necessarily agree with this side, but I think that the author makes a good argument in his explanation of what ‘separation’ means to the Israelis. He focuses on the two extreme views on separation of the Jewish left- and right-wing. The intended audience that he is aiming at is obviously one that is familiar with the ongoing conflict. He doesn’t give much background on the reasons that they have come to this impasse. He explains both of them at length comparing and contrasting them. It is a very short article, only about 2 pages long. He could have gone into more detail about why they are fighting, although it would have been a much longer article.

Wulpi 4

The Palestinian view on the other hand is a bit more unified. It is written by Ghassen Khatib who is also co-editor of bitterlemons.org and bitterlemonsinternational.org.; he is also Minister of Labor in the Palestinian government and for many years prior was featured in the press as a political analyst (bitterlemons.org). Khatib makes his case in the article “Code for domination” that the Palestinians are more in agreement of their view of separation. “Palestinians… have long been unified over the idea that ‘separation’ must mean the dismantling of the Israeli occupation and all its interferences into Palestinian daily life” (Khatib). He continues “it also means that relations between the two sides will be based on equality, taking into consideration the interests of each with no domination of one over the other” (Khatib). After all of this you can see why a lot of Palestinians feel the way that they do, “… the Palestinian feeling is that the notion of separation is deceptive and manipulated for Israel’s use. A strategy based on this concept is not going to bring either side any nearer to a just and lasting peace. Separation based on a complete end to the occupation … and which gives birth to a viable and independent Palestinian state with the same rights as Israel, is the only solution that will ensure the peace and security both sides crave” (Khatib). This is along the same lines as the article written from the Israeli point of view. His intended audience is people who know about what is going on in this conflict. He really tries to show you that the Palestinians have a very deep mistrust of the Israeli intentions. He works hard to show that the Palestinian view is more unified than the Israeli view. He goes to great lengths to explain this, how Israelis waver on the subject,

Wulpi 5

but Palestinians stand firm on their belief that there should be a total withdraw.

I think

that overall, he presents a good argument for what he is trying to get across. These are two obviously very different opinions on the same subject. The Israeli’s are concerned about terrorism and their on security and the Palestinians are concerned about their individual rights and the land that they think is owed to them. I think that both articles are well written and they both explain their opinions well. They are very similar in the sense that neither of them use any kind of statistics, just their views. They both agree that there needs to be some separation, but they differ on ways to get there. I don’t think that the Palestinian argument is very strong, in my mind it never has. They have been asking for years to have Israel pull out of the “occupied” territories. But, we have to understand what the “occupied” territories are. They are the territories that Israel captured back in 1967 when they were attacked by the surrounding Arab countries. That, to me, is ridiculous. That’s like a kid on the playground picking a fight with another kid, and then wanting that kid to pay for a new shirt because he ripped the sleeve. I don’t agree with the way that Israel handles this situation, but the fact remains that they should be able to defend themselves against the terror attacks.

Wulpi 6

Works Cited Alpher, Yossi. “Two schools of thought: Response to ‘What should separation mean?’” Bitterlemons.org

8 March 2004 Edition 8

http://www.bitterlemons.org/ Khatib, Ghassan. “Code for domination: Response to ‘What should separation mean?’” Bitterlemons.org

8 March 2004 Edition 8

http://www.bitterlemons.org/