Israel/Palestine
Related: About this forumNo, criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism
Naturally, some readers would accept this, and answer that yes! Those groups and people, even if they are Jewish or Israeli, are in fact anti-Semitic. I urge them to reconsider. The effect of such a claim would not be the delegitimization of anti-Semitism, but quite the opposite: Many real anti-Semites would be seen as partners in a large and rational community that deserves to be heard. If everyone is equal to the Nazis, then maybe Nazism wasn’t that bad after all.
Moreover: The terms Zionism, Israeli and Judaism were never meant to overlap. A person can identify with two out of three of those descriptions, or even just one out of three. The current ideological shift in Israel has a lot to do with the integration of different aspects of identity into one. The state (Israel) equals the Jewish people equals the ideology (Zionism), and everyone not abiding with this model is necessarily a traitor – or an anti-Semite.
I am not a big fan of Israeli romanticism – the longing for the lost democratic and liberal past, which I do not believe ever really existed – but I would say this: Israeli politics in the past had the ability to be relaxed enough, focused enough on consensus-building, for it to hold together a structure with many internal contradictions: Judaism and democracy, socialism and free market, Zionists and anti-Zionists. The new Israeli right would like the center of the political system and the public sphere, the former place of fragile consensus, to be ideologically and ethnically pure, and labeling any challenge as an existential danger is an important part of this process. The idea of across-the-board purity was popular in Europe in the late 19th century and in the first half of the 20th century. I’ll stop here.
<snip>
Israel is currently engaged in the longest-lasting military occupation on earth, a racist colonial project, which involves violence and human rights abuses on a structural, large-scale basis. Perhaps it’s not the worst regime on earth and it’s certainly not the worst in history, but it’s bad enough to deserve all the attention it gets, and more. Fighting it is not anti-Semitism. It’s called having a conscience.
http://972mag.com/no-criticism-of-israel-is-not-anti-semitism/46401/
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Swede
(33,230 posts)No posts about that? That is antisemitism.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)are you saying Syrians are Semites?
Swede
(33,230 posts)No Palestinians are being murdered,thousands of Syrians are.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)Swede
(33,230 posts)"That argument was settled at Treblinka Aaron. If your against the existence of the state of Israel you are an anti-semite. And Jewish anti-semites are the worst ones of all."
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)exactly what does that in your opinion encompass?
eta you did not include the entire quote either-
Swede
(33,230 posts)nt
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)otherwise your answer makes little sense
Swede
(33,230 posts)nt
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)because they are posted from quite frequently here and one of the 3 has been a DUer, still is in fact albeit he hasn't posted here in some time
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)And in fact I haven't been here because I was playing around over on mondoweiss for a bit. Enough to tell you without any hesitation that quite a few of the posters over there who are popular and supported are extremely anti-semtitc. I was banned from posting there, ostensibly for "nakba denial." Since I never once denied the nakba I was confused but have since come to understand that it is a catchall excuse they use to ban anyone who posts regularly from a pro-Israel perspective. Especially if you happen to make any of the regular anti-Zionists over there look foolish or uninformed on occasion. "Nakba-denier" is a label they put on anyone whose views do not match up with their own. Being openly anti-semitic is fine, as is being bigoted against Zionists, supporting hateful stereotypes and generally violating their TOS in any way as long as it isn't deemed anti-palestinian.
So is Phillip Weiss himself an anti-semite? Probably not, although he certainly supports them and offers them a venue to find and help one another in various ways.
My name there for a while was Shaktimaan too. By all means check out what I was writing and see if you think I was a nakba-denier.
shira
(30,109 posts)azurnoir
(45,850 posts)do you have any - with link and traceable citation?
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2012/05/23/tel-aviv-2012-berlin-1938/
It seems that Israel has been using Gazans in precisely the same way since its invasion following the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit. The weapon it has tested, known by the acronym DIME (Dense Inert Metal Explosive), works to horrifying effect
http://www.richardsilverstein.com/tikun_olam/2006/10/10/israel-tests-new-lethal-weapon-in-gaza/
now with this last one there has been some discussion as to whether or not Israel used such weapons in Lebanon and Gaza with it being denied by the same people who deny Israel used WP in those conflicts
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)If you're going to hold that the one comparison is unacceptable, the other has to be equally unacceptable.
shira
(30,109 posts)Do you think I was making a nazi reference when I provided all those PMW videos showing Hamas and PA genocidal incitement?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And I wasn't speaking of you alone in that...or even primarily of you.
but there's been a long-standing tradition in Israeli government rhetoric that implied that the Arab countries(prior to 1967), the Palestinians who were displaced in 1948, AND those displaced in 1967 were the successors to Hitler and all the other historical enemies of the world's Jewish communities. While many of the things that Arabs and Palestinians did could and can be questioned, this was never a valid comparison...and could, in fact, be taken by Arabs and Muslims as ingratitude since, during the World War II era, the safest place to be for Jewish people, if they couldn't get to North America, was in the Arab and Muslim countries. Unlike the Jewish communities of Europe, those of North Africa, the Persian Gulf and Iran survived the war virtually unscathed-and, in many cases, there were conscious efforts in those countries to protect Jewish people from the Nazis, such as the works of Morocco's King Muhammed(for which the Moroccan Mizrahi community in Israel want the king to be commemorated to the "Righteous of the Nations" section of Yad Vashem, and the Chief Imam of Paris, who called on his parishoners to protect Parisian Jews-a call those Parisian Muslims followed willingly).
This is something that needs to be addressed.
It would be fairly easy for Netanyahu to say "OK, guys, it was wrong to act like the Arabs were the new Nazis...you could have recognized the state, but the fact that you didn't doesn't mean you were just like Hitler". And saying that would help change at least some Arab and Muslim attitudes towards Israel.
shira
(30,109 posts)...or are you afraid that if you do, that's bigoted.
Yes or No?
You know what's absolutely chilling to me about the anti-Israel Left/Right? They see those videos and are hardly phased by them. At the very least I expect a strong reaction in disgust. What I see is apathy and a half-hearted "I disagree with all that". Do you realize how bad that looks?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)It serves no purpose to rage about them. The way to defeat groups like Hamas is to give Palestinians actual reason to think that choosing to follow non-Hamas leaders will give them something to hope for in their future.
And it could only lead to massive civilian casualties on the Palestinian side if everybody were to do what YOU really want, and to say we'd back an all-out Israeli military campaign to crush Hamas. Such a campaign couldn't succeed, because, even though most Palestinians don't actually want Hamas to prevail or support it, a hardline all-out IDF campaign would force them to back Hamas or look like Israeli collaborators.
shira
(30,109 posts)Last edited Wed May 30, 2012, 05:52 AM - Edit history (1)
Do you think that if you were to come out believing that is in fact what they say, that you would be betraying the Palestinian cause? Or that you would be perceived as an anti-arab bigot?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)They don't really mean anything.
We don't even know if they're actually real.
Give it a rest about the videos...they aren't any more important than anything else.
shira
(30,109 posts)Last edited Wed May 30, 2012, 05:51 AM - Edit history (1)
Why do you wish all that were censored?
You expect Jews to simply ignore all that and pretend it's not "actually real"? Move on as if none of that exists?
What kind of regional peace do you envision if none of that is ever acknowledged or addressed? Seriously, answer that one.
Crunchy Frog
(26,579 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)The Neturei Karta just recently compared the IDF to Nazis. The very same NK that attends Holocaust denial conferences in Iran. I can't make out if they're antisemitic or just flat out insane.
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)I believe it is possible to make anti-Semitic statements without necessarily being an anti-Semite. In fact, I'm sure that it happens all the time, just as a significant portion of the people who have made racist jokes do not necessarily align themselves with any racist ideology and would probably be quite appalled at the notion.
I think in a lot of cases using terminology like "Nazi" is done primarily out of a desire to leverage meaningful Jewish history in order to incite a big reaction or make an incendiary statement. It is just done to hurt its intended target or to produce a response. Some people undoubtedly believe what they are saying, but it goes without saying that those morons have no idea what they're talking about.
I would go so far as to say that it is possible to hold anti-Semitic ideology, actually believe it, without being an anti-Semite at heart. Many, if not most, racists and anti-Semites hold certain beliefs out of sheer ignorance. No one hates another group for no reason at all. The Arab street hates the Jews for a variety of reasons. We own the world's banks and control their governments, keeping the Arab people poor. We steal and sell Palestinian children's organs. We use their blood to make matzoh. We caused the Nakba and oppress Arabs unnecessarily. We seek to destroy Al-Aqsa and build a temple there. We have no real historical connection to Israel or Jerusalem yet we made up a false one so we could deny the Arabs their rightful claim to the valuable land.
Most lies have a germ of truth in them. Out of all the propaganda above, how much is true? If someone learned everything above as the Gods-honest-truth then why wouldn't they hate Jews? A recent-ish poll in Poland showed that a majority of Poles thought that Jews had far too much influence within their government. They actually think this despite the fact that there were no Jews in their government at all when the poll was taken, and practically no Jews living in the entire country. Yet they honestly believe in this Protocols of Zion type stuff.
So yeah, it's anti-Semitic to advance these ideas and make those statements, no matter who is doing it. That said, there is a world of difference between a settler who is essentially saying "You are acting like the Nazis did when you make us leave our homes." and an ignorant fool who says "There is no difference between Gaza today and the Warsaw Ghetto under Nazi rule." and a true anti-Semite who says "There can be no question that the Zionists are more more cruel in their beliefs and more hateful in their actions than the Nazis ever were." In a lot of cases it is obvious that the word "Zionist" is being used as a stand-in for their true target, "the Jews" even if political correctness necessitates that they uphold the charade at all costs. Those guys tend to be your real life, dyed-in-the-wool anti-Semites. IMO anyway.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Having the State of Israel in existence in 1939 would NOT have prevented the Holocaust. Hitler still wouldn't have let European Jews leave the continent alive, would never have allowed those people to be given Israeli passports(or recognized the legitimacy of those passports).
The Holocaust was the United States' and Canada's fault, for barring the Jewish refugees when those countries KNEW what Hitler was going to do, and then, in the last months of the war, for refusing to bomb the railroad tracks that led to the camps(a step that would have saved at least a million people by the estimates of that day).
Why do you demand more of Arabs than you do of European and North American Christians?
Also. criticism of Israeli security policies doesn't equate to opposition to Israel's very existence. Some of us criticize those policies because, among other things, we believe that they not only impose injustices upon Palestinians(most of whom are innocent, decent, nonviolent human beings just trying to get through their day), they also ultimately endanger Israel itself, by perpetuating tensions rather than diffusing them.
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)... from me to you, read what you've just written BEFORE hitting the Post Button. That is free advice.
"Having the State of Israel in existence in 1939 would NOT have prevented the Holocaust. Hitler still wouldn't have let European Jews leave the continent alive, would never have allowed those people to be given Israeli passports(or recognized the legitimacy of those passports). "
As you seem to be (deliberately or not) truly misinformed on this subject, allow me to rebut. Until October 1941, Nazi policy towards Jews emigration was to encourage it. Nearly 40,000 of the 500,000 Jews in Germany emigrated to neighbouring countries directly after the Nazis came to power in '33, more than 100,000 in the years after Kristalnacht. The primary impediment for Jews to leave Germany was the restriction of Jewish immigration to safe countries like Britain and North America.
Had Israel been in existence in '39 -- it would have guaranteed the lives of more than a million Jews. Hitler might still have implemented his final solution -- but a huge percentage of European Jews would have been spared. Turning the Holocaust into just another massacre of Jews (history is rife with them).
But, then, you know that -- because in your very next paragraph, you spell out that exact problem...
"The Holocaust was the United States' and Canada's fault, for barring the Jewish refugees when those countries KNEW what Hitler was going to do..."
Why do you argue against your own supposition? Are you confused, or just unsure of the fact?
"...we believe that they not only impose injustices upon Palestinians(most of whom are innocent, decent, nonviolent human beings just trying to get through their day"
Nothing could be more true. The same could be said of everyday Israelis, Germans, Japanese, Iraqis, or Afghans (name the population). However, the everyday Palestinians maintain a leadership that dedicated itself to the destruction of Israel decades BEFORE occupation. It is at best disingenuous and at worst racist to say that only the Palestinians can bear no responsibility for the actions of those who have governed them for 70 years. Israelis bear the direct consequences of their government's actions -- Palestinians (being equal partners in the conflict) deserve an equal share of complicity.
LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)It is true that some pro-Palestinians are only preoccupied with Israeli oppression toward Palestinians and not with that of other countries. In fact, some of the victims of the Syrian regime are Palestinian.
shira
(30,109 posts)Anti-Israel activists are very comfortable around openly anti-semitic people. They're for Israel's destruction. They don't care about Palestinians unless Israel is to blame. They don't relate to Israelis affected by terror attacks.
If Sheizaf isn't quite that bad, he's still close. So it's no wonder people think his criticism is anti-semitic.
=====
Think of it in reverse. An anti-Palestinian activist, against Palestinian self-determination (Palestinians are not a people). Obsessed with every single wrong about the Palestinians and very comfortable among anti-Palestinian bigots. Only interested in Palestinian violations of human rights, laws of war, etc. I think it's very safe to assume such a person is a bigot and their opinion WRT Palestine is also bigoted and can therefore be safely ignored.
LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)that it can trivialize those who really are.
What really bothers me is that it comes across rather like the American right dismissing antiwar activists and other protesters and critics as 'anti-American' (the equivalent is less common in the UK, but it does happen).
I think that there is a big difference between foreigners who choose to focus on Israel, some of whom are appropriate critics, but some of whom are indeed specifically obsessed with Israel and ignoring other countries (including their own); and the Israeli left. I think that once Israeli leftist campaigners are treated as 'anti-Israel activists', the consequences can be similar to McCarthyism or at least Bush-ism, and that the danger to Israel of allowing this to develop is much greater than that of even tolerating a few real anti-Israel bigots in Israel - just as McCarthyism was a far greater danger to America than the existence of a few real Soviet-supporting anti-Americans.
As regards Palestinians,some people have strongly disagreed with me for my support of Ray Hanania and thought he was anti-Palestinain. I don't think so.
shira
(30,109 posts)Last edited Thu May 24, 2012, 07:53 PM - Edit history (1)
...anti-Israel activists, aren't they?
Since you mentioned him, Ray Hanania is not an anti-Israel activist IMO. Israel could make peace with Hanania in a matter of hours if he were in charge.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)and is a US citizen, do you think Rahm would loan him advisers?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Post-Zionists don't necessarily want Israel to be taken out of existence(and let's face it, Israel's existence hasn't been in jeopardy or question for decades now). They simply aren't PARTISANS of the Zionist cause...meaning, in at least some cases, they aren't in favor of Israel working to force a future Palestinian state to be as weak and tiny as possible(or in saying that Israel has a right to self-defense but a future Palestinian state shouldn't have such a right, even though it's quite likely that there would be a huge group of displaced former Israel settlers nursing revanchist ambitions towards Palestinian territory).
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Really?
You are prepared to seriously argue that every Palestinian who has died under the Occupation had it coming?
Even the old people with chest pains who died at checkpoints because the IDF wouldn't do the decent, human thing and admit that they were obviously telling the truth about needing to get to a hospital(and didn't even have medical tents with clotbusting drugs at the checkpoints to treat those old people, something that would have involved no security risks at all)?
Dick Dastardly
(937 posts)anything about Israel is anti-semetic. Also for example if an Israeli gets into a car accident with a Palestinian it would be anti semetic to try and put any blame on the Israeli even if the Israeli was drunk. Also If an Israeli got into an accident with another Israeli it is still the Palestinians fault and it would be anti-semetic to put any blame on the Israelis.
Follow this basic outline to identify anti-semitism and you should be OK.
Starboard Tack
(11,181 posts)"are you saying Syrians are Semites?"
Are you suggesting that Syrians are NOT Semites?
Here's a clue. Knock yourself out.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic#Semitic_States_and_Nations
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)while Arabs are Semites the term antisemitism we are told applies only to Jews, who according to at least one poster I had this conversation with are for the most part not Semites however held that the term anti-Semite applies only to Jews none the less, so in short the actual; argument here if you will is about the term anti-Semitic not who is and who is not a Semite
eta I disagreed the statement that most Jews are not Semites
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)Antisemitism, ironically enough, wasn't a term originally coined by Jews. It was originally created as a derogatory term for Jews.
Referring to Jews as "Semites" began as a way of classifying Jews as different from Europeans -- Semitic as compared to Aryan. It stressed the non-European background of Jews and the idea that while they may have assimilated into European society, they were still wholly other from it. The "racial science theories" of the mid-19th century (theories accepted and expanded by Hitler and the Nazis) stressed that blood over culture was the true determinate of superior / inferior human beings. The idea being -- that no matter how educated a Jew was in the European culture, his "semitic blood" prevented him from being a true European.
The man typically credited with coining the phrase antisemitism is Wilhelm Marr, a 19th Century, a publisher of anti-Jewish literature, a leftist and member of the "Radical Democratic Party" of Germany. Marr's work focus on the racial nature of Judaism and his ideas on the racial isolation and segregation of Jews figured prominently in the Nazi ideology.
If find it truly ironic that antisemitism today focuses on precisely the opposite view -- that Jews are essentially European and therefore not entitled to claim ancestral connection with ancient Israel.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)The reason you don't see more in this forum is that it is the Israel/Palestine forum, not the Every Bad Place In The World forum. There's no justification for discussing Syria in I/P, because what happens in Syria, horrible place that it's been for awhile, is not automatically a justification for the more questionable choices made by the Israeli government(or the PA or Hamas in Gaza, for that matter).
The discussion here focuses on Israel/Palestine because the forum was designed to focus on that...it's one of the major reasons, in my view, that we should have open discussion on Israel/Palestine in GD and other forums, so that the artificial distortions in this discussion are removed, and the issues here are placed in the global context in which they should be placed.
Nobody on DU is giving Syria a pass, including azurnoir. And you know it.
Crunchy Frog
(26,579 posts)I haven't been around DU much lately. Are you saying that the situation in Syria is being ignored on DU as a whole, or do you feel that the I/P forum is the appropriate place to discuss it?
Discussing Israel/Palestine in the IP forum is anti-semitism?
aranthus
(3,385 posts)The Post article makes an obviously untenable claim that all criticism of Israel is antisemitism. That's dso plainly false it almost doesn't need to be argued. However, There is a huge distinction between criticism of the Israeli government, which may not be antisemitic, and criticism of Israel itself, which absolutely is antisemitic. And of course, the last paragraph is just pure unadulterated BS.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)shira
(30,109 posts)aranthus
(3,385 posts)azurnoir
(45,850 posts)racism is of course not applicable because being Jewish is an ethnic not racial term, it doesn't matter whether you hail from Kaifeng China, Paris France, Marrakech Morocco, NYT US, London UK, or Calicut India all are the exact same ethically, right?
Colonialism however is quite fitting as the civilian population of the country that is the militarily occupying power is transferring with the help approval and in some cases funding of that government
aranthus
(3,385 posts)Colonialism only applies to territory that the colonizer has no prior legitimate claim to. North America and Africa were colonized by Europeans, who hadn't been in those places before they started the colonies. Jews have been living in that part of the world for millenia. Judea and Samaria are the heart of the ancient Jewish states. So it can't be colonialism.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)today? if that is the case then Norway has legitimate claim to areas of France and Russia. It is colonialism because most of the Jewish occupants of West Bank hail from elsewhere Israel Germany, Poland the US wherever and in any event have a state called Israel where they can go.
Also the Palestinians that lived in what is now called Israel also have a legitimate claim to their former land unless of course you wish to hold the entire Palestinian population responsible for the actions of a relative few, is that it?
aranthus
(3,385 posts)Judea and Samaria are historical fact. David's Kingdom existed. the Jewish people hail from there. The Etzion bloc was there only a few decades ago. Of course, the Jews have a prior legitimate claim. And yes, the entire Palestinian population is responsible for what they did in following their leaders. They claim to want to be a nation. Being responsible for what your leaders do is a big part of that. So they have lost the claim to the land that is now Israel within the Green Line.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)And no, nobody can hold an entire population responsible for what some leaders did decades ago.
Only the Mufti is guilty of the Mufti's crimes. And the Mufti's been dead for almost forty years.
aranthus
(3,385 posts)Because both the Jews and the Arabs have legitimate claims to that territory. Neither has an exclusive claim.
As for the Mufti, he obviously did not act alone. The Palestinians followed him. That was their choice, and they have to take the consequences.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)No decent human being would seriously argue that Israelis have a GREATER right to the West Bank than Palestinians, or the right to insist that any Palestinian state be merely any truncated remnants of the West Bank that the illegal settlers DON'T want(clearly, if they agreed to everything Bibi wants, there couldn't BE a real Palestinian state on the nothingness that remained).
And you can't hold the Mufti against ALL Palestinians for the rest of eternity. He died in 1973, for God's sake. How many more generations of Palestinians have to suffer before you'd say that they'd all suffered enough? Would you EVER say they suffered enough? It's not as if the Palestinians are worse than the Romans, the tsars, and the Nazis combined. The Israeli government has never argued that all Italians(the descendants of the Romans), all Russians, or allGermans should be punished for eternity for what their ancestors did to the Jews...and what their ancestors did was FAR WORSE than anything any Palestinian, even the Mufti, could possibly be blamed for.
If you insist that Palestinians should have to suffer forever because of what was done in 1948(most of which was the work of other Arab countries, not them) you'd have to accept that Deir Yassin and Plan Dalet can be held against all Israelis forever.
And If you agreed to that, you'd have to say that THEY can hold Ariel Sharon(the father of the equally immoral West Bank settlement project)against all Israelis for the rest of eternity. That project did just as much harm to Palestinians as anything the Mufti did did to Israelis.
How do you ever expect to end the war if you are going to argue for the principle that grudges must never end?
The truth is, in this conflict, people on both sides have suffered equally, and deserve equal human consideration.
It serves no purpose to keep invoking the Mufti and 1948-unless your objective is to justify permanently immiserating all Palestinians, and that is an objective you should be ashamed of if you DO have it.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)this gets better and better anymore?
aranthus
(3,385 posts)Who said anything about the Palestinians being responsible for the Holocaust beside you? Can we focus on reality instead of whatever outrageous statement you'd like to tar me with? The Mufti was the leader of the Palestinians Arabs. They followed him into a war against the Jews. therefore they are responsible in part for the consequences of that war. Is that clear?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)both as justication for what it does to Palestinians and as a justification for its arrogant and reckless demands for a war against Iran.
If you are willing to condemn Israeli political leaders for invoking the Holocaust, when we all know that such invocations are totally inappropriate, my praises to you.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)nothing you have said changes what that would imply
aranthus
(3,385 posts)that they are responsible for the Holocaust? That's just nutty. The Mufti wasn't responsible for the Holocaust. How could the Palestinians be by merely following him? Yes, he was a Nazi sympathizer, but that doesn't throw responsibility for the Holocaust on him. And certainly not on the Palestinians. The Palestinians are responsible for the war they started against the Jews. Please stop claiming that I'm saying things that I'm clearly not saying.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)punished for trying to protect their homes I understand but to raise the specter of the Grand Mufti does have implications that involve the Holocaust surely you know that, 'even' if that was not your intent 
aranthus
(3,385 posts)It's changing the rules to prejudice Israel.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)Germans and Japanese were not left stateless, the US is not transferring its civilian population to Japan and Germany now is it even if their ancestors lived there at one time?
aranthus
(3,385 posts)or have a right of return. The fact remains that they wish to be treated as a nation (assuming that they really want a state of their own). In which case they are subject to the same obligations and penalties as other nations. Not having a right to return to territory you lost in a war of your own making is one of them. The Palestinians are stateless because they started a war, and continued with that war since 1947. Nor would the Israelis have a chance to move their population into the West bank (which I agree that they should not do) except for the flare up of the war in 1967 fomented by the PLO, which as you know is the only legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. Had they won the war, there is no doubt that all Palestinians would have reaped the benefit of taking the whole country and driving out the Jews So they all have to bear the burden of losing.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)is most certainly relevant and now you seem to be claiming the West Bank as additional punishment ? hmmm what next?
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)However, while there were many Palestinians who lacked a state, that statelessness can not be attributed to Israel. Israel was merely defending it's right to self-determination during the war of Independence. The fact that they won is not indicative of a responsibility to ensure that the Palestinians also gained independence. That was entirely the Palestinians' responsibility, no one else's.
Many of those Palestinians DID become citizens of a state, Jordan. The fact that they are now stateless is entirely due to the actions of Jordan and themselves and is in accordance with the agreement the Palestinians themselves made with Jordan during the Jericho Conference.
the US is not transferring its civilian population to Japan and Germany
Nor is Israel transferring anyone to Palestine. As you just said, the state does not (nor has it ever), existed. Why should Israel work along the assumption that ALL of that land should belong to Palestine, even though parts of it were never meant to belong to the Arab partitioned state, were mostly Jewish, contain key Jewish historical and religious sites (many of which were damaged or destroyed during the Arab's short tenure), and seeing as how granting Palestinians sovereignty over disputed land has in the past not had any positive effects for Israel?
Nothing currently happening to the Palestinians is the result of anything the Mufti did. It is the direct result of far more recent Palestinian policy decisions.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)thanks I could not have asked for more
aranthus
(3,385 posts)So of course you couldn't have asked for more. You gave yourself what ever it is that you wanted me to say. It's a lot easier making your arguments when you get to make up things for me to have said isn't it?
The point I wa actually trying to make is that the Jews have a legitimate claim to the West Bank, which means that they aren't colonizers. I did not say that they had the exclusive claim to it. Of course the Palestinians also have a claim. But their claim isn't exclusive either. That's why there have to be negotiations about the borders.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)"We have a claim...but we're not going to be ugly enough to actually enforce the claim by building illegal settlements".
You would agree, I hope, that you can't defend the West Bank settlements and STILL claim to want peace.
The settlements are all illegal, they put both Palestinians and Israelis in danger for no reason, and all they've done is make everybody's life worse.
It would have been more than enough to ask that the indigenous Jewish communities that were displaced from the West Bank in 1948 be allowed to go back(in exchange for, say, allowing an equal number of Palestinians who were displaced in 1948 to move back to their old homes in what was now Israel). Why the hell couldn't the Israeli government have left it at that? Why push for what they knew was unacceptable?
A Palestinian state HAS to have the entire West Bank to be viable. Less than that, and it would pretty much be the smallest country in the world and have no chance of surviving...especially if it were required to be the only country in the world that is completely unarmed.
aranthus
(3,385 posts)Because building settlements changes the character of the land. It makes it Israeli land and not merely disputed.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)It's the first I've ever heard of you having any problem with the settlements, or acknowledging that they play any role in the conflict. Kudos for that.
aranthus
(3,385 posts)then I don't think that you've been paying attention. This is definitely not new on my part.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)Palestinians are deserving of nothing within Israel's borders (called the Green Line) and Israeli's at least the Jewish ones deserve the West Bank because they lived there previously, now you can attempt to parse that anyway you wish but it's right there in your comment
aranthus
(3,385 posts)Nowhere did I say that the Jews in the West Bank deserve anything, I said that the Jewish people have a legitimate claim to the West Bank. So do the Palestinians. Neither has an exclusive claim, which is why there needs to be negotiations about borders. Remember that this was all in response to the allegation that the Jews were colonists. They aren't. That doesn't mean that they have an absolute right to remain in the West Bank. It just means that the accusation of colonialism is false.
Nor did I say that Palestinians are deserving of nothing within the Green Line. I have written that they have no right of return to those areas, and I stand by that. The Palestinians living within Israel, though, absolutely are deserving of civil rights.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)That the Zionist movement came back and sent the message to the Palestinian Arab population that the Zionists had a GREATER right to the land than the Palestinian Arabs did...that centuries of continuous and large-scale Arab history in those lands meant nothing and had produced nothing, and could just be removed at a moment's notice.
The Palestinians were never, to my awareness, given the message from the mainstream of the Zionist leadership that the goal was simply to live side-by-side with them as equals, with the land shared and with parity of esteem and respect.
Can you not see how that attitude would naturally be seen by the Palestinian Arabs as colonialist?
And would you at least agree that the Israeli government should finally admit that the Palestinian fact was real, that Palestinian culture and history was and is real, and that both should finally be respected?
It was the negation of those 1400 years, the implication that that huge block of time simply didn't count, that had a lot to do with the attitude and perceptions of the Palestinian sides in this....especially since what was being asked was that a lot of Palestinians accept, essentially, the loss of sovereignty over THEIR home because of the horrible crimes that the Europeans had committed(and I use the word "Europeans" with full jusfication here, because Zionism was always solely a project, prior to 1948, of the European Jewish community...the Jewish communities of the Arab and Muslim world were never interested in that idea prior to then, and could observe, truthfully, that Arabs and Muslims had protected them in World War II while European and North American gentiles had done almost nothing to save the Ashkenazim).
LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)Or many Israeli Jews would have to be called antisemites.
This is an interesting article, and I agree with quite a lot it, but it does overstate its case, in response to others overstating their case.
I think that until quite recently, the equating of criticism of Israel with antisemitism was not nearly as common as alleged by the critics of Israel. The pre-emptive accusation of 'Now you'll call me an antisemite!' is commoner in my experience than the false accusation of antisemitism; and both often serve the same purpose of deflecting from the real arguments. The waters are also muddied by the fact that some real antisemites accuse Israel and 'Zionists' of being responsible for the misfortunes and misdeeds of other countries, and then when called in on it, exclaim 'so you mean I can't criticize Israel?'
However, there is IMO in the last few years an increased tendency for some Israeli RW politicians and pundits, and some American RW politicians and pundits who support or claim to support Israel, to treat critics of Israel, including internal critics, as traitors or antisemites. Until recently, Israel, whatever its faults, had one outstanding virtue: tolerance for internal dissent. In recent years, however, this is being eroded. Of course Israel is infinitely better in this respect than Saudi Arabia or Syria, but this is not a recommendation for the attitude that I'm referring to. Just as even under the worst excesses of McCarthyism in the USA, dissidents were not executed or sent to Gulags as in the Soviet Union under Stalin, but this does not excuse McCarthyism! Just as Turkey is a much more democratic country than many in the world, but its laws against defamation of Turkey are a serious stain on it, and should IMO exclude it from EU membership (assuming anyone would even still want EU membership in the present economic circumstances!)
Those who in my view are having a pernicious influence in this direction are those who:
Accuse the internal Israeli left of treachery
Propose punishing Israelis for defamation.
Support investigating the finances and operations just of left-wing NGOs in Israel, without doing the same to right-wing NGOs (if it's consistent for all, that's one thing, but not if it's part of an anti-left crusade)
Treat antisemitism as mainly or exclusively a phenomenon of the left (left-wingers can be antisemitic, but so can right-wingers, and I'm talking here about the mainstream right, not just the neo-Nazi types)
Use Israel as an excuse for promoting the Right in America, Britain or elsewhere.
Of course, some 'critics' of Israel are also using Israel as an excuse to promote the Right; these include the blatant antisemites, the hardline Islamists, and also the right-libertarians and neo-isolationists who use Israeli connections with America as an example of a foreign 'entanglement'.
Personally, I am deeply suspicious of all groups and pundits who strongly oppose the Israeli left, whether out of broadbrush anti-Zionism on the one side, or promotion of the Israeli Right on the other.
shira
(30,109 posts)Last edited Thu May 24, 2012, 02:02 PM - Edit history (1)
...blatant anti-semitic genocidal incitement like the content found in PMW videos
...whose advocacy vs. Israel is right in line with and indistinguishable from that of Hamas, Syria, Iran, etc.
...who rarely if ever empathize with Israeli victims in this conflict
...whose arguments often employ the use of antisemitic tropes (blood libel, control of media and foreign governments, dual loyalty)
...who are absolutely obsessed with criticizing/defaming and/or delegitimizing Israel
...should not act surprised when others are of the opinion that their criticism of Israel is bigoted.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)Many South African whites used to argue that, whatever the faults of apartheid, the Blacks in South Africa enjoyed a higher standard of living than in neighbouring countries, the government, however racist, was less corrupt and kleptocratic than those otherwise in Africa and that the criticism of apartheid by other third world governments was simply an attempt to distract their own deeply dispirited populations.
Those same advocates also argued that the demolition of apartheid would pave the way for typical African-style strongman rule, that foreign capital would flee the country, that economic progress would stall, that there would be significant retaliation against whites and that national infrastructure would be neglected and would deteriorate to the extent witnessed in other African countries.
Most of this has in fact come to pass, and there was much truth in all of those excuses. Wages have declined almost across the board; ironically the only Blacks that have seen an improvement in their conditions are those living in the remaining white-majority areas such as Pretoria.
All of which is besides the point, which is if you choose to lord over a subject population with a different national identity than you in this age of rampant nationalism, you are setting yourself up for a fall. Witness 1940s Palestine in which the British ruled over Jews and Arabs with far more benevolence than today's Arabs but were subjected to acts of terrorism anyway.
I think the problem is that hasbarados think that Israel gets more attention than Syria, ergo the criticism of Israel is anti-semitism. If that were true, then the fact that South Africa attracted more criticism than the Congo or Chad would be evidence of anti-white bias amongst the world's media, an outcome that hopefully all of us would recognise as false.
shira
(30,109 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)about what the Israeli government does.
shira
(30,109 posts)...then I think it's reasonable to ask them if Lebanon practices apartheid vs. Palestinians there.
A much stronger case for apartheid vs. Palestinians could be argued in Lebanon.
Asking this question and getting the standard crickets sound in response speaks to the hypocrisy of using the apartheid analogy WRT Israel.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)I suppose unlike the Mexican migrants, at least the Palestinians are not at risk of being deported.
BudT
(29 posts)Usually I prefer to just enjoy the entertainment here but some comments are so bizarre they can't pass uncommented.
With some 4.6 million Palestinians forced to live in squalid ghetto camps throughout the ME, living miserable lives with no hope for the future, restricted to the most degrading employment if they can get it, living on UN handouts with no right to be citizens of the state where they were born and have lived all their lives, you have the guts to suggest that illegal Mexican migrant workers in the US suffer a worse "apartheid" because they may be deported.
I have friends in the US who own a large orchard and who have employed some of those undocumented workers, often family members, many of them every year for the last 20 years or so. They'd get a real chuckle from your suggestion that they suffer from "apartheid" in the US.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)"with no right to be citizens of the state where they were born and have lived all their lives"
Is this why you regard the situation of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon as "apartheid"?
BudT
(29 posts)that it has almost lost its meaning. Rather than describe a particular instance of institutionalized racism in S Africa it's just a fashionable insult now. It seems to be popular among those who'd prefer Israel did not exist and is used to taint the GOI as particularly evil as a way to delegitimize it - similar to the way the same people like to suggest that Jews are the new Nazis. Such insults typically lack the remotest connection to reality, as in your attempt to apply it to undocumented Mexican farm workers in the US. It's kind of like these people look for the most egregious causes of human misery and suffering in the public consciousness and then say - see, that's exactly what Israel does to the Palestinians. As with Jimmy Carter it suggests derangement.
I therefore would not use the word to describe the plight of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. They are treated like crap but for mostly cynical reasons. One is to justify the claim you are making. Somehow, I think that's the only use you have found for it.
Rather than just criticize your argument though here's the logical problem with it: S Africa treated its blacks like crap because they wanted to keep them a separate and unequal society. They did that because they believed them to be of inherently lesser human quality and the thought of sharing their society with them as equals was abhorrent. That's racism. Israel only wants the Palestinians to stop killing Israelis and to stop trying to destroy the Jewish state. There is no credible evidence in 64 years of this war that Israel has anything except its own defense as a motive for its decisions and policies in the territories. Need I list the high offices that Arab citizens of Israel have achieved or their equal access to institutions of government and public space there.
There are many possible reasons why one group of humans might limit the freedom and actions of another if they have the means to do so. The one reason that any reasonable person would find eminently justified is defense from aggression. Truth be known, that probably is a significant motive for the treatment of Palestinian "refugees" by most of the Arab regimes that host the camps.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)vs
- Moshe Dayan, former Israeli Minister of Defence
Personally, I think that Lebanon will have to absorb most of the 400 000 Palestinian refugees that live there. Perhaps 150 000 or so will get to return, the rest will stay in Lebanon and some kind of way will need to be found for them to integrate into the delicate balance of Lebanese politics.
I imagine of course that your friends were happy to employ undocumented Mexican workers so they can pay them shit wages with no benefits, which is generally the case. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon at least have work rights to most non-skilled employment, have some level of services through UNRWA, and are not subject to deportation.
Undocumented Palestinians in Israel are subject to deportation (prior to the 1960s they were simply shot as they crossed the border), they will not be permitted to stay in Israel even if they have an Israeli spouse. Even a child of a Palestinian father and Israeli mother can be deported after the age of 12 if it can be established that it is an "inhabitant" of the West Bank. That last law is without parallel in the entire world.
eyl
(2,499 posts)You'd thnk that if it was the case, the main casualties would be the farmers in the field, no? But in point of fact the kibbutzim themselves would often come under fire, as did motorists in the area (it got bad enought that the government established concrete roadside shelters so motorists caught between towns could take shelter, you can still see them).
I should note that even Avi Shlaim, hardly an Israeli apologist, calls the quote "uncredible" in The Iron Wall.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)I don't have a copy of the Iron Wall handy, perhaps you might like to directly quote what Avi Shlaim says.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)That whole conversation/discussion is in reference to a different Dayan quote in the Golan Heights Wikipedia article. The quote you cited does not appear anywhere in that article.
The quote you cited is a cut-up version of bits and pieces of an interview that Dayan supposedly gave but which remained unreleased until after his death when his daughter shared it with an Israeli news outlet.
The NY Times had a report on the interview (which I excerpted above) containing a lot of what was included in what you posted. It also includes what was elided out for whatever reason.
It seems obvious that someone crafted a particular version of the remarks and disseminated it fairly widely across the internet.
This is a game that a lot of folks seem to enjoy playing. Thankfully most of the out-an-out fabricated "quotes" have been debunked. Now, unfortunately, one just has to deal with these hacked and glued jobs.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)The relevant passage is this:-
In 1976, Israeli defense minister Moshe Dayan said that Israel provoked more than 80% of the clashes with Syria, although historians have voiced skepticism regarding the truthfulness of this informal comment.
and the quote:-
'Never mind that. After all, I know how at least 80 percent of the clashes there started. In my opinion, more than 80 percent, but let's talk about 80 percent. It went this way: We would send a tractor to plow some area where it wasn't possible to do anything, in the demilitarized area, and knew in advance that the Syrians would start to shoot. If they didn't shoot, we would tell the tractor to advance farther, until in the end the Syrians would get annoyed and shoot. And then we would use artillery and later the air force also, and that's how it was.''
and thereafter:-
''I'm not saying that. Of course they wanted the Syrians to get out of their face. They suffered a lot because of the Syrians. Look, as I said before, they were sitting in the kibbutzim and they worked the land and had kids and lived there and wanted to live there. The Syrians across from them were soldiers who fired at them, and of course they didn't like it.
''But I can tell you with absolute confidence, the delegation that came to persuade Eshkol to take the heights was not thinking of these things. They were thinking about the heights' land. Listen, I'm a farmer, too. After all, I'm from Nahalal, not from Tel Aviv, and I know about it. I saw them, and I spoke to them. They didn't even try to hide their greed for that land.''
oberliner
(58,724 posts)That talk page you link to is from the Wikipedia page on the Golan Heights - the full quote you cited does not appear there, just a reference to the 80 percent remark. Where did you get the rest of it from?
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)The footnote links to the article with the "interview" with Dayan, including the quotes to which I made reference.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)The footnote doesn't link to your sliced up version of the quote. It links to the article I posted.
Your quote suggests one continuous statement from Dayan, not an interview. It leaves out pertinent remarks made by the interviewer and cuts out statements from Dayan that would only be removed by someone with an agenda to skew the quote in a particular direction.
Where did you get your truncated version from?
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)The wiki article links to the full version of the quote, without the ellipses. The obvious point that I sought to make by linking to it is that there is certainly no consensus that the quote is unreliable.
The truncated version is from wikiquote.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)The wiki article doesn't link to the full version of the quote, without the ellipses. It links to the New York Times article that I provided above. It also links to the portion of the article casting doubt on the reliability of the quote, which I also provided. Neither of these is contained in the truncated version, which can be found on wikiquote, but not in this Golan Heights article.
I wonder how it got to wikiquote in that form.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)the New York Times article contains the full version of the quote, or the full version of the two quotes that have been stitched together to make the wikiquote quote. All meaningless pedantry aside, the relevant statements are there.
eyl
(2,499 posts)Dayan's 1976 comments on Israel's behavior were rather sweeping and simplistic. They may have been colored by his disgrace and resignation as defense minister following his failure to anticipate the Arab attack in October 1973. This failure thrust him into the political wilderness and led him to question the offficial Israeli version of the conflict. Being a man of extremes, he now exonerated the Syrians and placed most of the blame for the conflict on the Israeli side.
I should note here that Dayan is remembered for many things - honesty isn't really one of them.
although Dayan gor most of the glory for the victory over Syria, he himself later regarded the decision to go to war against Syria as a mistake. In his 1976 conversations with the journalst Rami Tal, Dayan confessed that on the fourth day of the June war he had failed in his duty as minister of defense by agreeing to the war with Syria. There really was no pressing reason to go to war with Syria, he said*. The kibbutz residents who pressed the government to take the golan Heights did so less for security than for the farmland. Dayan admitted that these civilians had suffered a lot. "But I can tell you with absolute confidence, the delegation that came to pursuade Eshkol to take the heights was not thinking of these things. They were thinking about the height's land". This confidence was unjustified. The protocol of the meeting of the ministerial defense committee show the kibbitz leaders spoke only about the nightmarish security situation and made no mention of land.
The allegation that Israel went to war against Syria because the kibbutz residents coveted Syrian land provoked strong indignation in Israel. There was even greater anger at Dayan's allegations from the grave that Israel's security situation was not threatened by the Syrians...Dayan's various accounts of the reasons for the war against Syria are so allarmingly inconsistent that one needs to be a psychologist to fathom his behavior. But one thing emerges clearly from all his contradictory accounts: the Eshkol government did not have a political plan for the war....The one thing it** did not have was a master plan for territorial aggrandizement.
*A few pages before, Shlaim describes how Dayan, during the war, cited security concerns as a reason to attack the Golan, even further than was planned at the time.
**Israel (anyone know how I can get brackets to show?)
And again, there's still the phsyical evidence I described above to consider.
oberliner
(58,724 posts)One wonders where you got that version from. Would you be willing to share?
Here are some of the remarks in context:
''The kibbutzim there saw land that was good for agriculture,'' he said. ''And you must remember, this was a time in which agricultural land was considered the most important and valuable thing.''
Mr. Tal asked, ''So all the kibbutzim wanted was land?''
And General Dayan answered: ''I'm not saying that. Of course they wanted the Syrians to get out of their face. They suffered a lot because of the Syrians. Look, as I said before, they were sitting in the kibbutzim and they worked the land and had kids and lived there and wanted to live there. The Syrians across from them were soldiers who fired at them, and of course they didn't like it.
''But I can tell you with absolute confidence, the delegation that came to persuade Eshkol to take the heights was not thinking of these things. They were thinking about the heights' land. Listen, I'm a farmer, too. After all, I'm from Nahalal, not from Tel Aviv, and I know about it. I saw them, and I spoke to them. They didn't even try to hide their greed for that land.''
That contention was hotly denied by Muky Tsur, a longtime leader of the United Kibbutz Movement.
''For sure there were discussions about going up the Golan Heights or not going up the Golan Heights, but the discussions were about security for the kibbutzim in Galilee,'' he said. ''I think that Dayan himself didn't want to go to the Golan Heights. This is something we've known for many years. But no kibbutz got any land from conquering the Golan Heights. People who went there went on their own. It's cynicism to say the kibbutzim wanted land.''
http://www.nytimes.com/1997/05/11/world/general-s-words-shed-a-new-light-on-the-golan.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
I wonder who initially created the slice and dice cut and paste version of the remarks and disseminated them to the point that they are recreated with the same ellipsis and arrangement in so many different locations.
BudT
(29 posts)your comment a few times that you disagree with my statement:
There is no credible evidence in 64 years of this war that Israel has anything except its own defense as a motive for its decisions and policies in the territories.
First, I agree with you to some extent. I overstated my case. When it comes to motives, every action a person (or a state) takes is induced by a range of motives, some stronger than others. I am sure many of the farmers in the valleys and fields below the Golan saw the land up there as something they'd like to include as part of Israel and perhaps as part of their own farm or Kibbutz.
I will maintain however, that the repetitive firing of Syrian cannon at them from those heights into the demilitarized zone where their fields were located was their primary concern. They needed to work the fields and they did not want to die in the process, nor did they want their friends, neighbors and children to die. Even an extreme anti-Zionist like yourself can agree that that must have been their first concern.
I'm sure their first thought was that the only way to ensure that cannon would not be fired at them was for Israel to take the heights militarily and annex them. Once that belief became common among the area's Israeli inhabitants then it was a small step to realize that the land up there would be a great addition to Israel's arable territory - and also to wonder if they or their families might become trustees, lessees or owners of the land. From their perspective, what's not to like? I see no reason why they should have hid those thoughts from Dayan. My understanding was that when Dayan was appointed defense minister and given a free reign to conduct the war his first priority was to focus on the greater danger, Egypt, and leave the other armies for when Egypt was contained and neutralized. Obviously, that was a sound strategy - hence, to this day it is known as The Six Day War - to Egypt's and Nasser's everlasting humiliation. When those events took place (the events your quotes supposedly emerged from) Dayan was opposed to attacking Syria on the heights, and saw reason in his interviews to highlight the farmers' desire to have the land, as opposed to any military necessity at that early time in the war.
In border disputes, when someone uses terrain to attack you and try to kill your children it's quite natural I believe, to see your own acquisition of that terrain as a good idea. It ends the attacks plus you own more land. How is that not both justifiable and understandable? The side benefits don't motivate the action on their own but they certainly do make it more likely. The farmer's desire to have the land from which they were constantly attacked, in no way reduced the defensive necessity of it. In fact, self defense was their raison d'etre. And that was the point I was trying to make.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)my point was that a white vs black dispute was always going to attract disproportionate attention compared with an intra-black fratricidal dispute.
South Africa got a lot more criticism, even from Western sources, than Angola or the Congo, even though the death toll from the war in the Congo is 8 million and counting. People do not seem interested in the Congo conflict, probably because the distinctions between the two sides are complicated, but also because it does not fit the sort of narrative that sells newspapers.
It would be rather silly, however, to take from that the "fact" that the world's media have it in for white people, and I was making that simple observation.
shira
(30,109 posts)....state mandated apartheid conditions. Do I understand you correctly?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)The conflict about the West Bank would not have been ended by the other Arab countries absorbing the Palestinian exiles.
Those Palestinians who hadn't been exiled would still have been every bit as committed to ending the Occupation, and you know it.
Your argument here is just part of your endless "this isn't a real conflict/they have no REAL grievances...they just hate the..." meme...which you repeat even though it has been discredited over and over.
The key to ending the conflict lies in the Israeli side and their supporters recognizing the humanity of Palestinians, and admitting that those people HAVE suffered from what the Israeli government did in the name of "security", and often without deserving to. Recognizing those things wouldn't endanger Israeli security in the slightest.
What does threaten it, what does give the extremists on the Palestinian side purchase that they would never otherwise have, is the endless repetition of the "none of it is real" meme on the "pro-Israeli" side. Repeating that simply gives the worst figures in Israeli politics maneuvering room that THEY would never otherwise have.
shira
(30,109 posts)The fact that the anti-Israel contingent could care less about that (and make a false analogy WRT Israel) shows they are in no way pro-Palestinian or at all concerned about Palestinian human rights.
It exposes every "pro-Palestinian" phony for the sanctimonious frauds that they are.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)What it means is that those people simply don't accept the argument that what every other Arab country does with Palestinian refugees has to be attacked BEFORE someone earns the moral right to oppose the Occupation.
Yes, those countries should treat the refugees better. But that doesn't mean the Occupation is a minor issue by comparison, and it doesn't mean(as YOU would like it to mean)that Israel would be living in peace if only those other countries had treated the refugees differently.
The only way to make peace is to end the injustices imposed by the Occupation and the settlements in the West Bank. You can't expect the Palestinians to become living saints BEFORE they get any respite from the status quo. And you can't expect Palestinians to believe that Israelis are victims when they themselves have been the greater victims since 1967. The only way to get Palestinians to recognize Israeli suffering is for Israelis to recognize Palestinian suffering, and to end it.
shira
(30,109 posts)In Lebanon, there is a very clear cut case that genuine apartheid policies are carried out against Palestinians there. But not once do you see any so-called pro-Palestinian activists ever writing about that. They are - whether they want to admit it or not - apologists for and whitewashers of apartheid vs. Palestinians in Lebanon.
Get it now?
cali
(114,904 posts)oberliner
(58,724 posts)Are there particular tell-tale signs?
LeftishBrit
(41,205 posts)are (1) implying that Israel is a UNIQUELY evil country; and (2) blaming Israel for the misdeeds and misfortunes of other countries: 'Israel got America and Britain into Iraq'; 'America doesn't have proper healthcare because Israel is plundering its treasury'; 'The Zionists control the EU'.
Another - not a tell-tale sign, but quite explicit - is to use misdeeds by Israel as an excuse or justification for attacks on Jews in other countries.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I'd say the use of the term "ZioNazi" is another.
EX500rider
(10,833 posts)Longer then the Roman occupation of the British Isles?
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)the occupation of Northern Cyprus dates from 1975, as does Morocco's occupation of the Western Sahara. The occupation of Karabakh dates from 1994.
The occupation of the West Bank is 60 years old, which makes it significantly older than any of the other contenders.
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)...dates from 1950 (if you date it from the PLA defeat of the Tibetan Army) or 1959 if you date if from the Lhasa Uprising.
If you define Israeli occupation as the existence of Israel then it is older (1948). If you date if from the Six-Day War, then it is not.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)obviously, Tibet, like 1940s Palestine, was never considered a sovereign state, and therefore is not considered occupied. If you consider Tibet to be occupied, you would probably have to extend that same logic to the whole of Israel.
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)... that Tibet isn't occupied because it was never a sovereign country.
By your own logic, Israel can't be occupying Palestinian Territory because Palestine has never been a sovereign country.
Would you like a do-over?
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)which is a sovereign country. Most countries, aside from Britain, did not regard that annexation as legitimate, but rather as a foreign occupation, as the 1947 partition had set that territory aside for an Arab state of Palestine. Still, if that objection applied to the Jordanian occupation of the West Bank, it must surely apply to Israel's as well.
Of course, if the West Bank is not occupied, but is in fact Israeli territory, then all of its native-born, non-foreign inhabitants would naturally be Israeli citizens, unless of course there is a system of apartheid.
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)... just as Gaza was OCCUPIED by Egypt -- and no one gave a fetid dingo's kidney.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)as I said in my post above, you must choose either one or the other.
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)Arguing that the West Bank isn't occupied because it was never sovereign is YOUR argument, not mine. I merely pointed out that was your assertion. First you claimed that Tibet isn't occupied because it was never sovereign and if that is what you believe then you can't very well complain that the West Bank is occupied. In your rush to try to prove that the West Bank is the oldest continuous occupation in History (according to the ridiculous assertion of the OP) you fell into a strange argument that seems to undermine your entire raison d'être.
Why you would want to believe that I cannot begin to understand your motivation?
Occupation exists and the goal of both sides should be to end it peacefully through negotiations.
shira
(30,109 posts)holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)I don't deny Israel has a claim to Judea or Samaria -- but, as long as they don't exercise that right and officially annex the territory (as they should have done in '67), it's technically an occupation.
For reasons that I'm sure made sense at the time -- Israel chose to make the Sinai, the West Bank and Gaza bargaining chips for peace. The Sinai bought a temporary peace with Egypt -- I don't think it will last very much longer as the Sinai is now safe haven for Hamas -- and Gaza bought no peace at all. So, in my opinion, Israel should unilaterally disengage from the non-strategic portions of the West Bank and annex the strategic portions and have an end to this occupation nonsense.
But, that's just my opinion, others might disagree.
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)Jordan's annexation of the west bank was agreed upon by both the Jordanians and the Palestinians during the Jericho Conference. This agreement was later accepted by the US and many other states including the Arab league.
The west bank is neither occupied nor Israeli territory but is disputed territory currently not under the sovereign rule of any state.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)the West Bank is currently under the sovereignty of Israel, for better or for worse. If it is Palestinian territory, then it is occupied. If it is Israeli territory, then the people native to it are Israeli citizens, unless of course there is a system of apartheid. Ultimately you have to choose one or the other. The use of the word "disputed" is simply a mealy-mouthed attempt to avoid facing up to reality.
shira
(30,109 posts)So which is it for both?
Shaktimaan
(5,397 posts)No, MOST of it is under Israel's authority, not all of it. 95% of the Palestinian living there are in the area that falls exclusively under Palestinian jurisdiction. Now, whether you refer to Israel's control over most of the WB as an occupation or not, that's merely a question of semantics. You give us only two options here, neither of which reflect the more complex reality. Israel has never claimed the entire WB as its own. It finds that some parts of it should be considered Israel. But currently none of it belongs to either group. It's an issue that has to be worked out in negotiations between them. The end result is almost assured to be that most of the WB goes to Palestine while some of it will be given to Israel.
You view the situation as either an all or nothing deal, which is simply not the case.
Ultimately you have to choose one or the other.
Neither side has the authority to unilaterally make that choice. The choice in the end will be for compromise, as is often the nature of these disputes.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)in the same way that King Herod administered Jerusalem at the pleasure of the Romans. In the case of Israel, that discretion can be revoked at any time, and certainly it frequently was during the Second Intifada, when Israel laid siege to Arafat's compound and he was unable to step outside to take a piss, let alone administer the territories that the PA was in charge of under the Oslo accords.
Sovereign power remains in the hands of Israel over the entire West Bank. Israel controls the entire borders of the West Bank, the airspace, the water and trade. The text of the Oslo Accords makes this clear - in particular, the text states that authority in respect of anything not specified in the accords remains with Israel.
EX500rider
(10,833 posts)shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)and the United States is occupying California.
EX500rider
(10,833 posts)because Japan still wants back their islands.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)If the islands are uninhabited, it's not much of an occupation.
EX500rider
(10,833 posts)17,000 Japanese forced out by the Russians during WWII...(a Japanese "Nakba"!)
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I honestly didn't know. They should be allowed back, obviously.
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)dedicated to restoring the right of return for the Japanese of the Kurils?
hack89
(39,171 posts)oberliner
(58,724 posts)That would mean it began in 1952, which it didn't. It began in 1967.
Odd that you wouldn't know that.
BudT
(29 posts)As far as I know most military occupations in the modern era were aggressions carried out for the purpose of gaining sovereignty over other people's (in some cases disputed) territory. None of the others seem to have been so obviously necessary as a means to prevent attacks from across the border against the occupier's civilians. Of course, such attacks can be staged or imagined and used as a pretext for occupation.
So let's look at some facts that can't be disputed. In no cases that I know of have the occupied people held the destruction of the occupying-power state as a their highest goal since long before the occupation occurred - a goal that they actively pursue through any means available to them to murder Israel's citizens - a goal that they proudly claim is legitimate and worthy of praise. And in none of those cases has the occupying power repeatedly attempted to end the occupation in exchange for treaties that guarantee an end to such attacks and attempts to destroy the occupier's state.
Perhaps the greatest and most disgraceful difference between Israel's defensive occupation of the WB and all the rest is that Israel's is the only one the world obsesses about in international fora with attempts to sanction, divest, boycott, arrest it's leaders, create permanent UN committees to accuse of "war crimes" and generally attempt to delegitimize the state for its defensive efforts.
Perhaps the length of an occupation is not the best measure of its morality.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)Last edited Tue May 29, 2012, 09:15 PM - Edit history (1)
15% of the Armenian nation was slaughtered by Turks during the Hammidian massacres, and some two-thirds of their remaining number were killed by both Azerbaijani and Turkish Turks, as well as Kurds, during the Armenian genocide during World War I. In proportional terms, the Genocide took a worse toll on the worldwide Armenian population than that which Jews suffered during the holocaust.
The Armenians maintain that the occupation of Nagorno-Karabakh is essential to the security of the majority ethnic Armenians living there. The area has been a majority-Armenian enclave for at least 2000 years. The 1988 war and occupation started as a result of Azeri pogroms against Armenian civilians.
It is the position of the US as well as Israel that the territory needs to revert to Azerbaijan regardless.
BudT
(29 posts). . for some reason, pls explain what is categorically false in my comment. I said several things there. Are they all false? Some of them, one of them? Which one?
Cancel that request. I'm actually more interested in understanding what general point you're trying to make or support. First you were using S Africa as a comparison, then American treatment of undocumented Mexican workers, then it was an ersatz Dayan quote where you went back and forth with oberliner for several comments. In 54 you seem to attempt to re-establish some direction with . .
my point was that a white vs black dispute was always going to attract disproportionate attention compared with an intra-black fratricidal dispute. . . . It would be rather silly, however, to take from that the "fact" that the world's media have it in for white people, and I was making that simple observation.
Bearing in mind that the thread title is: "No, criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitism" and I assume you agree with it - can you tie all this together into one simple statement for me? I do find your commenting style difficult to follow. After just a few exchanges with you I find myself out on some remote tangent discussing Azerbaijan's treatment of Armenians, or something, and I have no idea why. See what I mean?
This is not meant as an insult. I'm accepting that you have a point to make and maybe I'm just too dense to see it.
shaayecanaan
(6,068 posts)discussions on this forum do tend to wander up hill and down dale.
To recap:-
1) If the occupation of the West Bank is justified because it is defensive, then equally the occupation of Karabakh by de facto Armenian forces is defensive
2) Equally, if the right of return of Palestinian Arabs is not tenable because it would jeopardise the security of Israeli Jews, then equally the right of return of Kosovo Serbs, Azeri inhabitants of Karabakh, or the Hutu Rwandans cannot return home either, because it would jeopardise the security of the Kosovar Albanians, Armenians, or Tutsis respectively. In that case we may as well tear up the UN Charter and be done with it.
3) In each of the above cases, the objectives were probably a combination of asserting security and making territorial gains.
4) There are many motivations for criticising Israel, I suspect. Bradley Burston made the point that holding oneself out to be a "light unto the nations" and as having the "most moral army in the world" is like wearing a sign that says "kick me". Perhaps the Europeans pay attention to Israel's crimes against the Palestinians as some kind of foil for their holocaust guilt - although that is something that is distinct, I would submit, from anti-semitism.
Additionally, the disproportionate attention lavished on the conflict is not in itself evidence of anti-semitism. Britain attracted a great deal of criticism for its actions in Northern Ireland although it did not treat Irish Catholics nearly as badly as Israel treats the Palestinians. The same could be said of South Africa.
The media tends to emphasise conflicts where there is a clear national or sectarian divide that Westerners can readily understand. From the POV of an American, the Sri Lankan civil war is like a lacrosse game between Malawi and Venezuela. If they can't understand the game they're not going to watch it.
BudT
(29 posts)I agree. Occupying a territory and exerting control over, or assimilating or even expelling those who attack you from the territory is preferable to killing all the people there to make them stop killing you.
2) Equally, if the right of return of Palestinian Arabs is not tenable because it would jeopardise the security of Israeli Jews, then equally the right of return of Kosovo Serbs, Azeri inhabitants of Karabakh, or the Hutu Rwandans cannot return home either, because it would jeopardise the security of the Kosovar Albanians, Armenians, or Tutsis respectively. In that case we may as well tear up the UN Charter and be done with it.
Why tear up the Charter? It guarantees the right of self-defense. If such population returns after conflicts can not be expected to preserve the peace then other arrangements must be considered - depending on circumstances. That's why tens of millions of refugees found themselves far from their original lands as refugees after WWII and were assimilated in those new territories. Wars are not games. They have consequences that are not always just. But rightly, the basic value supported in the UN Charter is of self-defense of member states. All other rights should be (must be) subordinate to that when trade-offs are required. Or they should re-write the Charter.
3) In each of the above cases, the objectives were probably a combination of asserting security and making territorial gains.
OK, although the UN generally requires (at least in the SC) that the need for security must stand on its own. Territorial gains are a separate issue, as they should be. Israel's need for territorial gains in the WB (as a means of guaranteeing security) are recognized and legally spelled out in SCR242. It is the Palestinians who have refused since the resolution was passed to engage in any meaningful negotiations under that provision - effectively blocking Israel's ability to gain security for its people - as was intended by 242.
4) There are many motivations for criticising Israel, I suspect. Bradley Burston made the point that holding oneself out to be a "light unto the nations" and as having the "most moral army in the world" is like wearing a sign that says "kick me".
Perhaps that's what the sign says to Burston. I would disagree that Israel "holds itself out" to anybody. I have never seen an example of this. I have seen intense internal discussions among Israelis as to their national identity and what it should stand for. One way of furthering moral behavior by a nation is for leaders to emphasize that Israel should be "a light unto nations" in terms of its moral character or that Israel should have the "most moral army in the world" and work to express those ideas in their actions. When leaders assert such things, people are psychology empowered to adopt such beliefs into their national conscience. Likewise, once asserted, leaders should defend Israel's actions when others unfairly attempt to impugn Israel's actions in it own defense. Israelis will then be inspired to "wear" that identity. I think pelsar's comments show clearly how such identity beliefs work for the benefit of both Israelis and Palestinians in the conflict.
I find that a refreshing alternative to some in the region who see their national identity as being willing to murder large numbers of their own citizens who seek a peaceful change in leadership. Or, others in the region who glorify in the death of their children as suicide bombers rather than accept the "humiliation" and "cancer" of a majority Jewish state in the ME. To me, those are the kind of national identity messages that more properly deserves a "kick me".
Perhaps the Europeans pay attention to Israel's crimes against the Palestinians as some kind of foil for their holocaust guilt - although that is something that is distinct, I would submit, from anti-semitism.
Antisemitism is another one of those politicized words that are used as rhetorical weapons in discussions and so I avoid the use of it.
holdencaufield
(2,927 posts)... when your definition of occupation is "any number greater than zero Jews living in the region" then you can say the "occupation" dates back 3500 years.
And people wonder why it's not far-fetched to connect some criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)But the equation of most, if not all criticism of what the Israeli government, a government made up, like any OTHER government anywhere else, of fallible human beings whose personal agendas are not always in synch with the common good, makes a mockery of the REAL victims of antisemitism, both in the past and the present.
The way to fight antisemitism most effectively is to fight for a world free of all forms of bigotry AND free also of economic exploitation and social inequality. Such a world may not be achieved in any of our lifetimes, if ever, but it is the continued struggle for such a world that will defeat antisemitism and all other such scourges.
And I say this as a person who does not want the State of Israel to be abolished-something I should not have to keep repeating, but will repeat as often as needed.
mifes259se
(4 posts)mifes259se
(4 posts)mifes259se
(4 posts)mifes259se
(4 posts)William deB. Mills
(46 posts)"The new Israeli right would like the center of the political system and the public sphere, the former place of fragile consensus, to be ideologically and ethnically pure, and labeling any challenge as an existential danger is an important part of this process."
Fascinating sentence. You could have been talking about the Taliban or Tea Party Republicans or nearly any group that equates "compromise" with "sell-out" (especially if you delete the word "ethnically"
. I am not quite so sure how these guys got control in Israel, though. Might it have something to do with the fact that Israel has one huge advantage that it plays to the hilt (its military superiority)? Lacking that, Israel might have become inventive enough to conceive of a different way to run a foreign policy.
shira
(30,109 posts)What an exciting month it has been for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign! Its chair Hugh Lanning, who is also the deputy general secretary of the trade union PCS, and his comrade Sarah Colborne finally got to meet to meet the Hamas heroes in Gaza.
Lanning is second from right in the photo below, having a grand old time with Hamas UK operative Mohammed Sawalha. Colborne is fourth from right, beaming at Haniyeh.
more...
http://hurryupharry.org/2012/06/27/the-palestine-solidarity-campaign-and-hamas/
Mondoweiss and ElectronicIntifada are closely aligned with the PSC (Palestinian Solidarity Campaign).
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)that Miles of Smiles is also an antisemitic organization after all that is the PCS came to Gaza with and Miles of Smiles has been to Gaza 13 times
shira
(30,109 posts)...like Gerald Kaufman, Ghada Karmi, Stephen Sizer, and Jenny Tonge. They're BFF with the Neturei Karta. They defend holocaust deniers. They absolutely support Hamas.
Do you really think it's worth defending the PSC?
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)I am not defending anyone but your accusation is indeed a way of getting out of answering
shira
(30,109 posts)Miles of Smiles is actually worse than the PSC and that's saying a lot...
http://hurryupharry.org/2012/06/14/labour-and-hamas-interpal/
http://hurryupharry.org/2011/06/22/raed-salah-hamas-and-interpal/
You need to read each article in full to see just how bad they are. The BBC exposed them as Hamas supporters (like the Union of Good / IHH) years ago. In 2003, the US designated Interpal (the organization responsible for Miles of Smiles) a terror supporting organization.
Now I'd like to know if you support either the PSC or Miles of Smiles, both, neither...
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)yep I guess they are indeed as they have entered Gaza 13 times and have provided dental care for children there
as to your question you already have your answer just not the one you want but yes I do support Miles of Smiles did you know their 'operachiks' work in the US too? Perhaps they are implanting terror supporting devices into the kids teeth via a special kind of silver??? 
shira
(30,109 posts)I'm sure some of what they do goes to a good cause. But that can be said of any nasty rightwing organization. Remember the scandal WRT Sean Hannity's Freedom Concert fundraising?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/03/19/hannitys-freedom-concerts_n_505294.html
You should definitely support Hannity's Freedom Concert. The money is going to children of fallen troops and to severely wounded war veterans, right? That charity is obviously a good cause, using your logic of course...
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)that you do not condemn? Lets see on your list is CARE, Save the Children, that I remember off hand and now Miles of Smiles
as to InterPal being a terrorit organization here is a 2012 list of designated terrorist organizations InterPal is not one of them
http://www.state.gov/j/ct/rls/other/des/123085.htm
as to your link about Sean Hannity's 'charitable' event did you read it? the reason it's condemned is that very very very little of money actually went to soldiers families
shira
(30,109 posts)Interpal, headquartered in the UK, has been a principal charity utilized to hide the flow of money to HAMAS. Reporting indicates it is the conduit through which money flows to HAMAS from other charities, e.g., the Al Aqsa Foundation (designated under EO 13224 on May 29th) and oversees the activities of other charities. For example, the Sanabil Association for Relief and Development (designated as part of this tranche), represents Interpal in Lebanon. Reporting indicates that Interpal is the fundraising coordinator of HAMAS. This role is of the type that includes supervising activities of charities, developing new charities in targeted areas, instructing how funds should be transferred from one charity to another, and even determining public relations policy.
http://www.ots.treas.gov/_files/48937.html
Like Hannity's charity, very very very little money from Interpal's Smiles goes to children. It goes to Hamas. And we know what Hamas is all about.
Tell me, would you support a charity that helps the most militant kahanists? Maybe such a charity does some good things for children. So why not support them too?
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)on the state departments current list of terror organizations
and once again you resort to using Bush era ruling to avoid answering a question
it is curious to me how much support Bushes policies seem to get in this group, I wonder why that is?
shira
(30,109 posts)It's not just under Bush that Interpal is considered a supporter of Hamas, but also under the Obama administration.
What's next, denial?
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)On Feb. 27, 2009 the Palestinians Relief and Development Fund (Interpal) was cleared of supporting terrorism in the third inquiry into its activities by the United Kingdom's (UK) Charity Commission. The charity also overcame hurdles to financing its operations created by two prominent banks that withdrew their financial services in response to the United States (U.S) listing of Interpal as a supporter of terrorism.
The Charity Commission inquiry into the Interpal's activities concluded the charity is not funding or supporting groups sponsoring terrorism. The Commission ordered improvements in procedures for choosing and overseeing local charity partners in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, Jordan and Lebanon. It also recognized the importance of charities that conduct aid related activities in "high-risk" areas of the world and acknowledged the dangers they face. As a result of the inquiry, Interpal made changes to their Trustees and partner organizations in the Middle East. The entire analysis of the Inquiry can be found here.
The inquiries into Interpal were triggered by allegations stemming from the U.S. Department of Treasury's designation of it as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist organization in August of 2003. In all three investigations, the Commission had asked the U.S. for a legal or evidential basis for the designation but the U.S. government has declined to do so each time.
http://www.charityandsecurity.org/Background/Interpal_Cleared
you do realize that Interpal is a UK agency-right?
shira
(30,109 posts)IHH works under the "Union of Good" umbrella, considered to be a terror supporting organization. Also under the "Union of Good" is Interpal (Miles of Smiles).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Union_of_Good
Interpal activists were onboard George Galloway's Viva Palestina when Galloway was giving cash to Hamas openly:
FYI, the UK Charity Commission not only cleared Interpal, but also Galloway of what you're viewing in that youtube video.
Here are (Miles of Smiles) Interpal representatives who traveled with Galloway to give cash to Hamas...
http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/en/article/17866
So yeah, they're worse than the PSC. You're defending the indefensible. You should stop digging yourself further into a hole WRT charities you enthusiastically support.
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)but oh this time you found good stuff huh? Jpost and the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center I'm impressed
anything else for us? com'on you can do better can't you?
azurnoir
(45,850 posts)in the address bar and guess what it is a dead agency it no longer exists and its replacement seems concerned with US domestic banking procedure
Individualism
(33 posts)its all war propaganda to get our troops to die for special interests, its like Iran and Syria being a threat when there not.
