Yes, all criticism of Israel is antisemitic!(Op-Ed in Jerusalem Post)

[Ken Burch]

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContributors/Article.aspx?id=270755

‘But surely you don’t believe,” they always ask you, “that all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic?” It is a noticeably patronizing question, of course, in that it is obviously an admonition that all civilized, thinking people must answer “no” or “of course not.” It is an important question, however, because of its real answer, which is unequivocally and unquestionably “yes.”

The idea that all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic horrifies some, offends and mortifies others, and terrifies still more. The usual reaction to it is something along the lines of “how can you say that?!” Nonetheless, it is exactly what I am saying in regard to Israel and its critics.

I do not speak, however, of intentional or conscious anti-Semitism (though it is a major factor), nor of inadvertent or ignorant anti-Semitism (though this also plays a mighty role). All criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic because of hate, or prejudice, or malice, or stupidity, or indeed any of those very human vices so often regarded as the devil’s work by upper-middle-class liberals.

All criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic because of the specific historical circumstances under which we currently live. That is to say, the historical circumstances under which Israel and the Jews exist in the world today render any non-anti-Semitic criticism of Israel impossible. And, ironically, these are circumstances that Israel’s opponents have themselves created.

________________________________________________________________________________________________
(OP's note...in case anyone is wondering if I've had a radical change of opinion on this question, I totally DISagree with the premise of the linked editorial. The reason I'm posting it is that it is the article that blog post which THIS thread was based on

http://www.democraticunderground.com/113410415

was written in response to...so I'm posting this because it provides the context for that blog post and the thread it produced. The other of the blog post in that thread did not come up with his title out of thin air, or for no reason.)

[Ken Burch]

1. One false claim made in the editorial:

Last edited Tue May 29, 2012, 04:17 PM - Edit history (1)

A large portion of the world, West and East, has come to believe that Arabs and Muslims have earned the right to murder Jews.

No, a large portion of the world has NOT come to believe any such thing. In fact, almost nobody believes anything that insane. Those that do are universally condemned and disowned by the prohibitive majority of critics of Israeli security policy.

[Ken Burch]

2. The second false claim made in the editorial

Derived from this right, they have also come to believe that the destruction dismantling, and erasure of the State of Israel, and the slaughter, expulsion, and/or perpetual subjugation of its Jewish population are entirely legitimate and indeed desirable.

No one believes any such thing...even those who self-identify as "anti-Zionists".

[Ken Burch]

3. Third false claim:

Derived from the preceding is the belief that the Jewish people in general, in Israel or the Diaspora, either do not exist as a people deserving the same rights as other peoples, or are an evil and debased people who must be slaughtered, expelled, and/or perpetually subjugated in order to prevent them from committing further debased evils.

No one, other than a few neo-Nazi types whose views are utterly irrelevant to the I/P debate, is saying that Jewish people should have any fewer rights than anyone else, or that they should be wiped off the earth. No one is even saying that they should be eternally subjugated, or subjugated at all. The worst anybody is saying is that they should be treating Palestinians as equal human beings. That is not subjugation at all(a unitary state is probably not realistic at this point, given the equal hatred and bigotry of both communities, but a Belgian-style federation, an arrangement that wouldn't subjugate anybody, should be considered.)

[Ken Burch]

9. The final paragraph at least makes a reasonable point, but misses the fact that almost all critics

of Israeli security policies already agreed with the point and were already working for the objective he cites:

there is at least a possible solution to the problem, should critics of Israel be willing to entertain it. It is a modest imperative: Work toward less anti-Semitism. This imperative does not demand silence, but it does require a measure of self-reflection that is (and I in no way exempt myself) a task of the most supreme difficulty for us all.

The truth is, the vast majority of those who take a critical stance about what Israel does to Palestinians are also passionate and committed OPPONENTS of antisemitism, and work to root it out wherever they live. As to such feelings among Palestinians themselves, the best way to defeat them are to

1)stop equating "Israel" to "The Jews". Israel and the world's Jewish communities are NOT synonymous.
2)for "pro-Israel" people to be publicly outspoken in opposition to the Occupation of the West Bank, the siege of Gaza, and the continued(and ALWAYS illegal) West Bank settlement project.

Until the Israeli government itself changes its rhetoric, admits that Israel is not synonymous with all people and all things Jewish, and stops invoking the "J word" to justify everything it does. it's going to be very difficult to get Palestinians to accept the argument that they should see the people of the other community, as the author of this hate-filled editorial wants them to, as being greater victims than themselves. Nobody anywhere is going to feel greater sympathy for their oppressers than for themselves, OR accept that they should have to suffer because of what people on another continent did to those(or, these days, the grandparents or great-great grandparents of those)who are now keeping them under military rule.

[shira]

23. Actually Ken, there are many (even some here at DU) who argue the Jews are not a people...

...and therefore are not entitled like other peoples to self-determination. It's these same "critics" of Israel who are obsessed with painting Israel and its Jewish supporters as apologists to apartheid and nazi-like practices vs. Palestinians (meaning evil people are apologists for the worst evil imaginable vs. Palestinians).

Par for the course WRT outfits like the ISM, FGM, PSC, IAW, BDS, and GM2J.

[Ken Burch]

29. Questioning where there is such a thing as a single "Jewish people" is NOT the same thing

as saying that the world's Jewish communities should not be protected from persecution. Those are two entirely different concepts.

Of course those communities should be as safe and free as anybody else is. We all agree on that, shira. Nobody here has the attitudes of a Nazi or a 19th Century Tsarist pogrom enthusiast.

[shira]

33. So you're wrong WRT that claim, b/c there are people who deny that Jews are a people...

...who require self-determination in a state of their own.

Why not admit it?

As to Jews who should be protected worldwide, Jews have been there and done that. The world's track record isn't so good WRT protecting Jewish communities.

[Ken Burch]

35. Look, Israel exists and nobody still thinks they can really get rid of it.

So it's moot and actually kind of childish to make people recognize Israel in the exact words that Bibi demands(btw, you would agree, I hope that it's unfair to make Palestinians recognize Israel on terms differently than Egypt and Jordan recognize it, right? Why should MORE be asked of Palestinians on that score than the other nations I mentioned?)

[Dick Dastardly]

41. Its not unfair at all. Its common for a country to apply different terms to in its various

agreements with other countries. Different terms address the different or distinct concerns a country has with each country. International agreements are not cookie cutter one size fits all.

[Ken Burch]

44. There's no justification for making Palestinian leaders agree to things

That Egypt's and Jordan's leaders didn't have to agree to...especially since neither Egyptians nor Jordanians(the people of the West Bank are exclusively Palestinian and none EVER self-identified as "Jordanian&quot were oppressed by the conditions that existed after the Six Day War. Also, Egypt and Jordan were significantly responsible for their side of the Six Day War, whereas the Palestinians themselves had nothing to do with the decision to launch that war.

Why is Bibi so obsessed with making Palestinians recognize Israel using the exact arrogant words he demands? He'd get more than enough just getting them to recognize Israel's existence. What the recognize that state's existence as is irrelevant. Insisting that Palestinians say the words "Jewish state" is unnecessary, since recognizing the State of Israel BY ITSELF implies such recognition.

[shira]

76. Yes there is justification, if genuine peace is the goal...

Palestinian leaders have constantly called for Israel's destruction and they still do (both in PMW videos as well as demands for full RoR). They should have to admit in no uncertain terms that they agree to a 2 state solution in which they accept a Jewish state in perpetuity. It's the least they can do.

I know you disagree.

You don't even believe they should be apologetic WRT all the years of toxic anti-Jewish genocidal incitement they've been responsible for. Your version of peace seems to be everlasting conflict.

[Ken Burch]

82. It's enough for them to accept two states.

As far as I can see, Bibi just came up with the "they have to recognize it as a Jewish State" thing because he has a childish fixation with making them say it "the way I want them to say it", as any two-year-old you could find anywhere would say. If he was just doing that to appease his ancient, hate-based father(a theory I've heard expressed from several Israeli sources), then I hope he'll be at least a little less arrogant about that particular point now. The Palestinians should simply have to recognize Israel on the exact same terms that Jordan and Egypt recognized it...especially since the Six Day War wasn't the Palestinians' fault at all.

Really, if the Palestinians recognize Israel,why does it matter what they recognize Israel as? If they recognize it at all, by definition they are recognizing it as a state that has a right to exist on its own terms.

And, if you want them to give up on full RoR(btw, I'm not sure they're insisting on FULL RoR at all, and yes, I agree that full RoR isn't a realistic demand)then there needs to be a willingness to at least accept partial RoR...NO RoR at all is just as unacceptable as full RoR. And really, would it do any harm to say that those who were actually alive in 1948 could come back, or, at least, those who were adults at that time? And to admit that the refugees, even those who won't be able to come back, have the right to identify as Palestinians and to not only compensation but also acknowledgment that not all of their suffering was deserved? If you want most of the refugees to accept not actually physically going back, they need to get something for that that's a little more than just a tiny check and an admonition to suck it up.

I'm talking about a real, humane compromise on this point, shira. A compromise that wouldn't actually endanger Israeli security at all. This is my individual proposal on the issue, btw.


My version of peace is about a resolution of conflict...and a recognition that there needs to be an admission that BOTH sides bear equal responsibility for the conflict's perpetuation, that both sides have grievances, that both sides have had innocent victims, and that both sides are made up of decent human beings that can be trusted. What Bibi has demanded is about rejecting that and perpetuating the notion that the entire conflict is about what those evil, baby-eating, moustache-twirling Arabs did...a notion that he, and you, knows to be utter bullshit.

Peace is based on parity of esteem, parity of respect, and acknowledgment of parity of pain. OK?

It's not worth endangering the chances of peace just to insist on the right to claim that your side is "better than they are".

Oh, and, once again, Palestinian leaders have NOT "constantly called for Israel's destruction". The PA repudiated that idea when it agreed to Oslo and RECOGNIZED Israel.

Demanding that the Palestinian side agree to the terms YOU insist on is just as wrongheaded as those who insisted that the German delegation at Versailles(a delegation made up almost entirely of people who had OPPOSED the Kaiser's regime and all its works)agree to accept language that stated that World War I was SOLELY the fault of Germany(as opposed to honest language that would have admitted that all the imperial states that joined the conflict in 1914 were EQUALLY responsible for that insane bloodbath). The insistence on German acceptance of that language was one of the major things that Hitler was able to use to mobilize support for his party...not insisting on that language might well have meant that World War II and the Holocaust would never have happened.

It's important to do nothing at the end of one war that could possibly cause the onset of ANOTHER war later.

[shira]

83. No, it's not. Not when the PA/Hamas teach the Palestinian public...

....through media, schools, government and religious institutions that Israel has no right to exist whatsoever. That Zionism is a colonial, racist, apartheid, land-grubbing, murderous ideology.

Do you require evidence of this, Ken?

If so, let me know. And let me know how much evidence you want.

Or does it matter at all whether that's true or not?

[Ken Burch]

85. You do realize, though

that it would be perfectly possible for Hamas to agree to the language you insist on, and then still go on saying the things you object to?

After all, you never admitted that it counted that the PA recognized Israel in the first place.

There's nothing magical in making them say it the way Bibi wants to make them say it.

The way to get more and more Palestinians to break with Hamas(as more and more are doing every day anyway)is to give them reason to believe that they have something to gain by breaking with it...NOT by having the Israeli government demand that they break with it. Demanding that is the best way to preserve support for Hamas...because it makes it look like those who did break with Hamas were collaborators with the Israeli security apparatus.

Your endless denounciations and your endless demands for more denounciations actually HELP Hamas...don't you realize that? You are giving aid and comfort TO Hamas with your rhetoric...and so is Bibi(who I can assume you now openly support since your favorite party, Kadima has joined his coalition and is now doomed to eventually dissolve into nothing but a faction OF Likud, given that that party can now never be a potential party of government again).

Think about the unintended consequences of YOUR tactics, shira. And remember the definition of insanity.

[shira]

87. You keep bringing up Hamas. I'm still talking about the PA...

It is the PA who teaches its people non-stop that Israel has absolutely no right to exist whatsoever.

Hamas could go away tomorrow and that would still be the party line for the PA.

[Ken Burch]

89. The PA recognized Israel in 1994. That put the recognition issue to rest for Fatah's part.

You keep acting like it's still 1948, like nothing has ever changed at all.

Also, I keep referencing Hamas because you do...and because you keep acting like Hamas isn't really separate from Fatah at all, but just a front organization that Fatah uses for tricker and also just a part of the mythical "unrelenting Arab plot" that Camera/Flame STILL froth about in those paranoid, demagogic magazine ads(that would be, btw, the unrelenting Arab plot that Jordan and Egypt relented from years ago and that Syria is too embroiled in a civil war to be playing any real role in these days).

[Ken Burch]

90. If Zionists want to cease being thought of as colonialist

they need to stop displaying what always sounds to Palestinian ears as a colonialist mindset...they need to stop with the "we're civilized and you're barbaric" memes, and with the idea that Zionism is there to bring modern life to a backward hellhole. Now that we live in the era in which "peace through victory" is impossible everywhere, it's not possible for one side to make peace with its opponents if it insists on treating its opponents as culturally inferior.

Don't want Zionism to be taken as imperialist? Tell the Israelis to stop sounding like Bwana.

Admit that Palestinians do have a real culture and that they have worked the land and created an identity for themselves(also, admit that the place was never "a land without people&quot . How hard is that?

[aquart]

5. Denial to the Nile.

Oh, wait. Maybe the fantasy is that the Israelis will self-deport like Mexicans.

[Ken Burch]

10. Uh, no.

no denial of anything. And the "anti-Zionists" are not calling for a Judenrein solution. They simply want both communities to live as equals. You can't simply assume that Palestinians could never behave as civilized human beings in such a situation.

It was Europeans that were the oppressors of the Ashkenazim...not Arabs. And it shows no disrespect to the suffering of the Ashkenazim to say that those who didn't persecute them(the Palestinians)should suffer because of those who did.

Israel has a right to exist, but not to take any significant amount of land in the West Bank. OK?

[shira]

22. If claim #2 is not what anti-zionists believe, then what do they believe? n/t

[Ken Burch]

25. Simply that both communities should live as equals in the same state

(I don't favor a unitary state, it's not workable, at least not now....my personal choice is a Belgian-style federation in which both national entities would be protected and recognized...but there does need to be the establishment of some level of human equality in the treatment of both communities-it can't be what YOU want, in which we work from the assumption that the ENTIRE conflict is solely the result of Arab hatred and the Palestinians have no legitimate grievances in this at all-that the Occupation isn't an injustice and even the West Bank settlements aren't an injustice).

You can only argue that those groups believe what you say they believe if you take it as an absolutely unchallengeable assertion that every Palestinian is incapable of behaving like a civilized human being...that is, if you are even more of a hater of all Arabs than you claim that Palestinians and other Arabs are of Jews.

The fact is, most Palestinians are simply normal people like anybody else...and, like anybody else, would naturally behave well towards everybody else if treated as an equal by everybody else.

You DON'T believe that...because you are an anti-Arab bigot...and, frankly, a fanatical Arab-hater at that. You deny that any Palestinian, or any Arab at all(other than Anwar Sadat, I guess)is a human being with a heart and a soul an a capacity to live life for the good.

You are simply saturated in hatred and you really shouldn't ever post in this forum again. You have nothing positive to contribute here.

If this post ends up getting hidden, so be it...but it had to be said. Shira, you are simply here to advocate for NEVER ending the war at all.

[shira]

31. Well, at least you got that off your chest...

It appears that any criticism of Hamas and/or the PLO automatically makes one an anti-Arab bigot or fanatical Arab-hater saturated in hatred. The reason being that you believe Hamas/PLO represent and are one with the Palestinian people.

See, here's the thing Ken. I don't believe all Palestinians are one with Hamas or the PLO. Most are victims of those terrible organizations and my guess is that if they could answer w/o being harmed for their views, most would choose to live in Israel with the Jews and be good, productive citizens there. They are tired of being used as political pawns, not only by Hamas/Fatah, but by the greater Arab world and their useful idiots in the West.

If I hated Arabs, I'd want them all out of Israel, now wouldn't I? I'm not sure there's more than 1% of all Israelis who are that far gone.

=====

But back to anti-zionist views.

Why do you assume they're stupid and do not know that 1 secular state won't work? You're insulting their intelligence.

[Ken Burch]

34. I am against Hamas and have said so repeatedly.

Hamas exists, though, because of the decades that the Israeli government spent refusing to recognize the PLO as the negotiating voice of the Palestinian people, even though that government knew the whole time that they were never going to succeed in getting Palestinians to support an alternate leadership that would settle for anything short of self-determination.

And of course all Palestinians aren't at one with the PLO OR with Hamas. But we can assume that NONE of them would accept never getting a state made up of the entire West Bank and Gaza. We can assume that none would accept the choice of statelessness or exile.

BTW, you do realize that if they chose "to live in Israel with the Jews", that choice would, by definition, turn Israel into a unitary state, and that that state would have to stop privileging one community above the other, don't you? It would end up BEING "1 secular state". There's no way they'd all move to Israel, but still accept the premise that THEIR community had to be in an official status of submission to the other.

[shira]

38. Scary. The best you can do against all that genocidal incitement from Hamas...

...is say you're against Hamas, and that Hamas is Israel's fault anyway?

Chilling.

[Ken Burch]

39. What do you want?

Are people who want the suffering of Palestinians to end supposed to put denouncing Hamas and demanding its destruction before everything ELSE?

Are we supposed to accept the argument that Hamas has to be wiped out before ANYTHING can change?

Nothing any of us could say, no matter what, would ever satisfy you.

[holdencaufield]

40. Do you really not get...

... that Hamas isn't a reaction to the suffering of the Palestinians, they are the cause of that suffering?

If the Palestinians could overthrow their thugocracy legitimate peace could be negotiated with Israel overnight -- regardless of which party is in power.

But, the thugocracy will be in power for as long as enablers from outside the region keep feeding their dream of the eventual destruction of Israel. It is those enablers, even more than Hamas, that is responsible for Palestinian suffering.

[Ken Burch]

43. If there'd been no West Bank and Gaza occupations, there'd have been no Hamas

It's absurd to put the whole thing down to Hamas' existence. If this was all about Hamas, then how do you explain the fact that the West Bank was put under IDF occupation and made the site of the illegal settlements for at least two decades BEFORE Hamas existed as a political entity?

And it's delusional to think, as Israel's leaders STILL seem to think, that if it weren't for the "Palestinian leadership" that most Palestinians would have happily accepted never getting a state of their own, or at most getting the pathetic half-state that Bibi is willing to allow them(the territorial concessions Bibi demands obviously make the survival of a Palestinian state impossible, since no state can survive if its territory isn't contiguous and its citizens have to keep going through checkpoints monitored by another country's army just to get to other parts of their OWN state, as Bibi's demands would require them to do every day).

This conflict has never been solely about the behavior of the Palestinian leadership, much as that leadership has been guilty of making bad choices.. If it had been, the West Bank wouldn't have been put under the control of the IDF in 1967...at a time when said leadership barely had any influence at all in the West Bank.

And it has never been the case that everything that Israel did in the conflict was in self-defense and that Israel would instantly leave the Palestinians alone if only they, the Palestinians, behaved differently. If that had been the case, the Palestinians would have been offered a REAL state in the 1990's...as they never truly were.

Yes, Palestinians could have had better leaders...as could have Israel(you can't deny that the decision of the Israeli government to invent the settlers in 1973-it was Ariel Sharon's idea as IDF chief of staff-made the situation far, far worse than it would have been if the Israeli side had done what it should have done and left it at having troops at the border and in observation posts on the high ground) but this was never about the leaders alone.

It was about the real identity of Palestinians AS Palestinians...something the Israeli leadership, under governments of various parties, refused to acknowledge for decades, pretending instead that Palestinians had no real ties to the land and were just "generic Arab" troublemakers who were shipped in from other places in the spring of 1947 to make things unpleasant for no reason.

It was about the refusal of the Israeli leadership to do the sensible thing and start negotiating with the PLO in the 1980's, at a time when that organization was still at the height of its power, still had the ability to make its side of a peace deal stick, and when that organization had said it was willing to recognize Israel as soon as negotiations began(the Israeli side insisted instead on getting the recognition first, when getting the recognition before the negotiations rather than at the moment the negotiations started was a meaningless distinction).

And it was about the fact that Palestinians, even during the "peace process" of the Nineties, still lost land to the settlements and were still subjected to constant collective harassment from the IDF(at a time when the IDF KNEW that the overwhelming majority of Palestinians were not personally involved in any violent acts, and knew that those who weren't violent themselves had no way of stopping those who were violent from being violent).

Yes, the Palestinian side has horrible flaws, but if the Palestinians got rid of Hamas tomorrow, this wouldn't change anything that the Israeli side in the conflict has done. The fact that the Israeli side still insists on claiming that the West Bank is "disputed territory" not occupied territory, proves that. So does the arrogant assertion of some Israelis in this that Israel has legitimate claims on large chunks of the West Bank, but Palestinians(or even the Bedouins)have NO claims on the other side of the Green Line.

BOTH sides need different leadership. And the leadership on the Israeli side has long ago forfeited any claims to moral superiority whatsoever. There is parity of blame on both sides, and there is parity of pain on both sides. Recognition of that is the only hope of ending the conflict.

[holdencaufield]

65. Respectfully - you're wrong

Either deliberately or through an incomplete knowledge of the topic you don't know (or claim not to know) that Hamas is only the latest incarnation to the "liberation of Palestine through armed struggle" that is the core principle of Palestinian leadership, beginning with the Fedeyeen in the '50s leading to the establishment of the PLO in 1964.

This principle was established as part of the founding principles of the PLO three full years BEFORE there was a single Jew in the West Bank or Gaza. Palestinian Fedayeen accounted for the deaths of hundreds of Israeli civilians a full decade before that.

The claim that Palestinian violence against Israeli civilians is an effect of "occupation" is at best fallacious, at worst deliberately mis-leading.

[shira]

72. I expect way more from anti-racist progressives who say they take all forms of...

Last edited Wed May 30, 2012, 05:55 AM - Edit history (2)

...bigotry and hatred very seriously.

Is that how you think progressives/liberals should react these days to genocidal incitement vs. Jews? With nothing more than a yawn? As if, why bother?

[RZM]

46. Because Belgium is doing so well?

Before either of us die there will be separate Fleming and Walloon states. You can try the 'one state solution' for a generation and then you're just going to end up back at square one with two states as the only viable option. Even as 'one state' it would in reality be two states. Best to work with that framework because that is where this is going to end.

[Ken Burch]

47. There's no Belgian equivalent to either Hamas or the Irgun

You don't have Flemish settlers stealing land from the Walloons, or Walloons saying crazy things about the Flemish.

Even with the talk of separation, people in neither community want to kill each other and live in peace and relative equality.

It's racist to assume that only Europeans can co-exist with each other.

[RZM]

49. All I'm saying is that it isn't working

And Belgium has been around a whole lot longer than Israel. They don't much enjoy living together and IMO, they eventually won't be. So if they can't do it, how can you expect the Israelis and Palestinians to do so, where the animosity is red-hot, as opposed to simmering?

Putting aside the arguments that 'one state' is a stalking horse for a Palestinian victory, can you really envision power-sharing in this climate? I can't. I say we all cut our losses. The Israelis sacrifice a government for 1967 borders, the Palestinians build up their military, get their asses kicked, and then then the West weighs in for a 1967 settlement and we're good for another 50 years with two states.

I really don't see what would be so bad about that.

[Ken Burch]

50. The status quo isn't working either, in case you haven't noticed

You can't seriously believe that it's sustainable to keep the Palestinians living under IDF occupation indefinitely, and to continue the illegal West Bank settlement program?

If you want a two-state solution...the best way to get that is to STOP insisting that the Palestinian state be honeycombed by the illegal settlements or that the borders be arranged(the way Bibi wants them)so that the Palestinians wouldn't even get the contiguous West Bank, but only tiny chunks of it, chunks that they'd have to keep crossing and re-crossing IDF checkpoints to get to even AFTER a "peace settlement".

A two-state solution needs to be based on Israel and a Palestinian state being equal in power and respect, with neither having the other at its mercy, and with neither insisting that the whole conflict was exclusively the other side's fault. Is that asking too much?

[RZM]

51. Not really, As I said before

The Israelis will have to, in Ayatullah Khomeni's phase, 'drink poison' and grant massive land tracts to the Palestinians. Then the Palestinians will enact universal conscription and throw everything they've got at Israel. And they will get spanked like there's no tomorrow. That's when the international pressure will be important, because at that moment of Israeli victory, it will be incumbent upon them to not do what they've done in the past and use their military advantage to seize territory. Hopefully they will withdraw to UN-approved borders and that will keep the Palestinians quiet for a generation or two.

That's the best we can hope for with the two-state solution. And I think it's the best option out there.

[Ken Burch]

52. It's bigoted to assume that the Palestinians would just keep fighting no matter what.

They aren't savages, for God's sake.

And it isn't about "granting large tracts of land". It's about admitting that the West Bank and Gaza are and always WERE Palestinian.

What's so terrible about acknowledging that Palestinians really do have a history on these lands and really do have a culture and an identity all their own?

There's no hope of ending the conflict if you insist on dehumanizing the Palestinians and totally denying their own reality.

[RZM]

56. I'm all about granting them these lands. So it's tough argue I don't think they are Palestinian

Of course they have their own culture and identity. But those don't stop at what they will eventually get. And they will want more, because they've always felt that more is their destiny. And they won't get more. But they will get some and that's where the settlement will lie.

You're responding to an argument I'm not making. Give a generous settlement to the Palestinians and allow them to establish their own internationally-recognized state. IMO, that will lead to further war that they will lose. But after that, we could have a peace that lasts for decades and that' what I'm looking forward to.

[Ken Burch]

59. That first paragraph in your post

could be written about the West Bank settlers as well.

The issue is the attitude you take...the attitude that Palestinians should be "given" something, as if they don't have a natural right to it. That attitude isn't consistent with any successful approach to peacemaking. Peacemaking requires treating both sides as equals, admitting that both have grievances, that both have legitimacy, that both have humanity.

You aren't willing to do that. And you aren't willing to admit that Palestinians are simply another group of human beings who, like most people, will act better when treated better and not before.

[RZM]

62. Bullshit. Given and taking lands is pure power politics

And this is from somebody who has long studied Eastern/Central Europe in the 1930s-40s. Believe me, might makes right and goodwill (such as the British showed to the Soviets in 1941-42, means that the other side will simply say 'yoink' and not give anything in return)

It really is a jungle out there. There is no room for liberal bullshit. Only for horse trading. It's sad, but that's how things work.

[holdencaufield]

70. Let's take a look, shall we?

"It's bigoted to assume that the Palestinians would just keep fighting no matter what."

Based on what? The fact that they've been doing just that and losing for nearly over 70 years (before Israel was even established) and yet their only game-plan nearly a century later is "more of the same, please". However, I don't blame that on the Palestinian people -- I blame that on the Palestinian leadership who use the "struggle" to stay in power and their enablers in the West that keep feeding their dreams.


It's about admitting that the West Bank and Gaza are and always WERE Palestinian.

A quick look at the history books tells us that this isn't even remotely true -- the land we're talking about has belonged to Jews, Greeks, Babylonians, Romans, Byzantines, Franks, Arabs, Turks, and the British. The term "Palestinian" didn't even apply exclusively to Arabs from the region until 1967. Before that, it mean ALL inhabitants of the region.

Palestinians really do have a history on these lands and really do have a culture and an identity all their own?

I believe if they ever get over this armed struggle they have the capability to develop their own cultural identity. But, to date, they haven't done much towards that goal. The "father" of the Palestinian people isn't even from historic Palestine -- having been born in Egypt. Arab solidarity had been nothing but a dead-end for the Palestinian people, the more quickly they develop a separate identity of their own, apart from the Arab world, the better off they will be.


There's no hope of ending the conflict if you insist on dehumanizing the Palestinians

Agreed. But, the primary dehumanizer of the Arab Palestinians is their leaders and those who enable those leaders and continue to make them cannon fodder in a hopeless armed struggle to fulfill their dream of destroying Israel. Do some Israelis hate Palestinians, you betcha. It would be non-human not to have deep emotional feelings about a people who have been trying to wipe you out for 70 years. To claim that Israelis aren't capable of those emotions is truly dehumanizing. On the contrary -- most Israelis still show a remarkably generous attitude towards the Palestinian people and desire to be at peace with them.

[Fozzledick]

53. You may have gotten that slimy personal attack past the jury

but I think you've only demonstrated the truth of the original op-ed.

[Ken Burch]

55. It's fair comment about that posters' views.

She's against peace(defending the Occupation and the settlements proves that) and she refuses to treat the Palestinians as equal human beings or to acknowledge that they have any grievances in this conflict at all.

And it doesn't prove the truth of the OP-ED at all.

I attacked shira's views...not her identity...she's not required to post what she posts by her self-identity. Plenty of people who have that same identity reject her hatred.

The worst of it is, she hurts the cause of Israel every time she posts, by presenting this hysterical, paranoid analysis that is based on nothing but self-nurtured spite. I support Israel's existence in the pre-1967 borders(the legitimate borders, the ones the world universally accepts)which is the only realistic two-state proposal that can work...yet she demands that the major settlement blocs remain in place, even though she knows they make peace impossible.

Why would you defend what that poster says at all? She has nothing positive to offer on this issue.

[Fozzledick]

57. All I see coming from you is a bigoted personal attack.

That's my fair comment about your views.

[Ken Burch]

60. You see what you see

That poster's views have nothing to do with her cultural, ethnic and/or religious identity. Many who share those identities with her reject all her views. Therefore, no bigotry.

[Fozzledick]

61. So why do you falsely accuse her of bigotry?

It works both ways.

[Ken Burch]

66. Her posts are predicated

on the assumption that Palestinians and other Arabs are driven solely by hatred of Jews.

If that isn't bigotry, what is?

[Fozzledick]

68. Your false assumptions about how she thinks.

[King_David]

101. I agree with what Fozzledick said nt

[holdencaufield]

71. "She's against peace..defending the Occupation and the settlements proves that"

Please -- prove that settlements have been and continue to be the deciding factor between peace and conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.

I would expect to see a timeline of aggression that shows an increase in settlement activity has lead to proportional increase in conflict.

[shira]

77. It's a slimy personal attack, Ken...

As for my views, just ask:

1. Occupation: I'm against it, but I'm against thousands of rockets, war, and death even more than I'm against occupation. My examples are Lebanon and Gaza. End of occupation there led to more rockets, war, and death. Seems to me that an end of occupation w/o peace leads to more war, rockets, and death. Not peace.

2. Settlements If it were up to me, they'd be a non-issue now. There could have been peace deals twice in 2000 and 2008. Borders would've been negotiated and established. I'd accept the Geneva Initiative as well, but as we both know you're against that too b/c it leaves major settlements in place. Odd how you must believe supporters of Geneva like Chomsky and Jimmy Carter are rightwing warmongering anti-Arab bigots as well, b/c like myself they too "support" those major settlement blocs that would remain in place.

[Ken Burch]

81. The fact that they support the initiative does NOT mean

that they accept the settlements. It simply means they accept the overall initiative.

None of the settlements could possibly have enough justification to put the chance of peace at risk. None were ever really about building the values of Zionism(values which used to be progressive, as opposed to the post-1967 era when they were reduced to being about taking land for the sake of taking land-an objective that can never be progressive).

[shira]

86. But you said any offer that leaves the bulk of the settlements within Israel....

...is rightwing and not serious. Are you taking that back now WRT the Geneva Initiative?

Or will you keep repeating it since it seems to be one of your top 10 talking points?

[Ken Burch]

88. I support Geneva but not the settlement position it takes.

That is a legitimate position. I'm not obligated to back the settlement position of Geneva to back the overall accord.


Preserving them would mean the Palestinians wouldn't have CONTIGUOUS control of the West Bank, but would have to pass through Israeli checkpoints even to get from one part of their own country to another.

That, by itself, would mean Palestine wouldn't be a real country at all...since the sovereignty of a real country has to be absolute.

Surely, nobody anywhere should have limits to how quickly they can and cannot traverse the territory of their own nation, right?

And what land swaps would there even be? It would be useless, for example, for Palestine to get the Negev. Nothing can be done with THAT particular area of land.

[shira]

94. Well now it doesn't matter what you support. The PA won't agree to negotiating anything reasonable

...and they're now against unilateral withdrawal by Israel.

Seems they want the occupation and settlements to continue. I get the feeling the anti-I contingent wants the same thing. After all, what would they do if they couldn't bash Israel anymore for occupation/settlements? They need it more than Israel.

[BudT]

20. How do you know this?

There's never been a poll of "the world" on this question. So, you must be expressing your personal belief, your estimate of what the world's opinion is on the matter. Surely you know that the majority of Palestinians believe that the resistance is not only justified but that it includes using deadly violence against Israeli civilians. This data is backed up by a long list of repeated professional polls, many by Arab pollsters.

I'd guess that well over half of just the Arabs in the world share those views. To me, that means that yes, " a large portion of the world . . has come to believe that Arabs and Muslims have earned the right to murder Jews". I guess if you're not a Jew, a few hundred million give or take, who actively or passively support your murder, is not so much to worry about.

[shira]

21. What's false about it? Jew murdering is deemed legal resistance to occupation by the ISM...

...and other like minded outfits like BDS, FGM, GM2J, PSC, IAW, etc.

[Ken Burch]

24. No it isn't.

It's just that the ISM doesn't obsess on denouncing Hamas to the exclusion of everything else...like YOU want them to do...and which would require them to give up trying to help Palestinians at all.

[shira]

32. The ISM and its cheerleaders say armed resistance is legitimate. Look it up. n/t

[Ken Burch]

37. The use of force on BOTH sides is equally wrong

There's no longer any moral difference between what the IDF does when it uses force and what Hamas does. All the killing is equally wrong.

You can't automatically morally privilege everything the Israeli side does. What it does isn't self-defense anymore, and hasn't been for decades(at least, not in the main). It stopped being self-defesnse when they invaded Lebanon in 1982 without Lebanon as a country having attacked them first. Pre-emptive strikes are never self-defense.

[pelsar]

42. of course there is no moral difference...i personally find looking to kill muslim children gods work

oops i forgot, us members of the IDF are not supposed to take your accusations of us personally because your accusations of us being like hamas isn't really aimed at us.......because we're just too stupid to know that when our neighbors er generals tell us to look to kill muslim Palestinians as gods work that its morally wrong.

that mr ken is what your telling us who actually serve in combat units in the IDF.....you don't seem to understand that the actually policy of the IDF, what its members are taught from the general on down to the "lowly recruit" that targeting non combatants, innocents is morally wrong Hamas as we all know believes in the opposite through word and deed. That fact you believe completely opposite values are similar is most telling......

those of us who serve in the IDF, find your words very insulting, degrading, racist and unacceptable......we shall wait for your apology, given your past words, its clear it will not be worth a whole lot, and we may not even accept it, but it will be a good place for you to start....

[Ken Burch]

45. You should just stop serving in the West Bank. It's right-wing to be there at all.

You aren't protecting anything good by being there. You aren't protecting anything that's positive or life-affirming within Israel(and there's a lot that is in that country). You aren't being part of the solution to anything.

The Occupation doesn't work...it's a dead end...you KNOW it's a dead end...so why pretend otherwise?

The IDF doesn't need to be there. It would be enough to be on the high grounds and the border. Having your troops in the West Bank doesn't protect Israelis in Israel Proper, nor does it have any chance of creating the conditions to make peace. Having you there is still part of the discredited "peace through victory" approach, an approach you KNOW has no chance of succeeding, since neither side is going to be in the position of ever having a chance of a military victory.

And yes, all killing is the same. The killing the IDF does is no more morally sanctified than anybody else's killing...especially since there's the killing of ten Palestinians for one Israeli(a policy that greatly increases the liklihood that at least some of the Palestinians who are killed did nothing to deserve it). The days when your side could claim that its killing was morally superior to the killing on the other side are long gone. Saying that isn't an attack on you or your fellow soldiers...it simply reflects reality...there isn't any such thing, anywhere any more, as justified killing. All killing is equally evil now. None protects anyone or makes anything better. None can ever be heroic again.

IDF troops are not monsters, but they also aren't saints with rifles. Stop acting like what you do is any more moral than what any other army does. Any war that goes on long enough loses all moral justification. Israel's survival is assured whether you're in the West Bank or not. Keeping you there puts you and your fellow soldiers in danger for no reason at all. It doesn't make Israel any safer and it doesn't give your children any hope of being anything OTHER than soldiers-which is something you, of all people should want to make sure they never have to be.

Stop putting your faith blindly in force. Force has failed to make anything better in this situation. Can't you just admit that by now? Hasn't your whole life taught you that by now?

For the love of God, work for a country where your kids won't HAVE to have a rifle on their shoulders. That's what a parent who LOVED his children would do.

[pelsar]

58. changing the subject of my remarks......i am only interested in your blanket accusations....

you stated very clearly...and this is not the first time either:
made a general blanket statement and accusation that we, those of us who serve, do what hamas does: which is target innocent people, to terrorize them

i personally find that insulting, degrading, racist, and ignorant.....that is the sole point of my remarks. You accused us (and yes, its its us who serve, not any robots) of believing similar to what hamas members believe, because they too are people, Some Palestinians to be exact, who represent the present governing body of Gaza

i repeat, do not change the subject,

[Ken Burch]

48. Can you honestly say that innocent Palestinians NEVER get killed?

Also...are you saying Tom Hurndall had it coming for trying to rescue the innocent, unarmed Palestinian kids who were about to be shot by the IDF just because they happened to be running through the wrong strip of land(even though the soldiers KNEW those kids were harmless)?

Is it simply impossible for you to ADMIT that a Palestinian can ever BE innocent?

The IDF is made up of ordinary fallible human beings like any other army...it's no insult to say your fellow soldiers have, at least at times, killed people who didn't deserve it.

[pelsar]

54. dont change the subject.....

you stated very clearly...and this is not the first time either:
made a general blanket statement and accusation that we, those of us who serve, do what hamas does: which is target innocent people, to terrorize them as policy.....as the objective of the IDF and its members

i repeat, do not change the subject,

[Ken Burch]

63. Don't YOU change the subject

You just implied that no innocent Palestinians ever get killed by the IDF. Even the IDF high command wouldn't say THAT.

And I didn't say the IDF "does what Hamas does". What I said was that nobody's killing is morally purer in this dispute than anybody else's. I'm sure there are good people in your ranks...but that isn't the point.

Past a certain number of years...anybody's side in any war loses moral superiority.

Past a certain number of deaths...the killing ends up just being the same...just death for death's sake. Nothing beautiful is protected by it, and no hopes are nurtured by it...whoever does it. Can't you see that?

That goes for your army like anybody else's army. Why can't you just "man up" and admit it?

Killing is killing is killing...in the end, none of it accomplishes anything any more...in the West Bank or anywhere else. Can't you just admit that already and admit that the whole thing simply isn't worth your time, your energy, or the lives of you and/or your fellow soldiers?

And if the killing your army did was achieving anything more worthwhile than anybody else's killing, wouldn't Hamas be out of existence by now? Doesn't the fact that Hamas still exists raise any questions at all in your mind about whether what you're doing is helping anybody?

I'm just saying, stop and think...and I doubt you'll find that what your fellow soldiers are doing in the West Bank is making anything better at all.

You do want your children to be able to do something else with their lives other than carry a gun, don't you?

[pelsar]

64. you have clearly state that the morality of hamas and that of the IDF is the same.....indirectly

..since hamas has clearly stated in word and deed that killing civilians is morally acceptable, you obviously believe that we have that same morality.

I'm just clearing up your viewpoint away from all of the additions and other generalizations....

why are you trying to not to state that clearly?
your getting closer here,

Past a certain number of years...anybody's side in any war loses moral superiority.


but i think you should come clean and just state it clearly: hamas and the IDF are one and the same in terms of morality

[Ken Burch]

67. Not what I was saying.

It's about the killings themselves...not the organizations...past a certain point, nobody's killings can be morally privileged over any other. Nobody in the West Bank or Gaza is Eichmann, after all.

The IDF is not morally identical to Hamas...but at this point, the killing is pretty much the same. And on both sides, it's now clearly pointless.

[pelsar]

69. your words.....you wrote them

There's no longer any moral difference between what the IDF does when it uses force and what Hamas does. All the killing is equally wrong.

you have equated the IDF with hamas organizations...I'm have no problem with what you wrote, I just think your view should be clear:

so, lets take a real world example and feel free to reiterate your claim that there is no moral difference:

hamas crosses the israeli border a few months ago, attacks a bus, car-kills the people in the car, the IDF comes and kills the attackers.

you have clearly stated that that acts of the IDF and of the hamas are equally moral....In your view, i guess the IDF shouldn't have killed the attackers, but let them continue.... (i assume), after all killing is killing

[FiveGoodMen]

4. Too damned bad!

Criticism will be leveled against those who deserve it.

Tough shit.

[aquart]

7. Hey, I way prefer criticism to exploded buses.

I prefer criticism to the Palestinian habit of murdering anyone who seeks peace with Israel.

I way prefer criticism.

Is there a single thing about the Palestinians that you have ever criticized?

[Ken Burch]

17. I'm glad you accept that some criticism can be legitimate

But you need to admit that Palestinians have been at least equal victims of violence in this...and that not all the victims were "terrorists".

If you want Palestinians to recognize the suffering and the humanity of your community, acknowledge the suffering and humanity of theirs...and admit that their suffering wasn't any more deserved than the suffering of the Askenazim in Europe.

[Shaktimaan]

96. any more deserved?

Perhaps not. However it was certainly not equal in scale. For example, I am not any more deserving of the splinter I received putting together bookshelves than the Jews were of the deaths they received during the Holocaust. That is not to say that the two are equivalent though.

[Ken Burch]

13. Again, I don't actually AGREE with the editorial in the OP

I posted it to provide context for the title of this thread:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/113410415

OK?

[FiveGoodMen]

18. My tone was directed at the JPost, not at you.

[Ken Burch]

19. Ok...just wanted to make sure people understood

why I started this thread.

[sinkingfeeling]

6. Wow, so there's one thing in the world above criticism... Israel. I got a bridge

to sell ya.

[aquart]

8. Compassion is rubber bullets.

Compassion is tearing down houses instead of murdering those who aid and abet suicide bombings.

Compassion is trying hard NOT to kill the people who consider themselves entitled to kill you. Despite the grief and hate in your heart.

What's your definition of compassion?

[Ken Burch]

12. Compassion is rubber bullets?

Yes...a small number of Israelis have been victims. But a far larger number of Palestinians have been killed...and it is far from an unchallengeable assertion that all or even most of them "had it coming". There have been just as many innocent victims on the Palestinian side as on the Israeli side.

And you know perfectly well that Palestinians have just as much right to have grief and anger in THEIR hearts as Israelis do. Both side can claim equal victimhood.

And the Israeli government has no right to say it wants peace until it forever stops expanding the West Bank settlements. I can only hope that, now that Bibi's hate-driven ancient father has finally died, he'll begin to recognize that Palestinians have their own humanity, their own suffering, and their own equally valid heritage.

Antisemitism must be fought. But the way to fight it in Palestine is to stop oppressing Palestinians and for the Israeli government to never again describe itself or Israel as "the Jews". Israel is not "the Jews". Israel and the world's Jewish communities are not synonymous.

[Shaktimaan]

97. Untrue.

And the Israeli government has no right to say it wants peace until it forever stops expanding the West Bank settlements.

Why not? It merely wants peace on different terms than the Palestinians do.

[Ken Burch]

99. Because the settlements are inherently unjust. Because no Palestinian leadership can accept them

And ever be popular among the Palestinian rank-and-file again. The settlements are an insult to Palestinians, and deliberately so.

They exist only to stop the Palestinians from having a state. They have no positive or progressive purpose. They are designed to say to Palestinians "this is OUR land, not yours, and you have no right to anything here".

As to the meaningless blather about "Judea and Samaria"...that's merely a want...it's not a need...and asserting a right to those places can't be worth keeping the conflict going.

[Shaktimaan]

108. are they?

Because the settlements are inherently unjust.

That's merely opinion. Even if it were true, it would just mean that Israel desires a peace on terms that are less than fair.

The settlements are an insult to Palestinians, and deliberately so.
They exist only to stop the Palestinians from having a state.

The settlements exist because of ideologues who think it is rightfully their land. It has nothing to do with the Palestinians. If the Palestinians didn't exist, settlers would still want that to own the western wall. Trust me.

As to the meaningless blather about "Judea and Samaria"...that's merely a want...it's not a need

So what? So are most things. So is a Palestinian state.

asserting a right to those places can't be worth keeping the conflict going.

Well, now you are just outright fibbing. If the Palestinians didn't think that "asserting a right to those places was worth keeping the conflict going" then we'd have peace by now. Yet you blame Israel for the lack of peace. Palestine is fighting for that land just as much as Israel is... owning that land is obviously far more important to them than peace.

[Shaktimaan]

98. You really think that...

anti-semitism in Palestine is the result of Israeli actions?
If anti-semitism did not exist before Palestinian oppression then why did any of those Arabs bother killing any of the Jews?

[Ken Burch]

100. It's clearly been made much worse by Israeli actions.

And especially, the arrogant habit of the Israeli government of always referring to itself as "The Jews&quot something that government has no right to do, since Israel is not and never has been synonymous with "The Jews&quot . They do that just to provoke Palestinians.

Any people who are treated badly by a regime claiming to act in the name of another people will end up harboring negative feelings towards the people who are invoked by that regime.

If the Ottomans were still ruling Palestine, you'd hear just as much invective against "The Turks" as you do against the people Israel pretends to represent.

The best way for Israel to combat Palestinian antisemitism is to stop collectively punishing Palestinians and then justifying the coilective punishment by invoking the "J word". Almost nothing the Israeli government does in the West Bank has any relationship to the values of Judaism, and little of anything that government does there is good for Jewish people IN Israel or anywhere else.

It's absurd and defeatist to reduce the whole Palestinian thing to "they hate the Jews". It's also a cop-out, an excuse for the Israeli government to not ever change any of the things its doing...and it's an insult to Jewish communities around the world, fewer and fewer of which are accepting the argument that Palestinians have to be collectively punished and repressed just to protect the "security" of "The Jewish State".

As to why there were killings before then...well, in the World War II period there were far fewer killings(in fact, almost none) of Jews in North Africa and Iran than there were in "Christian" Europe(and possibly fewer than in North America, since the Klan was at its peak of power in that era and the decade afterwords). In the War of Independence/Nakba, the killing of Zionists by Palestinians was no different than one side killing another side in a war. It wasn't automatically worse because those the Palestinians killed self-identified as Jewish. It wouldn't have been antisemitism, for example, for Palestinians to kill the Irgun fascists who were massacring innocent people at Deir Yassin.

Antisemtism is real. But you can't put the entire conflict down to that. And it serves no good purpose to do so. All it does is give Netanyahu an excuse to stall any change and to build more West Bank settlements, ALL of which(as you would have to admit)are illegal under international law, and it provides a false rationale to justify maintaining collective repression of Palestinians when maintaining that collective repression can never possibly under any circumstance cause Palestinians to behave better.

[Shaktimaan]

102. Is it...

Made worse by Israeli actions? I doubt it. There's an easy way to tell. If Israel treating the Palestinians badly increases anti-semitism them Israel making concessions should reduce it, right? So let's look at some Israeli concessions over the past few decades... In 1947 Israel accepted a UN peace plan. That resulted in war. In 2005 Israel left gaza. That caused Hamas to get elected. I dunno, do you have any evidence that supports your position?

As far as blaming the entire conflict on mindless jew hatred, no one ever makes that argument except you, to refute it. Face it, without your straw man to eviscerate you'd have virtually nothing to say here.

[Ken Burch]

103. The notion that Palestinian actions are driven mainly by antisemitism

(even if not exclusively)is repeated and/or insinuated all the time here...often with a smug "we all KNOW what this is really about, don't we?" tone that is completely inappropriate. It isn't as simple as Bibi and Co. keep pretending that it is.

Why is it so hard for some people to admit that Palestinians might actually have legitimate reasons for anger and that they'd probably resist the Occupation no matter what the self-identification of the state imposing it?

Why would anybody still pretend that, if only it was somebody other than Israel occupying the West Bank and building settlements and subjecting the population to collective punishment on a daily basis, that Palestinians would be just ducky with all that? Don't people who say that basically realize that they're implying that Palestinians are a people utterly devoid of self-respect(and perhaps congenitally masochistic in the bargain)?

Yes, Palestinians have made bad choices and had bad leaders...yes they might try other tactics...but isn't it time to stop acting as if they have no honorable reasons for wanting anything other than the status quo?

And isn't it time to admit, once and for all, that Israelis are NOT the primary victims in the I/P dispute? That they have suffered, but that they can't automatically claim primacy of pain?

What good does it do to constantly invoke "antisemitism" to describe Palestinian choices? What possible reason is there to keep dredging that up OTHER than to let Netanyahu, the settlers, and the IDF off the hook?

[Shaktimaan]

105. Well...

This also seems easy to test. What were the Palestinians' reactions to the 300 year ottoman occupation for example? Suicide bombing? Ha ha, JK.

How about Jordan? The Hashemite kingdom nabbed almost 80% of mandate Palestine and imposed minority rule over a primarily Palestinian population. Then it took over the west bank, forced its inhabitants into refugee camps while offering them a second class citizenship as compensation. When the Palestinians eventually made a bid at self-determination Jordan crushed them. Massacred them on a level greater than everything Israel had done over 100 years combined, all within a months time. Expelled their entire leadership. Slaughtered them indiscriminately. Hideous. Just monstrous.

So... How did the Palestinians respond? Rockets? TV shows demonizing the Hashemites? Bombs? Where were the calls from around the Arab world to dismantle Jordan?

Face it. The Arabs can treat other Arabs like animal fodder and no one cares for more than a few weeks. But if Israel aids in a massacre then rest assured it'll be discussed for decades, held up as evidence of the Jews' thirst for blood. The Arabs that actually COMMITTED the massacre... They'll be forgotten about for the most part. The Jews who gave them a ride though? Monsters, branded forever.

If the Arab street actually formed its opinions based on unbiased facts like who actually oppresses them or what leaders have killed the most of their people then Israel would not even register as an issue.

[Ken Burch]

106. We don't know the whole history there

Last edited Tue Jun 12, 2012, 10:14 PM - Edit history (1)

But you can't assume that they were content with the status quo and with being dumped on by other people until Herzl & Co. showed up(your description of the revolt against Jordan proves that they weren't, actually).

And the fact that there may have been fewer revolts simply means that earlier rulers were more brutal. People revolt less when revolt means certain death. There were far fewer protests in Eastern Europe under Stalin than under Gorbachev, but no one would argue that the people of Eastern Europe were content with Stalinism.

Nobody ever accepts subjugation as their natural station in life. It's just that they sometimes wait until the conditions for winning a liberation struggle are more favorable.

[Ken Burch]

15. There's no compassion in punishing an entire family for what one person in that family did

It would be enough to arrest the person who committed the act. Nobody else in the family could have stopped that person and you know it.

And there have been cases where it turned out that nobody in the home that got demolished had done anything...but the Israeli government kind of forfeited any right to ask the people who had been made homeless to avoid becoming terrorists.

As to rubber bullets...Tom Hurndall was killed by one, and for the horrible crime of trying to rescue some innocent Palestinian kids from being shot just because they were running through the wrong patch of land. How the hell was there compassion in THAT?

And how can you seriously argue that Israel HAS to do things like that just to survive? Can you not see, after all this time, that all the hard line does is to create an opposite hard line? That the hard line can NEVER bring peace(since peace through victory is clearly impossible in this conflict)?

[Ken Burch]

11. I don't agree with the editorial in that OP

As I explain in the note at the base of it, I posted this editorial to give context to the blog post that started another thread.

I'm in agreement with you that the Israeli government is NOT above criticism.

[Journeyman]

14. This is not an editorial by the Jerusalem Post, it is an opinion piece by Benjamin Kerstein. . .

There's quite a difference between the two.

[Ken Burch]

16. They still published it.

They knew it was inflammatory demagogy and they still published it.

I'll edit the thread title...but we both know it's hairsplitting.

[LeftishBrit]

27. It's not really hairsplitting

Papers publish all kinds of things. Certainly in the UK, right-wing newspapers occasionally publish articles by left-wingers, and vice versa. Newspapers often publish articles of all sorts to provoke comment, not as editorials.

[Ken Burch]

30. It hardly makes it alright, though, if the Post published this because they thought

it would sell papers.

The sentiments in this article are both anti-democratic and, to my mind, anti-Israeli(since they challenge the acceptance of open discussion and debate that Israel, at least until recently, has allowed).

[shira]

79. The OP challenges acceptance of open discussion and debate? Au contraire....

It's an opinion, whether you agree or not. It stimulates debate. It doesn't shut it down.

Had the JPost refused to publish this or other articles like it, then THAT would shut down discussion and debate (and be very anti-Israel).

If you are certain of your positions/views, you shouldn't have any problem defending them, or challenging those whom you disagree with.

[Ken Burch]

91. The author of that editorial demonizes ANY criticism of anything the Israeli government does

as antisemitic. How much more hostile to open discussion and debate can you GET?

OK, the guy has the right to express his views on "free speech" grounds, but those who disagree with him(like the author of the OP in that other thread)have an equal right to call him out for being antidemocratic.

Fair's fair.

[shira]

93. Well then if that's the case, you do the same thing anytime...

...someone is highly critical of Hamas or the PA. To merely mention PMW videos is apparently anti-Arab hatred and bigotry of the highest degree to you.

So are you hostile to open discussion & debate?

[Ken Burch]

104. Enough has been said about the videos

You have no reason to keep obsessing on them.

And I don't speak Arabic, so I have way of knowing if they even say what you say they say.

The videos are a meaningless sideshow, and they do NOT justify maintaining the status quo in the West Bank or Gaza(since maintaining the Occupation can NEVER lead to Hamas or Fatah being replaced by other groups).

[cali]

73. It absolutely is not hair splitting. Look, I strongly

take issue with this opinion piece, but to call the difference between an op and an editorial hairsplitting, is either self-serving or ignorant. You know that.

[oberliner]

74. You posted it here

You knew it was inflammatory demagogy and yet you posted it here.

And not only that, you also responded to it yourself four times before anyone else even made a comment.

In fact, as of this writing, over 30 of the responses on this thread are from you.

So you took a crazy RW, poorly written, inflammatory opinion piece and thought it would be good to post and discuss here.

Appending it to the other post about criticism of Israel not being anti-semitic would have been one thing, but to determine that this nonsense deserved its own thread and four self-kicks is just plain bizarre.

[azurnoir]

75. it should be posted and I for one am glad Ken did

it was the basis for another thread and really seeing as how at least some of the posters here seem to agree with the content I do not see a problem

[oberliner]

78. Shocking

And no one here agrees with the content.

[shira]

80. Not shocking. I'm no longer surprised anymore with anything the anti-I contingent believes....

With respect to the OP, they seemingly do not understand - or do not wish to understand - the difference between one opinion based on facts and another contrary opinion based on the very same facts. It's possible to agree with the facts but disagree with the opinion. Not that they care...

[Ken Burch]

84. I wasn't saying that anybody here at DU agreed with the OP

The reason I published it was to provide an explanation for why that blog entry used as the OP for the other thread, the one that said "No, all criticism of Israel is NOT antisemitic", was written. I just thought it was important to point out what that blogger was responding to.

[Ken Burch]

92. Wasn't saying anybody here did.

n/t.

[oberliner]

95. I did not claim that you did

I was responding to the poster who wrote:

"...at least some of the posters here seem to agree with the content"

[Ken Burch]

107. Oh. Sorry. Didn't realize who you were responding to.

n/t.

[LeftishBrit]

26. Well, I disagree obviously...

unless one is to get into all kinds of parallel arguments: e.g. that all criticism of African governments is pro-imperialist or racist because of their history; or that all criticism of countries currently opposed to America and its allies equals a desire to bomb them.

Some people seem to draw those types of conclusions too.

I disagree with all of them.

Of course, criticizing Israel CAN be antisemitic, and criticizing African countries CAN be racist, and criticizing Iran CAN mean a desire to bomb it, and criticizing America and the West CAN even mean sympathy for terrorism- but that does not mean that any of these things need be the case. And it is bad enough when such motivations are too readily attributed to external critics, but it becomes truly quite dangerous when they are attributed to internal critics, and criticism of one's government is equated with treason.

[Ken Burch]

28. As I explained in the note at the bottom of the OP, I disagree with the argument that the link makes

Of course criticism of Israeli security policy is NOT inherently antisemitic. Sensible people all accept this.

I posted the link to explain what the blogger in THIS thread was responding to:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/113410415

[Ruby the Liberal]

36. This is what you want to move into GD?

Oh hells no.