Firstly, the application of terms applied to the Nazis is very offensive when describing a conflict that involves Jews.
what historical parallel would you like to use instead to describe annexation, forced ghettoes and methodical elimination of a a mostly civilian semetic population by a neighboring country with a few orders of magnitude higher military capability that wont make it offensive
Last edited by stone hands; 05-18-2021 at 03:14 PM.
The Economist in 2020 had Israel as only democratic country in Middle East and Tunisia as only one in North Africa. Current government can be defeated next election. Other countries in region don’t have that choice.
Yet, no matter who is in government, the human rights abuses just seem to get worse.
The question then becomes, is Israel really a democracy, or is the concept of democracy so flawed that its no longer worthy to defend it?
The Economist in 2020 had Israel as only democratic country in Middle East and Tunisia as only one in North Africa. Current government can be defeated next election. Other countries in region don’t have that choice.
Here we go again
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It’s virtually impossible to be involved in Palestine activism without being barraged by the mantra that “Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East“. This talking point is invoked whenever the need to justify Israeli behavior is needed, even if the topic under discussion is completely unrelated. Indeed, in the minds of those who utilize it, it confers an automatic moral superiority to Israel which further distinguishes it from its “backwards” neighbors, and ex post facto legitimizes its actions.
There are multiple issues with this talking point, and we could discuss it for hundreds of pages, but for the sake of expedience we will briefly focus on two major ones.
First, there is an erroneous assumption that being a democracy automatically confers an elevated moral position. The usual line of reasoning is that if a state is a democracy then it listens to the needs and wants of its citizens, who generally tend to want to steer clear of war, misery and repression. A further element of this is that democratic leaders are accountable to their people which makes them think twice before enacting any of these policies.
While this may sound good on paper, there is scant empirical evidence to support it. For example, when it comes to war and aggression against other countries, there is absolutely no evidence to support the claim that democratic countries differ from non-democratic countries, either in initiation or participation in wars.
But we needn’t go so far and talk about wars, let us think of the Jim Crow United States, which was classified as a democracy at the time. If a state practicing such untold injustice and repression against its own citizens -let alone people abroad- could maintain the moniker of democracy, then how could anyone seriously claim that being a democracy automatically makes a state good or just? Post WWII France waxed poetic about freedom and democracy domestically while it was committing genocide in its colonies. We see similar patterns in all the settler colonies which consider themselves democratic while dispossessing and brutally oppressing their native populations.
The simplistic and ideologically driven urge to divide the world into “good states” and “bad states” based on whether they are a democracy or not is based on a fictitious assumed morality of democratic states. When it comes to international politics, morality and altruism, while often invoked as pretexts for action, are mere window-dressing for political ambitions. This becomes exceedingly clear when we see the self-anointed “champions of democracy” sponsoring and supporting coups against democratic governments which posed a threat to the West’s regional interests, such as the 1953 coup against Mosaddeq in Iran. Meanwhile, these same “champions” would prop up and reinforce the most reactionary and tyrannical regimes imaginable if they were deemed beneficial to their interests in the region.
This bias has been inculcated by decades of propaganda, which paints warmongering from democratic states as noble, involuntary and for the greater good, while downplaying the frequency of said warmongering.
So now that we have established that being a democracy doesn’t inherently mean anything vis-à-vis morality, the second major issue with this talking point is perhaps the biggest flaw in it: Israel is not a democracy, at least not in the way people commonly understand it.
Last edited by Jeff Lebowski; 05-18-2021 at 03:40 PM.
imo the economist and all other sources that provide cover for israeli crimes are doing so because of the israel lobby:
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The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy[1] is a book by John Mearsheimer, Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and Stephen Walt, Professor of International Relations at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, published in late August 2007. It was a New York Times Best Seller.[2]
The book describes the lobby as a "loose coalition of individuals and organizations who actively work to steer U.S. foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction".[3] The book "focuses primarily on the lobby's influence on U.S. foreign policy and its negative effect on American interests".[4] The authors also argue that "the lobby's impact has been unintentionally harmful to Israel as well".[5]
Both Mearsheimer and Walt argue that although "the boundaries of the Israel lobby cannot be identified precisely", it "has a core consisting of organizations whose declared purpose is to encourage the U.S. government and the American public to provide material aid to Israel and to support its government's policies, as well as influential individuals for whom these goals are also a top priority".[6] They note that "not every American with a favorable attitude to Israel is part of the lobby",[6] and that although "the bulk of the lobby is comprised of Jewish Americans",[7] there are many American Jews who are not part of the lobby, and the lobby also includes Christian Zionists.[8] They also claim a drift of important groups in "the lobby" to the right,[9] and overlap with the neoconservatives.[10]
The book was preceded by a paper commissioned by The Atlantic and written by Mearsheimer and Walt. The Atlantic rejected the paper, and it was published in London Review of Books.[11] The paper attracted considerable controversy, both praise[12][13][14][15][16] and criticism.[17][18]
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In April 2006, Philip Weiss discussed some of the background to the creation of the paper in an article in The Nation.[28]
Mearsheimer and Walt argue that "No lobby has managed to divert U.S. foreign policy as far from what the American national interest would otherwise suggest, while simultaneously convincing Americans that U.S. and Israeli interests are essentially identical".[29] They argue that "in its basic operations, it is no different from interest groups like the Farm Lobby, steel and textile workers, and other ethnic lobbies. What sets the Israel Lobby apart is its extraordinary effectiveness." According to Mearsheimer and Walt, the "loose coalition" that makes up the Lobby has "significant leverage over the Executive branch", as well as the ability to make sure that the "Lobby's perspective on Israel is widely reflected in the mainstream media." They claim that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in particular has a "stranglehold on the U.S. Congress", due to its "ability to reward legislators and congressional candidates who support its agenda, and to punish those who challenge it."
Mearsheimer and Walt decry what they call misuse of "the charge of anti-Semitism", and argue that pro-Israel groups place great importance on "controlling debate" in American academia; they maintain, however, that the Lobby has yet to succeed in its "campaign to eliminate criticism of Israel from college campuses" (see Campus Watch and U.S. Congress Bill H.R. 509). The authors conclude by arguing that when the Lobby succeeds in shaping U.S. policy in the Middle East, then "Israel's enemies get weakened or overthrown, Israel gets a free hand with the Palestinians, and the United States does most of the fighting, dying, rebuilding, and paying."[20] According to Mr. Mearsheimer "it’s becoming increasingly difficult to make the argument in a convincing way that anyone who criticizes the lobby or Israel is an anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew.” The authors pointed to the growing dissatisfaction with the war in Iraq, criticism of Israel's war in Lebanon and the publication of former President Jimmy Carter’s book Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid as making it somewhat easier to criticize Israel openly.[13]
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Former U.S. Ambassador Edward Peck wrote that "The expected tsunami of rabid responses condemned the report, vilified its authors, and denied there is such a lobby — validating both the lobby's existence and aggressive, pervasive presence and obliging Harvard to remove its name." Peck is generally in agreement with the paper's core thesis: "Opinions differ on the long-term costs and benefits for both nations, but the lobby's views of Israel's interests have become the basis of U.S. Middle East policies."[14]
Tony Judt, a historian at New York University, wrote in The New York Times, that "[in] spite of [the paper's] provocative title, the essay draws on a wide variety of standard sources and is mostly uncontentious." He goes on to ask "[does] the Israel Lobby affect our foreign policy choices? Of course — that is one of its goals. [...] But does pressure to support Israel distort American decisions? That's a matter of judgment." He concludes the essay by taking the perspective that "this essay, by two 'realist' political scientists with no interest whatsoever in the Palestinians, is a straw in the wind." And that "it will not be self-evident to future generations of Americans why the imperial might and international reputation of the United States are so closely aligned with one small, controversial Mediterranean client state."[15]
Juan Cole a professor at the University of Michigan, wrote at the Salon website: "Other critics have accused the authors of anti-Semitism, which is to say, of racial bigotry. Eliot A. Cohen of the School of Advanced International Studies of Johns Hopkins University published an emotional attack on the authors in the Washington Post, saying "yes, it's anti-Semitic." Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz also accused Mearsheimer and Walt of bigotry. The Harvard Crimson reported that "Dershowitz, who is one of Israel's most prominent defenders, vehemently disputed the article's assertions, repeatedly calling it 'one-sided' and its authors 'liars' and 'bigots.'" Cole continues to argue "Dershowitz went so far as to allege that the paper paralleled texts at neo-Nazi sites.
Michael Scheuer, a former senior official at the Central Intelligence Agency and now a terrorism analyst for CBS News, said to NPR that Mearsheimer and Walt are "basically right."[16] Israel, according to Scheuer, has engaged in one of the most successful campaigns to influence public opinion in the United States ever conducted by a foreign government. Scheuer said to NPR that "They [Mearsheimer and Walt] should be credited for the courage they have had to actually present a paper on the subject. I hope they move on and do the Saudi lobby, which is probably more dangerous to the United States than the Israeli lobby."[16]
Zbigniew Brzezinski, former national security advisor to U.S. President Jimmy Carter, wrote: "Mearsheimer and Walt adduce a great deal of factual evidence that over the years Israel has been the beneficiary of privileged — indeed, highly preferential — financial assistance, out of all proportion to what the United States extends to any other country. The massive aid to Israel is in effect a huge entitlement that enriches the relatively prosperous Israelis at the cost of the American taxpayer. Money being fungible, that aid also pays for the very settlements that America opposes and that impede the peace process."[33]
In his review in The Times, journalist Max Hastings wrote "otherwise intelligent Americans diminish themselves by hurling charges of antisemitism with such recklessness. There will be no peace in the Middle East until the United States faces its responsibilities there in a much more convincing fashion than it does today, partly for reasons given in this depressing book."[34]
Adam Kirsch argued that Robert D. Kaplan's "deification" of Mearsheimer in The Atlantic in January 2012 showed that the authors of The Israel Lobby were winning the argument.[35]
Glenn Greenwald has endorsed the book's central thesis, arguing "Walt and Mearsheimer merely voiced a truth which has long been known and obvious but was not allowed to be spoken. That’s precisely why the demonization campaign against them was so vicious and concerted: those who voice prohibited truths are always more hated than those who spout obvious lies."[36]
Marxist historian Perry Anderson also endorsed the book's thesis, calling it "outstanding".[37]
I don’t have that Economist issue on me right now but I’m sure it’s online. It’s a Democracy Index based on various criteria. Canada and usual European countries at top then USA, Israel etc. I think Turkey and Jordan were next best Middle East countries but still far down. Most countries made sense and not too many really jumped out at the time. Israel ranking made sense to me but maybe would feel different now with conflict.
I don’t have that Economist issue on me right now but I’m sure it’s online. It’s a Democracy Index based on various criteria. Canada and usual European countries at top then USA, Israel etc. I think Turkey and Jordan were next best Middle East countries but still far down. Most countries made sense and not too many really jumped out at the time. Israel ranking made sense to me but maybe would feel different now with conflict.
Perhaps for some Israelis it is highly democratic but for others:
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Whenever Israel is accused of being undemocratic or being an Apartheid state, one of the main counter-arguments used by its advocates is that everyone in Israel is politically equal. They’ll often cite examples of “Arab” judges or members of Knesset to reinforce their point. We have specifically discussed the issue of Apartheid more thoroughly in [This article], and while they are connected, the goal of this article is to inspect the narrower claim that every Israeli citizen is equal.
While such a claim is very attractive to defenders of Israel, how realistic is it?
At first glance it does seem that all citizens in Israel enjoy the same rights, they can all vote, for example, among many other rights granted by citizenship. However, after a more thorough look it becomes clear that this talking point is only held together by the omission of one very important fact:
Israel distinguishes between citizenship and nationality.
What does this mean?
For example, you can be a citizen of Israel but be a Druze national, or a Jewish national. Your nationality is determined by your ethnicity and it cannot be changed or challenged. But how is this relevant to the original question being discussed?
It is relevant because many of the rights you are accorded in Israel stem from your nationality not your citizenship. Meaning an “Arab” Israeli citizen and a Jewish Israeli citizen, while both citizens, enjoy different rights and privileges determined by their “nationality”. Seeing how Israel is an ethnocracy it is not a mystery who this system privileges and who it discriminates against [You can read more about this here].
This is not merely discrimination in practice, but discrimination by law. Adalah have composed a database of discriminatory laws in Israel that disfavor non-Jewish Israelis. For example, the Law of Return and Absentees’ Property Law are but two examples of flagrant racism and discrimination in the Israeli legal system [You can read more about this here].
This is not some old, odd oversight, but a very deliberate part of the design of Israeli society. This is periodically reinforced whenever some Israelis petition the Supreme Court to recognize an Israeli nationality that does not discriminate based on ethnicity. A recent example of these petitions was in 2013, where the Supreme Court rejected such an idea on the grounds that it would “undermine Israel’s Jewishness“.
It says quite a lot about Israel that a unifying egalitarian identity not based around ethnicity would “pose a danger to Israel’s founding principle: to be a Jewish state for the Jewish people“, as the court ruled. The fact that such discrimination is seen as a cornerstone of Israeli society only reinforces its colonial ethnocratic nature, and undermines any claims to equality among citizens.
what historical parallel would you like to use instead to describe annexation, forced ghettoes and methodical elimination of a a mostly civilian semetic population by a neighboring country with a few orders of magnitude higher military capability that wont make it offensive
Did the Israelis put 6 million people into a gas chamber?
The current measures your describing have much more in common with the way Muslim populations in the middle east treated their Jewish populations than the holocaust.
You're also incorrect, as there are 2 million Arabs who live within Israel itself, and most Jewish Israelis are themselves not white and descended from refugees from Arab/muslim countries. So this is not a race based issue. It's also the Palestinians goal to set up a Jewish free country themselves. The only difference between extremists on either side, is that one side is winning. Does that make the Palestinians just unsuccessful nazis?
Israeli propaganda about the "expulsion" of Arab Jews from Arab countries in the late 1940s and early 1950s continues without respite. Earlier this month, Israel's UN ambassador, Gilad Erdan, informed UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres that he "intends to submit a draft resolution requiring the international body to hold an annual commemoration for the hundreds of thousands of Jews exiled from Arab countries due to the creation of the State of Israel," according to a report in Ynet.
Israel's fabrications about the immigration of Arab Jews to Israel are so outrageous that the country holds a commemoration on 30 November each year. This date just happens to coincide with the ethnic cleansing by Zionist gangs of Palestine, which began on 30 November 1947, a day after the UN General Assembly adopted the Partition Plan. The choice of date seeks to implicate Arab Jews in the conquest of Palestine, when most had no role in it.
Erdan alleges that, after the establishment of the Israeli settler-colony, Arab countries "launched a widespread attack against the State of Israel and the thriving Jewish communities that lived within [the Arab world]". Israeli fabrications, with which Israel always hoped to force Arab countries into paying Israel billions of dollars, have a second important goal: to exonerate Israel from its original sin of expelling Palestinians in 1948 and stealing their land and property.
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In December 1948, the UN General Assembly mandated that Palestinian refugees be allowed to return home and that they be compensated for the destruction and theft of their property by Israel. Israel not only wants to hold on to all of those lands, but to extort Arab countries to pay out billions more.
There is a further irony to the Israeli ploy: Israel has always insisted that Palestine, and later Israel, is the homeland of world Jewry, while simultaneously claiming that Arab Jews who immigrated to Israel are "refugees". The legal and internationally accepted definition of a refugee, however, is of a person who was expelled or fled their homeland, not one who "returns" to their homeland.
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In 1949, the Israeli government was working assiduously with British colonial authorities in Aden and with Yemeni officials to airlift Yemeni Jews to Israel. While the League of Arab States had resolved to ban the emigration of Arab Jews to Israel, Yemen's imam allowed Jews to leave as early as February 1949, with the help of Zionist emissaries and Israeli bribes to provincial Yemeni rulers, according to prominent Israeli historian Tom Segev's book: 1949: The First Israelis.
Some provincial rulers asked that at least 2,000 Jews remain, as it was the religious duty of Muslims to protect them, but the Zionist emissary insisted that it was a Jewish religious "commandment" for them to go to the "Land of Israel". The fact that Israel's prime minister at the time was David Ben Gurion also suggested to many that Israel "was the kingdom of David," according to Segev and other sources. Tens of thousands of Jews were urged to leave their homes and travel to Israel.
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As for the Jews who opted to stay, the Jewish emissary in Aden, Shlomo Schmidt, asked permission to propose that Yemeni authorities expel them, but Yemeni authorities did not.
Some of the luggage of the departing Jews, including ancient Torah scrolls, jewellery and embroidered garments, which they were encouraged to bring with them, disappeared en route and mysteriously "made their way to antique and souvenir shops in Israel," according to Segev and other sources.
About 50,000 Yemeni Jews were essentially removed from Yemen by the Israelis in 1949 and 1950 to face institutionalised Ashkenazi discrimination in Israel. This included the abduction of hundreds of Yemeni children from their parents, who were told the children died; the children were then allegedly handed over for adoption to Ashkenazi couples.
Zionists were also active in bringing about the emigration of Morocco's Jews to Israel. Morocco was under French colonial occupation at the time, so the Jewish Agency had to strike an agreement with the French governor of Morocco to bring about the emigration of Moroccan Jews, who had to face horrific conditions on Israeli ships, according to Segev and other sources. Some of the 100,000 Jews who left, according to the Jewish Agency emissary, had to be virtually "taken aboard the ships by force".
Meanwhile, the Iraqi government of Nuri al-Said, Britain's strongman in the Arab east, was maligned by Israeli propaganda that it was persecuting Jews, when in fact these were Israeli fabrications. Zionist agents had been active in Iraq, smuggling Jews through Iran to Israel, which led to the prosecution of a handful of Zionists.
Then, attacks on Iraqi Jews began, including at the Masuda Shemtov synagogue in Baghdad, killing four Jews and wounding around a dozen more. Some Iraqi Jews believed that this was the work of Mossad agents, aiming to scare Jews into leaving the country. Iraqi authorities accused and executed two activists from the Zionist underground.
Amid Israel's global campaign to pressure Iraq into allowing Jews to leave - which led to Israeli attempts to block a World Bank loan to Iraq, accompanied by American and British pressure - the Iraqi parliament relented and issued a law permitting Jews to leave. Zionist agents in Iraq telegraphed their handler in Tel Aviv: "We are carrying on our usual activity in order to push the law through faster." Iraq's 120,000 Jews were thus soon transferred to Israel.
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Despite Israeli culpability in bringing about the exodus of Arab Jews from their countries, the Israeli government continues to blame it on Arab governments. As for the property of Arab Jews, indeed, they should be fully entitled to it and/or to compensation - not on account of some fabricated expulsion narrative that serves the interests of the Israeli state, but on account of their actual ownership.
Contrary to Israeli propaganda that there was a population swap, it is notable that while European and Arab Jews who emigrated to Israel were given the stolen land and properties of expelled Palestinians free of charge, according to Israeli historian Benny Morris and other sources, the Palestinians did not receive the property of the Arab Jews who migrated to Israel.
You need to take a break and step away from the keyboard. This is an emotional time for anyone who is invested in this conflict, but you are without question the worst poster in this thread. Your anti-Israel and Jewish hate is palpable, and it is not something any of us should want to see in a Canadian forum about hockey.
Let's review what you have done:
- Consistently cherry pick articles that support your agenda.
- Failure to reflect on or even address any of the crimes that Hamas commits.
- Call for a boycott of Israeli products, as if all Israeli companies support what their government does
- Use dramatic images and retweets that are well known to be propaganda tactics (that both sides are admittedly using)
- Accuse all Israelis of being racist and supporting the governments actions
- Condemn the "terrorism" of Israeli attacks on rocket launch sites, but not a single word condemning an established terrorist organization that does nothing to protect or advocate for their own citizens.
- Claim Israel will give nothing back willingly. Did you forget what Israel gave up in 2005 for hopes of peace?
- Claim that Israelis do not want peace, and only want to murder innocent people. FYI -There is a significant portion of not only Israelis, but Jews abroad who do not agree with military action and want to find a peaceful resolution.
I will admit that I am somewhat biased in this, but I fully support discourse on the topic when it is civil and factual. You remind me of an enraged Oilers fan trying to disprove E=NG.
I don't post here often, so don't expect a response from me. But maybe take a minute to review the vitriol you are spewing on this site and have an open mind on the issue.
You need to take a break and step away from the keyboard. This is an emotional time for anyone who is invested in this conflict, but you are without question the worst poster in this thread. Your anti-Israel and Jewish hate is palpable, and it is not something any of us should want to see in a Canadian forum about hockey.
Let's review what you have done:
- Consistently cherry pick articles that support your agenda.
- Failure to reflect on or even address any of the crimes that Hamas commits.
- Call for a boycott of Israeli products, as if all Israeli companies support what their government does
- Use dramatic images and retweets that are well known to be propaganda tactics (that both sides are admittedly using)
- Accuse all Israelis of being racist and supporting the governments actions
- Condemn the "terrorism" of Israeli attacks on rocket launch sites, but not a single word condemning an established terrorist organization that does nothing to protect or advocate for their own citizens.
- Claim Israel will give nothing back willingly. Did you forget what Israel gave up in 2005 for hopes of peace?
- Claim that Israelis do not want peace, and only want to murder innocent people. FYI -There is a significant portion of not only Israelis, but Jews abroad who do not agree with military action and want to find a peaceful resolution.
I will admit that I am somewhat biased in this, but I fully support discourse on the topic when it is civil and factual. You remind me of an enraged Oilers fan trying to disprove E=NG.
I don't post here often, so don't expect a response from me. But maybe take a minute to review the vitriol you are spewing on this site and have an open mind on the issue.
lol - and the smear of anti semitism is disgusting. my support and view are for justice and human rights for all people. for 73 years these have been denied to the palestinians. in the july 2014 installment of this endless violence israel killed 547 children. i can not stomach anymore deaths of toddlers. there are 1 million children in gaza now. enough is enough.
Last edited by Jeff Lebowski; 05-18-2021 at 04:57 PM.
There seem to be three red herrings that people set off to distract from the issue, all of which may be valid points on their own, but are entirely irrelevant.
1. Democracy
Yes, Israel the most democratic country in the Middle East. No, it does not matter. It does not excuse their actions, or lessen them, or justify them, or make them more palatable. It can be just as easily argue that a democratic country with all the beautiful things that should come with a true democracy should be looked upon even worse. You could argue that, because they are a democracy, this continued aggression shifts the role of aggressor in this situation from the Israeli government to the majority of Israelis. That's not something I would agree with. I think most Israelis are victims in this case. But the fact that Israel is a democracy is a mark against them in this situation just as much as it is a mark for them. It does not matter.
2. Terminology
Is this comparable to Nazi Germany? Or is it offensive to even utter the words? Is it apartheid, or not technically apartheid because that only occurred in South Africa. Is it ethnic cleansing, or not technically ethnic cleansing? Is it racism, or not technically? It doesn't really matter. Have the debate if you want, but what is happening is what is happening. Whatever label you want to apply or label you want to resist doesn't change what is actually occurring. People who have nothing intelligent to add want to talk about words in the dictionary and nothing else. Go nuts.
3. But, but, but Hamas
Yes, Hamas is a terrorist organization. Yes, Hamas fires rockets. Yes, Hamas hold terrible views. Yes, Hamas are not to be defended. How many times does this need to be brought up? How many people are actually defending Hamas from a moral view? If people are, quote them and address it. The "people are doing this!" thing is meaningless. Quote and reply. What most people are doing in regards to Hamas are giving practical explanations for why they do what they do. This is different from defending them. When people bring up something critical of Hamas, nobody goes "Yeah but they're actually really good for all these unrelated reasons!" And yet somehow this complete lack of defence of Hamas is seen as equal to the full-fledged defence of Israel some are undertaking. It's nonsense.
On top of that, while I appreciate that supporters of Israel want to paint them in the best light possible, I am constantly surprised these conspiracy-level narratives and casual excuses of their actions continue. "The children are actually soldiers! They aren't technically targeting civilians! They have no choice! The media is lying and attacking Israel!"
Please, they're killing toddlers. You think a 1-year-old is carrying a gun screaming "Deaths to Jews"? The media has never been friendlier to anyone or softer on anyone in the Middle East as they are to Israel. And once again, if you think beating and killing civilians, including children, and destroying schools, hospitals and other medical facilities, homes, and arresting international media and destroying their headquarters is defensible, or just, or the correct response to terrorism, or unavoidable, or even good, all while excusing and explaining away Israel's persistent role in ensuring the conflict boils to the point where they must do these things, then you are an immoral person, and you can go ahead and square that with whatever God you believe in.
The innocent people and the victims on both sides far outweigh those who are violent aggressors. Yet I see someone like gvitaly paint dead Palestinian children as secret soldiers and paint Israel as the provider of clean water and a case of a "few bad apples." It's disgusting honestly. Defending the many innocent Israel people living in fear is possible without excusing the actions of their government. Why is it any more honourable to defend the Israeli government than it is to defend Hamas?
Last edited by PepsiFree; 05-18-2021 at 04:47 PM.
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lol - and the smear of anti semitism is disgusting.
As a person of Jewish heritage myself I find it gross that inevitably some people equate criticism of the state of Israel with anti-Semitism.
And...I think it has to be mentioned at least every 20 posts or so that when we're talking about the government of Israel vs. Hamas it's not good guy vs. bad guy. Generally speaking they're both bad actors.
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As a person of Jewish heritage myself I find it gross that inevitably some people equate criticism of the state of Israel with anti-Semitism.
And...I think it has to be mentioned at least every 20 posts or so that when we're talking about the government of Israel vs. Hamas it's not good guy vs. bad guy. Generally speaking they're both bad actors.
I appreciate your posts and your opinions on this. It is true this is emotional for me because of the deaths of children. I just can't...
Much of my education on justice and human rights comes from Jewish people, authors, activists etc. Especially in this issue!
Here's a legit question. If Israel wanting a Jewish state is genocide, isn't the same true of the Palestinians? They show maps with a Palestinian state that encompasses all of Israel and chant for Palestinians freedom from the "river to the sea". If having a country free of an enemy nation is genocide, does promoting the Palestinian cause also not equate to genocide?
Basically, genocide is okay, as long as you are the one with the proper land rights?
As a person of Jewish heritage myself I find it gross that inevitably some people equate criticism of the state of Israel with anti-Semitism.
And...I think it has to be mentioned at least every 20 posts or so that when we're talking about the government of Israel vs. Hamas it's not good guy vs. bad guy. Generally speaking they're both bad actors.
This appears to be a problem when discussing most governments heinous acts. China, Russia…
Why bother to continue to contribute in a way that says "I do not understand this side of things and do not wish to." Learn something, think. Try. This is just another bad take and I truly do not understand why someone as smart as yourself never seems bothered to think critically instead of resorting to this nonsense.
There are aggressors and victims. The Israeli government and Hamas are aggressors. The Israeli and Palestinians are the victims. Centrists, "Liberals," and the right sit around and support one of the aggressors en masse while attempting to erase the largest section of victims. The "far left" is standing up for those victims since others don't care to. It's not the enemy of an enemy, it's innocent people that are being ignored and erased.
Palestinian people do not need to be perfect, or even "morally right" by western standards to deserve to be defended.
The question isn’t why people are upset at the deaths of Palestinians. The question is why the deaths of Palestinians generates way, way, WAY more media attention and political protest in the West than the many thousands of other people around the world who will be killed in asymmetrical conflicts in 2021.
In Ethiopia (1,600 dead in 2020) and Yemen (19,000). Nigeria (7,300) and the Congo (3,300). Columbia (765) and the Maghreb (6,700). More civilians by far will likely be killed in each of those conflicts this year than in Gaza, and yet the amount of media coverage and activism over those six conflicts combined won’t come anywhere close to what we’re seeing over the deaths in Israel this week.
It can’t just be the fact Israel gets foreign aid from the U.S. So do Ethiopia ($922 million annually), Yemen ($809 million), Columbia ($800 million), and Nigeria ($793 million).
So what is it about Israel that makes it so much worse in the eyes of so many activists than any of those other countries?
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Last edited by CliffFletcher; 05-18-2021 at 05:32 PM.
Yes, Hamas is a terrorist organization. Yes, Hamas fires rockets. Yes, Hamas hold terrible views. Yes, Hamas are not to be defended. How many times does this need to be brought up? How many people are actually defending Hamas from a moral view? If people are, quote them and address it. The "people are doing this!" thing is meaningless. Quote and reply. What most people are doing in regards to Hamas are giving practical explanations for why they do what they do. This is different from defending them. When people bring up something critical of Hamas, nobody goes "Yeah but they're actually really good for all these unrelated reasons!" And yet somehow this complete lack of defence of Hamas is seen as equal to the full-fledged defence of Israel some are undertaking. It's nonsense.
I am sorry, I think this is dead wrong and frankly crap.
In this thread, people are attempting to actually justify Hamas's actions, by, as you say providing a "practical explanation" for what they do. Its wrong. This is defending their actions- you don't get to seperate out the morality of an action when you provide justification for why it occurs. You can kick and scream that you aren't defending it, but you are.
Hamas is a terrorists' organization. When they commit an atrocity, throwing it on Israel's boots is crap.
Israel has committed war crimes. When they commit an atrocity, throwing it on Hamas' boots is crap.
Hamas being terrorist and Israel war crimes - neither is an excuse for the other, and they are not mutually exclusive.
Here's a legit question. If Israel wanting a Jewish state is genocide, isn't the same true of the Palestinians? They show maps with a Palestinian state that encompasses all of Israel and chant for Palestinians freedom from the "river to the sea". If having a country free of an enemy nation is genocide, does promoting the Palestinian cause also not equate to genocide?
Basically, genocide is okay, as long as you are the one with the proper land rights?
You just labeled all the Palestine people as an enemy nation you realize right? Just want to make sure you know these colours are showing.
To answer your question, actions matter more than words.
Israel is actively relocating people, Palestine isn't.
Sort of like murder, If I say I am going to murder someone, it matter a little less then if I actually put a sword through someone's heart.
