Australia, Canada, and the USA (among others) are countries created by one set of people, who were mostly Christian, on land that previously belonged to another set of people. If I call for "a...
Exemplary
Saying Israel has no right to exist, or calling for a Palestine from the river to the sea, or should be wiped off the map is anti-semitic
Australia, Canada, and the USA (among others) are countries created by one set of people, who were mostly Christian, on land that previously belonged to another set of people. If I call for "a free Australia from Pacific Ocean to Indian Ocean", am I being anti-Christian - or am I just expressing a desire for the indigenous people of Australia to have their freedom and self-determination?
Israel and its supporters like to conflate anti-Israel sentiment with anti-semitism so they can claim to be victims even while they're oppressing people. Let's not buy into their propaganda.
There are a few people here who'd like to argue that point... but let's not get off-track! One can not equate a country with a religion. If I express an opinion against a government or a country,...
Australia is not a Christian nation
There are a few people here who'd like to argue that point... but let's not get off-track!
One can not equate a country with a religion. If I express an opinion against a government or a country, that is not the same as expressing an opinion against a religion. No matter how much Israel calls itself a Jewish country, it is not the religion of Judaism, nor is it the followers of that religion. Expressing an opinion about how the country of Israel conducts itself is not antisemitic, because it is neither a negative opinion about the religion of Judaism, nor is it a negative opinion about the followers of Judaism.
You can't fall into Israel's trap of letting them dictate what we can and can not say about them.
And that's exactly what this CNN commentator did when calling for a Palestine from the river to the sea, a popular PLO slogan from many decades ago, whether or not he is willing to admit it.
I'm reminded of a recent fuss about one of our politicians getting up in Parliament and talking about the "final solution" with regard to immigration. Everyone got up in arms and accused him of directly quoting the Nazis. Of course, noone bothered to understand the fuller context: "The final solution to the immigration problem is, of course, a popular vote. We don't need a plebiscite to cut immigration numbers [...] What we do need a plebiscite for is to decide who comes here." It's not quite the "final solution" everyone was outraged about (that said: he is a rabid racist and wants to ban all Muslim immigrants).
People don't own certain phrases. Just because one group uses a phrase as a slogan, that doesn't mean that everyone who uses that phrase is aligning themselves with that group. Otherwise, noone else could ever use the phrase "my struggle" without being branded a Nazi.
It's ridiculous to consider some phrases blackbanned for all time because they were used by bad people.
The national of Israel is a nation with many victims. And a nation with many oppressors. The two are not mutually exclusive.
No. Of course not.
However, these days, Israel is much more the opressor than the opressed. I don't see Israel suffering from a foreign power invading its land and occupying that invaded land and pushing the Israeli people off that occupied land. I don't see Israel having someone else building a big concrete wall through its territory. I don't see some other country building settlements on Israel's territory. I don't see the Israeli people starving because someone has blockaded them in and blocked all trade to and from their territory.
Israelis living near the Gaza strip are victimized by rocket fire.
Oh noes! Desperate starving people are doing desperate things! Maybe if Israel would let them fucking eat, they might be a bit less hostile.
I don't disagree with too much of what you said as far as what the Israeli government is doing that exacerbates their tensions with their neighbors (especially the humanitarian crisis it's...
Maybe if Israel would let them fucking eat, they might be a bit less hostile.
I don't disagree with too much of what you said as far as what the Israeli government is doing that exacerbates their tensions with their neighbors (especially the humanitarian crisis it's occupying and administrating), but this is a point I have to push back on. People (especially politicians) very often like to blame an "other" for their own failure to provide for their people. Populism is a thing for a reason, right? I'm not sure that without the blockade that Palestinians would be peachy and well off, or substantially less economically desperate.
Still, the blockade (while diplomatically doing Israel no favors) is kind of an ethically "meh" point to sit on. Even if you're a pacifist, most people allow for ethical exceptions when your people are being attacked. Hamas fires rockets at Israel, and creates a regular source of terror. Palestinian authorities are either too weak or complacent to stop it. So Israel sees it as its responsibility since no one else will or can. Maybe the problem was in part created by the Israeli government continuing to keep the Palestinian government too weak to do anything about what's happening in its own borders. It seems also plausible that the Palestinian government didn't want to do much, believing it to be an acceptable behavior to have people using its territory to launch missiles across the wall.
At any rate, I'm not sure this is a one-sided thing against Israel. Israel definitely has more power in the dynamic, but that dynamic is closer to an occupying force (that gets resisted bitterly, additionally for every atrocity imagined or real) than a strong police force (trusted to enforce a rule of law). There are clear limits to what Israel can be expected to do.
Regardless of how bad things might be without the blockade, they're certainly worse with the blockade. Maybe the problem was also in part created by the Israeli government when it stepped beyond...
I'm not sure that without the blockade that Palestinians would be peachy and well off, or substantially less economically desperate.
Regardless of how bad things might be without the blockade, they're certainly worse with the blockade.
Maybe the problem was in part created by the Israeli government continuing to keep the Palestinian government too weak to do anything about what's happening in its own borders.
Maybe the problem was also in part created by the Israeli government when it stepped beyond its own borders and took land that it was not entitled to, thus cramming the Palestinian population into a smaller territory - and then further encroaching even on that. It's not like Israel has ever done itself any favours. It has invaded, it has occupied, it has reduced the Palestinian people to refugees in their own territory.
Yeah, the Israeli government certainly has engaged in a bit of column-a, column-b belligerency when it comes to its treatment of Palestinian territory, and its argument that "well, other countries...
Yeah, the Israeli government certainly has engaged in a bit of column-a, column-b belligerency when it comes to its treatment of Palestinian territory, and its argument that "well, other countries got to do it" doesn't endear itself to me as a moral high ground.
All I'm saying is that I've seen this song and dance before when it comes to a weak regime blaming an outside power for all its problems, regardless of how true they all are. You blame the outsider because it stands a chance of uniting your people for you against them (and thus, not against you). Hell, make shit up if you have to. The Palestinian leadership is currently in a position where they don't have to make shit up, but I do remember a time when things weren't as clear cut and their leaders were more in the habit. Their people weren't significantly better off, and they were still peddling the old line of how the people were going to get their land back, land their grandparents owned but they themselves hadn't seen in their lives. Land that was gone.
The Palestinian leadership selling that lie was irresponsible at best.
I think if anyone's doing minimizing here, it's you. Tell me, how many Palestinians did Israel kill and how many Israelis did Palestinians in the, say, last two decades? Funny enough, only one of...
I think if anyone's doing minimizing here, it's you. Tell me, how many Palestinians did Israel kill and how many Israelis did Palestinians in the, say, last two decades?
The Israelis that live there have a right to a peaceful life just as anyone else. Just as Palestinians do.
Funny enough, only one of those groups seems to have the vast, vast majority of their population live in peace.
Wow, that is such an impressive strawman bullshit question I'm convinced you have no intention of having a good faith discussion and I will leave it at that.
Wow, that is such an impressive strawman bullshit question I'm convinced you have no intention of having a good faith discussion and I will leave it at that.
I know it's impressively badly worded, but the point @Nmg seems to be making (in an unhelpful tone), is that having a victim-off to measure who the bigger victim is doesn't really change the fact...
I know it's impressively badly worded, but the point @Nmg seems to be making (in an unhelpful tone), is that having a victim-off to measure who the bigger victim is doesn't really change the fact that both sides have legitimate grievances about the other. The point that this discussion often breaks down, as it seems to have in this case as well, is in the failure of each side to recognize the grievances of the one they don't empathize with as legitimate.
I tend to view it as a situation in which each side has a lot of emotional baggage that's preventing them from trusting the other, and that's further exacerbated by the power dynamic making it so that one state is too comparatively powerful to see any need to give anything up, and the other is too weak to enforce any agreement even if one could be reached.
No. However, I am also not going to minimise the victimhood of people who have been continually pushed out of their own territory for generations, and who are forced to live as refugees in their...
Are you seriously minimizing the victimhood of people who have to deal with literal missiles falling down on their heads?
No. However, I am also not going to minimise the victimhood of people who have been continually pushed out of their own territory for generations, and who are forced to live as refugees in their own land.
You say that Israelis and Palestinians have a right to a peaceful life, but I don't think having your land invaded, occupied by another government, and then being forced to live as refugees counts as "peaceful".
Aren't you forgetting something? A little thing called the Six Day War in 1967, which led to another wave of Palestinians becoming refugees? That's only 50 years ago. Look around you: there are...
That being said, it happened 70 years ago.
Aren't you forgetting something? A little thing called the Six Day War in 1967, which led to another wave of Palestinians becoming refugees? That's only 50 years ago. Look around you: there are lots of people alive today who were alive 50 years ago. How old are your parents, for example? That's not ancient history.
So why are you pretending like most modern day Palestinians experience refugeeship first hand?
We're not talking about some long-ago ancestors. In a lot of cases, this refugee status started only one or two generations ago.
Imagine your grandparents' home state was invaded 50 years ago. Imagine your grandparents, along with hundreds of thousands of other people, were pushed out of their homes at that time. Imagine your grandparents ended up in a refugee camp in a nearby area - with nothing but the clothes on their back, and a couple of children in tow (one of those kids is going to grow up to become your father). They were living in tents, and surviving on handouts. How are they supposed to build a life from there? How can they get a job? How do they earn money? How do they get a home? How do they send their kids to school? What would your father's life be like growing up in that refugee camp? How would he get an education? How would he get a job? How would he break the cycle? How would he get out of that refugee camp? Then your father has a baby: you. How do you get out of the refugee camp that your parents and grandparents have lived in for the past 50 years?
Members of the Palestinian diaspora have no claim to the villages that their ancestors inhabited,
I suggest you be very careful with this line of argument. You're about to negate Israel's own justification for taking Palestinian land... ;)
Fine. I'll continue for the people reading. Not for you. Because people need to understand the truth, and not see just Israel's self-serving propaganda. Israel stole the Palestinians' land and is...
And it's not just about you or I, but those who read this thread who don't comment.
Fine. I'll continue for the people reading. Not for you. Because people need to understand the truth, and not see just Israel's self-serving propaganda.
That being said, the current status quo, even though it is technically in conflict, is actually a highly stable state.
Israel stole the Palestinians' land and is still stealing it. There is no way that's stable.
Israel looks like it won't stop until it has dispossessed every single Palestinian and has claimed the whole of the region it believes it's entitled to because Jewish people lived there thousands of years ago. Remember when you said "members of the Palestinian diaspora have no claim to the villages that their ancestors inhabited"? Well the same applies to the Jews - but they think they have special dispensation because a holy book written thousands of years go promised that land to them. Fuck real people - they've got a scripture on their side!
This is the Israelis systematically taking the whole of Palestine - either by armed conquest or by illegal settlement. That is NOT stable.
So until something changes, no progress can be made.
Exactly. Israel has to stop taking land illegally. Israel has to stop blockading the Gaza strip. Israel has to give back the land it stole 50 years ago. Israel shares in any culpability for the current situation. They are not poor innocent victims; at the very least, they're giving as good as they're getting. In fact, it's hard to make any argument that the Palestinians can even deal with Israel on an equal basis, given how much Israel has stomped them underfoot for the past 50 years.
Israel is an evil country.
And, if you dare to accuse me of anti-semitism... I'm going to let loose with both barrels. I am not against the Jewish religion, and I will not discriminate against Jewish people. But, like North Korea, China, and others, the Israeli government is an evil regime that is killing and dispossessing people. Saying this is not anti-semitic, it is anti-Israel.
Illegal settlements. Israel stole land 50 years ago, and is now placing settlements on that land illegally, in the hope that the world will see this illegal occupation as a fait accompli and not...
The international community considers the establishment of Israeli settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories illegal under international law, because of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 which states: "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies."
Numerous UN resolutions have stated that the building and existence of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights are a violation of international law, including UN Security Council resolutions in 1979, 1980, and 2016.
Israel stole land 50 years ago, and is now placing settlements on that land illegally, in the hope that the world will see this illegal occupation as a fait accompli and not ask them to give the land back.
Parts of the barrier are built on land seized from Palestinians, or between Palestinians and their lands. In a 2009 report, the UN said that the most recent barrier route allocates more segments to be built on the Green Line itself compared to previous draft routes of the barrier. However, in its current route the barrier is annexing 9.5% of the total area of the West Bank to the Israeli side of the barrier.
Your precious Israelis are using "salami tactics" to take over the parts of Palestine they don't already control.
Then how could there be an Arab Israeli minority that serves in the Israeli parliment
That's not quite the same as an independent Palestinian state. It's allowing the dispossessed people to participate in the government that dispossessed them. Big fucking deal. Give them back their land, and let them have their own independent state, rather than having to grovel as a minority in their own home.
Israel has to stop blockading the Gaza strip
No Israeli government will last very long if it tells it's people that they have to deal with terrorism from Gaza.
How does starving the Gazans make them less hostile? Is Israel hoping to eliminate the terrorism by starving the Gazan people to death? That would certainly stop the rockets!
Israeli government is not a regime
A regime (also known as "régime", from the original French spelling) is the form of government or the set of rules, cultural or social norms, etc. that regulate the operation of a government or institution and its interactions with society.
I give up. I might not be wasting your time, but I'm sure as fuck wasting mine. All you want is more opportunities to defend Israel and to wrongly paint them as victims and generous benefactors. Find another patsy. I'm not playing.
This isn't just a "discussion on the internet". This isn't some hypothetical "what if" scenario. Israel is dispossessing and killing real live people - and you are defending it. Immoral actions...
You get a little too angry over discussions on the internet.
This isn't just a "discussion on the internet". This isn't some hypothetical "what if" scenario. Israel is dispossessing and killing real live people - and you are defending it. Immoral actions make me angry, and people defending immoral actions also make me angry.
This is a gross generalization, "Israel and its supporters" implies that there are no Israelis that support the original United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. (Many leftist Israelis support...
Israel and its supporters like to conflate anti-Israel sentiment with anti-semitism so they can claim to be victims even while they're oppressing people. Let's not buy into their propaganda.
This is a gross generalization, "Israel and its supporters" implies that there are no Israelis that support the original United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. (Many leftist Israelis support this)
I advise to refrain from using hyperbolic statements like "Let's not buy into their propaganda.", because it paints a really simplified version of the truth.
I didn't say "Israelis", I said "Israel" - which, in this context, usually means the government of the country concerned, rather than every single one of its citizens. I understand what it's like...
This is a gross generalization, "Israel and its supporters" implies that there are no Israelis that support the original United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine.
I didn't say "Israelis", I said "Israel" - which, in this context, usually means the government of the country concerned, rather than every single one of its citizens.
I understand what it's like when the government of a country does not reflect all its citizens' views (that's happening right here in Australia, right now). However, the government of a country does speak for that country - and the government of Israel routinely equates criticism of said government to anti-semitism. And many supporters of Israel's policies and actions do the same thing.
It might be a generalisation, but that doesn't stop it being true.
Just as when people say that Australia is taking no action on climate change, I have to wear that, even though most Australians either want action, or are already taking action. Our government does things that make it apparent that the country of Australia (as opposed to its citizenry) is refusing to take action on climate change.
From the Oxford Dictionary definition of "indigenous": The Aboriginal people of Australia refer to themselves as indigenous people. It is commonly accepted around the world that the people who...
Originating or occurring naturally in a particular place; native.
‘the indigenous peoples of Siberia’
The Aboriginal people of Australia refer to themselves as indigenous people. It is commonly accepted around the world that the people who were living in a region when another people come to that region are the indigenous population: Incas, Aztecs, Inuits, Aborginal Australians, Sami, and so on. They're all indigenous peoples.
Israel is a country created by other countries. After WWII, the Allies took land that other people were already living on and set it up for Jewish people to emmigrate to. Of course there are...
Israel is a country recognized by other countries
Israel is a country created by other countries. After WWII, the Allies took land that other people were already living on and set it up for Jewish people to emmigrate to.
Of course there are generations of people who were born and grew up there since then, but I don't think it's entirely outside the realm of fairness to say it shouldn't have been created in the first place. Or at the very least not created there.
It is certainly true that the space for Israel's existence was created by world war I and Britian's end goal of totally dismantling the Ottoman empire. The people who would eventually rise up were...
It is certainly true that the space for Israel's existence was created by world war I and Britian's end goal of totally dismantling the Ottoman empire. The people who would eventually rise up were in the area in large part because investors had been relocating people there for decades (and there was no other really good idea people could agree on where they should go, and certainly not as clear of a religious connection). So the groundwork may have been laid by other countries' antisemitism. Good work, Europe. Real glad you were so successful in purging the hideous people from your midst.
But yeah, Israel definitely wasn't created by other countries. Other countries may have laid that groundwork, but they never pulled the trigger. The Israelis had to do that for themselves, and on the backs of some ethically sketchy maneuvers (which is hardly unique in the history of nations). It is an immigrant heavy country, with a lot of European ancestry, but definitely one of its own creation.
I strongly believe there is a clear, if careful, difference between talking about the sins of a country's past and present, and talking about whether it ought to exist at all. I'm not going to sit here and say that the United States shouldn't exist because it stole land from the native peoples and was based on slavery. It does exist, and its existence is based on stolen land from the natives (as well as attempted genocide), it was built on the foundation of hideous ethical wrongs, and we're kind of stuck with what we got. Unless people looking to claim Israel shouldn't exist also are willing to say that the United States shouldn't exist (and hey, more power to you I guess), we kind of are in a situation where some sins are forgivable but others aren't, and I'm curious what the difference actually is if not at least a little antisemitism.
When did he say this in any way? This is my problem with your line of thinking. You're saying that he must be anti-Semitic because of his opinion on Israel & Palestine. But he never said anything...
but calling for that one state to consist solely of Palestinian Arabs is problematic.
When did he say this in any way? This is my problem with your line of thinking. You're saying that he must be anti-Semitic because of his opinion on Israel & Palestine. But he never said anything to what you're implying and he even qualifies that his idea of freedom includes citizenship for the people of Israel. I'm not sure why you're talking about people calling for a nation of "solely Palestinian Arabs" when I'm not seeing that idea anywhere in this article.
Well we're going to have to agree to disagree. I think words mean what they mean and I won't assume that someone is trying to secretly(?) make an implication that directly contradicts the point of...
Well we're going to have to agree to disagree. I think words mean what they mean and I won't assume that someone is trying to secretly(?) make an implication that directly contradicts the point of their speech. Especially when that person is specifically correcting the assumptions made about the one line in the entire speech. Is your claim is that he's simply lying? How could he prove to you that he wasnt trying to dogwhistle about eradicating jews? I don't understand why that assumption is the only possible answer in your view.
There is another reasonable interpretation, though it's rather deaf to the reasonable interpretation you're pointing out as well. That interpretation is that "Palestine" and "Israel" cannot be...
There is another reasonable interpretation, though it's rather deaf to the reasonable interpretation you're pointing out as well. That interpretation is that "Palestine" and "Israel" cannot be separate. A one-state solution in which a Palestinian is free to move about from the river to the sea, but without necessarily getting into the obvious nonstarter of calling for the extermination of the jews that the line often has historically alluded to.
I see it as a similar sort of gaslighting that white nationalists in the US do when they talk about taking the United States "back." From whom? When you talk to an honest one, they'll tell you, "From the blacks, the Latinos, the gays, and coastal, liberal elites." Talk to a dishonest one and they'll smile at you and say nothing, because you obviously aren't their intended audience.
The reasonable interpretation of one's intent would be the interpretation given by that person. Why would he lie about his intent during the speech? This would be a different discussion if you had...
The reasonable interpretation of one's intent would be the interpretation given by that person. Why would he lie about his intent during the speech? This would be a different discussion if you had some evidence of prior antisemitism from the guy, but to me you're applying a loaded meaning to his words that he did not intend to convey
Yes, as we haven't invented mind reading yet. And you've not yet shared any reason to think that the reporter would be lying (past anti-Semitic views etc) Sure, I don't know how he was being...
Is it though?
Yes, as we haven't invented mind reading yet. And you've not yet shared any reason to think that the reporter would be lying (past anti-Semitic views etc)
Do people not have a responsibility to communicate their views clearly if they intend their positions to be interpreted in a certain way?
Sure, I don't know how he was being unclear though. He made a speech about bringing peace and freedom to the people Israel and Palestine. In said speech he calls for a "free Palestine from river to the sea", which at face meaning, makes sense to say... in a speech about freeing the people of this region from oppression. Then, when it was brought to his attention that a line he used in his speech had a loaded meaning to some, he publicly clarified his statements, by repeating what the original goal of his speech was. So you're calling him a liar, and I'm asking for some evidence to support that claim.
If I said Seig Heil to people on the street and then said, "relax, it's just a nice greeting," would that suddenly make it okay?
This is too big a false equivalency for me to try to bring back to the argument, I'm not sure why you're bringing it up.
1.) its not random, its a speech with a predefined goal and context we can look at
2.) Seig heil is a victory call of Nazis... I just don't know what this has to do with anything
Ignoring the entirety of the religious argument because religions are not states and should not be allowed to be, people get awfully caught up in what 'used to be' prior to the current state when...
Ignoring the entirety of the religious argument because religions are not states and should not be allowed to be, people get awfully caught up in what 'used to be' prior to the current state when they should be more concerned with what is. Where does that stop? Turkey used to be Byzantine/Roman, and before that it was Hellenic. Before that it was something else. Everywhere is full of migrants right back to Africa.
The point should instead be who is living there right now - that is who has the right to live there, for no other reason than they currently do and inherited land rights are downright fucking retarded - we're all human.
And with that there's really only 2 things that need to happen (but won't) - Israel must stop settling outside their own borders, and Palestine must stop attacking Israel. Knowing that there's pretty much no chance of either of those things happening though the pessimist utilitarian in me though says the only way to ensure lasting peace would be to forcibly move the Palestinians to one of the surrounding nations from Egypt to Lebanon, have them effectively die out as a people, and have the single state option with Israel from the coast to the Dead Sea. Because the alternative sees the US lobby start WWIII, whereas the only people who would fight for Palestine don't have control of the nukes.
I think this issue is in sketchy waters for me, because I'm fairly sympathetic to both Israelis and Palestinians in the main. I don't think that criticizing the Israeli government is antisemitic....
I think this issue is in sketchy waters for me, because I'm fairly sympathetic to both Israelis and Palestinians in the main. I don't think that criticizing the Israeli government is antisemitic. I do think calls for "a free Palestine from river to sea" does have echoes of Hamas and of people who want to see the state of Israel dismantled, even if they might not be intended echoes.
I don't buy the argument that Lamont Hill shouldn't have known that echo was foreseeable. It is a phrase that has prominently been used to talk about an end to Israeli existence, and listeners are going to hear that as well as when Farrakhan calls jews "cockroaches." This is a fight Lamont Hill opted into, and CNN has every right to react to an intentionally controversial move by one of its own whatever way it sees fit.
Australia, Canada, and the USA (among others) are countries created by one set of people, who were mostly Christian, on land that previously belonged to another set of people. If I call for "a free Australia from Pacific Ocean to Indian Ocean", am I being anti-Christian - or am I just expressing a desire for the indigenous people of Australia to have their freedom and self-determination?
Israel and its supporters like to conflate anti-Israel sentiment with anti-semitism so they can claim to be victims even while they're oppressing people. Let's not buy into their propaganda.
There are a few people here who'd like to argue that point... but let's not get off-track!
One can not equate a country with a religion. If I express an opinion against a government or a country, that is not the same as expressing an opinion against a religion. No matter how much Israel calls itself a Jewish country, it is not the religion of Judaism, nor is it the followers of that religion. Expressing an opinion about how the country of Israel conducts itself is not antisemitic, because it is neither a negative opinion about the religion of Judaism, nor is it a negative opinion about the followers of Judaism.
You can't fall into Israel's trap of letting them dictate what we can and can not say about them.
I'm reminded of a recent fuss about one of our politicians getting up in Parliament and talking about the "final solution" with regard to immigration. Everyone got up in arms and accused him of directly quoting the Nazis. Of course, noone bothered to understand the fuller context: "The final solution to the immigration problem is, of course, a popular vote. We don't need a plebiscite to cut immigration numbers [...] What we do need a plebiscite for is to decide who comes here." It's not quite the "final solution" everyone was outraged about (that said: he is a rabid racist and wants to ban all Muslim immigrants).
People don't own certain phrases. Just because one group uses a phrase as a slogan, that doesn't mean that everyone who uses that phrase is aligning themselves with that group. Otherwise, noone else could ever use the phrase "my struggle" without being branded a Nazi.
It's ridiculous to consider some phrases blackbanned for all time because they were used by bad people.
No. Of course not.
However, these days, Israel is much more the opressor than the opressed. I don't see Israel suffering from a foreign power invading its land and occupying that invaded land and pushing the Israeli people off that occupied land. I don't see Israel having someone else building a big concrete wall through its territory. I don't see some other country building settlements on Israel's territory. I don't see the Israeli people starving because someone has blockaded them in and blocked all trade to and from their territory.
Oh noes! Desperate starving people are doing desperate things! Maybe if Israel would let them fucking eat, they might be a bit less hostile.
I don't disagree with too much of what you said as far as what the Israeli government is doing that exacerbates their tensions with their neighbors (especially the humanitarian crisis it's occupying and administrating), but this is a point I have to push back on. People (especially politicians) very often like to blame an "other" for their own failure to provide for their people. Populism is a thing for a reason, right? I'm not sure that without the blockade that Palestinians would be peachy and well off, or substantially less economically desperate.
Still, the blockade (while diplomatically doing Israel no favors) is kind of an ethically "meh" point to sit on. Even if you're a pacifist, most people allow for ethical exceptions when your people are being attacked. Hamas fires rockets at Israel, and creates a regular source of terror. Palestinian authorities are either too weak or complacent to stop it. So Israel sees it as its responsibility since no one else will or can. Maybe the problem was in part created by the Israeli government continuing to keep the Palestinian government too weak to do anything about what's happening in its own borders. It seems also plausible that the Palestinian government didn't want to do much, believing it to be an acceptable behavior to have people using its territory to launch missiles across the wall.
At any rate, I'm not sure this is a one-sided thing against Israel. Israel definitely has more power in the dynamic, but that dynamic is closer to an occupying force (that gets resisted bitterly, additionally for every atrocity imagined or real) than a strong police force (trusted to enforce a rule of law). There are clear limits to what Israel can be expected to do.
Regardless of how bad things might be without the blockade, they're certainly worse with the blockade.
Maybe the problem was also in part created by the Israeli government when it stepped beyond its own borders and took land that it was not entitled to, thus cramming the Palestinian population into a smaller territory - and then further encroaching even on that. It's not like Israel has ever done itself any favours. It has invaded, it has occupied, it has reduced the Palestinian people to refugees in their own territory.
Yeah, the Israeli government certainly has engaged in a bit of column-a, column-b belligerency when it comes to its treatment of Palestinian territory, and its argument that "well, other countries got to do it" doesn't endear itself to me as a moral high ground.
All I'm saying is that I've seen this song and dance before when it comes to a weak regime blaming an outside power for all its problems, regardless of how true they all are. You blame the outsider because it stands a chance of uniting your people for you against them (and thus, not against you). Hell, make shit up if you have to. The Palestinian leadership is currently in a position where they don't have to make shit up, but I do remember a time when things weren't as clear cut and their leaders were more in the habit. Their people weren't significantly better off, and they were still peddling the old line of how the people were going to get their land back, land their grandparents owned but they themselves hadn't seen in their lives. Land that was gone.
The Palestinian leadership selling that lie was irresponsible at best.
Wow. At least your honest, I guess.
I think if anyone's doing minimizing here, it's you. Tell me, how many Palestinians did Israel kill and how many Israelis did Palestinians in the, say, last two decades?
Funny enough, only one of those groups seems to have the vast, vast majority of their population live in peace.
Wow, that is such an impressive strawman bullshit question I'm convinced you have no intention of having a good faith discussion and I will leave it at that.
I know it's impressively badly worded, but the point @Nmg seems to be making (in an unhelpful tone), is that having a victim-off to measure who the bigger victim is doesn't really change the fact that both sides have legitimate grievances about the other. The point that this discussion often breaks down, as it seems to have in this case as well, is in the failure of each side to recognize the grievances of the one they don't empathize with as legitimate.
I tend to view it as a situation in which each side has a lot of emotional baggage that's preventing them from trusting the other, and that's further exacerbated by the power dynamic making it so that one state is too comparatively powerful to see any need to give anything up, and the other is too weak to enforce any agreement even if one could be reached.
No. However, I am also not going to minimise the victimhood of people who have been continually pushed out of their own territory for generations, and who are forced to live as refugees in their own land.
You say that Israelis and Palestinians have a right to a peaceful life, but I don't think having your land invaded, occupied by another government, and then being forced to live as refugees counts as "peaceful".
Aren't you forgetting something? A little thing called the Six Day War in 1967, which led to another wave of Palestinians becoming refugees? That's only 50 years ago. Look around you: there are lots of people alive today who were alive 50 years ago. How old are your parents, for example? That's not ancient history.
We're not talking about some long-ago ancestors. In a lot of cases, this refugee status started only one or two generations ago.
Imagine your grandparents' home state was invaded 50 years ago. Imagine your grandparents, along with hundreds of thousands of other people, were pushed out of their homes at that time. Imagine your grandparents ended up in a refugee camp in a nearby area - with nothing but the clothes on their back, and a couple of children in tow (one of those kids is going to grow up to become your father). They were living in tents, and surviving on handouts. How are they supposed to build a life from there? How can they get a job? How do they earn money? How do they get a home? How do they send their kids to school? What would your father's life be like growing up in that refugee camp? How would he get an education? How would he get a job? How would he break the cycle? How would he get out of that refugee camp? Then your father has a baby: you. How do you get out of the refugee camp that your parents and grandparents have lived in for the past 50 years?
I suggest you be very careful with this line of argument. You're about to negate Israel's own justification for taking Palestinian land... ;)
Thank you for sharing your family's story. I now understand your sympathy toward Israel. I'll stop wasting your time with my arguments.
Fine. I'll continue for the people reading. Not for you. Because people need to understand the truth, and not see just Israel's self-serving propaganda.
Israel stole the Palestinians' land and is still stealing it. There is no way that's stable.
Israel looks like it won't stop until it has dispossessed every single Palestinian and has claimed the whole of the region it believes it's entitled to because Jewish people lived there thousands of years ago. Remember when you said "members of the Palestinian diaspora have no claim to the villages that their ancestors inhabited"? Well the same applies to the Jews - but they think they have special dispensation because a holy book written thousands of years go promised that land to them. Fuck real people - they've got a scripture on their side!
This is the Israelis systematically taking the whole of Palestine - either by armed conquest or by illegal settlement. That is NOT stable.
Exactly. Israel has to stop taking land illegally. Israel has to stop blockading the Gaza strip. Israel has to give back the land it stole 50 years ago. Israel shares in any culpability for the current situation. They are not poor innocent victims; at the very least, they're giving as good as they're getting. In fact, it's hard to make any argument that the Palestinians can even deal with Israel on an equal basis, given how much Israel has stomped them underfoot for the past 50 years.
Israel is an evil country.
And, if you dare to accuse me of anti-semitism... I'm going to let loose with both barrels. I am not against the Jewish religion, and I will not discriminate against Jewish people. But, like North Korea, China, and others, the Israeli government is an evil regime that is killing and dispossessing people. Saying this is not anti-semitic, it is anti-Israel.
Illegal settlements.
Israel stole land 50 years ago, and is now placing settlements on that land illegally, in the hope that the world will see this illegal occupation as a fait accompli and not ask them to give the land back.
An illegal wall.
Your precious Israelis are using "salami tactics" to take over the parts of Palestine they don't already control.
That's not quite the same as an independent Palestinian state. It's allowing the dispossessed people to participate in the government that dispossessed them. Big fucking deal. Give them back their land, and let them have their own independent state, rather than having to grovel as a minority in their own home.
How does starving the Gazans make them less hostile? Is Israel hoping to eliminate the terrorism by starving the Gazan people to death? That would certainly stop the rockets!
I give up. I might not be wasting your time, but I'm sure as fuck wasting mine. All you want is more opportunities to defend Israel and to wrongly paint them as victims and generous benefactors. Find another patsy. I'm not playing.
This isn't just a "discussion on the internet". This isn't some hypothetical "what if" scenario. Israel is dispossessing and killing real live people - and you are defending it. Immoral actions make me angry, and people defending immoral actions also make me angry.
This is a gross generalization, "Israel and its supporters" implies that there are no Israelis that support the original United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. (Many leftist Israelis support this)
I advise to refrain from using hyperbolic statements like "Let's not buy into their propaganda.", because it paints a really simplified version of the truth.
I didn't say "Israelis", I said "Israel" - which, in this context, usually means the government of the country concerned, rather than every single one of its citizens.
I understand what it's like when the government of a country does not reflect all its citizens' views (that's happening right here in Australia, right now). However, the government of a country does speak for that country - and the government of Israel routinely equates criticism of said government to anti-semitism. And many supporters of Israel's policies and actions do the same thing.
It might be a generalisation, but that doesn't stop it being true.
Just as when people say that Australia is taking no action on climate change, I have to wear that, even though most Australians either want action, or are already taking action. Our government does things that make it apparent that the country of Australia (as opposed to its citizenry) is refusing to take action on climate change.
I don't think you're using "indigenous" correctly in this case.
How so?
From the Oxford Dictionary definition of "indigenous":
The Aboriginal people of Australia refer to themselves as indigenous people. It is commonly accepted around the world that the people who were living in a region when another people come to that region are the indigenous population: Incas, Aztecs, Inuits, Aborginal Australians, Sami, and so on. They're all indigenous peoples.
How am I using "indigenous" incorrectly?
Israel is a country created by other countries. After WWII, the Allies took land that other people were already living on and set it up for Jewish people to emmigrate to.
Of course there are generations of people who were born and grew up there since then, but I don't think it's entirely outside the realm of fairness to say it shouldn't have been created in the first place. Or at the very least not created there.
It is certainly true that the space for Israel's existence was created by world war I and Britian's end goal of totally dismantling the Ottoman empire. The people who would eventually rise up were in the area in large part because investors had been relocating people there for decades (and there was no other really good idea people could agree on where they should go, and certainly not as clear of a religious connection). So the groundwork may have been laid by other countries' antisemitism. Good work, Europe. Real glad you were so successful in purging the hideous people from your midst.
But yeah, Israel definitely wasn't created by other countries. Other countries may have laid that groundwork, but they never pulled the trigger. The Israelis had to do that for themselves, and on the backs of some ethically sketchy maneuvers (which is hardly unique in the history of nations). It is an immigrant heavy country, with a lot of European ancestry, but definitely one of its own creation.
I strongly believe there is a clear, if careful, difference between talking about the sins of a country's past and present, and talking about whether it ought to exist at all. I'm not going to sit here and say that the United States shouldn't exist because it stole land from the native peoples and was based on slavery. It does exist, and its existence is based on stolen land from the natives (as well as attempted genocide), it was built on the foundation of hideous ethical wrongs, and we're kind of stuck with what we got. Unless people looking to claim Israel shouldn't exist also are willing to say that the United States shouldn't exist (and hey, more power to you I guess), we kind of are in a situation where some sins are forgivable but others aren't, and I'm curious what the difference actually is if not at least a little antisemitism.
When did he say this in any way? This is my problem with your line of thinking. You're saying that he must be anti-Semitic because of his opinion on Israel & Palestine. But he never said anything to what you're implying and he even qualifies that his idea of freedom includes citizenship for the people of Israel. I'm not sure why you're talking about people calling for a nation of "solely Palestinian Arabs" when I'm not seeing that idea anywhere in this article.
Well we're going to have to agree to disagree. I think words mean what they mean and I won't assume that someone is trying to secretly(?) make an implication that directly contradicts the point of their speech. Especially when that person is specifically correcting the assumptions made about the one line in the entire speech. Is your claim is that he's simply lying? How could he prove to you that he wasnt trying to dogwhistle about eradicating jews? I don't understand why that assumption is the only possible answer in your view.
There is another reasonable interpretation, though it's rather deaf to the reasonable interpretation you're pointing out as well. That interpretation is that "Palestine" and "Israel" cannot be separate. A one-state solution in which a Palestinian is free to move about from the river to the sea, but without necessarily getting into the obvious nonstarter of calling for the extermination of the jews that the line often has historically alluded to.
I see it as a similar sort of gaslighting that white nationalists in the US do when they talk about taking the United States "back." From whom? When you talk to an honest one, they'll tell you, "From the blacks, the Latinos, the gays, and coastal, liberal elites." Talk to a dishonest one and they'll smile at you and say nothing, because you obviously aren't their intended audience.
According to your definition of the phrase which differs from its plain meaning
The reasonable interpretation of one's intent would be the interpretation given by that person. Why would he lie about his intent during the speech? This would be a different discussion if you had some evidence of prior antisemitism from the guy, but to me you're applying a loaded meaning to his words that he did not intend to convey
Yes, as we haven't invented mind reading yet. And you've not yet shared any reason to think that the reporter would be lying (past anti-Semitic views etc)
Sure, I don't know how he was being unclear though. He made a speech about bringing peace and freedom to the people Israel and Palestine. In said speech he calls for a "free Palestine from river to the sea", which at face meaning, makes sense to say... in a speech about freeing the people of this region from oppression. Then, when it was brought to his attention that a line he used in his speech had a loaded meaning to some, he publicly clarified his statements, by repeating what the original goal of his speech was. So you're calling him a liar, and I'm asking for some evidence to support that claim.
This is too big a false equivalency for me to try to bring back to the argument, I'm not sure why you're bringing it up.
1.) its not random, its a speech with a predefined goal and context we can look at
2.) Seig heil is a victory call of Nazis... I just don't know what this has to do with anything
Ignoring the entirety of the religious argument because religions are not states and should not be allowed to be, people get awfully caught up in what 'used to be' prior to the current state when they should be more concerned with what is. Where does that stop? Turkey used to be Byzantine/Roman, and before that it was Hellenic. Before that it was something else. Everywhere is full of migrants right back to Africa.
The point should instead be who is living there right now - that is who has the right to live there, for no other reason than they currently do and inherited land rights are downright fucking retarded - we're all human.
And with that there's really only 2 things that need to happen (but won't) - Israel must stop settling outside their own borders, and Palestine must stop attacking Israel. Knowing that there's pretty much no chance of either of those things happening though the pessimist utilitarian in me though says the only way to ensure lasting peace would be to forcibly move the Palestinians to one of the surrounding nations from Egypt to Lebanon, have them effectively die out as a people, and have the single state option with Israel from the coast to the Dead Sea. Because the alternative sees the US lobby start WWIII, whereas the only people who would fight for Palestine don't have control of the nukes.
I think this issue is in sketchy waters for me, because I'm fairly sympathetic to both Israelis and Palestinians in the main. I don't think that criticizing the Israeli government is antisemitic. I do think calls for "a free Palestine from river to sea" does have echoes of Hamas and of people who want to see the state of Israel dismantled, even if they might not be intended echoes.
I don't buy the argument that Lamont Hill shouldn't have known that echo was foreseeable. It is a phrase that has prominently been used to talk about an end to Israeli existence, and listeners are going to hear that as well as when Farrakhan calls jews "cockroaches." This is a fight Lamont Hill opted into, and CNN has every right to react to an intentionally controversial move by one of its own whatever way it sees fit.