Israel And Apartheid?

Do you support the butchery committed by Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, et al.?

 

Mkay. Then please tell us what the area was considered to be between say 70AD and 1947? Who were the people who lived there for all that time? Why is it considered morally justified for European/slavic ashkenazis to launch a “resettlement” of the area, starting in the 1930s, and to drive out or kill anyone who refuses to leave? Why is it not morally acceptable for those previous inhabitants to attempt to fight back using somewhat similar techniques/terrorism as were done to them?

Does the “burnt offering” of WWII absolve those ashkenazis of all sin forevermore and mean they can blamelessly slaughter anyone they want and take anything they want?

Western civilization has evolved norms of decency over the millennia. Barbarism is barbarism regardless of who commits it. If you want to play the “some are more equal than others” game, then realize that, one day, you may end up on the downside of that view and be treated accordingly. The way things are going, the rest of the world is getting pretty fed up with what’s going on in the Middle East and with only one people being above all allowable criticism. Slaughter and indignation as an ethnic strategy is wearing thin and is costing what sympathy and goodwill decent people had for Israel.

 

Palestine is a territorial designation. The name probably came from the Philistines from Biblical times, and Palestina became the name of the Roman province formerly known as Judea in the second century after suppression of the Jewish Bar Kochba revolt, when Rome made an effort to resettle non-Jews there. It came under Ottoman rule, joined with Syria, and after the defeat of the Ottomans by the British in World War I, and after 1923 was administered by Great Britain under the British Mandate for Palestine. Even at that time, however, there was a dispute between Arab and Jewish politicians as to whether or not it should be followed by the letters E.I., standing for "Land of Israel". The British agreed to the latter, to accommodate Jewish nationalists. As far as ethnicity is concerned, a majority of the population identifying as "Palestinian" seems to be genetically predominantly Canaanite/Philistine in origin.The Genomic History of the Bronze Age Southern Levant PMC ; The splendid tapestry: How DNA reveals truths, ancient & lasting And of course linguistically and religiously Arabic and Muslim.

Yes, Hamas is pushing "from the river to the sea"--no room for Jews. Hamas' hostage-taking move started this conflict, in the expectation that an over-the-top response by Israel would alienate world opinion. The result exceeded their expectations--and then some! A two-state solution would seem to be the only rational solution, but is now probably a pipe dream.

 

In the period you specify Jews lived in that territory along with other peoples. The majority of Jews in Israel are not Ashkenazim, but Mizrahim and Sephardim. Israel is the legitimate homeland of the Jewish people, and to pretend that "European Ashkenaazim" stole it from someone else is absurd to anyone who actually knows the history of the place. You neglect to mention the Jews expelled from every Arab nation in 1947-8, who all landed in Israel as refugees having had all their property stolen. You ignore that the Arabs there have been murdering Jews as systematic policy since 1918 and you didn't mention Amin al-Husseini, without whom the 20th century history of the territory cannot be understood. One key to understanding this conflict is to stop listening to lying Arab propaganda!

 

Nothing I have ever said or written can honestly be construed as support for Hamas, Hezbollah, or Houthi rebels.
I support Palestinian rights to self-determination and right of return, and Israel's right to exist pursuant to U.N. resolution 242, without the slightest cognitive dissonance.

 

Well, to be clear, if you support Israel's right to exist then you cannot be accused of the antisemitism which is often coupled with support for the "Palestinian" cause. Be aware though that a "right of return" to Israeli territory is not possible, as they would outnumber the Jews, and Israel would be voted out of existence. Self-determination could be achieved if they're present in some Arab country and can vote. I mean in reality most Arabs do not have self-determination, but live under authoritarian rule. So it's not clear why this becomes so crucial for the "Palestinians" but not for Iraqis, Syrians, Egyptians, Yemeni, etc.

It is quite alright to disagree with Israeli policy. It is when people demonize Israel and Jews, make up mythology to turn them into devils, and so on, that many of us object to. And for the past 2 years it's become tedious listening to people complain about every IDF action but say nothing about what the 3 aforementioned terrorist jihadi groups are doing.

 

We are told that wherever Jews go in this world, they are met with antisemitism. Why is that? How can it be? Everyone just hates you because of your ethnic-religion? Given all of the efforts that have gone into fighting, hell even outlawing, antisemitism, how does it seem to persist everywhere? What is the cause?

 

Israel, the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid in history (over $300 billion), possesses approximately 1,650 tanks, 3,000 APC's, 1,500 artillery, 611 F-16's (the largest fleet outside of the US), 146 attack helicopters, the most modern air defense systems, at least 90 nuclear weapons and the capability to rapidly manufacture at least 200 more (and the ICBMs and cruise missiles to deliver them), a $10.5 million a day subsidy from the US, and a permanent fig leaf in the form of a standing veto by one of the permanent members of the UN Security Council to cover all of their crimes against humanity.
Gaza is the world's largest concentration camp, with no air force, no armor, and no ADA, and is armed only with home-made glorified bottle rockets and 1940's-era Kalashnikov's and RPG-7's.
Is Hammas repugnant? Certainly. But Israel, which has an overwhelming preponderance of force, is obligated by the Geneva Conventions, and their wilful and flagrant refusal to comply with the Conventions and the UN Charter despite their air, naval, and ground supremacy makes their conduct at least equally obscene, perhaps even more so...
ESPECIALLY SINCE THEIR GENOCIDE IS BEING BANKROLLED BY MY TAX DOLLARS!

 

That's certainly a complex subject, with multiple causes, but the phenomenon is certainly real. I wouldn't go so far as to say "everywhere", but the perennial reality of the hatred and persecution is difficult to deny. Off-hand, I'd say that there are at least a dozen factors involved: (1) human nature fearing/ disliking "the other" perceived as "different"; (2) a Jewish strategy of preserving separate identity in the face of persecution by embracing a distinctive religious and tradition , thereby intensifying distrust by outsiders; (3) the expulsion of Jews from their homeland in Palestine, following an unsuccessful revolt against Roman imperialists, making them a "people without a country" and potential perceived "intruders" in new homelands--an early refugee crisis; (4) the rise of rival Abrahamic religions (Christianity and Islam) viewing Jews as abusers of their respective founders, Jesus (Himself a Jew) and Muhammad; (5) the subsequent "ghettoization" of Jewish populations during and after the Middle Ages; (6) channelization of Jewish occupational opportunities into finance and commerce, making them a perceived economic threat to non-Jews; (7) the remarkable achievements and prominence of Jews --far beyond their numbers--in science, scholarship, the arts, and entertainment, as well as business and banking-- thereby increasing the perceived threat to non-Jews; (8) the success of Zionists in obtaining British and American support for a homeland in Palestine after World War II; (9) refusal of Palestinian Arab and Israeli politicians to accept a two-state solution to control of Palestine; (10) experience of the Six Day war and its aftermath in reinforcing mutual distrust between Israeli and Palestinian communities; (11) rise of a network of terrorist sponsored by Iran, committed to Israel's extinction; (12) a human tendency to overgeneralize, and project the wrongdoings of a few members of category--e.g., Netanyahu and his right wing Isreali settler constituency--onto a whole people, despite obvious opposition from others of the same category.

 

Every nation/ethnicity seems to have at least some sort of diaspora. Another widely distributed one that immediately comes to mind are philippinos. Yet no diaspora seems to be, or claims to be, so universally hard done by their various hosts.

Of the 12 reasons you’ve listed above all but 2 of them were things that were done by others. The two items attributed to Jews were laudatory. They’re just the perpetual victims it seems, yet so remarkably resilient people in the face of adversity imposed upon them by defective or deficient non-Jews.

 

Why should Gaza be armed with anything with which to fight Israel? They had the opportunity to build a prosperous society on territory full of potential and squandered it all on the rockets made from pieces of their water system! Their psychopathic perennial insistence that Israel must be annihilated certainly cannot be ignored as a factor in determining outcomes for them.

 

"They" aren't a monolith. There were/are some really outstanding Jews like Jesus, Rabbi Hillel, Saints Paul and James, Flavius Josephus, Einstein, Spinoza, Felix Mendelssohn, Steven Spielberg, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Elena Kagan, Jonas Salk, Volodymyr Zelensky, Milton Freidman, Janet Yellin, etc. And some rotten apples, like Jeffrey Epstein, Bernie Madoff, Karl Marx, and, of course, Benjamin Netanyahu. Also plenty of ordinary folks who seem as decent and likeable as my fellow Christians in Sunday school, including several close friends and a couple of college roommates. Much the same could be said about virtually any other racial, religious or ethnic group I can think of, including Muslims, at least the ones from my local mosque. When it comes to sheer evil, it's hard to top Hitler & co, and some of our current so-called "Christian" politicians who lack the empathy God gave a rat.

I think it's true that the Jews have been more "hard done" by non-Jews--much of it, as I said, resulting from getting on the wrong side of Christians and Muslims who together make up over half of the world's population. The "blood guilt" text of Matthew 27 seemed to give permission to hold "the Jews" responsible for Jesus' death, and in John 8:44, Jesus tells them their real father is "the Devil". I wouldn't call the authors of these passages "Antisemites", since they were ex-Jews themselves, Matthew being the most Jewish of the gospels, and John being a member of the Johannine Jewish sect that was kicked out of the synagogue late in the first century. Anyhow, the subsequent history of mistreatment of Jews--ghettos, pogroms, etc.--is a matter of historical record, as is the Holocaust. So you think "they" must have done something to deserve it?

 

Q. Why should Israel be given anything with which to bomb Gaza and starve Palestinian children? A. AIPAC is currently a more formidable lobbying group than anything pro-Palestinians have to offer in the U.S.--especially given the alliance between Zionists and the Christian religious right, who want Israel to triumph until Christ comes again and the Jews convert to Christianity-- or else!

 

Their own history, as recorded in the OT is one of genocide. Their god tells them they are entitled to take whatever they want and to destroy or enslave in the process. So yes, I do strongly suspect they may have done something to deserve it.

As to the last 2k years where they seem to have been hated no matter where they went, perhaps a bit of genuine humility and actual assimilation into the host cultures, rather than maintaining a hostile separate identity from their hosts, would have precluded their hosts’ resentment. I have travelled all over the world and met people from very different cultures. I always got on well by seeking commonalities, by respecting the hosts culture and place, and by being thankful for anything they wanted to share. I most certainly did not attempt to maintain separateness or, worse yet, superiority.

As to the “sheer evil” of hitler and co.; it was “judea” who declared war on Germany in 1933 (well before ‘39) and who called for the extermination of the Germans first. But, as it is now with the Palestinians and was then for the germans in Danzig, defending oneself from extermination by Yahweh’s chosen is simply not allowed.

 

What "certainly cannot be ignored" is Israel's history of ethnic cleansing and genocide from 1947 to the present day (actually from 1939 onward if you take into account Zionist terrorist militias like Irgun Zvai Leumi and the Lohamei Herut Israel). Hammas didn't simply appear out of nowhere like Venus popping out of her shell; they are the logical result of more than 86 years of State-sponsored brutality, oppression, and dispossession. The conflict cannot be understood independent of the context which gave rise to it.

 

That genocide supposedly happened some time ago (like over 3,000 years), if it happened at all. There is no clear and convincing archaeological evidence for it, at least on the scale indicated by the Bible.
https://www.science.org/content/article/ancient-dna-reveals-fate-mysterious-canaanites
The Canaanite genocide - a historical perspective | Way Forward
What if the Bible’s Violent Conquest of Canaan never actually happened? - Pastor Adam Ericksen
It's the founding myth of the Jewish people, and still serves to justify claims by right wing religious zealots for Israel's rights to the region, but I don't take them seriously. We Chickasaws were displaced from our traditional homeland and dumped here in Oklahoma by Andy Jackson and his white settler constituency who wanted our land for themselves a couple of centuries ago, but I'm not one to hold a grudge or lay claim to Mississippi, Alabama and Tennessee.

My, my. From what Nazi internet side did you get the notion that "the Jews" declared war on the Germans in 1933 and threatened the Germans with extermination, or did you make it up yourself? !933, eh.? That's when Hitler came to power as Chancellor of Germany. Of course, he claimed that the Communists, like everything else, were controlled by Jews and were responsible for the Reichstag fire in the same year.Hence the line in the Horst Wessel Lied about "Comrades shot by the Red Front and reactionaries". The Jews" at the time had no national organization, and if some Jew threatened extinction of Germany, (s)he must have been highly delusional. Lay off the Nazi propaganda. It already may have affected your brain!

 

Exactly. Palestinians have rejected every single land deal for the past 70 years. At any time they could have accepted a deal and chose to live in peace and prosperity. There was always enough land as most of it was undeveloped and unsettled by anyone, contrary to the false misleading early maps of 'Palestine' that the terrorist supporters want you to believe. A people literally invented by muslims and romans to OCCUPY the land of the Jews that they murdered and drove away 700 years ago. Hatred and eradication of Jews is their whole identity and origin.

These SHAMEFUL CLUELESS HYPOCRITES that insist there is a genocide in Gaza, they are participating in the biggest terrorist propaganda lie in western civilization. Like this stupid troll Greta Thunberg, posting images of a starving Israeli hostage while saying it was a Palestinian hostage. Warning a population that you are about to attack their terrorists is not a genocidal act. Sending millions of tons of aid into a hostile terrorist state that want's you dead is not a genocidal act. A terrorist state that shoots it's own people and steals their aid and blames it on Israeli soldiers while mainstream media regurgitate these terrorist lies with no accountability. Teaching their kids hatred and annihilation of their neighbors, and having them grow up to be terrorists that they religiously and fanatically support, and put all of their resources into attacking Israel... THAT is the definition of genocidal.

 

Ah yes, I doubt the veracity of the narrative; therefore I’m a nazi or at least susceptible to their propaganda. Yeah, that rhetorical tool no longer holds the power it once had. The world sees the inhumanity of Israel’s behavior. The world sees that the technique of those in the diaspora with the power to do so is to call anyone who notices Israel’s behavior an antisemite and get them cancelled and politically/economically destroyed.

Would you defend the behavior of any other people like you defend Israel? Would you look at any other nations’ own genocidal written history and dismiss it as a “founding myth”? It seems, in western societies, we can examine the sins of any of our own nations’ histories. We can even apply the lens of modern morals and beliefs and judge them even more harshly. More so, we are even encouraged to suffer for the sins of our distant and not so distant ancestors. But one nation alone is blameless. If it is not blameless, then its crimes are justified or discounted. Interesting how that works.

 

Shill just a little bit harder, Shlomo. You’ve almost got me convinced.

 

Arabs have been attacking Jews there for a long time, yet you think the Jews have no right to self-defense, based on what Christian nuts in the USA think? What the Arab sides desires is the elimination of Israel and the anniilation of all Jews there. That is what one is supporting by supporting the vile jihadis, who, by their own words, intend to come after us as well.