The Present Israel-Palestine Conflict Thread

[MaxQue]

Are some people not aware of the fairly severe persecution of Jewish people across Europe from groups of Muslim fundamentalists? As Jewish people fled Sweden's third city the city Mayor stated that they should make Israel behave better if they wanted to be able to live safely in the city. Just to give an example of what I suspect Ray was alluding to.

Well, I remember similar warnings given to Americans in Europe at the beginning of Irak War. It's constant in history than countries with unpopular foreign policies is having an effect on the life of people linked to them in other countries.

It's sad and distasteful, but we have to live with it. This is a war between two "countries" and, as usual, it spils over to people for those countires in other countries. During Falklands War, I'm pretty than British people and Argentine people were hating each other, even if living in different countries.

It's a terrible side effect, but it's inevitable. And all is worsened by the fact than it's a religious war, let's be honest. Extreme Muslims (Hamas and the other terrorist groups) vs. Extreme Jews (settlers, religious right and theocrats).

I would also argue than the real losers aren't Palestine or Israel, they are the moderates Jews and Muslims, who only want to live in peace in their home, villages and cities.

[MaxQue]

Are some people not aware of the fairly severe persecution of Jewish people across Europe from groups of Muslim fundamentalists? As Jewish people fled Sweden's third city the city Mayor stated that they should make Israel behave better if they wanted to be able to live safely in the city. Just to give an example of what I suspect Ray was alluding to.

I don't think it's entirely fair to say that it's just Muslim fundamentalists. There's a resurgent far-right wing in Europe that has been very happy to take advantage of this anger against Israel to do what they always do.

Through, they don't only hate Jews. They hate anybody who isn't a White Christian Heterosexual person from their country.

[MaxQue]

Depends on the synagogue in question of course. I'm sure there's many Reform ones that aren't comfortable with many of Israel's actions, but there are many others that are pretty Likudnik in their outlook, and protesting one of those isn't anti-Semitic. The Israeli embassy obviously is a more relevant thing to protest, but unless you live in the capital of the city that's not an option.

It's kind of like protesting a church that's quite outspoken against homosexuality and gay marriage. That's fair game. Protesting just some random church without even looking up their position on gay marriage on the other hand would be dumb.

Molotov cocktails have been thrown at synagogues. This is no longer a protest, this is the opening stage of a pogrom.

http://www.thestar.com/news/world/2014/07/20/propalestinian_youth_attack_two_synagogues_in_paris_suburbs.html

"The opening stage of a pogrom" is excessive rhetoric, but, indeed, that's concerning, like was the success of the French "humorist" Dieudonné, whose "shows" are hours of anti-semitic ramblings.

Those events are not proving than there will be pogroms, soon. It's proving than French integration model is a momumental failure (who would have thought than dumping poor immigrants in suburbs consisting of acres of badly maintained concrete towers, poor transportation links,no role models and community leaders consisting of gang leaders and shady religious extremists was a bad idea?). Rioting is common there, they only need a reason.

The anti-semitic leaders needs to be prosecuted under the fullest exted of the law and clear actions taken by government to bring back the "cités" into the first world (the poorest black neighbourhood of the USA is in better shape than the "cités").

[MaxQue]

The former director of the American Jewish Congress has offered his take in Politico, though I doubt Ray Goldfield, dead0man and others will like what he has to say.

Surely he is one of those "self-hating Jews".

[MaxQue]

France's Jews Flee As Rioters Burn Paris Shops, Attack Synagogue

You must be logged in to read this quote.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/07/22/france-jewish-shops-riot_n_5608612.html

One must take care in calling such things "understandable".

Again, this is Paris' cités. Policemen kill one of them, they burn police cars and riot for weeks. The issue is that this place is totally out of control and the government isn't interested to solve it at all, so we have outbursts like that every few years.

[MaxQue]

So where does this "Israel is the only democracy in the region" line come from?  I keep hearing it.  Did Lebanon cease to exist at some point or something?

Freedom House doesn't consider Lebanon a democracy. However Libya and Turkey are in the general region, and are considered democracies.

Freedom House is literally funded by the CIA, in fairness. They also consider our puppet banana republic in Bogota freer than the Bolivarian democracies.

Are you seriously suggesting Ecuador/Venezuela are freer than Colombia?

I would consider Ecuador and Colombia pretty much equal. There is significant issues in Colombia (FARC, far-right paramilitaries, vote rigging in areas controlled by them, President being able to fire any elected mayor for any reason and replace it by whoever he wants...)

[MaxQue]

So where does this "Israel is the only democracy in the region" line come from?  I keep hearing it.  Did Lebanon cease to exist at some point or something?

Freedom House doesn't consider Lebanon a democracy. However Libya and Turkey are in the general region, and are considered democracies.

Freedom House is literally funded by the CIA, in fairness. They also consider our puppet banana republic in Bogota freer than the Bolivarian democracies.

Are you seriously suggesting Ecuador/Venezuela are freer than Colombia?

I would consider Ecuador and Colombia pretty much equal. There is significant issues in Colombia (FARC, far-right paramilitaries, vote rigging in areas controlled by them, President being able to fire any elected mayor for any reason and replace it by whoever he wants...)

I would agree that areas in Colombia that are under FARC control are very not free, which drags the country down, but it seems odd to me to compare a country where governments can be and are sometimes defeated and replaced by democratic means (Colombia) with a country that has a dictator who survived a coup attempt in 2010 and has imprisoned journalists (Ecuador) and say the latter is freer. I guess it can depend on how you count areas that are part of the country on paper but in practice are outside of the government's control.

Dictator is a strong word for Correa. I would personally go for autocrat. Elections are still reasonably fair (Correa isn't losing because he is popular), despite various troubling issues about journalists, free press and human rights.

In Colombia, FARC doesn't control much land anymore (and most of it is empty jungle), I would argue than the far-right paramilitaries are more of an issue.

In short, in Ecuador, the issue is government, in Colombia, that's mostly FARC and far-right militias (but I must stress the unwillingess of the government to tackle the far-right militias). And I don't see how appointing a replacement mayor is democratic.

[MaxQue]

Your trolling is low-grade. What's wrong with a Koran?

It's not a Tanakh.

[MaxQue]

Hamas being wrong doesn't mean than Israel is right.

[MaxQue]

Netanyahu:
1. I will never let a two-state solution happen
2. I will never let Israel become a binational state
3. I will never give up any land west of the Jordan River

http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-finally-speaks-his-mind/

Netanyahu didn't say any of those things. That article is massively dumb.

He just said that any Palestinian state would have to be demilitarized. He's always said that.

Well, that's totally unacceptable. Would any sane country would accept being demilitatized while it has an hostile country on its border?

[MaxQue]

le sigh

Are you really surprised?