The Present Israel-Palestine Conflict Thread

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

4: To the extent that these unicorns are out there, they're going to be found in the Islamist strain of Islam and in number 3 above.

AND it's quite prevalent on the left, especially the European left and others lefties that wish they were European leftists.  I don't know why you guys keep ignoring those specific racists.

I think there's a lot more racism from the ones who are bulldozing away entire villages to establish settlements while. Zionism is, fundamentally, racism. But for several reasons, the American media is afraid to point out this obvious fact. The amount of influence this little state has on the independent media and foreign policies of the majority of NATO is insane.

Jews and their houses of worship are being laid siege to all across Europe in "retaliation". If you're not concerned with that, then you are the problem.

Also, "Zionism is racism" is inherently hate speech. It's a bunch of white people with their own poorly defined countries saying that the only group in the world not allowed to have their own country is the one they tried to exterminate.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

4: To the extent that these unicorns are out there, they're going to be found in the Islamist strain of Islam and in number 3 above.

AND it's quite prevalent on the left, especially the European left and others lefties that wish they were European leftists.  I don't know why you guys keep ignoring those specific racists.

I think there's a lot more racism from the ones who are bulldozing away entire villages to establish settlements while. Zionism is, fundamentally, racism. But for several reasons, the American media is afraid to point out this obvious fact. The amount of influence this little state has on the independent media and foreign policies of the majority of NATO is insane.

Jews and their houses of worship are being laid siege to all across Europe in "retaliation". If you're not concerned with that, then you are the problem.

Also, "Zionism is racism" is inherently hate speech. It's a bunch of white people with their own poorly defined countries saying that the only group in the world not allowed to have their own country is the one they tried to exterminate.

It's amazing how quickly Israel's running dogs resort to calling criticism "hate speech" or "anti-semitism". A people that consisted entirely of diaspora couldn't have formed their own country without either displacing a large amount of people or populating a completely uninhabited area (there's a reason why there were proposals to have Israel in Alaska, Siberia, and the Australian Outback).

Deadman continues to be hilarious as usual. Keep it up, buddy.

None of those were legitimately offered. They were "on the table" and "under discussion" while the Jews remaining in Europe were being butchered in a slow-motion Holocaust by people who weren't happy about the Axis loss, or being kept in filthy refugee camps.

Also, such lovely locations. Deportation to three of the most hellish, isolated locations on Earth. Locations, that I should add, have people in them? People that would have had to be deported or pushed aside to create an independent Jewish homeland in these random locations where there never was one?

If the Jews relocated to any of those places, the natives of those locations would have suddenly become the most important people in the world to a certain element.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Also, "Zionism is racism" is inherently hate speech. It's a bunch of white people with their own poorly defined countries saying that the only group in the world not allowed to have their own country is the one they tried to exterminate.

As I recall, the Zionism = racism resolution at the UN back in the day was largely backed by Arab League and other Islamic countries whose leaders aren't usually considered to be white people.

Portugal and virtually all of Eastern Europe voted in favor of it as well, only a few decades after their had nearly exterminated the Jews of Europe. Including East Germany.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

(there's a reason why there were proposals to have Israel in Alaska, Siberia, and the Australian Outback).

Before World War I, when Zionism was in its infancy, there was a hilariously imperialist suggestion to place the Jewish state in Uganda.

Yeah, I can't justify that one on any moral or logical level. It's not a return, it's an invasion.

I've still heard anti-Zionists mention it in recent years, as it it was a viable option.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

"Jews are being targeted all across Europe"

"*world's smallest violin image*"

This thread has been a fascinating exercise in the dropping of pretenses, as well as a wonderful justification of Israel's existence and its nuclear program.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

"Jews are being targeted all across Europe"

"*world's smallest violin image*"

This thread has been a fascinating exercise in the dropping of pretenses, as well as a wonderful justification of Israel's existence and its nuclear program.

How do you feel about their assistance in giving South Africa the bomb?

I'm definitely not a fan of that move and it was a massive mistake. I also don't think the rest of the world has the right to say anything about that, given their own far bloodier hands.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

This thread has been a fascinating exercise in the dropping of pretenses,

I really has.

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Honestly, I can see what you mean by this too.

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Well, er, let's not get ahead of ourselves.

More as a deterrent than anything else. The sheer irrational hatred on display makes pretty clear that nothing less than the threat of mutually assured destruction is foolproof when it comes to setting Israel's existence in stone.

Ideally, that genie will never get out of the bottle again. But I'm very happy that Israel has evened the playing field to a degree.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

"Jews are being targeted all across Europe"

"*world's smallest violin image*"

This thread has been a fascinating exercise in the dropping of pretenses, as well as a wonderful justification of Israel's existence and its nuclear program.

How many Jews have been killed the last 10 years in Europe, I'm going to guess with your great knowledge about Europe you can answer that.

As for nuclear arms, I don't care one way or another, the whole Samson Option is a empty threat, quite useful as one, but still empty.

How many will it take for you to care?

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

"Jews are being targeted all across Europe"

"*world's smallest violin image*"

This thread has been a fascinating exercise in the dropping of pretenses, as well as a wonderful justification of Israel's existence and its nuclear program.

How many Jews have been killed the last 10 years in Europe, I'm going to guess with your great knowledge about Europe you can answer that.

As for nuclear arms, I don't care one way or another, the whole Samson Option is a empty threat, quite useful as one, but still empty.

How many will it take for you to care?

Ray, I'm trying very hard to understand how a synagogue in Europe getting vandalized has anything to do with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

You seem to operate by some bizarre calculus where the various wrongs done to Jews in Europe throughout history gives the State of Israel the right to heap suffering and indignation specifically on Palestinians in the present day, despite the fact that I'm fairly sure there were no Palestinians at the Spanish Inquisition, or in England during the expulsion of the Jews or in Auschwitz manning the trains.

That post was in the context of someone talking about anti-semitism in Pro-Palestinian movements. Snowstalker then tried to derail the conversation to "But the Zionists are the REAL racists!!!". I attempted to rerail the discussion to the fact that Jews are actually being violently targeted in Europe today.

As for the Palestinians themselves, I'm hoping for a peaceful solution with the West Bank, hopefully via integration and democracy rather than trying to carve two bowlderized states out of one tiny area. I think that boat has sailed with Gaza and Hamas, unfortunately. Perpetual war seems like the only outcome there.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

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.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

As for the Palestinians themselves, I'm hoping for a peaceful solution with the West Bank, hopefully via integration and democracy rather than trying to carve two bowlderized states out of one tiny area. I think that boat has sailed with Gaza and Hamas, unfortunately. Perpetual war seems like the only outcome there.

If you want democracy and integration of the West Bank, you've just thrown the concept of Israel as a majority-Jewish state out the window.

I'd like to think that in such a scenario, the Arab majority would stand on the side of liberal democracy and pluralism, but past experiments in the region suggest that isn't guaranteed.

My own family has all but given up on the prospect of an independent Palestine for fear that at best it would be just another Islamic country and that at worst it would go the way of Iraq under ISIS.

Most of the demographic studies I've seen recently have said the Orthodox baby boom is going to ensure a Jewish majority even in that situation. Not that I think there's any real chance of that happening - neither side is interested at this point in time. And with upheaval in the region, and Jordan's future up in the air, I really have no clue how things are going to go.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

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

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

When on Earth did I ever express support for Hamas, refuse to condemn them or imply they were morally equivalent to Israel?

Also don't see anything remotely offensive about that tweet.

You didn't quite imply that they were morally equivalent to Israel, but the bolded part of this post was in that general ballpark, although in fairness to you, as I look back at the post it seems like I may have misinterpreted what your post.

For the record I was referring only to synogagues that promote unconditional support for Israel. That's equivalent to protesting a mosque that expresses support for suicide bombers, which is completely legitimate. Protesting all synogagues over Israel or all mosques over terrorism isn't.

And yes I doubt the protestors are making such a distinction. But violent or non-violent they still make up a fringe minority. Ray seems to think a majority of Europeans are anti-Semites.

It was in response to the point that protesting synagogues is like protesting mosques after Islamist terrorist attacks. The point was that protesting a synagogue of a Kahanist or Dov Hikind-esque bent is more comparable to protesting a mosque that actually promotes suicide bombings and speaks out in favor of terrorists. That's fair game and I fail to see how either is any different than protesting anti-gay churches.

Are the protestors in question making this distinction? Probably not. And the hate crimes are also quite horrifying. But they make up clearly a very small fringe in any country, and Ray's claims that a "pogrom" is about to start is absurd fearmongering.

Ah, if you meant Kahanist and Hikindesque synagogues , fair enough.

Radical synagogues like that would be legitimate targets for peaceful protests of their policies, but violence would still be inexcusable no matter what, natch.

But it is far from just radical synagogues, or even just synagogues. The radical anti-semites have dropped all pretenses and are letting their hate flag fly.

blogs.timesofisrael.com/everyone-knows-that-anti-zionism-has-nothing-to-do-with-anti-semitism/

Edit: I do not totally agree with the subject of the article, i don't believe anti-zionism is inherently anti-semitic. But to deny the cancerous anti-semitic element that is lurking within the movement is to deny reality. Anti-semites always find the trendiest and most socially acceptable reason to hate Jews and jump on it.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

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

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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.

There is a world of difference between rioting directed at "the man" or whatever, and targeted Pogroms designed to terrorize a minority group.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Back on subject, I suspect both sides will accept this current ceasefire...here's why...
A.IDF is reporting that early on Hamas fought like banshees, in the last couple of days, they are turning tail and running, leaving sh**t behind.  Morale has plummeted.
2.the IDF claims to need another week to remove all the tunnels, Hamas doesn't want that.
III.Hamas leaders are claiming victory
e.Israel will be strong armed into taking it whether they want to or not

Most likely. The only way this can be screwed up at this point is by Hamas doing something insanely stupid - another kidnapping - that Israel can't ignore.

I expect some more low-level operations to continue to try to remove the tunnels, though.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Netanyahu and company need to be lined up at Nuremburg, don't they?

Putting aside the silliness of this, people need to stop pretending that anything short of a total war with a nuclear power is going to make this happen.

Israel is a powerful nation. Israel is going to defend itself, especially if the very nations that tried to wipe out its people two generations ago get any ideas about taking them down for crimes that are dwarfed by those going on in Russia as we speak.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

or Syria, or Iraq.

Yes, but in Iraq it's non-state actors.

Either way, the world has made very clear that they don't care when tens of thousands are killed in Syria and thousands in Russian-backed uprisings in Ukraine, so they really have no leg to stand on to take action against Israel.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

http://www.mediaite.com/online/whoa-times-of-israel-op-ed-advocates-genocide-against-gazans/

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/yochanan-gordon-genocide-blog-remove

This is what happens when you let outsiders who have never been remotely close to a conflict opine on said conflict.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

It should be noted that it's an online newspaper with an open blog platform so it is more like one guy being a bit mental. Not THAT reflective of anything.

Yeah, It's fairly equivalent to the psychotic choads who post on Red State's blogs. Some horrific things there too.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

http://www.mediaite.com/online/whoa-times-of-israel-op-ed-advocates-genocide-against-gazans/

One could try a nuanced response to your s**t, but why bother with rampant anti-semitism? Instead: given Hamas' clear intention is to drive the only Jewish state in the world 'into the sea' - f**k it, turnabout's fair play and all that.

No it isn't. That's what they want - to bait Israel into actually sinking to the level of their enemies. As it hasn't, they just make sh**t up and accuse it of genocide anyway. But every case where even a single random person calls for Israeli genocide is YEARS of ammunition for our enemies.

We need to police our own radicals. They're a far bigger danger to us than they are to the people they actually advocate against.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

So what is all this conflict about if not two peoples fighting for the same land?

It is. It's not about the settlements, because Hamas doesn't acknowledge any of Israel as legitimate. They have never offered to agree to a two-state solution. Nothing but the Palestinian flag flying over a Jew-free Tel Aviv is acceptable to them.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

The flip side of that question is, when a militarized Palestinian state with a Hamas-led government fires the first rocket that kills an Israeli civilian, and Israel considers it an act of war from a neighboring state and sends in the troops, what will people say?

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

The flip side of that question is, when a militarized Palestinian state with a Hamas-led government fires the first rocket that kills an Israeli civilian, and Israel considers it an act of war from a neighboring state and sends in the troops, what will people say?

I would say more power to them. But I'd say the more likely scenario would be Israel invading Palestine based on some trumped up accusation that some Jewish settlers who wound up on the wrong side of the border had some rocks thrown at them and that Israel had a duty to "protect the Jewish residents of Palestine" in the same manner that Russia had its duty to "protect the ethnic Russians of Ukraine."

I don't know why Israel would be so bothered by a militarized Palestine when they're already surrounded by several militarized countries that have attacked them in the past and didn't have any trouble repelling them. A Palestinian military that is an organ of the state is far less likely to do something as inflammatory as attack Israel than a non-state militia like Hamas is. And if Israel doesn't allow Palestine to have a full-fledged military, Hamas is going to fill that void just as it does now. And the Palestinian government will have no more ability to control the actions of those militias than they do now.

I can't imagine that any settlers would be left behind. If that goes down, they'll have to be uprooted and it'll be Gush Katif times 100.

I think the bigger concern is yet another militarized state on Israel's far-smaller borders. Essentially resetting the status quo back to the high-risk days. I understand why the current status quo is untenable, but from the stories my mother told me I can also understand the fear.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

The flip side of that question is, when a militarized Palestinian state with a Hamas-led government fires the first rocket that kills an Israeli civilian, and Israel considers it an act of war from a neighboring state and sends in the troops, what will people say?

So because of that hypothetical, only one of the two proposed states should be allowed to have the ability to defend itself?

The point is moot anyway. It's all but certain that Israel will annex Judea and Samaria and either expel or exterminate the excess undesirables. Gaza will stay how it is for a while longer--Hamas is a fantastic propaganda tool for the Israelis.

The ongoing fever dream of impending Israeli genocide continues. It'll continue until people decide that it's time to do something about those pesky Israelis before they commit that genocide that never seems to come.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

The flip side of that question is, when a militarized Palestinian state with a Hamas-led government fires the first rocket that kills an Israeli civilian, and Israel considers it an act of war from a neighboring state and sends in the troops, what will people say?

So because of that hypothetical, only one of the two proposed states should be allowed to have the ability to defend itself?

The point is moot anyway. It's all but certain that Israel will annex Judea and Samaria and either expel or exterminate the excess undesirables. Gaza will stay how it is for a while longer--Hamas is a fantastic propaganda tool for the Israelis.

The ongoing fever dream of impending Israeli genocide continues. It'll continue until people decide that it's time to do something about those pesky Israelis before they commit that genocide that never seems to come.

Israeli leaders have pretty much rejected all pretenses of supporting even a two-state solution at this point. I'm right, just wait for it.

It's basically shouting fire into a crowded theater, except it's really more shouting "That guy's going to start a fire! Get him!"