Opinion of this quote

[Oakvale]

Snowstalker is actually completely correct in this thread, although that doesn't the change the fact that he's being an irritating troll in expressing those (correct) opinions.

The rewriting of history by the anti-Israel crowd is just shameless. 

[insane diatribe about THE JEWISH HOMELAND]

Okay, I'm convinced, obviously the foundation of Israel and its continuing slide into deranged genocidal expansionism is completely justified because the Assyrians kicked the Jews out of Israel a couple of millenia back.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Snowstalker is actually completely correct in this thread, although that doesn't the change the fact that he's being an irritating troll in expressing those (correct) opinions.

The rewriting of history by the anti-Israel crowd is just shameless. 

[insane diatribe about THE JEWISH HOMELAND]

Okay, I'm convinced, obviously the foundation of Israel and its continuing slide into deranged genocidal expansionism is completely justified because the Assyrians kicked the Jews out of Israel a couple of millenia back.

By Bedstuy's logic, Israel would probably be jousting for control of Mesopotamia with the neo-Mongols and the neo-Ottomans.

[Lief 🗽]

Snowstalker is the only one in this thread speaking a lick of sense, tbh.

[Badger]

Snowstalker is the only one in this thread speaking a lick of sense, tbh.

[bedstuy]

The rewriting of history by the anti-Israel crowd is just shameless. 

The land Israel sits on is the Jewish homeland.  That area was conquered by Assyrians, Seleucid Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Mamluk Turks.  Jews didn't leave Israel by choice for the most part.  They were mostly sold in slavery in the Roman Empire and forced to flee at various points.  That's not to say that Israel belongs to Jews.  I don't think any land belongs to any one national group per se.  But, the land of Israel is not an ancestral Arab territory.  So, there's that.

Why was Israel created?  The places where Jewish people did live between the 1880s and 1940s were none to hospitable.  What instigated the two great migrations to Israel?  You have the horrible persecution in the Russian Empire by Alexander III and the holocaust. (Do the Israel haters have a problem with Jews escaping to Argentina or the United States?  Isn't that colonizing in your book?) Well, all that came to a head in the holocaust and you had a horrible refugee problem.  What were Jews supposed to do post-holocaust?  Stay in Poland?  Jews had been prevented from moving anywhere and when they stayed put, people killed millions of them and oppressed them.  So, if you give Jews an opportunity to have their own state, they're going to see it as a singular chance to find a place to live in peace and security.  Whose fault is that?  Not the Jews clearly, that's the fault of Russia and Germany.

Would it have been better if Jews were all allowed to immigrate to the US?  I think so.  But, that didn't happen.  What happened was that Jews took that singular chance and founded their own state.  Was that a majority Arab state?  No.  Israel in 1948 was majority Jewish in population.  Did Jewish people steal land?  Maybe some did, but most bought land from Arabs.  So, before Israel was invaded by the entire Middle East, Israel was being as fair as possible and not creating their state using mass violence.  Once Israel was invaded, Israel needed defensible borders and you had the logical insanity of war.  One side does something bad, the other retaliates and so on.  That's what wars are like, it's never nice or fair.  Every war like that has refugees.  But, Israel has no reason to apologize for winning for its survival.   

Once you get to that point, what's the solution?  Kill the Arabs with kindness?  Refuse to defend yourself because, who really deserves to have a state anyway?  Israel could have been better, sure.  But, just imagine if the roles were reversed.  Wouldn't the Palestinians just start an outright genocide?  That's the moral difference here.  God bless Elizabeth Warren for realizing that and defending the Jewish people.  That's the liberal, progressive thing to do.  Israel is a convenient target because they actually listen to critics and they're a "white" western, powerful country.  But, just as might doesn't make right, might doesn't make wrong. 

Your racism is showing.

"But why can't white people use the n-word?!?!"

I'm confused as to why that's racist and what that has to do with the n-word.  But, it shows your naive, Eurocentric leftist bias that you try to turn this conflict into a racial issue. 

[TNF]

I dunno, the assumption that the Palestinians would attempt to 'start a genocide' were the roles reversed in the region seems a tad racist, given you know, no support for that proposition in real life and given your distaste for those that have the guts to fight for the land they're being pushed off of.

[Gustaf]

I dunno, the assumption that the Palestinians would attempt to 'start a genocide' were the roles reversed in the region seems a tad racist, given you know, no support for that proposition in real life and given your distaste for those that have the guts to fight for the land they're being pushed off of.

Um, have you read the Hamas charter, seen opinion polls of Palestinian opinion or listened to what high level Arab politicians across the Middle East say about Israel and Jews? I have no doubt that if the Palestinian side was in control the Jews would be wiped out rather quickly.

I'd also note that a one-state solution is kind of undermined by the fact that that is what we started out with and what led to the current situation.

[bedstuy]

I dunno, the assumption that the Palestinians would attempt to 'start a genocide' were the roles reversed in the region seems a tad racist, given you know, no support for that proposition in real life and given your distaste for those that have the guts to fight for the land they're being pushed off of.

If having that opinion makes me racist against Arab people, by the same token, you're an anti-Semite. 

But, I don't think you're an anti-Semite.  I think you're just a dude who wants to take the position that offers him the most leftist street cred.  You're not interested in having a understanding of this issue, you want want to have a position that demonstrates your anti-imperialist/pro-third world stance.  And, I guess I'm a jerk or capitalist stooge or something for disagreeing with you and therefore also racist.  OK, noted.

[Lurker]

The rewriting of history by the anti-Israel crowd is just shameless. 

The land Israel sits on is the Jewish homeland.  That area was conquered by Assyrians, Seleucid Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Mamluk Turks.  Jews didn't leave Israel by choice for the most part.  They were mostly sold in slavery in the Roman Empire and forced to flee at various points.  That's not to say that Israel belongs to Jews.  I don't think any land belongs to any one national group per se.  But, the land of Israel is not an ancestral Arab territory.  So, there's that.

Why was Israel created?  The places where Jewish people did live between the 1880s and 1940s were none to hospitable.  What instigated the two great migrations to Israel?  You have the horrible persecution in the Russian Empire by Alexander III and the holocaust. (Do the Israel haters have a problem with Jews escaping to Argentina or the United States?  Isn't that colonizing in your book?) Well, all that came to a head in the holocaust and you had a horrible refugee problem.  What were Jews supposed to do post-holocaust?  Stay in Poland?  Jews had been prevented from moving anywhere and when they stayed put, people killed millions of them and oppressed them.  So, if you give Jews an opportunity to have their own state, they're going to see it as a singular chance to find a place to live in peace and security.  Whose fault is that?  Not the Jews clearly, that's the fault of Russia and Germany.

Would it have been better if Jews were all allowed to immigrate to the US?  I think so.  But, that didn't happen.  What happened was that Jews took that singular chance and founded their own state.  Was that a majority Arab state?  No.  Israel in 1948 was majority Jewish in population.  Did Jewish people steal land?  Maybe some did, but most bought land from Arabs.  So, before Israel was invaded by the entire Middle East, Israel was being as fair as possible and not creating their state using mass violence.  Once Israel was invaded, Israel needed defensible borders and you had the logical insanity of war.  One side does something bad, the other retaliates and so on.  That's what wars are like, it's never nice or fair.  Every war like that has refugees.  But, Israel has no reason to apologize for winning for its survival.   

Once you get to that point, what's the solution?  Kill the Arabs with kindness?  Refuse to defend yourself because, who really deserves to have a state anyway?  Israel could have been better, sure.  But, just imagine if the roles were reversed.  Wouldn't the Palestinians just start an outright genocide?  That's the moral difference here.  God bless Elizabeth Warren for realizing that and defending the Jewish people.  That's the liberal, progressive thing to do.  Israel is a convenient target because they actually listen to critics and they're a "white" western, powerful country.  But, just as might doesn't make right, might doesn't make wrong. 

LOL.

[windjammer]

Snowstalker is the only one in this thread speaking a lick of sense, tbh.

[TNF]

I dunno, the assumption that the Palestinians would attempt to 'start a genocide' were the roles reversed in the region seems a tad racist, given you know, no support for that proposition in real life and given your distaste for those that have the guts to fight for the land they're being pushed off of.

If having that opinion makes me racist against Arab people, by the same token, you're an anti-Semite. 

But, I don't think you're an anti-Semite.  I think you're just a dude who wants to take the position that offers him the most leftist street cred.  You're not interested in having a understanding of this issue, you want want to have a position that demonstrates your anti-imperialist/pro-third world stance.  And, I guess I'm a jerk or capitalist stooge or something for disagreeing with you and therefore also racist.  OK, noted.

I don't understand you doubting the of my sincerity in taking up the cause of the oppressed in Palestine. This isn't a position I adopted overnight because I was commanded to do so by some secretive central committee somewhere. It's a position I held even before I identified as a Marxist, and it has less to do with me being a Marxist than it has to do with me not identifying with a nation that expelled the Palestinians from their homes and now forces them to live in an open-air prison, which they regularly bomb when one of those prisoners have the guts to fight back against their oppression.

I called you a racist precisely because that's what you are and that's what your sentiments convey. The idea that the Palestinians, if given the chance, would gladly massacre the Israelis because reasons (that you give no support for) is a corollary to your dominant worldview, which is that the Israelis have a right to that land, the Palestinians do not, and Israel is in the right and the Palestinians in the wrong. We must preserve the Jewish state as a Jewish state is basically how that (and all Zionist arguments on the subject) goes. I don't understand how you can plausibly argue that preserving a state entirely on the basis that is for only certain kinds of people is not racist or exclusionary. That same argument didn't work for South Africa, and it certainly should not work for a nation engaging in the same shameful disregard for human rights.

[bedstuy]

I dunno, the assumption that the Palestinians would attempt to 'start a genocide' were the roles reversed in the region seems a tad racist, given you know, no support for that proposition in real life and given your distaste for those that have the guts to fight for the land they're being pushed off of.

If having that opinion makes me racist against Arab people, by the same token, you're an anti-Semite. 

But, I don't think you're an anti-Semite.  I think you're just a dude who wants to take the position that offers him the most leftist street cred.  You're not interested in having a understanding of this issue, you want want to have a position that demonstrates your anti-imperialist/pro-third world stance.  And, I guess I'm a jerk or capitalist stooge or something for disagreeing with you and therefore also racist.  OK, noted.

I don't understand you doubting the of my sincerity in taking up the cause of the oppressed in Palestine. This isn't a position I adopted overnight because I was commanded to do so by some secretive central committee somewhere. It's a position I held even before I identified as a Marxist, and it has less to do with me being a Marxist than it has to do with me not identifying with a nation that expelled the Palestinians from their homes and now forces them to live in an open-air prison, which they regularly bomb when one of those prisoners have the guts to fight back against their oppression.

I called you a racist precisely because that's what you are and that's what your sentiments convey. The idea that the Palestinians, if given the chance, would gladly massacre the Israelis because reasons (that you give no support for) is a corollary to your dominant worldview, which is that the Israelis have a right to that land, the Palestinians do not, and Israel is in the right and the Palestinians in the wrong. We must preserve the Jewish state as a Jewish state is basically how that (and all Zionist arguments on the subject) goes. I don't understand how you can plausibly argue that preserving a state entirely on the basis that is for only certain kinds of people is not racist or exclusionary. That same argument didn't work for South Africa, and it certainly should not work for a nation engaging in the same shameful disregard for human rights.

Well, now that's you've made a few factual statements I think I have a better sense of things.  We don't agree on the basic facts and you don't understand my position at all.  I don't have the time to educate you on the history of Israel or this conflict, but suffice to say, you are just dead wrong on the ground level facts. 

In short, Israel gives full political and civil rights to its non-Jewish citizens.  Israel is a Jewish state, sure, but you wonder why the one Jewish state is a problem, but not the huge number of Christian and Islamic states.  The fact that non-Jews are not drafted and Israel provides a sanctuary to international Jewry might upset you, but it's not racism at all.  It speaks more to the fact that Israel has needed to take in Jewish refugees to protect them from oppression.  What do you think the Jews of Yemen should have done?  Just allowed Arabs to kill them in Yemen?

I support a two state solution built on land swaps and international access to Jerusalem's holy sites.  I think the Palestinians should have their own state and they deserve to live peacefully.  I have all the sympathy in the world for Palestinians.  The problem is that their leadership is homicidal and genocidal as expressed by the Hamas charter.  You can just see the difference in values in the fact that Israel uses missiles to protect its citizens and Hamas uses its citizens to protect its missiles.

The reason I think Jews would suffer under Arab rule is that the Palestinian leadership has said as much and that's what happens in every Islamic fundamentalist country.  You're telling me that a virulently anti-Semitic organization, which uses the worst anti-Semitic propaganda, which hates Jewish people and targets civilians would respect human rights if they had the ability to massacre Israel's Jews.  And anyway, where is the fundamentalist Islamic anti-Semitic country that affords Jewish people full political and civil rights?  My point about how Hamas wants to launch a ethnic/religious cleansing campaign is not just based on reasons.  It's based on what Hamas has said and their behavior of killing civilians left and right.

[GMantis]

The rewriting of history by the anti-Israel crowd is just shameless. 

The land Israel sits on is the Jewish homeland.  That area was conquered by Assyrians, Seleucid Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Mamluk Turks.  Jews didn't leave Israel by choice for the most part.  They were mostly sold in slavery in the Roman Empire and forced to flee at various points.  That's not to say that Israel belongs to Jews.  I don't think any land belongs to any one national group per se.  But, the land of Israel is not an ancestral Arab territory.  So, there's that.

I long for the time when an American arguing for the ridiculous argument that Jews had the right to create Israel due to historic rights shocked me, but those days of naivety are unfortunately long gone. And it's probably an utter waste of time to try to explain this but do you understand what your argument implies? Forget about this giving the Natives Americans rights over the whole of the American continent, this would mean that England is not the ancestral land of the English people -  they after all settled there several centuries after most Jews left Palestine. There is simply no way to make this argument without making you look both ignorant and an Israeli hack.

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This argument is a waste of space considering it fails to address how all this was the fault of the Palestinians

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First, most of the land was actually bought from absentee landlords, and the actual people living there were not consulted. Second, buying land does not give anyone the right to control some territory. Thirdly, Palestine was only a third Jews when it was divided without the agreement of the majority of the population. So the Palestinians have no reasons to apologize with not agreeing with this injustice.

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So you've already had ridiculous appeals to history, emotional outbursts without any relevance to the discussions at hand and now you're resorting to conjuring imaginary and impossible alternate history scenarios? Why not simply state that Israel is always right - that would at least be straightforward and honest?

[bedstuy]

The rewriting of history by the anti-Israel crowd is just shameless. 

The land Israel sits on is the Jewish homeland.  That area was conquered by Assyrians, Seleucid Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Mamluk Turks.  Jews didn't leave Israel by choice for the most part.  They were mostly sold in slavery in the Roman Empire and forced to flee at various points.  That's not to say that Israel belongs to Jews.  I don't think any land belongs to any one national group per se.  But, the land of Israel is not an ancestral Arab territory.  So, there's that.

I long for the time when an American arguing for the ridiculous argument that Jews had the right to create Israel due to historic rights shocked me, but those days of naivety are unfortunately long gone. And it's probably an utter waste of time to try to explain this but do you understand what your argument implies? Forget about this giving the Natives Americans rights over the whole of the American continent, this would mean that England is not the ancestral land of the English people -  they after all settled there several centuries after most Jews left Palestine. There is simply no way to make this argument without making you look both ignorant and an Israeli hack.

I think anyone can live anywhere dude.  Jewish people ought to be allowed to live in Brazil, America, Israel, China, Saudi Arabia, etc.  Arabs ought to be allowed to live anywhere too.  There is no land that belongs to one ethnic group.  I don't see how that's being an Israeli hack.  Do you think there was something wrong with the Jewish immigration to Ottoman or British Palestine?

Why was Israel created?  The places where Jewish people did live between the 1880s and 1940s were none to hospitable.  What instigated the two great migrations to Israel?  You have the horrible persecution in the Russian Empire by Alexander III and the holocaust. (Do the Israel haters have a problem with Jews escaping to Argentina or the United States?  Isn't that colonizing in your book?) Well, all that came to a head in the holocaust and you had a horrible refugee problem.  What were Jews supposed to do post-holocaust?  Stay in Poland?  Jews had been prevented from moving anywhere and when they stayed put, people killed millions of them and oppressed them.  So, if you give Jews an opportunity to have their own state, they're going to see it as a singular chance to find a place to live in peace and security.  Whose fault is that?  Not the Jews clearly, that's the fault of Russia and Germany.

This argument is a waste of space considering it fails to address how all this was the fault of the Palestinians

It wasn't.  But, that was the problem.  Under your rules, Jews couldn't live in any land that belonged to another ethnic group, they couldn't buy land because that's imperialist, what should they have done?  Is it just that they're an ethnic group without a country as of a certain date so they should just disappear?

Would it have been better if Jews were all allowed to immigrate to the US?  I think so.  But, that didn't happen.  What happened was that Jews took that singular chance and founded their own state.  Was that a majority Arab state?  No.  Israel in 1948 was majority Jewish in population.  Did Jewish people steal land?  Maybe some did, but most bought land from Arabs.  So, before Israel was invaded by the entire Middle East, Israel was being as fair as possible and not creating their state using mass violence.  Once Israel was invaded, Israel needed defensible borders and you had the logical insanity of war.  One side does something bad, the other retaliates and so on.  That's what wars are like, it's never nice or fair.  Every war like that has refugees.  But, Israel has no reason to apologize for winning for its survival. 

 
First, most of the land was actually bought from absentee landlords, and the actual people living there were not consulted. Second, buying land does not give anyone the right to control some territory. Thirdly, Palestine was only a third Jews when it was divided without the agreement of the majority of the population. So the Palestinians have no reasons to apologize with not agreeing with this injustice.

The Jewish state in 1948 was majority Jewish, but that was less than half of Palestine.  And, I agree it wasn't fair that Palestinians couldn't return to their land.  Who could call that fair?  That cause of that unfairness was shared between Arabs and Jews however.  Most of those people voluntarily left and couldn't come back because of the whims of Arab nationalists and the historical circumstance.  Ultimately, you just have to realize that the Arab tried to destroy the state of Israel and they lost.  We need to move on from that at some point.  That's coming up on 70 years ago.  I mean, the partition of India and Pakistan was unfair to the people of the subcontinent.  But, here in the West we don't get upset out of our minds about the various irredentist claims over Kashmir.  This is just a case of automatic sympathy for the party with less power and the idea that perceived first world power should act "civilized" and the perceived third world people are noble savages who just can't help but lob missiles at children.

Once you get to that point, what's the solution?  Kill the Arabs with kindness?  Refuse to defend yourself because, who really deserves to have a state anyway?  Israel could have been better, sure.  But, just imagine if the roles were reversed.  Wouldn't the Palestinians just start an outright genocide?  That's the moral difference here.  God bless Elizabeth Warren for realizing that and defending the Jewish people.  That's the liberal, progressive thing to do.  Israel is a convenient target because they actually listen to critics and they're a "white" western, powerful country.  But, just as might doesn't make right, might doesn't make wrong. 

So you've already had ridiculous appeals to history, emotional outbursts without any relevance to the discussions at hand and now you're resorting to conjuring imaginary and impossible alternate history scenarios? Why not simply state that Israel is always right - that would at least be straightforward and honest?

No.  I think I have an even-handed view of Israel.  I think we should have a two-state solution and Israel should stop building settlements yesterday.

[GMantis]

The rewriting of history by the anti-Israel crowd is just shameless. 

The land Israel sits on is the Jewish homeland.  That area was conquered by Assyrians, Seleucid Greeks, Romans, Arabs and Mamluk Turks.  Jews didn't leave Israel by choice for the most part.  They were mostly sold in slavery in the Roman Empire and forced to flee at various points.  That's not to say that Israel belongs to Jews.  I don't think any land belongs to any one national group per se.  But, the land of Israel is not an ancestral Arab territory.  So, there's that.

I long for the time when an American arguing for the ridiculous argument that Jews had the right to create Israel due to historic rights shocked me, but those days of naivety are unfortunately long gone. And it's probably an utter waste of time to try to explain this but do you understand what your argument implies? Forget about this giving the Natives Americans rights over the whole of the American continent, this would mean that England is not the ancestral land of the English people -  they after all settled there several centuries after most Jews left Palestine. There is simply no way to make this argument without making you look both ignorant and an Israeli hack.

I think anyone can live anywhere dude.  Jewish people ought to be allowed to live in Brazil, America, Israel, China, Saudi Arabia, etc.  Arabs ought to be allowed to live anywhere too.  There is no land that belongs to one ethnic group.  I don't see how that's being an Israeli hack.  Do you think there was something wrong with the Jewish immigration to Ottoman or British Palestine?

No, that's not how things work. First, you can only live in a country with that country's permission, otherwise you're an illegal immigrant. And the mass settlement with the purpose of taking over a country is not immigration, it's invasion. Especially if the local population is not consulted. No independent Palestinian state would have allowed itself to be taken over like this.
For a corresponding counterexample, would you allow the Palestinian refugees and their descendants to immigrate to Israel?
And if you don't believe that no land belongs to one ethnic group, why bring up the absurd argument of Jewish historical rights?

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This argument is a waste of space considering it fails to address how all this was the fault of the Palestinians
[/quote]

It wasn't.  But, that was the problem.  Under your rules, Jews couldn't live in any land that belonged to another ethnic group, they couldn't buy land because that's imperialist, what should they have done?  Is it just that they're an ethnic group without a country as of a certain date so they should just disappear?[/quote]
"My" rules exist only in your imagination. I have nothing against immigration that is approved by the country being entered. And yes, more countries should have granted asylum to the Jews before WWII and the failure of most to do so contributed indirectly to the Holocaust, but that doesn't mean that it's right to take over other countries (and of course by the time Israel was founded, there war was over and there were other options to safeguard the Jewish people).

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First, most of the land was actually bought from absentee landlords, and the actual people living there were not consulted. Second, buying land does not give anyone the right to control some territory. Thirdly, Palestine was only a third Jews when it was divided without the agreement of the majority of the population. So the Palestinians have no reasons to apologize with not agreeing with this injustice.
[/quote]

The Jewish state in 1948 was majority Jewish, but that was less than half of Palestine.  And, I agree it wasn't fair that Palestinians couldn't return to their land.  Who could call that fair?  That cause of that unfairness was shared between Arabs and Jews however.  Most of those people voluntarily left and couldn't come back because of the whims of Arab nationalists and the historical circumstance.  Ultimately, you just have to realize that the Arab tried to destroy the state of Israel and they lost.  We need to move on from that at some point.  That's coming up on 70 years ago.  I mean, the partition of India and Pakistan was unfair to the people of the subcontinent.  But, here in the West we don't get upset out of our minds about the various irredentist claims over Kashmir.  This is just a case of automatic sympathy for the party with less power and the idea that perceived first world power should act "civilized" and the perceived third world people are noble savages who just can't help but lob missiles at children.
[/quote]
It's more likely that Israel receives less sympathy because they inflict most of the suffering. And remember that it was you who brought up a historical argument. I certainly don't deny Israel's right to exist now, but the history of its foundation is quite a different matter.

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So you've already had ridiculous appeals to history, emotional outbursts without any relevance to the discussions at hand and now you're resorting to conjuring imaginary and impossible alternate history scenarios? Why not simply state that Israel is always right - that would at least be straightforward and honest?
[/quote]

No.  I think I have an even-handed view of Israel.  I think we should have a two-state solution and Israel should stop building settlements yesterday.
[/quote]
But neither you, nor Warren and most Congress members believe in actually taking any measures to encourage Israel to take the path to peace. So all these noble words only conceal an unprincipled and unconditional support of Israel.

[bedstuy]

No, that's not how things work. First, you can only live in a country with that country's permission, otherwise you're an illegal immigrant. And the mass settlement with the purpose of taking over a country is not immigration, it's invasion. Especially if the local population is not consulted. No independent Palestinian state would have allowed itself to be taken over like this.
For a corresponding counterexample, would you allow the Palestinian refugees and their descendants to immigrate to Israel?
And if you don't believe that no land belongs to one ethnic group, why bring up the absurd argument of Jewish historical rights?

I didn't make the argument that Jewish people historically have a right to Israel.  I made the point that no one ethnic group has an a priori right to live anywhere.  I was saying that it's ridiculous to say that Arabs "own" Palestine and are the only people allowed to be citizens of a state in Palestine. 

On the greater point, Jewish people during the first and second aliyah to were being expelled from Eastern Europe and there was a huge rising tide of anti-Semitism in Europe.  They were refugees who legitimately immigrated to escape pogroms and anti-Semitism in Europe.  They should have just stayed in Russia getting raped and murdered by the Tsar's goons until the holocaust showed up and ushered them off this mortal coil?  That's the idea?  It's certainly one answer to the Jewish question, which I suppose good Christian Europeans would prefer because it leaves things all tied up with a neat little bow.

And, ultimately I'm a realist, you can immigrate to where people allow you to immigrate to.  That's how the modern nation-state system works.  But, you can't say, oh, those people didn't deserve to immigrate there because a priori, God has decided that all Jewish people must live in the USA, Poland and the western parts of the Russian Empire.

"My" rules exist only in your imagination. I have nothing against immigration that is approved by the country being entered. And yes, more countries should have granted asylum to the Jews before WWII and the failure of most to do so contributed indirectly to the Holocaust, but that doesn't mean that it's right to take over other countries (and of course by the time Israel was founded, there war was over and there were other options to safeguard the Jewish people).

I agree with you retrospectively.  But, people post WWII didn't have the benefit of knowing the future.  It's understandable why people thought Jews absolutely needed their own state for their very survival as a group, looking from the perspective of the anti-Semitism of the 1880s to 1940s.  And, that's the problem, zionism was a quixotic, frankly bad idea in many ways.  But, basically any national formation is bloody and nonsensical.  The United States certainly can't be proud of our treatment of the Indians.  Should we allow Sioux people to fire rockets at Rapid City to make up for that?

It's more likely that Israel receives less sympathy because they inflict most of the suffering. And remember that it was you who brought up a historical argument. I certainly don't deny Israel's right to exist now, but the history of its foundation is quite a different matter.

I didn't bring up the history in response to what you said.  I brought it up to people inventing their own  distorted history to imply that Israel has no right to exist or defend its citizens.

But neither you, nor Warren and most Congress members believe in actually taking any measures to encourage Israel to take the path to peace. So all these noble words only conceal an unprincipled and unconditional support of Israel.

People who treat Israel unfairly and beat the drums of anti-Semitism aren't helping either.  We're not going to browbeat Israel into pacifist toleration of Hamas murdering Israeli citizens.  And, sure, I don't think there's going to be a solution in the near future.  We're stuck because most of the Palestinians and many of the Israelis prefer perpetual war to a diplomatic solution.

[Chunk Yogurt for President!]

People need to stop acting like Israel need to be protected.  The odds are overwhelmingly on their side and against the Palestinians.  The Palestinians are desperate and that's why many of them are turning to violence.



How would you feel if your home was demolished to make way for other people settling in the area?  And that you could do nothing about it because you have no rights in this government?

"So I returned, and considered all the oppressions that are done under the sun: and behold the tears of such as were oppressed, and they had no comforter; and on the side of their oppressors there was power; but they had no comforter."

Ecclesiastes 4:1

I pray that God will end the oppression of the Palestinian people.  I believe it will happen eventually.

[Indy Texas]

Freedom quote, as is her support of a two state solution.

The comparison to aparthied era South Africa is faulty as popular soverignty would mandate israel as a Jewish state just as South Africa government is multi~acial led by blacks.

No - apartheid era South Africa was politically majority white because virtually all blacks were not considered full citizens of South Africa. They were considered citizens of the bantustans, which had largely nominal authority, and thus had no political rights in the national South African political process.

If you gave citizenship and the franchise to every adult in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, you'd never have another Likud government in Israel again.

[Indy Texas]

A considerable proportion of Israel's Jewish population is of recent Middle Eastern/North African origin, incidentally.

What's your point? That it's okay for brown people to abuse and marginalize other brown people?

[patrick1]

A considerable proportion of Israel's Jewish population is of recent Middle Eastern/North African origin, incidentally.

What's your point? That it's okay for brown people to abuse and marginalize other brown people?

Can't speak for Al but Id think that it means these people had to flee for their lives from  Middle Eastern regimes.  Arabs alone weren't the only ones being expelled from their millennium long homes.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's occasionally productive to remind people of complexities. I'm not sure if I had much of a point beyond that.

[patrick1]

It's occasionally productive to remind people of complexities. I'm not sure if I had much of a point beyond that.

Huh, seems a lot of posters here have it all figured out.

[Indy Texas]

The United States certainly can't be proud of our treatment of the Indians.  Should we allow Sioux people to fire rockets at Rapid City to make up for that?

The comparison that Israeli apologists make to our own colonization and settlement of North America is a monstrous misrepresentation.

What was acceptable in the 1600s is not necessarily acceptable in the 20th century or today. If Israel wanted to enact chattel slavery, would you be saying, "Well WE did it prior to the 1860s. If you don't allow them to, you're a raving anti-semite who wants them all to die in Hitler's ovens you Nazi!"

We didn't have to kill very many Indians since most of them died from all the diseases we and the Spanish brought there from Europe.

And the American Indians have by and large ceased to exist as a distinct people in modern America. There are a few on reservations, but they largely wear Western clothes, speak English and often don't even practice their traditional religion. They often intermarried with white and black Americans; I can claim Native American ancestry as can just about any American whose family has been here a decent amount of time. If you tried to find out what tribe's land was taken when and locate their direct descendants to give it back, it would more or less be impossible. Too much time has gone by. Too much migration and merger and splitting of tribes has happened. The definition of who qualifies as a Native American has become very fluid.

By contrast, the Palestinians have not disappeared as a people. It would be very easy to locate land deeds from less than a century ago. Many of those people are still alive, or their children or grandchildren are. There has been virtually no intermarrying between Israelis or Palestinians and they and their culture have, by design, remained outside the Israeli state and Israeli society. So the idea that a "Native American" solution would be acceptable in the context of Israel and the Palestinians is absurd, as is the idea that there is any moral equivalency between white Americans driving natives into the woods in the early 1600s and Israelis burning Palestinian olive orchards in the 2010s. They should know better.

[bedstuy]

The United States certainly can't be proud of our treatment of the Indians.  Should we allow Sioux people to fire rockets at Rapid City to make up for that?

The comparison that Israeli apologists make to our own colonization and settlement of North America is a monstrous misrepresentation.

What was acceptable in the 1600s is not necessarily acceptable in the 20th century or today. If Israel wanted to enact chattel slavery, would you be saying, "Well WE did it prior to the 1860s. If you don't allow them to, you're a raving anti-semite who wants them all to die in Hitler's ovens you Nazi!"

We didn't have to kill very many Indians since most of them died from all the diseases we and the Spanish brought there from Europe.

And the American Indians have by and large ceased to exist as a distinct people in modern America. There are a few on reservations, but they largely wear Western clothes, speak English and often don't even practice their traditional religion. They often intermarried with white and black Americans; I can claim Native American ancestry as can just about any American whose family has been here a decent amount of time. If you tried to find out what tribe's land was taken when and locate their direct descendants to give it back, it would more or less be impossible. Too much time has gone by. Too much migration and merger and splitting of tribes has happened. The definition of who qualifies as a Native American has become very fluid.

By contrast, the Palestinians have not disappeared as a people. It would be very easy to locate land deeds from less than a century ago. Many of those people are still alive, or their children or grandchildren are. There has been virtually no intermarrying between Israelis or Palestinians and they and their culture have, by design, remained outside the Israeli state and Israeli society. So the idea that a "Native American" solution would be acceptable in the context of Israel and the Palestinians is absurd, as is the idea that there is any moral equivalency between white Americans driving natives into the woods in the early 1600s and Israelis burning Palestinian olive orchards in the 2010s. They should know better.

Well, that's certainly wrong on many levels as it pertains to Native Americans.  But, more to the point, I didn't imply that anything that happened to Palestinians is justified.  I meant, just because your group of people legitimately suffered, you don't get to fire missiles at innocent civilians and blatantly violate rules of war.  Hamas is clearly the villain here and there's nothing that could justify their tactics and ideological program.  The cause of Palestinian statehood and human rights is kind of irrelevant to this current situation.  It could be the best cause, most righteous cause in the world, if you're pursuing using Hamas's tactics, you're at fault for both your attacks and the response. 

[Indy Texas]

Well, that's certainly wrong on many levels as it pertains to Native Americans.  But, more to the point, I didn't imply that anything that happened to Palestinians is justified.  I meant, just because your group of people legitimately suffered, you don't get to fire missiles at innocent civilians and blatantly violate rules of war.  Hamas is clearly the villain here and there's nothing that could justify their tactics and ideological program.  The cause of Palestinian statehood and human rights is kind of irrelevant to this current situation.  It could be the best cause, most righteous cause in the world, if you're pursuing using Hamas's tactics, you're at fault for both your attacks and the response. 

This is what would happen if Hamas stopped shooting rockets: Israel would end their military operation, the troops would go home, the settlement construction in the West Bank/Judaea and Samaria/Cisjordan would continue and nothing would change.

So what incentive do they have to do that? At this point, the general sense among Hamas seems to be that Israel is never going to seriously negotiate anything and isn't going anywhere, but if they're going to be there then Hamas is going to ensure that their existence is as miserable as possible. And Israel has more or less taken the same stance - they can't eliminate the Palestinians or send them all to Jordan, so they're going to make their lives as unpleasant as they can for the time being.

The goal in both cases is to get the other side to "self deport" to borrow a Mittism.