Chuck Schumer: Palestinians are the reason there is no peace in the Middle East

[America Needs R'hllor]

Chuck pls. You can be a zionist without religious BS, we don't need the damned Torah to justify ourselves. This just undermines the argument of Zionism, which originated in a secular Jewish movement, and makes ot illegitimate in the eyes of... Well, any normal person who doesn't think ancient books should dictate our daily lives. He would've done better to say that the reason there's no peace is the Palestinian refusal to acknowledge the right of the Jewish people for an independent country, their deep historical roots in this country, their hard and thankless work in developing it properly and basically their right to live in safety.

The truth: Benjamin Netanyahu and his Likud cohorts are the reason there is no peace in the Middle East.

Lmao dude, learn some basic history. Benjamin Netanyahu hasn't been in power for our entire existence here, you know.

[America Needs R'hllor]

First off, I would never want to blithely dismiss the holocaust, which I understand to be the greatest tragedy in history and a shameful stain on European civilisation. But with that said, an injustice in the past can in no way justify a injustice (even a lesser one) today.

Israel is not and can never be an ethnic state like Japan because 20-25% of Israel's population is non-Jewish. This is a fact of geography and history. The logic of your argument that Israel should become a Jewish state leads inevitably to either 1) ethnic cleansing to purify Israel, or 2) permanently making non-Jews (not just Arabs, also Druze etc.) second-class citizens in their own land (even if their people have lived there since prehistory). If you say that Israel should seek to emulate the ethnic character of Japan, with its long history of racism, discrimination and outright murderous pogroms against Koreans living in Japan...well, I don't understand how a Jew who knows his peoples' history could in good conscience allow that to happen.

Israel is an ethnic state, sorry and thank you very much. I don't care if you oppose the Holocaust- the only way for us going forward is to have a strong, independent country. A Jewish country. Otherwise, we're always going to face the threat of extermination. For your information, a quick Google search confirms that Russia, for example, is only 77% Russian. Germany, is only 81% German. And about a 10% of Poland's population was Jewish before the Holocaust. So your argument is extremely invalid for Israel, and shows the usual anti-Jewish and pro-Arab bias. Now, it doesn't mean minorities shouldn't get equal rights here, and they do, and we should work (and they should work with us) to make their lives better. Lastly, please don't ride the back of the Druze population for your anti-Jewish agenda, they're strong supporters of our country and many of them are to my right politically.

[America Needs R'hllor]

First off, I would never want to blithely dismiss the holocaust, which I understand to be the greatest tragedy in history and a shameful stain on European civilisation. But with that said, an injustice in the past can in no way justify a injustice (even a lesser one) today.

Israel is not and can never be an ethnic state like Japan because 20-25% of Israel's population is non-Jewish. This is a fact of geography and history. The logic of your argument that Israel should become a Jewish state leads inevitably to either 1) ethnic cleansing to purify Israel, or 2) permanently making non-Jews (not just Arabs, also Druze etc.) second-class citizens in their own land (even if their people have lived there since prehistory). If you say that Israel should seek to emulate the ethnic character of Japan, with its long history of racism, discrimination and outright murderous pogroms against Koreans living in Japan...well, I don't understand how a Jew who knows his peoples' history could in good conscience allow that to happen.

Israel is an ethnic state, sorry and thank you very much. I don't care if you oppose the Holocaust- the only way for us going forward is to have a strong, independent country. A Jewish country. Otherwise, we're always going to face the threat of extermination. For your information, a quick Google search confirms that Russia, for example, is only 77% Russian. Germany, is only 81% German. And about a 10% of Poland's population was Jewish before the Holocaust. So your argument is extremely invalid for Israel, and shows the usual anti-Jewish and pro-Arab bias. Now, it doesn't mean minorities shouldn't get equal rights here, and they do, and we should work (and they should work with us) to make their lives better. Lastly, please don't ride the back of the Druze population for your anti-Jewish agenda, they're strong supporters of our country and many of them are to my right politically.

Don't get your point because Russia hasn't declared itself an ethnically-Russian state (in fact it's multiethnic). Germany hasn't declared itself an ethnically-German state. In fact when under the control of extreme nationalists who defined the state as exclusively ethnic the ideology lead to the mass murder of Jews living in those two countries...

I don't object to Israel being a Jewish majority state in perpetuity. Israel can set immigration laws and national policies to maintain that majority democratically. Whatever. Israel has avoided destruction for over 60 years and maintained a Jewish majority without changing its basic law on the ethnoreligious character of the state so I'm not sure why it's necessary now to avoid a second holocaust? It serves no purpose but to degrade the status of 1/5th of the country and their interests. One injustice doesn't justify another injustice.

I think you're confusing the concept of ethnic states and actually declaring yourself purely ethnic or something. Both Russia and Germany are ethnic states, that is their identity. Russia is Russian, Germany is German. The U.S. isn't ethnic. And for the last 70 years, Israel has indeed been a Jewish ethnic state- the state of the Jewish people, as written in our Declaration of Independence. If you're talking about the basic law currently being advanced by our government, it's stupid and I oppose it, but it's mostly useless populism to fire up the base.

[America Needs R'hllor]

their hard and thankless work in developing it properly

This is the Zionist claim that I have the hardest time swallowing for the simple reason it is the same bunk every other group of European colonialists used to justify their colonies.  The fact that Zionism  happened to be an European colonialist ideology centered around a group of European colonialists who could trace their ancestors to having once lived in the area they proposed to colonize doesn't justify it in my opinion.

That said, regardless of whether the State of Israel should've been created is a pointless argument.  It does exist, and the Israelis there exist, just as the Palestinians exist, and no peace is possible unless all sides admit those basic facts and accept the resulting implications of those facts.

I understand, but there's a very clear difference. The European colonialists (save for Americans and perhaps some other unique cases, which are also different in many ways) dumped money and modern armies on the colonies and forced the natives to work for them, while Jewish settlers did the hard work themselves, while facing opposition from both British authorities (who also admittedly had a hand in developing the place, but in different ways) and Arabic locals.

And yes, I agree- this argument is pointless. Both "ISRAEL IS AN EVIL SCHEME THAT SHOULDN'T EXIST" and "THE PALESTINIANS DON'T EXIST" are useless arguments that will get us nowhere.

[America Needs R'hllor]

Israel has put their foot down on Palestines for the past half century. Pretty sure the right-wingers in government are the ones creating the division and avoiding peace.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehud_Olmert

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ehud_Barak

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitzhak_Rabin

Etc. Yes, both sides need to work harder to achieve peace, but the fact is that for decades, the Palestinians have been doing their best to obstruct peace- did you know that after the Oslo Accords were signed, the acts of terrorism only increased? All of this terrorism and hate-mongering by the Palestinians radicalized the Israeli population and turned it from the population that screamed "peace" and elected Rabin by landslide margin to the population that gets terrified when Bibi says that the Arabs are turning out to vote and then reelect him with 30 seats despite actually hating him. The Palestinians can very well blame themselves for this radicalization, though I recognize that both sides share some blame. We're not the ones teaching blatant antisemitism and inciting hate against Jews and Israel in our state-funded education system, though.

[America Needs R'hllor]

their hard and thankless work in developing it properly

This is the Zionist claim that I have the hardest time swallowing for the simple reason it is the same bunk every other group of European colonialists used to justify their colonies.  The fact that Zionism  happened to be an European colonialist ideology centered around a group of European colonialists who could trace their ancestors to having once lived in the area they proposed to colonize doesn't justify it in my opinion.

[...]

I understand, but there's a very clear difference. The European colonialists (save for Americans and perhaps some other unique cases, which are also different in many ways) dumped money and modern armies on the colonies and forced the natives to work for them, while Jewish settlers did the hard work themselves, while facing opposition from both British authorities (who also admittedly had a hand in developing the place, but in different ways) and Arabic locals.

[...]

You're still operating from the colonialist presumptions that:
1) Only outsiders could have developed the area, and
2) Development is always intrinsically good.

Am I saying only Jews (not outsiders- there have always been at least some Jews in Israel) could've brought prosperity to this land? No. Am I saying they're the only ones who did? Yeah. They've worked hard to completely change the face of this land and make it a much better place to live.

[America Needs R'hllor]

Palestinians have been throwing rocks at Israeli's since I was a boy, and 40 years later, nothing seems to have changed.

Yep. For 40 years Israel has occupied Palestine. Coincidence?

Are you even a Republican on a single issue

Since when is acknowledging that both Israel and Palestine have a right to exist in a two-state solution a solely Democratic position, or anti Republican?

Frankly, beep boop, I'm more concerned whether or not any position I take is the just thing to support, not whether it supports a particular party or not. You demonstrate the same Independence on various issues such as stopping Obamacare. Surely you understand?

EDIT: and no, damn near every moderate Democrat I can think of firmly supports the two-state solution involving Israel withdrawing from the West Bank, nor am I the only Republican supporting such opposition. Admittedly I'm becoming more isolated as with many issues due to increasing islamophobia starting with bush and now fanned by orange head and his cast of characters. But saying that most moderate Democrats oppose palestine's right to exist? I'm calling BS on that.

It is that comment I'm referring too, not the support of the two-state solution.

The two are by definition inclusive of one another. What the hell is your position anyway? You are absolutely chasing your tail on this.

Palestine started multiple wars against Israel and a punishment for losing wars they started was Israel got to was they got to expand their borders. If Palestine never wanted Israel to occupy that land they should never have started wars against them in the first place. That land is Israel's and rightfully so.

Palestine didn't start any of the wars in Isrseli history because Palestine never properly existed as a state. Though, it is true that the Palestinian leadership in 1948 pushed very hard against the UN's 2 state resolution, and along with the other Arabic neighbours caused what would become Israel's victorious independence war.