Even completely ignoring all the history of the region and how the current State of Israel came to be and only focusing on the present in a vacuum, there is still is a glaring contradiction that I have never heard any sort of coherent answer from people who support Israel’s actions: If you truly believe that simply having a negative opinion of Israel’s actions against Palestinians is antisemitic (or simply being a Palestinian that’s still alive is antisemitic according to too many people), then surely it also holds that both Israel’s outright killing of Palestinians and their ongoing apartheid policies preventing Palestinians from existing in the same areas as Israelis is anti-Arab right? Is being anti-Arabic somehow preferable to being antisemitic? Are Arabs not human beings and do they not deserve the same rights and protection as Jews or literally any other human? What makes it okay for Israel to be anti-Arab then?
One of the half baked arguments I have heard is that Israel is “justified” in being anti-Arabic because “it’s in self defense against Palestinians that want to kill them,” but if you make that assertion, then what makes the other side different? Israel is certainly not just attacking the Hamas and there have been more Palestinian civilian victims than Israeli civilian victims so wouldn’t you saying that also automatically imply the inverse and equally justify the Hamas’ actions against Israel? You can’t attack someone while claiming self defense and then cry foul when they defend themselves against you.
Israel is committing a genocide. - At best, one would have to concede they’re killing thousands of children to get at a handful of Hamas members. If you call it antisemitic to point that out, you’re saying genocidal kid-killing is inherent to Israelis - which is about as antisemitic as it gets, and a damn good justification for wiping Israel off the map. It’s a moronic,monstrous line to push.
(Not disagreeing, but offering a bit more insight)
To be fair, what the IDF is doing is hard. Fighting irregular forces in dense urban environments is hard, especially with their opponents having hundreds of underground bunkers and using civilian shields. Even if they were operating under best practice, there would be a lot of civilian casualties.
However, they aren’t operating under best practices. I don’t know how the average IDF soldier feels, but the top brass at best doesn’t give a shit if they kill a hundred palestinian civilians per one Hamas member; At worst, they see this conflict as an excuse to actively target them.
Between the genocidal rhetoric of Israeli leadership, the fact that Israel propped up Hamas over the PLO, and the fact that the casualty stats are squarely in line with the broader civilian population, what makes you think any attempt is being made to avoid civilian casualties?
Hamas and combatatant-aged men aren’t over-represented in the casualty stats - this is just an indiscriminate genocide they’ve been clearly signalling they intend to commit.
Fun fact; something like 60 percent of all Israelis are Mizrahi Jews from across the Middle East. Both in terms of their physical appearance and their material culture they have far more in common with Arabs than they do with white Europeans. Calling them “white” really doesn’t hold much water.
You seem to misunderstand the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The West Bank is very much governed by the IDF and they treat Jews differently than non Jews. The IDF can legally detain Palestinians for up to 6 months without charges while being required to defend settlers who attack and harass Palestinians. They undermine the Palestinian Authority and override their supposed authority all the time. Gaza is more of an open air prison as people can’t leave. The reason Israel doesn’t occupy Gaza is because they did in the past and it was uneconomical.
There are a ton of people who basically paint all pro Palestinian groups and protests as antisemitic, from the ADL to Israeli lobbyists. These people are totally unreasonable and have a large amount of influence. “Opposing Israel’s actions = anti-Zionism = antisemitism,” isn’t the fringe narrative it should be. At the same time, there are braindead so called, “leftists,” who can’t comprehend that both Netanyahu’s government and Hamas are genocidal theocratic fascists. They’re also frustrating as fuck and cannot be tolerated. Far too many have lost their minds and morals over this conflict.
The checkpoints and control of roads in the West Bank prevent Palestinians from moving freely. The PLO “controls,” The West Bank, but when an occupying nation controls many of the roads, preventing usage of certain roads by the citizens of your territory and only letting their own citizens travel on them, how can they be considered independent? They lack basic sovereignty, with their citizens not being able to move within their own country due to an occupying force. You claim there is no authority to undermine, but even if correct, the reason for a lack of authority is squarely on Israel.
The idea that Palestine’s population has grown for the entire conflict falls apart when you look at the late 1940s, where over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs were expelled from their homes by Zionist militias. It was almost half of the Arab population. In just a few years, zealous Zionists used violence to flip the demographics of the region to favor Jews over non Jews. This wasn’t genocide, but was undeniably ethnic cleansing. It’s an important piece of context that Israeli fascists have tried to keep out of the conversation, focusing on population trends after their ethnic cleansing and assuming people won’t investigate.
I might describe Isreal’s practical intentions as genocidal because that’s the only way their strategy can make Israeli citizens safe like they claim to be working towards. Bombing Gaza does not make Israel safer unless they decimate the population enough to exert authoritarian control over the survivors. If they wanted Palestinians to live alongside Israel peacefully, they would ensure that there is a strong Palestinian state with little motivation to invade. If they got rid of settlements in the West Bank, funded a Palestinians state and reinvigorated their economy, and mutually agreed to harshly police hate crimes in both states, then they could coexist. The only ways to defeat Hamas in Gaza through force would be occupation of Gaza, or the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.
The reason they don’t go all out on purging Gaza probably has to do with Arabs outside Palestine who might attack if it happens too quickly. Israel has nukes, but they still want to avoid all out war. The long term goal of this subset of Zionists, genocidal Zionists, is to take over all of Palestine eventually, something that would likely be genocidal. Some Zionists want two states, but the Zionists in charge want a single Jewish theocracy.
I want peace and safety for Jewish people and Palestinians, something that will not happen without a true two state solution, or a single secular state. The long term plan of the state of Israel is ethnic cleansing at best, and genocide at worst.
The situation with Egypt requires contextual knowledge of their history with the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is a breakaway from the MB, and still ally with them. Egypt’s more secular military overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood’s democratic government, and the current government doesn’t want them to rise again. Letting in Palestinians would let in Hamas members, who might create problems for the government. It’s not the peacefulness of Palestinians, but the politics of Egypt that prevent them from accepting refugees. If Hamas was exactly the same but would oppose MB forces in Egypt, Egypt would probably let in some refugees. However, it’s hard for a nation with Egypt’s problems, to deal with so many refugees by themselves anyways. Israel, the ones creating refugees out of Palestinians, can’t expect their neighbors to happily foot the bill of caring for people who’s property they stole and destroyed.
Can you elaborate on what genocide means here? I usually think that means to wipe out some race but in this case they aren’t targeting based on race but on who wants to displace or kill them.
Isn’t it the case that Palestine could have sovereignty if they made a deal with Israel to split up the territory? My understanding was that they refuse to make deal as they demand to have have all the land and to expel the Jews.
You mention that Israel is genocidal, maybe some of them are in secret, but mainly they are interested in taking control of the land and stopping their enemies.
You say that Israel displaced Arabs but I thought many of them just left because they oppose Israel not because the Israelis actually told them to leave? Many Arabs stayed in place and they were not kicked out if they were willing to live in peace is Israel.
Israel and many others send aid all the time to Palestine in the hopes of bringing peace but it’s not been effective in making them seek peace.
Palestinians in general still think they should hold out for getting the whole region back, and more or less support Hamas because they have been taught to think this way.
I find it interesting that there are few complaints about how a huge part of Palestine was turned into “the kingdom of Jordan” by the British yet Palestinians did not have a violent rebellion against that decision and Palestine is not demanding that land back today.
Palestine nationals did try to work towards a deal. Zionists did kick Arabs out of their homes, 80% of them in what shortly became Israel. Oh, but they’re not genocidal, they just want to kick the Arabs off their land and make them not exist as a collective people there. Why couldn’t I see that? Those pesky Palestinians need only accept being a minority in a Jewish theocracy, then they don’t have to leave their homes.
Jordan was not unilaterally turned into the kingdom of Jordan by the British, a Transjordan independence movement wanted to prevent immigration of Jews to Mandatory Palestine, but barely managed to unite the land in present day Jordan. Jordan wasn’t a fully independent nation at this time and Mandatory Palestine certainly wasn’t. They didn’t have a choice, and the king would have tried to unite Palestine with Jordan if the British didn’t have plans for it.
You seem to think that a common people with a shared culture will automatically unite as a nation, but organizing a state isn’t easy. Independent tribes need to be convinced of the usefulness of a larger collective in order to form a state. They give up autonomy in creating a nation, so the tradeoff must seem worthwhile. If not for the external threat of Europeans trying to carve up and control peoples in the Middle East for selfish interests, they would prefer to be tribal and borderless. This isn’t because they’re uncivilized or savages, but because regional autonomy is a cool vibe. It’s not true anarchy, but it’s a less centralized mode than what Europeans thought was normal and civilized.
This is why European empires carving up the Middle East and demanding they form nations is so fucked up. They made arbitrary borders, often intentionally drawn to perpetuate and create conflict, because they think centralized governments are just the norm. Centralized governments can be useful, but they’re not without drawbacks and aren’t always superior. They need to come about naturally out of shared interests and the desire to accomplish what can’t be done singularly. This is why the UK leaving the EU was so ironic and hypocritical: they wanted to be more than equal partners because they’re so used to dominating imperially. When you’re used privilege, equality feels like oppression.
Anyhow, your understanding is shallow and ignorant. I’m not in the mood to give you a college course in social science and history that you might not even listen to. The best I can do is advise you to ensure your arguments are supported by evidence. Try to use evidence to inform your opinion and not to cherrypick facts that support your preconceived worldview. It’s a struggle to do this and not as easy or convenient, but it is what people should try to do.
laws? it’s internationally illegal, but that doesn’t matter, hence all the UN resolutions that Israel ignores.
incidents? sure, here’s an article from a few years ago of an incident that got somewhat prominent outside the region, it’s just that no one cares if the IDF blows a few brown fishermen out of the water (hell outside the English publication of a few prominent Hebrew papers people wouldn’t even know that Netanyahu was aiding Hamas to stay in power)
I see they have that little Egypt strip there … I do take your point and it’s a good one but I still struggle with the Germany france comparison. Maybe like luxembourg and Germany or France… or Avignon with the double pope – How about that?
Or the Basques would be good if they ever had their own real country
Even completely ignoring all the history of the region and how the current State of Israel came to be and only focusing on the present in a vacuum, there is still is a glaring contradiction that I have never heard any sort of coherent answer from people who support Israel’s actions: If you truly believe that simply having a negative opinion of Israel’s actions against Palestinians is antisemitic (or simply being a Palestinian that’s still alive is antisemitic according to too many people), then surely it also holds that both Israel’s outright killing of Palestinians and their ongoing apartheid policies preventing Palestinians from existing in the same areas as Israelis is anti-Arab right? Is being anti-Arabic somehow preferable to being antisemitic? Are Arabs not human beings and do they not deserve the same rights and protection as Jews or literally any other human? What makes it okay for Israel to be anti-Arab then?
One of the half baked arguments I have heard is that Israel is “justified” in being anti-Arabic because “it’s in self defense against Palestinians that want to kill them,” but if you make that assertion, then what makes the other side different? Israel is certainly not just attacking the Hamas and there have been more Palestinian civilian victims than Israeli civilian victims so wouldn’t you saying that also automatically imply the inverse and equally justify the Hamas’ actions against Israel? You can’t attack someone while claiming self defense and then cry foul when they defend themselves against you.
Israel is committing a genocide. - At best, one would have to concede they’re killing thousands of children to get at a handful of Hamas members. If you call it antisemitic to point that out, you’re saying genocidal kid-killing is inherent to Israelis - which is about as antisemitic as it gets, and a damn good justification for wiping Israel off the map. It’s a moronic,monstrous line to push.
(Not disagreeing, but offering a bit more insight)
To be fair, what the IDF is doing is hard. Fighting irregular forces in dense urban environments is hard, especially with their opponents having hundreds of underground bunkers and using civilian shields. Even if they were operating under best practice, there would be a lot of civilian casualties.
However, they aren’t operating under best practices. I don’t know how the average IDF soldier feels, but the top brass at best doesn’t give a shit if they kill a hundred palestinian civilians per one Hamas member; At worst, they see this conflict as an excuse to actively target them.
Between the genocidal rhetoric of Israeli leadership, the fact that Israel propped up Hamas over the PLO, and the fact that the casualty stats are squarely in line with the broader civilian population, what makes you think any attempt is being made to avoid civilian casualties?
Hamas and combatatant-aged men aren’t over-represented in the casualty stats - this is just an indiscriminate genocide they’ve been clearly signalling they intend to commit.
I don’t
ya, but Israeli are white, those other sub humans are brown you fool./s
You jest, but Israel also has a long history of discrimination against non-Ashkenazi Jewish people.
jest? about the people forcefully sterilized Ethiopian Jews that moved to Israel?
It’s white-dominated settler-colonial ethnostates all the way down!
Fun fact; something like 60 percent of all Israelis are Mizrahi Jews from across the Middle East. Both in terms of their physical appearance and their material culture they have far more in common with Arabs than they do with white Europeans. Calling them “white” really doesn’t hold much water.
ya, well it’s the immigrants from Europe and mainly America that are successfully pushing this racial theocratic-ethnostate shit
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You seem to misunderstand the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The West Bank is very much governed by the IDF and they treat Jews differently than non Jews. The IDF can legally detain Palestinians for up to 6 months without charges while being required to defend settlers who attack and harass Palestinians. They undermine the Palestinian Authority and override their supposed authority all the time. Gaza is more of an open air prison as people can’t leave. The reason Israel doesn’t occupy Gaza is because they did in the past and it was uneconomical.
There are a ton of people who basically paint all pro Palestinian groups and protests as antisemitic, from the ADL to Israeli lobbyists. These people are totally unreasonable and have a large amount of influence. “Opposing Israel’s actions = anti-Zionism = antisemitism,” isn’t the fringe narrative it should be. At the same time, there are braindead so called, “leftists,” who can’t comprehend that both Netanyahu’s government and Hamas are genocidal theocratic fascists. They’re also frustrating as fuck and cannot be tolerated. Far too many have lost their minds and morals over this conflict.
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The checkpoints and control of roads in the West Bank prevent Palestinians from moving freely. The PLO “controls,” The West Bank, but when an occupying nation controls many of the roads, preventing usage of certain roads by the citizens of your territory and only letting their own citizens travel on them, how can they be considered independent? They lack basic sovereignty, with their citizens not being able to move within their own country due to an occupying force. You claim there is no authority to undermine, but even if correct, the reason for a lack of authority is squarely on Israel.
The idea that Palestine’s population has grown for the entire conflict falls apart when you look at the late 1940s, where over 700,000 Palestinian Arabs were expelled from their homes by Zionist militias. It was almost half of the Arab population. In just a few years, zealous Zionists used violence to flip the demographics of the region to favor Jews over non Jews. This wasn’t genocide, but was undeniably ethnic cleansing. It’s an important piece of context that Israeli fascists have tried to keep out of the conversation, focusing on population trends after their ethnic cleansing and assuming people won’t investigate.
I might describe Isreal’s practical intentions as genocidal because that’s the only way their strategy can make Israeli citizens safe like they claim to be working towards. Bombing Gaza does not make Israel safer unless they decimate the population enough to exert authoritarian control over the survivors. If they wanted Palestinians to live alongside Israel peacefully, they would ensure that there is a strong Palestinian state with little motivation to invade. If they got rid of settlements in the West Bank, funded a Palestinians state and reinvigorated their economy, and mutually agreed to harshly police hate crimes in both states, then they could coexist. The only ways to defeat Hamas in Gaza through force would be occupation of Gaza, or the expulsion of Palestinians from Gaza.
The reason they don’t go all out on purging Gaza probably has to do with Arabs outside Palestine who might attack if it happens too quickly. Israel has nukes, but they still want to avoid all out war. The long term goal of this subset of Zionists, genocidal Zionists, is to take over all of Palestine eventually, something that would likely be genocidal. Some Zionists want two states, but the Zionists in charge want a single Jewish theocracy.
I want peace and safety for Jewish people and Palestinians, something that will not happen without a true two state solution, or a single secular state. The long term plan of the state of Israel is ethnic cleansing at best, and genocide at worst.
The situation with Egypt requires contextual knowledge of their history with the Muslim Brotherhood. Hamas is a breakaway from the MB, and still ally with them. Egypt’s more secular military overthrew the Muslim Brotherhood’s democratic government, and the current government doesn’t want them to rise again. Letting in Palestinians would let in Hamas members, who might create problems for the government. It’s not the peacefulness of Palestinians, but the politics of Egypt that prevent them from accepting refugees. If Hamas was exactly the same but would oppose MB forces in Egypt, Egypt would probably let in some refugees. However, it’s hard for a nation with Egypt’s problems, to deal with so many refugees by themselves anyways. Israel, the ones creating refugees out of Palestinians, can’t expect their neighbors to happily foot the bill of caring for people who’s property they stole and destroyed.
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Can you elaborate on what genocide means here? I usually think that means to wipe out some race but in this case they aren’t targeting based on race but on who wants to displace or kill them.
Isn’t it the case that Palestine could have sovereignty if they made a deal with Israel to split up the territory? My understanding was that they refuse to make deal as they demand to have have all the land and to expel the Jews.
You mention that Israel is genocidal, maybe some of them are in secret, but mainly they are interested in taking control of the land and stopping their enemies.
You say that Israel displaced Arabs but I thought many of them just left because they oppose Israel not because the Israelis actually told them to leave? Many Arabs stayed in place and they were not kicked out if they were willing to live in peace is Israel.
Israel and many others send aid all the time to Palestine in the hopes of bringing peace but it’s not been effective in making them seek peace.
Palestinians in general still think they should hold out for getting the whole region back, and more or less support Hamas because they have been taught to think this way.
I find it interesting that there are few complaints about how a huge part of Palestine was turned into “the kingdom of Jordan” by the British yet Palestinians did not have a violent rebellion against that decision and Palestine is not demanding that land back today.
Palestine nationals did try to work towards a deal. Zionists did kick Arabs out of their homes, 80% of them in what shortly became Israel. Oh, but they’re not genocidal, they just want to kick the Arabs off their land and make them not exist as a collective people there. Why couldn’t I see that? Those pesky Palestinians need only accept being a minority in a Jewish theocracy, then they don’t have to leave their homes.
Jordan was not unilaterally turned into the kingdom of Jordan by the British, a Transjordan independence movement wanted to prevent immigration of Jews to Mandatory Palestine, but barely managed to unite the land in present day Jordan. Jordan wasn’t a fully independent nation at this time and Mandatory Palestine certainly wasn’t. They didn’t have a choice, and the king would have tried to unite Palestine with Jordan if the British didn’t have plans for it.
You seem to think that a common people with a shared culture will automatically unite as a nation, but organizing a state isn’t easy. Independent tribes need to be convinced of the usefulness of a larger collective in order to form a state. They give up autonomy in creating a nation, so the tradeoff must seem worthwhile. If not for the external threat of Europeans trying to carve up and control peoples in the Middle East for selfish interests, they would prefer to be tribal and borderless. This isn’t because they’re uncivilized or savages, but because regional autonomy is a cool vibe. It’s not true anarchy, but it’s a less centralized mode than what Europeans thought was normal and civilized.
This is why European empires carving up the Middle East and demanding they form nations is so fucked up. They made arbitrary borders, often intentionally drawn to perpetuate and create conflict, because they think centralized governments are just the norm. Centralized governments can be useful, but they’re not without drawbacks and aren’t always superior. They need to come about naturally out of shared interests and the desire to accomplish what can’t be done singularly. This is why the UK leaving the EU was so ironic and hypocritical: they wanted to be more than equal partners because they’re so used to dominating imperially. When you’re used privilege, equality feels like oppression.
Anyhow, your understanding is shallow and ignorant. I’m not in the mood to give you a college course in social science and history that you might not even listen to. The best I can do is advise you to ensure your arguments are supported by evidence. Try to use evidence to inform your opinion and not to cherrypick facts that support your preconceived worldview. It’s a struggle to do this and not as easy or convenient, but it is what people should try to do.
If Germany was land locked inside France though to be fair right?
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considering that the IDF guards even the strip connecting Gaza to Egypt, yes Israel is basically land locking Gaza
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IDF ships shoot anything that strays too far from the coast, and the guards don’t have to be in the cells to have people imprisoned
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laws? it’s internationally illegal, but that doesn’t matter, hence all the UN resolutions that Israel ignores.
incidents? sure, here’s an article from a few years ago of an incident that got somewhat prominent outside the region, it’s just that no one cares if the IDF blows a few brown fishermen out of the water (hell outside the English publication of a few prominent Hebrew papers people wouldn’t even know that Netanyahu was aiding Hamas to stay in power)
I see they have that little Egypt strip there … I do take your point and it’s a good one but I still struggle with the Germany france comparison. Maybe like luxembourg and Germany or France… or Avignon with the double pope – How about that?
Or the Basques would be good if they ever had their own real country
Portugal? Vatican?
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