At least you do mention that Hamas political objectives are quite the same as the most militant Zionists. As I've said, extremists have the ball in the political game and the game is played how they want it to be played.Hamas' language is no different than that of Israeli main political party. Zionism implies racism, discrimination and the slow killing of Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank. Israel is denying the right to exist to Palestinians in their own country. That fits the bill. — Benkei
On May 1, 2017, Hamas leader Khaled Mashal presented Hamas’ much anticipated political document, which does not abrogate the Hamas Charter but outlines the strategies that the group has tailored to its current political circumstances.
The main points of Hamas’ new political document are:
- Full reliance on Islam as the group’s sole source of authority for its strategies and objectives.
- Denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination in the Land of Israel, while claiming that Israel’s establishment as a state is entirely illegitimate and depicting Zionism as the enemy of humanity. Hamas claims it “does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine.”
- Conferral of an “Arab-Islamic” and “sacred Islamic” character on all of Palestine, entailing the complete denial of any bond or right of the Jewish people or of Christianity to the land. (Hamas believes, based on the Koran and Islamic sources, Jesus was neither a Jew nor a Christian but a prophet of Islam who received the Islamic doctrine from Allah.)
- Justification of the current nature of the struggle to liberate Palestine, that is, the armed struggle, while granting legitimacy to the existence and activity of the “struggle organizations” – namely, the Palestinian terror organizations and their activity.
- Willingness for a Palestinian state to be established within temporary borders (1967 lines) as a step toward continuing the armed struggle to destroy Israel – “from the river to the sea.”
- Recognition of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), while also demanding new elections to its institutions and denying the validity of the organization’s political line and of the agreements it has signed with Israel.
- Praise for the “free people” in the world who support the Palestinian struggle against Israel.
Vapid ad hominem. No surprise there. Pathetic evasion. — 180 Proof
So what should determine who the rightful owners are? International law? What makes international law special? If there was a UN 500 years ago would you have followed it unquestionably? But now it's word is permanently binding, it's law - ok, got it. :brow: — BitconnectCarlos
but because its form of nationalistic democracy exemplifies the Enlightenment era liberal political self-identity that the West is trying to distance itself from via brutal self-critique. There is nothing quite so threatening to a person than witnessing a way of thinking in an other that they have themselves only recently struggled to free themselves from. This is a thread common to the intensity of. BLM, #Metoo and anti-Israel sentiment. — Joshs
Ah, so God it is, then. But if that's the case, God's been remarkably inclined to allow others to make the Jewish homeland their homes, wouldn't you say? — Ciceronianus the White
The Canaanites and Philistines, and perhaps Phoenicians as well, were there before Jews were. We're told that on their arrival the Jews dealt rather harshly with their predecessors. For example: “Then they devoted all in the city to destruction, both men and women, young and old, oxen, sheep, and donkeys, with the edge of the sword.” — Joshua 6:21. Yes, even donkeys. — Ciceronianus the White
It's difficult, but not impossible, to name all the others who lived in and ruled Palestine since the Jewish conquest. Egyptians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians (and Medes, I should say); then it became part of Alexander's empire, then it was ruled by his successors, Seleuces and his dynasty; then Romans, who destroyed the Second Temple in 70 C.E. and did a pretty thorough job of evicting Jews from Palestine, even renaming Jerusalem, under Hadrian; then the Byzantines (who stilled called themselves Romans); then came the Muslim conquest, interrupted briefly and partially for a couple of centuries by the Crusader kingdoms. It was Muslim/Ottoman territory until the mid-twentieth century. — Ciceronianus the White
Why, then say that it isn't the country of the Palestinians, but rather the Jewish homeland? It seems to be unclear even God has been convinced of that. — Ciceronianus the White
Well, it works out for me because I am Jewish and a Jewish state does serve as a form of security for the Jewish people. I can't pretend to be a totally disinterested observer to the question. I'm also generally supportive of self-determination movements elsewhere. — BitconnectCarlos
don't know why the world, or at least the Western world seems to care about this conflict so much more than larger ones. It seems to me that it is becoming just a proxy for the culture wars wracking America, and I can't say that I think that bodes well for the US or European powers being able to act as an arbiter for peace. — Count Timothy von Icarus
Israel has become a flashpoint for the left not just because of its subjugation of palestinians
but because its form of nationalistic democracy exemplifies the Enlightenment era liberal political self-identity that the West is trying to distance itself from via brutal self-critique. There is nothing quite so threatening to a person than witnessing a way of thinking in an other that they have themselves only recently struggled to free themselves from. This is a thread common to the intensity of. BLM, #Metoo and anti-Israel sentiment. Israel is us Westerners, the way we used to be, the way many of us still are ( Trump , Brexit supporters) . — Joshs
Do you get the sense that some of the more strident critics of Israel on this thread are using the Palestinians more as symbolic props than as real people? Kind of like Hollywood movies where the set-up involves an ‘other’ ( black, native american, fill in the blank) victimized and oppressed by the imperialist Western white man. This oppressed other can do no wrong since they are just empty symbols. — Joshs
Do you get the sense that some of the more strident critics of Israel on this thread are using the Palestinians more as symbolic props than as real people? Kind of like Hollywood movies where the set-up involves an ‘other’ ( black, native american, fill in the blank) victimized and oppressed by the imperialist Western white man. This oppressed other can do no wrong since they are just empty symbols.
— Joshs
What Joshs is actually saying here is that he is so incapable of basic human sympathy that he cannot fathom how others can be capable of it. — Maw
the ideological operative system here is similar to the Nazi anti-Semitic ideology in Zizek's sense. The grounding desire, an aspiration to immediately achieve the ultimate peace and justice, presupposes the evil ('sublime') object, invested with negativity and monstrosity. As a result, an ideological figure of 'Israel' has been constructed. 'Israel' has been labelled, demonized, and removed from civil discourse and the historical context. As Zizek points out, 'a pathological, paranoid construction' rejects objective facts and arguments. It employs them just for rationalizations and self-affirmations." — Number2018
Yes I understand that you don't want to appear incapable of human sympathy and require half-brained excuses. — Maw
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