• ssu
    8.6k
    The problem stems from the Independence War of '47-'48 when David Ben-Gurion expelled some of the Arab communities in the area, but not others.BitconnectCarlos
    It's called now days ethnic cleansing. The Jews didn't perpetrate large massacres, but enough to start the Palestinian exodus. Yet I don't know how biased the history is here.

    Not a solution like the Turks had to the "Armenian problem".
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    Mmm, the alternatives aren't promising - which is to be expected from a state suffused with racism from top to bottom. But one can have some schadenfreude as a treat. I don't particularly think electoralism will solve this issue. South Africa - which similalrly had 'democratic elections' - is the model that Israel ought to be treated by: made an international pariah, shamed, santioned and embargoed. As befitting an aparthied state. It starts with the entire world recognizing it for what it is, and treating it like the toxic state it currently is.
  • BitconnectCarlos
    2.3k
    It's called now days ethnic cleansing. The Jews didn't perpetrate large massacres, but enough to start the Palestinian exodus. Yet I don't know how biased the history is here.ssu

    I don't know too much about those smaller massacres, you'll have to enlighten me on the history there. Where and when did these smaller massacres take place and did news then travel to other villages causing mass exodus? Let's go to the history on this one.

    I deeply dislike the term ethnic cleansing in its use as an inflammatory accusation. Expulsion is very different from genocide and those two terms should not be conflated at all. They are so radically different.

    Gen. Grant ordered the Jews out of his military district in 1862 during the Civil War, is this "ethnic cleansing?" The term originally referred to the murder during the Bosnian genocide.
  • Andrew4Handel
    2.5k
    Where are the Jews supposed to Live? The Arabs have a massive area of land in the Middle East and North Africa. Many Arabic and Muslim countries. (Unproductive and mired in Islamofacist repression)

    I sniff Anti Semitism. Anti Semitism is Anti-Semitism. A handful of ethnic groups have no homeland and you want the Jews to be in perpetual diaspora. Simply repugnant. You have signed your deal with the devil. Likewise most people on this thread have shown time and time again they don't care about children other than the ones that die when Israeli is defending itself against Hamas and other terrorists.
  • BC
    13.6k
    Likewise most people on this thread have shown time and time again they don't care about children other than the ones that die when Israeli is defending itself against Hamas and other terrorists.Andrew4Handel

    I think it has to do with the alleged moral superiority of the oppressed. The same problem exists in the US: Black people killed by the police, accidentally or purposefully, get great press, while black people killed by other blacks, recklessly or purposefully -- a very much larger number-- get minimal press.

    A lot of people are also obsessed with power differentials. Israel has much more power than just about anybody else in the Middle East, so to some, that makes them automatically the bad guys.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    Yeah God forbid that Israel carrying out ethnic cleansing and settler colonialism has anything to do with it. That the repose to: Israel is carrying out ethnic cleansing is: 'where are Jews supposed to live'?, then this is either an admission that a 'Jewish' state can only be founded on ethnic cleansing, or that one is simply ignoring the issue. Charitably, I'd like to think it's the latter, but in Israel itself, it's the nettle of the former that has been undoubtedly grasped.
  • Baden
    16.3k

    Who is "you"? Who argued that Jews should be expelled from the middle east?

    If it helps you understand where some of us are coming from: as well as being against Israeli apartheid, I am also for the boycotting of the upcoming World Cup in Qatar due to their use of bonded labour and I'd have some very strong words about the government of that country and their horribly fucked-up culture re foreign labour if it came up for debate. Does that make me Islamaphobic? No; you can be Muslim without supporting that, just as you can be Jewish without supporting Israel's abuse of the Palestinians. For the vast majority of critics of Israel, I'd wager, these are issues of human rights and the religion or ethnicity of the human rights abuser is irrelevant.
  • 180 Proof
    15.3k
    Anti-semites are necessarily anti-zionists but anti-zionists are not necessarily antisemites. One must refuse to think or lack the courage to oppose oppression regardless of who is oppressing whom (or likely both) in order to conflate the difference. Do you refuse, lack or both? :shade:
  • BitconnectCarlos
    2.3k
    I sniff Anti Semitism. Anti Semitism is Anti-Semitism. A handful of ethnic groups have no homeland and you want the Jews to be in perpetual diaspora.Andrew4Handel

    For some people they'd rather have Jews perpetually at risk of massacre or death than to have their own homeland because that would be "racist." The very idea of a Jewish homeland is just racist to them.

    Likewise most people on this thread have shown time and time again they don't care about children other than the ones that die when Israeli is defending itself against Hamas and other terrorists.Andrew4Handel

    :100:

    It's all about selective outrage and fomenting division. If Gaza was just some third world country crushed under Hamas with no Israel no one would care because it would just be another boring case of Muslims oppressing Muslims.
  • ssu
    8.6k
    I don't know too much about those smaller massacres, you'll have to enlighten me on the history there. Where and when did these smaller massacres take place and did news then travel to other villages causing mass exodus? Let's go to the history on this one.BitconnectCarlos
    Well known is the massacre at the village of Deir Yassin:

    The Deir Yassin massacre took place on April 9, 1948, when around 130 fighters from the Far-right wing Zionist paramilitary groups Irgun and Lehi killed at least 107 Palestinian Arabs, including women and children, in Deir Yassin, a village of roughly 600 people near Jerusalem. The assault occurred as Jewish militia sought to relieve the blockade of Jerusalem during the civil war that preceded the end of British rule in Palestine.

    The villagers put up stiffer resistance than the Jewish militias had expected and they suffered casualties. The village fell after house-to-house fighting. Some of the Palestinian Arabs were killed in the course of the battle, others while trying to flee or surrender. A number of prisoners were executed, some after being paraded in West Jerusalem. In addition to the killing and widespread looting, there may have been cases of mutilation and rape. Despite an original boast by the victors that 254 had been killed, modern scholarship puts the death toll at far fewer. Palestinian historian Aref al-Aref counted 117 victims, seven in combat and the rest in their homes. The number of wounded is estimated to between 12 and 50. Five of the attackers were killed and a dozen wounded.

    The massacre was condemned by the leadership of the Haganah—the Jewish community's main paramilitary force— by the area's two chief rabbis and famous Jews abroad like Albert Einstein, Jessurun Cardozo, Hannah Arendt, Sidney Hook and others. The Jewish Agency for Israel sent Jordan's King Abdullah a letter of apology, which he rebuffed. He held them responsible for the massacre, and warned about "terrible consequences" if similar incidents occurred elsewhere.

    Here's a clip from a documentary explaining Deir Yassin. People from both sides are interviewed. If you look the whole clip, it explains interestingly also how many in the US, Middle-East experts and also Secretary of State George Marshall, were opposed to the idea of Israel and feared (correctly) that it would start a war, but Truman had his way. (video clip 9 min 26s)



    There were also the massacres at Lydda and Abu Shusha. And similar events happened, yet the overall number of people killed was rather low.

    The basic issue was that civilians fleeing the fighting couldn't get back. I assume that large numbers of Palestinians thought they could come back to their homes once the fighting stops. I think this is debatable how systematic, how planned from the Israeli side the exodus was. But perhaps someone other can shed the light on this.
  • Benkei
    7.7k
    I think you should name names here. Who here has argued that "Jews should be in perpetual diaspora" or that "the very idea of a Jewish homeland is racist" or that "they'd rahter have Jews peretually at risk of massacre or death"?

    If Gaza was just some third world country crushed under Hamas with no Israel no one would care because it would just be another boring case of Muslims oppressing Muslims.BitconnectCarlos

    Yeah nobody here that ever posted about terrorism in other countries or Hong Kong. It's selective outrage against injustice. When you complain about Hamas it's just a distraction from Israeli crimes, a dishonest ploy to pretend Israel is not committing terrible crimes.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    But perhaps someone other can shed the light on this.ssu

    The Jewish historian Illan Pappe has a whole book documenting the Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, which has not stopped to this day. And likely-Prime Minister elect Bennett is on record saying that he wants to annex 60% of the West Bank. So there's that.
  • BitconnectCarlos
    2.3k
    I think you should name names here.Benkei

    oh these people know who they are. they're just too far outside the overton window to productively engage, but occasionally we'll hurl insults at each other as a way of saying hi.

    Yeah nobody here that ever posted about terrorism in other countries or Hong Kong.Benkei

    i was talking about muslim on muslim oppression which is considered so pervasive in the west (and not without reason) that we just don't talk about it because we just don't care. it's not nearly as exciting as an ethnic struggle! :starstruck:
  • Baden
    16.3k


    :up: The real anti-semitism here is from those who would claim being Jewish somehow deprives you of individual political sovereignty. That it makes you a de facto supporter of apartheid. Anyway, in the absence of any evidence, we shouldn't give this any oxygen. It's a tired diversionary tactic.
  • Baden
    16.3k
    i was talking about muslim on muslim oppression which is considered so pervasive in the west (and not without reason) that we just don't talk about it because we just don't care. it's not nearly as exciting as an ethnic struggle! :starstruck:BitconnectCarlos

    There's a degree of truth to the idea that ethnic struggles, black vs white, Jewish vs Muslim, Catholic vs. Protestant etc more immediately grab our attention on a human level than internacine conflicts. Possibly because the very idea of oppression, from slavery to the holocaust, has strong historical resonances with racial, religious, and ethnic discrimination. So, our oppression "radar" tends to perk up when clear ethnic differences are at play. However, the obvious lesson from this is that we should heighten our awareness of all types of oppression rather than downplay our awareness of the ethnic form. Any argument to the contrary is perverse, self-defeating, and just more silly whataboutism.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    In addition, Israel is held to a higher standard insofar as (1), it masquerades as a democracy, (2) it receives an incredible amount of ideological and material support from the 'western nations' which enable it in carrying out it's settler colonial policies, (3) Israel is a predator state whose unbridled aggression renders it entirely responsible for the misery it continues to inflict upon its subject population - and itself.

    Additionally, an enthostate is definitionally racist. That's not some kind of contentious claim. That's just how words work.
  • BitconnectCarlos
    2.3k
    Additionally, an enthostate is definitionally racist.StreetlightX

    yeah, and japan clearly isn't for the japanese people, italy couldn't possibly be for the italians ... clearly no other state does this.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    japan clearly isn't for the japanese people, italy couldn't possibly be for the italiansBitconnectCarlos

    The 'Japanese people' and 'the Italian people' are anyone with a citizenship, all of whom are subject to the rule of law. This being unlike the theocentrism of the Israel state which accords non-Jews second-class citizenship and segregationist policies. Neither Japan nor Italy have compromised their democracies by institutionally discriminating against non-Shinto or non-Christian members of their own population. Unlike the apartheid state that is Israel.

    Would it be the case that Japan or Italy did discriminate like Israel, they too would be shitty countries, deserving of unrelenting critique. But nice to see you continue with your world tour and your whataboutism with yet another poorly drawn comparison that again confirms the utter shitness of the Israeli state as it stands. Maybe you can tell me again about occupied East Germany and how Israel is just like it.

    If you want a close analogue to Israel, it would be Iran - a theocracy that carries out acts of international terrorism.
  • Baden
    16.3k


    Fact is you don't have an ethicial leg to stand on. If Arabs instituted a state that kept Jews in an open air prison/ghetto that they regularly bombed and built roads especially for Arabs that Jews weren't allowed travel on, you, us, and the rest of the world would be rightly outraged. That you think this should be fine when it's done to Arabs/Muslims makes you, at the very least, a bigot, if not an outright racist.
  • BitconnectCarlos
    2.3k
    The 'Japanese people' and 'the Italian people' are anyone with a citizenship, all of whom are subject to the rule of law.StreetlightX



    nice, well i guess all i gotta do is get that full japanese citizenship and ill be 100% japanese and ready to succeed over there. it's all just a piece of paper, isn't it?

    by institutionally discriminating against non-Shinto or non-ChristianStreetlightX

    oh you're telling me now that there's no institutional discrimination in japan or italy? tell me more about how perfect these countries here. this is very unlike you and i thought you would know better than to make this mistake. it's such an easy one to avoid.


    Would it be the case that Japan or Italy did discriminate like Israel, they too would be shitty countries, deserving of unrelenting critique.StreetlightX

    now you're starting to get it. that lightbulb is slowly turning on.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    oh you're telling me now that there's no institutional discrimination in japan or italy?BitconnectCarlos

    List out to me Japan's and Italy's apartheid policies. Go on.

    And even if you did, btw, this would still not absolve Israel of it's being an apartheid state.
  • BitconnectCarlos
    2.3k
    That you think this should be fine when it 's done to Muslims makes you, at the very least, a bigot.Baden

    when did i ever say this??? in any case if we started actually applying attention to muslim on muslim oppression the range of topics covered would be much much broader and israel would proportionally receive less attention.
  • BitconnectCarlos
    2.3k


    take 2 seconds to understand the intricacies of japan's society and how difficult it is for non-japanese to understand and you might begin to learn. not everything needs to be formally spelled out - discrimination often occurs in back rooms or behind closed doors.

    look at who is succeeding in these countries. when you speak the language, know the culture, know the region, have a history... that's gonna help, it's not hard to understand.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    You got nothing. Got it.

    So, back to how Israel is systematically engaging in ethnic cleansing both in and outside it's borders and apartheid within them.
  • BitconnectCarlos
    2.3k


    look at the leadership, look a the heads of business. look at the power circles.
  • Baden
    16.3k


    Would you consider it acceptable for an Arab state to build roads in Israel that Arabs but not Jews were allowed to travel on? Or to build settlements there exclusively for Arabs?

    n any case if we started actually applying attention to muslim on muslim oppression the range of topics covered would be much much broader and israel would proportionally receive less attention.BitconnectCarlos

    This is not the topic of the thread. If you want to start a new thread about that, go ahead. Thing is, you won't find anyone defending that oppression, so the debate is likely to be short lived.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    OK, you can start your own thread about Italy and Japan.

    In the meantime, maybe we can talk about Israel's Basic Law, which enshrines racism at the constitutional level.
  • Baden
    16.3k


    "This is the law of all laws. It is the most important law in the history of the State of Israel US, which says that everyone has human rights, but national rights in Israel the US belong only to the Jewish people white people. That is the founding principle on which the state was established."

    Why would anyone object to this type of thing? Perfectly fine. Absolutely not apartheid. Just like Italy, really.
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