If you can't condemn roads being built that Jews would not be allowed to travel on but Arabs would, you're an anti-semite. Period. — Baden

I honestly wouldn't mind if it were in Egypt or something and it was near a border and they just let the Egyptian citizens speed through quicker. It would hasten the process.

I

Jews have lived in the region for thousands of years, continuously. Way, way before Israel. Jewish populations have been ethnically cleansed from Arab lands.

You're dropping the earlier discussion because you just don't know. You need to make an effort to learn the history of the demographics in that area before you jump to conclusions like that the Palestinians are just entitled to the entire WB for some reason.

As for the roads are these near security checkpoints? It might make sense to allow some cars through quicker, but I would think this is only around the border.

The West Bank is a Palestinian territory under Israeli occupation. — Baden

Which sector of the WB are you talking about? Or are you talking about all of it? Why does all of the WB necessarily belong to the Palestinians? What about the Jewish communities there?

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? — Baden

No because Israel is its own country. Israel doesn't build settlements in other Arab countries.

look at the leadership, look a the heads of business. look at the power circles.

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.

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.

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-Christian — StreetlightX

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.

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.

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:

The ethnic conflicts in Africa, the middle east, Europe and around the world. To equate strong beliefs in ethnic and racial histories with racism and tribalism, it's not a stretch, bitconnect, this isn't about some Western cultural attribute. Anyone can just look at history and make the connections. — Judaka

I've never denied this. If we could press a button and eliminate ethnic histories there'd certainly be some not outlandish case for doing so, but in the context of the middle east it's just a fact of life and "phasing out" ethnic histories just isn't a thing. these ethnic stories are also mixed heavily with religion.
we need to deal with reality as it is, not try to encourage people to abandon or phase out their ethnic histories. the cat is too far out of the bag at this point.

You want "outsiders" to shut up about it, let and let live you say, don't be so arrogant to tell others what they can and can't do. But this is a bit of an over-exaggeration, it's not like the West can force the citizens and governments of these various nations to change their thinking and such concerns have got nothing to do with whether ethnic histories are ethical or not. — Judaka

no, i want outsiders - if they choose to engage - to engage as a partner, not as parent or a king unless the offense is very egregious. other cultures will have problems, just like yours, but it's all about how you address it. it's about tact.

Within the West, European ethnic histories are virtually a no-go, talking about a white racial history as a white person, is a huge red flag. — Judaka

you can talk about british history, french history, irish history - it's fine to celebrate that heritage and your connection with it. i'm fine with "german pride" as long as it strongly rejects nazism - again, its all about the story behind it.

there is no "white racial history." brits are not poles who are not czechs who are not italians. there is no "white history."

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.

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.

Probably not, no, but why can't they go to Palestine? In hindsight its all clear the mess we're in but the 40s and 50s were different times and jews were interested in building their own communities in that region.

Are you going to tell holocaust survivors in 1945 that they can't go to Israel? The one place where jews aspire to be ruled by other jews and not risk being murdered by their own host countries? Israel wasn't even a state at this point, it was just jews living in British controlled palestine.

There was nothing to go back to. Virtually everything was destroyed or stolen. The European Jews had to seek lives elsewhere whether it was in the US, Canada, UK, or Israel. Jews certainly would not want to have lived in Germany.

Yeah, under Judaka's ideas there would just be no Jewish people or Jewish identity. I've already been over this with Judaka and I don't feel like rehashing this.

Assimilation can always be an option, but it should never be something to be pushed or forced on a group of people. It takes an incredible degree of arrogance to come as a complete outsider to another group and just tell them outright that they need to "be like us" or "become western" - whatever that means. We've already seen this narrative play out so many times in the Western world like with the Native Americans I just can't believe some people haven't learned by now.

Ethnic histories justify racism because they allow people to inherit grievances, fault and characteristics through their ethnicity. — Judaka

Every culture or ethnicity tells itself stories and through these stories or histories we come to understand ourselves and the other. Ethnic histories can justify racism if that story is being told in a bad, simplistic way. After WWII so many Jews felt incredibly ill not only of Germany, but the German people as well as Europeans in general.

Thankfully, after (largely Jewish) writers began producing Holocaust-related literature and re-examining that period in history it allowed us to recast our history and our own understanding in more nuanced terms: Europe is not irredeemably anti-Semitic, there were many groups that went out of their way to save Jews, and the story simply isn't as clear cut as many would think it is. The more we study the Holocaust, the more we move away from this simplistic, black-and-white rendition ("woe is me, Europe hates Jews, we can never trust anyone who isn't Jewish") to something a little more reflective of reality.

Many of those who poured hundreds of hours into that writing and research were Jews who were deeply inspired by their ethnic connection to the conflict. In fact, the field of Holocaust literature is largely dominated by Jews who have made a real, serious effort to understand their own history and their people's history and this has allowed Jews to move forward as a group in a much more productive way and reshape their history in a healthier way which benefits everyone. There's also a ton of universal knowledge about human behavior and how humans act under bureaucracy that was revealed through this heavy literature.

Yeah, that's cool.

I was watching a youtube video today where they interviewed a bunch of asexual people and the majority of them said that they did not feel welcome in the LGBTQ community. They've been marginalized by a marginalized community. I just think issues like this present interesting challenges to the oppressor-oppressed framework.

Our ethnic identities help ground us and allow us to relate to others better. Having an ethnic identity to a considerable extent makes us an authority on that ethnicity. It provides a good jumping off point for cultural engagement and allows us a venue to direct difficult questions to (for instance, if someone is from group of people that at one point in history had a problem with your group.) If we don't address these types of questions and issues these issues just persist.

I do notice that the West is allowing or even celebrating minorities having ethnic and racial histories. It's garbage, I don't support that. — Judaka

Do you honestly dislike events where people talk about or present their own cultures? I can't imagine thinking that way. I love learning about where other people are from and their experiences.

More importantly, have you noticed that groups without roots tend to struggle more? Groups like Native Americans? African Americans (not Nigerians, who are doing very well)? Was our attempt to assimilate/integrate the Native Americans a good thing?

Is oppression synonymous with unfairness and injustice? Then sure... I don't really understand your definition. If I replace "oppression" with "unfair" then I agree. — Judaka

Yeah, basically.

These things do matter though: I don't think you'd like it very much if you had a disability that was repeatedly portrayed in books and movies as something to be laughed at or pitied. Especially if that's how many people are getting their only exposure to that disability. Portrayal matters.

It's a mix of both. Jews were similarly being expelled and dispossessed of their property in Arab lands. It was very difficult, heated, chaotic times. Sometimes the Arabs just fled, other times their leaders advised or ordered them to leave, and other times Israel expelled them. The Arab Palestinians had always opposed the creation of the Jewish state and were first to attack it even before the Arabs were able to. Retaliating against this involved going into Palestinian towns where the militias ran their operations. After 1948 Israel was extremely vulnerable with its fragmented borders.

I obviously don't condone everything and the history here is messy. 1967 is its own story. Israel has been willing to give territory back, like Sinai, in exchange for peace with the Egyptians so these territorial acquisitions are hardly permanent. Israel on numerous occasions has offered to give territory back.

As for "Arab Christians", I mean, okay. This is like someone debunking racism in the US by saying "Asians are doing alright", I don't want to respond to this kind of logic seriously, you're smart, give me a break. — Judaka

There's a huge difference between one country just hating all minorities as opposed to just having an issue with one minority group in particular due to a troubled past. A country which just hates all minorities is bottom of the barrel. There is a big difference here. Of course racism exists in Israel just like it exists everywhere else.

What's your point anyway? — Judaka

My point is that different groups of people have their own traditions and histories and ways of understanding things and that you, as a westerner, do not get to tell others how to govern unless some serious moral boundary has been crossed. this should come from a sense of humility: you are from but one culture, one group of people among many, and even the west does not have all the answers. I'm honestly amazed at the level of confidence you have in telling Israel - a country that you've presumably never been to or studied in depth and lack cultural exposure to - that they must assimilate their Arab Muslim population, full stop, no questions. How on Earth do you have such confidence?

EDIT: Just to be clear there are obviously efforts made to integrate the Arab Muslims and make things easier for them, but no one should be telling them to lose their history or their background. That's ultimately up to the Arabs.

The West learned its lesson, ethnic histories are barely talked about — Judaka

But this is changing, don't you see? The old "melting pot" idea is on its way out and "lets talk about our culture and our people" is on its way in. Surely you've been noticing this in the West.

Oppression can be applied to many different circumstances and we adjust the "resources" to match the setting but it's always based on control and abuse of power. — Judaka

Do stereotypes or prejudices qualify as 'oppression' to you at all? You really don't think that a standard, like a beauty standard, for instance... can be oppressive? What if we only defined beauty as "whiteness?" Beauty standards, social standards... can definitely be oppressive. They can exclude certain groups purely on their identity.

I don't like your definition, I doubt you would even accept describing anything unfair as "oppression". A guy cheats in a race, is that "oppression"? Injustice is oppression? No... nono, I can't. Even you can't possibly use the word oppression as you've described. — Judaka

I'm just going by the way that I've seen it used (generally by leftists) so I'm going along with that.

The left does make a point though...is it fair that we as men (you're male, right?) immediately judge attractive women more positively? Is it fair that we make snap, unconscious judgments on the clothes people wear and how they look? Everyone oppresses other people in a billion different ways... we can't even count all the ways that just through existing and thinking and living we oppress others. We are all complicit in upholding unfair standards. Trust me, I work in a disability community and these judgments and little looks/facial expressions do have real consequences. Nobody is innocent. You can call this "not oppression" but then we're just back to the definitional issue again.

As mentioned I don't usually spend time thinking about all the ways that oppression exists or that I oppress others or that others oppress me, but if those on the left want to waddle into that territory I'm happy to talk.

Just a quick aside, have you seen this sweet JBP mix?

Anyhow, I'm broadly defining 'oppression' as injustice, but it could also just be anything that isn't fair. Often this unfairness is beyond one's control, or beyond anyone's control for that matter.

So I think we're just defining it differently and that's okay because no one has a monopoly on the definition of the word... it's vague. You make solid points and all I can do at the end of the day is state my position and give my take and it's okay if we disagree.

I can't imagine what definition of oppression says it's oppression that people don't want to sleep with you. — Judaka

Would you call just a general social undesirability (e.g. someone who is ugly and socially awkward) a form of oppression? If I were to be totally honest, I would. I think people who struggle socially are quite limited, generally speaking.

EDIT: I don't generally process the world in this way, but if we are going to talk oppression then I've got a lot to say. Dark thought: Disability only exists because non-disabled people exist. Everybody is both oppressor and victim.

a) Yes, I agree here. The Arab-Israeli issue is an ethno-religious problem and persists along ethno-religious lines. [first question]
b) I would like to know who Israel is deporting. In any case, Arab Christian and Druze minorities in Israel have always been welcomed and Arab Christians are doing quite well - they're the most educated group in Israel and they out-do the Israeli Jews on some measures so please stop accusing Israel of being racist. Arab Christians are a model minority. The problem is with the Arab Muslims. It's not that we "assimilate" the Arab Christians - Israel acknowledges their own culture and perspective and caters to that. We don't try to make the Jews, but if they want to then they're welcome to.

Second question, if a Western nation, explicitly tied their culture to an ethnic or racial group, how do you think that would be received by the other Western nations? — Judaka

Very poorly, but in other parts of the world it's the standard. India is for the Indians, China is for the Han Chinese and Japan is for the Japanese. Somehow Jews have been living in India for thousands of years and it's been a great experience for us despite not being the dominant culture or group. The Indians never tried to "assimilate" us/make us more like them, we just dealt with them as equals and respected their traditions. That made for peace. Jews and Indians have never fought. Relations between the two groups are very good.

Good call - I'm reading Arendt's Eichmann in Jerusalem right now and it's an amazing account on this phenomenon. She makes the point that these people - these functionaries somewhere in the chain of command -- always had some independent decisions to make that influenced how quickly or efficiently the process went. The main point she makes is that moral responsibility is pervasive at every level throughout these kind of events.

But man does she give it to those Jewish community leaders. But also the fact that distinctions were able to be drawn between foreign and non-foreign Jews and distinctions like these were able to go unquestioned. It's just a fact of life that when people's lives are at stake you should not expect the best from them - some, absolutely... but most, no.

The obvious questions this raises: and how do you measure which is the strong and which the weak? — coolazice

Even the "weak" have responsibility and can be atrocious, sometimes even rivaling levels of the "strong" abusers -- Jewish policemen during WWII, for instance could be quite brutal. Weak does not mean good; strong does not mean bad. Yes, there were truly innocent victims in the Holocaust but all too often the reason these people became victims was because of decisions made by numerous authorities at many different levels of the decision-making process who let the orders pass down because "they had no choice" because they were simply "victims." Hitler personally murdered no one. The Holocaust could not have occurred with the cooperation of those at lower levels.

Those who consider themselves powerless victims are often the most vicious and the least inclined to accept responsibility. If you don't believe me consider look into the story of Chaim Rumkowski who led the Lodz ghetto, and there were other Jewish community leaders like that.

What security procedure requires annexing more and more of Palestine? — fdrake

What would you like to talk about in particular: The original birth of Israel (which the Arabs consider annexation)? The expansion of '48? '67? A current proposal to annex area C of the West Bank? These are all different issues and deserve their own treatment.

Israel's borders with 3 of its Arab neighbors are either formally settled or de facto settled... the only flexible border is with Syria which has not recognized Israel but there's no Israeli settlers there. Borders with Egypt and Jordan have been fixed. AFAIK Israel has no plans to annex Gaza and I would certainly be against that.

Your analysis here is accurate.

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. I will have to look a little more deeply into why he did this, but regardless the repercussions of this policy are clear. Israeli Arab Muslims frequently call themselves "Palestinians" or "Israeli Palestinians" and many have family ties to Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza as well as elsewhere. Israel is absolutely a country divided.

It's been difficult. I know for a fact that some participated in the second intifata and other violence and relations between Israeli Jews and its Arab muslim minority have been strained.

Note that the Christian Arabs have been much easier to integrate and assimilate than the Muslim ones. Christian Arabs are one of the most educated groups in Israel. Socio-economically, they're much more similar to the Jews than the Muslim Arabs. They're a model minority that's doing better than Israeli Jews on some important metrics.

The Druze are another group that also do well in Israel. The Israelis have good relations with the Druze and 94% of Druze describe themselves as "Israeli-Druze." No violence here.

Some people will never change the way they view the world. Some may lessen the intensity of such feelings over time. — Manuel

Do you consider fighting oppression as something that's more about changing other people's attitudes, or do you see anything in yourself or your peers that maybe contributes to the issue in the form of reinforcing or upholding certain standards?

If a person has a low sexual market value and nobody wants to date them, that's a form of oppression? Oppression requires a group with power to abuse that power to restrict the political and economic resources of others. — Judaka

I think there's a strong case to be made that being low SMV or just being socially undesirable in general is a form of oppression by society (as well as arguably nature.) Socially undesirable people certainly face discrimination across a wide number of areas.

Jobs and positions in society represent political and economic resources, so that fits nicely into my explanation of oppression. — Judaka

Alright, but those in powerful positions in society can also set or change standards, agree? Beauty standards, fashion, etc. Art can refashion messages and help people view issues in new ways.

So your beliefs, traditions, holidays, mannerisms, language, clothing - whatever you would describe as Jewish culture, it all what, disappears without an ethnic history? — Judaka

Majors holidays that we'd lose off the top of my head if we abandoned ethnic history: Passover, Hanukkah, Sukkot, Purim. We'd also lose all the Jewish/Israeli national holidays like Holocaust remembrance day, founding of Israel day, and a few others.

Jews came to understand God through our interactions with him as detailed in the OT. If you take away those interactions or you don't link yourself to those people then everything fails. The Jewish people formed a covenant with God in the OT and that covenant is extremely important. It's a promise between God that extends to all modern Jews. You need to make that link and the importance of making that link to one's ancestors is repeatedly made in Judaism.

Other cultures have similar links to their ancestors. This is hardly unique to Judaism.

Without the link it's basically "well these people did these things and had these experiences but nothing applies to me."

Maybe some forms of Islam can't stop being anti-LGBTQ, but you'll join me in saying they need to change, same shit here. — Judaka

Of course.

Do you at least see the problem with ethnic histories? — Judaka

I see a problem in "my people's ethnic history makes my people better than yours." I don't see a problem in "this is my people's ethnic history and I think it's pretty cool and it has something to offer to the world and can help others."

People can keep their culture, their ethnic histories gotta go. — Judaka

The problem is that the culture is derived from the ethnic history. Take away the ethnic history and the whole structure collapses. There is simply no Judaism, and in turn no Christianity, if just decide to abandon ethnic histories since the foundational document of Judaism is the ethnic history of the Hebrews.

[delete]

Bitconnect, is this forum turning you? This sounds like something banno or streetlightx would say...

How do you define oppression? What does it mean to be "oppressed" by attitudes and treatment? And are you calling social convention a system of oppression? — Judaka

Standards exclude certain types. Whether it's standards for a job, beauty standards, standards for a parent, for a student... all of these roles carry expectations. The expectation is that you meet those standards and that you don't drop below and there can be real social costs to dropping below. Do you see how standards and attitudes could be said to "oppress" in this way? They create pressure, fear, anxiety, psychological consequences.

I can't condemn the practices of cultures? Why not? You won't condemn things provided they're part of someone's culture? — Judaka

You can condemn cultural practices, but when you say

Why wouldn't you tell the Palestinians or Arabs to cease believing in ethnic, cultural or religious histories when you're aware that the middle east is being torn apart by sectarian violence?

You're asking millions of people to renounce a large part of their identities and how they understand themselves and history... including everything that informs their values. What are you trying to replace it with? Are you sure you'll be able to effectively make that transition?

No offense, but it's also enormously arrogant in practice. Are you going to honestly just tell Arabs to stop practicing Islam or observing certain cultural rituals that have developed outside of Islam? What on Earth gives you that position as an outsider? Are you just so sure that everything they do and how they process and understand things is flat out wrong? Ok.

Your DNA gives you a special history that people without your DNA don't have. Isn't that right? — Judaka

So does yours.

How can someone look at the middle east and say ethnic histories are making the world a better place? What about the WW2 examples you love so much, what about the role ethnic histories played there? — Judaka

You said you were a pragmatist earlier. Ought implies can. We have also seen some very, very bad things happen when we, especially as outsiders, try to erase people's history and culture. Do not do it. You can try to change bad practices and you can question, but do not erase.

How can you actually be practising the culture of Jewish merchants or farmers thousands of years ago when you're living in an advanced economy in the 21st century? — Judaka

Cultures change, technology changes... ways of living were never intended to be preserved at all costs. Jews do however preserve plenty of rituals and practices that have extend that far back though - thousands of years.