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Ed General Israel/Palestine discussion thread - Part 3

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The Great Zaganza said:
And secondly, the IDF is equated with Israel, and any criticism of it is automatically antisemitic.
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The Israeli government wants to equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

There are Jewish organisations that are against the state of Israel. I wonder if they are also antisemitic?
 
steenkh said:
The Israeli government wants to equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

There are Jewish organisations that are against the state of Israel. I wonder if they are also antisemitic?
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Some of them probably are, in the same way that Orwell explained pacifists during WW2 were objectively pro-fascists. They didn't think of themselves that way, but that was still the result.
 
steenkh said:
The Israeli government wants to equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

There are Jewish organisations that are against the state of Israel. I wonder if they are also antisemitic?
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Real talk.

Does anyone disagree with the following statement:

"The fact that term 'Jewish' and related terms can be used to describe a race, a religion, an ethnic group, and a broader culture all of which overlap and have fuzzy edges can make discussion of issues related to it harder. Not impossible, but harder."
 
steenkh said:
The Israeli government wants to equate criticism of Israel with antisemitism.

There are Jewish organisations that are against the state of Israel. I wonder if they are also antisemitic?
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You think being a member of a hated group precludes that member from internalizing that hatred?
 
Planigale said:
If Israelis were not in uniform and opened fire on 'uniformed' Hamas should they be regarded as terrorists?
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Regarded that way by whom? Not everyone's opinion on the matter really counts. The most relevant opinions are those potentially in a position to do something based on a judgment.

Hamas is a direct combatant so their opinion might in principle matter, except that don't actually care, and will torture and kill any Jew regardless of uniform or combatant status.

For my part, if out-of-uniform Israelis are defending themselves against an attack, I've got no problem with that. I would have a problem with out-of-uniform Israelis attacking into Gaza as part of an offensive operation, but I doubt that's happening. And my opinion (and yours) doesn't really matter, because no consequences flow from whatever we decide.

If Hamas gave a warning to people in a bunker to come out within five minutes or they would throw in a grenade
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That's an odd hypothetical, since Hamas never does that sort of thing.
 
trustbutverify said:
You think being a member of a hated group precludes that member from internalizing that hatred?
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Seems like a non-sequitur to me. I don’t think organisations like the American Council for JudaismWP is internalizing hatred against Jews. Being anti-Israel is not the same as being anti-Jews.

The Netanyahu government in particular has always been quick to accuse critics of being antisemitic. But of course it is also possible be both at the same time: hating Jews, and be against Israel, which describes Hamas very well.
 
https://twitter.com/jrc1921/status/1712858246434673096

"The Israel president advocating collective punishment against 2.2 million Gazans

'It is not true this rhetoric about civilians were not aware, were not involved, it’s absolutely not true. They could have risen up against that evil regime that took over Gaza in a coup d’etat'"

I take it those Palestinian civilians would not be called terrorists by the Israelis, my enemy's enemy is my friend.

I take it all Israelis do not have collective responsibility for any atrocities and murders committed by Israelis.
 
Nessie said:
https://twitter.com/jrc1921/status/1712858246434673096

"The Israel president advocating collective punishment against 2.2 million Gazans

'It is not true this rhetoric about civilians were not aware, were not involved, it’s absolutely not true. They could have risen up against that evil regime that took over Gaza in a coup d’etat'"

I take it those Palestinian civilians would not be called terrorists by the Israelis, my enemy's enemy is my friend.

I take it all Israelis do not have collective responsibility for any atrocities and murders committed by Israelis.
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I'm sure you know there are plenty of anti-Israeli activists who believe just that.
 
In a democracy, you have more collective responsibility for the actions of your government than you have in an autocracy
 
Fast Eddie B said:
As I’ve said here, the surrounding Arab nations could build a gleaming “New Palestine”, possibly in Egypt, to welcome the 2 million plus Palestinians from Gaza. After all, Qatar, on its own, spent $220 billion (!) just to host the World Cup. “Make the desert bloom”, a line I often heard in my childhood referring to what Israel accomplished.

Seems like a plan to me. But stipulated the parties involved may have an outcome other than “peace in the Mideast” in mind. And that 2 million plus Palestinians within your borders might “fester” instead of “bloom”. Were I a young Palestinian, I’d jump at the chance to escape Gaza and a new start. But then again, I don’t have millennia of racial and religious hatred baked into my being.
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There were other options for Jewish people after WW2; but they chose to move from Europe to Palestine. Thet chose to create an exculsionary state, which resulted in thousands of palestians being evicted and turned into refugees.

Given that this was perhaps all caused by Europeans and the US, perhaps Europe and the US should provide the funding and home for the displaced Palestinians. Perhaps if Biden wants a solution he should offer to take the Gazana and give thenm US citizenship. Israel could offer citizenship to all Palestinians born within 'Greater Israel' citizenship if they renounced violence and accepted the right of Israel to exist.
 
Gulliver Foyle said:
Palestinian civilians aren't "collateral damage" to the IDF. That organisation murders civilians to often and in too great a number for it to be anything other than deliberate policy. The state of Israel has adopted wholesale the tactics Frank Kitson formulated for the British army in Kenya and the Six Counties, viz if there is opposition then punish the whole community collectively (and in the Six Counties the opposition was the non-violent NICRA when Kitson's vild criminality was implemented).

While what Hamas has done over the last few days is vile beyond the comprehension of anybody sane, I cannot forget that Israel has done the equivalent month after month, year after year since the1980's with no condemnation nor blowback from the international community.
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Hamas are justifiably condemned for killing 40 children over the course of a few days.

israel has killed nearly the same number (37) of Palestinain children in the West Bank alone this year.

https://www.hrw.org/news/2023/08/28/west-bank-spike-israeli-killings-palestinian-children
 
Planigale said:
There were other options for Jewish people after WW2; but they chose to move from Europe to Palestine. Thet chose to create an exculsionary state, which resulted in thousands of palestians being evicted and turned into refugees.

Given that this was perhaps all caused by Europeans and the US, perhaps Europe and the US should provide the funding and home for the displaced Palestinians. Perhaps if Biden wants a solution he should offer to take the Gazana and give thenm US citizenship. Israel could offer citizenship to all Palestinians born within 'Greater Israel' citizenship if they renounced violence and accepted the right of Israel to exist.
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Such as, remain where they were and hope Holocaust part 2 doesn't come for them?
 
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Planigale said:
There were other options for Jewish people after WW2
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And?

We're well past the end of WW2. We can't go back and redo the formation of Israel somewhere else. Do you want to destroy Israel? If so, what actions are you willing to take to achieve that, in the face of armed resistance? Are you willing to kill all the Jews, as Hamas is? Kill enough of them to make the rest surrender? How exactly would you dismantle the state?

If you do not want to destroy Israel, then you need to deal with the reality of their existence, and counterfactuals about what might have been don't matter.

Israel could offer citizenship to all Palestinians born within 'Greater Israel' citizenship if they renounced violence and accepted the right of Israel to exist.
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Yeah, because nobody ever promised to behave and then didn't. Great idea.
 
Again if "Just go literally anywhere else on the billion of square acres on the planet" was a solution there by definition wouldn't be a problem.

It's the fact that they both have to go on this one 25 mile stretch of desert scrub land because that's where God said so is the problem.

There's a state park in Alaska that's something like over 6 million square acres. You could put 10 Israels, 10 Palestines, Luxemburg, and Area 51 in there and they would never notice each other.

It's not a space problem. It's a "nobody wants to be anywhere but right there and doesn't want to share" problem.
 
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The Great Zaganza said:
In a democracy, you have more collective responsibility for the actions of your government than you have in an autocracy
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First, Hamas was elected in 2006. True, they haven't held an election since, and will make life extremely uncomfortable for anyone who demands they do, but they were elected. Second, many anti-Zionists believe Israel is not a democracy.
 
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