Israel Objects to U.S. Construction Demands

Paranormal Inquirer

Critical Thinker
Paranormal Inquirer
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/17/world/middleeast/17mideast.html?ref=todayspaper

I found this quote a bit interesting:

“They are demanding that Jews not be allowed to build in East Jerusalem,” Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said on Israel Radio. “We cannot bar only Jews from building in a certain section of the city. Can you imagine if they told Jews in New York they could not build or buy in Queens?”
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Now I'm not gonna claim to have any expertise on this situation, so I'll leave it up to you guys; is his analogy valid?
 
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Queens is not occupied territory, who's control by the City of New York is not recognized by most nations on Earth.

the analogy is pathetic and moronic.

But Leiberman is a pathetic moron, so it all makes sense.
 
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The analogy is crap. These clowns love to accuse thier detractors of anti-semitism....nothing new here. when right wing extremeist Israelis want to do stuff they whine that "jews" should not be prevented with doing it....equating thier own bigotted right wing Ideologies and practices with Judaism.
 
Uhh, The Fool, if the new housing project isn't for Jews, then what are you so upset about? If it was an Israeli Arab community that was getting government funds, would it still be such a tragedy/disgrace/pogrom/apartheid/continuation of the holocaust against non-jews?
 
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quixotecoyote said:
Uhh, The Fool, if the new housing project isn't for Jews, then what are you so upset about? If it was an Israeli Arab community that was getting government funds, would it still be such a tragedy/disgrace/pogrom/apartheid/continuation of the holocaust against non-jews?
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Could you find out when that has happened?
 
no. the great irony is that for the most part, Israeli-Jewish settlements are built by Arab laborers.

its pathetic that right-wing Jews pull out the "anti-Semitism" card even when they are clearly in the wrong.
 
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a_unique_person said:
Could you find out when that has happened?
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It hasn't. Mostly. They tried rebuilding Lod and it got mired in corruption and the project is left sunk in debt.

This is one of the things that Israel is doing wrong - the housing and settlement expansion is done in an indefensible way, so, I don't try to defend it. They way they tend to ignore unsafe Arab neighborhoods while building new developments in Jewish neighborhoods need to change.

That's the way to honestly approach the issue. Yeah, I'm disagreeing with the Prime Minister and saying that in his analogy, you shouldn't be building houses for Jews in Queens while the Arabs in Brooklyn don't have working sewage systems.

But let's not pretend it isn't about the Jew/non-Jew issue.

eta:
This also isn't a blanket condemnation of Israel. This is one area where de facto government discrimination exists, and it shouldn't. Beyond that, in terms of the peace process, minority rights, military behavior, democratic processes, freedom v oppression, it still is the shining star of the region. We can and should criticize Israel when it does **** like this, just like we should criticize France for banning burkas or the US for racially profiling Arabs, but we should do so in the context that it's generally a free society (extremely for the region) which tends to move towards equality rather than away from it.
 
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quixotecoyote said:
.........it's generally a free society (extremely for the region) which tends to move towards equality rather than away from it.
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do you think that one of the first steps in moving "towards equality" is to not base the Nation on founding principles of racist inequality?

I have an instant solution for Israel. To prevent ********* from doing this stuff simply make it impossible for the ********* to distinguish between thier citizens. Ban the compulsory identification of Israeli citizens into classes and you remove the ability of racists to use it to grease the wheels of racist practices.

When Israeli a citizens lives in a nation that calls itself the home of "not you" I find it hard to regard that nation as a modern democracy. One day Israel may qualify...
 
The Fool said:
do you think that one of the first steps in moving "towards equality" is to not base the Nation on founding principles of racist inequality?
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That's an interesting interpretation of how Israel was founded. An alternate interpretation might be that Jews were the targets of racism (just a little) at the time, and so were concerned specifically with protecting themselves as a race rather than attacking others.

I have an instant solution for Israel. To prevent ********* from doing this stuff simply make it impossible for the ********* to distinguish between thier citizens. Ban the compulsory identification of Israeli citizens into classes and you remove the ability of racists to use it to grease the wheels of racist practices.
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This is silly. The racism from developing Jewish neighborhoods instead of Arab Israeli neighborhoods isn't based on "compulsory identification of Israeli citizens into classes" any more than redlining was based on blacks having some sort of compulsory identification. They were arabs/blacks, not jews/whites. I know we rag on racists as being stupid, but I don't think they need to slap labels on the out-group to figure out who to discriminate against.

When Israeli a citizens lives in a nation that calls itself the home of "not you" I find it hard to regard that nation as a modern democracy. One day Israel may qualify...
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Depends on how you define modern democracy. If you do it based on what it calls itself or how it acts. Apart from housing development and employment discrimination, it does pretty well. I don't say that to brush those issues under the rug, but when you put it up against the thugocracies that surround it and get so much more international sympathy, they start to look relatively minor.

In other words, I condemn the racist actions of Israel. However, I support Israel as a country against Hamas-Palestine, Fatah-Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, etc. as they make Israel look like a shining city on a hill.
 
quixotecoyote said:
That's an interesting interpretation of how Israel was founded. An alternate interpretation might be that Jews were the targets of racism (just a little) at the time, and so were concerned specifically with protecting themselves as a race rather than attacking others.

This is silly. The racism from developing Jewish neighborhoods instead of Arab Israeli neighborhoods isn't based on "compulsory identification of Israeli citizens into classes" any more than redlining was based on blacks having some sort of compulsory identification. They were arabs/blacks, not jews/whites. I know we rag on racists as being stupid, but I don't think they need to slap labels on the out-group to figure out who to discriminate against.
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the ability to easily tell what class a citizen is from is what allows the discrimination to occur. Remove the ability to tell who is a jew and who is not a jew in an application for housing and bingo...the champions of racial discrimination are buggered.


Depends on how you define modern democracy.
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have never been able to massage inequality of citizenship into any acceptable definition of democracy.


[/quote]
If you do it based on what it calls itself or how it acts. Apart from housing development and employment discrimination, it does pretty well. I don't say that to brush those issues under the rug, but when you put it up against the thugocracies that surround it and get so much more international sympathy, they start to look relatively minor.
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everyone does pretty well so long as you pick a suitable thing to compare them to. So stuff it...lets just compare everything to amin era uganda and we'll call ourselves brilliant.

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In other words, I condemn the racist actions of Israel. However, I support Israel as a country against Hamas-Palestine, Fatah-Palestine, Syria, Lebanon, Iran, etc. as they make Israel look like a shining city on a hill.[/QUOTE]

everyone could be a shining light on a hill if you pick someone crappy enough to compare yourself to.

Israel demands it be compared to modern democracies....how do you think it compares? Can you think of any other modern democracies that have different classes of citizenship?
 
Israel is much better than Saudi Arabia, North Korea, Libya, Sudan, Egypt, and Somalia.

But compared to the USA, Canada, Britain, Germany, and other western liberal-democracies, they have a long way to go.
 
Yep, the US and Canada actually managed to kill off or move most of the original inhabitants. Lots to learn there.
 
bigjelmapro said:
Yep, the US and Canada actually managed to kill off or move most of the original inhabitants. Lots to learn there.
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Interesting point.

Are you comparing the treatment of Palestinians by Israel to the genocide of the Native Americans?
 
bigjelmapro said:
Yep, the US and Canada actually managed to kill off or move most of the original inhabitants. Lots to learn there.
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We also had slaves, but this is the 21st century... I think parky meant now, not "during any time period you can think of".
 
Captain.Sassy said:
Interesting point.

Are you comparing the treatment of Palestinians by Israel to the genocide of the Native Americans?
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More like what they could be doing if they were actually interested in genocide rather than the stopping the Palestinians from blowing up their ****
 
Captain.Sassy said:
Interesting point.

Are you comparing the treatment of Palestinians by Israel to the genocide of the Native Americans?
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the USA and Israel both forced their native populations to move. both nations forbid them to return to their lands.

though, the USA now allows Indians to live anywhere they want in the USA. Israel still has a ways to go.
 
Captain.Sassy said:
Interesting point.

Are you comparing the treatment of Palestinians by Israel to the genocide of the Native Americans?
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Not exactly, no. Simply pointing this out that countries like the US and Canada don't have this stellar history and those residing within these countries should probably get off their high horses in judging Israel. I have no issue when it comes to constructive criticism.
 
It doesn't exactly look good when Israel is being defended via comparison to totalitarian regimes and Western countries 300 years ago.
 
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