Since it's been a while since we had an Israel/Palestine thread...

[mixed_biscuits]

It's amazing how Hamas managed to keep their nose clean through all this, as chronicled in this thread.

 

[thirdform]

this idea that Israeli Jews can just pick up and leave is untrue tho. it seems that way looking at the American-Israeli elite - Bibi, Oren, Dermer, etc - or the uglier phenomenon of fanatics born in Brooklyn or Boston moving directly to WB settlements, but most Israelis don't have dual citizenship. over half of Israeli Jews are Mizrahi. they can't exactly go back to the MENA countries that kicked them out after 48. the only good solution is to work for a better Israel-Palestine for everyone.

This is true enough, but let us not pretend that the zionists didn't pour fuel on the fire on antisemitism in middle eastern countries. See the events in baghdad and Cairo in the 50s.

The liberal Zionist Uri Harary expresses this ambivalence in a somewhat modulated tone:
It is of course not customary to talk about it in public, but many of us felt a tiny bit of joy when we read newspaper reports of the swastika epidemic in Europe in 1960; or about the pro-Nazi movement in Argentina. Today, too, we have very mixed feelings when we read about the growing anti-Jewishness of Negro leaders in America. Together with all the anger, shock and humiliation, these phenomena form a part of our world outlook because Zionism said, and is still saying, that this is the way things are. This is what has to be as long as Jews live among Gentiles. 4
More direct are the words of Dr. Gevaryahu in a report on the situation of the European Jewish communities:
Swedish Jewry is also corroded by assimilation, and even the idea of immigration to Israel is still remote … Anti-Semitism has a certain role to play in preserving Jews and Jewishness … Anti-Semitism is similar to the Jewish way of making a living—to be too wealthy or too poor is unhealthy for the existence of Judaism. The same holds true for anti-Semitism: Too much or too little is not welcome, but in reasonable amounts it is. It reminds the Jews who they are and forces them to stick to their people and remain loyal to their ancient homeland. 5
Once the postdate that minority persecution is inherent in human nature is accepted, the rest of the Zionist argument follows easily. If the hostile majority cannot be expected to overcome its evil ways, the only possibility left for the minority is an exclusive self-liberation. This was the idea behind Leo Pinsker’s booklet of 1892, Autoemancipation, which asserts that the only way in which a persecuted group can gain control over its destiny is through the establishment of its own nation state in which it wields majority power.
But Zionism did not abolish minority persecution in Israel, nor can it. Instead it transformed Jews from a persecuted minority into an oppressing majority. Zionism merely succeeded in creating its own version of the world from which the Jews were rejected. Herzl, in fact, devoted many pages of his diaries to describing the Jewish state as a liberalized version of the Habsburg empire, of Viennese society in the late 1890s.
In prescribing immigration to Palestine as the only possible solution to the problem of anti-Semitism, Zionism ironically found itself in the same camp with those anti-Semites who replied to the struggles of the Jewish community for civil rights and social integration with the slogan “Go to Palestine.” Typically, the initiative in the struggle against Nazism during the 1930s came from non-Zionist Jews and their organizations. The fiercer the struggle became, the further apart the Zionist organizations stood from the rest of European Jewry. The underlying considerations are spelled out in a letter from Ben-Gurion to the Zionist executive, dated December 17, 1938:
The Jewish problem now is not what it used to be. The fate of Jews in Germany is not an end but a beginning. Other anti-Semitic states will learn from Hitler. Millions of Jews face annihilation, the refugee problem has assumed world-wide proportions, and urgency. Britain is trying to separate the issue of the refugees from that of Palestine. It is assisted by anti-Zionist Jews. The dimensions of the refugee problem demand an immediate, territorial solution; if Palestine will not absorb them another territory will. Zionism is endangered. All other territorial solutions, certain to fail, will demand enormous sums of money. If Jews will have to choose between the refugees, saving Jews from concentration camps, and assisting a national museum in Palestine, mercy will have the upper hand and the whole energy of the people will be channelled into saving Jews from various countries. Zionism will be struck off the agenda not only in world public opinion, in Britain and the United States, but elsewhere in Jewish public opinion. If we allow a separation between the refugee problem and the Palestine problem, we are risking the existence of Zionism.

For example, when Washington decided to reintegrate Adenauer’s Germany into the Western alliance, rebuild the Wehrmacht and integrate it into NATO, it had to “rehabilitate” the Adenauer regime and make it “respectable” in the eyes of world public opinion. The task naturally fell to Ben-Gurion. He duly signed a reparations agreement with Adenauer, publicly declaring that “Germany today is not the one of yesterday,” and ignored the violent protest within Israel itself. Adenauer named the agreementWiedergutmachung (Making Good Again), as if genocide could be atoned for by monetary payments. Later, when Adenauer was invited for the first time to the United States and feared Jewish demonstrations, Ben-Gurion obligingly flew over from Israel and “accidentally“ met him in the Waldorf-Astoria, where a photographer “accidentally” snapped them both, holding each other’s hands. When the picture appeared on the front pages of the world press, Adenauer was “Kosherized.” (Incidentally, during their brief meeting Adenauer promised an enormous new loan to Israel) Some years later, when Eichmann was tried in Jerusalem, the prosecution was careful to avoid mentioning the name of Globke, the promulgator of the Nuremberg race laws, which laid the legal foundation for racial discrimination in Nazi Germany. The fact is that Globke was Adenauer’s close aide and that frantic negotiations that went on behind the scenes about this point are little known even today.

Zionism and Anti-Semitism - Matzpen.org/English

A Critique of Zionist Ideology: Zionism and Anti-Semitism. From "The Other Israel (1972): The Radical Case Against Zionism"

matzpen.org

 

[thirdform]

It's amazing how Hamas managed to keep their nose clean through all this, as chronicled in this thread.

that just means your boys did a bad job. Go to jail. go directly to jail. do not pass go, do not collect £200.

 

[mixed_biscuits]

Palestine just won't be free
Til it's part of Great Turkey

 

[droid]

Another one for the scrapbook.

 

[thirdform]

Palestine just won't be free
Til it's part of Great Turkey

We're working on it, don't worry. you might have to shag some monarchist Iranian ladies in California now though. they are the ones gun ho for Israel.

Although ever since @shakahislop extemporised about the American habit of having sex in toilets I've rather you than me. I don't want to contract Syphilis.

 

[DannyL]

Another one for the scrapbook.

I read earlier that that soldier posted it on his Instagram. Don't ever think we've seen the celebration of war crimes to such a degree, apart from maybe some Russian Telegram channels.

 

[vimothy]

this "land bridge" thing over SA is interesting - you would think the abraham accords were pretty fucked now but that does not seem to be the case, at least, not totally

 

[maxi]

You know whats gonna be really funny? Watching Israeli refugees getting refused by every nation on the planet when the large scale demand for fossil fuels finally dries up and Israel is abandoned by the US whilst being ravaged by drought, heatwaves, forest fires and the myriad of other cataclysms climate change will wreak on the middle east.

The exact same mentality and bloodlust some of the most hardcore Zionists have. Gleefully wishing for the suffering of another population including children. Except as far as I know you haven't faced a lifetime of indoctrination and intergenerational trauma. What's your excuse?

 

[Mr. Tea]

this "land bridge" thing over SA is interesting - you would think the abraham accords were pretty fucked now but that does not seem to be the case, at least, not totally

Could you enlarge on this?

 

[Mr. Tea]

The exact same mentality and bloodlust some of the most hardcore Zionists have. Gleefully wishing for the suffering of another population including children. Except as far as I know you haven't faced a lifetime of indoctrination and intergenerational trauma. What's your excuse?

Droid really nailed his colours to the mast with that post, eh.

 

[droid]

The exact same mentality and bloodlust some of the most hardcore Zionists have. Gleefully wishing for the suffering of another population including children. Except as far as I know you haven't faced a lifetime of indoctrination and intergenerational trauma. What's your excuse?

Your mistaking anger for glee. And inevitability for 'wishing'.

Tell me, how does history view the 14 million Germans ethnically cleansed in the wake of WWII? Do we shed a single tear for their suffering?

But sure, its 'bloodlust' to suggest that the citizens of a state currently committing genocide in full view of the world will be seen as pariahs and refused aid in the future.

 

[droid]

 

[droid]

Droid really nailed his colours to the mast with that post, eh.

Lol, tell me again how Norman Finkelstein's views on Ukraine puts him in the same moral category as Netanyahu.

 

[maxi]

Your mistaking anger for glee. And inevitability for 'wishing'.

bullshit you said it's "gonna be really funny". and you have no idea what's inevitable or not. don't try and recast your words as some kind of detached objective speculation on facts

Tell me, how does history view the 14 million Germans ethnically cleansed in the wake of WWII? Do we shed a single tear for their suffering?

you probably do considering how you apparently feel about Jews

jokes aside you've immediately fallen back to arguing just like a Zionist again. They always bring up Dresden if you talk about how many civilians have been killed in the airstrikes. yes it was wrong against germans and it's wrong against palestinians and it's wrong against israelis

 

[droid]

Jokes aside? I cant believe you're joking about the appalling suffering of millions of Germans, how dare you.

you probably do considering how you apparently feel about Jews

And who's 'arguing like a zionist' here? The irony of someone who complains about critics of Israel being accused of anti-semitism reflexively resorting to exactly the same rhetoric would be hilarious if it wasn't so pathetic, especially as its only anti-semites and zionists who equate Israel with Jewishness.

 

[maxi]

Jokes aside? I cant believe you're joking about the appalling suffering of millions of Germans, how dare you.

I wasn't, it was a joke about you being a Nazi

And who's 'talking like a zionist' here? The irony of someone who complains about critics of Israel being accused of anti-semitism reflexively resorting to exactly the same rhetoric would be hilarious if it wasn't so pathetic.

It's not the same because in your case it actually has merit. That's what makes people like you so damaging to the Palestinian cause, because you give those defending Israel an actual point.

It would only appear ironic to someone who thinks it's not possible to be antisemitic in this context just because false accusations of antisemitism are weaponised by the other side. And that would be really stupid black-and-white thinking wouldn't it? there's a reason they use that technique and consider it effective in the first place.

 

[Mr. Tea]

Lol, tell me again how Norman Finkelstein's views on Ukraine puts him in the same moral category as Netanyahu.

Tell me again how left-wing/anti-Zionist/pro-peace/pro-Palestine Israelis, and Israeli children in general, are to blame for Netanyahu and his policies.

Or just fuck off with your misplaced sanctimony and smug racism.

 

[droid]

I wasn't, it was a joke about you being a Nazi

It's not the same because in your case it actually has merit. That's what makes people like you so damaging to the Palestinian cause, because you give those defending Israel an actual point.

It would only appear ironic to someone who thinks it's not possible to be antisemitic in this context just because false accusations of antisemitism are weaponised by the other side. And that would be really stupid black-and-white thinking wouldn't it? there's a reason they use that technique and consider it effective in the first place.

lol, a Nazi now, no less.

Ill make this simple, so you can understand. Israel is not the same as Judaism, its is not anti-semitic to suggest that Israelis will face historical consequences for committing acts of genocide - unless of course you view Israel and Jews as the same thing, itself a well established antisemitic point of view, and clearly one you share.

'People like me' have been campaigning for decades to avoid the exact scenario that is playing out now, because we knew that it would end either with the destruction of the Palestinians or the destruction of Israel, or both. 'People like me' have been calling for peace and normalisation along internationally recognised borders for decades because of the destructive and corrosive nature of the occupation on both Palestinian and Israeli societies. 'People like me' have been consistent in opposition to dehumanisation and racism against both sides because we understand that this is one of the main drivers of the conflict. 'People like me' (unlike your friend Finkelstein) did not celebrate Hamas' Oct. 7 attack because we value life and understood that the consequences would be devastating for both Palestinians and Israelis. Its the same reason why 'people like me' oppose Russian aggression in Ukraine or Syria, or American aggression in Iraq, because we oppose war and imperialism regardless of the perpetrator. Unlike yourself, 'people like me' have some understanding of history - both of this conflict specifically and more generally, and we can see the arc of its flight, which is why we despair now at its predictable trajectory.

So, please, fuck off.

 

[maxi]

lol, a Nazi now, no less.

Ill make this simple, so you can understand. Israel is not the same as Judaism, its is not anti-semitic to suggest that Israelis will face historical consequences for committing acts of genocide - unless of course you view Israel as Jews as the same thing, itself a well established antisemitic point of view, and clearly one you share.

'People like me' have been campaigning for decades to avoid the exact scenario that is playing out now, because we knew that it would end either with the destruction of the Palestinians or the destruction of Israel, or both. 'People like me' have been calling for peace and normalisation along internationally recognised borders for decades because of the destructive and corrosive nature of the occupation on both Palestinian and Israeli societies. 'People like me' have been consistent in opposition to dehumanisation and racism against both sides because we understand that this is one of the main drivers of the conflict. 'People like me' (unlike your friend Finkelstein) did not celebrate Hamas' Oct. 7 attack because we value life and understood that the consequences would be devastating for both Palestinians and Israelis. Its the same reason why 'people like me' oppose Russian aggression in Ukraine or Syria, or American aggression in Iraq, because we oppose war and imperialism regardless of the perpetrator. Unlike yourself, 'people like me' have some understanding of history - both of this conflict specifically and more generally, and we can see the arc of its flight, which is why we despair now at its predictable trajectory.

So, please, fuck off.

what a load of hot air

stop bullshitting you said it would be funny to see Israeli Jews suffer en masse. it's not that weird for anyone to take issue with that. now you're basically just trying to backtrack with all this smug froth. get over yourself.