Ati-Jewish pogroms etc. did occur in that part of the world prior to the rise of political Zionism. It was more traditional anti-minority actions based on “blood libels” and the like.
For example, in Syria:
In Palestine itself:
In short, prior to political Zionism the Jewish minority lived for the most part as it has always done - subject to the (occasional) blood libel and pogrom.
This is something I haven’t seen discussed. The rockets Hamas is using are getting better. They’re involved in an arms race, buying weapons with longer range, more accuracy, and heavier warheads.
To be fair, it was a request for cites about pogroms in the Middle East/Palestine.
I don’t think anyone doubts the existence of pogroms in Europe prior to the 20th century (although I could be proved wrong - one never knows!).
However, a whole modern mythology has built up about how Jews fared under Muslim rule pre-political Zionism - that they were so well off there. To the point were some express incredulity about claims that Jews suffered pogroms in the ME, as we have seen.
It is based on partial fact - Jews were in fact often better off under Muslim rule than (say) under the Czars in Russia, or in places and times in Western Europe for that matter - but this is a relative matter. There were still pogroms in Muslim-ruled lands, and Jews were most definitely second class citizens (as were various other minorities).
OK, was this persecution more prevalent in the middle east than it was elsewhere (for example in Europe)? After all that was the context in which this issue was being brought up.
In Western Europe matters varied a lot by time and place - in general, Jews fared well in the 19th century, particularly in the more “civilized” countries, with only the occasional issue such as the Dreyfuss Affair in France; in the UK, Jews reached the highest social levels, and they (in general) fared very well in Germany, despite a groundswell of anti-Semitism (to become dangerous in the 20th century, as you know).
The Middle East was stuck with a premodern level of persecution and second-class citizenship, but it was mild and occasional compared with Russia. However, I would far rather be a Jew in England, France or Germany in the 19th century, than in the Ottoman Empire.
This part of the article struck me as most interesting:
The notion that Israelis do not tolerate dissent strikes me as bizzare - they are well known for having all sorts of dissenters. The calls for political enemies to be tried for treason are hot air - no-one takes them seriously; if it happened, and a conviction secured, I would be genuinely shocked. It is pure theatre.
Israelis overwhelmingly support the army in this, not because they are “brainwashed” or “totally ignorant” as the author alleges, but because such support is natural when they have to live under attack themselves.
But can we say that the persecution of jews in the middle east was unremarkable in a historic and global context until the advent of Zionism? If we go one tangent back (and closer to the thread), the statement that XT so glibly dismissed as wrong was that Islamic radicalism didn’t promote zionism, while zionism promoted islamic radicalism.
I remember when people used to call critics of the invasion of Iraq “traitors”
None of them were ever tried for treason, but after being called traitor a few times, they shut up about it until it became more fashionable to say that the invasion of Iraq was wrong.
They don’t want to kill this guy, they want to shut him up.
280 rockets that Hamas fired from Gaza fell (and exploded, I should say) in Gaza. Again, looking at the areas they fell in, the population density and the fact that there were no sirens or bomb shelters, I would suspect that a few hundred of random Gazan civilians died from them. Because of Gaza demographics, 75% of them women and children. All of them, of course, included in the “Palestinians killed by the Israelis” count by the UN and others.
Have you seen ONE report in the Western press about it?
They don’t really want to shut him up (and they certainly won’t succeed in doing so) - they want to play to their audience, of people much like themselves; to make themselves more popular and significant.
These guys are politicians.
Not that voicing an unpopular view is ever going to be easy - it isn’t anywhere; however, Israelis, of all people, are known for doing just that. There is a plethora of articles, books, and interviews by Israelis of all sorts critical of nearly every aspect of the Israeli government, including (especially) Israeli dealings with Palestinians. See, for example, the documentary The Gatekeepers, in which the heads of the Israeli secret service are shown criticizing Israeli policy towards Palestinians!
Probably not quite belittling enough, considering the numbers fired, and the actual damage done.
By the way, Vergeltungswaffen is actually translated as retalliation or reprisal weapons, supposedly launched as"retribution against the mass bombing of German cities"
If the comparison is that they are hideously inaccurate weapons launched as reprisals to air strikes, then I’d have to agree, and we can both start calling them Reprisal weapons. Seem reasonable?