Exactly. That’s what war is for-- sorting out that stuff. No joking, either. That is the way it works, whether we like to admit it or not.
I think the notion is that people don’t dislike Israeli’s, they dislike the actions of the Israeli government.
First of all, Moore implied he was doing an interview for the NRA, which he was not. That was as much fraud as Mr. Pimp at ACORN. You think that is fair. I don’t. It is fraud. As far as I know, it is the single most egregious act committed by Moore.
Second, again, you parse the exchange with Thomas. Here again is Bricker’s transcript:
Thomas never used the word Jews. The interviewer did. Thomas had the word Israelis in mind. As offensive as Thomas’ words about Poland and Germany were, she had in mind the word Israelis. The interviewer changed it to Jews. Clearly you cannot be trusted to consider the whole context.
Given the “whole context”, who do you think she was talking about?
No, Israel is not following the US lead. American Indians are allowed to vote in elections, travel at will and be full American citizens. All of them, but virtue of their birth. They have the added privilege of living on a reservation if they choose to do so. Israel is doing what Americans did 150 years ago: driving the native population to extinction or out of the country entirely. What the US did in most of the 19th century and before was no different than the Nazis. That is not something to smirkingly aspire to.
American Indians (Native Americans, etc) don’t ask for the overthrow of the US, don’t launch rockets into downtown, don’t have suicide bombers, live in neighborhoods all over the US and love America with the same level of grousing as all other minority groups in the US because the laws apply equally minus petty corruption. Israel cannot claim that. Some Palestinians do launch rockets and bomb, for which all are punished. They do so because they see the Gaza confinement as the crime against humanity that the rest of the world sees.
Given that the context includes her being a confused 89 year old, who the hell knows what she meant, or even cares all that much?
Actually, I’m somewhat sympathetic to that idea.
However, the assertion was made that she had something particular in mind. I’m trying to understand what that could be, if not the Israeli Jews.
You could really stop there.
Well, here is the entire exchange:
She asks Israel to get out of Palestine. Her emphasis is on asking the invaders to leave. That is entirely reasonable. The reporter then takes the interview in a different direction and focuses on the plight of the Israelis, not the plight of the Palestinians, and her un-thought-out remark is insensitive and impractical.
Palestinians have as much of inherent right to live in Palestine and Israel as the Israelis do. Any outrage directed to Helen Thomas for her thoughtless comments (and I agree they are thoughtless) we need to remember are just thoughtless comments. Unacceptable in America today and maybe appropriately so. But America supports the actions of Israel in 62 years of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. Ethnic cleansing as in drive them out, malnourish them out, harass them out, steal their land out from under them, cut them off and kill them as they choose. Millions of them.
What Israel has done and continues doing to this day with US money and diplomatic support is far more unconscionable than anything Helen Thomas has merely said. The crimes against humanity that are Gaza are gargantuan against against the insult that Helen Thomas said. Yet the only justice that America is willing to support is slapping down an 89 year old woman.
The UN screwed up big time in awarding a mandate to Israel on the land that belonged to the people living there and not to the UN. That can’t be undone. The UN did it out of sympathy for what happened to the Jews by the Nazis, but did not consider the consequences to the Palestinians to be displaced. They had and have as much a right of self-government as anyone else. A right to exist and to defend themselves, the same as the Israelis.
Yes, this is why her statements are offensive. And made more offensive by the fact that she tells them to go to Poland, Germany and the US. Not so much the US, but most of them were Jews and treated criminally in Poland and Germany. And the US was no picnic for Jews until things changed after WWII.
But it really is less offensive than Israelis actually driving out the Palestinians over 62 years. She just said it. The Israelis did it and still do it. But we are not up to holding Israel accountable for their actions. But we sure as hell can stand up to an 89 year old woman who says something offensive. Land of the free, Home of the brave.
I know what the entire exchange was.
Are these “invades” not Jews?
Only if it’s “entirely reasonable” to hold every country up to the same standard. It’s entirely stupid, is what it is.
No. She said they should leave. He just wanted to know who, specifically, she was talking about.
The UN set up two states. The Arabs, largely, didn’t accept that. A war was fought. The Arabs lost. Other wars were fought, and they lost even worse. That toothpaste isn’t going to be put back into the tube, so all that remains is for the Palestinians to figure out how they want to exist, peacefully, with Israel. There is not other practical solution.
Sure there’s another practical solution. They can use physical force. If it’s ok for the Israelis to do it, it’s ok for the Palestinians to do it. If the Palestinians, with the aid of other Arab states, are ever able to militarily destroy the government of Israel and establish a controlling, Palestinian authority, you would have to agree that the palestinians had won fair and square and whatever remained of a Jewish population in the newly established Arab state of Palestine would have to learn to suck it up and live in peace, would you not?
Well, no, I would say there would need to be a rubber match…a best two out of three if you will. I mean if the Palestinians are given a chance to be angry and fester their hatred into war, the Israelis should get the same chance.
Not and understand how it got to be that way. The American settlers and the natives had military engagements, sporadic but frequent, for two centuries before so many natives died that they could no longer fight cohesively. Only generations later, as part of the broader civil rights movement, could a lasting peace take place. Integration really hasn’t occurred yet.
But now we read that Israel is copying that example, as if it were something to be proud of. At least we haven’t been treated to “The only good Palestinian is …”. Not in so many words, anyway.
I live in the United States. I am not white and I immigrated here when I was a child. While I was growing up, I would encounter racism from time to time and sometimes this racism would take the form of “go back to where you came from” (and once again I don’t agree with what Helen Thomas said) but this is not the story of Israel. They did not come to Palestine merely to make a new life for themselves in a new country. They carved a country out of another country and that explains some of the animus in the region against Israel and Zionism.
The US has nothing to be proud of considering the way they treated the native Americans but at long last we have the decency to be embarassed by it (of course we aren’t giving very much back but every native American is an American citizen).
The reverse is true, though. Which doesn’t mean that it’s okay for the Israelis to almost have that attitude. But Palestinians do officially have that attitude.
Lets not forget that for a long time, they did in fact engage in armed conflict with the US army.
What? Oppressed people can’t issue death threats. I’d like to bring up the example of American indians again.
Well, that’s a solution, but it’s not “practical”, if we take that word to mean something that has a reasonable chance of actually happening.
You are right. Its more than criticism of the government, it is criticism of the existence of the state. Perhaps it is criticism of zionism but it is mroe than criticism of the state.