Geez HapaXL – I’m just calling a spade a spade. Many religions teach it is OK to murder people as long as you are a “soldier” engaged in “war” without ever defining what those terms mean. As I have pointed out elsewhere, it is apparently perfectly moral for me to declare myself a nation, get an uzi, and declare war on the local McDonald’s at high noon. But that is a debate, not a GQ.
Thanks for your answer Alessan.
jmullaney:
I believe there are seven Arab members of the Israeli argument, but how many of them identify as “Palestinian” I couldn’t say.
If I recall correctly, Israeli citizenship is automatic for children of Israeli citizens, even those who identify themselves, ethnically, as Palestinian. There is no need for such people to apply for citizenship. Those born of parents who did not opt for Israeli citizenship are the ones who must choose it for themselves if they want it.
hapaXL:
Believe what you want. However, I think most people would still describe an organization that kills unarmed athletes, hijacks ships of a country other than the occupied power and similar actions as terrorists rather than protestors. And I think that most people would still describe mutual belligerence, uneven though the two sides’ power might be, as war. And I think that most people would describe someone who declares Israel’s defense of its own citizens from attacks by hostile non-citizens to be equivalent to South Africa’s institutionalized degradation of its own citizens by no dividing line other than skin color as an Anti-Semite. :rolleyes:
Chaim Mattis Keller
alessan:
Thanks for being so quick to answer the citizenship and Arabs-in-Knesset questions. Everyone, please disregard my answers (to those questions) in favor of hers.
Chaim Mattis Keller
Her?! HER?!
I’m sorry, Chaim, but now I must kill you. It is a matter of honor.
jmullaney, i wasn’t specifically targeting your language. i was just trying to get people to question some of the terms that are bandied about in the mainstream press. i believe Orwell would be proud that Doublespeak has now become reality.
as for my friend cmkeller, your logic escapes me. first off, do you really think that the Palestinians being killed by the Israeli military are people who have exploded bombs in Israel? how does the death of innocent Israeli people justify the killing of innocent Palestinian people?
in South Africa, the dividing line was skin color. in Israel, it’s religion. difference?
you judged from my critiques of Israeli state policy that i must hate Jews. what about Jews who question Israeli policy–do they hate themselves? when people question French foreign policy, are they automatically branded anti-French bigots? where is your evidence for such a statement? i would get offended, but the statement is so moronic that it’s beneath me.
i think you should be ashamed that you would cheapen such an enormously loaded term as “anti-Semite” by throwing it around so frivolously.
I think the General Question portion of this thread is asked and answered. Please feel free to take the debate to Great Debates.
Alessan:
My most sincere apologies. I always read your user-name as sounding like “Alison,” which is definitely a girl’s name. Obviously, I was wrong.
I realize this is off-topic, but could you tell me the meaning of your user-name? It will help me avoid my mind playing that truick in the future.
hapaXL:
Or those who masterminded the bomb plots (such as the one who was shot in that helicopter attack last week), or who are throwing stones under orders or influence from the same organization.
Well, I think my response above speaks to the “innocence” of those Palestinians.
In Israel, the dividing line is not religion. It’s hostility to the state. There are plenty of Muslims who live productive lives in Israel, and who have prospered; there have even been Muslim Arabs in Israel’s Parliament from the very beginning of the state’s existence. It’s those who affiliate with the PLO/Hamas/Islamic Jihad, organizations dedicated to destroying the “evil Zionist entity” (they usually can’t even bring themselves to say the word “Israel”) who fall on the other side of the dividing line.
That’s the difference.
There’s a difference between questioning Israeli policy and calling Israel a racist state while calling rock-throwers and bomb-planters “protestors.” Perhaps you are not an anti-Semite, but it usually takes some degree of anti-Semitism to have this skewed aperspective of Middle East affairs.
Chaim Mattis Keller
I’m closing this thread in favor of any of dozens of Great Debates threads on the subject.