The message is that the only way Jews can feel secure from state-sponsored anti-semitism is to be in a state controlled by themselves. My original message was in response to statement by you and others that there’s something inherently morally wrong with the idea of a state designed to be run by people of one religious persuasion. I’m saying that need for a safe haven from Anti-Semitism justifies it.
Note: this is not an argument about specifically where that haven ended up being located. Merely disagreeing that it is wrong for a state to be designed so as to be ruled by members of a single religious group.
Are Jews persecuted in Muslim countries? No, they were EXPELLED from most muslim countries. So if Israel expelled all Muslims from the occupied territories, they be OK, because they wouldn’t be persecuting them anymore?
You simply don’t even attempt to understand WHY Israelis take the actions they do, apparently ascribing their policies to pure evil.
Jews have been persecuted and murdered because of their ethnicity/religion for centuries, and it hasn’t stopped now. They’ve been expelled from their homelands, or murdered on an industrial scale, no matter what their level of assimilation, in Europe during the 30s and 40s and the Middle East today. Where exactly should they go? I suppose you’d be happy if the problem just went away somehow? The problem is that Jews exist?
Eh, probably not. But you don’t seem to understand that the problem for Jews in Israel isn’t just that control over their own country is a nice thing. It is essential for their continuied survival. Not survival as a people, survival meaning not being murdered on an industrial scale. The expulsion of Jews from Muslim countries in the last 50 years proves that Jews aren’t safe under Muslim rule. Yeah, maybe you think it’s not guaranteed that the destruction of Israel would mean the death of most Israeli citizens. But surely a second Holocaust isn’t so far-fetched? Maybe you’re willing to risk 6 million Israeli lives in order to find out, very generous of you, but can’t you understand why Israelis might feel differently?
Abbas himself, on the occasion of Israel’s 57th birthday, proclaimed that the creation of the Jewish state was the “greatest crime in human history.” More recently, he said: “Today we are beginning the march of the fishermen towards freedom. Soon you will be able to fish along the whole coast of Palestine.” What could he mean when the rest of the coast of Palestine is Israel?
Yes, yes, Abbas is busy selling the idea that his strategy is to bring Hamas into peaceful politics, but what kind of people does he think he’s dealing with? Just look at some of the recent statements by Hamas leaders. Mahmoud Zahar: “We are part of a large global movement called the International Islamic Movement. . . . [Gaza is] proof that the armed struggle has borne fruit. Neither the liberation of Gaza nor the liberation of the West Bank will suffice [for] us. . . . We don’t recognize the State of Israel or its right to hold on to one inch of Palestine. . . . After the victory in Gaza we will transfer the struggle first to the West Bank and later to Jerusalem.” The armed struggle is the only strategy that Hamas possesses. Radio al-Aqsa: “[Our] battalions will make you tremble in Haifa, in Tel Aviv. They will strike you in Zefat and Acre. Wait for us in Jaffa, Haifa, Tel Aviv. . . . The knights of Gaza are coming. Our beloved sons of Palestine, we make no distinction between [Israeli-controlled] Palestine and [the West Bank and Gaza Strip] Palestine.” Jihad leader Muhammad Hindi: “The resistance will continue until the expulsion of the occupation from all our lands, including the West Bank, Jerusalem, and all of Palestine.” The war isn’t over, in other words, until there is no more Israel.
Lemur, the problem with the doctrine you’re setting out is that there is literally NOTHING that is not justified so long as it’s perceived as making the Jews safer. So Israel wants to punish innocent people by depriving them of their rights? You’re clearly okay with that. I’m not, as a matter of principle.
And I’ll underline the irony – yet again, for about the third time in this thread – that such actions by Israel are really the greatest danger to its security. People who have been deprived of their rights for decades are not generally to be counted among the greatest friends of those who have been doing the depriving. Seems obvious to me, but not to others, apparently.
I still can’t fathom why people think giving the Palestinians an equal stake in Israeli society would lead to a bloodbath. Whatever friction there would be initially seems trivial compared to how things stand at present. And then project the present situation forward indefinitely – because I don’t see that you’re offering any alternative to that – when does Israel suddenly acquire the security it doesn’t have now?
Israel has to find some way, for its own sake, to get off this treadmill. The irony (another one!) is that it’s Israel’s own supporters who won’t let it.
And gum, you’re just parroting propaganda that brings nothing to this discussion. Never forget that in a half minute’s worth of looking on Google, you can find equally bloodcurdling stuff from the Israeli side.
A facile but false statement, obvious to anyone with even a passing familiarity with the continent.*
Unless you are defining “the Israeli cause is backed unconditionally and without limit” as “any Mideast position less dogmatic and extreme than my views”.
*Any authoritative and non-bigoted cites to the contrary would be welcome.
Sal Ammoniac, Are you honestly comparing the actions of Israëli with those of the palestinians?
I don’t need propaganda.
I see and read - objective - news. Even the anti-semitic BBC has shown how young palestinians are taught by their parents to hate the Jewish people.
Kids are encouraged to throw molotov cocktails.
Young lads go to ‘summercamps’ learning the finer arts of killing Jews.
I’m not even starting on suicide bombers killing women and babies in Pizza restaurants, a mentally handicapped boy being forced to wear a bomb belt to kill Israëli border patrols, Palestinians deliberately - mark that word - shooting a pregnant woman and her two children.
**Gum, ** you’re welcome to believe that all 600+ children killed by the IDF and Israeli settlers are “accidents.” The most generous interpretation I can make is that your definition of “accident” is radically different from mine.
No, you tell them, “You’re entitled to human rights, but only in a way that does not compromise our survival. If your leaders are dedicated to a peaceful resolution of our dispute, we’ll be more than happy to negotiate the borders within which you can have sovoreignty and citizenship.”
Israel would love nothing better than for the two neighbors with whom they have peace treaties to assume responsibility for the Palestinians. Problem is, Egypt and Jordan don’t want them.
BrainGlutton:
Sometimes true, sometimes not. For example, Conversos and Marranos had quite the rough time in post-inquisition Spain.
And interestingly enough, Israel has never offered this. It has never said, “Okay, if there are no terrorist acts (and here are examples of what we consider terrorism), within this specified period of time, you WILL have both sovereignty and citizenship.” Israel always makes vague noises about negotiation, but an offer such as the one I suggest above doesn’t need any negotiation. Israel can simply put it out on the table.
I know, I know, you’ll say Israel has made such an offer. To which my response is, “Well, if so, it got lost in the shuffle. Make it again.” My reading is that Israel takes the approach that there will be no negotiation, no settlement, until terrorism ends. The problem then is that a handful of extremists on either side are fully capable of scuttling any settlement. And the broad middle, Israeli and Palestinian, is left to suffer. If there’s to be any peace process, it has to be robust enough that it can withstand some shocks. Otherwise, it’s just window dressing.
By coincidence, I was going through General Questions, and I found a linked thread in which you cited the Talmudic sage Hillel as saying, “That which is hateful to you, do not do to others.” That encapsulates my entire position here.
That is untrue. The problem has always been not that terrorism existed at all, but it was actively sponsored by the Palestinian leadership. There were plenty of acts of Arab terrorism from Oslo until Camp David. But after the Camp David talks failed in 2000, Arafat, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, not a fringe terrorist group actively organized, armed and initiated the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. It was he who had attempted to smuggle into the Occupied Territories weapons that were banned according to the Olso Accords aboard the Karine A from Iran. It was he who was in charge of an educational infrastructure that continued to demonize Israel in the eyes of Palestinian youth rather than attempt to plant a better attitude.
The pre-2000 peace process survived plenty of “shocks.” What it couldn’t survive was one of the PRINCIPAL PARTIES actively undermining it.
The Israelis would love nothing more than for a party they consider trustworthy and non-belligerent to them to be responsible for the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. They even took the extraordinary gamble that Yasir Arafat of all people might be that party, and lost the gamble. Now it’s up to the new leadership to prove itself to the Israelis…not the other way around.
I guarantee you that Hillel would also tell you that that principle does not require one to put his life at risk to fulfill it. Israel, created as a safe haven for Jews from persecution, has no obligation to jeopardize Jewish lives just so the Palestinians can be happy. Israel has proven time and again that it’s willing to meet a former enemy who has a genuine interest in peace.
If it was up to me, I would give the Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza their choice of Egyptian or Jordanian citizenship. Any resident of the West Bank and Gaza that has been convicted of a serious criminal act would be deported. All Palestinian refugee camps in the Middle East would be closed. The Palestinians already have a state, it’s called Jordan. That would solve many of the problems in the area.
