Yes, clearly the answer is apartheid, deprivation and dehumanization. Barbed wire fences and armed check points will eventually make people love you.
The notion that Jews were better off in Muslim countries than in Europe during Medieval times is largely bullshit. Read about the history of the Jews in Morocco, for instance. Or any other Arab country in the Middle Ages. It’s the same story whether it’s in Muslim lands or Christian ones - the Jews were tolerated when they were useful, and then persecuted when the monarch was in debt to them or whenever there was a new wave of religious fervor.
Of course Argent, but the facts get in the way of rhetoric (just like Dio is evidently now describing the 4th Geneva Convention as an “Apartheid” document).
Glutton’s narrative fails on the facts, or if anybody who’s interested in the facts looks at it too closely, it’s rhetorical sleight of hand, just like the “ZOMG Nazi Zombie Apartheid!” canard. If you can pretend that the Jews did just fine under benevolent Muslim overlords, and you can ignore that Jews just wanting to live in the Levant produced homicidal riots and alliancea with the Nazis… well, then you can pretend that everything was the fault of Zionism, and things would be much better if Zionism were just done away with and Israel went back to being a Waqf.
Just like, ya know, when Jordan occupied Jerusalem and prevented Jews from going there while they tore down Jewish tombstones and used them to pave Arab Legion latrines.
Ultimately it’s the people who live there who are going to decide, not the American President. He can influence things some, but decreeing ME peace isn’t within his power.
It may be that someday there will be a single federated entity that consists of Israel, Gaza, and the West Bank. Something somewhere between an EU and a United States. Writ very small. I can see that. And as a good thing.
That however is not a solution that can be forced upon peoples who do not now trust each other nor have any reason to, and to suggest it at this point is a rhetorical device, not a serious proposal. It is something that peoples who have been living and cooperating next to and with each other over years can come to as they realize that it is in their mutual best interest. Not before.
As to Medieval Europe’s vs Arab lands’ treatments of Jews … why exactly does it matter which one was ramming the red hot poker farther up Jews’ asses? In both the history is that Jews were the identified “other” and subject to the degradations that others usually face, at best being second class citizens tolerated for their occasional usefulness (so long as they remembered their proper place and didn’t get too uppity). Both circumstances inform Jews aware of history that being the minority “other” is forever a precarious position to be in, no matter how secure a particular generation may feel their place in the society may be.
Democratically. What else did you have in mind?
I don’t see Palestinians supporting this. They’d feel like 2nd-class citizens with little political power. I believe a single-state solution could exasperate the settlement issue–if there’s one state then there’s no reason to keep Jewish settlers away from contested land.
Do you think the Palestinians feel like 1st class citizens now? Dude, They don’t even have a country and their fellow man is in Israel under the lash of “Jim Crow Lite”.
Especially since the large majority of land in the West Bank was never privately owned in the first place.
That’s the point–under a Palestinian state they can at least hope to be politically enfranchised (although my personal belief is that currently the Palestinian leaders are corrupt and things will hardly get better).
Jim Crow Lite? You realize that in Israel Arabs have seats in the Parliament? Is there any Arab country that has Jews in its Parliament?
My ancestors were beat and bludgeoned by white slavemasters, I certainly don’t fear the return of slavery. My grandparents lived at a time where there were separate water fountains and while I haven’t asked, I’m sure neither of them has a fear of separate facilities based on ethnicity. The idea that one ethnic group should shiver in fear based on what happened hundreds of years ago is ridiculous. If the Israelis are indeed shivering in fear, it’s probably due to them fearing retaliation for the discriminatory practices that’ve burdened Arabs with. Here’s a two-step solution to ensuring the safety of Israelis:
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Convene the governmental bodies of Israel to write a Constitution that mimics the U.S. If this is unable to be done, ask France for aid in constructing the document. I believe - while I may be wrong - their Constitution is based on the U.S.
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Dissolve freedom of speech and make anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim sentiments illegal and punishable by death.
Stir lightly and pour into city mold. Bake for 350 degrees until golden brown. Enjoy!
You don’t think blacks had seats in Congress between 1870 - 1964? Representation in government doesn’t equal equality. That’s a poor measuring stick, me thinks.
Hundreds of years ago? The Holocaust happened about 59 years ago. That’s in living memory. I’m not talking about water fountains, I’m talking about gas chambers and ovens and people being experimented on alive in pressure chambers and tanks of freezing water, and identical twins being sewn together. You’re going to tell people who survived through that, that they don’t need to be afraid? Do you want to tell Jews living in France, whose cemetaries and synagogues are being vandalized by Muslims, that everything’s going to be just fine and dandy?
Need I point out that attempts at exterminating the Jews have occurred far more recently than “hundreds of years ago”? Or that unlike your ancestors, their enemies are still alive?
:dubious:
Oh, well, that’s just peachy then. We can end extralegal violence due to ethnic and religious differences by…enacting officially state-sanctioned violence against people based on the expression of their religious or philosophical views. (Incidentally, I note the Arab Christian minority would be pretty much just screwed here.)
Not to answer for Camus, but … what do you exactly mean by “democratically”? Ancient Greek sort? Majority rule on all things? 51% say that it is okay to abuse the other 49% and that’s okay? Or what?
“Democratically” don’t mean diddly shit dear. And proposing that the magic of democracy will allow populations which have some member devoted to the others’ extermination or at least removal - populations which each have some reason to fear each other - to suddenly live together in peace and tranquility for all - is beyond ignorant and naive - it is reckless nonconcern for human life.
As to your “Your Blues aint like my Blues” crapola. I feel for your ancestors’ history of slavery. Really, I do. But your lack of fear about slavery’s return in no way informs about the Jewish experience of two thousand years in multiple cultures over many generations in many lands. History has taught us that it does happen again. And again. And again. Europeans or Arabs or Russians (Tzarist or Soviet matters not) - it happens again and again. Funny, not too many world leaders are out there saying that slavery didn’t exist. Our Blues aint the same and your comparing them does a service to neither of our people’s histories.
I think someone should detonate a dirty bomb at the Temple Mount. Let God have the place to himself.
Board rules forbid me from responding appropriately.
Don’t forget that lots of Palestinian Arabs are Christians. And I have to say, the idea of punishing anti-Semitic or anti-Muslim speech with the death penalty is probably the most bizarre notion I’ve seen advanced here on the SDMB.