Since when is anti-Semitism a liberal idea?

The BBQ Pit
61

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
Fuck it. This whole thing makes me want to turn isolationist.

I know this: it takes two sides to make a war or a peace.

[/quote]

Right. Two sides. And yet, you seem to associate peace desire only with the Palestinians and war only with Israel.

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]

It takes real work, with real concessions on both sides to come to accord. I don’t see that happening.

[/quote]

Well, Israel has tried on several occasions to make peace. When we met with willing partners, peace was signed. When the other party is not willing to engage in an actual give-and-take (E.g., the “three noes” and Arafat’s refusal at Camp David), we really can’t force them toward peace.

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
And I hold Israel to a higher standard, since it has more resources, and is supposed to be democratic.

[/quote]

Sure. How much higher? How far do you think we have to go?
Do you, for example, think Israel should accept the “Right to Return” which will beyond doubt eradicate it as a Jewish state?
And why “supposed” to be democratic? Israel is a democracy.

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]

As distasteful as it is to look at it–there are reasons for terror as a bargaining ploy. It works, sadly and often enough.

[/quote]

This seems borderline support of terrorism, so I’m not going to address it.

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
Killing innocent people while trying to weed out the terrorist cells is not working, to my eyes.

[/quote]

True. But how about killing the guilty terrorist themselves?

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
Bombing the shit out of Lebanon for the sake of 2 Israeli soldiers is overkill and ill-judged. And then I read that Israelis don’t think the attacks were harsh enough. :smack:

[/quote]

  1. Israel did not bomb “the shit out of Lebanon”. Had Israel done that, Lebanon would be in ruins now. Completely. With tens of thousands or more casualties.
  2. The war did not start just because of the kidnapping. Please look at recent threads on the war – you’ll find wealth of info there.

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]

For every “good will” gesture reported in the news re Israel, there are just as many provocations on Israel’s part. And no, I don’t have a cite. I have been hearing about this shit on the news since I became of aware of news–circa 1978 for me(age 16). I don’t want to know the extreme actions on either side’s part–what a pissing contest to win(!).

[/quote]

I was going to ask for a cite, and then notices you don’t have one…
Well, I have heard different things. How shall we judge?
You see, the requirement for cites has its merits.

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]

Unless you want me to believe that Palestinians are all evil and want Death to Israel (which is how it is characterized–like all this suicide bombing happens in a fucking vacuum),

[/quote]

No, not all Palestinians are evil etc.. But if you’ll bother to read, for example, the PLO charter, you’ll see the destruction of Israel is the Palestinian official goal.

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
Israel must be the “bigger man”. Sharon was on to a good thing when he made those setters relocate–and some of them refused. And then they are astonished when this is disapproved of? That’s amazing to me.

[/quote]

Israel tried being the “bigger man”. Sharon evacuated the settlers, using the IDF, even at the risk of civil war.
And where did that got Israel? The Palestinians immediately started using the evacuated areas for shelling Israel. Then they voted Hamas government.
And you blame Israel?
Now, that’s amazing to me.

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]

What I, and I think most people, want to see is REAL progress towards accord

[/quote]

No argument there. Including the people in Israel. And, I truly hope, the Palestinian people.

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
and for Israel to stop playing the victim nonsense-it has nothing to do with anti-Semitism.

[/quote]

Cite fo Israel playing victim?

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
There are no people (except the crazies) who want Israel to disappear. Yep-go ahead, quote me the party platforms that deny Israel statehood. It doesn’t matter. The Republicans here want to ban abortion-talk to the GOP and see how many really want that. (no I am not equating Israel with abortion-the point is that party platforms say alot of shit that isn’t carried thru or even aspired to in RL. Do I approve of such sentiments? Absolutely not).

[/quote]

Well, from where I stand I see myself surrounded with people wishing to kill me and wipe Israel from the face of the earth. A matter of perspective, I guess.
Even on this board you find views that “Israel was the biggest mistake of the 20’th century” (mind you – that century saw some pretty major mistakes).

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
But Israel needs to work with what is–not what it thinks it deserves.

[/quote]

Huh? I have no idea what you mean by that.

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]

What I continue to be amazed at is the atrocious treatment towards Palestinians from Israel, all the while Israelis cry, “but we are the victims here!” Bullshit-they collude in their own victimhood.

[/quote]

Cite?

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
But then, the Holocaust is dragged into it, and that’s a real dialogue stopper. I’m tired of that being used as a stonewalling technique. Christ, I can see someone here accusing me of being a Holocaust denier based on that remark. I’m not.

[/quote]

Oh, I’m sorry. Does the mention of the Holocaust bother you much? I promise I won’t mention it again.

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]

For two cents, I’d wash my hands of the whole thing.
Does that make me anti-Semitic? NO-it makes me fed to my backteeth with this whole dysfunctionality.

[/quote]

No, it does not make you anti-Semitic. I do believe it make you less informed that desired.

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
I am sick of hearing about it on the news; I am sick of having it take center stage when we have domestic problems and OTHER global problems to deal with. Grow the fuck up, Israel and come to the table-and STAY at the table.

[/quote]

Guess what – I am even more sick of it. I’m living it, not hearing it on the news. But, like I said, Israel came to the table. The Palestinians left. What is the point of staying near an empty discussion table?

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
The exact same thing could and should be said to the Palestinians.

[/quote]

Right. And still, you keep addressing it to Israel alone.

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]

I still can’t get over their whole “well, we live here now and fuck you, Palestinians-get out” stance post WW2. And they wonder why there are problems.

[/quote]

Err… cite?

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
They MADE a culture of hate from those “temporary” refugee camps—

[/quote]

If you’re talking about the Arab states, you are correct.

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
and you reap what you sow. Shut up and deal, please. And don’t trot out the old, “but we don’t deal with terror”–terror is what you live with right now.

[/quote]

We live with terrorism. Doesn’t mean we have to reward it with concessions.

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
Perhaps it is time to deal with it in a different way.

[/quote]

Like what? We tried war. We tried negotiations. We tried unilateral moves. What do you suggest?

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]
I by no means have all or any answers–but bombing the shit out of Lebanon doesn’t make you any new friends or build trust in the region. Way to go; Israel does it again–ensure that another generation grows up hating it.

[/quote]

Right… because before that the were SOOOOO friendly.

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]

Israel is a democratic state in a very troubled region of the world. I realize they can’t force the arab nations to accept them, and if I, a Midwestern housewife, realize it, surely some of those brains in the Israeli government could realize it too.

[/quote]

Not claiming to be one of those brains, I’m sure Israel leaders know that. That’s why Israel must stay strong enough to ensure those Arab nations who don’t accept us will be less eager to attack.

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]

IOW, what Israel is doing is NOT working to bring about accord. Yep-same applies to Palestine. Jesus, with Arafat gone, you’d think there be a chance here for something.

[/quote]

You’d think that, now, won’t you?

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]

Sorry for the rant. In no way do I hate Jewish people. I no more want to see any of them die than I want to see a Palestinian die.

[/quote]

Thanks. And don’t want to see you die any more than I want to see a Scandinavian die. So?

[QUOTE=eleanorigby]

But I refuse to say that anything goes when it comes to solving this conundrum. There has to be a better way–and IMO, it is up to Israel to find it.
[/QUOTE]

Sure. Thare has to be. It’s Israel’s job to find it, no matter what the Palestinians do. And until such solution is found, Israel will always be in the blame, right?

Oh, wel…

62

I’d like to second the request for a cite showing official Israeli representative playing the victim card. Not non-Israelis speaking on behalf of Israel, not people expressing their opinions in defense of Israel - actual Israelis.

Because let me tell you something about the Holocaust… and not what you think. Every other country in the world that notes a Holocaust memorial does it on the anniversary of the Allied liberation of Aushcwitz. Israel doesn’t. In Israel, the Memorial Day falls on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising - on the anniversary of the first day in nearly two millenia that Jews decided to fight back. We’re embarassed by the Holocaust, by the fact that millions of Jews got on the trains quietly, like lambs to the slaughter. We remember it to remind ourselves what happens if we let ourselves get weak.

We don’t like to think of ourselves as victims.

63

[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
Palestine has always been there, too.
[/QUOTE]

Checking… Nope. Never was a Palestinian state, Palestine or otherwise there. Never. Ever.

64

[QUOTE=mhendo]

If you don’t know about the history of the peace process, you’re probably not really interested in being educated.

[/QUOTE]

Humor me, though. Do name three Palestinian peace initiatives.

65

You’re serious, aren’t you?

66

[QUOTE=Brandon]
It amazes me that there are some who are blind to all the shady shit Israel pulls. Every time Israel is attacked they cry out that they’re being unjustly assaulted, and then when the attackers are being restrained Israel reaches over the shoulder of it’s defenders and sucker punches the attackers. How is that acting in the name of peace?

[/quote]

Wow, what a load of BS. You must have worked real hard to come up that, didn’t you?
Israel is attacked, then defended by a third party, and then, under this cover, strikes back?
I’d like to ask for a cite, but the degree of BS here to way to high to even engage is serious debate.

[QUOTE=Brandon]

eleanorigby raises many of the same issues I have with this situation, especially in regards to why it’s so hard to criticize many of the Israeli policies. It was overkill to respond in that manner to Lebanon as well.

[/quote]

The Lebanon war was discussed to death in other threads.

[QUOTE=Brandon]

Anytime someone says anything remotely negative pertaining to Israel they are met with cries of anti-Semitism, Nazi, racist, or reminders of the Holocaust. Most decent people are so horrified that they would be labeled like that they clam up and just buy into whatever story they can use to rationalize what’s going on.

[/quote]

Well, some people may cry these allegations. But I think you’ll find that fair, honest criticism will meet fair, honest discussion, without Godwining.

[QUOTE=Brandon]

It’s sad but the middle east almost needs a reset button with how bad things have gotten over there, just scrap it and start over.

[/quote]

Yeah, real sad there are actual people there, so you can’t save and restore like on your computer game right? That sucks.

[QUOTE=Brandon]
I’m going to try to find a video I saw of both Palestinian and Israeli children spouting off how they would die as heros fighting one another and how the other side was nothing more than animals. These kids have been bred from the get go to be willing to die fighting each other, it’s hard to stop that kind of hatred. The video was only from a couple years ago proving there is a long way to go until were even close to peace. Israel should be the one to make the first step in my opinion.
[/QUOTE]

I’m sure I can find videos of people from your homeland doing crazy stuff. What does it prove?

67

[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
You’re serious, aren’t you?
[/QUOTE]

Dead serious. The land was under Ottoman occupation, and then under British mandate.

Have a different vesion of history?

68

Any version that does not require so cramped a definition of “homeland” in order to sustain a belief that the people other than yourselves have no right to be there but you do - i.e. *all * other versions of history. Palestine existed in at least as much reality as Israel did even in your own version, you surely must realize.

Just what do you think was partitioned in 1947? Who lived there, and for how long? What rights did they have then and now, and how do you distinguish your claim from theirs as somehow superior? Can you really not see the problem there?

69

[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
Any version that does not require so cramped a definition of “homeland” in order to sustain a belief that the people other than yourselves have no right to be there but you do - i.e. *all * other versions of history. Palestine existed in at least as much reality as Israel did even in your own version, you surely must realize.

Just what do you think was partitioned in 1947? Who lived there, and for how long? What rights did they have then and now, and how do you distinguish your claim from theirs as somehow superior? Can you really not see the problem there?
[/QUOTE]

All I said was that there never was a Palestinian state. Do you disagree with that?
I wouldl ike to quote Fibb from here

The piece of land was known as Palestine, but was never a Palestinian land.

70

[QUOTE=Puzzler]
All I said was that there never was a Palestinian state. Do you disagree with that?
[/quote]
If that’s all you meant, it’s irrelevant. The concept of “homeland” is what it’s about, and what you’re pointedly not addressing.

What you did say, FTR, was

What *did * you mean by “otherwise”, then? :dubious:

71

[QUOTE=ElvisL1ves]
If that’s all you meant, it’s irrelevant. The concept of “homeland” is what it’s about, and what you’re pointedly not addressing.

[/quote]

I disagree WRT relevance.

Isn’t it abvious? There was never a Palestinian state. Palestine was not a Palestinian state. Nor was any other state by any other name.

72

[QUOTE=Puzzler]
I disagree WRT relevance.
[/QUOTE]
Perhaps you could *finally * take the opportunity to explain what you do mean, then. You claim, or seem to, that the Jews have a far-superior, even inarguable, claim to all of the land between the Med and the Jordan, based on the land “always” having been “Israel”, and “never” having been “Palestine”. You’ve been asked politely, and are now being asked bluntly, where you got that notion from, what “version of history” you’re using.

If you can, that is.

73

[QUOTE=elmwood]
Not too many kind sentiments towards Israel on the Pacifica Radio web site. My challenge: find one pro-Israel article on the Pacifica Radio site.

FWIW, I’m quite left of center. Talking with other liberal Jews – i.e. the majority of Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist Jews – there seems to be a general feeling of “WTF?” regarding general anti-Israel sentiment of many on the left. Excepting American Jews and the US Congress, where are the vocal pro-Israel liberals?
[/QUOTE]

I realize I’m not a member here yet and probably don’t have a right to complain, but how lazy do you have to be to post a google search for a cite?

You inferring that there are anti-Israel sentiments on Pacifica Radio. Post examples.

What does this mean?

The subject of the OP’s rant seems to me to be that the left and ‘liberals’ are somehow anti-Israel and I haven’t seen any proof of that. They may be sympathetic to Palestinian people but that doesn’t translate to anti-Israel.

74

[QUOTE=FrantzJ]
Nothing Israel does can stop the Arab world from hating it. Nothing. Muslims, for the most part, are fundamentally opposed to the idea of a Jewish state existing.

So is it the 1st world nation’s duty to make peace with the Palestinians, who represent 1.2 billion people who hate them? I don’t think so.
[/QUOTE]

Wow, that opens up a lot of moral latitude. If we cannot make peace with them, we might as well kill them. Furthermore if it is not a moral responsibility to make peace, we condemn ourselves to endless war.

Wow. Got a kid in uniform?

The Arabs have accepted Israel’s right to exist for what? Ten? fifteen years now? Of course if it is not our responsibility to make peace we can ignore that.

You take my breath away.

75

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Most American “lefties” are either Christian or Jewish.
[/QUOTE]

Ah, that’s what they want you to think.
:smiley:

76

[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic]
Most American “lefties” are either Christian or Jewish.
[/QUOTE]

Most American “righties” are Christian. Most American moderates are Christian. It’s the most Christian country in the industralized world.

77

We do need to act more like it, though.

78

The 1967 Six-Day War changed everything. The left discovered the Palestinians, and the romance with the PLO began. Israel was stereotyped as a powerful oppressor state and a tool of western imperialism involved in suppressing the national rights of the Palestinians.

Leftist anti-Zionism soon spread beyond the radical left to mainstream social democratic parties. In Australia, leftist anti-Zionism was reflected in then ALP prime minister Gough Whitlam’s so-called “even-handed” policy during the Yom Kippur War, the associated campaign by Bill Hartley and other leading ALP leftists to delegitimise Israel and the 1974-75 Australian Union of Students motions calling for the liquidation of Israel.

Leftist anti-Zionism seemed to go on the backburner during the period of the Oslo Accords. However, the outbreak of the intifada provoked a renewed outburst of anti-Zionist hysteria.

The antisemitic rhetoric used at the United Nations Conference in Durban and the various proposals for academic boycotts of Israel suggest an increasing leftist hostility not only to Israel, but also to Jewish supporters.

At present, there seems to be little common language between the anti-Zionist leftism and Jews. Where Jews see Israeli vulnerability amidst a sea of fanatical hatred, the left sees only Israeli military power and brutality. Where Jews see cowardly terrorists murdering women and children, the left sees brave resistance fighters. And where Jews see a citizen’s army engaged in self-defence, the left sees only the exercise of state terror.

The anti-Zionist left also ignores the differences between the Palestinians and other commensurate resistance movements.

Few on the left are willing to take into account the views of those who are victims of terrorism. The left prefers to ignore the potential genocidal implications of what it advocates.

It is easy to say that we need to engage in dialogue with the left to educate its members.

Sadly, many of them are not interested in promoting compromise, or the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians. Rather, they are partisans of Palestinian nationalism even when it is driven by fanatical Islam rather than by Marxism.

http://www.bluegreenearth.us/archive/article/2003_2/mendes1.html

79

[QUOTE=Paul in Saudi]
If we cannot make peace with them, we might as well kill them.
[/QUOTE]

Many of them killing Israelis.

[QUOTE=Paul in Saudi]

Got a kid in uniform?
[/QUOTE]

Except for that Orthodox religious school deal, don’t all Israeli kids go into the IDF?

[QUOTE=Paul in Saudi]

The Arabs have accepted Israel’s right to exist for what? Ten? fifteen years now?
[/QUOTE]

That’s news to me. I thought it was Egypt upon return of the Sinai.

80

Well, that depends on whether you consider that democracy can coexist with religious/ethnic discrimination. If Israel is defined as a state where one religious/ethnic group, namely Jews, have a specially privileged status—where Jews from anywhere else have an automatic “right of return” but non-Jewish Palestinians, for example, do not—then there’s no denying that the state is built partly on religious discrimination. Israel certainly might be democratic in any or all other respects, but if you consider rigorous governmental secularism and religious neutrality to be conditions of democracy, it is undeniable that Israel as currently constituted fails that test.

Under Sharon, Israeli settlers were evacuated from some parts of the occupied territories, while other parts received a major influx of settlers. It’s pretty one-sided to focus only on the pullout from Gaza settlements while ignoring the buildup of West Bank ones (not to mention Israel’s insistence on continued military and political control of the Gaza region).

While I flatly condemn terrorism against Israelis, I don’t think it’s unreasonable that many Palestinians disbelieve in the Israeli government’s sincerity or its concern for justice toward the Palestinians.

Ancient Israel was not a “state” either, in the modern sense of the term. There weren’t any modern “states” in the region until after WWI. There’s no logic in saying that Jewish Israel has some kind of historical claim to be a state but Muslim Palestine doesn’t.

IMHO, there are two separate arguments in favor of the existence of a Jewish state, and they shouldn’t be conflated:

  1. Jews as the victims of long-term, widespread persecution and a recent genocidal attack need to have a separate state for security purposes.

This seems to me like a reasonable argument, but it doesn’t imply that the Jewish state necessarily has to be located in the geographical region of ancient Israel. It would be just as valid, and for security purposes possibly more viable, to carve out a sliver of Idaho or Saskatchewan, say, and designate that the Jewish state.

  1. Israel as important historical entity and ancient religious homeland deserves to be represented by a modern state in approximately its ancient location.

This also seems reasonable to me, but it is necessarily contingent on the Israeli government’s being able to work out a peaceful and fair accomodation with the more recent owners and occupiers of the territory. The longer Israel insists on encroaching beyond the boundaries that were internationally agreed when establishing it, the harder it is to justify its actions.

I used to think that not only did Israel have a legitimate de facto right to exist (in the same sense that, say, Pakistan does—yes, it was created as a modern political entity rather arbitrarily out of what used to be part of somewhere else, but it’s been there for several decades now, it’s got an army and a postal service and so forth, it exists, get used to it), but that its existence was absolutely a done deal, a settled issue: Israel was here to stay.

I still believe the former, but I’m not so sure about the latter anymore. The more brutality and belligerence Israel is seen as condoning, the more possible it seems to me that if Israel does encounter a serious existential threat at some point, a critical mass of people worldwide will simply not care. Sure, they’d assist Jewish refugees fleeing Israel—they won’t make that mistake twice—but they just won’t consider Israel as a political entity worth helping to defend.