I see you posted before I did.
There doesn’t have to be a 9. This is a scale of Apartheidness, not general opression or ethnic violence, no? So stuff like Mao’s China or Pol Pot’s Kampuchea don’t really rate so high, AFAIK, because theyre essentiall class genocide not race/ethnicity. AFAIK… MAybe Stalinist Russia rates a 9, I here there was a lot of ethnic-related Gulag occupancy but no real “Final Solution”-type extermination there.
You perceived me as someone more careing of Jews than non-Jews, and said so in your post. Which was as silly an assumption as the one you are making your OP-- in both cases there are more reasonable explanations.
My interpretation hasn’t been shown to be invalid. That’s good enough for me. The existence of alternative explanations doesn’t invalidate mine. Only something showing where my interpretation is actually wrong would do that, all you’re saying is that we both think what we think because of our own biases.
It was a snarky comment because I always see 6 million rather than a more accurate figure (allowing for extermination method, of course - see, I do learn).
That hardly equates to “Filthy Jew-lover”, which you’ll have to admit comes from the phrasebook of the anti-semite, which I am certainly not.
Oh, and here’s a little math lesson. If Israel is an 8 or 9 on a log scale compared to Nazi Germany’s 10, then Israel is a 0.1 or a 1.0 on linear scale.
Were you under the impression the Palestinians were Israeli citizens, or that they wanted to be?
It needs a pass for giving its Arab citizens and their offspring citizenship but for not giving Arabs from out of the country citizenship? Wow. Just wow.
Only on log base 10. But I meant it informally and you know it. All I meant was that the jump from 8-9 (Apartheid) to 10 (Extermination camps) was a vast one, whereas 7-8 (jim Crow-era states) to apartheid wasn’t that great. But continue the pointless nitpick, and refuse to address the meat of the issue.
Neither, AFAIK. They want to be Palestinian citizens in a non-occupied Palestine, is how I see it. Of course, for a sizeable percentage of them, that unoccupied Palestine includes current Israel, and* that isn’t right*. But at the moment, they are “citizens” (that’s sarcasm, BTW) of a non-state where, really, Israel calls all the shots.
So yeah, a Bantustan.
Considering the underlined portion, and considering that the “sizeable percentage” includes their elected leadership… what would you have us do? Specifically, what would be the smart (and not “right”) course of action?
Give them complete sovereignity over their own territory (all their territory), and then seal your borders, I guess. Affirmative Action within Israel for Israeli Arabs. Relax the immigration ban for Palestinian spouses of Israelis.
Basically, I don’t think you’re in the wrong with dealing with your security issues, I think you’ve taken it a little to far in regards the ingrained discrimination, though, and the way you deal with the OTs. Give it back. Give it all back. Sure, some settlements will have to be given up. That’s the knock your hardliners will have to take.
I’m not sure of the reason for your surprise. Israel prevaricates on what is and is not part of Israel. With control comes responsibility, in my book.
This is an interesting comment. If it’s all about what’s smart and not what’s right, why do you even bother defending Israel’s position when someone accuses it of doing things that are not right?
Because pragmatic people have to balance what is right with what is smart - and in matters of life and death, the latter weighs much more heavily. I can assume I know what he thinks is right. I’m interested in in reading what he - and you - think is smart.
As the Irishman said when asked directions to Cork, “Well now, if it’s Cork you’re wantin’ to be goin’ to, you wouldn’t be startin’ from here.”
Smart is not living in a religious and cultural powderkeg.
[shrug] It’s home.
Besides, I like it here.