The changing Palestinian/Israeli picture

2456715

Comments

  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    edited December 2020
    mousethief wrote: »
    mousethief wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote: »
    IMHO, the late PM Golda Meier said it well ... "There can be peace in the middle east when Palestinian mothers love their sons more than they hate Israel ..." ...
    In the mean time Israeli policy is to ensure there is no danger of that happening.
    The beatings will continue until morale improves.

    Yes. The cop with his knee on the black man's neck saying "Stop hating me. Stop hating me." Meir did as much to create anti-Israeli hate in the Palestinians as anyone since.

    A few decades back I was stunned to hear a member of my own family repeat an old anti-Jewish trope ... There was a news story about the Israelis being attacked and then rising to defend themselves ... My relative shook her head, saying, "Those Jews ... Causing trouble again ..."
    ... and in another similar deal, a friend of mine, fellow clergy, Ph.D, solemnly told me that, "The Jews bring trouble on themselves because they don't 'assimilate' ..." ...

    If only if only if only (1) "The Jews" would stop being "Jewish," they would be okay ... and/but (2) in the meantime, *they* are welcome to be as "Jewish" as they want if only they live and move and have their being *somewhere*else* (and NOT as a majority population in their own land controlling the destiny of their own people) ...

    Slick non sequitur. Maybe someday you will respond to what I said.

    Facts on the ground are stubborn things ..

    This is bluster that doesn't answer my post in the least.
  • Dafyd wrote:
    Quite apart from that point, if in any other country a member of the current majority and ruling ethnic group claimed the right to take action to continue the majority ethnic group in 'their land' they'd be condemned as racist or xenophobic.

    Uniquely among democratic liberal nations Israel is defended or approved of by liberals when it inserts a clause in its constitution declaring itself to belong to only one people and one ethnicity.

    Ethnic Malays exclude non-Malays from various civil rights on ethnic grounds. Their provisions are directed against Malaysians of Chinese ethnicity. I think too that ethnic Fijians have a special place, but there has been much instability there since 1987, when a Govt headed by an ethic Indian was overthrown in a coup justifying itself in part on racial grounds.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote:
    Quite apart from that point, if in any other country a member of the current majority and ruling ethnic group claimed the right to take action to continue the majority ethnic group in 'their land' they'd be condemned as racist or xenophobic.

    Uniquely among democratic liberal nations Israel is defended or approved of by liberals when it inserts a clause in its constitution declaring itself to belong to only one people and one ethnicity.

    Ethnic Malays exclude non-Malays from various civil rights on ethnic grounds. Their provisions are directed against Malaysians of Chinese ethnicity. I think too that ethnic Fijians have a special place, but there has been much instability there since 1987, when a Govt headed by an ethic Indian was overthrown in a coup justifying itself in part on racial grounds.

    Is anyone saying the Malaysian state isn't racist?
  • Well, there's no BDS movement targeting them, as far as I can make out.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    Well, there's no BDS movement targeting them, as far as I can make out.

    Is there are ethnic-Chinese political movement in a Malaysian-occupied territory asking for one? A bit of reading suggests ethnic-Chinese and ethnic-Indian Malaysian parties are part of the governing coalition, a far cry from the permanent exclusion expetienced by Israeli Arabs.
  • I'm sure you know that Arab political parties are full participants in the Knesset.
  • The people with most to lose if Israel is forced to give back territory are the Druze. They've always been persecuted by other arabs and there is a real fear that they'd suffer the same fate as the Yazidi if re-absorbed back into Syria in particular. In fact the number of Druze applying for full Israeli citizenship has increased hugely since 2000 and they have good representation in the Knesset.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    I'm sure you know that Arab political parties are full participants in the Knesset.

    And are always excluded from the governing coalitions.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    I'm sure you know that Arab political parties are full participants in the Knesset.

    And are always excluded from the governing coalitions.

    There is nothing to formally "exclude" arab and Druze members of the Knesset from any coalition. The fact that they haven't been asked so far to be part of a coalition is exactly the same as, say, Plaid Cymru or the Scottish National Party not being asked to be part of our 2010 coalition government.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    I'm sure you know that Arab political parties are full participants in the Knesset.

    And are always excluded from the governing coalitions.

    There is nothing to formally "exclude" arab and Druze members of the Knesset from any coalition. The fact that they haven't been asked so far to be part of a coalition is exactly the same as, say, Plaid Cymru or the Scottish National Party not being asked to be part of our 2010 coalition government.

    The difference is that Israel has had 7 decades of coalition governments.
  • Golden Key wrote: »
    Re Native American tribes being nations:

    Except that's just the ones federally recognized. Many aren't. Here's the Wikipedia list.

    And this is the Wikipedia article on Indian Termination. (Termination, in this case, is about dropping a tribe's federal recognition, forcing assimilation, etc.)

    I found those articles by searching Duck Duck Go on 'US tribes not federally recognized'.

    In skimming the list of hits, I saw mention that some tribes that are recognized don't want those that aren't to become recognized. The US gov't isn't likely to fork out much more money, so any money and support that goes to currently-recognized tribes would probably be split up.

    I don't know whether or not that's accurate. But, as I said on the "Break Glass" thread, mistreatment and worse of Native Americans by the US gov't is one of American's worst original sins. Same for mistreatment and worse of African Americans.

    Shitty world, sometimes.
    :votive:

    The Feds indeed have not always dealt justly with First Nations peoples ... see: Edward Lazarus, "Black Hills/White Justice: The Sioux Nation Versus The United States, 1775 to the Present." (1991) ...
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    It is not about negotiating away the State of Israel. It is about respecting the rights of other ethnic groups. I believe about 20% of the citizens of Israel are Arab (mostly Palestinian). So it is not exclusively a Jewish state, never has been. Truth be known, around 85% of the population of Israel self identify as not religious.

    For sure, "Jewish-ness" is not necessarily entirely about piety ... (see: Germany, 1933-45, e.g.) ... but neither is it about somebody like me gently informing the Israelis (or any other "Jews") who is or is not a REAL "Jew" ... or who qualifies for citizenship in the State of Israel ...
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Israel has always been ambiguous regarding what constitutes a Jew, religion or parentage, to avoid the charge of racism, for obvious reasons. The state, nevertheless, privileges 'Jews'. Like apartheid South Africa, Israeli Jews find themselves running a state which effectively includes a majority of others, most of whom have been incorporated into a Bantustan called the Palestine Authority. This state of affairs is clearly at odds with decolonisation and democracy, but reconciling those ends would lead to the destruction of Israel: it is an existential question. It is easy to be moralistic in one's attitude towards Israel's actions, but what else can you expect it to do?
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    Dafyd wrote:
    Quite apart from that point, if in any other country a member of the current majority and ruling ethnic group claimed the right to take action to continue the majority ethnic group in 'their land' they'd be condemned as racist or xenophobic.
    Ethnic Malays exclude non-Malays from various civil rights on ethnic grounds. Their provisions are directed against Malaysians of Chinese ethnicity.
    Thank you for that. I suppose Malaysia counts as a democratic liberal nation. That said, it seems racist and xenophobic to me.

  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    Dafyd wrote: »
    very popular opinion that uniquely among all the peoples of the Earth, "the Jews" may NOT -- must not -- be the majority population in their own land ...
    Are any of the Native American peoples allowed to be the majority in their own lands? .

    By Treaty and SCOTUS decisions, in the USA Native American tribes are "sovereign dependent nations" who do have considerable sovereign power over their own internal affairs ... (MUCH to the consternation of occasional "white" guys who are caught infringing) ...
    Those sovereign dependent nations contain only a small part of their lands, and in some cases are not on their historic lands at all, and were assigned according to treaties dictated at gunpoint by a power that did not abide by the treaties whenever it was inconvenient to do so.

    The point stands: the condition of being a sovereign nation occupying its own land as a majority population is probably the exception rather than the rule around the world. And in any other instance any majority group asserting that it has such a right would be regarded as xenophobic and illiberal.

  • But for some reason, there is a very popular opinion that uniquely among all the peoples of the Earth, "the Jews" may NOT -- must not -- be the majority population in their own land ...
    By Treaty and SCOTUS decisions, in the USA Native American tribes are "sovereign dependent nations" who do have considerable sovereign power over their own internal affairs ... (MUCH to the consternation of occasional "white" guys who are caught infringing) ...

    Note the moving of the goalposts here. Israel is supposedly "unique" in not being able to ethnically cleanse its "own land" to maintain a specific ethnic group as a numerical majority, yet @Fr Teilhard isn't willing to go so far as to require that his own state of Minnesota be adjusted to have a majority population of various Očhéthi Šakówiŋ peoples. Nope, a much reduced federally-controlled level of sovereignty over a much reduced amount of land is sufficient for the needs of justice to be fulfilled when it comes to his own patch.

    The true test of whether Israel is "uniquely" put upon in this regard is to imagine the Israeli response to being offered to be put in a reservation system similar the ones that exist in the U.S. for Native Americans. I can imagine that response would be expressed using multiple profanities in Hebrew, Yiddish, and a bit of Russian.
  • Kwesi wrote: »
    Israel has always been ambiguous regarding what constitutes a Jew, religion or parentage, to avoid the charge of racism, for obvious reasons. The state, nevertheless, privileges 'Jews'. Like apartheid South Africa, Israeli Jews find themselves running a state which effectively includes a majority of others, most of whom have been incorporated into a Bantustan called the Palestine Authority. This state of affairs is clearly at odds with decolonisation and democracy, but reconciling those ends would lead to the destruction of Israel: it is an existential question. It is easy to be moralistic in one's attitude towards Israel's actions, but what else can you expect it to do?

    Zionism has always seemed inconsistent in this way. We are told that Zionism is a secular philosophy, and yet their claim that the Jews have a sacred attachment to the land is theological in character. We are told that Israel is diverse and pluralist, and yet the Palestinians who were driven out at the 1948 Nakba are not allowed to return home and be a part of Israel.

    Israel does not know what it wants to be. Does it want to be democratic and pluralist or does it want to be a state in which the Jewish ethnicity is privileged perpetually through political and coercive means?
  • Israel does not know what it wants to be. Does it want to be democratic and pluralist or does it want to be a state in which the Jewish ethnicity is privileged perpetually through political and coercive means?

    Yes. The answer to that question is "yes".

    This is similar to the question about whether the Jews are a religion, an ethnic group, or a nation. Yes.
  • Anglican Brat--

    Umm, who says Zionism is a secular philosophy?
  • Fr TeilhardFr Teilhard Shipmate
    edited December 2020
    Kwesi wrote: »
    Israel has always been ambiguous regarding what constitutes a Jew, religion or parentage, to avoid the charge of racism, for obvious reasons. The state, nevertheless, privileges 'Jews'. Like apartheid South Africa, Israeli Jews find themselves running a state which effectively includes a majority of others, most of whom have been incorporated into a Bantustan called the Palestine Authority. This state of affairs is clearly at odds with decolonisation and democracy, but reconciling those ends would lead to the destruction of Israel: it is an existential question. It is easy to be moralistic in one's attitude towards Israel's actions, but what else can you expect it to do?

    It is easy for *outsiders* to instruct the "Jews" and the Israelis on all of these questions especially from Moral High Ground ...
  • Crœsos wrote: »
    But for some reason, there is a very popular opinion that uniquely among all the peoples of the Earth, "the Jews" may NOT -- must not -- be the majority population in their own land ...

    By Treaty and SCOTUS decisions, in the USA Native American tribes are "sovereign dependent nations" who do have considerable sovereign power over their own internal affairs ... (MUCH to the consternation of occasional "white" guys who are caught infringing) ...

    Note the moving of the goalposts here. Israel is supposedly "unique" in not being able to ethnically cleanse its "own land" to maintain a specific ethnic group as a numerical majority, yet @Fr Teilhard isn't willing to go so far as to require that his own state of Minnesota be adjusted to have a majority population of various Očhéthi Šakówiŋ peoples. Nope, a much reduced federally-controlled level of sovereignty over a much reduced amount of land is sufficient for the needs of justice to be fulfilled when it comes to his own patch.
    .

    You impute to me views which I do not hold ...
  • Is Zionism a secular philosophy or a religious doctrine?

    Yes.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    I'm sure you know that Arab political parties are full participants in the Knesset.

    And are always excluded from the governing coalitions.

    There is nothing to formally "exclude" arab and Druze members of the Knesset from any coalition. The fact that they haven't been asked so far to be part of a coalition is exactly the same as, say, Plaid Cymru or the Scottish National Party not being asked to be part of our 2010 coalition government.

    The difference is that Israel has had 7
    Kwesi wrote: »
    Israel has always been ambiguous regarding what constitutes a Jew, religion or parentage, to avoid the charge of racism, for obvious reasons. The state, nevertheless, privileges 'Jews'. Like apartheid South Africa, Israeli Jews find themselves running a state which effectively includes a majority of others, most of whom have been incorporated into a Bantustan called the Palestine Authority. This state of affairs is clearly at odds with decolonisation and democracy, but reconciling those ends would lead to the destruction of Israel: it is an existential question. It is easy to be moralistic in one's attitude towards Israel's actions, but what else can you expect it to do?

    It is easy for *outsiders* to instruct the "Jews" and the Israelis on all of these questions especially from Moral High Ground ...

    I'm sure you think the same about those mean outsiders passing judgement on the Afrikaaners.
  • Fr TeilhardFr Teilhard Shipmate
    edited December 2020
    Simon Toad wrote: »

    It is easy for *outsiders* to instruct the "Jews" and the Israelis on all of these questions especially from Moral High Ground ...

    I'm sure you think the same about those mean outsiders passing judgement on the Afrikaaners.

    Apples and Oranges
  • Apples and Oranges

    More like cox's and golden delicious.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    I'm sure you know that Arab political parties are full participants in the Knesset.

    And are always excluded from the governing coalitions.

    There is nothing to formally "exclude" arab and Druze members of the Knesset from any coalition. The fact that they haven't been asked so far to be part of a coalition is exactly the same as, say, Plaid Cymru or the Scottish National Party not being asked to be part of our 2010 coalition government.

    The difference is that Israel has had 7
    Kwesi wrote: »
    Israel has always been ambiguous regarding what constitutes a Jew, religion or parentage, to avoid the charge of racism, for obvious reasons. The state, nevertheless, privileges 'Jews'. Like apartheid South Africa, Israeli Jews find themselves running a state which effectively includes a majority of others, most of whom have been incorporated into a Bantustan called the Palestine Authority. This state of affairs is clearly at odds with decolonisation and democracy, but reconciling those ends would lead to the destruction of Israel: it is an existential question. It is easy to be moralistic in one's attitude towards Israel's actions, but what else can you expect it to do?

    It is easy for *outsiders* to instruct the "Jews" and the Israelis on all of these questions especially from Moral High Ground ...

    I'm sure you think the same about those mean outsiders passing judgement on the Afrikaaners.

    The Afrikaaners don't have a continuous 3,000 year history in southern Africa ...
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    I'm sure you know that Arab political parties are full participants in the Knesset.

    And are always excluded from the governing coalitions.

    There is nothing to formally "exclude" arab and Druze members of the Knesset from any coalition. The fact that they haven't been asked so far to be part of a coalition is exactly the same as, say, Plaid Cymru or the Scottish National Party not being asked to be part of our 2010 coalition government.

    The difference is that Israel has had 7
    Kwesi wrote: »
    Israel has always been ambiguous regarding what constitutes a Jew, religion or parentage, to avoid the charge of racism, for obvious reasons. The state, nevertheless, privileges 'Jews'. Like apartheid South Africa, Israeli Jews find themselves running a state which effectively includes a majority of others, most of whom have been incorporated into a Bantustan called the Palestine Authority. This state of affairs is clearly at odds with decolonisation and democracy, but reconciling those ends would lead to the destruction of Israel: it is an existential question. It is easy to be moralistic in one's attitude towards Israel's actions, but what else can you expect it to do?

    It is easy for *outsiders* to instruct the "Jews" and the Israelis on all of these questions especially from Moral High Ground ...

    I'm sure you think the same about those mean outsiders passing judgement on the Afrikaaners.

    The Afrikaaners don't have a continuous 3,000 year history in southern Africa ...

    So if the Black population in SA had been oppressing the Afrikaaners it would have been OK?
  • The Afrikaaners don't have a continuous 3,000 year history in southern Africa ...

    I think the word "continuous" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. (e.g. the extensive de-Judaizing of "Syria Palaestina" in the wake of the Bar Kokhba Revolt.) It also seems to be working on the assumption that Israel's non-Jewish residents weren't also present since antiquity but were instead . . . I don't know, assembled in a lab in Akron, Ohio and surreptitiously smuggled into the eastern Mediterranean sometime around 1906.

    At any rate, the Afrikaaners had an ideology of white supremacy which said that white people's rule over . . . well, everything . . . was inherently a superior option, even for the non-white people being ruled over. There was/is a similar ideology in the United States.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    I'm sure you know that Arab political parties are full participants in the Knesset.

    And are always excluded from the governing coalitions.

    There is nothing to formally "exclude" arab and Druze members of the Knesset from any coalition. The fact that they haven't been asked so far to be part of a coalition is exactly the same as, say, Plaid Cymru or the Scottish National Party not being asked to be part of our 2010 coalition government.

    The difference is that Israel has had 7
    Kwesi wrote: »
    Israel has always been ambiguous regarding what constitutes a Jew, religion or parentage, to avoid the charge of racism, for obvious reasons. The state, nevertheless, privileges 'Jews'. Like apartheid South Africa, Israeli Jews find themselves running a state which effectively includes a majority of others, most of whom have been incorporated into a Bantustan called the Palestine Authority. This state of affairs is clearly at odds with decolonisation and democracy, but reconciling those ends would lead to the destruction of Israel: it is an existential question. It is easy to be moralistic in one's attitude towards Israel's actions, but what else can you expect it to do?

    It is easy for *outsiders* to instruct the "Jews" and the Israelis on all of these questions especially from Moral High Ground ...

    I'm sure you think the same about those mean outsiders passing judgement on the Afrikaaners.

    The Afrikaaners don't have a continuous 3,000 year history in southern Africa ...

    The vast majority of Israeli Jews are descended from people who moved there less than 100 years ago. The Palestinians have been there since at least the time of Christ.
  • Crœsos wrote: »
    The Afrikaaners don't have a continuous 3,000 year history in southern Africa ...

    I think the word "continuous" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that sentence. (e.g. the extensive de-Judaizing of "Syria Palaestina" in the wake of the Bar Kokhba Revolt.) It also seems to be working on the assumption that Israel's non-Jewish residents weren't also present since antiquity but were instead . . . I don't know, assembled in a lab in Akron, Ohio and surreptitiously smuggled into the eastern Mediterranean sometime around 1906.

    At any rate, the Afrikaaners had an ideology of white supremacy which said that white people's rule over . . . well, everything . . . was inherently a superior option, even for the non-white people being ruled over. There was/is a similar ideology in the United States.

    Yes ... The People of Israel held/hold no such ideology ... but have been victims of it, e.g., 1933-45 and in more recent time when *they* are told that *they* may live and move and have their being in the LAND of Israel only if *they* are a minority population ...
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    I'm sure you know that Arab political parties are full participants in the Knesset.

    And are always excluded from the governing coalitions.

    There is nothing to formally "exclude" arab and Druze members of the Knesset from any coalition. The fact that they haven't been asked so far to be part of a coalition is exactly the same as, say, Plaid Cymru or the Scottish National Party not being asked to be part of our 2010 coalition government.

    The difference is that Israel has had 7
    Kwesi wrote: »
    Israel has always been ambiguous regarding what constitutes a Jew, religion or parentage, to avoid the charge of racism, for obvious reasons. The state, nevertheless, privileges 'Jews'. Like apartheid South Africa, Israeli Jews find themselves running a state which effectively includes a majority of others, most of whom have been incorporated into a Bantustan called the Palestine Authority. This state of affairs is clearly at odds with decolonisation and democracy, but reconciling those ends would lead to the destruction of Israel: it is an existential question. It is easy to be moralistic in one's attitude towards Israel's actions, but what else can you expect it to do?

    It is easy for *outsiders* to instruct the "Jews" and the Israelis on all of these questions especially from Moral High Ground ...

    I'm sure you think the same about those mean outsiders passing judgement on the Afrikaaners.

    The Afrikaaners don't have a continuous 3,000 year history in southern Africa ...

    The vast majority of Israeli Jews are descended from people who moved there less than 100 years ago. The Palestinians have been there since at least the time of Christ.

    The People of Israel have lived ad moved and had their being in the Land of Israel for 3,000 years ... During that time they have been dominated by, invaded by, sometimes sent into Exile by various other peoples -- the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, various Arab tribes, the Ottomans, the League of Nations ... but during that entire time *they* never ceded any portion of the Land of Israel ... and the undivided City of Jerusalem has been their Capital ... (hint: the Passover Haggadah doesn't conclude with "Next year, in Omaha ..." ..
  • CrœsosCrœsos Shipmate
    edited December 2020
    Crœsos wrote: »
    At any rate, the Afrikaaners had an ideology of white supremacy which said that white people's rule over . . . well, everything . . . was inherently a superior option, even for the non-white people being ruled over. There was/is a similar ideology in the United States.
    Yes ... The People of Israel held/hold no such ideology ...

    I'm pretty sure that's modern Israel's current policy on non-Jews living in the West Bank and its former policy on non-Jews living in the former East Jerusalem.

    At any rate, if you're going to claim that "The People of Israel" are a single uniform collective entity* that's both unchanged over the past three millennia and includes every Jewish person in the world (Israeli or not) you have to account for the fact that the origin myth of Israel as a political entity involves just such a war of conquest and extermination. For my part I don't hold modern Jews to be particularly responsible for ancestral deeds, but you're the who wants to claim that there's an unbroken continuity.
    The People of Israel have lived ad moved and had their being in the Land of Israel for 3,000 years ... During that time they have been dominated by, invaded by, sometimes sent into Exile by various other peoples -- the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, various Arab tribes, the Ottomans, the League of Nations ... but during that entire time *they* never ceded any portion of the Land of Israel ... and the undivided City of Jerusalem has been their Capital

    If conquest without voluntary cession of territory doesn't count, then how is Jerusalem the capital of Israel? It was originally a Jebusite city and conquered by the Israelites. If the Jebusites offered a formal cession we have no record of it.


    * Claiming that all Jews are part of the same uniform collective entity never seems to end well for the Jews themselves. They always seem to end up getting blamed for murdering God or secretly controlling the world.
  • Fr TeilhardFr Teilhard Shipmate
    edited December 2020
    Crœsos wrote: »
    Crœsos wrote: »
    At any rate, the Afrikaaners had an ideology of white supremacy which said that white people's rule over . . . well, everything . . . was inherently a superior option, even for the non-white people being ruled over. There was/is a similar ideology in the United States.
    Yes ... The People of Israel held/hold no such ideology ...

    I'm pretty sure that's modern Israel's current policy on non-Jews living in the West Bank and its former policy on non-Jews living in the former East Jerusalem.

    At any rate, if you're going to claim that "The People of Israel" are a single uniform collective entity* that's both unchanged over the past three millennia and includes every Jewish person in the world (Israeli or not) you have to account for the fact that the origin myth of Israel as a political entity involves just such a war of conquest and extermination. For my part I don't hold modern Jews to be particularly responsible for ancestral deeds, but you're the who wants to claim that there's an unbroken continuity.


    * Claiming that all Jews are part of the same uniform collective entity never seems to end well for the Jews themselves. They always seem to end up getting blamed for murdering God or secretly controlling the world.

    Well, again ... The People of Israel ("the Jews") do and can and should decide for themselves who is or is not a REAL "Jew" ... and the intimate ties between The People of Israel and The Land of Israel are ... well ... simply facts ... Hint: in the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings, that word "Jerusalem" is not a secret code word that actually refers to "Stockholm" or "Kiev" ...

    But, yes, the facts of History include The People of Israel being sent/forced into Exile not by their free choice ...
  • Well, again ... The People of Israel ("the Jews") do and can and should decide for themselves who is or is not a REAL "Jew" ... and the intimate ties between The People of Israel and The Land of Israel are ... well ... simply facts ... Hint: in the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings, that word "Jerusalem" is not a secret code word that actually refers to "Stockholm" or "Kiev" ...

    But, yes, the facts of History include The People of Israel being sent/forced into Exile not by their free choice ...

    Well, again . . . if conquest and forced removal don't count as a legitimate claim to land and "the Torah, the Prophets, and the Writings" are accurate historical records, why is the Jewish claim to Israel legitimate? I'm not arguing that it isn't per se, but you do seem to be applying two different standards here.
  • As I understand it 3,000 years ago national boundaries were very fluid, It would not be all that unusual for a number of tribes to occupy a region. Correct me if I am wrong, but Middle Eastern Boundaries were not drawn until Winston Churchill drew them as part of a League of Nations mandate.
  • mousethiefmousethief Shipmate
    edited December 2020
    Including his famous hiccup. Just another case of Colonizers imposing their will on smaller nations/third world persons/victims of colonization.
  • Here's a Haaretz article on the history of Palestinian Israelis in the Knesset. It was written as an explainer following a decision by the Joint List of Arab Parties to recommend to the President that Benny Gantz be given the first opportunity to form a government earlier this year.

    The article points out not only that Palestinians have been members of non-Arab specific parties, but that the exclusion of Arab parties is mutual, with the exception of MADA's offer to join a coalition headed by Yitsak Rabin in 1992. This was at around the time when the much lamented (by me at least) Oslo Accords were being negotiated. Apart from that extraordinarily hopeful time, Arab parties avoid participating in Government because it involves taking responsibility for its decisions and actions.


  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    As I understand it 3,000 years ago national boundaries were very fluid, It would not be all that unusual for a number of tribes to occupy a region. Correct me if I am wrong, but Middle Eastern Boundaries were not drawn until Winston Churchill drew them as part of a League of Nations mandate.

    The whole idea of national boundaries is very modern indeed. We impose them on pre-modern peoples because that's our mindset.
  • KwesiKwesi Shipmate
    Gramps49: As I understand it 3,000 years ago national boundaries were very fluid, It would not be all that unusual for a number of tribes to occupy a region. Correct me if I am wrong, but Middle Eastern Boundaries were not drawn until Winston Churchill drew them as part of a League of Nations mandate.

    It would help, Gramps49, if you could define what you understand by "national boundaries".
  • mt--
    mousethief wrote: »
    Including his famous hiccup. Just another case of Colonizers imposing their will on smaller nations/third world persons/victims of colonization.

    Hiccup??
  • The bizarre angle in the boundary between Jordan and Saudi Arabia is called "Winston's Hiccup."
  • DafydDafyd Shipmate
    edited December 2020
    in more recent time when *they* are told that *they* may live and move and have their being in the LAND of Israel only if *they* are a minority population ...
    If Trump or an American ally of Trump said that white Americans were told they may only live in the land of America if they are a minority population you'd know exactly what to think of him or her. You'd know that - because everything a population might do to stay or become a majority population is ugly.
    But if Trump's ally Netanyahu says that somehow that's different. Even though everything that Netanyahu might do about it is just as ugly.

    Meanwhile the Palestinians don't get to live as a majority in their land or to sit in peace under the olive trees their ancestors have been cultivating for the past three thousand years.
  • Crœsos wrote: »
    Crœsos wrote: »
    At any rate, the Afrikaaners had an ideology of white supremacy which said that white people's rule over . . . well, everything . . . was inherently a superior option, even for the non-white people being ruled over. There was/is a similar ideology in the United States.
    Yes ... The People of Israel held/hold no such ideology ...

    I'm pretty sure that's modern Israel's current policy on non-Jews living in the West Bank and its former policy on non-Jews living in the former East Jerusalem.

    At any rate, if you're going to claim that "The People of Israel" are a single uniform collective entity* that's both unchanged over the past three millennia and includes every Jewish person in the world (Israeli or not) you have to account for the fact that the origin myth of Israel as a political entity involves just such a war of conquest and extermination. For my part I don't hold modern Jews to be particularly responsible for ancestral deeds, but you're the who wants to claim that there's an unbroken continuity.
    The People of Israel have lived ad moved and had their being in the Land of Israel for 3,000 years ... During that time they have been dominated by, invaded by, sometimes sent into Exile by various other peoples -- the Egyptians, the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks, the Romans, various Arab tribes, the Ottomans, the League of Nations ... but during that entire time *they* never ceded any portion of the Land of Israel ... and the undivided City of Jerusalem has been their Capital

    If conquest without voluntary cession of territory doesn't count, then how is Jerusalem the capital of Israel? It was originally a Jebusite city and conquered by the Israelites. If the Jebusites offered a formal cession we have no record of it.


    * Claiming that all Jews are part of the same uniform collective entity never seems to end well for the Jews themselves. They always seem to end up getting blamed for murdering God or secretly controlling the world.

    Especially following the 1948 Partition, "Jews" were expelled from surrounding nations ... while, as noted above, about 20% of Israeli citizens are not "Jews" ...

    But ... as you seem to be saying above re: Jerusalem having originally been a Jebusite town ... are you saying that "possession" of a piece of land is the first thing ... ??? ... If so ...
  • @Kwesi National boundaries=that imaginary line that separates one nation from another.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    I'm sure you know that Arab political parties are full participants in the Knesset.

    And are always excluded from the governing coalitions.

    There is nothing to formally "exclude" arab and Druze members of the Knesset from any coalition. The fact that they haven't been asked so far to be part of a coalition is exactly the same as, say, Plaid Cymru or the Scottish National Party not being asked to be part of our 2010 coalition government.

    The difference is that Israel has had 7
    Kwesi wrote: »
    Israel has always been ambiguous regarding what constitutes a Jew, religion or parentage, to avoid the charge of racism, for obvious reasons. The state, nevertheless, privileges 'Jews'. Like apartheid South Africa, Israeli Jews find themselves running a state which effectively includes a majority of others, most of whom have been incorporated into a Bantustan called the Palestine Authority. This state of affairs is clearly at odds with decolonisation and democracy, but reconciling those ends would lead to the destruction of Israel: it is an existential question. It is easy to be moralistic in one's attitude towards Israel's actions, but what else can you expect it to do?

    It is easy for *outsiders* to instruct the "Jews" and the Israelis on all of these questions especially from Moral High Ground ...

    I'm sure you think the same about those mean outsiders passing judgement on the Afrikaaners.

    The Afrikaaners don't have a continuous 3,000 year history in southern Africa ...

    The vast majority of Israeli Jews are descended from people who moved there less than 100 years ago. The Palestinians have been there since at least the time of Christ.

    The arabs invaded Palestine in the 7th century, at a time when the population was roughly 50-50 Jewish and Christian.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    I'm sure you know that Arab political parties are full participants in the Knesset.

    And are always excluded from the governing coalitions.

    There is nothing to formally "exclude" arab and Druze members of the Knesset from any coalition. The fact that they haven't been asked so far to be part of a coalition is exactly the same as, say, Plaid Cymru or the Scottish National Party not being asked to be part of our 2010 coalition government.

    The difference is that Israel has had 7
    Kwesi wrote: »
    Israel has always been ambiguous regarding what constitutes a Jew, religion or parentage, to avoid the charge of racism, for obvious reasons. The state, nevertheless, privileges 'Jews'. Like apartheid South Africa, Israeli Jews find themselves running a state which effectively includes a majority of others, most of whom have been incorporated into a Bantustan called the Palestine Authority. This state of affairs is clearly at odds with decolonisation and democracy, but reconciling those ends would lead to the destruction of Israel: it is an existential question. It is easy to be moralistic in one's attitude towards Israel's actions, but what else can you expect it to do?

    It is easy for *outsiders* to instruct the "Jews" and the Israelis on all of these questions especially from Moral High Ground ...

    I'm sure you think the same about those mean outsiders passing judgement on the Afrikaaners.

    The Afrikaaners don't have a continuous 3,000 year history in southern Africa ...

    The vast majority of Israeli Jews are descended from people who moved there less than 100 years ago. The Palestinians have been there since at least the time of Christ.

    The arabs invaded Palestine in the 7th century, at a time when the population was roughly 50-50 Jewish and Christian.

    Palestinian comes from an ancient Egyptian word Peleset. It meant the Sea People Remember the Old Testament word of Philistine--that was the Hebrew word for the very same people. They were the people that lived along the coast of the Mediterranean into Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan when the Hebrews first invaded the land. Eventually, after Jesus, those people were largely Christian.

    So, if you really want to get technical about who was there first....
  • Gramps49 wrote: »
    Simon Toad wrote: »
    I'm sure you know that Arab political parties are full participants in the Knesset.

    And are always excluded from the governing coalitions.

    There is nothing to formally "exclude" arab and Druze members of the Knesset from any coalition. The fact that they haven't been asked so far to be part of a coalition is exactly the same as, say, Plaid Cymru or the Scottish National Party not being asked to be part of our 2010 coalition government.

    The difference is that Israel has had 7
    Kwesi wrote: »
    Israel has always been ambiguous regarding what constitutes a Jew, religion or parentage, to avoid the charge of racism, for obvious reasons. The state, nevertheless, privileges 'Jews'. Like apartheid South Africa, Israeli Jews find themselves running a state which effectively includes a majority of others, most of whom have been incorporated into a Bantustan called the Palestine Authority. This state of affairs is clearly at odds with decolonisation and democracy, but reconciling those ends would lead to the destruction of Israel: it is an existential question. It is easy to be moralistic in one's attitude towards Israel's actions, but what else can you expect it to do?

    It is easy for *outsiders* to instruct the "Jews" and the Israelis on all of these questions especially from Moral High Ground ...

    I'm sure you think the same about those mean outsiders passing judgement on the Afrikaaners.

    The Afrikaaners don't have a continuous 3,000 year history in southern Africa ...

    The vast majority of Israeli Jews are descended from people who moved there less than 100 years ago. The Palestinians have been there since at least the time of Christ.

    The arabs invaded Palestine in the 7th century, at a time when the population was roughly 50-50 Jewish and Christian.

    Palestinian comes from an ancient Egyptian word Peleset. It meant the Sea People Remember the Old Testament word of Philistine--that was the Hebrew word for the very same people. They were the people that lived along the coast of the Mediterranean into Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan when the Hebrews first invaded the land. Eventually, after Jesus, those people were largely Christian.

    So, if you really want to get technical about who was there first....

    And "Native Americans" arrived in "North America" crossing the Bering Strait more than 10,000 years ago ... What's your point ... ??? ... "Possession is nine points of the law ... " ... ???
  • We are never going to figure out the whole 'who was there first question' for Israel/Palestine. Because that is a messy business.

    I suspect there are some in both communities that can probably trace their ancestry back 2000 years ago to the exile of the Jews after the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in AD 66. I also think there are some in both communities that descended from groups who were not present at that time, whether it be Jewish descendants of Eastern Europeans who converted to Judaism or Arabs who moved into the Land after the Muslim conquest.

    That question is a distraction from the more pressing issue right now, the Palestinians have long standing grievances arising firstly from the Nakba in 1948, and the fact that time and time again, they are denied their legitimate right to self-determination. The refugees and their descendants are denied the opportunity to return home in Israel proper, and the Palestinians do not have complete control over their territories in the West Bank and Gaza, because Israel (i) controls the borders, (2) actively builds Jewish settlements in territories it knows it does not legitimately own under international law, and (3) generally makes life miserable for the Palestinians, especially with its long blockade against Gaza.
  • Especially following the 1948 Partition, "Jews" were expelled from surrounding nations ... while, as noted above, about 20% of Israeli citizens are not "Jews" ...

    But ... as you seem to be saying above re: Jerusalem having originally been a Jebusite town ... are you saying that "possession" of a piece of land is the first thing ... ??? ... If so ...

    I'm simply wondering about your self-proclaimed standards. If the lack of a statement of cession is reason to doubt legitimate possession of a piece of land, as you argue, in what sense is Jerusalem an Israeli city?
    And "Native Americans" arrived in "North America" crossing the Bering Strait more than 10,000 years ago ... What's your point ... ??? ... "Possession is nine points of the law ... " ... ???

    Again, still waiting for an answer to my question about why Minnesota legitimately belongs to the United States of America and not the descendants of its original inhabitants.
  • Simon Toad wrote: »
    I'm sure you know that Arab political parties are full participants in the Knesset.

    And are always excluded from the governing coalitions.

    There is nothing to formally "exclude" arab and Druze members of the Knesset from any coalition. The fact that they haven't been asked so far to be part of a coalition is exactly the same as, say, Plaid Cymru or the Scottish National Party not being asked to be part of our 2010 coalition government.

    The difference is that Israel has had 7
    Kwesi wrote: »
    Israel has always been ambiguous regarding what constitutes a Jew, religion or parentage, to avoid the charge of racism, for obvious reasons. The state, nevertheless, privileges 'Jews'. Like apartheid South Africa, Israeli Jews find themselves running a state which effectively includes a majority of others, most of whom have been incorporated into a Bantustan called the Palestine Authority. This state of affairs is clearly at odds with decolonisation and democracy, but reconciling those ends would lead to the destruction of Israel: it is an existential question. It is easy to be moralistic in one's attitude towards Israel's actions, but what else can you expect it to do?

    It is easy for *outsiders* to instruct the "Jews" and the Israelis on all of these questions especially from Moral High Ground ...

    I'm sure you think the same about those mean outsiders passing judgement on the Afrikaaners.

    The Afrikaaners don't have a continuous 3,000 year history in southern Africa ...

    The vast majority of Israeli Jews are descended from people who moved there less than 100 years ago. The Palestinians have been there since at least the time of Christ.

    The arabs invaded Palestine in the 7th century, at a time when the population was roughly 50-50 Jewish and Christian.

    What makes you think the people living in Palestine are all descendants of the Arab conquerors? Do you think they (the conquerors) destroyed the entire population of Palestine and brought in people from Arabia to replace them? That's not how conquest works.
Sign In or Register to comment.