A question for liberals

31 replies

AtlasTrips · 15/08/2010 08:56

I ask this as someone who has been a liberal for most of their lives - can a liberal be pro-Israeli or is being anti-Israeli just part of the identity of being liberal?

I ask as I'm getting pretty skeptical about the whole anti-Israeli agenda, but does that make me a bad liberal?

OP posts:

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 15/08/2010 16:59

The idea that any nation state gas a 'right' to exist is a a bit odd in the first place. They are just usefully administrative abstractions for organising groups of people.

Does 'yorkshire' have a right to exist? There only function is to serve the interests of the people in them, so on those grounds Israel fails as almost everything they do makes things worse. So, prehaps Israel loses the right to exist on the grounds of just being to fucking stupid.

ragged · 15/08/2010 12:08

Well... I rather dislike Alan Dershowitz (after watching him in the OJ trial), but I guess that's another debate!
I don't have problems with the right of Israel to exist, but the how they go about it is rather depressing. I am sure that lots of "liberals" feel the same way.
I think this is a well-hased-out debate among American liberals "progressives", btw.

Original poster

AtlasTrips · 15/08/2010 10:25

I'm coming from the opposite directtion Ragged. After learning about the shocking bias of the BBC and what we never see over here.

Define 'liberal'? Supporting liberal democracy - and the values there in. Israel is a liberal democracy. After constantly getting one side from the BBC I decided to find out the other by reading this www.amazon.com/Case-Israel-Alan-Dershowitz/dp/0471679526/ref=pd_sim_b_1

It just seems to me when I mention Israel to my friends they assume I am against it (because I was - but why? Just because other liberals were) and get very passionate when I tell them my mind is changing.

OP posts:

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 15/08/2010 09:23

I don't see what a bunch of Arabs squabbling over land rights has to do with liberalism.

sarah293 · 15/08/2010 09:12

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ragged · 15/08/2010 09:09

It's healthy to be skeptical, you should always test what other people are claiming, especially when there's a bandwagon element to it.

My mother was a committed socialist radical liberal who also wore a Star of David most days, she liked Israel (and the Jewish people) so much. We are American, btw, and I can't tell you how incredibly ignorant she/we were in those days about the founding of Israel. I think that there are a great many "pro-Israeli" American "liberals", still.

My later mom met two children as part of some peacenik initiative: one Palestinian, one Israeli.

She heard both sides of their stories... and never wore the Star of David again. She still loved Jewish culture and all her Jewish friends, but couldn't support what she found out about Israeli history and policies.

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