To protest at the words "Jewish" and "Israeli" being used interchangeabley.

[Jewishnotisraeli]

They are not the same thing at all.

Most Jews are not Isreali

Many Isrealis are not Jewish.

20-25% of Israelis, including the Israeli army are Muslim, ( varies year to year)

Some Jews are Arabs. Some Arabs are Jewish.

Some Palestinians on the West bank are Jewish.

There are no known Jewish Palestinians in the Gaza strip as Hamas has succeeded where Hitler failed, in wiping out it's own indigenous Jewish population. This is the ONLY reason why there are no Jews left in this population.

Israel has done terrible things. Hamas has done terrible things.

Please don't classify things done by Israel as done by Jews, a quarter of them are not Jews. please don't classify things done by Hamas as done to Jews, many of their atrocities are inflicted on Muslims.

To say Jews and Israelis are the same is like saying English people and Anglicans are the same, many people are English and Anglican, many people are English but not Anglican, and many Anglicans are not English.

And also, some Palestinians, and some Israelis are Christians.

TheViciousChickenofBristol

I've also never understood the idea that having been through the holocaust will somehow make Israelis/Jews nicer?

No, the holocaust was such a huge national trauma (and still is) that when Iran says 'we want to wipe you out', Israelis go 'shit, they mean it' and when Hamas' charter calls for the destruction of Israel, Israelis don't go 'whatever', they go 'bloody hell, we'd better not let that happen again'. Yeah, Israel is strong now but there's a feeling (rightly or wrongly) that if Israel weren't strong, there's no stopping round 2 of the holocaust so Israel had better damn well stay strong.

Having six million of your people killed makes you a bit fucked up and paranoid like that, it doesn't make you nice and cuddly.

Look at Rwanda and how they behave in DRC. That's what a people who have undergone genocide behave like.

500 children is a terrible, terrible toll.

Incidentally, 24 times as many children have been killed in the Syrian conflict: 11,964 according to the Syrian Human Rights Observatory, which may of course be prone to overestimation.

They are every bit as precious a loss, and heartbreakingly more numerous, and the threads expressing distress about the horrors inflicted on them are not 24 times as common as threads about Gazan children.

i don't want a christian state either - doesn't make me anti christian. it is just the same consistent view that citizens should have equal rights and their religion and ethnicity (and let's face it judaism places a great deal of emphasis on ethnicity and israel uses that basis of determining who has rights) shoudln't come into it.

not rocket science.

Yeah, shelters to protect themselves from the military. That's kind of why Hamas built shelters for their top brass.

I'm not justifying the civilian death toll in Gaza. I'm not sure what the solution is to the problem but I don't think that such disregard for civilian life, intentional or not, is going to solve anything. But that's on the Israeli side.

On the Palestinian side, I'm pretty sure that building bomb shelters would be a good idea. It's one of the reasons why so few Israelis died (that and defensive shield) - it certainly wasn't for lack of Hamas trying very hard to kill them!

HoneyBadger, are you saying that the reason an ISIS supporter is the same as a Zionist is that they support religiously-based states? If so, do you consider any Briton who supports the Queen, Established Church, and current constitutional settlement to be the same as a Zionist or ISIS supporter? If not, why not?

Why shouldn't the Jewish people have a homeland? I'm no nationalist but if the Turkish people have Turkey, German people have Germany, Egyptian people have Egypt, why can't the Jewish people have Israel?

Judaism (as a religion) says nothing about ethnicity. Absolutely nothing.

i should say the death tolls have more to do with the amount of international funding and sophistication of weaponry and one side having a massive military with carpet bombs, jets, etc rather than makeshift bombs.

don't be silly.

All zionist means is the belief that the Jewish people should have their own homeland.

How it turns in to the equivalent of an ISIS supporter is beyond isanity.

are you really comparing national citizens with religious ethnicity?

Nowhere has ever been carpet bombed in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Just like there hasn't been genocide.

Again, doesn't mean there haven't been abuses. But it hasn't reached neither the depth of genocide nor carpet bombing.

You might be getting confused with Syria.

are you actually denying the use of carpet bombs on gaza? are you sure ou want to do that?

You have ethnic Germans living in many places outside of Germany. And not every German national is ethnically a German.

Just like you have many ethnic Jews living outisde of Israel. And not every Israeli is ethnically a Jew.

Same same.

hopehelpme

you can be a zionist and still support a secular state, just like the political party 'meretz' does.

In what way are they the same deal, in your eyes, HoneyBadger? You implied before it's because they both support religious states, but all you've done in your latest post is restate your original assertion. So I'm not sure if that's what the equivalence is in your eyes, or if it's something else.

HoneyBadger- that's quite extreme. Zionists are a fairly broad church. Some are utterly frightening... Some are secularists. All Zionism means is a belief that Israel has a right to exist. Zionists hold all sorts of different beliefs... They are not the same as ISIS supporters!

Shakshuka, I know. It wasn't my assertion: it was the implication of what TheHoneyBadger had written.

No, I know, helpme but just wanted to point out that even the logic of honeybadger's assertion was flawed to begin with

zionist means belief in the right of a religious state to exist and to come into existence by whatever means necessary - ergo one in which affiliation and right are based on ethnic and religious background and one has the right to kill, suppress or whatever else needed to achieve that.

when we talk about zionism we are way more tolerant than when we talk about ISIS (barbaric, as if the world should be ruled/ordered/divided according to an ancient religious book and a fundamentalist interpretation of it) yet essentially they are identical in principle.

for all the talk of anti-semitism in reality zionists are immune to meaningful criticism and sanction.

and yes it sounds extreme - how extreme in this day and age does the belief that a people identified in a religious text from thousands of years ago should have the right to grab land and ethnically cleanse it for 'their right to have a homeland' sound?

really - step back from the fact it happens to be jews, step back from events of 70yrs ago giving it extra credibility and what do you see?

Why shouldn't the Jewish people have a homeland? I'm no nationalist but if the Turkish people have Turkey, German people have Germany, Egyptian people have Egypt, why can't the Jewish people have Israel?

Doesn't that contradict the OP's main point that being Israeli and Jewish are not one and the same. Bar Israel, in all the places you have mentioned your nationality and religion are entirely separate things, therefore Turkish people having Turkey and Jewish people having Israel are not two comparable situations, but you have asked why can't the Jews have Israel?
In any case I find it unsettling that the foundation of a holy land should be built upon bloodshed and pain, surely this tarnishes the concept of it being holy?

You can't just invent your own scary-sounding definition for Zionism that would make all Zionists extremist, murdering nutjobs. Some are some aren't. Zionists are not the same as ISIS.

No, zionist simply means the belief that the Jewish people should have a homeland.

Look it up.

And while you do that, look up a little history regarding what happened to the Jewish people and their continual connection to Israel.

No Israelis and Jews are not the same. But Israel is the Jewish homeland.

You can be Israeli and non-Jewish (obviously). You can be Jewish and not Israeli (obviously).

You can be a German national and not ethnically German. You can be an ethnic German and not a German national.

It doesn't contradict the OP, it supports it.