Disengagement 710 - Ethnic cleansing!

[Squeezingwildoranges]

If the current Israeli government manage to expel all Palestinians from the land, should all Israelis be held culpable for not trying to stop it.

As for the original question, I think @Squeezingwildoranges has phrased it in a simplistic way, perhaps for ease. In general, I think that Israeli society holds some degree of responsibility for what is going on. I also think that the international community holds some degree of responsibility too. However, I absolutely do not agree with collective punishment. I see this as a system failure, which individuals are caught up in. There are so many system failures at present!

I don't think your question is antisemitic @Squeezingwildoranges

It is antisemitic because no one asks these sort of questions about China, Russia, Saudi Arabia etc.
We have a whole board and constantly threads on this conflict. Weekly marches. Celebrities and musicians giving their tuppence worth.
A refusal to acknowledge the realities of October 7th .
No desire to hold all Palestinians responsible for not condemning Hamas and instead celebrating after October 7th.
No desire to consider the role that Iran has cynically played - using the Palestinians as collateral in a proxy war .

The memories of what happened on October 7th are still fresh but you blame the survivors and families of the bereaved for not going out and protesting against their government.

My post was a direct response to a specific policy currently being implemented by a democratically elected government to ethnically cleanse Palestinians from Gaza. No other democratic nation in the world today is debating, let alone implementing, a state sponsored plan to permanently remove an entire resident population of nearly two million people based on their ethnicity. If any other democratic country, whether the UK, France, or the US, created a government ministry to implement a plan to ethnically cleanse millions thereby committing a crime against humanity under international law, I would ask the exact same question about democratic accountability. There are no other democratic countries engaging in such a policy other than Israel so once again, how is that antisemitic?

It’s not antisemitic to object to the government’s decisions.
It is not reasonable or fair to hold all Israelis responsible.

I don't agree with you at all, nor do I think those examples are comparable.
Meanwhile, Germans, living in a democracy, have frequently been blamed for the actions of the Nazi government.

As for the Palestinians, of course they have been blamed for voting for Hamas. These accusations have been constant in the right wing media. I guess you have closed your eye to this.

No one is blaming bereaved families. Stop being so melodramatic!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ethnic_cleansing_campaigns

The 21st century alone has countless examples of ethnic cleansing. No one holds all members of each of these countries responsible.

The bereaved families are Israeli and the OP holds all Israelis responsible for the actions of their government.
Your choice of the word “melodramatic “ is minimising in the context of the grief over October 7th.

I’m going to try this one last time.

The thread doesn’t criticize any other Israeli policy. It focuses purely on “Disengagement 710”. A crime against humanity which an Israeli government minister not only openly declared to the world but bragged about. A multiphase policy which is not simply being debated. Phase one is already implemented with an established government department actively trying to locate a third country to accept the Palestinians. A policy that any person with a shred of humanity in them should be horrified about.

No other modern democratic country has a government minister openly declaring a timeline for mass demographic removal. I am not 'singling out' Israel. I am addressing a uniquely horrific policy proposal that has no equivalent in the democratic world. Asking about the accountability of a democratic electorate when their representatives implement such actions is a fundamental question of political ethics.

As Martin Luther King Jnr said, "He who passively accepts evil is as much involved in it as he who helps to perpetrate it. He who accepts evil without protesting against it is really cooperating with it."

Who are these people still frequently blaming Germans today for the actions of a previous Nazi government? Not in the circles I move in.

“If the current Israeli government manage to expel all Palestinians from the land, should all Israelis be held culpable for not trying to stop it.“

You ask “ should ALL Israelis be held culpable?”
To what end? Collective punishment? To mark all Israelis as social pariahs?
And for how long?

I want to clarify that I mean morally culpable, not legally culpable. There is a huge distinction. When a public chooses passivity against a massive government violation, their silence acts as a form of tacit consent, as Martin Luther King Jnr said. This is especially relevant because Israeli society is famously not adverse to mass demonstrations and protests when the government does something they don't like. We have seen millions hit the streets over judicial reforms or hostage negotiations. If a population is highly capable of active dissent but chooses passivity on a specific policy, they bear a shared moral guilt. However, I acknowledge that moral complicity is a world away from demanding real world collective punishment against every individual.

Christendom held ALL Jews “morally culpable” for the death of Christ. It didn’t end well and it didn’t reflect well on Christianity.

If you designate ALL Israelis “morally culpable” you make them ALL vulnerable to threats, abuse and violence.

That is a completely false comparison.The historical persecution of Jewish people by Christendom was based on a religious myth involving individuals under a foreign empire. It had nothing to do with a modern, democratically elected government acting in the name of its voters. The two events are completely incomparable. Asking about moral culpability is not a "designation" of blame. It is a standard, valid, philosophical question about responsibility. If a democratic public is highly capable of mass protest, as this society frequently proves it is. choosing passivity in the face of an openly announced, internationally designated illegal policy becomes a conscious choice. No one is holding them morally culpable. They either are or they are not. It is as simple as that.

I have just realised I used the word "held culpable" whereas what I should have said was something like "will be morally culpable".

Does it bother you that innocent Israelis could be vulnerable to threats and violence if others agree with you ?
( eta - but perhaps you don’t think there is any such thing as an innocent Israeli?)

Agree with me on what? I asked a question but I have no influence over what other people think or do. I have my own opinion on the matter. If the UK government declared openly it was implementing a plan which was in direct breach of the Geneva conventions, I would certainly protest as such a plan would doubtlessly be immoral.

You don’t want to answer the question.
I take it it doesn’t bother you if innocent Israelis are held accountable and therefore are vulnerable to abuse and violence.

Of course it bothers me if innocent Israelis suffer abuse and violence but I don't see what that has to do with me. Does it bother you that the Israeli government wants to drive innocent Palestinians off their land turning them into impoverished refugees in the South Sudan desert where they will undoubtedly face more abuse and violence.

Yes - it bothers me.
I hold the government culpable- not all Israelis.

Then, after 11 pages of feeling like I'm in a washing machine going round and round with a bag of razor blades, I accept your answer. Personally, I would expect there to be significant protests if Israeli society felt like you do about the plan.

I haven’t joined any protests . I have other concerns. Just because Israelis don’t join protests doesn’t make them morally culpable.
This whole thread is ludicrous.

If you look back through the posts, I mentioned about a study which showed that 3.5% of the population actively protesting is the magic number. If nobody protests, read into that what you want.

Why do you think they should protest in favour of a people who want to annihilate them, committed and glorified terrorist attacks against them for 60 years, indoctrinate their children to aspire to die while killing them, get paid a stipend for their families when they kill them in terrorist attacks, and showed clearly what their intentions were on Oct 7th?

I certainly wouldn't if I was Israeli, and I certainly wouldn't care about being judged by some random Westerner sitting comfortably in a country where daily terrorist attacks, rockets and bomb shelters aren't the norm!

Of course it is. Thread after thread, and these responses rather prove my point. Endless posts from non Jews telling Jews what antisemitism is, and precious little listening. Its not me that is minimising people's experiences.

I think this is a valid point. Several of the people attacked on October 7th had been previously helping Gazans, employing them, providing transport to hospitals.

Many of these individuals belonged to the Israeli non-profit organisation Road to Recovery, which relied on a network of over 1,300 Israeli volunteers to transport thousands of Palestinian patients—particularly children—from border crossings like Erez to medical centres inside Israel for life-saving treatment. Furthermore, several border communities like Kibbutz Be'eri and Nir Oz historically employed Gazan laborers and actively advocated for peaceful coexistence.

Yet this is exactly who Hamas and Palestinian civilians who joined the attack decided to target.