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.

It was true that Hamas won the latest election among Palestinians in Gaza — it happened in 2006 — though that victory was not by a majority of votes. The militant group did, however, win the majority of seats in the legislature.

If you know that there have been quite large anti-government protests a few weeks ago, that's another reason why this thread is bullshit.

A reminder of your OP: 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.

Israelis are already* *protesting against their government yet still you deem it appropriate to question whether they should all be held culpable for a hypothetical event in the future.

quite large anti-government protests a few weeks ago

Have you a link to these? I can only find information that there were protests against Netanyahu’s controversial judicial overhaul which seeks to curb the powers of the Supreme Court and increase political influence on judicial appointments. I am not sure it was to do with disengagement 710? I know Netanyahu's government is not popular but I don't think the unpopularity has anything to do with their actions in Gaza and plans for ethnic cleansing. It is a bit disingenuous to suggest the protests are against that

Ah @Twiglets1, its just a jolly philosophical debate, playing around with unevidenced hypothetical situations in which we can blame all Israelis for stuff with no real world consequences. Meanwhile, so far I've heard from friends of 5 antisemitic incidents at their synagogues over Rosh Hashanah where out of the blue, with no precedent, random antisemites are blaming English Jews for the actions of the Israeli government. Who could have predicted that?

No -it was @Squeezingwildoranges who mentioned the “quite large anti government protests” in a post yesterday afternoon so maybe they can provide the link.

There are so many other jolly philosophical debates we could have, if we didn’t mind offending people or causing even more social unrest with “what ifs”.

But just for a change, here’s one focusing on Jews and whether they should all be held culpable for something.

You're absolutely right. I only used that example because the poster was trying to say that Israelis are unlikely to organise protests because they are under an existential threat from Iran. I was merely trying to show them that they are already protesting albeit for a different reason. Here's a link though.
https://apnews.com/video/israelis-join-anti-government-protest-in-tel-aviv-with-elections-months-away-2b963f9b4eb74ba0aacf84d588da7095

Meanwhile, so far I've heard from friends of 5 antisemitic incidents at their synagogues over Rosh Hashanah where out of the blue, with no precedent, random antisemites are blaming English Jews for the actions of the Israeli government.
And that is disgusting antisemitic behaviour but we can never get to a point where the Israeli government decisions that can lead to ethnic cleansing are not challenged or spoken about for fear of backlash against British Jews no one wins in that scenario. Antisemite vandals and thugs are there, regardless of what happens in Israel. You are not dealing with rational people and British laws have to deal with them.

Im surprised anyone has time to be on MN really as surely they spend all their time protesting our government's complicity in various human rights outrages, such as the uigyhur genocide etc, to avoid being culpable. Hard to know whether we are all culpable as we dont know the magic percentage that needs to be on the streets all the time (or do we do ot only once?) to absolve us all from culpability.

Surely we are all culpable for those disgusting actions unless we're protesting?

The uk government aren't supporting the antisemites? They are providing over £250 million annually to help secure Jewish communities in the UK which I assume is supported by the majority of the British public.

Anyway I have said before I would not hold the Israeli public culpable but I would harshly judge them for their inaction in the event of ethnic cleansing

It is entirely possible and historically common for a public to be furious with their government over domestic failures while simultaneously giving that same government a passive mandate on an alternative policy. The anti-government protests we are seeing are about corruption and the political future of the country. They are not an anti-expulsion movement. Furthermore, it is a mistake to dismiss this as a "hypothetical event in the future." The expulsion policy isn't a future possibility, it's a multi stage process that has already actively begun. The recently unveiled "Disengagement 710" plan explicitly outlines the first stage. Establishing a dedicated state infrastructure to broker agreements with third party countries willing to accept Palestinians. This isn't just on paper. We already know from the international press that Israeli officials have been quietly negotiating with impoverished, war torn countries like South Sudan. They are offering massive financial incentives, humanitarian aid packages, and diplomatic rewards in exchange for taking in displaced Palestinians. When a state sets up the administrative machinery, prepares agencies, and actively dangles financial and diplomatic carrots to foreign governments to facilitate mass population transfer, the plan is already in motion!

Therefore, the philosophical question absolutely stands. Where does the line of ethical responsibility lie for citizens in a democracy when their state sets up the machinery to commit an internationally defined crime against humanity in their name? Pointing out that Israelis are angry with Netanyahu for domestic reasons doesn't answer whether a democratic public bears responsibility for a state led process that totally contravenes international law and is unfolding right now.

Surely that's the same as holding them morally culpable. I suppose in hindsight I should have been clearer in my initial post.

A report about to be published by B’Tselem:

“various arms of the Israeli state – led by Bezalel Smotrich, the far-right finance minister with broad powers over civilian matters in the West Bank – are seeking to “create a reality in which millions of Palestinians live in constant fear of Israeli military and civilian violence”.
“Palestinian communities are being pushed out in an accelerating process of ethnic cleansing, while an ever-expanding Israeli presence is being established in their place in the form of settlements, outposts, farms and Jewish-only civilian infrastructure,” the report says. “Elimination in this context means sustained harm to the conditions that enable Palestinians to exist as a people with land, institutions, language, culture, social ties, leadership, shared memory and history, and a social and political horizon.
“It is an ongoing political project that seeks to re-organise space and the conditions of life so that Jewish presence becomes contiguous, institutionalised and permanent, while Palestinian existence becomes fragmented, vulnerable and dependent.””

Excerpt From
“Israel accused of trying to ‘eliminate’ living conditions for Palestinians in West Bank”
Quique Kierszenbaum, Peter Beaumont
The Guardian
https://apple.news/AIGYz2NdtTpWThBuC17Y_aw
This material may be protected by copyright.

Ah yes, that notoriously unbiased organisation B’Tselem.

Maybe they should hop over into Jordan, that's already a Palestinian State, and they have plenty of room.

B'Tselem is a controversial organization, and opinions on whether it is biased are sharply divided.

Describing an organization as biased simply because it documents human rights violations for all people isn't a counter argument to the facts presented in their report. If documenting the systematic degradation of civilian living conditions is considered bias, then every major international human rights watchdog is guilty of the same bias.

As for the suggestion that Palestinians should "hop over into Jordan", if we are talking about people relocating to areas where they legally belong, a more logical application of international law would be for Israeli settlers to hop back behind the Green Line. The West Bank is internationally recognized Palestinian territory under military occupation. Forcing the protected, indigenous population out of an occupied territory into a neighboring sovereign state is a violation of the Geneva Conventions but, requesting that citizens of an occupying power return to their own legally recognized borders is simply asking for adherence to international law.

Has there ever been a human rights organisation which hasn't been accused of bias by the people supporting for a regime accused of rights rights violations?

Accusations of bias in this context are par for the course, and often say far more about those making the accusation than the human rights organization itself.

For example, I'm struggling to think of a human rights organisation that has commented on Israel's behaviour, which it hasn't accused of bias.

I asked chat GTP (I don't have time to research this myself, although take it with the usual ai pinch of salt, much of it is as I remember, so I think it's broadly correct) list organisations and countries that Israel has accused bias. The list is ridiculous and includes practically every major human rights organization worldwide.

UN / international public bodies
United Nations
UN Human Rights Council
UNRWA
UN OCHA
UN Women
UN Commission of Inquiry
International Criminal Court
International Court of Justice
UNESCO
World Health Organization
IPC

Human-rights organisations / NGOs
Amnesty International
Human Rights Watch
Médecins Sans Frontières
International Federation for Human Rights
B’Tselem
Breaking the Silence
Yesh Din
Al-Haq
Addameer
Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
Defense for Children International–Palestine
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights
Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor
Norwegian Refugee Council
Oxfam
Save the Children
International Committee of the Red Cross

Countries
South Africa
Ireland
Spain
Norway
Belgium
Slovenia
Türkiye
Qatar
Iran
Russia
China
Colombia
Chile
Brazil
Malta
Luxembourg
Iceland

Yep.

Ingrained antisemitism is everywhere.

You think people running organisations and countries leave their biases at home?

The meteoric rise of antisemitism since Oct 7th didn't come out of nowhere. It was always there, under the surface, but Oct 7th gave it the opportunity be shown more openly under the guise of 'anti-Zionism'.

That's sick in itself, that a genocide of Jews, allowed Jew haters to show their Jew hate!

I mean WTAF is anti-Zionism anyway? Objecting to the existence of a country that had been established for over 70 years? Advocating for it's destruction and the murder of/ethnic cleansing of it's citizens, while at the screaming that that's happening to Palestinians. Is there any other country the global community objects to existing?

It's horrifying.

You are entirely right that genuine antisemitism is a horrific reality and there are absolutely individuals globally who harbor hatred toward Jews for no justifiable or moral reason. That is completely indefensible. However, look at the actual list provided by Babyboomtastic. To think every one of those entities is acting purely out of prejudice is ridiculous. The vast majority of the international community does not think Israel shouldn't exist. What they object to is the specific state policy of expanding settlements and displacing communities. To claim that the United Nations, the World Health Organization, the Red Cross, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and dozens of democratic nations like Ireland, Norway, and Spain are all acting out of "ingrained antisemitism" is a statistical and logical impossibility. If every independent legal, medical, and human rights organization on the planet reaches the exact same conclusion regarding state led displacement, it cannot be hand waved away as a global conspiracy of prejudice.

Yes, that’s something I find interesting.
People say organisation X said Y, hence it must be true, forgetting that organisations consist of people with their own biases.
Considering that antisemitism has existed for millennia and culminated in an attempt to industrially eliminate all Jews less than a century ago, how can we be sure that today’s official bodies are entirely free from it?

It seems like a classic case of Mistakes Were Made But Not By Us.

Weirdly everyone seems happy to admit antisemitism is a rising problem, in fact has long been a problem, all over Europe in particular, but its never oneself that is the problem, or one's own institutions, instead its always someone else....

No one on MN is ever antisemitic.

This thread definitely isn't.

Which am I more likely to believe - virtually every single major human rights organisation or NGO, most of which have dedicated themselves to helping people across conflicts worldwide, for decades.

Or Israel. Just one single country.

Hmnnn