I despair at Israel sometimes

[AndHarry]

Well, often really. I have family out there who have a bomb shelter in their house and have had to evacuate for weeks at a time so I have great sympathy for ordinary Israelis trying to go about their lives. What happened to 3 sch

(incidentally my perspective of xionists replicating nazism in many ways comes not from me originally but a campaigning group of rabbis who i found educational on this subject)

I'd ignore the ignorance Quivering. There's really no point.

Apparently Egypt, that renowned democracy who blockade Gaza's southern border, is the model we must all now follow. Perhaps we should also seek the advice of Lebanon and Syria, those bastions of democracy and human rights?

Honey badger, I am sorry but comparing what is going on between Israel and the Palestinians, to naziism is revolting and completely vile.

So, Israel has Israeli Arabs (and Arab women too) sitting as members of the Knesset, would nazis have allowed the Jews to do that? Israeli hospitals treat Palestinians along with other Israelis, without prejudice- would the nazis have done that? Israel embraces all religions and allows them to worship without fear, would the nazis have done that? Israeli companies (most notably soda stream) employs Israelis and Palestinians on equal terms, pay and conditions. Some Palestinians are managers bossing Israelis around. Would nazis have done the same with Jews? There are many initiatives to bring Palestinians and Israelis together such as the barenbaum orchestra, would the nazis have done that? In Israel, whatever your views, there is free speech. Did the nazis allow that? All sexualities are accepted and gay pride was celebrated in tel aviv last month. Would the nazis have done that? I could go on..

Quivering, so you admit yourself 'some [land] may have been taken' ...

Keeping aside the 'some'
Who has the right to take over (steal!) other people's homes and land, however small?

you can find the comparison everwhere from groups of rabbis to jewish journalists in the independent. quote:

Ayelet Shaked represents the far-right Jewish Home party in the Knesset. This means she is well to the right of Benyamin Netanyahu, just in case you thought such a thing was not possible.

On Monday she quoted this on her Facebook page: “Behind every terrorist stand dozens of men and women, without whom he could not engage in terrorism. They are all enemy combatants, and their blood shall be on all their heads. Now this also includes the mothers of the martyrs, who send them to hell with flowers and kisses. They should follow their sons, nothing would be more just. They should go, as should the physical homes in which they raised the snakes. Otherwise, more little snakes will be raised there.”

A week earlier, just before 17-year-old Mohammed Abu Khudair was snatched and burned alive, Shaked wrote: “This is not a war against terror, and not a war against extremists, and not even a war against the Palestinian Authority. The reality is that this is a war between two people. Who is the enemy? The Palestinian people. Why? Ask them, they started it.”

So even before the boy died horribly she declared him to be the enemy, and afterwards, without any apparent hint of guilt or remorse, she was calling for the deaths of innocent women and their unborn babies.

She made me think about my mother’s sister Klara and her three small children who were living in Krakow in 1939 when the Germans invaded. They decided that the Jews – all Jews – were the enemy and had to be eliminated, not least the women and the little snakes they were raising. “Why? Ask them – they started it”, as the Nazis would say if asked.

here

so if you find my comparison absolutely disgusting you must tell the many decent jewish people and leaders that they too are disgusting for making the comparison.

we hang our heads over ukip but you don't see them calling for the death of mothers and obliteration of homes and describing a whole people as 'the enemy'.

sure tell me again how she doesn't represent israeli people despite being elected by them.

Up until 1948, no land was 'grabbed' anyhow. It all had to be bought.

After 1948 - that was a historic injustice - although in the context of what was happening at the time, with huge population movements across borders like India/Pakistan, the deportation of millions of ethnic Germans etc, was probably seen in a different light (but I don't think Israel should apologise for having won the War of Independence in 1948, I dread to think what would have happened if the Palestinians or rather Arabs - because everyone was a Palestinian then including my Dad - would have won, massacre would probably be too fine a point to put on it).

That's why a $30 billion compensation fund was going to be set up as part of the peace deal.

i would like you to stop conflating the terms 'jews' and israelis and xionists.

sure some land would have been owned by jews, some by christians palestinians, some by immigrants from anywhere and everywhere. a fair bit of spanish land is probably owned by brits by now - it wouldn't bring any mitigating circumstances to the british declaring spain as their own and forcibly taking the rest of the land though would it?

you keep detracting.

shak massacre has happened - you just dread to think what it would have been like if the massacre went in the other direction really. there has been a massacre.

imagine if it had went the other way and your dad found himself imprisoned in gaza now? would you feel the same about it? cool with them throwing bombs in there, putting fences up, preventing trade etc?

even this is massacre and that's just this week.

is it only a massacre if it is 'your people' being killed?

lots of women and children dead. but i guess you agree with the politician who thinks they all deserve to die because they're the enemy by virtue of being palestinian?

also when it's 25 miles long and 5 miles wide and there is no money, no welfare state, no real infrastructure how DO you distance yourself from your husband if he gets into politics or your son or your brother or your neighbour? if the logic is well she was living with/near/next to/was the mother of/etc a hammas member how do you recommend she gets away from those people with no money, no state or right to leave a tiny patch of land?

can you just please think about what you're saying? what if she's a victim of domestic abuse? what if she has been traumatised and eradicated from the age of ten? does she still deserve to be blown up because a man in her household was involved with politics?

you are trying to justify the unjustifiable and doing so by stripping the people involved of any complexity, any real life constraints, any wounds and responses to the brutal situation they're living in and i hope you can see how the use of the word 'deathseeking' epitomises that.

Jewish anti-Israel/anti-Zionist demonstrations have taken place from New York to London to Jerusalem (photos above right, below right, and below left and bottom, respectively…other photo slideshow), but this opposition has been effectively covered up by the controlled news media. (For an example, see the Rally for Israel link below.) Why is this? The very premise of an anti-Israel/anti-Zionist Jew is highly newsworthy by virtue of its uniqueness. The answer is twofold. First, by ignoring this phenomenon, they are better able to perpetuate the myths that all Jews support Israel and (less consciously) all Israelis support Zionism, so that Americans are conditioned to respond in knee-jerk fashion: Jew=pro-Israel, without considering the possibility of exceptions to this unreal universal. Secondly, by establishing this false premise, the Israel Firsters within the journalistic community are able to stifle any and all criticism of the Israeli government. They are able to do this by cultivating in the public mind the falsehood that to oppose Israel is tantamount to opposing all Jews, which, by extension, makes one an anti-Semitic, "Holocaust"-denying bigot. The Zionists fear that if the general public were to become aware of Jewish opposition to Israel, many people would see through the myth and cease giving that nation the unconditional support (and huge annual foreign aid package) it currently enjoys.

quote from an earlier citation, written by jews against xionism.

you used the word deathseeking several times and in several different posts and contexts by the way. anyone can read up and see that much as anyone nowadays can witness israel's behaviour and judge it for themselves rather than being silenced by the pretence that judaism and xionism are synonymous or the pretence that israel is some poor little victim.

at the very least all nations should cease foreign aid to israel. it is not being used for humanitarian purposes but for furthering atrocities against human rights.

the fact that the west is still pouring millions into this atrocity is deeply shameful.

Its also shameful that aid food is being sold in Gaza too

Give up anyaknowit nothing, nothing justifies Israel's actions this week and the shame rests entirely with anyone who supports it, condones it or makes excuses for it.

So its nothing to do with hamas then?

Honeybadger I agree with everything you've said here. I find the justifications for why it's okay to murder and brutalise an entire group of people sickening.

Do you realise how long Israel has been patient and NOT fired back? Israel has been enduring regular rocket attacks for months before this latest conflict started. Would the same happen in London? In Washington? Anywhere? No it wouldn't.

And Hamas is an internationally recognised terrorist organisation. They make no we trey of the fact that they wish to wipe Israel off the map. They are not interested in peace.

I hope one day Palestinians and Israelis can live peacefully tigether, but while the Palestinians keep voting in Hamas (that internationally recognised terrorist organisation) there never will be peace. That the nature of terrorists.

You can sit there in the comfort of your western surroundings saying how awful it all is but the truth of the matter is unless you are actually there and see things with your own eyes you cannot know how it really is.

Does anyone think the peace will depend on one side persuading the other that they're right? I don't. There are some deeply unpleasant people on each side. Beyond them, there are people who are afraid, depressed, stressed and brainwashed. There are people who are ignorant. There are people who don't care about anything or anyone beyond their own little sphere. There are people who do care, who are striving for peace but getting nowhere. How can they be empowered?

What should peace look like?
How do the Israelis and Palestinians get there?
How do people with the moral courage to lead them to peace get into a position to do so?
What can people looking on do to help?

In addition to the above, I think it's wrong to take extremes from either side and treat them as the norm. For example, I personally participated in the demonstrations against the invasion of Iraq in 2003. I watched in anger and terrible frustration as the country fell apart. I think there's a case for Tony Blair to answer at The Hague. I've cried at news reports coming out of Iraq showing the everyday suffering of innocent civilians. I also personally know soldiers returning from Iraq who describe the Iraqis as 'rag-heads' and share mobile phone footage of people being killed. They disgust me. They are not me. I am not them.

Anyone listening to BBC R4 now?