AIBU to think that the State of Israel is racist?

[CoteDAzur]

11 Dec 2008 13:34 GMT

DJ Israel Min:Israeli Arabs Should Live In Separate State-Report

LONDON (Dow Jones)--Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni has said Israeli Arabs should leave Israel for a Palestinian state once such a state is established, The Jerusalem Post reports on its Web site Thursday.

"My solution for maintaining a Jewish and democratic state of Israel is to have two nation-states with certain concessions and with clear red lines," Livni said. "And among other things I will also be able to approach the Palestinian residents of Israel, those whom we call Israeli Arabs, and tell them, 'your national solution lies elsewhere.'"

Livni, speaking in a meeting with Tel Aviv high school students, also hinted that kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit could remain in the hands of Hamas in Gaza.

Full story: www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1228728156919

-London bureau, Dow Jones Newswires; +44 (0)20 78 42 9330; [email protected]

"I notice that those western countries who decided to give away that land to the Jews didn't offer any of their own land."

The Ottoman Empire had the land, then the British had it under mandate after WWI. The British gave it to the Arabs, who sold a lot of it to Jews immigrating into the area at inflated prices the Jews were happy to pay. At this point the Arabs/Palestinians were happy for some Jews to come and cultivate the land, because no one else was doing it and the area was in economic decline.

According to a leading Arab nationalist at the time Sherif Hussein, the guardian of the Islamic Holy Places in Arabia:

"The resources of the country are still virgin soil and will be developed by the Jewish immigrants. One of the most amazing things until recent times was that the Palestinian used to leave his country, wandering over the high seas in every direction. His native soil could not retain a hold on him, though his ancestors had lived on it for 1000 years. At the same time we have seen the Jews from foreign countries streaming to Palestine from Russia, Germany, Austria, Spain, America. The cause of causes could not escape those who had a gift of deeper insight. They knew that the country was for its original sons (abna'ihi­l­asliyin), for all their differences, a sacred and beloved homeland. The return of these exiles (jaliya) to their homeland will prove materially and spiritually [to be] an experimental school for their brethren who are with them in the fields, factories, trades and in all things connected with toil and labor. "

When the British gave up their mandate, it was the UN who drew up the proposed Jewish areas/Palesinian areas. It wasn't just decided to "give away land" that didn't belong to them. This is a myth.

And how loud a voice did the people in those areas have within the UN?

Although I agree, to some extent it's all academic now. We have to go from where we are now, not where we were then. At some stage hopefully the origin of the state of Israel will become a boring historical fact rather than an animated political argument.

I can't see how the original statement is any more racist than what Gandhi proposed with his seperate India and Pakistani split, which divided up the muslims and Hindus.

I've never heard Ghandi called a racist?

Maybe its because the media spend too much time looking at this small plot of land instead of looking at worse crap going on elsewhere.

As LJB says - you have to go from where we are now. My suggestion that the Arab nations surrounding Israel gave permanently settled land for the Palestinians was meant to be a practical solution to an intractable problem. I can see no way that this will ever be peacefully resolved; and I have great sympathy for the Israelis. I can understand that as a people who lost 6 million during the Shoah, they are determined, as I would be, to fight to the bitter end to preserve what I had left, and not be driven out and lose everything again.

I can also see the Palestinian pov...someone earlier suggested moving Israel to Cornwall. As someone with a home in Cornwall, I wouldn't like losing my home either; but I don't think the rest of the UK would refuse to give me help and somewhere to live as Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan have done with the Palestinians. They are all supposed to be part of the Ummah, so why aren't they helping in a practical and concrete way, rather than sponsoring Hamas for example?

I don't think either side covers themselves in glory, but consider that in 60 years, those that have returned to Israel have found for themselves a new meaning for life after the despair of the Shoah - a Shoah caused by Europeans. What is happening now is a direct consequence of WW2, and is again descending into the demonisation of the Israelis (oh, Israelis = Jews); and look what happened the last time that occurred.

No sorry, this argument that Israelis=Jews simply does not stand up. This is the constant cry of people who demand unconditional support for Israeli atrocities, their argument being that if you criticise Israel you are criticising Jews, therefore you are anti-Semitic, therefore you can be safely ignored as being a Jewish World Conspiracy Nutter and there's no point even engaging with you. This is simplistic and dangerous and does an enormous disservice to a) the cause of open, honest debate and b) the many decent Jews around the world who detest what the state of Israel sometimes does in their name and would like to be able to say so without being accused of being self-hating Jews or some such twaddle.

Re the OP Zionism has been known to be racist, but the State of Isreal is not racist per se. But for that matter Hama's is racist by the same token.

The Israelies have as much right to live free from terror as the Palestinians do. If they downed arms do you think the Palestinians and neighbouring Arab states would let them be?

There are two points that need to be remembered - many Palestinians were forcibly removed from their land by terrorists (the Irgun), and, even if any kind of land solution is reached, the issue of control over Jerusalem will IMO never be resolved.

I think remembering is the problem. For things to move on, things have to be forgotten, symbolically at least. Both sides have suffered and become brutilised as a result. That's perfectly understandable imho. Neither is better or worse than the other.

If they could realise that what they do when looking at each other is looking in a mirror, some progress might begin to be made.

While each plays a zero sum game, no one wins

LJB the Israelis=Jews in brackets was supposed to be a sarky reference to what much of the world thinks. I don't - there are obviously many Israelis who don't practice any form of religion. Turn what you said on its head though and you have the flip side - there are those who do equate the State of Israel with the Jews and use their criticism of one to extend to, and demonise the other.

I agree with Poins about the Israelis having the right to live in peace as much as the Palestinians ; but I don't think, even if they acceded to all the demands made of them, that that would occur, given some of the other agendas around.

I think you are right, ST. It's one thing to sympathise with the Palestinian cause, which I have alaways done, and also be able to sympathise with the Isreali one. Hamas and many many Palestinians want Isreal wiped off the face of the earth. If Isreal stopped defending itself an atrocity would occur, on the scale of genoicide. A seperate state is maybe the only option - at this time - and a lot of time is needed for the dust to settle for both sides before any real peace deal is attempted.

Earthworm, re your post from Friday:

"I think that to call the actual nation of Israel "racist" is a bit strong."

I agree. Luckily, nobody on this thread said anything about racial attitudes of the nation of Israel. We have been talking about the state of Israel. Please look up the words if you are unsure about the difference.

"Personally I don't think the remarks quoted in your OP were meant in the sense of ethnic cleansing"

How can you not? She is talking about ethnically cleansing Israel of Muslims, regardless of their citizenship status.

This is the dictionary definition of "ethnic cleansing".

"Indian partition"

I'm not familiar with the Indian partition. If you would care to elaborate why you feel two cases are so similar, we could then talk about it.

"Prior to this [Israel], there was no Palestinian state as such"

True. But there were people living there. Some fled during fighting and Israel doesn't want to give them right of return, which imho is fair enough. However, there is a significant population who have stayed and are now Israeli citizens. These are the people OP is about.

"you do not express outrage or even recognition of overt racist and genocidal comments made for eg by Ahmadinejad, Hamas etc."

That would be because nobody asked what I thought about Iran's leaders & Hamas. Was there a thread about Ahmedinejad and Hamas and I failed to comment on their extremism and psychotic nuttiness?

If it will make you happy, here is what I think about Ahmedinejad: He is either deranged or rational but playing/speaking to the Iran's mullahs when he talks about wiping Israel off the face of the earth. No head of state in his right mind will be suggesting the annihilation of millions of people, especially knowing that Israel's nukes will blow his major cities to smithereens before his crude bombs even reach their targets.

Hamas is a very dangerous terrorist organization. I probably know a bit more about their bloody tactics than yourself, including the torture they use on people they kidnap. Their psychotic nature sets them apart from other mainstream terrorist organizations, like ETA, imho.

Anything else you would like to know my humble opinion on? If your curiousity is satisfied, I would like to go back to talking about how insane it is for a country that calls itself 'democratic' to suggest forceful expulsion of an entire group of its citizens - Ethnic cleansing, in other words.

Well, of course without really thinking about it I was using nation with a small "n" which has a different meaning than with a capital "N" when we are talking about Israel. But yes, I take your point. Not quite sure what your wider point is? Do you want me to add an errata section?

OK: When I said nation on Friday, I meant State. Will that do you?

Not really interested in debating with you about this anymore frankly because your tone really winds me up - not sure if you do this intentionally or if it's because you're just not a very good writer - in which case perhaps you'd like to look up some stuff online which will help you, you know, express yourself better, without sounding like you're looking for a fight?

So of course I was joking just then but that's how you come across to others when you start telling them to look up definitions of words, wiki entries etc and inferring they lack grey matter. By the way, speaking of wiki entries, there is an excellent one on Indian Partition

Actually I am not even particularly pro-Israel (as you seem to think)- but I'm against this Israel-is-a-racist-rogue-state thing, and I'm always surprised by how many people I've met who don't know anything about how this all started...not least because of budding US hegemony (think they didn't think there might be something in it for them, at the beginning? Nice little staging post near to Russia and near to the oil fields?) I agree though, that the Palestinians (as in, the people in the refugee camps, or those whose movements are restricted) seem to be getting the worst of it from all sides.

What I was trying to show in previous posts, about when Jewish immigration first started before WWII, was that Arab authorities were happy for them to come and irrigate the land, buy bits of virgin uncultivated soil and bring economic prosperity to the area, which was not very densely populated. At the beginning Jews only bought land which no one else cultivated, they did not they did not steal peoples land or otain peoples farms. Once Jewish settlers had bought this land and built farms, water irrigation systems, drained swamps etc, Arab reimmigration to the area began and the Arab popluation increased. I won't say it is because the Jews had improved the area - only that the times coincided. It was only when the Jews were going to have their own State of Israel that this was found totally unacceptable, hence why war was declared on Israel.

Also, guess what, Jews also had to move out of areas they had built their homes in and go to the new Israeli zones, just like the movements of Muslims to Pakistan in Indian Partition. The reason that it was a catastrophe for the Palestinians was because none of their neighbouring brethren gave two hoots about their welfare. They were not absorbed and rehoused by their neighbours nor was there any aid or money waiting for them in the Palestinian zones and they have been piss poor and destitute ever since. No wonder they look upon it as a catastrophe. IMO they are being used as human fodder and pawns in the fight for the destruction of Israel. I think they are kept as an open sore festering in order to continue the path to the ultimate aim of "sweeping Israel into the sea".

For the record, I have complete sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians of the occupied territories. I actually think, however difficult it will be to execute, that Israel needs ultimately to give back the occupied territories, and they need to cede on a number of other points too.

However, I do find it really outrageous when people simplify the situation down into Israel = bad and suddenly rewrite the history of the conflict. I've attended left wing political meetings in the UK where guest speakers from Palestinian organisations were welcomed as comrades (absoutely fair enough) and who then went on to include the phrase "Death to Jews!" in their talk. And none of the idealistic, western left wing organisers said anything about it. And this is what is dangerous. There needs to be truth and reconciliation on both sides, something I would heartily welcome and applaud.

To paraphrase Carl Sagan, is it possible to be pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian at the same time?

Amswers in no more than 100 words please as have kids, hub, and a real life to attend to whilst also shooting the breeze here

lol Poins very apt.

This inner conflict is tearing me apart.

What you say in your last para Earthworm is very true. The liberal left do them selves n o favours in allying themselves with extremists - passivly or otherwise. It has brought the left into disrepute. Hence neo-conservatism.

no, not unreasonable. Not at all.

Hamas are anti-semitic. Their mission is to wipe out Jews, not Israelis.

If the IRA had decided to start firing rockets at mainland UK I would expect my govt to do something about it. If the IRA sited their rocket launchers in heavily populated civilian areas I would still want my govt to get rid of those rocket launchers.

If my family were threatened daily by suicide bombers I would be glad if my govt built a big fuck off wall to keep them out.

And no, the fact that my family were living on disputed land wouldn't make a difference.

I think Barack Obama agrees with you there Bauble.

Obama referring to Hamas; "very hard to negotiate with a group that is not representative of a nation state, does not recognise your right to exist, has consistently used terror as a weapon and is deeply influenced by other countries".

Has Hamas attacked Jews anywhere outside Israel?

Did they bomb any Israeli embassies or synagogues in Europe, for example?

Anyway, why come here to slag Hamas? It is a terrorist organization. I don't think anyone has been defending them anywhere on this thread.

By "disputed land" do you mean "occupied territories"?

Tony Blair's doing a great job as the Middle East Peace Envoy isn't he?

CoteDAzur. What should/can Israel do to protect itself?

"If the IRA had decided to start firing rockets at mainland UK I would expect my govt to do something about it."

Bomb Ireland? When the IRA were killing more people than those rockets have killed, we didn't.

Another quote from Obama after visiting southern Isreal in July; he did not "think any country would find it acceptable to have missiles raining down on the heads of their citizens".

There you have it- not acceptable for Hamas to bomb Israel and not acceptable for Israel to do it back.

Everyone knows that a 2 state solution is the only answer, but that's a bit hard to achieve if one half of the equation really wants the other half to disappear altogether.