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Original poster

A question for liberals

31 replies

AtlasTrips · 15/08/2010 08:56

I ask this as someone who has been a liberal for most of their lives - can a liberal be pro-Israeli or is being anti-Israeli just part of the identity of being liberal?

I ask as I'm getting pretty skeptical about the whole anti-Israeli agenda, but does that make me a bad liberal?

OP posts:
ragged · 15/08/2010 09:09

It's healthy to be skeptical, you should always test what other people are claiming, especially when there's a bandwagon element to it.

My mother was a committed socialist radical liberal who also wore a Star of David most days, she liked Israel (and the Jewish people) so much. We are American, btw, and I can't tell you how incredibly ignorant she/we were in those days about the founding of Israel. Blush I think that there are a great many "pro-Israeli" American "liberals", still.

My later mom met two children as part of some peacenik initiative: one Palestinian, one Israeli.

She heard both sides of their stories... and never wore the Star of David again. She still loved Jewish culture and all her Jewish friends, but couldn't support what she found out about Israeli history and policies.

sarah293 · 15/08/2010 09:12

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 15/08/2010 09:23

I don't see what a bunch of Arabs squabbling over land rights has to do with liberalism.

Original poster
AtlasTrips · 15/08/2010 10:25

I'm coming from the opposite directtion Ragged. After learning about the shocking bias of the BBC and what we never see over here.

Define 'liberal'? Supporting liberal democracy - and the values there in. Israel is a liberal democracy. After constantly getting one side from the BBC I decided to find out the other by reading this www.amazon.com/Case-Israel-Alan-Dershowitz/dp/0471679526/ref=pd_sim_b_1

It just seems to me when I mention Israel to my friends they assume I am against it (because I was - but why? Just because other liberals were) and get very passionate when I tell them my mind is changing.

OP posts:
ragged · 15/08/2010 12:08

Well... I rather dislike Alan Dershowitz (after watching him in the OJ trial), but I guess that's another debate!
I don't have problems with the right of Israel to exist, but the how they go about it is rather depressing. I am sure that lots of "liberals" feel the same way.
I think this is a well-hased-out debate among American liberals "progressives", btw.

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 15/08/2010 16:59

The idea that any nation state gas a 'right' to exist is a a bit odd in the first place. They are just usefully administrative abstractions for organising groups of people.

Does 'yorkshire' have a right to exist? There only function is to serve the interests of the people in them, so on those grounds Israel fails as almost everything they do makes things worse. So, prehaps Israel loses the right to exist on the grounds of just being to fucking stupid.

BarmyArmy · 16/08/2010 11:10

"The idea that any nation state gas [sic] a 'right' to exist is a a bit odd in the first place. "

Rather an unfortunate typo, considering...

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 16/08/2010 11:25

Whoops, that is a bit unfortunate...bloody phones.

ZZZenAgain · 16/08/2010 11:32

I don't know how liberal I am tbh . I think a concern for the well-being and living conditions of the Palestinian people is a reasonable attitude for everyone to have. I wouldn't like my dd to marry a Palestinian and go and live somewhere like Gaza and share their life. Therefore I realise their life is not acceptable. Like the life of many people around the globe whose living conditions are dire and who are hurt and resentful at the way people perceive them and behave towards them. I am not anti-Israel though

There are a loto f people in Germany I noticed who wear Palestinian scarves on every occasion and go out in great force to protest against Israel - and call me cynical I may be but I have my doubts about the motivation of it all.

I just do. I think for a lot of people there is anti-semitism (anti-Jewish specifically) feeling, often not even acknowledged bheind it. Others just genuinely are concerned about how the Palestinians are living.

Just not really hugely connected to the problem I suppose. Other issues seem bigger to me at this stage of my life - trafficking in young women from Eastern Europe intot he slave sex trade for instance. That kind of thing

ZZZenAgain · 16/08/2010 11:35

just checked with dh and he says he feels I am more of an extremist lol

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 16/08/2010 11:41

I'd just like them all to grow the fuck up.

ZZZenAgain · 16/08/2010 11:42

who? The liberals?

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 16/08/2010 12:15

I was thinking specifically of the Palestinians and the Israilies, but probably some liberals as well. And conservatives, and well, just people in general really.

waves vaguely in general direction of 'people'

Original poster
AtlasTrips · 20/08/2010 19:32

Yes Yorkshire does have a right to exist - in liberal democracy - because it exists already. If not a liberal democracy - then rights are tenuous. But that's why I believe in LD and not theocratic dictatorship.

If it's down to being stupid, then I guess many people would lose the right to exist under those terms.

But Israel is not a new state. Israel has been there for millennia.

This was an interesting article about the disintegrating notion of left and right in todays politics with the very unique issues liberal democracy faces today www.standpointmag.co.uk/node/3182

OP posts:
Original poster
AtlasTrips · 20/08/2010 19:35

I agree ZZZ. Its hard for people to see just who is pulling the strings in all the anti-Israeli protests. Many (if not most) of them are funded and organised by anti-semitic organisations who advocate violence while preaching peace. The Socialist Worker is one such organisation.

OP posts:
kate1956 · 20/08/2010 22:50

Socialist Worker was founded by a Palestinian Jew (Yigael Gluckstein - pen name Tony Cliff) and is NOT an anti-semitic organisation at all - by all means disagree with their politics but to criticise the state of Israel and how it came into being is not anti-semitic (speaking as an anti-israeli Jew myself!)

Coolfonz · 21/08/2010 12:02

Massive pro-Israeli troll.

The BBC is biased, towards the state terrorists who run Israel and the post fascist scum who support it.

If you like Israel, fuck off and live there. Seriously.

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 21/08/2010 12:53

What us a post fascist?

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 21/08/2010 13:20

us = is

Original poster
AtlasTrips · 21/08/2010 19:32

lol again Fonz.

OP posts:
Bartok · 22/08/2010 23:03

Isn't this a bit like asking whether a liberal can be pro or anti Bulgarian...

edam · 22/08/2010 23:13

I hate the misdirection and cries of 'ooh, you anti-semite you' when anyone criticises Israeli policies. Objecting to the use of armed force against civilians IS a liberal position.

I have every sympathy with Israel's right to exist, but its forces and politicians have no right to kill innocent people. Or even not-so-innocent people in foreign hotels. FFS.

clemetteattlee · 22/08/2010 23:17

Can a liberal support any country who consistently breaks UN resolutions and violates human rights?
Sadly, of course, it is not ONLY Israel that does this.

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 23/08/2010 11:45

". Objecting to the use of armed force against civilians IS a liberal position. "

It's not so much a liberal position as a humanitarian position.

Madsometimes · 23/08/2010 12:46

I consider myself to be liberal, and I do have a lot of problems with the state of Israel.

They do abuse the rights of the Palestinians and I cannot condone this. Yes, they have been victims of terrorists, but this does not mean that a civilised democracy should sink to the same base methods.

Israel also makes me question PR. Any time moderate Israelis try to change things, they are thwarted by nutters and extremists which are needed to keep coalition governments intact.