Israel

[aslan]

Virtually ALL material is appropriate for Zen Zone except clear expression of obscenity and "hate". "Hate" not to be confused with emerging questions of Holocaust history and/or criticism of "Zionist" Israel and its politics and policies. zg

I take it you're not a fan of Israel, but whatever the path to it's establishment of a "homeland" it seems like a done deal, kind of like the US. We're not going to give the country back to the "Native Americans," or parts of the Southwest back to Mexico, at least not in the "official" sense. That doesn't mean we were right, it just means it over and done with.

Palestine is hellbent on the total annilhilation of Israel as a state, which means to me that one or the other has to go, and I'm betting it will be Palestine for the simple reason of American involvement, past, present, and likely, far into the future. I'm afraid it's too late for a German homeland--although it could have been a plausible solution some 60 years ago.

I do wonder at why so many people in this country are so passionately on one side or the other (maybe part of it is the fundamentalists who believe God gave the land to Israel, and maybe part is that the West can identify with Judaic values--I know I can't understand or identify with certain Muslim values). Canaanites, Jews, Muslims...now Jews have the upper hand again, by hook or by crook. And now with nukes, I don't think there's gonna be another reversal--only the ultimate elimination of one or the other, or a Palestinian homeland weak and minus its capacity for war. And that may go for some of Israel's other neighbors as well. Fair? I don't even know what that means the way the world has evolved over the centuries. Up to this point I'd say the world is a barbaric place, and that might equates to right. I hope the future brings us real civilization someday. Or is that too communistic sounding? Anyway, in the meantime there promises to be untold misery and suffering on all sides in the Mideast, and this is a great tragedy no matter whose side you're on.

[zengrifter]

I take it you're not a fan of Israel, but whatever the path to it's establishment of a "homeland" it seems like a done deal, kind of like the US. We're not going to give the country back to the "Native Americans," or parts of the Southwest back to Mexico, at least not in the "official" sense. That doesn't mean we were right, it just means it over and done with.

Palestine is hellbent on the total annilhilation of Israel as a state, which means to me that one or the other has to go, and I'm betting it will be Palestine for the simple reason of American involvement, past, present, and likely, far into the future. I'm afraid it's too late for a German homeland--although it could have been a plausible solution some 60 years ago.

Three thoughts -

1. IF America was still slaughtering Indians, I would be against it and on the side of the Indians.

2. Israel was FIRST to be hell bent on the annilation/removal of Palestinians from their rightful place.

3. The true source of both problem and solution may be considered here - Adi Da: Not-Two IS Peace*

*Cooperation + Tolerance = Peace
--Avatar Adi Da

[aslan]

Three thoughts -

1. IF America was still slaughtering Indians, I would be against it and on the side of the Indians.

So it will be okay once Israel gets the Palestinians settled on their reservation (homeland)?

2. Israel was FIRST to be hell bent on the annilation/removal of Palestinians from their rightful place.

The Indians were the first to want the removal of the colonists? And I thought in the case of Israel it was more like, "Move over and give us some space, too", not, "It's all or nothing."

3. The true source of both problem and solution may be considered here - Adi Da: Not-Two IS Peace*

*Cooperation + Tolerance = Peace
--Avatar Adi Da

If you're advocating "Cooperation and tolerance = peace," I couldn't agree more. It's my impossible dream. But I think it is possible either as one or as two side-by-side.

BTW, I'm not trying to be an apologist for Israel. I just don't think it is practicable to attempt to undo history. No more than I think if action groups had sprung up among the colonists that the plight of the Indians would have been much different. Israel has real power in the region due to "past" US support. If we don't go ahead with them now, I have no doubt they can annihilate their neighbors without us. I think they may view themselves in a similar light to our independence from England, in that they were the "under class" in Palestine for centuries and finally rose up to vanquish their oppressor. Were we right? C+T=P applied then as well. Were they right? I don't think there is a black and white answer, except in the minds of the victor and the vanquished.

[ihate17]

[QUOTE=aslan;46121]


The Indians were the first to want the removal of the colonists? And I thought in the case of Israel it was more like, "Move over and give us some space, too", not, "It's all or nothing."


The Indians badly needed a strong illegal immigration strategy, did not have one and only now are getting their country back through casino gambling.

It is hard to use the "It's all or nothing" comparison. I do not think we (U.S. or British Colonies) ever said that we wanted it all. No, we just kept moving the Indians to worse and worse parcels of land, till finally they got the parched parcels that no one else wanted.

ihate17

[zengrifter]

It is hard to use the "It's all or nothing" comparison. I do not think we (U.S. or British Colonies) ever said that we wanted it all. No, we just kept moving the Indians to worse and worse parcels of land, till finally they got the parched parcels that no one else wanted.

Like the Palestinians. zg

[aslan]

The Indians badly needed a strong illegal immigration strategy, did not have one and only now are getting their country back through casino gambling.

Amen to that one!

It is hard to use the "It's all or nothing" comparison. I do not think we (U.S. or British Colonies) ever said that we wanted it all. No, we just kept moving the Indians to worse and worse parcels of land, till finally they got the parched parcels that no one else wanted.

ihate17

ihate17, I said, "in the case of Israel," meaning that the Israelis said, "Move over," but the Palestinians replied, "No, it's all or nothing. We want you guys outa here completely." (At least as a separate state.) No, I totally agree with you about the colonies.

[aslan]

Like the Palestinians. zg

I'm not well enough versed on the topic to dispute what you say, but I would not be surprised. There's no benevolence on any side over there, and I'm not sure there are only two sides.

[moo321]

Arab countries attacked Israel repeatedly, and expelled Jews from their lands. There's no way to construe what happened as Israeli aggression.

[aslan]

Arab countries attacked Israel repeatedly, and expelled Jews from their lands. There's no way to construe what happened as Israeli aggression.

Right. I feel the same way about the US which is always being accused of aggression. I think what we did after WWII is proof enough of that. We have no desire to take over other nations; we just want to live in peace, and the actions of other countries sometimes jeopardizes that.

[zengrifter]

Arab countries attacked Israel repeatedly, and expelled Jews from their lands.

A lot of that is Zionist mythology. Jews and Arabs have coexisted peacefully for a long time. zg

[Automatic Monkey]

A lot of that is Zionist mythology. Jews and Arabs have coexisted peacefully for a long time. zg

That is false. Jews and Christians have only existed in Muslim territory as dhimmi.

[ihate17]

A lot of that is Zionist mythology. Jews and Arabs have coexisted peacefully for a long time. zg

Jews and Arabs coexisted only if the Jew was in a submissive role, paying extra taxes and not having the same rights in an Islamic court. Jewish rights in Arab nations were always subject to the current temperment of the Arab leadership and population. Though being people of the book, forced conversions, hate crimes and the law that a Jewish man could not marry a Muslim woman, made life there for a Jew not that different than life for Jews in nations like Poland and Russia in the 19th century.

Jews having their own nation, own defense, own land can not be accepted. This is on dual levels. One is centuries of Jews being restricted minorities within Arab and other Islamic nations. Two is: The Jews behind the formation of Israel were not "their" Jews but European invaders. In the minds of the Arabs they are crusaders who wear a star instead of a cross. So they attacked and attacked and attacked till they realized that destroying Israel was not within their military capability. Since that time it is public relations, mixed in with some misinformation, and they are not doing a bad job.

I have stated before that the Jewish nation probably should have not been located where it was located. But it was and it is still here about 60 years later. It has never been given a chance at peace by all its neighbors. The governments of Egypt and Jordan have relations with Israel but the people in the street disagree with their governments.

One side is fighting for survival. The goal of Arab nations is not really an outright concern for the Palestinians or they would have treated those Palestinians living in their nation better. Only Jordan, which was 50% or so, Palestinian in 1946, has given citizenship to those who came there and those born there, no other Arab nation has done this. The goal, stated over and over again is to push the Israelis into the sea. Simply wipe the country off the map of the world.

The other side is fighting for Arab and Islamic pride. There is no Israeli plan to push the Arabs into the sea, wipe the nations of Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and others off the map. They want the "invaders" out.

There is brutalization on both sides. We as Americans have no concept of understanding what it might be like to live in a country under constant fear of attack from both out and inside for 60 consecutive years. I can not imagine a powerful Mexico and Canada on our borders with the plan to not only wipe out the U.S. but remove every single citizen from the nation either by force or death, while we have a large Mexican and Canadian population within our borders. Think just how brutal we have become based upon attacks that happened on one disasterous day. What would we be like if these happened almost every day for 60 years.

The Palestinians who were not fortunate enough to be the Palestinians who occupied 80% of the British Palestinian Mandate and became Jordanians, also have the right to feel very much the same way the Israelis feel after 60 years.

ihate17

[zengrifter]

Mourning and the Morning After

By Dr. Bernard Sabella
Arab Media Internet Network
17 August 2007

Transitions that accompany separation have a built in mourning process. Experts say that the period of mourning depends on the nature of separation, personal and group characteristics, attachments and values.

On August 15, I visited with a group of Fateh legislators in the Palestinian Legislative Council the towns of Qalqilya, Jayyus, Azzun and smaller villages in the vicinity. These beautiful towns, close to the Green Line of 1948 that separates the West Bank from Israel, are experiencing a variety of mourning processes.

One separation that stands out and that recalls the mourning process is the forceful detachment of the people of these towns, mostly farmers, from their lands. Standing on the roof of the local municipal council at Jayyus one can see how the Israeli built separation wall, a fence in this case, forcibly stops Palestinian farmers from attending to their land. Yes, the Israeli military authorities have introduced a permit system but it is highly selective and does not allow able bodied farmers to access their fields. Besides, the opening hours of the two gates in the separation fence are so restricted; 7 to 8 in the morning; 12:00 to 1:00 pm and 6:00 to 7:00 pm that if one farmer misses one day, his agricultural produce would irreparably be damaged.

One old man in Jayyus told me that all is finished. The Israelis have taken our land away and restricted us from working on it. He was speaking so despondently that I was reminded of the mourning people experience on the passing of a dear one. ...

...more - http://www.kibush.co.il/show_file.asp?num=21803

[zengrifter]

Zionism as a Racist Ideology
Reviving an Old Theme to Prevent Palestinian Ethnicide

By KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON
COUNTERPUNCH

During a presentation on the Palestinian-Israeli situation in 2001, an American-Israeli acquaintance of ours began with a typical attack on the Palestinians. Taking the overused line that "Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity," he asserted snidely that, if only the Palestinians had had any decency and not been so all-fired interested in pushing the Jews into the sea in 1948, they would have accepted the UN partition of Palestine. Those Palestinians who became refugees would instead have remained peacefully in their homes, and the state of Palestine could in the year 2001 be celebrating the 53rd anniversary of its independence. Everything could have been sweetness and light, he contended, but here the Palestinians were, then a year into a deadly intifada, still stateless, still hostile, and still trying, he claimed, to push the Jews into the sea.

It was a common line but with a new and intriguing twist: what if the Palestinians had accepted partition; would they in fact have lived in a state at peace since 1948? It was enough to make the audience stop and think. But later in the talk, the speaker tripped himself up by claiming, in a tone of deep alarm, that Palestinian insistence on the right of return for Palestinian refugees displaced when Israel was created would spell the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state. He did not realize the inherent contradiction in his two assertions (until we later pointed it out to him, with no little glee). You cannot have it both ways, we told him: you cannot claim that, if Palestinians had not left the areas that became Israel in 1948, they would now be living peaceably, some inside and some alongside a Jewish-majority state, and then also claim that, if they returned now, Israel would lose its Jewish majority and its essential identity as a Jewish state.*

This exchange, and the massive propaganda effort by and on behalf of Israel to demonstrate the threat to Israel's Jewish character posed by the Palestinians' right of return, actually reveal the dirty little secret of Zionism. In its drive to establish and maintain a state in which Jews are always the majority, Zionism absolutely required that Palestinians, as non-Jews, be made to leave in 1948 and never be allowed to return. The dirty little secret is that this is blatant racism.

...more - http://www.counterpunch.org/christison11082003.html

[zengrifter]

For American Jews, Dissent Against Israel Has Become Mainstream

By Tony Karon, Tomdispatch.com
Posted on September 15, 2007, Printed on September 18, 2007
http://www.alternet.org/story/62618/

First, a confession: It may tell me that I hate myself, but I can't help loving Masada2000, the website maintained by militant right-wing Zionist followers of Rabbi Meir Kahane. The reason I love it is its D.I.R.T. list -- that's "Dense anti-Israel Repugnant Traitors" (also published as the S.H.I.T. list of "Self-Hating and Israel-Threatening" Jews). And that's not because I get a bigger entry than -- staying in the Ks -- Henry Kissinger, Michael Kinsley, Naomi Klein, or Ted Koppel. The Kahanists are a pretty flaky lot, counting everyone from Woody Allen to present Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on their list of Jewish traitors. But the habit of branding Jewish dissidents -- those of us who reject the nationalist notion that as Jews, our fate is tied to that of Israel, or the idea that our people's historic suffering somehow exempts Israel from moral reproach for its abuses against others -- as "self-haters" is not unfamiliar to me.

In 1981, my father went, as a delegate of the B'nai B'rith Jewish service organization, to a meeting of the Cape Town chapter of the Jewish Board of Deputies, the governing body of South Africa's Jewish communal institutions. The topic of the meeting was "Anti-Semitism on Campus." My father was pretty shocked and deeply embarrassed when Exhibit A of this phenomenon turned out to be something I'd published in a student newspaper condemning an Israeli raid on Lebanon.

...more - http://www.alternet.org/stories/62618/