Anti-Zionism

[Digby]

The Labour leadership seems under the impression the CAA is a conspiratorial Jewish right-wing organisation ‘exploiting’ antisemitism

Hope you have a quote for that...

I'm told there's audio and everything, can't say I've listened myself.

[Zhivago]

The Labour leadership seems under the impression the CAA is a conspiratorial Jewish right-wing organisation ‘exploiting’ antisemitism

Hope you have a quote for that...

I'm told there's audio and everything, can't say I've listened myself.

In other words it's bull that you made up.

[Digby]

Hope you have a quote for that...

I'm told there's audio and everything, can't say I've listened myself.

In other words it's bull that you made up.

If one allows I've made it up and had it published under various nom du plumes in various media outlets then yes, though for the avoidance of doubt I haven't done that

[rowan]

Israeli war crimes continue unabated while Western media deflects attention elsewhere . . .

[kk67]

I'm told there's audio and everything, can't say I've listened myself.

In other words it's bull that you made up.

If one allows I've made it up and had it published under various nom du plumes in various media outlets then yes, though for the avoidance of doubt I haven't done that

I'll take your word for it, Fella.
But there are a lot of people out there who are getting paid vast sums of money for doing exactly what you've described.

[rowan]

Another day, another massacre . . .

[Digby]

In other words it's bull that you made up.

If one allows I've made it up and had it published under various nom du plumes in various media outlets then yes, though for the avoidance of doubt I haven't done that

I'll take your word for it, Fella.
But there are a lot of people out there who are getting paid vast sums of money for doing exactly what you've described.

Printing exactly what the Labour leadership say?

I almost feel sorry for them, what with that involving listening to what the Labour leadership say

[rowan]

[rowan]

Banned (by Youtube) in 28 countries already . . .

[kk67]

If one allows I've made it up and had it published under various nom du plumes in various media outlets then yes, though for the avoidance of doubt I haven't done that

I'll take your word for it, Fella.
But there are a lot of people out there who are getting paid vast sums of money for doing exactly what you've described.

Printing exactly what the Labour leadership say?

I almost feel sorry for them, what with that involving listening to what the Labour leadership say

The Cambridge Analytica story continues to unravel. This is looking worse than Watergate.
Electoral fraud is very serious.

[rowan]

[rowan]

Israel never misses a chance to bomb civilians in Gaza while the world is looking the other way:

Four people were killed and others injured, on Saturday, in an Israeli artillery attack targeting a group of citizens who were riding a three-wheeled “tuk tuk” motorcycle (rickshaw) east of Rafah, in the southern Gaza Strip.

Eyewitnesses and a medical source in Rafah said, according to the PNN, that Israeli artillery shelled the eastern border of Rafah, targeting a group of young men who were moving rubber tires near the eastern border of the city.

Dr. Ashraf al-Qadra the spokesman for the Ministry of Health in Gaza said that 4 Palestinians were killed & several others wounded in different Israeli shellings, pointing out that the slain and injured arrived to Abu Yousef al-Najjar hospitals.

http://imemc.org/article/four-killed-in ... m=facebook

[L'Historien]

Rowan- you’ve posted a number of links to IDF activities in Gaza. The State deserves condemnation for use of disproportionate force and collective punishment, but the does not absolve other states for equally reprehensible actions.
Given the title of the thread, what action is it you are suggesting should be taken?

[rowan]

Rowan- you’ve posted a number of links to IDF activities in Gaza. The State deserves condemnation for use of disproportionate force and collective punishment, but the does not absolve other states for equally reprehensible actions.
Given the title of the thread, what action is it you are suggesting should be taken?

"The IDF is dropping gas via drones into crowds of unarmed protesters. This gas causes convulsions,vomiting and violent diarrhea and many who are exposed to this gas are dying of dehydration within a few days. So Israel is literally gassing unarmed civilians and they are dying. The Western terrorists attacked Syria for just being accused, without a shred of evidence,of gassing people and here we have indisputable proof Israel is gassing people and the West is silent."


Economic sanctions and cultural and sporting boycotts. Everything that was done to South Africa should now be done to Israel. That's clear. The two cases bear so many similarities. Isolate Israel from the international community and turn it into a pariah state. Eventually they will yield, but only once the Americans and Europeans get fully on board. It was their reluctance and duplicity that allowed the Apartheid regime to remain alive in South Africa for as long as it did, in spite of widespread international outrage. We are now approaching an almost identical scenario with regards to Israel.

[L'Historien]

Rowan - “Eventually they will yield,” - what do you mean by yield? What is the ideal result in this situation?

[kk67]

What is the ideal result in this situation?

An image of the Bilderberg group sitting around a big table and asking themselves the same question just jumped into my head.
Being a fly on the wall for that conversation would be perfect...... because as a fly you'd already be throwing up.

[rowan]

What is the ideal result in this situation?

An image of the Bilderberg group sitting around a big table and asking themselves the same question just jumped into my head.
Being a fly on the wall for that conversation would be perfect...... because as a fly you'd already be throwing up.

The image I had was more along the lines of pro-Apartheid rednecks belittling the prospect of majority rule and democracy, as though it were something entirely outlandish and implausible in the very special case of South Africa.

It's pretty obvious the wall has got to go, along with all other forms of segregation and discrimination, Palestinian refugees and diaspora must be given the right of return, and then you start to build a democracy based on universal suffrage - not Apartheid.

[L'Historien]

“It's pretty obvious the wall has got to go, along with all other forms of segregation and discrimination, Palestinian refugees and diaspora must be given the right of return, and then you start to build a democracy based on universal suffrage - not Apartheid.”

Are you describing a One State proposal - the bringing together of what is now Israel, Gaza and the West Bank under one government?

If so, how do we bring the respective parties to the table - including local and international powers - in good faith to produce an acceptable plan that does not result in a bloodbath of genocide, which is clearly a fear the Israeli government has?

Your use of the word ‘apartheid ‘ seems an inaccurate shorthand. I understand the Knesset is elected by citizens of Israel over the age of 18, Jewish and Arab citizens alike. The occupied territories are excluded, and I imagine there would be uproar if they were included unilaterally.

[rowan]

Your use of the word ‘apartheid ‘ seems an inaccurate shorthand. I understand the Knesset is elected by citizens of Israel over the age of 18, Jewish and Arab citizens alike. The occupied territories are excluded, and I imagine there would be uproar if they were included unilaterally.

You just contradicted yourself, and appear to be an apologist for the apartheid system into the bargain, adopting an aggressive stance reminiscent of those who defended the apartheid regime in South Africa a few decades ago. & given your brief history on the forum and fixation with this particular subject, it would seem that you have arrived with an agenda.

Israel's control of its native Palestinian community clearly equates to a form of Apartheid. In fact, just over a year ago the United Nations itself concluded Israel had established an apartheid regime that oppressed and dominated the native population. Palestinians were discriminated against on the basis of not being Jewish, and deprived of access to education, healthcare, employment, residency and building rights, while being subjected to expulsions and home demolitions. The West Bank and Gaza Strip are controlled by military law, while illegal Jewish settlements are governed by Israeli civil law. Refugees and exiles are considered a democratic threat to Israel's Jewish majority and for this reason are prohibited from returning to their homes. The UN urged governments to back BDS and opposed "Israeli practices and policies regarding to the crime of apartheid.'

As for the solution, the following is only my opinion, and it's certainly not for me to determine: But I think the one state solution is the only realistic hope for peace in the long-term. The natural progression would inevitably be toward majority Arab Muslim rule, notably with the inclusion of the occupied territories and the return of the dispossessed refugees and exiles. The Jewish majority in the heart the Arab Muslim world can only be maintained via force and demographic manipulation. Ultimately the one state solution would lead to a similar outcome as that which we have seen in South Africa.

Israel was founded by Europeans with no history in the region at all, and done so entirely on religious grounds. They were actually opposed by the both the Jewish and Christian minorities indigenous to Palestine, who had lived there quite peacefully during Ottoman times. Jews are a race, not an ethnicity. It is possible to convert to Judaism, and it is equally possible to cease being one. There are Jewish communities from Africa to China which can trace their history back to medieval times, while Israeli scholars such as Schlomo Sands have traced the origins of the Ashkenazis to the Caspian region north of Iran. So Israel is a theocracy, created in living memory (for some), by way of massacres, terrorism and ultimately ethnic cleansing.

It has also frequently made war on its neighbors, both openly and clandestine. The Lavon Affair and current proxy war on Syria are examples of the latter, while the 1967 War was a surprise attack and the UN has ruled against Israel on its resultant territorial disputes with Damascus. So what future does an aggressive, Islamophobic theocracy have in the heart of the Middle East.

In recent decades the demographics have altered greatly, the Ashkenazi founders are on the decline, and Mizrahi are on the increase. In fact, the latter, pertaining to Jews from throughout the Middle East, are being encouraged to emigrate from neighboring countries to maintain the Jewish majority. It is more than plausible than many of them are converting to the faith simply for the chance of obtaining a better lifestyle in a land where they can lord it over the natives. Not so the black Jews of Ethiopia and elsewhere, however. Somehow Israel is less welcoming to its brothers from the dark continent, and is shipping them back in their droves. Israeli receives about 40 billion of US tax-payers' money in aid, but their main support comes not from the Jewish community. The Zionist lobby comprises mostly of white American Christians.

[L'Historien]

“You just contradicted yourself, and appear to be an apologist for the apartheid system into the bargain, adopting an aggressive stance reminiscent of those who defended the apartheid regime in South Africa a few decades ago. & given your brief history on the forum and fixation with this particular subject, it would seem that you have arrived with an agenda. ”

Why the ad hominem comments? I raised a question and you have answered it in some detail.

I asked for your view of how the situation might be resolved because I think it is very easy to take a position against something without considering the consequences and indeed the probability of outcomes. This applies to all manner of issues. Some commentators seem to think Israel can cease to exist. Whatever the region is called and however it is governed, account has to be taken of the inhabitants, as they are.

The Israeli government is not acting in a vacuum. Its policies, certainly towards Gaza and the West Bank are born out of fear stemming in no small part from the rhetoric and actions of people and governments opposed to them. The internal policies of most the states around Israel, do not display signs of peaceful democratic government.

You referenced South Africa as an example. One might also posit Zimbabwe as an alternative, a less attractive proposition altogether.

Is Israel responsible for the war in Syria? I would have thought the instability and increase in various radical groups bent on the violent destruction of the state of Israel is the last thing they want. Did it not begin as part of series of upheavals against various regimes in North Africa?

I am puzzled by your reference to race and ethnicity and your connection to a theocracy. You seem to be saying that ethnic peoples are entitled to a region but the Jews are a race, so they are not. The Jewish People have survived over 2500 years of deportation, occupation, diaspora, pogrom and holocaust to which they have been subjected because they have lived in countries to which they have come from one expulsion after another, since Roman times. Wasn’t the notion of a state born in the late 19th century after a pogrom in Russia, the Dreyfus affair in France etc? So how does one overcome a fear born out a history like that?

Not that I think the nation-state is an unalloyed blessing. And the theories of race and ethnicity that came out of the same period fed the horrors seen in the 20th century.

In short, given that politics is the art of the possible, there is unlikely to be a peaceful solution until all the countries and groups start looking to the interests of the displaced and the residents alike. Who knows - if the leaders of North Korea and South Korea can talk with their histories, anything is possible.

Incidentally, as to an agenda, I have a notion that we need to pay attention to history but we always need to remember we are considering people, not ideological movements. Demonising one side by the other is not conducive to peaceful coexistence.

[rowan]

Pointing out that you have contradicted yourself by denying the existence of Apartheid in Israel but acknowledging the exception of the occupied territories is not ad hominem.

I gave you my personal view of the best way to resolve the issue, and of what I thought would be the likely outcome. Of course Israel could cease to exist. It was only created 70 years ago. If the Arab Muslim majority are permitted to become the demographic majority within Israel, it's more than possible they will seek to dissolve this superficial and religiously exclusive construct. That's not to say it will happen, however.

The rhetoric and actions of people and governments opposed to them presumably refers to the native inhabitants they have brutalized and dispossessed, and the neighboring countries they have repeatedly attacked and invaded. You might just as well be telling us the First Nations of the Americas, the Aboriginals of Australia and the Maori of New Zealand did not display signs of peaceful democratic government when the white settlers were exterminating them and stealing their land.

What's your comparison between Zimbabwe and Israel?

The origins of the war on Syria have been discussed at length on the More on Syria thread, so let's not get bogged down with that here. Suffice to say the students and feminists involved in the Arab Spring did not morph into machine gun-wielding, head-chopping terrorists receiving NATO training and weaponry with a view to destabilizing the nation and overthrowing the secular government in Damascus. Israel's interest appears to have been confined to the Golan Heights, which it has illegally occupied despite the UN's ruling in favor of Syria.

I did not say the Jews were a race. I said the opposite. The followers of Judaism are no more a race than the followers of Krishna, Buddha, Christ or Muhammad. They are a religious group who include Chinese, Indians, Persians, Arabs, Berbers, Africans and Europeans. As mentioned, you can both convert to Judaism and forsake the religion, if you choose. There is no proven connection between the Biblical Jews and the Ashkenazi Jews of northern Europe, who scholars such as Israeli author Schlomo Sands believe migrated into northern Europe from the Caspian region in the Middle Ages. I haven't said that nationhood should be based on either ethnicity or race. What I've said is that it should be based on universal suffrage - ie majority rule without manipulation of demographics.

The Jewish people have not collectively survived over 2500 years of deportation, occupation, diaspora, pogrom and holocaust. With these statements you deny the existence of Jewish communities in Africa, Iran, India and China. Again, you are only referring to the Ashkenazi Jews, who the Palestinians themselves described as European in appearance. That's hardly surprising, as the Jewish people tend to reflect the ethnicity of the region in which their community exists - not that of some ancient tribe in the Middle East. In fact, the most likely descendants of the Biblical Jews are the Palestinians themselves. The expulsion in Roman times is one of many stories in the Bible that is not backed up by historical record. Why would the Romans expel a labor force? That's not how they operated.

Demonising one side by the other is not conducive to peaceful coexistence.


With those words would you try to justify the colonization of the Americas, Australasia and elsewhere at the expense of the native population, I wonder?

Who knows - if the leaders of North Korea and South Korea can talk with their histories, anything is possible.


Inshallah! Regrettably, however, Israeli snipers have just shot and killed three more unarmed Palestinians, bringing the overall total to 41 during the current Right of Return Marches. 600 more were injured today, bring the overall total to an estimated 5,000.

[kk67]

Is War altruistic...?.

I'm just asking. I don't want to seem anti semitic.

[rowan]

American and British media have been more interested in anti-Semitic comments from their own puppet Abbas - who has never been the accepted leader of the Palestinian people. So while Israeli snipers are mowing down unarmed Palestinian protesters in their droves, Americans and Britons are reading about Abbas' apology to the Jewish people. That's the height of propaganda and deception.

[L'Historien]

“...adopting an aggressive stance reminiscent of those who defended the apartheid regime in South Africa a few decades ago. & given your brief history on the forum and fixation with this particular subject, it would seem that you have arrived with an agenda. “

...Not ad hominem?

I am far less certain of many things than you appear to give me credit for. But there are some things I do know-

The Romans certainly destroyed Jerusalem in AD 70 and expelled those they did not execute. The evidence of the diaspora can be found all over the Mediterranean littoral.

The communities then established were in turn expelled centuries later, seeking refuge elsewhere. And so on.

European and Russian Jews were emigrating from the 19th century, huge impetus given by the Odessa pogroms.

I still think the race/ethnicity distinction is invalid. Perhaps the Jews are better seen as a people, not a modern description at all.

You cited the success of the Mandela-led government in South Africa as an example of what could happen. And maybe it could. I noted that the Mugabe-led outcome was a possibility.

Any country can cease to exist, if you accept genocide as an acceptable outcome. Which I don’t

Are there no non- western backed warring groups in the region? No interest from Iran or Saudi Arabia? Why does Egypt enforce a blockade on the Gaza Strip?

The examples of open universal suffrage in the region have been notable mostly for their absence in the last 100 years. Why expect them to multiply now?

It is not hard to see why the idea of a Jewish state developed in the 19th century; the mistake now is to apply the same mentality to attempts to bring peace to the region and to concentrate on only one facet of the issues that need to be resolved.

[rowan]

There's no historical record of a mass expulsion from Jerusalem; only references in religious texts. There isn't any historical record of an exodus from Egypt either, nor a Kingdom of David, nor a miracle-performing messiah named Jesus. Mass expulsion was not practiced by the Romans, whose empire was built on the taxation of its subjects. The diaspora around the Mediterranean region is not connected to that in northern and eastern Europe either ethnically or linguistically.

Interestingly, the Spanish and Portuguese are now welcoming back the Sephardi Jews who fled to the Ottoman Empire in centuries gone by. But how would the world react if these Sephardi Jews now began arming themselves and carrying out massacres and acts of terrorism in an attempt to take over the Iberian Peninsinula entirely? Sounds absurd, doesn't it? Yet that's precisely what the Zionists did to Palestine.

Yes, there were pogroms in the 19th century. & the Jews were welcomed into what they regarded as their spiritual homeland by the Ottoman rulers, just as the above-mentioned Sephardi Jews had been welcomed centuries before. But the indigenous Jewish community was steadfastly against Zionism, and remains so today - as does the indigenous Christian community.

The Jews are a religious group, which is an inescapable fact. Just as Hindus, Buddhists, Christians and Muslims cannot claim to be anything else but a religious group. Your implication is that this description has been forced upon the Jewish people, when the opposite is actually true. It is the propagandists and Zionist apologists who have attempted to blur the lines and thereby blackmail the international community into silence. The Ashkenazi Jews behind the Zionist movement did not even speak a Semitic language - whereas Arabs do - including the Palestinians they have displaced!

You still haven't explained how the one state solution might end up like Mugabe's Zimbabwe. Yes, the majority would take control, as they should, and, yes, the Jews might suffer under those conditions. So welcome to democracy. That's how it works. Look at the African-Americans, the Aborigines and the Maori. They have to live with this as well in our so-called free world. But there's no reason the Palestinians should, when they are not only the indigenous population but also the majority in the region.

Egypt enforces a blockade because it is back under US control. Egypt is the second biggest recipient of US aid behind Israel, and helping cage in the Palestinian population is a prerequisite. In fact, that's the major reason America needs to keep Egypt under its control and has repeatedly blocked efforts at democracy.

Open universal suffrage in the region has repeatedly been stifled by America and its allies. They orchestrated coups in both Syria and Iran after WWII, overthrowing democratic governments, and leading to a Damascus alliance with Moscow and a so-called Islamic Revolution in Iran (following 26 years more of the Shah's brutal rule). They also got rid of a progressive socialist government in Afghanistan which had given full rights to women, enlisting the Mujahideen for the purpose. Really showed those Soviets, huh! Meanwhile, the Palestinians voted for Hamas not so long ago and were bombed by Israel. Saudi Arabia pretty much controls the Lebanese PM, and already mentioned US support for the dictator in Cairo. In fact, the US has pretty much destroyed all attempts at secular democratic government in the region, preferring absolute monarchs and theocracies it can control - such as Saudi and the Gulf states.

You're right that the mistake now is to apply the same mentality to attempts to bring peace to the region and to concentrate on only one facet of the issues that need to be resolved, which is why you need to stop ignoring the Palestinian side of the equation, their indigenous rights, and the war crimes that are being committed against them.