MovieChat Forums > Paradise Now (2005) Discussion > A few things about the Israeli-Arab conf...

A few things about the Israeli-Arab conflict


Pardon my English. I'm a 18 years old northern Israeli guy, and English serves as a second language.

I liked the movie, even though it was a bit unrealistic. The watchers get the feeling that all suicide bombers are ordinary people, just a little desperate. I'm afraid the fireworks that we see on our memorial day (for soldiers and civilians who lost their lives), coming from the Arab village nearby + the happy marches the Pal. make, every time a baby is blown up in a bus, or just get shot in a hotel, can tell otherwise. But hey, you don't see that on CNN, right? Because it would upset the Arab world, and Europe would lose its biggest oil source. we wouldn't want that to happen.


Apart from the movie, a few things I want you to know. May or may not be connected directly to this board, but it should be said.

1. The British gave 1\2 of "Palestine" to the Jews. They could have built here a UK2, they could have bomb the whole place, without giving any explanation to the Palestinians, but they chose to give half of it to the Jews. The Arabs, like always, with an impulsive reaction, started the first war, raging about the 50% (that 50% was basically 40% desolate desert and 10% of Jewish cities, built in the previous century) that the Jews "stole" from them, which leads to...

2. 1 million Palestinians were expelled? Nah… Most of them fled the new country because they were afraid from the war they brought upon themselves. They could have stay, we would have treated them like anybody else, but they made a choice. We all got to live with our choices, don't we? We can't cry 24-7, and blame the Zionist, and their "puppets" (USA, and apparently the whole world, according to Palestinians). A lot of power for 750,000 Jews in Israel, no? But wait, what about the million Arabs that did stay in Israel? What happened to them? Were they killed, discriminated against or got pushed to the sea?

3. I have to say no. 1,400,000 Israeli Arabs, enjoying a high living standard, studying in the universities that the Zionist built, visiting our Zionist malls, receiving money from our government when unemployed, etc. I live in a Jewish city, located 2 miles from an Arab one. I see Arabs every day - in a Zionist hospital, in a Zionist library, in a Zionist park, in a Zionist TV broadcasts etc. Never heard a racist comment and never witnessed an act of physical violence. We accept them into our society because they're Israeli. I don't care if they go to a mosque in the morning. Even when some of them arrange terrorist attacks themselves, the Israeli-Arabs are safe and secured in their arab cities.

But wait a minute, the Israeli Arabs are being treated like dirt, with the apartheid and all...

4. There is no apartheid, and the wall doesn't concerns Israeli Arabs. The Palestinians are not part of our country, and we never wish them to be. How can building a wall, on one country's land, count as an apartheid? if the US decides to build a wall on Texas' turf, in order to prevent illegal immigrants from entering the US, would you call that "apartheid"? If Poland, in 1939, build a wall to protect itself from the German army - apartheid? And as for the Israeli Arabs - they are treated like any other citizen. Of course there are Jewish cities and Arab Cities, but that's made by choice, like Belgium, if I'm not mistaken.


surprisingly, the rate of terrorist attack against Israel has drop hundreds percents since 2003. but that's all a strange coincidence. bad Israel, bas Zionists.


The West Bank (Khaled & Said's birth home) and the Gaza Strip is not desired by us, Israelis. It's a burden. We provide the Palestinians with water, electricity and gas, and let's not forget - millions and millions of Dollars, taken from our taxes money, even though it's a proven fact - some of the money is used by Hamas, Fatah and other peace organization. But of course, the Jews (sorry, the ZIONISTS) have a hidden agenda, and they must have invented some special money, that melts in your hands.


5. Poor Palestinians, always the victim. They're poor, living in a constant fear of war, and their love ones occasionally get hurt from the enemy's fire, the children murderer. Guess what? So am I. I'm poor, I lived in shelter during the '06 war, and I lost love ones in a the enemy's attack, and when the lonely, poor Palestinian blew up the coffee shop near my high school, hundreds of children could have died also.

but we Israelis carry on, trying to offer, willing to give up land, Because life means more to us. In 2001 we offered them the whole Gaza Strip and the West Bank, They're ultimate goal (So they say…) They refused (not a shocker). We celebrate life. They, on the other hand, continue to wallow in their grief and anger, while hurting the beautiful land of Israel.

It's not because of 1967
It's not because of Lebanon
The Palestinians want 5,500,000 Jews out. they made that quite clear when they murdered us in the 19th century (uh, but that's because of 1967, right?), the start of the 20th century (the occupation... damn 1967!) and when Mohammad Amin al-Husayni met with Hitler, discussing the extermination of the European Jews (but wait, they weren't Zionist, because they've continued to live in Europe.... uh, what the hell, damn Zionist, it's all because of the occupation).

I'm a left winger, but I would not stand by while ignorant, hateful people all around the world are bashing Israel, and asking us to apologize for being alive. It's a new time, and we have self-esteem, pride and love for our beloved country.

Peace to those who want it.

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BenGurion's Plan D

look it up.

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Ah yes, copying and pasting from the impartial lobby group website. The tried and true tactic of the man too lazy to read a book and develop his own argument.

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What do you mean "give away their own country"? The Palestinians never had a country bro, the word "Palestinian" was invented in the early 60's by Ahmad Shuqayri and the PLO.
There's nothing wrong with that--I agree, the Palestinians deserve a state in the West Bank and Gaza. But you're making it sound as if the dastardly 'zionists' arrived and took over the lovely Palesitinian homeland. They arrived and settled, around the turn of the last century, in a 500-year old Ottoman Province, previously a Seljuk Province, previously an Abbasid province, previously an Umayyad province, previously a Byzantine province, previously a Roman province, previously a Seleucid province, previously a Persian province, previously a Babylonian province, previously the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah.
The Arab fellaheen that are currently called "Palestinians" showed up around Umayyad times. The 1947 offer for them to have a state was the nicest thing anyone had ever done for them--just like the offer to the Jewish settlers, who by then had been there for 50 years, was for them. Unfortunately, while the Jews chose to create their own country, the Palestinians and their Arab allies were only interested in destroying that of their enemies. As they then found out, invading a country populated by Palmakhniks and Warsaw Ghetto Uprising survivors tends to be a stupid idea. The collapse of imperialism could habe brought states for both--instead, it brought states for those who cared more about building a land for their children than about destroying the lands of other people's children.

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ok Jax. actually, Palestine was comprised of about 45% Jews and Jews did receive a lil more than 50% of the land, but once again, most of it was the Negev desert, a desolate waste land, that till this day has not given Israel any economic properity
2. Jews never "stole" Palestine from the Palestinians. It was a U.N Mandate. The U.N was free to do what they wanted with the land. Jews bought much of the land in Palestine from absentee landowners living abroad and in fact, in earlier parts of the century, helped Arabs learn to cultivate their own land.
3. You talk about the hundreds of thousands of Arabs thad had to be expelled, I'm not sure which ones your talking about. I know that some Arabs chose to leave their homes and some were persuaded to leave by Arab leaders and in fact some were running from the Israeli Army, no doubt about that however. Think about this; the day after your country declares independence 22 countries declare war against you and send their armies to fight off yours in addition to expelling all the Jews living in their countries. Yes its true, By 1960 all Jews in Arab countries were forced to leave without any possessions, same thing with Iran in 1978.
4.

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jax1

Thank you

______________________________________

NOT an English speaker ...but Im Trying

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Actually Jews bought land from Arabs, never stole it. Ever heard of JNF?

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Ever heard of the victors re-writing history? There were many expulsions and land grabs. A lot of that land is blood-land.

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Several letters have been received by me asking me to declare my views about the Arab-Jew question in Palestine and persecution of the Jews in Germany. It is not without hesitation that I venture to offer my views on this very difficult question. My sympathies are all with the Jews. I have known them intimately in South Africa. Some of them became life-long companions. Through these friends I came to learn much of their age-long persecution. They have been the untouchables of Christianity [...] But my sympathy does not blind me to the requirements of justice. The cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me. The sanction for it is sought in the Bible and the tenacity with which the Jews have hankered after return to Palestine. Why should they not, like other peoples of the earth, make that country their home where they are born and where they earn their livelihood? Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French. It is wrong and inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs. What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct.

We may or may not agree with this. But it does at least indicate that individuals with real moral authority had severe misgivings right from the start.

And whether you call the indigenous population "arabs" or "palestinians" is frankly irrelevant.



I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

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Individuals...with a vested interest to view this conflict in an as one-sided manner as possible?

So what was Mahatma Gandhi's vested interest, exactly?


I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

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Not sure if everyone needed a long and controversial history lesson, but I would warn people not to allow the movie to lull them into the sense that the occupation simply arose spontaneously. It came about as a result of war, a war that was started neither by the Israelis nor the Palestinians, but by their Arab neighbors. It was the fruit of decades of conflict, in which neither side was completely blameless.

As a movie about how the Palestinians have been effected by the occupation and the different ways they choose to react to it, it does a good job. In order to make the movie it was necessary to make the Palestinian characters relatable and the Israeli characters just window dressing. (Did any of the Israelis have lines?) Nobody should extrapolate from this that the Palestinians are innocent lambs or that the Israelis are a bunch of neo-Fascists. If you want to learn about the roots of the conflict, you need to go elsewhere.

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He's referring to the 1967 war, which was actually started "pre-emptively" by Israel after some very unwise threats and sabre-rattling from Nasser's Egypt and others.

Blame is not a particularly helpful concept when it comes to international politics, but I think it's worth considering how any other people of the world would react to large numbers of immigrants arriving on their soil and demanding the right to start their own country there. Probably in much the same way as the Arabs.


I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

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There was no Arab nation there, nor any sense of nationalism within the confines of the region. The Zionists came, provided resources, and turned the sh*thole into a beautiful country. The establishment of Israel wasn't stealing land because there was Palestinian soveriegnty before then. We represented 45% percent of the population and still, most of the land we were allotted was desert. Kicking people out of their homes? This came after you wanted to wipe Israel off the map.

The whole argument of Jews being treated kindly under the Ottoman Empire is a bunch of bullsh*t. Sure they were treated well. According to Islamic ideology, Jews are suppsoed to be second class citizens. Arab animosity towards Zionism is because Zionism represents the superiority of the Jews, which, of course, threatens the core of Islam in its relationship with the Jews. Look at Israel and then look at every other Islamic country. We've always endured and despite the sh*t we've been through, remain strong. Why don't you develop your agriculture, not treat your women like dogs, educate your children and end the corruption? Maybe then you'll stop b*tching and constantly victimizing yourselves.

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Illegal immigrants??? there was no offical nation


Jews were treated better in the Middle East than anywhere else, as I conceded. HOwever, this is because "Judaism" is not a threat to islam, theologically, when it is socially inferior. Zionism--the core fundamental of modern practice of Judaism--is, however, a threat to threat to Islam in terms of its relation and stats with Jews.

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SO, THE FILM EH?

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Zionism is no threat to Islam theologically. The Israel/Palestine question is a nationalist one, not a religious one.

And the repeated claim by Zionists that there was no Palestinian nation pre-1948 is a complete red herring. The nation state was a European concept. The point is that there was an indigenous population who by and large did not want immigrants from another contininent to come and set up a state on their land in which they would be second class citizens.

Irrespective of whether you think the creation of Israel was justified, to deny that the Arabs had sound reasons for objecting to it is intellectual dishonesty of the highest order. No people in history has willingly let itself be dispossessed.



I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

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Zionism certainly is a threat to Islam. In Islam, the Muslims are the chosen elite whereas the Jews are inferior. Hence the claim, "I don't mind Jews, but I hate Zionism". That is why before Zionism, Jews and Muslims got along.

They would not have been second class citizens had they accepted the UN partition in 48.

Certainly they have sound reason to object to the creation of Israel. However, at this point, the Jews aren't leaving so they need to accept Israel's right to exist.

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Your last point I agree with. Your first makes less sense. Jews are equivalent to Christians in Islamic theology - 'people of the book'. The existence of Christian states does not bother even quite radical Islamists. Therefore the existence of a Jewish state per se would not be a cause for concern. The problem is where that state was established, who had to be displaced for that to happen, and the after-effects in the form of the refugee problem and the occupation. (OK some Islamists maintain that Palestine is part of some sort of Islamic protectorate, but theologically that's pretty dodgy. There's nothing in the Koran about it, for a start).

You also ignore the significant Christian Palestinian community, (Saeb Erekat, Edward Said, Hanan Ashrawi and George Habash being prominent examples) who would seem to disprove the idea that this is a Jew/Muslim religious conflict rather than as I maintain a nationalist one.

Your middle point is the most disingenuous. If the Palestinian Arabs had placidly accepted the UN partition (which would have made them the only people in history to willingly cede 1/2 their territory, but let that pass), the Israel thus created would have had a bare majority of Jews. Even allowing for immigration from Europe and the Middle East, the demographics are very problematic there. Non-Jewish citizens could quickly have become the majority and it's hard to see how you could have a meaningfully Jewish state under those circumstances. Even the current 20% Palestinian minority in Israel is a cause for concern on the Israeli right.

Some degree of ethnic cleansing must therefore have been on the agenda for the founders of Israel right from the word go.


I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

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The war was started by the "Arab neighbors?" Regardless of which one you're thinking of--the 1948 War or the Six-Day War, that is completely false. If YOU want to learn about the roots of the conflict, then you really need to stop going to the places you've been going to.

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Actually you have no clue about the history.

There was no significant US military support for Israel when it was created. The 1948 war was pretty much Jews against Arabs. The massive US aid to Israel only really started in the 1960's.

And about half the population of Israel are Jewish families that were driven out of Arab countries after 1948, so they definitely have roots in the area.

Israel is never going to be destroyed militarily; even raising the issue is unhelpful in the extreme, it just cements intransigent attitudes. There has to be a political solution.


I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

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Just a quick note to the Zionists who seem to think the word Palestine was invented a few decades ago:

Philisteen/ Philistine (which is the word in Arabic) comes from the Philistines who were a peoples that lived in the area before the Hebrews/ Arabs/ etc.

The Philistines pre-date both the Hebrews and the Arabs. So you could easily argue that the area was Philistinian well before any so called Hebrew kingdoms or subsequent Arabization of the area.

So this is a question of belonging to an area, some of the original Philistines became Hebrew then some of them in turn became Arab.

I believe the area there should be called Philisteen, and the citizens can be Arab or Hebrew or whatever ethnicity, and of course whatever religion they want.

Modern-day Israel is a European contruct, built by Europeans for Europeans, it has no place in the Middle-East. The Jews who lived in the Middle East for centuries were all Arabs as well, and it's only since the creation of Israel that they've had to choose to not be Arabs anymore (and yes you can choose to not be Arab cause the Arab ethnicity is based on language).

My solution is one secular nation where people are treated equally (surely even die-hard Zionists can't argue against equality).

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You're absolutely wrong. The Romans named it "Palaestina" (a lingual connection to Phillistine) as an insult to the Jews. There is NO connection between the two people. Read a book.

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"Read a Book"

It all depends who's written the book, doesn't it?

If you look at the real world, instead of some dogmatic ideological construct, you will see that changing your religion to that of the dominant power is not unusual. Egypt is a prime example - the Pharaonic religion and language disappeared entirely after the Romans and later the Arabs arrived, although the Egyptian people remained.

So Oayche's suggestion that the present-day Palestinians can trace an unbroken ancestral line back to the earliest inhabitants of the area is pretty certainly correct. There's a brief history here that's worth reading:-

http://www.mideastweb.org/briefhistory.htm#Geography%20and%20Early%20H istory

(Of course if you were a real hardcore religious Zionist you could argue that by changing their religion, former Jews forfeited their right to live in the Promised Land, but not many people are silly enough to buy that).

However Oayche, while I have a lot of sympathy for the notion of the "secular democratic state", I think you also have to be realistic. European construct or not, Israel now exists as a fait accompli and trying to turn the clock back would just add to the suffering. Neither Palestinians nor Jewish Israelis really want to be integrated into a single state; two states is the only pragmatic solution available. And taken in the abstract it's pretty hard to see why the Jewish nation shouldn't be as entitled to a state of its own as the Palestinian nation, the Egyptians or the Kurds.

I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

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I'd have to disagree with you about the two-state solution being the only pragmatic one. As many scholars have noted in recent years, the "peace process" is dead, and with it is the two-state solution. The implementation of the two-state solution could only happen if Israel accepted it, and its government has consistently shown since '93 that they are just filibustering until the Palestinian problem magically goes away.

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*There was no "significant US military support" for Israel when it was created.
***ha ha

*I did not post to appeal to a Zionist, i could care less that you read my post.


http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&f riendid=31324080

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If you think I'm a Zionist you either haven't read my previous posts or you're an idiot.

What I'm not is an anti-semite. I doubt you can honestly say the same, "jewish girlfriend" or not.


I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

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You realize anti zionist is inherently anti semitic

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well, helterskelter, that partly depends on what you mean by Zionist. There are a number of different ideas about what that word signifies. If you would like to engage in debate on the level of ideas rather than slogans we could take a serious look at that, but of course most people prefer slogans. (Just as a thought experiment, try substituting Romanies, Kurds or Sikhs for Jews in your discourse).

Anyway, since there are plenty of anti-Zionist Jews in the world, I think your statement can be mathemtically disproved. (I don't buy that 'self-hating' crap).


I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

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"Anyway, since there are plenty of anti-Zionist Jews in the world, I think your statement can be mathemtically disproved."

This is totally false. Two types of Jews are anti-Zionists:
1. The "netur'eh karta"--a fanatic sect of hasidic Jews who are the scum of the Earth. There are very few of them, no one likes them, and they hardly make up an even recognizable percentage of Jews. Their opinions are dangerous, idiotic and thus ignored.
2. The far-left "Noam Chomsky Jew" also may be anti-Zionist. These people, however, are completely secular, non-practicing Jews. Hence, their opinions should not be validated solely because they are "Jews". Furthermore, they too comprise a a small minority.

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Israel was founded by secular non-practicing Jews, and the criteria for being allowed to emigrate there are essentially the same ones the Nazis used for deciding who should be classed as Jewish. The rise of right-wing religious Zionism is a relatively recent phenomenon.

While anti-Zionist Jews might well be "a small minority" they exist and thus disprove your contention that anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism. Tony Kushner, writer of "Angels in America" and "Munich" is one example. For others see the link below. Incidentally, Chomsky says he is and has always been a Zionist - the first political organisation he ever joined was Hashomer Hatzair, a left-wing Zionist group in the Martin Buber tradition.

It should also be understood that there is a difference between wanting to defend the existing Jewish state from destruction, supporting the Zionist project from the outset, and believing that Israel has the right to annex the West Bank and Gaza and expel the Arabs. "Zionist" can mean all of those things, which is why the terms Zionist and Anti-Zionist need to be carefully defined before they are of any practical use.

http://www.jfjfp.org/signatories.htm Note this includes a range of opinion; many of these would define themselves as Zionist but still support the Palestinian cause.

I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

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Not to be mistaken, I don't think Israel should annex West bank and Gaza, which should be alotted as a Palestinian State.

Jewish anti-Zionism is present, but represents a very small minority. Chomsky's "Zionism" is basically b*llsh*t. Believing in a one state solution belies the core concept of Zionism--a Jewish state--because a Jewish presence would then be diluted by an overwhelming Palestinian one.

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Chomsky is in fact a strong supporter of the two-states model now, on the grounds that it's the only practical way forward and that pushing a 'one-state' solution is actually condemning the Palestinians to a hopeless struggle. You should really check your facts before commenting.

As an anarchist, he obviously favours a 'no-state' solution in the longer term, but there is a big difference between what people would like as an ideal and what they believe it's sensible to push for in terms of practical politics.

The narrowly defined idea of Zionism as the belief in a Jewish state is based too much on hindsight. The Balfour Declaration spoke of "a Jewish national home in Palestine", which did not necessarily mean a Jewish state, and there were a whole range of opinions about what should happen, from Buber to Jabotinski. You do your own tradition a disservice by reducing it to one strand, I think. Even a cursory glance at Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism demonstrates the complexity on the issue.

Incidentally, very many prominent and succesful Jews were anti-Zionist before Israel was created as they considered it would encourage anti-semitism and work against assimilation elsewhere. Obviously once a Jewish state was created, Jews rallied in its defence, but that's a different matter from being in favour of its creation in the first place.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Zionism#Jewish_anti-Zionism


I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

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Jewish anti-Zionism pre-1948 was largely conceived on the notion that their support would compromise their already fragile status in their respective countries. Ironically, this vulnerability represented the necessity of a Jewish state.

Today, Jewish anti-Zionism is really only present in far right or far left groups.

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Again, if you mean opposition to the existence of Israel, you're correct. That's not necessarily what anti-Zionism means. As I'm sure you're aware, any criticism of Israeli government policy towards the Palestinians, (or even the Likud party line) tends to attract the "anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism" slogan.

Of course the Jewish state wasn't "a necessity". It was a project which happened to come to fruition. Other ethnic groups have been discriminated against - Romanies, Kurds, the Chinese diaspora in Asia. Nation-statehood is not accepted as a necessary solution in any of those cases.

And whether Jews are at more or less risk in the world because of the creation of Israel remains a moot point, it seems to me.


I used to want to change the world. Now I just want to leave the room with a little dignity.

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1. "As I'm sure you're aware, any criticism of Israeli government policy towards the Palestinians, (or even the Likud party line) tends to attract the "anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism" slogan."

That's hardly true. I'm a huge critic of the Israeli government and most of its moronic policies. I think we should have been out of the West Bank and Gaza so long ago.

2. "Of course the Jewish state wasn't "a necessity". It was a project which happened to come to fruition. Other ethnic groups have been discriminated against - Romanies, Kurds, the Chinese diaspora in Asia."

The atrocities done unto those groups do not dimish what was, and is, the absolute right and necessity of a Jewish state. You need to take a look at a timeline of Jewish history--I don't think 5 years went by without some sort of pogrom or expulsion for almost two thousand years.

3. "Nation-statehood is not accepted as a necessary solution in any of those cases."

I'm not saying atrocities committed against Jews is a justification for statehood. The fact that it's a nationality is (although, I guess, that remains a moot point).

4. "And whether Jews are at more or less risk in the world because of the creation of Israel remains a moot point, it seems to me."

Entirely historically innacurate

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Krustallos, in an interview early this year Chomsky stated that he supports one binational state as the solution.

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That's interesting...most Zionist Jews are secular, so by your logic, "their opinions should not be validated."

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