Antizionism is not antisemitism/the current conflict

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's perfectly right and fair to criticize the Netanyahu government and its policies. There is nothing anti-semitic about that. But progressives seem to have adopted a narrative that states that Israel is a brutal western colonist state that violently conquered and displaced a peaceful indigenous people - like the conquistadors in the Americas in the 16th Century. And that's a stupid narrative. The entire Middle East was borne out of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. None of the countries there today are natural, organic nation states.

Prior to 1918, Lebanon didn't exist. Nor did Syria. Or Jordan. Or Iraq. Besides Egypt, every country in the Middle East is a modern construct that derives legitimacy from the United Nations, which drew the lines of the post-colonial world. In addition to Syria, Jordan, Iraq and elsewhere, the UN granted statehood and independence to places called Israel and Palestine. But the Arabs in Palestine chose not to accept their independence and chose war instead. And they and the region have been paying the price ever since for rejecting the post colonial boundaries that were established by the United Nations during a chaotic time when more than a 100 new countries were formed.

It was a stupid decision by Palestinians. The establishment of countries in South Asia - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh - and Africa involved far more movement among peoples than anything in the Middle East. And yet all those countries have been countries for nearly 80 years and life has moved on. But Palestinians are cursed by short-sightedness and misplaced feelings of grievance. Israel exists. It is as legitimate as any country in the Middle East. And Palestinians just make life worse and worse for themselves by their endless bad decisions - from rejecting the UN plan in 1948 to committing those massacres on October 7th. I dislike Netanyahu and the right wing settlers in the West Bank - that is a legitimate thing to sanction Israel for. But I don't question Israel's right to exist, which I guess makes me a Zionist.

The question is, do you think Israel has a right to exist as an undemocratic religious nationalist state?

A country called Israel that provided equal rights to all people, including those interested in obtaining citizenship? Few people have an issue with that. It's not the name of the country, but the premise and policies.

And I disagree with you on South Asia - life has very much not moved on after partition in many, many ways, and you seem to have an ill understanding of the region.

Do you think the 43 other countries that have an official state religion have a right to exist? https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/10/03/many-countries-favor-specific-religions-officially-or-unofficially/.

If not, are you out there openly protesting their existence? No? Only Israel? Hmm curious.

Israel absolutely does provide equal rights to all its people. We’ve been over this. 20% of Israeli citizens (2.1 million people) are non-Jewish Arabs and they enjoy FULL rights under the law. Re: OBTAINING citizenship, you can absolutely become an Israeli citizen if you are not Jewish (compare to many Muslim majority countries where Jews are legally barred from obtaining citizenship). Jews are given preference in immigration matters because Israel was founded as a refuge for Jews, because the rest of the world murdered half of us and kept trying to persecute the rest. All countries have preferences built into their Immigration systems, including the US.

Categorically, this is false. Palestinian citizens are subject to over sixty discriminatory laws, are not allowed to build new cities and the cities that they have are severely underfunded comparatively speaking.

Categorically, you have been brainwashed by propaganda. The “sixty five laws” are listed here in case anyone is interested in clicking through them: https://www.adalah.org/en/law/index. I am absolutely not afraid to post this link because what they are classifying as “discriminatory” is patently ridiculous. These wouldn’t even be considered unconstitutional in the United States.

I clicked on a few random ones, like this one: https://www.adalah.org/en/law/view/610. It’s basically a GI Bill that provides tuition assistance to veterans. The website says that, even though the law says absolutely nothing about Jews/non-jews, it discriminates against Palestinian Israeli citizens because they are exempt from military service. Not banned/prohibited, mind you, EXEMPT. Arab Israelis can and do serve in the IDF.

Here’s a tidbit from another one I happened to click on: “While neutral on its face, in practice the law is used almost exclusively against Palestinians, who make up the overwhelming majority of detainees classified as ‘security’ detainees.” Oh so the law discriminates against those suspected of terrorist activities? Give me a f-ing break.

If you are even going to argue that Palestinian citizens are somehow treated equal to Israeli ones, then it is clear who is brainwashed. Just as a recent example, it was well documented that they were refused entry into bomb shelters during the recent Iran missile strikes.

Next thing from their playbook is to gaslight you into believing there is no apartheid in Israel and no genocide occurring in Gaza.

There is no genocide. Hamas started a war and they are losing it, it’s actually pretty simple. Was the Iraq war a genocide? Because that killed about four times as many Iraqi civilians. That’s not even getting into the fact that the number of Palestinians killed since October 7 (roughly 56,000) is inclusive of civilians AND militants. Hamas does not distinguish between the two.

And...there it is. You're a loon. We can all see very well what has and is happening. We've seen the dead babies, the starving children. They are TARGETING civilians. It's Israel that fails to distinguish between the two. Either you know that, and you're a liar, or you're fully brainwashed and talking to you is a waste of breath.

I am not disputing that all of that is absolutely tragic. War is extremely ugly. Innocents always suffer, including innocent children. That doesn’t make it a genocide though. I haven’t seen any credible reports that definitively establish that Israel is deliberately targeting civilians. It is CERTAINLY not their stated goal.

Let me ask you, though - if you believe Israel is committing genocide because it intentionally targets civilians, do you also believe October 7 was genocide? Why or why not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's perfectly right and fair to criticize the Netanyahu government and its policies. There is nothing anti-semitic about that. But progressives seem to have adopted a narrative that states that Israel is a brutal western colonist state that violently conquered and displaced a peaceful indigenous people - like the conquistadors in the Americas in the 16th Century. And that's a stupid narrative. The entire Middle East was borne out of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. None of the countries there today are natural, organic nation states.

Prior to 1918, Lebanon didn't exist. Nor did Syria. Or Jordan. Or Iraq. Besides Egypt, every country in the Middle East is a modern construct that derives legitimacy from the United Nations, which drew the lines of the post-colonial world. In addition to Syria, Jordan, Iraq and elsewhere, the UN granted statehood and independence to places called Israel and Palestine. But the Arabs in Palestine chose not to accept their independence and chose war instead. And they and the region have been paying the price ever since for rejecting the post colonial boundaries that were established by the United Nations during a chaotic time when more than a 100 new countries were formed.

It was a stupid decision by Palestinians. The establishment of countries in South Asia - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh - and Africa involved far more movement among peoples than anything in the Middle East. And yet all those countries have been countries for nearly 80 years and life has moved on. But Palestinians are cursed by short-sightedness and misplaced feelings of grievance. Israel exists. It is as legitimate as any country in the Middle East. And Palestinians just make life worse and worse for themselves by their endless bad decisions - from rejecting the UN plan in 1948 to committing those massacres on October 7th. I dislike Netanyahu and the right wing settlers in the West Bank - that is a legitimate thing to sanction Israel for. But I don't question Israel's right to exist, which I guess makes me a Zionist.

The question is, do you think Israel has a right to exist as an undemocratic religious nationalist state?

A country called Israel that provided equal rights to all people, including those interested in obtaining citizenship? Few people have an issue with that. It's not the name of the country, but the premise and policies.

And I disagree with you on South Asia - life has very much not moved on after partition in many, many ways, and you seem to have an ill understanding of the region.

Do you think the 43 other countries that have an official state religion have a right to exist? https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/10/03/many-countries-favor-specific-religions-officially-or-unofficially/.

If not, are you out there openly protesting their existence? No? Only Israel? Hmm curious.

Israel absolutely does provide equal rights to all its people. We’ve been over this. 20% of Israeli citizens (2.1 million people) are non-Jewish Arabs and they enjoy FULL rights under the law. Re: OBTAINING citizenship, you can absolutely become an Israeli citizen if you are not Jewish (compare to many Muslim majority countries where Jews are legally barred from obtaining citizenship). Jews are given preference in immigration matters because Israel was founded as a refuge for Jews, because the rest of the world murdered half of us and kept trying to persecute the rest. All countries have preferences built into their Immigration systems, including the US.

Categorically, this is false. Palestinian citizens are subject to over sixty discriminatory laws, are not allowed to build new cities and the cities that they have are severely underfunded comparatively speaking.

Categorically, you have been brainwashed by propaganda. The “sixty five laws” are listed here in case anyone is interested in clicking through them: https://www.adalah.org/en/law/index. I am absolutely not afraid to post this link because what they are classifying as “discriminatory” is patently ridiculous. These wouldn’t even be considered unconstitutional in the United States.

I clicked on a few random ones, like this one: https://www.adalah.org/en/law/view/610. It’s basically a GI Bill that provides tuition assistance to veterans. The website says that, even though the law says absolutely nothing about Jews/non-jews, it discriminates against Palestinian Israeli citizens because they are exempt from military service. Not banned/prohibited, mind you, EXEMPT. Arab Israelis can and do serve in the IDF.

Here’s a tidbit from another one I happened to click on: “While neutral on its face, in practice the law is used almost exclusively against Palestinians, who make up the overwhelming majority of detainees classified as ‘security’ detainees.” Oh so the law discriminates against those suspected of terrorist activities? Give me a f-ing break.

If you are even going to argue that Palestinian citizens are somehow treated equal to Israeli ones, then it is clear who is brainwashed. Just as a recent example, it was well documented that they were refused entry into bomb shelters during the recent Iran missile strikes.

Next thing from their playbook is to gaslight you into believing there is no apartheid in Israel and no genocide occurring in Gaza.

There is no genocide. Hamas started a war and they are losing it, it’s actually pretty simple. Was the Iraq war a genocide? Because that killed about four times as many Iraqi civilians. That’s not even getting into the fact that the number of Palestinians killed since October 7 (roughly 56,000) is inclusive of civilians AND militants. Hamas does not distinguish between the two.

And...there it is. You're a loon. We can all see very well what has and is happening. We've seen the dead babies, the starving children. They are TARGETING civilians. It's Israel that fails to distinguish between the two. Either you know that, and you're a liar, or you're fully brainwashed and talking to you is a waste of breath.

I am not disputing that all of that is absolutely tragic. War is extremely ugly. Innocents always suffer, including innocent children. That doesn’t make it a genocide though. I haven’t seen any credible reports that definitively establish that Israel is deliberately targeting civilians. It is CERTAINLY not their stated goal.

Let me ask you, though - if you believe Israel is committing genocide because it intentionally targets civilians, do you also believe October 7 was genocide? Why or why not?

Ultimately this will never end, the fighting will never cease because both sides seem to be extremely vindictive, paranoid, backwards and self obsessed.
“They started it so we have to decimate them, we were here first, no we were, God told us this land belongs to us, no this land belonged to all of us, on and on, on and on, for eternity. The meshaich or allah or whatever is never coming. Evolve people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's perfectly right and fair to criticize the Netanyahu government and its policies. There is nothing anti-semitic about that. But progressives seem to have adopted a narrative that states that Israel is a brutal western colonist state that violently conquered and displaced a peaceful indigenous people - like the conquistadors in the Americas in the 16th Century. And that's a stupid narrative. The entire Middle East was borne out of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. None of the countries there today are natural, organic nation states.

Prior to 1918, Lebanon didn't exist. Nor did Syria. Or Jordan. Or Iraq. Besides Egypt, every country in the Middle East is a modern construct that derives legitimacy from the United Nations, which drew the lines of the post-colonial world. In addition to Syria, Jordan, Iraq and elsewhere, the UN granted statehood and independence to places called Israel and Palestine. But the Arabs in Palestine chose not to accept their independence and chose war instead. And they and the region have been paying the price ever since for rejecting the post colonial boundaries that were established by the United Nations during a chaotic time when more than a 100 new countries were formed.

It was a stupid decision by Palestinians. The establishment of countries in South Asia - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh - and Africa involved far more movement among peoples than anything in the Middle East. And yet all those countries have been countries for nearly 80 years and life has moved on. But Palestinians are cursed by short-sightedness and misplaced feelings of grievance. Israel exists. It is as legitimate as any country in the Middle East. And Palestinians just make life worse and worse for themselves by their endless bad decisions - from rejecting the UN plan in 1948 to committing those massacres on October 7th. I dislike Netanyahu and the right wing settlers in the West Bank - that is a legitimate thing to sanction Israel for. But I don't question Israel's right to exist, which I guess makes me a Zionist.

The question is, do you think Israel has a right to exist as an undemocratic religious nationalist state?

A country called Israel that provided equal rights to all people, including those interested in obtaining citizenship? Few people have an issue with that. It's not the name of the country, but the premise and policies.

And I disagree with you on South Asia - life has very much not moved on after partition in many, many ways, and you seem to have an ill understanding of the region.

Do you think the 43 other countries that have an official state religion have a right to exist? https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/10/03/many-countries-favor-specific-religions-officially-or-unofficially/.

If not, are you out there openly protesting their existence? No? Only Israel? Hmm curious.

Israel absolutely does provide equal rights to all its people. We’ve been over this. 20% of Israeli citizens (2.1 million people) are non-Jewish Arabs and they enjoy FULL rights under the law. Re: OBTAINING citizenship, you can absolutely become an Israeli citizen if you are not Jewish (compare to many Muslim majority countries where Jews are legally barred from obtaining citizenship). Jews are given preference in immigration matters because Israel was founded as a refuge for Jews, because the rest of the world murdered half of us and kept trying to persecute the rest. All countries have preferences built into their Immigration systems, including the US.

Categorically, this is false. Palestinian citizens are subject to over sixty discriminatory laws, are not allowed to build new cities and the cities that they have are severely underfunded comparatively speaking.

Categorically, you have been brainwashed by propaganda. The “sixty five laws” are listed here in case anyone is interested in clicking through them: https://www.adalah.org/en/law/index. I am absolutely not afraid to post this link because what they are classifying as “discriminatory” is patently ridiculous. These wouldn’t even be considered unconstitutional in the United States.

I clicked on a few random ones, like this one: https://www.adalah.org/en/law/view/610. It’s basically a GI Bill that provides tuition assistance to veterans. The website says that, even though the law says absolutely nothing about Jews/non-jews, it discriminates against Palestinian Israeli citizens because they are exempt from military service. Not banned/prohibited, mind you, EXEMPT. Arab Israelis can and do serve in the IDF.

Here’s a tidbit from another one I happened to click on: “While neutral on its face, in practice the law is used almost exclusively against Palestinians, who make up the overwhelming majority of detainees classified as ‘security’ detainees.” Oh so the law discriminates against those suspected of terrorist activities? Give me a f-ing break.

If you are even going to argue that Palestinian citizens are somehow treated equal to Israeli ones, then it is clear who is brainwashed. Just as a recent example, it was well documented that they were refused entry into bomb shelters during the recent Iran missile strikes.

Next thing from their playbook is to gaslight you into believing there is no apartheid in Israel and no genocide occurring in Gaza.

There is no genocide. Hamas started a war and they are losing it, it’s actually pretty simple. Was the Iraq war a genocide? Because that killed about four times as many Iraqi civilians. That’s not even getting into the fact that the number of Palestinians killed since October 7 (roughly 56,000) is inclusive of civilians AND militants. Hamas does not distinguish between the two.

And...there it is. You're a loon. We can all see very well what has and is happening. We've seen the dead babies, the starving children. They are TARGETING civilians. It's Israel that fails to distinguish between the two. Either you know that, and you're a liar, or you're fully brainwashed and talking to you is a waste of breath.

I am not disputing that all of that is absolutely tragic. War is extremely ugly. Innocents always suffer, including innocent children. That doesn’t make it a genocide though. I haven’t seen any credible reports that definitively establish that Israel is deliberately targeting civilians. It is CERTAINLY not their stated goal.

Let me ask you, though - if you believe Israel is committing genocide because it intentionally targets civilians, do you also believe October 7 was genocide? Why or why not?

Ultimately this will never end, the fighting will never cease because both sides seem to be extremely vindictive, paranoid, backwards and self obsessed.
“They started it so we have to decimate them, we were here first, no we were, God told us this land belongs to us, no this land belonged to all of us, on and on, on and on, for eternity. The meshaich or allah or whatever is never coming. Evolve people.

This +100.

I do have an issue with the belief that "God told us this land belongs to us" being the reasoning behind the establishment of Israel. That should never have been acceptable. But alas....as has been said many times...that ship has sailed.
But I agree that this will never end, the fighting will never cease.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's perfectly right and fair to criticize the Netanyahu government and its policies. There is nothing anti-semitic about that. But progressives seem to have adopted a narrative that states that Israel is a brutal western colonist state that violently conquered and displaced a peaceful indigenous people - like the conquistadors in the Americas in the 16th Century. And that's a stupid narrative. The entire Middle East was borne out of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. None of the countries there today are natural, organic nation states.

Prior to 1918, Lebanon didn't exist. Nor did Syria. Or Jordan. Or Iraq. Besides Egypt, every country in the Middle East is a modern construct that derives legitimacy from the United Nations, which drew the lines of the post-colonial world. In addition to Syria, Jordan, Iraq and elsewhere, the UN granted statehood and independence to places called Israel and Palestine. But the Arabs in Palestine chose not to accept their independence and chose war instead. And they and the region have been paying the price ever since for rejecting the post colonial boundaries that were established by the United Nations during a chaotic time when more than a 100 new countries were formed.

It was a stupid decision by Palestinians. The establishment of countries in South Asia - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh - and Africa involved far more movement among peoples than anything in the Middle East. And yet all those countries have been countries for nearly 80 years and life has moved on. But Palestinians are cursed by short-sightedness and misplaced feelings of grievance. Israel exists. It is as legitimate as any country in the Middle East. And Palestinians just make life worse and worse for themselves by their endless bad decisions - from rejecting the UN plan in 1948 to committing those massacres on October 7th. I dislike Netanyahu and the right wing settlers in the West Bank - that is a legitimate thing to sanction Israel for. But I don't question Israel's right to exist, which I guess makes me a Zionist.

The question is, do you think Israel has a right to exist as an undemocratic religious nationalist state?

A country called Israel that provided equal rights to all people, including those interested in obtaining citizenship? Few people have an issue with that. It's not the name of the country, but the premise and policies.

And I disagree with you on South Asia - life has very much not moved on after partition in many, many ways, and you seem to have an ill understanding of the region.

Do you think the 43 other countries that have an official state religion have a right to exist? https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/10/03/many-countries-favor-specific-religions-officially-or-unofficially/.

If not, are you out there openly protesting their existence? No? Only Israel? Hmm curious.

Israel absolutely does provide equal rights to all its people. We’ve been over this. 20% of Israeli citizens (2.1 million people) are non-Jewish Arabs and they enjoy FULL rights under the law. Re: OBTAINING citizenship, you can absolutely become an Israeli citizen if you are not Jewish (compare to many Muslim majority countries where Jews are legally barred from obtaining citizenship). Jews are given preference in immigration matters because Israel was founded as a refuge for Jews, because the rest of the world murdered half of us and kept trying to persecute the rest. All countries have preferences built into their Immigration systems, including the US.

Categorically, this is false. Palestinian citizens are subject to over sixty discriminatory laws, are not allowed to build new cities and the cities that they have are severely underfunded comparatively speaking.

Categorically, you have been brainwashed by propaganda. The “sixty five laws” are listed here in case anyone is interested in clicking through them: https://www.adalah.org/en/law/index. I am absolutely not afraid to post this link because what they are classifying as “discriminatory” is patently ridiculous. These wouldn’t even be considered unconstitutional in the United States.

I clicked on a few random ones, like this one: https://www.adalah.org/en/law/view/610. It’s basically a GI Bill that provides tuition assistance to veterans. The website says that, even though the law says absolutely nothing about Jews/non-jews, it discriminates against Palestinian Israeli citizens because they are exempt from military service. Not banned/prohibited, mind you, EXEMPT. Arab Israelis can and do serve in the IDF.

Here’s a tidbit from another one I happened to click on: “While neutral on its face, in practice the law is used almost exclusively against Palestinians, who make up the overwhelming majority of detainees classified as ‘security’ detainees.” Oh so the law discriminates against those suspected of terrorist activities? Give me a f-ing break.

If you are even going to argue that Palestinian citizens are somehow treated equal to Israeli ones, then it is clear who is brainwashed. Just as a recent example, it was well documented that they were refused entry into bomb shelters during the recent Iran missile strikes.

Next thing from their playbook is to gaslight you into believing there is no apartheid in Israel and no genocide occurring in Gaza.

There is no genocide. Hamas started a war and they are losing it, it’s actually pretty simple. Was the Iraq war a genocide? Because that killed about four times as many Iraqi civilians. That’s not even getting into the fact that the number of Palestinians killed since October 7 (roughly 56,000) is inclusive of civilians AND militants. Hamas does not distinguish between the two.

And...there it is. You're a loon. We can all see very well what has and is happening. We've seen the dead babies, the starving children. They are TARGETING civilians. It's Israel that fails to distinguish between the two. Either you know that, and you're a liar, or you're fully brainwashed and talking to you is a waste of breath.

I am not disputing that all of that is absolutely tragic. War is extremely ugly. Innocents always suffer, including innocent children. That doesn’t make it a genocide though. I haven’t seen any credible reports that definitively establish that Israel is deliberately targeting civilians. It is CERTAINLY not their stated goal.

Let me ask you, though - if you believe Israel is committing genocide because it intentionally targets civilians, do you also believe October 7 was genocide? Why or why not?

There could be an entirely new thread on war versus genocide.....
https://ca.cair.com/updates/know-the-difference-war-vs-genocide-2/

But IMHO the lines have already blurred into genocide. Genocide is certain acts that are committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's perfectly right and fair to criticize the Netanyahu government and its policies. There is nothing anti-semitic about that. But progressives seem to have adopted a narrative that states that Israel is a brutal western colonist state that violently conquered and displaced a peaceful indigenous people - like the conquistadors in the Americas in the 16th Century. And that's a stupid narrative. The entire Middle East was borne out of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. None of the countries there today are natural, organic nation states.

Prior to 1918, Lebanon didn't exist. Nor did Syria. Or Jordan. Or Iraq. Besides Egypt, every country in the Middle East is a modern construct that derives legitimacy from the United Nations, which drew the lines of the post-colonial world. In addition to Syria, Jordan, Iraq and elsewhere, the UN granted statehood and independence to places called Israel and Palestine. But the Arabs in Palestine chose not to accept their independence and chose war instead. And they and the region have been paying the price ever since for rejecting the post colonial boundaries that were established by the United Nations during a chaotic time when more than a 100 new countries were formed.

It was a stupid decision by Palestinians. The establishment of countries in South Asia - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh - and Africa involved far more movement among peoples than anything in the Middle East. And yet all those countries have been countries for nearly 80 years and life has moved on. But Palestinians are cursed by short-sightedness and misplaced feelings of grievance. Israel exists. It is as legitimate as any country in the Middle East. And Palestinians just make life worse and worse for themselves by their endless bad decisions - from rejecting the UN plan in 1948 to committing those massacres on October 7th. I dislike Netanyahu and the right wing settlers in the West Bank - that is a legitimate thing to sanction Israel for. But I don't question Israel's right to exist, which I guess makes me a Zionist.

The question is, do you think Israel has a right to exist as an undemocratic religious nationalist state?

A country called Israel that provided equal rights to all people, including those interested in obtaining citizenship? Few people have an issue with that. It's not the name of the country, but the premise and policies.

And I disagree with you on South Asia - life has very much not moved on after partition in many, many ways, and you seem to have an ill understanding of the region.

Do you think the 43 other countries that have an official state religion have a right to exist? https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/10/03/many-countries-favor-specific-religions-officially-or-unofficially/.

If not, are you out there openly protesting their existence? No? Only Israel? Hmm curious.

Israel absolutely does provide equal rights to all its people. We’ve been over this. 20% of Israeli citizens (2.1 million people) are non-Jewish Arabs and they enjoy FULL rights under the law. Re: OBTAINING citizenship, you can absolutely become an Israeli citizen if you are not Jewish (compare to many Muslim majority countries where Jews are legally barred from obtaining citizenship). Jews are given preference in immigration matters because Israel was founded as a refuge for Jews, because the rest of the world murdered half of us and kept trying to persecute the rest. All countries have preferences built into their Immigration systems, including the US.

Categorically, this is false. Palestinian citizens are subject to over sixty discriminatory laws, are not allowed to build new cities and the cities that they have are severely underfunded comparatively speaking.

Categorically, you have been brainwashed by propaganda. The “sixty five laws” are listed here in case anyone is interested in clicking through them: https://www.adalah.org/en/law/index. I am absolutely not afraid to post this link because what they are classifying as “discriminatory” is patently ridiculous. These wouldn’t even be considered unconstitutional in the United States.

I clicked on a few random ones, like this one: https://www.adalah.org/en/law/view/610. It’s basically a GI Bill that provides tuition assistance to veterans. The website says that, even though the law says absolutely nothing about Jews/non-jews, it discriminates against Palestinian Israeli citizens because they are exempt from military service. Not banned/prohibited, mind you, EXEMPT. Arab Israelis can and do serve in the IDF.

Here’s a tidbit from another one I happened to click on: “While neutral on its face, in practice the law is used almost exclusively against Palestinians, who make up the overwhelming majority of detainees classified as ‘security’ detainees.” Oh so the law discriminates against those suspected of terrorist activities? Give me a f-ing break.

If you are even going to argue that Palestinian citizens are somehow treated equal to Israeli ones, then it is clear who is brainwashed. Just as a recent example, it was well documented that they were refused entry into bomb shelters during the recent Iran missile strikes.

Next thing from their playbook is to gaslight you into believing there is no apartheid in Israel and no genocide occurring in Gaza.

There is no genocide. Hamas started a war and they are losing it, it’s actually pretty simple. Was the Iraq war a genocide? Because that killed about four times as many Iraqi civilians. That’s not even getting into the fact that the number of Palestinians killed since October 7 (roughly 56,000) is inclusive of civilians AND militants. Hamas does not distinguish between the two.

And...there it is. You're a loon. We can all see very well what has and is happening. We've seen the dead babies, the starving children. They are TARGETING civilians. It's Israel that fails to distinguish between the two. Either you know that, and you're a liar, or you're fully brainwashed and talking to you is a waste of breath.

I am not disputing that all of that is absolutely tragic. War is extremely ugly. Innocents always suffer, including innocent children. That doesn’t make it a genocide though. I haven’t seen any credible reports that definitively establish that Israel is deliberately targeting civilians. It is CERTAINLY not their stated goal.

Let me ask you, though - if you believe Israel is committing genocide because it intentionally targets civilians, do you also believe October 7 was genocide? Why or why not?

There could be an entirely new thread on war versus genocide.....
https://ca.cair.com/updates/know-the-difference-war-vs-genocide-2/

But IMHO the lines have already blurred into genocide. Genocide is certain acts that are committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

I think the powers that be (the UN) must address both problem children. Israel should recede back to its original borders and give up all occupied land. The UN should take over and govern non-Israeli land as a Palestinian province or something like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's perfectly right and fair to criticize the Netanyahu government and its policies. There is nothing anti-semitic about that. But progressives seem to have adopted a narrative that states that Israel is a brutal western colonist state that violently conquered and displaced a peaceful indigenous people - like the conquistadors in the Americas in the 16th Century. And that's a stupid narrative. The entire Middle East was borne out of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. None of the countries there today are natural, organic nation states.

Prior to 1918, Lebanon didn't exist. Nor did Syria. Or Jordan. Or Iraq. Besides Egypt, every country in the Middle East is a modern construct that derives legitimacy from the United Nations, which drew the lines of the post-colonial world. In addition to Syria, Jordan, Iraq and elsewhere, the UN granted statehood and independence to places called Israel and Palestine. But the Arabs in Palestine chose not to accept their independence and chose war instead. And they and the region have been paying the price ever since for rejecting the post colonial boundaries that were established by the United Nations during a chaotic time when more than a 100 new countries were formed.

It was a stupid decision by Palestinians. The establishment of countries in South Asia - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh - and Africa involved far more movement among peoples than anything in the Middle East. And yet all those countries have been countries for nearly 80 years and life has moved on. But Palestinians are cursed by short-sightedness and misplaced feelings of grievance. Israel exists. It is as legitimate as any country in the Middle East. And Palestinians just make life worse and worse for themselves by their endless bad decisions - from rejecting the UN plan in 1948 to committing those massacres on October 7th. I dislike Netanyahu and the right wing settlers in the West Bank - that is a legitimate thing to sanction Israel for. But I don't question Israel's right to exist, which I guess makes me a Zionist.

The question is, do you think Israel has a right to exist as an undemocratic religious nationalist state?

A country called Israel that provided equal rights to all people, including those interested in obtaining citizenship? Few people have an issue with that. It's not the name of the country, but the premise and policies.

And I disagree with you on South Asia - life has very much not moved on after partition in many, many ways, and you seem to have an ill understanding of the region.

Do you think the 43 other countries that have an official state religion have a right to exist? https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/10/03/many-countries-favor-specific-religions-officially-or-unofficially/.

If not, are you out there openly protesting their existence? No? Only Israel? Hmm curious.

Israel absolutely does provide equal rights to all its people. We’ve been over this. 20% of Israeli citizens (2.1 million people) are non-Jewish Arabs and they enjoy FULL rights under the law. Re: OBTAINING citizenship, you can absolutely become an Israeli citizen if you are not Jewish (compare to many Muslim majority countries where Jews are legally barred from obtaining citizenship). Jews are given preference in immigration matters because Israel was founded as a refuge for Jews, because the rest of the world murdered half of us and kept trying to persecute the rest. All countries have preferences built into their Immigration systems, including the US.

Categorically, this is false. Palestinian citizens are subject to over sixty discriminatory laws, are not allowed to build new cities and the cities that they have are severely underfunded comparatively speaking.

Categorically, you have been brainwashed by propaganda. The “sixty five laws” are listed here in case anyone is interested in clicking through them: https://www.adalah.org/en/law/index. I am absolutely not afraid to post this link because what they are classifying as “discriminatory” is patently ridiculous. These wouldn’t even be considered unconstitutional in the United States.

I clicked on a few random ones, like this one: https://www.adalah.org/en/law/view/610. It’s basically a GI Bill that provides tuition assistance to veterans. The website says that, even though the law says absolutely nothing about Jews/non-jews, it discriminates against Palestinian Israeli citizens because they are exempt from military service. Not banned/prohibited, mind you, EXEMPT. Arab Israelis can and do serve in the IDF.

Here’s a tidbit from another one I happened to click on: “While neutral on its face, in practice the law is used almost exclusively against Palestinians, who make up the overwhelming majority of detainees classified as ‘security’ detainees.” Oh so the law discriminates against those suspected of terrorist activities? Give me a f-ing break.

If you are even going to argue that Palestinian citizens are somehow treated equal to Israeli ones, then it is clear who is brainwashed. Just as a recent example, it was well documented that they were refused entry into bomb shelters during the recent Iran missile strikes.

Next thing from their playbook is to gaslight you into believing there is no apartheid in Israel and no genocide occurring in Gaza.

There is no genocide. Hamas started a war and they are losing it, it’s actually pretty simple. Was the Iraq war a genocide? Because that killed about four times as many Iraqi civilians. That’s not even getting into the fact that the number of Palestinians killed since October 7 (roughly 56,000) is inclusive of civilians AND militants. Hamas does not distinguish between the two.

And...there it is. You're a loon. We can all see very well what has and is happening. We've seen the dead babies, the starving children. They are TARGETING civilians. It's Israel that fails to distinguish between the two. Either you know that, and you're a liar, or you're fully brainwashed and talking to you is a waste of breath.

I am not disputing that all of that is absolutely tragic. War is extremely ugly. Innocents always suffer, including innocent children. That doesn’t make it a genocide though. I haven’t seen any credible reports that definitively establish that Israel is deliberately targeting civilians. It is CERTAINLY not their stated goal.

Let me ask you, though - if you believe Israel is committing genocide because it intentionally targets civilians, do you also believe October 7 was genocide? Why or why not?

There could be an entirely new thread on war versus genocide.....
https://ca.cair.com/updates/know-the-difference-war-vs-genocide-2/

But IMHO the lines have already blurred into genocide. Genocide is certain acts that are committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

Not blurred - there's a general consensus amongst reputable genocide and holocaust researchers that this is a genocide in addition to the prolific number of international organizations that agree it is a genocide.

The only people you'll hear denying genocide are those who don't know the definition of genocide or pro-Israel/Zionists who try to gaslight you to justify their war crimes.

Personally, I'd rather trust the opinion of scholars who actually study and do research in the field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's perfectly right and fair to criticize the Netanyahu government and its policies. There is nothing anti-semitic about that. But progressives seem to have adopted a narrative that states that Israel is a brutal western colonist state that violently conquered and displaced a peaceful indigenous people - like the conquistadors in the Americas in the 16th Century. And that's a stupid narrative. The entire Middle East was borne out of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. None of the countries there today are natural, organic nation states.

Prior to 1918, Lebanon didn't exist. Nor did Syria. Or Jordan. Or Iraq. Besides Egypt, every country in the Middle East is a modern construct that derives legitimacy from the United Nations, which drew the lines of the post-colonial world. In addition to Syria, Jordan, Iraq and elsewhere, the UN granted statehood and independence to places called Israel and Palestine. But the Arabs in Palestine chose not to accept their independence and chose war instead. And they and the region have been paying the price ever since for rejecting the post colonial boundaries that were established by the United Nations during a chaotic time when more than a 100 new countries were formed.

It was a stupid decision by Palestinians. The establishment of countries in South Asia - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh - and Africa involved far more movement among peoples than anything in the Middle East. And yet all those countries have been countries for nearly 80 years and life has moved on. But Palestinians are cursed by short-sightedness and misplaced feelings of grievance. Israel exists. It is as legitimate as any country in the Middle East. And Palestinians just make life worse and worse for themselves by their endless bad decisions - from rejecting the UN plan in 1948 to committing those massacres on October 7th. I dislike Netanyahu and the right wing settlers in the West Bank - that is a legitimate thing to sanction Israel for. But I don't question Israel's right to exist, which I guess makes me a Zionist.

The question is, do you think Israel has a right to exist as an undemocratic religious nationalist state?

A country called Israel that provided equal rights to all people, including those interested in obtaining citizenship? Few people have an issue with that. It's not the name of the country, but the premise and policies.

And I disagree with you on South Asia - life has very much not moved on after partition in many, many ways, and you seem to have an ill understanding of the region.

Do you think the 43 other countries that have an official state religion have a right to exist? https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/10/03/many-countries-favor-specific-religions-officially-or-unofficially/.

If not, are you out there openly protesting their existence? No? Only Israel? Hmm curious.

Israel absolutely does provide equal rights to all its people. We’ve been over this. 20% of Israeli citizens (2.1 million people) are non-Jewish Arabs and they enjoy FULL rights under the law. Re: OBTAINING citizenship, you can absolutely become an Israeli citizen if you are not Jewish (compare to many Muslim majority countries where Jews are legally barred from obtaining citizenship). Jews are given preference in immigration matters because Israel was founded as a refuge for Jews, because the rest of the world murdered half of us and kept trying to persecute the rest. All countries have preferences built into their Immigration systems, including the US.

Categorically, this is false. Palestinian citizens are subject to over sixty discriminatory laws, are not allowed to build new cities and the cities that they have are severely underfunded comparatively speaking.

Categorically, you have been brainwashed by propaganda. The “sixty five laws” are listed here in case anyone is interested in clicking through them: https://www.adalah.org/en/law/index. I am absolutely not afraid to post this link because what they are classifying as “discriminatory” is patently ridiculous. These wouldn’t even be considered unconstitutional in the United States.

I clicked on a few random ones, like this one: https://www.adalah.org/en/law/view/610. It’s basically a GI Bill that provides tuition assistance to veterans. The website says that, even though the law says absolutely nothing about Jews/non-jews, it discriminates against Palestinian Israeli citizens because they are exempt from military service. Not banned/prohibited, mind you, EXEMPT. Arab Israelis can and do serve in the IDF.

Here’s a tidbit from another one I happened to click on: “While neutral on its face, in practice the law is used almost exclusively against Palestinians, who make up the overwhelming majority of detainees classified as ‘security’ detainees.” Oh so the law discriminates against those suspected of terrorist activities? Give me a f-ing break.

If you are even going to argue that Palestinian citizens are somehow treated equal to Israeli ones, then it is clear who is brainwashed. Just as a recent example, it was well documented that they were refused entry into bomb shelters during the recent Iran missile strikes.

Next thing from their playbook is to gaslight you into believing there is no apartheid in Israel and no genocide occurring in Gaza.

There is no genocide. Hamas started a war and they are losing it, it’s actually pretty simple. Was the Iraq war a genocide? Because that killed about four times as many Iraqi civilians. That’s not even getting into the fact that the number of Palestinians killed since October 7 (roughly 56,000) is inclusive of civilians AND militants. Hamas does not distinguish between the two.

And...there it is. You're a loon. We can all see very well what has and is happening. We've seen the dead babies, the starving children. They are TARGETING civilians. It's Israel that fails to distinguish between the two. Either you know that, and you're a liar, or you're fully brainwashed and talking to you is a waste of breath.

I am not disputing that all of that is absolutely tragic. War is extremely ugly. Innocents always suffer, including innocent children. That doesn’t make it a genocide though. I haven’t seen any credible reports that definitively establish that Israel is deliberately targeting civilians. It is CERTAINLY not their stated goal.

Let me ask you, though - if you believe Israel is committing genocide because it intentionally targets civilians, do you also believe October 7 was genocide? Why or why not?

No, I don’t. Scale, for one. Effectiveness, for another. A one day attack, albeit with hostages, compared to a sustained multi-year campaign with tens of thousands of civilian deaths, with leaders of this campaign saying it will not stop until this nebulous goal of eradicating Hamas (which they make no effort to distinguish from civilian Palestinian citizens) is achieved. Acting like they are remotely the same is why people with your viewpoint are not to be taken seriously.

If what's happening in Palestine doesn't qualify as a genocide, what would qualify as a genocide? Many experts who study genocide have in fact said it does meet the definition. Why do you continue to deny it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's perfectly right and fair to criticize the Netanyahu government and its policies. There is nothing anti-semitic about that. But progressives seem to have adopted a narrative that states that Israel is a brutal western colonist state that violently conquered and displaced a peaceful indigenous people - like the conquistadors in the Americas in the 16th Century. And that's a stupid narrative. The entire Middle East was borne out of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. None of the countries there today are natural, organic nation states.

Prior to 1918, Lebanon didn't exist. Nor did Syria. Or Jordan. Or Iraq. Besides Egypt, every country in the Middle East is a modern construct that derives legitimacy from the United Nations, which drew the lines of the post-colonial world. In addition to Syria, Jordan, Iraq and elsewhere, the UN granted statehood and independence to places called Israel and Palestine. But the Arabs in Palestine chose not to accept their independence and chose war instead. And they and the region have been paying the price ever since for rejecting the post colonial boundaries that were established by the United Nations during a chaotic time when more than a 100 new countries were formed.

It was a stupid decision by Palestinians. The establishment of countries in South Asia - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh - and Africa involved far more movement among peoples than anything in the Middle East. And yet all those countries have been countries for nearly 80 years and life has moved on. But Palestinians are cursed by short-sightedness and misplaced feelings of grievance. Israel exists. It is as legitimate as any country in the Middle East. And Palestinians just make life worse and worse for themselves by their endless bad decisions - from rejecting the UN plan in 1948 to committing those massacres on October 7th. I dislike Netanyahu and the right wing settlers in the West Bank - that is a legitimate thing to sanction Israel for. But I don't question Israel's right to exist, which I guess makes me a Zionist.

The question is, do you think Israel has a right to exist as an undemocratic religious nationalist state?

A country called Israel that provided equal rights to all people, including those interested in obtaining citizenship? Few people have an issue with that. It's not the name of the country, but the premise and policies.

And I disagree with you on South Asia - life has very much not moved on after partition in many, many ways, and you seem to have an ill understanding of the region.

Do you think the 43 other countries that have an official state religion have a right to exist? https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/10/03/many-countries-favor-specific-religions-officially-or-unofficially/.

If not, are you out there openly protesting their existence? No? Only Israel? Hmm curious.

Israel absolutely does provide equal rights to all its people. We’ve been over this. 20% of Israeli citizens (2.1 million people) are non-Jewish Arabs and they enjoy FULL rights under the law. Re: OBTAINING citizenship, you can absolutely become an Israeli citizen if you are not Jewish (compare to many Muslim majority countries where Jews are legally barred from obtaining citizenship). Jews are given preference in immigration matters because Israel was founded as a refuge for Jews, because the rest of the world murdered half of us and kept trying to persecute the rest. All countries have preferences built into their Immigration systems, including the US.

Categorically, this is false. Palestinian citizens are subject to over sixty discriminatory laws, are not allowed to build new cities and the cities that they have are severely underfunded comparatively speaking.

Categorically, you have been brainwashed by propaganda. The “sixty five laws” are listed here in case anyone is interested in clicking through them: https://www.adalah.org/en/law/index. I am absolutely not afraid to post this link because what they are classifying as “discriminatory” is patently ridiculous. These wouldn’t even be considered unconstitutional in the United States.

I clicked on a few random ones, like this one: https://www.adalah.org/en/law/view/610. It’s basically a GI Bill that provides tuition assistance to veterans. The website says that, even though the law says absolutely nothing about Jews/non-jews, it discriminates against Palestinian Israeli citizens because they are exempt from military service. Not banned/prohibited, mind you, EXEMPT. Arab Israelis can and do serve in the IDF.

Here’s a tidbit from another one I happened to click on: “While neutral on its face, in practice the law is used almost exclusively against Palestinians, who make up the overwhelming majority of detainees classified as ‘security’ detainees.” Oh so the law discriminates against those suspected of terrorist activities? Give me a f-ing break.

If you are even going to argue that Palestinian citizens are somehow treated equal to Israeli ones, then it is clear who is brainwashed. Just as a recent example, it was well documented that they were refused entry into bomb shelters during the recent Iran missile strikes.

Next thing from their playbook is to gaslight you into believing there is no apartheid in Israel and no genocide occurring in Gaza.

There is no genocide. Hamas started a war and they are losing it, it’s actually pretty simple. Was the Iraq war a genocide? Because that killed about four times as many Iraqi civilians. That’s not even getting into the fact that the number of Palestinians killed since October 7 (roughly 56,000) is inclusive of civilians AND militants. Hamas does not distinguish between the two.

And...there it is. You're a loon. We can all see very well what has and is happening. We've seen the dead babies, the starving children. They are TARGETING civilians. It's Israel that fails to distinguish between the two. Either you know that, and you're a liar, or you're fully brainwashed and talking to you is a waste of breath.

I am not disputing that all of that is absolutely tragic. War is extremely ugly. Innocents always suffer, including innocent children. That doesn’t make it a genocide though. I haven’t seen any credible reports that definitively establish that Israel is deliberately targeting civilians. It is CERTAINLY not their stated goal.

Let me ask you, though - if you believe Israel is committing genocide because it intentionally targets civilians, do you also believe October 7 was genocide? Why or why not?

No, I don’t. Scale, for one. Effectiveness, for another. A one day attack, albeit with hostages, compared to a sustained multi-year campaign with tens of thousands of civilian deaths, with leaders of this campaign saying it will not stop until this nebulous goal of eradicating Hamas (which they make no effort to distinguish from civilian Palestinian citizens) is achieved. Acting like they are remotely the same is why people with your viewpoint are not to be taken seriously.

If what's happening in Palestine doesn't qualify as a genocide, what would qualify as a genocide? Many experts who study genocide have in fact said it does meet the definition. Why do you continue to deny it?

Obviously because Zionism clouds objectivity and impartiality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's perfectly right and fair to criticize the Netanyahu government and its policies. There is nothing anti-semitic about that. But progressives seem to have adopted a narrative that states that Israel is a brutal western colonist state that violently conquered and displaced a peaceful indigenous people - like the conquistadors in the Americas in the 16th Century. And that's a stupid narrative. The entire Middle East was borne out of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire in 1918. None of the countries there today are natural, organic nation states.

Prior to 1918, Lebanon didn't exist. Nor did Syria. Or Jordan. Or Iraq. Besides Egypt, every country in the Middle East is a modern construct that derives legitimacy from the United Nations, which drew the lines of the post-colonial world. In addition to Syria, Jordan, Iraq and elsewhere, the UN granted statehood and independence to places called Israel and Palestine. But the Arabs in Palestine chose not to accept their independence and chose war instead. And they and the region have been paying the price ever since for rejecting the post colonial boundaries that were established by the United Nations during a chaotic time when more than a 100 new countries were formed.

It was a stupid decision by Palestinians. The establishment of countries in South Asia - India, Pakistan, Bangladesh - and Africa involved far more movement among peoples than anything in the Middle East. And yet all those countries have been countries for nearly 80 years and life has moved on. But Palestinians are cursed by short-sightedness and misplaced feelings of grievance. Israel exists. It is as legitimate as any country in the Middle East. And Palestinians just make life worse and worse for themselves by their endless bad decisions - from rejecting the UN plan in 1948 to committing those massacres on October 7th. I dislike Netanyahu and the right wing settlers in the West Bank - that is a legitimate thing to sanction Israel for. But I don't question Israel's right to exist, which I guess makes me a Zionist.

The question is, do you think Israel has a right to exist as an undemocratic religious nationalist state?

A country called Israel that provided equal rights to all people, including those interested in obtaining citizenship? Few people have an issue with that. It's not the name of the country, but the premise and policies.

And I disagree with you on South Asia - life has very much not moved on after partition in many, many ways, and you seem to have an ill understanding of the region.

Do you think the 43 other countries that have an official state religion have a right to exist? https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2017/10/03/many-countries-favor-specific-religions-officially-or-unofficially/.

If not, are you out there openly protesting their existence? No? Only Israel? Hmm curious.

Israel absolutely does provide equal rights to all its people. We’ve been over this. 20% of Israeli citizens (2.1 million people) are non-Jewish Arabs and they enjoy FULL rights under the law. Re: OBTAINING citizenship, you can absolutely become an Israeli citizen if you are not Jewish (compare to many Muslim majority countries where Jews are legally barred from obtaining citizenship). Jews are given preference in immigration matters because Israel was founded as a refuge for Jews, because the rest of the world murdered half of us and kept trying to persecute the rest. All countries have preferences built into their Immigration systems, including the US.

Categorically, this is false. Palestinian citizens are subject to over sixty discriminatory laws, are not allowed to build new cities and the cities that they have are severely underfunded comparatively speaking.

Categorically, you have been brainwashed by propaganda. The “sixty five laws” are listed here in case anyone is interested in clicking through them: https://www.adalah.org/en/law/index. I am absolutely not afraid to post this link because what they are classifying as “discriminatory” is patently ridiculous. These wouldn’t even be considered unconstitutional in the United States.

I clicked on a few random ones, like this one: https://www.adalah.org/en/law/view/610. It’s basically a GI Bill that provides tuition assistance to veterans. The website says that, even though the law says absolutely nothing about Jews/non-jews, it discriminates against Palestinian Israeli citizens because they are exempt from military service. Not banned/prohibited, mind you, EXEMPT. Arab Israelis can and do serve in the IDF.

Here’s a tidbit from another one I happened to click on: “While neutral on its face, in practice the law is used almost exclusively against Palestinians, who make up the overwhelming majority of detainees classified as ‘security’ detainees.” Oh so the law discriminates against those suspected of terrorist activities? Give me a f-ing break.

If you are even going to argue that Palestinian citizens are somehow treated equal to Israeli ones, then it is clear who is brainwashed. Just as a recent example, it was well documented that they were refused entry into bomb shelters during the recent Iran missile strikes.

Next thing from their playbook is to gaslight you into believing there is no apartheid in Israel and no genocide occurring in Gaza.

There is no genocide. Hamas started a war and they are losing it, it’s actually pretty simple. Was the Iraq war a genocide? Because that killed about four times as many Iraqi civilians. That’s not even getting into the fact that the number of Palestinians killed since October 7 (roughly 56,000) is inclusive of civilians AND militants. Hamas does not distinguish between the two.

And...there it is. You're a loon. We can all see very well what has and is happening. We've seen the dead babies, the starving children. They are TARGETING civilians. It's Israel that fails to distinguish between the two. Either you know that, and you're a liar, or you're fully brainwashed and talking to you is a waste of breath.

I am not disputing that all of that is absolutely tragic. War is extremely ugly. Innocents always suffer, including innocent children. That doesn’t make it a genocide though. I haven’t seen any credible reports that definitively establish that Israel is deliberately targeting civilians. It is CERTAINLY not their stated goal.

Let me ask you, though - if you believe Israel is committing genocide because it intentionally targets civilians, do you also believe October 7 was genocide? Why or why not?

No, I don’t. Scale, for one. Effectiveness, for another. A one day attack, albeit with hostages, compared to a sustained multi-year campaign with tens of thousands of civilian deaths, with leaders of this campaign saying it will not stop until this nebulous goal of eradicating Hamas (which they make no effort to distinguish from civilian Palestinian citizens) is achieved. Acting like they are remotely the same is why people with your viewpoint are not to be taken seriously.

If what's happening in Palestine doesn't qualify as a genocide, what would qualify as a genocide? Many experts who study genocide have in fact said it does meet the definition. Why do you continue to deny it?

The difference between war and genocide comes down to INTENT. I can’t find a single source that defines genocide according to “scale” or “effectiveness.” So you’re saying it wasn’t a genocide because Hamas was bad at it and failed to slaughter even more civilians/drag their murder orgy on for longer than a day? That’s just not credible. Their STATED INTENT was to kill as many civilian noncombatants as possible. The attack had zero other legitimate purpose - even Hamas doesn’t pretend it did.

Like it or not, Israel has an actual military objective in Gaza. The objective is to wipe out Hamas and prevent another genocidal attack from happening. Could they be doing more to prevent civilian deaths? Probably. Militaries are flawed and wars are ugly. That doesn’t make it a genocide though.

“…this nebulous goal of eradicating Hamas (which they make no effort to distinguish from civilian Palestinian citizens)” Israel’s official stance is definitely NOT that Hamas and Palestinian citizens are indistinguishable. And in practice, Hamas fighters often operate in civilian clothing and embed themselves within civilian areas, using civilian infrastructure like schools and mosques for military purposes. How do you suggest Israel identity them? By asking nicely? They're fighting an incredibly complex war in a densely populated region. If Hamas doesn’t like it, they shouldn’t have started the war (with support from over 70% of Gazans, mind you).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AntiZionism isn’t criticizing the Israeli government. AntiZionism is racism and calling for ethnic cleansing, genocide, etc of Jews.

No. That is not what anti Zionism is. Zionism is a political movement with the belief that Jewish people have a right to a sovereign state in their historical homeland from 1000s of years ago.

What Zionism leaves out is that this homeland was home to others since the 1000s of years when many (not all) Jews left or converted to Islam (the prevailing religion of the region).

Anti Zionism is therefore the belief the political movement to prioritize Jews over Palestinians for the same land is not a political movement they agree with.

Funny how you phrase that. They were kicked out by the Roman emperor Hadrian He renamed the land Syria Palestine and brought in Syrian Greeks to replace the Jews (Palestinians)

Then the Ottoman caliphate controlled Israel for centuries.

No one is talking about the hatred that many Arab Muslims have for Jews. Which is why Israel needs the US to help its defense. Because if it were up to the Arab states, especially Iran, all Jews would be eliminated ( death)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:AntiZionism isn’t criticizing the Israeli government. AntiZionism is racism and calling for ethnic cleansing, genocide, etc of Jews.

No. That is not what anti Zionism is. Zionism is a political movement with the belief that Jewish people have a right to a sovereign state in their historical homeland from 1000s of years ago.

What Zionism leaves out is that this homeland was home to others since the 1000s of years when many (not all) Jews left or converted to Islam (the prevailing religion of the region).

Anti Zionism is therefore the belief the political movement to prioritize Jews over Palestinians for the same land is not a political movement they agree with.

Funny how you phrase that. They were kicked out by the Roman emperor Hadrian He renamed the land Syria Palestine and brought in Syrian Greeks to replace the Jews (Palestinians)

Then the Ottoman caliphate controlled Israel for centuries.

No one is talking about the hatred that many Arab Muslims have for Jews. Which is why Israel needs the US to help its defense. Because if it were up to the Arab states, especially Iran, all Jews would be eliminated ( death)

Well, a few thoughts:

1) according to my understanding Hadrian did not kick out the Jewish people, but he did establish certain edicts that results in barriers to practicing their religion as he was trying to establish Roman-Grecco culture in the region. The Jews revolted, Hadrian tightened the screws more. There are conflicts in the historical record about how cruel Hadrian was in reality. Some Jews left, some likely were killed, and others stayed. Of the ones that stayed, some converted to Christianity and then again to Islam. Others held firm to their Jewish beliefs.

2) I am sure Palestinians who are experiencing death and starvation from Israeli military forces would like Jews to be eliminated. If baffles my mind that after WWII, European Jews who suffered horribly chose to ignore the perpetrators (Germans) of their pain and instead refocus their trauma on stirring up more hatred for themselves in the middle east.

[Anonymous]

"Antizionism is not antisemitism" I was out last night with a Jewish friend who quit her job at a university in 2023 - 24 due to the fear protests on her campus stirred up for her.

In talking to her last night, it suddenly clicked to me that some Jewish people view any protest against Israeli action as a call to eliminate Israel (antizionism). Some then connect antizionism to antisemitism because they are convinced the existence of Israeli is fundamentally tied to their own existence. Hence, to them, criticism of Israel (antizionism) is equivalent to killing/eliminating Jews.

It's a math problem where they simplify the equation from:

criticism of Israel = antizionism = antisemitism = death to Jews

to:

criticism of Israel = death to Jews

I wonder if the problem is the emphasis that Jewish practice and culture place on Israel as a geographic location. The Torah emphasizes the importance of Israel for Jewish existence and Rabbis in their sermons constantly refer to Israel, the rebuilding of the Temple, etc. And Passover is a holiday dedicated to memorializing the creation of Isreal as a fixed place, not just a concept or set of ideas/rules to live by.

Are other religions are as geographically tied to physical regions of the world? For example, while Catholics hold the Pope and Vatican holy, I don't think Priests in South American don't constantly tell their congregation tales about the glories of Italy? Or, while Hindus hold Varanasi and the Ganges holy (and many visit or want their ashes released there after death), I think the emphasis is on encouraging visiting but not resettling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"Antizionism is not antisemitism" I was out last night with a Jewish friend who quit her job at a university in 2023 - 24 due to the fear protests on her campus stirred up for her.

In talking to her last night, it suddenly clicked to me that some Jewish people view any protest against Israeli action as a call to eliminate Israel (antizionism). Some then connect antizionism to antisemitism because they are convinced the existence of Israeli is fundamentally tied to their own existence. Hence, to them, criticism of Israel (antizionism) is equivalent to killing/eliminating Jews.

It's a math problem where they simplify the equation from:

criticism of Israel = antizionism = antisemitism = death to Jews

to:

criticism of Israel = death to Jews

I wonder if the problem is the emphasis that Jewish practice and culture place on Israel as a geographic location. The Torah emphasizes the importance of Israel for Jewish existence and Rabbis in their sermons constantly refer to Israel, the rebuilding of the Temple, etc. And Passover is a holiday dedicated to memorializing the creation of Isreal as a fixed place, not just a concept or set of ideas/rules to live by.

Are other religions are as geographically tied to physical regions of the world? For example, while Catholics hold the Pope and Vatican holy, I don't think Priests in South American don't constantly tell their congregation tales about the glories of Italy? Or, while Hindus hold Varanasi and the Ganges holy (and many visit or want their ashes released there after death), I think the emphasis is on encouraging visiting but not resettling.

No, other religions aren’t tied to specific regions smaller than New Jersey, this is the crux of the problem here.

[Anonymous]

All religion is quite antiquated and relying on ancient fictional books to guide one’s entire life is simply delusional.

[Anonymous]

And this was 2000 years ago that Hadrian displaced Jewish people. 2000 years ago. So in the year 4025 my ancestors should be able to claim my current neighborhood as their own, because I said so and i think God would want them to live here.