I was talking about "rights" as well, and there was no "international law" 150 years ago. Saying that something is a "right" is another way of saying that you have the power to do so and you have enough backing to ensure that no one can do anything about it. As to morality, there is no one "morality" so you have to be more specific about what set of morals you are basing your statement on, also, why would one group care about another group's version of morality?
I don't consider myself a Zionist, nor do I feel compelled to defend what is essentially as anachronistic as "Wilsonianism" but I do recognize that it's misappropriated most often by those that don't like Israel to sound less racist, or by Israeli racists to accuse others of anti-Semitism for not agreeing with them. If anything I'm a post-zionist. It's not my job to decide who does and doesn't like Jews (and it's not really anyone else's either). Whether you are or aren't an anti-Semite doesn't make your arguments more or less true. But when you say you don't accept a Jewish state, that does kind of open you up to that kind of scrutiny. I can't say that I've ever thought about whether how someone decides to define their state as something I can have an opinion about, so it sounds strange to me. It may not bigotry, but it certainly sounds irrational. I wouldn't expect someone to say they didn't accept an Estonian state or a Ukranian state, or a Croatian state or an Irish state or a Polish state without it raising a reasonable suspicion of bigotry, which is certainly how I feel about Israelis pitching FUD about a future Palestinian state. I'd also add that the modern nation state is a very 19th century idea and belongs in the bin with other Victorian ideas -- my ideal would be a stateless world -- but I can't really advocate that at the expense of people who don't already have a state of their own to give them a passport, or a body to pay taxes to that is held accountable to their votes. And I'd feel like an ******* for doing it. Considering Quanah Parker didn't surrender until 1875, it's not so far off. I only pick Comanches since I'm researching them for a book I'm writing and it's fresh in my head, not so much to be a troll. Still 1948 is still a few years before my parents were born...and I'm 40. Most Israelis were not only born there, their parents and grandparents were as well, and many were there long before 1948. Tel Aviv, for example, was founded the same year as Miami. When you, like others, reach for de-legitimizing Israel as a state, you have to resort to a disingenuous rendering of history, you play the game with the same rules as the right-wing bigots that try to say things like "Palestinians aren't a real people, they are all just Jordanians anyway, so just transfer them there." As I've said before, most Jews in Israel were born there, speak Hebrew, have no other nationality and aren't even Ashkenazi in the first place. In any case, that same irrational argument doesn't suddenly become rational just because you don't happen to like the people it's used against As I've also said, feel free to criticize the policies, the actions, or the decisions of Israel's leaders if you find them offensive, or by all means, advocate holding them accountable, but don't expect anyone to take you seriously when your position discounts the legitimacy of a recognized sovereign nation, a position that shares more with the ideological fringe than it does with most Arab leaders in Middle East that at least accept and deal with the political reality as it is. What morality? Manifest Destiny? It's incredibly hypocritical. It's either ok for everyone, or not ok for anyone. America went to war with Spain at the turn of the century to take her colonies...and hasn't stopped invading other countries since. I can respect the argument that projecting power is in America's interest to preserve itself as a great power, but essentially little has changed in justifying force as a necessary projection of politics. And well...the nation state by it's nature is a construct created by force. In any case, the irony of the US, UK, France, China and Russia lecturing Israeli politicians about colonialism, occupation and use of force is not lost on me, but that is not to say that I find it a defence of Israeli policy. I assume that you recognize the difference between "Israel should withdraw to it's own internationally recognized territory and leave it's neighbours alone" from "Israel shouldn't be allowed to exist." If I didn't know better, I would think you were new here, glynch. Of course. I used to buy the whole narrative. But understanding objective reality doesn't mean that I accept a competing, biased narrative as a replacement. Living there and being Othered certainly made my own inclination towards cognitive dissonance hard to maintain and made me very aware of other contradictions I held, as well as sensitive to recognizing that very human inclination in others. I think it goes either way. Everyone I know that moved there either discovered that God had a very, very special plan for them, or found themselves on the extreme side on the spectrum of materialism and secular humanism. Well, I can certainly make a claim that I can define it better you and with less accusations of advocacy, especially since I spent years of my life in university and working with primary sources in Hebrew. If you want to fund my PhD I could make the claim to have credentials to rival Ilan Pappé, especially if I could learn to read Arabic well enough to include pre-state primary sources ignored by the New History old farts. There's plenty of work to be done in actually studying the history of the Nakba that neither Israelis or Palestinians want to see funded since it threatens the foundations of both respective national myths. If you are looking for credibility and unfiltered commentary about the conflict, there is no equal to the very controversial and outspoken Amira Hass. She's as good as it gets. I used to hate her because everything she wrote was so contrary to every common narrative, and she was a commie, and (seemingly) contrarian for effect, until I came to understand that she might be the most credible journalist in Israel and risked her life on a daily basis to report news unscrubbed by handlers that absolutely no one wanted to hear. Between the Israeli government and Hamas, I'm surprised she's still alive. Regardless of how I agree with her personal views about anything, she'd be the absolute last person writing within or about Israel that I would ever accuse of being anyone's useful idiot. I'm not interested in justifying Zionism any more than I am in justifying the Spanish-American War (or "winning" a discussion on an Internet forum). I'm interested in helping you correct the gap between your advocacy and your understanding of objective evidence, if at least to bring to your attention the flaws in your arguments that are weak on any agreed academic standard of history, if not the political will and mindset of the people involved that I don't think you fully understand. I could be wrong, but it seems like you (as many others do, from every political walk of life) project your political and personal ideology into the conflict in a way that doesn't fit as neatly as you think it does. I don't know if you noticed, but I don't write much about how I think things things should be, and that's largely because I'm informed enough to know it doesn't matter and that my opinions are far, far away from anyone who has a say in the matter. I don't wring my hands worried about things like keeping Israel "Jewish and Democratic." I used to, for sure, but at this point I'm settling for "solvent and not overtly fascist or theocratic" for all parties involved. I might side with the two-staters (be they Abbas or Meretz) but only because I think that any other course of action undermines the project of creating a true Palestinian state (something you maintain is sophistry) as well as condemning the State of Israel or any bi-national successor state to a failed one within two generations. As much as the far left, far right, and a lot of younger Palestinians have all made some good arguments for a bi-national state, I don't see how that can succeed where a solution requiring way less compromise (Oslo) has already failed and it seems not only like a fantasy, but a solution the majority of both populations would never accept.
I don't have to defend Israel, they do a pretty good job of that themselves and honestly I don't care one way or the other, I'm not an Arab, I'm not a Jew. Another group could move in and bounce out both the Israelis and Arabs and it wouldn't concern me.
That is why I would never advocate that these folks be forced to move to say Los Angeles. Poland or Munich or anywhere else. I don't think there was any justification for saying all that all the Afrikaners should have been deported back to Holland for instance. As they have been they are free to live there as one of the population groups with no more nor no more rights than anybody else. Pretty tortured reasoning and examples here on your part.. It is you who are stretching. It is not a great reach to deligitimize the state of Israel i.e. as a "Jewish" state among the local population. Euro Jews/ "Zionists moved to what is now called Palestine/Israel. Recently they imported a million Russian Jews. It is obviously quite a bit like those who wished to deligitimze apartheid South Africa not hard or a reach.. The same with the Afrikaners. True, but devoid of meaningful context? Not a valid or serious argument. It would be like me saying that ISIL wants a Muslim state and the vast majority of Israele Jews want a Jewish state so they are more similar in their attitudes than say with those of Americans. . Now I am asking you to accept reality. Even with the recently imported million Russians the Jews in the land of Palestine are a declining roughly 50 perecent. The Spaniards did not create their own country in Mexico and leave the Indians with a little defective state of their own. The Portuguese and Spaniards in Argentina etc. did not relegate the native population to a small area and then proclaim their own separate state. for just Spaniards or the Portuguese. Even in America in which there was a much smaller indigenous population we have not relegated the Indians to only reservations and claimed that they are not citizens of the country now dominated by settler colonialists. You may not have been doing so, but please don't accuse me of justifying what my ancestors (though they may have come a bit late for the Indian Wars) and perhaps yours did to the American Indians or accuse me of supporting the Monroe Doctrine . Force makes right and others did it centuries ago. I'll grant you that as the essential defense for Israel. Not really pre 1967 borders were still based on ethnic cleansing and I don't accept Zionism as generally understood. Touche. lol Hey it reminds me of the quote I quoted in a previous post that most Israelis are atheists, but believe God assigned them the Promised Land. Maybe you should talk to a close friend who told me on Sunday here in Houston how alienated he felt. Great Uncle was a founder of Israel with cousins living there. His sister who grew up in Los Angeles and moved to a kibbutz 30 plus years ago and is despairing as she is still among the tiny group going out to protest actually lived Zionism Quote: Originally Posted by glynch View Post Now you are making a claim to be able to define the history of the conflict. Please provide your credentials to rival that of Israeli historians like Ilan Pappe. Maybe Pappe could take you on as a student? I like her, too, and recently saw her on Democracy Now. Hey it is ok to try to win an internet argument, especially on such an important topic. Hey I am trying to convince you that there is no need to get into such convoluted arguments to attempt to square Zionism with your probable ethics. Hey like most Americans of my age I was brought up on the movie Exodus and loved Leon Urich sp? If the Palestinians with whom the equity lies imho want that I am for it. The reality is that the Jews will not accept a Palestinians state that subjects them to the Palestinians and I don't think they should have to.. Similarly so far propaganda about Oslo aside the Israelis never have accepted a real Palestinian state. . Again tortured rambling that if you unpack it later might lead you to the one state solution as neither side wants to give up the land and there is no need to do so. Good luck with the book.
Gaza gunmen execute 'collaborators'; mortar kills Israeli boy They execute 18 Palestinians , kills a young Israeli boy, and some users here think they care about their people, and want peace while their amandmant clearly mantioned the distraction of Israel and the Jews. why the U.N dosen't condemn this? http://news.yahoo.com/gaza-gunmen-execute-18-collaborators-gaza-israel-pursues-120147339.html
Israel should be proportional in its response to the Palestinians or certainly Hamas, the chief Palestinian resistance, but for those who are interested in facts. ******* Recently, at Mondoweiss, someone named Phan Nguyen did what all the major broadcast and cable networks, national newspapers, news magazines and dominant news web sites in the US have never done: Report the actual number of deaths caused by rockets and mortar shells fired from the Gaza strip from 2001 to the present. The result (as of July 28, 2014): 35 Israeli deaths. If you remove the few Arabs and Israeli military forces from the list, the number drops to 19. So over thirteen years, Gaza rockets and mortar fire killed 19 noncombatant Israeli citizens. In other words, Gaza projectiles on an annual basis kill an average of 1.357 Israeli civilians. http://original.antiwar.com/peter-c...s-of-reporting-on-israeli-operations-in-gaza/
I don't have any skin on this game but, not sure what these facts are suppose to show. If you have an unskilled gunman who decides to kill folks using a long range rifle and manages to only kill one person out of 30 shots, does that make him less moral?
So for the record you're fine then if Israel fires 12,000 short and medium range rockets at Gaza, at civilians, over a few year period? Because that would be proportional under your argument.
So when we send our troops out against any enemy, our actions should also be proportional? What I am hearing is that since the USA Bball team has so much more efficient weapons, we should give the opponents the same amount of shots. We should not be blocking their shots, let them do lay ups as it is only fair. There is no such thing as fair when it comes to war.
I was joking, Israel doesn't shoot 12k rockets into Gaza at civilians but Gaza does shoot those rockets at Israel's civilians...that's the point.
Well say if the gunmen was in Manhattan somewhere and you decided to nuke Manhattan to be sure to get the gunman would that make the country doing the nuking less moral? I would say yes.
Well they would have to be of the primitive low explosive unguided type fired by Hamas whose main affect would be to frighten the population. That would be a certain improvement to the killing of thousands of civilians practiced by Israel. Of course that does not say anything about the right of colonized people to resist versus the colonizer's right to use force to keep colonizing. Proportionality is well accepted in moral thinking about war. Try googling just war theory.
