Yes, good point. Also though its a big geographic how people vote in Israel. All the small peripheral cities like Ashkelon, Kiryat Shmona, etc. all vote Likud too even if they're Ashkenazim because they feel more threatened than the more liberal cities of Tel Aviv, Herzliya, Beersheva, etc.
Not to forget that the predecessor of Netanyahu's Likud, the Irgun, was a terrorist organization and leaders of the Likud like Yitzhak Shamir were terrorists.
On the main subject this is another example about how the people of both sides, and any hope for peace, is held hostage by extremists.
This type of stuff is far more common than one realizes. Some of these settlements are run by maniacs and Israel really only has a nominal governing presence there. Some of these settlers aren't scared to throw rocks at the IDF troops (or really anyone who isn't sympathetic to their cause). Price tagging like this is a semi-regular occurrence. The difference in this case is that a child died. Normally, when settlers vandalize property, they generally try and do it when no one is around. And in those cases, the IDF generally turns a blind eye to it. Hell sometimes, these nutjobs accidentally vandalize the land of other settlers. All the while, when the IDF shows up, everyone feigns ignorance and ultimately all is forgotten. Settlements attract crazies and poor Jews who have no where else to go except the cheap subsidized housing of the settlement communities. Couple that with an IDF that is reluctant to properly enforce the laws and protect Palestinian communities and you get a dangerous formula for unrestrained radicalism. There is hardly any immigration to Israel by secular well educated Jews anymore. That was the community that built the country. Theodore Herzl identified as a secular Jew and strongly believed in the concept of Israel as a sanctuary for Jews but not as some sort of religious state. But the secular community is shrinking every year and in turn Israel's political strength is shifting to the right wing and religious orthodoxy. Israel is going to have a hell of a time considering its main population growth is coming from poor eastern european immigrants, the ultra-orthodox Jewish community, and Arab-Israelis. That formula is going to cause all sorts of problems in the coming decade.
More news regarding extremists in Israel. Posting this here instead of starting a new thread. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/...gay-pride-parade-stabbing-20150802-story.html Girl stabbed during Israel gay pride parade last week dies of injuries An Israeli hospital spokeswoman says a teenage girl stabbed by an anti-gay extremist in last week's attack on Jerusalem's gay pride parade has died. Hadar Elboim of Hadassah hospital said the 16-year-old succumbed to her wounds Sunday and that her organs will be donated. The girl, identified as Shira Banki, was among six people wounded Thursday by an ultra-Orthodox Jewish man who had carried out a similar attack on a gay pride parade in 2005. He had been released from prison just three weeks earlier and had angrily spoken out against the parade after his release. Jerusalem, known for its rich religious history and tradition, holds a modest parade annually in contrast to the large parade in nearby liberal Tel Aviv, which drew over 100,000 people this year.
This just in. A lot of people in Israel are racist pricks. We've seen how they treat Muslims, black people, gay people and so on and so on.
The Ashkenazim also were settler colonialists who killed thousands of Palestinians while displacing hundreds of thousands from their land. They also were careful to leave only a limited number of Palestinians to their somewhat "secular" welfare state.
Israeli arrested after West Bank arson that killed toddler http://news.yahoo.com/israel-arrests-man-west-bank-arson-killed-toddler-073158999.html Spoiler JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel said Tuesday it was interrogating the suspected head of a Jewish extremist group in the first arrest of an Israeli suspect following last week's arson attack in the West Bank that killed a Palestinian toddler and wounded his brother and parents. Related Stories Suspected Jewish Extremist Arrested Following Deadly West Bank Arson Huffington Post US condemns terrorist attack that killed Palestinian toddler Associated Press Palestinian toddler burned to death in 'settler' arson attack AFP Palestinian teenager killed while protesting toddler's death in West Bank Christian Science Monitor 'Hamas members' held over West Bank murder: Israel AFP According to the Shin Bet security agency, 23-year-old Meir Ettinger was arrested late Monday for "involvement in an extremist Jewish organization." The agency would not say if he is also suspected in the July 31 arson attack, but it has accused Ettinger of heading an extremist movement seeking to bring about religious "redemption" through attacks on Christian sites and Palestinian homes. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has pledged "zero tolerance" for Jewish terrorism following a pair of deadly attacks by extremists. The Palestinians toddler was burned to death a day after an anti-gay ultra-Orthodox man stabbed a 16-year-old Jewish girl during a rampage against marchers at Jerusalem's gay pride parade. The teenage girl later died. Authorities are now expected to crack down much harder on suspected Jewish extremist cells, particularly among West Bank settler youths. Israeli media have dubbed Ettinger as the Shin Bet's "number one" most wanted Jewish extremist. He has been arrested several times before and banned from the West Bank. Ettinger is also the grandson of the late Rabbi Meir Kahane, an ultranationalist whose party was banned from Israel's parliament for its racist views in 1988. Kahane was killed by an Arab gunman in 1990. Ettinger has denied leading an extremist movement. His lawyer, Yuval Zemer, told Israel's Army Radio that authorities arrested his client to appease an Israeli public outraged by the arson attack. "There was no urgent need to arrest here, other than some kind of desire to show, 'Here, we're doing something, here, we're arresting,'" said Zemer. "Of course, what is better than the number one most wanted target?" The arrest comes on the heels of a violent spate of attacks in Israel and the Palestinian territories that threatened to ignite widespread violence in the region. The Shin Bet would not say whether Ettinger had anything to do with the attack on the West Bank home, which killed 18-month-old Ali Dawabsheh and severely injured his parents and 4-year-old brother. However, the agency singled out Ettinger two days before the attack, when it announced it had uncovered a Jewish extremist movement of young settler activists responsible for a June arson attack of the Church of the Multiplication of the Loaves and Fish, a prominent Catholic church near the Sea of Galilee, and a number of other hate crimes. The Shin Bet at the time accused Ettinger of heading the movement. Authorities said last week they have filed indictments against two other young Israeli extremists and arrested three others in connection with the church arson attack. The Shin Bet said Ettinger's group vandalized a number of Christian religious sites in the past two years, tried to disrupt Pope Benedict XVI's 2014 visit to the Holy Land, and committed "more significant terrorist attacks of arson" against Palestinian homes in the West Bank over the past year. A month before the attack on the church, Ettinger called on his blog for more attacks on Christian religious sites. He had lived in recent months in unauthorized Jewish settlement encampments in the West Bank set up by the "hilltop youth," the Shin Bet said, using a term referring to radicalized Jewish teen squatters on West Bank hilltops who have been known to attack Palestinians and their property. Six months ago, authorities signed a year-long order preventing Ettinger from entering Jerusalem and the West Bank settlements, saying he posed a danger there. He moved to the northern city of Tzfat, a hub for Jewish religious mystics. In a blog post, Ettinger denied the Shin Bet's accusation that he leads an extremist organization. "There is no terror organization, but there are many, many Jews, many more than people think, whose value system is completely different than that of the Israeli Supreme Court or the Shin Bet," he wrote in a July 30 blog post. "The laws they are bound by are not the State's laws ... but laws that are much more eternal and real." Also Tuesday, Israeli security forces demolished a Jewish settlement house in an outpost of the Eli settlement that had been built illegally on private Palestinian land in the West Bank. COGAT, the defense body that handles civilian issues with the Palestinians, said the demolition was coordinated with the settlers and there were no protests. Last week, settlers clashed with Israeli troops as Israeli bulldozers demolished a contested housing complex in another Jewish settlement in the West Bank.
Fixed it for you. I've personally seen girls kissing in open daylight in Tel Aviv - most people there thought nothing about it.
It is good to see that Israelis are now beginning to bulldoze Jewish homes that were built on Palestinian lands - hope to see more of this. There is no doubt that Palestinians in many ways were treated like the U.S. Settlers treated the Native Americans. However, the issue will only be settled when BOTH sides begin to make changes. From the article posted above: Also Tuesday, Israeli security forces demolished a Jewish settlement house in an outpost of the Eli settlement that had been built illegally on private Palestinian land in the West Bank. COGAT, the defense body that handles civilian issues with the Palestinians, said the demolition was coordinated with the settlers and there were no protests. Last week, settlers clashed with Israeli troops as Israeli bulldozers demolished a contested housing complex in another Jewish settlement in the West Bank.
They've been bulldozing for a while. The thing is that in a few weeks some settlers will just rebuild on the site. Then some more will join them and eventually the IDF will decide that its just not worth dealing with this anymore. This is how settlements are born. The precedent has already been set. The way to get legitimacy is to repeatedly rebuild and re-occupy land until the Israeli government caves in and decides to grant status to the settlement. Until the Israel decides to draw a line in the sand and consistently enforce the rules, then change might happen. But this sort of half-hearted effort to enforce Palestinian property rights has been going on for decades now. And Netanyahu has no stomach to change that policy because his coalition government is razor thin and would collapse the moment they decide to truly enforce the rules.
From your analogy, I understand that you expected that Americans and European settlers should have both made changes to accommodate the arrival of the European settlers?
I didn't imply that there were any out there. I work with Israeli's all the time. I know the deal more than 99% of you guys. A lot of them don't translate to a majority. Similarly, a minority of Muslims as well are crazy, dumb-asses. I was pretty close to having the opportunity to go out there for 6 weeks for audit purposes but they didn't fill the role that I wanted.
