Israeli Forests

[Tahuti]

Where then is the outrage against Turkey? How many condamnations from the UN they got? How many motions against them were voted? How many politicians from mainstream Western parties are asking for a boycott against turkey? Which western university is boycotting Turkish academics? How many movements call for the boycott and disinvestment of Turkey?

Turkey is a Muslim country and these are the most numerous in the UN. It is easy to figure that Turkey needs UN sanctions from a Western point of view, though it simply is unthinkable within the UN overton window.

And Israel? Why the double standard? I propose an explanation. The people obsessed about the supposed evils of Israel are actually antisemites. The far left of western countries is overrun by antisemites. The moderate left often panders to antisemites. Leftists love to claim everyone but themselves is a racist. But if a right wing politician had the same history of "accidental" racism against blacks as Jeremy Corbyn has against Jews, he would be labeled a Klansman. And not without reason. That he continues to lead a major party speaks very loudly of his electorate.

Israel is in certain ways the most right-wing country on earth: On paper, Palestinian Arabs can become Israelis and in practice it does rarely happen. Since Israel's first right-wing government in the 1970s, the very concept of Israeli citizenship has been distorted into something comparable to the Roman patrician status. Palestinian citizenship is contradistiguished from Israeli citizenship, yet in some ways, these are two flavours of the same thing (Holy Land citizenship?), though with Palestinian citizenship being denigrated in the eyes of the Israelis.

Compare to France: The Franks subjugated the Gauls and became the aristocracy of France, until they intermingled sufficiently to make the French revolution possible.

 

[r16]

1950 and Jews are threatened in Yemen . Okay , no problem . 2020 and New America threatens Jews in New York . So , will Tel Aviv like fly 4 or 14 million people in ? Or , will it call on the reserves it does or doesn't have , whatever strings that one might pull , even meeting with Jeremy Corbyn ?

Turkey is a Muslim country and these are the most numerous in the UN. It is easy to figure that Turkey needs UN sanctions from a Western point of view, though it simply is unthinkable within the UN overton window.

wrong . Iraq was a Muslim country , Libya was a Muslim country , Syria is a Muslim country and what that changes ? America likes this New one very much .

Really? How many square miles, in (say) the past two decades?

it must be every month with news that Knesset or whatever approves a new settlement . 100 or 300 houses , perhaps ? In lands the State of Israel is supposed to vacate . Or is that also a myth ?

 

[Lexicus]

I would suggest the only worthwhile question regarding BDS is whether it's a sound strategy for helping the Israeli left (or whoever is there who wants to dismantle the settlements and end the occupation) to get Netenyahu and his band of nutters out of power. I suspect for large parts of the Israeli left and Israeli peace movement it probably isn't seen as particularly useful.

I consider the Israeli "left" at this point to be little more effectual than the Parliamentary opposition to apartheid in South Africa.

If Jews are persecuted anywhere, the State of Israel will take them in. It's hard to overstate the importance of this. Not even the great USA did much for Jewish refugees during the Holocaust.

I know numerous Jews whom the State of Israel has persecuted. They are the ones the people who chant "death to leftists" are talking about.

The far left of western countries is overrun by antisemites. The moderate left often panders to antisemites. Leftists love to claim everyone but themselves is a racist. But if a right wing politician had the same history of "accidental" racism against blacks as Jeremy Corbyn has against Jews, he would be labeled a Klansman. And not without reason. That he continues to lead a major party speaks very loudly of his electorate.

The irony is that by SJW standards you're not wrong. I've watched the far-left, at least its presence on social media, be broken up by disagreements over questions such as whether Jews qualify as PoC. When both Zionists and anti-Zionists regard opposition to their positions as tantamount to supporting genocide, hilarity generally results. So by the standards of the SJW-Zionist component (odd bedfellows seemingly, but not so odd when we realize how universally rhetoric and ideas we think of as "SJW" have been absorbed into the mainstream of society; e.g. American conservatives attempting to portray themselves as an oppressed minority on college campuses), most of the far-left is overrun by genocidal anti-Semitism.

 

[Mouthwash]

But again, air-lifting people out of their society is not the same thing as improving their station within it. At the most immediate level, it does nothing for members of the group who are not extracted, or decline the offer. It does not represent any sort of collective improvement, even if might come to represent an individual improvement for many, most or even all members of the group. If fifty percent of black American took the next plane to Nigeria, we would not regard that as an improvement in the status of black Americans collectively, because the act offered no improvement to those that remained,

Oh TF, try and listen: the question of whether Israel helps world Jewry if everyone it helps stops being part of that group is entirely a semantic issue. But it has unquestionably helped millions of Jews, and is a common point of reference among all of us.

and may even have worsened their condition by diminishing their communities and placing them even more starkly in the position of a minority.

I don't think this has happened anywhere except the Arab countries and Iran, and there aren't that many left there to oppress...

I know numerous Jews whom the State of Israel has persecuted. They are the ones the people who chant "death to leftists" are talking about.

So strange that Israelis don't tolerate people calling them racists and murderers! (Go try that with a US veteran or something, American foreign policy has hardly been less ruthless.)

 

[Lexicus]

So strange that Israelis don't tolerate people calling them racists and murderers!

Here is the epitaph of Israeli "democracy." I'll also simply note that it is typical of racists and murderers to react with violence and threats of violence when they are identified as racists and murderers.

 

[Mouthwash]

Here is the epitaph of Israeli "democracy."

I don't think anyone you know was banned from voting. Israel is too tolerant of that kind of thing if you ask me; there's a video of Arab students heckling an Egyptian speaker at the university of Haifa for "normalizing" Israel and all the professor does is ineffectually tell them to leave the room.

I'll also simply note that it is typical of racists and murderers to react with violence and threats of violence when they are identified as racists and murderers.

Ya it's also typical of nutwing liberals to cry fascist when people with actual skin in the game don't put up with their nonsense.

 

[Lexicus]

Can you name a democracy where that is tolerated in polite settings?

What is "that"?

Ya it's also typical of nutwing liberals to cry fascist when people with actual skin in the game don't put up with their nonsense.

I don't understand what you mean by "skin in the game"

 

[Mouthwash]

What is "that"?

You haven't specified, but I assume it's something along the lines of publicly saying "let five million Arabs who have never set foot here live among us, the soldiers are genocidal butchers, and anyone who supports Jewish independence is a racist." That close?

I don't understand what you mean by "skin in the game"

People who want to live in the only Jewish-majority country on Earth, people who have risked their lives for the safety of their countrymen, people who have children risking their lives, people who would be oppressed and harassed living under Arab-majority rule (i.e. Jews specifically, any non-Arab Sunni more generally), people who have dedicated their lives to building farms, communities, and industry, etc.

 

[Lexicus]

You haven't specified, but I assume it's something along the lines of publicly saying "let five million Arabs who have never set foot here live among us, the soldiers are genocidal butchers, and anyone who supports Jewish independence is a racist." That close?

What they actually said and did is now somewhat beside the point. You claim that the Israeli government is somehow unambiguously a boon to "international Jewry", whatever that means, offering them a safe haven from persecution wherever in the world they might be. I point out that government actually persecutes Jews itself, and you not only defend the persecution without even knowing the circumstances, but suggest the government was probably too gentle because thoughtcrimes are really bad.

People who want to live in the only Jewish-majority country on Earth, people who have risked their lives for the safety of their countrymen, people who have children risking their lives, people who would be oppressed and harassed living under Arab-majority rule (i.e. Jews specifically, any non-Arab Sunni more generally), people who have dedicated their lives to building farms, communities, and industry, etc.

So...do you think that no person could possibly have done any of these things and still be an anti-Zionist, or even a labor or other sort of leftish Zionist? The people I'm talking about are Israelis. They have spent many years living in Israel and a few are IDF veterans.

But I'll note that this really just proves my point even more. You are not only defending the Israeli government's actions against "leftist" Jews, but even going further and sort of preemptively excluding them from Israeli society.

I just wish this was the only time I'd seen this kind of thinking on display. But really, it amounts to nothing more than saying "those people who shout 'death to leftists' are right to do so." And that Jews who do not support the crimes of the Israeli government are not really Jews, or at the very least not deserving of the protection the Israeli government supposedly extends to all Jews.

 

[Mouthwash]

What they actually said and did is now somewhat beside the point. You claim that the Israeli government is somehow unambiguously a boon to "international Jewry", whatever that means, offering them a safe haven from persecution wherever in the world they might be. I point out that government actually persecutes Jews itself,

1. You didn't point it out, you asserted it, and did not detail what these persecutions consisted of.

2. Even if you were right, you're claiming that these Jews are being persecuted based on specific actions they took. I said that Israel supports Jews generally - that doesn't preclude them treating individual Jews badly, especially if said Jews are an extreme minority.

and you not only defend the persecution without even knowing the circumstances,

And yet I wonder why I was forced to make assumptions.

but suggest the government was probably too gentle because thoughtcrimes are really bad.

I said that I don't think people who actively seek to undermine a nation (which is not the state, plenty of Israelis hate that) should receive benefits off of the taxpayer, and that universities don't have a responsibility to enroll and educate students who call for a boycott of them.

So...do you think that no person could possibly have done any of these things and still be an anti-Zionist, or even a labor or other sort of leftish Zionist? The people I'm talking about are Israelis. They have spent many years living in Israel and a few are IDF veterans.

It's a draft army, most people have spent some years behind a desk or fixing cars. And yes, nutters will appear in any setting if you wait long enough. You could ask why a Jew raised in a religious background might grow up to persecute other Jews, but here you go.

But I'll note that this really just proves my point even more. You are not only defending the Israeli government's actions against "leftist" Jews, but even going further and sort of preemptively excluding them from Israeli society.

Anti-Zionists aren't part of Israeli society. They can't even be called counter-cultural. I'm not extending that to any Jew called leftist, but you're the one who failed to define any of the terms you're flinging about.

But really, it amounts to nothing more than saying "those people who shout 'death to leftists' are right to do so."

I'm not sure how my contempt for anti-Zionist Jews and Israelis means I must wish them dead.

And that Jews who do not support the crimes of the Israeli government are not really Jews, or at the very least not deserving of the protection the Israeli government supposedly extends to all Jews.

Uh, yes, people who don't support and actively work against that protection don't deserve it. They do deserve the safety and dignity afforded to all human beings, but I don't see why Israel should be obliged to extend any special protection or favors.

 

[Lexicus]

And yet I wonder why I was forced to make assumptions.

You were not forced to make any assumptions. If you didn't know something, you could simply have asked. I have a post in this exchange where I do nothing but ask what you meant.

Anti-Zionists aren't part of Israeli society.

Uh, yes, people who don't support and actively work against that protection don't deserve it.

Good to know. So the next time you start to claim that the Israeli state protects all Jews, remember this conversation.

 

[Mouthwash]

You were not forced to make any assumptions. If you didn't know something, you could simply have asked. I have a post in this exchange where I do nothing but ask what you meant.

Well, then, can I have please have some details on your persecuted Israeli friends?

Good to know. So the next time you start to claim that the Israeli state protects all Jews, remember this conversation.

Any of those anti-Zionists are free to recant their bigotry (and I don't think that they are actually barred from Aliyah, that's just my opinion of what should be the case).

 

[Traitorfish]

Oh TF, try and listen: the question of whether Israel helps world Jewry if everyone it helps stops being part of that group is entirely a semantic issue. But it has unquestionably helped millions of Jews, and is a common point of reference among all of us.

The original claim was not that Israel has helped Jews. It has inarguably helped a great many Jews. The original claim was that Israel, and I suppose Zionism, represented "every major institution/movement advancing [Jews'] place in society". That's a claim which is in, in the first place, collective, and in the second, concerned with Jews as a minority in predominantly gentile societies. Evacuating individual Jews from a predominantly-gentile society to a predominantly-Jewish society doesn't comfortably fit within that definition.

 

[Mouthwash]

It shows why Jews everywhere might be affected by what happens to Israel.

 

[Traitorfish]

It shows why Jews everywhere might be affected by what happens to Israel.

In what sense?

 

[Lexicus]

Jews everywhere

Except anti-Zionist Jews, who apparently need not apply.

 

[Mouthwash]

In what sense?

They can no longer count on Israel to take them in if something happens to it, or travel there. A great deal of modern religious thought will be shattered.

It's worth noting that every major Jewish outreach organization maintains strong ties to Israel, even if they don't encourage Aliyah (like Lubavitch).

 

[Traitorfish]

They can no longer count on Israel to take them in if something happens to it, or travel there. A great deal of modern religious thought will be shattered.

It's not clear what the implications of that are, vis-a-vis the original claim. Zionism was presented as the analogy to the African-American civil rights movement; in what sense?

It's worth noting that every major Jewish outreach organization maintains strong ties to Israel, even if they don't encourage Aliyah (like Lubavitch).

Yeah, well, something happened to the non-Zionist Jewish groups that kind of disrupted their whole scene. Hard to chalk that one up as proof of the State of Israel's cosmological centrality for world Jewry.

 

[Mouthwash]

It's not clear what the implications of that are, vis-a-vis the original claim. Zionism was presented as the analogy to the African-American civil rights movement; in what sense?

In the sense that it's meaningful to them and could potentially save/improve their lives.

Yeah, well, something happened to the non-Zionist Jewish groups that kind of disrupted their whole scene. Hard to chalk that one up as proof of the State of Israel's cosmological centrality for world Jewry.

I didn't say then! Opposing Zionism now is a different thing.

 

[Traitorfish]

In the sense that it's meaningful to them and could potentially save/improve their lives.

That's a pretty vague description. It could describe both the State of Israel and the African-American civil rights movement, sure, but it could also describe a hospital, or, like, some bread. The analogy that was drawn assumes that Israel represents the same thing to Jews in a predominantly gentile society as civil rights organisations represent to black people in a predominantly white society, and that seems to me both a pretty deep misapprehension of either how non-Israel Jews relate to the State of Israel, how black people relate to civil rights organisations, or both.

I didn't say then! Opposing Zionism now is a different thing.

Hard to see why. You don't get to declare that you've won the argument just because you have the loudest voice in the room.