The fact is, however, that the occupation of North America has longsince been resolved, and there is no way except in fantasy that it could ever be undone. There is, on the other hand, an ongoing struggle, some would say war, that has not yet determined the eventual fate of Palestine; a struggle in which millions of people participate on each side. Unlike the return of North America to the natives, it may actually make a difference to world history where you, others here and I come down on this issue.

You personally may think that the abominable treatment of North America's natives, and the essential conquest of their land under the guise of treaty, is somewhat analogous to Israeli theft of Arab land, and engagement in a "peace process" whose only purpose is to validate Israel's past seizures; and I might agree. But I am under no obligation as a partisan of anti-Zionism to defend such a fanciful proposition as that the upper Ohio Valley be returned to the Shawnee; and not doing so certainly does not make me a hypocrite. For the sake of consistency with my stand on Palestine, I am only under obligation to defend the rights of the surviving native nations in context of their history, their current circumstances, their own wishes, and due deference to what can actually happen in this world.

Considering how many Palestinian and other people are struggling to bring it about, the reconstitution of the government of Palestine, all of Palestine, into a state that is not Zionist will not be easy and may not even be achieved, but unlike the reconstitution of the Six Nations on their former lands, it is no mere fantasy. Indeed I think that if U.S. aid to Israel were cut off, it would be a comparatively short time before this were eventuated; but that is for another thread.

Finally, even if I granted for the sake of argument your proposition that I am inconsistent in not championing a Pequod government of Massachusetts and the like, my supposed inconsistency would in no way reflect on the merits of this other proposition of mine, which is that Israel is a racist state that should be extinguished as soon as possible, and which certainly does not deserve the support of any nation that aspires to carry the banner of freedom and liberty. And it is this latter proposition, not the first one, that is being debated on this thread.

In other words, its one rule for you and another fo the Israel's.

The bottom line of what you are saying is that Israel is racist because it didn't exterminate all the Arabs of the former province of Palestine. That Israel is racist, this despite the fact that Israel granted citizenship and political freedom to its Arab citizens, something which the United States never did to to the native Americans it displaced.

Your argument and its unwillingness to accept the comparison between Israel and the United States, and thus by comparion every other nation on Earth, including Turkish and Arabic nations proves your fundamentally biased position. No small surprise coming from a communist I suppose. Whether you like it or not, Israel is no different from any other nation. Its no more racist than China, nor Pakistan nor Egypt, Brazil or Belgium.

The funny thing about morality is how often it gets perverted to fit a political bias. The irony is Israel started out as a left wing haven but as the outside pressure mounted so its internal left wing idologs found themselves unable to maintain their 'morality'. The collapse of the kibbutz movement and the recent anti Arabic sentiments being raised in Israel prove that under pressure, all human beings revert to the instinct of self preservation and the Israeli's are no different.

Whats different about the Israeli's is how much pressure they get from non Israeli's when in truth Israel is no different to any of its neighbours and in the case of some, far more open and tolerant. Most telling is the pressure from western left wingers who openly march under Hizb'Allah and Hamas banners and demonstrate against 'Apartheid Israel' along side people who treat women as slaves and freely admit to using terrorism to advance the cause of an Islamic theocracy. Quite why western left wingers would allign themsleves with Muslim fuindamentalists is a bit of a mystery ...until you recall how often through out history the Jews have had to bear the brunt of 'left wing morality'

Somehow I doubt that you would have defended that might makes right when the Germans took the low countries and France. My point is, the battle is still in progress. I fully grant that blood and iron decide the fate of nations, but so long as there is an ongoing struggle for Palestine, this proposition does not necessarily weigh in Israel's favor.

You might also wish to observe that in spite of European military superiority, essentially all European colonial impositions upon Africa, the Middle East and Asia have been undone. Israel is in many respects the last surving White enclave.


I have said what I have to say on the comparision to North America; others will have to judge whether my position is reasonable or whether I am an utterly inconsistent hypocrite.


Israel is a racist state because its entire existence, and its claim to its present territory, is premised on Jewish ethnicity and the right this supposedly entails to take land on which other people had been living. It is racist in its very constitution, where Jewishness entails an absolute right to settle in Israel, but the right of the former occupants of these lands, driven away by Zionist violence, to return and claim what is theirs is denied.




I fail, I must say, to see any parallel with Belgium or most of the other countries you mention. The Turks indeed were racist in their treatment of the Armenians; but that is not ongoing so far as I am aware. Really the only very good modern parallel to Israel that I can see is with apartiheid South Africa, which upheld White rule and and seizure of native land on the basis of racial superiority.



Indeed. Politics, morality and self-interest are inextricably intertwined, and there is no use trying to separate them. But my particular politics are anti-Zionist, and I believe my position is much more consist with freedom, liberty, and human rights in general than a pro-Zionist position would be. Indeed I can't understand how a Jewish claim to Palestine can be rationalized on a humane or logical basis.

As for the stress that the Jewish beneficiaries of the Zionist state experience, I sympathize on a human level, but they should consider as a group the relationship between their current situation and the many grievous wrongs for which they, and their predecessors, have been responsible.



What's different about Israel's situation is that it is a "nation" of Europeans living on Arab land, surrounded and indeed penetrated by Arabs. This nation was founded by means of force and expanded by means of violence, all a comparatively short time ago. And it is a nation whose continued existence is the subject of an ongoing regional and world struggle. That is what is different about Israel.

What you call terrorism is the only military means open to a people that has been deprived of most of its land and has no state; and the struggle for Palestine is deeply just; so I do not condemn it. Objections to this "terrorism" are mere attempts to de-legitimize armed resistance to Zionism. Plenty of terror, in any case, is committed by means of tanks, jets and helicopter gunships.

Neat, you debated what again? Nothing.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel

It's an easy read. Get crackin'.

The truth is that all the British did, in essence, was split the land between the already existing Jews and the Arabs in place. The only injustice, if any, was that it took Western involvement. So what if the pilgrims weren't middle eastern? They'd been moving there for decades? It's a very similar argument to the US today. Pilgrims moved here too... remember? What happened to the Native Americans is awful, but definitely the Arabs didn't suffer the same fate... well, until they decided to start attacking the Jews anyway.

The thing is that they were 33% of the population post WWII and got about 1/2 the land. Ok. Maybe that was shifty too. Funny enough, they Palestinians could've kept that 1/2. Too bad they decided to be difficult.

Read the article. It seems pretty objective, and as near as I can tell no one really argues Wikipedia articles.

I find contention in the notion that people really seem to have a problem with this because the Jews are in the middle east. If these were muslim Turks that said "hey, this is our holy land and we'd like to move back in slowly"... I doubt anyone would care. Frankly, I doubt there would've been attacks by the Arabs on those people. Frankly, Cristianity came from the middle east too, and over time the arabs kicked us out. Do we have claim to the land? Who really does?

Finally, Israeli allies don't hurt. We sorta need the back up. What if something goes down in Iran? Who's gonna help? Israel. Who did they shoot at in the first gulf war? Israel. It's pretty simple. Having them there is beneficial for Western interests, but didn't necessarily happen for that reason. It just worked out that way.

As I read these posts, I can't but wonder... do I even try to knock down these strawmen... and there are so many.... paragraph and pargraphs of arguments you all wrote... few are dealing with what I say.

To everyone in regards to my position about Native Americans.

I am consistant. Vladimar basically says what i am thinking so i'll just cut and past and back it up.

Vladimir


My beliefs are consistent. We are nation founded by the actions of unjust men. Such is the nature of power. But there is nothing I can do about it. The founders of our nation and the settlers were extremely racist. You can read it as they talk about non-whites. You can see it in their actions as they planted flags around the world claiming land already inhabited.

If I see slavery going on in the world, can I say "Slavery is wrong" Or am I to be held in check because the nation I was born into was built on the back of slaves and endentured laborers. I can't make a moral judgement today because what some racist men did centuries ago??

The israeli conflict is not a matter of history... it is CURRENT! The injustice is not of the past it in the now.

If everyone is comparing Israel to US and natives then you are seeing Israel as a similar scenario. Unless you find that early settlers actions against the natives were just and appropriate, then you should see both as equally unjust. So what mechanism in your psyche allows you to defend the unjust side in a conflict??



That's right I am. And i don't defend nations I KNOW were unjust. I'm not saying go to war with Israel or anything of the sort. But to defend them... not my bag of tea. I don't defend the school bully when he get's a bloody nose cause a kid hit him back. That would be YOU.

By the way how irrelevant was it to how nations are created when Saddam invaded kuwait... I thought that wss what made him such a bad man... Oh it's only irrelevant when Europeans invade a non-european nations.

Aevans


When you say existing are you talking about the Jews that had lived in the area for centuries or the migrating Jews starting in the late 1800s from Europe with the long term plan of taking the land from the palestinians??

Please explain.





Strawman. Thata is why you may find contrention. Your contentionis with your own strawman. STRAWMAN, in case you missed it.

Since the inception of Judaism, Jews have been in the middle east. You keep wanting to say Jew so to distinguish them from "European". That is the issue. They ARE European. I could care less what religion is the faith of middle eastern people. Not my problem, but i can differentiate between race and religion, can you??

When you take hundreds and hundreds of thousands of people and they force immigrate into a country, then make a country of their own with in that land... that is unjust. My problem with Israel is it is another european invasion.

When i was younger I thought like most that it was just religion fighting religion. But that is not the case.

This is my gripe

Europeans had Europeans give them inhabited land that was not European. Now the people who are not European are fighting the Europeans and their descendants for their land back. Don't keep pointing at other bad behavior of our history, cause that only affirms the bad behavior of Israel. Explain to me how you support and defend the invading side with any sense of morality. You can't.

I didn't say I was happy about it, merely that it was the case. The Germans, had they won would have imposed their morality onto their occupied territories too.


Well then you have to choose sides based on the merits of the opposing combatents and which closest represents your own morality I suppose. On the one hand you have colonial imperialists operating under the banner of an oppressive ideology and on the other you have a democratic state with a dodgy record on human rights... If you feel a closer kinship with the Muslims then Israel is 'obviously' a racist state that must be destroyed...

See, here we have that race issue coming up again. Its amazing how often the race issue matters when the skin colour is lighter. Had any one said the same thing regarding the opposite skin tone then they would immedietely be dismissed as racists.

The Israeli's are not 'white'. There is no such thing as 'white'. Only a racist thinks in such terms.


The fact that Israel extends citizenship to Arabs contradicts your claim and invalidates your accusation.


I am not familiar with any law or custom in Israel which promotes racial superiority.

As for Turkey, perhaps you need to read more about the place. Be a little more objective? Turkey still holds half of Cypress and it still treats Kurds like dirt. Turkeys record on religious and ethnic minorities is every bit as bad, if not worse than Israel's, but where as you can read about every IDF indiscretion in the global media, the Turkish military by comparison operates in relative obscurity. When it comes to racist states, then Turkey is the regional grand champion with a track record ten times longer and fifty times more severe than Israel's.


Truly hilarious coming from a communist!

Do you really have no idea just what communism means to those people who suffered under it? That the man in your avatar is every bit as hated as the Zionists to which you refer? That you are arguing from a moral stand point that to many is akin to Adolf Hitlers?
You remind me of the left wing extremists we have in Denmark who regularly stage deliberate riots where in they destroy shops, cars and houses in order to 'combat nazism'. It seems to me that your political bias is exactly the same as the zionists you say you are opposd to. Self justifing extremism.


So should we all!!! Hence the reference to the native Americans which you choose to pretend doesn't apply to you. You can pretend there is some fundametal difference between you and the Israeli's if you like, but as a communist (especially as a communist!) you should understand the many grievous wrongs for which you political perspective has been responsible and consider just what right you have to denounce the Israeli's as racists.


As was EVERY SINGLE country in the region! The only reason why your singling out the Israeli's as 'European' is because your morality fails to take reality into account. The reality is Israel is not and never was a European colony.

The ONLY reason why it is being labelled so now is because 'colony' is a smear against westerners. The fact is Palestine was a colony even before Israel was founded, It was a British colony and before that a Turkish colony. The Arabs living there now never owned the land. They are no more indiginous than the Israeli's you label as Europeans in order to make a false distinction between the two sides. Your reasoning is as divorced as any one might come to expect from a communist.

And where is the condemnation of Turkey by the way? Why this continued pressure on Israel? Because you think they are 'white'? Turkey still maintains a colony in the true sense of the word. A colony founded in the post war period and maintained against all international and UN laws by the Turkish military, and yet I don't see you or any other left wingers complaining or marching to protest against Turkey. Why not? Why can Turkey, like Hizb'Allah do no wrong in the eyes of the worlds socialists whilst Israel is a pariah state? I'll tell you why. Because the worlds socialists are racists when it suits their political bias. Your whole argument against Israel rests on an false assumption. That Israel is some how racially different from the surrounding nations. It is not. Race is a false argument and one employed only by racists or people who have no real arguments to offer.

The real difference between Israel and its neighbours is Israel is a democracy and its neighbours are ruled by extremsist and tyrants, the like of which once ruled eastern Europe under the hammer and sickle.



Vladimir, Hizb'Allah has many times refered to its own actions as terrorism!

Its not a question of what I call it. I don't care whether or not terrorism is the only military means open to some religious extremists. The fact of the matter is, military means are not the only option available to Hamas or Hizb'Allah they might just as easily use dialogue, politics and diplomacy. But they don't. It is simply that the military meansare the only means by which these extremists can acheive their utterly non democratic aims.

And since they don't even bother to pretend otherwise, why do you???





At least you are honest about your bias.

The Israeli's are not 'European'. In point of fact there is no common European identity to which the Israeli's, wether they be the descendent of Palestinians Jews or European Jews, can lay any claim to. A German is a European as is a Spaniard, but there is no common identity which binds them together to oppose the 'brown skinned' people of the Middle East.

Indeed, Spaniards are Europeans and like Greeks just as brown skinned as most Turks or Beduin or even more so. The whole mediterranean region is one big melting pot of ethnic identities and for centuries was dominated by lighter skinned people's.

The simple fact is, race plays no part of this except as an erroneous excuse on your part to isolate Israel for criticism.


Morality doesn't enter into it at all.

What is moral? Is it 'moral' to step aside to people who will kill you? How many generations of Jews have to die at the hands of other people's before the Jews are 'allowed' to say enough!? By your morality the world should maintain some kind of status quo from the moment your personal perception began. Why? What makes your perspective so special?

America exists exactly for the same reasons Israel exists, as have 99% of the nations of history. The only morality that matters in the end is self preservation. All other considerations take second place to that morality and the Arabs, after having ethnically cleansed, massacred and invaded the entire Middle East don't get to suddenly turn around and cry foul when one tiny nation defies them.

There is your morality. Let the Arabs put their own house in order. You put your house in order before you lecture the Israeli's on 'morality'.

I am not quite sure how you manage to identify the Palestinians with colonial imperialists, if that is what you mean. I have gone to some lengths to show that Israel itself is one of the last examples of European colonialism.


The fact is that Israel is constituted primarily of European and American Jews. In general they are white. It is not racist to make this observation. I reject the accusation that I myself am a racist. The historical record is that European colonialism took a racist account of white superiority as one of its principal justifications; the record is also that Zionism takes the supposed inferiority of the Arab people as one of its justificatons. My point was, however, that these colonial impositions have mostly vanished, for reasons that point also to the eventual dissolution of Israel.


That is really a joke, given the special place of Judaism in Israeli life and the restricted rights of Israel's Arab citizens. These poeple lived under martial law from 1948 until 1966, for crying out loud.

Here is a quotation from wikipedia:



I wonder what proportion of these Arabs would rather live in a Palestine free of Zionism. Israel's apoligists admit that it built the wall because of "demographic" pressures. What are those but the threat that an eventual majority of Israelis will be Arabs, not Jews, which would be intolerable to a state that considers itself the "Jewish homeland?" Is the Star of David not on Israel's flag?

And look at how the Arabs are treated in Gaza and the West Bank, where a ghetto has been created that rivals the Generalgouvernement? Not racist, indeed!



See my points just above. Further, it is precisely the Jewish identity of Israel that is supposed to entitle it to occupy its lands -- lands formerly occupied by Arabs. You cannot go to someplace, declare that your race entitles you take people's land from them, build a country that proclaims itself to the special homeland of your race, and not be a racist.



Perhaps so, but no degree of perfidy among the Turks is an excuse for that among the Jews.


A classic agumentum ad hominem that does not reflect even slightly on the merits of the case against Zionism. You should be aware, however, that Communists have historically been anti-Zionist. That one should be so is hardly remarkable.


This discussion is about Israel, remember?



These bits about my being a Communist (the ones with little c's aren't Party members) are quite irrelevant. Sometime we could have a discussion about the role of the Communist movement in world history, but this is not the place for it.

We certainly should consider the grievous wrongs our predecessors inflicted upon the native Americans, but there the analogy ends because all we can do is contemplate these wrongs; essentially nothing can be done to rectify them. There is not an ongoing world struggle on this subject, so the degree to which we contemplate it and the attitude we take toward it is quite irrelevant to history. The same is not true of the stuggle against Zionism, which remains in the historical balance. We are not discussing personal philosophy, but whether the Zionist state should continue to exist.

I say Israel shoud come to an end, for definite reasons. You say, "You're a Communist! Look at the Turks! Consider the poor native Americans!" Others will have to decide the relative merits of these two forms of argumentation.



Look, it is transparently obvious that the Jews in Israel are primarily, though not entirely, of European stock.

Palestine was a British "protectorate" and its inhabitants were powerless to resist the imposition of Israel upon them. Israel certainly was, and is, a European colony in the sense of being composed largely of immigrant Europeans who came unasked and took the land from the unwilling natives. It is a colony in the same sense that Transvaal and the Orange Free State were colonies. Neither Israel nor these Dutch examples were direct memebers of any European nation's system of colonial administration, but they are examples of colonies, nonetheless.

There was no such thievery of land, no such European immigration, that attendend the founding of any other state in the Middle East. Granted the borders of these states were drawn by the British and French, but that hardly makes a parallel.



How many times must I admit to being a Communist? It is right there on my personal information, what use is it bring it up again and again, except to distract us both from the points at proper issue in this thread?

It is not a smear to say that Israel is essentially a colony, it is an observation of fact. I do admit to being an anti-colonialist, but that is for given reasons. In any case, the struggle against Zionism is an anti-colonialist struggle, that is my point.



No but because, if you look at the title of this thread, you will see that it is about Israel.




I have not denied that Israel is a democracy. It is a democracy for Jews. There is a fig leaf of democracy for Arabs, but that is all it is. The wall was put up to ensure that an Arab majority never exists on the "Land of Israel."

But please, give a rest to your extremist and Communist whipping boys.



It is not a question of what anyone calls "terrorism," I agree. War is war by any other name. Personally I just as much recoil from the destruction of a building full of people by a helicopter gunship as by a carbomb, but I understand that the aim of war is always to win by any means available and necessary. The surprising thing is that the people in helicopter gunships point to the people with carbombs, and say, "See those lowlifes? They're not waging war in the proper way!" Actually I think they very well understand that carbombs and the like are just another way of waging war, but that it suits their purposes to delegitimize their opposition. Offtopic there is an analogy with our "War on Terror."

Likewise it attempts to delegitimize the struggle for Palestine by associating it with "extremists." What is extreme about wanting to have your stolen land back? As for negotiation, I leave it to the combatants in this struggle to decide when is a good time for that. But while there is a struggle, I will support them.

Droop, I'm sorry, but you haven't linked one source, referenced one historical fact, or even debated anything excepting your opinion.

What I'm saying is that your argument about Europeans invading and transplanting Europeans isn't the case. No one really even invaded and transplanted anyone. What happened is that Jews began a pilgramage back to their 'homeland' over the course of 6 or 8 decades (depending upon when you consider the beginning).

It really depends upon how far back you decide that the Jews were in that land. Consider that they inhabited that part of the world in past history, and were ousted.

What you obviously don't understand is that Judaism is cultural, and isn't simply religious. They are often even genetically seperated. Why do you think Jews in the US even congregate around certain geography? This happens in NY, Florida, and LA.

It's like saying that black people are 'North American', and culturally the same as Canadians, white Americans, and hispanics. It's just not historically or culturally accurate. They have a shared language, food, custom, and culture. I obviously could care less where the Jews live, and I'm not Jewish and honestly don't even personally know anyone who is.

I'm just saying that moving from Europe back to Israel (or that part of the world) is a logical transition for them. Their holy land was there, Europe proved to be oppressive, and the migration made sense. Had the Arabs not cause violent uprising, had they not kicked them out in the first place, and had there not been such a muslim disdain for other religion we wouldn't have this debate.

I mean, when does it really stop. I mean the Anglo-Saxons invaded Britian. The Romans were even there. Heck- the Romans were in the Middle East. Should they lay claim to that land? Seriously. Europe allowed the Jews to have that land because seperate accomodations became necessary to stop the fighting. The Arabs weren't bright enough to leave well enough alone, and they got kicked out of more than just that little sliver of Palestine. That's historically accurate. The Lebanese couldn't even get the picture as recently as a couple of years ago. The Egyptians were saved by the US government in the Israel-Egypt war. Heck, if Washington hadn't told them to stop, who knows... Egypt might be part of Israel.

Saddam invaded kuwait on the same grounds that (you believe) Israel doesn't have the right to exist. Kuwait was created by the British after the Ottoman Empire picked the wrong side. I've never made the assertion that any nation doesn't have the right to exist, you have. Ergo, I suppose Saddam would be "justified" by your own reasoning above. Clearly Kuwait doesn't deserve to exist either. I remember a lot of military intervention on behalf of that small "brown" country. Strangely, I don't remember the same level of intervention when the ostensible "European white colony of Isreal" was invaded right after its creation. In fact, I remember no outside military intervention at all.

Its very simple. The Palestinans belong to a global conspiracy united under a single colonial ideology. If you can claim colonialism caused by something as ephemeral as a common European identity then I claim colonialism at the hands of Islam. I'll wager Muslims have a far greater sense of common purpose than Europeans do.


So what? There are a hundred thousand Muslims living in Stockholm now and no asked them to come to Sweden. There are upwards of twenty million Muslim immigrants and their children living in western Europe and I am not aware of any open invitation to these colonists and the multiple enclaves they are busy establishing. Should they all go home because they 'don't belong' Vladimir? Some how I doubt your convictions with regards to 'colonialism' extend beyond your left wing bias towards Israel.

Perhaps your going to argue that Israel was founded against the wishes of the local population, to which I shall point to the Balkans where at least two regions are now Muslim and are so because the locals were once forcibly converted by the Turks.

...but perhaps your going to argue that the Balkans is 'not an ongoing world struggle'?

As if Palestine was a world struggle! The actual global problem is Islam and its extreme unwillingness to allow Arabs to be ruled by Jews, for once.


Compare that to the centuries of being treated as sub human paraiahs at the hands of the 'tolerant Muslims', then I do not see the joke. The Israeli's have done nothing to the Muslims which they have suffered themselves at Muslim hands a hundred times over.

You see a problem because like any good left wing extremist you see the Jews as being 'European' and thus, alien to the region. Your anti European attitude is formed by your opinon of what the term European means, but as it happens the term European is an empty one in this regard. The contested region was populated by Europeans long before the Muslim Arabs arrived there.

The Muslim Arabs stole that land they claim has been stolen from them. The bottom line is, if you steal something then you don't get to cry foul when it gets stolen from you in return.

So what does that mean? The building of the walls is racist? Does that mean the Egyptians are racist also for they have also built walls to keep the Palestinians in!

The Israeli Arabs might not have all the benefits you think they ought to, but the way I see it, they have far more than the Arabs are willing to extend to the Jews.

...formerly occupied by Greek christians. Cry me a river.

Good enough. Now go and tell that to the Arabs and the Turks. They've been doing it for ten centuries. The only reason to single out Israel is if you've decided that Israel is some how different from Turkey and the other countries in the region.

So far the only distinction you've offered is that Israel is a European colony, as if the former province of Palestine was not also a colony of the Ottoman Turks! As if the Palestian Arabs themselves were not aliens to the region when they settled there!


On the contrary. The region has established political traditions and Israel is not doing anything to violate those traditions. Land theft, ethnic cleansing and the use of military force against civilians are all long time staples of Middle Eastern politics and every single country in the region practices them. Israel, by comparison is no worse and probably far better than any of its neighbours in any situation you care to mention. Turkey is a very valid comparison to Israel. It pretends to democracy, wishes to be considered a western nation, yet has used military force to establish territorial gains, in the exact post war time frame as Israel. It has treated its ethnic minorities with any measure of brutality and disdain equal to the IDF.

The only reason to duck the comparison with Turkey is because you haven't even bothered to look beyond Israel as a 'colonial entity' in the Middle East.


Your political bias informs your opinions. I see no ad hominum attack in pointing to that bias for what it is.

biased.


You've said this already. Basically it amounts to the conclusion that if Israel had slaughtered every last Palestinian Arab then you wouldn't have a problem with Israel since essentially nothing can be done to rectify that.

What a cop out!

If we are debating whether or not Israel has the right to exist then first we must demonstrate what gives us the right to decide whether or not Israel must exist. On this basis, the origins of our own countries and the situations we ourselves sit in as a result is vital to determining why we get to decide who has any rights at all.

What it boils down to is, its easy to call some one a racist when you've not stood in their shoes. Several generations of Israeli's have been born in Israel and any attempt to label them Europeans is preposterous. Just as a Muslim born to immigrant Palestinian parents in Copenhagen is a Dane by right so too is a child born in Tel Aviv an Israeli. Nothing changes that nor gives you or I the right to dictate to those people who they are.

In other words, you don't get to label people as 'Europeans' because they have pale skin or because their grand parents came from Berlin.


So you've said already. So what?


Tell that to the Beduin, the Armenians, the Kopts, the Anatolian Greeks, the Kurds, or if you want to be really pedantic, tell it to the Macurians, if you can find any that is...


Because your erronous opinions are informed by your extremist political perspective and it is my duty as a kind and compasionate human being to point out the error of your dangerous opinons to you. Communism, like Islam is an oppressive and dangerous ideology under whose misguided tenets millions of innocent people have been slaughtered.


Indeed, and it is the same argument by which millions have been murdered.


Exactly! Where are the many threads about Turkey's racism/colonialism/militarism/apartheit society or 'right to exist'?


And the Egyptian wall, what was that put up for? Decoration?


What do you expect? You proclaim yourself to belong to an ideology that slaughtered more people than Hitler and threatened my country with nuclear attack for decades.

Believe me, I'm being polite.


Of course you will since global left wing doctrine always falls on the side of using revolution instead of political discourse. Ché would be proud of you.

Extremism is when you shun political parties which would negotiate a peaceful democratic settlement* in favour of murderers, like Arafat, Hamas or Che Guevara.


* There were four of them in the last Palestinian election. Between them they managed to get 11% of the total vote.

Moif, I'm afraid that others will have to decide the relative merits of our respective argumentations. I will only observe that there is one consistent thread that runs through all your posts on this subject, and that is that something, anything, should be discussed other than the wrongs of Zionism. No amount of evil supposed on my part as a Communist, on the Turks, on the Arab States, or on the Palestinian people, can excuse the abysmal racism and, really, quasi-Nazism of the Zionist state. If people like you and I cannot agree on these matters, blood and iron will have to decide them. I have every confidence in the outcome of that struggle.

Well indeed let's get throught the hogwash...

Simple enough show links show facts to further illustrate what i am saying

This is what an Ashkenazi jew is:



This is what I mean when I say "Europeans"



How many were ???


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashkenazi_Jews

my goodness... it's amazing the changes that can happen in 900 years!!! The European jew was only 3 percent of the population and poof it was 92% at the height of the immigration into israel in the 1900's and still holds great majority of Jews. I wonder how Could it be that that relgious philosophy transcends race boundaries. Any one of us can become a Jew right now, or at least start the process... excluding Michael Jackson, can any one of us become Asian, or White, or Black??


Moif



lol what kind of spin game you playing?? Well, technically i guess Israeli's are Israeli's. But majority of Jews are European jews or descendants, to include israel.

I'm not just talking about tans and complexion. I've put up the facts must Jews are Ashkenazi, Ashkenazi jew originated from Europe.

I use the term Arab for expedience sake. The point is their are plenty of ethnicities that find their roots in the Middle East... Arabs do originate from the area we call the middle east. Europeans and the Jews that derive from Europe do not. Your whole game is "muddy the water" as we can see by your next statement.



Well if Arabs aren't middle eastern... where did they come from... china?? the moon??

nevermind that if you choose... because it is unimportant... what is important is you saying "Morality doesn't enter it at all"

That is the icing on the cake... it is sweet, bittersweet, but sweet all the same. I am the first to tell you that morality is nothing but a collective delusion, There are no universal rights and wrongs. But i am also a person to tell you as individuals it is our nature to view right and wrong.

But let's take morality out of the equation, why are you then talking to Vladimar about "terrorism" as if it is wrong. Morality has nothing to do with it right.

Even though morality is a man made invention, I believe it is an invention that has merit. Thus I speak on morality of the issue going on with Israel and it's existence. For everyone else... go tell your kids morality doesn't matter... maybe you'll get the parent of the year award

muddy muddy muddy... nothing is nothing... Arabs aren't middle eastern, jew from europe aren't european. Whtes aren't white. right and wrong doesn't matter. Facts are opinions... Everything becomes nothing to justify the existence of Israel... that's how know it is wrong.




Now i gave you facts let's see if you ignore them.

If Jews were pilgrimaging back to their homeland most of them were going the wrong way. Their homeland was Germany. FACT!!!! In 1930's 92 percent of Jews were Ashkenazi, Ashkenazi jews originatedfrom Germany... they did not speak arabic or semetic language, they spoke yiddish which was a slavic language.

So sir, do you stand corrected??



Sometimes you scare me Aevans. Have you ever hung with a Black person before. We are culturally like you!! Our language, food, religion, nationality... You can say that there are differences but the Black American shares more in common, culturally, with you than he does with Africans who he shares the same race with. Wow... you didn't know this?? How many Black marines had the priveledge to serve under you.... unbelievable!!



It's called progression. it stops when more and more people say... nah I'm not going to support the invading side.




Good. I don't completely agree, but this statement will fly for this debate purpose. Why did we fight Saddam and support Israel and still support Israel??

We support Israel and we support Kuwait. Similar situations. We support Kuwait's right to exist and we support Israel's right to exist. If Israel were invaded, though, I'm not so sure we would immeditately spring to its defense like we did for Kuwait. There isn't any historical precedent to indicate that would be the case. So, we actually support Kuwait a bit more than Israel (for strategic and economic reasons).

So, do all "races" or "cultural groups" trace their ancestry back to the third century, and that's where they're from? So I guess Americans are really Celts, the Turks are really Persians (that is where the Ottomans originated if I remember correctly), the Syrians are really Arabs, and that you, Droop really are African (albeit from which group would be hard to specify.)

This is the point I was making about objective criteria... You have chosen an arbitrary division by which to categorize the Jews as European. Why go back to the 3rd century? If you go back another 300 years you'd find that that same group originated in... you guessed it, Palestine. So why did you specificy the time-frame that you did?

We are all descended from migrants. There is no way to state an objective criteria for when a group can be said to "originate" from a certain place without going beyond demographics and genetics and into... you guessed it, culture. So lets do that with two examples...

1. Americans are Americans (and not British) not because a genetic mutation occurred in 1776, but because a national group emerged which defined itself as such, with a specific proximity to the land called America.

2. The Jews are not European because this transition never took place. Jews may have developed their own language and communities, but the culture continued to identify with the land that now constitutes Israel.



So are you arguing that only racial groups can have a legitimate claim on a land or territory? Ok, that's a transgression... The population shift you've described had nothing to do with transcending racial boundaries and everything to do with cultural practices within Ashkenazi Jewish communities. Sephardic Jews continued to coexist (albeit reluctantly) within larger groups, be they Muslim, Arab, Zoroastrian, etc. Their counterparts in Europe however never integrated into the Catholic or Christian communities and became cloistered. As they became more insular they became more dogmatic, and the end result was a much stronger belief in procreation. Quite simply, Ashkenazi Jews were more orthodox, and the more orthodox they had the more children they had. The population was just as closed (and just as easily traced back to Palestine) as the Sephardim. This is why Tae-Sachs syndrome is a problem in the Ashkenazi population.

Spoken like a true communist.



Droop.

Really? Look at this stat from the CIA:

Link.
Looks to me like the majority were born in Israel Droop, or are the CIA lying?


No, you've quoted Wikipedia to support a non issue. Ashkenazi Jews did not 'originate' from Germany. They SETTLED in Germany (where they met with centuries of animosity). They originated, as did all Jews, from the Middle East...

...just as you say the Arabs did. In actuality the Arabs, like all such peoples of the region, originated from specific locations within the Middle East. They were, like the Jews, a tribe or ethnic minority if you wish, within the greater context of the region. There is no inherent right on behalf of the Arabs over the Jews that says the Jews must remain in exile in Europe as Europeans whilst the Arabs inherit the Jews ancient lands. As it happens the Arabs are now spread over the entire Middle East and beyond and this set of affairs came about by ethnic cleansing, land grabbing and military action against civilians. Also known as murder.

What we're talking about here is the ownership of the land now though. Who owns Israel? Right now, the Israeli's do and they've held that land for three generations. To some one like you, who see's a parellel with white colonists in Africa perhaps, you might dismiss those three generations as still being European, but I can assure you, they are not. In fact there is no such thing as a 'European' in this regard. Europeans belong to their own tribes and nations, and the Israeli's are not one of them. There is no European mother culture looking out for the Israeli's. No colonial administration or pipeline of support coming from Europe. Quite the contrary. Israel is loathed in Europe, its enemies are given every support by left wingers and academics and its goods are boycotted by a great many people. As I've pointed out repeatedly, there is no difference in how Israel has gone about its business and how the Arabs and later the Turks managed to grab the whole region for themselves. The only difference is how we in the west treat the Jews as opposed to the Turks and Arabs. Turkey is every bit as bad, if not worse than Israel and yet Turkey is given a free pass. Why?

Because they are brown? No, they resemble the Israeli's and Greeks in skin colour.

Because they are not Europeans? Actually Turkey has been applying for membership of the EU for two decades or more.

What exactly is it that sets Turkey apart from Israel? Only one thing. The Turks are not Jews. As Muslims they belong to a much larger and far stronger community a community which is both colonial, expansionist and aggressive and is the true reason why Israel is so hated.

None of this changes the truth though. Israel exists despite Muslim anger at the loss of territory. It is a democracy. It does not actually threaten any one beyond its own borders. One quarter of its population are not even Jewish. Thats a far higher proportion of Arabs than any European country, or any Arab country in reverse. There is a higher proportion of Arabs tolerated in Israel than in Iran. It may end up being the detail which destroys Israel eventually, but that is not my concern nor the subject for debate here. Israel has a right to exist. Its people, the Jews of the Middle East were kicked out by the Romans, the Turks and the Arabs and now they have returned and the shoe is on the other foot for the first time in a thousand years.

There was no 'morality' that stopped the Turks and Arabs from treating the Jews as sub human, indeed their Islamic morality encourages the ill treatment of Jews. Considering what the Jews themselves have had to endure at the hands of other peoples through out the last ten centuries, not least the Arabs, then in my opinion, the Israeli's have shown considerable restraint.


I didn't say they didn't come from the Middle East. I said they 'ethnically cleansed, massacred and invaded the entire Middle East'. They are from the Middle East, just as the Jews are. What I'm pointing out is that a thousand years ago there were very few Arabs, Today they are all over the Middle East having surplanted myriad other people's who lived there. The Jews were ethnically cleansed from the region. Now they have returned in force. Explain to me why the Arabs deserve special consideration?


Its very simple really. When some one tries to kill you, your morality becomes irrellevent.


I was refering to Hizb'Allah as employing terrorism because Hizb'Allah itself describes its tactics as terrorism.

Morals are subject to individual perception and there is no universally agreed principle of morality. The closest we come to that is the golden rule, or Islam, but even these are unclear n how they should be manifested or just how important they truly are. There is no monopoly of moral thinking to which human beings ascribe. Thus morality is a null consideration when considering survival. What means a great deal to one man may mean absolutely nothing to another.

What is a white man Droop? Look at this image and tell me where that man came from*

The simple fact is, if a child is born of Palestinian parents in Copenhagen, and receives Danish citizenship, then the child is Danish. End of story. A child born in Israel, is an Israeli. It does not matter what colour their skin is, or where their grandparents were born or whether the country they were born in is a fifty or a thousand years old.

This is also exactly why so many people fear Muslim immigration into Europe, because what the Jews did in Israel could just as easily be done in Sweden or Austria or Belgium, and if you look at the demographics, is already in fact happening, and there is nothing you can do to prevent it. You cannot take away a persons citizenship in a western state. You cannot say, you don't belong where you were born, you go back to Africa, or Asia or where ever.

So it is with the Israeli's. It doesn't matter that so many of them were born to immigrant German parents. The fact is Israel exists now and the only way to change that is to ethnically cleanse or exterminate the Israeli Jews. Its obviously Vladimirs wet dream. Is that what you want? What does your morality dictate?



* Macedonia

I find this "we", as if we Americans were all in the Great Imperial Enterprise together, rather amusing, when I don't find it exasperating. World history is not a football game, and it should be possible to discuss U.S. actions without use of the "we" as in "our team," which entirely begs the question of who actually benefits from these actions. You would almost think that some of the benefits of Big Oil's enrichment found their way to ordinary citizens.

Leaving that aside, I don't think that "our" rescue of Kuwait had very much to do with Kuwait; it had much more to do with assuaging the terror inspired by Saddam's aggression among the other Gulf states and among the all-important (to some) Saudis.

From my point of view, the rule of the Kuwaiti royal (what a joke) house is nothing that a single American should have had to die for, given that Kuwait's oil was going to be pumped under one regime or another. Saddam at the time was a fairly reliable U.S. ally in the region; it is just, so far as I understand, that he mistakenly thought he had "our" permission to take Kuwait. The Indians took Goa, after all, and nobody started a war over it; and Kuwait is just as much a European creation as Goa was.

But I think your post also ignores the vast material aid that the U.S. gives to Israel. What is it? On the order of $4 billion every year, I believe, not to mention the conveyance of military technology that essentially no one else has access to.

The philosophy and subsequently the religion of Judaism originated in the middle east as did Christianity and Islam that does not make every Jew, Christian, and Muslim a product of the middle east. The latter two understand this, maybe jews don't.

UJ


Somehow... you end up saying the same thing I am but argue against me... I do not catergorize jews as European.... They are not ONE PEOPLE... a religion can not be a race. A shared philosophy over time will bring people together to create a distinct culture, but a philosophy by mere thought can be shared by totally different ethnicities/races.

I am saying that majority of Jews that migrated to Israel and found israel were european. If we went back to the third century most jews were not European they were middle eastern. The same thing happened with Christianity. It originated in the middle east, if Jesus it existed he was a middle eastener, the religion, expanded through Europe. Most Christians are of European descent. The fact that the first Christians were Middle Eastern does not make Christian middle Eastern or descendants thereof.

A jew can be any nationality, race, or ethnicity. There are African jews, there are middle eastern Jews.. and yes there are European Jews. Same goes for muslims, smae goes for Christians and many other religions.

So to characterize my argument that Jews are European would be yet another strawman that takes needless time for me to cut down.



Blacks have been in America for 500 years. Yet many of us are still Dark skin. Light skinned Blacks can point to some Indian or White ancestory. My point. If the Ashkenazim is middle eastern, or the direct descendants of middle easterns how come the vast majority of them look like "white" people?? You see I am not saying that any one can't find "a drop" of blood from the middle east. I'm saying that some point blood connection to the middle east has become so diluted that even Germans imprisoning Jews had to put a patch on them to tell who they were. I don't think Whites ever had that problem with Blacks after centuries of being here in America.

Point blank...Just cause Ashkenazim jews are not middle eastern, doesn't mean there aren't Jews that are. And just cause there are some jews that are Middle Eastern, doesn't mean ALL, MOST or even HALF the Jews are.

Moif


Why, because the Jewish Religion doesn't accept converts. If, I say if, they settled in Germany damn near 2000 years ago and had a lot of sex with the general population, then centuries later those settler settled with other European nations and had sex with the population.

Again because a philosophy comes from the middle east it does not meant the followers are also from the same region.




lol.... who would have thought you could be expelled not one, not 2 not even three but 50 generations... hey right wingers, you here that. Mexicans crossing the border aren't illegal immigrants they are expelled natives returning.

I somewhat joke but hell even the mexican immigrant still looks like the native group that were actually expelled. What happened to the ashkenazim Jews??? By the way did anyone tell the Mizrahi Jews. Those would be middleastern( for the most part) Jews. For some reason the Middle Eastern Jew stayed... i don't know.... middle eastern!!!

Moif when you debate Vladimar all you do is ad hominem attacks it's like reading a 5 year old "communist, socialist, ...coming from a socialist" When you debate me it's a bunch of strawmans, or just untrue statements... me thinks you really want to obfusticate what's really happening.

Mrs. P


I kind of misread your argument the first time. I'm comparing invasion to invasion, and you were comparing creation of Israel vs. the creation of kuwait by Britain.

But even in this you leave out the important portion of migration of European Jews into Israel. There weren't a different people enforced on the Iraqis or Kuwaits. There were not people pushed from their homes. So the only thing you are comparing is who created the border, which while I feel Britian had no right, is the most superficial wrong to point at. Can you delve deeper into your comparison??

Droop.

To be Jewish is not to belong to a religion. I am Jewish yet I do not hold to the Jewish faith, nor any other religion. Your argument bears weight only if you are dictating to the Jews what they are. Israel was not founded to be the home of the Jewish faith, but the Jewish people. Your whole approach here, like Vladimir's is to preach topeople whom you've never met, who they are. I'd wager that if I were to tell you who I thought you were and what rights you had according to my perception, you would be less than impressed.

In other words Droop. Neither you, nor Vlad nor any one else gets to tell Jews who they are or what right they have to form their own state.

In doing so you are walking down a path laid by centuries of inquisitors, witch hunters, slave owners, nazi's, communists and myriad other 'haters'.


Am I a philosophy? No, I am a human being. My mothers family, which is Jewish by bloodline, not by faith, originated from Judea. The fact that outsiders can convert to the Jewish faith means nothing to me, nor to my sense of identity.