Israel / Palestine News Thread

[hundreth]

35 minutes ago, zazen said:

Insightful. Tragic that it can just take one stubborn person to undo collective effort.

Yes, and at the same time Arafat is the Palestinian figure who also went the farthest to cultivate a peace deal. 

The region now is undoubtedly worse, with both sides jaded, scarred and more cynical. 

But as someone who remembers growing up in the 90s in an Israeli household, visiting family etc I know that peace was front of mind. And now, it feels like because of the current state of events the entire society and history has been written off as one of willful subjugation. It is painful and unfortunate to see. 

[Nivsch]

48 minutes ago, hundreth said:

But as someone who remembers growing up in the 90s in an Israeli household, visiting family etc I know that peace was front of mind

Absolutely. I remember that very well.

Edited June 20 by Nivsch

[Twentyfirst]

Keep killing a population of people filled with half children and women Israel. Keep doing it. Ya'll are very peaceful 

[Twentyfirst]

There is something that NOBODY can question but we all know what it is. At one point are we allowed to start questioning it? It's disgusting really that we aren't allowed to say anything

[Vrubel]

 

2 hours ago, zazen said:

Zionists have their "Promised Land," a cosmic real estate deed they use to justify bulldozing Palestinian homes and planting settlers like weeds in occupied territory.

I made my case in temporal terms. Israelis don't need to and rarely do use terms such as "chosen" or "promised land" to make their case. It's just another hook that anti-Israel people latch onto and extrapolate from and hyperbolize. 

I've never met a Jew in my life who thinks of himself as chosen and therefore superior. I am sure some extremist settlers do and it's a shame that these are the people who often live closest to Palestinians in the West Bank but the overwhelming majority of Israelis aren't as cartoonishly zealous as you think. Religious Jews think of themselves as chosen because they believe they are chosen by God to study the Torah, that's it.

you can extrapolate and indulge in your anti-Israel propaganda but buried beneath that are the legitimate and obviously understandable motivations and concerns of Israelis. 

 

 

 

...But I do feel very lucky and blessed that I am Jewish. But that's another thing. As a kid, I do remember blissfully thinking to myself that of all the people on this earth - just think of the billions of Chinse, Indians and Africans - I just happened to be born a Jew. I don't think Jews are better than anyone in any fundamental sense but I do think Jews make for high-quality societies and generally greatly uphold the culture of any place they live in. 

 

Edited June 20 by Vrubel

[Nivsch]

5 minutes ago, Vrubel said:

I am sure some extremist settlers do and it's a shame that these are the people who often live closest to Palestinians

Yes the problem is designed in such a way that most extreme parts are the closest physically to each other, what then distorts the perception of the sides about the other side and create illusionary view on it.

[Nivsch]

11 minutes ago, Vrubel said:

Israelis don't need to and rarely do use terms such as "chosen" or "promised land" to make their case.

This is just the right wingers.

What me and my family think is that the physical country is connected to our nation in a deep sense but we understand that this is right to the Arabs here too and we therefore support two state solution.

Edited June 20 by Nivsch

[Merkabah Star]

56 minutes ago, Twentyfirst said:

There is something that NOBODY can question but we all know what it is. At one point are we allowed to start questioning it? It's disgusting really that we aren't allowed to say anything

Bibi is in the closet? 😂

[Karmadhi]

55 minutes ago, Nivsch said:

This is just the right wingers.

 

Do you consider yourself right left or central wing?

[Raze]

Quote

Israeli Torture of Arab Prisoners Reported by London Sunday Times - 1977

https://www.nytimes.com/1977/06/20/archives/israeli-torture-of-arab-prisoners-reported-by-london-sunday-times.html

 

Quote

Israeli government report admits systematic torture of Palestinians - 2000

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2000/feb/11/israel
 

Quote

Palestinian Released From Israeli Prison Describes Beatings, Sexual Abuse and Torture -2024

https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/twilight-zone/2024-04-28/ty-article-magazine/.premium/palestinian-released-from-israeli-prison-describes-beatings-sexual-abuse-and-torture/0000018f-15e9-d2e1-a7df-15efb6590000

[Danioover9000]

@Merkabah Star

1 hour ago, Merkabah Star said:

Bibi is in the closet? 😂

   Bibi the bogeyman...

[Twentyfirst]

7 hours ago, Merkabah Star said:

Bibi is in the closet? 😂

I am not gonna say but just think and you'll know what I am talking about. What is the most censored thing on the entire planet. The thing that nobody can ever say no matter what?

[zazen]

13 hours ago, Vrubel said:

 

I made my case in temporal terms. Israelis don't need to and rarely do use terms such as "chosen" or "promised land" to make their case. It's just another hook that anti-Israel people latch onto and extrapolate from and hyperbolize. 

I've never met a Jew in my life who thinks of himself as chosen and therefore superior. I am sure some extremist settlers do and it's a shame that these are the people who often live closest to Palestinians in the West Bank but the overwhelming majority of Israelis aren't as cartoonishly zealous as you think. Religious Jews think of themselves as chosen because they believe they are chosen by God to study the Torah, that's it.

you can extrapolate and indulge in your anti-Israel propaganda but buried beneath that are the legitimate and obviously understandable motivations and concerns of Israelis. 

 

 

 

...But I do feel very lucky and blessed that I am Jewish. But that's another thing. As a kid, I do remember blissfully thinking to myself that of all the people on this earth - just think of the billions of Chinse, Indians and Africans - I just happened to be born a Jew. I don't think Jews are better than anyone in any fundamental sense but I do think Jews make for high-quality societies and generally greatly uphold the culture of any place they live in. 

 

The warmth of the sun can linger long after the sunset, likewise, religion and radicals can influence a society enough that even when their influence fades, the effects still shape society in subtle ways. 

The few bad agents take holy words that are intended to bestow responsibility and twist them to mean superiority. Though they are few, they wield disproportionate influence as they are the ones currently with power in government. They can pull at policy and propaganda which shifts the centre of gravity in their direction or in other cases cause a pendulum swing in revolution against them.

Words don’t have to be explicitly stated to have an affect on the psyche, which translates into actions, state action or personal action. Just a steady drip-feed of dogma, absorbed through cultural osmosis. Before you know it, the Overton window has shuffled enough to have a sizeable portion of the population dancing to a tune they never consciously chose to follow.

 

The latest:

https://amp.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/20/idf-transfers-powers-in-occupied-west-bank-to-pro-settler-civil-servants

Edited June 21 by zazen

[Hatfort]

Yeah, they took a land that was already inhabited and decided that it was going to be for the Jewish people all over the world, and it has been justified and still is by ancient books. It's currently a Jewish ethnostate, with the Jewish star symbol in the middle of the flag, while the Palestinian flag is prohibited. The rest of the world doesn't care if the Jews think they are chosen by god, which they are not, but we don't care what you believe. It's quite a supremacist belief, and even if most Jewish don't hold it as truthful, there's no out-of-influence in Israel's current government making the decisions right now.

If you tell me many countries have religious themes in their flags, like Christian-based crosses, or Islamic moons. Yeah, but they are not colonies created in an already inhabited land last century, those places molded to be as they are through history.

The natives of Palestine didn't agree to be colonized by foreigners, obviously, no place in the world would have. The foreign Jews could do it because they had and have the economic and military support of the US and Europe. It was a death and displacement-based massacre then, and it is exactly the same now. It's never going to work in the terms proposed by Zionism.

[Nivsch]

38 minutes ago, Hatfort said:

The natives of Palestine didn't agree to be colonized by foreigners

So too any other country that has been established by force which means almost every country you know about.

38 minutes ago, Hatfort said:

The foreign Jews could do it because they had and have the economic and military support of the US and Europe.

Because they got to a conclusion they cannot stay any longer without their own state just like you would think if you were in their situation after what happened to them.

38 minutes ago, Hatfort said:

It was a death and displacement-based massacre then, and it is exactly the same now.

A mutual escalation between both sides started in 1920s until the peak in the civil war of 1947. 

Edited June 21 by Nivsch

[Vrubel]

28 minutes ago, Hatfort said:

It's never going to work in the terms proposed by Zionism.

Depends on how you define Zionism. Many of the haters use it as a cartoonish demonization without even remotely attempting to grasp what it truly is. 

I wrote enough to educate you on the issue. You’ll never convince Israelis that their people are not worth fighting for. The more they get threatened the less compromising and trusting of others they'll get. Securing the nation/people, that's the Israeli national mission and sense of purpose that all Israelis take part in that precedes your simplistic narratives of evil white colonialist Zionist ethnostate against a poor innocent Palestinians. Which is so absolutely laughable and detached from reality. 

[Hatfort]

34 minutes ago, Vrubel said:

Depends on how you define Zionism. Many of the haters use it as a cartoonish demonization without even remotely attempting to grasp what it truly is. 

I wrote enough to educate you on the issue. You’ll never convince Israelis that their people are not worth fighting for. The more they get threatened the less compromising and trusting of others they'll get. Securing the nation/people, that's the Israeli national mission and sense of purpose that all Israelis take part in that precedes your simplistic narratives of evil white colonialist Zionist ethnostate against a poor innocent Palestinians. Which is so absolutely laughable and detached from reality. 

It's not a cartoonish depiction, Israel's foundation is based on the killing and the displacement of the people who were living in that land before it was decided that it was going to be a colony for all the Jewish people of the world, mostly from Europe. This is a historical fact, it's what happened.

I'm not antisemitic, I'm totally fine with the Jewish people in the world. I don't necessarily oppose an ethnostate, but I think it's not fair what has been done to the Palestinians. They weren't responsible for what the Nazis did to the Jewish people, so they shouldn't have to pay such a high price to repair the harm caused by others. Since the USA, EU, and NATO countries support a Jewish ethnostate, I think they should be the ones to offer land for that, I wouldn't oppose that at all. But the US and EU are very generous with other people's lands, but very tight with their own.

I also want to mention my total recognition to Jewish people like Norman Finkelstein and so many others that recognize the barbarity that has been happening in Palestine for the last 70 years, because it's not easy to go against the grind of your own people.

[Vrubel]

@Hatfort Let's reflect your logic back: I'm totally fine with Arabs in the world except for Israel and let us mention my recognition to the Green Prince and many other Arabs who recognize the barbarity that has been happening by Palestinians for the last 70 years (even 100 years) because it's not easy to go against the grind of your own people.

Edited June 21 by Vrubel

[zazen]

I’m all for believing there’s a political centre amongst Zionists / Israelis and that the fundamentalists just run the government - but then you see countless videos of IDF mockery and things like this that make you question that assumption.

This debate is all the way in Toronto. The deafening boos drowning out human rights reports reveal the fortress of denial built by those who've swallowed the Zionist narrative whole. It's easier to silence dissent than confront the cognitive dissonance of supporting a regime committing documented atrocities.

Imagine the script was flipped and self proclaimed moderate Muslims booed at reports documenting the atrocities of ISIS.

 

[hundreth]

3 hours ago, Hatfort said:

If you tell me many countries have religious themes in their flags, like Christian-based crosses, or Islamic moons. Yeah, but they are not colonies created in an already inhabited land last century, those places molded to be as they are through history.

I guess when Jews have a state, it's not considered part of history. Only every other nation belongs to history.