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Thread: An Israel/Zionism thread

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    Default An Israel/Zionism thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Paris View Post
    Wait a minute, let me get this correct. The reason why Israel and Palestine are conflicted is because some people carry a certain set of genes that entitles them to rule over a particular piece of land?

    Did I understand that correctly? No wonder the Arabs are pissed. That sounds like blatant racism. Maybe I misunderstood?

    If that is the case, anyone of European or Asian heritage can claim land in the middle east because that is the evolutionary start to those populations. Aside from Africa, all of the world's current population originated in the Middle East.

    This sounds a bit like the Native American Reservations here in the US. Their right to the land is based only on genetics. Could American Indians reclaim Manhattan just because they were there first? It was, after all, their land before the Europeans settled it. By the above rules of Israel it sounds almost reasonable.
    Quote Originally Posted by Zinaida View Post
    Nevermind the fact that that was way back in the seventh century. Who cares about the non-Jewish settlers that were inhabiting the land since then.
    Quote Originally Posted by Yekhefah View Post
    The seventh century? Huh?

    If somebody wants to argue against Zionism, please start a new thread. I feel uncomfortable jacking this one.

    Sooo...I'm really interested in this discussion. My current opinion is very close to Paris', especially with regards to comparison with Native (North) American land. But I'm open to hearing what Yek and others have to say.

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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    ^^^ the issue is basically an economic one. Until very recently (thanks mostly to gambling revenues), native Americans were not in a position to 'buy' political influence in support of their cause. The Palestinians have NEVER been in a position to 'buy' political influence, since unlike nearby arab neighbors there isn't any oil under their sand. Thus their grasp for political influence has tended to stem from gun barrels and vests loaded with dynamite.

    On the flip side, the worldwide Jewish lobby, and AIPAC in particular, has wielded tremendously powerful influence for the past 50 years. AIPAC's influence in US politics, in combination with Jewish 'influence' in much of US mainstream media, is reputed to make the difference between a particular US national politician being electable or not. In support of this, I would offer a recent statistic thatm while comprising only about 3% of US registered voters, Jewish political contributions amount to some 60% of total money received by US candidates. Thus in the US at least, issues involving Israel and Palestine essentially never receive equal 'weight'.
    Last edited by Melonie; 03-26-2008 at 10:01 PM.

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    God/dess Paris's Avatar
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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    Thanks Scarlett! I was also curious about what might happen to the basic faiths of the west of Israel should cease to exist? Most especially if the rest of the world continues on with business as usual. Isn't there some kind of prophesy that states the end of Israel is the end of humankind or some such superstition?

    *I'm very ignorant of these topics. I am an atheist and don't understand the mind set of fundamentalism. I remember asking my history teacher why the Jews didn't just convert to Catholicism during the holocaust to save themselves. As if attending a different church was nothing at all to concern oneself over. I saw it similar to moving careers or homes.

    Melonie: I see all issues as economic ones. It is the justification of those "economic" issues that are so sticky to wade through.


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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    Subscribing because I'm curious to see where this goes

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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    I am a jew, as in, it is my heritage. I had a bat mitzvah to please my grandfather. My great grandparents excaped from Kiev to the states around 1912.
    I have always been atheist and think like Paris.
    That land has gone through many settlements. I see a major difference with the native american references. Native americans never felt ownership of land, they do not believe in it. That is why it was so easy to take the people from the land they had settled in this country. The jews claim land.

  6. #6
    Yekhefah
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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    I don't really know where to start in this thread. I guess I'll start with Paris's speculation about what would happen if Israel ceased to exist... the Jewish people would not survive. The anti-Zionist movement is absolutely about genocide, without question.

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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Yekhefah View Post
    I don't really know where to start in this thread. I guess I'll start with Paris's speculation about what would happen if Israel ceased to exist... the Jewish people would not survive. The anti-Zionist movement is absolutely about genocide, without question.
    This is how I understand that statement:

    If Jews do not "rule" Israel, then Jews will die as a people.

    Why can't the Jewish faith survive without a particular piece of dirt?


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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Paris View Post
    This is how I understand that statement:

    If Jews do not "rule" Israel, then Jews will die as a people.

    Why can't the Jewish faith survive without a particular piece of dirt?
    Didn't Judaism survive for about 1,900 years without a Jewish state ? Through the various expulsions, the Inqusition, pogroms and the Holocaust ?

    The reason Israel is a Jewish state located where it is currently located is because that's where Jews want it to be. It's their ancient homeland. But when they were scattered it's not as though it was vacant land for 1,900 years.

    The Palestinians stayed loyal to the Ottomans while their fellow Arabs sided with the British in W.W. I; and lost. The Mufti allied himself with Hitler; and lost. They lost in 1948. They allied themselves with Nasser in 1956 and 1967; and lost. They allied themselves with Sadat in 1973; and lost. They allied themselves with the Syrians in 1982; and lost. They allied themselves with Saddam in 1990; and lost.
    They cheered 9/11.

    The ONLY times they have gained anything was at the bargaining table with Israel.

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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    Quote Originally Posted by shasta View Post
    That land has gone through many settlements. I see a major difference with the native american references. Native americans never felt ownership of land, they do not believe in it. That is why it was so easy to take the people from the land they had settled in this country. The jews claim land.
    Really? Taking the land from the Native Americans was easy? If it was "easy" at all it wasy because we had guns, alcohol, and disease, and numbers on our side. The Indians may have not beleived in personal ownership of the land, but they sure is hell didn't beleive in white men owning it either.

    Personally I see a few similarities between the Native Americans and the Jewish. Both were cast from the lands of their ancestors and put in other places, they were look down on as a whole and persecuted, and now they are finally beginning to amass some wealth and power. Hell I know people that are now proud to claim their "Indian Heritage" because it gives them a nice check twice a year. I think it will be interesting to see what the tribes that are bringing in serious money do in the next 20 or 30 years.

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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    I am an interested observer in this thread. I would like to learn more about the region and possible solutions to the festering hatred and violence. Thank you Scarlett, and thank you contributors.

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    Tauries
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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    Quote Originally Posted by HokeyBabble View Post
    I am an interested observer in this thread. I would like to learn more about the region and possible solutions to the festering hatred and violence. Thank you Scarlett, and thank you contributors.

    Here is a film that should help you in your quest oh good knight;

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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    Brilliant

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    TheSexKitten
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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    Very very random, but my 21-year-old aunt is going over to Israel next year to work in youth camps with Israeli and Palestinian kids in hopes of helping a younger generation work together. She's fluent in Arabic. Sorry for jacking, I just think that's kind of rad.

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    Featured Member minnow's Avatar
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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    OP concentrates on "land". The ammount of land one nation or people get to have is dependent on their willingness/ability to wrest land by force, or negotiate for it. And, to a certain extent, the neighbors willingness to live & let live.

    Yet, things can be complicated by ideology. Given that Arab world is predominantly Islamic, and passages in Koran refer to Jews as "slinking apes", I don't see much basis for a lasting peace whether one side gets 1 or 1 million acres of land.

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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    I guess I'll start with Paris's speculation about what would happen if Israel ceased to exist... the Jewish people would not survive.
    So, that begs the obvious question: how did the Jews survive hundreds of years without Israel?
    Idealism is fine, but as it approaches reality, the costs become prohibitive.

    William F. Buckley, Jr.

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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    I always felt this was articulated perfectly:

    "Zionism's 'historical right' to Palestine was neither historical nor a right. It was not historical inasmuch as it voided the two millennia of non-Jewish settlement in Palestine and the two millennia of Jewish settlement outside it. It was not a right, except in the Romantic 'mysticism' of 'blood and soil' and the Romantic 'cult' of 'death, heroes and graves'... "The claim of Jewish 'homelessness is founded on a cluster of assumptions that both negates the liberal idea of citizenship and duplicates the anti-Semitic one that the state belongs to the majority ethnic nation. In a word, the Zionist case for a Jewish state is as valid as the anti-Semitic case for an ethnic state that marginalizes Jews." Professor Norman Finkelstein, "Image and Reality of the Israel-Palestine Conflict,"

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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    Quote Originally Posted by scarlett_vancouver View Post
    NO ANTI-SEMITISM ALLOWED! Can we do that?
    That means no racism towards Arabs also.

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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Yekhefah View Post
    the Jewish people would not survive.
    Why not.

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    God/dess hockeybobby's Avatar
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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Tauries View Post
    Here is a film that should help you in your quest oh good knight; Fitna
    Tauries: Yes, Hatred, I get it. There's lots of it to go around. It's a serious problem. As you are probably aware, we don't have true "freedom of speech" here in Canada. We consider the fomenting of hatred against an identifiable group as reprehensible and we sanction it...seriously. Why? Because unchecked, it inevitably leads to some awful shit.

    So we can probably (well most of us) all agree that hatred, in it's many forms is the root of the problems that are being discussed here and in the "find a way to stop the war" thread. Finding solutions for the hatred will take more than, well, more videos of hatred. Do you have anything constructive to say?

    And, my name is hockeybobby.

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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    Quote Originally Posted by TheSexKitten View Post
    Very very random, but my 21-year-old aunt is going over to Israel next year to work in youth camps with Israeli and Palestinian kids in hopes of helping a younger generation work together. She's fluent in Arabic. Sorry for jacking, I just think that's kind of rad.
    I think that's rad as well.

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    God/dess Jenny's Avatar
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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Yekhefah View Post
    I don't really know where to start in this thread. I guess I'll start with Paris's speculation about what would happen if Israel ceased to exist... the Jewish people would not survive. The anti-Zionist movement is absolutely about genocide, without question.
    That is an odd contention for a culture/religion that is thousands of years old and a country a little more than 50 that is home to a relatively small percentage of the religion/culture.
    I have taught that the sky in all its zones is mortal and its substance was formed by a process of birth

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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Paris View Post
    *I'm very ignorant of these topics. I am an atheist and don't understand the mind set of fundamentalism. I remember asking my history teacher why the Jews didn't just convert to Catholicism during the holocaust to save themselves. As if attending a different church was nothing at all to concern oneself over. I saw it similar to moving careers or homes.
    .
    FYI, the Nazis searched birth records to see if a person was jewish because they had a mother, father, or maternal grandparent that was Jewish. Then they took them in. Jewry is more than a religion, its a heritiage, and somewhat of a sub-ethnicity as well.

    But the Jewish Holocaust wasn't like the Spanish Inquisition, it wasn't about religion, it was about marginalizing then systematically destroying a group of financially successful, yet culturally inclusive people. I guess, when I think about it, I'm upset because the Jews didn't have a chance to repent or convert, they all just got rounded up and shot into a gigantic pit in the country they have inhabited for hundred's of years (Ukraine).

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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    Katrine is right... Holocaust had nothing to do with religion, it was about need a scapegoat... Plus Hitler's personal distaste for them.

  24. #24
    Tauries
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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Hockneyblather View Post
    So we can probably (well most of us) all agree that hatred, in it's many forms is the root of the problems that are being discussed here and in the "find a way to stop the war" thread. Finding solutions for the hatred will take more than, well, more videos of hatred.
    If videos of hatred won't work my good knight, maybe is the answer!!

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    Default Re: An Israel/Zionism thread

    Humour is good. And in the spirit of humour, lets end our little threadjack. K?

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