Hamas/Israel conflict: news and discussion

[belboid]

It's exactly the same cut off point that exists for descendants of refugees from Pakistan and India expelled during the partition and more or less for descendants of Poles expelled from the former Polish Eastern territories and for the descendants of Germans expelled from what is now Western Poland and the Sudetenland. Maybe it might have seemed more equitable if the Jews had been given Bavaria, but they weren't. If you imagine that the creation was somehow unique, you buy into the myth that Jews are uniquely problematic

The reality is that what happened during and after WW2 was horrendous but it isn't something that can be easily changed 80 years later. There are no political magic wands.

absolute rubbish. we've been through this before and it is pointless to do so again, but you really are rewriting history in a horrendous fashion here. Again.

 

[Gramsci]

I think thought you were ignoring me, and, anyway, if you think my posts are all whataboutery, why respond?

Because Im now finding objectionable your disingenuous whataboutery posts you have been making on this thread after weeks of Israeli government mass murdering civilians and destroying homes/ hospitals and schools.

I also responded to answer what you assert. Any views on that?

A major flaw in your whataboutery is that this isn't about something that happened 75 years ago and we should all just shrug our shoulders and move on.

It's happening now.

If you think people are being anti Semitic in supporting Palestinians just say so.

 

[mojo pixy]

It wasn’t the Bible but as you were.

The Book of Micah is definitely in the bible. In the NIV on my shelf it's right there between Jonah and Nahum.

 

[Gramsci]

There are Rabbis aplenty opposed to Zionism who swear blind on YouTube that the use of Hebrew as the official language for the state of modern Israel was an affectation - and that Hebrew was rightly considered a sacramental language for religious not everyday use.

As littlebabyjesus says Hebrew was adopted instead of Yiddish as nation building.

A new kind of Jewish society. Yiddish was the old Jewish life. Adopting Hebrew was a new start

It comes up in the book I'm reading An Army like no Other. The author, an Israeli, points out that Hebrew was a " dead " language. Not used generally for years.

This meant that the vocabulary was limited.

In practice the new Israeli state contained a whole load of people who spoke many different languages. From German to Russian.

In practice bits of Yiddish and other "slang" from various European languages got incorporated into modern Hebrew. To make up for lack of modern vocabulary in part.

Also the early IDF was made up of many recent immigrants who ended up in battalions where many languages were spoken. So a kind of mixed language was spoken. The early IDF was a melting pot. As most adult men were in it

So, according to the author, modern Hebrew isn't like the one used in religious ceremonies.

Perhaps mojo pixy can cast light on this?

One achievement of the Zionists was to quickly build a new society.

 

[tim]

absolute rubbish. we've been through this before and it is pointless to do so again, but you really are rewriting history in a horrendous fashion here. Again.

How is pointing out that Israel, and Pakistan; along with India, and Poland in their present forms all emerged in the wake of the Second World War and that the creation of those and other states that are now recognised as legitimate entities involved mass murder and the creation of huge numbers of refugees "rewriting history"? Aren't you rewriting history by not accepting it?

I don't think the creation of a Jewish majority state is any different from the creation of a Muslim or Catholic majority state.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

I do like the 'violent settlers' trope they've just come up with. As if there's a non-violent way to force people off their land, demolish their homes and build new ones in clear violation of international law.

It's yet more parallel universe stuff. Like Cameron when he was admonishing Israel in the West Bank and demanding that the murderers should be arrested and brought to justice. He appeared to have missed the fact that the murderers had been given assault rifles by the Israeli government. Their actions are an extension of Israeli government policy.

 

[Boris Sprinkler]

The Book of Micah is definitely in the bible. In the NIV on my shelf it's right there between Jonah and Nahum.

My point was why are we ignoring scripture when it appears right in our face.
The bald snakes who govern us. All cast out.

 

[belboid]

How is pointing out that Israel, and Pakistan; along with India, and Poland in their present forms all emerged in the wake of the Second World War and that the creation of those and other states that are now recognised as legitimate entities involved mass murder and the creation of huge numbers of refugees "rewriting history"? Aren't you rewriting history by not accepting it?

I don't think the creation of a Jewish majority state is any different from the creation of a Muslim or Catholic majority state.

for one thing, both India and Pakistan are fully functioning states, something that Palestine was never allowed to be. For another, leaders from those areas were at least represented in those decisions, it wasn't just done to them. Plus, they're not settler colonial states. All quite significant differences. As we went through earlier.

 

[mojo pixy]

So, according to the author, modern Hebrew isn't like the one used in religious ceremonies.

No, it's not. It's more like a reconstruction than an evolution though, with heavy borrowing from English, Arabic and Russian. So the difference between Biblical Hebrew and vernacular Israeli Hebrew is different from the relationship between eg. Koran Arabic and modern vernacular. Essentially anyone schooled in the Torah and Talmud could survive easily in Israel, but they'd sound a bit like someone speaking KJV Bible English.

 

[Larry O'Hara]

Because Im now finding objectionable your disingenuous whataboutery posts you have been making on this thread after weeks of Israeli government mass murdering civilians and destroying homes/ hospitals and schools.

I also responded to answer what you assert. Any views on that?

A major flaw in your whataboutery is that this isn't about something that happened 75 years ago and we should all just shrug our shoulders and move on.

It's happening now.

If you think people are being anti Semitic in supporting Palestinians just say so.

I have had Tim on ignore for a while: suggest you do too. Some people are just not worth it…

 

[tim]

A major flaw in your whataboutery is that this isn't about something that happened 75 years ago and we should all just shrug our shoulders and move on.

Justice and equity now needs action now, not blaming long dead Jews.

This means getting the Israelis to stop murdering in Gaza and the West Bank, and n the longer the creation of two viable states or maybe the more idealistic but, perhaps, increasingly more viable pluralistic unitary state.

 

[Gramsci]

I'm not big on looking at religious reasons but last week was talking to someone in local PSC.

Asking why did USA support Israel now? What's in it for them?

As he said back in days of cold war with USSR and USA competing in middle east there was a reason for it. That's finished now.

Now he said there is the religious right in USA . Who support Israel for religious reasons and have political clout. Which should not be underestimated.

It does perplex why, if powerful countries like USA on cynical level support others for strategic reasons, still support Israel.

Even in days of British they also saw an outpost of Europeans in middle east as part of protecting their interests. Suez canal etc.

I fail to see what rational is now for giving Israel all this support.

Even in days of British empire they flip flopped to at times, for their own interests, supporting Arab nationalism against the Ottomans and later in case Nazis invaded middle east.

So perhaps quite irrational religious reasons do have a bigger role now than before.

 

[tim]

I have had Tim on ignore for a while: suggest you do too. Some people are just not worth it…

I wish you really would ignore me rather than spring up every couple of weeks like a demented jack bursting from his box to denounce me .

I first upset you by criticising the misogyny of one of your posts. I'm quite proud of having stung so deeply.

 

[littlebabyjesus]

Justice and equity now needs action now, not blaming long dead Jews.

This means getting the Israelis to stop murdering in Gaza and the West Bank, and n the longer the creation of two viable states or maybe the more idealistic but, perhaps, increasingly more viable pluralistic unitary state.

Ok well taking that idealistic route, the creation of a new pluralistic unitary state would clearly require a lot of compromise from all sides. I don't think it's impossible although it feels remote right now. I actually think it's the only possible solution. But it would need to involve something like what happened in South Africa with its truth and reconciliation commission.

And that would necessarily involve grievances going all the way back to the moment Palestinians were first turned into refugees. It will be a huge thing to sort out. Those kibbutzim that were attacked on 7 October were built on top of the ruins of Palestinian villages. People still remember the names of those villages. People still know which one their ancestors were evicted from. How do you equitably share the land in such a situation? It would need both sides to give up on something but it would crucially require Israelis to face up to the past and the path that took us to this point.

 

[Gramsci]

I have had Tim on ignore for a while: suggest you do too. Some people are just not worth it…

I did. Given it's annoying me now rose to it

You are right.

 

[Idris2002]

As littlebabyjesus says Hebrew was adopted instead of Yiddish as nation building.

A new kind of Jewish society. Yiddish was the old Jewish life. Adopting Hebrew was a new start

It comes up in the book I'm reading An Army like no Other. The author, an Israeli, points out that Hebrew was a " dead " language. Not used generally for years.

This meant that the vocabulary was limited.

In practice the new Israeli state contained a whole load of people who spoke many different languages. From German to Russian.

In practice bits of Yiddish and other "slang" from various European languages got incorporated into modern Hebrew. To make up for lack of modern vocabulary in part.

Also the early IDF was made up of many recent immigrants who ended up in battalions where many languages were spoken. So a kind of mixed language was spoken. The early IDF was a melting pot. As most adult men were in it

So, according to the author, modern Hebrew isn't like the one used in religious ceremonies.

Perhaps mojo pixy can cast light on this?

One achievement of the Zionists was to quickly build a new society.

I think there were also a lot enthusiasts who were into coining Hebraic neologisms for modern terms, on the basis of what would be consistent with ancient Hebrew. They did revive the old tongue, which is more than certain people I know did.

 

[tim]

for one thing, both India and Pakistan are fully functioning states, something that Palestine was never allowed to be. For another, leaders from those areas were at least represented in those decisions, it wasn't just done to them. Plus, they're not settler colonial states. All quite significant differences. As we went through earlier.

Oh the self-styled "Leaders" were involved, so that makes the shit that those at the bottom endured all right.

Anyway, at partition in 1948 the Jordanians were happy to annex the West Bank and East Jerusalem. They continued to claim sovereignty until 1988. Gaza after 1948 was an Arab League protectorate, until the Egyptian's, under Nasser, took control after the revolution of 1953 which deposed the decadent and depraved monarchy.

 

[Idris2002]

Partition was in 1947, surely?

E2A: And what's your point caller? The Arab states have behaved consistently badly, so that gives Israel the right to kill loads of wee kids?

 

[tim]

Partition was in 1947, surely?

E2A: And what's your point caller? The Arab states have behaved consistently badly, so that gives Israel the right to kill loads of wee kids?

The point is that the Israeli regime is murderous and cruel and needs to be held to account. That doesn't mean dismissing Israelis or Palestinians as being somehow peopled without a real ethnocultural identity. The "Settler State" line is veiled form of Judeophobia. The argument that Palestinians are just Arabs with no other identity is the mirror image of this.

 

[Gramsci]

The "Settler State" line is veiled form of Judeophobia.

So posters here saying it's a settler colonial state are anti Semitic in your view.

Finally got the reason for your posts here.

That does mean Israeli Jews like Ilan Pappe are Judeophobes.

 

[tim]

Partition was in 1947, surely?

The British Mandate ended officially in 1948

 

[Gramsci]

One might not agree with historians but to say historians who've studied what happened ( Netanyahu btw has closed off archives to try and stop any further research into what actually happened) and come to conclusion that what happened in 48 was ethnic cleansing and that Israel is settler colonial state are " Judeophobes" is wrong to put it mildly.

 

[mojo pixy]

I fail to see what rational is now for giving Israel all this support.

IMO (and I've said it before) it's mainly because of islamophobia. My enemy's enemy is my friend. And that's about it.

 

[tim]

So posters here saying it's a settler colonial state are anti Semitic in your view.

Finally got the reason for your posts here.

That does mean Israeli Jews like Ilan Pappe are Judeophobes.

I think white European bourgeois posters here who single out Israel as uniquely different from other may have issues with Jews, consciously or unconsciously or more realistically haven't reflected enough upon their own attitudes. All or none of the adjectives above, by the way, may, by apply to you. They certainly define Mr

Maybe some here are projecting their own sense of guilt about the colonial history of the state they were born in. It's easy to blame the Israelis of today for the brutality of Britain's colonial past.

Changing track again do you consider third or fourth generation Israelis be they of European, Asian or African ancestry as colonial settlers? I'm interested in your views rather than Pappe's.

 

[Pickman's model]

I don't see how Zionism is any different from all the other irredentists ideologies that led to the creation of political entities in the twentieth century, particularly after the two world wars. State creation after the collapse of the Empires of the nineteenth century led to expulsions resettlement and massacres in many places as well as the conscious efforts to create new national identities with the imposition of national languages and often a state religion.

Israel is not substantially different, in that sense, as an entity than: Turkey, Pakistan, Serbia, Bosnia, Czechia, Syria, Bangladesh, Greece, or Poland.

Like in those other places, Israeli identity is something that has developed over the past 75-100 years. 78% of Israel Jews were born in Israel and the vast majority will be either monolingual or bilingual Hebrew speakers and have a sense of having an Israeli national/cultural identity in the same way that I, or anyone else has a sense of national and cultural identity. No Israeli Jew under the age of 90 bears any responsibility for the creation of the state. Does having some personal commitment to that state make them Zionists and consequently in some way depraved?

Changing topic, The white, European, bourgeois coloniser narrative that is pushed by lots of bourgeois Europeans ignores a couple of issues. Firstly, the Holocaust was not a unique occurrence. It was the culmination of centuries of persecution and murder of European Jews. The Russian pogroms from the 1880s led many to see settling in Palestine as a way of guaranteeing their own and their families safety as did the overt antiSemitism of most European states in the early twentieth century. Jews were pushed out of Europe. It was made clear to them that they had no rights to exist there and live normal lives.

Secondly, the "white settler" narrative ignores the fact that a large proportion of Israeli Jews are not of European heritage but have ancestors who come from North Africa, the Middle East and other parts of Asia. Many of them refugees from the persecution that followed the creation of Israel. There is no foreseeable way that Israeli Jews of Iraqi, Libyan, Afghani, Saudi or Yemeni origin could return to those countries.

Strange how you talk of no Israeli jew under 90 bearing any responsibility for the creation of the state but you say nary a word about responsibility for the trajectory of the state over the past say 17 years let alone the period since the Oslo accords

 

[tim]

IMO (and I've said it before) it's mainly because of islamophobia. My enemy's enemy is my friend. And that's about it.

It's not Islamophobia that stops the establishment in the UK the European Ubion or the USA from supporting Egypt or Saudi Arabia. Like those states Israel is an important regional entity.

 

[Gramsci]

Have read part of this

The problems for historians attempting to study Israeli history

Israel’s Vanishing Files, Archival Deception and Paper Trails - MERIP

The Israeli government is keeping many of the state's archival documents classified, censored and out of the reach of potentially critical historians. But determined scholars continue to uncover tantalizing paper trails that challenge Israel's air-brushed official narratives.

merip.org

It became a little more difficult to study the history of Palestine and Israel on January 21, 2019, when Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu signed a new amendment to the archive law extending the classification period for certain materials from 70 to 90 years

 

[Gramsci]

The New Historians of Israel countered the official narrative in late 70s onwards.

Dogged persistence paid off

 

[mojo pixy]

It's not Islamophobia that stops the establishment in the UK the European Ubion or the USA from supporting Egypt or Saudi Arabia. Like those states Israel is an important regional entity.

I suspect it is, in fact. Oil beats religion, but without oil money to be factored in then christians > jews > muslims.

 

[tim]

Strange how you talk of no Israeli jew under 90 bearing any responsibility for the creation of the state but you say nary a word about responsibility for the trajectory of the state over the past say 17 years let alone the period since the Oslo accords

The state has existed since 1948. The crimes from that point on are the responsibility of the political elites. That includes the colonisation of the West Bank and the countless crimes in Gaza that have occurred since the Six Day War.

I see no point in blaming ordinary Israelis for being Israelis or Palestinians for being Palestinians. And of course people often vote for cunts, particularly when they feel threatened. That is why Likud and Hamas have political power and why we have the shits that we do in the UK.