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Hamas/Israel conflict: news and discussion

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.
I think this is is a very difficult question with no easy answers. They were born there and may have known nothing else. So to call them settlers may feel wrong. But next door are refugees who were born stateless and have known nothing else, whose ancestors used to live where you are now. What do you do when you know that history?

Ownership of land is a fraught subject but when current ownership is the result of a flagrant historical injustice that has left clear groups of winners and losers living next to one another, continuing as if that had not happened isn't always an option. The white farmers of Zimbabwe knew that. They knew that something had to be done and that that something involved many of them giving up at least some of their land. They may have been born into their farms with that ownership, but like Israelis with Palestinians, they were surrounded by the children of the dispossessed whose dispossession had made their ownership possible. However well those white farmers had cared for their farms, they knew there was an injustice in there that needed righting.

On a side note, one of the first and most foolish things Blair did when coming to office was to cancel the compensation scheme the Tories had created for white Zimbabwean farmers - this led directly to the later violence. I say that's a side note, but perhaps it isn't. Some form of outside scheme of compensation for Israelis could be envisaged here. Even though it is the Palestinians who have nothing and it may seem odd to give money to people who aren't the most in need, it could perhaps work like that. Distasteful of course, but not so unusual. After all, it was the slave owners, not the slaves, who were compensated with the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. I don't know.

Here's where labels have their limits. Acknowledging a shared sense of humanity, a shared sense of belonging to a particular place and a shared desire to live next to one another in peace would be a start. Lots to thrash out from there.
 
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.

I'm working class
 
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.

You don't listen.

I've not said Israel is uniquely different.

As I've posted more than once. Need I have to repeat myself?

And I have tried my best here to distinguish between the State and it's inhabitants.

Between Zionism/ Zionists and Jews.

Nor have I been big in this thread of blaming individual Israelis.

Except individual cases of say someone like David Ben Gurion.
 
I think this is is a very difficult question with no easy answers. They were born there and may have known nothing else. So to call them settlers may feel wrong. But next door are refugees who were born stateless and have known nothing else, whose ancestors used to live where you are now. What do you do when you know that history?
It'd be around the time the people who were displaced were allowed full and equal legal rights, imo. Still a way to go there in the case of Israel and Palestine.
 
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.
So you're arguing the crimes of 1948 on are the responsibility of the political elites. Presumably then the crimes of 1947/48 then weren't. Whose responsibility were they? You don't address the question of who bears responsibility for the political trajectory of the zionist entity since 2006 or 1993. Is the political trajectory of the ze since withdrawal from gaza or the Oslo accords a crime or series of crimes? Are the political elites as you suggest floating above millions of dupes who inhabit the ze? You've a really fucked up attitude towards 'democracy' which is obvious to anyone who reads your post even if not to you
 
It'd be around the time the people who were displaced were allowed full and equal legal rights, imo. Still a way to go there in the case of Israel and Palestine.
yes, that sounds fair.

Certainly if you are going to create one state of Palestine/Israel for everyone, Jews and Arabs, you can't just create it with the current patterns of ownership intact, whereby former Israelis own everything and former Palestinians instantly become the underclass.

I'd stress that I'm not suggesting that 7 million Jews should be made to leave. Or even that 7 million Jews should be paid to leave. But like the white farmers of Rhodesia upon the creation of Zimbabwe, there would need to be an acknowledgement of the land issue and a willingness to do something tangible about it. That would involve at least some Israelis giving up some of their land. It would have to.
 
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.

A big reason for reading history is to learn. So one does not just spout off on subjects. So I've read several books by Israeli Jews and Palestinian historians

Your in practice saying reading up and learning is sign of unconscious motives that demonstrates prejudice.

As a general point I think this kind of anti racism isn't helpful. Whether it's about anti semitism or anti black racism.

What is your problem with Pappe? He is Israeli born Jew.

Israel as a state has been continuing it's colonial project since 48. In West Bank and Gaza with varying degrees of success.

id like to say yet again the answer is not to expell people who have been born and grown up in Israel.
 
A lot of this viewpoint that sees support of Palestinians is sign of Judeophobia/ anti semitism/ unconscious racism in white European bourgeois writes Palestinians themselves out of the picture.

It's also in my view attempt to close down global support for Palestinians.

As this global support means a lot to Palestinians and can possibly have an effect.

So attacking this support is vital to Israeli government interests
 
In defence of formulaic anti-political anarchism, it's not as though anyone else actually has plausible realistic solutions to the immediate pressing problems either. I mean, I think there are things that we can do to get towards a situation where those problems might seem a bit less impossible, which is why I'm part of the same movement as the people waving national flags. But the choice to wave a flag certainly doesn't get us anywhere by itself, waving a flag or not waving a flag is a pretty abstract piece of symbolism either way.



Also, unrelated to the above and hopefully goes without saying, but obviously Dystopiary is a good, thoughtful and appreciated poster and WLT is a really fucking toxic one on this subject.

Symbolism is good actually. Walking home Friday night I saw three separate houses with Palestinian flags on them. It draws people's attention and gets them thinking and to be honest a lot of people are not paying attention.
 
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So you're arguing the crimes of 1948 on are the responsibility of the political elites. Presumably then the crimes of 1947/48 then weren't. Whose responsibility were they? You don't address the question of who bears responsibility for the political trajectory of the zionist entity since 2006 or 1993. Is the political trajectory of the ze since withdrawal from gaza or the Oslo accords a crime or series of crimes? Are the political elites as you suggest floating above millions of dupes who inhabit the ze? You've a really fucked up attitude towards 'democracy' which is obvious to anyone who reads your post even if not to you



I think I've argued elsewhere on this thread that what happen 1947-1948 was a successful war of national liberation. Maybe the wrong side won. The conditions that led to that victory being possible was a consequence of British colonial policy and the opportunities it gave Jews fleeing persecution in Europe during the second quarter of twentieth century.

Israelis have by and large over the past forty years voted for those, mainly the right, who promise them security, which until last month they could claim to gave done. That doesn't surprise me any more than it does anywhere else. The Oslo accords failed because they left to much power in the hands of Israel, even though they got Rabin murdered, and not enough in the hands of the Palestinians. Plenty said (in my case mostly Robert Fisk) that at the time, and I assumed that they were being too pessimistic, clearly they weren't. Edward Said called them the Palestinian Versailles.
 
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I think I've argued elsewhere on this thread that what happen 1947-1948 was a successful war of national liberation. Maybe the wrong side won. The conditions that led to that victory being possible was a consequence of British colonial policy and the opportunities it gave Jews fleeing persecution in Europe during the second quarter of twentieth century.

Israelis have by and large over the past forty years voted for those, mainly the right, who promise them security, which until last month they could claim to gave done. That doesn't surprise me any more than it does anywhere else. The Oslo accords failed because they left to much power in the hands of Israel, even though they got Rabin murdered, and not enough in the hands of the Palestinians. Plenty said (in my case mostly Robert Fisk) that at the time, and I assumed that they were being too pessimistic, clearly they weren't. Edward Said called them the Palestinian Versailles.
More mere blather
 
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
Exactly, that's a crashing hole in your argument tim . And fuck off with your accusations of antisemitism.
 
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I think I've argued elsewhere on this thread that what happen 1947-1948 was a successful war of national liberation. Maybe the wrong side won. The conditions that led to that victory being possible was a consequence of British colonial policy and the opportunities it gave Jews fleeing persecution in Europe during the second quarter of twentieth century.

Israelis have by and large over the past forty years voted for those, mainly the right, who promise them security, which until last month they could claim to gave done. That doesn't surprise me any more than it does anywhere else. The Oslo accords failed because they left to much power in the hands of Israel, even though they got Rabin murdered, and not enough in the hands of the Palestinians. Plenty said (in my case mostly Robert Fisk) that at the time, and I assumed that they were being too pessimistic, clearly they weren't. Edward Said called them the Palestinian Versailles.
You have interesting points to make. But how about you stop accusing other posters of being antisemitic? Maybe then we could have a decent discussion. You seem to want to sabotage that.

It really is a very basic point, one that I thought we'd sorted out on here. There are antizionists who are antisemitic, but to be antizionist is not in and of itself antisemitic, even if your antizionism involves the harshest of criticisms of Israel, even if your antizionism involves you thinking that Israel should not exist at all (the Hassidim are not antisemitic). It's quite easy once you get the hang of it.
 
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