Do you realise that this "right" for Israel to exist is based on the expropriation of Arab land, ethnic cleasing of the Palestinians from their country and the destruction of their identity to satisfy a zionist programme born in Europe in the 19th century, supported by the Balfour Declaration and endorsed by the UN against its own charter?
No place for Israel in Middle East, says Iran’s Ahmadinejad
- Thread starter weltweit
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Do you realise that this "right" for Israel to exist is based on the expropriation of Arab land, ethnic cleasing of the Palestinians from their country and the destruction of their identity to satisfy a zionist programme born in Europe in the 19th century, supported by the Balfour Declaration and endorsed by the UN against its own charter?
I've heard the arguments. No point in debating the events of the late 40s on this thread. This is about the fact that the Iranian government/wackjob theocracy is constantly baying for Israel's death. (Oh, yea I know. It's mistranslations). I find it nuts that anyone would think the Iranian regime gives a damn about the plight of the Palestinians, considering the way they oppress their own & buddy up to Assad. The Shia theocracy has to show that they are REAL Muslims by making it clear that they really, really hate Israel. Not a new tactic really.
Disliking Iran's rulers isn't he same as liking Israeli policy. Oh, & I still think there can be a 2 state solution.
Mad4ziz
Member
Reply to Violent Panda above, without quoting else it will be the longest post ever!
The bit I am focussing on is the risk of nuclear war.
You seem pretty sure Israel has a 2nd strike capability using its subs, though you also say that it doesn't need it to deter Iran because the fall out from an Iranian attack will drift over Iran and kill many Iranians. Skipping over that, lets assume Israel does have nukes on its subs-what if it is attacked by Iran and "wiped out"? What is to stop a sub commander, knowing that the Jews have been on the end of a 2nd holocaust, targeting e.g. Pakistan, or even Western Europe? He (I assume it will be a he) knows his country is "wiped out"; knows Iran will suffer from fall out; feels let down by the ROW. He might feel justified in going rogue. Think Breivik, but with nukes. And if I say I hope that there is no 2nd strike capability, does that put me in the camp of not preventing a 2nd holocaust? Perhaps I am worrying too much-Perhaps I am a victim of US/Israeli propoganda-but this is the fascist Israeli's we are talking about, in your terms.
The Iranians are a proud sophisticated people with great cultural history and I can easily imagine getting on well with many individuals: so were the Germans in the 1930s, and yet look what happened there. No this doesnt justify Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians, but I think the Israeli's feel the Jews were mistreated in WW2.
We need to prevent Iran getting nukes via negotiation. If we fail, even if deterrence works for a while and Israel doesnt attack pre emptively.....where do the Iranian leadership go with their rhetoric then? What outlet does it have? There will be pressure to use their bomb!
The bit I am focussing on is the risk of nuclear war.
You seem pretty sure Israel has a 2nd strike capability using its subs, though you also say that it doesn't need it to deter Iran because the fall out from an Iranian attack will drift over Iran and kill many Iranians. Skipping over that, lets assume Israel does have nukes on its subs-what if it is attacked by Iran and "wiped out"? What is to stop a sub commander, knowing that the Jews have been on the end of a 2nd holocaust, targeting e.g. Pakistan, or even Western Europe? He (I assume it will be a he) knows his country is "wiped out"; knows Iran will suffer from fall out; feels let down by the ROW. He might feel justified in going rogue. Think Breivik, but with nukes. And if I say I hope that there is no 2nd strike capability, does that put me in the camp of not preventing a 2nd holocaust? Perhaps I am worrying too much-Perhaps I am a victim of US/Israeli propoganda-but this is the fascist Israeli's we are talking about, in your terms.
The Iranians are a proud sophisticated people with great cultural history and I can easily imagine getting on well with many individuals: so were the Germans in the 1930s, and yet look what happened there. No this doesnt justify Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians, but I think the Israeli's feel the Jews were mistreated in WW2.
We need to prevent Iran getting nukes via negotiation. If we fail, even if deterrence works for a while and Israel doesnt attack pre emptively.....where do the Iranian leadership go with their rhetoric then? What outlet does it have? There will be pressure to use their bomb!
Johnny Canuck3
Well-Known Member
Yes. Ahmedinejad doesn't actually mean or believe any of that stuff!
Bernie Gunther
Fundamentalist Druid
Well, if sanctions are justified against Iran, who don't have nukes, they're clearly justified against Israel, who do.
You are right, but this is very unlikely to happen, isn't it?
Who is challenging Israel to reveal if they have nuclear?
No country in the West at least; they are all hypocrites !
Accusing Iran is OK, Defending Israel is OK too for them.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
What's your point? That he does? That he will act on it? That he's in a position to act on it? That he wants to but is being held back? By who? Say something.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
He means land that arabs were living on.
dylans
overlord of all acorns
This is a mantra and a deliberately vague and dishonest one at that. Because what does it mean to say you are "for a state's right to exist". If by this is meant the right for the people who were born and live in that country to exist then noone would argue with you. Indeed the mantra is deliberately worded so as to imply that democratic critics of Israel are suggesting genocide or "pushing the Jews into the sea".
But this is deliberate and malicious. States don't have "a right to exist", people do. When Israel's defenders talk about "Israel's right to exist" what they really mean, is not the right of the people living in Israel to live there but rather they mean Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state. That is, a state by and for one religious group and a state that institutionally excludes and discriminates against those who do not belong to that religious group solely on the basis of religion. This is what a religious state, by definition is. Especially in a land where many people do not belong to that religion.
When critics of Zionism say the Zionist state should not exist, they are saying that Israel does not have the right to exist as a supremacist apartheid state, one in which equal citizenship is only offered to Jews at the expense of non Jews.
The alternative to this state built on religious exclusion is not, as is implied in the mantra "Israel's right to exist," genocide. The alternative is a liberal democratic state. A secular state which promotes no religion but a state in which all citizens, regardless of religion or ethnicity are accorded equal rights. It constantly amazes me that this demand, the demand that Israel operate on the same terms as any democratic state, is presented as genocidal. Of course, this is deliberate. The idea that the only alternative to Zionism is a bloodbath is a lie. The only alternative to Zionism is not a bloodbath, it is secular democracy
As for 67 borders. You are 20 years too late. The two state solution is dead. Half a million settlers and the virtual annexation of East Jerusalem have killed that idea. A Palestinian state existing in the present occupied territory can never be an independant or viable entity. It would be a bantustan. A rump state mired in poverty and totally dependant on Israel. A state with no control over its economy, water, seas, borders or airspace. A prison camp with guards on its walls, no different to Gaza. A fiction of postage stamps and pretty flags and symbols. No, if it was ever possible, relentless Israeli land theft, expansion and settlement have killed it. The only alternative now is for the Palestinian national struggle to transform itself into a struggle for rights in a single binational secular state. Along the lines of the struggle against apartheid. The demand for equal rights, one person one vote in a single secular state is the only viable option for Palestinian freedom today
You know what I mean! It's not some "weird racial thing".
The ancestral land of hundred of thousands of Arab who lived in Palestine before 1948.
Most have still the deeds of their properties.
Not just Arabs though. Noone makes a fuss about south Spain being 'Arab land'
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
1948 isn't ancestral
Personally I view the 'Palestinian' claim as yet more Egyptian and Ottoman colonialism. Galilee for the Menonites imo
dylans
overlord of all acorns
Smoke and mirrors. Your history is simply wrong but this is not merely a historical question. The question that matters is "are Palestinians living under military occupation TODAY denied basic democratic rights?"
Only a fool or a liar would deny that they are.
I agree with what you said in the post above that Israel and Palestine should be free from racism and religious intolerance. But, you can't get past racism on 'Arab land'. I live in China and 'China welcomes foreigners' which is cool if you want to visit, but if you live here and something serious comes up you are definitely in the wrong race.
We'll never get anywhere if we stick with racism
dylans
overlord of all acorns
The denial of Palestinian rights takes the form of land theft. Literally land theft. When you are driven from your home at gunpoint, that is land theft. When your house is bulldozed or your olive groves and farmland destroyed, when you are driven from land you have lived in for generations to make way for settlements this is land theft. When you are forced into exile and turned into a refugee, that is land theft. When you are forced to live under military occupation, checkpoints, walls and sniper rifles, that is land theft. Palestinian national identity and conceptions of "My land your land" arise as a result of expulsion, expropriation, occupation and settlement.It is the nationalism of a people denied democratic rights
It is therefore fundamentally erroneous to claim that expressions of such national Palestinian national identity are "racist" or in any way equal to the nationalism of those who are carrying out such expropriations and settlements. This is not an equal struggle. Rather it is a case of a state being built on the forced expulsion and denial of rights of those it has deemed as not belonging to that state.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
I blame too many decades of reading the defence press.
With some kind of hypothetical weapon that's capable of wiping them all out?
Because no such weapon actually exists, does it? Even sowing nukes into all Israeli territory wouldn't kill everyone, not even in the long-term.
Well, for a start, SLCMs have a range of about 1000 miles max with a full load in the warhead, So the sub would have to be in waters that rendered such a strike possible, so they'd have to be able to go undetected through the |ndian Ocean, or the Arabian sea, or possibly even navigate the Suez Canal undetected. Unlikely.
No, I think it puts you in the camp of Walter Mitty. You're assuming that this putative commander can circumvent all the safeguards put in place and reset the firing safeties and hack around the safeguards in the guidance systems of the SLCMs.
Actually Poindexter, I didn't say that Israelis are fascists, I said that Israeli politicians indulge in quasi-fascism. Get it right.
A quick question: Which decade of the 20th century were you born in?
I was taking issue with Karim saying 'Arab land'
I agree that the Palestinians got fucked over and still are, I think a lot of their grandads were refugees from Egypt and Syria, proper unlucky families!
It's not exactly a picnic in any of Israel's neighbours either, to associate the mess that Israel is in with it being 'Arab land' is bullshit.
IMO the 2 state solution is the only possible one. The alternative is the right of return & Israeli Jews living in an Arab country. They will never do this. Never.
I don't like any state based on religion/ethnicity....but Israel is the homeland of the Jews. It just is.
dylans
overlord of all acorns
No, the alternative is Israelis living as equal citizens in a multi-ethnic secular democracy. Terrible as that sounds. Can't you see how fundamentally racist your assertion that "the alternative is Israeli jews living in an Arab country" is? How is it any different to Apartheid supporters claiming that the end of Apartheid would mean "whites living in a black country?"
Unfortunately, your "Jewish homeland" is also home to people who are not Jewish. Therefore such a project can only be built by the expulsion and denial of rights of those citizens.
Nations are essentially subjective entities. A people are a nation if they believe themselves to be. There is no real objective basis for any nation. As such I have no problem in principle with the idea of Jewish people feeling they are a nation or a people any more than I do with Palestinian expressions of national identity. However, the expression of such national self determination is not unconditional. There is a very important condition and that is that the realisation of such national self determination is not at the expense of the rights of another people. This is at the heart of the problem with Israeli Zionism. That the Israeli project was and is being built by the denial of the national rights of another people. This is not acceptable and can never be.
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
That's a myth put around by...guess who?
Most of the occupants of Palestine had been there pre-Ottoman, and modern propagandists use the Ottoman designations as a way of denying that the people of Palestine could be "Palestinian".
It's only bullshit insofar as the Arab identity only really kicked in with the rise of pan-Arabism, which is partially contemporary with the death of the Ottoman empire.
Imagine having a well-armed mass of people coming and squatting on the land that has been in your family for 20 or 30 generations or longer (regardless of the particulars of which state or empire gave it's name to the land at various times), who then turn you off the land entirely. Who do you identify with? Whichever identity offers you the best chance of regaining your land!
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
A two state solution is the most plausible solution to sell to people. Unfortunately it's neither politically or demographically acceptable to the state of Israel or (perhaps more importantly) the US ruling class. A two state solution is a phantom. It's a piece of paper waved at the Palestinians in order to keep them politically-engaged, and to give them a reason to "police their own". That's all. 40 years and more of "negotiations", summits and accords prove this to anyone who isn't wilfully blind.
Because we expelled the previous occupants and lived there for a few centuries before the Romans dispersed us to the 4 winds? Because G-d told Moses it belongs to the Jews? Why?
Well armed people turning people off their land is a pretty good way to sum up history, doesn't mean that I agree with it!
Arab nationalism hasn't worked in any Arabic countries. It's still racial bullshit, it really really doesn't work
I just think if Palestine got a nation how long could they hold out against Egypt and Lebanon and Syria and all them lot? The whole thing about 'Arab land' and stuff, I just can't go along with it.
I really can't imagine my family owning anything for 3000 years or whatever. like I said, it's shite for Palestinians and something should be done. Just less of the race shit
Arab nationalism hasn't worked in any Arabic countries. It's still racial bullshit, it really really doesn't work
I just think if Palestine got a nation how long could they hold out against Egypt and Lebanon and Syria and all them lot? The whole thing about 'Arab land' and stuff, I just can't go along with it.
I really can't imagine my family owning anything for 3000 years or whatever. like I said, it's shite for Palestinians and something should be done. Just less of the race shit
1948 was the time when most Palestinians were expelled from their land, their country.
Under British Protectorate, the last census gave 800,000 Arabs living in Palestine.
The first census done by the State of Israel gave the Arab population in the territory at 150,000.
What do you think happened to the 650,00 missing Arabs?
Some were killed, but most were brutally expelled from their ancestral land.
They ended up in refugee camps, survivng from handouts, living in cramped conditions, etc...
What about their "rights" ?
Why don't you say that to the Jewish settlers who still now come from New York, or Ukraine, or Russia to claim "their" land and buid illegal settlements on the West Bank after the Israeli army has dispersed the Palestinians who live there?
Who do you think has more moral right to be there?
Those whose families have never been in Palestine since the Diaspora but roamed Europe for centuries as the Wandering Jews?
Or the Arabs whose ancestors were Bedoins in that land for many generations and never left the Middle East?
Does that notion of "return" solely applicable to Jews, or can we all claim the same?
That could be an interesting question!
shifting gears
Well-Known Member
Anti-semitism by numbers.
Random
Ethnic nalgocrat
Shit like that is exactly what drums up support for Israel among non-Israel Jews.
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