You make it sound like Israel is just a victim here, getting terrorized, when in fact they have the Palestinians sequestered into ghettos and denied basic human rights like food, water, medicine. The violence is a symptom on inhumane treatment, not simply the cause of "evil doers".
I won't even being to respond to your sensationalized argument about saving children being a justification for mass invasion of privacy with no oversight.
I think that the borders with Gaza and the West Bank were very open, people commuted and travelled to buy stuff etc. After the second Intifada, the stops went up to hinder very common attacks on civilians. This stopped a quite integrated economy -- and caused problems on the Israeli side, too.
(I am no expert, I follow the subject just to find out how non-serious my native Swedish media are. So I'm probably pro-Israel, since I literally look for the stuff censored from Swedish media. You seem like you should learn Swedish? :-) )
The violence isn't a symptom of their treatment. IS, Al-Qaeda, and Hizballah aren't "sequestered into ghettos" and they happily indulge in the same violence as Hamas. Maybe you should visit Israel and have a Falafel?
Western involvement cannot be ignored in analysis of the middle east ever since the end of WW1. Extremism is the product of continuos destabilization of democracies, funding of extremist groups and puppet regimes. Pick pretty much any country, specifically ones that the Western powers have been having their war of terror in recently and look at the history. Iran, Iraq, Syria, Afganistan, etc, etc, etc.
Al Qaeda was created to fight the Soviets and backfired, IS could be seen as an offshoot from funding extremists in Syria at the end of Bush's presidency to overthrow Assad. Unless you prefer to believe that an entire racial group is just predisposed to committing acts of terror...
Since the cold war, the US involvement seems to be in non-democracies exclusively. (I thought Venezuela was a case, but the page claims that wasn't proven?) [Edit: Maybe the coup against Aristide in Haiti? I don't know enough.]
Frankly, I see a big difference between on one hand a country and its population -- and on the other, a junta that has stolen a country. If such a junta is ousted it is a good thing, as long as it isn't completely fubared as in Iraq 2003 (Libya might also end up even worse than under the last pack of murdering rapists).
My main problem with the US administration right now is Obama's unwillingness to do something about Syria. Assad is no lesser murderer and torturer than IS.
The terrorism that Israel deals with predates significant US involvement in the Middle East. Bedouin attackers, not to mention marauding arabs from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Egypt have been attacking Jews since before the 1920's.
You can blame what you want on western influence, but the truth is - and you'll know this if you've lived with Arabs - that they don't subscribe to western ideals of pacifism and anti-violence. It's not what they believe in.
For example, I witnessed an honor killing in 2002. It was done in the middle of the village with all the inhabitants cheering. Not sure you'd get the same reaction if you did that in Times Square.
> You can blame what you want on western influence, but the truth is - and you'll know this if you've lived with Arabs - that they don't subscribe to western ideals of pacifism and anti-violence. It's not what they believe in.
You're slurring an entire ethnic group. I can see where that would be a useful component for justifying rights violations to yourself but hopefully you can see why we wouldn't want the US to take any part whatsoever.
I can understand your outrage at such a comment - it is a very western response.
But have you lived in an Arab country, specifically a Muslim one? Or even an Arab neighborhood? Have you been a part of an Arab community for a prolonged period? I have.
These ideals of pluralism and equality work wonderfully in novellas about utopian human co-existance, but they simply aren't reality. The Arabs think differently to American liberal arts students - they have a different ethical code.
That is one of the main reasons that the US was completely unsuccessful in their political endeavors in the Middle East, and which everything from Lebanon to Iran looks like a well-cooked pot of shit-stew right now.
If westerners better understood the Arab mindset, as it applies in countries in the middle east, we would live in a more peaceful world.
> The Arabs think differently to American liberal arts students - they have a different ethical code.
The Arabs I've known ARE American students. It only takes a single example to disprove a universal statement about "The Arabs." (or The Blacks, or The Jews, etc.) They've usually been great people that I like a lot.
So you've met one or two American Arab students, studying in nice universities, and that dictates the social norms that spread across the middle east?? Wow man, I want some of what you're smoking.
Please, go and visit Yemen, visit Afghanistan, even visit Jordan for heaven's sake, and you'll find that the reality of the Middle East can't be understood from within a college cafe in upstate California.
There are powerful cultural rules at play in Arab society that the west has no conception of, and I think that if you get a good look at them up close, it will completely change your perspective.
Anecdotal stories of Arab primitivism and lack of state/societal secularism doesn't mean progressive currents will never win out. I'm sure Europe in 1648 was depressing as fuck too.
You think the current antics of Islamic State are anecdotal? You just need to watch the news for all of 17 seconds to see that this is a very accepted cultural norm.
Some nonsense about all Arabs being XYZ (i.e. something as silly as equating Moroccans with Saudi Arabians with Arab Americans, same Arabs right?) and then using that to explain unsuccessful foreign policy in places like Iran, which is not at all an Arab state? (Only 2% of Iran are Arabs, in fact there are MORE arabs in the US than there are in Iran. Give me a break)
Let me know if you have more great insights. I always enjoy a good laugh.
You paint too simple a picture. And, if you go back to before the (successful and on-going) attempt to ethnically purge Palestine by European Jewish immigrants, you will see that Jews, and Christians were not persecuted when that land was under Muslim rule.
In Israel, only 7% of the land was owned by Jews when the state of Israel was created. The rest was stolen. Homes were stolen at gunpoint. The Israelis repeatedly engage in massacres of the Palestinian and Lebanese civilians to this day. Resistance should be expected. And, with the level of violence perpetrated by Israelis, a violent resistance is understandable.
The death toll for civilians is pretty lopsided. In just the massacre of operation cast lead, the Israelis murdered nearly 1500 people, nearly 450 children. Israel suffered 3 civilian deaths in retribution. Again and again, the Israelis call for evacuation to U.N. schools, then bomb the schools. Once a mistake, twice maybe a mistake, but we are well beyond twice. IDF soldiers wear t-shirts with a picture of a pregnant woman in cross-hairs with (in Hebrew), "one bullet two kills" Israel recently even apologized (therefore admitted to) harvesting organs from Palestinian prisoners for transplant into Jews. The Israelis even use their massacre of civilians as a selling point for their weapons exports, "battle tested in Gaza." The Israelis are the terrorists by any objective measure.
There was a poll in Haaretz that showed overwhelming support by Israelis of the cast lead massacre. The percentage in support of the massacre was exactly the Jewish population of Israel. So, complete justification to paint in a very broad brush.
The Israelis have Jewish only roads. And there are around 30 laws that give special treatment to Jews over other citizens. And, if you want to be truly disgusted, visit some of the Palestinian villages neighboring Jewish settler towns-- you will see things like the Jewish settlers directing their raw sewage into the Palestinian village below (well what is left of the Palestinian village with the constant raids by Jewish terrorist settlers, and Israeli military). Jewish settlers walk around everywhere with powerful weapons intimidating the Palestinians who are not permitted to do the same.
Ugliest place I have ever been (Every Arab I met there was kind and generous, and even in refugee camps, I never heard a hateful word about the Israeli Jews, the other way, I only met two Israeli Jews [out of 10s] who did not make some sort of slur). Only place I have zero desire to ever return to.
This was propaganda from a karma 9 account. I'll touch some points but I think that there are too many fanatics on this subject, it doesn't work on HN.
(I got a couple of comments first upvoted and then down voted a bunch of points, so I guess this will go the same way.)
>>In Israel, only 7% of the land was owned by Jews when the state of Israel was created.
More Jews were thrown out of the Muslim countries than Palestinians fled. (And not in a burning civil war, but from cold blooded racism.)
The possessions stolen from those Jews included land area multiple times the size of Israel.
Most of those Jews fled to Israel. So how about a reasonable view -- do a swap and call it even? The Palestinians get some of the resources stolen by their allied Muslim countries?
Why is that bad?
>>Jews, and Christians were not persecuted when that land was under Muslim rule.
This is in fact true now... Since most every Jew were thrown out of the Muslim world because of what some other Jews did, there are none to persecute..
>> IDF soldiers wear t-shirts with a picture of a pregnant woman in cross-hairs [...]
You demonise a country for what some individuals do.
What do you then say about about officially sanctioned racist hatred, copied from the Nazis?! Like the Arab countries... In state controlled media.
The previous Egyptian president spoke about the importance of teaching your children to hate Jews... And so on.
So how many hundreds of times worse is that? You're not a dishonest hypocrite with different standards for different sides, are you?
>> [Latest Gaza war]
- Started by Hamas, which also gave murderers of three children a hero status. (Note that some Israelis did a revenge murder -- and will end up in jail.)
(Also worth mentioning is how the Muslim world kept the Palestinians in camps and refused to integrate them for generations. Just to keep the hatred going. Smart, since most every other land loss from WWII is forgotten. Just a pity they destroyed so many lives to do it. Arguably, much worse than anything the Israelis ever did to the Palestinians, even in your description...)
I don't see how you have countered anything that I have said. I think the actions of governments like Egypt's are horrible WRT the Palestinians too, but that was not the point of my post. I was responding to a racist anti-arab rant (that ended up being down-voted by the time I finished composing my response). Hasney Mubarak became an American/Israeli puppet.
As for keeping the Palestinians in refugee camps, the Palestinians have a right of return. The U.N. recognized this right decades ago. The root cause of refugees is Israel's policy of ethnic cleansing (against international law). Look for references to the "red house", to find early plans for this ethnic cleansing dating back to the founding of Israel.
As for land swap, it doesn't work that way, and I'm sure you realize this.
One bullet two kills, was not a "few individuals". And, it was only one of many slogans of the same ilk the Israeli military wore to that slaughter.
Current PM of Israel has not only said things like, "... put Palestinians on a diet." In the context of starving the civilian prisoners in the giant open air prison that is Gaza (illegal collective punishment), but also was instrumental in multiple massacres of Palestinians. How is a speech worse than actual mass murder? Read transcripts of the Knesset (Israeli legislature) to see the attacks on the non-Jewish minority-- including death threats, rape threats, etc. (yes, stated openly in the official meetings).
Started by Hamas is usually a fiction. In almost every case, go back one or two weeks more than the Israeli propaganda, and you will see Israeli aggression, Israel breaking a cease fire, Israel assassinating a politician, Israel killing a fisherman/farmer/child etc. That said, there are no innocents among those active in a battle, but the balance of power, balance of aggression, and balance of casualties is such that Israel carries the vast majority of the blame. The ratio of civilian deaths prove who is the aggressor.
It is unfortunate that Briton essentially wanted a white-ish colony in the Middle East. It is sad that most of Europe were only too happy to be rid of their Jews. It is also terrible how Jews, Romani, disabled, gays, etc. suffered under the Nazis. But, it is not fair that the indigenous Arabs of Palestine suffer for it.
"Copied from the Nazis" hmmmmm... Gaza =~ Warsaw ghetto, Organ harvesting for benefit of Jews, etc. I see your point, but it is probably not the point you meant to make.
As for antisemitism, everything is antisemitism (or self hating) in regards to criticism of Israel. Yet, antisemitism is OK when practiced by an Israeli-- the Arabs subject to oppression and massacres by Israelis _are_ Semitic people.
Israel is an imperialist enterprise, and yes 7% was bought by Jews, I said that in my original post, but the rest was stolen. It is a terrible situation that has only a couple outcomes. Some radical Jews want to see Israel's borders expanded to the biblical boarders to, in their minds, allow the return of the Messiah, some radical Christians want to support those radical Jews in the hopes that WWIII breaks out centered in Israel, in their minds, allowing the return of their Jesus, some radical Muslims want the invaders gone no matter what it takes, and will gladly give their lives (and as many of the invaders as they can take) to this end. Yet, the only solution today would be to make up (including honoring the right of return). It would be hard since the Israelis are essentially the Afrikaners of S. Africa, and worse nearly all the prime land is stolen, and some must be given back to the returning families, but if Israel were to actually become a democracy, and not what is in fact a theocracy (see Israeli laws preferential to Jews), and begin re-integrating refugees, it might be possible to overcome the other obstacles. It seems to me as uncertain as this path is, that any other path will lead to certain destruction-- a stopped up pressure cooker eventually explodes.
Organ harvesting was one doctor -- which took organs from Jews too (I think that is even against the religion). You again blame a whole country for an individuals action.
>>As for antisemitism, everything is antisemitism (or self hating) in regards to criticism of Israel.
- First you complain about Israel because of an individuals' action.
- Second, you shrug off state sanctioned racial hate propaganda, partly copied from the Nazis and partly religious?!
Talk about double standards... this literally gave me vertigo.
Interesting. The double standard I see here is yours. I had hoped I was speaking with a reasonable person (in spite of the silly ad hominem about low karma, new account; and now, this nonsense). This entire thread (all responses, including mine) should be down voted for going off the rails. To everyone else, I apologize for feeding the troll (my original response, not to bugbrother; those to bugbrother were just a futile attempt to inform an apologist for a criminal regime).
I was involved in the Israeli Security establishment for over 5 years. I never saw any ethnic cleansing, massacres, or any of the other horrid things you talk about. As a combat commander, I had to give 1hr lectures to my soldiers about ethical behavior before EVERY mission. It was crazy, and I thought it was over the top, but even during the intifada, we were held to a crazy moral standard as soldiers.
For example, the rules during my time stated that if an Arab throws a rock at you (big, heavy, can break your skull apart), you are not allowed to shoot. If they have a knife and are charging from a distance, you are still not allowed to shoot. If they have a molatov cocktail, but are at a distance where it can't hurt you, you are not allowed to shoot. If you shoot and kill in these situations, you will be tried before a military court for murder and jailed.
The Israel you talk about is an anti-semitic PR fantasy that holds no resemblance to the reality of what goes on there. Part of my job taking care of terrorists with blood on their hands that we'd arrested was to ensure they got hot bloody food while we took care of them.
Not exactly a world of massacres and ethnic cleansing. Sorry, your rant is just rhetoric.
I won't even being to respond to your sensationalized argument about saving children being a justification for mass invasion of privacy with no oversight.