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> (1) Israel takes great care to protect all human life in any conflict For example by having snipers shooting unarmed protesters, women, children, journalists

by Udik 8y ago

> (1) Israel takes great care to protect all human life in any conflict For example by having snipers shooting unarmed protesters, women, children, journalists. Sometimes they kill them, but preferably they hit them in the thighs: many of the injured will lose a leg or be in a wheelchair for the rest of their lives. > "why don't more jews die". Yes, how many innocent Palestinian lives is an Israeli life worth, exactly? > Israel is not responsible to give people living in what is essentially another country free access to its own services You're lying. Queues are to move between one city and the other inside the West Bank. Israel has cut the Palestinian territory into little controllable pieces, building a wall inside that territory and around their illegal settlements. Finally, while the Palestinian minority is essentially just tolerated in Israel, what makes Israel an apartheid state is their treatment of both populations outside its borders: citizens if they are Jews, people without any right if they are Palestinians. Your house or your entire village might be razed to the ground, fanatic settlers can fence off your land or take your home, or build entire roads or cities where you're not allowed to enter. And if you protest, it's the military court for you- while Jews are subject to a normal tribunal.

edanm 8y ago
I disagree with most of your post, which I don't think accurately portrays the behavior of Israel. I mean, Israel does a lot of bad things, as do many countries, but it is by no means the standard. And a lot of times, things are reported inaccurately, by e.g. talking about unarmed civilians being shot, when it later turns out that most of the people shot were in fact armed (or among armed protesters). > Finally, while the Palestinian minority is essentially just tolerated in Israel, what makes Israel an apartheid state is their treatment of both populations outside its borders: citizens if they are Jews, people without any right if they are Palestinians I mean, this is literally what every country does though - US citizens have rights in the US, and everyone else doesn't. English citizens have rights in England, and everyone else doesn't. (And to prevent other people being pedantic - of course other people do have rights and I'm not being literal, but Palestinians also have rights in Israel, so you're not being literal here either). If your concern is with Israel singling out Jews as the only ones that are automatically citizens of Israel, that's a valid concern, but it does not make Israel an apartheid state, any more than if England decided that anyone who can prove that in the last 5 generations had English ancestors, was automatically an English citizen. And I'd argue that it's a completely valid and moral thing to do to create a state that automatically makes all Jews citizens - considering the reasoning for the existence of such a state in the first place. Hell, I'd rather live in a world in which the fact that I am Jewish doesn't mean that I have to protect myself from other people - I'd rather an ethnicity-blind world. But unfortunately, I don't live in that world, so I think it's very valid for me to want to be part of a country in which I will not be discriminated against.
- Udik 8y ago
  > I mean, Israel does a lot of bad things Definitely. It has settled 1/10th of its civilian population in an occupied territory, something that is for obvious reasons forbidden by the Geneva Convention. It declared undivided sovereignty on Jerusalem, has annexed the Golan Heights. It has closed almost 2 million people in a total embargo- nothing goes through the land and sea borders or the airspace of Gaza without the approval of Israel, be it people or goods- this means that the entire region is close to the collapse. In the recent border protest (which took place inside Gaza's border) Israel has fired live ammo on protesters day after day, killing 168, wounding 17 thousand! The UN General Assembly passed a condemnation resolution that was voted against only by Israel, the US, Australia, and a few tiny atolls of the Pacific. Every other nation in the world condemned Israel or (cowardly) abstained. Among those who voted to condemn Israel are Switzerland, Ireland, Japan, France, Finland, Norway, Belgium, Spain and Portugal. > as do many countries No other country that we consider civilised, no. > this is literally what every country does though - US citizens have rights in the US, and everyone else doesn't. Here I'm not sure whether you don't understand or just pretend not to. It's not that non-citizens don't have political rights inside Israel. It's that Israel is applying its law and jurisdiction outside its borders- so on Israeli and Palestinians alike- but only the former have political and civil rights. It's almost a clever technicality: Israel is not an apartheid state, it's just that, in the Occupied Territories, the State is wherever the Israelis are. The others, even if they happen to live only a few hundred metres away, have no rights. > Hell, I'd rather live in a world in which the fact that I am Jewish doesn't mean that I have to protect myself from other people The precondition to not have to protect yourself from other people is to be in peace with your neighbours. Tit-for-tats, or imposing your dominance, don't work (unless you want to just exterminate your enemy- which today is not an option). Israel was born with the original sin of seizing half of the country from their original inhabitants. We can't and don't want to go back on this, but Israel has to find a firm moral rule, define its own borders once and for all in agreement with what was established (at least the 1967 borders) and start building a cooperation with Palestinians. The issue with Israel is that it lives in a conflict of interest: on one hand, it wants not to be attacked; on the other hand, it's more than happy of acquiring new territory, which is only possible if the borders are ill-defined and through the cycles of provocation, violence and retaliation.

by Udik 8y ago

edanm 8y ago

I disagree with most of your post, which I don't think accurately portrays the behavior of Israel. I mean, Israel does a lot of bad things, as do many countries, but it is by no means the standard. And a lot of times, things are reported inaccurately, by e.g. talking about unarmed civilians being shot, when it later turns out that most of the people shot were in fact armed (or among armed protesters). > Finally, while the Palestinian minority is essentially just tolerated in Israel, what makes Israel an apartheid state is their treatment of both populations outside its borders: citizens if they are Jews, people without any right if they are Palestinians I mean, this is literally what every country does though - US citizens have rights in the US, and everyone else doesn't. English citizens have rights in England, and everyone else doesn't. (And to prevent other people being pedantic - of course other people do have rights and I'm not being literal, but Palestinians also have rights in Israel, so you're not being literal here either). If your concern is with Israel singling out Jews as the only ones that are automatically citizens of Israel, that's a valid concern, but it does not make Israel an apartheid state, any more than if England decided that anyone who can prove that in the last 5 generations had English ancestors, was automatically an English citizen. And I'd argue that it's a completely valid and moral thing to do to create a state that automatically makes all Jews citizens - considering the reasoning for the existence of such a state in the first place. Hell, I'd rather live in a world in which the fact that I am Jewish doesn't mean that I have to protect myself from other people - I'd rather an ethnicity-blind world. But unfortunately, I don't live in that world, so I think it's very valid for me to want to be part of a country in which I will not be discriminated against.

Udik 8y ago
> I mean, Israel does a lot of bad things Definitely. It has settled 1/10th of its civilian population in an occupied territory, something that is for obvious reasons forbidden by the Geneva Convention. It declared undivided sovereignty on Jerusalem, has annexed the Golan Heights. It has closed almost 2 million people in a total embargo- nothing goes through the land and sea borders or the airspace of Gaza without the approval of Israel, be it people or goods- this means that the entire region is close to the collapse. In the recent border protest (which took place inside Gaza's border) Israel has fired live ammo on protesters day after day, killing 168, wounding 17 thousand! The UN General Assembly passed a condemnation resolution that was voted against only by Israel, the US, Australia, and a few tiny atolls of the Pacific. Every other nation in the world condemned Israel or (cowardly) abstained. Among those who voted to condemn Israel are Switzerland, Ireland, Japan, France, Finland, Norway, Belgium, Spain and Portugal. > as do many countries No other country that we consider civilised, no. > this is literally what every country does though - US citizens have rights in the US, and everyone else doesn't. Here I'm not sure whether you don't understand or just pretend not to. It's not that non-citizens don't have political rights inside Israel. It's that Israel is applying its law and jurisdiction outside its borders- so on Israeli and Palestinians alike- but only the former have political and civil rights. It's almost a clever technicality: Israel is not an apartheid state, it's just that, in the Occupied Territories, the State is wherever the Israelis are. The others, even if they happen to live only a few hundred metres away, have no rights. > Hell, I'd rather live in a world in which the fact that I am Jewish doesn't mean that I have to protect myself from other people The precondition to not have to protect yourself from other people is to be in peace with your neighbours. Tit-for-tats, or imposing your dominance, don't work (unless you want to just exterminate your enemy- which today is not an option). Israel was born with the original sin of seizing half of the country from their original inhabitants. We can't and don't want to go back on this, but Israel has to find a firm moral rule, define its own borders once and for all in agreement with what was established (at least the 1967 borders) and start building a cooperation with Palestinians. The issue with Israel is that it lives in a conflict of interest: on one hand, it wants not to be attacked; on the other hand, it's more than happy of acquiring new territory, which is only possible if the borders are ill-defined and through the cycles of provocation, violence and retaliation.