8 ms·

"The continuing violence of Palestinians against Israelis" - This framing is just the manifestation of utter ignorance or of blatant bias. For those who are int

• bayesian_horse 7y ago
  What framing? It's absolutely true that Palestinians are committing acts of terror/violence against Israeli citizens. I'm not saying that all of them do it. I'm not even saying most of them support violence against Israel/Israelis, though you could get that impression when listening to their leaders. Both small scale violence with knifes or guns, up to rockets, are an undeniable fact. I am purposely depicting both sides. Just as I am not ignoring the suffering of Palestinians at the hand of Israeli forces, and that Israeli forces have at times gone far beyond what is morally or legally justifiable. But it doesn't help to label this "Apartheid". It's a totally different conflict with different causes and entirely different solutions. If Israelis where to give citizenship to all Palestinians (and I would say the Palestinians have some claim to that), Israel would cease to exist and I highly doubt Palestinians would protect Jewish Israelis... This is the most difficult and complicated conflict in the world in our time. There are no simple solutions, but the last thing that helps is to heap blame on one side.
  • aptidude187 7y ago
    "What framing?" - Surely, you must be joking. Trust me, classifying your previous statements as framing, is putting it mildly, it is a vile attempt at justifying the horrific human rights violations Israel has been committing for more than 70 years and pretending it's somehow the victim's fault. Only someone who is ignorant about the history of this colonisation project can fall for your narrative. "But it doesn't help to label this "Apartheid" - It is apartheid, so it is labeled as such. Even Archbishop Tutu declared that the treatment of Palestinians reminded him of apartheid, only worse.[0] Actually it's hard to imagine a more cartoonishly apartheid situation. In the west bank there are even separate roads for Jews and Arabs.[1,2] "Israel would cease to exist and I highly doubt Palestinians would protect Jewish Israelis....This is the most difficult and complicated conflict in the world in our time." - This is a talking point of radical zionist settlers. It's not a "complicated conflict" by any stretch of the imagination, it's simple settler colonialism. People who live in terrible conditions incline towards desperate measures. Stopping the land grabs and dismantling the largest open air concentration camp would be a good start for more humane interactions. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/03/israel-treatment-palestinians-apartheid-south-africa https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/apr/03/israel... [1] https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-makdisi-israel-apartheid-20140518-story.html https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-makdisi-israel-a... [2] https://visualizingpalestine.org/visuals/segregated-roads-west-bank https://visualizingpalestine.org/visuals/segregated-roads-we...
    • NeverFade 7y ago
      Israel has relinquished all control of Gaza in 2005, and hasn't been an occupying force there since: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_from_Gaza https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israeli_disengagement_from_Gaz... Gaza residents have been in control of their own fate since at least 2005. Unfortunately they elected Hamas, a terror organization, to be their government. Hamas predictably declared war on Israel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_rocket_attacks_on_... Gaza Palestinians have fired over 30,000 rockets on Israeli civilian population centers since the Israeli occupation of Gaza has ended. Current state of Gaza isn't occupation, and certainly not "apartheid". It's a small, weak entity waging murderous war on a much stronger country. If a small nation fired 30,000 rockets on US civilians, the US would annihilate it. Israel is being merciful in Gaza. It has to, partly, because of anti-semitic propaganda such as you cited. That propaganda is a major reason Gaza residents elected Hamas. Arguments such as "Israel is just a colonial force and should be eliminated" feed Gazans' fantasies of destroying Israel, which is Hamas's explicit agenda. Hamas charter explicitly states that its goal is to kill every Jew in the world, and certainly in Israel: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Covenant#Anti-Semitism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas_Covenant#Anti-Semitism This is the organization currently in control of Gaza, elected by the majority of Gaza's residents. It's convenient to ignore these realities and just paint Israel as the villain and Hamas/Gazans as victims, as you have done. Unfortunately, simplistic positions such as yours only support and embolden extremists like Hamas and feed into further violence, continuation and escalation of this conflict.
      • mlevental 7y ago
        apartheid in particular refers to West Bank (eg East Jerusalem) Palestinians that blue cards (so they can travel freely in Israel but can't own property in Israel, can't move residences in East Jerusalem, suffer road closures and checkpoints, and don't have access to any social services. Re Independence of Gaza and etc. Yes idf pulled out but there's a blockade. So let me ask you what you would do if lived in an open prison? Do you think maybe you would lash out? And about those rockets which are not much larger than bottle rockets: how many Gaza Palestinians are killed for every Israeli during and incursion? During a bombing? Answer 200x times more https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza%E2%80%93Israel_conflict https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza%E2%80%93Israel_conflict . I'm not saying that the Palestinians are justified but that Israel's response is untenable - if a child strikes an adult it is unacceptable that that child is beaten within an inch of their life. Edit: lol downvotes for facts.
  • tomcooks 7y ago
    It's a colonial project that expands illegally at the expense of one side only, how's that not one-sided?