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It feels like you are very conveniently brushing aside the West Bank. The West Bank is very much an apartheid. Military checkpoints, double judicial system, lim

It feels like you are very conveniently brushing aside the West Bank. The West Bank is very much an apartheid. Military checkpoints, double judicial system, limited suffrage, they even have a separated road system. It is not the Palestinian Authority which is imposing this system, it is Israel. > It would be like calling the USA a military fascist dictatorship because of what they did in Iraq. Bad comparison. It would be like calling the USA a colonial power because of they hold colonies in Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the North Mariana Islands. Mind you that the only thing the USA has in common with Israel regarding their colonies, is limited suffrage (which it is correctly criticized for). No military checkpoints, no double judicial systems, no limited movement, no separated road networks. Many, including me wouldn’t call the USA a democracy if it still held their pre-civil rights segregation of black and indigenous people. In my mind USA didn’t become a democracy until 1964. What Israel is doing is far worse then USA under Jim Crow. Israel is not a democracy by modern standards.

kmos17 3y ago
The entire position is that Israel is an apartheid state because it occupies territories, and you are viewing the whole as a single country. In that respect yes I understand it can be considered an apartheid state. But again none of the multiple commenters here making this moral judgement have offered an actual solution based on this assessment that is any way realistic and treats both populations with the basic human right they deserve of self determination. Israel cannot be erased from the map as most Palestinians want without committing an actual genocide. Neither Israelis or Palestinians want to live in a single unified state. So what is your solution? What does labeling this an apartheid or colonial state and saying your solution is to end it actually solve? The only thing it does is perpetuate the narrative that actually keeps Palestinians from having a state and living in peace, which is coincidentally quite convenient to a lot of Arab states in the region who can brush under the proverbial carpet the horrors in their own backyards, just look at Syria and Yemen, the number of deaths is in the order of 30x more than Gaza and 10’s of millions of civilians have been displaced, and where is the outrage about these horrific wars?
- runarberg 3y ago
  Just because you don’t have a solution that doesn’t disqualify you from pointing out the problem. I can tell you that the Titanic is sinking without knowing how to get the passengers to safety. In fact the only people that have a solution are on the Californian, with their radio off, so they don’t know there is a problem (which the radio operators of the Titanic are desperately trying to communicate to them). I think you may be a bit quick to dismiss the very real human tragedy which is being imposed onto Palestinians at this moment, and for the last 75 years. They are occupied, and being ethnically cleansed from their indigenous lands. I may not have a solution for how to stop that, but perhaps someone in the Israeli government does, or even in the USA government. But just like the radio operators on the Californians, they are unwilling to turn their radio on. I also think it is a bit unfair of you to cite a theoretical genocide of Israelis while there is potentially a very real genocide (or at the very least a very real ethnic cleansing campaign) of Palestinians. One group of people is already suffering, perhaps we should priorities that over the theoretical one. The Titanic is sinking, lets worry about the passengers now and the theoretical drop in the White Star Line’s stock price tomorrow. Finally I’m unconvinced by your narrative that Israel and Palestine should be viewed separately for a fair judgement of colonialism and apartheid. This is the exact same excuse South Africa used to try to get away with apartheid (see Bantustan). But also, notably, this is not how the Israeli government them selves views it, many of whom claim an Israel from the river to the sea, that is they see the occupied territories (including East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights) as an integral part of Israel, while Palestinians remain unrecognized (effectively stateless). In the eyes of the Israeli government, Palestine is not even a bantustan.

kmos17 3y ago

The entire position is that Israel is an apartheid state because it occupies territories, and you are viewing the whole as a single country. In that respect yes I understand it can be considered an apartheid state. But again none of the multiple commenters here making this moral judgement have offered an actual solution based on this assessment that is any way realistic and treats both populations with the basic human right they deserve of self determination. Israel cannot be erased from the map as most Palestinians want without committing an actual genocide. Neither Israelis or Palestinians want to live in a single unified state. So what is your solution? What does labeling this an apartheid or colonial state and saying your solution is to end it actually solve? The only thing it does is perpetuate the narrative that actually keeps Palestinians from having a state and living in peace, which is coincidentally quite convenient to a lot of Arab states in the region who can brush under the proverbial carpet the horrors in their own backyards, just look at Syria and Yemen, the number of deaths is in the order of 30x more than Gaza and 10’s of millions of civilians have been displaced, and where is the outrage about these horrific wars?

runarberg 3y ago
Just because you don’t have a solution that doesn’t disqualify you from pointing out the problem. I can tell you that the Titanic is sinking without knowing how to get the passengers to safety. In fact the only people that have a solution are on the Californian, with their radio off, so they don’t know there is a problem (which the radio operators of the Titanic are desperately trying to communicate to them). I think you may be a bit quick to dismiss the very real human tragedy which is being imposed onto Palestinians at this moment, and for the last 75 years. They are occupied, and being ethnically cleansed from their indigenous lands. I may not have a solution for how to stop that, but perhaps someone in the Israeli government does, or even in the USA government. But just like the radio operators on the Californians, they are unwilling to turn their radio on. I also think it is a bit unfair of you to cite a theoretical genocide of Israelis while there is potentially a very real genocide (or at the very least a very real ethnic cleansing campaign) of Palestinians. One group of people is already suffering, perhaps we should priorities that over the theoretical one. The Titanic is sinking, lets worry about the passengers now and the theoretical drop in the White Star Line’s stock price tomorrow. Finally I’m unconvinced by your narrative that Israel and Palestine should be viewed separately for a fair judgement of colonialism and apartheid. This is the exact same excuse South Africa used to try to get away with apartheid (see Bantustan). But also, notably, this is not how the Israeli government them selves views it, many of whom claim an Israel from the river to the sea, that is they see the occupied territories (including East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights) as an integral part of Israel, while Palestinians remain unrecognized (effectively stateless). In the eyes of the Israeli government, Palestine is not even a bantustan.