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I had lived in Israel for a while and never seen "apartheid" many are talking about here in the U.S. There actually were lots of Arab/Muslim people who were ci

by xpl 3y ago

I had lived in Israel for a while and never seen "apartheid" many are talking about here in the U.S. There actually were lots of Arab/Muslim people who were citizens and they were not oppressed in any way. I believe more than 20% of Israeli people are non-Jewish. P.S. I wish more people who are anti-Israel go actually visit that country...

Onavo 3y ago
> I believe more than 20% of Israeli people are non-Jewish. You are giving them the benefit of the doubt. The domestic realpolitik calculus would rapidly change if e.g. they grant all Palestinians full Israeli citizenship. It's easy to be "nice" when one side is a minority.
scarecrowbob 3y ago
Having lived in Texas for a long time, I know many folks who never saw any racism there. I've seen racist things happen in Texas, often, but many of my friends who live there (including many smart, kind people who I love) have not see racist things and don't think it's an issue in Texas. I can't comment on Israel, I have never lived there. I can say that living in a place doesn't guarantee that people will see oppression in a place.
- xpl 3y ago
  Sure, but there is difference between "racist things happen" and truly systemic oppression at the state-level like it was in the U.S. when Black people didn't have equal rights, or during South African Apartheid. Israel just isn't like that. And neither is Texas. But if one truly believes that there should be no such state as Israel (i.e. it was illegal in the first place and shouldn't have happened) — and there is "only Palestine", "from the river to the sea" — then yes, I get how one can claim that Israel is an apartheid state. From this perspective, Israel would need to grant full citizenship to all Palestinians automatically (essentially becoming Palestine under Hamas rule, or something worse). And since this isn't happening, they label it apartheid. So, it ultimately becomes about the very right of Israel to exist as a state. And here, I just can't understand how one could deny the Israeli people their own country. Isn't that just rooted in hate?
  - scarecrowbob 3y ago
    For context, I am sitting on land that abuts a Mescalero reservation, and I drove through Dine and Ute lands to get to this place. Perhaps that history colors my understanding of nationalist projects in the 19th and 20th centuries. I feel that it's often the case that a group of people is given a government-in-name-only and then still ruled over by a larger and more aggressive group (who typically has more guns). This seems like an important element when you have a group of people who are heterogeneous to a ruling regime that cannot establish the kinds of linguistic and ethnic markers that 19th and 20th century powers found so important in drawing lines on maps- if you have a bunch of folks who don't speak the language that you want to call the national language, then it seems like the proper high modernist response is to declare them non-citizens, deport them, and when no one wants the surplus population, you can put them in camps and eventually liquidate them. That's what the US tried to do, at least, and it was what the Germans were doing for a while. But I don't know much of Palestine, only what I have seen where I live. Maybe it's not like that there. I've seen enough video and heard enough stories that my picture of imperial military/police forces certianly leads me to believe that folks there have it even worse than black and brown folks in Texas, and I know a great deal about how bad it is there. But I could just be mis-seeing and mis-hearing the world. To be honest, I think that there are still systematic issues of racism in Texas, but that's neither here nor there. All places are unique and different. My opinion, as a direct descendant of the racist slave holders who founded the place, is that it's got it's own unique flavor of racism, and that the issues around that have never been fully redressed. However, at some points "all" people were granted "full citizenship" in Texas, which does help. Even if the government of Texas won't use Spanish to conduct business with the 28% of folks there who speak it as their native language. Like I said, though, I don't know much about Palestine. In your comment here, you ask if I think it is necessary for full citizenship to be granted to Palestinians. I suppose, on it's face, it seems strange to me that they don't have full citizenship, because if they don'e then you'd be incorrect about your assertion that they already have full equal rights. But that's also probably just a misunderstanding I have about the situation there. I will say, though, that I find states where citizenship depends on ones' ethnic or religious identity to be very dangerous, as those identities have often shifted and people will do violence to maintain those national identities. So my guesses about the safety of a state Jewish-only state have more to do with those thoughts than a hatred for anyone. I don't believe that nationalist projects are very safe in general, for any party. That's just an opinion. I have, however, been told that it's possible to create states where ones identity isn't the basis of ones civil rights. That is the line which says that Texas isn't racist in its operation. If that is true, it seems like in a "good" state it wouldn't matter who you are, all humans have full rights and can participate democratically in the state that rules them. In the US, I think that the Movement of Black Lives makes some excellent points among which is the idea that if the state cannot abuse black people, it probably can't abuse white folks, either, so work for racial justice is a matter of solidarity for all people. I think we both know that is unlikely the case- that's a problem I see in Texas, and that belief is reflected in your assertion that if Palestinians had full rights in Israel then Jewish folks might have similar problems to minorities in other states. That's a sad outcome, but since I don't have a lot of faith in nationalist projects I am not surprised when they start to liquidate their surplus populations. It's not hate, just a sadness at having seen that done where I live by my ancestors. And I don't know if I agree that a non-Jewish state means rule by people like Hamas is a necessary outcome of ending that nationalist project. Perhaps naively, I personally think that the bloodthirstiness of folks like Hamas is only sustained by the harshness of the treatment that they were given, but that might just be my own issues with the Mescalero, who don't kill as many folks here as they did 120 or so years ago.
giraffe_lady 3y ago
Here are two opinions by reputable israeli organizations about it: https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is... (by b'tselem, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%27Tselem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%27Tselem) https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/files.yesh-din.org/Apartheid+2020/Apartheid+ENG.pdf https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/files.yesh-din.org/Aparth... (by yesh din, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesh_Din https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesh_Din) Like the other commenter pointed out, it was quite routine during jim crow in the US for white people to assert that black people were not oppressed in any way. I'm not as close to the oral history of south africa but I'd be surprised if it had been different there. Quite simply I do not trust your motive and judgement on this.

by xpl 3y ago

Onavo 3y ago

> I believe more than 20% of Israeli people are non-Jewish. You are giving them the benefit of the doubt. The domestic realpolitik calculus would rapidly change if e.g. they grant all Palestinians full Israeli citizenship. It's easy to be "nice" when one side is a minority.

scarecrowbob 3y ago

Having lived in Texas for a long time, I know many folks who never saw any racism there. I've seen racist things happen in Texas, often, but many of my friends who live there (including many smart, kind people who I love) have not see racist things and don't think it's an issue in Texas. I can't comment on Israel, I have never lived there. I can say that living in a place doesn't guarantee that people will see oppression in a place.

xpl 3y ago
Sure, but there is difference between "racist things happen" and truly systemic oppression at the state-level like it was in the U.S. when Black people didn't have equal rights, or during South African Apartheid. Israel just isn't like that. And neither is Texas. But if one truly believes that there should be no such state as Israel (i.e. it was illegal in the first place and shouldn't have happened) — and there is "only Palestine", "from the river to the sea" — then yes, I get how one can claim that Israel is an apartheid state. From this perspective, Israel would need to grant full citizenship to all Palestinians automatically (essentially becoming Palestine under Hamas rule, or something worse). And since this isn't happening, they label it apartheid. So, it ultimately becomes about the very right of Israel to exist as a state. And here, I just can't understand how one could deny the Israeli people their own country. Isn't that just rooted in hate?
- scarecrowbob 3y ago
  For context, I am sitting on land that abuts a Mescalero reservation, and I drove through Dine and Ute lands to get to this place. Perhaps that history colors my understanding of nationalist projects in the 19th and 20th centuries. I feel that it's often the case that a group of people is given a government-in-name-only and then still ruled over by a larger and more aggressive group (who typically has more guns). This seems like an important element when you have a group of people who are heterogeneous to a ruling regime that cannot establish the kinds of linguistic and ethnic markers that 19th and 20th century powers found so important in drawing lines on maps- if you have a bunch of folks who don't speak the language that you want to call the national language, then it seems like the proper high modernist response is to declare them non-citizens, deport them, and when no one wants the surplus population, you can put them in camps and eventually liquidate them. That's what the US tried to do, at least, and it was what the Germans were doing for a while. But I don't know much of Palestine, only what I have seen where I live. Maybe it's not like that there. I've seen enough video and heard enough stories that my picture of imperial military/police forces certianly leads me to believe that folks there have it even worse than black and brown folks in Texas, and I know a great deal about how bad it is there. But I could just be mis-seeing and mis-hearing the world. To be honest, I think that there are still systematic issues of racism in Texas, but that's neither here nor there. All places are unique and different. My opinion, as a direct descendant of the racist slave holders who founded the place, is that it's got it's own unique flavor of racism, and that the issues around that have never been fully redressed. However, at some points "all" people were granted "full citizenship" in Texas, which does help. Even if the government of Texas won't use Spanish to conduct business with the 28% of folks there who speak it as their native language. Like I said, though, I don't know much about Palestine. In your comment here, you ask if I think it is necessary for full citizenship to be granted to Palestinians. I suppose, on it's face, it seems strange to me that they don't have full citizenship, because if they don'e then you'd be incorrect about your assertion that they already have full equal rights. But that's also probably just a misunderstanding I have about the situation there. I will say, though, that I find states where citizenship depends on ones' ethnic or religious identity to be very dangerous, as those identities have often shifted and people will do violence to maintain those national identities. So my guesses about the safety of a state Jewish-only state have more to do with those thoughts than a hatred for anyone. I don't believe that nationalist projects are very safe in general, for any party. That's just an opinion. I have, however, been told that it's possible to create states where ones identity isn't the basis of ones civil rights. That is the line which says that Texas isn't racist in its operation. If that is true, it seems like in a "good" state it wouldn't matter who you are, all humans have full rights and can participate democratically in the state that rules them. In the US, I think that the Movement of Black Lives makes some excellent points among which is the idea that if the state cannot abuse black people, it probably can't abuse white folks, either, so work for racial justice is a matter of solidarity for all people. I think we both know that is unlikely the case- that's a problem I see in Texas, and that belief is reflected in your assertion that if Palestinians had full rights in Israel then Jewish folks might have similar problems to minorities in other states. That's a sad outcome, but since I don't have a lot of faith in nationalist projects I am not surprised when they start to liquidate their surplus populations. It's not hate, just a sadness at having seen that done where I live by my ancestors. And I don't know if I agree that a non-Jewish state means rule by people like Hamas is a necessary outcome of ending that nationalist project. Perhaps naively, I personally think that the bloodthirstiness of folks like Hamas is only sustained by the harshness of the treatment that they were given, but that might just be my own issues with the Mescalero, who don't kill as many folks here as they did 120 or so years ago.

giraffe_lady 3y ago

Here are two opinions by reputable israeli organizations about it: https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is_apartheid https://www.btselem.org/publications/fulltext/202101_this_is... (by b'tselem, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%27Tselem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%27Tselem) https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/files.yesh-din.org/Apartheid+2020/Apartheid+ENG.pdf https://s3-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/files.yesh-din.org/Aparth... (by yesh din, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesh_Din https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yesh_Din) Like the other commenter pointed out, it was quite routine during jim crow in the US for white people to assert that black people were not oppressed in any way. I'm not as close to the oral history of south africa but I'd be surprised if it had been different there. Quite simply I do not trust your motive and judgement on this.