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Western values is a dog whistle commonly used to mean non-white. Israel shares a lot of values with Apartheid South Africa or (to a lesser extent) pre civil ri

Western values is a dog whistle commonly used to mean non-white. Israel shares a lot of values with Apartheid South Africa or (to a lesser extent) pre civil rights USA. It does not offer equal status to all its subjects, it maintains a prolonged occupation, it is highly militaristic (more so then 1950s USA), etc. If you think apartheid South Africa had more western values then modern day South Africa, then I get your point. The point being that the country must have a white ruling class.

762236 3y ago
It seems that you agree that Western values are important, so you couldn't attack that part of the argument, and instead had to twist my speech into something that I never said, so that you could then attack what I never said. You have no credibility.
- runarberg 3y ago
  Question: Why do you call then western values? What is so western about these values you are referring to? When I google ”western values” I get Wikipedia pages for “History of Western Civilization” and “Western Culture” neither of which should qualify Israel as warranting support from the USA (and if they did, it would be a pretty racist thing to do). My first result which actually includes the term is a dumb article by an explicit Islamophobe[1]. There is a Wikipedia page titled “Western Values (West)”[2]. It is very short and very poorly written, and doesn’t actually explain what this means, just some vague notion of free market capitalism and liberal democracy. So I don’t get much information there either on why USA should support Israel. Now, I know what you mean when you say “Western Values”, but this is HN and we are supposed to assume good faith, so I’m gonna assume you mean liberal democracy and universal human rights (these are actually universal values as specified in the *Universal Declaration of Human Rights signed by all nations; not only Western nations, but lets ignore that). Then the USA really shouldn’t be supporting a state which practices apartheid, keeps a large population under occupation, strips away their democratic rights, commits war crimes, potentially a genocide, etc. In fact if USA supported what you call Western Values, they should help liberate the people of Palestine, just like how they (eventually) helped liberate the people from the subjugation of Apartheid South Africa. IF we were still in the 19th Century your speech would make much more sense. In the 19th century, Europe had a full on colonial enterprise, fueled by racist believes of white supremacy, brutalizing and genociding whole nations for profit and own sense of superiority. This was justified by referring to something similarly vague as Western Values, and does indeed fit Israel’s present day conduct. However, the USA today does not endorse white supremacy, nor colonialism. And should therefor not support nations which engage in this outdated concept of “Western Values”. All that said, when people usually say this term, it is a racist dog whistle. There was a pretty nice mr. Beat video about that recently[3]. 1: https://westminster-institute.org/articles/the-superiority-of-western-values-in-eight-minutes/ https://westminster-institute.org/articles/the-superiority-o... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_values_(West) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_values_(West) 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DUT4aCkeRA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DUT4aCkeRA
tptacek 3y ago
The situation for Arab Israeli citizens, fraught as it may be, is not comparable to that of Black Africans under Apartheid, or that of Black Americans in the 1950s. There are Arab Israelis in the Knesset. I don't have a problem with people calling Israel an "apartheid state", given their occupation of Gaza. Fair enough. But you should be careful not to overplay those cards, because you'll end up making arguments that are easily refuted.
- feedforward 3y ago
  > The situation for Arab Israeli citizens, fraught as it may be, is not comparable to that of Black Africans under Apartheid, or that of Black Americans in the 1950s. There are Arab Israelis in the Knesset. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and William Dawson were in the US congress in the 1940s and 1950s.
  - runarberg 3y ago
    Apartheid South Africa also had the Tricameral Parliament[1] which gave “Coloured” and Indian people a minority seats at the legislator. Off course this type of representation was only performative and the only purpose was to give the appearance of democracy. Notable here—since we are now comparing the rights of victims of different apartheid systems—is the tiered system of giving separate peoples varying levels of—still performative—representation. In Israel, Palestinians with Israeli citizenship (including Bedouin) do have a minority representation at their legislator, however Palestinians in the West Bank don’t, while Palestinians in Gaza effectively live in an unrecognized (and constantly terrorized) bantustan. The systems of apartheid which Israel upholds are in many ways worse than South Africa’s (and in every way worse than Pre-civil rights USA). But in most way’s it is simply different. Which is kind of why we really shouldn’t be ranking apartheid systems (nor any form of oppression for that matter). 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricameral_Parliament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricameral_Parliament
- nsguy 3y ago
  Israel didn't occupy Gaza. It completely withdrew from Gaza in 2005. The use of the word "occupation" in this context is newspeak. Gaza used to be under Egyptian control until 1967. The term "occupation" in the context of Gaza and international law referred to it being occupied from Egypt by Israel in the six day war. The term "occupation" used by pro-Palestinians refers to the existence of Israel. They s/Israel/occupation/ and they refer to the Jewish presence anywhere in Mandatory Palestine and the middle east. I'm not going to revisit the entire history of the conflict in this comment but the adoption of terminology like "apartheid", "genocide", "occupation", "resistance", "ghetto", "concentration camp", "nazis" etc. is intentional and insidious. The intent is not to criticize Israel. The intent is to dehumanize it and justify violence against it as a whole. The people using these terms are intentionally presenting falsehoods refuse to acknowledge the factual reality. The choice of terminology is to prevent dialogue. We don't need new words for the status of people living in areas that are occupied. Everyone understands that people living in occupied territories (such as e.g. Germany post WW-II) don't receive the same rights as the people living in the country of the occupier. That is not Apartheid. Israel recognizes that it occupies the west bank (from Jordan btw. which also doesn't want the territory back) and has tried many times to resolve this issue. tl;dr I do have a problem with people calling Israel an "apartheid state". Let's reserve that word to South Africa which is what it's supposed to mean. This is just wrong on so many levels. If you want to criticize Israel do it on a factual basis. And btw, this was true pre-Oct 7th as well. I'd argue these people have contributed to the events of Oct 7th and are partly responsible for this terrible mess we're in today.

762236 3y ago

It seems that you agree that Western values are important, so you couldn't attack that part of the argument, and instead had to twist my speech into something that I never said, so that you could then attack what I never said. You have no credibility.

runarberg 3y ago
Question: Why do you call then western values? What is so western about these values you are referring to? When I google ”western values” I get Wikipedia pages for “History of Western Civilization” and “Western Culture” neither of which should qualify Israel as warranting support from the USA (and if they did, it would be a pretty racist thing to do). My first result which actually includes the term is a dumb article by an explicit Islamophobe[1]. There is a Wikipedia page titled “Western Values (West)”[2]. It is very short and very poorly written, and doesn’t actually explain what this means, just some vague notion of free market capitalism and liberal democracy. So I don’t get much information there either on why USA should support Israel. Now, I know what you mean when you say “Western Values”, but this is HN and we are supposed to assume good faith, so I’m gonna assume you mean liberal democracy and universal human rights (these are actually universal values as specified in the *Universal Declaration of Human Rights signed by all nations; not only Western nations, but lets ignore that). Then the USA really shouldn’t be supporting a state which practices apartheid, keeps a large population under occupation, strips away their democratic rights, commits war crimes, potentially a genocide, etc. In fact if USA supported what you call Western Values, they should help liberate the people of Palestine, just like how they (eventually) helped liberate the people from the subjugation of Apartheid South Africa. IF we were still in the 19th Century your speech would make much more sense. In the 19th century, Europe had a full on colonial enterprise, fueled by racist believes of white supremacy, brutalizing and genociding whole nations for profit and own sense of superiority. This was justified by referring to something similarly vague as Western Values, and does indeed fit Israel’s present day conduct. However, the USA today does not endorse white supremacy, nor colonialism. And should therefor not support nations which engage in this outdated concept of “Western Values”. All that said, when people usually say this term, it is a racist dog whistle. There was a pretty nice mr. Beat video about that recently[3]. 1: https://westminster-institute.org/articles/the-superiority-of-western-values-in-eight-minutes/ https://westminster-institute.org/articles/the-superiority-o... 2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_values_(West) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_values_(West) 3: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DUT4aCkeRA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7DUT4aCkeRA

tptacek 3y ago

The situation for Arab Israeli citizens, fraught as it may be, is not comparable to that of Black Africans under Apartheid, or that of Black Americans in the 1950s. There are Arab Israelis in the Knesset. I don't have a problem with people calling Israel an "apartheid state", given their occupation of Gaza. Fair enough. But you should be careful not to overplay those cards, because you'll end up making arguments that are easily refuted.

feedforward 3y ago
> The situation for Arab Israeli citizens, fraught as it may be, is not comparable to that of Black Africans under Apartheid, or that of Black Americans in the 1950s. There are Arab Israelis in the Knesset. Adam Clayton Powell Jr. and William Dawson were in the US congress in the 1940s and 1950s.
- runarberg 3y ago
  Apartheid South Africa also had the Tricameral Parliament[1] which gave “Coloured” and Indian people a minority seats at the legislator. Off course this type of representation was only performative and the only purpose was to give the appearance of democracy. Notable here—since we are now comparing the rights of victims of different apartheid systems—is the tiered system of giving separate peoples varying levels of—still performative—representation. In Israel, Palestinians with Israeli citizenship (including Bedouin) do have a minority representation at their legislator, however Palestinians in the West Bank don’t, while Palestinians in Gaza effectively live in an unrecognized (and constantly terrorized) bantustan. The systems of apartheid which Israel upholds are in many ways worse than South Africa’s (and in every way worse than Pre-civil rights USA). But in most way’s it is simply different. Which is kind of why we really shouldn’t be ranking apartheid systems (nor any form of oppression for that matter). 1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricameral_Parliament https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tricameral_Parliament
nsguy 3y ago
Israel didn't occupy Gaza. It completely withdrew from Gaza in 2005. The use of the word "occupation" in this context is newspeak. Gaza used to be under Egyptian control until 1967. The term "occupation" in the context of Gaza and international law referred to it being occupied from Egypt by Israel in the six day war. The term "occupation" used by pro-Palestinians refers to the existence of Israel. They s/Israel/occupation/ and they refer to the Jewish presence anywhere in Mandatory Palestine and the middle east. I'm not going to revisit the entire history of the conflict in this comment but the adoption of terminology like "apartheid", "genocide", "occupation", "resistance", "ghetto", "concentration camp", "nazis" etc. is intentional and insidious. The intent is not to criticize Israel. The intent is to dehumanize it and justify violence against it as a whole. The people using these terms are intentionally presenting falsehoods refuse to acknowledge the factual reality. The choice of terminology is to prevent dialogue. We don't need new words for the status of people living in areas that are occupied. Everyone understands that people living in occupied territories (such as e.g. Germany post WW-II) don't receive the same rights as the people living in the country of the occupier. That is not Apartheid. Israel recognizes that it occupies the west bank (from Jordan btw. which also doesn't want the territory back) and has tried many times to resolve this issue. tl;dr I do have a problem with people calling Israel an "apartheid state". Let's reserve that word to South Africa which is what it's supposed to mean. This is just wrong on so many levels. If you want to criticize Israel do it on a factual basis. And btw, this was true pre-Oct 7th as well. I'd argue these people have contributed to the events of Oct 7th and are partly responsible for this terrible mess we're in today.