Comments

1
I know you didn't mean to come off as anti-Semitic, but you really should apologize. And not one of those fake "Sorry that you were offended." apologies.
2
BDS want to ELIMINATE ISRAEL?

go right for the hyperbole, roz! stop America from having a debate about Palestine and ending our culpability in the continued Apartheid policy. debate can only hurt your cause.

just like Miami exiles strangle change in our Cuba policy, it's worked for decades. why stop now?
3
The resolution contained exceptionally vague language (to start: no formal definition of what it meant by "Palestinian lands"—if you press the BDS folks, they won't answer), numerous erroneous and out of date citations, and—most troublingly—urged the divestment from Caterpillar, apparently completely unaware that Israel suspected the demolition of Palestinian houses on Sept 6 2011, and that Palestinian Tractor and Equipment Company, with offices in Gaza and Ramallah, dealer in Caterpillar equipment. This equipment is crucial to the present housing boom in the WB, and indeed to Palestinian infrastructure and autonomy in the WB and Gaza. The divestment from CAT would, in fact, do very serious damage to the Palestinians. The students pushing the resolution did not know this, because they did not do their research.

The resolution failed because it was poorly researched, impossibly naive, and endeavored to take Israeli military offensives completely out of context (Cast Lead was a response to nearly daily rocket fire into southern Israel; Pillar of Defense was a reaction to increasing rocket fire from Gaza, with as much as 100 attacks in one day: to take any political action out of context is an irresponsible way to make an argument). The resolution failed because it would not have done a single thing in terms of stopping the settlements or ending the conflict. The resolution failed because it was punitive, and not productive, and the students realized this.
4
Something something Macklemore?
5
What I've only seen once in top-level posts here is that this was about getting UW to divest from companies invested in Israel, including Caterpillar and Hewlett-Packard.

I also read the resolution - they spend most of their time drawing a line between Rachel Corrie being run over by a Cat bulldozer to Cat's bad Israel practices in general, then quickly try and pack in other companies.

Even if you take out everything else, it's a resolution focused on getting UW to divest from Caterpillar over a real dead-horse incident from several years back.
7
@6, which boarders are those, and why are you talking about boarding houses?

Gaza is not occupied by Israel. Read some history, Ansel. Although I know that BDS fanatics don't wish to do that because it might introduce inconvenient details into their belief system.
8
Does StandWithUs have any gentiles in leadership that might actually lend some credibility to their reflexive defense of all things Israel?
Do they care to disclose where their funding comes from?

Yeah, didn't think so.
9
@7: Gaza isn't occupied, correct. it was less that a decade ago, however. now, it's essentially an open air prison.

portions of the west bank ARE occupied.

"BDS Fanatics", nice.
11
Hey Ansel,

"it'd be really great" if people attempting to sanction corporations complicit in a military's human rights violations focused their attention on ALL the militaries around the world that do this, and not single out the Jewish state, which is no worse and a lot better than many states, and which is, in fact, the only democracy in the Middle East and the only one with even a modicum of a commitment to civil rights.

IN 2013, Freedom House ranked Israel 30TH on its democracy index, ahead of such luminaries as Italy, Mexico and (wait for it) South Africa. Know where the highest country in the Arab League ranked? UAE at 75th. To be clear, my point is not that Arabs are somehow incapable of democratic values, it is that the Middle East is a tough neighborhood; to be 30th there is a heck of an accomplishment.

Does Israel make mistakes and could it do better? You betcha! You know what? So does the United States (13th in the rankings), which I believe has its own series of military human rights violations. So when you're ready to boycott companies doing business with the United States, give me a call.
12
So where does the Israeli right to self-determination end and the Palestinian right begin? Oh that's right, only the Jews get that privilege (according to privileged American white men).
13
... Or white women...
14
@11: I boycott American companies I don't like all the time! I demonstrated against the Iraq war! And somehow, that's not exclusive of supporting other kinds of boycotts of bad things! Crazy, I know!
15
Thank you, Ansel. The conflation of BDS with anti-Semitism is a political trope, and it's way past time to call bullshit on it.
16
@10, writing to his local paper 25 years ago:
"I've never understood why liberals single out South Africa for so much abuse. Yes, the White South Africans have done some not so nice things in the bantustans, but the abuses are minor compared to what goes on in the USSR, China, or East Germany. Why is there no call for the UW to divest from those countries?"
17
@8: "Does StandWithUs have any gentiles in leadership that might actually lend some credibility to their reflexive defense of all things Israel?
Do they care to disclose where their funding comes from? Yeah, didn't think so."

Although I am not familiar with every single leadership position held at StandWithUs—it is a national organization—I'd expect that, as it is an Israel advocacy group, you would see (shock! awe!) a large number of Jews in SWU leadership. By the way: the presence of Jews in a Jewish organization does not, actually, compromise credibility. If you think that it does, I suggest you reexamine that position.

If you Google (hint: it's a way to find stuff) StandWithUs, you will see that they disclose their financial information, as well as their partners and sponsors. There are non-Jewish groups among the latter.

18
@9: "now, it's essentially an open air prison."

Citations, please.

This is something the Resolution totally failed on. It claimed that Israel completely controls all access into and out of Gaza (Psst: DON'T TELL EGYPT); further, it implied that there is no movement in and out of Gaza. It claimed this, because it did not do its homework.

Luckily, a certain UW faculty member did (I quote from a letter submitted):

As with (a) above, this is a misleading and simplistic representation of the facts on the ground. Aside from the Gaza / Egypt crossing (which Egypt controls), there is considerable traffic in and out of Gaza on a nearly daily basis:

http://www.cogat.idf.il/Sip_Storage/FILE…

In 2013, IL removed its last significant ban on Gaza imports:

http://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-remo…

And as recently as January of 2014, IL significantly eased its restrictions on the import of building supplies into Gaza:

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-de…

There are ways to effect a change in re the hostilities between the Palestinian territories and Israel. But we must be clear that "End the Occupation!" is meaningless unless it is predicated upon "End the Hostilities."
19
I no longer care about any of that bunch. It won't be long before they all murder each other off.
20
Peri427 brings up some very important points. While I do not like the current government of Israel and don't like much of their foreign policy, they still are the best nation, by far, in terms of human rights in the region.

Especially if you are GLBT, a woman or, yes, even a religious minority.

That said, I believe that ultimately the Two State Solution is the best chance at bringing lasting peace to the region.

The people involved in this divestment organization would probably get better results if it was trying to accomplish something more meaningful.

Like getting Palestine to be declared a voting member of the U.N., which has been stalled for several years now.
21
@14

I agree - one can support (or protest) multiple things at once. But thanks for the urgent displaying of your left-wing bonafides.

My point was that the BDS movement (of which the UW effort was a part) essentially advocates boycotting Israel in its entirety. That's the part that seems essentially anti-semitic (or anti-Jewish if you prefer) - delegitimizing the Jewish state for doing what other countries do (or less).

I'm perfectly happy to boycott Israeli companies who intentionally locate across the Green Line (such as Sodastream). But that's not what BDS wants or the resolution asked. In my view, people who advocate solutions that don't reflect or understand the complexity of the situation contribute to rather than help solve the problem.
22
The thing that drives me nuts about the Divestment from Israel movement is that there is so much Americentrism to all the arguments.

What do you think the American response would be to be to daily rocket attacks on our cities? Judging by our response to a single attack on 9/11 I would venture to guess that it would be pretty goddamn severe. Equal to or much greater than the military actions of Israel.

So if that's true the only way to still be in favor of BDS is if you 1) Don't think those rocket attacks actually occurred, 2) Think those rocket attacks are justified because Israel does not have a right to its own country or, 3) Would equally push to divest in any government that defended their people from attack in a vigorous manner as Israel does.

I would say the main reason why, to me, the actions of BDS feels steeped in antisemitism is that both notion 1) and 2) above are trains of thought that are historically deeply rooted in antisemitism.

While option 3) is simply implausible on its face. How many UW students who pushed for the resolution did so while wearing GAP t-shirts made by Bangladeshi workers in collapsing factories? So, focusing on Israel while giving a free pass to a large number of pretty shady world governments (including our own at times) feels a little targeted. And what makes Israel unique, right that Jewish thing. So that's why it feels a little antisemitic.
23
@18: I made it up. but it looks like I'm not the only one to make that comparison:

http://inthesetimes.com/article/14148/ga…
http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/12635-…
http://www.eurasiareview.com/09122013-ga…

so I'm not sure what your point is in asking for a citation. I was responding to Sarah70's telling Ansel to "read some History", as she was asserting that Gaza is not occupied. did you mean to assert that Gaza is a nice place to live?
24
@17 Thanks for the condescension. Your reflexive copy & paste above tells me a lot about your agenda. I would have never thought to click on the link for StandWithUs in the original article, or clicked on their tax filing to find that every single person listed has a jewish surname. Or that the organization's real name is Israel Emergency Alliance, which sounds more like a paramilitary organization than an educational group. Or that their stated mission is that "Israel's story will be told on campuses, in communities, in media, and in churches through brochures, speakers, conferences, a mission to Israel, and the internet."
The word "truth" does not appear in their mission statement. Just a bunch of jewish people making sure Israel's "story" is told, because apparently no one has ever heard the story before. (With Roz & Jeremy Rothstein pocketing 345k per year as CEO & COO. The board has 11 married couples!)

We get it. Ancient stories about magic people justify slavery, racism and genocide, and those same stories justify modern racism, genocide and land grabs. Only after all other evil in the world is eradicated can these issues be discussed.
It's identity politics, pure & simple. Identity politics is another name for tribalism, and tribalism is the fast-track to racially based massacres.
26
@24 Oh dear! Can you imagine if there were opposing views on campuses to all the anti-Israel, hate whitey, I'm brown so give me a dollar indoctrination. Hate crime I tell you.
27
How ironical. This week you call someone who is NOT anti-Semitic, anti-semitic, and then the group of people that demonstrably ARE vigorously anti-Semitic, not anti-Semitic.

This is what happens when bias leads thought.

Oh, in your article you call the West Bank settlements "illegal", but anyone who has actually studied this issue knows that they are not "illegal".

Stated simply, because there is no nation there, there is no "stolen" land. U.N. Res. 242 clearly states that it'll take a comprehensive agreement in order to settle whose land is whose.

Thusly, the settlements, while stupid and self-defeating are not "illegal".
28
@23: "so I'm not sure what your point is in asking for a citation."

Well, I wanted some kind of citation. You cannot provide one—only opinion pieces that you parrot. This is because statements like "it's essentially an open-air prison" are intended only as inflammatory rhetoric (which is why you could link to pages that make such claims). You haven't been there. I I haven't been there. But I *have* spent a lot of time in Israel, and I've been to the WB, and I know a lot about import and export (yes, Gaza exports produce into Israel) and border crossing in Gaza, and it is clear that you do not.

Gazans can move in and out of Gaza (not all of them, of course: if they have committed acts of violence in Israel or have obvious Hamas ties, they may be prohibited from entry); their means of moving in and out of Gaza are limited due to the countries that surround them: both Egypt and Israel restrict Gazan movement in and out of Gaza.

You know another country that has restricted movement (if any movement at all) at its borders? Israel. You can get from Israel into Egypt or Jordan (it takes time, but can be done), but you can't take a car w/ an IL license plate into either. You cannot get from Israel to Lebanon or Syria.

So. Want to call Israel an "open air prison?" For what it's worth, I would not. Nor would I call Gaza such. Because it's not.

Now. Is Gaza a nice place to live? Gaza, like the WB and Israel, has hospitals, universities, shopping malls, and schools. It has wealth (yeah, it does—not like WB wealth or Israel wealth, but there are wealthy Gazans), and it has poverty. It has beautiful beaches, and surf clubs (I am a huge fan of the Gaza Surf Club—one thing Israelis and Gazans love is their sea: https://www.facebook.com/gazasurfclub?fr…) and a huge amount of potential for growth.

Is it a nice place to live? I wouldn't choose it, for a variety of reasons. But "it's not a nice place to live" is not tantamount to "it's an open-air prison."

It it were, a *shitfuck* of the world could be described as such.

29
@24. Thanks. You've just outed yourself as a moron.
30
You can criticize the policies of the Chinese government without being labeled a bigot against Chinese people, you can criticize Vladimir Putin without being labeled a bigot against Russians, you can criticize the EU without being accused of reverse racism, you can criticize any number of African governments without being accused of straight-up racism... but you can't criticize the policies of the Israeli government without being labeled an anti-Semite.

I am completely sick of the bullshit double standard and professional victimhood that anti-Palestinian bigots use to excuse their ethnicity-based oppression of the Palestinians. Just because you were victims of ethnic oppression in the past doesn't give you the right to do it to others, and it doesn't mean that everyone who calls you out on it is a bigot.
31
@10 - Nobody really expects dictatorships like Saudi Arabia to have good human rights records, since human rights abuses are inherent in their political systems. Israel, however, is a democracy, and democracies can and should do better. Democracies also tend to be more responsive to pressure to change, so they're a better focus for reformist efforts. When Israel tries to excuse itself for its treatment of the Palestinians by pointing out that dictatorships are worse, it's degrading itself. Israel should hold itself to the high standards of its fellow democracies, not the low standards of its geographic neighbors that happen to be dictatorships. What good is it to be "the only democracy in the region" if you're a crappy democracy that systematically abuses its ethnic minorities and does absolutely nothing to promote democracy in the region?
32
@30: "anti-Palestinian bigots use to excuse their ethnicity-based oppression of the Palestinians."

Hm. What ethnicity are Palestinians? And what do you think about the lives of Arab Israelis (Arabs living in Israel proper)? Want to get into an interesting discussion of oppression?
33
@32 Mincing all the fine gradations of diversity among the Palestinians and Israelis is beside the point. The point is that in Israel, Jews are privileged and other groups, particularly Arabs who are not considered citizens of Israel and who live in the occupied territories, are subject to a huge array of humiliating and economically crippling restrictions and denial of their human rights in the name of Israel's security while Israel takes advantage of its strong military position to steal land from them. This is wrong. Israel should do better, and yet they don't. The reasons that they don't are complicated, but bigotry against non-Jews is clearly part of it.
34
Ansel and Max and others are mis-informed about what BDS is about.

Peri and Sarah are correct.

While IN THEORY BDS could be limited to operations in the West Bank, IN PRACTICE, in the way it is used, the BDS MOVEMENT attempts to eliminate Israel, like the Arab League Boycott which started in 1948 and which continues.
35
@33: You make some pretty broad claims. Care to back them up?

I've spent a great deal of time in Israel. I can tell that you know almost nothing about it. Want to dance?

36
@35, no, the only way for many young liberals who focus on Israel and ignore the dozens of rogue nations is to 1) not read anything about the region's history and 2) never actually visit Israel. Otherwise, they'd have to stop that shit. J-Street, the pro-peace organization that is vilified by AIPAC as being "anti-Israel", says that US campus intellectuals are the most ignorant Americans on Israel. They're also the most vocal. Probably those two attributes fit together. You've got to be either ignorant -- or stupid -- to support Hamas, which has been fighting with the other Palestinian organization for years, and which has been sending rockets into Southern Israel since Israel pulled out of Gaza.

But everyone go ahead, ignore Nigeria, Sudan, China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Iran, Afghanistan, and focus on the tiniest sliver of a country in the world.
37
@31

But Israel IS better as a democracy than many other democracies: higher than Italy, Greece, Hungary, Mexico, Jamaica, India (and more) in the Freedom House rankings; higher than every African country; higher than every Arab League country (admittedly there are few democracies in those last two categories). So why the double standard? Why the criticism of the Jewish state and not any of the others?

It may not be the overt anti-Semitism of the 19th and 20th centuries, but that history makes it sure look like something is going on.
38
@36: I may have misunderstood your original point.

I spend a lot of time in Israel. They could do better, to be sure (so, fucking frankly, could the U.S.). But isn't it odd that we continually ask Israel to do better (I sure do), but never ask as much from "those Arab nations?"

So, Jews should know better, but Arabs just can't help themselves? This is really what we want to argue?
39
This is an interesting thought experiment:

If what we think of as "Israel" contained no Jews, but was an Arab nation, and if Gaza and the WB existed as they do, would there exist a BDS movement?

If this were a case of various Arab populations fighting, would any Nice College Students give a fuck?

Hint: they would not.

41
FYI, Within the past few years there has already been a quite vigorous campaign made to get the UW to stop sourcing its athletic wear from sweat shops. Not sure how successful the effort was. But I'm pretty sure they weren't labeled as racists...
43
@39, I'm sure there would indeed be an active political campaign to cut UW investment ties from any companies that profited from selling arms to Assad's military, for example, if that was the case...
44
@42, local activists have also quite vigorously protested American ties to the Egyptian military dictatorship, Saudi government, etc. They just don't get all the attention on the SLOG
45
@43: Syria also uses Caterpillar equipment, and pretty much by any standard whatever Syria's kind of being a Total World Dick.

The BDS is not about arms (Israel produces its own weapons); it is about infrastructure. And only IL is targeted.
46
@45 has assad employed said cats to raze the neighborhoods of his citizens?
47
@46: well, as information out of Syria is incredibly limited, we can't be sure. Assad probably didn't need Cats to kill the hundred thousand + Syrians his regime has.
48
The problem with your premise is that the settlements are not illegal according to any legal standard, including international law. This is part of the false narrative used as propaganda against the Jewish state. It's simply untrue.

Also, if you read this piece: http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/sport/1405… it becomes clear that anti-Zionism and anti-Israel sentiments are just veiled antisemitism and not even well-veiled. Israel is the Jewish state. If you diss Israel and Israelis, you are dissing Jews.

There is no occupation and there is no illegal settlement in Israel. You are simply misinformed. And as a Jew, you have a responsibility to research the facts of the matter from the opposite perspective to discover whether or not what I am saying here is true. You have that responsibility because if I'm right (and I am), it makes you an unwitting traitor to your people and your land.
49
Then who's houses are getting razed?
50
@48 Who planted the olive trees burned to make room for the settlements? Is burning them also legal? Don't deny the existence of a legitimate issue for at least reasonable debate with assertions about legality. Kind of a debate cop out. Just like the anti-Semite label. Can't one be against razing homes and burning olive orchards for "legal" settlements without being anti-semetic?
51
@29 And you've outed yourself as a one-note wonder, a single-minded apologist for the Israeli government. Which, coincidentally, is what StandWithUs is all about. Does BDS have a mission to Tehran, Riyadh or Damascus? If so, I'd be leveling the same charges against them.
52
@51: you have, simply put, no idea what you are talking about. And you know fuck all about my views of Israel (which are based on considerable experience, unlike yours).

For what it is worth, I am not a fan of the current Israeli government, and I think Israel should engage in an immediate and complete withdrawal from the WB. I would like to see an immediate joint recognition of the state of Israel (by Palestine) and the state of Palestine (by Israel). I would like to see an immediate cessation of hostilities on both sides.

Although I would like the more radical settlers (note: many people live in the WB because housing there is affordable, whereas most housing in Israel is horribly expensive—that is, there are a lot of totally moderate leftist settlers who live there because that's where they can find housing) to be jailed for child abuse, I don't see this happening. What I think Israel should do is a version of what they did with the Gaza pull out in 2005. Israel should purchase the homes of the settlers at good market value, and help them relocate in Israel proper. They should start with full value, drop to 75% six months later, drop to 50% six months after that. And so on.

At a determined deadline, those settlers who had not sold their homes to Israel will have the option of leaving their homes with no payment, or staying and becoming citizens of WB Palestine.

(In the case of Gaza, in 2005, the remaining settlers were forcibly removed by the Israeli government, and their houses destroyed, so they could not return. I was there for that. And I bet you had no fucking idea that that's what went down, did you?)

Honestly. Americans are so fucking simple minded when they try to talk about Israel. It's almost embarrassing to try to talk to you about this. Learn some fucking history.

And no: there is no other country, of which I am aware, that has any BDS movement against it.
53
@42: well put. As it happens, Assad's regime uses CAT bulldozers to demolish homes.

54
Wow, the hardline Likud propagandists are working overtime today.

It is not anti-Semitic to criticize Israeli policies that are clearly against international law, no matter what you claim. A country that occupies territory has responsibilities to the residents there, either to free them from occupation or give them rights within the larger country. Israel has a choice to do either and has done neither. Instead it has inflicted collective punishment on the Palestinians by tearing down homes and cutting down trees for people who are not security threats (aside from their ethnicity and the racism of Israeli policy that equates that ethnicity with an inherent threat). It has built settlements that are in clear violation of UN resolutions. It has taken land for those settlements from other people without compensating them for it. Israeli is a rogue state in its dealings with Palestine. They are either occupiers or an apartheid state, and no amount of lies will make the truth anything else.

It is right-wing Israelis who make anti-Semitic claims by equating Israel with Jewish ethnicity and Judaism as a religion. Israel is not and has never been a Jewish state. It is a state of Jews and Arabs who live on unequal terms and have done so ever since Israel was a nation state. I'm sure there are many people who would like to ethnically cleanse Israel and its history to only include Jews (who were a minority even in most of what is now Israel 150 years ago), but the reality is a multi-ethnic state within Israeli borders. That Palestinians and their supporters don't want to sign on to the rhetoric of a state that privileges Jews over Arabs is not a sign of their racism, it's a sign that they are opposed to racism.

Israel has killed every chance for peace for decades, and since 1967 the US has taken the lead in facilitating their lawlessness. It's time we stopped funding them and let them alone. In the face of a US government that refuses to stop funding Israel's occupation, the obvious recourse is to apply economic pressure on Israel in every way possible to force them to change policy, or failing that, to force the US government to stop spending tax money on an immoral enterprise.
55
@54: what do you know about the rights that Palestinians have in Israel?

I'm guessing about as much as you know about Israel (which is just enough to sound really ignorant).
56
Get over yourself, and try talking to Israelis that disagree with you, or even an actual Palestinian. You sound just like the apologists for South African apartheid, and I am old enough to see how similar their arguments are to yours. And just like you, they attacked others for being racist or not knowing history or supporting terrorists, while spouting propaganda that justifies their ill treatment of others. It's sickening.

I have great respect for Jewish traditions and the many Jews I know, so I'm incredibly upset when someone tries to appropriate that respect to support the illegal actions of Israel, and tries to rewrite history and present reality to silence what's going on. In the same thread, people are justifying actual anti-Semitism in our own country (the Macklemore thing). Get your priorities straight, acknowledge that Israel is a country like any other that is capable of (and has committed, and still commits) acts that are worthy of deep criticism, and focus on the hate spread by and within your own communities.
57
Hey Abulafia

They are ignorant. Don't spend too much time with fools.

Of course your points are good and so maybe there are fair-minded people out there and not really sure (since they don't follow the issues having no personal stake.) So maybe your rational discussion is useful.

But people like Cascadian? All cant.
58
I had the great privilege of living and working in the West Bank of the Palestinian territories, in Ramallah to be exact, for two years. I've also been active in the BDS campaign, as have many educated and fair-minded Americans who are fed up with neverending human rights violations paid for in part by US tax dollars and totally supported by the US government.

They were some of the best years of my life, and I made some of my best friends there, both Israeli and Palestinian. They just want to live normal lives, free from violence, danger, and destruction.

Unfortunately the Israeli government has become more and more right wing with a self-fulfilling escalation of racist indoctrination. Because the world's governments have been too cowardly to do anything serious to end the horrific violations of Palestinian human rights that drive the violence, something like BDS is the only tool we have as conscientious citizens.

The movement supports equal rights for all. If you think that's "anti-Semitic," it might be time to reexamine your ideology.

I've put together a website that has a reading list that can help you educate yourself on the history of the conflict and the latest realities:

http://pamolson.org/reading.htm

Sincerely,

Pamela Olson, author of Fast Times in Palestine
59
To the supporters of the voted-down resolution, here is an idea. When a belligerent starts and loses a war, then it loses land. That is why the West Bank is in Israel's hands. To return land to a belligerent would be a strange form of positive reinforcement and would invite a second, third, etc. rolling of the dice.

Anyway, the resolution is anti-Semitic and here is the reason why. If returning land to a belligerent is such a great idea, then simultaneously call for Poland's return of Prussia to Germany and for India to return Kashmir to Pakistan. By singling out Israel for this lousy idea, the supporters have created a double standard applicable only to the Jews.

Best regards
60
@59: Israel seizing the West Bank isn't the issue here. That was justified! The issue is its oppression of the Palestinians who live there.
Germanic citizens of the Prussian region have the same rights as ethnic Poles alongside them, correct? (Kashmir, for the record, is disputed because colonial British officials were somewhat careless with their dividing sticks. It was not a part of Pakistan that was suddenly taken by India, since both were administered as part of the same colonial bloc prior to independence in 1947. But I digress.)
Israel must either give Palestinian Arabs similar rights and responsibilities as are currently enjoyed by Israeli Jews, Israeli Arabs, and the Druze, or allow them independence.
And before you call me anti-Semitic, I shall remind you that I am myself a Red Sea pedestrian.
61
#60, thank you much for your excellent comments. I respectfully believe that there may be a some flaws in them and point them out for your consideration. I believe that coexistence is the answer.

First, unlike the conquered Prussians, the Palestinian Arabs have never bought into peace. There were never revanchist activities by the formerly belligerent Prussians, and thank you for acknowledging that the Palestinian Arabs (serving in the Royal Jordanian army and as irregulars) were the belligerents in 1967 Six-Day War.

Second, unfortunately, the Palestinian Arabs remain the belligerents, and, hence, they lack rights and independence, and here is why.

The Palestinian Arab movement is called the "resistance" (not the "coexistence"). Their movement has always been violent: (1) Sirhan Sirhan, (2) Arafat ordering the kidnap of our amassador to Sudan and then murdering him when we would not release Sirhan plus the jailed Black September terrorists, and (3) other acts from blowing up airplanes and blowing up people for the past 47 years.

Past is prologue here. The violence is rooted in Jew hatred and predates the Six-Day war. Please remember that Hitler hosted the Palestinian High Command (including the Mufti) in Berlin during WWII. Hitler was the great champion of the Palestinian cause. (Churchill had tried to assassinate the Mufti due to the murderous attacks that the Mufti directed)

Both Palestinian Arab leadership and Hitler were shared the same goal:eradication of the Jews. That is why Adolf Eichman, on behalf of the SS, traveled to what is now Israel and why the Mufti created a Waffen SS unit in the Balkans (plus shooting our captured aviators for good measure).

So, the situation in the West Bank is different than it is in Prussia because the remaining Germanic citizens of Prussia actually sought coexsitence, not resistance, and sued for peace. These conquered Germanic citizens were not detonating themselves or assassinating our U.S. senator (and which gave us Nixon) among their other violent acts. That is the distiction lacking in your analysis: the consequences of resistance versus coexistence.

So, no special rights for Palestinian Arabs; one does not get to kill and enjoy the rights of citizenship or independence. A right to statehood is only a presumption, which they failed by their conduct. Look no futher than Gaza, which has been "occupied" by Hamas for years. No thanks to that kind of neighbor with its honor killings of women and gays plus a few torched churches.

As to Kashmir, kindly recall that Pakistan lost part of its land (after using it as a base to attack) to an Indian counterattack. Yes, the British did draw the initial lines until the Indians redrew them. Over Kashmir, the Indians have the similar problems with the Pakistanis that the Israelis have with the Palestinian Arabs.

Best regards
62
@35 I spent a week in Seattle once. I learned exactly nothing about the local politics and issues during that trip. I saw the architecture, the landscape, the Space Needle, and all that was nice, but everything I know about the Seattle Police Department and its problems, the names of the mayors Seattle has gone through in the past several years and what they've done, the city council, and the state of transit planning I learned from reading Slog. I actually know quite a bit about Seattle local politics while I know almost nothing about the local politics in the place where I live, for the simple reason that Slog is interesting and free to read while the local paper here is dull as fuck and paywalled.

The lesson? Spending time in a place doesn't make you an expert. A person on the ground can learn quite a bit, but it's an ant's eye view. If you want to understand the big picture you have to read stuff, or do serious journalism work. You haven't said anything to persuade me that your time in Israel actually taught you anything that's relevant to this discussion. I've read more than enough to let me know what Israel is doing to the Palestinians, and why. There is no excuse for settling Israelis in the West Bank. The peace process is a sham and Netanyahu is not acting in good faith. The human rights of the Palestinians are not being respected, and by giving Israel material support, the US is complicit in those violations. Visiting Israel might teach me something I didn't know about the architecture, the weather, the street layout and the food, but I doubt I'd learn anything significant about the nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
63
@62: I have been spending considerable time, year, in Israel for the past 14 years.

So that's probably about like spending a week in Seattle. You idiot.

I'm also, professionally speaking a researcher in this area. I am not going to get into much detail here, but I hardly went to Israel "for a week" to "see some sights."

64
History! History! Don't you know your history? Why are you focused on BDS to the Jews only and not other genociders of the world?

How many countries have the Jews been expelled from now? It's always the host countries fault right? That's what your teacher told you, your education system is always right, right?

Jews expelled from Israel in what 70ad? They come back, this time as a rich white Ashkenazi western power, start settlements that develop into land grabs, displace and kill the native Palestinian people, war unfolds, peace negotiations are useless.

*Why are you trying BDS against the Jews, why not some genocidal African tribal lord? You must be anti-$emite because holocaust happened and Christians repeatedly persecuted the Jews in ancient history.*

All people of the world have suffered but not all have such a meticulous record and promotion of their own story as the Jews. I'm sure Europe's peasants, serfs suffered horrendously but this is a story largely untold and without a powerful lobby. Either now or in the past, many peoples and tribes of the world have experienced cruelty, hardships, oppression, racism or born into generational serfdom. But not all peoples have the resources to make holocaust museums, movies, tv, or world war 2 studies are half dedicated to the story they tell the world.

The story of the Jewish persecution is the most widely promoted event in the western world with all the holocaust museums, movies, tv, world war 2 studies are half dedicated to the Jews even though 50 - 90 million gentile people were murdered in this era. Genocidal African tribal lords don't have the kind of political power or resources to tell the story of their tribe to the world, we can't read in the history books or see on tv all the unwarranted persecutions they went though. You can't get all emotional about the suffering of scruffy underdog tribal African lord to start cheering for him to win. You can't forget about fact, logic and basic morality. African tribal lord does not have the lobby to make this possible, but Israel does.

But you say that this is different because people tried to completely wipe the Jews off the face of the earth! We must protect the Jews from those who repeatedly wish to make them extinct as I was taught in my school and media.

If that is true, why the Haavara Agreement exists?

I'm sorry this is gonna hurt some feelings, but a lot of what we know of the ww2 era is just wartime propaganda, yes the nazi are not the only ones who know how to do propaganda. Let's not forget that the US was part of the allies that includes Soviet Union and how much blood is on those hands as well.

Please wait...

Comments are closed.

Commenting on this item is available only to members of the site. You can sign in here or create an account here.


Add a comment
Preview

By posting this comment, you are agreeing to our Terms of Use.