Israeli settler attacks on Palestinians since 2006 increase

[NewYorkExpress]

http://www.firstpost.com/world/israeli-settler-attacks-on-palestinians-have-shot-up-un-1341099.html
Even as a Israel Supporter, I see that it doesn't look like anyone wants peace... Maybe it's time for us Americans to see if the Israelis can survive on their own?

[Horus]

http://www.firstpost.com/world/israeli-settler-attacks-on-palestinians-have-shot-up-un-1341099.html
Even as a Israel Supporter, I see that it doesn't look like anyone wants peace... Maybe it's time for us Americans to see if the Israelis can survive on their own?

It has been that time for decades.

[Cory]

I find it somewhat comical and ironic that the Israeli Right's main foreign policy goal seems to be the belief in themselves as a Chosen People who have the right to expand their living-space to the East and expel the undesirables living there.

Lol.

[Zioneer]

I find it somewhat comical and ironic that the Israeli Right's main foreign policy goal seems to be the belief in themselves as a Chosen People who have the right to expand their living-space to the East and expel the undesirables living there.

Lol.

They've also been expelling or mistreating African refugees who get to Israel via Egypt. Yes, they are expelling people who have walked from Egypt to the Promised Land.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

http://www.firstpost.com/world/israeli-settler-attacks-on-palestinians-have-shot-up-un-1341099.html
Even as a Israel Supporter, I see that it doesn't look like anyone wants peace... Maybe it's time for us Americans to see if the Israelis can survive on their own?

They can. Easily. They have one of the fastest-growing economies in the world. Diplomatically is another issue. The UN would undoubtedly try to strangle Israel with sanctions without the US' involvement.

Now if we're going to talk about forming policy based on this, it's worth mentioning that in the period, three times as many settlers have been killed as Palestinians in these conflicts. The number needs to be zero on both sides, but it doesn't exactly seem fair to condemn one side based on those statistics.

[Ban my account ffs!]

I find it somewhat comical and ironic that the Israeli Right's main foreign policy goal seems to be the belief in themselves as a Chosen People who have the right to expand their living-space to the East and expel the undesirables living there.

Lol.

They've also been expelling or mistreating African refugees who get to Israel via Egypt. Yes, they are expelling people who have walked from Egypt to the Promised Land.

The irony of the way Israeli Jews treat muslims and other "undesirables" is not lost on me.  Building walls, colonizing lands that don't belong to them.  I could see things getting out of hand easily.

This reminds me of a woman I know who had an extremely dysfunctional family and she pretty much had to raise herself and her sisters.  Now she has a lazy bum boyfriend and 2 kids that she smothers and takes care of... because it's how she got through her awful childhood.

[Vosem]

Excepting Ray's post, this thread is so full of false equivalence one could gag.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Excepting Ray's post, this thread is so full of false equivalence one could gag.

I think part of it is the ongoing belief that Israel has some sort of "original sin" it needs to atone for, and as such it's on "probation" and every sin is magnified.

I reject this idea 100%.

[Zioneer]

Excepting Ray's post, this thread is so full of false equivalence one could gag.

I think part of it is the ongoing belief that Israel has some sort of "original sin" it needs to atone for, and as such it's on "probation" and every sin is magnified.

I reject this idea 100%.

Well, they have been giving Ethiopian immigrants/Beta Israel refugees birth control shots without their knowledge. And homes keep getting built in areas promised to the Palestinians. That at least is true, and not magnified.

I was being facetious in my own comment, though I don't have that high of an opinion of Israel in any case.

[ag]

Excepting Ray's post, this thread is so full of false equivalence one could gag.

I think part of it is the ongoing belief that Israel has some sort of "original sin" it needs to atone for, and as such it's on "probation" and every sin is magnified.

I reject this idea 100%.

It is not the matter of any original sin. It is something else. Israel was founded by the people, who thought of themselves as Europeans - indeed, progressive Europeans, for the most part. It is still trying to preserve the claim of being part of the Western world. But, ironically, they used as their model what "Europe" was abandoning at that very moment. As a result, in many respects a Westerner sees in Israel his own portrait, highlighting things he is ashamed of: a nasty caricature of how he sees himself. And, of course, for the rest of the world it is just another European colonial project...

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

And, of course, for the rest of the world it is just another European colonial project...

Yup.  I expect that in the long term, the stelladers will end up being as successful as the crusaders a millennium earlier were in holding onto to the Holy Land.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Jews are not "Europeans". People do not get to run us out of our homeland, occupy it for thousands of years, spend thousands of years killing us for not being properly "European" and then tar us as "European colonialists" when it comes time to hold us accountable for THEIR past sins.

[Indy Texas]

Jews are not "Europeans". People do not get to run us out of our homeland, occupy it for thousands of years, spend thousands of years killing us for not being properly "European" and then tar us as "European colonialists" when it comes time to hold us accountable for THEIR past sins.

Except that that's the problem. No one ran you out of your homeland.

I have zero sympathy for a Jew living in New Jersey who may or may not be descended from someone who was expelled from the Middle East some 1,200 years ago. If we're going to expand property rights into infinity, then you and I both need to be expelled from our homes, have our lands seized and have them given to the descendants of Native Americans.

I fail to see how you can draw an equivalency between that and a Palestinian who was personally expelled from their village by Israelis a mere 65 years ago.

It doesn't seem like you've held Germany accountable for their past sins. You seem more interested in holding the Palestinian people accountable for Germany's sins despite the fact that I'm pretty sure they never sent anyone to gas chambers or concentration camps.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

Jews are not "Europeans". People do not get to run us out of our homeland, occupy it for thousands of years, spend thousands of years killing us for not being properly "European" and then tar us as "European colonialists" when it comes time to hold us accountable for THEIR past sins.

Except that that's the problem. No one ran you out of your homeland.

I have zero sympathy for a Jew living in New Jersey who may or may not be descended from someone who was expelled from the Middle East some 1,200 years ago. If we're going to expand property rights into infinity, then you and I both need to be expelled from our homes, have our lands seized and have them given to the descendants of Native Americans.

I fail to see how you can draw an equivalency between that and a Palestinian who was personally expelled from their village by Israelis a mere 65 years ago.

It doesn't seem like you've held Germany accountable for their past sins. You seem more interested in holding the Palestinian people accountable for Germany's sins despite the fact that I'm pretty sure they never sent anyone to gas chambers or concentration camps.

The Jews didn't decide to expel Palestinians. The Palestinians were ordered to leave by the Arab States, so that they could commit a genocide on the new state of Israel. They agreed, happily.

We were supposed to let them all march back in after that?

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The Jews didn't decide to expel Palestinians. The Palestinians were ordered to leave by the Arab States, so that they could commit a genocide on the new state of Israel. They agreed, happily.

We were supposed to let them all march back in after that?

The Palestinians left in the expectation that it would be better to return alive after the Arab armies conquered than to die at the hands of Irgun and Lehi terrorists like those at Deir Yassin who had foolishly believed that if they were peaceful, they could receive peace in return.  It wasn't until after Deir Yassin that the Arab governments recommend that Arabs leave before they could be killed by Zionist thugs.  If they hadn't left, I fully expect that thousands more would have been massacred at the hands of those criminals.

If a Jewish State was to be established as recompense for the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, how about a chunk of Germany with Nuremberg as its capital?  (Perhaps the Roma could have a chunk of Austria with Linz as its capital?)  Instead, what has happened in the Levant has been not just a demonstration that two wrongs don't make a right, but that seventy-seven wrongs don't make a right.  Not that I expect the Sons of Lamech will ever grasp that before they are eventually flooded out of the Levant.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

I don't even want to hear about options that were never offered. They weren't offered. Ergo, our real choice was to take our lives in our own hands and fight for our homeland, or sit there and wait for the public pressure to let up in Europe a little so we could be finished off.

And even if a homeland had been offered somewhere in Europe, it would have lasted a few years before the Soviets rolled their tanks in and the killings began anew.

It's over. The Jews won. The Jews have a country. The Jews have 300 nukes powerful enough to fend off any invader, up to and including superpowers. Despite all the impotent ranting every time a single Jew steps a toe out of line, Israel is far less of a human rights abuser than any other country within a thousand miles of it. It has faults, like any other country. But if every hate crime isn't an indictment of the very core of America, then it isn't an indictment of Israel either.

[Indy Texas]

I don't even want to hear about options that were never offered. They weren't offered. Ergo, our real choice was to take our lives in our own hands and fight for our homeland, or sit there and wait for the public pressure to let up in Europe a little so we could be finished off.

And even if a homeland had been offered somewhere in Europe, it would have lasted a few years before the Soviets rolled their tanks in and the killings began anew.

It's over. The Jews won. The Jews have a country. The Jews have 300 nukes powerful enough to fend off any invader, up to and including superpowers. Despite all the impotent ranting every time a single Jew steps a toe out of line, Israel is far less of a human rights abuser than any other country within a thousand miles of it. It has faults, like any other country. But if every hate crime isn't an indictment of the very core of America, then it isn't an indictment of Israel either.

Then why are you so worried about Iran getting nukes?

When we occupy northern Mexico and start settling people there while denying the Mexicans things like freedom of movement and the right to vote and be citizens, you can get back to me with your comparisons.

I am in the unique position of having ancestors who were expelled from their homes by Israelis and having ancestors who fought in the revolutionary war to establish the United States and I think it is absolutely disgusting that you think there is a moral equivalence between the establishment of the United States and the establishment of Israel.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

The Jews have 300 nukes powerful enough to fend off any invader, up to and including superpowers.

Nope.  If they cared to, any of the five nuclear superpowers could nuke Israel right now without much worry since Israel does not have the ability to project force far from its borders.  Also, the idea that Israel will be able to maintain military superiority over its neighbors for the rest of history is ludicrous. Plus, who said that the nuclear option or even war would be the cause of Israel's downfall?  While I don't expect the ultra-Zionists to go too far in the near future, it's entirely possible that Israeli goes too far and ends up being a pariah state to all. Do you really think Israel can survive that long if it gets subject to sanctions on the level of apartheid-era South Africa or present day Iran or North Korea.  It's not as if the world really needs anything Israel produces and once sanctions start to bite, the more moderate and secular Jews are going to leave for other countries where they can put their skills to use.  If expected demographic trends take hold, it wouldn't take much of a exodus of Israeli Jews to make Israeli Arabs the majority.  Once that happens, either the Zionists have to give up either democracy or the idea of a Jewish state.  Probably the former, with new versions of Irgun and Lehi springing up to terrorize Israeli Arabs so as to force then to choose between leaving or dying.  Mankind in general tends to find it easier to be hatefully evil than to be good, and the Zionists are no exception to the general rule, just an example of it.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

When we occupy northern Mexico and start settling people there while denying the Mexicans things like freedom of movement and the right to vote and be citizens, you can get back to me with your comparisons.

To be fair, aren't. Arizona, California, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas, and Utah all formerly part of northern Mexico?   I suspect that's part of the reason some people there are threatened by Mexican immigration.  They're afraid the Mexicans might reclaim what was originally theirs.  (Well really it was the Indians', but you know what I mean.)

[danny]

When we occupy northern Mexico and start settling people there while denying the Mexicans things like freedom of movement and the right to vote and be citizens, you can get back to me with your comparisons.

That's exactly what happened, Texas used to be part of Mexico, colonists came and took over, fought a war and drove the Mexicans out. Mexicans certainly don't have all those rights you listed. Since your ancestors come from outside of Texas, you would count as a colonist yourself.

[ag]

And, of course, for the rest of the world it is just another European colonial project...

Yup.  I expect that in the long term, the stelladers will end up being as successful as the crusaders a millennium earlier were in holding onto to the Holy Land.

Actually, I sincerely hope, Israel will have a long an prosperous future Not because I like the Zionist idea - I consider it inherently flawed. But because two wrongs do not make a right. Israeli Jews have no other homeland anywhere in the world. They, over the last 2/3 of a century, managed to create an identity as strong as any. They do not need justify their existence any more than the French or the Germans do. While I do not think Israel has much to offer to a diaspora Jew, like myself, and while I do not have any self-identification with that state (which is as foreign to me as the Papua New Guinea), its existence and prosperity, clearly, are of utmost importance to the welfare, and, indeed, the lives, of its own, Israeli (not Jewish, but Israeli), people.

This is exactly why I equally sincerely hope they manage to go beyond copying the early twentieth-century European nation state and can truly become part of the Western world. Because otherwise, unfortunately, they do not have much of  a future.

[ag]

When we occupy northern Mexico and start settling people there while denying the Mexicans things like freedom of movement and the right to vote and be citizens, you can get back to me with your comparisons.

To be fair, aren't. Arizona, California, New Mexico, Nevada, Texas, and Utah all formerly part of northern Mexico?   I suspect that's part of the reason some people there are threatened by Mexican immigration.  They're afraid the Mexicans might reclaim what was originally theirs.  (Well really it was the Indians', but you know what I mean.)

Well, the US did not deny citizenship to those residents of the conquered land, who happened to be of Mexican stock. And, indeed, not doing this was a major reason for not annexing a lot more. Remember, when the treaty was signed, US army was in control of Mexico City and the US flag was flying over the National Palace. Mexican government had fled to Queretaro, and was incapable of any serious military resistance.

There was no military reason not to annex a much bigger chunk of land. But that land would have come with people (unlike the, for the most part, much more sparsely populated territory actually annexed).  And, of course, much of the population they did annex were the "uncivilized" indians - and those did not, really, live long to tell the tale (or to express any grievance), as a result.

[ag]

When we occupy northern Mexico and start settling people there while denying the Mexicans things like freedom of movement and the right to vote and be citizens, you can get back to me with your comparisons.

That's exactly what happened, Texas used to be part of Mexico, colonists came and took over, fought a war and drove the Mexicans out. Mexicans certainly don't have all those rights you listed. Since your ancestors come from outside of Texas, you would count as a colonist yourself.

Mexicans, who had lived in Texas, retained all the rights. The first vice-president of independent Texas - Lorenzo de Zavala -  had, in fact, been a cabinet member and a governor in Mexico

In any case, two things to remember:

A. this was over 150 years ago, when the standards of civilization were quite different. It is exactly what I mean by you, guys, trying to imitate the civilized world of a hundred years back. Mercifully, the world is different now: for instance, slavery has been abolished pretty much worldwide, while Jews can study and teach at universities and are not regularly subject to pogroms in Russia. I know, you might find those developments unpleasant, but I, actually, like them

B. Americans were smart enough NOT to annex the actually populated lands ("uncivilized" Indians back at the time did not really count - they could be exterminated). Given the fairly small population size on the territory they annex, there was no problem with granting everybody full citizenship.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

And, of course, for the rest of the world it is just another European colonial project...

Yup.  I expect that in the long term, the stelladers will end up being as successful as the crusaders a millennium earlier were in holding onto to the Holy Land.

Actually, I sincerely hope, Israel will have a long an prosperous future Not because I like the Zionist idea - I consider it inherently flawed. But because two wrongs do not make a right. Israeli Jews have no other homeland anywhere in the world. They, over the last 2/3 of a century, managed to create an identity as strong as any. They do not need justify their existence any more than the French or the Germans do. While I do not think Israel has much to offer to a diaspora Jew, like myself, and while I do not have any self-identification with that state (which is as foreign to me as the Papua New Guinea), its existence and prosperity, clearly, are of utmost importance to the welfare, and, indeed, the lives, of its own, Israeli (not Jewish, but Israeli), people.

This is exactly why I equally sincerely hope they manage to go beyond copying the early twentieth-century European nation state and can truly become part of the Western world. Because otherwise, unfortunately, they do not have much of  a future.

Fair enough. I didn't know you were Jewish, incidentally.

As much as I love this country, I've always sort of been aware that I and my family and friends may be one bad economic crisis or Presidential election where a bad person wins from having to decamp. Part of this may be that I grew up in an area with a surprising amount of anti-semitism, so I was always keenly aware that lots of people saw me as "the other".

Israel is far from perfect, of course, but I find that a lot of its sins are reflected in other countries, either preceded by centuries or just decades. They've got a lot to sort out over there, and I wish them all the best. I think it's still incredibly key for that refuge for Jews to exist, and I don't believe it could exist anywhere else. Other options were proposed, but none of them passed the smell test for me - they were either already populated with no actual roots for the Jews, or they were isolated and inhospitable.

[Stand With Israel. Crush Hamas]

And, of course, for the rest of the world it is just another European colonial project...

Yup.  I expect that in the long term, the stelladers will end up being as successful as the crusaders a millennium earlier were in holding onto to the Holy Land.

Actually, I sincerely hope, Israel will have a long an prosperous future Not because I like the Zionist idea - I consider it inherently flawed. But because two wrongs do not make a right. Israeli Jews have no other homeland anywhere in the world. They, over the last 2/3 of a century, managed to create an identity as strong as any. They do not need justify their existence any more than the French or the Germans do. While I do not think Israel has much to offer to a diaspora Jew, like myself, and while I do not have any self-identification with that state (which is as foreign to me as the Papua New Guinea), its existence and prosperity, clearly, are of utmost importance to the welfare, and, indeed, the lives, of its own, Israeli (not Jewish, but Israeli), people.

This is exactly why I equally sincerely hope they manage to go beyond copying the early twentieth-century European nation state and can truly become part of the Western world. Because otherwise, unfortunately, they do not have much of  a future.

Fair enough. I didn't know you were Jewish, incidentally.

As much as I love this country, I've always sort of been aware that I and my family and friends may be one particularly bad economic crisis or Presidential election where a bad person wins from having to decamp. Part of this may be that I grew up in an area with a surprising amount of anti-semitism, so I was always keenly aware that lots of people saw me as "the other".

Israel is far from perfect, of course, but I find that a lot of its sins are reflected in other countries, either preceded by centuries or just decades. They've got a lot to sort out over there, and I wish them all the best. I think it's still incredibly key for that refuge for Jews to exist, and I don't believe it could exist anywhere else. Other options were proposed, but none of them passed the smell test for me - they were either already populated with no actual roots for the Jews, or they were isolated and inhospitable.