How much more do we have to forgive Israel

[Matilda]

because of the Holocaust?

Israel has been supported by the West, principally the US, because it was seen as a kind of outpost
of the West, a democratic state in the midst of dictatorships, and a beacon for what other ME
countries should aspire to. It was also created out of collective guilt for the Holocaust, because
the rest of the world did know, and stood by and let it happen.

But too often now it is Israel riding roughshod over the rights of others, all too often Israel
who is guilty of racism and bullying smaller and weaker peoples, and crying anti-semitism and
Holocaust denial if anyone dares criticize. Attacks by Hezbollah and Hamas have only ever been
in response to Israeli actions against the Palestinians, however Israel chooses to spin it. And
they are very good at spin.

Yesterday they targeted an ambulance carrying wounded to hospital; today a UN outpost, and in both
instances there is absolutely no way they didn't know what they were doing. They boast about their
ability to mount precision attacks, and both the ambulance and the UN post were very clearly marked.
It is very difficult to see their behaviour in any light other than reverse racism; a determination
to push their borders further and further, and to keep out any other than their own.

Nobody outside the Jewish community could have been more idealistic than I was about the creation
of Israel, the wonders they achieved in the desert, the brilliance of the kibbutz system on which
the state was built. I loved the country, and my heart was completely open to it. But I've been
disillusioned, and as I learned the history from the perspective of the Palestinians while seeing
outrage piled upon outrage against them, I feel only great anger.

Israel could only have succeeded with tolerance and compassion for the Palestinians, and they could
have built a state together with them. They began with the goodwill of the west, some of it
certainly born out of contrition for the evils allowed to happen under the Nazis, but it is being
squandered by their aggressiveness and bullying, their refusal to understand any view but their
own, and their now very obvious determination to push the Palestinians right out of the Territories.
For those people who were once incarcerated behind walls and pushed into ghettoes to do the same
to others who are guilty of nothing more than having been the inhabitants of a land now wanted by
the Jews is a shame and a disgrace, and it is time that western leaders called it for what
it is: ethnic cleansing; racism of the worst kind.

It is bad enough that we have to worry about Islamic fundamentalists and where they're going to
strike next, without a supposedly democratic western state going berserk for no other reason than
because they can.

There are serious problems facing us all right now, not the least of which is climate change and
the ever-growing Third World poverty and malnutrition. There are dictatorships aplenty causing
great suffering to their people, and we don't need so-called responsible states adding to the
instability and suffering. It's time for the rest of the world to say "enough".

[Sherman A1]

1. Agreed

I think you said it right.... I also think this could get to be a very warm thread, rather quickly.

[jrd200x]

2. Pretty tough to have "kindness and tolerence" when they want to kill you

when their stated goal is to drive you into the sea
when their maps don't even show Israel
when their children are taught you don't exist
when they routinely bomb your children in pizza parlors and in discos
when the UN routinely calls for "restraint" when your bombed, blown up, shot, and attacked
when your surrounded by 500 million muslims who all want to kill you

The Palestinians don't want peace with Isreal, they want Israel dead.

Israel pulled out of the West Bank and the Pals not only destroyed everything of value left behind, they burned what the Isralei's had turned into a lush garden back into the useless desert. What did Isreal get for showing kindness and tolerence by forcing their own citizens out of their settlement homes? More bombings.

What would you do in the same situation? I'm sure kindness and tolerence would not be your first thought.

Why would anyone support terrorists?

[TomClash]

15. Good question

But if the answer is that no one should support terrorists, then no one should support Israel.

Israel was built on terror. The King David Hotel, Deir Yassin and other events led to the creation of Israel. Two terrorists later became Israeli Prime Ministers: Shmair and Begin, the leaders of Lehi and the Irgun, respectively.

How can the Palestinians negotiate with Israel when the Israelis refuse to negotiate, when the Kadima platform calls for Eretz Yisrael in Judea and Samaria, when far more civilians have been killed by Israel than the Palestinians during the first and second intifadas, when 100 nuclear weapons and an army more powerful than all the other armies in the ME put together lives to break the spirit of a weak people every day, treating them like dogs, occassionally using Gestapo-like tactics?

Israel built nothing on the West Bank except settlements to justify the greater glory of its own lebensraum, a land grab to absorb new immigrants and expand Israel to the borders Jabotinsky and his ideological offspring crave.

The Israelis want peace - but only on their terms.

[Tom Joad]

3. It is time for sanctions and divestment. If the governments insist

on ignoring human rights, the people have to take action for change.

[Erika]

4. My son served in the Sinai

He loved the area and its people, but he saw the great economic disparity between Israel and the surrounding countries. He said it was morally wrong for one country to live in wealth and happiness, while surrounding countries begged their unit for food.

Tel Aviv has a Hardrock Cafe. Beirut was starting to rebuild and prosper again. Lebanon was starting to shine, even by W's standards. And now this? Why?

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Erika]

8. Are you saying the other countries are lazy?

That's not what my son saw. They were hungry and desperate. Beirut had finally started to prosper and become a tourism mecca. That money would flow, to some degree, to the whole country.

Beirut and Lebanon is now destroyed. Why?

[jrd200x]

10. Why? If you harbor terrorists - you are a terrorist

If someone harbors a murderer that wants to kill me, I have to assume they also want me dead.

Is there something wrong with this logic?

[Erika]

12. My Muslim co-worker certainly doesn't want to kill me

He works for a paycheck to provide for his family. Just like the businesses in Beirut tried to do, until now.

[Fredda Weinberg]

14. Because destruction is part of our heritage

Why am I in galut, communicating over an infrastructure worth trillions, with someone who possibly shares my values? Tribalism works.

Within our community, we benefit from the clan. If we focus outwards, we become entangled in the past and present of others who may or may not have interests congruent to our own.

Take justice, for example. Social benefits lie at the heart of Islam, but they stem from an impulse generated from a sense of righteous outrage that is consistently cultivated. If justice demands that charity be a pillar of righteousness, it runs head-first into a totally different Occidental definition.

Your son not only served, but he did so with painful awareness of the limitations of his capabilities: he did what he could. Bless him. But his affluence is not responsible for the poverty of others; the Arab people could be competitive with the West, but oil wealth is concentrated in families who dare not question their conservatism.

Why has Beirut suffered again? First of all, not all of the Paris of the Middle East is damaged; it's not urban renewal, but you can't separate the poverty of the sections under fire from the shelter they offer their militants. The difference this time is that Hezbollah has a clearer channel than Arafat; if frustration drives violence we may see it subside in our lifetimes.

It's the most hope I can offer tonight, on the medium that may be our salvation. Laila tov.

[Tom Joad]

18. Israel has a hard rock cafe in Tel Aviv because that land was stolen

from palestinians. Because of Palestinian cheap labor. and now because of cheap foreign labor.

Why are cafe's (and homes and crops and trees and everything in the path of Caterpillar bulldozers) in the West bank get bulldozed and destroyed... at US taxpayer expense?

[Redstone]

5. Ethnic Cleansing? What a crock of shit. In 2001, there were 1.2 MILLION

Arabs in Israel.

Some ethnic cleansing.

On edit: That was the most recent figure I could find quickly. I bet it's more now.

Redstone

[Tom Joad]

20. over 700,000 were forced to leave their homeland. yes, some were

left, and they had children. It was not complete, something people like Benny Morris regret. Still, Israel was born of ethnic cleansing.

Now hundreds of thousands in Lebanon have been forced from their homes.

[jrd200x]

7. Muslims are known to use ambulences for cover

there have been many examples of them hiding weapons and fighters in ambulances, schools, and hospitals.

[Erika]

9. I'll have to share that with my Muslim co-worker and his wife

Their worries are making a living and raising a family.

[jrd200x]

11. I'm not sure what that has to do with it

the facts are the facts. The terrorist forces often use immoral cover so they can kill people.

Are we supposed to be OK with this? What would you do?

[Erika]

13. I'll share that with my co-worker also

Thanks.

[jrd200x]

16. You and your muslim co-worker

is that like "some of your best friends are black?" What's your point?

[Erika]

17. My point is that a broad brush is useless n/t

[barb162]

19. mentioning ambulances is using a broad brush?

That point the poster made about the ambulances and terrorists is well-documented

[Erika]

23. So are my son's experiences in his travels to those countries

He only met decent people. Not one terrorist. Israeli or Muslim.

[Solon]

24. He didn't say terrorist, he said Muslim...

To him, Muslim=Terrorist, apparently, and you apparently agree with him, nuff said.

[Tom Joad]

21. That is bullshit.

[Bear down under]

22. Amen, Matilda

n/t

[Lithos]

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