South Africa stops West Bank goods being labeled "made in Israel"

@Foofie,

I agree that anti-semitism appears still to be a force which nobody can guarantee will not re-emerge with great strength.

I think you are being rather pointedly naive about the role of the settlers. We are not really discussing whether they should be allowed to remain where they are, but whether they ought to be allowed to continue to move aggressively forward. Are you really claiming that this is not a major impediment to any meaningful resolution?

Also, what will happen when they ARE, indeed, a Jewish minority and their Arab neighbors decide to treat them as they have treated others? Will Israel stand by?

However, is this not going to happen within Israel anyway?

Is your position that there ought not to be any challenge to Israeli policy because Jews have been a much abused minority?

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@dlowan,

Also, re the right of return....your " solution" sounds good.....however, I don't know how many of those people wish to leave their homeland and culture. And, the countries you mention did not evict them.

If we follow your point re the Italians taking the Jews, then we are all headed on a slow march to points unknown, since humans have been disposing other humans since anyone had anything to be dis-possessed of.

It's likely helpful that the music be held to have stopped somewhere round 1966 if we are ever to have a hope of any resolution!

(I'm no buff on this subject so I might well have the dats wrong!)

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@izzythepush,

But Israel, however it began, is THERE and I don't think it's going away.

I don't know that blame throwing constantly at one side or the other is going to help.

BTW, there was always, I understand, a large Jewish population there.

You're right...it's an incredibly romantic story and I absolutely get the Jewish desire for a homeland. Sigh.

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@dlowan,

What happened in 1966?

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@InfraBlue,

InfraBlue wrote:

The US' backing, as it stands now, is by and large comprised of ... 2) people who believe that the Zionists are exempt from complying with Human Rights for the Palestinian peoples because "the Holocaust," and the hazy thinking brought about by the resultant paranoia thereof, ...In the instance of the second, these peoples' ideas might change with more education as concerns the irrationality of their position. Although there has been an increase in more, sober, less propagandistic information in regard to the Israel/Palestine conflict over the past few decades, these education efforts pale compared to the Zionists' propaganda machine.

Sorry, Iran has specifically called for wiping Israel off of the map. That is not paranoia. Plus, if one trivializes the last two thousand years of Church taught anti-Semitism, one's opinions regarding Jews might not be of value to anyone that has regard for Jewish survival. Remember, Germany was fighting a war for Lebensraum, but also doing genocide based on racial obsessions. I really do not think many a Gentile is qualified to tell any Jews how they should deal with the world's intractable anti-Semitism. Just my opinion, being a secular Jew. Now, you were about to tell me what your background is.

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@Foofie,

What has Iran have to do with the Palestinians? DUH!

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@izzythepush,

izzythepush wrote:

I don't think that's true of everyone, I think a lot of people just choose to look the other way.

The story of Israel is incredibly romantic, a dispossessed people returning home after thousands of years in exile, and when you include the horrors of the holocaust, you have a country that's also a romatic ideal.

A lot of people don't want to face facts, that the state of Israel was born in blood and terror, a romantic ideal has turned into a nightmare for the indiginous poulation.

It's just easier to look the other way.

Izzy, don't forget that the Displaced Persons (aka, Holocaust survivors) were mucking up the sensitivities of many that really did not want Jews around in their backyard, let alone they going back to their original countries of birth.

That is not romantic. It is just that since Hitler couldn't finish his job, the solution was to let the Jews have Israel, and maybe the Arabs will finish the job, in my opinion. That's not romantic either. Those four wars against Arab armies had the goal of making the Israeli Jews walk on water to some other Southern European country. Oops, they would have drowned!

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

I agree with both infrablue and izzy; nothing will change concerning US support of Israel. Just shows to those of us who understand discrimination that even the US government has blind eyes. Israel is not a democracy.

Incorrect. Their Knesset has Arab members.

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@Lustig Andrei,

Lustig Andrei wrote:

What happened in 1966?

Plenty...Australia adopted decimal currency for instance.

But seriously, most peace proposals recommend Israel accept the borders it had prior to the six day war, which occurred in 1967.

In the six day war israel did so well that it ended up with a lot more territory than it began with. Some of this territory is still in dispute today.

Bet the Egyptians wish they never started that one!

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@Foofie,

Doesn't matter; they keep stealing Palestinian lands, and they don't have the freedom to move around in their own country. That's not a "democracy" by any stretch of that term.

Proof:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=szp7hXBuTCw

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@Foofie,

Foofie wrote:

. . .since Hitler couldn't finish his job, the solution was to let the Jews have Israel, and maybe the Arabs will finish the job, in my opinion. That's not romantic either.

You're right. That's not romantic. That's paranoid.

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@Foofie,

You see, that's where we forever part company.

Israels actions deeply affect the rest of the world. The world does have the right to have opinions and to do what it can to effect change.

Your argument, apart from its emotional appeal, is no better than the US telling people they have no right to criticize US foreign policy becuause only the US knows what is best for it.

That would be like African leaders telling the world it had no right to have opinions or to attempt to effect change in their policies, even when they are slaughtering and oppressing large numbers of people, because Africa was once plundered for slaves.

Or Ireland claiming the same because it was oppressed by England.

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@dlowan,

The Christian Zionists are the Christian Evangelicals, possibly 60 million Americans. Jews don't buy votes. They may contribute to the election campaigns of some politicians through Jewish political action committees. Those politicians come from parts of the country that have either Christian Zionists in fair numbers, or regular Americans that consider Israel a value, even if it is for the next generation of high tech "stuff." Trust me (punch line to a joke that some might recognize), WASP America gets good utility out of Israel (and American Jews), if WASP America appears philo-Semitic. The anti-Israel folk, in my opinion, tend to be those "progressives" that would like to see America become a bigger version of Scandanavian cradle to grave welfare, and "American exceptionalism" would not exist. Figure out who does not believe in American Exceptionalism, and I believe we would find many pro-Palestinean folk.

Being pro-Palestinean is an ethical way to be anti-Israel, without thinking one is anti-Semitic, in my opinion. However, in many instances it is just camouflage, in my opinion, since those folk do not complain about the killing in Syria, just complain how Israel makes the lives of Palestineans uncomfortable with check-points. (Maybe the Palestineans should not have embraced suicide bombing with such exuberance?)

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@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

I agree that anti-semitism appears still to be a force which nobody can guarantee will not re-emerge with great strength.

I think you are being rather pointedly naive about the role of the settlers. We are not really discussing whether they should be allowed to remain where they are, but whether they ought to be allowed to continue to move aggressively forward. Are you really claiming that this is not a major impediment to any meaningful resolution?

Also, what will happen when they ARE, indeed, a Jewish minority and their Arab neighbors decide to treat them as they have treated others? Will Israel stand by?

However, is this not going to happen within Israel anyway?

Is your position that there ought not to be any challenge to Israeli policy because Jews have been a much abused minority?

Perhaps, one might think the Jewish settlers should practice birth control (said fascetiously).

What is telling is that Israel is no bigger than the state of New Jersey, and people spend so much time concerned about what it is doing, even before the Palestinean infitada. My point being that the present white Gentile obsession with what Jews are doing is just a watered down version of the anti-Semitism that thought that the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was a real document, in my opinion. I believe that there is intractable Judeophobia amongst many white Gentiles, based on the two-thousand year learning curve that Jews are outsiders and a competing culture to the Christian/white Gentile culture. It is the old fear of the elephant putting his trunk in the tent, and before one realizes, the sheik is outside the tent, and the elephant is inside the tent.

But, history will be the judge of who wins this contest for land and culture. I will put my bet on the Jews, since their long history of persecution may be proving survival of the fittest (the weak were killed off).

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@Lustig Andrei,

Lustig Andrei wrote:

Foofie wrote:
. . .since Hitler couldn't finish his job, the solution was to let the Jews have Israel, and maybe the Arabs will finish the job, in my opinion. That's not romantic either.

You're right. That's not romantic. That's paranoid.

It's understandable paranoia though.

1 Reply

@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

If we follow your point re the Italians taking the Jews, then we are all headed on a slow march to points unknown, since humans have been disposing other humans since anyone had anything to be dis-possessed of.

The above was said sarcastically. However, we would then likely find some nice combined bagel and pizza shops. (Bagel stores are now even owned by Moslems in NYC; another attempt at humor with you non-New Yorkers.)

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

What has Iran have to do with the Palestinians? DUH!

Both want Israel to disappear with all its Jews.

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@Foofie,

Quote:

Being pro-Palestinean is an ethical way to be anti-Israel, without thinking one is anti-Semitic, in my opinion.

That's precisely what I meant in an earlier post here.
One of the usual smokescreen arguments to avoid addressing Palestinians' human rights.
How can you willfully not acknowledge that the rights of Palestinians have been abused in the West Bank? How much evidence of that do you need?
It has nothing to do with antisemitism.
It is about how the Palestinians have been treated by the occupying Israelis.

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@dlowan,

dlowan wrote:

Lustig Andrei wrote:

Foofie wrote:
. . .since Hitler couldn't finish his job, the solution was to let the Jews have Israel, and maybe the Arabs will finish the job, in my opinion. That's not romantic either.

You're right. That's not romantic. That's paranoid.

It's understandable paranoia though.

Thing is, dlowan, in this on-going argument I find myself more often siding with Foofie contra you. Unusual, but there it is. However, I can't let blatant conspiracy theory statements pass by. Not in my nature. Understandable or not, paranoia is paranoia.

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@Foofie,

Well, thats as good an explanation of anti-semitism as exists. Same thing can happen to other groups, like Chinese and Indians in other countries in Asia.....I'm thinking of the outbreaks of slaughter of the Chinese in Indonesia and Malaysia, and the current dramas for the Indians in Fiji, for instance.

People spend more time thinking about what Israel does simply because what Israel does has an impact upon what Islam does and that sometimes has a big impact on the world. Also, unlike New Jersey, Israel is sitting right where the juice that powers the world is at, and the actions of all countries sitting there are greatly magnified because of this.

Oh, and some people care about the Palestinians as they do for other dispossessed folk.

You haven't addressed any points I made by the way. For instance my calling you on how you denoted the "settlers".
Actually, I shouldn't put that in quotes. They're doing what all settlers in countries like mine and yours for instance did. Displacing the indigenous population and claiming the land.

1 Reply

South Africa stops West Bank goods being labeled "made in Israel"

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