Israel's Shame

When muslims get their hands on nukes (it's long overdue), they'll take out Tel Aviv and Israel will respond by taking out every muslim city in the mideast.
After that, things might quiet down a bit..

That's an interesting scenario, because when Israel attacks the Middle East with nukes, it'll also impact most of Europe and the world.

I'll say. A single nuclear weapon can destroy a city.

Nuclear radiation fallout will eventually spread over the face of the earth via clouds filled with rain.

Also, using a nuke in the middle east will cause a large part of the area to be uninhabitable for hundreds of years.

No, not the jewish legacy: the present Israel government legacy. The jewish people there and other places aren't a conflation.

InfraBlue wrote:

I object to Israel’s status as a Jewish State based on my aversion to ethnocentricity and the oppression of the Palestinians that is necessary to maintain that ethnocentricity of the state of Israel in the name of a demographic majority of Jews. I’m averse to theocracies as well because they also tend to be oppressive.

But you acknowledge, don't you, that Israel is not a theocracy?

I don't see how oppression of Palestinians is necessary to maintain Israel as a "Jewish State." Not granting the Right of Return is not an act of oppression, and, conceivably, a settlement could be worked out that would provide the Palestinians with the majority of their requirements with the continuance of a "Jewish State." Assuming this is possible would you still call for an end (peacefully) to the Jewish State?

One can have an aversion to ethnocentricity without looking to see it rid from the face of the earth, while such an aversion might lead you to oppose the notion of a Jewish State, is it so strong that you feel compelled to call for an end to it?

InfraBlue wrote:

Ethnocentricity in a state tends to be undemocratic when there are other ethnicities that reside in that state, regardless of what form of government they claim to have. With Israel, democracy is implemented to a certain degree in regard to the Arabs living within the green line, but its very own Or Report published at the beginnings of the Second Intifada found that discrimination against the Israeli Arabs was systematic within the Israeli government. This systematic discrimination isn’t surprising considering Israel’s self-designation as "the state for the Jews."

There are many other nations where one ethnicity is in the majority. European nations in particular. Do you consider Sweden or the Netherlands, for example, to be undemocratic? Most nations have difficulties of one sort or the other with ethnic minorities, and, typically, these minorities complain (whether justified or not) that they are suffering in some sense due to their minority status.

I'm for the Kurds having their own independent state as well, but wouldn't that be an ethnocentric "Kurdish State?" Unless, however, the Kurds are willing to forego inclusion in their nation of that part of Kurdistan than lies on the other side of the Turkish border, it is unlikely that they will have their Kurdish State anytime soon. In any case, they effectively have it right now, and came out of the Iraq War in fine shape. I'm sure they don't, for a minute regret that the US invaded and toppled Saddam.

If granted the Right of Return tomorrow, the Palestinians wouldn't be in a position to accomplish such a thing even if they all wanted to follow the desires of Hamas and equally bloody minded extremists. As their population grew, however, to a point where they obtained sufficient political power within a democratic framework, the tables would be turned and I seriously doubt that they will be inclined to go to much effort to protect the rights of a Jewish minority. Aside from a sense that there were old scores to settle, and whatever influence the hardliners of today might continue to possess in the future, Muslim States of today are far less inclined to tolerate religious minorities than the one and only Jewish State. I don't think it is exceptionally insulting to the Palestinians as a people to assume that their nation would not be terribly different from other Muslim States in regard to religious tolerance, and since they seem to tolerate undemocratic governance now, I'm not sure why we should expect that they will become enlightened democrats merely by returning to Israel.

Once Palestinians gained political control over Israel, the "Jewish State" would cease to exist, and most of the remaining Jews living there would leave. It would be essentially bloodless but the goal of driving the Jews out of the region will be accomplished.

Quote:

What exactly do you mean by Israel remaining a Jewish State if not the maintenance of a Jewish majority there?

Your response seems to indicate you believe that should the Right of Return be granted, it is a foregone conclusion that Jews will (eventually) no longer be in the majority. I agree which is why I suggested it was an impossible hypothetical, but was just trying to gauge the extent of your antipathy to the concept of a "Jewish State."

Yes and you had just created a posting that the idea that the murder of millions of Jews in death camps should be re-judge as not all that of a bad thing.

You are out of the closest completely as to your desire to murder Jews and your love for any people who will take that project on such as the Palestinians.

At least the Nazis was far more honest about their desire to kill Jews but you had uncover yourself by your own words.

izzythepush wrote:

I don't think even Mossad would kill their own people to start a war, but I'm sure they'd use it as a pretext. There was no investigation, Hamas was blamed from the onset. From The Independent.

Mossad is completely infiltrated in Hamas and the other militant Palestinian groups. These terrorists cannot take a **** without Mossad knowing about it. Mossad knew all along that it wasn't Hamas. I think that Mossad used their ratters to perpetrate or incite the perpetration of the kidnappings.

These kidnappings were all too convenient for Netanyahu. He used the unification of the Palestinian governments as a pretext to end the latest round of peace talks and then about a month later the teens were kidnapped, he immediately blamed Hamas, started kidnapping them in mass and this latest crisis ensued.

Absolutely, Israel is an ethnocracy.

... What's the difference between the 'extermination camps' of the Nazis, and the prison-like fenced communities of the Palestinians of Israel ...

Death toll rises to more than 1,030 as Unicef says 218 children have been killed, two-thirds of them under the age of 12

Learned shame It was an example of how flexible our attitudes to nudity are. And it explains how nudists can carry on as normal when they're surrounded by naked people. Over a couple of days, the volunteers had unlearned many of the social conventions that normally govern their life, and reached a new consensus that permitted them to be naked in each other's company.
It chimes with the psychologists' theory that we are not born with a shame of nudity. Instead we learn it, as an important behavioural code that allows us to operate in human society.

Absolutely, Israel is an ethnocracy.

Refusing the Palestinians the Right of Return is necessary to maintain Israel as a “Jewish state,” as the Zionists see it, because of the loss of a demographic majority of Jews therein. To them, to lose that majority is to destroy “the Jewish state.”

As long as the Palestinians demand it I disagree that refusing them their Right of Return is not oppression. Sure, they can opt to waive that right, but as long as they claim it, and the Zionists refuse, it is oppression. If they waive their right then the problem of Israel’s oppression of the Palestinian people would become moot.

People are entitled to their beliefs. People are not entitled to discriminate or oppress. The Zionists can believe that they have the right to maintain a Jewish majority in Israel by oppressing the Palestinian people through denial of their right, they do not have the right to maintain a Jewish majority in Israel by oppressing the Palestinian people through denial of their right.

Europe is a prime example of the problems of ethnocentricity. They have issues with the ideas of nationality and ethnicity that result in discrimination against their minorities. The states are democratic but also suffer, in various ways from country to country, from systematic discrimination against their minorities in the form of policies that resemble those of the Southern states of the US before the civil rights movement and attitudes that result in de facto segregation and discrimination.

A Kurdish state would be ethnocentric if its policies would lead to discrimination and oppression of non-Kurds therein.

I think that for all that the US wars against Iraq were worth, the Kurds benefited the most from them.

You sure are making a lot of assumptions.

You’re forgetting that not all Palestinians are Muslim, and the major Palestinian liberation movement, from which the Palestinian Authority derives, is nationalistic in nature and has a history of socialistic governmental ideals. A member of Fatah, Uri Davis, is Jewish. The unification effort can lead to the mitigation of the religionism of Hamas and the Islamic factions, seeing as how the unification agreement calls for the appointment of technocrats to head the government before elections are held.

The Israelis tolerate the religionism of the Haredi and aren’t leaving Israel en masse because of their influence.

I would think that the people of a bi-national, single-state Israel would effect laws that would ensure religious freedom and tolerance.

If Jews were to leave Israel within this scenario, so what?

Quote:

What exactly do you mean by Israel remaining a Jewish State if not the maintenance of a Jewish majority there?

Your response seems to indicate you believe that should the Right of Return be granted, it is a foregone conclusion that Jews will (eventually) no longer be in the majority. I agree which is why I suggested it was an impossible hypothetical, but was just trying to gauge the extent of your antipathy to the concept of a "Jewish State."

There are no laws on the book that prohibit an Israeli-Arab from being elected to the PM position.

According to a study commissioned by the Arab Association of Human Rights entitled "Silencing Dissent," over the past three years, eight of nine of these Arab Knesset members have been beaten by Israeli forces during demonstrations.[122] Most recently according to the report, legislation has been passed, including three election laws [e.g., banning political parties], and two Knesset related laws aimed to "significantly curb the minority [Arab population] right to choose a public representative and for those representatives to develop independent political platforms and carry out their duties".[123]