> the (arguably) unequal focus only Israel's human rights record relative to other countries
Two thoughts on this:
Firstly, every time a country is getting criticized for it's human rights abuses it, like clockwork, raises the spectre of being "unjustly singled out" about it's human rights abuses. To be clear, I would very much like every country on earth that engages in human rights abuses prosecuted for it, including mine, and specifically every U.S. President that's still currently alive since they are ALL guilty of them in varying degrees. And that way, we can't be accused of biases.
Secondly, I believe it's fair, even if we are biased against Israel in this way, to be biased since it has the rather unique position of being a state that exists solely because of and by the authority of the West. It is a colonialist project and has been from it's inception and I don't think you can take this situation on fully without acknowledging that fact.
Debating whether it should or shouldn't exist is rather moot at this point because it does, and tons of people live there who have committed no crime and done no wrong. That said, it is at the end all, an ethno-nationalist state built on a foundation of war crimes too numerous to count, that is currently incrementing as they barrage an utterly impotent neighbor to death, and it is doing so with the enthusiastic encouragement of FAR, FAR too many colonial powers. Maybe that's enough to say, ethically, that all of it's citizens should be displaced, maybe not. I do not know the solution. My point is that Israel's existence, in entirety, is violence perpetrated against every country it borders with, it wars with, and who's land it sits upon. That cannot be ignored.
> Firstly, every time a country is getting criticized for it's human rights abuses it, like clockwork, raises the spectre of being "unjustly singled out" about it's human rights abuses.
My favorite one of these is when South Africa would say that the only reason people were angry about Apartheid was their obvious "anti-Boer prejudice." Which sounds stupid, until you remember that the British rounded up Boers and put them into concentration camps. It's still stupid, but if you accept the premise that being abused gives you the right to abuse, it's a claim as legitimate as any other of that type.
> My point is that Israel's existence, in entirety, is violence perpetrated against every country it borders with, it wars with, and who's land it sits upon.
They could have just torn down the walls, and still can. Israelis can call the resulting country Israel, and Palestinians can call it Palestine. It only requires both groups to give up any dreams of theocracy. What made the PLO and Arafat so distasteful to Israeli power players was the fact that they were secular, reasonable, and making moral arguments, not theological ones. People whose goal was to wipe out the Palestinians vastly preferred Hamas.
I feel like comparing just to china is an unconvincing argument.
I think a more reasonable argument would be number of resolutions relative to the behavior in question and the types of behavior that are criticized.
Israel has basically been condemed more times than all the other countries combined. At the same time while Israel is not perfect there are objectively much worse countries out there. There are countries ot there where citizens have no civil rights, there are countries where slavery is effectively still a thing, etc. It seems impossible to explain this disparity of attention except by politicization and bias.
Second the behavior criticized often seems quite minor compared to things in other countries the human rights council is silent about. For example, in 2018 Israel was condemed for allowing people in the golan heights to vote in municipal elections. The argument goes that since that should be syrian territory, its wrong to treat the people there like citizens. Without getting into the pros and cons of whether that is right or wrong, it seems crazy that given all the terrible human rights abuses in the world, extending voting rights to people is what the human rights council is trying to stop.
Sure. I'm not doing a PhD thesis on this topic. I just came up with one example on the fly. I don't think it's particularly unconvincing but anyways. My main point is that we can actual quantitatively convince ourselves that Israel is singled out.
Re: Golan heights that's a particularly interesting example since if Israel does not let people vote in occupied territories then it's condemned as an "Apartheid State". But if it does then it's condemned for something else. Basically Israel can not win, condamned if it does, condamned if it doesn't.
This is exactly what I'm referring to in the root comment.
#1) The China claims are straight up lies. I'm a Zionist, I was willing to believe it, then I googled it.
#2) "our human rights abuses aren't relevant because there's others" isn't convincing
#3) the implication that other human rights abuses aren't policed is another google-able lie
#4) we got slapped on the wrist by the world for being an offender, thus we are a victim, is obviously fallacious in a way that is alarming to anyone who isn't prioritizing self-soothing, instead of prioritizing Zionism
#5) the Golan Heights stuff is really rank. It's not about "preventing voting" it's about turning territory that isn't Israel's into Israel's, a huge, massive, problem and violation of international law for many, many, many years
You don't get to say "I Googled it and it's a lie". How many security council resolutions and UN general assembly resolutions are there condemning China vs. how many condemning Israel? If you say it's a lie let's have those numbers.
The best I can find Googling is: "Joint Statement on Behalf of 50 countries in the UN General Assembly" which is very different than the criticism Israel is getting from the UN.
#2 - This is not the argument at all. I'm not even debating "human rights abuses" though I think there's plenty to debate there. Even under the lies propagated by Israel's critics Israel is receiving unfair treatment.
#3 - Show me the proof. Don't say "Googleable lies". How are human rights abuses by Palestinians in the west bank and Gaza enforced by the UN? In Syria? Saudi Arabia? Iran? I mean the list is endless. Give me some measurable criteria that supports your ridiculous claim that equal standards are applied to Israel. Again, without even debating the validity of the claims against Israel, many of which are debatable.
#4 - "We" get attacked by the world for using force to defend "our" citizens. The offense in question is daring to do what other countries have done and what international law allows countries to do to defend themselves. Wars are not a sterile matter. The US and the UK e.g. had many questionable incidents in their various endeavours to guy fight random bad guys around the world. Israel is far from perfect and we can ask for a much better government than the bunch of morons running it and we can be critical of many things, but what we're seeing isn't legitimate criticism, what we're seeing is a political lynch mob.
#5 - So we should have handed it to Syria, without a peace agreement, so we can have Iran's militias on the high ground above Israel's north and more cities in rocket range? Or we should have kept it as "occupied" territory where people would say "Apartheid", how can you not give those guys rights? Make up your mind, either Israel is "Apartheid" for not giving e.g. Palestinians voting rights, or those are occupied territories that are waiting for a peace agreement? And that ignoring the legal debate about the precise status of those territories.
I'm a Zionist. Please don't troll me about being part of some They screaming apartheid, and please don't troll about how you can't find any security council resolutions on China. It cheapens our cause. Shameful.
People are smart enough to see that, and it's clear you think about this enough to know exactly what you're doing by bemoaning the lack of security council censure of China, and it cheapens our cause to have behavior like that affiliated it with it.
I'm not trolling. Can you make a coherent counter argument that's not "I'm a Zionist stop embarrassing us". I'm stupid. Explain your position to me. Is your point "ofcourse the security council is not going to go after China" or is your point "they go after China, who is really committing a genocide, just the same way they go after Israel fighting a war", or is your point "China is cool, Israel is committing the terrible crimes and so ofcourse the UN goes after it"?
Tell me what you're claiming and what metric or some objective method we should use to measure your claim. I'm claiming Israel is picked on in the UN disproportionately. I can't even tell from your reply what's your position on this topic.
I wouldn't call myself a Zionist. I'm an (ex-)Israeli. The right of the Jewish people to live in Israel is an axiom for me. It's ridiculous that's debated. It's a fact and Israel is not going away.
I think your point is maybe don't use China as an excuse. That's maybe fair enough. But it's not the topic. I'm not debating whether Israel should have a pass for genocide because China does, I'm debating whether Israel is disproportionately attacked which is what I would consider antisemitism. This claim can be debated independently of the other multiple things there are to debate here. Israel should not have free pass to do anything and it should also not be subjected to the lynch mob it's being subjected to, these are not mutually exclusive.
How were all security council resolutions on Israel blocked, until one got through, 2 months ago?
How can a security council resolution be blocked?
Who is on the Security Council?
If you just don't know the basics of what you're talking about, my apologies, not a troll, just ignorant, opinionated, and willing to claim anything and everything for your argument, and make others do the work of explaining why the refs aren't rigged while you weaponize dead bodies to make your argument for it
I'm sorry but you are still avoiding my topic. Is or isn't Israel singled out by the UN? What is the metric of your choice? What is your opinion/position? Pick Asad killing 600,000 civilians or pick other examples of your choice and metrics of your choice.
UN Security Council resolutions against China is technically a dumb example on my side but my original statement you called a lie was:
> We can measure "unjustly singled out" fairly well.
> How much condemnation from the UN has China received for what it's doing to the Uyghurs?
> How many times has the UN security council discussed that vs. discussions related to Israel?
You googled that and found it's a lie. That means China was discussed more times? (veto isn't relevant to this question) The UN has otherwise condemned China (veto isn't relevant to that either) more times than Israel? What exactly is the lie here?
The US vetoes some/most security council resolutions against Israel. And sure, China can and will veto resolutions against itself. So that is your counter argument? As I said, you pick the metric. How many vetoed resolutions were there against Israel and how many against China? How many meetings to discuss these issues? If the security council wants to make a statement, as it seems to want to do endlessly against the US and Israel, then certainly it can keep bringing proposals and let China veto them, right?
What about the general assembly? China has no vetoes there.
I picked China off the top of my head as one of an infinite list of severe human rights violations that the UN shrugs off. Maybe it wasn't the best example. We can pick the Turkish and the Kurds. We can pick Syria. We can pick Azerbaijan. We can pick Pakistan. Saudi's actions in Yemen. I mean literally the list of "bad things that happen in the world that nobody cares about because no Jews" is endless. Most of the world is in a terrible state. You're nitpicking me on veto rights but you're not addressing my point.
Israel is singled out. It is the target of endless lies and racism. It is the target of antisemitism. There is no doubt about that and I'm not sure how you can be a "Zionist" and not see that.
This does not mean everything Israel does is right or that there's no criticism to be levelled at it. My argument isn't Israel should get a free pass because look how bad the world is. My argument is Israel is subject to antisemitism and double standards.
And this is before we even start debating the facts of the war and the history of the conflict.
> I'm sorry but you are still avoiding my topic. Is or isn't Israel singled out by the UN?
Honestly, I haven't read more than a couple sentences of these obsessive rants in 3 comments, just enough to check what you've learned about the UN so far.
This isn't behavior I expect to see on HN, and after reviewing the thread, it looks like its a consistent issue, across multiple threads: you ask questions addressed long ago, claim people aren't answering them, then go rabid with page after page telling us the answer. Thanks for your insightful contributions.
I mean, you said it yourself, you found the UN criticizing Uyghurs. Then, we can also find Uyghurs have bombed and missiled Beijing. You lied, sorry.
Then you went off on me, a Zionist, about how I'm yelling apartheid(?).
Then you went off about how the security council (with China on it??) is the real measure.
Then you went off on I never answered if I thought UN was biased against Israel compared to China (???) We can start again from there if your interest here is curiosity. Is it?
> Isn't the US a colonialist project from its beginning? Isn't Canada? Isn't all of South and Central America? Australia? New Zealand? Jordan? Saudi Arabia? and the list go on.
I mean, yes? And while in a better world we'd have proper solutions to that that would render unto these various peoples the land that was unjustly stolen from them, that is neither practical nor realistically achievable (undoing everything done to America and sending all Americans back to the various places they came from is quite a logistical undertaking, and we've decimated the various native populations to a degree where re-settlement would take quite a long time). Fortunately the vast majority of exploited peoples, Palestinian and otherwise, share a commonality with the vast majority of the rest of humanity; they don't want revenge or domination, they simply want to exist free of oppression, which is quite a bit easier to do (though not easy thanks to entrenched settler supremacist ideas worldwide).
So, stop spreading propaganda that they're inferior, stop excluding them from the halls of power, let them participate in determining the destiny of their societies, give reparations, etc. etc. I don't know if these things will be enough for all of these groups, they were harmed in different ways and the wounds are in different states, but it certainly beats what we've done so far, which is status quo while endlessly debating it.
> Fortunately the vast majority of exploited peoples, Palestinian and otherwise, share a commonality with the vast majority of the rest of humanity; they don't want revenge or domination,
It seems pretty hard to square this with the rhetoric and actions of Palestinian leadership, especially Hamas.
Like if this was their goal, why are they so opposed to a two state solution? It seems like they could easily have had this if they wanted it. Instead their leaders became obsessed with revenge against a militarily supperior force, and the results lead to the present day.
[To be clear, there have also been plenty of missed opportunities for peace on the israeli side as well, but it seems at least the israeli side has at various points in time made good faith attempts at finding peace, even if it ultimately went no where]
Alongside the other comment, Hamas is far from popular in it's leadership position in Palestine. Probably something to do with the last election being in 2006. Saying it is representative of all Palestinians is a pretty tough reach.
I think you are confusing hamas with the PA. From what i understand, the reason that there have been no elections is because those who are de-jure in power know they would lose to hamas if an election was held.
Regardless, at some point it doesn't really matter how popular leadership is, only that, whether rightly or wrongly, they are in a position to give orders and have those orders obeyed.
The current Hamas charter calls for a 2 state solution with the internationally recognized 1967 borders. But what's written and what leadership would accept might be two different things.
Even what is written is kind of questionable and seems more like wanting it both ways, just look at the beginning of the wikipedia article on the topic https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_Hamas_charter
You are imagining propaganda but are spreading much of it yourself in my opinion. Israel exists because Jews were prosecuted. If there were reparations, it would be quite the sum going to Israel or Jews living in other countries.
Israel exists because the West wanted a seat of military power in the Middle East. Just like America exists because various European powers wanted to exploit the Americas, until American leadership wanted to stop cutting them a slice. Just like Peurto Rico is directly under America's authority yet remains entirely unrepresented in it's government. Colonies all, of various justifications.
We exist in a world built by colonialism, by exploitation, who's foundations are lousy with the bones of cultures we dominated, some to extinction.
The idea that Jews needed a nation of their own after the Holocaust was debated at the time and remains so to this day, especially since the nation that was created is now engaged in it's own genocide. However there was no reason at all Israel HAD to be in the Middle East, apart from the fact that none of the colonial powers that worked to create it felt the urge to carve away their own land from themselves, and felt quite comfortable taking it from a bunch of nations who had zero say in the process.
I don't know if a Jewish state was needed or not, I'm not educated enough on the subject to have an opinion, but I know it was far from a consensus, and irrespective of how you want to slice that particular issue, the fact remains the powers that be at the time who were responsible for Israel's creation did not do it on land that was there's to give, but instead on other's. And said other's have had pretty understandable tension with Israel ever since.
> Israel exists because the West wanted a seat of military power in the Middle East
I think this is mixing up time periods. This doesn't make sense in the context of the 1940's/early 1950s.
Later on, sure. USA wanted a military base to counter soviets becoming buddy buddy with several of the Arab countries... typical cold war stuff. But i don't think that is historically accurate in the immediate post-war period. If for no other reason than at that point in time Israel would make a shitty military base.
Israel isn't involved in a genocide and it was their homeland once. If they are colonizer so is everyone else involved here at least. It doesn't carry any meaning.
Your tensions with Israel might indeed be understandable, meaning the prevalence of such animosity isn't really something new. In that regard I indeed believe that Israel needs to exist.
I also disagree that this was a plot by the west. Of course some pretty smart political moves enabled the foundation of Israel. But that was a special interest group. There were strategic considerations by nations involved, but there is much more to it.
If you want to get rid of your bad conscience of your colonial part, pointing your fingers at Israel surely is the wrong thing to do.
That's a laughable argument, comparable to Italian fascists claiming Romania as the legacy of the Roman empire. Israel is built majority on refugees, and secondly on colonizers who hold a tenuous connection to the land. But you don't get to claim 2000 year old grievances, especially if your supposed ancestors share as much genetic material with the current inhabitants. Political zionism always had fascist components, but it really turned for the worst in the last 40 years, and I truly do not understand how an educated individual cannot see the parallels to the rise of fascism 100 years ago or apartheid South Africa 40 years ago. The post-holocaust refugees at least at large had the decency to recognize the injustice they put on the palestinians, but their children turned to a maximalist, fascist, and deeply dishonest ideology instead.
I won't deny there exists a rise in extremism in Israel itself.
That said, my education strongly tells me that there is indeed something reflecting fascism coming alive and I don't look at Israel here.
The self reflection about innocents being harmed is something that you can see exclusively in Israel with very few exceptions. That is not an indignation of Palestinian children that have constantly exposed to severe propaganda, but at least have the decency to not blame Israel for that.
The parent comment also was wrong with his analysis of Israel being a result of western powers wanting some form of outpost. This is just bad history.
Clearly people in this discussion are getting different views of reality. There is definitely a long term rise in extremism in Israel but what that means to someone who is closely familiar with Israel and someone who is not can be two very different things.
I don't think people outside Israel think that Israelis are engaged in self reflection. That aspect isn't something that's reported on. There are some Israelis that don't care about innocents in Gaza, and it's easy to just pick up that story if it furthers the reality that you believe in. Reality isn't one, or two, or one hundred stories. It is a continuum.
Israel being a "western colonial enterprise" is not an analysis. It is a talking point. I've seen it hundreds if not thousands of times in online discourse on this topic. It's something that has been pushed for some time (a decade or two?) in various circles. The history of Israel can be studied superficially in one semester in University. To really understand the period and all the nuances, and the related historical processes, get a PhD. There are good lectures on YouTube by historians and good resources on the Internet that give you a taste but you need to put in time.
It's also about the semantics, what exactly do these terms mean, a common theme in the information war arena is to use words in unusual ways or to redefine them in a way more convenient to your cause.
Jews maintained a pretty strong connection to the land. They keep praying to be in Jerusalem and Zion. The connection is a central part of their identity and faith. Jews also generally stayed together as a people and a group and genetics do show this connection. It's not exactly a secret that Jews had a country in the region- it's mentioned in the most popular book in existence.
I'd say the connection of Israeli Jews to the land is stronger than the connection of most citizens of most countries to their land. To descibe that as "tenuous" is at best unfair.
[EDIT: erased a bit of not so nice retort]
Israel's right wing isn't very different than right wing parties in other parts of the western world. I'm not a fan of Israel's extreme right but conflating the violence between Israelis and Palestinians with either the rise of fascism or South Africa is just again yield to propaganda. The various governments of the Palestinians, the PA or the Hamas, make the Israeli right wing look centric. Put aside the various labels that are intended to dehumanize the Israelis, after Israel tried in earnest to make peace roughly around the proposed two state solution and was met by a wave of Hamas suicide bombers that impacted at some level every single Israeli, what do you think is an actual solution here?
I'm originally from Israel. No Israeli that I know thinks that Palestinians are inferior. Famously the ex-Israeli Prime Minister Barak said that if he were a Palestinian he might have become a terrorist himself. I'm not saying it's not a thing in certain right wing circles but painting all of Israel with this brush is not right. If anything there's a tiny minority in Israel that would consider Palestinians inferior to Israelis (or Muslims inferior to Jews or whatever). Plenty of right wing nazis everywhere in the world.
You're also wrong on the Palestinians willing to move forward. They had plenty of chances. They absolutely do want domination. For the most part the story that land was unjustly stolen is factually wrong. Land was bought by Jews during Ottoman times legally. Palestinians never had a country so that couldn't have been stolen from them either. Palestinians were displaced during 1948, in a war Arabs started against the new state of Israel. Read Israel's declaration of independence to see how Israel would have preferred that play out. Palestinians, and the Arab countries, have inflicted plenty of harm on Jews in the middle east. Jews were ethnically cleansed from most Arab countries and more land was stolen from Jews in the middle east than the entire area of Israel. But sure, the topic of harm and reparations can be discussed once Palestinians decide to stop using violence to pursue their goals (of domination). This is not about reparations anyways.
This fairy tale you're telling yourself here is some westernized story that has nothing to do with the reality on the ground. Sorry if I'm sounding patronizing.
EDIT: and by the way we can totally reverse Canada and New Zealand for example? Let's use those as test cases for your anti-colonialism fix the world sentiment and see how it goes? Those guys have zero claim of any sorts to the land they're on. Israel at least has something.
>Famously the ex-Israeli Prime Minister Barak said that if he were a Palestinian he might have become a terrorist himself.
I wonder how do someone tells something and not think it through? Can you get the the full statement by Barak on this? He says why he would choose to fight. He clearly understood that for Palestinians, no other venue to raise against the brutal oppression exist. If that doesn't make you understand, I don't know what will. The irreversible damage that tye state of Israel has done had made it so. And it continues to do so, and finds new ways to make the lives of Palestinians literal hell.
>Plenty of right wing nazis everywhere in the world.
Yes plenty do. But not many examples where they are armed to the teeth, has a façade of democracy, has the liberty to label the other as human animals, and has practically a free hand in killing the other. Not many the so called neo nazis have that sort of institutionalised power. There are not many examples of this level of apartheid. Not many places where a settler could shoot and kill children and can get away with it.
"יו"ר מפלגת העבודה ח"כ אהוד ברק, אמר אתמול כי אם היה פלשתינאי ובגיל המתאים, ייתכן שהיה מצטרף לארגון טרור. ברק אמר את הדברים בתוכנית "פגישה אישית" שתשודר הערב בערוץ הכבלים, בתשובה לשאלת המראיין גדעון לוי, מה הוא, שלחם בטרור הרבה שנים, היה עושה כפלשתינאי צעיר. ברק הוסיף, כי זוהי שאלה לא הוגנת מאחר וארגוני הטרור פועלים בצורה לא הומנית, חמורה ושפלה ועוסקים בהריגת אזרחים, נשים וילדים חפים מפשע, דבר שיש לגנותו ולפעול נגדו."
"ברק אמר אמש ל"הארץ", כי דבריו לא היו בגדר פליטת פה. "למיטב זכרוני יצחק שמיר אמר דבר דומה. בן גוריון, כשנדרש לתאר את עוצמת השנאההערבית נגדנו אמר דבר דומה, וגם דיין אמר דבר דומה. ההתעסקות התקשורתית בעניין הזה היא מגוחכת. מה רצו שאומר? שאם הייתי צעיר פלשתינאי שהווייתו מינקותו היא הוויה פלשתינאית, הייתי הופך להיות מורה בכיתה ג' בבית ספר עממי?" מהליכוד נמסר בתגובה, כי ברק ירד מהפסים, וכי אינו מתאים עוד לייצג מפלגה ציונית במדינת ישראל. "בדבריו ברק מעודד פלשתינאים בגיל המתאים
להצטרף לארגוני טרור"."
I need to find the actual interview if we want to be super precise. But either way, the way this is referred to in the Pro-Palestinian narrative that you're presenting here is incorrect.
Barak isn't saying that Palestinians have no other venue for rising against the "brutal oppression". He's just stating the fact that if he was a Palestinian, and grew up under that ideology, and was in the right age, he would probably be in those organization. He is not justifying that. The point I was making is that Israelis don't view Palestinians as inferior. They view them as wrong, brainwashed, driven by extreme ideologies, etc.
Israel is a democracy. It's not a "facade of democracy". It's not labelling all Palestinians as "human animals" though there were certainly a lot of heated statements and emotions after the Oct 7th attack on Israel. There is no Apartheid. It's armed to the teeth because its neighbours want to destroy it. Settlers in general can't shoot and kill children and get away with it though I do agree that there should be better law enforcement in the west bank (and ideally no settlers until its status is resolved). That's my perspective anyways which I think is well in line with the facts and reality.
Palestinians never had a country so that couldn't have been stolen from them either
You know, you wouldn't be invoking this defense if you weren't aware, deep down inside -- that it really is mostly forcibly expropriated land that the State of Israel currently sits on.
Imagine a defense lawyer making the following argument: "Your honor, my client would never have broken into that house, and stolen that woman's necklace. It goes against everything he was raised to believe in. BTW it was never hers to begin with, so it couldn't have been stolen from her anyway."
No Israeli that I know thinks that Palestinians are inferior.
And yet -- the State of Israel was founded on the belief that its claim to the land and resources was categorically more legitimate than that of the people who (by and large) had been living and thriving in the area continuously for thousands of years -- since before the establishment of the first Israelite settlements, in fact.
I'm not "invoking a defense". I'm stating facts. You give me a definition of "forcibly expropriated land" and we'll compare it against the facts for Israel and all other countries in the world and see what comes up. It's not going to support your thesis.
The trial analogy is also completely false. The appropriate adjustments to this story is that nobody broke into that house, you actually own the house and it's always been in your family, no necklace was stolen, but you're still put on trial for stealing a necklace that doesn't exist from your own house because you're Jewish.
Your last statement of "fact" is also not fact. It is simply not factually true that all the people that lived in the region have been living and thriving there for thousands of years since before the Israelites. Many Palestinians have immigrated to the area in fairly recent times. Many Gazans are from Egypt. There are probably some Palestinians who do trace back to the Israelites. In general much of the population of the Levant and the middle east in general, including the Israeli Jews from all over the place, goes way back but there's no specific historic continuity of Palestinians in Israel for the most part. There was plenty of population movement and immigration. This is well supported history with plenty of archaeological evidence.
I also think the characterization of Israel as being "founded on the belief that its claim to the land and resources was categorically more legitimate than" is also false. There was no comparison of legitimacy of various claims simply because there were no other claims at the time. Israel was definitely founded on the (factual) belief that it is the historic homeland of the Jewish people who feel a strong connection to it. What we see in practice is that a person of Italian heritage, living in California, taken by force from Mexico, with the aboriginal inhabitants confined to a reserve and all their resources literally stolen after they were genocided and ethnically cleansed, is telling Israeli Jews why their country, founded on their historical land, where they went as refugees in more recent times because they had nowhere to go to, is illegitimate. If we want to litigate every country's legitimacy going back 3000 years, sure, let's do that. Are you an immigrant in Canada? better start packing since you're going back to where your ancient ancestors used to live. This is ofcourse all total nonsense.
I don't like to appear to be dismissive of longer posts by picking out just one aspect of them and ignoring everything else that was said; but in this case there's one assertion you're making which stands categorically above all others:
You're still put on trial ... because you're Jewish.
If what you mean here is the fact that the State of Israel is often subject to criticism for both for its founding ideology and the violent mechanisms of its creation (or its various attempts to expand its borders and resource claims through the present day) -- no, it's not simply because the people behind this project are of Jewish ancestry. You seem to believe axiomatically that this is in fact the case -- i.e. that all strong critiques in regard to the founding of the State of Israel or its modern policies are basically the Dreyfuss Affair all over again.
I do not share this axiom, so it is unlikely that we will have a productive discussion in regard the finer-grained historical topics.
We're unlikely to have a productive discussion anyways because we're so far apart and this is not a good medium to handle something like this topic. People that are entrenched in certain positions don't seem to want to give them up.
However I'm not claiming all criticism on Israel is because "the people behind this project are of Jewish ancestry". But certainly antisemitism plays a role. It plays a role in Arab views on Israel and that in turn plays a huge role in the world's take. That's just one of the ways it plays out. There are other factors including geopolitics. I would go so far to say that the majority of criticism of Israel is not in good faith, but sure, not all of it is because there are Jews involved. But certainly that accounts for some portion.
> Imagine a defense lawyer making the following argument: "Your honor, my client would never have broken into that house, and stolen that woman's necklace. It goes against everything he was raised to believe in. BTW it was never hers to begin with, so it couldn't have been stolen from her anyway."
I was going after this analogy which feels completely wrong.
> all strong critiques in regard to the founding of the State of Israel or its modern policies are basically the Dreyfuss Affair all over again.
I disagree with this statement. There's no problem with any critique of Israel in general. Where it becomes a problem is when Israel is singled out. E.g. if there is no critique of the founding of Jordan, which was given as a gift by the British to the Hashemites for helping them during the Arab revolt, then I think this is a problem. Then there is "critique" and there is stuff that's not critique. But for people that are interested in reopening the question of how various countries were founded in general in the 18th, 19th, and 20th century, sure we can have this discussion and include Israel in it for sure. For people whose main focus is simply attacking Israel by any means possible, I think that's a problem. I'm totally with John Lennon "Imagine" on a purely romantic idealistic way, but then there's reality.
I still don't think the original statement I jumped in at ("Palestinians never had a country so that couldn't have been stolen from them") stands on its own, or helps explain the current situation.
Of course they had a country; and hence would not recognize domination by a foreign population -- unless imposed by overwhelming force. The original Zionists were keenly aware of this fact, which is why it has become one of guiding tenants in nearly major strategic decisions Israel has made since.
>if there is no critique of the founding of Jordan, which was given as a gift by the British to the Hashemites for helping them during the Arab revolt, then I think this is a problem.
That can also be criticised. Although what is tend to get lost in these type of arguments is that, it is entirely different to give assistance in ruling a patch of land versus literally displacing people from their land and homes and imposing military control over them.
Let's do a thought experiment. Please give this a honest consideration.
If the Uyghurs had 40,000 combatants. And if they were dug in tunnels under Uyghur cities. And fires 10's of thousands of rockets into Chinese cities. And killed thousands of people with hundreds of suicide bombings. Their cities were mined and booby trapped. Their combatants were well trained, armed with RPGs, sniper rifles, machine guns.
Then the Uyghurs raided some Chinese city, killing 1200 people, taking hundreds of hostages.
What do you think China would do?
China isn't bombing them because it doesn't need to bomb them.
Uyghurs have less people that care about them in the international community, for sure. I'm not sure they're not suffering a lot more than the Palestinians are.
If china's goal is to wipe them out as a people, its more effective to do that quietly.
Having Uyghurs cry for their kins brings international attention. Having them slowly deported to camps and sterialized brings about the same result without that pesky international pressure.
Apologies for the LMGTFY, but there needs to be a ratcheting up of gently-administered teasing of people when they share tired, easily checkable, fallacious, talking points like this.
Frankly, to me personally, it's stomach-churning, especially when it's reserved for "my racism justifying human rights violations is noble self-defense, unlike theirs."
> Do the Uyghurs launch rockets on Beijing? Did they blow up busses and restaurants in Beijing?
The Uyghurs did not launch rockets on Beijing. As far as I can tell they did not blow up any buses or restaurants in Beijing either. To contrast suicide bombings in Tel-Aviv and Jerusalem were a weekly affair during the early 2000's. And Palestinians fires 10's of thousands of rockets into Israeli cities.
Ofcourse China is not justified in what they're doing to the Uyghurs. Israel also did not respond to the significantly larger attacks on its civilian population like China.
You've decided that Israel is engaged in racist human rights violation and not self-defense. I think that's the crux of the issue. I think Israel is engaging in self defense and during the course of the self-defense inevitably human rights are violated. This is true on a personal level and it's true on the level of a country. We violate the human rights of criminals we put in prison. If you're killing someone else to defend yourself as an individual you are "violating their human rights".
The world largely stands by as China genocides the Uyghurs. No campus encampments. No boycotts. No heated HN discussions. 10 million people effectively being wiped out.
Two thoughts on this:
Firstly, every time a country is getting criticized for it's human rights abuses it, like clockwork, raises the spectre of being "unjustly singled out" about it's human rights abuses. To be clear, I would very much like every country on earth that engages in human rights abuses prosecuted for it, including mine, and specifically every U.S. President that's still currently alive since they are ALL guilty of them in varying degrees. And that way, we can't be accused of biases.
Secondly, I believe it's fair, even if we are biased against Israel in this way, to be biased since it has the rather unique position of being a state that exists solely because of and by the authority of the West. It is a colonialist project and has been from it's inception and I don't think you can take this situation on fully without acknowledging that fact.
Debating whether it should or shouldn't exist is rather moot at this point because it does, and tons of people live there who have committed no crime and done no wrong. That said, it is at the end all, an ethno-nationalist state built on a foundation of war crimes too numerous to count, that is currently incrementing as they barrage an utterly impotent neighbor to death, and it is doing so with the enthusiastic encouragement of FAR, FAR too many colonial powers. Maybe that's enough to say, ethically, that all of it's citizens should be displaced, maybe not. I do not know the solution. My point is that Israel's existence, in entirety, is violence perpetrated against every country it borders with, it wars with, and who's land it sits upon. That cannot be ignored.