Peaker,
I brought up Egypt, Israel, Yemen and other dictatorships and I did not intend to start a flame war. I have no argument with "all Jews" or "all Israelis" and I admire that you oppose evicting people and you support at least some solution even if it is a two state solution that gives the non-Jews the remaining 22% of the land that was occupied in 1967, that would be a good start.
"The conflict is two-sided."
The South African conflict was a two-sided conflict and so was the American Civil rights struggle. In case of Israel I don't think any Palestinian military is occupying Israeli civilian population, I don't think Palestinians are denying food to enter Israel, I don't think Palestinians are shooting Israeli fishermen in Israeli waters, or shooting pro-Israelis in International waters, it's Israel that's doing all of that to Palestinians. One side is the occupying power and the other is occupied.
"The whole purpose of Israel was creating a refuge for Jews from around the world, because it became historically clear that Jews need it."
It did not have to be at the cost of Palestinians. In late 1800s the Jewish population of Palestine was less than 3%, even as late as 1914 the Jewish population was only 8%, in 1948 it was 34% and that population kicked out 750,000 of the local population (about 80% of the total Palestinian population) and declared Israel on 78% of the land.
Here's a hardcore Zionist Israel Zangwill in 1905:
"Palestine proper has already its inhabitants. The pashalik of Jerusalem is already twice as thickly populated as the United States, having fifty-two souls to the square mile, and not 25% of them Jews ..... [We] must be prepared either to drive out by the sword the [Arab] tribes in possession as our forefathers did or to grapple with the problem of a large alien population, mostly Mohammedan and accustomed for centuries to despise us." (Righteous Victims, p. 140 & Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 7-10)
"Singling Israel out is not honest and is in fact a form propaganda."
I did not single out Israel, I mentioned about half a dozen names. No one here justified Saudi, Yemeni or Bahraini repression, why are you singling out justifying Israeli repression? I don't like $1.3+ billion of my tax dollars being sent to Egyptian dictators nor $3+ billion of my tax dollars to Israeli occupation and apartheid, nor the weapons to Bahraini apartheid, I'm not singling out Israel. Even if someone is more vocal against Israel, you should know why it is so, Israeli is getting more US taxpayer money and indirect subsidies than all other countries of the world combined (the direct aid alone is more than what we give to entire Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, given the GDP per capita of Israel, we should be outraged at that military aid Israel or Egypt or Bahrain are getting).
They may not attack fishermen, but they do kill Israeli families, fire rockets at Israeli civilian cities, and otherwise engage in horrific violence towards Israeli citizens.
How could it not be at anyone's expense? There is no free and open land for the taking. If the Jews wanted to survive, they had only one choice, creating a homeland and that means somebody else will lose his control over that piece of land. It is necessarily at the expense of someone else. That someone happened to be the Palestinians.
When I am talking about singling out, I am referring to the single-sided view of the conflict you are presented, whereby you ignore Palestinian violence towards Israelis, the reason Israel had to be formed and accept Jews from around the world.
No one says that whites were the victims of Mandela's ANC, why do you insist on justifying an occupying military that is enforcing an apartheid?
Probably a few of the Egyptian military and police have been killed by protesters but I only mentioned the 1000+ civilians killed by the police and military, no one insisted that mention the dictator's side of the story, why do you say that I am giving a one-sided story of Israeli occupation?
As we are talking Israel has been bombing Gaza and killing children, women and men, I did not mention that either. Do you know that home-made Palestinian rockets have killed less than 50 people in decades? The number of Israeli civilians killed by rockets from 2001 to 2012 is 31 and Israel has killed more Palestinians in the last few weeks alone. Which side is the victim?
Do you know that Israeli attacks have killed far more people than Palestinian attacks no matter what time-frame you pick? The ratio is usually 4 to 10 times. I don't think killing 50 people with F-16s is any more noble than killing 10 people with a suicide jacket.
In the last major assault on Gaza in December 2008 Israel killed more than 1400 civilians (more than 700 women and children) and systematically destroyed mosques, UN hospitals, UN food depots, livestock and flour mills. 13 Israelis were killed during Gaza massacre of 2008, 10 Israeli soldiers and 3 civilians. (If you are unaware of any of the above you should google up human rights organizations reports, Amnesty, HRW, Israel's own B'Tselem)
It has been called a massacre by human rights organizations, it was not a war; the Palestinians had no military, no F-16s, no white phosphorus that they rained down on Israeli schools, it was Israelis who did that.
Given that it was Israel which violated the ceasefire in November 2008 Which side am I supposed to criticize?
Gaza truce broken as Israeli raid kills six Hamas gunmen
5 November 2008
Before that Israel killed more than 20k during Lebanon invasion in 1980s, killed more than 1300 Lebanese in 2006 (injured 400+). Before that Zionist militias killed thousands of Palestinian civilians and British civil servants in 1930s and 1940s, at what point were Israelis the victims in Palestine?
"It is necessarily at the expense of someone else. That someone happened to be the Palestinians."
If you are acknowledging the injustice then why do you insist that I am singling out by mentioning the injustice alone and not being sympathetic to the military occupier?
Journalist: M. Ben M'Hidi, don't you think it's a bit cowardly to use women's baskets and handbags to carry explosive devices that kill so many innocent people?
Ben M'Hidi: And doesn't it seem to you even more cowardly to drop napalm bombs on defenseless villages, so that there are a thousand times more innocent victims? Of course, if we had your airplanes it would be a lot easier for us. Give us your bombers, and you can have our baskets.
> Do you know that home-made Palestinian rockets have killed less than 50 people in decades?
Now this is an outright lie. Please try to remain honest in this debate, it is full of enough misinformation.
The rockets are not home-made. They are Grad BM-21's, military-grade improvement of the Katyusha rocket.
The reason they don't kill many Israelis is because Israel builds bomb shelters and every Israeli home has one. Israelis have an alarm system that lets people find shelter in time for the strike.
Homes are destroyed by these grads. Even the "home-made" Qassams (which are actually made in specialized factories in Gaza, hard-to-say "home" made) carry more than 20 pounds of TNT.
It's hard to take your argument seriously when you are repeating these propaganda talking points, and that's where I stopped reading.
>It's hard to take your argument seriously when you are repeating these propaganda talking points, and that's where I stopped reading.
You are repeating Israeli military's propaganda. You are justifying the deaths of thousands of Palestinians and crying crocodile tears over Qassam rockets. Life is sacred, my problem is that I consider every single life sacred. To me the terrorism that kills tens of thousands (by nuclear-armed Israelis with white phosphorus, F-16s, Cobra Gunships) is far worse terrorism than the terrorism that kills 50 (by Qassam or other primitive, unguided rockets).
I'm not interested if you keep repeating your IDF propaganda. If you are sure you are correct then link to a credible source that shows Qassam killed more than Israeli F-16s, Gunships etc killed.
The post you're replying to is completely factual.
His claim was an oft-repeated lie. I corrected it. Apologizing for lies is a litmus test for an honest debater. There's no point debating someone who would lie and when corrected, would yell "propaganda" instead of apologizing.
Claiming Grad rockets are "home-made" and implying they are not a deadly threat (when in fact the reason they killed few people is the Israeli warning system and extensive bomb shelters).
No Sir, you're BSing. I showed dozens of links that document the racism, apartheid and murder of "the other" that your state is carrying out and you seem to justify it. Show me how many people have been killed by Qassam or other rockets, show me a time period when Israel did not kill 4-10 times more people than killed by primitive rockets.
> because Israel builds bomb shelters
Israel refused to allow cement into Gaza for years even to build hospitals and schools that were destroyed in the 2008 massacre. Stop justifying the murder and terror that the Israeli regime is carrying out. Egyptian murders are bad, Israeli murderers have killed far more people than Egyptian tyrants. No one here justified Egyptian butchers, stop justifying Israeli terrorism.
Help replace @WelshinGaza’s camera destroyed by the Israeli navy
"On Monday, we published a harrowing account from @WelshinGaza about their standoff with the Israeli navy off the coast of Gaza. During the encounter, Welsh's camera was destroyed by a stream of water the navy shot at the human rights observation boat Welsh was traveling on."
<-- Al Araqib is a village which is inside the 1948 Israel boundary and its citizens are Israeli citizens but since they are not Jewish their houses are being demolished again and again so that other Jews can be brought in to settle in their place. The residents have deeds that predate the Zionist settler movement that accelerated in 1900s.
There is no point debating with an apologist of an ethno-religiou-racist state. You blatantly say that non-Jews should not be allowed to return while Jews should continue to migrate there. Is there any argument left?
Here are your statements for reference:
>If Israel allowed the descendants to enter ("Return" is really an inaccurate word choice given that most of them were never in Israel) it would destroy it."
>Jews are not returning to Israel -- they are being welcomed in Israel, in an act of voluntary consent between the two sides.
You don't have a problem with the murder of tens of thousands (by Israelis) and you are crying about a few dozen murders (by Palestinians).
Again, I am copying my request for evidence:
>>No Sir, you're BSing. Show me how many people have been killed by Qassam or other rockets, show me a time period when Israel did not kill 4-10 times more people than killed by primitive rockets.
Show a link or apologize for exaggerating the terror of Qassam / whatever rockets, and apologize for justifying the terror of Israeli nukes, F-16s, white phosphorus, cobra gunships.
You support Israeli murder and terror, I oppose all murder and terror. Yes, I called them homemade rockets. They are primitive rockets, many of them are literally homemade.
These homemade rocket attacks are terror attacks and they are evil and they have killed about 50 people. If one values one non-Jewish life as equal to one Jewish life, the Israeli terror attacks on Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Egyptians are far more evil because Israelis have killed tens of thousands, they usually claim 4-10 times more lives, sometimes 100 times more lives in any given time period; the Israeli terrorist attacks have rained down precisely guided missiles on hospitals, schools, food depots, flour mills and chicken farms.
Again, I am copying my request for evidence:
>>No Sir, you're BSing. Show me how many people have been killed by Qassam or other rockets, show me a time period when Israel did not kill 4-10 times more people than killed by primitive rockets.
"The conflict is two-sided." The South African conflict was a two-sided conflict and so was the American Civil rights struggle. In case of Israel I don't think any Palestinian military is occupying Israeli civilian population, I don't think Palestinians are denying food to enter Israel, I don't think Palestinians are shooting Israeli fishermen in Israeli waters, or shooting pro-Israelis in International waters, it's Israel that's doing all of that to Palestinians. One side is the occupying power and the other is occupied.
"The whole purpose of Israel was creating a refuge for Jews from around the world, because it became historically clear that Jews need it."
It did not have to be at the cost of Palestinians. In late 1800s the Jewish population of Palestine was less than 3%, even as late as 1914 the Jewish population was only 8%, in 1948 it was 34% and that population kicked out 750,000 of the local population (about 80% of the total Palestinian population) and declared Israel on 78% of the land.
Here's a hardcore Zionist Israel Zangwill in 1905:
"Palestine proper has already its inhabitants. The pashalik of Jerusalem is already twice as thickly populated as the United States, having fifty-two souls to the square mile, and not 25% of them Jews ..... [We] must be prepared either to drive out by the sword the [Arab] tribes in possession as our forefathers did or to grapple with the problem of a large alien population, mostly Mohammedan and accustomed for centuries to despise us." (Righteous Victims, p. 140 & Expulsion Of The Palestinians, p. 7-10)
"Singling Israel out is not honest and is in fact a form propaganda."
I did not single out Israel, I mentioned about half a dozen names. No one here justified Saudi, Yemeni or Bahraini repression, why are you singling out justifying Israeli repression? I don't like $1.3+ billion of my tax dollars being sent to Egyptian dictators nor $3+ billion of my tax dollars to Israeli occupation and apartheid, nor the weapons to Bahraini apartheid, I'm not singling out Israel. Even if someone is more vocal against Israel, you should know why it is so, Israeli is getting more US taxpayer money and indirect subsidies than all other countries of the world combined (the direct aid alone is more than what we give to entire Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa, given the GDP per capita of Israel, we should be outraged at that military aid Israel or Egypt or Bahrain are getting).