h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Zagreb, you know and I know that politics is all bluff, mirrors and perception. The perception int he Middle East is that Israel has carte blanche. You have said it is a tiny country as though this makes it silly to see it as a scary thing.... It is not the smallest country in the region so that is irrelevant to the argument. It is by far militarily the most powerful nation in the region as well. It's adversary from day one was an illiterate agrarian populace with *no* hope of success against the likes of Dayan and Meir in their heydays of creating Israel. It is only in the last couple of decades that the Palestinian diaspora has concentrated on educating their youth. To the extent that they are now proudly proclaiming that they have one of the highest rates of postgraduate degrees as a 'nation'.

You want links? Here:

http://edition.cnn.com/2000/WORLD/meast/05/05/israel.lebanon.01/index.html
http://www.lcps- lebanon.org/pub/tlr/96/sum96/grapes_wrath_cost.html#Heading9

http://www.hrw.org/press/2000/05/israel-arms-back.htm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/819200.stm

Plenty more are out there. You may not like the HRW links, but I have included them anyway. Note that the BBC timeline does not mention the bombings of Bsalim.

All of this is only to say again - what you see in the media and hear on the news is not a tiny fraction of what happens - on both sides.

The Palestinians voted Hamas in this time for a simple reason - Fatah are corrupt and Hamnas are like HizbAllah, they run a tight clean ship. Garbage is collected, schools are opened, water is secured. Just as the Americans do not necessarily have foreign policy as their primary goal, those struggling in the horrible conditions of high infant mortality have more immediate concerns.

OK. I will bow out now, I think I have taken ove the thread and I don't think I should be doing that.

OK, I broke my word. I found a link to the JP..

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?c=JPArticle&cid=1150885876427&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Makes for fascinating reading, I think. I know this is hard but try to read it in terms of motivation, of access to political recourse and process. See the evolution of the terrorist organisation, HizbAllah, (which began in 1982 in response to the Israeli invasion, btw) and where in that evolutionary process the Palestinians are.

Look at it with eyes that are knowledgeable of the Irish situation. The similarities are poignant and certain.


W

You are so correct, Wilma! I have been discussing this on an American board where an Israeli woman and a Dutch man are going at it hammer & tongs!

The accusations of anti-Semitism fly freely, but he has the right of it, as do you!

Della, I suspect your Dutch friend is supportive of the Palestinian people in much the same way his government suddenly decided to switch support. Please don't compare my utter confusiion to his.

I have every reason to loathe all that is either both Palestinian and Israeli because between the pair of them, my country is a mess. Of course my compatriots don't help matters much.

I am leaving the thread because I am being too subjective, not because I don't like the argument. I apoologise for the disruiption.

As you were

*slinks back out*

He's really more a friend of a friend, a really nice guy, with an unique grasp of English!

I can understand your point of view, really, you're in the Lebanon, aren't you?

It's all such a complete sorry mess...

Just a 'wondering' thought here,

Consider what the Israeli reaction, and subsequent actions might be, IF the USA stopped the flow of $$$'s and arms to Israel, thus putting it militarily on a more comparable footing. ( Ignoring nukes for the moment), ith it's neighbours

Would that alter the Jewish perception of their rights and their power in the region, if the miltary superiority was 'lost'?

This thread will be as everlasting as the conflict if we continue to post on historical and current actions, of both sides.

Ultimately, as with Northern Ireland, the fighting has to stop for the serious talking to start. And as in N I, the possible outcomes are not necessarily what each protagonist'wants'. In other woords there will be no outright winner. In the case of the middle east that is the corect outcome.

Note to Zagreb I think it is the historical reaction to what was done to the Jews in Europe in WW11 which caused Britain and France to initially support Israel.

A personal view only here - I can see both sides of the argument , but I think Israel has been able to hold the post '67 land, and build on it, because of the presumption that it not only has "The Right" and the "Might" but that that until recently the US did not have to consider the wider geopolitical situation and therefore it's position viz a viz Israel.

Novo

PS There are three sides to any argument. Yours , mine, and the middle one - which is usually the 'right' one.

Anti-Semitism.

1. Palestinian citizens whose ethnic origin is the Middle East are Semites.
2. Israeli citizens whose ethnic origin is the Middle East are Semites too.
3. The many Israelis whose ethnic origin is elsewhere in the world are NOT Semites.

'Anti-Semitism' is simply not relevant to the Israeli/Palestinian crisis.

Ask anyone who raises it what they're trying to distract attention from....


Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

Popular understanding of the word 'Anti-Semitism' is not in accord with your own, P-C; neither are the dictionaries.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Semitism
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/anti-Semitism
http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/antisemitism?view=uk
http://dictionary.cambridge.org/define.asp?key=3203&dict=CALD
http://www.acs.ucalgary.ca/~nurelweb/books/concise/WORDS-A.html

Political Dictionary: http://www.fast-times.com/dictionarya-b.html:

"anti-Semitism - hostility towards Jews. Anti-semitism is as old as Christian civilization. Jews were despised because, according to Christian belief, they had rejected Christ and continued to practice a religion that was not the true one. During the nineteenth century anti-Semitism became racial rather than religious. Jews were persecuted for being Jews, not for practising a particular religion. Anti-semitism was found throughout nineteenth century Europe, particularly in Russia, Germany, and France. Russian anti-semitism reached a peak in the period 1905-09, with an estimated 50,000 victims. But anti-Semitism reached its peak in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 1940s. Jews were held to be inferior to what Nazis described as the Aryan master race. Jews were held as the scapegoat for all the ills suffered by the Germans. They were deprived of all their civil rights, banned from trades and professions; their property was confiscated. The persecution culminated in Adolf Hitler's "final solution," which was the attempted destruction of the entire Jewish race. Six million Jews were slaughtered in concentration camps during World War II. This was more than one-third of the Jewish population of the world. After the war anti-Semitism continued in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, although not with anything like the intensity that it had had in Nazi Germany. See also Holocaust."

I merely observe that the term, as generally used, is a nonsense. There is too much misdirection concerned with Jews and Israelis.

There is no race called "Jew". Judaism is a religion. Being Israeli is a nationality. Being a Semite is an ethnic origin. A person can be one of these, or any two, or all three. The three are wilfully confused by those who would misdirect the thoughts and feelings of others.

Historically, those of the Jewish religion also shared an ethnic background: they were Semites.

Anti-semitism is normally used to mean anti-Jew. I.e. against those of the Jewish religion.

Opposition to the Israeli state is not anti-Jewish. It cannot therefore be anti-Semitic either.

I am vehemently anti-Israeli. I am anti-Burmese too, for very similar reasons. There are many other offenders too.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

P C

Novo

Anti-Semitism.

1. Palestinian citizens whose ethnic origin is the Middle East are Semites.
2. Israeli citizens whose ethnic origin is the Middle East are Semites too.
3. The many Israelis whose ethnic origin is elsewhere in the world are NOT Semites.

'Anti-Semitism' is simply not relevant to the Israeli/Palestinian crisis.

Ask anyone who raises it what they're trying to distract attention from....

Anti-semitism is a euphamism for "anti-Jewish" due to historic reasons (ie the only well-known semitic communities in Europe for centuries were Jewish). When people say "anti-semitic" they specifically tend to mean "anti-Jewish". Splitting hairs over what the term can actually mean doesn't really further debate.

"There is no race called "Jew""

Yes there is. Judaism is a religion, which leads to confusion, but the people who practice it are largely descendants of the semitic race from ancient Judea and the middle east. So to be "Jewish" can mean either a follower of Judaism or racially Jewish. Or both, of course.

"Opposition to the Israeli state is not anti-Jewish."

Debatable. In 1948, opposition to the state of Israel would not have necessarily meant taking an anti-Jewish line but now, with most Israelis having been born there and holding no other nationality, demanding the dissolution of their home country and therefore leaving them stateless takes a rather contemptable attitude to Israel's majority Jewish population. It can be spun all sorts of ways, but anyone who demands the dissolution of Israel must have some issue with it's Jewish population, in my opinion.

Of course, there's also the question of Israel's identity as a "Jewish state" rather than a state with a majority Jewish population. But that is something quite different.

"I am vehemently anti-Israeli. I am anti-Burmese too, for very similar reasons. There are many other offenders too."

Why on earth are you anti-Burmese?

Actually, more to the point, why are you anti-Israeli? Why do you think that, for example, it's better that Israel be destroyed as a state rather than it withdraw to it's borders and recognise an independent state of Palestine which would provide a homeland for Palestinians currently under occupation or a disporia? I think this is the most fair solution that ensures the best chances of a fair peace and I don't understand people who want to see either Israel or Palestine obliterated or annexed in some way.

Strewth, Zagreb! I'm against the *actions* of the state of Israel, not its *existence*!

More than any other group of people, the predominantly Jewish citizens of the state of Israel should know how it feels to be persecuted by others in the long term. And yet despite their own terrible experience, they maintain their brutal military occupation of Palestine, usurping their land and their water, while the Palestinians are poor and thirsty. That's why I'm anti-Israel.

If Israel withdrew to its 1967 borders, and left Palestine to the Palestinians, my objections would disappear. [Not that *my* objections feature heavily in discussions about the Middle East crisis! ]

The Burmese are brutalised by their own government, so I suppose this isn't very similar to the Israeli/Palestininan thing.

Pattern-chaser

"Who cares, wins"

"Strewth, Zagreb! I'm against the *actions* of the state of Israel, not its *existence*!"

Then you're not "anti-Israeli". It's one thing to oppose the actions of a state and another to be against that state. Personally, I am opposed to many Israeli actions (especially in the past) but I would never call myself "anti-Israeli". Sorry for the confusion but you might want to word things more carefully from now on.

This explains the "anti-Burmese" thing, at least. I agree with you entirely about that illegitimate junta.

An interesting point Pattern-Chaser. You suggest that anyone who uses the term "anti-semitic" is distracting from the current discussion. And yet, your insertion of that point, and subsequent discussion, is in fact nothing but a distraction from the actual discussion. See, for example, the original post, and the most recent on-topic post by Novo. So Pattern-Chaser, let me take your advice. What are you trying to distract us from?

Novo, what usually happens historically when a country or region becomes weakened in a military sense? If they don't realize they have, they usually get a nasty surprise in the form of a major military defeat. If they do realize it, they stop being so aggressive. I think Israel would probably fall somewhere along that spectrum of possibilities.

Afternoon Arnie,

Thanks for that. I was beginning to think that I was "whistling in the wind" - with all the rhetoric about what Semites, Jews, Israelis, and Palestinians are.

The crunch is what the State of Israel is doing to retrieve ONE soldier (allegedly), which is to play God in the Middle East ,as it has done many times in recent years. Over-reaction or what?

I am not arguing for the Palestinians here either, they are a guilty bunch on their own, and as I have posted before, may well have killed the soldier already.
If I am right whither Israel now?

Novo

Seemed like an over-reaction, on the face of it to me. My first question was how many IDF soldiers are kidnapped each year, and what does Israel "normally" do in this situation?

It it's never happened before, then it may be an over-reaction by other countries standards, but then, there's no country in the world that is in the unique situation that Israel is in.

Well if what they are engaging in is collective punishment then insofar as I am concerned then it just isnt acceptable period.

And so it goes on.
Lebanon now dragged in again. I wonder where this will go? Either a humiliating climb down for the israeli president and doing a prisoner exchange (which will undoubtably lead to further kidnaps) or a long drawn out campaign with lots of behind the scenes countries with ulterior motives getting involved.

Either way it's hard to say a way up. And to think only a few months ago there was real prospect of Israel pulling back and talking.