Just before we got shut down, I posted a video by Shaun that condemned all the atrocities committed by both sides in Israel and Gaza (it didn’t dissuade the Islamist fanatic who got us censored). Now I’m going to do it again. Cody thoroughly documents the genocide and lies perpetrated by the Israeli government.
It’s depressing. Don’t watch it you don’t want to be outraged by injustice.
It just affirms my concern that Israel has become an evil rogue nation. And we still send them arms?
1945 to 2025: USA defeating fascists to electing a fascist.
1945 to 2025: Genocide of jews to Jewish state committing genocide.
I don’t like this timeline.
If Josephus is to be believed, it would not be the first time a Jewish state…or titularly Jewish state…committed atrocities against its neighbors. Obviously, there’s no reason to think the victims of genocide are immune to committing genocide. Sadly, the existing Jewish state is little more than a projection of Euro-American colonialism in the Middle East using the blood and sweat of a desperate people against another desperate people.
Theocracies are enemies of civilization. It doesn’t matter what nature of “theocracy” one is talking about, ranging from current-day-controlled-by-the-most-powerhungry-orthodoxy-enforcing Israel to Iran to Indonesia to the Ottoman and Holy Roman Empires and farther back. Theocracy is particularly pernicious when it gets mixed up with “ethnicity” and religion-by-descent, as in former Yugoslavia. Remind me: Didn’t we have some war-crimes trials there that devolved to various purported “national origin” complaints that unpacked to religious orthodoxy? More to the point, didn’t we learn anything?
Apparently not as to the latter.
Civilization requires that one be able to criticize one’s friends for errors, and occasionally give them the silent treatment when they won’t acknowledge those errors (while, of course, acknowledging one’s own imperfection and working to get better, meaning much more than just striking “three-fifths of all other persons” and pretending it was never there). One wonders if the current polity called “Israel” is intentionally testing this. A number of other countries are so far around the bend of outright theocracy that they can’t see civilization in their rearview mirrors; the theocratic elements in Israel apparently want to join that club.
Israel propagandists brag about making a desert previously devoid of capable people bloom. Read Mark Twain as a census expert. Hence Zionists are self-sufficient. So we pull the plug on aid to them. Full stop. They can take care of themselves. They made a desert bloom or go boom.
Why should we continue to support Nutty Yahoo’s attempt to hold power by blowing powerless people to smithereens?
Maybe also they deradicalize their kooky settlers in
Judea and Samariathe West Bank.And deradicalize Jerry Coyne who is now a rabid MEMRI propagandist. (Hi John).
Jaws,
Maybe. But that’s not Israel.
Israel is a colonising power whose territory is what it colonises.
A hegemonising expander, a conquering power.
Displacing populations, taking over the territory.
Started the process in 1948, been going on ever since.
Basically, other than Russia, the last colonising power that uses conquest at this point in history.
There’s not even a terra nullius fig-leaf — nah, the idea is to replace the native Palestinian inhabitants, steal their land, steal their possessions, evict them from the land. By the million, hopefully.
No bones made about it.
Fuck up their lives to the maximum extent possible, make their lives as miserable as possible, use their hegemony to arbitrarily incarcerate and abuse Palestinian people in the last remnants of the land they had back before the 1948 conquest.
It is very, very obvious what is going on. A zero-sum game.
(And I can’t but help think there’s an element of ‘we were hammered and abused and tortured; let’s be the hammerers and the abusers and the torturers this time, while we can’ in their apparent attitude)
—
Point being, Israel is most obviously not a theocracy. Israel is Jewish as an excuse, but more as a cultural marker than as religious.
No matter how much leeway they give their religious loonies (and it ain’t cheap!), it’s still just a hegemonising state which uses religion as the McGuffin for its purposes.
cf. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Israel#Religious_self-definition
(I’d go as far as to say the USA is more of a theocracy than is Israel)
John Morales @5
Apparently you are unacquainted with Israeli West Bank settlers and far right parties who force coalitions to keep power.
Not your great-grandfather’s
BetarHerut. Jabotinsky would be horrified by Bibi.Hemidactylus:
Whatever makes you imagine that is somehow “apparent”?
(Oh, this should be good. Go on. Quote me, if you dare!)
Not my piece of shit, either.
—
Again: Israel is not a theocracy. Not even slightly.
[me, 8 October 2023]
@ 5 John Morales
Oh, I see. So it’s an ethnic cleansing state, not a theocratic state, so not an enemy of civilization.
BTW, it’s absolutely standard Israeli propaganda that nobody (to speak of) lived in Palestine prior to Zionist settlement. Something to do with Mark Twain.
http://www.palestineremembered.com/Acre/Articles/Story845.html
Silentbob, maybe you see, maybe you don’t, but you sure are bullshitting and not actually addressing what I actually wrote. Typical for you.
What? No.
Quote me.
Don’t just put words into the straw dummy’s mouth, actually quote me.
Go on. Try.
Quote me. The person to whom you ostensibly address your misrepresented claim.
Try to sustain your bullshit that I claimed that somehow those three things are mutually-exclusive, or that I even slightly hinted at the third.
—
Bah.
Yet again:
Israel is a colonising power whose territory is what it colonises.
A hegemonising expander, a conquering power.
Displacing populations, taking over the territory.
Started the process in 1948, been going on ever since.
Basically, other than Russia, the last colonising power that uses conquest at this point in history.
There’s not even a terra nullius fig-leaf — nah, the idea is to replace the native Palestinian inhabitants, steal their land, steal their possessions, evict them from the land. By the million, hopefully.
No bones made about it.
Fuck up their lives to the maximum extent possible, make their lives as miserable as possible, use their hegemony to arbitrarily incarcerate and abuse Palestinian people in the last remnants of the land they had back before the 1948 conquest.
It is very, very obvious what is going on. A zero-sum game.
(And I can’t but help think there’s an element of ‘we were hammered and abused and tortured; let’s be the hammerers and the abusers and the torturers this time, while we can’ in their apparent attitude)
—
Point being, Israel is most obviously not a theocracy. Israel is Jewish as an excuse, but more as a cultural marker than as religious.
No matter how much leeway they give their religious loonies (and it ain’t cheap!), it’s still just a hegemonising state which uses religion as the McGuffin for its purposes.
—
Nope. Not even slightly.
The actual (but bullshit) claim is that “Israel” somehow predates “Palestine”, and that it was only after that when that land became primarily Arab. Like, more than a thousand years ago.
There was never ever any pretense that it was unpopulated land, as in Australia.
—
But hey, do try to actually adduce something to that effect, which you claim is “absolutely standard”.
—
(And no, nothing whatsoever to do with MT)
Sometimes I think people don’t quite appreciate the scale of the Nakba. Three quarters of a million Palestinians were forced off their land in the Israeli “War of Independence”. That’s a shitload of people today let alone in 1948.
For perspective, that’s roughly twice the US death toll (military and civilian) from World War II.
These people were refugees, not casualties, but still. From it’s earliest days, Israel was not fucking about.
So, Hemidactylus. Again, but different, contrary to how what is supposedly apparent to you:
Me, https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2023/12/14/a-slight-correction/#comment-2204840
In BBC news feed (plain text capture):
Oh, and “Israel Gaza: UN General Assembly demands immediate ceasefire”
(https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67699508)
—
FFS! Me, above:
“There’s not even a terra nullius fig-leaf — nah, the idea is to replace the native Palestinian inhabitants, steal their land, steal their possessions, evict them from the land. By the million, hopefully.
No bones made about it.
Fuck up their lives to the maximum extent possible, make their lives as miserable as possible, use their hegemony to arbitrarily incarcerate and abuse Palestinian people in the last remnants of the land they had back before the 1948 conquest.
”
Of course people appreciate its scale!
(But then, your personal problem with me makes you not able to acknowledge you see what I actually write)
In the news: https://www.nrc.no/news/2024/february/joint-ngo-statement-eu-and-member-states-must-sustain-funding-to-unrwa/
(Norwegian Refugee Council)
[patterns]
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/feb/09/head-of-unwra-says-he-followed-reverse-due-process-in-sacking-accused-gaza-staff
“UNRWA staff accused by Israel sacked without evidence, chief admits
Philippe Lazzarini says summary dismissal of nine employees was ‘reverse due process’ after Israel’s claims they aided Hamas attack”
and
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/mar/01/unrwa-funding-pause-employees-october-7-hamas-attack-claims-no-evidence-un
“Israel yet to provide evidence to back UNRWA 7 October attack claims – UN
Allegations against 12 employees led major donors to suspend funding to UN Palestinian agency despite hunger crisis in Gaza”
—
In the news: Israel Not Complying with World Court Order in Genocide Case
(Many, many more of those, for decades now)
John Morales is quite right: Israel is not a theocracy, although ultra-orthodox groups have gained control of significant areas in which they enforce their rules on others, and privileges such as exemption from conscription; and the ongoing land theft on the West Bank is often justified in religious terms. But there is no general enforcement of Sabbath observance, kosher food laws, circumcision, or other aspects of Judaism that would be expected if it were a theocracy. Instead, it is, explicitly, an ethnostate: any Jew, regardless of religious belief, has a right to immigrate to Israel, while Palestinians ejected in 1948 cannot return; and it was legally defined in 2018 as “the Nation-State of the Jewish People”, within which only the Jewish people have the right to national self-determination.
When did the US (and the UK, and the rest of the European former colonial powers for that matter) ever see an evil rogue state they didn’t want to send arms to? Or, rather, to sell arms to?
@ 16
It seems to have been almost forgotten to history that Israel’s original patron was the USSR. (Then France.)
The excellent Yanis Varoufakis puts it plainly and provocatively – How much Palestinian blood will it take to wipe away Europe’s collective Holocaust Guilt?
Or, rather, Europe’s collective guilt over the Jewish victims of the holocaust. Because there sure as hell isn’t the same sense of sclerotic contrition woven through the post-war history of the continent over the other victims – the Roma, the disabled, Left-wing political activists, the LGBT+ community. Not that setting up an all-queer colonial state in, say, Egypt, and arming it to kick out the local Egyptians would be something anyone would want. Or a Roma nation in part of India. Or a Socialist State in Papua New Guinea.
No, the fact is that the Israel project was a convenient thing to enact in order to perpetuate colonial control of the Middle East, particularly to provide a spearhead for American economic interests after the British grip on the region relaxed. That it could also help assuage European and American complicity in the culture that led to the holocaust was just gravy. What’s that you say? Long history of anti-Jewish racism in our midst? Why, all in the past old chum – we’ve seized a load of land where the Jews come from, don’t you know, and encouraged them all to bugger off there! Clearly no more work is needed addressing the fundamental cultural, structural and economic factors that led to this calamity in our own borders. No, all’s well from the Danube to the Atlantic now!
Of course, Israel is now a nation state in its own right, with its own population, and as such it deserves the protections and rights of any other nation state. Dismantling it for the crimes it has committed is not an option, because if we did that we’d have to dismantle pretty much every other state in the world for the same reason, and its people have rights. But it does not have the right to colonise, to enact a genocide, to oppress a subset of the people within its borders. There is no justification for any nation to do that.
The USA had to settle for sloppy thirds if you’ll pardon the metaphor.
Oh sorry I cross posted. Not a response to your comment.
That’s a good start, but why stop there? The US has been sending Israel funding and arms for . . . well, forever. This is a US-backed genocide.
But why stop three? The US military fights for corporate profits and not any noble ideals. If we had noble ideals, we’d intervene in things like a genocide instead of sending aid and military “advisors” to Israel and Saudi Arabia.
But why stop there? The US also uses torture as part of its foreign policy. And we’ve decided that Presidents can order the killings of citizens without trial.
And speaking of foreign policy, there are sanctions. Those are meant to pressure countries internally to bow to the US. They literally never have that effect and often have the opposite one – hardening populations against the US. Because they really only hurt everyday people.
But why stop there? The School of the Americas trains terrorists. All of the bogeymen we’ve fought wars with for decades have been US puppets, had US terrorist training, and/or been paid or armed by the US before we tired of playing with them and decided to fight.
The US is not only the chief bully of the world, but the main terrorist nation. I’m less concerned that we fail to intervene than I am that we’re downright evil. And not the fun rawr kind of evil.
Worse yet, these all-American activities are something with full-throated bipartisan support. So remember to vote for your favorite of two very similar fascist figureheads this November – your vote matters!
Our liberal universities are making sure students can’t be upset by hearing about this:
https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2024/03/the-mess-at-barnard-and-columbia
Because there sure as hell isn’t the same sense of sclerotic contrition woven through the post-war history of the continent over the other victims – the Roma, the disabled, Left-wing political activists, the LGBT+ community.
A major reason for that is that there was never a serious nationalist/separatist political movement for either of those groups of people. It sure as hell wasn’t because the West — or the East — were really all that contrite about what happened to Jews.
No, the fact is that the Israel project was a convenient thing to enact in order to perpetuate colonial control of the Middle East…
Conspiratorial thinking is not our friend here. First, the creation of Israel was not the result of any sort of well-planned, thoughtfully-executed conspiracy — it was, in fact, exactly the opposite, possibly one of the hottest hot messes in the history of hot messes. And second, any US policymakers wanting to “perpetuate colonial control of the Middle East” would almost surely have considered working with pre-existing states to be the best way to do it — NOT by bringing a whole other state and people into it and provoking more hate and volatility. And, in fact, many US policymakers (and [shameless_plug] lots of political-science students, like my dad in his 1952 master’s thesis [/shameless_plug]) back then expressed exactly that opinion: that a new Jewish state would do US and Western interests more harm than good. Warmongering imperialists deserve at least some credit when their evil calculations turn out to be right.
Aaaaand drew shows his usual ignorance and stupidity, failing as always to distinguish the usual imperialism of leading capitalist powers from actual fascism.
John Morales @10
Mark Twain’s account of Palestine in The Innocents Abroad has been misused by Zionist propagandists:
https://marktwainstudies.com/encounteringtwaininpalestine/
https://m.jpost.com/opinion/center-field-mark-twains-innocents-abroad-explains-our-israel-obsession-606228
Yet this related phrase is a bit more contentious as to coinage and prevalence of usage: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_land_without_a_people_for_a_people_without_a_land
As for theocracy vs ethnostate I think KG @15 makes a good case for the latter.
Countries and nations are myths. Israel is based on a literal myth. I used to believe the two-state solution was actually a solution, but recent events have changed my mind. Israel is without precedent the greatest evil in modern history. It should be abandoned, the occupiers should go back to their countries of origin, the land should be returned to the original inhabitants, who should receive a generous compensation for 76 years of theft, murder and oppression, and every single person of power who ever supported Israel should be tried for complicity in genocide. No peace without justice.
Raging Bee, #23,
I had, it seems, overlooked the zionist nationalism of the first half of the 20th Century. Fair enough. The spearhead for US interests angle (which, we must not forget, is why Israel has been able to get away with what it has over the last fifty years, and the European powers are so cravenly behind it, lest they offend the US) can be chalked up as the imperalists’ adapting to circumstances on the ground.
What most irks me, though, is that “the Jews must have a national homeland (i.e. an ethnostate), because it’s the only way to ensure their safety after centuries of European persecution” is brought up all the time as a serious and legitimate argument. On the flipside, when some bigot says (as they very often do) “Why don’t you gays all just move to a distant island together, away from the rest of us” it is derided as the homophobic silliness it is and given no serious consideration. They are exactly the same argument.
In a way, I think this patronises the Jewish people more. It does, at least, recognise that to make progress and ensure safety and equality for LGBT+ people we’re going to have to change social norms and pass laws to do that ourselves, not farm the problem out to somewhere else. Jewish people are the victims of antisemitism (and other kinds of anti-Jewish racism), but it is our problem as Europeans to solve, because it is our culture and history that has created it. I am here counting Americans as offshoot Europeans, because their anti-Jewish sentiments come from that strand of their history.
In the news: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/04/israel-settler-violence-sanctions
In a way, I think [Zionism] patronises the Jewish people more.
My dad mentioned that in his masters’ thesis too: “Definition of a Zionist: someone who wants to send Jews away.” And it’s not really a coincidence that one US party is both the most consistently pro-Israel and the most consistently anti-Jewish.
John: Israel is also bringing in Jews from the US to take land away from Palestinians. Like, they can’t get enough of their own people to steal all the land they want?
Here’s the thing, the palestinians? they’re about a step below neo-nazis in my opinion.So, you know until israel firebombs southern gazaor something nastier,, i’m cool with them going hungry until hamas releases their hostages
@ ^ Carl Andersson : Are you “cool” with Palestinian children in Gaza literally starving to death? Because at least fifteen of them have that we know if so far. probly more.
Are you “cool” with what the IDF did to six year old child Hind Rajab and her family -and the paramedics sent to rescue her from the car she was trapped in with her murdered family members? See :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Hind_Rajab