Zionism

[tumbleweed41]

Does that have anything to do with illegal zoning issues? Every country on Earth bulldozes homes that are illegally zoned.

But that's a nice change of subject you did there.

Change of subject?

This is exactly one of the issues I have continually brought up.

"Excuse me sir, but those Olive trees your grandfather planted, and this land you have and home you were raised in and have raised your own children in, well, I am sorry to tell you that this land has been rezoned and we will be bulldozing your home and tearing down the trees you make a living off of."
"Why? Well sir, it seems you are an Arab and we need this area for a Jewish settlement. However, you are free to leave if you don't like it."


Later that day...

 

[tumbleweed41]

I already have earlier. The simple fact that there are Jewish-only settlements and non-Jews don't have the same rights as Jews makes it an apartheid state.

And as I pointed out earlier, Nelson Mandela, a man who has experienced apartheid intimately, acknowledges that Israel is an apartheid state.

Rather than encouraging non-Jews to accept Israel as a prospering and shining beacon of democracy, they are creating hate, distrust and feelings of vengeance.


Must be something they learned from America.

 

[Agnostic75]

The most peaceful Jews and Muslims could easily peacefully live together in Palestine today, just as many have in past centuries.

 

[Monotheist 101]

Do you even know what mustard gas is? :sarcastic

.....is it something you put on ur hotdog?

 

[Tarheeler]

I don't normally participate in these threads, primarily because neither side typically wants to discuss anything and is much more content bickering and mud slinging. But, after following this one through its entirety, I've decided to add my two cents (even though it is probably a mistake).

First of all, Zionism has nothing to do with most of what has been posted in this thread. Simply put, Zionism is the drive to establish a Jewish state where Jews can govern themselves and live without being persecuted for being Jewish. Since a Jewish state has been established, it has been expanded to also mean the survival of that state. It doesn't mean there's a Divine mandate for Jews to push the Palestinians into the sea or that Jews are somehow more "special" than any other group. History, both ancient and modern, has shown time and time again that Jews, no matter how hard the assimilate into their adopted countries or how hard they work to support them, are constantly at risk of being singled out for persecution, exile, murder, and all manner or other atrocities.

That being said, I fully support the Jewish state. I also fully support a Palestinian state, and deeply regret that the UN's plan did not go forward. No one should be forced off land to make room for another groups, and no one should loose land for any reason without just compensation (eminent domain). But this a problem that isn't contained within Israel, nor is it completely Israel's doing. The Palestinian people have long been at the mercy of politicians (both theirs and other nations'), and have been treated as pawns in regional struggles since before WWII. Hell, the British (who controlled the area) promised it to damn near everyone in the area.

I fully support the state of Israel, but not all of its policies.

 

[Moishe3rd]

No, we are talking about today.
For instance, July 17th, 2013;


BEERSHEBA, Israel (Ma'an) -- Israeli forces demolished a Bedouin village in southern Israel for the 53rd time on Tuesday, as thousands protested a day earlier over plans to forcibly displace Bedouins in the Negev.

"It is the 53rd demolition since July 2010," Araqib chieftain Sheikh Sayyah Abu Mdeighim told Ma'an.

"They have brought down all the sheds we built for the summer so we can protect our land and defend ourselves against the oppressive policy of this tyrannical government."

Large numbers of Israeli police officers and officials from Israel's Land Authority accompanied the bulldozers.

Families in Araqib managed to re-build five of the sheds after the bulldozers left, Abu Mdeighim said, with Palestinian and Israeli activists due to visit to the village to help rebuild the rest of the structures.

On Monday, thousands of people demonstrated across Israel and Palestine to protest a controversial plan which would see the forced displacement of nearly 40,000 Bedouins in the Negev.

The Israeli government approved the Prawer-Begin plan in 2011, in what it says was an attempt to address the problem of unrecognized Bedouin villages in the Negev desert of southern Israel.

The 2011 proposal was formulated without any consultation with the Bedouin community and rights groups slammed it as a major blow to Bedouin rights.

According to the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, the plan will forcibly evict nearly 40,000 Bedouins and destroy their communal and social fabric, condemning them to a future of poverty and unemployment.
Israel demolishes Bedouin village for 53rd time | Maan News Agency


And this from Amnesty International
Israel: Demolitions of Bedouin homes in the Negev desert must end immediately | Amnesty International

As the "resident Liberal hippie," I suspect you would not have much of a problem if the "White Aryan Nation militia" homesteaded in your backyard or your neighborhood.
And this good. We should all be so loving.
However, 99% of the rest of the world DOES have a problem when people just set up a tent city wherever they want and call it a permanent village, whether it be on Wall Street or the Negev desert or your backyard.

 

[Moishe3rd]

Unbelievable... The double standard being applied is just ridiculous. To a third party there is no "good" side to this conflict. You have the authoritarian apartheid state or the overzealous terrorists. And both sides are fueled by religious extremism... The best possible outcome would be for both sides to completely destroy each other.

I am curious. Do you have the same problem with the folk in Boston, MA? I mean, would the best outcome for the murderous brothers have been to murder more people before one of them ran over the other?
Should the Liberals in MA rise up and try and slit the throats of all of those damned Conservatives who keep on mucking things up?
I mean, how far does your "a pox on both their houses go?" Is it just Israel or should we see if we can't get the Wahhabists and the Saudi monarchy to wipe each other out too?
Just curious.

 

[tumbleweed41]

I don't normally participate in these threads, primarily because neither side typically wants to discuss anything and is much more content bickering and mud slinging. But, after following this one through its entirety, I've decided to add my two cents (even though it is probably a mistake).

First of all, Zionism has nothing to do with most of what has been posted in this thread. Simply put, Zionism is the drive to establish a Jewish state where Jews can govern themselves and live without being persecuted for being Jewish. Since a Jewish state has been established, it has been expanded to also mean the survival of that state. It doesn't mean there's a Divine mandate for Jews to push the Palestinians into the sea or that Jews are somehow more "special" than any other group. History, both ancient and modern, has shown time and time again that Jews, no matter how hard the assimilate into their adopted countries or how hard they work to support them, are constantly at risk of being singled out for persecution, exile, murder, and all manner or other atrocities.

That being said, I fully support the Jewish state. I also fully support a Palestinian state, and deeply regret that the UN's plan did not go forward. No one should be forced off land to make room for another groups, and no one should loose land for any reason without just compensation (eminent domain). But this a problem that isn't contained within Israel, nor is it completely Israel's doing. The Palestinian people have long been at the mercy of politicians (both theirs and other nations'), and have been treated as pawns in regional struggles since before WWII. Hell, the British (who controlled the area) promised it to damn near everyone in the area.

I fully support the state of Israel, but not all of its policies.

One of the best posts in this thread.

 

[Caladan]

I don't normally participate in these threads, primarily because neither side typically wants to discuss anything and is much more content bickering and mud slinging. But, after following this one through its entirety, I've decided to add my two cents (even though it is probably a mistake).

While there is no real point in participating in these threads because of the usual recycling of ignorance and denial, I have to say that usually the Jewish members (at least most of them) are much more opened for constructive and informative discussion and are less eager to go into childish bickering than the other side which is prone to sensationalism and polemics.
The point remains that the majority of people who post these threads with the supposed objective purpose of debating the issue are completely ignorant about these issues and they keep repeating what they've been brainwashed with about Divine promises of land, as if average Israelis are actually concerned with that. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict has much more down to earth elements than theological ones.
In addition, I can never bring myself to listen to the self-righteousness of members who live in a nation who still ethnically cleansed native Americans while my family legally bought lands and dried malaria infested swamps in order to settle these lands.
Like you say: This will fall on deaf years, but Zionism was a largely secular movement with practical reasons. And while Zionists may have been Jews, their identity was much more culture based than religiously motivated. To keep repeating the mantra about people fighting over a land they believe was given to them by God is to be in denial about the real issues involving this conflict.

As you can see the two points inquired about in the Original Post, have been answered constructively, but regrettably yet predictably these answers were ignored or shrugged off. A first point is that Jews already settled the land in the century prior to WWII. WWII, only saw the influx of Jewish holocaust refugees into an already established Jewish society in the British Mandate of Palestine. In addition, the second point while dripping from race obsession has also been corrected: Jewish Israeli society is hardly exclusively European. In terms of percentage its components neatly include a European decent and a Middle Eastern descent pretty much in a fifty-fifty statistics, and today a large generation which is a mixture of both.

 

[tumbleweed41]

....
However, 99% of the rest of the world DOES have a problem when people just set up a tent city wherever they want and call it a permanent village....

Amazing how those olive, almond and hawthorn orchards suddenly appeared, along with previously bulldozed buildings, in these tent cities set up anywhere....

 

[Flankerl]

The most peaceful Jews and Muslims could easily peacefully live together in Palestine today, just as many have in past centuries.

You mean like the non-zionist jews of Hebron before the mob killed them?

Sure helped them to be against zionism huh?

.....is it something you put on ur hotdog?

Ha ha ha

So you think Israel uses mustard gas against protestors? How about some kind of scientific evidence?

 

[Bdub13]

I am not a Zionist but In am also not an anti-Zionist either. I believe Israel lost their special claim when Jesus transferred their promise to the church. In terms of the Israeli Palestinian conflict they should resolve that between each other. Israel was created from a semi-autonomous region of Jordan because we needed a place to put the Jews after WWII>

 

[Moishe3rd]

I am not a Zionist but In am also not an anti-Zionist either. I believe Israel lost their special claim when Jesus transferred their promise to the church. In terms of the Israeli Palestinian conflict they should resolve that between each other. Israel was created from a semi-autonomous region of Jordan because we needed a place to put the Jews after WWII>

Interesting.
"Jesus transferred their promise to the church?"
Which Christian denominations still believe in Replacement theology?

 

[1robin]

Interesting.
"Jesus transferred their promise to the church?"
Which Christian denominations still believe in Replacement theology?

I do not about strict replacement but we all believe that what was offered to the Jews is now available to everyone. At least in the sense of a special relationship with God. That is what all those verses about weddings and his own people's denial, etc are about.

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

I am curious. Do you have the same problem with the folk in Boston, MA? I mean, would the best outcome for the murderous brothers have been to murder more people before one of them ran over the other?
Should the Liberals in MA rise up and try and slit the throats of all of those damned Conservatives who keep on mucking things up?
I mean, how far does your "a pox on both their houses go?" Is it just Israel or should we see if we can't get the Wahhabists and the Saudi monarchy to wipe each other out too?
Just curious.

LOL how does the Marathon bombing compare to the Israel/Palestine conflict? Terrorists making bombs to kill innocent people at a race is nothing at all like a mutual war between two factions. The people of Boston had done nothing to the Tsarnaev brothers; we just wanted to watch the Marathon finish. It's not as if we bulldozed their house to make room for the race route. Way to make a completely irrelevant comparison...
How does liberals killing conservatives compare to anything I've said? First of all, if that's supposed to be an analogy of some kind, I don't take a side in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, so you would have to have the liberals and conservatives both kill each other. I have my problems with liberals AND with conservatives, so I wouldn't support liberals having full reign either. The difference between this situation and the one in Israel is that we have FAIR ELECTIONS, so there doesn't need to be a war to decide anything.
Those are both stupid examples that aren't relevant to anything. At this point, you just sound like a bitter crazy person spewing nonsense for the hell of it...
As for Saudi Arabia: Yes, they actually should both SHOULD wipe each other out, for the same reasons the Israelis and Palestinians should. Both sides are equally oppressive and neither deserves anything. In Saudi Arabia, you have the option of a monarchy or a theocracy; a battle between the worst two forms of government. In Israel, you have religious zealots fighting ethnic supremacists, and the terms are interchangeable between either side... No matter who wins, civilization loses.

 

[Tarheeler]

In addition, I can never bring myself to listen to the self-righteousness of members who live in a nation who still ethnically cleansed native Americans while my family legally bought lands and dried malaria infested swamps in order to settle these lands.

I think that's a valid point. Just about every state in existence today came about in a similar fashion. There have always been internal struggles, whether it is between ethnic groups, religious groups, language groups or anything else we can find to divide ourselves with. And the same situations continue within these states today.

And it's easy for those of us, who live thousands of miles away and in no danger, to offer our opinions on how everything should go. Our neighbors don't dream of our destruction and make public threats or write our death into their founding statements. It's easy for us to pass judgment when were are so far removed from the situation.

 

[Shermana]

I am not a Zionist but In am also not an anti-Zionist either. I believe Israel lost their special claim when Jesus transferred their promise to the church. In terms of the Israeli Palestinian conflict they should resolve that between each other. Israel was created from a semi-autonomous region of Jordan because we needed a place to put the Jews after WWII>

So in your religious view, why have the Arabs been stopped every single time when they basically should have won? The 1973 war should have been over in two days, Israel's ability to turn it around was nothing short of miraculous.

 

[Shermana]

As the "resident Liberal hippie," I suspect you would not have much of a problem if the "White Aryan Nation militia" homesteaded in your backyard or your neighborhood.
And this good. We should all be so loving.
However, 99% of the rest of the world DOES have a problem when people just set up a tent city wherever they want and call it a permanent village, whether it be on Wall Street or the Negev desert or your backyard.

I would love to see how these anti-Zionist Liberal hippies act in similar situations. I would love to see what they'd do if a Native American tribe set up shop in their back yard and started clamoring for them to leave since it's "their land", even though the Jews are basically the Native Americans in this case.

Really, anyone living in North America should be happy to offer their home to a Native American if they feel such a passion to start up against Israel, right? At least according to their interpretation. And then cue the "It's been hundreds of years" argument, even though there are still living descendents of those massacred at Wounded Knee.

And apparently, only Israel needs to be lenient and ignore its own Zoning laws, the rest of the world can demolish homes just fine but Israel has to take the extra step to ignore all its building codes just to placate these people.

 

[Moishe3rd]

I would love to see how these anti-Zionist Liberal hippies act in similar situations. I would love to see what they'd do if a Native American tribe set up shop in their back yard and started clamoring for them to leave since it's "their land", even though the Jews are basically the Native Americans in this case.

Really, anyone living in North America should be happy to offer their home to a Native American if they feel such a passion to start up against Israel, right? At least according to their interpretation. And then cue the "It's been hundreds of years" argument, even though there are still living descendents of those massacred at Wounded Knee.

And apparently, only Israel needs to be lenient and ignore its own Zoning laws, the rest of the world can demolish homes just fine but Israel has to take the extra step to ignore all its building codes just to placate these people.

I have a particular "dog in this fight" as I am, indeed, a Native American...
How?
My earliest ancestor moved to North America from England in 1652. I have a copy of the deed to his original property and a reproduction of the painting of his original house. Not only that - but he came here as a slave, which at that time were called "bond servants." They worked their passage off and, after 7 years, were free men. The Africans came over on that basis too.... initially. But then... well, they got a tad taken advantage of...

At any rate, if there is another native American who can precisely trace his lineage back 350 years, I am open to discussion.
Otherwise - how long must one be in a place until they are a "native?"

 

[I.S.L.A.M617]

I have a particular "dog in this fight" as I am, indeed, a Native American...
How?
My earliest ancestor moved to North America from England in 1652. I have a copy of the deed to his original property and a reproduction of the painting of his original house. Not only that - but he came here as a slave, which at that time were called "bond servants." They worked their passage off and, after 7 years, were free men. The Africans came over on that basis too.... initially. But then... well, they got a tad taken advantage of...

At any rate, if there is another native American who can precisely trace his lineage back 350 years, I am open to discussion.
Otherwise - how long must one be in a place until they are a "native?"

What tribe are you from?