What is happening in Jerusalem?

First thing they teach you in law school: the notion of action vs reaction and the jurisprudence that holds it all together. It is the basis of some kind of justice, flawed as it may be. Read the Hamas charter of 1988 and then look up Ben Gurion”s 1948 independence speech and his pleading the Arabs to join in creating that mutually respectful 2 state entity. 

 

While I understand your concerns, I find your views to be totally myopic and one sided. It takes two people to do the tango. It doesn't matter if one of the two is a less accomplished dancer.

 

Terrorism is terrorism. Violence is violence. Death is death. It's the mentality on both sides that's the problem. Not the land. The root cause of hatred and conflict is always more complicated then it appears.

@Lorenzo: I'm actually in favour of Jewish Against Occupation and many points that you make are valid and valuable, as I wrote before. A very valid point that you are making is also that Israel has more power to change things; on top of that, Israel is a democracy (not a perfect one, but which one is?), and in a democracy there is hope that a good number of people interested in peace and justice can make real change happen. This is actually something positive to say about Israel as opposed to most Arab states (not so positive obviously as long as a majority is behind actions that suppress other people and harm any prospect of peace, but then the Palestinians voted for Hamas in 2006, and after that they didn't vote anymore as far as I know).

So I'm largely behind maybe the main thing that you are saying, but I still can't get around the double standards thing. So some Hamas representatives state X, some others state Y. In order to portray Hamas as a legitimate liberation movement (?) you say that X is what they really want and Y is only negotiating noise, not to be taken seriously. That's not a fact, it's an interpretation, and I am by far not as convinced as you are that they mean X not Y. Actually I rather think if they don't mean Y they better shouldn't say it, particularly given that Y is not something abstract but rather the expression of an intention to eradicate the Jews and their country from the map, but this doesn't serve, in your view, as a valid explanation for Israel behaving as if somebody wants to eradicate them from the map? On the other hand, the UN in your view "made a serious mistake" (once more not a fact but an interpretation; what should they have done instead by the way?) - which in your view apparently serves as a valid explanation/excuse for the Arabs rejecting a proposal that in the current situation would have been rather favourable for them (in your view actually Hamas now wants less than that) and as an excuse to start a war on Israel; however Israel's actions are, as far as I read you, not excused by anything.  Furthermore, you say repeatedly that the land is in fact the Palestinians'; once more an interpretation, not a fact. This is a very complex issue so I will not try to convince you otherwise. Personally I have no clear opinion on that, or rather let's say I don't think there is such a thing as an "objective right" for anybody on anything, rights are generally negotiated between people and don't exist in an abstract objective space. That said, I see how the claim of the Palestinians is justified, there is some sense in this, but there is also some sense in granting the Israelis their own state in that area, so once more, it's not for me to decide. Anyway, in supporting democrat Jews opposing expansive settlement policies and destruction of Palestinian homes, we are together. 

Well, to be blunt, it would have been easier had it not been for the fact that Hitler simply took the anti semitism much further than others dared but which they nursed anyway. Which is why I don't think it's fair for people to go around making statements that Israelis have learnt nothing from the Holocaust or that they have become like the Nazis.  Because none of this would be necessary without the Holocaust.  My objection is when Zionists and their non Jew sympathizers start inadvertently whitewashing the Holocaust to make a purely ethnocentric claim to Israel. Such claims are not sustainable and further ethnocentricism is indeed what leads to extreme ideologies like Nazism.  So I don't care how deeply such convictions may be held in Israel but they're still wrong and the world would go mad if we all became ethnocentric to that same extent.  Where they were right is Europe through its sheer cruelty helped prove why Jews were indeed a persecuted race outside and needed to return to Israel. 

Awwww, muffin, I thought you left.  My thesis was on Nazism (the NSDAP specifically), so I have a slight idea what THAT ideology is about. Whitewashing the Holocaust , moi? I do not think so. Firstly, persecution and pogroms occurred way before and into the Early Ages as well as the Middle Ages (you heard of Dreyfuss, no?) . And how did the Diaspora occur? A magic wand converting the locals in Argentina, Russia, Ethiopia, Morocco etc...?  Kings David and Solomon, Moses etc..... The problem is millenary and to state that the Holocaust was the one and only igniter of the creation of Israel is laughably easy , disrespectful and downright lazy. Please look up "list of Territorial Disputes" and get a clearer idea of ethnocentric (fighting over rocks in the water). The human race is by far the most primitive of all living beings as the "animals" do not kill by conviction or pleasure (except for the hyena). 

SteveG wrote: Would it be more appropriate to say that the Israelis learned nothing from history when it comes to violations of a Palestinian's civil rights, instead of bringing up the Nazi atrocities?

What people should "learn from history" is far from clear, considering that the situation in Palestine from WWII is historically unique (every situation is but this even more so). I think it's actually quite arrogant to talk as if you knew better what should have been learnt than the people who were/are in fact in the situation to learn/apply what is learnt. If you want to condemn current Israeli policy you can well do that without lecturing the parties involved on what they should have learnt, according to your opinion. (Obviously involving the Nazis explicitly makes it even worse, actually grossly insulting, but not mentioning them doesn't really save the day; surely not only the Jews will guess what you actually have in mind.)

Likewise could be said of the Palestinians too.  Is it only the Jews who are obliged to learn from Nazis while others get a free pass to indulge in pogroms, genocides, etc?  To echo what Lewian said, I can sympathize with Palestine but not Hamas.  Hamas is just as clear a terror organization as there will be.

You started with personal attacks and then called me a muffin so please don't condescend to lecture me. 

Look, I am not a historian and I am not going to use pedantically accurate terminology. If you want to nitpick that I shouldn't have said WW2, fine.  I said it very clearly with the first post where I discussed this idea and I mentioned anti Semitism in Europe.  But ssmarcus would not even agree with that as a trigger point.  I never said at any point that the idea of Israel as a native land for all Jews didn't exist prior to WW2 or even WW1.  All I said is anti semitism made it necessary and whatever reservations people may have had about the idea had to be brushed aside because the persecution of Jews essentially proved the Zionists right. But that does not mean the idea of an ethnocentric state is not controversial and it is even more so today. If you say that because you used to live there once upon a time, you have a right to come back and self determine as a separate state, that idea will always be controversial.  What really happened is much more complex but please understand that the above simplistic formulation is what ssmarcus presented as just and fair and I am obliged to counter him.