How a Pro-Palestinian American Reporter Changed His Views on Israel and the Conflict

[leftynyc]

First of all, even the kindest, most educated, upper-class Palestinians reject 100 percent of Israel ‒ not just the occupation of East Jerusalem and the West Bank. They simply will not be content with a two-state solution ‒ what they want is to return to their ancestral homes in Ramle and Jaffa and Haifa and other places in 1948 Israel, within the Green Line. And they want the Israelis who live there now to leave. They almost never speak of coexistence; they speak of expulsion, of taking back “their” land.

To me, however morally complicated the creation of Israel may have been, however many innocent Palestinians were killed and displaced from their homes in 1948 and again in 1967, Israel is now a fact, accepted by almost every government in the world (including many in the Middle East). But the ongoing desire of Palestinians to wipe Israel off the map is unproductive and backward- looking and the West must be very careful not to encourage it.

The other thing is that a large percentage of Palestinians, even among the educated upper class, believe that most Islamic terrorism is actually engineered by Western governments to make Muslims look bad. I know this sounds absurd. It’s a conspiracy theory that’s comical until you hear it repeated again and again as I did. I can hardly count how many Palestinians told me the stabbing attacks in Israel in 2015 and 2016 were fake or that the CIA had created ISIS.

For example, after the November 2015 ISIS shootings in Paris that killed 150 people, a colleague of mine ‒ an educated 27-year-old Lebanese-Palestinian journalist ‒ casually remarked that those massacres were “probably” perpetrated by the Mossad. Though she was a journalist like me and ought to have been committed to searching out the truth no matter how unpleasant, this woman was unwilling to admit that Muslims would commit such a horrific attack, and all too willing ‒ in defiance of all the facts ‒ to blame it on Israeli spies.

http://www.jpost.com/Jerusalem-Report/A-view-from-the-frontlines-480829



Interesting read. How do you deal with people who have such a distorted view of reality? The Mossad did Paris? The stabbing attacks were the CIA? ALL Muslims are innocent little kittens? I mean, holy shit.

[ck4829]

1. "this woman was unwilling to admit that Muslims would commit such a horrific attack"

Not all that different from denying the fact of a non-Muslim shooting kids in Sandy Hook or jumping to "mental illness" for guys like Ivan Lopez, Dylann Roof, Jason Dalton, Adam Lanza, etc., which does nothing but a disservice to the mentally ill. I guess Muslims are immune to mental illness?



And Muslims aren't innocent little kittens, they are humans, just like non-Muslims, after all, "many innocent Palestinians were killed and displaced from their homes in 1948 and again in 1967", humans did that too.

[leftynyc]

2. Let's not forget

that the Palestinians were offered a state - the size of which they will never see again - but decided to go to war instead. I know many liberals think they deserve infinite do-overs but I don't.

I also don't think al queda and isis are filled with those who are mentally ill. Unless you consider hyper religious freaks to have a mental defect. Again, I don't.

[wellst0nev0ter]

5. "Offered" a state by colonialists

That, my friend, is called a warped narrative.

[leftynyc]

6. Now we're considering

The UN colonialists? Well alrighty then. Well, while you're sitting comfortably on your computer the Palestinians are still suffering, still without their own state - not due to Israel who has already proven they will sit with those trying to destroy them to make peace. No, it's due to so many telling them to just wait a little longer, suffer some more and they'll surely get what they want. They don't have a state because of their friends, not their enemies.

[wellst0nev0ter]

9. Yes, the plan was drawn up by a bunch of former colonists

The UN inherited the problem from the British, but that kind of territorial concession to non-natives is going to be a non-starter for anybody.

[leftynyc]

10. Non-natives?

All the Jews already there just appeared out of thin air? And remember, it was only a non-starter for ONE side. The side that decided it would be easier to drive the Jews into the sea than take their state. They were wrong. Then they were wrong again. And again. And again. And now, I'm guessing, you think terrorism should be rewarded. I don't. They've already turned down sweeter deals than they're ever likely to see again. And it's their own fault.

[wellst0nev0ter]

11. "I'm guessing, you think terrorism should be rewarded"

It has. Look up Jewish-led terrorism during the Mandate era.

[leftynyc]

14. I'm sure you must know

About the mandate - that the Arabs were allowed weapons and the Jews were forbidden to defend themselves. It led to killings pretty much around the clock. If you think that defending yourself constitutes terrorism, you're welcome to. I don't. Look up White Paper and we'll chat again. Or not. Some people are perfectly happy only knowing one side.

[hack89]

12. So how should the non-natives be accommodated

60 years later?

[sabbat hunter]

22. It was never a colony

it was a mandate after the collapse of the Ottoman empire, of which syria-palestina was a province, not an independent country.
So are you suggesting that Israel, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, WB, etc areas should go to Turkey?

[hack89]

7. How else will they get a state? By seizing one through violence?

not too many options here - Israel is not going to dissolve itself to please the Palestinians..

[DanTex]

3. It is an interesting read. The problem I have with it is that,

like a lot of viewpoints on I/P, it is essentially excusing the bad behavior of one side of the conflict by pointing out the bad behavior of the other.

It is true that Palestinian terrorism is a horrible thing, and many Israelis have been personally affected by it. And it is stupid and cowardly for anyone to blame it on the CIA or Mossad.

It is also true that Israel has and is continuing to commit human rights violations and war crimes, and that many Palestinians have been personally affected by Israel's actions.

Neither is justified.

[leftynyc]

4. Only one side has proven

they WILL make peace when they have a partner. Both Egypt and Jordan are the proof of that. The Palestinians, and their corrupt leaders in abbas and hamas, have NEVER, not once, proven to be reliable partners in peace. I will never blame Israel for not slitting their own throats. Everyone saw what happened when Israel forced their own people out of gaza. No peace - nothing but more violence and the election of a terrorist group as leaders.

[Ken Burch]

13. Nothing would be better if the unjust occupation of Gaza had continued.

Hamas would be even stronger in that situation.

It's impossible to end this by defeating the Palestinians militarily, which I think is what you want.

All you do by trying to crush the Palestinian side is create the conditions for a harsher, more extreme new leadership to emerge by promising revenge.

[leftynyc]

15. You OBVIOUSLY have zero

idea of what I want. I've already said that infinite do-overs has worked so fucking splendidly, why would you think it should change? The Palestinians need to act like fucking adults, give up their fantasy of driving Israel into the sea, sit down and hammer out an agreement.

Your desire for a harsher occupation in gaza so hamas would be stronger tells me you have a lot to learn about being a liberal. Hamas is a terrorist group who has crushed the dreams of gaza so by STEALING all the aid meant to help and is used to kill Jews. Also hasn't allowed an election. Yeah, they're charming and SUCH a help.

[Ken Burch]

16. I don't desire any such thing.

And you know perfectly well I don't support Hamas.

All I said is that a harsher occupation could have no other result than to strengthen that organization. Nothing the IDF did while it was in Gaza was ever effective in combatting Hamas militarily.

It the IDF could be defeated militarily, it would have happened by now. If Hamas could be defeated militarily it would have happened by now.

All I'm saying is that harsh tactics have been an absolute failure. Why would you still defend Netanyahu's approach when, for a decade and a half it has done done nothing but make things worse?

Continuing to defend hardline tactics now meets the definition of insanity.

[leftynyc]

17. You honestly don't think

if Israel wanted to turn gaza into a parking lot that they don't have the means to do that? I disagree strongly. I see you enjoy putting the blame solely on Israel's shoulders. While I don't like bibi, have made my feelings for him very clear numerous times, I lay just as much blame on the Palestinians and their so called leaders. Their leaders have led them down a path that has led to nothing but destruction and why? Because they don't give a crap about their own people - FAR more important to continue trying to push Israel into the sea (and steal all the aid money). Israel pulled out of gaza unilaterally - got nothing but rockets and violence and a terrorist organization voted in for their troubles. I don't see the Palestinians being a partner in peace and haven't for a very long time. The Palestinians have brought their misery on themselves by never missing an opportunity to miss an opportunity. How many times have they turned down a state? Even Bill Clinton blamed Arafat for walking away from what was considered a very sweet deal they'll never see again.

[Ken Burch]

18. Nothing has constrained Netanyahu from doing anything he wanted.

Nothing is stopping him from going even more scorched-earth on Gaza and the West Bank, nothing is stopping him from bombing Iran for that matter(if he's so sure that's going to make a difference, why doesn't he just do it? Why is he so fixated with getting the US to do it? And why does he insist the entire West owes him unquestioning support on such a thing?). The only thing that has ever been occasionally withheld is outside approval. Why is he OWED outside approval for hardline tactics? The conflict with the Palestinians has nothing whatsoever to do with the betrayal of European Jews by Europe, the UK and the North American countries in the Thirties and Forties.

I have never said the Palestinian leaders were infallible. They've made some incredible mistakes.

But it has never been fair to punish ordinary Palestinians for the choices of their leaders.

And there has never been any possibility that doing so could ever cause the emergence of a better Palestinian leadership.

It's been sixteen uninterrupted years of immiseration that Netanyahu has inflicted on Palestine.

If that hasn't worked yet, it's never going to work.

Nothing can be changed by preserving the status quo. Nothing.

BTW...no Palestinian or other Arab leader EVER used the phrase "drive the Jews into the sea". Not one. Not ever.

So stop using it as if it's a term of art, as if it's what EVERY Palestinian thinks.

Yes, there are Arab bigots. There are an equal number of anti-Arab bigots in Israel and a much larger number in THIS country.

The fact that there are bigots doesn't mean that the Palestinians don't have a hell of a lot of legitimate grievances about what's been done to them, especially what's been done to them since 1967.

As Ben-Gurion recognized, it was madness to start the mass settler movement.

It should have been left at returning the people deported by Jordan(NOT the Palestinians)in 1948. Since Palestinians didn't deport those people, they'd have probably been glad to let them come back and welcomed them as neighbors-provided the IDF went home and stopped perpetually harassing them).

[leftynyc]

19. Oh spare me

Just look at what's taught in Palestinian schools - you can pretty it up any way you wish but driving Israel into oblivion (is that better?) has been their battle cry for 70 years. That you don't think Israel has the means to completely destroy gaza and has chosen not to do so makes you thoroughly dishonest. Nothing stopping them? How about simple humanity which is something you would never ascribe to Israel or any of their leaders because it would pain you so.

If they had accepted their state in 1947, this wouldn't be happening PERIOD. They lost in 1947 and they lost in 1967. This is what happens when you start wars you can't win - you lose and you suffer the consequences. Too fucking bad. Now they have a choice - they can sit down with their "enemies" and hash out an agreement that will give them nothing like what they've been offered in the past or they can continue to live in misery. That's what suffering the consequences means.

[Ken Burch]

20. Israel as a country has humanity, as do ordinary Palestinians on a person-to-person basis.

Netanyahu as an individual has no humanity. If he did, he would not have written two books opposing the very concept of a Palestinian state. To oppose a Palestinian state is to oppose ever achieving peace. And it makes perfect political sense for Netanyahu to oppose peace, because the Likud party and the rest of the Israeli Right will instantly vanish if peace is achieved.

There are terrible Palestinian leaders and good Palestinians. There are terrible Israeli leaders and good, decent, salt-of-the-earth Israelis.

Immiserating the people of either country can't ever make anything better.

And it's impossible to get any peace deal to hold if there's an insistence on humiliating the Palestinian side for past bad choices. Any outcome that can be painted as "Israel wins-Palestine loses", will cause any Palestinian leadership that agrees to such a deal to be overthrown by an alternative and more intransigent leadership. When that happens, everyone is back where they started from.

There needs to be peace without anyone being humbled, with face saved on both sides.

And remember, Palestinians have suffered far more deeply in this conflict than Israelis. For the Israeli side, it's mainly been inconvenience. For Palestinians, it's been collective punishment, collective harassment on a daily basis such as checkpoints that make a thirty-mile drive WITHIN Palestine take eight hours, land confiscation, theft of the olive and citrus groves, limited access to water, absurd acts of retribution like the destruction of NGO-built solar panels just because the Occupation authorities hadn't approved of them(as if alternative energy could be weaponized). Is it that hard for you to understand that these people have some valid reasons for anger and resistance, even if they haven't always chosen the wisest tactics?

And are you totally unaware of the fact that there have always been forces in Israeli politics trying to take the West Bank, thus giving Palestinians good reason to trust Israeli willingness to actually let Palestinians have a state at all?

It's not as simple as saying "they'd have what they wanted if only they'd just done this and that and that one other thing".

[leftynyc]

21. The stabbing

spree last year wasn't an "inconvenience". I was there at the time and was scared every single second I was in the old city. You see, this is part of the problem. Because Israel is the stronger party, their troubles are swept under the rug (just like you just did). That isn't honest or fair.

No matter how you want to try and pretty it up, they COULD have had a state in 1947 and have been offered them numerous times since. They've declined or went to war instead.

[FBaggins]

44. That leaves an implied sylogism that forces an obvious question

You claim that Netanyahu has no humanity
You also claim that there is nothing stopping him from doing whatever he wants to do

So why are there any Palestinians left in the region at all?

[Ken Burch]

45. My theory: more than anything else, it's the pragmatic need to present the appearance

of moral superiority...even when, in the case of Netanyahu and his party, the claim to that becomes more and more tenuous.

That, and perhaps advice from the IDF high command that a scorched-earth approach might not be the easy win he implies.

[Israeli]

25. SO HOW THE HELL did it all start?

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1487337077/

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict began when the first Jewish colonist came to this country in 1882, even before the official founding of the Zionist movement. It began as a clash between two great national movements which were totally ignorant of each other. This ignorance persists, in large part, to this very day.

The past cannot be changed.

But perhaps, perhaps, we can learn from it and draw some conclusions.

[leftynyc]

26. If you think continuing

to complain about something that happened in the 1800s is going to help, knock yourself out. Americans would have turn over the country to the Native Americans if you want to push that narrative. The history that matters is the FACT the Palestinians have been offered a state not just once, not just twice - and they don't have one through their own failings and those of their leadership. The ONLY way they're going to get one now is to sit down and hammer out an agreement. They cannot defeat Israel militarily. Anyone telling them otherwise is leading them down a path that is a fantasy.

[Ken Burch]

27. You should remember that "Israeli" actually lives in Israel.

She is on the fire and walking the walk in terms of living the Zionist idea.

As to Native Americans-no, Americans(settlers, to be more accurate, since Native Americans were the first Americans) would not need to be given the country back physically-but there does need to be a public admission that a massive injustice was done to them and that not only compensation but apologies are needed to heal that wound.

The Palestinian people know they can't defeat Israel militarily. Equally, the Israelis-whether Netanyahu acknowledges this or not-CAN'T go totally scorched-earth on the Palestinians because that would never BE a military victory. Doing so would have no other possible effect than creating a new and more extreme Palestinian armed struggle devoted to revenge.

So there is a stalemate. Israel needs to negotiate as much as the Palestinians do, because the status quo is unsustainable.

And the Israeli government needs to accept that, if collective immiseration of ordinary Palestinians hasn't caused those people to overthrow their existing leaders and replace them with leaders Neyanyahu likes better, it never will have that affect, anymore than the embargo on Cuba was ever going to cause the overthrow of Fidel.

The best things Netanyahu could do on a short-term basis would be to impose a permanent, absolutely permanent moratorium on settlement and to dial back day-to-day harassment of ordinary Palestinians in the West Bank-in other words, give people there some breathing room. Collective harassment and collective punishment have no other effect but to drive previously nonviolent people towards nonviolence-if you get in someone's face over and over and over, what else can happen but that that person will snap? And it's not bigotry when that person does snap, it's simply a breaking point.

And there was never a justification for the settlement project on the level at which it has been undertaken. Negotiating the repatriation of the indigenous Jewish communities in the West Bank would have been one thing-I suspect ordinary Palestinians would have been fine with that, so long as the lands those communities were on were not taken as Israeli territory. It was Jordan that expelled those communities, not the Palestinians.

The problem came in from importing hundreds of thousands of OTHER people to the West Bank, people with no personal connection to the land-I said personal connection, historical connections from two millennia earlier are not title to the property- while taking land, water and sometimes even the ancient olive trees Palestinians have raised for centuries as their livelihood and repurposing them for the exclusive use of these settlers.. Do you honestly think it was ever reasonable for Palestinians to be ok with that? To see the people brought in and given privilege over themselves as somehow the real victims in THIS situation?

[leftynyc]

28. I'm very well aware of where

Israeli comes from - we have a "history". No - this isn't a stalemate - Israel has already won by becoming a viable state with a viable economy, countries all over the world look to it for innovation and technology.

So you're perfectly okay with Palestinians going back generations for their piece of the pie but somewhere along that historical line, you want to stop and forget the fact that Jews go back to that land for THOUSANDS OF YEARS. And they could have had that pie - a big chunk of it. If they had only taken what was offered to them - more than once. You have never answered, not even once, what justification and how the Palestinians have earned unlimited do-overs for their state - want to take a stab at it or should they just keep refusing what's offered because it isn't what they consider perfect? The lives of most Israeli's is fine - they would like to live in peace. It's the Palestinians of gaza that lead lives of misery - that's what happens when you vote in terrorists who steal your money, build tunnels instead of schools and hospitals and then cancel all elections. And why did they vote hamas? Because they thought hamas would lead them to victory through violence. Stupidity doesn't even cover it. But they will continue to listen to their "friends" who tell them to continue suffering, that victory against the little satan is right around the corner and they'll be in the same situation 10 years from now they are in now. Wonderful. When their leaders decide to show some actual courage and sit down with the dreaded Israeli's, get back to me. Until then, their lives are exactly what their leaders want them to be.

[Ken Burch]

29. What I'm saying is that BOTH groups have real ties to this land.

That it was never "a land without people".

That it was unacceptable for the settlers to show up in the West Bank and argue that the land was theirs and that people who had been their for at least fourteen centuries were intruders and should either live in submission or just leave.

Something along the lines of "parity of esteem", the concept they used to make peace in Northern Ireland, is needed.

Also, there needs to be a clear recognition that it's demagogic and inflammatory to use the terms "Israel" and "the Jews&quot as Netanyahu repeatedly does)as synonyms. Israel is a country. Jewish people are a variety of related ethnic and religious communities both within Israel and throughout the world. Israel is NOT the world's Jewish communities OR Judaism as a religion, and the communities are neither unquestioning supporters of everything the Israeli government does nor responsible for that government's actions.

I have never defended Hamas. I wish that organization didn't exist. But it has the strength it does in significant measure because in the Eighties, the Likud and national unity governments of the era encouraged its growth-they were obsessed above all else with weakening the PLO, despite the fact that there was never any possibility that the fall of the PLO could have led to a Palestinian leadership more to the Israeli government's liking, and none that would ever have had the credibility among Palestinians to make any agreement it signed stick.

In the Nineties, when the PLO WAS working with the Israeli government of the day for peace, that government kept sabotaging the PLO by building more and more settlements and effectively taking more and more land. The humiliation of the PLO, culminating in the useless tactic of putting Arafat himself under siege in Ramallah, discredited that organization and led to the rise of Hamas.

What else could ever possibly have happened?

It's not about "do-overs". It's about actually ending the war. The only war for this conflict to end is for their to be no winner and no loser-for their to be an honorable draw. This is why the Palestinians should get the whole West Bank. Israel loses nothing in that(the country never needed the West Bank in any practical sense, and certainly doesn't need it if a true peace is actually achieved), and it allows the Palestinian leaders that do sign an agreement to say "we weren't humiliated, we weren't shamed".

Military victory, as we used to know it, is useless in the Israel/Palestine context, because it can never be permanent.

BTW....nobody who defends the West Bank settlement project wants peace. The people who defend that want conquest, and the taking of land for the SAKE of taking the land, as an ideological end in itself. They don't CARE if taking the West Bank means the war never, ever ends.

[leftynyc]

30. Have you ever been to Israel?

If so, you already know but ignore that the 1967 borders are untenable. Unless they agree to be completely unarmed because Palestinian of ties to hamas, hezbollah and several other terrorist organizations whose top goal is destroying Israel. Israel is not going to slit its own throat so liberals will like them

I detest bibi and think he's been horrible for Israel. That will NEVER mean I'll forget what they face every single fucking day. Israel has already proven they will make peace, give up land - when they feel a real peace is possible. The Palestinians have never proven they can be trusted to stick to non violence. Never. They have never - not once - not violated ceasefire agreements. Because they don't control their most fervent and violent among them. Their humiliation means nothing to Israel and is the fault of their own choices and their own leaders. Until they realize they'll NEVER win, they're doomed to live pathetic lives.

[Ken Burch]

31. If you detest Netanyahu, then you should call him out on his habit of equating any disagreement

with what he does in the name of "security" with a wish to see Israel destroyed and with hatred of Jews.

If you hate what Israelis go through you need to acknowledge that a LOT of what Israelis go through each day is down to his lifelong ideological(not security, but ideological)opposition to the creation of a Palestinian state and his and his party's insistence expanding the West Bank settlements.

I deeply dislike a lot of what the Palestinian leadership does. But nothing the Israeli government is doing in the name of "security" has any chance of ever changing those tactics OR causing the existing Palestinian leadership to be displaced by anything better.

And displacing either Fatah or Hamas as leaders in order to sign an agreement would be useless, because even if displaced, those two organizations would still have most of the guns...which would make any agreement signed with anyone else utterly devoid of value.

Carrying on the status quo is the definition of insanity. Why defend what has never worked? Why equate any public criticism of what has been done with bigotry?

Finally, I don't live in Israel...but "Israeli" the poster does. So it's not your place to accuse her of calling for her own country to take unacceptable risks. She lives there, and as a kibbutznik, she walks the walk of being what a Zionist was supposed to mean-a commitment to building both a place of safety and a model for what a just society should be, as opposed to the empty and meaningless exercise of taking land for the SAKE of taking land. She lives in the place you and I only discuss...perhaps you should take that as proof that she can be trusted to take a responsible view on all of this.

[leftynyc]

33. Trying to pretend

I don't respect Israeli's experiences is nothing but bullshit. But she is only ONE Israeli that I "know", I know hundreds that don't post on DU. I actually, in real, personal life know Israelis across the spectrum, from secular to frum. Every one of them has given up on the UN and any other organization that is so one sided, they've become nothing but a joke. NONE of them a crap about Israeli security, none of them have anything to say about hamas (why do I always have to force my iPad to NOT capitalize hamas, have to type it three times to not show a terrorist organization that respect).

If you want people to stop associating Israel with all Jews, take it up with the bds people who are harassing Jews on college campuses all over the country. EvERY FUCKING DAY.

There is a reason that bibi, who not particularly beloved in Israel keeps getting elected. And don't ever dare to presume what I do in opposition to him because you don't know crap about me. The Palestinians need to clean up their own house first. How can they sit with Fatah is the agreement is rendered meaningless because of hamas? I'm tired of people thinking Israel is the one that has to move on this. you treat the Palestinians like children who have zero responsibility on this. Until that changes, the Palestinians will live in misery and its ther own fault. You think you're helping but you're not.

[Ken Burch]

34. If I shake my fists at rank-and-file Palestinians, all of whom are powerless

to do anything about Hamas, that would make me complicit in defending the status quo that oppresses them and it would make no positive difference. Yes, Hamas is a horrible group, but ordinary rank-and-file Palestinians don't deserve to suffer because Hamas exists.

What the hell are ordinary Palestinians supposed to do? Get themselves killed in an internecine conflict just to please Likud?

And why defend the iron fist policy towards the West Bank when it's been in place for sixteen uninterrupted years now and, in practical terms, there is nothing to show for it? When it's already clear that there is no way collectively immiserating ordinary Palestinians is ever going to cause a change for the better in the Palestinian leadership? Isn't it time to finally try something else?

You still don't seem to realize that Hamas exists, in significant measure, because the right-wing governments Israel has had for most of the past forty years put their obsession with getting rid of the PLO above any and all other concerns. If they had negotiated with Arafat in the Eighties(he was willing to do that, the only sticking point was Shamir's pointless insistence that the PLO recognize Israel BEFORE the talks started rather than at the moment the talks started as he insisted on), they would have been able to negotiate with a Palestinian leadership at the peak of its influence and credibility, a leadership, with its flaws, that would have had the ability to make a peace deal actually stick. Instead, Shamir(like Begin before him and Netanyahu after him-with Labor not being that much better)cared more about delegitimizing the PLO than it did about ending the war. At some point, that should raise some questions with you.

I don't know what you do other places...but why do you never say anything critical about the Occupation, or at least the West Bank settlements(a project you know perfectly well is indefensible and that has done nothing but make the situation worse)on THIS forum?
Why don't you at least call for a settlement freeze here, since there can't possibly be any excuse for any further settlement expansion?
And why do you perpetuate the claim that virtually all public criticism of Israeli security policy is tantamount to anti-Semitism? In all but a handful of cases, it's not, and in the cases where it is, I join all decent people in condemning it.

[Israeli]

35. well said Ken ....

I might just be one but I'm not alone ......

[leftynyc]

36. Spare me the revisionism

So now the Israeli's are to blame for bibi AND hamas being elected. The poor Palestinians - who HAD free elections - simply couldn't help themselves from voting in terrorists. Heaven forbid they vote in someone who wants peace and wont steal all the aid money to buy weapons and build tunnels so they can kill Israelis. Again, I find it befuddling how so many of you supposed "friends" of the Palestinians consider them nothing but children who need to be led around by others. It's people like you that keep them from having a state.

Feel free to comb over my dozens of posts on how unhelpful I find the settlements, my disdain for bibi, the religious extremists and all the other stuff I've condemned over the years. I have no intention of proving myself to you because I don't care enough to take the time.'

Perhaps you can point out where I perpetuate the claim that all criticism of Israel is anti-semitism. Or you can just admit you lied. Your choice.

[Ken Burch]

37. I didn't lie. I don't have time to go back and check, but the implication was always there.

n/t.

[leftynyc]

39. ALWAYS there?

Well then you shouldn't have too much trouble pointing out even ONCE when I made that implication. I think far too many of the Pro-P people USE anti-Zionism to cover up their anti semitism. Tomato, tomatoe.

[Ken Burch]

41. I realize that you think that. There have always been SOME people who have done that.

As there have always been some gentile politicians (such as Arthur Balfour) who have supported the creation of a Jewish state out of anti-Semitic intent(i.e., in the hopes that all Jews would leave the countries these politicians governed or helped govern, or, in the post-World War Two situation, that the surviving Jewish residents of Europe would move to such a state rather than to, say, North America.

However, the vast majority-at least in Europe, North America, the UK, and Australia/New Zealand-don't fit that category. They speaking out of sincere concern for and solidarity with an oppressed community, a community that, in many respects, is having the neighboring community's history of horrific repression, repression carried out far more by European Christians than anyone else, taken out on it.

A lot of them started out backing a two-state solution, but gave up and switched to the single-state option because the Israeli government has gone out of the way to announce it would do all in its power to drag out the creation of a Palestinian states. Support for the single-state option is an expression of despair, not hatred.

And I say all of that as a person who is not an advocate for a single-state solution-It's not workable at this point, and won't be for decades if it's ever workable, due to the fact that both sides have valid reasons to distrust the other.

I'll go back through your posts in the next few days, but I didn't make anything up.

[Israeli]

38. "" I have no intention of proving myself to you because I don't care enough to take the time.' ""

Did you take the time to watch the video I posted ???????????
What do you think of his message ?

(what do you think of his message ken ?????????)

Or is Assaf Harel not kosher enough for you ?

"" I actually, in real, personal life know Israelis across the spectrum, from secular to frum.""

"Hundreds of them"

How many Palestinians do you know ?

Not the taxi drivers or those that served you in your exclusive tourist restaurants.......took the time to get to know them did you ?

Took the tour of The Wild West Bank ......did you ?

You spent what ?......10 days here maybe ..... and your the expert

Ken is not a liar ......and I would choose him over you any day .

[leftynyc]

40. So much space

to say absolutely nothing but mocking and juvenile emoticons. Do you feel better now? I didn't even see the video posted as it was not in response to me and I don't spend all day reading each and every post on DU. Interesting that the one posters you happen to respect are the ones that agree with you. And by interesting I mean pathetically predictable.

[Israeli]

42. Shame .......

.....cant force you to watch it .....would you like a transcript ?.....

WATCH In Last Monologue, Israeli Comedy Show Host Implores Israelis to Wake Up and Smell the Apartheid

read more: http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/1.774663

“If you look at our life in Israel it’s pretty great. Yeah, it’s expensive, and we’re far from earning what we would have liked. Clearly, the healthcare system could be better, and yeah, the politicians could be more impressive and less embarrassing. But if you look at our life from a bird’s eye view, we’re doing pretty great,” he said.

“But there are a couple of million people that we’re responsible for, and they’re in a horrible state. Infrastructure, food, healthcare, education. Millions who are living in abject poverty. Gaza is on the verge of plague, hours on end without electricity or water, Israel controls everything that goes in or out” Harel said.

“Ever since the right-wing took power, more and more voices are warning of apartheid. Are you kidding? Apartheid has been here for ages. Ages. It’s just that we’re on its good side, so it doesn’t really bother us. We’ve been abusing the Palestinians on a daily basis for years, denying them their basic rights.

“In Judea and Samaria [the West Bank] we’re taking their lands from them. Once, we used the Jewish National Fund to raise money to buy the lands. Today? We just pass a law saying we can just take their lands and that’s it. Soldiers shoot at stone-throwers because they’re a real threat, but if in Israel someone throws stones they won’t’ even be charged. Palestinian journalist are put on administrative detention, without trial, because they wrote something. Every time we have a holiday they’re under closure, God forbid they ruin it for us,” Harel continued.

Harel also decried the label of “extreme leftist” onto Israeli human rights organizations who work on issues relating to the rights of Palestinians. He contended there is no such thing as an extreme leftist—“We we speak of animal abuse, do we also condemn extremists on both sides? Those that abuse animals and those that adopt them? No!” Harel concluded by arguing for the moment Israel’s right-wing politicians have succeeded in concealing the economic and moral cost of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians. Harel said he believes this will change in time. “Israel’s most impressive innovation, more than any high-tech project, or Rafael weapon, is our amazing ability to ignore what is happening mere kilometers away to our neighbors,” Harel said.

[Israeli]

43. alternativly .....

....you could watch this .....?????

Conference on 50 Years of Occupation

Published on Feb 28, 2017
Voices from the conference on 50 years of occupation, which was held in the Knesset on February 15. The conference was attended by ambassadors of the European Union and various countries, representatives of civil society organizations in Israel, and Knesset members from leftist parties.

[leftynyc]

24. BTW - your statement

that no leader has called for Israel to disappear really should tell that to the BDS folks. I guess you missed this thread:

A lecture by Israel’s ambassador to the UN Danny Danon was disrupted Monday as supporters of the anti-Israel Boycott, Divest, Sanctions campaign burst in on the event.

The protesters shouted “Palestine will be liberated from the river to the sea,” “Israel is a terror state,” and “Israel has no right to exist.”

Danon, who had been addressing some 300 students from New York’s Columbia University, told the protesters, “Instead of inciting and lying, sit down on the chairs and maybe you’ll learn something,” the Ynet news site reported.

He told them, “We won’t remain silent in the face of the lies that you are spreading about Israel. We will continue to make our voices heard and to stand up for our just truth.”

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1134135078


What do YOU think "liberated from river to the sea" and "Israel has no right to exist" means? I've said it before, and I'll say it again. Palestinians don't have a state because of their friends, not their enemies.

[sabbat hunter]

23. Hamas

likely could be defeated militarily, if they didn't cower behind civilians from which they attack. If Israel had zero regard for civilian casualties, they could just flatten all of gaza with aerial bombardment, and prolonged ground assault on all targets regardless if there are civilians in the way or not. Hamas numbers are estimated around 40-50k (with no airforce, tanks, navy). Israel has 2.8 million men and women that are able bodied and ready to fight.
But Israel will not strike willy-nilly at Hamas when they cower behind civilians, instead try to launch surgical strikes at them, to minimize civilian casualties.

I don't think Hamas wants peace because they truly want to destroy Israel, even there is no real chance of them doing that.
Assad doesn't want peace, because it takes away the boogie man of Israel to blame all of the Palestinians problems on, and would prevent him from continuing to loot the PA treasury to line his own pockets, just like Arafat before him.

[Ken Burch]

32. There is no way to defeat them without using completely scorched-earth tactics.

Doing that would have no effect OTHER than to cause the instant rise of another, more extreme Palestinian physical force party, devoted to revenge.

This would make military "victory" effectively impossible, because such "victory" would never lead to an actual end to the armed conflict, and therefore be no victory at all.

[grossproffit]

8. Fantastic read. Thank you so much for posting this, Leftnyc.