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Israel/Palestine
In reply to the discussion: A Closer Look at Students for Justice in Palestine [View all]shira
(30,109 posts)30. Uri Avnery calls BS on your BDS demand of right-of-return....
Last edited Sun Oct 9, 2016, 05:34 AM - Edit history (5)
And he started the boycott movement.
The exodus of half the Palestinian people from their homes in the 1948 war partly fleeing the fighting in a long and cruel war, partly deliberately evicted by the Israeli forces is a complicated story. I was an eye-witness and have extensively written about it in my books. (The second part of my memoirs has just appeared in Hebrew.) The salient fact is that they were not allowed to return after the end of the war, and that their homes and lands were given to Jewish immigrants, many of whom were refugees from the Holocaust.
Reversing that process now is as realistic as demanding that white Americans go back to where their ancestors came from, and returning the land to its original native owners. It would mean the abolition of the State of Israel and the creation of a State of Palestine from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, a state with an Arab majority and a Jewish minority.
How can this be achieved without a war with a nuclear-armed Israel? How does this relate to peace?
All serious Palestinian negotiators until now have tacitly conceded this point. I spoke several times with Yasser Arafat about it. The tacit understanding is that under a final peace agreement, Israel will undertake to take back a symbolic number of refugees, and that all the others and their descendents now some five or six million will receive adequate compensation. All this as a part of the two-state solution.
This is a peace program. Actually, the only peace program there is. The BDS aims are not.
Reversing that process now is as realistic as demanding that white Americans go back to where their ancestors came from, and returning the land to its original native owners. It would mean the abolition of the State of Israel and the creation of a State of Palestine from the Mediterranean to the Jordan River, a state with an Arab majority and a Jewish minority.
How can this be achieved without a war with a nuclear-armed Israel? How does this relate to peace?
All serious Palestinian negotiators until now have tacitly conceded this point. I spoke several times with Yasser Arafat about it. The tacit understanding is that under a final peace agreement, Israel will undertake to take back a symbolic number of refugees, and that all the others and their descendents now some five or six million will receive adequate compensation. All this as a part of the two-state solution.
This is a peace program. Actually, the only peace program there is. The BDS aims are not.
http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1457710016
That's pretty straight-forward. A full RoR cannot happen peacefully. Do you want peace? Or does RoR trump peace? How does RoR happen peacefully? Explain. Convince me you want peace but also a full RoR. Explain how to implement RoR peacefully. Explain how that would happen anywhere else in the world, where countries would voluntarily & peacefully give up their sovereignty, culture, and safety to a different majority population. Be very clear. Or does Israel not deserve peace?
You wrote...
The problem is that it's often more important to prove that a discriminatory practice is racist, rather than having to prove that equal rights do not constitute racism. I'm sure there have been challenges in the US to the 14th Amendment that claims that equal treatment leads to discrimination - I just can't give you any good examples. Nor do I have any other good examples from the rest of the world.
I'll just continue to assume that I'm right, and I ask you to provide some examples where equal rights lead to racism (or any other form of discrimination) other than the loss of white privileges after the Civil War or the destruction of Israel by allowing refugees to return...
I'll just continue to assume that I'm right, and I ask you to provide some examples where equal rights lead to racism (or any other form of discrimination) other than the loss of white privileges after the Civil War or the destruction of Israel by allowing refugees to return...
The Jewish people would lose their right to self-determination & have to depend on the majority population to protect them. As we see in Europe now, that doesn't work. It didn't work before the Holocaust either. It hasn't worked out well for Jews in Egypt, Jordan, Syria, or Yemen where there are few if any left. So if Jews cannot live safely as a minority in Europe, what makes you think Jews can live safely as a minority under Hamas or the PLO?
Make an argument that Jews will be safe under majority Palestinian control. Convince the world's Jews that we must live as a minority everywhere, even in our homeland, subject to the mercy of the majority population. Show me evidence Jews will be safe if we submit. Show us why we should trust you given the history, before and after the Holocaust. Convince Israeli Jews they'll be safe under Arab control and that things will be different than in Egypt, Jordan, or Syria. Why should Jews trust you on this one? Can't do it, can you?
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I think that Canary Mission is a hate site, and that you should avoid promoting it.
Little Tich
Oct 2016
#2
One may wonder why you chose to bolster your arguments with an article from a pro-Republican site.
Little Tich
Oct 2016
#6
I think you're misreading the CUNY report on the alleged SJP anti-Semitism.
Little Tich
Oct 2016
#10
Slander is considered protected speech, which makes it possible for a certain Presidential Pretender
Little Tich
Oct 2016
#12
It's a bit of a stretch to call Israel a secular state already, but that's beside the point...
Little Tich
Oct 2016
#24
I suppose that the irony of you posting in favor of the notion of free speech in one post (#9),
Little Tich
Oct 2016
#11
I would characterize her posts in favor of banning SJP as being against the notion
Little Tich
Oct 2016
#15
I don't know of any instance where SJP is calling for Israel's destruction...
Little Tich
Oct 2016
#23
SJP is part of Omar Barghouti's BDS movement which calls for Israel's destruction...
shira
Oct 2016
#26
I'm sorry - I just assumed that calling for equal rights wasn't considered racist.
Little Tich
Oct 2016
#29
It actually seems as if we lack common ground for a discussion on this subject. n/t
Little Tich
Oct 2016
#36