The Palestine Question

The middle placard there makes a very good point.

Zionism is the problem, or more accurately, nationalism is the problem. Zionism twists the heritage of the Jewish people into an excuse to exert dominion over other people.

Another brand of nationalism led to the holocaust - I've always found it rather sad that a small minority of jewish people just don't seem to get the message.

Zionism gives Judaism a bad name.

As an aside, and beyond any religious context, I am absolutely disgusted with the conduct of the Jewish state in recent years (especially).

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I read a great article by Gary Young in the Independent:
anti-Zionism ≠ anti semetic

Motherfuckers need to man up and whip the nukes out. In 50,000,000 when it's safe to visit the holy land, a new nation may be raised who won't bitch over some land and won't fill my ears and eyes with the same boring arguments day in, day out.

Job done.

If you're going to quote Edward Said you could at least attribute it to him.

I never though that my more insane rants were independently echoed by erudite scholars. Mind you, thinking about it it might not be so bad: what has the middle east ever done for us? three nutty and violent religions, eased us in our dependence on fossil fuels and obnoxious behaviour all around. The Israelis are a friggin' disgrace, but would the Palestinians behave any better should they get the upper hand? would they really sort the just from the unjust? yeah right.

maybe i am just overly optimistic but i see it ending up like northern ireland, there will be two states but they will come to cope with the situation. in an area with with two opposing views you are going to get sectarian violence, there is nothing you can do about that but like NI it will decrease over time. in the long run the only solution is co-operation (no matter how much they hate each other) neither one is just going to pack up and leave.

i was looking into this last night after reading this thread because i was astounded as to why the US donates so much of it's foreign aid to Israel, disproportionately to the point of unbelievable.

Look at this ! Holy fuck, that's a lot for such a small country

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/US_aid_to_Israel.gif

and from here this is what stood out the most

Total U.S. aid to Israel is approximately one-third of the American foreign-aid budget, even though Israel comprises just .001 percent of the world's population and already has one of the world's higher per capita incomes
something is really not right.

If the above article is correct, US intentions in relation to Israel seems to be control of the region. But what was in it for the US ?

Weapons it seems.

Matti Peled, former Israeli major general and Knesset member, told Zunes that he and most Israeli generals believe this aid is "little more than an American subsidy to U.S. arms manufacturers," considering that the majority of military aid to Israel is used to buy weapons from the U.S. Moreover, arms to Israel create more demand for weaponry in Arab states. According to Zunes, "the Israelis announced back in 1991 that they supported the idea of a freeze in Middle East arms transfers, yet it was the United States that rejected it."

I was surprised.

Good work Dylan as usual everything comes back to money and the search for more markets.Selling weapons is one on global capitalisms last remaining guaranteed money making schemes.

i'm in the 'shame on israel' camp. if a similar thing happened here people would be up in arms, literally. from what i can tell it really wasn't a religious issue for many years until recently hamas have used fundementalist islam to gain support.
if i was an iraeli i'd be looking for a settlement to this because one day the shit is going to hit the fan big time. in fact the chances of israel surviving a beating in the future are almost nil but then we all thought SA would go up in flames etc etc.

One day, when there is no more oil left there, I can see America launching a full scale nuclear attack on the entire middle east and ending the problem once and for all. I think this is the reason Iran wants nukes.

That's pretty much the only hatstand paranoia I allow myself.

stats, etc...

Its not that much of a surprise-
The Israeli economy has been failing for years, without america's aid it would have ground to a halt a while ago...
Plus they have a 'strong bond'.

Also Obama just pledged $200m+ recently of more aid.

When a country like Israel receives so much aid it is a surprise, for me at least.

Plus Israel has a Free Trade Agreement with the US ! Is Israel sitting on a massive oil reserve or what ? No they're not but not too far away though

sorry-my comment came across entirely wrong.
I should have phrased it better.
Part of the reason for the strong bond is undoubtedly due to the fact that Israel were an ally when the cold war was on, and America have always valued that.

Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah

would you like a circle? I can trade it for a triangle.

I'm done anyway.

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fair point well made

What are your thoughts on this?

It seems that in Northern Ireland the UDA are showing support for Israel and the IRA are showing support for Palestine.

One day, when there is no more oil left there, I can see America launching a full scale nuclear attack on the entire middle east and ending the problem once and for all. I think this is the reason Iran wants nukes.

That's pretty much the only hatstand paranoia I allow myself.

When there's no oil left, the US will stop bothering to prop up Israel. The pUS supports Israel so that it can have a strong, non-Arab military/intelligence ally in an unstable and hostile part of the world that happens to have loads of oil under it. With no oil left, I reckon they'll get out of there and let them all get on with it.

When there's no oil left, the US will stop bothering to prop up Israel. The pUS supports Israel so that it can have a strong, non-Arab military/intelligence ally in an unstable and hostile part of the world that happens to have loads of oil under it. With no oil left, I reckon they'll get out of there and let them all get on with it.

Thats what you might think, but the U.S has very comprehensive military coverage of the middle east. Bases & solidiers all over the place. They do not in any way need Israel as an ally.

More likely that powerful people in the USA just want to suport Israel, and the fact that it provides a massive demand for U.S made weapons.

The US cares about Israel for reasons of domestic politics - neither party can dump support for Israel, no matter how many times Israel gives the US the finger - http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp446.htm

The US cares about Israel for reasons of domestic politics - neither party can dump support for Israel, no matter how many times Israel gives the US the finger - http://www.jcpa.org/jl/vp446.htm

Obama & Biden gave hints that they were going to reduce U.S support for Israel during their campaigning. But why are they backing Israel so strongly now, even when they do really stupid shit?

I am not sure I trust that website's analysis. This sentence " But on March 1, Carter's UN Ambassador, Donald F. McHenry, voted for a viciously anti-Israel resolution in the UN Security Council condemning Israeli settlement activity in Jerusalem." made me wonder what kind of a site it is; the home page, and the articles listed, show it to be entirely pro-Israel (to adopt its own deliberately misleading terminology). In the quote above objection to Israel's illegal occupation is characterised as "viciously anti-Israel", implying that being opposed to the illegal occupation (as is virtually every country in the world that has ever voted on this question in the UN, the US and the UK being the usual exceptions) is to be *anti-Israel. *So it is not Israel that is out of step, it is the rest of the world. Because their view that Israel should heed international law makes them *viciously *anti-Israel.
The article quoted seems tendentious, striving to make Jewish voters appear more significant than they are and to put the fear in to any politician who reads it as well as provide those politicians with a perfect excuse for why they cannot adopt 'anti-Israel' policies: yeh, sure we would love to tell Israel to stop breaking the law but the Jews won't let us. Also it may well be out of date already as the demographic of American voters change and, for example, Hispanic voters become more and more influential.
The article also wastes no time on considering how the language applied to this subject might influence voters; not surprising since it itself provides a good example of the kind of propaganda that passes for journalism in mainstream US media and 'scholarship'.
The role of Jewish voters in American elections is only one factor in the US's treatment of Israel and, I think, a much more minor one than is suggested by this article.
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It's more than the 'Jewish Lobby'- which only equates to 2.2% of the vote, after all.
In the states the funding of Israel is backed more by the Christian Right who, proportionally are much bigger, and believe that the foundation of the state of Israel for the Jews and only the Jews will lead to an instant conversion event when they all become Christians.
also the misguided belief that Judaism is 'closer' in some way to Christianity, whereas in fact Islam is a more logical choice in many respects.

Also, being Jewish doesn't necessarily mean you support the behaviour of the Israeli state, as evidenced by the picture above.

Also, being Jewish doesn't necessarily mean you support the behaviour of the Israeli state, as evidenced by the picture above.

Neturei Karta describe this well:

This Torah contains the basic doctrines of our faith, Divine commandments and the narrative of the earliest Jewish and general human encounter with G-d.

         Throughout the centuries Jews pledged their assent                to this Torah even when their lives were at stake. They maintained                this loyalty with almost unanimous allegiance until the dawn of                the modern age. In the three hundred - odd years since the so -                called Enlightenment began, Jews and Gentiles throughout European                civilization have been losing many souls to its evil clutches. 
         Today unfortunately there are many Jews who, through                no fault of their own, are ignorant of, and fail to, practice the                basics of their faith. This is a great tragedy for many reasons.                Perhaps paramount among them is the falsification of Judaism that                results when those unaware of its basic assumptions speak to the                general public. 
         It behooves all Jews loyal to their faith to proclaim                to the world the truths of Judaism in as lucid a manner as possible.
         Neturei Karta International is dedicated to the propagation                and clarification of Torah Judaism. 
         Its  only loyalty  is to G-d and His revelation.              
         One of the basics of Judaism is that we are a people                in exile due to Divine decree. 
         Accordingly, we are opposed to the ideology of Zionism,                a recent innovation, which seeks to force the end of exile. Our                banishment from the Holy Land will end miraculously at a time when                all mankind will unite in the brotherly service of the Creator.              
         In addition to condemning the central heresy of Zionism,                we also reject its policy of aggression against all peoples. Today                this cruelty manifests itself primarily in the brutal treatment                of the Palestinian people. We proclaim that this inhuman policy                is in violation of the Torah. 
         NKI seeks peace and reconciliation with all peoples                and nations. This is especially needed in our relations towards                the Islamic world where Zionism has for 53 years done so much to                ruin Jewish - Muslim understanding. 

YouTube- TRANSLATED| Israeli Knesset Members Attack Haneen Zoubi about Freedom Gaza Flotilla

Theres been a lot of Israeli's trolling another forum I use, its funny just how unwilling they are to hear any other opinion or idea. As soon as anyone respons to anything, a barrage of aipic fail pictures ensue with comments like " please stop saying stupid things". Like bratty children with fingers in there ears when being told of for being moronic.

I've had the dubious pleasure of meeting a fair few fervent Zionists and to a man they do not seem to have any grasp of reality, particularly the reality of the situation within occupied Palestine.