FreshlyShaven posted:

The Palestinians have been suffering for over 60 years under a brutal apartheid regime. Israelis have not.

quote:

Leaving aside whether the Mizrahim's experience is analogous to the Palestinian refugees'(for one thing, there's very little interest among the Mizrahim in returning to their ancestral homelands and some states like Iraq allow repatriation already), I would argue that anti-Zionists are generally pretty aware of the Mizrahim, their exodus/suffering and the discrimination they face in Israel.

Ultramega posted:

Sorry I'm using the Holocaust as The Benchmark For All Bad Things That Have Ever Happened To Jews. Thought you were on the level?

The Insect Court posted:

Think of every "joke" about how the Jews should just go back to Europe and the ignorance it betrays of where Israeli Jews actually originated.

Hong XiuQuan posted:

I think the essential point here is that when talking about Palestinians it takes some chutzpah to make suggestions about what they should do, accept or where they should go.

Dead Reckoning posted:

I guess that's technically correct, but I think a rational person can look at the situation and say that the Palestinians' irredentist demands for a return to the status quo anti bellum are counter-productive and unrealistic.

FreshlyShaven posted:

Leaving that aside, despite the disclaimer, this comes dangerously close to victim-blaming. Maybe instead of trying to elide Israeli responsibility by blaming Palestinian leaders, you could simply acknowledge the most salient fact and let it sink in: Israel ethnically cleansed the Palestinians and has refused to make amends for it or acknowledge the basic human rights of its victims. Yes, the ethnic cleansing occurred in a time of racial tension and political violence, but that's true of almost every incidence of ethnic cleansing; ethnic cleansing rarely happens during periods of stability and prosperity.

quote:

In the real world, Israel is not interested in making a just peace. It prefers to maintain the occupation to satisfy its right-wing zealots, avoid dealing with its housing crisis and to profit the Israeli economy at the expense of Palestinian suffering. The closest thing to a serious peace plan offered by Israel was the Oslo Accords and a) that didn't even create a Palestinian state, and b) no sooner did Israel sign the Accords than it went about sabotaging them.

quote:

Netanyahu has promised there will be no Palestinian state, 3/4 of Israeli Jews oppose a 2 state solution which creates a viable Palestinian-administered territory, and Labour's record is just as bad as Likud's(and likely to get worse as Herzog decides that the route to electoral victory is through hating Arabs more than Likud). So don't pretend that some reasonable peace could come about if those Palestinians were just willing to eat more poo poo and pretend to like it. The only way to peace is through international sanctions and pressure.

quote:

No, I'm saying an Israeli-Palestinian peace deal should focus on Israel/Palestine instead of dealing with tangential issues because given Israel's behavior, it should be obvious that Israel would use a single country's intransigence to scuttle the entire talks. The issue of Iraqi Mizrahim and compensation for their suffering should be dealt with between the government of Iraq and Israel; the Palestinians should not be held hostage over something they had nothing to do with.

That seems like Israel's MO right there. Nevertheless, that's not what I'm doing. I'm saying separate issues should be addressed separately and that one group's suffering is no excuse for another group's suffering. You know, basic morality.

quote:

For another, the Arab peace proposal is, in its outline, simple: end the occupation and find a just solution to the refugees. This is the international consensus and the bare minimum for any kind of a just peace. Israel has no excuse for not accepting it; its refusal to even entertain the idea is proof of just how little interest Israel has in ending apartheid and making peace.

quote:

The Palestinians have been suffering for over 60 years under a brutal apartheid regime. Israelis have not. The Palestinians have already made hard concessions through their blood, their tears, their stolen lands, the daily apartheid checkpoints, the stolen billions from the Palestinian economy, etc. They've done 98 percent of the suffering; it's Israel's turn to give up its apartheid policies and make some concessions for once.

team overhead smash posted:

Just to confirm then, do you accept that Mizrahim who hold the views you set out are racist scumbags whose opinions are worthless regardless of whether it might be useful to understand why they hold these racist scumbag opinions?

quote:

Arafat in the 2000 Camp David Summit was already willing to make concessions and accept a very limited return to Israel. The only bit Israel could possibly object to is handwavey waffle specifically designed as a fig leaf for the arabs so that the refugees can be mentioned while committing Israel to nothing.

quote:

Also it's not really elevating one group's suffering arbitrarily over another's, but being capable of basic critical analysis and reasoning that the ethnic cleansing of Jews 70 years ago who were refugees for a short time, in some case days, but now live in relative comfort in a modern industrialised nation is not as important than a group of arabs being ethnically cleansed 70 years ago and then them and their descendent continuing to be refugees living in poverty who are oppressed, kill, jailed, tortured, etc for those 70 years up until the present day.

team overhead smash posted:

Counter-productive to what? Israel's slow ethnic cleansing of them? There is a massive international consensus that Israel needs to return to the the pre-1967 borders (with mutal land swaps, blahblahblahblah) and this constrains Israelis actions to a large degree. It would be foolish to get rid of that by going "actually, I guess we don't need human rights or anything, feel free to take all our land".

That of course doesn't mention that this is a massive misinterpretation. In negotiations, Palestinians haven't been arguing for a return to the status quo. The return of refugees has been planned to be small, with most of them planned to go to a newly formed Palestinian state so that Israel can maintain it's ethnic and religious purity, while in terms of the land although it's based along the 1967 borders land swaps have been agreed in principle so that Israel gets all its big settlements in return for giving the Palestinians undeveloped land. They're specifically not negotiating for a return to the "status quo anti bellum".

Dead Reckoning posted:

I guess that's technically correct, but I think a rational person can look at the situation and say that the Palestinians' irredentist demands for a return to the status quo anti bellum are counter-productive and unrealistic.

Friendly Factory posted:

Is this a thing outside Canada? I can't say I've ever heard anyone ever say this.

quote:

The only things I hear about Israel in this country are people saying Israel does bad things and the people who call the first group Nazis.

Kajeesus posted:

TIC, to where do you personally believe Palestinians should be relocated, given that they are apparently not native to Palestine?

Kim Jong Il posted:

Thanks for the paragraphs about how refugees don't deserve any sympathy. Those opinions aren't inherently racist in the sense that they're primarily motivated out of revenge, unless you also consider a good chunk of Palestinian anti-Zionism to be racist as well. The ideas are garbage, but they hold validity in the sense that they come from real emotional pain.

quote:

That's a thorny piece. There's a lot of talk about how Arafat was self contradictory on the point, but clearly it's a precondition for any peace deal. He accepted this at certain points but ultimately rejected it, and then went back and forth a few times like when in 2002 or so he asked to sign the deal when Sharon was shelling camps. I think you're giving far too generous a reading. If you read comments by the Saudis and other governments, they're clearly at least catering to an audience back home with a very different interpretation.

quote:

The flaw in what you're saying is that the ethnic cleansing of Mizrahim in fact has a direct causal link to the poor treatment of Palestinian refugees you cite. For instance, Hebron is so miserable precisely because it's meant to be punitive punishment for a pogrom. Also, by your logic, the Palestinian refugee problem could have been solved by them being given citizenship by their absorbing states, so therefore you must think the fault lies with the likes of Lebanon and Syria.

quote:

Let's distinguish from the PA and the broader anti-Zionist movement here. If you want to argue that BDS or Electronic Intifada are radical, armchair, non-representative groups I would agree with you. They argue for a maximalist position where any attempts at peacemaking are "collaborationist." My criticism is of those groups, and not genuine advocates for human rights like Odeh.

Kim Jong Il posted:

That's not what's being debated. I've argued there's a close analogy to the treatment of Palestinians and Mizrahim, and to be consistent, they're either both ethnic cleansing or neither are.

The Insect Court posted:

This is, of course, a wildly unrealistic and hyperbolic representation of the state of discussion.

Main Paineframe posted:

You're wrong, though. There's a massive difference between the expulsion of a minority population by military force, and voluntary emigration to a national home which promises a better social and economic standing, subsidies, and also pays their way. Some Mizrahi migrations were the result of ethnic cleansing, but many more weren't. (Why, it's almost as if lumping together the experiences of the Jewish populations in over 20 different countries over the course of more than four decades is dumb)

SedanChair posted:

That's nice, now the Palestinians are "irredentist." Not wanting your land to be slowly absorbed, and your people dispersed and their identity not even acknowledged, is irredentist.

Kim Jong Il posted:

Not all, just the pro-ethnic cleansing BDS movement and similar radical groups not supported by mainstream Palestinian organizations.

The Insect Court posted:

It's not uncommon. Think of the recent controversy over the Labour MP sharing an antisemitic meme on Facebook, or Helen Thomas getting in trouble for something similar a number of years ago. And those are only explicit instances, extreme anti-Zionist rhetoric occasionally implies with differing degrees of subtlety that Jews are an alien presence in Israel and it would be desirable if they were relocated.

Kim Jong Il posted:

Not all, just the pro-ethnic cleansing BDS movement and similar radical groups not supported by mainstream Palestinian organizations.

Kim Jong Il posted:

100% of the Palestinian refugees did not leave their homes involuntarily.

Kim Jong Il posted:

You're deliberately obfuscating.

Kim Jong Il posted:

You're deliberately obfuscating. 100% of the Palestinian refugees did not leave their homes involuntarily. You're intentionally maximizing Palestinian suffering and minimalizing Mizrahi suffering to suit your rhetoric.

Ultramega posted:

The antisemitic meme in question

quote:

Your argument doesn't even have anything to do with the actual picture. Ply your poo poo somewhere else.

Main Paineframe posted:

People who willingly and voluntarily choose to permanently leave their countries, with no expectation of ever coming back, typically aren't refugees and usually aren't interested in a right of return. Not too many Palestinians fall under that definition, though plenty of Mizrahi do!

Wikipedia posted:

In 1948, the country was placed under martial law, and the penalties for Zionism were increased. Courts martial were used to intimidate wealthy Jews, Jews were again dismissed from civil service, quotas were placed on university positions, Jewish businesses were boycotted (E. Black, p. 347) and Shafiq Ades (one of the most important anti-Zionist Jewish businessmen in the country) was arrested and publicly hanged for allegedly selling goods to Israel, shocking the community (Tripp, 123).

Kim Jong Il posted:

You're deliberately obfuscating. 100% of the Palestinian refugees did not leave their homes involuntarily. You're intentionally maximizing Palestinian suffering and minimalizing Mizrahi suffering to suit your rhetoric.


Not all, just the pro-ethnic cleansing BDS movement and similar radical groups not supported by mainstream Palestinian organizations.

Cugel the Clever posted:

Wait, are you saying that removing the illegal Israeli settlers from the West Bank is tantamount to ethnic cleansing? Are you advocating for a one-state solution?

Main Paineframe posted:

You're wrong, though. There's a massive difference between the expulsion of a minority population by military force, and voluntary emigration to a national home which promises a better social and economic standing, subsidies, and also pays their way. Some Mizrahi migrations were the result of ethnic cleansing, but many more weren't. (Why, it's almost as if lumping together the experiences of the Jewish populations in over 20 different countries over the course of more than four decades is dumb)

The Insect Court posted:

This is an utterly ignorant misrepresentation about the circumstances under which Mizrahi Jews emigrated to Israel. Did you miss the earlier post made about pogroms in Iraq?

A very cursory summary. Suggesting that Mizrahi merely 'voluntarily' chose to leave their home countries is as tendentiously wrong as the far right narrative that Palestinians fleeing in '48 were doing so willingly and at the urging of Arab governments.

Main Paineframe posted:

People who willingly and voluntarily choose to permanently leave their countries, with no expectation of ever coming back, typically aren't refugees and usually aren't interested in a right of return. Not too many Palestinians fall under that definition, though plenty of Mizrahi do!

The Insect Court posted:

This is an utterly ignorant misrepresentation about the circumstances under which Mizrahi Jews emigrated to Israel. Did you miss the earlier post made about pogroms in Iraq?


A very cursory summary. Suggesting that Mizrahi merely 'voluntarily' chose to leave their home countries is as tendentiously wrong as the far right narrative that Palestinians fleeing in '48 were doing so willingly and at the urging of Arab governments.

quote:

Iraqi-born Ran Cohen, a former member of the Knesset, said: "I have this to say: I am not a refugee. I came at the behest of Zionism, due to the pull that this land exerts, and due to the idea of redemption. Nobody is going to define me as a refugee." Yemeni-born Yisrael Yeshayahu, former Knesset speaker, Labor Party, stated: "We are not refugees. [Some of us] came to this country before the state was born. We had messianic aspirations." And Iraqi-born Shlomo Hillel, also a former speaker of the Knesset, Labor Party, claimed: "I do not regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists."[16]

Historian Tom Segev stated: "Deciding to emigrate to Israel was often a very personal decision. It was based on the particular circumstances of the individual's life. They were not all poor, or 'dwellers in dark caves and smoking pits'. Nor were they always subject to persecution, repression or discrimination in their native lands. They emigrated for a variety of reasons, depending on the country, the time, the community, and the person."[301][better source needed]

Iraqi-born Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, speaking of the wave of Iraqi Jewish migration to Israel, concludes that, even though Iraqi Jews were "victims of the Israeli-Arab conflict", Iraqi Jews aren't refugees, saying "nobody expelled us from Iraq, nobody told us that we were unwanted."[302] He restated that case in a review of Martin Gilbert's book, In Ishmael's House.[303]

Yehuda Shenhav has criticized the analogy between Jewish emigration from Arab countries and the Palestinian exodus. He also says "The unfounded, immoral analogy between Palestinian refugees and Mizrahi immigrants needlessly embroils members of these two groups in a dispute, degrades the dignity of many Mizrahi Jews, and harms prospects for genuine Jewish-Arab reconciliation." He has stated that "the campaign's proponents hope their efforts will prevent conferral of what is called a 'right of return' on Palestinians, and reduce the size of the compensation Israel is liable to be asked to pay in exchange for Palestinian property appropriated by the state guardian of 'lost' assets."[16]

Israeli historian Yehoshua Porath has rejected the comparison, arguing that while there is a superficial similarity, the ideological and historical significance of the two population movements are entirely different. Porath points out that the immigration of Jews from Arab countries to Israel, expelled or not, was the "fulfilment of a national dream". He also argues that the achievement of this Zionist goal was only made possible through the endeavors of the Jewish Agency's agents, teachers, and instructors working in various Arab countries since the 1930s. Porath contrasts this with the Palestinian Arabs' flight of 1948 as completely different. He describes the outcome of the Palestinian's flight as an "unwanted national calamity" that was accompanied by "unending personal tragedies". The result was "the collapse of the Palestinian community, the fragmentation of a people, and the loss of a country that had in the past been mostly Arabic-speaking and Islamic. "[304]

Platonicsolid posted:

"You're oppressing me by not letting me discriminate against gay people"

Main Paineframe posted:

Hey, I can quote Wikipedia too.

quote:

People who willingly and voluntarily choose to permanently leave their countries, with no expectation of ever coming back, typically aren't refugees and usually aren't interested in a right of return.

Dabir posted:

You know she got that from Norman Finkelstein's website, right? And he put it there cause someone sent it to him and he thought it was hilarious.

Secular Humanist posted:

Reminiscent of Muslims who cry "Islamophobia" when you criticize the shockingly high levels of homophobia within so many Muslim populations (including Palestine).

Secular Humanist posted:

Reminiscent of Muslims who cry "Islamophobia" when you criticize the shockingly high levels of homophobia within so many Muslim populations (including Palestine).

Svartvit posted:

As someone who often complains about homophobia in Muslim countries, I have yet to be called Islamophobe by anyone. When does this happen?

The Insect Court posted:

Yes, I can see you quoting a number of left and New Historian scholars expressing a particular perspective on Jewish emigration from Arab countries to Israel. I can also see you moving the goalposts. You're quoting sources that object to equating Palestinian refugees from Mandatory Palestine in 1948 with the Jewish exodus from countries like Iraq and Yemen and Egypt. But that's not what was being argued.

You can't simply deny the historical reality of anti-Jewish violence and discrimination in the 40s and 50s or the role it played in Mizrahi immigration to Israel. Argue that it wasn't a simple historical equivalent to the expulsion of Palestinians if you like(although I don't know who you'd be arguing that against since I wouldn't disagree), but don't pretend it didn't happen by portraying Mizrahi refugees as a bunch of people who just decided all of a sudden they needed a change of scenery.

TROIKA CURES GREEK posted:

Gee I wonder why Jewish persons would be quick to leave a country where it looks like they are about to be targeted. Seriously? "Well they didn't wait to be actually be ethnically cleansed/ murdered, therefor..." Come on, you're probably smarter than this. It would be like saying any early Jewish refugees from Germany who saw the writing on the wall should have been turned around (in fact many were) because technically it wasn't ethnic cleansing / genocide until year blah blah.

By this logic any syrian refugee who wasn't directly targeted isn't technically a refugee. That seems disgusting but maybe I'm wrong? I have to imagine you know drat well why Jewish people left those countries and you are just being intellectually dishonest.

The Insect Court posted:

If you don't think a "joke" about ethnically cleansing Israeli Jews doesn't qualify, I don't know what conceivably could. Would you consider a sincere call to relocate them to the US antisemitic, at least?

emanresu tnuocca posted:

Meanwhile Sarah Netanyahu's trial concerning allegations of using public funds for private expenses and being abusive towards state employees is still on going, so to celebrate that occasion I present to you this photoshop I made of Sarah as Nero eating pistachio ice cream with Rome burning in the background.

quote:

Pistachio, it was revealed by the proprietors of a gourmet ice cream parlor a couple of blocks from the premier’s official residence, is his favorite (presumably not made with an Iranian variety of the nut). Mrs. Netanyahu, they said, appears to prefer French vanilla.

Ultramega posted:

Why do you have such a stick up your rear end about all of this? What's more illustrative of current trends? The fact that hardons like you literally, cannot take a joke about The Jewish State™ and your and KJI's axiomatic position of "anti-israeli sentiment is de facto anti-semitism" comes off in ways you might not intend. I'm not trying to backpedal in any way by constantly bringing up the fact that the image you're crying about was a tongue-in-cheek joke, but can you at least not treat it like she posted a picture of a heap of dead holocaust victims with party hats photoshopped on them or something actually worth being outraged about?

OH also, Emmanresu Tnuocca love that pic plus I hope bibi gets locked up.

Main Paineframe posted: