Deep Hatred of Black People in Israel

[Thumpalumpacus]

Thumpa

As I see it, you are asserting that, in the Israel/Palestine conflict, both sides are equally culpable.

I see that as wrong, for the simple reason that the Jewish people never had their homeland stolen from them. Also because, in the existing conflict, Israel has the power, and is inflicting far more damage and far more deaths on the Palestinians than vice versa.

Your argument is like saying that a school bully is not in the wrong because his victim had the temerity to hit back.

What, then, is this Diaspora I keep hearing about? I mean, if you have a cutoff date for which tragedies can be rightfully avenged, and which must be suffered in silence, I'm all ears. Because if we go back long enough in history, every group has a "right" to kill someone else.

Claiming moral ascendancy for either side, when both kill civilians, is retarded. You can try to justify murders all you like, but at the end of the day, it's your moral sense that is debased by such effort. You're actually making the very same mistake the Israelis made at the beginning of their nationhood ... justifying current barbarities based on past barbarities.

Finally, your insinuating that I'm absolving anyone in that mess of moral responsibility is clearly incorrect. I have not said that anyone is not wrong; indeed, I have explicitly stated that both are guilty.

Please quit misstating my position. When you must resort to strawmen, it's a pretty good sign your point is wrong.

As to the history BG is right in respect of the timeline, however it is worth remembering that even as late as the 1940s the borders and identities of the nation states were not established in that neck of the woods. Indeed it was the French and the British who more or less arbitrarily drew lines on the map to define them. When the Jews sequestered the country we now call Israel it was inhabited mostly by generic Arab people, many of whom lived broadly across that part of the Middle East and many of whom were only slowly beginning to settle after generations of living a nomadic lifestyle.

My impatience with apologetics on either side of this tragedy sometimes gets the best of me, and I apologize for this miniature rant. But justifying the deaths of more innocents based on the fact that innocents were previously killed is stupid, and I have little regard for simpletons who think that it's okay to kill someone simply because of the blood that flows through their veins.

[Blind groper]

if you have a cutoff date for which tragedies can be rightfully avenged, and which must be suffered in silence, I'm all ears. Because if we go back long enough in history, every group has a "right" to kill someone else.

You suggested I used a straw man argument. This is one from you.

I have not asserted any 'right to revenge'. My personal view is that revenge is an action that makes matters worse. My view, though, is that there is a duty to try to fix the mess Israel/Palestine is in, and that duty falls primarily on the government of Israel, supported by American and Britain, since they created the mess in the first place. Revenge, no. Fixing the problem, yes.

The problem will not be fixed by persecuting the Palestinians. Even if the hot heads inside Palestine fire the odd ineffective rocket at Israel, retaliating with violence is not the answer. The answer is to seriously address the real issues. This will require Israel to give up those lands it acquired by military conquest, and expanding the borders of the Palestinian territories, and giving them independence, with aid from Israel, America and Britain to help a new country get onto its feet.

Violence, no. Support, yes.

[Thumpalumpacus]

What, then, did you mean by this passage, if not that the recency of the injury done to Palestinians makes the murders they commit more acceptable?

The Jewish people were evicted from their homeland in the 6th century by the Romans. There followed a 1500 year period in which an Arabic people lived there and made it their home. In the mean time, the Jews made homes for themselves in many different places. Then in World War II, Britain and the USA evicted large numbers of the Palestinians, driving them out to become refugees, and thus stealing their homeland from them, to give it back to the Jews. And it was outright and unjustifiable theft.

My view is that, after 1500 years, it was not the Jews home any more. Mind you, after another 65 years, Israel is now a Jewish country and several generations have known no other home. So we cannot ethically ask the Jews to leave either.

[...]

However, my sympathies are stronger for the Palestinians. They have been, and continue to be, abominably treated by Israel. They have, quite understandably, an organisation(s) to fight back, which others call terrorist. But for every atrocity committed against Israel, atrocities ten times as bad are committed by Israel against the Palestinians.

Simply totting up body-counts makes morality an exercise in mathematics, too.

[Svartalf]

None of those other countries claim to be holier than thou, a shining light onto other nations, and committing genocide against Arabs and discrimination to high Hell against blacks and all the while shouting non-sense about all non-Jews being evil because of something that happened before they were even born.

Why are you describing my country as if I were one of those dirty, money grubbing Jews who should have been purified out of Aryan Europe if those useless kroutfresser were any use?

[Svartalf]

Everybody hates niggers

I used to work with this Cambodian dude. Cool guy, very funny. He took a lot of shit in this country because he was Asian, suffered a lot of abuse. Still, he was positive and optimistic. Why? "At least I'm not a nigger, "he said. "Niggers are the lowest of the low. Even in my country everyone hates niggers. I may be a gook, but it's one thing we all have in common. Everyone everywhere hates niggers. Right, Dave?"

On another forum, there's this guy who claims to be half white, half viet and to have been a Marine.
He once told a story of having been dragged to an all black club in Detroit by fellow (black) Marines, where he committed the mistake of getting too friendly with one of the girls... the anti miscegenation posse (sic) comes up and tells him to tone it down, calling him a cracker, at which he retorted that he was a gook, at which point he says the lunching mob actually started trying to do him in and that he owed his life only to the other Marines diving him and extracting him.

No idea how truthful the story is... but it looks representative of something relevant to the subject at hand.

[Svartalf]

But for every atrocity committed against Israel, atrocities ten times as bad are committed by Israel against the Palestinians.

Well, that makes everything okay, then.

No. You can't really blame them for preferring to be hammers rather than nails though.

I don't know about snails, but they ain't no condors, more like common vultures.

[Blind groper]

if not that the recency of the injury done to Palestinians makes the murders they commit more acceptable?

Murders are not acceptable by anyone. Nor have I said they were. My statement was that I have more sympathy for the Palestinians because they are the ones most sinned against.

A great wrong was committed in the formation of Israel as a Jewish state. In 1944, it was an Arab country, populated by Palestinians. They did nothing wrong, yet their homeland was stolen off them. The crime was committed primarily by the Jews who immigrated to Israel, plus America and Britain. So that means those states have the duty to work towards repairing the damage.

Do you deny the wrong? Do you deny that those who committed that wrong are morally duty bound to try to fix it?

[Xamonas Chegwé]

if not that the recency of the injury done to Palestinians makes the murders they commit more acceptable?

Murders are not acceptable by anyone. Nor have I said they were. My statement was that I have more sympathy for the Palestinians because they are the ones most sinned against.

A great wrong was committed in the formation of Israel as a Jewish state. In 1944, it was an Arab country, populated by Palestinians. They did nothing wrong, yet their homeland was stolen off them. The crime was committed primarily by the Jews who immigrated to Israel, plus America and Britain. So that means those states have the duty to work towards repairing the damage.

Do you deny the wrong? Do you deny that those who committed that wrong are morally duty bound to try to fix it?

By your own admission in the quoted post, your entire argument rests on the fact that YOU consider the Palestinians to be "the ones most sinned against". This can only ever be a subjective opinion. It can therefore be dismissed as irrelevant by anyone with the opposite (also subjective) opinion, or by someone (such as myself) that holds (admittedly also subjectively) that neither side has the moral highground in this dispute. It just comes down to a childish argument of "You started it!" versus "No, you did!"

The Israel/Palestine dispute was ever thus - many centuries before the creation of the state of Israel.

As Thump already said, NO-ONE is in the right here. And neither side will ever become so unless they are the one to bear the olive branch and unilaterally refuse to retaliate to any aggression while offering reasonable compromise at every turn.

I am not holding my breath...

[Blind groper]

Xamonas

You are correct that little is happening and little is likely to happen as long as the people involved, on both sides, refuse to compromise.

However, I am not prepared to accept a people who had their country literally stolen from them, for no fault of their own, makes them as much to blame.

If a gang of thugs walked up to your home, stuck a shotgun barrel in your face, and told you to get out because they were stealing your home, and if there was no support for you from police, you would probably walk only as far as to where you could get weapons, before returning to open fire. That is essentially what happened to the Palestinians, and that is how a bunch of them responded. Of course, that means they are called "terrorist".

[Xamonas Chegwé]

Xamonas

You are correct that little is happening and little is likely to happen as long as the people involved, on both sides, refuse to compromise.

However, I am not prepared to accept a people who had their country literally stolen from them, for no fault of their own, makes them as much to blame.

If a gang of thugs walked up to your home, stuck a shotgun barrel in your face, and told you to get out because they were stealing your home, and if there was no support for you from police, you would probably walk only as far as to where you could get weapons, before returning to open fire. That is essentially what happened to the Palestinians, and that is how a bunch of them responded. Of course, that means they are called "terrorist".

You have quite the Hobbesian view of mankind if that is the only reaction you could envisage for your little scenario.

However, that is nothing but a smokescreen. You are seizing a single incident and claiming that it trumps all others and that, therefore, "the Palestinians are the ones most sinned against".

Circular argument is circular. You keep referring back to your initial assertion of unequal blame. When an advocate of Israel cites the holocaust and the historic expulsion of Jews from Palestine in exactly the same manner, you dismiss it. From my rather neutral standpoint, you are both wrong and two (raised to any power) wrongs will never make a right.

Come up with something a little more original if you can. Value judgment of the comparative sins of two (somewhat vaguely defined) "races" is not going to sway me.

[Blind groper]

Xamonas

Let me get this straight. Are you suggesting that the original expulsion of Jews back in the 6th century somehow justifies the expulsion of the Palestinians in the 20th century?

[Robert_S]

*waits for CES*

[Svartalf]

Nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

[Thumpalumpacus]

if not that the recency of the injury done to Palestinians makes the murders they commit more acceptable?

Murders are not acceptable by anyone. Nor have I said they were. My statement was that I have more sympathy for the Palestinians because they are the ones most sinned against.

A great wrong was committed in the formation of Israel as a Jewish state. In 1944, it was an Arab country, populated by Palestinians. They did nothing wrong, yet their homeland was stolen off them. The crime was committed primarily by the Jews who immigrated to Israel, plus America and Britain. So that means those states have the duty to work towards repairing the damage.

You seem to be ignoring the League of Nations and its work to set up a Zionist advisory body, which rather dilutes responsibility, it seems to me. You've also ignored my points made upthread about the actions taken by other nations in regards to the repression of the indigenous Palestinians.

Do you deny the wrong?

I have at least twice in this thread pointed out that both sides have committed wrongs. Clearly I don't think one side is pure. And one of those wrongs is the act of dispossessing innocents of their land.

Do you deny that those who committed that wrong are morally duty bound to try to fix it?

Obviously not. In case you haven't figured it out by now, I'm disagreeing with your overly narrow assignation of responsibility here. It's my opinion that your narrow assignation of blame is colored by your personal biases and therefore not worth much of my attention, except to hope to point out the narrowness of your analysis.

I will confess waning hope at you seeing my point, because of past experience with you. Once you've decided your views, you cling to them even in the face of contradiction by hard data ... but perhaps you'll give my point a fair shake before dismissing it.

[Thumpalumpacus]

Xamonas

Let me get this straight. Are you suggesting that the original expulsion of Jews back in the 6th century somehow justifies the expulsion of the Palestinians in the 20th century?

Are you suggesting that there is an acceptable time-limit to addressing past injustices, despite your disclaimer upthread?