In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
* (a) Killing members of the group;
* (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
* (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
* (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
* (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.
So, Israel is only three for five (that I know of, anyhow).
And Palestinian Terror groups could ALSO be accused of the top three.
Right, but one of those groups is--as you put it--"a minority of a minority." The other is an elected government of a state.
You mean Hamas?
Palestine isn't a state.
And that makes it okay?
I didn't see the part of your definition that said "the perpetrator must be a state".
It makes it okay in the same way that some completely ineffective rocket attacks from people being starved into complacency make ethnic cleansing and apartheid okay.
Hamas rhetoric definitely disagrees with what you are saying. Go read their charter.
This is the democratically elected leadership of the Palestinian people, and their charter contains three different references to Jews secretly controlling the world through the Freemasons, the Lions Club, and Rotary Clubs.
The charter is a fucking bullshit excuse and I'm tired of people referring me to it.
Yes, I've read it and yes, it's anti-semitic, but it was also written in 19-fucking-88. I don't like Hamas, but their leadership has changed since then, and from what I can tell they have many more moderates who don't buy into the conspiracy theory bullshit. Most Hamas politicians, at this point, care more about realizing the Palestinian aspirations for national statehood than they do about wiping the Jews off the face of the planet.
edit: Not that they ever did want to wipe the Jews off the planet. The charter calls for the end of the Israeli state, no more, no less. It employs disgusting stereotypes and tin-foil shit to get that point across, but if you're reading at all closely you'll see that Hamas doesn't want to kill off the Jews, they just want them to go away.
for everyone who wants to claim that if you support Israel, you automatically support Genocide
See, by campaigning against the policies of the Israeli government, they are not really supporting Israel. They like it as a nation I'm sure, but are not backing those policies that many people have problems with. We know that not all Israelis are warmongering bastards like some of their top politicians are.
Didn't we do this false parallelism dance last year when the Israeli military was killing Palestinian civilians by a 1000:1 ratio (Palestinians killed by the Israeli military to Israelis killed by Hamas rockets)?
Hamas rhetoric definitely disagrees with what you are saying. Go read their charter.
This is the democratically elected leadership of the Palestinian people, and their charter contains three different references to Jews secretly controlling the world through the Freemasons, the Lions Club, and Rotary Clubs.
The charter is a fucking bullshit excuse and I'm tired of people referring me to it.
Yes, I've read it and yes, it's anti-semitic, but it was also written in 19-fucking-88. I don't like Hamas, but their leadership has changed since then, and from what I can tell they have many more moderates who don't buy into the conspiracy theory bullshit. Most Hamas politicians, at this point, care more about realizing the Palestinian aspirations for national statehood than they do about wiping the Jews off the face of the planet.
edit: Not that they ever did want to wipe the Jews off the planet. The charter calls for the end of the Israeli state, no more, no less. It employs disgusting stereotypes and tin-foil shit to get that point across, but if you're reading at all closely you'll see that Hamas doesn't want to kill off the Jews, they just want them to go away.
Hamas targets civilians, and you are trying to paint them as kinder/gentler?
for everyone who wants to claim that if you support Israel, you automatically support Genocide
See, by campaigning against the policies of the Israeli government, they are not really supporting Israel. They like it as a nation I'm sure, but are not backing those policies that many people have problems with. We know that not all Israelis are warmongering bastards like some of their top politicians are.
Excuse me?
Are you HONESTLY claiming that in order to support a nation you must support whatever it's current actions are?
Does that mean that I was anti-American for opposing the Iraqi war?
Hamas doesn't want to kill off the Jews, they just want them to go away.
Heh, yeah, this all does get kind of ridiculous at a point.
"Guys, guys, Israel/Hamas doesn't want to ruthlessly kill off the Palestinains/Israelis, they just want kill a lot of them, deny them their national aspirations and drive them off the land they consider their home! Can't you appreciate the difference?"
I have a story that talks both about how Israel's policies are akin to apartheid and how criticizing those policies will get you into political trouble here in the US as you are called an anti-semite and people are forced to distance themselves from you.
So Desmond Tutu visited Israel a while back which prompted him to give a speech. In the speech he talks about how the palestinians are forced to live in a system not terribly unlike apartheid. Fast forward to this past May when he was planning to be the commencement speaker for the MSU class of 2009. A shitstorm ensued in the papers with the ADL and other organizations campaigning to have Desmond Tutu banned from speaking because of his criticism of Israel's policies.
Hamas rhetoric definitely disagrees with what you are saying. Go read their charter.
This is the democratically elected leadership of the Palestinian people, and their charter contains three different references to Jews secretly controlling the world through the Freemasons, the Lions Club, and Rotary Clubs.
The charter is a fucking bullshit excuse and I'm tired of people referring me to it.
Yes, I've read it and yes, it's anti-semitic, but it was also written in 19-fucking-88. I don't like Hamas, but their leadership has changed since then, and from what I can tell they have many more moderates who don't buy into the conspiracy theory bullshit. Most Hamas politicians, at this point, care more about realizing the Palestinian aspirations for national statehood than they do about wiping the Jews off the face of the planet.
edit: Not that they ever did want to wipe the Jews off the planet. The charter calls for the end of the Israeli state, no more, no less. It employs disgusting stereotypes and tin-foil shit to get that point across, but if you're reading at all closely you'll see that Hamas doesn't want to kill off the Jews, they just want them to go away.
Hamas targets civilians, and you are trying to paint them as kinder/gentler?
The Israeli military doesn't officially target civilians, but somehow they end up killing far more civilians than Hamas could ever dream of killing. Oh yeah, right, Hamas has safehouses amongst civilians, so it's excusable. I mean, it's not as if Israel prohibits Palestinians from raising armed forces which can be conveniently placed in bases away from civilian populations, thereby reducing civilian casualties when Israel decides to invade and go on a Hamas hunt.
for everyone who wants to claim that if you support Israel, you automatically support Genocide
See, by campaigning against the policies of the Israeli government, they are not really supporting Israel. They like it as a nation I'm sure, but are not backing those policies that many people have problems with. We know that not all Israelis are warmongering bastards like some of their top politicians are.
Excuse me?
Are you HONESTLY claiming that in order to support a nation you must support whatever it's current actions are?
Does that mean that I was anti-American for opposing the Iraqi war?
Wat. My hat is on my desk. It is not being supported by my head. I am not anti-hat.
Hamas targets civilians, and you are trying to paint them as kinder/gentler?
Nah. I'm just saying that the charter doesn't really accurately represent their leadership's ideas anymore, and that people need to realize that Hamas is now a political group with national aspirations. By becoming the political majority leadership of Gaza, they've swallowed up a lot of moderates into their cause, and now more than ever they want a Palestinian state, not genocide of the Jewish people.
Of course, they've retained their terrorist wing and are saturated with murderous thugs who want to ethnically cleanse the Jews from the Holy Land, so I still don't like them. Still, calling them genocidal is about as fair as calling the Israelis genocidal.
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
Hamas doesn't want to kill off the Jews, they just want them to go away.
One could say they want to cleanse the area of a particular ethnic group.
I'm comfortable with the comparison between both the Palestinian authority and the Israeli government. You can bet that if Hamas had the military power of the US backing them they'd be just as assholish as Israel.
What I'm uncomfortable with is the fact that one is declared a Terrorist organization and the other is not. Also, the very point of this thread, which Evander is nailing home, that criticism of Israel rewards the person with being called an anti-Semite.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
What I'm uncomfortable with is the fact that one is declared a Terrorist organization and the other is not. Also, the very point of this thread, which Evander is nailing home, that criticism of Israel rewards the person with being called an anti-Semite.
All retaliatory action aside, generally the ones being called "terrorists" are the one instigating violence against civilians. The rest after that, for either side, is just collateral.
Blowing up foreign-run military base in your country because they are oppressing you != "terrorist"
Blowing up McDonalds because of their pro-Western affiliations = "terrorist"
Firing random rockets into foreign country to kill whoever they hit because you're pissed off about a turf war and religious stuff = "terrorist."
Bottom line of all of this? Religion is for morons, no matter who you worship.
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Nova_CI have the needThe need for speedRegistered Userregular
What I'm uncomfortable with is the fact that one is declared a Terrorist organization and the other is not. Also, the very point of this thread, which Evander is nailing home, that criticism of Israel rewards the person with being called an anti-Semite.
All retaliatory action aside, generally the ones being called "terrorists" are the one instigating violence against civilians. The rest after that, for either side, is just collateral.
Blowing up foreign-run military base in your country because they are oppressing you != "terrorist"
Blowing up McDonalds because of their pro-Western affiliations = "terrorist"
Firing random rockets into foreign country to kill whoever they hit because you're pissed off about a turf war and religious stuff = "terrorist."
Bottom line of all of this? Religion is for morons, no matter who you worship.
Hezbollah kidnapped a soldier, so Israel attacked Lebanese cities. As far as I'm concerned that counts.
I am also pretty comfortable in saying that both parties are total assholes and that anyone who supports their policies or labels someone who disagrees with those policies a racist is also an asshole.
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AtomikaLive fast and get fucked or whateverRegistered Userregular
I am also pretty comfortable in saying that both parties are total assholes and that anyone who supports their policies or labels someone who disagrees with those policies a racist is also an asshole.
Eh, pretty much. I'd like to say I'd support Israel because they're generally more civil, but they too are fighting for religious reasons, so I feel that both sides are just reaping what they sow. Gentility fighting for stupid shit really isn't all that different from the indigent, so I can't say I really care all that much.
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KageraImitating the worst people. Since 2004Registered Userregular
I would say the two groups should find peace by teaming up against the real antagonists, Britain, but one would probably take England and the other Ireland and we'd be right where we started.
Hamas targets civilians, and you are trying to paint them as kinder/gentler?
Nah. I'm just saying that the charter doesn't really accurately represent their leadership's ideas anymore, and that people need to realize that Hamas is now a political group with national aspirations. By becoming the political majority leadership of Gaza, they've swallowed up a lot of moderates into their cause, and now more than ever they want a Palestinian state, not genocide of the Jewish people.
Of course, they've retained their terrorist wing and are saturated with murderous thugs who want to ethnically cleanse the Jews from the Holy Land, so I still don't like them. Still, calling them genocidal is about as fair as calling the Israelis genocidal.
If that is the case then I look forward to a revision in their charter.
I've said this before, but if your basic founding document advocates the annihilation of your enemy... well lets just say negotiations are going to be difficult.
Its like if the US constitution had "our people, united in the desire to destroy England". I think the English probably would have remained somewhat wary of the new American nation... even after the battle for independance and American overtures for peace.
for everyone who wants to claim that if you support Israel, you automatically support Genocide
See, by campaigning against the policies of the Israeli government, they are not really supporting Israel. They like it as a nation I'm sure, but are not backing those policies that many people have problems with. We know that not all Israelis are warmongering bastards like some of their top politicians are.
Excuse me?
Are you HONESTLY claiming that in order to support a nation you must support whatever it's current actions are?
Does that mean that I was anti-American for opposing the Iraqi war?
Well part of the topic of this thread is how ridiculous it is to call people anti _____ for stupid reasons. Are you anti-american for opposing the Iraq war? No, although a great many conservative politicians and pundits would have said that you were at the time. Being critical of something does not mean you are "anti", which I guess means fundamentally against that thing.
The opposite is also true. Do you support the troops? Well if not you're anti-American. This works because "support" in that context is a word without meaning; its only purpose is to stifle criticism by equating any criticism with opposition to your own country. Support in my mind means actually doing something to assist. For an political group like the one you listed, "supporting" the Israeli government would mean campaigning for them, fundraising, helping with public relations etc. They don't, they actually campaign against current and past Israeli policy. This means that they do not support the Israeli government in the literal sense.
"Supporting Israel" and being "Anti-Israeli" (or Anti-Semetic) is all about lumping people into these groups that are polar opposites. Agreeing with Israeli policy is not "supporting" them, and disagreeing is not being "anti-Israeli" or "anti-semetic". Virtually everyone is in a grey area in between because the issues are so complex; which is why its politically convenient to lump people into these groups in the first place.
for everyone who wants to claim that if you support Israel, you automatically support Genocide
See, by campaigning against the policies of the Israeli government, they are not really supporting Israel. They like it as a nation I'm sure, but are not backing those policies that many people have problems with. We know that not all Israelis are warmongering bastards like some of their top politicians are.
Excuse me?
Are you HONESTLY claiming that in order to support a nation you must support whatever it's current actions are?
Does that mean that I was anti-American for opposing the Iraqi war?
You were anti-American Government, sure.
I mean, you opposed certain policies of the current government, so at that point yeah, you were 'anti-american government'.
I guess the real issue here is that people are assuming Israeli Government==Israel==Jew, and different people are using different words interchangeably where, arguably, they are three distinct concepts or entities (eg, there are Christian Israelis, there are Israelis who didn't vote for their current government, there are Jews who are not Israeli citizens).
And I guess(?) this is the point that Thanatos was trying to get at to begin with. I can be anti-Israeli government without being a Jew-hater. I can be anti-Jewish-American lobbyists without being anti-semitic. I could personally hate you but be a card carrying member of the ADL. But there is a perception that criticising any actions of a Jew, Israel, the Israeli government etc. will be immediately jumped on as anti-semitic and, whether intentionally or not, suffocate any opportunity for reasonable criticism or debate.
I personally have no idea whether that perception is based on reality or not, although I did note that by page 2 you had decided to brand Thanatos anti-semitic which certainly doesn't do a lot to counter said perceptions.
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ShockwaveBack In BlackOntario, CanadaRegistered Userregular
Hamas targets civilians, and you are trying to paint them as kinder/gentler?
Nah. I'm just saying that the charter doesn't really accurately represent their leadership's ideas anymore, and that people need to realize that Hamas is now a political group with national aspirations. By becoming the political majority leadership of Gaza, they've swallowed up a lot of moderates into their cause, and now more than ever they want a Palestinian state, not genocide of the Jewish people.
Of course, they've retained their terrorist wing and are saturated with murderous thugs who want to ethnically cleanse the Jews from the Holy Land, so I still don't like them. Still, calling them genocidal is about as fair as calling the Israelis genocidal.
If that is the case then I look forward to a revision in their charter.
I've said this before, but if your basic founding document advocates the annihilation of your enemy... well lets just say negotiations are going to be difficult.
Its like if the US constitution had "our people, united in the desire to destroy England". I think the English probably would have remained somewhat wary of the new American nation... even after the battle for independance and American overtures for peace.
The Israeli charter calls for Israel to be a Jewish nation, which Israel's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs has decided means expelling all Arabs. Why isn't anyone calling them for warmongering for that?
"Rather than texts assailing the Jews, as in the current charter,' said Tamimi, 'The whole language [in the new document] will be changed to political language. All that nonsense about The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and conspiracy theories - all that rubbish will be out. It should have never been there in the first place.'"
"Some Hamas leaders in the territories said they didn't know that the charter took viciously anti-Jewish positions.
"'The charter doesn't speak about the Jews,' insisted Jamila Shanty as she sat behind a desk at the Emad Aqel Women's center she runs in Jabalya. The professor of psychology at the Islamic University is No. 3 on the Hamas list, making her the faction's highest-ranking woman. 'It says we don't have a problem with the Jews,' she told the Post. 'Our problem is with the Israelis who took our land.'
"Abu Rukbeh, whose deeply wrinkled face makes him appear much older than his 45 years, also insisted that the charter did not speak of Jews, only Israelis. 'There is a difference between Jews and Israelis and one must differentiate between the two,' he said."
So why hasn't Hamas revised the charter yet? I dunno. Probably not politically expedient to do so. Maybe they like having it as a huge middle finger to Israel. Or maybe they don't want to look like they are caving to Israel/Western demands (or preconditions), and will revise it when they can do so from a position of political strength.
Once again, Hamas has evolved pretty drastically since it began as a tiny, anti-Semitic, radical Islam cabal in the 1980s. It is now a majority political party, and like most majority political parties it has drifted pretty far to the center (by Palestinian standards) as moderates have joined the cause. I can't deny the charter's existence—or its rampant, tin-foil-hat anti-Semitism—but from what I can see most Hamas leaders now characterize themselves as anti-Zionist and anti-Israel, not anti-Semitic and anti-Jew.
If you want a more up-to-date look at what the Hamas leadership thinks, you should check out the political platform for the 2006 election. People seem to pay a lot less attention to it than they do the Hamas charter, probably because the 2006 election platform makes Hamas seem like *gasp* rational political agents.
If you want a more up-to-date look at what the Hamas leadership thinks, you should check out the political platform for the 2006 election. People seem to pay a lot less attention to it than they do the Hamas charter, probably because the 2006 election platform makes Hamas seem like *gasp* rational political agents.
Probably because people have a hard time trusting a terrorist organization. I mean seriously, if al-Qaeda won elections in Afghanistan and released a decent platform, would you believe a word of it?
If you want a more up-to-date look at what the Hamas leadership thinks, you should check out the political platform for the 2006 election. People seem to pay a lot less attention to it than they do the Hamas charter, probably because the 2006 election platform makes Hamas seem like *gasp* rational political agents.
Probably because people have a hard time trusting a terrorist organization. I mean seriously, if al-Qaeda won elections in Afghanistan and released a decent platform, would you believe a word of it?
Probably. We can be cynical and say campaign promises are meant to be broken, but the fact remains that transforming a terrorist organization into a political organization changes its leadership dynamic pretty drastically (PARTICULARLY if said political organization is working within a democratic system where it needs to actively court moderates). I imagine that this is the reason that al-Qaeda explicitly avoids politics—so that it can continue to operate freely as a terrorist organization with a fringe leadership.
People forget that the PLO was once a terrorist organization with an aggressive charter. Ditto for Sinn Féin and the African National Congress.
If you want a more up-to-date look at what the Hamas leadership thinks, you should check out the political platform for the 2006 election. People seem to pay a lot less attention to it than they do the Hamas charter, probably because the 2006 election platform makes Hamas seem like *gasp* rational political agents.
Probably because people have a hard time trusting a terrorist organization. I mean seriously, if al-Qaeda won elections in Afghanistan and released a decent platform, would you believe a word of it?
Probably. We can be cynical and say campaign promises are meant to be broken, but the fact remains that transforming a terrorist organization into a political organization changes its leadership dynamic pretty drastically (PARTICULARLY if said political organization is working within a democratic system where it needs to actively court moderates). I imagine that this is the reason that al-Qaeda explicitly avoids politics—so that it can continue to operate freely as a terrorist organization with a fringe leadership.
Or that Israel was founded in part by terrorist organizations like Irgun and the Stern Gang who "encouraged" Palestinians to leave what was becoming Israel.
"Rather than texts assailing the Jews, as in the current charter,' said Tamimi, 'The whole language [in the new document] will be changed to political language. All that nonsense about The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and conspiracy theories - all that rubbish will be out. It should have never been there in the first place.'"
"Some Hamas leaders in the territories said they didn't know that the charter took viciously anti-Jewish positions.
"'The charter doesn't speak about the Jews,' insisted Jamila Shanty as she sat behind a desk at the Emad Aqel Women's center she runs in Jabalya. The professor of psychology at the Islamic University is No. 3 on the Hamas list, making her the faction's highest-ranking woman. 'It says we don't have a problem with the Jews,' she told the Post. 'Our problem is with the Israelis who took our land.'
"Abu Rukbeh, whose deeply wrinkled face makes him appear much older than his 45 years, also insisted that the charter did not speak of Jews, only Israelis. 'There is a difference between Jews and Israelis and one must differentiate between the two,' he said."
So why hasn't Hamas revised the charter yet? I dunno. Probably not politically expedient to do so. Maybe they like having it as a huge middle finger to Israel. Or maybe they don't want to look like they are caving to Israel/Western demands (or preconditions), and will revise it when they can do so from a position of political strength.
Once again, Hamas has evolved pretty drastically since it began as a tiny, anti-Semitic, radical Islam cabal in the 1980s. It is now a majority political party, and like most majority political parties it has drifted pretty far to the center (by Palestinian standards) as moderates have joined the cause. I can't deny the charter's existence—or its rampant, tin-foil-hat anti-Semitism—but from what I can see most Hamas leaders now characterize themselves as anti-Zionist and anti-Israel, not anti-Semitic and anti-Jew.
If you want a more up-to-date look at what the Hamas leadership thinks, you should check out the political platform for the 2006 election. People seem to pay a lot less attention to it than they do the Hamas charter, probably because the 2006 election platform makes Hamas seem like *gasp* rational political agents.
I have no doubts that Hamas acts rationally. But it's sort of silly to scream and yell about Israel killing Palestinian civilians while Hamas kills civilians as well (Israel's as well as their own). There is a balance here and neither side is blameless.
Anyway, a key factor in understanding why Israelis feel that attacking Israel is equal to attacking Jews in general is that Israelis, by and large, believe that the Holocaust would not have happened if there had been a country where Jews could have gone. Remember that the US and other nations turned away Jewish refugees before the mass killings began; those Jews went back to Europe and to their deaths. Had Israel existed then, the thinking goes, then the Holocaust would have never happened.
Therefore, the struggle for Israel's existence is inextricably linked to the struggle for Jewish existence worldwide. They are ensuring that there will never be another Holocaust, that there will always be a safe place for Jews to live no matter what happens elsewhere.
Furthermore, some Jews believe that the land of Israel was promised to them in the Bible. The exact boundaries of Greater Israel are hard to pin down; there extended vast distances during David's reign (it included parts of Iraq) but are generally accepted to be smaller today. Unfortunately, many Muslims feel the same way about that land (it's one of their holiest areas) so some of the conflict is as much about Theography as secular Geography.
This is not to excuse Israel's many sins, far from it. But I think that the vilification of Israel in this thread, including accusations of genocide, is a bit much. Israelis don't want to kill all Palestinians any more than the Palestinians want to kill all Israelis. In the end, both sides want freedom from this conflict and peace. Unfortunately, the devil's in the details and the contours of the peace desired by both sides differ significantly, sparking and perpetuating the conflict.
"Rather than texts assailing the Jews, as in the current charter,' said Tamimi, 'The whole language [in the new document] will be changed to political language. All that nonsense about The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and conspiracy theories - all that rubbish will be out. It should have never been there in the first place.'"
"Some Hamas leaders in the territories said they didn't know that the charter took viciously anti-Jewish positions.
"'The charter doesn't speak about the Jews,' insisted Jamila Shanty as she sat behind a desk at the Emad Aqel Women's center she runs in Jabalya. The professor of psychology at the Islamic University is No. 3 on the Hamas list, making her the faction's highest-ranking woman. 'It says we don't have a problem with the Jews,' she told the Post. 'Our problem is with the Israelis who took our land.'
"Abu Rukbeh, whose deeply wrinkled face makes him appear much older than his 45 years, also insisted that the charter did not speak of Jews, only Israelis. 'There is a difference between Jews and Israelis and one must differentiate between the two,' he said."
So why hasn't Hamas revised the charter yet? I dunno. Probably not politically expedient to do so. Maybe they like having it as a huge middle finger to Israel. Or maybe they don't want to look like they are caving to Israel/Western demands (or preconditions), and will revise it when they can do so from a position of political strength.
Once again, Hamas has evolved pretty drastically since it began as a tiny, anti-Semitic, radical Islam cabal in the 1980s. It is now a majority political party, and like most majority political parties it has drifted pretty far to the center (by Palestinian standards) as moderates have joined the cause. I can't deny the charter's existence—or its rampant, tin-foil-hat anti-Semitism—but from what I can see most Hamas leaders now characterize themselves as anti-Zionist and anti-Israel, not anti-Semitic and anti-Jew.
If you want a more up-to-date look at what the Hamas leadership thinks, you should check out the political platform for the 2006 election. People seem to pay a lot less attention to it than they do the Hamas charter, probably because the 2006 election platform makes Hamas seem like *gasp* rational political agents.
I have no doubts that Hamas acts rationally. But it's sort of silly to scream and yell about Israel killing Palestinian civilians while Hamas kills civilians as well (Israel's as well as their own). There is a balance here and neither side is blameless.
Anyway, a key factor in understanding why Israelis feel that attacking Israel is equal to attacking Jews in general is that Israelis, by and large, believe that the Holocaust would not have happened if there had been a country where Jews could have gone. Remember that the US and other nations turned away Jewish refugees before the mass killings began; those Jews went back to Europe and to their deaths. Had Israel existed then, the thinking goes, then the Holocaust would have never happened.
Therefore, the struggle for Israel's existence is inextricably linked to the struggle for Jewish existence worldwide. They are ensuring that there will never be another Holocaust, that there will always be a safe place for Jews to live no matter what happens elsewhere.
Furthermore, some Jews believe that the land of Israel was promised to them in the Bible. The exact boundaries of Greater Israel are hard to pin down; there extended vast distances during David's reign (it included parts of Iraq) but are generally accepted to be smaller today. Unfortunately, many Muslims feel the same way about that land (it's one of their holiest areas) so some of the conflict is as much about Theography as secular Geography.
This is not to excuse Israel's many sins, far from it. But I think that the vilification of Israel in this thread, including accusations of genocide, is a bit much. Israelis don't want to kill all Palestinians any more than the Palestinians want to kill all Israelis. In the end, both sides want freedom from this conflict and peace. Unfortunately, the devil's in the details and the contours of the peace desired by both sides differ significantly, sparking and perpetuating the conflict.
I don't think most Israelis want to wipe out the Palestinians; I think they just want all the land, and don't mind so much if all the Palestinians have to die in order for them to get it.
I don't think most Israelis want to wipe out the Palestinians; I think they just want all the land, and don't mind so much if all the Palestinians have to die in order for them to get it.
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The charter is a fucking bullshit excuse and I'm tired of people referring me to it.
Yes, I've read it and yes, it's anti-semitic, but it was also written in 19-fucking-88. I don't like Hamas, but their leadership has changed since then, and from what I can tell they have many more moderates who don't buy into the conspiracy theory bullshit. Most Hamas politicians, at this point, care more about realizing the Palestinian aspirations for national statehood than they do about wiping the Jews off the face of the planet.
edit: Not that they ever did want to wipe the Jews off the planet. The charter calls for the end of the Israeli state, no more, no less. It employs disgusting stereotypes and tin-foil shit to get that point across, but if you're reading at all closely you'll see that Hamas doesn't want to kill off the Jews, they just want them to go away.
See, by campaigning against the policies of the Israeli government, they are not really supporting Israel. They like it as a nation I'm sure, but are not backing those policies that many people have problems with. We know that not all Israelis are warmongering bastards like some of their top politicians are.
Assholes with fighter bombers > assholes with homemade rockets.
Hamas targets civilians, and you are trying to paint them as kinder/gentler?
One could say they want to cleanse the area of a particular ethnic group.
Excuse me?
Are you HONESTLY claiming that in order to support a nation you must support whatever it's current actions are?
Does that mean that I was anti-American for opposing the Iraqi war?
I have.
Many times.
Heh, yeah, this all does get kind of ridiculous at a point.
"Guys, guys, Israel/Hamas doesn't want to ruthlessly kill off the Palestinains/Israelis, they just want kill a lot of them, deny them their national aspirations and drive them off the land they consider their home! Can't you appreciate the difference?"
So Desmond Tutu visited Israel a while back which prompted him to give a speech. In the speech he talks about how the palestinians are forced to live in a system not terribly unlike apartheid. Fast forward to this past May when he was planning to be the commencement speaker for the MSU class of 2009. A shitstorm ensued in the papers with the ADL and other organizations campaigning to have Desmond Tutu banned from speaking because of his criticism of Israel's policies.
The Israeli military doesn't officially target civilians, but somehow they end up killing far more civilians than Hamas could ever dream of killing. Oh yeah, right, Hamas has safehouses amongst civilians, so it's excusable. I mean, it's not as if Israel prohibits Palestinians from raising armed forces which can be conveniently placed in bases away from civilian populations, thereby reducing civilian casualties when Israel decides to invade and go on a Hamas hunt.
Do they have anything that can meaningfully damage non-civilian targets?
Wat. My hat is on my desk. It is not being supported by my head. I am not anti-hat.
Nah. I'm just saying that the charter doesn't really accurately represent their leadership's ideas anymore, and that people need to realize that Hamas is now a political group with national aspirations. By becoming the political majority leadership of Gaza, they've swallowed up a lot of moderates into their cause, and now more than ever they want a Palestinian state, not genocide of the Jewish people.
Of course, they've retained their terrorist wing and are saturated with murderous thugs who want to ethnically cleanse the Jews from the Holy Land, so I still don't like them. Still, calling them genocidal is about as fair as calling the Israelis genocidal.
I'm comfortable with the comparison between both the Palestinian authority and the Israeli government. You can bet that if Hamas had the military power of the US backing them they'd be just as assholish as Israel.
What I'm uncomfortable with is the fact that one is declared a Terrorist organization and the other is not. Also, the very point of this thread, which Evander is nailing home, that criticism of Israel rewards the person with being called an anti-Semite.
All retaliatory action aside, generally the ones being called "terrorists" are the one instigating violence against civilians. The rest after that, for either side, is just collateral.
Blowing up foreign-run military base in your country because they are oppressing you != "terrorist"
Blowing up McDonalds because of their pro-Western affiliations = "terrorist"
Firing random rockets into foreign country to kill whoever they hit because you're pissed off about a turf war and religious stuff = "terrorist."
Bottom line of all of this? Religion is for morons, no matter who you worship.
Hezbollah kidnapped a soldier, so Israel attacked Lebanese cities. As far as I'm concerned that counts.
Eh, pretty much. I'd like to say I'd support Israel because they're generally more civil, but they too are fighting for religious reasons, so I feel that both sides are just reaping what they sow. Gentility fighting for stupid shit really isn't all that different from the indigent, so I can't say I really care all that much.
Now to shift this debate into ludicrous speed!
EDIT: well if its totp I better say something not retarded:
If that is the case then I look forward to a revision in their charter.
I've said this before, but if your basic founding document advocates the annihilation of your enemy... well lets just say negotiations are going to be difficult.
Its like if the US constitution had "our people, united in the desire to destroy England". I think the English probably would have remained somewhat wary of the new American nation... even after the battle for independance and American overtures for peace.
Well part of the topic of this thread is how ridiculous it is to call people anti _____ for stupid reasons. Are you anti-american for opposing the Iraq war? No, although a great many conservative politicians and pundits would have said that you were at the time. Being critical of something does not mean you are "anti", which I guess means fundamentally against that thing.
The opposite is also true. Do you support the troops? Well if not you're anti-American. This works because "support" in that context is a word without meaning; its only purpose is to stifle criticism by equating any criticism with opposition to your own country. Support in my mind means actually doing something to assist. For an political group like the one you listed, "supporting" the Israeli government would mean campaigning for them, fundraising, helping with public relations etc. They don't, they actually campaign against current and past Israeli policy. This means that they do not support the Israeli government in the literal sense.
"Supporting Israel" and being "Anti-Israeli" (or Anti-Semetic) is all about lumping people into these groups that are polar opposites. Agreeing with Israeli policy is not "supporting" them, and disagreeing is not being "anti-Israeli" or "anti-semetic". Virtually everyone is in a grey area in between because the issues are so complex; which is why its politically convenient to lump people into these groups in the first place.
You were anti-American Government, sure.
I mean, you opposed certain policies of the current government, so at that point yeah, you were 'anti-american government'.
I guess the real issue here is that people are assuming Israeli Government==Israel==Jew, and different people are using different words interchangeably where, arguably, they are three distinct concepts or entities (eg, there are Christian Israelis, there are Israelis who didn't vote for their current government, there are Jews who are not Israeli citizens).
And I guess(?) this is the point that Thanatos was trying to get at to begin with. I can be anti-Israeli government without being a Jew-hater. I can be anti-Jewish-American lobbyists without being anti-semitic. I could personally hate you but be a card carrying member of the ADL. But there is a perception that criticising any actions of a Jew, Israel, the Israeli government etc. will be immediately jumped on as anti-semitic and, whether intentionally or not, suffocate any opportunity for reasonable criticism or debate.
I personally have no idea whether that perception is based on reality or not, although I did note that by page 2 you had decided to brand Thanatos anti-semitic which certainly doesn't do a lot to counter said perceptions.
You're never, ever going to get a direct response from him. You'll have better luck nailing Jello to a wall.
Also,
Weasel Wording , Ad hominem
They have and probably will continue to consider revisions.
Some notable quotes from that article:
"Some Hamas leaders in the territories said they didn't know that the charter took viciously anti-Jewish positions.
"'The charter doesn't speak about the Jews,' insisted Jamila Shanty as she sat behind a desk at the Emad Aqel Women's center she runs in Jabalya. The professor of psychology at the Islamic University is No. 3 on the Hamas list, making her the faction's highest-ranking woman. 'It says we don't have a problem with the Jews,' she told the Post. 'Our problem is with the Israelis who took our land.'
"Abu Rukbeh, whose deeply wrinkled face makes him appear much older than his 45 years, also insisted that the charter did not speak of Jews, only Israelis. 'There is a difference between Jews and Israelis and one must differentiate between the two,' he said."
So why hasn't Hamas revised the charter yet? I dunno. Probably not politically expedient to do so. Maybe they like having it as a huge middle finger to Israel. Or maybe they don't want to look like they are caving to Israel/Western demands (or preconditions), and will revise it when they can do so from a position of political strength.
Once again, Hamas has evolved pretty drastically since it began as a tiny, anti-Semitic, radical Islam cabal in the 1980s. It is now a majority political party, and like most majority political parties it has drifted pretty far to the center (by Palestinian standards) as moderates have joined the cause. I can't deny the charter's existence—or its rampant, tin-foil-hat anti-Semitism—but from what I can see most Hamas leaders now characterize themselves as anti-Zionist and anti-Israel, not anti-Semitic and anti-Jew.
If you want a more up-to-date look at what the Hamas leadership thinks, you should check out the political platform for the 2006 election. People seem to pay a lot less attention to it than they do the Hamas charter, probably because the 2006 election platform makes Hamas seem like *gasp* rational political agents.
Probably because people have a hard time trusting a terrorist organization. I mean seriously, if al-Qaeda won elections in Afghanistan and released a decent platform, would you believe a word of it?
PSN/Steam/NNID: SyphonBlue | BNet: SyphonBlue#1126
Probably. We can be cynical and say campaign promises are meant to be broken, but the fact remains that transforming a terrorist organization into a political organization changes its leadership dynamic pretty drastically (PARTICULARLY if said political organization is working within a democratic system where it needs to actively court moderates). I imagine that this is the reason that al-Qaeda explicitly avoids politics—so that it can continue to operate freely as a terrorist organization with a fringe leadership.
People forget that the PLO was once a terrorist organization with an aggressive charter. Ditto for Sinn Féin and the African National Congress.
Or that Israel was founded in part by terrorist organizations like Irgun and the Stern Gang who "encouraged" Palestinians to leave what was becoming Israel.
Boy, I just don't understand why the Palestinians won't stop shooting their rockets.
That's just natural annexation. I mean growth.
I have no doubts that Hamas acts rationally. But it's sort of silly to scream and yell about Israel killing Palestinian civilians while Hamas kills civilians as well (Israel's as well as their own). There is a balance here and neither side is blameless.
Anyway, a key factor in understanding why Israelis feel that attacking Israel is equal to attacking Jews in general is that Israelis, by and large, believe that the Holocaust would not have happened if there had been a country where Jews could have gone. Remember that the US and other nations turned away Jewish refugees before the mass killings began; those Jews went back to Europe and to their deaths. Had Israel existed then, the thinking goes, then the Holocaust would have never happened.
Therefore, the struggle for Israel's existence is inextricably linked to the struggle for Jewish existence worldwide. They are ensuring that there will never be another Holocaust, that there will always be a safe place for Jews to live no matter what happens elsewhere.
Furthermore, some Jews believe that the land of Israel was promised to them in the Bible. The exact boundaries of Greater Israel are hard to pin down; there extended vast distances during David's reign (it included parts of Iraq) but are generally accepted to be smaller today. Unfortunately, many Muslims feel the same way about that land (it's one of their holiest areas) so some of the conflict is as much about Theography as secular Geography.
This is not to excuse Israel's many sins, far from it. But I think that the vilification of Israel in this thread, including accusations of genocide, is a bit much. Israelis don't want to kill all Palestinians any more than the Palestinians want to kill all Israelis. In the end, both sides want freedom from this conflict and peace. Unfortunately, the devil's in the details and the contours of the peace desired by both sides differ significantly, sparking and perpetuating the conflict.
Like farmers and gophers.