Israel - "More Sinned Against Than Sinning"?

[Reza]

Arab (Sephardic) Jews have lived peacefully alongside Arab Muslims for centuries. But the Zionist movement is about encouraging mostly European (Ashkenazi) Jews to colonize Palestinian land and set up an ethnonationalist settler-colonial state. Israeli apartheid seems to be about power, not religion.

Vanessa Redgrave caused an uproar during her Oscar speech by refering to these very same "Zionist hoodlums". She was not taking about all jews yet her words resulted in her being blacklisted in the United States.

[Big Magilla]

There's no denying that there was persecution of Jews and Muslims by Christians throughout modern history but there was never a "Roman Catholic Empire".

The Roman Catholic Church did consider itself to be the only legal successor to the Roman Empire during the Middle Ages and the early modern period after Charlemagne (who died in 814) but it was still referred to as the Roman Empire, not the Roman Catholic Empire.

There was The Holy Roman Empire, which was more correctly identified as the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, a multi-ethnic complex of territories in Western and Central Europe that developed during the Early Middle Ages and continued until its dissolution in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars.

[Sonic Youth]

On the religious front both follow, by and large, the same Abrahamic belief. Muslims and Jews may seem different but have remarkable similarities as well. All throughout history both the Jews and the Muslims were persecuted by the Roman Catholic Empire. One would imagine this alone would have brought the jewish and muslim people closer together. But that never came to be. Maybe it's all a game of power and about land grabbing. I don't know....maybe Uri, if he is still around, could explain?

Ethnicity.

[Reza]

That being said, I have a question, Reza, and I'm going to make this easy on you: are you saying the Israeli government have become Nazis or that Jews have become Nazis? And I'm not going to wait for your response because I really don't think you gave it that much thought when you made that accusation.

I gave it a lot of thought before writing. I'm certainly not saying all jews are Nazis......just as all Muslims are not terrorists. The Israeli government and its policies have taken on the Nazi stance. Not just now but ever since they systematically started taking over Palestinian land and depriving their citizens of their basic rights. Just check and compare the maps of Palestine and Israel between 1948 and today and you can easily see the gradual disintegration.

You are right in that ever since I can remember the West has always taken the stance about Israel's need to defend itself. I'm happy to see that your own views are beginning to change. My Pakistani-American friends in the United States tell me that the younger generation of Americans have now started opening up their eyes to the atrocities being committed by Israel. The older generation still stand by the old view of course which has been the rhetoric spouted by the media for decades.

On the religious front both follow, by and large, the same Abrahamic belief. Muslims and Jews may seem different but have remarkable similarities as well. All throughout history both the Jews and the Muslims were persecuted by the Roman Catholic Empire. One would imagine this alone would have brought the jewish and muslim people closer together. But that never came to be. Maybe it's all a game of power and about land grabbing. I don't know....maybe Uri, if he is still around, could explain?

[Sabin]

I have more than one thread to respond to but I'll chime in. I don't have much to offer besides this:

I've largely been fortunate enough to be raised by a family of liberal Jews who encouraged me to question anything politically, culturally, what have you. Except: "Israel has a right to defend itself." I've bounced between atheist, agnostic, dated women outside of my culture, failed to go to synagogue for over a decade, and disappointed them in pretty much every way that I could and they've always been mostly an understanding group. The one line they've drawn consistently is this: "Israel has a right to defend itself." And that wall has held pretty strongly for the bulk of my life. Despite any questioning I've had it has felt reinforced by the media, by our political leaders... No matter what the conflict is, whatever decisions that Israel has taken against the Palestinian people has largely been met with general support by the American people. Chalk it up to persuasion or disinterest by the populace at large, that wall has held.

But over the last week or two, I think that changed. I can just sense it. My social media feed is blowing up with Palestinian solidarity like I've never experienced. And those who are doing so are being denigrated as historically ignorant or overly simplistic. But regardless, it's over. The wall has fallen in the discourse. "Israel has a right to defend itself" is no longer holding. And that's it. Since the early days of Black Lives Matter, I've been waiting for this moment and it's here.

That being said, I have a question, Reza, and I'm going to make this easy on you: are you saying the Israeli government have become Nazis or that Jews have become Nazis? And I'm not going to wait for your response because I really don't think you gave it that much thought when you made that accusation.

[Reza]

The irony of becoming what you once hated. It's like the Nazis are alive and kicking again. Only not in Germany anymore.

And as far as the Republicans are concerned (or any American politician) when have they ever even batted an eyelid at what Israel has been upto vis a vis Palestine during the last 40 years or so? Yet they have been so quick to show "concern" in so many other countries around the world

[Big Magilla]

I have no idea what you're talking about.

The TV coverage I've seen - CBS, CNN, MSNBC, has been balanced. If anything it has been more critical of Netanyahoo than Hamas.

The New York Times coverage has been heavily on the side of the Palestinian victims of the bombings, as has much of the TV coverage.

What's been lacking is the Republican response in Congress which is still occupied with its attempts to bring Der American Fuhrer back to power.

[Reza]

Everybody here is very quiet about what is happening in that part of the world. Is it because nobody here cares about anything happening beyond the United States frontier? I was curious to hear an American take on the issue brewing in the Middle East. Your local news channels are clearly biased and only seem to be interested in how many shots have been fired by Hamas. None of them talk about how Israel has been systematically depriving the Palestinians of their land and basic human rights.