[e12e]

> And yes, saying that jews don't deserve a nation state is definetly anti-semitic.

But in the US and Canada, as far as I know, native Americans/first nation are welcome to be first party citizens, no longer forced to live on reservations? Not without an ugly history of oppression; but the "nation state" is mostly a fascist fiction anyway.

Few native people of the artic claim that they deserve to build a "nation state" - at the same time they organise for other rights, and today work quite well with the various states that govern the area.

The most sane parallell to the state of Israel is probably South-africa: it has shown that it is possible to move from an apartheid state to a more modern state that acknowledge all resident cultures. But as with South Africa, as long as the international community largely supports oppression, a peaceful coexistence is likely to remain out of reach. But hopefully popular opinion will turn in Israel before the genocide is complete; I've already heard former a Israeli helicopter pilot mentioned how he became a conscientious objector after fly-overs of the Gaza strip brought home the similarities to stories he'd been told about the Warsaw getthoes.

As for your examples; most of those are true for Europe (not being seen as an enemy, perhaps, but the war part). And would also apply to South Africa. And yet peace could be an option.

[brashrat]

but... but... Arabs living in Israel are first class citizens, they are not forced to live on reservations, and they participate in elections and are elected to the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

The occupied West Bank is land that was formerly claimed by--no, not by "Palestine", that wasn't actually a thing--the State of Jordan which also included the territory of Israel in its claimed territory; the state of Jordan gave up its claim to the West Bank when the people living there (according to them, "Jordanians", but people you know as Palestinians) were politically destabilizing to the government of Jordan. To stave off the political threat (look up Black September), the state of Jordan gave up its claim to the West Bank (and to Israel).

Israel only occupied the West Bank when Palestinian lawlessness and terrorist antipathy toward Israel resulted in numerous bloody attacks on the civilian population of Israel. Israel has a much better case for occupation/pacification than Russia does of its occupation and annexation of Ukraine. I (a non Jew) do believe that anti-Semitism is the root cause of so much more anger directed at Israel than is directed at (say) Russia. Think of other disputed territories around the globe. Only in the case of Israel is there so much bitterness by outsiders toward one side, the less violent side, the side that is actually a civilized democracy and obeys rule of law.

And now that I mention it, do you even know what Morocco has been doing for many years in Western Sahara? Look it up, look up Polisario... it's an ethnic conflict. People will read about that and tut-tut and say, wow, that's terrible what the Moroccans have been doing, but quickly return to condemning Israel. And they look at the Hutus and Tutsis and say "well, there is blame to go around on both sides", and now we turn our attention to the tiny state of Israel, largely surrounded by barbarous dictatorships who don't even treat their own citizens well, and low and behold, it's those terrible awful Israelis who are to blame, much moreso than the Russians or Moroccans. Somehow it doesn't seem like there is plenty of blame to go around in this case, eh?

I believe that there are two reasons for bitterness toward Israel.

1) anti Arab racism motivates the belief that "we can't expect Palestinians to behave any better" (hey, maybe we can't, but if you don't want me to accuse you of anti-Semitism, come out and say it)

2) anti Jewish racism motivates the belief that "still, that doesn't justify the way those people are reacting", even though we see plenty of other "peoples" around the world defending themselves.

What are the Israelis defending themselves against? Click around wikipedia for awhile and look at the sheer number of Palestinian attacks directed at Israel month in and month out every year for the past 35 years. Would you put up with that directed at you and yours?

[e12e]

> Arabs living in Israel are first class citizens, they are not forced to live on reservations, and they participate in elections and are elected to the Knesset, Israel's parliament.

Yes, but families are split along the borders and checkpoints that have been drawn up by Israel. As long as the territories are occupied, Israel, as the occupier, is responsible for basic human rights and needs in the occupied area. Especially when they stop trade going in, like the attack on ships headed for Gaza.

> 1) anti Arab racism motivates the belief that "we can't expect Palestinians to behave any better" (hey, maybe we can't, but if you don't want me to accuse you of anti-Semitism, come out and say it)

Look, the jews were right to use terrorist tactics in the Warsaw ghettoes, and I can understand why Palestinians (also Semites, by the way) resort to such tactics in the current conflict. ANC wasn't peaceful in South-Africa, and it can be argued that non-violence wouldn't have been able to, on its own, create the civil rights reforms we've seen in the US.

> 2) anti Jewish racism motivates the belief that "still, that doesn't justify the way those people are reacting", even though we see plenty of other "peoples" around the world defending themselves.

This is a little bit like saying the Nazis were worse, so why should we criticise how the British behaved in the Boer wars.

Israel is arguably a functioning, rich state with a strong military. It has the power to approach the situation differently than putting minors in indefinite detention for throwing rocks, for example.

Israel is no failed state - the main reason we think of the holocaust as terrible, isn't (in my mind) just the death toll and suffering, but the systematic nature of it. This isn't millions killed in ravaging civil war, but calculated atrocities.

Just because I want a peaceful resolution to the situation concerning Israel, doesn't mean I won't (or haven't) spoken out against Turkey or Iraq on the situation with the Kurds - to give another example. Or that I don't condemn the US for their many dirty wars.

> Only in the case of Israel is there so much bitterness by outsiders toward one side, the less violent side, the side that is actually a civilized democracy and obeys rule of law.

"The less violent side"?

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2014/07/15/world/middleea...

30 (mostly civilan) deaths to each Israeli? Yes, this is what you expect when you attack a mostly civilian population with trained soldiers armed with modern weapons.

I can accept that some people will argue that this is a "necessary" or "justified" response. But "less violent"? That is harder to accept. If this is "less violent" what would a "stronger" response look like?

[brashrat]

| "The less violent side"?

As I said, click around wikipedia for number of rocket attacks, number of terror attacks, etc. initiated by the Palestinians, mostly against civilians. Regardless of how many more Palestinians are getting killed as a result, it's Arabs and Palestinians who rejected every previous set of borders (including "pre-67"), and Arabs and Palestinians (OK, it's not just Arabs and Palestinians, many other Muslim nation states join in with anti-Semitic diatribes) who continue to say right out loud that their intent is to push Israel into the sea, and who continue an armed struggle against Israel's citizens and Israel's right to exist.

Israel today is an advanced, modern, technological country, so yes, they "win" the conflicts with the Palestinians (and Lebanese Shiites) if you measure "winning" in terms of bodycount (which you brought up). But if you measure unprovoked attacks, it is the Arabs by a landslide, and in case where Jewish extremists attack Arabs, Israel follows a policy of prosecuting their own citizens. BTW, Lebanese Christians are Arabs, so are the Druze, and so are the Bedouins, and they largely prefer the Israelis to the vicious treatment they receive from their Muslim neighbors, cooperating in many ways with the Israeli armed forces.

Is Israel perfect? Not by a long shot, but neither is any other people or nation.

[e12e]

Well, I think we've both pointed to where our views come from, and it's probably not much point in discussing this further here on hn. I thank you for your interesting and measured input. These things do too often devolve into shouting matches.

I will respectfully indicate that it seems a little disingenuous to claim that attacks on Israel are "unprovoked". They follow a similar pattern to Israeli terror attacks on the British occupation government, and I would hope that there'd be room to find common ground among two prosecuted people, rather than simply replace one oppressor with another in the region.

[brashrat]

Thanks for the compliments.

What I mean by "unprovoked" is, if the Palestinians would stop attempting violence, the Israelis would stop attempting violence.

If the Israelis were to stop their violence... the Palestinians would just keep going; that's actually what's been happening.

[e12e]

For what it's worth, the hope I see for Israel and Palestine today stems from the non-violent protests against the occupation that includes many Israelis and Jews. This includes conscientious objectors and groups championing dialogue between people living in Israel and the West Bank.

Lack of dialogue is one of the cornerstones on which we build hatred, racism and violence. It is much harder to justify demolishing someone's family home in order to have a good killing field from your border wall, if you are friends with that family.

[ed eg: http://m.btselem.org/

and http://www.breakingthesilence.org.il/ ]

[e12e]

I see what you mean, but on the other hand, the Palestinians are occupied by Israel, barred from trading by Israel and Egypt, beholden to Israel for water and power - so one could say that if Israel lifted the sanctions Palestinians might not need to "keep going". Again I think the parallell to the Warsaw getthoes apply - the Jews and others interned could just have accepted their plight. But it would've been the wrong path.

I'm by no means saying Palestinians have a carte blanche - I'm just saying that calling the attacks "unprovoked" is a bit of a stretch?