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by names_are_hard 1863 days ago
While I agree that there should be more outrage about other tragedies, "Better than Syria" is not the standard that I want to hold my country to, so I don't engage in such arguments. We (Israel) consider ourselves to be a western nation, with western ideals and standards. And so it is reasonable that we'd be called out if we fail to live up to the standards of the crowd we want to hang out with. I'd be disappointed if we started to be grouped along with Syria and Yemen.
1 comments
gataca 1862 days ago
I wasn't referring to Israeli actions vs Syria, which are clearly not comparable, but the difference in reactions. If you think that the protests calling Israel an illegal state are just trying to hold Israel to a higher standard then you are clearly misinterpreting what is happening. They're chanting "From the river to the sea" not "Hold yourselves to a higher standard".
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betsushikime 1862 days ago
Just to clarify, my comments here are no endorsement of calling Israel an illegal state in any way, shape or form.
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names_are_hard 1862 days ago
Fair enough, I think there are a lot of protestors (in real life as well as on Twitter) that have entirely unrealistic goals, hoping for an ideal situation but not really thinking through what the ramifications of their plan would be. I've seen this among "Greater Israel" Israelis as well - I once had a long chat with a settler in the Jordan Valley region about how he envisions annexation working out, the best he could come up with was "all the Palestinians will voluntarily move to Canada, which will take them in because Trump is going to broker a deal". Not exactly the strongest answer to accusations of ethnic cleansing.

To be clear, anyone hoping for "from the river to the sea" is not in touch with the reality in the region. The only way that could happen is with a terrible war that would make the current war look like a small scuffle. I'm pretty sure there's no diplomatic path from where we are today to a one state solution of any kind that doesn't take several generations, and we're not moving in the right direction.

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