[midlander]

> The oppressors and the victim are clear in the Israel - Palestine conflict

Only if you zoom in and focus on one tiny sliver. If you look at the bigger picture, Israel is surrounded by dozens of countries 100s of times its size, that have all been ethnically cleansed of Jews, many of them in different stages of open or proxy war with Israel, militarily or politically.

[direwolf20]

If you look at the even bigger picture, it was Israel that decided to pick fights with all those countries.

[nickff]

Those countries literally attacked Israel on the day it became a state, and many times thereafter. Israel is definitely not perfect, but their neighbors have been trying to wipe them out for no good reason for a long time.

[direwolf20]

What was the process that made Israel a state? What was there before Israeli state was? Who were the allies of that country?

[nickff]

I'd suggest the Wikipedia article as a very good starting point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Israel#Ancient_Isra...

[direwolf20]

Did they have states in 1209 BC? I'm pretty sure the modern Israel state is a modern invention, that just happens to take its name from former states. The modern state of Greece isn't the one from Jesus's time either.

[nickff]

Well, if you're only going to count modern states, the only previous one to occupy that area was the Ottoman Empire. After that, there was a British Mandate, but that wasn't a state. Modern states only started after the Treaty of Westphalia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peace_of_Westphalia

[thisislife2]

Unlike the west, the Arabs or Persians have never nurtured any hatred of Jews till the British (and later the Americans) forcefully backed the creation of a Jewish state in the middle-east. Even today, muslims around the world don't give a damn about Jews or antisemitism unless it is in the context of Palestinians. This is in stark contrast to the christian west, which still harbours a lot of antisemitism and is the factory that still generates most of the modern Jewish conspiracy political tropes (some of which do find their way to religious fundamentalists in the east too). The Israeli-right, ofcourse, has a vested interest in painting Arabs and muslims as antisemites, because otherwise "Israel" can't showcase itself as a "victim". I do believe the Israelis are victims too though not in the way the Israeli-right depicts it - early Zionists never realised that the bigger plan of the western superpowers in forcing them to the middle-east (instead of giving them their own country in Europe) was part of their "divide and rule" policy for the middle-east. Frankly, Israel and Palestine will never be at peace because it is not in the interest of western superpowers. (The Israeli-right have latched on to this too, and are trying to exploit it to increase their own power and influence in the region. Unfortunately for them, that is undesirable for the west and worse, they did it in a way that brings unwanted attention to the west - the Trump and Blair lead Board of Peace is the western response to cut Israel down to size, in the coming future).

[nickff]

There was plenty of oppression against Jewish people in the Middle East before Israel became a country. Blame whomever you want, but the Jewish populations there were targeted for discriminatory taxation and various other forms of oppression.

[thisislife2]

The Jizya tax on non-muslims in many Islamic empires was never a "discriminatory" tax. This is a common anti-muslim trope and an example of distorting history by considering it through modern political lens. In most muslim empires, this tax was only imposed on non-muslims who wanted to be exempt from serving in the military but still be a citizen of the Islamic empire they were part of. Those who chose to join military service were exempted from payment. Only free adult, non-muslim males were required to pay it and women, children, elders, the disabled, the insane, religious workers, hermits, slaves etc. were exempt. Some muslim rulers also exempted the poor amongst the non-muslims from paying it.

Muslims weren't required to pay a similar tax to the government because they were already obligated by their religion to pay a certain percentage of their wealth every year towards charity (Zakat).

This trope was popularised as part of the "divide and rule" policy of the British to generate animosity between muslims and non-muslims in many a British colony and today is commonly spouted in the anti-muslim tirades of many a right-wing religious fundamentalists.

[nickff]

There were a variety of other discriminatory measures in most of the Middle-East; many applied to religions other than Judaism as well. Another notable one was the limited access to the legal systems, along with the inferior legal status non-Muslims were relegated to. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitism_in_the_Arab_world

I also think it’s absurd to pretend that taxing people who do not tithe to one’s favored faith or cause is non-discriminatory. Imagine Utah taxing non-Mormons because they don’t tithe to The Church or The United Way.

[thisislife2]

I have no idea what country's legal system you referring to. My broad understanding is that most Islamic empires allowed the minorities to retain their own personal laws on some legal matters (marriage, divorce, inheritance etc) as Sharia laws were largely Islamic, for muslims. From today's modern perspective many things that was done by many former empires of the past would be problematic. Like I said, you will only get a warped view of history if you try to analyse it by applying modern principles. By and large, for their time, Islamic empires were largely egalitarian towards their citizens. (The Ottoman empire's secular history undermines sharia claims - https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/belief/2011/oct/07... ). If you want to judge them by their worst examples, you can ofcourse "prove" the worst that you imagine of them.

> Imagine Utah taxing non-Mormons because they don’t tithe

Mormons don't pay their tithe to the government. In the Islamic empire, it was the government that collected the 'tithe' from the muslims after calculating their wealth. So you can imagine how disgruntled muslim citizens would have been, every year, when the tax collector only came to collect money from them and not from the non-muslims. It was this kind of social unrest that lead to the imposition of the Jizya on non-muslims.

[nickff]

From the linked Wiki: “Restrictions included residency in segregated quarters, obligation to wear distinctive clothing, public subservience to Muslims, prohibitions against proselytizing and against marrying Muslim women, and limited access to the legal system (the testimony of a Jew did not count if contradicted by that of a Muslim). Dhimmi had to pay a special poll tax (the jizya), which exempted them from military service, and also from payment of the zakat alms tax required of Muslims.”

[doofkoof]

This is not true, Jews, like many other groups, have been oppressed and humiliated by the Islamic Arab world for well over a thousand years. I truly can not believe you can say this with a straight face if you have spent any amout of time in Arabic speaking circles. The disgust towards Jewish people is open and constant, and I am not talking about attitudes towards zionism.

[thisislife2]

I have indeed spent some time in Arab countries, and also know a few Arabs. They didn't spout any kind of antisemitism. (Some of them did warn me to be careful of Egyptians though :). They do have disgust towards Israel as a country because of the actions of the Israeli-right in power. But that's not antisemitism however much Netanyahu and his cohorts would like it to be. I however do know some religious fundamentalist Muslims in my own country, who are definitely antisemitic and hate Jews for, well, being Jews. I also know some religious fundamentalists Hindus who hate Muslims, again, just because they are Muslims. But that's just how religious fundamentalists are - they aren't rational human beings and you can't use them as an example to tarnish a whole community. Netanyahu and his ilks are right-wing religious fundamentalists too, and that is why it is easy for them to slaughter Palestinian Muslims and Christians. Does that mean all Israeli jews are horrible human beings too, like them? Ofcourse not.

[midlander]

Today, Jews are denied entry to many Muslim countries - not just Israelis, anyone who looks Jewish.

The excuse that “some other people of this religion did something bad” does not justify hating and ethnically cleansing everyone who shares that religion.

[thisislife2]

As for the ban on Jews by some Arab / muslim countries - remember that the west was actively encouraging Jews, with Zionist movements all over the world, to migrate to the middle-east and occupy muslim-Arab territory. Sure, it began with a narrow focus with only Palestine. But who knew where it would stop if it was successful? Most of these countries are former western colonies who immediately understood what the west was trying to do by sending foreign Jews to occupy their land - the "divide and rule" policy was how they were subjugated too in the first place, to become colonies, and the newly independent Arab states understood that by driving Jews to the middle-east, their former masters wanted to use the Jews to foment a conflict between Jews and Muslims which they could then use to break the newfound unity amongst the Arab states and use as an excuse for interventionist politics. It had (and still has) nothing to do with antisemitism and everything to do with making sure that former imperialists doesn't exploit any political vulnerability in their country and endanger their (then) newfound independence. (It also doesn't help matters that Israel acts like a western puppet, further reinforcing the view that Israel is just a pawn of the west in the middle-east).

[doofkoof]

It is not as those Arab nations are some phenomenon of nature. The process of Arabization was, and perhaps is, itself one of settler colonialism and oppression. The fact that the colors of the caliphates are explicitly flown in areas outside of Arabia is proof enough of that.

[thisislife2]

Sure. I am from one such country (India) that was exposed to the Islamic culture through trade, muslim raiders and even many muslim conquerors who made our country their home (the Mughal empire being the most famous one). We are also quite familiar with imperialism and colonisation as, like the Palestinians, we were once a British colony too. However, in my country no one rational advocates that as we are a relatively powerful nation today, we too should raid some foreign country or occupy and colonise it. Israelis unfortunately often use that as an excuse for their occupation of Palestine or when they seize the territory of their states to fulfil the dream of the Israeli-rights vision of a "Greater Israel" - "every superpower or former power has done it, so why can't we?". And that's really problematic.

[throw2947378]

Israelis are not advocating to “raid some foreign country and occupy it”, and Israel has not expanded in controlled territory since 1967.

[cooloo]

I wonder what is the relation of Israel to this discussion. why can't you support the Iranian pepole?