Attacks on Israel

[noseybutt]

Is it possible to have conversations around the actions of the Jewish state and it not be considered anti-Semitic? I honestly don’t know the answer to that.

I was on a Zoom call yesterday with several researchers/academics and the conversation simply ended because one academic was Jewish and stated that it was not possible at this point in time.

Edited October 13, 2023 by noseybutt

[AuntCloud]

In a perfect world, it would be possible and encouraged.

At the moment? Since Israel is a Jewish state by definition, any criticism of Israel is translated to open season on Jews. People are targeted and attacked worldwide, all in the name of social justice which somehow doesn’t apply to attacks on people wearing a kippa in public or on Jewish schools. 
As mentioned upthread Israel came to be after the holocaust, which was the culmination of hundreds of years of Jews being considered second class citizens. I’m in a major Canadian city and antisemitic incidents are still happening (not often, but enough to realize there will always be those who are not ok with my people existing). 

When the only space that is by definition safe for Jews to exist is being under direct attack, and Jews worldwide are attacked for a state defending itself, then it is a problem. 

Edited October 13, 2023 by AuntCloud

[TuringMachine]

1 hour ago, Alaniel said:

They are saying here in Germany right now that "nie wieder ist jetzt". "Never again" is now. There is a surge of antisemitism here right now and it is mostly from immigrants from the Middle East and the far left. There are Jewish parents who are not sending there children to school for fear of them being attacked. There are non-Jewish people organizing a "guard" around a synagogue to make sure that Jewish people can go there without fear. It breaks my heart that once again Jewish people are feeling unsafe because they are Jewish. So I feel I can't be silent.

I'm going to shabbat services tonight in San Francisco, and for the first time we're having increased security and are in contact with SFPD (though SFPD isn't exactly known for actually doing things, but that's another discussion). Luckily this is more out of an abundance of caution rather than any credible threat. Still it's a bit scary this even crossed anyone's mind here.

[AuntCloud]

11 minutes ago, TuringMachine said:

I'm going to shabbat services tonight in San Francisco, and for the first time we're having increased security and are in contact with SFPD (though SFPD isn't exactly known for actually doing things, but that's another discussion). Luckily this is more out of an abundance of caution rather than any credible threat. Still it's a bit scary this even crossed anyone's mind here.

Stay safe. This entire situation has broken something fundamental in my feeling relatively safe in my little corner of the world and doubt if me ever feeling safe was totally deluded. 

[meep]

I do feel for the civilians on both sides who suffer due to no fault of their own. 

However, I do support Israel & the Jewish people 100%. I am not sure as an American what I can do to help and support, but for now I'll just let it be known that Israel is in my thoughts and lots of people around the world are invested in the future of Israel. 

[fraurosena]

[AuntCloud]

11 hours ago, meep said:

I do feel for the civilians on both sides who suffer due to no fault of their own. 

However, I do support Israel & the Jewish people 100%. I am not sure as an American what I can do to help and support, but for now I'll just let it be known that Israel is in my thoughts and lots of people around the world are invested in the future of Israel. 

Thank you so much. Being seen and acknowledged means the world to us.

i, like the entire country and anyone who has ever cared about it, is beyond heartbroken. There is not one family in the country that hasn’t been touched by death in some way. 

[Mama Mia]

I have the unpopular opinion that the entire region should be relocated - give Israel and Palestine each a large, fertile patch of land that is currently fairly vacant. Preferably not very near each other and bordering others that share their primary beliefs and culture. Have the UN spend a zillion dollars on infrastructure for each. The patch of land they are currently fighting for is extremely tiny and has been battled over for thousand of years. It’s so tiny - geographically- that you could easily give the Palestinians and the Israelis their own areas within a large U.S. state like Alaska, California or Texas and they’d still be a days drive apart. 
Turn what is now Israel/Palestine into a monument / warning/ testament / museum to the big 3 religions who sprung from there.  How many people have died fighting over that land? How many children orphaned? How much persecution and hatred? 

 

 

[SassyPants]

55 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

This is exactly it. I feel so sorry for every day citizens on both sides of the wall. Hamas, BN and the president of Israel all have screwed up priorities and have made horrid decisions.

[noseybutt]

24 minutes ago, Mama Mia said:

I have the unpopular opinion that the entire region should be relocated - give Israel and Palestine each a large, fertile patch of land that is currently fairly vacant. Preferably not very near each other and bordering others that share their primary beliefs and culture. Have the UN spend a zillion dollars on infrastructure for each. The patch of land they are currently fighting for is extremely tiny and has been battled over for thousand of years. It’s so tiny - geographically- that you could easily give the Palestinians and the Israelis their own areas within a large U.S. state like Alaska, California or Texas and they’d still be a days drive apart. 
Turn what is now Israel/Palestine into a monument / warning/ testament / museum to the big 3 religions who sprung from there.  How many people have died fighting over that land? How many children orphaned? How much persecution and hatred? 

 

 

Forced relocation never ends well.

[Mama Mia]

16 minutes ago, noseybutt said:

Forced relocation never ends well.

But that is what keeps happening in that area, over and over and over and over. Constant war never ends well either. 

[noseybutt]

Historically wars end when one side obliterates the other or both sides tire of fighting and come to an agreement. Or somewhere in between those two extremes. 

I can’t think of a single instance of war ending because third parties intervened and relocated waring parties and kept them apart indefinitely.

It just doesn’t happen.

 

[meep]

1 hour ago, Mama Mia said:

I have the unpopular opinion that the entire region should be relocated - give Israel and Palestine each a large, fertile patch of land that is currently fairly vacant. Preferably not very near each other and bordering others that share their primary beliefs and culture. Have the UN spend a zillion dollars on infrastructure for each. The patch of land they are currently fighting for is extremely tiny and has been battled over for thousand of years. It’s so tiny - geographically- that you could easily give the Palestinians and the Israelis their own areas within a large U.S. state like Alaska, California or Texas and they’d still be a days drive apart. 
Turn what is now Israel/Palestine into a monument / warning/ testament / museum to the big 3 religions who sprung from there.  How many people have died fighting over that land? How many children orphaned? How much persecution and hatred? 

 

 

Erm. We are all very smart and strong here, so I assume we have all heard of the Armistice agreements and Six Days Wars, and even history that goes further back. We should maybe refresh our memories on the modern history of these issues (myself included!) and remember it is not even just modern history, but this patch of land have been fought over vack and forth for thousands of years. So how do you even begin to untangle that web. 

The Crux of the issue is: both sides insist they are indigenous to these lands and therefore deserve to be there specifically and nowhere else. Both sides insist certain places within Israel, especially Jerusalem, are holy & necessary sites for their nations. 

For instance, in the news this week, we saw there were talks about trying to get Egypt to open the border THEY control with Gaza. Those have failed because Egypt has zero interest in letting Gazans into their country, let alone would be interested in giving them land to settle their permanently. Repeat this sentiment across virtually every single Middle Eastern nation. 

[noseybutt]

Land has meaning.

[WatchingTheTireFireBurn]

I feel very conflicted like many Americans. What more can I say there?

What I don't understand and no article or interview that I've watched has explained properly is what Hamas expected to get from this? Clearly Hamas intended to escalate hostilities - but why? What did they expect to happen?  I don't understand this. I do understand they want to obliterate Israel/Jews but this did not do that and would not have done it if absolutely every part was successful.  The West bank Palestinians apparently in general do not agree with Hamas -I can't see how this attack would attract the West Bank. It seems Egypt did not support. Did none of them think " if we escalate and then they escalate - then yikes - that will probably go poorly for us"?  

There's been a lot of talk on the news interviews about perhaps Hamas wanted to stop increasing "normalization" between West and Saudi Arabia and/or other middle eastern places.  But again - why does Hamas think that this particular act would stop that? All the interviews with experts I've watched said they think this will slow normalization down a little but in the end it will resume. 

I've been very sad to hear the Israelis calling this their "9/11" - because the results of 9/11 were very very messy in every respect. And 20 years on still reverberate. I feel like 9/11 led us to Trump and this crazy conspiracy world where you can't trust anybody, it's us against them - which started out as "them" the 9/11 people, then radical muslims, then every muslim country?, then anybody who isn't with us, then science, then education----and now it's any american who doesn't agree with me and my conspiracy is also "radical" so americans are the enemy.

My personal belief is that in the end the most beneficial action would have been to put a lot of money to our fellow americans and supporting them after 9/11, put money into defensive surveillance and intelligence but not start a war..  Not going on vengeance. Vengeance has never been served anyway (ahem, Saudi Arabia). But so many more people would have not had their lives destroyed. And I can't help but feel just gutted for Israel if this is their 9/11 because to me that means everything gets worse not that this is a turning point for good.

I wonder if today the narrative is turning against Israel some. All the news in my feeds is more focused on Gaza and humanitarian crisis than anything else. I wonder if Israel needs to care/can care about the narrative, "the optics," and politics right now. If this is like America's 9/11 they're going to kill a lot of people but the ones who actually did this will hide and flee. And what would all of this have been for??

 

[noseybutt]

Isn’t calling it “our 9/11” a reference to the shock and horror? Not a commentary on how it ends?

[FluffySnowball]

23 hours ago, Dandruff said:

I'm Jewish and wholeheartedly agree with this.  AFAIC, we're seeing antisemitism on this thread right now. 

Very respectfully, I am quite cautious when accusations of antisemitism are thrown around and I do not detect antisemitic sentiments in the posts of this threat. I think it is an argument that often seeks to end an open discussion about Israeli politics and implies that criticism of Israel is necessarily or at least usually connected to a hatred of Jews. However, one can support the human rights of Palestinians and call out decades of apartheid against them by  Israeli government policies while simultaneously being sympathetic to jews and the Jewish faith. 

Every human on this planet deserves human rights and the absolutely unspeakable atrocities committed against jews during the holocaust don't excuse the oppressive treatment of Palestinian people by the state of israel. 

Edited October 14, 2023 by FluffySnowball
corrected the spelling of a word

[WatchingTheTireFireBurn]

1 hour ago, noseybutt said:

Isn’t calling it “our 9/11” a reference to the shock and horror? Not a commentary on how it ends?

Yes, on the surface.

but 9/11 means more than that also. Saying that makes me feel and think about all that came after. And I'm not sure that it isn't a commentary on what happens next. It looks like that's where this is going. Israel appears to be making the same choice USA made: pursue the terrorists into guerrilla warfare on their turf, causing untold harm to one's own soldiers, and civilians in other countries, while causing increased animosity in the Muslim world. 

And if so, I'm sorry for all involved. I am a student of history: war and its atrocities span all time it seems. Smarter and better people than me haven't solved it. And yet, I still mourn for all these people who will be harmed and have been harmed. 

I understand those in this thread and in the world who think that a forced moved solves nothing. But I wish there was a way for both these peoples to have a place. While it is not "right" I do think the most likely to move would be the Palestinians if only there was someplace for them to go, considering the money spent on humanitarian aid and weapons on all sides - it does seem like if only these resources could be spent setting up a new place, the end would be better than all out war.

 

[SassyPants]

26 minutes ago, FluffySnowball said:

Very respectfully, I am quite cautious when accusations of antisemitism are thrown around and I do not detect antisemitic sentiments in the posts of this threat. I think it is an argument that often seeks to end an open discussion about Israeli politics and implies that criticism of Israel is necessarily or at least usually connected to a hatred of Jews. However, one can support the human rights of Palestinians and call out decades of apartheid against them by  Israeli government policies while simultaneously being sympathetic to jews and the Jewish faith. 

Every human on this planet deserves human rights and the absolutely unspeakable atrocities committed against jews during the holocaust don't excuse the oppressive treatment of Palestinian people by the state of israel. 

Yes, this is exactly how I feel. The terrorist attack on innocent people by Hamas was horrific. The walling up of people and closing entry/exit points to that area is horrific. The hateful and spiteful rhetoric spewed by leaders/spokespersons on both sides is horrific. Killing innocent people outside the wall is horrific. Retaliatory killing of innocent people inside the wall is horrific. Killing, violence, hatred, vengeance is ALL horrific. 

I am 100% positive that the majority of citizens in both Gaza and Israel just want to live peaceful lives and do not wish to harm anyone.

It’s too bad no one in power in those areas can get their acts together to speak up and protect them.

 

Oh and religion is just a copper penny of distraction. It’s far more about land ($), power($) and control ($). Religion is just the fuel to stoke the fire.

[meep]

As someone who is not super acquainted with the subject of apartheid and may be missing some key arguments, what is the argument that Israel is an apartheid state? I had thought "apartheid" was characterized by a minority implementing official institutions to keep them in power over the majority. How is Israel doing that? I don't understand and I genuinely want to learn what the accusations are and the logic behind it because I'm not well-versed in it. Under Israeli law, don't Arabs & Palestinians have just as much a political vote in anything as a Jewish citizen? 

I also want to understand the Gaza Strip better. From my understanding, it was initially set up by the U.N., then Egypt had control, then Israel, then the Gaza citizens for a short time, then was overtaken by Hamas. Israel currently controls most of the border, and Egypt currently controls the southern border. Am I missing something?

If anyone else has questions, I think this would be a really good opportunity for us all to learn more about this! 

[Jinder Roles]

1 hour ago, meep said:

As someone who is not super acquainted with the subject of apartheid and may be missing some key arguments, what is the argument that Israel is an apartheid state? I had thought "apartheid" was characterized by a minority implementing official institutions to keep them in power over the majority. How is Israel doing that? I don't understand and I genuinely want to learn what the accusations are and the logic behind it because I'm not well-versed in it. Under Israeli law, don't Arabs & Palestinians have just as much a political vote in anything as a Jewish citizen? 

I also want to understand the Gaza Strip better. From my understanding, it was initially set up by the U.N., then Egypt had control, then Israel, then the Gaza citizens for a short time, then was overtaken by Hamas. Israel currently controls most of the border, and Egypt currently controls the southern border. Am I missing something?

If anyone else has questions, I think this would be a really good opportunity for us all to learn more about this! 

Here's my very amateur attempt: 

Because of Israel's treatment of Palestinians and the systemic displacement of Palestinians from their land. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and several other global human rights orgs consider Israel's policies apartheid. The U.N. has condemned Israel through resolutions more than any other country.

According to international law there are three conditions for apartheid: 

1. An intent by one group to dominate another.

2. Systemic oppression by one racial group over another 

3. One or more inhumane acts (e.g:  denying right to leave and return to your country) 

Palestinians in Gaza effectively live in an open air prison. Their borders are controlled by Israeli state and they need to be approved to move in-and out of borders. Israel also controls water, electricity, fuel. Since 2005, Israel does not control the inside of Gaza but up until this conflict it did consider Gaza to be a part of Israel (IIRC) 

Israeli citizens are governed under normal Israeli law but most Palestinians are effectively stateless. Depending on where you are you might have Israeli citizenship or residency but in effect many Palestinians are denied full citizenship rights. For example; Palestinians in West Bank are ruled by the Israeli military and are technically citizens but are excluded from certain parts of the Jewish welfare (since most are not Jewish) and thus denied full democratic citizenship. Some Palestinians who hold Israeli residency/citizenship can be denied the right to extend this to their spouses. Of course, this is a right that Israeli citizens enjoy. Additionally while any Jewish person in the world can apply to be an Israeli citizen, Palestinian refugees from that area are denied their right to return. 

Israel has continuously flouted signed U.N agreements about land. Israeli settlers in Occupied West Bank  and East Jerusalem are encouraged by the state (and supported by IDF) to go in and either claim Palestinian houses for themselves or demolish houses and build their own. These are known as settlers and it's definitely illegal according to international law. 

You might have noticed by now that Palestinians are divided into areas all over the region where their movement is restricted. Unlike Israeli's they do not have a continuous land to call their own and their quality of life is highly dependent on which territory you live in. 

Palestinians live under heavy surveillance, have limited access to water, electricity, medication, textbooks etc. Their life expectancy is about a decade lower than Israeli's, many have been brutalized by the IDF, killed and jailed and honestly I could go on. 

I highly suggest reading about Mandatory Palestine & The Balfour Declaration...British colonialism is at the root of a lot of this. 

Some quick resources: 

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2022/02/israels-system-of-apartheid/ 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MknerYjob0whttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MknerYjob0w

 

Anyways, hope that helps. Clearly. I'm missing out a lot of details. Please anybody feel free to add/correct anything. 

 

Edited October 14, 2023 by Jinder Roles

[Alaniel]

Would it not be more appropriate to have two separate threads for this? In view of what the thread title is and the feelings some Jewish posters have expressed up-thread? I'm a bit uncomfortable with the speed and direction of thread-drift we are seeing here, to be honest. 🙁

I realize there are no bad intentions involved from anyone. And I would like to know more about the situation, as well, just as was said above. It just doesn't feel good to discuss this here and now. 🙁

[byzant]

@AlanielExcept that's entirely what its about. Ignoring the atrocities and attempted genocide against the Palestinians for decades distorts the reality of what's currently happening .

 

Israel is currently using white phosphorous on children while bombing and blockading every exit but sure we shouldn't be mentioning that because the children involved follow generally a different religion so by that logic dont count 

Edited October 14, 2023 by byzant

[treehugger]

I also struggle a bit with having survivors educate people.  There is several thousand years of history as well as very recent history involved in this conflict, so it will be brought up organically in conversation, I’m sure. 
A separate thread for the history and background is actually a decent idea. But we have members here spanning the globe, and I don’t know that any thread will be a proper safe place at the moment. For anyone. 
If these events are particularly triggering and personally causing a lot of pain, please take care of yourselves and take as many breaks as you need. My heart hurts for all the pain and suffering. I’m so sorry so many members no longer feel safe in their homes and communities. 

[meep]

2 hours ago, Jinder Roles said:

Here's my very amateur attempt: 

Because of Israel's treatment of Palestinians and the systemic displacement of Palestinians from their land. Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and several other global human rights orgs consider Israel's policies apartheid. The U.N. has condemned Israel through resolutions more than any other country.

According to international law there are three conditions for apartheid: 

1. An intent by one group to dominate another.

2. Systemic oppression by one racial group over another 

3. One or more inhumane acts (e.g:  denying right to leave and return to your country) 

Palestinians in Gaza effectively live in an open air prison. Their borders are controlled by Israeli state and they need to be approved to move in-and out of borders. Israel also controls water, electricity, fuel. Since 2005, Israel does not control the inside of Gaza but up until this conflict it did consider Gaza to be a part of Israel (IIRC)....

[Snipped for space]

Thank you, I appreciate this. 

I will say though, again, Israel controls most of Gaza's borders but not all of them. They also share a border with Egypt.

Whether or not they live in an "open air prison" is very much up for debate. 

I also understand some of these logistical specificities on Palestinians in Israel, but this goes back to my lack of clarity on how this is any different than any other country dealing with certain groups of people. 

Palestinians have also flouted U.N. agreements, even in times they were not under Israel control. 

I still just struggle to understand why there seems to be extra pressure on Israel, when most other countries do the exact same things. 

Also, no survivors need to feel like they have to chip in on this particular thread-drift conversation. But I tihnk this is highly relevant to the attacks. A lot of people just have no idea and it is good to ask questions.