Zionism and Palestine

They have got one but just can't be satisfied with its current size.

Pooter, I just can't begin to respond to your post.

'If Christianity and Islam are both entitled to more than 50 states where they are the majority, and that majority status is protected in law, then why aren't the Jews similarly entitled to just one Jewish majority state in their historic homeland?'

just can't even begin ...

The overwhelming majority of those 150 Palestinians killed were armed with guns, knives, were driving cars at Jews - solely because they were Jews. In short they were armed combatants engaged in terrorist activities. You shouldn't be romanticising their behaviour. In similar circumstances British security forces and police would have done the same.

Last year 150 Palestinians were killed by Israeli troops while 30 Israelis were killed by Palestinians. Quite an imbalance. Israel has power and weapons and Palestinians have righteous anger, stones and tyres.
When 5 times as many Palestinians die, reports of 5 injured pedestrians, awful that it is for them, is not really on the same scale.
Surely most sensible people just want to live in peace with neighbours, on an equal basis, and for the Palestinians this is just not going to happen, The two state solution is dead in the water because land grabbing has been encouraged and continues.

What exactly did Netanyahu mean mean when he claimed "we will overcome them"?

Do you consider that having your land forcibly removed is "perfect safety"?

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. I know how I see the situation.

Two million Muslims live in Israel in perfect safety. How long do you think a group of unprotected visible Jews would last in Gaza? They'd be slaughtered within minutes.

Israel is both a flawed society, yet also the least flawed society in the region. Just yesterday a car mowed down a group of 8 ordinary Jews in Jerusalem, injuring 5. Imagine if a radicalised Muslim, Palestinian or otherwise, did that to a group of ordinary British citizens yesterday in London or Manchester.

[ Quote] "Five people have been injured in a car-ramming attack by a Palestinian in central Jerusalem, Israeli police say. The vehicle hit pedestrians near the busy Machane Yehuda market.

"The attacker was shot and killed at the scene by a civilian. Police say the assailant was a 39-year-old man from occupied East Jerusalem.

"It came as Israel began to mark Memorial Day for fallen soldiers and victims of attacks - one of the most solemn days in the national calendar.

"Speaking at a Memorial Day event, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the attack was "another attempt to murder Israeli citizens".

"These terrorist attacks come with the expectation that they will overcome us and will uproot us from here, and if they could, they would murder us all. But they will not overcome us; we will overcome them." (BBC news report)

Apologies, autocorrect. Pooter.

Poorer, does that excuse Israel's attempts to destroy the Palestinian people?

Whitewave I think you possibly mean Chaim Weizmann. I doubt if Balfour was ever sincere about the agreement. Successive governments kept kicking it into the long grass until WW2 and the holocaust acted as a catalyst. Even then, the British weren't decisive and their hand was forced.

Pooter I'm probably a liberal-left progressive and I'm generally quite sympathetic to Israelis. However, when I read posts like yours, which totally ignore the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinian rights, I definitely become more sympathetic of the Palestinian cause.

Incidentally, please name the states where Christians are in the majority and their status as Christian-majority states is protected in law.

So why do you treat Palestinians so very badly?

Palestine is an authoritarian dictatorship. It's currently in the 19th year of a 4 year term of office. It's last elections were when Blair was UK PM. Not only is it authoritarian, it is also highly corrupt. The reason why there is no public political dissent in the Palestinian Territories as compared with Israel, is because it is not allowed. It is violently, indeed lethally clamped down on.

In terms of democratic freedoms, Israel the world's only Jewish majority state consistently ranks more highly than any of the world's 50 or so Muslim states whenever these things are measured to a common standard such as The Economist's Intelligence Units, "Democracy Index".

Even the word "Zionism" has no fixed meaning. Thus if you believe that the Jewish people have the right to their own state in their 3,000 year old historic homeland and within safe borders, then you too are a "Zionist". If Christianity and Islam are both entitled to more than 50 states where they are the majority, and that majority status is protected in law, then why aren't the Jews similarly entitled to just one Jewish majority state in their historic homeland? To uniquely deny them that right whilst allowing it to other faiths and peoples is clearly anti-Semitism in action.

The social values of those that control Gaza are right wing and reactionary in arenas like women's rights, homosexuality and capital punishment. By contrast Israel's are head and shoulders the most progressive in the region. And yet the country that gets criticised most by those who consider themselves liberal-left progressives is Israel. Progressives in the UK exercise dissent based rights on a daily basis a that just wouldn't be allowed anywhere in the Middle East, apart from in Israel.

I remember Boris Johnson sayin years ago that as Southern UK was too populated, they should move back to the parts of France that had been taken and rules by the British.

Palestine always was mixed, but it was Palestine, for all- not a Jewish State.

I don’t disagree, I was merely putting the Zionist case.

Yes Palestine had all the worlds big religions living peaceably.

If you want a personal account read The Lemon Tree by Sandy Tolan. It tells of a very personal account if the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Why don't the Israelis just stick within their boundaries and stop encroaching on Palestinian land?

Whitewavemark2

As far as I understand the Zionist movement which was set up in Russia as a result of the pogroms tried to persuade European countries of the argument that the Jews should be given their own state in the Middle East. Speaking from memory - so I am happy to be corrected, a chap came to the U.K. and persuaded I think one of the Rothschilds of its merit, who in turn convinced the Balfour Government. And the rest as they say is history😄 well it all is really.

With regard to the geographical area that is now Israel/Palestine. There was always a diaspora of Jewish folk throughout the world since the Babylon incident I think, but the Jews had no land to call their own until Balfour was convinced of the Zionist argument. It is actually more complicated than that and I think that the British (as usual) did not behave entirely with honour. Which resulted in many people being pushed from their own homes, leaving bitterness in its wake.

But Jews had and did live comfortably and peacefully in Palestine before Balfour. They moved to Palestine and settled there for a long time fleeing persecution in Europe. The concept that they "had no land" is an emotive one. They did not have a Jewish state but Palestine was a country with many differing religious bodies en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_and_Judaism_in_the_Land_of_Israel

As far as I understand the Zionist movement which was set up in Russia as a result of the pogroms tried to persuade European countries of the argument that the Jews should be given their own state in the Middle East. Speaking from memory - so I am happy to be corrected, a chap came to the U.K. and persuaded I think one of the Rothschilds of its merit, who in turn convinced the Balfour Government. And the rest as they say is history😄 well it all is really.

With regard to the geographical area that is now Israel/Palestine. There was always a diaspora of Jewish folk throughout the world since the Babylon incident I think, but the Jews had no land to call their own until Balfour was convinced of the Zionist argument. It is actually more complicated than that and I think that the British (as usual) did not behave entirely with honour. Which resulted in many people being pushed from their own homes, leaving bitterness in its wake.

I think your comments are good growstuff and show all sides of the story.

Finding what is happening to the Palestinian people today abhorrent, no better than what Putin is doing in Ukraine and other parts of Eastern Europe- does not make me antisemitic, at all. But i do wish that Jewish people from all over the world would rise against what is being done in their name. Some do- but very very few- and they suffer for doing so. Friends have had to move away, for fear of reprisals and are constantly abused.

growstuff

So what's the solution?

In essence, Zionism is about Jews having a nation state (and we all know the background to that).

A number of powerful Arab states don't recognise Israel as a nation. Their official policy is to obliterate it. Again, there is some justification for their stance - Arabs have had land taken away from them by force.

However, we are where we are. What does anybody do?

There are Jewish Israelis against Netanyahu's policies, but for many of them Israel is their home. They've were born there. What should happen to them? Netanyahu has quite a slender majority, but he plays on people's fears. He claims the alternative is for Arabs to take over Israel.

The Israel/Arab has existed for as long as I can remember and nobody has come up with a workable solution.

The whole issue has been confused by anti-semiticism and is often used to detract from the discrimination experienced by Jews. I'm afraid anybody who denies its existence is being very naive.

I think we begin by recognising the true nature of Israel today. It is no longer a small poor country threatened with eradication by its Arab neighbours. It is 10th in the world's most powerful countries. The UAE, the only Arab country in the top 10, is 9th. So there is little to choose between them. www.timesofisrael.com/israel-among-10-most-powerful-countries-in-the-world-in-annual-list/#:~:text=Israel%20is%20one%20of%20the,by%20US%20News%20%26%20World%20Report.
The idea that the Palestinian people persecuted or discriminated against Jews is questionable. The country had been a place of refuge for Jewish people for centuries. The Israeli/Arab wars of the 20th century were an attempt to limit Jewish expansion, but they failed.
A solution will only be reached when Israel recognises the rights of the Palestinian people to exist and agrees to provide them with proper human rights. Then talks can begin about how best to resolve the issue. Of course one of the problems is that giving Palestinians equal status within Israel might mean a majority of the population would not be Jewish.

All that was asked was the Israel boundaries as stated in 1947 were adhered to ,all the nonsense I saw on TV of wailing that the Palestinian land had jewish blood on it from 1000 years ago is ridiculous . These people are entitled to live peacefully on the land THEIR ancestors have farmed for hundreds of years...continually.
The UN is useless as the resolutions have and are being ignored by successive Israeli governments.

Fleurpepper

It's a lot more than 'bullying' Aveline- ancestral lands are taken forcibly, ancestral villages, agricultural lands, olive groves, polluted, new towns built with all sewerage poured onto the above, and worse, and a whole people subjugated to the worst form of apartheid, racism and discrimination.

It is abhorrent in the extreme. The vast majority of Jewish people are not responsible, but by not rising against it and denouncing it, they are part of it. Those Jews that do are also reviled and their lives made a misery. Some of my Jewish friends have had to flee Israel.

and being forced to pay when their own homes are destroyed and they are forced to leave.. it's heartbreaking.. and I agree with you there are many Israelis who do not accept that regime.

I know growstuff, I was teasing.
However I do think the historical context is important. I know that the actual state of Israel was created in 1947, I’ve read quite widely around it. But the Jews consider that Israel was there before, I believe, and Palestine was definitely there before. Both the claims are historical. The two state solution would be ideal I think, but it’s not happening yet.