The questions are:
- Does Google deliberatly blurring Gaza strip?
- Who benefits by artificially degraded quality of Gaza maps?
- Does Google quietly taking political sides?
- Does Google deliberatly blurring Gaza strip?
- Who benefits by artificially degraded quality of Gaza maps?
- Does Google quietly taking political sides?
- Israel.
- Yes, see how they took a position on the heart of this issue — the occupied territories themselves. They literally erased Palestine from the map.
The US government doesn't recognize Palestine. Therefore displaying the occupied territories as a distinct state would be the more politicalized option compared with displaying them as they currently do. Either way, it just goes to show that the idea of a company being apolitical becomes more difficult as it grows and eventually becomes impossible when you reach Google's size. There is no potential choice here that isn't going to be viewed politically.
Side note, you should be careful using Israeli and Jewish as interchangeable terms. There is no such thing as an "Israeli diaspora".
How can this be when the policy of the US government is itself determined by politics in its original, non-metaphorical form?
>There is no potential choice here that isn't going to be viewed politically.
Maybe the two negatives in that sentence are throwing people off, but I can rephrase it to say "There is no apolitical choice here."
However any choice that goes against the status quo is going to be perceived as more political than a choice that accepts the status quo. That is just a general statement and isn't specific to the debate about recognition of Palestine.
Google has headquarters in many countries including Israel. They use various Sources to create maps. And some happen to show Palestine as a separate country. Using one source over another is not a politicized move. But since the recognition of Palestine is recent, ignoring a UN resolution is politicized, more than following an archaic policy of a home country.
There are something like 100k Israelis is the US. They have virtually no political power. If you want to say "Jewish Diaspora" say "Jewish Diaspora". It really seems like you are using "Israeli Diaspora" in order to avoid accusations of anti-Semitism. My comment was simply pointing out that using Israeli and Jewish interchangeably is probably a more worrying indicator than just saying "Jews have influence in US politics" which is at least true at some level. Although nowadays Evangelicals play a bigger role in determining the US's political stance on Israel than Jews as evidenced by Jewish people being overwhelming Democrats while the Republicans are viewed as the pro-Israel party.
I don't find particularly puzzling that the US, as a whole, might have pro-Israel policies for historic and strategic reasons; however, the intensity of sentiment, particularly on the Christian right, still baffles me.
I know it does not neatly fit your narrative about a Jewish conspiracy in America ("Israeli diaspora?" really?), but US support is one of the reasons there is any Palestinian self-governance at all, limited as it may be.
As far as PA exerting control, Israel has actively worked to keep the PA weak and frowned to recognize any sovereignty, even to this day keeping occupation forces inside and protecting illegal settlements.
> The reason the US does not recognize Palestine is that right now there is not a fully formed Palestinian government.
This is a funny narrative. Afghanistan does not not have a full government but that does not mean they are not recognized.
There isn't much of an "Israeli diaspora" to speak of the the U.S. At most it makes up 2-3 percent of the Jewish descendant (or identified) population.
"Pro-Israel sentiment in Congress; more specifically, a sentiment favoring the current political status quo in Israel in regard to this particular issue" would be a better description of the proximate cause behind the current US policy, here.
But you know, for someone who claims to know the facts, it sure seems like you are purposefully spreading disinformation.
EDIT: I rephrased this to more clearly explain my point.
The reason why there are less Christian Palestinians is because a lot of them were deported or fled shortly after the Nakba.
A lot of them would come back if Palestine was restored, but most of them are legally prevented by Israel from coming back.
Not even Hamas or Hezbollah wants Palestine to be a single religion or single ethnicity state, so I don't really understand what you were trying to convey.
What I care about are factually wrong and misleading statements.
How these places work is that if you leave, you can never come back.
These places are awful to live in. The only people that stay there stay because they don't have a choice or for ideological reasons. That's why Christians leave moreso, they often have family that left and can get refugee status more easily.
The trend of Christians leaving is a highly localized trend. The greatest number of Christians left not everywhere in the Middle East, but in Iraq, Syria, and, a while ago, Turkey.
The events in the last sixty years that contributed the most to Christian emigration were the Lebanese civil war, the Iraq war, the Syrian Civil War, and the Nakba of 1948.
By wide margins the European Christian crusaders killed more Arab Christians then any other ethnic group. Palestinian Christians and Muslims have coexisted for a long, long time. To the point that the holiest of Christian churches are often entrusted to Muslim custodianship. How else would you explain that?
It's not Hamas that destroyed a Christian church and orphanage a week ago. It was an Israeli bomb.
There were two or three attacks of Christians in Palestine by Muslims, however them being religiously motivated is doubtful and the perpetrators were condemned and prosecuted by everyone, even Hamas.
The vast majority of persecution of Christians in Palestine for their religion was by Jewish extremists, overwhelmingly. Let alone ethnic persecution of Christians.
Regardless, the fact that historically Christians (and other minorities) were treated relatively well in the Middle East does not change the reality that for the past 100 years Christians and other minorities are facing massive persecution in the Middle East and in some cases genocide or ethnic cleansing.
Some examples of persecution Christians currently face (by no means complete)
- In Egypt, Copts can not perform any repairs on their churches without government approval, moreover in the past 10 years alone 100s have been killed by mobs attacking them.
- In Saudi Arabia, Christians can not practice their religion in public.
- In Iran Christians that converted from Islam face the death penalty
- Turkey two Byzantine Era churches, Hagia Sophia and the Church of the Holy Saviour, were just converted to mosques.
- In Gaza Christian business and places of worship are regularly attacked by Islamic extremists, often with tacit approval of the ruling Hamas.
And this is just the tip of the ice burg when it comes to the type of persecution Christians face in the Middle East today.
Now let’s for a second talk about Jews of the Middle East. A 100 years ago the Jewish population in the Middle East (outside of Israel/Palestine) was nearly 1 million and yet today it numbers maybe a few 100.
Ask yourself where are the Jews of Syria, Algeria, Yemen, Egypt, Iraq etc? All had relatively large Jewish communities until recently. Persecution, violence and yes, ethnic cleansing is what decimated the Jewish population of the Middle East (outside of Israel).
The reality is, one of the few countries in the Middle East where religious minorities do not face any major persecution is Israel. Yes, you have had individual cases of extremists attacking minorities - but this is true for every country in the world, and when it does happen they are usually caught and brought to justice. This is why the fastest growing religious community in Israel is Islam and this is also why the Christian population in Israel is continuing to grow (unlike in the areas in the Westbank under the Palestinian Authority rule and Gaza under Hamas rule, where the Christian population is decreasing at an alarming rate). Does it mean Israel is perfect when it comes to how it treats minorities? Nope. But, when it comes to its treatment of minorities it is no where near as bad as the rest of the Middle East and is not much worse (and in some cases better) than the EU and the US.
Yeah, please stop with your disinformation. Zionists try to present the migration to Israel from Arab lands as if it was somehow equivalent to the Palestinian Nakba. Lets see what some of those migrants say about this. Yisrael Yeshayahu, a former Knesset speaker who migrated from Yemen said "We are not refugees. [Some of us] came to this country before the state was born. We had messianic aspirations." -- basically he came because he was a zionist. Another former speaker Shlomo Hillel said "I do not regard the departure of Jews from Arab lands as that of refugees. They came here because they wanted to, as Zionists" [1]. Iraqi-born Israeli historian Avi Shlaim, speaking of the wave of Iraqi Jewish migration to Israel, concludes that, even though Iraqi Jews were "victims of the Israeli-Arab conflict", Iraqi Jews aren't refugees, saying "nobody expelled us from Iraq, nobody told us that we were unwanted" [2]. It is truly despicable to paint those who came to Israel from other parts of the Middle East as colonizers looking to steal the property of the indigenous Palestinian Arabs as victims.
> And this is just the tip of the ice burg when it comes to the type of persecution Christians face in the Middle East today.
Again, I know it would be seemingly convenient for you -- a defender of Apartheid Israel -- to find another nation which behaves like Israel (in its persecution of other races/religions). Nonetheless, even if what you are saying is true -- and I believe many of the Muslims of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, and Syria would reject this -- what you are proving is nothing. This is just a whataboutism/red herring/tu quoque. How about Israel starts treating the Arab Muslims and Christians with dignity, stops abusing their rights, stealing their property and land.
Just remember -- you are here defending a country which has institutionalized racism and apartheid.
[1] http://www.haaretz.com/hitching-a-ride-on-the-magic-carpet-1... [2] https://web.archive.org/web/20050814015754/http://www.haaret...
Look, I have relatives and many friends that escaped those countries because they were being persecuted and in some cases we’re under the threat of death. You trying to change history because it doesn't fit your narrative doesn't change what actually happened.
The reality is Yemenite Jews have faced legal persecution and violence for many years. Read up about the pogroms like the Adyen Riots of 1947 where nearly 100 Yemenite Jews were murdered.
Did some Yemenites came before Israel existed? Absolutely, as did Jews from all over the world. After all it is the most religiously significant place in Jewish religion - it is only natural that some would come and choose to make a life here. That does not change the fact that Jewish communities across the middle east faced (and still face) significant persecution.
I can give you countless examples of pogroms the Jews in the middle east faced before the state of Israel even existed, the Farhud pogrom in Iraq in 1941, the massacre of Jews in Constantine in 1934, the Hebron and Safed Massacres of 1929 in which 2000 year old Jewish communities were wiped out and there are many many many more. There were also and in some cases still are unjust laws, real apartheid laws, that exist persecuting against Jews and Christians. In Iraq you had laws that denied Jews the right to a bank account, or to work in many professions, including government positions, you had laws in Algeria that denied the Jews citizenship and laws in Libya that effectively denied Jews citizenship. And again - this is only the tip of the ice burg when it comes to the type of persecution Jews faced and still face today across the Middle East.
As far as you calling Israel an Apartheid state, plenty of Israeli Arabs would disagree with you. I have provided some links to a few of them[1][2][3]. The majority of Israeli Arabs are proud to be Israeli [4] and of Israel’s achievements. Does Israel have some racism? For sure - so does the US, the UK, France etc.. - that does not make it an apartheid state. Arab Israelis make up 20% of the states population and they have the same right as anyone else in the country and that is best demonstrated by the fact that the third largest political party is in fact an Israeli Arab party.
As for the Palestinians in the Westbank and Gaza - I truly hope to see them form a successful state beside Israel where they can enjoy those same democratic rights (the rights Mahmoud Abbas has denied them since 2006 when he last allowed an election). We were extremely close to achieving this in the past and I hope we achieve it in the future.
Now you never actually even tried to counter my argument about the persecution and real apartheid like laws christians face in the rest of the Middle East. Are you denying that 100s of Copts christians have been murdered in Egypt in the past 10 years? or the laws in Saudi Arabia that deny Christians the right to practice in public? Or that you can be put to death in Iran for converting from Islam to Christianity or the fact that Turkey just turned two historic Byzetine churches into mosques?
Now regardless of the above argument - and since you raised the Israeli-Palestinian conflict (I did not - I spoke about the persecution of minorities in the Middle East and how it has effected the demographic balance). The only way we will get to a solution to this conflict is when we all start acknowledging each others suffering and start talking about the other sides suffering as well. I as an Israeli am willing to do that and I also will continue to fight any racism I see here in Israel (both by how I vote and by how I act). But this conversation has to be based on facts, those facts do not ignore the other sides suffering. It's a complicated conflict and there is no easy solution, but hopefully, through dialogue we can celebrate small baby steps in the right direction. However, I will not stand by when you or any other try to deny the suffering of any side and the persecution of minorities (doesn't matter if they are Jewish, Muslim, Christian[5], Bahai, Druze etc..) in the Middle East.
[1] - Yoseph Haddad - https://www.facebook.com/YosHaddad
[2] - Israeli Ambassador George Deek - https://twitter.com/GeorgeDeek
[3] - Mohammad Kabiya - https://twitter.com/mohammadkabiya as just some of the examples.
[4] - https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/both-jews-and-arabs-say-...
[5] UN watch on the decline of Christians in Iraq and Syria - https://youtu.be/kbJ2su1rwAs
If you are saying I am confusing land and people, what is the 2% and 8% number referring to in the above comment? People and land? If so, what people, and what land?
The partitioning of land was obviously unfair after world war 2. I doubt anyone actually disagree with it. Land getting repossessed and captured during wars is never fair, and it was not the only border change that occurred when the world war ended. The allies did not just keep the borders at they were at the beginning of ww2, through much of the land grabs has been mostly forgotten outside of people studying history. The Israeli–Palestinian conflict is one of the few remaining land conflicts from the war.
If you look at the history of this area, what happened was Jewish terrorist groups (haganah[2], lehi[3], Irgun[4]) started going around murdering Palestinian villagers[1]. When the Palestinian villagers ran the Zionists settled their lands.The land and property was stolen from the Palestinians. They were terrorized into fleeing their lands and were never allowed to return!
So somehow, in the modern day when we all know this as fact, we are supposed to just accept that these people and all their dependents are condemned to eternal refugee status? Thats not the worse part. While the Palestinians are condemned as refugees any random Jewish people born in Europe or America are allowed to emigrate to Israel to settle those lands. This is why Israel is an Apartheid state.
How is this not absurd and how is it moral?
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Yassin_massacre [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haganah [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lehi_(militant_group) [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irgun
Land and property was stolen after world war 2 by the allied. History has painted most of that as being acceptable because the Nazis was bad and the allied good and so anything that occurred after victory was good. Land and property was stolen and the people who lived there were forced to fleeing their lands and to never be allowed to return.
For most of those, yes, we are supposed to just accept that those people and all their dependents are condemned to eternal refugee status. It seems that most conceded land has simply been accepted as belonging to the victors as any person who actually lived there is now dead given that it been almost 100 years. What makes the Palestinians situation a bit more unique among conceded land is that the people actually did not get removed a 100 years ago and so the conflict is still alive today. People are trying to remove them today.
As a concrete example of conceded land, Finland conceded much more land to Russia than the area size of Gaza, and the Finnish population (Karelians) had to flee while people from Ukraine, Belarus and Russia settled the captured land. Today the conceded Finnish land is still owned by Russia. The conflict is however pretty dead because Finland do not want to own a bunch of land where everyone is Russian-speaking, and the cost of bringing the standard of living to the same level as in Finland would be pretty expensive. Any descendant that used to live there will just have to accept it, and the idea of forcing out the Ukraine/Belarus/Russia descendants that live there today is so far away from reality that it thankfully does not exist.
In my own opinion, trying to find a solution based on who owned what a 100 years ago is unlikely to be productive. There was a world war, a lot of people died, and most everything about it was tragic except that the Nazis lost. The conflict today is not going to be solved by trying to fix history, but rather by finding a solution for those living there today.
Why are people even defending Hamas???!
Does Israel not have right to defend itself? Is Israel like South Korea who gets attacked regularly and does nothing and opens itself up escalating levels of attack?
What you said is plainly obvious.
If US mainland were ever attacked, no one here would object to a similar response.