That's probably the least appropriate analogy ever.
> who believe that driving people out of their homes is god's work
Israel is actually a surprisingly secular country. If you don't know the most basic things about a country, maybe you shouldn't go around calling them nazis and barbarians. There's a word for those kind of attitudes.
But I do admit here that I've turned this not-understanding into choosing that it must be plain evil. Maybe it's something different. I'll not delete my original post to keep the thread understandable.
Zionism is the idea that Jews need a Jewish nation to take Jewish refugees fleeing persecution. History has basically proved that to be true.
What it's not:
1. The idea that Jews are in any way superior. All races have equal rights under Israeli law (although secular Jews have some obligations that other groups don't, i.e. mandatory military service) and Israel has a significant Arab population.
2. Religion-based. Early Zionists were all secular socialists. Religious Jews got on board later when they started to see Israel as a sign from God but the traditional position (and the reason why many Ultra-Orthodox Jews still don't support Israel) is that Jews weren't allowed a nation until the Messiah comes.
Israel isn't perfect (obviously) but your comments are completely disproportionate. You need to tone down the hate.
Makes perfect sense. If you settle a persecuted set of people on a totally unoccupied land, which would be totally harmless. What I don't understand is the need to persecute one already existing set of people to accommodate another set of people who just got persecuted.
If a persecuted tribe in Africa decides to settle down in Antarctica people wouldn't have a problem. But will it be OK, if they invade California drive out the existing set of people there and settle down.
This narrative about driving people out is an oversimplification at best, though, just as much for Israel as for California.
I don't see Hispanics flying around in F-16's bombing white American colonies. If they do, I will be the first to speak out. What you seem to be talking about is natural change in demographics, where a group of people grow in population and the other group doesn't grow much. And then there is natural movement(like immigration in case of Hispanics).
Also if its oversimplification, please explain us the right thing.
As a result you call my response intellectually dishonest, and ask me to go over to Reddit and talk to other fanatics.
Sorry, but no more replies from me. Also If have I hurt you by any means on this thread, accept my sincere apologies.
How on earth is the former causally linked to the latter?
If you think that's analogous to what happened in Palestine you need a history lesson.
Will it be ok, If they drive out existing residents of California?
But they weren't persecuted - they were paid off.
In 1917, at the end of WW1, Britain was given the mandate of administering Palestine - at the time a chunk of the recently-defeated-and-defunct Ottoman Empire. Part of this mandate was the Balfour Declaration, which basically said that Britain would work to build 'a national home for the Jewish people' in Palestine ("it being clearly understood that nothing should be done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine").
They worked with the "Jewish Agency for Palestine" (these days the Jewish Agency for Israel), who had been buying the land in the area from the previous owners - mostly Arab clans and local sheiks and so on. Nothing was seized, nobody was driven out or persecuted.
In practice the people in the area operated as 'millets' - micronations unified by religious belief, governing themselves according to religious law. When the British took over administration of the region in 1917, they didn't try to change this.
So for the most part, the landowners that the Jewish Agency was buying from were the governance. The trade wasn't like one citizen of a nation selling to another citizen of the nation; it was like one country selling land to another country (and so moving its borders).
The message is clear and simple: Don't mess with us, we will fk you over. Whether it is nice or not is a different matter.
I do not think that what Israel is doing is better or worse than what other countries have done or are currently doing and should not be treated any better or worse because of it. But it would be disingenuous to spin it as anything but what it is. To me, the strategy is to occupy and take over territory over time. It works. See the history of the United States versus native people, Australians versus aborigines, Chinese versus Tibetans. Might makes right. For Americans, we still benefit greatly from what happened in the past. Its not to say that the Palestinians are blameless, just that Israel has the 'bigger gun' in this fight.
Say what you will about history, but how people are treated right now is telling.
Why don't you do research on the early Zionists, if you're actually curious about the subject and not just trying to score points in an internet debate? Probably most of the early Zionists were very secularist.
I don't especially like the settlements, actually, and neither do a lot of Palestinians. I'd be happier if the lot of them were either removed or simply abandoned to the jurisdiction of Palestinian authorities.
Sharon actually closed a lot of them awhile ago, but just like any democracy, it's hard to get away with alienating any constituency. You'll notice that even though Sharon pulled all the settlements out of the Gaza Strip, it didn't seem to improve matters there any. Also, the settlements provide a lot of jobs and economic benefits to Palestinians. It's a complicated issue, much more complicated than this bullshit of yours about "the Israelis are Nazis" (which itself is pretty fucking racist, BTW).
As for the bulldozers, do you have any good sources on that? As far as I can readily find, most demolitions are either carried out because structures were constructed (often in Israel itself) without proper building permits (though this is allegedly enforced unfairly), or because there are terrorists actively holed up inside them. Interestingly, Israel also demolishes a lot of the settlements.
This is probably a good time to point out one of my simple ground rules about this issue: I think any criticism of any party, or any policy, is reasonable, as long as one accepts that both Israel and Palestine have a right to exist as independent states.
As a sidenote, I agree that the Nazi reference was over the top and I regret using it. I do not agree, however, that it was "fucking racist", since I called a government something, not a race or a nation's people.
There are also Palestinian factions which are unreasonable, including Hamas. I think it's doubly unfortunate that both Hamas and Likud have managed to win various elections.
EDIT: I'm editing this comment because HN won't allow me to respond to blvr's post. blvr, thanks for elaborating. I don't mean to sound hateful, and I'm willing to accept that I have it all wrong. But still, can you explain the colonization thing? Why do they do it? Note, this is not criticism: I'd really like to understand it better. It's been pointed out by many in this thread by now that I've been assuming things.
I don't know what you mean by 'the colonisation thing'. What are you talking about specifically?
Aie, damn. Lost in translation. I meant the settlements. But people have been elaborating about those in other comments by now. And I've come to stand corrected that even if the settlements are horrible, they're less horrible than suicide bombings and the likes.