(no subject)

[theweaselking]

"separate but equal", with "separate" being the important part and "equal" really not coming into it at all, deemed totally okay in Israel.

Remember, it's not Apartheid when your ALLIES do it.

Comments

[elffin.livejournal.com]

On the one hand, yeah, it's apartheid.

On the other hand, neither America nor South Africa had a situation wherein the former slaves were the ones imposing the apartheid on the former oppressors, who happen to be waging a sophisticated guerrilla warfare campaign in their homeland replete with suicide bombings, missile strikes, drive-by shootings, kidnappings, and massive propaganda campaigns, all with the explicitly stated aim of killing or removing them all from the country and taking the land once more.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

As may be, but my government isn't giving money to that side.

[elffin.livejournal.com]

Mainly because that side clamoured for the ability to govern itself regarding local matters, was given that ability, received - on the mean - a billion US dollars in aid from the United States alone per year from 1994 to 2006, and then promptly governed itself into a terrorist state whose explicit aims are the complete genocide of the Jews. Oh, and Westerners, christians, and infidels.

Our side is no longer giving them money, because there is no longer any question about the nature of their "government".

[kadath.livejournal.com]

Are you an Israeli partisan, or just playing Devil's Advocate? Because if it's the former, I'm just going to go do something more productive, like bang my head against a wall.

[elffin.livejournal.com]

I think that

A: The then-government of Palestine sided with the Ottoman Empire in World War I, and lost. The British government was given control of the land and created the pre-cursor to the modern state of Israel. Shortly before the end of WWII, the modern state of Israel was recognised by the United States and other world powers and then by the United Nations as a legitimate government.

B: In 2006, FIFTY YEARS after the LEGITIMATE ESTABLISHMENT of the State of Israel, and THREE GENERATIONS ON from the forfeiture at the end of WWI, the PLO continues to hold sway over a subsistence economy by dint of a thug government held in place by rabid hatred shored up by religious fanatics, who lie and claim that it's political.

Contrast that to:

A: At the end of World War II, Germany was divided into East and West Germany. Berlin was divided up by Russia, the United States, and Britain.

B: in 1993, FORTY + YEARS LATER - ONE GENERATION, East and West Germany re-united. They worked together to recover their economy and country and government.

Yes, Israel (as I said in the opening comment) is engaging in separate-but-equal politics. In any civilised society, the actions of the state of Israel would be untenable.

They have also worked for over a decade on a formal peace process, for over fifty years on an informal peace process, had to defend themselves from a united, well-funded front of aggressors bent on killing or capturing each and every one of them from many sides, and a populace who explicitly continues to hold sections of land as explicit staging grounds for military action - whereas it was merely implicit for the forty years before that.

The PLO, Palestinian Authority, and Hamas are not interested in peaceful co-existence. They are not interested in peace. They are not interested in settling. They are not interested in anything except re-conquering the entire land of Palestine, including the modern state of Israel, by military means, and conducting guerrilla terrorist actions until that occurs.

Israel is a legitimate state.

It has a right to defend itself and police itself.

It knows /for a fact/ that large swaths of its' populace are religious fanatics bent on overthrowing it violently and that every action taken by those groups has been ostensibly for peace but actually to buy time.

I am no more an Israeli partisan than I am a German partisan or Italian partisan or Czekoslovakian partisan or Taiwanese partisan or Tibetan partisan.

The actions of Israel seem to us to be unjustified, and unjustifiable, unless viewed from the point of view of Israel and the rule of law.

The actions of the PLO and Hamas, when viewed from the point of view of the rule of law, are not justifiable.

The actions of the Chinese government in Taiwan and Tibet and a large swath of China itself are NOT JUSTIFIABLE.

I FUCKING HATE THUGS, and am DEVOTED to the Rule of Law.

Israel isn't devoted to the rule of law, yet Hamas would not be able to recognise the rule of law if it danced up to them in size 9 speedos, singing "I am the rule of LAAAAW" while twirling a scepter of might and juggling an orb of temporal rule, with "rule of LAW" painted on it's forehead.

[kadath.livejournal.com]

And I'm an anarchist.

Ta-ta.

[elffin.livejournal.com]

More power to you; I wish the entire human race could be anarchists.

We have far too many thugs for anarchy to be realistic.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

To operate on the presumption that apartheid refers specifically to South Africa and to ignore the fact that it can and has been used to refer to a policy of segrgation involving political, economic, and/or legal discrimination against a particular people is an act of ignorance.

As is assuming that the use of the word "apartheid" is intended to draw an analogy rather than describe a situation.

[elffin.livejournal.com]

There are many analogous features between Israel and South Africa, as immigrant governments with class and ethnic and religious divisions used as excuses to perpetuate strife and unrest.

S.A.'s apartheid was uniformly enforced, based on skin colour regardless of education, background, or personal temperament. the S.A. government resorted to detentions without trial, torture, censorship, and the banning of political opposition movements, engaged in massive gerrymandering, puppet "tribal" governments and had an educational system that was purposefully geared so that Blacks would be physical labourers and nothing more.

The situation in Israel is that there are very many Israeli citizens that are Muslim, who can and do vote and hold positions in the government, get educations, set up their own schools, attend mosques, own property, run businesses, and have their own muslim family law (as opposed to having Jewish family law forced upon them). Palestinians own their own land, govern themselves (if allowing Hamas to seize control of the government can be called governing themselves), educate and finance themselves, etcetera, and until 2006 could get access to Israeli secular and Muslim educational facilities.

Israel also happens to take terrorism extremely seriously, and will - without apology of any kind - drop soldiers into Palestinian neighborhoods at night to retrieve or kill terrorists. They've destroyed the Gaza airstrip facilities and the port at the beginning of the current "Intifada" because it was seized and being used by Hamas to launch airstrikes and bring in resources and supporters.

The very worst that I know of is that Israel has actually used missiles to strike buildings that had paramilitary forces operating in them, killing Palestinians who also lived in the building or nearby. They don't do that regularly nor as a first resort, and the decision to do so has since been declaimed by many Israeli citizenry.

[ironphoenix.livejournal.com]

The court's ruling is, in my opinion, a pretty flagrant violation of that very "rule of law": it is caving in to public pressure in violation of the previous ruling.

I won't paint the Palestinians, particularly the leaders who have done so much for ideological and racial hatred and so little for the welfare of their own people, as saints and heroes; they are making their own bad situations worse, as is so often the case among impoverished, oppressed people. They follow leaders who promise everything, but who make it clear that they see victory through blood and fire, not through constructive means.

The Israelis, however, have made unjust laws, changed them capriciously, interpreted them "creatively," and then simply violated what was left, all while claiming the mantle of righteousness for the eyes of the world. Yes, they are threatened by their neighbors, but they too are making their own situation worse, constantly expanding settlements in occupied territories in violation of assorted laws and UN resolutions, complete with gloating triumphal processions. They undermine any efforts the Palestinians make to improve their material situation, imposing special taxes and onerous regulations, and demolishing infrastructure. They rub the Palestinian people's noses in powerlessness, and then cry foul when those people grasp at anything that promises to give them back power and dignity, whatever the cost? That is the essence of bullying, and it makes me very, very angry.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

Uhm... are you saying that makes it less surprising, or less objectionable? Or something else?

[elffin.livejournal.com]

I am saying that it's not apartheid because it is in fact a legitimate state which is just about as civilised and law-abiding as the United States Federal Government is (not saying much there) - dealing with an out-and-out theocratic terrorist organisation whose stated goals include the overthrow of the legitimate state of Israel by any means necessary, including as a baseline - for example, "Fair Elections" that involve:

A: Disenfranchising every single Jew in Israel from voting, unless they can prove in two ways that they were living in Palestine prior to the end of WWI or directly descended from ancestors who were all living in Palestine prior to the end of WWI;

B: Finding and immigrating every single living fundamentalist Muslim descendant or possible descendant of the people who fled Palestine at the end of WWI; Merely claiming that your ancestors were Palestinians living in Palestine at the end of WWI is /sufficient proof/ for this process;

C: Having all those Muslims vote on the form of a new government;

D: Calling /whatever comes out of this process/ "Democratically and fairly elected government".

-- And that's their idea of a "peace settlement".

It's not apartheid. Israel is in a lukewarm war.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

a·part·heid [uh-pahrt-heyt, -hahyt]
–noun
1. (in the Republic of South Africa) a rigid policy of segregation of the nonwhite population.
2. any system or practice that separates people according to race, caste, etc.

So your argument is that it's not apartheid because the apartheid is being committed in a context where some people opposed to the legitimate government are members of the group discriminated against?

Just like it wasn't apartheid when the US set up the Japanese relocation/internment/concentration camps during World War II?

[elffin.livejournal.com]

The Japanese in WWII in America is a far more relevant analogy.

In theory, anyone who has an Israeli ID card can use the highway. People living in the Palestinian territories can get Israeli ID cards, /IN THEORY/.

The State of Israel makes an automatic presumption that Muslims with financial ties to terrorist organisations or with family members with ties to terrorist organisations are likely to be agents of terrorism.

The bar is set higher for Palestinians than Israeli citizens to get ID / credentials. Palestinians need to demonstrate that they are who they say they are in a much more strict process, that they're not terrorists or terrorist agents, that they have business in Israel proper, etcetera.

Many Palestinians depend on access to the Israeli economy.

The policy referred to above exists because before it existed, when the Israeli government and some Israeli industries started replacing several job positions with foreign immigrants or Israeli citizens rather than Palestinians, terrorist attacks overall and in those specific cities dropped - because Palestinian terrorist agents stopped crossing the border and arranging attacks, sabotage, and espionage.

There's nothing stopping the Palestinian territories from building an infrastructure and an economy and thriving, except the fact that they're harboring a vicious group of thugs who want nothing more than to perpetuate massive quantities of violence, and the Palestinians refuse to get rid of them and have even allowed them to seize control of the government "Because they are Muslims".

I have a rule that there is no excuse for Theocratically justified thuggery.

I just cannot be moved to lend the PLO, PA, or Hamas or Palestine any semblance of legitimacy. I feel extremely sorry for the Palestinians who are caught unjustly in an unjust situation.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

*thinks*

So for you, it's not "it's not Apartheid when your ALLIES do it." For you, it's "It's not apartheid when what I consider a legitimate government does it."

Even if it's apartheid.

Okay. I see where you're coming from. I hope you will excuse me.

*goes off to contemplate stretchboarding*

(Also, in the interest of you communicating clearly and effectively in the future: your statement about feeling sorry for Palestinians caught in an unjust situation seems to be radically undermined by your earlier generalization about their harbouring and refusing to get rid of a vicious group of thugs who have violence as a goal. Just so you know that you're giving that impression.)

[elffin.livejournal.com]

I know that there are specific Palestinians who

A: Have no way to leave

B: Have no power over the situation in their land

C: Just want to live their lives.

Those are the people I feel sorry for.

The not-insignificant portion of the remainder that follow Hamas? Fuck'em.

----------------

This situation in this article is /not apartheid/. I know what South Africa's apartheid was like, and what it did, and why it was unjust. I don't think that this situation is just, either. It very specifically is not Israel's fault that the situation is this way, Israel has ZERO control over an enemy that refuses to sit down at peace talks and who wants to overthrow and kill them. The State of Israel doesn't discriminate based on ethnicity, religion, skin colour, etcetera. They DO discriminate based on how likely the person driving down the road is to be carrying weapons, a bomb, or a biological agent. Israel is forced to presume that they will, because the ones with legitimate business already have ID cards.

Calling this situation Apartheid, or even small-case-apartheid, is political elephant-tossing and gross oversimplification analogous to calling it a Holocaust, or a small-case-holocaust, directed at Palestine. It is neither.

Americans know from recent history that Separate but Equal is a code word for racism, because that's what it was used for, in the past fifty years.

Israel's court isn't right in this case. The highway was built specifically for the use of local Palestinians. The political climate has changed, and Israel doesn't want to abandon a valuable resource. So they say "It's OK for us to do this".

No, it fucking well is not.

Israel needs to demolish part of the highway before it reaches Israeli territory, and build another one, damn the cost.

Palestine can lie in the bed it made.

[sivi-volk.livejournal.com]

I'll note briefly that the Palestinians are not "former opressors" of the Israelis.

[publius1.livejournal.com]

So, you've now discussed: Abortion, Gun Control, the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, the status of the American Empire...

You REALLY need to get a whole Mormonism fight going, man.

[elffin.livejournal.com]

It's hard to get a flame war going over a group whose major "crimes" that I can think of are

A: indoctrinating dead people into their cult (as if dead people could be, but it makes it hard on the living non-mormon descendents)

B: wanting to have sex with lots of people.

C: harbouring supersitions.

[publius1.livejournal.com]

Well, it always worked for us on Usenet.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

You're obviously not familiar with the Mormons.

[tsunami-ryuu.livejournal.com]

Could go for a Scientology fight, too, but I get the feeling there are very few folks left who'd willingly play Devil's Advocate.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

There's plenty of people who defend it. Very few are going to come into Random Unfriendly Internet Forum to do it, at the moment.