Comment by nsguy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by nsguy | Hacker News Reader

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I'm originally from Israel. No Israeli that I know thinks that Palestinians are inferior. Famously the ex-Israeli Prime Minister Barak said that if he were a Palestinian he might have become a terrorist himself. I'm not saying it's not a thing in certain right wing circles but painting all of Israel with this brush is not right. If anything there's a tiny minority in Israel that would consider Palestinians inferior to Israelis (or Muslims inferior to Jews or whatever). Plenty of right wing nazis everywhere in the world.

You're also wrong on the Palestinians willing to move forward. They had plenty of chances. They absolutely do want domination. For the most part the story that land was unjustly stolen is factually wrong. Land was bought by Jews during Ottoman times legally. Palestinians never had a country so that couldn't have been stolen from them either. Palestinians were displaced during 1948, in a war Arabs started against the new state of Israel. Read Israel's declaration of independence to see how Israel would have preferred that play out. Palestinians, and the Arab countries, have inflicted plenty of harm on Jews in the middle east. Jews were ethnically cleansed from most Arab countries and more land was stolen from Jews in the middle east than the entire area of Israel. But sure, the topic of harm and reparations can be discussed once Palestinians decide to stop using violence to pursue their goals (of domination). This is not about reparations anyways.

This fairy tale you're telling yourself here is some westernized story that has nothing to do with the reality on the ground. Sorry if I'm sounding patronizing.

EDIT: and by the way we can totally reverse Canada and New Zealand for example? Let's use those as test cases for your anti-colonialism fix the world sentiment and see how it goes? Those guys have zero claim of any sorts to the land they're on. Israel at least has something.

>Famously the ex-Israeli Prime Minister Barak said that if he were a Palestinian he might have become a terrorist himself. I wonder how do someone tells something and not think it through? Can you get the the full statement by Barak on this? He says why he would choose to fight. He clearly understood that for Palestinians, no other venue to raise against the brutal oppression exist. If that doesn't make you understand, I don't know what will. The irreversible damage that tye state of Israel has done had made it so. And it continues to do so, and finds new ways to make the lives of Palestinians literal hell.

>Plenty of right wing nazis everywhere in the world.

Yes plenty do. But not many examples where they are armed to the teeth, has a façade of democracy, has the liberty to label the other as human animals, and has practically a free hand in killing the other. Not many the so called neo nazis have that sort of institutionalised power. There are not many examples of this level of apartheid. Not many places where a settler could shoot and kill children and can get away with it.

"יו"ר מפלגת העבודה ח"כ אהוד ברק, אמר אתמול כי אם היה פלשתינאי ובגיל המתאים, ייתכן שהיה מצטרף לארגון טרור. ברק אמר את הדברים בתוכנית "פגישה אישית" שתשודר הערב בערוץ הכבלים, בתשובה לשאלת המראיין גדעון לוי, מה הוא, שלחם בטרור הרבה שנים, היה עושה כפלשתינאי צעיר. ברק הוסיף, כי זוהי שאלה לא הוגנת מאחר וארגוני הטרור פועלים בצורה לא הומנית, חמורה ושפלה ועוסקים בהריגת אזרחים, נשים וילדים חפים מפשע, דבר שיש לגנותו ולפעול נגדו."

"ברק אמר אמש ל"הארץ", כי דבריו לא היו בגדר פליטת פה. "למיטב זכרוני יצחק שמיר אמר דבר דומה. בן גוריון, כשנדרש לתאר את עוצמת השנאההערבית נגדנו אמר דבר דומה, וגם דיין אמר דבר דומה. ההתעסקות התקשורתית בעניין הזה היא מגוחכת. מה רצו שאומר? שאם הייתי צעיר פלשתינאי שהווייתו מינקותו היא הוויה פלשתינאית, הייתי הופך להיות מורה בכיתה ג' בבית ספר עממי?" מהליכוד נמסר בתגובה, כי ברק ירד מהפסים, וכי אינו מתאים עוד לייצג מפלגה ציונית במדינת ישראל. "בדבריו ברק מעודד פלשתינאים בגיל המתאים להצטרף לארגוני טרור"."

https://www.haaretz.co.il/news/politics/2011-11-16/ty-articl...

I need to find the actual interview if we want to be super precise. But either way, the way this is referred to in the Pro-Palestinian narrative that you're presenting here is incorrect.

Barak isn't saying that Palestinians have no other venue for rising against the "brutal oppression". He's just stating the fact that if he was a Palestinian, and grew up under that ideology, and was in the right age, he would probably be in those organization. He is not justifying that. The point I was making is that Israelis don't view Palestinians as inferior. They view them as wrong, brainwashed, driven by extreme ideologies, etc.

Israel is a democracy. It's not a "facade of democracy". It's not labelling all Palestinians as "human animals" though there were certainly a lot of heated statements and emotions after the Oct 7th attack on Israel. There is no Apartheid. It's armed to the teeth because its neighbours want to destroy it. Settlers in general can't shoot and kill children and get away with it though I do agree that there should be better law enforcement in the west bank (and ideally no settlers until its status is resolved). That's my perspective anyways which I think is well in line with the facts and reality.

Palestinians never had a country so that couldn't have been stolen from them either

You know, you wouldn't be invoking this defense if you weren't aware, deep down inside -- that it really is mostly forcibly expropriated land that the State of Israel currently sits on.

Imagine a defense lawyer making the following argument: "Your honor, my client would never have broken into that house, and stolen that woman's necklace. It goes against everything he was raised to believe in. BTW it was never hers to begin with, so it couldn't have been stolen from her anyway."

No Israeli that I know thinks that Palestinians are inferior.

And yet -- the State of Israel was founded on the belief that its claim to the land and resources was categorically more legitimate than that of the people who (by and large) had been living and thriving in the area continuously for thousands of years -- since before the establishment of the first Israelite settlements, in fact.

I'm not "invoking a defense". I'm stating facts. You give me a definition of "forcibly expropriated land" and we'll compare it against the facts for Israel and all other countries in the world and see what comes up. It's not going to support your thesis.

The trial analogy is also completely false. The appropriate adjustments to this story is that nobody broke into that house, you actually own the house and it's always been in your family, no necklace was stolen, but you're still put on trial for stealing a necklace that doesn't exist from your own house because you're Jewish.

Your last statement of "fact" is also not fact. It is simply not factually true that all the people that lived in the region have been living and thriving there for thousands of years since before the Israelites. Many Palestinians have immigrated to the area in fairly recent times. Many Gazans are from Egypt. There are probably some Palestinians who do trace back to the Israelites. In general much of the population of the Levant and the middle east in general, including the Israeli Jews from all over the place, goes way back but there's no specific historic continuity of Palestinians in Israel for the most part. There was plenty of population movement and immigration. This is well supported history with plenty of archaeological evidence.

I also think the characterization of Israel as being "founded on the belief that its claim to the land and resources was categorically more legitimate than" is also false. There was no comparison of legitimacy of various claims simply because there were no other claims at the time. Israel was definitely founded on the (factual) belief that it is the historic homeland of the Jewish people who feel a strong connection to it. What we see in practice is that a person of Italian heritage, living in California, taken by force from Mexico, with the aboriginal inhabitants confined to a reserve and all their resources literally stolen after they were genocided and ethnically cleansed, is telling Israeli Jews why their country, founded on their historical land, where they went as refugees in more recent times because they had nowhere to go to, is illegitimate. If we want to litigate every country's legitimacy going back 3000 years, sure, let's do that. Are you an immigrant in Canada? better start packing since you're going back to where your ancient ancestors used to live. This is ofcourse all total nonsense.

I don't like to appear to be dismissive of longer posts by picking out just one aspect of them and ignoring everything else that was said; but in this case there's one assertion you're making which stands categorically above all others:

You're still put on trial ... because you're Jewish.

If what you mean here is the fact that the State of Israel is often subject to criticism for both for its founding ideology and the violent mechanisms of its creation (or its various attempts to expand its borders and resource claims through the present day) -- no, it's not simply because the people behind this project are of Jewish ancestry. You seem to believe axiomatically that this is in fact the case -- i.e. that all strong critiques in regard to the founding of the State of Israel or its modern policies are basically the Dreyfuss Affair all over again.

I do not share this axiom, so it is unlikely that we will have a productive discussion in regard the finer-grained historical topics.

We're unlikely to have a productive discussion anyways because we're so far apart and this is not a good medium to handle something like this topic. People that are entrenched in certain positions don't seem to want to give them up.

However I'm not claiming all criticism on Israel is because "the people behind this project are of Jewish ancestry". But certainly antisemitism plays a role. It plays a role in Arab views on Israel and that in turn plays a huge role in the world's take. That's just one of the ways it plays out. There are other factors including geopolitics. I would go so far to say that the majority of criticism of Israel is not in good faith, but sure, not all of it is because there are Jews involved. But certainly that accounts for some portion.

> Imagine a defense lawyer making the following argument: "Your honor, my client would never have broken into that house, and stolen that woman's necklace. It goes against everything he was raised to believe in. BTW it was never hers to begin with, so it couldn't have been stolen from her anyway."

I was going after this analogy which feels completely wrong.

> all strong critiques in regard to the founding of the State of Israel or its modern policies are basically the Dreyfuss Affair all over again.

I disagree with this statement. There's no problem with any critique of Israel in general. Where it becomes a problem is when Israel is singled out. E.g. if there is no critique of the founding of Jordan, which was given as a gift by the British to the Hashemites for helping them during the Arab revolt, then I think this is a problem. Then there is "critique" and there is stuff that's not critique. But for people that are interested in reopening the question of how various countries were founded in general in the 18th, 19th, and 20th century, sure we can have this discussion and include Israel in it for sure. For people whose main focus is simply attacking Israel by any means possible, I think that's a problem. I'm totally with John Lennon "Imagine" on a purely romantic idealistic way, but then there's reality.

Fair enough in regard to strong critiques.

I still don't think the original statement I jumped in at ("Palestinians never had a country so that couldn't have been stolen from them") stands on its own, or helps explain the current situation.

Of course they had a country; and hence would not recognize domination by a foreign population -- unless imposed by overwhelming force. The original Zionists were keenly aware of this fact, which is why it has become one of guiding tenants in nearly major strategic decisions Israel has made since.

er, "tenets"

>if there is no critique of the founding of Jordan, which was given as a gift by the British to the Hashemites for helping them during the Arab revolt, then I think this is a problem.

That can also be criticised. Although what is tend to get lost in these type of arguments is that, it is entirely different to give assistance in ruling a patch of land versus literally displacing people from their land and homes and imposing military control over them.

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