The Palestinian Genocide, Antisemitism and Denial of the Holocaust

[Bonefish]

[Phoebe]

Maybe other people will want to discuss this but for my own part, I don't think there's any point in trying. I totally disagree with almost everything you have written above, I don't think there's much middle ground on which we're going to agree on anything with respect to this issue. From my perspective you have given a maliciously false account of the history and founding and purpose and current nature of Israel. You're making terrible accusations about genocide without providing any type of adequate factual support for those assertions. Appeal to a controversy about a Facebook post by one particularly conservative and far-right member of the Israeli government is, shall we say, inadequate evidence. It would be like making the argument that Steve Bannon speaks for all Americans, so we can rightfully conclude that whatever he may have said in 2013 is the basic principle of the nation.

[Bonefish]

I love how Rapheal Lemkin's work to provide a legal basis for Genocide, and that legal definition and international law being used to prosecute atleast three genocides, is outright ignored. Again, the man who defined genocide and gave us the foundations for actually punishing it, and hopefully presenting it, is not something that can be dismissed. And when the internationally recognized legal definition of Genocide is used, then yes, it is clear that Israel is commiting genocide. The UN 1948 Convention on the Prevention of Genocide is the relevant thing, and in it, Genocide can be accomplished by blockade of foodstuffs, destruction of water supplies, forcible expulsion and relocation, and any measure intended to inflict physical OR mental harm on a people, in whole or in part.

Now, since 1948, Israel has expelled palestinians from their land, or(especially after massacres of palestinian villages) fled from approaching Israeli forces. The last minister of the Knesst, Feiglin, had some rather clear statements regarding the goal: the forced removal of the palestinian people from Gaza, and turning Gaza into a tourist location and making it a part of a Jewish state. That's genocide. Forcing people out of their homes, trying those who are "terrorists" in tribunals, and then sending the "innocent" to camps in the desert is proposing genocide. That's all illegal as heck. Bulldozing palestinian villages to build Jewish villages. G to the E to the N to the N O motherfuckin' CIDE.

When Netanhayu demands "revenge" for 3 dead boys? That's not some rogue element of the Israeli government. When IDF officers hang dead palestinians up from gibbets or light posts? That is again, not some sort of individual incident, but a widespread and incipent pattern. When the defence minister calls for a shoah against palestinians? Just to note, that means in the past three years the leader of the Knesset, the prime minister, the defence minister AND the justice minister have ALL called for genocidal acts, then you can't dismiss it as some outlier.

When Isreal sprays herbicide in vast quantities on a third of the cropland of Gaza, destroys wells, water treatment facilities, sewage treatment facilities? Then you maintain a concurrent blockade of trade between the occupied territories, preventing people from traveling to their jobs, or visiting their families? That isn't fighting terrorism, that's genocide. Those are actions that will inflict physical and mental harm on palestinians, in whole or in part, and are aimed at the destruction, in whole or in part, of the palestinian nation. There are voices in Israel itself who express this, and they have been viciously denounced and ridiculed, and are generally ignored in the US Media's reporting on Israel.

And if Israel's right wing is engaging in these actions, inciting them? And they contribute money to our political process and sway our elected officials? Is it any surprise that we have become increasingly right wing and totalitarian? Really? We give billions to Israel and Saudi Arabia, and they give that back in political and economic contributions, and we wonder why our government has increasingly devolved into a more frightening monster? I mean, what do you expect to happen from associating with bad company? You learn good habits?

It's time to break this cycle.

[Phoebe]

Forgive me for being blunt in my response, but today is yet another day of anxiety about bomb threats called in by someone who believes all the same things you do. Does it even distress you slightly that the worst anti-Semites of the world embrace these opinions?

You know, this isn't about you, but I'm pretty tired of this whole "JCC bomb threats" headline. How about in this "tell it like it is" world we start attaching the accurate labels?
"BABIES THREATENED WITH BOMB"
"INFANTS IN CRIBS ROLLED OUT TO SIDEWALK AS DAYCARE RECEIVES YET ANOTHER BOMB THREAT"
"BALLET SCHOOL RECEIVES BOMB THREAT FOR SIXTH TIME THIS YEAR"
"ART GALLERY RECEIVES BOMB THREAT, AGAIN"
"NURSING HOME GETS ANOTHER BOMB THREAT"
"KNITTING CLASSES EVACUATED DUE TO BOMB THREAT"
"LIBRARY CLOSED DUE TO BOMB THREAT"
Because that's what is actually happening and I think maybe people would wake up a bit if they called this what it is. Nobody knows what a JCC is.

I don't know what your discussion of Herzl is supposed to prove. You are attached to the idea that Jews have no claim to Palestine, no attachment to that place. This is false. There has been a continuous Jewish presence in Palestine. This is not "mythic". There is no "peculiar nationalist and religious fervor" as you claim; even if there were any such "fervor" there is nothing "peculiar" about it, and even if it were both fervor and peculiar it is certainly no more so than the peculiar fervor of Israel's enemies. You obliquely refer to the Holocaust "an episode" above, which to be honest makes me wonder if you are an actual white supremacist type. You speak of the Holocaust as a "handy reminder", "useful rallying call", and "specter" that "added impetus", as if it were some sort of marketing ploy to support the "mythical" foundation of Israel. That is outright false and deeply morally disgusting. Like, maybe you should bathe now, if there were some hope of bathing your soul in the process, after saying things like that.

Then you say the Holocaust is an "interesting case" and despite writing a long paragraph about what supposedly makes it unique, you can't seem to admit what made it unique was the specific and systematic targeting of the Jewish people as an entire race for extermination. In your zeal to find other things on the borders that count as genocide, so that you can accuse Israel of it, you seem to be forgetting the essential core of the definition you yourself quoted: it's about a whole GENOS OF PEOPLE. This one tribe was singled out for elimination from the face of the earth, nearly successfully, and you're worried that people aren't paying enough attention to the fact that lots of other people were targeted too, or got swept up in the same horror. No, we are well aware of all that, and the driving force behind all of it was to eliminate the Jewish people.

Israel does not have and never has had a "coordinated plan aimed at destruction of the essential foundations of the life" of the Palestinians. It has not forced the disintegration of their political institutions - quite the contrary! Meanwhile, the Palestinians and their allies historically refused to recognize the existence of the Jewish state at all! It was a great bit of progress when they did, and when Israel could negotiate with the PLO at all. Israel is not getting rid of Islamic culture - somehow they have managed to deal with one of the most important sites in Islam sitting on top of their one most important religious site. They are not getting rid of their language. The two-state solution was literally a means of giving outlet to the national feelings of the Palestinians. The Palestinians could have had their own state separately on many occasions since Israel was founded, but their leaders have systematically chosen to refuse that outcome in favor of holding out hope that Israel would be destroyed or that greater concessions could be won from it.

I have no idea why you would think Israel divided the Palestinians into "zones" comparable with your discussion of the Nazis - are you talking about things done in the Oslo talks? Baffling how that's something Israel did to them, if so. The very idea that you're comparing Israel to the Nazis on this point is nauseating. You need to personally own your racism at some point here. You are talking like an actual alt-right Nazi but trying to pretend that's not what you're doing. Are you seriously trying to suggest that Israel has targeted intellectuals for execution? You comparisons on this point cannot even be engaged with rationally because they are such unhinged lies. When has Israel done anything even close to what you are analogizing here?

Israel's foundation is not "suspect" - again, more of your anti-Semitic propaganda, totally unfounded in fact. Yes, there was violent conflict, and it was from all corners - the British, the Jewish groups of different kinds (and different views about the justification of violence), the Palestinians, other Arab states, all of them contributed to this violence. It's a long history of hostilities and retaliations, but absolutely no "genocidal violence" was "used to create the state of Israel" and neither of your supposed "good examples" show this. I am obviously more "familiar" with them than you are, because if anything is "mythological", it's the idea that Deir Yassin was a "massacre" - you do realize this is what terrorists like to say about it though, right? You're basically giving us Hamas party line without being honest enough to admit your examples are disputed. For example, some people might call it "Deir Yassin Hoax"... not me, because I am not interested in parroting any party line on the opposing side. Yes, lots of people were killed, but then, lots of Jewish people were killed, because it was a conflict between two sides in a war and not an assault on civilians as Hamas and their friends like you might insist. Why on earth did the Jewish militants evacuate vulnerable people, as the British also documented? Why aren't you howling about the "genocidal" actions of the Palestinians who then retaliated by killing Jewish people in almost the same numbers? As for the other incident, why did the Irgun attack the hotel where they did, specifically? And who did they target? Civilians? People of a certain "tribe", for being of that group? It boggles the mind that anyone could call what they did "genocide" even if it was morally wrong, and it was morally wrong like the violent actions of the British and Palestinians (and all the soldiers from other Arab countries).

You obviously don't like that Israel ended up winning the struggle to survive against the multiple opponents that immediately attacked it and refused the right of Jewish people to exist there. The Palestinians totally rejected any possibility of the Jewish people having a homeland. They refused to accept the partitioning of the territory even though the Jewish leaders were willing to settle for it. But when you get to "forced exodus of the inhabitants of Palestine," that's just crazy talk. A minority of Palestinians who left were "forced" out by the Jewish groups during war. Most Palestinians chose to leave and were even encouraged in fleeing by leaders of other Arab states, even though those same states refused to take them in, because the goal was always to get rid of the Jewish state. Israel still has a significant minority population that they are by no means trying to get rid of! Meanwhile, what happened to the hundreds of thousands of Jews who were forced out of other Muslim countries in the aftermath of Israel's formation? Do they get a "right of return"? Are we worried about their "forced exodus"? Is it genocide? No? Why not? Why the double standard?

I don't know what to say about your claims about the current state of Israel except that, well, your credibility level is very low. I do not have any evidence of these things you're saying besides, of course, a few statements attributed to far-right groups, and Israel has a wide range of political parties and ideologies. The lesson here, if anything, is that even groups that have suffered the effects of genocide are not immune from generating people with racist enmities. Their views are hardly the norm, however, and you know this because you refer to other Israelis who don't agree - yet you talk about various government ministers apparently without any concept of how their government is formed or the interactions of various political groups. Anyway, on these claims about contemporary Israel I note that you are again in lockstep with the ever-reliable and unbiased Hamas. Do you listen to their videos or something to get these "facts"? "We" do not "have a genocide on our hands" here. I would agree that the settlements in the past several years are wrong and need to stop. I think they're intentional efforts to prevent any return to the relatively recent efforts to establish an independent Palestinian state with a clear boundary with Israel - in effect they're muddying things to the point that you can't even separate the two areas.

Obviously if you think Israel is committing genocide, then you're going to be unhappy about military aid to them, but that's a whole other matter. You claim to be concerned about authoritarianism and nationalism, yet you act as if only a few nationalists speak for Israel and thereby prove your wild accusations of genocide. You also put "terrorists" in quotes, apparently unwilling to even acknowledge the fact that decades of Palestinian terrorism (and that supported by other nations) has targeted Israeli civilians. You seem to think the violence flows only one way, and that Israel is targeting a group of people rather than trying to prevent terrorist attacks. You are keen to pick out examples (and "mythical" ones, sometimes) of Israeli crimes but seem completely blind to the truth that Israeli citizens (both Jews and Muslims and others!) are victims of senselessly directed and horrific violence. It's not "terrorism" - it's terrorism, plain and simple.

Anyway, I don't expect we can have any productive exchange on this; our idea of what counts as a fact here is just incredibly different. And then we have the problem that I have difficulty dealing with your rank anti-Semitism on a day when, you know, fucking bomb threats. Because apparently support for the right wing in Israel is what we have to thank for fucking Nazis here at home. No, sorry.

[Bonefish]

Funny thing about Hamas. While they are not exactly right(launching rockets and mortars into civilian areas, sponsering suicide bombers to attck civilian targets), and they most definitely commit wrong? THEY DO NOT RECIEVE BILLIONS IN WEAPONS. They don't have jet fghters, or tanks, or helicopters, or lasers. The other side does. The other side, in fact, recieves all of that help, that they use to bomb palestine, from US. They have extensive lobbyists who advance their cause with our government. They contribute money to our politicians to ensure they are elected.

Oh, I'd hold Hamas responsible. But first, I'd acknowledge that neither HAMAS nor Israel can be trusted to ensure the safety of either population. And that means, no military aid and UN peacekeepers. Buncha tutsis get offed, and you wanna send blue helmets to Rwanda. Bunch Bosnians get offed, you wanna send blue helmets to Serbia. Yezedis and Kurds getting offed, you want a response, some kinda response. Israel and Palestine? Crickets.

You can call me anti-semetic all you want. In the first place, I understand that both Jews and Arabs are Semites, so, you know, anti-semetisim means more than hating jews. Secondly, I also know that one can be opposed to the policies of Israel, but not hostile to Jewish people. In fact, the hilarious thing is that my opinion on the Israel-palestine affair is informed by many jews who have worked in kibbutz, made pilgramages to Israel, and who are deeply wounded by their experiences.

See, There was this one time that we built a house for a nice jewish guy in washington. And he liked what we did, and he wanted to get us to go to Israel and build some houses in the disputed territories. And we were very interested. See, somewhere along the line, German Jews married into our family, and we've always had a soft spot for jews. It didn't hurt that when lined up with them in school and we said our names, they sounded kinda similar. So, we had us an interview with a few guys who would be providing our security detail, in addition to the arms we would be assigned. And, well, talking to a few IDF officers and senior NCOs lead us to decide that building thirteen houses in the occupied territories was probably not what we were looking for.

You are right though, in the futility of this discussion. You are going to make appeals to emotion, screaming about bombscares. That's cool. I remember sitting through school with bomb scares. It was an interesting time, because Colombine wasn't that long ago, and we really did wonder if maybe someone snapped and started shooting up the school. Of course, after a while, it turned into nothing. And then there was the time some middle aged, high strung white lady thought our school would be attacked by muslims. Considering we had no muslim students(they had all graduated a year or two ahead), it was weird to see all the kids bullying an indian kid.

But sure, yeah. I'm an anti-semite right wing Nazi. Booogey-boogah! Nevermind that I got scars on my body and broken bones from mixing it up with nazis and skinheads before it was cool to punch a natzi.

None of this detracts from the fact that isreal sprays herbicides that kill a third of the crops in Gaza, and the concentrations of the herbicides are such that they actually poison the groundwater. Which wouldn't be a problem if Israel didn't bomb the water treatment plants, or destroy the wells so they can pump water into settler villages, or then stop water truck deliveries to communities whose water they have destroyed. This is all stuff that is ongoing.

I also find it amusing that you can so easily cast a swath on the Trump Administration and act liek they are the worst(they are), while then handily turning around and insisting that the four most powerful positions in the israeli government have all issued genocidal statements in the past three years. "It doesn't represent all Israelis" sounds a lot like "not all men..." when the Israeli government daily continues the bombing of palestine.

And the funniest part? I have in my hand a book dedicated to teaching Marines(united States, "KILL ON ONE" marines) how to operate within foriegn cultures. And not only is poisoning the crops and groundwater not emphasized, it's specifically warned against. Like, american Marines, dudes wh just wanna kill things, they know that you don't wanna poison groundwater and blow up sewage treatment plants. And yet the IDF doesn't seem to know this, ad the people who are in charge of the IDF? They don't seem to want a peaceful resolution(again, Knesset leader, prime minister, defence minister, justice minister... Not exactly bit roles).

But these same folks lobby our government for billions of dollrs of aid? Yes, that is weird.

Now, rather or not you live with a hamas supporter in your midst, a crazed terrorist? Well, Insha'allah.

Al Shadu la illa Illah Alla, We shadu la illia Allah. We shadu muhuhammadar rasul.

[Phoebe]

Wow, I was actually unprepared for the level to which you are willing to sink, but it should not have surprised me once I could see how deeply you've delved into the worst kinds of anti-Semitism. And yes, that means You Are A Racist Against Jews. You have made that crystal clear now, through your comments about the Holocaust, your willingness to blindly spout the party line of Hamas on all aspects of the history and current operations of Israel, and now your bizarre personal comments. No, this doesn't mean Arabs, though it's very cute and totally original that you've responded by saying "Arabs are Semites too!" Your little story about building houses and your "soft spot" for Jews? It merely reinforces your anti-Semitism. Can you imagine? "I have a "soft spot" for Black people, you know, because I stood in line with some at school once. My last name was kind of similar to a Korean last name, so you know, I feel some sympathy for those Koreans." It's unbelievable. Do you know why maybe you developed these racist feelings about Jews? Has it always been this way, growing up, or is it a more recent thing? I know there are people like you out there but it's weird to see it out in the open unabashedly like this.

You do realize that Iran funds Hamas and Hezbollah and has openly admitted to doing so, yes? So all this "they don't receive billions in weapons" is a little odd to argue. Thank God Israel does have jet fighters, tanks, and helicopters because they would have been wiped clean off the face of the earth by their enemies if they had no means to defend themselves. How many times in its short history has Israel had to face and defeat a military assault? Yes, I'm delighted we support Israel's defense. Does this mean I support all the actions of the state of Israel? Of course not. Like anyone, including its own citizens, I take issue with all sorts of things. I just told you I don't think they should be building settlements. Yet you cannot stop yourself from attributing the most bizarre straw men to me - now it's that I want responses to all sorts of other global conflicts and not this one, apparently. In what part of the clouds do you find your false statements? You seem incapable of recognizing that Israeli civilians are regularly murdered by Palestinian terrorists, so when you point out that people are "getting offed", that might be part of the problem too. Why is that NOT a problem for you?

Why is it okay with you that you're citing claims of groups like Hamas as if they are factually accurate? Would it be too much to go for some sort of independently verified source of facts? All this stuff about what Israel supposedly is doing to their crops and water is a crock of shit. There is a serious problem with water and sewage. This is a problem for both sides, because if Israel fails to resolve those things for the Palestinians, they will end up contaminating some of their own water supply and treatment. The issue is not bombing the water supply (???) but the fact that Israel controls most of the water access in this water-starved region. The Palestinians have had a role in this matter - I am not surprised that you are totally unaware of these things. You have put your finger on a key issue, luckily - this is progress. Water important. Facts important. Let's hope for the best I guess. Maybe you can also learn something about how Israeli politics works, so your "top officials!" claims could be put in some kind of factual context.

In the spirit of "progress", can you reflect for a moment on your entire line of argument, repeated a few times both here and in the other thread, that proceeds: "A Jewish person said this, so you have to accept it. I'm getting this from a Jewish person who was bothered by experiences in the occupied territories, so that makes it true and you have to accept it." You don't accept anything any other Jewish people say, so why are the Jewish people who agree with you on something cited as incontrovertible evidence because of their Jewishness? Can you compare for a moment, what it would be like to say this about Black people or Native Americans? To cite evidence that some number of them disagree with a particular position, as a means of discrediting what the rest of the group is saying? Well, "there was this one time", to use your words, a Black person agreed with me on x, so... It's reprehensible.

The fact that you think I am "screaming about bombscares" is rich. The problem, if I may put it accurately, is that one has difficulty reading the bullshit of a racist Jew-hater right after one has been having to worry, again, about bomb threats against day cares and ballet school and stuff. The fact that you think this is some kind of "appeal to emotion" is kind of hilarious. Yes, it would be that, you idiot, if I were using it as the evidence that my position is correct. Instead, I have the luxury of relying on facts. I'm just explaining to you why it's special to have this conversation, and now it's even more special, since you've made it clear you don't give two shits about bomb threats against Jews. There is seriously something wrong with you, morally speaking. Do you think it's just some emotional hysterics when babies have to be evacuated - again - because of bomb threats by people who hate Jewish people? I don't know, maybe that tends to bug people. Maybe they're worried because one common terrorist tactic in these situations is to make people inured to the repeated threats and THEN attack for real. I don't know, could be the hysterical ravings of some middle aged white bitch, because fuck them, right? I wonder if you think I am Jewish, but then again, I don't really want to know.

[Phoebe]

Just to summarize where we are with the whole "Israel is genociding the Palestinians!" thing:

We supposedly can say this is genocide even though it fails the basic test of deliberately targeting a specific group of people with violence. This is because other things are happening that - when combined with systematic violence targeting a specific group of people - can be signs of genocide.

What are these other things? Well, you need to take the word of Hamas for that. If they say that Israel is destroying their crops, best believe it without evidence! In addition, we know that these things are happening because Zionism is inherently bad, and the founding of the whole state of Israel is "suspect" and people on all sides were killed in the process, and extreme right-wing nutters say horrid things about Palestinians, and [insert various false or distorted claims here as desired]. Finally, we can be sure that these genocidal things have happened despite the relatively small total number of deaths on both sides and ongoing expansion of the Palestinian population both in Israel and Gaza/the West Bank because sometimes, even Jewish people disagree with bad things Israel does! Except when Hamas and alt-right Nazis say something about Israel that Jewish people generally don't, then we should side with Hamas. And when Jewish people say bad things about Palestinians that Jewish people generally don't, then we can go with whatever statements best support the genocide theory.

Meanwhile, Israel is illegally seizing land for settlements. Agreed.

[Bonefish]

Lady, you got some damned issues. You are accusing me of harboring racist thoughts and being a white supremacist. Which is no where near accurate. But I ain't providing falsehoods, I have repeatedly linked to sources that have nothing to do with HAMAS, and I simply can't fathom the level of batshit insanity necessary to see daggers in every bush. I will never understand the paranoia of the white liberal. Maybe it's that you guys have never actually looked your implicit racial biases in the face, but whatever it is, it needs to be addressed. Get some help before your paranoid delusions become dangerous to yourself or others.

But anyway, let's look at some of my Hamas sources. , ,, . Those are all clearly Hamas fronts, right? Or alt-right fake news, right? I mean, we have the international authorities trying to investigate human rights violations, and Israel actively denies them access to the country or west bank? I mean, if there's nothing wrong being done, then transparency and cooperation would help to prove that right? But nope, nothing to see here. And you defend this shit? Oh, Hamas sources for crop destruction,[url] https://972mag.com/idf-admits-spraying- ... ip/115290/
[/url],.

Of course, Israel isn't going to investigate and punish the illegal services when the head of the justice system calls for the genocide of the Palestinians. Israeli Arab MKs have been threatened with violence, with expulsion or suppression for "promoting terrorism", and have been contentious about these exact issues.

Israel denies half of all Palestinian requests to build water wells and infrastructure, then blame the palestinians for the decline of the water infrastructure. Palestinians survive on 70 liters of water a day, while Israelis in the westbank, including illegal settlers(again, it's illegal. Evict them and tear down their villages) get over 240 liters a day. Settlers seize palestinian springs, and use them to fill their swimming pools, while palestinians are at risk of death due to summer temperatures. A third of Gaza's cropland is poisoned. A THIRD.

MOAR HAMAS NEO NAZI ALT RIGHT FAKE NEWS!

Seriously. This isn't a matter of alternate facts, these are plain, visible facts.

No one here is trying to enshrine Hamas. Hamas is a horrible entitity and needs to be eliminated. On the other hand, Israel has not shown the ability to appropriately do so, and they have violated multiple international agreements regarding their role as the Occupying Authority. The failure of all parties involved to bring a resolution to this violence, the disturbing direction the violence is taking? These are all things that must be addressed. And calling people NAHTZEES doesn't do any of that.

We're not talking about calls for "kill all ze jews". We're talking about calls for a multi-national peace keeping force, sanctioned by the UN security council, to establish peace and allow for the prosecution of war crimes on both sides, not just one. Dialogue to begin an approach to a peaceful single or two state, commited to the security and safety of all in Israel and Palestine is what we're calling for.

And if that makes me a white supremacist, then I guess I don't understand what white supremacy is about. Anyway, have a good night crazy lady.

[Phoebe]

[Bonefish]

Are you fucking insane? OR just mentally challenged? Obviously you know how to klikkity klak the keys, and apparently you know how to read, but you don't seem to have any ability to comprehend what others are saying if it doesn't reinforce you're twisted world view.

Again, Genocide has a LEGAL definition. It's a crime. Like rape, or theft, or assault, or embezzlement. You don't get to twist the definition into what YOU want, which is apparently, Genocide doesn't happen unless it's gaschambers and traincars. The sick part, is the most successful cases of prosecuting genocide and punishing offenders are using the LEGAL DEFINITION. Again, Genocide does not require the wholesale killing of individuals, but the purposeful destruction of their national character, the way of life, and their means of sustenance. That's been legally recognized since 1948.

UN INVESTIGATIONS SHOW DELIBERATE TARGETING OF FOOD AND WATER INFRASTRUCTURE. This isn't the alt-right, it's not nazis, it's not terrorists. It's the UN. Is the UN now a secretive Nazi front? Is that what it is? And you don't simply get to refute such claims by saying "it's not true", you need some form of, I dunno, evidence or something. Something other than simply calling me a nazi and terrorist, and hoping that is sufficient to win your case.

You present nothing, from no sources, but assume that because I somehow don't support the systematic oppression of people, that I am a racist neo-nazi. Which is even more disturbing, because somehow I am both a jew hating Aryan Brother, but also a Jew Hating Muslim, and somehow also, apparently mixed in with Trump's supporters. Because I don't agree with your Chicken Little screeching about the end coming. You dismiss international opinion now too, apparently as "fake news" made by the alt-right muslim nazi alliance. You are literally making shit up.

You are an idiot. "I don't know how you can go from blaming one side... to wanting peacekeepers". You fucking moron, that's because I have never laid the sole blame on Israel's feet. But as the occupying power with legal authority over the region, again, according to international law, they have a mandate to act in particular way. They have responsibilities, and those include ensuring security and the basic necessities of law. And when those things(Again, UN reports confirm this) are not only not being done, when high level members of the government call for violence, for the forced deportation of palestinians and the annexation of their land, then something needs to be done.

Israeli security requirements DO NOT override humanitarian commitments, no matter how much Israel and you claim. This isn't a case of two similarly sized populations that have quarreled over land for centuries. Prior to the 19th century, the jewish population in palestine may have been as great as 4%. By the time of the Mandate, it was closer to 10 to 11%. By 1948 it had shifted to around 30%. These are not people who were born in palestine and had legal claim to it's soil. You don't get to invade someone else's land and drive them out of it, then turn around and declare that those people now have no claims and are all terrorists. The world no longer works according to that fashion.

Also, So you understand, the reason I brought up the last name thing? My Surname IS a Jewish surname. To scared jews in the rural south, surrounded by Mucs, Millers and Smiths, hearing another Jewish name in rollcall? That was somebody who you might have something in common with. Through-out my childhood I had many jewish friends, invited over to their houses. Hell, I have many Jewish friends now, and if anything, my change in heart towards Isreal is due to several of them. Because as friends of mine who were Jewish and had served in the us military and even traveled to israel frequently, began to tell me about what they were seeing, and frame it in the context of their experiences fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan, the blind Zionism died. When BreakTheSilence came online, and I began to read the accounts of actual israeli service members? Hell, for such an anti-semite, why did I recently pose in photos with a couple of Israli dudes who I bumped into at the gas station(they requested me, they were from Jerusalem, one of them spoke almost no english.)? I mean, I hate Jews, right? Why would I be engaged in conversation with them and treating them as, you know, people?

Genocide is a process. It has steps to it. It's not something that suddenly happens overnight, like one morning you wake up and decide every single member of a group have to die. It builds up to it. There's labeling, and seperation, and organization, and rationalization phases. There's even a denial phase, sometimes concurrent with a cover up. I guess, fortunately, the US is in it's denial phase. We still won't accept credit to the genocide of blacks in this country, for example. Hell, we won't even call it genocide. We just pretend it doesn't happen.

[Phoebe]

I've been very clear that we don't need "gaschambers and traincars" to meet the definition of a genocide - meanwhile, I note that the presence of these things hasn't been compelling to you in demonstrating the singular horror of the Holocaust. But whatever. How does this prove that your freewheeling application of the term to this case, to put it in the most charitable possible way, is correct? Israel isn't targeting "the Palestinians" for destruction as a group, no matter what one far-right politician's Facebook page said once. And they're not doing all the other associated things you want to insist are proof of genocide. So what is left to prove it?

The "evidence" you think you're posting is not evidence of what you say. The BBC article simply does not blame Israel for unjustly depriving the Palestinians of water resources; indeed, it argues that the two-sided conflict is to blame here. How is that supposed to support your genocide argument, exactly?

Yes, the UN is weirdly obsessed with punishing Israel - just consider for a moment how many resolutions it passes condemning Israel compared to other violent conflicts with massively greater numbers of dead, displaced, and injured! And then, the unconscionable recent claims about the Temple Mount! However, sure, let's put all that bias aside and take them to be an otherwise sober source of information about the world. They have reported that settlers and Palestinians are fighting over access to water springs. This is bad, yes! I'm sure very bad behavior is going on here, and it seems very clear settlements are part of the problem. Yet how is this genocide? How do these incidents rise even remotely close to the level of destruction you're suggesting, and how do you propose to demonstrate that in every case it's the fault of the Israelis? Why do you get to ignore the explanations on the other side of why these conflicts are happening? Do the Palestinians have no role here besides victim? I'm trying to be charitable here, you know, since this question perhaps wrongly implies that victim is a pertinent term.

Your other UN citation is no better - throwing in a link here is not proof of genocide, not even remotely close! It tells us something about the Palestinian economy, but there's a whole other causal argument to be made - which this piece does not make - before one could determine the extent to which Israel's actions are a cause of these things, much less whether the effects are intended, and if so, for what purpose. But let's suppose that we can demonstrate the conflict is playing out in this economic struggle too. How is that automatically genocide? That's an incredibly loose standard that would mean the whole globe is rife with it, but okay, I'm willing to entertain the idea for the sake of argument. Here's an example that supposedly supports it: olive trees are "vandalized". Well, in one case, the Israeli govt claims trees were removed because they were planted on someone else's land, and in other cases Israelis were not the ones responsible for it. But let's even put those cases aside. If Israelis do something like this, what happens? They're arrested and prosecuted, which is a weird way of encouraging this supposed instrument of economic genocide, right? And what happens when those arrested point out that they were doing it as retaliation for the murder of Israelis? That can't make wrong actions right, but it sure does raise a giant question mark over the whole "this is genocide" theory. Who's the target here?

I mean, where is all this evidence of systematic destruction of cropland and water infrastructure and so on? It's also important to be clear about how the terrorists have stories to tell about these things, and why it's therefore so dangerous to simply parrot what they say without knowing more details. For instance, suppose a military patrol removes a small area of vegetation being used as cover from which to fire on them. This is going down as "evidence" of deliberate to rob Palestinians of their food supply or economic livelihoods! This is the "destroyed cropland" that is supposed to prove genocide. You're making claims that the Israelis are going in and destroying massive swaths of Palestinian cropland. This is just totally false; I don't know what to tell you. I can't prove the negative of something that isn't happening, and I'm trying to be as charitable as possible here. I have a real problem with treating these deliberately deceptive arguments from terrorists as some kind of "legit position" we have to deal with as if it deserves the same rational consideration as anything else. It's like, fallacies do not deserve that level of respect.

The reason I am telling you that you support the position of terrorists and neo nazis is because, well, you do! You uncritically support it, cite things as evidence that simply don't prove the huge, terrible claims you want to make, and so on. And what amazes me is that you said this because apparently you didn't like people complaining about Trump's Holocaust statement, or the vandalism of Jewish cemeteries and bomb threats against kids' schools. I don't know if you have kids, but how would you feel if you were getting emails all the time about their school being threatened this way? Would you consider your response "chicken little screeching" and so on? Would you blame yourself for being hysterical and exaggerating?

The stuff you're saying about the Holocaust is just... well, I have a hard time working up the effort to try to respond to something like that. I think most people wouldn't - they'd mark this one down for the people who investigate that kind of nazi shit and call it a day. I'm responding to you only because for some weird reason these days I feel the need to call out the blatant falsehoods about things like the Holocaust when I see them, and maybe it's a fool's errand because I'm certain we are never going to get to any agreement or understanding on this. I cannot inch my way any closer in dialogue to a fucking Holocaust denier, you see what I mean? You have literally argued that the problem is neglect of OTHER groups that died at the hands of the Nazis, and you aren't willing to acknowledge the purpose that motivated it or the unique horror of it for the Jewish people. You want to try to diminish it in comparison to other events, while accusing your opponents of ignoring those other events even though that is totally false. I just honestly do not see how anyone who is not a deep, deep anti-Semite can say things like this unless you've really been listening to the wrong people, and I hope you get it together and figure this out, but I doubt I'm the one who can help. I don't have a lot of patience for it and I feel like I've been more patient than anyone should ever have to be with something that is horrifyingly offensive. There is no way we would be having this conversation if the subject was anything other than Jewish people because its offensiveness would be so much more obvious, I guess. But anti-Semitism - well heck, that includes Arabs too, right? Come the fuck on. You can hug and take selfies with all the Jews you want, but you know what's going on here. I don't know what's in your heart; I think you're very confused and listening to bad sources of info and believing them because they fit into your pre-established worldview where you compare the plight of Palestinians to others. But that "soft spot" for the Jews, tho...

Seriously, I cannot figure out why you are talking about how your name is a Jewish name and somehow that gave comfort to other actually-Jewish children and insulates you from anti-Semitism. Can you honestly try to substitute "black" for "Jewish" and see what the hell sense you can make of these stories? They creep me out - this whole "many Jewish friends" business. Do you have a lot of black friends too? I mean, really?

[Bonefish]

Post some sort of citation or shut up trollop. You claim I provide no evidence of systematic destruction of food and water infrastructure, while handily dismissing the UN as some sort of anti-israel nazi plot. You can't just make things up and then insist they are true. You can't call news sources "terrorists" just because they say things that make you uncomfortable. "But look at how man times they have targeted Israel, despite so much worse..." uh, you ever think they target ISrael, because maybe Israel does this shit? That's not "anti-semetic" you dumb ass, that's doing their job.

iDF spokespeople have confirmed that Israel sprays herbicides within the "no go" zone, that is unilaterally enacted, along the Gaza border. This No go zone is avariable, but extends up to 300m from the border, inside palestinian land. As the BBC article indicated, the "security" zone also encroachs upon water rich areas, and as that article noted, Israeli settlers(who are ILLEGAL) recieve three to four times as much water as Palestinian residents of the westbank. Again, if you destroy a THIRD of the cropland, that's not "a little bush that the bad terrorists were using as cover to fire on us".

Read the Testimonials of IDF veterans. Actually READ the WORDS of ISRALI VETERANS.

And sweetheart, my children are mixed race children in the fucking south. In a state that is competing with Mississippi for racing to the bottom and creating the wackiest laws possible to oppress minority groups. You think we're not aware of how dangerous it is? You think we don't see the aghast looks when we go to the park or store?

[Mike]

"Trollop"? Really? You're SOOOO angry and frustrated that civilized language just won't cut it, so you go with trollop? That's hysterical.

[Tahlvin]

I think there's plenty animosity and accusations coming from both sides of the discussion. I might lock down the thread, at least for a bit of a cooling off period.

[Phoebe]

Trollop is pretty good, actually. The burden of proof here is not upon me to demonstrate that Israel is NOT doing things that it's not doing. The burden is on those who say it's committing genocide against a whole people to explain how this is so. When the only people backing up the claims one needs to prove this are terrorists and their sympathizers, then yeah, that's a problem. Other news sources give you a different picture. The citations above to things like the BBC simply don't offer proof of what they're claimed to prove. Why then should anyone believe it?

It's a shame because these are important issues. I was so shocked by the cavalier nature of President Trump's statements after meeting with Netanyahu. Suddenly peace no longer has to be premised on a two-state solution? What instead, then? Israel is slowly painting itself into a corner where it's going to have to commit to the negotiations required for creating two states, or it's going to end up with a minority-Jewish population, or it's going to become the apartheid state that irresponsible people want to say it is now, even though it's not.

A lot of leftist activists nowadays have adopted the Palestinian cause uncritically. They've forgotten the history behind these events, and they're dupes to the narratives and alternate facts offered by groups who really do want to destroy Israel and the Jewish people. But you can certainly advocate for human rights for all people, including the Palestinians, while grasping that the situation here is more complicated and that not everything they want to say about it is true. To call it genocide, especially on the heels of denialism, is a familiar anti-Semitic trope. There's no way forward that doesn't acknowledge this. The context of the comments only makes them worse. I'm baffled by it, but I guess should not be surprised that people think this way.

[Phoebe]

If anyone has been following the global famine crisis, well, it's getting worse. Millions of people are at risk of starvation in Yemen, which is just one of the "hot spots" of crisis among others, all caused by military and political conflict. Guess why Yemen? Because Saudia Arabia is at war with a militant group in Yemen - can't say either side is doing any good for the people there. Saudi Arabia is responsible for more deaths of civilians, including children, there than Israel is responsible for among the Palestinians in the same time frame, it would appear. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia is by far the dominant party in that conflict and has used its dominance to blockade Yemen so that the famine is worsening. Does that count to people as genocide in the same way that Israel will be blamed for genocide? Oddly, no. Oddly, Saudi Arabia continues to sit on the UN Human Rights Council, and guess what it uses its presence there to do? Obviously, it demands that Israel be sanctioned by the UN for its human rights violation, while claiming widespread international agreement with what it's doing in Yemen as justification.

So this is not to say we cannot trust information uncovered by the UN, most of which is coming from dedicated people who have no dog in these fights, but it does offer up a specific grain of salt to consider when we look at what the UN says about Israel. The UN and its various bodies have passed at least 20 resolutions against Israel in the past year alone, while it's crickets on Saudi Arabia (and other conflicts)! The deepest bullshit here is that the UN condemned Israel for human rights violations against women. WOMEN. Ahem.

[akiva]

[Phoebe]

Seriously, imagine what it would be like if we had spent a couple decades investing heavily in the technology required to free us from oil dependence. What could our role on the world stage be like at that point? What if we really were trusted as a humanitarian force, and joined with other nations who are to intervene on whatever "side" was preventing people from starving to death needlessly in these conflicts? Instead we end up being morally complicit by helping fund it. I mean, I'm under no illusions that the militants they're fighting wouldn't want to harm our people too - I'm sure they do. But it would be a different world if we had maintained moral authority in these situations and weren't dependent on alliances with governments so antithetical to our democratic values. The situation with Israel is interesting precisely because the reasons for the interdependence aren't typical, and are more like "save these democratic values over here by sacrificing these others over here".

I'm interested to hear your opinions about the conflict in Israel - I certainly debate this with my husband all the time who thinks I'm wrong. However, he tends to see it as "we should never have been in this bad place, but now that we're here, Israel should do pretty much whatever it needs to protect its citizens", because he takes a very cynical/pragmatic view of political affairs generally, and I see it more as "Israel is morally justified but needs to stop the settlements and continue prosecuting any of its own people who break the law even in the interests of defense". Part of this is stemming from how I understood this conflict at critical periods of learning about it, like in college, when the situation was rather different.

[Bonefish]

[Bonefish]