A step on the road to totalitarianism?

[rogue06]

The Palestinians were in the region before the larger numbers of Jews started arriving at the end of the nineteenth century.

History check: The Jews have been living there for thousands of years in spite of repeated attempts to forcibly remove them. If you had bothered to ever actually read the Bible this would have been obvious and kept you from making the above asinine assertion.

I do not know why you bother to reply to me. You have an entrenched position and you are not open to reason.

Another delicious helping of unintended

IRON--E.jpg

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Umm, not long after Russia invaded Ukraine Zelenskyy signed a decree sanctioning three Ukranian television stations affiliated with Viktor Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian oligarch because of their pro-Russian slant. Less than a year later, he summarily banned the opposition media news site Strana.ua (one of the country's largest news organizations, and one of the few opposition party media outlets left) and imposed sanctions on its editor-in-chief, Ihor Huzhva. Last year Zelenskyy expanded those powers yet again leading to condemnation (not merely refusing to condone it) of the move by the nation's media unions and press freedom organizations.

Oh, and nearly five years before the invasion he summarily banned a number of Russian news services from operating in Ukraine.

Yup. Not the same. Ukraine has been far more aggressive in its censorship. But all that warrants is your milquetoast of a reaction that you cannot condone it.

And? Under Trump Spicer banned journalists from CNN, BBC, NYT, Guardian, and even [good grief]The Daily Heil from daily briefings.

[rogue06]

And? Under Trump Spicer banned journalists from CNN, BBC, NYT, Guardian, and even [good grief]The Daily Heil from daily briefings.

That whataboutism is the best you have?

IIRC, those bans lasted a day or less than a week, and led to even the New York Times pointing out that the Obamessiah was far more egregious about banning news services -- even siccing law enforcement and the IRS after those that miffed him^[1]. Under Trump someone could get banned from a press conference. Under Obama an entire organization could be banned from all news events involving the Executive branch.



1. in one instance the reporters targeted had the unmitigated gall to break a news story before Obama could mention it, which angered him because he wanted to be the first.

[seer]

The Palestinians were in the region before the larger numbers of Jews started arriving at the end of the nineteenth century.

I do not know why you bother to reply to me. You have an entrenched position and you are not open to reason.

And you are completely biased. Yes there were more Arabs there in the late 1800s, but so what? Does that mean that the Jews did not deserve a state? And I will remind you there was a never a Palestine state in history. And I will again remind you that the Arabs were attacking Jews and attempting to displace them over the 20s,30s and 40s. But you only point to the Jews - why is that?

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

And you are completely biased. Yes there were more Arabs there in the late 1800s, but so what? Does that mean that the Jews did not deserve a state? And I will remind you there was a never a Palestine state in history. And I will again remind you that the Arabs were attacking Jews and attempting to displace them over the 20s,30s and 40s. But you only point to the Jews - why is that?

No I am not. I can understand the Jewish people feeling a need for somewhere they would be safe from attack and that harks back to the nineteenth century and the pogroms and anti-Semitism within the Christian nations in which they lived. However, the claim on that region was really very tenuous given that for more than two thousand years many Jews had been dispersed from it.

Nonetheless, the state of Israel exists and we cannot alter that fact.

However, that does not give the Israelis the right to act as the Herrenvolk and seek ever more Lebensraum by stealing land from Palestinians.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

That whataboutism is the best you have?

IIRC, those bans lasted a day or less than a week, and led to even the New York Times pointing out that the Obamessiah was far more egregious about banning news services -- even siccing law enforcement and the IRS after those that miffed him^[1]. Under Trump someone could get banned from a press conference. Under Obama an entire organization could be banned from all news events involving the Executive branch.



1. in one instance the reporters targeted had the unmitigated gall to break a news story before Obama could mention it, which angered him because he wanted to be the first.

The point being they were/are both wrong. The Israeli ban is for 45 days and renewable.

[Diogenes]

Nonetheless, the state of Israel exists and we cannot alter that fact.

Well, the Palestinian Arabs certainly are trying and have no problem using children as human shields and PR material toward that aim.

However, that does not give the Israelis the right to act as the Herrenvolk and seek ever more Lebensraum by stealing land from Palestinians.

The phrase "from the river to the sea" chanted by the Arabs is their own version of Lebensraum or do you just like targeting Jews? Do you support the genocidal aims of the democratically elected and popularly support Hamas?

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Well, the Palestinian Arabs certainly are trying and have no problem using children as human shields and PR material toward that aim.

Looking on the +972 Magazine site I found this article, albeit from another conflict in 2014.

https://www.972mag.com/blame-israel-...vilian-deaths/


Blame Israel and Hamas both for Gaza’s civilian deaths

ByLarry DerfnerJuly 11, 2014
Sorting through the propaganda war.

The main outrage now, in the fourth day (Friday) of Operation Protective Edge, as Israel calls it, is the rising number of killings of Palestinian civilians by Israeli airstrikes, mainly as a result of attacks on residential buildings where militants live or are thought to live.

Haaretz reported that the Palestinian Health Ministry said that of the 86 Gazans killed by Wednesday night, most were children (22), women (15) and the elderly (12). And that didn’t count the five members, at least, of the Ghaneem family in Rafah who were killed when their four-story building, home to some 30 people, was hit overnight.

As usual, the propaganda war between Israel and the Palestinians over civilian casualties goes like this: Palestinians accuse Israel of deliberately targeting civilians, while Israel blames the deaths and injuries on Hamas and other militant groups for using the civilian population as “human shields.”

But the Palestinians’ accusation against Israel is false, while the Israeli claim against the Palestinians is partly false, partly true, but basically misleading. The main reason for the high number of Palestinian civilian casualties, obviously, is that an incredibly powerful air force is bombing the hell out of one of the most crowded, vulnerable places in the world – and the fault for that lies with Israel, whose punitive, often lethal blockade of Gaza, together with its military occupation of the West Bank, invites Palestinians to fight back. As in all its wars with the Palestinians since 1967, Israel is the aggressor in Operation Protective Edge.

But while the Israeli Air Force’s assault guarantees that a high proportion of civilians in Gaza are going to get killed and maimed, that’s not because of the air force’s efforts in this respect, but despite them. TIME Magazine’s Karl Vick wrote on Thursday:

Compared with any other military, [Israel’s] armed forces take exceptional care to avoid civilian casualties. If a house is going to be bombed, a call is placed to it announcing this fact, and explicitly warning civilians to get out. A pilot might also drop a “door-knocker” on the roof — a nonlethal sound bomb also intended to announce an impending attack. The real bomb that’s then loosed on the target is often a munition, sometimes quite small, specifically selected to contain damage to the target and spare the neighbors.

The problem is not that the Israeli army is unusually brutal, as armies go; if anything, the opposite is the case. The problem – in Gaza and the West Bank, now and before – is that the IDF is a colonial army, which is an inherently brutal role, one that other armies were ordered by their governments to give up decades ago.

About Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other armed groups using Gazan civilians as “human shields.” This Israeli claim is based on the fact that Gazan militants live among the civilian population and keep much of their weaponry in the neighborhoods. But this is hypocrisy; every guerrilla army that fights on its own turf against an incomparably stronger enemy fights from among the civilian population. The pre-1948 Irgun and Lehi guerrillas would kill the British, then “melt back” into the Jewish neighborhoods. In Tel Aviv and Ramat Gan, there are civilian public buildings – including schools – with plaques at the entrance telling how they housed weapons caches and training camps for the Irgun, Lehi or Haganah. Up through Israel’s War of Independence, the kibbutzim were military outposts as much as they were civilian settlements.

But in another regard, the charge that Hamas uses Gazan civilians as human shields is absolutely true, and Hamas deserves loud condemnation for it. Karl Vick in Time:

Israel’s military says Hamas is promoting civilian deaths in Gaza, not only by operating from private homes but through posters and slogans actually urging people to cluster around targets as human shields. In one instance Tuesday, by numerous accounts local residents ran toward a building that had just received a phoned warning it was about to be bombed, apparently counting on their presence to protect. And it might have worked: an Israeli military spokesman said an effort was made to divert the incoming missile, but it was too late.

Haaretz reported on Thursday that the Gaza Interior Ministry – run, of course, by Hamas – sent out text messages to Gazan residents calling on them to disregard Israeli warnings to evacuate their homes ahead of the airstrikes. “The aim of the [warnings] is to scare civilians, and civilians must act responsibly and not follow misleading Israeli instructions,” the message read.

This is vile; families are told by their leaders to stay put in their homes when they know they are about to be bombed by F-16s? It’s something like this that tells you no matter how much Hamas may be on the receiving end of Israel’s manhandling of Gaza, and no matter how much it may be the weaker side, it is not any reasonable person’s idea of the “good guy” in this or any other circumstance.

And yet. Hamas’ terrible abuse of Gaza’s civilians in this way is not entirely divorced from (though it is much worse than) the way Israeli society used to consider it shameful for civilians to leave their homes under rocket attack. Good Israelis were supposed to say, defiantly, “This is my home and no terrorist is going to run me out.” As late as the 1991 Gulf War, when many Tel Aviv residents rode out the Scuds at their parents’ homes out of town instead of trusting the plastic sheeting and tape on their windows to protect them from harm, they were widely accused of cowardice. Things have changed since then; the “I” has overtaken the “we” in the Israeli mentality. But through the 1980s, which saw thousands of Lebanese rockets fall on northern Israeli towns, it was considered an Israeli adult’s patriotic duty (though not that of the children, who were sent to safety if possible) to sit at home, helpless, risking his or her life against incoming rockets, for the sake of national morale.

So Israelis should not act that uncomprehending and self-righteous about Hamas’ conscription of defenseless civilians for the cause. And if Gazans are still pretty much stuck in the “we,” not “I,” mentality, Israel bears much of the blame.

But again, it is a great deal worse to pressure people into sitting still for almost certain death or serious injury than it is when such a fate is possible but not very likely. Hamas should be denounced for telling civilians to disregard the Israeli warnings to evacuate their homes. This directive is no doubt driving up Gaza’s civilian death and injury toll, and makes Hamas’ leaders the last people on earth to complain about it. If there’s any ray of hope in this ghastly matter, it’s that the Gazan Interior Ministry’s text message to ignore Israel’s warnings may indicate that a lot of Gazan families have been doing the right thing and running for their lives.

The phrase "from the river to the sea" chanted by the Arabs is their own version of Lebensraum or do you just like targeting Jews?

Displaced people do tend to get somewhat angry. The Palestinians are the longest-standing refugees in recent history.

Do you support the genocidal aims of the democratically elected and popularly support Hamas?

Until another democratically conducted election we have no idea how popular Hamas will be. I do not support Hamas but as I have pointed out in past comments, its existence is in part a result of past Israeli policy. I recall that I referred to it in one previous post as Israel's Frankenstein monster.

Furthermore, Israeli policy towards the Palestinians has been heavily criticised by Israelis, including those from the IDF and the Mossad. https://theologyweb.com/campus/forum...adds-his-voice

[Diogenes]

Looking on the +972 Magazine site I found this article, albeit from another conflict in 2014.

Your tactic of text walling isn't going to negate the documented instance of Hamas using schools as depots.

Displaced people do tend to get somewhat angry. The Palestinians are the longest-standing refugees in recent history.

The Jews were displaced far longer than the Arabs.

Until another democratically conducted election we have no idea how popular Hamas will be. I do not support Hamas but as I have pointed out in past comments, its existence is in part a result of past Israeli policy. I recall that I referred to it in one previous post as Israel's Frankenstein monster.

Before he was displaced, Gond posted a poll where Hamas enjoyed popular support in months prior to the attack. So we do know Hamas enjoys popular support currently.

I would agree that Hamas is Israel's own making much like Iran's is the US', but that does not legitimatise the genocidal call of "from the river to the sea", which you seemingly refuse to condemn.

Furthermore, Israeli policy towards the Palestinians has been heavily criticised by Israelis, including those from the IDF and the Mossad. https://theologyweb.com/campus/forum...adds-his-voice

I have no issue certain criticism of Israel as they many times make their own problems (as does the US), but there are those who are ideologically opposed to their own country and cheer for its downfall.

[CivilDiscourse]

Your tactic of text walling isn't going to negate the documented instance of Hamas using schools as depots.




The Jews were displaced far longer than the Arabs.



Before he was displaced, Gond posted a poll where Hamas enjoyed popular support in months prior to the attack. So we do know Hamas enjoys popular support currently.

I would agree that Hamas is Israel's own making much like Iran's is the US', but that does not legitimatise the genocidal call of "from the river to the sea", which you seemingly refuse to condemn.



I have no issue certain criticism of Israel as they many times make their own problems (as does the US), but there are those who are ideologically opposed to their own country and cheer for its downfall.

You forget, H_A denies the science behind polls...she believes you have to ask every single person.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Your tactic of text walling isn't going to negate the documented instance of Hamas using schools as depots.

Had you read the article you would see that the author addressed both sides.

The Jews were displaced far longer than the Arabs.

One could note that that was because of their own actions. However, Jews were living in other parts of the ancient world long before the events of the 130s CE

Before he was displaced, Gond posted a poll where Hamas enjoyed popular support in months prior to the attack. So we do know Hamas enjoys popular support currently.

So we do not know the present position given that the attack took place over six months ago.

I would agree that Hamas is Israel's own making much like Iran's is the US', but that does not legitimatise the genocidal call of "from the river to the sea", which you seemingly refuse to condemn.

The same call comes from sections of Israeli society. In the article contained in the OP of a thread I posted a few days ago https://theologyweb.com/campus/forum...sights-on-gaza

In the shade of a sprawling tree, Yehuda Shimon is playing with his two young sons, who are in hammocks, hanging from the branches.
He has raised 10 children here in a settler outpost in the West Bank called Havat Gilad, or Gilad's Farm, near the Palestinian city of Nablus.
All around him there are Palestinian villages, the nearest 500m away. There is no contact between them, he says.

Shimon has lived in Gaza in the past and claims a God-given right to return.
"We must do it. It's part of Israel area," he says. "This is the land that God gave us, and you couldn't go to God and tell him, 'OK you gave me, and I gave to other people.' No. I believe in the end we will go back to Gaza."
I ask what this means for the Palestinians.
"They have 52 other places to go in the world," he says, "52 Muslim countries". He says the new Gaza will be "another Tel Aviv".

And of course Jews like Mr Shimon would cite this text from Genesis to justify their God-given right:

On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, “To your descendants I give this land, from the river of Egypt to the great river, the River Euphrates, ¹⁹ the land of the Kenites, the Kenizzites, the Kadmonites, ²⁰ the Hittites, the Perizzites, the Rephaim, ²¹ the Amorites, the Canaanites, the Girgashites, and the Jebusites.”

:

Hence some of the more fanatical Israeli settlers hold that they are entitled to the entire region right up to modern day Iraq because their deity gave it to them. And representatives of such individuals are now part of the Israeli government.

I have no issue certain criticism of Israel as they many times make their own problems (as does the US), but there are those who are ideologically opposed to their own country and cheer for its downfall.

You need to bear in mind that in the early decades of the twentieth century that it was the Suez Canal that was the most important factor for Britain in this region and that since the early 1900s Turkey's attempts to centralise power had seen the growth of pan Arab nationalism with the desire for one independent land for all the Arab peoples.

During WW1 the British had promised the Arabs the region would be independent if they supported Britain against the Turks. It had also agreed with France that the region would be an internationally administered area, and in November 1917 Balfour wrote his letter to Rothschild. However, that brief correspondence made no mention of exactly where the Jewish homeland was to be nor did it mention the political rights of non Jewish communities in the region. Then of course you need to consider the secret WW1 Sykes-Picot agreement which carved up the entire region between Britain and France paying little attention to any ethnic or religious concerns.

You also have to consider the situation in 1917 and the war and the aspirations from some American and Palestinian Jews.

Oh and you must also to consider the Imperial desires of both France and Britain.

In short, the late nineteenth and early twentieth century history of this region is extremely complex..

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

You forget, H_A denies the science behind polls...she believes you have to ask every single person.

Your dishonesty is once again noted.

And your various Greek chorus style posts that are appearing would indicate a desire to find a playmate.

[rogue06]

I have no issue certain criticism of Israel as they many times make their own problems (as does the US), but there are those who are ideologically opposed to their own country and cheer for its downfall.

Something I recently posted about the reasoning behind some of the Jewish criticism of Israel that H_A is always trying to hide behind

An interesting take on those you seek to hide behind to justify your attitude:

How US Jewish liberalism metastasized into hatred of Israel

Driven by the 'oppressor vs oppressed' dichotomy, some of American Jews have come to identify Palestinians as the underdog and therefore worthy of consideration and concern, while Israel is seen as the epitome of white colonialism

"After 16 years of Israeli siege, Palestinian fighters from Gaza launched an unexpected attack. While the Israeli government may have just declared war, its war against the Palestinians began 75 years ago. Apartheid and Israeli occupation—and the partnership of the United States in them—are the source of all this violence," described the Jewish anti-Zionist organization Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), in a statement from that same day.

On October 10, just three days after the massacre, IfNotNow organization stated: "One-sided declarations and solutions that only address losses in Israel do not help stop the bloodshed. Where are those with the courage and heart to talk about the lives of Palestinians lost and homes destroyed today by Israeli planes? Or about the context of ongoing occupation and siege that created this crisis?"

These are American organizations that define themselves as Jewish and represent, in their view, the positions of many in the second largest Jewish community in the world, almost as much as that in Israel. Their media influence is significant - just in the past few months, JVP protests against the statue of liberty and their blockade of Manhattan's central train station are remembered, as well as the demonstration involving IfNotNow members outside the White House on October 16 - and becomes particularly dangerous when it undermines the American public's knowledge as a whole, and that of American Jewry in particular, which may believe in the erroneous narrative these organizations espouse. But how did we reach a situation where Jewish organizations act with such lack of solidarity toward their Israeli brethren?

Dr. Zohar Raviv, Deputy Director of International Educational Strategy at Project Taglit, is well-acquainted with these organizations. In 2018, a controversy erupted when IfNotNow activists asserted they were ejected from a Birthright tour for discussing the occupation. According to Raviv, this issue runs deep and is apolitical: "There were activists who actively sought to disrupt the Birthright tour, ignoring calls from their tour guides to share their perspectives and engage in meaningful dialogue. They arrived with their own written materials, cameras, pre-scripted statements, and no willingness to entertain different viewpoints. It's a troubling trend seen in extreme organizations on both ends of the spectrum. Genuine dialogue requires all parties to have the right to speak and the responsibility to listen, yet extreme organizations often believe they have the right to speak while listening is reserved for those who echo their sentiments."

Raviv highlights a broader trend beyond the scope of these organizations: "This marks an era of what I call 'enlightened ignorance.' The so-called 'liberal-progressive' discourse, with 'progressive' being the operative term, largely overlooks the plight of marginalized minorities, favoring instead a simplistic oppressor-oppressed narrative, 'white privilege' versus everything else. The oppressor is typically portrayed as the white individual, a legacy of colonial empires dating back to the 16th century, who has historically advanced his own interests at the expense of non-white minorities.

"From this viewpoint, it's crucial to grasp the near-impossible predicament of Jews overall, especially young Jews: they witness societal activism advocating for various minorities – African-Americans, Latino-Americans, LGBTQ+, people with disabilities. Yet, when they turn to themselves, they find they're the sole minority seen as part of the white privileged majority. They're stuck between a rock and a hard place because they don't neatly fit into any minority category."

And Jews actually help other minorities. "Correct. Young Jews, and not only them, are seen becoming activists for the rights of other minorities. This is not new and certainly not invalid – we've seen it before in the times of Abraham Joshua Heschel and Martin Luther King Jr. The problem today is that within the socio-political context accompanying the superficial perception of oppressor versus oppressed, the liberal progressive Jew, who lacks sufficient knowledge about what's happening in Israel, adopts the perception prevalent in their environment of Israel as white, colonialist, and privileged, leading them to identify Palestinians as the underdog.

"One of the claims raised among many Jews who identify as liberals and progressives is that Jewish educational systems they grew up in 'lied to them.' The narrative of the Jewish people, especially the establishment of the State of Israel, is perceived by them as false, distorted, and demagogic. This is the bread and butter of the organizations we're talking about. They copy-paste from European colonial narratives and project it onto the Zionist movement."

So the issue stems from distorted education?

"In some way, the broader framework within which young Jews perceive Zionism as a core value has faded. It's impossible to debate Zionism without delineating clearly between the Zionist movement and the Zionist ethos. Herzl pioneered the Zionist movement - Abraham, the father of our nation, epitomized the Zionist ethos. We must reinstate Zionism to its central position in Jewish ethos, ensuring it doesn't fade away completely in generations to come."

This could be applied to many Jews in Europe as well.

It is ironic that many Jews don't understand something that most Christians realize on a near extinctive level, namely that the Jews aren't recent colonials but have been there for thousands of years.

It should also be noted that many of those bleating about "Jewish colonists" are the same folks defending the waves of Arabic and North Africans swarming into Europe as nothing more than natural migration.

[Hypatia_Alexandria]

Something I recently posted about the reasoning behind some of the Jewish criticism of Israel that H_A is always trying to hide behind

That post of yours is showing on my computer as post #88.

It appears you either ignored or failed to notice my post which is showing as post #86.

[CivilDiscourse]

Your dishonesty is once again noted.

And your various Greek chorus style posts that are appearing would indicate a desire to find a playmate.

There's no dishonesty there. You have, repeatedly, blasted the use of polls as a guage of opnion. You'll turn around and retort "Did you ask every single person".

So, yes, your actions have shown that you deny the science of polling and statistics. Don't like it, try to hold a single standard for once.