The Off Topic Topic

[Capetan Mihali]

Yes, mourning the official transformation of Mandatory Palestine into Israel, or "the Jewish State," as it likes to call itself.  How shocking.  And more poignantly, mourning the thousands of lives that were uprooted to create the Jewish State and the mass of Arab buildings and farms that were expropriated without compensation.

And if you want a massacre, as you so fervently seem to, April 9th is generally recognized to commemorate the Deir Yassin massacre.

Can you see how it might be a bad PR move, though, for both Palestinians and you in specific?  You go and make pains to pretend that what you're having trouble with is the US government giving Israel a couple of billions a year, when people in US have to get by without teeth.  But then you go and have your "commemoration" stunt and imply that Israel's very creation is the problem.  It might make a lot of your arguments look very disingenuous.

The problem is one and the same.

[Capetan Mihali]

Yes, mourning the official transformation of Mandatory Palestine into Israel, or "the Jewish State," as it likes to call itself.  How shocking.  And more poignantly, mourning the thousands of lives that were uprooted to create the Jewish State and the mass of Arab buildings and farms that were expropriated without compensation.

Aren't you omitting the minor intervening detail of an Arab declaration of war?

By non-Palestinian Arab states who pretty accurately foresaw what would happen when a Western-backed state based on Jewish supremacy was instituted and after a series of Jewish attacks on Arab Palestinian?  I guess so.

[DGuller]

Yes, mourning the official transformation of Mandatory Palestine into Israel, or "the Jewish State," as it likes to call itself.  How shocking.  And more poignantly, mourning the thousands of lives that were uprooted to create the Jewish State and the mass of Arab buildings and farms that were expropriated without compensation.

And if you want a massacre, as you so fervently seem to, April 9th is generally recognized to commemorate the Deir Yassin massacre.

Can you see how it might be a bad PR move, though, for both Palestinians and you in specific?  You go and make pains to pretend that what you're having trouble with is the US government giving Israel a couple of billions a year, when people in US have to get by without teeth.  But then you go and have your "commemoration" stunt and imply that Israel's very creation is the problem.  It might make a lot of your arguments look very disingenuous.

The problem is one and the same.

When you get right down to it, you can say that about any problem, right?

[Malthus]

Yes, mourning the official transformation of Mandatory Palestine into Israel, or "the Jewish State," as it likes to call itself.  How shocking.  And more poignantly, mourning the thousands of lives that were uprooted to create the Jewish State and the mass of Arab buildings and farms that were expropriated without compensation.

Aren't you omitting the minor intervening detail of an Arab declaration of war?

By non-Palestinian Arab states who pretty accurately foresaw what would happen when a Western-backed state based on Jewish supremacy was instituted and after a series of Jewish attacks on Arab Palestinian?  I guess so.

You really aren't doing your argument any justice, taking such a grossly one-sided view of history.

There are legitimate arguments that the Palestinians have been hard done by. You aren't making them.

[Capetan Mihali]

Seriously, guys can't you just kiss and make up, agree to disagree or maybe file away this grudge and bring it up again in 2-3 years time (t'Languish way) ?

Since this grudge really seems to be all of Languish (who's willing to post anything about it, at least) vs. myself, and since anything I post that's critical of Zionism or so much as mentions the Palestinian plight seems to set off a multi-page wave of argument, yes, I'm willing to stop hogging the limelight and drop the issue.

EDIT:  I just want to emphasize that my posting on this is really far from just trying to set up a Languish debate/vitriolic back-and-forth.  It's the product of a frankly painful 15-year transformation in my understanding of Israel as I read the newspaper, watched television, listened to the radio (especially during the 2008-9 Gaza attack, and got to know real life Palestinians.  It was painful to lose any sense of identification with Israel, to lose any feeling of warmth towards that little resilient democracy surrounded by hateful enemies bent on pushing them into the sea, to know that my grandparents would be turning in their graves if they knew my current views.  The whole thing makes me very sad and leaves me with a bitter taste, honestly, not righteously angry or disingenuously propagandistic per DGuller.   

I went from being (comparatively) a rabid Israel-supporter back during the Second Intifada (I remember arguing with my someone in support of some Israeli attack after she made some mild criticism) -- to a liberal "these extremist settlers are the problem, and I do hope that wall they're building doesn't go too far, but I'm sure I share the Tel Aviv and Haifa point of view" -- to a "something is fundamentally wrong here but I wouldn't deny Israel's right to exist as Israel qua Israel" -- to my current position, which is flatly anti-Zionist.

It's also an issue that hits close to home.  I have a very close friend whose mother is a Palestinian who was forcibly evacuated from her East Jerusalem home during 1947-48, losing everything, and relocated elsewhere in Palestine, before her family left for Jordan after the Suez Crisis.  Her family home is now a parking garage. I have another close friend who is an "Israeli Arab."  Both from Christian families, incidentally.  And a smattering of friendly acquaintances from Palestine.  I didn't have that in 1999 or 2001 or 2003, but I'd known Israelis as real people since I was a little kid, taking violin lessons at the the JCC.

[Admiral Yi]

By non-Palestinian Arab states who pretty accurately foresaw what would happen when a Western-backed state based on Jewish supremacy was instituted and after a series of Jewish attacks on Arab Palestinian?  I guess so.

I suppose it's hypothetically possible that a Jewish state left in peace could have murdered Palestinians in cold blood and driven them from their homes.  I had never heard this was on the minds of Arab heads of state in 48 and am curious where you learned about it.  I'm even more curious how you came to the conclusion this was an accurate forecast.

[The Minsky Moment]

Yes, mourning the official transformation of Mandatory Palestine into Israel, or "the Jewish State," as it likes to call itself.  How shocking.  And more poignantly, mourning the thousands of lives that were uprooted to create the Jewish State and the mass of Arab buildings and farms that were expropriated without compensation.

Aren't you omitting the minor intervening detail of an Arab declaration of war?

Also virtually every part of the first sentence is wrong.
+ Mandatory Palestine wasn't officially transformed into anything, the British simply terminated the mandate.
+ It certainly wasn't transformed into Israel, because on independence the state of Israel originally sought recognition on the basis of the UN partition plan boundaries (i.e. excluding the majority of the mandate).
+ Transjordan, on the other hand, claimed the entire former mandatory territory.  And invaded along with the other Arab states.
+ The name of the state is Israel.
+ There was nothing particularly "shocking" about the birth of Israel: the UN had spent the last couple of years brokering a reasonable compromise proposal that moderate Arab opinion could accept, if grudgingly.  The only shocking, but sadly unsurprising, development was the rejection of that proposal by a coalition of Arab states and their attempt to extirpate the nascent state by force.

[The Brain]

Also, I think Shakespeare and Casablanca are tied for idioms introduced into English. 

Languish has introduced more idiots than both of them combined.

[The Minsky Moment]

The irony of the much of the BDS movement is its orientalist tendency to deny Palestinians and Arabs any sense of agency.  They are purely objects, not subjects of history in this odd view - objects of oppression, imperial conspiracy, racism, etc.  - but nothing more.  To treat them as real people, as actual actors in history, would mean recognizing their own role in the historical events that led up unfortunate present day state of affairs.  And that the BDS people shy away from, because it complicates their simple morality tale, and exposes the illegitimacy of their ultimate political aims.

[Admiral Yi]

What does BDS stand for?

[The Minsky Moment]

What does BDS stand for?

Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions.

[Barrister]

Seriously, guys can't you just kiss and make up, agree to disagree or maybe file away this grudge and bring it up again in 2-3 years time (t'Languish way) ?

Since this grudge really seems to be all of Languish (who's willing to post anything about it, at least) vs. myself, and since anything I post that's critical of Zionism or so much as mentions the Palestinian plight seems to set off a multi-page wave of argument, yes, I'm willing to stop hogging the limelight and drop the issue.

I don't understand the sentiment here Mihali.

You know this is a contentious topic that people have strong feelings about.  But as far as I can tell everyone has been very respectful in how they treated the topic.  What more do you actually want if you're posting something that's "critical of Zionism"?  What sort of response were you expecting (since I assume you weren't expecting "gosh I never thought of that - you're right!")?

[Capetan Mihali]

I don't understand the sentiment here Mihali.

You know this is a contentious topic that people have strong feelings about.  But as far as I can tell everyone has been very respectful in how they treated the topic.  What more do you actually want if you're posting something that's "critical of Zionism"?  What sort of response were you expecting (since I assume you weren't expecting "gosh I never thought of that - you're right!")?

I hardly feel persecuted, so I'm sorry if it came out that way.  (Though I'd go back over some of DG's posts to see if they qualify as "very respectful.") It's just that the topic, precisely because it's contentious (with a few posters in particular), results in a bunch of pages of argument where I'm the only one taking the Palestinian side in any capacity.  I enjoy it to an extent, but it does get tiresome.

What I really meant in responding to Mongers is that I was willing to accept his suggestion to shelve the issue for a while, since I don't want this obviously intractable disagreement to dominate the OTT and alienate other posters who have no desire to get involved, and want to talk about other stuff.

[Razgovory]

Is there a Palestinian side the doesn't involve the eradication of Jews?

[Tamas]

Is there a Palestinian side the doesn't involve the eradication of Jews?

Plenty. Many pro-Palestinian advocates just want to relocate all of them to the USA.