Yeah, in the USA, republicans are mostly united behind hating Muslims and giving Israel anything it wants. Democrats are sharply divided on it. Our best hope for a rational candidate will of course be a democrat, but I'm worried the ticket will be between two candidates who both want to give Israel anything and everything.
Yes, if you oppose Zionism, you are anti-semitic. Fuck that. It is a lazy argument, as always. If not thinking an ethno-religious state is entitled to grab whatever land they want and murder whomever they want because they are "the chosen people" makes you anti-semitic, so be it.
As a matter of fact, the reason why Israel's cheerleaders (including the "benign" ones that belatedly acknowledge Bibi as a vile politician, while whitewashing the vast majority of the Knesset, which is pretty much as genocidal as he is) smear the Left as "antisemitic" while giving Garage, a legit antisemite, a free pass is that he doesn't oppose this genocide. Their hypocrisy would be comical if it didn't reveal how vile and depraved they really are - they don't flag actual antisemites as such when they, driven by their islamophobia and racism, support the genocidal regime, but they scream "antisemitism" at the Left for opposing genocide.
To denounce this is antisemitism, Cristiano.
What do you call a belief in a "two state solution" (other, perhaps, than "over optimistic at present") -- that is, the belief supported by numerous votes at the UN and by most of the international community that there should be two states, one Palestinian and one Jewish, on the territory of what was once "Mandatory Palestine" under British rule?
I can't speak for Cris of course but to me there are two SHARPLY different definitions of "Zionism" that are both used by many people with the wrong expectation that they'll be understood.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk/2000/oct/25/israel?CMP=gu_com
That article is more than 25 years old. If I properly understand it, and the Wikipedia article about the incident to which the appeal relates, the appellants argued that the jury that convicted them weren't invited to consider evidence to the effect the bombing may have been the work of the Iranian security services. I don't quite see the point you're trying to make with it.
Agreed. I just want to stop the slaughter. I'm less interested in the much more complex argument around conquered versus stolen versus indigenous lands... I've heard people say that ALL "Colonial" lands should be returned but actually enforcing that idea would be completely impossible.
I think another response to that question was to call them out on how it's a motte and bailey defense. Wanting them to stop the genocide is a different debate than right to exist. I've noticed many people with bad political takes will try to completely change the subject to something they feel they can "Win."
That is always such a gotcha deflection they use to shut down criticism. Does Israel have a right to exist? Well, again, it is on stolen land. However, yes, they should be allowed to be there. My issue is how abysmally they have treated the Palestinians, culminating in the horrors of Gaza. They have been an occupied apartheid state for far too long. The US is complicit in letting it continue, as are other countries. Israel has certainly ceded any supposed moral high ground. If the tables were turned and it were the Palestinians (and also the Lebanese) treating Israel the same way, there would be international outcry. I am not sure why Israel gets a pass, but it is an abject moral failure and a humanitarian disaster of the highest order. What is happening on a daily basis is a complete horror that I have trouble even processing.
Does Israel "get a pass," though? More so than the KSA or some of the other Gulf states? There are plenty of other territories artificially created by the former colonial powers during the last century ithat have pretty appalling records but the western press hardly pays them any attention. Are you particularly well-up on what's happening in Sudan and Ethiopia, or the Central African Republic, or Myanmar? I'm not. (Before anyone objects, I'm not saying "What about..?" I'm simply contrasting the amount of media coverage and political attention that events in various countries receive -- simply by reading the mainstream British press I'm considerably better informed about politics in Israel than I am about politics in Belgium or Finland).
