Current Affairs Israel is an apartheid state

[BigMick]

I think you have gone in a bit hard on this, Mick.

If the site mentioned has an agenda then it should be viewed with caution.

If they are using material from multiple issues of Israeli racism then the bigger concern is that the racism exists, and lets be honest, Israel does not have a reasonable reputation in such matters.

Africans in the country having to face of government plans to deport them must have been difficult. It must have been truly shocking to be an African in Israel and hear the leading Rabi referring to Africans as monkeys.

The footage pulled together of Israelis being racist might be poor form but if so it was seemingly looking to capitalise on an existing issue.

No if about the agenda Spadge.

I fully accept there is racism in Israel, like anywhere else. Who is this leading rabbi you refer to?

 

[BigMick]

No, sorry, you can’t compare Britain's racists with Israel’s abuse, torment, ghettoisation and general horror treatment of its native people.

Sorry, I think you can.

I understand where you're coming from - I think my views were fairly similar to yours at one time. I come from an Arab studies background, went to work in the region, and found, eventually, that the situation was very different to what I'd expected to find, both in Israel and in Palestine -not just the West Bank, when I first went it was still possible to visit Gaza. So if you'll give me examples of "abuse, torment, ghettoisation and general horror treatment of its native people", I'll try to answer them if I can, bearing in mind that I may well agree with some of the criticisms you make to some extent.

 

[BigMick]

No one in the UK voted in a racist government mate whilst Israelis did…..

Mate, if the UK had the same voting system and a politician as brilliant and completely unscrupulous as Netanyahu, we'd have had a racist government long ago!

 

[BigMick]

More information has come out about the beheading of a young gay man in Hebron last month, much of it too gruesome to post so I'll just relate the basic facts.
Abu Murkhiyeh fled to Israel in 2020 after years of abuse from his family and his local community. Even then he didn't feel safe, as anonymous callers spewed homophobic slurs and threats at him over the phone and once, while working in a restaurant, he was recognised by a Palestinian day worker from the West Bank and beaten up. One day last month, shortly after speaking to friends, he disappeared. Then a video appeared on social media showing him being beheaded, his decapitated body left lying by the side of a road.
A video of his murder was posted on social media as a warning to other gay people - videos of gay men and women being attacked have been uploaded before.

His friends in Israel, Arab and Jewish, are adamant that he would never have travelled to Hebron willingly. They are convinced he was kidnapped. His family deny that he was ever in Israel, claiming he had been working in Jordan and was home on a visit; they have no idea why he was killed, he wasn't even gay. Abu's friends believe the family may have had a role in his abduction and murder - he'd brought shame on the family and honour killings are a common occurence in the West Bank, though the victims are usually female.

Ironically, the West Bank is one of the few Muslim territories where homosexuality has been decriminalised. Nothing to do with the PA - it was a Jordanian decision in 1951 when the West Bank was part of Jordan. Gaza was under Egyptian control so the same doesn't apply there - Hamas would certainly have rescinded it anyway. Unfortunately the PA have done little or nothing to help the gay community, banning gay and transgender rights groups from holding events and recently banning a book by a popular author because it contained a sympathetic gay character. Meanwhile, preachers at al Aqsa mosque regularly condemn homosexuality - here are a few recent examples:

"Our Muslim Palestinian people will not accept a single homosexual openly declaring his abomination."
"We reject and abhor all the manifestations of homosexuality and perversion. Allah tormented and annihilated the people of Sodom for engaging in this crime."
"Allah said that they should be thrown head first from the rooftop of the tallest building, and then they should be stoned from above."
Another managed to link their two main prejudices: "The Israeli homosexual perverts, who became numerous and gained power and influence."
"The Israeli perverts now have unions, associations, organisations and institutions...it grieves us that these perverts - homosexuals, transgenders, sodomites and lesbians - occupy our land."

Small wonder then that the latest opinion polls suggest only 5% of West Bank residents regarded homosexuality as acceptable - the lowest number in the Middle East.

Gay Palestinians are left with two choices - hide their true nature as best they can or flee to Israel, which is easier said than done. One expert explained, “It’s not so simple, culturally or psychologically. First, they need to get to the stage of being able and willing to seek out assistance, overcoming their fears after years of stories about Israel's treatment of all Palestinians in custody. Second, they must be ready to out themselves as gay or trans in front of those same authorities. There are a lot more people in danger who don’t reach out.”

Physically entering Israel isn't easy either, and has become more difficult in the last few months after Israel patched up the numerous gaps in the security fence because terrorists used those same gaps to enter the country and commit atrocities. Over 120,000 workers have permits to enter Israel but they are only issued to married men aged over 25. Once in Israel they face an interview where they have to make a convincing case that deportation would put them in danger. Any inconsistencies in their story undermine their case but some struggle to relate their story clearly because they are still traumatised, or nervous at facing the dreaded Israelis, or simply embarrassed. Almost no Palestinians speak Hebrew and while a translator is provided, that is another factor which can unnerve them.

If their claim is accepted they aren't granted asylum but are allowed to stay in the country under Israel's permit system. These have to be renewed at least twice a year - provided they haven't committed any crimes renewel is virtually guaranteed but even so it must be a nerveracking experience. At first they temporarily stay in special LGBT shelters, including some manned solely by Arabs.

Latest opinion polls show 53% of Jews are tolerant of homosexuality, with the majority of orthodox Jews being opposed. For Israeli Muslims it was only 17% - still over three times higher than the West Bank, which is worthy of greater research. Homophobic attacks are rare, though they rose during the covid lockdown, as they did in many other countries. Pride parades take place annually in several cities, notably Tel Aviv and Jerusalem - 250,000 attended this year's Tel Aviv event. Prospective police minister Itamir ben Gvir said that while he is opposed to homosexuality he respects people's rights and will ensure their safety. Another potential minister, Smotrich, once organised a counter rally to Jerusalem's Pride march but claims he is embarrassed by his actions. One of the parties due to form the new government is Noam, who are openly homophobic. They managed just one seat and would have got nowhere near the voting threshold running on their own, but they ran as part of an unholy alliance with ben Gvir and Smotrich.

The prospect of those people in government is nauseating and a definite cause for concern, but I doubt they will be able to undermine existing gay rights even if they wanted to. It is, though, far too easy to dismiss people's fears from the comfort of the west, whether it's gay rights or other civil liberties, fear of terror attacks or fears for the very survival of the only democratic state in the region. The LGBT rights body - The Aguda - said, "We will not allow even the slightest violation of our rights," warning the incoming government that any attack on the community's rights will be followed by a "widespread public response by the dominant majority within the Israeli public."

Some Palestinians eventually flee even further away than Israel - despite making plenty of friends, Abu was hoping to move to Canada once he'd saved enough money. Even after 18 months in Israel the threats never stopped and he didn't feel safe. Tragically, his worst fears were justified.

 

[Noisy noise annoys]

Sorry, I think you can.

I understand where you're coming from - I think my views were fairly similar to yours at one time. I come from an Arab studies background, went to work in the region, and found, eventually, that the situation was very different to what I'd expected to find, both in Israel and in Palestine -not just the West Bank, when I first went it was still possible to visit Gaza. So if you'll give me examples of "abuse, torment, ghettoisation and general horror treatment of its native people", I'll try to answer them if I can, bearing in mind that I may well agree with some of the criticisms you make to some extent.

"abuse, torment, ghettoisation and general horror treatment of its native people"

Edit. that map is ten years old. The land grabs and forced evictions have continued unabated

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

No if about the agenda Spadge.

I fully accept there is racism in Israel, like anywhere else. Who is this leading rabbi you refer to?

Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef

ADL: Israeli Chief Rabbi Statement Against Non-Jews Living in Israel is Shocking and Unacceptable

Israeli Chief Rabbi Statement Against Non-Jews Living in Israel is Shocking and Unacceptable

www.adl.org

 

[BigMick]

Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef

Thanks for that Spadge, I thought that might be the one though I hadn't seen that (highly edited) clip before.

I have no great desire to defend Yitzhak Yosef, who is , to put it politely, an ignorant racist lout who shames the position of Sephardic Chief Rabbi - he only got that position because he inherited it. he regularly disparages every aspect of Israeli life bar his own narrow opinions.

This is what he actually said:

"Seeing a black person, you say the blessing. What black person? One who had a white mother and father, and came out black.
“You can’t make the blessing on every ‘kushi’ you see - in America you see one every five minutes, so you make it only on a person with a white father and mother. Will you say on him the blessing? Rather, it only needs to be on a black person whose mother and father are white. If, you know, two people birth a monkey or something like that, then you say the Different Creatures blessing."

For 'black person' he used the word 'kushi', as used in the Talmud it comes from the kingdom of Kush - Kushites. The Talmud states that the Different Creatures blessing should be recited when seeing “a black person, a very red or very white person and for many years it was taken to refer to black people and people with red hair. Most ancient languages had such terms - abed in Arabic for instance. It's only recently that it has come to used as a derogatory term for black people and so isn't commonly used.

The monkey reference is of course disgraceful and indefensible.

He's also referred to women as animals.

 

[Spadge Vernacular]

Thanks for that Spadge, I thought that might be the one though I hadn't seen that (highly edited) clip before.

I have no great desire to defend Yitzhak Yosef, who is , to put it politely, an ignorant racist lout who shames the position of Sephardic Chief Rabbi - he only got that position because he inherited it. he regularly disparages every aspect of Israeli life bar his own narrow opinions.

This is what he actually said:

"Seeing a black person, you say the blessing. What black person? One who had a white mother and father, and came out black.
“You can’t make the blessing on every ‘kushi’ you see - in America you see one every five minutes, so you make it only on a person with a white father and mother. Will you say on him the blessing? Rather, it only needs to be on a black person w. hose mother and father are white. If, you know, two people birth a monkey or something like that, then you say the Different Creatures blessing."

For 'black person' he used the word 'kushi', as used in the Talmud it comes from the kingdom of Kush - Kushites. The Talmud states that the Different Creatures blessing should be recited when seeing “a black person, a very red or very white person and for many years it was taken to refer to black people and people with red hair. Most ancient languages had such terms - abed in Arabic for instance. It's only recently that it has come to used as a derogatory term for black people and so isn't commonly used.

The monkey reference is of course disgraceful and indefensible.

He's also referred to women as animals.

Aye, editing isn't the consideration, and it was the first clip I could find. The issue is what he says and his views as a religious leader. If one of our religous leaders said the things he does you'd rightly expect they'd get the boot.

 

[BigMick]

Aye, editing isn't the consideration, and it was the first clip I could find. The issue is what he says and his views as a religious leader. If one of our religous leaders said the things he does you'd rightly expect they'd get the boot.

Yes he would and he was roundly criticised both in Israel and throughout the Jewish world. I'm sure you would also condemn Palestinian and Arab racism as well. I'm not interested in tit for tat quotes by rabbis or clerics, including the Grand Mufti, Raed Salah and many others, or by politicians, calling Jews apes, pigs and dogs. More disgusting is the indoctrination of children at school using poems and chants containing the same words. For example:

"Oh sons of Zion, the most evil of creatures, oh you wild apes, you miserable pigs – Jerusalem is not your land, Jerusalem rejects you. Jerusalem spits out your filth. Because Jerusalem, you filthy people, is a pure virgin. Jerusalem, you dirty people, is pure and clean."

Because of this, plus glorifying terrorism and martyrdom, the EU have several times withheld funding from the PA Education Department and from the United Nations body, UNRWA, which also provides text books. As Hilary Clinton once said after reviewing Palestinian schoolbooks and state TV, the PA "profoundly poisons the minds of these children."

Not that Israeli education is flawless - far from it. There are many areas in need of attention, notably in the Haredi community, which brings us back to Yitzhak Yosef. In 2021 he said studying science, English and maths are "nonsense", adding proudly that he himself never finished school or received a diploma. Many Haredi finish school ill-equipped for any kind of job. The previous government planned reforms to their education, the new one will rescind them. A good proportion of the Hilltop Youth who behave so appallingly in the West Bank are Haredi drop outs - their alternative is to live rough on the streets of Tel Aviv doing drugs in some backstreet. In the West Bank they gain a sense of purpose and camaraderie - the Israeli equivalent of joining a gang.

The education of the next generation is important everywhere - in the fraught atmosphere of Israel and Palestine even more so. Israel has massive room for improvement but has taken a few positive steps recently; Palestine's has its strengths but they are outweighed by its flaws right through to university level.

 

[BigMick]

View attachment 193748

"abuse, torment, ghettoisation and general horror treatment of its native people"

Edit. that map is ten years old. The land grabs and forced evictions have continued unabated

MAP 1.
The area in green purports to be Palestine, suggesting that it is one self-governing state. In the period before the British Mandate, this was part of the Ottoman Empire and stretched into modern-day Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. The area at the time was never a sovereign entity in its own right, and the boundaries shown in the map do not reflect the boundaries of the region as administered by the Ottomans, nor as they appeared under previous rulers. Britain used 77% of Mandate territory to form the Hashemite Kingdom of Transjordan - strictly Arab, no Jews allowed - as shown here:

So the land was owned by the Ottomans and taken over by the British. Much of it was uninhabited - half the country is, after all, desert, while other parts were malarial marshes. The absence of Jews in these areas was matched by an absence of Arabs. A more accurate rendering of the map would make clear where Arabs lived (green), where Jews lived(white), and where nobody lived. The whole of the green area never was a Palestinian state, neither was the whole of it owned by Palestinian people.
At the time there were about 1.2 million Arabs in the land, alongside 580,000 Jews. But because the green area is vastly larger than the white area - even though much of it was unpopulated - it completely twists the historical reality. Given there were roughly twice as many Arabs, the green area should be roughly twice the size of the white area.
The vast majority of the total land, around 77%, belonged to the government, meaning that when the state of Israel was established, it became legally Israel's.

MAP 2.
This is the partition plan proposed by the UN - the Jews accepted it, the Palestinian Arabs and surrounding Arab nations turned it down. This is what the head of the Arab League said at the time - 75 years ago:


Read it and weep, not just at the missed opportunity but because much of the same rhetoric is still being used today - all Palestinian militias are still fighting the 1948 war intended to wipe Israel off the map. In September this year Mahmoud Abbas turned up at the UN and brazenly asked them to implement the resolution which proposed the plan that had been turned down - 75 years too late.

MAP 3.
This shows the borders from 1948, when Israel defeated the invading Arab armies, to 1967. These aren't actually borders, but armistice lines Israel signed with Jordan and Egypt in 1949 - it became known as the Green Line because a green pen was used. The borders were meant to be negotiated at a later date. The green areas are supposedly Palestine but in reality the West Bank was annexed by Jordan - hence they named it the 'West Bank' of the Jordan River, as opposed to the rest of Jordan on the east bank. Gaza, meanwhile, was under Egyptian control. Neither Arab country thought of establishing a Palestinian state.
I'm just thankful Syria didn't succeed in creating Southern Syria as they desired.

MAP 4.
This map is the result of the Oslo Accords negotiated by Israel and the Palestinians in the 1990s. In other words, agreed to by the Palestinians. It resulted in the Palestinians having their first ever government over any territory, in Gaza and parts of the West Bank - sadly it's now in two parts with two bitterly opposed governments. Under Oslo the West Bank was split into three parts:
Area A under full Palestinian control - contains all cities and major towns - 55% Palestinian population
Area B IDF security/Palestinian civil control - smaller towns and villages - 41% Palestinian population
Area C Under full IDF control - sparsely populated then and now.

The immediate future of the Oslo Accords was set to be one of the main features of last year's cancelled Palestinian elections - just another reason to curse Abbas's decision.

I can assure you there has been zero Israeli building or land grabs or forced evictions in any part of Areas A or B so they remain exactly as shown on the map. Area C is a different matter but does not affect the map.

I have a map for you:


This shows the West Bank part of the offer that Arafat turned down in 2001 - around 95% of the West Bank plus Gaza and a land link, plus land swaps which meant he had about 98% of the land he claimed to want. Israel also agreed to give up East Jerusalem plus parts of the Old City, with the Temple Mount remaining in Jordanian control. A few years later Mahmoud Abbas turned down a similar offer - he at least had an excuse, though he wouldn't admit it - Hamas had seized control of Gaza and had already tried to assassinate him in an attempt to scupper the talks. Had he accepted a civil war would almost certainly have ensued. Both offers were the result of negotiations, not presented in a take-it-or-leave it fashion like the Trump Plan or the Arab Peace Plan (which has its merits).

Some Palestinians, and many of their western supporters, try to pretend these offers never happened, or are genuinely ignorant of them. Most Israelis, though, ask the question, "If the Palestinians turned down these offers, what do they really want?"

Those four fake maps do nothing to help the Palestinian cause. If anything they hinder them. Tellingly, The Palestinian Authority has never used them - they are a British invention!

Apologies if I sound dismissive of your post - I'm not, just dismissive of those maps. There are terrible things going on in the West Bank at the moment that are in danger of spiralling out of control, not helped by the appalling behaviour of a minority of settlers and a small minority of the IDF - often from the same brigade. As for land grabs in Area C - Israeli apologists will point out (correctly) that there has only been one new settlement in the last 25 years. (All settlements are in Area C). What they don't point out are the illegal settlements and outposts, many of which may well be legalised by the incoming government, though we'll have to wait and see.

There is also a fair amount of Palestinian building going on in Area C, much of it paid for by foreign governments or the EU. This is part of the Fayyad Plan, which I've mentioned before, part of which was to 'create facts on the ground'. I'm a big admirer of Fayyad - he's a huge loss to Palestinian politics, lives in the US now and must be getting on, though not as old as Abbas. Israel regards it all as illegal because they are done without planning permission, which is almost impossible to get. Most of the builds are not knocked down though - not sure if that's for political reasons or they just can't be bothered. Just outside Jericho are some ancient palaces of the Hasmonean dynasty (1st century BC) which we always visit when there. This year we found a lot of new builds close by, gorgeous houses and villas, straddling the borders of Area A and C. Apparently the Israelis demolished one building over a year ago but haven't bothered since.

Most of the demolished properties that I've seen in the news over here are Bedouin. For me, that's a different matter that should be treated separately, but I appreciate that's difficult to do. I say that because I think you have to look at the Bedouin culture as a whole, or at least as it applies to Palestine and Israel, to solve the problems, though it would help if the Israelis didn't keep demolishing the same shanty villages.

 

[Noisy noise annoys]

Israeli incursions into Palestinian refugee camps again yesterday/today
Imagine being forced to live in refugee camps in your own country by your occupiers.

 

[Noisy noise annoys]

It’s not loading properly for some reason however, Palestine should not even have to negotiate with Israel on their own lands.
The Balfour declaration saw them lose their lands and it has continued ever since.
It’s a disgrace

 

[BigMick]

Israeli incursions into Palestinian refugee camps again yesterday/today
Imagine being forced to live in refugee camps in your own country by your occupiers.

The refugee camps? Mate, I'll get back to you on them, I've just spent half an hour answering you last post and am off to bed!

 

[BigMick]

It’s not loading properly for some reason however, Palestine should not even have to negotiate with Israel on their own lands.
The Balfour agreement saw them lose their lands and it has continued ever since.
It’s a disgrace

So are you saying Israel doesn't have the right to exist?

 

[Noisy noise annoys]

So are you saying Israel doesn't have the right to exist?

I’m saying that pre 1900 (roughly) the entire area was pretty much Palestine. They’ve now been left with a few scraps and losing more by the day.

Israel’s right to exist seems to be at the expense of palestines.

No one can look at Palestine 1890 and today snd not think something is horribly wrong

Please don’t come back with your “they were offered such and such by so and so” lands in the past. They should not have to negotiate their own lands, much like Ukraine today.