Thank you for this pertinent, enlightening and well documented text.
When I was pretty young my mom made me watched « For Those I Loved » written by Martin Gray and « Roots » the 1977 miniseries, based on Alex Haley's 1976 novel « Roots : The Saga of an American Family ». I’m really grateful for my mom who showed me empathy, multicultural sensitivity, gender equality and so much more. All forms of injustice hurt me, but I really think it’s a strength to be outraged by injustices. I started to be touched by Palestinian’s struggle during the first intifada, in 1987, I was 15 years old at the time, now I’m 51 and I’m trying to have a respectful way of expressing my views on the subject. I’m not always on track, but with a text like yours, it’s helping me a lot. Thank you to used your voice against this oppression.
English isn’t my first language, so I’m sorry if I made mistakes in my writing.
I put this comment sometimes on social media sites :
We should not put the jewish peoples all together. The one that we must oposed are the zionists. Zionists are Christians, Jewish and even some Muslims. We have nothing against the Jews, but the zionists project.
Zionism: Considering de facts that there’s no other plan to establish a Jewish state outside of Palestine, nowhere else in the world than Palestine. Zionism in an Ethno-religious nationalist ideology supporting the establishment and the expansion of a Jewish state in Palestine.
Anti-zionism is not antisemitism. The first is opposing to the ethno-religious nationalist project about the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine. the second is hatred of Jews, demonizing them, blaming all the Jewish of the world for the crimes perpetrated by the state of Israel, amalgams, stereotypes and countless Conspiracy theories targeting them.
This is very simplistic - better formulated this way:
1. There is clearly apartheid on the West Bank that has gotten worse since the Hamas attack on 10/7. Mainstream Israeli journalists, both Arab and Jewish, characterize conditions on the west bank as apartheid. Hence the "dream" of a two state solution which is shared by many Israelis and most of the Arab world and of course Europe and the US. The sooner Israel can negotiate a withdrawal from there the better for both Palestinians and Israelis.
2. Gaza has been ruled by Hamas that claims to be in a state of war with Israel. Israeli forces control entrance and egress as if there was a state of war, but do not control whatever rule of law there was in gaza, nor does Israel control social services and the distribution of good ands services. Therefore conditions in gaza are best characterized as a siege, rather than apartheid. Realistically this should be judged by the rules of war. The concept of apartheid is clearly inappropriate and represents the sloppy thinking characterized in most of the posts on this site. There is plenty to criticized on both sides but we make little progressive with this kind of sloppy thinking.
3. It is ridiculous to describe conditions within Israel proper as apartheid. If we call conditions within Israel proper apartheid, the concept losses all meaning because by those criteria there are few countries in the world, and none in the Arab world, where ethnic, tribal and/religious minorities enjoy as many rights, opportunities, and status as Arab Israelis. As a criteria for judgement if it applies everywhere it applies nowhere.
Conditions for Arab Israelis are far from perfect and recently have deteriorated, but Arab citizens of Israel have far more economic and educational opportunities than Arab populations in Europe and African Americans in the US. Shamefully it's often easier for Arab citizens to vote in Israel than it is for many African Americans to vote in parts of the US. Using Gini Index measures a good case can be made that Israel is the most successful multi ethnic, multi racial, multi religious society in the world.
On an additional note: looking at the recent treatment Sunni Muslims in Syria; Coptic Christians in Egypt; Non Arab populations in Sudan; Palestinians in Jordan and Lebanon; Kurds in Turkey, Iran, Syria etc. : there is a long list....the explanation for harsh criticisms of Israel on sites like this seems to fit nicely with the long ugly history of bigotry against Jews, some from the outside and some from self haters.
Thank you for this pertinent, enlightening and well documented text.
When I was pretty young my mom made me watched « For Those I Loved » written by Martin Gray and « Roots » the 1977 miniseries, based on Alex Haley's 1976 novel « Roots : The Saga of an American Family ». I’m really grateful for my mom who showed me empathy, multicultural sensitivity, gender equality and so much more. All forms of injustice hurt me, but I really think it’s a strength to be outraged by injustices. I started to be touched by Palestinian’s struggle during the first intifada, in 1987, I was 15 years old at the time, now I’m 51 and I’m trying to have a respectful way of expressing my views on the subject. I’m not always on track, but with a text like yours, it’s helping me a lot. Thank you to used your voice against this oppression.
English isn’t my first language, so I’m sorry if I made mistakes in my writing.
I put this comment sometimes on social media sites :
We should not put the jewish peoples all together. The one that we must oposed are the zionists. Zionists are Christians, Jewish and even some Muslims. We have nothing against the Jews, but the zionists project.
Zionism: Considering de facts that there’s no other plan to establish a Jewish state outside of Palestine, nowhere else in the world than Palestine. Zionism in an Ethno-religious nationalist ideology supporting the establishment and the expansion of a Jewish state in Palestine.
Anti-zionism is not antisemitism. The first is opposing to the ethno-religious nationalist project about the establishment of the Jewish state in Palestine. the second is hatred of Jews, demonizing them, blaming all the Jewish of the world for the crimes perpetrated by the state of Israel, amalgams, stereotypes and countless Conspiracy theories targeting them.
https://www.annefrank.org/en/topics/antisemitism/all-criticism-israel-antisemitic/
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/mar/07/debunking-myth-that-anti-zionism-is-antisemitic
Legitimacy of the State of israel and the right to opposed the legitimacy of the existence of israel.
The Idea of Israel as a Jewish State - Alan Patten: https://scholar.princeton.edu/sites/default/files/apatten/files/idea_of_israel.pdf
In its actual form israel is not what it was supposed to be.
Israel simply has no right to exist | Faisal Bodi | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2001/jan/03/comment.israelandthepalestinians
✌🏼
🇵🇸
#BDS
#FreePalestine
#EndIsraelApartheid
#UNInvestigateApartheid
#Nakba
#SheikhJarrah
#FreeAhmadManasra
#ShireenAbuAkleh
#HumanRights
This is very simplistic - better formulated this way:
1. There is clearly apartheid on the West Bank that has gotten worse since the Hamas attack on 10/7. Mainstream Israeli journalists, both Arab and Jewish, characterize conditions on the west bank as apartheid. Hence the "dream" of a two state solution which is shared by many Israelis and most of the Arab world and of course Europe and the US. The sooner Israel can negotiate a withdrawal from there the better for both Palestinians and Israelis.
2. Gaza has been ruled by Hamas that claims to be in a state of war with Israel. Israeli forces control entrance and egress as if there was a state of war, but do not control whatever rule of law there was in gaza, nor does Israel control social services and the distribution of good ands services. Therefore conditions in gaza are best characterized as a siege, rather than apartheid. Realistically this should be judged by the rules of war. The concept of apartheid is clearly inappropriate and represents the sloppy thinking characterized in most of the posts on this site. There is plenty to criticized on both sides but we make little progressive with this kind of sloppy thinking.
3. It is ridiculous to describe conditions within Israel proper as apartheid. If we call conditions within Israel proper apartheid, the concept losses all meaning because by those criteria there are few countries in the world, and none in the Arab world, where ethnic, tribal and/religious minorities enjoy as many rights, opportunities, and status as Arab Israelis. As a criteria for judgement if it applies everywhere it applies nowhere.
Conditions for Arab Israelis are far from perfect and recently have deteriorated, but Arab citizens of Israel have far more economic and educational opportunities than Arab populations in Europe and African Americans in the US. Shamefully it's often easier for Arab citizens to vote in Israel than it is for many African Americans to vote in parts of the US. Using Gini Index measures a good case can be made that Israel is the most successful multi ethnic, multi racial, multi religious society in the world.
On an additional note: looking at the recent treatment Sunni Muslims in Syria; Coptic Christians in Egypt; Non Arab populations in Sudan; Palestinians in Jordan and Lebanon; Kurds in Turkey, Iran, Syria etc. : there is a long list....the explanation for harsh criticisms of Israel on sites like this seems to fit nicely with the long ugly history of bigotry against Jews, some from the outside and some from self haters.