Rally for a free Palestine

[Shake me up Judy]

On 12/8/2023 at 10:39 PM, Anyone said:

I’m not so sure the 2 million Palestinians living in Israel would feel they have the same rights as Israelis. 

Here's one opinion. Read the many comments from other Israeli Arabs too:

 

[HeliX]

15 minutes ago, Josem said:

You reveal yourself as either a bigot or an ignoramus when you use such phrases. Calling the UN partition resolution establishing Israel a Nakba ("catastrophe") comes from the extremist pan-Arabic nationalists who wanted to establish one unified Arabic state: from Syria to Egypt. For such people, it was a catastrophe that Jews were allowed to live in the land of the Arabs.

Allowing Jews to live in the Middle East is not a catastrophe. Alongside the establishment of an independent India, allowing one little Jewish nation to exist is one of the great post-colonial triumphs of the 20th century.

Israeli settlers displacing and making refugees of more than 700,000 people is a catastrophe.

I think the idea of a Jewish nation is a good thing. I think how it was achieved was a gravely unjust thing.

[display name]

Just blame it all on Gene Simmons and don't watch the news

[P.K.]

6 hours ago, HeliX said:

Israeli settlers displacing and making refugees of more than 700,000 people is a catastrophe.

I think the idea of a Jewish nation is a good thing. I think how it was achieved was a gravely unjust thing.

@HeliX

So get that letter off to the UN Security Council ASAFP!

More same old same old...

Boring!

Eventually even you will have to face up to reality...

[HeliX]

3 minutes ago, P.K. said:

@HeliX

So get that letter off to the UN Security Council ASAFP!

More same old same old...

Boring!

Eventually even you will have to face up to reality...

My post is a description of the reality. There aren't many ways to spin the displacement and disposession of 700k+ as a good thing.

[P.K.]

Just now, HeliX said:

My post is a description of the reality. There aren't many ways to spin the displacement and disposession of 700k+ as a good thing.

Old news...

[The Bastard]

Demographics change, immigrants come and go. The English were immigrants who aggressively displaced the people before them.

In the 20th century, in England, immigration from Asia has led to almost 10% of the total population being of the islamic faith, in some Northern towns close to 40% of the population. Immigrants and their descendants wield significant political and economic power, and own a significant amount of businesses and properties. Mosques and shops cater to a post-immigration population. Locals have been widely displaced, but apart from a handful of drunken losers in the EDL, and a handful of fundamentalist incels on the other side, there's no local armed intifada demanding their removal, and cultural absorption sees Yorkshire lads heading out for a curry on a Friday night.

The establishment of Israel was 75 years ago, not a few years ago. Within a few years there will be nobody alive who can remember the establishment, or the demographic changes of the time. Before the establishment of Israel, there were Palestinian pogroms of Jews, the 1929 Hebron massacre being worthy of note.

At some point it has to stop, reconciliation has to commence, and the sins of the past have to be left behind.  Entrenchment and appropriation of victimhood solves nothing. 

Edited December 12, 2023 by The Bastard

[Roger Mexico]

1 hour ago, The Bastard said:

In the 20th century, in England, immigration from Asia has led to almost 10% of the total population being of the islamic faith, in some Northern towns close to 40% of the population. 

Actually the percentage of Muslims in England and Wales is only 6.5% (and will be much less in Scotland and NI).  The 'town' with the highest percentage is Blackburn (technically the local authority Blackburn with Darwen) with 35% though Tower Hamlets in London is just under 40%.

[The Bastard]

52 minutes ago, Roger Mexico said:

Actually the percentage of Muslims in England and Wales is only 6.5% (and will be much less in Scotland and NI).  The 'town' with the highest percentage is Blackburn (technically the local authority Blackburn with Darwen) with 35% though Tower Hamlets in London is just under 40%.

Where did I mention Wales in the statement ?

[code99]

If what happened 75 years ago is too long in historical terms for some people (to be relevant), then surely what happened 2,000 years ago must be even less relevant. But the main premise on which the State of Israel was established is that 2,000 years ago Jewish people lived on the same small patch of land that is now Israel/ Palestine – this historical occupancy gives them an historic right to live there now, even though 2,000 years ago things were very different. The Jews then lived alongside different peoples; mainly Greeks and Romans. There weren’t any Muslims living in Palestine because Islam did not come along for another 700 years.  Incidentally, over the whole of the last two millennia, some Jewish people have had continuous ‘habitation’ in and around Jerusalem (for 2,000 years).

Of course, lots of other countries have also changed occupancy as a result of wars and conflicts. On the other side of the world, in Australia, British settlers committed genocide/ raped/ displaced the indigenous Aboriginal people. Today the Aboriginal people aren’t stating that Australia is ‘their’ homeland because they have been continuously living there for 2,000 years, they are stating Australia is their homeland because they have been living there for 40,000 years. The racial tensions in Australia have remained an open wound ever since Captain Cook claimed the land for Great Britain in 1770. The insurmountable problem the Aboriginal people face is that they are now a tiny minority of the total population in their own country, i.e., there are too few of them to effectively fight for their historical rights.

A new Middle East peace process must be resumed as quickly as possible. Whether a lasting peace can be achieved is questionable, but the world must at least try. The UN will probably pass a non-binding resolution for humanitarian ceasefire. Even if that succeeds, it can only be a beginning. Pressure must be exerted to both sides to de-escalate.    

[Shake me up Judy]

9 hours ago, The Bastard said:

Demographics change, immigrants come and go. The English were immigrants who aggressively displaced the people before them.

In the 20th century, in England, immigration from Asia has led to almost 10% of the total population being of the islamic faith, in some Northern towns close to 40% of the population. Immigrants and their descendants wield significant political and economic power, and own a significant amount of businesses and properties. Mosques and shops cater to a post-immigration population. Locals have been widely displaced, but apart from a handful of drunken losers in the EDL, and a handful of fundamentalist incels on the other side, there's no local armed intifada demanding their removal, and cultural absorption sees Yorkshire lads heading out for a curry on a Friday night.

The establishment of Israel was 75 years ago, not a few years ago. Within a few years there will be nobody alive who can remember the establishment, or the demographic changes of the time. Before the establishment of Israel, there were Palestinian pogroms of Jews, the 1929 Hebron massacre being worthy of note.

At some point it has to stop, reconciliation has to commence, and the sins of the past have to be left behind.  Entrenchment and appropriation of victimhood solves nothing. 

Excellent post. It's got nothing to do with the Palestinians really. They're just a key piece of the Left's anti-west narrative that stokes grievance, momentum, and 'the need'. Palestine is a surrogate cause; a poster on the Left's wall, along with Uncle Sam in his top hat and pointy finger; and the British Empire with its foot on the neck of a black slave. 

The history of the world is one of settlement, displacement, movement, population shift, colonisation, war, conflict, tension, and the redrawing of boundaries. Few countries have avoided it. Most eventually learn to live together. Many learn that compromise and union can lead to a better future. Just look at the history of modern Britain or Europe over just the last 150 years.

Contrary to Code99's post, Australia is a massive success story. The indigenous people were going nowhere fast and probably would've died out without settlement, colonisation and immigration.   

[John Wright]

10 hours ago, The Bastard said:

Demographics change, immigrants come and go. The English were immigrants who aggressively displaced the people before them.

In the 20th century, in England, immigration from Asia has led to almost 10% of the total population being of the islamic faith, in some Northern towns close to 40% of the population. Immigrants and their descendants wield significant political and economic power, and own a significant amount of businesses and properties. Mosques and shops cater to a post-immigration population. Locals have been widely displaced, but apart from a handful of drunken losers in the EDL, and a handful of fundamentalist incels on the other side, there's no local armed intifada demanding their removal, and cultural absorption sees Yorkshire lads heading out for a curry on a Friday night.

The establishment of Israel was 75 years ago, not a few years ago. Within a few years there will be nobody alive who can remember the establishment, or the demographic changes of the time. Before the establishment of Israel, there were Palestinian pogroms of Jews, the 1929 Hebron massacre being worthy of note.

At some point it has to stop, reconciliation has to commence, and the sins of the past have to be left behind.  Entrenchment and appropriation of victimhood solves nothing. 

Except folk memory and resentments lie deep. Especially when it’s down to race, religion, culture, and when it’s conquest, force, etc.

You only have to look at the Balkans and Ireland.

[code99]

34 minutes ago, Shake me up Judy said:

Contrary to Code99's post, Australia is a massive success story. The indigenous people were going nowhere fast and probably would've died out without settlement, colonisation and immigration.   

I beg to disagree. 

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episodes/p0gjffbz/the-australian-wars

[Two-lane]

47 minutes ago, Shake me up Judy said:

Australia is a massive success story. The indigenous people were going nowhere fast and probably would've died out without settlement, colonisation and immigration.   

North Sentinel Island.

They don't get to see Nigel Farage in I'm A Celebrity, but are they desperately unhappy about that?

[code99]

50 minutes ago, Shake me up Judy said:

The history of the world is one of settlement, displacement, movement, population shift, colonisation, war, conflict, tension, and the redrawing of boundaries. Few countries have avoided it. Most eventually learn to live together. Many learn that compromise and union can lead to a better future. Just look at the history of modern Britain or Europe over just the last 150 years.

I understand your perspective. It is academic, detached and very general. I cannot imagine that anyone who was caught up in a large existential crisis would ever see their world that way, e.g., the people who endured hunger through the Irish famine, or the Holocaust, or the wars in Ukraine and Gaza, etc, etc.  

I do agree though that the concept of ‘union’ is a good one – the UK should have stayed in the EU.