Zionism and Libertarians

[auctionguy10]

If Hamas were to take over, women’s rights would be gone, clitoris would be cut off, and homosexuals whipped, killed and their bodies hung for all to see.

Mixing and matching different groups that call themselves muslim or jew to reach your conclusions is pointless. Hamas doesn’t engage in female genital mutilation as far as I know, female genital mutilation by the way having absolutely zero to do with Islam, its a pre-islamic tribal practice. Israel already has taken over, and women’s rights in Gaza and the west bank are already gone because plenty of heads and bodies are splattered all over the place with high powered bombs, tank shells, and other weapons of mass destruction. Why is that the better alternative?

Sure bigots use the fact that Israel is jewish as their real reason to condemn them, but then you go and do the same thing to the other side. The reality is, there is a huge military force that has created a real prison, a prison where they routinely slaughter people for reasons that are probably have a lot to do with ethnic differences and the idea that anyone who doesn’t totally submit to military might is the next Hitler.

Don’t side with radical palestinians or radical israelis or radical anything. Side with humanity. Don’t side with murderers whoever they are, and no matter what excuse they give for their thirst for blood. People always make distinctions between goverments and the people that they control, but for some reason when it comes to the Palestinian/Israeli debate everyone lumps all jews and muslims under the IDF and Hamas banner. That’s not true so why keep the lie up. Theres people in that area that have committed no crime and were just born in the wrong place-but they suffer and that’s whats important to look at.

[Autolykos]

I’d like to weigh in on this some more. Full disclosure: I’m no expert on the history of the Israel/Palestine region, so please correct me if I’m wrong about any of the facts I claim below. Also, sorry if I rehash points made earlier in this thread.

So in late 1947 there was this partition plan presented for the region then known as Mandate Palestine, or British Palestine. Apparently this plan was proposed because the British were tired of dealing with all the shenanigans there. Well, a majority of the UN General Assembly voted for it, but the Arab states of the Middle East didn’t. Subsequently, they considered the UN to have no authority over the area (even though they had joined the UN voluntarily - at least as far as states go). The Palestinian Arabs also, by and large, rejected UN authority and thus rejected the partition plan.

In the conflict that followed, the clear aim of the combatant Arab states and Palestinian Arabs was to prevent a Jewish state from arising - that is, to prevent Jews from asserting statehood in the region of Palestine. On the other hand, the Palestinian Arabs never declared statehood themselves. Why is that? Furthermore, Egypt annexed the Gaza Strip and Jordan annexed the West Bank. Why did they do that?

At its core, Zionism seems to concern political independence for Jews. This is quite understandable to me, since Jews have been getting a bad rap for centuries. However, the Israeli state that formed from the 1947-1948 war was hardly pristine in its origins. For one thing, it exceeded the territories allocated to it under the UN partition plan. For another, the new Israeli government decreed that the roughly 700,000 Palestinian Arab refugees would not be allowed to return and reclaim their homes and lands. Most of these refugees were not combatants in the slightest, from what I understand. That’s why I tentatively conclude that it was wrong to prevent them from returning.

Later on, in the aftermath of the 1967 war, Israeli forces occupied both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Why did they do this? Was it simply an exploitable opportunity? Or what?

Sometimes I wonder whether the entire area shouldn’t just be taken over by the UN, at least as a stop-gap measure for the time being. Of course, doing such would be antithetical to Zionism, as it would eradicate political independence for Jews. However, I think it could well provide greater stability and security for Jews and Palestinian Arabs alike.

[Merlin]

@Autolykos

Later on, in the aftermath of the 1967 war, Israeli forces occupied both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Why did they do this? Was it simply an exploitable opportunity? Or what?

The story seems to be that a non-nuclear state (as was 1967 ) could never have defended its pre ‘67 borders if the enemy could attack from the West Bank, Golan Heights or .

Of course, the argument, if indeed valid, oversees two points: 1) now is a nuclear nation, and need no longer concern itself with geostrategic considerations, and is free to allow borers to be set by referendum, and 2) the mass expulsions of the locals form the where barbarous and pointless.

Otherwise I feel somewhat persuaded by the Israeli justification.

[Marko]

Sometimes I wonder whether the entire area shouldn’t just be taken over by the UN, at least as a stop-gap measure for the time being. Of course, doing such would be antithetical to Zionism, as it would eradicate political independence for Jews. However, I think it could well provide greater stability and security for Jews and Palestinian Arabs alike.

[Marko]

So in late 1947 there was this partition plan presented for the region then known as Mandate Palestine, or British Palestine. Apparently this plan was proposed because the British were tired of dealing with all the shenanigans there.

Must have been that famous British reluctance to meddle around the world that nobody has ever heard of and led them to become one of the warring parties in the 1956 war.

Why the British left has to do with:

A.) moral pressure: The British were in Palestine under a League of Nations mandate. The claim was always that their presence in Palestine was temporary, done only for the purpose of tutoring the locals to make them ready for self-government. By 1948 this pretense was bankrupt.

B.) military pressure: the Jews and Arabs skirmished among themselves, but the Jews in particular also skirmished against the British.

C.) diplomatic pressure: The US in the period worked hard to dismantle the British Empire.

So in late 1947 there was this partition plan presented for the region then known as Mandate Palestine, or British Palestine. Apparently this plan was proposed because the British were tired of dealing with all the shenanigans there. Well, a majority of the UN General Assembly voted for it, but the Arab states of the Middle East didn’t. Subsequently, they considered the UN to have no authority over the area (even though they had joined the UN voluntarily - at least as far as states go). The Palestinian Arabs also, by and large, rejected UN authority and thus rejected the partition plan.

A recommendation to the Security Council by the General Assembly, never adopted by the Security Council is meaningless by UN’s own rules. The UN itself did in fact not claim authorithy over the area as you imagine it.

On the other hand, the Palestinian Arabs never declared statehood themselves. Why is that?

Why is that Canadian Eskimos never declared statehood? They lacked politically consciousness and organisation. We are talking about people who don’t have radios, don’t read newspapers etc.

Furthermore, Egypt annexed the Gaza Strip

False.

and Jordan annexed the West Bank.

The Hashemites annexed the West Bank. It was not in the interest of the Arab Cause.

Later on, in the aftermath of the 1967 war, Israeli forces occupied both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Why did they do this? Was it simply an exploitable opportunity? Or what?

That is a strange question to ask since Israel planned for and launched the 1967 war. There was no incidental opportunity to exploit. The “opportunity” was created by Israel’s military conquest. The reason for it is indeed simple - territorial ambition.

[Marko]

Then why conveniently leave out the atrocities Muslim tyranny has caused. If Hamas were to take over, women’s rights would be gone, clitoris would be cut off, and homosexuals whipped, killed and their bodies hung for all to see.

Oh look, chauvinism!

But you dislike neo-Nazis? Strange, you could have fooled me.

[Autolykos]

@Marko

Perhaps you’d like to explain why you think that would be such a terrible idea?

[Autolykos]

@Marko

Must have been that famous British reluctance to meddle around the world that nobody has ever heard of and led them to become one of the warring parties in the 1956 war.

Why the British left has to do with:

A.) moral pressure: The British were in Palestine under a League of Nations mandate. The claim was always that their presence in Palestine was temporary, done only for the purpose of tutoring the locals to make them ready for self-government. By 1948 this pretense was bankrupt.

B.) military pressure: the Jews and Arabs skirmished among themselves, but the Jews in particular also skirmished against the British.

C.) diplomatic pressure: The US in the period worked hard to dismantle the British Empire.

Right, that’s what I meant by “shenanigans”.

@Marko

A recommendation to the Security Council by the General Assembly, never adopted by the Security Council is meaningless by UN’s own rules. The UN itself did in fact not claim authorithy over the area as you imagine it.

I wasn’t aware of that. So the Partition Plan was simply a recommendation to the Security Council by the General Assembly?

On another note, I love how the UN has this two-tiered structure, where the elite tier (the Security Council) makes the final decisions and thus holds the actual power.

@Marko

Why is that Canadian Eskimos never declared statehood? They lacked politically consciousness and organisation. We are talking about people who don’t have radios, don’t read newspapers etc.

I find it hard to believe that no Palestinian Arabs had radios, read news papers, vel. sim.

@Marko

Furthermore, Egypt annexed the Gaza Strip

False.

Apparently I misspoke. The Egyptian military took control of the Gaza Strip. So it wasn’t annexed de jure, but I’d say it was de facto.

@Marko

and Jordan annexed the West Bank.

The Hashemites annexed the West Bank. It was not in the interest of the Arab Cause.

According to Wikipedia, the Hashemites are traditionally part of the Quraish tribe, which is an Arab tribe. Or are you referring to Arab nationalism when you say “the Arab Cause”?

@Marko

That is a strange question to ask since Israel planned for and launched the 1967 war. There was no incidental opportunity to exploit. The “opportunity” was created by Israel’s military conquest. The reason for it is indeed simple - territorial ambition.

Israeli officials would say that the Egyptians started the war with their massive troop buildups in Sinai. If someone’s walking up to your house brandishing a firearm, do you wait until he actually shoots at you before shooting at or otherwise fighting him?

[Hard_Rain]

Israeli officials would say that the Egyptians started the war with their massive troop buildups in Sinai. If someone’s walking up to your house brandishing a firearm, do you wait until he actually shoots at you before shooting at or otherwise fighting him?

The Israelis actually used the fact that they did not have free passage through the Straits as their casus belli.

With regards to your analogy, assuming your pre-emption was just, is it then okay to march over to where the assailant lived and take-over his home?

[Autolykos]

@Hard Rain

The Israelis actually used the fact that they did not have free passage through the Straits as their casus belli.

Do you have a source for this?

@Hard Rain

With regards to your analogy, assuming your pre-emption was just, is it then okay to march over to where the assailant lived and take-over his home?

Not in my opinion.

[Hard_Rain]

Do you have a source for this?

I believe it was in the Michael Oren book called “Six Days of War”. Unfortunately I don’t have my copy at hand at this time.

[JB_Say]

Ron Paul: Israel created Hamas

See Ron Paul’s video on you tube here:

[ View : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KFaSzU9XF5o&feature=related]

Well that’s interesting when we know how Israel accuses Hamas of all kinds of evil!

[JB_Say]

On the “you are an anti-semite!” weapon used to silence critics of Israel

Former Israeli minister Shulamit Aloni explained to Amy Goodman on Democracy Now, that the ani-semite weapon is a trick used all the time to silence Israel’s critics. See the interview here:

[ View : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUGVPBO9_cA&feature=fvw]

[Tartan_Pimpernel]

Actually the Israelis didn’t use the blockade of the Straits of Tiran as their sole casus belli. I wrote about this earlier so I’ll copy and paste:

• Scholar of international law Yoram Dinstein notes that, “a careful analysis of events surrounding the actual outbreak of hostilities would lead to the conclusion that the Israeli campaign amounted to an interceptive self-defence, in response to an incipient armed attack by Egypt (joined by Jordan and Syria). True, no single Egyptian step, evaluated alone, may have qualified as an armed attack. But when all of the measures taken by Egypt (especially the peremptory ejection of the UN Emergency Force from the Gaza Strip and the Sinai Peninsula; the closure of the Straits of Tiran; the unprecedented build-up of Egyptian forces along Israel’s borders; and constant sabre-rattling statements about the impending fighting) were assessed in the aggregate, it seemed to be crystal clear that Egypt was bent on an armed attack, and the sole question was not whether war would materialise but when.” (Dinstein, War, Aggression, and Self Defense, page 173. Also see Dinstein, The Legal Issues of “Para-War” and Peace in the Middle East.)
• Yoram Dinstein further points out: “The Arab–Israeli conflict is a classical illustration of a whole host of cease-fires, either by consensual arrangement between the parties or by that of the Security Council, halting hostilities without bringing them to an end. Thus, if we take as an example the mislabelled ‘Six Days War’ (sparked in June 1967 and proceeding through several cycles of hostilities), the Council insisted on immediate cease-fire e.g. in June 1967 and in October 1973. Israel and Egypt negotiated a cease-fire agreement e.g. in November 1973. Israel and Syria agreed on a cease-fire e.g. in May 1974. In none of these cases did the cease-fire, whether initiated by the parties or by the Council, terminate the war. In the relations between Israel, on the one hand, Egypt and Jordan, on the other, the ‘Six Days War’ ended only upon (or on the eve of) the conclusion of Treaties of Peace in 1979 and 1994 respectively. In the relations between Israel and Syria, the ‘Six Days War’ is not over yet, after more than three decades, since thebilateral peace process (albeit started) has not yet been crowned with success. A number of rounds of hostilities between Israel and Egypt or Syria (most conspicuously, the so-called ‘Yom Kippur War’ of October 1973) are incorrectly adverted to as ‘wars’. Far from qualifying as separate wars, these were merely nonconsecutive time-frames of combat, punctuated by extended cease- fires, in the course of a single on-going war that had commenced in June 1967.” (War, Aggression, and Self Defense, page 53.) In short, Dinstein is saying that since the Israeli War of Independence of 1947-1948 didn’t technically come to an end, all Israeli-Arab wars since then have been a continuation of that war and those who broke the ceasefire are in the legal wrong.

[Jack_Roberts]

Is isreal a proxy of the west or is zionism an infiltration of the west. I always hear about the jewish influence in the west, in history in present day. The British left the region in 1948 and the jews that where there took over the region by force. They have video evidence of this occurring, even today we have isreal which is a jewish state in control of the region, which proves that the jews took over the region by force. What interest would that region be to anyone in the west, without the religious underpinnings, what interest would any group of people have in that land. The west from what I can see would have limited geo-political interest in that region, be it for trade or resources. This means that this group of people some how convinced the west, that now largely supports isreal, that securing that region for jewish control was within the interest of the west. Some people have said that, “the jewish holocaust” was the justification for the creation of the state of isreal. Some other people have said that the jews have had their strong hold over Britain since cromwell.

There is a lot of evidence that suggests that the history of the holocaust is not accurate and if that is the case the justification for the creation of the isreal was unfounded. Unless you expect me to believe that the jews innocently emigrated to that region and then when faced with conflict, fought back and we ended up with the isreal we have today?

Ok so if the holocaust was the justification for the creation of isreal in the west, what is the justification for the continued support of isreal. Why would the west care about isreal, if jews have no influence in the west? The twisted justification for the continued support of isreal comes from the threat of terrorism from the arabs, that has been pushed in to the western psyche through years of media. Due to the location of isreal in the middle east and the jewish/arab conflict paradigm, the west has sided with the jews and the jewish cause. Of course the west has always had a closer relationship with the jews than the arabs historically.

But that comes back to my point about interest, is isreal realy in the interest of the west?

I am not against jews in general, i actually work with jews and I know that a lot of jewish people do not even agree with zionism or isreal and some do not even know what it is.

[JB_Say]

Sorry Tartan but former Israeli Prime Minister Begin begs to differ.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Begin on the 1967 war:

"In June 1967 we again had a choice. The Egyptian army concentrations in the Sinai approaches do not prove that Nasser was really about to attack us. We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.

This was a war of self-defence in the noblest sense of the term. The government of national unity then established decided unanimously: We will take the initiative and attack the enemy, drive him back, and thus assure the security of Israel and the future of the nation.

We did not do this for lack of an alternative. We could have gone on waiting. We could have sent the army home. Who knows if there would have been an attack against us? There is no proof of it. There are several arguments to the contrary. While it is indeed true that the closing of the Straits of Tiran was an act of aggression, a causus belli, there is always room for a great deal of consideration as to whether it is necessary to make a causus into a bellum."

See complete Begin speech on Israeli Foreign Ministry’s website:

[ View : http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Foreign%20Relations/Israels%20Foreign%20Relations%20since%201947/1982-1984/55%20Address%20by%20Prime%20Minister%20Begin%20at%20the%20National]

[C20H25N3O]

To be honest, I have not idea what your point is with that reply. Could you elaborate?

[C20H25N3O]

Oh no. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t comdemn all Palestinians. I comdemn people and not the groups, unlike some people. The OP asked why there is an anti-Zionist vibe with Libertarians and I provided an answer based on my experience with anti-Zionist-Libertarian. So forgive me, people, if you feel that my suspicions are unwarranted.

But if I had to choose the lesser of two evil, I would choose Isreal. As a gay man I can feel at least somewhat safe on their streets.

[auctionguy10]

. As an American I certainly feel safer in the streets of New York over the streets of Baghdad- but I wouldn’t say that this government is the lesser of the two evil’s when it comes to what one side has done to the other. Although I do find it confusing to see the military with the higher body count be called the “lesser” evil, hearing people choose different sides of “lesser” or “greater” murderers is just dissapointing for me.

[JB_Say]

Pro-Israeli propaganda says that in 1967 Israel felt Egyptians were about to attack and preempted them. That’s why I quoted Begin saying Israel chose to attack and that an Egyptian attack was far from certain.

Here is another quote from the same speech that is even more explicit:

“And so there were three wars with no alternative - the War of Independence, the War of Attrition and the Yom Kippur War - and it is our misfortunate that our wars have been so. If in the two other wars, the wars of choice - the Sinai Campaign and the Six Day War - we had losses like those in the no alternative wars, we would have been left today with few of our best youth, without the strength to withstand the Arab world.”

Begin also says that Israel doesn’t fight only when it has no other choice:

“(…) there is no divine mandate to go to war only if there is no alternative. There is no moral imperative that a nation must, or is entitled to, fight only when its back is to the sea, or to the abyss (…) A free, sovereign nation, which hates war and loves peace, and which is concerned about its security, must create the conditions under which war, if there is a need for it, will not be for lack of alternative. The conditions much be such - and their creation depends upon man’s reason and his actions - that the price of victory will be few casualties, not many.”