Israel to World: "Suck It."

Well, there are very few European countries, where the leaders haven't won an election through islamophobia recently. So we know the drill from ourselves.

right. but in israel's case it's already quite clear (to me, anyway) the disastrous course that netanyahu, etc. are taking the country and the region -- so it's amazing that so many israelis want to stay that course, even after netanyahu has dropped the veil of civility and good faith.

makes me feel like it would not really be that surprising if america were to elect some barely-concealed fascist (insert dr. morbius line about obama = hitler). but i guess the demographic trends here seem to mitigate against that (for the time being).

insert dr. morbius line about obama = hitler

is this where i'm supposed to 'laugh at myself', or rather your offensive caricature of me? get fuct.

caveat emptor

Bibi's reelection makes it clear that Israeli voters, more clearly aware of Netanyahu's intent than ever, have chosen the apartheid path, and will now have to live with the consequences.

American Jewish groups, key players in the coalition against South African apartheid, will resort to verbal gymnastics to argue that it's not the same. Or they will simply use the convenient ploy of pointing out all the bad decisions made by Palestinian leaders over the years. When the inevitable violence erupts and when the Palestinians, left with no other options, renew their push to condemn Israel in international bodies, they will circle the wagons to defend a Jewish state they claim is unfairly treated by a hostile world. They will ratchet up efforts to stifle even moderate dissent in the Jewish world. They'll blame the deepening divisions in the Jewish community on J Street.

Or they will say the no-statehood pledge was just politics as usual in Israel's fractious democracy, as meaningless as most other campaign promises.

And nobody outside an increasingly narrow pro-Israel tent will buy it. Because apartheid is apartheid, and that's exactly what Israeli voters chose this week as a course for their nation.

http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.648006

Bibi's sorry! http://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/24/world/middleeast/netanyahu-apologizes-for-comments-about-israeli-arabs.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=first-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=1 (ie, sorry that anybody was offended, but not for being an inveterate racist)

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/middle_east/israeli-veterans-say-permissive-rules-of-engagement-fueled-gaza-carnage/2015/05/04/ab698d16-f020-11e4-8050-839e9234b303_story.html?hpid=z3

IDF intentionally targeting civilians, firing indiscriminately, razing neighborhoods. you know, the usual.

makes u freud

http://www.timesofisrael.com/oren-obama-reaches-out-to-islam-because-2-muslim-father-figures-abandoned-him

https://scontent-gru1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xfp1/v/t1.0-9/11960133_10153536849886341_2147333564638356014_n.jpg?oh=c509946d1348b1c879cf8a0e245b19f0&oe=563A5474

Palestinians scuffle with an Israeli soldier as they try to prevent him from detaining a boy during a protest in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah August 28, 2015.Reuters

read more: http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.673469

This thread should only be used sparingly, but this speech kinda belongs here:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/benjamin-netanyahu-blames-holocaust-on-palestinian-leader-haj-amin-al-husseini-a6702091.html

Bibi is insane?

Hitler not such a bad guy after all, claims the Prime Minister of Israel o_0

I had a dream last night that a gutter punk friend had drawn swastikas and "I love Adolph Hitler" all over my head while I was sleeping. It caused me a lot of trouble trying to buy a pair of Levi's 501s.

Al Husseini was a Nazi sympathizer and had meetings with Hitler, but that claim is of course beyond a stretch.

yes, very dumb for bibi to claim that the mufti convinced hitler to switch from expulsion to genocide - at least w/out any supporting documents. it is true that the mufti + hitler met Nov 1941 to talk, but i don't see in schmidt's minutes any indication that the mufti had to convince hitler to resist jewish settlement in palestine. i do remember reading somewhat recently (maybe in the new snyder book?) that the nazis had originally considered palestine as a solution to the 'jewish question,' but ultimately resisted it for the reasons spelled out in those minutes, that it would become a hub of jewish power: "That naturally included active opposition to the Jewish national home in Palestine, which was nothing other than a center, in the form of a state, for the exercise of destructive influence by Jewish interests." nb that the wannsee conference was not until Jan 1942 which could make hay to the conspiracy minded - happening only two months after his meeting w/ the mufti. that said - fuck the mufti. the real problem w/ bibi's comments is that it seems to exculpate hitler but he's otm that palestinian nationalism in the early 40s was explicitly aligned w/ the nazis and was pro-genocide.

i do wonder if maybe he heard something from his father (a holocaust scholar) that led him to say what he did. maybe he has some information i haven't seen. it's not impossible that hitler at some pt asked the mufti if sending all the jews to palestine might not solve germany's problem and the mufti answered fuck no, kill them instead. hitler certainly did consider expulsion at some point - i just personally doubt it was the mufti that changed his mind.

The Mufti was one of the initiators of the systematic extermination of European Jewry and had been a collaborator and advisor of Eichmann and Himmler in execution of this plan...He was one of Eichmann's best friends and had constantly incited him to accelerate the extermination measures. I heard him say, accompanied by Eichmann, he had visited incognito the gas chamber of Auschwitz.
In a conversation with Endre Steiner in Bratislava (June 1944). Quoted in "The Myth of Hitler's Pope: How Pope Pius XII Rescued Jews from the Nazis" - Page 136 - by David G. Dalin - Political Science - 2005

Probably Bibi just likes lying about muslims? He won his election on it, after all. He's just a straight up demagogue at this point, and it's really really sad and worrying.

Worst democratically elected leader in the world? Him or Orban, I think. Who am I forgetting?

Oh plz - this is not "lying about muslims." So we know that the Mufti pushed for the final solution and cheerleaded for it, but we don't know that he "gave" Hitler the idea. Does that really exonerate him in yr eyes?

I don't think even the claim that he "pushed for the final solution" is adequately substantiated, only that he pushed for Germany to do something other than allow Jews to come to Palestine. The evidence that he actively advocated it is thin, largely hearsay.

more than one source says he did push for it, including eichmann's deputy under interrogation in nuremberg

Worst democratically elected leader in the world? Him or Orban, I think. Who am I forgetting?

Little guy called Putin, way over there in Russia?

what a fucking shitbag

The Al-Husseini Wikipedia page is fascinating:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haj_Amin_al-Husseini

koplow thinks the silver lining from the recent events is that bibi has been the only responsible adult in the room:
http://ottomansandzionists.com/2015/10/08/a-glimmer-of-light-through-the-clouds/

I have a hard time thinking of Putin as democratically elected, but yeah, of course he is worse than Bibi.

Hitler spoke about annihilating the Jews in 39, so I think we can be pretty sure that the Mufti didn't 'give him the idea' in 41.

No doubt the Mufti was an awful human being, but claiming that he somehow played an important role in organizing the holocaust is unsubstantiated, and Bibi pushing that agenda oozes of ulterior motives.

fyi fred as late as 1940 the nazis were still considering the madagascar plan:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madagascar_Plan

here's another supposedly elected democratic leader who is undoubtedly much worse than bibi

this is straight demogoguery, it's not worth evaluating Bibi's "claims" on their merits because he's obviously making these claims w specific political goals in mind

yes, like the last apartheid presidents of South Africa, he will do or say anything to achieve his goals.

his specific political goal is to demonstrate that anti-jewish bigotry has been a pivotal part of the palestinian nationalist identity since the 1940s bc he is trying to argue that the current spate of stabbings are not a reaction to the occupation but rather a manifestation of anti-semitism. nb that he is 100% correct, whether or not the mufti gave hitler the idea or merely supported it.

It's just a continuation of the right's theme that all the problems Israel faces are because Arabs hate Jews.

a reaction to the occupation but rather a manifestation of anti-semitism

like these things are not related/self-fulfilling prophesies etc.

I'm already tired of this argument (again)

there's plenty of evidence for that

https://scontent-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xla1/v/t1.0-9/12088095_10153267802297689_7292472346605962221_n.jpg?oh=bdc0e67b1148ffd33616d710cc4d7e0e&oe=5689D054

but muh occupation??!?!

I don't think you can understand it either solely as an opposition to "the Occupation" (assuming we're talking about the territories) or as some kind of pure, genetic anti-Semitism. Arabs in Palestine opposed, or were encouraged to oppose, mass Jewish immigration because they rightly believed that the immigration was taking place with the intention of creating a Jewish state, which, among other things, would thwart Arab nationalist goals. Then in '48, when hundreds of thousands of Arabs refugees were created, new, stronger reasons for animosity were created. Then the '67 war and the occupation further fueled the animosity. Mordy, you genuinely seem like a good guy but I never get the sense that you have tried to understand what the successive phases of this conflict looked like through Palestinian eyes.

"genetic anti-Semitism" - i mean this is obv a strawman. i don't think jew hatred is genetic. but i do think that arab antisemitism predates even the first aliyah in 1882. which is not to say that there weren't legitimate reasons to dislike jews that got added to the bonfire in 82 or 29 or 48 or 62 etc. but i do find there's a lot of whitewashing from ppl who are uncomfortable stating the plain truth that arab antisemitism + pogroms throughout the middle east predate any kind of zionism whatsoever. it's like i keep seeing idiots saying that stabbing jewish children + the elderly is explicable bc of palestinian deprivation + the occupation. there's a lot of dumbassery on this issue. i'm not trying to argue that zionism has 100% clean hands but there needs to be some push back on what appears to be historically deficient, morally decadent activism.

lol @ morally decadent

it's pretty clear everybody hates each other over there, who hated who first is an unproductive fool's game

fyi fred as late as 1940 the nazis were still considering the madagascar plan

and as early as '39 he addresses the reichstag about extermination.

as the german government spokesman said "the holocaust was germany's responsibility and there was no need for another view on it." as of now, arguments to the contrary constitute revisionism, i'm not sure how you can interpret it another way.

the only reason Bibi brings this up is to morally absolve his administration of whatever fucked up shit he is planning to do in retaliation. That's it. The precise degree of historical accuracy of his comments is irrelevant. Both sides use the best available pretext - for Palestinians it's the occupation, for Israelis it's antisemitism, both feed into each other.

hurting: i can empathize with a lot of things - even armed resistance to the IDF. but i can't sympathize on any level with stabbings carried out against civilians - particularly children + the elderly. i've seen a lot of people say that it is explicable bc of the occupation, or bc of palestinian deprivation. one person even asked me to emphasize by thinking about how they're suffering in the ways that jews suffered for eons. it's important to note that in all those eons jews never responded to suffering by murdering innocents. deprivation does not explain murdering children. the only thing that explains that is an ideology of hate.

it's important to note that in all those eons jews never responded to suffering by murdering innocents

until the 20th century that is

prior to that we didn't really have the opportunity

we had the same opportunities palestinians had today. you think we didn't have knives?

I feel like getting you to acknowledge similarities between Jews' historical situations and Palestinian's current situation is some kind of small victory

are you asking if I can dredge up examples of Jewish resistance fighters killing German children or Spanish Catholic children or something? I'd be surprised if there weren't any tbh

I don't see any justification for random stabbings of civilians either. I think what "explains" it is nicely laid out in the Ayatollah's book, actually -- low-level attrition warfare designed merely to make Israeli life as difficult as possible.

i think you don't understand my pov at all if you think i don't believe the palestinians are suffering. i think they are. i even think the occupation is the most proximate cause of that suffering. don't think that their suffering justifies their actions though, and i think that their psychotic jew hatred predates any kind of occupation or any kind of israel whatsoever. but a child born today to a palestinian mother didn't do anything to deserve the deprivation he'll grow up in. he also didn't do anything to deserve the anti-semitic brainwashing he'll be inducted into. but there's an already existing context for everything - including the occupation.

(but not so much so that it becomes outrageous and repugnant to their supporters, xp)