Jihad In Dublin

He is right, the idea of "race" as a biological distinction doesn't hold water anymore, it has very little scientific basis. So what we used to call "race" is really just social/cultural/religious groups. So what makes a person a "Jew" if it is more than simply a religious following?

I doubt Jews would view themselves as a race apart, except in the most extremist cases, but the diaspora and casting out from Israel by the Romans thousands of years ago is part of the shared Jewish heritage - be it religious or nationalistic. Obviously 2000 odd years on that heritage means less and less in either case.

And if it is simply a religion following, saying one religion has more of a right to a piece of land because of the beliefs of that religion doesn't really fly in this day and age, especially if the religion claims that they are promised the land. I don't think the Muslims in the middle east give a flying hoot about what Jewish people believe their god promised them any more than Jews would listen to Muslims if they said Allah wanted them to take back all of Isreal.

Well, the Zionist movements would argue that in history nice guys finish last.
As for their right to the land - its a moot point. They have it, and they have the means of holding it, and the Gaza strip aside they dont seem terribly anxious to hand it back. In the real world, the Palestinians only right to the land is they used to live there, that they took it fair and square from the people who lived there before hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Israelis would have the same point of view. And as you said above, its not the rightness or wrongness of the cause that counts.

I say a BBC doc a couple of years ago (2 or 3) about American Jews who are emmigrating to Israel and living in the settlements and they were claiming that it is their right to do so because the land was promised to them by God, it was "their land" even though these people were born and lived in the US

I saw an even better documentary about these fundamentalist Christian Americans who absolutely championed the Israelis taking back the Holy Land, and feted Sharon when he visited them. Why did they love Israeli expansion so much when they werent Jewish?

Apparently the creation of Israel and its struggle against the Arab nations around it is a sign of the coming apocalypse and the return of Jesus. They were effectively cheerleading for the end of the world. The freaks.

I think he is saying there is no point arguing over if Israel had a right to exist in 1946 (or when ever it was offically recongised), because the fact is it does exisit now and not a lot is going to change that.

True.

I don't think that anyone (no matter how imaginitive his imagination) could argue that Israel had a right to exist back then. So how can you argue that because they were able to take it and hold it that they are now justified in their actions against Palestinian freedom fighters/terrorists.

I think you should prepare a thesis proving the Israelis have no right to the land they hold and send it the the Israeli embassy. When they realise their frightful mistake theyll certainly head off back to Europe, the US and Russia. Probably all a big misunderstanding.

Look at the Germans - after WW2 their was a massive, deliberate policy of ethnically cleansing German communities that had existed for centuries from Eastern Europe. Civillians were attacked, beaten, thrown out of their homes and marched hundreds of miles to the west. Borders were redrawn and swathes of "old" Germany were handed over to the Warsaw pact states. Was that wrong or right? Did these ethnic German civillians get what was coming to them? Conquerers justice perhaps?

Either way, it happened, and whilst it may be recognised as wrong now that doesnt change the fact that it happened and its pretty much irreversible. Germans are understandbly unwilling to go round moaning about it.

And its the same with Israel - it exists and thats all there is to it. As to its right to the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, thats debateable and relevant today. 1946 isnt.

Would you have condemned the French Resistance?

As for the French Resistance - Look, Im tired of all this "Ohh such and such a group that are generally respected did X, hence X is respectable". If Martin Luther King raped a child would that make raping children something admirable?

Its a ****e argument. If the French Resistance had an accepted policy of recruiting people - including a boy of 10 who was so scared he bawled his eyes out at the checkpoint he was sent to attack whilst the IDF defused the bomb - and sending them on suicide bombing missions against school buses and birthday parties then they would be terrorists. End of.

And Im tired of the "desperation" exscuse for Palestinian terrorism. The Israelis have as much right to the "desperation" exscuse - they were being stuffed wholesale into ovens 60 years ago, theyre effectively constantly at war with their neighbours who are at the very least funding the terrorists who are killing their children, attacking schools, discos, pizza parlours. Their enemies are so fanatical they raise their children to be suicide bombers - Im sure their must be great grounds for negotiation in such an enviroment. You think they arent desperate too?

Sand wrote:

The Israelis have as much right to the "desperation" exscuse

Yes indeed they do. And just like the Palestinians, they too are wrong in their use of it.

jc

Horeb wrote:

The Amount of Anti-Semitism on this post is digusting from idiots who have never seen or been in Israel

You do know that Muslims are Semites too.

Btw, odds on it was just a handful of idiots at the match (as mentioned earlier) and Israeli newspaper tried to blow it out of proportion.

For someone that condones killing people in other countries I wouldn't value your opinion on the subject of what is fair or not.

AnimalRights wrote: »

Bit late now

About five years - just a wee bit. While old threads dredged up aren't necessarily automatically locked, starting a new one is often best, especially after that passage of time on a current affairs discussion, even if the added information is especially important, which with all due respect in this case it isn't. Resuscitating old threads almost for the sake of it isn't the done thing.

Locked accordingly.