Whiner

[_JS]

Your definition of "blatant" and mine are obviously different, especially when you used yourself as how poor they are and unable to move out of Israel.  That's not a racist policy preventing them from going elsewhere & working where they want

*sigh*

No, that was a comment on how out of touch with reality your reply was. It was also a parallel that the same comment (yours) could have been made about the blacks in South Africa and would have been equally as meaningless. Israel's racism comes from many separating policies including the fact that there are roads on which Palestinians may not legally drive upon. Add that to the many other examples including revoking citizenships, denying property rights, and government segregated communities.

Based on Israelis elect their representatives.  Based on they have an open democratic government.  Based on they have elections every year, and pick new Prime Minisiters from time to time.  Based on the fact their Government body has a multitude of political parties, and not just our 2+.  Just because they don't have the open borders we do, or a Constitution that gives an illegal immigrant's newly born baby immediate citizenship status, doesn't make them undemocratic.  This has already been addressed before, as the # of Palnestinians far out# that of the Israelis.  Giving non-Isrealis electorate ability as Jews, would be giving themselves a legislative death penalty as a country.  Again, apparently you don't have a problem with that.  I do

An open democratic government? Well that is easy to do when you forcibly remove people from your nation plus when you allow people to become citizens whose grandparents were Jews. Sure, you can out vote any other minority by wide margins when you write the rules on elections and citizenship. South Africa did the same thing.

Based on they have elections every year, and pick new Prime Minisiters from time to time.Based on the fact their Government body has a multitude of political parties, and not just our 2+.

Checks for South Africa. South Africa's Parliament had more than 2 parties as well. Welcome to the Parliamentary system.

Just because they don't have the open borders we do, or a Constitution that gives an illegal immigrant's newly born baby immediate citizenship status, doesn't make them undemocratic.

Same for South Africa under apartheid. They even set up the Homelands so that they could call the blacks "illegal immigrants" just as you are doing with the Palestinians. Congratulations!

This has already been addressed before, as the # of Palnestinians far out# that of the Israelis.  Giving non-Isrealis electorate ability as Jews, would be giving themselves a legislative death penalty as a country.  Again, apparently you don't have a problem with that.  I do

My favorite argument and it only makes my point! Let me rewrite it for you Sirs.

"This has already been addressed before, as the number of Blacks far outnumbers that of the Whites. Giving non-Whites electorate ability as Whites, would be giving themselves a legislative death penalty as a country.  Again, apparently you don't have a problem with that.  I do."

Welcome to apartheid Sirs. I'm sure P.W. Botha would be glad to know his legacy continues. Now do you see why I say you support it? Look at your very own paragraph? Apartheid, plain and simple.

Oh yea, they're identical to Israel     

You've clearly demonstrated that South Africa is identical.

How is that done?  Just words?

No. We sanction them as we did South Africa, until these policies are reversed.

[Plane]

Your definition of "blatant" and mine are obviously different, especially when you used yourself as how poor they are and unable to move out of Israel.  That's not a racist policy preventing them from going elsewhere & working where they want

*sigh*

No, that was a comment on how out of touch with reality your reply was....................................
........................

How is that done?  Just words?

No. We sanction them as we did South Africa, until these policies are reversed.

When Aparthied departed Uganda and Rodesia it was replaced with aparthied , South Africa has succeded in keeping most of its citizens and truely createing a new situation rather than just reverseing a bad one to produce a bad one running the other way.

Palestinians are not showing much sign of being ready to take over and tolerate Israeli society as it would be with everyone equal.

I don't beleive that a two state solution is ever going to be a solution , it will always be on one side or the other something like the "homelands" solution that South Africa tried for a few decades.

If ever the two sides get to the point that they can exist in tolerance then a working solution will be pretty easy , till then the tribal war is kinda hard to end.

What is the point for us to want to reverse the present situation ? It would only mena a long period of shooting and refugees followed by an opressive regime no better than what exists now.

[_JS]

I don't beleive that a two state solution is ever going to be a solution , it will always be on one side or the other something like the "homelands" solution that South Africa tried for a few decades.

Make no mistake Plane, the South African homelands were never meant to be a "solution." They were an attempt by apartheid apologists to reframe the debate and continue their policies of using and abusing black South Africans by dehumanising them. The South African government merely attempted to change the way in which the blacks were viewed. Instead of being looked upon as a repressed majority, they would become a "foreign workforce." In fact, it is very similar to the path Israel has taken because many black South Africans were given citizenships to homelands in which they never lived.

The difference is that the world saw through South Africa's plans, for the most part. On the other hand the United States not only doesn't call attention to Israel's glaringly similar plan but even avidly advocates it! You're right, the "two-state solution" is not a real solution at all. Just like in South Africa, the Palestinian states can never be self-financing and can never be a real functioning state. They are defacto controlled regions of Israel, just like the South African Bantustans. They are woefully poor and will never be given the means to correct that - you guessed it - just like the Bantustans. So what use are they?

Purely political. They serve a purpose so that Israel can practice apartheid and when a missile attack comes from the chattle of one of her Bantustans Israel can call them "foreign aggressors" and act with impunity. When they elect Hamas to lead them, Israel and the United States remove their funding. When they take to the streets, Israel cuts off their source of work and income. When bad stuff happens in a Bantustan, guess who the South African government blamed? That's right - the Bantustan police and government. Now look at who the United States and Israel blame when the West Bank or Gaza has trouble - the Palestinian police and the Palestinian government. Neither of whom has nor will ever be capable of doing an effective job.

Apartheid. Racism. Israel = South Africa. They didn't invent this, South Africa wrote the book and Israel is just selecting a few good excerpts. The beauty for Israel is that they aren't such a small minority as the South Africans - so it may actually work for them.

What is the point for us to want to reverse the present situation ? It would only mena a long period of shooting and refugees followed by an opressive regime no better than what exists now.

You are misrepresenting me. I never said "reverse the present situation." I said Israel needs to remove their apartheid policies. There is a gulf of difference and I'd appreciate it if you did not paint me as being out of touch with reality without using my actual arguments.

[domer]

I think you ignore the deep truths of the Israeli-Palestinian situation and indeed sacrifice them to your superficial comparison of South Africa with Israel itself. In the case of the latter, leaving aside Biblical claims, which have profound emotional effect but not, in my view, not "moral" ones, the founding of Israel must be seen in the context of world history and specifically an attempted genocide under the most harrowing of circumstances. To my mind, discounting other factors, this is sufficient to establish Israel as sui generis among the nations of the world: not a colonial power but a survivors' refuge. These facts color its practices, for two reasons: one immediate impetus was to form a uniquely Jewish state to celebrate what had been in danger of perishing. Then again, it found itself (again) in hostile territory, beleagured and warred upon and terrorized. These additional facts dictated a circumspection that may, as things do, trail off into oppression in the heat and blur of an active armed conflict. That is the status quo. Any changes must be matched with correlative security advances. As I see it, Jewish culture in general is one of the most advanced mankind has ever witnessed, and that wouldn't be true -- for so long -- if it didn't carry an admirable set of values that would, when the crisis wanes, recoil at its own excesses.

[_JS]

Domer,

I have nothing against Jewish culture and the Jewish people. In fact, I couldn't agree more with your admiration for it, but that does not mean that one has to support the current policies of the state of Israel. The two do not have to be intrinsically tied to one another. I have even posted an article written by an Israeli Jew who condemns the policies as Bantustan (Homeland) policy.

What you label superficial, is what South African Jews, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and some notable Israelis have noted as a very real comparison between Apartheid and Hafrada. You defend it as security, but South Africans made precisely the same argument. I think you ought to ask yourself how much of the current security problems are caused by Israel's "security" solutions?

Moreover, would you accept this behavior from the Roma? Would you accept this behavior from the Communists? They were extremely and harshly persecuted by the Nazis at the death camps. We did not accept this behavior from the Serbians, yet they were also harshly treated victims of the death camps in Croatia. Why the double standard? Simply because these are Jews, not Serbians?

Would you accept this behavior from the Armenians? The Chinese?

Think about that, all were brutally mistreated at the hands of an atrocity, yet do we accept such policies from them?

[Xavier_Onassis]

As I see it, Jewish culture in general is one of the most advanced mankind has ever witnessed, and that wouldn't be true -- for so long -- if it didn't carry an admirable set of values that would, when the crisis wanes, recoil at its own excesses.
========================================================================
The flaw in your argument is that Jewish culture can only exist in a country in which the Jews are dominant.
There is no discrimination against Jews in Canada or the US. Jews are welcome here in Miami, perhaps even more welcome than Americans from the Midwest.

Missourians have no private "spare country" to go to, neither do Nebraskans or Kansans or Dakotans, and if Missouri or Nebraska or the Dakotas are overrun by Mexicans, well, tough sh*t.

I suggest that the most vibrant aspects of Jewish culture are not to be found among the intolerant and freeloading Hassids who think their entire lives should be dedicated to studying the Torah, but the inventors, scientists, writers and businesspersons and even comedians and entertainers who have always been welcome in the US and Canada and almost certainly always will be.

Zionism is a really bad idea. Judaism is not.

[domer]

JS, from MY PERSPECTIVE, taking all into account and lamenting the Israeli excesses with a keen eye toward reform, I must yet find that the "morality" of the situation is tinged indelibly and uniquely -- in MY PERSPECTIVE -- by the continuing struggle for Israeli survival.

[sirs]

No, that was a comment on how out of touch with reality your reply was. It was also a parallel that the same comment (yours) could have been made about the blacks in South Africa and would have been equally as meaningless.

Lemme check my history here.  UN partitions land following WWII for Israel to relocate in lands it historically was, following the brutal effort by the nazis to exterminate the Jewish race.  Late 1940's I do believe.  In 1948, when Israel was established, Arab citizens were granted full civil, cultural and political rights, including the right to vote, correct?  And land that was largely  double the size of Gaza was allocated as a state for Palestinians.  And what happened again?  The Arab nations refused to acknowledge Isreal's right to exist, refused to sign off on the UN's decision, and began attacking Isreal from all sides.  Isreal managed to repell these attacks, largely without ANY aide from ANYONE else (which includes the U.S.), and set up much greater stringent boundries, both in their immigration policies, and in extending their borders for better self defense.  Are you still with me??  Now show me this "identical series of events" in South Africa, if you don't mind, Js.  Perhaps you could start with whatever UN charter was invoked in the birth of South Africa, and the surrounding nations that immediately went to war against them

An open democratic government? Well that is easy to do when you forcibly remove people from your nation plus when you allow people to become citizens whose grandparents were Jews. Sure, you can out vote any other minority by wide margins when you write the rules on elections and citizenship. South Africa did the same thing.

Any country in power writes their own rules.  The rules in South Africa, though similar in some respects are not identical to both what Israel has done, or why they have done them.  Again, that's the #'s game.  If Palestinians were ever allowed to "return" (which I'm including the right to vote in Israeli law), Isreal would soon cease to exist.

"This has already been addressed before, as the number of Blacks far outnumbers that of the Whites. Giving non-Whites electorate ability as Whites, would be giving themselves a legislative death penalty as a country.  Again, apparently you don't have a problem with that.  I do."

Always with the substantive ommissions, aren't we.  Sad.  Let me know when you come up with that comparable history

You've clearly demonstrated that South Africa is identical.

No, that's still your version, I'm afraid.  You are so hung up on the what, you're completely ignoring the why & the when

No. We sanction them as we did South Africa, until these policies are reversed.

No, we go back to encouraging 2 completely independent states, and more importantly for the surrounding Arab nations to not only recongize the state of Israel to be a sovereign nation, completely allowed to remain precisely where it is, but to also condemn any nation &/or it's leader who claims otherwise and/or advocates its abolishment.  When THAT's done, then we can tackle your "racist Israeli policies"

Deal?

[Plane]

IN the United States People who are very diffrent are expected to hire each other and tolerate pretty large diffrences in habit.

If this had been the ideal of the foundiung of Israel there might have been a place for the Arabs and the Jews without moveing anyone and building fences.

Untill both sides take a new attitude twards tolerance fenses are better than getting shot or blown up.