Cowardly Idf Soldiers, amazing clip

[janab-e-ali]

@AlexB

…But the changes in these superficial attributes did not change the core essence of their identity as the People of Israel.

Ah yes, so this completely intangible, semi-religious identity as “People of Israel” confers legal proprietary rights, and the right to dispossess and disenfranchise other peoples, who simply happen to have been living on the land for time immemorial.

And you wonder why people consider Zionism an inherently racist concept?

@AlexB

These are images of Nablus in the occupied West Bank. Does not seem like a tent city to me. If you go through the West Bank, for instance in the outskirts of Ramallah you can find Palestinian houses, which most of the Israelis can only dream of.

Thank you for cherry-picking the best images you could find. I can also go through google images and find plenty of terrible images of the crushing poverty in most of these refugee camps

@AlexB

Again, it is not about genetic purity or place of residence. It is about a national identity preserved and passed from generation to generation.

Then why were you trying to make your argument by calling into question the genetic purity and historic migration patterns of the Palestinian people? And who, pray tell, gave you the right to negate the “national identity” of the Palestinian people, or to claim that your “national identity” takes precedence over theirs and entitles you to completely disenfranchise them as a people? Your arguments reek of an inherent superiority complex over the Palestinians.

@AlexB

I’m talking about historical realities of the Jewish people, not any religious doctrine.

Historical reality is that Jews have a history of migration and thriving settlements throughout the old world, including at one point over a millennium ago, Palestine. The concept of Israel in particular as “one true homeland” where the proprietary rights of the Jewish people supersede those of all others, is based on religious doctrine and nothing more.

@AlexB

You are confusing the proprietary rights of an individual with collective national rights of a people. These are completely different categories.

I wasn’t speaking of individuals. No other ethnic group with such a distant history of exile has claimed similar “national rights” to the homeland of the ancestors of their ancestors. Like I said, why don’t the Moors have a right to carve out a homeland in Andalucia?

@AlexB

As we have already established, the history is full of migrations and shifting borders. Areas, which were once dominated by one group of people become dominated by another group and so on. It happened many times, including in the area in question. I thought it was an acceptable historical process, or was it?

You’re being rather duplicitous. It was a travesty when it was done to the Jews 1000+ years ago, but it was an “acceptable historical practice” when it was done to the Palestinians in '48. Forget simple ethnic cleansing…such twisted logic could be used to rationalize acts of genocide.

Apparently, unlike you, I don’t believe that distant historic wrongs can be corrected through modern day war crimes.

@AlexB

And by mid. 50s the Jewish population of Israel was already higher than the Arab population that lived there in 1948. So the Jews would become a majority by that time even without the war.

And considering the fact that the campaign of Zionist terrorism and the forced expulsion of Palestinians predates the '48 war, we have no reason to believe that Israel wouldn’t have continued to ethnically cleanse the area of Arabs, with or without the cover of war.

@AlexB

Regarding land acquisition, let’s not forget that the majority of the land that would become Israel was either uninhabited, undeveloped, or simply without formally registered legal ownership. It is rather disingenuous to assume that the land is Arab “by default” unless the Jews can present a legal proof of ownership.

The figures I quoted were based on surveys carried out by the British administration who ruled over the mandate at the time. If the British recognized the land as Palestinian owned, I think that constitutes “formal recognition.” If you can’t even accept the fact that the creation of Israel essentially mandated the dispossession of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians, then you’re living in a state of complete denial.