Comment by master_crab

> and when we chant "From the river to the sea" we don't mean to kill anyone

Don't you think it may be useful to use a different slogan from the people who mean and do that?

> if we can be free and live together, but have dignity and human rights, so be it!

But we can't. There won't be a one-state solution that satisfies everyone, and the earlier we understand it, the better. For the same reasons, the right of return for every descendant won't work. We need to come up with a meaningful two-state solution, but that failed multiple times. So what's left? What solution do you think both sides may agree on, assuming good faith negotiations? Do you think any side is ready to give up West Jerusalem or their right of return stance?

> let's imagine a world where Hamas doesn't exist, and let's call it for example the west bank.

I think the situation in West Bank is much better both for Israelis and Palestinians than the situation in Gaza (even before 7/10), and more importantly, there are ways to improve it.

> how do you justify what's happening there and the settlements expansion?

I don't justify the settlement expansion; I think it is a wrong practice. Do you think removing settlements (plus, say, some territory exchange where removal is too complicated) would solve all West Bank problems?

And how many Jews live in any of the neighboring Muslim ruled countries? As you say "if my brother ... killed my children I will fight him just the same". The very reason for the wall between Israel and Gaza is because people from Gaza have repeatedly sent terrorists to kill people in Israel. Before Oct 7th (and continuing up to this day) they continually launch rockets that would have killed tens of thousands of Israelis were it not for the Iron Dome.

> but the main goal is to free the people from the oppressive occupation!

The Hamas charter that was used during the last elections in Palestine explicitly calls for the total destruction of Israel. To reach that goal, unrestricted jihad is necessary. Negotiated resolution are considered unacceptable. Hamas won those elections.

Hamas has since revised that charter in 2017; but retained the goal of completely eliminating Israel - it is till a constitutive element of their political beliefs.

> we chant "From the river to the sea" we don't mean to kill anyone! if we can be free and live together, but have dignity and human rights, so be it!

You might have a personal interpretation, but make no mistake about the intentions of the elected representatives of the Palestinian population when they chant that.

I'm not an expert on this but from watching the odd documentary I get the impression that 90%+ of Palestinians think similar to yourself but a minority, maybe 1% are into the hardline islam must defeat the jews type position which Hamas seems to adopt. And then while the others try to live somewhat peacefully the minority unfortunately do October 7 massacre type things which then of course causes retaliation. I'm not sure how this ends unless they drop that?

  > Hello there, a Palestinian from the west bank here speaking,

Israeli here, and I'm glad to see you here.

  > let me tell you something, our resistance has nothing to do with Israel being a Jewish state, if my brother stole my house and killed my children i will fight him just the same, and you would too and everyone else (I assume). jewish, muslim, christian, vegan.. doesn't matter.

Makes sense. I happen to agree with you.

I should address "stole your house" and "killed your children" separately. The "stealing houses" issue started during the 1948 war - what you call Nakba and I call Independence. The UN partitioned the holy land, and the Arabs were unsatisfied so started conquering land. Their specific intention was to "steal houses" or "steal land" or however else you want to phrase it. Ergo, this things happened though it did not turn out how they intended. Likewise, no fewer Jews than Arabs had their houses stolen. How many Jews remained in the West Bank after the 1948 war? Zero. How many Arabs remained in the new state of Israel? Hundreds of thousands. And do not forget the houses stolen from the Jews of Yemen, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Morocco, Egypt, Tunis, and other Arab states.

As for the "killed your children" there are so many ways that children both Palestinian and Jewish have been killed. Do you agree with me that Palestinian children are often involved in violence? I'll tell you that the first time I ever saw an Arab with a rifle he was shooting it in one arm (in the air, but towards Israels myself included) and a small child, maybe four or five, in the other. And I've seen enough similar things myself since. I have no doubt that innocent children have been killed - no doubt at all. But I do dispute the idea that the Israeli state is deliberately killing children. I served in the army, and anybody who would ever say anything remotely stupid to the hint of deliberately hurting a civilian was disciplined severely. I'm sure the entire army is not as my small battalion was, but I do believe that my battalion was representative.

  > let's imagine a world where Hamas doesn't exist, and let's call it for example the west bank. how do you justify what's happening there and the settlements expansion?

Just to make you aware, despite all the resistance to Israelis building homes in the West Bank, it is in fact not only legal under international law, but actually encouraged by Ottoman law which nobody today has the authority to change. This is pretty much a copy-paste of a previous comment of mine. League of Nations (and UN) mandates can not change the laws of the lands they administer - then can only issue temporary orders (usually limited to three years). So British orders are not valid in the West Bank today. Likewise, military occupation (Jordanian, Israeli) also can not change the laws but rather can issue temporary orders. So the law of the land in the West Bank even today remains Ottoman law, modulo "temporary" Israeli military orders that are actually renewed (for the most part) every three years or so.

Ottoman law since the 1850's stated that anyone who settles land (houses, farms, factories) owns it - Muslims and Jews and Christians alike. Their goal was to increase the population of the near-desolate holy land (which they called Greater Syria), and collect more taxes. Those laws still stand today, for better or for worse. There is nothing "illegal" about Israeli citizens building homes in the West Bank. What would be illegal would be if the Israeli state were to transfer its citizens - international law is binding on states, not citizens. But citizens moving is not banned by any international law, and settlement of the West Bank is actually encouraged by the laws in the West Bank dating over 150 years, because nobody since has had the authority to change those laws.

Is it really worth fighting over a piece of land for generations?

It's just dirt, there's nothing special about it. Almost all borders are the results of war and conquest throughout history, it's better to accept that and move on.

For example, 2017 Hamas charter [1], page 6:

The establishment of “Israel” is entirely illegal and contravenes the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people and goes against their will and the will of the Ummah ... There shall be no recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist entity. ... Hamas rejects any alternative to the full and complete liberation of Palestine, from the river to the sea. However, without compromising its rejection of the Zionist entity and without relinquishing any Palestinian rights, Hamas considers the establishment of a fully sovereign and independent Palestinian state, with Jerusalem as its capital along the lines of the 4th of June 1967.

Again, people may use it trying to say something else, but slogans do not exist in a vacuum. Saying "from the river to the sea" means that all people should be free is akin to saying "arbeit macht frei" is a call for the financial independence of working people.

As for your second question, calls for ceasefire appeared while Hamas terrorists weree still in Israel, by no less than U.S. representatives [2].

[1] https://irp.fas.org/world/para/docs/hamas-2017.pdf

[2] https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-ceasefire-in-gaza-mirage-is...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_the_river_to_the_sea

QUOTE

The phrase was popularised in the 1960s as part of a wider call for Palestinian liberation creating a democratic state freeing Palestinians from oppression from Israeli as well as from other Arab regimes such as Jordan and Egypt.[6][7] In the 1960s, the PLO used it to call for a democratic secular state encompassing the entirety of mandatory Palestine which was initially stated to only include the Palestinians and the descendants of Jews who had lived in Palestine before the first Aliyah, although this was later expanded.[8][9] Palestinian progressives use it to call for a united democracy over the whole territory.[10] while others say "it's a call for peace and equality after ... decades-long, open-ended Israeli military rule over millions of Palestinians."

/QUOTE

Even in the most charitable interpretations about what happens to the Jews living there, it is a call to replace the state of Israel with a completely different state.

From the river to the sea is the entirety of Israel plus Gaza/west bank of landmass. Then calling Palestine shall be free is a call to end the state of Israel. hopefully Oct 7th should demonstrate what that means, which is indiscriminately killing of all Israeli civilians.

If you doubt it ask a few Palestinians what would happen to the Jews living in the area if “Palestine is free”.

Why do you think groups like Hamas, PIJ, and their supporters say it? Hamas literally use the words "from the river jordan in the east to the Mediterranean" in their charter while calling for the destruction of Israel. Reading that that statement as anything other than calling for the destruction of Israel is mental gymnastics. When far right nationalists tell you what they want to do take their word for it.

My (current, possibly misinformed) understanding is that "from the river to the sea" refers to a Palestinian state that stretches from the west bank to Gaza. Under the current reality, I don't see how this would be accomplished without a mass genocide of (Jewish) Israelis.

I'm open to the suggestion that (some?) people chanting this hope for this to be accomplished without violence, but speakers at such events have also glorified the actions of Hamas on October 7th.

For what it's worth, I don't support the actions of Israel, or the occupation of West bank and Gaza. I support a free Palestine in the sense that West Bank / Gaza should be left alone. There's a good chance that without the blockade, those territories would better arm themselves and it would result in a war which would impact Israel much more significantly as West Bank + Gaza would likely move to reclaim Israeli land. But at this point I don't see an alternative without Israel continuing its egregious human rights violations and genocide of the Palestinian people.

Kind of a shit situation all around.

River to the Sea has clear meaning regarding the establishment of palestine and the eradication of israel.

You can draw a very neat line between the number of jews currently permitted to live peacefully in palestine vs the number of muslims living within israel.

its not complicated, confusing, unclear or opaque.

River to the Sea means to end the israeli state, and the end of that does not have a happy ending for any jews living on that land.

> There is a difference (an important one) between policies-bad-for-a-group and being motivated by an unreasonable hatred of a group.

Sure. You don't have to have anti-semitic views to say anti-semitic things. The thing doesn't become less anti-semitic if you weren't motivated by hatred. It is also an unobservable difference because I can't say what your motivation is, only what is the meaning of your words and actions. Someone may want to ban black people from attending universities so that white people have more spots, the fact that they are not motivated by unreasonable hatred doesn't magically make the ban not racist.

I'm perfectly fine saying supporting Hamas is antisemitic and that Netanyahu has said and done plenty of antisemitic things, including Holocaust revisionism.

https://www.haaretz.com/world-news/2018-12-13/ty-article-opi...

>To my knowledge, most journalists and/or politicians aren't that ignorant.

Then you have not been paying attention. Add this fact to your knowledge: US Republicans really ARE that ignorant. They certainly have an agenda, but they are most certainly ignorant to have such an idiotic agenda, too.

House Declares Anti-Zionism Is Antisemitism, Dividing Democrats

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/05/world/middleeast/house-an...

>More than half of House Democrats declined to back the Republican-written resolution, as some argued that equating criticism of the state of Israel with hatred of the Jewish people went too far.

>House Democrats splintered on Tuesday over a resolution condemning the rise of antisemitism in the United States and around the world, with more than half of them declining to support a measure declaring that “anti-Zionism is antisemitism.”

>The resolution denouncing antisemitism, drafted by Republicans, passed by a vote of 311 to 14, drawing the support of all but one Republican. Ninety-two Democrats voted “present” — not taking a position for or against the measure — while 95 supported it.

>That reflected deep and growing divisions among Democrats between those who have offered unequivocal support for the Jewish state and its actions, and others — especially in the party’s progressive wing — who have been critical of Israel’s policies and its conduct in the war with Hamas.

>“Under this resolution, those who love Israel deeply but criticize some of its policy approaches could be considered anti-Zionist,” Representative Jerrold Nadler, Democrat of New York and the longest-serving Jewish member of the House, said in a floor speech before he voted “present.” “That could make every Democratic Jewish member of this body, because they all criticized the recent Israeli judicial reform package, de facto antisemites. Might that be the author’s intention?”

The agenda is an overtly racist one, it is to support:

* Bibi's racist amalek "genocide the palestinians" trope.

* Ben gvir when he hangs a portrait of Israeli terrorist Baruch Goldstein up on his wall.

* Isaac Herzog when he calls race mixing a tragedy.

(To give an example of 3 people who obviously represent Israel, all of whom are proudly racist).

I thought you were going to say:

"One could say the same for "the other part": being pro-Israel doesn't mean being a anti-arab racist who wants to ethnically cleanse Palestine, but that's also a convenient excuse used by people who are actually just that".

Don't forget Smotrich, a leader in the current government, who said it was a "mistake" that the first Israeli government didn't "finish the job" of expelling all the Arabs from Israel. https://www.timesofisrael.com/smotrich-at-knesset-ben-gurion...

The current Israeli government has espoused their views that Palestinians should not have their own state, that all Arabs are terror supporters who are the enemy of Israel, who should be exterminated or removed. And this was happening regularly long before October 7th. I wonder why some Palestinians don't see Israel as a viable partner in peace or that they feel their only option is to destroy Israel before they are destroyed themselves?

This.

I have always been very very skeptical of the motives and intentions of various BDS groups over the years. Lots of issues with hypocrisy, propaganda, and double standards.

But that doesn't excuse the murder of thousands of civilians in collective retribution for the murder of a few dozen.

It's possible for both things to be true: Hamas is bad and committed a heinous act of terrorism, and Israel is committing a horrifying atrocity against Palestinian civilians in retaliation.

1200+ Israelis, mostly civilians, were brutally murdered on 10/7.

There have already been real-life anti-semitic attacks on people and property. There have been synagogues and cemeteries burned, people murdered, shot, and stabbed, businesses trashed. [0][1][2][3][4] You can find hundreds more sources of recent, very real, physical violence against Jews and Jewish places worldwide.

Jews have been subject to thousands of years of very real pogroms, genocide, and conspiracy theories. These are not "possible" bad outcomes, they actually happened, we're seeing some of it now, and we have every reason to believe that it will happen again.

0. https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/04/world/an-existential-threat-a...

1. https://www.timesofisrael.com/historic-synagogue-in-tunisia-...

2. https://www.timesofisrael.com/armenia-opens-probe-into-arson...

3. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-antisemitic-incidents-up...

4. https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/11/05/i...

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That is the world we live in, not a hypothetical. That is why there are people marching down the streets.

I am though.

It is interesting that the widespread view of isreali people that Palestinians doesn't have right to have a state is not viewed as bad as the other way around. Ironically it can be called antisemitism too. Because they are Semitic too [1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semitic_people

Why should we in the West support a religious ethnostate? No government has the divine right to exist. Governments succeed or fail by the will of those who live there.

> Criticizing Israeli settlements in the West Bank is not antisemitic. But suggesting that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state is antisemitic as it implies ethnic cleansing.

This is precisely an example of the conflation of "anti-Israel" with "anti-semitic." It is entirely possibly for a person to disagree with the geopolitical decisions and military actions that led to the formation of Israel, without harboring ill will against anyone for being Jewish.

Why is saying Israeli should not be a Jewish state any different than saying the US should not be a Christian state?

Genuinely curious, why does it imply ethnic cleansing? Why does it need to be a binary choice between ethnostate and complete ethnic cleansing?

We have seen that in the western world that we do not abide the idea of ethnostates, e.g. it is considered bigoted to oppose unlimited migration from refugee countries into Europe or North America. Likewise it is not okay to say "only X race or Y religion can be in government". Why is it okay in the case of Israel?

Jews lived and existed before Israel was established and they were not ethnically cleansed.

I don't really have a dog in this fight and I'm not trying to controversial, I'm genuinely curious because the choice you offer seems like a false dichotomy.

> But suggesting that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state is antisemitic as it implies ethnic cleansing.

As opposed to what's happening right now - which is ethnic cleansing in both Gaza and the West Bank. Netanyahu wants to "thin out the Gaza population" and is asking for the US and other countries to accept refugees after Israel destroys the place.

One is speech, and the other is action - one is being argued about, while the other is actively happening with 20k+ deaths.

Is saying that "no state has a right to exist, that they exist with the permission of the governed" antisemitic too?

> But suggesting that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state is antisemitic as it implies ethnic cleansing.

Does it really implies it, or just the end of apartheid?

I actually wonder how to navigate this actually. Like, I have seen criticism of things Israel has enacted in order to ensure that the population is a majority-Jewish, Jewish-own-all-the-political-power. Is that antisemetic to argue against anti-arab laws, if those laws are in place to ensure that Israel is a jewish state first and foremost, as opposed to Israel being a jewish state, if that makes sense?

> But suggesting that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state is antisemitic as it implies ethnic cleansing.

You've got it backwards. The only way for Israel to exist as an ethnostate is through an ethnic cleansing. That's not specific to Israel; that's inherent to the concept of an ethnostate.

The assumption that Israel can only exist as an ethnostate is itself a political assertion - it's the hallmark of right-wing Zionism.

> But suggesting that Israel has no right to exist as a Jewish state is antisemitic as it implies ethnic cleansing.

I've seen very few serious declarations that Israel has no right to exist. I have seen even fewer genuine existential threats to it in the past 2 or 3 decades, and that's not to discount how big of a deal or how sad an event Hamas's attack was.

But I have seen a lot of pro-Israel voices, e.g. at recent Congressional PR-stunt hearings, aggressively question anyone who doesn't bow in deference to their narrative whether they agree Israel has a right to exist. That whole line of tactic is a massive distraction from the question those voices don't want asked, either of themselves or anyone else, which is "do you think Israel has the right to do what it is currently doing to the Palestinians?"

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You are not providing any counter-argument to my point.

Also, be careful what is meant by "occupation". You'll find that for some people it means that Israel is occupying and should be destroyed, as I mentioned previously.

@dang: I apologise, I tried to constructively contribute and, if you do read my comments carefully, not to take side too much or to be inflammatory.

I note that you allowed the thread to remain, which I have interpreted as we being allowed to comment...

> And yes, sometimes it does happen that there are antisemitic people that join those groups. But if they aren’t the organizers and are quickly excluded

I don't think you can easily say "this person is not an antisemite"

When you have entire groups organizing and deploying hostile rhetoric, referring to Jewish people themselves as "colonizers", that's drifting towards antisemitism

When you have universities selectively employing double standards where they will fire faculty over e.g. praising Brett Kavanaugh (I can find several other examples if you like) but suddenly "care" about free speech when the topic is related to Jewish people, it's hard to rule out the question of antisemitism there. Especially considering some of these universities had antisemitic policies historically

Also https://twitter.com/theIMEU/status/1613971554412695553

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> They are angry at the actions of the Israeli state and military, and making the assumption that all Jews support them.

How is that not antisemitism?

Why do they claim displaying a star of David for Hanukah is anti-Palestine? The star of David is a jewish symbol, and they are protesting that jewish symbol by saying it is pro-Palestine to display a jewish symbol during a jewish holiday. The star of david is not the property of a Jewish state any more than displaying a Cross during christmas is Pro-Roman.

What about that is anti-Israel instead of Anti-Jewish?

I believed the "we are just anti-israel, anti-colonization, not anti-jewish" right up until this shit literally hit my backyard. How come a concert of people that was explicitly about Palestinian freedom from Israel was targeted? Why did Palestinian supporters get slaughtered and gang-raped if this was about freeing Palestine?

How does my jewish girlfriend feel safe about this situation if Pro-Palestine jewish people are being slaughtered anyway, and any symbol of jewishness is targeted as "Pro-Israel"? Temples are being tagged with swastikas, businesses with jewish employees are being attacked, jewish college students are being harassed and their college leadership struggled to find a way to denounce calls to genocide jews. "Pro-Palestine" rallys are singing "From the river to the sea", which is explicitly a rallying cry about Israel being an illegitimate state.

Where's the evidence that this ISN'T about people being jewish? At the very least, completely unaffiliated people, including people who have never set foot in Israel, are being targeted simply because they are jewish.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Israel

Muslim citizens within Israel have equal rights and many become parliamentarians, judges, diplomats, public health officials, and IDF generals.[23]

It counters the apartheid state narrative pretty hard so of course it’s swept under the rug.