Comment by sillystuff
2 years ago
Nelson Mandela has spoken out on the brutal oppression of the Palestinians by Israel[1]. His words are powerful, and worth reading.
> To methis is one of the most abohorrent conflicts in earth in this day and age.
He agrees with you.
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2014/9/26/gaza-and-the-cr...
And yet, in that entire article I can find no concrete quote of Mandela pointing out a single action that Israel did to criticize. Just general "Israel is the worst".
Interestingly, the idea that Mandela called Israel an apartheid state was debunked on Stack Exchange, you can read that here: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/50771/did-nelso...
What Mandela did say about atrocities was directed at the US:
You are simply cherry picking. In the context of addressing the UN, he had to exercise restraint to be taken seriously (it was not an entirely sympathetic audience, and in some cases, like the US, a hostile one)-- this does not negate his other statements, both that I already linked, and others which are easy to find.
Israel is an apartheid state. Israel, last time I checked, had 19 laws which give preferential treatment of Jewish citizens of Israel over non-Jewish citizens of Israel (not talking about Palestinians in W. Bank / Gaza).
Palestinians are not permitted to repair their homes or even their mosques. Go up on the roof and make a repair, and you risk having your home bulldozed by the Israelis.
I once hitch hiked on a Jewish only road in Israel. Jewish only really means not Palestinian.
What exists in the W. Bank and Gaza, is much worse than apartheid. Israel has turned Gaza into an open-air prison-- a concentration camp, if you will. Israel controls all water, food, fuel, electricity, and people entering and exiting from Gaza[1]. And, their carpet bombing of the civilian captives has turned this concentration camp into a death camp.
[1]Israel's PM calls his periodic starving of Gazans, "putting them on a diet" when he blocks shipments of food. And, the water wells in Gaza are contaminated by salt water intrusion, so Israel cuts off fresh water to punish Gazans as well. No freedom of travel even when Israel isn't carpet bombing civilians (the Israelis call these periodic massacres from the air, "mowing the lawn"). Gaza is correctly called an open-air prison or a concentration camp.
Am I? Show me the rotten cherries, then. Accusations of cherry picking I could throw at the anti-Israeli crowd all day.
If this is true, I would like more information.
Where did you get this from? I am genuinely interested. Of all the accusations I've seen directed at the Jewish state, this one is new to me.
What road was that? This is a commonly-disbunked slander.
Actually, that was Egypt in 1949-1956 that turned Gaza into the overcrowded, unable-to-sustain-itself mess that it is today. Israel administered the area for some decades, but the UN was already condemning the overcrowded conditions in Gaza since 1955.
You mean that Israel _provides_ the water and electricity flowing into Gaza. You phrase it poorly.
I think that you do not know what carpet bombing is, or you do not know the bombing strategies of the IDF. Well, I don't know the bombing strategies of the IDF either, but despite the terrifying destruction in some parts of Gaza, the Gaza strip is not being subject to carpet bombing as a whole.