The Political Back and Forth. Again

[eumelia]

In case there was doubt in any body's mind, let me clear it this second:
I don't hate Israel and I'm not a self-hating Jew.
There.

That being said, I don't think it's constructive to say "other countries" are worse than us when it comes to Human/Civil/Other rights and liberties.
So what.
We have a duty, yes a duty, based on the ideology and faith this country is supposed to be based on, to be better. To behave with compassion, fairness and fucking humanity towards the people living with unequal rights in our country (those Palestinians without a Blue ID, compared to those without).
The problem is that Israel has a terrible policy regarding the population in the Occupied Territories, and it is no good to blame Egypt for Gaza or Jordan for the West Bank.
Bottom line, we control it and talking about the fact that other Arab countries not allowing the Palestinians self-determination is a cop-out, really. Because now they are under our control.

Palestinians with a Blue ID who live inside Israel have it pretty good, no contest on that, but compared to their non-citizen Brothers and Sisters they live a life of luxury.

A bigger problem is the fact that the world regards the USA as a vehicle of "neo-colonialism" and Israel is it's tool in the Middle-East. Europe is still feeling guilty about Colonialism (as well they should, they left Africa, South East Asia a mess and the reactionary Arabian Peninsula and other Gulf countries), so they ignore the fact that in Africa people are killing each other over arbitrary borders and the fact that "Allah is better than any other god".
They ignore the fact that they left Kashmir hanging between two nuclear power houses who hate each other because of... you got it... arbitrary lines and theology.

Israel/Palestine is not the only place on Earth where two people are fighting because of borders and theology. But how about people concern themselves with the fact that in Darfur Muslims are murdering Christians and Animists, and raping the women so that their progeny can spread within their "enemy". Or that in Saudi Arabia, women are treated as chattel.
Oh, sorry, I'm projecting my oppressive Western views on cultures that I know nothing about, oops, my bad, didn't mean to be pejorative towards different cultures.

Yeah, humanism and basic morality isn't "cultural" and the extremism found in Islamic Fundamentalism shouldn't be tolerated in the name of tolerance.
In the same fashion, Israel (or the USA for that matter) should not be pointed as the "Grand Oppressor".

Israel can and should behave and treat the Palestinians in the Territories better and the Settlers should cease and desist the building of settlements on that land, it is wrong. And it is (or should be) Israel's responsibility in the midst of trying to make it a better country it should help the Palestinians seek national determination (and there are many, many... many obstacles in the way of that goal, I know. But "Where there's a Will, there's a Way").

Yes, Israel behaves badly... but please people, some perspective is needed.

A small exposition.
hagar_972 and I love doing this back and forth thing. It's better than writing uber-long comments to our posts. Plus it creates a larger dialoug, in my opinion, and that's the most important thing.
And if two bull-headed people like us can remain friends, while nitpicking on our political differences, well, it gives me what can gently be called hope.

Comments

[hagar-972.livejournal.com]

Like you yourself said, too many times the view presented is not balanced. Too many times, it is too easy to prove that the author of a text is talking out of (possibly implicit) antisemitism and not out of a true humanitarian feeling.

There are more Palestinians living in the territories of Arab countries than under Israeli control. How is blaming Lebanon for not lettting them out of the refugee camps a cop-out? How is that not playing a cynical political game on the back of the Palestinians?

And the argument I keep repeating lately - how can you blame a country for anything it does to protect the lives of its citizens, so long as it's effective? The drastic security measure taken by Israel reduced terrorist attacks to zero. Any attempt to improve conditions for the Palestinians resulted in dead Israelis - from the Oslo agreement forth.

So long as there are more voices unjustly blaming Israel, I will remind again and again why these accusations are false, unjust or both.

[antongarou.livejournal.com]

One of the things I personally find worrisome is not the fact that Israeli actions are condemned in and of itself(some of those condemnations did get earned), but that they are almost the *only* ones condemned, which means that other things that are at least as important, if not more important, then our conflict with the Palestinians get "swept under the rug" because this confrontation that results in several thousands of dead people each year(at most) is "more important" then several other places where the amounts of people dying is greater by orders of magnitude.This also gets used too often by dictatorships as a "get free out of jail card" so to speak- just condemn Israel and your standing with the EU will go up several notches, and you'll turn the issue from those pesky activist in your country to boot.