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Criticism of Israel (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter timschochet
- Start date
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
The speech where she compared Israel to Nazi Germany. I don't have a problem with criticizing Israeli policies, but anybody with an ounce of self-awareness knows better than to make that particular connection.
fatguyinalittlecoat
Footballguy
I just watched the speech. She didn’t say Israel was like Nazi Germany. And she definitely didn’t say anything that leads me to believe that she can’t distinguish between the state of Israel and the Jewish people. Here’s the speech:
https://youtu.be/iG4lD_kfQYk
Start at 2:11 or so to hear the quote in context.
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parasaurolophus
Footballguy
That was a weird way to oppose...
Of inquiry requesting the President and directing the Attorney General to transmit, respectively, certain documents to the House of Representatives relating to the actions of former Federal Bureau of Investigation Acting Director Andrew McCabe.
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
I know. But most people who aren't deliberately looking to be edgy know to leave Nazi Germany out of their speech on Why Israel Is Bad.
Edit: Also, we now have this in the context of "I love my 95 year old grandmother and want to see her one last time before she passes, but my hatred for Israel is greater than that." This is not the stance of somebody with a simple policy disagreement with another state.
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fatguyinalittlecoat
Footballguy
Wait, you said originally that the speech was support for your claim that Tlaib doesn’t “understand the difference between the state of Israel and Jewish people.” Now it seems like you’re saying she just said something that might be perceived as inflammatory even though that wasn’t her point. Which is it?
Also, I will tell you that Tlaib’s speech would be perfectly accepted at my (liberal) Maryland synagogue. If anyone is doing something deliberately inflammatory, it’s the people who took a single sentence out of context and decided to tar Tlaib as a Jew hater.
In any case, she said her grandmother would be disappointed if she went to visit her under the conditions imposed by the Israeli government. I don’t know if that’s true, but “I hate Israel more than I love my grandmother” seems like a pretty outrageous mischaracterization.
rockaction
Footballguy
I just watched it. It's a really poor choice of comparisons. I was immediately thinking of South Africa, but she went with Nazis first. I dunno, a lot of times people will keep going and going right up to the line constantly and never trip over it for whatever reason. Still doesn't mean they don't want to be on the other side of it. I'm not a foreign policy expert but somehow the PLO's Yassar Arafat getting a Peace Prize a few moons ago shows the absurdity of this conflict and the international responses to it.
I like our domestic response better.
I like our domestic response better.
SHIZNITTTT
Footballguy
Bernie with a mic drop. Sanders Says If Israel Wants to Ban Members of Congress, It Should Not Receive Billions in US Military Aid.
Lutherman2112
Footballguy
Love this. Not a Bernie fan, but there should be a public discussion about aid to Israel.
If you question spending in any way shape or form to Israel and the result is "HOW DARE YOU ANTISEMITE!!!!!"
I say. screw you. You want Israel to do what the USA wants? Threaten to Cut that aid.
parasaurolophus
Footballguy
If she is allowed to compare that resolution to all the free speech hooey she was saying then people can infer she was comparing boycotting israel to boycotting nazi germany.
I happen to find both a bit silly, but like consistency. So which way are we going with her words?
fatguyinalittlecoat
Footballguy
You don’t have to guess what she was saying, just listen to it. She’s talking about the history of boycotts in the United States. Then she says that includes boycotts of foreign countries engaged in civil rights abuses. And then she listed some examples of such boycotts from our history, including Nazi Germany and Apartheid South Africa. That was it.
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
I disagree. Tlaib made a big show about wanting to travel to Israel to see her grandmother, who she loves dearly. When Israel granted her request, she made a big show out of refusing to go because of her hatred of Israel. I don't know how to interpret that sequence of events in any way besides "I hate Israel more than I love grandma." That's certainly the most straightforward interpretation.
Edit: Tlaib explicitly said in writing that she would accept Israel's conditions if she could just see dear grandma one last time. When Israel gave her what she wanted, she did a 180. That's just bad faith argumentation on her part.
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parasaurolophus
Footballguy
I think you misunderstood me. I am saying I think it is silly to think she was saying that israel is like nazi germany from that quote. But I also think her statements about free speech and the constitution are also silly in that speech. I think both are massive reaches and inferences.
So basically if you defend her on the Nazi thing(which I agree with), you have to also acknowledge that she is over the top reaching with the other statements.
parasaurolophus
Footballguy
Even if she hadn't already agreed, it is bad faith on her part. She is acting like they are forcing her to donate a kidney, denounce islam, and that if she steps on a crack on her visit they will actually break her grandma's back. Her dying inside rhetoric and support from her grandma stuff is all crap. Her "sity" doesn't even have free speech. If her grandma criticized palestinian authority on a public forum, what does Tlaib think would happen?
Israel is actually the third worst offender in this scenario. Trump is the worst since he actually asked a foreign government that we give lots of money to ban congresswomen. Tlaib second because she is obviously playing games. Israel isn't denying officially sanctioned US business here. They are denying US citizens, that the President of the US publicly disapproves of, a visit to their country for the sole purpose of stirring up problems.
It is actually fairly easy to argue that Israel is being perfectly reasonable here, of course only because of the cover provided by Trump. To argue that they are being unreasonable you have to argue that they should go against the wishes of the US president to allow two freshman congresswomen to come on in and tear them to pieces on social media. Two women that actively argued against a resolution that condemned an organization whose leader wants Israel bye bye. The grounds for why they should this? Free speech. Something the people that Tlaib and Omar would be visiting don't even have(outside of israeli influence).
It is the classic lose lose situation in order to stand up for an ideal that doesn't even exist in the area.
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rockaction
Footballguy
Did they oppose a resolution on Hamas or something? And was the resolution grandstanding crap pulled by the Rs, or was it really to condemn Hamas?
fatguyinalittlecoat
Footballguy
parasaurolophus
Footballguy
It was a resolution to oppose the bds movement and its leader.
The BDS movement isn't just some human rights group trying to help out homeless palestinians. They oppose a two state solution and their single state solution is just a crafty way of getting rid of any jewish authority. IIRC their proposal was something like all descendants of palestinians and palestinian refugees would be granted automatic citizenship but the same rule did not apply to displaced jews and descendants. I don't remember the exact details, but it was just a roundabout way of giving them a majority and I don't think anybody really doubts what they would do next.
rockaction
Footballguy
Thanks for the information. I do know what a one-state solution means, and I also asked ren about "right of return" because neither generally passes the pro-Zionist smell test. And I certainly have no doubt about what they'd do next. This is a culture that hides serious weapons under elementary schools and then run for the camera when their children get bombed. It's a sick, sick culture.
By the way, I'm not Jewish.This sort of stuff irritates the most agnostic among us.
timschochet
Footballguy
Abba Eban, Israel’s legendary foreign minister, used to say that the Palestinians never missed an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
The tragic reality is that during the 100 years that there has been a conflict between the Jews and Palestinians, the Palestinians have failed to produce a single moderate leader. Not one. From the Mufti of Jerusalem to Yasser Arafat to the present day leaders of Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Palestinian authority, there has not been a single prominent leader who has not publicly called for the eradication of Israel in one form or another.
This does not excuse Israel by any means. There is much right on the Palestinian side, especially as regards their treatment in recent years in Gaza and the West Bank. But it’s difficult to try and work out a peace with people who appear to be consistently in favor of your destruction.
ren hoek
Footballguy
Yeah, I just watched all of it too. I don't see how anyone could come away with the impression she was attacking Jewish people with her rhetoric. The "wicked Jews" line is a pretty outlandish read on her actual beliefs.
Again, Israel and its people are afforded human dignity and victimhood- a sense of empathy and kinmanship. Palestinians meanwhile appear to be characterized as apes who are animated only by the need to "destroy" Israel, deserve to be bombed to the stone age again and again, and somehow to blame for the military occupation that runs their lives. The notion of the "diseased Arab mind" has a comfortable home in the American conscience.
The more accurate depiction is that Israel wants to genocide the Palestinian race, identity, and culture- the New York Times just published a call for a Palestinian "national suicide" by the Israeli ambassador to the UN- while people arguing for Palestinian rights are really arguing for the same sense of equality, justice, and autonomy that are afforded to anyone in a real democracy, which Israel isn't.
OrtonToOlsen
Footballguy
I’m pretty sure you have me on ignore but I want to post that I agree with the majority of this.
Most Americans have a very weird view of Israel and our relationship with them for various reasons.
IMO it has a lot to do with religion...which shouldn’t have place in US foreign policy. Period.
Christian fundamentalists (like my evangelical brother who has been to Israel twice in the last 4 years) will defend Israel and her policies no matter what. Why? The Holy Land is better off in the hands of Jews than Muslims.
There is a guy, Norman Finkelstein, whose parents were both “Holocaust survivors” that has taken a very controversial stance that using the Holocaust as an excuse or defense of Israel and Israel’s actions is BS. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Finkelstein
I can’t say I agree with all of his points but he is thought provoking.
American Evangelicals support Israel more fervently than American Jews. It's bizarre.
Encumbrance
Footballguy
I think the fact that Israel is the only democracy in the region is cause for sympathies lying with them, too. I mean, it should be easy to have looked at someone like Arafat and his deeds and refrained from offering him a Peace Prize. Who was next? Hamas?
The "only democracy" card stops working when you ban members of Congress from visiting your country because you don't like their criticism. And the Nobel Peace Prize became worthless the day Kissinger won it.
Encumbrance
Footballguy
The Commish
Footballguy
This is why the base is shrinking. The problem still remains. Many actual conservatives are looking for a home and they see something WAY too liberal for them to jump on board with as the alternative, so, they either stay home or continue to vote against what they fear so much even if they hate it. This is a byproduct of the "lesser of two evils" narrative DC's been selling for decades. It's taken decades to train people to think this way and it will take decades, if not longer to break them of the habit.
the rover
Footballguy
One could make an argument that that description is politically loaded and inaccurate: From bdsmovement.org, another take:
The BDS movement aims to pressure Israel to respect international law by:
1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall
International law recognises the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza and the Syrian Golan Heights as occupied by Israel.
2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality.
3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.
These are three basic rights without which the Palestinian people cannot exercise its inalienable right to self-determination.
The BDS movement does not advocate for a particular solution to the conflict and does not call for either a “one state solution” or a “two state solution”. Instead, BDS focuses on the realization of basic rights and the implementation of international law.
parasaurolophus
Footballguy
no Palestinian — rational Palestinian, not a sell-out Palestinian — will ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.
Sweet J
Footballguy
TobiasFunke
Footballguy
For those who are curious about just why Trump's "disloyal" comments are anti-Semitic and abhorrent, lemme see if I can help:
The most basic fact that he is publicly insulting millions of Americans he is supposed to be leading- something Hillary Clinton ("deplorables") and Barack Obama ("clinging to guns and religion") got into huge trouble for when they did it privately, when they were not the President of the United States. If either of those things upset you, this is obviously substantially worse.
For further detail about why it's specifically anti-Semitic in addition to just being generally obnoxious, there are no shortage of articles out there explaining it. Here's Dalia Lithwick, Jennifer Rubin and Zack Beauchamp, all of whom are Jewish. But I thought these tweets put it pretty well if for some reason you don't have 5 minutes to read an article. In response to a tortured defense of the comments from a Trump spokesperson, Luppen writes:
It's a complicated issue but if you want to boil it down to it's essence, there it is.
The most basic fact that he is publicly insulting millions of Americans he is supposed to be leading- something Hillary Clinton ("deplorables") and Barack Obama ("clinging to guns and religion") got into huge trouble for when they did it privately, when they were not the President of the United States. If either of those things upset you, this is obviously substantially worse.
For further detail about why it's specifically anti-Semitic in addition to just being generally obnoxious, there are no shortage of articles out there explaining it. Here's Dalia Lithwick, Jennifer Rubin and Zack Beauchamp, all of whom are Jewish. But I thought these tweets put it pretty well if for some reason you don't have 5 minutes to read an article. In response to a tortured defense of the comments from a Trump spokesperson, Luppen writes:
It's a complicated issue but if you want to boil it down to it's essence, there it is.
the rover
Footballguy
Rockaction was asking for facts and you provided opinion, as you are also doing here.
the rover
Footballguy
timschochet
Footballguy
You know, I've read most of these articles and I just don't agree. I've listened to Trump's comment about a dozen times now, and it seems pretty simple to me- he's saying that:
1. Tlaib and Omar are the new face of the Democratic Party.
2. Therefore, the Democratic Party is now anti-Israel.
3. Jews should be loyal to Israel.
4. Therefore, Jews who vote for Democrats are either ignorant or being disloyal to Israel.
It's a pretty simple (and stupid) argument. I don't agree with any of it. But people are creating stuff that isn't there. It's not anti-Semitic, it's not about dual loyalty, its not a dog whistle to white nationalists. It's really nothing beyond the 4 points I just listed.
timschochet
Footballguy
For some time now, certain members of the religious right in this country, like Tony Perkins, have suggested pretty blatantly that Christians must vote Republican and that if you do not, you're either not a real Christian or you're somehow disloyal to Christian values. Another stupid argument, but is Perkins a bigot against Christians?
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
TobiasFunke
Footballguy
I can't say it any clearer than the articles do. All I can do is point out that you are in disagreement with virtually every Jewish organization worth a damn in America, from the American Jewish Committee to ADL to J Street to Bend the Arc and all points in between. Here's the Times of Israel and the Jerusalem Post summarizing the near-universal outrage from the Jewish community.
And if you don't think badmouthing American Jews as stupid or disloyal is a dog whistle to white supremacists and other fringe extremist groups (some of whom, as I'm sure you know, favor a strong Jewish state as part of a doomsday theory about a mass migration of Jews to Israel, conversion and eventually the Second Coming), I likewise can't help you. It may or may not have been an intentional dog whistle, but when you're the President of the United States that hardly even matters. Next time one of those nutjobs mows down a synagogue it won't really matter if the president inspired them intentionally or recklessly.
The Commish
Footballguy
I understand this perspective 100%, but I disagree. It gives Trump WAY more credit for self awareness and knowledge of a particular subject than he has EVER displayed. I am confident he doesn't know that Jews have been oppressed with this loyalty junk for centuries. This is nuance he doesn't even have about his own family much less a different culture. I understand why people would take it as anti-semetic...I get it. I just don't think he's smart enough to mean it that way (if that makes sense)...FFS, I don't think his own son-in-law even gets it. I could be wrong though.
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TobiasFunke
Footballguy
Or. @timschochet you could just look at it in its simplest terms: Trump declared that approximately 80% of American Jews are either stupid or disloyal to Israel.
Imagine if in 2004, GWB had trumpeted his work addressing the AIDS crisis in Africa and declared that any black people who didn't vote for him as a result were either really stupid or disloyal to their African homeland. Would that have been racist?
Imagine if in 2004, GWB had trumpeted his work addressing the AIDS crisis in Africa and declared that any black people who didn't vote for him as a result were either really stupid or disloyal to their African homeland. Would that have been racist?
TobiasFunke
Footballguy
This would have been a reasonable interpretation yesterday. But as I pointed out there's been plenty said or written about it already, and he hasn't apologized or clarified despite calls to do so from nearly every Jewish political organization in America. In fact he doubled down.
So at this point it's a conscious choice. And whether he's making that conscious choice out of genuine hatred of Jews (which I agree probably isn't the case) or simply because it's not in his personality to apologize or back down is pretty much irrelevant. When you're a public figure, your character is rightly judged by your public words and actions, not what you really feel deep down inside. For all I know Karl Rove actually loves the gays in his heart; but that wouldn't magically make his strategy of exploiting passionate opposition to gay marriage in the runup to the 2004 election any less homophobic, hateful and grotesque.
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TheMagus
Footballguy
I'm not sure it matters whether he knew that the "disloyal" moniker was an anti-semetic trope or not.
He consistently treats/views entire ethnic or racial groups as a monolith, which in an of itself is a form of racism or bigotry.
TobiasFunke
Footballguy
Here's yet another good articulation of why this is so problematic, from Marisa Kabas. A sampling:
At this point this only people who refuse to recognize the anti-Semitism in Trump's recent comments is the Republican Jewish Coalition, which I mention only because their twitter banner hilariously looks like this due to the fact that there's only two Jewish Republicans in Congress (there are eight Jewish Senators, plus Bernie, and 25 Jewish House reps).
At this point this only people who refuse to recognize the anti-Semitism in Trump's recent comments is the Republican Jewish Coalition, which I mention only because their twitter banner hilariously looks like this due to the fact that there's only two Jewish Republicans in Congress (there are eight Jewish Senators, plus Bernie, and 25 Jewish House reps).
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The Commish
Footballguy
Agree 100%
Didn't want to come across as defending. That's not my intention. Ignorance isn't a defense. I just don't think he's smart enough for this to be an "attack" by him. It's like being Inspector Gadget and tripping over his own feet to fall on top of the nukes button. Pathetic either way
parasaurolophus
Footballguy
parasaurolophus
Footballguy
ren hoek
Footballguy
Here's the full quote:
A Jewish state in Palestine in any shape or form cannot but contravene the basic rights of the land's indigenous Palestinian population and perpetuate a system of racial discrimination that ought to be opposed categorically. As we would oppose a Muslim state or a Christian state, or any kind of exclusionary state, definitely, most definitely we oppose a Jewish state in any part of Palestine. No Palestinian — rational Palestinian, not a sell-out Palestinian — would ever accept a Jewish state in Palestine.
timschochet
Footballguy
This is a very curious statement. Almost every state in the Middle East is a Muslim state- explicitly written into their constitution or governing document. How many of these do BDS oppose?
Sweet J
Footballguy
That's a lot different than just the sentence out of context. I wish people would stop doing that.
timschochet
Footballguy
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