No one is arguing that Israel is an egalitarian society. All reasonable people acknowledge that non-Jews are denied many basic rights, are discriminated against and oppresed, and are second class citizens at best.

However, you seem to be re-defining the term "racism". I know that in the academic community race is considered to be a social construct, but (for better of worse) the commonly accepted meaning of the word race is based on physical appearance. Taking the commonly accepted usage, people of any race can be Jewish - blacks, Asian, etc. It isn't easy, but any person of non-Jewish ancestry can become a full fledged Israeli citizen by converting to orthodox Judaism.

I am not disputing any of the facts you have presented. I'm simply suggesting that the tactic of using the word 'racism' is counter-productive. My alternative? Beats me. I wish I were more eloquent. Maybe "ethnic cleansing"?

If you want to know my full position on Israel, please read my previous posts.

America's my home because I live there, and always have. It's the place of my birth. My native land. — Ciceronianus the White

The question isn't why you reside in the US. It's why you're justified to live in the US. Surely there are those justified in living in the US who weren't born in the US (the tens of millions of naturalized citizens) and arguably there are those born in the US who are not justified to live in the US. Your standard of citizenship by birth is not universally accepted and is as arbitrary as any standard.

Regardless, you've now offered Israelis their justification to live on the land they do, which is that they are there already.

Nonetheless, unless I'm mistaken, the fact that Israel exists where it exists, and the claim of some that it should expand, are sometimes justified at least in part on the belief that it's the homeland of the Jews. I wonder whether that belief has any substantial basis. — Ciceronianus the White

Sure, and I wonder if any justification for a nation to occupy land has a substantial basis, seeing no reason why your claim to your homeland is more justified than theirs, simply because you find the Biblical basis not substantial. Why is your being born in the US a substantial justification for you to occupy it?

The Israeli claim for expansion of their borders is based upon acquisition of land by war, which is the same basis that the US claims its right to its land, and is a matter of fact the way much land has been acquired over time. I don't know why the Israeli land acquisition is particularly interesting to the world from a moral perspective, although I do see why it's interesting as a political matter, considering it disrupts an economically important part of the world.

Totally missing the point. Discriminating between different types of Scottish citizens was the issue I raised. That has nothing to do with immigration. — Benkei

I didn't miss your point. I was pointing out that you've made a distinction that makes no moral difference. You are hanging on an arbitrary legal definition of "citizen" that you think matters, but it doesn't, especially because the nation itself gets to define that term.

To clarify, if Scotland permits those with Scottish blood to return to Scotland to become citizens, then when my Scottish counterpart and I arrive on those rolling green hills, he gets to vote, own land, and freely work, while I get to only visit and sightsee. I will be treated as a second class person because I am not designated a "citizen," (as I'm 100% Jew and 0% Celt) which is simply a word used to distinguish the haves from the have nots in this apartheid system.

If you are satisfied that citizenship status is a morally legitimate basis to deprive someone of rights, then you have no right to object to Israel denying citizenship to non-Jews, pre Civil War America denying full citizenship status to African Americans, and really any sort of discrimination that might occur as long as some legislative body has decreed who is and who is not a citizen.

I'm just trying to keep this logically clear because you've taken a very harsh view of Israeli discrimination, claiming that any sort of allowance of Jewish priority is per se racist and morally unjustified. If the standard is that ethnic heritage can never be used to justify providing an advantage, then we need to revisit the Irish rule of return, American affirmative action, all gender based set asides, and we likely need to run the Native Americans off their reservations.

If what you mean to say is only that in certain circumstances affording racial priorities are justified, but Jewish priority in Israel is not one of those instances, then that can be debated, although my understanding of your argument is that this issue is very much black and white, with Israel having no possible justification for their prioritizing Jews because of some moral absolute that says so.

Again. If you think I'm talking about who gets to be an Israeli citizens or not, you're still missing the point.

So the argument is, Israel is a racist country, it's racist because it discriminates between Jewish Israelis and non-Jewish Israelis. It has put in law and has Supreme Court rulings enforcing law, institutionalising it and defending it on the basis of Zionist thinking (e.g., it must be a Jewish State, as opposed to a State safe for Jews). It is therefore not anti-semitic to claim that, what I'll call - political -, Zionism is racist. — Benkei

If I've understood your point correctly, our disagreement is on the reason of the oppression. You say it's racism inherent to Zionism. I argue that it is more about the perpetual conflict and security concerns that have pushed the majority in Israel to accept such policies. I still argue that it's a minority of the Jewish Israelis that are religious fundamentalists. State of Israel is more secular than it looks (especially from the viewpoint of Western Europe). Zionism was the rallying cry to create the modern state of Israel, but as the state exists it's objective has been actually met. Israel isn't same as it was in 1949 just as Iran isn't the same as in 1979.

Hence if what you argue would be totally correct, this religious racism (or basically intolerance) based on Zionism would be clearly visible from treatment of the 2% Christian minority in Israel. My security argument wouldn't hold: there hasn't been a Christian uprising and the Christians in Israel don't want an independent homeland for themselves. The relations that Jews and the Notzri have is hence telling of the 'racism' problem. Christian Arabs in Israel are one of the highest educated groups and naturally are in far more better situation than anywhere else in the Middle East. Yes, there is hostility from the Ultra-Orthodox Jews, but are their actions the same as the state of Israel? I don't think so. But here I don't know the situation so clearly, so perhaps I may be simply ignorant.

Yes, there is hostility from the Ultra-Orthodox Jews, but are their actions the same as the state of Israel? I don't think so. — ssu

Correct. It's also not an example of institutionalised racism.

I don't like Zionism because it presupposes that land currently belonging to native inhabitants is the rightful property of a religious authoritarian state, and because it is used to fuel the current occupation of Palestine, and the systematic theft of land from, and removal of, the Palestinian people.

I'm against conquering lands and peoples, and I'm against theocracies.

Am I anti-semetic?

Am I anti-semetic? — VagabondSpectre

I'm afraid so. Isaac Asimov said that the Hebrews invented religious intolerance.

Massively anti-Semitic and he was descended from Russian Jews. It's so confusing.

Don't attack Israel, Don't defend Israel. Move Israel to Canada or America.

Again. If you think I'm talking about who gets to be an Israeli citizens or not, you're still missing the point. — Benkei

There isn't any confusion on my end. You have an objection to disparate treatment of citizens within Israel based upon ethnicity and have no inclination to decipher my response, so we keep going back and forth with you repeating that we're not debating rights to citizenship or immigration issues, which is obvious. I'm left with thinking you're either stubbornly refusing to respond to me or that you truly lack the capacity to understand. I think either is equally likely at this point.

Israel exists, now. That's not a matter of debate. I don't expect it to vanish and don't think it should.

I refer to its creation, and the reasons for its creation, in an area at the time under British rule. Part of that reason as I understand it was that the area was the Jewish homeland. If justification is the issue, the question I was trying to explore would be-- what was the justification, or support, for the belief it was the Jewish homeland at that time or earlier when it seems the notion of creation of a Jewish state came into play? If history can be used to justify creation of a state, I don't think it's of much use in the case of Israel.

Fine. Let's play the game "pretending Hanover made sense".

I was pointing out that you've made a distinction that makes no moral difference. You are hanging on an arbitrary legal definition of "citizen" that you think matters, but it doesn't, especially because the nation itself gets to define that term. — Hanover

Not arbitrary but Israel's own definition.

To clarify, if Scotland permits those with Scottish blood to return to Scotland to become citizens, then when my Scottish counterpart and I arrive on those rolling green hills, he gets to vote, own land, and freely work, while I get to only visit and sightsee. I will be treated as a second class person because I am not designated a "citizen," (as I'm 100% Jew and 0% Celt) which is simply a word used to distinguish the haves from the have nots in this apartheid system. — Hanover

Irrelevant as to how people get their citizenship status as I'm talking about people who already have that status within Israel and their disparate treatment.

If you are satisfied that citizenship status is a morally legitimate basis to deprive someone of rights, then you have no right to object to Israel denying citizenship to non-Jews, pre Civil War America denying full citizenship status to African Americans, and really any sort of discrimination that might occur as long as some legislative body has decreed who is and who is not a citizen. — Hanover

I've not argued that anywhere.

I'm just trying to keep this logically clear because you've taken a very harsh view of Israeli discrimination, claiming that any sort of allowance of Jewish priority is per se racist and morally unjustified. If the standard is that ethnic heritage can never be used to justify providing an advantage, then we need to revisit the Irish rule of return, American affirmative action, all gender based set asides, and we likely need to run the Native Americans off their reservations. — Hanover

Once again, Israel gets to decide who can become a citizen and how. It should not discriminate between its own citizens based on their ethnicity or religion.

So yeah, you didn't understand me at all. But not surprising considering our history discussing Israel.

The Israeli claim for expansion of their borders is based upon acquisition of land by war, which is the same basis that the US claims its right to its land, and is a matter of fact the way much land has been acquired over time. I don't know why the Israeli land acquisition is particularly interesting to the world from a moral perspective... — Hanover

It is interesting because we believed that we lived in a civilized world that respected the rights of individuals and saw violence as an illicit way of gaining power and wealth. We thought that colonialism, in which any strong nation could expel, steal and kill the indigenous people (treating them as sub-humans) and keep their goods was a thing of the past. In short, we believed ourselves to be more humane than our ancestors.

Thanks to the state of Israel and its international patrons, we realized that we were quite naive. Decent, but naive.

The human rights violations perpetrated by the state of Israel are many and well-documented, in more than a few cases through resolutions being unanimously agreed upon by the UN Security Council and the UN General Assembly.

There are very, very few countries who can make this boast. If anything, it should tell you that there's something very wrong with the way Israel conducts its business.

Once again, Israel gets to decide who can become a citizen and how. It should not discriminate between its own citizens based on their ethnicity or religion. — Benkei

You have to make the case why the state of Israel, not the ultra-orthodox Jewish, are SO different from other countries in this sense. When Israel occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1967, it did offer citizenship for occupants of these areas.

And is the idea of 'Homeland' inherently racist?

Nation states do have this tendency to give special treatment to 'their' people living outside the borders of their country. Russia is good example of this today, but so is Germany too. Or how does the German Federal Expellee Law of 1953 sound:

The law applies to refugees and exiles (also known as expellees), which it defines as a German citizen or an ethnic German who resided in the former eastern territories of the German Reich, "located temporarily under foreign administration", or in areas outside the German Reich as at 31 December 1937, who as a result of the events of World War II suffered expulsion, in particular by removing or escape. Those expellees who were not already German nationals became entitled to German citizenship.The law also contained a heredity clause entitling children of expellees to inherit German ethnicity and citizenship. The persons entitled to German citizenship also include (former) foreign citizens of states of the Eastern Bloc, who themselves - or whose ancestors - were persecuted or discriminated between 1945 and 1990 for their German or alleged German ethnicity by their respective governments.

Or how about my country? In 1988 the KGB chief in Helsinki hinted to the Finnish authorities that it would be a good idea to send Ingrians, a small Finnish speaking people living in the Leningrad area, to Finland. And the Finnish President said that fine, we can take them, and roughly about 25 000 immigrated to Finland and got citizenship as "returning" nationals in the 1990's. And what do you know: nobody of the anti-immigration people said hardly anything about this small group entering Finland from the side door.

Was this a racist thing? Or the behaviour of the West German government? How is Israel different?

Once again, Israel gets to decide who can become a citizen and how. It should not discriminate between its own citizens based on their ethnicity or religion. — Benkei

So yeah, it's hunky dory to treat non-citizens like shit but an atrocity to treat some citizens as better than others, so if a nation decides to call their least favorite folks non-citizens, they escape your criticism. Kinda stupid? So if blacks weren't full citizens, all was good?

Racial discrimination exists in legal form in the US, primarily to protect historically disadvantaged and oppressed minorities, often to the objection of those not provided what is considered special advantage. Israel is that to the Jews. If you find what the US does as I've described atrocious, you're at least consistent.

How is Israel different? — ssu

The difference is that the "return home" cases you cite were not made to the detriment of the existing population there. Israel "went home" by expelling the Palestinians and making the remaining ones second-class citizens. And that discriminatory policy is increasing every day. That is racism.

On the other hand, if you want to compare Israel with all the aberrations of the past I think we will agree. But I think it is a bad policy on your part.

Racial discrimination exists in legal form in the US, primarily to protect historically disadvantaged and oppressed minorities, often to the objection of those not provided what is considered special advantage. Israel is that to the Jews. — Hanover

Israel applies discriminatory policies against the Palestinian minority in its territory and against the population it controls in the occupied territories. That is not compensatory discrimination.

Yeah, the Israeli Jews’ discrimination and oppression of the Palestinians is awful, but what are they to do with a population that wants to expel them? It seems that neither side is capable of living in peace with the other. They are all digging their own graves.

Mostly because of the propaganda of their leaders on both sides. Most people are capable of living in peace, side by side with anyone. It is and always has been the demagoguery and propaganda of leaders designed to keep them in power that divides any given peoples.

Plus, drugs bring you closer to God. Maybe they should all get high.

:razz:

The difference is that the "return home" cases you cite were not made to the detriment of the existing population there. Israel "went home" by expelling the Palestinians and making the remaining ones second-class citizens. And that discriminatory policy is increasing every day. That is racism.

On the other hand, if you want to compare Israel with all the aberrations of the past I think we will agree. But I think it is a bad policy on your part. — David Mo

Wars change borders and put people to leave their homes. That's just what wars do. Here I think the worth wile discussion would be to focus on your argument "that discriminatory policy is increasing every day".

Is It? Every day?

You have to give reasons for your argument, because otherwise I think you'll fall to the "Jeremy Corbyn-trap": that basically critique of Israel will be seen as anti-semitism. Drinking up too eagerly only one side of the story will be counterproductive.

(The real ethnic cleansing happened during the war in 1948. Atrocities did happen like with Deir Yassin massacre. Again, that's the ugly part of history.)

(The real ethnic cleansing happened during the war in 1948. Atrocities did happen like with Deir Yassin massacre. Again, that's the ugly part of history.)

The Deir Yassin Massacre was roundly condemned by the Haganah (precursor to the IDF) as well as Jewish political authorities at the time. Political authorities sent a written apology to Jordan. These massacres have gone both ways and I wish we'd see such apologies from Arab leadership.

Yeah, the Israeli Jews’ discrimination and oppression of the Palestinians is awful, but what are they to do with a population that wants to expel them? — Noah Te Stroete

Every colonized people tries to drive out the colonizers. The Sioux did not want their land to be overrun by white settlers and the army. Who dug their grave? The Sioux or the invaders?

Now it's certainly tricky. But one thing they could do right off is admit that Palestinians were there all along. That those who were mass displaced in the creation of Israel had as much right to be there as the Jews who lived there and that a big part of today's problem is how they were treated. I think also saying that it is not meant to be just the homeland for the Jews, despite whatever a scripture may say, would also be simply honest. From there you have a lot of hellishly complicated problems. But then that is the case now.

I’m not saying that the Israelis are entitled to that land. But then again, could you blame them? They are always the first group to be persecuted when societies decay, so it was a logical place to settle (however bloody the takeover was). Palestinians are likewise as a group prone to prejudice against Jews and may or may not have welcomed such a large influx of a despised people.

Palestinians also have claim to that land of course. I’m not denying that.

Wars change borders and put people to leave their homes. That's just what wars do. — ssu

Some attempts (with more or less success) to annex land through war in the 20th century come to mind. Hitler and the Eastern territories, Morocco and the Western Sahara, Saddam Hussein in Quwait, Russia in the Crimea... If you want to say that the occupation of Palestine by Israel is on the same level as Hitler, Putin, the Sultan of Morocco or Saddam Hussein, we agree. But I wouldn't follow that line.

Is It? Every day? You have to give reasons for your argument, — ssu

May be this quotation makes you an idea:

New legislation entrenched discrimination against non-Jewish citizens. Israeli forces killed more than 290 Palestinians, including over 50 children; many were unlawfully killed as they were shot while posing no imminent threat to life. Israel imposed an illegal blockade on the Gaza Strip for the 11th year in a row, subjecting approximately 2 million inhabitants to collective punishment and exacerbating a humanitarian crisis. Freedom of movement for Palestinians in the West Bank remained restricted through a system of military checkpoints and roadblocks. Israeli authorities unlawfully detained within Israel thousands of Palestinians from the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), holding hundreds in administrative detention without charge or trial. Torture and other ill-treatment of detainees, including children, remained pervasive and was committed with impunity. Israel continued to demolish Palestinian homes and other structures in the West Bank and in Palestinian villages inside Israel, forcibly evicting residents. The Israeli justice system continued to fail to adequately ensure accountability and redress for victims of grave violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. The authorities continued to deny asylum seekers access to a fair or prompt refugee status determination process; hundreds of African asylum-seekers were deported and thousands were threatened with deportation. Conscientious objectors to military service were imprisoned. — Amnesty International Report

The real ethnic cleansing happened during the war in 1948. Atrocities did happen like with Deir Yassin massacre. — ssu

Deir Yassin was only the most shocking massacre against the Palestinians. A Zionist historian, Benny Morris, documented some 360 cases of ethnic cleansing in Palestine. In many of these cases, villages were later destroyed to prevent the return of their inhabitants. They became "absentee owners" in one of the most cynical laws of the State of Israel.

Of course, Benny Morris did not use the word "ethnic cleansing" because he was happy with this kind of treatment of these people who were savages, he said, and deserved to be locked up in cages.

New legislation entrenched discrimination against non-Jewish citizens. Israeli forces killed more than 290 Palestinians, including over 50 children; many were unlawfully killed as they were shot while posing no imminent threat to life. Israel imposed an illegal blockade on the Gaza Strip for the 11th year in a row, subjecting approximately 2 million inhabitants to collective punishment and exacerbating a humanitarian crisis. Freedom of movement for Palestinians in the West Bank remained restricted through a system of military checkpoints and roadblocks. Israeli authorities unlawfully detained within Israel thousands of Palestinians from the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), holding hundreds in administrative detention without charge or trial. Torture and other ill-treatment of detainees, including children, remained pervasive and was committed with impunity. Israel continued to demolish Palestinian homes and other structures in the West Bank and in Palestinian villages inside Israel, forcibly evicting residents. The Israeli justice system continued to fail to adequately ensure accountability and redress for victims of grave violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. The authorities continued to deny asylum seekers access to a fair or prompt refugee status determination process; hundreds of African asylum-seekers were deported and thousands were threatened with deportation. Conscientious objectors to military service were imprisoned. — Amnesty International Report

I did not know all of this. Sickening to say the least. It is inexcusable. Where should the Jews go, though? They are seemingly not welcome anywhere in the world.

You could say that the Jews are a traumatized people. It is understandable if you understand such things that there would be a collective rage. Likewise the Muslims in the Middle East are terrorized by US and NATO forces, for decades even.