fandomsecrets | [ SECRET POST #2099 ]

[ SECRET POST #2099 ]

⌈ Secret Post #2099 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 04 pages, 085 secrets from Secret Submission Post #300.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ], [ 1 - pretty much unreadable ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

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She's Jewish idiot. What is she going to do go "LOL HOPE YOU ALL DIE!"? JFC

She's also Israeli. Do people not know this?

nyrt- I guess that makes it worse?

People don't get to choose where they're born, Jewish people have been living in Jerusalem for thousands of years etc.

I don't know, I'm perfectly capable of criticizing the actions of the country I belong to while still supporting the country itself. Being Jewish doesn't justify supporting unconscionable actions on the part of Israel.

Then again, I don't regard "supporting Israel" as a personal sin which makes it okay to hate someone, so maybe I'm just not suited to this conversation? I mean, using someone's political beliefs as grounds for hating them personally is not usually justified, to me, unless they're literal Nazis or something.

I dunno, Israel's done some pretty unconscionable things and even many Americans are not happy that the US government supports the country. Israel's a shit stirrer, is full of racism and religious hatred, has a quasi-apartheid going on with its Palestinian residents, and is into preemptive attacks. One of the reasons for creating for the two state system being proposed is that the Arab population has a much higher birth rate than the Jewish population, which will make the state minority Jewish if it continues. It's pretty fucking dickish to mistreat people the way the Israelis have the Palestinians, so being pro-Israeli is certainly something to dislike someone for.

I don't know what the OP is referring to when they said "anti-Semitic", but if it's anti-Israeli sentiment, well, that's just politics. Some people see Israel as having an innate right to exist; other people see it as genocidal, racist, land-stealing, and overly militant.

I... don't see what I said that implied that I thought Israel was perfect, or that necessitated a catalog of its faults?

In general, I try to stay out of the Israel / Palestine issue, because it seems to me like an issue that's entirely insoluble. It's just a tragedy from beginning to end, and there's no solution that's not shitty and kind of terrible. But believe me when I say that I understand that Israel is deeply flawed and does a lot of questionable things as a state.

My point, I guess, was twofold. On the one hand, I think that support for Israel is "just politics" as much as anti-Israeli sentiment is. You can't say that one side is just politics and the other isn't. I don't think that being pro-Israeli is a personal fault because I don't think that personal politics, except in the most extreme of cases, are something to regard as a personal fault... I agree that opposition to Israel is not anti-Semitic, but at the same time, you can't seriously say that support for Israel is a sin.

My second point, I think - and this is the point that was actually in response to something that someone had said - was that supporting Israel isn't necessarily the same as supporting everything Israel does, and that being Jewish does not automatically make one a supporter of everything Israel does. IE, being Jewish does not oblige you to support all the noxious shit Israel does that you so helpfully pointed out. Which I think is broadly a point you would agree with.

This is a tricky fucking issue man, I'm just trying to be reasonable here and say that, although I don't necessarily think it's right to support everything that Israel does, I also don't think it's necessarily right to regard someone's political beliefs as a personal fault.

Then again, I don't regard "supporting Israel" as a personal sin which makes it okay to hate someone, so maybe I'm just not suited to this conversation? I mean, using someone's political beliefs as grounds for hating them personally is not usually justified, to me, unless they're literal Nazis or something.

You're implying that there is a dissonance between "literal Nazis" and the stuff Israel pulls on a daily basis. The NSDAP was fueled on hatred for the humiliation other countries had served them, many of its early policies were based in revenge for the same as well as class differences, and it eventually indulged in religious and racial-based genocide and apartheid. There's not a huge amount of difference between your average "literal Nazi" and the Israeli government.

the nazis slaughtered 12 million people

Like, no, sorry, Israel is not literal Nazis and the Israel - Palestine situation is not comparable to Germany under the Third Reich, you're being fucking ridiculous, stop it. Nothing that Israel does is as bad as what Nazi Germany did and it's kind of ridiculous to even suggest at, and I say that without supporting what Israel is doing. Even if you can draw comparisons between them, the scale is so totally different, and even the content of what they're doing is so totally different, that it's difficult to take you seriously. Israel should stop doing what they're doing, but they're not Nazis. The Nazis had a profound belief that race was the complete determining factor for all of history, and that the superiority of the German race over all others was both a fact and something which must be pursued through any means, even the indiscriminate slaughter of anyone who opposed them. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a complex conflict rooted in ethnic strife and the desire of one people for a homeland which has ramified and developed in a huge number of unsavory ways.

Seriously, fuck you for making this comparison. Try to be a reasonable human being. I can't even put into words - I'm not even angry at you, I'm fucking disappointed that you would try to make this argument. It's just really god-damned dumb. When you do this, you bring everyone down. You bring the whole fucking discourse down. You make having a rational conversation about this impossible.

"You know who liked ice cream? HITLER!"

The comparison was within the framework of what anon said. They could only be against someone if they were a "literal Nazi". Well, there isn't a huge degree of difference. The scale isn't important: the reasoning behind the actions is.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2012-10-02 05:01 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2012-10-02 05:01 (UTC) - Expand

Yeah, systematically killing 12 million people is exactly the same as what the Israeli government is doing.

and it eventually indulged in religious and racial-based genocide

They're so good at genocide, in fact, that the Palestinian population keeps growing! And the only Ethnic cleansing that's taken place in Israel was...well, removing Jews from Gaza.

For the record? You're the reason why many moderates have trouble taking anti-Israeli rhetoric seriously. You lack any perspective, and clearly know fuckall about the subtleties of Middle-Eastern geopolitics beyond shallowly parroted talking points. I'm not saying that the thousands of Palestinian casualties are okay, but it's several orders of magnitude fewer casualties than there would be if Israelis were actually attempting genocide of any kind, or even using scorched-earth tactics like the US did in WW2 against Germany.

So you wouldn't have a problem with someone saying that the Rwandan genocide and the lack of intervention by Western powers was justified? Because it's just politics right?

I find that there are some political positions that are very hard to ignore, mostly because those positions bleed over into other beliefs a person holds. I wasn't saying that I think it's a "personal sin" to support Israel, just that it colors my opinion of a person. If someone waxes golden on apartheid South Africa or the Confederacy, it makes me very uncomfortable because they have, at some level, accepted the bad with the good and bad far outweighs the good.

Israel, as you said, is tricky. Hell, I'm American and I try to keep quiet about my opinion on Israel because most people think anti-Israel=anti-Jewish. I just think the government and a number of its citizens have proven to be incredibly shitty.

I wouldn't have a personal problem with someone saying that the lack of Western intervention in the Rwandan genocide was justified. I disagree, but that's a fundamentally political matter.

And particularly in the case of Israel which is such a god-damned complicated issue. To look at an issue that's as complicated as that, and then to say that anyone who believes one thing or another is guilty of a personal fault, just seems so strange to me. It doesn't seem to match up to the reality of how complex the situation is.

Nah. You should probably keep quiet about your opinion of Israel because, when you voice it, it looks like you're a parrot who has no personal stake in the situation at all -- has probably never stepped foot near Israel, Gaza or the West Bank -- but feel like you're an authority on the moral and political complexities of the conflict, anyway.

I haven't been in the particular ONTD posts the OP is referencing, so I don't know about that, but I have seen A LOT of anti-Israel criticism turn anti-Semitic, especially on the internet. Like, A LOT.

See, here's the thing. I object to almost everything the Israeli government does, a lot more than what gets talked about. I do it out of an informed position - I actually know and understand what's going on in Israel, both in its treatment of the Palestinians, other minority groups, and general social issues in the country. If anything, I'm eternally frustrated that everything that's coded as "things Jews do to Jews in Israel" never gets reported anywhere if only because it's a feedback loop and incredibly relevant to what happens to the Palestinians.

That said. The vast majority of people who identify as anti-Israel do not choose their position out of informed understanding. They don't understand Israeli society. They don't understand Palestinian society. They're looking at the conflict as a completely black and white, good guys vs bad guys thing, paint Israel as the complete monster, and usually... don't give that much of a damn about the Palestinians outside of the Israeli context from my experience, because they're usually pretty uninformed about what's going on internally in the Palestinian society.

That's a good description of what's going on almost all online spaces when they come to discuss Israel, including ONTD. You can see that on ONTD, for example, when people ask what they have against Portman and a common reaction is "She's Zionist", to be followed by "she's Zionist? OMG EW I DIDN'T KNOW." (I think that was the exchange about 5 times at least in the last Portmam post). Anyone who knows anything about Zionism looks at it and either dies with laughter or bangs their head on the desk, because the range of people who identify as Zionists goes from hardcore right wing fundamentalists to Meretz who are left wing liberals and are responsible for most of the anti-occupation and human rights legislation in the past 20 years. "Zionist" is just an acceptable term because coming right out and saying "Jewish" is unacceptable. That's when ignorance is becoming antisemitism and that's happening all the fucking time.

I have nothing against people who criticise Israel. I've done that plenty. But do it out of an informed position because otherwise most likely you will start to repeat antisemitic bullshit. So yeah, it's usually enough for me to see people throw around words like Zionist to side-eye them. It's a very good indication they don't actually have a clue what they're talking about.

ayrt

I never used the word Zionist. I'm also not really sure if you're criticizing me, but I agree with what you're saying (anti-Jewish sentiment is also not considered PC in my country). My position on Israel has more to do with the actions of Israeli citizens against the Bene and Beta Israel, the fact that absolutely everything my country does in the Middle East is partially dictated by Israel yet Israel doesn't consider the US when making foreign policy decisions, the treatment of the Palestinians and the way the Israelis went about getting their land, and the reasons for supporting the two state system.

ayrt

I was talking more in general terms and out of my own personal frustration at how much antisemitism is entrenched in a lot of the criticism of Israel and often drowns out legitimate criticism of Israel, not specifically reacting to what you said. I replied to your post because your post was about criticism of Israel - like I said, it's important and I agree it's important, but we can't bury our head in the sand. I hate blanket statements but this is one case I feel justified in making them - most people who criticise Israel have no clue what they're talking about and that is a good enough reason to start questioning what's behind their positions.

Wait, are you the same person who cannot differentiate between the very real and terrible crimes Israel is committing and what the Nazis did? Yeah, sorry, you're one of the people who have no clue what they're talking about and I WAS referring to people like you.

If you feel justified to compare Israel to the Nazis, it's time to check what's behind a lot of your beliefs. I'll give you a hint - they're not about historical accuracies and not even about the crimes Israel is committing.

I never said that. You should check the thread again.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2012-10-02 05:23 (UTC) - Expand

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2012-10-02 17:35 (UTC) - Expand

and usually... don't give that much of a damn about the Palestinians outside of the Israeli context from my experience, because they're usually pretty uninformed about what's going on internally in the Palestinian society.

Oh god, this. I especially love the ones who support Hamas unconditionally -- sometimes even going so far as to give them money! -- and don't care that Hamas likes to kill dissenters, homosexuals, rape victims, apostates, blasphemers and people who play loud music at weddings. That's always charming.

Oh, yes. Hamas-supporters-because-they-oppose-the-occupation.

Hearing the way people justify that just gives you a whole view into people's ignorance and how they don't know what they're talking about. Like all the "Hamas were democratically elected and I'm completely going to ignore the 3-week-military-coup-thing" or the fact Hamas are basically trying to start Sharia law against most of the population's wishes, which is generally much more liberal.

Yeah, great supporters of the Palestinians, that lot. The occupation is bound to end, sooner or later, one way or the other, and then none of them is going to give a shit that the Palestinians would be stuck under a theocratic dictatorship. I mean, Israel most certainly isn't going to give a shit, but at least it doesn't pretend to care.

(no subject)

(Anonymous) - 2012-10-02 06:09 (UTC) - Expand

this x approximately a billion

9 times out of 10, when I've encountered "Anti-Israel" sentiments in real life or online, it quickly becomes clear that the person espousing those sentiments is mildly or majorly anti-Semitic. They blame the "Zionists" for inciting the US to invade Iraq, think that the Israelis (read: Jews) are all inherently evil people who revel in their oppression of Palestinians and like to make their lives as miserable as possible just for the hell of it.

And, for the record? There is no "semi-Apartheid" anything in Israel. There is racism -- a lot of it, in fact -- but it isn't sanctioned by the Government 99% of the time. And, when the Government is in on the racism, left-leaning Israelis are in the streets protesting it -- without being carted off to prison, I might add, like they would have been in South Africa prior to 1994.

I grew up in South Africa in the shadow of Apartheid, and comparisons between Israel and Apartheid South Africa always make me think that the person making those comparisons doesn't know all that much about either country.

This, this, this.

People scream Apartheid and forget that about 16% of Israel's citizens are non Jewish Arabs. That there are Arab members in the Israeli Parliament. That there was an Arab president for a while. That there are anti-discrimination laws in Israel. Who are those Arabs? Some random people Israel decided to let in? No, they're the same fucking people as the ones in Gaza and the West Bank.

Are the laws always helpful? No. Is there racism in Israel? Of course. But there's racism everywhere. No one says Israel is perfect, but it's a far cry from third-Reich-Germany or Apartheid-south-Africa.

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