Why do people love israel so much??

[andyfox]

Since you're an ex-moderator, thought you might be the one to ask: Do you understand how the upgraded software is now working? Sometimes I go to a thread and it takes me to the lead, title post. Other time, it goes to another post. Some threads have posts from the earliest to the latest, others are opposite. In some threads, I can't tell which posts I've seen and which are new, the white/yellow files be damned.

Anyone? Thanks.

[twowords]

There's really nothing else I can add here M. You justify the creation of Israel by citing historic oppression in the Arab world. As many have noted, the Jews were treated very well in a relative sense and not poorly given the times. But you further claim that for 21st Century standards, they are not treated well in the Arab world and few live there. Ok.

This brings me to say yet again that the Jews were kicked out and targeted for violence in Arab states AFTER Israel was declared. Consider the circumstances of Israel's creation, which I laid out earlier. Israeli terror tactics, forced explusion, occupation, endless anti-peace Israeli PM's, and more. Whats to say Jews would not gain rights in Arab states if the US-backed Zionists never took Palestine from the Arabs? We will never know. Speculate all you want. (aside: similarly, US support of Israel is a HUGE reason why the Arab world tends to hate the US today)

Can you really justify 50 years of war, death, oppression, etc since the Jews had it coming for being second class in the Arab world? Since Europe and Russia did WAY worse than a higher tax, do the Jews deserve like half the continent?

I could say Palestinian terrorism in Israel is justified because of what Israel did to them for decades, and you would be justifiably upset. Similarly, I am currently upset with you.

[AngryCola]

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Since you're an ex-moderator, thought you might be the one to ask:

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You can ask me!

The new upgrade still has more than a few kinks which need to be worked out. The issue you mentioned is already being looked at. Hopefully something will be done about it within the next couple of days, but Chuck is the man responsible for most of these things, so it's difficult for me to be 100% sure.

In the meantime, browsing is much easier in flat mode.

[andyfox]

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[ACPlayer]

Jews were not really persecuted in Arab/Muslim lands over the centuries. This is a historical falsehood.

Yes, they were not granted full human rights as we presently define them. But the Dhimmi's for example were granted protection (both physical and religious) by the Ottomans and other Muslim countries. They were not allowed to prosleytize (as required by Islam) and yes were allowed to convert if they wanted to.

Now, if you want to see historical examples where Jews were properly persecuted study -- the Sephardic Jew history, The German Jews history, the Russian Jew history. These were properly persecuted Jews with real grievances. They were persecuted by the religion with the best track record of religious persecution (where your head was on the block not just another tax) -- the Christian.

Perhaps half of Spain would be a more equitable solution.

Arabs and Jews got violent after the rape of the Arab lands and peoples in what is now Israel.

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Arabs and Jews got violent after the rape of the Arab lands and peoples in what is now Israel.

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This reeks of ignorance and cluelessness.

Read a history book, or twelve.

Mohammed himself waged war on all Jews. Start with the beheading of 800 Jews at Medina. Then maybe read about Bani Qurayzah, then perhaps Badr. Maybe peruse the Quran too and notice how much if it a handbook on how to wage war on Jews.

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At noon on the same day, Gabriel came to the Prophet telling him: "O Messenger of God. The Angels have not laid down their arms, and return from pursuing the foe. God... commandeth thee to go against the Qurayzah..."26

A thousand Muslims besieged the fortress of the Bani Qurayzah for 25 days when the Jews eventually opened their gates and threw themselves on Muhammad's mercy. They agreed to a chieftain of a Medinan tribe, Sa'd ibn Muadh, judging them for their treachery to the young Islamic state. The Mosaic law applied to the Jews and their punishment should have been total extermination: "thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth" (Deuteronomy 20, 16). Allah was more merciful than Jehovah however (33:26) and Sa'd's adjudication was to slay the men and take the women and children into captivity. The Prophet was pleased and replied to Sa'd: "Thou hast judged with the judgement of God from above the seven heavens."

In the morning Muhammad ordered long, deep and narrow trenches to be dug in the market place. The seven hundred or so men from Bani Qurayzah were brought in small groups to kneel beside the trench. Then the younger and stronger believers cut off the Jews' heads each with a stroke of a sword. The last to die were beheaded by torchlight.


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[MMMMMM]

Jeez, DVaut1:

I'm saying that the LAWS in many Arab/Muslim countries are structured to deny equal civil rights to non-Muslims--and in many cases egregiously so. THAT'S what it boils down to. As I mentioned, I ALREADY posted the text of multiple examples of those specific laws on this forum, but sadly you weren't around to read them. I don't have time to RE-VERIFY every thing on this forum just for your benefit. You might try searching the archives, or maybe Human Rights Watch, or other good web sources, if you're really interested.

[MMMMMM]

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I don't recall it, but it's not relevant, at least as far as I'm concerned. Let's just consider Saudi Arabia and we can all, I would think, accept that their government is horrible. I never intended to compare their government with Israel's.

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OK Andy...while Saudi Arabia is amongst the worst, the terribly discriminatory laws go much broader than merely in Saudi Arabia.

Maybe I'll search the legal codes down again; maybe I won't. If I do I'll start a new thread because this one is getting unwieldy.

By the way, the so-called "protection" of dhimmitude was a joke: no better than having to pay protection money to the Mafia. You pay your protection money, or your jizya (the special extortionate tax for dhimmis) and you won't get beaten up, have your store busted up, or get killed. In this case, though, the government is the de facto Mafia, backed by the clerics. And you'd also better not get out of line and do many things that Muslims are allowed to do.

As I said, by standards hundreds of years ago, there were worse things than dhimmitude. But by modern standards many of those remaining (and some newer) laws are actually WORSE than the Jim Crow laws were. And it's not even close.

[Gamblor]

I think alot of Israel bashing and accusations of whatever crimes people think will make them sound worldy is based on a complete ignorance of what really goes on in most of the Arab world.

It really is a [censored] hole of varying degrees of filth and corruption and poverty and Islamism and violence, and that's why Israel does most of what it does. Morocco and Jordan are relatively cleaner and better (and not coincidentally, secular) than places like Egypt, and Saudi Arabia.

But you just can't imagine the way it works there and the kind of pure hatred that festers there.

You just can't imagine.

[DVaut1]

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Jeez, DVaut1:


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Jeez, MMMMMM:

Saying 'Jeez, DVaut1' does nothing to add to your posts, except make you seem kind of whiny. Think it over.

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I'm saying that the LAWS in many Arab/Muslim countries are structured to deny equal civil rights to non-Muslims--and in many cases egregiously so. THAT'S what it boils down to.

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If THAT's what it boils down to, then I'm not sure why you're interested in claiming that 1) Zionism was a movement borne out of trying to escape Arab oppression, as that's not true according to anything I've read and 2) neither is true that all Arab countries discriminate against Jews, or that Israel necessarily respects human rights more than Arab countries; surely, they do respect human rights more than some Arab countries - and in my estimation, they respect human rights less than some Arab countries. The world isn't easily explained through broad generalizations or over-simplifications. The world is a complicated place. I think you should respect some of that complexity.

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As I mentioned, I ALREADY posted the text of multiple examples of those specific laws on this forum, but sadly you weren't around to read them. I don't have time to RE-VERIFY every thing on this forum just for your benefit. You might try searching the archives, or maybe Human Rights Watch, or other good web sources, if you're really interested.

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That's great, but it's not really relevant to the other numerous points you're trying to make here.

Here's a frequent theme I notice in many of the posts you appear in: grand, sweeping, improvable generalizations --> followed by backtracking --> claiming you were actually making a point so narrow and innocuous that it's relatively meaningless anyway. If it's 'nitpicky' to not let such generalizations go unchallenged, than I'm more than happy to be nitpicky. I think it's important not to let such claims exist as Gospel when legitimate debate exists.

Many Arab countries have laws which discriminate; to which I say 'no kidding'. No one doubts that. If that's all you were out to prove, I don't disagree, and I doubt many do. And if that's all you were out to prove...if that's ALL it boils down to, as you say, then fine - but I'd suggest stopping there, and not trying to tie such points into the early Zionist movement, as the two aren't particularly associated, and you're extremely hard-pressed to prove that they do.

If you want to demonstrate that laws in many Arab countries are structured in a way to deny equal civil rights to non-Muslims, fine - that's a fair point to make, and certainly accurate. But you're going to get a lot of friction if you make unsubstantiated and inaccurate claims to make your points - and no amount of 'Jeez' will stop me from pointing out when you're playing loose with the facts - like claiming modern political Zionism was bred from a will to escape Arab oppression, or claiming that Arabs have far more civil rights in Israel, than Jews have in Arab countries. The answer to the former I think is a clear 'no' although I'm willing to listen if you have evidence to the contrary - and the answer to the latter is (like most things in life): 'well, it depends'.

So, jeez, yeah, I'm going to point those kinds of things out.