Swedish Social Democratic anti-semitism

[angelo]

Palestinians both Israelis and Arabs have equality in Israel, not in Gaza.

Source?

My understanding was that the issues are similar on either side of the border. In Gaza sale of property to Jews, particularly Israeli Jews (i.e. almost all of them) is prevented, for fear that it will be used as a legal pretext for another illegal settlement. Meanwhile, in Israel Arabs get regularly discriminated against in property and building reg disputes, as part of the settlement program, and in contentious areas, such as East Jerusalem, and along the border. Arab property rights in Israel are not given the same legal protection in Israel as Jewish property rights. If you have a source that says something different, I'd be interested to see it.

What is undeniable is that the Israeli government does not treat Settler and Palestinian populations equally in the West Bank, where it exercises control. Palestinians are regularly discriminated against. Whether that is 'in Israel' is obviously a point of contention, but is it certainly the Israeli government doing it, and they claim to be acting within the law.

More to the point, unequal treatment of populations is not usually a reason for not recognising a state. Israel recognises several Middle Eastern Countries, such as Saudi Arabia, that don't treat all their citizens equally, as do most other countries.

So again, you've still not given any reason to recognise Israel, but not Palestine. Is there one?

So let us see if we have this straight. The British parliament decides to “recognize” the “state” of “Palestine.” It thus reverts to exactly the same displays of courage and integrity that it showed back when Britain recognized the right to self-determination of the Sudeten Germans in 1938. All this from Britain, the occupier of Gibraltar, the Falklands, Wales, Scotland, Ulster, and the Channel Islands. The Brits are joined by Sweden in a similar belch of “recognition.” You remember Sweden, the country that was too cowardly to choose a side in either World War and that provided iron ore to feed Hitler’s war machine. Yes, Sweden, which refuses to recognize the rights to self-determination of its own Samis, and whose journalists recycle medieval blood libels about Jews murdering gentiles and selling their body parts. Other European countries are expected to follow. Why “Palestine” is any more worthy of being “recognized” than ISIS, another terrorist gang claiming to be a state seeking “recognition,” is never explained.
Now an interesting twist to the story is the demonstration of the Israeli Radical Left of its contempt for democracy and for Israeli sovereignty. The Israeli Left, led by the tenured leftists, is willing to endorse pretty much anything that is harmful to its own country. It has been urging European countries to “recognize the state of Palestine.” A petition was signed by dozens of Israel’s most anti-Israel academics, plus some non-academic members of the Hamas Lobby. It was organized by Amiram Goldblum from the Hebrew University, a founder of the extremist anti-Israel “Peace Now” organization, and Alon Liel, an ex-diplomat who now teaches for some reason at Tel Aviv University. These two were earlier among the initiators and organizers of a notorious pseudo-poll that claimed falsely to show that Israeli Jews favor “apartheid.” That “poll” last year was an exercise in distortion and tendentious manipulation, designed to generate misleading “statistics.” It was thoroughly discredited by serious social scientists.
Source Front Page Mag.

Ok, so it's not just a particular Swedish city councillor that you are maintaining is Anti-Semitic, but all of Sweden AND all of the UK, AND the Israeli left? If we have a position that's adopted by most of the world, including nearly 50% of Israelis, maybe it's worth considering that it's not Anti-Semitism after all?

May not be anti-Semitism but it's sure as hell anti Jewish!

 

[DrZoidberg]

There are all together 20 000 Samis in Sweden spread over a vast area. They are thoroughly mixed in with ethnic Swedes. I doubt anybody, even hypothetically, has any clue how any kind of Sami self-rule or self-determination would work? They do have their own parliament, Sametinget. And they do get disproportionately more attention from the government than their tiny numbers should otherwise warrant. It's a miniscule minority. All together there exists 80 000 Sami all over the world. Their numbers can barely populate a minor town. Let alone rule a country. I think it's safe to say that their greatest challenge for Same self-rule is to convince the Samis that they want it at all.

They already have some degree of autonomy. They've got their own local government structures and are exempt from some national laws...

Well.. those laws pretty much only focused on protecting their number one industry, reindeer farming. Heavily subsidised and grossly uneconomical. There's no way it can survive unsupported by the Swedish government. They expect special treatment for historical grievances. The truth of the matter is that Samiland (their traditional home region) has always been grossly underpopulated. It still is. Because of this there has, historically, been very little conflict between Sami and Swedes. Plenty of space for everyone. So it's hard for ethnic Swedes to understand wtf their beef is. There has been quite a few incidents of reindeer unnecessarily being herded onto cultivated land, and that the Sami just don't give a shit. As if it's pure provocation. Totally unnecessary beefs considering all the vast open spaces. So the Sami have gotten quite a bad reputation because of this. But nobody really cares. Since they're so few, it's manageable. They're hardly oppressed.

I think their number one problem is just that there's so few of them compared to Swedes. They don't matter as much. But that's nobody's fault. They'll just need to fuck more.

 

[No Robots]

I like what you say, Dr. Zoidberg. Yeah, calling the pro-Palestinian lefties anti-semites is unfair. But sometimes you need to hit these types over the head to get their attention.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I like what you say, Dr. Zoidberg. Yeah, calling the pro-Palestinian lefties anti-semites is unfair. But sometimes you need to hit these types over the head to get their attention.

It is annoying how any gentile criticising Israel is always accused to be anti-Semitic by somebody. It does not meaningful discussions make. I don't even remember how many times I've been accused of anti-Semitism on this forum, and I'm pro-Israel! I just think that there's a hell of a lot Israel does wrong. A hell of a lot.

 

[No Robots]

I just look at how satisfied I am with my own fucked-up country and think, "Well, thank God we're not trying to run a place like Israel!"

eta: And I don't mean this sarcastically. I'm really, really satisfied with my fucked-up country. And I'd probably be really satisfied with any country I called home.

 

[No Robots]

My real concern is that the Left has undertaken Israel as a cause that it hopes to remediate using South Africa as a model. I blame Jimmy Carter for this. Really, really ill-advised approach.

 

[Togo]

O
k, so it's not just a particular Swedish city councillor that you are maintaining is Anti-Semitic, but all of Sweden AND all of the UK, AND the Israeli left? If we have a position that's adopted by most of the world, including nearly 50% of Israelis, maybe it's worth considering that it's not Anti-Semitism after all?

May not be anti-Semitism but it's sure as hell anti Jewish!

???? Even the Jews are anti-Jewish? Why are you so reluctant to accept that people might oppose Israel's actions on their merits?

 

[Togo]

My real concern is that the Left has undertaken Israel as a cause that it hopes to remediate using South Africa as a model. I blame Jimmy Carter for this. Really, really ill-advised approach.

Ok, I'll bite. Why?

I'd be interested in what is a good approach. Sweden is being criticised for intending to recognise Palestine as a country, despite this being a necessary part of any two-state solution. Is there a better approach they should be taking? Or that anyone should be taking?

 

[No Robots]

The S. Africa model is based on the demolition of the existing state. Applying it to Israel necessarily would mean a Palestinian majority, which Israeli's would never accept. The two-state solution is not realistic. Neither state would be viable over the long term. The only permanent solution would involve two peoples/one state. I suggest reading Harry Waton's The Historical significance of the political division of Palestine. Waton has an off-putting declamatory style that most would see as crack-pot, but I think he's correct.

 

[fromderinside]

I've always been fascinated by the fact that Israel which started as result of a secular mandate, UN recognition of statehood, then uses their religious texts to establish the extent of that state well beyond that granted by the UN. Then Israel got tacit support from others to do just that because the others are religiously similar. Then these same other states demand those being attacked, as a precondition to certification of their statehood, negotiate it with the Israelis.

So much for international secularism. Go Sweden Go.

 

[Togo]

The S. Africa model is based on the demolition of the existing state. Applying it to Israel necessarily would mean a Palestinian majority, which Israeli's would never accept. The two-state solution is not realistic. Neither state would be viable over the long term.

Why not? Is Israel not viable as it stands? If it isn't, then why would it matter if it gets demolished? If it is, then why does it need to expand into Palestine, as it is doing?

The only permanent solution would involve two peoples/one state. I suggest reading Harry Waton's The Historical significance of the political division of Palestine. Waton has an off-putting declamatory style that most would see as crack-pot, but I think he's correct.

Seriously?

I'm pretty sure he sounds like a crack-pot because he's a crackpot. He's arguing that Jews have a moral right to the land because they stole it by force first, that Arabs don't want to be civilised and thus must be ruled by those who do, and that the UN is the supreme moral authority on earth.

Can you explain how your favoured two-peoples-one-state solution, in which one people runs the state but two peoples live in it, is any different from Apartheid? Or why it is that Jews not wanting to be ruled by Arabs makes democracy impossible, but Arabs not wanting to be ruled by Jews can simply be ignored?

 

[4321lynx]

Well, most interesting. Thank you DrZ, Angelo & Togo. In a short time this morning I have learned about, or updated my knowledge of, Swedish, Israeli and Palestinian attitudes and about Lefties and Rightists in those countries.

But Angelo when you say

All this from Britain, the occupier of Gibraltar, the Falklands, Wales, Scotland, Ulster, and the Channel Islands.

you commit some errors

It was not Britain that "occupied" those places, it was the English. The Empire was an English empire. Britain was an idea the English created again (IE revived) to facilitate a feeling of inclusiveness for those and other territories/peoples. How "included" they feel/felt about themselves, history has demonstrated or is demonstrating to us.
You forgot, among others, Cornwall, where within living memory many quite naturally talked and maybe still talk, about "going to England" when they went to Devon and points east, where they sang like their cousins the Welsh, but in English, and preferred cider to beer like their Breton cousins "oppressed" by France. Then there's The Isle of Man...
You called those other islands The Falklands. Surely you should have said Las Malvinas, like my wife (not an Argentinian) and ALL of America south of the Rio Grande has it. (this leads to some interesting discussions when I choose to feel "frightfully British" and praise the liberation of the Falklands in that recent war, won by Britain, where some of my wife's misguided near and dear served as volunteers, helping the Argies against us

And Palestine. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestine. The name is old, as that link will show. It was revived by the "evil" Brits:

The boundaries of the region have changed throughout history. The modern definition of the region was fixed in the North and East by the 1920-23 Paulet–Newcombe Agreement and British Mandate for Palestine,[2][3] and on the South by the 1906 Turco-Egyptian boundary agreement.[4] Today, the region comprises the State of Israel and Palestinian territories in which the State of Palestine was declared

I thank everybody for their attention to my partial derail of the OP. No thanks to those that just switched it off. It was THEIR loss, not mine.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Palestinians both Israelis and Arabs have equality in Israel, not in Gaza.

Source?

My understanding was that the issues are similar on either side of the border. In Gaza sale of property to Jews, particularly Israeli Jews (i.e. almost all of them) is prevented, for fear that it will be used as a legal pretext for another illegal settlement. Meanwhile, in Israel Arabs get regularly discriminated against in property and building reg disputes, as part of the settlement program, and in contentious areas, such as East Jerusalem, and along the border. Arab property rights in Israel are not given the same legal protection in Israel as Jewish property rights. If you have a source that says something different, I'd be interested to see it.

I don't think it's really clear what the reality is.

The problem is a lot of the building disputes with Arabs in Israel involve blatant rulebreaking, often more for PR purposes than anything else. How many legitimate issues there are is hard to pick out above the noise.

 

[ZiprHead]

Source?

My understanding was that the issues are similar on either side of the border. In Gaza sale of property to Jews, particularly Israeli Jews (i.e. almost all of them) is prevented, for fear that it will be used as a legal pretext for another illegal settlement. Meanwhile, in Israel Arabs get regularly discriminated against in property and building reg disputes, as part of the settlement program, and in contentious areas, such as East Jerusalem, and along the border. Arab property rights in Israel are not given the same legal protection in Israel as Jewish property rights. If you have a source that says something different, I'd be interested to see it.

I don't think it's really clear what the reality is.

The problem is a lot of the building disputes with Arabs in Israel involve blatant rulebreaking, often more for PR purposes than anything else. How many legitimate issues there are is hard to pick out above the noise.

You seem to have a very astute ability to pick out "noise".

 

[Jayjay]

The S. Africa model is based on the demolition of the existing state. Applying it to Israel necessarily would mean a Palestinian majority, which Israeli's would never accept. The two-state solution is not realistic. Neither state would be viable over the long term. The only permanent solution would involve two peoples/one state. I suggest reading Harry Waton's The Historical significance of the political division of Palestine. Waton has an off-putting declamatory style that most would see as crack-pot, but I think he's correct.

I think the two-state solution is needed to separate the "two peoples" and let them cool off for a generation or so. Then they'll figure out on their own that they need closer integration. You can't force two groups who've basically been slaughtering each other for the past hundred years to make up their mutual distrust overnight.

 

[whichphilosophy]

The following countries have Palestinian embassies:

- Algeria - Algiers
- Argentina - Buenos Aires
- Azerbaijan - Baku
- Bahrain - Manama
- Bangladesh - Dhaka
- Belarus - Minsk
- Bosnia and Herzegovina - Sarajevo
- Brazil - Brasilia
- Bulgaria - Sofia
- Chile - Santiago
- China - Beijing
- Cuba - Havana
- Cyprus - Nicosia
- Czech Republic - Prague
- Djibouti - Djibouti Ville
- Ethiopia - Addis Ababa
- Guinea - Conakry
- Hungary - Budapest
- India - New Delhi
- Indonesia - Jakarta
- Iran - Tehran
- Kazakhstan - Astana
- Kuwait - Kuwait City
- Lebanon - Beirut
- Malaysia - Kuala Lumpur
- Mali - Bamako
- Malta - Valletta
- Morocco - Rabat
- Mozambique - Maputo
- Nicaragua - Managua
- Oman - Muscat
- Pakistan - Islamabad
- Peru - Lima
- Poland - Warsaw
- Qatar - Doha
- Romania - Bucharest
- Russia - Moscow
- Saudi Arabia - Riyadh
- Serbia - Belgrade
- Slovakia - Bratislava
- South Africa - Pretoria
- Sri Lanka - Colombo
- Sudan - Khartoum
- Switzerland - Bern
- Syria - Damascus
- Tunisia - Tunis
- Turkey - Ankara
- Ukraine - Kiev
- United Arab Emirates - Abu Dhabi
- Uzbekistan - Tashkent
- Vietnam - Hanoi
- Yemen - Sana'a
- Zambia - Lusaka
- Zimbabwe - Harare

The UK has a consulate in Palestine. Though there is no Palestinian embassy there is a Palestinian representative office in the UK.

 

[4321lynx]

The Eastern members of EU Poland, Hungary, the Czechs, Slovakia, Romania, have the embassies but the rest of the EU do not?

 

[DrZoidberg]

The Eastern members of EU Poland, Hungary, the Czechs, Slovakia, Romania, have the embassies but the rest of the EU do not?

I suspect it's for Cold War reasons. Western Europe does't want to annoy USA and eastern Europe doesn't want to annoy Russia. It's purely a symbolic gesture. I doubt anybody in Europe really cares. Not really. FYI, there is no operating commercial carrier that transports people to and from the Palestinian territories. The only way to go is the Rafah checkpoint, reached overland via Egypt through the desert. Apparently it involves a lot of walking since you can't bring your car with you through the actual checkpoint. There is no infrastructure to make this pleasant in any way. Tourism is holding steady at 0%. So there is no country that has any practical reason to have an embassy there.

 

[4321lynx]

Good information DrZ, except that Poland, Hungary and Romania very much wish to annoy Russia. Poland was the first country to recognize the Ukraine's independence in the 1990s and leads the criticism of, and opposition to, Russia's actions there this year. The Canadian and American air and ground reinforcements, such as they are, are stationed in Poland.

 

[Jayjay]

Good information DrZ, except that Poland, Hungary and Romania very much wish to annoy Russia. Poland was the first country to recognize the Ukraine's independence in the 1990s and leads the criticism of, and opposition to, Russia's actions there this year. The Canadian and American air and ground reinforcements, such as they are, are stationed in Poland.

I believe that those countries recognized Palestine and established diplomatic relations in 1988, before Soviet Union fell.