Not all garbage

Vincent is giving me a real headache. On the one hand, he is undoubtedly a racist, and he has chosen to reinforce his ideology with a lot of pseudoscientific garbage by that worthless professor MacDonald. On the other hand, several of the points he makes about Israel are valid.

Firstly, I agree that the political and economic functions of the West Bank-Gaza Strip Palestinian statelet vis-a-vis Israel are very similar to those of the now defunct Bantustans (or “homelands”) in South Africa. Secondly, it is obviously a fact that the roads between those enclaves are patrolled by Jews.

Third is the question of democracy in Israel. He says it is a democracy only for the Jews. Although untrue in form, this is true in content. Yes, Arab citizens of Israel do have the right to vote, form parties and stand in elections. However, this is meaningless when you consider that the vast majority of Palestinian Arabs were forcibly expelled by Zionist terror when Israel was founded. Since then, more and more Jews have migrated to Israel from all corners of the earth. Therefore, the Arabs population in the Israeli state has been a tiny minority right from the start, and is more and more widely outnumbered with every passing year. Israel can let them vote because they will always be a minority and have no hope of changing anything. Democracy for Israeli Arabs is, therefore, no more than window dressing.

Control of the roads was to be phased out and turned over to the Palestinians.

Huh? The Israeli Supreme Court just last week affirmed the right of Arab political parties that deny Israel’s right to exist to exist and participate in Israeli politics!

Many of them were told to leave by the Arab nations surrounding Israel in preparation for the attack on Israel as soon as Israel declared statehood.

I think that is incorrect. In fact, in the next 20 years, it is estimated that the population of Israel will increase from 7.1 million to 9.7 million. The Jewish population will increase from 5.0 million, or 70 percent of the total, to 6.3 million, or 65 percent of the total – and that is estimate is based on optimistic assumptions that Jews from around the world will continue to migrate to Israel. The non-Jewish population is expected to increase much more quickly, from 2.1 million to 3.4 million, primarily from more rapid growth of the Israeli Arab population.

The increase in the Arab population is due to two main factors: 1) a high birth rate – 3.7 percent for Israeli Muslims and even higher for Palestinians, and 2) the illegal influx of Palestinians from the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, and Jordan.

In addition, the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza will likely increase from 3.0 million to 5.8 million in the next 20 years. If these estimates prove accurate, Israel’s population will increas from 10.1 million, with Jews comprising slightly less than 50%, to 15.5 million, where Jews will comprise just slightly in excess of 40%.

This increase in the Arab population would likely result in a dramatic change in the structure of Israeli society and the Knesset will undoubtedly be transformed.

Control of the roads between the West Bank and Gaza will still be in the hands of Israel, of course.

[quote=“tigerman”]

Huh? The Israeli Supreme Court just last week affirmed the right of Arab political parties that deny Israel’s right to exist to exist and participate in Israeli politics![/quote]

What is the point of stating that when I have agreed that Arab Israelis enjoy democracy in form, but not in essence? By the way, there are also Jews who, for religious or political reasons, do not recognize the legitimacy of the Israeli state.

That still leaves Jews in the majority, and not all of the non-Jews are Arabs.

[quote=“tigerman”]…the illegal influx of Palestinians from the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, and Jordan.

In addition, the Palestinian population in the West Bank and Gaza will likely increase from 3.0 million to 5.8 million in the next 20 years.[/quote]

Those figures have no bearing on the question of democracy in Israel, because illegal migrants have no more right to vote in Israel than they do in any other country, and nor do citizens of the Palestinian statelet.

No, you have performed a statistical conjuring trick by including the population of the West Bank and Gaza in the population of Israel.

Because you are wrong. Different races have the SAME BASIC INTERESTS. This is what GJ was getting at. Your inability to see this is the root cause of your nonsense.

We dismiss you because of your assumption, an assumption that is patently wrong and which means that all your argument thereafter sprints off without a compass. Ever seen Monty Python’s 100m for those with no sense of direction?

Thanks, I read enough on the internet yesterday to get the general gist. I do know a bit about genetics and evolution, and I know a pool of drool when I see one. If you want to read something worthwile on genetics, then I suggest you get your hands on some books by Richard Dawkins.

If “the Jews” were a race, then they would be the same race as the Palestinians. But the Jews are not a race. Firstly, while many Palestinian Arabs are no doubt descended from the Jews of biblical Palestine, not all modern-day Jews are. Secondly, Jews have mixed with the populations of the countries in which they reside, with the result that the Jews in each country have a greater resemblance to the people in that country than they do to Jews in other countries. There are black Jews, blond Jews and Chinese-looking Jews. What kind of a “race” is that?

If you haven’t read it, I suggest you go and get “The Thirteenth Tribe” by Arthur Koestler, a book much hated by Zionists. You can download the whole book from the internet, if you want.

The Jew comes in many colors; black, white, brown, you name it. And they all come out from Africa. Read Exodus.

ax

Riddle me this:

Arafat, whatever you or I may think of him, was chosen as the leader of his people in an election that was declared free and fair by independent (EU) observers. No other middle-eastern leader can make the same claim, although Isreal itself does seem to have a reasonably stable democracy.

Most of the US’ allies in the region are unelected dictators, yet Arafat is ‘irrelevant’ and Iran - with it’s elected parliament that is trying to introduce reforms - is part of an ‘axis of evil’.

Is there something I’m missing here?

both sides have an axis to grind :blush:

ax-is

Ax, i wouldn’t say i actually laughed but the corners of my mouth did kind of twitch.

Great stuff. Could not agree more. For evolution, The Blind Watchmaker is the best I have read. If only the sensible stuff got more of a following than the looney-toons stuff that is gobbled up because its fits into prejudices without requiring any thought on the part of the reader.

I laughed, which is the only solution really. I mean that if they would all stop taking themselves so seriously none of this would ever have happened.

Did someone mention Monty Python?

[quote=“Juba”][quote=“tigerman”]

Huh? The Israeli Supreme Court just last week affirmed the right of Arab political parties that deny Israel’s right to exist to exist and participate in Israeli politics![/quote]

What is the point of stating that when I have agreed that Arab Israelis enjoy democracy in form, but not in essence? By the way, there are also Jews who, for religious or political reasons, do not recognize the legitimacy of the Israeli state.[/quote]

Juba,

I don’t understand what point you are trying to make here. The Palestinians and Arabs in Israel do have democracy. Are you saying that because they are a minority that they essentially do not have democracy?

If so, I don’t understand. Should the minority decide in a democracy? You indicated, correctly, that there are Jews in Israel who do not recognize the legitimacy of Israel… so it would appear to me that a democracy, while not giving the minority the right to decide, certainly gives it an important, and audible, voice… that is, I think, at least part of the essence of democracy.

One important feature of US democracy is “rule by the majority with protection for the minority”.

[quote=“tmwc”]Riddle me this:

Arafat, whatever you or I may think of him, was chosen as the leader of his people in an election that was declared free and fair by independent (EU) observers. No other middle-eastern leader can make the same claim, although Isreal itself does seem to have a reasonably stable democracy.

Most of the US’ allies in the region are unelected dictators, yet Arafat is ‘irrelevant’ and Iran - with it’s elected parliament that is trying to introduce reforms - is part of an ‘axis of evil’.

Is there something I’m missing here?[/quote]

  1. From the point of view of the US, I think Arafat is “irrelevant” because Clinton felt let-down by his rejection of the last peace proposal. For Bush, his view may have been partly influenced by this, too.

  2. For Sharon, its a personal battle between the two that has been going on far too long for either of them to change. Sharon basically hates Arafat.

  3. For some Palestinians… well… let Edward Said (June 17th 2002) explain his views:

[quote=“Edward Said”]Fifth, is Yasser Arafat and his circle of associates who have suddenly discovered the virtues (theoretically at least) of democracy and reform. I know that I speak at a great distance from the field of struggle, and I also know all the arguments about the besieged Arafat as a potent symbol of Palestinian resistance against Israeli aggression, but I have come to a point where I think none of that has any meaning anymore. Arafat is simply interested in saving himself. He has had almost ten years of freedom to run a petty kingdom and has succeeded essentially in bringing opprobrium and scorn on himself and most of his team; the Authority became a byword for brutality, autocracy and unimaginable corruption. Why anyone for a moment believes that at this stage he is capable of anything different, or that his new streamlined cabinet (dominated by the same old faces of defeat and incompetence) is going to produce actual reform, defies reason. He is the leader of a long suffering people, whom in the past year he has exposed to unacceptable pain and hardship, all of it based on a combination of his absence of a strategic plan and his unforgivable reliance on the tender mercies of Israel and the US via Oslo. Leaders of independence and liberation movements have no business exposing their unarmed people to the savagery of war criminals like Sharon, against whom there was no real defence or advance preparation. Why then provoke a war whose victims would be mostly innocent people when you have neither the military capacity to fight one nor the diplomatic leverage to end it? Having done this now three times (Jordan, Lebanon, West Bank) Arafat should not be given a chance to bring on a fourth disaster.

He has announced that elections will take place in early 2003, but his real concentration is to reorganise the security services. I have long pointed out in these columns that Arafat’s security apparatus was always designed principally to serve him and Israel, since the Oslo accords were based on his having made a deal with Israel’s military occupation. Israel cared only about its security, for which it held Arafat responsible (a position, by the way, he willingly accepted as early as 1992). In the meantime Arafat used the 15 or 19 or whatever the right number of groups was to play each off against the other, a tactic he perfected in Fakahani, and which is patently stupid so far as the general good is concerned. He never really reined in Hamas and Islamic Jihad which suited Israel perfectly: it would have a ready- made excuse to use the so-called martyr’s (mindless) suicide bombings to further diminish and punish the whole people. If there is one thing along with Arafat’s ruinous regime that has done us more harm as a cause it is this calamitous policy of killing Israeli civilians, which further proves to the world that we are indeed terrorists and an immoral movement. For what gain no one has been able to say.

Having therefore made a deal with the occupation through Oslo, Arafat was never really in a position to lead a movement to end it. And ironically, he is trying to make another deal now, both to save himself and prove to the US, Israel and the other Arabs that he deserves another chance. I myself don’t care a whit for what Bush, or the Arab leaders, or Sharon says: I am interested in what we as a people think of our leader, and there I believe we must be absolutely clear in rejecting his entire programme of reform, elections, reorganising the government and security services. His record of failure is too dismal and his capacities as a leader too enfeebled and incompetent for him to try yet again to save himself for another try.[/quote]

Later, in the same article, Said makes the further point:

He seems to be in a vulnerable position!

I think this stuff is too important to be “flamed out” in a week, so I will post this in the US of Shame thread, too.

I think you do understand, Tigerman. The Palestinian Arabs were originally the majority in Palestine. The Zionists made them into a minority by expelling most of them and then gave the vote to the few who remained. So kind! It’s basically the same trick Britain played in Ireland by creating the artificial Northern Ireland statelet - the nationalist Catholics were turned from a majority in Ireland as a whole into a minority in Northern Ireland, and the unionist (loyalist) Protestants were transformed from a minority into a majority, thereby allowing Britain to keep a chunk of Ireland in the name of “democracy.” I hope you know enough about Irish history to know what I am talking about. If there were democracy for Ireland as a whole, British rule in Ireland would come to an end. Similarly, if there were democracy for all the Jews, Arabs and other people of Palestine as a whole, including returned Palestinian refugees, then the Zionist project would be defeated.

Imyourbiggestfan: thanks, no real argument there with regard to Arafat - and I’m keeping away from the USA threads in case I lose my temper completely. :laughing:

Juba: Yes there are a lot of similarities between Israel and Ireland, but I think you’re confusing the issue. Let’s not forget that Ireland (all of Ireland!) negotiated peaceful autonomy from Britain using the democratic process in 1914. It wasn’t implemented because a minority of people on both sides of the political divide chose violence, which spiralled into a war, leading to partition. The objective was to protect a minority group who saw themselves as being threatened and would have perpetuated the bloodshed in ‘self defense’.

The compromise solution when the rest of Ireland became independent was for N.I. to govern itself and for the people there to work it out for themselves. The troops were only sent in (and direct rule from London reimposed) when they showed that they couldn’t, and most British people were unhappy about it.

It’s all very well to point the finger at the protestants for causing trouble - and I know a great joke about Ian Paisley - but you can’t really blame them for being the descendents of people who were pretty shabbily treated by the power elite of the time. The protestants in NI were transplanted there, without having any say in the matter, by people who had power of life or death over them. Their position, like the modern day Palestinians, is not of their own making.

Britain also mis-handled the creation of the state of Israel, but then again they were under fire from terrorists - sorry, that should read ‘freedom fighters’ - including Ariel Sharon, and anxious to get out of what was really someone else’s problem.

The big difference between the two disputes is that most British and most Irish people have got on with their lives and made friends. There has always been an open border between the two countries, and no one has ever tried to prevent Irish people going to live and work in Britain. Many Irish catholics served in the British armed forces during WWII, and Ireland evolved into the successful republic it is today over several decades without significant (ie military) interference or opposition from Britain.

There is democracy in Ireland, and the actions of a few lunatics on each side should not colour your view of the realities. The people of the Republic of Ireland have agreed democratically, in a free and fair referendum, to give up their territorial claim to NI. They have recognised the real world for what it is, instead of clinging to stupid divisions, and got on with the business of living together peacefully. This wasn’t a concession to Britain’s imperialist fantasies, it was recognition of a reality that needed to be addressed. I know that many Irish people still feel in their hearts that it’s all one Ireland, but they’ve been willing to make a political concession for the sake of peace - peace for someone else - and have my respect for doing so.

Sure we have differences of opinion as individuals, but we’re not going to start blowing each other up over them. That sort of thing is left to terrorists, and they don’t get a lot of support from ordinary people (of any political persuasion) who are going to get caught in the crossfire. People on the other side of the Atlantic (Actually I don’t know where Juba is from, but arguments like his usually emanate from the USA) saying there is no democracy in Ireland, and that the British people will endure decades of terrorism simply to occupy an impoverished part of someone else’s country, need to take their heads out of their arses.

The activities of Noraid in supporting the IRA during the '70s and '80s did a lot to foster anti-american sentiment in Britain. I grew up with bomb alerts, women and children being blown up in shopping centres, nail bombs, car bombs, hotels being blown up, attacks on office blocks, bandsmen and HORSES dying in the streets. And there was a very clear public perception in my country that a lot of it was financed by idiots overseas who didn’t understand that I could travel to Ireland and drink a few Guinesses with people who disapproved of what was going on as much as I did.

Instead of saying that there’s no democracy in Ireland you should say that decisions were made for the British people without consulting them. Nobody I knew in Britain ever gave a toss about Northern Ireland, and if the issue had ever been put to a referendum in Britain then the whole problem would have been handed over to the government in Dublin. And Ireland would still be fighting to subdue a minority people who have nowhere else to go and are still fighting religious wars that ended centuries ago.

An Irish catholic republican friend of mine told me an interesting story: He was in the USA, and got talking to an ‘Irish-American’ who ventured the opinion that the protestants should just be cleared out as they were not Irish. (Just like the Palestinians.) My friend’s reply was that there have been protestants in Ireland for longer than there have been white (or black) people in many parts of the americas. Take the view that land only belongs to it’s original inhabitants, and most of the people of the USA are going to have to go back ‘home’.

If the great Sioux nation starts an intifida to reclaim their spiritual homeland and repair the damage done to their holiest places - Mt Rushmore! - they would only be exercising the same logic that seems to be acceptable to most Americans when it’s exercised by the Israelis. If your god gives your land to you do you eradicate anyone else who lives there, or do you learn to live with them?

We can go on forever laying the blame at the feet of the British, the Americans, even the Normans, for their actions in the past. But the reality is that people have to grow up and find a way to live in today’s world.

So please get off your Irish hobby-horse. It’s an issue that has been more or less settled, and will become increasingly irrlevant as the EU coalesces. Otherwise I agree with what you were saying though. :smiley:

I think you do understand, Tigerman. The Palestinian Arabs were originally the majority in Palestine.[/quote]

No, I didn’t understand your statement that the Palestinians have democracy in form but not in essence in Israel.

Be very careful about using “originally” in an argument.

tmwc,

First-class analysis, comments and conclusions – among the best pieces I’ve seen on these boards on a serious subject.

[quote=“Omniloquacious”]tmwc,

First-class analysis, comments and conclusions – among the best pieces I’ve seen on these boards on a serious subject.[/quote]

I agree. A fascinating read. it deserves to be taken out of the flame and quoted elsewhere. I’m off to do just that.

Well, thanks to Imyourbiggestfan, I am now a terrorist target. Here, have some karma while I’m still alive to distribute it. (Should I be worried or reassured by the fact that James Bond is Irish?)

I guess the reaction is a first class example of what is also going on in the middle-east? Is there no place in the world a guy can go to escape this sort of shit?

Well, thanks to Imyourbiggestfan, I am now a terrorist target. Here, have some karma while I’m still alive to distribute it. (Should I be worried or reassured by the fact that James Bond is Irish?)

I guess the reaction is a first class example of what is also going on in the middle-east? Is there no place in the world a guy can go to escape this sort of shit?[/quote]

No.

I have just travelled 8,800 miles from Northern Ireland to an obscure little island in Asia no-one back home has ever heard of - and guess what ? After leaving the poxy place at the age of 18 in order to escape these sorts of circular bigotted discussions full of hatred, I am rather depressed to realize I will never escape discussions on Northern Ireland. Sometimes I just want to take my British and Irish passports and burn them both…