Replies to post #425054 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[fuagf]

Because some leftists felt there should be. And because some others felt it was deserved. I don't see any deflection at all on my part.

[sortagreen]

"Why are the college kids and Israel = apartheid folks so limited in their repertoire? Are there no other countries worthy of financial boycotts or condemnation based on moral or ethical failings? (obviously excluding the Russia situation)."

Why excluding Russia? That doesn't count?

Let's see... We have sanctions on Iran, Myanmar, Cuba, Syria, Venezuela... North Korea. Not Israel though. Certainly not Saudi Arabia... But individual people are clearly allowed to decide whom they will and won't do business with. And states passing laws to punish them for it is so blatantly unconstitutional it makes my head hurt.

"Jews in various countries get attacked when Israel misbehaves."

Well, that's just wrong. It's wrong when it's done to Arabs or Asians too, and it is... a lot. But nothing about it justifies your conquest and occupation of someone else's lands, or gives you the right to abuse human rights.

If you had any sense of fucking shame, you'd understand that.

The UN granted the creation of Israel, and people can argue the right or wrong of it, but it's a fact. They sure as hell didn't sanction the conquest of the West Bank or Gaza or the Golan heights or even the Negev... and certainly didn't grant anyone the right to subjugate the people who lived there for centuries before you came.

In 1973 the simplicity of the plan was succinctly described by Ariel Sharon when he was asked what would become of the Palestinians.

"We'll make a pastrami sandwich of them," he boasted to a British journalist at Israel's National Press Club. "Yes, we'll insert a strip of Jewish settlements in between the Palestinians, and then another strip of Jewish settlements right across the West Bank, so that in 25 years' time, neither the United Nations nor the United States, nobody, will be able to tear it apart."

In fairness to the settlers themselves, the film's Palestinian director is careful to emphasise that the overwhelming majority of them are not fanatics but have been coopted into migrating to the West Bank by the massive tax breaks and housing subsidies that make life in the settlements so attractive.

By encouraging these settlers to live normal lives in the Occupied Territories, however, the Israeli government is using them to impoverish and isolate their Palestinian neighbours. Because every settlement needs room for "natural growth", Palestinians living in adjacent communities must have their land confiscated and their homes demolished. To keep the settlers' swimming pools full and their lawns green, water must be diverted from the Palestinians. For settlers to commute to work in Israel without having to see a Palestinian, a network of Israeli-only bypass roads must be built across the West Bank. Even the settlements' sewerage is channeled onto Palestinian land.

In this sense, every aspect of infrastructure associated with the settlements serves a dual purpose. Building new houses causes Palestinian overcrowding. Their water pipes cause water shortages. The bypass roads increase the distance between people. Their sewerage works force people to live next to stinking streams of filth.

https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/well-make-pastrami-sandwich-them

You should never be ashamed to be a Jew, but this crap? Are you really willing to be this?


Facts on the Ground