Berlin Stops Blocking Artists From Criticizing Israel After Massive Boycott
Berlin Stops Blocking Artists From Criticizing Israel After Massive Boycott
A controversial rule restricting speech about Israel was dropped after artists abandoned festival lineups in Germany’s techno mecca.
A controversial rule restricting speech about Israel was dropped after artists abandoned festival lineups in Germany’s techno mecca.
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It is, its idiotic and they stole the land as well.
This is the same argument Russia has for Ukraine btw.
No they didn't. Even the christian crusaders, who where happy to commit pogroms against jews in Europe as a sort of "motivational entertainment" had to note the peaceful coexistence of jews, christians and muslims under islamic rule.
The Palestinians of today are the descendants of the biblical abrahamic tribes. White european, often secular, jews, who now control Israel are killing the people whose lineage is closer to David and Abraham, than theirs could ever be.
The main reason the jews under the Ottoman empire started the Yishuv and congregated in Palestine hoping to get their own country was that they were seriously discriminated against under islamic rule. They had to pay more taxes, were restricted in what clothing they could wear, were not allowed to build or maintain houses of worship, ride horses, carry weapons, ... and were generally valued as less than muslims wrt legal rulings. This wasn't enforced everywhere throughout the entire history of the empire, but I don't think anyone would be happy in that situation.
Currently, less than half the Israelis are descendent from 'white European' immigrants
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_the_Ottoman_Empire
Historian Martin Gilbert writes that it was in the 19th century that the position of Jews worsened in Muslim countries.[38] According to Mark Cohen in The Oxford Handbook of Jewish Studies, most scholars conclude that Arab anti-Semitism in the modern world arose in the nineteenth century, against the backdrop of conflicting Jewish and Arab nationalism, and was imported into the Arab world primarily by nationalistically minded Christian Arabs (and only subsequently was it "Islamized")
1865, when the equality of all subjects of the Ottoman Empire was proclaimed, Ahmed Cevdet Pasha, a high-ranking official observed, "whereas in former times, in the Ottoman State, the communities were ranked, with the Muslims first, then the Greeks, then the Armenians, then the Jews, now all of them were put on the same level. Some Greeks objected to this, saying: 'The government has put us together with the Jews. We were content with the supremacy of Islam.'"
That seems to me, as a result of the general nationalism that emerged and specifically the long lasting antisemitic tradition of the Christians to take influence with the decline of the Ottoman empire.
Meanwhile there are extensive links between zionism and anti-semitism, where secular zionists often worked together with anti-semitists to push for the zionist project as a mean to remove jews from western countries.
Cherrypicking aside, the worsening situation coinciding with the crumbling of the Ottoman empire further supports my point. Larger nationalists groups were going to carve up the territories for themselfves and the jews were so dispersed that they would remain small minorities everywhere. But facing nationalists and religious extremists while losing the 'umbrella' of the Ottomans (which was already discriminatory at best).
You cite the reforms under the tanzimat period but very conveniently forget what followed: a return to a monarchist caliphate with a sultan that abandoned the millet system for the ideal of a united people under islam.
It is not my intend to cherrypick. The notion of "islamic rule" by itself could create the idea that islam is monocausal in this, because western history education generally lacks in covering the Ottoman empire, or anything that isn't eurocentric. In school i learned almost nothing about the Ottoman empire, the Mauretanian empire, Persia, China or other important empires in global history aside from the notion of "In those years they lead conquest into Europe and in those years they were kicked out again. And in these other years Europeans were there and colonized."
Meanwhile the ruling class in Israel is predominantly of european descent. So the fair idea of the Mizrahi and Sephardi to have a state with a strong enough jewish population to enjoy and protect equal rights for them was still taken over and led to their discrimination by the later european settlers, who enjoyed stronger support from the european countries and US.
What makes you say that Mizrahi and Sephardi jews are discriminated against? Do you feel they were tricked into migrating?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Israel#Intra-Jewish_racism:_Racism_between_Jews
I cannot judge if they were tricked into migrating, but they were and are subject to discrimination in todays Israel.
I think this is important to note in the discussion, where from westeren countries the current state of Israel is often painted as the only and therefore righteous way, to grant jewish people sovereignity. When seeing the origin of the current state of Israel in the context of european and american antisemitism, nationalism and post-colonialism it becomes more clear, that the underlying motives were not to genuinly prevent further anti-semitism and it did not arise from a genuine care for the jewish people.
So the ethnic discrimination inside Israel, already starting from the beginning, is an indicator for colonial motivations in establishing a state run predominantly by Europeans in the heart of the Middle East and in control of one of the holiest sites of all abrahamic religions. In terms of geopolitics Israel has been very useful to the West, to destabilize and divide the Middle East, and in the competition of reordering the world after WW2 it must have been an important project, to prevent the emergence of an Arab power bloc that could have been more powerful than the EU is today.
When looking at the way that still anti-zionism or even just general criticism of Israel is shunned as being anti-semitic in Germany, it is important to see it as the deflection that it is. The goal of this is to prevent a discussion about the actions of Israel and the current way it conducts itself. This is not to say, that there is no anti-semitism amongst anti-zionists, or also that some are merely using anti-zionism as a vehicle for anti-semitism. There is certainly both. But in Germany for the past month many jews were shunned for criticising Israel. When looking at the historical context, this conduct of German government and mainstream society becomes even more absurd.
The primary question flowing from the earlier posts is brushed aside in half a sentence and flooded with all the sins of Israel, Europe, and the world :-)
It's actually a very essential question to answer, whether they 'deserved' their own country out of the ruins of the Ottoman empire instead of facing the discrimination as a minority in the hardening sectarian climate of the region. Was the UN 'right' in their decision to grant them a piece? Were the Arab states 'right' that there shouldn't be a piece with a jewish majority?
I'd gladly discuss the other points you touch but I'm afraid they're just added to the soup to distract from having to think about the above.
I mean to this question the answer is very simple on one side and very complicated on the other.
On the one side every human, every group of human, be it by ethnic, religious, cultural or other metric has the right to live in safety, dignity and with the ability to self develop and participate politically.
If there was a land, where any such group is settled as significant majority, they deserve to have sovereignity over their affairs, be it in a nation state or a federal state.
Founding todays Israel in the way it was founded. Without hearing the Palestinians on the matter and with the Nakba was a grave mistake. It is the root of the subsequent violence and injustice that we still see today. I believe that having a longer UN mandate, maybe taken from the British and instead given to an international coalition, would have helped in finding a diplomatic solution that could have resulted in one nation state that grants the aforementioned rights equally to the people, irrespective of their religion or ethnicity.
Given that today there is about 7 Million Palestinians and about 7 Million Israeli Jews in the area i would see a historic chance to put the area back under UN control and work towards forming a new state for everyone currently living in the area. Such a process would take decades though.
Instead of creating a nation where one group has the majority over the other, creating a state where all groups have about the same power and are forced to work together diplomatically could have been the greatest story of integration in history. I believe that it still can be, if the world decides to think in terms of working together, instead of sowing division again. However there we are back to the geopolitical goals of the global player. In so far i also see it as a great test of humanity, if we manage to solve global issues together again.
Last thought, knowing it goes beyond your question: The reason why i believe in a one state solution is, that a two state solution would on the one hand split the Palestinian state in two parts, which is pracitically impossible to govern or on the other hand deny one side access either to the sea or the Jordan. The sea is crucial for trade and development, as every landlocked country in the world can attest to. The Jordan is crucial for the water supply in this otherwise arid region. Any way to split the land between two nations will disadvantage the other on either of these key ressources.
Without hearing the Palestinians on the matter
But this is just gravely incorrect. The Palestinians were heard on the matter. They disagreed. The UN voted for a partitition regardless. Then they were invited in the committee that 'drew the lines'. But their position was the following (quote from the first article):
"The Arab Higher Committee rejected both the majority and minority recommendations within the UNSCOP report. They "concluded from a survey of Palestine history that Zionist claims to that country had no legal or moral basis". The Arab Higher Committee argued that only an Arab State in the whole of Palestine would be consistent with the UN Charter."
and with the Nakba a was a grave mistake. It is the root of the subsequent violence and injustice that we still see today.
The article mentions some colorful quotes from the Arabs regarding the two state solution:
"A few weeks after UNSCOP released its report, Azzam Pasha, the General Secretary of the Arab League, told an Egyptian newspaper "Personally I hope the Jews do not force us into this war because it will be a war of elimination and it will be a dangerous massacre which history will record similarly to the Mongol massacre or the wars of the Crusades."[133] (This statement from October 1947 has often been incorrectly reported as having been made much later on 15 May 1948.)[134] Azzam told Alec Kirkbride "We will sweep them [the Jews] into the sea." Syrian president Shukri al-Quwatli told his people: "We shall eradicate Zionism."[135]
King Farouk of Egypt told the American ambassador to Egypt that in the long run the Arabs would soundly defeat the Jews and drive them out of Palestine.[136]
Haj Amin al-Husseini said in March 1948 to an interviewer from the Jaffa daily Al Sarih that the Arabs did not intend merely to prevent partition but "would continue fighting until the Zionists were annihilated."[135]
The Arab Higher Committee demanded that in a Palestinian Arab state, the majority of the Jews should not be citizens (those who had not lived in Palestine before the British Mandate).[108]"
And the day after the British left, they attacked. And when they lost, they rebuilt their armies and attacked again. And then again. The attacks by their neighbour states only stopped after Israel credibly threatened to retaliate with nuclear weapons.
So with this kind of mindsets (on both sides, I'm leaving out all the evils of zionistst here), do you believe a single state solution would have been viable? Which countries would have sourced the UN peacekeeping force you propose? Would they have been willing to fight off the Arab armies on day one? Would they be willing to stay indefinitely?
I think that the people that believed or still believe in a single state solution with equal rights are naive to the reality that there are just way too much religious extremists willing to inflict atrocities to ensure their place in heaven. On both sides.
Bro you come with David and Abraham when in reality it's about the right for Israel to exist. And that right is granted. There is no legitimate discussion about it everyone thinking Israel shouldn't exists is antisemitic and a idiot.
This place of land has been inhabited for almost the entire human history and pre-history. It had many rulers. Now its Israel and thats it.
You claimed that the land was stolen from the jewish people who were there first, which is the main historical argument, as to why israel has a right to exist, despite the basis for that being the mass displacement and killing of the Palestinians during the Nakba and the subsequent occupation.
But the land was never "stolen" from the jewish people. Most of the Palestinians simply becamse christians and muslims over time. The whole "the state has a right to exist", which is very different from "the people have a right to exist", is a western construct, to justify pushing the jews, who survived the holocaust to Israel and to channel the western countries "redemption" from commiting, being complicit in, or being inactive about the holocaust.
In international law there is no concept of a states "right to exist". People have a right to exist and they have the right to sovereignity, for which a state is a way to express it. But it is not bound to this state of Israel in this constitution and with this government and with this genocide against the Palestinians.
This right to sovereignity is equally maintained in a two state solution, or a one state solution, where Israelis and Palestinians have equal political participation and equal rights as citizens. That was even one of the main ideas of the early zionists. But the later radicalization of zionism after Israel was founded, led them to believe, they could take it all. And that is why they reduced Gaza to rubbles. That is why they tried to displace the people into Egypt. That is why they talk about deporting or murdering all the Palestinians in the Israeli government. And that is why they need to be criticized and they need to be stopped.
This is also what progressive jews demand. And these progressive jews are equally affected by being excluded from public discourse in Germany, being excluded from cultural events and being denied formerly sheduled awards, and being taken into police custody for demonstrating and denied their right to demonstrations. So in alledgedly fighting against antisemitism, Germany commits antisemitism on a huge scale.
Hey thanks for educating me on a nation’s right to exist. I needed that.
You're welcome. It should be added that there is a right of a state to defend itself from military agression. So of course Israel does have the right to defend itself from Hamas or other attacks on its people. This is relevant in the scope of conflicting rights, as Hamas has no right to attack civillians.
So this is not what the "state x has a right to exist" argument is about. It is used and needed to justify the continued denial of the rights of the Palestinians.
It remains an argument of might makes right. Imagine the US would say that the native Americans wanting their land back would be an attack on the US right to existence.
Yep. Thank you again.
Arguing what was left of Palestine before the Six Days War has the right to exist without occupation, homes and crops seized and burnt, being bombed relentlessly, being kidnapped, held and tortured is in no way arguing Israel has no right to exist.
It is, its idiotic and they stole the land as well.
I know you and your ilk don't care about that, but no they didn't. The Palestinians of today are the same Palestinians of 2000 years ago. Palestine wasn't only Jews.
And yet they killed all the jews and whats before that? Our history is a little longer than 2000 years... About 12000 years to be specific. (if we take the first city as the start of human civilization)
Also Judaism is a lot older than Islam, wich is even younger than Christianity, wich itself is based on Judaism.
And yet they killed all the jews and whats before that?
No they... didn't? I'm not even sure what you're talking about. Zionists tend to refer to some nonexistent Arab genocide of all inhabitants of Palestine so they can conveniently claim that the people currently living there "stole" it; is that what you mean?
And yet they killed all the jews and whats before that? Our history is a little longer than 2000 years... About 12000 years to be specific. (if we take the first city as the start of human civilization)
Also Judaism is a lot older than Islam, wich is even younger than Christianity, wich itself is based on Judaism.
You realize both the Palestinian and Jewish people are descendants from the people that lived on the land back then, right? We literally have evidence of that.
Like, just because your RELIGION is Islam or Christianity, that doesn't mean you can't be GENETICALLY Jewish. In fact there's this whole thing WITHIN Judaism regarding ethnic Jews vs non-ethnic Jews...
You seem to be arguing about the Jews rights as a race, but conflating it to religion. Because if it was about "race", then Palestinians are entitled to the same land as Israel claims.
that doesn’t mean you can’t be GENETICALLY Jewish
One cannot be genetically Jewish, since anyone can convert into this religion.
Is that clear enough?