Some people think that the latter war is futile, but that's not true. There are many people whose minds it is impossible to change, but not everyone. Not to mention that there are politicians who make decisions solely based on how much noise is being made by each side.
There's many excellent essays about the legitimacy of Israel's position. But I've noticed that in this day and age, it's bite-sized graphics that seem to play an important role. So I came up with a few, which I've posted here. Please forward them via WhatsApp/ Twitter/ Instagram/ Facebook, and so on.
Meanwhile, at the Biblical Museum of Natural History, we've been hosting subsidized visits from families escaping the trauma of their homes in the Gaza periphery and in Lod (see the picture below). If you'd like to join those sponsoring trips for these families (it's $100/ 360 NIS per family), please donate at this link.
Wishing you all a Chag Sameach, and may we enjoy peaceful times.
Yasher koach on the memes, that IS how most information spreads these days. They're already good but they will improve even more if you keep at it.
ReplyDeleteThe problem i have trying to defend Israel in this instance is 1) people don't care whether a death toll of 200 to 10 is justifiable, the 'score' alone is so lopsided that for many the discussion ends right there. and 2) this round of violence was spurred on by *something* regarding Arab families in Sheik Jarrah, whether forced eviction or whatever it was - it looks very much like those 6 families were targeted for being the wrong race in the wrong place.
Mv, that's not true. The evictions were justified because the Arabs did not pay the rent. Besides, the land was officially sold to Jews in 1877 by the Ottoman Empire. I agree with point 1. More Gazan people are killed than Israelis so the stupid masses in the West assume Israel is targeting innocent civilians! First off, there are no innocent civilians in Gaza. Second off, Hamas purposely placed rocket batteries near highly dense populated areas so when Israel wants to take out a battery they will have to kill a few civilians. Some will say this is unfortunate, but is it? The civilians being killed by Israel are the same civilians cheering on as Hamas uses their property to launch rockets. The death toll is only small on the Israeli side because Israel has the iron dome system, which without, there would have been hundreds of casualties.
DeleteThe thugs on the streets of Lod work together with the thugs of antifa in Brooklyn. Not many people know that the BLM manifesto calls for the total eradication of Israel. How does this further the goals to end racism in America, I have no idea. But the point is not to be missed. Anyone supporting the black lives matter movement is supporting Hamas, since the two groups are closely related and work together to bring down the State of Israel and the West.
There have been many documented pictures of rocks piled up in Moslem places of worship to toss at people and smash windows of Jewish businesses or haul at police. The same has been documented in Minneapolis. The thugs in the streets of Israel are Israeli Arabs. They are not to be trusted. An old Russian proverb says the Arab invites you to his house for a meal but stabs you in the back as you leave. These savages on the streets of Lod are animals and we should have never allowed them in Israel. Like it or not, Meir Kahane was right.
"Lopsided"? How many Germans were killed in World War II? How many Americans?
Delete"Race"? About half of Israeli Jews are pretty much racially Arab.
Sheikh Jarrah? I see. And the hundreds of other Hamas attacks on Israel were caused by...?
The arabs did not pay the rent because they believe the land is theirs.
DeleteWhen Jordan annexed Cisjordania they confiscated all land belonging to jews, placing it under their Custodian of Enemy Property and permitting palestinians to settle there, for a small yearly rent. This was very wrong but they didn't alter land ownership.
But when Israel won the Independance War, they did much worse. They passed a law allowing the State to seize 'absentee''s property, even though they didn't allow them to come back.
Then when they won the Six Days War, they passed a law allowing jewish owners in East Jerusalem whose property had been confiscated, to reclaim it. No such law exists for arab ex-owners of land in Israel.
All of this is in negation of the Geneva fourth Connvention of 1949.
There are jewish mobs attacking arabs too.
The fact that mizrachi jews are racially arabs or not is irrelevant for anyone who doesn't actually believe in racist theories (but I know you do). Racism is always based on perceived identity differences, much more than actual ones. They for sure don't believe themselves to be arabs, and the Government worked very hard so the rest of the population don't view them as such (with mixed results seemingly).
And after that israelis will say they want peace but the palestinians not. The truth is no one wants peace so we get war.
I leave you with this declaration:
'Those who have taken the whole dish on their plate, leaving the plates of others empty, and who, having everything, say with a good face: "We who have everything, we are for peace!" I know what to shout at them: the first violent, the provocators, it's you! When in the evening, in your beautiful houses, you go to embrace your little children, with your good conscience, you probably have more blood on your unconscious hands, in the sight of God, than the desperate who took weapons to try to get out of his despair'. Abbé Pierre.
The term "propotionality" is widely misunderstood. It doesn't mean that if you fire one missile at me, I get to fire one missile at you. It's a term in international law that refers to the response being proportional to the objective. For instance, if Israel's objective is to get Hamas to stop firing missiles at it, then Israel is allowed to attack Hamas enough to get them to stop. So far they haven't stopped, which means that the Israeli response has not exceeded proportionality.
DeleteTo all who replied,
DeleteYou all made good points, some better than others.
This post is about reaching the public and changing their minds with memes or byte-sized arguments.
Most people don't want to hear any jusitification for 50+ children dead. Most people won't hear about history when another round of bloodshed has been spurred on by perceived harassment of families minding their own business, being threatened with expulsion because they are Arab.
It's hard to even argue that 200 dead is nowhere near genocide - people don't want to hear it when kids are being killed every day.
Hamas knows every dead child garners more worldwide support. Israel has to stop giving them what they want, because it's working.
Jew well, Why did you quote that declaration which says innocent Jews, who are trying to make a living have more blood on their hands than militant Islamic terrorists shooting rockets at innocent civilians? Who's side are you on anyway? The Ottomans sold the land to Jews in the 1870s. Arabs confiscated it (against the Geneva code, mind you). And Jews do not have "everything." Arabs have 22 nations in the Middle East. There are six countries where Jews are not allowed to live. All Arab countries. And yet, Arabs are allowed to live in Israel. What more could they possibly want!?
DeleteHere is a thought experiment. Imagine if Jews controlled Mecca and did not allow Arabs to pray in the holiest place of Islam. There would be riots and suicide bombings in every street in Paris.
Jews only want one small sliver of land. And the Arabs are so greedy to want it all to themselves. Israel offered peace, via a two-state solution, five times. It was the Arabs who said "no." "We will never have peace until WE HAVE everything." And then they declared war.
Do I understand you correctly? Did I misread something you wrote? Please feel free to correct me if I misunderstood you.
Shmuel writes: "First off, there are no innocent civilians in Gaza."
DeleteReally? Are even little kids somehow culpable in your eyes?
@ "Jew Well"
DeleteNearly everything you write is factually incorrect.
"Until 1948, the neighborhood now known as Sheikh Jarrah was home to both Jewish and Arab communities. Jordan invaded Israel in 1948 and occupied half of Jerusalem, expelling every one of its Jewish inhabitants and seizing their property.
When Israel reunited Jerusalem and ended the Jordanian occupation in 1967, it had to decide what to do with these properties. In the many cases in which Jordan had officially transferred the title of Jewish-owned properties to Palestinians, Israel respected the new titles—and still does—even though they are based on forcible takings in a war of aggression followed by ethnic cleansing against Jews. Where title had never been transferred, however, Israel returned properties to their owners. Critics of Israel claim that Arabs can’t recover property under the same law, but the law is entirely neutral—it is simply the case that Jordan took property from Jews, not Palestinians."
"Title to the properties in dispute in Sheikh Jarrah was never given by Jordan to Palestinians, so Israeli law respects the unbroken title of the plaintiffs. This case has nothing to do with ethnicity or religion. The only discrimination in the legal treatment of Sheikh Jarrah property is historic, by Jordan, and against Jews to the benefit of Palestinians.
The plaintiff and its predecessors in title have spent four decades in court seeking to recover possession of the properties. In every case, courts have ruled in favor of the owners. In the latest lawsuits, the courts ruled that four of the eight defendants were squatters with no legal rights in the land, and the remaining four were descendants of tenants who had never paid rent."
"Nevertheless, Israeli courts have treated the Palestinian squatters and leaseholders alike as “protected tenants,” and would shield them from eviction indefinitely if they paid rent. They have refused to do so."
https://www.wsj.com/articles/almost-nothing-youve-heard-about-evictions-in-jerusalem-is-true-11621019410?mod=trending_now_opn_pos4
This quote wasn’t aiming the Israeli-Palestinian conflict specifically, and therefore it doesn’t accurately describe the situation there. I just find it fitting to illustrate how easy it is to say you want peace when the status quo fits you, and the value of such a statement, which is zero.
DeleteYes, Hamas ideology is horrible, but the people who live in Gaza really believe they have no other choice. It doesn’t matter if they’re right or wrong, unless a solution is found they’re not going to change.
The ‘sides’ question is a trap. As soon as you have picked your camp you can’t see wrong in it, and the other camp appears to you as horrible monsters by nature, who can only do wrong, and everything done by your camp can be excused, including the worse atrocities (for example, how leftists all over the world excused the Sovietic Union’s massacres). Rabbi Slifkin already documented this here a few times. Israel has a right to defend themselves against any threat, and I’ll keep saying that however many palestinian children die near Hamas buildings, but they’re really as much guilty of the situation. I’m on the side of peace.
Yes, Jordanian’s confiscation was arguably also against the Geneva convention, and that’s why I wrote ‘all of it’. Confiscation of possessions of jews all over the arab world was also wrong, of course. So what?
Arabs have 22 nations, but none of them is for Palestinians, to the best of my knowledge. And Israel refuses to be their state, of course, because, you know, ideology and all… But they do all they can to make a hypothetic future palestinian state as small and divided as possible. They (you say ‘jews’, but I will speak about Zionist nationalists) don’t ‘just want a small sliver of land’. If that was the case there would be no colonies, no land grab, no expulsions. They were ready to accept the small sliver of land, but they’re very happy it didn’t turn out that way. Arabs always want it all for themselves, against all realities on the ground. It’s a stupid position, but it doesn’t give Israel the right to take whatever’s left to them.
The story about Mecca is completely irrelevant. Muslim rule over Jerusalem started 1300 years ago, with the only exception of the 12th Century. If the jews had controlled Mecca for so long a time there would be no Islam to begin with, let alone suicide bombing in the name of it.
If we continue with nationalist thinking and stupid messianic ideology, we go in the wall head first. The truth is, we’re all in the same boat in this small piece of land. A solution must finally be found, not one where one side completely dominates the other, that’s no solution at all, just furthering the problem. Yes, Oslo was a good start on paper, but the most important wasn’t there: public approval from either side. That’s why what we first need is grassroots activism and communication. When we’ll all focus on how we want together to take care of this land, and not to grab whatever we can from the other, then we’ll be approaching the solution. And it’s probable that Israel will have to relinquish a lot of what it took. You may call that naive idealism, but it’s the only viable way.
Sorry that was me.
DeleteJew Well aka "ooooo" - Thank you for your reply but I disagree, respectfully. I think the Gazans could rise up if they really wanted to do so. The world watches as Gaza is oppressed by Hamas, and yet, Gazans cheer as Hamas sends rockets into Israel for no reason other than to kill innocent people. I agree that Israel can do war crimes. In every war, there are always war crimes, but Israel is the most moral army in the world and the IDF works very hard to protect civilians and aims to keep civilian casualties at a bare minimum. So much so, they the IDF warns Gazans to flee before targeting Hamas batteries. It is not Israel's fault Hamas places batteries in highly dense populated areas and tells their civilians to stay put, probably at gunpoint or a Qur'an promising 72 virgins.
DeleteIsn't 22 nations enough? The Palestinians should go back to where they come from. Egypt sent them when Jews began reclaiming the land. Why don't they go back there? Where they belong? And Jews do want that small piece of an insignificant sliver of land. Every Jew, or at least every religious Jew, is a zionist. True, some too far gone groups feel that Jews should not return to Israel till the messiah or G-d brings them back, but every Jews is a zionist. So that point is mute.
Jews controlled Jerusalem longer than Arabs. At best, Arabs controlled it for a thousand years. Jews had it for 3000 years. Even when we were exiled by Romans, there was always a small minority of Jewish communities in Israel for the last 2000 years. And by your line of reasoning, might as well give it to the Christians next, since they also owned it, if only for a hundred years, it counts!
I would like to think why can't we all just get along. Why don't all the Arabs convert and we are all happy. We can coexist side-by-side, but the fact of the matter is this: Arabs will never convert, at least not sincerely. And if they do not convert, they will never be grateful. No Arab sings the national anthem with pride. The song talks about Jews returning after 2000 years. What Arabs want to think about Jews?
The best solution, in my eyes, if we are going to be realistic, is Meir Kahane. But even now, this is getting to become unrealistic. There are too many Arabs to move them all and it would be too difficult in face of world criticism. We should have done so twenty years ago when we had the chance. Unless the messiah comes soon, it seems like we're going to have to live with the Israeli-Arab conflict for a long time with no peace in sight in the foreseeable future.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteMy understanding is that there is indeed a country for "Palestinians": Jordan. Wasn't that the goal of the partition back in 1948? And when Israel declared itself a state, it was invaded by Egypt, Syria, Jordan, etc. That didnt go the way the Arabs expected. Big loss. So they came back to destroy Israel again and kill all the Jews in 1967. Once again, things didn't go as planned. Bigger loss.
DeleteRiddle me this: when Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran, The PLO, Palestinian Jihad, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, etc etc ad nauseum, are all hell-bent on destruction and genocide of its enemy, and proudly declares that that is indeed their goal in life, what's a Jew to do? Give in?
I want to be clear. Israel has never done a war crime. Israel has made mistakes, bu no war crimes. Meanwhile, Hamas has done numerous war crimes.
DeleteJoe Q I agree. Kids are good and it's sad they are killed. The IDF does not mean to harm them.
Deletezfriend, I agree. Not only that, but Arab nations never planned for a "Palestinian." they drew up plans to carve the whole territory. Egypt even said why have another state to deal with after Israel? They don't give a damn whether Palestinians live or die.
DeleteYes, Arabs want to kill all the Jews and greedily take the land for themselves. Don't they have enough land?
There is only one thing Israel can do and that is to fight and hope the Arabs sue for peace. Israel never started a war. They only fought to defend themselves. Israel wants peace. they do not.
@Samuel D
DeleteOf course, if you believe propaganda then the truth is ‘factually incorrect’.
‘In the many cases in which Jordan had officially transferred the title of Jewish-owned properties to Palestinians’. I didn’t find any such case, I’m not sure there ever was. The Jordanian government (meaning the king) effectively clung to any possession they could, they did not want to share it with Palestinians. At best they gave them leases.
‘It is simply the case that Jordan took property from Jews, not Palestinians’. Right, and who did Israel take property from? Who did Katamon belong to before the war?
See this article for how an Israeli court treated a similar case not in Jerusalem. http://www.hamoked.org/Document.aspx?dID=Documents1941
@Shmuel
DeleteGazans could rise up to Hamas, but they believe Hamas is their only option to be heard internationally, than supporting them. That’s what I meant. And it could be they’re right, because no one hears about Gaza in peace times.
The war crimes disturb me a lot less than the peace crimes. The IDF is a very skilled and thoughtful army, and I trust them to do the best job possible in excruciating circumstances, though I’m fed up with the ‘most moral army in the world’ thing, which is always used to deny war crimes. War crimes happen in every conflict, just like you say, and they should be judged.
‘Isn’t …Egypt … they belong…’ these are all downright lies. Zionists though they would find empty land, but it wasn’t the case, that’s exactly why they have had to do all this work of removing the arabs and bringing in ever more jews, in a permanent war to keep demographics on their side. Because that is what preoccupies everyone on this land. Zionists are concerned there are too many arabs, ashkenazis feel there are too many sefardis, secular Israelis worry there are too many religious jews, and some fear the potential harm should chareidim become a dominant segment of the population. No, arabs were here for a long time, and jews too, and it wasn’t a peaceful existence, but it lasted for centuries. Then in Europe some jews decided they would make a state there, which would exclude the arabs who had always (OK, I mean for centuries) lived there. It was OK back then, because that’s what all colonists were doing. But it’s not right.
You like thought experiments, so how do you feel when someone tells you to ’go back where you belong’, somewhere between Poland and Ukraine?
I don’t remember voting for you as spokesman for the entire jewish people. I believe by ‘some too far gone groups’ you mean Satmar and their likes. I have no problem with jewish people coming back, although I don’t call that ‘zionism’. However it can’t be done at the detriment of other people, unless G.d explicitely tells us that time came to wage a war for the land. The Canaanites were on this land all the time G.d gave them, and it’s only at His explicit command that the jews conquered it. Then He made us go, and only gave us back part of it, through the UNO Council, in 1948. It doesn’t allow us to steal some more.
How long jews controlled Jerusalem is irrelevant (but guess what.. according to traditional jewish history it was for around 900 years, nowhere near 3000). When the Romans took it from us by force, it was wrong. When the Achemenids took it from them by force, it was wrong. When they took it back it was wrong. When the first muslims took it from them it was wrong. When the Mongols, Turks, Crusaders, Mameluks, Ottomans took it, it was wrong. When the British took it and encouraged tensions in order to maximize their stay, it was wrong. When Jordan occupied it it was wrong. And when we evict arabs from it it is wrong.
If your definition of ‘getting along’ is that others should convert and be like you, then it’s really not getting along at all, and, needless to say, it’s not going to happen.
Yes, if what you want is to get rid of arabs Kahane was right. And Hitler was right too, after all Jews can’t sing ‘Deutschland über Alles’ the same way that true racial aryans can. That is probably reason enough to explain the Nuremberg Statutes. Maybe he went too far afterwards, murdering them and all that rather disgacious stuff with concentration camps (I hope everyone understands this statement to be ironic).
@zfriend
DeleteNot at all, Jordan was fully independent in 1946. The partition was between a Jewish and an Arab state in Palestine proper, with an international statute for Jerusalem. Jordan didn’t welcome all Palestinians after 1948, it merely made do with the ones already there, because they (the king) wanted Jerusalem. Winning wars doesn’t give the right to expropriate, that’s the point of the Geneva 4th Convention. And Israel promised time and again it would let Palestinians create their own state, that’s how they get away with not giving them Israeli nationality, which would be anathema to Zionists. Once again defending yourself doesn’t mean you have to steal from others.
@Jew well
DeleteFew clarifications. Yes, in all conflict there is war crimes, but Israel, having the most moral army in the world, makes mistakes but not war crimes. It is possible someday the IDF makes a war crime but it is unlikely. Meanwhile, Hamas makes war crimes every day. Even if Israel did make a war crime, it is justified since they are defending themselves.
Yes, the Arabs ruled the land for about a thousand years. At one point in between the Crusaders took it for about a hundred years. But no Arab lived in Israel for centuries. They came as sessional farmers. Did some labor, and left. Meanwhile, Jews lived there for 3000 years. When the Romans kicked most of them out, small communities of Jews remained for the next 2000 years. Christians and Jews lived in the Holy land, not Arabs. Arabs started to colonize it when Zionist reclaimed it. And tellng Jew to go back where thy came from would be Israel, since Jews were there for thousands of years prior to the diaspora.
Although Satmar is too far gone, they are zionist nonetheless. They may think (as you do) that we should not return to the land till the messiah comes or G-d tells us to, but all of them (including you) are zionist. If not now, when, they say. In other words, there is no such thing as an anti-zionist Jew. We are all zionist. We are all identical...
Liberals often compare Kahane to the nazis. But the nazis gave Jews no rights. If you were a Jew living in Poland in the 1930s, you could not become aryan. On the other hand, Kahane said anyone could convert to Judaism and be just as much a Jew as he is. When the Zionist (including our founding father, Theodor Herzl) had the inception of Israel as a Zionist state, it was always that there would be a Jewish state, not a two-state. A state for Jews. If Arabs want to become Jewish they can live there. With now more than 25% of non-Jews (and when I say non-Jews I mean Arabs) in the Knesset (as Kahane correctly predicted) it is going to be (at this rate) an Arab state in fifty years time. Surely you do not want to see that happen. Yes, we welcome Arabs so long as they are the minority. Once they become the majority, we cannot call Israel a Jewish state. We might as well call it Palestine.
@Shmuel
DeleteI won't bother replying to any of this, as I already have. At this point you're just going ever further in your preposterous claims, meaning no offence.
I feel that the true issues behind the whole gaza blow up is hiding in plain sight. I think these events are political.
ReplyDeleteWhy is it that the day after Netanyahu failed to patch together a coalition, and with the left having 30 days to make their own, did suddenly Arabs start rioting? Was is merely because of some Supreme Court ruling?
I think Netanyahu is doing all he can to make a coalition without him, not possible.
He wants to remain PM. He also has legal issues that can best be avoided if he remains the PM. Stepping down means loss of power and perhaps the slammer.
It's just too perfect. Hamas missles raining down means more people in favor of right wing politicians.
In the current climate people are less inclined toward the liberal agendas.
What's more, one viable method for the left to cobble together a coalition is with the Arab mks.
But missles out of Gaza and riots on temple mount means Arabs are outraged. Both Arabs and Israelis would go bonkers from a coalition at this time.
Again, excellent for Netanyahu. Oh, and just having people watch the Iron dome bust missles out of the sky is good for likud types.
For all we know, Israel needs to clean out tunnels and bombs from Gaza and elsewhere every couple of years, as the stockpiles increase. But the fallout of bombing isn't good, the US will get have to mad and they pump billions of dollars to Israel so good relations are critical.
So first hamas needs to shoot some missles and then Israel gets down to cleaning up the neighborhood. It isn't difficult to have some insiders rile them up due to some Supreme Court decision or some other hot button issue. They riot, Israel responds and cleans up.
All fine and dandy, right? But why now? Why not a month ago? This is where politics gets involved. Connect the dots and write a book. Over and out.
So let me get this clear. He couldn't wrangle two defectors to get 61 seats, but he could start a war? Or are you implying that he *wants* a war, especially considering all the inherent risks?
DeleteSadly, this sentiment is now widespread at the highest levels of thd Israeli Left.
It is possible it's all political. Surely, Biden riled up looters and rioters to make Trump look bad for political gains. On the other hand, you could be mistaken. You have to remember that the Arab IQ is very low. They are just stupid and attack Israel in the wrong times and places. They always make sure Bibi gets reelected due to their stupidity. It may simply be that dumb Hamas fires rockets and indirectly gets Bibi reelected (Occam's razor).
DeleteThere needs to be a change in terms.
ReplyDeleteThe occupied territories of Gaza. The occupied Temple mount.
Got to use the same words of the enemy to delegitimize their very own standing.
Israel in it's entirety belongs to the Jewish people as the God promised in the Torah.
G.d promised it to Avraham Avinu, and yet he didn't allow Loth to take anything that he didn't rightfully buy with money, and that's what he himself did to bury his wife.
DeletePlease G.d that we should follow in his footsteps.
If Arabs want to Temple Mount, fine. Give us Mecca in exchange. I am more than happy to make the switch. Imagine how angry they will be if we turned Mecca into shul! They will all commit suicide bombings and blow themselves up. Iran will nuke everyone (except Israel) and America will nuke Iran, and we won't have any more problems with the Arabs.
DeleteIf it's just a rent holdover refusal to pay rent, we all know certain outside parties who are more than happy to pay the back rent.
ReplyDeleteIt's provocative behavior by Arabs and Farsis to test (or rather instigate) the new US president, and he's swallowing the bait. Swallowing cause it's doubtful he's calling the shots in DC, and doubtful cause there are other parties in DC, and they're strongly anti-Semitic. And young Jews in US dont help the situation.
Yes of course the all world is just doing things for the US. Typical american woldview.
ReplyDeleteAnd the arabs probably asked the israeli courts if they could please be dispossessed right when Biden came into office.