Israel/Palestine

[BT 075]

I think the only hope for Israel and Palestine to ever live in peace is for Donald Trump to win the US elections and be an honest broker.

 

[Kenneth Erwin Engelhardt]

This idea has been bandied about for a while. It's called "Israstine" in which the Israeli's formally annex and incorporate the Palestinian Territories into the Israeli state and permit full political equality to all Palestinians within.

The grand irony is that, had the Six Day War not occurred (prompted by massive Egyptian mobilization along the Egypt-Israeli border) then the Palestinian question wouldn't actually exist. Egypt and Jordan formally annexed the Palestinian Territories after 1948 and Palestinian Nationalism had mostly died a death by the time 1967 rolled around. Israel pushing back into this area prompted a resurgence as the Jordanians and Egyptians basically did little to retain the territory, or retake it.

"Israstine" was promoted by Muammar Gaddafi and it was rejected for a good reason. It was simply Palestine with window dressing to make it look attractive.

 

[Abethedemon]

I'm neutral, but I think the pro-palestine side can get pretty spergy. For example, I was at my friend's house and he was ranting about how Israel enacted a sort of apartheid, and I was like "Isn't it more than just black and white?" and he said, "no, it's pretty black and white"
Aren't there peaceful Arab communities in Israel though?

 

[Cosmos]

Copypasta-ing my post from the anti-semitism thread because I didn't know this one existed:

What really annoys me about virulent Israel haters (not talking about anyone in this thread btw, but there are a lot of them on the interwebz) is that they literally never blame Palestine or hold it accountable for anything. Let's be honest, Palestine has done some really shitty things. But if those things are ever acknowledged, people are quick to blame Israel for instigating it.

If you truly care about the Israel-Palestine conflict, you should probably acknowledge that Palestine isn't helping itself all that much. For example...

• Palestine in general glorifies terrorists and suicide bombers as "martyrs" and refuses to truly condemn their actions. Theyliterally name schools, streets, and other locations after terrorists. They also publish gushing eulogies about and shower posthumous awards on their "martyrs." It doesn't take a sociologist to tell how harmful this culture of glorifying death, violence, and terrorism is. What's really toxic is the Palestinian idea of "martyrdom;" many parents openly admit that they would love and be honored to see their children become "martyrs." Golda Meir, an Israeli politician, said it best: "Peace will come when the Arabs start to love their children more than they hate us."
• Why the fuck don't people call out the Palestinian Authority on how blatantly corrupt and horrible it is? Honestly, the Palestinian people are fucked because the PA doesn't give a shit about them. Other countries send billions in aid to Palestine and the majority of it gets embezzled by Palestinian politicians. Not only that, the PA is actively involved in the radicalization of children.
• Palestine needs to acknowledge Israel's right to exist. It's here. It's been here for decades. It's kind of too late to hit the rewind button. And yet Palestinian Authority has no intention of recognizing Israel's right to exist. Hamas and the PA are extremely transparent when it comes to their ultimate goal: wiping Israel off the map and establishing an Islamic state in its place. Palestine needs leaders who are truly committed to working with Israel instead of against it. By this point, I get the feeling that most Palestinian civilians just want this entire mess to be over and truly want to coexist with Israel, but unfortunately they're ruled over by Islamists and terrorists who are determined to keep the fighting going.
• President Abbas and other Palestinian leaders continue to incite hatred by insisting that Jews are "desecrating" Islamic holy sites and plotting to destroy them. Oh, and by the way, all a Jew has to do to "desecrate" an Islamic holy site is simply walk on it. Ironically, the site that incites the most frenzy with rumors of its desecration is the Temple Mount... which originally belonged to the Jews and is the holiest site in Judaism. Islamists (like, you know, the people running Palestine) have complete contempt for non-Muslims; to them, we're intrinsically filthy and unclean and must never be allowed to defile Islamic sites with our presence.

Seriously, why is it so hard to acknowledge that both sides done goofed? I've just never met anyone who hates Israel who also acknowledges that Palestine isn't exactly a pure, blameless victim in this whole mess. It's so ridiculous. If you truly are pro-Palestine, you should be demanding the eradication of the PA and Hamas, which keep Palestinians trapped in a nightmare world of violence and terror and completely repress any true progress. The reason why the UN doesn't officially recognize Palestine as a state is because it's run by fucking terrorists, not because they're racist.

 

[AnOminous]

• Palestine needs to acknowledge Israel's right to exist. It's here. It's been here for decades. It's kind of too late to hit the rewind button. And yet Palestinian Authority has no intention of recognizing Israel's right to exist.

That can't be underscored enough. Palestine will literally never exist as a state until this happens.

It's absurdly self-destructive, since they have no power at all to do anything about the existence of Israel.

 

[ulsterscotsman]

I support the Palestinians.

 

[norrington]

Seriously, why is it so hard to acknowledge that both sides done goofed? I've just never met anyone who hates Israel who also acknowledges that Palestine isn't exactly a pure, blameless victim in this whole mess. It's so ridiculous. If you truly are pro-Palestine, you should be demanding the eradication of the PA and Hamas, which keep Palestinians trapped in a nightmare world of violence and terror and completely repress any true progress. The reason why the UN doesn't officially recognize Palestine as a state is because it's run by fucking terrorists, not because they're racist.

In my mind, I'd say the internet backlash against Israel is far from the biggest voice in the debate (at least for debates in the West). If they're not acknowledging that Palestine isn't pure and blameless it's because they feel like it goes without saying, or, alternatively, has already been hammered home seventeen thousand times in a debate they're just now speaking up in.

As far as your individual points, it's all more or less a matter of spin favoring one side or the other, and depending on which society you grew up in. Islamic people in the MENA region (or even abroad) see it from Palestine's side, we see it from Israel's, but it's all basically the same shit:
-Palestine glorifies terrorists who attack Israel, Israel glorifies the military forces responsible for the"retaliatory" bombings on Palestine.
-Same deal here; putting aside the fact that the article you cited sidesteps actually explaining how this study about to be published is to be conducted, given the fact that it's being conducted by Israeli teachers and published and circulated and peer-reviewed by pro-Israel sources, which means that such a study should be taken with a grain of salt regardless of your personal stance, if you want a view of the issue that's anywhere near realistic. Antisemitism is rampant in Palestine, and Islamophobia is rampant in Israel. Israel, being more Westernized and PC friendly (and conscious of how blatantly racist propaganda looks), isn't going to run an official government sponsored children's program literally calling the Muslims filthy animals or savages or whatever the hell else (and again, I do sort of doubt that's literally what the actual Palestinian government is doing, but I can't say either way), and saying it's 'brainwashing' and 'radicalizing' someone is just a way of propagandizing widespread and deep-seeded racism/xenophobia within the opposing culture.
-There are dozens of sites throughout the Levant that are sacred to both Judaism and Islam. Islam is a descendant of Judaism, just as Christianity is, they consider themselves children of Abraham just as Judaism does. Several of these sites that are sacred for both Judaism and for Islam have an added punch for Islam because they have some connection to the prophet Mohammed (like, for instance, certain sites sacred to Christians were already relatively revered because they were involved in Old Testament/Pentateuch shit, but on top of that, Jesus did some wild-ass shit there too, so it's that much MORE important to us now). Basically, you could make that same fucking argument on either side (and, to be honest, as pointless as it is to turn it into a pissing contest when it's ultimately gonna come down to a basic negotiation on both sides, I'd bet that Israel controls quite a few more vital-to-Islam sites than Palestine does).
-Any holy site is going to be considered desecrated (especially by more radical sects, such as by the hyper orthodox Jewish communities who have a fairly sizable voice in the Israeli government, though likely not to the same weight that Islamic fundamentalist sects' viewpoints carry in Hamas) if not treated in the exact way that a religion dictates they should be treated. Judaism and Christianity have holy sites and artifacts that would be just as soiled by people walking around in them.

TL;DR - A. People who defend Palestine might not preface everything they say with 'I know Palestine has done some not nice things' because the not nice things Palestine has done have been more than covered ten thousand times over by every news outlet and political pundit in the western world.
B. Most of your statements are written with a heavily western, heavily pro-Israeli stance that you don't even necessarily realize is there, and the other side often has just as many if not more justifications for seeing Israel as evil as Israel does Palestine.

 

[Marvin]

Israel, being more Westernized and PC friendly (and conscious of how blatantly racist propaganda looks), isn't going to run an official government sponsored children's program literally calling the Muslims filthy animals or savages or whatever the hell else (and again, I do sort of doubt that's literally what the actual Palestinian government is doing, but I can't say either way), and saying it's 'brainwashing' and 'radicalizing' someone is just a way of propagandizing widespread and deep-seeded racism/xenophobia within the opposing culture.

The primary reason why I can trivially believe the actual Palestinian government is doing that is because antisemitic tropes are as old as Abrahamic religions themselves. I wouldn't put it past the Palestinian government to cite blood libel allegations, for example.

 

[norrington]

The primary reason why I can trivially believe the actual Palestinian government is doing that is because antisemitic tropes are as old as Abrahamic religions themselves. I wouldn't put it past the Palestinian government to cite blood libel allegations, for example.

Yeah, but in the Israel/Palestine case, it's much more strongly colored by regional conflict, and the phenomenon of global antisemitism obscures that. Palestinian anti-Israeli sentiment isn't really comparable to western antisemitism in its function or its goal, it's much more comparable to anti-Bosnian sentiments among the Serbs (or vice versa). Attributing western antisemitism to Palestinians is failing to put one's own cultural and social biases aside in the evaluation of the issue, and it skews one's perceptions of the reality of the situation.

Islamophobia in the modern global realm is, in contrast, more comparable to the traditional role antisemitism has played in western political rhetoric; that is, the idea of a secret enemy infiltrating borders and wreaking havoc, making the bolstering of government run internal and external military and paramilitary forces the only viable option to defend against the imposing threat.

 

[Vitriol]

Islamophobia in the modern global realm is, in contrast, more comparable to the traditional role antisemitism has played in western political rhetoric; that is, the idea of a secret enemy infiltrating borders and wreaking havoc,

the obvious difference being that this part is true.

 

[Cosmos]

-There are dozens of sites throughout the Levant that are sacred to both Judaism and Islam. Islam is a descendant of Judaism, just as Christianity is, they consider themselves children of Abraham just as Judaism does. Several of these sites that are sacred for both Judaism and for Islam have an added punch for Islam because they have some connection to the prophet Mohammed.

But the problem is that a lot of Muslims don't want to share. Here's the thing: yes, ultra orthodox Jews are just as crazy about filthy infidels "desecrating" their holy sites, but there is only a fraction of the amount of them as there are Islamists. Islamists are so influential that non-Muslims cannot even approach, let alone enter, Mecca. Okay, fine, that is a city that's only sacred in Islam, but Islamists (please note how I keep using the term "Islamist" and not "Muslim," because there is a huge difference) also demand to have exclusive access to sites that aren't exclusively theirs.

Non-Muslims are forbidden to worship on the Temple Mount, despite the fact that it's also sacred to Jews and Christians. They are forbidden from singing, praying, or making any kind of "religious displays". The Israeli government itself enforces this rule. Why? Because Islamists flip the fuck out if any filthy non-Muslims defile the Temple Mount. How can we possibly talk about interfaith peace if so many people are unwilling to accommodate others?

And just to make it clear, I wholeheartedly believe that Jerusalem must be open to everyone. Jews, Christians, and Muslims all have an equal right to pray on the Temple Mount. Jews need to acknowledge that the Jerusalem is sacred to Muslims, but Muslims must also acknowledge that Jerusalem is sacred to Jews. Unfortunately, Islamic supremacism is so rampant in the Middle East that I doubt this will happen anytime soon, especially considering how dangerous it is for any moderates to even suggest that maybe working with Israel would be a good idea.

B. Most of your statements are written with a heavily western, heavily pro-Israeli stance that you don't even necessarily realize is there, and the other side often has just as many if not more justifications for seeing Israel as evil as Israel does Palestine.

I freely admit that I prefer Israel over Palestine. They both have major problems but at least Israel is a (mostly) secular democracy where Western thought reigns (because let's be honest, West is Best when it comes to human rights). I'm sorry, but aside from the sympathy and compassion I feel for the people of Palestine, I hate it as a state. It's hard to feel any sympathy for a state that absolutely refuses to do anything that would improve its situation (like seriously committing to the peace process) and instead insists on fighting a hopeless war against a much more powerful enemy, to the detriment of its citizens.

I support the people of Palestine, not Palestine itself. At least until it gets its fucking act together.

Islamophobia in the modern global realm is, in contrast, more comparable to the traditional role antisemitism has played in western political rhetoric; that is, the idea of a secret enemy infiltrating borders and wreaking havoc, making the bolstering of government run internal and external military and paramilitary forces the only viable option to defend against the imposing threat.

I mean, it's kind of true. You cannot deny the rise of Islamic extremism and the tens of thousands of deaths its resulted in. Are all Muslims terrorists? Absolutely not. But the past few months have shown us that there is "a secret enemy infiltrating borders and wreaking havoc": the Paris and Brussels attacks come to mind. On the other hand, Jews have never done anything even remotely comparable.

 

[norrington]

I freely admit that I prefer Israel over Palestine. They both have major problems but at least Israel is a (mostly) secular democracy where Western thought reigns (because let's be honest, West is Best when it comes to human rights). I'm sorry, but aside from the sympathy and compassion I feel for the people of Palestine, I hate it as a state. It's hard to feel any sympathy for a state that absolutely refuses to do anything that would improve its situation (like seriously committing to the peace process) and instead insists on fighting a hopeless war against a much more powerful enemy, to the detriment of its citizens.

I support the people of Palestine, not Palestine itself. At least until it gets its fucking act together.



I mean, it's kind of true. You cannot deny the rise of Islamic extremism and the tens of thousands of deaths its resulted in. Are all Muslims terrorists? Absolutely not. But the past few months have shown us that there is "a secret enemy infiltrating borders and wreaking havoc": the Paris and Brussels attacks come to mind. On the other hand, Jews have never done anything even remotely comparable.

The religious piece is beyond my scope of basic knowledge (never mind "expertise" which I can in no way claim to have).

But part of the problem is that this staunch anti-Western anti-Israeli fundamentalism has risen largely in response to Western interference in Middle East politics. And I don't mean Jewish resettlement, since plenty of Jews were founding settlements throughout the Levant before World War II, but the exporting of segregationist, compartmentalizing nationalism by the allied powers post WWII established Israel as a state in the middle of a place that had been home to a bunch of people who had fuck all to do with the Holocaust (after all, most of them had been living under British Mandate) and then dumped a bunch of European Jewish refugees there. Labeling them antisemites obscures the larger issues of colonialism and international political gaming that's fucking with the region relentlessly.

I mean, Palestinian (and any other MENA country) anti-western sentiment is a result of heavy pressure from other neighboring countries with stronger militaries and better economies, on whom they often rely as trading partners, who are anti-western because of the same western imperialism and satellite war backseat-politicking bullshit that's been going on in the region for the entirety of the last century, if not longer. Anti Israeli sentiment is part localized, regional conflict, part Middle East vs the West, which makes it that much more violent.

As far as the rise of Islamic extremism, it's coming on the back of years of western military 'presence' in the region, by which I mean western forces using it as a battleground for their issues to minimize the wartime fallout and loss of life of their actual citizens. Saying it's something fundamental to Islam is like saying that Nazism is fundamental to being German--as an aside, I understand that you're making a distinction between Islamists (I assume you're referring to Islamic/Arab nationalists) and Muslims, but Islamophobia makes no such distinction. The proposed bans on immigration into the US isn't against Islamists, it's against Muslims; hate crimes committed in the US aren't committed against 'Islamists.' they're committed against Muslims.

But back to what I was saying, if you think of the Middle East in recent years as comparable to Weimar Germany (that is, bombed to fuck and back, economically fucked, internally perceived as unstable and under constant threat from an external force who's easy to label as the 'cause' of all their internal strife which may or may not be hyperbolized by those in charge; I'd also note that many areas of the Middle East are probably in much worse shape than Weimar Germany ever was), with that comparison in mind, the inevitability of increasingly popular waves of support for violent extremism makes sense, or at the very least, has a comparable model. They feel that there's nothing else they can do to reclaim control of their lives, to reclaim any feeling of safety or security.

And the reason our response to Germany post-WWII was to fund the everloving fuck out of it (at least on the western side) and support it in every which way possible, it was because we learned what happens when you leave a region to its own devices after bombing it to shit, and give it a reason to hate you by imposing retaliatory measures on them for the wrongs they committed against us.

Now, for a separate comparison between the issue we're talking about and antisemitism/Germany (they are totally separate and I admit it's sort of confusing, so, apologies for that).

As far as Islamophobia having some basis, the popular myth in Europe pre-WWII was that Bolshevism/communism was a Jewish plot (which is absurd since the USSR was fairly antisemitic itself, as Russia has always been), that the Jews were insidious terrorists looking to ruin the German/British/American/whateverthefuck way of life. It wasn't a crackpot theory, it was a widely held belief. People claimed there was something inherent in the Jewish religion (e.g. the aforementioned blood libel accusations) that caused Jews to despise and want to kill Christians and non-Jews. When any assassination was carried out, even if the papers said it was 'anarchist' or 'communist' most people read that as 'Jewish' (and that's not counting the assassinations that were openly and unashamedly attributed to Jews).

When a Jewish guy walked into the German Embassy in Paris and shot several people in retaliation for the killings of German Jews stuck between the Polish and German borders (neither antisemitic government would take them) it was used by the Nazi regime as evidence of a Jewish uprising and the inherent violence of the Jewish people against German citizens. Really, the guy was grieving the loss of both of his parents who had been among the Jews killed there, and did something to try and draw attention to the issue (the same thing most Islamic radicalists are aiming to do, which is why there's a big moral debate over whether or not it's right to give ISIS so much news coverage).

When Nazism first began to gain footing in the polls, most people wrote off Hitler's antisemitism as a way to pander to groups on the far right; something he wasn't actually interested in. The 'final solution' to the Jewish Question wasn't decided until 1941 when the German offensive on the eastern front began to stall out; before then, the solution was forced migration, and that had started as things like restrictions on immigration of Jews into Germany, encouraging boycotts of Jewish-owned stores, Jim-Crow-esque public segregation (think benches, buses, water fountains, shit like that), and bans on them holding government jobs.

I'm not saying US Islamophobia = Nazi antisemitism on a one-to-one scale, I'm not fear-mongering or suggesting they'll lead to the same conclusion, but I am saying there are similarities that are worth pointing out and worth considering when people have started to say there's a problem with and/or among followers of Islam that we need to solve, without ever considering the role US foreign policy has played in the rise of this problem in the first place.

TL;DR: Ultimately, I'm saying there's a problem in thinking of radical, violent fundamentalists in a religious or cultural context (my second comparative example, Islamophobia:pre-WWII antisemitism) when they really ought to be seen through a geopolitical lens (my first comparison, Weimar Germany:MENA region).

Apologies for any oversimplifications or presumptuous moves in these comparisons, I chose them for the sake of illustration, not (as I said) because I think they're genuinely one to one. I think they're somewhat valid as comparisons in the aspects I've pointed out here, but I could absolutely be reaching, with this. It's just the most prominent example in my mind since I'm pretty heavy into turn of the 20th century radical leftist + WWII + Weimar shit academically this past year.

 

[Cosmos]

TL;DR: Ultimately, I'm saying there's a problem in thinking of radical, violent fundamentalists in a religious or cultural context (my second comparative example, Islamophobia:pre-WWII antisemitism) when they really ought to be seen through a geopolitical lens (my first comparison, Weimar Germany:MENA region).

Apologies for any oversimplifications or presumptuous moves in these comparisons, I chose them for the sake of illustration, not (as I said) because I think they're genuinely one to one. I think they're somewhat valid as comparisons in the aspects I've pointed out here, but I could absolutely be reaching, with this. It's just the most prominent example in my mind since I'm pretty heavy into turn of the 20th century radical leftist + WWII + Weimar shit academically this past year.

While I disagree with some of your points, you did give me a lot to think about. I admit that I'm way more versed in the cultural and religious aspects of this conflict rather than the historical ones.

I also freely admit that the West done fucked up when it comes to the Middle East. While I really do believe that there are parts of Islam that makes it easier to radicalize people with than with other ideologies (which I've discussed in the Islam thread), it's also very important to remember the geopolitical aspects. However, I also think that Islamic extremism is currently a massive roadblock in the path of peace in the Middle East, regardless of how it actually started. Even if it was formed as a response to Western aggression, people are still clinging to it when we're at the point where the West wants to have better relations.

 

[norrington]

While I disagree with some of your points, you did give me a lot to think about. I admit that I'm way more versed in the cultural and religious aspects of this conflict rather than the historical ones.

I also freely admit that the West done fucked up when it comes to the Middle East. While I really do believe that there are parts of Islam that makes it easier to radicalize people with than with other ideologies (which I've discussed in the Islam thread), it's also very important to remember the geopolitical aspects. However, I also think that Islamic extremism is currently a massive roadblock in the path of peace in the Middle East, regardless of how it actually started. Even if it was formed as a response to Western aggression, people are still clinging to it when we're at the point where the West wants to have better relations.

As far as Islam being more prone to radicalization than other religions or beliefs, I'm of the opinion that it's heavily contextual, which is to say that Islam is to the Middle East what Nationalism is to the West or what pan-Slavicism is to Russia, which is to say, a fallback when an external influence is being perceived as corrupting. But of course, aspects of Islam like jihad are easily appropriated by violent fundamentalist terrorism; I don't think there's anything one can do to change that, though, and I don't think it should have any impact whatsoever on the average follower of Islam. Communism's comparable; everything about the Manifesto is just begging to be radicalized, but most communists today (at least in the west) aren't justifying terrorist bombings and assassinations (like they were in the 20th century) because the context changed.

The problem I see with the second part re: the West wanting to have better relations, is that the West's definition of 'better relations' is still usually incredibly lop-sided to the benefit of the West. Take the discourse surrounding the 2000 Camp David summit; a lot of people in the US blame Arafat for refusing to budge on anything at all and turning down what they claim is a 'totally reasonable deal' but when you look at the deal itself and consider what Palestine has given up (under the dictate of the British government) so that Israel can exist as a state, it really wasn't that reasonable at all. Even Israel's foreign relations minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, who represented Israel in those talks, said that he didn't think the Palestinians were wrong to reject the deal then and that he'd've done the same in their shoes; he cites the part of the problem as neutral mediators like the US trying to impose principles of international law on the potential agreement with great rigidity.

Ultimately, regardless of the common Western narrative that we're true neutral mediators, the US in fact has a vested interest in playing a very precarious political balancing act in the middle east, and the specifics of any settlements between Israel and Palestine have far-reaching ramifications for us via international relations with other countries in the Middle East; US foreign policy (and European foreign policy, and now Russian foreign policy) plays a major role in the inner workings of Israel-Palestine negotiations, just as it does in the politics of countries like Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Egypt, and Syria.

We have strong economic ties to industries and regimes in the region, and we interfere to the detriment of the region in the interest of those economic ties above all else, then smack whatever label is in vogue in current US politics (anti-communist, pro-Israeli, anti-Al Qaeda, anti-Hussein) to justify it to the voting public. On our end, then, we see it as doing the region a service, as trying to help them while all they do is bite the hand that feeds them. From their end (and it is, of course, a viewpoint that is just as subject to propagandizing and politically/economically-motivated hyperbolizing as ours, possibly moreso due to the more iron-fisted control on media/free speech within certain countries over there), we keep telling Arabs and Muslims what to do and how to act and behave in order to be respected, pumping in all our bullshit western culture and democratization (which their pundits play up as sexual promiscuity/deviancy, drug abuse, alcoholism, whatever else), and then bombing the shit out of them for no discernible reason and claiming it's for their own good.

Drone strikes and air raids take out entire city blocks if not more; they cause massive civilian casualties and destruction even though we do try to minimize it. We have no basis for really comprehending the strain that places on the average citizen; think the destruction of property after Katrina, think the loss of life on 9/11, but all in the same places as frequently as a monthly basis, and you might start to get an idea. People are bound to get pissed off.

A drone strike may successfully hit the target, but terror cells aren't subject to pyramidal organization, taking out a major player in one corner does nothing but fan the flames of hatred for another cell to capitalize on because of how many lives it ruins in the process. We cut off the head of Al Qaeda by hacking blindly and somewhat mercilessly at the surrounding area, and ISIS capitalized on the anger and fear of those we hurt in that process and grew from it. Most average people living in these countries hate terrorists (and are subject to far more terror attacks than anywhere in the US or Europe, but those are far less publicized; google Turkey + Brussels for an example) and they see that the US response is doing nothing to stop the terrorists, and that the US is still doing that shit anyway, so some of them start to assume maybe the US has ulterior motives and isn't actually 'accidentally' hitting civilian targets at all, and then they become very easy to hate.

That's an oversimplification, of course; the cultural aversion to the 'corrupting' influence of Westernization plays a big part too, but hating McDonalds and weed isn't enough to make someone want to strap a bomb to themselves and blow a bunch of people up no matter what culture they are or what religion they practice. You see the same shit with Irish radicals after the British finally gave up that whole 'WE CAN'T STOP FUCKING THEM UP OR THEY'll GET WORSE' and decided to stop fucking with them; last I checked, the IRA wasn't exactly at the top of anyone's list for major terrorist threats recently. Terrorists are born of fear and anger, which comes from violent economic and general instability.

 

[Internet War Criminal]

ere's the thing: yes, ultra orthodox Jews are just as crazy about filthy infidels "desecrating" their holy sites

Are they? Really, are they?

I keep reading this double-standard 'Oh hum those (Ultra-)Orthodox Jews are just as crazy and as bad as those Islamists*'. When is the last time an Orthodox Jew beheaded someone? Stoned a woman to death for adultery? Threw a gay person off of a building?**

Right now, the mosque and the shrine on the Temple Mount certainly are defiling it, yet (Ultra-)Orthodox Jews respect the sanctity of the Temple Mount that they refuse to go up on it because they are not on the appropriate level of purity required to be able to. Have they ever prevented a single Arab or non-Jew from going up on what is the single holiest site of Judaism, so holy they refuse to go up themselves?

That constant comparison between Islamists and (ultra-)Orthodox Jews or Evangelicals is absolute bullshit and another tool to demonize Jew/pretend that both sides of this conflict are really equal and the same when they are not.

At the end of the day, when holy sites like the Temple Mount are in the hands of Jews, Muslims and Christians have equal access to it. When holy sites like the Tomb of Joseph are in the hands of Muslims, Jews have no access to it and it regularly is vandalized/set on fire.


*I know it's not exactly what you were doing, but close enough for me to breach into a bigger point about it
**Yes, there are a few very rare examples of ultra-Orthodox Jews who do bad things. By the way, they usually are pretty much always from the group called 'Neturei Karta', aka 'That one group of Jew that people against Israel always bring up and say 'See not all Jews are zionists!!' by posting their picture'. They are a handful of people and they are the same ones who do stuff like throwing stones, etc...

 

[AnOminous]

I keep reading this double-standard 'Oh hum those (Ultra-)Orthodox Jews are just as crazy and as bad as those Islamists*'.

So-called "ultra-Orthodox" Jews aren't even Orthodox. That implies they're actually following some tradition.

Instead, they're generally cultists following some weird, bizarro world version of Judaism that was just made up in the last couple centuries.

 

[Internet War Criminal]

So-called "ultra-Orthodox" Jews aren't even Orthodox. That implies they're actually following some tradition.

Instead, they're generally cultists following some weird, bizarro world version of Judaism that was just made up in the last couple centuries.

This is completely false.

The ultra-Orthodox are following normative Judaism. They are doing normative Judaism the way it's been done for more than three thousand years. It's just that when it comes to legal opinions, you can be more lenient on some things, more strict on others, and they have chosen a path where they are pretty much always strict. That's the difference between the modern Orthodox (who side with the lenient side most of the time), the Orthodox (a mix of both), and the ultra-Orthodox (who side with the stricter side most of the time) in a nutshell.

 

[Daughter of Cernunnos]

I am pro-Palestine. Israel is a genocidal settler state, it can die.

 

[Asuka]

It's a strip of land that has little to offer. People fighting over the land of GodJesus seriously need something else to preoccupy their time, like knitting.

 

[Internet War Criminal]

The primary reason why I can trivially believe the actual Palestinian government is doing that is because antisemitic tropes are as old as Abrahamic religions themselves. I wouldn't put it past the Palestinian government to cite blood libel allegations, for example.

Wouldn't put it past them?

It's literally a weekly occurrence