The BDS movement and the association of anti-Zionism and antisemitism

[Pannonian]

I'm not sure what boycotting universities is supposed to achieve but being opposed to Israel's politics is not necessarily anti-semitism either way.

I'm as exasperated by British Islamists as I am puzzled by Israel's influence in the US. I guess this makes me an anti-semite on both sides of the Israel-Palestine divide.

[Husar]

But only caring about Israel makes it very likely.

My personal theory that I can't back up and you are allowed to mock me. I think that the real reason is that Israel has succes, it has universities that rank among the best in the world, innovative industry, compatitive economy. That's got to be a bit hard to explain when you are ideologically infused with the idea, or rather truth that all cultures are equal. The palestianes get more aid than any 'country' in the world and it's a mess. So, lefties simply can't get to terms with being wrong.

Fire away

There are people who are as unreasonable as you say but there is no reason to devote 90% of your posts to a tiny weirdo minority that has barely any impact and treat them as though they dictate all politics in the west. Doing that is unreasonable as well, it's like an unhealthy fixation.

I'm as exasperated by British Islamists as I am puzzled by Israel's influence in the US. I guess this makes me an anti-semite on both sides of the Israel-Palestine divide.

It's a fact that Israel keeps taking land that Palestinians occupy and I haven't seen any arguments as to why that would be okay to do. The only "counter argument" is usually a distraction like "but the Palestinians..." which always ends in that two wrongs do not make a right.

If Israel has the right to take land from its neighbors as long as it can by being militarily stronger, then what about Germany occupying some polish and dutch border towns to settle German people there? Would that be okay? The dutch don't even have tanks anymore to oppose us, that will be easy...

Taking that land is not a defense against rocket attacks and suicide bombers either so that's certainly not a justification, they may justify setting up checkpoints and other measures but not land grabs beyond the borders accepted by the UN.

[Pannonian]

It's a fact that Israel keeps taking land that Palestinians occupy and I haven't seen any arguments as to why that would be okay to do. The only "counter argument" is usually a distraction like "but the Palestinians..." which always ends in that two wrongs do not make a right.

If Israel has the right to take land from its neighbors as long as it can by being militarily stronger, then what about Germany occupying some polish and dutch border towns to settle German people there? Would that be okay? The dutch don't even have tanks anymore to oppose us, that will be easy...

Taking that land is not a defense against rocket attacks and suicide bombers either so that's certainly not a justification, they may justify setting up checkpoints and other measures but not land grabs beyond the borders accepted by the UN.

See the argument I summarised above, that IIRC I've seen Frag or someone trot out here as well. "Palestinians" don't exist. The land was split into various states, one of which was Jordan, and so-called "Palestinians" are really Jordanians who have no right to any disputed land because they belong to a foreign state and not a disputed state. And since they don't exist, they don't exist to dispute the land, and thus Israel is merely holding what is her territory by right and without dispute. That's what I mean by 1984 and Communism. Nazism would preach hatred against its enemy. 1984-style Communism refuses to recognise their existence.

[Husar]

See the argument I summarised above, that IIRC I've seen Frag or someone trot out here as well. "Palestinians" don't exist. The land was split into various states, one of which was Jordan, and so-called "Palestinians" are really Jordanians who have no right to any disputed land because they belong to a foreign state and not a disputed state. And since they don't exist, they don't exist to dispute the land, and thus Israel is merely holding what is her territory by right and without dispute. That's what I mean by 1984 and Communism. Nazism would preach hatred against its enemy. 1984-style Communism refuses to recognise their existence.

Ah yes, but this still doesn't explain how this is Israel's land when the UN decided it is not. The USA wouldn't just let Russia occupy all of Antarctica just because Jordan has not claimed any of it. You may be right in that is what people do but it still doesn't work out that you expel people from the land they've been living on possibly for centuries based on your personal recategorization of their nationality.

I want to see a proper argument and "they're Jordanians because I say so" is not a proper argument.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Since BDS says that it calls for a boycott of Israeli academic institutions that discriminate against Palestinians, rather than simply any academic of Israeli citizenship, I would agree that it is not anti-semitic, on those grounds at least.

See the argument I summarised above, that IIRC I've seen Frag or someone trot out here as well. "Palestinians" don't exist. The land was split into various states, one of which was Jordan, and so-called "Palestinians" are really Jordanians who have no right to any disputed land because they belong to a foreign state and not a disputed state. And since they don't exist, they don't exist to dispute the land, and thus Israel is merely holding what is her territory by right and without dispute. That's what I mean by 1984 and Communism. Nazism would preach hatred against its enemy. 1984-style Communism refuses to recognise their existence.

Well, as far as I understand it, Palestinian nationalism is a fairly modern creation, as are all the nationalisms based around Arab states carved out rather arbitrarily by the colonial powers less than a full century ago.* I think that in pointing this out, these "1984-style Communists" are trying to win the argument over historical legitimacy, rather than denying that a real Palestinian nationalism exists today (though some may do this, such thinking is not the natural conclusion of the 'historic legitimacy' argument more generally). I think a more interesting line of thought would be to look into the development of the modern, Zionist form of Israeli nationalism, and challenge just how solid its own historic foundations are.

*Surely both sides should show some nuance here, and recognize that while (Arab) Palestine cannot claim to be the continuation of some sort of long-term historic state/people, Palestinian nationalism does have some historic precendents in more general pan-Arabism. Certainly, it could be seen in the revolts against the Ottomans.

[Husar]

There's still the notion that people have to have a nationality or national identity to have the right to live somewhere. Nationality is a far newer concept than having a home. The sinti and roma and the kurds have similar problems, in fact the jews had it as well before they were gifted a strip of land and formed a nationality around it.

[Fragony]

See the argument I summarised above, that IIRC I've seen Frag or someone trot out here as well. "Palestinians" don't exist. The land was split into various states, one of which was Jordan, and so-called "Palestinians" are really Jordanians who have no right to any disputed land because they belong to a foreign state and not a disputed state. And since they don't exist, they don't exist to dispute the land, and thus Israel is merely holding what is her territory by right and without dispute. That's what I mean by 1984 and Communism. Nazism would preach hatred against its enemy. 1984-style Communism refuses to recognise their existence.

Is there anything historically wrong with that position? No they don't exist they were invented.

[Hooahguy]

That's what I mean by 1984 and Communism. Nazism would preach hatred against its enemy. 1984-style Communism refuses to recognise their existence.

Well, as more and more nationalistic Zionists move to Israel (especially from the US where worship of Israel is started from pre-school) the attitudes about Palestinians get even more violent. Just look at all the Price Tag attacks on Palestinian properties. Everything from burning olive groves to tagging buildings with things like "death to Arabs."

Just look at this conversation a (sane) friend of mine had with a radical new immigrant during Pillar of Defense:

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

And that was just a small portion of that conversation.