You make strangely compelling arguments. Please send me your address so I can move in.

Do you know what happened to Eitan and ContinuedinChicago?

The Geneva convention doesn’t apply to settlements, and this whole thread is beginning to get tiresome, so I won’t get into why – I’m sure you’ve heard it before from people you have called “hasbara mouthpieces” before anyway.

No, no, don’t be shy. No talk of Hasbara mouthpieces here.

I don’t recall anyone explaining to me why the settlements aren’t subject to the Geneva Convention and I’m now truly intrigued. Allowing (actively encouraging in fact) Israelis to settle on land acquired by military conquest isn’t population transfer? Please explain.

This seems to me to be a case where the Convention applies that’s so clear-cut it’s hard to find other examples that fit so well.

There’s also the important point of “intent”. Who can, after all this time of unabated building, still NOT believe that the intention of Israel is to hold on to at least some of that territory. The Israeli G’ment also claims there exist an agrement between Sharon and Bush to that effect (on some of the settlements), even though the US admin.now denies knowledge of that (I read somewhere else the agreement had been ratified by Congress, actually).

So please indulge me. Best behaviour promised. Boyscout’s honour.

Come on Gabriel – you’ve never made a racist joke? I know I have, and still do – and I don’t hate Blacks, Mexicans, Jews etc … It’s just funny to laugh about ourselves and others (when done with appropriate company)

Gabriel – “we are all tribal to varying degrees” Yes, but tribal =/= racist. Neither is separatist. Are the Amish racist? Is any country that doesn’t allow immigrants?

Don’t be. I remember briefly dating a girl when I was a teen who told me that she used to laugh when people called her a slut because she knew she wasn’t so the attempt to hurt her went nowhere. The things that you let get to you are the things you doubt, even a little, yourself. To call me a self-loathing Jew is so incredibly ridiculous that I plan on telling everyone I know about it. My sister in Tzfat will probably be upset at what a Khilhul Hashem it all is, but the rest of my family and friends will laugh. What is Judeophobia anyway? I’ve missed to much of this thread to try to catch back up, but a few things. I agree with Avram that The Lady’s definition of racism is too broad. I mean, every single person in the world woke up this morning on land that was stolen at some point.

I think there is a very serious discussion to be had on racism. To me, there are a few of common misconceptions about racism.
1) If somebody says something racist=they are a racist. (There is not a single expression that is automatically racist. It’s about context: who is saying it, how is it said, why it is said, etc…)
2) That anybody is not racist in some way. ( we are all tribal to varying degrees)
3) That racists are rotten to the core and all their opinions are invalid. (For example, the most racist settler may spout hatred against Arabs, but his opinion on the Israeli economic world might be insightful. An anti-Semitic Palestinian might think Jews are descendants of pigs, but he also might have incredible insight into the native plants of the area.) I’m not saying that we should celebrate these people or be silent about their racism, but I think to shut someone out of all dialogue or to discount a person entirely as a person because of one (albeit, very important) aspect of their beliefs is short-sighted. (unless their hatred is so strong that it permeates everything they say and do.) I mean, I love Roman Polanski’s films but abhor that he had sex with a 13-year old.

There is subtlety and shades even in racism. There are passive racists, active racists, racists by birth, racists by choice, racists that can change, racists that can’t, and so on….

However, when WW2 broke out and the Nazis came into power things changed. Jews were kept out by the White Paper as a way to try and soften the ever increasing arab violence. The Arabs aligned with the Nazis and supported Hitler, who in return promised to exterminate the Jews in Israel and give them all of the land for themselves. The Grand Mufti of Jerusalem met with Hitler several times and drew up plans for the final solution of the Jews living in British Palestine.

Unfortunately for Hitler and the Mufti, the Allies were able to get to Rommel in Africa before he could get to the Jews in Israel and genocide was averted. After the war, the British attempted to quell the unrest in Palestine by siding with the arabs to crush the Jewish resistance. They failed, and were driven out leaving the arabs and the Jews to fight it out for themselves.

After the Jews survived some very bloody massacres, and inflicted a few of their own in response, the English decided the time had come to divide up the tiny Palestinian mandate that had been set aside originally for the Jews and make a tiny, disjointed portion for them while giving the majority to the arabs, The UN voted in favor, and the modern state of Israel was created. Immediately, the entire arab world declared war on the ravaged Jews, most of whom were Holocaust survivors, and ordered the arabs living in Israel proper to leave or risk becoming collateral damage.

The arabs fled, most believing that the Jews would be crushed in short order. Miraculously, the opposite happened, the Jews were victorious, and the land that the arabs fled from was annexed as Israel proper. Israel fought several more wars of survival over the next 20 years, and were victorious every time, culminating in the great 6 day war, where the Jordanians were routed out of the West Bank. Many in Israel wanted to annex the land that the arabs were fleeing from over to the eastern bank, but Moshe Dyan begged them back, and returned the Temple Mount as well, feeling that this good will gesture would ensure peace would be attainable from the grateful arabs. It was a disastrous mistake, one that haunts Israel to this very day.

Now, you claim Israel is something LESS justifiable than Anywherestan? No, it is the opposite. Israel is the Jewish homeland, always has been, and the Jews have never, ever stopped believing that. You may think it’s just a few religious settlers, or a movement of radicalism, but it is part of being a Jew every bit as much as cutting the foreskin.

“Please don’t blame us for this guy, please?”

No, but what if he turns Zionist?