Ron, the core national identity for Israel is two words: "Never Again". That is, never again will millions of Jews die for lack of a nation willing to take them in. The purpose of the state of Israel is as a place of final refuge for the world's unwanted Jews. Remember, the Jews who died in the Holocaust died not because Hitler hated Jews (though he did), but *because the rest of the world hated Jews* and refused to take in the unwanted Jewery of Europe. Hitler had no problem with deporting the Jews rather than exterminating them (much cheaper than building extermination camps), but *nobody would take them*. Even the United States turned away shiploads of Jewish refugees fleeing Europe, just as Britain turned away shiploads of Jewish refugees attempting to reach Palestine.
If not in the Middle East, where the State of Israel is a fait accompli, where else do you propose such a place of final refuge to exist? And given that such a place inherently has to be run by Jews or else it's possible to become a place of NON-refuge, how else other than via ethnic cleansing do you propose to create such a place?
Your attitude towards the Zionist project is a common one amongst left wingers. I must say that I am not pleased at all with the way things are going down in the state of Israel myself. But there are certain things that are simply inherent in the two words "Never Again" that are not negotiable on the part of Israelis and the Jewish people as a whole, and one of those things is that Israel is, and will forever be as long as it exists, a Jewish state -- and if that requires discriminating against non-Jews or even outright ethnic cleansing, that is what they will do, however distasteful that is to you or me.
Charley, the core issue is the demographic one Juan mentioned, and the Jewishness of the Israeli state. One thing that Israelis are fond of talking about in reference to American Jews is that American Jews in their soft comfortable refuge don't understand why the Jewish people need a Jewish state as a place of final refuge. They then start talking about Europe's history of one anti-Jewish pogrom after another (the Holocaust was just an exclamation point on that history, probably as many Jews died in pogroms before that as did in the Holocaust), about how Jews in nation after nation thought they had a safe place only to find out that no, their neighbors wanted to exterminate them there too but no other nation would take them in so they died in large numbers, and so forth. The State of Israel, they state, is the solution to that, in that if Jews in any nation on the planet run into problems where suddenly their neighbors want to exterminate them, they now have a place to run.
The end result of that attitude of perpetual persecution (based on historical fact, alas) is this: Israel will *never* support any solution to the Palestinian issue which results in Jews being a minority within the state of Israel. And if the number of non-Jews within the state of Israel reach a number that is viewed as a threat to the Jewishness of the Israeli state, the non-Jews *will* be expelled, even if it requires Israeli gunboats escorting cargo vessels full of "refugees" to Beirut Harbor (likely destination of said cargo vessels, since poor little Lebanon has no military capable of dealing with such a thing). Israel was founded on the bedrock of ethnic cleansing -- something that Israel's own archives now verify -- and given that, any solution to the Palestinian issue which involves the Palestinians becoming Israeli citizens is a non-starter. And given that Gaza and the West Bank even if not blockaded simply are not economically viable as an independent Palestine due to lack of water (assuming Tel Aviv doesn't give up any of its current water allocations), land, and resources, you arrive at the current stalemate.
Solution? I don't have one. But maybe this helps understand the Israeli attitude towards American Jews a little.
At a prior employer two of our important vendors were Israeli-based companies. Dealing with these people was insufferable. We accounted for 40% of their sales, yet they refused to make changes that our customers requested because their product was "perfect", and instead made changes that none of our customers requested and that indeed broke our customers' networks. When we found a bug in their product and reported it and requested that it be fixed they behaved as if we had just committed a personal insult, I'm surprised they never accused us of being "anti-Semitic" for daring state that their product wasn't perfect and needed fixing. For one product we ended up having to reverse-engineer a major part of their product to make it actually function the way it was supposed to function, and attempting to get them to fix it ran into a constant wall of arrogance -- "Our product works fine, why are you bothering us?" Remember, we accounted for 40% of their sales!!!
We eventually spun off the division that depended on the Israelis simply because it was proving to be way too big a distraction from our core business. It doesn't surprise me that Bibi's government acted in such a ham-handed and arrogant manner with this campaign. That seems to be Israeli culture nowadays, from what I can tell through my interactions with Israelis in my industry.
I feel like I'm watching The History Channel here, re-enacting oldies but goodies from history. First Israel decides to re-enact the Warsaw Ghetto, with Palestinians playing the role of the Jews and Israelis playing the role of the Germans. Then they decide to re-enact the Exodus 1947, with civilian activists playing the role of the Jews and the IDF playing the role of the British. Do they no longer study history in Israel? Does Nuttinyahoo understand just what role Israel is cast in with these re-enactments? Hint -- the Germans in 1940 and the British in 1947 were the bad guys in this drama!
But hey, Israel is being kept safe from the Coriander of Mass Destruction, Chickens of Biological Warfare, and Canned Fruit of Genocide (three of the items embargoed - coriander, live chickens, and canned fruit), so I suppose that justifies it all. Alrighty, then!
Ron, the core national identity for Israel is two words: "Never Again". That is, never again will millions of Jews die for lack of a nation willing to take them in. The purpose of the state of Israel is as a place of final refuge for the world's unwanted Jews. Remember, the Jews who died in the Holocaust died not because Hitler hated Jews (though he did), but *because the rest of the world hated Jews* and refused to take in the unwanted Jewery of Europe. Hitler had no problem with deporting the Jews rather than exterminating them (much cheaper than building extermination camps), but *nobody would take them*. Even the United States turned away shiploads of Jewish refugees fleeing Europe, just as Britain turned away shiploads of Jewish refugees attempting to reach Palestine.
If not in the Middle East, where the State of Israel is a fait accompli, where else do you propose such a place of final refuge to exist? And given that such a place inherently has to be run by Jews or else it's possible to become a place of NON-refuge, how else other than via ethnic cleansing do you propose to create such a place?
Your attitude towards the Zionist project is a common one amongst left wingers. I must say that I am not pleased at all with the way things are going down in the state of Israel myself. But there are certain things that are simply inherent in the two words "Never Again" that are not negotiable on the part of Israelis and the Jewish people as a whole, and one of those things is that Israel is, and will forever be as long as it exists, a Jewish state -- and if that requires discriminating against non-Jews or even outright ethnic cleansing, that is what they will do, however distasteful that is to you or me.
Charley, the core issue is the demographic one Juan mentioned, and the Jewishness of the Israeli state. One thing that Israelis are fond of talking about in reference to American Jews is that American Jews in their soft comfortable refuge don't understand why the Jewish people need a Jewish state as a place of final refuge. They then start talking about Europe's history of one anti-Jewish pogrom after another (the Holocaust was just an exclamation point on that history, probably as many Jews died in pogroms before that as did in the Holocaust), about how Jews in nation after nation thought they had a safe place only to find out that no, their neighbors wanted to exterminate them there too but no other nation would take them in so they died in large numbers, and so forth. The State of Israel, they state, is the solution to that, in that if Jews in any nation on the planet run into problems where suddenly their neighbors want to exterminate them, they now have a place to run.
The end result of that attitude of perpetual persecution (based on historical fact, alas) is this: Israel will *never* support any solution to the Palestinian issue which results in Jews being a minority within the state of Israel. And if the number of non-Jews within the state of Israel reach a number that is viewed as a threat to the Jewishness of the Israeli state, the non-Jews *will* be expelled, even if it requires Israeli gunboats escorting cargo vessels full of "refugees" to Beirut Harbor (likely destination of said cargo vessels, since poor little Lebanon has no military capable of dealing with such a thing). Israel was founded on the bedrock of ethnic cleansing -- something that Israel's own archives now verify -- and given that, any solution to the Palestinian issue which involves the Palestinians becoming Israeli citizens is a non-starter. And given that Gaza and the West Bank even if not blockaded simply are not economically viable as an independent Palestine due to lack of water (assuming Tel Aviv doesn't give up any of its current water allocations), land, and resources, you arrive at the current stalemate.
Solution? I don't have one. But maybe this helps understand the Israeli attitude towards American Jews a little.
At a prior employer two of our important vendors were Israeli-based companies. Dealing with these people was insufferable. We accounted for 40% of their sales, yet they refused to make changes that our customers requested because their product was "perfect", and instead made changes that none of our customers requested and that indeed broke our customers' networks. When we found a bug in their product and reported it and requested that it be fixed they behaved as if we had just committed a personal insult, I'm surprised they never accused us of being "anti-Semitic" for daring state that their product wasn't perfect and needed fixing. For one product we ended up having to reverse-engineer a major part of their product to make it actually function the way it was supposed to function, and attempting to get them to fix it ran into a constant wall of arrogance -- "Our product works fine, why are you bothering us?" Remember, we accounted for 40% of their sales!!!
We eventually spun off the division that depended on the Israelis simply because it was proving to be way too big a distraction from our core business. It doesn't surprise me that Bibi's government acted in such a ham-handed and arrogant manner with this campaign. That seems to be Israeli culture nowadays, from what I can tell through my interactions with Israelis in my industry.
I feel like I'm watching The History Channel here, re-enacting oldies but goodies from history. First Israel decides to re-enact the Warsaw Ghetto, with Palestinians playing the role of the Jews and Israelis playing the role of the Germans. Then they decide to re-enact the Exodus 1947, with civilian activists playing the role of the Jews and the IDF playing the role of the British. Do they no longer study history in Israel? Does Nuttinyahoo understand just what role Israel is cast in with these re-enactments? Hint -- the Germans in 1940 and the British in 1947 were the bad guys in this drama!
But hey, Israel is being kept safe from the Coriander of Mass Destruction, Chickens of Biological Warfare, and Canned Fruit of Genocide (three of the items embargoed - coriander, live chickens, and canned fruit), so I suppose that justifies it all. Alrighty, then!