Debate: Israel – victim or aggressor?

Discussion in 'Debates & Contests' started by Margot, Mar 4, 2011.

  1. Margot

    Margot Account closed, not banned

    Joined:
    Oct 23, 2010
    Messages:
    62,072
    Likes Received:
    345
    Trophy Points:
    0
    http://www.thenewage.co.za/blogdetail.aspx?mid=186&blog_id= 292

    Debate: Israel – victim or aggressor?

    Steven Friedman takes issue with Don Krausz

    A country sorely misunderstood
    Don Krausz

    David Randall of the band Faithless has chosen to boycott his fans in Israel where the group had played since about 2001. In June 2005, they gave their last performance there. It was then that a Palestinian producer aptly known as “Boikutt” opened Randall’s eyes to the apartheid horrors, crimes, atrocities and obscenities perpetrated by Israel against Palestinians.

    He referred to the suffering and humiliation of the Palestinians and the siege of Gaza (TNA February 16: A pebble in the mainstream).

    His grandparents may have told him of the Blitz and what it was like to be under constant bombardment. I am not drawing a parallel with WW11 but for eight years civilian settlements in Israel proper were subjected to the impact of about 12 000 missiles, as many as 80 a day.

    Sderot was hit by 4 000 rockets. That only ceased when Israel could also no longer endure the cries of the oppressed and wiped out most of the thugs in Gaza.

    Now, anyone can accuse another of things that are libellous and the plaintiff can sue such a person in court. The court will then decide on the truth of the allegations and unless the accuser can establish that truth, he could be liable for heavy penalties.

    Not every aggrieved person would go to such lengths. Yet, if such persons value their integrity, they would not expect a judge to do their homework for them – they would try to establish the truth themselves.

    Boikutt may have had an axe to grind. Did Randall seek an Israeli opinion on Boikutt’s accusations? Did he investigate the background to the Israeli-Palestinian confrontation?

    Has he ever read the Bible and learned of the Jewish background to the area? Is he aware that the territory was not stolen from the Arabs, but partly designated as a Jewish homeland by the British mandate?

    Or, that in 1947 the UN apportioned the land between the Jews living there and the resident Arabs, for the name “Palestinian” was only a recent invention?

    Does he know that during the years 1947/48, the resident “Palestinians” attacked their Jewish neighbours with the help of neighbouring Arab states?

    How would his outlook be affected if he learnt that the heavily outnumbered and outgunned Jews had to fight for their lives and lost 1% of their total population? This would equate with South Africa suffering the loss of 500 000 of its citizens!

    The surrounding Arab states launched at least five major wars against the colossal empire of Israel – about the size of the Kruger National Park. Today’s population of Egypt is 83 million. Israel’s Jews number 6 million. Yet that relative handful of men and women defeated the forces of Egypt, Libya, Jordan, Syria, Iraq and Lebanon time and again – once, taking only six days to do so.

    When it dawned on Egypt and Jordan that they were unable to defeat Israel on the battlefield, they made peace. That resulted in Egypt regaining the Sinai Desert with its oil fields and control of the Suez Canal. Jordan acquired peaceful borders and Israeli support and agricultural cooperation.

    The Palestinians, however, saw things in a different light. Their charters proclaim the religious obligation to destroy Israel and kill Jews. Using terrorism in the shape of ambushes, suicide bombings, drive-by shootings, mass firing of rockets at civilian settlements and assassinations, they caused thousands of Israeli casualties.

    The Israelis found that by erecting barriers between Jewish and Palestinian residential areas they were able to reduce the suicide bombings by more than 90%. Apartheid, Mr Randall?

    By directing Israeli and Palestinian traffic onto different roads, the drive-by shootings were all but eliminated. More apartheid, Mr Randall?

    By establishing heavily guarded checkpoints to monitor every Palestinian entering Israel, the smuggling of explosives, weapons and entry of terrorists was severely reduced. And how do you see that, Mr Randall?

    I think that it is a great shame that Israel’s youth and music lovers should be deprived of the undoubted talents of Faithless.

    When some millennia ago King Saul would fly into a homicidal rage it was the music of David that soothed and calmed him.

    Messrs Randall and Maxi Jazz, don’t you think that your presence in Israel may do more good than harm?

    Don Krausz is the chairman of the Association of Holocaust Survivors in Johannesburg

    Continued.............

    http://www.thenewage.co.za/blogdetail.aspx?mid=186&blog_id= 292


    Followed by: The Jewish State is a bully in disguise.
     
  2. Margot

    Margot Account closed, not banned

    Joined:
    Oct 23, 2010
    Messages:
    62,072
    Likes Received:
    345
    Trophy Points:
    0
    AGAINST

    Jewish state a bully in disguise
    Steven Friedman

    When bullies pretend to be victims, it is no wonder that onlookers become confused. Particularly when the bully has a massive, well-oiled, propaganda machine that can be regularly deployed to mislead the world.

    Don Krausz’s misleading defence of the indefensible trots out all the usual arguments deployed to portray the state of Israel as a victim – the same state of Israel that uses one of the largest armies in the world to bully and browbeat Palestinians, in defence of an occupation, which figures such as former US president Jimmy Carter and Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu have compared to apartheid. (Carter feels it is like apartheid, Tutu feels it is worse).

    And, like other Israeli propagandists, Krausz’s ‘facts’ should not be taken seriously.

    First, there is the attempt to subtly compare the Palestinians to the Nazis by drawing a parallel between the rockets fired into Sderot to the war-time blitz. The parallel is obscene and misleading.

    Palestinians have been living under a harsh and illegal occupation for decades.

    They are routinely denied the right to freedom of movement, are bullied and humiliated by Israeli soldiers at checkpoints when they try to go about their daily business, and may have their orchards and lands, their only means of survival, cut in half by Israeli ‘security measures’.

    Any comparison between the Nazis and anyone else is offensive, but which behaviour is closer to that of a tyrannical government persecuting people because of their race – that of the Israeli state which is responsible for the occupation or that of the Palestinians, which are its victims?

    Second, the reference to rockets paints the Israelis as victims, the Palestinians as perpetrators.

    There is no comparison between the degree of violence that the Israeli state has let unleash on the Palestinians and the violence some Palestinians have used in return.

    Many more Palestinians than Israelis have died in this conflict – in Gaza, tens of thousands of Palestinians suffered, a handful of Israelis did.

    But for the Israeli state’s supporters, an Israeli life is clearly worth scores of Palestinian lives – just as white lives were worth more than black ones to those who ran our country until 1994.

    Krausz also trots out the tired Israeli propaganda about all the wars surrounding countries visited on the Israelis. This is nonsensical for two reasons.

    First, if a region is occupied by people who demanded the right to set up a state reserved for their ethnic group, is it surprising that others in the region try to stop them? By Krausz’s reasoning, any group of people who arrive in someone else’s territory and declare a state for themselves is the victim, anyone who resists is the aggressor.

    Second, mounds of historical evidence from official Israeli documents show that all the wars in which the Israeli state has been involved were initiated by the Israeli government in its ceaseless attempt to claim more Palestinian land. The Israeli state is not the victim of war, it is its cause.

    Krausz also seems to think that Israelis can do what they like to Palestinians because his interpretation of the Bible says they can.

    Besides the fact that some of us Jews read the Bible very differently from him, if Krausz is consistent, Muslims can do what they like to Jews if they insist that their interpretation of the Koran says they can!

    He claims that the Israelis are entitled to lord it over the Palestinians because the UN said they could.

    When did the UN say the Israelis could occupy Gaza and the West Bank? Actually, the UN said they couldn’t. If Krausz thinks the UN is the source of international morality, why is he not demanding that the Israeli state obey UN resolutions telling them to get out of occupied Palestinian lands?

    These are only some examples of Israeli government propaganda which distorts history in an attempt to prettify the harsh reality – that the Israeli state is based on the assumption that one ethnic group has a right to dominate another.

    Just as those who fought apartheid will be remembered more kindly by history than those who defended it, those who exerted peaceful pressure on the Israeli state to end the oppression of Palestinians will be remembered more fondly.

    Professor Steven Friedman is Director of the Centre for the Study of Democracy at Rhodes University and the University of Johannesburg.
     
  3. Ezra

    Ezra New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 16, 2011
    Messages:
    2,613
    Likes Received:
    21
    Trophy Points:
    0
    This debate has been done thousands of times.
     
    AshenLady and (deleted member) like this.
  4. Oxyboy

    Oxyboy New Member

    Joined:
    Oct 18, 2009
    Messages:
    2,779
    Likes Received:
    17
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Since February!!
     
  5. Ezra

    Ezra New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 16, 2011
    Messages:
    2,613
    Likes Received:
    21
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Eh no matter what pro-Israel will be pro-Israel

    And Anti-Israel will stay anti-Israel and both will be demonized.

    I do not even care anymore for the topic, Israel, of debating. Ill just leave it to HaShem

    And the rest of the delusional people who waste their time in endless debate.
     
  6. MegadethFan

    MegadethFan Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 29, 2010
    Messages:
    17,385
    Likes Received:
    123
    Trophy Points:
    63
    I think this is a great chance to have a discussion based ENTIRELY on fact. This is the debate section and hence comments must be relevant to the debate. Hence bs posts like a few above are totally irrelevant. I would really like to argue Israel is the aggressor, but 1 I am already in a debate. 2. I've started uni and are a little pressed for time, however 3. When I get the chance I will try and contribute here, at least where discussion on topics breaks out. I would argue Israel has been the aggressor since 1967, but even before that it is understandable as to why the Arab states did not want a group of foreigners to create a relatively hostile nation on the shore with the backing of western powers which were also imperialistically oppressing the Arab states. I am quite sure that if a group of American Indians, who would have the same validity in action, wanted to create their own nation in the US they would be thrown out of the courts. But today's circumstances are different.

    Israel is certainly the aggressor.
     
  7. Turk123

    Turk123 Banned

    Joined:
    Sep 16, 2010
    Messages:
    890
    Likes Received:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    0
    By no means they are the victims, they have decided to settle in those lands claiming a myth of a "promised land", thousands of years later, and expect the entire world, especially the middle-easterns to just open their arms and embrace their new neighbors.
    Ofcourse the arab world and especially the palestinians are not happy- its their right not to be- if you truly believe Israel was created without ANY western imperialist agenda, then you are naive at the very least.
    Israel is created to watch over the western interest in the region, to be a secure "outpost" of the western imperialism, and since their creation, they have acquired high tech weapons, missiles, etc.. from USA to back their aggressive politics.

    Israeli's are smart though. Any comment such as these, they would label it anti-semitic. (the easiest way to win an argument for them)
    From Buddhists to Jews, Muslims to Atheists, we are all God's children, doesnt matter what we believe in.
    BUT
    ISRAEL is a hostile nation, an illegal nation, and yes, its creation is against laws of any kind.
     
  8. Truth Detector

    Truth Detector Banned

    Joined:
    Jan 5, 2010
    Messages:
    6,415
    Likes Received:
    31
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Here is the irony and hypocrisy and lies from Don Kraus which places his argument in the realm of fantasy and no further debate need be had:

    This is irony considering the next false statements from Kraus.

    Illegal occupation? By whose standards; those of the terrorists who want to annihilate the Jews?

    This irrational argument and false claim suggests that the United Nations is not the proper arbiter of drawing state’s lines yet it begs the question then why were the borders drawn by British Imperialistic occupation any more relevant? Iraq, Syria and Jordan were a creation of British Occupation; why are their borders more accepted than Israel’s?

    That would be because so many of them have blown up busses and weddings and innocent Jews. Perhaps if they renounced their violent intentions and recognized Israel’s right to exist there would be no need for such security measures?

    There is no comparison between the degree of violence that the Israeli state has let unleash on the Palestinians and the violence some Palestinians have used in return.

    This argument is my favorite; so it is not the Palestinians who are perpetrators of violence when they send thousands of rockets indiscriminately into Israeli neighborhoods, it is the fault of Jews violence in defending themselves. I cannot fathom a more lunatic argument lacking in even the most basic common sense.

    I am always amazed when someone makes the claim that thousands of dead are a mere handful or that losing 1% of one’s population to wars started by Arabs is a mere handful.

    So with this convoluted argument Kraus claims that regardless of the FACT that a tiny Jewish nation state was carved out of the vastness of the Middle East, and regardless of the fact that four Arab States attempted to annihilate this state, it is the Jews fault for these attacks in the first place for having the audacity of being given a tiny sliver of land to call their own nation after the horrors of the holocaust and Jewish Anti-Semitism rampant in Europe and other nations.

    There you have it folks, the massing of Arab army’s at Israel’s borders were nothing more than peaceful military exercises and it was the Jews Imperialism that caused those peaceful exercises on her border to turn into a war. Forget the rhetoric from those Arab Leaders that they would throw the Jews into the Sea. Forget the rhetoric that refused to recognize the Jewish State and promised Armageddon for the Jews.

    You just cannot take the moronic ramblings of someone like Steven Friedman seriously when his logic is so very flawed and irrational and contains nothing that could be remotely considered a fact.

    This is a strawman and nothing stated by Krausz suggests this is what he meant, intended or stated.

    They have the right to occupy any lands that were used to attack Jews and were conquered after Arabs declared all out war on this tiny sliver of a nation. Just as the allies had the right to occupy Italy, Germany and Japan after WWII. You see, to the victors go the spoils. If Arabs do not want to see their lands occupied, they shouldn’t attempted to attack and destroy in the first place.

    The only propaganda here is the irrational idiot terrorist propaganda being spewed by Friedman. But this is the irrational and lunatic state of mind we find from the uninformed and terrorist loving Abnti-Semites.

    This is the most laughably stupid and insane claim a moron like Friedman could make; that the history is peaceful pressure in lieu of a desperate struggle to prevent annihilation on the part of Jews.

    The man is a moron and this is what he teaches; and we wonder why so many youth are graduating blatantly ignorant?

    This man doesn’t deal with Democracy; he deals in fabrications, lies, obfuscations and denial.

    The only way someone like Friedman can make the false idiot claims he does is by completely ignoring history, reality and common sense. But this is par for the course when dealing with the ignorant.
     
  9. Truth Detector

    Truth Detector Banned

    Joined:
    Jan 5, 2010
    Messages:
    6,415
    Likes Received:
    31
    Trophy Points:
    0
    And it will be done a thousand times more as long as morons like Friedman are around to spread their dis-information campaigns to the mush filled brains of their students and those gullible enough to swallow his bile filled rhetoric without a search into the facts.
     
  10. Margot

    Margot Account closed, not banned

    Joined:
    Oct 23, 2010
    Messages:
    62,072
    Likes Received:
    345
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Note the sequence.. the writer goes from 1948 and having referred to the blitz (WW2) to 1994 when the first suicide bombing was carried out.

    Also, try to remember that Jesus lived his whole life under occupation as the Palestinians do now.

    It didn't work then and it doesn't work now.
     
  11. Catch

    Catch Banned

    Joined:
    Mar 19, 2011
    Messages:
    8,092
    Likes Received:
    17
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Victim then aggressor.
     
  12. Margot

    Margot Account closed, not banned

    Joined:
    Oct 23, 2010
    Messages:
    62,072
    Likes Received:
    345
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Yes, that's fair...

    Abused then Abuser.
     
  13. Truth Detector

    Truth Detector Banned

    Joined:
    Jan 5, 2010
    Messages:
    6,415
    Likes Received:
    31
    Trophy Points:
    0
    You never can present a cohesive rational argument can you?
     
  14. Margot

    Margot Account closed, not banned

    Joined:
    Oct 23, 2010
    Messages:
    62,072
    Likes Received:
    345
    Trophy Points:
    0
    You shouldn't be having so much difficulty with the concepts of justice and human rights.
     
  15. Ezra

    Ezra New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 16, 2011
    Messages:
    2,613
    Likes Received:
    21
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Lol thousands of years? Are you talking about before the modern state was created? I suppose.

    In that case, Doesnt Quran even say the land of Israel was given to the Jews?
     
  16. Enoon

    Enoon Member

    Joined:
    Mar 3, 2011
    Messages:
    169
    Likes Received:
    1
    Trophy Points:
    18
    Israel is the victim, the arab countries started the conflict the day they crossed the border to Israel.
     
  17. Truth Detector

    Truth Detector Banned

    Joined:
    Jan 5, 2010
    Messages:
    6,415
    Likes Received:
    31
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I don't; why is it so hard for you?
     
  18. Red_Carpet

    Red_Carpet Banned

    Joined:
    Aug 2, 2011
    Messages:
    168
    Likes Received:
    10
    Trophy Points:
    0
    All Israel has tried to do is survive as it's own nation. They are surrounded by backward tribal groups that pass themselves off as governments. I think Israel has been overly generous in trying to resolve the problems in their region. I would not be so patient. The United States is lucky to have a sophisticated ally like Israel.
     
  19. Ezra

    Ezra New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 16, 2011
    Messages:
    2,613
    Likes Received:
    21
    Trophy Points:
    0
    I used to think the same. But it has turned out I realized this is wrong. To survive does not mean accepting the settler movement in stealing land and settling in areas outside of Israel. Anywhere else that would be considered a crime and you would be arrested quickly. It is an occupation.


    I may not be a fan or supporter of Hamas and PLO. But to say they are completely backwards is wrong. There are many people who advocate for a secular government in Palestine and would love to just have justice.

    Sophisticated ally? They are no better then the Syrian government leader Assad, who has allowed the firing on his own citizens who are protesting against him. Israeli government does all it can to silence protesters. The Palestinians are not even allowed to have a peaceful protest, without having tear gas thrown at them and being arrested. If such had happened in America, we all would be in an outrage. As well as any other place. Many Americans criticize the Muslim government for not allowing peaceful protest. Why is the Israelis any different?

    Take time to watch this presentation about the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem and the oppression. A point of view that is not apart of the Muslim vs Jewish. [ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFC-k9MgbaE"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFC-k9MgbaE[/ame]
     
  20. Margot

    Margot Account closed, not banned

    Joined:
    Oct 23, 2010
    Messages:
    62,072
    Likes Received:
    345
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Except the conflict began in 1947.......
     
  21. Red_Carpet

    Red_Carpet Banned

    Joined:
    Aug 2, 2011
    Messages:
    168
    Likes Received:
    10
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Please provide fact based links to support your remarks. I do not think you can do it. Google and you will get an education.
     
  22. Margot

    Margot Account closed, not banned

    Joined:
    Oct 23, 2010
    Messages:
    62,072
    Likes Received:
    345
    Trophy Points:
    0
    The Jewish terror gangs were formed in 1922 and ultimately they killed many Arabs and 400 British peacekeepers.

    The blew up the SS Patria in Haifa harbor.. and the King David hotel.

    They also murdered Count Bernadotte who save 40,000 Jews from the holocaust.

    Why don't you read Ahmad Ma'an an hasidic Jew from Keiv.. He wrote alot about the cruelty and mockery of the European refugees who sought sanctuary in Palestine.
     
  23. Ezra

    Ezra New Member

    Joined:
    Feb 16, 2011
    Messages:
    2,613
    Likes Received:
    21
    Trophy Points:
    0
    That is not much of a counter argument. I should also add that I used to be a staunch zionist supporter. And I am well versed in Zionist arguments. Especially since I have read a book written by Benyamin Netanyahu.

    With that said, I am neither a 100% Supporter of Palestine. Instead I am neutral and just advocate peace for both. I do believe the Jews have a right to Israel, but at the same time I recognize the Palestinian claim to statehood.

    Now what would you like links to? Settlers? Who are living in land outside of the Israeli border?

    Israel silencing peaceful protesters? What exactly do you need proof of?
     
  24. morfeo

    morfeo New Member

    Joined:
    Dec 11, 2010
    Messages:
    189
    Likes Received:
    3
    Trophy Points:
    0
    Aggressor.
     
  25. MegadethFan

    MegadethFan Well-Known Member

    Joined:
    May 29, 2010
    Messages:
    17,385
    Likes Received:
    123
    Trophy Points:
    63
    Most definitely the aggressor. Certainly at its creation is was met with ardent hostility which may have escalated response (although the early Zionists were certainly not saints - they perpetrated significant ethnic cleansing in Palestine for example). Ever since 1967 however Israel has clearly only sought, through its deeds, to extent its control and dominance over the Palestinians.
     

Share This Page