In yet another reality-denying ritual of fealty to the pro-Israel lobby, members of Congress absurdly voted to say Israel was neither an apartheid state nor racist. Only a few progressives, including members of the Squad, stood firm in opposing the measure.
Free palestine!!
The whole article doesn’t mention any discriminatory law to support its title argument.
By definition Israel isn’t apartheid. A huge portion of Israeli citizens are Arab and Muslim, and they have all the same rights and privileges as any other Israeli citizen, including serving in the government.
I know that anti-Israel folks LOVE this line of attack, but it’s incredibly counterproductive, because all it does is signal that you haven’t studied even basic Israeli law, demographics, or history. Or maybe you just don’t know what apartheid means.
Whatever the case may be, it’s a surefire way to make sure that your argument isn’t taken seriously.
Look away! There’s no genocide happening here! The entire West Bank has always been part of Israel!
When the US occupied Iraq, we didn’t give Iraqis the right to vote in US elections. By your definition that made the US an apartheid state.
Hmm, you seem to be on to something here. So what you are saying is that if you conquer a place, and then take away the citizens of that place right to self-determination and start genociding them, that by definition that is an apartheid state… But how can that be if another state also does the same thing?
Israel must be really bad at genocide since the Palestinian population in the West Bank has been rising for decades.
Weird how effective the IDF is at everything but killing innocent people…
Genocide, too, huh?
Listen, when your hatred for Israel is so blind that you are just slapping on whatever evil label you can think of, you’re just hurting your own case.
hatred for Israel
I hate all countries whose soldiers target visibly-distinct journos and doctors.
So do I. But if you’ll notice, this isn’t Israel policy, and when individual soldiers step out of line they are immediately investigated and punished.
deleted by creator
The United States was an invader and an occupier of Iraq. You’re delusional if you think Muslims have the same rights and opportunities as Jews in Israel.
There are Arab (not only Muslim btw) politicians, judges, doctors, cops, firemen, programmers.
Some universities (and there aren’t many total in Israel to begin with) even have less strict requirements for accepting Arab students.
Arabs don’t have to enlist.
Arabs are and their communities are more poor on average. Maybe if Arab politicians in Israel got their heads out of their asses and actually cared about their voter base this would change (and this kinda did actually, the last coalition included an Arab party which secured funding for the Arab sector, and the leader of the party recently said he will be willing to join Bibi’s coalition to combat Arab crime).
Horse shit.
Which part? Everything I said is true, I even double checked everything before posting to make sure I don’t spread misinformation like you have.
I would provide sources but they’re in Hebrew.
I will confirm what you said. The mayor of the town I lived in was Arab.
I studied US/Israel comparative law in law school. So unless my professor was delusional, and the authors of all the books about it were delusional, and the original sources were hallucinats … I’d say the more likely situation is that you simply don’t know what you’re talking about.
Next you’re gonna say America is the land of opportunity and minorities only have a hard time because they’re lazy.
Not at all. I’m extremely liberal, and very upset by income and wealth inequality in the US, and the lack of meritocracy.
Then I’ll give you a hint, America and Israel are part of the same military-industrial-economic complex. They both only serve to empower those at the top of the hierarchy of violence, and they use minorities as a scapegoat. BTW: Meritocracies are still hierarchies of inequality. They STILL grind the disabled and impoverished into dust.
deleted by creator
Liberal Nazist fascist? That’s an oxymoron.
You might want to Google some basic political fundamentals.
I wouldn’t waste my time if I were you, the comments in this thread are so dumb I’m convinced you are arguing with teenagers.
deleted by creator
Apartheid state claims they aren’t apartheid, obviously you would know this if you studied their founding mythology where they say they aren’t an apartheid.
You’re getting downvoted but you’re not wrong. I lived in Israel for 4 years and I was in an Arab neighborhood. They were mostly christian, but they were all pre-israel descendants and they had all the same rights as anyone else.
I’m super against what the government of Israel does, but apartheid just doesn’t fit.
I have also lived in south Africa, post apartheid but close enough that I’m very familiar with what it really was.
I see why apartheid is used, in some ways it is descriptive and useful but it ignores a lot and is ultimately inaccurate like you say.
Yeah, the issue is that Israel lost the the global public relations war decades ago. Law makers in the US generally understand the facts, which is why they almost universally support Israel, but trying to get the public to understand an issue this nuanced is impossible.
Meanwhile, all the unwaivering, mindless, ignorant hatred of Israel has made it so that Israel perpetually in a “damned if they do, damned if they don’t” situation.
If they ignore rocket attacks, no one gives them credit for restraint. If they do surgical attacks, they get vilified for collateral damage.
It’s there any other county other than Israel that CALLS THEIR ENEMY ON THE PHONE AND GIVES THEM TIME TO EXIT A BUILDING BEFORE BLOWING IT UP? Israel literally does this when they find terrorist headquarters. No casualties, just blowing up a building… And yet they are accused of genocide.
Remember when they built a fence along their border to keep out suicide bombers? They were vilified them, too.
Truly, it doesn’t matter how passive or defensive their actions are… a ANYTHING they do is met by accusations of apartheid and genocide.
If the international community won’t reward or even ACKNOWLEDGE Israel’s restraint, is it any wonder that their government is becoming more right-wing and hardline?
These ignorant attacks on Israel are having the opposite effect. Accusing Israel of evils they aren’t guilty of means that we aren’t having honest and productive conversations about what behaviors they are engaged in that really do have the potential to be changed by international pressure.
Yeah I’m gonna distance myself from you here. I’m not pro Israel. They have done and continue to do some horrible shit and I’ve seen first hand the effects of that. The unfiltered hatred some people there possess shocked me. They did not lose the public relations war, their actions alone have made their public relations what it is.
I was just advocating for nuance and honesty.
Not the guy you replied to, and I honestly disagree with you, but thank you for approaching this subject in a sane way.
There are many hateful people in Israel (and everywhere else really) but there are also many who truly want this conflict to end in a peaceful way, and people like many of those in this thread only serve to radicalize them IMO.
Man I’ve been saying this for years, kinda shocked it took this long for this to happen.
You can only falsely claim genocide so many times before some shithead reaches the conclusion it gives him a free pass to actually commit genocide.
Thankfully we still aren’t there yet, but I fear I will live to see the day Israel becomes as extreme as most of the world seems to think it already is.
I tihnk lawmakers in the US are paid a shit-load by Israeli Lobbyist, much like how they all support privatized healthcare and oil production despite the obvious problems those things have. As for Apartheid, what is this law? https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israels-knesset-passes-law-barring-palestinian-spouses-2022-03-10/
This law is the only good example IMO (I can also kinda see how someone will say the law of return is also problematic, though I disagree).
However, even though I personally think this law violates basic human rights and has no place in a democratic country (and this is coming from an Israeli on the right side of the political spectrum), one law doesn’t make a country an apartheid.
“One of, if not the most, powerful international issue lobby is that of the pro-Israel crowd.”. More background is available here.
Some of the top recipients 2021-2022:
Candidate Office Amount Brown, Shontel (D-OH) House $1,018,786 Stevens, Haley (D-MI) House $797,226 Ivey, Glenn (D-MD) House $756,695 Luria, Elaine (D-VA) House $723,458 Irwin, Steven (D-PA) $689,487 The top recipient of pro-Israel funds in the 2018 midterms was Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) with $546,507. Menendez is the ranking member on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) received the second-most with $349,437.
When looking at the overall numbers for all Pro-Israel bribe money to congress, there are 16 members of congress who have received over $1M USD. Here are the top 10:
Candidate Amount Biden, Joe (D) $4,226,604 Clinton, Hillary (D) $2,357,112 Kirk, Mark (R-IL) $2,294,469 Lieberman, Joe (D-CT) $1,996,274 McConnell, Mitch (R-KY) $1,953,160 Schumer, Charles E (D-NY) $1,725,324 McCain, John (R-AZ) $1,492,616 Menendez, Robert (D-NJ) $1,397,195 Wyden, Ron (D-OR) $1,284,376 Levin, Carl (D-MI) $1,245,913 I’m gonna distance myself from you here… What Israel has been doing is wrong. They haven’t "list the
