Submission: SJP emphasizes that pro-Palestinian does not mean anti-Israeli

Last week a Bruins for Israel board member published an op-ed centered on vilifying Students for Justice in Palestine. In fact, calling SJP divisive is the main theme in nearly every op-ed opposing our work, from events to protests, to divestment. It is a tired, transparent tactic, but what makes this op-ed stand out was that it contained several lies. The lies claimed that SJP held a mock stabbing and made references to the Holocaust at an event last quarter mourning Palestinian and Israeli civilian lives lost. The Daily Bruin later ran corrections on the two statements.

Fabrications such as these are part of an attempt to create a narrative that discredits SJP while distracting from discussing the realities of Israeli injustices. SJP is not and has never been anti-Jewish or anti-Israeli.

We are, however, opposed to the way that Israel forces Palestinians to live as second-class citizens without sufficient access to resources, education or transportation. We are opposed to the construction of settlements and the Apartheid Wall on Palestinian land, both of which have been internationally recognized as illegal. And yes, consequently, we are also opposed to entities that impose or directly enable these injustices to persist.

A phrase used by pro-Palestinian activists is that “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which was referenced in last week’s article. Palestine is the name many use to refer to the geographic region that encompasses Israel, the West Bank and Gaza. The call for the entire region to be free is not a call for annihilation, but rather a call for everyone living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea, be they Palestinian or Israeli, to live with the same freedoms that currently only the Jewish Israelis are granted.

The reality is that through decades of peace negotiations, Israel has continued to subjugate Palestinians to inhumane policies and construct illegal settlements. Peace will not come through more of the same. That’s why Palestinian civil society has called upon the international community to place economic pressure on the Israeli government with the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement to facilitate an end to the military occupation, provision of equal rights for Palestinians and a solution for the Palestinian refugees within the framework of international law.

If you believe something is unethical, one of the most effective ways to discourage that behavior is to make its persistence financially infeasible. This same tactic has been utilized to combat other social injustices such as the apartheid regime in South Africa, the prison-industrial complex and fossil fuel investments.

This is the theory of change that SJP, Jewish Voice for Peace and other Palestine solidarity groups are operating from – that grassroots political pressure can push institutions that support the occupation today to oppose it tomorrow, thereby raising the incentives for the Israeli government to offer Palestinians the same freedoms that Jewish Israelis are granted. So if you want to see a better future for Palestinians and Israelis, come find SJP and JVP and get involved. Educate your peers and push your local institutions – like this university – to stop making things worse by investing in companies that support the occupation.

The article closed by conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. Zionism at its core is Jewish nationalism, which is abstract and develops into meanings that each person interpreting it forms on his or her own. But the realization of Zionism in the creation of the State of Israel facilitated, to quote Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, “the ethnic cleansing of Palestine,” and developed into a process of colonization that resembles Manifest Destiny.

For example, Israel restricts Palestinian access to water and inflicts massacres such as Operation Protective Edge that occurred during summer of 2014. During that summer, according to the U.N., 1,462 Palestinian civilians, among them 495 children, were killed. Six Israeli civilians were killed in the same time frame.

Given this reality, it is no surprise that anti-Zionists exist. The attempted conflation of anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism does a disservice to those who have been subjected to true forms of anti-Semitism, which is discrimination against someone for being Jewish. In fact, SJP is hosting a group called the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network later this month.

In summary, last week’s article accused SJP of polarizing campus. But in reality, SJP’s work, such as last year’s successful divestment campaign, has received almost unprecedented campus support, with a multitude of student organization endorsements and co-sponsorships. It is articles like the one written last week, which contain blatant lies and mischaracterizations, that are the true source of campus polarization and prevent us from reaching mutual understandings.

Peled is a fourth-year student and president of Jewish Voice for Peace at UCLA and the programming director of Students for Justice in Palestine at UCLA. Puri is a graduate student in physics and a member of SJP.

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69 Comments

  1. Let me ask this of the author, how would Palestinians and their supporters feel if pro-Israeli students chanted “Free, Free Israel… From the River to the Sea, Israel will be free…” They wouldn’t like it because the implication would be to expel (or worse) all of the Arabs. This type of chant is racist any way you slice it and the author’s attempt to explain or spin it is ridiculous.
    At the end of the day, the SJP’s goal of “ending the occupation” is really just a coded phrase calling for the end of the Jewish state of Israel. Let’s call a spade a spade and stop with all the games and spin being promoted by SJP and the so-call Jewish Voice for Peace, which is nothing more than an anti-Israel group in disguise.

    1. They don’t have to shout it as this is the Zionist program plain as day to every Palestinian. Only Zionists expel others because their ideology calls for it. Palestinians want freedom to live in their land, they do not want to force anyone out, just not be forced out themselves. This is impossible because Zionism doesn’t want Palestinians in its state. Well, too bad because that will happen long run anyway. Zionism is the afterbirth of European Fascism and the founding fathers of Zionist Israel were among the fervent admirers of European racism and political fascism. Zionism is yesterday’s news as fascism and racism were soundly defeated in 1945. Only Zionism managed to survive that purge and now has to be defeated as well.

      1. You are kidding yourself in so many ways. From a foundational standpoint it wasn’t “their” land to begin with. It was never a Palestinian land or state. Indeed, before it was Israel, it was British Mandate, before that it was Ottoman, Byzantine, Greek, Roman, Judean, etc… That is just a simple fact that you continue to ignore.

        You also fail to recognize that there are many Arab’s co-existing in Israel with far more rights and freedoms than they would have in every other Arab country. What this boils down to is that you and others hate Jews and don’t want them having their own country. What’s more, Zionism isn’t fascist. It is a movement to re-establish Israel as the homeland of the Jewish people. The fact that you and Arabs don’t like and have violently opposed it is the real problem that is preventing peaceful co-existence. But you don’t want co-existence, you just want the Jews to disappear. That isn’t going to happen!

        1. First — the Palestinians existing in Israel were a “mistake”, an accommodation made by Gen Gurion to give credibility to the lie of “equal rights” in the Declaration. It was a manageable aberration and, indeed, the Galilee (with most of these Pals) was under martial law under the late 60’s.

          It doesn’t matter whose “land” it is: PEOPLE had been living in that land regularly for 1300 years. Whoever they are, it was in a sense “their” land by right of long term possession, long term indeed! The homeland for the Jewish people did not require removing people who had been there for centuries. Ethnic, racist fascism require that. The belief that the land must be exclusively Jewish, just like only Aryans had rights in another state at one time. Begin, for example, was actually a part of a black shirt organization at one time, while calling for clearing out the Arabs.

          You are right that Arabs, particularly Palestinian Arabs, don’t like Israel but that is because Palestine was taken from them by force of arms in order to shelter an immigrant group. It was European anti-semitism which drove Zionists, not Arab anti-semitism, yet Palestinians paid the price for these crimes by giving up a homeland of their own. Yeah, you wouldn’t like it either. You wouldn’t like someone kicking you out of your land, your home, your business, your fields, and occupying your home (or demolishing it). You would put up a fuss and demand reparations, wouldn’t you?

          1. Amazing how you have an BS response for everything. (1) Arabs living peacefully in Israel is just a “mistake” or part of the conspiracy. Haha, ok. (2) First you contend that Jews stole the land from Arabs. Now you say it doesn’t matter whose land it is? Make up your mind. LOL. Also, in 1948 many Arabs fled at the urging of Arab states who were poised to attack. Saying they were “removed” does not accurately reflect the facts of the situation. (3) Your contention that Arabs don’t like Jews because of Israel is undermined by the fact that the Arab riots in Jerusalem started in the 1920s, decades before the creation of Israel.
            After having examined your previous posts and attacks, combined with your inability to address or respond to fact based responses, I have come to the conclusion that you have no credibility and are nothing more than a racist and a bigot who hates Jews and the Jewish State of Israel. Hopefully others reading your posts can similarly see right through your façade.

          2. OK. It’s on now dude!

            http://open.salon.com/blog/safe_bet/2015/02/16/things_i_learned_about_israel

            Before declaring the independence of Israel, Zionists had already committed 16 massacres against the Palestinians and ethnically cleansed 200,000 of them. All of this happened before neighboring Arab armies decided to intervene. The Zionist narrative claiming Israel was gratuitously attacked by the Arab armies is a lie.

            Israel controls all of the land from the river to the sea. On this land Jews are a minority with all the rights and privileges while Palestinians are a majority deprived of their most basic human rights. There are 4.55 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza and 1.68 million Palestinians who are “citizens” of Israel, for a total of 6.23 million Palestinians. On the other hand there are 6.12 million Jews including the 0.5 million Jewish settlers living illegally in the West Bank. In order to arrive at a fictitious Jewish majority, the state of Israel doesn’t statistically count the West Bank and Gaza as part of Israel’s territory while simultaneously counting the Jewish settlers of those territories as citizens of Israel. The effect of this gerrymandering is to make the 4.55 million Palestinians who live under Israeli occupation disappear magically.

            The “peace process” involving a “two state solution” has been a sham from the very beginning and was always intended as a decoy to buy time for Israel to steal more land, build more settlements and create more facts on the ground under the cover of a vague interminable peace process that never went anywhere.

            This is too easy. You’re really not worth my time….

          3. Please provide some explanation and proof of how Zionists “ethnically cleansed 200,000” people PRIOR to the the start of the 1948 War of Independence. It just didn’t happen that way. As for massacres, the first massacre was started by the Arabs in the 1920s when they went on a rampage against Jews in Jerusalem. Yes, there were subsequent atrocities by both sides, but for you to claim that it was only Jews that attacked is provably false. (Here’s a list in case you want to review https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_killings_and_massacres_in_Mandatory_Palestine)

            I also don’t agree with you that the Peace Process was a sham, at least as far as Israelis are concerned. Palestinians could have their own state by now if they simply renounced violence and accepted Jews as their neighbors. Unfortunately, as Yasser Arafat pointed out leading up to the failure at Camp David, he could not accept terms of a peace agreement, however generous it was, because accepting a Jewish state would mean a death sentence for him.

            You and others like you don’t see the big picture and only want to blame the Jews/Israelis for problems in Israel/Palestine. That is unfortunate because the situation is far more complicated than you make it out to be. Indeed, it is not very easy as you falsely contend.

          4. I tried your link. Here’s what I got:
            Wikipedia does not have an article with this exact name. Please search for List of killings and massacres in Mandatory Palestine) in Wikipedia to check for alternative titles or spellings.

            Don’t bother to give Wikipedia as a reference as it is well known that the Hasbara pollutes the pages of Wikipedia and turns fact into lies that tell the stories so the Zionists are always the victims and the heroes.

            Did you even bother to look at one of the Youtube videos by Miko Peled? Here’s a link incase you need help with Google:

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9_OcCXvT6Y

            So, I don’t see the big picture? What picture would that be? I see an illegal, immoral occupation of Palestine and a continuous ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians by the Israelis…that has been going on for 60 years. That is the big picture. And it is not me saying these things…it is the most credible authors and historians you could find.

            Noam Chomsky, a Jew, professor of linguistics at MIT, one of the most respected intellectuals of our time says: ““In the Occupied Territories, what Israel is doing is much worse than apartheid,” Chomsky says, according to Days of Palestine. “To call it apartheid is a gift to Israel, at least if by ‘apartheid’ you mean South African-style apartheid.

            “What is happening in the Occupied Territories is much worse. There is a crucial difference. The South African Nationalists needed the black population. That was their workforce…

            “The Israeli relationship to the Palestinians in the Occupied Territories is totally different. They just do not want them. They want them out, or at least in prison.”

            And this is by Andrea Lim:

            Fifty-seven years after the State of Israel was built mainly on land ethnically cleansed of its Palestinian owners, a majority of Palestinians are refugees, most of whom are stateless. Moreover, Israel’s entrenched system of racial discrimination against its own Arab-Palestinian citizens remains intact.

            Lim, Audrea (2012-05-02). The Case for Sanctions Against Israel (p. 23). Verso Books. Kindle Edition.

            “In fact, they corroborated what most of the world had known for years: that Israel was created after Jewish militias destroyed Palestine and forcibly exiled its people. This was a rude awakening for me. I recalled watching the Israeli TV series Tkuma, or Rebirth, that came out in 1998 to commemorate Israel’s 50th independence day. In one chapter dealing with Israel’s War of Independence, a veteran commander of 1948 was asked if it was true that the Haganah forces burned down Arab villages. He slowly looked up at the camera, waited a while, and then said, “Like bonfires.” This meant a whole new paradigm through which to view the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

            Peled, Miko (2013-01-24). The General’s Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine (Kindle Locations 2288-2293). Just World Books. Kindle Edition.

            So now, where is your “proof”?

          5. Your post is laughable and completely predictable. The Wikipedia page I included in my previous comment contained a very clear and objective chart listing dates, locations and casualties for very specific instances of killings by both Jews and Arabs. Yet, for some reason you chose to ignore and demean. Why? Does it not fit in your talking points or cue cards? It’s pretty funny and sad at the same time. I just don’t get why you refuse to take a look at facts outside of your comfort zone and engage in a factual discussion. Raising the same old and tired talking points containing quotes and opinions made by individuals whose views are well known and repeated endlessly by the anti-Israel crowd is kind of lame, don’t you think? I mean how many times can people on your side bring up Noam Chomsky! It’s hilarious and hardly a way to start a rational fact based discussion.

            If you want to have an honest and factual discussion, which I doubt you will, we can go through each and every example of the attacks BY BOTH SIDES that began in the 1920s in British Mandate Palestine. Indeed, that seems like it would be a good place to go back and examine the facts surrounding your allegation that Zionists were responsible for 16 “massacres” and “ethnically cleansed” 200,000 Palestinians How about it?

          6. OK. Let’s try this again.

            First of all, if all you got is Wikipedia, you got nothing at all. If you are a student you should know that. No teacher would accept Wikipedia as a credible reference because the sources that provide that information often have their own agenda. Maybe they didn’t teach you that in Hasbara School…

            Secondly, the list of people killed in the twenties and thirties is totally irrelevant. What matters is that the Zionists were invading Palestine with the intent of displacing the indigenous population, and the Arabs were fighting back. Fighting back against occupation and oppression is perfectly legal so says the ICC and the United Nations specifically in the case of the Palestinians.

            Thirdly, there is nothing “lame” about pointing out the crimes of Israel and trying to free Palestine from an oppressive occupation. If you don’t think Noam Chomsky is credible, even thought he is a world renowned intellectual, than how about Amnesty International? And the term occupation does in fact refer to the “1967 borders”. WTF are you talking about?

            “Human Rights Concerns

            Amnesty International’s concerns are based on international standards and applied equally within the proper legal framework. The legal framework is defined by who retains jurisdiction, or effective control, over an area and the circumstances or situation at the time of the human rights violation. Amnesty’s concerns within Israel-proper, the area inside the 1949 (W. Bank/E. Jerusalem) and 1951 (Gaza Strip) armistice lines (also called the ‘1967 borders’) include but are not limited to, ill-treatment and torture of detainees, excessive use of force, the detention of conscientious objectors, and forced evictions and home demolitions within ‘unrecognized’ Bedouin villages.

            The Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory (the West Bank including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip) is in its fifth decade and the undercurrent of violence and inherent abuses of fundamental human rights and disregard for international law inherent in any long-standing military occupation is presented by both sides. Both Israel and Palestinian civilians continue to bear the brunt of the violence in the region.”

            You really suck at this.

            It’s obvious that the last thing you want is an honest debate because you are trying to obfuscate the real facts of the matter with typical Zionist talking points (lies). If you were really interested in the truth, you would be citing real references and credible sources.

            This is how stupid you are: you say the line about the ethnic cleansing of 200,000 Palestinians may be taken out of context, when I provided the actual paragraph that quote comes from as well as a link to the source and I also provided at least two other sources for the same information. BTW that isn’t even debatable anymore as it has been repeated by at least a dozen historical researchers, many of them Israelis like Benny Morris.

            Any decent Hazbara troll should know that…

          7. Wikipedia is a fine source for basic OBJECTIVE information. This isn’t a college exam or even a test. It is comment section of a student newspaper. The bottom line is that you will not or cannot engage in a thoughtful discussion based on facts or history.
            What you claim is relevant and irrelevant really doesn’t hold any water. The beginning of the troubles between Jews/Israelis and Arabs/Palestinians has its roots in the fall of the Ottoman empire in the 1920s. Clearly it is relevant. You just don’t want to discuss it because it doesn’t fit your narrative.
            You have provided no facts or sources for the false contention that Jews “ethnically cleansed” 200,000 Arabs prior to 1948. All you have done is cite opinions and hyperbole.
            Regarding who sucks at this or who is a troll, I’m not going to stoop to your level or call you names. Who knows why you resort to such childish tactics, perhaps it because you are insecure in your own arguments. I’m above that and am completely comfortable with each and every fact that I’ve raised in response to this op-ed.

          8. “Wikipedia is a fine source for basic OBJECTIVE information. This isn’t a college exam or even a test. It is comment section of a student newspaper.”

            I can’t believe I’ve got to provide this for some troll:

            From Harvard Guide to Using Sources

            “When you’re doing academic research, you should be extremely cautious about using Wikipedia. As its own disclaimer states, information on Wikipedia is contributed by anyone who wants to post material, and the expertise of the posters is not taken into consideration. Users may be reading information that is outdated or that has been posted by someone who is not an expert in the field or by someone who wishes to provide misinformation. (Case in point: Four years ago, an Expos student who was writing a paper about the limitations of Wikipedia posted a fictional entry for himself, stating that he was the mayor of a small town in China. Four years later, if you type in his name, or if you do a subject search on Wikipedia for mayors of towns in China, you will still find this fictional entry.) Some information on Wikipedia may well be accurate, but because experts do not review the site’s entries, there is a considerable risk in relying on this source for your essays.”

            “The bottom line is that you will not or cannot engage in a thoughtful discussion based on facts or history.”

            How do you know that I can’t or won’t discuss facts or history? You haven’t provided any facts or history relevant to the discussion. I’m the only one that has provided any references. Your Wikipedia list of who died and when doesn’t provide any information one way or the other about the origins of the state of Israel, or the occupation of Palestine, or the ethnic cleansing that started in 1947 and continues to this day, etc.

            “What you claim is relevant and irrelevant really doesn’t hold any water. The beginning of the troubles between Jews/Israelis and Arabs/Palestinians has its roots in the fall of the Ottoman empire which was just before the 1920s. So clearly it is relevant. You just don’t want to discuss it because it doesn’t fit your narrative or the talking points used by the anti-Israel crowd.”

            What is it you want to discuss? The fall of the Ottomon Empire? I would be glad to discuss that as it relates to the Zionist efforts to lie, cheat, steal and manipulate their way to having a “Jewish homeland” in Palestine.

            From the very beginning of their movement, Zionists realized that if they were to succeed in their goal of creating a Jewish state on land that was already inhabited by non-Jews, they needed backing from one of the “great powers”. They tried the Ottoman Empire, which controlled Palestine at the time, but were turned down.

            (Hala Fattah, “Sultan Abdul-Hamid and the Zionist Colonization of Palestine: A Case Study,” accessed January 1, 2014, http:// http://www.lahana.org/ blog/ Zionist% 20Colonization% 20of% 20Palestine.htm.)

            Then they tried Britain, which was also less than enthusiastic. But once Britain was embroiled in World War I, the Zionists went to London and offered to use their American Zionists to convince the US to join the war, if the British promised to support a Jewish home in Palestine afterward.

            (William Yale in The Near East: A Modern History (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1968), 266-270.)

            (Grose, “Brandeis, Balfour, and a Declaration,” 39) John and Hadawi, Palestine Diary, Citation: World Jewry, March 1, 1935. Samuel Landman, “Great Britain, the Jews and Palestine,” New Zionist (London), 1936.

            Now there is a discussion about the Zionists first successful efforts to get a Jewish homeland in Palestine. Be sure to check the references. If you are going to try to refute any of this, be sure to include your reference…or don’t bother.

            The next one will be on some of your other comments…

          9. Bravo. Boiled down you basically stated that early Zionists worked on both the Ottoman Empire and then the British. I look forward to next post which hopefully includes some information about Jabotinsky, Col. John Henry Patterson, the Zion Mule Corps and the Jewish Legion. I really love those stories.

          10. I think you misinterpreted what I wrote. My point was that the violence between Arabs and Jews became a major issue following the downfall of the Ottoman Empire, which had been in control of the territory for 500+ years. Here’s what I said:

            “The beginning of the troubles between Jews/Israelis and Arabs/Palestinians has its roots in the fall of the Ottoman empire which was just before the 1920s. So clearly it is relevant. You just don’t want to discuss it because it doesn’t fit your narrative or the talking points used by the anti-Israel crowd.”

          11. You wanted some documentation for the 200,000 Palestinians ethnically cleansed before May 1948?

            Well here you go. Right from Ben Gurion himself…

            The picture was partial because Morris took the Israeli military reports he found in the archives at face value or even as absolute truth. Thus, he ignored such atrocities as the poisoning of the water supply into Acre with typhoid, numerous cases of rape and the dozens of massacres the Jews perpetrated. He also kept insisting – wrongly – that before 15 May 1948 there had been no forced evictions. Palestinian sources show clearly how months before the entry of Arab forces into Palestine, and while the British were still responsible for law and order in the country – namely before 15 May – the Jewish forces had already succeeded in forcibly expelling almost a quarter of a million Palestinians. Had Morris and others used Arab sources or turned to oral history, they might have been able to get a better grasp of the systematic planning behind the expulsion of the Palestinians in 1948 and provide a more truthful description of the enormity of the crimes the Israeli soldiers committed.

            (David Ben-Gurion, in Rebirth and Destiny of Israel noted candidly that: “Until the British left [May 15, 1948] no Jewish settlement, however remote, was entered or seized by the Arabs, while the Haganah … captured many Arab positions and liberated Tiberia, and Haifa, Jaffa, and Safad … So on the day of destiny, that part of Palestine where the Haganah could operate was almost clear of Arabs.” Ben-Gurion, Rebirth and Destiny of Israel, p. 530.

            Next will be the war in 1948…started by Israel…

          12. According to Gershom Gorenberg, whether or not the Arab expulsion/exodus was planned or systematic in its implementation is open to debate. (“All the same, the evidence is missing to back up the claim that the Jewish leadership planned from the start to expel the Arabs. In fact, there is strong evidence for the opposite: The leaders of the state-to-be expected and planned for the Arab population to stay put.”) See http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/foreigners/2011/11/israel_and_1948_did_israel_plan_to_expel_its_arabs_in_1948_or_not_.html
            As with many things related to this ongoing conflict, the facts are fore more complex and nuanced that you make them out to be.

          13. Do mean Gershom Gorengerg the well know Israel/Zionist apologist?

            So his claim is that it was just an accident that 700,000 Arabs were driven off their land. Does that sound right to you? Come on man, you’re not that stupid! That is just wishful thinking. He says it was just a few “radicals” among the Zionist that carried out the massive program of ethnic cleansing.

            As you would say, that just does not hold water.

            Theodore Herzl, the founder of the Zionist movement, wrote in his diary in 1895 that “we shall endeavor to expel the poor population across the border unnoticed.” These sentiments were also reflected in the enthusiastic embrace by Ben-Gurion and other prominent Zionist leaders of the British government’s 1937 Peel Commission report calling for the forced expulsion of the Arab population, which was referred to by Ben-Gurion as an “unparalleled achievement.” The plans of the “Situation Committee” Gorenberg points to, insisting that their existence is proof that there was no plan for the systematic cleansing of the locals, was no more than Ben-Gurion and the rest of the pre-state leadership determining what the Jews would do with the Arabs that remained after the expulsion.

            That 1948 constituted a consciously planned ethnic cleansing on the part of the Zionist leadership is hardly in doubt. Though not mentioned by Gorenberg, Plan Dalet, devised by Ben-Gurion and the security and political leaders who joined him in a body known as the Consultancy, called for the Palestinians’ “systematic and total expulsion from their homeland” (Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, 2008).

            It’s time to be man up and face facts, dude. Zionism was and is a mean-spirited, evil enterprise of racism and colonialism. Even the early Zionists recognized that if the world found out what their real intentions were, they would have no support and could not succeed, so they operate as much as possible in secrecy and use deceit, intimidation and manipulation to achieve their goals.

            As Miko Peled says, it is not a proud history. So it is time to stop the BS and own it.

            The history of the US is not one to be proud of either but at least there is a real effort by some to recognize it, put the truth in the history books and make reparations. Billions in reparations have been paid to the Native Americans and more needs to be done. They have all the rights of every other American citizen, and have been given some special privileges…it isn’t enough but it’s a start. There is also a movement underway to do something for the descendants of slaves.

            Israel needs to do the same for the Palestinians….

          14. Its funny how every source I post is either unreliable or an Israeli/Zionist apologist. I could also attack your sources as being biased because they are affiliated with anti-Israeli groups, but where would that get us?

            At the end of the day you and I have a different view of history. You sympathize more with the Arabs/Palestinians, I sympathize more with the Jews/Israelis. That is fine. But what is needed to move forward from the current morass is to find a way to move forward in a productive way, whether it is a one state (as advocated by Miko Peled) or a two state solution being promoted by many world powers. However, I am convinced that to do so requires an acknowledgement of mistakes and wrongs ON BOTH SIDESI have repeatedly acknowledged that Israel/Zionists/Jews have made mistakes and at times hurt innocent Arabs/Palestinians. I don’t agree with your view that it was all intentional or done with evil intent. But I acknowledge it nonetheless.

            Can you at least acknowledge that there have been similar wrongs done by the Arabs/Palestinians, such as violence and terrorism against innocent civilians? Indeed, that was my point about raising the numerous riots in post-Ottoman British Mandate Palestine. Clearly the violence and the Arab’s stated goal of destroying the impending Jewish state had an impact on the Zionist movement and the development of the Israeli mindset and tactics.

            You and I are not going to find a way to do it on the Daily Bruin comment section, but I believe having an honest conversation where BOTH SIDES acknowledge the atrocities and wrongs committed is a good place to start. Then perhaps we, and others like us, can begin an honest discussion about how to move forward where Arabs/Palestinians attain their freedom and equal rights and Jews/Israelis can live in safety and peace without fear of constant attacks by their Arab and Muslim neighbors.

          15. I used to think like you. I used to think that it was all the Palestinians fault this ongoing war in the Middle East. Then some very well informed people started pointing out to me the same things I am pointing out to you.

            I started reading about it…going to lectures….watching documentaries…going to demonstrations and talking to people who were risking their safety and investing their time and money in pursuit of the truth…and I had to admit that I was wrong…that I was misinformed…that I didn’t know what I was talking about…that I had been manipulated…that I had been a fool… I read and listened to both sides just to make sure because it was hard to believe that I had been that stupid….

            It wasn’t easy to admit that, especially when the truth was right there and all I had to do was look for it. I don’t like being wrong but when I am, I have to admit it. I have this little voice in my head that won’t let me fool myself and keeps getting louder the longer I hang on to a belief that just doesn’t add up.

            So I’ll make a deal with you: you name a book that supports your opinions on this subject and I will read it. If I don’t have it already, I’ll buy it. Or name a documentary and I’ll get it and watch it. All you have to do in return is watch one of Miko Peled’s videos on youtube. One hour out of your life…

            Maybe you will change your mind…or maybe I will.

            What do you say? Just don’t make me read that awful book by Gorenberg…I started to read it before and it just made me mad….

            The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.

            Edmund Burke

          16. Unfortunately you do not accurately understand how I think or what I’m trying to say. I have never just blamed the Arabs/Palestinians. If you go through my comments you will see that I blame both sides and make sure to point out that the Jews and Arabs have both made mistakes that contributed to the current situation.

            With regard to your proposal to site a book, in addition to reading several books and hundreds of articles on the subject, I and my family have lived through experiences that educate my opinions and beliefs. I do not think any one author can objectively and accurately capture the deep feelings, experiences and fears of both the Jews/Israelis and Arabs/Palestinians. So I fear your challenge will end up in failure. However, if you do want to read an interesting non-fiction first hand account from a non-Jew who ended up being an advocate for Jews in what became Israel and the Zionist cause I suggest you read “With the Judæans in the Palestine Campaign” by Col. John Henry Patterson. It is kind of slow in parts and not exactly on point, but it provides a unique first hand perspective of some of the bias that Jews faced in Britain and Europe and how they fought for their own self-determination. It even includes some first hand accounts of Ze’ev Jabotinsky (who I know you deplore) and Joseph Trumpeldor, who was killed in one of the early Arab riots that was included in the chart of riots from the Wikipedia page you felt was not credible.

            I have watched Miko Peled and read some of his work and I do not discount his personal beliefs and experiences. That doesn’t mean I necessarily agree with everything he says or in the positions he advocates. With that said, I have also read and watched Max Blumenthal and other supporters of the BDS movement, like Omar Bargouti and the so-called Jewish Voice for Peace and I find their positions and tactics to be one-sided, racist and completely counter-productive to finding a peaceful solution.

            At the end of the day the Jewish people have faced an amazing amount of obstacles standing in their quest to achieve independence, freedom and self-determination, including the Holocaust. Given all that they have faced it is only natural that they are defensive and overly cautious about threats to their survival; some more than others. At times these viewpoints have infringed on the rights of Arabs/Palestinians. That is wrong.

            As I’ve said before I hope that a peaceful solution can be reached by both sides. But I fear that will not happen as long as Arabs/Palestinians seek to destroy Israel (e.g., from the River to the Sea Palestine will be Free…) and use violence as one of the means to achieve that objective. Jews have been through too much to not defend themselves from those that seek to destroy them.
            Shalom

          17. Well, you’re right about one thing: I don’t understand how you think or what you are trying to say.

            Here’s an example:

            You posted, “You have provided no facts or sources for the false contention that Jews “ethnically cleansed” 200,000 Arabs prior to 1948. All you have done is cite opinions and hyperbole.”

            I provided you a direct quote from Ben Gurion’s own book in which he admitted that the “Haganah” had cleared “Tiberia, and Haifa, Jaffa, and Safad…” of Arabs before May of 1948.

            I also provided you with a direct quote from Theodore Herzl’s diary: “we shall endeavor to expel the poor population across the border unnoticed.”

            I told you about Ben Gurion’s Plan Dalet which called for “systematic and total expulsion (of the Palestinians) from their homeland”.

            As Ilan Pappe says: “That 1948 constituted a consciously planned ethnic cleansing on the part of the Zionist leadership is hardly in doubt.”

            With all of this evidence, no rational person could believe that it didn’t happen or that 700,000 people were driven off their land by “accident” or by “a few radicals”.

            If you were an honest, open minded student of the Israel/Palestine issue capable of critical thinking, at this point you would say: “Gee…I guess maybe the Zionists did do ethnic cleansing both before and after Israel announced it was a state. This was a cruel crime against humanity that it seems was planned well beforehand. “

            And that thought would lead you to realize that under international law, those refugees have a right of return. And that right is something that Israel has never offered to the Palestinians in any of the negotiations. That is their right under law and cannot be negotiated away.

            But you’re not saying that. You are sticking to your beliefs in the face of irrefutable evidence to the contrary. So what does that mean about you? It means that you don’t want to know or acknowledge the truth…you’re not interested in the truth. Discovering the truth might be uncomfortable…you might have to admit, at least to yourself that you were wrong. You justify it away by saying that bad things were done by both sides, when in your heart you know that is just BS and that the Zionists are the perpetrators of this crime and the Palestinians are the victims. There will never be peace until this issue is resolved…

            So what that means to me is that I’m not going to change your mind by providing you references no matter how credible they may be. I’m not going to learn anything from you because you aren’t willing to make the effort to find it and provide it. Ma nisrat lech bamoch?

            BTW I did buy With the Judeans in the Palestine Campaign and I will read it. It cost me ninety-nine cents…

            ad altiora tendo

          18. We both know that the Ben Gurion text that you reference has been the subject of much dispute, as has Ilan Pappe’s wide use of it to make his points. (See http://www.camera.org/index.aspx_context=2&x_outlet=118&x_article=2219) So it is hardly irrefutable evidence of anything, let alone the bold assertion that the Zionists intentionally expelled 200,000 Arabs from what later became Israel.

            Likewise, arguing that Herzl advocated for the expulsion of 200,000 Arabs based on one sentence taken out of context hardly proves your case either. Indeed, here is his full quote: “When we occupy the land, we shall bring immediate benefits to the state that receives us. We must expropriate gently the private property on the estates assigned to us. We shall try to spirit the penniless population across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our country. The property owners will come over to our side. Both the process of expropriation and the removal of the poor must be carried out discretely and circumspectly … It goes without saying that we shall respectfully tolerate persons of other faiths and protect their property, their honor, and their freedom with the harshest means of coercion. This is another area in which we shall set the entire world a wonderful example … Should there be many such immovable owners in individual areas [who would not sell their property to us], we shall simply leave them there and develop our commerce in the direction of other areas which belong to us.” (See also http://www.meforum.org/711/benny-morriss-reign-of-error-revisited)

            I suspect you will argue that my sources and knowledge are biased and suspect, and that is fine. But doing so will not help move the conversation forward. I have repeatedly acknowledged that the Jews/Zionists/Israelis have made mistakes. I wish you were brave enough to at least acknowledge the same of the Arabs/Palestinians.

            si peccasse negamus fallimur et nulla est in nobis veritas

          19. You didn’t really need my help but I couldn’t resist throwing in a few jabs.

            They wouldn’t approve my latest missive…not surprising….censorship is so ugly.

            The truth has nothing to fear from investigation.

          20. You truly are a dunce, after all. The Arab riots of the 20’s were reaction to Zionism and Jewish settlement in Palestine. That’s not anti-semitism, that’s righteous indignation! Those peaceable Arabs living in Israel were under martial law for over 20 years, that’s why they were peacefully coexisting, not because they were happy with being the remnant of their people in Israel. .

          21. Haha! More name calling. How childish of you. The Arab riots were in response to Jews living in their ancestral homeland (otherwise known as Zionism). Nice try at spinning it, but it is the same exact thing.

        2. If you were kicked out, you would push back, wouldn’t you? The fact that you don’t see the injustice and inhumanity in the Zionist program is the real reason for the violence in the ME. The fact that Zionists parade around self-righteously deceiving everyone stands in the way of justice. Everyone wants Zionism to end. And it is not by virtue of Zionism that Am Yisrael Chai! as you mouth so stupidly. It is by in spite of Zionism that Jews live and that is a good thing. Zionism alone has already destroyed Judaism, and next it will destroy Israel eventually as more Jews come to understand that, rather than security, Israel is the most dangerous place in the world for a Jew. These clowns will not be able to bs everyone forever.

          1. Let’s start with the notion that people were “kicked out.” That is simply an oversimplification of what happened. Arabs didn’t like Jews returning to their ancestral homeland and they fought against it. Unfortunately for those Arabs, they lost and fled. Those are the facts.

            Second, your characterization of Zionism is as misguided as some of your purported facts. You clearly do not get it and never will. Zionism and Judiasm are both alive and well despite the best efforts of the Nazis, Arab nationalists and racists and bigots like you.

            Finally, Arabs countries such as Iraq, Syria, Libya, Yemen, Lebanon, on the other hand, don’t seem to be fairing too well and are far more dangerous than Israel. So who is the real clown, Wavy Davey? Why, its always been you. LOL

          2. “Those are the facts.” you say. Palestinians didn’t like people absent for 20 centuries to “return” and claim their land which they (Palestinians) had been occupying for over 1300 years! Can’t blame ’em for that, can you? This is the fact.

          3. So when the people came back to their ‘ancestral homelands’, they sure had their paperwork in order? Like “my great great great great grandfather used to live here, look for yourself, it is indicated here”? It is a fiction, your ancestral homeland, a fiction. Something in your mind. You can’t force your fiction on other people, without having backlashes.

  2. Screw Palestinian supporters….do they protest the stabbings? Do they protest the rocket attacks from Hamas? Do they protest the daily threats of incitement by even the “moderate” Palestinian Authority? No!
    They ARE ANTI-ISRAEL. You can’t change that.

    1. Israel is a racist militarist state and being “anti-Israel” is a mark of high character. The stabbings are terrible but knives are all Palestinians have while Israel has, and uses, F-16’s, tanks, drones, bombs etc. and especially bulldozers. Palestinian resistance to occupation is analogous to French Resistance to German occupation during WWII. They too used whatever they had against the oppressor. Palestinians have every right to resist, according to Geneva and the UN. Israel has no right to occupy any longer, to settle occupied land, to incarcerate children, steal land, destroy crops and kill Palestinians willy nilly without consequences. Anti-Israel means anti-Zionism, anti-racism, anti-occupation, anti-Israeli prisons for political prisoners etc. Yeah, I’m anti-Israel.

      1. Please define what you mean by “occupation.” Do you consider it post-1967 war or the entire country?

        1. Israel was created by immigrants stealing land from indigenous people and forcing them out or into prisons etc. All of “Israel” is Arab land, all of it. but who cares? Given the “right of return” universally recognized both Palestinian and Jew can live in all of Israel. All that is required is political equality for all peoples living there. It does not have to be the possession of one people. The 67 “occupation” is just further expulsion and theft of land by Zionists for their ethno-religious “state”. Leaving aside the axis of time, there is no difference in the possession of this part of Palestine from that previously appropriated. The modern world started with the defeat of ethno racial forms of state organizing in 1945. Thereupon, the horizon was all “democratic”. Somehow, Zionists failed to get the message and the US has been supporting a ethno-religious relic of a defeated vision all these 70 years! Time to democratize Palestine. If Jews don’t want to live with Palestinians, they can move to somewhere they feel more comfortable. South Florida might be a good fit.

          1. Once again you are completely misrepresenting the facts. “All of Israel” is not Arab land. It never was and never will be. It is a complete fabrication. Arabs have NEVER been in control of the land. Period. You cannot provide any facts to prove otherwise. Before it was Israel, it was British Mandate. Before that it was Ottoman, Byzantine, Greek, Roman, Judean. It was NOT Arab. Likewise, it was not stolen by Jews. Your whole theory and argument falls apart by just examining the facts and history.

          2. So the only way to live in West Bank if you’re israeli is to illegally create settlements on land that is supposedly a palestinian territory as you say? you want there to be peace when the land that is supposedly for the palestinians is being slowly taken away. you need to look at the facts, and see that the west bank is becoming more and more fractionated and palestinians are losing land and can’t do anything about it. read some articles, watch a documentary, there are a lot of resources out there that talk about the other side, it might make you understand better, and not just your one sided rhetoric and so called facts.

          3. I understand the issues and the facts from both sides and this is far more complicated than talking about the West Bank (aka Judea and Samaria, as some Israelis call it). Indeed, Arabs have been murdering Jews since the 1920s, which is decades before the establishment of Israel as an independent sovereign state. So perhaps it is you that needs to learn more about the complicated facts and history of the ongoing conflict. In my opinion, the only way for there to be peace is for the Palestinians/Arabs to accept Jews as their neighbors and give up their maniacal goal of expelling, or worse, the Jews from Israel. If they do not there will unfortunately continue to be more unnecessary bloodshed and heartache.

          4. Zionist did everything they could to force Jews to leave Arab countries where they had lived relatively safely and respected for centuries! You are ignorant: The anti-semitism that built Israel was European not Oriental. In Iraq, Zionists placed bombs in synagogues to scare Jews. Some of these murderers were actually caught doing the same thing in Egypt. Big scandal.

            But if I lie, please point out the lie and we can research it together and find the truth and become friends, ok? So what “lie” would you like to focus on?

          5. This ‘show me the stamps’ phrase pops up again. The fact that there was no Arab or whatever state with its own stamps etc does not mean that the people who lived there had no rights, or where non existent. People lived there and were driven from their homes. Period. They didn’t like that, as you might understand. Stamps or no stamps. So yes, the land was stolen.

        1. You can’t escape the terrorists just by saying so. You send more taxpayer funds to Israel to buy phosphorus terror bombs to terrorize Gaza and slaughter their children. Israeli terrorism is much better. It is better armed, more sophisticate, gets far better results without almost any losses…You are for sending more taxpayer money to Israel for more efficient terrorism. You are not against terrorism at all, just Palestinian terrorism.

          1. You’re pathetic, rockets have been fired by Hamas into Israel you idiot. I’m tired of you terrorist supporters on college campuses. You Palestinian supporters don’t deserve a dime of our tax payer dollars going to your radical filthy groups.

      2. You’re an example of why us normal non-terrorist supporters should be using the slogan: “Make College Normal Again” and end funding Leftist and other bias student groups with our tax payer money.

  3. Another apologist antisemitic piece that hopes to seduce us with the virtuous innocent victims but quickly relaxes into its hallmark vicious and divisive true purpose. Why does Pro Palestinian rhetoric never have anything constructive to say about Palestinian society, only tired old omission-strewn anti-Israel propaganda? BDS offers Academic and Financial boycott poorly wrapped in freedom-of-speech and diversity syrup, you couldn’t put forth a more hypocritical, cynical lie. SJP neglects to mention the greatest threat to Palestinian justice: its own corrupt and paranoid war-first-and-only Hamas. If you don’t mention Hamas, you’re painting a fantasy of Palestinian issues.

    BDS, SJP, “From the river to the sea”, Hamas charter, all have the same goal: destruction of the state of Israel by small or large steps. All are agencies of hatred, violence, victimhood, and coersion. They’re about the Cause but not about the People. The sugar coating doesn’t mask the deceit.

    1. Did you say “deceit”? What daring! The whole of the Zionist project from initiation until today is an incredible fabric of deceit. Weizman was a chronic liar. Israel agrees to abide by the UN charter regarding aggressive conquest of land and then conquers land and possesses it. “Deceit” is the middle name of Zionism.

      1. Of course, the Zionists had to be deceitful because if they announced to the world what they intended, they would not have found support, so badly needed. If they announced that intended to move lots of Jews to the ME, takeover that land and oust or kill the people living there, world Jewry would not have been so keen on the project. If they announced that their “democratic” state was to be an ethnic theocracy, few would have been enamored. If they announced that democratic principles — adopted widely elsewhere — would not apply to anyone but Jews, generally speaking, what favor would they have found?

        They said they would recognize the rights of people living there for over 1300 years, but then kicked them out and did not allow them back. Some 60% of Gazans are descendants of that ethnic cleansing. the conquerors prisons are stuffed with Palestinians who object to this bullshit “democracy.”

        Deceit is the middle name of Zionism.

        1. Lie, after Lie, after Lie. Nothing that is posted by Davey Wavey is factual or accurate. He is a deceitful liar who has been proven to be a fraud.

          1. “Proven”? eh? How so, Rocky? Where’s the “proof”? It is what it is, a hideous little racist state still scheming to possess more booty by stealing land and rights from others. This is the “Jewish State”, a poisonous adjunct to imperialism and white domination. And how is it that a Jew can be a Frenchman, but a Frenchman can’t be a “Jew” (Israeli nationality)??? How come Indians hold British citizenship but generally cannot hold Israeli citizenship as a “nationality.”?? Jews are safer everywhere in the world EXCEPT Israel; so much for that conceit. These Zionists are racists, always have been.

          2. Hmmmm, let me see if I can address this little diatribe of yours. First of all, Jews aren’t all white, are they? Indeed, many are from the Middle East. And aren’t there more than 50 Muslim/Islamic states? Certainly according to your logic they are racist too. Can a Frenchman also be an Arab but not the opposite? Or can a Mexican be an American (i.e., Mexican-American) but an American not be a Mexican? Its too crazy to even consider all the possibilities, right? So why just fixate on Jews and Israel?
            And I’m not even going to address your wildly inaccurate statement that Jews are safer everywhere else in the world except Israel. Too few Jews are left in most countries to even test that ridiculous hypothesis. Indeed, the last Jews of Yemen are currently being threatened by the Houthis. You really are a waste of my time and energy. It isn’t even fun anymore going through your screeds and ridiculous allegations. Its just grown annoying and tiresome. Kind of like trying to shoo a fly.

          3. Well, I guess you put me in my place, didn’t ya? I’m a “deceitful liar”. List the lies for readers here, please list them so we can see what’s what.

          4. Here is a partial list of Davey Wavey’s sweet little lies:

            * “All of “Israel” is Arab land”
            *” Israel was created by immigrants stealing land from indigenous people and forcing them out or into prisons etc”
            * “There is no discrimination against the race of Jews”
            * “Zionism is the afterbirth of European Fascism and the founding fathers of Zionist Israel were among the fervent admirers of European racism and political fascism”
            * “Palestinians want freedom to live in their land, they do not want to force anyone out”
            * “Palestinians existing in Israel were a “mistake”, an accommodation made by Gen Gurion to give credibility to the lie of “equal rights”

  4. Perhaps the author could clarify his statement that all “from the river to the sea” should have the same freedoms that Jewish Israelis have. Which freedoms do Christian, Muslim, and other non-Jewish citizens of Israel lack that Jewish citizens of Israel have? And how much freedom do Jews in Gaza have? Would they even survive a week?

    When SJP affirms the right of a Jewish state to exist, we can talk about the steps it needs to take to ensure its survival. Until then, SJP is anti-Israel.

    1. If they “affirm” that right, they are affirming the justice of the dispossession of Palestinians, that this was a right and good thing, which it was not. Of course, they cannot “affirm” this.

      You citing of Gaza is disingenuous. Gaza is the remnant of dispossession and no Zionist would last a minute there after all these years of being forced into a hovel from land they previously possessed. Note, a Zionist wouldn’t last a minute, any more than a Palestinian resistance fighter would last in “Israel.” But, a Jew could do quite well in Gaza. There is no discrimination against the race of Jews, but the Zionist criminals who just murdered over 500 children in 2014.

      1. Many Arabs live peacefully in Israel. Jews, on the other hand, are not allowed to live peacefully in Arab countries or Palestinian territories. That is just a simple fact that you chose to ignore.
        Speaking of facts, 500 children were not “murdered” by Zionists or Israelis in 2014 or any other period of time. Saying otherwise is a complete lie and fabrication. Murder requires intent and even if 500 children were killed, which I seriously question, there was no intent on the part of the Israelis to kill or hurt them. The Israeli Defense Forces were acting in self-defense against a sustained series of attacks from Gaza launched by Hamas, which is the government in control of Gaza. Refusing to acknowledge this context is yet another example of why you and your “arguments” have no credibility.

        1. Are you seriously questioning whether 500 children were killed? its a FACT, not a question. the death toll doesnt lie. the excuse of self defense is an overused, tired excuse. and the human shields by hamas thing is also a overly tired and overused excuse to justify the unjust killing of civilians, in terms of israel defending themselves, and having “no intent to kill or hurt them”. stop reiterating the same old excuses, because it sounds like a script. you are seriously justifying innocent children being killed. you refusing to acknowledge this is an example of why YOU and YOUR ARGUMENTS have absolutely no credibility.

          1. No, I am not questioning whether they were killed. I am questioning whether they were “Murdered”,” which is a much different question. Perhaps you should go back and re-read what I wrote and what it was in response to. As with many things related to this ongoing conflict, it is far more complicated than just listing numbers. And just be use you do not agree with another persons views or position does not make the, less credible. It just means you hat you do not like them.

          2. I dont understand your argument, but thats ok. you are just trying to confuse the actual issue. I’m not being close minded, I just know that you aren’t willing to see the other side. do some reading about the other side… a 14 year old boy who trained with hamas? where is the evidence that 14 year olds are working for hamas? does that mean every child is acting as a lookout or scout? i dont get your justification.

          3. I am not attempting to confuse anything. My point was very clear that if a 14 year old child is a combatant, as many were, then they were not “murdered” as a result of combat.
            What’s more, there is significant documentation and evidence showing how Hamas indoctrinates and trains children. Here are a few examples for you to consider:
            http://www.thetower.org/hamas-training-tens-of-thousands-of-child-soldiers/
            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OZTcYKwnehY http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/jan/15/13000-teens-graduate-hamas-terror-training-camps/

            The death of any child is tragic. But it is not as simple and as cold-blooded as you are trying to make it out in that “Israel killed 500 children in Gaza.” It is much more complicated and clearly the facts demonstrate that Hamas contributed to their deaths as well.

          4. TRANSLATION: Jews have NO RIGHT TO SELF DEFENSE. Don’t try to defend yourselves. Don’t claim you have that right, Jews. Just let the rockets fall. And die. And suffer. And run, with your babies in arms, into the shelters upon 15 second warnings.

            Because Jews have NO RIGHT to SELF DEFENSE. Why ? Because some idiot on the internet decided it was tired, and an excuse.

          5. Good lord, thats the same freaking line you hear over and over and over again, beat like a dead horse. of course israelis have a right to self defense, but so do the palestinians. its a two way freaking road, and both sides are HUMAN, one isnt better than the other. And the same can be said about palestinians, they have to run with their babies in their arms to shelters because their homes and schools and hospitals will get destroyed. they get notices that their homes will be demolished in 30 minutes, with no time to pack up their entire lives, so illegal settlements can be built. tell me how that is justified.

        2. Here’s the “context”, Rocky: A few homemade rockets launched over the border to express the grievance of immigrants living on their land. No real damage. Limited causalities, if any at all. Pathetic fireworks. Israel responds with massive bombing from sophisticated fighters, drones and artillery. Israel deliberately targets civilians to increase the “terror”. Uses phosphorus bombs and depleted uranium shells. Murders about 1700 civilians including over 500 children. This is the :context”, Bub.

          1. And by a few rockets, Davey means well over 2000 rockets. Several deaths. Tens of thousands of documented cases of PTSD. But it isn’t important because the victims were all… Jews.

            That’s the ‘context’ that Davey wants you to swallow. Along with flat out lies about phosphorous bombs and uranium shells, which are allegations from the past, not the last conflict.

            And murder is not what it is called when you respond in self-defense.

            It’s pretty easy to see how the rabid bigotry and prejudice overwhelm the mind in these types.

  5. It never ceases to amaze how bigots and racists resort to childish name calling instead of engaging in a reasoned discussion about a very complex and complicated history. How sad and pathetic.

  6. Eitan Peled’s father is a well known professional anti-semite for hire.

    Miko Peled decided to cash in on the ‘hire a Jew to bash Israel’ option, and wrote a book wherein he capitalizes on the fact that his father was a General in the IDF to give him supposed credibility when distorting the truth in an effort to make a financial windfall by catering to anti-semitic groups and individuals.

    He even sold his San Diego Karate studio in order to focus on marketing himself as an anti-Israel/anti-semitic spokesperson. His son, Eitan, is no idiot, and understands well that his financial opportunities are drastically higher if he follows in his father’s footsteps, rather than try to create an actual set of job skills.

    Beyond simple bias, it’s pretty clear to see the lack of any rational or objective thought behind their propaganda. They still refer to the Hamas initiated, forced and perpetuated war as an “Israeli Massacre”. In order to cash in, you have to throw truth and objectivity to the wind. Of course, he’s got no problem with this. It’s how he was raised. It’s literally their family business.

  7. Why do so many call the Gazan-Arabs who are living on Israel’s land of Judea and Samaria, ‘Palestinians?’, why do so many insist on calling Israel’s land, ‘Palestine?’ I hear these fallacious names repeatedly written and spoken by too many, and as though it can’t be worse, it comes out of the mouths of peope who are in positions of great power…we don’t have to wonder why these Gazan- Arabs, and their sympathizers believe that Israel is the occupier, we shouldn’t have to wonder why these Gazan-terrorists murder innocent Israeli’s, nor wonder why there is a worldwide hatred for Jews…these Gazan-Arabs called themselves Arabs, and this was the day before Arafat took control…those of us who know the facts/history, know that the Gazan- Arabs home is Jordan, ‘not Israel’… why is it that there are so many who fail to recognize that by their repeating these lies has given it wings and continues to escalate the extreme violence and hatred…when are people who are pro-Israel going to realize this?

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