I don't want to get into the rest of your argument, but just wanted to say that based on my reading of history, pretty much all of the borders on Earth "were a colonization project from the start".
Which is why Poland and Germany constantly fight over the border that was imposed post-WWII (20th century, yes) and the population displacement that took place at that time, right?
It's really easy to declare things as black and white. It's seldom accurate.
(Important note: a large fraction, a majority depending on how you count it, of Israel's population are descendants of Jews who were ejected from other Middle Eastern countries after the establishment of Israel? Are they to be considered "colonizers" in your framing?)
> a large fraction, a majority depending on how you count it, of Israel's population are descendants of Jews who were ejected from other Middle Eastern countries after the establishment of Israel
This is not modern history. Yes they are colonizers. By your logic, anyone could just invade Africa and start a country there since all humanity's ancestors descended from the region.
> It's really easy to declare things as black and white.
Colonization and genocide are actually pretty black and white. Israel is violating international law and committing human rights violations.
Just to make sure we're talking about the same thing: we're talking about the mass ejections of Jews from various Middle Eastern and North African countries in the 50s, 60s, and 70s of the 20th century, right?
And if that's not modern history, then how is the establishment of Israel at the same time modern history?
> Yes they are colonizers.
They were refugees, more precisely. But just to be specific, what is your concrete proposal for where they should have gone?
> By your logic, anyone could just invade Africa and start a country there since all humanity's ancestors descended from the region.
No, I don't see how that's an analogous situation at all. My question about Israel is a pretty specific one: I challenge its presentation as a "European" or "Western" colonial project. Though maybe that was not your intent?
> Colonization and genocide are actually pretty black and white
We'd have to clearly define "colonization", since I suspect we disagree on whether specific actions constitute it.
Genocide is pretty black and white, I agree. I am opposed to genocide. We may disagree on whether there is genocide, or attempted genocide going on in various situations, unfortunately.
Concretely: Do you feel that Israel is attempting a genocide campaign against the Palestinians? Do you feel that the Israeli electorate supports such a campaign? Do you feel that the Palestinians are attempting a genocide campaign against Jews? Do you feel that their electorate (using that term loosely, due to lack of elections) supports such a campaign?
Fundamentally, I disagree with both the "from the river to the sea" narrative and the "all of Judea and Samaria" narrative... (And I do note that neither of those is necessarily genocidal, though both can be nice jumps onto slippery slopes towards there.)
> Israel is violating international law and committing human rights violations.
Yes, I agree. But just to make sure we're on the same page, so are the Palestinians, every single country Israel has a border with (on the human rights violation parts of the ledger for sure), and quite a number of other entities. Including, I am 99% sure, the country you live in. There are questions of scope and degree, of course. Please don't mention the words "false equivalence", because I am not claiming that anything here is "equivalent" to anything else, and if I were we'd likely disagree on what equivalences are "true" vs "false".
More practically, what specific actions do you think would be required for Israel to stop committing what you perceive as human rights violations and international law violations? And if your answer is "dissolve itself as an entity and have all the Jews go somewhere else", then I can see how that's a consistent moral position, but that does not match either international law nor morality as I perceive it.
If that's not your position, then were back to trying to figure out various shades of grey, as far as I can tell, which we're probably not going to manage to work out in this sort of discussion.
Israel encouraged immigration, yes. And the countries the Mizrahi Jews left did all sorts of things that encouraged their Jews to leave.
> Yes, I think Israel is attempting a genocide against the Palestinians.
OK, we have that clear. I asked three other questions in the paragraph where I asked that question, and I'd love to know what your answers to those are.
> The ICC is currently investigating war crimes
As they should, yes. I don't think everything Israel does is either acceptable or even justified, by any means.
No, I don't think the Palestinians are engaging in genocide against the Israelis. Yes, I think Israel should be disbanded. As for what to do with people who don't want to stay? I'd be more than happy to welcome them to the US.
Thank you, that makes your position quite clear. I appreciate your continued engagement with this conversation and the fact that I think we managed to keep it reasonably polite...
You're right but that doesn't mean we should accept it. Why we didn't accept it when Saddam invaded Koweit or when Russia annexed Crimea?
Colonization of Palestine has very negative direct and indirect consequences on our world.
No countries recognize Israeli claims to the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and even the comparatively tame annexation of the Golan Heights is recognized by very few.
That means, formally, Israeli actions in the OPT are even less accepted than Russia's annexation of Crimea. Practically, begrudging acceptance seems to be a very apt description, arguably of the latter even more so than the former.
Didn't the Trump administration declare that the settlements were not illegal? Palestine is not even fully recognized as an independent state.
Besides the comparaison with Crimea, the point was that borders throughout history have been shaped by colonizations and invasions but that cannot be used to justify colonization itself.
Crimea was given by Stalin to Ukraine relatively recently. Yes, Russia took it back by threat of force, but it's not like they didn't have some historic claim to the land, much like Jews do to the Kingdoms of Israel and Judea.
That's a very dangerous position. If you want to go there you'll find a long list of claims of almost anything.
Take Crimea for example: the Russian Empire only conquered it in the late 18th century (relatively recently too). Should the Turks claim it next (as the Crimean state was the Ottoman Empire's vassal before) or maybe Mongols, Greeks, or descendants of Goths, Huns?
There's a reason for avoiding forceful border carving in the modern world for "historic justice". It is a phony cause and leads to a chain of generational violence. Too bad the modern world never acts to efficiently prevent it.
And by the way, Stalin was already dead by 1954 — difficult to "give" anything in that state. Not even mentioning that "giving" in USSR is just an administrative re-arrangement of a territory within an empire. By that logic, all the states ever being part of any empire have a "historic claim" on the other parts.
That's a very slippery slope if you justify the colonization of Palestine by Israel because it was part of a jewish kingdom thousands of years ago.
Spain has been muslim for centuries would that be acceptable if they settled again there by force?
There is no colonisation to justify or otherwise, there was a continuous use of the land by Jewish people since this time. The name 'Palestinea' only came about as a punishment by the Romans for Simon bar Kokhba.
Not that Wikipedia itself is a good source, but thi has a bunch of references:
> In the aftermath of the war, Hadrian consolidated the older political units of Judaea, Galilee and Samaria into the new province of Syria Palaestina, which is commonly interpreted as an attempt to complete the disassociation with Judaea.
There has been a continuous use of the land by Christians and Muslims for centuries as well. So because Judaism has existed the longest they have the right to expel everybody else or best case scenario, make them second-class citizen (Law of Return, Jewish National Fund ...).
There has also been a continuous presence of native Americans for much longer than Europeans in North America...
If you're denying that colonization even exists it will be difficult to have a discussion based on facts.
I’m not denying there has been Arabs and other groups there. The situation regarding expelling is in many cases more more likely to do with people avoiding tax under the Ottomans (if you didn't own a field you were using, you couldn't be taxed on it) than forced expulsion though.
You’re also confusing a religion with an ethnicity in your comment. The issue is Arabs and Jewish people not anything to do with Islam, Christianity or atheism.
> The issue is Arabs and Jewish people not anything to do with Islam, Christianity or atheism.
Religion has a lot to do with the issue. Religion and ethnicity are often strongly related especially for Jews. Judaism is the main element that identifies Jews together and the vast majority of Arabs living in Israel/Palestine are Muslims.
I think the point was fair. We try to have a world where force is not used to reshape borders. Eg, we rightfully call out Russia's annexation of Crimea and sanction them.
If we are to call out China's genocide of the Uighers, we should also call out the Saudi Arabia, Israel and the United States when they commit human rights abuse.
It's about applying human rights and international law as impartially as possible, and using economic might to sanction any country which breaks the rules.
I mean... economic might is a version of human rights abuses.
Ask the Cubans.
The are no simple applications of pithy thoughts. The world is messy, subjective and everyone has an inherent bias to their world view. And most importantly, it isn't fair or just. We just hopefully try to do better than yesterday.
There are officially recognized war crimes and crimes against humanity. There's national sovereignty. These aren't "pithy thoughts", they're well regarded basics that Israel regularly violates with the support of the US.
Go look at the UN Council on Human Rights, which is historically a literal who's who of human rights abusers.
The UN Security Council is actually the only UN group that can officially declare Human Rights Abuses... but of course a single veto prevents that.
The ICC has its own host of issues around bias.
I guess my point is most issues are not as clear cut in the moment as they are in retrospect.
Some are clearer than others, of course. But life is messy, and the victors have always written the narrative that past events are judged. It's a relatively recent artifact where we can argue about this stuff in real time.
