rather not

People like Santa and Obi don't realize that Israel is increasingly a pariah. Call that winning a propaganda war if you want, but that's what North Korea would say. Israel has very few friends. If the United States weren't on its side, it would be considered a rogue state.

@"I also know that Gaza elected a group of people who have it in their charter that they wish to destroy the Jewish people totally."

Let me be clear on something. Is this a blantant misrepresentation of the truth? Can you be anti-Zionist without being Antisemetic? I suspect many Palestinians are both, never-the-less, as far as i'm aware Hamas states in it's charter that it intend to destroy the state of Israel, not exterminate the Jews. Those are two fundamentally different statements. But i'm happy to be corrected if i'm wrong about any of this.

I understand that quite vividly, which is why I advocate many of the same policies as you do, but having better than a casual understanding of the problems, I try to leave out statements like "Israel is fascist" "Israeli is racist" "Fuck Israel" and advocate for real change...

you can do both. Israel *is* fascist.

Israel *is not* fascist, it is a parliamentary republic.

lol

care to defend your statement, or should we just except your uneducated gut responses as fact?

You don't have to use the word to self-describe to be a fascist.

*accept

what exactly is your definition of fascist?

A fascist country is one that lives in a perpetual state of de facto war with a minority - contrasting this minority with its image of national unity and strength, and relies heavily on its military and police to enforce Order and Security. For the members of the minority, there are no meaningful, physical rights, there are at best words, at worst, nothing at all.

Europe is sliding back toward fascism with Pegida, etc. Israel is already there. America isn't too far behind, with all the cop dick-sucking that happened after the NYPD officers were murdered. China definitely is, North Korea definitely is.

Fascist doesn't just mean Nazis and Mussolini anymore.

So Palestinians are also a Fascist regime?

And to be more global in scope, Rwanda is pretty fascist, Turkey is getting there... generally speaking liberal democracy as a whole is being eroded away into nothing, though the rhetoric is still being used, the reality is washing it away.

You have to have a state for that.

And Indonesia and most of the muslim world, but why be logical here.

Am I avoiding Muslim countries here? Turkey was mentioned, Saudi Arabia is also fascist in many respects, Iran, on and on. Sadly it's a fairly common phenomenon, Russia, even Australia. But some countries genuinely want you to think they are liberal democracies. Israel is one of those. The countries that don't even pretend, like Saudi Arabia, are less disgusting in that regard.

And of course the Islamic State is like, textbook fascism.

Woody Guthrie: "Fascists? I say we kill 'em."

"To be honest with you obiwan, the way Israel has acted in just the last 5 years, I don't blame Hamas for insisting that its objective is to destroy Israel."

They don't stop at Israel, you twit, THEY SAY JEWS.

Thanks for condoning Hamas' campaign to slaughter Jews period...

Nice to know you're fine with Jews in general being targeted as long as it's for a political cause you agree with.

That's morality, right?

"Is this a blantant misrepresentation of the truth? Can you be anti-Zionist without being Antisemetic?"

Absolutely, orathic. Some of my dearest friends are anti-Zionist but not Antisemitic...this being because they're immigrants from Lebanon and Iran, so naturally they don't have the fondest feelings for Israel OR Hamas/Hezbollah/the Iranian regime right now and in Ahmadinejad's day.

They don't hate Jews, they just hate the political leaders of ALL the factions...and I can respect that viewpoint, for the same reason that I don't hate the Lebanese or Persians, I just hate Hezbollah and Iran's leadership (and Hamas as well, naturally.)

That's fine.

It becomes Antisemitism, in part, when you take Thucy's side and say attacking or hating Israel by ANY means necessary is fine, when that *includes* Hamas and their open statement that they want to exterminate Jews (not just Israelis, Jews) and that they'll target Jewish civilians and children to do so.

You can be anti-Zionist but not Antisemitic...when you're OK With Jewish civilians and children being targeted or support groups stating they want to kill Jews because it suits your political ends, THEN it starts to become Antisemitism. I think that's fair.

"I suspect many Palestinians are both, never-the-less, as far as i'm aware Hamas states in it's charter that it intend to destroy the state of Israel, not exterminate the Jews."

1. That's why I hate *Hamas* and not Palestinians, and

2. From Article Seven of the Hamas Charter:

"he prophet, prayer and peace be upon him, said: The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! there is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree (cited by Bukhari and Muslim)."

And lest one think that is an arcane or otherwise superfluous religious invocation on their part and not actually influencing policy (though really, this is the Middle East...religious invocations ALWAYS influence foreign policy)--

From Article Twenty-Eight:

"We cannot fail to remind every Muslim that when the Jews occupied Holy Jerusalem in 1967 and stood at the doorstep of the Blessed Aqsa Mosque, they shouted with joy: “Muhammad is dead, he left daughters behind.” Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims. “Let the eyes of the cowards not fall asleep.”

This is a religious issue as well as a political one...

They don't *just* hate the Jews because of Israel's policies, they hate them, in part, because they are...Jews, and in their own words--

"Israel, by virtue of its being Jewish and of having a Jewish population, defies Islam and the Muslims."

THAT is the textbook definition of attacking someone because they're JEWISH...and Jewish rather than Muslim at that.

I'm not telling you Hamas is an organization I support, Obiwan. I'm telling you that I support Israel's actions towards Palestinian civilians and children even less.

"the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless ... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist" - George Orwell, 1944
"fascism.....most misused, and over-used word, of our times" - Richard Griffiths, 2005

"To be honest with you obiwan, the way Israel has acted in just the last 5 years, I don't blame Hamas for insisting that its objective is to destroy Israel"

1. As my above citations from their own charter shows, their objective isn't just to destroy Israel, it's to destroy Jews for the crime of their being Jewish in the Holy Land, and because that "defies Islam and Muslims."

That's their statement, NOT mine.

2. So you don't blame them their objective, when I've just shown that objective is religiously-fueled in part (as is that of the Israeli right, because, AGAIN *BOTH* sides are at fault here) and isn't merely to destroy a sovereign state, but the people of that state, for the crime of being not merely Israeli, but, yes, Jewish.

Hamas hates Israel because of its Jewishness. They hate Jews. Not just Israelis--Jews.

I would also say this, to everyone here, since we've touched on my being an English grad student as it is...

Hamas, as an "author" here, had a choice of words.

They could have said "Israeli"...or "Jew."

One is against a specific state, one is against a whole people.

In those instances above, calling for killing and extermination, they chose, as the author of their own charter...

Jew.

Not Israeli--JEW.

Tell me again how I shouldn't take apologetics for the people who choose to say that as an apologetics for Antisemitism?

You can be anti-Israel...the second you condone Hamas or its actions, in the slightest, THAT starts to become Antisemitism, because of the language they themselves used...they're not merely anti-Israel...they are, by their own choice of words, out to kill Jews because their are Jews in the Holy land and that, in their view, is in defiance of Islam.

I expect, and most dearly hope, that Livni and Herzog win the election as does the alliance of their parties for Knesset. Not just because I agree with their policies extensively, but also because I want to see people like Thucy proved wrong.

proven*

@TrPrado

It's almost like language changes meaning over time based on usage.