Palestine
A community for everything related to Palestine and the occupation currently underway by the occupying force known as Israel.
Anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism. Existence is resistance for Palestinians.
Please refer to Israel as Occupied Palestine, or occupied territories. The IDF is a fascist and ethnonationalist occupying force. Israelis are settlers. We understand however that the imperial narrative (which tries to legitimise Israel) is internalised in the imperial core and slip-ups are naturally expected.
We always take the sides of Palestine and Palestinians and are unapologetic about it. Israel is an occupying power whose "defence force"'s (note the contradiction) sole purpose for existing is to push Palestinians out so they can resettle their rightful land. If you have anything positive to say about Israel we do not care.
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The problem with his impassioned argument is that at its core, it's a straw man. NO ONE is arguing that because Jews suffered in the Holocaust they have a right to make Palestinians suffer.
The actual argument being made in relationship to the Holocaust is that the existence of the Israeli state was a necessity, since millions of Jews lost their homes and their countries, while the entire world slammed the door in their faces (including the United States).
The British had control of the land, and they, along with the international community carved out a very small part of it to turn into Israel and solve this tremendous refugee crisis, and it had broad international support.
At the time, by the way, the Arabs living in the region, under British rule, were offered statehood alongside Israel.
They turned it down, and opted instead to spend the next 60 years or so trying to destroy Israel and kill all the Jews.
I think Jews are absolutely right in saying that the actions of the international community during the Holocaust, (in some case cooperating in the slaughter, in almost all cases slamming their gates in the faces of the Jews fleeing the genocide) absolutely justifies the existence of an Israeli state.
The Holocaust was just one atrocity visited upon the Jewish people by Europe. For thousands of years Europe and Asia have been brutal to Jews, expelling them from their land, and scapegoating them for pretty much any and everything.
Even the United States had "no dogs, no Jews" signs up at public swimming pools not so long ago.
So, yes, using the Holocaust to justify the existence of the state of Israel is absolutely fair game.
And once you acknowledge a state's right to exist, you are also acknowledging that, like all states, it has the right to defend itself from aggressors.
Does that justify how Israel has treated the Palestinians? It really depends on what you think the alternative is?
Palestinians have rejected every peace deal and two state solution ever put before them. And they have time and again returned to waves of terrorism as their sole negotiating tactic.
At all times their leaders have been either unwilling or unable to negotiate an end to the conflict.
The pro-Palestinian contingent never actually proposes a solution that keeps Israelis safe and secure. They just endlessly criticize Israel for literally any and all actions.