RE: Fifteen Thoughts About Israel
I was going to say about that, I was reading the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance's (IHRA) "working definition" on anti-semitism and as could be expected, they started mixing apples and oranges and just like @caitlinjohnstone explained perfectly with her 2nd point, trying to make it a criminal and racist act to speak out against the violence of the state of Israel.
Point 11: "Drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis." apparently will soon be a criminal act in the signatory member states of the IHRA. (Jeremy Corbyn reported not to vote for this while shadow ministers in the UK showed support for passing these laws)
And even if drawing such a comparison were to be antisemitic, what is outrageous (and incredibly well-worded) about the IHRA's "working definition" is that it provides very dubious grounds through which to criticize Israel, either for its actions or its existence...
Because any criticism of the history of Israel, and its real, intended and actual purpose in the world is seen as a form of revisionism which can always be construed as an attack on Jewish people.
For example: Point 8 "Applying double standards by requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation. "... There's so much carefully worded dubious material in there.
"Not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation." - which means anybody can point to any criminal/perriah state which historically cozied up to the Western empire and say "nobody in the international community forced that country to change, why should we change? You're being antisemitic right now"
Or what about Point 7 "Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, e.g., by claiming that the existence of a State of Israel is a racist endeavor."
This one is particularly grotesque... Because the "Jewish people's right to self-determination" here clearly means the right to impose a colonial apartheid state on the Palestinians, and treat them like second-class citizens, even commit a genocide against them - and if we are saying there is no mandate in the world that would authorize them to do this incredibly [Insert Word That is Not Racist But Looks Sounds Smells Tastes and Feels Like Racism], then we are ANTISEMITES
Obviously, some of the points in this "working definition" are valid... People should never abuse somebody simply because they are practicing and following an ancient Semitic religion. Otherwise that's half of the world's population we can harass for believing there is a God... (I'm sure the rulers of Israel have that goal in mind too, so no point to make their job any easier)
But having a "working definition of antisemitism" and using this standard, which may soon be internationally adopted and make certain thoughts, analyses and criticisms of Israel ILLEGAL AND PUNISHABLE is scary.
We don't even have that for racism, homophobia, Islamophobia... Plus how much "thought-police" and "thought-crimes" can humanity even bear before we all collectively just start murdering each other...
This is all scary stuff and we must pay attention to it...
I personally still can't quite wrap my brain around the fact that University professors are being jailed for conducting historical research... This to me is the height of insanity, and yet it seems like it is nothing but the beginning of what is to come...
Israel is a strange, scary and vastly underappreciated ideological framework for the updating/reforming/transformation of human beings.
Well, some will say so was America... and Australia...
And look at how those turned out, and what come out of those experiments...
If History repeats itself, Israel should be destroyed before it destroys us...
Or not only will the Palestinians, but all of the Semitic Middle East and 2000+ years of history be destroyed, never to be spoken of again...
:(
Israel's existence and the plans for a greater Israel are an attempt to put the final nail in the coffin of "History", so that we will enter the "End of History" period and New World Order that the elite so frequently have talked about.
It's not for no reason that Israel happens to be right in the center of the Fertile Crescent and Cradle of Civilization.
you should view this video 11:30 into it
you will see the so called dead moving scratching his nose
it was staged to look like many died on the Israeli border