Israel and UAE announce normalisation of relations. Bahrain follows suit, as does Sudan.

[wanderwegger]

Great post. I always wonder why an oppressive militarized theocratic state like Israel doesn't get along better with the other oppressive militarized theocratic states in the region. I guess some people just get blinded by religion.

With a name like Bundesreich its amazing I ever thought there were Nazis here.

[nhytgbvfeco2]

Great post. I always wonder why an oppressive militarized theocratic state like Israel doesn't get along better with the other oppressive militarized theocratic states in the region. I guess some people just get blinded by religion.

Israel is neither theocratic nor oppressive, as for militarized I suppose it depends on the meaning. It has mandatory military service (though it's mandatory only for Druze, Circassians and Jews, and even then with big exceptions), but it's not by choice but rather by necessity.

[wanderwegger]

I don’t disagree. Oppressing the Palestinians takes a large bit of manpower. Throw in protecting the land grab settlements and defending the borders on all sides and being a militarized state is the only choice.

I know my Israeli history. The stuff in 40s they like to keep out of the discussion included. Atrocity often demands atrocity. I get it. Still don’t like it.

[nhytgbvfeco2]

I don’t disagree. Oppressing the Palestinians takes a large bit of manpower. Throw in protecting the land grab settlements and defending the borders on all sides and being a militarized state is the only choice.


I know my Israeli history. The stuff in 40s they like to keep out of the discussion included. Atrocity often demands atrocity. I get it. Still don’t like it.

Yes, you need a lot of soldiers when a hostile entity continuously fires rockets at your civilian population and sends incendiary balloons to burn your fields and forests, when a terrorist organisation in a neighbouring country that has a stranglehold over their government regularly makes threats to attack you and blow up chemical storage in your 3rd largest city which would create an explosion similar to what we have seen in Beirut, when nations in the region regularly threaten your destruction, when from even before you became independent you were forced to fight a war for your very survival that forever goes on and any sign of weakness can result in an invasion. In the grim darkness of the middle east there is only war. Rarely is there peace achieved, and when it is then those who masquerade as proponents of peace shed off their cloaks of lies and show their true faces and lambaste peace for it was never their desire.

[Vanoi]

Implying Turkey is relevant.

They are whenever you like it or not. Turkey is key to the fates of both Libya and Syria. They are also a major player when it comes to gas and oil exploration in the Mediterranean.

What trouble can Iran cause, more than it has already caused.

Fund their militants more, send more weapons to the militants they support, seize oil tankers in Hormuz, direct their militants to attack targets (American troops, Israel, Saudi Arabia, ect.)

[wanderwegger]

I didn't realize the Palestinians were building settlements on Israeli land too. That is horrible. Any country that steals land from another, be it Russia in the Crimea or in the Middle East I oppose (except maybe the kurds).

I wouldn't call the IDF or Israeli's government a terrorist organization. I think that goes a little far. They are an occupying force who uses terror, arrests political dissidents in the night, assassinates opponents on the foreign soil of their allies where they have treaties against such actions, and is probably the most militarized country in the world after North Korea.

But terrorist I disagree.

Calling the massacres and terrorism they inflicted on the Palestinians after WW2 using militias and the like and the terrorism and bombings against the British by the Israelis than for sure terrorism, but now, I like oppressive militarized state better. Lets call it semi Theocratic.

Yes, you need a lot of soldiers when a hostile entity continuously fires rockets at your civilian population and sends incendiary balloons to burn your fields and forests, when a terrorist organisation in a neighbouring country that has a stranglehold over their government regularly makes threats to attack you and blow up chemical storage in your 3rd largest city which would create an explosion similar to what we have seen in Beirut, when nations in the region regularly threaten your destruction, when from even before you became independent you were forced to fight a war for your very survival that forever goes on and any sign of weakness can result in an invasion. In the grim darkness of the middle east there is only war. Rarely is there peace achieved, and when it is then those who masquerade as proponents of peace shed off their cloaks of lies and show their true faces and lambaste peace for it was never their desire.

[Sir Adrian]

They are whenever you like it or not. Turkey is key to the fates of both Libya and Syria. They are also a major player when it comes to gas and oil exploration in the Mediterranean.


Fund their militants more, send more weapons to the militants they support, seize oil tankers in Hormuz, direct their militants to attack targets (American troops, Israel, Saudi Arabia, ect.)

Turkey is not an important player in anything. It tried to flex its muscles in the Med and the EU growled at it and it fled back into its hole. Turkish intervention in Syria is basically 0 since Russia set up camp there and Lybia is completely irrelevant to this discussion. Not that the EU will let Turkey do anything without asking permission first.

What makes you think that if Iran could afford to fund anti-israeli sentiment even more than it does now it wouldn't already be doing it. We're talking about a country that wishes to drop nuclear weapons on Israel. It created a nuclear programme specifically for this reason ffs. If Iran could do anything more it would have.

[nhytgbvfeco2]

I didn't realize the Palestinians were building settlements on Israeli land too. That is horrible. Any country that steals land from another, be it Russia in the Crimea or in the Middle East I oppose (except maybe the kurds).

Israel didn't "steal land from another [country]", it gained control of territory following a successful defensive war, offered it back, received the 3 NO's at Khartoum, and for a good while was unsure of what to do with it since the countries it was taken from refused to sign peace in return for it being given back. Egypt would later renounce its claim to the Gaza strip (and didn't take it despite being offered it), and Jordan renounced their claim to what they called the "west bank". The only territory controlled by Israel that is claimed by another country is the Golan heights, and likely will remain as such since Syria refused several offers for its return.

I wouldn't call the IDF or Israeli's government a terrorist organization. I think that goes a little far. They are an occupying force who uses terror, arrests political dissidents in the night, assassinates opponents on the foreign soil of their allies where they have treaties against such actions, and is probably the most militarized country in the world after North Korea.

what political dissidents are arrested at night? what opponents were assassinated on allied soil?
Depends on what you call militarised.

But terrorist I disagree.

Calling the massacres and terrorism they inflicted on the Palestinians after WW2 using militias and the like and the terrorism and bombings against the British by the Israelis than for sure terrorism, but now, I like oppressive militarized state better.

The line between freedom fighters and terrorists is often blurry, it depends largely on the target. When the target is civilians it is indeed terror, and it is without question that Hamas, Hezbollah and the Palestinians Islamic Jihad regularly target and threaten to target civilians. The same cannot be said of the principal Jewish militia, the Haganah, which did not target civilians. Etzel and Lehi also largely tried to avoid it, however not at all times, and some of their actions can be defined as terrorism. However, in Israel streets aren't named after terrorists, they are not awarded medals for their acts of terror. They do not receive monetary rewards from the state for their acts. Instead they were condemned and denounced.

Lets call it semi Theocratic.

How is it, at all, theocratic?

[Axalon]

Today a major development has occurred in the middle east, with the UAE becoming only the third Arab state to normalise relations with Israel and recognise it, the last being Jordan all the way back in 1994. This is a significant foreign policy victory for the Trump administration in the US which was heavily involved in the process, as well as Benjamin Netanyahu's government in Israel, and a major step towards peace in the middle east.

Let's see how long it lasts... All the same, it is welcome news...

- A

[wanderwegger]

Israel didn't "steal land from another [country]", it gained control of territory following a successful defensive war, offered it back, received the 3 NO's at Khartoum, and for a good while was unsure of what to do with it since the countries it was taken from refused to sign peace in return for it being given back. Egypt would later renounce its claim to the Gaza strip (and didn't take it despite being offered it), and Jordan renounced their claim to what they called the "west bank". The only territory controlled by Israel that is claimed by another country is the Golan heights, and likely will remain as such since Syria refused several offers for its return.

what political dissidents are arrested at night? what opponents were assassinated on allied soil?
Depends on what you call militarised.

The line between freedom fighters and terrorists is often blurry, it depends largely on the target. When the target is civilians it is indeed terror, and it is without question that Hamas, Hezbollah and the Palestinians Islamic Jihad regularly target and threaten to target civilians. The same cannot be said of the principal Jewish militia, the Haganah, which did not target civilians. Etzel and Lehi also largely tried to avoid it, however not at all times, and some of their actions can be defined as terrorism. However, in Israel streets aren't named after terrorists, they are not awarded medals for their acts of terror. They do not receive monetary rewards from the state for their acts. Instead they were condemned and denounced.

How is it, at all, theocratic?

Since I assume you will argue Deir Yassin was pre israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Y...r%20Jerusalem.

How about Kafr Qasim? 23 children killed. Israeli prime minister apologized for it so hard to argue it wasn't?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kafr_Qasim_massacre


List of Israeli Assassinations. They made some pretty famous movies about some of them if you are interested. Fiction but widely accepted as based on true stories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...assassinations


And if you want to question wiki what people who can't stand it fail to admit is most of its articles provide bibliographies from real books. Not internet sites most people use as sources on here.

[Nebaki]

Both of these Countries are just funded by the West are will be nothing further without their support.

[Vanoi]

Turkey is not an important player in anything. It tried to flex its muscles in the Med and the EU growled at it and it fled back into its hole.

Fled back to its hole from the mighty EU?

https://www.worldoil.com/news/2020/6...rranean-waters

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/...140628522.html

EU hasn't stopped . A paper tiger at best.

Turkish intervention in Syria is basically 0 since Russia set up camp there and Lybia is completely irrelevant to this discussion.

Russia has been set up in Syria since 2015. Since then Turkish backed rebels have taken over large swathes of territory. Turkey completely stopped the last Syrian government offensive into Idlib. Assad cannot win in Syria anymore because of Turkey.

Libya is completely relevant as they both involve Turkey, the UAE, and Israel.

[
Not that the EU will let Turkey do anything without asking permission first.

Is it the EU who gave Turkey premission to intervene on places like Libya and Syria? Is it the EU who gave Turkey premission to send weapons to Libya in violation of an EU weapons embargo?

What makes you think that if Iran could afford to fund anti-israeli sentiment even more than it does now it wouldn't already be doing it.

Are you that naive to think Iran needs to send more money than it does now to cause problems for Israel?

We're talking about a country that wishes to drop nuclear weapons on Israel. It created a nuclear programme specifically for this reason ffs. If Iran could do anything more it would have.

This is just stupid. Are you that ignorant of Iran's activities in the Middle East? Iran actively funds and arms a group on Israel's border whose whole goal is to destroy it.

Ever heard of waiting and being patient? Iran has plenty of time to wait and conduct attacks against Israel.

[nhytgbvfeco2]

Since I assume you will argue Deir Yassin was pre israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deir_Y...r%20Jerusalem.

It was pre-Israel, yes, and it was committed by the 2 groups I pointed out. Even then however they acted against express orders by their own leaders to not kill women and children. This was condemned by the rest of the Israeli factions as well.

How about Kafr Qasim? 23 children killed. Israeli prime minister apologized for it so hard to argue it wasn't?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kafr_Qasim_massacre

This case is rather famous in the IDF, and is always given as an example of something that in the IDF is called a "blatantly illegal order", an order that must be disobeyed. Obeying such an order will have a soldier punished. 8 of the soldiers involved were tried in court and found guilty and given prison sentences. [/quote]

List of Israeli Assassinations. They made some pretty famous movies about some of them if you are interested. Fiction but widely accepted as based on true stories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...assassinations

Haven't heard of most of those, but then a significant portion is unproven. Looking at the list, the last to take place in a non-hostile country was in 1995, so clearly the policy has changed since. Most of the individuals on the list were either Nazis or terrorists, so I can't say that I'm sad about this.

And if you want to question wiki what people who can't stand it fail to admit is most of its articles provide bibliographies from real books. Not internet sites most people use as sources on here.

I generally have no issue with wikipedia.

[Cyclops]

...
How is it, at all, theocratic?

Maybe Netanyahu is actually the Pope? Have they ever been seen in the same room together?

crude photoshop fail

...and why is Chucky there? So many unanswered questions...

Israel passes the reality test: it exists despite stringent testing, and doesn't meet the unreal descriptions imposed by many critics.

Normalising relationships is symbolic but erodes the ability of manipulative liars to deny the right of a country to even draw breath.

The same bastards who raged against Israel also incentivised poor Palestinians to don suicide vests and throw themselves in front of machine guns. If wretched Gulf monarchies (and later maybe the vile Saudis) behave well its actually a good thing, maybe it will become a habit for them.

What does this do for the Palestinians? Not much, but at least Israel has stepped back from its outrageous plans to annex parts of the West Bank. That's more symbolic than anything as well but its still something: Israel is not morphing into the hideous caricature its accused by the ignorant of being. I wish they'd walk back the symbolic but detrimental step of elevating Hebrew over Arabic as a language because while its essentially symbolic even symbols matter, but I'm probably dreaming.

[wanderwegger]

While I would further argue how Israeli polices Gaza et al is terrorism which pushed Hamas to power, Israeli law is systemically racist/unjust pick a word (the laws concerning who must serve in the IDF being an easy case in point). And the settlements and annexations are blatantly wrong minus maybe Golan. Your arguments are a valid way of viewing the circumstances. As are mine.

Does it need be said I am a proponent of the unsanctioned killing of Nazis anywhere, anytime by anyone.

It was pre-Israel, yes, and it was committed by the 2 groups I pointed out. Even then however they acted against express orders by their own leaders to not kill women and children. This was condemned by the rest of the Israeli factions as well.


This case is rather famous in the IDF, and is always given as an example of something that in the IDF is called a "blatantly illegal order", an order that must be disobeyed. Obeying such an order will have a soldier punished. 8 of the soldiers involved were tried in court and found guilty and given prison sentences.



Haven't heard of most of those, but then a significant portion is unproven. Looking at the list, the last to take place in a non-hostile country was in 1995, so clearly the policy has changed since. Most of the individuals on the list were either Nazis or terrorists, so I can't say that I'm sad about this.


I generally have no issue with wikipedia.

[nhytgbvfeco2]

While I would further argue how Israeli polices Gaza et al is terrorism which pushed Hamas to power, Israeli law is systemically racist/unjust pick a word (the laws concerning who must serve in the IDF being an easy case in point). And the settlements and annexations are blatantly wrong minus maybe Golan. Your arguments are a valid way of viewing the circumstances. As are mine.

Does it need be said I am a proponent of the unsanctioned killing of Nazis anywhere, anytime by anyone.

...Are you saying that the laws concerning who must serve in the IDF are discriminatory against Jews?
Which policies pushed Hamas into power?

[wanderwegger]

Discriminatory against Arabs, muslims, non Jews. Hafrada, West Bank Barrier, unrelenting Settlements, Assassinations of enemies deemed terrorists. Citizenship and Entry into Israel Order. I assume less than great treatment of Palestinians and Arabs who live in Israel proper. Words of government ministers and political parties in coalition governments that essentially call Palestinians subhuman. “prohibitions on access to land, as well as the unequal allocation of civil service positions and per capita expenditure on educations between "dominant and minority citizens“

I could go on. This seems like a lot already though.

[nhytgbvfeco2]

Discriminatory against Arabs, muslims, non Jews. Hafrada, West Bank Barrier, unrelenting Settlements, Assassinations of enemies deemed terrorists. Citizenship and Entry into Israel Order.

Oh bs. Not being conscripted is discriminatory? Better tell ultra-orthodox Jews that they are facing discrimination. All of those groups can still join the army if they want to and they will in fact get higher salaries than conscripts do, Bedouin’s even get land from the state if they join the army. It’s a privilege to not be conscripted. And btw, Circassians, who as I mentioned are also conscripted, are Muslims.

The barrier was erected during the second intifada to stop terrorism, and it worked.
Hafrada?

The citizenship law is based on the nazi definition of who is a Jew, so that all those who would have been killed for being a Jew can come and live in safety in the Jewish state. It includes many people who aren’t Jews at all but have 1 Jewish grandparent, and non Jewish spouses. Some 300,000 non-Jews from the former soviet union live today in Israel and fit into this group.

I assume less than great treatment of Palestinians and Arabs who live in Israel proper.

False.

Words of government ministers and political parties in coalition governments that essentially call Palestinians subhuman.

Such as? Some have said problematic things, but sub human?

“prohibitions on access to land, as well as the unequal allocation of civil service positions and per capita expenditure on educations between "dominant and minority citizens“

I could go on. This seems like a lot already though.

Prohibitions in access to land? To whom? Non-citizens? Yes, most states do that.
There are also differences in allocation of resources between different cities, periphery versus centre (virtually all Arab majority towns are in the periphery) settlements vs non settlements etc. Sectarian parties often demand more resources for their sector, if one of the Arab parties ever joined a coalition they could probably resolve that imbalance. Alas they prefer warming seats in the opposition.

[sumskilz]

Hafrada?

הפרדה

But, I'm not surprised you have no idea what he's referring to:

The Scottish Sunday Herald‘s Foreign Editor, David Pratt offers a classic example of how journalists can distort the facts to suit their personal interpretation of Israel and the Mideast. On 28 May he claims:

Even among Israelis, the term “Hafrada,” separation or apartheid in Hebrew, has entered the mainstream lexicon, despite strident denials by the Jewish state that it is engaged in any such process.

In fact, just a cursory glance at a Hebrew-English dictionary reveals that the term “Hafrada” does not literally mean “apartheid”. Also, as a concept, “Hafrada” has certainly not entered the Israeli lexicon, but rather, the term “Geder Hafrada” (“Separation Fence”) referring to Israel’s security barrier. Thus, Pratt deliberately and dishonestly claims that Israelis have begun to privately use their own term for “apartheid” while inaccurately stating that Israel’s security barrier and the apartheid ideology are one and the same.

Pratt’s fuzzy logic and linguistic gymnastics demonstrate a fundamental misunderstanding of the “separation” concept in the context of the Israeli-Palestinian situation. Both Israelis and moderate Palestinians are in favour of separation in the form of a two-state solution – an Israeli state and a Palestinian state. According to Pratt, are all advocates of this internationally recognised solution to the conflict supporters of apartheid?

Sunday Herald’s Linguistic Gymnastics

[wanderwegger]

I don’t believe Hafrada and Apartheid is a good comparison even though one word sprung from the other. I do think a word whose meaning can be defined as the state sponsored separation by what I am going to call race needs a word and Hafrada will do.