reply to post by Ridhya
I'd like to address a few of the points raised in this post.
You are somewhat right there, regular JEWS would not use that card, but I think the Israeli government still would. They thrive on aid from the
US and Germany, and donations from Jews worldwide, so without pity they would cease to exist. It is a necessity to their survival.
I don't believe this is true. I haven't seen one instance of the Israeli government using the anti-Semitism "card" as you describe it to win an
argument or silence debate. In fact from what I've seen the Israeli government encourages debate and discussion. Three times now PM Netanyahu has
stated his willingness for "talks without preconditions" with Palestinians and Arab leaders. On all occasions this has been rejected.
As for thriving on other nations' goodwill (in the form of financial support), I haven't seen any evidence for this either. Israel is a country of
13 million people I believe, who pay taxes to their government the same as you or I do. If would help your argument here if you can support it with
facts and figures.
No, just to act civilised, they are one of the most modern countries in the world and treat their subjects like #, with checkpoints and illegal
settlements and harrassment from settlers... and the government generally turns a blind eye. Luckily Obama is pressuring them to stop this
Checkpoints are a sad reality of countries that have real and present security threats. Ulster was riddled with them. It's not pretty, it's a pain
in the ass for everyone that has to go through them on a daily or weekly basis, and they cost an extraordinary amount of money and resources to
maintain - nobody wants them - but they have been extremely effective from a counter-terrorism point of view. I'm sure there is not an Israeli alive
that wouldn't prefer there to be no checkpoints or border controls, but that's not the reality they live in. Security > Convenience.
As for "harassment from settlers", do you think this only happens on one side? What about the years and years of Arab violence against Jews? Neither
side of these skirmishes are collectively victims or aggressors. There are Palestinian aggressors and Jewish aggressors, and there are Palestinian
victims and Jewish victims.
A separate discussion would be the respective rights to legal recourse, and whether this is equal depending on whether you're a Palestinian or an
Israeli. I'm not sure on this, but I know that Israeli human rights groups such as Peace Now have been campaigning in this area.
I think what you are mixing up is political zionism vs religious zionism. There is nothing wrong with wanting to be nearer to god (religious).
But political involves exploiting these same moves to further your power grab. When they want land to expand their empire they say 'god gave us the
land' as an excuse.
I find it interesting that you describe Israel and Zionism as the expansion of "an empire". Have you looked at a map and seen how tiny Israel is?
It's smaller than the boot of Italy. I'd hardly describe this as an empire, or a land grab.
But now we're into a debate about what Zionism is and what it isn't. To me, Zionism represents just one thing: The desire of the followers of
Judaism to have a land to call their own where they are free from persecution and free to live their lives as they see fit. It was an immense and
massive undertaking to make that desire a reality, which required the cooperation of millions of people with no connection to each other apart from a
common religion, language (which they had to teach themselves again as Hebrew was a dead language) and historical heritage. To me this was an amazing
achievement, one that Jews all over the world should be immensely proud of, and not something that deserves the scorn or vilification that it
receives.
To others, Zionism is an imperialist, colonialist enterprise. To be honest I'd need some persuading to see this point of view, since imperialism and
colonialism require a starting point (i.e. another country) from which to launch an empire. Jews of the world that made Aliyah did not have a country
of their own, they only had Israel.
Every other country that Jews have lived in has persecuted them and made them second class citizens. Yes, even the good ol' USA - did you know that
not so long ago universities in the States had a "Jew quota", which limited the number of Jews that were allowed to attend each university?
Israels government is just as terrorist in my opinion as HAMAS is.
Israel's government does what it has the moral and legal obligation to do - that is to protect its citizens (Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Druze, etc)
from harm. Anything else would be criminally negligent. It does not act to scare people or inflict psychological damage on people, however those
things are a tragic side-effect of war. In my view Israel does everything it can to minimize damage to civilian property and lives, probably more so
than any other country on Earth.
Not a week goes by where we don't hear about X civilians being killed by American drones in southern Pakistan. This week is was 50 odd, and three
terrorists were killed as a result. People seem to think this is acceptable. Yet when Israel performs similar military actions against the people of
Gaza, in response to real and present attacks on their homeland, people cry fowl. I honestly don't know what you expect them to do?
) 
not because I disbelieve evolution or anything, it was just because she could not really
tell me it was wrong haha. 
