SD on 27/2/2025 at 15:06
Quote Posted by demagogue
Israel has citizenship, land, and other laws that treat Jews and other religions differently in terms of ability to get & lose citizenship (and instant citizenship vs. some impossible process), the ability to buy and obtain land vs. losing land, and dozens of different ways the populations are treated, e.g., access to work, access to housing, checkpoints, freedom of movement, water rights, getting one's business registered, etc., etc.
A legal system which gives rights to persons of one religion and denies rights to persons of other religions, different legal status and treatment based solely on their religion, is, by definition, a theocracy.
This is pretty much all false, isn't it? Non-Jewish citizens of Israel have the same rights as all other citizens of Israel, perhaps even more so since some non-Jews are not subject to conscription.
An Arab judge literally sent former Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and former President Moshe Katsav to prison. How's that fit into an allegedly unequal legal system?
Obviously Israel facilitates the acquisition of citizenship to returning Jews, because Israel is where Jews are from.
Jus sanguinis is a legal principle in lots of countries, is it not. The whole point of reestablishing Israel was to gather Jews back in their homeland where they could be safe from the persecution they faced literally everywhere else.
And you make the cardinal error of describing Jews as a "religion" when they are an ethnic group bound by ancestry. Of course you do, because how else could you categorise it as a theocracy without the phoney claim that religion is a crucial factor?
RippedPhreak on 27/2/2025 at 15:30
No need to debate nazis, SD. Just deplatform them.
demagogue on 27/2/2025 at 17:53
Fine, ethnocracy then*, never mind Jews are also countless races; my Jewish Israeli roommate at the University of Haifa was Ethiopian black. (Technically you'd just say it falls under the Article 1.1 scope of CERD, the Convention on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which is basically a social category defined by descent or ethnic origin, which works here.) Then the technical way to say it is, for those in occupied territory it's (
https://www.icj-cij.org/node/204176) violating Article 3 of CERD CERD, call it apartheid (or apartheid-like); call it alfasl aleunsuriu; call it ethnocracy; call it whatever you want, and inside Israel it's the citizenship and property laws in particular that are discriminatory. (Then there is social discrimination that the state isn't cracking down sufficiently, but that's another issue.) What you call it isn't the point.
Well, here's a list of (
https://www.adalah.org/en/law/index) 70 laws that explicitly or in their enforcement distinguish Jews and non-Jews in their treatment. This is the same way that Ginsberg famously started her lawsuit to end gender discriminatory laws in the US that went to the Supreme Court and overturned gender discrimination. When those 70 laws get amended to remove illegitimate Jewish/non-Jewish distinctions in word and in practice, then you'll have a point. The US ended up having to amend 100s of its laws illegitimately distinguishing legal treatment of men and women. That's what Israel needs to do with these laws as well.
----
Edit: It's not your or my opinion that matters anyway. I've shown a little documentation; there's loads more I could if I had time. One shows documentation that makes the point. I understand that's a labor intensive thing to do & people are limited in time & energy, etc., so it's not like I'm demanding it in return. But that's what it's gonna fall back on in the end.
You're right that in many areas legal treatment of Jews & non-Jews is the same, but where there are distinctions it's particularly problematic, more than other countries that have typical problems with minority discrimination. Denials of citizenship, facilitation of land being taken, inability to buy and keep land, the things facilitating Palestinian dispossession. Then it's the occupation that really makes a mess of everything, since it's people under the effective control of the government of Israel with substantially fewer rights as any other resident of Israel, and the legal and political system is engineered to maintain that separate inferior treatment.
But also, just to step back, are you seriously denying that Israel is a Jewish state first and "must maintain its Jewish character"?
---
Edit 2: And to preempt one line of reply, one of my starting points is I am on the side of protecting Jewish people from the long and terrible history of antisemitism and hatred that begins with the dehumanization of Jewish people, which itself begins with the idea that they are fundamentally "different" from other humans. The legal apparatus in Israel that treats Jews and non-Jews differently particularly in terms of citizenship, land ownership, and "being Israeli", etc., only helps to support that awful dehumanizing stance and puts Jewish people at significantly more risk in the region. I believe Jews are equal human beings deserving equal human rights against the awful scourge of antisemitism, which is one reason why I think Jews should not be treated differently in law or society from non-Jews in the ways I mentioned.
---
*The religious parties still have outsized influence in Israel's civil law, things like family law, marriage, divorce, religious exemptions, etc. That's a thing, but relatively minor compared to the big picture above, except for the people directly affected by it. I didn't use the term "theocracy" for the thread title to begin with and would never use it in this context anyway; I was handwaving towards it when it was directly raised, but as I said I defer to the CERD definition if we're being technical about it.
SD on 28/2/2025 at 01:18
Your Jewish Israeli roommate may very well have had dark skin; he is also the product of historic Hebrew ancestors who migrated to East Africa, taking their culture with them, and intermarrying with the local population. His Jewish ancestry may very well be remote, but it is there all the same.
Ethnocracy is closer to to the mark than theocracy, but still wide of the mark. After all, most countries are dominated by a single ethnic or racial group, are they not? You live/d in Japan for goodness sake. You must be aware of how difficult it is for non-Japanese to acquire Japanese citizenship. Japan is - what? - 98% Japanese? Compared to Japan, Israel is a model of diversity. Certainly, Israel does not feature in the (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoethnicity) list of the 27 monoethnic countries with ethnic dominance of 85% or higher.
(Incidentally, Palestine is 91% Palestinian Arab. In Palestine, selling land to a Jew is a capital offence. Whatever discrimination there may be in Israel, I'm confident that Arabs are more equal there than Jews in Palestine would be.)
I love the idea of treating everyone equally, and in that regard, states dominated by one ethnicity are far from ideal. In principle, I don't even like the idea of borders. People ought to be able to go wherever they want. Unfortunately, we don't live in principle, we live in the real world, and a state for the Jewish people is a necessary evil. Thousands of years of history have shown us that. I'm a liberal, but I'm also a pragmatist.
Ultimately it's not criticism of Israel I have an issue with. It's the singling out of Israel. For instance, see how Palestinians are treated in Lebanon if you want to see real apartheid-like treatment. Barred from formal education. Barred from healthcare. Barred from owning property. Barred from all employment save for the lowest paid. Barred in almost all instances from obtaining citizenship. And absolute radio silence on all of this from the people who have made "pro-Palestinianism" their raison d'etre.
Starker on 28/2/2025 at 13:19
Lebanon has long been criticised for its treatment of Palestinian refugees, especially in comparison with Jordan that fully naturalised them, and yes, been accused of keeping Palestinians in apartheid-like conditions. But Israel is very much like Lebanon in that regard and Israel's treatment of Palestinians goes well above and beyond that...
Quote:
(
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/07/israel-must-end-mass-incommunicado-detention-and-torture-of-palestinians-from-gaza/)
Israeli authorities must end their indefinite incommunicado detention of Palestinians from the occupied Gaza Strip, without charge or trial under the Unlawful Combatants law, in flagrant violation of international law, said Amnesty International.
The organization documented the cases of 27 Palestinian former detainees, including five women, 21 men and a 14-year-old boy, who were detained for periods of up to four and a half months without access to their lawyers or any contact with their families, in connection with this law. All those interviewed by Amnesty International said that during their incommunicado detention, which in some cases amounted to enforced disappearance, Israeli military, intelligence and police forces subjected them to torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.
[...]
Israeli military seized the detainees from locations across Gaza including Gaza City, Jabalia, Beit Lahiya and Khan Younis. The detainees were rounded up at schools housing internally displaced people, during raids on homes, hospitals, and newly installed checkpoints. They were then transferred to Israel and held for periods ranging from two weeks to up to 140 days in military or IPS-run detention facilities.
Those detained included doctors taken into custody at hospitals for refusing to abandon their patients; mothers separated from their infants while trying to cross the so-called “safe corridor” from northern Gaza to the south; human rights defenders, UN workers, journalists and other civilians.
All those interviewed by Amnesty International said they were subjected to torture and other ill-treatment.
[...]
Evidence justifying the detention is withheld both from the detainee and their lawyer. This means many of those detained are held for months without the slightest idea of why they have been detained, in violation of international law, completely cut off from their family and loved ones and unable to challenge the grounds of their detention.
[...]
In addition to being denied access to legal counsel, detainees are also cut off from their families. Families described to Amnesty International the agony of being separated from their loved ones and living in constant fear of discovering that they died in prison.
Alaa Muhanna, whose husband Ahmad Muhhana, the director of Al-Awda hospital, was detained during a raid on the hospital on 17 December 2023, told Amnesty International the only scant information she receives about him is from other released prisoners: “I assure the children that Ahmad is fine, that he's coming back soon, but to live through this war, the constant displacement, the bombing and also have to fight to know where your husband is, not to hear his voice, is like a war within the war.”
One released health worker told Amnesty International that not knowing whether his family in Gaza were alive or dead while he was detained was “even worse than torture and starvation”.
[...]
The 27 released detainees, interviewed by Amnesty International, consistently described being subjected to torture on at least one occasion during their arrest. The organization observed marks and bruises consistent with torture on at least eight detainees interviewed in person and also reviewed medical reports of two detainees corroborating their accounts of torture.
[...]
Said Maarouf, a 57-year-old pediatrician who was detained by the Israeli military during a raid on al-Ahli Baptist hospital in Gaza City in December 2023 and detained for 45 days at the Sde Teiman military camp, told Amnesty International that detention guards kept him blindfolded and handcuffed for the entire duration of his detention, and described being starved, repeatedly beaten, and forced to sit on his knees for long periods.
In another case, the Israeli army arrested a 14-year old child from his home in Jabalia, in northern Gaza on 1 January 2024. He was held for 24 days in the Sde Teiman military detention centre with at least 100 adult detainees in one barrack. He told Amnesty International that military interrogators had subjected him to torture, including by kicking him, punching him in the neck and head. He said he had been repeatedly burnt with cigarette butts. Signs of cigarettes burns and bruises were visible on the child's body when Amnesty International interviewed him on 3 February 2024, in the school where he was sheltering with other displaced families. During his detention, he was not allowed to call his family or see a lawyer and was held blindfolded and handcuffed.
[...]
Israeli authorities have a history of incarcerating Palestinians without charge or trial through their systematic use of administrative detention, a key feature of Israel's system of apartheid. According to Israeli human rights organization Hamoked, as of 1 July Israeli authorities were holding 3,379 people under administrative detention, the vast majority of whom are Palestinians from the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
Nicker on 1/3/2025 at 16:04
Quote:
Ultimately it's not criticism of Israel I have an issue with. It's the singling out of Israel.
But the singling out of Palestinians... :rolleyes:
So close, SD. Sooooo close.
SD on 1/3/2025 at 18:08
I don't believe I have done that, at any point.
Nicker on 1/3/2025 at 19:09
Quote Posted by SD
I don't believe I have done that, at any point.
And others here have never singled out Israel either but you often imply that we have, as in the following.
Quote:
Any attempt to assert equivalency between Israel and Hamas collapses under the slightest scrutiny.
Mostly siding with Likud on critical matters vs exclusively siding with them is a distinction without a practical difference. IMHO.
Quote:
The one in the title of this thread being a case in point. A government that can be voted out cannot, under any reasonable definition of the term, be a fascist theocracy.
The thread title identifies the combatants as theocrats, not their political systems (or lack thereof) as theocracies. What is important is that the incumbents on both sides are behaving like fascists, using violence to achieve their political ends. And because those ends are deeply tied to their religious convictions, both sides are fascist theocrats.
And while Israel is a democracy on paper, Likud has twisted the system to maintain a grip on elected power and to remove or declaw any mechanisms which citizens might use to challenge Likud's abuses.
Walks, talks, murders like a Fascist. It might be fascism.
Subjective Effect on 4/3/2025 at 12:32
Answer that power armour question though.
Starker on 4/3/2025 at 14:31
The killing of children in the West Bank has become a weekly occurrence:
Quote:
(
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/mar/01/footage-shows-last-moments-boy-12-killed-in-west-bank)
The last time Nassar al-Hammouni talked to his son, Ayman, it was by telephone and the 12-year-old was overflowing with plans for the coming weekend, and for the rest of his life. He had joined a local football team and planned to register at a karate club that weekend. When he grew up, he told Nassar, he was going to become a doctor, or better still an engineer to help his father in the construction job that took him away from their home in Hebron every week.
None of that - the football, the karate or his imagined future career - will happen now. Last Friday, two days after the call to his father, Ayman was killed, shot by Israeli fire, video footage seen by the Guardian suggests.
[...]
So far this year about two children a week have been killed, slightly over the average rate for 2024 when 93 children were killed. Human rights workers fear the numbers may continue to increase as the IDF brings Gaza techniques to the West Bank, ejecting tens of thousands of people from their homes, flattening districts and loosening further the “rules of engagement” covering when a soldier is permitted to open fire.
[...]
The bereaved father said that on hearing of what had happened in Hebron, an Arabic-speaking soldier began to taunt him, claiming to have been the one who shot Ayman, telling Nassar: “Convince me that I shot him for nothing.
“We hope that you will follow your son,” he recalled the soldier adding.
The IDF did not respond to questions about Ayman's death. In some previous cases, under media pressure an investigation is announced, although it rarely results in substantive action. In 2019 a soldier was sentenced to one month of community service for shooting dead a 14-year-old boy in Gaza. But even such trivial accountability is vanishingly rare.
[...]
