The Worst Argument Against The Apartheid Analogy

[Shaktimaan]

140. I admit it, I'm torn...

I admit to feeling torn about responding to this audacious post. On the one hand, I've wasted far too much time in the past carefully articulating my views and explaining to you exactly why your ideas are so wrongheaded and so offensive only to see them fall upon ears deafer than granite. I fully understand that nothing I write here has any chance of being honestly interpreted by you, let alone have any kind of positive impact. That said, I feel a strong urge to respond whenever someone accuses me of such odious and untrue crimes as arguing for the separation of races, policy based on eugenics or in support of massacres and ethnic cleansing. None of which have an inkling of truth. Not only do I disagree with your interpretation of my posts, I remain utterly mystified as to how you could have arrived at them. Ultimately, it takes someone who earnestly believes that to support Zionism is to also support eugenics, racism, segregation, fascism, etc., to think that anything I wrote was in any way an argument in support of race segregation. Not a single argument posited in this last post of yours has anything to do with my beliefs nor do most of them make any logical sense.

For example, just because I failed to provide a link proving that the UNRWA has made the frequent argument that keeping the Palestinian refugees in camps is for their own good, does NOT mean that it is really MY argument instead. It just means that I'm accusing the UNRWA of saying something. How you manage to misunderstand this very basic principle astounds me to no end.

That's the thing about writing and literacy, you know, it's the transfer of thought through text. The text you attach your identity to is assumed to be your thoughts, your feelings, your opinions and beliefs on the subject you're writing about.

The problem with putting this very agreeable comment into action WRT yourself is that literally nothing I put down will then be interpreted with its meaning even partially intact. When asked for your ideology regarding Zionism you responded with a paragraph about racism being bad. Racism and Zionism are entirely different topics, in case you never noticed. Now you may firmly believe that Zionism is a form of racism, but then THAT would be your ideology regarding it... not "Racism is bad." To try and make the argument that the two words are interchangeable is ludicrous. Worse is to just assume it.

No, your ideology WRT Zionism is that proponents of Zionism must also support fascism, eugenics, racism, segregation by race, mass-murder, genocide and ethnic cleansing, and that these things are mandatory beliefs to every and all supporters of Zionism. Have I left anything out?

You've repeatedly made false reference to my beliefs so to alleviate any doubts about my true views regarding this situation, I'll post them not as clearly as possible.

I believe that to leverage the stateless Palestinian refugees of Lebanon for political gain by discriminating against them by nationality and not allowing them citizenship or access to any critical services of the country they were born in is unconscionable. I do not believe that anyone who has never held Israeli citizenship or has failed to ever even set foot in Israel has the right to claim some form of return. Nor is right of return in any shape or form a concept held up as international law or as being part of some part of UN requirements. I laud Israel for granting full citizenship with all related benefits to everyone regardless of their nationality, race, religion or whatever, to any soul who is born within its borders. Nothing I've been discussing here has anything to do with refugee law or UN anything. It has strictly to do with the notion that a person born within a country's borders should belong to that country, and to discriminate against that person based on their race, religion or nationality is truly odious. To do so for political gain is even worse, as the UNRWA and the Arab League have been doing for decades. The fault for the refugees languishing in camps in Lebanon can be placed on no one besides the Lebanese government itself. Just as Israel is responsible for the Palestinians who live within her borders so the Lebanese government is responsible for those living within her own.

Israel does have a responsibility to reimburse those refugees who were hurt by the Nakba. That said, no state is under any obligation to undertake actions that would put its entire existence in jeopardy as welcoming 5 million Palestinian refugees to become Israeli citizens surely would. Few states have been born without some form of blood as the toll for establishing eventual peace and stability. And in the case of Israel, there were no words minced in its Declaration of Independence when the offer was extended to everyone regardless of race or religion to share in the building of a state where all would live as equals. This despite the fact that they were then engaged in a war for survival with the Arabs split down ethnic lines. Any compensation paid to refugees of the Nakba would be part of a far larger peace plan involving the entire region and would necessitate compensation for the Jewish refugees of Arab states and a comprehensive peace plan between Palestine, Israel and the Arab states, not to mention a sovereign and democratic Palestinian state completely disengaged from Israel with clear and free borders between them. This can only be accomplished via negotiations between Israel and Palestine's leadership and while it will be up to Israel to provide a fair offer it will entirely be on the shoulders of the Palestinians to build their own state from the inside out, just as Israel did.

Now there shouldn't be any questions regarding what exactly I think WRT this issue and the Palestinians in general. I have never said or even implied that the Palestinian people don't exist either as a national people or as physical "actual" people. They are clearly a nationality and should have the right to self-determination. Their nationality is new, for sure. It came into existence as a reaction to Zionism. That doesn't make their need for self-determination any less pressing though and they have just as much right as any national group to form their own nation-state, provided they are able to.

Any questions?