Israel/Palestine

[KUTradition]

sounds like a perfectly healthy democracy to me

[Mjl]

I've got friends looking to move because of that. Breaks my heart, would rather they stay and continue to protest and vote.

Haredi breed a lot. I don't think I like the direction this is going.

[Mjl]

sounds like a perfectly healthy democracy to me

Even with the changes they're far more Democoratic than any other nation in the area.

Also - we had three justices chosen by Trump because the Senate blocked an appointment for a year and rushed another one through. Are we any better?

[KUTradition]

sounds like a perfectly healthy democracy to me

Even with the changes they're far more Democoratic than any other nation in the area.

Also - we had three justices chosen by Trump because the Senate blocked an appointment for a year and rushed another one through. Are we any better?

i don’t disagree, with either point

[Mjl]

Also, their protests are far better than the sometimes-destructive BLM protests and the January 6th protest.

https://twitter.com/YishaiFleisher/stat ... 16163?s=20

Can't find it anymore but there was a cool one where they made an insanely enormous scroll of the Declaration of Independence (they don't have a Constitution) that they draped over the wall (giant fucking wall) of the Old City.

[Shirley]

Even with the changes they're far more Democoratic than any other nation in the area.

Also - we had three justices chosen by Trump because the Senate blocked an appointment for a year and rushed another one through. Are we any better?

i don’t disagree, with either point

This looks like a good place for an: "If you have to compare yourself to MAGAs...", but I'm sympathetic to your/Israel's plight.

[Mjl]

It just seems Israel is held to an awfully high standard compared to other countries considering where it is, how small it is, and the fact it's only been around (this time) for 75 years.

[Shirley]

Poor Israel, beset by fascists, too:

JERUSALEM — The Israeli defense minister, Yoav Gallant, called on Saturday night for his government to suspend its contentious plan to overhaul the country’s judiciary, arguing that the turmoil it has unleashed within Israeli society and the military has become a threat to Israel’s national security.

“The rift within our society is widening and penetrating the Israel Defense Forces,” Mr. Gallant said in a televised speech. He added: “This is a clear and immediate and tangible danger to the security of the state. I shall not be a party to this.”

Mr. Gallant’s announcement set the stage for what is expected to be one of the most dramatic weeks in Israeli history. The far-right governing coalition of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which has a majority of just four seats, is expected to hold a final vote in Parliament early next week on the first step in its overhaul plan: a bill that would give the government greater control over appointments to the Supreme Court.

[...]

[Shirley]

Poor Israel. (If Trump was smart, he'd be taking notes.)

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu fired Defense Minister Yoav Gallant on Sunday, a day after Gallant called for a halt to the judicial reform that has spurred a national crisis.

Gallant had become the first cabinet member to break with Netanyahu over the judicial overhaul a day earlier, saying in a public address that the controversial plan posed a security threat to Israel. Hundreds of reservists have refused to sign up for duty in protest, and thousands more have threatened to do the same if the bills are made into law.

...On Monday, Netanyahu’s far-right government plans to advance some of the most controversial elements of its legislative blitz, including one bill to allow Knesset members larger leverage in selecting Supreme Court judges and another to allow the return of Aryeh Deri, a Netanyahu ally and the leader of the ultra-Orthodox Shas party, whom the Supreme Court ruled was unfit to serve because of a “backlog of criminal convictions.”

[...]

[Shirley]

Opinion: Netanyahu is doing lasting damage to the U.S.-Israel relationship

...A recent Gallup poll should have been a wake-up call for Israeli leaders who take U.S. support for granted: While Republicans are more pro-Israel than ever, Democrats are now divided in their sympathies between Israel and the Palestinians. Moreover, a 2022 Pew Research poll found that most Americans under 30 hold an unfavorable view of Israel. Even American Jews are not as pro-Israel as they used to be. A 2021 survey found that about a quarter of U.S. Jews (and 38 percent of those under age 40) consider Israel to be an apartheid state.

Growing American coolness toward Israel, especially among progressives, has been exacerbated by Bibi’s close relationship with former president Donald Trump — and now by his growing discord with Biden. Former New York mayor Mike Bloomberg is among the prominent supporters of Israel who have expressed alarm about Bibi’s judiciary bill. So have the leaders of major American Jewish organizations.

Even David Friedman, Trump’s ambassador to Israel, has come out against the judicial overhaul, calling it “offensive to my idea of how courts should work.” So has prominent right-wing philanthropist Miriam Adelson, whose late husband, the billionaire casino mogul Sheldon Adelson, was a major donor to both Trump and Netanyahu...

[Mjl]

There's a major, major difference between being against the judicial reforms and considering Israel an "apartheid" state. I feel like that article is kind of conflating them.

That said, one reason I am very much not a fan of Bibi is his alignment to the American Republican party, making the issue of Israel support far more partisan than it has been in the past.

Then again, Obama and Trump did do their part in that as well.

The fact that such a high percentage of American Jews think of Israel as an apartheid state is extremely alarming especially considering that it's utter bullshit... but I question those numbers.

[Mjl]

Ok, if that pew poll is true it's alarming. 20% of Jews want to destroy Israel and a separate 19% want to actually make it an apartheid nation.

Again I wonder how they found these 800 people for this online poll and how representative of Jews it actually is.

[Shirley]

MjI, it makes me uncomfortable that you're the obligatory, default responder when I make posts that criticize Israel.

I am pro-Israel, but I'm anti-Bibi.

[Mjl]

Why is that uncomfortable? Because the only one defending them is the one who spent his whole summer there?

[DCHawk1]

We're all in agreement that stacking courts and stuff is bad?

[Mjl]

Herzog spoke toward a compromise solution. Likud had many prominent members supporting a compromise solution. I don't necessarily think the status quo is ideal. But the plan they put forth gave too much power to the Knesset - and specifically at a time when Bibi is under investigation. He had many years he could have done this if it was purely about principle.

[Mjl]

That said - the judicial reforms, again, are not at all in the same conversation as support for Israel or whether or not Israel is an "apartheid" nation. Both sides of the judicial reforms argument are Zionists who want what's best for Israel, they just have disagreement about what that is.

[Shirley]

Why is that uncomfortable? Because the only one defending them is the one who spent his whole summer there?

I guess because it often seems like you're the only MOT, here.

[Sparko]

Bibi is an ongoing problem getting worse.

[ousdahl]

this Easter, if police busted into a prominent U.S. church, fired tear gas and stun grenades, pounded the Christian faithful with billy clubs and rubber bullets, then blocked the ambulances trying to respond to the victims, just imagine the fallout.

Now, go do a news search for something along the lines of, "Israeli police Al Aqsa Mosque Ramadan."