JayinPhiladelphia
And wouldn't you know it? It's got something to do with Jews.
This highly unfortunate op-ed by Trudy Rubin appeared in print in the big Thursday edition of the Inky, which is generally the only daily edition of our local print paper which I still always buy.
I came home from work on Thursday evening, and left a few comments at the article in response to a few vicious online Jew-haters, of which we are all surely acquainted by now. One or two of them may have been a little over the line I generally like to maintain, but still. None of them were particularly ugly.
By Friday morning, all comments disappeared, as I found out upon attempting to respond to one reply I had received overnight. A few hours later, I checked again, and found that the comments were restored! Okay, I told myself, let's get back to that soon.
Friday evening, I finally responded to that ugly anti-Zionist's comment. Immediately upon refreshing, all comments disappeared, and have remained disappeared ever since.
It looks like Philly.com, the site at which comment sections about Little League baseball teams in Bristol or barber shops on the Main Line somehow, semi-comically, immediately turn into extended racist hate-fests (allowed to stand) targeting the current President of the United States of America, has apparently finally found the one thing it will not tolerate.
People strongly defending the Jewish State of Israel.
That is what it is, I guess, but for now, let's take on Trudy's opinion piece.
She leads off with the tired "Butbutbut a couple of Israeli politicians have already used the apartheid smear!!1!"
They're wrong, and they've used a hateful, ignorant smear. But so what? This proves nothing more than that Israel society is at least as tolerant of dissent as any other democracy in the world, and far more so than any of its immediate neighbors.
Trudy continues -
"Yet, when Secretary of State John Kerry dared to utter the A-word (apartheid) last week, Israeli and American Jewish leaders slammed him."
That's because he's using a hateful, ignorant smear which does not even come close to applying in reality. The intent of those who use this word in connection with Israel is that the world's sole Jewish State needs to be destroyed and dismantled, immediately, just like the Apartheid State of South Africa, if even though there are no actual parallels between the two.
To even suggest there are, in spite of all evidence to the contrary, is the very definition of a deeply deranged hatred targeting Jews alone and above all other peoples of the world, because I suppose we of all people should know better, or something like that.
Ms. Rubin continues -
"Within its 1967 boundaries, Israel is a vibrant democracy, and Arab citizens of Israel have the vote. But on the West Bank, around 2.5 million Palestinians live under a totally different system."
Then perhaps those non-Israeli-Arabs should spend less time trying to kill Jews, and more time focusing on building up a state of their own?
Btw, the '1967 boundaries' are actually the 1949 armistice lines, resultant of the previous attempt in which Arabs tried to run Jews into the sea via racist holy war, and also failed.
Not borders.
Though they could have been, if the Arabs had agreed to partition.
Trudy then babbles some more about land control, and movement, blah blah blah.
Again, if those of the Palestinian body politic would simply stop trying to murder Jews, then those restrictions would ease.
If they would simply accept a state for themselves in peace, all such 'restrictions' would end. Period.
Ms. Rubin goes on -
"The ceaseless expansion of Israeli settlements all over the West Bank, along with exclusive settler roads and fences, divides Palestinian areas into disconnected cantons that superficially resemble the former black Bantustans in South Africa."
No, they don't. Because 1. stop using a Jordanian term ("The West Bank") which is meant to deny and delegitimize Jewish presence on the land where Jews come from, and on which we have resided nonstop for thousands of years. And 2. your 'settler' obsession 'resembles' no such thing. Jews on Jewish land are not a foreign minority population oppressing natives.
Also, by claiming that Jews building apartments for themselves anywhere, let alone the land where we come from, is a problem, makes you the bigot, Ms. Rubin. Nobody else.
Ms. Rubin says -
"So even if Israel's situation differs from South Africa's and lacks the racial laws that defined that country's apartheid system, some parallels can't be avoided. One group dominates and controls another, which lacks political rights."
Oh wait, so I guess this is like "of course Israel isn't really apartheid but just because somebody says it is doesn't mean that he actually said it is and though I support his right to say that it is I admit that it isn't not because I don't want to say that it isn't but I view it as my duty as a far leftist to say that it is even though it isn't and wait I don't know what the hell I'm saying right now but don't you dare criticize Kerry for saying something that other idiots have also said before!"
Ms. Rubin can talk all she wants, in dire terms, about the "collapse of the two-state solution," but I would argue that it's long been proven that the Palestinians are not in the least serious about ever accepting any such thing, and that the two-state solution (which I support) will only realistically come about during my lifetime (I'm in my mid-30's) via unilateral Israeli action.
It has become exceedingly clear that it will never happen as a result of 'negotiations,' especially not while useful idiots like Trudy Rubin and J Street continue to blame everything on Israel and nothing on the Palestinians.
It's time for my fellow liberals to finally come around to the conclusion that enabling Palestinian leadership on continuing their waiting game, towards their own preferred one-state solution, is something we need to stop doing.
"Nothing has furthered comparisons of the Palestinian situation to South Africa more than the Israeli government's promotion of Jewish settlement on the West Bank."
Again, Ms. Rubin, you really need to go back to the drawing board, and think a bit more about your insistence that Jews building homes in any given place is an impediment to peace. That sounds kind of extremely bigoted, if you ask me.
Here's a thought experiment. Insert any other ethnicity in such a sentence, and chew on that for a bit.
Ms. Rubin concludes -
"If Kerry's critics are really worried about the A-word, or the BDS campaign, they should be pressing Israel's government to freeze settlement expansion. Dumping on Kerry, a friend of Israel who pressed mightily for a two-state solution, is outrageous - and won't help Israel face the challenges ahead."
Leaving aside for now the questionable characterization of Secretary Kerry as "a friend of Israel," I would once again note that Ms. Rubin's argument seems to entirely be based upon the idea that Jews building homes for themselves somewhere is problematic. And indeed, is a major impediment to 'peace.'
I would argue that this in itself is an extremely, inherently bigoted proposition.
That people like her can't see this, is what I truly find outrageous.
