From: roger@crux.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
Subject: Re: Israel as fascist state? (Was: Re: nd Nazis)
Originator: news@nimaster
Reply-To: roger@astro.princeton.edu (Roger Lustig)
Organization: Princeton University
Date: Sun, 24 Jan 1993 18:26:19 GMT

In article <21721@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> ez012344@chip.ucdavis.edu writes:
>In article <16B5E846B.NETOPRBL@ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu> NETOPRBL@ncsuvm.cc.ncsu.edu (Brian Lane) writes:
>>But I still see the Isreali government
>>treating arabs as second class citizens in their own country. (and please,
>>don't apologize for them by saying they feel threatened, I could say the same
>>thing about germans in '32 and white americans in the civil rights era)

>Yes, I agree with Brian's intent in this message [other good points deleted
>in my attribution above]. I find it bitterly ironic that Israel, having
>had its people suffer so horribly, throughout history and especially this
>century, would have such a police state as Israel: land appropriated from
>Palestine by terrorists, brutal oppression of Arabs. I don't wonder that
>Arabs are as fanatical as the Nazi hierarchy was to kill Jews -- of course,
>I'm against such genocidal brutality. 

Hello?  

The "police state" you describe is a nation at war.  At war for its own 
survival.  

Since the day after Israel declared its independence, neighboring Arab
countries have attemtped to wipe Israel off the map.  The "fanatical
Arabs" are not that  way because of things Israel has done over the years;
they were that way when Israel came into existence.  

Keep in mind that, for most of the last 45 years, it has been the Arab
goal to appropriate ALL the Israeli land, and brutally oppress ALL
Jews, either expelling them of just killing them.  Arab terrorism has 
reached worldwide: to a synagogue in Istanbul, the Achille Lauro, the
many hijacked planes (where passports were checked for Jewish-sounding
names), the kindergarten at Qiryat Sh'mona, and on and on.  

The "police state" you complain about is far freer than any of its Arab
neighbors -- for Arabs too.  The uprising in the occupied territories
makes people forget that Arabs in the *non*-occupied territories have 
full civil rights including voting and represenatation in the parliament.

And if you want to find out who has acted with genocidal brutality against   
the Palestinians, just look east -- to Jordan, which has been responsible 
for far more Palestinian deaths than Israel.

>Within its boundaries and occupied territories Israel seems intent on 
>a slow but steady removal of Arabs. They declare a curfew in an area and
>then kill a girl who ventures out after a patrol comes through and announces
>that the curfew is lifted. 

This is wrong, of course.  But are you claiming that they intended to
kill children when they imposed the curfew?  Do you suppose they 
imposed the curfew for any reason other than wartime measures?

Do you suppose the Arabs have had any scruples whasoever when dealing 
with Israeli lives over the past 45 years?  Think "Scud."

>They remove, possibly illegally and certainly inhumanely, 400 or so Arabs ...

Another bad move.  But it's not exactly the same as a military invasion
with the goal of wiping a country off the map.  More than one Arab
country still has that as a goal; and such attacks have happened 
before.  A state of war exists between Israel and several of its 
neighbors; neighbors that do not recognize Israel's existence.  

><sigh> Hatred knows no boundaries, no nationalities, no race, no religion.
>Whites hate blacks, Arabs hate Jews, Serbs hate Croats, Turks hate Greeks,
>Koreans hate Japanese, and so on ...

Yet Israel is entirely willing to live in peace with all of its neighbors.

>So what is my message doing in soc.culture.german since it's about Jews and
>Arabs? Only to make this point: whoever is in power, whoever is victorious
>at the moment, dictates oppression and brutality. 

Well, if you can consider Israel -- under siege every day of its existence --
to be "victorious," you have some odd standards.  Israel's victory is
that it has not been made extinct.

Roger