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Martin Black's avatar

always had you down as a maga lunatic Steve ;)

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Joseph B Szwaja's avatar

As another person from a generally left perspective often distressed by current left discourse, I share Steve's frequent discomfort with the term woke and applaud his comments here.

Among the many, many problems with the comments of the folks with whom he quarrels in this thread, one of the most egregious and ignorant is made by Mikael, who says in referring to Jews, that they are "people who have no connection to the middle east since thousand years". Even if it were true that Jews' modern connection to the Middle East had begun with the founding of Israel in 1948 or the beginning of the Zionist movement around 1880, it would certainly not justify Hamas' horrific actions towards Israeli civilians.

But even a cursory look at the facts shows that this supposed lack of connection of Jews to the modern Middle East is a total myth. There have always been thousands of Jews living is what is now Israel, in Ramallah, in Jaffa, in Jerusalem, and many other places. Moreover, beginning in the late 19th century and continuing through the 1940s and 50s, Middle Eastern Jews, who numbered in the hundreds of thousands in countries such as Morocco, Egypt, Turkey, Yemen and Iran, were forced directly or indirectly from the lands where they had live for many hundreds of years by Arab governments. In fact almost all of them were expelled. So, right now about half of the Jews in Israel are Mizrahis,, or Jews or recent Middle Eastern origin. Most were Arabic speakers and very much part of the local culture when they were expelled and fled to Israeli. In many cases their property was seized and others moved into their homes (yes of course this has also happed to many Palestinians at the hands of Israelis and both action were totally wrong).

The Palestinian/Israel conflict is a complex and may layered one. Both peoples have very compelling narratives and claims which are valid in some ways and with which all decent people should be able to empathize. I strongly oppose many Israeli actions and have always supported Palestinian rights and a Palestinian state. But justifying civilian massacres and falsifying very basic, easily accessible history is surely not the way towards a peaceful, just solution.

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