And Israel becomes more and more like Iran:

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Let's see......at this rate the only differences between Israel and Iran will be that the former really does have nuclear weapons and has a modern army, the latter does not have nukes and has a few good units but most of its army is about the quality of Ba'ath Iraq. If anything this is just underscoring the similarities between Israel and the *other* nuclear-armed religious national-state:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-12837953

The Israeli parliament has passed a law that allows the state to deny funding to institutions that question the country's existence as a Jewish state.

Civil rights groups say the law restricts the freedom of expression of Israel's Arab minority, which makes up about a fifth of Israel's population.

___________________

As a bit of curiosity, what would happen if any German Chancellor proposed a bill in the Bundestag that would deny funding to groups that refused to recognize that Germany is for the Germans? Somehow I don't think people would be quite so keen with that particular bill, particularly if to complete the analogy the Germans demanded the return of Kaliningrad. So with Israel having its own Department For the Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice that throws acid in the face of women foolish enough to have their hair uncovered and to wear pants and with the Israelis having as of late also become steadily more influenced by a soon-to-be majority of their Jewish population that sees the Israeli state as so evil they want to mooch without jobs and not bother with actually existing in the modern world........

Israel seems to be imitating some very, very dangerous precedents. Nobody claims this is a good idea when say, Pakistan has another rendition of "This is a Muslim state for the Muslims, nobody else wanted." So how's Israel doing this any better?

Comments

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

How you doing with your Negroes?

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

We elected one President..... ;P.

Though yes, the South's got a long ways to go before we could in all honesty refer to ourselves as a democracy.

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

Whatever they say or legislate, they'll always be a Middle-Eastern theocracy masquerading as a modern democracy.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

I would put it more that they're always going to be afraid the Arab states are going to be just as effective at bombing people to get them out of their land as they were against the British.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

I know. You can be arrested for not wearing a kippah anywhere in the country at any time.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

A theocracy implies that I can find a cleric in charge of the state.

Who is that in Israel's case?

If you argue that on the basis of the state being Jewish you would have to a) ignore the ethnic component of Judaism and b) then ignore every other nation state in the world based upon shared ethnicity, language and history, including all of the Arab states and the proposed Palestininian state.

There are plenty of reasonable arguments that Israel in its current place and time was poorly conceived and tha it is currently pursuing unjust policies without resorting to false equivalencies.

[jonathankorman.livejournal.com]

Following the link, I see that under this law, if an organization calls Israel's independence day a day of mourning because they fundamentally deny the validity of the state of Israel, then they cannot get funding for their organization from the Israeli government.

Unless I'm seriously misreading something, that doesn't seem so egregious. I'm pretty sure that the US government doesn't fund organizations which call the Fourth of July a day of mourning because the so-called United States is really still a British colony.

You may be skeptical of the Zionist project (for the record, I am too) but I don't see how you can say that it's shocking state repression when a nation refuses to fund people who deny that the state even exists.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

"I don't see how you can say that it's shocking state repression when a nation refuses to fund people who deny that the state even exists."

Oh I don't know, people who compare Israel with Nazi Germany, are liable to say almost anything.

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

This.

No, seriously...this.

[peamasii.livejournal.com]

The detractors are not denying that the Israeli state exists, they're claiming that it exists at the expense of those who were driven out (Nakba). I'm surprised they were funded at any given point. ;-)

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Oh, I dunno, the Republican Party thinks the President is the Antichrist and was born into the Mau Mau movement, and nominated a Vice-Presidential candidate connected to witch-hunters and secessionists so I daresay the USA does this on a regular basis. If this *were* applied here quite a few Republican states would suddenly get cut off from Federal funding and a lot of them would collapse as far as their own financial structure. Serve 'em right, too, the freeloaders.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Hehe. You used Germany as a comparison again. This time no Godwin, though. But close. ;)

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Bah, to me the Palestinian leaders are assholes, and nobody would deny that if the least bit educated about either side. That they are assholes does not make Israel not-assholes or good, which is a point people miss here just like they do in Libya. Being against bad people is not enough in itself to make you good.

[tridus.livejournal.com]

So rigged elections and shooting protesters are standard operating procedure in Israel now?

They have a long way to go to be Iran, and you'd probably get further if you quit with the silly rhetoric.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

No, but neither is electing terrorists and claiming that this is perfectly typical for the state. If you're appointing someone who attacked the British while they were fighting the Nazis as your Prime Minister, it gets a little ironic when you want the Palestinians to do as you say and not as you do. That never makes Arafat a good guy, or Abbas or the leaders of Hamas, but then in the real world people can accept that a side can be less evil than the other but they're both evil.

[kris-schnee.livejournal.com]

I would have more sympathy for the Palestinians if they hadn't recently celebrated the fact that members of their terrorist groups (which are also their political parties) had just stabbed Jewish children in their sleep. Having said that, yes, we'd probably have intervened by now if it were a Muslim country or maybe even a Christian one (to the extent Yugoslavia and Kosovo were). And I'm suspicious of a country that puts its religious icon on its flag; yes, Israel isn't exactly a bastion of religious tolerance.

[blue-mangos.livejournal.com]

Do you have links to any proof that they actually committed that act? Because from what I've heard there is a possibility it was done by labourers the family was dealing with.
And let's not forget the Palestinian children run over in the Day of Rage retaliation.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And Israel elected Menachem Begin and Ariel Sharon as PMs and regularly rehabilitates Irgun leaders and claims the Bombing of the King David Hotel was not terrorism. Sure, the Palestinian leadership is a bunch of nasty fellows and nobody with a lick of sense would say otherwise. But just because Mahmoud Abbas is and Arafat was an asshole is not enough to make Israel's leaders not-assholes.

Israel's problems, like those of Pakistan, stem from being a militarized state where the religion *is* the ethnic-nationalism. Both of these problems are all on the British, and it's not entirely fair to either Israel or Palestine to overlook Britain trying to hedge its bets in 1917, which is where the problem is. Neither is it honest to forget that the progenitors of the Likud Party wanted *all* of the Mandate of Palestine, today's West Bank and Gaza Strip *and* Jordan.

[mybodymycoffin.livejournal.com]

Well, at least the US isn't that crazy, yet.

[debergerac.livejournal.com]

where do i contribute to the fund outlawing the german state?

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

According to a lot of German politicians? Turkey.

[404.livejournal.com]

Israel doesn't deny Iran's right to exist... One of these is not like the other...

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

You're right, Israel was created by terrorists, and its major Right-Wing party is directly descended from a terrorist movement. The Iranian government, by contrast, has become a lot smarter about appealing to its past.

[stewstewstewdio.livejournal.com]

On a side note, has anybody noticed the non-intervention of Israel in all these Middle East uprisings?

I know we didn't want Israel to get involved during Operation Desert Storm, but how long is the US going to be the proxy for Israel in international military relations? Shouldn't this coalition against Qadafi in Libya include Israel.

They're just sitting on the sidelines eating popcorn and watching the fireworks while the US invests money and treasure in these activities.

[pastorlenny.livejournal.com]

Because, of course, Israel depends on Libyan oil.

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

Groups who deny country's existence as a Jewish state are allowed to express their opinions. They just won't get paid by Israel to do so. No one is being denied any kind of freedom or human rights here.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

And if the Democrats proposed a bill denying all funds to any organizations that see the USA on GOP lines somehow I do not think reaction would be quite so apathetic.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Nobody claims this is a good idea when say, Pakistan has another rendition of "This is a Muslim state for the Muslims, nobody else wanted." So how's Israel doing this any better?

Being Muslim is not a cultural description. So, it's not equivalent. Your German analogy was better, but since we're allowing Serbs and Croats and Ukrainians and everyone else to express their ethnic identity by making their own country, I don't think there'd be as much complaining as you posit.

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

Muhammad Ali Jinnah and the other Indian Muslims who wanted a state separate from what Gandhi and Neru wanted obviously disagreed with your view of things.

[heavens-steed.livejournal.com]

There are only three reasons why any sane person would be against Israel:

1. They are anti-Semitic
2. They have been brainwashed by Palestinian propaganda (that subsequently gets recirculated in the U.S. by the mainstream media)
3. They suffer from the "underdogma" fallacy which is the irrational and instinctual belief that any person, organization, group, corporation, business, or nation that is large and powerful is intrinsically evil (Israel) and any of the above that is small and disadvantaged is intrinsically good (Palestinians). Or another way to put it is an irrational and unjustifiable bias in favor of the underdog just because they are the underdog.

Any and all of the above are possible.

Given the fact Israel is constantly under attack by Palestinian and Hamas forces (there were 50 rockets launched against Israel over the weekend and a major bus bombing on Wednesday), they have every right to take whatever action is necessary to defend themselves as a nation.

I haven't looked into this law but even if your retelling of it is indeed accurate, I fully agree with it. Anyone who questions the right for Israel to exist as a nation is an either an idiot and/or possibly a Jew-hating bigot and I see no reason why any government should fund idiocy or bigotry.

If they are just withholding funding, I don't see how that violates anyone's right to free speech. If they made questioning the existence of the state of Israel illegal, THAT would be a violation of the right to free speech.

[mybodymycoffin.livejournal.com]

There are only three reasons why any sane person would be against Israel:

1. They are anti-Semitic
2. They have been brainwashed by Palestinian propaganda (that subsequently gets recirculated in the U.S. by the mainstream media)
3. They suffer from the "underdogma" fallacy which is the irrational and instinctual belief that any person, organization, group, corporation, business, or nation that is large and powerful is intrinsically evil (Israel) and any of the above that is small and disadvantaged is intrinsically good (Palestinians). Or another way to put it is an irrational and unjustifiable bias in favor of the underdog just because they are the underdog.

THESE ARE THE ONLY REASONS YOU GUYS, ISRAEL IS SO OBVIOUSLY HANDSOME DOCTOR GOOD GUY, BROWN MOZLEMS BAAAAAD BAAAAD MEN, NEED SPANKING, AND NOT GOOD KIND, BUT BAAAAD KIND