Also remember that whenever anyone tries to tell you that you shouldn't be bringing up Biden's genocide support because it might hurt his chances in the US election, they are also doing genocide denial. They are genocide deniers.
They may not be denying that the genocide is happening, they're just denying that we should talk about it. They're denying its importance.
And sure, Trump would probably be worse at this, so vote. But if Biden genuinely needs widespread genocide denial to win then that is not only not an acceptable thing to ask of voters, it is also unhinged. People know about the genocide, they know Biden is dragging his feet on the issue and pretending that's not happening just to protect him makes his case look extremely weak.
If you really think that no amount of denouncement and excoriation will influence him to stop supporting genocide then again, you are saying awful things about him without realising it.
Well, when you want to establish your homeland somewhere that people are already living, yeah it takes displacement. But they're not just displacing them, they're killing them.
If being a victim of the Holocaust entitles you to your own government, how comes you've never argued for establishing a homeland of the Romani people?
For a person born in Germany, raised in Germany, taught to speak, read and write German, their homeland is Germany. German Jewish victims of the Holocaust ought to have been extraordinarily repaired, and given the pleasure of seeing their victimizers fallen in disgrace, tried, condemned and punished (part of which did happen), not told to pack their bags and leave to a country they've never set a foot in. The idea that someone who's born in a specific ethnic group has their "homeland" at some special, historical place is an extremely ideological view that has much more to do with nazism than with the ideals of freedom and human rights.
By the way, you haven't answered my question. In your racist worldview that ethnicities belong to specific strips of land, where do the Romani belong?
Well, Germany was split in two after the war, and most Jews who survived the holocaust weren't German Jews, so if we were to send all of European Jews to West Germany, you are still having to deal woth the displacement aspect that you are currently using to build a case for genocide.
I'm also going to set aside your childish accusations of racism, because it isn't true. You willingly chose to enter a discussion, the bare minimum is mutual respect and if you can't accomplish that, there will be no discussion going forward. As for the Romani people, the Romania's homeland wasn't still under British rule, and thus couldn't offer to have them go back India. I'm not even sure the Romani people wanted to return to India. Is that something they were pushing for or are you just making a hypothetical?
Can you connect two and two? I used German Jews as an example, didn't say that Polish Jews or Russian Jews or French Jews should have been taken to Germany. Also you can migrate to a country, rather than occupy it and have the population that already lived there displaced, as the colonizers who founded the State of Israel did with Palestinians. I genuinely cannot believe you wrote this:
you are still having to deal woth the displacement aspect that you are currently using to build a case for genocide.
In good faith.
I’m also going to set aside your childish accusations of racism, because it isn’t true.
It is, you just don't understand it yet. A Romani born in Spain who wants to live in Spain has one homeland: Spain. As of today, they have nothing in common with India, nor did they 50, 100, 150 or 400 years ago - much like Ashkenazi Jews didn't have anything to do with Palestine in 1750. We just have the good sense to practice policies that allow for the healthiest pluralist society possible that respects both Romani and non-Romani, unlike 1940s dumbfuck Brits who thought that a sensible solution for Jews was to invite them to get the fuck out of Europe in a colonial project. Would you tell Italians living in the USA to leave to Italy during the time of the Italian mafias? Would you tell Arabs to go to the Middle East after the 9-11? If you don't think telling an immigrant ethnicity to leave after or during a tumultuous period where they have or might be the target of hate is usually a good idea, dogmatically changing that principle to argue that it was sensible to ethnically cleanse Palestinians after WWII is indeed a racist bias. But I have faith you will eventually outgrow it, after one month or fifty.
Ethnic nationalism is just racism, whether practiced by white supremacist MAGA Americans or Holocaust survivors. In a liberal democracy, the government serves all people regardless of race. I'm confused by your premise that Holocaust survivors were entitled to their own ethnic state for some reason.
Also, the Zionist movement was not a response to the Holocaust. It was a colonial enterprise that began well before the Holocaust in response to widespread persecution especially in Central Europe. Many Jews opposed the Jewish nationalism undergirding Zionism for the same reasons liberals today reject virtually all nationalist movements. Many emigrated to liberal democracies like the United States where they could live free of ethnic discrimination. Zionists instead chose to respond with their own ethnic persecution.
It is worth recalling in this connection that at the turn of the century,
Zionism's similarities to other projects of colonization were not a source of
embarrassment or shame for most of the movement's adherents; indeed, they
often saw them as a selling point. Zionist leaders studied and sought to learn
from the experience of European colonial-settlement enterprises in places like
Algeria, Rhodesia, and Kenya, and many imagined their own endeavor as
similar in certain ways. Moreover, the Zionist movement readily used such
terms as “colony,” “colonial,” and “colonization” to refer to its activities; thus,
for example, the original name of its financial arm was the Jewish Colonial
Trust. It was only later, after the First World War, that colonialism came to
have strongly pejorative connotations for many Europeans. As a consequence
the Zionist movement sought to dissociate itself from other European projects
of colonization and settlement, began to stress the uniqueness and noncolonial
character of its mission and methods, and stopped using such terms, at least
in languages other than Hebrew.
Zachary Lockman, Comrades and Enemies: Arab and Jewish Workers in
Palestine, 1906-1948 (University of California Press, 1996) 21-57.
The fact is, however, that they impinge— as they always have— on the Arab residents of the territories, and then they have a distinct cutting edge to them. Both in theory and in practice their effectiveness lies in how they Judaize territory coterminously with de-Arabizing it.
There is privileged evidence of this fact, I think, in what Joseph Weitz had to say. From 1932 on, Weitz was the director of the Jewish National Land Fund; in 1965 his diaries and papers, My Diary, and Letters to the Children, were published in Israel. On December 19, 1940, he wrote:
_". . . after the Second World War the question of the land of Israel and the question of the Jews would be raised beyond the framework of “ development"; amongst ourselves. !t must be clear that there is no room for hoth peoples in this country. No 'development' will bring us closer to our aim. To be an independent people in this small country. If the Arabs leave the country, it will be broad and wide-open for us. And if the Arabs stay, the country will remain narrow and miserable.
When the War is over and the English have won, and when the judges sit on the throne of Law, our people must bring theirpetitions and their claim before them; and the only solution is Eretz Israel, or at least Western Eretz Israel, without Arabs. There is no room for compromise on this point! The Zionist enterprise so far, in terms of preparing the ground and paving the way for the creation of the Hebrew State in the land of Israel, has been fine and good in its own time, and could do with ‘‘land-buying ’— but this will not bring about the State of Israel; that must come all at once, in the manner of a Salvation (this is the secret of the Messianic idea); and there is no way besides transferring the Arabs from here to the neighboring countries, to transfer them all: except maybe for Bethlehem, Nazareth and Old Jerusalem, we must not leave a singlevillage, not a single tribe. And the transfer must be directed to Iraq, to Syria, and even to Transjordan. For that purpose we’ll find money, and a lot of money. And only with such a transfer will the country be able to absorb millions of our brothers, and the Jewish question shall be solved, once and for all. There is no other way out."_
These are not only prophetic remarks about what was going to happen; they are also policy statements, in which Weitz spoke with the voice of the Zionist consensus. There were literally hundreds of such statements made by Zionists, beginning with Herzl. and when ‘salvation' came it was with those ideas in mind that the conquest of Palestine, and the eviction of its Arabs, was carried out.
~The Question of Palestine, Edward Said
There's literally dozens of other quotes like this one from people instrumental in the founding of Israel in this chapter, and they are similarly genocidal. It was honestly pretty transparent what they were going for.
"We are horrified by this deadly event, which shows once again that nowhere is safe," said MSF on social media.
The images out of Rafah on Sunday included videos of tents being engulfed in flames and charred corpses, and one showed a man holding up what appeared to be the body of a small child who had been beheaded. NBC News reported that it "was not able to independently verify the situation on the ground."
"This U.S.-backed massacre of civilians is a direct result of the Biden administration's enduring political and military support for Israel's genocide in Gaza," said Nihad Awad, national executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, on Monday. "The Palestinian child shown without a head would still be alive today had our government not offered Israel's far-right government unceasing support for the slaughter of Palestinian civilians and the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Those who support genocide are just as guilty as those who drop American-supplied bombs on civilians."
As major news outlets like The New York Times and The Washington Post buried the news of the attack under unrelated stories, journalist Mehdi Hasan condemned the silence of the Biden administration and the "U.S. political and media establishments."
Jan Egeland, secretary general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, directed ire at European Union leaders who have continued to back Israel's bombardment of Gaza, demanding to know "how many more red lines must be crossed before the E.U. decides to act?"
"The U.S. government has facilitated this genocide by continuously sending weapons and funding to the Israeli military, despite mass opposition from the American people," the group added. "We hold the U.S. government, in addition to the Israeli government, responsible for the slaughter of over 36,000 Palestinians, for the siege and starvation of Palestinians in Gaza, and for mass destruction of infrastructure and land. We demand an end to all U.S. funding to the Israeli military now. People of conscience throughout the world are calling for an end to genocide."
In terms of sheer military might, the size of Israel's military is very substantial compared to the listed countries. Other countries would likely come to their defense if it happened, but if it came to a fight between Israel and just Norway/Ireland/Spain, it would be very hard to call Israel a small dog. Spain might be a bit of a challenge but Norway and Ireland would likely barely even register.
Obviously, all those countries have friends and are probably pretty safe because of that, but also not entirely idle threats.
So Israel is just being a pariah of the world as usual. Nothing new.
As of now Slovenia, Spain, Norway, Ireland, Malta, Trinidad and Tobago have announced they will soon start recognizing the state of Palestine.
That brings the number of countries that recognize the state of Palestine to around 150 countries out of 193 countries in the UN.
Not only that but around four fifths of the world population lives in these countries. So an overwhelming majority both in the UN and on a population scale recognize them.
With that being said, let's go Israel. Be more of a pariah than you already are. Close yourself off from all these countries. Shoot yourself in the foot.
Germany depends on the votes of Spain and Ireland at the EU for a lot of things that Germany finds important.
If a measure at the EU level has enough consensus and Germany vetoes it, they'll see other members be a lot more likelly to use veto power on things that mostly matter for Germany.
Since Germany are in the curious position of being the EU member that benefits the most from the Free Market (they're the biggest exporter and their biggest market by far is the rest of the EU) and the Euro (their currency now is a lot weaker and hence they're more competitive because it's a currency union with far weaker countries, than it was back in the deutsche mark times), they can't even threathen to leave the EU as that would a bit like threatenning almost everybody else with a good time whilst they shot themselves on both feet.
Still, the most likely outcome is going to be nothing at all getting done at EU level, either way, if only because that's always the most likely outcome.
If only Germany would not be willing to recognice Palestine, then this might happen, but that is not the case. France and Italy the two next most powerfull countries do not recognice Palestine either.
Germany is usually fairly happy with the current state of the EU. The things Germany wants to change are usually also supported by Spain and that means blackmail is harder. The only exaption to that is finance. However Spain is not going to let billions go to waste to have Palestine recogniced. That is just more of a symbol, rather then massivly important.
Also Germany leaving the EU would cause some massive problems in other EU countries as well. They would hardly be cheering for it.
It's unclear were exactly France is on this, though I agree that Italy under the current far-right government is unlikelly to recognize Palestine.
I'm mostly thinking about the Financial stuff: none of the so called PIIGS forgot how they and their populations were sacrificed to save German banks and a "Let's fuck Germany" posture wouldn't at all be a hard sell in those countries plus I very much doubt that generally not doing what's good for Germany would be bad for those countries since they're almost opposite to Germany in the forms by which their economies can benefit from the Euro - they would actually grow more in an Euro without Germany.
I'm also not so sure that a German exit would end up being bad for the rest of the EU, especially for the less export oriented and more peripheral countries like Spain - certainly an Euro minus Germany would actually be better for everybody else but Germany (as Germany pushes up the value of the Euro, making other Euro nations less competitive and partly explaining their anemic growth and lack of funds to restructure their Economies, which is the other big reason for their anemic growth) though granted it depends on how important are exports to Germany in each economy, though on non-Euro EU matters you might be right. In summary and as I said before, almost nobody else but Germany benefits from Germany's Euro membership and the kind of nations that would be least affected by a Deutschexit are the ones who have no borders with Germany, a group that includes Spain, Ireland and Norway (though the latter is not an EU member and hence has no vote or veto so doesn't really apply for the scenario we are discussing).
Spain has grown faster then Germany for most of the last decade(besides 2020). Out of PIIGS Portugal and Ireland also have done pretty well. Greece got hit hard and Italys economy has problems since the 90s(aka not a EU/Euro problem).
The figure is quite different if you look at the growth in nominal per-capita terms rather than in percentage of initial value as any shitty-shit growth in a poor nation looks a lot more in percentage terms.
Further, I'm living in Portugal and I can tell you that at least in quality of life terms the country has been going backwards for at least a decade, even if mathematically, thanks to a housing bubble and understating housing inflation, the GDP figures produced show "Growth" which is actually just housing inflation that has not been discounted from the Nominal GDP.
The only one of the PIIGS anywhere near catching up to Germany is the Republic Of Ireland and even those have fishy numbers because of how many international companies declare the revenue of their entire EU operations in Ireland because of just how much Ireland facilitates tax evasion - a lot of the money being "made in Ireland" is neither "made in Ireland" nor does it even pass by Ireland and it being counted as Irish GDP is just an accounting artifact.
But yeah, Norway is not an EU member, as I myself pointed out in the very post you replied to.
their currency now is a lot weaker and hence they’re more competitive because it’s a currency union with far weaker countries, than it was back in the deutsche mark times
That myth again. The Euro is a much harder currency than the DM ever was. Most of the trouble states had with the Euro was not due to Germany but them not being accustomed to having a hard currency in the first place, being used to relying on monetary fuckery to steer the economy.
As to recognising Palestine: Not a EU prerogative, simple as that. And I highly doubt states would pressure Germany over this, it'd be a lot of political capital spent on practically zero impact -- up to negative impact as Germany has a much better chance convincing Israel to recognise Palestine with its current stance, and there's simply no country with deeper diplomatic ties to Israel than Germany. If anyone can convince them, it's Germany.
Obligatory note for all the "Christians should support Israel" crowd. The Israeli minister of Security said, that Christians should be spit on. When Christians want to pray for Easter in the Church of the holy sepulcher, Israeli security forces are also harassing and attacking them. Israel is not only an ethnostate, it is also founded on religious and race supremacy, where white european/american Jews are on the top of the hierarchy and anyone else will face discrimination.
Definitely true, its just the arms companies milking your country dry want more money. So, they'll convince you all that you're no longer a super power.
Militarily speaking the US is still a force to be reckoned with, they can bitch-slap any smaller non-nuclear country anywhere in the world on a moment's notice.
Soft power wise, though, the US is in freefall. And without that soft power the hard power can't be readily employed because blowback. I'd say in the future the US is going to do a lot more riding on the EU's soft power than they're currently comfortable admitting. That is, they're not going to invade random countries to bolster election results at home, they're going to knock on Brussel's door and ask "hey anything need peacekeeping right now that would be popular with the world?", then portray it as their own initiative.
They get paid very well not to see that, or in the case of Germany get paid very well and used support for Israel as a smokescreen to deflect from the antisemitism they rightfully fear to be accused of. Israel is helping German Antisemites to push the blame on "immigrants" while Ethnically German Nazis get to attack Synagogues and have it downplayed. Zionists and Antisemites are allies.
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