It seems to me...and this is just my opinon...that what is going on over
there is a product of centuries, a lot of centuries. If one looks back there
is this "thing" where Abraham kicks Haggar and Ishmael out in the dessert.
Then, and I have seen this on a documentary on tv...where when the Present
state of Israel was founded and settled the Israelies were not at all kind
to those who were living there at the time. And so it goes..and will
continue to go imho. I also think religion has a lot to do with it...be is
Islam or Hebrew. Any time you have a religion there are always zealots. That
is not saying I do not believe in God...what I do not believe in is the
dogma of organized religions, no matter what the religion is.
"Nick" wrote in message
om...
(Nick) wrote in message
. com...(to Joshua Lilly):
"Joshua B. Lilly" wrote in
message ...
Yeah, it`s complete nonsense. There are anti-Zionist Israeli citizens
who are also in the religion of Judaism.

Yes, I know some anti-Zionist Jews, some of whom hold Israeli
citizenship.
Also, many citizens of Israel (Arabs, Druze) would *not* be considered
Jewish
n any sense. The state of Israel does continue to practise substantial
legal
discrimination between its Jewish citizens and its non-Jewish citizens.
In my view, Israel evidently has defined itself more as 'the state of
the
Jewish people' rather than as 'the nation of the citizens of Israel'.

(snipped)

"Looking at Zionism without taboos means seeing the hard reality of the
domination and oppression it has created. Out of the original sins of
the world against the Jews grew the original sins of Zionism against the
Palestinians. The issues are often raised through a counting and
recounting
of massacres and victims on both sides. The problem is one of
principles,
not atrocities. Even if nobody died, there is something wrong with
Zionist
principles. The problem is a moral one. Raising the moral question is
not
a mark of idealism but of realism.

Israelis seem to be haunted by a curse. It is the curse of the original
sin
against the native Arabs. How can Israel be discussed without recalling
the
dispossession and exclusion of non-Jews? This is the most basic fact
about
Israel, and no understanding of Israeli reality is possible without it.
The original sin haunts and torments Israelis; it marks everything and
taints
everybody. The memory of the original sin poisons the bloood and marks
every moment of existence.
...
Admitting the injustice done to the Palestinians is so terrifying that
Israelis will try to avoid it at all costs. Their feeling is that if
they
admit any guilt, they will be punished severely and mortally, as the
magnitude
of their crime warrants. They are afraid of the natives' wish for
revenge.
But there will be no reconciliation without an open admission of the
basic
injustice involved in Zionism."

--Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi (Original Sins: Reflections on the History of
Zionism and Israel)

(Benjamin Beit-Hallahmi is a professor at Haifa University in Israel.)

Someone being born in a specific country, or practicing a specific
religion,
does not automatically make them a participant or supporter of this
movement.

Unfortunately, many of Israel's declared supporters *and* Israel's
avowed
enemies wrongly prefer to equate being a Jew with being a Zionist.
Indeed,
some anti-Zionist Jewish friends of mine have been denounced for
allegedly
being 'traitors' to their people, their faith, or even to the state of
Israel.
(How could a Jew who's *not* a citizen of Israel be rightly considered a
'traitor' to Israel?) The late Israel Shahak (a survivor of the Belsen
concentration camp), a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem
and
the chairman of the Israeli League of Human and Civil Rights, received
some
death threats and apparently even some hateful messages to the effect
that
the Nazis would have been right to have murdered him before he came to
Israel.

(snipped)
It would be similar to saying ALL Libyans are terrorists just by the
chance of fate that made them be born within those borders.

My impression is that more than a few Americans would support the
'profiling' of *all Libyans* as potential terrorists.

This isn`t a World Championship they`re planning, of course, just
another
one of those laughable KO tournaments with the two-game "matches".
Not
nearly as interesting as round-robins or even swisses. But still,
they
shouldn`t exclude people for idiotic reasons like this. How do they
know
that Smirin, for example, is a Zionist? For all I know, he hates
Zionism.
Did they ask him?

Would what happen if an Arab who's a citizen of Israel were to attempt
to play?

Joshua Lilly wrote:
"How do they know that Smirin, for example, is a Zionist.
For all I know, he hates Zionism. Did they ask him?"

I have not asked GM Ilya Smirin what he thinks about Zionism, so,
of course, I cannot be certain of what he believes about it.

Yet it seems to me that there's a prima facie reason to suspect that he
could
be at least probably sympathetic toward Zionism. Ilya Smirin was born in
the Soviet Union, where he lived long enough to earn a diploma from the
Belorussian State Institute of Physical Culture (in Minsk) as a chess
coach.
Then he decided voluntarily to emigrate to Israel. *If* Ilya Smirin
really
'hates Zionism' (as Joshua Lilly has mentioned as a possibility), *then*
it
seems less likely to me that Ilya Smirin would have chosen to emigrate to
Israel rather than to another country. Indeed, I have met another former
Soviet Jewish chess-player who decided to emigrate to a country other than
Israel *because*, he said, he does *not* approve of Zionism.

Of course, Ilya Smirin has the right to speak for himself and express
definitively whatever he thinks of Zionism.

In most Western societies, Israeli Jews tend to be perceived as 'fellow
Westerners', and I have been pleased that several writers here (other than
me)
have emphasised that the individual humanity of Israeli Jews should be
acknowledged and respected everywhere. On the other hand, I have to say
that I have been disheartened, though unsurprised, that hardly any other
writers here (other than me), as far as I know, have made any efforts to
insist that the individual humanity of perceived 'non-Westerners' (such
as Arabs and Muslims) should also be *equally* acknowledged and respected
everywhere, including in societies such as Israel and the United States.

Israel has long applied its principle of 'collective punishment' (which
seems
condoned, if not endorsed, by the United States) against entire
Palestinian
communities. For example, Israel may have demolished every house in an
area
because some Palestinian lad(s) allegedly threw stones at some Israeli
soldiers
or some armed Jewish settlers. To rephrase Joshua Lilly's question about
Ilya
Smirin (above), how could the Israelis know that every Palestinian owner
of a
house in that area must have approved of what some other Palestinians
might
have done down the street?

Since 11 September 2001, the United States has applied an evident
principle
of 'collective preventative detention' against many persons of *perceived*
Arab or Muslim heritage (though case(s) are known of non-Arab and
non-Muslims,
such as an Indian Hindu, being punished as a suspected 'Muslim
terrorist'),
who have been imprisoned indefinitely, with little or no legal recourse.
Also, according to the news reports from the United States, some Sikhs,
who
evidently were misidentified as Muslims, have been murdered by 'real'
Americans
who were seeking personal revenge for the attacks of 11 September 2001.
To rephrase Joshua Lilly's question about Ilya Smirin (above), did those
'real' Americans even bother to ask the Sikhs whether or not they were
Muslims,
let alone 'Muslim terrorists', before those Americans murdered those
Sikhs?

Jack Shaheen is an American scholar who has devoted much of his academic
career to studying the (usually ignorant and negative) stereotyping of
Arabs and Muslims in United States cultu

Here are some books by Jack Shaheen:
'Arab and Muslim Stereotypes in American Popular Culture'
'The TV Arab'
'Reel Bad Arabs: How Hollywood Vilifies a People'

'The incapacity of the United States to see Arabs as other human beings
is consistent with the ebbing of universalism within American society.'
--Emmanuel Todd (After the Empire, p. 118)

In my view, it's *equally* wrong to deny the individual humanity (through
common stereotyping such as 'they must be all alike') of a person
regardless
of which side of the traditional East-West divide that he or she has been
perceived as 'belonging'.

--Nick