Israel

There is religious intolerance on both sides of the conflict, but it is typically more pervasive on the Palestinian Side.

Israeli Religious Intolerance

Israeli religious intolerance mostly comes form the the Datim Leumim or Religious Zionists who settle in the West Bank Territories. While there are Settlers who are not religious Zionists, those Settlers typically live in settlement-cities close to the Israeli border, like Modi'in Ilit. Datim Leumim usually live in majority Palestinian areas such as Hebron (Kiryat Arba). They have a belligerent attitude towards non-Jews living in any part of the Biblical Land of Israel as they believe that land was intended solely for Jews. This has led to violent confrontations between the Datim Leumim and the Palestinian Arabs. There are a minority among the Datim Leumim that also teach that the Palestinians are the descendants of the Philistines or descendants of the Seven Nations that Israel was required to evict from the land. This makes peace between any Jewish State and any Palestinian State a violation of Divine Law in their view.

Palestinian Religious Intolerance

Palestinian intolerance of non-Islamic Belief, especially Jewish belief, is quite common in the Palestinian Territories. Most Palestinian school textbooks have been shown to say Anti-Semitic beliefs and claim, based on Qur'anic verses, that Jews are descended from Apes and Monkeys. The Hamas Government in Gaza uses its television stations to make children and adults hate Jews with recycled and disproved rhetoric from 1800s Europe (such as Jewish Blood Libels, the Protocols of Zion, the Treacherous Jew, etc.). Jewish holy sites in the West Bank are openly vandalized or are claimed to be solely Islamic regardless of the fact that no Muslim would have gone to these sites previously. One of the most egregious offenses is when the Islamic Waqf, which maintains the Dome of the Rock and Al-Aqsa Site for Muslims, claimed that the Zionists "invented" the story of the Western Wall and that the site was never holy to Jews at any point in history. Attacks against Christians in the Territories have mounted and while Israel has seen an increase in its Christian population, Palestine has seen a decrease. There is no permitted form of proselytization in Palestine save for Muslim proselytization and minority faiths are openly marginalized and discredited.

Answer 1

In order to signal permission that its own citizens may be targeted by Gazan rocket attacks.

Answer 2

A constant bombing of Gaza is both unnecessary to protect Israeli interests and disatrous to the Palestinian population. (This is not to say that Israel is constantly bombing Gaza, rather it is addressing the question as to why stopping bombing a country would be desirable.)

Answer 3

Responder #2 can relax. There is no "constant bombing of Gaza".

The thing that you DO have be concerned about: Who brainwashed you into believing that there is, and how and why did they do it ?

To put the situation into perspective, though, it could be useful to elaborate on the concept hinted at in Answer #1, and to ponder the following scenario for a few moments:

Suppose, just for the sake of discussion, that Mexico refuses to accept the legitimacy of the USA, and in its own constitution, proclaims its goal of eradicating this country. And suppose also that during a single recent year, more than 1600 unguided short-range rockets were launched northward from Tijuana to land in residential neighborhoods in Chula Vista, Coronado, El Cajon, La Jolla, and San Diego. Making no statement or recommendation, I merely pose the question: How much time do you suppose would elapse before a few training flights from the naval facilities at Imperial Beach, Coronado, and El Centro were dispatched southward, first to neutralize the launch facilities and the factories that manufacture them, and later to convert Tijuana into a hole in the ground, full of window glass and smoldering nails ?

Anti-Zionism has a number of root causes. The following is a non-exhaustive list of the underlying causes of Anti-Zionism:

1) Jewish Blasphemy: There was a prevailing belief among the more religious Jews (Orthodox, Hasidim, Ultra-Orthodox, etc.) that the Galut (the Exile from the Holy Land) was a divine act of punishment because Jews had violated the commandments that God had given them. When God believed that the Jewish people had repented and were ready for the Messiah, this Messiah would come and bring the Jews back to the Holy Land. Until that time, Jews will remain in exile. The Orthodox and some branches of the Hasidim and Ultra-Orthodox eventually came around to supporting the State of Israel, but not on the grounds of it being a Jewish (religious) State. They typically support it because it is a nation with a large percentage of Jewish people. However, there are some very vocal factions in the Hasidic and Ultra-Orthodox communities who see a Return to the Holy Land as being an act of blasphemy because Jews should wait for God to bring them into the Holy Land and not to physically move there of their will.

2) Non-Jewish Holy Sites: Since the Holy Land does not only have Jewish Holy Sites, but also has Christian and Moslem Holy Sites, there was opposition in these communities to Jews having a physical monopoly and control of these holy sites. Therefore, these communities opposed the idea of a Jewish Nation State that could do exactly that.

3) Palestinian Indigenous Rights: The indigenous Palestinians were aggrieved that people from abroad would come to the land that the parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents had lived on and worked for as long as they could remember and buy that land from the Ottomans without consulting them. Moreover, these people had a particular agenda to establish a state on the land they called their own. Understandably, the Palestinians were opposed to the Zionist project for these emotional and political considerations.

4) Arab Nationalism: Arab Nationalism as a movement crystallized in the 1930s and came to the political fore in the 1960s. Arab Nationalism was a movement that sought to create an Arab State or multiple Arab States based on common cultural and historical markers. This movement began to make a tether between Arab cultural identity and Islamic religious identity. This was especially keen in places with large non-Moslem communities because those communities typically worked closely with the European colonizers seen to be repressing the Arab identity. Zionism, which was a movement based on a European cultural identity and a Jewish religious identity was antithetical to the Arab Nationalist movement ideologically and also claimed territory claimed by Arab Nationalists putting them at odds politically.

5) Anti-Semitism: This should be self-evident. The Logic goes thus: Anti-Semites oppose any Jewish aspiration to freedom and/or power. Zionism promotes Self-Determination for the Jewish people which is an aspiration to freedom and power. Therefore, Anti-Semites oppose Zionism.

6) Political Antagonism: If State A has a lot of wars with State B, State A and B will develop a mutual animosity towards each other and their raisons d'être. There are a number of politically independent or partially independent Peoples and States that came into conflict with the Halutzim (Jewish Pioneers in the British Mandate of Palestine), the Haganah et al. (Jewish Militias), and Tzahal (the Israeli Army).

There are currently other additional causes, but these came later as other perspectives were added.

Before the British Mandate and the creation of the State of Israel , Palestine was for almost 500 years under the rule of the Turkish Ottoman Empire, who took it from Mameluks; also mainly Turks by origin. Mameluks took it from Arabs.

So, for the last 800 years before the British mandate and the creation of the State of Israel Palestine was under Turkish rule.

The population of Palestine under the Turkish rule consisted of:

Christian and Jewish part:

1. Jews, about 30,000 people in 1880;

2. Christians, about 70,000`people in 1880

3. Muslim part, 246,000 people, of whom:

• Turks (of course; they were the official power there, as well as soldiers);
• Circassians, Albanians and other people whom the Turks incentivized to move to Palestine from other parts of the Ottoman Empire with the aim to push Arabs out of Palestine;
• Arabs, in the number of approximately 10,000 people according to the British General Allenby and to the British White Book.

Summing up:

In 1880, the combined non-Muslim population in Palestine was over 100,000 people.

In 1880, according to the Census of the Ottoman Empire, only 246.000 Muslims lived in Palestine. These Muslims included Turks, Arabs, Circassians, Albanians and other Muslim people Turks brought from other parts of their Empire with the aim of completely pushing Arabs out of Palestine.

They gave to this aim such a priority that they even put the strictest restrictions on Arab immigration to Palestine.

The trick modern Arabs play is very simple. The word "Muslim" is strongly associated in the minds of the people of the West with the word "Arab". So, Arabs say: there were 250,000 Muslims in Palestine in 1880 and only 30,000 Jews. Then this statement is followed by the conclusion: Arabs were a majority in Palestine. Ethnic component is simply and nicely substituted with the religious one, and Turks, Circassians, Albanians become "Arabs, after which Palestine is declared " an Arab land". And people, especially young who, let´s be honest, are not too interested in all this "Palestinian story", do not even bother to think how all of a sudden 250,000 Muslims of the Turkish, Circassian, Albanian, Croatian origin in a wink became "250,000 Arabs". But the truth is that the number of Arab Muslims in Palestine in those years did not exceed 10,000 people. Other were Muslims- but not Arabs.

But only 60 years later, in 1945, there were 1,200,000 ARABS in Palestine according to British statistics. Just imagine the rate of growth: from some 10,000 Arabs in 1880 to ONE MILLION TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND Arabs in just 60 years! Where did they appear from? They immigrated to Palestine from Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Iran. If someone can offer other explanation for this never known in history population growth of 180 times in 60 years- he is welcome.

Answer 1

Jews do not believe that "Chosen" means superior. Zionism is only the longing to return to the Jewish homeland, not to conquer or hurt anyone.

Answer 2

There is often hyperbole in the media about comparing Zionist Israeli policy to Nazi German policy in order to create sympathy for the Palestinians. However, there are vast differences in the organization of ideals and direction of the governments, making these ideologies very different.

Persecution and Genocide

One of the hallmarks of Nazi policy was the quarantining of "Undesirables" in ghettos which were partial cities without sufficient food or living space. Then the "Undesirables" would be trucked to forced labor and extermination camps. This led to the deaths of 6 million Jews and 5 million non-Jews (primarily Slavs and Romani/Gypsies).

Israel has never organized any sort of genocidal campaign against any group. Although life is difficult for Palestinians in the West Bank under Israeli occupation, they are not rounded up, quarantined or subject to mass murder. The Palestinians in Gaza are under a blockade since the Hamas government almost always uses surplus supplies to wage war on Israel, but Israel still continues to provide the Gaza Strip with all of its electricity and 80% of its foodstuffs, the exact opposite treatment afforded by the Nazis to their "Undesirables". Of course, this fails to note how Arab Israeli citizens (ethnic Palestinians, Druze, Bedouins, and Arab Christians) receive equal treatment under Israeli Law and even have political parties which have participated in every Israeli Parliament, some of which are opposed to the Jewish State.

Industry Nationalization and Human Rights

Economically, the Fascist State tends to co-opt private industry and create an unholy political-industrial complex that makes the rights of its citizens secondary to the whims and desires of industry. This is to create a stronger impetus for production of military arms and manufactures. The Nazis were well known for their extensive collaboration with industrial manufacturers and the lessening of workers' protections.

Israel has some of the most comprehensive worker protections in the world and an incredible number of regulations for private industry. Israeli domestic policy would be considered socialist by American standards or Lib-Dem by British Standards or Moderate Gaullist by French Standards. While there is significant military expenditure in Israel, it is not co-opted by the government. Rather private manufacturers receive grants and subsidies, similar to what happens in the United States. Israel also has one of the most productive start-up economies, entirely outside of the government's interference.

Eugenics

The Nazis made very clear that they were trying to create a master race with a certain set of discernible physical features: blond hair, blue eyes, small nose, pale face, and had anatomical drawings of the Ãœbermensch which resembled the typical Swede. The Nazis researched the best ways to promote reproduction among those who "had desirable traits" and to limit reproduction among the Undesirables. Women in concentration camps, for example, were experimented on to prevent them from ovulating and thus effectively prevent their reproduction.

Aside from the fact that Jews in Israel are from all over the world (roughly 1/3 from Russia, 1/3 from the Arab World, and 1/3 from Western Europe and the USA, with sprinklings from elsewhere), there is no view in Israel of how a Jew should look. Further, there is no attempt to alter demography by preventing non-Jews from marrying and reproducing. In fact, aside for Religious Jews, Arab Israelis have the highest birth rates in Israel. While there are demographic concerns in Israel, no Israeli politician or organization has ever contemplated trying to prevent Arabs from marrying or having children, because this is not what Israel is about.

It's complicated.

Two countries were not "created". The United Nations allowed for two states, a Jewish State and an Arab State to declare independence in Mandatory Palestine in 1947. The Jewish State jumped at the opportunity and declared independence as Israel in 1948. The Arab State did not declare independence until 1988 in exile (Tunisia) and this is Palestine.