17breezes wrote:smiths wrote:i will excuse your complete ignorance of the point barracuda and put it down to feeling a little on the defensive yourself
to simplify it for you,
israel is a 'jewish' state (a racial designation which is pretty fucking flimsy)
It's actually a religious designation, which is pretty fucking flimsy.
smiths wrote:there are a pre-existing non-jewish population who are living in prison camps
Where?
They live in something very close to prison camps in Lebanon. Which also doesn't allow them citizenship, restricts their movements, and forbids them from working in some jobs, and so forth, although many of them were born and have lived in Lebanon all their lives. Nevertheless. There are checkpoints and, I'm sure, lots of petty harassment and degradation by Lebanese guards on a daily basis, and so on. But the difference between "prison" and "not prison" is pretty significant. As just about anyone who's ever even visited one always says. And as far as I know, whilethe Palestinians in Lebanon live in barely livable conditions in refugee camps. To which they're not permitted to make improvements and where they're not allowed to have construction materials, and so on. But which are nevertheless, refugee and not prison camps.
The Palestinians in Gaza (about two thirds of whom lived or are descended from people who lived in what's now the despicable state of Israel) are also, without question. living in deplorable conditions, due not only to attrition and deterioration from the blockade, but also the the damage done during the war that preceded it, and the damage done by the fighting between Hamas and Fatah that preceded that. Which, IIRC, was an American-created-and-funded conflict.
So there's a housing shortage. On top of which, per numerous news reports that may not be true, Hama was bulldozing occupied house last month. Although they are getting UN building materials, so maybe it's just the western press spinning what's actually a public housing project into an assault. I wouldn't be a bit surprised, if so.
Anyway. Many of them are poor, sick, hungry, and unemployed, and some are homeless. But as far as I'm aware, they live in houses, aren't guarded by anyone, can go the store that has not much in it, and so forth. I'm not saying that's good. In fact, it's damnable and repugnant: They're boarded up in isolation from the world like animals -- women, little children, young and old -- and just for having had the temerity to hold the election they were being urged to hold, basically.
But again, as far as I know, they're not prison camps. I could be wrong. And I'm not trying to minimize the devastation of their circumstances. It's just that -- at least as I understand their situation -- that's not just simplifying, it's incorrect.
smiths wrote:it has created a legal system with this racist division as the foundation
now you tell me, is that the same as america?
It's not exactly the same. But I'd say it's comparable. I mean, America is much larger and also much more aggressive, so if you're going by stuff like body count or number of amoral acts of violent hatred committed, America is many, many times worse by every measurable standard that I can think of. However, since it's my position that some crimes are absolutely evil, including the subjugation or destruction of another people, that's immaterial from my point of view.
In any event, yes, as far as it goes, America's the same. We're still occupying a country that used to be populated with hundreds of thousands of pre-existing natives before we illegally bullied our way in and killed them, for example. To say nothing of the hundreds of thousands more who are now living as refugees. Also, America does have a legal system that gives it a free pass to lock up whomever it wants whenever it wants for no reason at all, as a matter of fact. Plus, the state can authorize the assassination of American citizens by special forces without penalty for political reasons. Which it does. Or so I read, anyway.
And... Let's see. What else? Well. It's also perfectly legal for huge corporations to use what's basically slave labor here, and as long as they use visa workers from very remote continents who don't speak English and are too exhausted to leave the metal trailers they share with twenty other people when they get off work, nobody gives a damn about that at all.
Plus, per the conditions of your question as I understand them, I'm not even getting into the racial discrimination, subjugation, disenfranchisement and denial of rights that's illegal on paper but routine in practice. But it's massive. And there are also the several dozen or so genocides, politicides or ethnic cleansings that we've committed abroad both overtly and by proxy, of course. But you already know about those.
Which does not lessen the absolute nature of Israel's culpability by one iota.Incidentally.
smiths wrote:i live in australia, we have a thing called the Racial Discrimination Act so as Australia's "domestic laws meet Australia’s international obligations, including with respect to racial equality and preventing racial discrimination."
"The Racial Discrimination Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race in many areas of public life. These include in employment, renting or buying property, the provision of goods and services, accessing public places and in advertising. The Act also prohibits offensive behaviour based on racial hatred (racial vilification)."
is it perfect? no; was there abuse of the indigenous population? fuck yeah; are we as a nation trying to deal with it and make it right? yes, however imperfectly
does australia have a legalised racist law system? no
America does, though. And while it's true that those laws aren't racially specific, that's less a sign that they're not racial (or ethnic or national or whatever) than it is that the people who saw to it that they were enacted didn't want to be restricted to using them against just one race, ethnicity or nation. If you ask me. I mean, it also would have been politically unpopular to get racially specific, naturally. But I very much doubt anyone in power saw that as a drawback.
smiths wrote:the only places that do are unmentionable due to comparisons that no-one really wants to get into
I don't know what or whom you have in mind. But lots of places do it, or have done it. Including (notably) Turkey.
But places where it's happened more recently or still is happening, off the top of my head: Idonesia, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Rwanda, and (maybe? I'm not sure)-- on an on-and-off basis -- some parts of India.
Plus Chechnya, Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Taliban-era Afghanistan. And, I don't doubt, many others I'm not thinking of at the moment. But China, I'm almost sure. And a few Latin American countries, too. Plus the Phillipines, although that isn't all that recent by now, I guess.
Anyway. Lots of places do it.
17breezes wrote:Unless you have a history of condemning all the Muslim racial states as well you have little credibility.
That's also a religious and not a racial distinction. And a ridiculous thing to say, too.
