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[Sheb]

Oh, well, google translate sucks for Hebrew then.

It's funny, I've always considered Haaretz to be mildly liberal, intellectual and serious, a kind of Israeli New York Times. Maybe the English and Hebrew versions differ?

[Loud Whispers]

American funding to israel is around 1.5% of israel's GDP or 4% of israel annual budget, with 3/4 of it going directly back to american pockets. because of the restriction this aid imposes, it forces israel to have to buy equipment in higher prices than it can produce itself or get elsewhere, resulting, with some analysts opinions, in israel actually having to pay more than what it gets.

American aid to Israel today is frivolous and unneeded because it has already developed so nicely. You're pointing to the finished result and saying that's how it's been for every decade Israel's leaned on billions of dollars, how confident are you that Israel would be in the exact same position of prominence it has now if it was not for US intervention? If a shop gives me a shit ton of money on the condition that I can only spend 3/4 of it at their franchises I'm still gaining a hell of a lot of capital. I leave paying nothing for their products and I get additional money to do whatever the hell I want.

Also, america has blocked several extremely profitable trade agreements with china and russia which would have equaled around 1/4 of USA total funding to israel since its independence.

When Israel wants to deal with Russia and China it deals with Russia and China. The deals the US managed to cancel were ones where Israel was selling advanced weapon systems to China. It is also no longer a secret that Israel has been selling US weapons technology to China. Classy.

Since most of the, non-military, economical aid to israel was in forms of high interest loans that israel repaid, i count those out.

Hey, I like to say the same about American contributions to WWII but there's also no denying that the British Empire would have collapsed economically during WWII without American loans.

The american aid is not the reason for israel's achievements. (Also, where are all the other countries america gave aid to in relation to israel's success? where is syria? egypt? jordan? iraq? iran?)

The first the US has been working against for a hell of a long time, the second had US-propped military dictatorships whose existence meant being pro-Israel, Jordan has actually improved their education/healthcare/development and all that with American aid, Iraq is still living the aftershocks of the Iraq war, Iran has been sanctioned forever and all of those countries have received far less aid than Israel has been given. And that's excluding all the European countries that cosy up to Israel too.

[Sheb]

Although it should be noted that the fact that Israel's population is largely made of educated immigrants from the West and the former USSR helps a tons too, compared to their neighbors.

[burningpet]

Confident enough

Seriously, look elsewhere.

[Owlbread]

According to Israeli authorities three Israeli Jews have confessed to burning the teenage Palestinian alive in a revenge killing.

I suppose this means people can't try to pretend it was a Hamas false flag/Muslim honour killing any more.

[Loud Whispers]

Confident enough
Seriously, look elsewhere.

Well I can't fault anyone for confidence; but I don't see what you see when I look elsewhere.

According to Israeli authorities three Israeli Jews have confessed to burning the teenage Palestinian alive in a revenge killing.

Ouch, there's something particularly painful about death by fire, even just thinking about it.

[Sheb]

To be fair, even burningpet gave up the 'Palestinian revenge killing' a few days ago.

BTW, glad you're still alive burningpet.

Also, another anti-Israeli-bombing-gaza protest in Belgium was marred by the presence of a few anti-semites who used to occasion to chant calling for murdering jews and the like. Since they were chanting in Arabic, not everybody realized it immediately, so it went on for a little while.

This really disgust me, not only are those assholes assholes with shit in their eyes (Especially since you have a contingent from the Union of Belgium's Progressive Jews in the very same protest) that I hope will get charged with "inciting racial hatred", but they're also playing right into the Israeli claim that anti-sionism is just a front for anti-semitism. How are we supposed to win the battle for public opinion with guys like that in the same protests as us?

[LordSlowpoke]

your train of thought has one gaping hole in it

namely you assume antisemites give a shit

casual antisemitism has either progressed to the point of nonexistence or forced to turn into.. that, more or less

besides it's pretty easy to laugh off zionists who shout things about you and a second holocaust when you say you don't agree with the direction israel is going so vOv

[Sheb]

True. But I hate to they're trying to associate with us.

Also, it's not always as crude as this. For exemple, you also had a bunch of political parties (The greens and some far-left parties) at that rally. Now, pro-Israeli jewish organizations are calling on them to denounce the whole protest. They're not claiming that the Greens are nazis or even that they really are anti-semitic, they just want to force them to drop the issue of Palestine by embarrassing them. (Because of course, condemning that protest would mean they participated in an anti-semitic protest, which would look bad, so they're less likely to do anything about Palestine in the future).

[burningpet]

Say, for someone who attends those protests, from your direct perspective, who would you say makes up the majority of the protesters? mostly native europeans? mostly native europeans muslims? mostly muslims that immigrated to europe?

[Sheb]

Depend on the specific protest and who is organizing it. If organized by some Muslim-arab group (As in a group made up mostly of Muslim-arabs) and if Israel didn't do anything exceptionally newsworthy soon before, up to 80% Muslims, with the rest made up of leftist of various stripes and always, always, always some guys from the Jewish progressive union thing.

If organized or co-organized by some more mainstream groups, I'd say 20-40% Arab-Muslims with the rest made up of "whites". Of course I mostly goes to the protests in Brussels, which got a large-ish Arab minority.

I'm not sure what you means by native European Muslims vs immigrant Muslims. Arab-Muslims vs. white converts? I only remember seeing one white convert (A salafist at a anti-Mubarak rally a few years ago). But then, Muslims have the annoying habit of looking like human being, so there are probably more converts that I just didn't notice.

P.S. I used Arab-Muslims here because I do not actually go around asking what religions people follows, so I'm using Arabic-looking as a proxy here, with all the usual caveats.

P.P.S. I've written Muslims so often in this post that I got that feeling where the world doesn't seem real anymore. Also, Firefox want to correct salafist into fistula, go figure.

[burningpet]

Muslims also have that annoying habit of wearing religious clothes to identify them, but i wasn't talking about "white" muslims.

I meant muslims with deep roots in europe vs muslims with less than 2 generations in europe. if you aren't actually interacting with them i'd imagine you wont be able to tell.

So, 80% muslims is something more close to my experience from being in one of those protests (i was in one in amsterdam). (i'd even dare say more than 90% but i guess you have more experience)

Say, did you happen to attend any protest that is connected to the middle east but does not involve israel? was the composition of the attendants the same? 80%+ muslims?

[Helgoland]

You know, I don't remember ever hearing of a protest against the treatment of Palestinian 'refugees'* in the countries surrounding Israel...

*Quotation marks necessary. Under the definition of refugee used for Palestinians, I'm a refugee from what's now western Poland. And so is 80% of Germany.

[LordSlowpoke]

if 80% is not hyperbole then i am a crate of jaffa oranges

and if you're saying that said poland was not a stalin powered landgrab to justify annexing polish ukraine and belarus you're bad at this whole history game

so yeah technically? there's a reason why the border was only accepted in the 70s or 80s or whatev

[Helgoland]

90's, I think, after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact.
And sure, it was a landgrab, and it shouldn't have happened, but that doesn't mean we should undo it now. New evil does not eradicate old evil, and most Palestinians in other countries would be better off if they were integrated in their host countries instead of being kept in camps.