Regarding the last post about the existance of Israel, I am not surprised, but I am dissapointed.

I thought Indymedia was about free speech. I also thought it was about news.

But some of the stuff people write here is pure fiction and posted as g-d's honest truth.

I write here, mostly about objectivity. I recognise a Palestinian is going to have a differing opinion about Israel than I. I respect those opinions.

The problem is when those opinions become complete lies.

When people ignore the entire history to serve their own cause.

When people get up here and lie, why shouldn't I mock them the way I mock Bush himself?

The fact is, the archaeological evidence surrounding Israel clearly points to a strong history of Jews in that land.

The evidence also points to an Arab community that was bussed in so to speak by the Romans as slaves.

Does America belong to Africans because they were slaves here? I think not, although nowadays it's only fair we all have our share.

And that's the point, sharing.

The modern history of Israel tells us that before 67, after the Brits signed away controll in 1917 to the Jews(including Gaza and the West Bank), the Arabs immediately began their usual practice of human rights violations against Jews everywhere in the Middle East.

With nowhere to go from places like Iraq and Iran, Morocco, Ethiopia, the Jews came to Israel. Why? Because the whole world agreed they had a right to be safe somewhere.

The Arabs who lived there (not actually even Arabs but arab speaking greek slaves) ran away scared.

While the Jews absorbed the myriad of colors from Diaspora without the blink of a racial eye, The Arab countries used Palestinians as pawns, to drive up oil prices, left them in refugee camps, and stole their world donated food money for weapons of destruction from here to the Sahara.

Just because Muslims hate their own people, and Jews care enough to bring each other together and give each other shelter, this does not mean Israel has no right to exist.

The legal paperwork is there.

Imagine you buy a house, as all of the Jews who came did do, and paid a muslim a fair price for this house, as they did, and then had your neighbors run away because you're a Jew.

Thirty years later your chicken shit neighbor comes back, says you scared him and now he has the right to your house, and his own, because his family owned all of the land before you were sold your plot by the guy he sold it to.

Ridiculous isn't it.

The Native Americans lose most court battles for thier land. And that sucks. Because I have truly never seen a more caring people about the earth.

But the Palestinians, in times before Israel, left desert, dirt, waste, and destruction where Israel shines today.

If anything, I would relate the Israelis more to the Native Americans than I would the Phillistines, who murder their own children because they don't understand non- violence as a practice any more than they really care for their land. The intifada was started because a Jew visited a holy site for muslims, Jews and Christians.

Palestinians and muslims are violently racist, they won't even allow you to shop in the Arab market or pray at a mutual holy site.

And it's like that in the entire Arab world. Racism, sexism, and violence marr the Arab image with plenty of recordable evidence.

I am sick of the Jews being blamed for Arab Nazism and lack of care for their own people.

I am sick of Indymedia turning a blind eye to the disgusting practices of Taliban, Wife killers, Burqua forcers, acid throwing, baby bomb strapping, free speech hating, tyrant supporting, terrorists.

You guys try so hard to be lefty, but you are really just saying all that shit is o.k..

Get with it people, Arab nations are by far the largest human rights violators in the world.

The numbers are there. And Israel has a right to exist if only because somewhere in the Middle East has to be safe for normal people, it's true on paper, it's true with archaeological evidence, and it's truth on the ground until all the Jews give up on their dreams.

Which will never happen, because Israel is worth being blown up for.

It's worth Jewish death so that Christians, Jews, and even Muslims can pray there without being slaughtered like they are everywhere else in the Middle East.

The various IMCs were overrun with anti-Semites/racists/spammers shortly after 9-11. That's why the open-publishing format was changed and the peanut gallery removed from the main page. That was a good start but there still is a long way to go to make this the great site it once was. Back in the day (post-Seattle) I recommended this site to a lot of folks but seldom do anymore.

I know you will be amazed to learn this, but it is not 1963 anymore and you cannot slander anyone who objects to Israeli expansionism and racism on the grounds that anti-zionism = anti-semitism. Not if you want to be taken seriously, that is.

Israel is a western-oriented settler-colonialist state, not significantly different from the old South Africa. It is, not surprisingly, closely allied to US imperialism. No one can favor this entity and still claim to be on the left.

I am not pro-Sharon, nor have I ever been. And if you read my article, it doesn't say anything about the stupid claims that you are making.

Plus, if saying the Arab world is frought with tyrants, racism, and sexism is slander, then you must be for those things.

Not to mention, I didn't say anything about 1963-which doesn't even make sense.

I was talking about things further back in history that the writer didn't get right.

What I am saying is that Israel as a state is actually a legal and justified idea and entity.

What goes on because of Sharon's decisions of the past may not be humane, but the state itself was based on a humane concept not unlike reparations for African Americans or Native Americans.

Under your one sided view, only Palestinians have a right to be there, and only Muslims have a right to pray there. If anti-semitism does not exist in the Arab world my name is Pope John Paul.

What's more, what you are saying is that property cannot be legally purchased if someone is renting it, which is essentially what the Palestinians did when they were sold out by the Fedayeen muslims who owned the land.

You're right, it's not 1963 anymore, so the Arab world better get with this century and stop killing Jews in Iran and using Palestinians as pawns to kill Jews.

Grow up, you embarrass the left with your unobjective thinking.

Anyone who does not recognise the Jewish contribution to human rights in general and slanders Israel's right to exist based on one bad leader is infantile and racist.

Only individuals have rights. Classes have no rights. Dead people have no rights. What matters is the suffering of the specific individuals living at this point in time. Living Palestinians have been pushed from their lands and subject to racism and occupation by living Jews.

That's what matters.

By the way, it's GOD not g-d. I asked him and he confirmed it.

the "g-d" is a dead giveaway - unless:

Of course you understand that you are arguing that the United States of America has "No Right" to exist.

So when do you think we will all pack our bags and leave the North American continent for the Native Americans to resettle?

Will you be leading the exodus?

The soveriegnty of nations is extremely tenuous, but less so than in the past. The idea of human rights is even pretty new.

http://www.hrea.org/

The idea of a right is powerful stuff. It basically says that a person, without the ability to enforce a right, still has that right and that the state will defend it.

Later, corporations were formed and they were given rights too. This is always being contested, of course. Today, they have more rights than ever, it seems. Corporations love to send things into the court system. By scaling back individual rights, and forcing all complaints into the courts, they gain a big advantage over individuals.

Likewise, states have been given rights, at least as far as war and invasion. But, again, wars and invasion still happen. Sovereingty is sacrificed to the harsh realities of force and firepower.

http://www.globalissuesgroup.com/geneva/

Rights do exist, however, and to not have them is resignation to a life of coercion and violence.

I do Agree that I ve read an incredible number of posts , which contents brought me a poor opinion of the authors, whatever the point of view they were coming up with.

I m as tired (and discusted) as Meyer London of the behavior of sharon who s been pulling the state of Israel into this decadence, but all attacks towards Israel (and the Jews) on this site are not justified : most articles and comments are well funded and bring us good facts, but among them I ll agree that anti-semitic propaganda finds its place .

Hate and anger often blind posters who wish to tell right away what they feel about a subject even if its not the issue. But it s also important to point out the number of misunderstanding that can occure between users.

Two persons both caring about instoring peace in the middle east can go hours insulting each other just beacause of a lack of exchanging ideas, and beacause both think that every body on the site is against them.

(the Palestinian suporter believes the US and Israels ' wish is only about wiping out arabs, while the Jewish suporter is convinced that there is some worldwide anti-semitic conspiration, just because of the posts he s read.... or misunderstood).

Making ourselves false ideas about other users on the site make us rush into those misunderstanding. Some people can t stand a critic toward modern Zionism, because they don t understand that it doesn t reflect ancient Zionism, and in the same context, some people will criticise Zionism in general because they don t understand its original meaning of it anymore.

And thus, I m beeing considered as an anti-semite just because I oppose sharon.

About the middle-east issue and the evolving of Zionism, I share the view of Avraham Burg:

http://www.arabworldbooks.com/arab/avraham.htm