I guess not strictly news - but with all of the vitriol I have seen in discussions on the Israel situation, that have boiled down to arguments over wording, I feel that this take from the BBC is worthy of some discussion.
Mods, feel free to remove if this is not newsy enough.
What they mean as that they could also say Israel is a terrorist state. That’s what some people think. And some people, specially those who have friends or family who have been killed in Palestina, might say that Hamas are defending their people and are not terrorists.
But you and me, citizens without voice, can call them terrorists (that’s what they are) but doing so we are somehow chosing a band in a conflict.
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There are two million Arab citizens of Israel, the vast majority of whom are Muslim. They vote. There are Arab Muslims in the Knesset.
This is a somewhat different situation from that of blacks in apartheid South Africa, who were denied civil rights on the basis of their race and ancestry.
I’m not saying Israeli society treats Arab Israeli citizens fairly or that there isn’t social discrimination. I haven’t been there; and from all reports there certainly is. But I think you’re exaggerating … or else understating how bad “actual” (South African) apartheid was.
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Which is even more ironic when you realise that that’s exactly where a certain mustachioed German dictator got his ideas from.
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While I get what you mean, I don’t think it should automatically mean (even a lot of people think it does) that you can either say Hamas is a terrorist group or Israel is a terrorist state.
In my own view both are terrorist, both commit atrocities and the result of that are innocent lives lost from both sides.
I despise centrism so saying that hurts a little bit on the inside, but this is one of the rare cases where fighting at all is meaningless and both sides that are fighting (and commiting atrocities) are in the fault.