I was really shocked to see how many major corporations had large offices in Israel. I don't think that's going to be tenable going forward. Everyone I know is looking for ways to reduce their exposure to Israel. Boycotting Intel seems like a no brainer. Also I really don't see stability coming to Israel any time soon. They've lost what global support they had, they're losing the war with Hamas and it's expanding to Hezbollah and the Houthis have successfully blockaded the Red Sea. Add in the fact that none of the younger generations in the west support Israel and it's pretty clear that at best it's going to be chaos for decades in the region, likely ending in a South Africa style ending of apartheid.
> Israel’s government agreed to give Intel a $3.2 billion grant for a new $25 billion chip plant it plans to build in southern Israel
I don't buy Intel processors since 2012, at least. They just gave me another reason to keep it that way for the foreseeable future. I don't want my computer running on silicon from sands used to bury the bodies of bombed children.
I think it's going to be very hard for US politicians to make the case to continue to fund Israel. They may get away with it while the Baby Boomers are still around, but it's all but certain to be cutoff in the near future.
Regardless of your position (or lack thereof) on this conflict...I can't see why typical American employees of Intel would want to subject themselves to the safety risk of being in Israel. Hamas will eventually re-emerge (or something worse), and it is impossible for the Israeli government to provide security guarantees. Do you really want to be there on the day Iron Dome is finally overwhelmed or out-smarted? It will eventually happen.
I'm not sure Israel will ever be considered safe for general work/leisure travel again...which may be a small victory for Hamas...they've changed the status quo forever.
The West has found colonialism and ethnic cleansing unacceptable for a long time... except for Israel, which capitalises on the Holocaust and manages to engage in both while depicting itself as the eternal victim.
Thinking of Israel as colonialism is denying the right to exist as a nation of millions of people. As justified as you may think your morale position is, it does not justify promulgating another genocide as the answer.
The labels of colonialism and genocide to what is happening there completely close you off to an actual honest discussion of the situation.
Was it colonialism when all the jewish populations of Arab countries were forced into exile after the partition?
> Was it colonialism when all the jewish populations of Arab countries were forced into exile after the partition?
I'm not sure. Just reading it now, it looks like Palestine was cut in half, and half got given to the Jews. Was my reading incorrect? How should I tie that action to colonialism?
I meant that the simplistic view that Israel is a colonial state is misguided and distorting the discussion. When the partition happened jewish populations were also forced into exile by Arab states yet this is never even discussed alongside the Nakba:
That doesn’t excuse what Israel does in Gaza or the West Bank, but it is not a simple evil Israel vs. oppressed Palestinians situation that it is made out to be, and this is not a colonial state vs. indigenous population struggle either, both sides have valid claims and are mostly indigenous to the land being fought over.
The narrative that this is a colonial struggle is extremely dangerous (what is the proposed solution, to remove an entire nation state?) and it will not lead to a solution since it is a complete non-starter for Israel.
Labelling what is happening - which is horrific enough as it is - a genocide is also a vast exaggeration at best and really inaccurate, and it is a very powerful propaganda tool being used to dehumanize Israelis as a whole (if it is genocide they are acting inhumanely and anything done to them should be ignored or dismissed like the reaction to Oct 7 shows).
If you are going to make such hyperbolic statements as saying the current rate of killing is faster than the nazis, you might want to do a quick google search first:
And again think of what you are stating as fact, you are parroting a very single sided view of history, that Israel is a colonial state, but even if you were right, what is your solution? There are effectively two states with millions of natives, and they both vehemently do not want to live together in a single state.
I’m not gonna argue the rate of killing compared to the holocaust, as you are obviously right. However I ask you to consider the implication. First that the holocaust took place over a longer period, and peaked at a certain time. The rate of killing Israel is doing still has the potential to go up, and even if it won’t, it is still a horror at such a large scale that it leaves the same sickening feeling among us all.
Just because something isn’t “as bad” as the holocaust (yet) it doesn’t mean it isn’t worthy of the same attention. We should hold humanity to a higher standard.
Now as for colonialism. It is pretty hard to see Israel as not a colonial state.
- East Jerusalem is fully under the control of Israel, as is most of the West Bank. Israel allows some autonomy in some areas of the West Bank, but it this autonomy is still under Israel’s ultimate control.
- Settlers are still moving into occupied territory which is internationally recognized as Palestinian (both on the West Bank and East Jerusalem). Israel does not recognize an independent Palestine, and in a recent UN vote, did not recognize Palestinian right of self determination.
- In the West Bank Israel prohibits free movement of Palestinians via several checkpoints. Israeli settlers illegally living in the West Bank have roads which Palestinians are not allowed to travel on.
- Israel controls all but one borders crossings into Palestine. Israel controls the airspace of Palestine, Israel controls the sea access of Palestine. Israel imposes a total blockade over Gaza.
- Hamas is the legitimate government of Palestine, elected in a free election in 2006. Israel is currently waging a war against this government.
- Israel illegally occupies the Golan Heights which is internationally recognized to be Syrian territory. It has been the stated goal of the last 3 governments of Israel to expand the settler population on the Golan Heights.
If all these points combined do not indict Israel as a colonial state, than one must call into question whether the Donetsk and Luhansk are really Russian colonies, or whether Ireland was ever really a British colony.
> Thinking of Israel as colonialism is denying the right to exist as a nation of millions of people.
No. Just like thinking apartheid South Africa as racist didn't deny it the right to exist as a nation. South Africa still exists as a nation, as any online map shows. It just don't exist as an apartheid regime anymore. Israel can do the same.
Yes apartheid is a label that can be applied but only when talking about the occupied territories, what Israel is doing in the West Bank is a system of population control that seems very close to or worst than apartheid, and with the colonist movement backed by the Israeli army it is effectively a form of ethnic cleansing, albeit a very ineffective one so far considering the growth of the Palestinian population.
But Israel itself is not an apartheid state, it is the most inclusive and liberal democracy in the entire region. Calling Israel an apartheid state because of what they do in the West Bank is a stretch, it would be like calling the USA a military fascist dictatorship because of what they did in Iraq.
And regardless of wanting to think of the whole of Palestine as a single country, the most important fact is the Palestinians and Israeli have absolutely no desire to live together in a single state, the only option the vast majority of Palestinians want is a single Palestinian state with no Israelis or jews (from the river to the sea). The Israelis are split but most favor a two state solution.
So your simplistic solution is not one that is grounded in any reality, it is a pure fantasy and projection of western virtue, and if you had any understanding of the actual situation you would realize that what you are advocating for (the dissolution of Israel and Palestine into a single state) will only happen with the genocide (an actual one) of one of the two populations fighting over that piece of land. Maybe it can happen one day with the two populations living in peace, but that is certainly not the case now, and all the hysteric propaganda is making it even less likely.
It feels like you are very conveniently brushing aside the West Bank. The West Bank is very much an apartheid. Military checkpoints, double judicial system, limited suffrage, they even have a separated road system. It is not the Palestinian Authority which is imposing this system, it is Israel.
> It would be like calling the USA a military fascist dictatorship because of what they did in Iraq.
Bad comparison. It would be like calling the USA a colonial power because of they hold colonies in Puerto Rico, Virgin Islands, Guam, American Samoa, and the North Mariana Islands.
Mind you that the only thing the USA has in common with Israel regarding their colonies, is limited suffrage (which it is correctly criticized for). No military checkpoints, no double judicial systems, no limited movement, no separated road networks.
Many, including me wouldn’t call the USA a democracy if it still held their pre-civil rights segregation of black and indigenous people. In my mind USA didn’t become a democracy until 1964. What Israel is doing is far worse then USA under Jim Crow. Israel is not a democracy by modern standards.
The entire position is that Israel is an apartheid state because it occupies territories, and you are viewing the whole as a single country. In that respect yes I understand it can be considered an apartheid state.
But again none of the multiple commenters here making this moral judgement have offered an actual solution based on this assessment that is any way realistic and treats both populations with the basic human right they deserve of self determination. Israel cannot be erased from the map as most Palestinians want without committing an actual genocide. Neither Israelis or Palestinians want to live in a single unified state. So what is your solution? What does labeling this an apartheid or colonial state and saying your solution is to end it actually solve? The only thing it does is perpetuate the narrative that actually keeps Palestinians from having a state and living in peace, which is coincidentally quite convenient to a lot of Arab states in the region who can brush under the proverbial carpet the horrors in their own backyards, just look at Syria and Yemen, the number of deaths is in the order of 30x more than Gaza and 10’s of millions of civilians have been displaced, and where is the outrage about these horrific wars?
Just because you don’t have a solution that doesn’t disqualify you from pointing out the problem. I can tell you that the Titanic is sinking without knowing how to get the passengers to safety. In fact the only people that have a solution are on the Californian, with their radio off, so they don’t know there is a problem (which the radio operators of the Titanic are desperately trying to communicate to them).
I think you may be a bit quick to dismiss the very real human tragedy which is being imposed onto Palestinians at this moment, and for the last 75 years. They are occupied, and being ethnically cleansed from their indigenous lands. I may not have a solution for how to stop that, but perhaps someone in the Israeli government does, or even in the USA government. But just like the radio operators on the Californians, they are unwilling to turn their radio on.
I also think it is a bit unfair of you to cite a theoretical genocide of Israelis while there is potentially a very real genocide (or at the very least a very real ethnic cleansing campaign) of Palestinians. One group of people is already suffering, perhaps we should priorities that over the theoretical one. The Titanic is sinking, lets worry about the passengers now and the theoretical drop in the White Star Line’s stock price tomorrow.
Finally I’m unconvinced by your narrative that Israel and Palestine should be viewed separately for a fair judgement of colonialism and apartheid. This is the exact same excuse South Africa used to try to get away with apartheid (see Bantustan). But also, notably, this is not how the Israeli government them selves views it, many of whom claim an Israel from the river to the sea, that is they see the occupied territories (including East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights) as an integral part of Israel, while Palestinians remain unrecognized (effectively stateless). In the eyes of the Israeli government, Palestine is not even a bantustan.
Sounds great, but I don't think Israel suffered a net PR loss in the last few months.
It all depends on your priors. If you think of Israel as a country, you could totally get behind a tit-for-tat, heavy-handed retaliation and forgive them for pretending it's "self defence".
If you think of it as a 50+ year-old ongoing invasion/genocide, then you'd feel differently.
What’s not measured is how strongly people under the age of 45 feel about Israel. I know my social group went from abstract Palestinian support to extreme Palestinian support as they’ve been radicalized by Israel’s actions since Oct 7th.
> If you think of Israel as a country, you could totally get behind a tit-for-tat, heavy-handed retaliation and forgive them for pretending it's "self defence".
I view it as a country and believe it has a right to take military action to get back its hostages. I also view it as euphemistic to describe its actions in Gaza as"heavy-handed retaliation". If it was any other country, there wouldn't be as much cowardice when it came to describing its actions as brutal and savage. We rightly villify Russia for doing less in Ukraine.
