Sure, that’s how I took it.

I think it’s a statement whose truth is basically impossible to prove; the minimum I’d be prepared to accept would be stated policy – which, in this case, we certainly don’t have. A government doesn’t actually think anything; it’s not a person. Its positions as an entity are determined by what it says officially. Lieberman may well believe the statement you made; if you have a quote of Bibi saying it, then I’d believe he thinks it too (presumably he hasn’t said it while in office, however). But the individual beliefs of politicians aren’t the same as the government (it’s not like Cameron is going to legislate every political view he holds). It is, nevertheless, very disturbing to have people with these beliefs in government in the first place.

Semantics? Maybe. But semantic minefields are perhaps best avoided when we’re dealing with an issue as charged as this.

The Israeli cabinet contains 39 people. This is not a large number. And they are all self-selected; they wouldn’t be in the government if they didn’t basically agree with the government’s policies.

As above, this is an oversimplification of how politics works; certainly there’s disagreement in the ranks of the current British government. There are racist reasons to support current Israeli policy, but there are non-racist ones too; I don’t think that the security argument is a good one or a humane one, but I don’t think it’s absolutely intellectually dishonest, or that holding it must be a mask for complete disregard for non-Israelis. I would imagine that plenty of the Israeli cabinet hold those views; certainly most of them would make those arguments, and we can’t know what they really believe in their hearts of hearts.

I didn’t say all Jews think like that, and I don’t believe it to be the case (certainly none of my Jewish friends think like that). If any Zionist hardliners want to pretend that that’s what I said, it’s a classic case of intellectual dishonesty from them.

But if your critiques of the Israeli government make accusations that look a lot like classic anti-semitic slurs, you are providing them with an open goal. Especially if the accusation you’re making isn’t easily supported (if it is, then my objection basically disappears). If, without solid evidence, a group of Jews are accused of secretly manipulating history to their own ends, not valuing the life of anyone who wasn’t a Jew, killing children and stealing their organs, or just basically being plain evil, the accusations of anti-semitism aren’t remotely surprising. People who are subject to a certain type of racism are sensitive to things that look like it. If you want to shut off that line of criticism (well, OK, someone like Melanie Phillips will make it anyway, but there are some defenders of Israel who can argue in good faith), then a careful choice of words is advisible.

I don’t think they would do it either.

Formally, you’re correct. However, it’s often possible to get a fairly accurate idea about how people think from their deeds and words.

What level of evidence would you accept as proof? If I produced a quote from Israel’s head of government agreeing with what I said, would that be sufficient to persuade you that I’m right on this?

and also, improbably, attributes a single mindset to a large group of people.

The Israeli cabinet contains 39 people. This is not a large number. And they are all self-selected; they wouldn’t be in the government if they didn’t basically agree with the government’s policies.

The truth is that there are some very nasty people, with very nasty views, in the Israeli government.

It ia also, again, a classic racist statement about how Jews view the world

I didn’t say all Jews think like that, and I don’t believe it to be the case (certainly none of my Jewish friends think like that). If any Zionist hardliners want to pretend that that’s what I said, it’s a classic case of intellectual dishonesty from them.

But maybe my ideas need starting more clearly. I feel a blog post coming on…

Did you know that Israel has in the past campaigned to reduce the civil rights of non-Israeli Jews? In the 1990s they asked Germany not to give Jews from the former Soviet Union the right to live in Germany, because more of them wanted to live their than Israel.

The hardline Zionists currently running Israel have a name for Jews who don’t support their hardline policies. That name is “self-hating Jew”.

I’m a rightist based on contributions I’ve made to this thread?

“Israel granted a general amnesty to Lehi members on 14 February 1949. In 1980 the group was honored by the institution of the Lehi ribbon, a military decoration awarded ‘for military service towards the establishment of the State of Israel’. Future Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir was among its leaders.”

Avraham Stern initiated contact with Nazi authorities in December 1940, “in order to enlist their aid in establishing the Jewish state in Palestine open to Jewish refugees from Nazism. He proposed to recruit some 40,000 Jews from occupied Europe with the intention of invading Palestine to oust the British. The Nazis did not take this proposal seriously, however, and nothing was to come of it.”

An article titled “Terror” in He Khazit (The Front, a Lehi underground newspaper) argued as follows: Neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can disqualify terrorism as a means of combat.

Read the work of Zeev Sternell, historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem,
Google if you want, or you don’t want to buy his book. This socialist zionist was attacked by a pipe bomb by a right wing extemist. A Florida born religious settler Jew ,
At the end of 1992, there were six hundred mosques in Gaza. Thanks to Israel’s Mossad, the Islamists were allowed to reinforce their presence in the occupied territories. Meanwhile, the members of Fatah and the Palestinian Left were subjected to the most brutal form of repression.
The Hamas had built its strength through its various acts of sabotage of the peace process, in a way which was compatible with the interests of the Israeli government. In turn, the latter sought in a number of ways, to prevent the application of the Oslo accords. In other words, Hamas was fulfilling the functions for which it was originally created: to prevent the creation of a Palestinian State. And in this regard, Hamas and Ariel Sharon, see eye to eye; they are exactly on the same wave length.
Hamas it would not have been the organisation it is without the help and support of MOSSAD. So in a way it did set up a minor oraganisation into major one by allowing it to be resourced and more imnportantly getting rid of the leftist palestinian opposition.
The trouble is with rightist s like your self is that you never look at the history of far right Islamists. They were created and backed by the right in the eighties as buffers against communism. They are now coming back to haunt us and those decisions in the eighties.

I fear you you are too inclined to take sides, and so perhaps missed my point.

Hence you imagined my pointing out that Israel is a democracy was me casting Israel as goodies, when in fact I was emphasising that unlike the USSR, who were a hostile threat to the west and couldn’t be talked to, Israel are not hotile to the west and should thus be talked to.

But then perhaps that’s why I should go back to my not engaging about the middele east. Both sides of that war are abhorrent, innefective, and murderous. And yet not taking sides is all too often pounced upon by those who think in simplistic and indignant terms.

In truth I don’t much care about the Middle East. It is a long way away and there is nothing I can do to change the mentality of populations who elect murderers on both sides.

Let us not forget that it was Israel, which in fact created Hamas. According to Zeev Sternell, historian at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, “Israel thought that it was a smart ploy to push the Islamists against the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO)”. Ahmed Yassin, the spiritual leader of the Islamist movement in Palestine, returning from Cairo in the seventies, established an Islamic charity association. Prime Minister Golda Meir, saw this as a an opportunity to counterbalance the rise of Arafat’s Fatah movement. According to the Israeli weekly Koteret Rashit (October 1987), “The Islamic associations as well as the university had been supported and encouraged by the Israeli military authority” in charge of the (civilian) administration of the West Bank and Gaza. “They [the Islamic associations and the university] were authorized to receive money payments from abroad.” The Islamists set up orphanages and health clinics, as well as a network of schools, workshops which created employment for women as well as system of financial aid to the poor. And in 1978, they created an “Islamic University” in Gaza. “The military authority was convinced that these activities would weaken both the PLO and the leftist organizations in Gaza.”

An airport destroyed by the Israelis when Fatah was in control of Gaza,so let’s not have this pretence that missiles fired by Hamas (they’ve stopped firing them, try to stop them being fired, and during all the time they’ve been fired only three Israelis have been killed by them, more slightworryism than terrorism) are what causes Israeli intransigence.

The reality is, however, that Israel has crossed so many humanitarian Rubicons that it is no longer paranoid fantasy to suppose that if push came to shove it wouldn’t cross the ones I and others here have been speculating about…

Is the position that they’re all incredibly black-hearted really credible? I don’t think diplomatic service is a career path that particularly attracts sociopaths.

This however I do know. Every single member of the Jewish diaspora who lives in western Europe or America is a Jew who’s chosen not to live in Israel. So why should an Israeli government, particularly one which relies for its electoral support upon Jews of eastern European and middle Eastern origin – who, I believe, now account for a solid majority of the Israeli electorate – feel any loyalty towards the western diaspora?

There’s a difference between lack of loyalty and indifference to indiscriminate mass murder. Part of the rationale for Israel existing is as a safe haven for all Jews; I’d suggest that antagonising the diaspora to the extent of setting off a dirty bomb under their feet is something that not would pass through the Israeli cabinet without so much as a murmur of dissent.

This however I do know. Every single member of the Jewish diaspora who lives in western Europe or America is a Jew who’s chosen not to live in Israel. So why should an Israeli government, particularly one which relies for its electoral support upon Jews of eastern European and middle Eastern origin – who, I believe, now account for a solid majority of the Israeli electorate – feel any loyalty towards the western diaspora?

First of all, let me set out my stand. I think the blockade, and the occupation, are absolutely and monstrously unacceptable. They need to end, now. I don’t think Netanyahu gives a shit about the peace process; I don’t think the current Israeli government are acting in good faith. And while I don’t think the troops went to the flotilla expressedly to kill people (if so, why the stun-gun injuries?), it barely matters. The enforcement of as inhumane a policy as the blockade meant that this was always going to happen at some point. I quite like the airlift idea, for all that it presumably has serious practical difficulties – I think the Israeli government’s hand needs to be forced. That is all criticism of Israel, and I am making it, not branding it anti-semitic.

That said, once again I see a thread cease to criticise Israel on the known facts, and run away into supposition and fantasy, all painting a picture of Israel, or at least the Israeli government, as a creature of uniform, total malice. Heaven knows they’ve committed enough real misdeeds that we needn’t reach for hypothetical or imaginary ones.

See what we have:

1: “the MOSSAD set up HAMAS” This has the trappings of a conspiracy theory. It must be pointed out that the Jews being behind the scenes controlling everything for their own malign ends is a classic anti-semitic charge. I’m not making an accusation of actual conscious anti-semitism, and I don’t believe it is present. But if you were to loudly and repeatedly accuse a group of women of being emotionally unstable, or a group of blacks of being lazy, or a group of gay men of being sexually promiscious, then the charge of sexism, racism or homophobia would not be far behind; surely people see that? That’s why defenders of Israel see anti-semitism in the other camp – it’s not simply dishonesty. If you want to avoid the charge, you need to check that your words don’t fall into anti-semitic patterns.

2: “I don’t think Israel would think twice about shooting down such planes.” They’ve no history of doing something as blatant as that, at least during peacetime, and plenty of established history suggests they would pursue other approaches (diplomacy, maybe sabotage) to attempt to ensure the planes never got off the ground. Stick to the established facts.

3: “…and if they do not yet have NBC weapons inside Israeli embassies in Western capitals then Mossad probably has the capacity to install them at short notice.” This is James Bond-style fantasy for which there is no evidence. It also implies that Israeli diplomatic staff can be replied upon to be so depraved that they’d happily be accessory to mass murder, including mass murder of large parts of the Jewish diaspora.

4: “The Israeli government regards people who aren’t Israeli Jews as not counting morally and views them in a purely instrumental sense.” This isn’t provable unless you’re telepathic, and also, improbably, attributes a single mindset to a large group of people. It ia also, again, a classic racist statement about how Jews view the world; see point 1. To re-iterate, my point is not that you are actually anti-semitic, and I don’t think you are, but you are using language that sets people’s anti-semitism alarms off, and that you need to be very, very careful in doing that.