Omri Casspi’s Thoughts on the Israel-Palestine Conflict

It have been so since the time of David .

Why can’t both palestinians and Israelian people accept they are at fault, and start living together. Habeeba, I totally agree

“People don’t realize there are certain cities in southern Israel that have been under attack for the last 12 years” and he apparently doesn’t realize that the Palistanians have had their land taken from them and terrorized by an entire state that is backed by US

I don’t know much about this topic…anyone got a good, unbiased link where I can educate myself?

Wow, Slam what’s with the propaganda? Here we have one of the densest populated areas in the world, hemmed in physically by a wall, economically by an embargo, working your menial jobs for less pay, all while suffering regular air strikes. No where else in the world could this happen. No other people could dream of getting away with this. And the little bit of land they have is still being encroached on by Israel. The death toll doesn’t even begin to compare. For all the threat they pose Palestinian rockets might as well be pea shooters, particularly when compared to the IDF, one of the most advanced military forces in the world. Afford them the same rights that most human beings take for granted and you’ll start to see change, but if you just reduce it to “they’re crazy people”, well you don’t have a chance. Israel is easily the most belligerent nation on the planet, since they snuck into those houses in the middle of the night armed to the teeth 60 years ago. Like the people as individuals but it stops there. Acting like they have the right because of the evil that they endured, dam it they ought to know better. I’m not muslim, Palestinian or by any means an anti-semite, but my heart goes out to the Palestinians. I wish they had someone to help them.

Something a Zionist would say. Funny how South Africa which was helped by Israel during apartheid & been Israel’s friend turned its back on Israel because it said Israel was commiting discrimination. Furthermore Einstein turned down presidency for Israel because he foresaw this.

Saddest thing still is that the children of both countries are being hurt by this, either with their lives(mostly Palestinian kids) or their innocence. That’s the worst thing about it.

Agreed.
Don’t know what is shown to you in the States and other parts of the world, but here in Europe we are fed total bull which resolves around not the reasons of conflicts involving jews, but one sided results and consequences.
I’m not anti semitic, the jews have suffered a lot and random people are not at fault by any means. but there’s a reason there’s always been tension involving jews beginning with World War I and nowadays. The history is twisted.

“We all wish for peace, but it’s hard to have peace with people who really hate you. They don’t want you to live. They’d rather kill their kids and kill you, too. They’re crazy people.”

Branding an entire people as hateful, murderous, filicidal and crazy. Nothing racist about that!

And the same can be said vice versa, if people would read up you can simply jump to the conclusion that Israel isn’t exactly clean either…

I guess you didn’t read about the part of this conflict’s history when it started when Palestinian land was violently taken by Western-backed European Jews who decided their holy book entitled to land that was already occupied. Both sides have fought mercilessly. As a person of color, I tend to sympathize a bit more with Palestinians. From Africa to Asia to the Americas, seems as though the West will always justify why they should be allowed to kill for land and natural resources that don’t belong to them. I pray for the Palestinians, who have suffered far more than Israelis ever have in this conflict.

As a Jewish American with strong Israeli ties, i am extremely offended by this article and demand that it be clarified or taken down. This is not reflective of Casspi’s views about the Israeli-Paleastinian conflict at all. This is how he feels about Hamas, a political group that is considered a terrorist group by the United States and Israel. Casspi’s quotes are used completely out of context and are used in a way to make it appear that he feels all Palestinians are included in his statement. The headline is extremely deceptive and I personally think that in the same way that the New York Times doesn’t report on President Obama’s basketball ability, Slam Magazine should not report on foreign affairs.

I thought SLAM was a basketball publication, not a Zionist propaganda outlet. This really shameful, if you must dabble in the politics in the region, why not focus on some of the peace, basketball related activities such as hoop camps where Palestinian and Israeli kids can get together and learn about each other? Instead SLAM chooses to focus on the Israeli sob story “We’re so terrified of those crazy Palestinians!!” Like really guys? You’re completely ignoring the Palestinian side of the story, where hundreds of them have been killed, thousands made homeless, and even after this ceasefire, Israel is still shooting Palestinians at the border. You’re in line with the most bias media line in the world. Anderson Cooper, BBC, even Cristiano Ronaldo have been outspoken supporters of the Palestinians in these times. If you can’t do anything but spread propaganda, stick to posting articles about basketball.

Fort the most part excellent comments here reproaching Casspi for his incredibly offensive drivel. I’m glad so many Slam readers have actually learned abut this complex issue.

whack article SLAM bias one sided, stick to basketball

It’s not even the Jewish faith, it’s Zionism. I got no beef with Jewish folk they’re cool. My issue lies elsewhere and sadly people generalize and think its Jewish people but I get what you mean.

While I am repulsed by this article, iIn any case, what this does show is that SLAM actually has a more intelligent, well read, and open-minded audience than a lot of websites…and than their own writers. This piece is so unapologetically biased it’s not even funny. Stick to what you know or pass the mic. Regardless, you obviously know very little about your own readers.

Well then I guess the Palestinians should have agreed to the UN’s initial partition plan instead of asking their Arab League buddies to invade the territory of Palestine and drive the Jews out in 1948. The funny thing is, if they were offered the same deal as in 1948, everyone in Palestine except Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al-Ansar etc. would take it in an instant. Both sides have blood on their hands.

People calm down this article isn’t about Israeli-Palestinian beef it’s about HAMAS the organization. And they are crazy, they’re the ones firing the rockets but the Palestinian civilians are the ones getting killed back. Slam you need to specify what he’s really saying unless you’re really about this TMZ sh*t.

^ Typical Zionist nonsense. How can the colonizer and colonized ever have equal blood on their hands? Oh that’s right, they don’t.
First of all, what claim did white European Jews have to ARAB land in the first place? Oh, that’s right–none. And it was the European settlers who drove the PALESTINIANS out by terrorism, via their racist paramilitary gangs. But I know white racists (many of them liberals) and their Zionist friends like to twist things around, and make it look like the colonizers are oppressors. “Drive the Jews out”? lmao!
Second of all, check your history. The UN didn’t create the nation of Israel–the British did. The Balfour Declaration of 1926 is what essentially set the Zionist state in motion. The British, who were the original invaders of Palestine, thought that the creation of a white European (Jewish) state in the Middle East could help keep those uppity natives in check and protect their colonial interests, in particular the Suez Canal.
If this sounds familiar, it’s because the British employed this tactic all over the world, from the United States/Canada to South Africa and Zimbabwe–they’re all white colonial settlements.
Also, the UN at that time was very much an institution of European and US
imperialism (and still is)–why else would they invade Korea a few years
later?
Israel is to Palestine as the racist minority government of Rhodesia was to Zimbabwe, or the apartheid government was to South Africa: An illegitimate white colonial settlement. And by the way, over 100 Palestinians were killed in the span of 7 days, roughly a third of them children. Half the population of Gaza consists of young people–i.e. youths. Something like 3 Israelis died from rocket attacks. But okay, I guess “Both sides have blood on their hands.”

‘It’s a tough situation. You’re dealing with a terrorist organization that doesn’t really care about its own people.”

He’s dead on but he should be talking about the Zionists controlling Israel. What they’re doing to the Palestinians is wrong just EXACTLY like it was wrong for the Nazis to do it to the Jews, Gypsies and others.

you jacked their land jackass.

^ Sorry for the double post. Please minimize this comment and just read the other one, where the format isn’t all messed up.

Those are really nice words there, but the fact is, by Islamic, you
really mean Arab, as many anti-Zionist/anti-imperialist leaders of the
Arab world were and are secular. So, given this distinction, how in the
hell can an occupied peoples (the Arabs) “invade” the actual invaders of Palestine? Where do you get that logic?
So, despite the fact that
Euro-Jewish paramilitary groups, (i.e. terrorists) like the Haganah and
the Stern gang, who for years prior to 1948 were driving Palestinians
from their homes and assassinating Arab (and even European) leaders,
it’s ISRAEL that’s defending itself? Really?
I see what you’re doing
by mentioning Iran, but that type of nonsense isn’t gonna fly here. Iran
has the largest population of Jews in the Middle East (outside of
Israel), and they all enjoy full religious freedom.
Zionism does NOT equal Jewishness. Actually, quite the opposite. In fact, this is what Theodore Herzl had to say:
“It
is essential that the sufferings of Jews… become worse… this
will assist in realization of our plans… I have an excellent idea. .
I shall induce anti-Semites to liquidate Jewish wealth… The
anti-Semites will assist us thereby in that they will strengthen the
persecution and oppression of Jews. The anti-Semites shall be our best
friends.” — from Herzl’s own Diary (Part I, pp. 16). For those who don’t
know, Theodore Herzl is the father of political Zionism! End of story.

ARAB land, huh? How, pray tell, did that land become Arab in the first place? Oh, that’s right – conquest. Pretty much every corner of land in that place has been conquered and re-conquered since the beginning of time.

The Brits were the original invaders of Palestine? Guess things like the Ottoman Empire, the Ummayad Caliphate or hell even Alexander the Great or the Roman Empire mean absolutely nothing to you. I guess this is American-style history when everything that happened before roughly the 1700s never really happened. Meanwhile the Jews were persecuted throughout the world, and were denied a homeland, because apparently some great-great-great-great-grandfathers of theirs decided to kill Jesus. Just look at the origin of the term “ghetto” for one, it was first used in Venice in the 1500s. How’s THAT for fairness?

Yes, both sides have blood on their hands ever since both Zionism and Palestinian Arab Nationalism came to be. And before that. Both aimed to create political structures which had never before existed in Palestine. The Zionists were just better at it, that’s all.

We really need to delineate the heart of this issue–and that is white supremacy, also known as racism. Zionism is nothing but white supremacy masquerading as Jewish nationalism. There were many Arab Jews in Palestine prior to their conquest by European Jews. The same methods used by white settlers to usurp the lands of America, Canada, Australia, South America, and swaths of land in Africa (particularly South Africa and Zimbabwe), were used to usurp the Arab peoples of Palestine. People don’t like to hear about it because this is exactly how the United States became a nation–but this is exactly what’s happening right now in Israel.
In fact, in November 1975 the UN General Assembly passed Resolution 3379 that stated, clearly: “Zionism is a form of racism and racial discrimination.”
We need look no further than the actual words of Zionist leaders. They don’t hide their racism–they’re proud of it. Here are some actual quotes:
—
“When we have settled the land, all the Arabs will be able to do about it will be to scurry around like drugged cockroaches in a bottle.”
AND
“We declare openly that the Arabs have no right to settle on even one centimeter of Eretz Israel… Force is all they do or ever will understand. We shall use the ultimate force until the Palestinians come crawling to us on all fours.” – Raphael Eitan, Chief of Staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, New York Times, 14 April 1983.
—
“Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist… There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.” Moshe Dayan, address to the Technion, Haifa, reported in Haaretz, April 4, 1969.
—
“It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands.” – Yoram Bar Porath, Yediot Aahronot, of 14 July 1972.
—
And once more, Theodore Herzl, the modern founder of Zionism, once said:
“It is essential that the sufferings of Jews… become worse… this will assist in realization of our plans… I have an excellent idea… I shall induce anti-semites to liquidate Jewish wealth… The anti-semites will assist us thereby in that they will strengthen the persecution and oppression of Jews. The anti-semites shall be our best friends.” (from his own diary).
—
And last but not least, with respect to Zionist claims that Palestine should belong to white racist European Jews because of biblical history, when the Jews once ruled Israel… Well, turns out Palestine was chosen because it was easier to conquer (given that the Brits had invaded it already) and it served British imperial interests quite well that way. Theodore Herzl (and the British) proposed many other places for the creation of a Zionist state before they settled on Palestine–among them, places as far away as Africa (Uganda and Sudan) and South America. So that pretty much dispels that myth.
One thing that bothers me, though, is the hypocrisy of Americans and Australians criticizing Israel while their own indigenous populations are treated like sh!t and have had their lands/nations completely stolen from them. There is literally no difference between their situations and that of the Palestinians. I like that people are concerned about Israel/Palestine but the best way to help is to take action where you are–i.e. support indigenous peoples resistance. Even if it’s as little as acknowledging their oppression, because most people won’t even do that right now.