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Howard Lovy

@Howard_Lovy

16 Nov 19

This idea that the Palestinians are the only indigenous people of Israel is ridiculous. The land of Israel has been central to Judaism since the beginning, and through the long exile. Most of the Palestinians are descendents of later colonizers and conquerors.

Arguing history, though, is a sure way to repeat it and never move forward. But there needs to be an understanding that Zionism was never a colonial project. Jews were never powerful enough in the diaspora to colonize anything. Zionism was, and is, a movement to come home.

Palestinian nationalism, indeed any thought of nationhood, was born as a reaction to Zionism. It did not exist before Israel's creation. It was, at its roots, an anti-Semitic movement to deny Jewish connection to our land.

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Howard Lovy

@Howard_Lovy

14 Nov 19

@RJC

Between the Jewish white nationalists of the @RJC and anti-Zionists of @jvplive, there are just enough Jewish apologists for anti-Semites to make it appear that we are complicit in our own persecution. They may be outliers, but they appear to be more numerous in the online world.

@RJC

@RJC @jvplive Because, in the end, it is always the Jews, themselves, who are blamed for anti-Semitism. If only they weren't communists, if only they weren't white supremacists, if only they didn't support Israel, if only they didn't think they were white ... etc.

@RJC

@RJC @jvplive Anti-Semites love tokens like Trump-supporting Jews or anti-Israel Jews as examples of "good Jews." But in the post-mortem of persecution, the outliers are held up as the reason behind the pogroms. If you don't believe me, look at how Poland now blames the Jews for the Holocaust.

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Howard Lovy

@Howard_Lovy

14 Oct 19

@ZOA_National

When the white supremacists or Islamists come for the Jews, they will not separate us into "woke" and Zionist camps. They will not ask for our voting records. They will not separate @ZOA_National from @jvplive. They will not care who disrupted a speech on a college campus.

@ZOA_National

@ZOA_National @jvplive They will not care if you banned the Star of David at the Dyke March, or if you're a member of @IfNotNowOrg who hounded your fellow Jews with "apartheid" taunts. They won't care if you're a Trump supporter or anti-occupation activist. They will come equally for all Jews.

@ZOA_National

@ZOA_National @jvplive @IfNotNowOrg Right-wing Jews who feel safe because Trump supports Israel and has Jewish grandkids are no more protected than left-wing anti-Zionist Jews who protest the occupation. Neither the armed white supremacist nor the Islamist at the synagogue door care about our internal divisions.

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Howard Lovy

@Howard_Lovy

20 Sep 19

I'll do occasional history of #Zionism tweets to set the record straight. First, Zionism was never a monolith. Uganda was briefly considered as the site for a Jewish state. But, in the end, most agreed that joining our existing brethren who had never left Eretz Yisrael was best.

#Zionism was never a colonial plan. European Jews had no power to "colonize" anywhere. We had prayed for our return to Jerusalem every day for 2,000 years. Zionism was seen as a return home. Religious Jews wanted to wait for God to make it happen. Secular Jews were less patient.

Meanwhile, in the region that was once Israel before the exile, Jews and southern Syrian Arabs (they would not have recognized the term “Palestinians”) lived under the rule an ailing Ottoman Empire. After WWI, the British took it over and administered it as Mandate Palestine.

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Howard Lovy

@Howard_Lovy

22 Jul 19

Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (#BDS) has zero economic impact on Israel. Israel's doing just fine. What it does, is target Jews on campus and Jewish businesses with harassment, vandalism, and worse. The only thing BDS does is give "legitimate" cover to anti-Jewish campaigns.

But let me ask this: if #BDS advocates can refrain from anti-Semitic attacks, tell me what the end game of BDS is? What would have to happen for a boycott to end? A withdrawal to pre-'67 borders? An end to Israel? Only #BDS advocates contribute to this thread please. I'm curious.

When I was in college in the '80s, I participated in anti-apartheid rallies. Because, you know, there really was apartheid in S. Africa. The end game to sanctions was an end to apartheid. It worked. Seeing as there is no actual apartheid in Israel, what is the #BDS end game?

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Howard Lovy

@Howard_Lovy

10 Apr 19

Not surprised at #IsraelElections results. The Israeli left died in 2000, when Ehud Barak offered Palestinians their own state and they responded with the 2nd Intifada and another generation of bloodshed. That's when I walked away from covering the Mideast for almost 20 years.

@JTAnews

I was among the Oslo hopefuls, who thought peace in our time was upon us. I was managing editor @JTAnews in 2000, so had a front-row seat, directing coverage during Camp David, when Arafat chose violence rather than a state. Afterward, my solution was to stop caring for decades.

Many factors contributed to breakdown of talks in 2000. Some blame Ariel Sharon, and his visit to the Temple Mount, as the cause. But that was just the final result of a long-simmering unwillingness by many sides, but especially Palestinian leaders, to make sacrifices for peace.

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