Yeah, another shocker: just ignore whatever you disagree with. In line with the rest of your juvenile ramblings.

Yeah, another shocker: just ignore whatever you disagree with. In line with the rest of your juvenile ramblings. — Mikie

Thank you for being nice enough to at least acknowledge that I'm consistent with my juvenile ramblings, because I am very capable of rambling in other ways.

They can exit the region to their mansions and hotel rooms in Qatar or whatnot, and try to hide wherever, but vacate the place. — schopenhauer1

Obviously the vast majority of Hamas have basically been born and lived all their lives in Gaza without ever being anywhere else.

So this is where there are false equivalencies in terms of means and ends- in this case more ends. Israel wanted a nation but they were willing to live peacefully with an Arab neighbor, something where they could have some political autonomy but yet coexist with an Arab autonomous state as well. — schopenhauer1

OK, I was talking about the Jews resisting British control and fighting the British. The Irgun fought the British, you know. You cannot simply start the conflict when the British have already left.

And furthermore, colonial settlers typically do not get a warm welcome. Especially when their desire is to establish their own country for themselves. And this is one of the reasons why this conflict is so unsolvable: There are no Palestinian Jews anymore, there are Israeli Jews. And furthermore, Israel as a homeland for the jews isn't interested in creating a common Israeli identity for Jews, Christians and Muslims. And on the other side the Palestinian identity has emerged from the Nakba, from the struggle against Israel, hence there isn't any interest on their sides to become Israelis either (thanks to the Apartheid system). I would argue that a lot of the present Palestinian identity is linked to the conflict itself. Hardly something that will ease relations even if there was peace one day. (Just think about Irish-British relations even today)

As Golda Meir in an interview (from 1970) clearly states, she was prior to the creation Israel a Palestinian as she moved to Palestine in 1921 from the US (she was born in Ukraine).



Some commentators triumphantly note that there was no independent Palestine ever. Yet in the last 75 years, there certainly has emerged Palestinians with a Palestinian identity from just Arabs that were living in Palestine.

This seems very cynical to not see that Hamas has been trying to screw up a peace deal from day 1. — schopenhauer1

I think this has been seen by all commentators here. As I restarted this thread three months ago (Page 83, btw.) I did state quite early in this conflict the following like:

Of course I would say that the leadership of Hamas thinks far more like Bibi Netanyahu. That with talk you won't achieve peace. Appeasement is failure. Hence the stand of Hamas that Israel shouldn't exist. — ssu

and...

Yes, I think there is an agreement that one motivation for Hamas to do this was the warming or Saudi-Israeli ties. If Saudi-Arabia would recognize Israel, there wouldn't be any major players vouching for the Palestinians. — ssu

So, this does make me question the motives of the posters here, to be fair. So the Jews experienced a Holocaust in Europe with many displaced persons, many times the Jews going back were faced with continued hostilities from populations, etc. But don't worry, if they try to make a state of it in Israel, the same Europeans will call foul and say, "You better not do that either, or we will root for the Palestinians to push you into the sea there as well!". — schopenhauer1

I don't think that people question the existence or the right for the existence of Israel. Hence I agree with @Benkei: a bit of a strawman. But if the Jewish had backing for an Israeli state from the Balfour declaration to the Holocaust and the successful Zionist movement, you do have also a lot to backing to the Palestinian aspirations here.

Just compare Palestinians to the another Middle-Eastern people without their own country: the Kurds.

Firstly, Kurds are Muslims inside Muslim states.

Kurds are predominantly Sunni Muslims, although some Kurds are of other religions. Yet this makes the Kurdish conflict and internal matter for Islam. Hence the conflict cannot be portrayed as defense of the Ummah and calls aren't made for a Jihad against the infidels. And the Kurds have revolted for a very long time: they have revolted against the Safavid Empire (Iran) and later the Ottomans. In the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Jewish settlers mainly came for Europe and thus are of different religion, even if Palestinian Jews have existed. Hence you have Iran meddling in this conflict, even if it hasn't got otherwise any border with Israel and Iranians aren't Arabs or Sunni Muslims either.

Secondly, Kurds are not Arabs

Pan-Arabism matters. And it is obvious that Palestinians are Arabs. This gives another reason why the plight of the Palestinians does matter to the Arab street.

Thirdly, Palestinians are on their own as no Muslim state claims the land of Palestine

Starting from the 1970 Black September King Hussein pushed the PLO out of Jordania (and into Lebanon). Then King Hussein decreed that Palestinians in the West Bank were not Jordanians. This means that only the Golan Heights are claimed by a neighboring state of Israel. Yet in the case of the Kurds, Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria have no intention of giving the Kurds an area of their own. Only Iraq is still going with the Kurdish autonomy (Syria only because of the civil war are there pockets of Kurdish control), but even there in Iraq dark clouds are gathering.

Fourthly, the land gained by war by Israel in 1967 gives Palestinians them a legal reason

Territorial annexations by force aren't tolerated in a World made of sovereign states. This is something quite universal today and the UN is quite consistent in this. Hence we talk about occupied territories and the maps used everywhere else than in Israel are different from the maps used there. This gives an obvious legal argument for the Palestinians. And as I stated above, with the exception of the Golan Heights, claims to West Bank and Gaza are between Israel and the Palestinians.

As usual, a great documentary from the PBS Frontline (showing that American media can make informative documentaries still). One thing becomes very obvious: just why Hamas was able to breach the "Iron Wall", which had gotten a 1 billion dollar upgrade just last year.

The wall simply was designed to counter individual people or small groups of terrorists trying to infiltrate to Israel. It wasn't designed to handle an organized military operation. And that's basically it. Just like the famous Maginot-line, the real error was in the understanding of how the enemy would fight and attack. This basically comes down to hubris, when you don't anticipate that the enemy, Hamas, would be capable of organizing a large scale military operation. The IDF spokesperson is totally correct that there will be a lot of soul searching in the future.

That a lightly armed security team of one kibbutz could defend and fight off the Hamas insurgents for three hours just show how easy the defense actually would have been. The Hamas tactic obviously was "attack military targets, go on a rampage on the kibbutzes, take hostages and bring back them into Gaza". The high number of Israeli soldiers killed in October 7 also shows how unprepared the IDF are. In truth, soldiers in barracks wasting their time on a holiday aren't a cohesive military force either, but simply individuals. Now only a fraction of IDF soldiers have been killed in Gaza, which shows how out of the blue this came for the IDF.

The documentary also brings in well the fact that those now being kidnapped in Gaza came from a distinct rural area and distinct kibbutzes whereas the larger population of Israel simply had to fear for the rare yet possibly deadly Hamas rocket. If time and interest, worth wile to see.

I don't think that people question the existence or the right for the existence of Israel. Hence I agree with Benkei: a bit of a strawman. But if the Jewish had backing for an Israeli state from the Balfour declaration to the Holocaust and the successful Zionist movement, you do have also a lot to backing to the Palestinian aspirations here. — ssu

I'm addressing an issue that is closer to home to you, actually. No doubt, the issue is thorny with Palestinians and Israelis living together in mutually beneficial societies that identify with their respective cultures without intervening in each other's cultural/political affairs (of course security being a different and trickier matter). Maybe there could even be a confederation of sorts. There are plenty of people that can make plans of all sorts. We all agree on this forum at least that Bibi-ism obviously won't get us closer there. I am actually more on board with Friedman, if I try to assess my own views of the matter. Or at least, I take his general attitude towards the situation, despite what looks like "Ra Ra, everything Israel does must be always right". Rather, my defense is a product of this forum being so un-even-handed against the Israeli side, that it is laughable if it wasn't so apparent. But the thing is, I do think it is a bit odd that countries that were directly involved in the displacement of European Jewry, who were occupied by Germany or became collaborators with them, and who willingly and unwillingly assisted the Nazi cause, would be so callously anti-Israel. As far as optics, it looks like they cannot catch a break from certain countries in Europe/Europeans. As if, now that you decimated and expelled the populations so utterly, and now that they are gone from your presence more or less, the Arabs can finish the job. I am not saying that is what people actually believe, but it sure doesn't look good either. And let us not forget, Israel isn't just about "European Jewry". Because, unlike the nebulous way the "Nakba" happened (some forced, some moved and couldn't come back during an armed conflict, etc.) there were ACTUAL real expulsion of Jews from Arab countries that were there for hundreds, if not thousands of years- prior to any Arab conquest even. Around 850,000 Arab Jewish populations were forced to leave. And UNLIKE many Arab countries that USE the Palestinians, the Israeli population took them in gladly.

The point of Israel was to be one place in the world where you couldn't f*ck with them anymore. I don't blame them, given the circumstances. I do sort of blame European anti-Israeli sentiment in the way that being so forcefully against Israel- and not just in the current Bibi-ism, but throughout its history, seems just more of that same old antisemetic attitudes, just now dressed up and allowable in a different form.

Now, certainly this could be attributed to general "Leftism". And this is where useful idiots come into play. Certainly, I don't see you as a "useful idiot". However, for example, this town hall meeting in Long Beach, California (not shocking I know) comes to mind with the mindlessness that it can take:

https://x.com/yaelbt/status/1737857686933283294?s=20

Territorial annexations by force aren't tolerated in a World made of sovereign states. This is something quite universal today and the UN is quite consistent in this. Hence we talk about occupied territories and the maps used everywhere else than in Israel are different from the maps used there. This gives an obvious legal argument for the Palestinians. And as I stated above, with the exception of the Golan Heights, claims to West Bank and Gaza are between Israel and the Palestinians. — ssu

Right, well this all came about from European colonialism. Being that you are a student of history, did you ever wonder if the borders set by European powers are itself a form of colonialism? Conflict is terrible, but conflict in territories where peoples claim to have claim to have land are not going to be neatly contained because Europe had an idea about their former colonies after WW2.

@ssu Almost Christmas. That's usually the time Israel does something horrible which is then not picked up in western media because they're too busy gorging themselves on a ridiculous amount of food.

That's usually the time Israel does something horrible which is then not picked up in western media because they're too busy gorging themselves on a ridiculous amount of food. — Benkei

Who is gorging themselves? The Jews or the media?

Bibidiot just signalled he wants to "deradicalise" Palestinians. When not talking to a murderous thug that would involve ensuring the material conditions of the average Palestinian improves to the point they are comfortable and secure enough they have no interest in continued violence. In the case of Bibidiot we are probably talking about the Israeli equivalent of an Uighur reeducation camp. If we're lucky.

When you want hostilities to occur you ignore the warning signs and let your enemies attack you so you may appear Just to the world. (In reply to the PBS documentary). — Vaskane

Encouraging intruders is the best way to ensure who your enemy is. At this point there is no ambiguity about the motivations of the enemy, despite the fact that we left the front door unlocked on purpose ... facts are facts

When you want hostilities to occur you ignore the warning signs and let your enemies attack you so you may appear Just to the world. — Vaskane

Correct. It is a sucka play for nabbing baby-raping dimwits

This 18 year old man, Tal Mitnick, has more courage and moral decency than any of you armchair, pro-zionist Einsatzgruppen who have been rationalizing Bibi's latest, on-going campaign of military-industrial mass murder of Palestinian children, women & elderly. Mazol tov, my young brother & comrade, Tal. :fire: :mask:

https://www.democracynow.org/2023/12/27/headlines/israeli_conscientious_objector_sentenced_to_30_days_in_prison

From your referenced site:
"“I am standing today in Tel HaShomer base, and I am refusing to enlist. I believe that slaughter cannot solve slaughter. The criminal attack on Gaza won’t solve the atrocious slaughter that Hamas executed. Violence won’t solve violence. And that is why I refuse.”

"The criminal attack on Gaza won’t solve the atrocious slaughter that Hamas executed." What do you think will?

Occupiers cannot claim self-defense, since when have colonialists been on the moral high ground. The global shift in power from a Unipower to a multipower world is going to be. These two evil powers are on the wrong side of history. The world sees them today for what they are, in the nakedness of their inhumanity. Today, in the here and now, America and Israel are guilty of genocide, and the world is not blind. THE BRICS FOREVER, AND THE END OF COLONIALISM.

:100: :up:

"The criminal attack on Gaza won’t solve the atrocious slaughter that Hamas executed." What do you think will? — tim wood

Maybe a time machine that leads back to 1967 ... or 1948. :mask:

interesting quote a bit further in; Bibi: “Regarding voluntary immigration … This is the direction we are going in.”

Good to know that the diaspora, fleeing the Germans etc. we're all done "voluntarily" by Jews in the past since to be murdered or not is the voluntary choice of the victims.

The man is insane.

:up:

I'm addressing an issue that is closer to home to you, actually. — schopenhauer1

But the thing is, I do think it is a bit odd that countries that were directly involved in the displacement of European Jewry, who were occupied by Germany or became collaborators with them, and who willingly and unwillingly assisted the Nazi cause, would be so callously anti-Israel. — schopenhauer1

???

Well, I'm a Finn, not a German. And my country wasn't directly involved with the displacement of of the European Jewry (as our Jews fought alongside the Germans). And btw the most pro-Palestine people are the Irish. Were the Irish collaborators in the Holocaust? Perhaps it's their memories of the English makes them feel towards the Palestinians more than other Europeans. Other Europeans likely don't know the reasons just why the Irish aren't British, even if they talk the same language.

Right, well this all came about from European colonialism. — schopenhauer1

Indeed it came. As usual, when a large empire falls and new nations or regions are drawn on a map, it will create turmoil. And in the Middle East, that turmoil has continued from the WW1.

Being that you are a student of history, did you ever wonder if the borders set by European powers are itself a form of colonialism? — schopenhauer1

Even if Finland could be said to have been a colony of lets say Russia, this does huge injustice to actual colonies as Europeans do treat other Europeans differently as say Asians or Africans.

I haven't heard about the African colony which the European colonizer not only gave autonomy and accepted it to have it's own currency, but also didn't make the European language (Russian) education in schools mandatory (only some eighty years into the colonization), and kept the existing legal system intact when it annexed the territory. And then the colony itself could create a monopoly in some industrial sector of the European country itself. Hence imperialism is the word to use, not colonialism.

Do notice that there was even in the British Empire quite a difference between dominions and colonies.

The point of Israel was to be one place in the world where you couldn't f*ck with them anymore. — schopenhauer1

Uganda? That was thought too. But again, just transporting people somewhere else usually don't solve anything. Best example was Liberia: the American freed slaves made just then an elite, which later didn't have so warm relations with the "original" Africans.

I do sort of blame European anti-Israeli sentiment in the way that being so forcefully against Israel- and not just in the current Bibi-ism, but throughout its history, seems just more of that same old antisemetic attitudes, just now dressed up and allowable in a different form. — schopenhauer1

There is a campaign away that tries to make critique of the policies of the state of Israel to be anti-semitic hate speech. I think this simply alienates even more people, because naturally and logically it's one thing to be against some policies of a country and another to hate the people. For example, I'm against the aggressive policies of Putin, but I don't hate the Russians. Having met them, they are very nice people, extremely generous and friendly when they have guests. Above all, Russians understand how many problems they have, but they have been ruled and are ruled now with fear. Why would you hate people that are living under a dictatorship? And anyway, I'm against the generalizations to condemn such large groups as people, condemning individuals is another and a more appropriate thing.

I think my country is a good example how the relation with Israel has changed: prior Israel was seen as a similar small nation heroically defending itself from a larger enemy (as Finland had been during the Winter War). I think that changed somewhat when Israel invaded Lebanon, a smaller nation than Israel and especially after the massacres of Shabra and Shatila, that prior image of a small heroic nation changed. Now it was the bully, the stronger dominant nation, not the one that defended itself from a larger power as in 1948 or 1967. Hence the anti-US, anti-Israeli leftist rhetoric started to win the discourse simply based on the facts that the massacres did happen. Yet Finland isn't nowhere near to Ireland in it's views about Israel. And naturally there are those Finnish Christians who think that Israel is the Holy Land and the Jews are a special people.

When you want hostilities to occur you ignore the warning signs and let your enemies attack you so you may appear Just to the world. (In reply to the PBS documentary). — Vaskane

I'm not so sure that this was done by intention as Israelis blame Netanyahu for this. If the IDF would have been ready, it could have stopped the attacks, but Hamas simply got the strategic surprise.

I think in this case using Occams razor gives the best answer: as there never had been such a large coordinated attack initiated by Hamas, the IDF simply hadn't taken into account that a large coordinated attack like this could happen. The whole billion dollar wall wasn't designed in mind of this. Which actually just shows what kind of an open air prison Gaza was. For example, the Wall would be simply a nuisance for conventional army, as an armed force simply could quickly blast it's way through the wall. Just look how different the Russian defensive line is in Ukraine.

Today, in the here and now, America and Israel are guilty of genocide, and the world is not blind. THE BRICS FOREVER, AND THE END OF COLONIALISM. — boagie

Why on Earth praise the BRICs?

You think those Great Powers are different or better, or some kind of champions of human rights and against genocide? Yeah, they surely will condemn things that are in their interest. But it's not some universal value they agree on.

What about what Russia did in Chechnya or now is doing in Ukraine or what China is doing in Uighuria to the Uighurs?

I think it is similar acts, although far more worse in the case of Russia. In the First and Second Chechen wars multiple more Chechens were killed than Palestinians have been killed in the current war in Gaza and there are far fewer Chechens than Palestinians. And the treatment of the Uighurs in China will definately constitute the legal definition of genocide.

So :vomit: for praising such countries like Russia and China.



Why not take the side of simply being against colonialism and for human rights everywhere?

It's the same thing with 9-11, we had all the intelligence and chose to ignore it. In which we got ourselves a free ticket to exploit the middle east for roughly 2 decades. — Vaskane

Yes, I agree.

Yet why it was so successful is the same thing: such a strike had never happened in the US.

I do remember prior to 9/11 how lax the security in the US was on domestic flights: it was a joke. Even on the international flights the security was more lax than for example in France.

Actually the US was talking a lot about Al Qaeda, there had been already attacks made by Al Qaeda at the US. Clinton had already bombed Al Qaeda training sites in Afghanistan. And let's remember that the twin towers had been tried to be demolished already by the same terrorists (some where related to 9/11 attackers, so tiny is this cabal). As they weren't so successful, the terrorists were tried in a normal court, the FBI went looking for them and found some in Pakistan. And they are still in the US prison system.

And yes, it's the strategy of a crisis giving the opportunity for some to push their agenda.

And btw the most pro-Palestine people are the Irish. Were the Irish collaborators in the Holocaust? Perhaps it's their memories of the English makes them feel towards the Palestinians more than other Europeans. — ssu

That is interesting to explore, why one identifies with one group versus another. First off, the Jews were fighting the British as much or perhaps more than any Palestinian, so there would be that solidarity. But also, even claims that Jews are the "colonizers" is questionable, being that all it takes is widening the scope of history to see that it was colonized by many peoples, all of whom recognized it as the ancient Jewish homeland, now defunct to this CONQUERING army or that- Arab/Muslim army included. Ironically, there would be no Arab invasion without the Jewish religion for which Mohammed and his growing religion drew upon for their basis. It's all relative being that identity, land, and heritage is both fixed, personal, and social. Land is also fungible, in my opinion. If "eminent domain" is a thing, whereby governments can literally take your land for public use, and you have no recourse, what of it? I was born into a society, but I didn't agree to that arrangement. It was happenstance I live with that. In other words, everyone will have the cudgel to form their defense of why they deserve this land or that land. The same goes for the British and Irish.

To me there is this weird "fixed" nature of things post-WW2, as if all other conquests, claims, and motives before WW2 were not how it is that we had the claims post-WW2. Holding on to an identity of being wronged leads to the hatreds. It gets stoked by third-parties feeding the cause. You raise a child to learn to be bitter and aggrieved and you keep adding to this, they will generally hold on to that. Not always, but most of the time.

There is a campaign away that tries to make critique of the policies of the state of Israel to be anti-Semitic hate speech. I think this simply alienates even more people, because naturally and logically it's one thing to be against some policies of a country and another to hate the people. For example, I'm against the aggressive policies of Putin, but I don't hate the Russians. Having met them, they are very nice people, extremely generous and friendly when they have guests. Above all, Russians understand how many problems they have, but they have been ruled and are ruled now with fear. Why would you hate people that are living under a dictatorship? And anyway, I'm against the generalizations to condemn such large groups as people, condemning individuals is another and a more appropriate thing. — ssu

I agree with you but I think you missed my point about what happened on the ground in Europe. Many Europeans from various countries, both willingly, and unwillingly helped the Nazi get rid of their Jewish populations (think of the Vichy French or Poland). Just as in America there is generally a sensitivity around slavery, Jim Crow, and the like because of specific events in American history, it makes various people seem that much more bigoted if they seem to ignore these things or don't recognize its severe impact in American history. I would say the same should go in many European nations in regards to how it treated its Jewish populations in the early 20th century. It wasn't that long prior that Jews had rights as equal citizen (really basically since Napoleon and the 1800s). It wasn't long before old hatreds led to more violent and racist notions. The Nazis were the culmination of this. Antisemitism wasn't created wholesale from Hitler. It goes back over a millennium, and took on industrial psychopathic proportions rather than hodgepodge pogroms or lower-level decrees of expulsion and the like. So I was just saying it looks bad to finding no sympathy with a people, that were expelled amidst your own lands, to then want to deny them even in their aspirations for their own land in what at least, historically and ancestrally, is recognized as their origin... yes, even acknowledging the Palestinian rights as well.

Uganda? That was thought too. But again, just transporting people somewhere else usually don't solve anything. Best example was Liberia: the American freed slaves made just then an elite, which later didn't have so warm relations with the "original" Africans. — ssu

Yes, this is indeed an interesting case, and I actually think this should be studied more as an interesting parallel of a people whose origin is from that general "region" (not specifically but mainly Western Africa), but are not "of" that particular land anymore. That just shows you that all of this has aspects of identity, regionality, and self-determination mixed in that isn't straightforward. The slaves to America were a COMBINATION of European colonialism AND opportunism of some tribes to get rid of their neighboring tribes and build wealth doing so. Is there any "justice" to Liberian ex-slaves claims to "return" to that general region? I'd say yes there is. It is just as justified as any other reason to have a state. You see, I don't think it's all about "who is where at this snapshot of time". What snapshot? Before the slaves were sent against their will, those people deserve a state, but the returning slaves to the continent of their origin, don't get an opportunity to form a state? Because they were too long separated? Again, that is just YOUR idea of how a state should be so self-determined. Why is THAT the one that is "morally justified", and not the idea that ex-slaves can form a state as well? Especially knowing the fact that those who were sent into slavery were done so against their will with collaborators of European and native African tribes. I mean, it's all grey area. Is England an illegal state since 1066 because of William the Conqueror? Should the Welsh and Scottish throw out their Anglo-Saxon overlords, being they conquered the original Celts of Briton in the central portion of the country so thoroughly that there's barely traces of Celtic in the English language? I mean it's all made up to some extent. And no, not everything has to be a snapshot of what countries should be like just because European nations were done holding on to their "colonies".

I think my country is a good example how the relation with Israel has changed: prior Israel was seen as a similar small nation heroically defending itself from a larger enemy (as Finland had been during the Winter War). I think that changed somewhat when Israel invaded Lebanon, a smaller nation than Israel and especially after the massacres of Shabra and Shatila, that prior image of a small heroic nation changed. Now it was the bully, the stronger dominant nation, not the one that defended itself from a larger power as in 1948 or 1967. Hence the anti-US, anti-Israeli leftist rhetoric started to win the discourse simply based on the facts that the massacres did happen. Yet Finland isn't nowhere near to Ireland in it's views about Israel. And naturally there are those Finnish Christians who think that Israel is the Holy Land and the Jews are a special people. — ssu

That makes sense. Yes, as you become more powerful, you become more criticized on how you use that power. Hamas justifies Likud's heavy-handedness, I get it. However, in counterfactual history, Hamas wasn't going to act differently. So, whatever the blame is, it's going to have to be some moderated force from both sides.

"The criminal attack on Gaza won’t solve the atrocious slaughter that Hamas executed." What do you think will?
— tim wood
Maybe a time machine that leads back to 1967 ... or 1948. — 180 Proof

Not a good look for you, 180, being in fantasy land as your best option. You have company, of course, but I expected better from you. And to be sure, as I react to your post, it - you -would seem to say that maybe better if the Arabs had won in '67 or '48. Is that antisemitism that's showing?

But have you ever been part of an intelligence community? You know I learned from my own intelligence officers just how fucked up and unethical the USA truly is. — Vaskane

Well, even if I've met several intelligence officers, I think this is a more of a case of how these organizations operate. The individual intelligence officer is smart, usually quite informed and if true intelligence man, quite a talker who can relate to anybody.

Yet in a group the 'intelligence' of the individuals decrease, and in comes first "policy" or "the mission". Once you have the political objectives, military men (intelligence or other branches), will start to implement the given task. In a dictatorship, they will follow the dictators whims and in a democracy, they will follow the political leadership. If they don't, well in the first case (dictatorships) their wives may become widows and in the latter case (deomocracies) the only option for active officers is simply to resign. And if they know that the next guy will be eager to continue with the policy, then they might even decide to continue to be a "team member" and try to influence the outcome of an agenda. that they themselves don't believe in.

You presented a face, I presented a face, and certainly still there are others it maintains. — Vaskane

Again I agree with this. That's what actually all the foreign policy "blobs" in the World are.

Antisemitism wasn't created wholesale from Hitler. It goes back over a millennium, and took on industrial psychopathic proportions rather than hodgepodge pogroms or lower-level decrees of expulsion and the like. — schopenhauer1

And the most obvious reason for antisemitism isn't usually talked about: it is Matthew 27:24–25, from the Bible:

So when Pilate saw that he was gaining nothing, but rather that a riot was beginning, he took water and washed his hands before the crowd, saying "I am innocent of this man’s blood; see to it yourselves." And all the people answered, "His blood be on us and on our children!"

I genuinely think that this is the most sickening, obnoxious part of the New Testament. That none of the other Gospels say anything like this, doesn't make it less important. The idea of the Jews as being Christkillers and having that 'Blood curse' is very important in Christian anti-semitism. It explains just why after the Pope instigated the Crusades, the first to be attacked were the local Jews, as there weren't so many Muslims around that time in Central Europe. Yes, the Blood curse was repudiated later by the Catholic Church and others, but that doesn't stop someone like Mel Gibson putting the crowd to chant in Aramaic the Bible verses from Mathew in his Passion of the Christ film in 2004.

So I was just saying it looks bad to finding no sympathy with a people, that were expelled amidst your own lands, to then want to deny them even in their aspirations for their own land in what at least, historically and ancestrally, is recognized as their origin... yes, even acknowledging the Palestinian rights as well. — schopenhauer1

Still, if the aspiration is to live in their own land, hardly anyone has anything against that. What simply creates the anger is the Apartheid system, is that Israel is seen as a Western country and democracies shouldn't have apartheid systems and yes, that it is so close to US (where it's basically a domestic policy issue) get anti-American sentiment linked to this. This can be seen how much fewer calls there are for the Kurds to have their own state, even if they too have been a target of genocide, like with the Anfal campaign by Saddam Hussein's Iraq.
.

Before the slaves were sent against their will, those people deserve a state, but the returning slaves to the continent of their origin, don't get an opportunity to form a state? Because they were too long separated? Again, that is just YOUR idea of how a state should be so self-determined. Why is THAT the one that is "morally justified", and not the idea that ex-slaves can form a state as well? — schopenhauer1

Who is morally right to own land is to me a stupid question as countries themselves are social constructs in the end. It's actually something that warmongers and imperialists ponder about and get the 'moral reasons' for 'liberation' or conquest. Those who seek moral justification for their sovereignty over a territory are usually the bad guys.

The morally good situation is where neighboring states are quite happy with their borders and those borders are open.

Yes, as you become more powerful, you become more criticized on how you use that power. Hamas justifies Likud's heavy-handedness, I get it. However, in counterfactual history, Hamas wasn't going to act differently. — schopenhauer1

Well, were the fears of the white Afrikaners justified or not when they abolish the Apartheid system in South Africa?

The irony here is that in order to have a peace deal, Israel would need a strong state capable of upholding the peace treaty and keeping the border calm, an act that basically like Egypt and Jordan can do, but Lebanon cannot do and Syria can barely. But that would mean that a Palestine would have to have it's own capable armed forces, which Israel doesn't allow. Or then there ought to be dramatically more integration on the Arab side, like the League of the Arab states being more like the EU or something similar. Then you could have Egyptian, Saudi and Iraq forces patrolling the Palestinian borders. Well, the GCC is closest to an Arab military treaty organization, and it's members nearly went to war with one members, so that doesn't look good.

And this is why, yes again, I come back to the present Israeli administration, which has done everything possible to make the Palestinian Authority as weak as possible, because their objective is to annex Judea and Samaria and to get away with it. And that's why I am very pessimistic about the future here.

Israel is committing Genocide! "Israel, Israel, you can’t hide: We charge you with genocide." the demonstrators chant.

Just how many people add up to a genocide? 'Genocide' means killing a large number of a people in order to destroy a nation or a group. Civilian deaths in urban warfare are worse than unfortunate, but they are not genocidal.

The population of the Gaza Strip is 2.3 million. So far, the current death toll (according to Hamas) is 21,300. That is about .0089% of the Gaza population. A significant percentage of the 21,300 have to be Hamas fighters. Civilian deaths in war are a tragedy, but this isn't a genocide.

In comparison:

the Armenian genocide refers to the physical annihilation of Armenian Christian people living in the Ottoman Empire from spring 1915 through autumn 1916. There were approximately 1.5 million Armenians living in the multiethnic Ottoman Empire in 1915. At least 664,000 and possibly as many as 1.2 million died during the genocide, either in massacres and individual killings, or from systematic ill treatment, exposure, and starvation.

The percentage of Armenians killed by the Turks in 1915 is between 44% and 80% depending on direct and indirect killing. That's a genocide. By 1945 the Germans killed 63% Europe's Jews. That's a genocide. In 1994 75% of Rwandan Tutsis were killed -- in just 3 months! That's a genocide.

I hope Israel's war in Gaza does not approach even 1% of the Palestinian population -- 23000 -- but the longer the people there endure bombing, shelling, and bullets, collapsed infrastructure, lack of food, clean water, and medical care, indirect deaths are likely to steeply rise -- possibly quite suddenly.

Speaking of genocide, isn't that what Hamas is calling for?

Did you know that the Masons, Rotary, and Lions Club are part of the Jewish conspiracy? Hamas' charter says (among other things)

The Zionist invasion is a vicious invasion. It does not refrain from resorting to all methods, using all evil and contemptible ways to achieve its end. It relies greatly in its infiltration and espionage operations on the secret organizations it gave rise to, such as the Freemasons, The Rotary and Lions clubs, and other sabotage groups. All these organizations, whether secret or open, work in the interest of Zionism and according to its instructions. They aim at undermining societies, destroying values, corrupting consciences, deteriorating character and annihilating Islam. It is behind the drug trade and alcoholism in all its kinds so as to facilitate its control and expansion.

And to be sure, as I react to your post, it - you -would seem to say that maybe better if the Arabs had won in '67 or '48. Is that antisemitism that's showing? — tim wood

Not at all; just my anti-settler-colonizer/anti-zionism that I share with

(e.g.) R. Luxemburg, S. Freud, A. Einstein, E. Fromm, P. Levi, Marek Edelman, I. Asimov, H. Arendt, I.F. Stone, N. Chomsky, H. Siegman, M. Lerner, R. Falk, T. Judt ... — 180 Proof

and Israeli conscientious objectors like Tal Mitnick. Clearly, it's apologists for zionist mass murder like you, tim wood, who are among the actual antisemites (contra Israeli and Palestinian children) in this historical context. :shade:

As I said, you have company. But as to what the Israelis might do, you're still in fantasy land. You're head of the Israeli government. Peace, prosperity, community, trust, friendship would all be nice, but you're dealing with people who for not less than 75 years have been clear that they only want you dead, and routinely try to achieve that end. You fight to survive. You win and give back, you win and make concessions, you win and yield, and it must seem you win only to lose what you have won. You get out of Gaza and honor a presumably fair election there, and they choose a committed vicious enemy of yours that thwarts peace overtures. Comes 7 Oct. and they commit crimes against you beyond reason and tolerance. It's all on you, 180: what do you do?

I genuinely think that this is the most sickening, obnoxious part of the New Testament. That none of the other Gospels say anything like this, doesn't make it less important. The idea of the Jews as being Christkillers and having that 'Blood curse' is very important in Christian anti-semitism. It explains just why after the Pope instigated the Crusades, the first to be attacked were the local Jews, as there weren't so many Muslims around that time in Central Europe. Yes, the Blood curse was repudiated later by the Catholic Church and others, but that doesn't stop someone like Mel Gibson putting the crowd to chant in Aramaic the Bible verses from Mathew in his Passion of the Christ film in 2004. — ssu

:up: No doubt, you hit one of the core origins of European and general Christian antisemitism. What's ironic is if you peel back the layers of the clearly polemical aspects of the New Testament, you have a very Jewish Jesus of Nazareth who died at the hands of the Roman Imperial system. But as Pauline doctrine spread across the Mediterranean, you cannot have that connection anymore, and any good Greek scribe is going to make a passage that detaches Jesus from his own people, so as to make him sui generis. And this goes with what I said a while ago in the antisemitism thread:

The authors of the New Testament have a point of view. They need Jesus to look sui generis. You can see this "othering" of Jesus (both as in othering from his Jewish origins to othering as even a human being) by the way he is portrayed in Mark (it starts at what people actually knew about him.. his preaching years in the Galilee and being baptized and being associated with the more well-known Jewish charismatic leader at the time, John the Baptist). It then moves to Matthew which focuses on more of his mashalim (parables) and revealing more of his understanding approach to halacha (Jewish law interpretation). However, I am willing to admit, as I said, that the this is also pure propaganda by the author who knew a thing or two about Pharisee-law and placed it in the character of Jesus. But that would be dangerous, as it now re-focuses Jesus in a more Jewish context of debating the minutia of Jewish law. But then, this actually endorses the "embarrassment theory", as it would be embarrassing to have Jesus embroiled in common 1st century debates on the minutia of Jewish law. He should be busy being Othered as a Son of God who is the Logos and beyond all that stuff. Well, Matthew cuts it both ways, see, in this mythological account, he is given a Roman-style birth story, where he is the "son of a virgin" a concept foreign to Jewish Second Temple Period theological notions of messiah (or God for that matter), but very common in the pagan Greco-Roman-Near Eastern world. Luke gives us an elaborated version of this with angels and such, further putting Jesus as certainly divine, at the least something of angelic origin, leading a way for a Son of God. By John, we start getting full blown Platonic notions of the "Logos", and clearly influence from Diasporan Platonic notions (pace Philo of Alexandria). This Logos in John is still its own thing because it isn't just the Logos, an organizing principle and telos, but the "Logos made flesh", which combines Platonic AND mystery-cult aspects of a god that "dies for the (sins of?) humanity" (pace Mithra).

So this is to all to say, you have to peal back those mythological layers, to get to the "historical" figure. If you buy into Jesus "condemning the Jews", you have now bought into the Othering of Jesus from his Jewishness so that he can now become safe for non-Jews to have him as their own, so they can worship him without having to worry about that more "national/ethnic" aspect of him. Since this is a thread on antisemitism, you can see how this Othering of Jesus contributes to this, by removing the Jewishness from Jesus, as well as the humanness from being someone embroiled in the Jewish religio-political debates of his time, to being some otherworldly Christ who died for the sins of humanity. He is not Jewish, but universal and then the Othering is complete. — schopenhauer1

Still, if the aspiration is to live in their own land, hardly anyone has anything against that. What simply creates the anger is the Apartheid system, is that Israel is seen as a Western country and democracies shouldn't have apartheid systems and yes, that it is so close to US (where it's basically a domestic policy issue) get anti-American sentiment linked to this. This can be seen how much fewer calls there are for the Kurds to have their own state, even if they too have been a target of genocide, like with the Anfal campaign by Saddam Hussein's Iraq. — ssu

Well, that's also an interesting part of it. Where are the "comparable" outcries in conflicts elsewhere?

Who is morally right to own land is to me a stupid question as countries themselves are social constructs in the end. It's actually something that warmongers and imperialists ponder about and get the 'moral reasons' for 'liberation' or conquest. Those who seek moral justification for their sovereignty over a territory are usually the bad guys.

The morally good situation is where neighboring states are quite happy with their borders and those borders are open. — ssu

I think we have hit upon a foundational agreement between our views :). There is a certain arbitrariness to all of it, and thus any justification is simply that group's cudgel for their justification. But cudgel it is.

But that would mean that a Palestine would have to have it's own capable armed forces, which Israel doesn't allow. Or then there ought to be dramatically more integration on the Arab side, like the League of the Arab states being more like the EU or something similar. Then you could have Egyptian, Saudi and Iraq forces patrolling the Palestinian borders. Well, the GCC is closest to an Arab military treaty organization, and it's members nearly went to war with one members, so that doesn't look good.

And this is why, yes again, I come back to the present Israeli administration, which has done everything possible to make the Palestinian Authority as weak as possible, because their objective is to annex Judea and Samaria and to get away with it. And that's why I am very pessimistic about the future here. — ssu

Indeed, and this is where the real debate is, and I agree, this is the most important million dollar question: What of the day after the day after? What is really to rule this area and bring peace, and not just the status quo? I am hoping it is something akin to what you recommend- that a coalition of sorts, helps Palestine rebuild, and rebuild away from those who led them down the darkest nightmare path to death-cult, and to something like a developing country that has economic ties to its closest neighbor. There is literally, no other way. And yes, this takes an Israel that is open to this, one that must be radically transgressive in order to form peace with a former hostile neighbor. Something has to change in order for a long term peace. It cannot be seen as simply a hotbed for more death and destruction. If there is no end to grievance retribution, there is no end to any of it. Give up the fuckn ghost, might be the slogan then.