Historically, IMHO, it's been a hallmark of realpolitik conservativism (e.g. neoliberalism) to support oppressive regimes and repressive policies in the name of geopolitical "stability" and/or economic exploitation – the caste / class status quo. Thus, as an example, for over a half century the US-NATO hegemon militarily and economically has supported the zionism-über alles, settler-ethnic cleansing ("lebensraum"), apatheid state of Israel. Both Jewish and Palestinian religious extremists – US-backed "Likud" & Iran/"Likud"-backed "Hamas", respectively – are far more invested in maintaining this internecine status quo than in any progressive alternative.

No, but it will tried to be made so, to be part of the "culture war".

What better way to draw simple lines without thinking things with reason and objectivity.

America is one of the few places where you can get away with being simultaneously anti-semitic (damn liberal Jews and their evil Hollywood, media, banks etc) and rabidly pro-Israel (the holy land is under threat! God save Jerusalem!). If you are such, you are almost certainly both conservative and Christian (the Evangelicals in particular seem to suffer from this prejudicial paradox). So what's conservative about the cause, it seems to me is at least to an extent what's religious about it. The religious right has set itself up in contradistinction to Islam primarily and the enemy of that enemy must be a friend (even if it's them Jews...)

The US having so close ties to Israel and giving so much support is the biggest cause here. Typically it's the conservatives in the World who have been OK with the US while the left has been more critical about the Superpower's actions.

And as you said, what is conservative is that the religious conservatives do have in their heart a special place for Israel. This isn't something limited to American religious right, but something quite universal. Perhaps it's similar as present day Germany supporting Israel while having earlier being the culprits of the Holocaust. Yet one cannot deny that one of the most influential books for anti-semitism is the New Testament with Matthew 27:24–25 and the blood curse. Especially when the other Gospels talk nothing about this (at least I'm not aware of), it should be evident the salesmanship here for the new Religion doing for the Romans.

Just like the Crusades aren't embraced and honored by modern Christianity, same thing with age-old accusations of the Jews being the 'Christkillers'. And then of course you have the Evangelists who think next time Jesus comes around, many of the Jews who accept him will become Christians! :smile:

I don't typically expect to see conservatives support Jewish people considering their concern that the Jews might control entertainment and maybe even the media. — TiredThinker

Anti-semitism isn't limited to one side of the political spectrum.

In modern US culture, supporting Israel would be considered "conservative" although many liberals and even those on the left also support Israel. There's a definite ethnic component to it with even left-wing Jews largely siding with Israel and minorities being sympathetic to palestine. The conflict has strangely been manufactured into "white" Israel versus "non-white Palestine" with "white" Israel as the oppressor. Assad murders 500,000 Arabs no one says anything, but Israel retaliates against Hamas and the world is aflame with protest. Israel is under a microscope compared to other middle eastern countries.

Conservatives in America don't particularly like Jews, but they loathe groups like Hamas, so supporting the Jews becomes a sort of "enemy of my enemy is my friend" thing.

Israel is under a microscope compared to other middle eastern countries. — BitconnectCarlos

I likened this in the other thread to a sort of Madonna-whore complex. Some of the people here hold Israel to an impossibly high standard, whereby Israel is supposed to absorb the Oct. 7th attacks without retaliation and head to the bargaining table, hat in hand, to see what concessions she can make to the animals that just attacked her. When Israel doesn't do this, and responds like any nation would, she's then treated like a whore.

You're starting to improve your thinking on this issue when at least you're comparing Assad and Israel and your only complaint is that not everybody complains about Assad. :clap:

Do you believe Israel has a right to retaliate from the attack?

Does someone who commits assault have a right to retaliate when the victim strikes him, even when it's in his balls or a knife in his neck? It's the Palestinians retaliating not the other way around. Israel is not a victim but an aggressor.

I recognise an individual right for Israeli citizens to defend themselves against terrorist attacks, since I don't believe in guilt by association, but as far as I'm concerned every illegal settler, every idf soldier in the occupied territories is explicitly involved in the oppression and is therefore fair game. Shoot them all until the oppression stops. The state of Israel doesn't have a right to do anything until it stops committing crimes itself. Only once it has done that and if they are still confronted with an attack, then do they have any rights.

Edit: actually no rights is an exaggeration but you get the drift.

I reject analogies that liken countries to individuals. Countries are not individual moral agents that bear individual moral responsibility. One does not "get back" at this "person" by killing its civilians.

but as far as I'm concerned every illegal settler — Benkei

A Jewish baby born in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv is an "illegal settler" according to Hamas (and unfortunately a significant portion of the Palestinian population). I recommend the Ami Horowitz interview where he interviews a Hamas leader and asks this question directly.

Do you believe Israel has a right to retaliate from the attack? — BitconnectCarlos

Does someone who commits assault have a right to retaliate when the victim strikes him, even when it's in his balls or a knife in his neck? It's the Palestinians retaliating not the other way around. Israel is not a victim but an aggressor. — Benkei

I think the problem is to think here that retaliation and retaliatory strikes is the answer. Going after the perpetrators to prevent further attacks isn't retaliation. But it is hard not to see the retaliatory nature of the mission with the talk of human animals, the evil city, Biblical references and other dehumanization of the Palestinians. And then, even with the ground troops inside the city, using still a lot of air power. Using bombing to level the city is so different from how for example the US fought against insurgents in Iraq. It comes to mind that the unannounced objective could to make Gaza unlivable and then try to push the 2,2 million or so to Sinai. Perhaps for a 'temporary time', so it wouldn't be an act of genocide / ethnic cleansing.

Comparing how the US dealt with insurgents in Iraqi cities is here valid. The US went to great lengths to avoid using air power and the ground troops understood it well. The ironic thing is that the US armed forces actually won the Sunni insurgency only to then withdraw, have the Shia lead government take over and mess up all the work the Americans had done and the end result was ISIS taking over.

Showing restraint isn't a sign of weakness, it's usually a sign of intelligence. But if one wants just to retaliate and thus give those who call for retaliation what they want, that's something else.

I never said that. Are you really going back to 1948? Jews have been forced from their homes across the nearly the entirety of the Arab world yet you don't see revenge attacks.

Vaskane, what about when the Babylonians sacked Judea in 586 BC? When are the Jews gonna stick it back to the people of Iraq?

In 1948 the Arab states did not accept Israel as a state. Thankfully, in 2023 quite a few have come to accept it and therefore we have peace. Once the Palestinian governing authorities/society accepts Israel's acceptance that'll be a huge step forward. Look forward, not back. Societies that are caught up with historical grievances look back, not forward.

They chose their neighbors and they chose to steal from them. — Vaskane

edit: not wasting my time with this one.

You need to leave 1948 and enter 2023. Orde Wingate is no longer with us and hasn't been for quite some time. Once this war is over, Palestinian children will need to be raised and educated in a way that encourages peaceful coexistence and cooperation with their neighbor, Israel. It is their only hope.

Or we could teach the new generation of palestinians how Israel is illegitimate and a criminal state and how Orde Wingate killed Arabs in the 40s and how everything is suffering and oppression.

Or we could teach the new generation of palestinians how Israel is illegitimate — BitconnectCarlos

I think it's a sure bet that this will happen, and it doesn't appear that the US is going to tolerate Israeli occupation of Gaza. I don't believe Israel's position is as strong as you seem to think.

Some of the people here hold Israel to an impossibly high standard, — RogueAI

What kind of sick joke makes restraint from massacring helpless and innocent civilians, leveling their city, while talking like genocidal maniacs, an "impossibly high standard"?

Even by the crudest biblical eye for an eye standard, Israel has taken seven or eight.

It comes to mind that the unannounced objective could to make Gaza unlivable and then try to push the 2,2 million or so to Sinai. Perhaps for a 'temporary time', so it wouldn't be an act of genocide / ethnic cleansing. — ssu

:up:
This seems clear to me.

zionism-über alles, settler-ethnic cleansing ("lebensraum"), apartheid state of Israel. — 180 Proof

Nazi imagery and terminology? Yours and the rants of others along similar lines fail because you and they simply neglect/ignore the significance of the (so far) never-ending murderousness of the neighbors.

My impression is that you personally are an American of African descent. I would say that to ask Israelis to behave like "civilized" westerners is about as sensible as asking why you personally aren't white. Both being stupid even atrocious questions simply because they ignore/neglect the respective histories and positions of both. When the bookkeeping is incomplete or even entirely misunderstood, the subsequent reports and analyses cannot be right - and the intentions of the analysts suspect.

Murder and murderous war have been inflicted on Israel since 1948, and with the Jews their history of the Holocaust and centuries of pogroms before. The only reason they exist today is by being what they have been, and doing what they have done. Anything less and they would not be, period!

So until and unless you are prepared to dismiss as non-existent and irrelevant your own personal and cultural history in this USA - i.e., your blackness - imho it would be more becoming of you, and certainly more sensible and reasonable, to factor into your thinking Jewish history and experience, just as you factor into thinking about yourself your own history and experience, both personal and cultural.

So what have I written in my previous post is historically incorrect or worse? You make a few unwarranted assumptions about my rather conventional observations as well as me personally, tim, which reeks of special pleading and gassy ad hominems. :mask:

from 2021
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/650650

from 2021
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/650398

7 days ago
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/856307

addendum:

Neither anti-Jewish nor anti-Israel, like (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 et al, I am also anti-zionist (i.e. anti-ethnonationalist).

Even by the crudest biblical eye for an eye standard, Israel has taken seven or eight. — hypericin

That pertains to individuals within a society; the punishment must fit the crime. When it comes to a different people, e.g. Amalek, large scale destruction is on the table.

Yoni Saadon, one of the witnesses, recounts in the Times: "I saw this beautiful woman with the face of an angel and eight or ten of the fighters beating and raping her. She was screaming, 'Stop it - already I'm going to die anyway from what you are doing, just kill me!' When they finished they were laughing and the last one shot her in the head. I pulled her body over me and smeared her blood on me so it would look as if I was dead too. I will never forget her face. Every night I wake to it and apologise to her, saying 'I'm sorry.'"

The girl was Shani Louk.

A

When it comes to a different people, e.g. Amalek, large scale destruction is on the table. — BitconnectCarlos

As sanctioned by whom? God? Or have you given yourselves license to do the sanctioning as well?

Yoni Saadon, one of the witnesses, recounts in the Times: "I saw this beautiful woman with the face of an angel and eight or ten of the fighters beating and raping her. She was screaming, 'Stop it - already I'm going to die anyway from what you are doing, just kill me!' When they finished they were laughing and the last one shot her in the head. I pulled her body over me and smeared her blood on me so it would look as if I was dead too. I will never forget her face. Every night I wake to it and apologise to her, saying 'I'm sorry.'" — BitconnectCarlos

How many such tragedies has Israel perpetrated in turn?

. I would say that to ask Israelis to behave like "civilized" westerners is about as sensible as asking why you personally aren't white. — tim wood

What a monumentally inept analogy, it doesn't begin to make any sense.


Israel's special and exclusive history of grievance gives it special and exclusive license to behave as it likes. And how dare you suggest they should behave in a more civilized manner. Yes yes, we're heard it before.

As sanctioned by whom? God? Or have you given yourselves license to do the sanctioning as well? — hypericin

In the case of Amalek I could not tell you whether it is God or Samuel, but from memory in I or II Kings members of the tribe of Benjamin gang rape and murder a woman and when the other tribes demand justice the tribe of Benjamin refuses setting off a bloody civil war. Sometimes you just gotta root out the rottenness.


edit: book of judges, not kings.

I cannot keep up with you.
— tim wood
No doubt — 180 Proof

:up:

Israel's special and exclusive history of grievance gives it special and exclusive license to behave as it likes. — hypericin

....whatt????

How about this. Is there any reason why the UN shouldn't gain exclusive control over the region and turning it basically into a state park for people to visit and appreciate the religious/historical sites? That way nobody that wants that land can have it claiming it belongs to their people? Fighting based on religion can't end, but if it isn't a home land to be gained it's just a nature preserve to be visited.

Is there any reason — TiredThinker

World war perhap

I reject analogies that liken countries to individuals. Countries are not individual moral agents that bear individual moral responsibility. One does not "get back" at this "person" by killing its civilians. — BitconnectCarlos

Sure. Then Israel also has no right to self-defence. We "liken" countries to individuals all the time as we conceptualise that they have rights. And this makes perfect sense. If a person has a right then obviously a party who represents that person also has such right. So the State has rights because it is an agent of its citizens (ideally). And if actual people oppress another people, and the State as an agent supports such oppressions, its rights and duties are derived from the rights and duties of the individuals it represents. And since those illegal settlers and IDF soldiers are perpetrating a continuous war crime, they do not get to enjoy any protection.

A Jewish baby born in Jerusalem or Tel Aviv is an "illegal settler" according to Hamas (and unfortunately a significant portion of the Palestinian population). I recommend the Ami Horowitz interview where he interviews a Hamas leader and asks this question directly. — BitconnectCarlos

Except I never said that, I said in "occupied territories" which is well established under international law and since I'm not a Hamas spokesperson or affiliated with them, I don't see how whatever they say has anything to do with what I'm saying.

If you're suggesting Palestinians aren't allowed to kill illegal settlers in the occupied territories of the West Bank or to kill IDF soldiers who protect those illegal settlers, then really what you have is human shields to pursue immoral State sanctioned policies. In which case I think indiscrimate bombing of illegal settler villages and IDF posts, killing as much as possible and levelling it to the ground by the international community makes perfect sense, just to get to the adults. Because that's the calculus the Israeli government is making. We'll even be nice about it and warn them beforehand!

Or, maybe a weird idea, Israel stops pursuing the war crime of annexing land and reverses the crimes it has already commited (and we all know that in a negotiated peace they still get to retain what they have no right to) and then when an attack does happen, they can at least claim a moral right to do something against it and I'd be the first to support discriminate police action and, depending on circumstances, escalate to military action.

I think the problem is to think here that retaliation and retaliatory strikes is the answer. Going after the perpetrators to prevent further attacks isn't retaliation. But it is hard not to see the retaliatory nature of the mission with the talk of human animals, the evil city, Biblical references and other dehumanization of the Palestinians. And then, even with the ground troops inside the city, using still a lot of air power. Using bombing to level the city is so different from how for example the US fought against insurgents in Iraq. It comes to mind that the unannounced objective could to make Gaza unlivable and then try to push the 2,2 million or so to Sinai. Perhaps for a 'temporary time', so it wouldn't be an act of genocide / ethnic cleansing.

Comparing how the US dealt with insurgents in Iraqi cities is here valid. The US went to great lengths to avoid using air power and the ground troops understood it well. The ironic thing is that the US armed forces actually won the Sunni insurgency only to then withdraw, have the Shia lead government take over and mess up all the work the Americans had done and the end result was ISIS taking over.

Showing restraint isn't a sign of weakness, it's usually a sign of intelligence. But if one wants just to retaliate and thus give those who call for retaliation what they want, that's something else. — ssu

"Retaliation" implies "revenge", so already an interesting choice of words but not my words.