Let us please keep in mind that the UN is a community of all the nations on Earth, quite a few of whom are led by ruthless dictatorships. The UN is a good idea, but it's not a holy church handing down morally superior sermons from on high.

Are you English? — Mystic

I am deeply offended that you would attempt to label me as the citizen of a former colonial power. How dare you!!! This means WAR!!!

To answer your question...

No, I'm American. A proud citizen of a shining city on a hill built from genocide and slavery.

Why, why, why would I be English??? They can't even speak the language correctly. :-)

To be complemented with the acknowledgement that children in Gaza live in hell on earth, as a result of Israel's regime of terror. But our newly joined pseudo moralist will no doubt make it his or her priority to cry crocodile tears about the 'violence on the forums' before he or she has a word to say about Israeli state terror.

Show me your thread where you spew snarky venom at Assad for weeks, and then I'll happily join you in challenging Israel, which if you were paying attention you might have noticed I've already done rather rudely above.

Why? This is a thread about Israeli violence. And I don't care about you.

To be complemented with the acknowledgement that children in Gaza live in hell on earth — StreetlightX

Ok, so Israel surrenders to Hamas, ends the state of Israel, and packs up and leaves the Middle East.

What do you imagine happens next?

What I imagine is an inevitable civil war between Hamas and the PLO, resulting in yet another repressive Arab dictatorship, which you will be happy to ignore.

idk this is your fantasy not mine. Not sure why I have to answer questions about it.

This is a thread about Israeli violence. — StreetlightX

This is a thread about whatever posters decide to discuss.

Not sure why I have to answer questions about it. — StreetlightX

You don't. You are free to dodge and weave as you see fit. No argument there. Your posts are your posts.

If not entertaining your fantasies is dodging then I happily indulge.

If not entertaining your fantasies is dodging then I happily indulge. — StreetlightX

What? What? WHAT? You're ending the confrontation??? That is so rude! Have you no compassion for the conflict addictions of your fellow members??? HELP! I've been made collateral damage of this person's common sense!!!!!

@Foghorn Lol! It was your use of the words wanker and nitwit,etc.
And FYI,we english have the best language in The world!
Its good to laugh!!!

Which comment has zero bearing on the veracity of the claims quoted. But nice attempt at poisoning the well. It's always nice to see so little is offered by way of substantive arguments.

What part of what I quoted do you think is false? If you think it's not false, why bother replying with an irrelevant smear?

And the outraged leftist moralists would likely have nothing to say about that. We've seen this movie before....

1) Before the American invasion of Iraq the outraged leftist moralists had nothing to say about Saddam's ruthless oppression of Iraqis.

2) During the American invasion the outraged leftist moralists whipped themselves up in to a hysterical frenzy of fantasy moral superiority.

3) After the American invasion the outraged leftist moralists went back to caring not a whit about
the Iraqi people. — Foghorn

Your stereotype of the "leftist moralist" doesn't represent at all the actual debate that happened prior, through and after the US invasion to Iraq.

1) Before the American invasion those leftist moralists cried about Saddam using chemical weapons against the Kurds and the US giving Iraq assistance (like satellite imaginary etc) in the war against Iran. And then after Operation Desert Shield they cried about Bush (senior) encouraging the Kurds and the Shias to rebel against the Iraqi regime and then leaving them on their own.

2) Before the invasion actually only few leftist moralists were against the invasion. Many of them ate all the US lies about the then non-existent WMD's. The time of "Freedom Fries", that lasted a long time even in this forum of people coming here and defending the decision of Bush to invade "because he had gotten bad intel".

3) The leftist moralists seldom critique a Democratic administration, especially one lead by Obama. Yet few did notice the authoritarianism of Nouri al Maliki, who is the real culprit of everything going downhill after the US left and why Al-Qaeda re-emerged after morphing into ISIS.

What you are right is that the American leftist moralist sees in ANY BAD EVENT that happens around the World the USA being somehow the prime culprit and the reason why bad things happen. This is of course not so surprising, because on the other hand the American right-wing moralist patriot sees in ANY GOOD EVENT that happens around the World happening because the USA is somehow the prime actor in the event.

Both share the extreme hubris that everything important that happens in the World, the US has to be at the center stage of it. An event where the US isn't involved simply is totally unimportant.

What part of what I quoted do you think is false? — Benkei

As stated above, I think your declared interest in the welfare of Palestinians is false, a forum pose, whose primary purpose is the enhancement of your relationship with yourself.

I could be wrong, and one way to demonstrate that would be to show us the threads you've started which express extensive outrage at the Assad regime, which has oppressed, tortured and killed innocent Arabs with far more unjust ferocity than anything Israel has done.

If you truly do care about the fate of innocents, and are truly logical, you will be directing most of your outrage at those who are doing the most killing of innocents, and the most deliberate killing of innocents. When I see you doing that, I'll begin to take you seriously. Until then, have fun with all the clever little quipy thingies.

As an American leftist absurdist, I wholeheartedly agree with your synopsis. "Left-Right", the US is a solipsistic nation in the death-grip of almost a century-old hegemonic unrealpolitik of its (our) own making. Pox of the "Pax Americana".

It was your use of the words wanker and nitwit — Mystic

Ah, so those are proper English words, such as in merry old England land? I didn't know. I thought they were nitwit wanker nerd words, which is why I selected them to be included in my very own posts.

@Foghorn Dickens or Ayn rand???!!!

Returning to the topic, what do members think would have been an appropriate response to rockets launched in to Israel by Hamas?

Israel could lift the blockade of Gaza. But given that Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, that would most likely lead to the further arming of Hamas, and further warfare, which would further endanger innocents on all sides.

Israel could surrender to Hamas and end the state of Israel. This would most likely lead to a civll war between Hamas and the PLO, and the establishment of yet another repressive Arab dictatorship, not really such a promising prospect for the innocents.

Israel could ignore the incoming rockets, thus removing any deterrence to future attacks, most likely resulting in more attacks and more innocent victims.

Israel could invade Gaza again and go door to door in search of Hamas fighters. Lots and lots of innocent victims here no matter how it is handled.

As stated above, I think your declared interest in the welfare of Palestinians is false, a forum pose, whose primary purpose is the enhancement of your relationship with yourself.

I could be wrong, and one way to demonstrate that would be to show us the threads you've started which express extensive outrage at the Assad regime, which has oppressed, tortured and killed innocent Arabs with far more unjust ferocity than anything Israel has done.

If you truly do care about the fate of innocents, and are truly logical, you will be directing most of your outrage at those who are doing the most killing of innocents, and the most deliberate killing of innocents. When I see you doing that, I'll begin to take you seriously. Until then, have fun with all the clever little quipy thingies. — Foghorn

Nothing to add, I see, but an attempt at character assassination. Pathetic.

Returning to the topic, what do members think would have been an appropriate response to rockets launched in to Israel by Hamas? — Foghorn

To stop evictions in Palestinian neighbourhoods.
To stop teargassing Islamic holy sites.
To stop practising apartheid on Arabs in Israeli controlled territory.
Little things like that.

Oh wait sorry that was all before the retaliatory rocket attacks from Israel's open air gulag.

Israel could lift the blockade of Gaza. But given that Hamas is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, that would most likely lead to the further arming of Hamas, and further warfare, which would further endanger innocents on all sides. — Foghorn

Considering that Israel is dedicated to the destruction of Palestinian self-determination, it is not 'leading' to violence, it is practicing it, day in and day out, where innocents are not merely endangered, but actually killed and subject to inhumanity on a daily basis. So as a terrorist state, it ought to stop engaging in acts of terror. The US, in turn, should stop providing material assistance and ideological support to this Middle Eastern terrorist organisation.

As stated above, I think your declared interest in the welfare of Palestinians is false, a forum pose, whose primary purpose is the enhancement of your relationship with yourself.

I could be wrong, and one way to demonstrate that would be to show us the threads you've started which express extensive outrage at the Assad regime, which has oppressed, tortured and killed innocent Arabs with far more unjust ferocity than anything Israel has done.

If you truly do care about the fate of innocents, and are truly logical, you will be directing most of your outrage at those who are doing the most killing of innocents, and the most deliberate killing of innocents. When I see you doing that, I'll begin to take you seriously. Until then, have fun with all the clever little quipy thingies. — Foghorn

The Assad regime is off-topic as are amateur psychology ad-hom rants. But seeing as it's politics, you can have one of the latter. If you want to talk about something other than the topic though, start a new one.

The occupying forces.

@BitconnectCarlos

DEATH TO ARABS!
DEATH TO ARABS! — zion-fascist parade chants at the Damascus Gate on June,15, 2021

In solidarity with the Oppressed everywhere, especially in Gaza, the West Bank & East Jerusalem:
DEATH TO OPPRESSORS!
DEATH TO OPPRESSORS!

Yes, obviously there hasn't been enough death there...

And so the oppression continues:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/15/world/middleeast/israel-coalition-hamas.html

The Assad regime is off-topic — Baden

The point of that sidebar was to investigate the degree to which any of us are actually interested in the welfare of innocent Arab victims. If the evidence reveals we're not actually interested (as I suggest) then this thread can be seen as an exercise in the pursuit of conflict for the sake of conflict. If true, it's possible this psychological phenomena has some relevance to what's been unfolding in the Middle East. My guess is that the MidEast conflict is some mix of a sincere dispute over competing claims, and a feedback loop of conflict addiction, just as we typically see in political threads on any forum.

Imho, declaring the Assad regime off topic, while clearly being a right belonging to the mods, is really just an attempt to sweep under the rug the reality that we don't really care that much about innocent Arab victims. As I keep saying, this could be proven wrong with links to existing Syria threads which display outrage in proportion to the crimes unfolding there. Should such threads exist, that would be good news which I would welcome.

Nothing to add, I see, but an attempt at character assassination — Benkei

If my post was indeed just an inaccurate personal attack, then it should be easy to prove that by linking to your Syria threads. If such threads exist, then I'm wrong about my evaluation of your behavior here, and will be happy to say so.

Your inability to keep on topic is no one's problem but yours. Further posts to that effect will be deleted.

To stop evictions in Palestinian neighbourhoods.
To stop teargassing Islamic holy sites.
To stop practising apartheid on Arabs in Israeli controlled territory. — StreetlightX

So you're suggesting that Israel retain control over the West Bank and Gaza, but lighten up on that control? Do I understand that correctly, or have I misunderstood? Apartheid-lite?

My understanding is that the Palestinians want their own state. Do you support that goal? If yes, how do you imagine that working out?

Hamas wants Jews to leave the Middle East so that all of Palestine would then be
controlled by Arabs. Do you support that goal? If yes, how do you imagine that working out?

What I mean is, if Palestinians got exactly what they want, would they then be in a better situation than they are now? Or would they instead be trading one oppressor for another?

I don't claim to know, but my best guess, based on the readily available evidence from all over the Arab world is that a Palestinian state would be yet another repressive Arab dictatorship. If Palestinians are seeking that experience, it seems it is already readily available in a variety of near by countries, Syria for example.