• Streetlight
    9.1k
    Sorry that you were caught out in a lie. Guess you have to change the subject now.
  • Benkei
    7.1k
    I shared proof right there and so did Streetlight about how Israel treats activists (and that's not going into their administrative detentions in general). And I've never said it's Nazi Germany but as Hannah Arendt and Einstein already pointed out in 1948, Israel did choose to learn a lot from them. Much better men and women than you realised this much earlier.

    And here's an American Jew banned from Israel, who based on the Law of Return, has a right to Israeli citizenship: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jan/15/i-am-american-jewish-and-banned-from-israel-for-my-activism

    But I'm not interested in making you understand what is going on in Israel as you have demonstrated no interest in the facts on the ground. You have refused to read the various reports I have shared and to either discuss or accept them. Instead you've been on a world-tour of how other regimes and groups also commit crimes, as if that somehow would excuse Israel. A very, very long string of fallacies in reply to facts.

    No, the only reason I post is everytime you post falsehoods and mistakes I'll be more than happy to correct it so that less biased people can know what's really going on.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    Israeli authorities have incarcerated hundreds of thousands of Palestinians for what it deems “security offenses” since 1967, including hundreds at virtually any given time held in administrative detention based on secret evidence without charge or trial for renewable periods that can extend for multiple years. As of April 2021, according to the Israeli Prison Services, authorities held 4,323 Palestinians from the West Bank, not including East Jerusalem, in custody for “security offenses,” including 426 in administrative detention. Israel jails most Palestinian prisoners from the OPT inside Israel, even though transferring residents from occupied territory violates international humanitarian law, and complicates the process of family visits to them. By contrast, Israeli authorities, as of March 1, 2021, held no Jewish Israelis for “security offenses” and, over nearly 54 years of occupation, have held not more than a handful of Jewish Israelis in total in administrative detention.

    Israeli authorities have for decades mistreated and tortured Palestinian detainees, using tactics rarely utilized against Jewish detainees. A September 1999 Israeli Supreme Court ruling forbidding several torture tactics led to a significant reduction in the number of people tortured, but has not stopped the practice. About 1,300 complaints of torture against Israeli authorities have been filed with Israel’s Justice Ministry between 2001 and June 2020, which have resulted in one criminal investigation and zero prosecutions. The Israeli rights group Public Committee Against Torture (PCATI) reported in June 2019 that, of the more than 100 complaints of alleged torture it filed over the last five years at the hands of Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, 31 percent involved physical violence, 40 percent painful and prolonged shackling or use of stress positions, 66 percent sleep deprivation, 61 percent threats, and 27 percent sexual harassment and humiliation. Security forces also routinely use unnecessary force against children during arrests, which often take place in the middle of the night, and physically abuse them in custody.

    Security forces also frequently raid populated Palestinian areas in the West Bank, even Area A, where Israeli authorities ostensibly charged the PA with fully managing civil and security affairs. Israeli forces routinely use excessive force, including live ammunition, against Palestinian demonstrators, rock-throwers, suspected assailants, and others in policing situations when lesser means could have been deployed. Between January 19, 2009, and January 31, 2021, Israeli security forces killed 449 Palestinians in the West Bank, according to B’Tselem.Many thousands more have been grievously wounded.

    Settlers, meanwhile, enjoy virtual impunity for criminal acts against Palestinians. Between 2005 and 2019, police closed 91 percent of the complaints tracked by the Israeli human rights group Yesh Din of reported settler violence against Palestinian persons and property without indicting anyone.The army not only systematically fails to intervene, but, B’Tselem found, “they often provide the perpetrators escort and back-up. In some cases, they even join in on the attack.”

    https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/israeli-authorities-and-crimes-apartheid-and-persecution
  • Benkei
    7.1k
    "Yeah, but Fatah and Hamas torture their prisoners too and it's even worse, they do it to their own people, so there."
  • Foghorn
    331
    Yes, and FDR is Hitler and so is Obama and you're the only one in this world who has any semblance of moral decency.BitconnectCarlos

    I've asked a mod to lock this thread, but I doubt that will work. What do you say the two of us run up the white flag of surrender and bail on the thread? All we're doing is feeding their fantasies at this point. Would enjoy discussing anything with you, some place else.
  • BitconnectCarlos
    1.7k


    Is it ever hard to function when the entire world around you is so unrepentantly racist and genocidal? Is it difficult being the only good one? Does it ever get lonely or have you just kinda learned to live with it? It must get very lonely up there on the pedestal.

    Do your parents think just like you? It must be tough when everyone around you are racist, blood-thirsty genocide supporters.
  • BitconnectCarlos
    1.7k


    Yeah we can talk later I'll be over on the other thread you made.
  • BitconnectCarlos
    1.7k
    No, the only reason I post is everytime you post falsehoods and mistakes I'll be more than happy to correct it so that less biased people can know what's really going on.Benkei



    Your focus on factual correctness here is masturbatory. As long as you continue to support (which is effectively the same as refusing to condemn) the deliberate murder of innocent civilians I cannot engage with you, it is that simple. Please come back to the side of humanity here.

    It's like if the Netherlands were in a dispute (fine lets call it an occupation) and I told you "oh by the way, I don't have any problems with the opposition running into your house and murdering the lot of you." Now let's proceed! Let's make progress on this issue!
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    Is it ever hard to function when the entire world around you is so unrepentantly racist and genocidal?BitconnectCarlos

    I think you mean Israel. And no, because the idea that a better world than this shithole is possible - and that one day, Israel will no longer be an apartheid state that is up to its neck in blood - keeps me happy as sunshine.
  • BitconnectCarlos
    1.7k


    Your own country of Australia is obviously institutionally racist and genocidal. I'm surprised you don't mention that.
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    It is. Absolutely rubbish state. Built on the widespread massacre of natives. A worse record of locking up and murdering our black folk than the US, which is an almost impossibly hard thing to do. But you're welcome to post in the Scotty From Marketing thread if you feel so strongly about it.
  • Trinidad
    72
    @StreetlightX
    Is there any state in history or currently you think was just? If not,is this because any state is intrinsically unjust,or do you have a rough idea of how a just state could be implemented?
  • Baden
    15.6k


    Yes, stop trolling. If you’re not interested in the topic or in staying on topic, do not post here.
  • Foghorn
    331
    It's true there has been some debate about what the real topic of this thread is. I mean no harm, just trying to rescue the thread from fantasy. Obviously not working, so your advice is accepted.
  • Baden
    15.6k


    The topic of threads are found in the OP. The idea there's a debate to be had about that is your fantasy. Anyway, thank you for going away. You've been a serious time-waster. All off-topic posts being deleted from now on.
  • BitconnectCarlos
    1.7k


    There's genocide everywhere. There's racism everywhere. The entire world is mud, so why should I go out of my way and take up my own time to try to convince you that Israel is not mud when the rest of the world is? If the Israelis are genocidal then so are the Palestinians. The intention is there. Israelis are murdered in the name of genocide. Both sides, as well as the entire world, are genocidal maniacs (except you.)
  • Streetlight
    9.1k
    so why should I go out of my way and take up my own time to try to convince you that Israel is not mud when the rest of the world is?BitconnectCarlos

    What you do or don't do is not my problem.
  • fdrake
    5.8k
    Oooh, you edited it from "Jewish murderers" to "Israeli murderers" -- why did you do that?? Why revert back, I'm interested.BitconnectCarlos

    I'd do the same, black belt nuance is required not to slip into anti-semitic adjacent language. Considering "anti-zionism is anti-semitism" and "if you're against the state of Israel you're against the Jewish people" are a common trope here, it makes it very easy for someone who's criticising the state of Israel's actions to say something which sounds very anti-semitic.

    But that's also part of the discourse here - there really are anti-semites, and there really is a political discourse around the idea that Zionist=Jewish=approve of Israel's expansion.

    It's an interesting motte and bailey + trojan horse combo really, not of your invention, that the propaganda surrounding the state of Israel equates Jewish national identity with Zionism with Israel's military expansion, so that it becomes harder to persuasively criticise Israel's military expansion without sounding like an anti-semite... The state of Israel's policies invite ethno-nationalist+military expansion flavour Zionism to be equated with Judaism, but when someone else flubs and makes the mistake of equating the three they sound like an anti-semite.

    I swear, whatever PR group came up with that nightmarish tangle are geniuses.
  • fdrake
    5.8k
    There's genocide everywhere. There's racism everywhere.BitconnectCarlos

    Hardline Zionists singing "Shu'Fat is on fire!" Happily praising the actions of sectarian murderer Yosef Haim Ben David.

    How long until we see the seal of Islam painted on Palestinians' doors?
  • BitconnectCarlos
    1.7k
    Considering "anti-zionism is anti-semitism"fdrake



    Anti-Zionism in 2021 is straight-up bizarre. Zionism is nothing more than the idea that Jews need a homeland in the region, and since this has already happened that means Zionism has already been realized. To be anti-Zionism in, say, 1935 makes sense -- it would mean that someone just doesn't support the creation of a Jewish state in Judea/Samaria. Being an anti-Zionism in 2021 means that you seemingly want the state of Israel (i.e. Jewish security) to stop "being." That is how I understand anti-Zionism. It is very, very suspect.

    that the propaganda surrounding the state of Israel equates Jewish national identity with Zionism with Israel's military expansionfdrake

    If we are to call this propaganda, then this "propaganda" that equates Zionism with national jewish identity has been swallowed hook, line, and sinker by the West's Jewish communities if we are to consider it "propaganda."

    But let me pose you a question: What role does an outsider have in forging another group's identity? Should we both engage in a discussion about what black people are and what their future ought to be? In practice, one cannot attack Zionism without attacking the vast majority of Jewish communities. I've never been to a temple or a synagogue that was anti-Zionist.
  • fdrake
    5.8k
    hat is how I understand anti-Zionism.BitconnectCarlos

    I don't think you understand it in the same way as it's used, then. Either that or you're pivoting between this restricted understanding and the more general one which equates Zionism with Israel's military expansion rather than with its existence.

    When people say Zionism nowadays, what do they mean? Is the contemporary support of Zionism really about the boring uncontroversial point that Israel should continue to exist - a fact even Hamas supports, or is it more saucy and about the expansion? The emotive core of the belief is clearly closer the latter - security through control, expansion through disproportionate retaliation... Securing a homeland for the Jewish people - a destined people's lebensraum under the constant terrorist threat.

    If it smells like a duck, quacks like a duck, and happily sings in praise of sectarian warcrimes...
  • BitconnectCarlos
    1.7k
    Either that or you're pivoting between this restricted understanding and the more general one which equates Zionism with Israel's military expansion rather than with its existence.fdrake


    It depends on whose narrative we go by. You're talking with me, so you're going to get the Jewish narrative. If we talked to a pro-Palestinian Arab he'd likely say (as Hamas does) that the original birth of the Israeli state was an unjust expansion in the sense that it stole Muslim land. Every inch taken of Muslim land is an unjust expansion according to that narrative. This is a very common view among the Palestinians as well as across the Arab world.

    Is the contemporary support of Zionism really about the boring uncontroversial point that Israel should continue to exist - a fact even Hamas supports, or is it more saucy and about the expansion?fdrake

    This is not a boring and uncontroversial point at all. If that's how you consider it then you're around decent, civilized company but do not take your experience as the majority one. I'm happy to bring in polls and there's also a popular youtuber as who just walks around asking Arabs and Israelis questions and you can get a decent sample of their opinions from that. Look up Corey Gil-Shuster. Check out the one where he asks Palestinians "If Israel withdrew to '67 borders would that bring peace?" Spoiler: Some said yes, but at least half said no.

    If it smells like a duck, quacks like a duck, and happily sings in praise of sectarian warcrimes...fdrake

    I don't think it's fair to equate any country with their far right. I don't do it with the UK and I hope you wouldn't do that with America. Needless to say conflict brings out the worst in people.
  • fdrake
    5.8k
    I don't think it's fair to equate any country with their far right. I don't do it with the UK and I hope you wouldn't do that with America.BitconnectCarlos

    I absolutely do do it with the UK and America insofar as I believe it relevant, and would do it more for the UK if the UK's government gave me strong EDL vibes like Israel's government does.

    It's fair if it's right.
  • Benkei
    7.1k
    the Jewish narrativeBitconnectCarlos

    There is no "the Jewish narrative", there are several. Homeland doesn't mean state in some, nor from the west bank to the sea in others. When talking about anti-Zionism quite early on in this debate I explicated what I understood to be right wing political Zionism and why this should be opposed.

    Your focus on factual correctness here is masturbatory. As long as you continue to support (which is effectively the same as refusing to condemn) the deliberate murder of innocent civilians I cannot engage with you, it is that simple. Please come back to the side of humanity here.BitconnectCarlos

    I have but you haven't been paying attention. I've condemned it but maintain that every atrocity happening to Israelis is of their own making and every atrocity befalling the Palestinians is wreaked upon them by Israel. That's a consequence of the power differential and Israel's treatment of Palestinians in general. In other words, Israel is asking for it by treating Palestinians as animals and as such has no moral standing to be outraged by a bunch of ineffectual rocket attacks while it's state (sponsored) terrorism is many times worse.
  • frank
    14.5k
    Both sides are doing a good job of reinforcing the conflict.
  • Benkei
    7.1k
    @Andrew4Handel

    s2qk8o3begrlfxdv.png

    Israel breaking ceasefires more regularly than Palestinians
    7mpogy6lnk3cbj3n.png

    What "peace talks" bring Palestinians

    uuhhb5c8mgc682e2.png

    I gathered pictures for you so maybe you can wrap your head around the facts this way.
  • DingoJones
    2.8k
    Lets say I have a magic button. Its a kill button. When the button is pushed whoever I want dead, dies. Its the perfect weapon, there is no defence against it, its just push button, death. Lets say there is no consequences, no way of proving the magic button was used so the consequences of the murder are minimal.
    Now lets imagine this button in the hands of the leadership of Israel, then imagine the button in the hands the leadership of Palestine.
    How do you think the button would be used by either side?
  • Andrew4Handel
    2.5k
    Where are these images from?
  • Benkei
    7.1k
    How is it helpful to imagine genocide?
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