Wonkers and Israel

[Iwannaplato]

double post

[bahman]

But this is demagoguery, Gary. The overwhelming majority of "Palestinians" voted for Hamas in democratic elections.
After the terrorist attacks, "Palestinians" organize public celebrations in the streets.
And on October 7, not only Hamas killed, but also crowds of “non-party people.”

That is correct. But that does not give credit to Israelis for killing 10 times more innocents!

What should Israel do? Ask nicely for the return of the hostages? How do you think that would go? How would you go about it?

Israelis should end the occupation!

[Immanuel Can]

A Jewish university professor outlines the history of the conflict to his students:

Zionism is the Jewish right to self-determination in our ancestral homeland. Israel is that ancestral homeland. Jews are the indigenous peoples of that land; not the only indigenous peoples of that land, to be sure. But Israel is the only land to which we are indigenous.

After 2000 years of longing, the result of the Holocaust – a Nazi movement which sought to ethnically cleanse the world of Jews by systematically exterminating us – was that the international community granted us a sliver of that ancestral homeland. It was to be shared, partitioned into a Jewish state & an Arab state. The Arabs rejected the partition & attacked the Jews when they declared the state of Israel in 1948.

The Jews won. Arabs who remained in Israel became citizens with full rights & freedoms. 20% of Israel’s population today is Arab. They fight in the army, they are doctors, lawyers, members of Parliament & supreme court judges. There is no apartheid. Israel’s Jewish population consists of Jews from Arab lands, whose parents or grandparents were kicked out when the state of Israel was formed, & of descendants of refugees from Eastern Europe, Holocaust survivors who had no homes to return to. Some are more recent refugees from Europe, Russia, & the Americas who either returned to Israel for religious reasons or because the Jew-hatred in their communities grew too excessive & they decided to emigrate, to head for the one place in the world Jews can go if their neighbours or governments turn against them.

The West Bank & Gaza strip – along with refugee camps that still exist in Lebanon, Syria, & Jordan -- were the places that the Arab nations who attacked Israel at its founding told the Arabs living in Palestine (later to be known as Palestinians) to flee. It was supposed to be temporary, because the plan was to “push the Jews into the sea.” When the plan didn’t work out, all of these states refused to absorb the Palestinians. They wanted to keep them in camps because they still planned to annihilate Israel & the Jews that lived there & then the Palestinians could return.

The West Bank was in Jordan & Gaza was in Egypt until 1967, when the Arab states tried again to push the Jews into the sea. Their failure this time ended with Israel capturing these territories. When Israel tried to exchange land for peace & give Gaza back to Egypt, Egypt didn’t want it. And so the territories remained in Israel.

In 2005 Israel pulled out of Gaza & left it to govern itself. Most of the West Bank is also self-governing, but not all because of the high number of suicide bombers & other threats to Israel’s existence fomenting there, so Israel hasn’t been able to fully remove itself. The current awful Israeli government has allowed religious fanatics, “settlers,” to build settlements there, which makes everything worse. And you see what I did there? I criticized Israel’s government. I can do that, & still support the existence of a Jewish state in our ancestral homeland.

When you say “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” this is a call to ethnic cleansing of Jews from their homeland, from the only state in the entire Middle East that would look remotely familiar to you in terms of basic rights & freedoms & a democratic system if you were to visit the region. When Hamas supporters – like those who led you all in a rally on my home campus today – talk about Jews as “occupiers,” they don’t mean Gaza. They mean the whole state of Israel. They want Jews eradicated from the entire land. Hamas actually wants us gone from the whole world, as they have stated many times.

Who are the Nazis now?

Comments?

[seeds]

That is correct. But that does not give credit to Israelis for killing 10 times more innocents!

What should Israel do? Ask nicely for the return of the hostages? How do you think that would go? How would you go about it?

Israelis should end the occupation!

Precisely, bahman.

However, that might put the kibosh on the self-fulfilling prophecy of the fast-approaching "Armageddon."

I mean, how can the members of the Abrahamic religion(s) bring about the end of the world (as we know it) if they are no longer allowed to do the very things that will cause the ("predicted") end to occur?

On the other hand, with that being said, I find myself to be a bit conflicted over the irony of the situation. For even though the insanity of what's taking place horrifies me,...

...I am also aware of the fact that "something huge" needs to happen to cure the "patient" (humanity) of its multi-religion schizophrenia, which seems to be the primary source of most of its problems.

Indeed, that's why I keep harping about the need for a "new spiritual paradigm"; one that unites us all because it actually makes sense to all humans (including the materialists).
_______

[accelafine]

That is correct. But that does not give credit to Israelis for killing 10 times more innocents!

What should Israel do? Ask nicely for the return of the hostages? How do you think that would go? How would you go about it?

Israelis should end the occupation!

What 'occupation'? Please explain. No generic buzzwords please- just facts and evidence. Gaza has its own Govt. It became 'independent' in 2005. Yes, it does depend on Israel's kindness for basic necessities like power, water and internet, but that's only because all of its money goes towards making its leaders unimaginably rich in their Qatar mansions.

[Alexis Jacobi]

The Jews won.

It’s hard, and strange, but ultimately simply hard: there was no victory and there is no victory. I know he means they won a particular conflict. I am taking it at another level.

Judaism set a trap for itself through its initial self-assertions about “selection” about eternal rights and also about eventual domination and rulership. It established itself through a negation of all others. Therefore, it can in that light (but this is not the only light) be understood as a religious supremacism. In this sense it established its own trap.

Israel is profoundly divided (socially, among Jews). It is not a society at peace. It says it longs for peace but every choice it makes cements the tragedy of its situation.

Now these things seem to be coming to a head. The “righteous” say they defend this monstrous state no matter what it does. And doing so (to all appearances) they double-down on non- or anti-righteousness. They contribute to the *trap*. They feed its existence.

Christian Zionism then aligns itself with something other, something contrary, in the name of God and the good.

But what is the real truth? Can it even be distinguished ?

This is all “moral trainwreck” but on extreme doses of hormones.

The so-called righteous state, the shining city on the hill, implicates itself in a genocidal assault.

And so — where is God? The righteous God who would adjudicate everything? That *defined God of righteousness* (taken in its own terms) would have to take sides. But it does not seem that it could take the side if Israel. Yahweh could, but not the ideal God of our modern conception (to the degree this is defined).

[accelafine]

It would be nice if religious nuts would stay out of this. Facts and evidence please. Israel doesn't have to explain or justify WHY it exists, any more than any other country does.

[Janoah]

"Palestinians" didn't murder her. Hamas did.

But this is demagoguery, Gary. The overwhelming majority of "Palestinians" voted for Hamas in democratic elections.
After the terrorist attacks, "Palestinians" organize public celebrations in the streets.
And on October 7, not only Hamas killed, but also crowds of “non-party people.”

That is correct. But that does not give credit to Israelis for killing 10 times more innocents!

However, I have to admit that this is essentially demagoguery.
Israel is not looking for such idiotic credit, Israel's merit is that it eliminates Hamas, just as ISIS was destroyed in Iraq and Syria, but warned the civilian population to leave the combat zone to the south.
The fact that the civilian population followed Hamas' call not to evacuate, or was stopped by Hamas, is Hamas's responsibility for using the civilian population as human shields.
Why don’t all these world demagogues condemn Hamas for their use of civilians as human shields, and at least one of these demagogues would even say a word?
The population in Gaza could have prospered and built Hong Kong, they would have been helped by the entire world community, but instead, they seriously only worked on terror against Israel, at the expense of this world community, and this must come to an end.

[accelafine]

But this is demagoguery, Gary. The overwhelming majority of "Palestinians" voted for Hamas in democratic elections.
After the terrorist attacks, "Palestinians" organize public celebrations in the streets.
And on October 7, not only Hamas killed, but also crowds of “non-party people.”

That is correct. But that does not give credit to Israelis for killing 10 times more innocents!

However, I have to admit that this is essentially demagoguery.
Israel is not looking for such idiotic credit, Israel's merit is that it eliminates Hamas, just as ISIS was destroyed in Iraq and Syria, but warned the civilian population to leave the combat zone to the south.
The fact that the civilian population followed Hamas' call not to evacuate, or was stopped by Hamas, is Hamas's responsibility for using the civilian population as human shields.
Why don’t all these world demagogues condemn Hamas for their use of civilians as human shields, and at least one of these demagogues would even say a word?
The population in Gaza could have prospered and built Hong Kong, they would have been helped by the entire world community, but instead, they seriously only worked on terror against Israel, at the expense of this world community, and this must come to an end.

You have to wonder why, if there is a 'genocide' going on in Gaza, there are AI generated images all over the internet of alleged 'victims' of said 'genocide', and actors appearing in video after video in different guises--sometimes dead, sometimes alive, sometimes as medics, parents ra ra ra... Why are people always so willing to believe lies over the truth? I've never been able to work that out.

[accelafine]

I assume these same people play the 'numbers game' when it comes to German deaths during WW11, which incidentally had NOTHING to do with trying to save people from ACTUAL genocide. In fact the British spend most of their time celebrating all those German deaths that happened during WW11.
Hypocrites.
You also have to wonder how the Gazan population could increase so quickly when it's being 'genocided'.

[Iwannaplato]

Lovely, then explain the Buffy St. Marie reference, her posing as a Native Canadian, in the context of the argument here. You're saying you didn't imply what I said. Great. That would have been a poor argument.

So, what did you mean bringing her up in this context?

[accelafine]

What 'context'? Did you 'imply' something? I didn't notice. Where? How? What? I don't remember. You aren't someone who makes much of an impression.
I'm sure anyone would be delighted to have you give them your house and land (if you have any). I couldn't give a tinker's hoot what Americans or Canadians do.

[Iwannaplato]

What 'context'? Did you 'imply' something? I didn't notice. Where? How? What? I don't remember. You aren't someone who makes much of an impression.
I'm sure anyone would be delighted to have you give them your house and land (if you have any). I couldn't give a tinker's hoot what Americans or Canadians do.

The context of the thread topic, you know Israel/Hamas.
Here's your post:
viewtopic.php?p=680326#p680326
I said there was an implicit poor argument in this post. You labelled my interpretation a strawman. Great. So, what were you saying.

[accelafine]

What 'context'? Did you 'imply' something? I didn't notice. Where? How? What? I don't remember. You aren't someone who makes much of an impression.
I'm sure anyone would be delighted to have you give them your house and land (if you have any). I couldn't give a tinker's hoot what Americans or Canadians do.

The context of the thread topic, you know Israel/Hamas.
Here's your post:
viewtopic.php?p=680326#p680326
I said there was an implicit poor argument in this post. You labelled my interpretation a strawman. Great. So, what were you saying.

Do you have OCD or something? Who gives a fuck? The conversation ended. End of story. When someone uses a strawman it means they've lost and I lose interest. Cheerio.

[Iwannaplato]

Do you have OCD or something? Who gives a fuck? The conversation ended. End of story. When someone uses a strawman it means they've lost and I lose interest. Cheerio.

Yeah, I thought so. You lied. You're one of those run of the mill posters who can't actually justify an assertion and all they post are assertions or implicit arguments they can pretend they never made. The Buffy Saint Marie of Philosophy Club gets a new member.