(11-16-2023, 12:30 PM)Dill Wrote: Umm Nazi analogies and comparisons to Sloppy, along with unfounded accusations that I "excuse" Hamas whenever I return to the
historical and social causes of the conflict, are not really engaging with with even a small amount of what I have posted.
Yes, as you said, Nazi analogies are fine when they're appropriate. Also, worth noting, I did not compare you to Nazis in any way shape or form, despite your attempts to suggest otherwise. I pointed out the obvious, that your attempts to excuse or mitigate the actions of Hamas are as reprehensible as attempts to mitigate or excuse the actions of the Nazis. I can understand why that factual statement troubles you, given your posts on this issue.
Quote:Rather, you have held my arguments at arm's length, firing impressions at them without engaging, and repeating indefensible claims which cannot be
supported by the historical record or humane "Western" ethics without at all addressing the objections leveled at them.
It's not clear that you even recognize or follow those objections.
Is directly answering your points and questions "holding them at arm's length?" Still waiting on your pontificating reply as opposed to these little snippets attempting to excuse your continued excuse making for mass rape, kidnapping and murder. I'm sure it will be worth the wait.
(11-16-2023, 12:58 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Is directly answering your points and questions "holding them at arm's length?" Still waiting on your pontificating reply as opposed to these little snippets attempting to excuse your continued excuse making for mass rape, kidnapping and murder. I'm sure it will be worth the wait.
While waiting I'd appreciate you lay off the extreme, accusatory rhetoric, which risks getting the thread shut down before I finish my posts.
(11-16-2023, 01:36 PM)Dill Wrote: While waiting I'd appreciate you lay off the extreme, accusatory rhetoric, which risks getting the thread shut down before I finish my posts.
I thought you were fine with extreme comparisons when apt? Regardless, I state nothing but the truth, you have routinely excused and mitigated the behavior of Hamas, just as you have done with other Islamic extremists in the past. Pointing that out, and noting the pattern, is only a statement of fact. Maybe the extreme part of this is your position and not my observing it?
(11-16-2023, 02:17 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: I thought you were fine with extreme comparisons when apt? Regardless, I state nothing but the truth, you have routinely excused and mitigated the behavior of Hamas, just as you have done with other Islamic extremists in the past. Pointing that out, and noting the pattern, is only a statement of fact. Maybe the extreme part of this is your position and not my observing it?
Yet you can't really seem to quote/specify examples of this alleged "mitigating" and "excusing" because they are "everywhere" and so nowhere.
So, not a statement of fact, more perception.
Anything you could quote would turn out to be causal analysis leading to application of International Humanitarian Law to Israeli actions.
That's the "extreme" part of my position and you are indeed "observing it." Hence all the deflection, misconstruction, and ad hominem.
As stated before, calling causal analysis "excusing" is to forbid from the outset any criticism of Israeli actions
--including war crimes. It's simply arguing by accusation, and by deflecting rather than addressing historically grounded arguments.
(11-14-2023, 05:01 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Sure, not a single example in this thread at all.
Right. You've got nothing. So time to end the smear tactics.
(11-14-2023, 05:01 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: No, it wouldn't have made any difference. History rather backs me up. Assad and ISIS massacre tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands. Nary a peep. Saudi Arabia attacks Yemen on the regular, nary a peep. Jordan expels Palestinians by the thousands, nary a peep. The minute you include Jews into the picture and it's the beginning of WW3. If Israel had done everything completely above board they'd still be getting attacked to this day. Radical Islam demands the destruction of Israel and the elimination of its Jewish population. Don't take my word for it, take Hamas's, Hezbollah and Iran's.
What in the world? How is this "history"? Whatever can you mean by "peep" here? From whom?
Syria is a pariah state. A coalition of US and Arab/Kurdish armies crushes ISIS and flattens its capital city Raqa = "nary a peep"?
Jordan expels an armed group it cannot control, but absorbs two waves of refugees and backs their right of return?
Of course there's no "peep." They did the right thing--the HUMANE thing.
Saudi attacks Yemen and human rights groups go ballistic, along with the UN. Why isn't that a "peep"?
Still, Saudis have not taken Houthi homes and placed millions under permanent military control. There'll certainly be a "peep" if they do.
But as soon as hundreds of thousands of Jews from Europe cleanse hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their home with a terror campaign and then imprison the remainder while continuing to appropriate their land--your perception is the world only has a problem with this because Israelis are Jewish??
NOWHERE IN THE WORLD does one ethnic/religious group hold FIVE MILLION PEOPLE of another ethnic/religious group UNDER PERMANENT MILITARY CONTROL for GENERATIONS, except in East Jerusalem, Gaza, and the West Bank.
If Israel had "done everything completely above board," Israelis today would be part of a democratic Palestine, "from the river to the sea." It just would NOTbe an ethnic state with occupied territories. And neither would there be some "radical Islam" calling for its destruction.
(11-14-2023, 01:24 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: You continue to ignore the most basic, and important, point regarding this conflict. The Arab world has sought Israel's annihilation form the very beginning. Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran continue to state there will be no peace until Israel is wiped off the map and, in the process every Jew in the country is dead. Israel could have done things better, but nothing they could do, would do or will ever do, will satisfy the Islamic extremists who seek their extermination. You ignore this because to acknowledge it makes your whole house of cards tumble down. Israel could be at their 1948 borders and the exact same things would be happening because religious extremists demand their extermination. Hence your continued, and strident efforts to paint Israel as the cause of this conflict, despite this obvious evidence to the contrary, makes you an apologist.
No. I've addressed what you call this "most basic point" repeatedly. You fail to recognize this because you separate Israel's founding from the dispossession of Palestinians. Arabs have indeed wanted to eliminate Israel as an ethnic settler state--because it dispossesses Palestinians. Israel's 1948 borders were formed by that dispossession.
Focusing on causes to explain an effect is not ignoring that effect. But taking an effect--your so-called "main point"-- for a cause is certainly ignoring the real causes.
Central to your separation is your insistence that religion is the "real" reason why Arab nations don't want to recognize Israel, and why Hamas and Hezbolllah call for its destruction. That means you can set aside the dispossession and military occupation as non issues. ("Arabs would hate Israel anyway!")
This insistence, in turn, requires that you treat "the Arab world" as a political, cultural and religious monolith, like it's always only been one thing with one attitude towards Israel, and then you conflate this monolith with Islamist groups produced by Israeli aggression/war crimes, like Hamas and Hezbollah.
But this separation, insistence on religion as a cause, and conflation of "the Arab world" with Hezbollah, Hams, and Iran, are not supported by the historical record of this conflict. And that's why recovering HISTORY has to be the "main point" for anyone seeking peaceful resolution.
E.g. in '48 The Kingdom of Jordan, far from wanting to "annihilate" Israel in '47-'48, was happy to recognize it in return for chunks of the UN Partition intended for Palestinians. It made a show of resistance in Jerusalem and held portions of what is now the West Bank, but did nothing to threaten the Yishuv in the rest of the former Mandate. It was the massacres and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians initially in the Jewish Partition, beginning Nov. '47, which pushed very unready Egypt, Iraq, and Syria into the conflict--though only after Britain left--and shamed Jordan into providing more help than initially intended.
A more recent example: you frequently cite Hezbollah rhetoric as proof of a general Arab hatred rooted simply in religious belief. But Hezbollah did not exist in 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon the first time. Shia in southern Lebanon hated the PLO's domination of Lebanese politics, and were initially favorable to the 1982 invasion which removed them. But when Israel installed a Christian government and settled into a brutal occupation of southern Lebanon, the tide turned. Existing Shia militias like the secular Amal lost the mass of their followers to a new religious-based group roused by the occupation and bent on driving Israel from Lebanon--Hezbollah. Israel created Hezbollah by occupying Lebanon, just as its occupation of Gaza created Hamas. Now it has a far more powerful threat than Hamas on its northern border, with over 150,000 rockets and "smart" missiles.
It is only separated from this history that Hezbollah's rhetoric, like Hamas', becomes your voice of "the Arab world" and the "most basic point" you claim I "continue to ignore" by addressing actual causes--a process you call "painting Israel as the cause" (as if it were the Russians who drove 70,000 Palestinians out of their homes in Haifa in 1947 or the Chinese who invaded Lebanon in 1982) and "apologizing for Hamas."
So "the Arab world" has not "sought Israel's annihilation from the very beginning." There is no reason to suppose Arab armies would have attacked Israel in '48 if the Haganah (the then IDF) had not already begun ethnic cleansing in Nov. of '47. Even then, the goal of Jordan was not Israel's "annihilation." Israel's mistreatment of Shia in 1982 CREATED an armed group now bent on Israel's destruction where before there had been Israeli sympathizers. If religion were really the cause, Hezbollah would have existed from decades BEFORE the occupation.
And it is not true that "the Arab world" wants "every Jew in the country dead." That's only the right wing extreme--e.g., Hezbollah, directly produced by Israeli aggression, as is Palestinian resistance is produced in all forms. What most Arab nations and most Palestinians want is a single or two-state solution and peace. That's what my next post is about.
(11-14-2023, 05:01 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Are you saying that "the Arab world" would not, at this moment, get behind a single- or two-state solution, both of which would "destroy Israel" but leave all Israeli citizens alive and part of a new state arrangement? That's what I'm hearing, but I want to be sure.
OMG, you're literally advocating for the destruction of Israel here. Of course they'd be behind that, just as, apparently, you are. The ability to destroy Israel and then deal with the Jews in their midst with impunity? Literally a Hamas wish list, and apparently on yours as well.
I've answered two of your questions, now answer one of mine. In your proposed "solution" do you really think the Jews currently living in Israel would be treated fairly and without rancor by whatever state and people fills the void of what was once Israel? Do you really think for one second that they wouldn't be subjected to horrific abuse, at best?
OMG could you stop all the hyperbolic, accusatory drama of recasting peace proposals as calls for destruction?
Especially since you appear to know nothing about either a single- or two-state solution.
The first includes proposals to create a federal system with differing states, or a single state encompassing Mandatory Palestine in which all residents have full citizenship. (Some argue Israel and the occupied territories are already one-state--an apartheid state; and the settlements in the West Bank mean that the only resolution left is a single state, apartheid being unsustainable.) The second allows Israel to remain as an ethnic, settler state, but grants a the Palestinians a genuinely autonomous state in the West Bank and Gaza. Both proposals would give Palestinians full citizenship rights in a democratic state.
The first proposal would "destroy" the ethnic, apartheid state (which you seem to defend whatever the cost) but it would not "kill-all-the-Jews," as you wish to understand it. As of 2021, 14% of Jewish Israelis backed that solution, along with 56% of Israeli Arabs. https://en.idi.org.il/articles/36108The second would not destroy the ethnic state. Neither involves a scenario in which someone would or could "deal with the Jews in their midst with impunity." Neither is on some "Hamas wish list."
But I asked if you if think "the Arab world" would get behind these proposals. You've only granted that on a distorted understanding of the proposed solutions, which you happily attribute to me as well, and your imagined monolithic "Arab word" (discussed in the previous post) motivated only by religious fanaticism. Some of the aforementioned proposals actually come from Israelis who, to use your language would want "the destruction of Israel just like Hamas" if your understanding of the proposals were correct. Remember that people arguing in good faith don't deliberately mis-construct opponents' arguments. That's what you'll be doing from this point on if you keep referring to one- or two-state proposals as expressing some general Arab desire to kill all Jews and supported as such by me.
And I posed the question (which you had to distort to answer) because of your claim the conflict is really about religion, not dispossession and occupation. I'm saying that the majority of "the Arab world" would be happy with a a one- or two-state solution which elevated Palestinians to full possession of their human rights. Some hard core opponents to peace would remain, but they would continue to lose support and be opposed by most current Israeli citizens and Palestinians in the new states--increasingly as they prospered in their new circumstances. That is shown in the willingness of even Saudi Arabia to normalize relations with Israel, provided they can productively address the Palestinian issue.
At this point, the people obstructing potential solutions are those who continue to claim the "real" problem is European-style antisemitism and religious fanaticism--not dispossession and occupation. That's also an argument for an untenable status quo, and future Hamas attacks whose real causes cannot be examined for fear of "blaming Israel" and "excusing Hamas."
(11-14-2023, 01:24 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Sloppy once directly quoted a KKK leader when speaking about black people. He was rightly called out for this bigotry. Dill routinely attacks Israel, and only Israel in these discussions. He consistently excuses and mitigates the conduct of terrorists placing the blame for their behavior not on themselves, but on Israel, the US or western foreign policy. Since Dill doesn't mind I'll break my rule. What he does is like excusing the conduct of the Third Reich because the treaty of Versailles and the subsequent behavior of the victors of WW1 was so unfair to Germany. While it is certainly true that these things contributed to the rise of extremism in Germany using them to ameliorate the subsequent actions of the Nazis would, and should, be rightfully called out as unacceptable. Dill engages in that exact behavior on a routine basis. I don't expect you to, ever, disagree with him, but I'd honestly be astonished if you don't see this as well.
A quick note on the bolded.
You don't have a "rule." This is the second time in a week you've resorted to Nazi analogies. Your "rule" about them, like your strictures against calling people "racist" or comparing Americans to Islamists, was only ever directed at other people. You make up rules for others which you break when you feel like it. So not really "rules."
To this should be added the fact that my validation of social scientific/historical comparisons of authoritarian politics, while it doesn't exclude Nazi comparisons of policies and politicians where they can actually be established, cannot be responsibly interpreted as "approval" for targeting forum members with Nazi analogies.
As far as your current Sloppy*/Nazi analogy: Nazis had to be destroyed, as I've said Hamas must, but by 1942 the Allies already recognized if they didn't want to create a new generation of them something had to change when the war was over--so came the Marshall Plan, the UN, and the IMF and an actively supported democracy rather than reparations. The people engaged in that process of recognizing what conditions produced Nazis--i.e., historical/economic causes--and trying to insure those conditions were not recreated were not, so far as I know, accused of apologizing for or excusing Nazis for simply recognizing those causes. And how is Sloppy quoting the KKK, which dehumanizes blacks and supports segregating them, remotely analogous to me criticizing Israel for dehumanizing/segregating Palestinians? Would criticizing racial segregation in the south be "mitigating" or "excusing" the actions violent black nationalists?
*Wonder which side of our debate Sloppy would take, or Goldenarm9 or Lucie or Vlad?
Pretty much as advertised, more repetition of the same points worded slightly differently. You honestly believe that if Israel ceased to exist as a state that the Jews living there would be treated fairly, which is literally insane. You ignore that cries for their annihilation are a constant. You ignore the words of Hamas, directly backed by Iran, that more attacks akin to 10/07 will occur until Israel no longer exists. Tell yourself whatever you want, mollify your conscience by claiming some academic and intellectual high ground. But your position on this issue is morally bankrupt and invites comparisons that are less than flattering.
(11-16-2023, 05:59 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Pretty much as advertised, more repetition of the same points worded slightly differently. You honestly believe that if Israel ceased to exist as a state that the Jews living there would be treated fairly, which is literally insane. You ignore that cries for their annihilation are a constant. You ignore the words of Hamas, directly backed by Iran, that more attacks akin to 10/07 will occur until Israel no longer exists. Tell yourself whatever you want, mollify your conscience by claiming some academic and intellectual high ground. But your position on this issue is morally bankrupt and invites comparisons that are less than flattering.
Um humm. I just explained to you where those "cries for annihilation" come from, and what would happen if deprived of their cause. And I explained how you treat those cries as cause rather than effect, as you continue to do here, repeating a claim without addressing its refutation.
And with many Israelis, I do think that a one-state solution is preferable to an ethnic state which can only exist by dominating another ethnic group.
You worry about the dominators being "treated fairly," but not the dominated.
The bolded is a perfect example of your holding an argument at a distance, refusing to engage with the history in this case,
or the ethical basis of the criticism. Since when, and upon what possible ethical principle, can criticizing an ethnic state holding 5 million people of another ethnicity under military occupation be the "morally bankrupt" position?
What "less than flattering comparisons" might be "invited" by defending military control of one group by another, based on the former's ethnicity?
Offering concrete, historical evidence and rational argument for my position is neither "telling myself what I want" nor just "different wording," especially when you apparently cannot refute that argument on the same evidentiary/rational level.
So you got what you wished for, and your "refutation" amounts to pique and a few adjectives.
(11-16-2023, 06:22 PM)Dill Wrote: Um humm. I just explained to you where those "cries for annihilation" come from, and what would happen if deprived of their cause.
And like many Israelis, I do think that is a solution preferable to an ethnic state which can only exist by dominating another ethnic group.
Their cause is the destruction of Israel and the death of all Jews within it. Don't take my word for it.
Hamas’ Oct. 7 bloodletting “is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth, because we have the determination, the resolve and the capabilities to fight,” he vowed. “We will do this again and again.”
Why? Because “Israel has no place on our land; we must remove that country, because it constitutes a security, military and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nations, and must be finished.”
Or take the word of a son of one of the organization's founders.
Start at 6:00. These people want death, and they are backed by major regional powers. Nothing short of the achievement of their goals will ever satisfy them. I guess we can add appeasement to your list of similarities.
No one is disputing what Hamas, or Hezbollah or Iran says.
No point in continuing to "prove" that.
What is disputed is any claim they speak for some "Arab world."
The Gulf states, Jordan, North Africa from Morocco to Egypt, Lebanon, Syria--all will accept a one or two state solution if it brings some form of Palestinian statehood. Once that happens, they'll be happy to help Israel clean up Hamas. Iran won't matter.
The risk to the Jews, whose lives and rights you prioritize over their ethnic others,
is from failing to recognize this.
Everyone who addresses the rhetoric rather than the historical record increases the risk.
(11-16-2023, 06:46 PM)Dill Wrote: Still taking the effect as cause.
No one is disputing what Hamas, or Hezbollah or Iran says.
No point in continuing to "prove" that.
What is disputed is any claim they speak for some "Arab world."
They speak for a sizeable chunk of it.
Quote:The Gulf states, Jordan, North Africa from Morocco to Egypt, Lebanon, Syria--all will accept a one or two state solution if it brings some form of Palestinian statehood. Once that happens, they'll be happy to help Israel clean up Hamas. Iran won't matter.
This has been addressed. There is no solution to this that will appease the religious fanatics on both sides. You're momentously naïve to think otherwise.
Quote:The risk to the Jews, whose lives and rights you prioritize over their ethnic others,
is from failing to recognize this.
Oooo, a nice little low blow there from the supposed intellectual who is above that sort of attack. I don't prioritize Jews over Palestinian lives. What I do recognize is the deliberate rape, kidnapping and murder of civilians is markedly different from civilian casualties occurring during an armed conflict. Just as the US tries and does not always succeed to reduce civilian casualties, the same can be said for Israel. Again, a difference with the terrorists being that they actually try. Also, embedding your forces in civilian areas and sensitive locations intentionally will rather exacerbate this. As for Iran no longer mattering, again childish levels of naivete from you. Iran will one day acquire a nuclear weapon and they are a genocidal, theocratic, radical Islamic terror state. To say they will no longer matter is the height of stupidity. Oh, and do spare us the "they'll only get nukes because of Trump" BS. They're always going to try and acquire them, no amount of deal making will change that.
Quote:Everyone who addresses the rhetoric rather than the historical record increases the risk.
(11-16-2023, 07:08 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: They speak for a sizeable chunk of it.
Eh...The Arab world doesn't really like the Palestinians, this includes Hamas. They use them when it benefits them, but just see how no one is taking them in during all this. Also, Iran (and by extension Hezbollah) isn't part of the Arab world and doesn't get along with them. Hell, the recent Arab-Islamic summit was such a big deal because of Iranian involvement in being aligned with the rest of them.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
(11-16-2023, 07:36 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Eh...The Arab world doesn't really like the Palestinians, this includes Hamas. They use them when it benefits them, but just see how no one is taking them in during all this. Also, Iran (and by extension Hezbollah) isn't part of the Arab world and doesn't get along with them. Hell, the recent Arab-Islamic summit was such a big deal because of Iranian involvement in being aligned with the rest of them.
Oh, I know about Iran. They're Persian not Arab and will take great offense if labeled otherwise. And I do agree that the governments of most Arab nations are in alignment with your statements. It's how the general populace feels where I think there's some divergence.
(11-16-2023, 07:36 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: Eh...The Arab world doesn't really like the Palestinians, this includes Hamas. They use them when it benefits them, but just see how no one is taking them in during all this. Also, Iran (and by extension Hezbollah) isn't part of the Arab world and doesn't get along with them. Hell, the recent Arab-Islamic summit was such a big deal because of Iranian involvement in being aligned with the rest of them.
Some mild disagreements, Bels: The "Arab world" isn't one thing.
And given that so many nations in the ME have autocratic governments, one must distinguish between government and
population. I have followed this conflict for decades with friends in Arab states from Morocco to Qatar, and I have never met one
who didn't view the Israeli occupation the way American Blacks used to view Apartheid South Africa. Most view the occupation,
rightly I think, as a remainder of European colonialism, and see US-EU-British support for Israel as a continuation of the colonial double standard,which valued European/Western lives above those in colonized lands. Dismissal of Palestinian rights registers a devaluation of Arabs in general, and is especially grating when accompanied by affirmations of Israel's right to defend itself while appropriating
Palestinian land.
True that probably no government--except Iran--likes Hamas. But Arab populations have a much easier time separating
various Arab political groups from one another than Americans and Europeans do. E.g., most aren't going see Hamas as like ISIS
or like their own political organizations. But many may be happy to see Israel finally dealt a serious blow, no matter who does it,
and still want no part of Hamas. A vast majority in every Arab country will be very happy if a consequence of the current war is
that the Abraham accords and all other rapprochement with Israel is blocked until there is a solution to the Palestinian problem.
"Taking them in" is complicated in this case. Almost half the present population of Jordan are or were refugees. Jordan cannot handle any more, and should not. More importantly, there is a well grounded fear in Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt that taking in a new round of refugees simply advances their dispossession. They need to remain on their home ground to hold it.
(11-16-2023, 07:08 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: They speak for a sizeable chunk of it.
This has been addressed. There is no solution to this that will appease the religious fanatics on both sides. You're momentously naïve to think otherwise.
Oooo, a nice little low blow there from the supposed intellectual who is above that sort of attack. I don't prioritize Jews over Palestinian lives. What I do recognize is the deliberate rape, kidnapping and murder of civilians is markedly different from civilian casualties occurring during an armed conflict. Just as the US tries and does not always succeed to reduce civilian casualties, the same can be said for Israel. Again, a difference with the terrorists being that they actually try. Also, embedding your forces in civilian areas and sensitive locations intentionally will rather exacerbate this. As for Iran no longer mattering, again childish levels of naivete from you. Iran will one day acquire a nuclear weapon and they are a genocidal, theocratic, radical Islamic terror state. To say they will no longer matter is the height of stupidity. Oh, and do spare us the "they'll only get nukes because of Trump" BS. They're always going to try and acquire them, no amount of deal making will change that.
"Us" lol.
Let me rephrase--You recognize Israel's right to Palestinian land, and Israel's right to defend itself if Palestinians resist the dispossession,
and under that basic framework you prioritize recognition of Hamas murder of Israeli civilians over Israeli murder of Palestinian civilians.
Anyone who isn't excusing Israel is excusing Hamas.
The bolded suggests most of what you know about the current conflict comes from the IDF and US government, filtered through US news
commentators. Not sure you got that masterful intel assessment of Iran from the MSM though. The five Fox adjectives + "the left is
naive" formula.
Solutions don't always have to "appease fanatics." But to see that you have to understand
,
1) what causes "fanatics" (I've given you a start on that in post #106, which you've certainly not "addressed"), and
2) a lot more of the political diversity and infrastructure of the ME. It's not a landscape of comic book villains.
That means at some point going beyond the ethnocentric and ideological framing of corporate news and into the economic
and cultural as well as political history of the region. It means setting your five adjectives aside to look and learn first.
It means not actively blocking and dodging information which conflicts with the aforementioned framing. All that takes work.
No motivation to do any of that if you always already know what "Muslims" are like and that IDF guy on the news always confirms it.
US, as in United States. This topic has you really frazzled if that wasn't immediately obvious.
Quote:Let me rephrase--You recognize Israel's right to Palestinian land, and Israel's right to defend itself if Palestinians resist the dispossession,
and under that basic framework you prioritize recognition of Hamas murder of Israeli civilians over Israeli murder of Palestinian civilians.
Anyone who isn't excusing Israel is excusing Hamas.
I recognize Israel currently exists. I have no control over things that happened well before I was born and, like everyone else, must deal with reality as it exists. I don't prioritize anyone's murder of another's. I recognize the difference between deliberately targeting civilians for murder, gang rape and kidnapping and the deaths of civilians that occur during a military campaign. Especially a military campaign in which the other sides deliberately embeds itself and its assets in the civilian population in order to assure these casualties. That is why one side is a military and the other is a terrorist organization whose stated objective is elimination of a entire nation and its peoples.
Quote:The bolded suggests most of what you know about the current conflict comes from the IDF and US government, filtered through US news
commentators. Not sure you got that masterful intel assessment of Iran from the MSM though. The five Fox adjectives + "the left is
naive" formula.
I love your super concentrated smug posts, they always give me a giggle. Iran will acquire a nuclear weapon because they are actively trying to doso and are receiving aid from those who possess them. it is, sadly, only a matter of time.
Quote:Solutions don't always have to "appease fanatics." But to see that you have to understand
,
1) what causes "fanatics" (I've given you a start on that in post #106, which you've certainly not "addressed"), and
2) a lot more of the political diversity and infrastructure of the ME. It's not a landscape of comic book villains.
Yes, more smug, I must have more!
Quote:That means at some point going beyond the ethnocentric and ideological framing of corporate news and into the economic
and cultural as well as political history of the region. It means setting your five adjectives aside to look and learn first.
It means not actively blocking and dodging information which conflicts with the aforementioned framing. All that takes work.
No motivation to do any of that if you always already know what "Muslims" are like and that IDF guy on the news always confirms it.
Yes, if only we were all as learned as you. Then we could twist our minds into excusing mass rape, murder and kidnapping.
Quote:Israeli Military Says It Is Preparing to Fight Hamas in Southern Gaza NEW PHASE [/url]Mark Alfred Breaking News Intern Published Nov. 17, 2023 9:07PM EST
[url=https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thedailybeast.com%2Fisraeli-military-says-it-is-preparing-to-fight-hamas-in-southern-gaza%3Fsource%3Dtwitter%26via%3Ddesktop&via=thedailybeast&text=Israeli%20Military%20Says%20It%20Is%20Preparing%20to%20Fight%20Hamas%20in%20Southern%20Gaza&counturl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thedailybeast.com%2Fisraeli-military-says-it-is-preparing-to-fight-hamas-in-southern-gaza]
The [url=https://www.thedailybeast.com/keyword/israel]Israeli military is preparing to broaden fighting in Gaza to “every place that Hamas is, and it is in the south of the strip,” Rear Adm. Daniel Hagari said in a Friday news briefing. Hagari declined to give specifics, rationalizing that there was “no need to let the enemy know the details.” Hagari added that 372 soldiers with the Israel Defense Forces had been killed since Oct. 7. The expansion of fighting to the south raises the specter of even more civilian casualties as Palestinian civilians struggle to escape the fighting. Airstrikes and fighting across the strip have killed over 11,000 people, local officials reported.
I guess telling them to go south isn't gonna work out so well.
Your anger and ego will always reveal your true self.
I guess telling them to go south isn't gonna work out so well.
Eh, it's already been estimated that one-third of the 11,000 dead in Gaza were from the areas Israel told Palestinians to flee to.
This is my problem with this whole thing. I have zero problem with Israel actually invading Gaza to root out Hamas after October 7th. In fact, I think that they had every right to do so. What I have a problem with is that they tell civilians to flee south to avoid the violence, and then they bomb them in the south. I have a problem with some of the justifications of air strikes on refugee camps. I have a problem with the evidence used to justify the attack on the hospital (a bunch of metal weapons being stored near a giant magnet doesn't seem all that likely). I have a problem with the man who elevated and propped up Hamas all these years now using their existence as a justification for slaughtering thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians and who partners with people in government calling for legitimate ethnic cleansing.
The world tends to run on "proportional responses." Israel's response has not been proportional and in all seriousness is going to do more harm to their existence in the years to come than anything. I mean this in all sincerity, they will probably have to kill every Palestinian at this point because they are going to make terrorists out of those that remain with their actions.
"A great democracy has got to be progressive, or it will soon cease to be either great or a democracy..." - TR
"The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little." - FDR
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