Israel/Hamas War Superthread

[Dill]

(12-22-2023, 06:52 PM)samhain Wrote: Israel seems to have a FU card when it comes to murdering adversaries.  Responses are often expected to be disproportionate and without apology.  

Despite this, I favor Israel in this conflict.  I don't say that because I agree with their tactics or heavy handedness.  I say it because they are the only liberal nation in the region, and one of the historically most liberal in the world.  I want them to succeed, although they've definitely taken an unfortunate authoritarian turn of late (as many western nations have).

Thanks for the thoughtful response. I tend to agree with the bolded. 

In my view, Israel's press is more liberal (i.e., "open") than ours is--especially with regard to their own government/military misdeeds. If you want to track actual cases of the IDF using civilians as human shields, you go to the Israeli press; if you want to hear how Hamas puts its headquarters under hospitals, you go to the US press.

I admire a number of their human rights organizations as well though, as you note, the rightward, authoritarian turn is as unfortunate there as it is here or anywhere else. 

Liberal democracies, including our own, have not had a particularly liberal record in their encounter with non-Western societies, especially those they have colonized. Israel, e.g., was born in an "authoritarian turn" vis a vis the Palestinian population it violently dispossessed and whose remainder it now holds under military control. 

(12-22-2023, 06:52 PM)samhain Wrote: I regard fundamentalist Islam much the same as I do evangelical Christianity.  I dislike their culture gaining influence here or anywhere.  Liberals who support organizations like Hamas out of sympathy for the unfortunate victims of the war should take care to compartmentalize their reasoning..  Women, homosexuals, atheists, even believers of other persuasions would likely not fare well in most nations governed by Islamic authorities.  In many cases they would be in real physical danger by merely openly existing.  Most of those people, however, would be just fine in Tel Aviv.  

I would caution against reading the Israel-Palestine conflict as a "civilizational" one between a liberal west and a monolithic, fundamentalist Islam, especially if you dislike Nazis and other far rightists. That's really their bailiwick. 

Palestinian politics embraces a full spectrum, including progressive support for "women, homosexuals, atheists" etc.  The PLO is a secular organization and the Palestinian government is a parliamentary democracy--albeit under the the thumb of the Israel military. Netanyahu was insuring Qatari money reached Hamas precisely to weaken this "liberal" secular block of the PLO/PA and strengthen the Islamist Hamas. The civilizational divide you see between Israel and the Palestinians is actually a divide within both groups.

I'd also keep in mind that "women, homosexuals, atheists and believers of other persuasions" do not fare well under Israeli military occupation either, where all the dominated population is in real physical danger.

Sexual acts between men are legally forbidden in Gaza, but that is based on a statute from the military code of the British Mandate.

As far as LGBTQ "being fine in Tel Aviv," many progressives there don't feel fine because their safety and ease, at present, is predicated on denying millions their rights. Very difficult to defend that in terms of liberal values.  The Palestinian LGBTQ activist group Al Qaws' website has an interesting account of "pink washing" in Israeli tourist marketing and in its government propaganda.  http://www.alqaws.org/articles/Beyond-Propaganda-Pinkwashing-as-Colonial-Violence?category_id=0

[Bengalzona]

In my opinion, the Palestinians need to rid themselves of the Hamas extremists and the Israelis need to rid themselves of the Netanyahu admin extremists.At that point, gains towards peace could start again.

Remember when Yitzak Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli right wing extremist.

[Dill]

(12-22-2023, 06:52 PM)samhain Wrote: I also intensely dislike Nazis and any other far right shitbag organization that regularly licks the balls of Donald Trump.  Surprisingly, or maybe not, there seems to be a bit of a strange alignment between Jew hating YPIPO and Jew-hating Muslims.  Swastikas are cool again in the most left-wing of protests.  Even a surprising number of nonwhite public figures seem willing to embrace Nazi iconography and Jew-hatred despite the obvious incongruence of other core beliefs.  How does this shit even happen?  

If the popular narrative conflict becomes Muslims and Nazis somehow uniting against Jews, then I'm for the Jews all day long regardless of tactics.  The Israel situation has never been perfect, but it beats the hell out of a world where laughably hard-right groups like the aforementioned gain public sympathy ahead of the Jewish state.  In that, I'd say I'd hope that the Israelis back off in time to conserve the perception of being sympathetic rather than oppressive.  It's likely too late, and they may find themselves regretting it.

I haven't seen any images of swastikas at left-wing protests, certainly not evidence that they are cool "again" --unless they are painted on images of Trump or similarly framed to accuse authoritarian politics.

There are non-white public figures, like Musk, who appear to support anti-semitic statements and politics, but that doesn't seem to be in defense of Palestinians. 

As far as "alignment" between Muslims and Nazis, that seems doubtful, though some right wing groups may crash pro-Palestinian protests to foment more division in the US.  Aligning "leftists" with Islamists and dictators in Muslim countries, somehow, has been a staple of the Right since 2001.

I think we need to be careful to separate the actual, race-based anti-semitism of European tradition--which is a real thing alive and well in the US--with criticism of Israeli policies--often made by Israelis themselves. It is in the interest of the current US right to conflate the two in their pro-Israel propaganda. 

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(12-24-2023, 01:40 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: In my opinion, the Palestinians need to rid themselves of the Hamas extremists and the Israelis need to rid themselves of the Netanyahu admin extremists.At that point, gains towards peace could start again.

Remember when Yitzak Rabin was assassinated by an Israeli right wing extremist.

Very true.  The difference is that can happen in Israel in the next election.  In Gaza they haven't held an election in decades and you get killed for standing up to Hamas.  So, given those facts, how do you get rid of Hamas?

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(12-24-2023, 01:46 PM)Dill Wrote: I haven't seen any images of swastikas at left-wing protests, certainly not evidence that they are cool "again" --unless they are painted on images of Trump or similarly framed to accuse authoritarian politics.

https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=593453201&q=swastika+sign+at+anti-israel+protest&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwikwumk1KiDAxW3IUQIHR2GCeUQ0pQJegQICxAB&biw=2560&bih=1318&dpr=1.5






















You mean other than these and the myriad other examples I didn't post?

[Bengalzona]

(12-24-2023, 03:02 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Very true.  The difference is that can happen in Israel in the next election.  In Gaza they haven't held an election in decades and you get killed for standing up to Hamas.  So, given those facts, how do you get rid of Hamas?

Yup. That has kind of always been the question. If a country is generous to the Palestinian people and sends them benefits, Hamas declares it is because their extremist efforts and the people believe them. If a country is cruel to the Palestinian people and/or hurts them, Hamas declares them as an enemy and uses it as an example of why they and their extremism are necessary.

This is why an outside force would never be able to fully remove a group like Hamas. Even if you target and kill all of the current leaders, occupy where they live, and outlaw the group, they can re-invent themselves in a new incarnation and re-establish among the people. Because they are from that people. The U.S. came to this same conclusion about the Taliban. You can kill them all day long, but they will be back tomorrow. How do you deal with this?

In Afghanistan, we thought we had an answer. Occupy the country and give the people some breathing space to see other options than the ones forced upon them by the extremist group. We were there for almost 20 years and the Taliban rolled back in just as soon as we left. It didn't work. I suppose one could argue that our efforts won over a portion of the population and perhaps in the future they may overtake the Taliban. But that would require an organized grassroots resistance movement to the Taliban rule. That could happen. And if that group reached a certain maturity and size, then outside powers might be able to covertly support them.

Could that work in Gaza? It might have, before Netanyahu and crew started lowering the heavy hand on the area years ago. The Israeli extremism has just made it easier for the Taliban to point at them and declare they are the enemy. And the Palestinian people buy it because they see that with their own eyes on an almost daily basis. How does the Empire in Star Wars go to the people of Tatooine and convince them that they are really the good guys and are just misunderstood because they have to take these extremist measures? It doesn't fly with them.

[samhain]

(12-24-2023, 03:10 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=593453201&q=swastika+sign+at+anti-israel+protest&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwikwumk1KiDAxW3IUQIHR2GCeUQ0pQJegQICxAB&biw=2560&bih=1318&dpr=1.5






















You mean other than these and the myriad other examples I didn't post?

Well, I'm not sure of Hitler's skills in barberism.  His haircut was goofy as shit and his mustache was an all-time fail.  Even Michael Jordan couldn't pull that atrocity off when he he attempted it for some odd reason.  I'd have to think that the professional hair care community in Israel can do better than old Adolf.

[Dill]

(12-24-2023, 03:10 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=593453201&q=swastika+sign+at+anti-israel+protest&tbm=isch&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwikwumk1KiDAxW3IUQIHR2GCeUQ0pQJegQICxAB&biw=2560&bih=1318&dpr=1.5




You mean other than these and the myriad other examples I didn't post?

I mean, as I said,  "or similarly framed to accuse authoritarian politics."

These are all examples of the latter, not of people "aligning" with nazism.

None of these images suggests the protestors are approving, joining or taking the side of Nazis. 

Rather, all agree that Nazism was bad because of the way it de-humanized other ethnic groups. 

They are saying Israel is bad for the same reason.

[Dill]

(12-24-2023, 04:00 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: In Afghanistan, we thought we had an answer. Occupy the country and give the people some breathing space to see other options than the ones forced upon them by the extremist group. We were there for almost 20 years and the Taliban rolled back in just as soon as we left. It didn't work. I suppose one could argue that our efforts won over a portion of the population and perhaps in the future they may overtake the Taliban. But that would require an organized grassroots resistance movement to the Taliban rule. That could happen. And if that group reached a certain maturity and size, then outside powers might be able to covertly support them.

Could that work in Gaza? It might have, before Netanyahu and crew started lowering the heavy hand on the area years ago. The Israeli extremism has just made it easier for the Taliban to point at them and declare they are the enemy. And the Palestinian people buy it because they see that with their own eyes on an almost daily basis. How does the Empire in Star Wars go to the people of Tatooine and convince them that they are really the good guys and are just misunderstood because they have to take these extremist measures? It doesn't fly with them.

I have a somewhat different view of this B-zona. 

We went into Afghanistan determined to avoid "state building," and pretty much turned sections of the country back over to the warlords who helped us.
I.e., we re-created the conditions which created the Taliban in the first place. We didn't go their to take their land and homes for ourselves, and settle it 
with hundreds of thousands of Americans so it was easier to disengage.

I like the Star Wars analogy though. For virtually all Palestinians living in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan and Lebanon, the state which dispossessed them is
still the #1 enemy and ongoing threat.

Merry Christmas to you and your family, by the way.

[Bengalzona]

(12-25-2023, 03:04 PM)Dill Wrote: I have a somewhat different view of this B-zona. 

We went into Afghanistan determined to avoid "state building," and pretty much turned sections of the country back over to the warlords who helped us.
I.e., we re-created the conditions which created the Taliban in the first place. We didn't go their to take their land and homes for ourselves, and settle it 
with hundreds of thousands of Americans so it was easier to disengage.

I like the Star Wars analogy though. For virtually all Palestinians living in Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan and Lebanon, the state which dispossessed them is
still the #1 enemy and ongoing threat.

Merry Christmas to you and your family, by the way.

Theoretically we did not want to state build when we went into Afghanistan. That was the "sell job" on it, anyway. In actuality, that is what we ended up trying to do. I suppose some of our admin 'masterminds'; figured "Hey. We're doing it in Iraq. Why not Afghanistan too?!?!?!". Ultimately, we ended up propping up a corrupt regime which was willing to play along up until the point that U.S. troops left (a.k.a. Vietnam).

As for the Taliban, we really didn't need to re-create them since they never really left anyway. They just bode their time and waited for the Americans to fly off. Then they waltzed back into a power vacuum, having already procured side agreements with most of the tribal leaders. (BTW - The Taliban are far more shrewd and organized than Hamas.)

But back to the Palestinians. Personally, I am of two minds. The Palestinians have been wronged quite a few times over the years. They have some legitimate beefs. But would their position not be better today if they had, at least temporarily, gone along with U.N. Resolution 181 in 1947 and established their own state within the "Two State" proposal? That would have at least made them a sovereign nation. And even if they wanted to war with Israel to regain what they consider as lost land, doing so as a sovereign nation is a far better position than making yourself an orphaned population and relying on the feigned goodwill of neighboring nations... nations which continuously used the Palestinians for their own interests.



Consider this. When Israel seized the Sinai, Gaza, and the West Bank (all territories which were to be reserved for a future Palestinian nation) in the Six-Day War of 1968, they did not seize those places from the Palestinians. They seized them from Egypt and Jordan, who basically considered them 'up-for-grabs' since there was no soveign nation claiming them.

There simply was no nation of Palestine prior to the PLO declaring themselves as one in 1988. There was a group of people who called themselves Palestinians, but no nation. Like many other peoples in the world (Kurds, Wigurs, etc.) they were and are a people without their own nation. That is a damn tough position to be in in the modern world. But the Palestinians had the opportunity to incorporate and have their own land and government. Tell me what the Kurds wouldn't give for that opportunity, eh? So, before someone starts arguing "But they owned the land!!!", they did not properly 'own' the land. They inhabited the land for centuries under the Ottomans and later under the British Admin. But they did not legally 'own' it. Recognized ownership in the modern world comes from establishing yourself as a nation.

BTW - Merry Christmas, my friend! My best to you and your wife!

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(12-25-2023, 02:52 PM)Dill Wrote: I mean, as I said,  "or similarly framed to accuse authoritarian politics."

These are all examples of the latter, not of people "aligning" with nazism.

None of these images suggests the protestors are approving, joining or taking the side of Nazis. 

Rather, all agree that Nazism was bad because of the way it de-humanized other ethnic groups. 

They are saying Israel is bad for the same reason.

Please do answer the following question(s).  Do you agree with such comparisons and do you think such comparisons are antisemetic?

[Dill]

(12-25-2023, 06:25 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: Theoretically we did not want to state build when we went into Afghanistan. That was the "sell job" on it, anyway. In actuality, that is what we ended up trying to do. I suppose some of our admin 'masterminds'; figured "Hey. We're doing it in Iraq. Why not Afghanistan too?!?!?!". Ultimately, we ended up propping up a corrupt regime which was willing to play along up until the point that U.S. troops left (a.k.a. Vietnam).

As for the Taliban, we really didn't need to re-create them since they never really left anyway. They just bode their time and waited for the Americans to fly off. Then they waltzed back into a power vacuum, having already procured side agreements with most of the tribal leaders. (BTW - The Taliban are far more shrewd and organized than Hamas.)

BTW - Merry Christmas, my friend! My best to you and your wife!*

Sorry I'm late responding--holidays, family etc. 

Agree with the bolded. The developing chaos forced Bush and finally Obama to take state-building seriously--but too late. 

When I say "conditions which created the Taliban" I am referring to the chaos and uncertainty created by multiple centers of power exercising deadly force in the same neighborhood. That's what created the Taliban back in the '90s, as Afghans came to prefer any order to no order. 

The Taliban were thoroughly defeated and awed by US airpower by spring of 2002. And many, probably a good majority of Afghans, were happy to see them gone if it meant order and more freedom. And that was the US opportunity  to build an integrated military, police force and government there which had some chance of holding the country by keeping order. Instead they re-installed war lords or simply defaulted to their local control, the locals taking them now to be US proxies. (Remember Rummy's ideal of slimmed down military fighting on the cheap?) Boom! the Taliban-creating-conditions were there again, only this time remotely affiliated with a central, US backed government.

I remember the last time I went through Individual Readiness Training (In Grafenwoehr, Germany) for Afghanistan. That was in 2011, and they made a big point of visually demonstrating how random killing fueled the Taliban by yanking soldiers out of their seats and lining them up before everyone to create a family "system" of fathers, brothers, uncles and cousins. Kill one and that entire cluster of men was suddenly blood-feud bound to avenge the death. Most soldiers watching weren't much interested in all that COIN stuff, though. Nor did it seem like enough were in Afghanistan. (Wish Bfine were around, to get his take on this.) By 2020, even many village women in non-Pashtu districts who wanted schooling for their daughters came to prefer the Taliban over the local anarchy, which killed off their husbands, brothers, sons, uncles and cousins in a steady drip drip of random killings and reprisals. (Great article on this subject: Arnand Gopal's "The Other Afghan Women"  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/the-other-afghan-women.)

That sort of chaos, growing year by from 2003 on (especially after half the US occupation force was re-directed to Iraq) recruited new Taliban, and an unwillingness to resist them among those who didn't like the Taliban.

Anyway, some of this history may be fueling the Biden administration's pressure on Israel NOT to create more Hamas by mass killing of civilians, even framed as "collateral damage."  Israelis have already had their own lessons in this, especially from their occupation of Lebanon. If they did not learn those lessons, then I'm not sure the US can fix that. 

*Thanx!

[Dill]

(12-26-2023, 01:18 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: Please do answer the following question(s).  Do you agree with such comparisons and do you think such comparisons are antisemetic?

You know you can count on me to answer serious questions directly, whether I get the same courtesy in return or not.

1. No, don't agree that Israel=Nazi Germany. 

2. Protests against Israeli occupation and war crimes are generally an affirmation of universal human rights violated by the occupation and dispossession. Anti-semitism is based on the opposite.* The protestors in your images did not regard Nazi equivalences as positive. So in general it does not seem such comparisons are anti-semitic, though I'd have to judge case by case. E.g., there could be accelerationists in the mix cooking up who knows what in the way protest posters. 

A question for you now: would you be in favor of Israel dropping its "Jewish character" as an ethnic state to adopt full national, political, and civil equality for all its current citizens? It does claim to be a "democracy" after all, and its US partisans frequently defend it as the only such in the ME. 


*If we are going by the usual definitions of anti-semitism as either theologically based hostility to the Jewish religion and all its believers, or as hostility to Jews as an imagined racial community, or combinations of both. Criticism of Israeli policies which violate human rights would not be anti-semitism under these definitions.

[Dill]

(12-25-2023, 06:25 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: But back to the Palestinians. Personally, I am of two minds. The Palestinians have been wronged quite a few times over the years. They have some legitimate beefs. But would their position not be better today if they had, at least temporarily, gone along with U.N. Resolution 181 in 1947 and established their own state within the "Two State" proposal? That would have at least made them a sovereign nation. And even if they wanted to war with Israel to regain what they consider as lost land, doing so as a sovereign nation is a far better position than making yourself an orphaned population and relying on the feigned goodwill of neighboring nations... nations which continuously used the Palestinians for their own interests.

In retrospect I think a lot of Palestinians would agree with the bolded--certainly those who supported Oslo. Though it was a hard sell at the time, since it meant hundreds of thousands, who had no say in the resolution process, would have to turn over their homes and land to newly arrived immigrants from Europe. Israelis aren't even ready to give up the West Bank because of the recent settlements there, so you can imagine how hard it would be for people who had lived on land for generations to give it up to settle someone else's desire for a state. In any case, I think our focus should not be on getting people without military power to accept the terms dictated by aggressor nations. Rather, the goal should be to curb aggression, not validate and reward it.

Also, it wasn't really in the national interest of Egypt, Syria or Iraq to attack Israel in '48. They were outnumbered, outgunned, and uncoordinated, but pushed by their populations who were incensed at the dispossession of fellow Arabs, with the aid of European colonial powers, especially Great Britain, which had also occupied Egypt for three generations. So as far as Arab populations were concerned, I don't think the goodwill was feigned. Still isn't. Your final comment could certainly apply to the government of Jordan at the time.

(12-25-2023, 06:25 PM)Bengalzona Wrote: Consider this. When Israel seized the Sinai, Gaza, and the West Bank (all territories which were to be reserved for a future Palestinian nation) in the Six-Day War of 1968, they did not seize those places from the Palestinians. They seized them from Egypt and Jordan, who basically considered them 'up-for-grabs' since there was no soveign nation claiming them.

There simply was no nation of Palestine prior to the PLO declaring themselves as one in 1988. There was a group of people who called themselves Palestinians, but no nation. Like many other peoples in the world (Kurds, Wigurs, etc.) they were and are a people without their own nation. That is a damn tough position to be in in the modern world. But the Palestinians had the opportunity to incorporate and have their own land and government. Tell me what the Kurds wouldn't give for that opportunity, eh? So, before someone starts arguing "But they owned the land!!!", they did not properly 'own' the land. They inhabited the land for centuries under the Ottomans and later under the British Admin. But they did not legally 'own' it. Recognized ownership in the modern world comes from establishing yourself as a nation.

I'm familiar with this argument, B, and I do love to discuss international law (or at least its philosophical foundations), so three points in response to the bolded:

1. The Ottoman Empire was a recognized "nation" until 1922; through its 500 year administration of Palestine, it generated and maintained land records and deeds which were as "legitimate" as those of any other country. That is why the first two waves of Jewish immigration from Europe and Russia, beginning in 1882, were able to record the land they purchased in an existing legal apparatus with courts, records, surveyed maps, etc. When the British took over the Mandate in 1920, they also took over and maintained land records and a judicial system through which the next three waves of Jewish settlers could continue to buy and privately own land. No way to grant the legitimacy of Jewish ownership recognized in either the Peel proposal of '37 or the UN Resolution of '47, and simultaneously delegitimate Palestinian ownership recorded in the same system.

2. The conception of universal human rights, upon which both the League of Nations (the authority handing Mandatory Palestine to GB) and the UN were founded, was understood to require state recognition for enforcement, but did not require national citizenship before universal rights could apply to people living anywhere.

So when the armed forces of the Jewish settlers in the Mandate (Hagenah, Irgun, Stern Gang) began seizing the property of Palestinians living there and driving them out of cities and villages, there was no sanction for that in international law, and especially not for the additional massacres intended to speed the flight. The Declaration of Universal Human Rights was not yet validated by the UN, but it would establish the protection of property, lives and dignity of humans everywhere, stateless or not, under which the UN was already presumably operating when it proposed partition in '47.

3. The Jewish settlers in Palestine did not have a "nation" either in '47. They took land by force to create one, in the process dispensing with international law and the universal human rights upon which it was supposedly based. Once founded though, and recognized by the US, they have since invoked international law in the form of a "right" to self defense and territorial sovereignty--a right they denied Syria when they annexed the Golan. "Recognized ownership" in the modern world still, apparently, recognizes force over right as a legitimating principle in some cases.  

[Luvnit2]

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/hamas-islamic-jihad-reject-giving-up-power-return-permanent-ceasefire-egyptian-2023-12-25/

Hamas, Islamic Jihad reject Gaza gov. overhaul for permanent ceasefire, Egyptian sources say
By Ahmed Mohamed Hassan and Nidal Al-Mughrabi
December 25, 202312:21 PM ESTUpdated 2 days ago

Egypt proposed elections while offering assurances to Hamas that its members would not be chased or prosecuted, but the Islamist group rejected any concessions other than hostage releases, the sources said. More than 100 hostages are still believed to be held in Gaza.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(12-27-2023, 02:40 PM)Dill Wrote: You know you can count on me to answer serious questions directly, whether I get the same courtesy in return or not.

1. No, don't agree that Israel=Nazi Germany. 

2. Protests against Israeli occupation and war crimes are generally an affirmation of universal human rights violated by the occupation and dispossession. Anti-semitism is based on the opposite.* The protestors in your images did not regard Nazi equivalences as positive. So in general it does not seem such comparisons are anti-semitic, though I'd have to judge case by case. E.g., there could be accelerationists in the mix cooking up who knows what in the way protest posters.

Thank you for the direct answer.  I will ignore the first sentence in the spirit of proceeding amicably.  In regard to your second answer, that finds you in direct contrast to the ADL, who absolutely consider such comparisons to be antisemitic.

https://www.adl.org/resources/backgrounder/allegation-israels-actions-against-palestinians-can-be-compared-nazis

"Moreover, it can be argued that those that make the comparison between the Jewish state and the Nazis and Hitler – who perpetrated the greatest and largest act of antisemitism in world history – have not chosen this comparison innocently or dispassionately. It is a charge that is purposefully directed at Jews in an effort to associate the victims of Nazi crimes with the Nazi perpetrators and serves to diminish the significance and uniqueness of the Holocaust.


To make such a comparison is antisemitic and constitutes blatant hostility toward Jews, Jewish history and the legitimacy of the Jewish State of Israel."

Quote:A question for you now: would you be in favor of Israel dropping its "Jewish character" as an ethnic state to adopt full national, political, and civil equality for all its current citizens? It does claim to be a "democracy" after all, and its US partisans frequently defend it as the only such in the ME. 

I'd need much more information, both on the alleged secondary citizens and what your proposed dropping of the "Jewish character" would comprise of.  It does not claim to be a democracy, it is one.  A democracy can have citizens who cannot vote, it happens here in the US.

Quote:*If we are going by the usual definitions of anti-semitism as either theologically based hostility to the Jewish religion and all its believers, or as hostility to Jews as an imagined racial community, or combinations of both. Criticism of Israeli policies which violate human rights would not be anti-semitism under these definitions.

It just seems odd to me that the protests against Israel and the casualties in Gaza are far more prominent and strident than any held during the reign of ISIS and it's far greater, and wanton, brutal slaughter of Muslims.  One might be inclined to view such protests as only occurring in any significant fashion, and certainly here in the west, when Jews are involved.  It does make one wonder, does it not?

[Belsnickel]

(12-27-2023, 05:51 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: It just seems odd to me that the protests against Israel and the casualties in Gaza are far more prominent and strident than any held during the reign of ISIS and it's far greater, and wanton, brutal slaughter of Muslims.  One might be inclined to view such protests as only occurring in any significant fashion, and certainly here in the west, when Jews are involved.  It does make one wonder, does it not?

This is easily explained. You are free to kill your own people, but when you cross borders it becomes an issue. I know we don't like Nazi comparisons, but look at that whole situation. Once he invaded Poland it was on, but the atrocities he committed in his own country were largely ignored. We act this way with leaders in present day, like Putin, MBS, and others.

I wish I was being facetious, here.

[Sociopathicsteelerfan]

(12-27-2023, 06:39 PM)Belsnickel Wrote: This is easily explained. You are free to kill your own people, but when you cross borders it becomes an issue. I know we don't like Nazi comparisons, but look at that whole situation. Once he invaded Poland it was on, but the atrocities he committed in his own country were largely ignored. We act this way with leaders in present day, like Putin, MBS, and others.

I wish I was being facetious, here.

You're on to something here, but ISIS spanned multiple national borders.  Essentially, you're saying Muslims killing other Muslims doesn't provoke anything close to the response of a non-Muslim nation, or people's doing far less atrocious acts.  That being the case, it is easy to ascribe a motivation to the protests far beyond an objection to civilian casualties.

[Belsnickel]

(12-27-2023, 06:57 PM)Sociopathicsteelerfan Wrote: You're on to something here, but ISIS spanned multiple national borders.  Essentially, you're saying Muslims killing other Muslims doesn't provoke anything close to the response of a non-Muslim nation, or people's doing far less atrocious acts.  That being the case, it is easy to ascribe a motivation to the protests far beyond an objection to civilian casualties.

ISIS is kind of an odd duck as something that had different borders than internationally recognized national boundaries, but those they killed were still considered within their caliphate and therefore their own people. It's weird. But yeah, that's the crux of it. It's much more of an invading force thing.

What I find interesting in all of this is how the Israeli military actions are going to result in the likely end of the Gazan Christian population due to the killing of them and the destruction of their facilities. That this hasn't been more in the media is intriguing to me because neither side of the conflict seems to want to bring it up.

[Bengalzona]

(12-27-2023, 02:12 PM)Dill Wrote: Sorry I'm late responding--holidays, family etc. 

Agree with the bolded. The developing chaos forced Bush and finally Obama to take state-building seriously--but too late. 

When I say "conditions which created the Taliban" I am referring to the chaos and uncertainty created by multiple centers of power exercising deadly force in the same neighborhood. That's what created the Taliban back in the '90s, as Afghans came to prefer any order to no order. 

The Taliban were thoroughly defeated and awed by US airpower by spring of 2002. And many, probably a good majority of Afghans, were happy to see them gone if it meant order and more freedom. And that was the US opportunity  to build an integrated military, police force and government there which had some chance of holding the country by keeping order. Instead they re-installed war lords or simply defaulted to their local control, the locals taking them now to be US proxies. (Remember Rummy's ideal of slimmed down military fighting on the cheap?) Boom! the Taliban-creating-conditions were there again, only this time remotely affiliated with a central, US backed government.

I remember the last time I went through Individual Readiness Training (In Grafenwoehr, Germany) for Afghanistan. That was in 2011, and they made a big point of visually demonstrating how random killing fueled the Taliban by yanking soldiers out of their seats and lining them up before everyone to create a family "system" of fathers, brothers, uncles and cousins. Kill one and that entire cluster of men was suddenly blood-feud bound to avenge the death. Most soldiers watching weren't much interested in all that COIN stuff, though. Nor did it seem like enough were in Afghanistan. (Wish Bfine were around, to get his take on this.) By 2020, even many village women in non-Pashtu districts who wanted schooling for their daughters came to prefer the Taliban over the local anarchy, which killed off their husbands, brothers, sons, uncles and cousins in a steady drip drip of random killings and reprisals. (Great article on this subject: Arnand Gopal's "The Other Afghan Women"  https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/09/13/the-other-afghan-women.)

That sort of chaos, growing year by from 2003 on (especially after half the US occupation force was re-directed to Iraq) recruited new Taliban, and an unwillingness to resist them among those who didn't like the Taliban.

Anyway, some of this history may be fueling the Biden administration's pressure on Israel NOT to create more Hamas by mass killing of civilians, even framed as "collateral damage."  Israelis have already had their own lessons in this, especially from their occupation of Lebanon. If they did not learn those lessons, then I'm not sure the US can fix that. 

*Thanx!

Appreciate hearing about your anecdotal experiences and views on this.

As far as lessons learned for the Israelis, I think you sort of have to divide the population as to what they have learned between A) most of the nation and B) those who support Netanyahu. I truly hope that after this ungodly bloodshed there will be a political reckoning in Israel.