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Topic: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war (Read 10379 times)

I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

What Hamas did last week should have sparked a robust debate about -oh, I don't know- the rules of war, the role of Antisemitism, and the resurgence of the barbarian.
I guess people have other things on their minds...

Europe (I assume most here are European) has other things on its mind. But its preoccupations will likely lead to a deepening of its morass. Immigration and assimilation are in constant conflict, and its policies are incoherent.

I'm sorry to say, such is very much the same in my nation; and our choices of leadership are severely constrained... :(

But — has no one here anything to say? No information to relay, no insights to offer, no spleen to vent?

Is Europe irrelevant? Is that recognition so prevalent that mum's the word?
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Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #1
Let me help you out by beginning with an analogous situation: When Fort Sumpter was fired upon, and some states seceded  from the U.S., President Lincoln had as his overriding goal the preservation of the Union; secondarily (and consequently) the ending of chattel slavery. I'm sure he thought long and hard about the ramifications. But he achieved his main goal.
Unfortunately, human nature being what it is, his victory at arms was only to lead to a long struggle with — human nature.

Here in the U.S., racism is primarily seen as against Negros (black folk). In Europe, that too occurs. But it pales in comparison to how people there see the Jew!
It's amazing the justifications people put forward to support their prejudices...

So you'all don't misunderstand me: I think Israel should -indeed, must- destroy Hamas. And I'd like to see my nation return to a policy of containment-plus regarding the Mullahs' Iran.

Any thoughts? Anyone...? :)
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Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #2
What Hamas did last week should have sparked a robust debate about -oh, I don't know- the rules of war, the role of Antisemitism, and the resurgence of the barbarian.
Why should it? Nothing has changed. Hamas is still a bunch of terrorists and Netanyahu is still an idiot — heck, this underlines it.

Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #3
and Netanyahu is still an idiot
Would you then say Lincoln was, too?

The Long War continues unabated. Or -put in another context- "You will be assimilated!"[1]
I refer to the Star Trek phenomenon of the Borg... :)
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Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #5
Pretty much all about this topic was said during Gaza war in 2014. I don't see anything new in it. Same as then, Netanyahu leads Israel now. Nothing new. My most pertinent comment from that time applies unchanged.

Back then, Israel invaded after three Israeli teenagers (some say borderguards) were kidnapped and murdered by Hamas. This time Hamas' incursion was far larger and unambiguously targeted civilians, but the balance of casualties is already in favour of Israel by now, as usual, and this time Israel is eyeing Lebanon too. So it's the same thing on bigger scale.

Ukrainians are trying to draw parallels with their own current war, but there is no real parallel. However, Ukrainians must try to draw these rhetorical parallels in order to hopefully stay in picture. I'd say it's hopeless unfortunately.

There is no parallel with USA either. None, Oakdale. Or is there some new Q conspiracy that envisions thorough-going cosmic parallels between USA and Israel? In that case I'm curious. Lay it out in full.

The main commonly held framings of the Israel-Palestine conflict are as follows (pick your poison):
1. Pro-Israel/Zionist solution: Israel/Jews deserve their own country (because God of the Old Testament says so) and Palestinians don't (because allegedly there were no Palestinians under Ottoman rule) and the way Israel treats Palestinians now (decades-long blockade of Gaza, total control over banking and natural resources in West Bank) is justified because Jews suffered Holocaust.
2. Two-state solution: Acknowledge two normal countries along 1967 borders or, more radically, 1948 borders. (In both cases this requires massive rewinding of Jewish kibbutzim on the West Bank, i.e. realistically not going to happen, unless Arab countries gang up on Israel again, successfully this time. The most serious downside of this solution is that presumably the proposed Arab country cannot, in terms of governance, become any better than any other Arab country in the region.)
3. One-state solution: Incorporate Israel, West Bank and Gaza strip into a single democratic multiethnic Israel-Arab state where everyone can live in love, peace and happiness. (Edit: The most serious downside of this is that, to make it work realistically, the ethnic Jewish component should constitutionally dominate roughly in the way it does in current Israel, in which case Arabs would see it as an expansion of current Israel and would vehemently oppose it. But the alternative would be constitutionally something like Lebanon at best.)
4. Pro-Arab/Jihad solution: Wipe Israel off the map. Subjugate Jews to Arabs/Muslims the way they were during the Ottoman era. (Ottoman rule in the region seems to have been more peaceful than modern times.)

None of these implies or indicates or requires any parallel with USA of Civil War era or of any other era. I know only of parallels between USA and Israel drawn by Southern Baptist fundies, but you, Oakdale, are supposedly Catholic. So what parallels are you getting at? Please tell.

Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #6
David Pakman, American (Jewish, originally from Argentina) political commentator speaks up about the topic. His stance is two-state solution.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBTXMt6A9yI

My stance is that there is no solution. Israel would not agree to two-state solution because if Palestine were a real acknowledged and recognised country, then Israel could not invade and destroy liberally every once in a while any longer, since it would be an unambiguous war crime. For now Israel can excuse itself every time by saying that Palestine is not a real country and Palestinians are stateless and that's unfortunate but we do what we have to do.

Moreover, what would the borders be, 1967 or 1948? Both are unacceptable to Israel. Israel will never remove their kibbutzim from the West Bank, which means there will be no Palestine as a country. Which means there will be no two-state solution.

My stance is that Israel was created and is being held in existence with the clear purpose of being a thorn in the region and the situation will persist as long as this is felt to be necessary by those who set it up. For peace, either Israel or Palestine needs to vanish (or in case of two-state solution Palestine needs to be effectively muted the way the country of Jordan is muted), but greater powers do not see any point with peace in the region, so that's how it will be for the foreseeable future.

Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #7
A simple question: Does the state of Israel have the right to exist?

And another, from American history:
Quote
“You people of the South don't know what you are doing. This country will be drenched in blood, and God only knows how it will end. It is all folly, madness, a crime against civilization! You people speak so lightly of war; you don't know what you're talking about.
War is a terrible thing! You mistake, too, the people of the North. They are a peaceable people but an earnest people, and they will fight, too. They are not going to let this country be destroyed without a mighty effort to save it … Besides, where are your men and appliances of war to contend against them? The North can make a steam engine, locomotive, or railway car; hardly a yard of cloth or pair of shoes can you make. You are rushing into war with one of the most powerful, ingeniously mechanical, and determined people on Earth — right at your doors.
You are bound to fail. Only in your spirit and determination are you prepared for war. In all else you are totally unprepared, with a bad cause to start with. At first you will make headway, but as your limited resources begin to fail, shut out from the markets of Europe as you will be, your cause will begin to wane. If your people will but stop and think, they must see in the end that you will surely fail.”
― William T. Sherman
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Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #8
Quite frustratingly it's not easy to verify the current extent and status of the Israeli-Confederate delusions in USA. Possibly isolated to mostly dozy-dreamy wackadoodle types. However, I am giving the historical source a go: great Confederate hero Zebulon Vance in his speech Scattered Nation after Civil War.

Some excerpts,
Quote from: Zebulon Vance in Scattered Nation
In this, our own free and tolerant land, where wars have been waged and constitutions violated for the benefit of the African negro, the descendants of barbarian tribes who for four thousand years have contributed nothing to, though in close contact with, the civilization of mankind, save as the Helots contributed an example to the Spartan youth, and where laws and partisan courts alike have been used to force him into an equality with those whom he could not equal, we have seen Jews, educated and respectable men, descendants of those from whom we derive our civilization, kinsmen, after the flesh, of Him whom we esteem as the Son of God and Saviour of men, ignominiously ejected from hotels and watering places as unworthy the association of men who had grown rich by the sale of a new brand of soap or an improved patent rat trap!

[...]

The popular habit is to regard an injury done to one by a man of different creed as a double wrong; to me it seems that the wrong is the greater coming from my own. To hold also, as some do, that the sins of all people are due to their creeds, would leave the sins of the sinners of my creed quite imaccounted for. With some faith of a scoundrel is all important; it is not so with me.

[...]

[Jews] have managed to endure with long-suffering patience the knout of the Czar and the bow-string of the Turk, but they have fled for life from the presence of the wooden nutmegs and the left-handed gimlets of Jonathan. Is there any man who hears me to-night who, if a Yankee and a Jew were to "lock horns" in a regular encounter of conmiercial wits, would not give large odds on the Yankee? My own opinion is that the genuine "guessing" Yankee, with a jack-knife and a pine shingle, could in two hours' time whittle the smartest Jew in New York out of his home-stead in the Abrahamic covenant.
This speech does not elaborate on any specific parallels between Civil War and wars that Jews had had to fight, but by painting the character of the Jews in a light that one might find easier to identify with, it does whip up the sentiment that the supposed injustice that the Confederates have to suffer is something like the suffering of the Jews.

Even though in reality we all know what the Confederate history proves about them. Don't we, Oakdale? Who am I kidding, of course you don't.

Here's more about Zebulon Vance, the great Confederate hero,
Monument to Confederate governor who loved Jews is coming down in Asheville, NC

Complicated legacy of Zebulon Vance — US senator, North Carolina governor, defender of the Jewish people and white supremacist — is reexamined by a town and its Jewish mayor

[...]

As to why Vance wrote ["Scattered Nation"], one reason might lie in his membership in the Masons, a group that readily accepted Jews. Another, [a local Jewish heritage leader] Rogoff says, may have been the Confederacy’s view of itself as suffering Israelites. In this trope, the Confederates cast themselves as Israel, escaping the “pharaoh” Lincoln and his tyranny of oppression, even as they defend slavery.

In 1876, Vance won back his old job as governor of North Carolina. That sent a message to anyone in the state who might support racial equality.

“What a powerful symbol,” said Tom Hanchett, a community historian in Charlotte. “The rebels of the Confederacy are coming back into power, their ‘rightful’ place.”

Bringing back as much of the old system as possible was the instinctive response of defeated Confederates, adds Harry Watson, a professor of history at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

“If you couldn’t hang onto slavery, the idea was to reinvent white supremacy so that it existed without actual enslavement,” Watson said.

Three years later, Vance was elected to the Senate, where he served until his death in 1894.

There was no mention of his passing in the Jewish press. The Vance Monument was dedicated in Asheville in 1897. The following year, North Carolina was host to the only armed coup d’etat in US history when white residents in Wilmington overthrew a democratically elected, biracial government.

The bloody frenzy had been planned for months. White insurrectionists forced Black leaders and their allies to flee the city. They shot into Black residents’ homes. They burned down the local Black-owned newspaper office. It’s believed that some 60 people were murdered, possibly more.
Quite instructive to read more closely about Wilmington insurrection, definitely a blueprint for Jan 6, 2021.

But what are the parallels between U.S. Civil War and the country of Israel/Zionism? No parallels. Confederate sympathisers are deeply racist slavery-nostalgic jerks. Zionists are carving out a country for themselves by means of ethnic cleansing. Even this is not strictly a parallel.

But yeah, Zebulon Vance was involved with Masons, so the associations he makes in his speech and links from there to everywhere cannot be far-fetched in a Qanon mind.

Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #9
What Hamas did last week should have sparked a robust debate about -oh, I don't know- the rules of war, the role of Antisemitism, and the resurgence of the barbarian.
Why should it? Nothing has changed. Hamas is still a bunch of terrorists and Netanyahu is still an idiot — heck, this underlines it.

Violent settler murderers in the West Bank are no longer contained. On the contrary they are encouraged and even in the government.
Sadistic islamist murderers in Gaza are no longer contained. On the contrary they are encouraged and even ruling Gaza and eventually West Bank.

This trajectory was no surprise to nobody. Enlightened self-interest was the basis for the peace plans in the 1990s. If they didn't turn what has now happened would happen, dooming the whole region to a generation of misery. This is now headed for a second generation of the same.

Netanyahu will fall, which should have been a cause for cheer, if there had been anyone to pick up the pieces. He has done more damage to Israel than any other person. Most likely scenario is the decline and fall of Israel, and of Palestine. 

And Lebanon, which has also done immense self-harm, but is cursed with Israel and Syria as neighbours, is in the worst state since the civil war.

Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #10
As always, ersi, you're lost in your presumptions! What Sherman said to the South is what Netanyahu must say to Hamas, and the Palestinians in Gaza...

Why (I ask in all honesty) is there such animosity to Netanyahu?
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Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #11
Too honest for Europeans, eh! :(
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Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #12
One might remember he once said the Holocaust wouldn't have happened were it not for Haj Amin al-Husseini talking Hitler into it. That in particular is a rather silly example, but it might serve to illustrate he's never looked for solutions. Or perhaps put another way, you're not a five year old child!  :devil:

Now as written in https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/israel/2015-10-20/why-israel-waits maintaining the status quo is not necessarily bad, but for a very long time it seems like Netanyahu has cared a lot less about Israel than about himself.

There are good terrorists, those who are useful for our geostrategic interests (call them moderate or freedom fighters) and bad terrorists, those who don't serve our geostrategic interests.
Is a term like "freedom fighter" even used anymore since the Wall fell? I've seen words like "guerrillas" my entire life, "freedom fighter" being some kind of quaint Cold War relic that primarily refers to guerrillas opposing oppressive communist regimes. Perhaps it's simply that the militants tend to instill their own dictatorship after emerging victoriously, but let's not forget that some insurgents never use the language of freedom at all. Some rather explicitly want to install dictatorships and/or theocracies. As such the term "freedom fighter" seems more naive than meaningless per se. A pretty common way to distinguish between "regular" insurgents and terrorists is whether or not they make a point of attacking non-combatants. So,

a. Hamas targeting Israeli soldiers is probably not terrorism, depending a bit on the specifics including e.g. treatment of prisoners.
b. Hamas targeting Israeli citizens is definitely terrorism.

Ergo, Hamas is a terrorist organization, clear as day. It's only when b is absent that things might get a bit muddier. In my experience, b is always present when calling something a terrorist organization.

Hamas is a terrorist organization and their rocket attacks should be unconditionally condemned. But this was also calculated political recklessness and opportunism by Netanyahu. His political end is nigh and apparently, cynically, a battle for Jerusalem during Ramadan is just the thing. Close the gate, close the Al-Aksa mosque without provocation, kick people out of their homes, wait for the Hamas deplorables to take the bait. Mission accomplished, even if presumably slightly more so than expected.

Also keep in mind Hamas has more popular support among Palestinians now because of that wretched wall and because of the increasingly apartheid-based state.

But I should also qualify that there were mass Palestinian protests against Hamas not long prior to their recent atrocities.

Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #13
I generously assumed that Israel would begin to relent once Palestinian casualties amount to tenfold Israeli casualties. Now the balance of casualties approaches 100-fold in Israel's favour. I have severely misunderestimated Israel's ruthlessness. Israeli soldiers even shoot their own returning hostages.

Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #14
I generously assumed
Since when is war against an enemy whose stated purpose is your destruction a "tit-for-tat" affair, one death at a time? Be that as it may, you don't "generously assume" anything — it's not in your nature! :) Israel's "ruthlessness" -as you term it- is a rational acceptance of the realities of war.[1] This war is not a Marquess of Queensberry boxing match: It is -for Israel- a war of survival.
You of course don't care.

You'll likewise not care when Taiwan is "reunified"... (I don't recall you being upset at what happened when Great Britain ceded Hong Kong back to China...)

One wonders: How about Estonia? :(
"Know your enemy" being one of the most important tasks in conducting a successful campaign, Israel must react to what Hamas is.
The whole world knows both the duplicity of which Hamas is capable and the utter disregard they have for Palestinians...let alone others
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Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #15
I generously assumed
Since when is war against an enemy whose stated purpose is your destruction a "tit-for-tat" affair, one death at a time?
Proportionality is a principle. Not just in international law when waging a war but also pragmatically. You don't send a four-man squad against an army nor do you mobilise your entire population when your plan is not to wipe out your neighbour.

Impartial onlookers can take note that Israel has mobilised absolutely all resources and is observing no proportionality whatsoever against far weaker enemy. Not to mention mass displacement of practically the entire civilian population in Gaza.

You again demonstrated that you know literally nothing about anything. This will keep happening until you acknowledge this to yourself and get a grip.

You'll likewise not care when Taiwan is "reunified"... (I don't recall you being upset at what happened when Great Britain ceded Hong Kong back to China...)

One wonders: How about Estonia? :(
Do Taiwan and Estonia compare here the way USA did for you earlier in the thread?

You have (and you think USA has or must preferably have) both the persecution complex and saviour complex at the same. On this point, there is no analogy with Israel. First off, nobody ever persecuted USA. Nobody ever invaded USA. After War of Independence (or perhaps 1812 war), not a single battle has ever been fought on U.S. soil. And USA never saved anyone, only displaced, annexed and colonised. Jews, on the other hand, have in fact been persecuted, and the country of Israel has been created on the sentiment of taking back the ancient homeland for the sake of self-determination, and in the process root out and subdue the pre-existing Arab population. Not to save them, but root out most and subdue the rest. Israel displays no signs of saviour complex.

So it is flawed in every way to try to conjure up any analogy between USA and Israel. As I said above: Confederate sympathisers are deeply racist slavery-nostalgic jerks. Zionists are carving out a country for themselves by means of ethnic cleansing. Zebulon Vance was wrong seeing parallels here and so are you. It is even more wrong to try to see any parallels with Estonia or Taiwan here, particularly when you know hardly anything even about your own country where you lived all your life.

Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #16
Proportionality is a principle.
A grossly misguided one, when war has been declared. You are not just naive, you are perversely so. Israel has been repeatedly attacked... It has attempted repeatedly to accept a "two-state" solution. But how, I ask you, does one accept a neighbor who openly calls for your destruction, and works tirelessly toward that end?
You (perhaps snidely) ignore the Islamist nature of Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran, itself. I wouldn't be surprised...

I've been a Zionist since 1967. Admittedly, on little information — then. I've learned much, of history and geopolitics since. I remain a Zionist: I accept the nation of Israel as the home of the Jews.
Zebulon Vance was an obscure American politician... Just because you find some of his published works' words useful for your ad hominems, I should give them credence?
Your mentions of him are spurious. But that's what you do best! :)

I'm quite aware that Israel is a U.S. ally — for reasons that you will never understand. You're still too much under the influence of your Soviet education, a love-hate relationship that will forever hamper your intellect.
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Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #17
Proportionality is a principle.
A grossly misguided one, when war has been declared. You are not just naive, you are perversely so.
What other principle do you observe if not proportionality? You are not naming any. I know: There is no principle. Instead of principle, you are guided by the persecution complex, saviour complex, Manifest Destiny and other delusions. Now that's perverse. And that's the reason why there is no analogy or parallel to be drawn with Estonia, Taiwan, as there is not any even between USA and Israel.

Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #18
Was the U.S.S.R (e.g., Russia) wrong to pursue the destruction of Nazi Germany in WWII? Were the Allies wrong to do so? Should lawyers and accountants have drawn up tote-sheets to determine what was acceptable?
Read General Sherman's words again, please. He understood. You don't. Learn from him. (You could read Clausewitz too. And others. But you won't. Bureaucrats only read memos... :) Oh, and politicians have their staff read white papers!)
When war is declared, victory is the objective. If no just peace can be accepted by your adversary, victory is the only possible objective, with them vanquished. Hamas has as its objective the destruction of Israel. What terms might make Israel accept such an outcome?
I'd say, defeat... Well, it's been tried — every now and then. You don't like how it turned out? :) Re-write history, like Orwell predicted.
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Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #19
Was the U.S.S.R (e.g., Russia) wrong to pursue the destruction of Nazi Germany in WWII? Were the Allies wrong to do so? Should lawyers and accountants have drawn up tote-sheets to determine what was acceptable?
Even after all your analogising has been proven wrong, you resort to more analogising?

There is no reasoning with you. Too much persecution complex, saviour complex and other delusions. Try to stay on topic at least.

Anyway, yes, unconditional surrender is proportional when the aggressor is engaged in all-out assault in all directions. The comparison on this point puts Israel in worse light than Hamas.

Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #20
yes, unconditional surrender is proportional when the aggressor is engaged in all-out assault in all directions. The comparison on this point puts Israel in worse light than Hamas.
You're delusional!

Israel should bend the neck, and wait for the sword to drop? You would, of course! :( No, you silly goose, you wouldn't... :) (Do I hear you chanting "Better Red than Dead"?)
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Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #21
Israel should bend the neck, and wait for the sword to drop?
Israel has not been in this kind of danger for a second in this conflict. Not in this century.

Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #22
With a possible second Biden (fourth Obama) administration in the offing, they should accept whatever outrages are committed against them — and pray Iran doesn't develop (or buy) a nuclear weapon?
Israel has never ceased to be in a situation of mortal peril! And -as recent events have shown, even in my own country, at out most prestigious Universities- anti-Semitism is a potent force. But let's call it what it is: Jew hatred!

Do you hate Jews, ersi?
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Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #23
Will you promise to be less whacky next year?

Who am I kidding. You will certainly be more whacky.

You (obviously don't) see, there is a difference between people and their country/government/statehood. For example, you are an American but you hate your government. By your own (il)logic, you are therefore anti-American! When will you stop being racist and genocidal against Americans? Yeah, you didn't even know you were one of those!

Similarly, being anti-Zionist does not make one necessarily a Jew-hater. And I am not even anti-Zionist, just anti-genocide. There are plenty of anti-Zionist Jews. And there are human rights activists in Israel who have to denounce their own government actions right now based on human rights principles. Oh, for a moment I forgot that you have no place for human rights in your system. Well, so much about that then.

Anyway, Israel's statehood has not been under threat at all this century. They sit very comfily where they are. A bit too comfily one might say.

By the way, did you know that during the Six-Day War Israel deliberately attacked a U.S. spy ship? It was not an accident but an indiscriminate assault against everyone they saw. Everyone was the enemy. Israeli command knew what the ship was, whose it was, where it was, and sent a wave of fighter jets to destroy it. But USA betrayed the veterans of the ship and reconciled with Israel, becoming their guardian ever since and hushing down the facts about the incident for decades. The incident is called USS Liberty. Look it up. If you had a fact-based mindset, your love of Israel would undergo some moderation.

Yeah, so much that you don't know, and not any willingness to learn anything...

Have a good one :psmurf:



Re: I'm bemused: No one here wants to discuss the Gaza-Israel war

Reply #24
Well, ersi, I'm glad to hear that you're not an anti-Semite! (Maybe someday you'll explain your animosity toward the USA... :) )

Yes, one can be anti-Zionist and even anti-Israel without being an anti-Semite... As I stated, I've been a Zionist for a long time.
Anyway, Israel's statehood has not been under threat at all this century.
Nor the USA, I presume!... (A rocket here, a rocket there! What, me worry? And, of course, Iran has no intention to follow through on its threats...)


You (obviously don't) see, there is a difference between people and their country/government/statehood. For example, you are an American but you hate your government. By your own (il)logic, you are therefore anti-American! When will you stop being racist and genocidal against Americans? Yeah, you didn't even know you were one of those!
My, my! How oddly your mind works!
I don't hate my government — I resent its perversion, waste and corruption. The American people -of whatever persuasion- are, in my experience, a warm and generous people; by and large, industrious, intelligent and cheerful.
While Gramsci's March Through the Institutions has made great strides here, I recognize (if you  don't mind the secularization of the stricture! :) ) that  "Despair is a Sin."

What ever definitions you apply to "racism" and "genocide", I'm reasonably certain they're either peculiar to you, readily jettisoned by you, or consonant with neo-Marxism.

But do enjoy the season!  :psmurf: (I guess Papa Smurf is close enough to Santa... :) )
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